Highly Recommended: Narrated by Matt Damon "Inside Job" is, I can attest, an excellent documentary. I took Bill Moyer's advice and ran (well not exactly) to the West Newton Theater today to view it. It gives a peripheral glimpse at the etiology of the 2008 economic tsunami. It is well worth viewing. Yes, take your blood pressure meds beforehand if you feel as I do, angered, saddened and frustrated at the pure evil and greed that was unleashed by the few upon the unknowing and innocent global many. The heroes and the villains are clear as the makers of the documentary use their vocal weapon of choice to indict EVEN the most prestigious economics professors at the most renown colleges and universities. Yes, they are in on the scam too and even advocate for its principles so that the bomb keeps ticking. The titans of Wall Street have captured many Congresses and presidents in a system of pay-to-play politics heretofore unknown in the western world. It stuns even the most seasoned skeptic of the American political process which sanctions the top 2% in wealth reaping UNJUST rewards with the American taxpayer funding their yachts, homes, Lamborghinis and BMW's. There was and is, indeed, NO trickle down to us but a trickle UP to the rich to get richer without making a single product.

I believe a reckoning day is approaching at least I HOPE it is. I will not be happy until the likes of Blankfein and his Goldman Sachs cronies, along with Richard Fuld of Lehman, Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack and many others at the top are indicted for their alleged monstrous offenses. Curiously, it is the ones at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum who may be spilling the beans. This could be poetic justice at its best as the songbirds could be as base as the prostitutes and cocaine dealers who may add to the chorus of pin the blame on the elephants in the room who simply loved the game of risk even bedding down call girls and paying off cocaine dealers to add to their slimy ways. It was damn the torpedoes full steam ahead no matter whom one may crush in order to reap the ill-gotten gains. The little people never matter BUT they may matter now.

I will believe justice when I see it though. One should see this documentary before the fur begins to fly so one can sit back and enjoy the squirm. Naturally, these titans of greed will be lawyered-up so I am a BIT pessimistic. Still, there is a lot to tell and I think even if they get off with a trivial fine it will be worthwhile to see them sweat as MILLIONS in this country face unemployment, foreclosures and medical catastrophes with a Congress that remains deaf to their suffering. This may be the only justice the victims of a HUGE Ponzi scheme receive. In any event, sit back, watch the film and enjoy!

Trumped up Traitors: Every single day of my life, I get up in the a.m., try to pull myself together and dare to read the news. Do I dare click on Huffington Post? Do I dare click on MSNBC? OR do I dare to read sanity, the New York Times. Krugman has been my guru. Still to read even him today is depressing (See link below for his editorial.) The ENTIRE state of EVERYTHING is DEPRESSING.

We are a nation catapulting toward depression because the ones who have labeled themselves the true patriots -- the Republican party -- want to see this Democratic president fail. Of course, we all know the color of our president's skin matters not to these middle aged red state whites. Oh sure, my posterior it does not. It is the one single factor that these NON patriots use to lynch a darn good, smart, brilliant man who wants desperately to do what he can to save his country from the abyss.

Where were these white patriots when Bush was sending this nation over the proverbial cliff and waging a trumped up war? How quickly the patriots forget. Armed with a zeal never seen since, I believe, pre-civil war, these so called patriots are salivating for the failure of our president EVEN THOUGH IF HE FAILS WE FAIL. They are NOT the patriots they falsely claim they are. They are TRAITORS!

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/opinion/19krugman.html#preview

CLUB FED:

To be read after taking your MEDS!

You and I have been ROYALLY had. A wonderful friend sent me the link to a lecture given by my guru Bill Moyers at Boston University. I place the link to it below. It says SO much and summarizes the giant economic pickle we are in. In addition, he suggests people "run not walk" to a fabulous documentary which I believe has not shown up on our shores ... YET. It is entitled "Inside Job." I link that below as well.

As usual if you cannot click on these links merely highlight them, then cut and paste into your browser at the top. I can assure you if you enjoy knowing the ENTIRE truth and not the sugar coated syrup you get from regular and even cable news then links such as the ones below will provide you with just that. You can take it. I know you can. We have just taken the greatest economic mishap ride with the exception of PERHAPS the Great Depression and it STILL is not over. In the long run, if we live to see it, it may be worse than the 1929 crash as America CONTINUES to elect the same people who threw this country and the globe over a cliff except they are doing MORE of it. Republicans AND Democrats are in Club Fed but guess what? MOST IF NOT ALL OF US AREN'T!

Then below that I link Matt Taibbi the WONDERFUL reporter and exposure of economic criminality from Rolling Stone. I urge you to click on the Utube in the article that explains Quantitative Easing. Never heard of Quantitative Easing, not to worry MOST haven't including yours truly until I looked into it. Basically it means the Fed PRINTING MONEY and buying bonds from guess who? NOT YOU OR ME but yes, Goldman Sachs. SURPRISE!! Yeah the guys in the Obama Administration. Whoa, funny huh? Did I hear the word oligarchy anyone? The Utube will explain it in VERY VERY simple terms and you may laugh if it were not so ruinous and you don't cry.

So to summarize -- I guarantee it's FUN reading...truly...I think:

Moyers lecture at BU:

http://www.truth-out.org/bill-moyers-money-fights-hard-and-it-fights-dirty64766


Trailer of Moyers suggested documentary viewing "Inside Job"

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/trailer-for-charles-fergusons-inside-job


Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone economic genius --Quantitative Easing--WELL WORTH IT and FUNNY too if it were not so serious!!

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi/blogs/TaibbiData_May2010/233953/83512

Matt Taibbi the foreclosure UNETHICAL PREPOSTEROUS MESS

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi

The Sorrow of Soros -- Glen Beck owes an apology: Mr. Beck: I do not know what beast has invaded your brain but it is incredible for me to believe a man to be so corrupted and sick that he ends up on a major cable network inciting so many to violence while making millions from them for profit. Maybe I am naive. My conclusion is that you, with an assist from the dripping-with-cash Fox Network, know EXACTLY what you are doing. The scripts written by you and for you are a deliberate attempt to foment division and discord in this nation and IF violence erupts so be it; it will encourage your minions to listen even more to your vitriolic madness.

Your dialogues, at times, are comical to me. Most times I cannot listen to your polluted rants. The latest one about George Soros is abominable. In some perverted way you have contrived that George Soros is the master puppeteer whose "evil" liberal politics is PROVEN in that he sent his own people to the Nazi ovens during the Hiterian era. Your words are so over the top they drip into the psychopathology realm. Could it be that your past drinking has corrupted your cerebral cells to such an extent that it allows you to spew such lies? Worse, those on the right who do not carefully examine thought, investigate and THINK about what someone says hear the words Soros the Jew and a financial takeover which confirm, in an odd Shylockian way, their own virulent anti-Semitic inclinations about Jews as the ultimate manipulator -- the REAL man behind the curtain -- pulling the strings. Your sentiments are poisonous.

You claim to be a man who LOVES this country. That is decidedly doubtful. What you love is your bank account. You have found a way to take advantage of the proclivity of some, perhaps even many, in this nation who lean extremist right and to capitalize on that by spreading consummate lies to the non-discerning many. It is difficult to imagine in our culture, no matter how much the media has perverted it, a man who reaches the pinnacle of success but does not care that his rhetoric is, in an extraordinarily large part, contributing to his nation's hostile even violent climate and the possible takeover by right wing extremist elements that this angry unreasonable verbiage encourages.

What you say besmirching a mench (a GOOD human being) like George Soros is a sin. You maligned the Jew George Soros as the controller and manipulator of all things to accommodate those in your base who feel that about Jews anyway.

Michelle Goldberg of the Daily Beast explains the truth and the sorrow of Soros behind the right wing myth: "... when Soros was 14 in Nazi-occupied Hungary, his father bribed an agriculture official to pretend that the boy was his Christian godson. Soros once had to accompany his protector to inventory a confiscated Jewish estate. Asked by 60 Minutes if he felt guilty about it, he said no, because he wasn't at fault. The slander that he was a Nazi collaborator has proliferated on the right ever since."

Your rant against Mr. Soros is UNCONSCIONABLE. It is ironic that you throw around the word Nazi like confetti on New Year's eve but the true fascistic-like appeal is on your own side of the political spectrum. Consider this quote from Mein Kamp, Hitler’s written manifesto, to which you so often love to refer: "For a lie [to be] so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously that they would get the majority to believe the preposterous assertion" is the goal of a perfect propagandist. That, Mr. Beck, would be YOU!

To quote Mark 8:36 a New Testament text you SAY you adore “What profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul”? You owe Mr. Soros and ALL Jews a COLOSSAL apology. For once in your sorry life with all your millions, Glen Beck, be a MENCH and give one!

A Must Read: I saw an author, Russ Baker, interviewed. He has written the book is called "Family of Secrets." I CANNOT put it down. I downloaded it to my Kindle. It is an analysis which was ten years in the making of George W. Bush. This author presents him like no other author I have read who has written about George Bush that fully explains the enigma, the complexity of the man and his background which formed one of the worst presidencies if not THE worst presidency in US history. If you think you don't want to know anymore about this unqualified man who allowed 911 to happen, invaded Iraq, a country which had done NO harm to us, tortured and catapulted this nation into the greatest recession it has ever known then please THINK again. This author seems to have documented all there is available to know. He has complied 500 texts on both George W. and his father H.W. which the author says he had to read and research to understand the father and thereby understand the son.

It is a page turner. You can download it to a Kindle if you have one or get it through Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. If you have any interest in our country's history at the dawn of the 21st century and want to know the many many things that have been heretofore enigmatic about the Bush failed presidency this book provides substance. Moreover, it gives a little taste as to why EVEN Obama is not living up to his campaign rhetoric. I haven't gotten to that part yet but I can assure you I cannot wait.

Why? If you want to understand and get the BEST progressive analysis of what happened in the November 2 Republican House takeover listen to the interview of Glen Greenwald by Progressive.org. Greenwald writes for Salon.com and has also appeared numerous times on MSNBC and other venues analyzing contemporary politics from a civil libertarian perspective. According to his biographical data on Salon he "was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of two New York Times Bestselling books: "How Would a Patriot Act?" (May, 2006), a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, and "A Tragic Legacy" (June, 2007), which examines the Bush legacy. My most recent book, "Great American Hypocrites", examines the manipulative electoral tactics used by the GOP and propagated by the establishment press, and was released in April, 2008, by Random House/Crown." He is one of my all time favorite political commentators. Although I do not agree with everything he postulates, I agree with him 99.999% of the time.

The link to his interview is the following:

http://www.progressive.org/radio/greenw10.html

Bush’s Book: IF a Democrat made decisions which were murderous to his own people based on lies, IF he took an ENTIRE nation to war based on lies, IF he took the "coalition of the willing" to war based on lies, IF a Democratic president was guilty of the murder of thousands of innocents based on lies and destabilized the entire Middle East handing power to the alleged arch enemy Iran, IF a Democratic president did those things not only would he have been impeached he would have been tried and convicted of war crimes.

LOOK at what that man did! Look at the horror and the RUINED lives of our soldiers who volunteered for this dastardly war because most did not understand the truth. Many are wounded in body and spirit and many are dead. I ask FOR WHAT did they die -- for a lie? Bush says in his interview with Matt Lauer to push Bush’s book that we were NOT attacked on his watch? OH really, Mr. Bush, REALLY? Lauer, does NOT hold Bush’s feet to the fire. Why am I NOT surprised? I thought 9/11 WAS an attack on BUSH’s watch. Bush was warned by the presidential daily briefing about an impending terrorist attack within the US and he did NOTHING. Moreover, it was NOT true that everyone thought Hussein had WMD. MANY in the academic and professional foreign policy spheres doubted it. Bush/Cheney planned and calculated this move that they wanted to perfect even before 9/11. 9/11 provided the EXCUSE to commit a policy SO toxic, SO cruel, SO INHUMANE and SO unwise it RUINED the lives of millions, put the world at risk and it STAINED the reputation of our nation abroad.

I aver we are NOT at LESS risk of another attack but MORE because the hornets in the nest are furious in a fiery part of the world. The blood STILL runs in the streets of Baghdad every day.

Further, wars are expensive. War makes the very few very rich but it impoverishes the many. We will be in Iraq because an entrenched military/industrial complex wants eternal war for profit. It has cost trillions and is still costing this taxpaying nation BILLIONS each day in perpetuity!

We are getting out of Iraq? I DON’T think so not with THIS president who is sometimes a mirror image of the predecessor he VOWED he would not be. This president promised systemic change. He PROMISED he would be different. The president breaks his promises day in and day out on a plethora of policy. The conservatives should LOVE him. He is in a state of denial about those who hate him and want to see him BROKEN -- broken of position and broken of spirit. He WILL get both.

I LOATH that I was deceived, I loath that this president is NOT what I thought he would be, and I LOATH the disappointment. We DESPERATELY need a third party to hold a politician to his promises. The president is NOT holding himself to his own promises and alienates his base day by day. The red hot charismatic campaigner has turned into dull glacial ice.

Republicans and tea baggers LOVE it but Obama's base DOES NOT! I feel like I have been the victim of a BATE AND SWITCH selling. He is NOT the candidate I and millions of others bought. If he does NOT grow a spine, he WILL, in fact, be a one term president. If the ENTIRE Democratic Party does not grow a spine the Republicans will take BOTH houses of Congress back, perhaps, PERMANENTLY.

If Bush was "the decider" Obama is "the compromiser." Republicans, UNCOMPROMISING and EXTREME, are uncorking the champagne now. The president is playing RIGHT into the opposition's hands. Does he KNOW this or is this a plot agreed to by Democrats? I am NOT a conspiratorialist but either he or the Democratic Party has agreed to keep corporatists happy OR they both are absolutely DEAF to the criticism of the Democratic base and the Independent middle. I hope it's the latter but I wish it were neither.

THIS IS WELL WORTH READING Click on the link to the title underlined or cut and paste the title into your browser.

> Subject: The K.F. Stone Weekly: "When Lunatics Take Over the Asylum"
>
A CORRECTED BIO of the author. Apologies, I had a few things about the author incorrect:

1. He worked in the Senate, the House and for Gov. Jerry Brown;

2. The "Boca" campus he teaches at is Florida Atlantic University. He also teaches at the latter's Jupiter campus and at Florida International University as well;

3. He has had a chavurah -- a synagogue "without walls" for the past decade. It meets in Coral Springs Florida for services, hagim (festivals), Torah study and Hebrew school, which is done out of his home.

"When Lunatics Take Over the Asylum," deals with last week's election and posits that it was neither as frightful as some fear nor as blessed as others believe.

> www.kurtfstone.typepad.com (Blog]
> www.kurtfstone.com [Website]

I feel bad about my neck and my cheeks, and my hands and and and

This was in response to an editorial about the wonderful writer, producer and director, Nora Ephron, who was interviewed by Salon.com. Salon says "Nora Ephron gets serious about sagging necks and wrinkles and talks about aging in her new book "I Feel Bad about my Neck." She talks about aging and does not wax sappy.

What IS so great about aging? Damned if I know. Cher said one of the most honest things I ever heard from a star. Most stars when asked that question about aging on aging supercilious talk shows say something like oh really I don't mind getting old because well it gives you so much more perspective, it enlightens you, it makes you wise, it beats the alternative etc. etc. etc. Or worse some say I'm glad I have cancer it taught me how to live! REALLY? REALLY? I do NOT want to get cancer to teach me a THING. Cher once said in plain English "aging stinks" and I quite agree. Sure death beats the alternative but we will get the alternative for much longer than we are alive.

The most profound comment I have heard about death recently is that someone equated it with being on the Titanic. YES I said I feel EXACTLY the same way. The iceberg is ahead no matter how many Dr. Oz shows you watch, no matter how well you eat, no matter how many vitamins you take or no matter how much you exercise ... death will still get you in the end.

I HATE the idea of aging. I HATE my body betraying me. I feel I am the same person in thought but my organs, brain, heart and lungs, bones etc. say NO you are not! I wish there were a face lift for the heart or the brain or the liver. The thought of illness terrifies me almost more than death itself.

The only difference between any of us and a man on death row is that he will be dead sooner. BUT we will ALL be there whether we like it or not. The iceberg is ahead and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.

Personally, I do not believe in a hereafter nor in any kind of a supernatural being so the best advice I can give people like I is smell the flowers while you can. I wish when I was younger I realized the brevity of it all. If I had I would have started learning everything there is to learn sooner instead of playing kick ball in my elementary school playground.

I cannot believe there will be a time when I won't know what happens or who is president or that there will be a time when I do not know people, most especially those who share my life and the things that were so much a part of my life. Seeing those I love die is almost worse than contemplating my OWN death ... it IS worse than contemplating my own death.

Since I do not have children the only thing I will leave to the world is my writing and my reputation. I am hoping that some day in 2180 (IF civilization makes it that far) someone who is studying this era will see my writings. I hope, too, that I have transmitted to others the thirst I have for learning and academic achievement. That's it. Beyond that I TRY to be as decent a person as I am able. I know I fall short but I try. If someone some day soon after my death realizes that or cries for me, well, I am hoping for that but truly I will never know.

I cannot believe Carl Sagan is dead or Stephen Jay Gould is dead or Paul Newman and Bea Arthur are dead or hundreds of other famous people I knew of are gone. THAT bothers me. Those who have contributed in incredible ways to the advancement of man should NEVER die and yet they do and so will I.

The Survivalist Cockroach: There are two news stories one state and one federal (links below). One article has to do with Texas, the deepest red of the southern states and to me one of the most fearful because of its size and population, which wants to refuse to distribute Medicaid funds. The other article in the NYT is about Republicans in the newly empowered very red House wanting to dismantle "Obamacare" piece by piece. It is not so much the now I am worried about but it is the later. This is, in my opinion, the absolute worst time on the American political scene I have EVER experienced. Even during WWII, a dangerous era to be sure, there was, for the most part, a relatively united humane USA -- at least in doctrine -- accompanied by strong solid leadership.

The rancid RepublicRATS now feel empowered because of their House and even state legislatures big win. I have read that some wingnuts who were elected to the House cannot even read or barely so. It would not surprise me if this were true. Our country has elected the UNREASONED or a good chunk of it. I NEVER on planet earth would have thought I would say that if you told me this when I was 21 I would have moved PERMANENTLY to Canada. Now it is too late. If I had done that I would be, of course, worried about my neighbor to the south which now is slowly going insane.

Lindsey Graham, a rather powerful senator from South Carolina, yesterday called for a military strike on Iran. Does he REALLY think this country which has not prosecuted a war successfully, with the exception of WWII, could now take on three wars (or four if you consider Pakistan) with a volunteer overstretched army in the tinderbox Middle East and against Iran yet a huge nation that really DOES have a patriotic nationalist fervor unlike Iraq and Pakistan? If Iran acquired nukes maybe it would protect the world now from the cerebral synaptic disconnect of the US. Who EVER thought I would say that? I'm being facetious BUT when there is a truly fascistic extremist right in power in, at least for now, one branch of the federal government of the most powerful nation on earth compounded with a shaky global economy the entire world is at risk. Fate forbid red state whack-jobs here gain even MORE power.

These religious fanatics want Armageddon, see it in their binoculars and will sit around in New Testament Revelation form waiting for Jesus to come out of a cloud and save the believers. Keep voting in tea bagger wingnuts and other Republicans you just may get that WITHOUT the Jesus part of course! I hope we have ALL bought cemetery plots. Hey, with what they want to do we do not even need that! The cockroaches, nature's premier evolutionary survivalists, will inherit the earth. I think they will clean up the mess and do a MUCH better job than us.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40053289/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/

LOVE: Click on this link. This woman is 106 years old soon to be 107. She is a lesson to all of us. The power of love and the power of music....incredible. She is the oldest living Holocaust survivor and there is not one ounce of hate in her. She is a survivor of Theresienstadt because she could play music. She plays her music still all day long. It is such a wow video. It is maybe the most poignant thing I have ever seen! I urge you to listen to all of it. It's only 12 minutes long but boy does humanity need to hear her song!

http://www.youtube.com/user/AliceTheFilm

Count Me in on Countdown: I could not disagree more with the The Boston Globe's November 5, 2010 editorial "Cable News: the Worst Segment in the News" criticizing cable news network's political programming (Link Below). For me it becomes a restoration of my sanity to listen to Keith Olbermann, and other MSNBC commentators with their their guests. They provide refreshing, informed and often brilliant commentary to critique toxic conservative politics most especially Fox News in the form of O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck and others polluting the airwaves often with bold face lies.

Fox News is a huge empire and will not go away anytime soon. The MSNBC line up is necessary opposition to the Fox insanity which, in my opinion, will drive this country into the ground. My day consists of either taping or listening to Dylan Ratigan, The Ed Show, Hardball's Chris Matthews, most especially Keith Olberman, the brilliant Rachel Maddow and now, the latest addition, the political expert Lawrence O'Donnell. I look forward to the day when MSNBC adds Cenk Uygur an inspiring voice for the left, and the wonderful civil liberties expert Glen Greenwald to its list of commentators. We need ALL of them now more than ever!

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/11/05/cable_news_the_worst_segment_in_the_world/

The Truth, the Whole Truth: Excellent article in the NYT link below. "How Obama Saved Capitalism" by Timothy Egan. It is WELL worth reading.
I could not have said it better myself! ;-)



http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/how-obama-saved-capitalism-and-lost-the-midterms/?src=me&ref=homepage

The Truth, the Whole Truth: Excellent article in the NYT link below. "How Obama Saved Capitalism" by Timothy Egan. It is WELL worth reading.
I could not have said it better myself! ;-)



http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/how-obama-saved-capitalism-and-lost-the-midterms/?src=me&ref=homepage

Simple Solutions: I was saddened to see the president so cowed, so serious and seemingly almost defeated when he commented upon the election at his afternoon press conference. He should be anything but defeated. He accomplished much BUT it is IMPOSSIBLE to get one's message out when one tries to compromise with a party who is at the corporate pigs’ electoral feeding trough and do not want to share their bounty with you. The president’s policies HAVE worked. Repeal of health care should NOT be an option and neither should repeal of financial reform. What should be an option is a LESS seemingly aloof disconnected president and a RETURN to the positive president who gave that electrifying speech before the 2004 Democratic convention and whom we witnessed earn a STUNNING victory in 2008. Barack Obama did his BEST to compromise with a party yearning –sometimes literally -- for his lynching. The elephant (pardon the pun) in the room is a racist white majority that saw its power slip and decided to organize with BILLIONS of WHITE corporate bucks to get their vote out NO MATTER how unqualified the candidate was. Some of the Tea Bag Republican candidates who THANKFULLY lost were a gut-wrenching embarrassment and bordered on pathological personality disorder.

While it is true that the people have voted change for economic reasons it is NOT true that the Hoover Republican approach to government will be the highway to heaven. It will not. It will plunge this country further into the ditch and that has been proven time and time and time again through MANY economic travails in the history of this country. BIG corporations and the oligarchy they bring do NOT care about you. They care about showing a profit. That is ALL they care about. It is true in health care as it is true in making toaster ovens. I do NOT want to entrust my health to General Electric! I do not want either big corporate power controlling elections nor do I want it collecting huge bonuses made possible by taxpayer dollars. I believe the greatest impediment to our economic recovery was not the stimulus but not ENOUGH stimulus. The public anger was not so much about the corporate bailouts because they are being paid back with interest but it was the corporate BONUSES about which the average American was apoplectic.

I have ALWAYS thought FDR made the correct policy about face after the 1929 crash. It was a HUGE philosophical shift because Herbert Hoover KNEW something had to be done to help the American people but he did NOT know how to do it and he COULD NOT bring himself to involve government in the process. Involving government in recovery went against everything for which the country heretofore stood. “After all,” said President Coolidge “the chief business of the American people is business.” He and all those before and after him up until FDR were consummately wrong.

I have always thought NYT editorialist Paul Krugman showed the correct path OUT of our Great Recession. The Rand Pauls of the world are WRONG and it will be proven with the tears of those who think is right. He is NOT. Government needs to CREATE more jobs WHILE raising money on the backs of those who have BILLIONS and can afford it while cutting spending which gets us into never-ending foreign entanglements. Fair is fair and justice is justice. Man works better when we all work together and help each other out. Health care is NOT a privilege it is a RIGHT and those who have more SHOULD pay more. It really is that simple!

An Angry Rant: I got 4 hours sleep so here is my Stream of Conscious. THANK GOD Harry Reid won and he won soundly!!!

I woke up to THIS good news. I KNEW the House would go but that crud Angle if she won I was going to take the first flight to China and STAY there and watch manufacturing soar because the Chinese are the wave of the future and that country KNOWS how to run things ... except pollution but they will get that right too. This country is FILLED with those who do not know their posterior from the elbow. So the party of the big business rancidness is the one to try to push forward our economy?? I DON'T THINK so..the others who follow that pied piper swill MANY are ALSO racist and they just couldn't stand to see a black man in office. Well I got news for them, this country is demographically ultimately going brown and I a white woman cannot WAIT to see it. That will be the best thing that ever happened to this sad nation as that part of this nation with their bigotry takes it down to the toilet!!

The only way to get jobs is for government to spend to get them and put a TAX on those swine who are 2% richest and own 70% of the wealth JUST like Krugman said but this country is too ideologically DUMB to realize it! The ones, the Republicans, who took us to the economic free fall dance are the ones who are going to cure the country's economic ills??.... I THINK NOT! At LEAST my wonderful state Massachusetts stayed BLUE and for that I am thankful. Take THAT you tea bag morons!

The Senate and the presidency are still in Democratic hands .... for now. Good luck with STALEMATE and a stale, mean, nasty, Ayn Rand the emotionally challenged jerk with her philosophy. I see a crystal ball of DOOM as Republicans will do what they have always done...be the party of the top 2% who leaves us all in the dust! Good job Tea Baggers you will get what YOU deserve!

Polling Place Patriots: I was a poll watcher for the Democratic party in my precinct. That means for several hours I kept track of a list of Democrats who had not voted. Others give the ones who did not vote a reminder call or a lift to the polls if needed. Being disabled it gave me a chance to simply sit at my polling place and do something useful! The sights and the interactions can be interesting. The polling place comprises some wealthier districts and some poorer ones.

I saw people walk up a HUGE flight of stairs who were elderly, infirm and significantly disabled. One woman who was both elderly AND had just come out of a hospital for heart surgery climbed up those stairs just to vote. Several people including a very nice police officer were there to help her as she struggled to breath. Another elderly white-haired man showed up bent over. His head came up to his belt buckle and he walked looking at the floor while he used a cane. He MADE IT THOUGH HE VOTED!! I don’t care for WHOM he voted it could even have been a Republican (well I hope not but it could have) the man VOTED. Kudos to him. Those were examples of the TRUE patriots who took their vote seriously enough to literally risk their lives to get to the polls. I was moved to tears. Next time when I feel sorry for myself I will think of these BRAVE patriots and realize there is a LOT for which to be thankful and those two people knew it because they used the only weapon they could to express their opinion — their vote.

Then I came home. I have about four Democratic signs on my lawn. Someone possibly who realized I would not be home — I have a sneaking suspicion who it was but cannot prove it — decided he (or she) would bend all of my signs. Naturally, I was furious and would not let that go so I walked over and tried to bend the signs back into place. One was difficult and being disabled I lost my balance and fell to the ground.

I was shaken naturally as I am not young and I have from childhood suffered from a malady that has left me with a severely compromised femur bone. I was very frightened. When I composed myself and thought about the two different experiences on election day I saw an opinion letter in the making.

One experience was saturated with a patriotic spirit that defines the very essence of who we are as a people and the other was committed by probably the most hate filled anything-but-patriot low life who thought that bending a few Democratic signs showed their power.

In reality it showed their weakness and their fear. It was the epitome of bullying at its primitive reptilian core. But the bullies only win if we let them. The next time anyone knows of a healthy able bodied person who is not voting tell them about the severely impaired elderly woman in my district who by shear determination voted and tell them about the white haired elderly man who was stooped over but with great difficulty voted nonetheless.

Patriots have given their lives so that we have the precious ability to vote and put signs on our lawn IF we choose. The vote can be taken away by the bully who must have felt so powerful twisting the little Democratic signs on the lawn of a disabled woman. I would bet HE would call himself a patriot. I call him a criminal and the police whom I called after I fell thought so too!

Dickens’s Day and the Jew: This is an email exchange I had with someone from a Dickens’s reading group to which I belonged. Someone brought up the Old Testament etiology of some of the Dickensian names such as Uriah Heep from “David Copperfield.” Another talked about the name of Ebenezer Scrooge from the very well known Dickens’s favorite “A Christmas Carol” I tied them both together and added the name Fagin from Dickens “Oliver Twist.” I discussed these names and associated it to the sometimes debated anti-Semitism of Dickens and even of Shakespeare.

Dickens's view that there is a difference between the Old and New Testament by giving his more scurrilous characters Old Testament names makes me wonder about accusations of anti Semitism that I have heard hurled at Dickens from time to time. Of course Fagin the Jew in Oliver Twist comes to mind as well.

He would not be the first British author to harbor the prevailing hatred of the Jew and manifest the characteristics which anti Semites have used for centuries in character development. Shakespeare's Shylock is remembered as well. The antiSemitism of Shakespeare has long been argued. Some say the character Shylock the Jew proves it and some say Shylock's own words exonerate Shakespeare from the accusation as he writes in the "Merchant of Venice" Act 3 Scene 1.

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same
food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the
rest, we will resemble you in that."

While antiSemitism in England was, perhaps, not as virulent as in other countries of the Jewish Diaspora it did nonetheless exist. Wiki states: "The Edict of Expulsion, given by Edward 1 in 1290, that expelled all Jews for 350 years" is proof of that. Curiously enough by the time Shakespeare wrote his character Shylock there were NO Jews in England. It proves one does not need Jews to have antiSemitism. Of course, Dickens would have probably consciously or unconsciously been subjected to the same stereotypical characteristics of scorn levied against the Jew.

Another interesting site I found with Google regarding the name Ebenezer: It stated:

"Ebenezer in Hebrew means "stone of help." Samuel took a great stone, named it Ebenezer or "Stone of Help," as a memorial of when the Lord helped Samuel and the rest of the Israelites against the Philistines. 1 Samuel 7:12 Or in other words symbolic of Christ, who is literally our Stone of help."

Yet again, Ebenezer, in Dickens's "A Christmas Carrol" must change if he is to realize life's true meaning. That is in and of itself characteristic of the prevailing ideological competition between the Old Testament showing a furious, punishing even greedy god and the New which offered a more advanced, true, benevolent, kind god through Christ who offers another way even to Ebenezer.

Clearly, from a Christian perspective one systematic belief system is more advanced and kindly than the other. Dickens' "A Christmas Carrol" indeed, I would submit, reflects just that. Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and the entire Cratchit clan are made nearly angelic while we know pre-conversion evil Ebenezer has to earn his forgiveness by rejecting cold cruel miserly greed, attributes accorded to Jews by Christians for over two thousand years. Moreover, the true malevolence of Ebenezer can be seen when he says:

"If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas!” on his lips would be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."

Those are pretty strong words coming from the anti-conversion Ebenezer. It is only when he finds the true spirit of Christmas does he, in essence, defeat death and become human. I have NO doubt that Dickens would have absorbed the prevailing religious doctrine of his time which invariably made clear the true superiority of the New Testament over the Old. In the competition Christians win and Jews lose. Uriah, Ebenezer and Fagin are all names either relating to the Old Testament or names used by Dickens ascribing contemptible characteristics often attributed to Jews.

It is ironic, indeed, that the prevailing belief and threat that Judaism posed to Christianity could have been ultimately responsible for the horrendous mistreatment of Jews for over two thousand years existing to this day when synagogues even in this country must lock their doors and install security systems lest some anti Semite come and destroy its peaceful sanctuary. Anti-Semitism lived in Dickens's era as it lives today. It is the longest and most universal world-wide hatred whether in Dickens's time or our own.

ONE LAST THING to my Florida friends and others who have Florida family/friends. Alex Sink is a WONDERFUL candidate for governor. She is SO much better than the corrupt Medicare/Medicaid fraud Scott it is astounding how the media say they have them in a close race. THAT is hard to believe since Scott according to Politifact:

"Scott resigned as CEO in July 1997, less than four months after the inquiry became public and before the depth of the investigation became clear. Company executives said had Scott remained CEO, the entire chain could have been in jeopardy.
At issue, Scott says, is that he wanted to fight the federal government accusations. The corporate board of the publicly traded company wanted to settle.

And settle, Columbia/HCA did.

In December 2000, the U.S. Justice Department announced what it called the largest government fraud settlement in U.S. history when Columbia/HCA agreed to pay $840 million in criminal fines and civil damages and penalties.
Among the revelations from the 2000 settlement, which all apply to when Scott was CEO:

* Columbia billed Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs for tests that were not necessary or ordered by physicians;
* The company attached false diagnosis codes to patient records to increase reimbursement to the hospitals;
* The company illegally claimed non-reimbursable marketing and advertising costs as community education;
* Columbia billed the government for home health care visits for patients who did not qualify to receive them."

Scott wants to be governor? COME ON FLORIDIANS--VOTE Alex Sink Democrat for governor. She is a wonderful candidate!

To My Florida family and friends: I have a favor to ask of you. I have never in my life voted Republican NOR have I voted Independent. I always vote Democratic and have since Age 18. I am now 62. HOWEVER, in the Florida race, for the first time, I am endorsing the Independent Charlie Crist. There are several things admirable about Charlie Crist. First, he is an Independent but says he will caucus with the Democrats; Second, he has gravitas which phenomenal experience in government has given him. He is VERY bright and is on the correct side, in my view, on most issues including, the important to me, social issues; Third, Kenrick Meek while I agree with his positions does not have a CHANCE not one CHANCE to win. Reality dictates that Crist is the man of the hour for progressives and for those who care about the direction of the country. Republicans do NOT get it and you will absolutely get more of the same if they take Congress which some think they will. I don't because they are almost to a man in lockstep with corporate America. They are NO different then the potential speaker Boehner and Senate potential leader McConnell two of the BIGGEST acceptors of powerful lobbying money ever.

So in order not to throw the Florida senate to the most awful Republican Tea Partiers hands I implore to you vote for Charlie Crist and to get all your friends and family you can persuade to do so as well.

You will be getting a GOOD senator and sending a message to Washington that the Tea Baggers, while a force in politics today, are NOT the force they think they are and are DUPED by big Republican money. They are DESTRUCTIVE to the American body politic and will create further stalemate and division more of which we surely do NOT need.

I am holding my breath. I have some worry but I am HOPING that Democrats and progressives nationwide will step up to the plate and VOTE. If we VOTE we cannot lose. That is the variable because we have the numbers. But we cannot just have the numbers if we do not vote. Florida is slightly different because Charlie Crist has said he will vote with the Democrats and you will, if you elect him, be getting a VERY capable leader in the Senate!

Floridians, VOTE CHARLIE CRIST for Senate!

My Dad's Wise Thought -- Doing the Right Thing: Paul Krugman in his editorial today in the NYT entitled "Divided we Fail" is VERY pessimistic on the upcoming mid term election. He ends the article by saying "Be afraid be VERY afraid!"

I SAY NO NO NO NO! Do NOT be afraid that is the LAST emotion we need. My father who went through the Great Depression AND an entire world at war that put world Jewry and everyone else at risk had a GREAT faith and love for this country. I used to ask him weren't you afraid. He always said NO. When I asked why he said it was because he ALWAYS ALWAYS had faith in this country that it would get out of the economic difficulty and also that it would win the war. I said to him but you were Jewish and Europe was burning Jews. He said he was HERE in this country and that THIS country he KNEW would do what needs to be done.

In keeping with my father's always positive view (lucky I had part of him in me however recessive a gene it is) we MUST remain hopeful that as difficult as it seems the goodness of this country will show through. We MUST hope that the people of this land do NOT want hate. They want a balanced budget and jobs. We must HOPE that they see that the one who brought us to this horrible time and mess was the party who wants to get back into the power they lost. We MUST HOPE they see the one getting us out slowly is a Democratic president and a Democratic philosophy. We MUST HOPE that our country is good at heart and when push comes to shove our American people WILL be color blind and NOT choose hate.

If my father could be positive in a world of nothing but sorrow then at this time which, I think, pales by comparison, I can TRY to be positive too. The voters have the fate of the country in THEIR OWN hands. We can secure our own selves IF WE GET OUT TO VOTE DEMOCRATIC. There is NOTHING difficult about understanding that. It's up to you to do ANYTHING you can to ensure the pundits and pollsters wrong. GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE and prove my dad correct that in the end the country does the right thing!

This is a response to Joan Vennochi's 10/28/10 column in the Boston Globe entitled "A star on the GOP stage" which proclaims the virtues of the Republican governor of New Jersey and big mouth in chief, Chris Christie.

Really, Ms. Vennochi, you are calling the puffed up chauvinist Chris Christi a STAR? Why because he may be able to "NAIL the SNOOKY vote!” Oh now that is a claim to fame I can admire -- someone who captures the Snooky vote! I cannot wait until we have a president who appeals to those brilliants who watch "Jersey Shore." You say "Christie has what other politicians desperately seek: AUTHENTICITY?" Is authenticity a euphemism for charismatic BOAR. I thought we just got rid of a macho strutting dolt in 2008 who nearly ran the ship of state aground and who by his moronic policies buried thousands of our young. So the thing you admire is Christi's charismatic straight talk telling it just like it is. Please explain to me how New Jersey is going to recoup the money ALREADY spent for a tunnel half completed but now stopped.

While your at it please ask him what magazines he reads and see if he stumbles answering that brain tickler just like Sarah Barracuda genius did. You say Republican consultant Todd Domke says "He's no less appealing because he's a big guy. In fact it sort of goes with his Everyman persona. He is not out bicycling like John Kerry ... He' busy cutting the fat out of state government." Isn't that special and ironic! Now he's just like Everyman and wow he may even be ME. No I don't think I identify with THAT type of Everyman. Bicycling, though, it is true is oh so sheik, elitist and intelligent. It's certainly not at all what the American Everyman does and absolutely NOT what Americans want their politicos to be -- INTELLIGENT. They LOVE guys who wolf down burgers dripping in fat and drenched in cheese who can take up the cudgels finger-pointing and threatening an elderly man merely asking a question that Republican candidate, Meg Whitman, cannot answer. What a guy if only ALL of our elected officials were just like that.

Maybe Chris Christie should THINK about cutting is own PLETHORA rolls of fat rather than cut programs of a state in desperate need of services before a myocardial infarction stops his cost cutting adventure in its tracks or would that be just too elitist to do -- READ A BOOK on nutrition. While your proclaiming this latest Republican blowhard's ever-so-American characteristics I have JUST the book for you to read: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free" by Charles P. Pierce.

Night and Day: I read Glen Greenwald from Salon.com. He is critical ... very critical of the president and his editorial today which in part is about the election is no different. "College Events and Other Matters." Scroll down to No. 4 (link below).

My post was done quickly and, perhaps, is not the most articulate I have written. It gets, however, the point across. I disagreed with his sentiments.

Sorry Glen, BUT

This does not take away from the fact that I look to Glen Greenwald as one source when I formulate my own ideas. He is brilliant and I am thrilled he is on our side. Having said that I think he does what SO many on the left do and that is indict the president for not being LEFT enough.

Why the Democrats MAY lose Congress has more to do with the state of the economy and MUCH more to do as well with the fact that SO many in this country would not know their posterior from their elbow where things political are concerned. They simply do not get it. The nature of this electorate has been a McDonald's generation for quite some time. If they do not get what they want when they want it -- IMMEDIATELY if not sooner -- then to heck with you we will vote for the other side not understanding squat what getting the other side REALLY means.

Either you want to help this country, care about humane causes or you don't. When you criticize president, and I have been guilty of doing that sometimes as well, you throw the election into not just the opposition's hands but an opposition that is even MORE right wing nutty than the one that came before it if that is possible. They are irrational, ignorant, fanatically religious and mean. Read Charles P. Pierce's book "Idiot America: How Stupidity became a Virtue in the Land of the Free" with George Washington on the cover riding a saddled up dinosaur -- just what some of the religious wingnuts think. This is part of the face of the Republican Party!

Part of the left errs to think that both parties are the same. HOW on earth can one look at those who comprise the extremist Republican party now and say that the two parties are no different?

The two parties could not be MORE different. The president supported TARP but he did so WITH RESTRICTIONS. Bush wanted NO restrictions. Are you kidding me? The banksters really could have taken the money and run without payback kind of like Bonnie and Clyde without the guns.

Republicans are the same re: the social issues. What universe do YOU live in? Sure gays did not get all that was wanted BUT they got a hate crimes bill AND they got an administration that employs more gays who are open than at any time in US history including in the Clinton Administration.

My father used to say. What do you want eggs in your beer? I never knew what he meant but now I THINK I do. What do you want the WHOLE enchilada? You WILL NEVER get it if politics is the art of compromise. You WILL get worse and it is possibly happening right now.

My professor, mentor and often email friend Professor Howard Zinn used to say that change comes from the bottom up and it does not matter who is in the White House. I loved him BUT I disagreed with that. It matters A LOT who is in the White House. The Tea Party is the bottom so is that what he meant by the great grass roots? I suspect not.

Thousands of bodies lie in graves because of Bush II policies. They would have been alive today IF Gore had assumed the presidency like he should have. There probably would have been NO 911 and NO invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan.

The parties are both the same? My leftist compatriots you are living, I believe, in an alternative universe. Harry Reid was not the most exciting fire cracker in the bunch but Sharon Angle??? This is who you think is just the same as a Democrat? Think again when you criticize our president.

In 1968 we were ALL fired up on the left. Millions of us were going to change the landscape. What did we get? Richard Nixon. Republicans and Democrats are different as night is to day. Be careful whom you criticize you could and now MIGHT end up with something INFINITELY worse--a Halloween horror show! Anyone going out as Sharon Angle? Her face is like a mask in one episode of The Twilight Zone and she is JUST as frightening as those faces who were behind the masks because the content of their character and hers is so utterly disgusting.

Have fun, Glen, it's going to be a bumpy ride and it WILL give you infinitely more to write about. Try criticizing the REPUBLICANS who need it and NOT the president.

HOPE or a Moral Sewer: This is what you have to look forward to IF Republicans take over the House and/or Senate. See the article from mediaite.com (Link below) about Republicans impeaching our president if they take the reins of power: Is that what you want? Impeachment hearings for the president who has committed NO impeachable offense whatsoever and who was OH SO CAREFUL to try to reach out to the other side who kicked dirt in his face every time!

Bush/Cheney war criminals who took a nation to war based on lies, tortured, killed HUNDREDS of thousands, maimed hundreds of thousands more driving MILLIONS into exile destabilizing a Middle East and did so with impunity, get away scot free. Bush's ONLY regret: That he did not privatize Social Security. Now I ask you in what moral universe to these Republican sewer dwellers live? The fact that Cheney has NO pulse and is kept alive solely by the advances of machinery is a GOOD metaphor for what he is ... the walking dead! His policies while he was in power made hundreds of thousands of innocents walking dead as well.

We CANNOT let them get away with some of the MOST egregious injustices ever perpetrated by a political party in power. There STILL is hope. THERE IS STILL TIME. DEMOCRATS GET OUT TO VOTE. INDEPENDENTS, GET OUT TO VOTE DEMOCRATIC. STOP this never ending sewer and rancid money machine that is the Republican party. GET OUT TO VOTE DEMOCRATIC NOVEMBER 2!

http://www.mediaite.com/online/a-gop-house-will-lead-to-impeachment-claims-new-republics-jonathan-chait/

Remember Democrats vote on November 2 and Republicans on Nov. 9 to avoid armed Second Amendment Conflict:

Okay so it's a fib we all vote Nov. 2 but I can play the same Republican game telling Hispanics not to vote. Republicans LIE all the time!

The races for the Senate are tightening. This will HOPEFULLY not be a walk in the park for the Republicans with their tea bag side kicks. Tea Baggers don’t realize it but guess what? The Republican party is NOT about them. They are angry at the bailouts even though it saved the nation and the world from economic collapse and they think Republicans will be the ones to pull us all the way out of the ditch Republican unethical behavior made. Let’s hope stupidity does not reign.

Joe Miller of Alaska was ordered to show his employment records. There are ETHICAL issues and possible breaches. I have also read from different reputable sources that Miller was a difficult person with whom to work. Few wanted to be involved with him and most were glad when he left. Big surprise that is — NOT. Scott McAdams is the Democratic underdog in Alaska. Help him if you can. Emails urging his support would be good as well.

Big surprise tea baggers are corrupt…NOOO you don’t say? From corrupt Miller to dunce O’Donnell to Republican congressional candidate from Ohio, Rich Iott, who said that he did nothing wrong by wearing a Nazi uniform while participating in World War II re-enactments to Sharon Angle who wants women to have babies conceived EVEN in rape or incest by one’s father, grandfather, uncle or brother why because GOD just knows exactly what he is doing and after all you women who get impregnated by mentally deranged relatives just need to “make lemonade out of lemons” as Angle put it. She told voters to just “follow god’s path.” That should help ya after delivery of babies conceived through incest. This is SICK.

As if the aforementioned could not get worse, it does by the likes of NY Gubernatorial Tea Bag candidate Carl utterly crazy Palladino who sends racist email about the president and worse — if there can be worse but hold on there is — I am sure you have heard if not seen (IF you can stomach it) pornographic emails sent by Palladino which include bestiality. He emailed porno pics to his good old boys friends. After all he said he is in the construction trade and its understandable. He says boys will be boys doncha know! I’m sure construction workers everywhere were so thrilled to hear THAT.


These tea bag Republican candidates are beasts of burden to our body politic and this is NOT a joke. There is NO kidding when these people will, IF ELECTED, have a say in the life and death decisions of our nation and its SERIOUS issues. How these utter horrors even got to the position on the Republican ticket is ASTOUNDING and an EMBARRASSMENT to our nation.

There used to be a time when racist comments would ruin a candidate. NO more. That has become just another ho hum moment since it is part of the Republican/Tea Bag program — yes, states rights is such a handy philosophy to use to perpetuate racist policy and use it they do. I thought we fought a civil war over that? No matter. Republicans are about retrieving the power they lost in 2008 and want to takeover Congress so that the president can get NOTHING passed. They are hoping THAT will defeat him in 2010. DO NOT LET THAT HAPPEN!

If you Google to see who these tea baggers Republicans in various states are and help to defeat them either through contributions to Democrats or other ways a Democratic candidate may need help please do.

AND OH yes, DON’T forget to VOTE DEMOCRATIC ON NOV. 2 and tell everyone you know who is registered to vote to do so as well. I doubt if you ever will vote in a more imperative election again because the candidates in the Republican party are SO NOXIOUS, MORONIC and INSANE it defies description. Their election will LITERALLY kill us!

Citizens Disunited: Each day when I log on some new nightmare awakens me from the haze of an eight hour sleep. What is today's nightmare? If any of you watched Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann last evening or go on to MSNBC this morning you will have heard and will see the unmitigated insane curse a systemically SICK "conservative" Supreme Court majority by fiat placed upon our nation through its decision of Citizen’s United.

For those of you who do not know, in essence, that decision made the corporation the same as a person with respect to campaign contributions for political advocacy. It RADICALLY and in ACTIVIST fashion, which conservatives CLAIM to loath, overturned decades of law and precedent.

This means that the corporation, heretofore limited as to what monies it could contribute to political campaigns for advocacy, is now free to contribute MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of dollars to any candidate it chooses. Worse, those same corporations do NOT have to disclose who they are. So, even one man, under the guise of numerous corporations, could give HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of dollars in campaign ads and buy an election. Worse STILL, foreign corporations in foreign nations like China, or anywhere for that matter, can contribute as well. Supreme Court "conservative" faux Justice Samuel Alito when our president at the State of the Union address last year called this rancid decision out for the oligarchcal corporate money capture of our political institutions it is, insultingly mouthed the words "that's not true." Does it SURPRISE you that conservatives lie? In the oft quoted words of the "great" RepublicRAT minority leader John Boehner "HELL NO!" It does not surprise me AT ALL.

This is without a doubt in the forty years that I have been politically conscious, the worst election I have ever experienced. Not only do the RepulicRATS have a chance of taking the House and maybe even the Senate but the composition and MEAN-SPIRITED CHARACTER of many individuals under the Republican umbrella will be the ones who could win. THAT my fellow humanitarian friends is not ONLY unacceptable but WILL spell the doom of our democratic nation IF it occurs. It means that our republic WILL turn into the oligarchy that many have said it already is by the corporate money capture of the process. Well, if it is now, as the Great Depression era entertainer Al Jolson used to say, "You ain't seen nothin yet!"

The ONLY way we can HOPE to stem this possible hemorrhaging of Democratic seats is TO VOTE DEMOCRATIC on NOVEMBER 2, 2010. If you want to read more about this horrendous muck of cash coursing through the veins of our body politic attempting, like a myocardial infarction, to KILL it go to Rachel Maddow's and/or Keith Olbermann's site and watch their programs from last evening. They will tell you what you SHOULD know about this DISGUSTING phenomenon of our electoral reality in 2010. Money talks we all know that but talking is one thing corporate filibustering an entire process is quite something else. The RepblicRATS through their corporate lackeys have outspent Democrats 7 to 1. They are injecting, through Carl Rove’s cohorts and others, hundreds of millions of dollars to literally BUY a Republican takeover and put those in charge who will do not the people’s bidding but the CORPORATE bidding. Republicans are NOT for the majority of us! They are using even the tea bag anger to capture power for themselves and return us to the Bush years that got us into this dysfunctional MESS.

DO NOT LET THEM DO THIS TO WHAT IS LEFT OF OUR COUNTRY. They are the toxic brew we all worried about and the minions of Justices Alito, Thomas, Roberts, Scalia and the swing vote Kennedy installed by various Republican presidencies put this CORRUPT house in order. They and it are poison to our system. The ONLY weapons we have to FIGHT against this horrible reality are our own contributions to Democrats which I URGE you to keep making contributions if you can AND our VOTE. VOTE VOTE VOTE for Democrats on November 2. If you want a country left for the middle class VOTE like your economic life depends upon it because, as I have said many times, IT DOES!


Onward -- we are STILL a free republic -- FOR NOW. Forward this to anyone you like.

VOTE: Okay, I sound repetitive but it is because I KNOW how I feel when I hear the media's gloom and doom for Dems. I feel down and want to throw my hands up. Then I say to myself DON'T DON'T DON'T do that! DON'T fall into the trap of believing that which they want us to believe and to ramp up the pessimism to defeat our HUGE block of voters who voted for a president unlike any other in US history.

DESPITE some progressives who have been critical, sometimes I have even been one, our president KNOWS what he is doing and I believe DOES have the interests of those who are middle class and the powerless in our nation at heart. He will DO well for us if given a chance. GIVE HIM A CHANCE and by VOTING DEMOCRATIC you will do just that. Don't let him down, do NOT let us down and DON'T let the country down by putting it again in EVEN more vicious hands than those of the Bush era IF THAT IS POSSIBLE. It is. Those crazy tea baggers and Republicans are NOT about us. NEVER be duped for one minute that they are. They are NOT and are propped up by a few who have carloads of CASH to get them to win and save their BILLIONS.

Do NOT BE AFRAID of them and SHOW your power and VOTE for Democrats. Again and again tell ALL those you know and most especially those in OTHER STATES like Nevada to VOTE Democratic so they cast a vote for themselves. Sharon Angle and her mean racist ilk MUST be stopped. The HORROR of a Republican smashing victory is really too much for my brain to comprehend so I BEG YOU and others you know to SPREAD THE WORD and VOTE. VOTE DEMOCRATIC so our president can show what he can do! He has done a LOT even with an UNCOMPROMISING, intractable and anything-BUT- bipartisan Congress. He can and WILL do more IF he has a Congress interested in us with which to work.

Do not give up, do not falter and DO NOT FAIL. VOTE DEMOCRATIC. Our lives are literally at stake!

Onward!

My Idol: Maureen Dowd: Dowd's piece today "Making Ignorance Chic"(link below) was so good and so on target with what I have been reading and about which I have thinking that I sent a letter to the New York Times below.

Maureen Dowd's excellence never ceases to astound me. Who writes better and more eloquently, incorporating great literature, music and art in her editorials than she? I salivate with jealousy at this astoundingly intelligent interesting woman. I try ALWAYS to read what she writes. Her editorial today "Making Ignorance Chic" on the Palin paucity of intellect and the national pride it evokes is no exception, indeed. It was brilliantly written. Beyond that it is chilling.

In keeping with the content of her article may I make a reading suggestion to both her and others who read and love learning as I do. A book was recommended to me by my ever so astoundingly brilliant physician and friend. It is entitled: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free" by Charles P. Pierce. I have begun to read it and cannot put it down. I think both Ms. Dowd and the rest of us who cannot learn enough each day and wish the hours would stretch to be able incorporate the works of Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Toni Morrison and Shakespeare all one day will LOVE it. This book speaks to the issue of the screaming ignorance of a part of the American public. It is both profound and sad that this nation of 350 million has such an overabundance of ignorance and worse it is proud that it does!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/opinion/20dowd.html?_r=1&hp

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT!: Yet another FABULOUS book recommended by my friend who is a brilliant physician (Link Below). This one is entitled: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free" by Charles P. Pierce. You can order it on Amazon or probably find it at Barnes and Noble. If you happen to have a Kindle you can even download a sample of it instantaneously to see if it appeals to you as computer science, chemistry and physics work their rational miracles!

If you are in love with rational academic thought, reason, science and the PROOF it delivers as I am, then you will LOVE this book. I cannot put it down. I wonder still how this nation has DEVOLVED into an Alice In Wonderland world where up is down and down is up speaking Jabberwocky that passes as truth. Have we gone Mad Hatter Mad as some try to make a case for a literal unerring biblical truth and think Noah tamed the dinosaurs a mere six thousand years ago which appear at the Creation Museum in wax form with saddles on their backs sitting comfortably with humans on Noah's ark? At times I suspect insanity in this nation rules the day!

http://www.amazon.com/Idiot-America-Stupidity-Became-Virtue/dp/0767926145/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

MY HEROES: I am reading an interesting interview of Sam Harris (link below). He is famous in the science and atheist/agnostic community. He, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, the late Carl Sagan, the late Stephen Jay Gould and Christopher Hitchens are MY heroes! I urge you to read the interview of Harris.


http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/10/17/sam_harris_interview/index.html

JUST SHOW UP: I think we CAN do better than the prevailing media is saying. They are drowning Democrats in gloom and doom. I had a physician friend who used to say to me DO NOT READ THE MEDICAL BLURBS!! You know why? The media is about the sensational. It is about ratcheting up the moment to increase THEIR own bottom line so the pill pushers, their clients, can make MONEY. When the pill pushers make money the media makes money and the only way THEY can make money is to try to sensationalize the public appetite to watch their shows!

SO TOO WITH POLITICS. The media is NOT JUST about reporting facts. They are about making SURE you watch their news broadcast and they make sure you do that by ramping up the conflict and the fear. News NOW is ENTERTAINMENT. By saying Republicans will automatically win they just may get some sensational news as many would love nothing more than relate it to an Obama slide.

I THINK they are overstating the degree that Republicans will win. Give this president a chance to work his magic. He KNOWS what he is doing. Wouldn't it be great to ruin ALL those prediction doomsayers telling us Democrats are going down to a Republican takeover? I DO NOT THINK DEMOCRATS ARE GOING DOWN. I think we can GO UP by simply SHOWING UP. Yes, that is a winning phrase: Democrats WILL GO UP by simply SHOWING UP November 2, 2010 to VOTE DEMOCRATIC. If you can help a Democrat at risk in another state or in this state with a contribution no matter how large or small please DO SO.

All of our hard work, all of our effort and all of our HOPE is on the line. Programs we need to live and to survive are on the line. NOTHING I know of that is worth anything is easy to get. This time though it really IS easy JUST SHOW UP at the polls and VOTE Democratic and tell ALL THOSE YOU KNOW FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE -- white, black, Hispanic, Indian, and many others in every state just VOTE DEMOCRATIC like your life depends upon it because in the FINAL analysis IT DOES!!

A letter to Andrew Bachevich: I decided to test my new Kindle out as I bought my first online book entitled "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War." I am loving the book and decided to email the author, Professor Andrew Bachevich just that.

A little background on the author:

According to Wiki "Andrew Bachevich is the Director of Undergraduate Studies; Professor of International Relations and History. (BS, United States Military Academy; MA, PhD, Princeton) Specialization: American Diplomatic and Military History, U. S. Foreign Policy, Security Studies. He is a retired career officer in the United States Army. He is the author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (2010). His previous books include The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008); The Long War: A New History of US National Security Policy since World War II (2007) (editor); The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (2005); and American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U. S. Diplomacy (2002). His essays and reviews have appeared in a variety of scholarly and general interest publications including The Wilson Quarterly, The National Interest, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Nation, and The New Republic. His op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Boston Globe, and Los Angeles Times, among other newspapers."

In addition to that his son was killed in 2007 in Iraq.

Dear Professor Bachevich. I was given a new Kindle for my birthday. I had to decide which book I would choose to break it in. Perhaps, you will be glad to know I chose one that you wrote "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War."

I am about, according to the Kindle, 10% through it but I could not wait to dash off an email to you and tell you how much I am enjoying it. It is wonderful. It reminds me of my days at BU during the turbulent late 1960's when I met Howard Zinn, Murray Levin and Edgar Bottome, three men who made an indelible imprint on my mind and my politics. I remember, too, reading J. William Fulbright's "The Arrogance of Power." It was written in 1966 and I read it in 1968. It was the first book on American foreign policy I had ever read which questioned America's position and empire building in the world. I never forgot it and remember thinking at that time I wished I could pass the book out on the street corner. Your book is bringing back those old feelings except I read it now with much more maturity and understanding of global politics. Still, as I read it I am thinking similar thoughts that I remember having oh so many years ago. How could THIS America be so different from the one I knew as a child?

I suppose, even though I am Jewish, some thoughts in the New Testament ring true. "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I no longer used childish ways." 1 Corinthians 13:11 is applicable to me.

I now return to my bookmarked place on the Kindle and continue to be unable to put your book down!

This is Why: I enclose an excellent article entitled "Tea Party Poised to Win Enough Races for Wide Influence" (link below) which appeared in the New York Times. It is an analysis of the midterms and makes a WONDERFUL case for WHY DEMOCRATS and DEMOCRAT LEANING INDEPENDENTS MUST GET OUT TO VOTE. While it says that Tea Party candidates are having the greatest impact on districts that ordinarily would remain Republican, the Tea Party WILL, IF ELECTED, gain an influential caucus.

Tea Party candidates are determined to undue not only the president's and Democratic agenda recently passed BUT ALSO tea baggers are determined to dismantle age old safety nets such as Social Security, Medicare and other programs begun in FDR's New Deal. Those nets have proven over time to have SAVED MILLIONS in this country from the whims of a laissez faire unregulated capitalist system which is subject to the unstable events of history and the unpredictable influences of the natural world. An unfettered, unregulated free market is UNRELIABLE to protect our country -- ALL in our country -- from the ravages of old age, illness, catastrophic climate events, educational breakdowns, infrastructure repair, economic downturns and much more. The stock market USED to be the exclusive domain of the few in the country who had the means to invest in it. Now Tea Baggers and their Republican Party minions would want to hold ALL of us hostage to the glories of this whimsical free market with its unreliable fluctuations, and sometimes all too often CRASHES and COLLAPSE so they, the few, can make BILLIONS. This Tea Bag movement is MONEY DRIVEN.

Tea Baggers, too, are for spending most especially within the military which WILL obviate other social programs. It is the little guy who is suffering most from this current all pervasive Great Recession. This recession could linger if remedial policies do not remain in place and enhanced. Our economic fledgling recovery could turn into another Great Depression. Worse it could even mean PERPETUAL UNRELENTING and UNREMITTING war ultimately EVEN, dare I say, NUCLEAR war as unregulated war profiteers stand to make trillions. Is THIS what you want for your progeny?

Tea baggers are angry yes and "tax cuts" sound oh so good but their policies are in reality about another kind of spending. Their policies are corporatist in nature, hostile, ruinous and warlike. For them to be a caucus which has overriding influence in the traditional Republican power structure is utterly CHILLING. It forces Republican moderates OUT of the party. This movement has the eventual potential to DESTROY this nation as we know it by destroying or eliminating those programs which historically have worked and will continue to save us from an uncontrollable free market RUN AMOK. The Tea Bag movement if it gains enough power will not only destroy THIS country but it COULD take the rest of the world with it by not addressing the HORRIFIC TRUTH of global warming something which an overwhelming majority of scientists world-wide agree is a man made reality. Is THIS what those of you who have children and grandchildren want for them?

Worse still is the fact that this movement is almost EXCLUSIVELY white and fanatically religious. It ignores the diversity of man and would love nothing more than to eliminate, in any way and by any means possible, minorities or the “other” as a political force.

Man does NOT stand still. He LEARNS new truths. These reactionary malcontents DUPE an unsuspecting and unknowledgeable myth-infused public like a virus that overtakes the cells of a functioning body and ultimately KILLS it. Evolutionary regression WILL kill its host. The only thing that defends man against a hostile environment is the knowledge his magnificently complex brain can understand and the skills which can be learned and created from it. KNOWLEDGE and TRUTH cannot be denied or they can to ALL of our peril.

For these and MANY other reasons the Tea Bag Party CANNOT and MUST NOT be allowed to gain so much power that would threaten the very existence of this body politic with ALL the progressive policies we have attained through the blood, sweat and tears of collective effort. The Chilean rescue of the miners is an example of the GOOD that can be achieved if we ALL work together.

If you do NOTHING else November 2, 2010 PLEASE PLEASE I urge you in the strongest possible way to VOTE and to VOTE exclusively for DEMOCRATS. Tell ALL those you know to VOTE DEMOCRATIC. MOST ESPECIALLY DO NOT FORGET BLACKS, HISPANICS, MEXICANS, BRAZILIANS and OTHER MINORITY GROUPS EVERYWHERE IN THIS COUNTRY. Organize and urge everyone to VOTE DEMOCRATIC. This election is ours to win IF we all stick together and get out the Democratic vote but it is the nation we lose if we do not!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39681415/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/

A Quiver of Arrows-Letter to the New York Post--Consequences for Paladino

See link below to the New York Post Article entitled "Uncle Slam! Gay Nephew Blasts Carl -- Very offended by kin’s ugly remarks"

Dear Ms. Fermino: There are times in life when one CANNOT take something back. There are times when an apology does NOT matter. This is such a time for Carl Paladino. His apology to the gay community rings hollow as one may SUSPECT he is apologizing because he KNOWS how much damage his vile comments did to his campaign and how idiotic he looked playing footsie with religious fanatics kow towing to those who espouse ideologically fundamentalist and mystical views. It alienated a LARGE number of New Yorkers, other Jews such as myself, as well as a large number of gays, parents, friends of gays AND even other Republicans who KNOW what the future is dictating for gay rights. Some in the Republican ranks have even been at the forefront of the fight.

The gay community has come a long way inside of forty years. ALL of these rancid impediments to human beings who have known up until now NOTHING but impediments to THEIR freedom despite how much they love the country, finally see some light at the end of a long dark tunnel. We have a LONG way to go but we have made GREAT inroads. We know how important it is for one to love oneself first and then oppose VOCIFEROUSLY anyone who would deny rights to one minority group that everyone else takes for granted.

Mr. Paladino's candidacy, in my opinion, IF it even had any credibility before, has NONE now. He is a rude, crude, angry, political hack, immoral opportunist NO different from those he says he rejects. He does NOT reject them. On the contrary he IS one. I look forward to a Governor Cuomo. No matter what the outcome, the rest of the country should be on notice we will NOT allow ANYONE to kick gays around any longer. If they do there will be electoral, prosecutorial and courtroom consequences. Finally, we have at least those arrows in our quiver.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/uncle_slam_gay_nephew_blasts_carl_gKUExcwnaEqJ6SdZ8WLugN

Media Matters: Does it EVER!” The article "Damage Control" by Media Matters (link below) says it all about the nature of a pathetically HUGE part of the American electorate who will step in line to the music of a right wing march that these battalions of evil purveyors of lies like Fox News convey. The forces against those of reason are SO overwhelming, SO evil, SO mean and SO toxic that for the first time in my life I wonder if I shouldn’t just leave.

If Republicans take over the Congress it WILL mean the American economy will sink to new depths, perhaps into even another Great Depression for a LONG time. It is what the salivating Republicans waiting in the wings want. If you need to ask why then you have not been paying attention to the months of unbridled hatred directed against the president which runs racist deep. The forces of right wing fanatical darkness will do ANYTHING, even plunge this nation into an economic sewer, if they can jet propel this president out of office to seize power so the minions of madness and corporate greed which brought us to this sinkhole will prevail. So many in droves fall for their putrid deceptive perception.

We will have no more country left if this viral avalanche of corporate greed and money is allowed to infect our electorate which it already has. It is, I think, beyond redemption as a large part of the public eschews academic excellence and reason duped by the proponents of stupidity. The right wing money machine enabled by the Supreme Court Citizen's United decision counting corporations as people allowed the insertion of the bile of unlimited money into the sinews of the American political landscape. It is so relentless and the sheep-like people SO ignorant who number in the millions that if I could manage a ticket and instant citizenship to a SMART, educationally sophisticated and science loving republic I might for the first time in my life be tempted.

To understand the superfluous stupidity of the masses read the Huffington Post article (link below) entitled: "Republicans Prefer Strip Clubs Over Mosque at Grown Zero" to see how utterly valueless a large part of the population is. Our culture has gone haywire. All one needs to do is read about the girl from Duke University who decided it would be just such a neat idea to plaster her myriad of sexual exploits on the Internet, of course, only for her friends -- which became the immediate world -- to see. It ALL fits into to the classless pathology of unreasoned stupidity that has overtaken this nation. It is all around us from college women having sex puffed-up-proud of their behavioral anarchy to an explosive right wing media which will not call out lies even when they KNOW the lies are patently ABSURD. It defies credulity how low our nation has sunk whether the personal or the political.

Any fiction is believable if a media soaked in cash wants to sell it and so much of an undiscerning public wants to buy it. Money, historically, has been the key and one can make plenty of it even if one is a woman who places her sexual exploits on the Internet OR even if one is the dumbest Palinesque idiot in the land. They laugh all the way to the bank capturing millions from an unaware clueless public ready to believe anything most especially if it comes from a pretty face.

We have seen the Goebels mantra of media come true. Tell the big lie enough by controlling the media and you will control everything. The sheeple WILL stand in line to be led off the cliff but will bring untold millions of bucks to those who lead them. Just ask Sharon Angle, the tea bag fringe wacko senatorial candidate from Nevada to tell you how it works. Ultimately through their evil efforts they will effectively condemn the middle class and the poor to endless suffering, sickness and early death as they will relegate society’s hard fought for safety nets of healthcare, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to the greedy private sector investment banks which we know worked so well for everyone in 2008. One wonders who they will hire then to carry their bags.

November WILL be telling but I am not sure I want to be around to watch the potentially pathetic results as America is ready to return to power to those who brought us to the dance of economic collapse in the first place.

http://mediamatters.org/columns/201010080043
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/08/poll-republicans-strip-club-mosque_n_756259.html

An Article on Israel and its Existential Threat: This article linked below is about the State of Israel and the Jewish existential dilemma. I am moved and convinced of its veracity. It is the way I feel and it is why I support the Jewish state. As the article states Jewish history since the Diaspora (the dispersion of the Jewish people out of the homeland 2000 years ago) especially has been defined by others. Jews were ALWAYS at the mercy of those nation states which often showed us little. Jews existed always on a whim of someone else but Israel changed all that almost in an instant. As quickly as the security of our existence seemed to come that is how quickly it can evaporate as Israel, a besieged country from its inception, sits in the middle of the worst neighborhood possible at the worst possible time.

I urge those who do not know the history of the Jewish people and the Jewish state to read this very excellent explanation of why it means so much to the Jew and why the possibility of Iran possessing a nuclear weapon is so threatening. You do NOT need to be Jewish to appreciate the gravity of it and the existential threat it poses.


http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-other-existential-threat-15530

NO JOKE: I BRIEFLY viewed, because I cannot even endure listening to interviews of people like Pat Buchanan, Joe Scarborough this morning. The little I did see had the enthusiasm factor poll to vote at 50% for Republicans and 43% for Democrats. Who knows if this is correct but lets assume for now that it is: THIS POLL MUST MUST move in the Democratic direction and get Democrats to vote!

If we could get out the vote ESPECIALLY in minority communities i.e. African Americans, Hispanics and others as well as all progressives and Democrat leaning Independents as we did in the 2008 election I am CONVINCED we can take the midterms on November 2. Heck we could even take the House and the Senate by significant margins. Democrats staying home and not voting in November is as threatening to us as it would be if Sarah Palin were president (and by the way she's probably going to run.) This UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE potential result has HUGE consequences and all of them bad for the the majority of Americans, the middle class and poor!

THIS IS NO JOKE. I do not know how else to say it and impress on EVERYONE that we MUST get out the Democratic vote AND we must IF we possibly can contribute money and/or time to Democratic candidates ALL OVER the country. Yes, this is a life or death situation I am convinced as Republicans would keep this nation in eternal war, would dismantle health care and financial reform, would try to privatize Social Security, make Medicare cuts and increase the age of retirement to 70, SIGNIFICANTLY reduce or get rid of Medicaid, outlaw abortion EVEN in cases of rape or incest as they want to infuse government into your personal life. Moreover, they will allow the planet to melt through the indisputable FACT of industrial related global warming. Some even advocate for homosexual people not teaching in public schools and certainly not have the ability to marry the person of their choice.

A NEW Dark Ages hovers on the American horizon. We, if we keep electing Republicans, over time our country will decay and ultimately fall as other cultures advance by maintaining the health and welfare of their citizens and by making SCIENCE rule over superstition and myth. Republicans are NOT about government assisting people. They are about helping themselves to HUGE corporate money enabled by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and, if they take the majority will throw this nation into a double dip recession or even Depression and, oh yes, always will enable eternal expensive in blood and treasure, war. Republican philosophy is DIAMETRICALLY opposite to our Democratic principles. They favor unregulated property rights over personal rights it's that simple.

Do you realize how many lives these social programs engineered over DECADES have saved and how many they WILL save in the future? Answer: MILLIONS. Moreover, the health care and financial reform already passed under Democrats will be improved over time IF Democrats prevail.

Republicans through their corporate cronies are BUYING elections outspending Democrats 7 to 1. We CAN show this country that money is NOT the only variable. People power is the REAL variable. Please send this on to anyone you know to make it crystal clear how important getting out the Democratic vote is.

DO NOT GIVE UP, DO NOT FALTER AND MOST OF ALL DO NOT FAIL. Think of it as your life and our country's well being hanging in the balance!

Sowers of the Wind: Steven Hayes was convicted today of murder, sexual assault and other counts by a jury that heard eight days of gruesome testimony. There have been SO many horrific utterly inexplicable cases of inhuman treatment by one man against another that I have lost count. One odious crime often blends into the next. The wholesale murder of the beautiful Petit family of Connecticut by two unconscionable men who invaded the private peace of the Petit home, though, is so remarkably odious and is so far beyond the scope of sanity that it defies diagnostic description but must be sketched permanently into the synaptic map of the human brain. This tragedy was so inhuman I cannot find the words to express the monstrosity of the acts. It reminds me of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" where Capote writes of the planning, torture and murder of the innocent Clutter family of four in Kansas by a couple of two-bit thieves and misfits. The question in both these cases is why. Capote comes to the conclusion, I think, that nothing is done in cold blood and that everything and everyone has an emotional story behind it.

Of what stuff are the perpetrators made that they view life as something so cheap and take it so easily? What poison crossed over the blood brain barrier and infiltrated their sickening minds to ALLOW them to exit the boundaries of sanity into the world of the insane? I shake my head in disbelief. I have no answers for the unanswerable. How can men kill with such ease, impunity and malice but have no conscience to restrain their unrestrained explosive anger? I do not know.

Through thousands of years of socialization, STILL, even now, man often lacks the capacity for empathy; the ability to put his feet in the other guy's shoes and THINK about how the other guy might feel. What childhood is responsible for these unspeakable crimes? There are no answers except that through all of man’s religiosity, through all of his teaching, through all of his thousands of years of socialization man's inhumanity to man still goes unbridled and unchecked. It is as true for nation states as it is true for one person. It is as prevalent now as it was at the dawn of recorded history and, perhaps, more so because man now is so technologically advanced.

Yes, in this case, I am glad for the death penalty option even though often I am against it. When, though, the crime is SO beyond the scope of human decency and strays SO far and so wide into another realm of utterly unspeakable horrific acts of human cruelty then my human yearning for justice and revenge prevails.

When is a crime worthy of the death penalty? As Justice Potter Stewart said of pornography "I know it when I see it." The murder of an entire family fits that bill. Sometimes there is a crime so dastardly and humanly irredeemable that it begs for state revenge. Yes, I know, it does not bring back the victims BUT in the words of the prophet Hosea 8:7: “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” In this case I hope they surely will!

Bill and Melina Gates a Portrait of Greatness the Eradication of Polio and Care of Its Survivors:

If you did not watch last evening I urge you to view "Sixty Minutes" online and the particular segment they did interviewing Bill and Melinda Gates whose Foundation has helped MILLIONS in the poorest of poor nations all over the world. Their work has concentrated most especially in the fields of immunization (polio, HIV AIDS, and malaria), infant mortality and the education of children. They and their Foundation are an example to us all as the Gates impart to their own children values of service and not the endless acquisition of material goods. Most of their astounding wealth is being given away to help those who are sick, weak and who cannot help themselves. I wrote "Sixty Minutes" and the Gates Foundation asking that the children who have already contracted specifically polio, a disease which hit close to home, not be forgotten either.

I wrote the following:

The segment on "Sixty Minutes" about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was wonderful. I was particularly struck by their efforts at the immunization of children. The immunization against polio struck my heart as I am a polio survivor who contracted the deforming disease in 1954 in Boston, Massachusetts.

The interview of Bill and Melinda Gates moved me to tears as I saw children who had contracted polio in the poorest of poor countries languishing in unsanitary hospitals with a bleak future ahead. It defies imagination as to those children’s difficult fate and makes me SO thankful for the care I was given at Children’s Hospital in Boston. I was lucky to have born here and I was lucky to have had parents who knew where to take me that fateful October day. They knew how to navigate a system put in place in large part through the March of Dimes established during the Roosevelt administration.

These children who contract this life-changing disease in third world nations do not have the good fortune as I did. With polio it is, of course, necessary to prevent the disease through vaccination BUT if a child is one of the unlucky to have contracted it there is the lasting orthopedic and other devastation that needs to be addressed. I, at that time, as a child, was constantly monitored until the age of 16. I needed all kinds of medical attention including casts, braces, crutches, corsets, orthopedic surgeries, xrays, skin temperature tests and physical therapy to make sure my paralyzed limb, bones and wasted muscles grew correctly. I even was given assistance by a social worker who helped me as a child with the difficult socio-psychological and later even the occupational consequences of polio. I have MUCH for which to be thankful. Proper care for those children who have contracted polio needs to be monitored at LEAST through teenage years. In adulthood, too, orthopedic appliances need to be reformed, updated, refitted and sometimes post-polio issues arise as they did for me.

I am writing to give my sincere thanks to Bill and Melinda Gates for their Herculean efforts and their marvelous good works. I ask, in particular, not to forget those children who have already contracted polio so that they can get the utterly NECESSARY but expensive orthopedic and assistive device care that they will need to deal with the many ramifications of polio. These children who have contracted polio like the ones who have been immunized against it must, too, not be forgotten. MUCH can be done and much assistance given to improve their condition so that they can function as normally as possible throughout their entire life.