Romney's Reasoning "Declining"

Mr. Romney is no super patriot. He's publicly joined
those of us who believe the U.S. is a declining
empire, criticized the President's State of the Union
Address (Jan. 24th) for not agreeing with such a sad
reality. But Mitt can't catch the facts or remember
recent history: Mr. Obama did not cause the Great
Recession of 2008 (and beyond). If Mr. Obama wants to
speak in a determinedly positive fashion, I'd let him,
as too many will give up if the future is too powerfully
portrayed as irremediably bleak.

But get a load of Romney's pre-presidential prescription
for whisking us all away from the many conflicting,
complex and almost intractable difficulties ailing us:

(1) Get government off our backs and Mr. Obama out of
office! (-No reasonable specifics offered.)

(2) Private enterprise creates all the jobs! (Which
ones are those, Mitt? If we leave everything up to
you, no roads or rails will be built or repaired
here, just like in--oh, no! Third World countries.)

I could go on, but for now, just one more thought:
America's not the only thing in decline.

European Union United in Anti-Iranian Folly

Obviously too many in Europe learned NOTHING
from the heavy reparations leveled against
Germany after WWI, which almost DIRECTLY
caused WWII. What do they think will occur
if a blockade/embargo of Iran's oil exports
is decided on January 23rd? --That Iran will
"straighten up and fly right" after larger
countries deny it their major source of income?
Don't these political leaders/policy wonks realize
the danger in putting people's backs against the
wall?

....Yet ironically, many Europeans nearly break
their arms patting themselves on the back for their
intellectual/cultural superiority over those
"new (upstart) Americans". So where is that much
vaunted superiority now? George Santayana would
NOT be impressed.

....and neither am I, with Europe or the U.S.
How much more bloodshed and economic privation
do you want to cause, you two?

Stop this anti-Iranian bully-bluster now, while
there is still time.

Catching the Facts: Romney Needs a New Mitt

He's at it again, the man who would be the next
U.S. president. "Mitt" Romney couldn't catch a slow
"fact ball" written with a black magic marker in
capital letters:

(1) Hey, Mitt, Al Gore DID just about invent the internet.
Ask "Vint" Cerf, one of the two tech wizards who actually
converted code from Arpanet/Darpanet into the worldwide web.
Gore's tireless promotion in the U.S. senate of the technology
formerly only used to communicate between universities, our
government and the military became the law which released
said technology to the public....yeah, even to you, Mitt.

(2) The United States government, and OTHER nations'
governments, have INDEED created jobs, millions of them
over the decades: Who built our country's highway system in
the 1950s and '60s? Taxpayer funded projects authorized by
Congress in concert with President Eisenhower, in 1959.
Presidents TR (a republican) and cousin FDR (a democrat) also
instituted mammoth work projects. Ditto Kennedy, Clinton,
and others. The many agencies that protect our medical health
and physical safety/security are paid for by the taxpayers,
enacted by our government.

How is it that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts elected
this bonehead to its highest office? Or is he intentionally
misleading less than astute average voters? Which do you like
better, stupidity or cupidity?

Let's make sure the rest of us pull on a better "catcher's
mitt" than Romney's.

Let's Export These Expert "Medicine Men"

It's time for wordplay on this snowy day--
time to excoriate dangerous medical authorities
publicly promulgating psychiatrically irresponsible
notions. A recent theory states that, between our
genes and our environment, there's little room
for free will. --What?? I'm no automaton, and
neither is anyone else, brainwashing and hypnosis
aside. Granted, family genetic history and one's
surroundings ARE powerful determinants, but we
do make choices every day independent of them,
nevertheless.

If neurological inevitability theory (or whatever
they're calling it) ever becomes popularly accepted,
rehab locations will shutter, psychiatry and psychology
will intervene less often (therefore, less humanely),
and no one imprisoned will bother to seek redemption;
domestic, school and neighborhood violence will skyrocket.
Many other undesirable results will no doubt occur to
the reader.

Let's not accept such a preposterously grim "medical"
assessment. Let's export these "experts" instead,
say, to outer Slobovia.

Second Amendment Future Fantasies

It's a fantasy, alright, to think that Americans
might have the sense to clarify the Second Amendment,
making the ownership of guns a very restricted/regulated
proposition....although a careful reading of this
amendment already seems to qualify arms ownership.

Licensing guns and their owners is inadequate to the
goal of less murder/mayhem. "Conceal and carry" is one
of the most irresponsible ideas/denials of average human
reality I can think of: what about klutzes? Such gun-hiding
hapless folk have already inadvertently injured others.
More killed in the heat of the moment? "Oh, I might not
have done it if I hadn't been packing", etc.

Why stop at mere gun ownership? In a new amendment there
wisely would be language restricting arms sales to
other nations, profitable as that is. Gun shows allowed
only for hunters, law enforcement and the military might
thin the rolls of innocents suddenly dead.

But bullies are more numerous than one likes to admit,
and many of them, being cowards, only feel truly powerful
toting a gun. As anger and extremism march forward in
America, look for more calls to weaken gun control laws.

Meanwhile, I look to the day when we amend our document
so that the routine violence America is so widely known
for becomes remarkably less significant.

Future fantasy or forever fiction? --Maybe.
But a civilized country could do it.

Politics, Posturing and Pennies

The whine this time is local, as all politics
eventually ends up being, per former U.S. House
Speaker "Tip" O'Neill. Chicago's Cook County,
amid great fanfare, has dropped 25% of the 1% recently
added to our sales tax. We're still among the top three
or four highest sales-tax entities in the nation,
nevertheless.--But the comments from some business
owners, elected officials and others might lead
one to think this is a progressive watershed moment.
It isn't.

It IS, however, the fulfillment of Cook County Board
President Toni Preckwinkle's campaign promise to lower
Cook County's excessive sales tax. Since our county is
the 19th largest taxing body in the U.S., anything it
enacts has high significance. The announcement's attendant
happy hyperbole irks me, nevertheless. Last week The Chicago
Sun-Times devoted column space analyzing the reduction in
consumer costs for items such as sweaters and washer/dryers.
The "before" and "after" price comparisons made me snort in
derision (-too bad I was in public at the time!). Some
savings were far less than the price of a pack of gum.
That very interesting arithmetic was adjacent to all the
quotes from the thriftily delighted.

In the wider world, as Election 2012 bears down on
us, watch for dollars, cents and hot air.
"What's sense got to do with it?" You may well ask.

And please DO.