Once again I am experimenting with processes to use on my websites to benefit my followers and readers. In particular, I am posting an article that shows others how to delete all of the information on you used by Google to track you for various reasons.
This experiment is with using, Press This, a WordPress feature used to post a link to an online article directly into a blog post. And, yes, if I am blessed with you taking the time to read this post, I am including you as one of my readers and hopefully a follower (please sign up below if you are not a follower).
The linked article on “How to Erase All of the Data Google Know About You” may be of interest, even if your participation on this website is related to issues surrounding mass incarceration in America, affiliate marketing, social issues, or any other topics I write about on StraightfromthePen.com. For instance, such as the blog I wrote to help others to be more informed about some of the scams and threats related to online activities: The Phish Who Got Away | STRAIGHT FROM THE PEN
Thanks for reading and for following me on StraightfromthePen.com. Here is the article you may find useful if concerned about the data mining used by Google. If you prefer not to use this link, you can find the article by Digital Goddess, Kim Komando from USA TODAY who wrote the article by searching KimKomando.com.
“You’d be shocked to find out just how much data Google has on you. Thankfully you can delete almost everything you’ve shared with Google.”
Update: May 27, 2022: While shopping on my day off at Goodwill of North Georgia in McDonough, I was speaking with an off-duty police woman whom I have liked since we met. We were discussing the recent elementary school shooting in Texas, and the topic of armed police in school and church.
During the conversation, I mentioned having written this blog and the referenced unpublished article about gun control (“Guns Save Lives – Gun Laws Ruin Them”).
Later that evening, I decided to reread this article/blog and was surprised to see that the link to Fox News went to the TX Elementary School Shooting, because at the time that the link was posted by my publisher, the link was not to the specific article (now the Fox News link goes to the Fox News Home Page, and the second link with the title of the article goes to the story. However, the date shown on Fox News for when it was published is not correct. The actual date of the Colorado Springs shooting may be seen by clicking Here to read 2007 Colorado YWAM and New Life shootings).
My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who suffered the loss of a loved one for any reason, but especially from the recent gun violence in the schools and churches. I can only imagine how much one hurts to lose a child, especially a young child, from such a horrific crime. May God give them peace and comfort.
Because of all of the recent hate-related, prejudicial crimes of late, I am reposting this blog and hope that Love Wins in the End.
Wednesday, June 21, 2015
LOVE AND EVIL ARE COLOR-BLIND
by Wayne T. Dowdy
Wednesday, June 17, 2015: A twenty-one-year-old, white male, walked into the Emanuel African-Methodist-Episcopalian Church in Charleston, South Carolina, a church known as Mother Emanuel AME. He sat in a bible study for an hour with several prominent members and pillars of the African-American community. One of those members was forty-one-year-old, state senator, Reverend Clemente Pinckney, who was the youngest state legislator to be elected in South Carolina at the age of twenty-three. The visitor pulled a forty-five caliber handgun and killed him and eight other people whom had welcomed him into their gathering.
He did not murder Ms. Polly Shepherd so she could tell others why he killed her peers: because they were black, had killed his ancestors, raped their women, and because blacks were trying to take over the country.
The other murder victims were twenty-six-year old, Tywanza Sanders; Ms. DePayne Middleton Doctor (49); Ms. Myra Thompson (59); Mr. Daniel Simmons Sr. (74); Ms. Susie Jackson (87); Ms. Ethel Lance (70); Ms. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton (45), an athletics coach & speech specialist; and Cynthia Hurd (54), who was the regional branch manager at the Charleston Public Library System.
The shooter wanted to start a race war. His plan failed. People of different ethnic backgrounds united and remained peaceful. No one used the situation as an opportunity to loot businesses and the community. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized, peace is more powerful than violence. Violence breeds resentment and a desire for revenge. It never ends.
CNN reported that Dylann Roof confessed to the crimes; crimes committed with the gun used to murder those people because of their ethnic background. The State of South Carolina plans to execute him for those crimes. Now his actions have become another drive for American politicians to introduce bills to take away or to restrict their citizens’ Second Amendment right to own guns, and to remove or ban the Confederate Flag from various buildings. The flag did not kill anyone.
Personally, I am saddened by the tragedy caused by the shooter’s belief system. Nine innocent people died and a young man will die for taking their lives. Years ago I would have understood the hate and racism behind such a heinous act. Evil lived within me for most of my life.* Today I do not support taking another person’s life or harming them for looking, thinking or being different, or because of something their ancestors may have done.
I believe that only one race of people exists: the human race. I base my opinion about the worth of another person on their actions; not the color of their skin, or their socioeconomic status, or their geographical location, or because of their affiliation with any organization or group. I have friends and associates who feel otherwise, blacks and whites alike. Some of whom may have rejoiced upon hearing about the Charleston Church Massacre; others who are as appalled by it as I am; and even more whose words proclaim racist beliefs, but their daily actions and behaviors do not support their words.
I do not have the gang mentality or a superiority complex. I do not fault anyone who does. To Each Their Own. Everyone has the right to be different. No one has the right to harm another person, unless to protect themselves, their loved ones, or other human beings at imminent risk of death or serious bodily injury.
DC MANSION MURDERS: Weeks before Roof entered the church, another terrible incident had dominated the news that may have fueled his hate and rage toward blacks. At least one black male who is an immigrant, is accused of torturing, murdering, and then burning a white family and their maid in a Washington, DC Mansion. The criminal act included the murder and torture of the parents’ young son. The motive is unclear as the investigation is still in progress. Racism, or an act of class warfare may have played a role in the gruesome murders, but regardless of the motive, evil won and people died. That didn’t start a race war either.
GUNS SAVE LIVES: The following is an excerpt from an essay I wrote in 2008 and sent to several American magazines to be considered for publication. Each editor passed on my 3,060-word essay: “Guns Save Lives–Gun Laws Ruin Them.”
“December 10, 2007: at approximately 12:30 A.M., twenty-two-year-old Mathew Murray walked into the Youth with a Mission Center in Arvada, Colorado, looking for overnight shelter. After his request was denied, he pulled a pistol and fatally shot 26-year-old Tiffany Johnson and 24-year-old Phillip Crouse. Murray fled the scene bathed in the blood of the innocent.
Armed with two handguns and a high-powered rifle, he left en route to the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He arrived at the destination at 1:10 P.M., where two sisters stood in the parking lot: Rachael and Stephanie Works, sixteen and eighteen-years-old, respectively. He shot and killed both girls with the high-powered rifle, before he entered the church with all three guns. [The murderer and his victims were white.]
Jeanne Assam was a volunteer security guard at the church. She challenged Murray to drop his weapon and shot him when he refused to comply, though, not fatally. He used his own gun to end his life.
December 11, 2007: CNN News reported that Murray had had 1,000-rounds of ammunition in his vehicle.
If he had so much ammunition, he apparently intended on killing a lot of people. It was fortunate for the church members that Ms. Assam sat in the pews armed with her handgun. Some state laws, such as those in South Carolina, prohibit guns in a church. Ms. Assam could have been prosecuted for having the gun she used to save the masses who sat in church. According to KUSA-TV in Denver, Colorado, Murray posted the following message on a Web site between the two shooting incidents in Arvada and Colorado Springs: ‘All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you … as I can [sic] especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world.’ (See http://www.foxnews.com – Colorado Church Gunman Sought Revenge After He Was Kicked Out )”
[Due to my lack of Internet access, I cannot check to see if that link is still active, but the words I wrote seven years ago about the South Carolina laws stand true. None of the victims could have lawfully possessed a gun while in the Mother Emanuel AME Bible Study. If someone in the group had had one, then perhaps nine people would not have lost their lives.]
“The outcome of the above event supports the need for gun ownership by responsible individuals who are trained in their safe usage. The other side of the equation is that without the guns, Murray could not have murdered his victims, which is partially true. He could have killed with knives or fire [such as what happened to four little girls in 1963 when racists burned a church in Birmingham, Alabama], but that does not mean that knives and matches should be outlawed by legislators, though there are some who would probably support such insane legislation.” [“Guns Save Lives-Gun Laws Ruin Them,” Wayne T. Dowdy, 2008]
My father was a Christian who had said he wanted to die in the House of the Lord. Years later he got his wish when he died in the parking lot of his church at an Easter Revival. Perhaps the victims at the Mother Emanuel AME Church, and other people who have died while at their place of worship, wished for the same thing and found peace after those tragedies.
Mother Emanuel AME Church members gathered on the following Sunday and held their regular services, paying tribute to their members who died at the hands of evil in their place of worship.
EVIL: Murray and Roof both killed because of their hate for a certain class of people different from themselves. ISIS, the terror group known for beheading its enemies, kills for the same reason. Evil knows no color. Evil is blind to all but the hate and rage that flourishes within the mind and body where it resides.
Most of those who kill others because of something other than self-defense (ethnic background, religious views, political affiliations, moral beliefs and values, geographical areas, etc.), probably do so because they see the others as evil or someone less than themselves, who does not deserve to live. True evil lies in their mirror.
When evil lurks within the mind of someone, it will always find a reason to come out to destroy life or cause injury, regardless of any other factor. Evil does not need justification.
Evil thrives on pain and misery and inflicts it upon everyone near. It is a poison that ruins lives, regardless of age, race, sex, sexuality identity, or color. The use of guns is only one mechanism for its delivery.
The shooter stated that he had second thoughts about following through with his plan because of the kindness the people had shown him. On that day, evil won when he decided to follow through with his plan and pulled the trigger. Good people died. I wish the good in Roof had won so no one had to lose their life. It wasn’t race that caused those people to die. It was the evil in Roof’s mind that used skin color as an excuse to steal lives.
LOVE: Love won on Sunday when visitors and members of the Mother Emanuel AME Church sang songs of praise to honor those who died in a battle of love versus evil. People gathered to rejoice, rather than to mourn, even though some wept and struggled with their anger. Many parishioners prayed for God to forgive the shooter and to allow everyone to heal as tears flowed. Love suffers loss. Love heals. Love forgives. Love will overpower evil in the end, regardless of the complexion of a person’s skin.
Visit StraightFromthePen.com for my other writings. Feel free to contact me at waynedowdy@straightfromthepen.com or at the snail mail address listed on the website.
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* In “The Search for Enlightenment,” I wrote about my struggle and periodic failure to live without resorting to violence or the threat of violence to resolve issues. Each day I focus on doing the right thing so I can live in harmony with the Universe. If a predator targets me, which rarely happens, I may struggle to let love overpower the evil instincts I learned based upon my life experiences, but no matter what, I do try to be the man God created me to be.
No information contained in any area of this website or in an affiliate link is intended or meant to be construed as financial, health, legal, medical or personal advice, in any shape or form, implied or otherwise, unless specifically stated and supported with verifiable information.
Getting dates with bots is not easy on dating apps because users don’t know that it is a bot doing the flirting and misleading them to stay on the website in hope of getting some action. In particular, ChatZone, which is a dating app that I have thus far written three negative reviews about (click to read reviews or go the sites and search for all ChatZone reviews: 1. Google Play Store, 2. DatingSpot24, 3. Trustpilot).
Yeah, Baby, I am HOT! Receiving over one hundred messages a day on ChatZone.com is wearing me out. When I first signed up on December 30, 2021, ChatZone sent me an email the next day stating that my profile was popular and that I had received over one hundred messages in twenty-four hours.
Mr. EGO raised its head at the news!
The number of messages I receive each day has not changed, especially when I decide to respond to some of the messages and invitations (some who just want my body for their entertainment and pleasure, some of whom want to sell sex, others who profess to want more, none of whom I have met).
(I am an affiliate of Dating App Success and will earn a commission if you decide to follow the link and accept their 3-days for $3.00 trial offer to teach men and women how to be successful in the online dating game).
Maybe I need to listen to the pros at Dating App Successto learn a few tricks because I can’t handle dealing with all of the fake profiles (professional operators) and those darn dating bots that tease me into believing that I have found what I am searching for on the website.
The problem with getting a Date with Bots is that, well, you can’t of course, because the artificial intelligence driving it is only a collection of commands programmed into some computer chip that uses algorithms to determine the most likely response, at least, so I think.
Besides, it costs a lot of money to message several times to collect enough data to analyze the responses before determining whether it is a Bot, Professional Operator, or just another lonely heart looking for love or entertainment on the World Wide Web, not the greatest place to find legitimate men and women, as the Internet opened up a Sewer Pound filled with scammers and deceptive people looking to take advantage of the unknowing.
Though Facebook (META) is controversial in many respects, Messenger and the Facebook Dating App does offer free entertainment. On Messenger chats you can see who you are responding to, unlike the faceless interaction of getting a Date with Bots on ChatZone or other similar apps designed to make huge profits from those looking for love or affection online.
Several other viable options are available for live chatting to make sure you don’t have a catfish on the line (Catfish = Fake profile or Outdate Photos to lure in potential candidates); e.g., Google Hangouts, WhatsApp.
To pay for the Dating App research, I will gratefully accept all donations. If you were going to use ChatZone and this review helped change your mind, the $350.00 I spent trying to get a Date with Bots saved you a lot of money. 🙂
I love a walk in the Park! My life after release has not been one. That hasn’t deterred me from continuing to pursue a better life. I’ll clarify.
The World refuses to work According to Wayne’s plans but I continue to feel Blessed by the Best and to maintain an Attitude of Gratitude.
Health
A few doctors have complimented me on my overall health condition at my age: I don’t look or feel my age and don’t have to take several medications to function and stay well.
At work I can run circles around most of the other employees when it comes to strength and endurance.
Relationships
Update: September 26, 2021: Since my release I have been cautious about getting involved in relationships. In the last two months I’ve met three top contenders who captivated my attention, with the last one who celebrated her birthday today.
Another lovely lady continues to keep me in the Friend Zone but there have been signs of progress about our relationship moving in a positive direction. We are good friends and that is important but I want more! 🙂
Life Goes On and I am okay with the life I have, though it is not how I imagined it would be before I walked out of the prison gates as a free man.
I am fortunate to be alive and in as good of health as I am to complain about anything that happens in relationships. When and if the time comes for me to be in a serious (or a not-so-serious) relationship with a woman, it will happen and my being more celibate than some priest will end as another junction in life begins.
I am okay either way: A fighter and survivor I am!
Finances
My investment plans went great for a few months but then just as for thousands of others, my account values over recent months have gone downhill; however, I am still in the Green in most areas and am grateful to not have been as impacted by the stock market corrections as severely as thousands of investors and traders.
In the rapid changing and volatile Crypto market, devastating is one word to describe activities over the last few months, with over 500 billion lost within a couple of days at one point.
Fortunate for me, I didn’t have that much to lose and retained most of my funds.
To let people know about some of the things I do as a successfully-reintegrated individual, I wrote about the Trading Apps I Use. Last weekend, over the three previous days I had lost between $450-600.00 in Crypto-Trading, a small sum in comparison to typical traders. By Monday at Noon, I recouped the losses. That’s Crypto, up and down, with some swings as drastic as 25-75%.
A few weeks ago I went to a birthday party and swam in a pool alone after the children went back inside with the adults. It was nice having the privilege to get some sun and enjoy being alive and well after all these years.
In the meantime, I will continue to do my normal things to avoid becoming a recidivist, going to Twelve Step meetings to share my experience, strength and hope, remembering where I came from and where I can return if I decide to return to old behaviors.
Though overworked and underpaid by my employer; I remain grateful for my job because it helps to keep me healthy and provides an opportunity for me to meet a lot of lovely ladies I would not otherwise see. One of whom may just be my next wife, whether she drives a Mercedes or not. 🙂
I found the inscription on the medallion shown above in the photo to be inspiring and true: “If nothing ever changed there would be no butterflies.”
Several years ago, I was published in an international magazine and was quoted as having said something like, “I was antisocial until AA turned me into a social butterfly.”
Butterflies are free and so am I!
On April 5, 2021, a doctor called me on the phone and thanked me for a personal magazine/book that I gave her: Essays & More Straight from the Pen. She said it changed her life by allowing her to understand more about how one’s experiences in life shape the person they become (or something along those lines. I’m paraphrasing from memory).
For such a compliment to come from someone as prestigious and intelligent (and pretty) as her, I was moved deeply and more thankful for her call than she probably realized. Knowing how busy she is in her profession and that she was so thoughtful that she took the time from her busy schedule to call me, meant a lot.
She began the conversation by saying she hoped that it was a good time for her to call, and by acknowledging that she knew the day was a special one for me (the last day I used mind-altering substances in 1995). Then she thanked me for my very well written book and for writing openly and honestly about the sensitive content from my past.
When I promised to give her a copy, I asked that she please remember me as the person she met versus the person she reads about inside the book.
I felt honored that she had remembered me as the man she met and was so grateful that she called to thank me for the truthful content inside the pages, a lot of which I am not proud of having done decades before.
People can change the same as butterflies do when metamorphosing from a caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly. Read about the man who did in Essays & More Straight from the Pen.
Essays & More Straight from the Pen by Wayne T. Dowdy
He Never Lost Hope. Hope Was All He Had
Essays and More Straight from the Pen shows the power of
change, gives hope to readers wanting a different life.
The well-written essays take readers deep inside the life of
the author who overcame circumstances and obstacles that kept him chained to a
life of drugs and crime.
The stories inspire and motivate people to not give up or
lose hope, and to fight for a new life.
STRAIGHT FROM THE PEN 