Tuesday, January 31, 2012

A LIBERAL'S CALL TO ARMS

For the second time in a week I find myself wondering whether we liberals should cast aside our discomfort with firearms and start loading up our basements with assault rifles and all the ammunition we can get our hands on. You can call me paranoid, but I'm starting to think my fellow citizens "across the aisle" are gearing up for another civil war, at least that's what their party leaders are saying.

Michael Reagan, son of the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan, told a G.O.P. rally in Tampa, Florida yesterday that liberals were "termites". I've been called names before, but never a termite, and I have to say I'm somewhat offended by that particular label because everybody knows that termites have no useful value, and if some "cockroach" like Michael Regan is going to imply that I have no value, well, he's just damn wrong, not to mention short-sighted and just plain stupid! Did you know that termites eat cockroach eggs? If it weren't for termites and bug sprays, cockroaches would be everywhere.

Former G.O.P. presidential candidate, Herman Cain spoke at the same rally as Reagan and he managed to call liberals "stupid people who are ruining this country" and "elite" – all in a span of five minutes. Both times the audience broke out in applause. Now, the word "elite" means a person or class of persons of superior intellect. A secondary definition is the best of most skilled members of a group. The word "stupid" means the exact opposite of elite. Somebody should have clued-in Cain and the Tampa G.O.P. audience that if liberals are elite, then conservatives are…! But, I digress. I've got a cold and I'm rambling.

Let's get back to guns and liberals. The other day, Florida G.O.P. congressman, Allen West – a Tea Party loyalist – went on a rant where he proclaimed that Democrats and liberals should get the hell out of the United States of America. Again, the crowd of loyal Republicans went wild with applause.

Now, here I am thinking, "Wait a minute. I was born in America. I love this country. I pay taxes here. I have rights. I have a vote. I have a voice and the vocal chords to prove it. How dare some "piss-ant" Congressman from Florida tell me that I have to get the hell out of America because he doesn't like my political opinions! Did I mention that termites eat piss-ants too? They make a good jelly if you can get them in season. Anyway, I got to thinking about all the dehumanizing bullshit Republican politicians have been casting at liberals lately and it occurred to me that maybe it's time for we liberals to start watching our back. Maybe it's time we arm ourselves, because when the founding fathers decided that the Second Amendment was necessary to ward off oppressive government, a government who told political opponents to get the hell out of the country was just the kind of government they were considering.

NOTE: I'm just venting!

Monday, January 30, 2012

ONE OF LIFE'S GREAT MYSTERIES

If the federal government is so evil and everything that is wrong with America derives from Washington, D.C., why are so many Republicans in such a tizzy to be the head of the federal government and move to our nation's capitol?

Sunday, January 29, 2012

OCCUPY OAKLAND - CONFRONTING PEACE & VIOLENCE

I read with mixed emotions the news reports out of Oakland, California that described yesterday's clashes between police and the 'Occupy Oakland' protesters who were in the process of marching toward a vacant convention center. The protesters planned to take over the empty facility and the police blocked their path. Words flew and tempers flared, and then things turned ugly.

According to the police, protesters bombarded police with debris ranging from rocks and bottles to burning flares and explosive devices. 'Occupy' protesters accused the police of attacking them with tear gas, rubber beanbags and rubber bullets. Whichever version you choose to believe, it's pretty clear that both sides resorted to violence of some fashion. That's why I have mixed emotions. I detest violence, but at the same time, I'm deeply offended by the brutally, unsympathetic economic injustices that are championed in this nation in the name of maintaining our Almighty God of Capitalism. When should our human sacrifice end?

Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ghandi and Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. continuously preached that non-violent resistance was the only true means of achieving an end to political and economic oppression. I truly believe they were right, but I also acknowledge that staring down oppression with non-violence takes more courage than a lot folks are willing or capable of summoning. Fighting oppression with violence is an instinctive response, whereas non-violent resistance is counter intuitive to everything it means to be human. In simpler words, it's easier and more natural to fight than turn the other cheek.

In my heart, I want to calm my 'Occupy Oakland' brethren with peaceful words to soothe their anger and their rage, but in the next breath, I want to exhort them to pick up arms and bloody the streets to force this nation into recognizing the terrible injustices it inflicts on the meek and lowly on a daily basis. Appealing to the better angels of our nation's capitalists hasn't seemed to work; it's hard to refute the argument that force and violence are the only things that will.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

THE DEATH AND SHAME OF HOMS

A town of grief and tears and bombs,
A family home in downtown Homs;
Where screams are heard and lives are dashed
And loves are lost and dreams are trashed.

A spray of bullets line the halls,
And dots of blood adorn the walls.
The bodies lay upon a heap;
With eyes that stare, but never weep.

A tiny finger hugs a bear,
But finds no solace hiding there.
A mother reaches out in vain;
A lullaby that ends in pain.

The mortars fly, the bombs explode
To rip apart a small abode.
Then neighbors come to search debris
And find the horror plain to see.

The men who wield the guns and might,
They think their purposes are right,
But nothing in their war is tame,
And all they have is death and shame!

Note: This past week, Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad, unleashed a brutal military assault on the citizens of Homs. Families were massacred; the bodies of women and children were found littering the floors. The dead deserved to be remembered as the precious human beings they were.

POLITICAL TARGETING

The other day I was unsettled by a story that appeared in The New York Times about a photograph posted on a man's Facebook web page. The photograph showed a bunch of gun-toting guys holding up a T-shirt of President Obama. Bullet marks were splattered across the President's face and emblazoned in bold letters on the shirt was the word "HOPE". That's when I had my own "profiling moment"…and thought, "Those guys had to be from Arizona." Sure enough, the boys from the land of cactus and sage brush didn't disappoint!

I found the story unsettling for another reason. It's been almost a year since that wing-nut opened fire on Arizona Democratic Congresswomen Gabby Giffords in Tucson, killing six and wounding thirteen. In the aftermath of that incident, former Alaskan governor, Sarah Palin took a lot of flack (deservedly so in my estimation) for a website she'd previously posted identifying 20 House Democrats she was vehement about opposing, using rifle scope cross-hairs. Gabby Giffords was one of Palin's targets. Of course, Palin denied with disdain the suggestion that she'd countenance something as heinous as political assassinations in this country, but denials of sinister suggestions back then sounded eerily similar to the denials of the guy the other day in The New York Times article. You don't have to hail from Arizona or Alaska to know what cross-hairs and bullet holes signify or the message they convey.

I was hoping that America had moved beyond the Palin's target fiasco. Sadly, I see we haven't!

MY TROUBLE FIGURING OUT GOD

Ever since I was a little kid I've had a tough time figuring out God. You'd think that would be a simple task since he (or she for you hard-core feminists out there) gave us plenty of literature to explain what's expected of us, but it's not. The Bible, the Koran and the Torah are all fascinating books, but they're extraordinarily long to read, and complicated and frequently contradictory. Sometimes, it's hard to believe they all originated from the same God.

I've always thought that God was kind of mean on occasion. Take the time when he sent Abraham out to sacrifice Isaac. Then, after Abraham bound his son, placed Isaac on an altar and raised a knife above his head, God suddenly decided to intervene with a "just kidding" and called off the ritual. It sounded kind of cruel to me. The nuns in religion class claimed it was a test of Abraham's faithfulness to God, but that didn't sit well with me either. The only tests I ever took were done on paper with a No. 2 pencils, and if God was supposedly all-knowing and could see into everyone's heart, was it really necessary to scare the crap out of Isaac like that? Talk about a kid needing therapy!

God seems a bit touchy too. Remember when Moses led the Israelites around the desert for forty years and the people got hot and thirsty and demanded that Moses contact God for water? According to the story in Exodus, God told Moses to strike a certain rock and the water would flow, and Moses was a little bit skeptical, so God told him that he couldn't set foot in the Promised Land because he questioned God. That story bugged me for the longest time. You'd have thought God would have been more understanding. Moses was a nice guy, and he took a lot of crap from the people he led, especially when the conditions in the desert were bad, which is pretty typical of deserts. I'll probably go to Hell for saying this, but I thought Moses deserved some slack. The hot desert sun probably got to him. I know I get snappy and irritable whenever I've been out in the sun too long. It happens!

Another thing about God I find baffling is the way He (or she) switches side on a daily basis. For instance, one day God directs Osama bin Laden to kill thousands in the United States. The next day He tells the United States to kill thousands by invading Iraq. The day after that, He instructs Hezbollah in Lebanon to lob rockets at Israel. The following day, He authorizes the Israeli cabinet to sanction assassinations in Iran, all the while telling the Ayatollah's in Iran to build bombs to obliterate Israel. It would kind of make sense if God owned stock in arms manufacturers, but if God's plan is for men (and women) to live in peace and harmony with one another, egging on armies and authorizing mass killings doesn't seem like the best way to accomplish that goal.

And what about Tim Tebow? Forty-three percent of Americans (mostly Evangelical Christians) believed that God was on Tebow's side and was responsible for Tebow winning all those games for the Denver Broncos. Was it really Tebow's public piety? And if that's the case, then why did the Patriots, who hail from the land of liberals and staunch Democrats, whoop the crap out of Tebow and company a week after the Broncos eliminated the Pittsburg Steelers? Sure, I'm from Pennsylvania, but I'd still like to know what happened. Did St. Peter forget to tell God that the game was on FOX? I'm also interested in knowing why the 49'ers beat the Saints, if that's not too much to ask. I guess I'm still struggling with figuring out what God wants. He (or she) is a mystery to me.

Friday, January 27, 2012

TO INFINITY, AND BEYOND...

I admit to chuckling when first hearing word of Uncle Newt's plan to build a moon colony by 2020, but after giving the matter some serious thought, I've got to admit that he might be onto something. I know that skeptics are saying that Newt's just trying to pander to Florida voters living in the Cape Kennedy / Cape Canaveral neighborhood, and they've got a point, but a colony on the moon would have some pretty useful benefits.

For example, now that Newt has been publicly bashing Mitt for holding offshore accounts and corporate investments in the Grand Cayman Islands, many of America's wealthiest investors are looking for other less conspicuous tax havens to shelter their earnings from the evil eyes of the government's revenue police…you know, IRS agents. The moon would offer the perfect "other world tax shelter". All you'd need was a guy living in a one-room solar-powered module on the lunar surface, a computer and a satellite dish. Business would pour in as companies realized the advantages of incorporating in a place with one-sixth the gravity and tax burdens as earth.

Another possibility for lunar development would be to relocate Congress there, preferably on the far side of the moon, where our representatives would be out of sight and largely incommunicado from all but alien spaceships hiding back there. Eventually, the lobbyist would set up shop on the moon too, but that would be okay. They're use to living in a world apart from everyday reality. It might even give lobbyists a whole different perspective of life on earth.

Newt is dreaming about Mars too. It's a red planet. Newt figures that means they vote straight Republican. Wait until he realizes that the only way to get from place to place on Mars is via government subsidized public transportation (a/k/a Martian rovers).

What comes after Mars is hard to say. Newt hasn't thought that far ahead yet. It's a good thing there's still 47 primaries to go before the G.O.P. convention. The universe is the limit! To infinity, and beyond, I'm sure.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

RICH AND POOR DADS...AND CHILD SUPPORT

A couple of months ago I ran into a woman at a local mall. She and I went to the same high school, but we weren't really friends back then and we seldom spoke to one another. In fact, I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she and I ever had a meaningful conversation before that meeting at the mall. The woman seemed pleased to meet me though, and before long, we were trading stories about our kids and how they were fairing in the world.

At one point during our conversation, she expressed annoyance over the fact that her son was being hounded by a woman for child support payments that were overdue. She claimed her son was several months in arrears and thought her grandchild's mother should have been more understanding because her son was out of a job and only collecting unemployment. I tried to maintain a sympathetic face as I listened, but when the woman mentioned that her son was also paying child support to two other woman for three children he fathered with them, it took some effort to maintain a non-judgmental façade. Afterward, we said our good-byes and I haven't thought of her or her son since, until today. Here's why:

Former pro-football standout, Terrell Owens recently told a GQ (Gentleman's Quarterly) magazine writer that he's currently burdened by monthly child support payments totaling $44,600. Terrell has four children, each fathered with a different woman, and now that his NFL playing career appears to be over, he's finding it impossible to keep up with the child support payments. Apparently, the $80 million he pocketed during his NFL career is gone. I'm finding it hard to be sympathetic with his dilemma, though I do feel sorry for the kids. They're the pawns that usually end up suffering the most.

Terrell Owens isn't the first professional athlete to find himself in that kind of situation. Heavyweight boxer, Evander Holyfield went bankrupt after a financially lucrative career and stiffed a number of women for child support. Former Denver Bronco's running-back Travis Henry left 11 children to 10 different women without funds for support. 1990s NBA Hall of Fame inductee Calvin Murphy sired 14 children to 9 different women. Child support battles spanned his entire career.

I know that most professional sports leagues hold seminars for new players to dole out financial advice regarding the new-found wealth those players are experiencing. Perhaps those seminars should be expanded to include information on birth control…or maybe a film or two on what goes on in child support court. It couldn't hurt.

I hope my high school classmate's grandchildren are getting the child support they deserve. Their daddy wasn't a multimillion dollar athlete who went broke, but like the athlete's children, they still have to eat!

Monday, January 23, 2012

CONFLICTED BY THE DEATH OF LEGENDS

"JoePa", the former coach of the Penn State's Nittany Lion football team, died yesterday. He was 85 years of age. His body couldn't overcome the ravages of his bout with lung cancer. I'm guessing that all the anxiety he felt over his recent firing because of the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal didn't help matters. Maybe it was just his time. We'll never really know for sure.

When I first saw word of Joe Paterno's death on an Internet news site, my immediate feeling was one of conflict – sadness for the profound loss that his family and Penn State are experiencing alongside my own smoldering anger over what I view as his failure to appropriately respond to information that former Penn State coach, Jerry Sandusky was abusing children. The anger hasn't gone away because "JoePa" is now dead, nor does it overcome my feelings of grief over the passing of this long-respected legend. I guess I'm just conflicted.

I felt the same way when Michael Jackson died. Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, was a talented entertainer and a wonderfully gifted musician. His work as a philanthropist for victims of famine, earthquakes and A.I.D.S. was legendary, but there were also dark clouds that over-shadowed Jackson's life. Allegations of inappropriate sexual contact with children arose on numerous occasions, and my take on those allegations was that he bore a large measure of responsibility. Maybe I'm wrong on that account, but that's my own personal opinion and I'm comfortable with it. I do know that Jackson's death left me saddened over the passing of a musical icon at the same time as I viewed the world a tiny bit safer from a child abuser. I felt conflicted over his death. I still do.

I assume a great deal of my conflicted feelings arise because we humans like to think in terms of black and white. We avoid the grey areas and all the confusion that surrounds it. We feel most comfortable viewing folks as either "good" or "bad" – with no room for good in bad people or bad in good people. When folks do something uncharacteristic of the label we've assigned to them, it leaves us adrift in a sea of emotional conflict with seemingly no compass to find our way.

I'd like to say I've found a way around this conflict, but I can't. I'll let you know if I ever do.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

INTEREST HIGH FOR THE GAME AT HOME

At least one hundred and seventy-eight people died in a series of coordinated bombings yesterday in Kano, Nigeria. The group, Boko Haram, a cadre of Islamic extremists fighting the Nigerian government, claimed responsibility for the blasts. Elsewhere, in the northern part of Syria near the Turkish border, a bus explosion killed fourteen and wounded twenty-six. Both the Syrian government and those rebels in the north opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime have blamed the other for the explosion, but none of that really matters to the folks who died. Dead is dead!

Meanwhile, we Americans are transfixed on the outcome of South Carolina's Republican primary. The political resurgence of a serial philanderer is exponentially more fascinating than murder and mayhem in places far from America's collective conscience. Talk of sexual dalliances and open marriages trump open diplomacy, hands down! Would we want it any other way? I guess not.

Seismic events are occurring world-wide as we speak. Egypt just held its first truly democratic election in decades. Has anybody noticed that this Muslim country in the Middle East has taken a giant step forward by promoting individual rights while a country that is our friend – Isreal, is moving backward by restricting them? Is that registering on America's radar screen?

The anti-western Muslim Brotherhood party garnered 47% of Egypt's parliamentary seats in yesterday's election. The Al-Nour Party, an Islamic party that makes the Muslim Brotherhood look like a band of moderates, secured a second-place finish with 25 percent of the vote. Secular parties managed only one-quarter of the Egyptian vote. Do we know what that means for America? Do we care to know? Apparently not! Americans are so engrossed in the political war within our nation that we're becoming complacent over the war of ideas outside. It's no wonder ignorance abounds in America these days – sex sells! Ideals don't!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

REPLACING THE N-WORD

My wife and youngest daughter use my wife's maiden name instead of my surname. Our family joke is that they do so to give themselves plausible deniability if asked whether they know me. Everybody chuckles at our joke, but the concept of plausible deniability is rarely funny in today's world and nowhere is that more evident than in our political arena.

Take the word "nigger", for instance. It's an incendiary word meant to inflict pain and arouse hatred. Its history is long and storied and steeped in the ugliest shadows of this nation. We know what it means. We know what it stands for. We know why. We also know that it's a socially taboo word, one not to be uttered aloud; not that it prevents a segment of our population from doing so when they know they can get away with it. We've essentially labeled the word politically incorrect. We've removed it from many dictionaries, but it still lingers in our minds.

Why is that? It's because the word "nigger" is a handy word. It's more than an epithet. It's a code. It's a knife. It's a rallying cry for all the hate many whites carry against blacks in this nation. It's a word that sums up their anger at welfare, at desegregation, at affirmative action and the notion that government would use its power to tear down the walls of white supremacy.

A word like "nigger" can't fade away. It's too versatile to be hustled off. It's a powerful word, and something that powerful does not escape the eyes of people who seek to gain power for their own purposes. That's why the word "nigger" will never die. The letters may change, but not the concept.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has his own word for "nigger". Well, it's really a phrase. When he labels President Obama the "food stamp president", he's really calling Obama a "nigger". Of course, Newt would deny my charge. That's the beauty of plausible deniability. The words "food", "stamp" and "president" have meanings totally divorced from racial politics, but when you put them all together they become an epithet, a code, a knife, a rallying cry for all the hate many whites carry against blacks in this nation, and a black President in particular, who heads a government that challenges the notion of white supremacy.

Every time I hear Newt utter those words and receive thunderous applause my stomach heaves. The word "nigger" hasn't died. It's just been replaced!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

GINGRICH AND RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION

Is it just me or does Newt need a lesson in regret and remorse? Righteous indignation doesn't seem like the right tack to take when addressing a question regarding why he left a sickly ex-wife to take up with a mistress; then again, this is the Republican primary we're talking about. It's not like anybody really cares whether he advocated for an open marriage or not. As long as Newt's sufficiently hostile toward the poor, blacks and northeast liberal elites, the G.O.P. can apparently disregard any of his flaws.

Wow! Things have surely changed from the days of Bill Clinton and Gary Hart. In fact, they seem to have changed since the days of...well, Herman Cain. What a difference a month makes. Go figure!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

A SERIES OF UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Every now and then for amusement, I like to scour media sources for odd stories that lead listeners or readers to ponder the unanswered questions behind those stories. Yesterday, a local news item fell into that category. A blurb in one of our local newspapers indicated that police were summoned to the scene of a barroom brawl. When they arrived, the brawlers were gone, but somehow in the melee, a toilet bowl in the men's room was smashed. The police were asking for the public's help to determine what occurred. Strangely, the newspaper article never mentioned whether any blood was found at the scene, but it's kind of hard to imagine a brawl occurring, where a toilet got smash, and nobody left a trail of blood or cracked skull on their way to a hospital. A blow from a ceramic toilet has to hurt! The first question I have is how did the toilet get smashed? Were the brawlers carrying sledge hammers? Or did some guy yank the toilet from the floor and heave it another brawler? Something stinks about that story…maybe one of the brawlers too.

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The Huffington Post ran a story about a guy who swears he's still a virgin, but has fathered fourteen kids. You guessed it – a serial sperm donor. Why doesn't he just give up abstinence?

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The organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has been lobbying the Illinois legislature to permit the placement of memorials along public highways in Illinois at spots where cows were struck and killed by motor vehicles. Being a big beef fan I guess I have no sympathy for the cows, but if we're going to be fair about things, what about deer, opossum and woodchuck memorials? You see a lot more road-kill of those species than bovine. Plus, are folks advocating for memorials for the damaged cars? Shouldn't the American Automobile Association (AAA) be doing something about those tragedies?

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Authorities in North Korea have started charging thousands of its citizens with the crime of being insufficiently sincere in their public displays of anguish and sorrow following the recent death of Kim Jung-Il, North Korea's former brutal dictator / benevolent national father-figure (you choose). What's the acceptable level of heartbreak in a nation where thousands starve to death every day? With death so common, it's hard to believe that those living aren't numbed to it already. Why haven't they employed acting coaches as teachers in their educational system? It seems like the perfect solution!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

IT'S ALL ABOUT WINNING

This past weekend Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman's decided to withdraw from the race. His candidacy hadn't garnered the kind of voter support that he'd hoped for, and I'm guessing that he decided that continuing with the campaign was not the best use of his time or resources. I can respect his decision. I'm interested, however, in one factor that Republican insiders attributed to his poor showing in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries – his connection with the Obama administration.

In July of 2009, President Obama nominated Jon Huntsman to serve as the United States' Ambassador to China and the former Utah governor agreed to serve America in that capacity. One month later, the U.S. Senate formally confirmed his nomination. Huntsman served in that capacity until resigning his commission in April of 2011, oddly enough, to explore the possibility of running for president.

There's absolutely no reason why conservatives in America should not love Jon Huntsman. He's been a faithful follower of right-wing ideology, a governor with a track record of success and possesses an impressive resume when it comes to foreign relations. So, what gives? Is it that, like Mitt Romney, he's a Mormon? Or, is his lack of success really tied to what G.O.P. insiders claim was his betrayal of party principles by having worked with the Obama Administration? At first blush, the latter explanation seems a bit petty, especially since Huntsman was campaigning to unseat Obama and his administration, but when you consider the current state of Republican ideology, it kind of makes sense.

Senate Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky set the tone of things to come when he stated in 2010 that defeating Obama in 2012 was the Republicans' number one priority. Never mind that millions of Americans were out of work, millions more were out of homes and the number of Americans living in poverty soared. The chief concern of McConnell and his colleagues was to add Obama to the unemployment lines; not to solve America's problems. As a result, Republicans have spent the past two years obstructing any and all Obama administration attempts to better the lives of Americans, hoping to insure Obama's failure in this year's voting booths. Apparently as part of that process, anyone seen as assisting the Obama administration in any manner [like Huntsman by serving as an Ambassador] was automatically deemed shameful and suspect.

Since when is serving America during a Democratic administration a shameful act? Should all our service personnel resign on the first day a Democratic president takes office to avoid being disrespectful? How dare Republicans debase the legitimate sacrifices that those who serve America, both at home and abroad, simply because they were doing during the tenure of a Democrat! The idea is downright offensive!

Even today, as the Republican slug-fest continues on stages across South Carolina, the chief topic is who is best positioned to defeat Obama, not an in-depth analysis on why G.O.P. policies would supposedly solve America's problems. It appears as if Republicans aren't really concerned about bettering the lives of all Americans. They're just concerned about winning, and the rest of us are going to have to suffer because of it.

Monday, January 16, 2012

APARTHEID IN THE 21st CENTURY

Imagine a country where ethnic minorities are prohibited from living in certain neighborhoods. Imagine a country where ethnic minorities are driven from decades old, ethnically-mixed neighborhoods to allow the ethnic majority to expand their dominion and control. Imagine a country where ethnic minority spouses are prohibited from living with one another to prevent the birth of ethnic minority children, for fear that one day those children will proliferate to become the ethnic majority. Imagine a country where religious zealot squads roam the streets to enforce their rigid codes of moral dress and decency, and harass and shower debris upon those who violate their codes. Imagine a country where women are denigrated and treated as second-class citizens, relegated to the back of the public bus and forbidden to walk on the same side of the street as men. Imagine a country where the government doesn't just turn a blind eye to these injustices, but codifies them into the law of the land. Would you be imagining America in the fifties and sixties, or Bosnia in the nineties? How about South Africa during the hay-day of Apartheid, or Afghanistan under Taliban rule? No, you'd be imagining Israel in 2012!

For quite some time, local and national legislative bodies in Israel have been passing laws forbidding the sales of businesses and real estate in specified areas to Arabs, Palestinians and non-Jewish individuals. The goal of those laws is to create ethnically exclusive Jewish neighborhoods by preventing non-Jews who already reside there from passing property onto their offspring or selling to anybody but a Jew. Non-Jewish families, who've resided in those designated areas for decades, are oftentimes forced from their homes and businesses and have to move into shrinking non-Jewish areas elsewhere in Israel. To make matters worse, the practice of limiting the pool of potential property buyers means that non-Jewish property sellers cannot get a fair price for the property they are being forced to sell.

Next, the Israeli legislature passed, and its highest court just recently affirmed a law banning Palestinian residents in Israel (those who are legal residents) from living with their spouse on Israeli soil. As I stated earlier, the intent of this prohibition is to eliminate the procreation and birth of Palestinian children in Israel in order to prevent the Palestinian minority from one day becoming an ethnic majority. Imagine one political party in America passing a law forbidding individuals belonging to another from living or procreating with their spouses and forcing their opponents to choose between their spouse and their country. The idea is so ludicrous here (okay, many not for Rush Limbaugh and his ilk) that we can't even fathom such a concept gaining political traction, but in Israel, the idea is not ludicrous. It's the law of the land!

Meanwhile, ultra-orthodox Jewish groups have demanded that the Israeli government sanction gender-based segregation on public streets, public transportation and in government buildings and other public places, and the right-wing Israeli government has been capitulating to the ultra-orthodox group demands. Mobs of Jewish zealots roam the streets of Israel's largest cities and harass and stone women and children who, in the eyes of the zealots, are violating their rigid codes of moral dress and decency. The Israeli government does nothing to prevent those attacks.

Women in Israel are on track toward becoming second class citizens, just as Palestinians are on track toward becoming slaves of their Israeli oppressors. In a matter of a few short years, Israel has become the new South Africa…a nation with government sanctioned apartheid.

In 2011, Israel received three billion dollars worth of foreign aid from the United States. Dare I ask why America, a country whose very foundation rests upon the pillars of justice and equality, should waste such sums of money on a nation such as Israel that openly practices apartheid over its non-Jewish citizens and sanctions violence and discrimination against its own women? How can Americans support such a regime or count them among our closest of friends?

Today we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, the leader of the civil rights movement in America. If Dr. King's contributions are to mean anything in this land, America cannot look abroad and morally or financially support the same injustices he worked so hard to eliminate.

Once upon a time, when the struggles of Nelson Mandela against South African apartheid captured America's social conscience, we boycotted South African goods and withdrew America's financial aid from the government that sanctioned the unjust treatment of its black citizens. It was the morally just thing to do and our actions helped break the chains of apartheid. It's time we do the same to Israel.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

IN THE PURSUIT OF STUPIDITY

"Parlez-vous francais?" Because if the answer is, "Oui", and you are an American, according to a political ad recently released by the Newt Gingrich campaign in South Carolina, you are an intellectual elitist and by virtue thereof, are totally unqualified to become president of the United States. That's the essence of the Gingrich campaign ad targeting G.O.P. frontrunner, Mitt Romney, who – you guessed it – speaks French. It came in handy during Romney's two-year missionary stint in France in the 1960s.

I'm just as opposed to Romney taking up residence in the White House as I am to Gingrich, but Romney's intellect and foreign language skills don't enter into the equation. His policies do, but certainly not his intelligence quota.

Over the past three decades, Republicans have garnered a fair amount of success using the kind of anti-intellectual argument that lies at the core of Gingrich's anti-Romney ad, so it's no surprise that Newt's campaign would resort to such a strategy. What surprises me more is its use in a G.O.P. primary against the front-running candidate. That's the kind of stuff Republicans usually wait until the fall campaign to levy against the Democratic candidate. Maybe since Obama is a black man, and suggesting that such an individual could be intellectually elite goes against those with racist views in the Republican Party, Newt has decided to use the "intellectual card" in the primaries instead. Still, I sense a hint of desperation in Gingrich's strategy that highlights just how barren Republican policies have become. Gingrich's posters should read: "Pick me; I'm the Republican dunce!"

I love a good political debate, especially when those debating can do so with a broad base of knowledge and experience, a healthy dose of intellectual reasoning and a deep sense of appreciation of the value of opposing viewpoints. Maybe it's a liberal thing, but I can't think of a single reason why anybody should want the class idiot to run America. Then again, maybe that's why Republicans have been waging an angry war against public education for the past three decades. Perhaps a stupid electorate is exactly what they want, with a dunce leading the crowd.

The pro-stupidity political strategy reminds me of the warning given to Forrest Gump by his mother – "Stupid is as stupid does!"

Talk about a great campaign slogan!

Saturday, January 14, 2012

JUSTICE FOR STEPHANY AND NATALEE

Several years ago, someone placed a bumper sticker on a light pole in the parking lot of my family's favorite pizzeria. The sticker reads: "Boycott Aruba – Justice for Natalee". After years of weathering the elements the letters on the sticker are somewhat faded, but the message they convey is still crystal clear in our minds and we chant the words aloud every time we park in front of them. It's a mantra of sorts, or maybe it's just our way of saying that we'll never forget what happened to Natalee or the need to seek justice on her behalf.

Two events occurred this week that were related to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, that Alabama teenager who went missing in 2005 on the last night of a high school graduation trip to Aruba. The first was that a judge in Alabama signed an order legally declaring Natalee dead. The second was that the man widely believed to be Natalee's killer, Joran van der Sloot, was sentenced by a Peruvian court to served 28 years in prison for the May, 2010 killing of another young lady, Stephany Flores, in Peru.

I've heard and read a fair amount of commentary following the van der Sloot sentencing on whether justice has finally been served for Natalee's death. So far, the opinions have been mixed. Americans tend to think that it hasn't and espouse the belief that only with van der Sloot languishing in an American jail can true justice be achieved. Many foreign commentators see things differently. Although they lament the fact that van der Sloot was never brought to trial for Natalee's death, they see the Peruvian sentence imposed, harsher than normal for murder in that country, as having taken into account the fact that van der Sloot escaped punishment for Natalee's death. Those divergent views on punishment serve as a reminder that justice, like beauty, is something frequently judged in the eye of the beholder.

Since the introduction of Babylonian King Hammurabi's Code in 1772 BC, in which the 'eye for an eye' punishment maxim was first recorded [not in the Old Testament as erroneously believed by many Americans], people have struggled to define justice and how it might truly be served. Nineteenth century British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli once stated, "Justice is truth in action." Anatole France, a French poet with a more jaded view wrote, "Justice is the means by which established injustices are sanctioned." Soviet dissident, Alexander Solzhenitsyn noted during his time in a Russian gulag, "Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity". Columbian novelist, Gabriel Garcia Marquez issued a practical take on justice when he penned, "Justice…limps along, but it gets there all the same."

The other day I watched a tape of van der Sloot's sentencing hearing held in Peru. A very nervous-looking young man stood before a three-justice panel of female judges, protected to his rear by bullet-proof glass, but fully exposed in front to the wrath of the court. He frequently fidgeted and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. Maybe those beads were produced by fear, or maybe from the TV lights. Who knows? What is known is that the court imposed an unusually harsh sentence for murder in Peru – 28 years in jail, and as van der Sloot was lead away, he could be heard shouting obscenities at the women who sentenced him.

I don't know whether justice was served for Natalee or not. I do know that receiving a 28 year sentence for killing of Stephany Flores - that was due punishment. Having his sentence imposed by an all-female panel of judges; now that was justice!

Friday, January 13, 2012

BRAVADO IS THE LAST BASTION OF A DICTATORIAL REGIME

Some dictators never learn that bravado is the last bastion of a dictatorial regime. They never see the end coming, even when the hangman's noose is tied around their neck, an angry mob is knocking at their door or the rifles of a firing squad are leveled in their direction. In their final moments, dictators cling to the mythical notion that their own greatness will somehow rise above the situation and restore order. All that is necessary is a healthy dose of bravado!

Take Saddam Hussein, for instance, the former dictator of Iraq who boasted during the run-up to the U.S.-led attack on his country in March of 2003 that every Iraqi citizen would lay down their lives for him to repel any foreign invasion. When the attack came, seventy-five percent of his army immediately laid down their weapons and Saddam was forced into hiding. Shiites living in Iraq, who comprised nearly ninety percent of the population and who had been brutally oppressed by Saddam's regime, immediately took up the cause of hunting him down. Saddam was finally captured, found hiding in a hole in the ground. He was living like a filthy beggar. Later, he was hung with onlookers cursing at him and snapping pictures of the event on their cell phones. So much for bravado!

Last year, when Libyan rebels initiated the uprising that eventually deposed Libyan dictator, Muammar Gadaffi, the grandiose Gadaffi took to the media airways and, like Saddam, boasted that his loving countrymen and women would annihilate the rebel attackers and restore peace and justice to the Libyan nation. Gadaffi boasted that he would fight to the death and become a martyr, if necessary. Instead, his final moments were spent trying to escape through a storm drain, and his death came not from a hail of enemy gunfire, but from the kicking boots of a mob of his own countrymen. They too snapped pictures of the event on their cell phones.

This past Wednesday, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose brutal regime has killed thousands of Syrian civilians during the past year in an unmerciful crackdown against anti-government protesters, boasted that his government would hunt down his opposition to the last man and that order and honor under his leadership would be restored. That's a pretty big stretch considering that al-Assad has had to use his military to bomb whole cities into submission. And still, the protests continue.

Al-Assad, like Gadaffi and Hussein before him, refuses to read the writing on the wall. He clings to the belief that a magical aura will descend upon his nation and restore his mighty rule. He believes his own bravado. He has to. It's his last bastion. He just doesn't know it yet.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

BLOG READER'S CONTEST – 2012

To all my millions of readers out there…the first reader to add a comment following this post shall win an all-expense paid weekend trip to see Peter Franklin…live and in concert in Atlanta, Georgia. Good Luck, everyone!

LET THE FALSE CHAIN E-MAILS BEGIN

I have to hand it to Republicans; they do a much better job at producing patently false incendiary chain e-mails than Democrats do, leaving Democrats spending more time debunking baseless bullshit than spreading their own message. I bring up the topic of false political chain e-mail because this is 2012, a presidential election year, and as Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell stated so eloquently, "The number one goal of Republicans is to defeat President O'bama." Given that G.O.P. policies are just about as barren as a sterile camel in the middle of the Sahara desert, it's understandable why the Republican's false e-mail campaign would start kicking into high gear.

A good friend of mine just received the false Fannie Mae / President O'bama adviser e-mail, which means that it's making the rounds again and I'm apt to see it in my mailbox at least fifty times before this fall's election. The e-mail expresses disgust at the fact that three top officers of the Fannie Mae, who ran that corporation into financial ruin, were hired by the O'bama campaign to act as economic policy advisers. That would be shocking if it were true, but it's not!

Unfortunately, far too many people read that e-mail and accept it as true without question, and then spout off its contents to their relatives and friends as if it's Gospel truth – which it isn't! That's why political stupidity in America abounds and our elected politicians get to pander to the lowest common denominators among us.

The false Fannie Mae / President O'bama adviser e-mail originated during John McCain's presidential campaign in the 2008 election. "Snopes" has the best explanation of where the myth originated and why it's false. You can read why at:

www.snopes.com/politics/obama/fanniemae.asp

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

KUDZU ON THE BRAIN

Kudzu is a pesky, weedy vine that has proliferated in our Southeastern and Gulf Coast states. It spreads so quickly and thoroughly over trees and shrubs that it frequently cripples or kills by completely cutting off its host from life-sustaining sunlight. Anybody who's driven in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi or Louisiana can attest to the seemingly endless miles of kudzu vines growing along the highways in those states. What worse, it is claimed that kudzu gnaws away at 150,000 new acres of land in the South every year. It is spreading at an alarming rate.

Up to this point in time, scientists have never believed that kudzu attacks humans, but recent reports from the state of Mississippi may change their minds. It seems that a couple of weeks ago, the outgoing Republican (that's right, as in G.O.P.) governor, Haley Barbour passed out several hundred get-out-of-jail-free cards to convicts imprisoned in the state, several dozen of which were incarcerated for murder. That's right – murder. The only logical explanation I can figure for the ultra-conservative ex-governor's actions is kudzu on the brain. Or maybe he was just smoking the stuff.

I regularly rail against our system of capital punishment in this country, and particularly as it is applied in our Southern states, including Mississippi, but even a blazing liberal like me doesn't suggest that it's okay for convicted murderers to walk free just because they put in some time helping keep the Governor's Mansion neat and tidy. If that's Barbour's idea of paying a debt to society, it's a good thing he's left office and is not planning a return anytime soon.

Compassion has a place in our criminal justice system, just as punishment and the need to protect the public have their places too. Convicts who've paid their debt to society deserve a second chance, but let's not diminish the size of their debt or ignore the public's need for protection because of something as arbitrary and capricious as the performance of a nice cleaning job. That's just plain stupid! Somebody should check the Governor's Mansion for kudzu before it cripples the next governor. The last thing anybody needs is stupidity spreading at an alarming rate!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

GRANDMA ZORBAUGH'S SUGAR CAKE RECIPE

[Preheat oven to 350 degrees]

Bowl No. 1: Mix 2 cups of sugar with ½ cup of butter. Add 3 eggs to this mixture, one egg at a time. Then, add 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

Bowl No. 2: Mix 1 cup of buttermilk and 1 teaspoon of baking powder together. Wisp this mixture until it becomes frothy.

Bowl No. 3: Mix 4 cups of flour and 1 teaspoon of baking soda together.

Then, while stirring Bowl No. 1, alternately add parts of bowl 2 and 3 to bowl 1 until all the ingredients are combined into bowl No. 1. A regular teaspoon full of batter makes a fair-sized cake (a/k/a cookie). Top each cake with dash of colored sugar before baking.

Bake 10-11 minutes, depending on oven.

~~~*~~~

I'm posting Grandma Zorbaugh's sugar cake (a/k/a cookie) recipe on this blog today because it's my blog and I can post anything I want. Plus, last night there was a full moon and that frequently brings out the weirdness in people. If you've been listening to the Republican presidential candidate debates, you know that America is supposedly on the road to ruin. What better way to enjoy the trip than by packing a bunch of Grandma Zorbaugh's sugar cakes! You can thank me later for posting her recipe.

Grandma Zorbaugh was a woman who lived life pretty much on her own terms. She drank and smoked and worked well into her eighties, cooked with enthusiasm for anybody who dropped by unannounced and never missed an opportunity to help out a person in need. She spoke her mind, laughed at her own foibles and had a genuine soft spot for kids, no matter who's they were.

When my oldest daughter was three years old, she took to calling Grandma Zorbaugh "beer grandma", for obvious reasons. Most grandmothers would have objected to such a name, but not mine. She'd been around young kids long enough, having spent her entire career as an elementary school cook, to know that they call things pretty much as they see things, and she took my daughter's label as a compliment.

I miss grandma "Z", but I know her memory will live on as long as we bake those sugar cakes.

Monday, January 9, 2012

GOVERNMENT PROTECTIONS

Two news stories caught my attention last week. On the surface they don't look like stories that share a connection, but I think there's a common theme if you look deep enough. One story involved an Oklahoma mother who called 911 for permission to shoot a man who had broken into her home at 3 o'clock in the morning and was endangering her and her three year-old son. She then shot and killed the guy. The local authorities determined that her actions were justified. Republicans are calling her a hero. The second story involved President O'bama, who used his constitutional 'recess appointment' powers to install Richard Cordray as director of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Senate Republicans are in a huff over the President's appointment, claiming that it was not justified. It's fair to say that they are not calling the President a hero. I assume they're calling him names that shouldn't appear in print!

At the heart of both stories is the need for protection. The first involves physical protection. The second involves financial protection. Both threats can be life threatening. Republicans are concerned about the first. The second - not so much! In fact, it's fair to say they don't see it as a problem people should worry about. That's where they and I disagree.

Not everyone in this country has the financial sophistication of Warren Buffet or Donald Trump. With over two-thirds of the county living paycheck-to-paycheck, citizens who are taken advantage of by unscrupulous lenders and investment operatives very often find themselves in financial ruin with little or no means of redress. That's why it is imperative that government act as a referee in the financial sector to insure that all Americans are guaranteed a level playing field in their transactions with the financial industry.

Republicans, on the other hand, advocate a hand's off government policy that I think is akin to a bunch of cattle rustlers objecting to the townsfolk decision to hire Wyatt Earp to put an end to cattle rustling activities. Of course, the rustlers are going to object! Rustling is their livelihood and rustlers never advocate for an end to their profitable racket.

There are broader implications that must also be considered. If rustlers hit one ranch and that enterprise goes under, the nation's economy does not experience a seismic jolt, but when tens of millions of ranches get hit and go under, as did tens of millions of American households in the months leading up to our current recession, society as a whole suffers and experiences a much greater burden than the sum of all those individual losses put together. There are some dangers out there that a gun won't protect us from, and where only the government is able to offer that protection without endangering our freedoms in the process, it should do so.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

MAKE YOUR LEGACY COUNT

Thirty-eight years ago this day, my father died. I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's just a historical fact. He died when I was seventeen, and now, as I approach my fifty-fifth birthday, I realize that I've lived over two-thirds of my life without him in it. He hasn't been physically present for the past thirty-eight years, but I can't think of a single day during that time-span when I could claim that he wasn't influencing me in one way or another.

I'm taking this opportunity to reflect upon my father's passing because I think it's important to remember that after we're dead and gone from the face of this earth, our actions during the time we spent here will for decades continue influencing those individuals we have left behind. Hopefully, our influences will be good ones, and our children and grand-children will look back with gratitude for the times we shared with them and the lessons we taught them.

We walk this earth for a finite number of days. Make them count!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

MENTAL DECLINE ON THE MOVE

My mental decline must be picking up steam. Really! I can feel the wind flowing through my wavy grey hair even though I'm typing at a stationary desk. I can't see any dementia in front of me, but if it turns out that dementia looks like a computer screen, I'm about 0.27 seconds away from getting my face splattered like a bug on a windshield. I'm kind of bummed-out that the ride isn't more exhilarating.

Researchers at University College London just released the results of a study they conducted and concluded that brain functions and cognitive decline begin in humans around the age of 45. According to their study, folks lose the equivalent of 3.6% of their mental reasoning powers over a four-year span beginning at that age. Apparently, after passing 49 years of age the loss of mental power picks up steam. Since I'm turning 55 years old next month, you can understand why I'd be concerned. I'm not particularly fond of roller coasters. If the London researchers are correct my car has already passed over the top and the ride is about to get scary.

Mental decline worries me, but not for obvious reasons. I worry about the mundane stuff, like whether I'll forget that I'm a blazing liberal or start believing in Reaganomics and the "trickle down" theory. What if I fall off the deep end and start blogging that tax cuts for the wealthy produce jobs? Who will be around to save me? Certainly not my Republican wife! She'll be filling out MY absentee ballot card with a straight GOP vote. I know she will, because she knows that I'd have her voting straight Democrat if the shoes were reversed. Loving spouses do that sort of thing!

As long as I maintain the ability to recognize that I'm always in the right, life will be fine and dandy, but what if my capacity for impeccably sound reasoning should falter? What if I start thinking that I could err? I know that's almost unimaginable, but still.

I commented to my wife that there ought to be a pill that improves brain functioning in men. She dryly replied that there was – Viagra. See what I mean? Women!

Friday, January 6, 2012

IRAQI SECTARIAN VIOLENCE

Ordinary Iraqi citizens are finding it difficult to sleep at night. That's because every morning they awake to news of yet another bombing! The American troops are gone, but sectarian violence and forces waging civil war for control of the country have replaced them. Yesterday, there was a car bombing. Today, it will be a mosque. Tomorrow, the target might be an open market or a police station. The stories are the same – scores of innocent folks dead, scores more wounded and civilians everywhere are wondering whether they'll be the next casualty. It's not a kind place to raise a family.

I keep thinking about the famous photo of George Bush on that aircraft carrier with the "Mission Accomplished" banner in the background. What did we accomplish in Iraq, other than toppling a brutal, loudmouth dictator and replacing his regime with another just as bad? Yeah, Saddam was evil, but at least his subjects knew where they stood and mosques didn't get bombed on a daily basis.

Before the war, Saddam and the Baathists of Iraq, a small part of the Sunni Muslim minority who ran the country with an iron hand, persecuted Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority. Now that the Shiites are in control, its leaders are carrying out what is essentially a plan of brutal political payback. Understandably, the Sunni's are retaliating too. Shiite – Sunni violence is nearly as old as Islam itself, so it's not as if today's events were not predictable. Unfortunately, it's the common folks in both religious groups who are paying the price.

When I read the daily news of murder and mayhem coming from Iraq, it bothers me that a people who only recently got their first taste of freedom, are now moving to enslave, and in many cases, annihilate their own fellow countrymen for nothing more than political pay-back.

We wouldn't do that here in America, would we?

Thursday, January 5, 2012

BATTLING POVERTY

When I was a kid, I lived in a wooden three-bedroom city row house occupied by seven people. Whoever built that house forgot to install radiators. The house was heated, so to speak, by an old coal furnace in the basement and what heat it produced made its way up through the house via metal grates in the floor. Our family bathtub was the kind of tub college kids now use to ice down a keg of beer, and the water used to fill that tub was heated on the kitchen stove, one bucket at a time. When we kids took a bath, my older sister went first. She got the fresh water. I went next and then my three younger siblings followed suit. After the youngest was finished, the tub was finally emptied. We thought we were clean.

We battled poverty by collecting discarded soda bottles and turning them into the small "ma & pa" grocery store across the street for the two cent deposit, by selling bluebells and dandelions each spring for a nickel a bunch to our neighbors and later by selling candy that my dad got from a local chocolate factory. He took us to upscale neighborhoods outside the city and we sold it door-to-door.

When President Johnson started the so-called war on poverty, we'd get government surplus food items on occasion…flour, butter, lard, powdered milk, corn syrup, canned beef, spam and sometimes potatoes. It wasn't much, but we made do with anything edible. It never occurred to me that there were people in this country far better off than me who resented the fact that I was getting free food to eat. I was just happy for a meal.

When food stamps replaced the government surplus program, my dad was reluctant to sign up for them. It didn't make sense to me. Food was food. By then, I'd had enough milk potato soup and boiled pot-pie to last a lifetime, and the notion of getting store-bought food seemed like a good thing. Still, Dad balked at the idea until things got so tight that he had no other choice.

I remember accompanying him to the grocery store when the food stamps arrived. If felt like Christmas in July. We loaded up the cart, mostly with the same stuff we'd been getting from government surplus, but with extras like chicken and fresh fish and apples, and headed to the check-out area. When the cashier finished ringing up all the items we were purchasing she gave my dad the total bill amount and he started fumbling in his pocket for the bulky coupon book that contained the food stamps. When he finally retrieved the book from his pocket and started to hand it to the cashier, she immediately became indignant and announced in a rather loud voice, "Oh look, more customers with food stamps." Patrons and cashiers in the neighboring check-out aisles turned and stared at us, and my aforementioned glee was immediately reduced to shame and humiliation. My dad tossed the food stamps on the conveyor belt and we left the store empty-handed. We never set foot in that store again.

I hated that cashier. A part of me still does. She didn't know my hunger and she didn't care to know. She didn't acknowledge my pain, but she was more than satisfied to heap humiliation and scorn upon me for wanting nothing more than some food in my belly. That's why I still loathe sanctimonious politicians and people who begrudge those in poverty for getting free food to eat, or government assistance with housing and medical care. I hate callous disregard for the suffering of others. It saddens and sickens me at the same time.

Today, I'm sitting in my four-bedroom home in suburbia with two cars in the garage, four computers and three flat-screen TVs to entertain the three of us who reside here. We've got a Wii, several DVD players and more remotes than even a couch potato like me can handle. The refrigerator in the kitchen is filled; so is the food pantry and the extra refrigerator in the basement.

With all that at my fingertips, you'd figure that I could finally put my poverty-related hatred to rest, but I can't. It still haunts me. Instead of collecting glass soda bottles, I collect aluminum cans. Five bucks from the recyclers feels like five million. Instead of food stamps, I clip coupons, dreaming for those opportunities when I can skillfully turn a piece of paper into free food…and every once and awhile when that happens, a cashier will look at me and say, "Good job!" And all I can say is "Amen!"

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

ONE EXPLANATION FOR LACKING COMPASSION

"Since many people strive for positions of power as compensations for needy egos, it is hardly surprising that the corridors of power are filled with people for who the compassionate responses will be short-circuited as a matter of course." ~ Karl Marlantes, author of What It Is Like To Go To War © 2011

I was trying to figure out an explanation for why the current bevy of Republican presidential candidates are so universally opposed to government spending on social programs designed to ameliorate hunger, homelessness, unemployment and the lack of access to medical care among tens of millions of poor American citizens. To me, their attitudes border on callous indifference to those who are suffering in this nation, but then I came across Karl Marlantes' above-referenced quote regarding widespread indifference in leadership to the plight of those who innocently suffer in war, and I recognized that the same can be said when it comes to the plight of the poor in general.

In American politics, compassion is not regarded as a virtue; instead, it is viewed as a character flaw. That explains a lot!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

MARGARET ANDERSON - CASUALTY OF WAR

Margaret Anderson was an American casualty of the war in Iraq, a war she never signed up to fight. You won't find her listed among the war dead statistics kept by the Pentagon, but she was a war casualty nonetheless, and it behooves us all to remember her sacrifice and why she died.

Margaret was a park ranger assigned to the Mount Rainier National Park in the state of Washington. Her job included standard park ranger duties as well as law enforcement throughout the national park. She was armed. She recognized the dangers associated with her position, and by all accounts, she was well-liked and carried out her duties in a competent and professional manner.

On New Year's Day, the war that started over five thousand miles from Margaret Anderson's home came to America's shore, to the national park where Margaret worked, to the road where Margaret had set up a roadblock, to the vehicle where Margaret breathed her final breaths, and it turned her into a statistic - another casualty of war. The war came to Margaret in the form of a twenty-four year old man, Benjamin Colton Barnes an Iraqi war veteran who still carried the war with him. Barnes suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicidal ideations and probably fear, stemming from having shot four people near Seattle earlier that day. Barnes knew the police were searching for him and Mount Rainier National Park was the place he chose to attempt to avoid being captured. That is where Barnes encountered resistance (a roadblock) set up by a force he perceived as an enemy (Ranger Margaret Anderson) and he responded to that perceived enemy as soldiers of war are trained to do, by using deadly force.

I am not suggesting that Barnes' actions were justified in any sense of that word. I am not suggesting that Margaret Anderson was anything but an honorable woman performing her civic and patriotic duty. What I am suggesting is that Benjamin Colton Barnes never left the Iraq war in Iraq. He brought it home with him, continued fighting it within himself and never managed to bring it under control. As a result, Margaret Anderson became another casualty.

Our politicians and military leaders may choose to overlook or downplay the scars left on combat veterans by post-traumatic stress disorder, but until proper attention is given to its prevalence among our soldiers returning from war, casualties like Margaret Anderson will continue to occur.

Monday, January 2, 2012

MY CAMPAIGN IS DOOMED FROM THE START

Last week, I mentioned to my wife, a loyal Republican that I was considering a run for President of the United States. She didn't think it was a good idea and said so. Besides the lack of friends willing to donate the tens of millions of dollars necessary to wage a presidential campaign, she thought my closet full of skeletons was a non-starter and the fact that I'm a more liberal Democrat than President Obama would mean that I couldn't even carry my home district. In my heart of hearts I know she's right, but still, it pains me to think that my own neighbors wouldn't consider a native son, albeit an insanely liberal one, over some dimwitted G.O.P. politician who claims to understand the plight of people who reside in York County, but doesn't really have a clue. After all, everybody knows that to truly understand this county, you have to have been born and raised here, which I have been, and all the Republican presidential contenders have not. You'd think that would give me a leg up on the competition. Apparently not!

Sunday, January 1, 2012

MY HOPES FOR 2012

I hope those who hunger will find food and those who are sick will find medical care they need. I hope the homeless will find shelter, the lonely will find friendship and those who are torn with grief will find solace in the hearts. I hope greed and selfishness give way to kindness and compassion for others. I hope arrogance is replaced with humility and loathing with respect. I hope compromise regains its good name and politicians come to recognize that the common good entails consideration of opposing viewpoints. I hope the spirit of this past Christmas lasts more than twelve days.

I hope my wife continues to smile and my children continue being the joy that they are. I hope my friends prosper and my colleagues find satisfaction in their working endeavors. I hope my heart holds out this year, and all I do and say will do credit to the effort it makes to keep me going. If hope springs eternal, I hope 2012 is just the beginning.