Education is not a passive experience. HF Shinn

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Help Us Save Lives and Build Character.

In today's world, the children of our nation are constantly bombarded with negativity and given options of personal destruction in an overwhelming stream of despair and hopelessness. Research has proven time and again that children who are active in school and church activities are much less likely to fall victim to these paths of disaster than those who wander the streets and through life searching for happiness in material and chemical pursuits.

Organizations like the Huntsville Arkansas Rapid Response Team (HARRT) offer young people another path. HARRT's focus on medical training, emergency management, leadership and team-building allow students to develop in a positive manner and to learn the joy of leadership through service.

If you would like to contribute to this valiant effort, they would gladly accept your kind donations.

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names. John F. Kennedy

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)

2008 Rapid Response Team Camp

Life is what we make it; not what we wish it to be.

Call For Sanity and a Stop to Religious Zealotry

Glenn Beck is a TV personality who is in pursuit of the almighty dollar. One of the main problems our nation is suffering from is too many people relying on the opinions of people from the entertainment industry. Beck writes specifically to stir people in to actions that will line his pockets with gold and not to solve problems. Shame on those who fall for his silliness. There is simply no doubting the fact that many of our Founding Fathers had a strong belief in a greater power and prayed for divine guidance. Just as today the overwhelming majority of Americans identify themselves as religious people. According to the United States Census Bureau of the 300 million people in this country, over 228 million identify themselves as being associated with a religion. The largest single religious affiliation is Catholics with just over 57 million adherents followed by Baptists with just over 36 million followers. Methodists/Wesleyans make up over 11 million followers. There are dozens and dozens of different religious groups in our nation and hundreds of variations on each group’s beliefs. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mennonites, Christian Science, and host of others are collected under the banner of Christianity. Nearly nine million Americans list themselves as something other than being a Christian. In general, it can easily be claimed that as a nation the majority of our population declare to be Christians but as with most things in life it is when you get to the details that the issues become more difficult. The divide between Catholics and Protestants has been a major split between Europeans since Martin Luther. Look at the split between the second largest groups of Christians the Baptists. Pick any small community, much less larger ones, and if you wait 15 minutes you’ll see another Baptist church spring up somewhere usually after having a falling out among the membership of an existing church. Those who try to stir up our emotions through the use of religion deserve a special place in hell for their deceit and their manipulations which detract from the true meaning of our religious faith. We are all sinners who find salvation through the cherished gift of our savior Jesus the Christ. When we start mixing the earthly realm of men with our spiritual works we are failing horribly as a light on a hill whose mission is to draw the souls of men to the path of our own redemption. How can I convince you that Jesus is our passageway to deliverance if I am condemning you for your political views? The Founding Fathers had lived under the tyranny of a system built on the belief that God willed some men to be rulers and other to be chattel. Responding to the unjust taxation of a foreign government placed upon them following the French and Indian wars they rebelled against the government because they wished to be heard. No taxation without representation meant exactly what it said. They did not mean no taxation from those who they elected a few months ago and who they would be voting on again shortly. They purposefully created a republic in which there was a careful balance of power between the varying branches so that no central power could rule as a tyranny. BUT, they also did not trust the will of the people who they feared could have their emotions inflamed by charlatans’ like Glenn Beck so they made certain that the Senate, not the House, would be elected by the elites from their states as a way to check the passions of the mob. We are all Americans who love our country no less than the next. But love of country and the love of our God, however we may define that God, does not mean that we cannot, nor will not have disagreements over political issues. Not all people benefit the same from all proposals. It is that very reality that leads to the failure of communism as a form of government. It is why our Founding Fathers were so brilliant in hindsight. They knew that people will always act out of self-interest and they created a system that worried more about keeping the actions of our elected officials in the open and allowing the people the power to remove corrupt officials as they were discovered.

Looking for proof that our Founding Fathers wanted to establish a theocracy is like looking inside the magician’s hat for the bunny. You may think it is there but upon closer inspection you realize that it was all an illusion.

The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.
Mark Twain KC Shinn

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Crisis for Volunteer Fire Departments

It is becoming increasingly difficult for volunteer fire departments to recruit members and to retain the ones they do for long periods of a time. In 1984, the National Fire Protection Association listed 897,750 volunteer firefighters in the United States which responded to a call volume of 11 million responses. But in 2007, that call volume has ballooned to 25 million while the number of firefighters had dropped to 825,450. (p. 48). This is an alarming trend when one examines the demographics of the United States.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau the United States has an estimated population of 308,585,287 people in our nation (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). In the National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA) Fire Service Statistics report released in November 2008, the NFPA stated (Appendix A) that there were roughly 1,148,800 firefighters in the U.S. in 2007. Of that number, 825,450 (72%) were categorized as volunteer firefighters while the remaining 323,350 (28%) were listed as career firefighters (NFPA, 2008.) According to the United States Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Program’s July 1, 2007 statistics there were an estimated 308,585,287 people in the nation (US Census Bureau, 2010.) The U.S. Fire Administration Firefighter Fatalities in the United States in 2007 Report (Appendix B) was released in June 2008. The report shows that on duty firefighter deaths included 68 volunteer firefighters and 50 career firefighters. Among the volunteer firefighter fatalities, 63 were from local or municipal volunteer fire departments, and 5 were part-time or full-time members of wildland fire agencies. Citing the NFPA’s statistics again, the majority of the career firefighters (74%) serve communities that protect 25,000 or more people; whereas, the majority of the volunteer firefighters (95%) protect communities of fewer than 25,000 people with more than half located in small, rural departments which protect fewer than 2,500 people. Finally, according to the US Census Bureau, 64% of our population lives outside of the nation’s urban centers.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

Huntsville Arkansas Rapid Response Team