Saturday, May 31, 2014

Recent Furor Over Our Vets Masks the Problem's Long History

...Dialing all the way back to our nation's founding. Our military
men and women have never been treated well by our government,
with ongoing respect and care, beginning with the Revolutionary
War, 1776-1783. (-!) Those who forget George Washington's
pleas for soldiers' supplies, such as basic food and winter clothing
must be shocked when hearing the current day's VA neglect news,
which has recently identified many hospitals in that beleaguered
system, not just in Arizona.

Consistently, with one exception, the immediate post WWII
period, vets are forgotten, the hospitals have known inadequacies
and deficiencies for decades; in Chicago, in the 80s, I was at the
now defunct Lakeside VA, 333 E. Huron, in the waiting area,
talking with vets. Their complaints were the same then as now:
slow and/or poor care--the only item missing mention was news
of the "doctored" lists, a sunny prescription providing proof of
great care, engendering bonuses for the reporting institutions.

Every enterprise CANNOT successfully model the identical
missions and practices employed by for profit businesses--
especially not municipalities, hospitals, schools and charitable
organizations, but God knows they've been trying--and failing.
This mistake also applies to major transit systems like Chicago's,
which has been troubled for decades after it was transformed
into an unholy, ultimately unworkable political/business entity.

The U.S. throws big, splashy parties/memorials about three days
a year for our military service personnel..how about TRULY
honoring them EVERY DAY??  That would mean better
health care, better salaries and supplies for the front line troops,
etc. That would also mean more taxpayer dollars required from
everyone else...

Or is the recent furor fodder for the chattering classes and
attendees at backyard barbeques, merely?  Talk is cheap
and easy. Only action proves sincerity in simply caring.

Who cares? I want to know.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Rahm, Your Poll Numbers Will Dive Even Further Now...

Since you have proven that you DON'T CARE
ABOUT SCHOOLCHILDREN. It doesn't matter what part
of Chicago a dilapidated school building exists in: as long
as the problem isn't in Lincoln Park or Hyde Park, well,
why care?  Mayor Emanuel (and Daley before him) were
somehow unable to cough up TIF or other monies to fix
schools on the South OR North Sides; the latest shocker
involves a hideously ruined school building in Rogers
Park, inches to feet of ceiling peeling paint, ad nauseam.
The photo reveal was broadcast on Chicago CBS TV 2, the
five p.m. newscast, 05/22/2014. 

R.E. closes 49 schools at once, which no system in the U.S.
had previously dared/attempted to do; he starts many money-
intensive projects (-tax payer paid?) which are completely
unnecessary, as they are duplicates of perfectly fine existing
entities. So he's tone deaf and somewhat stupid, attempting
to launch more luxurious places for the tourists and local
rich, even as his poll numbers dive, dive, dive...

With all your accomplishments, Rahm, how can you
forget poor people vote too?

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Unpatriotic Americans: Our Many Rich and Credit Suisse

CBS Radio today (05/20/2014) revealed that Switzerland still
allows many thousands of rich "Americans" to evade U.S.
taxes by sheltering their money in numbered, secret accounts,
the same, decades-old technique--this in spite of stern warnings
from our government to both our citizens and the Swiss. How
patriotic is that?? I call it idiotic, self-serving, and...

Unamerican. Yep, y'all who made your fortunes here as you
could not anywhere else, YOU ARE unamerican if you didn't
pay your taxes. You have avoided your responsibilities
as American citizens in good standing. You aren't supporting
our military, police, schools, firefighters, many of them already
having given their lives caring for country and countrymen.
You lack a simple, but telling attribute, caring. You don't
give a $$$$ about anyone but yourselves--and the
helpless among us?--Fuggeddaboudit.

"Let's declare war on Switzerland!" Just when I was
turning darkly humorous, Credit Suisse has partially
redeemed itself by pleading guilty to this felony
of harboring our tax cheats, the bank and our
white collar criminals further enriching themselves
thereby...more confessions to follow, perhaps?

Memo to the darkly busy super rich who don't
pull their weight: You are definitely contributing to
the downfall of the United States. That IS unpatriotic.
--Thought processes haven't taken you that far?
Think it through, then do the right thing. I don't
believe Buffet, Gates and Turner act this way,
yet they still have plenty of dough to play with.
But then these gentlemen have demonstrated, over
and over, that they are caring human beings.

The next time you pledge your allegiance to these
United States, or attend Fourth of July celebrations,
ask yourself just where your true allegiance lies.

In the meantime, you are unpatriotic Americans.

 *******************************************
                               Post Script:
Good golly, call Miss Molly!  New York State's hard-
charging banking regulator, Benjamin M. Lawsky,
obviously took his legal career cue from his very name...
fascinating, no?  

Friday, May 16, 2014

David Brooks Blew it on PBS-Ted Cruz Can't Become President

...of these United States, PERIOD! This is now the second
time I must take up this idiotic issue: if anyone bothers to check
Article Two of the United States Constitution, he or she will
see that in order to be a vice president OR president of this
nation, candidates MUST BE BORN HERE. Parents'
birthplaces are immaterial and irrelevant, as all the millions
of American citizens born in the U.S. to immigrant parents
can attest.

Once more, with feeling: Ted was born in Canada. His
mother was an American citizen, but she was and is unable
to confer natural born citizenship on her son. Yes, other
nations DO consider the parents' birthplace as the
chief qualifying determinant in citizenship questions,
our nation does NOT.  Ask Arnold Schwartzenegger,
Teddy: he has often said the country's constitution
should be amended to allow foreign-born American
citizens to be candidates for the U.S. presidency. Ted's
possessing dual citizenship and his offering to give up
his Canadian passport is beside the point: the Founding
Fathers were silent on this matter when they framed the
highest law of the land.

Brooksy, back to you: Obviously you don't bother to
crack open any original source materials (i.e., the federal
constitution) before proffering opinions on PBS' The News
Hour, as you did tonight, May 16th, 2014. --Brother!

I will be contacting the New York Times and PBS, your 
employers, regarding your shocking ignorance in this
extremely egregious error. They will be the second and
third major media outlets I've had to take to task regarding
Ted Cruz's legal viability as president of the USA :
months back, it was the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, David, get thee back to study hall
and check out Article II (Not the Second
Amendment!) Section. 1., Paragraph Five
of our country's most important document.
Benjamin Franklin is spinning in his grave, no
doubt, as he hoped the new nation's people
would be and become just a mite more studied
than this. He said as much after the document
was signed, September 17, 1787.
*************************************
The "extra" period  after Section is in the constitution,
not an error here.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

"Silver-Tongued Sterling" Can't Wriggle Out of His Racist Rant

The racist billionaire can't get over and beyond that
dreadful tape by begging off with responses about
"mistakes", self-aggrandizing, seeking sympathy
 claims of "being set up", etc.

To me, it's so simple: his mistress, being a mixed
ancestry person herself, felt outrage and disgust at his
remarks and vowed to publicly punish him...why not?
She probably had other reasons to excoriate him as
well,  his querulous, racist directive to her giving her
the perfect means, he hoisting himself on his own
petard.

First and foremost, their adultery is still wrong,
legally and in the Ten Commandments upon which
our legal system is based. She should have held
a quarter between her knees and kept her lips
sealed until "Sterling" (-such an ironic name!)
proffered copies of his divorce papers to her.

He, of oft' entitled character/personality many
billionaires possess (Not Gates, Buffet and
Turner, though, thankfully) thought he was
graced with beauty and vigor due  his dollars-
but nooo! He is a rather plain old man, all in
all, no powers of articulation, logic, reason or
humanity,  his subsequent comments merely
reinforcing that damning tape.

We should all understand that high-stakes
professional sports are a business, yet
remember too NO ONE wants to be thought
of as a mere soulless, unentitled commodity,
clearly a value/view shared by both Boko Haram
AND Sterling: Black children and civilians in
BH's case, black NBA basketball players,
a majority of the NBA, merely money-
making "properties" for Sterling.

So where's that "post racial" society some
writers extolled we'd reached back in 2008?
It never existed, even with more and better
civil rights legal protections (1964 and 1965)
here in the U.S. Until the entire human race evolves,
expect "tribalism" ( i.e., my people are more worthy
than your people) to publicly rear its ugly head
from time to time.

I  pray to God that the scales of bigotry fall from
BH and Sterling; souls are hanging in  the balance,
theirs and their victims as well.

Monday, May 5, 2014

Good Luck, Jonathon: Patience Has Nothing to Do With It

The recent kidnapping of about 270 Nigerian girls by Islamist
extremist Boko Haram is an irony underscored by an event three
days this week, the World Economic Forum, to be held right
there in Nigeria's capital. Boko Haram's leader has bragged that
Allah encourages selling to the marketplace, therefore, he will sell
the girls into forced marriage...ah. So young Nigerian girls are a
mere commodity, not an oddity or a scarcity, sadly, in our insane,
injustice-weary world; what perfect timing! Maybe market-driven
extremists at the forum can haggle over prices for the different
girls, ruinously reminiscent of our country's former slave markets.

Sarcasm aside, even with short notice, can't the toffs attending
this conference reschedule their meeting? Boycott Nigeria
altogether and meet anywhere else BUT.

President Jonathon, does anyone believe your PR claims that
you have teams out assiduously searching for the girls? As to
patience, few of us interested in human rights and justice have
any with all of this. Silence wife Patience; she should have nothing
to do with the presumably ongoing investigation. Can Nigeria's
First Lady legally order arrests of protesters?  Nigeria is now
a mirthless joke,  finally, I have to believe.

Good luck, Jonathon. Seriously, get to work and mobilize
many men to root out these insane (and blasphemous, by
the way) Boko Haram kidnappers, stiff sentencing applied
at the minimum.

********************************************

The WEF meeting  is a vast undertaking, with big shots from
all over Africa and China in attendance; there was no hope of
cancellation. The irony will have to stand...but attendees
at the 2014 WEF in Nigeria HAVE made strong stands in
statements about the ~270 girls, while Boko Haram has
killed several hundred people in the last few days.
President Obama is right: Darkness in the human heart has
yet to be extinguished.

P.S.: Readers can comment here, but I can't do so
on this browser; I can reply using a different one.
Dan and Mr. Lester, looking forward to your thoughts.