I received an e-mail today which purportedly is a letter written by General Chuck Pitman, USMC, although an earlier version has been circulating for more than two years. The letter did not originate with Pitman. This sarcastic, Muslim-baiting list of offenses against us was initiated by Dr. Mike S. Adams, Professor of Criminology at North Carolina University. Adams posted the letter on Townhall.com back on June 14, 2004.
The "Letter of Apology" has been altered several times, probably whenever it was e-mailed anew. Apparently, Pitman was involved in some revisions before passing it on. He and Adams need to get their facts straight.
You might be asking, "Who is this Pitman." So glad you asked. The man spent 38 years in the USMC in several theatres of war. He's a genuine war hero with ribbons, badges, pins, and commendations to prove it. He was wounded on one of his missions - the secret, unconstitutional (aren't they all?) incursion in Laos during the Viet Nam war. He is retired from the military. Now he is CEO of a company he founded, Eagle Management Systems, a defense contractor - which means he is still in the war business. The corporation seeks government contracts.
This ever-changing Letter of Apology calls for answers because of its untrue history, arrogance and bigotry. Because you, the reader, might not have the text before you, I will simply insert my version of the truth as I encounter the points in the letter.
The US did not intervene in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Kuwait to defend Muslims. We were defending sovereignty and liberty.
Many Arabs and Muslims do not live in "squalor under savage dictatorships." Many live under kings who provide them with free health care and education through university. Saddam did that in Iraq, and women were included on an equal basis.
Only a few of the schools in the Arab world preach hatred for the US, and that is a result of our involvement in Palestine, Iraq and Kuwait. We seem to hear hate for Arabs from some of our most influential people, too.
Arafat was not "kicked out of every Arab country." And he was immensely popular in Palestine. He did not "high-jack the Palestinian cause." America has paid a high price for ignoring the 50 year slaughter of Palestinians.
Pitman - and/or Adams - criticize Michael Moore by ridiculing his weight problem. Well, of course, they never face Moore's ideas. Most of them refused to see Fahrenheit 911. When I watched the movie, there were only eight people in the theatre. It's so much easier to attack the source than the facts.
Pitman's letter refers to the UN scamming the poor people of Iraq with the "food for oil" program. Truth is that US corporations were deeply and heavily involved in profiteering on that one. Read Harpers magazine's expose of March, 2006. And anyone fretting over the poor people of Iraq should consider that we blockaded food and medicine to that population for more than 10 years. At least 1.5 million children and people in ill health perished as a result. It was called THE SANCTIONS. We'll face redemption for that crime someday as surely as we deny its maginitude and significance today.
The innocent people dying daily in Iraq might have been spared had we not invaded and unleased the factions now engaged in a virtual civil war.
The Letter of Apology is pure emotion and hate. We read of rape rooms and 72 virgin rewards. That's debatable. Pitman says we were just "making fun of a few prisoners at the prison camps." Explore that one. What happened to the WMD and the human shredding machines?
Pitman needs to get out more. He should read more widely. He's locked into the military-industrial complex.
So who wrote most of the "apology?" Was it Dr. Adams or Lt. General Pitman or a neocon propagandist in the Pentagon or - as some suggest - a teenager?
You can find the Letter of Apology by Lt. General Chuck Pitman by a Google search.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Let's Make A Deal
Last night on talk radio, Peter Wiesback was substituting for Michael Savage when he proposed exactly the same idea as my "See Jose Work" printed in this blog on April 17, 2006. (It also appeared in "Liberty Magazine" and "The Idaho Observer," and was read on air by Bryan Hyde on radio station KSUV.) Wiesback explained that illegal immigration has been allowed to progress almost unlimited - on purpose. He claimed that Social Security absolutely requires a steady increase in the number of paying members for it to sustain solvency. The falling birth rate portends a reduction in contributions to the retirement fund. Massive immigration helps to correct the imbalance.
So true!
Congress is considering the provisions of a bill to solve the illegal immigrants problem. Amnesty or "guest worker amnesty" might be granted to as many as 20 million aliens. Then there is the wall which might be built at a cost of $2 billion for 700 miles or $6 billion for 2,000 miles. The matter is one of contention and uncertainty. A compromise is sought by the political animals of Washington, DC. One Congressman suggested that the public submit ideas for Congress to consider.
Okay, Congress, think about this: Give Texas to Mexico in exchange for Mexico's assistance in stopping future illegal entries into the United States. But all illegals here now must stay and pay taxes to the IRS and Social Security. We must not let them get away! They can become citizens and speak any language they choose.
In simple terms, Mexico can have Texas if Mexicans will just stay home from now on. Sure, we'll miss Texas, but that's a small price to pay for this win/win compromise.
Oh, there's one exception. The deal doesn't include include Luckenbach. They can't have Luckenbach, Texas - the country music capital of the cosmos.
"Ain't nobody feeling no pain."
______________________________________________________________________
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Bush said yesterday, "We can't leave Iraq until we finish what we went there to do." This must mean we're still searching for those damn you-know-what.
Help Wanted
* Smog Inspector for City of St. George. Must have better vision than the man who was fired.
Meetings & Events
* Former Feng Shui addicts will meet at Starbuck's on Thursday 7 p.m. to discuss "How To Arrange The Furniture When It Really Doesn't Matter."
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
* China's Wal-Mart Super Centers have installed Chairman Mao's Pawn Shops inside their stores. The pawn places are located adjacent to your friendly Wal-Mart banks.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE
So true!
Congress is considering the provisions of a bill to solve the illegal immigrants problem. Amnesty or "guest worker amnesty" might be granted to as many as 20 million aliens. Then there is the wall which might be built at a cost of $2 billion for 700 miles or $6 billion for 2,000 miles. The matter is one of contention and uncertainty. A compromise is sought by the political animals of Washington, DC. One Congressman suggested that the public submit ideas for Congress to consider.
Okay, Congress, think about this: Give Texas to Mexico in exchange for Mexico's assistance in stopping future illegal entries into the United States. But all illegals here now must stay and pay taxes to the IRS and Social Security. We must not let them get away! They can become citizens and speak any language they choose.
In simple terms, Mexico can have Texas if Mexicans will just stay home from now on. Sure, we'll miss Texas, but that's a small price to pay for this win/win compromise.
Oh, there's one exception. The deal doesn't include include Luckenbach. They can't have Luckenbach, Texas - the country music capital of the cosmos.
"Ain't nobody feeling no pain."
______________________________________________________________________
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Bush said yesterday, "We can't leave Iraq until we finish what we went there to do." This must mean we're still searching for those damn you-know-what.
Help Wanted
* Smog Inspector for City of St. George. Must have better vision than the man who was fired.
Meetings & Events
* Former Feng Shui addicts will meet at Starbuck's on Thursday 7 p.m. to discuss "How To Arrange The Furniture When It Really Doesn't Matter."
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
* China's Wal-Mart Super Centers have installed Chairman Mao's Pawn Shops inside their stores. The pawn places are located adjacent to your friendly Wal-Mart banks.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Military Justice and Collateral Hell
Please don't make me agree with Fidel Castro. When the supposed top terrorist in Iraq, Al-Zarqaawi, was killed by our bombs dropped on the house he was in, Castro went moralist on us. "A barbarity, he should have been tried in court," said Fidelissimo.
Well, ya. Innocent until proven guilty. Ask for a surrender before knocking them off. We're Americans.
But we went ahead with military justice. Bush and Rummy dropped two 500 pound bombs on that house and killed Bad Al and a few others, including a woman and child. We use that nice military term spoken of by Timothy McVieh: "collateral damage." It means innocent life caught in the middle of the action. They might as well put "so what" in front of the term.
We've changed, haven't you noticed? You saw what President I-feel-your-pain Clinton did to the Branch Davidians at Waco. Before that we shot down Randy Weaver's innocent wife and son in the woods of Idaho.
About three years ago, our CIA unleashed a predator drone plane on a road in Yemen to gun down a suspected terrorist. The suspect was killed, along with an American friend about whom they knew very little. Not a suspect, the American was collateral damage and dead. So what?
You remember Shock & Awe. An hour or two prior to that act of war, CIA boss George "Slam Dunk" Tenet reported to President Bush that Saddam was in a cafe. so we bombed the place hoping to get it all over before it started. Bush must have figured that with the madman dictator struck dead while dining, the people of Iraq would have made out just fine. So our bombs destroyed the place, but Saddam wasn't even there. Some innocent adults and kids were killed. Collateral damage, you know. So what?
The undeclared war got going pretty well and we found the house where Saddam's budding bad boy sons were hiding. Without announcing: "Surrender, you're surrounded," we attacked by air and infantry. Saddam's sons were shot down in the same room and we also erased a guy under the bed. Oops. That was a fourteen-year-old boy - Saddam's grandson.
How far are we from bombing apartments and houses in Los Angeles or Toledo if suspects are believed to be hiding there? If our intelligence is faulty and identifies the wrong target, innocent people in the vicinity are punished.
Justice. Think about justice.
________________________________________________________________________
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Aren't we proud of Utah Congressman Jim Matheson, who was the only representative in the House who called for a vote on whether the law makers should get a raise. All the other royal members wanted to sail on through without a ripple or wave. Matheson stood alone. And he will decline the increase. Jim Matheson of Utah.....he's a Democrat. A Democrat!
* The winning jockeys at America's big three horse races (Belmont, Kentucky Derby, Preakness) all wore number eights on their backs. Folks, that's no accident.
* President Bush visited Iraq yesterday. He reassured all that we'll stay until the "mission is accomplished."
* The illegal immigrants send billions of dollars home to Mexico. That's admirable, but it's also harmful to the host country unless the dollars return in exchange for goods and services. That is the question.
Help Wanted
Volunteers to recruit volunteers for Volunteers of America.
Meetings & Events
Free Radicals support group meets daily in the conference room of Kayenta Towers at midnight, prompt.
Shoplifters Anonymous will meet in the lunch room at Wal-Mart South, Saturday at noon.
Make a note: Dr. Ira Longterm, the illustrious economist, will speak at Cox Auditorium on the topic - Raising the Limit On Your Household Debt.
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
The Statue of Liberty is missing. The once revered monument of our history was last seen yesterday, or was it the day before? FBI and New York police say that they will look into the matter soon. The museum piece had served as a tribute to a discarded national value and virtue.
The administration has added FEMA Director and CIA Director to the list of jobs Americans won't do.
President Jeb Bush visited Iraq yesterday. He reassured all that we'll stay until the mission is accomplished.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Well, ya. Innocent until proven guilty. Ask for a surrender before knocking them off. We're Americans.
But we went ahead with military justice. Bush and Rummy dropped two 500 pound bombs on that house and killed Bad Al and a few others, including a woman and child. We use that nice military term spoken of by Timothy McVieh: "collateral damage." It means innocent life caught in the middle of the action. They might as well put "so what" in front of the term.
We've changed, haven't you noticed? You saw what President I-feel-your-pain Clinton did to the Branch Davidians at Waco. Before that we shot down Randy Weaver's innocent wife and son in the woods of Idaho.
About three years ago, our CIA unleashed a predator drone plane on a road in Yemen to gun down a suspected terrorist. The suspect was killed, along with an American friend about whom they knew very little. Not a suspect, the American was collateral damage and dead. So what?
You remember Shock & Awe. An hour or two prior to that act of war, CIA boss George "Slam Dunk" Tenet reported to President Bush that Saddam was in a cafe. so we bombed the place hoping to get it all over before it started. Bush must have figured that with the madman dictator struck dead while dining, the people of Iraq would have made out just fine. So our bombs destroyed the place, but Saddam wasn't even there. Some innocent adults and kids were killed. Collateral damage, you know. So what?
The undeclared war got going pretty well and we found the house where Saddam's budding bad boy sons were hiding. Without announcing: "Surrender, you're surrounded," we attacked by air and infantry. Saddam's sons were shot down in the same room and we also erased a guy under the bed. Oops. That was a fourteen-year-old boy - Saddam's grandson.
How far are we from bombing apartments and houses in Los Angeles or Toledo if suspects are believed to be hiding there? If our intelligence is faulty and identifies the wrong target, innocent people in the vicinity are punished.
Justice. Think about justice.
________________________________________________________________________
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Aren't we proud of Utah Congressman Jim Matheson, who was the only representative in the House who called for a vote on whether the law makers should get a raise. All the other royal members wanted to sail on through without a ripple or wave. Matheson stood alone. And he will decline the increase. Jim Matheson of Utah.....he's a Democrat. A Democrat!
* The winning jockeys at America's big three horse races (Belmont, Kentucky Derby, Preakness) all wore number eights on their backs. Folks, that's no accident.
* President Bush visited Iraq yesterday. He reassured all that we'll stay until the "mission is accomplished."
* The illegal immigrants send billions of dollars home to Mexico. That's admirable, but it's also harmful to the host country unless the dollars return in exchange for goods and services. That is the question.
Help Wanted
Volunteers to recruit volunteers for Volunteers of America.
Meetings & Events
Free Radicals support group meets daily in the conference room of Kayenta Towers at midnight, prompt.
Shoplifters Anonymous will meet in the lunch room at Wal-Mart South, Saturday at noon.
Make a note: Dr. Ira Longterm, the illustrious economist, will speak at Cox Auditorium on the topic - Raising the Limit On Your Household Debt.
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
The Statue of Liberty is missing. The once revered monument of our history was last seen yesterday, or was it the day before? FBI and New York police say that they will look into the matter soon. The museum piece had served as a tribute to a discarded national value and virtue.
The administration has added FEMA Director and CIA Director to the list of jobs Americans won't do.
President Jeb Bush visited Iraq yesterday. He reassured all that we'll stay until the mission is accomplished.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Ten Percent Does It
The majority rules when the establishment is in order, but a tiny minority can change the direction of a nation by its superior focus and energy.
A week ago, my imaginary revolution to overthrow our too totalitarian regime in Washington, DC failed because of a bad turnout - none. This raises an interesting question as to the numbers needed to pull off a coup d'etat.
Upon examining history, you'll notice that only a few activists are necessary to carry out the revolt if they are in the right places with a good strategy and plan. When Lenin hurried by train to Moscow to overthrow Kerensky - who had toppled the Czar of Russia - he went into the hall of supporters complaining that he didn't want so many followers to be involved. He stepped outside until a high percentage of communist believers were removed from the building. Lenin knew something that most of us have trouble understanding - and he was successful in the take over.
Our American Revolution was never supported by more than ten percent of those living in the thirteen colonies. The nation's founders bristled at that fact, but they went ahead and succeeded, even though the lack of general support was obvious during the duration of the struggle. The vast majority of Americans had freedom and liberty thrust upon them. The tiny minority had prevailed.
May I point out that Jesus picked only twelve disciples?
Regardless of the virtue of your cause, you can effect changes in today's diverse and uninformed society if a few true believers will get active. Ten percent will do just fine.
________________________________________________________________________
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* This new crop of skateboarders has so much more skill than the previous generation. They do it while talking on a cell phone.
* The suicides at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) alarm some people. Senator Bob Bennett was there recently and he gave the camp a thumbs up approval. Maybe he should go back for another look/see.
* The recent report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for May showed a big loss of manufacturing jobs - 14,000. Only service industry jobs are on the increase. Next stop, third world country USA.
* Hello Middle Class, wherever you are.
Meetings & Events
Unemployed Elvis impersonators support group meets at the main library on Tuesday nights.
Death row/DNA survivors meet at the Santa Clara library every Saturday morning at 9 a.m.
Help Wanted
Outsource recruiters to work for firms in India and China. Must possess crass indifference to fellow American white collar workers. Call Jawaharlal Nehru at Holiday Inn, room #11.
News writers to interview tailgaters, dog-walking pooper scoopers, loiterers, rappers, sunshine patriots, IRS informers, UFO sighters, and incurable WMD believers. Get application at Spectrum office.
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
Warren S. Jeffs, fugitive polygamous leader wanted on sex crime charges, was positively identified in the mountainous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has been on the Ten Most Wanted list since President Bush's brother was president.
Overheard
A doctor walked through his busy waiting room saying, "Please have patience, patients."
Smog Report
Chemtrails activity is interfering with smog detection efforts. More on this later.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
A week ago, my imaginary revolution to overthrow our too totalitarian regime in Washington, DC failed because of a bad turnout - none. This raises an interesting question as to the numbers needed to pull off a coup d'etat.
Upon examining history, you'll notice that only a few activists are necessary to carry out the revolt if they are in the right places with a good strategy and plan. When Lenin hurried by train to Moscow to overthrow Kerensky - who had toppled the Czar of Russia - he went into the hall of supporters complaining that he didn't want so many followers to be involved. He stepped outside until a high percentage of communist believers were removed from the building. Lenin knew something that most of us have trouble understanding - and he was successful in the take over.
Our American Revolution was never supported by more than ten percent of those living in the thirteen colonies. The nation's founders bristled at that fact, but they went ahead and succeeded, even though the lack of general support was obvious during the duration of the struggle. The vast majority of Americans had freedom and liberty thrust upon them. The tiny minority had prevailed.
May I point out that Jesus picked only twelve disciples?
Regardless of the virtue of your cause, you can effect changes in today's diverse and uninformed society if a few true believers will get active. Ten percent will do just fine.
________________________________________________________________________
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* This new crop of skateboarders has so much more skill than the previous generation. They do it while talking on a cell phone.
* The suicides at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) alarm some people. Senator Bob Bennett was there recently and he gave the camp a thumbs up approval. Maybe he should go back for another look/see.
* The recent report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for May showed a big loss of manufacturing jobs - 14,000. Only service industry jobs are on the increase. Next stop, third world country USA.
* Hello Middle Class, wherever you are.
Meetings & Events
Unemployed Elvis impersonators support group meets at the main library on Tuesday nights.
Death row/DNA survivors meet at the Santa Clara library every Saturday morning at 9 a.m.
Help Wanted
Outsource recruiters to work for firms in India and China. Must possess crass indifference to fellow American white collar workers. Call Jawaharlal Nehru at Holiday Inn, room #11.
News writers to interview tailgaters, dog-walking pooper scoopers, loiterers, rappers, sunshine patriots, IRS informers, UFO sighters, and incurable WMD believers. Get application at Spectrum office.
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
Warren S. Jeffs, fugitive polygamous leader wanted on sex crime charges, was positively identified in the mountainous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has been on the Ten Most Wanted list since President Bush's brother was president.
Overheard
A doctor walked through his busy waiting room saying, "Please have patience, patients."
Smog Report
Chemtrails activity is interfering with smog detection efforts. More on this later.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
The Revolution Was Quelled, Somehow.
Nobody showed up. Did I have the date wrong? I carried all the guns and ammo back to the bunker and shall wait for the call. I assume you have my number - many people do.
I still can't believe I was the only one on the hill. History was waiting to be made, but you had to stay in bed.
Anyhow, the verbal battle will resume tomorrow. You can at least click on, even though you apparently don't want us to shoot our way out of this mess. When Jefferson was president two centuries ago, he said, "We might have to have a revolution every twenty years to regain our liberties."
What, you're wiser than Jefferson?
Get ready to rumble.
I still can't believe I was the only one on the hill. History was waiting to be made, but you had to stay in bed.
Anyhow, the verbal battle will resume tomorrow. You can at least click on, even though you apparently don't want us to shoot our way out of this mess. When Jefferson was president two centuries ago, he said, "We might have to have a revolution every twenty years to regain our liberties."
What, you're wiser than Jefferson?
Get ready to rumble.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Look What They've Done To My Right Wing
I was a right winger when right wingers were right. I'm talking Barry Goldwater, Robert Taft, Walter Judd, Claire Booth Luce, William Knowland, Fulton Lewis Jr., Dean Manion, Ezra Taft Benson, etc. Not Joe McCarthy. He was anti-communist, but his voting record was both left and right. Pat Buchanan fit in, until recently. He seems to have gone soft a tad now, but Pat made a wise observation: "The conservative movement has been hijacked." Yup. They ran off with our clothes.
Who can stand to be on the right today? Wars, deficits, corruption, Constitution-shunning, secret deals, and feeding a Frankenstein government are not right wing traits.
George W. Bush goes under the label, but he doesn't belong. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and their puppets on radio and in print are not genuine right wingers. They're just mean and crazy, that's not enough.
Labels have to go. They confuse, misidentify, and enable deception.
Watch who you're calling a right wing conservative. Once a badge of honor, it's a disgrace.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Yesterday: I'd take my dog for a walk, he'd search for a quiet spot to do his thing, and he'd kick dirt on it. Today: I watch my neighbor take his dog for a walk, the dog doesn't kick dirt on it and his master puts it into a bag and carries it home. Which one is trained? What does the dog think of his master?
* The Swiss, the Swedes, the French, and the Spanish learned how to be neutral and live in peace. Will we, ever? Peace and neutrality save lives, misery and money.
* St. George smog report for today is unclear because the chemtrails are mixing with the smog. The last time this happened it rained for three days.
Meeting & Events
The soccer match between illegals and middle classers was forfeited to the illegals - opponents didn't show up.
The Wal-Mart defenders support group meets every Sunday afternoon in the Sam's Club parking lot.
The Roundabout Ethics Club will meet inside the roundabout at Tabernacle and Main, tonight at 7 pm. Bart Anderson will speak on: "How to Know When It's Your Turn."
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Who can stand to be on the right today? Wars, deficits, corruption, Constitution-shunning, secret deals, and feeding a Frankenstein government are not right wing traits.
George W. Bush goes under the label, but he doesn't belong. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and their puppets on radio and in print are not genuine right wingers. They're just mean and crazy, that's not enough.
Labels have to go. They confuse, misidentify, and enable deception.
Watch who you're calling a right wing conservative. Once a badge of honor, it's a disgrace.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Yesterday: I'd take my dog for a walk, he'd search for a quiet spot to do his thing, and he'd kick dirt on it. Today: I watch my neighbor take his dog for a walk, the dog doesn't kick dirt on it and his master puts it into a bag and carries it home. Which one is trained? What does the dog think of his master?
* The Swiss, the Swedes, the French, and the Spanish learned how to be neutral and live in peace. Will we, ever? Peace and neutrality save lives, misery and money.
* St. George smog report for today is unclear because the chemtrails are mixing with the smog. The last time this happened it rained for three days.
Meeting & Events
The soccer match between illegals and middle classers was forfeited to the illegals - opponents didn't show up.
The Wal-Mart defenders support group meets every Sunday afternoon in the Sam's Club parking lot.
The Roundabout Ethics Club will meet inside the roundabout at Tabernacle and Main, tonight at 7 pm. Bart Anderson will speak on: "How to Know When It's Your Turn."
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Open Letter To Utah Senator Robert Bennett
Dear Senator:
Last year you explained that deficit spending is a good thing when the economy is stalled. Well, of course, everyone knows that the ugly practice stirs up business. FDR taught us how to prime the pump. But Bob, that's no solution. The price in interest and devalued currency take a toll on the future health of the national economy and each individual's financial situation.
Yesterday - a day that will live in infamy - you and the other Utah representatives voted to increase the national debt ceiling cap to $9.62 trillion. You, a vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said, "The debt needs to be put into perspective. In real dollar terms, the debt is enormous, but it is a manageable portion of the nation's overall economic production, or gross national product."
The interest you refer to must be paid on money which doesn't exist as currency - it is credit. Your new debt ceiling of $9 trillion is more than 10 times larger than the total number of dollars in circulation.
Your numbers racket might bring you glory now, but wait for the history books.
On the subject of our detention center at Guantanamo Bay, you visited Gitmo for five hours and came away with an approving opinion in opposition to the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the UN Commission on Human Rights, and the British government.
Bob Bennett, won't you please come home?
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Saddam's trial is getting interestinger and interestinger. Witnesses claim to know at least 23 of the madman, murderer's victims to be alive and well, walking the streets of Baghdad.
* Wal-Mart sales are down for the month of May. The stock market has the shakes. Housing prices are in flux. This must be an election year.
* The Bushites talk about imposing sanctions on Iran. Have they no shame? Learn about the devastation of sanctions on innocoent Iraqis under Presidents Bush, Clinton and Bush. Your heart won't let you support another genocidal blockade of food and medicine.
* Uncle Sam is sending $5 million in relief aid for victims of the 6.3 quake in Indonesia. Much more is on the way from private sources and churches.
Meetings & Events
Bluff Street Traffic/Trauma Support Group - meets daily at 6 pm, Bluff and Sunset.
Help Wanted
Candidates to run for elected offices on the Anarchy Party ticket.
Vote counters for the November elections. Must know how to secure voting machines. ExFloridians need not apply.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Last year you explained that deficit spending is a good thing when the economy is stalled. Well, of course, everyone knows that the ugly practice stirs up business. FDR taught us how to prime the pump. But Bob, that's no solution. The price in interest and devalued currency take a toll on the future health of the national economy and each individual's financial situation.
Yesterday - a day that will live in infamy - you and the other Utah representatives voted to increase the national debt ceiling cap to $9.62 trillion. You, a vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said, "The debt needs to be put into perspective. In real dollar terms, the debt is enormous, but it is a manageable portion of the nation's overall economic production, or gross national product."
The interest you refer to must be paid on money which doesn't exist as currency - it is credit. Your new debt ceiling of $9 trillion is more than 10 times larger than the total number of dollars in circulation.
Your numbers racket might bring you glory now, but wait for the history books.
On the subject of our detention center at Guantanamo Bay, you visited Gitmo for five hours and came away with an approving opinion in opposition to the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the UN Commission on Human Rights, and the British government.
Bob Bennett, won't you please come home?
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Saddam's trial is getting interestinger and interestinger. Witnesses claim to know at least 23 of the madman, murderer's victims to be alive and well, walking the streets of Baghdad.
* Wal-Mart sales are down for the month of May. The stock market has the shakes. Housing prices are in flux. This must be an election year.
* The Bushites talk about imposing sanctions on Iran. Have they no shame? Learn about the devastation of sanctions on innocoent Iraqis under Presidents Bush, Clinton and Bush. Your heart won't let you support another genocidal blockade of food and medicine.
* Uncle Sam is sending $5 million in relief aid for victims of the 6.3 quake in Indonesia. Much more is on the way from private sources and churches.
Meetings & Events
Bluff Street Traffic/Trauma Support Group - meets daily at 6 pm, Bluff and Sunset.
Help Wanted
Candidates to run for elected offices on the Anarchy Party ticket.
Vote counters for the November elections. Must know how to secure voting machines. ExFloridians need not apply.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
How Can Six Minus Two And One Half Still Be Six?
Auschwitz, the former Nazi concentration camp in Poland, was visited by Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday. During the difficult time for the all of the visitors, the number of victims was addressed by camp officials and the Vatican. An estimated one and one half million people died, mostly Jews. Although a monstrous figure representing human lives lost, it is considerably smaller than the one the world believed from 1945 until the end of the cold war.
Recorded history had established four million killed at Auschwitz, with the total Holocaust figure set at six million victims. That calculation has been revised in the light of history.
At the end of World War Two, a Soviet commission investigated the camp and produced the figure of four million killed at Auschwitz. The confession of camp commandant Rudolf Hoess at the Nuremberg Trials substantiated the number. On May 8, 1945, the Russian newspaper Zvezda first reported the four million figure, which was then printed all over the world - and accepted as truth until 1990.
At the end of the cold war, historians rushed in for a look. They arrived at the much lower figure: one and one half million killed. So now the whole wide world - including Jewish university historians at Tel Aviv, Israel - uses the reduced number.
That is some relief for those who prefer to believe the now established truth: two and one half million people were not slaughtered after all. The new total Holocaust figure should be three and one half million, but we have gone more than 15 years still using the six million figure.
Why? The Holocaust is still a record for genocide, is it not? The communists in Cambodia killed "only" about two million.
The three-and-one-half-million-victim Holocaust is horrible enough for anyone to handle. The old six million figure just makes it worse.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* As a result of Shock & Awe, half the people of Iraq - women - will lose most of the civil rights that they enjoyed under Saddam, the madman.
* Divine Strake postponed indefinitely. Time to party.
* Everybody ( well, maybe not everybody) is going to Kanab this weekend. It seems to be a celebration of the right of elected representatives to proclaim the cherished values of a community. Period!
* St. George Smog Alert Department: "No smog seen today." The inspector has been quietly dismissed. He was looking for smog in all the wrong places.
* Thank goodness the Bush administration has the sense to out-source torturing prisoners. Somebody has to do the jobs Americans won't take.
* Our (your) president says he regrets saying: "Bring 'em on." Is that all he regrets? I mean, IS THAT ALL?
* A usually reliable source reported sighting a man riding on a Sun Tran bus in St. George. This turned out to be false. The man was the driver.
Help Wanted
Walk my dog mornings and evenings. Pay DOE. Must have own plastic bags. Call 688-0009.
Stuff envelopes. Unlimited potential, not MLM, small up-front investment. See you in
Worthen Park today after sundown.
Meetings & Events
Book signing at the Lil Prof's - Dr. Ira Longterm will exhibit his latest tome: "Wars, Depressions, Droughts, and Other Financial Opportunities." He or one of his staff will be present from 1:30 - 2 pm on Saturday, June 3.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Recorded history had established four million killed at Auschwitz, with the total Holocaust figure set at six million victims. That calculation has been revised in the light of history.
At the end of World War Two, a Soviet commission investigated the camp and produced the figure of four million killed at Auschwitz. The confession of camp commandant Rudolf Hoess at the Nuremberg Trials substantiated the number. On May 8, 1945, the Russian newspaper Zvezda first reported the four million figure, which was then printed all over the world - and accepted as truth until 1990.
At the end of the cold war, historians rushed in for a look. They arrived at the much lower figure: one and one half million killed. So now the whole wide world - including Jewish university historians at Tel Aviv, Israel - uses the reduced number.
That is some relief for those who prefer to believe the now established truth: two and one half million people were not slaughtered after all. The new total Holocaust figure should be three and one half million, but we have gone more than 15 years still using the six million figure.
Why? The Holocaust is still a record for genocide, is it not? The communists in Cambodia killed "only" about two million.
The three-and-one-half-million-victim Holocaust is horrible enough for anyone to handle. The old six million figure just makes it worse.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* As a result of Shock & Awe, half the people of Iraq - women - will lose most of the civil rights that they enjoyed under Saddam, the madman.
* Divine Strake postponed indefinitely. Time to party.
* Everybody ( well, maybe not everybody) is going to Kanab this weekend. It seems to be a celebration of the right of elected representatives to proclaim the cherished values of a community. Period!
* St. George Smog Alert Department: "No smog seen today." The inspector has been quietly dismissed. He was looking for smog in all the wrong places.
* Thank goodness the Bush administration has the sense to out-source torturing prisoners. Somebody has to do the jobs Americans won't take.
* Our (your) president says he regrets saying: "Bring 'em on." Is that all he regrets? I mean, IS THAT ALL?
* A usually reliable source reported sighting a man riding on a Sun Tran bus in St. George. This turned out to be false. The man was the driver.
Help Wanted
Walk my dog mornings and evenings. Pay DOE. Must have own plastic bags. Call 688-0009.
Stuff envelopes. Unlimited potential, not MLM, small up-front investment. See you in
Worthen Park today after sundown.
Meetings & Events
Book signing at the Lil Prof's - Dr. Ira Longterm will exhibit his latest tome: "Wars, Depressions, Droughts, and Other Financial Opportunities." He or one of his staff will be present from 1:30 - 2 pm on Saturday, June 3.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
The Day Mensa Geniuses Invited Me To Their Table
Mensa members like to get together. They met in a mega book store every Saturday morning when I lived in Las Vegas. They must have watched me watching them because one day they called me over and invited me to sit at their table. I was stunned, honored and tried to think fast like they do. I declined, thanking them for their friendliness. I didn't want to get in over my head, you understand. What if they gave me a written test?
I already knew what I was missing by not joining in. I mean, I had eavesdropped for weeks, hoping to catch a brilliant gem or two, but that never happened. The inanities I heard disappointed me. Their elected leader, Terry _____, never showed up. Most of them were angry with him for not paying his dues. Mensa conversations often centered on people's foibles and predicaments - not the lofty stuff one might expect. One member was a census taker who bored the group with detailed accounts of his day. Another expounded each Saturday on why two women in the kitchen is not a good idea.
Their IQs are higher than your bowling average, but their interests don't correspond with their vaunted intelligence. I'd heard that, "Small minds talk about people, average minds discuss events, and great minds debate ideas." That's bogus. This is not the case with the 15 or 16 members of Mensa that I observed at the book store and the other dozen I have known elsewhere.
You can't call them a secret group. They'll wait only a few minutes for you to ask, "Pardon me, but could you be one of those genius Mensa people?" I mean, they will slip you the news, if not by direct statement then by the tiny orange pins they wear on their lapels when they are out on the town. They are not intellectual snobs, but want to be identified for their mental prowess.
Still, it isn't easy to get inside the organization. A Mensa man told me the FBI once tried to infiltrate Mensa while hunting for a nuclear spy. Agent after agent failed to get through the gates. They gave up after matching wits with the perceptive people at Mensa. (The spy got away.) It isn't easy to fake intelligence. Maybe you know that.
Mensa membership is no bed of roses. Geniuses can be excommunicated for doing something stupid such as falling in love with a nonmember or for speaking before thinking. A few have been reprimanded for having know-it-all attitudes.
What do they have that we don't have? High IQs.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* A usually reliable source claims that Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson was in town yesterday, and again pointed to the smog over St. George. He told doubters that they would see it when they believed it.
* Thou Shalt Not Loiter, according to St. George.
* Radio dude Michael Savage says, "Nobody can write like me." (And that includes I.)
* Osama bin Forgotten has four wives. How can this man hide forever?
* Go ahead, learn Spanish, but Chinese might open more doors for you.
* Al Gore told us that NAFTA would stop the flow of illegal immigrants.
Meeting and Events
Liars Anonymous meets every Saturday from 6 am until 11 pm at Kayenta Towers in Ivins.
The Conference of Displaced Snowbirds is scheduled for July 1 at Worthen Park.
Help wanted
Volunteers to work for a $10 million corporation. Must be willing to work hard. College degree preferred. References required. No smokers or drinkers. Call for an interview: 688-0044.
Washington County census taker to count the roundabouts. City car provided. Time and a half for overtime work.
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
Cazzie Taylor, the 8'4" Jazz rookie sensation, wants to be traded. He persists in staying home or in his hotel room to watch the first half on television. He insists that the second half is all the team needs of him to win. He'll play full games only if traded to Charlotte where he owns a bank, a shopping mall and a feng shui consulting studio.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
I already knew what I was missing by not joining in. I mean, I had eavesdropped for weeks, hoping to catch a brilliant gem or two, but that never happened. The inanities I heard disappointed me. Their elected leader, Terry _____, never showed up. Most of them were angry with him for not paying his dues. Mensa conversations often centered on people's foibles and predicaments - not the lofty stuff one might expect. One member was a census taker who bored the group with detailed accounts of his day. Another expounded each Saturday on why two women in the kitchen is not a good idea.
Their IQs are higher than your bowling average, but their interests don't correspond with their vaunted intelligence. I'd heard that, "Small minds talk about people, average minds discuss events, and great minds debate ideas." That's bogus. This is not the case with the 15 or 16 members of Mensa that I observed at the book store and the other dozen I have known elsewhere.
You can't call them a secret group. They'll wait only a few minutes for you to ask, "Pardon me, but could you be one of those genius Mensa people?" I mean, they will slip you the news, if not by direct statement then by the tiny orange pins they wear on their lapels when they are out on the town. They are not intellectual snobs, but want to be identified for their mental prowess.
Still, it isn't easy to get inside the organization. A Mensa man told me the FBI once tried to infiltrate Mensa while hunting for a nuclear spy. Agent after agent failed to get through the gates. They gave up after matching wits with the perceptive people at Mensa. (The spy got away.) It isn't easy to fake intelligence. Maybe you know that.
Mensa membership is no bed of roses. Geniuses can be excommunicated for doing something stupid such as falling in love with a nonmember or for speaking before thinking. A few have been reprimanded for having know-it-all attitudes.
What do they have that we don't have? High IQs.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* A usually reliable source claims that Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson was in town yesterday, and again pointed to the smog over St. George. He told doubters that they would see it when they believed it.
* Thou Shalt Not Loiter, according to St. George.
* Radio dude Michael Savage says, "Nobody can write like me." (And that includes I.)
* Osama bin Forgotten has four wives. How can this man hide forever?
* Go ahead, learn Spanish, but Chinese might open more doors for you.
* Al Gore told us that NAFTA would stop the flow of illegal immigrants.
Meeting and Events
Liars Anonymous meets every Saturday from 6 am until 11 pm at Kayenta Towers in Ivins.
The Conference of Displaced Snowbirds is scheduled for July 1 at Worthen Park.
Help wanted
Volunteers to work for a $10 million corporation. Must be willing to work hard. College degree preferred. References required. No smokers or drinkers. Call for an interview: 688-0044.
Washington County census taker to count the roundabouts. City car provided. Time and a half for overtime work.
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
Cazzie Taylor, the 8'4" Jazz rookie sensation, wants to be traded. He persists in staying home or in his hotel room to watch the first half on television. He insists that the second half is all the team needs of him to win. He'll play full games only if traded to Charlotte where he owns a bank, a shopping mall and a feng shui consulting studio.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
FBI. Don't You Dare Touch Our Royalty.
As you know by now, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Louisiana Congressman Jefferson's office on Capitol Hill. Documents were seized and are under scrutiny pending prosecution. The action brought immediate protests from leaders Republican Dennis Hastert and Democrat Nancy Pelosi. These two claim the House of Representatives is immune to office searches because of the doctrine of separation of powers.
Maybe yes; maybe no. When Senator Joe McCarthy was investigating an office in the executive branch, President Eisenhower stopped everything. He ordered no files be opened for any authorized peeks from one branch of government to the other. No one challenged his action.
The public was denied the data, not just Congress. This is our FBI that is gathering data in our office. We pay them to do that. Let all branches of government be honest and open with nothing to hide. If Jefferson is corrupt and taking bribes, we deserve to know all about it.
The FBI is the investigator, who do Hastert and Pelosi think they are?
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* About a quarter of a century ago, a representative of the U.S. Treasury spoke to The House of Representatives in full session. He told the history of American currency and coin. He held up a tray of gold coins which had been in use from the beginning of our nation. He carried the tray to the first row and suggested they pass it around so that each honorable member could have a closer look. By the time the tray was handed to the last lawmaker, 14 coins were missing. No effort was made to retrieve the coins from our royalty. Later, the treasury official said, "While there is no honor among thieves, there are thieves among the honorable."
* Senator Bob Bennett visited Gitmo for five hours and returned home with a glowing report. He doesn't see what others see, he hears not the cries of men held for four years without a charge of any crime and no legal defense. Bunker Busting Bob is a war hawk, a rubber stamp for Bush and Cheney, and arrogant with power.
* St. George smog turned up missing this morning.
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
The municipal swimming pools are now open seven days a week, but the golf courses are closed on Sundays.
Federal officials are concerned that most illegal immigrants crossing our border appear to be Asian, not Mexican.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Maybe yes; maybe no. When Senator Joe McCarthy was investigating an office in the executive branch, President Eisenhower stopped everything. He ordered no files be opened for any authorized peeks from one branch of government to the other. No one challenged his action.
The public was denied the data, not just Congress. This is our FBI that is gathering data in our office. We pay them to do that. Let all branches of government be honest and open with nothing to hide. If Jefferson is corrupt and taking bribes, we deserve to know all about it.
The FBI is the investigator, who do Hastert and Pelosi think they are?
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* About a quarter of a century ago, a representative of the U.S. Treasury spoke to The House of Representatives in full session. He told the history of American currency and coin. He held up a tray of gold coins which had been in use from the beginning of our nation. He carried the tray to the first row and suggested they pass it around so that each honorable member could have a closer look. By the time the tray was handed to the last lawmaker, 14 coins were missing. No effort was made to retrieve the coins from our royalty. Later, the treasury official said, "While there is no honor among thieves, there are thieves among the honorable."
* Senator Bob Bennett visited Gitmo for five hours and returned home with a glowing report. He doesn't see what others see, he hears not the cries of men held for four years without a charge of any crime and no legal defense. Bunker Busting Bob is a war hawk, a rubber stamp for Bush and Cheney, and arrogant with power.
* St. George smog turned up missing this morning.
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
The municipal swimming pools are now open seven days a week, but the golf courses are closed on Sundays.
Federal officials are concerned that most illegal immigrants crossing our border appear to be Asian, not Mexican.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Hey, Hey, What Do You say? Do Away With CIA
The cloak and dagger, intelligence gathering organization of the federal government is too automomous for American principles. From its inception, the CIA-lovers have insisted that the spooks and spies operate independently. They say that for the agency to report to any department of government would make it unobjective in its findings and its work.
With the Soviet KGB as a model of fear, Congress went along with CIA demands and required only something called: "oversight." The term never meant much more than merely accepting the CIA's version of its operations.
Whether the chief executive has any control of the CIA has always been a difficult question, with the likely answer being "no."
Yes, the group has operated independently. They have committed acts which no elected or unelected official of the U.S. government can do - legally. If this is right and proper, then show me in the Constitution!
Everybody knows the CIA tried to murder Cuba's murderer, Fidel Castro, about eight times. They were in involved in assassinations in South Viet Nam, especially President Diem. The CIA organized a coup and ousted the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. He died during the fighting and we were told it was a suicide. The CIA toppled the president of Iran and installed the Shah. The agency helped Saddam Hussein overthrow Iraq's president and install Saddam to leadership. To be sure, there are more such cases, known and unknown. Most nations in the news - Nicaragua, Laos, Cambodia, Italy, Greece, El Salvador - have been the scenes of CIA "engineers."
Decent Americans cannot support unelected, unaccountable international meddlers to dictate our foreign policy, and certainly not if assassinations are part of the procedure.
Congress should investigate the CIA with a promise to terminate the outfit if the findings are repulsive.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Don't tell me Haliburton will build the wall on our southern border. Another no bid deal?
* Ban the death penalty except for one crime: Apathy.
* Israeli strategy has long aimed to instill civil war between Palestinians. ("Get them to terrorize each other instead of us.") Hamas and Fatah are really going at it now with guns and bombs. The late Prime Minister Begin would be pleased. Sharon, too, but the plight of the displaced Palestinians is made worse by civil strife.
* Hey. Whatever happened to that "peace dividend from winning the Cold War?"
Help Wanted
Smog inspector for City of St. George. Night shift.
Shills to ride Sun Tran buses.
A few good, strong men for Loiter Patrol.
Meetings and Events
Ad hoc traffic abatement committee. BYOB.
Room 3 at Main Library
Mondays at 7 pm
We Miss California
Holiday Inn by the pool
Noons, everyday
We Were Young And Middle Class
Social at Worthen Park
Saturday at 1 pm
Twenty Years From Now News
Modern oil shale technology has elevated Utah to rank as the second largest oil producer in the world. Meanwhile, Utah's governor continues to deny that the state possesses weapons of mass destruction and refuses to allow further UN inspections.
Millions of destitute retirees from the United States continue to sneak across the border into Mexico, seeking accomodations they can afford. Former President George W. Bush defends them saying, "The border crossers are just moving into residences that Mexicans won't take."
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
With the Soviet KGB as a model of fear, Congress went along with CIA demands and required only something called: "oversight." The term never meant much more than merely accepting the CIA's version of its operations.
Whether the chief executive has any control of the CIA has always been a difficult question, with the likely answer being "no."
Yes, the group has operated independently. They have committed acts which no elected or unelected official of the U.S. government can do - legally. If this is right and proper, then show me in the Constitution!
Everybody knows the CIA tried to murder Cuba's murderer, Fidel Castro, about eight times. They were in involved in assassinations in South Viet Nam, especially President Diem. The CIA organized a coup and ousted the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. He died during the fighting and we were told it was a suicide. The CIA toppled the president of Iran and installed the Shah. The agency helped Saddam Hussein overthrow Iraq's president and install Saddam to leadership. To be sure, there are more such cases, known and unknown. Most nations in the news - Nicaragua, Laos, Cambodia, Italy, Greece, El Salvador - have been the scenes of CIA "engineers."
Decent Americans cannot support unelected, unaccountable international meddlers to dictate our foreign policy, and certainly not if assassinations are part of the procedure.
Congress should investigate the CIA with a promise to terminate the outfit if the findings are repulsive.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Don't tell me Haliburton will build the wall on our southern border. Another no bid deal?
* Ban the death penalty except for one crime: Apathy.
* Israeli strategy has long aimed to instill civil war between Palestinians. ("Get them to terrorize each other instead of us.") Hamas and Fatah are really going at it now with guns and bombs. The late Prime Minister Begin would be pleased. Sharon, too, but the plight of the displaced Palestinians is made worse by civil strife.
* Hey. Whatever happened to that "peace dividend from winning the Cold War?"
Help Wanted
Smog inspector for City of St. George. Night shift.
Shills to ride Sun Tran buses.
A few good, strong men for Loiter Patrol.
Meetings and Events
Ad hoc traffic abatement committee. BYOB.
Room 3 at Main Library
Mondays at 7 pm
We Miss California
Holiday Inn by the pool
Noons, everyday
We Were Young And Middle Class
Social at Worthen Park
Saturday at 1 pm
Twenty Years From Now News
Modern oil shale technology has elevated Utah to rank as the second largest oil producer in the world. Meanwhile, Utah's governor continues to deny that the state possesses weapons of mass destruction and refuses to allow further UN inspections.
Millions of destitute retirees from the United States continue to sneak across the border into Mexico, seeking accomodations they can afford. Former President George W. Bush defends them saying, "The border crossers are just moving into residences that Mexicans won't take."
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
The French Will Always Be With Us
Flag-waving patriots are determined to hate the French, to punish them, shun them, and reject all things French. They want to sever our "tired, old relationship." We are urged to call French men "frogs." The women aren't so bad - actually quite nice. You might say goregeous or magnifique. You know what I mean. Monique, Simone, Gigi, Nichole, Brigitte, and Collette come to mind. Oo la la.
Let's see, where were we? Um. Oh. France wanted us to wait for the UN inspectors, led by that French-acting Hans Blix, to complete the search in Iraq before we did the Shock & Awe. The hapless Blix couldn't find one weapon of mass destruction, all the while Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld knew right where they were. The Secretary of State informed the UN Security Council - in a major speech on television - as to the number, size, shape, color, nature, and location of the WMD in Iraq.
Cancel the French fries and the Bordeaux. Close the French doors. Say no to everything French, including the language: avoid liason, rendezvous, bouquet, eclair, perfume, enterprise, cafe, romance, republic, and liberty. Coup de grace those into le garbage.
Rugged Yanks scoff at the cowardly behavior of those continental wimps and enjoy humor at their expense. We hear that the French have two choices when confronted by a hostile enemy: 1.) Run and hide 2.) Surrender and collaborate. They've grown romantic and soft, but to their credit, the French have an impressive history of military service to their homeland.
Just as the Italian warriors of the last century were timid compared to the Roman legions of Caesar, the modern French seem to be wary of war after centuries of bloody conflicts. Under Napolean Bonaparte, France conquered Europe, Eygpt, and Russia. When the French army entered Moscow, they found a city already torched and scorched by the Russian defenders. The French forces struggled to survive the winter and lost more than 400,000 men to combat, hunger and cold before retreating home.
Napolean's France paid a terrible price for his triumphs, but he never expressed remorse for the fallen. Mothers, fathers and countrymen suffered the bitter sorrow with no consolations from the emperor.
The First World War was extremely costly for all participants, and the worst of the fighting was on French soil. Most of the casualties were named Pierre, Charles and Maurice. From 1914 to 1918, French parents sacrificed one and one-half million sons to the business of war. Such a staggering death toll would do a number on any people and pump pacifist ideas into the genes.
Pacifism has become a national ideal with the French, who have been reluctant to engage in battle since about 1940. While feeling safe and secure behind their "impregnable" Maginot Line, the French watched Herr Hitler march around the fortification and defeat a half-hearted French army in no time at all. The advancing Germans took more than a million French POWs in two weeks of "fighting." The French did not fire a single shot in defense of Paris.
Consider what the fate of geography did to the French. With imperialist Great Britain only 60 miles across the channel and militarist Germany on their eastern border, France has suffered from insomnia. Who could rest living between Bloody Englishmen and Huns? Smack dab in the middle. They finally resorted to the white flag, or the yellow one, when threatened.
The modern French love peace, detest war and worked hard to stop our invasion of Iraq. Why don't we forgive them? How about a rapprochement/ (Another great French term.) The warm friendship we've had with France since 1776 is worth handling with care.
A mature and civilized people, the French excel in the art of diplomacyy - what the world needs now. They oppose us at times, but they will always be with us.
Merci to the French for their vital assistance in our American revolution, that sweet deal called the Louisiana Purchase, the Statue of Liberty, the City of New Orleans, the finest words in our vocabulary and beau coup cultural gifts to our society. Viva la France.
We'll always have Paris.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Lord, we don't need another mountain. Or another federal agency. But we could use one more - an agency a bureau, an office - to monitor talk radio and mete out punishment to the detected lies of the usual suspects. Punishments could be: 1.) One month's suspension for a truth twister or a half-truth. 2.) A week in Gitmo (on the inside) for a lie or untruth.
* Heed the words of our president: "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
* Smog? What smog?
For Sale
Orrin Hatch power neckties, a dollar a dozen. Worn only once.
Overheard
In a super market, a man asked the store manager where to find the health foods. The manager pointed to the spot, and the man asked: "Does that mean your other products aren't healthful?"
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Let's see, where were we? Um. Oh. France wanted us to wait for the UN inspectors, led by that French-acting Hans Blix, to complete the search in Iraq before we did the Shock & Awe. The hapless Blix couldn't find one weapon of mass destruction, all the while Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld knew right where they were. The Secretary of State informed the UN Security Council - in a major speech on television - as to the number, size, shape, color, nature, and location of the WMD in Iraq.
Cancel the French fries and the Bordeaux. Close the French doors. Say no to everything French, including the language: avoid liason, rendezvous, bouquet, eclair, perfume, enterprise, cafe, romance, republic, and liberty. Coup de grace those into le garbage.
Rugged Yanks scoff at the cowardly behavior of those continental wimps and enjoy humor at their expense. We hear that the French have two choices when confronted by a hostile enemy: 1.) Run and hide 2.) Surrender and collaborate. They've grown romantic and soft, but to their credit, the French have an impressive history of military service to their homeland.
Just as the Italian warriors of the last century were timid compared to the Roman legions of Caesar, the modern French seem to be wary of war after centuries of bloody conflicts. Under Napolean Bonaparte, France conquered Europe, Eygpt, and Russia. When the French army entered Moscow, they found a city already torched and scorched by the Russian defenders. The French forces struggled to survive the winter and lost more than 400,000 men to combat, hunger and cold before retreating home.
Napolean's France paid a terrible price for his triumphs, but he never expressed remorse for the fallen. Mothers, fathers and countrymen suffered the bitter sorrow with no consolations from the emperor.
The First World War was extremely costly for all participants, and the worst of the fighting was on French soil. Most of the casualties were named Pierre, Charles and Maurice. From 1914 to 1918, French parents sacrificed one and one-half million sons to the business of war. Such a staggering death toll would do a number on any people and pump pacifist ideas into the genes.
Pacifism has become a national ideal with the French, who have been reluctant to engage in battle since about 1940. While feeling safe and secure behind their "impregnable" Maginot Line, the French watched Herr Hitler march around the fortification and defeat a half-hearted French army in no time at all. The advancing Germans took more than a million French POWs in two weeks of "fighting." The French did not fire a single shot in defense of Paris.
Consider what the fate of geography did to the French. With imperialist Great Britain only 60 miles across the channel and militarist Germany on their eastern border, France has suffered from insomnia. Who could rest living between Bloody Englishmen and Huns? Smack dab in the middle. They finally resorted to the white flag, or the yellow one, when threatened.
The modern French love peace, detest war and worked hard to stop our invasion of Iraq. Why don't we forgive them? How about a rapprochement/ (Another great French term.) The warm friendship we've had with France since 1776 is worth handling with care.
A mature and civilized people, the French excel in the art of diplomacyy - what the world needs now. They oppose us at times, but they will always be with us.
Merci to the French for their vital assistance in our American revolution, that sweet deal called the Louisiana Purchase, the Statue of Liberty, the City of New Orleans, the finest words in our vocabulary and beau coup cultural gifts to our society. Viva la France.
We'll always have Paris.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Lord, we don't need another mountain. Or another federal agency. But we could use one more - an agency a bureau, an office - to monitor talk radio and mete out punishment to the detected lies of the usual suspects. Punishments could be: 1.) One month's suspension for a truth twister or a half-truth. 2.) A week in Gitmo (on the inside) for a lie or untruth.
* Heed the words of our president: "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
* Smog? What smog?
For Sale
Orrin Hatch power neckties, a dollar a dozen. Worn only once.
Overheard
In a super market, a man asked the store manager where to find the health foods. The manager pointed to the spot, and the man asked: "Does that mean your other products aren't healthful?"
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Borders, Walls or Alternatives
Even the president is talking about building a wall to keep out the aliens who do jobs Americans refuse. Apparently, most of us believe we need a wall or we'll soon be overrun by another 12 million hard-working felons.
This wall idea makes you think of the Wall of China, the Maginot Line, the Berlin Wall, or the apartheid wall the Israelis are building to carve up Palestine. Most of them make you feel negative and knot up your tummy.
The poet Robert Frost asked, "What are we walling in and what are we walling out?" Enforcing the national border is the purpose, and walls do seem harsh. Consider the alternatives and all the possible repercussions if the border crisis gets ugly.
Cuba shoots people trying to get out, and Mexico shoots Latin Americans sneaking in. Many in Congress chide Mexico for not preventing their citizens from sneaking over the border. Do they expect Mexican border guards to fire on them? If this situation worsens, an illegal immigrant might be shot at from both sides.
Shooting at border-crossers is a reality. Last week, Mexican soldiers shot a Mexican at their southern border, by mistake. They mistook the man for a Guatemalan.
Why not consult and negotiate for better solutions? Excalation of tensions brings potential violence, which must be avoided at all costs.
Peace and understanding.
Thoughts While Jay Walking
* Look back on the building of the imaginary "Bridge to the 21st Century," which former president Bill Clinton made popular. It was constructed by aliens, outsource-engineered in India, and paid for the old fashioned way: we charged it.
* General Michael Hayden, the candidate to head the CIA, told Congress that the eavesdropping program is legal. Oh yeah? We'll see about that, Hayden's not a judge.
* Sean Hannity is as funny as Rush. On May 19, he said: "I'm going to read this important report to you about progress in Iraq because you'll never see it in the mainstream press." Then Sean read from the pages of USA TODAY.
* Yesterday we couldn't spell oligarchy and now we live in one.
* Smog in St. George: Too cloudy to see, but you know it's there.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
This wall idea makes you think of the Wall of China, the Maginot Line, the Berlin Wall, or the apartheid wall the Israelis are building to carve up Palestine. Most of them make you feel negative and knot up your tummy.
The poet Robert Frost asked, "What are we walling in and what are we walling out?" Enforcing the national border is the purpose, and walls do seem harsh. Consider the alternatives and all the possible repercussions if the border crisis gets ugly.
Cuba shoots people trying to get out, and Mexico shoots Latin Americans sneaking in. Many in Congress chide Mexico for not preventing their citizens from sneaking over the border. Do they expect Mexican border guards to fire on them? If this situation worsens, an illegal immigrant might be shot at from both sides.
Shooting at border-crossers is a reality. Last week, Mexican soldiers shot a Mexican at their southern border, by mistake. They mistook the man for a Guatemalan.
Why not consult and negotiate for better solutions? Excalation of tensions brings potential violence, which must be avoided at all costs.
Peace and understanding.
Thoughts While Jay Walking
* Look back on the building of the imaginary "Bridge to the 21st Century," which former president Bill Clinton made popular. It was constructed by aliens, outsource-engineered in India, and paid for the old fashioned way: we charged it.
* General Michael Hayden, the candidate to head the CIA, told Congress that the eavesdropping program is legal. Oh yeah? We'll see about that, Hayden's not a judge.
* Sean Hannity is as funny as Rush. On May 19, he said: "I'm going to read this important report to you about progress in Iraq because you'll never see it in the mainstream press." Then Sean read from the pages of USA TODAY.
* Yesterday we couldn't spell oligarchy and now we live in one.
* Smog in St. George: Too cloudy to see, but you know it's there.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Friday, May 19, 2006
They Tried to Warn Us
In their farewell remarks, past presidents of our great nation gave us their most heartfelt and serious advice. We remember their words, have we betrayed their hopes?
We did not keep free stay of entangling foreign alliances, as George Washington vigorously cautioned us to do.
John Quincy Adams added a corollary with his, "We shouldn't go around the world searching for monsters to destroy."
Jamees Monroe left office telling us to mind our own business and protect our Western Hemisphere by keeping other nations out of the area - Monroe Doctrine.
Woodrow Wilson regretted his own decision to enter the First World War and hoped that Americans would "not develop a habit of war."
Those wise foreign policy pronouncements of respected presidents are now mere words, causing no thought whatsoever. If we had taken their advice, imagine our blessed America today, the city on the hill, basking in peace and prosperity.
Herbert Hoover left office beseaching his countrymen to be "rugged individualists." Five years later his people were covered by the mandatory Social Security blanket.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt told us to never fear, but the past five years, fear has been the mode of national life.
Presidents had lots to say about banking institutions and corporate power. Thomas Jefferson warned that if banks were allowed too much control, the people would become poor and without housing. He said, "Banks can be more dangerous to a free people than standing armies."
James Garfield said: "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce."
Andrew Jackson agreed with the dangers of centralized money institutions and threw out the national bank, which was the forerunner of the all powerful Federal Reserve System under which we struggle now.
Abraham Lincoln held similar convictions regarding the institution of banking. Some say he paid with his life, for those beliefs.
James Madison pointed out the effects of corporate lobbying early in our republic.
"We do not wish to destroy corporations," President Theodore Roosevelt said, "but we do wish to make them subserve the public good."
Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his famous warning about the "military-industrial complex." How prophetic; how unheeded!
John F. Kennedy was addressing the subject of monetary reform when he told an audience at Columbia University: "The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy Americans' freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizens of this plight." JFK died 10 days later.
Ronald Reagan wanted us to preserve the federalist union. "Appreciate states' rights," he asked. But a people who aren't paying attention can't do that.
Of course, we should have valued all of those dedicated chief executives. Like children who listen but don't hear, we are having to learn the lessons the hard way. The life of America is at stake as a result of our weakness, the Constitution is hanging by the proverbial thread, but are we enjoying life or what?
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* The Council on Foreign Relations ( don't you love them?) is suggesting that Uncle Sam grant $20 billion to Mexico as sort of a modern Marshall Plan. The Carlyle Group is going around the country promoting the idea. Kissinger is in that group, so is George Bush Sr. Oh, why not? Just start the presses and print them up as much as they want. Charge them for the paper and ink. No hurry to pay for that.
* Let's review:
1.) We defied the UN in order to make war on Iraq for defying the UN.
2.) We made war on Iraq because it threatened to make war on others.
* Dr. Ira Longterm, our economic consultant, is hawking his book: IT DON'T PAY TO BE POOR.
* When we liberate Mexico the invasion will be called: "Operation Whole Enchilada."
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
We did not keep free stay of entangling foreign alliances, as George Washington vigorously cautioned us to do.
John Quincy Adams added a corollary with his, "We shouldn't go around the world searching for monsters to destroy."
Jamees Monroe left office telling us to mind our own business and protect our Western Hemisphere by keeping other nations out of the area - Monroe Doctrine.
Woodrow Wilson regretted his own decision to enter the First World War and hoped that Americans would "not develop a habit of war."
Those wise foreign policy pronouncements of respected presidents are now mere words, causing no thought whatsoever. If we had taken their advice, imagine our blessed America today, the city on the hill, basking in peace and prosperity.
Herbert Hoover left office beseaching his countrymen to be "rugged individualists." Five years later his people were covered by the mandatory Social Security blanket.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt told us to never fear, but the past five years, fear has been the mode of national life.
Presidents had lots to say about banking institutions and corporate power. Thomas Jefferson warned that if banks were allowed too much control, the people would become poor and without housing. He said, "Banks can be more dangerous to a free people than standing armies."
James Garfield said: "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce."
Andrew Jackson agreed with the dangers of centralized money institutions and threw out the national bank, which was the forerunner of the all powerful Federal Reserve System under which we struggle now.
Abraham Lincoln held similar convictions regarding the institution of banking. Some say he paid with his life, for those beliefs.
James Madison pointed out the effects of corporate lobbying early in our republic.
"We do not wish to destroy corporations," President Theodore Roosevelt said, "but we do wish to make them subserve the public good."
Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his famous warning about the "military-industrial complex." How prophetic; how unheeded!
John F. Kennedy was addressing the subject of monetary reform when he told an audience at Columbia University: "The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy Americans' freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizens of this plight." JFK died 10 days later.
Ronald Reagan wanted us to preserve the federalist union. "Appreciate states' rights," he asked. But a people who aren't paying attention can't do that.
Of course, we should have valued all of those dedicated chief executives. Like children who listen but don't hear, we are having to learn the lessons the hard way. The life of America is at stake as a result of our weakness, the Constitution is hanging by the proverbial thread, but are we enjoying life or what?
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* The Council on Foreign Relations ( don't you love them?) is suggesting that Uncle Sam grant $20 billion to Mexico as sort of a modern Marshall Plan. The Carlyle Group is going around the country promoting the idea. Kissinger is in that group, so is George Bush Sr. Oh, why not? Just start the presses and print them up as much as they want. Charge them for the paper and ink. No hurry to pay for that.
* Let's review:
1.) We defied the UN in order to make war on Iraq for defying the UN.
2.) We made war on Iraq because it threatened to make war on others.
* Dr. Ira Longterm, our economic consultant, is hawking his book: IT DON'T PAY TO BE POOR.
* When we liberate Mexico the invasion will be called: "Operation Whole Enchilada."
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Take Mexico, Please
Here's an idea whose time has come: Invade Mexico.
Preemptive war is an American tradition. We have evolved from a republic to a democracy and now a full-fledged empire. With soldiers already stationed in 130 countries, we can have it all, just like Bogey and Bacall.
Start with Mexico. No one can claim that we're too good to invade our neighbor. In the last half-century, we have sent our armies - with no declarations of war - to Iraq (twice), Lebanon, Grenada, Korea, Somalia, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and some places I forget.
Mexico has oil. She is rich in natural resources; poor in standard of living. They have no middle class because Mexico is a republic ruled by oligarchies - which is the same reason for our middle class demise.The land is fertile for agriculture and mining. There are two seacoasts and a variety of climates and terrain.
The Mexican people are productive, but their system is malfunctioning and corrupt. Those in the USA seem to want amnesty, desperately. Fine, we'll grant amnesty to ALL Mexicans. They can have immediate citizenship. The people will throw flowers and cheer our liberating soldiers entering Mexico City. Immediately after dancing in the streets, Congress will grant statehood to every Mexican state. Each will become one of the United States of America. Call it an annexation, if it makes you feel any better. This will be good for everyone.
No nation on earth can top Mexico for potential in peace and prosperity for the citizens - of the new states of America.
President George W. Bush is the perfect leader to pull this off. He can say, "So many of you want to live in America. Mission accomplished."
The new United States will be a major oil exporter, the border problem is solved, and NAFTA is passe. Good bye peso, hello Yankee Dollar. We can all get along.
Okay, Padre?
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* H. L. Mencken said, "The only way to make our system work is to shoot the 50 worst congressmen every year." That used to be funny.
* The Governor of Utah will be host to the President of Mexico. Keep Fox occupied and distracted. His visit will be an opportune time for our surprise incursion and conquest of the oil-rich land south of the border.
* The depleted uranium (DU) genocide continues to sicken friend and foe alike in Iraq and Afghanistan, without any public protest or even a casual awareness.
* When a member of Congress loses an election, where does he go? Home? Wrong! He or she keeps his residence and goes to work for as a lobbyist. More money, less hassle, and a continuation of the "good" life. Some former candidates for president have gone to work for lobbies representing foreign governments.
* Our constitutional republic was only a couple of years old when James Madison pointed out the blatant influence of corporate money in Congress. If he could see us now.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Preemptive war is an American tradition. We have evolved from a republic to a democracy and now a full-fledged empire. With soldiers already stationed in 130 countries, we can have it all, just like Bogey and Bacall.
Start with Mexico. No one can claim that we're too good to invade our neighbor. In the last half-century, we have sent our armies - with no declarations of war - to Iraq (twice), Lebanon, Grenada, Korea, Somalia, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and some places I forget.
Mexico has oil. She is rich in natural resources; poor in standard of living. They have no middle class because Mexico is a republic ruled by oligarchies - which is the same reason for our middle class demise.The land is fertile for agriculture and mining. There are two seacoasts and a variety of climates and terrain.
The Mexican people are productive, but their system is malfunctioning and corrupt. Those in the USA seem to want amnesty, desperately. Fine, we'll grant amnesty to ALL Mexicans. They can have immediate citizenship. The people will throw flowers and cheer our liberating soldiers entering Mexico City. Immediately after dancing in the streets, Congress will grant statehood to every Mexican state. Each will become one of the United States of America. Call it an annexation, if it makes you feel any better. This will be good for everyone.
No nation on earth can top Mexico for potential in peace and prosperity for the citizens - of the new states of America.
President George W. Bush is the perfect leader to pull this off. He can say, "So many of you want to live in America. Mission accomplished."
The new United States will be a major oil exporter, the border problem is solved, and NAFTA is passe. Good bye peso, hello Yankee Dollar. We can all get along.
Okay, Padre?
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* H. L. Mencken said, "The only way to make our system work is to shoot the 50 worst congressmen every year." That used to be funny.
* The Governor of Utah will be host to the President of Mexico. Keep Fox occupied and distracted. His visit will be an opportune time for our surprise incursion and conquest of the oil-rich land south of the border.
* The depleted uranium (DU) genocide continues to sicken friend and foe alike in Iraq and Afghanistan, without any public protest or even a casual awareness.
* When a member of Congress loses an election, where does he go? Home? Wrong! He or she keeps his residence and goes to work for as a lobbyist. More money, less hassle, and a continuation of the "good" life. Some former candidates for president have gone to work for lobbies representing foreign governments.
* Our constitutional republic was only a couple of years old when James Madison pointed out the blatant influence of corporate money in Congress. If he could see us now.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
I Could Have Gone Down In History
Y'all would know my name if I had done the right thing, way down south, way back when. With a bit more conviction and a lot more courage, I would have made history.
The first day I was in the South was in June of 1952. As a college student going downtown, I stepped onto a city bus in New Orleans and took a seat in the back.
Instant eruption!
The bus driver shouted at me to take a seat in the front. He cussed me out, long before cussing was cool. His outburst surprised and bewildered me, causing me to hesitate and try to understand the situation.
I was naive about civil disobedience - although Hubert H. Humphrey was my senator in Minnesota - or I might have recognized the opportunity. I should have stayed put in the back of the bus. Instead, I scurried to the front, taking a seat directly behind the driver. The name on his sun visor identified him as Jim, his last name must have been Crow. His eyes caught mine in the mirror. He said, "Are you from the North or what? Whites sit up front and Negroes in the rear. We have two races down here."
There was my chance to do right and make a difference. I could have preempted Rosa Parks, the black woman who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. That celebrated event was three years after my bus experience, which also preceded sit-ins, Freedom Riders, the Little Rock school desegregation, Martin Luther King Jr., and most civil rights legislation.
I should have seized the moment.
I, Jerry, should have been the first white to refuse to move to the front of the bus. The driver would have called the cops to drag me from the bus using snarling dogs, tear gas and night sticks. I might have emerged from a grilling in the New Orleans Police Station with swollen eyes and bruises all over my body. TIME, LIFE and LOOK would have flashed my face and message: "Tear Down This Wall."
My civil disobedience would have been a big factor in the hot national election campaign of 1952. Brave and progressive candidates would have sought my endorsement. My own political career would have been a natural consequence, and I would be a public servant, even now.
Some slick lawyers would have represented me pro bono before the U.S. Supreme Court to win one for civil liberty. The President of the United States would have sent troops to escort me to the back of the bus.
My message might have initiated a call to end segregation. I would have sipped water from the fountains under the signs: COLORED ONLY, just to make a point. I would have entered the side door of a movie theatre and climbed the stairs to a balcony (dubbed "Nigger Heaven") with the non-whites.
Who knows? With a honky striking the first blow against Jim Crow laws, the whites in the South might have embraced the idea. The nuisance of separating the races might have ended with more harmony and good will. Many whites felt uneasy about the separate-but-equal segregation, because equal it wasn't. Whites needed to be freed from the guilt as much as the other race needed a fair deal.
Segregation was messy and expensive in many ways. Messy, for its unequal provisions and rules, and costly to maintain due to the dual facilities so often necessary.
The system was ripe for a fall in 1952. Everybody knows that the black people resisted and finally forced an end to racial segregation in public facilities. Too bad for the whites. The accomplishment should have been theirs. After all, segregation was the crude, cruel creature of white society.
I missed the bus to history. If I had defied the system in the summer of '52, there would be Jerry statues all over Dixie. Mine would be a household name.
You never would have heard of Rosa Parks.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Smog advisory for St. George: Stay indoors until noon, and tell your relatives back home about the difficulties in breathing. Stop the growth and remember that, in this one case, the end justifies the means.
* Ecuador is nationalizing its oil industry and expelling the American Occidental Oil Company.
* Bolivia is instituting land reform to enable poor folks to own property. The program will give government land to the poor. This reminds you of the plan of our Senator Bob Bennett, which likely will deliver government land to real estate developers. Think about it.
* Venezuela's President Chavez is planning to sell F-16 fighter planes to Iran. Isn't that what we get for being the world's leading arms merchant?
* The Washington County Sheriff's search for stragglers from the middle class has been disbanded. They are feared to be lost - vanished without a trace.
Overheard
A group of 10 German tourists shopping in a convenience store knew no English. One of them asked the cashier, "Zion Park?" Several others said, "Starbucks, Starbucks."
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
The Federal Aviation Agency is expected to release a comprehensive impact analysis and tentative approval report regarding the proposed St. George airport. The holdup has been the study to determine the effect on smog conditions.
A spokesperson for the garment industry told Chamber of Commerce members gathered at the new Dixie Convention Center that the average price for a man's suit is $2,900. (The same price as an ounce of gold.)
St. George Mayor Dan McCarthy is running for governor of Utah. McCarthy is known as "Roundabout Man," but he's campaigning on the slogan: "He stopped loitering in its tracks."
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
The first day I was in the South was in June of 1952. As a college student going downtown, I stepped onto a city bus in New Orleans and took a seat in the back.
Instant eruption!
The bus driver shouted at me to take a seat in the front. He cussed me out, long before cussing was cool. His outburst surprised and bewildered me, causing me to hesitate and try to understand the situation.
I was naive about civil disobedience - although Hubert H. Humphrey was my senator in Minnesota - or I might have recognized the opportunity. I should have stayed put in the back of the bus. Instead, I scurried to the front, taking a seat directly behind the driver. The name on his sun visor identified him as Jim, his last name must have been Crow. His eyes caught mine in the mirror. He said, "Are you from the North or what? Whites sit up front and Negroes in the rear. We have two races down here."
There was my chance to do right and make a difference. I could have preempted Rosa Parks, the black woman who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. That celebrated event was three years after my bus experience, which also preceded sit-ins, Freedom Riders, the Little Rock school desegregation, Martin Luther King Jr., and most civil rights legislation.
I should have seized the moment.
I, Jerry, should have been the first white to refuse to move to the front of the bus. The driver would have called the cops to drag me from the bus using snarling dogs, tear gas and night sticks. I might have emerged from a grilling in the New Orleans Police Station with swollen eyes and bruises all over my body. TIME, LIFE and LOOK would have flashed my face and message: "Tear Down This Wall."
My civil disobedience would have been a big factor in the hot national election campaign of 1952. Brave and progressive candidates would have sought my endorsement. My own political career would have been a natural consequence, and I would be a public servant, even now.
Some slick lawyers would have represented me pro bono before the U.S. Supreme Court to win one for civil liberty. The President of the United States would have sent troops to escort me to the back of the bus.
My message might have initiated a call to end segregation. I would have sipped water from the fountains under the signs: COLORED ONLY, just to make a point. I would have entered the side door of a movie theatre and climbed the stairs to a balcony (dubbed "Nigger Heaven") with the non-whites.
Who knows? With a honky striking the first blow against Jim Crow laws, the whites in the South might have embraced the idea. The nuisance of separating the races might have ended with more harmony and good will. Many whites felt uneasy about the separate-but-equal segregation, because equal it wasn't. Whites needed to be freed from the guilt as much as the other race needed a fair deal.
Segregation was messy and expensive in many ways. Messy, for its unequal provisions and rules, and costly to maintain due to the dual facilities so often necessary.
The system was ripe for a fall in 1952. Everybody knows that the black people resisted and finally forced an end to racial segregation in public facilities. Too bad for the whites. The accomplishment should have been theirs. After all, segregation was the crude, cruel creature of white society.
I missed the bus to history. If I had defied the system in the summer of '52, there would be Jerry statues all over Dixie. Mine would be a household name.
You never would have heard of Rosa Parks.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Smog advisory for St. George: Stay indoors until noon, and tell your relatives back home about the difficulties in breathing. Stop the growth and remember that, in this one case, the end justifies the means.
* Ecuador is nationalizing its oil industry and expelling the American Occidental Oil Company.
* Bolivia is instituting land reform to enable poor folks to own property. The program will give government land to the poor. This reminds you of the plan of our Senator Bob Bennett, which likely will deliver government land to real estate developers. Think about it.
* Venezuela's President Chavez is planning to sell F-16 fighter planes to Iran. Isn't that what we get for being the world's leading arms merchant?
* The Washington County Sheriff's search for stragglers from the middle class has been disbanded. They are feared to be lost - vanished without a trace.
Overheard
A group of 10 German tourists shopping in a convenience store knew no English. One of them asked the cashier, "Zion Park?" Several others said, "Starbucks, Starbucks."
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
The Federal Aviation Agency is expected to release a comprehensive impact analysis and tentative approval report regarding the proposed St. George airport. The holdup has been the study to determine the effect on smog conditions.
A spokesperson for the garment industry told Chamber of Commerce members gathered at the new Dixie Convention Center that the average price for a man's suit is $2,900. (The same price as an ounce of gold.)
St. George Mayor Dan McCarthy is running for governor of Utah. McCarthy is known as "Roundabout Man," but he's campaigning on the slogan: "He stopped loitering in its tracks."
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Another Whopper
One of the propaganda whoppers heard before the second war on Iraq was: "He gassed his own people." Hearing this charge for the first time, some folks automatically thought of the Waco Compound, where a leader of a nation did just that.
The diabolical lie targeted Saddam Hussein in a memorable and effective fabrication - propaganda ploy. Saddam was accused then, and in his trial now, of gassings the Kurds, who were not really his people considering how they resisted integration into Iraq and have long agitated for independence and revolted to establish their own nation. The Kurds have been in an incessant insurrection.
Yes, the Kurds in Iraq were gassed, but Saddam is not to blame. The unfortunate action took place during the long Iraq-Iran war when Iranian soldiers advanced across the border of Iraq into Halabja in Kurdish territory.
Iranian gas killed the Kurds!
The U.S. Army War College sent investigators to check out the stories and find the truth. They reported that the gas used was not mustard gas, as employed by Iraq. The gas found in the corpses was that used by the Iranian Army - phosphine gas.
In the terrible war between Iran and Iraq, both sides used gas on the battlefield. Mustard gas by Iraq; phosphine gas by Iran.
At the time of the investigation, U.S. policy supported Saddam's Iraq. After we became Saddam's enemy, the War College report was ignored and passed over by the Shock & Awe people - for obvious and devious reasons.
The report of the Army War College was published in "Iraq Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East," by the Strategic Studies Institute.
More proof that Saddam didn't gas his own is revealed by senior CIA policy analyst Thomas Pelletiere, who went to Halabja and verified that the gassing was done inadvertently during a battle between the Iraqi and Iranian armies in which the insurgent Kurds were fighting alongside the Iranians.
Now, with Saddam on trial for this specific "crime," we can watch and see if the judge and court allows the Army War College report to be submitted as defense evidence.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Daily smog report: The Rocky Anderson stuff is thick today. Maybe you shouldn't move to St. George!
* On this date in 1979, President Jimmy Carter successfully defended himself from a killer rabbit swimming near his boat. He swings a mean oar.
* The good people trying to prevent the Divine Strake explosion at the Nevada test site should embrace their compatriots working to ban depleted uranium (DU) in Iraq.
* Watch for it: the WIN button is coming back soon.
* Medicare patients who are dying spend less time in the hospital in Utah than in any other state. Draw your own conclusions from that statistic.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
The diabolical lie targeted Saddam Hussein in a memorable and effective fabrication - propaganda ploy. Saddam was accused then, and in his trial now, of gassings the Kurds, who were not really his people considering how they resisted integration into Iraq and have long agitated for independence and revolted to establish their own nation. The Kurds have been in an incessant insurrection.
Yes, the Kurds in Iraq were gassed, but Saddam is not to blame. The unfortunate action took place during the long Iraq-Iran war when Iranian soldiers advanced across the border of Iraq into Halabja in Kurdish territory.
Iranian gas killed the Kurds!
The U.S. Army War College sent investigators to check out the stories and find the truth. They reported that the gas used was not mustard gas, as employed by Iraq. The gas found in the corpses was that used by the Iranian Army - phosphine gas.
In the terrible war between Iran and Iraq, both sides used gas on the battlefield. Mustard gas by Iraq; phosphine gas by Iran.
At the time of the investigation, U.S. policy supported Saddam's Iraq. After we became Saddam's enemy, the War College report was ignored and passed over by the Shock & Awe people - for obvious and devious reasons.
The report of the Army War College was published in "Iraq Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East," by the Strategic Studies Institute.
More proof that Saddam didn't gas his own is revealed by senior CIA policy analyst Thomas Pelletiere, who went to Halabja and verified that the gassing was done inadvertently during a battle between the Iraqi and Iranian armies in which the insurgent Kurds were fighting alongside the Iranians.
Now, with Saddam on trial for this specific "crime," we can watch and see if the judge and court allows the Army War College report to be submitted as defense evidence.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Daily smog report: The Rocky Anderson stuff is thick today. Maybe you shouldn't move to St. George!
* On this date in 1979, President Jimmy Carter successfully defended himself from a killer rabbit swimming near his boat. He swings a mean oar.
* The good people trying to prevent the Divine Strake explosion at the Nevada test site should embrace their compatriots working to ban depleted uranium (DU) in Iraq.
* Watch for it: the WIN button is coming back soon.
* Medicare patients who are dying spend less time in the hospital in Utah than in any other state. Draw your own conclusions from that statistic.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Monday, May 15, 2006
War Is Sell
The Bush administration admitted it paid $240,000 to Armstrong Williams, a Los Angeles radio talk host, to promote No Child Left Behind. If they would use taxpayers' money to do that, wouldn't they use payola to push another of their unpopular programs, such as war?
Think about that when you turn on the radio and hear the orchestra. Rush Limbaugh: "We lose more lives on the highway than in Iraq." Michael Savage: "Let's nuke 'em." Sean Hannity: "War saves lives."
War is sell, and so is peace.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Bring the liberators home.
* End foreign aid.
* Outlaw lobbies' contributions to political campaigns.
* Repeal NAFTA.
* Restore tariffs.
* Reindustrialize the USA.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Think about that when you turn on the radio and hear the orchestra. Rush Limbaugh: "We lose more lives on the highway than in Iraq." Michael Savage: "Let's nuke 'em." Sean Hannity: "War saves lives."
War is sell, and so is peace.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Bring the liberators home.
* End foreign aid.
* Outlaw lobbies' contributions to political campaigns.
* Repeal NAFTA.
* Restore tariffs.
* Reindustrialize the USA.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Crime and Punishment
Our nation's prisons are full. We're building more, and some states are sending inmates to private, commercial jail houses. This is a major expenditure of taxpayers' funds.
Don't we overdo the incarceration solution to crime? In most cases, it's no solution.
Why imprison a criminal who's not dangerous? If Don, The Swindler, never hurt anyone, then let him stay free, but make him pay hefty fines for his crimes. An inmate is not productive, except for the old making of license plates, and will only deteriorate behind bars.
Many ex-cons say that prison is a school for crime. Let allow all, except those criminals who are hazardous to our health and safety, skip that school. Such a plan would reduce the facilities and the necessary personnel by some huge amount, representing permanent and perennial savings for taxpayers.
Judges can determine who are the dangerous convicts and sentence them to prison. The other criminals can pay back their victims and society by working and relinquishing portions of their earnings as fines.
Crime requires punishment, but not always behind bars.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Smog hovers and covers St. George this morning. Tell the world and slow the growth.
* Florida Governor Jeb Bush is receiving attention as a potential candidate for living in the White House. We'd better do a preemptive strike to prevent any more of this. How about a law against southern governors running for president? Carter, Clinton and Bush - enough!
* President Bush said it again yesterday: "We haven't been attacked on American soil since 9/11." He might as well say: "Bring 'em on."
* The birth rate is falling in the United States, so how will fewer workers afford to pay for future Social Security recipients? They can't. Better invite the illegals in.
* Divine Strake might be strake but it won't be so divine if the wind is blowing this way.
* The U.S. Senate voted to give "us" a tax cut of $70 billion, which means a higher national debt, as you well know. There ought to be a rule: Every tax cut has to include a spending cut, and each new expenditure has to be with a raise in taxes.
* General Michael Hayden, the man President Bush nominated to head the CIA snoop & spook shop, does have the experience. He ran the controversial eavesdropping operation, which paid phone companies for customers' records. Only Qwest refused the government. The biggies - Bell South and AT&T - cooperated fully (and took the payments.) Three cheers for Qwest.
* Bring the liberators home.
* We, the people, started under a monarchy, set up a republic, drifted into democracy, then an empire, now almost an oligarchy, and a dictatorship will follow.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
Don't we overdo the incarceration solution to crime? In most cases, it's no solution.
Why imprison a criminal who's not dangerous? If Don, The Swindler, never hurt anyone, then let him stay free, but make him pay hefty fines for his crimes. An inmate is not productive, except for the old making of license plates, and will only deteriorate behind bars.
Many ex-cons say that prison is a school for crime. Let allow all, except those criminals who are hazardous to our health and safety, skip that school. Such a plan would reduce the facilities and the necessary personnel by some huge amount, representing permanent and perennial savings for taxpayers.
Judges can determine who are the dangerous convicts and sentence them to prison. The other criminals can pay back their victims and society by working and relinquishing portions of their earnings as fines.
Crime requires punishment, but not always behind bars.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Smog hovers and covers St. George this morning. Tell the world and slow the growth.
* Florida Governor Jeb Bush is receiving attention as a potential candidate for living in the White House. We'd better do a preemptive strike to prevent any more of this. How about a law against southern governors running for president? Carter, Clinton and Bush - enough!
* President Bush said it again yesterday: "We haven't been attacked on American soil since 9/11." He might as well say: "Bring 'em on."
* The birth rate is falling in the United States, so how will fewer workers afford to pay for future Social Security recipients? They can't. Better invite the illegals in.
* Divine Strake might be strake but it won't be so divine if the wind is blowing this way.
* The U.S. Senate voted to give "us" a tax cut of $70 billion, which means a higher national debt, as you well know. There ought to be a rule: Every tax cut has to include a spending cut, and each new expenditure has to be with a raise in taxes.
* General Michael Hayden, the man President Bush nominated to head the CIA snoop & spook shop, does have the experience. He ran the controversial eavesdropping operation, which paid phone companies for customers' records. Only Qwest refused the government. The biggies - Bell South and AT&T - cooperated fully (and took the payments.) Three cheers for Qwest.
* Bring the liberators home.
* We, the people, started under a monarchy, set up a republic, drifted into democracy, then an empire, now almost an oligarchy, and a dictatorship will follow.
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
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