Baseball Is War...And We Love It

                                                     

There are those who will wax poetic about baseball, branding it a pastoral pursuit played leisurely over a period of nine innings.  They are the fans that descend into the stadium, delight in the scent of peanuts and hot dogs and gaze lovingly at the emerald green field, laid out in precise dimensions.  These, the gentler of souls, will marvel at the grace of an outfielder as he chases down the most impossible of fly balls.

                                                  

But make no mistake.  Baseball is war.  

Yes, most assuredly, there are rules.    The pitcher shall not willingly plug a 95 mile per hour fast ball into the ribs of a hitter who last inning got him for a home run...and stood too long at home plate in admiration.  Any contact no incidental to baseball in play is forbidden.  

Well, war used to have rules too.  Some are codified under the rules of the Geneva Convention.  Some others are outdated; up until World War I it was considered verboten to fight at night.  That was the unwritten "gentleman's agreement" that allowed warring sides to withdraw, lick their wounds, tend to their dead, eat a meal, sleep, then rise to fight again.

Baseball, like war, has also evolved.  No longer does baseball permit players to sharpen their spikes, the better to rip the flesh off a second baseman's leg when sliding into second.  The malevolent and most hated Ty Cobb wracked up dozens of doubles and broke up many a double play with those ice pick spikes of his.

But war is war and baseball is baseball...and both have more in common than we might think.  After all, before our home boys (our army) takes the field there is the martial music of the Star Spangled Banner, as the pulse quickens and the blood warms.  Then the "enemy" takes the field wielding wooden bats and looking menacing.

And just as the military calls for sacrifice, so does baseball, as the lead-off man leans over the base, hoping for a hit, or to be "hit" and taking the home territory of first base.  At the first ball contact from hitter number two, hitter one is off for second and, if called for, is ready to fling his body horizontally into second base to break up the double play.  

The number three hitter then approaches home plate, digs his heels into the soft dirt of the hitter's box, then raises above his shoulders 34 ounces of ash, determined to smash the ball into the deep confines of the outfield.  After active combat with 90 mile per hour fastballs, or deceptively devilish curves, the hitter drives a high fly ball some 400 feet into the sky.  But our "home boy", our center fielder, at the first crack of the bat, makes instantaneous judgements to move right or left, or elects to turn his back from home and begins sprinting toward his best guess of the track of the ball.   Even if at Wrigley Field, he'll keep his eye on the ball, and if necessary hurl himself into brick and ivy, sacrificing his body for the good of the team.  And if playing elsewhere he'll slam into hard lumber and his concussion will last but a few days.

And for fifty years, like war, baseball will fight at night now, under the glare of a thousand lights.  But the battles are no less fierce and unit loyalty is no less important if the ultimate battle victory is to be achieved.

Sadly, despite a long history of Black heroics in our military, it took our military over 200 years to integrate; to recognize talent and character means far more than skin color.  It took baseball almost as long.  

After all, whether we are fighting wars, or playing baseball, we want our best and brightest on the field.  

Play ball!

Independent Lens; Narrow Focus

                                                             

I was just watching Independent Lens on PBS.  Whenever PBS airs a special it's usually about some suffering minority.  Last week IL was airing the woes of millions of illegal Mexican invaders, all about how "Whitey" was keeping them down by not immediately spreading their legs and allowing one big ethnic "f*uck".  This week IL aired the woes of Blacks in Detroit.  Yeah, that Detroit.  The one you read about last week.  The once great city now on the brink of municipal bankruptcy.  Detroit, where the auto magnates built huge factories and turned out cars for a century.  Detroit, where the auto unions destroyed the auto industry by demanding $50 dollars per hour pay.  The same Detroit that, in 1967, didn't like their free five year old public housing so they burned it down to get back at Whitey.

And now the Detroit driven into bankruptcy and ruin by thirty years of corrupt Black mayors.  The Whites fled the place thirty years ago when it was clear Black municipal leadership had no intent to enforce the law, manage public resources efficiently, and especially held no sympathy for Whitey.

So the show Independent Lens managed to film a full hour of Black woe and not once mentioning that Blacks voted these Black criminal mayors into office, never once mentioned that union greed destroyed virtually all of the city's industry, that Black crime drove out Whitey and destroyed the property tax base, and that Blacks were all too happy to soil their own panties and sit in them, never once raising a stink about their corrupt Black leaders.

Instead, Independent Lens chose to center attention on the "white devils", the great "Whitey" that left them in this mess.  They showed Blacks at a town hall meeting demanding the return of bus services and other free municipal bennies.  They did not want to be told there just ain't any more money.  When houses aren't worth anything, when blue collar America left the burgs, when 90% of the city's populace is on welfare and pay not a cent of municipal, state or federal income tax, there ain't no more money.

So Independent Lens presents a profile of a Black couple struggling to make ends meet.  Never mind that only 20 percent of Black Detroit are two parent families they probably had to hunt hard to find a committed married couple, especially a working couple.  IL didn't bother to mention the millions of Detroit welfare queens, the drug addicted, slum wallowing 35 year old grandmothers because three generations began breeding at 15 in order to swell the size of the welfare check along with her belly.

Then the hammer came down on Whitey, hard and fast.  It was Whitey's fault that the auto factories went belly up.  They didn't want to discuss the fact that Toyota and Honda were employing hard working Japanese, and hard working Tennessee workers and paying them $25 bucks an hour while Detroit unions were demanding $50 bucks an hour, often to ingest drugs and alcohol as they assembled bad cars.

                                                       

They didn't want to hear about all of the trillions funneled into Detroit by Democratic Presidents.  They only wanted to know why the gravy train came to a halt here.  More than one Black "Detroit-er" advocated revolution against Whitey for treating himself so damned bad.

Again, not a word about three decades of corrupt Black mayors and greedy city councils, and greedy unions.

Independent Lens...with a very narrow focus...just another fairy tale in liberal-land.

U Support Amnesty? Hope YOUR Kid Dies

                                                         

Since the massive illegal invasion in the last decade Hit And Run "murder" occurs about every two minutes in the United States.   Illegals are maiming law abiding Americans by the tens of thousands each year and, in Phoenix it happens many times every day.  The body count for today, Sunday, is one eleven year old boy and one adult bike rider off for a peaceful Sunday morning ride.

I just read a news piece on hit and runs in Los Angeles (Mexico City North)..the article stated that, since 2001, an astounding 48 percent of a vehicle crashes are Hit and Run incidents.  These illegal Mexicans have little driver training, possess no license, scoff at buying insurance, are here illegally, are besotted in alcohol or drugs, and are running up body counts a thousand times higher than our losses in Afghanistan.  (http://www.laweekly.com/2012-12-06/news/los-angeles-hit-and-run-epidemic-4000-dead-injured/

                                                            

Yesterday we buried a 29 year old cop that was run over by a drugged up and drunk, twice deported illegal Mexican who ran over the young cop and left him to die in the street like a piece of garbage.

Let's not even get into home invasions, drug crime, the cost to feed, educate and medicate these invaders.  Let's not remind ourselves that 43% of those Mexicans who were given amnesty back in 1986 refused citizenship, citing the unwillingness to pay a few hundred dollars for processing, take a test and learn English.  Let's not talk about the $100 billion a year we spend on building more schools to educate these invader children.  Let's not talk about their arrogant parades through our cities demanding citizenship.  Let's not talk about suppressed American wages, not paying taxes, or the $11 billion dollars we doled out last year in Child Tax Credits to Illegal Aliens.  Let's not talk about suppressed home values or explosive illegal crime.

No, damn it!  Let's just talk about how many innocents are killed by these illegal invaders every day of the week, every week of the year.

Now, I'm not God, and I don't have the ability to deal out Karma...but if I did, I swear I would make damn sure these illegal Mexicans were running down the kids of Open Borders/Amnesty-loving liberal Democrats whose tongue is tucked firmly up the arse of every illegal Mexican invader.  Let's all hope that somewhere there exists a "karma distributor" that deals out death to those who sit back and welcome 30 million illegal invaders, who lay down and spread their legs for the grand f*ck that illegals are giving our school systems, our neighborhoods, our once relatively safe streets, our once supportable social safety net, our once family supporting fair wages, and our once highly regarded respect for the rule of law.

So, as of now I'm declaring a "karma war" on anyone who supports the illegal immigration laws making its way through Congress.  If you aren't writing Congress to protest may your children be run over in the streets.  If you're supporting the invaders may your little Joan or Johnny be gunned downed by latino gang-banger on their way home from school.  If you no longer have respect for our immigration laws may a horde of these illegal invaders do a home invasion on your home, rape the wife and slit the liberal throats of everyone of you who have chosen to ignore every sick statistic of every city where illegals have settled.  May you suffer the bitter fruit as you rationalize why we reward bad behavior.

Nuff said...the war's on. I'll be praying all the harm, all the suffering go to those who surrendered their morality and their respect for our immigration laws.  Hey, Jose!  Down a six pack, snort a little crack and start those engines!

The Evolution of Political Correctness

                                                   
I awoke at 2AM this morning and couldn't go back to sleep, so I turned on C-Span and began watching  England's weekly parliamentarian session.  If you watch C-Span at all you might have been taken aback by the rowdiness of these sessions as the leaders of the Labor and Conservative parties debate the various worthiness of a particular national issue.

As each party leader rises to make a point he is greeted by jeers and cheers from parliamentarians.  This is a bit jarring since most Americans perceive the British as extremely polite people, folks who value courtesy in the public arena, whether it is patiently waiting in line at the bank, or filing into a show on the West End.

So, when these British leaders are verbally jousted in the hallowed halls of Parliament it is something you would not expect.

Equally shocking are fist fights that break out on the floor of legislative assemblies in Asia.  It is not uncommon to see Taiwanese legislators mounting the stage and pummeling a speaker who has said something that roused their ire.  I've seen these violent outbreaks in the legislative halls of Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and even China.  They are often featured on the last minute trailers of our evening news here in America.  The ancient Confucian philosophies have fostered centuries of "behavioral modeling" throughout Asia, where outward politeness is highly valued as a cultural norm.  So, when we westerners see this kind of explosive violence that breaks out among a country's leaders we are a bit shocked.

These spirited physical clashes don't happen in America anymore.  We've become too "civilized" and politically correct.  If you turn to C-Span today you'll see polite and gentle sparring between Democrats and Republicans as they address each other as "my esteemed colleague".  There is no longer room for standing up for principle and displaying real anger over an opposing view.  It's kind of like that World Wrestling Federation phoniness where the combatants pretend to be killing each other but are in fact just putting on a show for the suckers willing to buy the hype.

This wasn't always so.  Back in May of 1856, as the issue of slavery began to heat up, and the Senate began to debate whether Kansas (and succeeding states entering the union) should be sanctioned as a slave state, Senator Charles Sumner stood up and condemned the proposal to allow Kansas into the union as a slave state.  Sumner heaped specific scorn on two southern senators who were supporting slave state status for Kansas, Stephen Douglas and Andrew Butler.  A friend of Butler's, Congressman Preston Brooks waited for the Senate to adjourn for the day.  He then entered the old Senate Chamber and, using a wooden cane, beat Senator Sumner to a bloody pulp, inflicting injuries that Sumner never really recovered from.

Pardon me for saying so but I think America would be far better off if our current leaders in Congress brought some of that same principled passion in fighting for our national concerns.  It wouldn't bother me a bit to see Kay Hutchinson bitch slap Nancy Pelosi around the speaker's dais.  Or Barney Frank having his arrogant ass handed to him by a fiery John Boehner.

That won't happen though.  Hell, just three years ago we had a southern Congressman loudly proclaim Obama a liar during Obama's State of The Union Speech.  It didn't matter that the Congressman was correct; Congress in nonpartisan unison rose to condemn the breach in etiquette.

We Americans would be far better off if we had more passionate and principled leaders and far less cuddling up to lobbyists and each other.  Political correctness is destroying us.  A good ass whooping wouldn't hurt any of these good ole boys in Washington.

Memorial Day Trilogy; Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

                                                 
                                                  Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

I've dedicated my last three blogs on this Memorial Day weekend to the men and women who served to preserve our nation.  The last of the trilogy also pays homage to a man and a speech that evoked both the dimension of sacrifice as well as the higher cause for the nature of a conflict.

On November 19th, 1863, Abraham Lincoln boarded a train bound for Pennsylvania.  He was to take part in honoring those who had given their lives in the green meadows just outside the tiny village of Gettysburg.  He would join a throng of thousands who came that day, including the most renown orator in the nation, Edward Everett whose speeches were known all over America as being able to greatly inspire his audiences.  They were all there to honor the fallen at the Battle of Gettysburg.

The crowd assembled under cloudy skies and Everett rose to speak as Lincoln sat quietly by.  Everett spoke in soaring rhetoric for over two hours.  A choir then sang a psalm.  As Lincoln rose to speak the crowd fidgeted and tried to resettle themselves following Everett's long oration.  Lincoln looked out on the crowd and spoke for two minutes, then sat down amidst a quiet audience, surprised by the brevity of Lincoln's speech.  Photographers present had not even had time to load their cameras before Lincoln was finished.

Only one person on the stage made note of Lincoln's address;  Edward Everett turned to the President and said "Mr. President, you said more in two minutes than I did in two hours".   The rest of those present quietly dispersed, somewhat amazed at the brevity of Lincoln's speech.

However, the next morning, those same citizens opened their morning paper and read the text of Lincoln's speech.  Only then did the tears flow, as the audience that day came to realize the beauty and elegant simplicity of their President's words.  Within the span of two minutes, and in 273 words,  Lincoln had spoken of the glory of our heritage, of the sanctity of our union and reflected on the magnificence of sacrificial blood spilled on a battlefield only four short months before.

The Gettysburg Address is now considered the greatest speech in our nation's history.  Proof positive that a prayer or praise need not be long in length if elegant in phrase.

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

 We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. 

The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

Success With A Fish Market Education

                                                         

The entire Irish family was walking home in early evening, back to their Irish tenement neighborhood.  They had just come from burying their immigrant husband and father in a pauper's grave in New York City.  Back then, if the head of the household died the state would intervene and put the children in state sponsored foster homes.  

The mother was despondent, declared "I can't go on".  The eldest son, thirteen year old Al, said, "don't fret mother"..."I'll take care of this family".

And so he did.  He took a job in a fish market, carrying heavy barrels of fish from storage to shelf.  He worked 13 hours a day, seven days a week, and carried his $12 dollar weekly paycheck home to his mother.  Some nights, after his work in the fish market, he'd stop in an Irish saloon, stand next to a support pillar and belt out old sentimental Irish tunes to cold hard drinkers, tired after a day of brutal labor.  At first no one paid attention.  But after several nights of serenading, with a hat out to catch the stray penny or two, the clientele began taking a liking to the kid.

Soon the Tammany Hall pols hanging out at the bar took notice.  They learned more about the hard working young fish monger who knew all the old songs.  They gave him a second job as a message runner.  For seven years the kid got his only education studying human behavior at the fish market and then listening to Tammany Hall politicians plot strategy in the evenings.

Tammany was impressed with the kid with the satchel of Irish songs and a natural bent for getting along with people, especially the Italian and Irish immigrants in the tenement wards of the big city.

They ran him for sheriff in an outlying ward and he won.  He would soon move up to a seat in the New York statehouse in Albany.

When Al arrived in Albany he carried with him no school diplomas and an ignorance of the written word.  His only tools for the job were a willingness to work hard at any task given.  For the first two years the entire statehouse ignored him.  He was given no committee assignments and no one spoke a word to him.  

So, because Al knew nothing of politics, and nothing of the law, and could barely read, he sat up late at night in Albany and learned to read every word of every line of every legislative bill that passed through the Statehouse.  Soon Al became the most knowledgeable legislator in Albany and his peers and his seniors turned to him for answers to their questions.  

And while Al was peering over every word of legislation he kept his ears peeled to the woes of his Italian and Irish constituents in the tenements back home.  He hadn't forgotten those 80 hour work weeks at the fish market and his Irish brothers laboring to build the Brooklyn Bridge for two dollars a day.

And then one fine March evening the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory caught fire.  Hundreds of young women were trapped on the upper floors because management had locked all exit doors from the outside in an effort to keep labor organizers out of the building.  Over a hundred young girls either burned to death or jumped to their death that tragic evening.  The tragedy finally awoke all of New York City to the need of labor reform.

When those in the statehouse sensed the immediate demands for reforms they turned to Al to get them done.  When Al was done children under 14 were banned from the sweat factories, health and environmental laws were passed to clean up the work place, mandatory work hours were reduced, and work breaks and disability plans were enacted.  

Those sweeping reforms swept Al right into the Governor's mansion.  Adored by the working man, Al would repeatedly win term after term as Governor of New York.  And in 1928 Al would run for President of The United States.  He would lose because he was Irish Catholic and America would need another thirty years or so to put away their religious biases.

In the 1930's Al moved away from the Democratic Party.  New York's Tammany Hall had become so corrupt their graft prevented any help for those suffering from the Great Depression.  His one time ally, Franklin Roosevelt had turned to dictatorial socialism and Al could no longer support him.

Al died in 1944, just five months after his dear wife passed.  But Al's legacy to working America would live on.  Each year since his death New York City hosts a dinner in honor of Al.  Proceeds go toward health care for the needy.  And each year the most prominent politicians in the land attend.  The night is filled with laughter as irreverent political humor is thrown about by both political parties.  And both parties aspire to the love that his constituents bestowed upon him.  They call that little annual love fest The Al Smith Dinner.

In honor of a poor Irish Catholic fish monger who proved the American Dream is real indeed.

The Nobility Of The Human Soul

                                                 

In an age where nearly every human event is met with some degree of skepticism it is wise to turn a favored eye toward the better angels of our nature.  To those periodic reminders of man's potential for reaching high and accomplishing heroic and unselfish feats.

My mind still replays the image of that Lieutenant Colonel last month on Boylston Street.  As the first bomb went off you see the young military man turn toward the explosion as others turned and fled.  The young man's first instinct was to assist the injured...and he did so.  Later, in interviews, he claimed no degree of heroism...he just wanted to help the injured, he said.  Yes, no doubt his military training played a role in his heroic actions.. but it was the nobility of the human soul that shone brightest in that moment of crisis and danger.

And how many times did we see that nobility on 9/11/2001.  I can still recall watching human beings hurling themselves out of skyscrapers, and I wept until I thought I could not shed another tear.  Then, as thousands of soot covered citizens fled the tragedy I witnessed hundreds of New York City firefighters going the other way...toward the fiery inferno, running into that crumbling edifice and climbing high into the bowels of the World Trade Center, rescuing victims even as steel girders and raging fire engulfed them.  And I cried some more for so many of those noble men, seared in fire and swallowed by a million tons of steel, even as I prayed for their mortal souls.  American nobility in its finest hour!

I saw it and read about it so many times in the military...the supreme courage of our troops at Khe Sanh, our green American Security Police troops holding the line against a massive North Vietnamese invasion of Tan Son Nhut.  Despite being outnumbered 20 to 1 those young men, armed only with small weapons,  held the line for twelve hours and prevented a breach of the airfield, saved countless lives and billions of dollars of U.S. aircraft.  And only hours later those same young men found their way down to the orphanage we sponsored and built make shift shelters and fed and comforted little children under assault from Viet Cong mortars.  Supreme nobility!

We saw the nobility of spirit at Valley Forge as patriots trod through the winter snow without shoes, dedicated to a cause and an outcome that was all but certain.  We saw it at Gettysburg when a young English professor turned military officer held the line at Little Round Top that turned the tide of battle and gave Lincoln his first Union victory.  

And we see nobility even among the common people.  We saw that humble nobility in dust bowl farmers who turned away from the offer of government aid because they had never taken charity in their life and could not bring themselves to accept it even in the face of starvation.  We saw it through John Steinbeck as he chronicled the death of an infant during the Dust Bowl migration, only to see the young mother suckle a dying man only hours after the passing of her child.

And God bless us, we see nobility in the every day lives of Americans even today, as they set out for the day to work two part time jobs just to feed a family.  We see nobility in the hearts of a million folks who leave home in the morning to carry bedpans in hospitals, to soup kitchens and food banks to feed the homeless.  

Yes, even today, when the ideologues and the corrupters and the game players infest our communities there still exists those noble souls who serve and sacrifice and remind us of our immense potential when we listen to our better angels.

Katrina Vs Oklahoma City

                                                     

You can always tell the quality of a community's people by how they respond to natural disaster.  Last year in Missouri the good people picked themselves up from a horrible tornado and immediately began cleanup and rebuilding.  Oklahoma has endured three mega tornadoes in the last decade.  In every instance they heeded the warnings and took safety, then emerged from shelters to assess damage, reached out to help others and began the long slow effort to rebuild.  Neither Missouri nor Oklahoma stood around with the their thumb up their butt waiting for FEMA!  They did what they could for themselves! 

Compare that to Katrina where they ignored evacuation warnings, threw Hurricane parties, looted their neighborhoods, then cried for the National Guard to come save them, then made the Superdome unliveable in ten short days by not cleaning up after themselves, then cried for FEMA, then waited for volunteers to come re-build their houses.

  The difference?  Those mid-west communities are populated by Americans who still possess a work ethic,  the moral underpinnings that a church and a community instills in you, value "family" as the core  of their lives, and were taught if you want to get anything done you do it yourself.

Contrast that with a community where 70% are one-parent families, where three generations of 'victims" have learned to rely on Uncle Sam for a check and a Food Stamp card, and preferential racial quotas for education and employment.  As evidence by the massive Katrina looting, their neighborhoods hold no value to them.

And, while Missouri and Oklahoma quickly rebuild and get on with their lives,  where respect for authority compels them to seek shelter and safety, which saves lives,  that other community sees a disaster as a partying looting opportunity and are willing to wait years for Uncle Sam or sympathetic volunteers to come re-build what they should be doing for themselves.

Any major disaster will always require some form of Federal help.  But it is also true that help begins at home.  Those hard -working, church going Mid Westerners still have the pioneer spirit that built this nation...the other one is a product of the "woe is me" victim generation.  

Sad.  Damned Sad.

21st Century Tories

                                                     

Okay, you all remember the Tories from the Revolutionary War.  Try to recall your 5th grade history of the American Revolution.  Tories were the folks that had no problem being taxed without representation, didn't mind kissing King George's royal behind, and toiling 60 hours a week so King George and his court could party hearty every night, dine on the world's delicacies, wear the finest silks, and rape the cultures of three continents in doing so.

The Tories were fine with all that.  They read the fancy proclamations of their King and anointed him arbiter of all matters.  Some Tories owed their loyalty to King George because he once chose to confiscate the property of someone else and bestowed it on them.  Many Tories held positions of authority in the American colonies, giving them great latitude, and great personal wealth in the corruption of office.  

Sadly, the vast majority of Tories were simply ignorant people, falling too easily for false promises, ready to repeat, and believe in, the meaningless mantras of their "betters", those who indoctrinated them in all their ignorance.  Historians of the era characterize Tories as basically lazy people, pessimistic about their own futures, unable to embrace the idea of personal liberties and far more comfortable with having the government tell them what to think, what to believe, and what they should like.

At the beginning of the American Revolution there may have been as many as 50% of Colonial population who would have labelled themselves Tories.  As the years progressed, as Tories began witnessing the valor and strength of character of the revolutionaries, as Tories began suffering from the cruelties of the crown, and as their homeland came under assault, more and more Tories abandoned their state of stupor and joined the revolution with gusto.  

Of the 2.5 million colonials in America, by 1781 those who loyal to a corrupt crown had decreased from 50% to less than 20%.  And those remaining Tories ended up fleeing America, migrating to Florida, or Canada or another territory loyal to King George.

Sadly, America is now infested with a new generation of Tories; slothful, petulant, incapable of projecting cause and effect, accepting of the failure of half a century of liberal socialism, and led by a modern King George who, so bereft of morals, so arrogant of character, that he circumvents the Constitution, and Congress, and even intimidates the Supreme Court in a daring assault on the checks and balances of our Republic....all in the name of creating a socialist dictatorship.  

We call this modern day King George "the Anointed One" because he speaks so prettily...and the Tories, so indoctrinated into liberalism by a Teachers Union-Big Government incestuous relationship and made incapable of applying reason and logic to our critical national problems.

We call these Tories "Kool Aid Drinkers" named after a band of ignorants who followed the dictates of a mad man, all the way to hell.  Oh, let's be honest; we've had innumerable bands of "Tories" throughout history.  In Europe they were called "peasants" and lived in ignorance and a blinding faith that Royals were right, no matter how bad things got.  Lenin exploited millions of them to embrace the idea that it was better that everyone had nothing (except the Communist elite!) than their neighbor have more than them, even if they earned it!  And for 75 years they starved in their "equality".

So yes, we are now infested with a frightening number of zombie-like 21st Century Tories, whose loyalty is now assured by keeping them ignorant, fat, and slothful.  For now the new Tories are of no threat to the new King George.  They are bloated with Food Stamp Fast Food, rewarded with free cell phones, bribed by government largess, totally engrossed in Jay Z and Kim and Beyonce and Beiber, far too busy to keep an eye on what King George is doing.

So, fellow Patriots!  Let's not lose heart that we can sometime again regain our Republic; we fought a revolution 237 years ago, all the while dragging along the 50% of the ignorant Tories.  Yes, they are perhaps harder to drag along today, being so fat and slothful....but we can do it!  Besides, these Tories today are so morally vacant, so lacking in principle, they can be easily swayed to join the fight...especially when King George runs out of bribe money.

The IRS; Obama's "Iron Fist"

                                                   

Last year I wrote a blog entitled "What If 50 Million Of Us Stop Paying Taxes"....doesn't sound like a bad idea this year, does it?.  We've learned in recent weeks that the Obama Administration has used the IRS as an "enforcer" and political advocate for Obama and his minions.

Now don't you find this ironic as hell?  I mean, here we have the already dreaded Internal Revenue Service denying equitable political tax status to conservative groups, issuing "citizen warnings" against street protesting of Planned Parenthood, throwing up roadblocks against the Tea Party while greasing the skids for every liberal political movement known to man.

I can think of no better proof that big government is now not just out of control, but are now prepared to stomp a heavy boot on the back of your neck should you be an advocate of less government and greater citizen involvement.

And I fear, when all the facts come out, we'll find that the IRS instigated tax audits on those citizens that might have dared to oppose government oppression.  The findings already revealed ought to send chills up the spine of anyone who believes in the divine rights of personal liberty.

It seems to me Obama's Big Socialist Government philosophy created the perfect storm for the IRS's iron fisted assault on conservatives.  The IRS has feared for years that some rogue Conservative will hammer together a coalition of the citizenry in support of a flat tax, or a national sales tax in lieu of the income tax.  Not only would this limit the IRS capability to ride roughshod over taxpayers, it would eliminate hundreds of thousands of IRS employees and their huge operating budget!

Perhaps the IRS felt threatened with obsolescence and thus readily embraced the Obama political thuggery; use the power of tax law to suppress conservative dissent and oil the machinery of liberal groups by pumping billions of tax free dollars into Obama's Chicago style national political machine, thus assuring an Obama victory last November!

Perhaps even more damaging to sound management is that other IRS hand, the velvet glove.  While the Iron fist is beating up conservatives and working taxpayers, the other velvet gloved hand is doling out billions in child tax credits to welfare queens and "breeders", to include $11 billion dollars that went to illegal Mexicans last year.  Add to that all the other green check bribes offered to "the 47%"...and you'll win a lot of elections!

Anyone else think we might now seriously consider eliminating the income tax altogether and supplant it with a national sales tax that, by definition ropes in all the tax cheaters, diminishes the power of our IRS masters and send those IRS thugs to the unemployment line?

Establish "American Preservation Zones?"

                                                     

If you drive around your home town I'll bet you can find at least half a dozen buildings that have been designated Historical Preservation protected.  Most often these are over a hundred years old, present some facet of classic architecture and have been deemed worthy of preservation.

Last week I was reading a news article on Detroit, Michigan.  The report detailed the incredible history of Black government corruption that has driven that city into ruins.  Hundreds of thousands of homes are in such disrepair they resemble those European cities bombed into ruin during World War II.  Residential real estate has lost billions in home values.  Working, Tax Paying Whites have fled that once thriving city and all that's left are Black Welfare communities that are robbing, raping and murdering each other at an alarming rate.  State audits indicate the city is $15 billion dollars in debt and, thanks to a long line of corrupt Black mayors,  Detroit may be the biggest U.S. city to declare bankruptcy.  

Sadly, we see that same urban devastation in dozens of other American cities, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Birmingham, Los Angeles...the list is long.  In every case these cities are the consequence of the "nanny state".  It is the "big government" breeding of a dependent class that long boarded the federal welfare and food stamp gravy train.  The same "big government" that sustains their power by means of the great electoral bribe; vote for us and we'll give you more....and sadly, those who succumb to these liberal sirens always end up with less.

Ironically, California, the 5th richest economy in the world, has the most cities who have already gone bankrupt and even more on the critical list.  The entire 500 mile long central valley of California is now a human cesspool of illegal Mexicans, infested by diseases we had once conquered, rampant with crime, where the tax base has declined, unemployment rates in double digits for years, schools nothing more than latino gang activity centers, hit and run, uninsured drivers, and rape robbery and murder rates soaring.   California's problem is that they are trying to support 15 million illegal Mexicans with a dwindling tax base as more and more taxpaying, law abiding Whites flee that state.

And, with the Obama's massive push to legalize 30 million illegals nationwide, perhaps it is time to establish a new "American Preservation Zone".   I moved out of California nine years ago when our quiet and sedate middle class neighborhood became infested with illegal Mexicans, all of them rented by multiple families.  One group that moved in across the street soon had their cars parked on the front lawn, loud music being vomited out of open garage doors, shaking the foundation of my house fifty yards away.  I spent alot of time with the Sheriff's office calling in noise complaints.  Our morning walks were ruined as we began having to step over condoms, piles of fast food bags and stare down graffiti.  The crime rate soared and it was no longer safe to walk the neighborhood at night.  So, just on the off chance that Americans may someday want to revert to a more civilized living standard, maybe preserving a few neighborhoods that are still habitable would be a good idea.

Perhaps those American Preservation Zones could be protected by the same laws we use to preserve our older historical buildings.  How would we do that?  Well, let's identify an American neighborhood that still has front porches where neighbors once used to talk to each other from a rocking chair on a warm spring evening.  Let's establish a zero tolerance policy for graffiti, let's prohibit Mexican low-riders from being parked, three at a time on the front lawns, let's prohibit the blaring of Mariachi music being blared from open garages late into the night.  Let's prohibit "Mexican Garage Sale Mamas" from having a garage sale every weekend, with thrift shop clothing draped over the front fence.  Let's force residents in "American Preservation Zones" to throw out that $500 hundred dollars worth of junk in their two car garage and put their $30,000 dollar vehicle in there...and not on the street.  Let's put speed bumps in every APZ neighborhoods so folks will be forced to drive prudently.  Let's restructure our zoning laws to allow small neighborhood groceries to return to neighborhoods as they once were.  Let's encourage private weapon usage in every home by posting yard signs for every resident WHO DOESN'T own a firearm.   Let's prohibit the practice of allowing three different families occupying a home that was meant for one.  Let's assess an additional 20% property tax assessment for every parent who fails to attend school PTA meetings, or a corresponding rent increase for renters.  Let's end school busing for every kid who lives within a mile of their school...and use the money saved to hire additional neighborhood safety patrols.  

The quality of our residential neighborhoods have been in decline for decades.  Within a few more years residential neighborhoods will prove to be unfit to live in.  So, just as we sponsor the preservation of historic buildings, let's set up a few American Preservation Zones across America so that we might remember when our homes were friendly confines, when we were safe from crime, when we didn't have to read gang graffiti and wade through piles of fast food bags, when our streets were wide because they weren't jammed on both sides of the streets with cars and monster SUV's...and when Home Sweet Home had some vestige of meaning.

                                                    

2012 and 2013 Nominee For The Coolest SOB In The Conservative Blogosphere

Blogography

                                                     

It's the weekend so I thought I'd do a little "contemplate my navel" thing and write a bit of my blogging life.  I was notified recently that I've again been nominated this year for the "Coolest SOB In The Conservative Blogosphere".  I appreciate the support but don't expect to win.  According to my Alexa score I am relatively small time.   

What the hell is an Alexa score?, thought I.  So I looked it up.  Alexa runs a pretty tight program; they calculate your page views per day, the number of subscribed followers, how long your blog visitor stays on your site, and how you rank world wide with other blog sites.

As I said, relative to the big bloggers I'm pretty small time.  I don't employ a professional to generate blog traffic to my site and I don't spam other blogs trying to get readers to follow through to my blog. However, all is not bleak.  In looking at my Alexa stats, readers who come to my site spend more than 4 minutes reading the daily blog.  That's twice the time spent on the average blog.  That makes me feel good; once someone does visit my site they stay engaged with what I'm writing about.  

I also seem to be a "big fish in a small pond".  My page views average about 10,000 per month.  That is far above the average.  Here's how the blogging experts grade the small guys like me:

“Up and Coming”: 500 unique visitors each month (16 visitors a day/1100 page views month)
“Loyal Following”: 3500 unique visitors each month (112 visitors a day, 10,000 page views per month)
“Popular Blogger”: 15,000 unique visitors each month (483 visitors a day, 45,000 page views per month)

So, as you can see, my page views indicate that my blog is three times the rate for a "loyal following" and I'm about 75% of the way toward achieving "popular blogger" status.  Some months I achieve that goal, especially when one of my blog entries go "semi-viral".  I've exceeded 20,000 page views in a month three times since I began.

I would guess one of the things I have going for me is that I write daily, so there is always a steady stream of material to be read.  I would further guess that, because I write on a wide variety of subjects, my blog count is hindered by those who want to concentrate their interest on one subject.  I write about politics, history, societal trends, family, my dogs, earthly oddities and all manner of things.  So, for those who seek out blogs that specialize in cranking up their areas of interest, my blog drifts into areas that don't hold their interest.

I am often aided by referrals from some of my loyal readers, and sometimes my readership gets a big bounce from some pretty big dogs in the publishing world.  I've had honorable mentions and link referrals from The Wall Street Journal and other major publications which contribute to those "semi-viral" page view days I've enjoyed.

Finally, like every other writer who ever lived, I"ve dreamed that someday I'll be "discovered" by the reading world.  That, once visited, thousands will flock to my blog, find those 630 blog entries, with all their golden vision, and say to themselves "how could I have waited so long to discover this wonderful writer!".  

I enjoyed a bit of that last year when a distant family member discovered my blog.  She spent days poring over the hundreds of blogs I've written.  She was quite complimentary of them and I enjoyed immensely her enjoyment of my efforts.

For now, I'll keep plugging along, writing often, because a writer does that whether he has readership or not.  For those who come to me each day; you'll never know how grateful I am for your loyalty.  Perhaps someday, when I'm rich and famous, when everyone uses my Netrition and Amazon ads as gateways to their shopping sprees, and my ad commissions make me independently wealthy, you first loyal readers will say "I was there first!".

From my keyboard to God's ears.  :)

The Great Irony of Death

                                                   

Yesterday I noted the tragic deaths of two people, one whom I hardly knew, the other I knew not at all.

I characterize these two deaths as tragic due to the nature of their demise.  While death is as natural as life, it is the timing of it that often exacts the most extreme cruelties.

The first death I noted was of an 88-year old woman.  I found her obituary in my local home town paper.  Her name struck me so remotely that at first I didn't recognize the name, or the very mild association I had once had with her in my youth.  Only in reading of the family survivors did I realize that she was the mother of a high school pal of mine.  My memories dim a bit these days but I feel safe in venturing that the only contact I had with this lady would have been a cautionary warning to be home on time or some such thing to her son, as we departed for a school dance, and most likely given behind a screen door as we departed.

The tragedy I note in the old woman's death was the deadly words emitted from the obit; "died after a long bout of Alzheimer's dementia".  Whenever I hear that I do a bit of "God critique", wondering why in hell our creator should allow the empty husk of body to live on long after the mind has fled.  It is perhaps the most cruel of deaths as the loved ones must endure years of misery in witnessing the living death of a loved one.

The second death was as equally tragic; a young woman just 33 years old, happily married for a mere four years, delighting in her young child, and in the prime of her life.  The death notice came via a Face Book posting by one of my friends and family.  I immediately mourned the death of one so young, one who had so much to live for.  My immediate thoughts were that perhaps she was one of those unfortunates who die young from breast or ovarian cancer and my sorrow was even more pronounced. Like a stalker I went to the young lady's Face Book page and read condolence after condolence posted on her wall.  My heart ached a bit as I read the last few postings the young lady had made just days and weeks before her passing.  I thought of how cruel that she would be writing of joyful things, not knowing that she had only days to live.

Still not satisfied, still needing to know the cruelty of death brought on this youngster, brought to her family, I googled her name and came across a couple of accident reports describing the event that led to her death.  According to the reports, she was driving down a rural road the other night at 10pm.  Accident investigators surmised that she had drifted a bit to the side of the road, caught a bit of rough edging, tried to overcompensate for the drift by turning sharply to the left, which caused the SUV to roll over.  Toxicologists ruled out drugs or alcohol in her system.   Then the deathly words; "she was not wearing a seat belt and was ejected from the car".  And I was angry at her as I am every time I hear of a highway death where seat belts were not in use.  I have rolled a car in an accident, was wearing seat belts and survived with very little injury so I'm a big advocate for seat belts; get angry whenever I see their use ignored.  And always wonder why anyone would drive a car without them.

So, I was a bit perturbed, even judgmental, when it was not my position to be critical.  I felt especially ashamed that the young lady might have paid the ultimate price for this safety oversight.  Or perhaps not.  I guess I was hurting because I had seen the photos of her with loving friends and family, saw the joy of youth in her smiling face as she looked into a camera lens on a day at the beach just a few years ago.  I was devastated for the loss of someone I didn't even know as I read the worshipful Face Book posts of playtime with her little boy.  And I ached in sympathy for the the husband, the lover, the "best friend" who would now need to go on alone, raising a young boy, and trying to explain why mommy is never coming home again.  So I cried for her, cried for him and mourned the passing of one who had so much more to give.

Death can sometimes be kind.  The reaper may come and ferry you away in the middle of a deep and restful sleep.  He may wait until one has said all the "I love you's" that need be said.  He may come when you have lived a full and complete and satisfying life in the autumn of your years....or he may come with a cruelty that leaves heartbreak and sorrow all around.  In these two deaths I mourn the poor timing; one death came far too late...and one came far too early.

God Bless those left behind.  Give them the strength to deal with death's aftermath.  And give them peace when there is so little understanding of death's cruel ironies.  Most of all, help us to comprehend that all that happens here on earth cannot always be explained to us...that we might have faith that the world is turning as it should.

Burger Flippers Demand $15 Per Hour

                                                 

Well, it had to happen.  The headlines read "Fast Food Workers in New York and Detroit Walk Off The Job!...demand $15 dollars per hour.

It hasn't been 24 hours since I read a nationwide survey about work ethics of the Millennial Generation, the ME's.  The ME kids (39%) said they had no interest in dedicating their lives to a "career".  Another 27% indicated they would prefer a job that paid them well but not if that pay required work hours that might interfere with pursuing the pleasures of their personal life.

And, God help me if I didn't read in that same paper (USA TODAY) an article reporting that we are spending $40 billion dollars every year in awarding Pell Grants to already graduated high school students to learn to read and write in order to qualify for college admissions.  That same report said, after expending that $40 billion a year, less than 30% of those receiving the grants had qualified even for a Community College after three years of Pell Grant generosity.

How do all of these things mesh together?  Well, first of all, let's look at those burger flippers demanding $15 dollars per hour.  How dare these kids demand career level wages for flipping a burger!  Those fast food jobs have always meant to be entry level jobs so that kids might learn the discipline of showing up for work, expending a modest amount of effort to earn a paycheck, and develop themselves so that they might, as adults, enter the adult work force and be productive!  

In that same Fast Food Walkoff article, the reporter quotes fast food workers who've been at it for eight years and are resentful of their $8.53 cents an hour salary.  To which I ask "what made you think flipping burgers was a career position?"..."During those eight years of flipping burgers did you ever take a few classes in personnel management and business so that you might move up the Fast Food ladder to Franchise Manager or Regional Manager?"  If not, shut the f**k up and make sure my fries are hot!  And finally "when you were attending high school, did you ever think about preparing yourself for adult work?"  "When you were passing notes and mouthing off in class, and skipping your homework assignments, did you every think you might need to read and write at the high school level to get past fast food employment?"

And when we taxpayers have already paid an average of $12,000 per year, per student to attend public school, is it fair that we should have to shell out an additional $40 billion dollars each year to give you a second chance to read and write at the 12th grade level?  And after taking that $40 billion a year in Pell 

Grants each year, and after three years you still fail to read and write, why should we not write you off?

So, let's look at the bottom line here.  Today's generation have no ambitions for a career, any career that interferes with their pursuit of personal pleasures.  Nor are the ME's interested in learning the basics of education in high school.  So...these ME kids now want us to pay them $15 dollars per hour for flipping burgers because they aren't qualified..or interested in doing anything else!

To all of them I say screw em!  It's all academic anyway.  When those 30 million illegal Mexicans get their amnesty and citizenship they'll do it for $7.50 an hour and may not even spit on our burger!

Liberal Media Plays "Pussyfoot" With Middle America

                                                       

Good morning dear readers,

Pardon this smirk on my face but I'm having quite the time reading about the liberal main stream media's recent "Obama Scandal Lashing".  The wider smile is for Middle America and Conservatives who are glowing in the aftermath of "I told you so",  as they see the liberal media jump into the fray and pronounce intense indignation at all of Obama's Chicago like thuggery; the Benghazi cover-ups, the Attorney General's attack on states who tried to assure clean elections by requiring voter I.D., the IRS' role in squashing conservative groups who sought political organization status in order to have their voice heard during the election year, and lastly, Obama's own Attorney General secretly invading the personal files of the Associated Press, in violation of the 1st Amendment!

Let's dial down the conservative enthusiasm about a "newly responsible press".  Let's look at all of this rationally.  To do so, we have to go back to pre-election days.  Let's look back at Benghazi for example.  This same liberal media knew everything there was to know about Benghazi.  Nothing new has been revealed in recent weeks.  So why now are the press finally publishing the dirt?  Simple; to do so before the election they would have jeopardized The Anointed One's chance for re-election!  

Not only did the press fail to broadcast or publish Obama's dirt, they aided and abetted in the cover up!  They further poisoned the well by declaring the Benghazi scandal as nothing more than a trumped up story generated, and covered by Fox News!  

The same is true with the voter ID laws.  The press demonized Republicans who, having seen Obama's Chicago like election thuggery before, tried to insure only registered and eligible voters showed up at the polls.  How did the liberal press handle the issue?  Did they release a report that showed 12,000 illegal Mexicans voted in the 2008 Presidential elections?  Did they profile some of those Maryland Blacks who voted as much as seven times in seven different states?  No!  The same liberal press would trot out a poor Black in Baltimore, or a poor Mexican in southern Texas, who, apparently owned no personal I.D.!  Who had apparently never boarded an airplane, never attended a Democratic National Convention, never bought a bottle of liquor or a pack of cigarettes, all of which require personal I.D.!

So, again, the press was merely pimping for Obama with regard to clean elections laws!

And what did we find post 2012?  We found Blacks voting for Obama in Philadelphia and Baltimore at 107% and 115% of voters counted!  How the hell can you have more than 100% of anything?  So again, the press was complicit in the corruption.

And now we learn that, between the IRS and the liberal media, this last Presidential election was bought and paid for long before the election year ever began!  We had the liberal media broadcasting and printing out and out lies about Mitt Romney....and sweeping the Obama "true crimes" right under the rug!

So, sometime this past spring, perhaps the American public had finally reached the "gag factor" and tired of the liberal media adoration of Obama.  Perhaps some Letters To The Editor began to hit home with some publisher who still possessed a trace of a conscience...who knows....perhaps the incessant unfolding of the Benghazi massacre finally hit home and could no longer be suppressed, even by a dominate liberal media.  

What then transpired was more of a liberal press strategy session than an attack of conscience.  The liberal press thugs now see an opportunity to now assume a "neutral and objective" stance on reporting which might regain them a small slice of respectability.  None of that matters now, the damage has been done and we are again left with a soiled and slimy "man-child" occupying the White House...and the long term suffering will continue.

And, lest the conservatives who are suffering under the delusion that the main stream media have reformed themselves, I issue a "beware".  Folks, this is simply more posturing and posing...knowing everything last November that they know today (which they did), the fawning and slobbering press would do the exact same job of covering up,  unfairly attacking Romney, and still claiming to be fair and objective.

Not even the Obama administration's attack on the Constitutional protections of a free press, the AP scandal will reform this media.  In the last few days we've seen NBC, ABC, CNN, Fox and even liberal bastion NPR send letters of protest to the White House about press intrusion.  Believe me, this is all window dressing; just a minor childish spat between two inseparable friends.

Conservatives and Middle America would do well to remember all of this as the pols gear up for the 2014 election.  As the mid-term elections draw near you can expect the liberal mainstream media to again go "orgasmic" over every liberal candidate who mounts a podium.  

                                                      

                 The 2012 and 2013 nominee for Coolest SOB In The Conservative Blogosphere!

Not "Poverty".."Subsidized Sloth"

                                                     

Mother's Day Parade Shooter Akein Scott

Police have identified one of three potential shooters who gunned down 19 Mother's Day Parade victims in the notorious 7th Ward of New Orleans.  The bodies had barely hit the ground before the liberal contingent emerged and decried the violence, in a city of violence, as simply another result of 7th Ward Black poverty.

How many of you are tiring of the same old saw, the same old "poverty plea" that accompanies the murders on Chicago's South Side, the "mob robs" in Baltimore and the utterly corrupt Black leadership of Detroit, Michigan?  Let's begin calling this cancer in our nation what it really is; "subsidized sloth".  Three generations of Black welfare queens, breeding crack babies, three generations provided "ethnic bribery" to ease some kind of collective White guilt has bred this violence and produced millions of Black "cry babies" moaning over slave laws that ended a hundred and fifty years ago.  

It wasn't poverty that caused 7th Warders to ignore Hurricane Katrina evacuation warnings and hang around and throw Hurricane parties while 500 evacuation buses sat int he city vehicle yard, unused.  No, it was that sense of "ethnic entitlement" that convinced these Blacks to hang around the 7th Ward, party hearty, loot stores, then cry out for Bush to rescue them...or be labeled a White racist President.

So, in comes the military and the National Guard, risking their own lives to rescue the lazy and the slothful, and the "entitled" simply because they might be carrying a bit of 150 year old DNA which proves an ancestor was a slave.

When many 7th Warders were given shelter in the Super dome they trashed the facility so thoroughly in ten days it became unlivable.  When more of them were evacuated to Houston they soon doubled Houston's crime rate.  When they were given temporary trailers they trashed those as well.

So, as soon as Sunday's Mother's Day savagery broke out, the liberals began shedding huge crocodile tears and laying the blame on that perennial "out" known as "poverty".  It does not matter than these thugs wear $200 dollar Michael Jordan shoes, coordinate their drug deals and mob robs using an I-Phone.  It does not matter that welfare mama is home watching Jerry Springer on her 70 inch Big Screen or that a late model Caddie sits in the oil stained driveway; the liberals will always decry the same tired old "un-truism", poverty.

The only "poverty" I see is a poverty of respect for the law, the poverty of not valuing human life, the poverty of self-respect and a work ethic.

Now we are all awaiting Barack Obama's appearance in the Rose Garden, decrying the violence of poverty even as he proclaims Akein Scott "the son he never had".

Sloth pure and simple...let's retire the poverty myth, cut out the massive government benefits that breeds these people, and cut this cancer out before it destroys us all.

                                               

2012 and 2013 Nominee For The Coolest

SOB in The Conservative Blogosphere!