Support the Alexandria Seaport Foundation

after_burpeesOn May 5, Potomac Kempo will be having it’s Spring 2013 Tournament at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Old Town Alexandria.  This will be the second tournament in which we promote the Alexandria Seaport Foundation.  This is a great local charity who is making a difference in the lives of the people living all around us. From their website:

“The Alexandria Seaport Foundation (ASF) seeks to build and enrich the lives of youth, with special emphasis on those whose circumstances have made them at risk or disconnected from the mainstream. Through hands-on teaching techniques, a focus on job and life skills and caring adult mentoring, we empower young men and women, from middle school into young adulthood, to get on a path toward living productive lives with meaningful jobs.  Through the building and use of wooden boats, the Alexandria Seaport Foundation helps young people turn their lives around and provides families, community groups, and schools with meaningful educational, social, and recreational experiences.”

The point of this post is that you now have a great opportunity to support this foundation!  During the PK Tournament, I will be doing burpees for 20 minutes.  (What’s a burpee?)  You can choose to sponsor me on a per-burpee basis, or just pledge a fixed amount of money.  While donating a fixed amount is a good thing, the per-burpee option is more exiting and gives me an incentive to work real hard!  For example, if you pledge $1 per burpee and I end up doing 20 burpees during the event, you will have donated $20!  How awesome is that?

I’ll update this page after the event with the number of burpees that I was able to crank out during the event, and ASF will give you a follow-up call to collect after the tournament!  🙂

 Number of Burpees Completed in 20 Mins: 127

Truth and Logic or Emotion and Fear?

This was originally written by Kelly Cobean, a friend and coworker.  It has been reproduced here with his permission:

First and foremost, my heart goes out to all of the victims and their families. My prayers are with them in this difficult time. I hope the coward(s) that perpetrated this senseless act of violence is/are caught, tried, and sentenced to a swift death.

With that said, I hope everyone can UNDERSTAND what this picture is implying and check their own thinking about what it means to be a responsible, ruggedly self-reliant American. This picture isn’t about bombs or guns, it’s about logic and how we take responsibility for our actions and how we hold others accountable for theirs. Are we acting out of truth and logic or emotion and fear?

A gun is a tool of sport, protection and resource in law abiding hands. Conversely, a pressure cooker and some scrap metal is a tool of pain, death and terror in the wrong hands. Because we cannot control the actions of anyone but ourselves, we cannot throw away or allow to be taken away, our right to defend ourselves against evil. We cannot trade liberty for security. It does not work and history has proven it to be a costly trade time and time again. But it is the agenda of the left.

Would a gun in the hands of a law abiding citizen have stopped the bombing? Maybe not. Would it have stopped any of the mass shootings? Possibly. Nothing is certain, but why not protect the chance it might have instead of eliminating it? We mitigate risk every day when we put on our seat belts, equip our homes and offices with fire extinguishers and see our doctor for a check up. Is keeping a gun in your home, or carrying one on your person such an outlandish step to take? It may seem to be right up until you need it, then it becomes the best decision you ever made. The question is, when do you get serious about being responsible for you?

With 350+ million of us in this country now, it is estimated that there are 437 citizens for every police officer. Too often the police, heroic as many of them are, arrive just in time to draw the chalk outline. It’s not their fault, they are not God, they are not omnipresent. YOU are responsible for you RIGHT NOW. It’s up to you to determine whom they draw the outline around. Focus hard on maintaining your freedom and protecting your rights. The world is a dangerous place, there is no denying it and there is no changing it

It is even more dangerous when you are defenseless against it.

“Gun Violence” and Evil Men

I don’t normally get political here, but I feel a short rant coming on:

For months now I’ve been watching videos of people speaking out in town hall meetings with politicians across the USA against new gun restrictions and laws, and something struck me as odd.  I’m curious why, when people talk to politicians in these public forums about “gun control,” they still address those politicians as if they were actually trying to solve the issues of “gun violence.”  Does anyone really believe that these politicians are “doing it for the children?”

At this point there’s been too much water under the bridge to give these politicians the benefit of the doubt in assuming that they are approaching this as a public safety issue. It’s not about, and never has been about solving “gun violence issues.” It’s always been about controlling the population – and the politicians know this. That’s just the lie they use to drum up support from the willfully ignorant and fearful – who unfortunately are legion in this country.

Let’s start calling it what it is, confront them with the truth, and drop these silly pretenses. The only hope for our country is in citizens educating themselves and learning to recognize evil men so they can be voted out of office before it’s too late.  The old “it could never happen in this country” mentality is from a different time, long ago.

Wake up folks, it is happening.

Now.

In this country.

If even one of the rights of the citizens can be nullified, they all can be nullified.  And when they are done with the second amendment, the first amendment will certainly be next.  Those who don’t think it could happen in this country are the very reason that it will.