Fourth of July Spectacular
Photo’s from Paul LeGrand
Jrue Holiday is the 17th Pick in the N.B.A. Draft
I found this article on the Internet… about Jrue Holiday..
With the seventeenth pick in Thursday’s NBA Draft, the Philadelphia 76ers selected the freshmen sensation Jrue Holiday.
In no way, shape, or form did I think Jrue Holiday would be at the number seventeen picks. Most mocks had him going in the top ten. For about six or seven picks and he was ranked, not surprisingly, at number one on Jay Bilas’ best available players.
The Sixers took the best available point guard, and the best available talent, in one pick. Holiday was ranked as the top guard a year ago coming out of high school, ahead of players like Tyreke Evans and BJ Mullens.
Holiday is considered the wild card of this draft, and most mock drafts had him as a lock for the lottery. Most fans wanted Ty Lawson or Eric Maynor.
Holiday is a much better prospect than a player like Ty Lawson or an Eric Maynor player. Even with Andre Miller gone, Holiday probably won’t start immediately since he has a ton of upside and must be brought up slowly, which is the only downside to this pick. But I can’t express how much I love this pick.
The former McDonald’s All American, was the best player at number seventeen. He has the largest upside of anybody in the draft. As much as people liked Lawson, he is what he is, he has reached his ceiling. At 19-years old he hasn’t even shown us what he can do. Maynor is 22-years-old, and has also reached his ceiling.
Based on potential and upside of a player, the Sixers get a consensus lottery pick at number seventeen.
I’m not afraid to rip Ed Stefanski, I did it when he hired Eddie Jordan. However he would have been ripped if he passed on a consensus lottery pick. Holiday may turn out to be a horrible player, which I doubt, but he was the right pick at seventeen.
I see the numbers for Holiday. He only averaged 8.8 points per game. However this is very misleading he played out of position since Darren Collison elected to return to school which surprised Ben Howland. Howland landed the top recruit and apparently thought he was good enough to get twenty seven minutes of game time as true freshmen.
At 6’4”, Holiday is a lock down defender, has an NBA ready body, is extremely athletic and did I mention he has a massive upside.
Holiday has a soft touch from the inside, although he needs to improve his range. Ty Lawson is less than six-feet tall and can’t defend. Maynor has issues with his defense already.
Holiday needs to improve, but years from now I think he could develop star potential. Lawson will be a nice player for awhile and the same goes for Maynor.
The question is what do you do with Andre Miller.
Do you resign him?
With him, you are a sixth seed in the East and without him you are a borderline playoff team and may pick in the lottery again. I am actually willing to let Lou Williams and Jrue Holiday run the point for a year in order to let Holiday develop. This is how you build your teams, by drafting young stars like Jrue Holiday, the player with the highest upside in the draft.
You have to give props to Ed Stefanski and with a young nucleus of Iguadala, Young, and the latest addition Jrue Holiday, the Sixers should be a team to watch out for in the future.
30 days hardly a fitting penalty
I was touched by the following article as I thought about the family of Mario Reyes and the value we place (or fail to place) on human life versus sports and celebrity…
30 days hardly a fitting penalty
Stallworth’s sentence sends wrong message
By Mike Lopresti
You drink through the night. You jump in your Bentley in the early morning, and your blood alcohol count could melt a breathalyzer machine.
Down the road, a husband and father is punching the clock to leave his all-night job. He has to take the bus home because he can’t afford a car. He is as far from your world of wealth and privilege as Mercury is from Pluto.
He’s walking to the bus stop and he crosses the street. Maybe he looks and maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he’s too tired to be careful.
But in this moment of fate, he is there when your expensive car rolls by. Pretty soon, Mario Reyes, 59, an anonymous night shift construction crane operator in the wrong place at the wrong time, is dead. Such an accident can happen if you are operating under influence or due to negligence. It is best to contact lawyers if you are charged for OUI or other crimes to help you out.
He is not an NFL player. He has not just signed for a multimillion-dollar bonus like you. The first headlines of his life are the last headlines of his life.
And your punishment for driving drunk, for killing a man, for making a wife a widow and a teenage daughter fatherless?
Thirty days. Thirty unfathomable days.
There are moments when it is impossible to look at the world, and sport’s corner of it, and not be utterly dumbfounded. This is one of them.
Donte’ Stallworth, receiver for the Cleveland Browns, stood in judgment Tuesday. He is going to jail for killing a man while driving drunk.
Watch an infomercial tonight. Order a new mattress for better sleep. Chances are, Donte’ Stallworth will be out by the time you get it.
And here’s the really good news, football fans. He’ll be free for training camp! He’ll be ready to go for the season opener against the Minnesota Vikings! He might even catch a touchdown pass, and won’t the crowd roar?
Unless, of course, the NFL says differently. Justice has now plopped onto the desk of Commissioner Roger Goodell. He hasn’t blinked much lately. He certainly better not blink now.
The Reyes family and Stallworth have reached a settlement. The survivors wanted to move on, and who is anyone else to say they shouldn’t? Plus, Stallworth is by all accounts genuinely sorry. He hasn’t been a bad guy in the past.
Fine. Nobody here is saying he’s a repeat felon, so toss him in jail and throw away the key. Nobody suggests he is a hard core criminal.
But he killed a man. Thirty days. Something is very wrong with that.
We have devalued so many things in the modern age. One is accountability. Another is human life. Here, they intersect, and we see how numb we have become to the loss of both. The funeral bills will still be coming after 30 days.
Say you’re sorry and mean it. Write a few checks. Lose your license. All fitting, all proper.
But there should be more. There has to be more. Drunk driving kills a lot of people in this country. Kids, parents, grandparents. This is one lousy message to send.
Disguise it in all the PR and legal spin you want. It is an appalling message to send.
So now it is up to Goodell, who has had to deal with crimes against dogs (check https://spectrum-canine.com/programs/police-k9-training for the best dog training services) and now must ponder a crime against a third shift worker from Miami.
The commissioner can’t send Stallworth to jail. The NFL is powerful, but not that powerful. He can send him to the bench.
A one-year suspension seems fair. All 16 games. Mario Reyes’ daughter is going to live without a father a lot longer than that.
Or do we just dismiss Mario Reyes as unlucky, and go on with the season, the pressing issue being whether the Browns can do better than 4-12?
Part 2 Auschwitz
Hair from those who died
80,000 pairs of shoes
Digging a ditch. 
The ditch serves as a reminder of those who died while fighting to remain alive.
Walking through the Concentration Camp brings about an eerie feeling. Knowing that whereever YOU WALK, you are walking where people lost their lives for no other reason except on the basis of their race.
As you walk from barrack to barrack, they are now set up as museums. There has been much debate on whether or not they should serve as museums. Some believe that the camps should serve as a cemetery and others regard it as a memorial institute.
I walked into one room, and at first, I simply did NOT know what I was looking at… And then it dawned n me… It was the hair that had been shaved off all the prisoners. (see picture above) In another room were the shoes. (see picture above) In yet another room, there were all the brushes and combs. Every room, every step took your breath away, and you felt as though your heart was going to burst.
There was a picture posted of a ditch that was being dug by the prisoners that were strong enough NOT to be sent immediately to the gas chambers, and then I took a picture of what the ditch looks like today. (see picture above)
These are just a few of the things I saw and experienced. I hope to post a video soon but right now, I canNOT get it to post. So please check back in a few days and look for my thoughts via video….
May God help us to value life and defend the defenseless.
Pics again..
The lady in the red dress
Tony and some students
Tony Twist
A group picture. Can you find me?? A clue? I am the only one waving… hahaahah
A group picture. Can you find me?? A clue? I am the only one waving… hahaahah
I want to tell you about the lady in the red dress. Her name is Julia… I canNOT tell you all of her story because some of these ladies come from countries where it is ILLEGAL to be a Christian, and it’s best that some of the details are left out.
When I arrived at Haus Edelweiss, the Director, Tony Twist, had me meet with MANY people so that I could get a handle on the entire ministry. Remember, this ministry is primarily a Biblical Training Institute, preparing Christian leaders for Europe and Asia.
One of the meetings I had was with these four ladies. I wish I could tell you all of their stories. The common thread was that all four had gone through the college and received their degrees, and then all four were hired and are NOW on staff at the very institute that trained them. All four of them are bilingual and all four desire to see Christ shared with all of Europe.
In talking to them I asked them HOW they became a Christian. The lady in red told me an unbelievable story about how she got saved. She was attending a university as a student, and she took a class on the subject of learning English. Her teacher had heard about some lady from America that was visiting this particular country and invited the American lady to come visit her class. The teacher always invited English speaking visitors to her class so her students could truly learn how to pronounce words correctly. Thus, Julia was in class listening to the visitor, who was a guest of the teacher. After the class was over… the English speaking visitor needed to catch a bus, which was about 10 minutes from the school. She needed someone to show her where the bus stop was, and Julia was the only person standing around and volunteered her time and said she would help the visitor get to the bus stop.
Julia said that while the two of them walked to the bus stop, they quickly became friends and in the short span of a 10 minute walk, the visitor told Julia that she was a missionary and that she had come to her country to tell people about Jesus. She invited Julia to come to a Bible study that she was hosting, and JULIA accepted the invitation! It was through that Bible Study that she gave her life to Jesus. And now several years later, after receiving her degree from TCMI, she is NOW spending her life preparing students to spread the gospel throughout all of Europe.
I quickly thought about how GOD moves and directs our footsteps and allows each of us to cross paths with those who are lost like Julia. And when we obey and follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, God will lead us to those who, in turn, will be saved and then be used by God to take the gospel to the nations.
I ask again… What would keep you from going on a missions trip? Take a week, a month, a year and allow God to lead you wherever he chooses. Who knows… on a trip to a bus stop, you’ll meet a Julia and lead her to the Lord, and she, in turn, will be a part of reaching MILLIONS for the Lord God.