Tulsa Church Throws in Towel over Negligence Lawsuit in Boxing Match Death

by Nomad

The death of young football coach after a charity boxing match has cost a Tulsa "rock and roll" church a small fortune. For the victim's family, it was a clear case of negligence.
Shouldn't somebody have asked whether a 12-round brawl was really the best way to raise money for a Christian organization?

Slug-Fest for Jesus

Oklahoma is the kind of place where, when it comes to either big business exploitation or church activities, just about anything goes. Absolutely nothing should surprise you. Even so, I was a little taken aback when I saw this news story in a Tulsa newspaper.

A Tulsa church's owners have settled a civil lawsuit filed by the family of a man who died in the wake of a boxing event at the church, a lawyer confirmed Tuesday.

The family of George Clinkscale III, a former TU linebacker, alleged negligence in a lawsuit against the church following the boxing event that featured untrained and unlicensed fighters.

A tragedy to be sure but the question that stuck in my head was: Who on earth thought a "slug-fest" was appropriate for a church?  (Isn't it carrying the Biblical passage "if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also" a bit too literally?)

Clinkscale died as a result of injuries he suffered in a boxing match at Guts Church's Fight Night VI, held in the church's parking lot in September 2011.

So apparently these events had been going on for years.

Football Hall of Famer and Republican Donor John Elway Doesn't Support Hand-outs.. Except for the NFL

by Nomad

Football Hall of Famer John Elway doesn't believe in safety nets for the poor, but, like many a big bucks Republican contributor, he tends to ignore how much of his millionaire wealth originally came from his career with the tax-exempt, government-subsidized NFL.

  

Former American football quarterback and current General Manager and Executive Vice President of Football Operations for the Denver Broncos, John Albert Elway, Jr. has made an ass embarrassment of himself in an Fox News interview. He explain his reason for voting Republican was that he didn't believe in "safety nets."

According to Raw Story:

In a interview on Fox News prior to Super Bowl XLVIII, host Chris Wallace pointed out that Elway was a “big Republican” who had contributed “a lot of money” to former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012.

“Why do you support the GOP?” Wallace wondered.

“Well, it goes to what my beliefs are,” Elway explained. “I believe that we’re giving the opportunity to succeed or not succeed.”

“I don’t believe in safety nets,” he continued. “Obviously, we’ve got to have some kind of safety nets. But I think my philosophy is when given the opportunity to go take advantage of that, I think that’s when you get the best out of people.”

What is the poor man trying to say?  

But hold up a second, didn't Romney say that he wasn't overly worried about the poor because there were safety nets? And these were sufficient then he- as (shudder) president would "fix" them. Well, at least, that's what Mitt Romney said publicly but, as we came to learn in the middle of his campaign, that's probably not what he was telling rich donors like Elway.

How Blind Woman and Dog Struggle to Put Lives Together After Hit-and-Run Driver

by Nomad

Hit-and run accidents are on the rise across the country. Here's a story about how one accident has shaken the confidence of one blind woman. 
Still, the problems don't stop there. 

Most of us have a hard time trying to imagine what life would be like without our independence. We just take it for granted that we can go  where we like wherever we wish. For the disabled, of course, it is quite another story.

The US has made great strides in allowing the disabled to live more independent (and therefore more fulfilling) lives.  In fact, The United States of America was the first country to pass laws protecting the right of blind individuals to enter public establishments, and to  travel on all modes of public transportation accompanied by a guide dog. It's called progress and it is something that America should be proud of.   

So when I read this news story out of St. Louis, it made me more than a little angry. Denise Hollinshed, a crime reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, describes how, in one week, the life of one blind woman has been turned upside. All due to the carelessness and lack of compassion of a driver.

Why This Century-Old Cartoon Could Have Been Printed Yesterday

by Nomad

I found this political cartoon in an online archive. Incredibly, it was printed in 1912.

Lee Jeffries: Portraits of the Forgotten Homeless

by Nomad

Lee Jeffries started out as a sports photographer but after a chance encounter with a young homeless person on the streets of London, his career took a completely different turn. Since that meeting Jeffries has dedicated his time taking photographic portraits of the homeless in Britain and in the United States. As our source explains:

Shooting exclusively in black and white, Lee Jeffries’ 135+ pictures can be viewed in his Flickr Photostream. The majority are closeup portraits with incredible detail. Each photograph exudes so much raw character and depth, you find yourself studying each shot with great intensity.

Here are a few examples from a much larger collection which can be found  on Flickr.