Good News! For A Change

                                                             

Well, boys and girls...we got a bit of good news last week.  Obama's main "hit man", Attorney General Eric Holder has announced his resignation.  Whew!  Yes, I know that Obama will try to pick another AG who is equally adept at blaming Whitey for the world's ills...but, trust me, no one could be worse than Holder.

And didn't Holder get off on the right foot back in 2009!  His first proclamation was that any American who won't embrace illegal immigration, or willingly walk through a Detroit ghetto at midnight, is a coward!

But I think Holder's resignation has more to do with legal considerations.  A report out this week by Judicial Watch cites a federal judge's ruling which ordered the Justice Department to turn over something called a "Vaughn Index" on all documents pertaining to Fast and Furious by 22 October.  Apparently this Vaughn Index is a sweeping call for all documents without redactions made by the Justice Department.  Redactions are those lovely black blocks that cover up whole sentences that our federal masters deem may be harmful to national security...or their own asses.  Well the judge said turn it all over.

By resigning, Holder can avoid having to testify in court, or in Congress, about any false testimony he made in earlier Congressional hearings.  As a civilian he can plead the fifth and make the court prove his guilt.  This strategy should work for all of Holder's misdeeds, be it his failure to investigate the IRS harassment, or his active involvement in NSA spying and AP wiretapping.  Just plead the 5th, baby and all is well....or at least not half as bad as if he gets nailed while in office.

I believe any fair minded person will acknowledge that this guy has been the most racist and most criminal Attorney General we've seen for at least a century.  He brags about his many achievements but the only thing I've seen him do is skirt the law, fail to enforce our laws, battle individual states who legislated to stop illegal immigration and voter fraud and serve as political hit man for Barack Obama.  He has politicized an office that is supposed to uphold the law and has, instead, turned it into a Gestapo like organization that attacked those who oppose Obama and selectively enforced our laws all the while making up their own.

Good riddance to one less militant negro in the Obama regime.

Gays Now Hijack All American Parades

                                                           

There are Gay Pride parades in every city of a decent size all over America these days.  Not good enough, says Gays...we need to be smooching and strutting and half naked in every parade in America, year around.

Last year New York City at first refused to allow gays to infiltrate the annual St. Patrick's Day parade in that city.  The Irish had a problem with issue oriented groups hi-jacking what, for a hundred years, was simply a celebration of Irish heritage.  

Well, the LGBT organizations took the issue to court.  One of those grand liberal courts demanded the St. Patrick's parade folks allow gays in their parade or an injunction would be issued and the parade would not be allowed to take place.  So the rainbow folks strutted their stuff and the folks in green were shunted into the background.

Happily for the "queer in the rear" folks New York now has the most liberal Mayor to ever head up a municipal government.  He has laid out a huge welcome mat to gays for this year's St. Patrick's Day parade so you can expect a grand "in your face" turnout for a parade that used to just be an excuse to celebrate an Irish heritage and drink a little green beer.

I can see this trend spreading quickly.  When Easter comes around we'll have Peter Rabbit shunted to the sidelines in favor or feminine men who adore wearing evening gowns.  Instead of tossing out Easter candy our LGBT friends will hurl condoms to the masses.

How about the 4h of July?  Shall we shove the patriotism stuff out and have gays lugging phallic like huge firecrackers down main street, moans of passion evident as the tip of the phallic firecracker emits sparks of fire out the tip?

Maybe the LGBT crowd can get all those Snoopy and Bart Simpson balloons cancelled in favor of huge inflatable condoms for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!  

The possibilities are endless!  How about allowing the LGBT crowd manage the Hollywood Christmas Parade?  And, oh how magnificent they would be in the Rose Parade!

To date, there have been no special parade requests for the heterosexual community to be represented in any of our grand parades.  Our homeless vets aren't asking to march nor have any of our traditional organizations sought to crowd to the front of the line and hog the attention for a parade not intended for them.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

When We Could Dream

                                                             

There are about a dozen movies that, when flipping channels and I come up on one, I just can't turn away, I love them so dearly.  "Casa Blanca", "12 Angry Men", and yes, "Apollo 13".   So last night I'm channel surfing and found AMC showing "Apollo 13".  And I sat for the next two hours wallowing in the nostalgia for an age when we dreamed big dreams, when we dared to do great things.

Those Apollo missions represented a time when man's character and man's daring trumped technology...when we were kings of our own destiny.  Unlike today, when we spend over half of our entire budget taking care of people who can't or won't work, we spent less than .075% of the national budget on putting men on the moon and developing technologies that were converted to commercial applications that generated billions of dollars in revenue, both for the private and public sector.

And those astronauts, fly boys from WWII, and Vietnam, and test pilots, took those Apollo craft up and ran it with a tiny computer with 2k of memory and less than 1,000th of the computer power of your teenage son's IPAD.  

Until 2011 we were still out there exploring, launching space telescopes and doing great things.  Then, in 2011, Barack Obama decided we needed to spend more on his voting constituents and less on space discovery.  He cut the already tiny NASA budget by two thirds and the Space Shuttles are now mothballed and America, god help us, now hitches rides up to the space station on Russian space craft....and paying a pretty penny for the ride.

And what did we lose when Obama chose "vote sucking" over space?  Well, let's just look at what came out of the space program:

Light Emitting Diodes in medical imaging technologies.

Infrared ear thermometers

Ventricular Assist Devices

Artificial Limbs

Invisible braces

Scratch resistant lenses

Space blankets

Aircraft Anti-Icing systems
Improved radial tire technology
Chemical detection kits
Video enhancing and analysis
Fire resistant materials
Fire fighting equipment
Temper foam
Enriched baby foods
Freeze dried foods
Solar Cell technology
Portable cordless vacuums
Pollution filtering technology
Water purification
Structural Analysis software
Powdered Lubricants
And, yes, Tang....and dozens of other technologies

We gave NASA seed money and it paid us back in treasure and technology heretofore unheard of by man.  Alas, now we no longer seek out greatness, our foresight is limited to concerns about the next election and who we can bribe to win their vote.....now we can only look back at what was...and no more dream of what could be.

When Ron Howard began preparing to film "Apollo 13" he interviewed the chief NASA engineer who supervised the effort to help Oddysey limp home.    When Howard asked the engineer how they dealt with so many engineering obstacles to get the crew home, the engineer said "Well, failure was just never an option."

If successes were only valued the way they once were, and if only failures were more reviled, and not an excuse for sloth, what a great country we would still be.

So I watch "Apollo 13" again and again, and remember a glorious time when we could dream.

Obama's Apology Tour II

                                                             

Barack Hussein Obama went to the U.N. yesterday.  He was on his second mammoth apology tour, lamenting that America is such a sad and lousy country.  The U.N. delegates, sitting in padded chaises paid for by American taxpayers, squirmed in glee as the Anointed One tore down our country.

The first thing Barry talked about was how badly we are messing up the environment...then he promised to do better even if it meant destroying the American economy.  No where in his speech did Barry target the two biggest world polluters, India and China.

Then Emperor Obama went to great lengths to say that those terrorists who are beheading westerners and who brought down the Twin Towers aren't Muslims...just terrorists.  While totally ignoring a thousand years of Islamic savagery, Barack says Muslims would never embrace violence of any kind.  Barry even ventured to praise an Islamic radical so dangerous that his own State Department bars the guy from traveling to America.  Guess Barry forgot to tell State that the Muslim thug was cool.

Finally, Barack drifted off into something even more bizarre.  He cited the thug, Michael Brown, as America's failure.  Elevating the gangsta robbing thug to martyr status was a bit much even for Obama.  Maybe Eric Holder threatened to resign if Barry didn't say something really nice about Brown.

Maybe Barry is right.  Maybe that QT store clerk should have realized that Michael Brown was entitled to free cigars..and anything else he wanted for that matter.  Maybe the $15,000 per year that taxpayers shelled out for Brown's schooling just wasn't good enough.  And maybe the hundred million dollar special program Brown took to qualify for a high school diploma wasn't enough, nor were the Pell grants and minority preference Brown was given to attend his intended trade school.

But to bring Brown up before the United Nations General Assembly was just wacko...kinda like your spouse discussing his morning bowel movement at the breakfast table.  

But that's Barry for you...airing dirty laundry and Starbucks salutes.

Sigh.

The Death of Chauvinism..And Romance

                                                             

Back in March I posted this blog.  Some may have thought me a bit snarky here.  However, just today (23 Sept 2014) I read that the LGBT community are up in arms over our sending a sculpture of this event over to Normandy to be displayed there for a year.  The 50 foot sculpture is called "Unconditional Surrender" which I assume is also sexist.  Well, dear readers, it looks like I was just about right on the snark.  I'm reposting this today in protest of the LGBT protest.   Hey, LGBT folks!  Sometimes a banana is just a banana!
                                                  

                                                 

Glenn McDuffie died last week.  He was the navy sailor who grabbed the nurse and kissed her in Times Square on VJ (Victory Over Japan) Day.  The photo is the most iconic photo to appear in the last 75 years or so.  Men like it because they would like to have been old Glenn, and women like it without knowing why.

Today's feminists hate the picture.  They say the very idea that a strange man can come along and steal a kiss and a hug is just wrong.  A couple of years ago, during a gay pride parade in Times Square the photo was re-created...except this time a lesbian dyke in a sailor suit was the aggressor and the "rainbow" crowd hooped and hollered and really enjoyed poking fun at arrogant male chauvinism.                                                       

Some how the lesbian pic just doesn't have the sense of romance, of spontaneous joy as the original.  Oh,  they've tried it with two guys kissing in the same spot, and I guess it gives gays a real kick but doesn't do much for me.  

Well, being an old man now, and someone who was raised when women were "suppressed", I found the photo to be utterly charming.  Glenn McDuffie says he was actually on his way to catch a subway to visit his girl friend in Brooklyn when he saw the announcement on a Times Square banner and he was so elated that he grabbed the nearest girl and kissed her in a fit of joy.  If you look at the photo you'll see that the girl on the receiving end of that kiss, a nurse, was not flailing her arms in protest.  Though she was not actively embracing Glenn she seemed more than happy to give one up for the "home team."  

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog titled "In 50 Years We'll All Be Chicks".  In it, I bemoan the new "uber rise" of the American woman and the receding masculinity of the American male.  This is proven out time and again as we now see women out doing men in education degrees, job security, independence from males via the large and ever expanding federal programs that assures generous benefits for unmarried mothers, and the freedom to have sex with a hundred different partners if that's what she desires.

I miss the era when holding a door open for a lady was in vogue, or being the protector, of honoring women as the queen of the home and intuitively knowing women were the softer sex; the kind and gentler species of humans.  I miss the era where women were soft and curvy,  where a few extra pounds was sexy.  Instead, today's women want biceps and six pack abs and want their hip bones showing so they can be considered "fit".    

"Eck".."Blah"...friends and family always said I had above average looks in my day, but I'll tell you this:  I wouldn't have been attracted to bony and sinewy, so called women today...I would never be attracted to a woman who has more impressive abs than I.  And they would have never got me to shave my chest and arm and leg hair even if they withheld sex for a year!...it is just too weird watching these feminine metro-sexuals walking around today, with their perfumes and hairless as a Mexican terrier.

Before the women get all up in arms, let me say that I'm glad job discrimination against women is over.  I'm glad women are no longer scorned because of divorce...but the scales seems to have fallen out of balance once again.  Too many women feel they have to be tough to make it in their career, too many women look down on women who want to be stay at home wives and moms.  

I guess I just miss the romance that existed in my day.  Men danced with women and not other men as they do today...women danced with men and not other women as they do today.  And I miss the softness of the old fashioned female of my day, the smart women who let their husband think they were king of the jungle, yet could tame that tiger with a smile and a look.  Women have always ran things...it's just that today they want you to damn well understand that they do....and diminish your role as a man in the process.

Good thing old Glenn is gone.  Had he tried to kiss a girl like that in the streets of America today he'd be called a male chauvinist pig and charged with sexual assault.  Rest in peace, Glenn.

An American Islamic Nation; That Bad?

                                                             

Last week a Media Research Center TV reporter went down to George Mason University and began soliciting signatures for a petition to President Obama that would have demanded we stop warring with ISIS and begin supporting them!  Sadly, the reporter was able to get more than a few student signatures.

That got me to thinking.  What would happen if America were to become a totally Islamic Super Caliphate...a totally Muslim nation?  The map above depicts the countries now under Muslim control.  What it doesn't show is how dominant Muslims are in Germany, France, Great Britain and, to lesser extents, in other western countries, including the United States.  

This set me to contemplating America's eventual fates.  Let's face it, barring a 2nd Civil War to right our course, America is heading for the ash heap of once great civilizations.  Our citizenry are politically lazy, our culture is dominated by rap artists and gangsta thug and liberal, immoral Hollywood types, and we make rich the dregs of our society by giving them a reality show.  Our kids are spoiled illiterates, lacking ambition and a work ethic...or any ethics at all for that matter.   Our educators are socialist elitists who are brainwashing our kids into believing that George Bush was Hitler and Republicans are the devil incarnate and only the alternative lifestyles of gays and transgendered hold any real worth.

Our government officials are as corrupt as ever in our history and they all form an elitist cult whose only purpose in life is to hold power by granting more and more government handouts and who can't and won't identify with folks who are still working hard and trying to live a moral life.

So, if we are too lazy for that 2nd Civil War, if our citizenry would rather watch Dancing With The Stars in lieu of attending PTA meetings, helping their kids with their homework, or even nominally paying attention to national and world events, maybe a Muslim takeover is the answer to all our problems!

Think about it!  Are we tired of subsidizing fatherless families, women who breed irresponsibly?  Are we tired of reading that teens are having sex about the time they turn twelve years old?  Are we a bit tired with "uppity" women who believe their position is superior to their male counterpart and believe they need to be brought down a notch or two?

Islam!  Problem solved; Our Muslim masters will force female genital mutilation on all our women so that sex would be the last thing on their mind...nothing like the feel of burning coals against the now absent female clitoris to put an end to sex for pleasure!  

Are you a bit sick that our youth worship the rappers like Kanye and .50 Cent and the other Black thugs?  Islam, baby!  They'll have their Black necks rolling in the town square every Friday afternoon cause our Muslim masters don't hold to such nonsense.  

Video game and film and the internet flooded with pornography?  Automatic death sentence for that stuff.  After our Muslim overlords drape all our women in black, head to toe,  an ankle flashing below a wind blown abaya will be the closest thing you ever get to the female form!

No, our kids won't be getting any smarter under Islam...they only teach the Koran, but what have we got to lose?...they ain't learning much in school these days either!  And all those precious university professors would lose their heads as well.  

And we don't even want to talk about what would happen to those militant gay people who want to rub their gayness in your face....their fate would be one worse than a quick death.

Drug culture?  Even in moderate Islamic cultures like Saudi Arabia, homosexuality, rape, drugs and murder are all automatic death sentences.  Don't expect it to be more kind in Islamic America.  And none of the Islamic countries today have a drug problem...zero.

So, folks, look at how many problems we solve if we just embrace Islam!  Oh sure, we'd be set back a thousand years but, what the hell, we're on our way there now anyway!  Why not just get there a little quicker!  And maybe we could get an Islamic leader who is not so hell fire bent on those 99 virgins...who might only demand that we pray five times a day, fast one month per year, and make one trek to Mecca during our lifetime.  How hard is that?

Maybe all this seemingly crazy talk about Barack being secretly a Muslim isn't so crazy after all!  Maybe what Barry is doing is to do all he can to promote the Islamic culture and, in doing so, solve many, if not most, of our current social and political ills!  Hell, maybe we ought to be looking at repealing the 22nd Amendment and giving Barry a third term!  

But, of course, I would lose at least my right hand for writing the word "hell" in the preceding paragraph.  Hell, that's okay; "I regret that I only have two hands to give to my country".

"C-Span; Its Strange Birth and Great Worth"

Despite all the problems our nation faces, there are still pockets of excellence in all areas of American life.  When you buy a Frito-Lay product you're going to be assured of product freshness because of the company's manic emphasis on shelf change-over.  If you've ever shopped in Nordstroms you know that Nordstroms will go to any length to satisfy their customers and preserve their pristine reputation for doing so.  No detail has been spared in the presentation of classic movies on Turner Classic Network; they air no commercials, their hosts offer smart, insightful introductions to movies presented; just first class all the way.

However, I believe C-Span is the most amazing example of corporate excellence we have ever seen.  All of the above cited instances are all fed by the ultimate drive for profits.   By contrast, C-Span is driven by only one overriding motive; provide totally neutral, unbiased coverage of our nation's activities and political developments.  

Founded in the 70's by Brian Lamb, a former cable publication executive, C-Span is sponsored by contributions from all of the cable television networks.  C-Span first started as a public service to televise congressional sessions so that we might really see "how the sausage was made".  Unfortunately, our wily legislators have found ways to take the more shady aspects of sausage making to the back rooms so that we are often seeing some public grandstanding and, even for me, some really boring committee sessions.

Were this C-Span's only effort I would not be trumpeting their worth.  C-Span has developed into much more.  C-Span is now a multiple channel network providing interviews with historical figures, authors, coverage of important national events, their morning interviews with people making the news (and the "sausage") and allow voter call-ins so that any average American citizen has the opportunity to provide their own opinion about a particular matter and ask direct, un-filtered questions of the guest. 

Nearly 12 percent of Americans now watch C-Span on a regular basis.  It is an oasis from the bias one sees every day on the commercial news networks.  I don't know how Brian Lamb does it but he must have one hell of a "orientation training seminar" for C-Span's hosts.  Lamb insists that no host ever reveals his own political leanings.  I really admire this.  Like the skeptic I am,  I tune in every morning and I constantly observe the C-Span host to see if, through the slight nuance of how a question is posed, or perhaps even a slight facial tic, if I can detect the host's bias.  Never happens; even when a caller is clearly a complete idiot and is spouting ignorance.  At most, the host might ask for the caller to cite an example to prove an assertion. 

I especially enjoy C-Span's History and C-Span Book TV; love the author interviews and the discussions of historical figures.

So I love C-Span as do millions of other Americans.  Brian Lamb should be lauded for his guidance and strict adherence to absolute broadcast neutrality.  Who would have thought that such a great American treasure could have been born from profit-hungry corporate cable executives.

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

                                                     

 Note to Readers:  A bit of arrogance here; this is a "golden oldie" from last year.  Of course, everyone to their own taste, but I believe this is the best blog I ever wrote.  So I'm sharing it again.

Sometimes I am so touched by a new discovery, some shiny new dime in the pockets of an old pair of pants, some re-newed awareness of our human evolvement that I must talk about it.

To wit; I just finished re-reading "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers.  This lovely 40's era novel is about a deaf-mute who touches the lives of four people, each with a desperate need to make a human connection, to drive away the darkness, to help them achieve some manner of salvation.

The writing is beautiful and elegant and truthful.  Two quotes if I might:

"The heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire!  To find some lasting comfort in the arms of another's fire...driven by a desperate hunger to the arms of a neon light, the heart is a lonely hunter when there's no sign of love in sight!"

"The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone"

McCullers' novel provides plenty of food for thought but the theme primarily focuses on the extent to which we humans alienate both ourselves and others....and with that alienation comes the death of the soul.

After finishing the book I just could not help projecting that idea to the larger stage, to where we are as a society in the 21st century.  We Americans are being poisoned by our own technology.  We are alienating ourselves from others at a record pace.  Hop on my train, the "Golden Past Express".  Let me take you back 50 years to show you what life was like back then:

One got up in the morning, plugged in the coffee percolator, then walked out on the front porch and picked up your morning newspaper and a little metal cart that held two chilled bottles of milk and a pound of butter, both delivered fresh to you that very morning.

You cracked a couple of eggs, fried them, grabbed your toast as it popped up, poured yourself a cup of coffee and sat down at the breakfast table.  You opened the paper and digested both news and eggs and pondered the state of your world.  You were confident that the news itself was reported accurately and, if you wanted someone else's opinion about it, you turned to the editorial page and read well stated opinions from both sides of the political spectrum.

In that short early morning hour, you have been touched in meaningful ways by a small army of people.  Your local newspaper will employ a staff of dozens of people, reporters, type setters, printers, editors and distribution manager.  Your ten cents for that paper kept a hundred people employed.  That fresh milk and butter kept a farm family supported, kept a delivery man employed and kept a gas station that provided the gas in relative prosperity.

Speaking of gas stations, you will wash up after breakfast, get dressed and perhaps stop at your local gas station for gas.  While an attendant is pumping your gas, checking your oil and washing your windshield you will speak with the station manager and make an appointment for an oil change and tuneup.  Any parts needed will be provided right there at the gas station.  Walmart, a huge global corporation, will not have run the station out of business by providing oil changes and parts at a cheaper price.  As you leave, you thank the manager for sponsoring your son's little league team and promise to see each other at this week's PTA meeting.

You arrive at work at 8 o'clock where you are a line supervisor at a clothing factory that makes Arrow Shirts.  You and the other company employees take great pride in making a high quality shirt that's been in high demand for decades.  Since American products are much desired around the world you are flush with job security and are looking forward to a comfortable retirement under the company pension plan.

At lunch time you run down to the local diner.  You'll order a hamburger and fries and, after a fifteen minute wait, you'll be served both burger and fries hot off the grill.  Your lunch purchased contributed to the employment of twenty cooks, dishwashers and waitresses at that diner.  You will know both the manager and waitresses by name and you'll exchange weather or sports news pleasantries before returning to work.

After work you'll drive home from work, weaving carefully through armies of kids playing hop scotch or football or baseball under giant elms providing huge blankets of shade to cool the brow.  At home you're greeted by a stay-at-home wife, who was home when the kids returned from school, who commanded the completion of homework, who provided milk and cookies and a friendly ear to accommodate hearing the woes of kids while at school.  

After changing clothes you'll call the kids to dinner, made from scratch since no frozen meals are available in sufficient volume to feed a family.  The family will assign someone for a quick, likely childish prayer, then enjoy the meal, all the while discussing the events of the day.  The dinner together is a ritual that binds together the family; a chance for all to get to know one another, to learn what bothers and pleases, to solicit desires for birthday or Christmas giving.  After dinner, the kids gather up the dishes and wash and dry and put them away.  If the season is summer they'll have the chance for another hour of outside play before coming in for bath and bed.  All of this familial ritual forms bonds that will hold this family together in good times and bad...and each one of these families contribute to the larger chain of community...a community made strong by the solid foundation of every single family.  In essence, the bonds you establish with your own family affects the hundreds and thousands of others in your community.  The children learn the value of getting an education, the rules of society, the honoring of tradition, the obedience of laws, respect for their elders, and, in that learning, are rewarded by living in a safe and secure community.

All through the year, these families will go to church, they'll attend church suppers, they'll hold neighborhood block parties, setting up road blocks on each end of a block and enjoying a block long pot luck and games and contests...and further strengthening community ties.  They'll jointly attend little league games, join their kids at Boy Scout camp outs, attend Scout award ceremonies, attend PTA meetings, and school carnivals and the school Christmas play and Easter egg hunts.  And when someone in a family dies or loses a job, there'll be kids clothes and shoes  and bags of groceries and meat loaf casseroles left at the front door....and no one need feel shame as the givers donate to the need with pride, knowing that no one is "gaming" them.

When TV viewing is allowed the family is assured by FCC decency codes that nudity, violence or vulgarity will not be shown.  Family shows will present, if not reality, at least an acceptable model of behavior that we would do well to emulate.  The same is true for movies so that everything a child is exposed to will not encourage fear, or lust, or illegal behavior.  Bad behavior is not rewarded and the crusade for "good" is reward in itself.

Fadeout to today:

Those hundred people at the newspaper are unemployed.  If a paper does exist it is owned by a huge publishing conglomerate that doesn't know your community and prints what they want you to read.  News and editorial opinion are mated so that truth and opinion are indecipherable.  Most people get their news on Yahoo or Google and the latest doings of the current diva rule the headlines.  There are no more foreign news agencies so little is known about how the rest of the world is faring.  

The family dairy farm has been bought out by a huge conglomerate.  The milk is available in paper or plastic cartons with a picture of a kidnapped child on the side.  The milk is full of additives to extend shelf life and antibiotic hormones passed down from the cow.  No milk or egg or butter delivery because Walmart can provide a cheaper version, pocket the profit and send it off to Arkansas, that money never to be circulated again in the community.  The same for the neighborhood gas station which went out of business, to be replaced by a large oil company franchise where you pump your own gas, check your own oil, wash your own windshield but can get something that resembles a hot dog for .59 cents and a two dollar cup of coffee that the old station manager used to provide free while you jabbered with him about last Friday night's high school football game.

The local diner has been closed down and the twenty adult employees fired.  It's been replaced by a Burger King that hires teens at minimum wage, teens who may or may not spit in your hamburger in a fit of hormonal angst, and if all goes well, will shovel out a microwaved soy-beef patty that tastes like cardboard.  

When you arrive home you try to beat the wife home from work, giving you favored position at the curb because all of the treasured possessions have filled up the garage.  The wife arrives home from work shortly after work and you begin to hunt for the latch key kids, kids adept at the "delete" key to turn off the porno when either parent enters the room.  They've been cruising between Facebook and porno and a violent gaming site since they got home from school.  You have medical appointments for both Johnny and Joanie this week; Johnny to deal with his obesity and adult onset childhood diabetes, all cause by the banning of recess at school and a computer chair supplanting out door play.  Joanie needs to go the OB-GYN to begin her use of birth control pills because she's that close to being twelve years old.

Either mom or dad pops a Stouffers Family Size frozen lasagna meal into the oven and cracks open a bag of Dole's salad.  When dinner is ready it will be announced with sufficient volume for everyone in the house to hear it, then it will be consumed at computer station, gaming station or in front of TV while CSI is running an autopsy of a corpse.

Then everyone will retreat to their respective bedrooms, stick an IPOD ear phone in their ears and it's off to dreamland.

There will be no block parties or little league games or church suppers or PTA meetings or Christmas plays (because Christmas is now verbotten in the public schools).  If someone in the neighborhood runs into hard times, well they know damn well how to reap a whole host of government bennies; welfare, WIC, housing vouchers, food stamps and food banks...no need to get involved..hell, isn't it enough that you pay the taxes that fund all that stuff!

And, as everyone goes to sleep, the nocturnal army of criminals begin their work.  They infest city center, long dead from the Walmart phenomenon; the now common practice of corporate negligence.  Exxon and Johnson and Johnson and Coca Cola and Pepsico and Kraft and dozens of other "world corporations" who suck the profits from a community, and the jobs, and the community pride, and salve the wounds by handing out free back packs to needy children; children who would not have been needy if the "world corp" had not farmed out Daddy and Mommy's  jobs to India and China.

So now the schools suck because mom and dad no longer pay attention, the kids are illiterate and fill the void with airplane glue and bath salts and crystal meth.  Property crime soars, driving up insurance costs and property taxes and illiterate adults fill the fast food jobs that were meant for teenagers that once had a work ethic, and the only winners are those who've surrendered and boarded the government gravy train, or the filthy rich who have lost all sense of a social conscience...who feel rich, sated and secure behind the iron security of gated communities.

And as our society crumbles around us, as we alienate ourselves more and more with the toys bred of technology, we try to sate the hungers with the lotus gurgitations of IPod's and Iphones and Video games and the superficial pretensions of "human connection" with social media....where we all lived happily, alone, ever after.

The heart is indeed a lonely hunter...never more lonely than today.

Sigh.

The NFL; Meat, Money, Madness

                                                               

I have held off writing about the latest NFL Black thuggery for over a week now.  I always do when I fear writing about something laden with so many complexities.  I fear I'll meander and fail to write a cogent synopsis of what I'm seeing out there.

First of all, let's look at where all the women beaters are coming from.  Are you even surprised that it comes from the same class of people that have been pampered by both government and society?  Our football jocks come primarily from the same thuggery as Chicago's south side, or Atlanta, or Baltimore or Detroit, or Cleveland, or Ferguson,  Missouri...the very jerks whose heinous behavior is ignored by Barry and Jessie and Al.  Except, the thugs who can play football are pampered to an even greater extent.

From the time they step on a high school football field, teachers and school administrators, but especially football coaches, will fall over themselves smooching and kissing thug ass if it means a winning season.  I'm not even going to laundry list the long list of college thugs who somehow managed to play four years of college without gaining the ability to read, write or speak proper English.  And, because they can carry or throw a football, or layout a 300 pound tackle, they have been known to get away with assault, participating in bar brawls, and raping more than one co-ed on campus and graduate to the good old NFL.  

And the NFL is about one thing; money...billions of it.  So, as long as they can cover up a player's misdeeds, as long as no one finds out, everything is just hunky dory.  Stop to consider the NFL draft.

How is draft day any different than an 18th century slave auction?  "Here's Mohammed Jones, folks...weighs in at 350 pounds, runs the 60 in 6.6 seconds and can free lift 400 pounds!".  Cleveland takes him in the 1st round!  Thug after thug dons the hat of the team that drafts him and gets a big hug from the commissioner and all of the old crimes are long forgotten.  My god, the only thing missing is to strip em down and grease their Black bodies down and parade them out their to the slave  buyers!

And because neither the NFL, or the players own union cares not a whit for anything but money, those Black jocks are never given a class in personal financial management and (absolutely true), more than 80 percent of them are dead broke within five years, whether still playing or not.

These Black thugs, like their "civilians" in the hood, have been beating on their women for decades, and the women won't talk because they love that money more than their own self pride, and the NFL won't talk because it might hurt their bottom line, so the women bashing continued for decades.

But then Ray Rice just happened to be caught on a security camera knocking his fiance out cold.  And TMZ got the video and put it all out there....but not before a policeman involved in the investigation sent a copy of the tape to the NFL where it was ignored.  So America watched...and cringed..and shouted out in anger....the anger mushrooming by the "war on women" army who just knew all men where like that anyway, right?

So now the NFL cares...because Nike is threatening to pull ads, and Pepsi is threatening to cancel a $2 billion dollar contract...and somebody in Congress might decide that the NFL is really a business and should be taxed accordingly.  

And you know what?  One good thing and one bad thing is finally coming of this...and it is all the same thing.  After the culture of Black thuggery has led to thousands of rapes, robberies, mob-robs and murders, all executed while nearly all of America stood by and didn't give much of a shit, the ugly face of that thuggery is emerging front and center of "America's Game", the past time that has always glorified violence!  And it is striking at the very heart of what most really care about; money!

And now a few of those Black thugs are finally being regarded as the pariah they really are.  And will Americans finally rise up and demand a change in the violent Black culture?  Don't bet on it...while money will insist that the NFL clean up their act, there's simply no profit in cleaning up the ghettos.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

"Grilling" Hillary

                                                                   

Last weekend Hillary Clinton flew down to Iowa to attend Senator Tom Harkin's 37th annual steak fry.  Just as at tax time you pay five times what your government is worth, old Tom hawks steaks and charges five times their worth for the privilege of sitting with the latest "liberal darling" with an eye on the White House.

So Hillary, though she says she's not running, was there.  All eyes were on her as she gnawed on a steak bone and chewed a bit on her chances of winning the Presidency in 2016.  

There's been a bit of froth from the political media pundits of late suggesting that Hillary might not run.  Don't you believe it.  Hillary is the most cut throat and ambitious politician to come along in a long, long time.  She covets that office as badly as Slick Willie covets his bimbos.  

And why shouldn't she?  Every poll taken shows Hillary will get 70% of the woman vote, nearly all the Dems and a healthy number of Independents.  You see, many women see Hillary as the chance to mount the "grand revenge" on men.  No, they don't for a minute believe Debbie "Wasserman Test" Schultz' assertion that Republicans are grabbing women by the hair and dragging them back to the fifties...but they do believe they'll lose their right to "birth control by abortion" and their free Obamacare birth control pills if Republicans win the Presidency.

Note to women:  If you're gonna continue to be idiotic, Kool-Aid sipping dumb cunts that can't see an issue beyond your vagina then I'm gonna time travel back and tell my great grandpa to vote against ratifying the 19th Amendment because these 21st century women are bat shit crazy!

Many American women admire Hillary because she IS as ruthless as any male politician.  Beneath those peach colored pant suits are a set of metaphorical testicles that few women have.  And even women with the best intentions would like nothing more than to see Hillary in the Oval Office.  It's their comeuppance from the "suppressive 50's" when women were to be seen and not heard.

Indeed, among the Democratic field, there are a few male politicians who are thinking about running...most of them were neutered long ago by the liberal agenda and present no threat at all.  Even Mad Joe Biden stands little chance of co-opting the party's nomination once Hillary declares her candidacy.  

So the Republicans better watch their step.  There had better not be one loose lip uttering about women closing their legs to prevent rape, or any mention of the value of a stay at home mom, or eliminating birth control under Obamacare.  They'll need to draw up a laundry list of all of Hillary's many failings...from being fired during the Watergate trials to to Benghazi, and everything in between.  They need to remind the American people that Hillary marched in lock step with Barack Hussein Obama throughout five years of his term.

Speaking of Barry, Hillary will try mightily to distance herself from Barry's bumblings...she's already been heard doing that of late.  Truth be known, Bill and Hillary despise Obama for snatching the Presidential crown from her in 2008...she had already been picking out the curtains for the Oval Office when the community organizer came along and sold the American people the most phony bill of goods ever in our history.

You can be sure that Hillary has got a couple of suitcases already stuffed full of her pastel pantsuits...just waiting to hit the road to again sell the American people damaged goods.  Meantime Hillary was seen gnawing on the steak bone, fangs fully sharpened for the campaign ahead.

"Harry's War"

                                                               

Well, Harry Reid, in another attempt to recruit more women in defense of the Republicans' "war on women" again trotted out the Paycheck Fairness Act this week.  If you have an IQ below 70 stop reading now.

You see, the Paycheck Fairness Act is just a ruse...it has nothing to do with raising the salaries of women.  Instead it is the Debbie "Wasserman Test" Schultz equivalent of "republicans grabbing women by the hair and jerking them back to the 1950's.  

I read the proposed bill.  You should too.  Go to Senate.gov and read what it was REALLY about.  First, it levied still another burden on America's business people.  It would require businesses to explain, employee by employee, why one person was being paid at a different rate than another.  Secondly, the bill would force all business owners to publicly publish every employee's salary.  (If you like this I would like you to send me a copy of all your credit card receipts, your bank balances, what you spend your money on, and why little Johnny got a bigger present than little Janey on their respective birthdays...and why you paid one plumber x amount and a different amount for the local handyman)

Businesses have every right to negotiate salary with their employees.  Every worker is different, with differing talents and their work has a different impact on the success of the business, depending on talent and quality of effort.

Harry's bill would also demand that the secretary who does the payroll at your local fire department get equal pay with the firefighter who walks into a burning inferno to save a life.  Or that the records clerk in the Police Department get the same pay as the street cop.  Sorry, that only works in the military and even the military has special pay for hazardous duty.

Look, Harry knew his bill would not pass.  But he chose to spend the few short weeks in this pre-election session to throw out nonsense instead of the 490 House bills sitting on his desk for a Senate vote.  (Who's responsible for the gridlock, really?).  But this gives Harry and his liberal army a little more mush to feed to the Kool-Aid crowd in hopes of getting them to turn out to the polls in November.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

A Place To Lay Their Head

                                                             

About five years ago some of our wiser politicians in the city of Phoenix decided on doing something simple for a change.  No grand expensive programs, no bureaucracy established to manage it...just doing some good where they might.

Until the Phoenix program began, veterans made up 12% of the homeless population.  That's down to 9% today as Phoenix has worked some magic.  Even the Arizona-hating White House acknowledges that this city is the first in the nation to zero out veteran homelessness.  

It happened because the  Mayor and a few good people decided that, if they thought smart, and worked smart, they could get their homeless vets off the streets and on a trajectory for a better life.

So they cobbled together a little money from the feds, a little money from the state, and personal donations from the local citizenry and began to build some modest little apartments that the vets might live in.  They appropriately called the housing complex A"Victory Place".  And even as the walls were going up on those little apartments and converted older motels, they worked with veterans groups to figure out how to help the city's homeless vets.

A group of volunteers called The Madison Street Veterans, vets themselves, began combing through homeless shelters and soup kitchen lines and culling out a few of the lost and forgotten...some of them wearing Vietnam unit hats and carrying their "fruit salad" medals in the bottom of an old duffel bag.  One veteran, upon being asked about the purple heart medal he wore pinned to his left chest pocket, unbuttoned his shirt to show the scars where an AK-47 round passed within an inch of his heart.  

"Don't lay a lot of rules on them", said one vet.  "These guys have been living on park benches and under trees so don't make the mistake of assuming the transition will be easy".  "Have patience", said another "these guys are homeless for a reason; mental problems, or drug or alcohol abuse...don't expect too much at first".

And so the powers that be built the little homes for vets, and they didn't demand that they give up alcohol, or drugs, or force them to take a job.  The main objective was to get them off the street and worry about the rest of it later.  

Now anyone who has ever been homeless will tell you that it is nigh impossible to hold down a job and live a normal life when you can't regularly eat, or bathe, and don't have a phone, or even an address.

So Phoenix gave them an address..and more importantly, a home.  They could now apply for food stamps and they could now sleep in a thrift shop bed, but the bed was safe and warm, and the vet finally began to believe in himself, in his future...just a little at first, but enough.

After a time, after regularly being able to put food in their bellies, after getting an uneventful night of rest, those vets began wandering by the job boards posted around their apartment complex.  Soon their level of trust became such that they could ask for the assistance of a volunteer "vet navigator", vets themselves, human "compasses" who could point vets in the right direction and the homeless vets began to get jobs and re-connect with families who had long ago given up on them.   Happily, many of them asked for, and received help to kick their addictions.  

No, all is not roses with this story.  Nothing in real life is.  When program volunteers began going around to the parks and searching under highway underpasses to tell their story, to talk about the program, there was skepticism and distrust.  At one time or another a vet has been wrung through the bureaucratic wringer and said "never again".  But, over time, there were just enough "good stories" coming back to these homeless vets..stories about real people caring about their plight.  Then, slowly, the vets began to file in and accept the offer of a home.   

So, in January of this year the city of Phoenix had managed to house every single homeless vet that wants a home.  Yes, there were a few stragglers who could not be persuaded...but those who want a home, have one.  Amazingly, drug addictions, and alcohol addictions have been licked at far higher rates among these vets than the general populace.  The "retention" rate in these vet homes is an amazing 94%, a few going back to the streets, but happily, many redeemed sufficiently to leave and go back to their families.

I guess the lesson here is that, you don't have to start a big expensive program (the federal government spends billions creating bureaucracies to try and do the same thing..and fail), you don't have to put up a big government building, and hire a small army of bureaucrats, and siphon off huge amounts of taxpayer dollars to get something good done.  If the heart is in the right place, if the goal is to truly help people, and not do it for political favor, good things can happen.

But perhaps the greatest lesson learned here is that, no matter how lost a person can be, no matter what his burdens, no matter his transgressions, a person, and a life can still be saved if enough people really care.

"Palin-Tology"

                                                                 

The Democrats are in an orgasmic frenzy over news from Wasilla, Alaska.  Seems the entire Palin clan showed up for a party in honor of Todd's 50th birthday and things got out of hand.  It appears words were exchanged between son Track, the Iraq war veteran and an old boyfriend of his sister Willow.  Words got heated so the combatants were kind enough to take the fight out to the front yard where it got physical.  Reportedly, while the men folks were basically just beating their chests, the women got into some real fisticuffs.  Sarah got in her share of licks but witnesses said it was daughter Bristol who displayed a deadly left hook that did some serious damage.

Eventually the cops came but the alcohol had worn off a bit and none of the combatants wanted to press charges against each other...just your normal Momma Bear-Soccer mom weekend.  

Now, Democrats are just squirming in their seats, having orgasm after orgasm because, being lethal with their mouths, are not much for physical altercations themselves.  They just love it when political correctness goes by the wayside and proves what brutes conservatives are.

Well, let me be the first to say that I am not, nor have I ever been a particular fan of Sarah Palin.  The fingernails on a chalkboard voice put me off the very first time I heard her speak.  And while she talks a lot she's not eloquent...in fact she's rather course.

Still I found this brawl particularly appealing.  And, thought I, peacenik that I am, how wonderful it would be if more of our political leaders would shut their manic traps and get down and dirty with some serious fisticuffs.  It just might result in averting that 2nd Civil War I'm always talking about!

Stay with me here.  Consider this:  the most docile of folks love to go to professional fights.  Somehow, vicariously, they are able to watch one human beating another to a bloody pulp, and work off some of their own inner hostility.  

Why wouldn't that work in politics?  We could watch Democrats and Republicans participate in "matches to the death" and it might just quell a bit of our inner anger.

For me personally, I'd like to see Sarah Palin taking on Debbie "Wasserman Test" Schultz.  My god!...that would be wonderful.  Sarah runs marathons and Debbie runs her mouth and she just might experience what it's like when someone really does grab a woman by the head of her hair and beats the shit out of her.  People, that would quell my political frustration for a good week!

Think of the possibilities!  South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley vs Nancy Pelosi!  Nikki would win on the first take down by punching Nasty's Botox injection points and seeing Nasty's cheeks drooping down as far as those latex tits.  Match over!

How about New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez vs Sheila Big Hat Jackson from Texas?  Big Hat would have the weight advantage but Susana's pretty fit so about the third round I expect Big Hat would be huffing pretty nicely...just about time for a knockdown and a mad Mexican Hat Dance on that big red Texas monstrosity that Jackson tried to wear on the floor of the House.

How about Florida's Allen West vs Barack Obama?  No love lost there!  I can just see it now!  The bell rings, the boxers bump gloves, but instead of putting up his dukes, Barack begins trying to talk West out of fighting.  West is not having any of it and slams a right into Barry's midsection.  Barack puts his pencil thin wrists up to protect himself and Allen counters with a right hook that puts Barry on the mat.  Just then, from Barack's corner, Michelle winds herself through the ropes, flexes those masculine shoulders and executes a left hook that staggers West.  Barry crawls back to his stool and spits into his bucket and his trainers begin working on a cut over his left eye (he'll only be able to read one side of a teleprompter for the next week).  Michelle finishes off Allen West and looks out in the crowd and begins taunting Donald Trump to enter the ring.  Donald points at his hair mop and declines the invitation.

When Michelle leaves the ring Sarah Palin climbs back in and points directly at Hillary Clinton, sitting with Bill in the front row.  Hillary waves Sarah off, saying "I'm not running for office yet", but Bill picks her up and shoves her in the ring, then moves over to snuggle up with his "Bimbo of the Month" and yells "let the match begin".  While Sarah is donning the gloves Hillary gives her a kick in the privates and reaches out and twists both of Sarah's tits.  Sarah soon recovers and begins pummeling the older Hillary.  Finally Hillary begins crawling back to her corner and Bill, in a fit of pity, jumps up into Hillary's corner and asks if she's okay.  To which Hillary responds "Does it really matter now?"

I can think of all kinds of pol matches; Harry Reid vs John Boehner..Harry is older but was once a boxer and old John has smoked a few too many Marlboro's.  Charley Rangel vs Chris Christie, Marco Rubio vs Charlie Schumer, the Bronx Bomber.  

So, no, I didn't find anything alarming about the Palin brawl.  I'm inspired by it.  I have high hopes that it will set a trend.  I'd like nothing better than to see our politicians getting just a sample of what they've been giving us for half a century!

"America In The Morning"

                                               
America awakened that sunny September morning to azure blue skies and with an innocence that would dissolve in the shadows of that very same evening.  But that was later.  The day began with an unfolding of America's joyous embracing of life...and of carrying out the business of being who we are.

New Yorkers hurried to work, no doubt with the same brusqueness and brashness that is their way.  The "melting pot" of Jews, Italians, Irish, German, Hispanic and Asian cupped hands around the familiar office coffee cup, munched on bagels, biscotti or donuts and looked out on the New York skyline from their majestic perches in the Twin Towers.  Phone calls and faxes and the electronic dance of data exchange from all over the world were already humming through the massive network of communication devices. The "water cooler" gab perhaps was of pennant races and football, perhaps of weekend soccer mom travails, or maybe just a joyous appreciation for such a fine weather day.

At about this same time Americans were exercising the ritual of boarding the commuter air chariots which would carry them home to family, to a business meeting in San Francisco or, for a little two-year old, to her first trip to Disneyland.

America elsewhere was rousing itself from Sunday night slumber; as the Sun moved east to west Americans awakened, let the dog out, plugged in the coffee pot, retrieved the morning paper, stuffed peanut butter sandwiches into school lunch boxes.  Did all these things while the white noise of morning television emanated from the living room. 

Then, the first plane came; soaring incredibly low across the majestic city skyline.  Those who were watching on TV were horrified by the sight.  A terrible accident they thought.  Those inside the first tower hit were shocked beyond comprehension.  A surge of cell phone traffic occurred as those inside sought to reach out and communicate love and fear to family or friends, perhaps just to offer a last declaration of love before they died.

Stunned and speechless, Americans stood before the TV and had their worse fears confirmed as the second jet plowed into the second tower.  The horror of fire and smoke escalated to nightmare as we watched human beings leaping from the 108th floor in the last desperate attempt to escape the searing fire. 

America's fear increased as news reports revealed further horror as the American Airlines jet plowed into the Pentagon and we wondered how massive was this assault on our beloved homeland.  Anxiety heightened again as we learned that other rogue human air bombs were aloft and intent on inflicting further damage and further death.

Then, in an unimaginably short time, the majestic towers shook and crumbled to the ground, bringing with it the souls of three thousand innocents, whose only crime was that they lived in America.  The ashes of steel and glass and human flesh cascaded to earth and swooped down the avenues that only minutes before had been testament to three hundreds years of American endeavor.

As in any American tragedy there are also brief glimpses of glory.  As we kept vigil on the American pulse, as we tried to comprehend the degree of American hate that could have caused all of this, we learned that, even from the ashes of ruin, there was American heroism and human nobility.  With a rousing "let's roll", a small gathering of Americans, virtually assured of their own death, were determined to prevent their plane from being more human fodder for destruction of innocents on the ground.  They chose instead to end their life's journey on a peaceful hillside in Pennsylvania. 

Even as the first responders in New York came to realize that the massive edifices could not be saved, they pledged to save lives instead.  With the spirit of self-sacrifice that has always been part of the American character, these brave men and women risked and lost their lives while trying to save others. 

Americans lost something on that fateful day.  We lost the sense of security and we lost the sense of innocence.  Before that day, we believed that all we had given to the world was sufficient to insure God's blessings and God's protection.  We believed that the sacrifices offered to preserve liberty, our work to feed the world's hungry, our endeavors to relieve pain and sickness to the world's helpless would always secure admiration from the world's peoples.  We were wrong.

But we also gained something on that September day, and in the days that followed.  We learned that America continues to be blessed with selfless and noble human beings who believe in the sanctity of life and the preservation of our American way of life.  We learned that hate and religious zealotry shall never defeat us.

On a personal note, I retired from the Air Force in 1989.  Following my military retirement I went to work in Saudi Arabia.  I was in the Middle East during the 1st Gulf War and endured, beside my fellow American military, Sadaam's Scuds as they thundered into Riyadh.  My work was useful as my job involved keeping American and Allied fighter jets in the skies above Iraq.   I continued working in the Middle East until the summer of 2001.  I arrived back in America two months before 9/11.  As the horrors of that morning unfolded, the old warrior spirit in me came alive and I wanted so dearly to join the fight for America, just as I had always done in Vietnam and in service in other places in the world.  I felt helpless and ineffective as I realized that I would sit on the sidelines this time.

But I was heartened to see that a new generation of young Americans were lining up at recruiting stations and raising their right hand to take the sacred oath of service and sacrifice.  These selfless and noble gestures gave me great pride in my country and a comforting assurance that our country was in good hands.

God Bless and Comfort America on this day of remembrance.

When Love Developed

                                                               

One of our regular blog readers, and frequent commenter, Ken, emailed me last night.  He was blubbering over a movie he had seen called "Time Zero".  It's about those old Polaroid cameras that shot you out a photo one minute after clicking the 'go button'.   Well, Polaroid long ago gave up making the things.....and they quit making film for it sometime in 2008.  But, as we all know, there will always be a group of product aficionados who just love that old camera, and this Polaroid is no exception.  They loved the way they could make the photos more artistic by the way they processed the photo after it emerged from the camera shell.  And, just as we still have LP devotees, and, in the age of the digital book, physical book devotees, these Polaroid folks are pretty rabid about their cameras!  

However, I don't believe I've ever seen a group of "loyalists" go as far as these Polaroid fans have.  They went out and actually bought one of Polaroid's old factories and began playing with the manufacturing process, not only to begin manufacturing the film, but to make both the film and the camera easier to use.

Well, the film "Time Zero" (which I have yet to see, but have watched the trailer) depicts these folks interacting with the old Polaroid engineers, staging a "love-in" of sorts with each other.  The film starts out with a rather charming young Black man (a young Tiger Woods type) who is speaking of the wonders of the Polaroid SX-70.  He says "it's magic, I don't know how they get those little people inside that camera, or how they feed them, but what comes out is pure magic".  

Now our old friend Ken knows that I'm a blubberer too.  He no doubt read my earlier blog, a tribute to Kodak; an appreciation for all the memories Kodak helped to create through the magic of their camera and film technology.  So good ole Ken knew he could no doubt start me to blubbering too by forwarding information about this little gem of a film.  And he's right.  The first image that came to my mind was an old pic of me with my family on the day I left for Vietnam.  No one seemed to have a camera that day to capture a memory of an early Christmas dinner party my mom gave to me on 20 December 1968.  Fortunately, I had stowed away one of the early versions of those old Polaroid instants and it was brought out to take a picture of the family around the table.  

So, as soon as I read Ken's email I pulled out that old badly processed photo and took a fond look at it.  It shows us all standing around the table, no one very happy to see me leave for Vietnam.  But, even in its basic simplicity, it captures the love my family had for me on a particularly difficult day.

                                                 

It's as Ken said; for most of us it's not about camera technology....it's about the nostalgia we had about things that were precious and rare.  Today's cameras and even our cell phones can take better pictures.    They can chug out pic after pic of the most mundane things.  And somehow, because they are so readily made, and so readily available, they just aren't as special as those old photos that captured a moment in time that can never be again.  

So, thank you, Ken.  Sometime in the next few weeks I'll download the "Time Zero" film from I-Tunes or Amazon and have a look.  But I've blubbered enough this morning and need to be dry-eyed to finish this blog.  

I Report, You Decide

                                                           

USAA Magazine was kind enough to fire up their calculators and determine your, and each one of your family's share of the $1.2 trillion dollars in student debt.  USAA says it comes out to $69, 870 dollars per citizen.

Blog Maintenance Notes

                                                           

                         


This is what my blog page view count looks like when I don't post a blog at all.  (With four hours left to the 5PM cut off, the page views will exceed 3,000 "hits" today...Saturday)

Pageviews today

2,642

Pageviews yesterday

2,820

Pageviews last month

81,344

Pageviews all time history

528,662

note:  I know if my followers are "hitting" because they show up with a unique traffic code.

Those thousands of hits come from previous blogs that get picked up on some "super blog" and recommended to their readers, thus the big readership numbers.  There are about a dozen of my blogs that get huge page views each day, usually because they are associated with something in the headlines.

However, my "following", my steady readers are getting a bit lazy...sometimes I get as few as 20 hits on my daily offerings (still get the 3,000 viral hits, but not my "regulars".  That's clearly an indication that the market is saturated and you need to hear less of me, rather than more.

So, no blog today, and I'll be cutting back in the future in hopes that absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Yes there will be whole weeks where I am so fired up that I'll run five or six in a row, but no longer as often as before.  Those thousands of page views mean nothing to me because they are not my "regulars" and are only in pursuit of more "meat' to feed on for a particular interest.  But my "follower friends" mean everything to me and I'm beginning to see you yawn just a bit, politely, but the yawn is there.

You should also know that I get more than 3,000 spam comments a day.  You don't usually see them because Google does a pretty good job of shuffling them to the Spam file.  If you have ever posted a comment that didn't show up in the comments section, somehow Google interpreted your comment as "spam".  If this has ever happened to you, my apologies.  Obviously I can't sort through 3,000 comments to see if any are legit...I just delete the massive lot of them and hope for the best.

For those "die hard 20" that show up and read this blog everyday, I love you guys..thank's for that, but the rest of you are telling me to shut up for awhile.  So I will now and then.

Obama's Wrists

                                                               

Okay, I know this is nit-picking to the extreme.  And I know today's blog may say more about my weird thought processes than it does about Obama.  But I was reading an article about former Washington Post Editor, Ben Bradlee, and came across this pic of Obama awarding Ben the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Somehow I could not divert my eyes away from those spindly and weak Obama wrists.  To me, those wrists say all we need to know about the man.  After all, those wrists never swung a hundred pound box of wine grapes up on a moving trailer for eight hours on a blistering summer day.  They didn't pull fifty pound boxes off a warehouse shelf and deliver them to the front counter...hell, they didn't even push a lawn mower to earn pocket money.  We do know that the only job Obama held as a youth was at a Baskin Robbins ice cream shop.  He was forced to scoop 4 ounces of ice cream onto a one ounce sugar cone in the air conditioned comfort of a Honolulu BR shop...and that was for a few weeks one summer.

And, god forbid, how much more limp wristed and spindly would they be had he not participated in those basketball scrimmages behind the White House...you know the ones...where Lebron and Dwayne let him dunk on them.  Maybe Barack's golf game will tone those wrists up a bit more...but I can certainly see why he shoots those three digit golf scores.  With those wrists,  more fitting for a twelve year old, I'd be surprised if he can drive a golf ball over 125 yards or so.

Those are community organizer wrists, folks.  Those are wrists more in keeping with cashing green checks and sipping lattes and fingering french croissants in a Starbucks store.  Those are wrists perfectly suited for flailing about in front of an adoring crowd and letting his mouth carry the heavy load.  Those are wrists that can barely support his arms as he leans into the teleprompter.  

Those wrists are as flighty as the man himself, as empty of sinew as the man who owns them; the master of flight whenever a crisis erupts...wrists that are adept at pushing the blame away from himself and leavening it onto others.

Thank god Barack did not try to serve in the military...can you imagine those wrists doing push-ups?  Or holding his weight as he traversed a fifty foot row of monkey bars with a huge mud hole threatening to swallow you should your hands slip?  Or rappelling down a guard tower?  Or firmly grasping the wide handles of a 50 caliber machine gun as it's rapping out 500 hundred round a minute?

No, Barry is more adept at holding a phone and a pen...and wielding the words that prove so divisive that everyone hates everyone else these days....pretty impressive for a limp wristed little "man-child" who should never had been allowed to occupy the White House.