A Post Coming Much Late

I'm sure my loyal readers have wondered about my absence.  I am sincerely sorry that this absence has remained unexplained.  A month or so ago I experienced a severe health setback and it turned out to be advanced cancer.  After a hospital stay I came home and am taking both radiation and chemo and my days have not been easy, to say the least.

If I manage to lick this thing maybe someday I'll be back.  Should that not happen I'll thank all of you now who have stuck with me for so many years.

Much love and warmest regards.

Dearel Friend

When Two Right Wing Nuts Saved The World

                                                                   

In the fall of 1974 a group of independent scientists were puzzled over an ozone hole above the earth that seemed to be expanding. They began to study it a little. Then, by the early eighties, they saw that the ozone hole had grown larger. Yet they had no explanation for it. So they sent flying lab planes down to Antartica and began flying directly through that ozone hole. What they discovered was that 35 percent of the earth's ozone layer had been eaten away, exposing the earth's inhabitants to a global warming and skin cancers and various other ills that would soon destroy life on earth.

They learned that chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) were the villain. Seems the very freon that was keeping our air conditioners cooling was actually destroying the only protecting shield that protects us from the sun. 

Worse than that, it seems that some 200 plus sectors of the world's industry depended on CFC's to operate. The problem was so wide-spread it seemed nearly impossible to solve the problem. 

Leaders from all over the world met to discuss the problem. Though the science was undeniable very few nations, including the larger nations, seemed willing to sacrifice their economy and their treasure to try and come up with a replacement for CFCs in so many segments of the economy. So the leaders walked away from a conference and did nothing.

Then George Schultz, President Reagan's Secretary of State got involved. He listened to what those scientists were telling him, weighed the scientific proof, then came to President Reagan with some dire warnings.

And, yes, President Reagan listened. He got on the phone to the CEO of the Dupont Corporation, the largest makers of those CFC's. Reagan told that CEO that he had better find a free market fix to come up with a replacement for CFCs damned quick. Remarkably Dupont responded with a Manhattan Project type effort....to stop production of CFCs and come up with a replacement.

Meanwhile, across the pond, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher listened to the CFC evidence. Fortuitously she had studied chemistry so the learning curve was short and swift.

So, in 1987, President Reagan sent Secretary of State George Schultz and a team of American scientists to Montreal for a world wide meeting of the world's leaders. And, while Schultz was jaw-boning France and Germany and other world leaders, Miss Maggie got up on the stage, led those leaders through the science, pledged economic assistance by the west for the third world, and convinced the world's leaders that "no" was not an option.

So in 1987 the Montreal Protocols were signed, each nation pledging to rid their industries of those CFC's. In the years hence, scientists make their trek to the Antarctic every year. They found the sharp reduction of CFCs stopped the ozone erosion. Then it began to heal. Scientists now say that, in 20 years or so, the Ozone layer will become completely healed.

Yes, we still have many climactic problems that comes with 8 billion people inhabiting our planet. But those same scientists say we would not have had a planet to worry about had not President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher led the way in healing the ozone layer that would have been gone today, all of us burning to death, our protective shield gone forever.

Two right wing nuts, leading a market-driven, scientific fix, even as the far left made fun of both of them and warning of "global cooling".

Note: I was inspired to read up on this by a PBS special that aired this week. It must have been hard for liberals to watch as two "right wing nuts" worked to save our planet.

Ladies, Just Stop It!

                                                                   

In just the last few months I have seen an unending parade of 55 plus models and movie stars displaying their "wares" in bikinis.....and even less. Selma Hayak, Christie Brinkley, Brook Shields, Elizabeth Hurley......the list goes on and on. And their female fans just love it!

I can find no more definitive example of objectifying women than these photos, many of the women posing being bonafide members of the MeToo Movement.

So why are these senior women doing it? Could it be for the same reasons they pay to have their chests transformed into cantaloupes? Or sport lingerie, meant for the boudoir, on the red carpet? One would think that, if women want men to take them seriously, they wouldn't self-objectify their legs and boobs.

What the hell is wrong with senior women of all sizes and shapes just standing before the camera, fully dressed, happy in just being generally healthy? Anything else is a huge insult to the women who bear birth marks and mastectomy scars and all manner of scars disease has wrought.

Perhaps the worst of all this flesh peddling is the vast difference in lifestyles between these Hollywood types and the average woman. These wealthy women can afford plastic surgeries, personal nutritionists, fitness trainers, and daily massages on demand. Sadly, the average woman cannot afford that life lifestyle, yet learn to look like Liz or Christie or Brook.

And on a final note, most of these iconic women just happened to win the lottery of good genes..........something they have no business taking credit for.

All I can say is that many women, both the famous and not so famous, are responsible for a culture that values sexiness and the grand flesh peddle. Stop blaming men for your MeToo woes and assume a little responsibility for the casting couch invites and office come-ons. Women are proving to be their own worst enemy.

So stop it, ladies. Your hypocrisy is gag worthy.

Our Gas Pump Quagmire

                                                                       

Know this; every time you depress the handle of that gas pump you are pulling the trigger and killing a Christian or Islamic "non-believer" somewhere in the world. Don't believe that? Consider this. Until the late 1940's Middle East Muslims kept their wars regional, now and then a tribe of Shites driving their camels into a tribe of Shias in an effort to prove one version of Islam was preferable to another.

Yes, there has always been a war between Muslims and other religious sects. (Did you forget the Crusades?......or why India and Pakistan had to break up?) Islam, by its very nature, demands conflict whenever religious principles clash. The Muslim "bible", the Koran states that "there is no god but Allah and there is no other religion acceptable". And if one must kill a few million, or many millions of nonbelievers to make Islam the only religion, well that's okay too.

One should also note that, in a culture that finds first cousin marriages preferable to any other, one can expect some frightening mutations in the old gene pool.....which I believe explains a culture that believes mass killings of innocents will win you those 72 virgins and a seat at Mohammed's table.

It was not until the west developed a great thirst for Middle East oil that the Middle East began to have the ability to subsidize conflict throughout the world. Hell, some of America's "best buddies", like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, funded the waging of wars against Israel during the last fifty years. Libya, Iraq and Iran were and still are the terrorist's best banker. That oil also funded the mad Khadafi, the insane Hussein, the two attacks on the World Trade Center, innumerable Muslim attacks on all the world's continents.

So, yeah, it's been Middle East oil that brought out the crazies. Oil and a hell of a lot of political leaders who haven't read the Koran and will never understand why, wherever Muslims live, violence and conflict with western beliefs will always follow. Just read what those Muslims are doing to once peaceful and serene European nations after they were allowed to immigrate there. Or, here at home, take a look at how many of those Islamic conclaves in Michigan and elsewhere are living under Sharia law, and not the laws of our land.

After having lived and worked in the Middle East for ten years I learned a few essential lessons. A Muslim, no matter how kindly, will always choose a fellow Muslim over a "non-believer"...doesn't matter how despicable that Muslim is.

So what do we do about this mess? After all, three fifths of the world is already under a Islamic fiefdom. Well, first of all, let's all ease up a little on the gas pump. (Yes, you really did pull the trigger and kill a Christian when you depressed that lever!) And let's frack the hell out of oil shale. And let's find a sensible, market-driven solution to solar rooftops and electric vehicles. And since the U.S. is now the number one producer of oil in the world, let's use our excess and put those Middle East oil producers out of business.

Can we stop those Middle East Muslims from warring? Hell no. They've been doing that for a thousand years. But we CAN stop them from exporting their hate to the rest of the world.....simply by denying them the petro-dollars that fund their terroristic madness.

You all might think about that when you depress the lever on that gas pump.

A Place Where Johnny CAN Read

                                                                       

Hundreds of Phoenix area parents began camping out in front of the Sunnyslope High School administrative offices, awaiting a 7AM opening. They've been there since 6PM Saturday night. Their goal? To score one of 30 slots available for their out of district children.

As the local reporters began threading through the crowd this morning, interviewing hopeful parents, the crowd was festive.

I find it sad. That long line of tents and sleeping bags speaks volumes about our public schools.

The allure of Sunnyslope High School? They simply teach. Ranked 1,300 of 13,000 schools nationally, the school has a modest physical footprint. Yet the relatively small campus turns out some 6,000 students annually who regularly score well on national achievement tests. 53 percent of Sunnyslope graduates have already earned college credits. The school teaches, in addition to the basics, to marketable career fields.....the arts, education, the sciences, animal husbandry, veterinary services, medical, carpentry and, yes, even auto and wood shop for those willing to surrender white collar for blue and pull in $100,000 a year.

In an era where many public schools offer history, geography, civics, math and languages as an option, at Sunnyslope they are mandatory.

So what do those long waiting lines over the weekend really say about the rest of the public school system? And though Arizona leads the nation in the number of charter schools it looks as if we need to build more...if only the teachers' unions would stop fighting them.

Sadly, Sunnyslope seems the "little education engine that could" in an America where the only answer to our 50 percent illiterate high school graduation rates, who seem prepared only for burger flipping or pursuing a college major specializing in the demonization of our white founding fathers.

Oh, and did I mention that Sunnyslope's demographics is largely minority?

Sad. Damned Sad.

Madness!

                                                               

Could we all just set aside our political preferences this morning and cast a rational and objective eye toward a few national headlines? Thanks in advance to those willing to do that.

Let's first look at President Trump's order to take out that long time Iranian military leader, Soleimani. 

I just read a news article this morning that said the American military has wanted to take out Soleimani as early as 2007. The Iranian general had been directly responsible for thousands of American deaths during the Iraqi Freedom campaign. He and his Shite proxies planted IED's, engaged snipers, funded, served as proxies, and deployed rocketry to kill our own young men and women. Were that not enough the Iranians have stirred up trouble in Africa, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, and have used Yemen as a surrogate for terrorism throughout the Middle East.

This Iranian mayhem was going on long before American troops arrived in force in 2002. And their trouble-making has gone on whether in peace accord with the west and without.

Now let's get back to that moment in 2007, when American commandos had a bead on Soleimani and could have taken him out. Sadly, and incredibly, General McChrystal (under higher orders?) ordered them to stand down, afraid that taking out Soleimani would stir the anger of the Iranian Mullahs. That "stand down" stood all during the remaining Bush and Obama years......the Commanders in Chief of the mightiest military on earth deathly afraid of one general and one bad-acting third world country! How is that even possible, even as our own military was dying by his efforts!

So once again we have President Trump doing something that previous Presidents were too scared to do! And we have Hollywood's latest "liberal darling/unappointed ad hoc Secretary of State, Rose McGowan apologizing to Iran, saying "please don't kill us......52 percent of us are being held hostage by a President we don't support." Is that not madness? Does Hollywood even understand that Iran has been the regional bad guy for some 40 years now? Did she not follow Iran's firing on western oil tankers just a few months ago? Has she not followed Iran's legacy of terrorism across five continents for over these many decades?

But let's forget Hollywood's "foreign policy ignorance" for now. We know their type and are not surprised by anything Hollywood does or says. What is truly astounding are our previous leaders treading so softly around a stone-age third world country who chooses to do us harm whether we leave them alone or not. And so many times has!

So, okay, we all can say what we want about President Trump. And yet, here he is this week, taking out a bad guy whom no one in the west was willing to touch, even as western diplomats and America's far left quake in their boots about what Iran might do to retaliate! 

Madness!

America In 2020

                                                                   

More than two new generations of Americans have been born since President Ronald Reagan took office. Nearly forgotten now was the mess America was in back then, both spiritually and financially. It now seems incredible to contemplate Reagan's inheritance of Jimmy Carter's 20 percent annual inflation rates and mortgage rates at 16 percent, making home buying nearly impossible for two thirds of our citizenry. President Carter made a national address, warning us that the world was running out of oil and any American who denied that fact was both ignorant and selfish.

On the foreign front the Russians considered Carter a lightweight and Iran was holding American hostages from the American embassy in Tehran.

President Reagan promised he would restore our military to full strength and, were our hostages not released, would bomb Iran into the stone age. On the first morning of Reagan's presidency the Iranian hostages were released. Those Iranians knew Reagan was sincere in his threat. 

It would take President Reagan more than two years to wring inflation out of the economy, implement policies that spawned the growth of new business (Walmart, Home Depot, Apple and Microsoft are just a few of the new American behemoths that got their start during the Reagan years).

Perhaps most important was what President Reagan did for our national morale. In enjoying low unemployment, and stable interest rates, and our new national pride around the world, we all felt that our futures were indeed golden again after the miasma of the Carter years.

In 2016 we elected a far less moral, less articulate man that the one who took the helm in the spring of 1981. America elected President Trump because they had an almost intuitive sense that America was headed in the wrong direction. Weary of wishy-washy politicians, and social designing Democrats, the American people shook the dice and rolled them.......saying "Trump cannot be worse than what we now have".

And on this first day of 2020 we know enough to see the results of our last electoral efforts. Though the way has been more stormy than we'd like, we do have two new conservative Supreme Court justices, we have an economy rolling along at 3 percent GDP growth rates (something Obama could not achieve in his entire eight years), low interest rates, we have the lowest unemployment rates in more than half a century, we are now the world's largest oil producer (take that Jimmy!), we have a China on notice that America is no longer the whipping post and discount outlet for their prison made products, we have nixed that horrible Obama Iran deal, and, despite the Left's best efforts, we have a President who is serious about enforcing our national borders.

In 2020 we will have to decide between "Morning again in America" or a transformational change to a socialist state.

No one knows what we will become. Our future will be decided at the ballot box, the large national question being "are there enough morning believers? Or will they stay home on election day and witness the election of a political party hell bent on confiscating our guns, our wealth, and, most important our constitutional freedoms?.

2020 will be the watershed year when we decide who we are and who we want to be. If the "morning people" stick together, and gather at the polling stations, the horizon is infinite. If, offended by a less moral and less articulate man than President Reagan, and we stay home, we will witness a socialist transformation not seen in our 220 plus year history.

As it always has been, the decision is ours.

Hey Egyptians........Ya Got Nothing On Mickey D's.

                                                                 

Egyptian Mummies?  Big deal.   In 1999 a Utah man strolled into McDonald's, ordered two hamburgers, ate one and stuck the other one in his coat pocket for later.  Except the Utah dude forgot about that burger.  He did not find it until 2013, just after its 14th birthday.  Astonishingly the burger was doing just fine.  No mold, no green slime, nothing!

So every year about this time I check in on how that ancient burger is doing.  Just fine I'm glad to say.  I hear it made an appearance on CBS as well as the medical show, The Doctors.  It was there where the docs examined the burger, proclaimed it free of rot, not stinky, the only sign of age being the dried up pickle.  The doctors explained that there are so many enzymes and preservatives in a McDonald's hamburger even bacteria take a sniff and walk away.

As the McDonald's hamburger celebrates its 20th birthday I bid you all "Bon Appetit!" for your next visit to the golden arches.

The Melting Pot Ain't So Savory Lately

                                                                     

Assimilate:

"to take in and utilize as nourishment : absorb into the system. 2 to absorb into the cultural tradition of a population or group the community assimilated many immigrants."

This week North Dakota's capitol city, Bismarck, with a relatively tiny 95,000 population, will decide if they want to take in any more refugees. According to local news reports the 22 member city commission has decided to declare a loud "no".

Now this would be a little startling, given that only a few years ago cities in North Dakota was promising free or cheap houses for anyone who would come and live up in their frosty climes.

A little background is required here. On 26 September of this year President Trump issued an Executive Order that said no American city would be forced to take in an already drastically reduced refugee quota. The Executive Order specifically requires each city to declare their willingness to accept refugees, with none to be relocated in that city unless an acceptance documented is forwarded to Washington.

So let's get back to tiny Bismarck. Doesn't a capitol city need a larger tax base? More people to pay property and sales taxes...to fund schools and museums and local community centers?

Apparently Bismarck is suffering from the same unsavory melting pot that the rest of America is feeling. Folks who immigrate here, refuse to assimilate by learning English and respecting our traditions. Instead we keep getting the rest of the world's dregs.......folks who make their living by crime....or exploiting the wonderful "Disneyland" of public benefits.

And can we find no better example than up in Michigan......where entire population conclaves consist of Muslims, bound and determined to ignore U.S. law, and live by Sharia Law only.

Ironically the ACLU is taking the opposite tack from Trump's position They are suing Trump for his miserly refugee quotas. And the ACLU, who normally battle to prevent folks from being forced to do anything, now argue that cities and towns should be forced to take in refugees.

I'm with the President on this one. The American Melting Pot has become a bitter brew these days.

Merry Christmas

                                                                     

Read an article this weekend about someone who had been called into their Human Resources department and scolded for wishing a work crew Merry Christmas. I was already expecting to hear the HR guy/girl suggest an alternative greeting. Instead the lady worker was advised not to say anything at all.

Wow! The writer for that article had done a little more research. As if boasting that there really isn't a war on Christmas (55 percent of Americans still prefer "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays", it seems that a solid and growing 11 percent of folks are actually offended if you wish them Merry Christmas. I'm sorry but some 20 million Americans offended by "Merry Christmas" sounds like a war to me.......or at least a serous skirmish.

With apologies to that 11 percent, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and joyous New Year.

Impeachment, Part Deux?

                                                                     

This week the Democratic controlled House will vote for impeaching the President. The straight party line vote will no doubt end up voting "for", thus setting up a trial in the Senate.

Once the Senate trial begins the Republican controlled Senate will have two options...........either take basically a "guilty or "not guilty" straw poll, to see if 67 Senators vote "Yes", or stage an extended trial, each side allowed to call witnesses.

Though both Majority Leader McDonnell and Trump's defense team wants quick procedure, the President has said he'd like to have an extended trial. He wants his defense team to issue summons to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and Biden and son........that they might all be grilled on national TV, just as his staff has been.

I'm all for that. In an age where guilt by accusation is society's "modus operandi", I can think of dozens of the Democrats's missteps and coverups over the last decade. A trial like that might be cleansing for our nation. Alas, chances are the Senate and Trump's lawyer will prevail and January's impeachment trial will be quick and dirty.

The Democratic party is unique. Though they already know the outcome of their impeachment efforts they went ahead anyway. Why? Because they lost in 2016, took a look at the pitiful herd of their own 2020 Presidential candidates, and decided to "play the lottery", hoping their numbers come up. With such long odds a reasonable person might not go out and purchase a Rolls Royce as they wait for the lottery pull. The Democrats are doing exactly that.

And we might also note that nothing in the Constitution precludes the Democrats from starting another impeachment effort as soon as this one is over. (God knows next November's election is looking dismal for the Dems.) They might label the next impeachment efforts "Impeachment, Part Deux" and call on Adam Schiff to do a better job next time in writing political fiction.

Mon Dieu!

Santa In Cleats

                                                               

In the 1960's only two professional baseball players made $100,000 per year......Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays.  (Prior to that only Babe Ruth and Joltin' Joe made that kind of money).  Mickey and Willie were worth it.  Every year they were Triple Crown candidates.  Sadly, once the two greats showed symptoms of decline they were retired or shuffled off to hawk beer or breakfast cereal.

In the Mantle and Mays era one could take his kid to a baseball game, order up hot dogs and beer or soft drink, and have enough left from a $20 dollar bill for some Crackerjacks.  Today those same two tickets, and food fare would cost you more than $160 dollars. What has changed since the 1960's?  Baseball free agency.  

Hey, as a life long baseball fan I can tell you that free agency was a welcome change from the baseball slavery that went on for the first century of professional baseball.  Before free agency baseball players were just the "property" of team owners.  Until the 1970's the vast majority of baseball players had to take on second jobs during the winter months, so paltry was their pay.  The average baseball player in that era made less than $7,000 a year.  And he had no control over where he might play, nor any guarantees that he'd have a contract the following year.  And, god forbid he have a bad year.  The owner would slash his contract in a heartbeat.

Consider the Los Angeles Dodgers' dynamic duo of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale; two Hall of Fame pitchers who perennially won 20 games, had sub 2.00 earned run averages, and mowed down major league hitters with regularity.  So, in the mid-60's Drysdale and Koufax had a brilliant idea.  They would jointly hold out until the Dodgers offered them a hundred grand a year.  Well, after a prolonged holdout Koufax got $90,000 and, as I recall, they bumped Drysdale up to $65,000 or so.

As baseball fans know, everything changed with the Curt Flood challenge.  The courts ruled that no baseball team can ever own human beings.  That ruling was further reinforced with later court rulings.

The first beneficiary of free agency was the great Jim Catfish Hunter, for whom the New York Yankees shelled out $160,000 or so for a long term contract.  Other stars began receiving similar rewards.

Then, during the 70's and 80's, a sort of balance was achieved.  Players were finally being paid what they were worth, and owners were still reaping profits.

Alas, no one could have predicted what we see today.  A .220 hitting, average shortstop makes the major league minimum of $600,000 or so.  If he hits .260 he makes millions.  If he can hit .300 the owners open the vault and shell out ten million a year for his services, all of it guaranteed money.  Then there are the superstars......the pitcher who can win 15 games a year, with a sub 3.00 ERA, or the hitter who can get a hit once in every three times at bat, club 30 home runs, and drive in a hundred.  For that talent, that would have seemed mediocre in the 50's and 60's,  owners sign them up for a decade and fork out hundreds of millions.  Are they worth it?

Let's just look at his week's signings.  Pitcher Stephen Strasberg, hero of this year's World Series, has never won 20 games in a single year, has never stayed healthy enough to pitch 200 innings, yet was able to opt out of his 25 million per year contract and sign one with his Washington Senators for $245 million over seven years.

How about Anthony Rendon, the Washington Senators third baseman last year.  The Angels just inked a deal with him that pays him over 35 million a year or seven years, all guaranteed....even if he suffers a career-ending injury.

Ah, but the most insane contract belongs to former Pittsburgh Pirate and Houston Astros's pitcher Gerrit Cole.  Prior to last year Cole was a mediocre, average pitcher.  Then he had a good year with the Astros.    So the mighty New York Yankees came calling.   And they signed him up for a $345 million dollars (yeah, that's a third of a billion!).  

You almost wouldn't gasp if these 30 million dollar a year wonders actually earned that kind of money on the field.  But, Quick!  Name me just one player in the modern era who ever earned that kind of lucre after the ink was dry on his contract.

I can think of only a few "civilian equivalent" to the baseball madness that occurs today.  The only rivals to these overpaid, underperforming baseball jocks are the Chief Executive Officers of our corporate giants, Wall Street traders, and politicians who always seem to enrich themselves on the taxpayer's dime.

Take a minute or two to mourn for Yankees fans.  They're gonna have to shell out $200 bucks for a couple of nose bleed seats to pay Gerrit Cole's salary.  And they won't even get a box of Cracker Jacks out of their change back.

No Round Table Or Wrenching Sword From Stone In Our Future

                                                                   

I slept fitfully the other night.  The day's headlines were on my mind as I lay in bed and travelled down the dreadful parkway of worry.  Our communities are plagued by the lotus-eating creatures who make it unsafe to walk the streets, necessitate barred windows and who, along with parenting in abstentia, are helping to tear our children to shreds with meth and opioids, and impractical quests. 

And we have never experienced such a vacuum of principled leadership.  Our founders feared the very things we are living through today.  Though Washington was somewhat non-futuristic, Jefferson was fancifully hopeful and fearful at the same time about our Democratic Republic's chances.  Both Hamilton and Adams, suffering from royalist envy, were cynical from the start......believing that the average citizen was neither intelligent or principled enough to maintain a republic formed on the previous three century's best social philosophers.

For the first two centuries of our Republic we did okay.  We certainly weren't perfect.  We see-sawed through periods of controlled chaos, then managed to right ourselves through the adherence to the pillars of basic societal laws that held us together.  We spent the remaining part of the 18th century jelling into a coherent form, the 19th century fanning out over the country, our citizens moving west whenever they spied the smokestack of a neighbor's chimney, and the 20th century searching for our adulthood and trying to figure out our place in the world.

It was the 20th century when things went very right and very wrong for us.  Ignoring Washington's warming to stay out of Europe's unending warring, we fought two world wars.  Ignoring Adam Smith, perhaps the world's greatest economist, we suffered through the robber barons.....the Carnegies and Rockefellers......and our own personal greeds.  It would take a Great Depression to slap us silly and reclaim a work ethic and fear of hunger.  And we hired a fellow who wore tu-tu's and prom dresses at night, while by day he ran our FBI, kept the commies at bay for half a century, kept the streets relatively safe.

It was in the 1960's when things went really wrong.  Baby Boomers, spoiled by the Greatest Generation parents, came to find it acceptable to decide which wars they would fight in, which park they would openly copulate in, which drugs gave them the greatest high.  

The 60's was a firestorm of the liberal Warren courts, the ascension of a psychopathic President who thought he could buy his place in history with the dispensation of "war on poverty" dollars while simultaneously fighting brush wars in Asia and elsewhere.

America since that 60's era has busied herself with mixing up a toxic brew of buying votes with government gravy, abandoning the PTA and parental responsibilities, allowing the courts to legislate instead of mediate, ignore our national borders, resolve the crime problem by eliminating the law itself and giving the miscreants a second, third, fourth or fifth chance at redemption.  

And we have few leaders to lift us from our national morass.  The principled men and women pretty much stay out of politics, deathly afraid their entire lives will be examined under a microscope......which leaves us with pampering, unprincipled magpies who talk pretty, speak a good game, then fail to follow up on any promises.

Break out the history books if you want to see where our parkway of misery is leading us.  We are a broken nation and it is far too late for an Arthur to come along and pull Excaliber from stone, and sit us down to a round table to discuss and fix our ills.

Inevitably an unrulable nation descends into chaos.........a societal state where the emergence of a dictator seems remarkably attractive.  President Trump, far from being a dictator, regardless of how the Left perceives him, may very well provide the blue print for a dictatorial ruler who comes along in the next couple of decades.  It seems inevitable.  Our problems are just too complex to fix within the confines of the Constitution.  Instead we'll need a Caesar, a Hitler, a Mussolini, a Stalin, or a Mao to "make the trains run on time"...... a metaphor for a little social stability.   While the first "rulers absolute" will probably emerge from the Left, those guys never last.  Bread and toilet paper shortages eventually send them packing, with a cargo of gold to a political haven where they can't be extradited.

The boomers, and X, and Y generations can probably relax.  They can still feed off the last vestiges of capitalism and the thinning remains of a two hundred year old constitution.  It's our grandchildren we should mourn for.  It is they who will live under the iron-fisted rule of a despot.  By that time the guns will have been confiscated, the meth and opiod lotus eaters long since dead from mass executions, and everyone can feel secure from crime.........except for the institutionalized crime committed by an intrusive government.

It is at that time, when the eternal dreamers will open a book (if they are still allowed books) and wistfully imagine an Arthur coming along, pulling sword from stone.....and making things wonderfully right once again.  Well those dreamers can forget it.  America had her chance.  She has been saved more than once....by the founders who risked life and limb and property for freedom, by the millions in uniform who died to preserve those freedoms, only to see our citizenry piss all those freedoms away in grand fits of irresponsibility.

So that's what kept me up the other night.  At my age, when I should be worried about keeping my remaining teeth, drawing up funeral plans, or wiling away the hours in carefree splendor,  I lay sleepless, fretful for a republic I so dearly love, no matter how sick she is.

No Gold, Frankincense Or Myrrh Required

                                                                 

I had a little difficulty yesterday, trying to avoid the bumper car world of lies, exaggerations, personal attacks and general savagery that appeared in the newspaper headlines.  So I googled "Christmas miracles" and was introduced to a story about a Colorado mom whose heart stopped beating as she went through labor.  Fearful for the unborn child the doctors performed a C-Section and removed the infant, its skin already tinted blue from lack of oxygen.  Once the child had been stabilized they wrapped him in baby blanket and placed him in the arms of expired mother.  Then somehow, and not a little a miraculously, the beating heart of child awakened the heart of dead mother.  Both mother and child survived their ordeal without any enduring ills.

After reading that I sat there at my desk, thinking about all the wonderful things that happens to we humans, the most spectacular of them being written about during the Christmas season.

In fact, if we really stop to look around us, we can see gestures of goodwill that better another's life nearly every day.  

So after reading that wonderful little story I ventured up to my local grocery, to replenish the eggs and bread and lunchmeat stocks.  And since my mind was more closely attuned to the human activity going on around me, I saw a produce clerk run to the back and pluck a more appealing head of lettuce for a woman who had looked sourly on what was stocked out front.  In a grocery aisle I saw a tall young man reach up and grab a jar of spaghetti sauce for an elderly woman who was too short to reach that top shelf.  Then, as I checked out, I waved the woman behind me, dressed in medical garb, holding a single bottle of juice in her hand, to go before me at the register.  I usually do that with anyone who has less than me in hand or cart.  I figure I'm retired and have more time than the working and harried.  Finally, as I walked out to my car in the parking lot, I saw a store worker wave off the offer of a tip from a lady who he had assisted in loading her groceries.  I'm sure the acceptance of tips is frowned upon by the grocery store.  Still it was both comical and touching to see how vigorously that young man waved off a tip, as if that dollar was tainted with arsenic.

As I drove home I began to think how,  no matter how modest the gesture, goodwill can be spread among men.  Just as sprinkling  a little sugar and cinnamon will make an apple pie more tasty, we can sweeten the lives of those about us with the smallest kindness.  No miracles and no gold, frankincense, or Myrrh required.

Merry Christmas, people.  May you be showered with the smallest of miracles during this Christmas season.

Will Trump Call "Foul?"

                                                                   

Will Trump Cry "Foul!" At The Last Minute Over This Latest China Trade Deal?"

Better hope so. This deal is a sham. In exchange for the Chinese buying $50 billion dollars of American wheat and soybeans the U.S. drops the tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese products and puts off imposing tariffs on $375 billion more.

No Chinese promise to stop stealing our technology. No Chinese cessation of China demanding American companies who wish to sell in China to turn over their corporate technology.

Is Trump feeling the heat? (He promised we'd see 4 percent GDP growth rate...(and got less than 3.) Has Trump weakened as we enter the 2020 Presidential race?

Trump's "mouthpieces" at Commerce and Treasury are cleverly portraying this deal as "Part I" (Kind of like Part I of those Police Academy movies). But just as Senator Rubio and Senator Graham have said, you don't lift those tariffs until the Chinese hold up their part of the bargain.......and make real concessions. Otherwise, where's the stick to beat em over the head with?

Besides we've been doing just fine without Chinese made basketball shoes and Walmart plastic and poisoned baby food and dog treats......while the Chinese are really hurting as evidenced by their latest economics report.

Let's see how much flack Trump catches from the National Chamber of Commerce and his own party. This deal ought to be a bit "no!". I've got my fingers crossed that Trump catches enough flack and nixes the deal.

Lizzie Warren Took An Axe...Gave Charter Schools 40 Whacks....Then

                                                                     

Did anyone catch the 30 second clip of Presidential candidate Liz Warren getting booed by a Black audience last week in Atlanta? In typical main stream media fashion CNN, MSNBC, nor any of the big three networks bothered to explain why Lizzie was getting the loud cold shoulder.

Seems Liz had just declared charter schools an abomination that shouldn't be allowed to thrive. She declared it a threat to public schools.

It was then when her predominately Black audience began to boo. Why? Because public schools are breeding grounds for guaranteed failure. And remarkably, if the federal and state departments of eduction are to be believed, it is the charter schools who are not only more effective at educating minority children, but are more diverse in accepting a minority child.

We should not put all the blame on Liz for being a cheerleader for public school teachers unions. Raising their pom-poms, and throwing ridiculous amounts of money at public schools has been a pillar of the Democratic party for decades now. And why not.........90 percent of all teacher union money goes toward electing Democrats.

I am proud to say that Arizona leads the nation in the expansion of charter schools. Charter school students score higher on national achievement tests than their public school brethren and the state encourages charter school expansion by offering dollar for dollar tax write-offs for your charter school donations.

Was Liz's "mob-booing" a sign that things are changing among the electorate? It would certainly seem so as minorities are quickly learning that only charter schools are lifting them out of poverty.