Ed Stoffel

 Thanks to John Fenzel

Browsing the web for any of my namesake, I came across these Stoffel brothers running a Goodyear Service Station in Anaheim, California. The photo is owned by the Anaheim Public Library, with information about it displayed on their site. Bernard Stoffel appears to have owned the business. This photo shows him standing in front of it with brother Edward Stoffel back in 1917.

Sometimes the media is just lazy. Without impugning their motives for covering the Cameron theories, it's just sloppy journalism. But it's easy to turn his press releases into 2 1/2 minute packages and slap them on the air. Problem is, the story was discredited years ago...

Poor James Cameron. He wanted some of that Da Vinci Code action so badly that he jumped on a 27 year old story line that everyone else in Hollywood had wisely passed on. He ignored so many early warning signs, too. When he was hav-ing trouble early on finding A, B, or even C list "scientific experts" who were willing to throw their careers away if they would only validate his silly theories - and they all continued saying no - he didn't let that slow him down one bit. He pressed on and signed the minor league guys. And later, when the best he could come up with for his advance publicity hook was to claim statistically similar names and unrelated DNA samples - He still didn't pull the plug - even though any-one who has ever seen just one episode of CSI is sharp enough to spit out the bait. More astute critics simply repeated what the original archaeologist on the scene had pointed out: that a poor family from Bethlehem could never afford a mid-dle-class tomb in which to place the ossuaries in Jerusalem, especially during a famine, and that the names on the boxes were far too common to jump to any conclusions about having found The Jesus Family Tomb.

 Continue Reading: The Lost Tomb of Jesus? Things you'd have to believe to believe James Cameron, Frank Pastore

It's not easy being a broadcasting dinosaur. While loosing market share, big broadcasters are being pushed to convert programming to HDTV. So given choices between investment in people or equipment, the new technology usually wins...

Major trends include desktop-based editing and graphics tools that enable journalists to do more and provide built-in functionality for automatically repurposing content for the Web. Device-automation systems that allow software to replace people for certain newscast functions, such as camera control or graphics output, are also gaining popularity (with management, at least) as broadcasters either cut staffs or reassign personnel for new-media production.

And Pharoah said, "Less straw, more bricks!" (Ex. 5:5-19)

 Continue Reading: Newsrooms Go Multiplatform, Broadcasting & Cable

Skeptics are like weeds... once you get rid of some, others spring up in their place.

Where was the media coverage? When anti-war protestors show up, that's news. But when these 30,000 Americans arrive to challenge them, the MSM yawns...

It was a breath-taking, historic, and emotional day in Washington, D.C. You won't know it if you tune in to the usual MSM channels. But new media--bloggers, conservative documentarians, Internet activists, FReepers, citizen journalists, photojournalists, and talk radio hosts--turned out in full force to participate and cover the Gathering of Eagles counter-protest. Thousands upon thousands turned out despite freezing temperatures and hairy travel conditions. --- A pure, grass-roots effort, the Gathering of Eagles' volunteers matched the massive Soros-funded anti-war machine sign for sign, chant for chant, and marcher for marcher. The contrast was most stark right before the entrance to the Memorial Bridge, where Eagles gathered with a field of American flags--while anti-Bush, 9/11 conspiracy nuts wrapped themselves in a figurative blanket of yellow "Out of Iraq" placards. Several of the vets shouted, "Yellow! How appropriate!"

 Continue Reading: Blogburst: Gathering of Eagles--30,000 strong, Michelle Malkin

 3/19 Update: What they didn't show you on TV, Michelle Malkin

I was honored to meet Michail Makarenko in the fall of 2005. I spoke with him at length through his translator Gregory Burnside, and heard some of the most amazing things about his life in the Soviet Union.

He knew they told lies to the West, and he stood up to them about it. With every claim they made about how much the Russian people were provided in terms of rights and provisions, Michail pushed them to follow through and actually do it. He was imprisoned but never silenced until now...

The Soviet government couldn't stop him. The KGB couldn't silence him. And years of imprisonment didn't break his will. Makarenko spent 11 years in Soviet gulags for anti-communist activism. Even before that, he was a thorn in the Soviet side and he paid for it. But he never gave up. In 1962, he organized a strike at a concrete factory that cost him his job, his home, his parental rights and his education at Moscow State University. Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of the last Soviet leader, had been in his class, one friend said.

In 1965, he became director of an independent art gallery, where he displayed the works of artists who had been banned by the government. The government shut the gallery weeks before a show of works by Marc Chagall. One of his prison terms was for involvement with an alternative political party. But even prison didn't deter him. He wrote and smuggled out two books, including an autobiography, From My Life, which was later published in Russian and German. He organized fellow prisoners to complain about their conditions. Out of prison in the late 1970s, but still under government supervision, he sneaked away from his monitors and led an expedition to a mass grave for victims of the communist regime. His group exhumed some of the remains and secretly buried them at the Kremlin Wall.

Michail Makarenko was killed on March 15th in an apparent random act of violence, beaten to death by a stranger at a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop. Prior to this,

...he was attacked in the men's room of a bus station in Vermont by men he suspected of being Soviet agents. In yet another, a gunshot tore into his apartment in Washington.

Police have arrested a suspect. Makarenko was on his way to New York seeking to publish his memoirs in English. A memorial he helped create is due to open in Washington this June, honoring victims of communism.

 A senseless attack ended dissident's life, Philadelphia Inquirer

 Hillsboro man murdered in New Jersey, Loudoun Times-Mirror

 The Catch - Michail Makarenko, National Review, June 24, 1988

 Testimony of Michail Makarenko, CCAC Newsletter, July 15, 1982

After decades of insults directed at bible-believing conservatives, this campaign season seems to have produced a revival on the left. Suddenly, Hilliary, Obama, and Edwards sound right at home among the faithful, in an attempt to reach out to values voters:

Liberals who snickered at George W. Bush as a God-fearing president open about his faith will no doubt refrain from similarly mocking these Democratic believers. The Washington Post, which once sneered at evangelical Christians as "poor, uneducated and easy to command" (and later apologized for the slur), will no doubt refrain from applying the slur to the Religious Left. Other Democratic partisans will have to adjust their contempt for the faithful, too. After the 2004 elections, novelist Jane Smiley described voters in the red states as ignorant and unteachable. "Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to," she wrote in Slate, the Internet magazine. "They know who they are -- they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence." Suddenly sinners have never looked so good.

 Continue Reading: Nobody Here but Us Believers, Suzanne Fields

NBC's Brian Williams, just back from a trip to Iraq, acknowledged that there is good news to be found in Iraq, a sharp contrast to what we hear each night on the evening news:

"NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams says his recent five-day stint in Iraq "left my head spinning because the story lines are all over the place." The trip -- during which he reported extensively for his evening newscast and for other shows -- gave him the perspective he needed to report what he calls "the story of our time." It's even more so since President Bush announced a radical shift in war strategy this year, and Williams saw elements of the plan that are working. "This story is a living, breathing dichotomy," Williams said. "If you go to Iraq looking for good news, I can take you right to it. If you're looking for bad news, I can take you right to it."

We look forward to hearing both perspectives in future broadcasts.

 Continue Reading: Iraq trip left NBC anchor's head spinning, Hollywood Reporter

The Department of Defense's European Command has announced the closing of High Wycombe's school and dorms for American Dependents at the end of the 2006-07 school year.

London Central High School has been located there since 1962. LCHS was located at Bushey Heath from 1952 to 1962. The base, known as USAF High Wycombe, reverts to British ownership as RAF Daws Hill. The eventual disposition of the facility is unclear, covered by the Official Secrets Act. Some facilities there were used as a secure command center during World War II, where Winston Churchill is said to have been present.

I knew students who attended LCHS at High Wycombe from American bases and posts from Oslo to Gibraltar. Now, the wisdom of schooling closer to home has prevailed. Years ago, the choice was between sending kids to local foreign schools or away to the American boarding school. The school system is now suggesting other options  including local British schools, home study, or private British boarding schools.

  London Central school to be shut down at end of academic year, Stars & Stripes

  London Central Elementary High School to Close in June 2007, Message from the LCHS Principal, Theresa Barba

  Closure of Department of Defense Educational Activity (DoDEA) Residential Dormitory and London Central High School, Gen. James L. Jones, Commander, United States European Command 

  London Central High School, Networking/Reunion Info

Charlene's mother makes the news for her involvement in Girl Scouting since 1939:

Polly Armstrong used to load her brother's red wagon with Girl Scout cookies and roam her Salem neighborhood selling them for 50 cents a box. That was the 1940s, when the girls wore dresses, caps, gloves and neckerchiefs, and everything had to be crisply ironed. Armstrong was the top seller in her Salem troop, an honor that - along with her perfect attendance record - earned her scholarships to attend Girl Scout camp in the summers. Ever since she joined the Girl Scouts in 1939, Armstrong has kept the organization in the forefront of her life, and she's hardly slowing down.

 Continue Reading: On her honor: After 68 years, still proud to be a Girl Scout, Salem Evening News