tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59516391218532627902024-03-13T13:13:45.594-06:00Bubble of SanityAn attempt at common sense. I claim no originality to these ideas, as some of them have come from sane people I have read and heard. I welcome those who find flaws in my logic.Bruce Parsonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01836035281793854900noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-1214427342916137122023-11-15T14:32:00.004-06:002023-11-15T14:44:36.575-06:00Ridiculous Priorities<p> When I was a university student, I worked hard for every cent necessary to get my education. I often worked at two or three jobs, and swept together the money to pay for room, board, books, and tuition. One day my junior year, I entered a classroom on test day, ready to take the test after having studied far into the night. I had basically ruined my GPA by goofing off the first two years and was determined to get as close to a 4.0 in my remaining two years (it turned out to be two years and two terms of summer school) to get my GPA to a respectable point and get a degree I could actually use.</p><p>By that time, my professors knew me, and knew I was trying. So, when the professor that day got ready to hand out the tests, he told me he needed to talk to me first. He sympathetically showed me the note on the class roll he had gotten that day. My name had been flagged, and I was not to be allowed to take the test. It appeared I had "delinquent" dues on my dorm rent, and I had been suspended indefinitely. I assured him that I was certain I was up-to-date on my dues. He finally decided that he would let me take the test but hold it until I had cleared this up. I'm sure I didn't do as well on that test as I had planned to do, as I was distracted by the disturbing news.</p><p>As soon as I finished, I went to the financial office to see what had happened. In those pre-internet days, you paid in person, and I paid my dorm dues monthly. I had two choices: I could use the university postal system, which meant dropping my check in their box and it being picked up -- that had always worked before -- or going to the office (where I was going now), and standing in line for a while, which I had to do that day.</p><p>I finally got to talk to someone: a student about my age whose sole job was to read the printout and tell me I was no longer a student in good standing because I was delinquent in my payments. Anyone who could do something about it was safely hidden behind closed doors while I was left to plead with a student on minimum wage who was only working to try to pay her own dues and had no power to send me to someone who could fix things. I will shorten the long story here by saying that, eventually, I was able to clear my name. The internal mail system of the university had failed to deliver and process my check on time -- for a week it had apparently been sitting in a bin on someone's desk. When it finally cleared, I was mailed a statement that my account was again in good standing, and I could attempt to make up the work I had been forbidden to do in all my classes.</p><p>That was it. No apology. No acknowledgement that the error was theirs, that the "delinquency" was due to their oversight, not mine. I was left with the responsibility taking the printed mailing (which came a few days later) and begging all my professors to let me make up my work, without penalty, if possible.</p><p>I need to add that my "delinquency" was a little over $100, the amount of the delayed check, which clearly showed the date I had written it, several days in advance of the due date. The university had kicked me out of the system over a hundred bucks (yes, good days, when a month in a dorm, including food, was $100. But remember that, back then, minimum wage was $1.60 an hour).</p><p>Now, a seemingly unrelated story. This past week, a prominent university in my state fired a football coach. I know, that happens all the time. But what made this newsworthy to me was that, while he was working for them, he was making millions of dollars, and now that he was not, he was going to <b><i>continue</i></b> to be paid millions. If I read the article right, they are committed to over $70 million, <i>whether he works or not</i>.</p><p>Let's put it in context. That campus has, maybe 150,000 students. I'm sure they are having to pay room and board and books and tuition. I know prices are higher than the $100 monthly I was paying back in the 70s. Having put four kids through school, I also know that whatever the price, if they don't pay, they have to leave. My wife and I did a lot of work to make sure that didn't happen to them, and my children rolled up their sleeves and worked to help the cause.</p><p>I'm trying to figure out how the same university that would send a kid home for missing a month's room and board could be the same university that would fire a football coach and say, "Oh, what the heck. Just keep the money." I also realize that they will have to pay someone else to take his place. How could these two worlds co-exist? Some students cannot come up with the money, and university systems are more than happy to help them get loans -- lots of loans. There are adults in America today who are old enough to retire and are still paying off college loans.</p><p>Why, in a country that continually complains about inequity, does this exist? Why does a university education cost so much? We are told that it's necessary to maintain a quality of instruction, adequate facilities, all the good things that contribute to success in the university system. My first question, of course, is "How many university professors get contracts for $70 million or more?"</p><p>How can a school justify spending money like that? What type of value system invests less -- much less -- in the education and training of its students than they do in trying to get the school into a game in January that gives them a chance to have bragging rights about a "national championship" for less than a year?</p><p>I don't fault the coach. I guess if someone offered me a job for $70 million and guaranteed me the money -- all of it -- even if they fired me, I would have problems turning the offer down. But it says a lot about priorities.</p><p>Our country, our culture, needs leaders. We need people who have been trained, who have worked hard to get an education, and are ready to use it to meet the challenges of our time. We need people who have learned from the best in productivity, leadership, and innovation. Somehow, schools that get a national championship is not the priority that will equip the next generation. Don't get me wrong. I love college football, and love Saturdays in the fall when I get to watch. I am in awe of some of those young athletes, both the ones who excel on the gridiron and in the classroom simultaneously, as well as the ones who realize that God has blessed them with phenomenal abilities and decide to give back to the community.</p><p>No, the villain for me is the class of people who would keep an enthusiastic student out of a classroom through a one-hundred-dollar misunderstanding, and at the same time adopt an "it's-only-money" attitude toward a multimillion-dollar contract that needs to be tweaked.</p><p>Can anyone honestly tell me there's nothing wrong with that set of priorities?</p>Bruce Parsonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01836035281793854900noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-74954256862572748722019-03-25T18:57:00.000-06:002019-03-25T19:07:07.818-06:00End of an EraWhen I heard that Lifeway stores were closing last week, I had a rush of mixed emotions, because the stores have been a part of my life for so long.<br />
<br />
Once, back in pre-history, Baptists were cared for by something they had invented called "boards." We had a Foreign Mission Board and a Home Mission Board. Pastors looking to retirement had the Annuity Board, but the rank-and-file members knew about the Sunday School Board. They were a service that made sure we had those all-important Sunday School record books, the offering envelopes and even those pesky grade slips for Training Union. Those yellow training union report slips were the bane of my existence, because some schemer had listed "Daily Bible Reading" as worth 21 points, so even if you were there, studied your lesson, were attending worship, etc, you could only make a "79," a "C," in Training Union.<br />
<br />
The Sunday School Board took care of us, though. They made sure we had Bible School materials, and of course we could get our Baptist Hymnals there. My home church, even in the 70s, was still happy with the 1940s version called the "Broadman Hymnal," when most of the other churches in our town were using the more contemporary 1956 "Baptist Hymnal." And of course, Broadman was inseparably linked to the Sunday School Board.<br />
<br />
And they had stores! The Baptist Book Store was only put in privileged towns. I think there were only a half dozen in Texas when I was a kid, but you could actually walk in in get your materials, rather than having to fill out an order form and mail it and wait for them to get there. And Lubbock was only 60 miles away. There was a Baptist Bookstore there, at a major crossroads called Broadway and Avenue Q. I could wander through the aisles of the store while my parents checked off items from their church list.<br />
<br />
It's so strange to think about now, but I was introduced to Robert Heinlein at -- yes -- Baptist Bookstore. His juvie novel, <i>Have Space Suit - Will Travel</i> - was on the shelves there with all the juvenile mission biographies and the sanctified books we bought. I thought Heinlein was probably a missionary Baptist himself until I was a senior in high school and we got <i>Stranger in a Strange Land</i> in our library, and I checked it out, thinking it was another of his juvies. Let's say I was a little shocked, and thought, very un-Baptistically, that perhaps Heinlein had lost his salvation before he wrote that book -- or because of it. I had bought nearly all of Heinlein's juvies, but I will always be able to say that I bought my first science fiction book at Baptist Book Store on Avenue Q in Lubbock.<br />
<br />
They had everything, including disposable communion cups and pre-cut communion bread squares boxed and sealed in plastic -- both of those things an abomination to our local church where we drank our Welch's grape juice from crystal communion cups and the deacons' wives baked the unleavened bread, which was broken while the pastor quoted, "This is my body, broken for you."<br />
<br />
As a student at Texas Tech, I even bought my first non-King James Bible there, and really felt I had done something. I would even buy a (gulp) <i>Good News for Modern Man</i> and a <i>Living Bible</i> there later. By that time, in the "cool" seventies, they even had a youth section, and played vinyl and cassettes of contemporary music like "He's Everything to Me," while a three color disk turned slowly in front of an incandescent bulb, changing the shading of the Jesus posters on the wall. One poster had "Jesus" in a Pepsi logo, and said, "Come Alive - You're in the Jesus Generation." I bought it.<br />
<br />
The Baptist Bookstore flourished in those years, before the Great Divorce between the Southern Baptists and the Texas Baptists, when we all felt like children of the Divorce, and wondered if we had caused it, and if maybe they would get back together. But before that, we lived an idyllic existence. We all got our church music there. We got our Sunday School materials there. In the eighties, when I was made VBS director of our local association, I would go to Baptist Bookstore and buy a load of VBS materials on consignment to set up during the annual VBS convention I hosted, where I showed them the materials we would all use, and ran through this year's filmstrip, and thankfully had some ladies who knew how to do the crafts we would all do and taught the potential workers. And the people would buy their materials there, and Baptist Bookstore gave us, I think, a 10% commission for sales, money which I turned back to the Association so we would have plenty to finance next year's convention.<br />
<br />
Then, things happened. Boards became passe, and the Sunday School Board got a cooler name, "Lifeway." And the Baptist Bookstore, not wanting to seem so one-denominational, became Lifeway Bookstores, then Lifeway Christian Stores, when they realized that books were not really that cool. Of course, Christian Bookstores were on the way out. I watched other bookstores as well as our own, as they moved the books to a far wall to make room for posters, T-Shirts, and records, then cassettes, then CDs. The survivor stores also brought in home schooling materials.<br />
<br />
I remember the time I went to the checkout shelf at one Christian store and they had "Jesus candy" for sale there. <br />
<br />
And then, one of the competitors for Lifeway decided it was great to be open on Sundays, from 8-5 as well. They were gracious enough to give their employees Easter off, but every other Sunday was just another day. I often wondered who shopped there at 10 AM on Sunday.<br />
<br />
Lifeway managed to keep itself unstained from these things, but they had lost their vision. More and more, I found that if I needed something, I had to go online because stores didn't want to be overstocked on inventory for dated materials. There had been a time in the past when I could just tell them the name of my church, and they let me walk out without paying. Our church got the bill later. Then I needed my account number. Then came the time when a lady told me that they didn't do account numbers. That I needed a church credit card or needed to fill out some paperwork.<br />
<br />
And now, Lifeway's brick and mortar stores are shutting down, and as far as I know, all that is left is Mardel's Book Store, and I wonder if they are only staying alive because of their parent company, Hobby Lobby, who usually has its own brick and mortar nearby.<br />
<br />
Online shopping is easy, usually cheaper, and nearly always "in stock." But there is something about holding a Bible in your hands before you buy it. When you are buying a Bible, you are buying a companion for life, and one of your grandchildren may have it some day. You want to know how a Bible smells, how the pages sound as you turn them, and how the leather feels in your hands. And they still haven't figured how to do that on the internet. I made the mistake one year of ordering our Bibles that we give our seniors outside of a brick and mortar. It was before online took over, and I ordered them by phone, dictating each student's name to be imprinted, and paying by credit card. They got it all right, but the picture in the catalog I had was deceiving. Twelve seniors that year got Bibles that were somewhere between the size of the ones their grandmothers brought to worship, and the one that was on the table in front of the pulpit. No wonder they were a close-out bargain.<br />
<br />
Now, all of our record keeping materials will be bought online. All of those Sunday School things -- online. VBS we have done online for a long time, because there is a smorgasbord of competing companies, all interested in our business. That's also why we don't have an associational VBS clinic any more.<br />
<br />
Okay, here it comes. I'm getting old. Would it be too hard to give us a Sunday School Board again? Oh, I know, we now have "Study Groups" and "Discipleship Groups" and "Growth Groups." Forget Training Union (though I was surprised to see they still have Training Union quarterlies online -- they just don't call it that now). Okay, I guess it would not be financially solvent, but then again, the Boards were never intended to turn a profit. There were there to serve.<br />
<br />
Don't go calling me an old fogey or some Luddite for having these thoughts. Don't think I'm some close-minded fundamentalist who longs for the good old days. Remember who I am. After all, I once bought a Heinlein book at a Baptist Book Store.Bruce Parsonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01836035281793854900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-50167674691597718282019-01-04T18:13:00.002-06:002019-01-05T15:00:26.581-06:00An Open Letter to the New 2019 CongressWell, congratulations! You got what you wanted -- to be in the driver's seat again. I'm neither elated nor disappointed, as I voted for an independent two years ago for president, and in the most recent congressional elections, I voted third party for congress. I have no problem with having done this. So you might think I don't have a dog in the fight, but I tend to be interested in who gets elected because I expect you all to work for me, since that's the way it's supposed to be done.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, you really got off to a bad start yesterday. You have 235 Democrats in the house, and you elected one of the least popular and least capable for Speaker. You are going to have a tough time convincing me that, of 235 Democrats, Nancy Pelosi is the cream of the crop. She recently told a press conference that she was not going to allow "President Bush" to bully anyone. Please let her know, for starters, that one President Bush has been out of office ten years, and the other one died recently, and that the current occupant of the White House is named "Trump." Maybe that will help.<br />
<br />
And if any of you Republicans are listening, why did you vote for a Republican for speaker? You knew you couldn't win that one. Why did you not get together with some of the intelligent Democrats and see whom they really wanted, and promise to help out? You had over 190 votes available, and you could have made a difference, but anyway...<br />
<br />
Back to the new majority leadership: I know you are sharpening your axe now. You are going to take down this president. I have all confidence in you that you will do this. At least, everything in your power. And you have some options:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Censure him. That's easy enough, and it has happened before.</li>
<li>Subpoena him: If you can't get him, you can at least subpoena everyone who works for him, lives in his house, and works at his hotels. Have fun.</li>
<li>Impeach him: Go ahead. Make it a trifecta. He would be the third president to be impeached, and you see how much damage it did to the other two. Andrew Johnson finished out his term, left office, and probably said, "good riddance." Bill Clinton finished his term, got full retirement and lifetime secret service, and almost made it back to the same White House where he spent 8 years. The bottom line is, <b><i>impeachment looks like fun, but it does very little by itself.</i></b> To make that work, you need the senate to help, and I have bad news for you: the Senate has too many Republicans in it to make anything bad happen to Trump. If you manage to impeach him, it will not be the worst that has happened to him. He's been through bankruptcies, and worse, divorces. He won't lose any sleep. And like his worthy opponent, he's not ever going to jail.</li>
<li>Pass bills against him. Get him declared the antichrist. Pass a resolution that he's the worst president in history. Pass a bill that denounces him and everything about him. I would like to see you do all this for the next two years, because it's very inexpensive, compared to what you could be doing: pork projects, good-old-boy legislation to get favors, money to holding companies that secretly support the companies that got you here. You know, what the Republicans do, too.</li>
</ul>
But I'm afraid that there are some of you that are suddenly going to realize that you at least have to pretend to make laws, and you are going to press Madame Speaker to do that occasionally. Oh, I'm not talking about unfreezing the budget. As long as there are chauffeurs, people to hold the doors in the capitol building and the White House, and food in the dining halls, I don't think you are going to worry much about whether those people making minimum wage start taking tickets at the Statue of Liberty and Washington Monument any time soon. You will make the same overtures the president is making, but neither of you will really worry about it as long as your rent is paid and your expense account is still liquid.<br />
<br />
But there are a couple of things I would like you to consider if you <i>really, really</i> care about the people you represent, whether we voted for you or not. I put these things in no particular order:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Taxes. Keep it like it is. Whether we liked Trump and his congress or not, we like the larger standard deduction and the lower taxes, and no, we do not think we are causing the deficit by paying less taxes. We think you are causing the deficit by spending nonexistent money, and of course, you know that the Fed no longer has to even print it. Now it just generates it electronically, like government-sanctioned bitcoins, so spare us the tax increases that supposedly can balance the budget. You could double all our tax bills, and you still wouldn't balance this year's budget, unless, of course, you are planning to spend money only on subpoenas, censures, resolutions, and impeachment votes. Then, you might just balance it.</li>
<li>Medical care. Please realize that those big, greedy insurance companies are not the sole culprit in all of our problems. For me, it's the twenty dollar Tylenol tablet that they give me with a tiny cup of water. It's the 90 dollar box of facial tissue that was an off-brand, not even Kleenex, that I got charged for, and I didn't even use but one or two of them. It's the hospital room I was in, built some time in the fifties, with the metal bed, and the leaking catheter bag that the nurses were "gonna fix" in a little while, but never did, because, as they barked to my wife, they were "under staffed." But I was better off than most, because the echo from the hallway, "I huuuuurrrrt!" "I need a nuuuurrrse!" made me count my blessings. For that one night stay, I was billed the cost of five Alaska Cruises. One night. And that was just the room. Not the consultation. Not the leaking catheter bag. Not the pills or the tissues. No wonder you have to have an act of congress (excuse the outdated expression) to get an itemized bill, and then, if you are lucky, you can figure out what all the codes mean.</li>
<li>Medical Care II - oh, and those bills. You don't get them all at once. You get one from this doctor, from that anesthesiologist, that radiology reader that lives in Maine, and -- oops -- that lab technician that was, er, "out of network," even though your medical team and hospital were not. And the double bill that, when you finally prove it to them, they say, "Oh, okay." No apology or admission of a mistake or -- worse -- intentional work. That's what's killing us. Literally. </li>
<li>Medical Care III - But of course, you have been bravely fighting for us. Privacy. All those privacy notifications, the ones that mean that even our family members who take care of us and maybe pay our bills can't find out how we are because you were more concerned about HIPAA than you are about hip replacements, which can cost 1500 or 15000, depending on where you go and who does it, but you never know until it's over. Oh, that privacy you worked so hard for us to have, so that now we only have initials on our doors, so family doesn't know if the two JJ's next door to each other -- if one is the "Jane Johnson" you wanted to see, or the "John Jones" you never met, so you knock on a stranger's door, hear "come in," and make eye contact with someone you've never met because of, you know, "privacy." <i><b>If you are not too afraid of the powerful medical industry and their
lobbies that will fight you for status quo, you might drum up the
courage to organize a bipartisan task force or two and get to work on
some medical reform that will stop this powerful group from attacking the people you are representing when they are at their weakest, their sickest, and their most vulnerable, often bankrupting them.</b></i></li>
<li>Other minor things. Today, I got two cloned calls on my cell phone from local numbers with normal names, and both were warning me that this was the last day to lower my interest rate on my credit cards. The third call was from a local man I had never met who was returning a missed call that I never made, probably because a credit card interest rate company cloned my number and called him. I have heard that, this year, over half of all wireless calls will be spam. I have problems believing that 435 elected officials can do nothing at all about this problem which has exploded in the past two years. At work, driving, sitting at business meetings and in funeral services, robocallers are dialing our numbers like never before, and you seem to do nothing. Is it because someone else answers your phone? This is only a tiny example of the many things ordinary people like us face every day, people like you used to be. This year, in record numbers, people stole packages from front porches because most families have two working parents and no way for a housewife in an apron to answer the door when a mailman calls. And you know this. And just in case you don't know, I don't think the first amendment was intended to protect and propogate any of this.</li>
</ul>
I could go on, but you get my drift. We really want to know that you are out there. I quit voting for one congressman because he refused to answer my emails with anything except a boilerplate that he needed the last extra four digits of my zip code to make sure I was in his district before he would read my letter. Are you all like that?<br />
<br />
Part of the deal you brokered with Nancy Pelosi, the most capable leader of the majority party, it appears, was that she promise to be speaker for only two more terms. Let me tell you that, unless you can show you care, in two more terms, it will be given back to the other side so they can elect a speaker as competent as the one you just elected.<br />
<br />
Please show me you care. Please pass some legislation that eases my burden instead of costing me more. Please work to lower medicine prices. I know that pharmaceutical companies got you in there, but they gave money to your opponent, too. Show them how grateful you are by voting for fair pharmaceutical prices.<br />
<br />
Oh, and one more thing. I have been paying social security taxes for 50 years this year -- ever since I started sacking groceries as a teenager, hoping to buy a red Volkswagen, which I never got, by the way. Had to pay for college. Anyway, 50 years later, I am going to get my first Social Security check. I will disregard the fact that I paid my SS taxes with taxed money, and will get the privilege now of paying taxes on what I get paid, though you ought to be ashamed of yourselves for that. I will disregard that you constantly "borrow" from that money for other things. All I ask is, "Would you please quit thinking it's welfare for old people?" No, it's a return on the investment of people who have worked for half a century, and there is no reason at all for you to be messing with it.<br />
<br />
So, what kind of congress will you be? While your new speaker is washing and waxing the private plane she once again has, you might draw up a list of some things that we really care about, and try to do something about it.<br />
<br />
If you do, I will not only vote for you next time around, I will even campaign for you. But I have been promising that to every party in power for some time now, and no one seems to care. I hope maybe you do, because I am a baby boomer, and<i> there are still a lot of us, and <b>we all vote</b></i><b>.</b>Bruce Parsonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01836035281793854900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-4770287177439500522016-11-02T10:30:00.001-06:002019-01-04T18:14:35.638-06:00<br />
So, it's the day after perhaps the ugliest election in over a hundred years in US history. I feel like no one got what they really wanted, and I have the same feeling I used to have when I watched a ballgame between two teams that I disliked, and wondered if there was any way for them to both lose.<br />
<br />
I had seen this coming. I can readily think of two examples from recent history. The first one was the 2004 election. There were two candidates for president in that one: George W. Bush, and "Not" George W. Bush. I would imagine that many people who voted for John Kerry don't even remember whose name was in the "other" column. I never heard anyone say, "I'm really excited about Kerry. He is going to do such great things for this country!" Whenever I asked a Kerry supporter what they liked most about him, they invariably said something like, "I hate Bush." His greatest claim to fame was that he married an older woman and got into some real money from ketchup. Also, that he was on a swift boat or something. He might as well have used the campaign slogan, "I Am Not Bush." That's the great bulk of his voting bloc, and just to be frank, he came close to winning just because he was not the incumbent president.<br />
<br />
Jump ahead 8 years. It's very similar again: an incumbent president running against "whats-his-face." The two candidates on the 2012 ballot were Barack Obama and "Not" Barack Obama. The president had some loyal supporters, but I really didn't hear anyone say, "Romney is an exciting candidate!" or "I really think Romney has some great ideas!" See, Mr. Romney could be anything. When he ran against Ted Kennedy for the senate, he was pro-choice, pro-national-health-care, and pro-gay rights. When he ran as a Republican against the Democratic president, he was just the opposite on all three of these things. And Romney didn't come as close as Kerry did, but he did make a showing in the election. Yet he was, for the most part, a major Zero. His campaign strength was, "I Am Not Obama."<br />
<br />
But this year, our campaign makes those last two look anemic -- and nearly normal -- in comparison. This year, for maybe the first time in US history, we have two "nots" running against each other: "Not" Donald Trump running against "Not" Hillary Clinton. Yes, I hear friends from both sides: "I know my candidate is horrible, but the one one is 'horribler.'"Bruce Parsonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01836035281793854900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-34865455235888764172015-07-08T09:17:00.000-06:002015-07-08T10:16:57.862-06:00The Thrill of the Hunt"What are you doing?!" my 5th grade teacher, wide-eyed, startled me as she asked the question.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"I am reading," I answered, a little perplexed. I expected outbursts like that for throwing things in class, stealing something from someone's desk, walking around when we were supposed to be seated -- that kind of thing.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"That is an <i>encyclopedia</i>!" she shouted at me. "Nobody reads encyclopedias. They are for <i>research only</i>!"</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"But I finished my research," I said slowly. "I'm just reading until we are all through."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
She took the encyclopedia, <i>World Book</i> volume "M," and returned it to the shelf, shaking her head at me. It was a dilemma I had felt many times. I would be looking up, say, "Llamas" for a report in class, but I would slow down as I passed things like "Lincoln," including the town in Nebraska, or "Limburger cheese," and I would wonder why people ate it if it smelled as bad as the cartoons made it appear to smell. We never had time for all that added knowledge, but sometimes I would detour from a search for class just to satisfy an inquisitive mind. Did you know that, if all the blood vessels in one human body could be stretched into one continuous blood vessel, it would reach from New York to Sydney, Australia, and back five times? I learned that while I was looking for something else. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Those <i>World Books</i> were treasuries of information to me, even though they were generic blue, worn at the edges, and some of them still said Truman was president. But that old information was still good, because human bodies don't change that much, including how long the circulatory system is. I never understood why they were "forbidden fruit" to my 5th grade teacher.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Years later, I would be living on the coast of South America with my wife and three home-schooled sons, and acquire some generic red World Books from the Carter administration. I set them out in the open where my sons could soak up the information in them. In the years we served in Ecuador, most of which did not include even dial-up internet, my sons and I probably each read through the entire set. I learned early that, if you teach a child to read, most of the rest of the education is automatic, and nothing gave me the satisfaction of seeing my 9-year-old son, curled up with a volume of <i>World Book</i>, absorbing the pages of info, and then, later telling me about it. My daughter, as she learned to read, also began that great search.<br />
<br />
On one furlough in the States, I was overjoyed to find an entire unabridged encyclopedia on CD, and imagined how great that would be. I was disappointed to find, after installing it, that it merely complies with the questions you ask, that it narrows your search to that item, and that "browsing" is not a function of an electronic encyclopedia. When they went online, I found that they were even worse. I grieved when the printed version of <i>Encyclopaedia Britannica</i> went out of print, because, as a teacher, I have used the online edition, and sent my students to it. It has more information than the print version ever did, but it is a caged animal, and lacks the luster and wild spirit that the printed version had.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It is a basic truth of human experience: <i style="font-weight: bold;">Some of our greatest discoveries occur while we are looking for something else</i>. Some of the greatest inventions and scientific discoveries emerged totally by accident.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I am guilty: I use Google, Wikipedia, and other search engines to find info, attribute quotes, and spike rumors. But having said that, I miss the days when I had to work to get the info. The joy of research was in the hunt. Today's information gathering is like shooting fish in a barrel, or hunting game that is in a cage. There is no thrill to it. I can find important information in just a few seconds, and there is nothing else nearby to distract me. Some hunters say they like to hunt because they don't like the "taste of captivity" in store-bought meat. As I think about it, I realize that there was always a "wild" taste to the info that I had to pursue through a forest of information.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Doing a research paper, when I was in high school, involved, among other things, using a multi-volume <i>Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, </i>usually found in the local and the school library, that could direct you to published magazine and journal articles that featured your subject. You found your item, and then prayed that the librarian had that specific magazine, volume number, and current issue. Then, you carefully copied that precious info onto a note card, a gem of information that you would footnote later.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If someone had told me, when I was sixteen years old, researching the history and function of the Electoral College, and trying to determine if it was beneficial or not, that some day, I would be able to do all of this from a "smart phone" in my pants pocket, I would have longed for such a miracle. But looking back, I wish that young people today could know the thrill of finding information after a strong, stimulating hunt.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Card catalogues in libraries, reference resources on those shelves of books that you could not take home, atlases, city directories, dictionaries, encyclopedias -- they all worked together for me, and the result was something of great value, not only because of the content, but because of the <i>investment that I had made in it.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
And that's the problem today. Research is cheap. As a high school teacher for ten years, I would have students ask me questions, and, teacher that I was, I would not just give a straight answer. I wanted them to know why the answer was what it was, to make them arrive at it, so the next time they had a similar question and there was no teacher there to give it, or they were in the middle of a standardized state test, they could figure it out for themselves. Most of the time, the students would turn away, say "forget it," or start a conversation with some other student as soon as they heard the words from me that they wanted.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I had to learn that the students were not being rude. They are members of the "smart phone" culture, and are conditioned to that form of information gathering. That phone is a little educated slave that stays in our pockets until we need it. When we want to know something, from "Where is the nearest Starbuck's?" to "Which president served two separate terms?" we just have to fetch it out of its little prison, ask the question, get an immediate answer, and then throw it back in its own dungeon.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
No joy of research. No enticements to branch out to related knowledge, or even learning something on the way simply because another idea happened to start with the same few letters. We learn only what we want, when we want, with a minimum of distraction. And we only get facts, without enough substance to weave them into something that enhances our lives.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I would love to start a school where students had to attend for at least a semester. There would be no computers, but every classroom would have a set of World Books, some dictionaries and thesauruses and atlases, and the library would have only a card catalogue.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In an era of information convenience, we are starving ourselves, and depriving our kids of the "Thrill of the Hunt."</div>
Bruce Parsonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01836035281793854900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-14771215474293154472014-09-05T09:19:00.000-06:002014-09-12T22:00:20.152-06:00Sick of Politics; Something More Fun!It has been interesting to find that there will still be "Top Ten" lists in the 23rd and 24th century. After months of tedious, back-breaking research, I actually found these in some personal logs. Most of the entries were made by ensigns, and it shines a special light on what went on behind the cameras and below decks, that never made the show. Enjoy.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Top Ten Reasons I Like Serving on the Enterprise 1701</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>I get free uniforms, I don't have to wash them, and the shirts I have are not red.</li>
<li>The phasers make a cool sound, and they have this hilarious "stun" setting.</li>
<li>Lots of break time unless you're in engineering.</li>
<li>The food is all replicated -- no bones, gristle, or seeds.</li>
<li>The communicators have 100 terabyte MP3 players in them.</li>
<li>The clueless captain has no idea what 400 of us are doing.</li>
<li>Year round perfect temperatures and a rec room on every deck.</li>
<li>Two words: sonic showers.</li>
<li>Titanium hull plating, multiphasic shields, warp 15, and photon torpedoes -- this is the safest place in the universe.</li>
<li>Free health care.</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Top Ten Reasons I Like Serving on the Enterprise 1701-D</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Red uniforms are not an automatic death sentence.</li>
<li>Captain is French. We don't have to fight much.</li>
<li>Ten-forward -- lots of free drinks and the 500-year-old lady will give you the real thing when Baldy's not around.</li>
<li>The food replicators have an unlimited supply of tasty, non-fattening food from 1,000 planets -- and you have one in your room.</li>
<li>Two words: holodeck privileges</li>
<li>The captain who has no idea what 1200 of us are doing.</li>
<li>Command crew that plays poker every night and has no idea what we are doing.</li>
<li>Android does most of the hard work, leaving us lots of holodeck time; generally clueless.</li>
<li>Children, families, parks, rec areas -- surrounded by deflector shields, and a warp bubble, with photon torpedoes, meta-phasic shielding, and phasers. This is the safest place in the universe -- unless the Android goes nuts.</li>
<li>Free health care.</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Top Ten Reasons I Like Serving on Voyager</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>We are in the Delta Quadrant. Not even the IRS can find us here, though the AARP did get a message to Tuvok when he turned 150.</li>
<li>The little lizard guy makes a great omelet, but I try not to think about where he got the eggs.</li>
<li>I like imagining what Species 8472 could do to Cardassians.</li>
<li>We actually get to build our own cool new ships, and race them against aliens.</li>
<li>If I am killed, it will probably be reversed before the end of the program by traveling back in time or something.</li>
<li>Forget Kirk and Picard. Our captain tamed a Borg.</li>
<li>Our second in command is a real live Indian with a cool tattoo.</li>
<li>We will get seventy years' hazard pay when we finally make it back.</li>
<li>Not one Cardassian or any of those idiotic shape-shifters within a thousand light years of us.</li>
<li>Free health care and a Doctor who is available 24/7.</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Nine Things I Hate and One Thing I Like about </span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Living on Deep Space 9</span></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Ferengi everywhere.</li>
<li>It takes several years for the Cardassian smell to go away, and they keep coming back,</li>
<li>Bajorans are a combination of the worst possible traits of Catholics and Jews, with none of the best qualities of either, and a little bit of Baptist arrogance thrown in to boot.</li>
<li>Klingons everywhere. Blood wine taste lingers in a synthesizer. Ruins the taste of Dr. Pepper.</li>
<li>That pesky wormhole that any scum can get through and "bam" we're the first thing they see.</li>
<li>The "prophets." A bunch of stuck-up aliens with technology that have fouled up everything in two quadrants for millennia.</li>
<li>The founders. Yeah, right. Think of Gumby and multiply it by one billion, then simmer on low heat.</li>
<li>The woman with the yam in her belly. Condescending, thinks she knows everything. Captain calls her "Old Man." Much nicer than what everyone else calls her.</li>
<li>Captain <u>not</u> clueless. He knows what everybody is doing.</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>And the one thing I like</u></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Free health care.</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Bruce Parsonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01836035281793854900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-45632674917224136132014-05-31T21:24:00.002-06:002014-05-31T21:24:46.846-06:00What If..?I am posting this blog on my nearly lifeless site mainly for a special friend who continues to be one of the best thinkers I know. I am a reader and writer of alternative science fiction -- the kind that imagine current events if something changed, like, say Lincoln surviving an assassination attempt, or the Moors not being driven out of Spain.<br />
<br />
But this alternative fiction is one that I wish had happened. I think the world would be a better place if the US had joined the Central Powers -- or even threatened to -- in WWI. That war actually never ended, and has continued to drone on as the embers flared up to be WWII, then developed into the Cold War that included Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba, and now is in the Middle East.<br />
<br />
The ones who actually wanted to fight for England and France lived mainly in what we call "New England." The Celtic people of the South felt more sympathy for the Germans. Our excuse for entering the war was German U-boat "aggression," but although we were not involved in the war at the time, we were busy carrying war materiel and support to Great Britain. The Germans did what anyone would do to a neutral power: stopped boats and seized armaments and military support, and when that was not enough, decided to make the North Atlantic unsafe for American intervention. Had we honestly entered the war and fought it in the open, these things would not have happened. Using cruise ships to arm England and France was a bad idea.<br />
<br />
Let's talk about those two "allies." First, there's England, who had fought three wars with us in the last century and a half. Then, there was France, who no longer knew how to engage in warfare. We had no real reason to side with them, and they represented no interests of ours. By identifying with them, the whole world learned what type of nation we now wanted to be. England, especially was hated for their vicious colonialism that could claim huge profits in occupied lands that, today, are profitless, such as current day Pakistan and Bangladesh. They ruled a huge portion of the earth, and maintained it with a rod of iron. France was doing the same in West Africa and Southeast Asia. The people that hated them now hated us.<br />
<br />
Germany had a good relationship with the Middle East; Britain (read British Petroleum) did not. In the 20th century the US would help Britain topple the elected ruler of Persia, and install the Pahlavi family to power, whose last ruler was the infamous Shah. The Shah's people were much more friendly to British Petroleum. I have to ask myself, If we had been with the Germans, would we have the strife in the Middle East? Sure, they point at our support of Israel as their point of hatred, but before the initiation of that state, they already hated us because we were Great Britain's right hand. What would the Middle East look like today if the Central Powers had won?<br />
<br />
When the US entered the war, we tipped the balance of power, and England and France, tired of Germany, not only demanded their surrender -- they demanded their humiliation. The "armistice" that was signed was nothing like the gentlemen's agreement of Appomattox Court House a half century earlier. It made Reconstruction look like a Sunday school picnic. England and France -- and New England -- wanted Germany's back broken. As a result, the nation was instantly forced into poverty. We all know what happened to the German mark -- a move that gave great profit to a group of American and European bankers who had colluded to organize a banking cartel that included the US Federal Reserve, only a few years earlier. <br />
<br />
Humiliated and smoldering, the Germans sought to restore their former glory. This need for restoration, for a return to hope, for anyone who could get them back to where they belonged, made them ripe to receive an eloquent young speaker named Adolf Hitler, in spite of their misgivings about his character. <br />
<br />
My contention is, if we had joined the Central Powers, there never would have been a Fuehrer, an attempt at a third Reich, or concentration camps. If we had joined the Central Powers, there never would have been the tension in the Middle East, mainly for two reasons. First, the Jews would not have had to leave Germany, and secondly, Great Britain would not have forced the formation of Israel. There were many ways to restore the ancient nation; Great Britain and the United Nations chose, possibly, the worst way of all. Imagine a world without Middle East extremism, without September 11. If we had joined the Central Powers, Germany would not have slipped an exiled Lenin back into Russia to ease their pressure on the eastern front. Russia was ripe for revolution against an evil royalty, but Lenin would not have been the one to topple them. And Stalin would not have been there to take his place, and since, in my scenario, WWII never happens, there would have been no divisions of Eastern Europe, no East and West Germany, no division of Berlin, no domination of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Bulgaria, Rumania, et. al. No Cold War. No Red threat. No McCarthy trials. No Korean War. No Vietnamese War. And no Gulf War.<br />
<br />
Oh, sure, I believe mankind has evil at his roots, especially when it comes to politics, and something wicked would have arisen to fill the vacuum, but something in me says it would not have been as bad.<br />
<br />
So why did we leave our neutrality and jump into a World War? As I said before, part of it was the sympathy of the New England region of the US. I'm sure Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Texas, and other states with their rich German heritage would not have insisted on the war. But the biggest part would have to be the strings that were being controlled by the banking cartels who controlled Western Europe and the United States. In 1913, everything had changed: the Federal Reserve took over our treasury, the Senate was selected by popular vote instead of state legislatures, and somehow, Americans "voted" for an amendment to allow the income tax. WWI was a huge boon for banking, oil, and those controlling it. Millions were to be made, and the debts after the war enriched bankers even more.<br />
<br />
What a different world it would be today if the US had sided with the Central Powers. I don't think we would have had to fire a shot. Britain and France, seeing their great potential Sugar Daddy join the other side, would have laid down arms and negotiated a peaceful settlement.<br />
<br />
And Adolph Hitler would have died in obscurity in Germany, a non-person. That would have been worth it, right there.Bruce Parsonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01836035281793854900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-24179352692353924442012-03-30T12:41:00.003-06:002019-01-04T18:14:35.305-06:00Information: Quality vs. QuantityI started thinking about this after something happened again, maybe for the hundredth time. I teach in a public school, and it's starting to be a trend. "Mr. Parsons," someone asks, "what is..?" The question can be anything. I prepare an answer, not as a peer across a lunch table, but as an educator. I want her to know not only "what?" but "why?" Mid-answer, she has turned away, is ignoring me, and maybe is even speaking to someone else now.<br /><br />The first time it happened, I wrote it off as mere rudeness. Her upbringing lacked something, I supposed. It was too bad; she was really a nice person. This year, I've seen it happen over and over, and now I think I know why. They have been conditioned to be this way.<br /><br />I don't mean "rude." They have been conditioned to gather information in this manner. I was from another generation. We wanted to learn, and there was always the understanding that those who were furnishing the learning not only knew the answers, but also knew <em>how to supply the answers</em>. In effect, our teachers had at least a partial control of our learning process.<br /><br />The current generation has been brought up on sound bites. Whether it was the highly entertaining Bill Nye, the "Science Guy," or the quick, MTV-style changes in subject, their attention spans have been trained to make hairpin turns and stop on a dime. Now, they have phones -- smart phones -- and they don't like waiting for information. There is a sense of entitlement to that information: "I want it now. I want exactly what I have asked for; nothing more, nothing less."<br /><br />When I was in the fifth grade we had a classroom set of World Books at the back of the room. Though they were missing the two most recent presidents, they were full of information. We were expected to use them as we wrote our "reports." Often, I would get distracted and stop at, say, "whales" on my way to "Whitman." I wanted to learn, and I liked the way that World Book not only supplied the information, but <em>supplied more than I had realized I wanted to know</em>.<br /><br />One day, I had finished my classroom work, and decided to pass the time as other fifth graders finished theirs. I went to the encyclopedias and picked out the nice, juicy "M," which was one of the biggest of the encyclopedias. I began to leaf through it, reading enthusiastically as I went. When my teacher discovered what I was doing, she asked why I had an encyclopedia, since we were not currently writing reports. I told her I was just reading it. I still remember her words: "Encyclopedias are for research; they are <em>not</em> for reading! Put that back now!"<br /><br />Years later I would enjoy the set we had as our children were growing up. I would watch my children do just what I had done: pick out a nice volume, and start reading through it. They were sponges wanting to absorb learning; why would I want to stop that?<br /><br />A week or so ago I learned that <em>Encyclopedia Britannica </em>has ceased production of its hard copies, opting for internet only. While I understand their reasoning, I lament the decision. They are a fine encyclopedia, one of the best. They offered their online site free for a short while. I had access to the abundant knowledge, constantly updated, but there is noBruce Parsonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01836035281793854900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-58135465503467674232012-03-02T14:45:00.002-06:002012-03-02T15:34:00.899-06:00Booby TrapsI've just finished another day of teaching. There is a culture war going on in my high school, and in most high schools. It's about the bracelets, the t-shirts, the belts, the book covers, and whatever else that say "I love boobies." As I type this I realize that I've never typed the word before unless I was referring to a South American bird common to the Galapagos Islands. But the word is everywhere.<br /><br />It's not permitted, of course, but that's just an encouragement to the kids here. Allegedly, these bracelets are heightening breast cancer awareness. In my school, at least, all they are heightening is "breast awareness." Boys who have never contributed a dime to a worthy cause are wearing one, two, or three of the bracelets, hiding them from principals and teachers.<br /><br />When someone gets caught and the bracelet is taken, the teacher or administrator, of course, is the villain, for not supporting "cancer awareness." I want to make a simple statement: those bracelets have done <strong><em>absolutely nothing</em></strong> to heighten any awareness of any type of cancer.<br /><br />I have been highly disillusioned about the whole cancer awareness thing. The Komen foundation has lost its significance. I feel I have a right to say this, being a cancer fighter myself. The cancer I am fighting -- leukemia -- is signified by a green ribbon. I'll bet you didn't even know there were any ribbons but the pink ones.<br /><br />Every year, we are told to "pink out" the school on a certain day, to wear pink instead of our school colors, and to buy pink ribbons. Komen has even made breast cancer a "feminine" issue, despite the fact that men die of the disease as well. <br /><br />Then there are those occasional "cutesie" statements you see on Facebook or hear in conversation: "I like mine on the car seat." "I like mine on the kitchen cabinet," etc. Or "seven inches," etc. Of course, all those suggestive little phrases are the "secret"things that only the girls know. Of course, the first one was, "Where do you keep your purse?" The second one was her shoe size, with the word "inches" added. These, of course, were designed to "heighten cancer awareness." Did they do that? Seriously? A few guys figured out the answers, and girls got mad and chewed them out; after all, this was just a "secret" among the girls.<br /><br />I'm still trying to figure out how these phrases heightened cancer awareness, since half the population was to mind its own business. How do sexually suggestive inside jokes heighten awareness?<br /><br />One beloved aunt of mine died of ovarian cancer; another of colon cancer. What the Komen Foundation has done is cheapen the fight against cancer; first, by making it a one-cancer issue, and second, by making it some type of feminist issue.<br /><br />As a male who wears a green ribbon, I don't like being left out. And I don't like the misappropriation of funds. Let family planning clinics do their own screenings, and I am all for it. The "Fight for the Cure," however, suggests research, resources, and a unified front to beat this awful monster that has invaded lives and families, rich and poor, black and white, young and old, liberal and conservative.<br /><br />Why are they wasting time with controversial bracelets that take our eyes off the fight? I would like to see an organization that really wants to "work itself out of a job," a group that wants to eradicate cancer the way Rotary International has worked in the last decade to eradicate the last vestiges of polio.<br /><br />And it's not going to be done with a "boobies" bracelet.Bruce Parsonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01836035281793854900noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-54314218528998541022011-11-23T14:51:00.002-06:002011-11-23T15:06:52.656-06:00Anonymous CowardsIt seems like it happens every day, and it happens everywhere: in the world of sports, of business, of politics, of justice. I hear the same words, that someone, "speaking on the condition of anonymity, said..." The concept of anonymity is a powerful protection in our culture. We have the secret ballot which encourages voting freedom. We have anonymous tips which lead to the apprehension of criminals.<div><br /></div><div>But the explanations given for a "condition of anonymity" speak volumes about the sad state of our current culture. Maybe it's a staffer for a political leader who doesn't want to lose his job; maybe it's a legal adviser for some company and the case is currently in litigation; maybe it's a member of a sports organization, and the leaders have not yet made the announcement official. In all these cases, I'm troubled by the implications. It says, "It's wrong to say this, but if I can hide behind something and be anonymous, I will tell you all about it."</div><div><br /></div><div>The preponderance of disloyalty astounds me -- that so many people who are working for someone, helping an organization, or participating in some movement will so easily "sell out" as long as their name is not on it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our nation seems to be filled with people who have no morals as long as they will get no blame. Is the only think that is keeping some people honest the fact that we know who they are? Of course, it is getting harder and harder to be anonymous in our society. Your phone has a caller ID; your computer has an IP address, and there is a good chance you were photographed several dozen times today as you walked about, minding your own business.</div><div><br /></div><div>Maybe there is some kind of "payback" involved in getting to say something anonymous. I have been a participant in a social network for several years. I won't say its name, but it starts with "F" and ends with "book," and of course, I realized that I would not be anonymous there; after all, who wants to be anonymous on a social network?</div><div><br /></div><div>But now, I am alarmed when I go to a news site such as CNN or USA Today, and find my status picture there, and a question: do I want to share this story on the social network? How did they know I was the same person? I used to have the same problem with Pandora until I re-set my privacy options there. I'm not ashamed of the music I listen to, but I am not vain enough to think that everyone wants to know what I'm listening to.</div><div><br /></div><div>The bottom line is, "We don't trust each other. At all." And when I am tempted to trust someone, I hear about some other source that has spoken under conditions of anonymity, and spilled the beans.</div><div><br /></div><div>What cowardice. If you can't say it in the light, why can you shout it in the dark? It's seen another way in the comment sections of forums and other sites. People say horrible, insulting things that I doubt they would say if they had to look anyone in the face. In an ever-growing i-culture, it's only going to get worse, as we interact in every way, buying and selling, voting and recommending, applying for jobs and learning in college courses. The applied anonymity of the internet allows us to be the kind of jerks that were tarred and feathered in the last century.</div><div><br /></div><div>No one talked to a neighbor like people talk to each other through an electronic mask. Anonymity is destroying what little decency we have left. I have realized the importance of never speaking unless everyone knows who I am and what I look like, and never speaking on a condition of anonymity. Why? Because I don't like those kind of people, and don't want to be under the same roof with one -- even if it's me.</div>Bruce Parsonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01836035281793854900noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-21009137785529364142011-11-22T11:45:00.001-06:002011-11-22T12:15:25.870-06:00Ok, It's Been a While...I could write a book on all the changes between my last post and this one, but suffice to say, things that were once of high importance to me no longer are quite that important, and things that I once took for granted are now highly important and essential to me.<br />
<br />
We don't begin to value life until we realize that it doesn't last forever; all human beings, with the possible exception of those who die quickly and unexpectedly in their youth, come to the point some day where, for the first time, they realize that they are finite, something they always knew in their heads, but never actually believed.<br />
<br />
I still have my opinions, politically, and I know who I really want to see in the White House in January of 2013, but frankly, even if I get my wish, it won't even make the top ten list of the most important things that are happening.<br />
<br />
So, I will be revving this blog back up. I am also going to delete some of the blogs that I have written that I don't think reflect my own opinion any more. If I can find a way to move some to a historical blog, I will move them there, because I love history and have more things to say.<br />
<br />
For those of you who followed this blog and gave up on me, I hope you will see this and come back. I have some more things to say, and I hope to get to do it.Bruce Parsonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01836035281793854900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-11376009432152945572010-06-28T07:50:00.005-06:002010-06-28T08:15:36.814-06:00I'm Invisible!I don't count. I know it now. When the new census figures come out, I will have nothing to do with congressional representation or even any of the ugly new innovations like federal funding and pork projects. All because I don't count.<br /><br />The census doesn't want me, apparently. It all started with the Super Bowl, where, if you are an American citizen, you watched with me as "we" paid a million bucks or so to present a largely boring, uninformative "commercial" about our responsibility to answer our census questions. They said the packet was coming.<br /><br />I waited for that packet. It never came. I saw all the guilt trips they paid for to shame us into sending a packet, and I faithfully watched my mailbox. It never came. I would have filled out the short questionnaire, but I never got one. Then I heard the threat: that if we didn't fill out the package, federal employees would come by and ask us the questions in person. Now, as we near the halfway point of this constitutionally-mandated census year, those people still haven't come by. Because to Washington, I obviously don't exist.<br /><br />I tried getting them to send me a packet or to come by. I went online and looked at the FAQ for the census, but evidently my question is not "frequently" asked: "What do I do if no one knows I'm here?" The site was replete with information about how to get jobs with the census and what was going to be done with the info, and how to recognize a valid census worker if one came by. But there was no information on how to get myself counted and on the census rolls.<br /><br />I don't exist. This isn't the first time I've found that out. When the entire US TV industry went digital, I found out I didn't qualify for one of those government-funded digital converters because I don't live in this house and I don't exist. But enough of that. If you want that story, you can read my other post on that<strong><a href="http://bubbleofsanity.blogspot.com/2008/07/digital-health-care-parable.html"> here</a></strong>. But I realize now that in Washington I don't exist.<br /><br />I keep hearing the boasting about what the census will do, but I seriously question the results we are going to receive. Every day I'm hearing about fraud, about fabricated figures and forged forms, and we all know about the partisan arguments that are coming when we finally get ready to crunch numbers. We have learned that in the double-speak of American partisan politics, numbers really don't mean anything until someone has "processed" them for us, made them palatable to the unwashed masses (read "anyone outside the Beltway").<br /><br />So do me a favor. When they give you the final numbers for the US population, add four to the total. That's how many people have not yet been reported here. This megabillion dollar debacle is not getting an accurate count at all. No one has even bothered to look for the people where I live. And they have not given us a way to get in touch with the rest of the world, even in cyberspace.<br /><br />Will I actually be represented in Congress for the next ten years? Why would that happen? It hasn't happened for a long time anyway. It's a strange feeling, being invisible and all, but I somehow think I'm not alone. How many millions of other people never got a form in the mail, were never visited by anyone? I know my name is on the roll somewhere. Publisher's Clearing House found me out here, even though I've never played their game. And DirecTV and Verizon Wireless and anyone else that can find <em>profit</em> out here. But let's face it: I'm not profit. I'm not a minority, nor do I represent any special interest group. I'm just me, and my wife and two kids currently living at home are just -- well, "they."<br /><br />Oh, I need to mention one more thing. I went by the local HQ of the census office that I found nearest my address. It looked like an old office, temporarily rented for the year. I went by making sure it was not a holiday or lunch hour. I thought I could just pick up a form there. I'll never know, however, if I could have gotten one.<br /><br />They were closed.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-5368080977144341852010-05-12T20:27:00.003-06:002010-05-12T20:53:43.449-06:00Dressed for Success?The strangest thing has been happening to me for the last ten years. I will be in a Home Depot looking for a saw, and a total stranger will approach me and ask where the light bulbs are. When I say "I don't know," he looks at me disgustedly and walks away. At the supermarket, I'm supposed to know where the pimentos are. A couple of months ago, I was on my way to Dallas and stopped at a popular convenience store along the interstate. I was getting a cup of coffee from the self-serve machine when a girl about twelve years old approached me and said, "We're out of cups," and pointed to the soft drink machine. My look of puzzlement is probably what caused her to clarify herself: "I need you to get some more."<br /><br />I looked around and all I saw were coffee cups. I pointed to the checkout counter, five deep in customers, and suggested she ask the clerk there. She turned back and addressed her mom, about six feet away, "He won't help me!"<br /><br />I used to think I must just have the "store employee" look. Some people say I constantly exude an air of self-confidence and poise, which is really a good act, because I seldom feel that way inside. For ten years I have accepted this as my cross to bear, that I look like a store manager, no matter where I am. It is only recently that I've figured out why I look like a middle-aged chain store manager.<br /><br />My epiphany came that day in the convenience store when I heard the angry mother say, "Well, let's find someone who will help us." She took her daughter by the hand, staring darts through me all the time. Her flip flops snapped angrily against her heels, and all I saw was Mom from the back, pink shorts and white tank top not quite covering the star tatoo that peeked out between them. I looked around the store and realized that I was the only one that was "dressed up."<br /><br />Don't get me wrong. I once went four whole years without wearing a tie. I don't usually have a coat and tie, nor nice slacks. The only reason my shoes are not from WalMart is because they don't carry large half-sizes, but I don't like to use three days' salary on shoes. I was not dressed like an executive. My problem was that I had on long pants, a nice button-type long-sleeved shirt that was tucked into those pants, and shoes with socks. If someone had been looking for a potential executive in the store, I came the closest.<br /><br />It's not "dressing up" that makes you obvious; when you don't "dress down," you stick out like a sore thumb. Long pants and a button shirt will get someone asking you where you keep the mayonnaise every time. It wasn't too long ago that everyone dressed up. Watch the black and white TV shows, and you find out that, evidently, in the fifties and earlier, even the bad guys -- the ones that murdered and stole and kidnapped -- didn't go out in the morning without their hair combed, a nice sport jacket with matching tie, and a hat to set the mood.<br /><br />When I first started to fly on commercial airlines, it appeared that people took time to dress up for the trip. I haven't flown in years now, but I realize that now, people don't bother to dress up to fly. Just a pair of warmups, or some shorts, sandals, and a worn-out witty saying t-shirt is all you need to get from Dallas to Chicago. I have also learned that people don't really see the need of a bath before flying, either.<br /><br />At one point, people dressed up to go out to eat. Maybe putting a nice jacket and tie on your eight-year-old son was a little much. I'll concede that. But now, that's not a problem. Many times my wife and I have looked forward to eating at a nice restaurant, and dressed for the occasion, only to later have the table next to us occupied by a couple who obviously just got off the tennis courts. Maybe I have a weak stomach, but a man's pasty white hairy leg does nothing for the KC sirloin that just got set in front of me. And he's set back from his table, leaning backwards, tennis shoe propped on the knee so I can see the whole show.<br /><br />We have a problem with customer service anyway. Not many people can find a locally owned store where the proprietor is someone you went to high school with, who takes pride in his store. Now the boss is usually upstairs on the phone with China while short term minimum wage kids walk the floors below. They don't know what size handle fits that particular hammer. Then here you come, probably dressed better than the guy upstairs talking to China, and you are swarmed by people hungry for customer service.<br /><br />Most Americans fear someone who dresses up. My wife, who enjoys dresses, has been asked before why she thinks she has to wear them all the time. It seems they make some people "nervous." I was once at a function where the host was appalled that I had worn jeans, which I felt were casual enough. He had on shorts, and thought I was deranged because I didn't. "Why didn't you wear shorts?" he asked. I wanted to tell them that it was because it had been a long time since I had been six, but I know times have changed. Before our little group set out on our jaunt, he excused himself for a moment, and returned with a pair of shorts for me. I smilingly pointed to my larger waist and the nice shoes I had, and said "I'll survive."<br /><br />People feel threatened when you "dress up." Churches seem ashamed of "Sunday go to meeting" clothes now, and some will even make you check your tie at the door; after all, we don't want to "run people off." It seems the only time we dress up now is when we are high school kids in academic competition, or adults who have to face the judge on a felony charge.<br /><br />Is it any wonder it's hard for my wife and daughter to find dresses? After all, no one buys them now. We are a generation who has forgotten the basic rules of body cover. When it's 25 degrees outside and I see a grown man at subway in shorts, sandals, and a "US Drinking Team" t-shirt, I know something has snapped somewhere.<br /><br />As long as I can find my wardrobe, I will continue to wear the clothes I like. It's who I am. Some day, I may have to go to Salvation Army or Goodwill to find them, but that's not too much of a problem. However, I really need to go back to the grocery store and memorize the aisles so I can tell the tattooed lady what aisle the toilet paper is on.<br /><br />But it's a small price to pay.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-1291878616564316102010-04-07T14:06:00.002-06:002010-04-07T14:34:42.385-06:00Who's Paying for This?Here is the latest update on who is <strong><em>not</em></strong> paying taxes: 47% of Americans. A direct quote from a story on <em>Yahoo News </em>today says, "About 47% will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions, and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization."<br /><br />Reading further in the article, we find the upper limits of tax freedom: "a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009, as long as there are two children younger than 17, according to a separate analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte."<br /><br />Let's review. First, nearly half of all Americans will pay no tax this year; secondly, it is possible to make as much as $50,000 and not have any tax liability at all. Why do I keep hearing about the "tax burden of the poor?"<br /><br />Now, let's do the math, and I will say up front that this is sloppy and inaccurate, since I am not an accomplished statistician. Let's just take, oh, one trillion dollars. That won't quite cover the "stimulus money" this year, and doesn't even touch anything else, like grants, subsidies, military spending, congressional and staff salaries, and the list could go on. Now, we are told that only a little more than half of all Americans will pay tax, and I assume that means those who would have been tax eligible. For argument's sake, let's round the population off to 300,000,000. Now, let's assume that the average family has three people, so let's say 100,000,000 families. Then, let's say that in every family, both wife and husband work and are tax eligible. That makes 200,000,000 potential taxpayers. Now, let's cut that in half, and say that there are only 100,000,000 that will pay taxes from last year. Let's be fair and divide <em>only the stimulus package</em> costs by those taxpayers. Let's see...that's $1,000,000,000,000 dollars and 00 cents, divided by 100,000,000. That comes out to a per-person tax burden of 10,000 dollars each. With two earners per family, that's 20,000 dollars burden per taxpaying family.<br /><br />Remember, this is just federal income tax, not FICA social security. Remember that this tax burden will be shouldered only by those who make $50,000 per year, more or less; that's a thousand a week. But also remember that, in my example, we have <em>two</em> earners, so it's actually much more. I'm even letting them live together without marriage so they can get that tax break; in spite of Republican promises, married people still pay more for the privilege of being married to each other.<br /><br />And again, remember that we've only paid for the "economic stimulus" package. I know my figures are <strong><em>way</em></strong> off, and sadly, they are off in the wrong direction. If we were only to pay for the "stimulus" bill, the per-person rate would actually be higher.<br /><br />We need to acknowledge that taxes are no longer the major source of revenue for our federal spending gone wild. Printing and electronic generation are where we are getting our money. The major purpose of income tax and the IRS is to regulate behavior -- behavior of businesses, organizations, and individuals. And now with "Health Care Reform," we find that the IRS will also be in charge of making sure we buy insurance out of our own pockets -- that is, those who are taxed. The rest of our country will be furnished all or part of their insurance by the half that work and earn, who invest and improve their positions.<br /><br />So, who is paying for this? Well, simply put, it would appear that 53% of you who read this are. Of course, literacy leans toward higher earning potential, so if you found this blog and are reading it, there is a good chance that more like 70-80% of you would appear to be paying for this. But the real answer is, "all of us," including our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on, because this rampant manufacture of artificial dollars will inflate prices and shrink the dollar to the point that a box of facial tissue will cost 20 dollars in a few years; of course, we've already had a taste of that since it already costs that much in a hospital room right now.<br /><br />And now we have the truth about the IRS in its fullest form. The "I" is not true, since this is not "internal," but a private firm, unelected and un-approved, doing the work of collecting money; the "S" is silly, since it is not a "service" at all. Services provide things. The IRS doesn't even provide billing, receipts, or tax counseling. And the "R" is also false. There is no "revenue" in this work. The major source of revenue is coming from somewhere else. <br /><br />I will continue to "render unto Caesar" since my faith and ethics tell me to. But my citizenship in this country, for now, allows me to speak out. I don't want to shoot anyone, nor do I want to break the law. But I would be remiss in my duties if I did not speak up.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-54883348763986648732010-03-23T09:13:00.004-06:002010-03-23T09:51:45.457-06:00My Plan to Get RichI had been planning this for a while, but now that the last brick is in place with universal health care, I'm ready to jump in with both feet. I found out why I'm having trouble making ends meet: I'm too rich. I am one of the greedy, filthy class that actually wants to pay for things out of my earnings, but this will happen no more.<br /><br />I'm currently working two jobs, and that's two jobs too many. I have discovered some wonderful things that can replace those jobs:<br /><ul><li>Lonestar. Not the beer or the state. It's a magic card. I only noticed one recently. There is a secret slot in the Walmart check out line. If you run a card down the highly visible slot, you will lose money. A Lonestar card goes into a less obvious slot before you buy, and just stays there. Then the checker scans items and if it beeps, you get billed zero, and get to take the item home. Sometimes it makes another noise, and you have to pay for that, but it's not too bad. I figure that card could save us a couple of thousand per month. Money that I plan on not making any more.</li><li>Section 8. I thought that was what Klinger wore a dress for, and it was to get out of the army. But now I know better. When you get a section 8, someone else pays your rent and utilities. I see apartments advertising that they welcome "section 8" people, so they must be a popular bunch. I could live in a house without having to pay any rent or utilities. Now there's a money saver. I wonder if they help with cable.</li><li>1040 EZ. I don't get to file one of those because I have too many jobs and make too much money. I have to file the regular 1040, the one that penalizes stupid people like me for trying to make it on my own. You go to one of those cash advance places, and they look downright disappointed when you show them the 1040 instead of the EZ, because they know there's less money to be skimmed from you with that thing. But after I quit my jobs, I will be able to get an EZ. It's free and at the post office. I looked this year for the schedule C, the SE, and some forms starting with the number "8" that I had to use, that the post office doesn't have them. Next year, I'm getting a free EZ from the post office, and sending it in. I expect money.</li><li>Tax credits. I have been so stupid. I did not realize that if you <em>earn</em> money, you have to pay the government, but if you don't, the government pays <em>you!</em> Millions of Americans this year will get money from the IRS even though they didn't pay taxes. All you have to do is quit earning and this money can be yours. Now I did get some tax credits for the three kids I have in college, but those jobs messed me up again. If I don't have these two jobs, I will get more help for my kids. But if the don't, I'm thinking about telling them about this too. They will like me more. I'm always on their case about getting a job, about working harder. No more of that. My goal for all my kids is that they be able to sum up their lives on a 1040 EZ every year, and get paid for it. And get medical care. And a house.</li></ul><p>It has been a real wake-up call for me. I cannot believe how stupid I have been. When I think about all the time I could have stayed home while my kids were growing up, how I could have tended my yard and read some good books and watched Oprah, I realize that I have thrown my life away. The benevolent government tried to educate me with this, but I had listened to my grandparents and been brainwashed. I thought people still earned money and used it to take care of themselves.</p><p>I'm kind of old to be starting, but I'm going to be a good citizen from now own. I will trust my loving, benevolent, big government to care for me. I will trust them for a roof, heat and cooling, and a meal on my table (I wonder where I go to get a free table to put it on?)</p><p>My moment of awakening happened this week. I have been wasting several hundred dollars a month on insurance, and still, when we go to the doctor, I have to add to that. I have been tempted to just quit paying insurance, but Nancy Pelosi says that, since I still make money, I can be sent to jail for doing that.</p><p>But no problem. I'm quitting both my jobs. I will no longer be earning. I'm getting a section 8 and a Lonestar, and I'm going to use a 1040 EZ so I can get money in April. The icing on the cake is that I will also be getting medical care. It will be so nice not to have those monthly insurance payments any more. All I have to do now is go to a clinic and show them my government card. They will take care of me.</p><p>In case you are wondering about other items, don't worry. I am not letting my wife quit her job. It will be enough to take care of the things I want, like a car and a DVD player to connect to my 60 inch television that I'm going to buy with my EZ money next year. If I can't find any way to get the government to pay for my gas, she can. She can also buy some luxuries and other nice things. If she can't pay for these things, I'm counting on those of you who still have jobs to take up the slack, because that's your responsibility.</p><p>I'm just sorry I took so long to get with the program. I'm going house-hunting as soon as I quit my jobs. But don't worry, readers. I will keep in touch. This computer is going with me. I believe it's every American's right to have unlimited high-speed internet. For those of you who work, like I used to, well, it's your privilege to pay for it. Thanks in advance.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-9674219775303512162010-01-27T11:20:00.002-06:002010-01-27T12:10:55.400-06:00Much Ado Over Nothing?Everybody get ready to duck! America as we know it is about to be irreversibly damaged! Is it a threat from Iran? Is it a new plan by the Taliban? No, it's much more subtle than that. It is an attempt at brainwashing that will sneak into our living rooms through the TV screen. This propaganda will slither through and past a modicum of entertainment, and most vulnerable, innocent Americans will never know what hit them. They will be at their most susceptible, full of chips and dip, sandwiches and pizza, colas and beer. Some will feel guilty because they skipped church or lied to the night shift coordinator about being sick.<br /><br />Then, it will come onto the horizon, when we least expect it, like an Al-Quaeda attack. Maybe it will just be a lull in the action, or an official time out to review a pass play to see if the receiver had control of the ball, when suddenly, <strong><em>BOOM</em></strong>, it will detonate right in front of our families, our dear friends, our children, our pets!<br /><br />It will look innocent enough, of course. One of the people will look like a middle-aged grandmother type, the kind that makes you an apple pie or serves samples on a toothpick at Costco. Standing near her will be a dashing young man, handsome, athletic, likeable -- wait a minute -- that's a <em>football player!</em> Tim Tebow and his mom are actually agents of a subversive group that wants to control your mind, impose their archaic, outdated beliefs on you.<br /><br />Actually, we don't know yet what they will say. The commercial has never been seen. They may say "eat your vegetables" or something like that, but the "hot buttons" of this event have already sent Those Who Are Sworn to Protect Us from the Cradle to the Grave (short version: "white liberals") into a pre-emptive frenzy to save us from the damage this unlikely pair will do.<br /><br />Let's cut to the chase. Basically, Jehmu Greene, "spokes-person" in opposition to this commercial, along with "women's" groups, would like you to know the truth: <strong><em>Tim Tebow did not deserve to live.</em></strong> A medical professional had told his mother that she needed to abort, and that foolish woman did not obey the doctor's advice, and went ahead and gave birth to the little parasite. <br /><br />There is a huge uproar. CBS is being condemned for accepting the $2 million plus that the ad will cost. Thirty seconds for a mother to tell about choosing life. Now I've never seen the commercial either, but I'm willing to bet paper money that she will not say a word about shooting doctors, picketing clinics, or even overturning Roe v Wade. She's just going to say, probably, something like "I chose to have my son and I'm glad I did."<br /><br />This is very uncomfortable for the so-called pro-"choice" people, who refuse to think that Pam Tebow made a "choice" as well. They are much more comfortable talking about a fetus, about a woman's freedom, about "rape, incest, and life of the mother." They do not like candidates for abortion who win Heisman trophies and national championships, who get college degrees. This makes them very antsy.<br /><br />So, the outcry continues. In an article in USA Today, columnist Michael Hiestand actually said this will be "the most controversial TV ad -- perhaps the only really controversial ad -- to ever air during America's biggest TV show." I have so many questions for Michael, but I guess we will get to the big one: Michael, have you ever even <strong><em>watched</em></strong> any Super Bowl commercials? One that comes to mind would suffice, I guess. A couple of years ago, one commercial featured two "manly" types working on a car who began to eat the same Snickers bar, and it ended in a man-to-man kiss, followed by both guys trying to do something "masculine." This commercial would be a good candidate for Guinness' record book. It made <em>everybody </em>mad -- conservatives, Christians, and on the other side, gay and lesbian groups.<br /><br />But that commercial is nothing, it appears, compared to the one that will air this year. A mother will tell about the decision to give birth. Now <em>that's controversial!</em> The very idea that the media would even call this controversial shows how out of touch they are with real human beings. Every year, real people wade through the famous Super Bowl commercials. Whether it's busty women advertising a job website, clumsy fools touting their own brand of beer, or the Mormons wanting to send you "Bible: the Sequel," everyone gets a say.<br /><br />The Left is the first to demand "First Amendment" rights. That means that Rosie O'Donnell can complain on "The View" that she cannot marry her girlfriend. That means that anything is fair game, unless, of course, you don't agree with the Left. Then all bets are off.<br /><br />Some people have even complained about "Focus on the Family" spending 2.8 million dollars for a thirty second ad. After all, that money could have gone to help the poor in Haiti, they add, kind of like our friend Judas whining about the oil poured on Jesus' feet (see my earlier blog post).<br /><br />Maybe they have a point. That much money could go a long way in Haiti. But remember, people are going to spend that much touting beer and colas, job sites and semi-clad women, candy and chips and who knows what else. What about the players, many of whom make much more than $2.8 million for playing a kid's game. Then there are those skybox seats, valued in the thousands and tens of thousands, or just the regular stadium seats, any of which could buy several Haitian families a week's worth of meals.<br /><br />How about the obscene amount of money that will be paid to "The Who," singing middle-aged songs from the seventies while a multi-million dollar spectacle of lights and fireworks explodes around them. You know, a marching band would have done the halftime show for free, and all that money could have gone to Haiti.<br /><br />Hypocrisy, thy name is liberalism. I imagine a sheriff in the old West. He tells the posse, "string him up. He looks like he wants to steal a horse." The Left has done that. They want this thirty seconds of life silenced! Banned! Outlawed!<br /><br />And they haven't even seen the commercial.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-73450979776916101142010-01-19T15:24:00.003-06:002010-01-20T13:37:19.943-06:00Something's Wrong HereThis is not an original thought with me, but it expresses just how I feel. A blogger in another forum today said, and I paraphrase, "Here I sit in Texas, worried about a senatorial election in Massachusetts, and I realize this is not the way it's supposed to be."<br /><br />I feel exactly the same way. The design of the Constitution is such that a Texan should have absolutely no concern over a Massachusetts senatorial election. Even a neighboring state like New Mexico or Louisiana should not concern a Texan.<br /><br />Yet today, and I write this before the outcome of the Massachusetts contest for Kennedy's throne is known, the whole nation is holding its breath over this one special election for a partial senate term. Both sides of the aisle are pulling for the win. Special interests from all over the country have been in the state pushing their side of the issue. The president of the United States has gone to Massachusetts to plead his case, and our special envoy to Haiti, the honorable William J. Clinton, last week after the earthquake in Port au Prince, flew to Massachusetts for what he saw as a greater disaster, a deeper crisis: that Ted Kennedy's heir apparent seemed to have dropped her crown.<br /><br />In the original design of the constitution, states were to conduct their own business, including commerce, health care, education, et al, but somewhere -- some<em>when</em>, the monster of federalism has reared its ugly head.<br /><br />It is preposterous that a Massachusetts senatorial election should send aftershocks to Texas, or for that matter, that a Texas senatorial election should send them to Massachusetts, but that is the sad state of affairs in our nation today. During the Lincoln administration, a grammatical change was imposed on our country. Before Lincoln, the correct sentence was, "The United States <em>are</em>..." Since that time, it has been "The United States <em>is</em>..."<br /><br />Before, we were a union of states, unified for the purpose of mutual defense and support. We relegated such important issues as the coinage of money, the making of treaties with foreign nations, and the declaration of war to the federal government, an entity which could do nothing without the permission of the states.<br /><br />Somewhere in and around the 14th Amendment, that perception changed. Now, the states are minor principalities that can do nothing without the permission and consent of the federal government.<br /><br />So, we have a monstrous "health care bill," as some like to call it. It is full of pork, bribes, corruption, and under-the table deals. Both Massachusetts and Texas will have to fork over extra money -- we're talking several zeroes -- to Nebraska and Louisiana because two senators were bought for their votes. We all have to pay for the bribes.<br /><br />This bill, which is now despised by both rank and file Democrats and Republicans, is being forced upon us by a beltway minority who are determined to have their way. Harry Reid is so despised in his own state that he may not survive his own party's primary, and he certainly will not survive past the November elections, and this lame duck has been put <em>in charge</em> of this Jabba-the-Hutt legislation.<br /><br />So I sit in Texas and shouldn't even care what they do in Massachusetts, but along with sane people, both Democratic and Republican, I am concerned. We have seen what a super-majority can do on either side of the aisle, and it is not pretty.<br /><br />Would it have been this way even a hundred years ago? Probably not. In 1910, each state decided how to select senators; most of them were chosen by their states' legislatures. It is safe to say that, if that were still the process, maybe 75% of the senators we have today would be doing something else. Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd would certainly have not experienced their obscenely long terms in office.<br /><br />The constitution was not meant to be this way, and it was the seventeenth amendment, passed in 1912, that diluted the purpose of the senate, turning it into a "light" version of the house, with longer terms of office.<br /><br />When this election is finally decided in Massachusetts, it will heavily influence how we live in Texas, in California, in Alaska and Hawaii, and in all the other 49 states. Seriously, a senatorial election in Massachusetts should not even affect life in Maine or Connecticut.<br /><br />We need a revival of the tenth amendment. States need to be allowed to do what they were intended to do. Be it prohibition, the income tax, or the fugitive slave law, every time the federal government has taken over a state issue, even with good intentions, it has only made things worse. Do we want our health care, flawed as it is, to be run by the same people who have given us the IRS, the US Postal Service, and Amtrak? Who really wants that?<br /><br />I am not nearly as bothered about who might or might not win tonight in Massachusetts as I am bothered about the fact that it even concerns my way of life in Texas. It ought not to be so!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-27597129096075127422010-01-15T11:49:00.005-06:002010-01-15T13:49:15.090-06:00Dropping the Ball Big-Time<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PieSoxB_RtQ/S1DGcgdiJjI/AAAAAAAAAEM/TGCs1lK6DFk/s1600-h/largeimage_680a31a55ffe2642ab27872e89bb8bdf.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 458px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 285px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5427055744033891890" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PieSoxB_RtQ/S1DGcgdiJjI/AAAAAAAAAEM/TGCs1lK6DFk/s320/largeimage_680a31a55ffe2642ab27872e89bb8bdf.jpg" /></a><br /><div>I did not think it was possible to do it this fast. Oh, I knew it was possible to accomplish, but this was a speed record. In one of my earliest posts in this blog, I commented on the Republican party and the great election sweep of 1994, which was followed by a Republican president in 2001. Suddenly, this party was in the driver's seat: both houses of congress, the White House, and the prospects of three or four new Supreme Court justices.<br /><br />They had a mandate including such new ideas as the "Contract with America," involfing term limits, the line item veto, and a return of tenth amendment power to the states. But what happened when they got there? It must be the swampy air of the Potomac. It seems that most people's minds lose IQ points when they get to Washington.<br /><br />Fast forward to 2008. The Republicans had already lost their majorities; now they lost the White House, and gave up even more congressional and senate seats. I looked back on those fourteen Republican "golden years," and I could find nothing -- <strong><em>nothing </em></strong>-- of the "Contract with America." What we had was greed, pork, corruption, increased spending, and general incompetence. Their brightest new stars, such as J.C. Watts and Steve Largent, had disappeared earilier, seemingly disillusioned by "business as usual" politics of their own party in the Capitol cloakroom. The "pro-life" party had allowed abortion in America to increase; the "pro-family" party had stood by apathetically as radical "gay" rights groups had made violent invasions into the institutions of family, religion, education, and state.<br /><br />But it took Republicans fourteen years to make a shambles of their party. Democrats will do it in two. They may be candidates for <em>Guiness' Book of World Records. </em>Whether I agree with their principles or not, they have failed miserably to accomplish anything at all. The war continues, and they promised it would be over. All of the special interest groups: abortion rights feminists, gays and lesbians, and government-controlled education radicals, have all been disappointed. Many now call Mr. Obama "Bush-Lite," and wonder what happened to the other people that they sent to Washington in the November sweep of 2008.<br /><br />One case in point is the obscene "health care" bill, which no one has read, the majority of Americans don't want, and whose contents are being kept "top secret" by Reid and Pelosi. The bill has already cost us more than we can imagine, and if it comes to pass, the gigantic pork-filled earmarks will bankrupt our descendants four generations from now. We have watched them spend over two trillion dollars with no visible improvement to the economy, the job situation, or the general welfare of Americans. The only ones who seem to have benefited at all are those large Wall Street businesses and money-collecting banks that the Democrats told us were so evil and were in "cahoots" with Republicans.<br /><br />Harry Reid's numbers are so low that even though he's from Nevada, I don't know how his own Las Vegas could give him any odds on winning. Yet he says it's all "okay." Massachusetts, where I didn't even know any Republicans lived, including Mitt Romney, the Democratic party has been seriously embarrassed. Scott Brown may not win next week, but the fact that the Democratic Party has ramped up money and publicity to try to protect "Ted Kennedy's seat" says to me that the Republicans have already won this election, even if Brown does not, by making it an actual race. Most people, conservatives included, thought it would be a coronation for Kennedy's heir apparent. The very idea that it is even close is frightening to the Democratic party, which really thought it had been given a <em>carte blanche</em> by American voters.<br /><br />The free-wheeling spending, the abuse of power, and the wholesale breaking of promises has destroyed the faith that the electorate put in the Democratic party in 2008. Everywhere you look, you hear of "buyer's remorse," especially among independents.<br /><br />America has even been disillusioned by the so-called "independents." Whether they are "blue dog" Democrats like Nebraska's Ben Nelson, pseudo-Republicans like Arlen Specter claimed to be, or self-aggrandizing fence-sitters like Joe Leiberman, we have realized that these people were not really "independent" thinkers, but people who realized their significance as "swing votes" and used that power to obtain special favors. Nelson is probably the biggest traitor with a close second being Louisiana's Mary Landrieu, who both pretended to have the interest of the nation at heart, to be fiscal conservatives and social moderates, but who, when offered literally hundreds of millions of dollars in state pork, quickly abandoned their own convictions and those of their constituencies for a bribe.<br /><br />We have watched as Democratic leaders have cut special deals for special interest groups. Perhaps the most obscene is organized labor, which was rightfully incensed at the tax penalty that is proposed for those who actually have good health insurance. They were quick to back down when the Senate leadership promised them that unions would be exempt for a few years.<br /><br />This Democratic session has been anything but "democratic." They have lived off the "me first" mentality that they were so fond of accusing Republicans of having in the Reagan years. What we as Americans have to look forward to is an ever-burgeoning, gigantic debt, which realistically, any economist will tell you our collected taxes can not even pay the interest on the interest of what we owe. This bill will further erode what little medical care we have in rural areas -- any district of less than 250,000 people -- and consequently will further crowd and congest the hospitals and emergency rooms of our metropolitan areas.<br /><br />Republicans are gleefully clapping their hands at the gains they will make in November, but most Americans are not. Republicans will gain ground, of course, but we had a fourteen year lesson in what will happen to them. As I see the same tired, failed poster children of the last Republican takeover, Newt Gingrich being their leader, I realize that we have nothing to look forward to in this party.<br /><br />The best we can hope for in current conditions is a "draw." We need a 50/50 senate, and a house with a less than ten margin either way. Such close numbers tend to deflate partisan arrogance and encourage the bipartisan cooperation that we heard Democrats boasting about so much in early 2009.<br /><br />But can I close this by dreaming a little? What we <strong><em>really</em></strong> need is a purge. We need to vote out incumbents in both houses. The best way to do it, of course, would be to put third party candidates in the house and senate. I'm not talking about "independents." There is a special arrogance there, and I haven't really seen an indepentent recently who wasn't either a traitor to his former party or a boot licker to it. Some have even been both.<br /><br />What we need is to elect people from identifiable third parties. The Libertarian and Constitution party come to mind, though if you are more to the left, there are others, such as the Green party that I guarantee will do more for environmental causes than any Democrat with lobby money in his pocket.<br /><br />At the very least, Americans should seriously consider other political parties besides the "big two." Republicans and Democrats, in spite of all their differences, work together on one issue: keeping third parties off state ballots. Even if you don't want to vote for them, you can sign petitions, or start one, to get more parties permanently on your state's ballot. Encourage people to run for positions at all levels in these parties. The Democrats and Republicans are counting on you to ignore the other columns on the ballot. They both want "status quo," and we will never get any new, fresh ideas until we are willing to break out of the two party mold.<br /><br />My dream for a better America is to wake up on a January morning where no political party has a majority, where politicians must come together and work out bills, rather than draw up obscene agreements behind locked doors. It is a dream I hope to see fulfilled in my lifetime. It is a dream that would make me supremely happy next January.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-67773455318510687832009-12-21T11:13:00.009-06:002009-12-21T13:02:07.474-06:00The "Judas Factor" in Liberal Politics<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PieSoxB_RtQ/Sy-vvR8rgHI/AAAAAAAAAEE/54rVwR64mjc/s1600-h/woman-wash-feet-01.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 259px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417742103556620402" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PieSoxB_RtQ/Sy-vvR8rgHI/AAAAAAAAAEE/54rVwR64mjc/s320/woman-wash-feet-01.jpg" /></a><br /><div>It's a well-known story even by those who never went to Sunday school. Shortly before Jesus' crucifixion, a woman anointed his feet with expensive perfume. Judas Iscariot was enraged. "Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" he asked. A denarius was a day's wage back then, so, not counting weekends (Sabbath Day off), the woman had apparently poured a year's salary on one man's feet.</div><div></div><div>At first glance, you have to think that old Judas was a humanitarian at heart, a philanthropist who wanted to see social justice. Isn't it nice that he was concerned, first and foremost, about all those poor people? However, John, who had spent three years observing Judas, comments immediately afterward, "This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box, and he used to take what was put in it." These verses, by the way, are taken from John 12:3-6 in the <em>New King James Version</em> of the Bible, but I suppose they read similarly in any translation you might have at hand.</div><div></div><div>So, why do I bring up a Bible lesson in my political forum? Because I have seen this same activity in the political workings of congress. For nearly a century, liberal politicians have hidden behind the "poor." Every time a conservative opposes a socialist policy or an excessive spending bill, we are reminded of how this person is "hurting the poor."</div><div></div><div>This past week, that has been the main outcry against those who oppose the gigantic, irreversible, debilitating Socialized Medicine bill that will be the magnum opus of this liberal-dominated congress before a large percentage of them are ousted in 2010. In spite of the fact that every poll, every survey, shows a majority of Americans are against this crime against our policies, our morals, and our pocketbooks, these elected "representatives" are bound and determined to push it through before Christmas. </div><div></div><div>Some have unashamedly given the reason for the rush. They know that the public does not want this bill, and are afraid that some of their cohorts might be influenced by the people who voted for them when they go home for the Christmas break.</div><div>And what do they say of these people? That we are "against the poor." This medical bill is to "help the poor." It's an easy tag to put on any liberal legislation, on any spending bill, on any dip into a private citizen's pocket book or bank account, any claim against your or my hard-earned money: "It's for the poor!"</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Why do I want to compare liberal politics with Judas? Well, for several reasons. Like Judas, they control the "money box." Have you ever seen what they do to money when they get it? Do you know how much money is "on deposit" in your social security funds? The same amount there has always been: nothing. If Social Security were a private finance company, the SEC would have shut them down years ago, and those in charge would be in prison. But every time you hear of an attempt to privatize it or reform it, you hear the liberal chant: "They want to take money out of our Social Security funds! They want to starve the poor!" This is said with one hand raised in the air; the other is firmly ensconced in the money bag, looking for any coin that happens to fall in.</div><div></div><div>I think there is no difference between them and Judas: they are thieves, and take whatever is put in the money box. Do you think it's too harsh for me to call them thieves? What would your boss call you if you took money out of petty cash and used it to buy a DVD player? What would your family think if you took butter and egg money and bought lottery tickets? What would the guys at the office think if you took the football pool money and used it to buy tickets for yourself to the Super Bowl? I think "thief" would be mild. But that's exactly what your elected officials do every day.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>This medical bill is being enacted, allegedly, with your consent. No one but Harry Reid and a select few have even been allowed to look at the Senate version of it. But it is filled with pork, including billions for "moderate" Democrats to use in their own states in exchange for a "yes" vote. Recently I wrote of Democrats with a spine who brightened up the Senate chamber. One by one, they have all been bought off, even the non-democrat Leiberman. </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>It's not that these "moderates" were not corrupt. Just like some members of the "oldest profession," their price was just a little higher than normal.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Some people might call them "Judases" because they have betrayed those who sent them to Washington, those who have supported them, and our own constitution. But I call them Judases because they bear a striking resemblance to the prototype: harping about the "poor" when all they are really thinking about is how to get their hands on more money.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>If you really think that this gigantic, pork-laden, "Jabba-the-Hutt" medical bill is going to guarantee you good insurance, lower medical bills, better care, and liberty and justice for all, I will leave you to your naivete. You probably also think that Amtrak is making money, that the US Postal service is financially sound, that the IRS raises money for the maintenance of government operations, and that there is a million dollars in the vaults of the Social Security Administration with your name on it, just waiting until you turn 65.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Look what a great job government has done for the "poor" in the past 50 years. From Johnson's "war on poverty" up to these programs today. The only thing I can see that they have done for the poor is to <strong><em>make a lot more of them</em></strong>. The percentage of poor people in America has risen steadily since the government got involved in "helping" them. Every year, the number of poor is higher, and the threshold of poverty is higher.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Well, until this year. The liberal leadership is now recommending that we re-adjust the figures and raise those threshold numbers. The results will be, of course, that "poverty" will go down, according to the figures, in the next year. But that won't feed anyone or find them a job.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>This medical bill has the possibility of putting even a greater number of Americans into a poverty situation. There will be higher taxes, increased medical costs, and the exciting new experience of jail time if you do not purchase insurance. Medicare and Medicaid are already miserable failures, but we have only seen the beginning. Now they will be disasters as their coffers of red ink are raided to finance new medical programs.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div> </div><div> </div><div>I think maybe somewhere, in the back of his twisted mind, Judas Iscariot may have still had a conscience. He may have actually thought that the poor needed help. I do not see even the standards of Judas being met by our current elected leadership. They have one goal, and that is to get their fingers into more of the gross domestic product, and take a little more of what you and I have earned this year to fund pet projects, and at the same time, to make us all a little more dependent on government to keep us alive. I cannot help but think of the hapless Winston Smith in Orwell's classic, <em>1984</em>. It was this book that introduced us to "Big Brother." It's what your government wants to be to you. After all he had been through -- torture, threats, and brain washing -- Winston Smith finally came to the point that your elected official wants to be. The last line of the story says, "He loved Big Brother."</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-27143749779960003172009-12-03T08:44:00.004-06:002009-12-03T11:08:23.828-06:00Two Opposites Who Need DefendingThe past week has not been kind to two people: President Barack Obama and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (I could add Tiger Woods but I prefer to only include people who work for a living and are not billionaires in this post). Though they are opposite ends of the political spectrum, both have been unjustly lambasted by the media for recent events beyond their control.<br /><br />Obviously, Mr. Obama inherited two wars. I will concede that he knew when he ran for president that he would get them if he won the election. He also made some promises that anyone who is rational knew he could not keep, but we can understand that he made those promises with the naivete of one who had not yet sat in the oval office and been briefed by those who really know what's going on.<br /><br />His decision this past Tuesday was a difficult one, and a valiant effort. He wants to get our troops home, but he wants them to bring victory home with them. He acknowledges that the cost is time, money, and sadly, the lives of more troops from the 30,000 that he is sending to Afghanistan. He is right that, had we concentrated on Afghanistan instead of going after Saddam (Red Herring) Hussein, we could have made a permanent difference in Afghanistan. We also need to remember that close to 500 legislators at the time thought we needed to go to Iraq, so this is not one person's "mistake," or whatever we want to call it. However, we have now been in Afghanistan twice as long as the Russians were, and we boycotted the Olympics over the Russian occupation.<br /><br />We can debate the propriety of those two wars at some other time, but just or unjust, these wars were not started by the current administration, and I'm hoping that like Richard Nixon, Barack Obama can end a war he inherited. He might not like being compared to Mr. Nixon, but he has a lot in common with him. He's about to get blamed for the deaths and destruction of war, if the political cartoons of today are any indication. His popularity has declined over this, and an ABC commentator I listened to during the speech on Tuesday (I think it was Stephanopoulis, but I'm not sure), said that Obama had made this war "his war."<br /><br />Obama very intelligently addressed those who call Afghanistan "another Vietnam." He presented three reasons it wasn't. First, he said, this is a response to a direct attack on our country; second, our enemies are not waging a popular war in their own country with the support of the locals, as the Viet Cong did. I would have replaced his third reason with the following: We are fighting this war with an all-volunteer armed forces.<br /><br />We must never forget that in these current two wars, no one has dragged anyone out of college, job, or family and forced them to go overseas and wage an unpopular war against an unknown enemy for an ungrateful non-ally. Obama did well on Tuesday night in presenting his case, and he deserves a chance to finish what someone else started.<br /><br />Unlike the war, I do think he is responsible for the economy, and he did not "inherit" our current economic situation, which is a couple of trillion dollars past the point he stepped in. But the war is another matter, and the worst thing he could have done would have been to do what he naively promised in 2008, pulling out all our troops and letting both countries figure out what to do next. Had he done that, we would not only be hated by the legitimate governments of Iraq and Afghanistan and their neighbors, but also by our NATO allies who have sacrificed time, money, and lives in what is really "our" war. I will also back up and say that he mentioned intensifying the efforts in Afghanistan while campaigning, so this should come as no surprise to anyone. Nevertheless, he did not begin this war, and unfortunately, the last administration put the Afghanistan war on a sort of "standby" for several years while our nation went after a more visible opponent. I always wondered about the Iraq thing, but was sure that our president at the time, and 400-500 legislators knew more about it than I did. Apparently, they did not.<br /><br />Now we pass on to Mr. Huckabee, who has shown the hand of the media in two ways this past week. First, they have revealed how much they despise him, which is no surprise since he is way too far to the right for most of the media. The second one surprised me, though. They obviously consider him a legitimate, viable threat to win the presidency. They must, because they are pulling out the "big guns." Economically, Huckabee is very close to Ron Paul, but the media leaves him alone because they don't see him having a chance. The sad and unfortunate coffee shop murders of last Sunday are a tragedy; everyone agrees about that. But if you just read CNN, MSNBC, ABC, et al, and especially if you are just a headline reader, you would think that Huckabee walked around Arkansas with a master key, letting criminals go.<br /><br />Mike Huckabee let no one go. Not even close. He commuted the sentence of a teenaged offender from 105 years to about half that, and left the rest up to the proper agency to decide who stays and who walks, a parole board. The man who killed four officers in a coffee shop had been through the revolving doors of courts and jails of at least two states, and judicial irresponsibility was the reason he was walking free last Sunday. He was free on bond after attempted child rape. Huckabee commuted the sentence of a teenager, hoping to give him a life; a Washington court let a child rapist walk free.<br /><br />Huckabee noted that if the youth had been from a middle class white family, there would not have been a 105-year sentence handed out. Hey, wait a minute. Social justice! According to the media, a Republican has no business meddling with that! I've noticed that nothing has really been said about Huckabee's compassion toward a young African-American that he felt had been a victim of imbalance and injustice. In the same state, I'm sure Mr. Clinton would have been applauded for this.<br /><br />It's hypocritical of the press to even bring this up. We only need to remember th 1988 Willie Horton incident. The press cried "foul" over that one. Some mindless sheep even painted it as a racist issue, though I, as one citizen, only knew Horton was a murderer who had been granted a weekend vacation. I had never seen his picture, and had no idea what color he was, even if that mattered. Dukakis had allowed Horton some "time off" from prison, and he killed someone during that time little vacation. If it was wrong for the Bush 41 campaign to make a note of this, how much more has it been wrong for the press to exaggerate the Huckabee commutation into a pardon. I saw a <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em> headline online this morning that said, "Huckabee Handed Out Pardons Like Candy." Not only is that irresponsible and amateur journalism (I hate to cheapen the word by using it here), it is outright vilification. By the way, I did read the article as well, and the writer had no idea what had really happened. She had read a few press clippings, less than I have read on the issue.<br /><br />Huckabee has been -- and is -- a decent man, whether he is fit to be president or not. He was the most honest candidate the Republicans had to offer, and did not resort to the lowly attacks of his colleagues in both major parties. He does not deserve the slander that is being passed as "news." It's obvious that the media does not want him as president.<br /><br />And on this, I agree with the media, but for entirely different reasons. I have seen what they do to presidents and candidates. I have seen the outright vilification they have even given the "darling of the media" this week, and realize now that even Obama, if he refuses to be their puppet on a string, will be crucified by the left-leaning press. I don't want to see them do it to a fellow human being like Mike Huckabee. I would like to see him continue where he is now, a public figure with the ear of a vast multitude of people, making sense out of nonsense, and always doing it like a decent human being.<br /><br />A president cannot be a decent human being anymore. Our society won't let him. Mr. Obama is finding that out now. If he disappears in 2012, I fear that he will be replaced by a cold, unconcerned robot who takes marching orders from shady characters in dark rooms. That's the only type of person who can now survive a US Presidency.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-77431019609842388732009-11-23T07:38:00.001-06:002019-01-04T18:14:35.995-06:00"Awards" Saturation<div>It used to be a big night: the Academy Awards, a once-a-year event where the best movies of the year were recognized and honored, where those who received the individual awards were truly grateful, and where no one felt the need to make a political statement or bash someone else. The very rarity of it made it a spectacular event, and mere mortals showed up to gawk at the larger-than-life celebrities who arrived at the red carpet. It was almost like getting to visit Oz when the stars were there. Of course, it was before my time, so I'm only going by the accounts I've read.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>Now, the Academy Awards are one of any dozen of events where self-centered divas come together to pat each other on the back, tell the American public what they are supposed to believe and how they are supposed to fell, and impose their crooked lack of immorality on the rest of us. I've lost count, but there must be half a dozen elongated awards shows that cater to television and movies, a couple of others that do the same for theater, and then I have absolutely no idea how many that recognize award winners in the music industry. They just had another one last night, a real breakthrough that put it above Afghanistan, the health care debate, and anything else on CNN's website. Oh, yeah, this one will be a milestone in history because it featured a boy kissing a boy. That's hot on the wire this morning. Of course, I had to take CNN's word for it because I couldn't tell who was a boy and who was a girl from the picture.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>Whether it's a drunken rapper stealing a microphone from Taylor Swift, or a drunken Amy Winehouse (whose only attributes I have been able to figure out are that she changes rehabs faster than boyfriends) accepting another award, these shows have lost all meaning.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>The awards shows have lost all touch with reality. Who actually watches the movies that win the awards? When was the last time that a movie someone really liked actually won the best picture award? Remember "Brokeback Mountain?" From the hype, you would have thought it was an all-time box office record holder, but it was not. Actually, it was a flop, and if it had not been about two cowboys in love, it would have been ignored. The movie died out in cinemas across the country, and then filled up whole racks at WalMart as they tried to sell the DVD's. It's destined, of course, for the two-dollar bins at Hastings, because no one really liked the movie.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-28232665222476956092009-11-20T09:19:00.001-06:002019-01-04T18:14:35.471-06:00I Survived the Seventies<div>For those of you who weren't there, I want to tell you about the most frightening decade of the last century. I am not making these things up, so please bear with me. All of these things happened in the Seventies.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>In 1972, the Supreme Court decided that capital punishment was wrong, and outlawed it in every state. They felt that everyone on death row was being deprived of due process by a "cruel and unusual" punishment, and commuted the sentence of everyone on death row in every state that had it.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>Less than a year later, by a narrow vote, the same nine men on the same Supreme Court overrode every state law and legalized the termination of the lives of unborn children, and deprived them of their own "due process." Ironically, the amendment they used for this was the 4th Amendment which, ironically, forbids someone from illegally invading someone's home -- someone's "safe place" -- and depriving them of "life, liberty, and property" without due process of law. They read someone else's 4th amendment, I guess, one that says we have a "right to privacy," which means the right to kill a living child in a womb.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>In 1972 a president won an election by the largest landslide in history up to that time, and less than a year later, everyone wanted him out, and he became the first president to resign, just 21 months after that landslide vote. His VP had already resigned, and a man became president who had never campaigned or been elected. And he probably did more to save the executive branch than anyone who has ever been elected to it. He even did some things that guaranteed he wouldn't be elected again, so that there could be integrity in the office again some day.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>As the 70's began, our nation was fighting a war that congress did not want to win, and drafting teenaged boys to go to the other side of the world to die in the war that congress did not want to win. Those young men went and fought, and if they were lucky enough to return, they were met with insults and rejection when they returned. They were denied care, and made to feel left out. Some of them that decided not to go, and broke the law, were pardoned by a president, but the ones who went were never really "forgiven." A motto for the young men who went was, "We are the unwilling, led by the unqualified, to do the unnecessary, for the ungrateful."</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-64256847769806012932009-11-10T12:31:00.002-06:002009-11-10T12:56:31.161-06:00A Bright Spot in a Dark DebateAs I lament the creeping socialism that "universal" government-run "health care" imposes on us, I have found a bright spot in the story that truly encourages me. For maybe thirty years now, Democrats have hidden their "pro-life" counterparts from the public. I have found it strangely hypocritical this past week that the news media has talked about Republicans "purifying" their ranks. They've talked about the demand for conformity in that party. However, I've seen Republicans from both side of the "choice" issue allowed to speak at the national convention. I've seen Republicans on both sides of abortion ethics appointed to cabinet positions and other posts. <br /><br />When was the last time a pro-life Democrat was allowed to speak at the Democratic National Convention? When was the last time a Democratic president appointed a pro-life advocate to any position at all. The Democratic party has hidden this group and pretended they did not exist. Oh, I knew they did. For many years, my own district was represented by an excellent congressman, Charles Stenholm, a Democrat who is pro-life and spotless in his ethics. He was finally run out by Tom DeLay's Republican gerrymandering a few years ago, which is a shame. He represents the best side of your own father's Democratic party.<br /><br />When Al Gore was a freshman senator, he was pro-life. Richard Gephardt was a pro-lifer as well. Both suddenly became "pro-choice" when they tried to get the national Democratic nomination. The party would never allow a pro-lifer to represent them. So why does the media throw a fit when the Republicans stand on one issue as well?<br /><br />But all that aside, this health care debate has brought great encouragement to me. The House bill passed because the party allowed pro-lifers from their own party to overhaul the abortion language. Now the bill is in the senate, and it is pro-life Democrats who are saying they will not support a bill with taxpayer-funded abortions in it.<br /><br />I am excited to see a pro-life dimension being brought to the Democratic party. In fact, I would vote for a pro-life Democrat over a pro-life Republican in any election, because the Republican may or may not be sincere. In my state, which is currently "red," Republicans sing the songs they are expected to hear. George HW Bush himself became "pro-life" in order to be Reagan's running mate, but there was never any real commitment there.<br /><br />It has been refreshing to see these Democrats for Life show some muscle. I am hoping that this work with the so-called "health care" bill will encourage them to use that newfound power. Democrat or Republican, America needs to stop killing its young. If the Democrats are the ones that lead the way, I will campaign for them.<br /><br />Republicans who think they have a lock on my vote simply because I supported Reagan had better think again. I don't vote for a party; I vote for values. As I see a Republican party that had the momentum from 1994 to 2006, and did nothing, I see no reason to blindly support them. When they had the house, the senate, and the White House, they whined about Democratic "obstructionism," which really lost them points.<br /><br />I look forward to the return of the Democrats my grandparents knew, those pre-Roosevelt Jeffersonian Democrats who knew that states can take better care of themselves than Washington can, and who spent only what they earned, and gave no one an "entitlement."<br /><br />Thanks to the Democrats who are standing up for what they believe and for the values of the people who elected him. The uppity media calls them "blue dogs." I call them "Democrats with a backbone."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-85163877250780870342009-11-05T12:25:00.006-06:002009-11-06T20:33:18.868-06:00An Addendum to My Last Post<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PieSoxB_RtQ/SvTcYabZBcI/AAAAAAAAAD8/3r7msiBTZWE/s1600-h/dim.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401184165093246402" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 275px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PieSoxB_RtQ/SvTcYabZBcI/AAAAAAAAAD8/3r7msiBTZWE/s320/dim.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><div>I have hesitated to use this story because it is so sad, but decided it was necessary; if we have universal "health care" forced on us, this story is going to be repeated over and over. Here is my new reason why universal "health care" as Dr. Pelosi wants it will not work:<br /><br /><strong>Government-controlled health care takes away the last remnants of humanity and courtesy.</strong><br /><br />I don't know how much of a syndicated AP news feed I can cut and paste in one blog, so let me summarize most of it. Scott Hawkins was a student at California State University in Sacramento. For reasons unknown and unexplained, it appears he was beaten to death by his roomate. He was taken to the UC Davis medical center where he was pronounced dead five minutes after arrival. This perhaps implies that he was already dead when he arrived. Do hospitals get to charge when a dead person shows up? I'm not sure. But I certainly know they can charge for a live one. Officially, Mr. Hawkins was "alive" for five minutes there. How much did the "care" they gave him cost? Only $29,000. No more. Twenty-nine-thousand dollars, about five thousand a minute, to do what Dr. McCoy did for free: "He's dead, Jim."<br /><br />Now let's add insult to injury. You fill in the gaps for the next few minutes. A call to shocked parents who thought their son was safe in his dorm room. Now he's dead. We can all imagine what the loss of a son would be like: the questions, the grieving, the feelings that follow.<br /><br />What they didn't expect was a bill. A bill from the UC Davis medical center telling them that they could do nothing more for their son because he was "maxed out," and that those parents owed them over 29,000 dollars. The bill also said that they were "indigent," not paying what they owed. The grieving parents called the hospital billing department to clear things up. They were too grief stricken to talk, actually, but amidst all the sobbing, finally got the message across.<br /><br />Was there an apology from the hospital? I will let you be the judge (here is the direct quote from the AP wire):<br /><br /><strong><em>A spokeswoman for the hospital says the bill was a mistake - it should have gone to an insurance company.</em></strong><br /><br />There you have it. Hey, it was all a mistake. We were going to stick it to the insurance company. Five thousand dollars a minute attending to a person who may have already been dead. But it's okay. We were going to raid someone's insurance plan for this. Sorry we sent it to a real human. We meant for it to go to accounting. By the way, do you have their address?<br /><br />Some day, in Nancy Pelosi's dream world, we will all have "insurance." Then, doctors won't have to be civil with anyone. We won't discuss the condition of the patient. We will bill him "minutes" like lawyers currently bill "hours." All the money, after all, comes from the limitless, gigantic pool of wealth that the "government" must have somewhere. Oh, there will be paperwork, but that creates "jobs."<br /><br />To Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, the grieving parents, I can only say how sorry I am for the loss of your son. I wonder if any "health care providers" offered condolences. Doctors used to do that, you know. Back when you wrote them a check for their services, or gave them cash before they left your house. Back when health care meant a doctor you knew in a building you recognized that existed in your town. People used to live a long time back then, too; one doctor could treat a patient, and cure him. But medicine is a big business now. Everybody needs a network. And when the government gets into it, it will be bigger. Broke, but bigger. Just like the Post Office. And Amtrak. And the Social Security Adminstration.<br /><br />You'd think that someone could add at least one rider to the omnibus "health care" bill that is being debated now. Maybe add a buck fifty per case for a Hallmark card. After all, they could stick it to the insurance company for, maybe thirty bucks. Fifty if someone signed it.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5951639121853262790.post-57352228810756088492009-10-13T08:38:00.013-06:002009-10-13T13:13:31.523-06:00Why "Universal Health Care" Won't WorkWe're hearing a lot of inflamed rhetoric about health care right now. Some people are talking about "death panels," while others are talking about people dying because they can't afford health insurance. There's enough political strife to go around without me adding to it, and I know I've said several things about health care in the past few years, but maybe I can clarify my thoughts a little more with one statement:<br /><br /><strong><em>The best thing we could do to improve health care in this country right now would be to cancel our insurance.</em></strong><br /><br />I know it's radical, but probably necessary. I know it won't happen, but it should. The very worst thing we can do right now is increase the amount of insurance available, or guarantee everyone health insurance. How do I dare make such a statement?<br /><br /><ul><br /><li>Health insurance raises health care costs. One friend of mine remembers going to the hospital emergency room with a broken leg. After the doctor had set the leg and put the cast on it, they were being checked out. The doctor was in the background as his secretary got the bill ready. "Who is your insurance provider?" she asked. His father told her they had no insurance and were going to pay in cash. Immediately, the doctor turned around and told her to rewrite the bill, that it was too high for someone paying out of his pocket. Do I really need to say more? I can. I once had a policy that paid up to $200 for emergency room fees. One night we had to take our son to the emergency room. I saw the sign -- in English and Spanish -- that stated that the Emergency Room fee was $200. I was thankful that it was covered. When I received the bill (seven months later, but that's another story), I noted that our insurance had paid $200 <strong><em>of the $450</em></strong> that we were actually billed. I was left owing fifty dollars more for the emergency room than I would have owed <em>if I had not had insurance</em>. I now refuse to give any insurance information out until the bill is presented. A doctor's visit in our local town has dropped from the $75 they charge for usual "covered" visits to the $60 I pay by saying I have no insurance. What will happen if we all get insurance, and more coverage? I think you know.</li><br /><li>Health insurance encourages corruption. Have you ever been "double-billed?" I have, and I don't think I'm unique. There are two ways to "double bill." One is merely to bill a large insurance company twice. Private insurance companies are a little greedier, and will try not to pay the extra, but they often miss it; on the other hand, government agencies run on the "there's always more where that came from" philosophy, and seldom check the double billing. It is a routine practice to bill Medicare and Medicaid a horrendous amount, and then some. For some reason, Uncle Sam does not mind paying 50 bucks for a Tylenol. He may think it's a bargain after paying 600 dollars for a hammer. There is, however, another way to "double bill." At a time when I had great medical coverage in the 80's, before the horrible inflation of medical prices, our son was born at a local hospital. We turned in our insurance info, and a day later, took home our new son. A month later, I was presented with a full bill from the hospital for the entire process, due upon receipt. I immediately called our insurance company, thinking they hadn't paid, and they offered to mail me all the records of payment. Two days later, I presented these records to the hospital, and their response was, "we will clear the bill." They had billed the the full amount after the insurance company had paid them. There was no remorse, no apology. I got the impression it was just business as usual.</li><br /><li>The "airline syndrome." Once, flying on an airplane was like taking a luxury cruise. Of course, it cost what a luxury cruise costs as well. There were DC-3's that had been equipped with "sleeping berths," and well-to-do travelers could retire for bed after takeoff in New York and wake up to a bright morning in Los Angeles. As airlines sought to get more passengers, seats were moved closer together, costs were cut, and today riding on a commerical flight is not unlike boarding a cattle car to go to the slaughter house. Health care for all increases the work load of clinics and hospitals. When we are paying for health care, we are looking for bargains, and we debate whether we really need to go to the doctor to stitch a wound or just to bandage it and let it heal naturally. When we have paid the "big bucks" for our health insurance, we see it as our "right" to go to the emergency room for a hangnail or a sore throat. Cost is not a factor. Insurance has made the "private room" the standard for all Americans. We are overcrowding the hospitals and clinics in our communities. Add to this that the big money from government-funded health care has led to more government regulations, and hospitals and clinics that don't "measure up" have had to close. A generation ago, every town of 1000 or more -- and some with less -- had at least a local clinic and a family doctor. Now, there are cities of 25,000 and more who are losing their health care facilities. Specialization, created by government regulations, has depleted the capacity of the local clinic to treat all illnesses, and most people who visit a small hospital in a semi-rural town will end up in a metropolitan medical center at some time. Universal health care means more government requisites and regulations, and with it, the loss of more hospitals. Our emergency rooms are overcrowded and understaffed now, and it will only get worse.</li><br /><li>I speak with the experience of someone who has lived in two countries with "universal health care." I have sat up all night with someone who was waiting to be attended. I have watched the long, wearying search for his documents, and I have seen the increasing pain as he waited through the night for his "number." I have sat in an emergency room -- not the waiting room but the actual emergency room -- and watched someone die on the gurney while waiting for a doctor. I saw the doctor arrive later and inject something into the dead man's heart because it had already been prescribed. He had to remove the sheet from the man to do this, and then he replaced it immediately afterward. But he did get paid for the administration of the medicine. In those countries, I, as an American, had access to more money than the locals. When my family needed attention, I could go down the street to a private clinic and pay the higher costs. I got immediate attention and quality service. Why? Because in that country <strong><em>I was rich</em></strong>. Universal health care does the same in all countries: it marginalizes the poor, and insulates the rich. I find it ironic that so many people want to have health insurance "to help the poor." Nothing hurts them more.</li></ul><p>If we really want to improve the quality of health care in our country, the <strong><em>last</em></strong> thing we need to do is throw money at the system. Health care needs to be put into the realm of supply and demand. Local clinics need to be opened. </p><p>If the government really wants to help, we should use government funds to restore medical care centers to the communities in our country who have lost them due to federal regulation and medical specialization. We should offer incentives to those who study to be general practitioners, and give aid to restore OB/Gyn work to local communities. It is not uncommon for a woman in labor to have to suffer an hour or longer drive now to deliver a baby. If the government wants to help, health care funds should be given to develop more hospitals and train more doctors. </p><p>Medical firms and pharmaceutical companies should be freed to do more of their own research and development without the oppressive paperwork. If Pasteur had worked in this country in the 21st century, we would have never had any of the advances in medicine that he gave us. The ones he actually achieved would still be tied up in testing and waiting approval by some government bureaucracy.</p><p>If we really want to improve the quality of health care, hospitals and medical billing should be "called to account." If the federal government needs something to "regulate," try hospital billing. How ironic that we have to walk past so much new construction to enter a hospital that tells us how "broke" they are. </p><ul><li>Hospitals should be responsible for in-house billing, and it should be immediate. Customers should be advised up front of billing practices. </li><li>Billing should be unified and itemized. No patient should ever be billed by a doctor they don't know from a city they've never visited, but it happens every day. </li><li>Bills should be sent to patients before they are sent to insurance companies, and insurance companies should work with their customers before any money is paid to medical institutions or practitioners. </li><li>No bill should be valid that is issued for the first time over a month after treatment. In other words, hospitals should be held to the same rules of accounting, honesty, and forthrightness that the businesses on main street observe.</li></ul><p>It should be possible for anyone to pay a medical bill without being bereft of years of hard-earned money. Insurance was introduced as a luxury and a favor to those who wished to use it. It was never intended to be a "cover all" for all health care. That's why the best radical treatment for our "health care crisis" would be for all Americans to cancel their insurance policies tomorrow -- or today. The prices would float to fair market value, and an aspirin tablet would not cost 30 dollars.</p><p>I know it's a crazy idea. I admit it's crazy and reckless. But it's a better idea than I'm hearing from Washington right now. Attempting to remedy the health care crisis by throwing more money at it is like attempting to cure a cold by blowing your nose.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0