False facts and ideas are thrown out for general consumption and the followers swallow the information hook, line and sinker. In short, the corporations and wealthy individuals want a small government as far from them as is possible, with just one or two regulations that affect them and, of course, many regulations affecting the general public because that puts more money in their pockets.

They are smart enough to know that most people would object to many of their ideas so they do the next best thing—they use their money and influence to spread lies and hatred of government. They lobby for things that benefit them and they use the middle class to help them. In short, they are using the middle class to destroy the middle class.

Debunking greenhouse gas effects, comp time instead of overtime, and clean air measures are some of the recent efforts. I started thinking not about what they are doing today, but about past measures that may have failed in today’s political environment thus putting more money in the pockets of people and corporations that look to short-term gains instead of long-term benefits. I’ve listed some things that have a cost and we can help our friendly neighborhood corporations by rolling these back, and the added benefit of making our government smaller, our wealthy wealthier and our middle class the lower class.

• Seat belts and air bags increase the cost of automobiles and we all know that people don’t want to buy expensive cars. If we take away these requirements, we not only lower the cost of cars but we also eliminate most of the government agencies responsible for these areas.
• Clean air and clean water. Who needs this? We can junk all those nasty filters if we throw out environmental regulations and eliminate the government agencies that gave us clean air and water.
• Global warming? Not to worry, the Republicans, CEOs and wealthy people (Koch brothers for two) say this doesn’t exist. Ergo, once we do away with clean air and water, the vacation homes the CEOs own about 100 miles from the coast will become oceanfront property and that will make them really, really happy.
• OSHA. Hey, who needs workplace safety? Manufacturers can police themselves, that way fertilizer plants will be safe from explosions and they can make more money. Think of the savings here if we get rid of OSHA.
• Wage and hours? Employers want to see comp time brought to their plant, plus whatever else they can get away with. For example, manufacturers can lower wages and require longer workweeks. Employees don’t need more than a few hours of sleep a week. More savings here!
• Outlaw unions and delete the National Labor Relations Board. We’ll see more savings, a smaller government, and best of all, no interference in business over silly little things. Hey, we all know that businesses know what’s best for their employees.
• FDA. Oh, here’s where we can save big time!!!! Food and drug manufacturers can police themselves because they know (or can guess) how many customers they’ll lose to drugs and food-borne diseases and it’ll just be a business cost, but the savings will be greater for them plus we’ll have a smaller government when we delete the FDA.
• Income taxes? No problem here. Businesses and wealthy people will tell you that the more money they have, the more jobs they can create. Therefore, we’ll do away with income taxes for wealthy people and businesses. We’ll just have to tax our shrinking middle class at higher rates. Maybe our politicians will enact a flat tax and do away with the IRS. More savings, less government.
• Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)? With businesses regulating themselves, and deciding what products are safe, we don’t need the expense of the CPSC so we can have a still smaller government.

Now I know that the cost in lives and health may be great, but they will be spread out over many manufacturers so we won’t know who or what is killing us. To businesses, these will not be unacceptable losses. Hell, maybe congress will protect all businesses from civil suits thus saving them money on insurance.

The bottom line for all these ideas? No clean air, no clean water, total global warming, no product or workplace safety, food and drugs that kill, and, most importantly, no middle class. Also, we have a much smaller government.

Come to think about this, I kind of like the way it is now. The only thing standing between rampant greed, with resulting environment and middle class destruction and us is the government. It may not be perfect, but it is the only one we have.

We have to decide what we want in our government and work to that end, not some of us but as many as we can muster. If our politicians don’t respond to the people that elected them, well get a new politician. It won’t take long for politicians to get the message and start representing us, not some faceless corporation or a very selfish wealthy person.

In closing, I give you this from Albert Einstein.

 The world is a dangerous place to live,

not because of the people who are evil,

but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

Have no fear, we are doing something about it. We read, we write, we comment, and we make up our minds. We are involved! On election day we’ll know who to vote for or against. Knowledge and our activitism is our strength! Use it as best you can.

SIDEBAR: Albert was a very smart man. He came up with the formula E=MC². I’ve spent my life trying to understand that formula and the only thing I can come up with is that it has something to do with the energy it takes to flip a pancake real fast.

As the school was being transformed into a pile of scrap metal, wood and glass, teachers were protecting the students as best they could. One heroic teacher jumped on three third-graders, protecting them with her body as a car tossed into the air came crashing down around them. Rescuers pulled the children and the teacher out of the rubble alive, as her heroic actions saved her own life and the lives of three children. All of the students expressed their gratitude by telling the world how she saved their lives.

This is not the first time teachers have stepped up to put their lives on the line to protect the children they teach. In Newtown, Connecticut teachers saved lives and heroically stood up to the face of death as they shielded their charges. When Virginia Tech was under attack by a crazed gunman, teachers put themselves in danger when they blocked the mass killers attempt to murder more than he already had. And in Columbine, Colorado teachers used every means possible to save as many lives as they could even if it meant giving up their lives so students would be safe.

There are countless stories all across America that tell of teachers risking their lives for the students they love. There is not a job in the land that produces more heroes, more dedicated people who sacrifice their lives for the students and children they teach and supervise.

Yet, when states feel the need, teachers are one of the first groups whose jobs will be cut or eliminated because of money issues.During the last election Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney stated that the nation has enough teachers, and others from the Republican Party have for years blamed teachers for every social ill in the country.

Teachers have been maligned because of test data, but when you look at the test data closely the underlining issues have a greater play in the lives of young students and their testing data.

Poverty has a greater influence in test data than poor teachers. In fact, Dianne Ravitch, past Deputy Secretary of Education and one of the leading experts on US education states that if you take the children of poverty out of the matrix on national test data America is at the top of all countries. The American middle class and wealthy students are learning and have been learning at the same rate for the past fifty years.

The achievement gap between students who live in poverty and the rest of population is both staggering and out of the control of the teachers who instruct those children. There are students who come to school so they can eat. Students who are so tired and can barely keep their eyes open as the result of  sleep deprivation.  Or students whose families have been evicted from their home and they’ve been forced to sleep in a car.

Teachers every day face more challenges than most other professionals do in lifetimes. Teachers have been and will be the backbone of communities all across America just as they are in Moore, Oklahoma. American public school teachers accept their charges as their own — bringing comfort, stability and models of humanity for the poor of the poor.

Most public school teachers are compensated at the bottom of college educated professional scale, with many having more years of experience and education than newly hired professionals in other fields.

The public has placed a great burden on public school teachers. They have become the scape goat for all of society’s ills, they have become surrogate mothers and fathers and they have become heroes, willing to die for the students they love as if they were their own.

With all that responsibility of educating, protecting and loving all the public school children of America, don’t you think teachers should be elevated in the eyes of society by bringing teacher compensation into the 21^st century?

What could be scarier than imagining your entire culture collapsing? With the current demographic projections, this may be a reality for Japan in the not too distant future. Population decline, starting around the 1970s, has been steady and consistently troubling there. The widely accepted causes of this decline include very low birth rates, very long life expectancies, and a lack of foreign nationals living in the country. In addition to simply not producing enough Japanese people, the country also has to deal with issues that may sound familiar to us here: rising demand and cost of octogenarian health care, lower contributions into national social security programs, and a shrinking skilled labor force.

Pictured: Japanese Royal Family with Pregnant Princess Kiko…And here you thought Will and Kate were the only royals expecting!

For this, I turn to marriage and fertility. There has been a lot of focus on the decline of marriage rates, and the associated low fertility. Certainly valid issues. But what about Infertility? The already troubling statistic of single-person households reaching over 30% may be hiding a larger problem: what’s happening with those 70% that are listed as married or single family households? While the demography is certainly more complicated than that, it does speak to the possibility of an actual infertility crisis. Just like many couples in America are dealing with infertility and the associated stigma, Japanese couples are facing the same problem. The prospect for increased birth rates under the right social and medical conditions are fantastic.

And behind Door number 3? Utopia!

A weird but inescapable segue to last week’s doings in Toronto. Al Gore, God’s own climate change emissary, descended from the celestial heights to extend his beauteous index finger to touch Canada, and wax poetic about all the evils of Alberta oil soon to be foisted on innocent America via the Keystone. Big Al looks down his now patrician nose at arguments such as those advanced previously in this space, that maybe the ‘ethical’ oil pumped out for American consumption from north of the 49^th might be marginally more acceptable than that shipped across oceans, from less than savory autocrats, in GHG-emitting tankers to eager USA consumers. Dead wrong, sayeth Al, “There is only dirty and dirtier oil.” End of discussion. Back on the big jet, and off to hose down more of the great global unwashed.

In its strict historical sense, deus ex machina was a plot device much beloved by Greek playwrights. When their hero was seemingly trumped by Fate, or doomed to any bad end, the gods intervened – usually lowered by a crane to the stage, with wonderment and a happy ending for all. Al Gore is the 21st century environmentalist equivalent. ‘Thou shalt not build Keystone’, we must embrace the renewable energy reality, or die! A unilateralist, almost sneeringly so, his otherwise sound message delivered with an intellectual snottiness that does neither him, nor his constituency any credit. Because….what has the US actually achieved in this realm? The statistics are not persuasive – as the world’s leading economy, arguably best positioned to push change – that Utopia looms for God’s anointed in the Great Republic.

No thinking human being can argue that the big picture the Great Man® endorses is wrong – continued reliance on non-renewables will choke us unless action is taken. Agreed, and agreed again. But the current transition from bad to good? Does the US still get a huge whack of its energy derived from the best-known global warming villains, after years of the Gore Doctrine, preached from on high? Reversion again to the late 1970s Ontario of my youth – does the Pope wear little red boots? Here is the current list, accurate to May 2013…courtesy of the US Energy Information Administration:

Coal 37%…Natural Gas 30%…Nuclear 19%…Hydropower 7%…Other Renewables 5% (Wind the biggest, at 3.5%)…Petroleum 1%. Hmmm….not so pretty. Al Gore may be a presumptive citizen of the world, climate change apostle, and all that, but to me? The ultimate American know it all, living in a decidedly crystal house, throwing boulders from a catapult within. I am not alone.

Understood that Keystone XL will transport a dubious product, and oil converted to gasoline in the Gulf refineries prompts its own questions – so does fracking, now so well-beloved by American energy self-sufficiency strategists and the Obama administration.  In a perfect world, every non-renewable, carbon-based substance is blasted from our consciousness, right now – deus ex machina – and the world appreciably brightens.

Al Gore, call me anytime. We will get along well, because we agree that this oil business must end. But it will not end today, or tomorrow, or 10 years from now. Take my idea, and proclaim it as your own – oil is outlawed after 2050, and every nation on earth commits to yearly, incremental increases in renewable energy to push the petroleum industry to well-deserved extinction, or they are shunned, Amish style, from the global economic community. Build Keystone, and close it at its appointed time, when those renewables are on line, on target, and on budget. Like the Cheshire Cat, all is left is the smile. Call me…

Increase in prominence of the nation’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement  can be seen through the prism of Milk’s life and his work. During his too brief time in office he worked to pass a gay rights ordinance and defeat the Briggs Initiative (also known as Proposition 6) which was the effort to ban gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools.

Tragically, in 1978 Milk was assassinated by a former colleague with whom he often clashed on political issues. That Board of Supervisors colleague, Dan White, took the life of a community’s beacon but, as time has shown, he didn’t take away the dream for full equality — the fight for which continues to this day. Because Mr. Milk spoke of the need for communities to share with the world their own stories of accomplishment and strength, this mission of day will carry on within and outside of the gay community.

As noted by the Foundation, “Harvey showed us all what one person, standing up loudly and clearly, against a fierce societal fear and prejudice can accomplish.  He created a rich and vivid message of hope and an enduring dream, teaching us how to create our own and leaving them for us to realize.”

Indeed.

If you have never had an opportunity to check out the movie “Milk,” based on Mr. Milk’s life, please do. And please check out all of the work done by the Harvey Milk Foundation.

 I have already pointed out the problems in the DSM project [1], and in the new Research Domain Criteria project touted by the US NIMH [2]. I believe these problems are lethal to each project, to the extent that they can never achieve their goals. However, that won’t stop people trying: one definition of mental disorder is to keep on doing the same thing but expecting a different result. The “same thing” in this case is the attempt to hammer human behavior into a biological model. Anybody who says something like “suicidal behavior is a disease of the brain” is making a large number of assumptions about the nature of human behavior, the concept of mind, etc. These have never been worked out.

Last year, in a fit of masochism, I did a survey [3] of thirteen of the most influential psychiatry journals to see if any of them ever required their authors to show where and how these assumptions had been made explicit. The results were appalling: of something like 19,000 original papers, articles, editorials and commentaries published from January 2001 to December 2011, not one of them gave any references to a reasoned argument that we can, in fact, see mental disorder as a special form of brain disorder. Not one. The 20,000 or so authors included every major psychiatrist, and most minor ones, who have committed pen to paper in the last twenty years. As justification, they gave nothing. Not one word justified the huge sums of money (about $2.5bln a year) and human effort that is being expended on biological research in psychiatry. This, I believe, is unprecedented in science. It is a scandal, or it should be if we could convince anybody in the mainstream press to look at the results. Problem is, the mainstream press (of which New Scientist is a prime example) is easily taken in by the “impending breakthrough boys,” the breathless people employed by drug companies and universities to talk up biological research so they can get more money.

Because of the gloomy results, I concluded: 

All such claims (that biology can explain mental disorder) amount to opinion as they have no demonstrated scientific backing. Since these beliefs are held with quite passionate intensity, they meet the criteria for an ideology, i.e. a “set of beliefs that is false, misleading, or held for the wrong reasons but is believed with such conviction as to be irrefutable.” These opinion papers regularly appear in our specialist journals, as well as other highly influential journals of scientific record such as Nature, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, JAMA, Lancet etc; yet they add nothing to our scientific knowledge base. The problem is that, once published, they enter the scientific corpus and can be quoted as though they were empirical science when, as a matter of verifiable fact, they are not. As they stand, these papers represent firmly-held, highly partisan opinions with no convincing basis. They use rhetorical language to present an excessively simplified and one-sided view of a complex question in such a manner as to induce people to think that the matter has been resolved when, in fact, it has not. That is, while failing the criteria for scientific literature, they satisfy the definition of propaganda.

So, here we have a well-known newspaper spreading what has been shown to be propaganda. Are they party to it? Are they making a profit, too? Probably not; I’d say they are just dumb; they are easily taken in by a high-sounding survey or something to do with brain enzymes. And so we come to my point: that the psychiatric literature is now so large that anybody can troll through it and find evidence to support his position, whatever that it. For example, the question of a genetic basis to suicidal behaviour. It is the case that every study on any topic can and will find evidence to support a genetic component to the behaviour in question? Without exception. Surely, it must dawn on the geneticists that if they keep finding evidence to support their views, there is something wrong with their method? In fact, there is plenty wrong with their methods, as Jay Joseph, among many others, has carefully shown [4,5]. The real problem lies in the failure of the psychiatric establishment to understand the nature of scientific enquiry. Science is about criticism. We criticise the status quo; we attack the “cherished beliefs”; we assail the Big Names and, by attacking them, we force them to justify their views before they jam them down the throats of their students, the general public, the mentally disordered, and the funding agencies (essentially the government). In psychiatry, this doesn’t happen. There is no consistent self-criticism published in psychiatry.

In fact, the psychiatric establishment is bitterly antagonistic toward anybody who dares criticise, and the more accurate the criticism, the more poisonous they become. Psychiatry is not a science. It doesn’t have a model of mental disorder and it never will have, just because nobody is allowed to criticise rubbish like “Is suicide a mental disorder?”

______________

References:

1. McLaren N (2007). The categorical system of diagnosis: Personality disorder. Chap. 8 in Humanizing Madness: Psychiatry and the Cognitive Neurosciences; Ann Arbor, Mi.: Future Psychiatry Press. ISBN  978 1 932690 39 2.

2. McLaren N. (2011). Cells, circuits and syndromes. A critique of the NIMH RDoC project.  Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry 13: 229-236. An expanded and much less polite version published as Chap. 11 in The Mind-Body Problem Explained: The Biocognitive Model for Psychiatry  (2012); Ann Arbor, MI: Future Psychiatry Press. ISBN 978-1-61599-171-6

3. McLaren N (2013). Psychiatry as Ideology. Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry 15: 1-8.

4. Joseph, Jay. (2004).  The Gene Illusion. New York: Algora Press.

5. Joseph, Jay. (2006). The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, heredity and the fruitless search for genes. New York: Algora Press.

 About the Author: Niall (Jock) McLaren is an Australian psychiatrist who has published extensively in the application of the philosophy of science to psychiatry. This work concludes that modern psychiatry has no scientific basis whatsoever. He has developed a formal model of mind for psychiatry, the biocognitive model, which generates a psychological approach to mental disorder. His books are available on Amazon and he also publishes a monthly newsletter, available by contacting jockmclaren2@gmail.com. His books are available on Amazon and he also publishes a monthly newsletter, available by contacting jockmclaren2@gmail.com.

Editor’s Note: We invite your opinions on the subject!

Let’s remember last year’s GOP presidential primaries. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) made a seemingly intoxicated tirade about a tax return the size of a postcard. For a moment in time, the late, great Lone Star State political columnist Molly Ivins’ “Gov. Goodhair” had almost cornered the Otis, town drunk of Mayberry boozer and Cheech & Chong wacky weed stoner vote. In the changing fortunes of political campaigns, Perry would slink home in defeat, dreading breaking the news to wifey Anita, the Prairie Princess, that she wouldn’t be getting that Rose Garden.

In the world’s biggest economy, taxation is, by nature, complex. Ever notice the so-called “flat” or ‘fair’ tax schemes sold to the simpleton masses were concocted by rich folks to keep themselves disproportionally richer than the rest of us? It’s not just the four million odd words in the Internal Revenue Code which governs our duty as citizens to our nation, it’s the voluminous IRS Regulations, PLUS legal precedent found in Tax Court Reporter case law on top of the statutes to be considered. In the pursuit of the almighty profit, the myriad ways of making a buck have different costs to be considered. It costs more to generate a profit in capital-intensive manufacturing or labor-intensive service activities, than in being a hedge fund mogul, “lifestyle coach,” messy closet organizer guru, megachurch televangelist, newspaper astrologer, or timeshare condo hawker. We are taxed on net income.

I just love to laugh at the “rogue” IRS employee theory. James Bond, Rambo, or Austin Powers’ Dr. Evil aren’t working for the IRS. The stereotypical IRS auditor is an ordinary American working stiff, not the smaller kid picked on at the playground who passed the Certified Public Accountant exam just for vengeful spite. For most of us, the detailed and mundane aspects of taxation practice are about as exciting as watching paint dry or grass grow. Been there. Done that.

Case in point: Tea Party maven Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), whose much ballyhooed prior career as a “tax attorney” only lasted several years. She didn’t work at it long enough to pay off the student loans, much less be an experienced senior practitioner. The “Mommy track” and sashaying hubby Marcus’ “Pray Away the Gay” schtick beckoned her before entering politics and hiding in the bushes spying on the “Gay Agenda.”

The office politics of the maligned Cincinnati IRS office in question probably aren’t much different than the rest of us find working around other people. The boss probably extolled the worker bees to do “more with less,” leaving the “how” nitty-gritty up to the underlings.  Some employees are better and smarter than others. The proportion of “tea party” and “patriot” non profit tax exempt organizations amounted to less than a third of those applications examined in greater detail. If one were to believe the “oppressed” conservative carnival barkers, the world was ending. Drop the theatrical sturm und drang, and get real.

The oft spelling-challenged Teavangelstas might piously cite good book disparagement of tax collectors as justification for their attacks on the IRS. In a post Citizens’ United ruling world, many political organizations, across the ideological spectrum, sought a loophole relief from taxation. A significant number of liberal organizations were denied tax exempt status, but the Tea Baggers were far more vocal. Tax law has not changed; §501(c)(4) exempt organizations are NOT supposed to be primarily political in nature. There are rules.

Americans have long favored laws against unlimited, secretive spending to impact political elections.

At least six presidents have been accused of siccing the taxman on adversaries over the last century.  You don’t have to be as mean-spirited as Tricky Dick “I am NOT a crook” Nixon. The paranoids of the Tea Party need little provocation to feel persecuted as martyrettes for Republican Jayzuz.

If one needs to find “intrusive government overreach” in taxation, look at the private industry collection agents harassing ordinary taxpayers at all hours, used by many state governments. Oops! Those states tend to be run by <gasp!> Republicans.

We can continue to debate needed revisions to the tax code, but the IRS was doing nothing illicit in picking tax exempt applications for closer scrutiny.  How the Cincinnati office did so was perhaps a bit inartful from a PR standpoint, rather than patently illegal. As in all organizations, the IRS knows it needs to “continuously improve,” to cite Deming. In political circles, some officials were made to do the de rigeur walking of the plank.   The beatings will continue until morale improves.

The duty of fairly enforcing compliance to tax laws remains the work of a nation.

The bad news, other than the fact that it has been another less than productive week for the nation because of all the distractions, is that we’ve seen how low people with an axe to grind will go. Just when we thought we’d heard everything, the revelation that the e-mails with Benghazi talking points used by the White House had been doctored by the GOP and their media operatives simply to make the President look bad made many of us wake up to the realisation that what we thought was bad and crazy in politics became that much worse.

God, I wish the POTUS would call these folks out on their nonsense. Forget the ‘no drama Obama’ thing….we’re tired. A recent poll done by the Gallup organisation reveals that neither than Benghazi nor the IRS “scandals” are capturing Americans’ interest and outrage as much as the Republican party hoped. The won’t face the fact that this ain’t Watergate, and this President isn’t Nixon, much as right-wing journalists would love to make us think so.

As filmmaker Michael Moore noted during his appearance on Bill Maher’s “Real Time” show, the dinosaur that is the Republican Party is squealing in anticipation of their self-inflicted demise, all exacerbated by their spewed hatred. But they won’t go quietly.

Of course not; that would be too much to hope for. As of midnight last night, yet another Republican-generated debt-ceiling standoff began. More déjà vu all over again; the first time resulted in America’s first ever credit rating downgrade and has since slowed the nation’s economic recovery.

Based on that alone, it’s time to drive the current version of the GOP to extinction.

And that’s the week in politics, folks.

I always enjoy reading about what we should or shouldn’t say in e-mails. I think some of them are funny and I hope you do too. So, enjoy and I hope there is no feeding frenzy over this rare window into the Washington Post’s thinking.

THINGS WE DO NOT SAY IN OUTLOOK

• Pundits say (or “Critics say”)
• Probe (as substitute for “investigation”)
• A rare window (unless we’re talking about a real window that is in fact rare)
• Begs the question (unless used properly – and so rarely used properly that not worth it)
• Outside the box/Out of the box (Ed: oh, I hated this when I was working!!!)
• Little-noticed (that just means the writer hadn’t noticed it)
• Ignominious end
• Feeding frenzy/feeding the frenzy
• Hot-button issue
• Paradigm shift (in journalism, all paradigms are shifting)
• Unlikely revolutionary (in journalism, all revolutionaries are unlikely)
• Unlikely reformer (in journalism, all reformers are unlikely)
• Rose from obscurity (in journalism, all rises are from obscurity)
• Withering criticism (in journalism, all criticism is withering)
• But reality/truth is more complicated (oversimplify, then criticize the oversimplification)
• Shines a spotlight on (unless there is a real spotlight that really shines)
• Situation is fluid (code for “I have no idea what is going on”)
• Partisans on both sides

So, the next time there is fevered speculation (also one of the terms) about a little-noticed issue that I hope meets an ignominious end, I’ll be sure to have a paradigm shift before I write a withering criticism.

There, I said it (also one of the terms with the comment more self-important than “voicey”).

Those who refuse to do the work that needs to be done to rebuild this nation are cruisin’ for a bruisin’ in 2014.

If we want it
There will be waiting
A second chance
Baby but now we need time
Time to learn
Time to understand
Where we went wrong
‘Cause I feel so strong
We are cruising for bruising

__________
Songwriter(s): Danny White, Basia Trzetrzelewska
Copyright: What Music Ltd.

Is there any way to stop Karl Rove from making-up stuff?

Regards,
Andrea “Tokyo Rose” Breitbart

Mrs. Vera Newman,
San Francisco, California.
Photo: Grahame Perry

Dear Endora Bombay,

Thank you for your inquiry into the chicken-egg philosophical mystery of cracked Super-Liars. I normally write this column while waiting for hours in the wind and rain for a series of busses that take me away from my house then eventually back to it so, often, this column can be quite wordy, but thanks to your question and the 22-Fillmore being less than a block away, I’m going to wrap up early and just go with “no”.

Did everyone like Iron Man 3?  Kim Kardashian did it. I had the best strawberry yesterday. My feet are — huh?  What?  Not long enough? Really? Ok. Ok. No, I don’t mind. 800 words, got it.

I went to the experts at making fanciful things up out of ridiculous nonsense while looking great doing it, the ghost of Samantha Stevens from “Bewitched”, and Barbara Eden, who played Jeannie on “I Dream Of Jeannie”, and I showed them a bunch of photos of Karl’s work from when he was studying at Miss Xerxes Cosmetology Institute in 1979, before he failed and became a beauty school dropout fit only for a life in politics if it didn’t require getting anyone to actually vote for him.

They both agreed with me that all of Karl’s attempts to make unattractive packages appear more palatable through the careful application of make-up were abysmal failures. They most often resulted in divorce for the unfortunate ladies trusting their evening looks to the canny ideologue. Barbara Eden disdainfully but authoritatively nodded her head, with her arms folded in sorrow, blinking hard to hold back the tears at the sight of one pleasant enough looking matron whose  face Rove turned into the very spit-upon image of a topographical map of the state of Texas, with very unfortunate longhorn lips.

Ms. Stevens, who I’m sure you recall professionally, hoovered around up in the rafters wailing like a banshee at a series of 8 x 10 glamour head shots featuring The 1980 Ladies Of The Republican Caucasian sorority shindig/calendar release party that Karl himself painted up, tartly, shortly before the organization’s bankruptcy later that night. All three of us had a good wail at those, actually, and you would, too, unless your eyeglasses cracked, which definitely helped me view his challenging drag self-portraits. Those were so far out there that they were almost good, and if only he had submitted them to the NEA for a grant he would be America’s Most Irritating Artist today, instead of just being today’s Most Irritating American.

These days, the ever-inventive Rove is spending his costly time and the hundreds of millions of dollars he was paid last year to lose all the elections his super wealthy friends hired him to win on crafting tiny little wigs and doing make-up faces on gallon-size bottles of bleach, and sewing lips onto crocheted Kleenex™ box covers that look like dusty Southern Belles – Outdated, faded, disgraced Southern Belles. Then, into his harvest gold Amana™ Trash Compactor they all go. Depressing.

He is also engaged in the running of his non-profit enterprise, American Cross-the-Roads™.  This is an organization that helps those very loaded Americans who are too chicken to spend their money publicly but want to take it with them to the other side when they go. Its mission is to have him help them to help themselves help him to help them to let him help himself to their wealth, for America. American Cross-the-Roads™, Inc. hopes to bring spare change to nearly all our citizens, now! Especially since all of the paper money got eaten up by that guy from Citizen’s United™ with all the tape worms – remember him?  He should really see a physician about that. Too bad private luxury-jet doctors aren’t covered by Obamacare™, thanks a lot to all the selfish takers who claim they need food and milk for starving babies.  “Karl Rove don’t pay for no co-pay,” the pudgy ideologue rapped in a video response to my request for an interview, while wearing an ill-advised minstrel costume and blackface.  However, he did not follow that line with a rhyme or dope jam, instead calling an ambulance for an Arrhythmia-related embolism – Which is covered by the Affordable Care Act™!  Unfortunately.

When not doing that stuff, he is busy supervising final construction on the new Petting Zoo being built behind the Bush Pwesidential Liberry, which is to house all sorts of top-level figures from the GWB Administration, also the GWB War Coven, many past Republican leaders from the Congressional All-Night Fart-Forums held in his honor (once they are released from prison), as well as, fingers crossed, Ann Coulter, pending the removal of all the mirrors from a suitable enclosure so that she might finally stop attacking her reflection and thrive. I wish them well. A really deep one, preferably.

Karl Rove is also still the leader of the Republican Party, of course, because why not?

___________________________________________

Mrs. Vera Newman is a San Francisco absurdist character, humorist, artist, writer, community organizer, clothes horse and co-founder, with Mister Tina, of The Verasphere. She has been answering the unasked questions she receives from the lonely, empty rooms of America’s heart-shaped circulatory pump room ever since it began beating. Nestled in the politically bent bowels of the Nation since she was a young girl babysitting the very same newborn Nation, her ability to self-reflect about anyone else’s embarrassing shortcomings, inept fumblings or lousy recipes has enabled her invisible rise as a modern-day Cassandra, whatever that means. Feel free to dispose of all your worries by leaving them on her doorstep!

Sketching of a Street Scene

Life is like an empty canvas when we are born. With each experience we add on to the threads that make up the fabrics of our life. As we paint on the canvas we wonder how the final picture will turn out. What will it be? Will it be a bright and happy drawing or something that is dull and that depicts agony?

No one knows the answer.

What colors will fill up the gaps? Will the work be artistically creative or will it end up looking like trash? Opinions on whether it is nice or ugly are really subjective. How, then, shall we fill up the colors and design the best tapestry of life? Which colors shall we use?

The tasks that we accomplish and the experiences that we gain all add color and spice to our life. We have options: we can lead colorful and fulfilling lives or boring and mundane ones. It’s all in the mindset and our drive to live our lives to the fullest. How we live our our lives is our choice and ours alone.

Being positive and grateful for all the blessings that we have received in life will make our lives more colorful, and it certainly adds to our tapestries.

______________

Dominique Goh, elementary school teacher, professional blogger, blogging consultant and mom to three. I enjoy writing about parenting, cooking , baking and photography. You can find me at Dominique’s Desk , on Facebook or Twitter

For the 37^th time the House of Representatives voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) brings the vote to the floor of the House with full understanding that it is meaningless and dead on arrival. The Speaker and his cohorts know perfectly well their bill to repeal the President’s signature piece of legislation will not even come to a vote in the Senate and they know perfectly well just like they did the first 36 times they have voted for the repeal that it will not happen. Everything they did, all the time and effort and the rhetoric of the moment was for show. The Republican members of Congress are making an ideological record of their fight against that tyrant Obama. How dare he try to make health insurance available for everyone and in doing so lower the cost of health insurance for everyone? How dare he want to do something good for the American people?

John Boehner and his minions will go back to their homes in a short while on yet another holiday break and they will hold town hall meetings for all those card-carrying red state republicans who will come out to hear how good ol’ Johnny stood up to that Kenyan-born Muslim. I can hear Michele Bachmann, in all her shrill voiced glory, proclaiming victory to her loyal followers. I can see Louie Gomer’s face turning redder and redder as the top of his head just about blows off as he screams to anyone that will listen to his conspiracy laden, homophobic, Islamophobic, globalization jack booted black helicopter I’m coming to get you theories.

The congressmen will smile and glad-hand anyone who is willing to extend their hand, and they’ll tell all in attendance how they are working for them — and they are…and, in a nutshell, that is the problem. They are only working for the people who think like them. They are only working for the people who write checks to their campaign or love them to death. Instead of representing all the citizens of their districts they are only appeasing a select few.

Those that plotted the destruction of the Obama presidency knew perfectly well what they were doing. They met with large donors and with each other and conspired to make Barack Obama a one term President and when that failed they have continued to block, obstruct and demean the work of his presidency.

This past week the GOP rhetoric machine was all fired up over the IRS, Benghazi and the AP phone records scandal. Some members of congress calling for the impeachment of President Obama, and the firing of everyone in the White House including the ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the prosecution of everyone involved. Their outrage was duly noted on national tv for all their constituency to see and wallow in. Their outrage, like the paper tigers they are, engulfed in the flames as their impeachment rhetoric turns to wet dreams.

More than 50% of the population lives hand to mouth — one layoff, one sickness, one natural disaster away from destroying their lives and the lives of the people who depend on them for food, housing and care. More people have died in gun violence in the United States since 1968 than all the wars America has fought since 1776. There are 15 million American workers unemployed and the economy slugs along at meager intervals of growth yet the Republican members of the House and Senate would rather play ideological games than fix the most pressing needs of the American society.

Nothing that happened in Washington this week had anything to do with making America a better place to live for all Americans. It had everything to do with hatred, bigotry and racism. The American people will not forget what has transpired. Before long the midterm elections will be upon us, and some who came to Washington solely to obstruct progress will be sent home so they can have a long time honing their rhetorical skills.

Yes, the I.R.S. is a sizable organization, but the taxman to taxpayer staffing ratio is a tiny fraction of one percent of the population. The alleged ‘rogues’ in the current “scandal”: 2.  Out of 100,000 agency employees, that’s 0.002% bad apples. I’d venture to say there were a higher proportion of perverts closeted among the clergy. Diversity among the I.R.S. staff really looks like America.

Working for the I.R.S. requires that you release your tax returns to get hired, and you can easily be fired for cheating or not filing on time. No digging up dirt on celebrities or seeing if Angelina Jolie reported her old bra size before her recent brave decision. There are a number of “deadly sins” to avoid if you want to stay a taxman, which private sector workers never face. Oh, and you won’t get rich. As far as politicizing, there are two, count ‘em, two political appointees in the entire agency.

Oh, Republicans were fine when the Nixon Administration spied on Americans opposed to the unpopular morass in Vietnam forty years ago. Sixty years ago, they cheered as the infamous lush Sen, Joe McCarthy (R-Wisc.) grilled alleged ‘Communists’ in the State Department and in Hollywood. The Dubya Bush Administration had no qualms about siccing the taxman on folks opposed to the multi-trillion dollar Afghanistan and Iraq misadventures, or the NAACP. For those of us who didn’t last long in the matrimony game, “That’s different” doesn’t apply to tea bags purchased by the billionaire Loonytarian Koch Bros.

Any time you want a break from what the rest of us must pay on something, be it Food Stamps or a tax deduction, be prepared to document it to the office which is charged with the public responsibility of fairly administering the statute. If you are applying for Food Stamps, be prepared to prove a level of poverty no sane person would voluntarily subsist on. Ditto for Low Income Energy Assistance to help with part of the expense of heating your residence in the dead of winter. P.S.: It isn’t very much money, and that assistance comes either in the form of a food stamp debit card that the supermarket won’t let you use to pay for that case of cheap, NASCAR Milwaukee’s Best beer, and the energy assistance is a few hundred bucks annually, at most, paid directly to the electric company. The utility isn’t going to trade you that assistance for some illicit OxyContin. NOT the “Life of Riley.”

Don’t show up at the public assistance office in furs or one of those $1200 Burberry’s of London or Aquascutum raincoats this writer has a particular fondness for..  You’ll be asked to redocument periodically, in any event, so stay in character. The interviewer isn’t going to buy that your Cadillac Escalade del Lardo bling SUV was “manna from heaven.” Common sense.

Want to claim a tax deduction or credit for your kids? Be prepared, under penalty of perjury, to report their Social Security Numbers for the I.R.S. to cross check. Claim an itemized deduction for mortgage interest? The interest you claim had better match what your lender reports to the I.R.S., unless you want to get one of those charming letters from the taxman demanding substantiation with the bedside manner of Dr. Joe “Angel of Death” Mengele. formerly of Auschwitz, Argentina, and Asuncion, Paraguay.

Want to deduct a charitable donation? Better be ready to prove it, especially if your deduction exceeds averages from other Americans.  You can bet Mitt the Megatither R-money has an army of accountants and tax lawyers for the audit on that Super-elect Temple Elite Golden Bidet contribution. The I.R.S. has long been wise to scams such as the “Black Tax Credit”, so be ready to tote your shoeboxes of receipts to the tax office for the audit if your filing is unduly “creative.” “In God We Trust. Others We Verify.”

Tax exempt organizations have special requirements. Nothing new. If you look and sound like a political organization for candidates of Party X, expect to prove you are a bona fide non-profit 501(c)(4) organization for public good. It’s a tax mulligan the rest of us don’t get. I’m glad some taxmen took notice of an exploding number of political 501(c)(4) applications.  Diligence.

The latest Right-wing wailing and gnashing of teeth about the mean ole I.R.S. doing their statutory duty seems as if former Alaska Half-Gov. and inept cable TV caribou hunter Sarah Palin (R-Seward’s Folly) is fearing a reprise of the Monty Python lads’ “No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition” sketch.

According to the IRS Inspector General, 73 of 298 groups examined with additional detail had ‘tea party’ in their name. 24%. If a group had ‘patriot’ in them, it was less five percent. A small fraction of the 501(c)(4) entities. Most of us, other than Alex Jones, stopped worrying about the bogeyman in our bedroom closets by age 5 or so.   Shades of the scaremongering ‘Caliphate’ spectre Glenny Beck finally got the Roger Ailes “Heave Ho” boot from Fox News for. If it’s an I.R.S. inquisition, it’s an inept one.

Remember when the term “astroturfing” entered the political vernacular?  That was when investigative journalists found that the Tea Party “grassroots” movement was fueled by the likes of the not-at-all-proletarian billionaire Koch Bros.’ largesse.  Worth a second look, methinks.

Okay. Part of the scintillating life of an accountant is the evaluation of internal controls. Hold on to your hats, folks, but it might be helpful to predict systemic weaknesses before they lose money or destroy your business.

If the mean old Kenyan Commie Muslim Ninjas at the White House wanted to oppress the spelling-challenged simpletons among us, one would think they would keep it on a “close hold” basis. Inside the Beltway. Not in Cincinnati. While Cincinnati holds a special place in the Parrothead hearts of longtime Jimmy Buffett fans, it’s in a rather vanilla southwestern corner of the all-too-flat state of Ohio. Close enough to Kentucky to hear the banjo music wafting across the river. Hardly the epicenter of global repressive  conspiracy.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.) is usually far less of a frothing-at-the-mouth paranoid than when she called the IRS investigation “chilling.” I would expect such claptrap out of a certified loon such as Rep. Louie “Terror Babies” Gohmert (R-Tex.), or Rep. Michele “Fact-Free Diet” Bachmann (R-Minn.). You can usually find them on the “shoot from the lip first and ask questions later” gun range.

The Internal Revenue Service held a prominent place atop the General Accountability Office’s High Risk List for NOT collecting taxes due for eighteen long years. We cannot criticize the agency for not doing its’ job, yet flog them for taking enforcement duties seriously. Americans want to see the taxman enforce tax laws fairly. I frankly doubt the sanity of the “end the IRS” ilk. It’s a big country. Somebody has to pay the bills, according to their means. Save the magic multiplying “loaves & fishes” fairy tale for Sunday School.

Americans want fairness and their privacy respected. We expect government to do its job. If an internal control mechanism to prevent potential abuse needs strengthening, do so. The sky is not falling in Greater TeaBaggia.

Oh, and for Rep. Bachmann, the Shakespearean line from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Act III. Scene II. is supposed to read, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, have made their way into the nation’s fruit and vegetable supply and, recently, the Food and Drug Administration took public comments on so-called “Frankenfish.”

Monsanto has been in the news for a host of issues. They alone control 23 percent of the world’s seed market, while Bayer controls 20 percent of the global pesticide market. According to SumOfUs.org:

Monsanto has long been one of the most dangerous organizations to the planet. In the past few years alone, the biotech giant has:

• Created toxic waste dumps with deadly carcinogens like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)
• Destroyed small businesses and manipulated small farmers to create an agricultural monopoly
• Blocked all efforts to investigate its products or label genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
• Pushed the Monsanto Protection Act through Congress, granting it immunity from prosecution even if GMOs do turn out to be dangerous

If that’s not enough, other problems that have arisen are Monsanto’s:

• arms race with nature resulting in super-resistant weeds and insect populations and the potential threat to the biosphere
• unchecked influence on governments and and regulatory agencies like the FDA especially pertaining to the labelling of GMO food products
• history of scientific fraud and market manipulation
• human rights violations and legal attacks on small farmers
• ‘trade wars’ with nations opposed to Monsanto and GMO Crops

Every team needs a good stay-at-home defender

Fellow BNV columnist Patrick White’s excellent run at the Syrian situation inspires this post. I simply push Patrick’s position to its logical conclusion – Mr. President, don’t do it. Red line, blue line…irrelevant …yet another rhetorical device you employed in good faith, to make a modest geopolitical point, that hawkish bozos in Congress elevate to irrefutable foreign policy and (God help us) the need for ‘boots on the ground’. Don’t do it.

Even the densest and most brain cramped Senate screamers we Canadians endure courtesy of US evening news would agree that any nobility of purpose properly attributed to the Syrian Assad regime rebels / insurgents / freedom fighters is a dubious proposition. Casting these forces as American ‘allies’ with any assurance is black humor, big time. Got a crystal ball? Any idea what these dudes might do if they actually controlled a nation with a big time army, and chemical weapons? Some weird, crazy notion percolates through the brain that, hmmm….maybe… not such a great idea. Just like the ‘Arab spring’ of 2 years ago, all glory, wonder, and enlightenment for the downtrodden masses of these oppressed Middle Eastern and North African states – until reality hits, and the Spring is revealed as a potential portal to another dreary Islamist dystopia.

Hard as it may be for American exceptionalism instincts to be restrained, exemplars of democracy to the world, and all of that – Sir, stay the hell away, please. What unfolds in this Syrian horror show may be difficult to stomach, but in a world where Western intervention may lead to something even worse long term, at untold cost? Lend what humanitarian aid and diplomatic pressure you can, and let the dust settle. Warren Zevon had it pegged 35 years ago, same dance card, slightly different partners, when America always had some ‘envoy’ or other shuttling across the region…send 10 envoys, send 100, Mr. President – but keep your soldiers far, far away.

Nuclear Arms in the Middle East / Israel is attacking the Iraqis / the Syrians are mad at the Lebanese / And Baghdad does whatever she please / Looks like another threat to world peace / For the Envoy

This question has been rolling around in my mind for a few days, as I come to the painful realization that we really don’t value education at all. We don’t take it seriously. We pay it lip service. Education is a long-term goal. We worship short-term gain. The significance of educating all children just doesn’t impress us.

This is hardly an epiphany, but a stark reality as I’ve watched a small, poor, black community in Michigan weather an unimaginable series of events. The Buena Vista School District near Saginaw is completely broke. The financial emergency is the result of state budget cuts to education, as well as mismanagement and neglect by school district leaders.

With the district unable to make payroll, some might expect its money-grubbing, unionized teachers to walk out the door. Wrong! Buena Vista’s dedicated teachers refused to abandon their students. They voted to continue working while the district resolved its financial crisis; the district answered their generosity by shutting down schools on May 7, National Teacher Day.

Today marks the fifth day that 400 students in Buena Vista are locked out of school and 27 teachers are on the unemployment line. The outcry from Congressman Dan Kildee, whose constituents are Buena Vista parents and educators, was swift and forceful. His call to re-open schools was soon followed by urgent appeals from state officials. But the one politician who could bring this inconceivable situation to a prompt and favorable end so far refuses to act.

Governor Rick Snyder, who was urged to draw funds from Michigan’s rainy day fund by Kildee, State Sen. Gretchen Whitmer and Rep. Stacy Erwin Oakes, continues to stall, claiming rainy day funds are not intended for this purpose. The rainy day fund has a $500 million surplus; state leaders are asking for $500,000 to help Buena Vista students finish the school year. It’s like a kid with a jar packed to the rim with jelly beans, rejecting anyone who asks for a few just in case he gets hungry later.

Meanwhile, this analogy is playing out for real with Buena Vista children. 9 out of 10 kids in the district qualify for free or reduced-price meals at school. Every day they are out of school is a day they don’t eat. Snyder is hoarding his jelly beans while these children go hungry.

Parents are begging for school to resume. Teachers, struggling with their own sudden unemployment, continue to advocate for their students’ education. “How can you close school…isn’t that against the law?”

What’s happening in Buena Vista is being covered by a few committed journalists and bloggers, and is beginning to get some national attention – but not nearly enough! Letting these children suffer for adults’ ineptitude and intransigence should be abhorrent to anyone who holds that a free public education for all is an essential component of our democracy.

“Impeachment,” hinted Sen. James “Lousy Okie Pilot” Inhofe (R-Okla.) as he made another pass at Runway ‘X’ and as construction workers scurried to safety. Inhofe is still mad at the Federal Aviation Administration for questioning his airmanship skills. No wonder the astroturfing billionaire Koch Bros. fly on their own private jets.

If they try throwing everything at the President, something might by chance stick. Lottery odds. Beats mundane governance.

No wonder Congress has a 16% approval rating, a third of President Obama’s on a bad day.

Batty Tea Bag Rep. Mindless Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) called 9-11 and Benghazi divine retribution. All she needs is the flaky flock from the Westboro Baptist Church waving signs announcing Judgement Day, and a good “Be Healed!” thwack on the forehead from televangelist Ernest Angley.

Freshman Rep. Jason “NuMagic Undies” Chaffetz (R-Utah) felt qualified from his multi-level market scamming days hawking NuSkin epidermis goop to “debrief” the State Dept. security chief from Tripoli. After all, had Chaffetz hitched his wagon to the Amway star years ago, he’d be an infomercial Double Diamond Distributor sunning himself in the Caribbean by now.

Even Grand Inquisitor Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) couldn’t seem to find much to sound his tacky Viper talking car alarm about from the “whistleblowers.” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) hinted at more whistleblowers, but let’s remember the intelligence committee includes ditzy dim bulbs such as Michele Bachmann.

It should come as no surprise that there was some interagency squabbling over Benghazi. The battles between Langley, Foggy Bottom, and the Pentagon have been raging at a more or less full boil since the late 1940s. As a naval officer at a joint service bomb disposal training activity, I knew the ‘enemy’ wasn’t in Moscow, it was the powder blue shirted folks across the hall in the Air Force, or ‘Chair Force’ to wags. It’s part and parcel to bureaucracy.

The State Department has long been derided as being run by some brie-munching, effete diplomatic cocktail commandos who can’t shoot straight. Perhaps we ought to remember that for the last half-century or more, diplomacy, instead of the force of arms, resolved the conflicts plaguing the planet.

Benghazi several months ago was indeed a tragedy. The President and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got the sad duty of leading the mourning over the late Ambassador Stevens and three State Department officers and contractors. The GOP was busy playing Monday Morning Quarterback and scooping handfuls of mud to sling.

The Party of No’s naysayers seem to think the Administration left our diplomats to die. Despite all the loose talk of “rapid response forces,” real life is not Chuck Norris setting down his beer can and chasing Islamic terrorists in a tacky Israeli Sabra shoot-em-up movie. Military operations involve painstaking intelligence gathering, planning, and execution to reduce the number of American body bags. Go back a third of a century, and remember the Pentagon’s debacle at Desert One in Iran to free the embassy hostages. That tragedy did much to elect Ronald Reagan, whose tough talk invaded… Grenada.

Pass the Mai Tais.

“A Very Special Tribute to a Very Special Mom”

If there is happiness in my heart,
it’s because you helped put it there.

If there is gentleness in my beliefs,
it’s because you showed me how to care.

If there is understanding in my thinking,
it’s because you shared your wisdom.

If there is a rainbow over my shoulder,
it’s because of your outlook and your vision.

If there is a knowledge that I can reach out -
and I really can make some dreams come true -
it’s because learned from the best teacher of all. . .
. . . I learned from you.

A mother’s heart is a special place where children always have a home.

 Author: unknown

This week’s “Say It In Song” pick is ”Homeless,”performed by Paul Simon on the album Graceland.

“Strong wind destroy our home
Many dead, tonight it could be you
Strong wind, strong wind
Many dead, tonight it could be you”

On any given night in this country, 700,000 to 2 million people are homeless. Nearly 44% of the homeless population is comprised of single men while single women make up approximately 13%. Families with children and unaccompanied minors comprise 36% and 7% respectively.

It’s a national disgrace. Will anything be done or will, in the wealthiest nation in the world, it be yet another thing we simply talk about but find no way to match our words with our national policies?