The World is Flat...Or at least where I'm Standing it is.

Joey...We hardly knew ya'

2016-09-12T20:53:00.001-04:00

As can be seen here, and from what has been referenced herein, this was originally written four short years ago. It was a time when the Red State Republicans routinely pounced upon any Yellow Dog Democrat for any reason, whether justified by birth, or race, or politics that had a liberal leaning, or, just as likely for no discernible reason whatever. .

The real lesson here is not so much what I wrote regarding the, then current election, as my reasoning behind the tactics that were employed. Here, as then, I have endeavored to show that the master of political propaganda is alive and well.(Even contrary to reports of his death.)

For your consideration this election cycle... :

The Poison Dwarf…Revisited

Sunday, October 21, 2012 to Today....Just a few short weeks until we all vote again.

Please Think!

And so...the election approaches...

"A lie, repeated enough times, becomes the truth…"

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and / or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Joseph Goebbels

Yes…a big lie, like the one I reference in the earlier article, repeated becomes believable to the point of supplanting the truth. Sure it does…That much from the poison dwarf, who, if nothing else, showed us just how successful such a tactic could be. So my mission here is to expose what is the real truth…and to ram it down anyone's throat who is too stupid to realize that they have been duped.

“Whoever can conquer the street will one day conquer the state, for every form of power politics and any dictatorship-run state has its roots in the street.”

Joseph Goebbels

Have you seen something like this at work today? I must remark that back in the day, that was a recruitment call to enter the Sturm Abteilung. Their mandate, conquer and control the streets. The Brown Shirts did just that and look at how things turned out for them...
.

To be sure, we don't call these people' brown shirts' anymore. Politically correct is the dogma that rules our current times, and yet these same people are still out there, and still doing their best to control the streets. Infiltrating the ranks of legitimate protest groups they show up at town hall meetings, shouting down anyone with opposing ideas. They stifle public debate. TEA PARTY? They create so much disorder that no free discussion is possible and they do it with impunity. And yet they are all still only tools, tools of their masters just as were their predecessors in the SA. The real control of the streets depends on the sponsor's agenda to steer the masses in the required direction.

Of course the sponsor is Uncle Sam but today he works behind a screen that Cujo, hyped up on PCP, couldn't get through on a bet. Toto wouldn't stand a chance and neither do many of us. The screen is one of obfuscation, of deceit, of misrepresentation of facts and the half truths of lies. Each of us who takes the 'blue pill' allows that screen to remain in place.For the best current policy is to lie by telling ALL or PART of the TRUTH.

"To be perceived, propaganda must evoke the interest of an audience and must be transmitted through an attention-getting communications medium. Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”

Joseph Goebbels

Ah, the press, the venerable fourth estate, if you can define such hosts as the 'Honey Badgers' like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Steve Bannon, and we, the television generation of couch potatoes are right where the press wants us. So enter the talk show phenomenon that guides our choices of candidates these days. More bread and circuses. And not just pundits of TV, we can barely listen to AM radio anymore so redolent with bias are the more vituperative and ill informed hosts. Half facts, in support of moronic arguments abound to the point of neausea, even in brief snippets as we surf for information. It should be noted that these churlish masters of ceremony are the most popular in their field. What does that say about the listening audience?

It would be comforting to believe that reported occurrences were at least factual, but yellow journalism has a long history here in these United States, where many of us are descendants of the same whiskey drummers and bible salesmen who pioneered concepts from Manifest Destiny to Madison Avenue. We all like a good show and so we watch...and we listen as sound bites for the intellectually uninvolved daily invade our thoughts. The sponsor's agenda every time. And we buy it all. It is designed for us to do so.The master told us it would be.

"Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans, which must evoke desired responses which the audience previously possesses. These slogans must be capable of being easily learned."

Joseph Goebbels

"Propaganda must reinforce anxiety concerning the consequences of defeat."

"It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success.”

Joseph Goebbels

So, why do I quote from the Nazi Minister of Propaganda after all these years? If you cannot answer that question, then you are prime fodder for the campaign excesses we witness daily in this year of 2016.

Labeling people with distinctive phrases like 'L'yin Ted' and 'Crooked Hillary'.' Easily learned and repeated'. 'A lie, repeated enough times becomes the Truth".

"Propaganda may be facilitated by leaders with prestige."

Joseph Goebbels

Attack and never apologize.

A paraphrase perhaps and It does not matter whether that tactic has been learned from Roy Cohn or Joseph Goebbels. It is something that just works, and as noted by Dr. Goebbels, it works best on the less than educated segment of society. Those, particularly, that are easily led.

No, friends and neighbors, If you are wondering, on November ninth, what happened yesterday, I ask that you reflect on what is written here. As for me and mine, we are voting for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld. No, I do not agree with everything he says, nor do I believe that any candidate's promises will be realized during his term . It just does not happen.

Points to remember:

1. No!!! We are not going to build a wall around Mexico. Mexico is broke and only subsists on monies returned to that country by workers who are in America illegally. Any idiot knows that. It has been true since the 1860's.

2. These Mexican people are neither rapists nor murderers. They are people just like you and I who only want a better life for their children.

3. Immigration? The life's blood of a Republic is in its Immigration and therefore it's immigration policy. That much is incontrovertible and immutable. It has been true for all of our two hundred and forty years.

4. China? Please let's make a deal, please!!!, and one that works for both sides and is enforceable.

5. NATO? Absolutely. These so called allies have been on the gravy train long enough. On that I hope we can agree for George the first told ud in no uncertain terms 'Avoid entangling alliances'...

6.Russia, Think Back Mr. and Mrs. America. . Russia recognized the fledgling United States in the very early 1800's. Even before I was born. ( I have tools that old...if they could only talk.) I believe that Russia was second after France to do so, and so our histories are intertwined since well before the abortion of Cold War perpetuated by Stalin and Truman. The Northmen and we have a long history on this continent and today I personally know many former Soviet Bloc peoples. Trust me...they are just like us. All wanting to sleep out of the rain, eat two or three times a week and get laid occasionally. The Northmen really are good people and if you do your research may well have discovered this continent 500 years before Columbus.

Still, it cannot escape your ken that there is Much to be done. And so I ask that you read, that you be informed beyond the propaganda and that you vote your conscience. No one can ask more...

For the historian: Dr. Goebbels wrote more than twenty books. Researching them should be informative. It was for me.

By the way, it should not go without notice here that H.L.Mencken, writing for the Baltimore Evening Sun, told us that:

'The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron'

Please try to not vote for another moron. Please...We have already suffered several...okay...maybe more than several. You choose. and Please take the red pill...Please.

2012-10-21T12:06:00.002-04:00

And so...the election approaches...

A lie, repeated enough times, becomes the truth…

Or…

Dismantling the myth of Republican Fiscal Responsibility

Of a certainty, nothing rankles me more definitively, than having to be subjected to E-Mails or otherwise listening to so called Republicans decry the excesses of the so called liberal Democrats, without one fact beyond their own twisted reasoning, backed up solely by bias, either racial, or with pseudo religiosity. It is abhorrent, to me as a reasoning being, that otherwise intelligent, reasoning beings, can be victimized, to the point of espousing unsupported facts by a torrent of what is nothing more than pure propaganda. To that end, I offer these tid-bits in context from the master of that particular communication medium….

* * *

The Poison Dwarf…Revisited

It cannot be argued, this late in the game, either that President Obama has decreased our national debt, nor done anything to even move us in such direction that might accomplish that event. And yet the question remains, why? What is the real truth? Why is everyone blaming President Obama for a problem that's incipience was never in his court?

As an apologist for the state of affairs that finds us in this predicament, I will begin by noting that our national debt now stands at 97.6% of our GDP. In monetary terms, that is $14.639 trillion. A staggering amount and yet, only a part of that, (approximately 10%) is due to policies either enacted, or proposed during the last three and a half years of President Obama's tenure.

Quantitatively of that 10% amount, some dollars are attributable to 'new' policies, proposed by President Obama, (such as 6% due to his economic stimulus packages ). Additionally, 20%, are attributable to policies enacted by GW the third, and supported or extended by President Obama, according to the CBO forecast as reported.

Okay…together that is around 30% of the total, and as I have indicated, only 10% directly attributable to President Obama. In correlation, it should also be noted that an article by David Leonhardt, of the New York Times states that "President Obama's agenda ... is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits", but also that he "...does not have a realistic plan for reducing the deficit...."

How could that be otherwise, since in remembering back to my high school civics classes, it is Congress that has the constitutional authority to spend money and to levy taxes, Congress alone. Sure, the President has a veto, but Congress is wise to that trick and early on learned to wrap key 'pork' spending proposals with 'other' proposals so that by vetoing the one, the other is also cut. It should be noted that those public tit sucking leeches in Congress these days always craft their bills to make the opposing party look bad to the voters. It is a standard practice. de rigueur, and I am tempted to remark here that when an arrogant Dick Cheney remarked in 2002, 'Proved deficits don't matter.' I took that to mean as long as a Republican president was in power and you should as well. But today, one cannot turn on a television without hearing some inane PAC touting the lie that Barack Obama is responsible for the debt as it stands. Standard phrasing allows that 'we cannot afford four more years with the man who got us into this mess'.

Joseph Goebbels

Yes…a big lie, like the one I reference above, repeated becomes believable to the point of supplanting the truth. Sure it does…That much from the poison dwarf, who, if nothing else, showed us just how successful such a tactic could be. So my mission here is to expose what is the real truth…and to ram it down anyone's throat who is too stupid to realize that they have been duped.

Therefore, why is it that so many Republicans are pissing and moaning and finger-pointing and vilifying President Obama on the national debt when so much of the blame, from the record, is so clearly in someone else's court? And exactly whose court are we discussing anyway? Is it strictly the 235 Republican Congressmen and 40 GOP senators that voted for the Paul Ryan 2012 budget that requires raising the debt ceiling repeatedly, or is the festering wound deeper? It this trend due to the 'tax and spend' liberal Democrats, or is it due to the 'don't tax and spend' profligate and greedy Republicans? Or…as I have noted above, is there something deeper? And whatever happened to that legendary 'Republican fiscal responsibility?

"Propaganda must reinforce anxiety concerning the consequences of defeat."

"It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success.”

Joseph Goebbels

So what is that success? Questions, many questions and yet, it seems that answers to those questions depend entirely upon who you ask, and how they want to 'spin' their reply. Lie, and lie convincingly, by telling either all, or a part of the truth. (No, Joe Goebbels didn’t say that. It's one of mine but I'm seriously thinking of having it appended to our national motto. At the very least it should be printed on our money, which isn't even worth the cost of burning. Now, we are selling it to Ford to recycle into dashboards.)

To be frank though, we have all become accustomed to reasoning of this same sort, used to portend dire events, throughout the most disastrous, and fiscally irresponsible presidency of the preceding administration, where we actively watched George the third, take our economy from a surplus in 2000, to a doubling of the national debt at $11.3 trillion in 2008. To a large extent, this was fueled by unfunded Medicare Part 'D', which US Comptroller, General David Walker, called, 'the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the sixties.'

Remember people, Medicare was 'broke' in 2003, and I promise, I'm not making that up. George the third knew that, (no one is that stupid), but he was afraid of losing the 2004 election …seriously afraid and so he decided to give seniors 'free drugs', and thereby, buy their votes. The cost? $1 trillion over ten years, no offsets, no dedicated financing, and our grandchildren get to pay the bill. It was all just Bread and Circuses again, and all deficit spending. Thank you John McCain for having the courage to vote against this abortion of trust.

Then, of course, on George's side of the ledger, there were unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the tax cuts of 2001-2003, but at least George was following big shoes. His oft quoted mentor in things financial, at the insistent prompting of the eminence gris Dick Chaney, was, of course Ronald Reagan, who, while effectively demonstrating to us all through some rosy scenario rhetoric, that 'trickle down economics' was little more that trickle up poverty, managed to triple the national debt to $3 trillion during his tenure.

Why? The same reason that mired George the third, if you are being charitable…or George the idiot, if you are not. Hey guys… If you cut taxes and continue to spend, your debt will continue to rise, and rise, and rise. Governments have literally no other source of income. If I pull that kind of shit, I get sent to the hall of many doors, perhaps a good repository for our esteemed legislators as well.

So, at this point you are saying, that I introduced myself above as an apologist. So, in that capacity I shall start at the beginning and attempt to define my argument as to why the Republican Party has consistently moved away from the core values that once set them apart.

"Propaganda may be facilitated by leaders with prestige."

Joseph Goebbels

Many years ago, and far away from here, I hearkened to the siren song of conservatism. After all, a conservative is someone who conserves, someone who saves and above all, does no harm. A conservative is a fiscally responsible person who never spends more than he has and who abhors the idea that a condition of debt can be a desirable thing. ('deficits don't matter', my ass…) That was my goal. That was what I believed a responsible American should do, and so conservatism became my goal.

Then we flash forward…past Jimmy Carter…and, in 1979, that meant Ronald Reagan, since at that time he was certainly sporting all the right credentials and far from the RINO moniker that would characterize him today. Then though, I was enthralled. Here was the man who could save AMERICA. Here was a man who would not back down, a hero, and a true man we could all emulate. I became a member of the Republican National Committee at a time when conservatism was less than a joke in official circles and yet; the Gipper had told us that he had the solution. After all, we certainly could trust 'the Gipper', couldn't we? He did have prestige….

(Retrospectively, and in full view of the RINO appellation above, we must remark that Ronald Reagan was a man that would scarcely ever be invited to a Tea Party in this current era…

For example…. His 1981, $749 billion 'supply side' tax cuts brutally led the way towards huge annual deficits. Then, in order to keep up against a losing financial scheme, Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times before he left office and all of us holding a $3 trillion deficit. He also granted amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants in an effort to make them tax paying American citizens. In addition, Ronald Reagan dramatically increased federal spending by repeatedly raising the annual military budget. (Star wars technology is expensive. Just ask George Lucas.) And let's not too quickly forget those above mentioned 3 million cheap laborers.

Ronald Reagan's brand of 'Reaganomics prosperity' was aimed strictly at those who were already well off. Home ownership under his administration, fell and average worker's wages dropped repeatedly. I know, because I was one of those workers. Then there was the 10% 'luxury tax'. The only 'urban aid' program to survive slashing public service and job training cuts was federal aid for highways, which primarily benefited suburbs, not cities. Ronald Reagan demonstrated to us all that his tax cuts for the rich, 'job creators', benefited no one but the rich, who created damn few jobs. The 'new federalism' shifted responsibility onto states without necessary provisions for funding. Deregulation and Cost Benefit Analyses, were the watchwords of the day and 'ideological arithmetic' ignored the costs.

In 1983, Reagan abandoned the conservative philosophy that had gained him the White House when he openly asked for bipartisan support to 'save social security' from bankruptcy by quoting Franklin Roosevelt. In three short years, Ronald Reagan had at last learned that Government was indeed the problem. At the request of bankers, ( a true evil empire, if there ever was one), Ronald Reagan initiated the free fall, free for all slide of American banks when he de-regulated exactly how banks should behave in their fiscal responsibility to depositors. Multiple home mortgages were traded as risky securities with very little that could qualify as regulation. Banks became insurance companies and bond traders, together with all the vice versa attendant. The end was fast approaching but in retrospective it too another twenty years to bottom out.

Okay…maybe it still hasn't bottomed out. The pundits and the hoo-hah crowd still feel 'bullish' but shoveling shit uphill, as we all are these semi-bright days of twenty twelve, it sure feels bottomed out to me. But back then I watched as a younger man, and I noted facts here and there, and I concluded at that time, that Richard Nixon, for all of his idiosyncrasies and 'southern strategy', and Gerald Ford, serving out his 'reward' job, were the last truly fiscally responsible Republicans.

No, Ronald Reagan was not a conservative, small 'c' or big 'C', and yet he was a Federalist, in the truest sense and a man that I truly admire to this very day. May God bless you, mister president for having the courage to DO something. Small government, strict adherence to a Constitution that our forefathers died to have ratified, free trade and the opportunities it expresses and I thank you Mister President for the 'amnesty' you offered those former 'illegals'. Today they are indeed productive American citizens, as you envisioned, and so are their children, Yet, the problem remains that your economic policies did not work…Still, the only answer we got was Bush 43….

("We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move." 2003) Yes, George the don't tax and spend liberal, in conservative clothing of course, actually said that..

So, in the intervening years, between then, and now, Why have my icons of the political right failed me and why have they consistently failed America. I warn you, the answers are unpleasant. Some of those answers may disgust you. All of them may lead you to believe that your trust has been misplaced.

“Whoever can conquer the street will one day conquer the state, for every form of power politics and any dictatorship-run state has its roots in the street.”

Joseph Goebbels

Back in the day, that was a mandate to enter the Sturm Abteilung. Their mandate, conquer and control the streets. The Brown Shirts did just that and look at how things turned out.

To be sure, we don't call these people by that title anymore. Politically correct is the dogma that rules our times, and yet they are still out there, and still doing their best to control the streets. Infiltrating the ranks of legitimate protest groups they show up at town hall meetings, shouting down anyone with opposing ideas. They stifle public debate. They create so much disorder that no free discussion is possible and they do it with impunity. And yet they are all still only tools, tools of their masters just as were their predecessors in the SA. The real control of the streets depends on the sponsor's agenda to steer the masses in the required direction.

Joseph Goebbels

Ah, the press, the venerable fourth estate and we, the television generation of couch potatoes are right where the press wants us. So enter the talk show phenomenon that guides our choices of candidates these days. More bread and circuses. And not just pundits of TV, we can barely listen to AM radio anymore so redolent with bias are the more vituperative hosts. Half facts, in support of moronic arguments abound to the point of neausea, even in brief snippets as we surf for information. It should be noted that these churlish masters of ceremony are the most popular in their field. What does that say about the listening audience?

"Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans, which must evoke desired responses which the audience previously possesses. These slogans must be capable of being easily learned."

Joseph Goebbels

'Responses which the audience previously possesses'. Today that extends much farther than 'terrorist ragheads that hate us'. Today that labeling extends to the 47% of our population so recently characterized as 'victims'. And the 'distinctive slogans' pandering to an atmosphere of fear, engendered and perpetuated solely to refine a purpose of hatred for everyone that is different from the targeted listener. And it works. Old Joe told us it would.

So here we are, with two weeks to go to another election where nothing substantive will be decided. Taxes will stay as low as they were in 1953. Republicans will vote against anything the Democrats want. Democrats will vote against anything the Republicans initiate and the number of 'victims' of it all will grow. China bashing will continue as an easy target for all of our ills even though our national debt is mostly owned by us. If you like, I can spell that last word with capital letters but do the research, you'll see what I'm saying.

No, there is no short term solution to this problem, none. In fact the only solution is for people to realize that we are all riding this rock together and it is high time we concentrated our efforts on things that we can agree on instead of the things that divide us.

Never fear though, that accomplishes nothing and remember, there is still time…sure there is. The world doesn't end until late this December…

Quotations taken from Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda to The National Socialist Party of Germany.

If Jerry Falwell's organization is against it, then I'm for it...

2011-12-28T10:06:00.000-05:00

Recently I had occasion to read a column by Matt Barber, a constitutional law attorney and vice president of Liberty Counsel Action. Mister Barber dedicated that column to a rant against Ron Paul and the Libertarian viewpoints that define Representative Paul. Particularly, Mister Barber points out that Paul is lax on national defense and believes that Islamic terrorists, "...come here and want to do us harm because we’re bombing them."

Mister Paul is correct in that statement and you, Mister Barber, are and very far down the ladder of credibility in that you are unaware that the statement is substantively true. These Islamic terrorists 'want to harm us' precisely because we are bombing them...and usurping their sovereignty, and 'dissing' them, to put things in the vernacular of the times.

I will admit that it goes back a ways...at least back to T.E Lawrence but we kicked things off from our side of the bench when we did it to Iran in 1953. That was when the CIA and Britain's MI6 overthrew the government of Mohammed Mossaddegh. Yeah, that's right, Mister Barber, forcible overthrow of a government we had earlier supported so that both we and Britain could reap oil profits from an industry that had been nationalized. I'm pretty sure that the Iranians remember the incident well, even if you have forgotten.

We followed up when we did it to Iraq in 1980 when, after supplying chemical weapons and other means of 'mass destruction' to Iraq, we again changed horses in midstream. Back in the flying 80's, in order to justify our policy, we even removed Iraq from the state department list of 'State Sponsors of Terrorism' over the objection of General Alexander Haig, I might add. (Reagan and Bush#1 did that...unilaterally from the White House.)

We even made Saddam Hussein gifts of Anthrax and thirteen other agents with 'biological warfare significance'. There were also 'Bear Spares' for military equipment then under embargo from the supplier, the USSR. Then there was that award winning gesture of an expensive set of gold spurs from President Reagan, hand delivered by Donald Rumsfeld at the taxpayers expense. All that, as long as Saddam was supporting our cause against the evil Ayatollah in Tehran. Hell, the DIA was even planning daily operations to deliver those chemical weapons on target in Iran.

We turned on Saddam when it became apparent that Iraq would not repay the 14 billion dollars owed to Kuwait and he decided to annex the country instead.

We did it to Afghanistan' too. Remember Charlie Wilson? Yeah, we supplied all those warlords in Afghanistan with Stingers since they were fighting those godless communists. It even worked to a degree when the USSR pulled back to Moscow but then there was nothing to shoot at and so many missiles left to shoot and the United States was washing its hands free of Afghan dirt back in the waters of the Potomac.. What to do?

Well I suppose that terrorists could always be relied on as paying customers and I've been to Afghanistan, Mister Barber, they really don't have anything else to tout as a cash crop. So the Taliban took over along with their little sidekick bin Laden and we all know how that went.

So yes many third world and Islamic countries do hate us for our perfidy, but then that perfidy has long been the foundation of our foreign policy.

Elihu Root spelled it out back in 1922 when he advocated the 'self protection' scheme that was later converted by subsequent administrations into a policy of 'our economic welfare in America comes before anyone else's, anything else', and that doctrine, however laundered to support dictators from Mussolini to those in current events is diametrically opposed to the foundation principles of our country and the Libertarian Party of which Representative Paul is a member.

And still it is Ron Paul that you find dangerous?

You regard Ron Paul as dangerous for his Libertarian values in snapping off 'national defense' and 'social values' from Ronald Reagan's precious three legged stool, but what of that stool Mister Barber and your biased interpretation for the meaning of those legs?

On personal liberty:

See sections 1.0-1.4 of the Libertarian platform. Try this quote... "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal..." Remember that? 'All men...are...equal'. That means just what it says and I am no better than you, nor are you any better than anyone else. We are all equal and all Libertarians support that equality along with personal responsibility for our own actions.

On a strong National defense:

See sections 3.1, and 3.3 of the Libertarian platform. In particular note that the language employed in both sections is the same language imparted to our fledgling government by George Washington when he wisely counseled us to avoid 'entangling alliances'. Perhaps Uncle George was a Libertarian as well...or should we neither allow him to carve the turkey?

In closing I suggest that you take the world's smallest political quiz.Find it here: http://theadvocates.org/quiz , from The Advocates for Self Government, and yes, they are a Libertarian organization.

Read more on Newsmax.com: Falwell Group: Ron Paul Is Dangerous

Can't Get a Job if You Don't Have One....

2011-08-12T08:16:00.005-04:00

Recently the Huffington Post ran an article called 'Unemployment Discrimination: Who's Afraid to Hire The Jobless.'

Yeah that's right, Huffington Post. You might be thinking therefore that here's another commie, pinko writer quoting the liberal media and in that, you would be wrong. Indeed, I look at a variety of propaganda sources every single day since the news we get in this country is a lot like fertilizer. It has to be spread around to do any good and a reader constantly has to sift through the uh...inert matter.

So the story referenced above caught my attention. Mostly that was because exactly what was described happened to me personally. I was literally told, by a company recruiter that if I had any unemployment on my recent job history, I could not apply. Then it happened with another company.

Now, O learned mavens of the blogoshphere, I don't mind telling you that this situation seemed mighty queer to this old country boy, emphasis on the old. After all, I had just reached the point when I finally reasoned out that sending applications through on AARP sponsored stationery might just not be the best plan for a career position. Indeed I had attended interviews where the HR director came right out and told me that he could hire three young people for what he would have to pay me. Yeah, I know that is age discrimination and also illegal but we all know it happens, and really, why bother to sue when you have already been told that the company does not want you working there?

So after working a couple of corncobs like that out of my ass I was really not prepared to learn that If I didn't have a job, I might not be able to get one. I decided to read further, and yes, from other sources as well, even some from the rabid right. (I have to tell you though that there was no article about this practice on the FOX web site.)

What I found out during that reading was that the practice is actually legal since 'unemployed' is not a category listed as discriminatory under EEOC guidelines. Yes! Our government in action at its best. There is no policy that addresses discriminating against the unemployed. And the practice is growing according to NELP Executive Director, Christine Owens.

Now, there may be a few of you out there who have recently arrived on Earth from some off planet locations but most of us already here are familiar with the reality that since mid 2007 or so, unemployment has been on the rise at a rate nearly parallel with what was experienced during the great depression of the thirties. Of course the numbers have been dummied up to make the statistic look better than it really is but I'll bet that anyone reading this has friends and relatives that are unemployed. The situation is bad to the point of being dire and we need less methods used to disqualify or avoid hiring competent workers. The solution is more jobs but with the growing trend towards globalization that is becoming harder to do.

In this pre election year run up to 2012, I believe that the best strategy for accomplishing the sea change that we need is as I outlined in an earlier post entitled 'Throw The Bastards Out'. At least with that strategy we all have a fighting chance to get hired.

Throw the Bastards Out

2011-07-29T08:17:00.006-04:00

I don't know where anyone in congress got the idea that Social Security was an entitlement program. It may have something to do with the fact that congressional pensions pay four to five times more than most social security after only five years vesting, or vestiture if you will forgive a slight archaism. Nonetheless, those of us out here in the real world, many of whom have worked forty plus years remember social security as an extorted purchase of an annuity that none of us ever expected to see a return on.

However Franklin Roosevelt characterized his spiel while he was rapidly shifting those three cards, (Liberal social program, insurance policy, and FICA contribution),around the table, quite apart from a method to provide for our elders, most of us downrange invariably saw 'Ponzi scheme' whenever we visualized what was going to happen to us downrange.

And now we come to today and another round of poor mouth propaganda rhetoric from our party partisan electorate.

Please don't get me wrong. While this is not intended as a rant against social security itself, when you strip all the varnish away from the turd of congressional spending you invariably arrive at the same conclusion. It is nothing but a pile of shit. Congress, that stalwart watchdog of democracy and the American way, does not care one whit about either any of us or our elders. It's all about what the money can provide to insure that above referenced five year tenure and that is why I say it is time to 'Throw the Bastards Out.'

Could I do any better? Could anyone else? Both questions, in contravention of strict logic have three answers, just like the card game up above. Yes. No. Maybe...Pick the right one and you win yourself a prize.

So, a few days ago I was reminded that a friend of mine, Emmett Delaney,had written a book called 'The Write In.' It is a story about a regular guy named Les Moore and how he became a national write in candidate for president.

In the book, Les, who is fifty-six years old, has a slight IRS problem, a case of worsening type two diabetes and who is a thirty-five year veteran driving forty-eight states for Transporters Express, one day wins a driver of the year award that comes with a new computer. Les has to learn how to use it though and so one day while trying out the internet he take a survey on what he would do as President of the United States. Les's responses to that survey get him noticed fast and the next thing that happens is that Les Moore finds himself listed as a 'write-in' candidate for president.

Can't happen? Well it does in the book and even though Les is not running, the momentum of the internet carries him along through every trial and tribulation you can imagine for such an endeavor.

I have to admit that an idea such as the one Emmett writes about here has a certain appeal. It is an appeal that every common man, in the best tradition of Jefferson Smith on that memorable Academy Award winning 1939 trip to Washington, wants to emulate.

Now, just as then, many feel that too long has our political system been abused and perverted to further the aims of avaricious career politicians. Too long have our jobs been exported to countries that hate us so that a few corporations can profit while many languish in poverty. Too long have we all been subjected to a rationalistic agenda that does little but fuel ambitions and enrich the bank accounts of ambulance chasing lawyers, the bottom rung of our legal profession. Too long have we all said nothing as we watched this denial of self reliance, this perversion of responsibility for our own actions and this complete disregard for principles that made this nation a singular paragon on the world stage. Maybe 2012 is the year that we, as ordinary folk, stand up and take back our country.

Many years ago I heard a stand-up routine. I can't remember where or who but I do remember the punch line. Anyway, one man says to the other. 'Did you know that the two biggest problems facing our nation are ignorance and apathy.' The other man turns and says. 'I don't know and I don't care.'

Okay, so it's not funny. I know that and now, so do you. So look up Emmett's book. I've provided a link and while reading think about a common man in a national office. Think about yourself in one of those offices. Think about making a difference. After all it is not enough to just 'Throw the Bastards Out.' Like it or not we have to replace them. Maybe with Lester Moore, maybe with you... It could happen.

To Cursive or Not to Cursive

2011-06-18T20:16:00.001-04:00

So...there I was. I had mowed what is left of my lawn, weeded the old flowerbed on the west side of the house, knocked a couple of items off of the wife's perpetual 'list of things that will only take five minutes to do', and the day was effectively over. Worse than that, I was out of beer.

I then thought I might hit the pool for a few laps but since the water temperature in the pool was two degrees higher than the air temperature outside here in sunny Clearwater Florida, the idea of a dip was less than attractive. Long story short, I was casting about for something I could do to kill time before supper. On a whim I decided to tune in the six o'clock follies and see if there was anything remotely resembling what was advertised as news. Today I was in luck.

I forget who the commentator was, not that it really mattered. Here in Florida, and to be fair in many other locations as well, we have an assortment of lacquered, and powdered fully animated mannequins, some male, some female that have all purchased their hair from Owens Corning and all faithfully stick to the fully massaged script on their teleprompters. (I'm not supposed to discuss politics but that is just like the president does when the cameras are rolling.)

Anyway, listening in I was shocked to learn that there is a movement afoot to eliminate cursive writing as an item of curriculum in our schools and yes, even though we are not discussing politics this is something that goes right back to 'no child left behind' which as you will remember also means 'no child moves ahead'. Budget cuts, smaller class sizes, standardized tests and God help any teacher attempting originality or otherwise deviating from the banal.

The rationale, and we are nothing if not rationalistic in anything operated by governments, is that the teaching of cursive writing is time consuming, particularly with students that already know how to print block letters, or simply recognize those symbols enough to press keys on a computer or cell phone.

HELLO!!!

Yes boys and girls; they are actually touting just that. What I am hearing though is that teaching cursive is just too hard. After all, children have cell phones, and computers, so why do they need to 'write' anything?

Well how about a signature? Maybe notes during a lecture? That always comes in handy at test time. How about a quick note to that cute girl in the second row? E-Mail leaves a paper trail guys. It might be handy to know cursive...

Teaching it is hard though. The teachers do have a point. And let's not forget all the time they need to teach students how to pass those standardized tests like FCAT.

'No Child Moves Ahead'.

Now I don't know about you but as I recall school it was first learn block printing in first and second grade, maybe even third,) and then move on to cursive writing around the fourth grade. And yes, if it was time consuming for me as a student, I can easily surmise that with thirty eight students in my grade school class, it must have been even more time consuming for Sister Michael and Sister Joan, and all the other equally patient good Sisters of Saint Joseph. Still they persevered.

We, as students, were a captive audience of course but what the hell, we persevered too and practiced and practiced, ad neauseam.

We had inkwells with ink in them and stoppers. We had blotters and quill pens with changeable nibs and later we had fountain pens too. I even remember those horrible cartridge pens that sometimes worked and usually leaked.(Washable Blue, my ass...)

There were ink smudges galore, ruined shirts and you had to keep dipping the quill tips as they would only hold so much ink and yet through it all, we learned cursive. We were even graded on it. Some of us got decent grades, most of us though had terrible handwriting.

Once we had all got with the program it was evident even to anyone that cursive was a lot faster than block printing, a whole lot faster. Hell, even the Romans wrote in cursive. Oh not that stuff chiseled into places like Trajan's Column. The Romans used cursive for nearly everything else though. It just worked and obviously their instructors had time to teach.

Still, opponents of cursive tout that it is sometimes hard to read as not everyone possesses the ability to write cursive legibly. They do have a point and they further expand that point to state that important documents should be printed in block letters for legibility. That is certainly a valid position and I agree...at least partially. After all, no one would write something important, e.g. a document that was intended to last for a long time in cursive. Would they? In particular would they work the official document in cursive when they already possessed a printed copy?

They might. Or if they did we would have to infer that perhaps they simply couldn't print worth a shit. Men like Timothy Matlack and Jacob Shallus for instance. Yes...I'm quite certain they were better at cursive.

Transverse Myelitis

2011-05-14T09:43:00.005-04:00

TM? I'll bet you thought that was Transcendental Meditation. Didn't you?

You know, if this were to be a redneck story I would have to begin with 'Hey...y'all ain't goin' to belieeeve this shit'. Unfortunately though, I am unable, herein, to segue into fast cars, loyal hunting dogs, unfaithful women or beer and so redneck just won't cut it. Similarly, 'Once upon a Time' is just too lame to consider and so I will just get on with it as you are probably tired of the long winded preamble. Besides, Joanie is making noises with the paper shredder in the next room so...

A few weeks ago I was driving along in Ohio, kickin my kitty, stylin' and profilin' with the best of them in my Kenworth T-600. With a recent bath and fresh shave I did look good.

Since it was Ohio and since I had recently received some beautiful, hand autographed paperwork from one of the more dedicated public servants down on US 35, I was particularly vigilant for uh...road hazards. One hazard I did miss, although about three hours from that particular time point it would find me, all on its own.

It had been an uneventful morning, except for the rain. Traffic was medium, the sun came up on schedule brightening gray skies and I was early for my last delivery in Columbus about twenty miles away. Just an average day trucking and delivering freight. I had seen many just like it over the last 1.3 million miles.

I had upholstered couches and recliners in the trailer today and I was anxious to get them off so I could call in MT and get to my next dispatch. I dropped a gear, hit the exit ramp off 270 for Roberts Road and turned left.

About a half hour after I bumped the dock the receiver showed up and together we threw the load in record time. No OS+D, papers all signed and posted to the Driver Tech computer, everything running like a clock but I noticed a slight pain in my back about midway up. If you are much older than thirty you have probably come to terms with something aching or hurting most of the time and so you probably do what I did that morning and slough it off. Besides, ramped up from the recent exercise no little back pain was going to deter me. I was ready to run.

Dispatch was not though and after about an hour of waiting I headed to the Pilot truck stop out on exit 79 for some decent coffee.

Those people at PFJ advertise that they have the best coffee on the interstate and I have to allow that the claim is well founded although how they can maintain that quality when they ship the stuff in those 8500 gallon tank trailers is quite beyond me. Nonetheless I parked and headed across the parking lot.

The rain had abated to some degree but it was breezy with a temperature in the high forties so this Florida boy in a thin jacket, hustled just a little, along with 'Tee' shirted locals. That coffee was going to taste mighty good and it did!

Passing a few pleasantries with other drivers I started back across the tarmac. My truck was about two hundred yards away. About a hundred feet into that journey I began to notice a tingling sensation in my right foot. Now that was pretty strange since it felt a little like my foot was going to sleep so I stopped at one of the fuel islands and did some stretching. I even banged the offending foot against a concrete bollard a few times just to try and shake the feeling. It didn't help so I continued towards my truck. Then I stumbled and damn near dumped my fresh coffee before I recovered enough to stand straight. The tingling was now crawling past my knee. Worse yet, my left foot was tingling too. I was halfway to the truck.

I don't know when it occurred to me that I was somehow in trouble. I'm pretty dense on things like that but most pains can be walked off. We have all done that a hundred times. The body is good at that sort of thing but the closer I got to the truck the worse my walking became. I stumbled and then I stumbled again...and again. My right leg was just not working and the harder I willed it to work the worse it became. When I made it to the grab bar by my door I could barely stand.

I did stand though as there was little alternative but I held tight to the grab bar as I unlocked my door and stuffed my hard won coffee inside on the mat. Then I used my left leg to drag my right leg and me into the truck. So far so good and I hadn't spilled the coffee. First things first, after all.

I sat on the seat for a few minutes and tried to resume 'normal' but the numbness persisted. Then it was into the bunk for some stretching. It had to be a pinched nerve. It felt like a pinched nerve. Rest and stretching would help. Wouldn't it? The answer to that was no. And I mean a great big fat NO!

Several hours later I knew I was going to have to call an audible.

Friends took me to Riverside Methodist in Columbus. There I learned the truth. It was a pinched nerve...sort of. My spinal cord was the nerve in question and it was much more than pinched. I had Transverse Myelitis. Listening through all the doctorese it was apparent that recovery was a long way off if at all.

A week later I left the ICU for Physical therapy. Acute In-Patient Physical Therapy they call it and it is something like a boot camp for brain and spinal cord injuries. Up early, get dressed on your own, meals in the dining room, (no hiding in your room) work late and then rest just as hard and tomorrow it starts all over again. I loved it. After the first week I earned my 'green certificate'. I could then use the bathroom and get into bed from the wheelchair unsupervised. Apart from the embarrassment of the other option, the freedom was a milestone. I was learning and becoming stronger.

Miss Katie, Miss Sarah and Miss Paula drilled me hard. No slip-ups into easy accommodation were tolerated. All movements were to be controlled and even. 'Trust the leg', 'Shorter steps', 'Hips forward', 'Squeeze your butt when you lift', Heel first'.'These were their mantras and I repeat them to myself with every outing.I still do. Without these dedicated ladies I would still be slinging my bad leg like a sack of concrete. Thank you all so very much. I mean that more than you know.

Another week and I am again home in Florida, still learning to walk but feeling more confident with each step. Funny, I don't remember it being all that hard learning this same function sixty some years ago but what the hell. I figure that when you get older you forget shit so I am just putting my shoulder to the wheel and hamstering it out.

For those of you who do not know. Transverse Myelitis is an inflammatory lesion or lesions of the spinal cord across its thickness in which the myelin sheath of the neurons is damaged. This adversely affects conduction of signals in the affected nerves, causing impairment in sensation, movement, cognition, or other functions depending on which nerves are involved.. The lesions are inflammatory, and involve the spinal cord on both sides. With acute transverse myelitis, the onset is sudden and the disease progresses rapidly in hours or days.

The cause for many occurrences of Transverse Myelitis is up for debate. In my case the doctors said it was idiopathic. At first I thought that was a snide remark that meant I had STUPID written on my forehead but instead of punching someone I looked it up. (Greek was never my forte'.) The word means arising from unknown causes, but as a functional process of the disease, for some reason my immune system had attacked my spinal cord. Maybe a virus, maybe an injury...who knows? The result is the same. One leg paralyzed, the other one just numb.

Recovery is very might be, maybe, could be, if in nature, although early treatment may lead to 90-100% recovery. Time frame for that recovery is up to two years. Wheelchairs are for pussies though so in the meanwhile I will be out pounding the pavement with walker and cane. It ain't pretty. It ain't fast but I am standing and I am moving.'Heel first', Squeeze the butt'...Yeah.

Believe that I am motivated. I'll have to be if I ever want to get back to fast cars, women, unfaithful or otherwise and some fine old mountain brewed, Tennessee sippin' whiskey. (See? I did work in a redneck angle after all.) Maybe I'll even try some of the other TM...just in case the stress gets to me, of course.

2010-11-12T13:54:00.001-05:00

From February past and reprinted here:

You know I was talking with Lela the other day and she reminded me that we are almost out of the winter doldrums. Specially right now as we await the advent of Easter which as everyone in Florida knows means that the tourists will fly back north. Not quite as many of them this year due to the economic woes we all suffer under but some things are looking up and Lela has seen new people at The Studio. So I suppose that the season is almost official.

So, Spring has sprung here in Florida and the grass is almost riz but some of you might be sitting around wondering just how old that carpet in the living room is. Apart from short term memory loss the brown paths between your favorite chair and the refrigerator should be some sort of indication but when in doubt, the best plan is always to throw it out. That's where we can come to the rescue for any household and any budget.

With the advances in fibre technology today and the possibilities offered through solution dyed nylon, your new carpet, in a color that pleases every time you look at it is closer to a reality than just a distant dream.

So wander on down to the Lake Avenue Studio or maybe to your favorite home store and experiment with just how much envy you can wring out of your neighbors. And, the plus today is that in these down times you can do it for some very attractive prices.

Then you can sit back, enjoy a beer and wait for your dog to start scooting a new path.

Anniversary

2010-01-31T10:47:00.005-05:00

An anniversary is generally a happy time, a celebration in some way of an event we want to remember. It probably says something similar to that in the dictionary but in a broader sense an anniversary may also call up something we might just as soon forget.

From my end this was the week last year that I was notified that I was being laid off. Yup, laid off. Okay, you could just as well say fired, retired, downsized,dismissed,discharged, or any one of another set of verbal images but the result would be the same. Out of work and now, a year later I am still out of work. Regular work that is and when you fall from a 200K slot down to unemployment you wind up doing some downsizing of your own. I sold the motorhome, sailboat, Harley Davidson, furnishings and let the house go for 300K less than it cost to build three years ago and my 2008 pick-up went back to the bank. Now I live in a trailer in Clearwater...on US19 no less! OK...its a shithole and I hate it but it is mostly dry and it is paid for. So is my new ride, a twenty four year old F-250 that starts on most mornings when there is no water in my diesel fuel.

Now I am far from the only person in my area that this has happened to. Hear tell we are at near 12% unemployed in the Tampa Bay area and there were a lot of causes but that is mostly water under the dam at this point. Now we are all just dealing with the results and attempting to formulate solutions so it occurred to me that some pro-active innovation, in the best traditions of The Wharton School, could be rewarding.

To that end I will say that I have staked out some prime real estate down near the Gandy Boulevard off ramp and that I am offering attractive sublets to willing citizens who will work cadging hand outs. I get 5% of your daily take and you will make money since I have full demographics and traffic flow rates from FDOT. I can also predict right down to a brass quarter your average daily haul so don't even think of trying to fuck me over .

Okay, this is shift work and appropriate attire is necessary of course. Scuffed boots are de riguer as are presentable, if worn, Blue Jeans. Leave the spit shined Ferragamos and those fancy designer ripped and tattered dungarees under your bed if you still have one or at least inside your shopping cart if your home has become more portable.

If you are new at this then rest assured that I have a marketing section that can supply sign sentiments with just the degree of pathos necessary to your particular situation and in colors to attract maximum visibility; all guaranteed to elicit a buck or a few coins since public perception of your presence generally signals 'wino' and we want to avoid that. Cash is king after all. I also have small children and dogs from citizens on more dangerous turf and all available for rent as an extra touch.

Not comfortable doing the hand out thing? Well there is another solution. You can commit a crime! If you do there is a good chance that the law abiding citizens of the county will send your tired ass straight to prison. If they do, you will get three squares a day, a warm bed and free health care for the length of your stay.

Now I am perfectly willing to admit that prison can be confining. Of course it can but just how confined or comfortable are you under that bridge...or inside that refrigerator carton or dumpster? How much time do you spend watching over your remaining possessions and how many hours does it take every day to find food. Prison can help. Remember those three squares? And when summer gets here there is exercise equipment and an outside yard so you can work on your tan, drop that flab and get in shape. Just like a health club! The best part is that you can learn a new trade and your PO will get you a paying job when you get out. Prison looking better to you? Is it?

Just remember that prison can help you avoid many miseries of everyday life since you won't have any possessions, any bills to pay and no lawn to mow. All you will have is peace of mind, and anniversaries...of course.

Legal Gun Owners?

2009-06-02T09:54:00.002-04:00

My response to a Saint Pete Times editorial of May 30, 2009,

"Guns Don't Belong in National Parks"

Thank you Senator Tom Coburn.

While a long history of sniping attacks on the meaning and scope of the second amendment has resulted in a state of affairs where gun owners are commonly regarded today as less than mentally stable right wing nuts, you have had the courage to stand up and point out the necessity for the inclusion of this provision in our Constitution. Indeed, dating back to the Magna Carta and before that to The Assize of Arms, all free men should be required to 'bear arms' to 'provide for the common defense'. In the case of the Magna Carta that common defense even extends to the right and obligation to revolt against the King. Any King.
(Any of you liberals want to check how well this right worked for our founding fathers?)

While it nonetheless goes without saying that the individual bearing arms has a responsibility to use them well and with skill, the second amendment, notwithstanding the various illegal specific infringements, permits us to own and carry them anywhere we see fit. After all, the framers of our Constitution knew well that governments fear nothing so much as an armed populace.

Age Of Aquarius

2009-02-17T10:37:00.002-05:00

That's what they say today is. If true, I suppose that the actual dawning is over at this point and the reality is here so, in case anybody is interested, I'm ready. Bring it on!

Remembering back into the fifth dimension and the message that 'peace will guide the planets, and love will rule the stars', I'm not sure of exactly how that translates into the third dimension where I live and substantively into something I can feel and touch and smell but I will say that I am encouraged.

Since being laid off again on February first, for the second time in the last two years, I will admit that I have steadily grown more despondent as the month waxed and demand for new houses and condos dwindled even farther down the toilet. No breaking news there for any of us similarly or associatively engaged but today things should change. Prosperity is here and if you check with the right sources. you will see that we are all set until the beginning of 2010. Wow!

Now I don't know about any of you but with the world scheduled to end on December 21, of 2012, I think we need all the prosperity we can get. So throw a party. Invite your friends and toast the planets (Jupiter and Mars if you don't know).

The key thing to remember about the Age of Aquarius is that change is coming. Boy, I know I've heard that somewhere before...

STUFF WHITE PEOPLE THINK

2009-01-27T09:29:00.004-05:00

Comment to Conor Friedersdorf, C11 Editor at 'The Confabulum'

Dear Mister Friedersdorf,

It is worth commenting that if you were to look at me you would see a ‘white’ man. What that look would not disclose is a racial heritage that is quite probably common to many ‘white’ people.

My father was half American Indian and his grandmother was negro, Afro-Cuban if we want to get technical but me, well I can’t even keep a good tan. I’ve been working on one now for nearly 60 years and I think I may have it in another thirty or so but for now, all I can field is a dim summertime shading for my ‘poisonous tree toad whiteness’.
(No doubt due in some part to the Irish, German and English ancestors I also claim. Damn genetics! )

All kidding aside, it is easy to see where someone like me might have trouble identifying with a particular racial identity group.It should also be clear why I champion an attitude of judging people more by what they can do than by what color they are.

I will not attempt a claim that racism is not a factor in society but I do believe that if more people were aware of their ancestry, it might be something we could put into decline rather quickly since there are a lot of Americans just like me.

I applaud your effort here. RT

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Let Them Eat Cake, God Knows The Unions Can Afford It.

2008-12-09T16:08:00.008-05:00

The New York Times, under an article written by David M. Herszenhorn, reported today that the

'Deal to Rescue American Automakers is Moving Ahead'.

'.....Nancy Pelosi hoped', or threatened as you may see things, 'that Mr. Bush's appointee- or car czar, as the position has come to be known- would not need to be replaced by President elect Obama, raising the prospect that the outgoing and incoming administrations would cooperate in selecting someone.' It also raises the prospect that either Mr. Bush will toe the line or the Democrats would prevail, one way or the other since Ms. Pelosi has summarily dismissed the two prospective names proffered by the Bush administration for the post.

Irrespective of what will churn on in debate and accusations, I, for one am opposed to a rescue. I am singularly opposed to any bailout however structured that would provide taxpayer money to the big 3 or big 2, depending on how you read this. (Ford hasn't quite come off the wheels....yet.)

'...Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in comments on the Senate floor on Monday nodded to' ..(my).. 'concerns'... when he said."As we consider new legislation this week, we must first ensure that we do no harm to taxpayers later in our efforts to help out any one particular industry now. Troubled automakers cannot expect taxpayer help without a serious commitment to change their ways-permanently."

Mitch, thank you,...that sounds like a responsible attitude. It also sounds to me as though you are describing the types of remedies and protections that would be imposed on the automakers by a Chapter 11 filing and I'm down with it Senator,...really. All of us out here in reality land call that 'bankruptcy' and Mitch, some of us are on intimate terms with those remedies. Been there, done that,...hell, I've even got a 'Tee' shirt stuffed away somewhere I think.

See those last four words up there in italics? Change their ways permanently,...renegotiate their contracts maybe. I like it.

If you tow the mark, it works and survival is possible because bankruptcy is a protection. We might even get fuel efficient cars, but automakers don't think it will work. They think we won't buy cars from a 'bankrupt' company. Why not? We fly on 'bankrupt' airlines. How bad can a 'bankrupt' car be?

After all, the United States is nothing if not a nation of whiskey drummers and bible salesmen. We are up to the task. Our children grow up reveling in the fruits of marketing programs, slimy PR campaigns and hucksterism of every single sort and for everything they touch or see or want or emulate. A 'bankrupt' automaker is just a bump in the road. You won't even feel it if you're driving a Buick. See how easily that rolled right out? And I'm a carpenter. Want to see what DDB+W could do with it?

Marketing, what a tool, you just can't beat it.

But as badly as the big 3 eschew bankruptcy as 'bad for business' due to their jaundiced perceptions of the marketplace, it is not all bad news. Bankruptcy would mean that the big 3 would have to answer to the courts. Yeah,...judges and stuff, real courts.

A bailout would mean that the big 3 would answer to Congress and you would have to be a complete idiot not to see that attraction that holds for the likes of Pelosi, Reid, Frank, et al. on the wrong side of the aisle.

(OK,...sorry, that sounded a little too,...uh, conservative (small 'c' ) and Joan is over there making noises with the paper shredder again. I admit,...I've promised the wife to 'watch it' ....and then there was that thing about bleeding in my profile....) Let's just say,...the other side of the aisle and let it go.

OK.

With the Democrats traditionally and almost perennially beholden to the unions, including the incoming administration it becomes clear why they are pushing this bailout agenda. The biggest losers from a structured Chapter 11 will undoubtedly be the cozening unions.

Now in examination of that statement realize that if Toyota or Nissan or even BMW notices their fat profits circling the drain due to a slowdown in sales, they lay workers off. It make good business sense to do that. Nobody likes it but it happens. It's life. Not so the case with the big 3. The UAW won't permit it and any attempt at fiscal responsibility from the automakers is met with the usual threats. Why?

Simple, when you bow your head and respectfully become a member of the UAW they promise to continue your benefits for life. That's right. Life. You put in your twenty five, they do the rest. (Kind of like the old Kodak slogan,...only different.)

So what, you say. It's always been that way. Why sure it has. Always, at least back to the inception of the unions. Know anybody else who gets benefits for life?.......Think hard.......

.....That's right, Congress does. Salary and benefits, for life, no matter how long you serve. See how it works? If the big 3 go bankrupt all of their contracts have to be renegotiated...the UAW too. How long do you think those union benefits would last? That's what I think too.

With those fat pork benefits for people who haven't done a lick of work in tears down the shitter automobile costs will come down and that will be good for all of us, even the big 3.

When we're all feeling better, we might even take a look at the other pork recipients. Senator for life, Congressman for life, President for life,___________________ fill in the blank with whatever you like (Duvalier is taken though).

Maybe if those people had to live out their days on social security or actually pay for health insurance we might really get some 'Change we can believe in'.

But then I'm forgetting something.

How could I be so stupid? President elect Obama has promised to put an end to pork. I'm sure he meant just that,...aren't you?

Pass the cake please.

Shameless Self Advertisement

2008-12-09T10:06:00.004-05:00

'Messing about in Small Boats at the Bottom of the Known World' is an idea I am pursuing that combines the concept of an unlikely knight errant and modern times. In support of that statement, suppose for a minute that you were not a British subject, that you were a short time from achieving one of your life's goals and that you were requested to abandon that goal in order to rescue some one you didn't like very much. Suppose also that the person making the request was none other that the Queen of England. What to do?

Well what can you do?

Mike Burgess, a dedicated but less than top ranked ocean racer pretty much does what you might expect. It is the getting there that we are concerned with in this story.

As an aside, let me say that I could use a collaborator. Someone who will help me with 'Britishisms', ( If that is not a word, it should be. ) someone female and versed in operating a sailboat under adverse conditions, and someone with a sense of humour. ( My own choice would be Ellen MacArthur but unfortunately I do not know her.)

Authonomy or not to be...Is that really the question?

2008-12-07T19:14:00.003-05:00

Well,.....maybe...

As a new author albeit one who has been writing for years (specifically on fiction since 2004) and is, as yet still unrepresented and unpublished, let me say this. Authonomy, while perhaps having moved the slush pile online has at least allowed authors such as myself an opportunity to expose new work to an audience beyond the ten second attention of a potential contributor to our own respective and daily increasing slush piles of rejection letters.

As an author, I am acutely aware that the discipline required to complete a manuscript requires more than the determination simply to sit down and write. It also requires encouragement and criticism, hopefully constructive but we take what we can get, chew several times and then swallow. If either that encouragement or criticism is available from others similarly engaged then no matter what personalities enter the equation both, as offered, are appreciated.

Yes, you are variably correct in your statement that much of what is on Authonomy is crap. Who would expect differently from any comparable venue but notwithstanding the implied objection, welcome to life. Much of that is crap too yet we persevere, (there again, at least partially due to encouragement and criticism).

I, for one, and as a contributing Authonomy author, congratulate Harper Collins for taking a pro-active stance amidst the morass of publishers vetting processes and as you have severally noted the site is relatively new. Perhaps with encouragement and criticism it will mature. For now, if any new author should learn that networking and popularity are requisite parts of any contemplated career in writing then that author may do well. After all, the United States is nothing if not a nation of whiskey drummers and bible salesmen. Our children grow up reveling in the fruits of marketing programs, slimy PR campaigns and hucksterism of every single sort and for everything they touch or see or want or emulate. If they are very lucky children, and I include myself in this category, they will learn a lesson from the hoopla and come to appreciate that everything worthwhile that they will ever achieve in life will ultimately depend on their ability to SELL, and first they must learn to sell themselves. Everything else literally follows from there.

In the interim, with day jobs beckoning we keep plugging away.

Yet, if I, as an author am limited to writing queries and waiting in a vacuum until Jesus comes back for a reply, then I will take the vagaries of Authonomy any day.

My best regards to you all.

English,....101...or somewhere thereabouts....

2008-12-03T20:00:00.007-05:00

My wife sent me this.

Coming from the Internet, as was stated, its provenance is unknown but as an article it tickled a remembrance, a feeling or whatever you like as a characterization.

You see,...I am an English teacher of sorts. I say 'of sorts' because I am not a product of the educational system, no lofty arreviste nor parvenue of wisdom, no professional...only an amateur.

I volunteer as a tutor under the aegis of the Literacy Council of Upper Pinellas. That is as in Pinellas County Florida, and for any of you that do not know it is a part of ProLiteracy America.

We teach basic literacy and English as a second language to anyone who has the tenacity to stay with the program. That applies to most of the students who enter our sphere of influence and throughout the years (more than 20 now) I have met many memorable students. Many even like the woman who authored the text below.

Nowadays, the main need is for ESL but years ago in the Allegheny Mountains, the emphasis was on basic literacy and as a then young man, that was always a mystery to me. I had trouble believing that students could complete school right here in the United States and graduate without ever having acquired the ability to read. Sad but true.

As a young tutor and barely out of college myself, I was daily and perpetually amazed at the level of skills I found displayed. Some could read an rite but not cipher. Others could cipher some and read but not rite. 'Book larnin' was something reserved for days when chores were not pressing or families did not need food. Some others, from every age spectrum had skills that were even quite rudimentary.

What follows below is representative of that finding and yet, watch just how well this woman actually does communicate. You will understand all of her thoughts without editing and you will be able to look into her being, and her existence with something as simple as a read through.

Try it.

Years ago, a Tennessee grandmother gave a new bride the following recipe for washing
clothes. It appears below just as it was written, and despite the spelling, has a bit
of philosophy. This is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrap book:

sic.
1. Bilt fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water.
2. Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert or airish.
3. Shave one hole cake of lie soap in bilin water.
4. Sort things, make 3 piles.
1 pile white,
1 pile colored,
1 pile work britches and rags.
5. To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth,then thin down with bilin water.
6. Take white things, rub dirty spots on board,scrub hard, and then bile. Rub colored don't bile,
just! rinch and starch.
7. Take things out of kettle with broomstick handle,then rinch, and starch.
8. Hang old rags on fence! .
9. Spread tea towels on grass.
10. Pore rinch water in flower bed.
11. Scrub porch with hot soapy water.
12. Turn tubs upside down.
13. Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs. Brew cup of tea, drink it and rock a
spell and count your blessings.

God Bless America

~ Author Unknown ~

That was it. Simple and to the point and if you follow these directions you will gain mastery of your laundry.

I know these people, their ways and their hopes. They are, some of them, a part of my ancestry. They were and are none, as a people, any different from you or me today. Strange accents maybe but who amongst us has not experienced that, be it 'down east' or 'down south'.

So if,...we might on some day believe that we are somehow superior beings, that we are in some way better for our elevated literacy, then that is the time to stop and take stock. That is the time to back up and read that last sign on the road signs of life, be it 'Burma Shave' or another prophet.

We are our brother's keeper,...all of us, and that is the simon pure. Let us least ways allow that English as a language is morphing daily. Let us allow that it has been doing that since well before Alfred the Great and let us grant some latitude on the strictness of our ken. (Old English, I know but Alfred would have been with me.)

You try to to be with me as well, and always remember;

Literacy, it ain't just for dummies!

2008-12-02T21:44:00.000-05:00

Ahhhhh,....Winter..........

You know, about this time every year I stop and think about all my friends up north. All that sliding and sledding and shussing and schiing as you go about mundane daily tasks. It is quite a sight.

Florida though,...well Florida has its own way of winter and its own sights. Things are different here. We like that,...all of us do. From redneck to state house we all know what is important and we all know just where to find the best sights of all.

Why, they are right down by the pool of course. Right there where they always were. We call them,...

Pool Sights

Pretty Maids, ‘elle in ero’,
Bathing’s effervescent glow,
Morning chatter gently plays,
While the sun discreetly pays,
Homage to the ones who seek,
Glances from us all, who peek.

Time goes by, in fact it flies,
Drenching skin as each applies,
Special lotion for each face,
Spreading oil at every place,
Days of sun and southern skies,
Help to all erase the lies,
Of time spent under roof and tree,
Babes on Tan’s rotisserie.

Cold drink anyone?

2008-11-18T09:24:00.000-05:00

Deja View...

"I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said."
Wm. F. Buckley jr.

And now for another direct quote: (This might be the one Mr. Buckley was referring to.)

"Sitting here in these chairs that I’m going to be proposing but in working with these governors who again on the front lines are forced to and it’s our privileged obligation to find solutions to the challenges facing our own states every day being held accountable, not being just one of many just casting votes or voting present every once in a while, we don’t get away with that. We have to balance budgets and we’re dealing with multibillion dollar budgets and tens of thousands of employees in our organizations." sic.
Governor Sarah Palin

Now let us all bow our heads in prayer.......

...Yes friends, I suppose we all thought that with the imminent dethroning of GW the third just around the corner, these kinds of things would also be history, that we would collectively be reduced to either the bland introspective colloquies of the masses of reporters or the clipped incisive precision of William F. Buckley's many adherents.

But,...not so. We were wrong! Another contender for daily massacre of the English language is upon us. Another spectre has reared its head, albeit this one much prettier than George's and I am not talking about 'that one'.

This one, safely hidden away and preserved by the cold for all these years, serenely uninformed on the basics of human experience appears ready to elevate the idiotic beyond the ken of the imbecile, the foolish into the stratosphere of the wise, and the moronic to the level of high art.
( Something George never managed, and I use that term loosely.)

This one who can charm the most vicious adversary with a smile and slay an objection with a conspiratorial wink is poised, positioned, perfumed and polished. She is coiffed, coutured and almost blissfully unprepared for even the most casual of offhand comments and the good news is,....that laughter is still the best medicine.

Leno and Letterman, O'Brien and Maher, none shall lack for material in the next four years. Tina Fey shall be elevated to Jester for Life, with three oak leaf clusters, and Garretson Beekman Trudeau will have a field day.

Let us now conclude with another direct quote that seems apropos to the career in question:

"The more complicated and powerful the job, the more rudimentary the preparation for it."
Wm. F. Buckley jr.

Thus far the gospel from brother William.

People Watching

2008-11-13T16:48:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, I have a Desmond Morris like tendency to notice people more closely than might otherwise be imagined. I do that generally for its irritation value and also because I find that people watching can be nearly as much fun as 'Catwatching'. If another reason should enter the process it would have to be because on the whole people are less likely to adhere to type. Individuality in humans is rampant.

Herewith I present a man I have known and watched for some time, 'Harley' Bill Tanner.

'Harley' Bill's Visitor

‘Harley’ Bill Tanner had been smellin’ that ol’ devil water almost as long as anyone, including Bill himself, could remember. Over the years, it was a trait of his personality that had gotten old Bill into many a scrape, and cost him enough days in jail to allow him the unenviable distinction of being nearly unemployable.

Bill sometimes thought that if he had been one of those people who was lucky enough to grow up in a communist country, why he would have eventually become an occupational reservist. In such a time honored position, he would have continued to draw pay whether he worked or not, but that wasn’t quite the way things had worked out. Nosiree.

Today, right here in the lap of capitalist luxury, if Bill Tanner didn’t work, he didn’t eat and, from his own uniquely jaundiced perspective, if he didn’t work, then he also wouldn’t have anything to spend on alcohol. So, every morning, hung over or not, Bill would drive his van down to the day labor pool, and there await his chances for beer money.

Yep, any way you look at things, the proliferation of wino rental agencies were Bill’s economic salvation for a misspent life. Over the years, Bill had worked for several places answering this unique description, getting to know the soft-touch clerks, busily weeding out the ones who gave out bus tickets from those that operated their own transportation, and finding those that would look the other way on those days when he was a little under the weather so to speak. Generally Bill was content enough where he worked right now, but happy?.......... Shit …….Who’s kidding who? All these places smelled the same and paid the same and minimum wage was minimum wage, wherever you went. You just had to look out for yourself along the way and take the perks as they came, no matter how small they were.

Generally on any given day the tough guys, the real movers and shakers of the temporary labor scene, would force ol' Bill down to the end of the bench whenever he arrived. They would see to it that they were the ones who got the plum jobs of the day.

If you don't know, I’m sure you can figure the type of work we’re talking about here. These were the good jobs. The sweet jobs where a man could run a broom, inside, all day long, and the Super never come upstairs to check on nothin'. Yeah, these were the really coveted jobs. The regulars on the bench knew where all of these jobs were located in a three county radius, and the bullies knew how to guarantee that they got every single one of them as first up.

Bill, as a pushover drunk and most of the newbies who just didn’t know any better, would be relegated to the left over tickets; the crappy jobs and the ones that nobody else wanted.
Most days, there was always something available in the big pile of pink and yellow tickets that was so menial, so absolutely repulsive, that nobody else on the bench wanted to do it. Not even the newbies could be suckered into some things. Bill knew, deep down inside without even halfway having to think about it, that such a nugget of a job was there, waiting just for him, each and every day.

In a way, accepting that kind of work made Bill valuable in the American workforce. After all, the shit jobs needed to be done just the same as the plums did and nobody cared if it was a drunk or a recovered that got it done. After all, the world was full of anonymous alcoholics anywhere you looked, and so Bill took kind of a careful pride in his status as a well known drunk instead.

And so………. everyday on the bench as he waited to be called, he would sit patiently and imagine the words coming from the Super on the job site where he would be sent.

“Here, you!,……Get yore sorry lookin’ ass down in that hole quick time and shovel all that shit back up here topside.”

Without a word, Bill would smile inwardly, obediently take his shovel and crawl right down inside whatever God abandoned hole it was and start shoveling away. He would always give the work a real good snappy start. Let them all see his spirit as it were and after a few minutes the Super would walk away to something vastly more interesting than Bill shoveling whatever shit it happened to be, and then Bill would tone things down a mite and take stock. Down there in the hole, any hole, it was always hot, almost insufferably hot, but it was also a place where nobody would fuck with you all day. So, in that, Bill made out as well as the others with a plum job.

Down in the hole, Bill could smoke and cuss and fart as much as he liked, and if he was skillful enough, why he could even manage to pull a taste now and then from a small bottle he kept hidden inside his pants, and that was OK. Yessiree, that was surely OK with ‘Harley’ Bill Tanner.

Sure, he would get tired; hell, he arrived in the morning tired, but he didn’t care. Bill would sleep on the wino van, both coming and going to whatever shit job there was, day in and day out; they all paid the same.

In spite of his affliction and after all these years to the contrary, Bill still thought of himself as a roofer, and certainly enough grime and coal tar and assorted other filth adhered to his hands at any given time to give anyone the impression that he could be just that. The impression would be wrong though. These days not even the disreputable roofing outfits wanted anything to do with a drunk on the roof. Tightening of the OSHA rules and the horror stories about some pretty stiff fines had seen to that.

No sir, what had actually happened to Bill was the same thing that would happen to anyone who adhered to the same lifestyle he did. You see, after all the years outdoors in the sun, and after all the alcohol he had imbibed, Bill’s skin had drawn the dirt of ages right inside of itself and stubbornly refused to let any part of it go. No matter how hard he might scrub every night after work, and before heading out to Whitey’s, the dirt was there to stay. The dirt was a part of him that he could not shake. Harley Bill’s own dirt; the one possession he could carry wherever he went and that no one could ever take from him. It was there right now, clutched in the tight little folds and creases of his puffy face and hands, gathered into the depression left by his hatband, and deeply embedded beneath all of his fingernails, as Bill returned from the head and assumed his regular place at the bar.

He signaled the barkeep and ordered himself another draft.

Inside Whitey’s Tavern, over on the four lane that ran into and then back out of Hardenton on its way to Tampa, ‘Harley’ Bill Tanner slouched way over that fresh beer of his and again belched loudly. He’d already imbibed well over the legal limit to drive, but didn’t really much give a shit, since his license had been revoked near onto one year ago this very month.

What the fuck, it was Friday, and Friday was Beer Day on any calendar Bill had ever seen; for that matter, any day was Beer Day when he damn well felt like it. He belched loudly again as his sometimes pal grabbed a stool next to him and Bill looked up without entirely focusing into the smiling face of Roach Anders.

“How’s it goin’ bud? Hey barkeep, bring me one of those,……you Billy?…………Thank ya darlin’, Hoooeee, real fine ass you shakin’ there honey….How ‘bout it Billy?... ”

That was Roach for you all right, you were never sure if his comments were directed at you or someone else, or more than one person at a time and in the condition 'Harley' Bill found himself at present, it really didn’t much matter. “Oh,………I’m OK ……I guess; you want a beer?"

“Why you’re real slow at catchin on tonight Billy, I just ordered me one…and maybe I even lined me up a date for later…..Are you shitfaced again, ol’ buddy?”

Belligerently Bill replied, “No,…… I am not! I am three quarters shitfaced though, and if I’ve a mind might stay until I get all the way.” He struggled with himself briefly, as his mind made a labored attempt to accept the annoying interruption, and ultimately failed.

“Fuck!”

This was a baseball night, and even though the Tampa Bay Rays, on the widescreen down at the end of the bar, looked to be dropping another pre-season heartbreaker to the Cards by eight runs in the third inning, the last thing Bill needed was driveling conversation from an unwanted talkative guest.

“What’d you come here for anyway?”

“Well now I am hurt. Why, that’s no way to greet a friend Billy, and after I’ve come all this way to find you ‘specially, and tell you the news…………..Maybe I should,…………. Maybe I should just go.”

A seemingly dejected Roach Anders gathered his keys, patted his pockets, drawing his disappointment out for dramatic effect and turned he on his stool as if to leave.

Even three quarters shitfaced and self absorbed, ‘Harley’ Bill Tanner sighed a good long sigh and then he succumbed to his other lifelong devotion, which just happened to be curiosity. He put his beer down on the counter, looked over and this time, with a silent internal sigh behind half closed eyes said, “What news is that, Roach?”

Roach Anders smiled to himself and warmed visibly at the prospect of imparting an unknown tid-bit. He turned once again towards Bill and began. “The News, Billy my boy, is all. The News.”Roach let that hang for a moment and sipped away on his Beer before continuing, ………….“Why old Millie Barnes just sold the river place to them tourists from A’lan’a. They’s s’posed to be homesteaders… Why I’d be willing to just bet,….

“Shit!..... I don’t know Billy, but we should see if they’re goin’ to dig for all that gold. Anybody with half a brain would have to wonder about it some. Why I’ll just bet…”

“Awwwhhhh!.................I ain’t that drunk Roach………… and, I ain’t your ‘boy’ neither.”
Bill shook his head with disgust and barely retained his place on the stool from the movement.

“ There ain’t no damn gold, an’ you knows it. Shit!……. Ev’body….. knows there ain’t no gold. Just another fool scheme is all this is.”

“Never can tell Billy.” Roach pointed one finger (no, not that one) and stabbed repeatedly with it towards Bill, punctuating each word as he continued. “You just never can tell………. I’m pretty sure no story ever gets started like that one without some truth to it; ……likely, there may be some gold there… Just ‘cause nobody ever found it don’t mean it ain’t there, and I sure wouldn’t mind findin’ it……….Nobody else would mind findin’ it either. “Me,…………….. well I’m goin’ to stay tuned, as they say.”

'Harley' Bill stared at his sometime friend Roach Anders, and wished as hard as he could wish for the man to just go away. How many times had he had to endure this kind of crap talk about more damn fool things than could be imagined. Bill knew from past experience that when Roach got hisself wound up real tight about sum’thin’, there was no way to stop the hemorrhage of words that were sometimes connected to real thoughts and just as often, connected to pure glossy varnished bullshit.

If Bill had been thinking clearly, or been something less of a mouse, he would have told Roach to fuck off, and gone back to whatever it was he wanted to do but that would never happen. Bill’s timid character just wouldn’t allow something like that to even get a start, because no matter how thinly you sliced things, old’ Harley’ Bill Tanner was a coward through and through and deep down inside even he would admit that there had never been a time when he thought all that clearly, about much of anything. Apart from the annoyance, Bill should have run. He should have run far and fast, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. In addition to his cowardice, 'Harley' Bill Tanner was a card-carrying loser; he rode the loser’s trail, and he would stay on that trail right to the very end. A commercial was playing on the TV that Bill didn’t like very much, and so he was distracted once again by the noise of Roach’s insistent ramblings.

“………..suppose……….boy is buildin’ himself a homestead talk is, and may need to dig some. I should mebbe go by for an interduction as they say. You can tag along if you like Billy , but me,……………I’m definitely goin to stay tuned. Yessir, I shorely am goin’ to stay tuned.”
Then, almost as an answer to the unspoken prayer that Bill was repeating over and over in his head, Roach Anders retreated inside his own convoluted thoughts. He sat there staring into the mirror at the Bar Back like a mesmerized zombie, as if an answer was about to appear. Apparently, one did because a few moments later he finished his Beer and abruptly left the bar.

‘Harley’ Bill Tanner, deeply absorbed in a losing baseball game on the widescreen at the end of the bar, and who was now at least seven-eighths drunk, didn’t notice anything at all.

'Moon Racer'

2008-10-20T10:52:00.000-04:00

A self avowed middle aged asshole, Bart Driscoll was perfectly content in his low level State Department job putting in time until retirement and dreaming of Fly Fishing America's wilderness areas when he is thrust back into a semi-fictional Central American Country called Cuyamas. It is the same place where Driscoll was stationed twenty five years ago and departed on less than friendly terms.

Sent on this new mission to observe the hanging of an American National, Driscoll, who would like nothing better than to get back home and leave on his annual and richly deserved vacation, begins to notice irregularities.

When he is called in to visit with a man he formerly knew as an adversary during the Nicaraguan conflict, and then discovers the recent hanged man still alive, things go downhill fast and Bart Driscoll is on the run once again.

With some last minute help from an old Friend and an unlikely source, Driscoll is able to prevail against misfortune.

'Moon Racer' is my third adventure novel set against reminiscences from the Cocaine wars during the eighties and the 'drugs for arms' Contra scandal. It resurrects two characters from 'A Bend in The Trail', both villains in that story but still genuine people with stories and lives beyond the indifference of a casual label. It is a look at the baggage we each carry and the daily battles we all wage for some things as simple as survival and happiness.

If you are an Author's Agent with some time on your hands, ( Hey! In the Catskills you'd be looking at a stiff cover charge and a two drink minimum for this kind of stuff.), write me. I assure you any inquiry will be suitably received and answered.

Obama 08

2008-10-16T08:00:00.000-04:00

I know. I did say no politics but I just couldn't resist. I am voting for Senator Obama.

Well, it's official. At 11:59 last night, right here in the eastern sector of our wounded Republic the last nail was firmly driven into any aspiration that the Republican candidate could bail any of his party's collective asses out of the morass of nonsensical misrepresentations and lies that have characterized the last several weeks of this campaign. Party platform, Party base and Party occupying the top slot of this current regime, it is now completely transparent that their endgame lacks any form of middle. For those of us who occupy that unique placement in society and failed to hear John McCain mention 'middle class' at all last night, the new word to occupy thinking for the next twenty days will be have to be LANDSLIDE.

With forced smiles, fidgety looking gestures and a recitation of stock litany aimed squarely at the rabid republican right, John McCain blinked continuously as he failed one last time to address substantive proposals for either reasonable or definitive solutions to any problem facing the average voter. I for one am disappointed. As a lifelong generally conservative (small 'c') Republican leaning constituent I really wanted to hear the John McCain who campaigned nine years ago and this tired, worn out co-opted version of 2008, failed all of us. Unresponsive and dripping lipstick by the bucket load, any hopes for the Republican economic pig appear to be officially dead.

One good note, I do see where Hank Williams jr. has written music for the McCain campaign. I just never knew it was him who wrote the Dies Irae. Way to go Hank !