How to Fix Congress

I received this today from my "Good looking, intelligent, fun, well hung friend" (that's what he said) Russ Stoddard and it makes a lot of sense.  It doesn't matter what party you belong to!



If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S.) to receive the message. Maybe it is time.

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!
**********************************


Congressional Reform Act of 2010

1. Term Limits. 12 years only, one of the possible options below..
A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms
C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.

The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

The Future of Our Food and The Diabetes Explosion in America

(RING!)
Aaron:"Hey Justin,hey it's Aaron. I can't come out tonight. I'm gonna see the doctor--No, it's called 'diabetes', real bad...See ya!"

I got a disease that's tough to beat
It REALLY sucks, it's not a treat
I got it from eating too much sugar
God dammit, I'm such a damn booger.

DI-A-BET-ES
DI-A-BET-ES
DI-A-BET-ES
DI-A-BET-ES

Go to the hospital, get insulin,
Can't borrow blood from my kin,
My medication, what the doctor ordered
So sour it makes my eyes water.

OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH
DI-A-BET-ES
DI-A-BET-ES
DI-A-BET-ES
DI-A-BET-ES

Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey

Diabetes makes me cry, my eyes get wetter
I wipe my tears on my sweater
Some day soon I'll find a cure
Till then I can only use EQUAL sugar

OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH

DI-A-BET-ES
DI-A-BET-ES
DI-A-BET-ES
DI-A-BET-ES

Insulin in the morning time
Insulin without sunshine
Oh my God baby can't you see
All this insulin is driving me CRAZY
All this insulin is driving me CRAZY

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyy

Insulin drives me CRAZY

Song parody by Aaron Carter song to the tune of "I Want Candy"


I have some food for thought for all of you.  I just watched "The Future of Food" a documentary filmed in 2004 about the genetic alteration of our food it was produced by Deborah Koons Garcia.    WOW scary stuff with some very serious implications.  As I watched it I realized wow we as Americans have become government sanctioned guinea pigs.  You can watch it too at http://www.thefutureoffoods.com.  I am by far a "Liberal" I am actually a "Moderate" and I am definitely a "Capitalist" but that being said I have a new fear about the "Corporate Greed" and avarice this film exposes as well as the complicity our government has displayed.

Some of you may know that I am a Type 2 Diabetic.  I will describe what that means to me personally later but I want to layout some things that I find interesting and while there may or may not be direct corollary evidence I'll let you decide.  

The fact that we as Americans are more and more obese is indisputable.  Now it would be to easy to claim the obesity problem is because our food supply has been tainted but I believe that is a key ingredient in the recipe that has lead us here.  Another key ingredient is our sedentary life style.

1. Our food is being genetically altered by huge agricorps whose sole purpose is to make money and control our food supplies.  They use the power of our courts against us and have patented living things.  They have literally patented plants and tress.  Of course our representatives in Congress and our Courts have allowed it.


2. Our food is being irradiated.  They irradiate our food to kill of the bacteria and therefore extend the shelf life for storage and saleability.


3. Our livestock is being fed steroids, genetically altered and irradiated!  Gee I wonder why we are obese and our children are obese and 10 year old girls are developing breast and having periods and 10 year old boys are developing breasts and entering puberty early!  Make sure you drink you milk junior so you can grow up big and strong like mommy and daddy, oh and skip a few years in your childhood too!   Is it me or is there an awful lot of gynecomastia (man boobs) prevelant these days.

When I was a child I played outside constantly.  I played and stayed outside.  We didn’t have PCs, Playstaion, X-Box, or Nintendo DS.  We didn’t have Facebook, Myspace and the only social network we had was the one that we developed by real life interactions with real people.  I walked or rode a bike most places but mostly walked.  I would cut grass and shovel snow to make money and I worked several small jobs.  These activities helped me stay a healthy weight.  Our children aren't outside playing as much.  they are more sheltered physically but not sheltered virtually which leads to other problems for other blog posts.

I guess what I am getting at is it is not just their lack of physical activity they are being affected by the foods they eat.  I am not picking on fast foods either though that is a, pardon the pun large problem too.  It is the food that we bring home from the supermarket that's the problem.  Maybe the first clue to the source of the this problem is the prefix super in market perhaps if we had a community market with naturally grown foods that were locally produced we may have a fighting chance.  If you are fortunate enough to have access to a real wholesome community market then God bless you and make sure you avail yourself of it.

I travel to Greece quite regularly and I am always amazed by how tasty and fresh everything is.  Know why?  Because it is fresh and not refrigerated or adulterated to make it last longer.  It is fresh because it came from a local source be it the farm, the ranch or the sea!

I have always been healthy, thank God!  At the ripe old age of 35 I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes.  For the first ten years my condition was easily controlled by oral medications.  Then the oral medications started to falter and I had to start taking insulin.  The funny thing about my diabetes and I suspect other long term diabetics experience this as well is I initially lost weight and felt great.  Then as I started the various medications I gained weight and the biggest weight gain came with the insulin.  Over the years I have gone from completely pedantic about my condition to a nonchalant attitude of whatever happens happens.  Obviously the later is not a very healthy way to treat the disease but it is a very frustrating disease. 

Imagine watching everything you eat, all the time and still having you blood sugar levels exceed the norm.  The norm is 70 to 120 milligrams per deciliter.  The process of determining your blood sugar level is a pain literally.  It entails pricking yours finger and putting the blood unto a test strip and getting a reading.  Now, admittedly the process only takes a few seconds and I am grateful for the technology because the technology helps to keep the diabetic acutely aware of their blood sugar levels. 

Diabetes is an insidious disease that quietly attacks your body piece by piece.  For those who can’t control it, it can kill you quickly or slowly.  Diabetic or insulin shock can cause the quick kill when your blood sugar drops to low because the diabetic has taken his or her insulin and not eaten enough food to cover the dosage.  The other quick kill is not enough insulin and very high blood sugar that causes the diabetic to go into to diabetic coma, then death.  The slow death is loss of limbs due to amputations.  Blindness and organ failure and are caused by high blood sugar levels damaging the nervous system and the circulatory system.

So it is imperative that the diabetic remain ever vigilant and both proactive and reactive.  I personally am testing anywhere from four to six times a day and adjusting insulin levels.  You, as a diabetic are a walking chemistry experiment that needs constant monitoring and adjustment.

Ok so where are we as a society in all of this?  We are in trouble that’s where we are.  Our foods are processed our children and we are getting fatter and our health is on the decline.  America as a country enjoys one of the highest life expectancies in the world but the erosion has begun.  The Roman’s poisoned themselves with lead and we are using food.

Here is the interesting parallel, the alteration and adulteration of our food supply is not unlike diabetes.  The diabetic who is unaware of his disease and doesn’t treat it is whittled away until he suffers a decreased life span.  The adulteration of food is causing the silent change in our society causing us to die off with a decreased life span. 
It is not too late to become aware and reverse the affects as long as we choose to be proactive and take back our food supply.  Spread the word we have seen the enemy and the enemy is us.

Check out my cousins Blog

Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I got love in my tummy
And I feel like a-lovin you
Love, you're such a sweet thing
Good enough to eat thing
And it's just a-what I'm gonna do 

The Archies

Check out my cousin Colleen's Blog.  It is new, 

funny, interesting and has some, but will have more 

great recipes and stories to match!! 

http://easyyummyhealthycheap.blogspot.com/ 

Facebook Boundaries

Fine Line : Sir Paul McCartney

There is a fine line, between recklessness and courage
It's about time, you understood which road to take
It's a fine line, your decision makes a difference
Get it wrong, you'll be making a big mistake

So not too long ago one of my aunt's posted a comment on her Facebook page that said "are there no boundaries on Facebook".  She had written the post because of some minor back and forth between several family members.  What the back and forth as is not relevant what is though is the question.  Are there no boundaries on Facebook?

The easy answer is no there are no boundaries.  One of her grandchildren responded quite correctly, "it is a form of expression and in that aspect it is a natural right".  I think that was a damn fine answer but certainly not the only answer.

There are boundaries that we all must live inside of if we are to live in concordance with each other.  All of the major religions of the world incorporate many of the same precepts such as don't kill, cheat and steal.  They also express fundamental elements of mutual respect in that we should all treat each other the way that we would want to be treated.

So here we are living in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984.  We have the means to communicate with one another almost instantaneously anywhere around the world and with as large an audience as we choose or as large of an audience that chooses to listen to us.  This mechanism is an awesome tool as it levels the playing field and allows anyone who chooses to voice their opinions or thoughts for the world to see and hear.  This new found means of rapid and mass exposure to the world which also lends itself to anonymity should the author choose, or direct attribution should the author choose if that is what he or she wants.

Facebook offers various levels of exposure from extremely private to full blown public access and no, not just your neighbors but to anyone else in the world who cares to view or search out your site, again based upon the privacy levels that you set.

As for boundaries if we all watch our own steps/boundaries then we won't have to watch out for others and remember in this case anonymity breeds contempt!

Jury Duty

5 am on Tuesday
why am I up so early
drive out to Santa Ana 'cause I've got jury duty
no breakfast short tempered
and I cut my head shaving
ten miles out I hit traffic
some days just aren't worth saving

You know I haven't had the best of days
But I want to stop and thank You anyway

At the courthouse I waited
And waited then I waited
At lunchtime my car stalled out
I couldn't get it started
Had a book by C.S. Lewis
I finished the last page and
Slept on my desk for three hours
Just like my high school days

(The O.C. Supertones - Jury Duty)

Well blog fans I did my civic duty and man was it PAINFUL.  Yet important.  I hated it but would do it again tomorrow.  It was one of the few opportunities in life you get to participate directly with the constitution.

A little history refresher for all.

It is our right as citizens of the United States to a jury trial.  On Wednesday, March 4, 1789 in the City of New York, New York and constitutional convention (con-con) was held at the result of that con-con was the creation of our Bill of Rights.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html


SIXTH AMENDMENT

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

According to the judge who briefed us in the jury lounge the speedy trial is typically within six months if the defendant is incarcerated or twelve months if the defendant is free on bail.

As I stated it was painful but for more than one reason.  When I arrived I checked in with 149 or more fellow Delaware Countians.  I was given a little red button with Juror in white letters on it.  I placed it on my shirt.  I was also given a clipboard with a questionnaire on it and instructed to take a seat.  I took a a seat in the back of the lounge.  Man did they have us packed in.  The representation of jurors was interesting.  There appeared to be more white woman between the ages of 35 and 65 then anyone else.  I also noted that there were only about fifteen black men and women in the room.

We all sat quietly and waited until a judge came into the room and spoke for about 30 minutes about how important it is for us all to exercise our civic duty and offer ourselves up for jury duty.  Of course he added that our invitations were actually subpoenas and that had we chosen not to come to the party constables or sheriffs could have been sent to bring us to the part.  I wondered how many people have ever been brought in by a sheriffs deputy or constable in custody to participate in a jury.

We were then shown an interactive video that walked us through the questionnaire.  The questions were pretty straight forward but it was scary to see how many people were struggling with the answers.  I wondered how they would be as jurors in a complicated case that would require their understanding of how evidence is processed at a crime scene.

One of the questions that stood out was, and I paraphrase; would you be more likely to believe the testimony of a police officer because he or she is a police officer than any other witness?  The next question was would you be more likely to disbelieve a police officers testimony because they are a police officer?  As a police officer I thought that was very interesting.  Of course I tried to peek at my fellow juror's questionnaires to see whether someone would answer yes to either question but I only saw no answers.

Interestingly enough, several hours later I heard a overheard two older women talking about the questions and they said of course they would be more likely to believe a police officer over other witnesses.

About a half hour later we were told there were seven criminal trials that would need juries and they began to call panels of people to be interviewed and they were then escorted to a court room for the Voir Dire process.

Voir Dire comes from the French legal system and means an oath taken by a person to speak the truth in an examination testing his or her competence as a witness or juror.

The first panel was 45 people the next was 50 and the group I was chosen with was 48.  I was number 31.  We were taken into the hall way and lined up by what appeared to be escapes from the local senior citizens home.  These folks who were all court officers were all over 65.  Honestly, they all had gray hair and were not very happy.  I couldn't believe how rude they were.  They lined us against the walls and I felt like I was back in elementary school.  They were all dressed in navy blue slacks and blazers with white shirts and blue ties.  They all had round silver badges. 

We were then marched to the court room and instructed to sit on the hardest wooden benches I have ever sat on (note to self bring a pillow next time).  We all sat in number order and the judge came out and began the Voir Dire process.  For the next hour and a half questions were asked and potential jurors would raise their hands if the question applied to them.  During the whole process we are being watched by the prosecutors and the defendant and his attorney.

Every time someone answered a question in the affirmative the judge would have them come to the side bar and he and the attorneys would ask further questions but to ensure the rest of us didn't hear anything the judge would turn on a static making machine that would prevent us from hearing further questions of the prospective juror.  It sounded like a TV that didn't have a station tuned in and all you heard was the shhhh sound for as long as the questions were being asked.

After two hours those of us who weren't picked were sent to lunch and told to return at 2PM.  So I went to a nice restaurant had a good lunch.  I then returned back to the jury lounge and thought that we would be released.

Man was I wrong.  I have had jury duty many times before and have never been there that long.  At 3PM we were told we would be a few minutes more.  At 4PM people were getting very upset then five minutes later they called another panel!  55 people were called and yours truly was magic number 42.  So off we go to another court room led by the geriatric gestapo.

We got to the court room and were greeted by a new judge who began the Voir Dire process again but this time with a twist.  She kept the static noise generator on and each one of us was brought one-by-one to the bar (not for a drink) but questions.  Needless to say we were there for what seemed like forever (2 hours).

We were finally released at 6:30PM!!!  Now for the kicker.  Those who know me know I am a gadget guy so guess who has an iPad? Me me me!  My iPad has a lot of electronic books on it.  So during the Voir Dire process I whipped it out and began to read for 30 seconds when the geriatric gestapo stopped me.  Meine iPad was vorbotten (my iPad was forbidden)!! Why I asked?  Well who the hell did I think I was to question the Gestapo?  The head court officer or Gestapo agent then came over and informed me that there were satellites on the roof used to hold remote arraignments and that my iPad is going to interfere with the satellites and ruin the system.  I swear it took every ounce of my self control not to first laugh in his face then scream in his face that this is 2010 not 1910.  But I realized that I would only make things worse and wussed out.  By the way the woman in front of me had a Kindle electronic book and I was so jealous that the Gestapo didn't stop her.  I wanted to rat her out but didn't (note to self disguise your iPad around electronics Nazi's).

So at the end of a long day I had to decide was this a good experience or a bad experience and I have to admit it was a bad good experience.  It could have been a good good experience but the idiotic behavior of the geriatric gestapo and the late panel and drawn out Voir Dire by the judge made it bad.  The good experience was seeing my fellow citizens doing there part by suffering along side of me.

Dreamer nothing but a dreamer

Dreamer, you know you are a dreamer
Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no!
I said dreamer, you're nothing but a dreamer
Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no!
I said "Far out, - What a day, a year, a laugh it is!"
You know, - Well you know you had it comin' to you,
Now there's not a lot I can do

Dreamer, you stupid little dreamer;
So now you put your head in your hands, oh no!
I said "Far out, - What a day, a year, a laugh it is!"
You know, - Well you know you had it comin' to you,
Now there's not a lot I can do.

Well work it out someday (Supertramp)


Well the health care debate is over! Or is it?  So called Obama care has passed and been signed into law.  Depending on what side of the issue your on your either delighted or disappointed.  The progressive dreamers and schemers have gotten their way and now as the saying goes the proof is in the pudding.

So what did we really get?  Well for most of we got the opportunity to pay for those of us who can't afford or have been denied insurance for pre-existing conditions.  I want to make it clear that my personal belief is we all need to be able to receive the best care possible with dignity and respect whether we be homeless (which is another issue) or Bill Gates.  That is my ideal view of the world.  Unfortunately, my ideal world does not exist.  It has never existed and sadly, never will.  The reality of the world is there are haves and have nots.  We didn't create this, we only get to live with.  So our imperfect "representatives" have been bickering back and forth on how to address the issue.  Yet they do not represent us.  There are far too many of us.  I believe we should have had a referendum.  Each piece of the bill should have been described to us, the pros and cons and the costs of doing or not doing and we should have voted.

Ah voting.  What a novel idea.  Novel because we are the fortunate 308,956,305 out of 6,811,331,637 or 4.5% of the people who occupy this planet and live in the United Stares and can vote (http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html).  We have the right to go several times a year and participate in how we are governed.  But, we don't.  We sit back and let the other guy vote for us.  We let them dictate through their participation how our lives will be affected. 

So we go about our daily lives raising our children paying our bills and working harder every year to do so.  Taxes continue to rise on everything and at every level.  Here's a list of most but not all I am sure:

Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) U.S. capital gains tax Corporate income tax U.S. estate tax U.S. excise tax (includes taxes on cigarettes and alcoholic beverages) U.S. federal income tax

Federal unemployment tax (FUTA) FICA tax (includes Social Security tax and related programs) Gasoline tax Generation Skipping Tax Gift tax IRS penalties

Local income tax Luxury taxes Property tax Real estate tax Recreational vehicle tax Rental car tax Resort tax (also known as Hotel/Motel tax, occupancy tax) Road usage taxes (Commercial Vehicle Operators) Sales tax and equivalent use tax

School tax State income tax State unemployment tax (SUTA) Tariffs Telephone federal excise tax Vehicle sales tax Workers compensation tax

Makes you proud to live in such a "free" country. 

We are a country of dreamers though.  Thank God for that!  We are a very industrious country as well.  We have been blessed and we have learned to take our dreams and industrious nature and turn those dreams into reality.  Look how far we have come with technology in such a very short time.  The past hundred and thirty years with the invention of light bulb.  Now we use light to carry our text, voices and video.  One day we will find a way to transport solid objects over great distance in seconds reminiscent of the transporters from Star Trek.  Some may think it is far fetched but is it really?  I was and still am a huge science fiction fan.  I remember watching Captain Kirk using his communicator to talk to the ship and and other crew members. 

That was in the 70's before cell phones.  Now you can't go anywhere in the world without seeing someone with their "communicator" either talking or texting.  Whole industries revolve around it cell phones and rapid communications have become ubiquitous.  People are sending their kindergarten children to school with cell phones and cell phones are no longer just phones they a internet accessible voice over internet protocol (VOIP) devices.   They have global positioning satellite (GPS) technology embedded in them and can be used to track and trace us.

I work out of my home.  I have the luxury and sometimes the burden of being instantly at work.  I wake up get my coffee, check my emails make some phone calls a conduct almost all of my business without having to take a step out of my door.  I spend hours on conference calls and conduct as many meetings as possible via Webex (a program that shares computer screen views for collaboration and demonstrations).  I talk with people from Singapore to San Diego all done at the speed of light over glass fibers all because WE ARE DREAMERS!!!

Dream on America dream on!

Somebody's Watching Me

I always feel like somebody's watching me
And I have no privacy
Oh oh oh
I always feel like somebody's watching me
Tell me is it just a dream
Oh oh oh (Who's watching me)

Who's watching
Tell me who's watching
Who's watching me
Who's watching me

Well who'd-a-thunk it.  Our friends in academia have sunk to an all new low.  They have found a way to invade our homes through the guise of learning and security.  For those of you who haven't heard the story yet here is a link and excerpt:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20100218_Lower_Merion_School_District_sued_for_cyber_spying_on_students.html

Lower Merion School District sued for cyber spying on students

By DANA DiFILIPPO
Philadelphia Daily News

difilid@phillynews.com 215-854-5934

Lower Merion School District officials brag that they give every one of their 1,800 high-schoolers laptop computers to "ensure that all students have 24/7 access to school-based resources."

Instead, they ensured they got a 24/7 sneak peek into students’ private lives by secretly monitoring webcams embedded in the laptops to spy on teens and their families at home, according to a federal, class-action lawsuit filed this week in Philadelphia.

Also for those of you who don't know Lower Merion is on the Main Line and an affluent suburb of Philadelphia.  So he school district bought and issued 2,300 laptops to it's high school students.  Which is patent waste of tax payer money considering that Lower Merion is one of the most affluent school districts in the country and I am sure that the students parents can afford to buy their children laptops.  FYI Kobe Bryant attend Lower Merion.


What brought this to light was the an Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko called the student into her office to reprimand him for "improper behavior at home".  WTF?  This is a tenth grade boy I wonder what he could have been doing that was improper at home????  Of course the first thing you are thinking is masturbation right?  Me too, but for a tenth grade boy that doesn't seem improper.  Maybe it was drugs or underage drinking...again while illegal not improper.  Now you may argue and say that drugs and alcohol are improper but I say no.  No because even if it were, and this is pure speculation on my part, it was in his HOME so it was not improper.  What is improper is for this pedophile of a teacher/school administrator to be looking into peoples house.  It is an illegal search.  Neither she nor the school district nor the government have any business looking into our homes.  

FOURTH AMENDMENT

                           SEARCH AND SEIZURE

                               __________


  The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated; and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported
by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Our homes are OUR homes, they are sacrosanct.  Our homes are the one place that we should have no cameras looking in on us (unless we put them there).  My friends we have gone far beyond George Orwell's 1984.  Everywhere we go we are videoed and tracked.  Our cell phones track us.  Our credit/debit card transactions track us.  Our EZPass and transit passes track us. 

This breech is so egregious on so many levels it makes me sick.  According to the school district the ability to remotely activate the webcams in the laptops that they issued were for security purposes to take a screen shot and still picture to try to recover lost or stolen laptops.  They only activated the webcams 42 times since they issued the laptops.  42 times!  Wow I wonder what they saw 42 times.  Was it 42 separate laptops?  Was it two students 21 times?  What time of day did these activations occur?

If the student was in a compromising position, say stretched out on his bed looking at porn and taking care of business and he is under 18 years of age that is child pornography!  This Lindy Matsko is not the only one involved.  The whole IT staff are her accomplices.  Didn't they install the spy software?  Aren't they the ones who activated it on someones orders?  Will they try the Nuremberg defense, I was just following orders?

Know whats really scary?  How many other school districts do this.  Better yet, does your company supply you with a take home laptop?  Does it have a built in webcam?  Smile you're on candid camera!  How about our friends in the intelligence community.  Do you think that maybe someone in the NSA can dial in your webcam and see whats going on in your house.  Am I just being paranoid?  I think not.

Let's get back to this obvious idiot Lindy Matsko.  There is no doubt in my mind that she has a very high opinion of herself.  She probably struts through the halls of the school like a peacock for she is a learned person.  A person of letters, well educated and arrogant.  Who the F*^k does she think she is?  How dare she.  What was she thinking?  What temerity!  To call a young man to her office then berate him for improper behavior in his own home!  Can you imagine.  I wondered what this stupid sorry excuse for a teacher looked like so I looked her up on Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Lindy-Matsko/313163668649?v=wall&ref=search

I am not sure who put the page up but I believe that is a picture of her.

Now that the arrogance of this idiot and the stupidity of the school district has been exposed the FBI and the District Attorney are investigating and investigate they must.  These people have to be found, every one of them not just this poor excuse for an Assistant Principal.  Heads should roll.  They should be made an example of.  They have committed a horrible crime.  They have violated the sanctity of peoples homes without a warrant.  They are no better than the burglar who sneaks into your house and rummages through your private things.  Ask anyone who has suffered from a burglary and they will tell you they feel sick to their stomachs and violated because some piece of human garbage invaded their space.

 

Global Warming

Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we've no place to go
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow.

I was a little amazed today when I read "how come the parking lots are cleared of snow so fast and the streets aren't" on a Facebook post today.  So I explained to the author that it was a simple matter of economics.  Most parking lots are cleared by private contracting companies.  They get paid to shovel and plow away snow.  The more lots they can clear the more money they make.  As for streets, well most of them are cleared by government workers.  Their motivation is somewhat different.  They get paid by the hour.  So the longer it takes them to work the more money they make and because snow clean up does not occur during their normal work hours, government workers get paid overtime!  Cha-ching!

Now I don't fault either party in this situation.  The private guy is doing his best and the government guy is doing his best.  We all win because they in-turn spend their earnings making their life better and more money flows through our economy.  Of course we get more productivity from the private guy.

What we should fear is a future scenario where there are no more private contractors and the snow must be cleared solely by government workers.  A future where it is one of your assignments as a member of the collective working for the greater good to clear the snow.  It may sound crazy but the chorus that sings "the good of the many out weigh the good of the few" can be heard if you listen carefully.  I have heard to low din of the chorus.  The choir is warming up and the orchestra is getting ready.

This is not a new tune to dance to.  It has been sung in different countries and in different languages all over the world.  They are still signing loud and strong in Cuba and North Korea and the song is being sung in China and hummed loudly in Russia.  There is only one song that can counter that song.  Only one song that can drown out the din of despair that it portends, and that song is our national anthem.

You think you know the anthem? I beg to differ.  Very few of us know all of it's words.  Read on my friends and dwell on its words.

Oh, say! can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming;
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there:
Oh, say! does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In fully glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution!
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust":
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 


O'er the land of the FREE and the home of the BRAVE and in God we trust.  Those are the words of true American's.  Whether they be black, white, yellow or red.  Whether they be Christian, Jew, Muslim or Hindu.  We are losing our freedom everyday.

Soon we will be paying extra taxes (carbon reparations) because we have been "irresponsible" as a nation by using so much of the worlds natural resources.  Our industrial revolution and all of the successful spin off businesses we have created have caused the world to suffer from global warming and now global cooling.  Our poorest fellow Americans live better than most of the world citizens and should we apologize for this?  Absolutely not!  We should be proud that we live in such an industrious and prosperous country thanks to the efforts of our fore fathers (yes I said fore fathers no offense to you mothers).

So here we are, resource wasting, air and water polluting Americans living recklessly.  Spending our falling dollars on all things globally.  Supporting families all over the world with our dollars, which thanks to the Chinese who buy all of our debt are still worth something.  Speaking of the Chinese by the way, as well as the Indians (not native Americans, India Indians) who will no way in hell reduce their carbon foot prints.  These are the two most populace nations in the world and they are like locusts consuming all in their path.  Shouldn't they ease up on the over use of the earth natural resources if we have to? Of course not, only evil American Capitalist should have to pay the freight for the rest of the world.

We the Americans are going to save the world by the use of schemes and gimmicks like Cap and Trade and buying carbon offsets.  Paaaalease give me a break!  Talk about arrogance we are nothing to this planet.  We are ants.  If and when our species becomes extinct 10,000 others will take our place.  How dare we pretend to know how the cyclical nature of this planet or how it works. 

There will be another Ice Age and our Poles will reverse.  That which is desert now will become fertile land and that which is fertile will become desert.  This is out of our control.  There could be a killer asteroid on the way right now that will vaporize us and this planet and there's not a damn thing we can do about it.  Did you know that our scientist believe that the earth is about 4.55 billion years old and that mankind has existed between 100,000 to 200,000 years. 

Do you think that perhaps, I am just saying perhaps since we are so relatively new to this planet we should do some more research.  I mean, considering we have only really had the technology and understanding to truly study this planet for oh....100 years or so!

Of course, the environmentalist or "Greens" have been making steady progress over the decades with their indoctrinating us.  I remember as a child we were told about recycling and it seemed like a good idea and it was voluntary.  Then it became mandatory in many places.  I have nothing against it and I think it is still a good idea, but it should not be compulsory. 

But hey, this is a "free" country right.  I have bad news for you.....there is no such thing as a free country.  Don't believe me?  I tell you what, buy a one way ticket to any country in the world.  The go to the airport and try to fly out without a Passport.  You are in your a rude awakening.  You can't leave this country without a passport or in other words you need permission from our government to let you leave.  But I digress,  to prove my point about the Greens indoctrinating us go to the following hyperlink and watch this commercial for Audi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq58zS4_jvM . It was aired for the Super Bowl but even though it is an exaggeration I can see a time in the  future where this may actually be the case.

So enjoy the global warming/cooling and keep your hands on your wallets my friends because the Beltway gang is going to be trying very hard to liberate as much money as possible from you to pay BS carbon reparations to the rest of the world.   By the way those are both Republican and Democrats that are reaching into your pockets.  Don't be fooled by party affiliations.  

Just a Gigolo - John Edwards

Just a gigolo
everywhere I go
people know the part
I'm playing

Paid for every dance
selling each romance
every night some heart
betraying

There will come a day
youth will pass away
then what will they say
about me

When the end comes I know
they'll say just a gigolo
as life goes on
without me

Ok here we go again!  How many times do we have to hear about these immoral idiots.  It seems as if I can't turn on the news and just get the facts without hearing about John Edwards the despicable bastard.  Why are we so caught up in this BS?  Why should we care?

John Edwards is a typical politician.  Not Republican, not Democrat, just a politician.  We should be thankful that he decided to concentrate on screwing one of the taxpayers instead of all of us.  We ought to be more worried about the politicians who didn't make the same choice.

I pity his poor wife Elizabeth and his family.  I pity the child that was brought into this mess by these fools.  I feel sorry for his friends and supporters who he used to cover his lies.  He is an arrogant ass and will pay the piper.  There is even talk of a possible indictment.  Maybe he'll get convicted and take a new lover or two in prison.

Hopefully this moron will fade away into obscurity and just be what he is, a pimple on the ass of our political history.

Enough said.

Dazed And Confused Paxon Hollow Middle School Updat

Dazed And Confused
Been Dazed and Confused for so long it's not true.


On Friday, three days after I emailed my daughter's teacher as to why she wasn't allowing students to ask questions her teacher called me.  Unfortunately, I was in a meeting and unable to answer the call and she left me a quick message.

The call was quick and rambling but the gist of it was that I was right (we already knew that) but that she does allow for questions and answers.  She also said she spoke to Fran (I hate that, her name is Francesca) and told her she could come to ask questions.   This is the message:

Mr. Boukouris,  Hi, I want to clarify a few things and I did speak to Fran this morning and um I totally agree and hopefully this is just a misunderstanding, um there are times when I agree I spend most of my day in a large part with question and answer but learning also involves listening and we work in groups sometimes and have to kind of depend on our groups and then generate questions and then learn form the other groups and if there's still questions um I think we get involved in things like that so I told her to make sure she sees me if she has a problem.  If you would like to call me at your convenience I'd be happy to call you back hopefully this clears it up and I do  health class available Tuesday afternoons  and in the morning but, ah thank you very much.  Bye bye.

As you can see nothing was really clarified in fact her whole message was a weird circular excuse.  I got totally lost at the end of the message and trust me I don't want to ask for a clarification to her clarification.  I am not 100% sure but I think she wants me to attend health class on Tuesday afternoons or in the morning because there is an availability????  Anyway this whole message has me scratching my head and quite honestly I don't think I will call her just yet.  I will wait to see how Fran, I mean Francesca makes out. 

The (Obama) Magical Mystery Tour

Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour.
Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour.
Roll up GOT EVERYTHING YOU NEED, roll up for the mystery tour.
Roll up SATISFACTION GUARANTEED, roll up for the mystery tour.
The magical mystery tour is hoping to take you away,
Hoping to take you away.


Some of you have asked my to comment on President Obama's State of the Union Address.  I was busy working on some projects and not able to get to it until today.  My wife was kind enough to record it for me as I was in a meeting in New Jersey during most of the speech. 


So when I returned home I watched the speech and took notes on those things that caught my attention.  What I observed was Cirque du Absurde.  The first thing that struck me visually was our illustrious Vice President Joseph bobble head Biden.  Could the man shake his head anymore?  I don't think so.  He kind of reminded me of a dog with an inner ear infection shaking and scratching.  Oh, and could he of fiddled with his suit jacket and tie anymore. Just so you know I pray every night for the Presidents personal safety because I never want to have bobble head Biden as our President.


Our shrew of a Speaker of the House Nancy Peolsi did her level best to look nice but you know the saying you can put lipstick on a ....oops better not go there.  She does remind me a lot of Carol Channing.


Now to the meat of the matter What the Fudge was that?  I believe what I was watching was a very boring version of the One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. 


I have listened to a lot of political pundits over the past few days and I haven't heard the honest truth.  This President has an illness.  It is evident to me that he suffers from a Napoleonic schizophrenia.  In one part of his speech he sounded like a true centrist and somewhere, independents were cheering saying "he gets it".  When he started preaching nuclear power and off shore drilling I got excited.  When he talked about taxing companies that are outsourcing US jobs to foreign countries my heart skipped a beat.  When he talked about how everyone in that room regardless of their side needs to come together and do the peoples business I was saying right on. 


Of course to counter that his schizophrenic side kicked in.  After talking about employing tried and true energy production he spoke about windmills and green energy.  He had to get the global warming shot across the bow.  After speaking about coming together to do the peoples business he attacked the republican side of the house.  He even had the arrogance to take a shot at the Supreme Court who's member were sitting spitting distance away.  What was amazing was the ruling he attacked which was the reversal of the McCain Feingold political financing law.  He was misinformed and misspoke when he said that the court's ruling would allow for foreign governments and entities to influence elections.  That's just not the case.  There are other laws that prohibit foreign governments and corporations from giving monies to candidates for US offices.


So what I witnessed was an internal tennis match being played out.  The President jumped from side to side.  What I saw was a man who has put his reputation behind two governors races and one senate race and loose.  In fact, if I were running for an elected office as a democrat I would not want President Obama showing up to support me.


So this is the change we can believe in....President Obama will change to keep his popularity just like any other politician republican or democrat.  He displays the same haughty arrogance as almost everyone of the people that were in the Capitol Building for his speech.  The only solution I see to save us from these popinjay's is to throw the bums out. 


Last but not least I wanted to comment on the gays in the military issue.  Who cares!  As long as there have been people in the military there have been gays in the military.  Instead of wasting time and money to chase them out update the Uniform Code of Military Justice UCMJ (the laws that military members live by) to codify Public Displays of Affection PDA.  I knew of gay members of the military when I was in the Navy and assigned to ships and Marine Corps bases.  They did their jobs and for the most part they performed them well.  They were fairly subdued and I never witnessed them acting "out".  As a police officer I have worked with gay officers and they performed their duties to the best of their abilities as well.

So if you don't like the idea of homosexuals in the military then don't join! 

We Don't Need No Education

As the Pink Floyd Lyrics say:

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the class room
Teachers leave those kids alone
Hey, teachers! Leave those kids alone!

I was disturbed last night when our youngest daughter Francesca told me she was having difficulties in one of her 6th grade classes. I asked her what was wrong and she told me her teacher refuses to answer questions.

Of course my first thought was that she was either exaggerating or felt she was being picked on. I used my keen investigative skills and began to ask her questions.

Q. What do you mean she won't answer your questions?
A. She says no questions, I am not taking any questions.

Q. Is it just you she does this to?
A. No she does it to the whole class.

Q. Is there an allowed question and answer time during the class?
A. No.

So I asked Francesca if she wanted me to talk to her teacher and she said yes.  Now as many of you parents know most children become absolutely apoplectic when you even hint that you may discuss something with their teachers.  Not Francesca, not this time.  She is so frustrated with not being able to get clarifications on assignments that she insisted I contact her teacher.

So today I decided to take action and I went to the school districts web page to get the phone number which should have been easy to find, but no it wasn't.  I had to dig through the cryptic site to find the main information number listed on the very bottom of the page in a very tiny font.

So I called the number and the phone was immediately answered by a very friendly and helpful automated answering system....NOT!  After several useless options were given that didn't seem to make any sense I settled on the Superintendents extension and dutifully dialed the number 8.  I was immediately transferred to Robin.  Who in turn gave me the number to Tracy.  I thanked Robin then called the number for Tracy.  The phone rang twice and a woman answered the phone "Smith, Jones and Brown Law Offices".  I explained I had the wrong number and I apologized then called the main number again.  I retraced my steps through the automated system back to Robin.  Imagine Robin's surprise when she found out she gave me the wrong number.  Of course I had to repeat it back to her to prove I had written down correctly the first time she gave it to me (because we all know parents are morons).  Robin then put me on hold for a brief time while she filed her nails and finished her solitaire game.  She then returned and gave me a new number to try.

Being up for the challenge I tried the new number and spoke directly to Tracy, you remember Tracy?  She is the woman I had to call in order to talk to Francesca's teacher.  Stay with me people.

Anywho I speak to Tracey who informs me that Francesca's teacher is out sick today and could I call back tomorrow.  So I think....hey I have a computer right...maybe I could send the teacher one of those emaily thingies.....  So I ask for the address and Tracy explains the whole email schema employed by the highly technical IT staff that my tax dollars pay salaries for.  First initial then a period then last name.  Hmmmm seems pretty straight forward so I composed the following email:

Ms. N,

I called for you today and was informed that you were not feeling well.  I hope you are feeling better.  The reason for this email is quite simple, I am disturbed by something that my daughter Francesca has reported to me.

Francesca has told me that you are not answering questions in class.  Not just her questions but any questions.  I thought maybe you had a specific format when you teach that would allow for some question and answer period but Francesca tells me that is not the case.  Furthermore, Francesca tells me that you make a blanket statement that you are not taking questions not just some of the time but all the time and that you raise your hand palm out in a stop sign fashion.  Thereby sending the visual signal that you will not entertaining any questions.

Obviously a quality learning environment dictates that the student may ask the teacher or instructor questions.  Questioning and answering provides an opportunity for you as an educator to gain valuable insight into how effectively you are reaching your classes and their understanding of the concepts and information you are imparting.  Therefore, the question and answer process is absolutely necessary to ensure that the student is getting a firm grasp of the material or concepts being taught. 

The children in your classes have a right to communicate with you.  One of the main avenues of that communication is questioning and I find your failure to allow it to be dictatorial in nature.  I also find that your insistence on not allowing them the opportunity to communicate by asking questions absolutely unacceptable.  I would hope that Francesca is exaggerating but I can tell you that is not given to exaggerations. 

I would like an explanation as to why this is occurring.  If you would like I can certainly meet with you in person or we can discuss this over the phone.  In either case you will note that I have copied Francesca's mother, as well as the Principal. 


Thank you,

Timothy L. Boukouris

I believe the aforementioned email will generate some activity tomorrow in the Marple Newtown (Snooty) School District and I will bet you dollars to donuts (cop slang) she will answer my questions now and her classes later.

I will update this post once the real Q and A sessions begin.

Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

A Lie, a whopper, a white-lie, a walloper, a prevarication, a falsehood, a falsity, an untruth, a fib, a story, a tale, a misunderstanding

Ah, a lie by any other name is still the truth?  Let’s start with the standard definition of the word.  A lie is a statement that deviates from or perverts the truth.  Ok, good we are all on the same page now or are we?  It seems that if you are a member of the current White House administration a lie really is the truth.


For example how many jobs have been saved thanks to the stimulus plan?  Valerie Jarrett says thousands.  Presidential advisor David Axelrod and White House Secretary Robert Gibbs claim millions of jobs have been created or saved.  Yet the official US unemployment rate has climbed to 10% and isn’t falling.  The US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics reported:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- DECEMBER 2009   Non-farm payroll employment edged down (-85,000) in December, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 10.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment fell in construction, manufacturing, and wholesale trade, while temporary help services and health care added jobs.  Household Survey Data In December, both the number of unemployed persons, at 15.3 million, and the unemployment rate, at 10.0 percent, were unchanged. At the start of the re- cession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons was 7.7 million, and the unemployment rate was 5.0 percent.

So what is the truth?  This is the truth.  People are hurting because they are unemployed and/or under employed.  Families have to work multiple jobs to make enough money to have a decent quality of life.  God forbid you should have more than two children!  Talk about expensive.  Who’s at fault the Democrats or the Republicans?

Both are at fault!  They have forgotten why they were elected.  Their only goal in life is to keep their butts in those cushy offices that you and I pay for.  They are the noble class and we are surfs the peons. They get treated with great deference and people bow and scrape in front of them.  We were born to serve. 

They exploit us.  They play the middle class against the lower class.  They maintain their power and wealth.  Have you ever wondered why anyone would literally spend millions of dollars to win an election to an office that pays $174,000.00 a year?

Here’s a shocker too, out of 535 congress members 237 are certified millionaires!  So why do millionaires take on the low paying salary and long hard demanding hours?  POWER, I know what your thinking.  That can’t be true.  They all profess to take on the tough job to help the people and is that a lie?  Absolutely not!  It is true the only problem is the people that they help is their people.  Not WE the people, and that my friend is the truth. 

I think the only answer is a moratorium on who can be a member of the congress or senate.  That’s right.  No more lawyers, or doctors.  Lets have bricklayers and mothers.  Lets have nurses, firefighters, and police officers.  Lets have butchers and bakers and candle stick makers.  I know you might be thinking, don’t we need lawyers?  Yes we can hire them to be the scribes and help ensure that the peoples voice and will is written into law correctly.

Wouldn’t we all be better off if our leadership was made up of working people?  People who have had to make ends meet?  People who know what its like to make a payroll on a budget without just ordering the raising of debt limits or the printing of money? 

I know it will never happen but wouldn’t it be nice.

Sirens and stretchers and bills, oh my!

In November of 2008 I suffered the worst physical pain in my life.  Now to put this in context I am the ripe old age of 45 and I was 44 when this incident occurred.  In those 44 years I suffered many different injuries.  I have been in car accidents, and physical altercations.  I have had broken bones from being run over by cars (someone tried to kill me another story for another day) to playing superman as a child jumping from bed to bed with a towel tied around my neck. 

The worst part of my superman incident aside from realizing I wasn’t the man of steel was the beating I got for breaking my leg!  Needless to say my mother wasn’t amused.  

Anyway I digress, back to November 2008. 

It was about ten o’clock in the morning and I was on a mission.  A humanitarian mission but a mission nonetheless.  You see we had a serious squirrel problem.  The cute little rats had found their way into the walls of our house thorough openings in our porch roof.

Despite reports to the contrary I am not a cruel man, so I borrowed a have-a-heart animal safe trap.  I had been placing it on the porch and caught a few squirrels and took them miles away to release them.  I still had a few persistent squirrels though that would hang out in the roof of the porch so I had a brilliant idea.

I decided to climb a ladder remove some ceiling panels and place the trap close to the squirrels in the roof.  I know what your thinking, what a thoughtful guy.  Anyway, I set up the ladder on my cluttered porch.  Of course there was no need to clean the area around the ladder because it still fit.  So I climbed the ladder with my cordless drill and began to remove the panels without incident.  I took two panels down and there they were in the far corner of the porch smiling at me, two cute rats.   They quickly ran away and they were gone or so I thought.

As I surveyed the area I was looking for a good area to place the trap.  I found the perfect spot.  It was little further back away from my current location.  So I had to step up one more step.  Well the only step that was left was at the top of the ladder and was clearly marked DANGER DO NOT STAND HERE.  Of course that was not a message for me so, yes I did stand there. 

Initially, there was no problem until I shifted my weight or what I really think is when those two smiling rats shook the bottom of the ladder.   Needless to say what goes up must come down and yes I did.  Not before grabbing onto a roof beam and dangling. 

I called out to my pregnant wife and she came running.  She saw me hanging and I asked her to step back because I didn’t want to fall on her and kill her.  So I thought as I hung there I would do a hanging drop and did.  It was perfect except for me landing on the side of my right foot and twisting my ankle under me.

The pain was extremely intense.  I have never felt so much pain.  I knew my ankle was broken but I didn’t realize how bad it really was.  It felt like someone was pushing a hot poker into my ankle.
Now my wife is freaking out scared to death because I am lying on the porch writhing in pain but laughing. 

I know it sounds crazy but my reaction to pain is laughter and tears.  I told my wife to call 911 because my ankle was broken and as I stated she was pregnant and I didn’t want her to have to help me into the car and drive to the hospital.  Being the big brave cop that I am I called my mom.  I know I was risking a beating but I wanted her there to support my wife so I took the risk. 

Soon enough the ambulance and my mom arrived.  The crew was very nice and they helped me hop to the ambulance.  There were no splints, no soft air casts, no IV’s and no medical devices of any kind
were employed.  I then suffered the grueling 2.7 mile 6 minute ride to the hospital. 

I spent the next several hours in the emergency room the diagnosis was a broken ankle, torn ligaments and ruptured tendons.  Flash forward a year later and I still have pain and problems with the ankle.

And now the insult to injury…the bill for the ambulance arrived.  It was an astronomical $850.00.  Yes I know crazy right.  They drove me 2.7 miles for 6 minutes and provided nothing more than a ride.  That works out to almost $315.00 per mile or $141.66 per minute.  Man would I like to paid at that rate!  I know your thinking it is a good thing you have insurance, right.  Wrong, I have insurance and I filed a claim.  It was denied.  I called my friendly insurance company and asked why and was told…..drum roll….. The ambulance company was not in my provider network!  LOL

It is no wonder that people hate insurance companies and are, out of desperation asking for government health care?  I think not.

SIgns

Sign Sign everywhere a sign

Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign

So can’t you read the signs?  I believe that we as a society have reached the point of sign-overload on so many levels it is scary.  For example as a police officer I see the results of sign-overload every time I work.  I see people coast through intersections with a slight tap of the brake.  I stop the cars and ask the standard cop question, “do you know why I stopped you?”  The answer almost always is “no officer, why?”  I tell them because you went through the intersection without coming to a complete stop.  The response is almost always the same “I stopped”.  They are not lying.  They are telling the truth as far as they know.  For the most part they truly believed they stopped.  Now this is the moment of truth, ticket? Or no ticket?  If the offender is or acts contrite and admits they may have actually cruised through the intersection without coming to a complete stop then no ticket.  If they want to argue and be obtuse then ticket. 

The aforementioned scenario is analogous to our lives today.  We “drive” around with our eyes glazed over and we subconsciously see the signs but we coast right by them.  Why, because we are in survival mode.  We have to work to pay our bills.  We is the key.  We is plural.  We are no longer in a one bread winner family situation.  We have to work. Both parents are holding down multiple jobs trying to get a little bit of an edge on life. 

What happens then is we buy stuff to put in our houses.  Ironically, we buy cool TV’s, stereos and gadgets to occupy our time and our children’s time and we don’t have time, to spend time watching our TV’s or enjoying our gadgets.  We miss the signs.  Our children are raised by MTV, HBO, Xbox 360 and Personal Computers.  Not because we don’t care for them or love them.  To the contrary, we only want the best for them so we spend our time away from them and we miss the signs. 

Our children are stressed.  They are inundated on a daily basis with more and more input, good bad or indifferent.  We have strangers peering into our homes talking to our children via of the internet through Myspace and Facebook and other social networks.   So then why are we so amazed when a stranger reaches with their sick, twisted thoughts and fingers through cyberspace into our homes.  These are people we wouldn’t let walk near our children let alone speak to them yet they become our children’s confidants, friends and in the worse case our children’s abusers. 

Why because we don’t see the signs.  Wake up my friends and watch for the signs.

What's Going On

The past week has been a horrible mess in Haiti.  A 7.0 earthquake struck one of the poorest countries in the world.  For the curious here is a link to the US Geological Survey http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010rja6.php which lists interesting technical facts about the quake. 

Here are the real life facts:

One of the most corrupt and poorest countries in the world has suffered a devastating blow.  America, as usual has jumped into the breech with both feet and our check book.  We have thousands of troops on the ground and more on the way.  Our country is digging out survivors.  Protecting the poor young innocent children and providing medical care, food and water.

Governor Edward Rendell, himself and his wife Federal Court Judge Midge Rendell went on a successful mission to Haiti to rescue suffering children and brought them back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  What an awesome way to show you care.  He could have just sent money or offered PA National Guard troops but he placed himself and his wife at risk to save those children.  You may ask why am I being so kind to "Fast Eddie"?  The answer is simple regardless of his politics he is a humanitarian and credit should be given when its due.  Kudos to the State of Pennsylvania!  We it's tax payers will foot the bill.

Back to the real world.  The latest news about how much the ugly American's have donated in one week is in excess of 200 million dollars that does not include the 100 million dollars that President Barack Hussein Obama offered up. 

The rest of the world has sent help too but all of the usual suspects are at work trying to belittle the hard work of the United States.

France accused the US of "occupying" Haiti on Monday as thousands of American troops flooded into the country to take charge of aid efforts and security. 

France??? Really, France???  Please save me.  The French God bless them have some great food.  They were here to help us gain our freedom from the British (General Lafayette).  Of course they always hated the British and it was a chance to piss on them!  How many young American's died and are buried in France and yet here we go again.  Now we are occupiers.  I posted this on my Facebook Status on Sunday, January 17th:

The Great Satan is at it again!!! The United States is usurping another nation. Showing up in Haiti telling them how to survive by making them drink our water and eat our food. We are only there to rape their country of it's vast natural resources by stealing their oil and forcing their people to work for minimum wages to support our ever-growing natural resource dependent economy and life style.  There is even a secret plan to de-forest their country, erect large windmills and miles and miles of solar power collecting farms. If you don’t believe me just ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Hugo Chavez!

How right I was.  I just picked the wrong country.  I thought there was a major shift in the French government when Sarcozy was elected but I was obviously wrong.

Quickly, back to the Haitian babies and children that have been brought back to Pennsylvania and other states.  There is a ground swell of people offering  to open up their homes and hearts to give them a great life and that is fantastic, but lets not forget about the children that are already here in this country waiting for a loving home to live in.  Lets not make these children the fad of 2010.   These are PEOPLE not tea cup chihuahuas.

If you feel moved to open your home to a child then please do so but there are children here today that have been languishing in our foster care and orphanages.  Shouldn't charity start at home?

 

 

 

 

In The Begining

How does one start a blog? I am not too certain. Why does one blog? I guess the need to express oneself. That's why I am starting this blog, I need to express myself. No one may ever read these words but the act of expressing them is enough for me and it is cathartic. So if you read this I hope you find it enlightening in some way. You may be entertained, saddened, infuriated or have some other feelings. It will always be real.