The Road Goes on Forever

I'm "On the Road Again",just like my contemporary, Willy Nelson. Currently in Hudson, NY about 100 miles north of NYC. It's another one of those towns that time forgot for about 100 years but now it's being gentrified by artists, decorators, antique dealers and the like, including my youngest sibling, my sister Nicole who bought an old house here in 2003. It is also, by sublime coincidence, the birthplace of my great,great, great grandfather, James Ward Smith whose parents were some of the earliest settlers of this riverside hamlet. Heading to the Green Mountains of Vermont next and then down to Cape Hatteras, NC , after that.

BLAME IT ON THE BRITISH?

The oil spill has nothing to do with the people of Great Britain and everything to do with the larcenous cupidity of the tycoons that run worldwide megabucks corporations like BP, Goldman Sachs & the other big banks and Nestle, Monsanto etc.

It is no conspiracy - all of these corporations are systemically focussed on maximum profit - whatever the cost to customers, citizens and the taxpayers of whatever country or counries they do business in. BP will drill for oil wherever and whenever they can, providing it offers substantial rewards- irregardless of the risk to the environment and society. The current debacle is proof that the markets do not regulate themselves and unless governments take an active role in control of the larcenous bastards that run the BP's of the world, we are screwed.

20% Unemployed- Forever!

Cynthia Norton, Jacksonville Florida, laid off two years ago from an insurance company.

“Sometimes I think I’d be better off in jail” says the 53 year- old unemployed administrative assistant only half joking. “I’d have three meals a day and structure in my life*. I’d be able to go to school. I’d have more opportunities if I were an inmate than I do here trying to be a contributing member of society.”

1.7 million Americans who were employed in clerical and administrative jobs when the recession began are no longer working in that occupation now. Those jobs have been permanently eliminated and even when the economy recovers they will never be filled again. This country and virtually all of western civilization must accept the fact that one-fifth of it’s work force, will eventually be permanently unemployed. 

What is the Obama administration or for that matter, the Merkel, Sarkozy, Cameron etc.,  administrations, doing about this? For that matter, are any of them even acknowledging the existence of this 100 ton gorilla?

The King Kong of modern social issues is being completely ignored simply because no one has even the slightest idea of how to deal with him. Except perhaps, “Just ignore him and maybe he’ll go away”

Since the dawn of the Industrial revolution and maybe even before, people have defined themselves by their occupations. If you ask someone to describe themselves they’ll usually start with their jobs; “I’m a lawyer and a father, a husband” etc. Their social positions, their connection to the community, their lives, revolve around their jobs. With no job - who are they? If one out of five members of the work force have no jobs and no employment prospects what are they? How can they relate to society? 

An examination of countries that have experienced long-term, massive unemployment reveals a consistent pattern of social unrest and a frequent tendency towards an autoritarian regime (e.g. Nazi Germany, fascist Spain & Portugal, Peron’s Argentina, etc.) or incipient fascist movements as in the 1930’s U.S. or the current Tea-Bag Movement and aberrations like the Arizona immigration law.

FDR introduced Social Security and the WPA among other governmental initiatives to offset (but not cure) the unemployment crisis. They were fairly successful palliatives but it took WWII to put a temporary stop to it. Then, the post-war “reconctruction” with its GI Bill and other related instruments contributed to the temporary postponement of the resurgence of massive unemployment but as the Eagles sang “You can run but you can’t hide” and now almost 80 years since the onset of the Great Depression it’s “deja vu all over again”

This time, we must face the awful reality of permanent unemployment for a significant segment of the world’s population and focus our best minds and facilities on the problem before the Gorilla starts to tear the place apart.

Watching Pigeons

 Do Americans look and act  more like pigeons or are pigeons imitating people?

You Want Limited Government?

How about HONG KONG?: 

".  We may well ask whether there exist any contemporary examples of societies that rely primarily on voluntary exchange through the market and in which government is limited.

Perhaps the best example is Hong Kong.  It is less than 400 square miles in size with a population of roughly 4.5 million people.  The density of population is almost unbelievable — 14 times as many people per square mile as Japan, 185 times as many as in the United States.  Yet they enjoy one of the highest standards of living in all of Asia — second only to Japan and perhaps Singapore.

Hong Kong has no tariffs or other restraints on international trade.  It has no government direction of economic activity, no minimum wage laws, no fixing of prices.  The residents are free to buy from whom they want, sell to whom they want, to invest however they want, to hire whom they want, to work for whom they want.

The role of government is limited.  It enforces law and order, provides a means for formulating the rules of conduct, adjudicates disputes, facilitates transportation and communication, and supervises the issuance of currency.

Government spending remains the lowest in the world as a fraction of the income of the people.  As a result, low taxes preserve incentives.  Businessmen reap the benefits of their success but also bear the costs of their mistakes.

– Free to Choose by  Milton Friedman

Isn't Hong Kong part of the People's Republic of China (PRC)? How could anyone call that a "contemporary example ....in which government is limited". The truth is that the limited government, so prized by the Tea Partiers is a fantasy in today's world. Even the Tea Partiers want their Social Security and Medicare and all of us who benefitted from the GI Bill of Rights don't regret that either.
Totally Free Market Economy? So Goldman Sachs and the rest of Wall St. Gang can get away with murder? 
These guys can't be serious. 


I would like to know exactly how their vision of limited government would work and how do we re-invent our political system to fit it?
Maybe start with "limited free elections" ? Land owners and millionaires only? Maybe we should just abolish the federal government completely so that here in Texas we'd be totally under the thumb of wing-nut secessionists like Rick Perry

The Glory that Was...America?

If only the politicians in Washington, London, Paris, Baghdad or wherever weren't politicians and if scorpions weren't always scorpions, then the leopard would change his spots and we could have universal health care that makes sense and other legislation that benefits the people. Alas it's not going to happen- ever. Politicians will always be- politicians, and the people will always follows the kings of misrule with the loudest voices. After 60 years of political activism (from Adlai Stevenson to Barack Obama) I'm laying down my clipboard and retiring. I have wasted so much time and energy tilting at windmills only to realize that it has all been "An impossible dream" . 85% of what we call "the people" are really only sheep and they will follow anyone who looks like a shepherd. Tebaggers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your strings!


And I will sit back and watch as this country sinks to the second tier position it has earned. Where indeed is the courage, integrity and goodwill that used to be the identifying keywords of American foreign and domestic public policy?
Maybe it was all "an impossible dream"

Have I Got Egg on my Face?

Not quite but almost. True, Obama and his staff have managed to get the somewhat tattered Health Care Reform Bill through the house the House. It a quilt work of compromises and some rather shifty deals. The restrictions on abortion are unfair and unfortunate but it is some reform and maybe it will lead to more cost savings somewhere down the road.
So hip, hip fore President Obama (he has now earned the title) and please remember sir, "there are miles to go before [we] sleep"

The Lives of "The Stars"

Susan Sarandon is dating a 31 year old ping pong player?
How sad. I respected and admired ms. Sarandon for her masterful performances in ," Thelma & Louise" (1991)," Lorenzo's Oil" (1992), and "The Client" (1994).She definitely earned the award for her performance in " Dead Man Walking". But it seems as if the corruption and decadence is spreading fast from Wall St., to Washington and Main St. to Hollywood. Evidently, you can take the [Woman] out of Hollywood but you can't take Hollywood out of the woman. Good luck to you Susan, it seems "I hardly knew ya"

Be Careful About What You Wish [Vote] For

I laughed when I first heard somebody refer to Barrack Obama as "The Manchurian Candidate of the 21st century" but I don't think it's all that funny anymore. Certainly he's not a tool of the Russians or even the Chinese but, what if, he has been recruited and formed by the robber barons of Wall St. and other free market gangsters, to completely subvert the government of the United States in preparation for a takeover by the forces of the night/right and the installation of an oligarchic dictatorship? "Oh no, it can't happen here you say"? How about Timothy Franz Geithner and his mentor Larry Summers? Whose side do you think they're on? Yours and mine? Yeah right. And the latest Supreme Court rulings? I won't use the word "conspiracy" but it does somewhat fit a pattern doesn't it. The question is "How low can he (Obama) go" before people wake up. Obstructionist Republican naysayers to the right of us- dubious Democrats to the left of us. Simpson & Co. "retrofitting" our Social Security system. Isn't there anybody out there that's on our side?

CPR for Our Country

The economic system is under a death watch and there's almost no hope for survival without radical surgery.
Our political system needs multiple organ transplants,
including brain and heart.
Here's what responsible citizens can do to insure the survival of our country.

1. Stop contributing to all political organizations and politicians immediately!
2. Create and circulate a petition to impeach the Supreme Court.
3. Plan and execute a responsible citizens March on Washington on the first of May.
4. Politicians and organizations supporting the petition and march will be eligible for funding
5. Draft the "best and the brightest" to conceptualize a "Citizen's Bill of Rights for the 21st Century" for endorsement and incorporation in the U.S. Constitution.

Perhaps then we can start to re-create "a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men [and women] are created equal."

God Help America!

The Best Hotels in the World

Totally subjective based  exclusively on my own personal experience

• The old Plaza Hotel ( New York)
• The George V (Paris, before it became a Four Seasons Hotel)
• The New Otani (Tokyo)
• The Villa D'este (Lake Como)
• Due Torri (Verona)
• Gritti Palace (Venice)
• Claridge's (London)
• The Hilton (Hong Kong)
• The Beverly Wilshire (Beverly Hills)
• The Four Seasons Costa Rica

Three of the best are in Italy. The Italians do a few things right- hotel keeping, cooking, making and wearing clothes and manufacturing fine cars. If, "living well is the best revenge", living in Italy is the supreme vendetta.

Mimicing

Mimicking or "mirroring" is not exclusive to humans, our cousins the chimps do it and so do many other animals. 
It may be one of the most ancient forms of social intercourse. It's a way of establishing a connection with another and, although not absolutely necessary it may be a quick way of establishing a preliminary relationship. I don't usually mimic someone I don't like unless it's to ridicule them. It's a way of demonstrating our "sympathie" (in the French sense) for another. You smile and I smile back, you laugh and so do I. (Many people need a laugh track to know what's funny) 
When someone makes a friendly gesture; offering their hand or a hug and I don't reciprocate, I am showing that I have no wish to engage with that person in a friendly way.


We don't usually mimic anyone that we don't feel any empathy for unless it's to show scorn or contempt. So, what about those who can't empathize with others? Normally they don't mimic and if they do it's usually forced and unnatural. 

Just War?

"My God, is this the end of the world? No. it's 'just war' ".
I don't believe in "Just Wars" or more specifically. I can't think of any except perhaps WW II (and I'm not absolutely sure about even that). The President presented an almost valid argument for his position relative to our occupation of Afghanistan but it was not totally convincing. He demonstrated his pragmatic  tendencies and actually showed his casuist side as well. It's beginning to look like Barrack Obama is not really committed to the changes he promised in his campaign but instead is totally wed to the idea of business as usual even more than the lobbyists he promised to get rid of.
Can we blame him for these survivalist tactics? Not if we go along with the idea that politicians main/only function or purpose is to get elected. Obama has achieved his goal now we just have to wait to see how his "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" strategy will play out.
This is not the way it was supposed to be.

We Thought We Were Making a Difference

It's almost a year since I climbed aboard a bus in Austin and rode for almost 24 hours up to Cleveland to spend a week going house-to-house, head-to-head, asking people to vote as early as possible and for the only candidate worthy of their vote, Barack Obama and then, on Nov. 7, 2008, to sit in the Cadillac Cafe, surrounded by hundreds of other "fired-up" volunteers and some local political figures, to watch our candidate move steadily toward victory. It was a wonderful experience and for the first time since the assassination of JFK, I knew that our political system could work and that all of us had a stake in the political process.

After the long ride back to Austin and a return to "business as usual" the glow of victory and the sense of real accomplishment burned on and we waited for our victorious leader to call us back to arms, to fight the good fight and expand our sphere of influence. We would not accept eight more years of the same old stuff in Washington- the lobbyists and the crooked politicians were going to have to make career change- or so we thought. Now we know. It was all just a dream a "smoke and mirrors" pony show put on by the real leaders who are now ensconced in the White House calling the shots.

The naive, idealistic volunteers have no place in the Obama machine now. We've served our purpose and are now relegated to the landfills with all the rest of society's "disposables". We never sought power or individual recognition, just a chance to "make a difference" and messieurs Axelrod, Emmanuel and the others knew that from the very beginning. We were just "warm bodies", "cannon fodder", in the political struggle and now the real generals are left to plot and execute strategies to expand and strengthen their own political power.

Where does President Obama stand in all of this? Will history see him as another "Bushie", dangling from Cheyney's strings (read Obama dangling and Axelrod/Emmanuel the string pullers)? Or is Barack Obama actually the Ringmaster?

Obama & the Lama (or now we know who our real friends are)

PHAYUL: Dalai Lama meeting with Obama was not planned, says White House | Daily Babel

When I was a boy in New York, we knew that the real men, the kind you could trust, they were "Standup Guys" and all the others were "losers".

Barack Obama is sliding down the slippery slope to loser land at an ever-quickening pace. He bailed out the GM fat cats, threw a big wad of dough at the Wall St. Gang and equivocates like a true-blue Republican on Health Care. Now he decides no to stand-up for the Dalai Lama so the Chinese will "like" him but he'll get no respect from the Beijing crowd. In fact, chances are they'll push him around like a puff-ball the next time there's a meet.
It looks like our President will soon learn that his predecessor, honest Abe, was right.
"You can fool some of the people, some of the time...but you can't fool all of the people all of the time"
And I can't help saying "Barack, you already fooled me once"


C'mon Barack, show us what you've got- before it's too late

From the "Nouvel Obs", June 6, 2009

"Suicide des personnes âgées : les professionnels dénoncent l'indifférence"

(Translation "Mental Health Professionals Denounce Public Indifference to Suicide by Seniors"

Le diagnostic de dépression est difficile à faire chez des sujets âgés (Reuters) Clinical diagnosis of depression is particularly difficult to do with the elderly.

"Les personnes âgées se suicident en moyenne beaucoup plus que le reste de la population, surtout après 85 ans..

10 fois plus que le reste de la population"

The incidence of suicide among Seniors, (especially those over 85) is ten times greater than that of the general poulation. In fact, whereas 17 out of 100,000 persons in the general population commit suicide, 44 out 100,000 people in the 85-94 age bracket successfully terminate their own lives.

Isn't that awful? Or is it? What if suicide wasn't illegal - what would the figures look like then? How many older citizens would prefer a quiet, painless death to the daily routine of chronic pain, suffering, loneliness, ignominy and boredom that is the way it is for so many in their "golden years"? Perhaps it's time we reviewed our legal stautes and attitudes concerning the right to choose our time and method of death. Shouldn't we have the right to decide when life is no longer worth living? When "the game is not worth the candle" (This phrase relates to occupations, games etc. that were thought so lacking in merit that it wasn't worth the expense of a candle to create enough light to partake in them.) The Eskimos used to take grandma or grandpa for a walk in the arctic wilderness when old age had robbed him or her of the "joie de vivre" - we shoot horses don't we?

Not withstanding the recent brouhaha over the "death tribunals" , we must take this matter seriously and there should be public discussion and polite/civil debate on the issue. Oregon has led the way with the first bit of civilised legislation and perhaps soon other states will follow suit so that I can live out my last days in the company of my family. We also will need to develop the technology that quiet, painless transitions and the social services to assist in the process but obviously bearing in mind that a permissive public attitude towards assisted suicide be restricted to older (post 75) citizens who are still capable of rational thought and/or anyone suffering from uncurable, debilitating disease.
"It's time now, folks"

Health Care Reform Myths and Reality

Since the dawn of civilization, men and women have created myths to explain things they couldn't understand. "The rise and setting oof the sun"," What causes the rain?" "How are babies made?", "What happens when we die? etc.
Even now, we create myth when faced with inexplicable events like the assassination of JFK, the death of Elvis, droughts and hurricanes.
Many of us find change, difficult to handle. We don't always welcome it and often do what we can to postpone or prevent it. So it's no surprise that the prospect of fundamental modifications in our health care delivery system has created a climate of stress and discomfort for many.

One of the many myths about the health system that are currently making the rounds of Town Halls, bar rooms and barber shops is the one about "Living Wills" or advance health care directives.

Several years ago, my stepmother was critically injured in a head-on collision. She suffered significant brain damage and remained in a coma, without regaining consciousness, until her death, three months after the accident. After three months in a coma, her attending physician asked me as head of the family, to decide whether my step-mother's life should continue to be sustained via life-prolonging procedures. She had shown no signs of consciousness during the three months in the hospital and the EKG showed no brain activity. I consented to the termination of all life-prolonging procedures and she stopped breathing almost immediately. I arranged for cremation- there was no funeral. I had been close to my stepmother for more than thirty years and I was certain that she would have wanted for things to be handled the way I had decided and when I told my siblings and my stepmother's mother what I had decided and how I had come to the decision they all agreed that it was the right thing to do.

Now we hear many misguided and perhaps ignorant people in Town Halls across America talking about "Death Directives" and "Pulling the plug on Grandma", their words for the Living Will procedures offered in the proposed Health Care Reform Bill.
Living Wills are instruments that every one of us can and should execute to insure that when and if it becomes necessary to decide on matters concerning how we wish to die and how our bodies should be treated after death, it will be our decision and the responsibility not left to a hospital employee, a grief stricken relative or the courts. Only the truly ignorant or liars would call a Living Will a death directive

The Evolutionary Trail to Oblivion

WARNING:
This article is absolutely Politically incorrect.
Creationists and those with over-developed political sensitivity and the squeamish should go somewhere else.

Over the last two centuries or so, Americans have behaved according to the established rules of natural selection.
The captains of high school football teams have pursued and been pursued by Homecoming Queens and they have produced prodigious numbers of fullbacks and pom-pom girls. The end result can be currently observed in Town Halls across the country where the descendants of the first football heroes and cheerleaders are demanding that the "Government keep their hands of my Medicare" and other similarly absurd political nonsense.
Under ordinary conditions, significant changes in evolutionary development would take hundreds of years -usually thousands but thanks to the intensive effort of the footbal heroes and their partners we have evidently created a new sub-species in a few generations. We can now see a dramatic lowering of the IQ's of a growing proportion of the population, whose role models or icons, are creatures like Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and most of the minority party representatives in Congress. Within a few generations, unless a way is found to reverse the current trend, the United States population will be intellectually challenged and most of the unemployed will be permanently unemployable.

Who or what can we identify as the basic causes of this disturbing or rather disastrous situation?
First, our business leaders, the makers and marketers of a wide range of consumer goods, from autos to water pics, Asprin to Xanax have benefitted greatly from the "dumbing down" of consumers who have been trained to accept advertising messages with complete credulity and never question anything said in the mass media and the educational establishment has eagerly cooperated by recruiting and training teachers who, for the most part, are completely innocent of any intellectual curiosity or critical thinking capacity. The need for an expanding volunteer army has also created a need for thousands of young soldiers who will follow the orders of their superiors with zeal and spirit without question and integrate government propaganda into their belief systems-permanently

If Obama Doesn't "Make it Happen"

We're Screwed
Brooks of the NYT wrote today:
"The great paradox of the age is that Barack Obama, the most riveting of recent presidents, is leading us into an era of Congressional dominance. And Congressional governance is a haven for special interest pleading and venal logrolling."

Like a bridge designed by a committee

You can trust the U.S. Congress to make a dog's breakfast out of anything it touches

Born in '34-Donald Duck, The Dalai Lama and I

We were born in the same year. We're all, or soon will be, 75. Which one of us will be remembered 15 or 125 years from now? Totally rhetorical. It's gotta be "Uncle Donald". Among the hundreds of characters turned out by the Disney machine, Donald Duck was one of the very few that I could relate to. His irascibility, even in my childhood was easy to identify with. He understood how terribly daffy, people (like ducks) could be.
Shouldn't the Dalai Lama get top billing over the duckster? Yes, he should but he won't even though the His Holiness is one of the most human beings I know and his compassion and empathy plus his incredible intelligence should put him on top but it's his perfection that eliminates him from the starring role. He's just "too good".