Tuesday, November 1, 2011

OWS GLOM ONTO SUFFRAGISTS

I watched "Iron Jawed Angels," and saw how the demonstrators for the Right to Vote were spat upon and abused by their fellow citizens. For Eleanore Clift, of Newsweek, the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations merit favorable equation with those Sisters, who, having supported the Abolitionist Cause, found that the very rights men gave themselves were denied Women. I don't want to get into a hissing exchange with Clift, but her taking Pat Buchannan to task over predicting that the OWS will end very, very badly and Obama's connection to them will, in turn, harm him centered on blame. Clift used a tone with Pat that leads me to surmise that the police and elected officials charged with Public Safety, decency and tranquility in Oakland, California were to "blame" for the tear-gassing and injuries to the participants. I learned this lesson the first time I was robbed in Savannah and had it re-inforced by my colleagues at American Security Insurance in Atlanta: If you go to a place where the trouble-makers are gathering, looking for trouble, and you get into trouble, it's YOUR FAULT for being there. So, Ellie, stick it where the Sun don't shine. It is the OWS demonstrators whose fault it is! They don't have enough sense to leave when advised of impending confrontation. Your first message is out there. Go home. Get a Job. Work, preferably within the system, and be the next "Street." It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the jobless camping out with a chip on their shoulder aren't protesting joblessness: it's the income they want. The sympathetic Obama can relate. It wasn't the JOB of president he so ruthlessly persued: he wanted the POSITION, the perks and the fame...too bad he didn't read enough history to understand that his historic election was the result of eliminating his competition rather than rising to the challenge. One other thing I learned at American Security: people working together, exchanging and advancing their debate is progressive. People standing pat, irrationally defending a "going nowhere" status quo and being everything against which they campaigned may get their way, but they just foster yet another demonstration of displeasure with the results. Like Tanya Harding eliminating her competition via thuggish supporters whacking Nancy Kerrigan, the door opens for the Orphan, Oksana, to skate off with the gold. Gather your skirts, Elles, the
Women's Rights The progressives were successful in reforming the social and political problems in America because many women such as Susan Anthony, Elizabeth Stanton, Alice Paul and Carrie Cat fought for women's voting rights. They made their voices loud, strong and heard - in 1920 women won the right to vote. In the middle of the 19th century Americans had separate ideas of both men and women. Men ran for the government and worked while women cared for their families at home. Women were thought as of being delicate, childlike, emotional, and mentally inferior to men. Women did not win the right to vote until 1920 once their role in society had changed. Since men were fighting in the Civil War, women had to take up jobs previously done by men such as running the farm and working in factories. Both the Progressives (led by Theodore Roosevelt) and Socialists (led by Eugene Debs) favored women's suffrage and without their support women might not have the rights they do today.

 
...But, Elles, it still comes down to relationships. How many of you share my recent discovery: that what I had believed to be a relationship proved, instead, to be a parasite? It's taking all my resources to survive, while the ipod users and tent-dwellers appear to have a magic connection to cash flow and "sympathizers." As a woman "burned," I have zero enthusiasm for this crowd, deciding, instead, to work that "SHE LOST: GET OVER IT!" grudge against every fool that worked the angle which put an incompetent, empty suit in the oval office. That includes you, Clift. As I recall, Pat Buchannon became the darling of the HRC camp for one obvious reason, he didn't have his head up Obama's gold-plated a$$ and could make the obvious connection between Hope and Loose Wall Street Change. Not this time, Media. We know Pat Buchannon, and Ellie, you're No Pat.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

The Narrative, 3rd Leg of Economic Recovery blending the Republican techniques using the private market for job creation at the same time that he stuck the social programs that the Democrats wanted and he balanced the budget ... Clinton represents a hybrid that this 3rd Way, this New Democrat formulation, brought the country when he was elected President, and made us competitive - for the first time - as a Party in 1992.  The Narrative of the Clinton Presidency was to change the Democratic Party from a Party of Interest Groups out of the mainstream, who lost the white working class, to a party of the Middle Class.  ... And President Obama hasn't struck that narrative, yet.  I think he's trying, but the Facts On The Ground are the problem for President Obama.  No matter what speeches he makes, as long as the unemployment stays as high as it is, it's really very difficult for him to do anything about it.  He's gotta work from facts on the ground  first, and narrative second, not the other way around.  Lanny Davis

The old Clinton Peeps got together and observed the 20th Anniversary of Bill Clinton's first announcement as a Presidential candidate.  Facing off against George H. W. Bush, Billary found H. Ross Perot along for the ride and the discussion about "The Deficit" gained traction.  Clinton was a sponge, absorbing all that was possible when Americans were heard, heeded and included in Government.  His own idea about addressing the issue of Health Care costs and availability won him the Pennsylvania Primary.  Read his speech announcing his candidacy, and without pretending that Barak Obama is anything but a disappointment, this speech could win him election again today:
 
Announcement Speech
Old State House, Little Rock, Arkansas
October 3, 1991

Thank you all for being here today, for your friendship and support, for giving me the opportunity to serve as your Governor for 11 years, for filling my life full of blessings beyond anything I ever deserved.
 
I want to thank especially Hillary and Chelsea for taking this big step in our life's journey together. Hillary, for being my wife, my friend, and my partner in our efforts to build a better future for the children and families of Arkansas and America. Chelsea, in ways she is only now coming to understand, has been our constant joy and reminder of what our public efforts are really all about: a better life for all who will work for it, a better future for the next generation.
 
All of you, in different ways, have brought me here today, to step beyond a life and a job I love, to make a commitment to a larger cause: Preserving the American Dream ... Restoring the hopes of the forgotten middle class... Reclaiming the future for our children.
 
I refuse to be part of a generation that celebrates the death of Communism abroad with the loss of the American Dream at home.
 
I refuse to be part of a generation that fails to compete in the global economy and so condemns hard-working Americans to a life of struggle without reward or security.
 
That is why I stand here today...because I refuse to stand by and let our children become part of the first generation to do worse than their parents. I don't want my child or your child to be part of a country that's coming apart instead of coming together.
 
Over 25 years ago, I had a professor at Georgetown who taught me that America was the greatest country in history because our people believed in and acted on two simple ideas: first, that the future can be better than the present; and second, that each of us has a personal, moral responsibility to make it so.
 
That fundamental truth has guided my public career, and brings me here today. It is what we've devoted ourselves to here in Arkansas. I'm proud of what we've done here in Arkansas together. Proud of the work we've done to become a laboratory of democracy and innovation. And proud that we've done it without giving up the things we cherish and honor most about our way of life. Solid, middle-class values of work, Will, family, individual responsibility, and community.
 
As I’ve traveled across our state, I've found that everything we believe in, everything we've fought for, is threatened by an administration that refuses to take care of our own, has turned its back on the middle class, and is afraid to change while the world is changing.
 
The historic events In the Soviet Union in recent months teach us an important lesson: National security begins at home. For the Soviet Empire never lost to us on the field of battle. Their system rotted from the inside out, from economic, political and spiritual failure.
 
To be sure, the collapse of communism requires a new national security policy. I applaud the President's recent initiative in reducing nuclear weapons. It is an important beginning. But make no mistake - the end of the Cold War is not the end of threats to America. The world is still a dangerous and uncertain place. The first and most solemn obligation of the president is to keep America strong and safe from foreign dangers, and promote democracy around the world.
 
But we cannot build a safe and secure world unless we can first make America strong at home. It is our ability to take care of our own at home that gives us the strength to stand up for what we believe around the world.
 
As governor for 11 years, working to preserve and create jobs in a global economy, I know our competition for the future is Germany and the rest of Europe, Japan and the rest of Asia. And I know that we are losing America's leadership in the world because we're losing the American dream right here at home.
 
Middle class people are spending more hours on the job, spending less time with their children, bringing home a smaller paycheck to pay more for health care and housing and education. Our streets are meaner, our families are broken, our health care is the costliest in the world and we get less for it.
 
The country is headed in the wrong direction fast, slipping behind, losing our way...and all we have out of Washington is status quo paralysis. No vision, no action. Just neglect, selfishness, and division.
 
For 12 years, Republicans have tried to divide us - race against race - so we get mad at each other and not at them. They want us to look at each other across a racial divide so we don't turn and look to the White House and ask, why are all of our incomes going down, why are all of us losing jobs? Why are we losing our future?
 
Where I come from we know about race-baiting. They've used it to divide us for years. I know this tactic well and I'm not going to let them get away with it.
 
For 12 years, the Republicans have talked about choice without really believing in it. George Bush says he wants school choice even if it bankrupts the public schools, and yet he's more than willing to make it a crime for the women of America to exercise their individual right to choose.
 
For 12 years, the Republicans have been telling us chat America's problems aren't their problem. They washed their hands of responsibility for the economy and education and health care and social policy and turned it over to fifty states and a thousand points of light. Well, here in Arkansas we've done our best to create jobs and educate our people. And each of us has tried to be one of those thousand points of light But I can tell you, where there is no national vision, no national partnership, no national leadership, a thousand points of light leaves a lot of darkness.
 
We must provide the answers...the solutions. And we will. We're going to turn this country around and get it moving again, and we're going to fight for the hard-working middle-class families of America for a change.
 
Make no mistake - this election is about change: in our party, in our national leadership, and in our country.
 
And we're not going to get positive change just by Bush-bashing. We have to do a better job of the old-fashioned work of confronting the real problems of real people and pointing the way to a better future. That is our challenge in 1992.
 
Today, as we stand on the threshold of a new era, a new millennium, I believe we need a new kind of leadership, leadership committed to change. Leadership not mired in the politics of the past, not limited by old ideologies...Proven leadership that knows how to reinvent government to help solve the real problem of real people.
 
That is why today I am declaring my candidacy for President of the United States. Together I believe we can provide leadership that will restore the American dream - that will fight for the forgotten middle class - that will provide more opportunity, Insist on more responsibility and create a greater sense of community for this great country.
 
The change we must make isn't liberal or conservative. It’s both, and it's different. The small towns and main streets of America aren't like the corridors and backrooms of Washington. People out here don't care about the idle rhetoric of "left" and "right" and "liberal" and "conservative" and all the other words that have made our politics a substitute for action. These families are crying out desperately for someone who believes the promise of America is to help them with their struggle to get ahead, to offer them a green light instead of a pink slip.
 
This must be a campaign of ideas, not slogans. We don't need another President who doesn't know what he wants to do for America. I'm going to tell you in plain language what I intend to do as President. How we can meet the challenges we face - that's the test for all the Democratic candidates in this campaign. Americans know what we're against Let's show them what we're for.
 
We need a new covenant to rebuild America. It's just common sense. Government's responsibility is to create more opportunity. The people's responsibility is to make the most of it.
 
In a Clinton Administration, we are going to create opportunity for all. We've got to grow this economy, not shrink it. We need to give people Incentives to make long-term investment in America and reward people who produce goods and services, not those who speculate with other people's money. We've got to invest more money in emerging technologies to help keep high-paying jobs here at home. We've got to convert from a defense to a domestic economy.
 
We've got to expand world trade, tear down barriers, but demand fair trade policies if we're going to provide good jobs for our people. The American people don't want to run from the world. We must meet the competition and win.
 
0pportunity for all means world-class skills and world-class education. We need more than photo ops and empty rhetoric - we need standards and accountability and excellence in education. On this issue, I'm proud to say that Arkansas has led the way.
 
In a Clinton Administration, students and parents and teachers will get a real education President.
 
Opportunity for all means pre-school for every child who needs it, and an apprenticeship program for kids who don't want to go to college but do want good jobs. It means teaching everybody with a job to read, and passing a domestic GI Bill that would give every young American the chance to borrow the money necessary to go to college and ask them to pay it back either as a small percentage of their income over time, or through national service as teachers or policemen or nurses or child care workers.
 
In. a Clinton Administration, everyone will be able to get a college loan as long as they're willing to give something back to their country In return.
 
Opportunity for all means reforming the health care system to control costs, improve quality, expand preventive and long-term care, maintain consumer choice, and cover everybody. And we don't have to bankrupt the taxpayers to do it. We do have to take on the big insurance companies and health care bureaucracies and get some real cost control into the system. I pledge to the American people that in the first year of a Clinton Administration, we will present a plan to Congress and the American people to provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans.
 
Opportunity for all means making our cities and our streets safe from crime and drugs. Across America, citizens are banding together to take their streets and neighborhoods back. In a Clinton Administration, we'll be on their side with new initiatives like community policing, drug treatment for those who need it, and boot camps for first-time offenders.
 
Opportunity for all means making taxes fair. I'm not out to soak the rich. I wouldn't mind being rich. But I do believe the rich should pay their fair share. For 12 years, the Republicans have raised taxes on the middle class. It's time to give the middle class tax relief.
 
Finally, opportunity for all means we must protect our environment and develop an energy policy that relies more on conservation and clean natural gas so all our children will inherit a world that is cleaner, safer, and more beautiful.
 
But hear me now. I honestly believe that if we try to do these things, we will still not solve the problems of today or move into the next century with confidence unless we do what President Kennedy did and ask every American citizen to assume personal responsibility for the future of our country.
 
The government owes our people more opportunity, but we all have to make the most of it through responsible citizenship.
 
We should insist that people move off welfare rolls and onto work rolls. We should give people on welfare the skills they need to succeed, but we should demand that everybody who can work and become a productive member of society.
 
We should insist on the toughest possible child support enforcement. Governments don't raise children, parents do. And when they don't, their children pay forever and so do we.
 
And we have got to say, as we've tried to do in Arkansas, that students have a responsibility to stay in school. If you drop out for no good reason, you should lose your driver's license. But its important to remember that the most irresponsible people of all in the 1980s were those at the top...not those who were doing worse, not the hard-working middle class, but those who sold out our savings and loans with bad deals and spent billions on wasteful takeovers and mergers - money that could have been spent to create better products and new jobs.
 
Do you know that in the 1980s, while middle-class income went down, charitable giving by working people went up? And while rich peoples incomes went up, charitable giving by the wealthy went down. Why? Because our leaders had an ethic of get it while you can and to heck with everybody else.
 
How can you ask people who work or who are poor to behave responsibly, when they know that the heads of our biggest companies raised their own pay in the last decade by four times the percentage their workers' pay went up? Three times as much as their profits went up. When they ran their companies into the ground and their employees were on the street, what did they do? They bailed out with golden parachutes to a cushy life. That's just wrong.
 
Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman and John Kennedy didn't hesitate to use the bully pulpit of the Presidency. They changed America by standing up for what’s right. When Salomon Brothers abused the Treasury markets, the President was silent. When the
rip-off artists looted our S&L's the President Was Silent. In a Clinton Administration, when people sell their companies and their workers and their country down the river, they'll get called on the carpet. We're going to insist that they invest In this country and create jobs for our people.
 
In the 1980s, Washington failed us too. We spent more money on the present and the past and less on the future. We spent $500 billion to recycle assets in the S&L mess, but we couldn't afford $5 billion for unemployed workers or to give every kid in this country the chance to be in Head Start. We can do better than that, and we will.
 
A Clinton Administration won't spend our money on programs that don't solve problems and a government that doesn't work. I want to reinvent government to make it more efficient and more effective. I want to give citizens more choices in the services they get, and empower them to make those choices. That's what we've tried to do in Arkansas. We've balanced the budget every year and improved services. We've treated taxpayers like our customers and our bosses, because they are.
 
I want the American people to know that a Clinton Administration will defend our national interests abroad, put their values into our social policy at home, and spend their tax money with discipline. Well put government back on the side of the hard-working middle-class families of America who think most of the help goes to those at the top of the ladder, some goes to the bottom, and no one speaks for them.
 
But we need more than new laws, new promises, or new program. We need a new spirit of community, a sense that we are all in this together. If we have no sense of community the American dream will continue to wither. Our destiny is bound up with the destiny of every other American. Were all in this together, and we will rise or fail together.
 
A few years ago, Hillary and I visited a classroom in Los Angeles, in an area plagued by drugs and gangs. We talked to a dozen sixth graders, whose number one concern was being shot going to and from school. Their second worry was turning 12 or 13 and being forced to join a gang or be beaten. And finally, they were worried about their own parents' drug abuse.
 
Newly half a century ago, I was born not far from here in Hope, Arkansas. My mother had been widowed three months before I was born. I was raised for four years by my grandparents, while she went back to nursing school. They didn't have much money. I spent a lot of time with my great-grandparents. By any standard, they were poor. But we didn't blame other people. We took responsibility for ourselves and for each other because we knew we could do better. I was raised to believe In the American dream, in family values, in individual responsibility, and in the obligation of government to help people who were doing the best they could.
 
Its a long way in America from that loving family which is embodied today in a picture on my wall in the Governor's office of me at the age of six holding my great-grandfather's hand to an America where children on the streets of our cities don't know who their grandparents are and have to worry about their own parents' drug abuse.
 
I tell you, by making common cause with those children, we give new life to the American dream. And that is our generation's responsibility - to form a new covenant... more opportunity for all, more responsibility from everyone, and a greater sense of common purpose.
 
I believe with all my heart that together, we can make this happen. We can usher in a new era of progress, prosperity and renewal. We can – we must. This is not just a campaign for the Presidency – it is a campaign for the future, for the forgotten hard-working middle class families of America who deserve a government that fights for them. A campaign to keep America strong at home and around the world. Join with us. I ask for your prayers, your help, your hands, and your hearts. Together we can make America great again, and build a community of hope that will inspire the world.
How did the Democratic Party allow itself to be overtaken by punks, selfish special interests and power-lusting identity politicos?

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Solyndra Fancy on Us

It is regrettable that in the scandal coverage of the Obama Administration's forced "selection" of a Green Energy "Winner" funding, the uniqueness of the Solyndra product line is obscured.  From my own college days in the 70's to this very day as I observe the WindMill field along the PA Turnpike heading to Harrisburg for State Committee meetings, I have wondered at the "off-beat" quality of the alternative energy industry.  

I went to the Solyndra website, http://www.solyndra.com/technology-products/ and was impressed with the cylindrical design of the solar units.  Unlike the panels which have been the typical solar collector, the Solyndra collectors look more like flourescent bulbs you see in work-bench lighting and kitchens of the 50's.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Who Gave These Wimminz the Vote, Anyway?

Increasingly more of them have been stood up enough to determine that their bad boyfriend only strings them along and takes the Mrs on Vacation. Figuring out that what they believed to be a relationship is nothing but a parasite isn't the worst part. It was SO loyal of them to beat back their dismay at the rumped 2008 convention when the roll call was called on account of competition. But it really frosted them to find themselves working the campaign headquarters as loyal Democrats while the Progressives were hijacking the flag, the America we all love and grinding them into serfs left to eat it as they were treated boorishly. You put these creeps on top and trusted them to reciprocate. Psyche!

But Gals, take faith...the Chinese want to pay cold, hard cash to get into Baseball!!!! Do you grasp what awesome diplomatic NEWS this is? This is a tectonic shift in all that is AMERICAN!
The money to pay for the deal would come from American investors and “certain state-owned investment institutions of the People’s Republic of China,” the letter said, according to the Times.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Dodgers+comes+from+China+reports/5342900/story.html#ixzz1WqJStqjx

As a Pittsburgh Pirate fan, (the Steelers lost for 40 years, like Moses not asking for directions, while the Honus Wagner card commanded the most cash in the trading realm) we saw the only walk-off series winning homer sail over the Forbes Field ivy to beat the Yankees and make Bill Mazeroski a hero, and Roberto Clemente go "Arriba!" in '71 and again as the Family in '79. We also returned home to The Burgh when the City of Pittsburgh, the Banks, Corporations and the Fans took ownership of the franchise and truly became the Team Managed by Committee. Ah! to be part of the team in a meaningful way, we all felt like world-beaters @the Confluence.

So it is truly a mark of respect and the highest form of flattery that the Chinese have offered back a bit of the cash we paid them to import their job-robbing products to our shores for a shot at the Show. The people who sell tickets for Major League Baseball clubs will affirm that this is the best economic news Americans could hear. The Chinese will come to the United States to enjoy their team and learn, in the process, the joy of legitimate competition. They will gain insight into a gentle pass time that matches pitching duelers with hitting prowess and all manner of agility and fundamentals... like the Japanese, the Chinese will fall hopelessly in love with America and it'll be a reprise of "How the West Was Won." The Japanese President of Success Motivation Institute International once spoke at the company convention in Dallas with the announcement that he bought himself a 10 Gallon Hat and some baby blue alligator cowboy boots which he couldn't wait to wear back home while riding his motorcycle. I can only imagine the Chinese bringing their children to sing the National Anthem, God Bless America and "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" while watching themselves on the JumboTron. All things American and all things traditional are enshrined in Doubleday's Game and the Diplomatic Corps from the Foggy Bottom can throw a China Town take-out into a Dodger Blue cooler with a couple of Stoneys and rig up a rally cap.

Really, now, you Latino's, do you think you should offend your Chinese Friends with complaints that somebody "American" should own the Dodgers? Do you not get that THEY WANT TO BE AMERICANS? (Just like younz) This is their bid. Smile. Kim Jong Il wants in, too. And that apology tour the tool town Chic took to the middle east will be a laughable moment when the Asiatic workhorses can finally relate to the tomahawk chop, catching a souvenir foul ball and running the bases after a Sunday game. Awesome! They're gonna be too much fun in Spring Training. And the Carolinas will show them all that is Americana with the Mudcats right up there beside the NASCAR pits, perogie races and minor league spinning.. They'll be hookin' up with the Blue Jays, the Cardinals, the Orioles and the Tribe, the Reds, Rays / Fish, the Sox, Cubs, Braves, Mets, Yanks, A's, Astros, Tigers, Twins, Nats and Bucs, the Snakes, Rockies, Mariners, Padres and Giants...and they'll learn to love the way fans rip the bull pen and as they tune into the language of balls and strikes, they'll bring a whole new dimension to contemporary management - and of course, they'll all be doing this: And after they see this, they'll wish they hadn't done the little girls that way.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

A Variation on an Old Theme

OOOH...AN INNOCENT STAFFER, NOT AUTHORIZED, DID THIS:(

"For the People Jobs Initiative"

Job Fairs, Town Hall meetings, help putting together a resume, the nuts and bolts of finding a job, ... It's ALL work, folks.  Maxine Waters has done the Charlie Rangel and cried to her fellow leaders to "hold us back or unleash the CBC."  In my mind, the Congressional Black Congress should not even exist, yet this woman - who like Nancy Pelosi - has enjoyed invincibility getting re-elected in her California Congressional District while she wreaks havoc with the stability, substance and decency of the Economic Opportunity available to her Constituency.

Unlike Pelosi, Maxine represents virtually ONLY people of color, a mere 10% of CA-35 is white while fully 47% are Hispanic and 34%  black all of whom "enjoy" an average annual income of about $32,000. Their Congresswoman is fleecing her constituents - not unlike the recently deposed Speaker.


This district, formed in 1970 has, at times, included parts of Orange and San Bernardino. Targeted 7 times in 23 years for redistricting, the shuffle and shift a conflagration of California Wild Fires of political opportunism was finally "Ghetto-locked" into a readily controlled police state known as South L.A. over which the "Office" of socialist, Waters, has exerted political clout since 1993. Re-elected 10 times, Waters has joined the ranks of seniority in Congress that should qualify her loyal Constituents for some sort of "pork" yet we wonder where it goes. I took some classes at the Allegheny County Community College while "serving" on Unemployment back in the 90's - about the time Maxine arrived on Capitol Hill. The branch was on Pittsburgh's North Side (Old Allegheny; Millionaire's row, now a reclaimed slum and "Project" site.) Although a well-designed building complex, there were areas where a student could not walk the halls without being bombarded with flyers, signage and banners urging them to reject drugs, get help and know the dangers of drug use. I gotta tell you; the "culture" of this community was screaming through this "motivational" artwork and it so creeped me out that I switched to the North Hills branch for the next semester. Between that and the 'African' art, I simply could not relate, relax or realize my "potential." "Geez!" I thought. "They are so cocooned in their own cultural slant that they are as though blinded by baloney." At the time, I was doing classes in Word Perfect, Computer Programming (which kicked my butt) Lotus 1-2-3 (both of these programs were ultimately replaced in the mainstream by Word and Excel, respectively.)   But as I look at Roger Williams, Texan, Candidate for Congress and Republican, I begin to understand.  Like the White Tail deer population in the country, the voters who support such leadership are oblivious to the bustle of traffic on the freeway heading to the suburbs: they have carved out a community within a community that permits them to congeal into a collective of passive, indifferent, self-centereds who simplify their lives by gaming the system for the wherewithal to trade government scrip for privacy in their otherwise 'to-be-avoided' neighborhood.  At night, gunfire and shootings plague this part of the city, known as the Manchester District, and the residents there, while lovely and diligent, are infiltrated with low-life who live, virtually off those whom - I believe - attend Community College and buy their drugs.  Unlike in the Oakland area, home of Pitt University and Medical Center, the North Side is Heinz Field, PNC Park, Rivers Casino and the main branch of the Post Office, UPS, Port Authority Mass Transit, the Carnegie Science Center and Allegheny General and Divine Providence Hospitals - substantive employers and resources surrounded by blight.   On weekends, there is no more 'traditional' neighborhood; the Mexican War Streets teeming with Peace Corps alums who have done beautiful restorations of the grand town-homes, Southern-style barbecue chefs operating hole-in-the-wall establishments preserving techniques unique to contemporary business models, Bed & Breakfasts in old churches and monasteries.  Cart vendors offer Italian Ice, popcorn and refreshments but, unlike the Hill District, there is little night life beyond the river banks.

Thus my perception of Maxine Waters' district is difficult.  I would have to actually go there and see it for myself.  Waters has, over her ten terms, acquired some political weight, having served on committees and garnered notoriety as a derided socialist.  Her work in Congress is Afro-Centric as she is focused on issues of particular importance to African -Americans while her district is virtually HALF Latino.  Given the ethics charges brought against her, exposing her husband's banking connections (hey, Max, didn't you initially endorse Hillary then switch to the Wall Street Whipping Boy when the deal cutting with the Banking Industry got serious?), today's Fox & Friends interview with Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr. is particularly poignant.  Commenting on Waters' words "As far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell." King observed that Maxine is simply not doing her job.    King observes that if Maxine would tell the truth about all the issues impacting every community, not limited to the African American community, "We'd be a littler happier with what she's doing."  What's up with these politicians who have their heads so spun into a dither over race that they are incapable of just looking around themselves and seeing with awareness?

Monday, August 15, 2011

China, Secrets & American JOB

Years ago, I took my administrative skills to an employment opportunity with a professional man engaged in the sale of carbon products and alloys to the metals industry.  He represented Coke, of the bituminous kind, the sort that makes Clairton, Pennsylvania the location of choice for the air quality monitors of Allegheny County.  The year before I was born, in the Monongahela River Valley, 1948, citizens fell dead on the sidewalks, overcome by toxins in the air described as the "Donora Fog."  United States Steel had a plant in Donora where the Zinc Works spewed flouride into the "inversion" later blamed for the 20 deaths attributed to the incident.  Our family doctor, Bill Rongaus, who normally saw patients in his 6th & Thompson office for endless hours, led the ambulances on foot as a Health Department Board Member, into their homes and neighborhoods well into the middle of the night, and personally assessed the impact on his clientele.  "Thousands would have perished had the fog lasted another day," he observed.  I started school in 1955 and for the next eight years, walked the few blocks to one funeral home or another to pray the rosary in the presence of caskets holding the family members of my classmates.  My own father, a 33 year carpenter at the Zink Works, died in his early 50's after returning to work from his six-week vacation having earned his age + service "sabbatical" from the grind.  A year shy of retirement, dad had a "heart condition" for the final eight years of his life, having suffered a "heart attack" while completing a side job renovating a dry cleaning establishment - one of your serious chemical zones, I guess.

At "Alloys & Carbon," Frank Praznik organized the delivery of various sizes of coke produced in West Virginia to the mills along the river in Monaca.  In the course of getting online with the new-fangled internets, Frank expanded to suppliers beyond our local producers.  He arranged a boatload of what was called "Buckwheat" coke to be brought in from China at about the time he had given me a book to read about the history of Coke as it was part of the American Industrial Revolution.   The original tree huggers of Great Britain turned to coke as a salvation for the too-rapid exhaustion of the the forests for the fuel to smelt iron for the steel industry.  Many of the secretaries performing the administrative tasks to receive the imported coke shipment were the children of folks whose lives were tormented and prematurely ceased to breath in the unacceptable working and living conditions fostered by these coke ovens known as "bee hives."  To Frank, their objections were ridiculous, inasmuch as only Clairton and the Neville Island plants continued to produce these products.  Because of the Clean Air Act of 1955, US Coke Works could no longer use the bee hive production method and had developed a system of "scrubbers" installed in the exhaust stacks in all US Steel Mills to manage the air quality.  Homes were moved from coal burning furnaces to natural gas and propane further up river in Pittsburgh, but the people of Southwest Pennsylvania were now well aware of the quality of life issues that drove the Union movements in Homestead, PA in the last decades of the nineteenth century.  To them, the people engaged in the production of coke via known toxic-producing processes were subjected to working and living conditions that were unacceptable and objections were received FROM THE SECRETARIAL STAFF about the importation of the coke.  For Frank's money, the wimminz were well-intentioned, but he viewed the efforts of the Chinese was a first tier entry into the industrial process.  This was in 1997, mind you, barely fifteen years ago, but to the "men" of the metals industry who could buy, transport and deliver this product from the Far East, it was still cheaper than they could get it in the United States.  Detached and profit-driven, Frank would have readily fired those meddlesom gals had they been in his employ.  But I came to recognize the complaints of the Immigration Control supporters who are constantly told the undocumented workers taking our jobs stateside are willing to do jobs Americans won't do. 

remnants of the helicopter destroyed
Read the piece about the investigations into the Donora Fog and understand that it isn't the jobs Americans reject, but, rather the working conditions imposed upon them by employers indifferent to the realities of dangers and threats to residents and employees their processes pose.  Instead of responsibly and routinely initiating upgrades and improvements to their plants as they become available, they simply remove the skilled, higher paid labor to admit poorly trained, ignorant people desperate for jobs at the lower end.  These folks, just thankful for a job, are often further victimized by shake-down artists who demand a portion of their paychecks for the "protection" of any claim they had to a job of any sort.  Like the Chinese, these employers shrug off the technology available to provide the mutually respectful, highly motivating job opportunities for working people and their families.  Priorities being what they are, the issue with JOBS driving this economy into the ground has a parallel issue in the technology reported today to have been sold to the Chinese by the Pakistanis holding the remnants of the helicopter destroyed when the Navy Seals entered the Abbottabad Compound of Osama Bin Ladin.  While the Chinese engineers pour over the wreakage to conduct what is - essentially -  an autopsy of US "Intelligence," their citizens foment in a rise to challenge the qualities of life issues that drove Eastern Europeans to hang Henry Clay Frick in effigy at the site of the Homestead Strike in 1892.  While his own employer, Andrew Carnegie, was travelling to Scottland, the Mount Pleasant German was "doing the best he could" with his limited skills, to control the workers.  His boss was reputed to be "pro labor," and no doubt had the wisdom, social insight and appreciation for his employees to have been likely to have done a much more effective job of dealing with their uprising.  In his stead, because he had to travel to connect with his colleagues in the growing steel industry overseas, his "deputized" partner was the entity whose fortunes, like his own, were tied to the resolution of differences between the two sides.   One would think that Frick had both the incentive and the insight to reach a sensible agreement with his producers.  Instead of negotiating from a position of strength fostered by good will toward his employees, Frick operated from a mis-guided notion that intimidation and subordination would somehow enhance the profit prospects of his business.  He paid "detectives" from New York Pinkerton Agency to come in and level the strikers with violence and destruction.  Up to that point, only the symbolic representation of Frick himself was impacted.  The overbearing actions taken in retaliation, however, communicated his ignorance in no uncertain terms.

Which brings me to my daily "Howler" to Barak Obama, a no-holds-barred assessment of his skill set limits now providing the Chinese with yet another 'distraction' from the needs to develop their economy by diverting resources to "Intelligence" work to defend what they are acquiring.  Of course, China is both our banker and our biggest customer / supplier.  Their "production" methods get a wink and a nod from our own human rights lefties as the rakes continue to glut the accounts of the Kennedeys who sell their cheap goods in Minnesota.  At the Mall of America, tourists are walked along a corridor of corruption that links directly to profits and privilege with utter contempt for those whose jobs prevent them from being able to afford anything more than the exercise they get licking the windows.  If Michele Bachmann were Hillary Clinton, the left would be assaulting her for serving on the board of any of the hundreds of businesses who import Chinese product to stock the establishments in the mall.  Instead, she's appealing to the folks who are in the decided minority in MN, for reason and mutually respectful behavior.  I have alluded in the past to the communication I often receive from my deceased ancestors, and have no doubt that the Chinese know of what I speak.

Along with the input from members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Crochet Club Amores, Brizzi's and Carbonnes to whom my grandmothers were related, I hear, from time to time, from departed spirits of underworld figures who thought they were smart but come to find out that they were but victims of their own callous indifference to their families' best interests.  As I have mentioned in previous posts here and at UppityWoman08, the MOB has electronics.  The Wise Guys who met their "eviction" from the underworld - from which there IS only one exit, stick around to kibbutz from the other side and look over my shoulder at my cards... They comment on how I play them, and sometimes, WHEN I FLAT OUT ASK FOR IT, they IM me with some sensible advice.  Always, always, always, these bytes of input from my "guys" reinforce the admission that their demise was the result of their own choice, something they, themselves did, to bring about their death.  Where they end up, they have alternatives, but not really choices.  They share with me that the better my decisions, the better my resultant choices.  What we don't always get is the taqiyya thing going on in our faces, obscuring pertinent factors that will ultimately misguide us.  So they invite me to enter the bird's eye, see how the land lies and adjust my course in coordination with their best wishes for me.  I get that, because I know that where they are is beyond material gain.  The only 'motivation' they have now is fun.  They have it "there" for certain.  They play at things one can do remotely and are - just as we bloggers, gamers and similar computer, phone, gps geeks, constantly testing new combinations of standards and traditions that, aided by technological advancements of the NASA funding, are exceptional fun.  The first time I put on quality headphones tapped into a radio/tape player while in the middle of a parking lot in Buckhead, on my roller skates, I "got it."  22 pinheads (rather minutes) past the hour, says Bill Hemmer on the morning Fox News, just as I typed that, and it reinforced the access they have to electronics.  I learned they can combine any / many things to convey their message to me and that reference to Pin Heads was an O'Reilley colloquialism telling me that the Long Island contingent of cucumber farmers was in touch.  OK, Guys, we'll play.  But for now, I've gotta get to the office and put the payroll together.  See yunz there.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

تقية - taqiyya and how the slow-on-the-uptake processers are slacking

True intelligence is rooted in responsive promptness. The more the Governors of the Border States take a "push-back" from the Administration for attempting to protect themselves, and the more the White House hosts Ramadan dinners, and the more the politically correct react to any threat to the 'erection' of the community center/middle finger celebration of victory mosque in the shadow of the Ground Zero real-estate, the more convinced I am that we are all getting a taqiyya teachin'to. Stories of jihaddists "celling' in the States and Honor killings of Women for doing nothing more than assimilating into American society (While their own mothers are incapable of intervening) the more convinced I am that the whole story of Obama jumping into the Presidential race to prevent the "inevitable" election of Hillary Clinton was an In-Your-Face takeover of a civilized country with a front man trained in the Islamic practice of Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.  This spinning needle is no more a Muslim than he is a human being.  He's a thread connecting a proven ineffective system like Communism, with a proven loser of a religion that on the one hand, demands martyrdom, murder and blood as proof of loyalty while promising carnal knowledge of virgins to the fools who buy in, and delivering utterly to those facile in the art of stabbing you in the back while looking you in the EYES.  The right wing, religious nut jobs are different.  They contend that their profession of faith and the name of Jesus is their duty.  A Christian who feigns distance from his Savior is a Judas, a traitor, a less-than-zero who should just hang himself in hopeless despair.  A Martyr is not greeted by 21 submissive virgins at the Pearly Gates, but is, instead, with the lord Jesus, helping those still on earth to find the way.  In the teachings of Christ, Christians find comfort, redemption, the greatest of these, LOVE.  It isn't Faith and Hope we ask for in our final moments.  It's love.  It's our mothers.  It's our family who cared for and about us.  It's our heritage and our roots.  For all his denial, Barack Obama was the son of a White Woman, a tireless slave to the idea of empowering Women and people in general.  She advocated hard work, convincing the "haves" to support the WORK of the Haven't Yet .  But Frank, and the Kenyan relatives, and the Axlerods and, yes, the Ayers, Hollywood HOPESTERS and the We mean to keep what we HAVES are just holding up one end of the See/Saw.  He sets on the fulcrum, having NO Fun, just bored with the business of governing, out of ideas and watching idolizing sports figures who share his self-imposed prison of appearances.  Little does he suspect that - like bullshitters - you cannot taqiyya a taqiyyar.  The EYE CONTACT IS as certain as the EAR CONNECTED BY THE CHORDE of a stricken tuning fork.  They all get up at the call, and look around, never surprised by whom they discover sharing their plane.

Since the Sales People were elbowed out by the big box commodity pushers, the buyer has taken the spot at the top of the rolls, and everybody's purchasing, getting the best price, while not necessarily getting any consulting, follow-up, customer service or warranty coverage.  It's a bottom line life for the taqiyyan.  Only the sensors are also blinking.  In "heaven" for everybody, where we are all created, as we believe, equal, men, women, christians, muslims, africans, europeans, gays, lesbians, equal.  We all have a certain number of dna markers, and a strict guide to choices.  If we have this, we cannot - by virtue of one choice eliminating the option, have that.  If we have a taqiyya gene, we can't have a sense gene.  That's the choice.  In combination with the OTHER choices, we can balance the taqiyya with a genuine understanding of when not to choose it.  When we CHOOSE to present as not what we are, we must accept that we have elected to survive rather than aspire, drive or evolve.  Choosing true to ourselves relates us to everybody who trusts us and is never let down.  We never doubt the one who is always there for us, and we always go - first - to the one who has delivered for us before.  A trustee who lets us down and asks for anothr chance, is forgiven out of love, and given another chance.  A 2nd, 3rd, 4th ... chance disappointer is lost love, hope dashed, faith failed.  We soon fall out of love with a cheater, a liar and a back-stabber.  But if they are "Ours" we make excuses for them, try to hide them from the knowing eyes of EVERYBODY and hope they have a good story to tell their friends (that taqiyya thing, again) because you CAN fool all of the people some of the time, if they really, reallly want to be fooled.

I had this sense that my life was in danger because I speak my mind, write what I am thinking and express my observations about the President.  I know that the Secret Service monitors "chatter" to protect the President from any danger and I know I must express my feelings without any allusions to violence or anger.  It's a professionally developed stability that harnesses my emotion and bridles my mouth.  When I can no longer contain my emotion, I go to my cards and my notebook and let my hand write what I cannot bring myself to admit.  And I sort it out.  I slow it down.  I let the inner voice form the thinking and I "dance" with God, the divinity within.  I seek the highest, kindest, most collaborative part of myself and endeavor, utterly, to make the best of the combination of elements with which I began the day.  leading people to work together

But last night, while the Pirates were holding the "Got Their Number" Brew crew to a single run in the eighth in Milwaukee, I kept getting this sense of THREAT from the same guy who reminded the Green Bay Packers that he's the only one who can ground planes into and out of Wisconsin.  He threatens his daughters' potential suitors with drones and he threatens Jan Brewer with the full power of the Federal Courts.  He threatens Seniors and Soldiers that he "can't guarantee" their paychecks, he threatens the world economy that he can't guarantee the full faith and credit of the United States. 

Well, to this prick, I can only communicate one instinctive survivor's sentiment:  threat gets response.  I, too, have assembled my secret service.  I, too, have "played the game" of serving as the "package" and I, too, have given my life for my country as I live and breathe a patriot.  You had better have substance behind that suggestion that you would bring to bear the weight of the presidency against me, an American Citizen, to purge your handed-to-you getting out of your way tactics of intimidation.  If we meet on that road, I will be treated as an equal for no more reason than that I am there, on the path, coming face to face with you.  I am prepared for any gesture of arrogance your demeanor suggests and I am in no way of the impression that my life is any more valuable than any other's, including yours.  I have Friends.  I have been a Friend.  My Friends and I will allow you to pass, to continue along your chosen path, and we will track where you come from... that's the direction WE were going, peaceably.  The Secret Service protects the Life of the President, and those who would be President.  The Service preserves the full faith and honor of the People.  The Secret Service does not protect the Presidency, but rather, the life of the processing provider of Presidential Services.  We are chained flowers 'round the Lion's mane, we are threads of a single note of a call to greatness, a call to uplift our blessed and beloved.  We are sharers of the goodness, the peace, the life and liberty protected by Justice.  And we are forgiving.  We know your heart, but we judge not.  You Choose.  If you elect to continue on your path, you cannot, by virtue of having so chosen, reverse your course and join us in tracking your steps by which we have come to meet.  If it is your choice to live the life you are leading, you are leading your life away from us, and we press on to a world where you don't exist.  If you prefer to be rid of us, let's let it be so, and
So
It
Is.

Funny to Tears

Jon has a whole series of these "text to vid" gems. This was, to say the least, primo, Get to 3:38 and be cracked up.

Friday, August 12, 2011

MoJoes Off on Michelle Bachmann - Iowa

Sitting here watching Scarborough cat call the sobriety of the Iowa status and alluding to last night's Republican Debate I get a strange distraction from what I really want to say yet am struck by the way the host "Joes Down" the "stupidity" of Iowa and the tradition of elevating an otherwise certifiably "crazy" candidate...folks; I'm here to tell ya:  Joe's quite the guano himself.
The "Race Bait" crowd had a ride casting white women while "inspiring" men of all conditions,through the 2008 Primaries where the only transparency about was the bought and paid for media.  The former Congressman from Pensacola typically calls somebody "stupid" on any given morning while Mika burnishes her "Mama Wants To Concentrate On Her Driving" image without threatening to stop the car.  Today Joe expressed what I have always found annoying about otherwise professional men.  They show up at work not quite sobered up from the previous evening's enhanced exchange and forget that this is the work for which they are being paid.  It's "Watering Hole" socializing:  run yer mouth, say some incredibly "witty" or caustic things, then laugh it off, do NOTHING about it and, after all, this is just socializing.  Issue here: the boozed up buddies can't seperate the night's knock-off from the beginning of a new day's well rested (or sleep-tortured worriers) freshly showered and cleaned up with a "begin this new day with love in my heart" intent. 

I wasn't at that bar last night, guys.  I wasn't the woman in the mirror who became the evening's Joke or momentary competition for attention.  This Country is feeling a lot like Atlanta of the 80's when I wasn't at that gay gathering, or at that cruize bar, or at any of the other places where an unemployed, cash-strapped single mom was trying to raise a daughter.  I was with "friends" all suffering similar fate.  We were getting a handle on MTV, working toward's Budweiser's "Know When To Say When" campaign and reclaiming our professional integrity after finding ourselves fired despite having dealt respectfully with their every whining, petty objection. 

Two things drove me back home to a place I swore I'd never return:  Infidelity and Substance Abuse.  I'm watching the "guys" tear down Bachmann with their gangster gay shit alluding to all the "good times" back at Java Joe's in DeMoines with people who pass themselves off as objective.  They rip into her for her lack of experience in an executive position, (Excuse me, she and her husband have a BUSINESS dealing with Insurance Companies, Government programs and Taxes) and ridicule her Tea Party Leadership as a failed game of chicken.  Oh, yes, and her legislation opposing the Government denying "Choice" of lightbulbs.  It's those little things, symbolic and trite, I guess, but those are the symbols that unite Americans, "drive" them to the polls like cattle to the marketplace, and boil down the resentment, built since the last election, towards the pig-in-the-poke without the lipstick, that they put on us the last time.  I'm observing Joe holding court with a healthy mix of political celebrities and have come to understand what seperates the "winners" from the losers in this game.   Alcohol.  Extravagance.  Bravado and Booze-Ballooned Brashness that strikes a chorde, but after getting us all pumped up with righteous indignation, THEY Joe Down from the buzz and forget what they were so riled up about and - heh, heh, good ol' boys that they are, fagitaboutit.

Like wasting your time like that?  Like the pig guys who don't really mean any of the things they so passionately pronounce?  Like being "subordinated" to Leadership By Positioning who are but "Gate Keepers" and Bouncers in the Club of Life.  Well, thank you, 'Gentlemen,' I hopp'd off this track and decided long ago to let it run without me, because I came to recognize that it was a track, not a road, a ferry back and forth, not a journey.  It's about the companionship, the loyalty, the Friendship, right?  And as long as you can muster the gumption to force out the person who earned that payday you're about to cop, you have the one true friend in the bottle, the snort, the joint you're passing.  I got the lesson in politics when Donna Zuelke expressed the hope that Lynne, the girlfriend who turned her son onto dope, wouldn't be skating with us, while a couple of prospective dope buyers were really hoping she would.  It's a strange world where mothers who sedated their children as an alternative to dealing with them are disturbed that they grew up to choose sedation over dealing with Mom's hopes and dreams for them.

If you were the unwitting "mom" at home with the kids,  unaware of the world beyond your household, easily spun and sold a tale of working late to cover for infidelity, you have an "ear" for what's really being delivered here.  If you were an awestricken fool who bought the Obama Bull, you're just as likely to go for the Tea Party they're developing - without leadership - in a Spider and Starfish Pattern.  It's a Swingin' Pendulum.  It confirms what I concluded when I walked out on my family to take a shot at the big apple:  when people are bickering and squabbling, the business doesn't go down.  Just as certainly, when they're knocking off early for the day or the week to gang together at Happy Hour, some creepy things they can't put out of their minds are bound to happen. 

On the Home Front, the sober, early risers have a recognition factor that levels us out and evens our temperament.  A world apart from these folks, we don't pretend to get it.  We sort it out.  Discovering yourself to be the victim of a liar is a shock that drives you from what you believed to be your life.  It represents Death as Transition to the next life, the one that was calling you through the suppression of suspicion and doubt.  It's not a guarantee, either, but it's insistent.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Comprehending Organized Crime

I always thought that my Mom was crazy because she lived with the challenge of covering for my brothers while she was EYES WIDE OPEN allowing her daughters to be cheated.  It's difficult to "blame" anyone for going along to get along: as we learned in school, girls cooperate and follow the rules to keep the peace.  Teachers will acknowledge that the easiest way to resolve an issue and get back to the business at hand is to overwhelm the girls with threats and "alpha" vocals which immediately cow them and push them back into submission. 

Over the years of honoring my purpose for being in school, I went with the flow and, although I was frequently enough, disciplined for my lapses in performance, I too often was witness to the cowardice of the teachers who "looked the other way" and permitted my male classmates to make their own rules.  I learned that it is the way to "operate" in any situation where you are competing - whether that be for grades, attention, Top Cat status, ... whatever.

I observed my brothers, my classmates, the boys on the neighborhood, all pushing the envelope, nibbling at the edges, finding the opportunity to "score" on the competition.  In romantic situations, of course, that "score" became the legend de rigueur by which the ego-driven male, now out-of-control by civil standards, were extending competitive reach among would-be buddies for a pecking order of simple PECK.   Thus, the Whitehouse found it all but demanded by their "In House" Roolz to release this photo on their blog in defiance, disrespect, obnoxious guy self-indulgence to fling it in the faces of anybody who still notices, that they are the dawgs.  Feeding the Beast of characteristic ugliness is a tough demand. 

I noticed that Mark Halperin was back on MoJo yesterday, having served his probation for calling the Dick on the Gamer-In-Chief.  Quietly, acting like nobody notices, Organized Crime goes about doing what it's doing in your face, in the open, surrounding itself with "confidance" that nobody will object all the while "pushing back" where nobody pushed.  The murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 forced American "City" people to consider this. 

At about 3:25 a.m., Catherine, bleeding badly, stumbled to the rear of her apartment building and attempted to enter through a back entrance. The door was locked. She slid along the wall until she reached a hallway leading to the 2nd floor of 82-62 Austin Street but she fell to the vestibule floor. In the meantime, the man had returned again. "I came back because I knew I'd not finished what I set out to do," he told cops later. He walked along the row of doors and calmly searched for the woman. He checked the first door and didn't find her. He followed the trail of blood to the doorway where Catherine lay bleeding on the tiled floor. And there, while the defenseless victim lay semiconscious, incoherent from pain and loss of blood, he cut off her bra and underwear and sexually assaulted her. He then took $49 in cash from her wallet. "Why would I throw money away?" he asked the court at his trial. As Catherine moaned at his feet, probably unable to comprehend what had happened to her, the man viciously stabbed her again and killed her.

The man, who had selected his victim purely at random, ran to his car still parked where he left it. The entire event lasted at least 32 minutes. He said later that murder "was an idea that came into my mind, just as an idea might come into your mind, but I couldn't put mine aside." He jumped into his white sedan and fled the scene. A few blocks away, he came to a red light. He glanced over at the car idling next to him and saw that a man was asleep behind the wheel. The killer got out of his car and awakened the sleeping driver. He told the man he should go home. Then the killer, full of himself, $49 richer and not at all ashamed of what he had done, got back into his own car and drove off into the night.
Catherine was his third murder.
Things about the recounting of this episode in American Evolution strike me with regard to this photo appearing IN THE FACE of the Families grieving, observing tradition, paying the ultimate price for their Patriotism.  Love of Country be sacrificed; just another morsel in the mouth of the Icon, the never-to-be-human, GAMED again.

A Cyclone of disorder surrounds Barak Obama, his overbearing demand for attention and gratification of his hate for anything not bowing to him fueled by those weak and attaining-attention-by-aligning-with-him who are swept up in the advancing wind tunnel.

Rudy Giulianni, who had been ridiculed as the exploiter of his leadership creds from 9-11, should be the Vice President or cabinet member in charge of purging this country of this mobster goon squad wreaking havoc with the world economy.  I remember a Saturday Night Live skit in which Alex Karras http://www.scharplingandwurster.com/?p=287 and Jim Belushi did the White Guy Rap taunting the hoodlums with the Comedy Scores With The Ladies, You Schmucks wisdom that still rings true.  It is a sad, sick country, to say the least, that is commandeered by a dimwit of zeroic credentials who bamboozled, bullied and ultimately disrespected his way into the White House with neither skills nor a record of having overcome and mastered adversity.  The press poses prettily in competition with him while blogsters shake out on which side of the cyclone that divided, levelled us but can never diminish us.  And this blog, along with countless others, continues to retrace the steps that led us here to find, ultimately, a classroom full of mates engaged, not in the ordering of cats, but in the free, economically nourishing exchange in good faith, good business and good citizenship.  I want Oprah's crush to just go hole up in Chicago where nobody trusts nobody and just revel in what is.  But I want the rest of the Country to resume, restore and recover from this trasher and just be glad when it's run its course, done its damage and reminded us all what really matters. 

Friday, August 5, 2011

On His Watch: Debt Ceiling Breaks Instead Of The Glass

We've called the Obots stupid and crude, and now S & P confers the tassle.  He's not only the "prettiest" President and the coolest, he's now the FIRST to cost the full faith and confidance of the United States.  First in Wars (3 Simultaneous)
First In Peace (Wins a fu#*ing Nobel Peace) Prize just for being pretty
and First in the Hearts of his Country Men. 

It's those Women who TOLD YOU SO!!!
Slow on the uptake, on a too-long learning curve at his On the Job, Affirmative Action training, finally, some responsible judges take up a seat on the Bench.  Tea Parties at the White House, a Hillary tradition?

We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the
prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related
fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the
growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an
agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and
will remain a contentious and fitful process. We also believe that the fiscal
consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration agreed to this week
falls short of the amount that we believe is necessary to stabilize the
general government debt burden by the middle of the decade.
It sounds like your dad taking the X Box off the kids because they couldn't play without constant bickering, fighting and refusing to take turns.  Out the Window, just like he threatened.  Done.

Those Women, ... Bachmann, for example, calls for the firing of Geithner.... even though it was the Obama policy that "planned" for this historic dunning.  Palin not surprised that the Tea Party is "blamed" for the Blind leading the Blind ending up fighting for the edge of the cliff.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Checking My "Racism," My "Bitterness" And My "Sore Loser;" Getting My MOODY On

The discussion of debt has - "somehow" - panned 'round to the "negative" outlook tacked onto the AAA rating Moody's extended the United States following the debt ceiling vote yesterday.  Three years ago, we all awoke to the stunning announcement Lehman Brothers was filing for bankruptcy. 

In my day-to-day reality, the failure of trust by Merrill Lynch advisers instantly reduced, by half, the nest-egg held by a close friend whose concerns up to that moment, had been how she would best balance her spending against her life expectancy to not outlive her money.  Here was, her "finance" guy, cautioning her that she was spending too fast and urging restraint upon her. 

At the time of the Lehman Brothers failure, Timothy Geithner was at the helm of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and seemingly oblivious to the swirling duplicity of the Maddoff, AIG, Fannie/Freddie AAA Ratings and scandals.  Nevertheless, Geithner survived the Turbo-Tax bamboozle AND the campaign promise that LOBBYISTS would not rule his White House to be confirmed as Barak Obama's exception to his campaign promise.  Despite his "Day ONE" pivot, his obotic sycophants delighted in the "courage" it took for Obama to "admit" he'd made his rules too tough on even himself.  Gee, maybe had these brats contained their irrational exuberance over electing a ding-bat, they might have covered their funded-by-other-peoples'-money behind with a little resistance.

INBRED is the word that has come to characterize both the financial community and the media in my mind.  Holding onto what they have rather than identifying with what we all can be, the Moody's / Standard & Poore / Fitch disappointment is part of the same picture Mad Money Guru, Jim Cramer fleshed out on the Daily Show.  Scandal Lies in the Truth that these high-flying money-managers "play" us like spinsters sitting on life savings.  They have taken conservative, hard-working Americans on a poorly-orchestrated HIKE intended to recreate our perspective on investing while in fact, misguiding and manipulating us with this disgraceful presumption of EXCEPTIONALISM.  So great is the Greatest Generation that their children's children are incapable of respectful observance of the rights of others.

So the Americans who discerned the rules that make for substance and reliability, played and worked together in a legitimate process known as American Government.  Our vision was one of bringing together the greatest minds, the proven performers, the dedicated, evolved community leaders into a Government of the People, By the very best the People can be For the People who make this Country great, was readily bastardized by the son of a Kenyan Economic STUDENT who caste his seed to the wind and enjoyed a Harvard induction that provided a Legacy for a child who bore his name.  Immigration Documents disclosed by the Arizona Independent in April shed light on the circumstances surrounding the documentation of Obama's birth.  It also points to the insight shared by Americans who have married foreign nationals only to discover that their most "lovable" aspect was their American Citizenship by which their beloved secures a Visa and green card; a variation on the Spinster wooed by a gigolo intent on cashing in her savings theme.

Smile, Ladies:)  This ain't a new story.  It's the classic tale of a Girl done wrong by a glamorous, unavailable cad whose reputation needed "rehabilitating" by her banker mama who knew all the "ins and outs" of the finance game.  Suppose you are at your desk in the escrow department of the Bank of Hawaii and your daughter notifies you that your son-in-law has dumped her and is off to Harvard to fulfill his "Dreams."

Your grandson is growing up in the home of his mother's second husband while she WORKS WITH WOMEN helping them obtain micro finance.  His mother dedicated her efforts to empowering women of the poorest levels with the funds needed to launch cottage industry.  My "racism" - CHECKED AT THE TITLE - is being tugged at here as I suppress my general dislike of men who live off women on welfare while treating them as ho's and caring more about driving flashy cars, preserving their seductibility and sex-appeal and keeping the mothers of their children as a meal ticket, not an equal partner in the rearing of productive, happy children.

Given his background, Barak Obama could well have become the greatest President in the history of his country, had he mastered the material and understood the Economy.  He understands GETTING.  For himself...  He whines to get his way and finds legions of brethren in those children of the greatest generation who shake down their hard-working parents in the identical same way.  How is it he never grasped the "DREAMS FROM HIS MOTHER?"  How did he miss the hard-working women in his family who were bringing it day after day and firmly but gently communicating by their very lives, the way to the bank?  How could he fail to recognize the most important element of stability: depositors and participants interacting in a trustworthy, self-policed security exchange?  I have one word for the president, who again, yesterday, promised to focus on JOBS:  accounting.  Learn to know what you're looking at when you read "the books."  Stop spinning the commie psycho baloney and conduct yourself as a professional gentleman with the credentials and the associates who can - legitimately - follow their surnames with C.P.A. 

Treat women with respect for their insight, their expertise and their achievements...not the ins and outs of schmoozing your horney female boss for her connections and a promotion.  Get into the ins and outs of incentivizing the creation of jobs, do double duty by understanding that even not-so-shovel-ready infrastructure projects will actually do what the stimulus is meant to do: build and restore the foundation upon which we build our businesses.  Everywhere I go this summer, and it is Pennsylvania, after all, roads are closed due to bridge repairs and municipal sewage projects. 

When Moody's can look at all the valuable real estate the Obama Administration has squired onto the Government rolls, at all the State of the Art Buildings that house commerce and education, at all the incredible beauty of improvements to our scene, it no longer looks like debt but a long-term liability BALANCED AND SECURED by an asset.  What part of ending the wars and the destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya does he not relate to bringing the military home to build OUR bridges, guard OUR  borders, impress OUR citizens with the military might that moves mountains and Masters the Universe with a Space Program that is jobs for the Americans with the Right Stuff?

INCENTIVES to create jobs will franchise his efforts worldwide.  Removing the threats to Nationalize and cop the profits of those job-creators will change the narrative of the Right.  It's not what the RICH don't pay, it's what they don't invest, don't spend, don't buy.  COME ON, BARAK!!!  Change your tune and get off your Chinese Water Torture of the drip, drip, drip mantra of fair share and grow up.  The World Economy, as your Father and Step-Father and Frank convinced you, AIN'T FAIR!!!   Your challenge, should you CHOOSE to accept it, is a JOB.  It is not a position as an AGENT of the Government; it is to LOOK AT WHAT IS IN FRONT OF YOU AND PROCESS IT.  Get it.  Do something WE CAN'T DO.  We ALL can whine, but have been taught to suppress that inclination, shoulder up and GET ON THE JOB.  We've been screaming this at you for so long we're convinced you are not only oblivious but dense as dung.  It's because the message is coming from
  1. Typical White Women who are inherently racist because roving gangs of young black males with no jobs and a lascivious look cause them to ask to be escorted to and from work, 
  2. Uneducated, blue collar, farmers and craftsmen who could only afford to educate their ungrateful children more inclined to buy your snake-oil out of ennui than substance and
  3. Republicans whom you describe as "rich" but who are merely folks who have made the same mistakes you are making but LEARNED from their school of hard knocks instead of blaming the Man. 
  4. Independents, Dems and just plain Americans who understand budgets, balance and conservative investing in their communities who, in turn, flourish and remain peaceable while growing INDIVIDUAL AND COMMON WEALTH.
You cannot possibly hear yourself, carping about the corporate jet class all the while corporatist Jeffrey Immelt, who paid no corporate tax for propping you up with the corporate funds at his disposal, FOR WHICH HE IS RESPONSIBLE TO HIS STOCK HOLDERS, is your Jobs Czar!

The Rich about whom you complain ARE NOT LISTENING TO YOU nor do you concern them,  they shrug you off as blithely as you shrugged off Eighteen Million Democrats who felt you weren't bringing enough SUBSTANCE to your resume and your iconic HOPE was a promise, not a plan.  Well, we HOPE you can handle the next dinging on the horizon, Barak.  Like last night's Pirate Pitching, a bunch of sincere, but young guys with great talent but little experience against legitimate Major League Hitters gave up 5 homers to the Cubs before I changed channels.  I "eat" the bitter daily, and salve the sore of "losing" fair and square to members of my own party who in all fairness, squarely stabbed me in the back and put you in office.  I've watched Major Leaguers "eat" the bad pitch they can't take back.  I've also watched lying guys VIBRATE and GLARE at challengers who simply ask questions consistent with what they expect to see but do not.  And I've watched those challengers lose their jobs, suffer harassment and fall into depression.  I've also seen those dispatched by corrupt politicians get even.  I've seen them pull themselves together, eat that "bitter" pill, force down that "Poor Me" impulse and channel all emotion into one overarching goal.  Getting a decent job and recovering their true self-respect and dignity.  Again and Again.  They survive depression, schemers, exploitative lovers and finally, their own bad judgement, and just get serious about their mission to the exclusion of any other phony drain on their resources, and just do it.  Can YOU?

Here's a tip:  It took a lot of easy money to elect you.  All it really should have taken to re-elect you was a job well-done.  Even the original "Dick" Nixon had the respect for the voters to recognize that he needed to be seen as the PERFORMING PROVIDER of Presidential service, not the Campaigner in Chief.   His fundraisers weren't for him, he didn't need the warchest, he had the chest full of medals of accomplished results to impress the voters.  His supporters were asked to contribute to the election of a majority in congress to ease the implementation of his plans, solid "plans," for example, of ending the Vietnam Wa. ...joke.  Just like your hope thing... we who had our HOPES dashed by a cad know this story all too well and don't have time for you.  You let us down once.  You're not family so you're history.  The Mob connections are only one aspect of the coalition that put you in power, but the POWER has a vote, too.  One thing I've discerned about true power: it flows to those it can't damage because they understand power is to be channelled: they don't attempt to seize it.  Your HORN keeps moving around between your eyes and your mouth.  Is it a ringer or a dinger?