Friday, August 31, 2012

Talked out of my senses

Paradoxical Quote of The Day From Ben Stein:
"Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires
every citizen to prove they are insured...
but not everyone must prove they are a citizen."

Now add this,
"Many of those who refuse, or are unable, to prove they are citizens
will receive free insurance
paid for by those who are forced to buy insurance
because they are citizens."


My sister sent this.  I'm a recent fan of Ben Stein and appreciate the poetic rhythm he works this in.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Extremes vs. Middle - Out Values

Here I was thinking Claire McCaskill would have a difficult time winning re-election along with so many of the Progressive-Waved-In Crowd that got elected in the 2006 recoil from Bush.  Since then, we've observed that same "progressive" contingent squander the Democratic Majority with obsessive and overbearing pressure on fellow Democrats to "Fall in Line" behind the Cult Con, Obama, who is in no way a genuine Democrat as I know my Party to represent. 

I have witnessed the leadership of Organized Labor rejecting this tactic which was once their own.  Republicans who - for eight years - conducted themselves with the same "rubber stamp" slavish support of the Bush / Cheyney extremism, now contend with TEA Party ideologues passionately opposing any spending that would trigger new taxes, ATR activists strangling the Washington Way Things Get Done with the Norquist pledge and the "Progressives-in-Heat" young lions eager to wrench the reigns of power from their Boomer Elders.  A caste-in-cement Vegas Odds-Defying Harry Reed is lining up with Pelosi to repeat the 2010 debacle with a middle finger to the voters.

Somewhere in here, the Evangelicals are striving to uphold a Pro-Life slant to paint with broad brush, any woman's choice to abort as a murder.  As a result, McCaskill most likely skates and gets away with outright stupidity by way of HER slavish proclivity to vote as the children instruct her. 

Republicans who assailed Senator Arlen Specter for representing his Constituents rather than his Party, forced him out behind the rude, ignorant, overbearing Sean Hannity while the Democrats were equally compromised when Admiral Joe Sestak, a One Time Clinton colleague spewed shallow and meaningless electioneering jargon to attract Clinton-Haters to his campaign. 

The accusation that I'm known to Vote the Vagina had initially struck me as a legitimate call to be certain that I held Women Candidates to the same low standards I'd expect of any male.  After much soul-searching and careful self-scrutiny, I concluded that while Women have no corner on morality or integrity, they do process with a slightly differing capacity for survival.  Women have never, however, had much of a formal voice in the debate, and are, therefore, still finding their voices, so I lean to the distaff preference all other things being "equal."  Equal for this application is this: knowing little about either candidate, I'll give the Woman the shot.  Easy.  Done.  I've been burned a couple of times with that approach, and the outcomes have, nevertheless, confirmed my policy.  I've been burned at least as often by male candidates I've supported. 

In the matter of the Missouri Senate race, a question from the Press Corp opened a "fall to your death" trap door for Todd Akin.  He declines to acquiesce to the concerns of his colleagues and proclaims, instead, his divine mandate to redouble his campaign efforts despite the millions retracted from his finance committee by once-interested backers.

As with racially charged incidents, the Occupant of the Oval Office promptly weighs in, with equally meaningless statements of a bandwagon-hopping nature.  In 2006, McCaskill received the support of many Hillary Progressives whom she promptly stiffed in 2008 with a Bill-Bashing endorsement of the One.  This time around, she has only herself, not her children, to credit with her standing among her Constituents.

It shapes up to be an odd one.  Karl Rove, who didn't like Sarah Palin, Christine Donahue or Romney, is steering money into campaigns that might win, to ensure his own status with them for bargaining purposes on their future votes.  A career in Sales has taught me that the negative energy of bullies and hacks is a turn-off to the legitimate.  As the manipulators abandon the righteous, a completely alternative contingent rushes to populate the void. 

Todd Akin is about to have a "religious experience" that will dispel any doubts he may have about the existence of a God.  The super-nature of collective minds working together can demonstrate for him the various "Powers That Be."  They have an approach to penetrating pressure that many hopeless souls have witnessed.  In Humans, doubt and fear have emotional connections that move us in erroneous paths.  Akin uttered poorly-worded personal views that alerted liberal-minded voters to a thought process by which he would make decisions.  Like a junkyard electronmagnet kicking on, the shrapnel that dropped when the charge was taken up by the one side will be replaced by something else just as responsive to this altogether "useful idiot" vibe.    New backers will crawl out of the slime, having smoked out a perfectly-primed but otherwise hapless wanna-be who will be as receptive to the forces of foolishness as the One, himself has so satisfyingly proven to be.   Ah!  Power.  It flows as it is processed, and those of us who respect it can only hope to survive its possessors.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Getting The Irish Up, The Protestant Lamp Passing

Mitt Romney, Mormon, selects Paul Ryan, Catholic.  The Irish Times notes that  "lace curtain" and  "Shanty" Irish are represented on the national ticket and 10-11-12 promises to be a battle for the ages.  Obama, a Muslim/Christian/Secularist rounds out the field.  No Protestant appears on either ticket.  Irish Times' Niall O'Dowd takes notice. I've been reading the Irish Times for years, can't say why, for sure.  But the point of view is distinctly unique; not British, not Jewish, not crazy.  I remember when Dan Rooney, Catholic, Republican owner of the Steelers sold out Western PA to buy the Ambassadorship to Ireland from Obama - the Brother - as he made his way around the leagues high-fiving with the Bros before Hos creeps.  Since then, the Bros have kinda "distinguished" themselves more as Ho Hounds than Gentlemen and the Ambassador has shown "preferential treatment" to some players whose behavior towards women has gotten them arrested. 

But the Irish Times has followed U.S. Politics faithfully, and notes "daughter" Maureen Dowd's pieces on occasion.  This OpEd, however, opens my eyes to an otherwise bypassed matter of fact.  The U.S. Supreme Court now consists of 6 Catholics and 3 Jews.  Whoah!

W.A.S.P. where art thou?  My Sister-In-Law, Ernestine, is a practicing Catholic.  She teaches C.C.D. classes, performs the Eucharistic Ministry, has been a choir singer and committee volunteer.  I love that she maintains contact with all my mother's church friends.  I go to church with her sometimes.  It's "mass" to them.  To me, it's a gentle exchange with the kind of folks with whom I matured.  Some of us Catholics struggled with the shield behind which too many pedophiles hid.  I had more of an issue with the distribution of decision making authority in the Church, namely the same bishops who quietly re-assigned child-molesters and allowed pastors to enrich themselves.  I also rebelled utterly against my judgmental family who considered my life their personal playground in which they could bully and push me around by asserting MY responsibility to just eat it when I was stiffed or cheated by a spouse, employer, rival, "turn the other cheek" advice which they never applied to themselves.  I learned the difference between Christian and Catholic.  I was happy to see John Paul II go so far to advance the value of "Being With You" as the essence of his Papacy. Ironically, in passing, he was received by Terri Schaivo whose end of life saga was the battleground of political evangelists.

So, when I read for the second time in as many days, that the two Irish Catholic Americans on the Vice Presidential campaigns represented a change in American Power, I did the extra clicks to read the entire article.  O'Dowd notes, also, that the U.S. Supreme Court, once a bastion of Protestantism, has surged to the forefront of "diversity" with, whaddya know?  Catholics and Jews!!!

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr...Roman Catholic
Justice Antonin Scalia....................Roman Catholic
Justice Anthony Kennedy..............Roman Catholic
Justice Clarence Thomas...............Roman Catholic
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.........Jewish
Justice Stephen Breyer..................Jewish
Justice Samuel Alito......................Roman Catholic
Justice Sonia Sotomayor...............Roman Catholic
Justice Elena Kagan......................Jewish

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Ryan Ups the Hope, The Soap and the Mope

The Tea Party must be ecstatic.  The Elders drawing Social Security are those who were reared by Depression Era parents and teachers who know perfectly well why the Young-uns are on a highway to hell, and have no intention of bailing them out by dying early and leaving them their retirement.  We who were brought in with the Baby Boom look at the generation behind us and find it amazing how simple-minded they are about ethics and how it impacts everything. 

Work with a group of great Sales and Operations Professionals and you would see the self-policing practices that preserve the economy.  Observe the current crop of "paid aparatchick" forcing the obama agenda and notice the unquestioning loyalty to their mind trap.

The Issues, I suspect, include the Pocket Book.  The characterization of the Ryan Budget as a cruel, stingy, worst of the Republican Rap is - like so many PAC ads - grossly wrong.  I can imagine that Bill Clinton is happy enough to have a document such as Path To Prosperity as a starting point.  As with all legitimate politicians, Clinton will work with whomever "shows up."  On the budget, unlike any Democrat except the President, whose own offering is unworthy of even a single vote, in either the House or the Senate, Ryan addresses the reality of the cost of government.

His working document provides the basis for those who show up to do the work of establishing the ground on which we'll stand going forward.   The impact of leverage requires only a place to stand.  With Ground, Romney-Ryan is enabled to present a plan and begin the positive activity of making it one that is workable for the American People.  Brilliant, flexing cortex attracts its equal.  The lesser-brain powers of the Democrats' offering is the result of misguided cultural dysfunction.  Amid the forces scuttling the real work of legitimacy, the swirl is not the alternating forces that mutually respect, but, a splattering of competing interests intent on annaihalating the alternative. 

A vibe sets up, a chorde is stricken, a note rings out.  It is an irresistable force within all of us called to serve to which we respond.  The dispirited condensors that dragged along for, now twelve miserable years obstructed from viable exercise of our will as citizens by the Bush and Obama Administrations have felt the call, are twisting their heads and necks as the power, once again, courses through them, dislodging obstructions, expanding to fill the gaps.

Around every circle may be drawn a bigger circle.  DNA is the proof.  Only the circle comes to degree 359 and decides whether to degenerate to a lower circle, take another lap around the track of the familiar and the easily done, or reach up for the hand reaching down from the higher powers to whom we offer our best in the exchange that will up us a notch when we log '360 as a two-way. 

Paul Ryan putting up half a "Zoltan."
As Americans, it's in our DNA to go for the two-tip, double-duty with another hard working healthy animal on a betterment track, and get to the next level.  We'll get a chance to re-visit the turf when we come back to coach, mentor and advise our successor.  I get Romney's "bold" pick.  It was the best candidate for the opening.  He picked the hardest working, most serious available option.  I pray that the same long view Wise Guides who pointed Mitt in the right direction will, likewise, continue to flush fullness through our systems to carry us along to the results the country needs.