MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND

How Israel Was Created

2012-01-07T13:53:00.000-05:00

Here follow excerpts from an important article:

The Real Story of How Israel Was Created by Alison Weir -- Antiwar.com

To better understand the Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations, it is important to understand the original 1947 U.N. action on Israel-Palestine.

The common representation of Israel’s birth is that the U.N. created Israel, that the world was in favor of this move, and that the U.S. governmental establishment supported it. All these assumptions are demonstrably incorrect.

In reality, while the U.N. General Assembly recommended the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine, that recommendation was non-binding and never implemented by the Security Council.

Second, the General Assembly passed that recommendation only after Israel proponents threatened and bribed numerous countries in order to gain a required two-thirds of votes.
Third, the U.S. administration supported the recommendation out of domestic electoral considerations and took this position over the strenuous objections of the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon.

The passage of the General Assembly recommendation sparked increased violence in the region. Over the following months the armed wing of the pro-Israel movement, which had long been preparing for war, perpetrated a series of massacres and expulsions throughout Palestine, implementing a plan to clear the way for a majority-Jewish state.

It was this armed aggression, and the ethnic cleansing of at least three-quarters of a million indigenous Palestinians, that created the Jewish state on land that had been 95 percent non-Jewish prior to Zionist immigration and that even after years of immigration remained 70 percent non-Jewish. And despite the shallow patina of legality its partisans extracted from the General Assembly, Israel was born over the opposition of American experts and of governments around the world, who opposed it on both pragmatic and moral grounds.

Let us look at the specifics.

Background of the U.N. Partition Recommendation

In 1947 the U.N. took up the question of Palestine, a territory that was then administered by the British.

Approximately 50 years before, a movement called political Zionism had begun in Europe. Its intention was to create a Jewish state in Palestine through pushing out the Christian and Muslim inhabitants who made up over 95 percent of its population and replacing them with Jewish immigrants.

As this colonial project grew through subsequent years, the indigenous Palestinians reacted with occasional bouts of violence; Zionists had anticipated this since people usually resist being expelled from their land. In various written documents cited by numerous Palestinian and Israeli historians, they discussed their strategy: They would either buy up the land until all the previous inhabitants had emigrated or, failing this, use violence to force them out.

When the buy-out effort was able to obtain only a few percent of the land, Zionists created a number of terrorist groups to fight against both the Palestinians and the British. Terrorist and future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin later braggedthat Zionists had brought terrorism both to the Middle East and to the world at large.

Finally, in 1947 the British announced that they would be ending their control of Palestine, which had been created through the League of Nations following World War I, and turned the question of Palestine over to the United Nations.

At this time, the Zionist immigration and buyout project had increased the Jewish population of Palestine to 30 percent and land ownership from 1 percent to approximately 6 percent.

Since a founding principle of the U.N. was “self-determination of peoples,” one would have expected to the U.N. to support fair, democratic elections in which inhabitants could create their own independent country.

Instead, Zionists pushed for a General Assembly resolution in which they would be given a disproportionate 55 percent of Palestine. (While they rarely announced this publicly, their stated plan was to later take the rest of Palestine.)

U.S. Officials Oppose Partition PlanThe U.S. State Department opposed this partition plan strenuously, considering Zionism contrary to both fundamental American principles and U.S. interests.

[. . .]

Truman Accedes to Pro-Israel Lobby

[. . .] Truman’s political adviser, Clark Clifford, believed that the Jewish vote and contributions were essential to winning the upcoming presidential election and that supporting the partition plan would garner that support. (Truman’s opponent, Dewey, took similar stands for similar reasons.)

Secretary of State George Marshall, the renowned World War II general and author of the Marshall Plan, was furious to see electoral considerations taking precedence over policies based on national interest. He condemned what he called a “transparent dodge to win a few votes,” which would cause “[t]he great dignity of the office of president [to be] seriously diminished.”

[. . .]

Former Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson also opposed Zionism. Acheson’s biographer writes that Acheson “worried that the West would pay a high price for Israel.” Another Author, John Mulhall, records Acheson’s warning: "[T]o transform [Palestine] into a Jewish State capable of receiving a million or more immigrants would vastly exacerbate the political problem and imperil not only American but all Western interests in the Near East."

Secretary of Defense James Forrestal also tried, unsuccessfully, to oppose the Zionists. He was outraged that Truman’s Mideast policy was based on what he called “squalid political purposes,” asserting that “United States policy should be based on United States national interests and not on domestic political considerations.”

[. . .]

Similarly, George F. Kennan, the State Department’s director of policy planning, issued a top-secret document on Jan. 19, 1947, that outlined the enormous damage done to the U.S. by the partition plan (“Report by the Policy Planning Staff on Position of the United States with Respect to Palestine”).

[. . .]

The head of the State Department’s Division of Near Eastern Affairs, Gordon P. Merriam, warned against the partition plan on moral grounds: "U.S. support for partition of Palestine as a solution to that problem can be justified only on the basis of Arab and Jewish consent. Otherwise we should violate the principle of self-determination which has been written into the Atlantic Charter, the declaration of the United Nations, and the United Nations Charter — a principle that is deeply embedded in our foreign policy. Even a United Nations determination in favor of partition would be, in the absence of such consent, a stultification and violation of U.N.’s own charter."

[. . .]

American Vice Consul William J. Porter foresaw another outcome of the partition plan: that no Arab State would actually ever come to be in Palestine.

Pro-Israel Pressure on General Assembly Members

When it was clear that the partition recommendation did not have the required two-thirds of the U.N. General Assembly to pass, Zionists pushed through a delay in the vote. They then used this period to pressure numerous nations into voting for the recommendation. A number of people later described this campaign.

[. . .]

Financier and longtime presidential adviser Bernard Baruch told France it would lose U.S. aid if it voted against partition. Top White House executive assistant David Niles organized pressure on Liberia through rubber magnate Harvey Firestone, who told the Liberian president that if Liberia did not vote in favor of partition, Firestone would revoke his planned expansion in the country. Liberia voted yes.

Latin American delegates were told that the pan-American highway construction project would be more likely if they voted yes. Delegates’ wives received mink coats (the wife of the Cuban delegate returned hers); Costa Rica’s President Jose Figueres reportedly received a blank checkbook. Haiti was promised economic aid if it would change its original vote opposing partition.

Longtime Zionist Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, along with 10 senators and Truman domestic adviser Clark Clifford, threatened the Philippines (seven bills were pending on the Philippines in Congress)

Before the vote on the plan, the Philippine delegate had given a passionate speech against partition, defending the inviolable “primordial rights of a people to determine their political future and to preserve the territorial integrity of their native land.” He went on to say that he could not believe that the General Assembly would sanction a move that would place the world “back on the road to the dangerous principles of racial exclusiveness and to the archaic documents of theocratic governments.”

Twenty-four hours later, after intense Zionist pressure, the delegate voted in favor of partition.

The U.S. delegation to the U.N. was so outraged when Truman insisted that they support partition that the State Department director of U.N. affairs was sent to New York to prevent the delegates from resigning en masse.

On Nov. 29, 1947, the partition resolution, 181, passed. While this resolution is frequently cited, it was of limited (if any) legal impact. General Assembly resolutions, unlike Security Council resolutions, are not binding on member states. [. . .]
Zionist military units had stealthily been preparing for war before the U.N. vote and had acquired massive weaponry, some of it through a widespread network of illicit gunrunning operations in the U.S. under a number of front groups.

The U.N. eventually managed to create a temporary and very partial cease-fire. A Swedish U.N. mediator who had previously rescued thousands of Jews from the Nazis was dispatched to negotiate an end to the violence. Israeli assassins killed him, and Israel continued what it was to call its “war of independence.”

At the end of this war, through a larger military force than that of its adversaries and the ruthless implementation of plans to push out as many non-Jews as possible, Israel came into existence on 78 percent of Palestine.

At least 33 massacres of Palestinian civilians were perpetrated, half of them before a single Arab army had entered the conflict, hundreds of villages were depopulated and razed, and a team of cartographers was sent out to give every town, village, river, and hillock a new Hebrew name. All vestiges of Palestinian habitation, history, and culture were to be erased from history, an effort that almost succeeded.

Israel, which claims to be the “only democracy in the Middle East,” decided not to declare official borders or to write a constitution, a situation which continues to this day.

In 1967 it took still more Palestinian and Syrian land, which is now illegally occupied territory, since the annexation of land through military conquest is outlawed by modern international law.

[. . .]

[Detailed citations for the above information are available at "The History of Israel-U.S. Relations, Part One."]

Read more by Alison Weir
American Taxpayers Subsidize Israel’s Prosperity
– August 31st, 2011
Israeli Video Games in Gaza
– August 23rd, 2011
Israel Lobby Dominates Congress, Media Covers it Up
– August 10th, 2011
Critical Connections: Egypt, the US, and Israel
– February 4th, 2011
Israel’s Flotilla ‘Investigation’
– June 17th, 2010

Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.comURL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/alison-weir/2011/10/10/the-real-story-of-how-israel-was-created/

"The Holiday Gift You Can’t Return: 92 New Abortion Restrictions" | National Women's Law Center

2012-01-07T13:21:00.000-05:00

Here follow excerpts from an important item posted by the Nation Women's Law Center.

For the complete post, go to:

The Holiday Gift You Can’t Return: 92 New Abortion Restrictions | National Women's Law Center

[. . .]

92 new abortion restrictions enacted by state legislatures. Last year was the worst year for state abortion restrictionsever. The previous high water mark was 34 in 2005. With banks still foreclosing on homes and people unable to find work, it is beyond disheartening to know that state legislators spent their time and energy last year – not to mention state dollars – making it harder for women to get abortions.

The most common types of abortion restrictions that passed in the last year are those which limit abortion coverage in health plans.

[. . .]

States are even resorting to enacting laws that require and endorse lying to women about abortion. North Dakota requires that counseling provided to women considering abortion include information stating that having an abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, despite the fact that this is untrue. South Dakota now requires that counseling provided to women considering abortion include flawed information about risk factors for abortion and requires women to visit a crisis pregnancy center, which are notorious for providing misinformation, before obtaining an abortion.

[. . .]

2011 will be remembered as a time when, among other things, five states banned abortion after 20 weeks gestation; seven states prohibited the use of telemedicine to obtain a medication abortion; and five states require an ultrasound before an abortion. In all, 92 new restrictions on abortion in 2011. State legislatures are about to reconvene across the country to take up the business of 2012, and we anticipate many more will try to enact these types of restrictions. Happy new year?

The History of US-Israel Relations . . .

2011-12-02T12:11:00.001-05:00

This article may be found at the website: If Americans Knew

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

The History of US-Israel Relations

Part One

How the “special relationship” was created

"While many people are led to believe that US support for Israel is driven by the American establishment and U.S. national interests (an analysis that benefits Israel and is particularly promoted by Israel partisans and former partisans), the facts don’t support this theory. The reality is that for decades U.S. experts opposed Israel and its founding movement. They were simply outmaneuvered and eventually replaced.

"Like many American policies, U.S. Middle East policies are driven by a special interest lobby. However, the Israel Lobby, as it is called today in the U.S.1, consists of vastly more than what most people envision by the word “lobby.”

"It is considerably more powerful, far more pervasive, and consistently more deceptive than any other. And even though the movement for Israel has been operating in the U.S. for over a hundred years, most Americans are completely unaware of this movement and its attendant ideology – a measure of its unique power over public knowledge.

"The success of this movement to achieve its goals, partly due to the hidden nature of much of its activity, has been staggering.

It has also been at almost unimaginable cost.

It has led to massive tragedy in the Middle East: a hundred year war of violence and loss; sacred land soaked in sorrow.

"What is less widely known is how profoundly damaging this movement has been to the United States itself.

For more, go to: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

"THE DEMOCRATS MOVED RIGHT, THE REPUBLICANS MOVED FURTHER RIGHT"

2011-11-22T08:42:00.001-05:00

From: Ezra Klein, in the Washington Post ("Wonkbook," Nov 23 2011)

The supercommittee's failure was finalized yesterday, and so today is the day we figure out who to blame. President Obama was clear in his remarks last night: The gridlock was the Republicans' fault. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the Republican co-chair of the supercommittee, is clear in the Wall Street Journal this morning: the Democrats deserve the blame. My colleague Michael Gerson, meanwhile, says it was Obama.

If by "at fault" we mean "unwilling to compromise," we can do better than listen to the self-serving remarks of the players. [. . .] And if you look at the numbers, it's pretty easy to see which party moved further towards a compromise.

The final Boehner plan envisioned tax reform that would generate $800 billion in new revenues and bring the top rate down to 35 percent. In the supercommittee, the highest Republicans ever got on taxes was the Toomey plan's $300 billion, with envisioned a top rate of 28 percent. So on taxes, it's fairly clear: The supercommittee Republicans were far to the right of Boehner.

On the Democratic side, Obama eventually insisted on somewhere near $1.2 trillion in tax reform or, if the revenues were to move lower, on much less in entitlement cuts. In the supercommittee, the Democrats offered a plan (pdf) with less than a trillion dollars in tax reform -- and more entitlement reforms than Obama was willing to agree to.

Boehner had about $150 billion in Medicare beneficiary cuts in his opening bid in the negotiations with the president, and he went down from there. In the supercommittee, Baucus offered $200 billion in Medicare beneficiary cuts. Supercommittee Republicans were far beyond that, however. [. . .]

Frankly, it's hard to find even one area in which supercommittee Republicans offered a substantially new compromise -- or even matched what Boehner offered Obama. [. . .] . . . if the question is whether the Democrats or the Republicans moved further in the direction of a compromise, there's no doubt that compared to the last set of negotiations, the Democrats moved right and the Republicans moved further right.

Discrimination Alive & Well in . . . Montgomery County - Government

2011-10-17T08:55:00.000-04:00

Montgomery County's Government Blacklist of LGBT Websites // Search Term "Transgender" Was Not Acceptable

Go to the link:

maryland juice: Montgomery County's Government Blacklist of LGBT Websites // Search Term "Transgender" Was Not Acceptable

Why Should Obama Be Re-elected?

2011-10-09T10:35:00.000-04:00

Why should he be re-elected? Obama is appointing more women to the federal bench.

On Oct 3, 2011 "the Senate confirmed six judicial nominees, four of whom were women: Nannette Jolivette Brown to the Eastern District of Louisiana, Nancy Torresen to the District of Maine, Marina Garcia Marmolejo to the Southern District of Texas, and Jennifer Guerin Zipps to the District of Arizona. Not only did the confirmation of these women bring the total number of women confirmed to the federal bench during the Obama Administration to 50 (47% of all confirmed nominees), but two of these nominees broke glass ceilings in their jurisdictions – Judge Brown will be the first African-American woman on the Eastern District of Louisiana, and Judge Torreson will be the first woman to sit on the district court of Maine."

For more, visit http://www.nwlc.org/our-blog/women-federal-courts-update

Women on the Federal Courts: An Update | National Women's Law Center

www.nwlc.org

The National Women's Law Center's mission is to protect and advance the progress of women and girls at work, in school, and in virtually every aspect of their lives.

GOD'S MANY MISTAKES? ARCHBISHOP O'BRIEN PROCLAIMS A GOSPEL OF EXCLUSION

2011-02-20T13:55:00.058-05:00

In an editorial in the Archdiocesan newspaper, The Catholic Review (Feb 17, 2011), Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien made an appeal to Maryland Catholics to "speak out" as the General Assembly considers a bill, which would extend the right to marry, without regard to gender.

I am happy to "speak out" and do so in support of the bill, S.B. 116, which the Archbishop opposes.

Archbishop O'Brien wishes to exclude a category of citizens from the benefits of civil law - people who love each other.

The Archbishops's targets, victims, actually are people, who desire publicly to bond themselves to one another in a civil - not a church - union, and thereby undertake all of the privileges and responsibilities which a civil marriage entails.

All this comes as the Roman Catholic Church continues to have to apologize for failing to shield children and vulnerable adults from sexual predators in the ranks of the clergy and church employees.

Apologies are good, but the best way to deal with victims is not to create them in the first place.

Just as the backward look of today requires an apology to children abused by pedophile priests, the Catholic Church of the future will apologize for its official assault on the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens.

After Archbishop O'Brien is gone, a successor will tell us that the church was simply following "legal advice" - which is what Cardinal Keeler said, on his way out the door, about the winking and nodding this Archdiocese did when criminal pedophiles were discovered but promoted or transferred, when these predators ought to have been prosecuted and removed from ministry.

But . . . back to the immediate issue, the attempt to deny civil rights to a category of citizens.

Literally o one is suggesting that the Roman Catholic Church be required to conduct, to sanction or to recognize gay marriages as a sacrament or as a religious rite.

The Church is free to follow its own rules in this regard. Unfortunately, this is not enough for the hierarchy of the Church. Unwilling to impose strict rules of behavior upon its own caste of ordinands, the hierarchy proposes to impose exclusionary rules upon the citizenry, Catholic or no.

It provokes sadness to hear the Archbishop, titular head of a most diverse community of believers, to advocate a Gospel of Exclusion.

No one in a position of respect and high regard ought to be caught advocating the denial of civil rights to some citizens - rights which are enjoyed by others.

This is a peculiar posture for the Archbishop to adopt because few other Catholics seems to agree with the Archbishop. Where are the clergy? Where are the Religious Orders? Where is the laity? Do we read of daily Catholic denunciations of the homosexual and lesbian "disorder" in our midst?

Of course not. Why not? Such denunciations correctly would be considered unseemly, prejudiced, hypocritical.

Nor do we (often) hear of gay persons denied a place of service in a local parish. Or told not to put something in the collection plate.

No one but a disconnected, isolated hierarchy would advocate such a cruel, biased, self-defeating public policy as the denial of civil rights to anyone.

MISREMEMBERING THE PAST

On what basis does the Archbishop make the case that some citizens be denied rights that others enjoy? Archbishop O'Brien relies on a misreading of societal and also church practice, history, tradition and science.

Forgetting that the Roman Catholic Church has, in the past, authorized and benefitted materially from human slavery, Archbishop O'Brien appeals very broadly to past practice, which he now declares, exhibited an unwavering sanction of marriage as between one man and one woman.

Forgetting that the Roman Catholic Church, my church, segregated itself in the South, after the Civil War, the Archbishop appeals to a fictional, all-embracing, welcoming tradition. The welcoming tradition has been hard fought. Surely, Archbishop O'Brien knows this.

Forgetting that polygamy was practiced by Hebrew Patriarchs and sanctioned in the New Testament as an instrument of God (Gal 4:22-25), the Archbishop writes that "the union of one man and one woman" has been "bestowed" . . . by societies throughout human history."

Forgetting that the civil doctrine of adoption, to say nothing of science, is able to bring children to childless couples through a variety of means, Archbishop O'Brien writes that marriage "originates in a simple biological fact. The union of one man and one woman is the only relationship capable of creating children and nurturing them together as father and mother."

Archbishop O'Brien writes that "marriage is a joining of man and woman, involving the gift of offspring, has been the cherished standard of Western culture, time immemorial."

This is nonsense. "A joining of man and woman" has not always and forever been the standard, not even in Maryland. And not of the Roman Catholic Church.

In the provincial era, "the joining of man and woman" was criminalized - if the man happened to be Black. In that case, by Act of the General Assembly, an indentured woman, who had a child with a male slave indeed, would be united - in perpetual slavery. This "one man and one woman" would be consigned together to a lifetime of servitude to the White men who made the rules - as would the couple's offspring.

I have discovered no occasion when a presiding Catholic prelate in Maryland Province raised the slightest objection to the enslavement of English women, who consorted with male slaves, or proclaimed church doctrine to require freedom for the male slaves themselves.

I ask the Archbishop, quick to proclaim perpetual social and religious truths in the interests of secular legislation he prefers, to produce such statements and also to certify that no Pope and none of Archbishop O'Brien's predecessors in the archdiocese of Maryland owned slaves, or ordered Catholic clergy to conduct wedding cerimonies between slaves or between slaves and freed persons - all this being, we are now told "the cherished standard of Western culture, time immemorial."

Such assurances cannot be made in the face of the shameful historical record.

Catholic laity, priests, bishops, popes and religious orders, all have owned slaves. Papel bulls (Dum Diversas, Romanus Pontifex) sanctioned human slavery, justified the enslavement of native populations and the taking of their property.

So much for the lately proclaimed Roman Catholic embrace of the sanctity of human life.

The predecessors of Archbishop O'Brien preached neither an end to slavery nor the unvarying freedom of one man and one woman to marry - the doctrine the Archbishop proposes, now, has ever been the standard of both society and the Church.

The head of the Church in Maryland ought to exercise caution in editorializing about the novelty he now proposes as having always been taught and practiced by the Church. This is especially the case when the Archbishop sets about to exclude some citizens, rather than to include all, in the protections of the civil law.

MISSREADING THE PRESENT

The Archbishop is correct when he states, "In the view of the American Catholic bishops, marriage between one man and one woman, with a view toward family, is a basic human and social institution."

True. This is the expressed view of the American Bishops, relying in their turn on bad doctrine, bad history, bad science and proclaiming, in their turn, a Gospel of Exclusion.

Wishing to invoke the powers of the state to enforce the Church's doctrine of exclusion, the Archbishop writes that, "Marriage, whose nature and purpose are established by God, can only be the union of a man and woman. The law should not have it otherwise."

Do we really want our legislature to adopt legislation because it is endorsed by God?

Laws ought to be considered and then adopted or rejected by application of reasoned, stated policies, which every citizen can understand and consider, irrespective of the policies and the practices of any particular church.

Quite regularly, civil society adopts new standards of inclusion, which the churches subsequently adopt. One of these innovations was the recognition that civil marriage may not be barred to anyone based on race. This was not church doctrine in Maryland or in America until after it was already the law of the land.

Doubtless, the churches, including the Catholic Church, will once again follow the innovations of civil law and acknowledge marriage between people who wish to entwine their lives, withiout being subjected to demeaning and selective inquiry into gender.

The Catholic hierarchy ought to lead on this one, just as it ought to have led the fight against human slavery in America, but did not. Just as the hierarchy ought to have led the marches against segregation, burt failed to do so.

As was the case with the end of slavery and the end of segregation, the Catholic hierarchy will be dragged along, belatedly recognizing the civil rights of all citizens, making yet one more awkward, embarrassingly tardy, accommodation to "modernity" - a word that has become a four-letter word to far too many prelates in our day.

The Archbishop's rhetoric of exclusion is not strengthened by the groundless assertion that heterosexual married couples are in some way penalized if civil marriage is extended to all. Where is the penalty? Where are the voices of all those couples, who feel threatened for their own marriages, if gay couples marry?

Nor is the Archbishop's case against gay marriage strengthened by an appeal to Pope Benedict, who has announced that homosexuality is "a disorder," and who probably has done more damage to the repute of the Roman Catholic Church, since the days when Popes struck medals for Catholic kings, who slaughtered religious dissenters.

Nor does science support the hierarchy's harsh and unreasoned rejection of human beings.

Here, as in other matters, such as the manipulation of canon law to deny children protection from pedophile priests, Pope Benedict is wrong, and the Archbishop with him.

Expanding civil marriage rights and privileges to all does not strip marriage "of its unique connection to parenthood," as the Archbishop asserts. People who want to marry to have children can still do that.

But that is not the point Archbishop makes. He argues that having kids is the soul legitimate reason for getting hitched.

If having children were the gold standard for marriage, than both the church and the state would bar older couples or infertile adults from marriage. Neither the state nor the Roman Catholic Church maintains such an absurd and blatantly hostile prohibition.

The Church's embrace of the marriage of older couples completely refutes the Archbishop's desire to exclude gay couples from the benefits of the civil law, on the ground that they cannot give birth to children.

Nor does the proposed law of inclusion erase "the right of a child to a mother and father," as Archbishop O'Brien argues.

Just as many children suffer in homes where contention and abuse exist and where the couple are heterosexual, many children already are growing up in the loving homes of gay men and gay women. There is no evidence that such kids are being harmed or made to suffer the slightest limitations.

These kids benefit from "healthy marriages" including the benefits the Archbishop listed in his editorial and implied are limited to heterosexual couples:

• More likely to succeed academically;

• Physically and emotionally healthier.

• Higher rates of physically and emotionally healthy citizens; and

• Higher rates of educated citizens.

Theere is no evidence at all that these benefits are automatically extended to children, whose parents are heterosexual and automatically deprived from children whose parents are gay.

The Archbishop laments the depiction of any who opposes extending marriage to all as "a religious zealot or, worse, a bigot."

But the counter position, advocated by Archbishop O'Brien, would exclude a civil benefit - the right to be married - to individuals, whom the Archbishop would characterize as 'disordered' and unfit to be parents, whether by adoption or other means.

This is bigotry. No better word for it.

The adamant position which Archbishop O'Brien is advocating has more to do with what lies ahead: institutions and agencies affiliated with the Church will not be able to discriminate in hiring and in spousal benefits enjoyed by employees or clients. Nor will Catholic schools be able to bar children whose parents are gay.

A few months ago, a child attending a parochial school in Boulder, Colorado, was banished from school because her parents are a lesbian couple. ("Sacred Heart of Jesus Rejects Kindergartener" http://rbc-in-md4.blogspot.com/search/label/Catholic%20doctrine)

Do we want to see such discrimination occur in Maryland? Of course not.

When a child can be barred from a classroom in a Catholic school because her parents are gay, then statements about the "dignity" of gay persons ring hollow indeed, as do the Archbishop's concluding remarks in his editorial.

Let us practice inclusion even if the head of the Roman Catholic Church - my church - preaches exclusion.

I am hoping that enough Catholic voices can be raised in support of inclusion and against exclusion, to keep the hierarchy from pulling the whole Church further down into an intolerable, narrow, rhetorical ditch, from which she cannot extricate herself.

Already, there are too many hate groups in society. The Roman Catholic Church must not become one.

House Republicans Cut Anti-Terrorism Funding

2011-02-15T08:53:00.000-05:00

From ThinkProgress (see link below)

House Republicans Cut Funding That Protects Us From Nuclear Terrorism

On Feb 11, 2011 ". . . House Republicans put forth a “continuing resolution” (CR) to fund the government past March 4th that was filled with spending cuts.

"While this came as no surprise, one focus of the cuts is causing some heads to turn. House Republicans are choosing to significantly cut the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nonproliferation programs, the sole purpose of which is to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on loose nuclear weapons and materials.

"While Republicans have talked about the need to inflict pain in their budget, doing so in a way that increases the risk of the nuclear annihilation of an American city is perhaps taking the pledge too far.

[. . .]

The danger of a terrorist acquiring nuclear materials is very real. A softball-sized amount of highly enriched uranium can demolish an entire city. Yet in many countries, nuclear materials remain highly insecure, leaving them susceptible to theft. For years nuclear materials have floated on the black market and it is known that Al Qaeda has sought to purchase them.

[. . .]

The amount of funding required for these programs is also a drop in the bucket when compared to the current cost of the wars in Afghanistan and the total Pentagon budget.

Link to the report at ThinkProgress:

ThinkProgress » House Republicans Cut Funding That Protects Us From Nuclear Terrorism

SEN. NANCY JACOBS THINKS "RELIGIOUS FREEDOM" PERMITS A BUSINESS TO TURN AWAY SELECTIVELY MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC

2011-02-11T07:44:00.016-05:00

The following e-mail exchange was prompted by a Feb 9 2011 article in the Baltimore Sun:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-gay-marriage-hearing-senate-20110208,0,1140373.story

************************

Senator Jacobs,

I read in the Sun paper this morning (Feb 9 2011, article about testimony on Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act) that you think a confectioner ought to be able to turn away members of the public, who are gay.

Do you also think a business - any business - ought to be able turn away a customer who is Jewish?

You are speaking the language of hate.

I look forward to your response, which I will publicize - including a non-response.

*******************************

Mr. Cook,

Thank you for taking the time to write me.

Unfortunately the Sun newspaper has misattributed part of their story to me and took the other attribution out of context in which I asked the question.

Let me preface my response by noting that you are certainly entitled to your beliefs and I sincerely appreciate you sharing them with me—even in disagreement. I do not believe my language is hateful. I believe, taken in context, it brought up a very serious issue that goes to the core of the freedom of religion. Let me explain.

First, of course I do not believe a business should turn down a Jewish customer in most circumstances. In fact, I think businesses would be crazy to turn down any business in these troubled economic times.

With that said, in keeping with your example regarding the Jewish faith, I would say its fine for a Rabbi to refuse to perform a wedding for a Protestant/Muslim/Atheist/etc couple and vice versa. At issue is the question of whether a religious-oriented business (wedding officiate, wedding confectioner, photographer, etc) should be mandated to take on commercial enterprise that fundamentally goes against the foundations of their faith and beliefs. In these situations, I do believe that the business-owner’s freedom of religion plays a pivotal role in their selection of clientele and in these limited situations I think it is acceptable. (As noted in the story, state law already prohibits hotels, motels, bars and restaurants from refusing clientele based on sexual orientation).

Additionally, as I’m sure you’re aware; there are instances where some organizations and businesses do work with select clientele beyond just religious beliefs. For instance, I’m sure you’re familiar with 55+ communities or ladies night at bars.

In regards to the second example cited by the Baltimore Sun about the hypothetical court clerk, that was asked by another senator on our committee. I do not know why the Sun attributed the quotation to me.

While I realize you may not see eye-to-eye with me, I value you taking the time to write me. The free exchange ideas is the bedrock of our democracy and I welcome civil disagreement with the same gusto I accept agreement.

Sincerely,

Nancy Jacobs

********************

COMMENT: The free practice of religion extends to the clergy prerogative to solemnify or to decline to solemnify a marriage by conducting a religious ceremony.

But the practice of religion does not permit the government to invoke a gender test upon citizens and to forbid from marrying those citizens who fail a test of their gender.

The courthouse must remain open to all citizens, without any citizen being subjected to an inquiry into gender.

During the era of slavery and segregation, private businesses invoked personal and religious privilege, what today might be called a "conscience exception," to deny freedom and public services to African-American citizens.

The analogy to improper denial of state services, not the analogy to a clergy privilege, is the way to think about whether citizens ought to be free to marry, without regard to gender.

A gender prohibition to marry, based on a state inquiry into gender, is unfair in principle and unenforcible in practice.

Baltimore Sun Opinion Writer Affiliated with a Hate Group

2011-02-10T11:06:00.002-05:00

On February 1 2011, the Baltimore Sun opened its Opinion page to a column by Peter Sprigg, of the Family Research Council. (Marriage's public purpose: raising children - baltimoresun.com )

Why?

The Baltimore Sun did not tell its readers that the Family Research Council has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.

Why not?

The Southern Poverty Law Center, has this to say (emphasis added) about Peter Sprigg:

" [. . .] anti-gay propagandists at FRC include Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies, who joined the organization in 2001. Sprigg authored a 2010 brochure touting “The Top Ten Myths about Homosexuality.” In the brochure, Sprigg claimed that ex-gay therapy works, that sexual orientation can change, that gay people are mentally ill simply because homosexuality makes them that way, and that, “Sexual abuse of boys by adult men is many times more common than consensual sex between adult men, and most of those engaging in such molestation identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual.” He also claimed that “homosexuals are less likely to enter into a committed relationship” and “less likely to be sexually faithful to a partner.” Sprigg’s sources are a mixture of junk science issued by groups that support ex-gay therapy and legitimate science quoted out of context or cherry-picked, a tactic long used by anti-gay groups to bolster their claims about gay people. Several legitimate researchers, like NYU’s Judith Stacey (a source Sprigg uses), have issued public statements condemning the practice and requesting that anti-gay groups stop misrepresenting their work.

"In 2004, Sprigg and FRC Senior Research Fellow Timothy Dailey co-authored the 2004 book Getting It Straight: What the Research Shows About Homosexuality. In it, they repeat claims that gay men “commit a disproportionate number of child sex abuse cases,” that homosexuals are promiscuous, and that lesbians exhibit “compulsive behavior.” Much of the book’s content can also be found in separate articles put out by the FRC.

"In March 2008, Sprigg responded to a question about uniting gay partners during immigration by saying, “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than import them.” He later apologized, but in February 2009, he told Chris Matthews, “I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior.” “So we should outlaw gay behavior?” Matthews asked. “Yes,” Sprigg replied."

Questions for Mary J Corey, Baltimore Sun Vice President for Content (mary.corey@baltsun.com )

1. Why did the Baltimore Sun give op ed space to someone who is affiliated with a hate group?

2. Why did the Baltimore Sun permit Mr. Sprigg to identify himself with the Family Research Council, without advising Sun readers about this groups's decades' long record of hateful rhetoric?

For more information about the Family Research Council, visit the Southern Poverty Law Center webasite and search "Family Research Council." www.splcenter.org

A SOLUTION LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM - photo ID to vote

2011-02-09T09:55:00.003-05:00

A GOP freshman delegate in Annapolis is proposing a requirement that voters show a government-issued photo ID in order to vote.

For details, check out an article from MarylandReporter.com.

Delegates debate requiring photo ID to vote – MarylandReporter.com

Is voter fraud a big prob in Maryland? Nope.

Is voter fraud a big prob around the country? Nope.

Then what problem is Frederick County Delegate Kathy Afzali's, proposed bill intended to solve?

Well, there are a lot of racial minorities voting in Maryland, and nationally, and in growing numbers.

Lots of these folks don't vote for the GOP, which is increasingly taking on the appearance of a hate group.

Just as GOP elected officials don't like immigrants, or women or gays, they don't like voters who will not vote for them, under any circumstances.

This is the "problem" that Delegate Afzakli has discovered, and wants to solve by turning away voters, who are inclined against pulling the lever for her Party.

And no wonder.

IF MEXICO CAN PROVIDE UNIVERSAL MEDICAL COVERAGE, SO CAN THE USA

2011-02-09T09:22:00.000-05:00

Six years ago, the government of Mexico moved to provide universal health coverage for its citizens, at a cost of $12 billion a year. Mexico is not there yet, but is getting there.

If our neighbors countries, north and south, can do this, so can the US.

Here is a link to a NY Times piece, with more details.

Mexico’s Universal Health Care Is Work in Progress - NYTimes.com

Il Cairo

2011-01-31T09:27:00.000-05:00

Il Cairo

POSTED ON FACEBOOK BY ALLISON WEST. THANKS, ALLISON

A CALL FOR TRANSPARENCY BY MPPI, WHICH IS ANYTHING BUT TRANSPARENT

2010-12-07T08:38:00.004-05:00

Is it OK to use one's media megaphone to do a favor for your boss?

Happens all the time. Case in point:

A Baltimore Sun columnist, Marta H. Mossburg, in a column today (Dec 7 2010) invited the public to attend a conference in Annapolis, sponsored by her other employer, the Maryland Public Policy Institute.

Interesting that the conference is to focus on "transparency" when the Maryland Public Policy Institute is anything but transparent about its own funding.

According to the MPPI website today, Robert Ehrlich sits on the MPPI board. Does this right-wing millionaire put money into MPPI - so it can bash the Democratic majority Maryland legislature?

Here are some questions that are not likely to be addressed by the MMPI-sponsored transparency conference - or in any other venue run by MPPI:

Who gives the biggest dollars to MPPI?

Why does MPPI push only right wing and libertarian solutions to fiscal matters?

Why does MPPI hire people, such as Ms. Mossburg, with no discernible qualifications to propose economic solutions to Maryland's budgetary challenges?

In its call for transparency, why does MPPI ignore the lack of transparency in the private sector, of, say, "Tea Party" front outfits who are, rumor has it, wholly funded by right wing billionaires?

THE STATE OF SOCIETY TODAY - DECEMBER 2010

2010-12-04T14:57:00.000-05:00

Here is an important statement about the state of our society today.

This thirteen minute speech by Senator Bernie Sanders is worth your thirteen minutes.

Then, we ought to get angry and get in touch with our Washington DC elected officials. Let them know how you feel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5OtB298fHY&feature=player_embedded

JUDICIAL AND LEGAL ETHICS IN MARYLAND: HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

2010-09-08T15:14:00.002-04:00

Who is worthy of greater public condemnation, a lawyer who exchanges sex for a controlled substance or a lawyer who complains, truthfully, about the misconduct of a federal judge?

Well, what you think doesn't matter. What matters is what the judges think.

In Maryland, the judiciary, by a large margin, prefers the sexual predator with a law license to the honest lawyer, who files a formal complaint about a judge.

The sexual predator get a little frown from the judges, while the honest lawyer, who complains about the misconduct of a federal judge, gets to pick another profession.

Arguably (as lawyers like to say) a Maryland attorney ought never to lose his/her law license, for making a truthful complaint about a federal judge.

Arguably. But honesty is not the big deal you might expect it to be to the Maryland judiciary.

An attorney who does complain - about a federal judge who (1) ignores procedural rules to benefit his former law partners (2) takes money gifts from litigators (3) violates the federal judicial complaint rules and the Canons of Judicial Ethics and (4) is in business with lawyers in his court - a lawyer who objects to all this ought to be protected - if not congratulated - for coming forward. Arguably, but never mind.

The Judicial apparatus in Maryland did not like the fact that I complained - truthfully - about the misconduct of a federal judge. My punishment - 18 months suspended law license.

In fact, my suspension amounts to a disbarment. I am not going to apologize to Chief Judge Bell for coming forward as I did. I am not going to promise, from now on, to look the other way.

Judge Bell ought to apologize to me and restore my license - after admitting that I was telling the truth about the federal judge. But that is not the way our judicial system works.

Strict adherence to the factual record takes a back seat, in Maryland, to another judicial value: protection of a miscreant judicial colleague - a fellow jurist who ignores the ethical strictures that are supposed to protect the interests of petitioners and attorneys, alike.

The judge about whom I complained ought to have been investigated and replaced. My clients should have been protected from such a "judge." But Judge Bell and his employees among the disciplinary counsel finally have admitted I was telling the truth. But telling the truth is not enough. You loose your license for telling the truth about athe misconduct of a federal judge.

Never mind. Experience is wisdom. I am now wise to the bright line rule that governs judicial complaints in Maryland: the judges cover for each other. They prefer to destroy the career of an officer of their own court, than admit that a federal judge is a miscreant who ignores his serious ethical obligations. http://www.courts.state.md.us/attygrievance/sanctions08.html

Never mind and beware.

Beware the sexual predator who is allowed to hang on to his law license after a little bitty Oh My, from the be-robed solons who run the judiciary in Maryland.

In Maryland the controlling doctrine can be summarized this way: a lawyer who forces himself sexually on someone in exchange for a controlled drug is viewed in a much kinder light than a lawyer who complains - truthfully - about a judge-on-the-take.

The judicial soft light glows ever softer the second time around; this attorney had been suspended "briefly" (Baltimore Sun May 18, 2010) once before for sexual misconduct with a client.

The sort of lawyer - two-times a predator - who coerce sex-for-drugs earns a 60 day suspension. Then it's back to 'business' as usual in the Maryland courts. http://mdcourts.gov/opinions/coa/2010/2a09ag.pdf

Disgusting? But as legal as can be.

Get sex for drugs or have sexual contact with a client if you can. But if you are an officer of he court, don't complain about a judge. Then, you are really going to be in trouble with the other judges.

In Maryland, judicial ethics and legal ethics are like the game of limbo: how low can you go?

A GOOD IDEA or VINDICTIVE GIBBERISH?

2010-08-25T09:02:00.000-04:00

Like the young king, Henry VIII, I was too busy yesterday, attending my usual five-times daily Mass to catch up with Thomas Schaller’s opinion piece (“The Problem is not Islam but Orthodoxy,” Baltimore Sun August 24, 2010).

The Eighth English Henry solved his compulsory Mass attendance problem by announcing that no one in England ought to go to Mass, ever. It has taken a while, but Henry’s no-mo’-Mass dream is coming true in England, where the immigrant Catholic and Moslem communities are vibrant but where the Anglican Church is to religious attendance what a skeleton is to a living body.

Speaking of living bodies, Henry’s against Anne Boleyn’s gave special urgency to Henry’s no-mo’-Mass rule. Cynicism is everywhere.

Which brings me to Mr. Schaller’s proposal that we honor the victims of Sept 11, 2001 by building what Mr. Schaller calls “a place” that “celebrates the idea that we ought to divorce our public behaviors from our beliefs in God – and for good measure, respect those who don’t believe in god at all.”

Brilliant. But Mr. Schaller forgot to announce how much he will personally kick in for such “a place.”

The failure to actually give cash undermines the idea. An unwillingness to put up personal money to get something done highlights the likely future of philanthropy in a non- religious society. Since we are taxed, why put up any personal money for “a place” of any kind?

Speaking of “place” the free-floating quote attributed to Jesus in Luke’s Gospel begs for context. As with many ancient texts, the original setting of a given statement often is not apparent in the final version, committed to writing decades later.

Jesus stated, according to the Gospel of Luke and Schaller, “bring them here and slaughter them before me.”

Did Jesus really say that?

More likely, this parabolic summation is the stark (and therefore memorable) sermonic highlight from an ancient Christian preacher, who wanted to explain to his tiny flock why their present dreary circumstances are as nothing compared to the cosmic culmination which awaited them. This would not be the last time when vindictive gibberish would be memorialized in a sermon.

By the way, just as Mr. Schaller was kidding about building a secular “place” in lower Manhattan, I was kidding about going to Mass five times a day. I check my Inbox that often but, since I am as secular as the next guy, that’s about it.

THE JUDGES ARE HONEST

2010-08-19T16:45:00.001-04:00

'The judges are honest'
An old oaken maxim
With the bark coming off.
We knew it wasn’t true.

Know it now, in despond.

Our clients were too poor
To win vindication
From one with hand held out
To old pals with money.

ANDY HARRIS THINKS NYC CONSTRUCTION PLANS "BLATANTLY DISRESPECTFUL" - BUT WHERE ARE THE FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS?

2010-08-18T10:20:00.002-04:00

The Baltimore Sun reported (August 17, 2010) that Andy Harris, First District GOP candidate for Congress, says that the locally-approved construction of an Islamic community/prayer center in lower Manhattan is "blatantly disrespectful" because it will be located close to Sept 11's Ground Zero.

Mr. Harris is entitled to an opinion. Here are one or two follow-up questions that ought to be asked:

What is the role of Congress in a local zoning issue?

Should the feds spend tax $$ to fight a construction project that is in conformity with local zoning?

Ought there be a moratorium (or federal law) banning the building of Christian churches near the bombed federal building in Okla City - since Timothy McVey was a self-identified Christian?

Does Andy Harris know that many Sept 11 victims were Muslim? Has Mr Harris troubled himself to find out if their surviving relatives and friends agree that the proposed construction is 'offensive?' Might a community /prayer center near Ground Zero be consoling to them?

Should local zoning regs forbid houses of worship (synagogues, Baptist churches, etc) if non-communicants might be 'offended' at their construction?

BOZO GETS A GAVEL

2010-08-17T12:06:00.007-04:00

Who is the integrity terminator in Maryland?

It's a competition between Senate President Mike Miller and Chief Judge Robert Bell, with O'Malley and Gansler jostling for third and State Senators placing friendly bets.

In March 2010, the Maryland Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve the O'Malley recommendation for a judgeship in Anne Arundel County for the son of Senate President Mike Miller.

Recall that three lawyer members of the judicial appointments commission resigned, objecting to a lack of qualifications in the nominee and also to improper interference with their deliberations over Mike Miller III for a judgeship. When Miller III was not recommended at first, Governor O'Malley simply asked cronies on the commission for more names; Miller III appeared on the burnished new list. Presto! Brand new judge!

Both before the Senate voted and subsequently, I asked a number of elected officials to look into the possibility of nepotism and other misconduct in this appointment.

Before the vote, I wrote, via their official e-mail, to members of the Maryland Senate. Not a single Senator acknowledged or responded.

E-mail and Certified mail to Governor Martin O'Malley remains unanswered.

E-mail to Lt. Governor Anthony G Brown remains unanswered.

Registered mail to Attorney General Douglas Gansler remains unanswered.

E-mail to the Maryland ACLU remains unacknowledged.

Public service in Maryland includes not responding to integrity-inquiries. This is necessary because office-holding in Maryland also includes getting your relatives and your political pals' relatives on to the public payroll.

Chief Judge Bell has written back that the appointment of Maryland judges is none of his business.

Judge Bell did not offer to refer my inquiry to anyone whose business it might be to keep unqualified people off the bench in Maryland or to see that the judicial appointments process was not tainted by undue influence.

Judge Bill did not indicate how officers of the courts Judge Bell is supposed to supervise are to balance their concerns for the integrity of the appointments process with the reality of appearing in the court of a judge the lawyer had declared was not qualified even to be a judge.

The Maryland judiciary, increasingly, is larded with the relatives of Maryland elected officials. Who cares? Whose job is it to put a stop to this?

Are elected officials the custodians of judicial integrity in Maryland?

Nope. The office-holders are the very ones elbowing others aside so their children, spouses, in-laws, can suck the public teet.

Is the Maryland State Bar Association the custodian of judicial integrity in Maryland? Forget about it. For the well-connected attorney, there is no better judge to stand before than one who is grateful to the lawyer who engineered the judicial appointment.

Is the Maryland ACLU the custodian of judicial integrity in Maryland? Naw. Why should the ACLU question the integrity of the judicial appointment process? After all, Senate President Miller, known as a vindictive shouter, can de-fund any number of projects and programs, that the ACLU wants to tout. Looking away while Bozo the Clown puts on judicial robes is a small price to pay . . .

In Maryland, judicial integrity is a pretty low priority for everyone, including, sadly, Chief Judge Robert Bell.

THE JESUS MAN - FATHER JOE MUTH

2010-05-23T17:30:00.016-04:00

Father Joe Muth, pastor of St Matthew and Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Churches, has completed thirty-six years as a priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

A native of Baltimore, Father Joe is a tireless pastor, whose commitment to his Church and his two parishes is a 24-7 proposition. Father Joe celebrates daily Mass for his parishioners and on many occasions throughout the week, for others, as well.

A vital, popular and well-regarded preacher, Father Joe often conducts retreats and seminars on a variety of subjects. He has traveled to many nations in Africa and elsewhere. The African nations Fr Joe has visited include, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Rwanda.

Much of Father Joe' work is focused on social ministry, yet without neglecting the uniquely priestly work of counselling and spiritual guidance offered to individual parishioners.

Fr. Joe's expression of the Christian Faith entails an explicit welcome to all peoples of all races and nations. Fr Joe's ministry is international in every sense. His enthusiastic welcome to immigrants has made Saint Matthew Church a multi-racial and multi-ethnic community of faith. Over forty nationalities are represented among the parishioners at St Matthew Church. The Immigrant Outreach Service Center, which Father Joe founded in 2000, is housed at St Matthew Church. The Center focuses on family reunification, adjustment of status and political asylum.

Father Joe Muth Jr, we salute you on the completion of your thirty-sixth year as a Priest.

ARIZONA - THE NEW MISSISSIPPI

2010-04-28T08:09:00.001-04:00

Do the Orioles play the Diamondbacks this year? If so, here is an idea from a British friend, that ought to be implemented at Camden Yards:

"I'm thinking, when the Diamondbacks play, someone should walk onto the field and demand their papers. Every inning. It's baseball: America's Pastime, we have to be sure."

The Senate President's son up for a judgeship? Puleeeeesee.

2010-03-10T09:25:00.011-05:00

A vote to confirm Mike Miller III as a district judge may be a career-defining vote for each member of the Maryland Senate.

Are you there to represent the best interests of your district or there merely to help Mike Miller II find a nice job on the public payroll for Mike Miller III?

Three attorneys on the nominations commission resigned, objecting to this appointee as unqualified and also objecting to pressure on them to approve this appointment. That ought to have been enough to kill this nomination.

A Maryland senator who votes to seat on a district court bench the son of the Senate President is casting a vote for nepotism. This would be a vote for a sinecure not a judgeship.

Instead of a lemming-like vote in favor, the Senators ought to send this nomination back to the Executive Nominations Committee (Senator Delores Kelly, Chair) where testimony can be elicited as to (1) WHY three members of the commission objected to this appointment (2) HOW the commission was reconstituted so as to pass this nominee on to the Governor.

The importance of a hearing is obvious. It is serious and extraordinary for three attorneys, who live and work in the jurisdiction in question, to object to a judicial appointment on the grounds of unqualification and political interference.

The governor's executive staff need to be examined under oath before the Executive Nominations Committee. Also, the three lawyers (who have placed their practices in some degree of jeopardy already) ought to be at least minimally protected further, by a Senate subpoena. They are:

Eileen Powers - 410-573-2900
Marysabel Rodriguez-Nanney - 410 268-5070

Paula Peters - 410-990-0090

It is integrity-time for each member of the Maryland Senate. The Senate best not simply create a judge out of the son of the Senate President.

To write this sentence is simply to state the obvious: Mike Miller III is being considered for a judgeship simply because Mike Miller II is a powerful guy.

Because Thomas V Miller is a powerful guy, the Governor simply reconstituted the commission and got the word out that he wanted Miller III to be recommended to him; the Governor manipulated the appointments procedure merely to get the son's name in front of him.

This is a sham. This is ugly. This is blatant politicking in favor of putting public money into the pockets of a powerful guy's family.

If this nomination is approved, the Senate will have abdicated its duty to protect the public fisc and the state judiciary against political interference.

If this nomination is approved, Chief Judge Robert Bell will be asked to conduct his own, independent investigation into a matter, which obviously compromises the integrity and the independence of the Maryland Judiciary.

ADIEU DEAR COMRADE, YOUR MISSION IS FULFILL'D

2010-02-18T11:26:00.006-05:00

ADIEU DEAR COMRADE, YOUR MISSION IS FULFILL'D

(Whitman, Adieu to a Soldier)

JAMES E. DORLAND, 41ST OVI

by Richard Baldwin Cook

Excerpts reprinted from the OHIO CIVIL WAR GENEALOGY JOURNAL, Vol XIV Issue 1 (#53) (2010, pp. 20-25) Published quarterly by the Ohio Genealogical Society, ogs@ogs.org

(OCWGJ EDITOR’S NOTE: The following sketch is taken from All Of The Above II (Nativabooks LLC, 2008), available at bookstores and on line at amazon.com and elsewhere. The author, Richard Baldwin Cook, is the great-grandson of James E. Dorland. In this and a companion volume, All Of The Above I, Cook has traced dozens of genealogies from Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky back to the colonies, and many of them back several generations in England, Ireland, Scotland and continental Europe.)

James E. Dorland (1844-1915) was born in the village of Holmesville OH on 15 March 1844. James' father, Ezekiel Dorland (1812-1846), died when James was two years old. James' mother was Lucinda Haley Dorland (Lash) (1818-1893). James’ brother Richard (1839-?) was older than James by five years. The 1860 federal census records Lucinda Dorland and sons Richard, 21, and James, 16, living in Salt River Township, Wayne County OH. [. . .]

Lucinda was buried (Lot 16, Square 3 in East Union Cemetery, East Union Township) beside Ezekiel, who died on 23 April 1846 at age 32. Also buried here is Mary E. Dorland (Jan 1842-24 Aug 1855). [. . .]

In August 1862, shortly after his 18th birthday, James enlisted as a Private in Company C, 41st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He served to the close of the war. [. . .]

On 15 March 1863, James was in a convalescent camp near Nashville for a respiratory problem. "I have a bad cold," James wrote to his mother. "I can hardly speak out loud. I was on guard last night and it made my cold worse." James' main concern on that occasion (which was also his nineteenth birthday) was that his brother Richard be stopped from trying to bring James home.

"You know how I would feel if he would come down here and have to go home without me and I know or almost know that he would. There would be ten chances to one for him to for I have seen too many cases like that. Some brings their children citizens clothes and take them home but I would sooner stay my two years than to go home that way. Tell him to stay at home until I send for him."

All of James' surviving letters to his mother are vaguely descriptive of warfare and the fighting he was in, as he tries to adopt a youthful bravado without terrifying his mother about the dangers. On 1 June 1864, James wrote, "We were ordered to make a charge, which we did, with great slaughter." The letter was penned "near Pumpkin Vine Creek," Georgia. Three months later, James, by then one of Sherman's seasoned veterans, wrote again to his mother, reporting with slight drama and no embellishment, "We marched about 50 miles to get the rebels out of Atlanta and we took possession and are now laying in camp." (Editor’s note: James is most likely referring to the 27 May 1864 battle at Pickett’s Mills GA, in which the 41st recorded 108 men killed and wounded, out of the 262 who went into the engagement. Discussion of this battle is included in the regimental history, cited below, pages 82-89.)

JAMES’ LIFE AFTER THE WAR

Arabelle America

Ireland

(1850-1895) and James were married in Belle’s parents' home in Columbia City IN on 11 October 1871. The date is recorded in a formal certificate of marriage in the handwriting and signature of the minister, Hugh Wells, the pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Columbia City.

James moved eventually to Louisville KY, where he conducted a profitable career as managing representative for the American Book Company. He provided textbooks to the public schools of Louisville and the near region. The 1911 Louisville City Directory (Carson's 1911 Directory, page 0353) lists James' residence at 1307 S. First St. It was in this stately residence that James and Belle raised their two daughters, Blanche and Ethyl, during the closing decades of the nineteenth century. James may have lived in Illinois prior to settling in Louisville. This is suggested by the federal census of 1900, which recorded that his second daughter, Ethyl, 23, had been born in Illinois in 1876-77.

In Louisville, James was known as a gregarious and popular man. In keeping with his Dorland heritage, James was an active Presbyterian. This Calvinist legacy extended back to James' grandfather, for whom he was named. The first James Dorland (1 Aug 1781-2 Feb 1858) was himself a Presbyterian lay reader. (Editor’s note: to distinguish the elder James from his grandson, the primary subject of this article, the elder James will be designated as James-1.) James-1 was the great-grandson of Gerret (Garret) Dorlandt (Dorland) (1707-1774), who was an original subscriber of the first Dutch Reformed Church in Harlingen NJ and served the congregation as both deacon and elder.

Daughter Blanche married Cecil Virgil Cook. What would the fathers of the bride and groom have talked about at the wedding reception? We have no record or family recollection, which might guide our speculation. Joshua Flood Cook (1834-1912), father of the groom, was of a slave-owning family. At age 27 in 1861, Joshua had resigned the presidency of a female "institute" in Kentucky to become a Baptist chaplain in the Southern cause. J.F. Cook had buried more than one Confederate soldier, including his young brother-in-law, Willie Farmer, who died in 1862, shortly after the battle of Shiloh, from a shattered hip. (For additional Cook and Farmer family details, please see All Of The Above I & II). In his memoir, Old Kentucky (1908), Joshua recorded with pride that his brothers “rode with Morgan” on rebel raids into James E. Dorland's home state of Ohio. The deepest penetration into Ohio by John Hunt Morgan and his "Raiders" was to Lisbon in July 1863. Lisbon was the first Ohio hometown of James Dorland's grandparents, Mary and James-1 Dorland. A monument five miles south of Lisbon commemorates Morgan's capture.

Although James Dorland had settled in Louisville after the Civil War, he had reached manhood in the uniform of the Federal army. By age twenty, he was a battle-hardened veteran with three years service, much of it under the command of General William T. Sherman. By his 21st birthday, James had seen much death and destruction and probably had caused some of it. During the war he had written to his mother that he had participated in "much slaughter." No doubt James had buried many a young Ohio boy like himself, to say nothing of many a 'rebel' boy as well.

James died in New York City on 14 January 1915, while visiting his daughter Ethyl Barnes Qualey and her husband, Joe. James, a member of the Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church (4th and Broadway) in Louisville, was eulogized as "one of the best loved men in the city."

JAMES DORLAND'S PATERNAL ANCESTRY

James' father was Ezekiel Dorland (14 Sep 1812-23 Apr 1846), dead at age 34, and his mother was Lucinda Haley Dorland Lash (1818/20-1893). Although orphaned of his dad, James knew both his paternal grandparents; he had been named for his father's father, James-1 Dorland (1 Aug 1781-2 Feb 1858.) Grandfather James married Mary Moore (22 Nov 1785-16 Feb 1869) in southwestern Pennsylvania on 11 Dec 1804. James-1 and Mary made their homes in Lisbon (called at first New Lisbon Village). They subsequently moved to the nearby village of Fredericksburg OH. Mary is listed in the 1860 Fredericksburg census, where she and James-1 had raised eighteen children. Yes, eighteen children. She is thought to have been buried in Crestline OH.

James' Moore great-grandparents moved from Pennsylvania to Lisbon OH, not long after their daughter's PA wedding in 1804. The move to Ohio is certain at this time because Mary's father, John Moore, was a reader in the Presbyterian Church in Lisbon from 7 Aug 1807 until 19 Sep 1812. To function as a lay reader usually meant a person conducted the regular weekly service in the absence of an ordained minister. From the fact of congregational leadership and public reading by her father, we infer that Mary came from an educated background, whose Reformed religious principles would have fitted her comfortably into the Dutch Reformed traditions of her husband's ancestors.

DORLANDS - FROM HOLLAND TO AMERICA

The word "dorlandt" appears to be a Dutch compound, "dor" (sterile, barren) and "landt," and therefore can be taken to mean 'unproductive soil.' There is no clear reason how 'Dorlandt’ came to be a proper last name. Absence of certain etymology is a characteristic of many names. A reasonable speculation suggests this was a convenience, developing out of the circumstance that surnames became both needed and common as Europeans, whether peasants or privileged, became more mobile during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. You could call yourself or were called by whatever moniker identified you most conveniently to your original place or people. The Dorlandts were Dutch people from, it seems, barren farmland. [. . .]

The first of James E. Dorland's ancestors to have traveled an angry sea from Bruekelen, Holland to Brooklyn, New York Colony was Lambert Janse Dorlandt (1639-1720) [. . .] On 16 April 1663, Lambert arrived in New Amsterdam on the ship Bomekoe (Spotted Cow). There may still be found an historical marker on a farm north of Sunset Road, Montgomery Township, NJ, which was placed on Lambert’s grave after the headstone was lost. There are recent reports that the farm house he built along Sunset Road about 1710 is still standing.

[. . .]

Lambert Janse Dorlandt married Hermina Janse Peters (Hermptje Janse Pieterse) in 1665. Lambert and Hermina had eight children, the oldest son (and third child) being Gerret Janse Dorlandt (abt 1666-1736). Gerret was born in Brooklyn and died in Somerset NJ. He married Jannetje Jansen Schenck (abt 1673-bf 1695) on 20 May 1692 in Brooklyn. He then married Marytje ______ (abt 1665-abt 1751). Gerret and Marytje had four children, including Gerret (Garret) Dorlandt (Dorland) (1707-1774), who married Hilitie (Matilda) Van Arsdalen (1712-1774) on 13 March 1730/31 in Harlingen, Somerset County NJ. Garret Dorland was an original subscriber of the Dutch Reformed Church in Harlingen and served as both deacon and elder of the church. Garret’s body was reportedly moved from a family cemetery to the Harlingen Reformed Church Cemetery.

Garret and Hilitie Dorlandt were the parents of ten or eleven children, including Lucas (Luke) Dorland (1748/9-aft 1787), who became the husband of Eleanor (Aulche) ______ (1752-16 Oct 1835) in about 1773 in New York. As far as is known, Luke and Eleanor lived their lives in Harlingen, NJ. This Lucas has been incorrectly identified as the founder of Warren Wilson College in Ashville, NC. (See below.)

The youngest of the four children of Lucas and Eleanor Dorland was James-1(1781-1858), who was born in Harlingen, NJ on 1 Aug 1781, married Mary Moore on 11 Dec 1804, and died on 4 Feb 1858 in Fredricksburg OH.

This Dorland line, traced forward from Lambert, Garrett-1, Garrett-2, and James-1 remained for generations in New Jersey and then migrated from New Jersey to Ohio. [. . .]

“COLOR, CASTE, OR CLASS DISTINCTIONS ARE AN EVIL THING”

Some researchers do not list all of the children of Mary and James-1: they have only Luke Dorland (1815-1897), his wife Juliette E. Goodfellow (1824-1897), and their son, Charles Johnson Dorland (?-?). There is good reason to focus on Luke and Juliette Dorland, who left an impressive historic legacy. They were Presbyterian missionaries, employed by the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions. In 1867, working in the mountains of Western North Carolina, they founded Scotia Seminary for Negro Women in Concord NC. Luke was the school’s first president. (In 1932, the name of Scotia Seminary was changed to Barber-Scotia College.) Historian Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore has written (see Sources, below) that Scotia Seminary’s ”biracial faculty oversaw a curriculum calculated to give students the knowledge, social consciousness, and sensibilities of New England ladies, with a strong dose of Boston egalitarianism sprinkled in.” Seminary President Luke Dorland declared that “skilled hands must be directed by a sound mind in a sound body, motivated by a zeal to serve others." An early Scotia student, Mary McLeod, recalled her northern white teachers’ insistence that “the color of a person's skin has nothing to do with his brains, and that color, caste, or class distinctions are an evil thing."

In 1867, Luke led the organization of the Bellefonte Presbyterian Church in Concord NC. In 1869 and 1872, he was pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Concord NC, and in 1884 was pastor of the African Presbyterian Church, also in Concord. Luke and Juliette remained active even in retirement. In 1887, they secured financial backing from northern Presbyterians and founded yet another school in the NC mountains, the Dorland Institute in Hot Springs, Madison County NC. Luke and Juliette provided the early instruction in their home and erected the first buildings at their own expense. In 1914, the school was described as worth $40,000, providing instruction, room and board for 70 girls as well as 30 boys, who were also taught farming practices. In addition to the boarders, there were 60 non-residential students. The Dorland Institute merged in 1918 with the Bell Institute to form the Dorland-Bell School, which merged in 1942 with the Ashville Farm School, which was the predecessor of Warren Wilson College in Ashville, NC. [. . .]

Just as James-1 in the eighteenth century left behind his Dutch reformed traditions and family in New Jersey to settle in Ohio, the nineteenth century found some of the Ohio-based Dorlands striking out on adventures of their own. Some of these seem to have been stimulated more by wanderlust than from any well designed plan. In March 1852, a certain Garret Dorland of Perry Township OH led a one-hundred member company of men to the California Gold Fields. The party included a Cornelius Dorland as well. The company traveled by boat down the Ohio River to Cairo IL, up the Mississippi to Independence MO, and then overland to California. As far as is known, they found no gold but did manage to establish Dorland progeny throughout the far West.

JAMES E. DORLAND'S MATERNAL ANCESTRY: HALEY, COTTON, RICKETTS, CHENEY, NICHOLSON, POWELL, JONES

James’ mother, Lucinda Haley (1818/20-1893) was the daughter of Richard Healy (1786-1824) and Rachael Cotton (1785-?). They were married 16 April 1807, possibly in Wayne County OH. Richard died in Salt Creek Township, Holmes (formerly Wayne) County OH. His parents were John Healy (?-?) and Sarah Wilson (?-?).

Rachael was one of eleven children born to John Cotton (1748-15 July 1818) and Mary Ricketts (15 July 1755-29 Nov 1833). They were married 2 June 1774, probably in Anne Arundel County MD. In 1810, John Cotton appears in the Beaver County PA census. By 1814, he is the owner of 160 acres of land in Holmes County OH. Both John and Mary died in Salt Creek Township, Holmes County OH. John Cotton is known to have been buried in the Wolgamot Cemetery in Salt Creek Township.

Mary Ricketts Cotton, grandmother of Lucinda Haley Dorland, was the daughter of Cheney Ricketts (1732-15 May 1814) and Ann Cheney (1734-13 Sep 1813). Cheney Ricketts was born in Maryland Colony and died in Fairfield County OH. Ann was born in Prince George's County MD and probably died in Fairfield County OH. Cheney Ricketts was the son of Edward Ricketts (1706-1786) and Mary Ann Cheney (?-?).

Edward's parents were Thomas Ricketts (20 Sep 1685-?) and Rebecca Nicklisson (Nicholson) (19 April 1681-?). Both Thomas and Rebecca were born in South River, Anne Arundel County MD. Rebecca's parents were John Nicklisson (1651-?) and Rebeckath _______ (1655-?). Both John and Rebeckath were born in South River as well.

Mary Ann Cheney (wife of Edward Ricketts) was the daughter of Charles Cheney Jr (1703-?) and Mary Powell (?-?). Charles Jr. was the son of Charles Cheney Sr. (6 Jun 1673/77-1745) and Anne Jones (1677/81-?). Both Charles Cheney Sr. and Anne Jones were born in Anne Arundel County MD. They were married 15 July 1701. Therefore, we reach the conclusion that James Dorland was, through his mother's Haley, Cotton, Ricketts, Cheney and allied families, but two generations removed from Anne Arundel County MD, where his ancestors had lived for close to two hundred years prior to the arrival into central Ohio of James' maternal grandparents.

CAVE HILL CEMETERY, LOUISVILLE KY

James and Belle Ireland Dorland are buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville KY in a perpetual care plot, which James bought in 1895 at the time of Belle's death. They lie beneath a large granite monument James selected for them and located among the Ballards, Fields, Galts, Speeds, and other Louisville notables of the nineteenth century. Cecil V. Cook Jr. (1913-1970), grandson of James and Belle, and Cecil's wife Betty Taylor Cook (1918-2000) are also buried in the Dorland plot at Cave Hill.

SOURCES – PLEASE SEE: the OHIO CIVIL WAR GENEALOGY JOURNAL, Vol xiv Issue 1 (#53) 2010, pp. 24-25)

The illustrations (among dozens which are reproduced in All Of The Above I & II) are charcoal drawings, made by Leah Fanning Mebane from family photos.

OCWGJ EDITOR’S NOTES:

The 41st OVI participated in most of the major engagements in the Western Theater, from Shiloh to Nashville. Its first commander, William B. Hazen, became a brigade and division commander well-known for the day-long defense of his brigade’s position at Stones River. Its second commander, Acquila Wiley, was initially the commander of Dorland’s Company C, but rose to regimental command when Hazen was promoted. He was wounded at Shiloh and severely wounded at Missionary Ridge, suffering the amputation of a leg and causing his resignation from the service. Another of the initial company commanders, Emerson Opdycke, left the 41st for promotion to regimental commander of the 125th OVI, which gained its greatest honors filling a gap in the Union line near the cotton gin during a critical moment in the Battle of Franklin TN.

Although Stones River is not listed in the battles in which Dorland participated, it occurred during his period of service. It may be that he was away on other duty, or was not available due to illness. There is evidence that August 1862 recruits were with the regiment at Stones River, such as Albert McFarland of Company A, who enlisted on 30 Aug 1862, and was killed on 31 Dec 1862 at Stones River.

The Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion (Volume IV, page 179) lists Dorland’s enlistment date as 30 April 1862, whereas the Dorland family information and his organizational pension index card both state his enlistment date as August 1862. It is likely that August is the correct date, which can be corroborated from his Compiled Military Service Record and pension file. Only one other person in the entire regiment, Theodore Hawley of Company B, has an enlistment date in April 1862, but he was an experienced recruit from the 19th OVI in the 3-months’ service. On the other hand, there are many enlistments shown for August 1862, including eight others in Company C alone.

The regimental history was published under the title The Forty-First Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry in The War of the Rebellion. 1861-1865. (Robert L. Kimberly and Ephraim S. Holloway, With the Co-operation of the Committee of the Regimental Association ... Cleveland, Ohio: W. R. Smellie, Printer and Publisher, 1897. Reprinted by Blue Acorn Press, Huntington WV, 1999.) Kimberly and Holloway were both veterans of the 41st who in succession commanded the regiment after Colonel Wiley, both promoted to Colonel and eventually Brevet Brigadier General. Their summary of the regiment’s service is as follows (page 292): “On a general summing up we find this Regiment traveled during the service 14,500 miles: 5,200 by water, 3,800 by rail, and 5,500 on foot. Was engaged in 20 battles, besides a great many skirmishes. Lost, 109 killed in battle, 69 died of wounds, 141 died of disease, and 3 killed by accidents; total, 322 deaths. There were 616 wounded that are known, and a great many more were slightly wounded, of which there is no record.”

“FOR PREVENTION OF THE EFFUSION OF BLOOD”

2009-11-20T12:36:00.005-05:00

My Maryland ancestry goes back to Governor William Stone (1603-1660) and his wife Verlinda Graves or Cotton (?-c. 1675). (See “A Protestant Governor for Catholic Maryland” in ALL OF THE ABOVE, Richard Baldwin Cook, published by NATVA LLC, 2007, 2009, pp. 363-375.)

In 1648, Captain William and Verlinda Stone came into Maryland from Virginia Colony. They had been part of the influential and wealthy elite of Virginia. They were typical of the well-connected, ambitious, talented, assertive and miniscule colonial patrician class, who wanted large tracts and many slaves to make their lands ever more productive and profitable for themselves and their heirs.

A communicant of the Church of England, Stone became Governor of Maryland shortly before the beheading of Charles I in 1649. He was appointed by the Catholic Cecil Calvert, Second Lord Baltimore and colonizer (“proprietor”) of the Province of Maryland. Cecil Calvert “hastened to secure his tenure of Maryland by showing the world that his Province was not all Roman Catholic to the prejudice of Protestants.”

At the time of his appointment as Governor of Maryland, William Stone was already prominent in Virginia. Born in Northhamptonshire England in 1603, he was living in “the Plantation of Acchowmacke” [Accawmacke] in 1633, a commissioner, and member of the Accawmacke Court (Northampton County) that year. (Records of William Stone’s appointments, land transactions and other activities in Virginia are among the oldest surviving records in that state.) In 1634, Stone was appointed High Sheriff of the county. In 1635, Stone was listed as a member of the first Vestry to be organized at Hungars Episcopal Church, Eastville, in Northhampton County, Virginia Colony. Therefore, Stone was part of the religious establishment of Virginia.

The Protestant Stone promised Cecil Calvert, the Second Lord Baltimore, he would invite many of his co-adherents in Virginia to join Stone in populating the Calvert family’s proprietary colony. The appointment of a Protestant governor may have been for show. Stone, when absent from the Colony, would leave in charge the former Catholic governor. The governing council was evenly divided Catholic and Protestant. The Catholic population was primarily in southern Maryland, around St. Mary’s City, while a large group of Puritans from Virginia had settled in Anne Arundel County (named for the wife of Proprietor Cecil Calvert) at the community they called Providence, which shortly was renamed Annapolis (named for Princess Anne, daughter of English Queen Mary).

When William and Verlinda Stone moved their home from Virginia into Maryland, they brought with them a number of indentured servants. They also brought “four Negroes and one Turk and one Indian.” This accounting appears in a formal registration William Stone submitted to the land office in Maryland, demanding the right to enter lands he had been promised in exchange for bringing his family from Virginia to Maryland. (More on human enslavement in Maryland, in a later blog.)

The Virginians had come into Maryland to avoid curtailments of their religious practices, as was being attempted by Virginia Governor William Berkeley. The new Marylanders proved unwilling to take an oath of allegiance to Lord Baltimore, holding the oath was “Romish” as it bound them to obey a “Popish Government.” The Puritans offered to swear to be true to Baltimore’s interests, but this compromise was not acceptable to the Lord Proprietary, who ordered all who refused the oath to be expelled. The impasse was compounded by continuing turbulence in England. William Stone was Protestant but not of a Separatist stripe. Unfortunately for him, many of the Virginians who joined him in Maryland, were blood and bone Puritans.

Stone’s appointment to the governorship in Maryland might have been portrayed by Lord Baltimore in London as a respectful bow to Protestantism. But in Virginia and Maryland, separatists would have seen this as no sort of recognition for themselves. Undoubtedly, some of these wrote letters and otherwise communicated to Cromwell and his agents in England, to state that an Anglican-Catholic consortium in charge in St Mary’s City was no true Protestant government for Maryland.

In 1654, commissioners from England arrived in Maryland. They insisted that the province be governed directly from England by the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. William Stone was compelled to resign. He stated in a proclamation that he did so “for prevention of the effusion of Blood and ruine of the Country and Inhabitants.” But the risk of “ruine” soon was reassessed.

In 1655, a ship, the Golden Fortune, arrived with reinforcements from Lord Baltimore. The emboldened William Stone, to his misfortune, then demanded that he be restored as Governor under the terms of the original charter. Marching with his supporters toward Patuxent to reclaim official records, Stone was met by an army of Puritans, many of them recently settled asylees from Virginia Colony, whom Stone himself had invited into Maryland. These hearty, serious planters were in no mood to come once again, under the thumb of an overreaching colonial administration, and certainly not a Catholic Proprietorship. Not for this had they crossed a wide ocean and lately uprooted themselves from Virginia to Maryland.

Near present day Annapolis, at the mouth of the Severn River, the Virginia Protestants, commanded by Captain William Fuller, defeated the little army of William Stone, agent of Lord Baltimore. Some of the defeated “Papists” were court marshaled and at least one was executed on the spot. Stone, wounded in the shoulder, only just escaped execution by firing squad.

For a time, Stone was held prisoner. His wife Verlinda boldly appealed to Lord Baltimore, reciting in her letter some of the details of the battle. “Not above five of our men escaped,” she wrote, “which ran away before the fight was ended . . . They have sequestered my Husband’s Estate, only they say they will allow a maintenance for me and my children which I do believe will be but small. They keep my husband with the rest of the Council, all other officers, still prisoners, et cetera.” Stone was freed and regained possession of at least some of his lands, including his estate, Nanjemy, later called Poynton Manor. William Stone died in 1660 in his house in St. Mary’s City.

William and Verlinda Stone had seven children: Thomas, Richard, John, Matthew, Elizabeth, Katherine, and Mary Stone (?-before 1689), who became the wife, first of _____ Thomas and then, as a widow, of Robert Doyne (?-1689), High Sheriff of Charles County, Maryland. Verlinda Stone, in her will, dated March 3, 1675, and probated Sept 17, 1675, left “my dearest daughter Doyne my silver salt.” Mary had a place to put the silver salt as this sentimental gift had been preceded by a donation to her of considerable land from her father William Stone, in his 1659 will. (I am descended from the Stones through their daughter, Mary.)

Verlinda and William Stone had many prominent connections and descendents. Their daughter Elizabeth married William Calvert, son of Maryland Governor Leonard Calvert and grandson of George Calvert, First Lord Baltimore. Another descendent, William Murray Stone, was the third Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Maryland. Thomas Stone, a double great grandson, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Descendent Michael Jennifer was a member of the Maryland Convention that ratified the Constitution of the United States in 1788. John, a brother of the signer Thomas Stone, was a governor of Maryland.

MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND

How Israel Was Created

"The Holiday Gift You Can’t Return: 92 New Abortion Restrictions" | National Women's Law Center

The History of US-Israel Relations . . .

This article may be found at the website: If Americans Knew

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

The History of US-Israel Relations

Part One

How the “special relationship” was created

"THE DEMOCRATS MOVED RIGHT, THE REPUBLICANS MOVED FURTHER RIGHT"

Discrimination Alive & Well in . . . Montgomery County - Government

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House Republicans Cut Anti-Terrorism Funding

From ThinkProgress (see link below)

House Republicans Cut Funding That Protects Us From Nuclear Terrorism

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Baltimore Sun Opinion Writer Affiliated with a Hate Group

A SOLUTION LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM - photo ID to vote

IF MEXICO CAN PROVIDE UNIVERSAL MEDICAL COVERAGE, SO CAN THE USA

Il Cairo

A CALL FOR TRANSPARENCY BY MPPI, WHICH IS ANYTHING BUT TRANSPARENT

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JUDICIAL AND LEGAL ETHICS IN MARYLAND: HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

A GOOD IDEA or VINDICTIVE GIBBERISH?

THE JUDGES ARE HONEST

'The judges are honest'An old oaken maximWith the bark coming off.We knew it wasn’t true.Know it now, in despond.Our clients were too poorTo win vindicationFrom one with hand held outTo old pals with money.

ANDY HARRIS THINKS NYC CONSTRUCTION PLANS "BLATANTLY DISRESPECTFUL" - BUT WHERE ARE THE FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS?

The Baltimore Sun reported (August 17, 2010) that Andy Harris, First District GOP candidate for Congress, says that the locally-approved construction of an Islamic community/prayer center in lower Manhattan is "blatantly disrespectful" because it will be located close to Sept 11's Ground Zero.

Mr. Harris is entitled to an opinion. Here are one or two follow-up questions that ought to be asked:

BOZO GETS A GAVEL

THE JESUS MAN - FATHER JOE MUTH

ARIZONA - THE NEW MISSISSIPPI

The Senate President's son up for a judgeship? Puleeeeesee.

ADIEU DEAR COMRADE, YOUR MISSION IS FULFILL'D

“FOR PREVENTION OF THE EFFUSION OF BLOOD”

'The judges are honest'
An old oaken maxim
With the bark coming off.
We knew it wasn’t true.

Know it now, in despond.

Our clients were too poor
To win vindication
From one with hand held out
To old pals with money.