It's Only Money

What is it Everett Dirksen said?  "A billion here, a billion there,  pretty soon you're talking about real money."  I'd say so.

How is it that last month 80,000 jobs were supposedly created and 85,000 people went on the disability roles?  This pretty much negates the jobs created and adds an additional burden to the already overly burdened tax payers who pay those disability benefits.   I'm trying to make some sense out of the dollars here and seem not to be grasping it.

The official figure for  the unemployment rate remains at 8.2 percent.  In reality it's much higher but reporting that would make the administration's attempts at fixing our economic woes even more dismal.

So how is it that this President set the billion dollar goal for campaign fund raising?  Man, that's a lot of money to get oneself elected.  On the other hand he is failing miserably.  He's out there pleading for cash.  Even to the extent he'd like you to have your wedding guests contribute to his campaign rather than give you a gift! That might indicate people don't think he deserves another term to waste even more of our money.

On the other hand Mitt Romney is hauling it in.  In June alone he raised $100,000,000.  One month!  Do you find it difficult to believe that we as a people have that sort of expendable income to give to political candidates? No one is worth that kind of money even when freely given by others.

I can't help but think what that kind of money could be used for in our ailing economy.  How many jobs would $100,000,000 fund for how long?  What's more a billion!

Something is very wrong with this picture.  Our priorities are all screwed up.  We shell out millions upon millions to people we know are a crap shoot at best yet the charity drives are running at full tilt.  Even they don't want used items anymore; new or 'gently' used coats for the local winter coat drive.  Come on.  Look at the economy!  If kids get a new coat they're going to wear it until it falls apart and even then it will most likely be patched up and handed down to the next in line!  How many are able to shell out for a new coat for a coat drive?

That having been said, however, even a fraction of that campaign cash could get new coats for every youngster in the country with money left over.  It seems to me a far better cause than pouring it into campaign coffers.  After all, no matter who wins, there are a lot of us who will still be left out in the cold!

John Wayne She Ain't

According to FOX News Hillary Clinton   has apologized to Pakistan for a NATO air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Boy, how today's reality differs from yesteryear's fantasies! One of the memorable lines in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon was spoken in some context by John Wayne's character, Captain Nathan Brittles. "Never apologize.  It's a sign of weakness."

Apologies seem to make up a great deal of our foreign policy these days.  A great deal of our national psyche. Most of it occurs in Afghanistan for the killing of their supposed civilians.  Never mind the 'apology tour' the President took after he was first elected. Now the Pakistanis.  If their military weren't up to their ears in cahoots with the terrorists perhaps the mishap wouldn't have happened. Even so, it is war and the military is just that, military.  Unexpected, unplanned and regrettable deaths come with the territory.

I get the feeling we're being played.  We've extended our regrets for the incident every which way but naught.  We didn't utter the 's' word - sorry. ' Regret'  didn't do it.  'Sincere condolences' for the loss didn't do it.  They wanted to hear 'sorry'.  Now they have. I can almost hear them crowing, "We did it, we made them say it!"

Of course we got something for it.  The vital supply lines into Afghanistan are to be reopened.  Let's hope they uphold their end of the bargain. They've been held hostage since the incident, costing the U.S. billions in rerouting expense. Personally I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Tomorrow we celebrate our independence from the tyranny of King George III.  Today we  face another type of tyranny - that imposed on us by political ideology on one side and apathy on the other.  The freedoms we fought so hard to win are being siphoned away from us slowly and methodically.  When will we reach the point of no return?

It's not so difficult to foresee.  When apologizing for everything others haven't liked about us becomes the norm.  When leading from behind becomes the norm.  When parsing words into expedient definitions becomes the norm.  I could go on and on.

As long as any of my generation live and remember what we were in the heyday of John Wayne, unabashed flag waving patriots, the memories will be preserved.

I worry though about what happens next.  All those norms I mentioned are today's normal.  What the youth of this country will grow up knowing.  With the tendency we now have to revise history just as we parse definitions, when we're gone so will be the country my generation and those who came before created and grew.  No more. It isn't even being sustained.

Will there be another John Wayne?  No one comes close at the moment.  It certainly isn't an Alec Baldwin with his tempermental petulance.  Is the pendulum swinging back?  I don't see it.  All I see is division, distrust, partisanship and the depression that can't help but accompany it.

There is so much potential and pockets of success still out there.  It just isn't getting the press nor the support of a more and more repressive government.  Independence Day.  Just what does it mean to you?  Have you thought about it? Will you fight for it?

Weather As An Analogy

Ever since JFK was assassinated, I've seen a parallel between events and weather.  I remember that day.  My family was on the way to New York City.  My Dad had business, my Mom was going for fun and I was tagging along to visit some friends.  It was cloudy when we stopped for gas and the station attendent told me the news.  The President had been shot! I immediately rushed to the car and had Dad turn on the radio. We drove on in shocked silence.

As the news turned from bad to worse the rain came.  It wasn't an angry rain, more gentle and cleansing, but oh did it rain.  The restaurant where we had dinner was hushed.  We stopped by my friend's apartment and sat around for a short period trying to make small talk.  We failed miserbly.  The next day, the rain had stopped though the clouds remained.  Dad's business meetings were cancled, there was no fun for Mom and me?  Well, I just went numbly with the flow.

 It was winter of course so the clouds were expected.  It's the rain I remember most.  It seemed like the heavens were expressing the feelings of the country - crying in grief than cleansing the horror.

The storms that have recently hammered the Washington D.C. area brought a lot of that back to mind.  I see horrendous storms ahead.  Full of destrucive winds, driving rain, lightening that crackles, downed power lines, people suffering in extreme heat.   The fire storms in the west too. Devastation. The storms will all end.  The people will pick themselves up and move on.  It's what we Americans do.

But just what is the analogy?  The storm that is brewing over health care.  The implications of whether it's a tax as the Supreme Court has ruled, or a mandate as the administration continues to say.  There is a difference.  Oh, yes.  A huge difference.  There are the problems of implementation.  States saying the won't implement the law.  Law suits forming.  The Republicans insisting on repeal and replace but with what?  Everyone is stumbling around in a daze - even those who think that at least for the moment they have won.  Because they don't have the people.

Then there is the economy which is still struggling.  The unemployed and under employed facing a new tax burden.  Food prices rising because of the droughts and fires.  Oil beginning to go back up because of continued economic instability in Europe.  Stormy.

Iran is playing war games.  Syria continues to stink with the stench of death.  Egypt has a President that wants us to release a terrorist.  Hong Kong Chinese are protesting the visit of China's president.  Mexico is about to elect a President from a party of corrupt thugs.

The lyrics from Stormy Weather say, "Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky."  Actually, I do!

Sing Fat Lady, Sing!

As I was finishing up my morning coffee I browsed through the Wall Street Journal Magazine.  It is filled with all things high end and high maintenence.  I look sometimes wishfully, sometimes snickering and sometimes resigned to the fact that the magazine is definitley not aimed toward me.

Now, I'm old, I'll admit, and as one ages one's perspective can change.  To me the women look emaciated.  Seeing light between their thighs is just too skinny.  The men look like shoulderless wimps trying to grow facial hair to make them look like they can actually afford the clothes they model.

And the clothes.  Even when I lived in New York and San Franscisco I never ever saw anyone in the designer garb being hyped.

After I finished up my coffee I had a doctor's appointment.  My weight and blood pressure were both down and the nurse was kind enough to tell me I didn't look my age.  Well.  That was nice.  I had told my doctor that I was consciously working on the weight but I no longer weighed myself nor took my blood pressure because I was obsessing over both and Hub was getting more than a little weary listening to me.

But there is a point to this.  I do try.  I do care about my appearence.  Is that a generational thing?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  I just don't like torn jeans or tattoos or body piercings, or my body not quite squeezed into my clothes. There must be a happy medium.  I wonder, though, what the fitness industry is trying to accomplish with it's latest trend, gyms banning slim clients !

This seems to be counter indicative of incentive!  Of course in this age where everyone wants everything to be free and painless,  being made to feel uncomfortable because you're a tad hefty and your fellow exercisers may not be quite as much, is self defeating, isn't it?

I don't know.  If I were going to a gym and everyone looked like I do, I'd wonder why I was bothering.  I want to see what I might be able to achieve!  My self esteem would not be affected in a negative manner. It just might get the kick in the pants it needs.

If we cocoon ourselves with only those like us, and it's easy to do, we'll never achieve anything.  We'll begin to feel we're the norm, that we're just like everyone else.  Take a walk through a parking lot or store and you see more stouts than slims these days.

On the other hand there are the designers of those frocks in the glossy magazines.  Even though they've gotten hip to the idea many of us are larger than a size 2, the models appear the same no matter what.  And they fudge the sizes.  I have no idea what size I actually am.  It all depends on the label. But I sure don't look like the models.  Never have and never will.

I can sing though.  Being not quite thin by today's standards, I measure my accomplishments no longer by scale but by how many of the 'skinny' clothes in my closet are gradually beginning to fit again.  It gives me a huge sense of satisfaction.

So let the fit and trim into the gyms!  After all, it's how they got that way and how they maintain it and gyms may well be the last bastions of good examples. If you're going to belly up to a bar, the juice bar at the gym might be a good choice. The test will be when you can reach the juice before your belly hits the bar!

The Wisdom Of The Supremes

I have not yet had the time to read through the Supreme Court decision on health care and probably won't until all the hyperbole dies down and cool heads prevail.

I do feel, however, that Chief Justice Roberts couldn't be more correct when he stated, "It is not our job to protect the people from the outcome of their political choices."

There is nothing more important to remember as this election season continues.  Consider the consequences for there will be consequences.  Good, bad and indifferent.