"Reform's" Many Forms: Nothing New

I'm turning Biblical, start running now. One of
the more interesting books in the Old Testament
says all is vanity, nothing new under the Sun.
(Except for the clothes and gadgets, that is.)
But we are encouraged to enjoy the fruits of our
labor nonetheless. In Chicago, the political scene
is largely about vanity, not reform, ambition, not
the greater good.

Heralded all over local Chicagoland media is our
"new day", because the City Council and the Mayor
are sporting new faces. Yet the "dreams", problems
and goals are the same compelling ones that have
preoccupied us for many decades. Who is OPPOSED to
better education, no/low crime, balanced budgets, etc.?
Rahm Emanuel emphasized these during his swearing in
today down by the lake. Chicago's Mayor will not likely
fix these matters. The causes are cultural, economic,
endemic and long standing:

(1) EDUCATION: Most kids (and their parents) simply
lack gravitas, meaning, in America it's practically
a federal offense to basically be a serious, goal-oriented
person. The never-ending search for gratification and
novelty often sidelines serious research, serious productivity,
serious problem-solving. (By the way, I hate fun, and you
can quote me.) Recalling the high rate of substance abuse,
divorce, crime, etc., it's very hard to be optimistic.
Whatever "reforms" are enacted, given this cultural context,
how are we going to make the kids do their job, which is to study?
Tackle THAT one, Rahmster Monster.

(2) BUDGET WOES: Who will be stiffed, left out, victimized
by benign neglect? Will pensions be funded? Are certain
unions really expecting too much? Should teachers be required
to keep up since their students are? (-Don't worry, many more
questions could be inserted here, but I'll refrain....) Then
there's the ugly phenomenon of NIMBY, i.e., you won't be making
me sacrifice in MY backyard, noooo....

Time to recur once again to the Good Book. I'm hoping to
escape all the hackneyed phrases and promises designed to
soothe our troubled minds, but I doubt it; humanity hasn't
changed markedly in 2,000 years.

When God or Jesus speak I see sense.
And you can quote me.

Sarah Palin's "Spudnut Moment" (-!)

--Finally! Is Sarah P the new Mrs. Potato Head?
There is no disrespect intended toward the little
shop in Washington State she referred to in an
endearing "small business, the heart of America"
lengthy, hectoring aside. She seemed to misread
President Obama's inspirational intentions and the
history of Spudnuts.

While making these mistakes, she included erroneous
summaries of the Cold War and the Soviet Union's end.
Nothing like being on a roll....

Tsk, tsk. She may be pretty, but all I see is
Mrs. Potato Head, also usually shown smiling.

P.S.: This further foray into coining new words
and punning didn't float: Sputnik vs. Spudnut?
At best, a spurious alliteration. (Hey, Sarah,
it's not "Spudnik", if that's what you're going
for....)

What's Logic Got to do With It? Logic, a Secondhand "Emotion"

Tina Turner's hit often comes to mind when watching
the antics, policies,and justifications of governments
around the world, ours included. If logic, cause and
effect considerations WERE the rule of the day, every
day, well, there would still be volcanoes, but far
less violence, tragedy, wasted time and material
destruction.

Please, I'm pleading for specificity, deeper research,
more thought before speech, all those virtues bespeaking
of demonstrable intelligence. All else reduces into
rabble/babble, eventually. Venting is ideal when we
feel more "air" than "heat", see the light.

Consider the logic; consider our common humanity.

Ashamed to be a Woman, Again

--Not again! A woman killed herself and her children
because her idiot husband cheated on her? Why involve the
kids? An insult to this female's womanhood comes
before the children's welfare? The pathetic story has
now been told by the intrepid ten year old sibling who
saved himself at the last moment.

Of course it's happened before. Who ARE these low-class
females? --Cases of arrested development, period, oh so
high school. No man is THAT important. How desperate, crazy
and stupid must any woman be to kill kids as some misplaced
revenge ("--I'll show HIM, hah!"). I'm betting that as he's
the stepfather, this cheater is less than destroyed over such
a needless tragedy.

Sometimes I'm sorely tempted to propose legislation that adults
must be psychologically tested as fit before being permitted to
bring others into this world.

Meanwhile, in addition to being embarrassed to be a human,
I'm ashamed to be a woman, AGAIN.

Out of the Mouths of Knaves

The Big Lie is alive, well and kicking, while
an urgent deadline's clock is ticking. The
current stumbling block to passing a bill
to continue funding the federal government
is IDEOLOGICAL, period. Who are Congessional
Republicans and Democrats kidding?

If our national debt total is about 14 trillion,
how is killing Planned Parenthood, Head Start
and a few other programs going to resolve that
debt? The agreed-upon amount of cuts now totals
an unimpressive amount, far less than 100 billion.
Rep. Boehner's "principled digging in" represents
nothing more than appealing to his base. --What??
Can't the rep and/or his supporters add? Actually,
they don't care to. It's one set of sacred cows
against another set. Republicans, though, would
rather increase U.S. debt by funding sexy technology
(new nukes and warplanes) and only very slightly
decrease it by slashing programs to the poor.

The USA's GDP is about the same amount as the debt;
economists used to say that average, more or less
solvent Americans carried debt equal to one year's
income. So why all the horrified howls now?

How about an honest exploration/explanation of
the issues, NOW? If it's really just simple ignorance,
head back to grammar school math class.

If not, it's obfuscating orotund blather out of the
mouths of knaves.

A Real Civilization Built on More Than Pride, Prejudice and Profit

Certain words get tossed about with surprising impunity.
One of these is "civilization". Has anybody ever SEEN one?
Please don't belabor/berate the obvious: if you think
wealth and impresive architecture inevitably denote
civilization, you and I will surely move on to a stiff
debate.

Since most of the imperialistic colonizers were unable
to control overpopulating their original homelands, how
did they become masters of the universe? Why, by the tried
and true methods effective for thousands of years: explora-
tions, military "adventures", conquests, occupations, etc.
"Oh, was this your country? Sorry, it's OURS now." (Usually
there's no apology tendered, though. After all, if I want
something, it's my right to get/have, no??)

--NO!! Civilization to ME means being kind and non-exploitative,
among many other fine qualities I rarely see exhibited among the
Western nations guilty of the lion's share of colonialism. I do
see one annoyingly stupid quality expressed time after time;
public statement of "innocent" dismay and confusion, to wit:
"Why do so many other countries hate us?"

Gee, let me get this, lemme! What reaction can anyone expect
when strangers come in, kill, change your way of life, and start
sucking your natural resources dry?--Hugs, thanks and kisses?

So again: a real civilization must be built on more than
pride, prejudice and profit. When it isn't, I call it
"the victor took the spoils", again.

React Now: Review ALL GE Mark I's and Mark II's

Japan's triple tragedy suggests important
warnings for the United States and any other
nation with GE Mark I nuclear reactors online.
Japan's failing reactors in Fukushima Prefecture
are mostly Mark I's.

The GE Mark I has long been known as relatively
poor engineering. In 1986, Harold Denton, formerly of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said the
GE Mark I's small reactor vessel and suppression pool
problems make this a poor design. Dr. Michio Kaku,a
theoretical physicist, author and science popularizer,
had other reservations about the Mark I's even
earlier in that decade.

Here in Illinois four of our eleven nuclear reactors
online are Mark I's; ours went online only a few
years before Japan's, in the mid 1970s. Even though
our earthquake faultline is less frequently, dramatically
active than those in Japan, still, we DO have one, the
New Madrid Fault, running under Missouri and Illinois.

200 years ago the New Madrid really kicked up, heaving
great devastation throughout the Midwest....when is the
next big one? Disturbingly, no seismologist can predict the
timing of any such large scale event, or smaller quakes
either; Chicagoland felt two tiny ones in recent months.

What's to be done? Here are some suggestions for now:

(1) Review ALL 23 GE Mark I's in the U.S., SOON.
While they're at it, throw in inspections of Mark II's
as well. Around the world, inspect them all.

(2) Send GE's nuclear reactor engineers to Japan immediately.
These designs were not great technology on a good day; now,
after a BAD day, GE should stand behind its products AND its customers.

It's the right thing to do. But to avoid future shock, please:

(3) Establish a U.S. federal moratorium on new nuclear plant
projects, effective immediately. Then, when theorizing potential
worst-case scenarios, be constructively more "negative"; experts
here and abroad "didn't expect quakes this severe, beyond 8.0",
etc. Why not?? Why not a TWELVE, someday? It IS possible if not
likely.

Reacting sensibly now could avoid a world of pain later.