Jimmy Savile had a long career on both British television and radio. It now appears he had another career, one that has scandalized the BBC and all of the UK. British police are saying that in a little over fifty years Mr. Savile committed at least 214 sex crimes making him, "one of Britain's most prolific sexual offenders."
The police contend that, Savile, who was knighted by both Queen Elizabeth and the Papacy, used his celebrity status to gain access to vulnerable kids as young as eight years old. He abused them everywhere, according to the report. Everywhere includes hospitals, night clubs and even a hospice for the terminally ill. The attacks, which occurred in twenty eight different police districts, began in 1955 and didn't end until 2009.
Outrage is being expressed and accusations are flying. The main questions being how did this run amok loon get away with it for so long and why didn't all this come to light sooner? Those questions will probably get answered one of these days, one way or the other. However it won't matter to Sir Jimmy. He died in 2011 with out facing even one charge.
Over here our man, Jerry Sandusky must be in awe of such nimbleness. His attorney, Joe Amendola recently appealed the old coach's sex crimes conviction, saying the defense team didn't have the proper amount of time to prepare their case. Sandusky continues to maintain he is completely innocent of all the charges against him. I suppose you need to have something to do when you are scheduled to spend the rest of your life in the joint. Besides, what else are you going to say?
NBC is reporting that in India Mr. Manohar Lal Sharma, attorney at law, is defending three of the six men accused of the brutal gang rape and murder of a 23 year old woman. Knowing a good defense depends on an aggressive offense, Mr. Sharma claims that the victim and her male friend, who was also severely beaten, were, "totally responsible" for the attack because they were an unmarried couple on the streets at night. According to Sharma, "Until today I have not seen a single incident of rape with a respected lady. Even an underworld don would not touch a girl with respect.
Backing up this interesting theory is Indian spiritual leader Asrama Bapu, who was quoted as saying, "Guilt is not one sided." Mr. Bapu went on to say that if the woman had pleaded with her attackers in God's name, thrown herself at their feet and told them she was of "the weaker sex" they would have left her alone.
Conservative Indian politician, Mahan Bhagwat assured the press that rape only occurs in the cities because women there adopt western lifestyles. He went on to say that rapes don't happen in rural India. Reuters reports that the National Commission for Women has documented a wide spread pattern of gang rapes of lower caste women throughout the Indian countryside.
It is unclear as to whether Mr. Bhagwat will immigrate to the United States, join the tea party and run for the senate in Missouri. That is where former candidate, Todd Akin expressed his views on "legitimate rape" last fall.
Jyoti Singh Pandey, a physiotherapy student. died a couple of weeks after she and her friend were thrown naked from the moving bus where the attack took place. It is estimated that a woman is raped in India every 22 seconds.
Up in Colorado the judge delayed the arraignment of James Holmes until March 12, prompting one spectator to yell, "Rot in hell, Holmes!" The defense team is asking for more time to decide how to plead their client who faces 166 counts of murder and attempted murder. Admittedly I'm no expert, but it appears to me Mr. Holmes' legal team really doesn't have a lot of options available to them at this time. Perhaps they can get with with Mr. Manohar Lal Sharma and come up with something. After all, it was late at night and not everyone in the Aurora theater was married.
Finally, 10 year old Aaliyah Boyer died Thursday in a Pennsylvania hospital. She had gone to visit relatives in Maryland over the New Year's weekend. Right after midnight she and her family went outside to watch fireworks. She was hit in the head by a stray bullet that police believe was fired into the air by neighbors to celebrate the event. The Huffington Post is reporting that while her family was holding a vigil for her at the hospital their home was burglarized.
Aaliyah's heart and other vital organs were donated to children in need of transplants.
So much bullshit and so little hope. It almost makes you wish that the whole Mayan apocalypse thing had come true.
Onward to the weekend and a bottle of Bushmill's.
Mr. Sulu, you have the con.
1-11-13
Friday, January 11, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Live Free and Die: The American Way
Every now and then some conservative will tell me that liberals are out to destroy the best health care system in the world. With typical American arrogance he or she will swear to you that no other country in the world is better served by the medical and insurance industries than the United States is. It is part and parcel of their argument against the Affordable Health Care Act, derisively dubbed, Obamacare.
As with most issues, my conservative friends will never let the facts intrude upon their fantasies, no matter how outlandish they are.
NBC News ran a story yesterday on line by one Maggie Fox. She cited a study commissioned by the National Institute of Health and conducted by The National Research Council and the U.S. Institute of Medicine. It compared the health of Americans to that of Canadians, Australians, Japanese and thirteen European countries. In other words a sackful of industrialized nations who aren't mired in all the problems associated with undeveloped countries and the third world in general.
Americans run into trouble at the moment of birth. The study finds that the infant mortality rate in the U.S. is 32.7 deaths per 100,000. Infant mortality rates in the other countries surveyed range from 15 to 25 per 100,000. At the back end of the our time here it found American men have the shortest life expectancy of all 16 nations at 75.6 years. The Swiss have the longest at 79 years. American women on average last 81 years on the planet, which is second to last. Japanese women have a life expectancy of 86.
Americans not only have a higher rate of infant mortality and shorter life expectancies, but we also have higher incidences of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, drug abuse, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, obesity and disabilities.
Then we get to the violence. As everyone should be able to guess we have higher violent injury and homicide rates than everyone else too. In fact the average American is seven times more likely to be murdered than citizens of the other 16 nations. We are twenty times more likely to be killed by a gun.
Ahh, but at what cost you ask. Well the study found the average American spends $8,600 on health care per year, a number which includes insurance premiums. That is twice the amount spent by Britons, the French, and Swedes despite a large portion of their tax dollars going to government subsidized health care systems.
The only good news in all this is that if you are an American and do make it to 75 your chances are better at lasting a bit longer than other nationalities who also reach that age. We also have a lower death rate due to cancer. And despite the higher risks of heart attacks, strokes and diabetes we do better jobs of controlling our blood pressure and cholesterol. Praise the Lord and pass the Lipitor.
Ms. Fox rolled out a number of experts to try to explain these dreadful numbers. They talked about our addiction to cars and therefore lack of exercise and our love of fast food. They also addressed the almost involuntary American reaction that most of us have when told we shouldn't do something by some authority. Nothing will get us to super size an order of fries quicker than a mayor saying super sized fries should be banned from the city limits. Just as nothing will drive gun sales higher than the threat of the government cracking down on assault style weapons.
We aren't, by God, going to be told what to do, even if it kills us.
Unfortunately, according to these statistics, it is.
In this country we have become so utterly convinced that everything we do, that everything we have is so far superior to what the rest of the world does and has, it blinds us to the cold facts. Our myopia in this regard is our greatest weakness. We will not accept any idea, any change that even feels like it comes from beyond our shores. If it isn't American it will somehow infringe upon our freedom and won't work, at least not here.
It is something to think about the next time some asshole rails on about government death panels and such. The truth is we all ready have them. They are located in the offices of insurance companies all across this great land. If you don't think so just switch your health plan from one carrier to another and then read the letter about pre-existing conditions not being covered.
Yes, we maybe great in many ways, but it is painfully obvious that when it comes to health and health care we're downright mediocre, if not cruelly incompetent and criminally lax.
To paraphrase the New Hampshire license tag motto, "Live Free and Die."
It is, after all, The American Way.
1-10-13
As with most issues, my conservative friends will never let the facts intrude upon their fantasies, no matter how outlandish they are.
NBC News ran a story yesterday on line by one Maggie Fox. She cited a study commissioned by the National Institute of Health and conducted by The National Research Council and the U.S. Institute of Medicine. It compared the health of Americans to that of Canadians, Australians, Japanese and thirteen European countries. In other words a sackful of industrialized nations who aren't mired in all the problems associated with undeveloped countries and the third world in general.
Americans run into trouble at the moment of birth. The study finds that the infant mortality rate in the U.S. is 32.7 deaths per 100,000. Infant mortality rates in the other countries surveyed range from 15 to 25 per 100,000. At the back end of the our time here it found American men have the shortest life expectancy of all 16 nations at 75.6 years. The Swiss have the longest at 79 years. American women on average last 81 years on the planet, which is second to last. Japanese women have a life expectancy of 86.
Americans not only have a higher rate of infant mortality and shorter life expectancies, but we also have higher incidences of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, drug abuse, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, obesity and disabilities.
Then we get to the violence. As everyone should be able to guess we have higher violent injury and homicide rates than everyone else too. In fact the average American is seven times more likely to be murdered than citizens of the other 16 nations. We are twenty times more likely to be killed by a gun.
Ahh, but at what cost you ask. Well the study found the average American spends $8,600 on health care per year, a number which includes insurance premiums. That is twice the amount spent by Britons, the French, and Swedes despite a large portion of their tax dollars going to government subsidized health care systems.
The only good news in all this is that if you are an American and do make it to 75 your chances are better at lasting a bit longer than other nationalities who also reach that age. We also have a lower death rate due to cancer. And despite the higher risks of heart attacks, strokes and diabetes we do better jobs of controlling our blood pressure and cholesterol. Praise the Lord and pass the Lipitor.
Ms. Fox rolled out a number of experts to try to explain these dreadful numbers. They talked about our addiction to cars and therefore lack of exercise and our love of fast food. They also addressed the almost involuntary American reaction that most of us have when told we shouldn't do something by some authority. Nothing will get us to super size an order of fries quicker than a mayor saying super sized fries should be banned from the city limits. Just as nothing will drive gun sales higher than the threat of the government cracking down on assault style weapons.
We aren't, by God, going to be told what to do, even if it kills us.
Unfortunately, according to these statistics, it is.
In this country we have become so utterly convinced that everything we do, that everything we have is so far superior to what the rest of the world does and has, it blinds us to the cold facts. Our myopia in this regard is our greatest weakness. We will not accept any idea, any change that even feels like it comes from beyond our shores. If it isn't American it will somehow infringe upon our freedom and won't work, at least not here.
It is something to think about the next time some asshole rails on about government death panels and such. The truth is we all ready have them. They are located in the offices of insurance companies all across this great land. If you don't think so just switch your health plan from one carrier to another and then read the letter about pre-existing conditions not being covered.
Yes, we maybe great in many ways, but it is painfully obvious that when it comes to health and health care we're downright mediocre, if not cruelly incompetent and criminally lax.
To paraphrase the New Hampshire license tag motto, "Live Free and Die."
It is, after all, The American Way.
1-10-13
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Alina Fitzpatrick: The Deafening Silence
If you enter Alina Fitzpatrick's name on Google you'll find 17 or 18 references to her in the first couple of pages. If you search Bing you'll come across a little over 20. None of them are very recent. The news stories from various Oklahoma City media outlets are especially dated. They stopped sometime around the first couple of months of 2012.
Reports indicate that she attended Putnam City North High School through May of 2011. That autumn she began taking classes on line via the Putnam City Virtual High School. The reason she dropped out of North is still a little murky, at least publicly. It was reported she was being bullied, although a school district spokesperson was quick to say that there was no record of that.
The facts concerning her disappearance and death remain unchanged. She was dropped off at an apartment complex near NW 24th and Western on the evening of November 4th, 2011. Almost immediately after she was last seen her cell phone started routing calls directly to her voice mail. Apparently she never made it inside the apartment she was going to. On November 9th her body was found at 4506 Overbrook Rd. That is out by Anderson Road which is in far eastern Oklahoma County and not even remotely near the spot she was dropped off at. She was found nude, with trauma to the head, scrapes and bruises that appeared to be recent, and either paper or cloth in her mouth, as if she'd been gagged. The Medical Examiner decided that none of her obvious injuries were fatal, but that she had a significant amount of methamphetamine in her system, enough in fact to cause her death. With that bit of information in hand the Oklahoma City Police Department ruled that her death was not a homicide, but rather, suspicious. At that moment you could almost hear her case file being pushed to the bottom of the pile on some one's desk.
In the days before she went missing she had told family and friends that she was worried about an unnamed man who, somehow, may have glommed onto her cell phone number. It was reported she'd changed that number shortly before the tragedy that befell her.
According to her obituary she was buried on November 22nd, 2011 in a casket that was handmade and blessed by Trappist monks at an abbey in Iowa. When she was laid to rest she had spent only 17 years on the planet.
The status of the investigation into her disappearance and death remain unclear. There have been no media updates. There have been no progress reports made available to the public by the police. When it comes to Alina Fitzpatrick the silence is deafening.
The true national tragedy at play here is that we grow numb to this sort of thing in the United States. It really is far too easy for most of us to forget someone like Alina Fitzpatrick. I mean lets face it, we've got crazed lunatics gunning down movie patrons, mall shoppers, and nearly two dozen first graders all in one fell swoop. Unless it is a daughter, son, spouse, relative, or close friend the death of one individual, one 17 year old over a year ago, while certainly terrible, is just another day in the life.
It shouldn't be that way. To lose one of us is tragic, to lose our humanity is unthinkably evil.
Hopefully someday we will regain that humanity so terribly missing right now. Hopefully we'll grow to demand that the Alina Fitzpatrick's of the country receive the justice due to them, no matter how long it takes, no matter what it takes. Hopefully someday we'll recognize that we are the less because she is gone and we are certainly the less because so few of us even remember that she is. She deserves that much at least. In the end, we all do.
sic vita est
1-8-13
Reports indicate that she attended Putnam City North High School through May of 2011. That autumn she began taking classes on line via the Putnam City Virtual High School. The reason she dropped out of North is still a little murky, at least publicly. It was reported she was being bullied, although a school district spokesperson was quick to say that there was no record of that.
The facts concerning her disappearance and death remain unchanged. She was dropped off at an apartment complex near NW 24th and Western on the evening of November 4th, 2011. Almost immediately after she was last seen her cell phone started routing calls directly to her voice mail. Apparently she never made it inside the apartment she was going to. On November 9th her body was found at 4506 Overbrook Rd. That is out by Anderson Road which is in far eastern Oklahoma County and not even remotely near the spot she was dropped off at. She was found nude, with trauma to the head, scrapes and bruises that appeared to be recent, and either paper or cloth in her mouth, as if she'd been gagged. The Medical Examiner decided that none of her obvious injuries were fatal, but that she had a significant amount of methamphetamine in her system, enough in fact to cause her death. With that bit of information in hand the Oklahoma City Police Department ruled that her death was not a homicide, but rather, suspicious. At that moment you could almost hear her case file being pushed to the bottom of the pile on some one's desk.
In the days before she went missing she had told family and friends that she was worried about an unnamed man who, somehow, may have glommed onto her cell phone number. It was reported she'd changed that number shortly before the tragedy that befell her.
According to her obituary she was buried on November 22nd, 2011 in a casket that was handmade and blessed by Trappist monks at an abbey in Iowa. When she was laid to rest she had spent only 17 years on the planet.
The status of the investigation into her disappearance and death remain unclear. There have been no media updates. There have been no progress reports made available to the public by the police. When it comes to Alina Fitzpatrick the silence is deafening.
The true national tragedy at play here is that we grow numb to this sort of thing in the United States. It really is far too easy for most of us to forget someone like Alina Fitzpatrick. I mean lets face it, we've got crazed lunatics gunning down movie patrons, mall shoppers, and nearly two dozen first graders all in one fell swoop. Unless it is a daughter, son, spouse, relative, or close friend the death of one individual, one 17 year old over a year ago, while certainly terrible, is just another day in the life.
It shouldn't be that way. To lose one of us is tragic, to lose our humanity is unthinkably evil.
Hopefully someday we will regain that humanity so terribly missing right now. Hopefully we'll grow to demand that the Alina Fitzpatrick's of the country receive the justice due to them, no matter how long it takes, no matter what it takes. Hopefully someday we'll recognize that we are the less because she is gone and we are certainly the less because so few of us even remember that she is. She deserves that much at least. In the end, we all do.
sic vita est
1-8-13
Monday, January 7, 2013
Very Relaxed in Aurora, Colorado
NBC News and CNN are both reporting that Aurora, Colorado police officer, Jason Oviatt took the stand this morning during the opening day of James Holmes' preliminary hearing. Holmes is the bright young fellow who opened fire on an audience of movie goers on July 20th last year. By the time he was done 12 patrons were dead and another 59 were wounded.
According to reports by both organizations Oviatt heard the radio call of the shooting during a routine traffic stop and immediately rushed to the rear of the theater. His initial reaction when he saw Holmes dressed in black and wearing body armor was that he was another police officer. When he realized he was, in fact, confronting the shooter Oviatt drew his weapon and ordered Holmes to raise his hands. In his words the suspect was "very relaxed." He testified that Holmes complied readily to every command and volunteered that his apartment was booby trapped, Oviatt also used the word, "detached" to describe the suspect. He added that Holmes was "dripping with sweat" and his pupils were dilated. Finally, in a moment of grand understatement, Oviatt said that James Holmes, when arrested, "didn't display normal emotions."
No, I suppose he wouldn't since he was and still is as batty as a bed bug on acid. Legal analysts are speculating that his attorney's will enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Daniel King, the public defender representing Holmes contends his client suffers from mental illness and says he has two witnesses ready to testify to that.
Ok, we got it. We also know that while in the depths of all this terrible craziness he spent months plotting the attack, buying up weapons and ammunition legally from various sporting goods outlets and online vendors. We know he took the time to wire his apartment to explode upon entry. We know he bought a ticket to the movie, snuck out the back exit of the theater, changed into SWAT team type gear, then re-entered, armed and ready to rock an roll.
Currently he faces 166 counts of murder, attempted murder, and some weapons possession charges that no doubt the NRA will heartily contest, because, after all, that is what the NRA does. The smart money says this will never get to an actual trial. That by the time the hearing is over the defense will figure their only real hope to keep this guy from taking a hot shot in a vein is to let the state chuck him into the slammer for the rest of his unnatural life without any possibility of parole.
Meanwhile over the weekend, back in Aurora, police confirmed two men and one woman were shot to death in a home early Saturday morning. A second woman escaped the scene and reported the shooting to police. When the cops arrived the gunman was still alive and kicking. Negotiators tried to talk him out of the house over a period of several hours. A police news release described how that went in this way, "He was behaving very irrationally throughout the incident and often hung up on the negotiators."
Finally after opening fire on officers not just once, but two times the police shot and killed the still unidentified man.
So there we have it. Crazy people do bad things with guns. It appears we have two choices. Get rid of the crazy people. You know, throw weird old uncle George and every kid with Asperger Syndrome into an asylum. Or, we can restrict the availability of guns.
Now which of those two options seems more a of restriction on personal freedom? I'll admit it is just me, but I tend to think that locking up, or forcibly medicating everyone who might go nuts is a tad more totalitarian than simply getting rid of the weapons of mass murder. I don't know if that sullen young kid down the street will go off or not, but I do know what a Bushmaster .223 with a thirty round clip can do and it isn't pretty.
We have proven time and time again that this culture, that the nation as a whole, cannot control itself when it comes to guns. If we have them we are going to use them.
And we're going to use them on each other.
Say good bye to the Glock, America. Now is the moment to put a lid on all your outlandish patriotic fantasies, not to mention your emotional and psycho sexual dependence on killing machines. In other words, grow the fuck up. Your act is not only tiresome, but deadly. Quite frankly it is time for it to end and I mean end right now.
1-7-13
According to reports by both organizations Oviatt heard the radio call of the shooting during a routine traffic stop and immediately rushed to the rear of the theater. His initial reaction when he saw Holmes dressed in black and wearing body armor was that he was another police officer. When he realized he was, in fact, confronting the shooter Oviatt drew his weapon and ordered Holmes to raise his hands. In his words the suspect was "very relaxed." He testified that Holmes complied readily to every command and volunteered that his apartment was booby trapped, Oviatt also used the word, "detached" to describe the suspect. He added that Holmes was "dripping with sweat" and his pupils were dilated. Finally, in a moment of grand understatement, Oviatt said that James Holmes, when arrested, "didn't display normal emotions."
No, I suppose he wouldn't since he was and still is as batty as a bed bug on acid. Legal analysts are speculating that his attorney's will enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Daniel King, the public defender representing Holmes contends his client suffers from mental illness and says he has two witnesses ready to testify to that.
Ok, we got it. We also know that while in the depths of all this terrible craziness he spent months plotting the attack, buying up weapons and ammunition legally from various sporting goods outlets and online vendors. We know he took the time to wire his apartment to explode upon entry. We know he bought a ticket to the movie, snuck out the back exit of the theater, changed into SWAT team type gear, then re-entered, armed and ready to rock an roll.
Currently he faces 166 counts of murder, attempted murder, and some weapons possession charges that no doubt the NRA will heartily contest, because, after all, that is what the NRA does. The smart money says this will never get to an actual trial. That by the time the hearing is over the defense will figure their only real hope to keep this guy from taking a hot shot in a vein is to let the state chuck him into the slammer for the rest of his unnatural life without any possibility of parole.
Meanwhile over the weekend, back in Aurora, police confirmed two men and one woman were shot to death in a home early Saturday morning. A second woman escaped the scene and reported the shooting to police. When the cops arrived the gunman was still alive and kicking. Negotiators tried to talk him out of the house over a period of several hours. A police news release described how that went in this way, "He was behaving very irrationally throughout the incident and often hung up on the negotiators."
Finally after opening fire on officers not just once, but two times the police shot and killed the still unidentified man.
So there we have it. Crazy people do bad things with guns. It appears we have two choices. Get rid of the crazy people. You know, throw weird old uncle George and every kid with Asperger Syndrome into an asylum. Or, we can restrict the availability of guns.
Now which of those two options seems more a of restriction on personal freedom? I'll admit it is just me, but I tend to think that locking up, or forcibly medicating everyone who might go nuts is a tad more totalitarian than simply getting rid of the weapons of mass murder. I don't know if that sullen young kid down the street will go off or not, but I do know what a Bushmaster .223 with a thirty round clip can do and it isn't pretty.
We have proven time and time again that this culture, that the nation as a whole, cannot control itself when it comes to guns. If we have them we are going to use them.
And we're going to use them on each other.
Say good bye to the Glock, America. Now is the moment to put a lid on all your outlandish patriotic fantasies, not to mention your emotional and psycho sexual dependence on killing machines. In other words, grow the fuck up. Your act is not only tiresome, but deadly. Quite frankly it is time for it to end and I mean end right now.
1-7-13
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Reflections on a Cold Bright Day
I have been told the streets were icy and it was a frigid night 63 years ago in Muskogee, Oklahoma, U.S.A. That was when I made my debut on this planet at a little over six pounds. I'm also told I possessed a head of dark hair and let loose with all the crying and mewing that is associated with newly minted human beings.
It was a long time ago in so many ways.
I spent my first nine years in that town. I distinctly remember my parents buying our first television set. It was a huge thing and the images it displayed were a somewhat fuzzy black and white. If you went outside and looked across the roofs of the houses in the neighborhood you would see a weird forest of antennas reaching up into the air, all these shiny poles with metal branches tilted this way and that. We received three channels.
Early in the morning a guy would come and leave glass bottles of fresh milk on your porch capped with thin cardboard stoppers. During the summers especially, the street was full of kids playing. My father bought me boxing gloves and got down on his knees and taught me how to crouch, jab, deliver an uppercut, and throw a hook because, "a boy should never start a fight, but always be prepared to defend himself."
Because the town and all of Oklahoma was strictly segregated I honestly didn't even know African Americans existed for the longest time. Even after I did I rarely saw one. There were two high schools in Muskogee at that point, Muskogee Central and Muskogee Manual Training. Take a stab at which one was for the black kids.
Yes, it has been a long trip. In my six plus decades on this ball The United States has fought in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. That would be a little less than one war every ten years. I didn't serve in any of them, although I did spend a considerable amount of time protesting the one in Vietnam on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. There have been other conflicts, or rather deadly skirmishes in places like Lebanon, Grenada, and Panama. There was also a week or so when the entire human race was on the verge of extinction as the U.S. and the Soviet Union squared off over missile bases in Cuba.
I've seen two presidents get shot and one killed. A third, Gerald Ford, was shot at once, but the assassin missed. Another attempt to take his life failed because the grotesque little geek forgot to chamber a round in the .45 she was holding. Also in my time here two presidential candidates have been shot. Robert Kennedy died of his wounds and George Wallace ended up in a wheel chair for the rest of his life. Martin Luther King was murdered which sparked riots in more than a few places. Although race riots, for a while anyway, didn't need anyone to be killed in order to ignite.
I grew up with plenty of kids who had fathers making a decent living building things with their hands in factories, but all that is over now. The blue collar middle class has gone the way of the Dodo. When I was young if some product had, "Made in Japan" stamped on it, you could count on it being the cheapest, most worthless piece of shit in the world. Now even the stuff from Japan seems pricey compared to what you can get from other parts of Asia.
From the age of ten to around twelve, or so my parents would drop me off at a movie theater with a buck or two and I'd spend about four hours watching films and cartoons with hundreds of other kids my age. I started smoking cigarettes during my eighth grade year because it was cool and there weren't any laws restricting tobacco sales to minors. The first time I got drunk I was fifteen. Some of us scored a pint bottle of J.T.S. Brown bourbon before a dance at the local YMCA. A little over a year later I got laid for the first time.
I heard the explosion and felt the concussion when Tim McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. I watched as the jets slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. On August first of 1966 I was on vacation with my parents. Our family was touring the Astrodome in Houston That was the day an ex marine named Charles Whitman opened fire on fellow summer school students from a tall building on the University of Texas campus. Before the cops got to him he'd killed 13 and wounded 32. In December of 2012 I watched the TV networks report the carnage at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Connecticut. Tragically, it seems the more things change the more they stay the same.
I saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon and if you'd asked me then, I would have told you that by 2013 we'd not only have a permanent presence on the moon, but an outpost on Mars. In the summer of 1969 I really thought we were on the verge of going to the stars. The Enterprise, Captain Kirk, Scotty, Uhuru, Chekov, and all the rest seemed right within our grasp.
I've watched my three children born. I've seen one brother and my mother die.
Every now and then I think I've witnessed too much, but then I realize I haven't seen enough.
We are such an ugly, brutal, yet decent and brave people. We are, I suppose, everything good and evil and all that entails. It is easy to become cynical, although in the end cynicism finally turns terribly sour. To be without at least some hope is to be dead.
And honestly-- there is no reason to rush into that final adventure is there? At least not yet, not from my perspective anyway.
Carpe diem
1-5-13
It was a long time ago in so many ways.
I spent my first nine years in that town. I distinctly remember my parents buying our first television set. It was a huge thing and the images it displayed were a somewhat fuzzy black and white. If you went outside and looked across the roofs of the houses in the neighborhood you would see a weird forest of antennas reaching up into the air, all these shiny poles with metal branches tilted this way and that. We received three channels.
Early in the morning a guy would come and leave glass bottles of fresh milk on your porch capped with thin cardboard stoppers. During the summers especially, the street was full of kids playing. My father bought me boxing gloves and got down on his knees and taught me how to crouch, jab, deliver an uppercut, and throw a hook because, "a boy should never start a fight, but always be prepared to defend himself."
Because the town and all of Oklahoma was strictly segregated I honestly didn't even know African Americans existed for the longest time. Even after I did I rarely saw one. There were two high schools in Muskogee at that point, Muskogee Central and Muskogee Manual Training. Take a stab at which one was for the black kids.
Yes, it has been a long trip. In my six plus decades on this ball The United States has fought in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. That would be a little less than one war every ten years. I didn't serve in any of them, although I did spend a considerable amount of time protesting the one in Vietnam on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. There have been other conflicts, or rather deadly skirmishes in places like Lebanon, Grenada, and Panama. There was also a week or so when the entire human race was on the verge of extinction as the U.S. and the Soviet Union squared off over missile bases in Cuba.
I've seen two presidents get shot and one killed. A third, Gerald Ford, was shot at once, but the assassin missed. Another attempt to take his life failed because the grotesque little geek forgot to chamber a round in the .45 she was holding. Also in my time here two presidential candidates have been shot. Robert Kennedy died of his wounds and George Wallace ended up in a wheel chair for the rest of his life. Martin Luther King was murdered which sparked riots in more than a few places. Although race riots, for a while anyway, didn't need anyone to be killed in order to ignite.
I grew up with plenty of kids who had fathers making a decent living building things with their hands in factories, but all that is over now. The blue collar middle class has gone the way of the Dodo. When I was young if some product had, "Made in Japan" stamped on it, you could count on it being the cheapest, most worthless piece of shit in the world. Now even the stuff from Japan seems pricey compared to what you can get from other parts of Asia.
From the age of ten to around twelve, or so my parents would drop me off at a movie theater with a buck or two and I'd spend about four hours watching films and cartoons with hundreds of other kids my age. I started smoking cigarettes during my eighth grade year because it was cool and there weren't any laws restricting tobacco sales to minors. The first time I got drunk I was fifteen. Some of us scored a pint bottle of J.T.S. Brown bourbon before a dance at the local YMCA. A little over a year later I got laid for the first time.
I heard the explosion and felt the concussion when Tim McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. I watched as the jets slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. On August first of 1966 I was on vacation with my parents. Our family was touring the Astrodome in Houston That was the day an ex marine named Charles Whitman opened fire on fellow summer school students from a tall building on the University of Texas campus. Before the cops got to him he'd killed 13 and wounded 32. In December of 2012 I watched the TV networks report the carnage at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Connecticut. Tragically, it seems the more things change the more they stay the same.
I saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon and if you'd asked me then, I would have told you that by 2013 we'd not only have a permanent presence on the moon, but an outpost on Mars. In the summer of 1969 I really thought we were on the verge of going to the stars. The Enterprise, Captain Kirk, Scotty, Uhuru, Chekov, and all the rest seemed right within our grasp.
I've watched my three children born. I've seen one brother and my mother die.
Every now and then I think I've witnessed too much, but then I realize I haven't seen enough.
We are such an ugly, brutal, yet decent and brave people. We are, I suppose, everything good and evil and all that entails. It is easy to become cynical, although in the end cynicism finally turns terribly sour. To be without at least some hope is to be dead.
And honestly-- there is no reason to rush into that final adventure is there? At least not yet, not from my perspective anyway.
Carpe diem
1-5-13
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Boehner's Revenge: Screw the Northeast
And just when you think the republicans in the House of Representatives can't sink any lower they do. After holding the middle class and poor of the country hostage in a vain attempt to prevent their keepers, the super rich, from paying a higher rate of taxes you would have thought they might have, for a moment anyway, headed into the light for a breather.
On Tuesday evening there was supposed to be a vote on a $60 billion relief package for the victims of super storm Sandy. Toward the end of the night's session and before the relief bill was presented, Speaker of the House, John Boehner "just walked off the floor and sent in a representative saying that there wouldn't be any further votes." That quote was attributed to republican congressman Pete King of New York by NBC News.
In other words, New York and New Jersey, fuck you.
The outrage was swift and intense. Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Andrew Cuomo of New York issued a joint statement saying the house was guilty of dereliction of duty. Christie told NBC that he called Boehner four times last night and the speaker refused to, well, speak to him about the whole rotten affair. Christie also said he'd received no explanation for "the disappointing and disgusting decision." Christie is, of course, a republican, although suspect in the eyes of the rigid right because of his praise of Obama's initial handling of the disaster.
Ultimately, therein is the rub. New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, the three primary recipients of the aid, all helped re-elect Barak H. Obama. Yes, this all probably boils down to revenge in its most savage form. There is precedent for it. In 1972 Richard Nixon carried every state except Massachusetts. In 1973, shortly after his inauguration and not long before he was impeached, the Boston Navy Yard was shut down.
This really goes beyond that, however. You're not talking a few thousand jobs. You are looking at an area in which nearly a half million homes were either destroyed or damaged.
For those of you who think I might be whistling that left wing "GOP conspiracy tune" Congressman King had this to say about the whole deal. "I can't believe that type of indifference, that type of cavalier attitude being shown to any other part of the country." He went on to say, "We can't believe this cruel knife in the back has been delivered to our region." Finally he added, "They can't count on any vote from me now." The they he is speaking about would be the people in his own party. Republican congressman, Michael Grimm stated, "the delay is a personal betrayal." Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand suggested Boehner should visit Staten Island, but said she "doubts he has the dignity, or guts to do it."
Boehner seems only barely phased by all of this. His aide Michael Steel came out and said, "The Speaker is committed to getting the bill passed this month." Yada, yada, yada. Yes, well I'm sure that will be of great comfort to those home owners who have been without heat, or a roof for the last nine weeks or so.
Right now a vote on a $9 billion bandage is tentatively scheduled for Friday. There is hope, but no guarantee there will be a vote on a $51 billion package on the 15th. Unfortunately, Boehner's anger that he has been exposed as a completely inept Speaker of the House and the tea party loon's uncontrollable hatred of the president and anyone who might have voted for him could jam up the works at any moment.
The house republicans have all the compassion of a colony of sewer rats gone berserk on meth. Their party got their asses kicked in November and now they have a chance to pay back those who they feel screwed them.
That's right bitch, next time you'll know who to vote for won't you? Enjoy this winter without any windows.
It didn't take long for this year to start looking like the last one did it?
1-2-13
On Tuesday evening there was supposed to be a vote on a $60 billion relief package for the victims of super storm Sandy. Toward the end of the night's session and before the relief bill was presented, Speaker of the House, John Boehner "just walked off the floor and sent in a representative saying that there wouldn't be any further votes." That quote was attributed to republican congressman Pete King of New York by NBC News.
In other words, New York and New Jersey, fuck you.
The outrage was swift and intense. Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Andrew Cuomo of New York issued a joint statement saying the house was guilty of dereliction of duty. Christie told NBC that he called Boehner four times last night and the speaker refused to, well, speak to him about the whole rotten affair. Christie also said he'd received no explanation for "the disappointing and disgusting decision." Christie is, of course, a republican, although suspect in the eyes of the rigid right because of his praise of Obama's initial handling of the disaster.
Ultimately, therein is the rub. New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, the three primary recipients of the aid, all helped re-elect Barak H. Obama. Yes, this all probably boils down to revenge in its most savage form. There is precedent for it. In 1972 Richard Nixon carried every state except Massachusetts. In 1973, shortly after his inauguration and not long before he was impeached, the Boston Navy Yard was shut down.
This really goes beyond that, however. You're not talking a few thousand jobs. You are looking at an area in which nearly a half million homes were either destroyed or damaged.
For those of you who think I might be whistling that left wing "GOP conspiracy tune" Congressman King had this to say about the whole deal. "I can't believe that type of indifference, that type of cavalier attitude being shown to any other part of the country." He went on to say, "We can't believe this cruel knife in the back has been delivered to our region." Finally he added, "They can't count on any vote from me now." The they he is speaking about would be the people in his own party. Republican congressman, Michael Grimm stated, "the delay is a personal betrayal." Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand suggested Boehner should visit Staten Island, but said she "doubts he has the dignity, or guts to do it."
Boehner seems only barely phased by all of this. His aide Michael Steel came out and said, "The Speaker is committed to getting the bill passed this month." Yada, yada, yada. Yes, well I'm sure that will be of great comfort to those home owners who have been without heat, or a roof for the last nine weeks or so.
Right now a vote on a $9 billion bandage is tentatively scheduled for Friday. There is hope, but no guarantee there will be a vote on a $51 billion package on the 15th. Unfortunately, Boehner's anger that he has been exposed as a completely inept Speaker of the House and the tea party loon's uncontrollable hatred of the president and anyone who might have voted for him could jam up the works at any moment.
The house republicans have all the compassion of a colony of sewer rats gone berserk on meth. Their party got their asses kicked in November and now they have a chance to pay back those who they feel screwed them.
That's right bitch, next time you'll know who to vote for won't you? Enjoy this winter without any windows.
It didn't take long for this year to start looking like the last one did it?
1-2-13
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
The New Year Arrives: Just Stay Low and Keep Moving
Here on the southern plains of the United States of America the year 2013 has arrived as a cold, damp, and gray beast. It looks to be, at the moment any way, unforgiving and pitiless. We can only hope for kinder, gentler, days ahead as the future unfolds in front of us.
Yes, you see, 2013 is part of The Great Unknown. There is no telling what brilliance, madness, charity, and debauched decadence lays ahead.
As we plunge into the new year there are a few things we do know, however, that might, perhaps, inform us, or at least give us a hint as to the shape of things to come.
We know, for instance, that the odds seem to favor Hugo Chavez's demise. Chavez is currently tucked away in a Cuban hospital, which tells us a great deal about the quality of health care in his native Venezuela. He has suffered through multiple major surgeries and more telling, named a successor just in case the dark shade of Che Guevara comes to collect his soul. Once El Comandante bites the dust look for a wild political scramble in Caracas that, in the end, might involve the military.
And speaking of wild political scrambles. A few weeks ago there was no doubt in many minds that the nominee of the democratic party in 2016 would be Hillary Rodham Clinton. That was before the fainting spell, the concussion, and now a blood clot located in a vein between her brain and skull right behind her ear. Doctors are adamant that Mrs. Clinton did not have a stroke, although no one in the credible media, that I know of, ever asked that question. It is reported she is on anti-coagulants and her physicians expect a full recovery.
The fact is, if she can't go in 2016 because of health reasons, or if there are sufficient questions regarding her well being and her ability to carry out the duties of the office, the primary race for the democratic nomination will become chaotic at best. The blood letting will be gruesome and possibly fatal if the republicans can finally find someone who can at least appear to be a human being to head their ticket.
That whole human being thing remains elusive for the GOP though. Last night the senate passed a measure that would allow the government to avoid the fiscal cliff. The bill ups taxes on individuals who make more than $400,000 per year and couples who make more than $450,000 per annum. It also will stop a 27% cut in fees paid to doctors who treat medicare patients and allow the long term unemployed to continue to collect benefits. The bill as written passed, 89-8. Among those dissenting were the anti-government government employee Rand Paul and Florida's Marco Rubio. Rubio has been widely rumored to be a major player in the republican primaries four years from now. Rubio is young, good looking, and most importantly, Hispanic. One has to wonder what his popularity rating will be among AMA members, especially in his home state of Florida, when it becomes common knowledge he just tried to cut nearly a third of their fees when it comes to treating retirees.
Of course we aren't really off the cliff's edge yet. John Boehner, who has proven himself to be the most ineffective Speaker of the House in perhaps the history of the republic, has yet to give it his support. Not that it matters. Boehner can't even control his own right wing. Like, Karl Rove and Dick Morris he is so terrible at arithmetic that he had to call off a house vote on his own budget "Plan B" last week. In the end it dawned on him that he didn't have enough support within the republican majority for it to pass. Quick, name the last House Speaker who needed the minority party's help to pass legislation he authored because his own members wouldn't vote for it.
One of the things we don't know at this time is exactly how accomplished of a marksman Adam Lanza was. We do know, however, that when you are packing a Bushmaster .223 and are standing in a class room full of terrified first graders all you really have to do is point, squeeze and let 'er rip. We also know, thanks to Slate and the twitter feed @GunDeaths, that as of 8:00AM CST yesterday 321 Americans have been murdered by guns since the Newtown, Connecticut massacre on December 14th. That would be 284 more deaths than were recorded in Australia for the entire year of 2011, 282 more than in England and Wales for the same period, and 261 more than in Spain. All in just over two weeks. Who says America has gone soft? Finally we also know gun sales and the sales of high capacity ammunition clips have sky rocketed since young Mr. Lanza began his morning by blowing his mother's head off.
Look for more of the same in 2013. In the end it is the one thing we can truly count on.
Just stay low and keep moving.
sic vita est
1-1-13
Yes, you see, 2013 is part of The Great Unknown. There is no telling what brilliance, madness, charity, and debauched decadence lays ahead.
As we plunge into the new year there are a few things we do know, however, that might, perhaps, inform us, or at least give us a hint as to the shape of things to come.
We know, for instance, that the odds seem to favor Hugo Chavez's demise. Chavez is currently tucked away in a Cuban hospital, which tells us a great deal about the quality of health care in his native Venezuela. He has suffered through multiple major surgeries and more telling, named a successor just in case the dark shade of Che Guevara comes to collect his soul. Once El Comandante bites the dust look for a wild political scramble in Caracas that, in the end, might involve the military.
And speaking of wild political scrambles. A few weeks ago there was no doubt in many minds that the nominee of the democratic party in 2016 would be Hillary Rodham Clinton. That was before the fainting spell, the concussion, and now a blood clot located in a vein between her brain and skull right behind her ear. Doctors are adamant that Mrs. Clinton did not have a stroke, although no one in the credible media, that I know of, ever asked that question. It is reported she is on anti-coagulants and her physicians expect a full recovery.
The fact is, if she can't go in 2016 because of health reasons, or if there are sufficient questions regarding her well being and her ability to carry out the duties of the office, the primary race for the democratic nomination will become chaotic at best. The blood letting will be gruesome and possibly fatal if the republicans can finally find someone who can at least appear to be a human being to head their ticket.
That whole human being thing remains elusive for the GOP though. Last night the senate passed a measure that would allow the government to avoid the fiscal cliff. The bill ups taxes on individuals who make more than $400,000 per year and couples who make more than $450,000 per annum. It also will stop a 27% cut in fees paid to doctors who treat medicare patients and allow the long term unemployed to continue to collect benefits. The bill as written passed, 89-8. Among those dissenting were the anti-government government employee Rand Paul and Florida's Marco Rubio. Rubio has been widely rumored to be a major player in the republican primaries four years from now. Rubio is young, good looking, and most importantly, Hispanic. One has to wonder what his popularity rating will be among AMA members, especially in his home state of Florida, when it becomes common knowledge he just tried to cut nearly a third of their fees when it comes to treating retirees.
Of course we aren't really off the cliff's edge yet. John Boehner, who has proven himself to be the most ineffective Speaker of the House in perhaps the history of the republic, has yet to give it his support. Not that it matters. Boehner can't even control his own right wing. Like, Karl Rove and Dick Morris he is so terrible at arithmetic that he had to call off a house vote on his own budget "Plan B" last week. In the end it dawned on him that he didn't have enough support within the republican majority for it to pass. Quick, name the last House Speaker who needed the minority party's help to pass legislation he authored because his own members wouldn't vote for it.
One of the things we don't know at this time is exactly how accomplished of a marksman Adam Lanza was. We do know, however, that when you are packing a Bushmaster .223 and are standing in a class room full of terrified first graders all you really have to do is point, squeeze and let 'er rip. We also know, thanks to Slate and the twitter feed @GunDeaths, that as of 8:00AM CST yesterday 321 Americans have been murdered by guns since the Newtown, Connecticut massacre on December 14th. That would be 284 more deaths than were recorded in Australia for the entire year of 2011, 282 more than in England and Wales for the same period, and 261 more than in Spain. All in just over two weeks. Who says America has gone soft? Finally we also know gun sales and the sales of high capacity ammunition clips have sky rocketed since young Mr. Lanza began his morning by blowing his mother's head off.
Look for more of the same in 2013. In the end it is the one thing we can truly count on.
Just stay low and keep moving.
sic vita est
1-1-13
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)