Whether it was planned or not, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin spent yesterday dueling North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un for the “stupid is as stupid does” award. Putin cancelled New Year’s Day in Russia because the Russian economy is tanking. Not to be outdone, Kim Jong Un made an appearance on Korean TV and called U.S. President Obama a monkey. Putin, a judo expert, countered with an order placing a cap on the price of Vodka sold in Russia. Kim Jong Un saw that as a counterattack, so he vowed to obliterate the United States with his cardboard [my adjective, not his] rockets. Both men flirt with the absurd on a regular basis, but they are widely popular in their own countries, so they can afford their delusions of grandeur.
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS
Assault rifle – check. Ammunition – check. Two extra clips – check. Radio – check. Night vision goggles – check. Camouflage suit – check. Boots – check. Canteen – check. Compass – check. Map – check. K-rations – check. Okay men, let the War on Christmas begin!
"Wait a minute, sir. Did you say the War on Christmas?"
Yes, I did soldier. You have a problem with that?
"Uh, no sir, but I was just wondering. Isn’t the War on Christmas something liberals, Democrats and atheists fight every December? Why’s the Army getting involved? We’re conservatives!"
Good question, Kowalski. A couple of weeks ago, Army “intel” intercepted some Democratic emails. Apparently, the liberal War on Christmas is an elaborate hoax. The liberals want us to believe they’re against Christmas, but they’re not. Their secret plan is to get us to promote Christmas giving, and the next thing you know we’ll be knee-deep in government social programs. The brass upstairs isn’t going to allow that to happen. Look, next to Obamacare, Christmas is the largest threat to everything we Americans stand for, and it’s high time we bury this Baby Jesus thing before it buries us. Our mission is to take out Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and those terrorists posing as three kings. If you get a shot at an angel, take them out too, but they’re not our primary objective. Let the air force deal with the flyboys. Any questions? [several hands go up]
Oh geez, I should have known the Army would give me a pack of nitwits. You, numb nut in the back row, what’s your question?
“Sir, I’ve never shot at a Baby Jesus before!”
What are you, private Beck, some kind of liberal sissy? You got a problem with guns? Your momma voted for Obama, right? Look numb nut, there’s nothing to it. You look through your scope. When you see the Baby Jesus in the cross hairs, pull the trigger. Splat! End of story.
Okay private Cruz, what’s your question?
“Can’t this wait until after the holiday season, sir? We’ll have more of our buddies in Congress then.”
No can do! Army ‘intel’ says that Joseph Company plans to sneak across the border in a few days. Next thing you know, Joseph or one of his immigrant buddies will be taking your job. Okay, O’Reilly, what now?
“I don’t think this war on Christmas is a good idea, sir?”
Look O’Reilly, if the Army wants you to think, it’ll tell you to turn off FOX news. In the meantime, man up and grow some balls! Next question. Beohner, what’s up?
“Sir, what if Joseph is armed?”
What kind of stupid question is that? Liberals don’t pack heat! They think it’s beneath them.
“What about Mary, sir?”
You mean that unwed mom addicted to Section 8 stables and three king handouts? You ever see her working? I know I haven’t. You want somebody like that on TV with Snooki and her friends being a role model for your daughter? Not me, private. Not me. What is it, McConnell?
"There’s a rumor among the guys that one of the terrorist kings is carrying gold?"
That’s your tax dollars, McConnell, and he’ll be trying to give it away to a bunch of lazy squatters, so I suggest you keep your eyes on the prize and take that guy out with one shot. Okay, who’s next? Dolan, what’s your question?
"Some of us guys are pro lifers, sir. We’re not feeling right about killing babies."
Look Dolan, nobody likes killing babies, but sometimes you have to look at the big picture. If this Baby Jesus character gets away and grows up, he’ll start preaching stuff like feeding the poor, comforting the sick and clothing the naked. The next thing you know, poor people will start voting for food stamps, more Obamacare and expanded Section 8 housing. You want poor people to vote, Dolan?
"No."
No what, Dolan?
"NO, SIR! I DON’T WANT POOR PEOPLE VOTING, SIR!"
Right! That’s why we have voter ID laws. Who’s next?
"Private Corbett, Sir. Reporting for duty."
Glad to see you could make it, Corbett. Tough election loss! You have a question?
"Should we take out the sheep too, sir?"
The shepherds and the sheep, private. Wipe them all out. Army “intel” says that liberals like to hide their handouts in sheep clothing. We’re not taking any chances. The sheep gotta go!
"Sir, what about the stable?"
Burn it to the ground, Private Ryan. Burn it!
"What about the guys with the frankincense and myrrh, sir?"
They’re not carrying frankincense and myrrh, you idiot. They’re carrying food stamps and Section 8 vouchers. Make sure that stuff is destroyed when the stable burns. The last thing the Army wants is to give the liberal media something to moan about. Any more questions?
Good! Lock and load gentlemen!
HU-RAH!
"Wait a minute, sir. Did you say the War on Christmas?"
Yes, I did soldier. You have a problem with that?
"Uh, no sir, but I was just wondering. Isn’t the War on Christmas something liberals, Democrats and atheists fight every December? Why’s the Army getting involved? We’re conservatives!"
Good question, Kowalski. A couple of weeks ago, Army “intel” intercepted some Democratic emails. Apparently, the liberal War on Christmas is an elaborate hoax. The liberals want us to believe they’re against Christmas, but they’re not. Their secret plan is to get us to promote Christmas giving, and the next thing you know we’ll be knee-deep in government social programs. The brass upstairs isn’t going to allow that to happen. Look, next to Obamacare, Christmas is the largest threat to everything we Americans stand for, and it’s high time we bury this Baby Jesus thing before it buries us. Our mission is to take out Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and those terrorists posing as three kings. If you get a shot at an angel, take them out too, but they’re not our primary objective. Let the air force deal with the flyboys. Any questions? [several hands go up]
Oh geez, I should have known the Army would give me a pack of nitwits. You, numb nut in the back row, what’s your question?
“Sir, I’ve never shot at a Baby Jesus before!”
What are you, private Beck, some kind of liberal sissy? You got a problem with guns? Your momma voted for Obama, right? Look numb nut, there’s nothing to it. You look through your scope. When you see the Baby Jesus in the cross hairs, pull the trigger. Splat! End of story.
Okay private Cruz, what’s your question?
“Can’t this wait until after the holiday season, sir? We’ll have more of our buddies in Congress then.”
No can do! Army ‘intel’ says that Joseph Company plans to sneak across the border in a few days. Next thing you know, Joseph or one of his immigrant buddies will be taking your job. Okay, O’Reilly, what now?
“I don’t think this war on Christmas is a good idea, sir?”
Look O’Reilly, if the Army wants you to think, it’ll tell you to turn off FOX news. In the meantime, man up and grow some balls! Next question. Beohner, what’s up?
“Sir, what if Joseph is armed?”
What kind of stupid question is that? Liberals don’t pack heat! They think it’s beneath them.
“What about Mary, sir?”
You mean that unwed mom addicted to Section 8 stables and three king handouts? You ever see her working? I know I haven’t. You want somebody like that on TV with Snooki and her friends being a role model for your daughter? Not me, private. Not me. What is it, McConnell?
"There’s a rumor among the guys that one of the terrorist kings is carrying gold?"
That’s your tax dollars, McConnell, and he’ll be trying to give it away to a bunch of lazy squatters, so I suggest you keep your eyes on the prize and take that guy out with one shot. Okay, who’s next? Dolan, what’s your question?
"Some of us guys are pro lifers, sir. We’re not feeling right about killing babies."
Look Dolan, nobody likes killing babies, but sometimes you have to look at the big picture. If this Baby Jesus character gets away and grows up, he’ll start preaching stuff like feeding the poor, comforting the sick and clothing the naked. The next thing you know, poor people will start voting for food stamps, more Obamacare and expanded Section 8 housing. You want poor people to vote, Dolan?
"No."
No what, Dolan?
"NO, SIR! I DON’T WANT POOR PEOPLE VOTING, SIR!"
Right! That’s why we have voter ID laws. Who’s next?
"Private Corbett, Sir. Reporting for duty."
Glad to see you could make it, Corbett. Tough election loss! You have a question?
"Should we take out the sheep too, sir?"
The shepherds and the sheep, private. Wipe them all out. Army “intel” says that liberals like to hide their handouts in sheep clothing. We’re not taking any chances. The sheep gotta go!
"Sir, what about the stable?"
Burn it to the ground, Private Ryan. Burn it!
"What about the guys with the frankincense and myrrh, sir?"
They’re not carrying frankincense and myrrh, you idiot. They’re carrying food stamps and Section 8 vouchers. Make sure that stuff is destroyed when the stable burns. The last thing the Army wants is to give the liberal media something to moan about. Any more questions?
Good! Lock and load gentlemen!
HU-RAH!
Saturday, November 29, 2014
BEGGARS AND THE PEOPLE THEY BUG
Ever since my childhood days as a poor kid on Walnut Street in downtown York, I’ve wondered why Americans detest the poor as much as they do. Do folks fear that an empty wallet is somehow contagious like Ebola, or do the poor remind people of broader failures in our society that many prefer remain hidden in the shadows? Do people believe that those living in poverty deserve their plight, or are the poor like unwanted crabgrass, attempting to gain a foothold on a well-manicured suburban lawn?
I pose these questions because of a recent newspaper story about a man named Terry Anderson, a Manchester, Maryland man who’s been begging for money for the past three month on a median strip in West Manheim Township near Hanover, Pennsylvania. Anderson’s activities have raised the ire of several area residents who want to eliminate his begging in their community. He’s become an eyesore that critics wish would simply disappear. I’m interested in examining why.
Anderson’s most outspoken critic, Jason Mangus of West Manheim Township, reportedly thinks that Anderson is taking advantage of the kindness of strangers because of a well-maintained vehicle that Anderson drives. By doing so, Mangus judges Anderson’s book by its cover. I don’t know whether Mangus’ assessment is accurate or not, but I do remember back in 1967, when my dad bought a new car after years of saving for a down payment. He spent less on car payments during the years that followed than he did on repairs to the clunkers he previously owned. With little income and seven mouths to feed, our family was still poor, but at least our car was dependable and that freed up extra cash for other amenities. A person just viewing my father and his new car might have assumed he was wealthy. Nothing was further from the truth. My dad was economical and he stretched every dime to its limit, but we were still poor.
Magnus suggested to a reporter that Anderson should leave the median strip and get a minimum wage job at Wal-Mart or Sheetz instead. It’s a suggestion with great surface appeal, until you recognize that employers won’t hire people like Anderson who’ve got home problems that would interfere with a normal work schedule. Plus, it sounds like Anderson makes more money begging on the median than he would by working a minimum wage job. That’s not an indictment on Anderson. That’s an indictment on Americans who refuse to demand that every living person who wants to work should be paid a living wage for the fruits of their labor. Why we accept economic slavery in this day and age is beyond me, but that’s an issue best left for another column.
Anderson’s critics have publicly urged local lawmakers to take action to ban Anderson’s begging, and from what’s been reported in this paper, local officials are discussing that possibility. What I find telling, however, is the fact that you can turn on the TV on any given Sunday morning and see a plethora of religious hucksters taking full advantage of the kindness of strangers, but you won’t hear Anderson’s critics clamoring for the removal of televangelists from the public airways. Apparently, taking advantage of the kindness of strangers by high-living, chauffeured preachers is acceptable in these parts, while beggars seeking handouts are not. I could quote scripture to point out that hypocrisy, but I doubt it would do any good. Adherence to the social gospel requires a kind heart.
Animosity toward the poor is nothing new, but the degree of loathing for America’s less fortunate has never been stronger or more vocal than it is today. When former presidential candidate Mitt Romney was secretly caught saying he didn’t care about the 47% of Americans that he thought were feeding at the public trough, he was simply expressing the same lack of empathy that many in this nation mirror on a daily basis. Welfare is a dirty word. Poverty equaling laziness is an acceptable rant. In fact, those concepts have become so ingrained in the fabric of our society that during the most recent recession, when millions of people lost jobs through no fault of their own and had to apply for government assistance so their families could survive, many of those people expressed shame over having to do so. Shame can be a useful thing, but not when it’s unwarranted. That takes me back to the beggar on the median.
Terry Anderson buries his pride on a daily basis when he begs on the median strip. He admits to his inability to secure traditional employment and exposes his personal shortcomings for the entire Hanover community to see. By doing so, he also demonstrates an unwavering desire to provide for his family, no matter how much humiliation he endures in the process. That’s the kind of selfless caring and gritty determination that we should be applauding, not deriding. A poor man seeking a better life for him and his family is a good thing. If he has to hold his hand out to do so, that’s a good thing, too!
I pose these questions because of a recent newspaper story about a man named Terry Anderson, a Manchester, Maryland man who’s been begging for money for the past three month on a median strip in West Manheim Township near Hanover, Pennsylvania. Anderson’s activities have raised the ire of several area residents who want to eliminate his begging in their community. He’s become an eyesore that critics wish would simply disappear. I’m interested in examining why.
Anderson’s most outspoken critic, Jason Mangus of West Manheim Township, reportedly thinks that Anderson is taking advantage of the kindness of strangers because of a well-maintained vehicle that Anderson drives. By doing so, Mangus judges Anderson’s book by its cover. I don’t know whether Mangus’ assessment is accurate or not, but I do remember back in 1967, when my dad bought a new car after years of saving for a down payment. He spent less on car payments during the years that followed than he did on repairs to the clunkers he previously owned. With little income and seven mouths to feed, our family was still poor, but at least our car was dependable and that freed up extra cash for other amenities. A person just viewing my father and his new car might have assumed he was wealthy. Nothing was further from the truth. My dad was economical and he stretched every dime to its limit, but we were still poor.
Magnus suggested to a reporter that Anderson should leave the median strip and get a minimum wage job at Wal-Mart or Sheetz instead. It’s a suggestion with great surface appeal, until you recognize that employers won’t hire people like Anderson who’ve got home problems that would interfere with a normal work schedule. Plus, it sounds like Anderson makes more money begging on the median than he would by working a minimum wage job. That’s not an indictment on Anderson. That’s an indictment on Americans who refuse to demand that every living person who wants to work should be paid a living wage for the fruits of their labor. Why we accept economic slavery in this day and age is beyond me, but that’s an issue best left for another column.
Anderson’s critics have publicly urged local lawmakers to take action to ban Anderson’s begging, and from what’s been reported in this paper, local officials are discussing that possibility. What I find telling, however, is the fact that you can turn on the TV on any given Sunday morning and see a plethora of religious hucksters taking full advantage of the kindness of strangers, but you won’t hear Anderson’s critics clamoring for the removal of televangelists from the public airways. Apparently, taking advantage of the kindness of strangers by high-living, chauffeured preachers is acceptable in these parts, while beggars seeking handouts are not. I could quote scripture to point out that hypocrisy, but I doubt it would do any good. Adherence to the social gospel requires a kind heart.
Animosity toward the poor is nothing new, but the degree of loathing for America’s less fortunate has never been stronger or more vocal than it is today. When former presidential candidate Mitt Romney was secretly caught saying he didn’t care about the 47% of Americans that he thought were feeding at the public trough, he was simply expressing the same lack of empathy that many in this nation mirror on a daily basis. Welfare is a dirty word. Poverty equaling laziness is an acceptable rant. In fact, those concepts have become so ingrained in the fabric of our society that during the most recent recession, when millions of people lost jobs through no fault of their own and had to apply for government assistance so their families could survive, many of those people expressed shame over having to do so. Shame can be a useful thing, but not when it’s unwarranted. That takes me back to the beggar on the median.
Terry Anderson buries his pride on a daily basis when he begs on the median strip. He admits to his inability to secure traditional employment and exposes his personal shortcomings for the entire Hanover community to see. By doing so, he also demonstrates an unwavering desire to provide for his family, no matter how much humiliation he endures in the process. That’s the kind of selfless caring and gritty determination that we should be applauding, not deriding. A poor man seeking a better life for him and his family is a good thing. If he has to hold his hand out to do so, that’s a good thing, too!
Monday, September 15, 2014
TO THINK OR ACT AGAINST ISIS - THAT IS THE QUESTION
I didn’t have to listen to the President’s speech last week to register my disappointment with the President’s plan to deal with the ISIS plague, and I’m a blazing liberal, so that’s saying something. Despite my suggestion, there was no way the President was going to offer all his Congressional critics who are itching for another war the option of boarding a military transport, with a standard NRA-approved assault rifle in hand, and get dropped in the middle of ISIS held territory in Syria and Iraq to kill as many jihadists as they please. The President is too cerebral for such a pragmatic solution. He also refused to consider a national sports book to take wagers on which of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Mitch O’Connell or Ted Cruz would wet his pants first when the airplane door opened and the parachute jump light illuminated. My money would be on Ted Cruz, with Rush Limbaugh a close second. The loud mouths usually have the weakest bladders. There’s been no hint from the White House that the President would call out Congressional Republicans for not having the balls to ask the American people to step up and pay for any military action they have in mind, and that’s one place where I’m at odds with the President, because it’s not right for us to ask our military personnel to sacrifice their lives if Americans back home are unwilling to sacrifice their pocketbooks, too. Look, I understand that Sunnis and Shia in the Middle East have been killing one another for the past fourteen hundred years and have developed an hardy appetite for murder and mayhem. I get that other countries are fine with Americans getting killed fighting ISIS because it’s not their kin who get shipped home in pine boxes. What bugs me is that Obama won’t act before thinking. That’s un-American!
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
ANOTHER DRIVE TOWARD FANTASY STARDOM
Being the fantasy football coach of the Shiloh Hogs is agonizing. Only gluttons for punishment willingly choose the role, and even then they come to realize that fantasy coaching is more an addiction than friendly competition among friends.
The fantasy football sites promise to make you feel like a real coach, but they’re just blowing smoke. You can’t chew out your fantasy wide receiver that drops a certain touchdown pass without a defensive corner in sight. You can’t celebrate with your starting tailback when he hits the A-gap in high gear and doesn’t stop until he reaches the end zone, seventy-five yards later. That’s because one of his linemen got caught holding. There are no high fives to dole out when your quarterback reaches twenty-five fantasy points for an afternoon’s work. Some other coach on TV is hogging up the credit. There’s nobody to blame except the man in the bathroom mirror when your kicker sends his 20-yard field goal attempt wide right, when three lousy points would have given you a win. If life isn’t fair, then fantasy football coaching is the poster child for all of life’s inequities.
In fantasy football, there are no team owners offering seven-figure coaching contracts. Fifty-three man rosters are pipe dreams. Game time decisions involve choosing between two rookie cast-offs and a guy who may or may not have recovered from a pulled hamstring. Players who break-out are always sitting on your bench. You can’t throw a challenge flag and the refs ignore your pleas for a time-out, no matter how loud you scream at your TV. Inevitably, your star player suffers a concussion four minutes before game time, when the chance for substituting has expired. Nine out of twelve opponents in your league will have their best performance playing your team. The tenth opponent beats you with only Peyton Manning in her line-up. She drafted Peyton because she thought he was cute. Nobody feels your pain. In fact, your best friends revel in it.
Every fantasy football coach has a hard luck story. I’ve got two. In 2012, I thought I made the playoff after the last game of the season, only to have some NFL scorer change the stats two days later and send me packing. Last year, despite my team’s mediocre 7-6 record, I found my way to the league Super Bowl. At the end of Sunday’s games in Week 16, my opponent led 118-117 with no players remaining. San Francisco played on Monday night and Vernon Davis, fourth among tight ends in 2013, was my starting tight end. I was pumped. I was psyched, and then Vernon laid a goose egg that Monday night and I cried myself to sleep on the living room couch. I vowed right then and there that I was done with fantasy football. That was January.
This is August. I’m an addict, and Antonio Gates is the Shiloh Hog’s new tight end!
The fantasy football sites promise to make you feel like a real coach, but they’re just blowing smoke. You can’t chew out your fantasy wide receiver that drops a certain touchdown pass without a defensive corner in sight. You can’t celebrate with your starting tailback when he hits the A-gap in high gear and doesn’t stop until he reaches the end zone, seventy-five yards later. That’s because one of his linemen got caught holding. There are no high fives to dole out when your quarterback reaches twenty-five fantasy points for an afternoon’s work. Some other coach on TV is hogging up the credit. There’s nobody to blame except the man in the bathroom mirror when your kicker sends his 20-yard field goal attempt wide right, when three lousy points would have given you a win. If life isn’t fair, then fantasy football coaching is the poster child for all of life’s inequities.
In fantasy football, there are no team owners offering seven-figure coaching contracts. Fifty-three man rosters are pipe dreams. Game time decisions involve choosing between two rookie cast-offs and a guy who may or may not have recovered from a pulled hamstring. Players who break-out are always sitting on your bench. You can’t throw a challenge flag and the refs ignore your pleas for a time-out, no matter how loud you scream at your TV. Inevitably, your star player suffers a concussion four minutes before game time, when the chance for substituting has expired. Nine out of twelve opponents in your league will have their best performance playing your team. The tenth opponent beats you with only Peyton Manning in her line-up. She drafted Peyton because she thought he was cute. Nobody feels your pain. In fact, your best friends revel in it.
Every fantasy football coach has a hard luck story. I’ve got two. In 2012, I thought I made the playoff after the last game of the season, only to have some NFL scorer change the stats two days later and send me packing. Last year, despite my team’s mediocre 7-6 record, I found my way to the league Super Bowl. At the end of Sunday’s games in Week 16, my opponent led 118-117 with no players remaining. San Francisco played on Monday night and Vernon Davis, fourth among tight ends in 2013, was my starting tight end. I was pumped. I was psyched, and then Vernon laid a goose egg that Monday night and I cried myself to sleep on the living room couch. I vowed right then and there that I was done with fantasy football. That was January.
This is August. I’m an addict, and Antonio Gates is the Shiloh Hog’s new tight end!
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
A TRIBUTE TO PETER FRANKLIN
[My son-in-law, Peter C. Franklin lost his battle with cancer on August 8th, 2014. This is the longer version of remarks I gave at his memorial service]
I did not wear a suit to this evening’s memorial in solidarity with Peter. I believe in the hereafter, and in my version Peter is wearing a Batman tee-shirt and a pair of shorts, the latter because he no longer has to be embarrassed about wearing compression socks. I wanted to wear a Batman tee-shirt tonight, but it was impossible to find one in my extra-large size. There were a smattering of mediums, but the majority of shirts were small. I think there’s a lesson to be learned from my search: superheroes like Peter only come in small sizes!
Don’t let all the talk about superheroes fool you. Peter Franklin was also a world-class intellectual, but the thing that set Peter apart in my mind was the fact that he was one of the humblest individuals I’ve ever met. Brilliance and humility don’t frequently go hand in hand. With Peter, they did. The guy didn’t have a single conceited bone in his body. The world has lost a true gem.
Peter became my son the first time I met him, not because my daughter, Abby had already told me how crazy about him she was, but because I saw something in the way he looked at her that set my mind at ease. It wasn’t a starry-eyed gaze, a fawning facade or the fake expression of somebody trying to make a good impression. In fact, I’m quite certain he didn’t realize I was watching. What I observed was a young man interested in what my daughter had to say, curious about what she thought, unafraid to challenge her opinions or argue for his own, but not overbearing or disrespectful. Peter exuded a humble confidence that the world is in such short supply of these days, and I could tell by the way Peter and Abby spoke that they valued one another in a way that good people should. Sometimes, you just know that two people are right for each other. I know I did, and I gained a son because of it. Now, he’s gone, and I have to admit there’s a big hole in my heart.
It’s a testament to Peter’s diverse interests there are so many things in my daily life that remind me of Peter. Whenever I see somebody wearing a superhero tee-shirt, I think of Peter. If I hear about Toronto’s crazy mayor or the Comic-Con Convention, I think about Peter. Whenever I pass the classics section in a bookstore, Peter’s face comes to mind. I even think about him in the supermarket. There’s a case in the vegetarian section where black bean vegetarian burgers are kept. Peter once assured me that those burgers were very tasty, and I assured him that there was not enough ketchup in the world for me to eat one!
A few days ago, I was writing at the desk in my den when my gaze fell upon the bronze paperweight that Abby and Peter gave out at their wedding last year. The paperweight bears an inscription from a line written by the poet, E. E. Cummings – “Love is the voice under all silences.” As I pondered that inscription, it occurred to me that while Peter’s physical voice has been silenced, the voice behind his love has never been louder. If you allow yourself, you can hear that voice, you can feel it, you can be warmed by it, and it will comfort you for as long as you live!
I did not wear a suit to this evening’s memorial in solidarity with Peter. I believe in the hereafter, and in my version Peter is wearing a Batman tee-shirt and a pair of shorts, the latter because he no longer has to be embarrassed about wearing compression socks. I wanted to wear a Batman tee-shirt tonight, but it was impossible to find one in my extra-large size. There were a smattering of mediums, but the majority of shirts were small. I think there’s a lesson to be learned from my search: superheroes like Peter only come in small sizes!
Don’t let all the talk about superheroes fool you. Peter Franklin was also a world-class intellectual, but the thing that set Peter apart in my mind was the fact that he was one of the humblest individuals I’ve ever met. Brilliance and humility don’t frequently go hand in hand. With Peter, they did. The guy didn’t have a single conceited bone in his body. The world has lost a true gem.
Peter became my son the first time I met him, not because my daughter, Abby had already told me how crazy about him she was, but because I saw something in the way he looked at her that set my mind at ease. It wasn’t a starry-eyed gaze, a fawning facade or the fake expression of somebody trying to make a good impression. In fact, I’m quite certain he didn’t realize I was watching. What I observed was a young man interested in what my daughter had to say, curious about what she thought, unafraid to challenge her opinions or argue for his own, but not overbearing or disrespectful. Peter exuded a humble confidence that the world is in such short supply of these days, and I could tell by the way Peter and Abby spoke that they valued one another in a way that good people should. Sometimes, you just know that two people are right for each other. I know I did, and I gained a son because of it. Now, he’s gone, and I have to admit there’s a big hole in my heart.
It’s a testament to Peter’s diverse interests there are so many things in my daily life that remind me of Peter. Whenever I see somebody wearing a superhero tee-shirt, I think of Peter. If I hear about Toronto’s crazy mayor or the Comic-Con Convention, I think about Peter. Whenever I pass the classics section in a bookstore, Peter’s face comes to mind. I even think about him in the supermarket. There’s a case in the vegetarian section where black bean vegetarian burgers are kept. Peter once assured me that those burgers were very tasty, and I assured him that there was not enough ketchup in the world for me to eat one!
A few days ago, I was writing at the desk in my den when my gaze fell upon the bronze paperweight that Abby and Peter gave out at their wedding last year. The paperweight bears an inscription from a line written by the poet, E. E. Cummings – “Love is the voice under all silences.” As I pondered that inscription, it occurred to me that while Peter’s physical voice has been silenced, the voice behind his love has never been louder. If you allow yourself, you can hear that voice, you can feel it, you can be warmed by it, and it will comfort you for as long as you live!
Thursday, July 24, 2014
ANOTHER BOTCHED EXECUTION
When the state of Utah executed Gary Gilmore by firing squad in 1977, I remember thinking that Utah’s method of putting a capital murderer to death was barbaric and constituted cruel and unusual punishment. A large segment of our society was agreed with this opinion, too. The publicity surrounding Gilmore’s execution fueled an already widespread discussion about alternative methods of imposing the death penalty, and later that year the state of Oklahoma enacted legislation authorizing death by lethal injection. Subsequently, the state of Texas followed suit, and in 1982 became the first state to execute a prisoner using that method. The notion of putting a convict to sleep and then stopping the convict’s heart seemed like a humane way to bring about the prisoner’s death.
A lot has changed since 1982. World-wide, only a handful of countries employ the death penalty, and the multi-national pharmaceutical companies that produce the drugs typically used in the lethal injection process are no longer willing to sell those drugs to American states that still have the death penalty on their books. As a result, those states have had to secure the drugs used in their executions from unregulated compounding pharmacies, and the track record of those pharmacies has been woefully deficient in providing drugs that will bring about a death row inmate’s demise without the cruel and unusual suffering that the Eight Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits.
Yesterday’s botched execution of Joseph Robert Wood III by the state of Arizona was just the latest in a string of gruesome executions conducted by states over the past two years using ineffective drugs secured from compounding pharmacies. Instead of a short, painless procedure that was supposed to take around ten minutes to bring about Wood’s death, Arizona’s procedure took almost two hours, during which time Wood repeatedly gasped for air. When will this kind of torture end?
I believe that state-sanctioned execution of prisoners is wrong and should be eliminated, but barring the elimination of the death penalty, I also believe that a prisoner’s execution should be carried out without torture and in the most painless way possible. In retrospect, Gary Gilmore’s execution by firing squad seems a lot less cruel and barbaric compared to what states have been doing today.
A lot has changed since 1982. World-wide, only a handful of countries employ the death penalty, and the multi-national pharmaceutical companies that produce the drugs typically used in the lethal injection process are no longer willing to sell those drugs to American states that still have the death penalty on their books. As a result, those states have had to secure the drugs used in their executions from unregulated compounding pharmacies, and the track record of those pharmacies has been woefully deficient in providing drugs that will bring about a death row inmate’s demise without the cruel and unusual suffering that the Eight Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits.
Yesterday’s botched execution of Joseph Robert Wood III by the state of Arizona was just the latest in a string of gruesome executions conducted by states over the past two years using ineffective drugs secured from compounding pharmacies. Instead of a short, painless procedure that was supposed to take around ten minutes to bring about Wood’s death, Arizona’s procedure took almost two hours, during which time Wood repeatedly gasped for air. When will this kind of torture end?
I believe that state-sanctioned execution of prisoners is wrong and should be eliminated, but barring the elimination of the death penalty, I also believe that a prisoner’s execution should be carried out without torture and in the most painless way possible. In retrospect, Gary Gilmore’s execution by firing squad seems a lot less cruel and barbaric compared to what states have been doing today.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” ― Sarah Cook
RAPING THE CHILDREN OF CENTRAL AMERICA
You can rape a child for $250 dollars! Maybe that’s an exaggeration. You can probably do it for a lot less at the Texas / Mexico border, and then you can watch the youngster get shipped back to Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras where they are likely to get raped again, or perhaps more humanely, killed by one of those country’s violent drug cartels that prey on youngsters like hawks on mice. If you’re disgusted and repulsed by the notion of paying to rape a child, maybe there’s hope for you, but not if you’re going to turn a blind eye to the calamity that is occurring at our nation’s southern border or the callous indifference a majority of Americans are displaying in refusing to offer a helping hand to thousands of children in desperate need of a safe and nurturing place to live.
The children of Central America are not migrating northward with an instinctual drive for a cooler nesting ground, like Canadian geese in a National Geographic documentary. They are not fueled by a tourist-like desire to see Disneyland. Nobody treks on foot through the desert of death to shake the hand of Mickey Mouse. On the contrary, the children of Central America are chased by violence from the very bosoms and homes that gave them life. They are driven by poverty and starvation and a loss of hope into the unforgiving deserts of northern Mexico. If by chance they find themselves at the edge of the land flowing with milk and honey, they will also face the wrath of God’s American followers, who stand ready to rape their souls with hate and send them home again.
It’s sickening to read about those wealthy passengers in Titanic lifeboats who refused to pluck third class passengers from the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, because they were afraid of what might become of their possessions. It’s unpleasant to think about such cruelty, but cruelty hasn’t changed much since the Titanic went down. In fact, it’s alive and well in America today.
Equally vexing are pompous politicians who thump their chests and declare that all life is sacred. They don’t believe that notion for one moment! Most Americans don’t either, especially when that life originates from Central America and shows up on our nation’s doorstep with an outstretched hand. Nothing turns us off faster than a neighbor in need from the other side of the tracks. In fact, rotting corpses get better treatment from maggots, and at least the maggots are doing a public service, which is more than can be said about Xenophobic Americans and the politicians who are fanning the flames of hatred at our southern borders.
The children of Central America are not migrating northward with an instinctual drive for a cooler nesting ground, like Canadian geese in a National Geographic documentary. They are not fueled by a tourist-like desire to see Disneyland. Nobody treks on foot through the desert of death to shake the hand of Mickey Mouse. On the contrary, the children of Central America are chased by violence from the very bosoms and homes that gave them life. They are driven by poverty and starvation and a loss of hope into the unforgiving deserts of northern Mexico. If by chance they find themselves at the edge of the land flowing with milk and honey, they will also face the wrath of God’s American followers, who stand ready to rape their souls with hate and send them home again.
It’s sickening to read about those wealthy passengers in Titanic lifeboats who refused to pluck third class passengers from the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, because they were afraid of what might become of their possessions. It’s unpleasant to think about such cruelty, but cruelty hasn’t changed much since the Titanic went down. In fact, it’s alive and well in America today.
Equally vexing are pompous politicians who thump their chests and declare that all life is sacred. They don’t believe that notion for one moment! Most Americans don’t either, especially when that life originates from Central America and shows up on our nation’s doorstep with an outstretched hand. Nothing turns us off faster than a neighbor in need from the other side of the tracks. In fact, rotting corpses get better treatment from maggots, and at least the maggots are doing a public service, which is more than can be said about Xenophobic Americans and the politicians who are fanning the flames of hatred at our southern borders.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
ON THE PATH TO CIVIL WAR
The other day I was running errands in my car when I pulled up behind a guy with a bumper sticker on his car that read:
“IMAGINE A WORLD WITH NO LIBERALS ☺”
What drives such hatred? Is it really just ignorance, or a sign of the growing animosity that has poisoned political discourse to the point where another bloody civil war is inevitable?
I wonder how that guy would react to a bumper sticker with this message:
“THE ONLY GOOD CONSERVATIVE IS A DEAD ONE”
You could replace “conservative” with “republican” and make the same point, except that liberals don’t generally resort to the kind of mean-spirited hatred that ultra right-wing conservatives and republicans have adopted as their rallying cry.
A lot of people brush-off the suggestion that another civil war is coming, but I’m starting to think that there are a lot of conservatives and republicans in this country with itchy trigger fingers on their weapons, and after the first shots are fired, there will be a lot of dead liberals bloodying the streets.
I hope civil war doesn’t come, but I wouldn’t bet it won’t.
“IMAGINE A WORLD WITH NO LIBERALS ☺”
What drives such hatred? Is it really just ignorance, or a sign of the growing animosity that has poisoned political discourse to the point where another bloody civil war is inevitable?
I wonder how that guy would react to a bumper sticker with this message:
“THE ONLY GOOD CONSERVATIVE IS A DEAD ONE”
You could replace “conservative” with “republican” and make the same point, except that liberals don’t generally resort to the kind of mean-spirited hatred that ultra right-wing conservatives and republicans have adopted as their rallying cry.
A lot of people brush-off the suggestion that another civil war is coming, but I’m starting to think that there are a lot of conservatives and republicans in this country with itchy trigger fingers on their weapons, and after the first shots are fired, there will be a lot of dead liberals bloodying the streets.
I hope civil war doesn’t come, but I wouldn’t bet it won’t.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
ELLEN WALDECK'S EULOGY
Children’s book author, R. J. Palacio once said,
“...we should be remembered for the things we do. The things we do are the most important things of all. They are more important than what we say or what we look like. The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they've died. They're like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the Pharaohs. Only instead of being made out of stone, they're made out of the memories people have of you. That's why your deeds are like your monuments - built with memories instead of with stone.”
The very first thing Ellen ever did for me was offer me a chair. That was in January, 1976. I was a freshman in college and she was the assistant dean of resident students at Millersville University…well, actually it was Millersville State College back in those days and the tuition was a lot cheaper. I’d just been elected as my dorm’s representative to the Resident Student’s Association and Ellen was the Association’s faculty adviser. When I arrived for my first RSA meeting, Ellen was in the process of assembling a circle of chairs. We introduced ourselves and then she offered me a seat as I waited for the meeting to start. That’s where our friendship began, and during the course of the next thirty-eight years, Ellen continued to offer me a chair, hundreds of lunches, thousands of laughs, an abundance of stimulating conversation, an occasional shoulder to cry on, plenty of helping hands, several dry comments about my choice of girlfriends in college and the best example any person could have, of what it means to have a true friend. That was Ellen’s monument to me!
Ellen was big on “life lessons”…you know, the little things that guide people in everyday life. The first “life lesson” she tossed at me was, “women like men who put the lid down after they’ve used the toilet.” I guess I’d dropped by her apartment and didn’t put the lid down, and Ellen didn’t like that, so she decided a teaching moment was in order and tossed out that tidbit like Aristotle might have done to Plato or one of his other students. The last time I visited with Ellen at Kindred Hospital, we laughed about the fact that I can’t leave a bathroom now without thinking of her and whether I’ve remembered to put the toilet seat down.
Ellen was a learned woman, too, and she felt a great sense of accomplishment when she earned her doctorate degree, though she wasn’t the type to rest on her laurels or make a show of the title she received as a result of her educational accomplishment. But Ellen also had something that doesn’t necessarily come with a doctorate degree, and that was wisdom. William James, a 19th century American philosopher and psychologist, once noted, “The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook,” and Ellen exemplified that kernel of truth in her ability to look past people’s faults and see positive possibilities in others instead concentrating on their negative actions. She once told me about an incident where she had to kick a student out of the dorms for violating the university’s code of student conduct, but then she spent about an hour or so strategizing with the student over how to make other living arrangements to weather the storm. Many administrators would have pointed to the door and simply said “get lost,” but Ellen saw a way to help that student overcome adversity and be successful – that’s wisdom!
Personally, I’ve made my share of mistakes in life, and Ellen would be the first to say, “That was a boner move” whenever I did so, but I never doubted for a second that Ellen had my best interests at heart. That’s why I considered her one of my nearest and dearest friends.
Another thing I thought was remarkable about Ellen was her devotion to family. She took great pride in being a loving wife and mother and sister, and I admired the way she poured every ounce of energy she had into being the best she could be in those roles. Before she met Bob, she frequently lamented that she’d never find love or bear a child, but once she met Bob, those worries just withered away. When Andrew was born, Ellen slid into motherhood like a hand into a glove. Ellen was the President of the Andrew Waldeck fan club, and not a conversation went by where she didn’t toot his horn.
And then, there’s Ellen’s brother, Frank. I wish I had a sister like Frank had…a sister who thought he did no wrong! Given the frailties of human nature, I’m sure that Frank does have some flaws, but in the thirty-eight years I knew Ellen, she never mentioned any…so Frank, don’t ruin it now!
When Ellen was in Kindred Hospital in Havertown awaiting a chance at a transplant, she had a photo of Bob handing on the wall. It was an older photo of Bob…one taken back when you didn’t need a magnifying glass to see the hairs on his head…and his hair was brown…and he had a confident smile on his face…the kind of smile a guy has when he knows he’s got a good thing going. Anyway, I pointed to the photo and asked Ellen what drew her to Bob, and she said that “he was a handsome stud with a warm heart and made her laugh!” Yeah, Bob…she actually used the word “stud!” That’s when I wondered whether she was starting to get demented, too. We had a good belly-laugh over that description. Afterward, she got a bit pensive for a few moments, and then she said that she admired the fact that Bob was always steady and didn’t wilt under fire. She loved the fact that he went out of his way to help people, and was still nice to people who had wronged or slighted him. I didn’t say this to her that afternoon, but those are things I admired about Ellen, and I suppose that’s why Ellen found Bob to be a kindred spirit.
My son-in-law Peter has cancer. He’s been battling it for several years now, but despite battling her own physical ailments, Ellen corresponded with Peter regularly, and my daughter, Abby has frequently said to me that Peter was always very touched by the interest that Ellen showed in him. Her words of wisdom and encouragement were treasured and a source of inspiration. That’s how Ellen touched the lives of others.
After Ellen died, Bob passed on to me a letter Ellen wrote to me, to be delivered after her death. In it, she thanked me for being a life-long friend. She added a few private laughs, and she also reminded me that she shared my belief in an afterlife…and said she’d keep an eye out for me. That was Ellen…always planning. I’m pretty sure she left Bob a “honey do” list that will keep him busy for quite some time.
This past Tuesday afternoon, at precisely 3:40 p.m., I received an email from LinkedIn – that’s a professional social media website where I have a profile listed. The LinkedIn email indicated that somebody had just visited my profile, and if I wanted to know who had done so, I should just click on the link and log in…so I did! Imagine my surprise when that somebody turned out to be Ellen Waldeck…and I have the email here to prove it! The very first thought that popped into my mind was – Ellen hasn’t been gone for a month and already she’s back on the Internet. My next thought was - They say you can’t take it with you, but apparently Ellen found a way to take her tablet. And then a third thought popped into my mind – My son, who works with computers says that anytime a computer gets too hot, its circuits can get fried. So, wherever Ellen is, if she’s using her tablet, it must be a cool place! That’s comforting to know.
John M. Simmons, author of the “The Marvelous Journey Home,” noted in his book that “Friends come into our lives and friends leave our lives. But friends never leave our hearts. And best friends always get to stay in the best places in our hearts.”
I feel sad that Ellen has died, but Ellen is still in one of the good places in my heart, hopefully with a good supply of oxygen at hand, and I will always be better because of it. If she’s at home there, I am, too.
“...we should be remembered for the things we do. The things we do are the most important things of all. They are more important than what we say or what we look like. The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they've died. They're like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the Pharaohs. Only instead of being made out of stone, they're made out of the memories people have of you. That's why your deeds are like your monuments - built with memories instead of with stone.”
The very first thing Ellen ever did for me was offer me a chair. That was in January, 1976. I was a freshman in college and she was the assistant dean of resident students at Millersville University…well, actually it was Millersville State College back in those days and the tuition was a lot cheaper. I’d just been elected as my dorm’s representative to the Resident Student’s Association and Ellen was the Association’s faculty adviser. When I arrived for my first RSA meeting, Ellen was in the process of assembling a circle of chairs. We introduced ourselves and then she offered me a seat as I waited for the meeting to start. That’s where our friendship began, and during the course of the next thirty-eight years, Ellen continued to offer me a chair, hundreds of lunches, thousands of laughs, an abundance of stimulating conversation, an occasional shoulder to cry on, plenty of helping hands, several dry comments about my choice of girlfriends in college and the best example any person could have, of what it means to have a true friend. That was Ellen’s monument to me!
Ellen was big on “life lessons”…you know, the little things that guide people in everyday life. The first “life lesson” she tossed at me was, “women like men who put the lid down after they’ve used the toilet.” I guess I’d dropped by her apartment and didn’t put the lid down, and Ellen didn’t like that, so she decided a teaching moment was in order and tossed out that tidbit like Aristotle might have done to Plato or one of his other students. The last time I visited with Ellen at Kindred Hospital, we laughed about the fact that I can’t leave a bathroom now without thinking of her and whether I’ve remembered to put the toilet seat down.
Ellen was a learned woman, too, and she felt a great sense of accomplishment when she earned her doctorate degree, though she wasn’t the type to rest on her laurels or make a show of the title she received as a result of her educational accomplishment. But Ellen also had something that doesn’t necessarily come with a doctorate degree, and that was wisdom. William James, a 19th century American philosopher and psychologist, once noted, “The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook,” and Ellen exemplified that kernel of truth in her ability to look past people’s faults and see positive possibilities in others instead concentrating on their negative actions. She once told me about an incident where she had to kick a student out of the dorms for violating the university’s code of student conduct, but then she spent about an hour or so strategizing with the student over how to make other living arrangements to weather the storm. Many administrators would have pointed to the door and simply said “get lost,” but Ellen saw a way to help that student overcome adversity and be successful – that’s wisdom!
Personally, I’ve made my share of mistakes in life, and Ellen would be the first to say, “That was a boner move” whenever I did so, but I never doubted for a second that Ellen had my best interests at heart. That’s why I considered her one of my nearest and dearest friends.
Another thing I thought was remarkable about Ellen was her devotion to family. She took great pride in being a loving wife and mother and sister, and I admired the way she poured every ounce of energy she had into being the best she could be in those roles. Before she met Bob, she frequently lamented that she’d never find love or bear a child, but once she met Bob, those worries just withered away. When Andrew was born, Ellen slid into motherhood like a hand into a glove. Ellen was the President of the Andrew Waldeck fan club, and not a conversation went by where she didn’t toot his horn.
And then, there’s Ellen’s brother, Frank. I wish I had a sister like Frank had…a sister who thought he did no wrong! Given the frailties of human nature, I’m sure that Frank does have some flaws, but in the thirty-eight years I knew Ellen, she never mentioned any…so Frank, don’t ruin it now!
When Ellen was in Kindred Hospital in Havertown awaiting a chance at a transplant, she had a photo of Bob handing on the wall. It was an older photo of Bob…one taken back when you didn’t need a magnifying glass to see the hairs on his head…and his hair was brown…and he had a confident smile on his face…the kind of smile a guy has when he knows he’s got a good thing going. Anyway, I pointed to the photo and asked Ellen what drew her to Bob, and she said that “he was a handsome stud with a warm heart and made her laugh!” Yeah, Bob…she actually used the word “stud!” That’s when I wondered whether she was starting to get demented, too. We had a good belly-laugh over that description. Afterward, she got a bit pensive for a few moments, and then she said that she admired the fact that Bob was always steady and didn’t wilt under fire. She loved the fact that he went out of his way to help people, and was still nice to people who had wronged or slighted him. I didn’t say this to her that afternoon, but those are things I admired about Ellen, and I suppose that’s why Ellen found Bob to be a kindred spirit.
My son-in-law Peter has cancer. He’s been battling it for several years now, but despite battling her own physical ailments, Ellen corresponded with Peter regularly, and my daughter, Abby has frequently said to me that Peter was always very touched by the interest that Ellen showed in him. Her words of wisdom and encouragement were treasured and a source of inspiration. That’s how Ellen touched the lives of others.
After Ellen died, Bob passed on to me a letter Ellen wrote to me, to be delivered after her death. In it, she thanked me for being a life-long friend. She added a few private laughs, and she also reminded me that she shared my belief in an afterlife…and said she’d keep an eye out for me. That was Ellen…always planning. I’m pretty sure she left Bob a “honey do” list that will keep him busy for quite some time.
This past Tuesday afternoon, at precisely 3:40 p.m., I received an email from LinkedIn – that’s a professional social media website where I have a profile listed. The LinkedIn email indicated that somebody had just visited my profile, and if I wanted to know who had done so, I should just click on the link and log in…so I did! Imagine my surprise when that somebody turned out to be Ellen Waldeck…and I have the email here to prove it! The very first thought that popped into my mind was – Ellen hasn’t been gone for a month and already she’s back on the Internet. My next thought was - They say you can’t take it with you, but apparently Ellen found a way to take her tablet. And then a third thought popped into my mind – My son, who works with computers says that anytime a computer gets too hot, its circuits can get fried. So, wherever Ellen is, if she’s using her tablet, it must be a cool place! That’s comforting to know.
John M. Simmons, author of the “The Marvelous Journey Home,” noted in his book that “Friends come into our lives and friends leave our lives. But friends never leave our hearts. And best friends always get to stay in the best places in our hearts.”
I feel sad that Ellen has died, but Ellen is still in one of the good places in my heart, hopefully with a good supply of oxygen at hand, and I will always be better because of it. If she’s at home there, I am, too.
Monday, June 16, 2014
POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER IS EVERY BIT A CAUALTY OF WAR
If a wartime bullet hits a soldier’s brain, there would never be any question that the soldier’s injury was a casualty of war. If the shock wave from an exploding bomb blew out a soldier’s eardrum, nobody would contest that the soldier’s loss of hearing was a casualty of combat. Why is it then, that servicemen and women who march off to combat and stand ready to sacrifice life and limb for their country, must have their injury questioned when that injury is a mental one? Have we no shame as a country, that we would turn our backs on those who defend our liberty simply because we cannot see their pain? It’s a truly sad day if that’s the case. PTSD is just as deadly a killer as a bullet fired by a rife, and the mental injury it can inflict is just as painful and debilitating. War is hell, and hell is gruesome and bloody and shocking in its depravity, and those conditions injure even the strongest of psyches. It’s about time we all recognize that fact and step-up to help our mentally wounded warriors. They’ve all earned and deserve it!
Friday, February 14, 2014
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY
There are millions of people around the globe who share their love in an endless variety of ways without the hoopla or fanfare that the whole Valentine's Day celebration entails. Don't get me wrong. I love Valentine's Day. I'm a romantic at heart and appreciate the sentiment of the season, but I feel a bit sad that everyone who shares their love doesn't always get that love returned. So, to all those individuals out there who aren't feeling the love today, know this: Somebody is thinking of you. Happy Valentine's Day!
Thursday, February 13, 2014
DOING THE RIGHT THING
The other day I had a conversation with a woman I know who works in a service industry. Tips are part of her income. We got on the subject of income tax returns, and that’s when she acknowledged that she seldom reported any of her tips to the government when it came time to file her taxes. I didn’t press her on the subject, because I know she struggles financially and I figured that it was none of my business, but then she offered an unapologetic justification for her deception – all those lazy people collecting food stamps, and that’s when she got the same sermon I’m issuing here.
Do the right thing, and stop worrying about what everybody else is doing!
There’s a well-known adage that character is defined by what you do when nobody else is looking, and there’s no better time for testing character than when people file their income tax returns. Most filers assume the government will not look too closely at them, and odds are that’s true, but whether or not the government will audit a person’s return should never be the issue. If a person has character and is doing the right thing when nobody is watching, it won’t matter whether the government audits a tax return or not.
I asked the woman I described earlier whether she would feel comfortable blaming lazy people collecting food stamps if an I.R.S. auditor wanted an explanation for why she didn’t report her tips as income.
“No,” the woman replied, as if my question was a stupid one, and then she repeated her assertion that she was entitled to rip off the system, because others (at least in her mind) were doing it too.
At that point, I pressed further and asked the woman what she intended to tell an I.R.S. auditor was her reason for filing a fraudulent return.
“Fraudulent return,” she huffed. “You make it sound like I’m a crook or something.”
I then pointed out that filing a false tax return was a crime, but she dismissed my point without giving it much thought.
“They’re not going to care about my tax return,” she said. “If they do, I’ll figure out what to say later.” That was the end of that conversation!
When people don’t want to do the right thing, they know what they’re doing is wrong, but they frequently have a handy justification (again, at least in their mind) that excuses their wrongdoing. Really, it’s just a form of self-delusion, because even the woman I just describes knows in her heart how stupid it would sound to tell an I.R.S. auditor that she lied on her taxes because there are lazy people collecting food stamps. The food stamp excuse is just what helps her sleep at night.
People with character don’t lie on their tax returns. That’s because those who live their lives determined to maintain character don’t have to worry about doing the right thing. It’s automatic for them.
Do the right thing, and stop worrying about what everybody else is doing!
There’s a well-known adage that character is defined by what you do when nobody else is looking, and there’s no better time for testing character than when people file their income tax returns. Most filers assume the government will not look too closely at them, and odds are that’s true, but whether or not the government will audit a person’s return should never be the issue. If a person has character and is doing the right thing when nobody is watching, it won’t matter whether the government audits a tax return or not.
I asked the woman I described earlier whether she would feel comfortable blaming lazy people collecting food stamps if an I.R.S. auditor wanted an explanation for why she didn’t report her tips as income.
“No,” the woman replied, as if my question was a stupid one, and then she repeated her assertion that she was entitled to rip off the system, because others (at least in her mind) were doing it too.
At that point, I pressed further and asked the woman what she intended to tell an I.R.S. auditor was her reason for filing a fraudulent return.
“Fraudulent return,” she huffed. “You make it sound like I’m a crook or something.”
I then pointed out that filing a false tax return was a crime, but she dismissed my point without giving it much thought.
“They’re not going to care about my tax return,” she said. “If they do, I’ll figure out what to say later.” That was the end of that conversation!
When people don’t want to do the right thing, they know what they’re doing is wrong, but they frequently have a handy justification (again, at least in their mind) that excuses their wrongdoing. Really, it’s just a form of self-delusion, because even the woman I just describes knows in her heart how stupid it would sound to tell an I.R.S. auditor that she lied on her taxes because there are lazy people collecting food stamps. The food stamp excuse is just what helps her sleep at night.
People with character don’t lie on their tax returns. That’s because those who live their lives determined to maintain character don’t have to worry about doing the right thing. It’s automatic for them.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE A.A.R.P.
Dear A.A.R.P. (American Association of Retired Persons),
Stop sending me membership application forms! You’ve already spent the cost of one year’s membership on postage stamps these past twelve months and I still haven’t joined your ranks, which means you’ve got nothing to show for all your postal efforts. It would have been better had you simply offered me a free year’s membership. At least then, after I reaped all the rewards of membership for a full year, I’d have felt a little guilty about not joining and probably signed up to alleviate my shame. As it is, all you’re doing is clogging up my paper shredder with those damn little glue balls that hold your membership cards to the solicitation letter. Whenever that happens, I have to waste an hour cleaning out the shredder. To say that’s aggravating is an understatement. It certainly doesn’t improve your chances of getting me to shell out money to join an “old geezer” club.
You can also stop trying to bribe me with a free tote bag. I’ve got so many tote bags collecting dust in the basement that I could probably start my own organization and give out free memberships AND free tote bags to boot! I’ll bet I could get more first-time members to join than you can.
FYI…totes as bribes don’t work. Have you ever read about somebody going to jail because they tried to bribe a politician with a tote (unless it’s filled with money)? Of course not, and you’ve never seen a politician go to prison because he or she accepted a free tote either. A plane ride, maybe; or perhaps a free lunch at a swanky restaurant, but never just a tote. It takes more than a cheaply constructed piece of canvas to influence people with money and power these days, and a free tote just won’t cut it.
While I’m on a roll here, could you please stop trying to get me to enroll in supplemental health insurance? I’m already covered by two carriers, and they’re both always hounding me over who should have to pay my medical bills first. You’d think that having two medical insurance policies would be a good thing, but if you’ve ever had the displeasure of being caught between two warring women, I think you’ll appreciate what kind of mayhem I’m talking about. The last thing I need is a supplemental policy creating more havoc in my life.
Also, I’m tired of getting AARP-endorsed life insurance policy applications. Could you stop sending those, too? The application that arrived in yesterday’s mail said that nobody would be rejected, but then it asked whether I’d ever been treated for a host of problems, and I would have had to check five of the seven boxes had I been inclined to apply. We both know that would have resulted in sky-high premiums and a two or three year waiver of benefits. Why bother buying a life insurance policy that won’t pay for a death caused by the very thing that my doctor says is most likely to kill me? It seems like a colossal waste of money if you ask me.
Ditto goes for the funeral insurance applications. I don’t even open those letters anymore. I toss them directly into the shredder, now that I know they don’t contain any of those nasty glue balls. Plus, I’m not worrying about funeral expenses. My family doesn’t worry either. My township has large item pick-up every Thursday, so the plan is to put me out in a large trash bag and have the waste guys haul me away. I know that’s kind of cheap, but dead is dead and there’s nothing a funeral insurance policy is going to do to rectify that situation.
In summary, I think your time and postage would be better spent on somebody without my jaded view of club membership and insurance. They say another sucker is born every minute, so you shouldn’t have far to look.
Sincerely,
Steven G. Zorbaugh
Stop sending me membership application forms! You’ve already spent the cost of one year’s membership on postage stamps these past twelve months and I still haven’t joined your ranks, which means you’ve got nothing to show for all your postal efforts. It would have been better had you simply offered me a free year’s membership. At least then, after I reaped all the rewards of membership for a full year, I’d have felt a little guilty about not joining and probably signed up to alleviate my shame. As it is, all you’re doing is clogging up my paper shredder with those damn little glue balls that hold your membership cards to the solicitation letter. Whenever that happens, I have to waste an hour cleaning out the shredder. To say that’s aggravating is an understatement. It certainly doesn’t improve your chances of getting me to shell out money to join an “old geezer” club.
You can also stop trying to bribe me with a free tote bag. I’ve got so many tote bags collecting dust in the basement that I could probably start my own organization and give out free memberships AND free tote bags to boot! I’ll bet I could get more first-time members to join than you can.
FYI…totes as bribes don’t work. Have you ever read about somebody going to jail because they tried to bribe a politician with a tote (unless it’s filled with money)? Of course not, and you’ve never seen a politician go to prison because he or she accepted a free tote either. A plane ride, maybe; or perhaps a free lunch at a swanky restaurant, but never just a tote. It takes more than a cheaply constructed piece of canvas to influence people with money and power these days, and a free tote just won’t cut it.
While I’m on a roll here, could you please stop trying to get me to enroll in supplemental health insurance? I’m already covered by two carriers, and they’re both always hounding me over who should have to pay my medical bills first. You’d think that having two medical insurance policies would be a good thing, but if you’ve ever had the displeasure of being caught between two warring women, I think you’ll appreciate what kind of mayhem I’m talking about. The last thing I need is a supplemental policy creating more havoc in my life.
Also, I’m tired of getting AARP-endorsed life insurance policy applications. Could you stop sending those, too? The application that arrived in yesterday’s mail said that nobody would be rejected, but then it asked whether I’d ever been treated for a host of problems, and I would have had to check five of the seven boxes had I been inclined to apply. We both know that would have resulted in sky-high premiums and a two or three year waiver of benefits. Why bother buying a life insurance policy that won’t pay for a death caused by the very thing that my doctor says is most likely to kill me? It seems like a colossal waste of money if you ask me.
Ditto goes for the funeral insurance applications. I don’t even open those letters anymore. I toss them directly into the shredder, now that I know they don’t contain any of those nasty glue balls. Plus, I’m not worrying about funeral expenses. My family doesn’t worry either. My township has large item pick-up every Thursday, so the plan is to put me out in a large trash bag and have the waste guys haul me away. I know that’s kind of cheap, but dead is dead and there’s nothing a funeral insurance policy is going to do to rectify that situation.
In summary, I think your time and postage would be better spent on somebody without my jaded view of club membership and insurance. They say another sucker is born every minute, so you shouldn’t have far to look.
Sincerely,
Steven G. Zorbaugh
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
THE SCHADENFREUDE MOMENTS THAT SURROUND US
Schadenfreude is the term used to describe the gaining of pleasure from another person’s misfortune. It’s not something I think people should boast about, yet there are times when an event gives rise to a shadenfreude moment and I want to cheer anyway, despite the fact that I know my jubilation came at the expense of someone else’s pain.
Take the Olympics, for example. When an American Olympian is on the cusp of winning a medal, and there is only one other athlete who can displace that American, it’s hard not to cheer when that last contender fails and my fellow American’s medal spot is secure. I know that last contender is feeling the agony of defeat, and yet it’s hard to suppress the happiness I feel about our own Olympian’s victory.
A similar feeling arose yesterday as I was reading accounts of the twenty-one Iraqi militant recruits who died when a bomb accidentally exploded at a bomb-making class they were attending. The recruits were part of an Iraqi al-Qaeda splinter group that’s been carrying out suicide bombing all across Iraq in an effort to destabilize that nation’s government. It’s hard not to celebrate the fact that hundreds of Iraqi citizens will live longer lives because those twenty-one dead recruits won’t be causing any more murder and mayhem, but those recruits also had families, and I have to think those families are suffering grief at the news of their loved one’s demise. It would appear that schadenfreude moments are frequently more complex than we realize.
Take the Olympics, for example. When an American Olympian is on the cusp of winning a medal, and there is only one other athlete who can displace that American, it’s hard not to cheer when that last contender fails and my fellow American’s medal spot is secure. I know that last contender is feeling the agony of defeat, and yet it’s hard to suppress the happiness I feel about our own Olympian’s victory.
A similar feeling arose yesterday as I was reading accounts of the twenty-one Iraqi militant recruits who died when a bomb accidentally exploded at a bomb-making class they were attending. The recruits were part of an Iraqi al-Qaeda splinter group that’s been carrying out suicide bombing all across Iraq in an effort to destabilize that nation’s government. It’s hard not to celebrate the fact that hundreds of Iraqi citizens will live longer lives because those twenty-one dead recruits won’t be causing any more murder and mayhem, but those recruits also had families, and I have to think those families are suffering grief at the news of their loved one’s demise. It would appear that schadenfreude moments are frequently more complex than we realize.
WARNING: CHICK FLICKS PROHIBITED
This is the Wikipedia definition of the term, Chick Flick:
--A slang term for a film genre mainly dealing with love and romance and designed to appeal to a largely female target audience. Although many types of films may be directed toward the female gender, "chick-flick" is typically used only in reference to films that are heavy with emotion or contain themes that are relationship-based (although not necessarily romantic as many other themes may be present). Chick-flicks often are released en masse around Valentine's Day.
With Valentine’s Day approaching, and men everywhere trying to figure out what kind of gift will keep them out of trouble with their wives or girlfriends, and show the true depth of their affection, I feel obligated to offer a bit of practical advice on the matter. Do not, under any circumstances, buy your sweetheart a chick flick!
I am not an unsympathetic fellow. I know that seventy bucks for a dozen roses is highway robbery, especially when you could probably swipe a dozen at a local cemetery for next to nothing, assuming you don’t get caught. I also realize that the five-dollar chick-flick display at Target is very tempting. That’s why those displays are carefully set up at the check-out line, where 99.9% of impulse buy decisions occur. Still, it’s Valentine’s Day we’re talking about here, so show some backbone. Man up!
I can practically guarantee that if you buy your beloved a chick flick, she will insist that you watch it with her, and she will do so at the most inopportune time, like the middle of the March Madness finals or on a Saturday night when Spike TV is hosting a Chuck Norris marathon. You’ll also have to cuddle on the couch while you’re both watching the movie, and then have to stealthily wipe your eyes with your shirt sleeve at the end of the flick because you’re not man enough to ask for a tissue. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Did you read that part of the chick flick definition that talked about relationship-based themes? If not, go back and re-read the first paragraph. It’s important – damn important. The reason it’s important is that chick flicks are all like measuring sticks…and the sad truth is, there’s not a man walking on this planet who can measure up to the buff, good-looking, sensitive guy who’s winning the heart of a chick flick’s main character. Do you really want your partner comparing you to the handsome hunk on the screen and thinking that she got the short end of the stick? She’s too kind to admit that aloud, but that’s what’s going on in her mind, and now that you know what she’ll be thinking, you’ll feel even worse.
That’s also not the end of your pain. After watching the chick flick, your honey is going to want you to start acting kind and sensitive too, like opting to watch whatever is on the Hallmark channel instead of that cage fighting special on Spike TV or the Swamp People on Animal Planet. The next thing you know, you’ll be pouring glasses of wine instead of opening a beer and lighting candles instead of firing off M-80s in the back yard. That’s a fact!
Plus, chick flicks don’t die like roses do. A rose will be gone in a week, and then you won’t have to pretend to be the guy in the flick who never belches, never farts, never picks his nose and never scratches his arm pits. Chick flicks, on the other hand, can be viewed repeatedly, which is like having the same nightmare every night for an entire month. Then, five years from now, when your sweetheart is holding a yard sale and that chick flick is in the “50 cents take your pick” box, everybody in your neighborhood will know what a lame guy you are, and all your Monday night football buddies will be laughing behind your back. I hope what I’m telling you is sinking in – whatever you do, don’t buy a chick flick!
There are many perfectly acceptable gift options for Valentine’s Day to choose from. Roses, jewelry, perfume and candy top the list. The newest “must-have” designer handbag is also an option, but that can set a precedence you might not want to establish…just saying. Even a night out at her favorite restaurant is a good choice. Oh, and don’t forget the card. That’s important, too. Just remember one thing…no chick flicks!
If you ignore my advice, don’t come crying to me later or say I didn’t warned you.
--A slang term for a film genre mainly dealing with love and romance and designed to appeal to a largely female target audience. Although many types of films may be directed toward the female gender, "chick-flick" is typically used only in reference to films that are heavy with emotion or contain themes that are relationship-based (although not necessarily romantic as many other themes may be present). Chick-flicks often are released en masse around Valentine's Day.
With Valentine’s Day approaching, and men everywhere trying to figure out what kind of gift will keep them out of trouble with their wives or girlfriends, and show the true depth of their affection, I feel obligated to offer a bit of practical advice on the matter. Do not, under any circumstances, buy your sweetheart a chick flick!
I am not an unsympathetic fellow. I know that seventy bucks for a dozen roses is highway robbery, especially when you could probably swipe a dozen at a local cemetery for next to nothing, assuming you don’t get caught. I also realize that the five-dollar chick-flick display at Target is very tempting. That’s why those displays are carefully set up at the check-out line, where 99.9% of impulse buy decisions occur. Still, it’s Valentine’s Day we’re talking about here, so show some backbone. Man up!
I can practically guarantee that if you buy your beloved a chick flick, she will insist that you watch it with her, and she will do so at the most inopportune time, like the middle of the March Madness finals or on a Saturday night when Spike TV is hosting a Chuck Norris marathon. You’ll also have to cuddle on the couch while you’re both watching the movie, and then have to stealthily wipe your eyes with your shirt sleeve at the end of the flick because you’re not man enough to ask for a tissue. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Did you read that part of the chick flick definition that talked about relationship-based themes? If not, go back and re-read the first paragraph. It’s important – damn important. The reason it’s important is that chick flicks are all like measuring sticks…and the sad truth is, there’s not a man walking on this planet who can measure up to the buff, good-looking, sensitive guy who’s winning the heart of a chick flick’s main character. Do you really want your partner comparing you to the handsome hunk on the screen and thinking that she got the short end of the stick? She’s too kind to admit that aloud, but that’s what’s going on in her mind, and now that you know what she’ll be thinking, you’ll feel even worse.
That’s also not the end of your pain. After watching the chick flick, your honey is going to want you to start acting kind and sensitive too, like opting to watch whatever is on the Hallmark channel instead of that cage fighting special on Spike TV or the Swamp People on Animal Planet. The next thing you know, you’ll be pouring glasses of wine instead of opening a beer and lighting candles instead of firing off M-80s in the back yard. That’s a fact!
Plus, chick flicks don’t die like roses do. A rose will be gone in a week, and then you won’t have to pretend to be the guy in the flick who never belches, never farts, never picks his nose and never scratches his arm pits. Chick flicks, on the other hand, can be viewed repeatedly, which is like having the same nightmare every night for an entire month. Then, five years from now, when your sweetheart is holding a yard sale and that chick flick is in the “50 cents take your pick” box, everybody in your neighborhood will know what a lame guy you are, and all your Monday night football buddies will be laughing behind your back. I hope what I’m telling you is sinking in – whatever you do, don’t buy a chick flick!
There are many perfectly acceptable gift options for Valentine’s Day to choose from. Roses, jewelry, perfume and candy top the list. The newest “must-have” designer handbag is also an option, but that can set a precedence you might not want to establish…just saying. Even a night out at her favorite restaurant is a good choice. Oh, and don’t forget the card. That’s important, too. Just remember one thing…no chick flicks!
If you ignore my advice, don’t come crying to me later or say I didn’t warned you.
Monday, February 10, 2014
CHANGING THE WORLD, ONE BORROWER AT A TIME
I’m a big fan of the micro-lending movement and recommend KIVA.org as a great place for people to get started in this philanthropic endeavor. Micro-lending is not a money-making enterprise. It’s a way to help less fortunate people all over the world to improve their own lives by giving them access to a source for borrowing money. It’s also a way for those who are better off to achieve a wider reach in their endeavor to make the world a better place to live. KIVA.org connects lenders with borrowers. All it takes is a person's desire to lend a helping hand!
ANOTHER CONSPIRACY FOR THE AGES
There are news reports coming out of Russia that Dutch speed skater, Ireen Wust has become the first openly gay athlete to win a gold medal at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games. She supposedly won the 3000 meter women’s speed-skating competition, but let’s face it, according to Sochi mayor Anatoly Pakhomov, there are no gays in Sochi, so it’s highly dubious that a Wust victory actually took place!
What is more likely is that NBC and other world-wide media outlets “photo-shopped” Wust’s face onto a video of an Olympic speed-skating competition and then, I guess at the behest of some secret, all powerful global gay society, declared her the gold medal winner of the 3,000 meter event.
There’s more proof of this conspiracy, too. A couple of media outlets showed an obviously doctored video clip of Wust shaking the hands of a youngster in a crowd of well-wishers, and she wasn’t immediately arrested by Russian police. That couldn’t have happened, because Russian President Putin decreed that no gay person could touch a child, and anybody who dares to challenge Putin in Russia immediately get’s arrested. Wust still isn’t in shackles, so you know that handshake couldn’t have happened the way the media portrayed it. I rest my case.
Next up…Rand Paul is a closet cross-dresser.
A LICENSE TO NOT SAVE THE WORLD
On my way home from dropping off my daughter at school this morning, I saw a bumper sticker that read: Jesus Came To Save The World, So We Don’t Have To!
I get the gist of that bumper sticker, from a popular, born-again, evangelical Christian point of view. It’s not a religious outlook I agree with, but I understand the theology it’s meant to propagate. Still, I find the message on that bumper sticker to be quite troubling, because it implicitly relieves mankind of the obligation to save the world.
Can one man or one woman save the world? No. Can a group of men or women collectively solve all of humanity’s problems? Certainly not, and yet I just can’t shirk the feeling that there’s something terribly wrong with not making an attempt. I know I can’t save the world all by myself, but it seems like a total waste of time and talent to accept failure without at least trying.
It’s hard for me to imagine that a guy like Jesus, who was such an ardent champion for the downtrodden and outcasts, would have wanted his name attached to a belief system that eliminated the need for believers to look out for their neighbors in need. I find it difficult to believe that a man, who would urge his followers to take up their crosses as the price of fellowship, meant that the rest of us could hop onto the train to Paradise without bearing a portion of the price of admission. It doesn’t make any sense.
On the other hand, I can appreciate why born-again, evangelical Christians are smiling. A belief system that provides all the riches eternity has to offer, in exchange for a simple “I believe,” has got to be the best deal in town. What’s not to like about “all gain, no pain?” An offer like that is pretty darn hard to pass up.
Maybe I’m missing something, but doesn’t all that sound like a divine form of welfare? Aren’t born-again Christians taking advantage of a system by sitting back, collecting all the rewards of so-called heaven without working or carrying their own weight? Aren’t Christians being a bit lazy by not trying to save the world, but instead waiting on a God to do it for them? It seems to me that such a Christian viewpoint includes all the evils that those same Christians use to describe our Nation’s welfare system. Is what’s good for the goose not good for the gander?
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
AN EMPTY LOT
Traditionally, on the eve of a giant winter snowstorm, supermarkets are mobbed with shoppers buying milk, bread and eggs to see them through the storm. That’s because it’s considered unwise to be unprepared for the possibility of being trapped at home for a few days. Nobody wants to run out of food in the middle of a blizzard, or God forbid, have to live off the fat we Americans have a propensity for storing at various places on our bodies. My own nightmare would consist of having to subsist on oatmeal for a day or two.
This past Sunday, weather forecasters predicted that York would get somewhere between five and eight inches of snow on Monday, which turned out to be an accurate forecast. That’s why I made a trek to the grocery store on Sunday night. I was expecting to battle a hoard of pre-storm shoppers, but was pleasantly greeted by an empty parking lot instead. The scene was almost eerie. The grocery store was brightly lit, and an icy sheen on the pavement outside reflected the soft orange glow of the lights in the parking lot. One car was parked in a handicap space, but the lot was mostly empty, except for a cluster of snow-covered cars parked about a hundred yards from the store – presumably the vehicles belonging to grocery store employees. It was 7 p.m., but the scene looked more like the middle of the night.
There are two words that explain that phenomenon: super & bowl!
After collecting all the groceries I needed, I asked the clerk in the check-out aisle whether business was booming earlier that afternoon. She said it was no different than the usual Sunday traffic. Go figure! Apparently, few people shop for groceries during the Super Bowl, even when the game takes place on the eve of a giant winter snowstorm. Live and learn.
This past Sunday, weather forecasters predicted that York would get somewhere between five and eight inches of snow on Monday, which turned out to be an accurate forecast. That’s why I made a trek to the grocery store on Sunday night. I was expecting to battle a hoard of pre-storm shoppers, but was pleasantly greeted by an empty parking lot instead. The scene was almost eerie. The grocery store was brightly lit, and an icy sheen on the pavement outside reflected the soft orange glow of the lights in the parking lot. One car was parked in a handicap space, but the lot was mostly empty, except for a cluster of snow-covered cars parked about a hundred yards from the store – presumably the vehicles belonging to grocery store employees. It was 7 p.m., but the scene looked more like the middle of the night.
There are two words that explain that phenomenon: super & bowl!
After collecting all the groceries I needed, I asked the clerk in the check-out aisle whether business was booming earlier that afternoon. She said it was no different than the usual Sunday traffic. Go figure! Apparently, few people shop for groceries during the Super Bowl, even when the game takes place on the eve of a giant winter snowstorm. Live and learn.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
ONE PUBLIC DEATH MASKS A THOUSAND PRIVATE ONES
Oscar winning actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his New York City apartment this past Sunday morning, apparently of a drug overdose. Various media outlets are reporting that Hoffman had fifty bags of heroin in his possession when he died. That’s a lot of heroin for a drug user, and if the reports are true, it’s no wonder the drug killed him. Heroin is an extremely dangerous drug and it only takes one hit for some people to die from it. Shooting heroin is as close to playing Russian-Roulette as a person can come without having a gun or a bullet.
One thing that bothers me when a famous celebrity dies of a drug overdose is the amount of news coverage the tragic event seems to garner. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the public mourning the loss of a gifted individual, but I worry that people (especially the younger crowd) will fall victim to the belief that only famous celebrities and really rich people die of drug overdoses. In fact, just the opposite is true. Most drug overdose victims are people with outwardly normal lives who get caught up in the tentacles of drug use and can’t find a way to extricate themselves from its clutches. We don’t usually see the details of their drug use in the papers. We just see their obituaries and the names of the mourning family members they leave in their wake.
One thing that bothers me when a famous celebrity dies of a drug overdose is the amount of news coverage the tragic event seems to garner. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the public mourning the loss of a gifted individual, but I worry that people (especially the younger crowd) will fall victim to the belief that only famous celebrities and really rich people die of drug overdoses. In fact, just the opposite is true. Most drug overdose victims are people with outwardly normal lives who get caught up in the tentacles of drug use and can’t find a way to extricate themselves from its clutches. We don’t usually see the details of their drug use in the papers. We just see their obituaries and the names of the mourning family members they leave in their wake.
Monday, February 3, 2014
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why the Salt Lake City School District has suspended a cafeteria manager and a district supervisor over the flap that occurred after school lunches were taken away from a group of students whose cafeteria bills were in arrears. Was it because the lunches were thrown into the trash or was it because the incident cast the school district in a bad light? Was it because those in charge publicly humiliated a group of students or because it’s wrong to deprive any child of food? Tell me, please! Why?
I ask these questions because, just last week, as Salt Lake City students were having school personnel take away their food, millions of kids all across America were having food taken off their plates by Congress, and I haven’t heard that anybody in Congress got suspended. Nor have I heard the sort of public outcry that the Salt Lake City incident generated.
What am I talking about? Well, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a farm bill last week that takes nine billion dollars worth of food, in the form of food stamps, off the tables of millions of school children over the next ten years. That same bill also makes large cuts in the federal school lunch and school breakfast programs. Where’s the ruckus? Where’s the demand for Congressional heads? Is it really acceptable to starve a kid so long as it’s done without public humiliation?
And where’s the “pro life crowd” in all this mess? Where are their chants about the sanctity of human life? Why should it be a crime to prevent a fetus from being born, but not to starve a child once it’s here? That is, after all, what the food stamp program is designed to prevent, isn’t it?
I ask these questions because, just last week, as Salt Lake City students were having school personnel take away their food, millions of kids all across America were having food taken off their plates by Congress, and I haven’t heard that anybody in Congress got suspended. Nor have I heard the sort of public outcry that the Salt Lake City incident generated.
What am I talking about? Well, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a farm bill last week that takes nine billion dollars worth of food, in the form of food stamps, off the tables of millions of school children over the next ten years. That same bill also makes large cuts in the federal school lunch and school breakfast programs. Where’s the ruckus? Where’s the demand for Congressional heads? Is it really acceptable to starve a kid so long as it’s done without public humiliation?
And where’s the “pro life crowd” in all this mess? Where are their chants about the sanctity of human life? Why should it be a crime to prevent a fetus from being born, but not to starve a child once it’s here? That is, after all, what the food stamp program is designed to prevent, isn’t it?
Sunday, February 2, 2014
MOTHER NATURE ON THE MARCH
Europe is solidly ensconced in a deep freeze. Australia bakes in a 120 degree oven. California, Nevada and Arizona are thirsting for rain amidst their worst drought in over two hundred years. So is western China, where once hearty glass lands have turned to vast arid deserts. Homes in America’s southern states are blanketed by ice and snow. Balmy Atlanta had a wind-chill factor of minus ten. Glaciers around the world are melting at records paces. Alaska sees its warmest winter on record. Rising ocean levels are slowly wiping tiny South Pacific island nations off the map. Despite what climate change naysayers proclaim, Mother Nature’s on the march, and we only have our self to blame.
Reports issued at the 50th UN Security Conference currently being held in Munich, Germany document that climate change is the greatest worldwide threat facing mankind today. Moreover, the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community is that climate change is a direct result of emissions generated by mankind’s use of fossil fuels and the production of other greenhouse gases. The days for sticking one’s head in the sand are over. If mankind does not change course before it’s too late, our world is in for a rude awakening.
Reports issued at the 50th UN Security Conference currently being held in Munich, Germany document that climate change is the greatest worldwide threat facing mankind today. Moreover, the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community is that climate change is a direct result of emissions generated by mankind’s use of fossil fuels and the production of other greenhouse gases. The days for sticking one’s head in the sand are over. If mankind does not change course before it’s too late, our world is in for a rude awakening.
DRONES ATTACK GROUNDHOG HEADQUARTERS
PUNXSUTAWNEY, PA - U.S. drones prowled the skies above Puxsutawney, Pennsylvania earlier today. According to military sources, the drones were hunting new targets after an overnight bombardment of groundhog burrows on the outskirts of that rural community. The drone campaign is part of the President’s crusade against the elusive Pennsylvania-born militant, Punxsutawney Phil bin Laden.
While the military drones sought new targets to bomb, local officials in Punxsutawney pleaded for money to rebuild their shattered community. Thos officials hope to receive a pledge of support from the federal government when Secretary of State John Kerry visits the region later this week. The Puxsutawney municipal government is also seeking $22 billion in aid from international gas fracking consortiums meeting with Governor Corbett in Harrisburg.
``Our figure is based on what we’ll lose from cancelled groundhog day festivities over the next 10 years,'' Punxsutawney’s Mayor, Topple D. Hat, told reporters, putting his community's needs over 20 years at $45 billion.
U.S. military officials said their drones, which in recent days have leveled about 60 above-ground tree bunkers and closed dozens of entrances to groundhog burrows in the woodchuck region of western Pennsylvania, are continuing to look for fresh targets to prevent Punxsutawney Phil bin Laden, al Meata and Woodchuck Brotherhood forces from regrouping in that area.
In a reminder of the danger still facing U.S. ground forces, Marines controlling the airport outside the hamlet of Puxsutawney seized weapons, including rocket-propelled acorns and garden spades, hidden in tunnels underneath that facility. Military officials insisted that the ammunition and tunnel system found under the airport were linked to a brief, surprise woodchuck attack on the Marines' camp last Thursday. The attack occurred as a plane loaded with al Meata and Woodchuck Brotherhood prisoners was taking off. The plane was bound for a U.S. zoological detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
While the military drones sought new targets to bomb, local officials in Punxsutawney pleaded for money to rebuild their shattered community. Thos officials hope to receive a pledge of support from the federal government when Secretary of State John Kerry visits the region later this week. The Puxsutawney municipal government is also seeking $22 billion in aid from international gas fracking consortiums meeting with Governor Corbett in Harrisburg.
``Our figure is based on what we’ll lose from cancelled groundhog day festivities over the next 10 years,'' Punxsutawney’s Mayor, Topple D. Hat, told reporters, putting his community's needs over 20 years at $45 billion.
U.S. military officials said their drones, which in recent days have leveled about 60 above-ground tree bunkers and closed dozens of entrances to groundhog burrows in the woodchuck region of western Pennsylvania, are continuing to look for fresh targets to prevent Punxsutawney Phil bin Laden, al Meata and Woodchuck Brotherhood forces from regrouping in that area.
In a reminder of the danger still facing U.S. ground forces, Marines controlling the airport outside the hamlet of Puxsutawney seized weapons, including rocket-propelled acorns and garden spades, hidden in tunnels underneath that facility. Military officials insisted that the ammunition and tunnel system found under the airport were linked to a brief, surprise woodchuck attack on the Marines' camp last Thursday. The attack occurred as a plane loaded with al Meata and Woodchuck Brotherhood prisoners was taking off. The plane was bound for a U.S. zoological detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
THE CHARACTER TREE
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. ~ Abraham Lincoln
I’ve been thinking a lot about the essence of reputation over the past few days. That’s because one of my friends was insensitive and unkind toward me, and he justified doing so because his behavior helped preserve his good reputation among the clientele of the business community in which he worked. From an economic standpoint, my friend’s logic made perfect sense because reputation in the business world is recognized as having an intrinsic financial value. Businesses with good reputations tend to reap much higher profits than those with bad ones. The same often applies to the people who run them.
Character, on the other hand, is seldom measured in financial terms. It’s recognized as having value, but not as having an intrinsic financial one like reputation. When former baseball manager Leo Durocher famously stated that “nice guys finish last,” he was recognizing that good character doesn’t always carry the day. A more jaded view would contend that it seldom carries the day, but that’s a discussion for another time. I’m more interested in the difference between reputation and character.
Consider a famous fashion designer whose line of clothing enjoys a good reputation for style and quality. People will pay exorbitant prices to purchase that designer’s clothing, despite the fact that the garments may have been manufactured in third world countries whose workers were laboring under deplorable working conditions. In that instance, the designer’s reputation is valued more highly than his or her questionable character for permitting the mistreatment of workers who produce the clothing.
Why is reputation so valued in our society and character relegated to the dustbin of irrelevance? Why are the words of Abraham Lincoln, which we know intuitively to be true, ignored in favor of the lure and rewards of the shadows of reputation? Why did my friend treasure the value of his reputation over the character of our friendship? I wish I knew!
When Abraham Lincoln stated that reputation was like a shadow he knew what he was talking about. If we’re honest in our self-evaluations, few of us are nearly as good as our reputation for goodness or nearly as bad as our reputation for misbehavior. Yet, we pay more attention to the façade of our reputation than to the core of our character.
A therapist once advised me to stop worrying about what other people thought of me, and focus instead on being the person I wanted to be. I remember thinking that it was easy for her to dole out such advice when she had a secure job and a stellar reputation and wasn’t facing the prospect of unemployment with the mark of a pariah on her back. I told her as much and she chuckled for a few moments. Then, she started asking me about how I felt about myself when I had the high-paying job and stellar reputation. That’s when I had to confront the sad, but honest truth that I felt empty inside. That’s because that good reputation was merely a façade hiding an empty core.
I wish I could convince my friend that reputation is not worth sacrificing character over, but that’s a tough sell in a world that all too often rewards reputation over character. It’s hard to make the conscious choice to walk in a different direction. Maybe that’s why Lincoln equated character with the strength of a tree. He knew what it took to grow one.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the essence of reputation over the past few days. That’s because one of my friends was insensitive and unkind toward me, and he justified doing so because his behavior helped preserve his good reputation among the clientele of the business community in which he worked. From an economic standpoint, my friend’s logic made perfect sense because reputation in the business world is recognized as having an intrinsic financial value. Businesses with good reputations tend to reap much higher profits than those with bad ones. The same often applies to the people who run them.
Character, on the other hand, is seldom measured in financial terms. It’s recognized as having value, but not as having an intrinsic financial one like reputation. When former baseball manager Leo Durocher famously stated that “nice guys finish last,” he was recognizing that good character doesn’t always carry the day. A more jaded view would contend that it seldom carries the day, but that’s a discussion for another time. I’m more interested in the difference between reputation and character.
Consider a famous fashion designer whose line of clothing enjoys a good reputation for style and quality. People will pay exorbitant prices to purchase that designer’s clothing, despite the fact that the garments may have been manufactured in third world countries whose workers were laboring under deplorable working conditions. In that instance, the designer’s reputation is valued more highly than his or her questionable character for permitting the mistreatment of workers who produce the clothing.
Why is reputation so valued in our society and character relegated to the dustbin of irrelevance? Why are the words of Abraham Lincoln, which we know intuitively to be true, ignored in favor of the lure and rewards of the shadows of reputation? Why did my friend treasure the value of his reputation over the character of our friendship? I wish I knew!
When Abraham Lincoln stated that reputation was like a shadow he knew what he was talking about. If we’re honest in our self-evaluations, few of us are nearly as good as our reputation for goodness or nearly as bad as our reputation for misbehavior. Yet, we pay more attention to the façade of our reputation than to the core of our character.
A therapist once advised me to stop worrying about what other people thought of me, and focus instead on being the person I wanted to be. I remember thinking that it was easy for her to dole out such advice when she had a secure job and a stellar reputation and wasn’t facing the prospect of unemployment with the mark of a pariah on her back. I told her as much and she chuckled for a few moments. Then, she started asking me about how I felt about myself when I had the high-paying job and stellar reputation. That’s when I had to confront the sad, but honest truth that I felt empty inside. That’s because that good reputation was merely a façade hiding an empty core.
I wish I could convince my friend that reputation is not worth sacrificing character over, but that’s a tough sell in a world that all too often rewards reputation over character. It’s hard to make the conscious choice to walk in a different direction. Maybe that’s why Lincoln equated character with the strength of a tree. He knew what it took to grow one.
Friday, January 31, 2014
THE LONELY LIFE OF A LIBERAL BLOGGER IN SPACE
Today I feel like one of the Voyager spacecrafts that was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida in 1977. The little spacecraft is still broadcasting news reels from Earth to the far reaches of space, but it’s unclear whether anybody is listening. Maybe in a thousand years or so somebody on another world will pick up the signal and wonder what it means, but we’ll probably never know whether our message got through or not.
Judging by the number of hits this blog gets on a daily basis, I’m kind of skeptical that anybody out there is picking up the signal. A couple of weeks ago I posted a piece on Justin Bieber and got over 300 hits in one day. That was my all-time record. Still, I’m going to try to persevere this year. Maybe one day my writing will be the Dead Sea Scroll for a future generation. I can only hope
Judging by the number of hits this blog gets on a daily basis, I’m kind of skeptical that anybody out there is picking up the signal. A couple of weeks ago I posted a piece on Justin Bieber and got over 300 hits in one day. That was my all-time record. Still, I’m going to try to persevere this year. Maybe one day my writing will be the Dead Sea Scroll for a future generation. I can only hope
Thursday, January 30, 2014
WHERE FAILURE CANNOT BE AN OPTION
It’s not very reassuring to hear that 92 out of the 500 military personnel charged with operating America’s nuclear warheads at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana were caught cheating on their proficiency and readiness exams. In fact, it’s downright alarming. The soldiers involved were supposed to be the best of the best; the cream of the crop that stood as America’s best defense against nuclear annihilation, and now we come to find out that scores of them don’t even know what they’re doing. For years, Americans have been obsessed with worry over al-Qaeda’s desire to detonate a nuclear bomb on U.S. soil, but if what has happened at Malmstrom is indicative of the state of our military as a whole, then al-Qaeda is the least of our concerns.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
CONGRESSMAN GRIMM IS ABOVE THE LAW
It must be nice to be New York's Republican Representative, Michael Grimm. He got to threaten to kill a reporter last night, in the halls of Congress no less, with the entire incident recorded on video, and the Capital Police didn’t do a damn thing about it. Neither did the Republican House leadership. Apparently, making terroristic threats is a perk of Congressman Grimm’s position.
After the conclusion of President Obama’s state of the union message, reporter Michael Scotto of NY1 asked Congressman Grimm for a comment about an FBI investigation into the Congressman’s campaign finance funds. Grimm got mad about the reporter’s change of topics and threatened Scotto by saying, “You ever do that again, I’ll throw you off the [expletive] balcony.” When Scotto responded by stating that he thought his question was a fair question, Grimm continued to threaten the reporter.
“No, no, you’re not man enough, you’re not man enough,” Grimm said. “I’ll break you in half. Like a boy!”
I’ll admits that congressional politicians are granted a certain amount of oratorical license when they’re on the floor of their respective chambers, but that license does not extend to public areas and it certainly does not entail the right to issue threats of physical violence. For those unfamiliar with Congressional balconies, a person thrown from one would surely die!
They say that nobody is above the law, but that’s bullshit. Congressman Michael Grimm is above the law, and last night he proved it!
After the conclusion of President Obama’s state of the union message, reporter Michael Scotto of NY1 asked Congressman Grimm for a comment about an FBI investigation into the Congressman’s campaign finance funds. Grimm got mad about the reporter’s change of topics and threatened Scotto by saying, “You ever do that again, I’ll throw you off the [expletive] balcony.” When Scotto responded by stating that he thought his question was a fair question, Grimm continued to threaten the reporter.
“No, no, you’re not man enough, you’re not man enough,” Grimm said. “I’ll break you in half. Like a boy!”
I’ll admits that congressional politicians are granted a certain amount of oratorical license when they’re on the floor of their respective chambers, but that license does not extend to public areas and it certainly does not entail the right to issue threats of physical violence. For those unfamiliar with Congressional balconies, a person thrown from one would surely die!
They say that nobody is above the law, but that’s bullshit. Congressman Michael Grimm is above the law, and last night he proved it!
LANE CLOSURES NOT CONFINED TO NEW JERSEY
If you think lane closures are only in vogue at the New Jersey Governor’s office, think again! The entire Republican Party has been infected with the lane closure bug, and the infection makes Chris Christie’s George Washington Bridge fiasco look like child’s play. The G.O.P. wants to close the poor student’s free lunch lane, the needy family food stamp lane at the grocery store, the sick person’s lane to the hospital, the homosexual’s lane to the benefits of marriage, the minority’s lane to the voting box, the immigrant’s lane to citizenship, the consumer’s lane to redress in the courts, the worker’s lane to a livable minimum wage and the retiree’s lane to a secure retirement.
On the other hand, Republicans have gone to great lengths to keep open the lanes to a gun purchase, the lanes for campaign donors to make contributions and the lanes for lobbyists to ply their causes at free lunches.
Is it any wonder that our Nation’s traffic has come to a virtual halt?
On the other hand, Republicans have gone to great lengths to keep open the lanes to a gun purchase, the lanes for campaign donors to make contributions and the lanes for lobbyists to ply their causes at free lunches.
Is it any wonder that our Nation’s traffic has come to a virtual halt?
Monday, January 27, 2014
THE QUESTIONS WE OUGHT TO ASK OURSELVES
1. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE PATRIOTIC?
2. IS PATRIOTISM GOOD?
3. WERE THE GERMAN NAZIS WHO MURDERED SIX MILLION JEWS DURING WORLD WAR II PATRIOTIC GERMANS?
4. FORMER VICE-PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY CALLED PATTY SHEEHAN AND HER FOLLOWERS UNPATRIOTIC TRAITORS WHO GAVE AIDE AND COMFORT TO ENEMIES OF THE UNITED STATES. PATTY WAS AN ANTI-WAR ACTIVIST WHOSE SON WAS KILLED IN THE IRAQ WAR. PATTY AND A GROUP OF FOLLOWERS PROTESTED THE IRAQ WAR ON A ROAD LEADING TO FORMER PRESIDENT BUSH'S AUSTIN TEXAS RANCH. WAS THE VICE-PRESIDENT RIGHT? WAS PATTY AN UNPATRIOTIC TRAITOR?
5. DOES PROTEST MAKE ONE UNPATRIOTIC?
6. ARE THE AMISH PATRIOTIC? IS THEIR WAY OF LIFE UNAMERICAN?
7. DOES THE AMISH LACK OF PATRIOTISM JUSTIFY THEIR BEING CALLED TRAITORS?
8. WHICH IS OF GREATER VALUE TO A COUNTRY: SECURITY OR LIBERTY?
9. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WROTE: "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." ARE FRANKLIN'S WORDS OUTDATED?
10. DOES RELIGION BELONG IN AMERICAN POLITICS?
11. ARE THERE ANY RELIGIONS THAT SHOULD BE EXCLUDED FROM AMERICAN POLITICS?
12. DOES MAN POSSESS CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS AS QUOTED IN THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE? (Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness)
13. CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT BOOK OF LEVITICUS, CHAPTER 19 – VERSES 33 & 34: "When an alien resides with you in your land, do not molest him. You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as yourself… I, the Lord, am your God." WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT TODAY'S IMMIGRATION DEBATE?
14. MANY AMERICANS THINK THAT WE SHOULD DECLARE AMERICA A CHRISTIAN NATION. SHOULD WE DITCH THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN?
15. WHO DECIDES WHAT IS AND ISN'T MORAL?
16. HITLER TOLD THE GERMAN PEOPLE THAT IT WAS MORALLY JUST TO EXTERMINATE THE JEWS. WERE THOSE WHO BELIEVED HITLER'S ASSERTION AND FOLLOWED HIS ORDERS ACTING JUSTLY?
17. IMAGINE THAT YOU OWN A SUBWAY RESTAURANT. ARE THERE ANY CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH I'D BE JUSTIFIED IN BREAKING INTO YOUR RESTAURANT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND DESTROYING ALL YOUR FOOD?
18. WHAT IF I WAS MAD AT PRESIDENT OBAMA FOR TRYING TO REQUIRE EVERYBODY TO HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE. WOULD THAT JUSTIFY THE DESTRUCTION?
19. A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, MASSIVE RIOTS WERE STAGED IN A SUBURB OF LONDON. PROTESTORS THERE WERE MAD ABOUT POLICE OFFICERS SHOOTING AN UNARMED MAN. THE PROTESTERS LOOTED MANY BUSINESSES AND DESTROYED A LOT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. IS IT MORALLY JUST FOR PROTESTERS WHO ARE ANGRY AT THE GOVERNMENT TO DESTROY PRIVATE PROPERTY AS A MEANS OF PROTEST?
20. IN 1773, A GROUP OF COLONISTS IN MASSACHUSETTS BOARDED A PRIVATE BOAT OWNED BY THE EAST INDIA TRADING COMPANY AND DUMPED ITS PRIVATELY OWNED CARGO OF TEA INTO THE BOSTON HARBOR. WE CALL THAT THE BOSTON TEA PARTY. WHY AREN'T WE DENOUNCING THOSE BANDITS AS COMMON THIEVES INSTEAD OF REVERING THEM AS GLORIFIED FREEDOM FIGHTERS? THEY WERE, AFTER ALL, DESTROYING PRIVATE PROPERTY!
21. ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, FOLLOWERS OF OSAMA BIN LADEN TOOK CLOSE TO 3,000 AMERICAN LIVES IN THEIR ATTACK ON AMERICAN SOIL. OVER THE PAST 11 YEARS, MORE THAN 20,000 AMERICAN CHILDREN HAVE BEEN KILLED IN THEIR OWN HOMES BY ABUSIVE FAMILY MEMBERS. THAT IS NEARLY SEVEN TIMES THE NUMBER KILLED ON SEPTEMBER 11TH AND FOUR TIMES THE NUMBER OF SOLDIERS KILLED IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. IT IS ROUTINELY CLAIMED THAT AL QAIDA IS THE NUMBER ONE THREAT TO AMERICANS. IS THAT TRUE?
22. WHICH IS WORSE, TO ABORT A HUMAN FETUS OR TO STARVE A CHILD ONCE IT IS BORN?
23. WHICH IS WORSE, VOTING FOR A POLITICIAN WHO VOTES TO ALLOW HUMAN FETUS' TO BE ABORTED OR VOTING FOR A POLITICIAN WHO VOTES TO WITHHOLD FOOD AND ALLOW CHILDREN TO STARVE?
24. I'VE HEARD NUMEROUS VETERANS SAY THAT THEY WOULD DIE FOR THE AMERICAN FLAG AND THAT BURNING AN AMERICAN FLAG IS SACRILEGIOUS. IS THAT TRUE?
25. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAVING AN AMERICAN FLAG IN A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AND THE HEBREWS HAVING A GOLDEN CALF IN THEIR HOLY TENT IN THE DESERT?
26. WHAT DO YOU MEAN TO SAY WHEN YOU UTTER THE WORDS, “GOD BLESS AMERICA?”
27. WHERE DOES THE REST OF THE WORLD FIT INTO THAT REQUEST?
28. ARE AMERICANS EXCEPTIONAL? IF SO, IN WHAT WAY?
29. IF YOU FOUND A DIAMOND ENGAGEMENT RING THAT TURNED OUT TO BE WORTH SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS AND THERE WERE NO MARKINGS ON THE RING INDICATING THE OWNER’S NAME, WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH IT?
2. IS PATRIOTISM GOOD?
3. WERE THE GERMAN NAZIS WHO MURDERED SIX MILLION JEWS DURING WORLD WAR II PATRIOTIC GERMANS?
4. FORMER VICE-PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY CALLED PATTY SHEEHAN AND HER FOLLOWERS UNPATRIOTIC TRAITORS WHO GAVE AIDE AND COMFORT TO ENEMIES OF THE UNITED STATES. PATTY WAS AN ANTI-WAR ACTIVIST WHOSE SON WAS KILLED IN THE IRAQ WAR. PATTY AND A GROUP OF FOLLOWERS PROTESTED THE IRAQ WAR ON A ROAD LEADING TO FORMER PRESIDENT BUSH'S AUSTIN TEXAS RANCH. WAS THE VICE-PRESIDENT RIGHT? WAS PATTY AN UNPATRIOTIC TRAITOR?
5. DOES PROTEST MAKE ONE UNPATRIOTIC?
6. ARE THE AMISH PATRIOTIC? IS THEIR WAY OF LIFE UNAMERICAN?
7. DOES THE AMISH LACK OF PATRIOTISM JUSTIFY THEIR BEING CALLED TRAITORS?
8. WHICH IS OF GREATER VALUE TO A COUNTRY: SECURITY OR LIBERTY?
9. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WROTE: "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." ARE FRANKLIN'S WORDS OUTDATED?
10. DOES RELIGION BELONG IN AMERICAN POLITICS?
11. ARE THERE ANY RELIGIONS THAT SHOULD BE EXCLUDED FROM AMERICAN POLITICS?
12. DOES MAN POSSESS CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS AS QUOTED IN THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE? (Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness)
13. CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT BOOK OF LEVITICUS, CHAPTER 19 – VERSES 33 & 34: "When an alien resides with you in your land, do not molest him. You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as yourself… I, the Lord, am your God." WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT TODAY'S IMMIGRATION DEBATE?
14. MANY AMERICANS THINK THAT WE SHOULD DECLARE AMERICA A CHRISTIAN NATION. SHOULD WE DITCH THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN?
15. WHO DECIDES WHAT IS AND ISN'T MORAL?
16. HITLER TOLD THE GERMAN PEOPLE THAT IT WAS MORALLY JUST TO EXTERMINATE THE JEWS. WERE THOSE WHO BELIEVED HITLER'S ASSERTION AND FOLLOWED HIS ORDERS ACTING JUSTLY?
17. IMAGINE THAT YOU OWN A SUBWAY RESTAURANT. ARE THERE ANY CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH I'D BE JUSTIFIED IN BREAKING INTO YOUR RESTAURANT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND DESTROYING ALL YOUR FOOD?
18. WHAT IF I WAS MAD AT PRESIDENT OBAMA FOR TRYING TO REQUIRE EVERYBODY TO HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE. WOULD THAT JUSTIFY THE DESTRUCTION?
19. A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, MASSIVE RIOTS WERE STAGED IN A SUBURB OF LONDON. PROTESTORS THERE WERE MAD ABOUT POLICE OFFICERS SHOOTING AN UNARMED MAN. THE PROTESTERS LOOTED MANY BUSINESSES AND DESTROYED A LOT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. IS IT MORALLY JUST FOR PROTESTERS WHO ARE ANGRY AT THE GOVERNMENT TO DESTROY PRIVATE PROPERTY AS A MEANS OF PROTEST?
20. IN 1773, A GROUP OF COLONISTS IN MASSACHUSETTS BOARDED A PRIVATE BOAT OWNED BY THE EAST INDIA TRADING COMPANY AND DUMPED ITS PRIVATELY OWNED CARGO OF TEA INTO THE BOSTON HARBOR. WE CALL THAT THE BOSTON TEA PARTY. WHY AREN'T WE DENOUNCING THOSE BANDITS AS COMMON THIEVES INSTEAD OF REVERING THEM AS GLORIFIED FREEDOM FIGHTERS? THEY WERE, AFTER ALL, DESTROYING PRIVATE PROPERTY!
21. ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, FOLLOWERS OF OSAMA BIN LADEN TOOK CLOSE TO 3,000 AMERICAN LIVES IN THEIR ATTACK ON AMERICAN SOIL. OVER THE PAST 11 YEARS, MORE THAN 20,000 AMERICAN CHILDREN HAVE BEEN KILLED IN THEIR OWN HOMES BY ABUSIVE FAMILY MEMBERS. THAT IS NEARLY SEVEN TIMES THE NUMBER KILLED ON SEPTEMBER 11TH AND FOUR TIMES THE NUMBER OF SOLDIERS KILLED IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. IT IS ROUTINELY CLAIMED THAT AL QAIDA IS THE NUMBER ONE THREAT TO AMERICANS. IS THAT TRUE?
22. WHICH IS WORSE, TO ABORT A HUMAN FETUS OR TO STARVE A CHILD ONCE IT IS BORN?
23. WHICH IS WORSE, VOTING FOR A POLITICIAN WHO VOTES TO ALLOW HUMAN FETUS' TO BE ABORTED OR VOTING FOR A POLITICIAN WHO VOTES TO WITHHOLD FOOD AND ALLOW CHILDREN TO STARVE?
24. I'VE HEARD NUMEROUS VETERANS SAY THAT THEY WOULD DIE FOR THE AMERICAN FLAG AND THAT BURNING AN AMERICAN FLAG IS SACRILEGIOUS. IS THAT TRUE?
25. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAVING AN AMERICAN FLAG IN A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AND THE HEBREWS HAVING A GOLDEN CALF IN THEIR HOLY TENT IN THE DESERT?
26. WHAT DO YOU MEAN TO SAY WHEN YOU UTTER THE WORDS, “GOD BLESS AMERICA?”
27. WHERE DOES THE REST OF THE WORLD FIT INTO THAT REQUEST?
28. ARE AMERICANS EXCEPTIONAL? IF SO, IN WHAT WAY?
29. IF YOU FOUND A DIAMOND ENGAGEMENT RING THAT TURNED OUT TO BE WORTH SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS AND THERE WERE NO MARKINGS ON THE RING INDICATING THE OWNER’S NAME, WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH IT?
Sunday, January 26, 2014
INSTITUTIONAL CRUELTY
Institutional cruelty isn’t something that that gets a lot of recognition these days, but it’s out there and I wish it would get the kind of broad attention it deserves. Take the John Peter Smith Hospital in El Paso, Texas for example. That’s the hospital that put Erick Munoz and his family through hell by refusing to honor Erick’s wife, Marlise’s Advance Medical Directive to remove her brain-dead corpse from life-support equipment. Nobody, let alone a family grieving from the loss of a loved one, should be forced to resort to legal action to get a hospital to honor a legitimate medical directive, nor should any grieving family have to suffer the indignity of having a hospital refuse to release a corpse to further the hospital’s own agenda. That’s institutional cruelty.
In 2009, Sister Margaret Mary McBride of the Sisters of Mercy was an administrator on the ethics board at the Saint Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. A pregnant patient at the hospital was diagnosed with severe pulmonary hypertension and the Hospital’s doctors indicated that the pregnant woman would surely die if her pregnancy was allowed to continue. An abortion was the only procedure that would spare the woman’s life. Sister McBride joined in the Hospital’s ethics board’s decision to authorize the abortion. The abortion was performed and the woman lived. Subsequently, Bishop Olmstead of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix excommunicated Sister McBride for her decision. That’s institutional cruelty.
Several years ago, a guy I knew was enrolled in a three-month trainee program at a local company. The guy had been unemployed for two years and the trainee program was his best chance of securing a meaningful job in his field of expertise. One of the requirements of the company’s trainee program was that a trainee could not refuse any work during the three-month probation period or incur any absences, including any absences for illness. That meant that the company could insist a trainee work on any of three shifts, plus work on Saturdays and Sundays. My friend’s wife was diagnosed with cancer a week after the trainee program began, but the company refused my friend’s request to adjust his shift so he could take his wife for treatment. That’s institutional cruelty.
There are plenty of similar stories out there that are just as maddening. Feel free to share yours.
In 2009, Sister Margaret Mary McBride of the Sisters of Mercy was an administrator on the ethics board at the Saint Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. A pregnant patient at the hospital was diagnosed with severe pulmonary hypertension and the Hospital’s doctors indicated that the pregnant woman would surely die if her pregnancy was allowed to continue. An abortion was the only procedure that would spare the woman’s life. Sister McBride joined in the Hospital’s ethics board’s decision to authorize the abortion. The abortion was performed and the woman lived. Subsequently, Bishop Olmstead of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix excommunicated Sister McBride for her decision. That’s institutional cruelty.
Several years ago, a guy I knew was enrolled in a three-month trainee program at a local company. The guy had been unemployed for two years and the trainee program was his best chance of securing a meaningful job in his field of expertise. One of the requirements of the company’s trainee program was that a trainee could not refuse any work during the three-month probation period or incur any absences, including any absences for illness. That meant that the company could insist a trainee work on any of three shifts, plus work on Saturdays and Sundays. My friend’s wife was diagnosed with cancer a week after the trainee program began, but the company refused my friend’s request to adjust his shift so he could take his wife for treatment. That’s institutional cruelty.
There are plenty of similar stories out there that are just as maddening. Feel free to share yours.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
BEATING A DEAD HORSE
Yesterday, a student at South Carolina State University was shot and killed on campus. Today, three people were shot and killed (including the murder suspect) at a mall in Columbia, Maryland. The killings continue at a torrid pace, and I have to wonder how many people will die until we wake up and recognize that the love affair Americans have with guns is a big part of the problem? Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m beating a dead horse!
Earlier this week the University of California, San Francisco released the results of a study its researchers conducted on firearm use in suicides and murders. The study’s results indicated that suicide risks were significantly increased and homicide rates were moderately increased in households where a gun was present. If you’re a gun rights advocate, it’s easy to dismiss those findings because, let’s face it, using a firearm in an attempt to commit suicide or kill somebody makes it more likely that death will occur. That’s part of why the risk of suicide and homicide is higher in households with guns, but there’s another part of the equation that critics of gun control refuse to acknowledge – the lower levels of impulse control and heightened rates of aggression that gun owners exhibit over their unarmed counterparts. Those two factors are really at the heart of the matter. That’s why I say that hotheads shouldn’t own guns.
Most states have laws that prohibit people who’ve had mental health commitments from possessing firearms. Those statutes resulted from the recognition that individuals suffering with mental illness represent a greater danger to themselves and others if they are permitted to possess firearms. Speaking as a person who’s dealt with my own mental health issues, I can state with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t be alive today had I owned a firearm during the lowest depths of my depression. That’s why I recognize that certain gun control laws are both prudent and necessary.
Almost all states also have laws prohibiting youngsters from owning firearms, and barring the use of firearms by juveniles, except under the supervision of an adult. Those laws reflect the fact that juvenile reasoning is still in its developmental stage and very often, juveniles lack the impulse control that is necessary for safe firearm ownership.
Unfortunately, those same laws don’t apply to adult wing-nuts and hotheads, many of whom continue to wreak havoc on our urban landscape with reckless abandon…and the killing continues!
Earlier this week the University of California, San Francisco released the results of a study its researchers conducted on firearm use in suicides and murders. The study’s results indicated that suicide risks were significantly increased and homicide rates were moderately increased in households where a gun was present. If you’re a gun rights advocate, it’s easy to dismiss those findings because, let’s face it, using a firearm in an attempt to commit suicide or kill somebody makes it more likely that death will occur. That’s part of why the risk of suicide and homicide is higher in households with guns, but there’s another part of the equation that critics of gun control refuse to acknowledge – the lower levels of impulse control and heightened rates of aggression that gun owners exhibit over their unarmed counterparts. Those two factors are really at the heart of the matter. That’s why I say that hotheads shouldn’t own guns.
Most states have laws that prohibit people who’ve had mental health commitments from possessing firearms. Those statutes resulted from the recognition that individuals suffering with mental illness represent a greater danger to themselves and others if they are permitted to possess firearms. Speaking as a person who’s dealt with my own mental health issues, I can state with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t be alive today had I owned a firearm during the lowest depths of my depression. That’s why I recognize that certain gun control laws are both prudent and necessary.
Almost all states also have laws prohibiting youngsters from owning firearms, and barring the use of firearms by juveniles, except under the supervision of an adult. Those laws reflect the fact that juvenile reasoning is still in its developmental stage and very often, juveniles lack the impulse control that is necessary for safe firearm ownership.
Unfortunately, those same laws don’t apply to adult wing-nuts and hotheads, many of whom continue to wreak havoc on our urban landscape with reckless abandon…and the killing continues!
Friday, January 24, 2014
ADORING FANS AT THE GATE
I recently spoke with a friend of mine who runs a therapy group at a women's prison. During our chat, she lamented the fact that many of the inmates she counsels end up re-offending because they lack an adequate support system when they're released from jail. Without strong back-up, she explained, released inmates quickly become frustrated and overwhelmed by the social and economic barriers that ex-cons encounter outside prison walls. When that occurs, many of the former inmates slide back into the negative behavior patterns that got them locked up in the first place. It’s a vicious cycle.
I was reminded of that conversation today as I was reading and watching various media accounts of pop star Justin Bieber’s overnight entanglement with police in Miami Beach, Florida. The entanglement resulted in charges being filed against Bieber for driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, drag racing on a public street and resisting arrest. After being detained at the Turner Guillford Knight Correctional Center, Bieber was taken before a judge who set bail in the amount of $2,500. Bieber then posted bail and was released. Outside the correctional center, Bieber was greeting by hundreds of adoring fans who waved, held up signs and screamed excitedly at their musical idol. Bieber responded to the outpouring of support by emerging through the sunroof of the vehicle he was traveling home in and waving to crowd of well-wishers.
As I was watching a video clip of Bieber’s release from jail, I was reminded of the huge disparity that exists in our treatment of the “haves” and the “have-nots” who get released from our criminal justice system. Bieber was met at the release gate by hundreds of well-wishers. A lot of women my friend counsels get picked up by their pimp or drug dealer. Bieber drove home to a luxury mansion. Many other inmates go home to an eviction notice hanging on their door. None of Bieber’s upcoming concerts or paid appearances have been cancelled, but most other inmates can’t even get a job interview at Wal-Mart, let alone land a full-time, minimum wage position. In the entertainment industry, a rap sheet is often viewed as a badge of honor. In the real working world, it’s frequently a death sentence dooming an ex-con to failure.
I hope Justin Bieber learned something constructive from last night’s brush with the law, but I doubt it. That’s the jaded me talking, or maybe the realist that recognizes that the wealthy and entitled live by a different set of rules…and it burns me up to see the “have-nots” treated with scorn while the “haves” go right on thumbing their noses at those trapped under their feet.
I was reminded of that conversation today as I was reading and watching various media accounts of pop star Justin Bieber’s overnight entanglement with police in Miami Beach, Florida. The entanglement resulted in charges being filed against Bieber for driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, drag racing on a public street and resisting arrest. After being detained at the Turner Guillford Knight Correctional Center, Bieber was taken before a judge who set bail in the amount of $2,500. Bieber then posted bail and was released. Outside the correctional center, Bieber was greeting by hundreds of adoring fans who waved, held up signs and screamed excitedly at their musical idol. Bieber responded to the outpouring of support by emerging through the sunroof of the vehicle he was traveling home in and waving to crowd of well-wishers.
As I was watching a video clip of Bieber’s release from jail, I was reminded of the huge disparity that exists in our treatment of the “haves” and the “have-nots” who get released from our criminal justice system. Bieber was met at the release gate by hundreds of well-wishers. A lot of women my friend counsels get picked up by their pimp or drug dealer. Bieber drove home to a luxury mansion. Many other inmates go home to an eviction notice hanging on their door. None of Bieber’s upcoming concerts or paid appearances have been cancelled, but most other inmates can’t even get a job interview at Wal-Mart, let alone land a full-time, minimum wage position. In the entertainment industry, a rap sheet is often viewed as a badge of honor. In the real working world, it’s frequently a death sentence dooming an ex-con to failure.
I hope Justin Bieber learned something constructive from last night’s brush with the law, but I doubt it. That’s the jaded me talking, or maybe the realist that recognizes that the wealthy and entitled live by a different set of rules…and it burns me up to see the “have-nots” treated with scorn while the “haves” go right on thumbing their noses at those trapped under their feet.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS
The answers to yesterday's question are Viagra and Cialis! That's right, the performance enhancing drugs you'll find most advertised during every televised sporting event in the United States are Viagra and Cialis. Isn't it ironic that American sports fans jeer the loudest when athletes like Lance Armstrong and Alex Rodriguez use performance enhancing drugs, yet celebrate the use of those same drugs in their own lives? I'll bet less than 5% of U.S. sports fans can identify the drugs that Lance and Alex took, but 99.9% could identify Viagra and Cialis and why they're used.
I recognize there's a difference between people's sex lives and professional sports, but when drugs are used to enhance performance in one sphere it's kind of difficult to vilify their use in another. That's a mixed message that can confuse some athletes, especially given that most are young and feel more driven to achieve success. This is not a justification for athletes using performance enhancing drugs. It's just a recognition that the matter is not as black and white as some like to claim.
I recognize there's a difference between people's sex lives and professional sports, but when drugs are used to enhance performance in one sphere it's kind of difficult to vilify their use in another. That's a mixed message that can confuse some athletes, especially given that most are young and feel more driven to achieve success. This is not a justification for athletes using performance enhancing drugs. It's just a recognition that the matter is not as black and white as some like to claim.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
A ONE-QUESTION P.E.D SPORTS QUIZ
Listen-up sports fans. It’s time to test your knowledge about the link between sports in America and PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs). Are you ready? (Hint: have you read enough articles about Alex Rodriguez doping suspension?) Are you sure? (Hint: have you written down the names of the drugs Alex was taking?) Okay, here we go!
Name the two must-used performance enhancing drugs connected with the sports world? The answer will be found in tomorrow’s blog.
Name the two must-used performance enhancing drugs connected with the sports world? The answer will be found in tomorrow’s blog.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
HUNTING FOR WITCHES
The other day on NBC’s Meet the Press talk show, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani came to the defense of New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie over what Giuliani claimed was a partisan witch hunt. He was referring to the George Washington Bridge lane-closure fiasco that has been haunting Governor Christie over the past several weeks, along with claims that the Christie administration abused its power by denying Hurricane Sandy relief funds to areas controlled by the Governor’s political opponents. Mayor Giuliani charged that the New Jersey legislative investigation of these matters was not unbiased and suggested that the Democrat leading the inquiry should step aside.
Is Giuliani for real? Does he really think there’s any such thing as an unbiased legislative investigation? I certainly hope not, because that would mean he’s gone over the deep end, and I’ve always liked the guy.
Let’s face it, legislative investigations are always partisan affairs. That’s the nature of the beast. Whichever party controls the strings of legislative power strives to keep that power, and the most effective spell for smearing a political opponent is a legislative committee investigation. I’m not suggesting that’s a good thing. I’m just saying that’s the way it is.
Republicans in the United States House of Representatives have not been beating a dead horse during their Benghazi Embassy attack investigation because they really think there are security lessons to be learned by our flawed response during the attack. Nor have those same GOP legislators been dragging out their investigation into the ATF’s ‘Fast and Furious’ gun-running fiasco because they want to limit the number of guns in America. What’s really driving both investigations is the Republican desire to smear President Obama and his Democratic administration. That’s just how the game of politics is played these days.
And let’s not ignore the role both parties play in providing their opponents with reason to conduct witch hunts. After all, if you keep a boiling caldron in the middle of the room and a collection of broomsticks and potions on the wall, you’re kind of setting yourself up to be burned at the stake.
Legislative committee investigations remind me of lunches at Hogwarts. Two warring camps are seated in the same room at separate tables, but everybody has a wand and they’re itching to use it.
Expelliarmus!
Is Giuliani for real? Does he really think there’s any such thing as an unbiased legislative investigation? I certainly hope not, because that would mean he’s gone over the deep end, and I’ve always liked the guy.
Let’s face it, legislative investigations are always partisan affairs. That’s the nature of the beast. Whichever party controls the strings of legislative power strives to keep that power, and the most effective spell for smearing a political opponent is a legislative committee investigation. I’m not suggesting that’s a good thing. I’m just saying that’s the way it is.
Republicans in the United States House of Representatives have not been beating a dead horse during their Benghazi Embassy attack investigation because they really think there are security lessons to be learned by our flawed response during the attack. Nor have those same GOP legislators been dragging out their investigation into the ATF’s ‘Fast and Furious’ gun-running fiasco because they want to limit the number of guns in America. What’s really driving both investigations is the Republican desire to smear President Obama and his Democratic administration. That’s just how the game of politics is played these days.
And let’s not ignore the role both parties play in providing their opponents with reason to conduct witch hunts. After all, if you keep a boiling caldron in the middle of the room and a collection of broomsticks and potions on the wall, you’re kind of setting yourself up to be burned at the stake.
Legislative committee investigations remind me of lunches at Hogwarts. Two warring camps are seated in the same room at separate tables, but everybody has a wand and they’re itching to use it.
Expelliarmus!
Monday, January 20, 2014
IS PUTIN GAY?
Is Russian President Vladimir Putin gay? Seriously, am I the only one who thinks that Russia’s “homophobe-in-chief” may actually be a closet homosexual?
Look, it really doesn’t make any difference to me. I campaign regularly for homosexual equality, support an open and affirming religious denomination (the United Church of Christ) and openly acknowledge that I am a diehard liberal Democrat who believes that the law must be blind when it comes to sexual orientation. Otherwise, equality is just an empty mantra!
Still, I wonder about Putin.
First, there the line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” If you swap out the word “lady” and insert “Putin,” that pretty much sums up the argument. Putin spends so much of his time bashing homosexuals that it seems like Shakespeare might have inadvertently hit upon something.
Next, there’s Putin’s proclivity for running around without his shirt. Yeah, I realize this argument is a patently stereotypical and totally unfair characterization of gay men, and I hope all my gay friends will forgive my transgression, but damn if a shirtless Putin doesn’t look like a model for a gay magazine cover. You’d be hard-pressed to find a buffer president anywhere!
Then, there’s the brouhaha surrounding French President, Francois Hollande and his alleged affair with French actress Julie Gayet. What’s that have to do with Putin? Well, nothing, except have you seen Francois Hollande? If a short, pudgy, over-the-hill French guy like Hollande could get a hottie like Julie Gayet to drape over his arm, not to mention the gorgeous Valerie Trierweiler who resides with Hollande at the Presidential Palace, you’d think that a guy like Putin could have a bevy of beauties swooning heavily in his wake, but the Russian President has showed no such interest in the fairer sex.
Plus, it’s not like Putin has found religion or has fallen under the spell of the Christian right-wing evangelical movement. Putin’s regime is an atheist regime and there’s little reason to think that a religious conversion is in the cards.
Finally, I find it difficult to believe that the man who could rattle off the number of American nuclear warheads pointed at his homeland would believe that homosexuality is Russia’s greatest threat. It just doesn’t fit into the greater scheme of Russian politics. So I ask myself – what gives? What’s driving Putin’s sudden focus on the sexual preferences of the Russian people?
And the only answer I can come up with is that Putin is gay, and he doesn’t want to admit it.
I rest my case.
Look, it really doesn’t make any difference to me. I campaign regularly for homosexual equality, support an open and affirming religious denomination (the United Church of Christ) and openly acknowledge that I am a diehard liberal Democrat who believes that the law must be blind when it comes to sexual orientation. Otherwise, equality is just an empty mantra!
Still, I wonder about Putin.
First, there the line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” If you swap out the word “lady” and insert “Putin,” that pretty much sums up the argument. Putin spends so much of his time bashing homosexuals that it seems like Shakespeare might have inadvertently hit upon something.
Next, there’s Putin’s proclivity for running around without his shirt. Yeah, I realize this argument is a patently stereotypical and totally unfair characterization of gay men, and I hope all my gay friends will forgive my transgression, but damn if a shirtless Putin doesn’t look like a model for a gay magazine cover. You’d be hard-pressed to find a buffer president anywhere!
Then, there’s the brouhaha surrounding French President, Francois Hollande and his alleged affair with French actress Julie Gayet. What’s that have to do with Putin? Well, nothing, except have you seen Francois Hollande? If a short, pudgy, over-the-hill French guy like Hollande could get a hottie like Julie Gayet to drape over his arm, not to mention the gorgeous Valerie Trierweiler who resides with Hollande at the Presidential Palace, you’d think that a guy like Putin could have a bevy of beauties swooning heavily in his wake, but the Russian President has showed no such interest in the fairer sex.
Plus, it’s not like Putin has found religion or has fallen under the spell of the Christian right-wing evangelical movement. Putin’s regime is an atheist regime and there’s little reason to think that a religious conversion is in the cards.
Finally, I find it difficult to believe that the man who could rattle off the number of American nuclear warheads pointed at his homeland would believe that homosexuality is Russia’s greatest threat. It just doesn’t fit into the greater scheme of Russian politics. So I ask myself – what gives? What’s driving Putin’s sudden focus on the sexual preferences of the Russian people?
And the only answer I can come up with is that Putin is gay, and he doesn’t want to admit it.
I rest my case.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
YEAH...YOU READ THAT RIGHT
Penis Pumps Waste Medicare Millions: Inspector General
According to a story posted on MSNBC by NBC staff writer, Daniel Arkin, from 2006 through 2011, Medicare paid out $172.4 million dollars in claims for penis pumps so 478,000 old farts could continue having sex. Apparently, there were a lot of seniors out there who didn’t know it was time to quit.
Wal-Mart Manager Fired After Chase to Stop Beer Theft
Well, technically it was a beer robbery. An assistant manager at a Titusville Wal-Mart tried to get the license plate of two men who stole more than a dozen cases of beer from the store. He jumped into the bed of the robbers’ pick-up truck and the robbers then drove off and took him on a 15-minute high-speed trip. Eventually, the assistant manager got away and the police apprehended the beer thieves, but Wal-Mart wasn’t happy about the assistant manager’s zeal and gave him the axe.
Italian Nun Gives Birth; Claims She Didn’t Know She Was Pregnant
A Salvadorean nun living in a convent in Reiti, Italy, gave birth last Wednesday to a bouncing baby boy. The convent where the nun was living claimed that she didn’t know she was pregnant until she was admitted to the hospital. The larger question ought to be – Who’s the baby daddy? Sounds like a case for Maury Povich.
Oregon Fugitive Arrested in Montana After 15-year Manhunt
I never realized that it took so long to go from Oregon to Montana. I know you’d have to travel through Idaho, which is a barren, God-forsaken place where one can easily become lost and disoriented (i.e. Idaho Senators Crapo & Risch), but taking 15 years is a bit much. Maybe that’s why they called it a manhunt. A woman on a hunt would have asked for directions.
Clapper Declassifies More NSA Documents after Obama Speech
per FOX news)…I’ve been clapping my hands for the past 15 minutes, and although the lights keep going on and off, I still don’t see any declassified documents. Can somebody help me out here?
Target Hacker Used Over-The-Counter Malware
That headline basically means that Target’s security is so lax that even a 5-year old could breach it. If the Evil Empire wasn’t so busy firing managers for chasing stolen beer and its hourly workers for demanding fair pay, I might have suggested breaking my own boycott, but that’s not going to happen. From now on, I’ll have a cash-only policy at Target.
According to a story posted on MSNBC by NBC staff writer, Daniel Arkin, from 2006 through 2011, Medicare paid out $172.4 million dollars in claims for penis pumps so 478,000 old farts could continue having sex. Apparently, there were a lot of seniors out there who didn’t know it was time to quit.
Wal-Mart Manager Fired After Chase to Stop Beer Theft
Well, technically it was a beer robbery. An assistant manager at a Titusville Wal-Mart tried to get the license plate of two men who stole more than a dozen cases of beer from the store. He jumped into the bed of the robbers’ pick-up truck and the robbers then drove off and took him on a 15-minute high-speed trip. Eventually, the assistant manager got away and the police apprehended the beer thieves, but Wal-Mart wasn’t happy about the assistant manager’s zeal and gave him the axe.
Italian Nun Gives Birth; Claims She Didn’t Know She Was Pregnant
A Salvadorean nun living in a convent in Reiti, Italy, gave birth last Wednesday to a bouncing baby boy. The convent where the nun was living claimed that she didn’t know she was pregnant until she was admitted to the hospital. The larger question ought to be – Who’s the baby daddy? Sounds like a case for Maury Povich.
Oregon Fugitive Arrested in Montana After 15-year Manhunt
I never realized that it took so long to go from Oregon to Montana. I know you’d have to travel through Idaho, which is a barren, God-forsaken place where one can easily become lost and disoriented (i.e. Idaho Senators Crapo & Risch), but taking 15 years is a bit much. Maybe that’s why they called it a manhunt. A woman on a hunt would have asked for directions.
Clapper Declassifies More NSA Documents after Obama Speech
per FOX news)…I’ve been clapping my hands for the past 15 minutes, and although the lights keep going on and off, I still don’t see any declassified documents. Can somebody help me out here?
Target Hacker Used Over-The-Counter Malware
That headline basically means that Target’s security is so lax that even a 5-year old could breach it. If the Evil Empire wasn’t so busy firing managers for chasing stolen beer and its hourly workers for demanding fair pay, I might have suggested breaking my own boycott, but that’s not going to happen. From now on, I’ll have a cash-only policy at Target.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
KILLING HIM HARSHLY
Ohio officials claimed that this past Thursday’s execution of convicted killer, Dennis McGuire would not be done in a manner that constituted cruel and unusual punishment, a penalty banned by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The two-drug cocktail that officials planned to use during McGuire’s execution by lethal injection was supposed to bring about his death quickly and painlessly. At least, that's what the state of Ohio claimed in briefs filed by its Attorney General in both federal and state court proceedings when McGuire challenged Ohio’s procedure for carrying out the death penalty. Unfortunately, McGuire’s execution was anything but quick and painless.
According to witnesses who observed the execution, including two of McGuire’s adult children and several newspaper reporters, McGuire gasped for air and made loud snorting noises for somewhere between between 15 and 19 minutes after Ohio’s experimental two-drug cocktail was administered.
That scenario was exactly what McGuire’s lawyer predicted during arguments before various courts as he was trying to block McGuire’s execution, but the courts and Ohio’s governor refused to listen. Moreover, the assistant attorney general representing Ohio had the audacity to suggest that it was perfectly acceptable for McGuire to suffer pain during the procedure. What’s next? Is torture to become an acceptable part of the death penalty process?
It has always been my belief that, at best, the death penalty is a foolish proposition, and at worst, it’s altogether cruel and unjust. I see no worthwhile purpose in needlessly terminating the life of another human being when a life behind bars would serve as a greater punishment. That said, if a state is going to have the death penalty on its books, it ought to recognize that the penalty is a deprivation of life, not torture followed by death.
States have stopped using the hangman’s noose, the electric chair and the gas chamber as methods for carrying out the death penalty. That’s because people came to recognize that those methods involved inflicting several pain and suffering upon the condemned before death occurred, and in many cases, that suffering amounted to torture. McGuire’s death proved that Ohio’s two-drug cocktail amounted to torture, too. It must be banned immediately!
According to witnesses who observed the execution, including two of McGuire’s adult children and several newspaper reporters, McGuire gasped for air and made loud snorting noises for somewhere between between 15 and 19 minutes after Ohio’s experimental two-drug cocktail was administered.
That scenario was exactly what McGuire’s lawyer predicted during arguments before various courts as he was trying to block McGuire’s execution, but the courts and Ohio’s governor refused to listen. Moreover, the assistant attorney general representing Ohio had the audacity to suggest that it was perfectly acceptable for McGuire to suffer pain during the procedure. What’s next? Is torture to become an acceptable part of the death penalty process?
It has always been my belief that, at best, the death penalty is a foolish proposition, and at worst, it’s altogether cruel and unjust. I see no worthwhile purpose in needlessly terminating the life of another human being when a life behind bars would serve as a greater punishment. That said, if a state is going to have the death penalty on its books, it ought to recognize that the penalty is a deprivation of life, not torture followed by death.
States have stopped using the hangman’s noose, the electric chair and the gas chamber as methods for carrying out the death penalty. That’s because people came to recognize that those methods involved inflicting several pain and suffering upon the condemned before death occurred, and in many cases, that suffering amounted to torture. McGuire’s death proved that Ohio’s two-drug cocktail amounted to torture, too. It must be banned immediately!
Friday, January 17, 2014
LOOKING BACK AT PRESIDENTIAL PREJUDICE
Prior to the commencement of a jury trial, prospective jurors are screened to insure they can make a fair and impartial determination of guilt without allowing preconceived notions or biases to interfere with their task. Our constitutional framework deems the decision to adjudge another man or woman’s guilt too important to be undertaken by individuals who are unable to fairly and impartially evaluate evidence. That’s because the stakes are too high for both the accused and for the safety of our society. During the testimony portion of a trial, witnesses are also cross-examined by attorneys to question the basis of their knowledge, to probe for inconsistencies in their testimony, to uncover motives to lie and to reveal prejudices and biases that thwart the search for the truth.
The same principles should have been applied when former President George W. Bush made the decision to go to war in Iraq. Ever since America and its allies invaded Iraq and found that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and was not a threat to America’s safety, people have debated whether President Bush lied to the American people about the decision to go to war. Diehard liberals felt he did. Diehard conservatives maintain that he did not. It’s also possible that the truth lies somewhere in the nebulous middle.
Diehard beliefs aside, one question Americans should be asking is whether President Bush allowed his own personal prejudices and biases to interfere with his ability to make a fair and impartial evaluation of the evidence about Saddam Hussein and Iraq that was set before him. Did those prejudices override his ability to think critically?
The decision to send hundreds of young men and women to their death in a war zone, not to mention causing the death of thousands of innocent civilians in the process, demanded strict scrutinizing of any evidence used to justify the determination to go to war. Preconceived prejudices and biases had no legitimate place in the midst of such a review when the lives of countless individuals were at stake.
That President Bush had preconceived notions and prejudices cannot be denied. Saddam Hussein once supported a plot to kill the President’s father. Barely weeks after taking office in his inaugural State of the Union message the President labeled Iraq and Saddam in particular as part of an “axis of evil” that America must confront. Paul O’Neill, a widely respected member of the President’s cabinet confirmed that at the first national security meeting after he took the oath of office, President Bush’s focus was finding evidence against Iraq. Regardless of the wisdom of the subsequent invasion, it is clear that Iraq was in the President’s cross-hairs from day one. Mind you, I’m not saying President Bush’s prejudices were unreasonable, only that they existed.
Is it reasonable for the son of a murder victim to sit on the jury adjudicating the murder suspect’s guilt? Of course, not! That’s because it’s widely recognized that the judgments of people are often clouded by their prejudices, biases and preconceived notions.
In the bloody aftermath of the war in Iraq, we now know that the assumptions used to justify the war were false and the evidence used to make those assumptions deeply flawed. That finding was not just made by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. A Republican controlled Senate Committee reached the same conclusion.
However, just because former President Bush relayed information to the American people, later found to be false, does not necessarily mean he lied. A lie is making a statement one knows to be untrue. Many Bush supporters argued that the President was simply duped by bureaucrats who overstated intelligence and provided skewed analysis. They maintained that the President actually believed what he said was true and therefore, he did not lie. It’s a good point worth remembering. I’ll explain why later.
Supporters of President Bush also applauded him as a man of decisive action. Granted, decisiveness is a valuable leadership skill, but many a leader has led his subjects down the path of ruin when critical analysis was abandoned in favor of what was labeled decisive. The head of a pack of lemmings that leads his group over a cliff is no doubt decisive, but his followers are not spared the fatal consequences of that decisiveness. The battlefields of history are littered with the remains of those who acted first without thinking.
One of the beauties of a democracy and our republic in particular, is that it affords its citizens the right to choose their own leaders. In the 2000 presidential election the winner was a perennial C-student who boasted afterwards to an English reporter that he wasn’t being paid to think in nuances, but rather to tell the American people what he believed. If that’s the case, President Bush essentially confirmed that Americans lowered the intellectual bar when they voted for him, a man who didn’t think, but just talked.
It shouldn’t have surprised anybody then that President Bush was either unwilling or intellectually unable to ask the critical questions necessary to properly evaluate the evidence about Iraq laid out before him, or to determine that the assumptions being made by his underlings were flawed. In President Bush’s mind, he wasn’t being paid to engage in critical thinking or ask questions, he was only paid to let the American people know what was on his mind! That’s why when then C.I.A. director George Tenet told the President that the evidence on Iraq was, “a slam dunk”, the President didn’t bother to ask why.
Millions of Americans were willing to risk their lives and the lives of their children on President Bush’s lack of thought and inquisition. They wanted a president who didn’t think and just talked. Just for the record, I wasn’t one of them!
The same principles should have been applied when former President George W. Bush made the decision to go to war in Iraq. Ever since America and its allies invaded Iraq and found that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and was not a threat to America’s safety, people have debated whether President Bush lied to the American people about the decision to go to war. Diehard liberals felt he did. Diehard conservatives maintain that he did not. It’s also possible that the truth lies somewhere in the nebulous middle.
Diehard beliefs aside, one question Americans should be asking is whether President Bush allowed his own personal prejudices and biases to interfere with his ability to make a fair and impartial evaluation of the evidence about Saddam Hussein and Iraq that was set before him. Did those prejudices override his ability to think critically?
The decision to send hundreds of young men and women to their death in a war zone, not to mention causing the death of thousands of innocent civilians in the process, demanded strict scrutinizing of any evidence used to justify the determination to go to war. Preconceived prejudices and biases had no legitimate place in the midst of such a review when the lives of countless individuals were at stake.
That President Bush had preconceived notions and prejudices cannot be denied. Saddam Hussein once supported a plot to kill the President’s father. Barely weeks after taking office in his inaugural State of the Union message the President labeled Iraq and Saddam in particular as part of an “axis of evil” that America must confront. Paul O’Neill, a widely respected member of the President’s cabinet confirmed that at the first national security meeting after he took the oath of office, President Bush’s focus was finding evidence against Iraq. Regardless of the wisdom of the subsequent invasion, it is clear that Iraq was in the President’s cross-hairs from day one. Mind you, I’m not saying President Bush’s prejudices were unreasonable, only that they existed.
Is it reasonable for the son of a murder victim to sit on the jury adjudicating the murder suspect’s guilt? Of course, not! That’s because it’s widely recognized that the judgments of people are often clouded by their prejudices, biases and preconceived notions.
In the bloody aftermath of the war in Iraq, we now know that the assumptions used to justify the war were false and the evidence used to make those assumptions deeply flawed. That finding was not just made by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. A Republican controlled Senate Committee reached the same conclusion.
However, just because former President Bush relayed information to the American people, later found to be false, does not necessarily mean he lied. A lie is making a statement one knows to be untrue. Many Bush supporters argued that the President was simply duped by bureaucrats who overstated intelligence and provided skewed analysis. They maintained that the President actually believed what he said was true and therefore, he did not lie. It’s a good point worth remembering. I’ll explain why later.
Supporters of President Bush also applauded him as a man of decisive action. Granted, decisiveness is a valuable leadership skill, but many a leader has led his subjects down the path of ruin when critical analysis was abandoned in favor of what was labeled decisive. The head of a pack of lemmings that leads his group over a cliff is no doubt decisive, but his followers are not spared the fatal consequences of that decisiveness. The battlefields of history are littered with the remains of those who acted first without thinking.
One of the beauties of a democracy and our republic in particular, is that it affords its citizens the right to choose their own leaders. In the 2000 presidential election the winner was a perennial C-student who boasted afterwards to an English reporter that he wasn’t being paid to think in nuances, but rather to tell the American people what he believed. If that’s the case, President Bush essentially confirmed that Americans lowered the intellectual bar when they voted for him, a man who didn’t think, but just talked.
It shouldn’t have surprised anybody then that President Bush was either unwilling or intellectually unable to ask the critical questions necessary to properly evaluate the evidence about Iraq laid out before him, or to determine that the assumptions being made by his underlings were flawed. In President Bush’s mind, he wasn’t being paid to engage in critical thinking or ask questions, he was only paid to let the American people know what was on his mind! That’s why when then C.I.A. director George Tenet told the President that the evidence on Iraq was, “a slam dunk”, the President didn’t bother to ask why.
Millions of Americans were willing to risk their lives and the lives of their children on President Bush’s lack of thought and inquisition. They wanted a president who didn’t think and just talked. Just for the record, I wasn’t one of them!
Thursday, January 16, 2014
A MARIJUANA-INDUCED SWAN DIVE
One of my college roommates, a kid named Larry spent his 21st birthday getting high on marijuana. Later that evening, Larry and his car took a swan-dive off the Pennsylvania turnpike out near Breezewood. Larry was killed instantly. The coroner’s report later confirmed that Larry was stoned when his car left the highway.
I learned of Larry’s death from a couple who had spent that day partying and getting high with him. They were devastated and couldn’t stop crying long enough to relate all that had happened during their last few hours with him. They watched Larry walk out the door not knowing that it would be the last time they saw him alive.
In the midst of that conversation, it struck me that neither of the two people who had gotten high with Larry were feeling any remorse or sympathy for the heart-breaking loss Larry’s family were experiencing. Instead, they were lamenting their own loss, the loss of a fun-loving partying buddy. To be honest, the whole conversation left me numb.
Alcohol and drugs weren't my thing when I was in college, but I did attend a few parties with Larry when he was my roommate and he always made sure the host knew beforehand to have a soft drink or two available for me. If somebody criticized my refusal to smoke marijuana, he was always the first to step in and verbally defend me. He didn’t agree with my choices, but he respected my right to choose. I felt the same way about him. I still do.
I’m not going to use marijuana whether it’s legalized or not, but if it is, there will be more swan-dives off the turnpike, more families lamenting the loss of loved ones and more tears. That’s not something I’d recommend choosing.
I learned of Larry’s death from a couple who had spent that day partying and getting high with him. They were devastated and couldn’t stop crying long enough to relate all that had happened during their last few hours with him. They watched Larry walk out the door not knowing that it would be the last time they saw him alive.
In the midst of that conversation, it struck me that neither of the two people who had gotten high with Larry were feeling any remorse or sympathy for the heart-breaking loss Larry’s family were experiencing. Instead, they were lamenting their own loss, the loss of a fun-loving partying buddy. To be honest, the whole conversation left me numb.
Alcohol and drugs weren't my thing when I was in college, but I did attend a few parties with Larry when he was my roommate and he always made sure the host knew beforehand to have a soft drink or two available for me. If somebody criticized my refusal to smoke marijuana, he was always the first to step in and verbally defend me. He didn’t agree with my choices, but he respected my right to choose. I felt the same way about him. I still do.
I’m not going to use marijuana whether it’s legalized or not, but if it is, there will be more swan-dives off the turnpike, more families lamenting the loss of loved ones and more tears. That’s not something I’d recommend choosing.
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