Christian River Magazine

A Cliff Harrison Network

89¢ Only Store

Written By: Cliff Harrison - Apr• 22•12

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any better.  When you discover there is life after Walmart you find better places to spend your money. Las Vegas first & only 89¢ Only Store rivals 99¢ Only Stores in Vegas. This little store in plain view is easy to miss. Maybe because we are looking at the big picture, that is the Boulder Station Casino sign when we drive southbound on Boulder Highway.

89¢ Only Store 4000 Boulder Highway STE 4, Las Vegas (702) 272-8761

Across and up the street from Boulder Station Casino in a tiny, recession-battered with vacant buildings and “For Lease” signs all around it is a small store were nothing sells for more than 89¢.

I happened to notice the store the other day despite knowing its neighbors have long since gone out of business. Although I frequently drive pass the 89¢ Only Store I some how missed it. Perhaps it is because I was doing the obvious, paying attention to my driving and to the attention grabbing, giant flashing Boulder Station Casino sign along Boulder Highway.

Yesterday I decided to stop in and browse around for a moment. I was greeted by a very pleasant pleasure-to-do-business-with young lady named Brandy who said her relatives owned the store. When I asked how long the store had been in business, Brandy told me, “Two years.”

I was astonished I had not discovered it sooner.

89¢ Only Store 4000 Boulder Highway STE 4, Las Vegas (702) 272-8761

The store reminded me of a small mom and pop store when I was growing up.  That store was long and narrow and had a wooden floor that creaked when you walked through it. The 89¢ Only Store isn’t very big but it is jam packed full of big savings.

Just when I was wondering how they could ship things all the way from China and sell them here in the U.S. for 99¢ in the 99¢ Only Stores I find myself even more amazed at how they can sell something for 89¢ and still make a profit.

Some of the items in the store are identical as those found at the 99¢ Only Store, other things are similar but different.

If you are in the area stop in and check out the store and see if there isn’t something you can use for your budget crunching shopping. I purchased three items and I was not charged 89¢ for every item, so yes, they do sell things for less than 89¢ too.

As always I pass on my money-saving discoveries to you. This little known store is worth checking out and best of all it comes with a five-star rated, you can’t beat it pleasant cashier clerk who smiles, greets you and thanks you for your business like they used to in the good old days when America and small businesses were great.

Thousands of items including foods, snacks and cooler items such as lunch meats and cheese for under 89 cents.

I told Brandy I’d tell all my friends about the 89¢ Only Store she works at and she gave me permission to take some photos. I wish I wasn’t in such a hurry and I would have made some better images, but there is nothing better than you dropping by the 89¢ Only Store yourself to check out the bargains to be found there.

The 89¢ Only Store is located at 4000 Boulder Highway in Suite 4 and is open 7 days a week.  Monday thru Saturday hours are 10am to 7pm and Sunday 10am to 6pm. The phone number is (702) 272-8761.

 

Chinese Military Stepped up Assaults Upon U.S. Computers

Written By: Cliff Harrison - Apr• 22•12

The future will be interesting for sure. I’m glad I won’t be around too see the final chapter of more than a half-century of conflict between the three most powerful nations on earth, the United States of America, Russia and China.

The failure of America’s leaders to secure a fundamental safeguard for American interest has lead to Russia and China gaining an edge on military power. The future for American children is grave at most. The selling out of American interest to China by both Democrat and Republican leaders of past and present provide a dark future for America.

We in the United States have turned our consumer dependence over to China, a communist country we have been both adversary and friendly with for more than fifty years. They same, to a lessor degree, and in different sectors holds true for Russia.

China makes the goods American consumers purchase so China has the money to buy weapons from Russia to modernize their military and form a coalition force with Russia.

China’s dependence upon the United States for its productivity is only short term and can easily be substituted with alternative export agendas.

We have allowed a once poor nation to become wealthy and produce much of American consumer products.  While Chinese factories make most of America’s consumer products the United States factories become obsolete and decay with ghost towns of former industrial boom towns.

In the name of the New World Order and the unconscionable selling out of American interests to foreign governments by American political and business leaders who designed a global market place the United States lags in leadership, power and greatness.

And that lagging behind traditional American standards is digging the grave of America’s future.

While we gave given our productivity to the Chinese and the Chinese population becomes wealth, America’s population becomes homeless and poor.

Most of the men and women seen homeless on America’s streets today that are a direct result of job displacement are the men and women who used to work the factories and warehouses of American industries that used to make the consumer products that are now manufactured by the Chinese. I’m speaking of the older generation that are still able bodied but because of age has little or no change of securing employment in their own home towns.

So, we helped a nation build its country and grow out of poverty into prosperity. In doing so the Chinese inherited the environmental problems that liberal democrats used to destroy American businesses. With productivity being handled in a foreign communist country American regulations and safety that was in place after decades of learning what worked and what did not work, what was safe and what was not safe fell into the hands of the communist government and not the federal government.   The result is thousands of death and injuries of American citizens, especially babies.

China isn’t much better at their human rights than they were fifty years ago. Yet we allowed them to become the industrial giant and prosper while letting our own people stand in long lines at soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

In Russia one of the most vocal anti-American politicians since the Soviet Union era remains in power despite the majority of people in Russia objecting and claiming as global opinion does that he former KGB man won his elections by illegal and corrupt voter tampering.

For more than fifty years America has played chess with Russia and China on other nation’s soil while democracy and communism clashed. Upon those battlefields, Korea, Nam, The Middle East and other hot spots of the world Russia and China supplied the enemies of American allies with weapons and advisory countering every move American leaders have made. Yet, we partner with them in space exploration, manufacture, science and medical research and development and many other avenues.

China and Russia having large veto powers have blocked us in many United Nations roles. Together, China and Russia can render America powerless. They can do so in war and they can do so in peace. Until now America has never had to confront China and Russia at the same time directly in hostility. It has always been on the chess playing board of bloody battlefields in someone else’s neighborhood or in the U.N.

But that truth might not hold for the future.

With the prosperity both China and Russia have endured in recent years, most notably at the expense of America’s common people, the formerly communist and the currently communist nation have built or rebuilt their military arsenal.

At this hour war games are being played by Chinese and Russian militaries. Someday in the future those two communist countries might not be playing games, the military threat might be real and it might be against America. Together, China and Russia would be the absolute winner in an all out military assault on America. The United States does not stand a chance against both Chinese and Russia military forces. It just cannot endure such catastrophic event.  The female troops alone in the Chinese Army exceed the entire population of the United States. They can overrun us every which way possible with ground troops landing in our homeland, by air and naval assaults, with space terrorism knocking out every American satellite in the sky, thus putting our computer and electronic age back into the Dark Ages and destroying American life just like that.

Still we take no counter measure to ensure the safety of American future.

Just who are the Chinese and Russians practicing to defeat in their war games? Certainly not each other since they have been allied before God created the heavens and the earth. What other nations threatens even one of their existence let alone both? If you use the rational, logical line of questioning you can only arrive at one nation under God on this earth that could possible threaten China and Russia at the same time–America.

Well low and behold those politicians and business people who sold America out to the communist and the New World Order couldn’t have loved their grandchildren all that much, could they?

My long-time readers from my other blogs know that I identified, as I did the “Great Recession” before the “experts” and the U.S. federal government, the first wave of Chinese military infiltration into American private citizens’ and business computers. The vast Chinese scamming operations comes not from rogue Chinese gangsters, but directly from Chinese military installations.

The Chinese have mastered computer technology and have mastered cyber terrorism. It is no small war game. It is the real threat in America’s existence. After the federal government finally first announced Chinese military activity in infiltrating American computers the communists backed down and allowed things to cool down.

I’ve detected once again an increase, actually a substantial increase, in Chinese maliciousness.  The Chinese malicious activities need to be destroyed, if necessary taking out their entire communications systems before America’s communication system is destroyed by Chinese criminal intent.

The U.S. federal government needs to respond to this very real threat and stop dragging its feet in doing so. Rather it uses a covert operation to disable the malicious Chinese communication system or it openly launches a counter attack it must act quickly and send a strong message such Chinese malicious activity will not be tolerated.  To remain passive only allows the Chinese cyber commanders to wreck havoc upon America’s communication system.

Of course Christian sites are among the most commonly attacked websites from all sources of maliciousness, but as I have mentioned over the years the four most common sources of attacks upon American computers coming from outside the country are generated from China, Malaysia, Kenya and Russia. These nations lead in the top four sources of spam and scam operations, hacking; stooping or spying, data destroying and maliciously infecting targeted computers such as implanting viruses, spyware and sometimes even taking over full control of the computers, often times without the computer owner’s awareness.

Advanced computer operators can easily trace such maliciousness since all computer communication and activity has a fingerprint and signature that is traceable. Currently many of the maliciousness being conducted are similar to the war games played by Chinese and Russia navies. They are a practice-type drill without any real, lasting or irreversible harm done to the targeted computers. But what happens when these malicious players stop tampering, stop practicing and start doing the real destructive activities they are easily capable of conducting?

The question is when do the war games stop and the real war begins?

Who is the common enemy of the war game players?

A 2005 Sino Daily News Report About the 2005 China-Russian War Games and the modernization of Chinese military

China-Russian War Games progress into 2009 counter-terrorism is used for the reason for the join military drills

A 2009 Moscow Times news report about the war games tells how China is no longer dependent on Russian-made weapons systems

Is China and Russia really preparing for World War III and a war between the east and west?

Russian warships arrive in China for joint drills

Just to clarify how we stand on certain things, such as Syria

U.S. Federal Trade Commission Shuts Down Online Magazine

Written By: Cliff Harrison - Apr• 20•12

We must assume the innocent are just that until proven guilty in a court of law, but when it comes to the federal government alleging charges usually they can back up their claim with evidence.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Seal

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has shut down a long-time expected scam operation, Green Millionaire.

Green Millionaire, the FTC claims, has been misleading customers with promise of false free stuff and has lured them to their online magazine where they were billed for subscriptions they never ordered.

The FTC news release used the wording “scam” in their language as they made public their news concerning Green Millionaire.

Using free offers the company allegedly obtain credit card information by telling customers they would be charged for a small shipping and handling fee but were billed for online magazine subscriptions as well.

Read the full press release FTC News Release

FTC Court Complaint Against Green Millionaire, LLC

It’s refreshing to see whenever we learn of scam operations being shut down. But what is a fact of life and everyone knows it for years newspapers, magazines, radio, television and now the internet have been selling advertisement space to shady advertisers. These media sources know full well they ad space they are selling is a direct assistance to the scammer who could not operate without them. The media companies ought to be faced with fines as well, or in the worst case situation for repeated violations, shutdown.

people need to be concern when they see things advertised being free except for shipping and handling. Nothing is free without a catch and nothing is worth losing your security. The time and effort you have to spend getting these stuff resolved can be overtaxing for the average person. So the best advise is if you are promised freebies make sure it includes shipping and handling and you don’t have top pay a penny or provide any personal information.

MSNBC NEWS STORY

The RIVER Organization Is Free from the Slave Master

Written By: Cliff Harrison - Apr• 19•12

The migration of the RIVER Organization.org website from Microsoft has been completed. Wow! Was that time consuming. I could have done it the simple way, the costly way and the most risky way by having the entire site moved by website movers but I decided to piecemeal it which is why it took so long and was so draining on my time and energy. But the good news is the archives, most are now private or hidden from public view, allows for future picking when I’m ready to restart that site.

Having completed the Microsoft transfer and domain transfer to my own self-hosted site frees my time to start getting the Google Blogger blogs torn down and moved. As I’ve mentioned across the network I’m not opposed to big business or corporations, I’m more often than not in favor to them. What I am opposed to is what my much admired Professor of Wisdom, Gerry Spence, has taught me and many others about the corporate world evilness. Capitalism isn’t evil. But evil men running mammoth, evil corporations that enslave us is the product of bad capitalism.

America is home to many companies that started out small and became overnight sensations. Those overnight successful companies grew and grew and the corporate monster was formed in the process. What began as a much need technology company or servant to the consumer became a nightmare for many. What became the nightmare became the slave master as Gerry puts it, the mammoth beast of the Big Government, Big Business that enslaves the people so they are no longer individuals or names but numbers and statistics.

Too, these companies no longer listen to you, the consumer in feedback or input. They reject what you as the individual say or that we as the consumers say. They continue their expansions, making unwanted changes that irritate us and cause us stress. They call it progress. They call it change. We call it forcing their will upon us so that we are their slaves. As Spence calls it, they are the Slave Masters.

In the past I have lost three valuable blogs that did not have backed up content, some of them containing masterpieces, at Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft’s experiment with blogging platform. Microsoft deleted those blogs without adequate warning. Then the scraped the Windows Small Business Live Office platform which was was the RIVER Organization.org website was hosted for a new 365 wanna-be-something-famous experiment. It was time to get moving and moving fast. And I did.

The Christian River Magazine shows self-help interested folks alternatives to these corporate monsters that haunt our lives. The nightmares never seem to end when we find ourselves in bondage with chains shackling our every movement—chains fixed upon us by the slave master’s whim.

We were born and raised to think freedom was the one thing that drove us beyond all other ideals and yet we find ourselves enslaved to the raw beasthood of the mammoth government and corporate dictators who trample upon us like… well poorly vulnerable cavemen under a stampeding herd of mammoths—in Spence’s terms mammoth government and mammoth corporations.

Gone is the RIVER Organization.org website from the Microsoft grip. No longer will the powerful mammoth threaten the livelihood of the flagship website where the seed was planted and tree of wisdom grew. But Master Jack wanted us to be something of his vision rather that a product of our own vision. So…

“It’s a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
You taught me all I know and I’ll never look back
It’s a very strange world and I thank you, Master Jack”

“It’s a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
No hard feelin’s if I never come back
You’re a very strange man and I thank you, Master Jack” –from Master Jack Lyrics


Lyrics | Four Jacks And A Jill lyricsMaster Jack lyrics

We are freeing ourselves from many slave master and mammoth corporations. As time goes by I’ll be posting more and more articles to help you follow the path toward breaking the chains of corporate slavery.

Change is sometimes good, but too much change and unwanted change is not progress but acts of tyranny. Force is never good. When a consumer and a business make a mutual business exchange both parties, not just one, participate and except the arrangement. Too often in the corporate world, especially since the invent of the computer and Internet mammoth slave masters force change upon us.

Yahoo, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, Blogger and many others force change upon us that we do not want. We combat those unwanted and unwarranted changes by leaving the company, reducing their advertising revenue and thus devaluating their company’s worth. Every one of the aforementioned companies has met devaluation because of the ignorance of management and some risk extinction before the end of the decade.

It all goes back to the basics. Way back. The very basics. Supply and demand. Good customer relations. Taking care of your customers like nothing else matters—for you depend upon your customers your customers do not depend upon you. And that’s just what these new corporations today are trying to force upon their users and customers, dependence. It’s artificial dependence and short-lived dependence for once a consumer or user realizes there are other options he will free himself from the fade and glory such pastimes as Facebook social networks have temporarily occupied his mind, body and soul. And then he moves on. He goes somewhere else and the fad of a once booming business idea fades and dies… and withers away like the MySpaces, Window Spaces, and AOL Journals.

The RIVER Organization.org website like millions of others won’t be joining Microsoft during its adventure with 365. We came to a fork in the road and it is here were we part. Thank you, Master Jack for teaching me what you did about web mastery but I’m moving on now and I’m not looking back.

The RIVER Organization.org domain will be temporarily parked under my Christian River.org domain at my self-hosted multi-website platform.

United States Postal Service Posts Warnings

Written By: Cliff Harrison - Apr• 17•12

This U.S.P.S. logo is not in the public domain and is protected by copyright and trademark laws of the United States.

The United States Postal Service has issued an alert to make customers aware of fraudulent package delivery scam. The warning was posted on USPS.com in a breaking news type red banner flagging attention of visitors to the site .

The alert includes a “read more” link to a pdf document which our own security system flagged as a warning as a possible dangerous site. “We’ve tested this site and found it’s risky to visit.”

It is possible the government has provided links to a dangerous site or the postal service is under attack by malicious cybercriminals. There is no need to venture into unsafe territory to pursue this postal service alert. The basic message is to be aware of spam and scam operations currently exist perpetuating to be postal service generated.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service crime alert warns of bogus operators pretending to be from the U.S. Postal Service. The bogus e-mails about package delivery or online postage charges contain links or attachments that when opened installs a malicious virus that can steal personal information from your computer.

Clicking onto the links or opening the attachments of these malicious contents can activate the virus that can steal your user name, passwords, financial account information and much more. It is essentially best not to open any link or attachment in an email unless you have absolute knowledge to know the source and reason of its existence.

Check IP addresses, hold your cursor over the link to read the true source and open the e-mail header and study the complete content to be certain a malicious content or forgery is not involved. If you are still uncertain if the e-mail is safe hold no doubt. Simply delete the e-mail and save yourself an abundant of grief and regret.

Tax Information for 2011 Returns

Written By: Cliff Harrison - Apr• 09•12

Tax time is here and by Tuesday, 17 April your return needs to be filed or an extension request filed. The following links from the IRS should answer any questions you may have on filing your federal taxes. For lower-income people and for those on Social Security Disability the answers to your popular question, “Do I have to file a tax return?” can be found in the IRS information the links take you to.

Remember, even if you don’t have to file it may be wise to do so if you are entitled to a refund.

Publication 525 Taxable and Nontaxable Income
IRS.GOV Publication 915 Main Content
IRS.GOV Index

Homeless Woman Died In Jail

Written By: Cliff Harrison - Mar• 30•12

A homeless woman died in jail shortly after her arrest for trespassing at a St. Louis, Missouri hospital. Mother of two had financial difficulties leading to her homelessness.

Photo of Homeless Woman, Anna Brown, who died in jail. Source Jennings Police Department

It appears our leaders have little empathy for those citizens affected by the economic disaster our nation experiences. The ignorance of our society in the ignoring of medical problems of the poor people is that it will always end up costing us more in the end. The homeless that are repeatedly rejected services by ignorant government social service workers, faulty mandates and medical staff will eventually cost taxpayers a hundred folds of what early and preventive care would cost.

In the case of the homeless woman of the accompanying article, had she been administered a full physical and comprehensive medical checkup there is a positive chance the blood clot that caused her death would have been detected.

The pocket full of spare change saved by the county, state and federal governments and the hospital implicated in this news story will likely cost the taxpayers, stakeholders and investors a phenomenal portion in the conclusion.

News Report from U.S.News on msnbc.com

Anna Brown wasn’t always homeless. She had a home where she lived in North St. Louis with her two children before a tornado ripped through her community on New Year’s Eve in 2010 destroying her home and creating the first steps which would eventually leave her homeless. An excerpt of a St. Louis, Missouri area newspaper follows with a link to the full story.

“A New Year’s Eve 2010 tornado destroyed Brown’s north St. Louis home, and her life would only get harder. She and her two children moved to Berkeley, a St. Louis suburb, and she lost her job at a sandwich shop soon afterward, the Post-Dispatch reported. Her utilities were shut off because she stopped paying her bills, and after a child welfare agent who visited the home in April found a feces-filled toilet, burn marks on the floor where she had lit fires to keep warm and other distressing signs, Brown was arrested for parental neglect. Police reported at the time that she was not lucid and seemed confused.”

Stltoday.com Outrage Grows Over Homeless Woman’s Jailing Death

Surveillance Video of the Final Moments of Anna Brown’s Life. Video Includes Footage in the St. Louis Hospital, Police Vehicle and Jail Cell Where She Was Left To Die.


Links Related to the Story

Details of What Unfolded

Evil Interfaces

Written By: Cliff Harrison - Mar• 25•12

Something to Chew On

While I’m tying my boots and doing my jumping jacks take a look at this video. It’ll give you some key points to brush up on so you know where the enemy’s weak points are.

[With Gregory Conti Associate Professor: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science: United States Military Academy: West Point, New York.  Lt.Col. Greg Conti Search Study the information on the sites of these links by one of the best brains in the business.]

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Facebook’s “Evil Interfaces”
How to Opt Out of Facebook’s Instant Personalization
EFF.com Home

msnbc
Facebook: The ‘Evil Interface?’ msnbc Technology & Science

This post was first published in a slightly different form in SPAM HUNTER on 04 May 2010. Comments are included since one is from the team.

Fight on, brother! You’re fighting the good fight over here. Glad you enjoyed our video :)

Thanks, gillian. Great video. We’ll be using more like them as we crawl through the jungles of scamville.

Protect Yourself from Email Scams

Written By: Cliff Harrison - Mar• 25•12

You can never be too careful when it comes to e-mail scams. Your e-mail inbox could be loaded with them. Spammers and scammers get your e-mail address from a number of places and once they have your e-mail address you are going to be bombarded with spam and scam.

Currently an e-mail scam that is circulating is an old version of a YouTube scam.  The scammers are using the old YouTube icon, the one with You and then Tube inside a red banner, as shown.

YouTube

The message reads “YouTube service has sent you a message:”  “Your video on the TOP of YouTube” and the TO: your e-mail address.  With a fake YouTube link followed by “You can reply to this message by visiting your inbox.” which is also another charged link. An official-looking copyright notice follows as does an address.

If you hold your cursor over any of the links you will see that none of them are legitimate and they all lead to the rat holes and snake pits of the world scamming scum.

NEVER click onto one of these links as it could spell disaster in a number of ways, the first is by unleashing a malicious content, a virus or some other  harmful evil against your computer and at the very least it will allow the scammer to know, if you reply, that they have a live e-mail and will continue to send you spam and scam e-mail.

Always hover your cursor over a link in order to see the real address it leads to.

Spam Hunter, Scam Hunter and Spam & Scam Hunters are former blogs of mine that I’ve stripped down and will be migrating the old articles to this magazine.  Keep yourself informed of spam fighting techniques and stay informed to protect yourself and your computer.

This video is but one of the many educational tools out there to alert you to the dangers of e-mail spam.

Beware of hackers trying to compromise your computer. Be Smart. Be Safe. Be Protected.

Some of the following links are old but the information they provide is not outdated. And, the spam and scam they refer to is still around.

Additional YouTube Spam Information For Your Reading Pleasure
Phishing Scam
Recent Scams
YouTube E-mail Scam Search

In Memory of Ken Reith, Facebook’s Nighthawk Blackfoot

Written By: Cliff Harrison - Mar• 24•12

IT IS WITH GREAT REGRET I learn of Ken Reith’s (Nighthawk Blackfoot) death. I am saddened to lose yet another friend. During my recent absence from Facebook I was unaware of his passing. Ken and I were old-school, old-fashioned Americans who could argue our political differences respectfully and still be friends at the end of the day.

There is no greater compensation in life than when someone who is an adversary of your opinions stands by you during your time of need. Ken stood by me in the face of opposition and in general times of needed support.

Such is a rare friendship to find in the present days. Time passes to a new era where people demand their friends to have views identical to their own. True friends have the freedom to think differently and still be accepted and loved.

Knowing Ken Reith was more than a pleasure, it was a pure honor.

I shall hold forever the memory of Ken Reith both in my heart and my mind. Memory of Ken will never fade as long as this song, STAND BY ME continues to play and remind me of him.

As America fades into a world that chooses to create problems rather than solve problems those of us from the old school of communicating will find ourselves more often than not standing alone.

Ken, Nighthawk Blackfoot, thanks for standing by me. Rest your soul.

[The above version is the short version I posted on my Facebook page this morning. The following version is the full text.]

A Tribute to Ken Reith Nighthawk Blackfoot.

 

It is with great regret I learn of Ken Reith’s (Nighthawk Blackfoot) death. I am saddened to lose yet another friend. During my absence from Facebook I was unaware of his recent passing. Ken and I were old-school, old-fashioned Americans who could argue our political differences and still be friends and respectful.

As I will be spending less and less time on Facebook since it has become a primary source of pitting us against one another when we ought to be uniting and challenging the forces that dominate and disrupt our lives I will miss the individuals I communicated best with while here. Ken was one of those people that I communicated best with. Our political views were often opposite of the other, yet we did agree on many things and one of those things was the direction the nation was turning and that it didn’t really matter rather the Republicans or Democrat were really in power, it was politics as usual. And as much as we wanted to, we weren’t going to change that.

Ken stood by me during my darkest hours on this social network. Ken supported me and stood against adversarial individuals involved in a conflict that there could be no winners in. He attempted to explain my position and he continued to express his support to me in public and private.

When a man can be great friends with someone others may consider an enemy the real test of character comes into play. It’s easy to find adversaries in our dividing world. That is especially so with the invent of social networking like Facebook which is less than a decade old. It’s easy to sit behind a computer screen and sling mud and vomit our displeasure for our fellow citizens of the world. We’re all guilty of it. It changes our character—if we let it. It seeps inside us like evilness rotting our souls. It provokes our emotions and for some of us occupies our minds sending us down a destructive and unproductive road.

Those who would be friends and hold their peace or bite their tongues and not say a word in real life are quick to join the company of those who desire nothing more than to condemn his fellow man on the social networks. I want no part of that crowd. No good can come of it. It’s destructive. It’s unproductive and loaded with negativism. It drives a wedge between two people who would otherwise get along just fine. And then, there are individual instigators who love nothing more than to sit all day long at their computer and raise every negative subject they can possible find to bring issue with.

We’re all guilty. We have all done or said on Facebook and social network sites things we probably would not do or say in real life.

Social networking can sometimes bring the monster out in some of us. For me, I don’t want to be that way. I don’t want to be that kind of person, to have no compassion for our fellow human beings. It seems easier to drum out hate for one another than it is love.

Social networks like Facebook provides the opportunity more than ever to throw the hatchet at people we’d never throw hatchets at in real life.

Retreating from social networks like Facebook is every part of protecting your privacy. Not only does Facebook and third parties abstract every line, every image you post they package it, sell it and use you as a slave for their riches.

The more time you spend on Facebook and social network sites the less privacy you will have.

It’s a waste of time.

Life is too precious and too short to be wasting our time condemning our fellow human beings. We’d be much more productive finding a way to bring the human race together than to divide it with the wedges we hammer into one another’s lives.

Life passes us by much too quickly. You never know when someone is going to be leaving. Wouldn’t it be a shame if wrote something nasty to someone and it is the last thing that someone reads before he dies? It happens. It happens all the time. Wouldn’t it be much better to make sure that never happens?

There is no advantage and no reason to stay onboard these useless channels of negativism. There is more to life than Facebook. There is life after Facebook.

The more time I spend away from Facebook the more time I find being put to productive uses. The endless vomiting of some is like reading a newspaper with nothing but bad news. It’s difficult to make a positive and productive day out of a morning where nothing but tragic events fills your mind.

I’ve stepped away from those negative events. I’ll be spending more time stepping away. I can tell you, it’s refreshing. It’s like stepping outdoors into the country fresh air after being inside a stuffy room engulfed in cabin fever.

There is more to the world than Facebook. Facebook like most of the big technology companies are huge spy machines invading our privacy and eavesdropping on our every conversation and recording our every text message and images. It goes beyond 1984.

And that brings me back to Ken Reith. Ken and I were able to communicate in such a way we never lost respect for one another. We never challenged the other’s personality or degraded the other personally. We argued our differences, and we often argued hard, but we never lost sight of the other’s rightful opinions or views—never.

We never resorted to name calling or in any way wrote words designed to hurt the other. We communicated in such a manner that we’d come to an agreement of some kind, a compromise or we spoke our mind and then moved on to something else. We did so with dignity. We managed anger and confined hostility. We debated. We listened to the other’s view. We found common ground and we stood firmly on that common ground despite our differences. And we supported one another in time of agony.

There is nothing more rewarding and reassuring in human nature than to have someone who does not particularly care for your views stand by you when others, even closer friends, find no reason to stand by you.

For that, knowing Ken Reith was more than a pleasure, it was a pure honor.

I shall forever hold the memory of Ken Reith both in my heart and my mind.

As America fades into a world that chooses to create problems rather than solve problems those of us from the old school of communicating will find ourselves more often than not standing alone.

Ken thanks for standing by me. Rest your soul.