The worst of the worst

I must be going blind. This is not a literal statement, but in a figurative sense, there is no question that my vision has taken a bad turn somewhere. I cannot see why anyone in their right mind or with corrected vision would ever consider Donald J. Trump to be Presidential. Custodial perhaps, but Presidential? It’s not difficult to see why many Americans believe Trump to be a Messiah of some ilk. He boasts; he brags; he puts forth plans that, on the surface, appeal to those with little or no knowledge of how the plans would actually work. He’s a showman; a carnie man, a television personality, a failed businessman who bends the truth to meet his personal requirements.

Trump states that he inherited one million dollars from his family. History shows and Forbes Magazine confirms that the amount was closer to $40 million. With that money, he has amassed an enormous net worth of, according to him, $10 billion. Again, going back to Forbes, that net worth is closer to $4.7 billion. It’s still a lot of money but how it’s been garnered is open to question. In the 1980s, when Trump Plaza was being constructed, a sub-contract when to S&A Concrete, a company partially owned by the mafia. “Trump World Tower, supported by the Quadrozzi Concrete Company, is also tangentially related to La Cosa Nostra. The head of the company, John Quadrozzi Sr., was tied to the Lucchese crime family and indicted for making illegal payoffs to the mob in 1992.”¹ The list goes on and on about Trump’s nefarious dealings with the mob. If one of the qualities of a President is assumed to be “A person of strong character,” Trump fails to meet the standard.

Let’s take a moment to look at some of Trump’s business failures: The Eastern Airlines Shuttle from Boston to New York and Washington ran for 27 years. Many was the time that I would hop a 6:30 am shuttle to head to either destination. It was a great convenience (plus free parking). In 1988, Trump purchased the service for a reported $365 million. He improved the look of the service by adding maple-wood veneer to the floors, chrome-plated seat belt clasps and gold bathroom fixtures. It didn’t work and the Trump Shuttle never turned a profit. The high debt accrued forced Trump to default on his loans, and the shuttle ceased to exist in 1992. In 2006, Trump introduced Trump Vodka, designed to compete with Grey Goose. If you happen to own a bottle of Trump’s vodka, hold onto it because it’s highly doubtful you’ll find it on liquor store shelves today…but you will find Grey Goose.

Claire Sudduth of Time Magazine noted in an article about Trump’s bankruptcies, “”I don’t like the B word,” Donald Trump said in 2010 while testifying in a New Jersey bankruptcy courtroom about his gambling company, Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., which had filed for bankruptcy for the third time. Given the number of times Trump has flirted with bankruptcy, you’d think he’d be used to that word by now.

“In 1990, the banking institutions that backed his real estate investments had to bail him out with a $65 million “rescue package” that contained new loans and credit. But it wasn’t enough, and nine months later the famous developer was nearly $4 billion in debt. He didn’t declare personal bankruptcy, although his famous Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, N.J., did have to file for it  Trump’s economic troubles continued through the early ’90s, while he was personally leveraged to nearly $1 billion. In 2004, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts also filed for bankruptcy. The company was only a small portion of Trump’s real estate empire, but he did still have to personally cough up $72 million to keep it afloat. In 2009, the same company filed for bankruptcy again. Yet during all of this, no one ever told Trump, “You’re fired!” Probably because no one could.² In case you weren’t counting, Trump has gone bankrupt four times. He later claimed that those were not his failures as a businessman but strategic decisions to help him make more money. In other words, he manipulated the system for personal gain. Gee, isn’t Bernie Madoff doing time for that, along with several other sleazebags?

Much more could be said about Mr. Trump and his potential candidacy for President of the United States. In truth, he’s a bully, a bigot, a racist, a sexist, a liar, and perhaps the worst individual ever to be considered for the highest office in the land. I never cared much for Mitt Romney when he was Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but you can bet your boots that should he run as a third party candidate, I will be checking his name off in the voting booth.

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1. Politifact…a division of the Tampa Bay Times
2. Claire Sudduth, Time Magazine, April 29, 2011

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The rise of teen suicide

Kid got killed here recently; got hit by a train. That doesn’t sound like a very pleasant way to die. His mother was out looking for him, and she stopped a group of his friends, asking if they’d seen him. They admitted that they had but didn’t know where he was. It was about this time that the state police helicopters started circling overhead, not far from where the mother and the kids were talking. It got me to wondering…was this an accident or was it suicide. Today, a week after I wrote what you just read, I learned the truth…he stepped in front of that train intentionally. He had been bullied to the point where he felt that his life was no longer worth living. How, in the name of God, does one reach that decision?

Kids growing up today have it much tougher than I did and even tougher than my own children. Heck, social media was a term that I don’t believe my kids ever heard. Today, there are chat rooms, dark chat rooms, and probably more kinds of rooms that you have to be “in on” in order to access. Cyberbullying has been added to the lexicon of the 21^st Century, and it’s causing some serious problems.

One of the resources that I used in preparing this essay is The Anika Foundation in Australia. One of its objectives is, “To raise awareness about, the problems of youth depression and suicide.” I have found their research to be sound, sane, and very informative. It’s not limited to the happenings “down under,” but is international in its scope. For example, one of the first citations in their research is of a paper written by Harvard Professors David Cutler and Edward L. Glaeser, along with Assistant Professor Karen E. Norberg of the Boston University Medical School. In their study, they note that “Suicide is now the second or third leading cause of death for youths in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many countries of Western Europe.” While this study was published in 2001, other articles from more current sources agree that suicide is still number two or three, overtaken in some years only by homicide among youth.

Recently, two high school friends in Texas killed themselves hours apart in what appears to have been a suicide pact. Less than a week later, Arizona State University junior, Thomas Wagoner, jumped to his death from a campus building. The victim of bullying in high school Wagoner was known to have suffered from depression because of his experiences; it was something he mentioned in his suicide notes. According to his roommate, Jared Blevens, “He mentioned being depressed. I had known he was depressed, but I didn’t realize how depressed he was. I thought he would talk to me or one of our friends.” Blevins added, “I would say if you are concerned at all then you should get help…because I didn’t realize how bad it was with Thomas. And I knew him better than anyone else.”

These are sad stories, crazy stories, stories that didn’t seem to happen when I was growing up or when my children were growing up. It makes me worry for my kids and their children. Getting inside the head of a teenager is about as easy as herding cats or nailing jello to a tree, ergo, it cannot be done. If they are depressed or suicidal, most of them appear to hide it well, and if they go ahead and commit suicide successfully, we never know the reasons because they take those with them. Suicide.org says that “…teens who attempt suicide and survive tell us that they wanted to die to end the pain of living. They are often experiencing a number of stressors and feel that they do not have the strength or desire to continue living. We also believe that the majority of youth who die by suicide have a mental disorder, like depression, which is often undiagnosed, untreated or both.”

I care about this for two reasons (1) I have grandchildren, some as young as five. I probably won’t live to see him to adulthood, but I don’t want my daughter and her husband to suffer the pain of losing a child. I don’t want any of my kids to lose a child. I think the greatest fear that Joan and I ever experienced was that of having to bury one of our own. Perhaps, in a way, she was fortunate to have died when she did. I still live with the fear that one of my kids may go before me, and it terrifies me. (2) I worked in higher education for 40 years. During that time I saw students who had friends who had committed suicide. When a young person looks you in the eye and asks, “Why do you think…?” how the hell do you answer them? Their pain is palpable and feeling it along with them is just too easy to do. One young woman sat in my office after missing mid-terms. She had gone to the funeral of her best friend in Washington, D.C. The friend had hung herself. Frankly, working with this young woman was physically and emotionally draining. She got through it and graduated. Her faculty members were wonderful in their understanding of what she was going through.

How do we know when a person is getting ready to commit suicide? Wow, that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question. As a parent, a teacher, or a friend, you just have to keep your eyes and ears open. It’s been estimated that perhaps eighty percent of those thinking about suicide want other to know they’re hurting and want to stop them from dying. If they begin to give away things that they’ve highly prized in the past; if they seem hopeless or depressed; if they show signs of a preoccupation of death, it may be time to step in or to call for help from the professionals. As I say, knowing the signs, seeing the signs, is not the easiest thing in the world for an untrained friend, teacher, or family member. Several years ago, a high school student I know surveyed her class about suicide. She found that thirty-two percent of the class had considered it. Fifteen students had actually tried it unsuccessfully. She was shocked as were other members of our committee.

Jared Blevens said about his friend, “I didn’t know how depressed he was.” Perhaps the one-time use of any word that’s even associated with depression should be a key to begin talking. Or, perhaps, communities should begin developing programs to talk about suicide in much the same way they now openly talk of bullying and cyberbullying. We cannot allow this to continue to be the second or third leading cause of death among our youth. If we do nothing, it could easily challenge motor vehicle accidents as the number one cause of teenage fatality.

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They breed…and they vote

“In the online age, we live our lives openly and loudly rather than with dignity.” That’s a line, somewhat paraphrased from The Heist by Daniel Silva. It’s one of those novels that the pure academics would call “trash,” but which I chose to call enjoyable reading. I read these books for the very same reason that I write essays for this blog and latch hook rugs. I do these things so that I won’t kill people. Juli, on the other hand, has her knitting, crocheting, jewelry-making, silver-smithing, and reading a variety of books so that she will not join me in killing people.

While killing people may sound rather extreme, there are times when it appears to be the last recourse against stupidity and downright “assholedness” to which we are exposed on a far too regular basis. As one example, I would cite the Netflix series, “Making a Murderer,” which is based on the 2005 Wisconsin case in which Stephen Avery was convicted of killing Teresa Halbeck. The series is presented as a documentary but in such a manner as to paint Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey as the victims rather than as the killers. The result has been a White House petition signed by 300,000 to free the two men and to demand an investigation of the police department which did the legwork and prepared the case against Dassey and Avery. The series has also resulted in the prosecuting attorney receiving over 3,000 e-mails with death threats against him and his family as well as disgusting actions to be taken against his family. Let’s just take a minute to examine this: First, it’s a documentary that has a slant because it did not present all of the evidence used in the trial against the two men. Second, anyone who knows anything about how prosecutors work, particularly in murder cases, there is generally a backlog of evidence that is held back until it’s absolutely needed. This was not the case in the Avery/Dassey trial. It was laid out meticulously at trial, but not in the documentary. Third, DNA evidence, given at trial, was not given in the documentary. In other words, what the unknowing American public has signed as a petition and has used as a basis for threatening the prosecutor is a single, one-sided, prejudiced view of what really happened, Remember the old adage, “Believe nothing of what you read and only half of what you see.” It was coined, as I recall, at a time when newspapers were notorious for slanted journalism (oh, gee, and they’re not today?). In today’s world of instant news because of television and the many satellites circling our planet, we also must be cautious when we watch television news or supposed “in-depth stories” about anything. I’m going to go out on a bit of a limb here and say that Netflix didn’t do its homework…or if they did due diligence on the story, they elected to sensationalize and glorify two obvious killers, and in the process, have created 303,000 people who actually believe the bullshit they have shoveled. That’s 303,000 sheep who have been told what to believe, accepted it, and have not bothered to do any of their own research; they are also 303,000 sheep who breed and who vote…scary, huh?

There are more of these sheep who believe that Donald Trump should be President because he’s telling them exactly what they want to hear. He tells us that he will keep the Muslims out of America. Does that mean that he will deport the more than 20,000 Muslim doctors in the U.S.? Does it mean that he will close the Muslim charities, including Helping Hand for Relief and Development which, in 2013 was rated as one of the top ten charities in the United States? Yet, the sheep will follow and vote for a bombastic, narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, bully who appears to believe that even when he’s wrong, he’s right. The person who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is not a dictator who can make and keep such idiotic promises as building a wall to keep the drug smugglers and emigres out of our country…and have the country from which they are coming pay for said wall. People….think. Stop listening to nonsense and begin to think for yourselves.

Donald Trump’s appeal to certain groups is understandable. After all, Congressional politicians have been using his formula for years. If you tell the people in your district what they want to hear; put their needs ahead of the needs of the country; bullshit them into believing that you can get them what they want, they will vote for you without fully knowing the difficulties of meeting their needs. Is this dishonest? Sure, but if the sheep believe what you’re shoveling at them, what the hell, it gets you back into office. Too many people vote with their hearts and not their heads.

Ours is a nation of checks and balances. Surely, everyone knows that from the Constitution. Therefore, any candidate for any office may make any kind of promise to his or her constituents. However, unless they are promises that will be approved by another branch or successfully tested by the third branch, they are just so much hot air blowin’ in the wind.

Sheep are everywhere and easily lead. It’s those of you and those of us who think independently and don’t believe everything we are told or even see, who will determine the future of America.

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We will survive

It’s difficult to understand why law enforcement, city, state, and federal, as well as the President of the United States, took so long to state the obvious about San Bernadino. I just don’t comprehend what is so difficult about seeing this couple, dressed as they were, not being immediately identified as ‘terrorists.’ However you wish to slice it, this was a terrorist act. It certainly terrified the crap out of the people who were being shot and those ducking for cover. With the discovery of the ammunition and pipe bombs in the house occupied by that couple and their baby would indicate preparation for a ‘terrorist’ attack. So we’re at war. Is there anyone in the USA who doesn’t understand that? Are there actually people whose heads are stuck so far up…in the sand that they aren’t aware that Americans are considered by some people who actually live and work here, as the enemy. Take a look at Dylan Roof who thought that blacks were taking over America. Can you understand why an ignoramus like that would think such a thing? Who does he see on television when the President speaks? Who does he see when the Director of Homeland Security speaks? Granted, the kid is probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he’s probably just a wee bit prejudiced against black folks in the first place. Someone said to me the other day, “I saw a family of Muslims in traditional dress coming in the store and I didn’t panic,” as though that was a major friggin’ achievement. It’s clue time…this country is filled with all sorts of people; some came here to escape terrorism and want to live peaceful lives. Others are here but are nothing but crazy fucking assholes who are influenced by other crazy fucking assholes and who will go out and kill anybody they see who is not dressed or look exactly as they do. They do have sufficient smarts to make certain they kill at a gathering…just walking up and down the street is not going to give one maximum exposure nor maximize your kill rate…riiiight!

To top off our understanding that we are at war, we have public panic purveyors like Donald “I-can-fix-everything-but-I-won’t-tell-you-how-because-I don’t-really-know-what-to-do” Trump. I find it truly difficult to understand how this man became a billionaire. The only thing I can think of is that he bullied his way to riches; he was the loudest shouter in the room; his face got so red, his opponents thought he was going to literally explode and shit would be flying everywhere since he was so full of it, so they gave in. It’s all I can think of. He speaks such ridiculous bullshit that no one in their right minds could possibly believe what he says. And yet, what is he doing? He’s appealing to the frightened, the uninformed, people who don’t know, or care to know, understand or care to understand other cultures. These are the folks who believe that blacks eat only fried chicken and watermelon; they may see hummus in the store so that’s what “they’ eat; Asians eat only fish and seaweed or some other shit like that. They don’t know, and one who preys on their fears such as Trump becomes their hero. The media is proving to be just as gullible. Trump speaks; it’s a sound byte they have to get on the air before the competition. Don’t react; don’t cover, and see how long Trump stays in this race. The media are “feeding Seymour” and he continues to grow. If the media ignore him, Trump will be within his rights to demand an equal amount of time as is given to other candidates; that is his right. However, the minute his talk becomes inflammatory, as it has been through most of his campaign, cut off the microphone; he has overstepped his bounds.

On November 8, 2016, America will go to the polls to elect a new President. That is eleven months from this very day. Should this country, in its ultimate stupidity, elect Donald Trump, I will make every effort to move to Nova Scotia and to renounce my American citizenship. I have little doubt that the world will become a nuclear wasteland before his term of office has ended.

Lone wolf terrorists on American streets will become more identifiable and stopped as we move along in our war. At some point, they will be identified before they enter the country. ISIS or some offspring of it will continue to function in the Middle East. It is only when America says, “Enough, solve your own problems,” that we will be able to breathe easily again. If “secure the homeland” is a dirty turn of phrase, forgive me. However, I don’t want to see more gold star flags hanging in more windows than are already there. We can “preserve, protect, and defend” the United States of America by putting our own nation first and let other nations solve their own problems.

The United Nations appears to be a useless group of foreign representatives suckling at the American teat and little else. Let us move their headquarters to someplace like Belgium, Luxemburg, or Lichtenstein, and see how quickly they dissolve or get their collective acts together to solve the world’s problems. America is too rich and too developed a nation to be playing host to a bunch of spies and neer-do-wells. Is this laissez-faire attitude going to work? No, because it will never receive bi-partisan support, nor will Wall Street allow it to happen. It would be nice to give it an honest try; to attempt to make other nations wholly responsible for their actions. We can’t; we’re America. We’re the supposed 800-pound gorilla in the room. That’s why poor families raise cannon fodder and we cry crocodile tears when they’re blown to pieces. If we really cared about our young men and women, we’d be expanding our efforts to keep them out of harm’s way rather than putting them directly in its path.

We have a great many problems in our own country that are in dire need of solutions. We need solutions to our problem of poverty. We need solutions to our problem of racial injustice and profiling. We need a unified, national police force that is fully trained and fairly paid. We need to stop teaching our children to pass some damned standardized test and teach them what it means to be a citizen of this country. We need more, better trained, and again, fairly paid, teachers. We need term limits for members of Congress to weed out the do-nothings, hangers-on, and radical assholes who somehow find their way into Congressional seats every now and then. We don’t need equalization of wealth, because if you’ve got the brains and ideas, God Bless You for making the money you’ve made, but we do need workers who are paid above a poverty level to build what you’ve designed or to sell what you have made. We need equal pay for equal work. We need to stop treating women like second-class citizens by telling them what they can and cannot do with their bodies. Our problems are tremendous; they’re hard to solve and they will continue to get harder until and unless we take some positive steps to address them. However, remember this: Over half of the Pilgrims who made the voyage on the Mayflower died before a year had passed – OVER HALF – yet the rest didn’t just lay down and die. Seventy-five thousand colonists died in the Revolutionary War; that’s 1 in 20 what we now call Americans. Yet, the men who signed the Constitution didn’t give up and say, “Screw this; take it back England.” No, the problems of their day were no more or less complex than the problems we face today. Sure, the world’s a smaller place, and the problems are terrifying. Problems of the magnitude facing the Pilgrims and the colonials and that guy who lives down the street from you today are daunting, but they can be solved. That’s our job – yours and mine – to chip in and ask what we can do to help solve those problems. No, I won’t give you the Jack Kennedy tag line; you can do that for yourself. I will say a couple of things: “If you see something, say something,” and “Don’t listen to fear-mongers and loud mouthed know-nothings like Donald Trump, because he’s not worth your time.”

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Wake up Fergusonians

I am so goddamned sick and tired of hearing how Michael Brown was just a great big jolly kid who didn’t deserve to die that I want to puke.

The way this kid is being portrayed by members of the community, most of whom are probably like me and didn’t know him, is that he was just so wonderful, laughing, the life of the party, etc., and he was shot by that white son-of-a-bitch who was out to get him. That’s what I’m hearing; that’s how I’m interpreting what I’m hearing. Now that white son-of-a-bitch is going to go free, just like that white son-of-a-bitch in Florida who killed Trevon Martin. All the white sons-of-bitches are going to go free because it’s open season on Black people.

What a crock of shit! Michael Brown robbed a store minutes before he was shot to death. He threatened and pushed a clerk or someone, perhaps the man who owned the store and who was so small he wouldn’t stand a chance against someone of Michael Brown’s size and obvious disposition. Give me a break, folks. Michael Brown was killed because he was a punk who thought he was bigger, badder, and the meanest son-of-a-bitch on the street. Evidence says he got two punches into the face of Darren Wilson before Wilson started to shoot.  In my mind, from all that I’ve heard, Michael Brown got exactly what he deserved.

That being said, I don’t believe that Trevon Martin got what he got. I do believe that George Zimmerman should be sitting in jail for murdering that particular 17-year old. I toss that in here just to placate those who have reached the point where they would like to shoot me.

Fact: If you are told to stop by a police officer, stop!

Fact: If you are told to put your hands up by a police officer, get your damned hands in the air!

Fact: If you are told by a police officer to get down on the ground, hit the deck with your arms and legs spread!

These are the facts. I’ve been there; I know this. If a cop tells you, “Stop or I’ll shoot,” you better freeze in your tracks and hope your bladder and bowels don’t let go. I’ve been there; I know this. If you are acting suspiciously – and we were – and a cop comes toward you with a gun, you are well advised to do what “the man” says, regardless of the color of your skin or the size of your body! My personal experience happened in South Boston many years ago. It was a mistake, but it was a very frightening experience.

Had that cop shot and killed any of us, I find it difficult to believe that a large group would gather and burn down businesses in Southie. Being Irish wouldn’t have helped me or my friends in that Irish neighborhood. In Ferguson; in Detroit; in many other cities around the nation, if a Black person is shot, that seems to be time to riot, burn businesses – many owned or franchised to  Black entrepreneurs – and otherwise cause trouble…because “the man” hates Black people.

I read an editorial in the Boston Globe this morning. In it the writer notes, “Being black in America means trying to heal wounds that feel like they’ve been left raw since long before you were born.” I’m sorry but for me, many of these wounds have been self-inflicted. Most of us, Black or white, can only speak anecdotally about our experiences with people of the opposite color. Most of my experiences have been good; some have been extremely unpleasant. When I walked into a Black bar in the Mission Hill section of Boston, I was the first white face in there. Until the members of the Boston Patriots football team walked in behind me, I was terrified. Why, because a group of Black men were already on their feet and coming toward me and from the expressions on their faces, they did not have handshakes on their collective minds. Had we not been previously invited by the bar’s owner, things could have gotten ugly. The writer goes on to say, “Over and over he (St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch) repeated two themes: That the loss of Brown’s life was tragic; that Wilson was justified. This reinforces a message that gets whispered and shouted from black parents to their children and all along the family tree: Your life is not your own, your body is all you have, and even that guarantee can be voided in this country. Wait a minute; that’s not a Black thing; that’s true of every single one of us. Our lives are not our own. Our lives are governed by the environment in which we live. Our body is all any of us have, and it can be snatched from us with the snap of one’s fingers. Don’t you dare go attaching color to something that is universal. Yes, if you choose to live in a violent neighborhood, your chances of survival go down, but please don’t tell me that you are required to live in that neighborhood. There are  many people who manage to get out of those neighborhoods by hard work and an understanding of why they should move.

I am sick to death of this “Woe is me” attitude that I’m hearing from people like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the protesters in Ferguson. Stop blaming all of your problems on the white man. Burning out businesses and turning over and burning cars is not the answer. Organize; run your own candidates for public office; work to get out the vote and vote yourself. Stop bitching and start building opportunities.

 

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Homo sapiens but not human beings

The murder of James Foley proves once more that Islamic extremists place little value on human life…any human life, including their own. It also demonstrates the degree of cowardice to which these people will go, as they cover their faces to do their horrific deeds.

My initial reaction to Mr. Foley’s beheading was, “Let’s go bomb the bastards out of existence,” but that would kill too many innocent civilians. These arrogant sons-of-bitches don’t give a damn about who gets killed whenever and wherever they choose to fight. In fact, much of the video that I have seen shows them terrorizing and killing civilians who don’t practice religion exactly as they do. My questions are simply, “Does every soldier in your group carry a prayer rug and turn to Mecca five times each day? Do you respect the Quran and follow its teachings precisely? If you form an Islamic state, how will you keep other religious fanatics from overrunning you and killing you for their beliefs? I would imagine that the idea of prayer has gone out the window right about now since killing is what these people seem to believe in. As far as the Quran is concerned, there is probably not one hafiz in the entire fighting group. As far as a separate state for this type of warlord is concerned, I have some news for these people. It won’t be external warfare that will bring down their state; it will be civil unrest that will be its downfall.

James Foley becomes the second American journalist to be beheaded by radical Muslims. The first, the video of Daniel Pearl, was shocking. The murder of Foley is shocking, but this public execution is no more or less than what these homo sapiens do to their own. Khalid Sheik Mohammed is the name of the man who killed Daniel Pearl. It took time to identify him and to catch him, but the last I heard he was still at Gitmo. We don’t know who “British John” is…yet. We know he’s the head of a British foursome called “The Beatles;” we know several other things about him, including the fact that he is a coward who has to cover much of his body to hide his identity. Don’t worry, John, analysts today are very good at picking up on small things. Knowing, for example, that you’re left-handed will be a big help in identifying you. I’m not certain you’ll get to Guantanamo Bay, however, because Jim Foley was a very popular guy, and strange things often happen to animals twixt the barn and the pen.

ISIS or ISSL or whatever they’re calling themselves on this particular day has indicated that it has additional American captives that it will kill. I offer my condolences to the wives, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers of those captives, but I have no doubt they will carry out their threat. You see, human life is cheap in the eyes of these homo sapiens {please note that I do not call them other than by the genus by which other humans are called], and human life from another country is cheapened further because they believe that it is tainted in some way. Their thinking is different; they are wired differently from human beings. They are a throwback to the hunter/gatherers of eons ago. When they are encountered, the only treatment of them is a quick death. They understand that. It’s unfortunate that they still exist, but they’ve left their aeries in the mountains, and it is now incumbent on real people to eliminate them.

Am I trying to be funny? Absolutely not! I find the assassinations of Daniel Pearl and James Foley revolting. War is war, and combatants are meant to kill one another. Innocents like Pearl and Foley are to be left alone. “What about our wives and children that the Americans have killed with their bombing?” they ask, to which my response is, “You hide behind their skirts and expect to be protected?” How stupid can you be? That is just another example, first, of how cowardly they are, and second, how little regard they have for human life.

I abhor violence, whether it’s a cop beating a homeless woman in California, a Black kid in Ferguson, Missouri shoving and then threatening a clerk after the kid and his friend have robbed the store, bullying by anyone whether physical, psychological, or through texts and e-mails, or some coward in the Middle East cutting off the head of an innocent civilian…I cannot stomach such behavior. I wonder how “British John” would feel if put in the same situation as Jim Foley. My bet is that he’d cry like a baby and piss all over himself. Sorry, but if that’s the way you wish to live; it’s probably the manner in which you will die.

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A panicked cry for help

A panicked Senate Majority Leader sent me a four-page hysterical appeal the other day. He expects me to send money to stop the Koch brothers from buying the United States Senate in the November 4^th elections. Now you have to understand that the Koch brothers have a net worth that exceeds $100 billion. There’s an old Tanzanian proverb that says, “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.” Okay, fine, but Mr. Speaker…that’s Harry Rein from Nevada…your own net worth is between three and ten million dollars. How much of your own personal fortune are you committing to ‘stop’ the Koch brothers?

It seems to me that American politicians are bought and sold on a pretty regular basis, depending on what bills are before Congress or what bills might come before Congress. Since, Mr. Speaker, your own net worth has more than doubled since you went to Washington, isn’t it fair to say that you, too, have been bought and sold a few times? Heck, the Koch brothers are just the latest in a long line of carpet baggers that have sought to line their own pockets with a few more shekels and enrich a few other people who believe as they do.

Another assumption you have made that I I don’t understand, Mr…oh, hell…that I don’t understand, Harry is why you address me as a “…fellow Democrat.”  That just straight out isn’t true. I’m not a party person – at my age, in more ways than one – but Harry, I’m not a Democrat. I am an independent voter who supports candidates, not parties. You’ve been in the Senate long enough to have heard Tip O’Neill say, “Country first; state second; party third.” You and your colleagues – on both sides of the aisle by the way, have changed that to be “Party first; me second, state third…and the nation a distant fourth.” The number of ethical violations of which you have been a part lead me to believe you’ve either completely bamboozled the voters in your state or that you have spent even more money to ensure they don’t know of your ethical abominations.

If you are so interested in defeating the efforts of the Koch brothers, why not turn to that great Democratic supporter, George Soros. Granted, he is getting along in years, but he certainly has much of the money required to dull the sharp blade of the Koch swords. You state in your letter that the Republicans are “…outspending us 3 to 1 in must-win Senate battlegrounds! Join us in the fight to retain our Democratic majority!” Well, hell, Harry, you don’t want me; I’m one of those senior citizens living on a fixed income. You need to turn to the big guns you’ve turned to in the past.

Although I’m quite certain you will say it’s a right-wing propaganda machine, Investors.com, states that “Right after the Supreme Court’s decision to lift limits on campaign contributions, Democrats and their left-wing supporters assaulted the decision as a boon to Republicans, “the party of the rich.”

“This of course is part of a far-wider narrative — slavishly repeated by largely unquestioning liberal media — that the GOP outspends Democrats on campaigns thanks to big-buck donors like the billionaire Koch brothers.

“But, as it turns out, that’s a lie — as big a lie, in fact, as “you can keep your insurance,” “you can keep your doctor” and “ObamaCare will bend the cost curve down.”

“By almost every measure, in fact, it’s the Democrats, not the Republicans, who are the party of the rich.

Start with Congress itself. Who are the wealthiest members? Well, there are 269 millionaires among Congress’ 535 members. And most of them are Democrats.

“And contrary to the hand-wringing on the left about the Supreme Court’s 5-4 McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission ruling Wednesday, Democrats far outspend Republicans on elections. It isn’t even close.

“According to OpenSecrets.org, from 1989 to 2014 rich donors gave Democrats $1.15 billion — $416 million more than the $736 million given to the GOP. Among the top 10 donors to both parties, Democrat supporters outspent Republican supporters 2-to-1.

“But what about the villainous Koch brothers, those conservative plutocrats supposedly seeking to control American politics? They rank 59th on the list of big givers — behind 18 unions and No. 1 Act Blue, the massive left-wing fund raiser that gives only to Democrats.

Now there is no question in my mind that figures don’t lie, whether they are presented by left-wing extremist such as you and many of your colleagues or by right-wing radicals such as Rand Paul, Mario Rubio, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, and company. But it’s a known fact that liars do know how to figure. You paint a portrait of disaster if the Senate should be taken over by the Republicans. Perhaps having them do so would not be quite as disastrous as you think. It just might rattle the American public sufficiently that they will begin to think once more about who should be running the country. If health care disappears for millions; if Medicare and Social Security sneak off into the sunset; if our children suddenly find themselves being taxed to death, then it won’t matter what the Tea Party and their Republican allies do to the planet, everyone will be dead and there will be no one left to care.

In your diatribe you state that “Republicans don’t care who gets hurt in the crossfire as long as they get their way. And trust me, their Tea Party and Super PAC’s must not have a free ride to spew their nonsense.”  I’m sorry, Harry, but that kind of scare tactic went out with Herbert Hoover. To paraphrase Franklin D. Roosevelt, “We have nothing to fear but the scare mongers,” and that is exactly what you have sent to your “fellow Democrats.”

Senator, it’s you and your ilk, along with Mitch McConnell and his ilk that have brought on this terrible gridlock in Washington. Drop the scare tactics and begin discussing issues. Don’t tell me to fear the Koch brothers. Give me honest answers about why I should give you and your colleagues my vote.

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Whose business is it, anyway

Let me get this straight…America invades Iraq because a bunch of Saudi terrorists brought down the World Trade Center, killing over 3,000 people. The guy who planned the attack, Osama bin Laden is, himself, a Saudi, but because Saddam Hussein is training terrorists – we think – much as Libya, Saudi Arabia, and other Middle Eastern countries are doing, we are going to war in Iraq. No one complains.

We use as an excuse that Saddam and his cronies have weapons of mass destruction. Secretary of State Colin Powell, now nicknamed “Dupe,” goes before the United Nation and proves that those weapons exist with a series of outdated photographs and a magnificent PowerPoint presentation. No one complains.

We go into Iraq; dig Hussein out of a hole in the ground, don’t find any weapons of mass destruction; and don’t find Osama bin Laden. We lose nearly 5,000 American troops killed and over 32,000 wounded, and it is fully ten years later before we find bin Laden and kill him. No one complains.

We pull our troops out of Iraq so they can go into Afghanistan after we’ve set up a ‘wink-wink’ democratic government in Iraq. We haven’t heard about it yet, but Putin probably called Obama and said, “Hey, Ace, those Afghans are really tough. We got the hell out. Why are you goin’ the hell in, man; that’s nuts!” Of course, Obama doesn’t listen; his generals don’t listen; and, more troops get killed. No one complains.

Fast forward to today. The Ukraine is in turmoil. The country is $35 billion in debt. The President, Viktor Yanukovich, is not a favored person in the City of Kiev and the Parliament finally sends him packing. He goes to Russian – hey, the Ukraine used to be part of the old Soviet Bloc – and asks for some help. Russian President, Vladimir Putin, recognizing that his country has a naval base in part of the Ukraine, says, “Of course…we have to protect our interests as well as yours.” Meanwhile, in the Crimea, a part of the Ukraine, the citizens are yelling, “Bring on the Russians; we love ‘em.” Back in Kiev, the Ukrainian Parliament is saying, “Russia, keep the hell out of our business.” Of course, they’re saying this in Russian because Ukrainians are just Russians in disguise. Who complains? I don’t hear anyone in Europe bitching about this situation. I hear that President Obama has a chat by phone with President Putin telling him to stay the hell out of the Ukraine or there will be consequences.

What the hell business is it of ours if Russia and the Ukraine want to draw down on one another? Did Russia complain when we went into Iraq? Did we not see what happened to the Russians when they went into Afghanistan? Didn’t we learn from the huge mistake we made in Vietnam; the French got their collective butts kicked and we didn’t learn our lesson there until over 58,000 American men and women were buried? Even when those who survived came home, they were spat upon and called horrific names.

So what the hell does President Obama think he’s doing? What, we have too many 17-22 year olds? Does he want to send more of them into harm’s way?  We don’t have enough problems on the domestic front; we have to look for more on the international stage? Meanwhile, the American media is having a field day and fomenting more than its usual share of rabble rousing to fire up their ratings.

I’m not fond of this current Congress, but if the President takes steps to interfere with what is an internal struggle, I suggest that impeachment proceedings begin because this President has overstepped his authority. We have – as useless as it as – a United Nations which is supposed to be the guiding force in conflicts such as this. It is about time that the American government in general and the American President  in particular, step back, sit down, pop open a can of Bud, and start using their collective heads for something more than a cork for their ass.

I believe it was H. Ross Perot who said, “Wake up America.” Any mother in this country who has a child wanting to join the armed services at this time should think twice. It appears that this President, just like his predecessor, has no qualms about sending our young men and women off to be slaughtered just to salve their own machismo…get over yourselves, please.

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The state of my union

This is the time of year for inaugurations, state of the states, state of the union, town meetings, and, of course, the Grammy Awards. It’s that period where we take stock of what we have or haven’t, how we’ve done during the past year, and what bullshit we will perpetuate or inaugurate on the unsuspecting public during the next year. Therefore, in keeping with this time-honored and non-sensible performance, I shall present my own state of the mind for the upcoming year and for time in perpetuity, a.k.a. Bishop’s banal diatribe….

…My fellow Americans, illegal immigrants, alien terrorists on US soil, and children of all ages…to put things mildly, the Union is not in very good shape. There is too much violence in our own nation, whether on our college and university campuses, our local schools, our shopping malls throughout the land, the streets of our inner cities and – more and more – in neighborhoods where violence has not existed before. This is both unacceptable and intolerable.

After months of discussions with the FBI, CIA, NSA, DOD, PTA, DARPA, CASE, CUPA, NRA, BSA, GSA, 4-H, ICOP, and several private contracting firms, we have reached agreement that, beginning, immediately…that means tomorrow for those of you nodding off…American soldiers and sailors, in pairs will begin patrolling every avenue, street, road, and drive in every city and town with a population of more than 500 people. Schools, from kindergarten to high school will have a pair of armed military in each and every classroom. Writ of habeas corpus is immediately suspended for the foreseeable future, and the penalty for any crime which inflicts any kind of harm on any American citizen will be punishable by immediate death. I have been reading, watching, and being told of too many crimes and I’m sick to death of it. We have ‘deevolutionated’ – okay, I made it up – back to cave man tactics as a society and, therefore, those who wish to act like Neanderthals shall be treated as they were back in the Neanderthal period. When the nation evolves back into a 21^st Century society, with the mores expected of 21^st Century men, women, and children, we will…slowly at first…begin to eliminate our police state.

Our plan calls for the withdrawal of all American armed forces from all bases throughout the world. I am sick to death of watching planes land at Andrews Air Force base to unload the coffins of young Americans who have died on foreign soil for no particular reason other than to make a small group of fat cats in our own nation get fatter. Just as we never see John Boehner smoking or drinking, so now, we will never see military caskets being brought home from foreign lands. In addition, we will not tolerate any attempt by any nation or combination of nations to invade – overtly or covertly – our land. We are open to free trade between our nation and others. However, the days of the US as world cop are over. If nations wish to make war among themselves or with other nations, have fun. If any nation should consider the use of nuclear weapons as acceptable, then and only then, will the United States turn the offending nation to glass. Granted, this will end the world as we know it, but what the hell, you started it, and we are fully prepared to end it.

Our native form of speech is American. While it was English for a while, it has been bastardized by various groups who now use such words as “whatevah,” “selfies,” “hinky,” and other bullshit words which have no place in a civilized society. Students using any slang in the classroom may be immediately bitch-slapped by a teacher or either of the two military peace keepers in the classroom…or all three. We will return to speaking a combination of correct English and American beginning tomorrow. Before immigrating to this country, those from other nations must demonstrate a proficiency in the English/American language that is free from native accent.

Beginning tomorrow, all citizens with assets of over five billion dollars will be required to establish foundations to benefit the less fortunate. The initial investment will consist of one billion dollars. I have requested and received consent from Messrs. Warren Buffet, William and Melissa Gates, Harry Reid, and Eric Cantor to select a board of no more than fifteen people of their choosing to administer this fund.

Beginning tomorrow, welfare families will be required to perform twenty hours of community service to be eligible for benefits. Babysitting services for children under the age of six will be provided by the National Board of Children’s Services. All adults over the age of 18 who are not attending school or college and who are unemployed will be required to participate in this Civilian Community Service Program. Those who refuse will be shot.

I could go on, but if you believe this sounds dictatorial and impossible, you’re right. That’s not the way America operates. Would we like to see our children and grandchildren more protected in our schools than they have been over the past half century? Of course we would. Does that mean patrolling the corridors of our classrooms with armed members of the military? No, not in this country…not yet… not anymore than we consider having our military patrol our streets.

Can we demand that people speak English? No, we can’t demand this. In American schools, English is the language of choice. Those unable to grasp this concept should either learn our language or return to where they won’t be burdened with having to learn it. I have always been embarrassed when I’m in Canada, not to be able to speak French, and I generally apologize for my inability to do so.

Can we demand that our billionaires use their monies to help others who haven’t been as fortunate? Of course we can’t. People like Mr. Buffet and Mr. and Mrs. Gates, just to name a few, are already doing more than their fair share to help others. As far as Harry Reid and Eric Cantor are concerned, well, you take your pick as to which one is the greater idiot.

No, I can’t give a state of the union address. We have checks and balances in this nation that protects the general public from the manner in which I sometimes express myself. But…we have many problems in this country that do need to be addressed. We seem to pay lip service and crocodile tears when a shooting occurs at an elementary or high school, a college or university, a theater or a mall, or on the streets of Boston, Chicago, or Detroit. In reality, we haven’t done a damned thing to prevent similar tragedies. We put thousands of troops into Iraq and Afghanistan, but I don’t see the same effort being put into eliminating the cartels in Central and South America, and they are killing probably more Americans daily than are being killed on the sands in the Middle East. Our problems are myriad and many, and rather than face them head-on, we quibble; we squabble; we have elected officials who are more interested in loyalty to party than they are in loyalty to America. These are our real terrorists because they refuse to let the nation move forward. As the late Thomas P. O’Neill, former speaker of the House of Representatives, said, “Country first; state second; party third. Or, if you prefer, how about Rodney King’s, “Why can’t we all just get along?” Take your pick…either one works for me.

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“Knock Out”

The time has come for me to make the big apology. So, to you Aaron, Beshamai, Donnell, Ernie, Jaime, Julian, Tanya, and to my other many Black friends, I’m sorry. I’m sorry because I guess I can now officially call myself a ‘racist.’ I am so pissed off at the gangs of Black, yes, Black teenagers who are trying to prove their manhood by knocking out unsuspecting civilians with one sucker punch that I’d like to kick the crap out of all of them. “Oh, wait a minute,” you say, “it’s not all Black teenagers who are doing this.” Let me answer that one in this manner: “Not all Black teenagers who are doing this but the only documented cases that I have seen, read, or heard about are when a Black teenager assaults a Caucasian person.” If a child of one of the people mentioned above ever did that, God help that child.

The game being played has a variety of nom de plumes…”One-hitter quitter,” “knock em’ and drop em,” “point em’ out, knock ’em out” and “punch a Jew” are just a few of the names given to this deadly game where a gang will walk past an unsuspecting subject, then one will turn and hit the person on the side of the head. The intent is just what it says, knock someone out. It’s vicious, violent, dangerous, and has proven fatal in cases in Syracuse, St. Louis, Chicago, and Hoboken, New Jersey. Everyone who has been arrested has been a person of color. Boys — seen in video from a security camera after the incident — have been charged with the murder. They are just 13 and 14 years old.

As New York State Assemblyman, James Tedisco freely admits, “I know that many of these kids come from bad situations and that the gang is their family. That makes no difference. This isn’t some television show where the person assaulted is going to get right back up. This is dangerous and deadly.” He added “Killing or injuring a person with one punch is no game and the state’s criminal penalties to prosecute these dastardly individuals should not be a joke. These twisted and cowardly thugs are preying on innocent bystanders and they don’t care if the victims are young, old, a man or woman. Life isn’t a video game. These are real people whose lives are not only being put in jeopardy but in many cases destroyed,”

Tedisco has announced he is introducing new legislation, the “Knockout Assault Deterrent Act”, to protect innocent bystanders from being victimized by the so-called “Knockout Game” – a brutal new trend whereby gangs of youths target unsuspecting people and sucker-punch them in an attempt to make them unconscious. The bill would amend New York State’s penal law to make any person regardless of their age who is convicted of knock out game individual assault or gang assault to face up to 25 years in prison (currently it’s between 4-15 years depending on the age of the defendant). The legislation would ensure that youth who “play the Knockout Game” are sentenced as adults. Those who are there and take part in the action also would be held liable.

The time will come and probably not in the too distant future when someone will be ready for such an assault. As the gang member turns, he will be facing a loaded gun. When he and several of his friends are “Goetzed,” Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the rest of the usual crowd will start screaming “racism,” when the fact of the matter is that these gang members are the original racists because of their actions.

According to CBS This Morning, the victims are always alone and stand out as being an “other,” the name given by the gangs to an unsuspecting person. In a USA Today story, Will Marling, the executive director of the National Organization for Victim Assistance, says this trend is not an epidemic.

“But it could be the start of one,” he says, because the attacks have a social media component that could go viral. “As experience shows, other kids will see this is an easy thing to do and then it becomes group think.” He says the attacks are an example of why there is a need for a deeper conversation with young people about respect.

Michelle Boykins, a spokeswoman for the National Crime Prevention Council, says what is so disturbing about the trend is that it is so random and the intent is to hurt someone seriously. She says that the instances often involve someone walking alone, so she suggests the tried-and-true ways to stay safe: walk with a friend and always remain aware of your surroundings.

Dr. Fahd Ali, a trauma surgeon at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, says troubled children often don’t understand the real consequences of acts of violence. “These kids don’t see the victims who never wake up,” Ali said in an interview last year. “They don’t see the people on ventilators or the people who die from bedsores or pneumonias that eat their lungs out because they can’t breathe. They don’t see the kids long forgotten by their friends on the streets, the ones who’ve lost the ability to wipe the corners of their mouths when they drool.”

Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, points to the fact that the “knockout game” has racial underpinnings that the “mainstream media” has failed to describe. The game, which “has been played for years,” often targets Jews, “whites in general or people of Asian ancestry,” he said in an op-ed for the New York Post. He describes an attack in Milwaukee where attackers were heard saying, “White girl bleed a lot.” In Illinois, the game is often called “polar-bear hunting. ”For Sowell, the key is to stop the attacks altogether, fearing they will spread.

“Some in the media, as well as in politics, may think that they are trying to avoid provoking a race war by ignoring or playing down these attacks. But the way to prevent a race war is by stopping these attacks, not trying to sanitize them,” he wrote.

Finally, I must include a response that appeared at the end of one article I read: “This is just plain ignorance; these innocent people doing nothing but living their lives are being hunted as if they are prey. This gives credence in my opinion to the stand your ground laws, as these idiots are hitting with deadly force thus we need to fight back with deadly force. I am a Black woman and all I have seen thus far are young Black males walking up to people mostly Caucasian and knocking them out. I hear excuses being made for this type of behavior, I am not making one excuse these are nothing more than wild worthless pieces of feces who should have been sewn back into the women that bore them and never let out to become the curse on society that they have become. They are useless waste of life and where is the liberal media, where is Sharpton, Jackson and the rest of these so called self appointed idiots that claim leadership of the Black community, I would never allow any of those idiots to lead me nor would I ever follow them. Why are they not speaking out, the President can force healthcare down Americans throats but not say anything about this while he has gotten involved in other areas like Trayvonn Martin and who can forget the beer summit yet he is silent on this one why because he can’t stand up and lie to America about it? It’s time for stand your ground laws.”

So, my friends in the Black community, perhaps you may think of me as a racist for opening this can of worms. Then again, if I know all of you as I think I do, you’re just as pissed as I am…so maybe it’s not racism that fuels this writing, just the fear that it could happen to me or members of my family.

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