Suffering Fools

Centuries ago, Saint Paul told the people of Corinth, "ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise."

That phrase has been used and abused in many ways, by many people. Today some aver that they do NOT suffer fools gladly. I tend to join that group, while adding that I do not consider myself wise. So, what is a fool? Why are we intolerant of them?

I consider a fool a person who does foolish things. I have been there, done that, time and again in my youth. Some times just for fun. Many times unaware of the danger I posed to myself or others. Today I see young people doing foolish things, having fun, and I hope they do no harm.

But those are not the fools we fear. We fear the fools in positions of power or influence who choose to ignore facts of history, thus placing many in harms way. Maybe not physical harm, but harm, no less.

Our nation's current fiscal problems are a classic example. We are repeating tragic mistakes of the past while refusing to recognize past successes.

Today we are again on the brink of a big battle over gun control. Our nation's founders had seen the consequences of an unarmed population with a tyrannical government. They sought to prevent that happening in this new nation by providing protection for the right of the population to be armed. But that right has been twisted until it is now blamed for the actions of a deranged person who became a mass murderer.

As to the original purpose for an armed population, some anti-gun activists insist that people with small arms are no match for a modern army protecting a tyrannical government. Maybe they haven't noticed what happened in Tunisia, Egypt, or Libya, and what is currently happening in Syria. Insufferable fools.

But many of these fools are in positions of great influence, like the national news media; or positions of great power, like the President of The United States and members of the United States Congress.

Their current boogey man is the 'assault rifle', which, like the monster under the child's bed, does not exist. When I attended an Army Infantry Training Center, we employed long rifles with wooden stocks, patterned somewhat after the style of the muskets carried by my ancestor at Valley forge.

In recent years, the Army began using rifles of an entirely different style. They surely have some advantages, perhaps with added features, perhaps just in ease or cost of mass manufacture. But they look different. As may be expected, many private citizens wanted their personal rifles to look like the modern style military rifles. Gun manufacturers complied with this market demand.

Some find the new style rifles scary looking and have dubbed them 'assault weapons'. A traditionalist, I just find them ugly! Whatever your opinion, these new rifles on the civilian market are different in appearance only. No matter. The fools will insist they be banned.  

So, we must fight the gun battle again. Not with our little rifles, shotguns or pistols. Rather, with our pens, our telephones and our emails. But fight we must, or we'll find ourselves suffering at the hands of fools, and not so gladly!

A Christian Atheist?

Impossible? Let's explore. The true history of the man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, is sketchy. There is little record of his existence other than in the writings of His followers. But then, any recorded history from that era is sketchy. There were no printing presses, no paper or pen as we know it. Recording information on lambskin or papyrus with some kind of quill pen and plant dyes was tedious.

But, there is no denying that Christ was the most influential man in the history we know. His teachings are guidelines for many persons who have no affiliation with any organized church. That is not to say that Christ was the first to advocate principles of love, but certainly those principles are most closely associated with Christ's teachings.

People call themselves a Liberal or a Conservative, simply because they believe in most of the tenets attributed to those labels.

Many hold that to be a Christian, one must believe in the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Some liberal Christians, however, do not accept a literal bodily resurrection, seeing the story as a richly symbolic and spiritually nourishing myth. Still, they consider themselves Christians.

An atheist, on the other hand, is a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings. While it is common to define atheists as persons who want to ban Christmas trees, nativity scenes or even the phrase 'Merry Christmas', many Americans who claim to be atheists do enjoy Christmas. They observe it as a National Holiday celebrating love, charity, and the joy of giving. And they are okay with calling it Christ's birthday. Why not? Those are the things He taught.

Some well educated, well read, critical thinking Americans believe strongly in the principles taught by Christ. They believe in equality, in fairness, justice, honesty, and truth in all cases.  They try to instill these principles in their children. But they do not belong to, or attend services of any organized church. Can they not still be called Christians?

They do not believe in a Supreme Being. They believe in Christ as a man, a Rabbi, a teacher but do not believe in the virgin birth, the resurrection, or that Christ is the Son of God - unless we are all "Sons of God".

And they do not believe in an afterlife, believing instead in Moses' recounting of God's sentence to Adam in Genesis 3:19, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

Are they not atheists? Christian atheists?

First Amendment

As we near the Christmas holiday, we hear more and more protests over Christmas symbols on public property and,well, you know the drill.

What's the problem? After 225 years, why are people sill arguing over what the Constitution means?

I believe it all boils down to the definition of the word "religion", as used in the wording of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

What, exactly, did the Framers have in mind? Having read a fair amount of original writings, I conclude they were concerned that America, like most European nations, would establish a "national" church.  
They had seen what President Calvin Coolidge would have seen when, in 1926, he spoke of "entire congregations and their pastors emigrating to the colonies." If you are, say, a Lutheran, and the "National" church is Roman Catholic, you are probably going to feel isolated.

It seems apparent that by "religion" they meant, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Greek Orthodox, or whatever. There is no evidence that the Framers were opposed to religious faith in general.

Today, unfortunately, many people believe the Framers meant to ban anything remotely connected to faith. And, they wrongly believe that "Christianity" represents one or all of those "churches" that follow the Christian philosophy.

In reality, the fact that many churches adhere to the principles of Christianity does not make Christianity a "Religion".

And, so, the beat goes on. People continue to believe that any act or symbol related to a religious faith represents a "religion", which, by virtue of The Constitution, must not be "established". How narrow!

Smokin' and Tokin'

People smoke tobacco and marijuana for the same reasons. They burn some dried leaves and inhale the smoke to achieve some kind of "high", a euphoric feeling of some sort, or perhaps just for the satisfaction some tobacco people promise. Now they claim marijuana smoke eases pain, or something.

Just as smoking tobacco is being considered a dumb idea, the opposite is true of marijuana. Lawmakers and regulators seem bent on making it an okay thing to toke. Many citizens are lobbying for toking. If that bit of euphoria, or satisfaction, or pain relief is important enough to you, light up. But anyone with a brain must realize that purposely inhaling the smoke from burning leaves can't be good for the lungs.

Numerous studies assert that smoking tobacco causes lung cancer. Some very well done studies. What they actually prove is that the incidence of lung cancer is much higher among tobacco smokers. But there is always the guy who will tell you his grandfather started smoking tobacco when he was twelve and smoked every day of his life, until he died at age 90 when he stepped in front of a bus. Still, purposely inhaling smoke from dried leaves, up close and personal, cannot be good for lungs.

Tobacco companies' brands are enormously valuable. They have spent much treasure and at least one life promoting their brands. (The macho Marlboro Man died of lung cancer, widely attributed to his smoking habit.) They spend even more protecting the consistency of their brands. There was a time when tobacco companies distributed cartons of their best brands, free of charge, on college campuses. The idea being that if you smoked a carton of 200 of their cigs, you would be hooked on their brand.

You can buy a pack of Marlboros in Los Angeles, then buy a pack in Boston, and the taste and aroma would be the same. They carefully select their tobacco leaves. They carefully handle and process those leaves in a certain way. All to achieve that valued consistency. Not to protect you, to protect their brand!

Not true of marijuana. There is no brand name on a plastic sandwich bag of weed. No billboards or neon signs touting a name. Just a bag of weed. No one knows where it was grown. How it was handled. How many unwashed hands processed it. If there is a bit of pesticide or herbicide on the stuff. What kind of tropical mold spore or insect eggs may be included.

When I was in the Army in the Pacific, it was rumored that bootleggers were opening bottles of whiskey, somehow preserving the seal. They drew off 10% of the liquor, replaced it with water and re-closed the bottle. Do this ten times and you've added a free bottle of whiskey to your inventory. Maybe true, maybe not. But how much easier to "cut" that marijuana stash with a little jimson weed, or something, to increase your profit? If grown in South America, the pot has leaped many hurdles to reach Chicago streets. Why not, now, expand your inventory?

The idea being that when you set a bong of marijuana on fire and suck the smoke into your lungs, you must be performing the dumbest act of your lifetime.

You know what is said of restaurants: if you saw what goes on in the kitchen you would not eat the food. But again, the restaurant has a brand to protect.

If you knew what is in that bag of week, would you still toke?

Sometimes it hurts too much to laugh...

So, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner comes over to the Senate to explain the President's plan to avoid the 'fiscal cliff'. Whereupon, it is reported, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell laughed out loud. Okay, we all occasionally laugh aloud at ridiculous statements. But, like Lincoln and a century later, Adlai Stevenson, I find it too painful to laugh. Unlike those statesmen, I am not too big to cry.

Before November 6, 2012, there was hope in the news as we counted down the days to Obama's departure from office. 1450...1000...500... How the good feelings ever increased, right down to zero! Then came election night. We watched the returns and the sickening reality began to set in. Just as we had in 1996 and in 2008, we watched as Republican strategists lost another presidential campaign.

I am reminded of the story of the fox and the crow. Crow sat on a rock at the edge of the beach, looking at the ocean. Fox approached quietly from behind, slapped Crow on the back and asked "How's it going?" Startled, Crow fluttered out of the way, then turned angrily on Fox, "I was counting the waves and you made me lose count!"

Fox replied, "It's okay, just start over!"

So, now we start over, counting those seemingly endless days. As we do, bad policies erode away our freedoms, the very country we love, just as the surf may have eroded away Crow's beach.  

There is scant hope or joy in today's news, only sadness.

Hilary Hinton "Zig" Ziglar, RIP

Yes, Zig has died. How sad. Zig had a large influence on the lives of my wife and I. Zig was a motivational speaker whose motivating talks stuck like glue. Somehow you could never forget what Zig had said - and you wanted to always follow his advice.

He headlined several seminars we attended. Zig improved our lives immeasurably. One of my favorite Ziglar bits was his 'Round Tuit'. He informed us that many people promise to do a certain task as soon as they get "around to it." To help us along, Zig gave everyone a round, quarter-size piece of wood. Stamped on one side was the word "TUIT". "Now", Zig would say, "you have a 'Round Tuit', so get that job done."

"Never tell anyone your troubles.", Zig warned, "Half the people don't care and the other half are glad".

He taught us that there is a correct way to say things. The meaning may seem the same, but there is a vast difference between telling your girlfriend "her face would halt the hands of time" and saying she had a face "that would stop a clock."

I thank you, Zig Ziglar, for making our lives more productive. And, if people were only aware, many of our acquaintances would thank you for making us more pleasant people to know.

We'll keep trying, old friend!

The Biggest Environmental Disaster
Is The Environmental Movement


Anyone who has listened to me through more than a passing conversation knows that I consider the modern environmental movement Public Enemy Number One! I believe environmentalists are responsible for more death, deprivation and suffering than all the world's despots combined.

I do not have definitive numbers to back that claim, but just consider this fact: Since Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring was published in 1962, leading to the ban on the use of the pesticide DDT and the resurgence worldwide of the anopheles mosquito, malaria deaths among African children have steadily risen to numbers exceeding 2,000 per day. Makes Adolph Hitler's Nazis seem like Boy Scouts.

Think about that number. In ten years it is 73 million avoidable deaths, thanks to an environmentalist's whacko claim that DDT was wiping out the world's bird population. That claim was not based on sound science. Even if ingesting DDT-laced insects did cause birds to lay soft-shelled eggs which would not hatch, as Carson claimed, better science has shown that birds were developing an immunity to any such cause and effect. Never mind those facts. Carson's prose persuaded the environazis. They, in turn, persuaded governments around the world. DDT was out - anopheles was in..

Malaria deaths among African children, however, is only a part of the devastation caused by environuts. Consider our energy problem. America sits atop the world's largest energy reserves, oil, gas and coal. America possesses the technology to retrieve those reserves. Yet, our nation is hopelessly energy-dependent, has become the world's largest debtor and has staggering unemployment. Removing onerous restrictions on drilling, frakking and mining on Federal lands would solve our energy problems, put Americans back to work and selling our excess energy on the world market may be our only hope of recovering the $16 trillion our government has wasted in this current century.

Sadly, the United states Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) protects only the environmentalists. To accomplish this, the EPA violates the law at every turn. Check this link.

The Ancient Brain

I Googled "Ancient Brain" and got 140,000,000 hits! Well, let me simplify! Minutes after my youngest daughter was born, I stood next to the attending physician looking at this tiny, new human. He remarked that she was a healthy, normal baby girl. Realizing he had not yet had time to do a thorough examination, I wondered, aloud, "How can you tell?"

He said several things which I no longer recall, but I do remember his demonstration: "Normally babies are born with a fear of falling", he explained. To illustrate, he reached under the bottom of the crib and gave her little 'mattress' a good thump. She flailed her tiny arms as though grasping for something to hold onto.

Aha! The ancient brain! I liken it to when you buy a new computer with some software already installed. That is my definition of "the ancient brain"; knowledge that comes already installed in the new brain. The rest of the brain is just blank, like an empty computer hard drive, waiting to be loaded with things you will subsequently learn. I think of that part as 'The Conditioned Brain' (my label, that one got 1,710,000 hits!). You will learn many things during your lifetime, but you did not have to learn what is stored in the 'ancient brain'.

For the most part, that inherent knowledge has to do with the preservation of life and the propagation of the species. But the preservation of the life of the individual is important only so far as it supports the propagation of the species.

Air space at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range, is restricted for air traffic to infinite altitude. At the range this spring, I was therefore surprised to see a contrail of a large jet aircraft flying directly overhead. I asked a maintenance employee of the range how that aircraft had permission to fly in this restricted airspace. She replied that the range "has dibs" on the airspace, meaning that the range commander could, at her discretion alone, suddenly call a halt to overhead flights, as when they were planning to launch a missile. In the 'ancient brain', the species 'has dibs' over the individual!

What is truly amazing, is that this seems true of species that are thought to have no brain. Like plants. A 'stalk' of wheat produces a head with many grains. When these grains are mature, they fall to the ground where some, at least, may take root and grow more wheat. Same with a stalk of corn. It may produce several ears of seeds, each with hundreds of grains. Once those seeds fall to the ground, the stalk of corn, or of wheat, shrivels and dies. The future members of the species have 'dibs' on life.

Propagation of the species, in my unlearned opinion, is what creates sex drive. Why does a male fish hover above an egg-laying female, spraying his semen into the water, fertilizing her eggs? There is no apparent reward for him. (Apparent? Maybe it makes him feel very good!) Gotta be that ancient brain at work.

At this point, if my Cognitive Scientist, University Professor son is reading this, he is surely pulling his hair. But that is unlikely, since his time is required for reading loftier writings. We can hope his hair is safe. You and I may, meanwhile, assume that I have reduced 140,000,000 complex explanations into one we all can grasp.

You're welcome!  

(Mis)labeling.

I just changed my profile on this blog to identify myself as an old white guy. The "old" part is a given. The white part is not so clear. It is, after all, just a matter of labeling. Or mislabeling.

Barack Obama is hailed far and wide as the black president. But, while his father (who deserted him before his birth) was certainly a black man, his mother and the grandparents who raised him were most surely white. Still, he is considered black.

Takes me back to the One Drop Rule of the old slavery south. According to Wikipedia, "The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as Negro of individuals with any African ancestry; meaning any person with "one drop of Negro blood" was considered black."

Now, I may well have "one drop" of non-white blood in my veins. How could I know? I can trace my ancestry only so far, and have made no attempt to trace the ancestry of all of the wives and husbands along the way.

Then, again, according to Wikipedia, "The principle of "invisible blackness" was an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnicgroups to the group with the lower status." But wait... which is the lower status?

^{By that rule, why isn't Obama considered white? Can't Negro, or African, or Black (pick your label) be considered the higher status? A lot of people think so!}
.

More from Wikipedia: "Despite the strictures of slavery, in the antebellum years, free people of mixed race could have up to one-eighth or one-quarter African ancestry (depending on the state) and be considered legally white."

Okay, My skin color would indicate that I am one-eighth or one-quarter white. So I am an old white guy. What does that make me, other than the product of the breeding choices of all of my ancestors since Noah? (By the way, what was Noah's ethnicity?)

Another example of mislabeling that irks me is the media preference for the label "atheist" when referring to anti-religious people. Most atheists do not consider themselves anti-religious. One close friend who is an atheist complained when it was revealed that young children were taught in school that God made the planets rotate around the sun. Fair enough, but that is simply objecting to the teaching of things other than proven facts.

Yet, every time a group protests a nativity scene on city property, they are immediately identified as atheists. Why not be more accurate and call them what they are: anti-religious groups.

Education

Recently someone posted a You Tube video in which a former Marine stood up at an outdoor gathering and sang the fourth verse of our National Anthem. As soon as he uttered the first four words, "Oh, thus be it ever,..." I recognized what he was singing and sang along with the video. We sang all four verses when I was a kid in school.

I have talked to several people about that video and I am yet to find anyone aware that there were four verses to our anthem. Has education changed that much? One of the Founding Fathers said The Constitution should be taught our children in school. Is it? Just in case you've never read it, it is not a complex legal document. Yes, there are parts that would hold little interest for a ten-year-old, like the eleventh amendment. So, save that part for college level students. But every American kid should know the Bill of Rights.

That is just one tiny bit of the massive problems with our education system. We truly are becoming a nation of dummies. Elementary education absolutely does not prepare students for higher education. Much of higher education teaches nothing of benefit to our citizens. About the only value of a liberal arts degree is that the four years gives a kid four years to mature. But a kid could work at odd jobs for four years and accomplish the same maturity - maybe more - and not have student loan debt.

Unemployment is high right now. Yet many high-paying jobs are unfilled because employers cannot find workers with the required skills. All sorts of skills are needed, welders, machinists, etc. But, kids out of high school are told they must go to college! What a disgrace to send your kid to a (hold your nose) Trade School!

Go to college? My wife and I have five children, all have college degrees. At one point in their "higher" education, one of the kids took a class from which he described the opening remarks of the instructor. They were, "Please tell me all the nicknames you have heard for the female vulva." Whereupon the students started shouting out the answers. This was not a medical school, mind you. The announced purpose of the exercise was to condition the class to discuss human body parts without embarrassment.  What would be the value of that instruction to a college freshman? Any uneducated high-school dropout can do it, no tuition costs, no textbooks needed. By the way, never say freshman - that would be discriminatory.

What benefit is it to a kid to study mathematics? Think of the case where a man walked into a fast-food restaurant and told the young cashier to give him a half-dozen chicken nuggets. She told him they did not sell chicken nuggets by the half-dozen, only in quantities of 6, 12 or 24.

How about history? A TV reporter asked a college student at a July 4th celebration what year the U.S. declared its independence. She replied, "1964." From what country? "Russia." How important is history? Current politicians are pushing policies which failed at great expense in the past and opposing policies which greatly profited the nation in the past. And no one realizes it.

Whose fault is all this? Right now it is the professors teaching the teachers who are teaching the kids. We are teaching small children the phony science of man-caused global warming. They will grow up believing it with their heart of hearts. High school and college will confirm it. If they teach, they will teach it. Meantime, their students will not know that 6 is the same thing as a half-dozen.

Yes, you can learn engineering, medicine and other lofty subjects in college. From a practical standpoint, probably only in college. But who wants to go for a graduate degree that requires (God forbid) mathematics!

Right Wing Radicals

Yeah, maybe we are kooky old men, but at least we remember some history.

When we call Barack Obama a communist, we are soundly scolded. Why would we come up with that foolishness? We remember an old saying suggesting that if something "looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck" you can quit searching for further identification; IT IS A DUCK.

Listen to Obama in his recent news conference: "I refuse to give tax cuts to rich people who don't need them." Who don't need them? Where have we heard that sort of quacking before? Oh, Yes,  "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." That was Karl Marx, father of Communism. Only Communists believe governments should decide what their citizens need. Rich folks don't need tax cuts? Says who?

Okay, if rich folks don't need to have their taxes cut, who does need for rich folks to have their taxes cut? The answer is, all the rest of us. John F. Kennedy, an icon of the Democratic Party who pushed for deep tax cuts, argued, "A rising tide lifts all boats." Urging a tax rate cut, Kennedy said: "It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low -- and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now. The experience of a number of European countries has borne this out. This country's own experience with tax reductions in 1954 has borne this out, and the reason is that only full employment can balance the budget -- and tax reduction can pave the way to full employment. The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budgetary deficit but to achieve the more prosperous expanding economy which will bring a budgetary surplus."

Economist Art Laffer researched history and came up with the Laffer Curve. A graphic way of illustrating his findings, it clearly showed that as tax rates decreased, tax revenues increased. History.

Two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, David McCullough, widely acclaimed as a “master of the art of narrative history,” was interviewed on CBS Television's 60 Minutes. He deplored American's lack of knowledge of history. We old right wing radicals concur. How sad that lessons we learned, often with considerable pain, must be re-learned.

Reuben and Rachel

For some time now, that ditty has been stuck in my head. Especially the part where Rachel sings:

Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking
What a grand world this would be
If the men were all transported
Far beyond the Northern Sea

My guess is that the author chose "Far beyond the Northern Sea" for meter and rhyme. But the meaning from Rachel's point of view was clear... she wanted those men gone, forever removed from any influence on her life. She did not necessarily want them to suffer harm, just sent too far away to ever return.

I think of that ditty every time I think of the folks who ran the political campaigns of Bush 41 - second term, Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Karl Rove, et al, were great statisticians. They understood the electoral college, the political divisions among states, all the nuances of voting blocs. They just didn't know how to sell a candidate or a policy position.

Far beyond the Northern Sea sounds like a terribly cold place, so I would settle for some place like Idaho. It is a very pretty place, where they could surely find happiness. Just don't ever let them run another political campaign.

Medicine Men

When I was a small boy, back in the "Dirty thirties" there was scant family entertainment. We had no TV or computers, no CDs, DVDs, cassettes, 8-track cartridges, I-Pads, etc.  We did have 78-rpm records and an old Victrola wind-up record player, but with titles like "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime" and "May I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight Mister?", records were not very entertaining.

There were movies, but they cost money, which we did not have. Also, my straight-laced parents disapproved of Hollywood and their products. Movies were off-limits.

But, we did have "Medicine Shows"! The name, medicine show, was dreamed up by the public... the same way we call certain TV dramas "Soap Operas". (Only because they were often sponsored by soap or detergent manufacturers.)

A Medicine Show was a kind of vaudeville show, live, usually in a big tent. I no longer remember the entertainment, but I certainly remember the "Pitch". Sitting through the pitch was the price you paid for the free entertainment. Halfway through the show, the pitch man came on stage. An extraordinarily persuasive, smooth-talking guy, his perfect presentation glorified the product they were selling.

Usually the product was some kind of tonic - sold as a magic cure-all for any and every ailment. I always bought into the pitch and wondered why my father never bought a bottle. Many others did lay out their 25¢ or 50¢ to acquire a bottle of the expertly sold tonic, on their way out of the tent!

When TV came along, medicine shows moved from the tent to the studio. The entertainment improved. The products changed, But the concept did not. You could sell anything to a gullible public with a carefully crafted message. And, the message crafters have become ever more skilled.

This morning I visited a doctor's office.  The receptionist, with whom I have discussed politics in the past, remarked that "We are still scratching our heads", a reference to the presidential election which gave us four more years of Barack Obama.

The answer to her unanswerable question, of course, is medicine men, that is, very smart persuaders who correctly read the public's mood and crafted a message that convinced millions of Americans to buy a bottle of Obama on their way out of the tent.

Were Obama's policies good? Didn't matter. Were Romney's policies bad? Didn't matter. Obama's medicine men succeeded in selling their tonic. Romney's did not.    

11th Hour of 11th Day of 11th Month, 1918

That was when the Armistice was signed, ending the first world war. So brutal, so widespread was the violence of that war, it was widely believed that civilized humans would never again engage in war. Thus, World War I was called the war to end all wars. November 11 was remembered as Armistice Day and became a national holiday.

A scant twenty-one years later, on September 8, 1939, then again on May 27, 1941, President Roosevelt declared a State Of Emergency because Europe was once again at war. On December 7, 1941, Imperial Japan attacked American soil in Hawaii. Another World War was underway for Americans. President Truman declared an end to hostilities of this second world war on December 31, 1946.

Three and one-half years later, on June 25, 1950, North Korea launched an attack on American and Korean forces in south Korea, and we were at war again.

When President-Elect Dwight Eisenhower engineered an armistice in 1953, the observance of November 11 as "Armistice Day" seemed a little outdated. The following year, it was officially decided to designate November 11 as Veteran's Day, to recognize all veterans of all American wars.

Going back to 1918 and just ten days before that famous armistice, my uncle, Prentice (Prince) Bradley was killed in France. U.S. Army Captain Clifford Davidson, commanding Co. A, 359th Infantry, wrote my grandfather:

I don't know if my uncle's remains were ever re-interred, but it is evident that in 1918, if a soldier received serious injuries, he just died and was buried by his comrades.

Things have changed. Thanks to today's advances in medicine, many seriously injured soldiers survive. The result means a great number of "Wounded Warriors".

While we honor all veterans on November 11, today we feel especially indebted to those young men and women suffering both visible and invisible war wounds. The sight of a young man with an artificial leg, or a despairing homeless man wearing a Viet Nam Veteran cap is heartbreaking.

The death of my uncle ten days before the end of a war, or the sight of these wounded warriors always makes me ask "Why?". What value ensued from killing my uncle when, for all practical purposes, the objectives of that war had already been passed? What value ensued from the exploding I.E.D. that took the young soldier's leg? Why must nations go to war?

Perhaps, some day, Iraq or Afghanistan, or The War On Terror will be remembered as The War That Ended All Wars. Perhaps, some day, all veterans of all wars will have died of old age. But, I hope America will always observe the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in remembrance of those American veterans who brought about that final end of war.

The Election...

Everyone except me has weighed in on election results. Now it's my turn.

1.The Candidate: Never mind that Romney was eminently qualified. He lacked charisma. He lacked Hollywood appeal (whatever that is). Way back in 1964, I observed a local election in which one candidate was a lawyer, more than adequately qualified. But he was a funny-looking guy. Unusual facial structure, parted his hair in the middle and wore a mustache.

A friend predicted that this guy could not be elected because people will not vote for someone who parts their hair in the middle or wears a mustache. This candidate did both.

My friend was correct as to results of the vote, though not exactly right on the reason. The hair part and mustache were starters. In all, this guy was just, well, funny looking. Romney certainly looked okay but, no matter, folks just didn't really like him.

2. Voting blocks: Romney lost the Hispanic vote (in spite of a broken promise on immigration reform); black Americans (in spite of same-sex marriage); Jews (in spite of Obama's sorry treatment of Israel); Catholics (in spite of the contraception brouhaha.

I remember when folks spoke of "The Solid South". Solid Democrat, that is. But Republicans came to understand the issues important to the south, addressed those issues, and became inclusive. The South is still solid, but now it is solid GOP. The GOP can, and must, show other groups that they are the party most likely to solve their problems.

The Democrats have treated black Americans shoddily for decades. Jim Crow, etc. But, certain Democrat candidates sold black Americans on the idea that they were the ones responsible for civil rights successes. The idea caught on and has passed from generation to generation. It is accepted as fact in the black community - no questions asked.

Same goes for Hispanics. History has proven that Democrats always have and shall continue to have disdain for Hispanics. But they convinced Hispanics that they were their party. I had one Hispanic friend who owned several small businesses. The Democrat's policies were clearly counter to this friend's business interests. Yet he often said "My father would turn over in his grave if I ever voted for a Republican." And he never did.

I have partnered in business with Jews who were dear friends, smart people, good businessmen - but solidly Democrat. The reason? Henry Ford was once associated with a openly anti-Semitic newspaper. So bitter were my colleagues that they refused to drive any automobile produced by Ford Motor Company. Henry Ford has been dead for 65 years!

The bottom line? A national primary might nominate a candidate people like, regardless of qualifications. No more of this "He won Florida." She won Ohio."

Then, instead of a dozen candidates fighting through a long, bitter primary campaign which included a dozen debates, the GOP could concentrate on listening to the disparate voting groups, learning to understand their concerns, finding ways to honestly address those concerns, then selling the groups that they will do so.

Racism... its roots.

Ever since Barack Obama, the "post racial president" burst upon the scene, talk of racism has increased exponentially. What's going on?

I believe it is two things: the multicultural mindset and the politicians never-ending quest for votes. 

1. We must acknowledge and respect the Black culture. We must support its unique qualities.

2. We must lump Blacks into one, cohesive voting group. We must bestow them with common problems that only politicians can solve.

How sad!

Skin color means no more than eye color or shoe size. Skin color has no connection to the brain. Yes, some people in the South eat collard greens and grits (yum). Skin color has nothing to do with it. Lots of people from Maryland rave about crab cakes (yuk). Skin color has nothing to do with it. 

People from places like Brooklyn talk with a funny accent (my late mother, foremost among them). Skin color had nothing to do with it. Or, you might say that people from the deep south are the ones with the funny accent. Skin color has nothing to do with it.

People like Thomas Sowell and Ben Stein are great economists. Skin color has nothing to do with it.

The only way to end racism is to recognize these facts. Politicians must quit talking about "The Black Vote". Politically correct do-gooders must quit promoting and protecting "Black culture" and "The Black Community". Young Black men (boys) must quit striving to act, talk and dress "Black". Above all, the spotlight must be removed from race baiters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had it right. Character is everything. Skin color is nothing. Once we agree with him, we dig racism out by the roots.

Helloooo! Anybody home????

CBS Television's Steve Kroft, on 60 Minutes, interviewed Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid. He pressed the idea of cooperation, compromise. Why can't it happen to get the work of Congress done?

Steve is not alone. Everywhere we hear that Congress is deadlocked. We need compromise! We need bi-partisan action! We need the parties to come together! Everything will be lovely if the Democrats and Republicans will just reach across the aisle!

Why are all these TV and print reporters being paid such high salaries when they seem to be permanently "out to lunch"? Why can't any of these tunnel vision idiots see the big picture?

We have had years of compromise. We have had decades of bi-partisan cooperation. Congress has worked with the White House to get the job done.

What is the result? $16 trillion in debt ($10 trillion before Obama). Trillion dollar deficits. The housing market nearly non-existent. Unemployment disgracefully high. Elementary education is a disaster, higher education a high-priced waste of time. Energy independence nowhere in sight. Record numbers of Americans on the dole. Entitlement obligations we cannot possibly hope to meet. Daily warnings of a coming fiscal cliff.

They blame the Tea Party. We hear reporters of every stripe call them radical, extreme, obstructionists. Have any of these big time journalists ever left their East Coast neighborhoods? Doesn't seem like it!

In the spring of 2009, a movement of sensible, everyday Americans finally took a good look at their government and realized it was screwing up their beloved country. En masse, they stood up and said, "Stop! No more spending! We don't give a hoot for the consequences. Just stop spending! Fix the entitlements! Eliminate those wasteful, failed government bureaus!"

They are the Tea Party. They are hated, vilified.

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe said we are lucky when congress is not in session; they cannot hurt you.
Texas Governor Rick Perry said we should follow the Texas legislature's practice; let congress meet for 60 days every other year then go home.

They are the voices of reason. They or ridiculed, ignored.

The high-salaried reporters? They are the stars. The celebrities. Millions hang on their every word!

Amazing.
   

The Present that will become The Past.

Given my age, I occasionally have someone ask my opinion of what it was like when Truman was president, or when Eisenhower was president. Harry won the oval office when I was but 20; Ike did it 60 years ago.

Given that I will not be around in 60 more years, let me record my impression of our current president, just in case someone wants my opinion of Barack Obama in 2072!

I believe Obama is a sock puppet. The left... the Communists, Marxists or whatever you wish to call them, have, as blogger John Hawkins puts it, "completed their long march into the institutions and now own Hollywood, colleges, and the mainstream media." Ignorant of history and blind to reality, these people have bought into the Lenin-Marx poison that if everyone shares everything, the world will be a happy place.

Not all, of course: there are the cunning few who use the Left line as a path to power. But, never think these behind-the-scenes controllers are stupid. Far from stupid, they have, as Hawkins points out, progressed well down their selected path. But, controlling the above referenced institutions has never been their end goal... they want it all.

Fortunately, they have never found a key to the White House door, until they found Barack Hussein Obama. Here was a clean, articulate young black man with widespread popular appeal. Somewhere along the way... from his over-educated mother; his Indonesian step-father (obviously a smart man as he held some power in Indonesia's government); his grandmother, a vice-president of a Hawaiian bank; Frank Marshal Davis, a card-carrying Communist; or, perhaps the left-leaning professors and Marxist students he courted at Occidental and Columbia universities, Obama learned how to con people into liking him, even yearning to support him.

Working as a Community Organizer in Chicago Obama made numerous appeals to local government officials in Chicago. Somewhere along the way, some one of them took note of Obama's talents and started promoting him. He was chosen, likely as a token "African-American" to address a Democratic National Convention. That speech propelled him into the arms of left-wing powers and the rest is history.

Obama was the perfect choice at the perfect time. George W. Bush was completing eight years as president. The Iraq war was dragging on. People wanted a change and Obama represented the biggest change in the history of the American presidency. White America justly regretted the racist past and Obama offered a chance to prove it was the past.

Obama had everything going for him... almost. He looked and sounded great, but he was stupid. Never mind, his handlers were not. They assigned Valerie Jarret, David Axelrod and other left-leaners to usher him along. They would make relentless use of the teleprompter, with dialog written by the handlers.

Early in his Illinois legislative career, he would always vote "present" to avoid establishing a record that could hurt him. A bit of political chicanery put him in the U.S. Senate, a perfect stepping stone to running for the presidency, just in time for the end of the Bush years. Once elected, he was used to pass some of the lefts favorite causes, like health care. There was never an intent to pass things like the promised comprehensive immigration reform or deficit reduction. Instead they sought ways to reduce America's military and engineered the so-called sequestration toward that purpose.

But, the hand that holds the puppet misjudged America's people. They may have swayed the unschooled Hollywood elite and the brain-washed student air-heads. What they missed are the millions who truly and passionately love this country. When these millions smell a rat, look out. As the Imperial Japanese and the Nazis learned, these America-loving millions have been a sleeping giant. Once awakened, they become a terrible force. Now, like the Nazis and the Japanese militants, Obama faces a crushing defeat at their hands.

About Lance Armstrong
I am a cyclist. Not competitive, like Armstrong, just one who loves to ride. My love for bicycles runs deep. During the depression, when the price of a bicycle was far, far beyond my family's reach, I used to run down our long farm driveway. my hands extended in front as though I was holding handlebars, stepping high to imitate pedaling; pretending, dreaming, that I was riding a bicycle.

Eventually, through odd jobs and a little help from my Mom, I amassed eight dollars and bought a used Schwinn. Here, in high-water pants, I sit astride the old Schwinn at age 15.

I've owned other bikes - one I won in an endurance contest. About a dozen years ago my daughter gave me a Trek mountain bike. I put a quality odometer on it and have since logged over 10,000 miles. Hey, that's like across the United States, coast to coast, three times! And that's just since my 70th birthday.

I know something about riding bikes. I know what it means to ride so hard that your legs quit working and when you step off the bike, they collapse and you fall. I know what it's like to take a spill and endure some severe abrasions. Or, how it feels to attain such high speed down a steep hill that it is nearly impossible to control your bike.

I understand that it is almost beyond human ability to win the Tour de France. Day after grueling day, in sprints, up and down mountains, riding in rain, and managing to best a field of the the very best bike riders in the world. To do that seven times is nothing short of a miracle.

Now they are saying Lance Armstrong did it because he was doping? Really! Let me tell you. Anyone who says you can perform that superhuman feat because you took some pills, or injected something or other into your system, is a damn fool. And, to think that some are saying "everyone was doing it"! Now, would that not, in itself, level the playing field?

Lance Armstrong is my hero. He accomplished something no other man has done - no other man will ever do in the future. Then he used his fame to contribute mightily to the battle against cancer. Like Lance, my wife is a cancer survivor. In recognition of her victory in that battle, and in appreciation for all Lance Armstrong has accomplished, I wear a yellow Livestrong bracelet, and will for the rest of my life.

  Remembering Democrats who "fixed" things.

There are two problems with history books: The people who write them (partisans) and the people who read them (no one).

Here is some history I remember:

World War II ended in Europe and the evil third Reich was no more. Democrat U.S. president Roosevelt had a great opportunity to fight for a unified, democratic Germany (which the German people finally achieved), but instead he happily acceded to a carved up Germany, giving half to Russia. Then he threw in Eastern Europe and the northern half of Korea as a further reward to mass murderer Joseph Stalin.

Next came Harry Truman. Perhaps Chiang Kai Shek was not an ideal leader, but Truman ignored his plea for help and let the Communists take over China, now an adversary. China thanked us by attacking our troops in Korea, assuring the success of the psychotic Kims.

Iran was a secular, modern nation, a friend of the West. But Jimmy Carter considered the Shah a bad apple and assisted the rise of the Mullahs, producing a murderous regime now seeking WMDs to destroy Israel.

Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt for almost 30 years, following the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Mubarak was not what most would consider a nice guy, but he kept the peace and was friendly to the West. Barack Obama erroneously visualized something better in Egypt and happily watched Muslim exremists depose the dictator.

Ditto for crazy man Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Gadhafi had a nasty past but appeared to have learned his lesson. He gave up his plan for nukes and seemed willing to improve his behavior. Obama thought otherwise and abetted Gadhafi's murder.

How different this world would be if China and Korea were our friends and allies. How brighter the future would be if the Iranian government was as friendly as the Iranian people always were. And, just imagine a stable, friendly North Africa.

How different the world would be if a string of Democratic U.S. presidents had not "fixed" things. 

I Love Mathematics

More correctly, I should say I love numbers. Education-wise, I am 100 miles short of being a mathematician. My schooling went only as far as trigonometry and that was long ago. Today I could hardly distinguish a cosine from a co-signer!

My college professor son tells me that college freshmen bust their butts selecting a course of study as far as possible from mathematics. That is sad and I lay the blame on our primary education system. They barely skim the principles of mathematics as they hurry through a social-studies-heavy curriculum, and if a student fails to grasp one "step" in math, he is in trouble with everything that follows. Most kids graduate high school deathly afraid of mathematics.

I love math because two and two are always four. How cool is that! Plus, numbers are fun. You can play endless games with numbers and the numbers are always reliable. But math is not taught the fun way. It is taught in a complex, boring way.

Let's consider simple multiplication. Suppose you want to multiply 16 times 16. Surely you need pencil and paper for that. Wrong! Take a closer look at the numbers. In Spanish, 16 is pronounced diez y seis, which translates to "ten and six"... exactly what 16 means in English, 10 and 6.

So, 16 times 16 means 10 & 6 times 10 & 6. Now 10 times 16 = 160. 6 times 10 = 60. 6 times 6 = 36. 160 + 60 + 36 is 256, the correct answer. Anyone can figure that without pencil and paper. None of this "write down the 6 and carry the three; 6 times 1 is 6, add the 3 and write down the 9, etc. Can you imagine a more convoluted way to do it? I can't!

Also, numbers can make patterns that are fully predictable. I was born on November 6, 1928, the first Tuesday in that November. That was a presidential election day in the U.S.  A calendar year is 365 days, an odd number. Thus, in each year, any given date will fall on a later day of the week than in the previous year. If New Year's Day falls on Sunday in one year, it will fall on Monday the next year, Tuesday the next, etc.

How often, then, should my birthday fall on a presidential election day? Every seventh year? No, because of leap years. Every fourth year we make the calendar year a day longer, which must figure into our numbers pattern. My birthday, then, will fall on the first Tuesday in November every 7 times 4 years, or every 28 years: 1928, 1956, 1984, and 2012.

And, coincidentally, every year that my birthday fell on presidential election day, a Republican was elected: 1928, Herbert Hoover; 1956, Dwight Eisenhower; 1984, Ronald Reagan, and 2012, Mitt Romney?

I love numbers!

Bluest of the blue:

My wife is an artist, but a bit different from others. She has the eye of an artist but the mind of a realist.

After decades of work in advertising, I have learned that artists exist in a unique world. They see things in color and shape but not in detail. I have worked with talented artists who are experts at perspective but could not pass a fourth grade spelling test. 

It is commonplace to walk through a gallery and see appealing works of art which, upon close examination, depict physical impossibilities. 

And artists overwhelmingly have Liberal political ideologies. They are often single issue advocates who never see beyond that issue.

After two days at an event with one of her art groups, my wife related a story that gave me shivers. Reacting to a comment from the October 3rd presidential candidates debate, a group of artists discussed the notion of defunding the Public Broadcasting System, PBS! "How could one imagine cutting taxpayer dollars from Sesame Street, thus eliminating early childhood education?

How indeed? In the fair and honest interest of the child, that's how!

Yes, Big Bird may assist that small child's learning. but at what cost? We are borrowing billions from China, a chunk of which is used to help fund a television program that will entertain our toddlers for an hour or so a day. That, of course, relieves the parent from spending their time teaching the child the simple lessons of everyday life.

Those billions must one day be repaid to the Chinese and who will do that? The child!

Here's the big picture: We are taking a huge loan in the name of our children to hire a babysitter, (Kermit The Frog, and friends). When that child becomes an adult, he gets to repay that loan.
 
How heartless of a presidential candidate to suggest ending that practice! 

Photo ID required!

All across this nation, people argue over the need to present a photo ID when voting. One side says a positive ID would help prevent voter fraud. The other side says to require a photo ID will disenfranchise many voters... especially the elderly and the poor.

Interestingly, the voting booth is the only place where feelings about photo IDs run so high. Witness this ad for Jo-Ann, a retail chain that sells stuff for people who sew, etc.

 
A discount for seniors age 60 or older. A Photo ID required for proof of age! 

What are we to make of this? Do women lie about their age hoping to prove they are older than they appear? Is the store trying to "disenfranchise" customers from taking the discount by setting the hurdle too high? Do modern women so frequently appear younger than their actual age that you cannot hope to accurately judge ages by appearance? Or, does this simply enable a woman to discreetly show her proof of age to a cashier without announcing it to others in line?

Most likely the truth is that all this talk about the need for a photo ID being burdensome is just nonsense.

Dumb or Dumber?

Among the dumb ideas being talked about in this presidential election is that of the candidate's likeability. Likeability??? Who cares?

Imagine you wanted to hire a pilot to fly your new jet plane, Would you look for a person with training and experience? Or a likeable person.

Electing a president is hiring a CEO for the country; a Commander-In-Chief for all the military; someone to represent you on the world stage; someone to oversee the world's largest economy. Are you looking for someone with skills? Or a likeable person?

Personally, I would prefer a tough-as-nails guy who would put up with no nonsense! I wouldn't care if he was widely disliked, if he had the skills to do the job. I already have friends, I am not looking for a new buddy!

Let's consider recent experience in the world of CEOs. Steve Jobs was a co-founder at Apple. Steve built an amazing company - which subsequently fired him. Apple went into decline, until they persuaded Jobs to return. He did, and he re-built Apple into the richest company in the world.

Steve Jobs was reported to be an insensitive, unfriendly guy who belittled people. But, he knew how to make a better, more salable product; he knew how to market his products; he knew how to manage a company.

One story told about Jobs was what happened after his staff had just built a new I-phone or I-pad. Jobs was said to have looked at the shiny, new device and said it was too big. The engineers insisted it could not be made smaller. Jobs tossed the item into an aquarium - a fish tank. Aghast, his technical experts watched the device sink to the bottom. Immediately, bubbles started rising to the surface.

Jobs said, "See, there was air inside. Make it smaller!"

Speaking about likeability in a president is neither dumb or dumber. It is the dumbest!

Assault On The Constitution
Part Three: The Right To Bear Arms

There is nothing unclear about the 25 words of the Second Amendment. It says "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Pretty simple, "...shall not be infringed." Like all of The Constitution, written so the average U.S. citizen could read and understand it.

Because of gradual changes in the meaning of words, some now believe that the word "militia" applies only to  an Army sustained by the government. Obviously that was not the definition on March 4, 1789, when the Bill of Rights was adopted. Americans had witnessed Washington's defeat of the British, by commanding a ragtag band of patriots with their own muskets, and volunteer soldiers formed into regiments in various states. Washington had to work tirelessly to get Congress to fund payment to his citizen soldiers.

Most anti-gun people somehow believe that if they legally banned all guns it would stop gun crimes. With an estimated 100 million privately owned guns in America, that would be impossible to achieve.  Mad men shoot up college campuses, work places of every description, shopping malls, darkened theaters and on and on, The gun haters immediately call for an outright ban or stricter regulations on guns. But people who mean to do harm with their guns would never surrender their weapons.Why would criminals, or madmen, obey that law and no others?

The anti-gun crowd has not been successful at changing the Constitution, largely because it would require two-thirds of both houses of Congress or two thirds of all state legislatures calling for a Constitutional Convention. After proposing an amendment, three-fourths of all states must then ratify the amendment.

But the argument over the word 'militia' is now rarely held, There is another way to trump The Constitution and the gun grabbers have latched on. Article VI of The Constitution says "all treaties made or which shall be made, under the authority of the United states, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding." Bingo! Adopt the UN Small Arms Treaty and the 2nd Amendment is gone.

Secretary of  State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama continue to work hand-in-glove with the UN to pass the "Programme of Action Against Small Arms" Treaty.

Patriotic Americans cannot permit the Administration to sneak this one by.

Senator Rand Paul (R., KY) is fighting it. Follow his efforts here

Native Americans here in the Western States used to call the coyote "the Trickster". We have coyotes in the White House. Watch them closely.

Assault on The Constitution
Part Two: Freedom of Religion

If I said that "they" are re-writing The Constitution, you may say "No. It has to go through a long process before you can amend The Constitution." You would be wrong.

Consider the first amendment - the opening shot in the Bill of Rights. The first 16 words are: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; Even President Thomas Jefferson's 1802 letter to a Baptist group in Danville, CT, responding to their complaint that Jefferson, unlike Presidents Washington and Adams, had failed to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting.

Jefferson's letter, the source of the "Wall of Separation" nonsense, also said "I have refrained from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an executive is the head of a national church, ..."

In 1777, Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which established freedom of religion in the Commonwealth. Although the document was not adopted as Virginia state law for nearly a decade, it was one of Jefferson's proudest life accomplishments.

I don't know what Jefferson meant with his reference to "the head of a national church", But it is clear that the "Wall of Separation" was simply Jefferson's opinion.

In America, we have the practice of "common law"  Not being a lawyer, I may not know the correct details, but my understanding is that Common Law means we reference decisions by previous courts when deciding cases with like circumstances.

Previous to Jefferson, Washington and Adams both felt it was proper to declare a day of prayer and fasting. None of these opinions were by a "court". But if the idea of Common Law is to apply, why does not the Washington and Adams practice take precedence?

But, all of this is moot because The Constitution simply says "Congress shall make no law..."

The "re-writers", however pounced on Jefferson's wall of separation - NOT a part of The Constitution - and proclaim it to mean there can be no reference to religion on any government property, city, county, state or federal.

If that is not amending The Constitution, what is?

Assault On The Constitution
Part One: Freedom of Speech.

The following ad is all over our local newspaper's online edition.

So, what's this all about? Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association explained it clearly in a column which appeared in the August, 2012 issue of American Rifleman magazine.  Plain and simple it is another attempt by Progressives/Liberals to revise, re-write and reject the U.S Constitution.

In 2010, the Federal Election Commission ruled that group speech by corporations is not protected as free speech by the first amendment. A group called Citizen's United sued the FEC and the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court overruled the FEC. Chief Justice Roberts said "The First Amendment protects more than just the individual on a soapbox or the lonely pamphleteer" Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people"

Congressman Jim McGovern (D-Mass), then introduced House Joint Resolution 88, calling for a People's Rights Amendment to The Constitution. The text of the proposed amendment would say "people, person or persons as used in this Constitution does not include corporations, limited liability companies or other corporate entities."

Under this amendment, anyone who tried to exercise his or her constitutional rights collectively with other people would be "subject to such regulations as Congress deems reasonable."

Now the cause has been taken up in the U.S. Senate.  Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), said "I believe there ought to be limits because the First Amendment is not absolute. No amendment is absolute. You can’t scream ‘fire’ falsely in a crowded theater. We have libel laws. We have anti-pornography laws. All of those are limits on the First Amendment."

Think about that! Did the Founding Fathers draft the 1st Amendment to permit falsely yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater, or print pornography?

Remember the wording of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech"! The prohibition is solely on Congress.
 
It is difficult to believe that this proposed amendment will ever meet the requirements for amendments as spelled out in Article 5 of the Constitution. Unless, of course, people who rarely pay attention to the Constitution allow it to be slipped through in the dark of night.

Watch for any news of attempts to "overturn Citizen's Rights". Then fight to preserve our constitution.

"2016" and a prediction

"2016 The Movie" opened in Las Cruces theaters Friday and Joanna and I went to the 2:30 p.m. showing. It was not a huge theater, still nearly every seat was filled. Lots of seniors, but at 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, all schools are in session, many working folks are still working, and I doubt the choice of the film had all that much to do with the age of the crowd.

At the end of the film, the crowd broke into spontaneous applause. Is that common with movies today? I remember the old days at drive-ins when young couples despaired the end of the movie without caring much about its content.

I am glad the film was not blatantly partisan. We were able to recommend it to some of our Liberal leaning friends as being factual, informative - not hate-filled. 

It was the first time I had been in a movie theater for at least 15 years. Movies are so full of whispers and explosions that my hearing aids nearly self-destruct - never mind that the subject matter has no appeal.

Earlier in the week, we had seen numerous TV spots for "Last Ounce of Courage" and I had told Joanna I also wanted to see that film. Then, my astute little wife made a brilliant observation... "Hollywood has figured out how to get the Conservative dollar." Wow!

And what a good thing that will be. In fact, it could save our nation!

Consider talk radio. I did talk radio before Rush Limbaugh or the other current stars were born. We talked about the city not mowing the weeds on city owned property. We talked about potholes, the weather, and whatever other mundane local subject we stumbled upon. And we faded into oblivion.

Then came the Conservative talkers. Suddenly they were syndicated on hundreds of stations. Suddenly millions of people were hanging on their every word. What role did their considerable power of persuasion play in the generation of the Tea Party Movement, in which millions of Americans seemed to suddenly realize they had been electing and trusting politicians who betrayed them?

I remember 1941 through 1945, my early teens. America entered World War Two just after my 13th birthday. The first movies I saw were war action movies. They so filled me with patriotic fervor that the first thing I did after my 17th birthday was to enlist in the Army. And guess what... 67 years later that patriotic fire has not cooled one degree.

For generations, our youth has been fed Liberal pap by all of the entertainment industry. Look at the Viet Nam era. Unlike 1945, when a 17-year-old's only wish was to qualify for the U.S. military, America's young men fled to Canada to avoid that honor.

So, while Hollywood's only real interest may well be the dollar, if that drives them to produce honest films with conservative principles, I hope they make lots of them! Then perhaps young Americans will again be inspired by America, as were The Greatest Generation.

O'Reilly

I agree with FNCs superstar Bill O'Reilly often. Some times I strongly disagree.

Recently, Bill asserted that you must notify the FBI when taking flying lessons, but not if you buy a machine gun or a bazooka. That was such a foolish misstatement it has been thoroughly refuted by Doug Giles and others.

More recently, Bill said "Marriage is not a right protected by the Constitution." Well, Mr. O'Reilly, marriage is not an enumerated right in the Constitution. But, have you read the Ninth amendment? It states that "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

(Thank the Founders for the precious 9th amendment! Without it there surely would be books - no, libraries full of books - telling us all the things we could NOT do because those things were not enumerated in the Constitution!)

Then, Bill, take a look at the Tenth Amendment which says that powers "...not prohibited by it (The Constitution) to the states are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."  Since marriage is not prohibited by the Constitution, it automatically becomes a protected right. Further, if any states wish to prohibit same-sex marriage, that right is reserved to that state and is protected by the Constitution.

Or, if I personally believe only in traditional marriage, I as a "people" enjoy Constitutional protection for that right.

The Founders did not write the Constitution to be a complex legal document. They wanted it to be a document that could be read and understood by every citizen of the United States. And with great genius, they succeeded!

Sadly, they did not provide a way to make us read it!

WHY...

doesn't anyone talk about this?

Qatar is a tiny spit of a nation, a little thumb of desert land protruding off the east coast of Saudi Arabia. One generation ago, citizens of Qatar lived in tents, rode around on camels and struggled to subside.

Today in Qatar, camels ride around on trucks. Qatar is the richest nation, per capita, on earth.

Qatar has a skyline of spectacular, modern buildings and more are going up every day. What happened in Qatar?

It was discovered that Qatar is sitting atop a huge deposit of natural gas. With no green concerns, Qatar busted their butts to retrieve their natural gas and develop a way to market this asset. The results are nearly unbelievable!

Meanwhile, in America, where natural gas deposits are immeasurably larger than those under Qatar, where oil is more plentiful than in Saudi Arabia, and coal reserves are by far the greatest in the world... our infrastructure is crumbling. Americans are out of work in unprecedented numbers, our national debt is staggering.

Pundits fuss that more drilling would not lower the price of gas at the pump. Who cares? Follow the Qatar plan... put people to work! Produce coal, oil, natural gas and sell it on the world market. It is the way to pay off the debt, reduce unemployment, bring our standard of living back up where it belongs!

And, just as important, making America energy independent once more will make America more secure.

Why isn't anyone shouting about this? Are they afraid of environmentalists? Are they afraid of the green lawyers? Do people actually want to see America decline? Where is the leader who will take this bull by the horns?

The Public's Right (to decide they do not want) To Know

This morning I observed an interesting bit of human behavior. Sitting in the waiting room of a medical facility, along with a dozen or so other persons, I watched a large screen TV tuned to "America's Newsroom" on Fox News Channel.

The news they covered was important - no fluff - with stories from Washington Politics to Tropical Storm Betsy. The group in the waiting room varied in age. No children but a mixture of young adults and seniors.

I quickly observed that while the TV anchors covered these news stories, the younger adults scanned magazines or newspapers but paid little attention to the TV. The seniors in the group seemed glued to the screen.

Several times, the TV producers took a commercial break. The instant the commercials opened with their explosive sounds, jingles or whatever, every young adult immediately turned their eyes to the TV.

When the news programming resumed, they returned to their magazines.

Are young Americans just not interested in what is going on in their world?

When we hear reports the "Seniors Vote", is it because they DO care?
  

(Dis)organized Labor

In the early part of the last century, work was hard. Really hard. I remember in the 1930s there was no such thing as a 40-hour week. My father worked many long, hard days, quitting each day when the work was done, not when someone blew a whistle. My father was grateful to have a steady job and worked without complaining. But others felt abused. They reasoned that if organized as a like-minded group, they could achieve bargaining power to obtain "rights" for workers.

Organize they did, with sympathy evoking claims of seeking fairness for workers. They called themselves "organized labor" and the nation fell in love with Labor Unions. Oh, how we championed these fighters for fairness. But in the blink of an eye some discovered that if every worker paid monthly dues it would pile up a heap of money... a big temptation for crooks and con men.

Because many union members were lightly educated, they became an easy target for the con artists who quickly took over powerful, high paying union leadership positions. To maintain those positions, they knew they had to keep getting more and more benefits for their members. They soon exceeded reasonable demands.

With their huge bargaining power and help from politicians who sought to mine union memberships for votes, they destroyed many American industries. But they always pressed for more, using increasingly ugly tactics.

Now, however, many Americans - including many union members - have come to understand the destructive nature of Organized Labor. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker decided to rein in his state's public employees unions and found that a majority of citizens backed him. More and more states are enacting right-to-work laws ending, statewide, compulsory union membership.

Labor unions outlived their usefulness decades ago. It has taken some time, but it now appears that Organized Labor as we have known it is dead. A vital step in restoring America's greatness.

 

Religious Freedom

I do not belong to any organized religious organization. I do not go to church. Right or wrong, my decision. But please do not assume that I am anti-religion. Personally, I believe that the closely held positions of some religious organizations are a bit over the top. Some religions have beliefs or customs with which I disagree.

The "Church Of Christ" has prohibitions on using musical instruments in church. Nearly all Christian religions believe in baptism, some sprinkle, some submerge. The "Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints" believes the same Bible most Christian denominations use, but believes God had a new book (The Book of Mormon) especially for them. The Catholic Church believes differently than Protestant religions. Jews disagree with Christians on many levels. I overlook these differences.

In my view, religion must be, in some way, a force for good. I respect others' views and beliefs, including their religious beliefs, so long as those beliefs are based in some "force for good". No one can argue that members of the Church Of Christ do not do a world of good in their communities. My experience with Mormons has shown them to be exemplary citizens who actively care for their fellow man. Consider all the Roman Catholic Church has accomplished with their hospitals, universities and other institutions. Ditto for Judaism.

And, I believe in the U.S. Constitution: If Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion, I will stand for that free exercise.

However, holding millions of members in allegiance does not, in my opinion, make a religion. Since September 11, we have heard much about respecting Islam. I do not.

Muslims fall far short in the "force for good" department. They sentence to death people who disagree with their beliefs. They fight among themselves... Shi'ites, Sunnis, Wahhabis, Suffis, Bahaiis... Muslims all, but they have done battle among themselves for centuries.

But the accepted customs of many Muslims are the straws that break the criteria for a religion for me. In Islam, it is okay to lie for the good of Islam. Honor killings are okay. The universal acceptance of bad treatment of women. And, among the most despicable, one "long standing tradition" recently codified into law by the new Egyptian Parliament (since the Muslim Brotherhood gained the majority) permits a man to have sex with his deceased wife for up to six hours after her death.

Sorry, I cannot personally recognize Islam as a "religion" worthy of my support.    

Appreciating the doers!

This past weekend we took a road trip, covering a swath of New Mexico and a swath of Texas. My wife did most of the driving, giving me the opportunity to just look at the wonders that whizzed by.

Some were nature's wonders, like the occasional small herd of antelope (American pronghorns, actually) peacefully grazing in sparse grasslands. Strange geographic features like the miles of dunes of snow white gypsum which gathered on the east side of the San Andreas mountains.

Mostly, however, I marveled at the man made wonders, reflected on the work it took to create them and thought of all the people who benefit from those creations while bearing no knowledge of, or appreciation for, their benefactors.

I saw a lot of oil wells pumping away. I wondered about the men who sweated in summer heat or shivered in winter cold to erect the drilling rigs, then labored for weeks to drive the drill deep enough to reach oil.

I thought of the folks who provided capital for that drilling. Many have invested their savings to acquire a 1/64 interest in a drilling operation which failed to produce oil and they lost their investment. If oil is found, these investors will periodically receive small checks, hoping the oil will hold out long enough to get all their money back and, hopefully, enough additional to earn more than they could have received from a bank savings account.

From those windswept fields, the crude oil is transported to a distant refinery where gasoline is extracted, then shipped back to a filling station in a nearby village. There I am able to fill my tank and thus cruise in comfort down this highway... its hard surface another by-product of the stuff those pumps are extracting. I note the nicely formed plastic control panel of our car, also made from that crude oil, and I wonder why so many demonize this amazing gift from nature.

There are electrical wires everywhere you go. This was not the case in the 1930s when my family's farmhouse had no electricity and my sisters did their homework by the light of a kerosene lamp - also fueled by a product of the aforementioned crude oil.

Among the utility poles we passed, I saw an occasional one which carried a pod of large capacitors. I recalled a classroom, decades ago, and an instructor who explained that even a straight wire, if long enough, will introduce enough inductive reactance to shift the phase angle between the voltage and the flowing current. This requires the occasional introduction of enough capacitive reactance to straighten things back out. I know I am speaking Greek to most, but if it were not for someone studying that particular Greek and solving that particular problem, the family in the ranch house we passed could not watch their TV programs tonight. Or operate the myriad of other things powered by electricity.

We drove alongside miles of railroad tracks and I wondered at the fact that oak ties, laid directly on the ground with rails spiked to them, is still the best way to transport a train. Men once drove those spikes by hand, swinging sledgehammers endlessly to build the miles of track that carried trains across this vast nation.

I saw where rails and also highways cut through rolling, rocky terrain and up the sides of mountains. I remember reading how early roads were built with horse drawn excavating equipment and only black powder to blast a path through solid rock. How did they ever get it done?

We passed fields with deeply plowed furrows, stretching straight as a string to the horizon. I marveled that anyone can hold a huge tractor in a true, straight line. Later this spring those furrows will sprout cotton plants and when the summer is nearing its end, bolls of snow white cotton. Then, men on other machines will harvest the cotton and it will go to mills around the globe to be made into jeans and T-shirts for the world's youth.

Here in America we have much to be thankful for. Near the top of the list are the millions of men and women who work their entire lives to give us the many luxuries we enjoy. And we never even bother to say "Thanks!".

Work Station President

Back in the 1960s, a banker friend took me on a tour of his bank's computer. In the lobby, employees operated card readers and other wonderful devices that sorted checks, recorded withdrawals and deposits, computed balances, issued statements, etc.

We went to the bank's basement and entered a "clean" room. The walls were lined with large equipment cabinets, several of which had reels of recording tape on the front - these reels spinning forward and backward as bank employees operated the computer from their work stations. Upon returning to the bank lobby, I realized that all those work stations counted for little. It was the sprawling computer in the basement that was doing the work.

A couple of decades later, in the 1980s, my company installed our first computer system. Made by Wang, it consisted of a central unit (a micro version of that old bank's computer!) with work stations on each employee's desk. Each station consisted of a keyboard and a monochrome monitor, not unlike the CRT monitors used for PCs, but that was before PCs.

You could do all sorts of things at each work station... but the work station itself was nothing. Disconnect the cables connecting it to the central processing unit and the work station no longer functioned. Enter errors into the central unit, and every work station will repeat those errors

I think of those early computers every time I hear President Obama speak. Looking like a well-groomed intellectual, he stands in front of his teleprompter and sounds very wise indeed. Unplug the teleprompter and he is like a disconnected work station on our old Wang computer. He no longer functions intelligently.

When Barack Obama makes an unscripted statement about a current event, his comments are often ignorant and destructive: "The police acted stupidly"; "If I had a son he would look like Trayvon"; etc.

Our concern must be with whomever is programming Obama's "central unit". And we must realize that if we re-elect Barack Obama, we re-elect those programmers.