Will They Take the Bait?

Obama has declared war, not against a foreign nation, but on his opposing party. He's playing an, "I don't have anything to lose," political game. He threw all the cards on the table and sits with a poker face, waiting for his opponent to make the next move. He dares them, with a smirk on his face, to jump into the game. And if they do I suspect it won't go good for them. The threat, "we'll just not fund it," challenge will not work. What are the republicans going to shut the government down again? Are they going to stop working with this President and be called the "do-nothing" party? I personally hate the political games this man is playing at the expense of the American people but I also will hate it even more if the republicans jump into the gladiator ring and politically tear their opponent to verbal shreds. My advice to the republicans: "Step away from the poker table and develop your own strategy. You lost this hand but you don't have to lose the game."

Young Love

He put his hand around her back as she leaned into him. They made their way down the secluded path. A cement bench nestled against branches and welcomed the young couple. She sat down, glancing into his eyes.  They were in love. He slowly sat, locking his gaze on her. They held each other as the birds chirped their approval. A gentle breeze blew. He brushed her hair aside and swam in her beauty. Their lips were locked in harmony, each traveling the river of memory. He tasted the sweetness of her mouth. She melted into his embrace. They joined in the passion of love.

Greater Threat than ISIS

BY RANDY TRAMP For the Press & Dakotan |0 comments

Gone are the days that a parent only need be concerned about a "bad boy" enticing their teen down a destructive path. The "bad boy" has taken on a more sinister, worldwide look.

I’m speaking of ISIS. America was shocked recently when three girls — ages 15, 16 and 17 — skipped school and ran off to Syria to join the Islamic State and was intercepted in Germany.

ISIS, a terrorist group that uses Hollywood-style videos to entice its victims, is not the only lure. Slenderman, the Internet meme for whom 12-year-olds Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, stabbed their classmate 19 times in the back, was also an enticement. Why? Geyser and Weier wanted to impress Slenderman, an imaginary Internet character.

There is a global war being waged for the minds and hearts of our teenagers. We could in return wage war against video games and online imagination and, of course, against ISIS. Would defeating any one of those change what’s happening in our teens?

Something much deeper than our enemies is in operation. If ISIS was out of the picture, I would suspect something else would take its place.

What lies deep within many of us — possibly all of us — is a desire to belong to something greater than ourselves. That was exercised at the birth of this nation. Our founding fathers wanted to be more than just 13 colonies that only survived. A new nation found purpose and initiated a cause and birthed the United States of America.

The teen years are a time of searching for purpose. The definition of this word is: the reason for which something exists or is done, made, used, etc. Young people of today have the entire World Wide Web to find their purpose in life. Why do they exist and what are they to do with their lives? Some will find it in destructive ways and jump on a cause that is like-minded. Others, with the help of parents, educators and churches, will find their true purpose and a cause that builds a nation.

A famous line in an American comic strip, "Pogo," states my point: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

I knew what the purpose of the United States was as I grew up in the 1960s. On May 25, 1961, then-President John F. Kennedy made the famous moon speech. "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." We were united as one nation for one cause. In that speech was the seeds for the famous words of Neil Armstrong, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Never before had the world united in one day as it did on July 20, 1969.

We must unite in order to help our young people find purpose and a cause to live for. The alternative is an enemy that will give them a purpose and a cause they will die for. We can’t afford to lose the next generation to an ideology that plots our destruction.

Who Invented Volleyball?

At the 70th birthday of the YMCA On October 24, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson addressed the YMCA:
"Christ came into the world to save others, not to save himself; and no man is a true Christian who does not think constantly of how he can lift his brother. I do believe that at 70 the YMCA is just reaching its majority. A dream greater even than George Williams ever dreamed will be realized in the great accumulating momentum of Christian men throughout the world...
These 70 years have just been a running start...now there will be a great rush of Christian principle upon the strongholds of evil and of wrong in the world. Those strongholds are not as strong as they look... All you have to do is to fight, not with cannon but with light...
That, in my judgment, is what the Young Men's Christian Association can do...
Eternal vigilance is the price, not only of liberty, but of a great many other things...
It is the price of one's own soul...
What shall he give in exchange for his own soul, or any other man's soul?...
There is a text in Scripture... It says godliness is profitable in this life as well as in the life that is to come...
This world is intended as the place in which we shall show that we know how to grow in the stature of manliness and of righteousness.
I have come here to bid Godspeed to the great work of the Young Men's Christian Association."


William Morgan, as the physical education director at the YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts, invented VOLLEYBALL in 1895.