“What you think about day and night forms your character and personality.”
Word of the Week – May 28, 2022
Habile
[HA-bəl]
Adjective
Latin, 15th century
Deft; skillful.
In Latin, “habilis” means something is easily handled. The French word habile means skillful, and we kept that definition in Middle English as well. Able is the more common word today, but habile remains a particularly skillful word. In today’s parlance, you’re more likely to use the word able rather than habile. The pronunciations are somewhat similar, and the meanings are close. Able implies you have at least the basic ability to do something. But to be habile is to be quite talented.
Example: I had to explain my habile approach to composing documentation for software development to the project manager.
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Videos of the Week – May 28, 2022
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz doesn’t want to contend with the brutal honesty of a Sky News reporter, so he reacts how cowards always do – he walks away.
Steve Kerr is the head coach of the Golden State Warriors professional basketball team. In this video, he delivers a personal message following the Uvalde school shooting.
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Tweets of the Week – May 28, 2022
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Most Hypocritical Quote of the Week – May 28, 2022
“What happened in Uvalde is a horrific tragedy that cannot be tolerated in the state of Texas.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, about the shooting in Uvalde, Texas
In 2019, Abbott signed into law a bill allowing gun purchases without a license. Two years later he signed another bill into law lowering the age requirement for a firearms purchase from 21 to 18.
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Worst Quotes of the Week – May 28, 2022
In the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting, there were so many idiotic comments made by conservative politicians and other right-wing dumbasses it was tough to highlight them all. But here are a few.
“The President of the United States. Frail, confused, bitterly partisan, desecrating the memory of recently murdered children with tired talking points of the Democratic Party. Dividing the country in a moment of deep pain, rather than uniting. His voice rising, amplified only as he repeats the talking points he repeated for over 35 years in the Senate. Partisan politics being the only thing that animates him. Unfit to lead this country.”
Tucker Carlson, responding to President Biden’s comments after the Uvalde school shooting
“I want to be very, very clear tonight. President Biden appeared on camera tonight for less than eight minutes, not because he believed that his words would comfort the families or the friends of the victims, not because he believed that he would calm what are obviously frayed nerves of a worried nation, parents who are worried. And he didn’t do it to unite America in this time of grief. No, he did not. He spoke tonight because politics is selfish. Because in today’s twisted world, it’s considered perfectly appropriate to exploit the massacre of innocent little kids in order to try to turn around your own sagging poll members. Today, Reuters/Ipsos has Biden at the lowest approval of his presidency, 36%. So this attempt at political resuscitation on Biden’s part, it’s despicable.”
Laura Ingraham, about Biden’s comments on the Uvalde massacre
“We need to celebrate our culture. We need to celebrate Americanism, we need to celebrate the Judeo-Christian principles that went into the founding of this nation. And if you’re not Jewish, you’re not Christian, there’s no reason to take offense. You came here, a family member came here because of the nature of the country. You fled. You don’t have to be Jewish or Christian but facts are facts. It was founded on a Judeo-Christian belief system which embraces Western civilization and the Renaissance, the Reformation, and all these things. It’s not so terrible to have a prayer in school, is it? Even a silent prayer. To think about a higher authority, learn the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are common sense.”
Fox News host Mark Levin, discussing the Uvalde shooting on his radio show
“Having one point of entry and making it more difficult for people even to get in that point of entry and having – potentially – teachers and other administrators who have gone through training and who are armed because first responders typically can’t get there in time to prevent a shooting. This is just not possible unless you have a police officer on every campus, which for a lot of these schools is almost impossible. You’re going to have to do more at the school because it typically involves very short periods of time and you have to have people trained on campus to react.”
Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General, speaking on Newsmax after the Uvalde shooting
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Best Quotes of the Week – May 28, 2022
“Tonight, I ask the nation to pray for them. Give the parents and siblings the strength in the darkness they feel right now. As a nation, we have to ask — when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?”
President Joe Biden, about the Uvalde massacre
“If our ethics are not consistent with respecting human life, period, no matter color, language, religion, profession, way of life – life is life – then we are not pro-life.”
Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, San Antonio, about the Uvalde massacre
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In Memoriam – Uvalde, Texas
Nevaeh Bravo
Jackie Cazares, 10
Makenna Lee Elrod, 10
Jose Flores, 10
Eliana “Ellie” Garcia, 9
Irma Garcia
Uziyah Garcia, 10
Amerie Jo Garza, 10
Xavier Lopez, 10
Jayce Luevanos, 10
Tess Marie Mata
Miranda Mathis, 11
Eva Mireles, 44
Alithia Ramirez, 10
Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10
Maite Rodriguez
Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, 10
Layla Salazar, 10
Jailah Nicole Silguero, 10
Eliahana Cruz Torres, 10
Rojelio Torres, 10
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From the ‘Crime Will Kill You’ Files
No bad deed goes unpunished – even if forces beyond one’s control exacts the punishment. Joseph McKinnon, a Trenton, South Carolina man, died after suffering a heart attack while digging a pit to bury his girlfriend after killing her.
McKinnon had told a neighbor that the hole he was creating in his yard was meant for a water feature to enhance his garden. But when another neighbor subsequently spotted McKinnon laying face-down and motionless beside the pit one Saturday morning, they called police.
After officials determined McKinnon had succumbed from cardia failure, Edgefield County Sheriff Jody Rowland says his office set out to locate and alert McKinnon’s next of kin.
That’s when authorities realized McKinnon’s live-in girlfriend, Patricia Ruth Dent, 65, had vanished. They learned Dent’s co-workers had been trying reach her without success.
“That took us back to the pit he (McKinnon) was digging,” Rowland stated.
After digging further, they discovered Dent’s remains bound in duct tape and wrapped up in black trash bags. An autopsy determined she’d been struck in the face and had been strangled.
A neighbor had already seen the hole in the ground. But, when police arrived, McKinnon had refilled it, before dying.
Rowland emphasized the extraordinary circumstances, but noted, “Basically this case is over.”
My only hope is that McKinnon will spend eternity in the After Life digging holes in hard dirt and suffering one fatal cardiac event after another.
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Chief Writing Wolf 