The Student Loan Crisis

                                                           

Liberals awoke this morning, prepared their meuslix and caramel latte, then sat down, opened the morning paper and were shocked to learn student loan debt has doubled in the last five years.  As with every other social program, liberals simply refuse to stop and run the numbers on a calculator before launching another mad government give away.

And, with blinders in place, liberals have refused to heed the warnings from economists over the last two years; warnings that relaxing student loan criteria will lead to irresponsible student borrowing.  As recently as two years ago economists have been predicting another decade of economic malaise as the next generation of the labor force attempts to dig out of tens of thousands of dollars in student debt.  Until and unless that debt is paid it will continue to be millstone hanging over workers who even dare to dream of buying a home or buying a new automobile.

Flash back five years folks.  The banks were managing the student loan program and, in doing so, maintained a measure of loan discipline between student loaner and "loanee".  However, hating banks so badly, and wanting to draw more suckers to the public trough, the Obama administration took over management  of the student loan program.

So, Obama now had still another way to buy electoral support through his pimping government student loan dollars to kids who have not yet developed even a hint of financial discipline.    So Obama pimped the hell out of the student loan program and spoke freely about his goodness, as if he personally was putting up the money.

Now folks, we saw this same liberal "pattern of sin" in the late 90's when Bill Clinton, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank ordered Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae to extend home loans to millions who clearly didn't qualify.  When the bubble burst, despite Obama's brow beating the banks to write off bad loans, millions walked away from housing debt and we have yet to recover from that "grand mal" of liberal stupidity.

So did liberals learn anything?  Apparently not, since they are amazed that student debt has doubled since Obama took office.  The report, published in the Arizona Republic this past week, shows that 57% of college seniors have more than $25,000 dollars in student debt, with many law and medical students owing as much as $200,000 dollars!

                                                   

Even more frightening is the fact that the last two years' crop of college graduates have not been able to find a job in this stagnant economy and have moved back home with mom and dad without any hope of paying off their massive student loan burdens.

And, again, economists are all in agreement that the current trillion dollars of student debt will weigh heavily against any economic recovery, at least for the next decade!

I've written about this crisis often so I was not surprised to read this "shocking" student loan report.  The Republic dutifully reported that college presidents and college administrators and liberal politicians are alarmed by this highly disturbing news!  

Folks, is their anyone dumber than a liberal politician that can't operate a calculator?  Is there anyone dumber than a liberal who can't learn from past sins?  Dumb and dumber...and we're all gonna pay for this mess.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

Mexicans Breech Border in "Prong Attack"

                                                       

On Tuesday of this week approximately 150 Mexican Nationals breeched the U.S. border near San Diego in what Immigration officials fear was a "feeler" or "prong" attack in preparation for a much larger invasion force being planned in the near future.  When Border Patrol agents tried to stop the mob the agents were pelted with rocks and water bottles.   Agents tried using pepper spray on the mob but were unsuccessful.  Eventually, border patrol troops arrived in sufficient force to stop the invaders and drive them back into Mexico.

This latest incident comes on the heels of reported stepped up invasion activity across the entire 2,000 mile border with Mexico.  Border Patrol agents are frustrated over the President and Congress' recent attempts to "tie their hands behind their back" as they attempt to enforce our immigration laws.

Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol Union Chief for 2,000 agents in South Texas, said the recent letter sent to the BP from a panel of Senate Democrats demanding that a "kinder and gentler" Border Patrol seek ways to reduce violence against undocumented immigrants has hurt morale and caused agents to be tentative in pursuing violators.  The situation has become problematic as illegal invasion activity has increased as Mexican nationals hope to cross the border and be present when President Obama at lasts signs an amnesty bill.  Sustained by this hope, and encouraged by U.S. sponsored informational bulletins on how illegals may secure American Food Stamp aid has led to an explosive increase in border crossings in recent months.

Agent Cabrera also laments Congress' failure to fund the legislation passed two years ago which would have hired the additional 5,000 Border Patrol agents authorized in the previous legislation.  "Same way with the fence", said Cabrera, "they were supposed to build 350 miles of fence in the Rio Grande Valley…they built 40 and the funds dried up".

Cabrera laughs in response to the Obama administration's claim that fewer illegals are crossing the border.  "With the apprehension numbers, obviously, those are only the numbers we're catching, and there's a bigger number of those who are getting away."

Immigration and Law Enforcement officials in Arizona are seeing similar problems.  As SB1070, Arizona's tough new immigration law, was gutted by the liberal courts, Arizona is now seeing a rise in illegal crime as illegals now feel free to move around at will and resurrect the business of drug and human smuggling.  Robbery, rape, and home invasions are again on the rise and the dozen or so daily "illegal hit and run" rate has returned to pre-SB1070 levels.

Immigration officials are deathly afraid that the Democratic-controlled Senate may be withholding agent funding and fence building money in order to create as much border tension as possible.  They believe this is a political effort to drive forward their proposed amnesty legislation.  The Senate takes the position that these illegal crossers are good upstanding Mexicans whose only crime is wanting to pursue a better life in America.

I guess the only thing that will change the Senate's mind on that position would be to have them stand watch on the border, just to see how it feels to be pelted with rocks and full water bottles…or worse.

Offering Thanks

                                                       

The other day I spent a good two hours on Ree Drummond's, i.e. The Pioneer Woman's website.  I've been a follower of her web site for years now and sometimes watch her program as well.  Have even attempted to prepare some of her recipes.  The other day I was "teased" to her site by a Kitchen Aid mixer she was giving away, simply by commenting on where you'll be spending Thanksgiving this year.  (don't even know what i would do with a mixer!)

After checking to see if my comments had been recorded, and that I was Kitchen Aid eligible, I got caught up in the wonderful comments offered by folks from all over America.  And I was either elated or saddened vicariously by folks who were deliriously happy to be uniting with family, or saddened by circumstances this year that would keep them away.

Some folks were staying at home and serving as caregiver for a spouse suffering from alzheimer's dementia, or sharing the Thanksgiving dinner at a hospice in honor of loved ones who would soon depart this world for another.  I was saddened to read of a 75 year old lady who was spending the day in the hospital with her brother who was undergoing his second round of chemo and radiation.  Another family would dine in a hospital cafeteria as they waited on the test results of their son.

Still, while there were indeed many sad instances, there were some 7,000 plus responses at the time of my visit and the comments were overwhelmingly joyful…so much so that I was able to cast off the worries of my country and celebrate the joy of being apart of a country peopled so bountifully with wonderful, loving folks.

There were mom and pops excited beyond measure that their kids were coming home for Thanksgiving.  There were grandparents waiting to get their first look at the new grandchild.  There were grandchildren reveling in the fact that their 88 year old grandpa would indeed carry on the tradition this year of hosting a whole tribe of family!  There were playful Texans who were giddy that they were hosting so many family and friends that the "dining area" extended from the dining room, out into the garage…and into the drive-way if necessary!

There were "retail orphans"; families who had at least one member working in a retail store in order to satisfy the greed of folks no longer satisfied with Black Friday, but had to have Black Thursday as well.  Their families would be home having dinner alone.  

And there was family after family who were having their Thanksgiving dinner at fire stations and police stations with their "larger families".   There were that many more who were having their holiday dinner in a homeless shelter…after they had served the wanting.  There were church groups hosting the lost, lonely and destitute.  One 70 year old lady said she'd be alone but didn't mind because she would delight in the memories of a lifetime of Thanksgiving dinners with those who are now gone.

There were homilies more specific; glorious praise for grandma's berry pie, an Aunt's chocolate cake, or a pumpkin pie, or hosannas to giblet gravy or turkey stuffing, or home-made cranberry sauce.  But mostly there was just the offerings of boundless love for family and friends getting together for this special holiday.

I've heard and read many times of folks who get out into our wonderful country, and rub elbows with ordinary folks, and come away elated by the buoyancy and resolve that folks in the hinterland display, even in the face of tremendous challenges.  I've got to believe that is true.  Just with a a two-hour scouring of some 7,000 comments on the Pioneer Lady's website left me smiling…and so very hopeful about our future.

And yes, I lusted after all those comments and followers and wish I had just a fraction of them.  But then, I can't offer a good recipe for enchiladas or Sunday evening pot roast!  So, on this day of Thanksgiving let me be thankful for all of my dear readers…folks who visit me every day and have written so kindly of my efforts.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Something For Your Thanksgiving Table

                                                         

I'm not big on ritual.  Traditions yes, but not rituals.  Too often rituals are practiced so frequently that they become just meaningless repetition.  Yet, there are rituals so heavy with meaning that they strike a chord and touch your heart and become interwoven with your basic faith.

Though that faith can be lovingly secular, and often is, I found that biblical Last Supper to be something that has always struck me as something that we can all relate to.  When Jesus sat down for the last meal he would share with his disciples he used the most modest bread and wine to illustrate the gift of himself in his last hours.   The bread symbolizes the body and the wine, the blood.  Owning no property and having no wealth, it was all He could give those closest to him; those who had shared his days and nights, his joy and his pain.

And like all of his generosities, our creator offers us far more.  For more than three centuries we Americans have been blessed with bountiful and productive land, temperate weather in which to grow our bounty, and a societal system that allows us to share that bounty more equitably than at any time in man's history.  

I need not tell you the story of the first Thanksgiving.  I need not say that, had not our creator chosen to  soften the hearts of a group of Plymouth Indians, the Pilgrims would most surely have died out in that first winter.  But Thanksgiving has always been more than the story of that first winter.  Somehow, a polyglot of English, German, Irish, African, Swedish, Italian, Hispanics and others melded together in such a way that  the generosity of the hearth and home has become a national tradition.  De Tocqueville marveled at American hospitality as early as the 1820's, at our first blossoming.  "They are a kind sort, generous beyond measure, open and friendly and without the strangling class consciousness so prevalent among our European nations."

But we can bring the tradition of the Thanksgiving dinner down to an ever more basic level.  Just as Jesus offered the "body and the blood", we mortals offer something of ourselves each time we sit down to supper with family and friends.  The meal itself is an affirmation that God is generous to a fault, that he has seen to our basic needs.  And we, as a conduit, summon up the love and caring to prepare the meal, as an offering of ourselves.  

Oh, we can liken a cup of coffee and a cupcake as payback for another's kindness, sharing joy at a birth, grief at a funeral, a morning visit to lift your spirits when they needed lifting the most.  Those coffee and cupcake offerings are simply little paybacks, a small comfort in reciprocation for all the many kindnesses extended to you through the years.

But it is that huge Thanksgiving Dinner that bears testament to the love and generosity you feel toward those you hold most dear.  It is the grand presentation of "self", the many hours of planning and preparation you invest in the year's grandest dinner that makes Thanksgiving such a spectacular event!

And yes, we must accept your "blood and wine" with grace and appreciation.  We must joyfully stuff ourselves with turkey and mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole, and cranberry sauce and hot rolls and pumpkin pie!  We must!  To do less is to disappoint the host!  To practice moderation is to reject the kindness of the giver!  

So we stuff ourselves to prove the bounty of our creator's gifts.  The last of the crops were harvested under a harvest moon, the smokehouse is full, the spring and summer vegetables have been canned, now sheltered in the basement and the cellar and we are all now prepared to live out the winter and await the first new buds of spring.

And should friend or mere stranger come to our door, we'll offer the hospitality and warmth of the home...for He who gave all that he had to give, the "body and the blood", taught us that it is the right thing to do.  And may we all be thankful for that lesson and for that blessing.

Oprah; "Whites Must Die"

                                                         

Last week, while shopping for $200,000 dollar Gucci purses in London, Oprah Winfrey stopped to pontificate on the state of race relations in America.    Commenting on Barack Hussein Obama's crumbling poll numbers, Oprah opined that the only problem with "The Anointed One" is that White people are prejudiced.  She furthered offered the solution to ending racism for ever; she said that racism won't end until a lot more White people die.

In a way I can see her point.  The liberal ilk have managed to insinuate themselves into the school system and indoctrinate our children into believing that Blacks are some measure of "Super Race" who, having a great, great, great, great, great, great grand pappy who lived under slavery, entitles Blacks to a lifetime of preferential racial quotas,  a green check and food stamp card for life, and a permanent "liberal pardon" for urban Black criminal behavior.   And let no one question Black prejudice when a Black candidate gets 96% of the Black vote!  Or in the corrupt urban Black precincts in Cleveland, Detroit, Baltimore, and Philadelphia Blacks awarded Obama an impossible 115% of eligible voters!...with not a single vote for Whitey!

So, having administered the grand liberal "kool aid" cure, the only thing standing in the way of a lifetime pardon for wanton laziness, reverse racism, a right to whine and generous government benefits is a small contingent of older White Americans who cling to a moral code and still remember the old American work ethic.  Once they are gone, according to Oprah, Blacks will be free to fail at fantastical rates and never be criticized a moment for it.

I guess my question would be "how would Oprah know?"  I mean, let's face it, Oprah made her billion dollar fortune by being two things, a non-threatening, semi-literate Black woman for whom White women could embrace and shuck their collective White race guilt in doing so.  She hosted an afternoon television talk show that pimped books and made it alright to worship materialism.  She even pushed luxury product manufacturers to kick in "lots of 300" so that she could give Ipods and I Phones and cashmere sweaters and scented feminine douche to 300 greedy, adoring American women on Oprah's Favorite Things" Day.  And take away the gloss and the Oprah show was no different than Jerry Springer.

And Oprah loved to play up her "woe, was I poor" schtick.  It did not matter that my family was as poor as Oprah's...or that a hundred million Americans were just as poor...it was only tragedy because Oprah lived through youthful poverty.  And if Oprah was mistreated as a child, if only on occasion, well that was certainly deserving of a whole show, wasn't it?  And surely Oprah must be a good person because she has a hundred $200,000 a year toadies tell you it is so!  And that regurgitation was always prominent on the Oprah Winfrey show!

So Oprah, after twenty years of toil in a plush television studio, had at last earned the right to be "right in all things",  "wiser than anyone else" and had earned the right to declare "what is what" and "whose racist and whose not".  Just as it has earned her the Medal of Freedom this week, just as it has earned her "Hollywood Illuminati" status who can now tell you who to vote for and lecture you about your poor political choices.

Alas, the reality is quite different.  Just as Obama hubristically flew too damn close to the sun, in his arrogant abuse of power, Oprah too has lost her luster as she deigns to play "God" and determine what is in our hearts.  She too has donned the wax wings and flown too high into the sun.

A few years ago, long after Oprah had earned her first billion, she and BFF Gail decided to take a road trip across America.  I watched that show and I'll be damned if Oprah wasn't as lost in the every day world of America as Queen Elizabeth would be skirting across the miles in a Hertz rental car.  Oprah could not operate a gas pump, was not shocked that gas was $4.50 a gallon in the middle of the Mojave Desert, could not register herself into a hotel room, thought Olive Garden "quaint", had to use a valet to park her car and needed Gail to tell her how to operate the car radio.

Oprah Winfrey has reached that rarefied atmosphere, that ultimate high place that only billionaires can reach; the total alienation from the outside world, the every day challenges of blue collar America.  She has such great wealth that she can build herself a girl's school in Africa, as a monument to her greatness, and she can donate 1% of her vast wealth to charity...and buy complete forgiveness for owning and living in a dozen hundred million dollar houses and buying $200,000 dollar Gucci purses...even as a million people a day die of starvation.

But greatest of all, Oprah can now proclaim who must die for the ultimate good of the Black race.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

"No Lie" Obama

                                                           

There have been such serious allegations launched at our President in the last few months.  More and more racist Americans have begun to copy old Joe Wilson and call President Obama a liar.  In fact, among his most loyal White House staffers, and MSNBC, "if it's proclaimed by Barack..it ain't no crock!"

When, in 2008, he promised to bring the troops home from Iraq, and kept them there for three more years, and they returned on Bush's original withdrawl schedule, that was just a minor miscalculation

When he promised to close Guantanamo as soon as he was elected, and Guantanamo is still open five years later, it was because no American city would accept criminal terrorists within our borders.  

When Barack Hussein Obama said that, if you'd just give him a trillion dollars, he'd stimulate the economy and bring unemployment rates down to 6 percent he was sincere.

When Obama promised a million "shovel-ready" jobs, he only meant they could buy the shovels.

When he promised Obamacare would drive down Health care premiums by 25% he believed it would happen.

When Obama promised 50 million Hispanics that he would win 30 million of them amnesty, he spoke the truth....and Americans say 'no mas' in full volume.

When he promised the GM bailout would end up showing a profit for taxpayers, and it ended up costing taxpayers $30 billion dollars...it was just a minor accounting "rounding error".  

When Obama spent a trillion dollars on campaign donating solar and electric battery makers he promised a million new jobs.  When they all went bankrupt it wasn't his fault and he promised to double down because he just knows he can pick a winner eventually.

When Obama promised that, if you wanted to keep your old doctor and your old health care plan, under Obamacare, you could.  Well, since on page 223 of the 2300 page Obamacare bill it clearly states that millions will end up losing their health care plans, well....that was just a little white lie to get the bill passed.

When he promised the government health care site would work like clockwork, that it would be as easy as a purchase transaction with Amazon, well he really meant it would work about as efficiently as any other government program.

But, on the most important promise Barack Hussein Obama made to the American people, he kept his promise.  We've certainly had change....perhaps far more than any of us wanted.

News N Notes; "Tofu Turkey And Selfies"

                                                         

                                                        "Selfie" Of A Tofu Turkey

Tofu vs Turkey

There's a nationwide environmental group who are working their tushies off trying to get America to fore go Turkey at Thanksgiving.  They complain that turkey farming ruins the environment as fertilizers and antibiotics are flushed into the ground water supply and creates all kinds of other havoc.  

The local branch of the anti-turkey brigade here in Phoenix are going as far as giving you coupons for two free packs of tofu, a recipe for delicious Tofu Turkey and an environmentally friendly, reusable shopping bag so that you might cease and desist from using those plastic bags that are seemingly hard as hell to recycle.  

Now I admit that I like tofu when it is prepared with an oriental stir fry, or in tofu soup, which is excellent.  But I can't see tofu turkey ever taking the place as that golden crusty turkey at the centerpiece of my Thanksgiving dinner.  

"Selfie" 

 "Selfie is tis newest word recognized in the Oxford Dictionary.  For those of you who don't know, "selfies" are those ridiculous "in your own face' pics that people take of themselves and send out to social media.  The world is not amused...or enriched.

Story Followups

First of all, for the many who wrote me, concerned about the elderly 82 year old Sun City gentleman who killed his wife; you will recall his elderly wife had been going through a third bout of cancer and also had MS and was slated to go back into the hospital, a fate she abhorred.  She begged her husband to take her life and end the pain and suffering.  So he did.  Then got up from the bed with his dead wife, called her caregiver first, then called the Sheriff's office and told them what he had done.  In court he didn't know whether to plead guilty or innocent and asked the judge for guidance.  He was eventually found guilty and was sentenced to two years of probation.

(Note:  this is not the guy who, a few months ago, killed his wife and tried the same gambit...he had told too many of his neighbors what a bitch he thought his wife was..he'll be facing a harder fate.)

My Favorite Description of "Home"

At night across the mountain when darkness falls
and the winds sweep down out of the hollows
the wild things with their shiny eyes
come to the edge of the clearing.

At such an hour the house seems safe and warm
a island of light and love in a sea of darkness.
At such an hour the word 'home' must have come into being
dreamed up by some creature that never knew a home.
In his yearning there must have come to mind
the vision of a mother's face,
a father's deep voice,,
the aroma of fresh baked bread,
sunshine in a window,
the muted sounds of rain on a roof,
the sigh of death,
the cry of a newborn babe,
and voices calling "goodnight".
Home, an island, a refuge, a haven of love.

"Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye"

                                                     

11:15AM Pacific Time, 22 November, 1963...a Friday.  We were in typing class, breathing easy...the rest of this school day was a breeze.  Typing class, lunch, then Phys Ed, French II, then home for the weekend.  Next week, a short week because of Thanksgiving.

Then the squawk of loudspeaker and the sad and somber voice of our high school principal.  Boys and Girls, we have just learned that President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas.  You are to go home.  For those of you who use the bus, we have ordered them up and are available curbside on the east side of the school.

We all just sat there, no one moving to leave.  We didn't know then our young President was already dead, half of his brains splattered over the back seat of the Presidential limo.  So we went home and turned on the TV and watched Uncle Walter explain it all to us.  Within minutes of arriving home, Uncle Walter, removing his glasses, looked down for a moment to compose himself, then looked into the camera and told us our President was dead, just one subtle sob in the throat as he announced it.

Americans were stunned.  All of America.  For the next four days we would sit, day and night, glued to the television set, wanting not to believe that our young, vigorous, handsome President was taken from us at such a tragically young age.

We did not know then that John Kennedy was a womanizer.  We did not know how very sick he was; with Addison's disease, Cushing's disease, that, before doctors at Parkland hospital could treat his wounds, they had to remove a canvas corset that kept him upright and mobile.

We only knew of the handsome young man with the ready smile, the thick shock of auburn hair that he had to keep brushing back from his eyes, the man whose elegance rivaled that of a matinee idol, a Cary Grant, an active man who, despite all of his injuries continued the weekends of sailing and touch football at Hyannisport.  The man who only a year before had stared down Kruschev with the Cuban Missile Crisis.  

It was a mere thousand days ago when this young President took the oath of office and challenged Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country"And the young responded.  When Kennedy created the Peace Corp he formed an army of charitable Americans who would teach health and hygiene in an African tribe, who would teach peasants how to plant food for bigger yields, who told the story of America's birth, to democracy's birth by the light of a thousand village fires.

He was the first President born in the 20th century and we delighted in his youth, his beautiful and intelligent wife and his lovely children.  We were tired of old men in the oval office; tired of a depression weary, war weary Franklin Roosevelt, of a good but rough as a cob Harry Truman, tired of "liking Ike" as a three pack a day of unfiltered Camels sent him to the hospital every couple of years with heart trouble.

The year Kennedy was elected President a new show on Broadway opened.  It was called Camelot and it offered the dream of a more just society, where "right makes might" and not the other way around.  And John Kennedy shared that dream; to lift up the poor, to expand civil rights for Negroes...and with respect to civil rights, he had hoped to achieve it on his time schedule...but Mississippi and Alabama would force his hand...and in the end he stood up and did the right thing.

He loved that play, and he loved that music, and his aides said they would hear the soundtrack of Camelot being played in the Oval Office as he worked late into the night.  

And his dreams, and our dreams were shattered on that sunny noon in Dealy Plaza when a minor lunatic took the life of our President and and our dreams along with him.    Times being what they were we did not know of Kennedy's "sins".  And so we hefted him on a pedestal perhaps higher than he deserved...but we needed to mourn his loss in our own way.

And so, four days later, as the horse drawn wagon carried the body of John Kennedy to his resting place at Arlington, as little John-John held his mother's hand and saluted the coffin of his daddy, we cried tears that simply would not stop, even as we were not surprised...for everything about the Kennedys was magical.  

Ironic, but the most revered President of our generation, a Democrat, he could never even win his party's nomination today.  He believed in a strong military, was a war hero himself, believed in cutting taxes to spur economic growth, was deathly afraid of incurring a national debt, and believed in giving a hand up and not a hand out.

In Kennedy's stead we inherited a Texas bully boy, a twangy talking Texan who had harassed, threatened and robbed ballot boxes to win his previous elections; a man with a huge inferiority complex who sought to buy love through the dispensing of tens of billions of our tax dollars, a man so desperate to be loved like JFK that he would pass the budget busting Great Society Programs, then boast to his House Speaker that "we've just bought the nigger vote for the next hundred years"...and to our great regret, he was right.

Johnny, we hardly knew ye...it's not so important that you weren't who we thought you were...it was enough that you set us to dreaming...of an end to poverty, of equal rights for everyone of every race, of flights to the moon...and of an American Camelot where "right will always make might".

"Psychic Phenomena"

                                                     

                                                   

Last week I read that the Obama Administration is cracking down on gypsy fortune tellers (I'm not making this up folks!  (http://wildhunt.org/2007/05/shutting-down-psychics.html).  Spurred by crackdowns in Philadelphia and New York City, the Commerce Department has decided to lower the boom on psychics and fortune tellers.  In New York City they are proposing that gypsy fortune tellers submit to a DNA test to determine if they have any gypsy blood in them.  In Philadelphia the new law has already closed down 16 fortune telling businesses and more closings are expected.  The Commerce Department is demanding that all fortune tellers be licensed but no one in the federal bureaucracy has yet figured out what questions to pose on a licensing test.

Well, I was a bit taken aback about this and wondered if business had been affected at our local fortune teller up on Geezer Square in Sun City, Arizona.  Star Sophia has been operating out of a defunct and dilapidated former  coin laundry for as long as I've lived here.  So, to keep my dear readers warned and informed, I thought I'd drive on over and have a little chat with Star Sophia.

When I pulled in to the parking lot I was fooled for a moment, thinking the shop was closed.  Then I noticed the neon "eye"and giant palm all lit up and got out and went in.  Star Sophia is one of those women of indeterminate age; olive skinned with not a trace of profound wrinkles about the eyes or forehead, and quite spry, as she leaped up from her chair and extended her hand in greeting.  She had rings on every finger and wrist baubles that clanged noticeably as we shook hands.  When I told her I was there to ask about the imminent crackdowns on psychics and fortune tellers her smile dimmed a bit and she made a clucking sound with lips and teeth as her mood darkened.  

Star Sophia lamented that she had received a letter from the Department of Commerce that proscribed a "prediction fallibility rate" that would go in effect at the first of the year.  She said Uncle Sam is demanding that she be at least 80% accurate in her predictions or be subject to a government shutdown.  Adding more pain, crystal balls will incur an Obamacare tax of ten percent. When I asked Star Sophia if she thought her business could survive with such low fallibility rates she smiled and said "oh, we have to make adjustments and I have done so, already".   She added "besides we've got a guy who won two terms as President and nothing he predicted came true!"  "He survived with a '0" prediction reliability rate!"

I then asked her if she would read my fortune and she readily agreed, providing I fork over $15 dollars "just to keep it legal".  So, money exchanged, here were my questions, followed by her responses...verbatim:

Me:  "Will my blog ever reach superstar status?  Will I cultivate hundreds of followers and thousands of daily readers?"

Star Sophia:  "At least two people will be crushed to death at Walmart on Black Friday...to save $30 off retail"

Me: "But!"

Star Sophia:  "Next Question!"

Me:  "Alright, will I be doing any traveling in the coming year?"

Star Sophia:  "President Obama will blame Republicans and Health Care providers for the cancellation of millions of personal health care policies all across this nation".

Me:  "But that is not what I asked; I asked if I would be doing any traveling next year".

Star Sophia: "Oy, who can afford to travel with health care premiums tripling, unemployment remaining sky high, business growth slowing and airline fare hikes to pay for employee Obamacare?"

Me:  "I'll take that as a 'no'...okay, let's try another one "will the Republicans win control of both House and Senate in the 2014 mid-term elections?"

Star Sophia:  (Nearly digging her nails into my palm this time) "Ah..yes!  By this time next November Americans are going to be feeling the pain of the pocketbook, from further jobs cuts, cuts to the Food Stamp Program, high gas prices, high electricity prices, higher tax rates, sky-high medical premiums  and further trouble in the Middle East, so yes, Republicans will take both Houses of Congress............unless they get a few nuts talking about women can't get pregnant during rape, or that they should close their legs to prevent rape, or if the national conversation returns to the subject of Obama's birth certificate, or if they choose to shut down the government again, or if they run a slate of candidates with a collective IQ below 80.....

Me:  "Ms Sophia, it seems to me you're not being fair...you either failed to answer my original question or you have intentionally qualified your answer, or, when you do predict, it is for things that happen every year anyway!"

Star Sophia:  "Look chump, I have to stay in business and I have to satisfy that 80% infallibility quota to stay in business...I'm taking a cue from this President; "blow smoke, blame someone else, qualify your answers, misinform, and state the obvious, and demonize the opponent.   I gotta a family to feed!"

With that she disengaged my hand, pocketed my money, and handed me a small pamphlet.  It read;  "Psychics guide to cracking the Obamacare software code and completing enrollment".  "Please take this along, Star Sophia said, "my brother  in law's in the software business!"

Hanging Bad Presidents

                                                       

As recently as a century ago hanging was a quick and final solution for ridding society of outlaw behavior.  I don't know if any of the states still offer that method of capital punishment but perhaps we ought to revive the practice...and hang really bad Presidents.

First of all, it would really cut down on the costs of taxpayer provided Secret Service protection for life, that huge retirement salary, and would eliminate the need for those palatial Presidential libraries for Presidents who did more harm than good.

Okay, before all you goody two shoes get so hot and bothered , consider this:  most of us have no problem at all executing murderers and those who do widespread societal harm.  And, in almost every case, the killer's damage is limited to one or two victims.

By contrast, the President, as Commander in Chief has life and death power over every member of our military, he can wipe out a million people at the push of a button, or he can order a drone strike and take out a dozen or so bad guys in Afghanistan.  But even more dangerous is the Chief Executive's power to insinuate the oppressive power of big government into our personal lives.  

I am personally for hanging any President who orders me to support with my taxes government programs that are wasteful, create a huge dependent class and do nothing to solve poverty issues.  I despise the idea that I have to pay for condoms and morning after birth control pills.  I hate that my tax money is being used to support runaway abortions, killing infants just for the purpose of birth control.  I hate having my tax money go to programs fraught with fraud, waste and abuse and a negligent government that refuses to audit the programs to drive out the gamers.  I especially hate lying Presidents who put their own political interests above that of the country...the worst being the demonization of political opponents and inciting racial tensions.

Now, I recognize that a "hanging vote" opens the doors to peace-niks who oppose all wars and would justifiably vote for hanging any President that takes us to war....to that I say, okay, I'll buy into their right as well.

Of course we'll have to devise a system that provides "protections" for a President who is honestly trying to do a good job, who is openly representing "all the people, all the time".  Might be a little hard but I believe we can figure it out.  I mean this has to be orderly and semi-civilized.  We can't have every Tom, Dick and Harry out there assassinating our Presidents just because we have a beef with them.  Hell, the turnover would be unmanageable!  So let's give em one six year term, and at the end of that term, they surrender themselves to the Supreme Court, house them at Blair House, then have the Supremes initiate a nation wide referendum on the President's performance.  

We have the Supremes do a running count on every time the President circumvented the Congress and the Constitution, exerted power not granted the Executive Branch, how many lobbyists the dude entertained at the White House, whether he took campaign money from special interest groups or the number of times he pandered to special elements of the electorate.  

Perhaps the fairest thing to do is to come up with a point system.  Let's say we spot the Prez a hundred points.  Then we deduct points for Constitutional violations, conspiring with our enemies, signing any law that the majority of Americans clearly opposed and lets knock double points off for every trillion dollars added to the national debt during his term.  We can all vote on point assignments and point allocations in the next federal election.  Then when the ex-Prez falls below, oh say a reasonably acceptable 60 points...it's off to the hangman's noose.

It would seem a couple of good hangings would go far in reigning in these Presidential egoists who get a bit too big for their britches....where they self-proclaim themselves "emperor" and begin trampling on our personal liberties.

And finally, for you humanitarians out there, I've gone to great length to research this hanging thing.  First of all it is the most common form of execution used in the world today.  It can also be called the most humane form of execution, depending on how the hanging is administered.  God help us all, I've even gone to Wikipedia to learn about "the long drop", "the medium drop" and the "short drop", each offering a variable standard of pain and embarrassment.  I'm not going into them here...there's plenty of time to think about that later...after all we've got three plus years to work this thing out, folks.

We'll just "grandfather out" folks like Jimmy Carter who's about one peanut shell choke away from meeting his maker anyway.  As for Obama, I'm in favor of giving him advanced notice as soon as possible....but I'm afraid his point total is right down there in the 20 percentile range already.  But perhaps we could cut a deal if he would leave office voluntarily, and  self deport to some foreign place...like Kenya...or Chicago.

Obama Eliminated: "Dancing With The Czars"

                                                   

The first chapter of the Community Organizer's Handbook outlines the first step in addressing a problem....form a committee, fund it, spend two years walking around the problem, then when no solutions have been found, form a subcommittee.

Barack Hussein Obama (will we someday look back and recoil at hearing that name?) has taken that approach to a whole new level when he became President.  Obama seems to have lifted entire sections of  Hitler's "Mein Kamph" and Karl Marx' "The Communist Manifesto" in order to establish a huge group of Czars to circumvent Congress and dictate governance from the Executive Branch.

He assembled the most impressive clan of goons, tax cheats, avowed Socialists, life time members of the "Hate America Club" and communist wanna-be's" since Jimmy Carter dictated alone.  

Alas, Obama's first Socialist 5-Year Plan has failed miserably.  Just as those old Soviet bloc's 5 year plans were doomed at birth, so too has Obama's "Dancing With The Czars" plan failed miserably.

Many of them are long gone.  Black Socialist Van Jones was canned when he revealed the "grand plan" to kill off Whitey and establish a Black Socialist movement that would put a Black Panther at every polling station, with billy club, and a green check for every Black family.  

Others died off and left or were found guilty, like Jones, of leaking information about Obama's plans for collectives and mandates and re-education camps for free marketers.

So can we really be surprised with the "big fail" of Czarist Kathleen Sebeillius, who heads up the Obamacare debacle?  She's managed to do what no other Czar even came close to doing; uniting Congressional Democrats and Republicans against the Obamacare disaster.    That mess is likely to suck trillions out of the economy and costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, just to bring things back to "square one".

Earlier we witnessed the collapse of the "state run energy plan" as Obama forked out at least a trillion dollars in failed solar companies and exploding batteries.  

When the dust from the General Motors bailout finally settled taxpayers ended up losing $30 billion dollars so Obama's transportation czar has been in hiding since last Christmas.

Obama's Treasury Czar is now kaput and his Fed Chief is out shortly after Auld Lang Sine is played and the ball in Times Square drops next year, having pumped $70 billion dollars of freshly printed greenbacks into the economy every month, only to see it plug along at one third the growth rate that Reagan achieved by just getting the government out of the way.

Then, just yesterday, Obama and his Energy Czar announced they are withdrawing the higher ethanol mandates as they learned, too late, that America was eating iher seed corn, fowling 21st century vehicle engines, fowling the ground water with pesticides from 5 million acres of land, previously in conservation reserve,  and wasting billions propping up a dysfunctional ethanol industry.

Whew!  So, now America is speaking out...Obama has pretty well been written off, eliminated from "Dancing With The Czars" and is now just waiting to see his point totals through the eyes of historians.  It ain't looking good!

P.S.  I would like to credit my FB friend and Blog follower Ed Jenkins for giving me the title for this blog, and the inspiration to write it.

"Wrigley's 'Spearmint'; The Show and Tell Murder"

                                             
Good morning dear Reader,

I come from a long line of "story-tellers".  Inspired by three Uncles who could tell some of the tallest tales since Twain...and make them funny...I've had fun telling my kids some real "Paul Bunyans"!  My kids loved hearing them and listened intently with great fascination as I told them stories of buried toes from a murder victim seeking revenge in the dark of night...or how Superman really got his super powers and such as that.

Twice, during their childhood I had to take a hiatus from my tall tales.  The first occurred one night while their mother was working.  The kids were being really obnoxious and I remarked that they were just too damn much like their "real" mother and I had a good mind to send them back to her.  This got their rapt attention so I continued.  I told them that they were, in fact, not the children of the mommy they knew and loved, but were the offspring of my "first wife"...who happened to be a mean old hulk named "Bertha".  Just as I was getting into full elaboration, and doing so with them all howling in anguish, my wife walked in and they all ran to her in hysterical tears and cried in unison "we don't want to go live with Bertha".  Needless to say, my wife was flabbergasted and I had alot of "Ricky Ricardo 'splaing'" to do to calm everyone down.  My wife had one of those rare moments we sometimes have where we're really angry but the situation is also funny...so she chewed me good with frequent bouts of intermittent laughter.

My second "elaboration" was actually based on a true story.  At one point during my tour in Vietnam I was working atop a 160 foot water tower.  Equipped with millscope and alidates and portable radios a crew of four of us sat atop the tower and watched for the location of rockets fired into the base by the Viet Cong.  Our responsibility was alert our central communications control via radio of incoming rockets, who would then activate the base siren so everyone would seek shelter.  We would then take direction and location readings and call them in.  A triangulation of three base towers could usually pinpoint the rocket launch location within a hundred yards or so.  The U.S. response was then to send up our gunships and take out the enemy.
In the early morning, during shift change, I would go down the tower ladders fifteen minutes early to retrieve equipment from the top of the tower and guard it until our relief crew arrived.  One rainy morning I performed this task and was standing alone at the base of the tower, clad in camouflage fatigues and covered by a rain poncho.  Just as I was getting the equipment organized a South Vietnamese troop approached me, saw that I was chewing gum and asked for a piece of gum.  Since I didn't have any more I gestured with hands that I had no more...the Vietnamese troop apparently didn't believe me because his faced evolved into a sneer and he pulled out a long knife from his belt.  I then backed away a step and pulled my .38 revolver on him.  At this, he walked away and nothing more was said or done.

Flash forward a few years and my son, John-boy is in first grade.  One night my wife and I were talking about Vietnam and my son asked if I had ever had to kill anybody over there.  Seizing the moment, I related the story of the "Wrigley gum" incident but altered it to imply that I had to shoot the poor guy dead for lack of a spare stick of gum.  At my wife's urging I quickly told him I was just kidding.

I thought nothing of it until I attended my son's Parent-Teacher conference a few weeks later.  My son's teacher looked at me rather strangely and said "either your son has an active imagination or you've had quite a colorful life".  She then explained that, a couple of weeks previously, my son, having forgot to bring something to show and tell, decided to relate the story of the "Wrigley gum murder".  I could have fallen out of the chair...had it not been one of those little first grader chairs I probably would have!

After that incident I confined my children stories to mundane "fairy tales".

The Golden Door Swings Both Ways

                                                     

The Wall Street Journal reported last Wednesday that another 3,000 Americans have turned in their American passports and renounced their American citizenship.  The Journal further reports that this is a 30 percent increase over last year and represents a growing trend since 2009.  

The Journal wished to concentrate on the "wealth factor", the rich deserting the ever increasing taxes on the wealthy.  However, Numbers USA and other organizations cite the exodus of the middle class as well.  Departing citizens cited oppressive government and the growing government intrusion into their personal lives.  The Middle Class seemed particularly abused by higher local, state and federal taxes on the working man to pay for a growing dependent class and a corrupt hierarchy of government employees feeding unceasingly at the public trough.  

Why surrender citizenship?  America is the only major industrialized nation in the world that continues to tax citizens even if they choose to live elsewhere.  Being unable to escape the increasing tax burden the only alternative for these folks is to surrender their American citizenship.  Ironically, this seems to be the key reason for expatriating as most do not take up citizenship in their newly adopted country!

And there seems to be no particular age group who have opted to leave.  Seniors, citing the rise in health care premiums often flee to countries who offer good basic health care on a pay as you go basis.  They find the costs far more reasonable and drug costs that are often as much as 90 percent lower than drug costs in this country.

I found one personal testament that was particularly touching.  He cited the irony of growing democracies and expanded personal freedom breaking out around the world, even as America was rooting freedom out and destroying it with each oppressive government mandate.  He cited the Emma Lazarus poem at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty and said "sadly, we are learning that the golden door swings both ways and a lot of folks are heading OUT that door."  

My own personal standpoint on this issue has always been made quite clear..as the great Mexican invasion continues, and as explosive Latino and Black crime increases, the quality of life in America is sinking.  Our crumbling infrastructure cannot be addressed because nearly all tax revenue is being employed to feed the fifty percent of Americans who pay no taxes and take some form of government assistance, and feeding the Defense Department's need to fund trillion dollar foreign wars.

As far south as South America, as far East as Thailand and Singapore, these expatriate Americans are finding native students beating out American test scores by wide margins.  They are finding more civilized societies where they are safe in their home and in their newly adopted communities.

Though I'm saddened to see hard working, productive American citizens deserting their native country, I guess someone has to go to make room for those 30 to 50 million illegal Mexicans who are squatting here and refuse to leave until they have sucked the last drop of life from a rapidly crumbling American society.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

Obama's Henchmen To Walmart Front Door?

                                                         

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about Hugo Chavez' successor to the Venezuelan Presidency, Nicolas Meduro, creating a new government cabinet department named the Department of Happiness.

It seems the folks in oil rich Venezuela are a little put out by high utility rates, soaring inflation and general starvation.  So, to boost citizen morale Meduro established the Department of Happiness.  While we don't know all the details, apparently Meduro's henchman call in a irate citizen and allow him to voice his gripes about empty stomachs, crumbling infrastructure and roving power outages.

We can be sure those complainers were given an offer they couldn't refuse; freedom of movement on an empty stomach or government provided bread and water in the government gulag.  Apparently most left the Department of Happiness "happy!"

But hold on!  It appears the Socialist Meduro was listening to those complaints about the soaring runaway inflation that has priced Venezuelans out of bread and milk and galaxies away from being able to afford a stereo or a TV set.

So day before yesterday Meduro dispatched a few army divisions to the front doors of the nation's largest retailer, Daka stores.  Armed with assault rifles the government goons demanded that Daka stores discount their big screen TV's by 75%!  Made aware of this "government dictated sale" citizens flocked to the Daka stores and walked out with electronics goods at "below wholesale".

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/11/11/venezuela-seizes-stores/3497003/

Inflation solved!

Well, kinda.  We saw these government mandated pricing schemes before; in Peking, Moscow, Havana, etc.  Somehow it just doesn't work.  Strangely, the pipeline of consumer goods eventually dries up when businesses are not allowed to make a profit!  Weird, huh?

So, is it inconceivable that Barack Obama some day deploys the National Guard to Walmart stores?  Will he trot out to the Rose Garden, teleprompters in place, and announce "folks, you want to see a "roll back", just go down to Walmart...you're gonna find fantastic bargains!"

For those who scoff at this, please keep in mind this is the guy who jawboned the banks to take a loss on home foreclosures to please his voting base.  This is the guy who is now telling doctors how much they can charge and what and who they can treat...and what they can't!  This is the guy that demonizes the oil companies and decries the horrible idea of free markets.  He's the guy who took taxpayer money to give $5,000 dollar rebates if they were bold enough to buy a car, even as their jobs were disappearing.

So, don't be surprised if, at some future date, Obama orders the National Guard out to Walmart..or perhaps he'll sub-contract the job out to those Black Panthers, billy club in hand,  who proved so effective in suppressing the White vote in the last two elections.

Inflation solved!...until Walmart closes it's doors, a victim of "falling prices".

Sad.  Damned Sad.

Hillary Rotten Clinton

                                                           

Hillary Rotten Clinton, fresh off her receipt of a "hero" award for her handling of the Benghazi crisis, was in Los Angeles the other day to receive the Hermandad Award from the illegal Hispanic community of "Northern Mexico-Southern California".  For those of you who don't speak Spanish, "Hermandad" is Spanish for "lay down, spread your legs for la Grande Mexican screw".  Given each year to the American gringo who most epitomizes the open borders/amnesty advocacy "love-nik"

Hillary was bubbly and effervescent and spoke about how much she likes enchiladas, tacos, mariachi music and solving the Angelino parking problem by parking three cars on the front lawn.  She said, though she has not decided to run for President in 2016 yet, if she does she would certainly appreciate any fraudulent illegal Latino votes they can muster up for her.  She also pointed out that, if immigration reform didn't happen this year, "undocumented immigrants" could secure a whole set of American papers down at Poblano's Laundry, Liquor and Paralegal Service down on Figueroa Street in the barrio.

Ms. Clinton then said that if she did run for President, and if she was elected, she promised them a dozen tamales in every pot and a government sponsored Detroit initiative to supply low-rider parts to every barrio in America.  She said, if elected, there would be no more of this silly "press 1 for English, press 2 for Spanish"...since if Americans couldn't understand Spanish by now it was high time they learned.  She also promised she would build water fountains and a Filberto's every two miles along high traffic desert migrant routes from the Mexican border to the nearest U.S. Sanctuary city.  

Ms. Clinton's speech was met with wild applause, whistles and the popping of decorative pinatas.  As she left the stage she passed out colorful Spanish language fliers; one side provided specific instructions for "the undocumented" to apply for American food stamps....the other side printed the address and phone number of her political PAC and campaign headquarters, along with a currency chart for both dollars and pesos.

Ms. Clinton was then whisked away in a limousine en route to meet with the new Los Angeles mayor to discuss how more federal dollars could be channelled to the city to offset a $500 million dollar budget deficit.

Viva Hillary!  Viva Hermandad!

Two Bucks To Pay It Forward

                                                       

Okay, you people.  I'm going to do you all a huge favor.  As the holidays approach your sometimes cynical hearts melt like a Hershey bar on the dash board.  And you read about the needs of your fellow man...and you don't know what charities are eating up your donation with administrative costs, or whom you are really helping, even the guy with the sign on the side of the road.

Well, I'm gonna give you a good cause and I'm gonna ask you to put your trust in me and donate what you can afford to a fellow and his wife who had their house burned down last night.  Their names are Jerry and Betty Craddock from Minco, Oklahoma.  They are the Uncle and Aunt of my dear cousin Tammy who spends most of her waking hours donating her time and money to schools, her church, Ronald McDonald House and Oklahoma hurricane victims.

Last night Jerry and Betty's house caught on fire and they lost everything.  They didn't have insurance.  Now, I'm not going to be judgmental about folks not having house insurance; I don't know their circumstances.  Maybe the difference is having house insurance or eating ALPO, or eating hamburger without it.

All I know about Jerry is that he's the type of fellow that you, as a complete stranger, could walk up to and ask for his last two bucks and you'd get it.   Both of them have given all their lives and now need help; this despite the fact that they haven't asked anyone for a dime.  

So niece Tammy, she of the giving heart, is making T-Shirts with the logo "Gooder than good" which is Uncle Jerry's inevitable response to anyone who asks how he's doing.  Tammy is selling the T-shirts for $10 dollars each and I'll give you an ordering address in a minute.  Tammy hopes to raise some funds to help her two dear ones get back on their feet.

Now try to imagine this;  as the old fella's house is burning down he's out there in the front yard apologizing to the Fire Fighters and thanking them for trying to save his home.  When family arrived and hugged him, tears in their eyes, he hugged them back and said "that's alright darlin.."gooder than good"..

A man of strong faith, but I can tell you that if I was standing there watching every personal picture, every momento, all of my worldly goods, and my home burned to the ground, I could never muster enough courage to keep it all together, much less buck up someone else's morale.  And I'd be wondering where I'll spend Thanksgiving or if I'll have a roof over my head come Christmas.

So I'm doing you all a great favor; I'm giving you a good cause to donate to.  And I don't want you to give till it hurts; if you can't afford to buy a t-shirt, please put two bucks in an envelope and send it to Tammy Jameson Fouch,

1006 SW Maple

Minco, Oklahoma 73059

If you want to order the T-shirt, just send ten bucks and your t-shirt size to the address above.

Now, go and do what I know you'll do because my readers are good, good people.  "Gooder than good".

Reach Out; Touch Someone

                                                         

A couple of weeks ago I was out running errands and listening to NPR on the car radio.  Garrison Keillor was doing a one night show over at the performing arts center in Scottsdale and NPR was promoting his appearance through a radio interview.  I gotta tell you Garrison Keillor is a liberal whom I love.  Love his radio show and love his humor.  Of course my favorite is his weekly ten minute talk about Lake Wobegon, his mythical home town.

The radio host asked Garrison, "so how's things in Lake Wobegon?  And Keillor answered with what I thought was a thoughtful and provocative response.  He said "don't know them that well because I never took the time to get to know them when I was growing up there".  

Now Keillor was really talking about his own home town, his own family and friends.  And that got me to thinking again about how sad it is that the young aren't curious to learn about family lore..until the folks they should have asked, have passed on!  As I've related often, I was just the opposite; I drove my mom, my uncles and aunts and grandparents crazy asking them to tell me stories from long ago.  After a time they would actually get irritated because I could never hear enough.

Sadly, most young folks are not like that.  They are so busy living in the here and now, so enraptured with the latest trends, that they never think to pick the brains of the family seniors, to learn more about their heritage.  

And, even with all the family stories I can remember and talk about, I am still impoverished.  Long after my Uncle Floyd has passed, despite our many hours of talk, I regret not asking him about his World War II experiences.  But my memory bank is also limited because of the limited heritage my own seniors could transmit to me...for they too were too concerned about "now" and had so little interest in "yesterday".  

So aside from bits and pieces about my great grandma or great grandpa, my family lore is limited to the two generations who came before me.  To me this is tragic.

I have often touted that the added advantage of my blog is that, in addition to my chronicling the events of the day, I am also writing about personal experiences and writing about family history.  Some day my kids, when they really get interested, will have a source for family history.

So, to my readers, I'm asking that we all "kick it up a notch"...let's reach out to each other a bit more, share a bit of ourselves and get to know each other a bit better.  Accordingly,  let's begin that effort by having you all sit down, write a piece about your favorite Thanksgiving or your favorite Christmas..and explain why...put some meat on the bones of it and let us peek into your heart a bit!

How to do that?  Write your letter, try to keep it no more than three pages or so, and tell us about your favorite holiday.  Send that to me via email and I'll then copy and paste, and print your little vignette on my blog for all to read.  Please don't worry that you are not a "writer"...some of the most poignant and meaningful things I've read were amateurish, but straight from the heart.  Let's get started and I'll print one or two of your stories each week on my blog right through December!  

And, in the spirit of sharing, to both the young and old, I urge you to reach out to your family and friends, to share your life experiences..the young need to hear it so that they can carry on the family lore..and the old need to know that their life has been meaningful, that there are deep roots beneath you!

P.S.  Get me some more "followers!"  I was encouraged to see Craig's List has lifted the ban on embedded Internet links so I can again promote my blog which increases the chances that his blog will continue beyond January...if I can get those "followers" to justify a continuance....now go get to those stories...that's your first homework assignment I've ever given you.  Your deadline is now until 15 December!

Black "Reverse Racism" Bites Back

                                                           

We first learned during the O.J. Simpson trial back in 1994 that if you're Black you can get away with murder as long as you've got a majority Black jury.  That seems to apply to politics as well as we've seen Blacks in Harlem elect and re-elect ole tax fraud Charlie Rangel or bank fraudster Maxine Waters from Watts, or even Barack Obama and his 115% precinct wins as Blacks voted more than once for "their guy".  

So when our local NBC affiliate held a debate between two candidates vying for a Phoenix City Council seat for District 8, I was not surprised to hear the Black candidate say that, because he's Black, and because 80% of his district is Black, he should be elected, based just on his race.  It seems that District 8 has, in recent years, began to cultivate those liberal lawyers and liberal grant writers and gays and philosophy majors from Arizona State University into the neighborhoods.  They've been refurbishing old brownstones and urban cottages and gentrifying the largely Black ghetto.  And now these honky liberals have dared to run a young white yuppie against the Black candidate who has held an iron toe hold on the council seat for some 36 years, taking his bribes where he can for funneling Great Society money into the ghetto.  But now old Charley is angry that Whitey is trying to steal his seat and his source for graft.  We shall see how that contest goes; I guess it will just depend how many 

Black Panthers old Charley can muster up to stand outside polling stations with billy clubs and ward off the honkies.

But the greatest laugh out loud moment this week was lily white, anti-Gay Republican, Dave Wilson (seen above) who dared to run for a city council seat down in a majority Black district in Houston, Texas!  And old Dave won the seat with overwhelming voter support from the Black district voters.  How in hell did an old conservative fuddy duddy like Dave Wilson capture the Black prize?

Well, it seems old Dave went out and had printed up a whole passel of campaign posters featuring only Black folk cavorting about in the neighborhood, walking in the parks with children, Blacks at local dances and Blacks devouring Chicken and watermelon in the local diner.   Not once did Dave stick his white pudding face on a campaign poster so, as far as anyone knew, Dave was just one of them; a victim of Whitey and deserving of a good old green check just like them!

So the Black folks looked at the campaign posters, and they didn't know which of the pretty Black folk was Dave...but did it really matter as long as he was Black?  To make matters worse, pudding face Dave Wilson defeated a Black who had grafted himself on to that council seat for 24 years!  

Well, when the ruse was finally discovered, after the election, the Blacks who voted for this honky were just a little bit upset.  Upset enough to take this "cracka" to court and have him unseated by a friendly liberal judge.  But rats, the judge held the election to be valid, citing the citizen's responsibility to study his candidates in order to make an educated decision, and not one based on race...something all Blacks had been screaming about for fifty years...you know, content of character and not color of skin and all that jazz!

So for all of us who have been screaming about the massive Black reverse racism we see that exists throughout this nation in the last few years, score one for the "good guys".

No Greater Love

                                                       

As the coffins are flown in the dead of night into Dover Air Force base, the honored dead are escorted personally by a member of their unit.  This is as it should be.  Taps are not played, no martial music can be heard as each coffin is removed from the cargo bay and transferred to a van that will take them to the 436th Air Transport Wing's Charles Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs.  It is there where the real heartbreak will continue.

                                             

The Air Force Mortuary is the largest in the Department of Defense.  Comprised of both military and civilians, these people do "the dirty work", the hard part of opening that coffin, experiencing the shock and sadness of those who died so tragically young, some of the bodies who seem so miraculously untouched that one wonders about their death, others so mangled that it literally breaks the heart of those processing the body.  Feelings are so intense that often the chaplain must be called; to buck them up, to listen to the immense sorrow, of dealing with lingering depression of witnessing such tragic youth death on each and every dark night in that mortuary.

The mortuary techs will clean the corpse, mend the mortal tears of tissue and muscle and do their best to assemble a corpse that will hopefully resemble a human being.  Sadly, too often that cannot be done as IED's and mortars and rockets show no mercy.  But the techs do their best...all the while strangling on the bile of doing a job dozens of times a week, a job no one should have to do.  For it is far easier applying powder and rouge in preparing a civilian corpse than it is to prepare and dress the body of those so young, so battered, so undeserving of a death that came so early.

                                                 

I read of a young female Air Force Master Sergeant whose job it is to fit the dead for a uniform to see the dead home, to be buried in some small home town across the country.  The Master Sergeant will lovingly pull a pristine uniform from a rack, fit it to the honored dead, check the records, then assemble the appropriate rack of medals to be pinned to the dead chest, and, when finally outfitted, lovingly brush a hint of lint from the uniform, before sending them on their way to a final resting place.

God Bless these heroes who see the true costs of war every night in the deathly quiet of a hangar at Dover.

"Veterans Day"

                                           
Veterans.  We are millions strong.  We all have our own unique memories of war.  Some of us fought on the frozen and barren hillsides of Korea.  Some of us in the sweltering jungles of Vietnam.  Many endure the searing heat of an Arab desert or in the heights of Afghanistan, clawing tenuously to hold a mountain pass.  An ever-dwindling cadre of "Our Greatest Generation" can still recall the frantic hell of Omaha Beach or winning beachheads inch by inch at Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal.

Yet, we are a brotherhood.  We don't march in Veterans Day parades to tout our service but to remember those who didn't come home.  No parade, no Veterans Dinner and no campaign medal will ever serve to ease the angst; of fear, despair, pain or loneliness of the war front.  As we came home some of us were cheered, some of us were kissed and some of us were kicked and spit upon.  It doesn't matter now. 

We know the ugliness of war.  The portrayal of war on the silver screen leaves us laughing at the portrayal of the glamour of war or unable to watch it when the reality of war comes too close to war's reality.  We now leave the portrayal of war heroes to the pretty boys in Hollywood.

We are far too busy fighting with the VA to receive medical treatment for Agent Orange.  We are far too busy learning to live with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Many are occupied with learning how to use artificial limbs.  We have problems because our Congress and our Commander in Chief acts far too quickly to send us in harms way, yet far too slowly to assist us in binding up our wounds if we are fortunate enough to return home.  Those who didn't make it home are flown into Dover Air Force Base in the dark of night so that America does not have to see the true costs of war.   They are then escorted to grave yards across America so that they may achieve their final and honorable rest.

The one consistency in this exclusive "force of millions" is that we understand, while those who haven't served will never understand.  Most Americans can never even conceive the degree of fear and loneliness of leaving your family for five or more years of your life; to not have the chance to hug and kiss your children and tuck them in for the night.  Most will never understand the brotherhood that is formed when you serve in danger with a team that is, rather than trying to score a touchdown, are trying to keep each other alive.

I'm no longer a "betting man" but I would venture this:  If our Commander in Chief were to announce tomorrow that, heretofore we'll use our old men to fight our wars, and spare our young, there would be a million of us who would claw through the old trunk, pull out our old uniforms, hitch up our pants over our beer bellies, and head out to the war front.  Those of you who never served will never understand that, but we do....we're Veterans.