The Despicable Giuliani--Off the Top of My Head

Sometimes I feel so strongly about a political issue that the force behind that feeling compels me to write something quickly while sacrificing syntactical excellence. Former Mayor of New York City Giuliani's dastardly comments about the president's, as he put it, "hatred for America" spawned a volcanic eruption in my brain. Hence I sent my opinion in opposition to him stating that objection emphatically and rapidly.

Giuliani's statement is, of course, not only untrue but part and parcel of what the Republicon Party is all about in our time. It is the Party of hatred of the other meaning persons of color. I could not let him get away with such hateful and despicable comments so I sent my off-the-top-of-my-head sentiments (pasted below) to him.

Mr. Giuliani, I think I have never heard more despicable, insulting, sickening words uttered than the ones you did today about our President, a man whom I love. You are without a doubt the most feckless, rude, brazen, disgusting former mayor of the great City of New York. I am thankful every day that you failed to achieve the electoral heights you desired because if you did only God could help us.

On 9/11 you missed the boat and failed to protect the buildings adequately and there are probably many other things I could say that would impugn YOUR patriotism. But I will refrain from doing that and simply say I think your comments were disrespectful not only to Barack Obama, our president and yes, YOUR president too but they were an insult to the nation who elected him and to whom you SHOULD apologize.

I wish I had a nickel for all the times the president has waxed patriotic. Perhaps I would be a part of the 1% richest like you. You are a mean, cruel and utterly disparaging human being.

May you continue, if you try for higher political office or any thing else for that matter NEVER be successful. You are a mean spirited racist brute!

From one who LOVES her eminently patriotic president!

What ISIS Really Wants

After you read the Graeme Wood opinion below Google Larry O'Donnell last night's "The Last Word" and listen to his guests among whom was a feminist Muslim woman, the prescient Phyllis Bennis and others who discuss the eschatological or end days 7th Century Muslim religious belief system ISIS follows and why ISIS is not simply an irrational band of thugs.  Far from it.  They have core beliefs whose etiology begins in the 7th century and they want to keep it for the 21st century and beyond.   

You cannot kill militarily an idea but rather must fight it with modern ideas emanating from the Enlightenment to our modern era.




What ISIS Really Wants

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

---

By Graeme Wood

Click on the link here or below.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email

 

OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD

Judge Temporarily Halts Obama's Immigration Actions here or here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/17/lawsuit-obama-immigration_n_6680366.html#comments ; -- MY COMMENT BELOW PLEASE scroll down and READ my comment.

This is why I was screaming to the rafters in 2014. Latinos, when you KNOW the Republicon Party is NOT about you you get out the vote! They are about sending Latinos back irrespective of whether you have families here permanently or not. Therefore, I said Latinos, progressive, Democrats and others who KNOW what this Republican Party is all about and it's NOT about the 98% of Americans who are not the 1% richest so I screamed, screamed and screamed some more, emailing all the Latino groups I could find along with other progressive allies to get out and VOTE.  You do not let voting go. We as progressives and persons of humane belief KNOW that Republicans in this country do not care about humane policy they care about piling all the money into their corner and leaving the rest of us, the 98% out in the cold.

You should do anything and everything to GET ESPECIALLY LATINOS AND OTHERS ON THE SIDE OF THE 98% OUT TO VOTE. It should have been done in 2014 but it wasn't. Democrats and progressives stayed home. YOU CANNOT STAY HOME. Show them through the ballot box that the only reason these Republican Cretans have power is because it was a low voter turn out election. When we get out to vote we WIN. THEN MONITOR THE VOTE to make sure Republicans do not corrupt it.

Latinos, DO SO in 2016 or they will deport you as fast as jack rabbit can run!

Netanyahu the WRONG Response

Two attacks in Copenhagen is eerily similar to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France and its sidecar attack on a Jewish kosher market.  This time it was an attack on a free speech forum and then an attack on a Jewish synagogue.  The attacks against Jews eviscerates my soul.  It harkens back, for me, to the vicious antiSemitism seen in the culmination of the Holocaust that eradicated 2/3rds of the Jews of Europe.  We are seventy years from that unspeakable time and yet and yet this longest hatred continues for .2%, yes that's right, point 2 meaning 2 tenths of one percent of the world's population.

The Prime Minister of Denmark reached out to the Jewish community asking them not to fear attacks because the country of Denmark will protect them.  What was the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu's, irrational response?   He urges all Jews to leave Europe and emigrate to Israel.  Oh sure, ratchet up the fear even more insulting the Danish Prime Minister and the Danish people, long time friends to Jews in their perpetual endurance of hate. This is insanity on many levels and it must stop. Jews everywhere should reject Netanyahu's pathological politics of fear, war and mayhem.

This Prime Minister of Israel who says he loves the Jewish state and the Jewish people counteracts the Danish Prime Minister who says Denmark is safe for Jews and that the authorities in it will protect them.  What a great idea Netanyahu has -- NOT. Let's urge all Jews to congregate in one spot so they can be sitting ducks for attacks when the dispersal of Jews throughout the world is a much better preservative action especially in nations that extend their hand to Jews remembering the Nazi atrocities against us.

Netanyahu's actions serve only to inflame and encircle Muslims as if each and every single Muslim is out to kill Jews.  We know this is not so.  The worst action I can think of is meet this situation with fear and violence as violence begets violence all over the world.

Human beings -- Jew, Muslim, Christian, white, brown, black and others must come to their senses and be big-brain rational.  Stop this incessant never ending violent spiral and learn to live with the realities of life.  Humanity is diverse, it is
multidimensional, and is multicultural not just in Europe but EVERYWHERE on the planet.

The Israeli people should reject the religious extremism in its ranks and send Netanyahu a message of defeat in the soon-to-be-held Israeli elections. Netanyahu's path is NOT a path to peace it is a path to permanent war and destruction.  It will continue from generation to generation until someone bold enough, humane enough, and savvy enough chooses a different way.  

My Jewish brethren, do NOT leave Europe but enhance it as we always have.

Core inside the earth's core

Evolution and science denier know-nothings should take a look at the link below. If there is one thing, as if there were not a bazillion other things, that proves conclusively the veracity of evolution it would be this:

Here or http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/nbc-news/scientists-discover-a-core-inside-the-earths-core-398727235892

The Democratic Party is the ONLY Party that recognizes the truths that only science can provide.  Think on this as you get out in 2016 to vote for Democrats.  Another Bush or any Republcon is unacceptable and will kill thousands either by eliminating Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA, regulatory agencies like the EPA that save lives not to mention a do nothing Party on climate change, the evidence of which one can see by looking out my window and/or by eternal war!

The Loss of Giants

The media world has lost either voluntarily or by the untimely clutches of death, giants in its field:  John Stewart, Bob Simon, Brian Williams, Robin Williams and most recently David Carr -- the New York Times columnist.  Here or below is the last discussion David Carr had with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras.  One could see he was not in the best of health.  He collapsed and died shortly after the interview. 

Robin William's instruction to his students in "Dead Poet's Society" -- Carpe diem -- "Seize the day" holds true. Life is short and we know not each of our fate.  We must do what we can do when we can do it.

Robert Frost's  "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" which, I think, says the same thing as I interpret "woods" as death's metaphor. 

Finally, below that Emily Dickson's immortal poem: "Because I Could not Stop for Death" never forgotten by me when it was recited by my cousin at his beloved partner's funeral.  Seize the day, indeed!

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Because I Could Not Stop for Death

He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/watch-david-carrs-final-interview-with-glenn-greenwald-edward-snowden/

Three Muslims Shot Dead Near University of North Carolina--Sin no more

Comment:  AWFUL. 

Kayla Mueller, the young girl killed as she helped the besieged people of Syria, I thought would have an immediate impact.  She was a humanitarian supreme and an example to all of us for our time and for all time -- the Gandhi of our era. She cared about people she did not even know and went to lengths few of us could.

Our lives, in my opinion, count for little unless one is on the side of the poor, the dispossessed and the rejected trying to help them any way we can.  Although empathy is in short supply it's something we all have the ability to cultivate if only we would. 

Again, another senseless shooting of innocents and productive innocents at that at an exclusive university in this nation.  When will it stop?  It begins with each of us walking in the other person's shoes and asking who of us would want to trod in their path. 

This story is upsetting because of the ramifications it could have at an already explosive time.  Since 9/11 what have we accomplished, what war have we won, whose hearts and minds have we captured?  Think on that and as one great humanitarian said "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" -- Matthew 25:40.  "Go and sin no more!"-- John 8:11

The story of this tragic happening is below.

Story below:

NBC NEWS:

Students, Parents on Edge After Three People Shot and Killed

NBC News

A suspected gunman has been charged with the triple murder of Muslim family members near a university campus in North Carolina, officials and local media said early Wednesday. Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, shot dead a second-year dentistry student, his wife, and her sister in an apartment complex near the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, local police said. Police did not release any information about the possible motive for the alleged crime.

Deah Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Mohammad, 21, and her sister Razan Mohammad, 19, were found dead at the scene by officers who responded to reports of gunfire just after 5 p.m. Tuesday in the town 20 miles northwest of Raleigh. The Charlotte Observer reported that all three victims were Muslim.

Officials said Hicks had been charged with three counts of first-degree murder and was being held in the Durham County Jail. Officials at the jail told NBC News that he would appear at the in-house courtroom Wednesday morning.

Yusor Mohammad planned to start studies at UNC's school of dentistry this fall, and Razan Mohammad was a student at North Carolina State University, according to university and police officials. UNC said it felt "deep sadness" and said its chancellor, Carol L. Folt, would issue a statement. A Facebook group entitled "Our Three Winners" was set up early Wednesday in tribute to the victims.

Barakat was raising money for a trip this summer to Turkey, where he planned to provide dental care to Syrian refugees, according to his fundraising page. Following the shooting, scores of people donated money and sent messages of condolence. By 6 a.m. ET Wednesday the page had raised $22,657 — far exceeding its goal to raise $20,000 by the end of July.

Chapel Hill Police

Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, allegedly shot dead a second-year dentistry student, his wife, and her sister in an apartment complex near the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill according to Chapel Hill police.

Lied to Nation; Lying Brian

Michael Moore's quote about Brian Williams -- profanity sanitized a bit for good form -- I post in italics below.  My thoughts are below that.

Let's see... So George W. Bush is now an artist and a painter & roots for dear brother "Jeb in 2016;" Dick Cheney now appears on many networks as a grumpy old man pundit; Condi Rice gets to be on the board that picks college football's Final 4... but it's Brian Williams who's to be punished for Iraq? Are u kidding me?

I mean, an entire country was demolished, trillions were wasted, thousands of our troops were killed & wounded, tens/hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed, and now, FINALLY, someone is paying for Iraq war lies... and it's Brian Williams?

Yes, there is much that can be said about all the network reporters in 2003 who were embedded (i.e., Pentagon-approved) with the troops and getting to "play war" instead of asking the Bush administration the hard questions THAT DID NOT GET ASKED, and yes there is much to say about how all the networks have dumbed down the nightly news and made it unwatchable... BUT - to let the real liars who were responsible for the Iraq War roam free while instead going after Brian Williams for committing the crime of Faux Macho due to his claim of being on the wrong chopper, well, this just begs to be ridiculed and stopped. Sinners (that means you, too, Paper of Record of Judith Miller), put down your stones. Social media mob, put down your noose. Have the guts to go after the big cheese.

Let Brian Williams get back to telling us about the next big storm that's going to drop 3" of snow on New York City and the exclusive report on the lost dog who made it home to help its handicap master. (Note: I don't know Brian Williams personally, but I'll say this about him: in the post-9/11 years, he did the nightly news hour on MSNBC/CNBC, and he was one of the few people in TV news who would allow an opposition voice such as mine on the air. I remember thinking this is a man with integrity.)

My thoughts:

News is entertainment and that is why Williams ratcheted up the news to make it and him more entertaining, fun and oh yes macho.  The news is a show, like the Grammys, Dancing with the Stars or the Kardashians.  Its only goal is NOT the content of the news but the ratings it gets showing how entertaining the news can be.

Like everything else -- foreign policy and eternal war, we get the nation we elect and deserve. Brian Williams is a reflection of the country we are.  An administration takes us to a two trillion buck Iraq war because we believe their WMD lies and then off we go to children's hockey game or go shopping as our then not-too-bright commander in chief tells us we should; a nation elects "W" not once but twice because well he looks so manly in his genitally outlined flight suit. 

"Shock and awe" was so July 4thish awesome fun doncha think as long as we are not at the other end of a nation's bombs?  Glad we did not have to watch the limbs and brains being crushed or our soldiers brought home in those unpleasant body bags with the stars and stripes.

Again the fault dear Brutus is not in Brian Williams, Iraq, or even in Bush's brain or lack of one, the fault is in us and the jerks we elect.

Vaccination Nation -- knows not what they do

What is the most dangerous threat to our nation?   You might have thought I would say measles.  Measles yes, is a threat to be sure, but it is not the biggest threat.  The biggest threat to our alleged first world nation is ignorance, often religion based, and its denial of science.  Without our belief in science and the truth it tells our nation -- any nation -- cannot survive.  This is so because the testing repetition of the hypotheses of science tells us what is true from what is not. We act according to the truths we know and our society advances from its prehistoric state.

You have heard this before:  The earth is not the center of our solar system the sun is; gravity keeps us anchored to our earth; bacteria and viruses cause disease and not bad humors; washing one's hands before a surgical procedure or cleaning a wound prevents infection.  It has taken man many thousands of years to acquire the knowledge that those truths tell.

Wikipedia tells us "Edward Jenner, (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) was an English physician and scientist who was the pioneer of the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine.  He is often called 'the father of immunology and his work is said to have 'saved more lives than the work of any other human.'  Jenner noted the common observation that milkmaids who acquired the milder cow pox were generally immune to smallpox." He tested this hypothesis by inoculating a boy with the skin scrapings of milkmaids who had cow pox.  Ultimately the boy did not, when injected with small pox, get the deadly form of disease. Hence the connection was made between immunization of the weakened disease and its effectiveness in preventing its deadly cousin.

Two hundred years later vaccination derived from the science of Jenner's work proves true and it does so thousands upon thousands of times.  Science has verified immunization through vaccination by repeated testing. 

If the credentialed scientists are to be believed there is absolutely no relationship to vaccines and the causation of autism.  The man who promulgated this discredited theory has had his medical license pulled and his "theory" discredited. When laymen listen to quack science they expose not only their child to horrible diseases but everyone else's child to them as well.  Herd immunity works -- look it up if you do not know what it is.  The rights of smokers end where my nose begins and one's ability to choose not to vaccinate ends where the lives of others are risked.  There is NO libertarian right to kill simply because, based on faulty notions, they do not want to vaccinate their child.

Finally, on a personal note, I am living proof that an unvaccinated child can acquire a dreaded preventable-through-vaccination-disease.  The disease I acquired is an anachronism now but it was not in October, 1954.  Vaccination against the paralysis-inducing disease, polio, was not discovered and tested until April, 1955.  Only six months stood between a physically normal life and one marked by total paralysis of one leg, needing braces, crutches, night casts ad infinitum x-rays, three surgeries, bedridden for one year and other psychological trauma associated with it. 

Children grow up and must carry the after effects of the disease as adults and encounter the difficulties of aging and polio's attendant problems.  As an adult I have fractured my polio compromised femur three times.  Due to falls, a polio subject's pariah, I fractured my arm, tore a tendon, dislocated a finger, fractured toes twice, suffered a concussion as a child and acquired an eye problem as an adult from another fall all due to the balance compromises of polio.  Another femur fracture and I could be nursing home bound before my time -- at least that is what my surgeon told me in addition to saying "Don't fall!"

There was no number of miles my parents would have traveled, no limit of money they would have paid, no stone left unturned if their child could have had a life free from the monstrous after-effects of polio.  I, Children's Hospital told me, was lucky I had a mild case.  Others had it worse and still others, unable to breathe, sometimes died.  I can attest to the disease virulence of polio. 

So far, through mandatory vaccination our nation has become and remains polio free.  The disease, however, is out there lurking waiting for its vector to present its gifts if vaccination nation listens to its cranks, religious fanatics and know nothings within who act as charlatans to a public who knows not what they do. 

Ukraine -- A Dangerous Game

Listen here or below.

I LOVE "Democracy Now." I only wish the major corporatist news blatherers and high healed news women looking like they really should be on the street had 1/8th the integrity of Amy Goodman. This is what news SHOULD be but no it's a platform for ratings and good looks. They are hung by the neck of Nielson's rating system and the result is we get corrupted Air America slanted news when we should be getting the truth!

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/2/3/is_ukraine_a_proxy_western_russia

Written by the Truth

The latest ISIS unspeakable barbarity for which there are no words is reported here or below.

Americans' historical memory is short.  ISIS and Al Qaeda, too, were never in Iraq and therefore never in the region until US intervention in Iraq commenced and advanced its war.  The War in Iraq has created its aftereffects of massive civil wars, insurgencies by the dozens, refugees and failed states all over the region. Worse it has created the unspeakable ISIS/ISIL.

Neocons in the following list whose Heritage Foundation with their New American Century philosophical base during the Bush regime, advocated for the American spread of "democracy" in Middle East and, oh yes, to secure oil the life blood of the globe.  These neo Cons were as follows: Richard B. Cheney, Richard Pearle, John Yoo, David Addington, John Yoo, Francis Fukuyama, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Keane Kurkpatrick, William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Richard Armitage and many more.

Bush, Cheney and their war machine with a misguided philosophy in tow and its ideologue cheerleaders have lit the match that has engulfed and now ignites a region spreading barbaric killings all over the world.  ISIS has spread too the terror observed in Europe, the US and Canada as well.

Cheney, Bush, et al carved out the brilliant idea of deposing Sadam Hussein, the strongman who kept Iraq stable, concocting a lie to create a war, invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq that had nothing to do with the perpetration of 911, the worst terror attack on American soil. The never ending saga of violence emanating from the Iraq War continues.  Mission was, indeed, never accomplished. 

The history of it is now long and complex but it began with one match and can be traced to other misadventures in that region as well. Its barbarity is witnessed by the latest ISIS horror of burning a man alive. One should never forget the actions that have contributed to this unmitigated mess!

Never, in my own observation of history, would I ever have thought Nazi brutality would or could have an equal.  I changed that view today.  It now does and ISIS/ISIL, Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria is its name.  It has the guilty fingerprints, though, too, of George W. Bush and his band of merry Neo Con know nothings written all over it. What to do now?  Intellects sharper than mine must know one hopes but history written by the winners should also be written by the truth.

http://www.nbcnews.com/…/burned-alive-isis-video-purports-s…

Burned Alive: ISIS Video Purports to Show Murder of Jordanian Pilot

LONDON — ISIS militants released a video on Tuesday purporting to show a captive Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage, just days after the militants ...

Patriots incredible victory!

GREATEST game I have ever seen.  Thanks Patriots what a game and what a season.  I did not predict this game but one of the times I love being wrong!

Jimmy Kimmel -- Matt Damon -- Deflategate HILLARIOUS--A Mood Lifter

"I am the locker room guy" FUNNIEST video comedy since Abbott and Costello's "Whose on First"!!

Scroll down and brighten your mood. Click on either link that works for you and then click on the Youtube! NOT political just fun -- for a change! 

here or

http://www.gossipcop.com/jimmy-kimmel-deflate-gate-video-matt-damon-ben-affleck/

Why is this Holocaust different from all others?

In the Passover ritual sedar the youngest child asks the question "Why is this night different from all others." It is then that the retelling of the fabled Exodus story is told in answer to his question.

The Nazi Holocaust is no fable but I ask the a similar question. Why is this Holocaust different from all others?:

Yes, there can be no doubt the killing of innocents in all corners of
the globe is a monstrosity and should, as the Nuremberg trials dictate, be morally repugnant to all who call themselves human.

The killing of innocents, of course, goes on from the Boca Haram's murderous odyssey in Africa and beyond to ISIS, ISIL and yes, the crushing of the innocents in Gaza. I reject it all including Hamas's uncompromising position on the Jewish state. Further, I reject wholeheartedly and have said so in writing, Netanyahu's uncompromising ways, his insult to our president to speak before Congress without our president's knowledge. I call out injustice wherever it exists including all over the Middle East and the USA racism with its wars based on lies that are ruinous to millions.

Having said that, in the short time when Hitler assumed power in Germany in 1933 to the end of the war in Europe in 1945, I can safely, I think, say there has never been such a methodical, murder of 6 million human beings (IF we can even grasp that number) by an advanced country in Europe as the Nazi Final Solution unleashed. Beyond that it was predicated upon 2000 years of Jew hatred by mostly Christians as they indicated the Jew for the killing of their god.

So, while all barbaric killing everywhere must be in conscience decried there is a difference between other slaughters and the Holocaust against the Jew. It stands alone, in my opinion, in its monstrous barbarity within the continent of Europe including even in once Democratic France and in Britain. Few lifted fingers to save the Jew even within the US. Nothing yet can make me think otherwise. But having said that it is the reason that I must in good conscience come out against slaughter everywhere.

The Holocaust is unique in its gargantuan number, it happened in our time and it cannot be denied. I wish it were not so. I wish the Jewish people did not have to hold this nauseating record of man's inhumanity to man against them in particular. There was no exit card for the Jew because their DNA dictated their fate. Whether from the Crusades beginning in 300 A.D, to the Inquisition of Spain to the modernity of WWII Europe the Holocaust against the Jew was, is and will always be the world's longest hatred and most incompressible staggering barbarity perpetrated by so called "civilized" men on innocent millions. It is unique in the annals of man's utter bestial brutality to his fellow man.

May it, indeed, never happen again to anyone!

Remember to Never Forget: International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Scroll down and Remember:

 

It is now, as mind numbing as it is to believe, the 70th year of the world's staggering gift of inhumanity to humanity -- the Nazi Holocaust -- against, most particularly, the Jews of Europe and many others as well.

We are asked to remember and I do. I remember them every day I live -- when I look upon a blizzard from my nice warm home I think of them freezing to death in the camps which were asking them to concentrate; concentrate on what I ask; when it is blistering hot I think of them sweltering standing and/or working since the Auschwitz greeting said to its captives "Arbeit macht frei" (work makes you free) in heat until they dropped; when it is pouring rain I think of them drenched in rain's cold; when I cough I think of them dying from pneumonia or typhus with no one to help; when spring comes with its sun and the beauty of the Lilies of the field but the green of the earth betrays the dark horror that surrounds them; when free flying birds gather food to sustain their life but my people lie imprisoned in wooden bunks with their ribs showing before death's mercy frees them to relieve their suffering; I think of them as they march to the gas chambers; I think of the women as they march to the gas chambers with babies in their arms. I think of them -- the six million -- as if that number were fathomable and as if the 70 years ago were yesterday.

I think of them every day and I think of all the others who went to their deaths with them. Never again always had meaning for me and my hope is the rest of mankind will adopt that phrase, too, before the mendacious monstrosities of murder kill millions more.

Two minutes to midnight draws near as we reap the harvest of so many centuries' seeds of inhumanity we have sown. Remember and never forget.

SCROLL DOWN slowly to the picture below and forward to whomever you choose.

Intl Holocaust Remembrance Day Today, January 27, marks 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz. For the past seven decades we have struggled to comprehend the horrors of the Holocaust and to understand its implications for all mankind. Yad Vashem stands at the forefront of international efforts to educate future generations towards a better tomorrow, while never forgetting all that was lost. Join us on International Holocaust Remembrance Day in our effort to create a promising future for the next generations.   www.yadvashem.org

Letter to those family and friends I love

Positive: We still have power at 8:00 a.m. Pessimistic: If we don't lose it will be a miracle.

We are safe and want to know if those who received the email are as well. Thinking about digging out is making us sick but we are persevering through it. The more time goes by the happier it should become ... I HOPE!

We want to know all those who got this message as you are the only ones we sent it to from my list which includes Florida -- the ONLY time I envy them and want to be there. But that's beside the point. If you still have power and can email please do. If I don't respond it may be because either we or you don't have power.

Getting out is the next worry and I am hoping some help will come. Blessings on Ralph, my neighbor, for the use of his garage -- I can never repay the favor and want to know how you are doing.

Allow me one point:

Mother nature is angry at us as well she should be. Look at what those vile specimens of humanity have done to our precious earth with their sickening death wielding pollution inducing oil and other fossil fuels. It is the true sin against nature and worse the know nothings keep electing these science denying Cretans to high office.

Look out your window. This is climate change and what you will get and more if we do not address it IMMEDIATELY. Imagine the lives that would have been saved had Al Gore the one who told us a decade and more ago "An Inconvenient Truth" about climate change and man's contribution to it, won in 2000. This is climate change. It is the wave (pardon the pun) of the future and worse unless people come to their senses and believe science 99% of those who are scientists in our time know it is happening. All of us and those who have grandchildren their children and beyond will suffer nature's wrath if we do not begin to cure our earth now.

BIG HUGS to everyone!!!! Pray (yep I said it) pray for sun! Heck I'll just take the power to stay on.!

If you can let me know you are safe.

GO PATS; DO YOUR JOB!

Allow me a bit of frivolity in an otherwise ever-so-serious world.

As for the ABSURD insanity of so called "Deflategate" I said originally "say it ain't so." And you know what?  IT IS NOT SO!!! Our talented beautiful team did NOTHING absolutely NOTHING wrong and human beings did not say that SCIENCE did and will!

A professor I looked up to at Boston University when he was speaking about war said to ALWAYS ALWAYS ask the questions who does it benefit and why. So I ask this latest faux scandal question. Who does this scandal benefit and why? I can tell you who it benefits. It ONLY benefits those who had to endure our Pats' excellence and onslaught. Who benefits and why? ALL THOSE WHO WERE GREEN WITH ENVY OR THOSE WHO GOT TROUNCED BY THEM OR WHO WANTED TO DO WHAT THE PATS DID TO THEM BENEFITED. It benefits those who want to shake them up to throw them off course Sunday.

They are shaken up alright and are going to use this sickening faux scandal to infuse them with even more might than they had before. I will not besmirch any opposing teams' names like other teams did to our BRILLIANT Coach Belichick and Mr. Kraft. Nor will I besmirch the media who were RUTHLESS but NOT right. So JUSTICE will have its day, at least in football, and the Patriots will do us proud once again.

I love you New England Patriots because I love my state and the fabulous City of Boston!!

GO PATS. Do us proud just one more time!

Do your job!

"Social Deviance and Anomie"

It is staggering to me having come from a generation that learned to respect teachers and think of doctors as nearly divine to see violence perpetrated upon them. Maybe the problem is thinking of them as gods instead of human beings who are not always perfect. Who of us is always perfect? But I think it more than that.

The fundamental supports on which a developed nation needs to survive are being shaken to their core from Bill Cosby to the Patriots to our own nation's fudging the truth about something as serious and threatening to life as war. It is exemplary of but not exceptional to those educational and medical institutions. It is reflected by a lack of respect in many other arenas as well.

Whether it’s politics, education or health care and more we tend to look at these institutions now with suspicion. The government does "not knowingly" spy on its citizens says the NSA Director lying to Congress. Once we thought they cared about us when in reality, in our culture, money and power is the bottom line and what the "caring" is all about. Advertising is a good yardstick. We are told that the businesses selling a product really care about us but in reality they don't. They care about making money. Whether it's insurance companies, hospitals or the maker of widgets they usually care about us insofar as they can figure out how effectively they can say something, heretofore even immoral things, to make us buy what they are selling.

The man behind the curtain has been exposed in our technological age. We collectivity feel, perhaps, a sense of insecurity and anger about those institutions in which we put our trust to help us live but seemingly do not care about us at all. We are an open society and to be anything else is alien but that does not mean our culture must carry with it a side car of policy cruelty.

One of my first readings in college was a sociological treatise entitled "Social Deviance and Anomie" (author’s name unknown.) It made an impact on me since I remember its title from many years ago. It was rational to think that a feeling of alienation from a culture into which one was born could be related to the deviance of drug addition, law breaking and even violence. Collectively, I have always thought human beings do better when we feel connected to each other and if we think that someone in our culture cares.

We are a heterogeneous nation of capitalistic immigrants that lends itself to Ayn Randian feelings of alienation and cruel individualism. No, I am not arguing for a socialist economy. I am arguing for a developed nation developing policy that at least seemingly cares about all of us–rich and poor alike–who reside within it.

Cardiac Surgeon Had a Heart

I am sickened as we all I am sure are at the senseless murder of Dr. Michael Davidson, a cardiological surgeon at Brigham and Women's by the deranged son of a former patient. There are no words adequate enough to mourn the loss of this young and brilliant man taken from us at 44 years of age. He was not only a practicing surgeon but a teacher of his craft at Harvard Medical School as well.

Do we chalk it up to mental illness or do we chalk it up to too many guns in the hands of explosive people? I am never ashamed to say I loathe guns, I loathe the culture of guns that is the NRA and I hate our violent nation's actions both here and across the world. If it were up to me I would repeal the 2nd Amendment these Cretans seem to think is so worship-worthy.

We are a nation of gunslingers and American snipers. The fact that the based-on-a-true-story picture "American Sniper" made by the same Clint Eastwood who insulted our president at the Republican convention has grossed so far 92 MILLION bucks and is up for Academy Award makes me sick. Bradley Cooper will probably get one in the Best Actor category.

I don't care how much of a hero anyone thinks that human killing machine sniper was (he is now dead killed at a gun range by a man he was teaching) boasting "150 kills" of human beings is the reason that that picture will probably take the award for best actor played by Bradley Cooper. It shows what appeals to the majority of our ever-so-violent and war-like nation. Put another notch on the gun for those killed by senseless gun violence as Dr. Davidson was. It is time for Federal law to finally have some teeth in all 50 states. One would think after the 26 dead children of Newtown gunned down by a miscreant with an AK47 something could squash the vicious NRA which has spent millions defeating common sense gun legislation. No, it's part of our culture and the "precious" 2nd Amendment gun nuts will say.

In truth Shakespeare said it so eloquently "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars it is in ourselves."

Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did

A MUST READ!  here or at the link below

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/29/1011562/-Most-of-you-have-no-idea-what-Martin-Luther-King-actually-did?detail=email

Patriots Inflategate—Deflated. Say it ain’t so!

I am a diehard Patriots fan and a lover of all things Boston and New England. I am among those who grew up with Boston sports enthusiasm and caught its fever early.

Pat's Sunday victory and the Colts's crushing defeat was fantastic for a Pat’s fan to watch.  I am so emotionally connected that I have to look away or turn off the channel if the Pats fumble, are intercepted or worse lose.   The game on Sunday, though, was sheer joy.  I watched it all as the talent of my team is nothing short of miraculous.

Having said that, the latest dust up of purposefully deflated footballs allegedly by the Patriots makes me cringe.  It makes me worry as the stories seem not to stop.  The talent of the Patriots is so enormous why would anyone have to court investigation and very bad press by intentionally deflating a ball under regulation size thereby breaking an NFL rule?  Does a game won by fraud feel as good?  I doesn’t to me.

Initially, I brushed off the accusation as sour grapes but now the accusations linger and seem to be getting stronger. All of a sudden I am worried. Was this blow out win too good to be true?

Even if deflated footballs are found the game will not be forfeited I tell my disillusioned self.  That, however, is not the point.  There is metaphor in this.  Is there any formerly trusted institution in this nation that is free of Machiavellian ways and dirty tricks to win at any cost? I loathe lying, cheating and stealing and I do not like people who do those things. 

If it can be proven the Patriots did this I will be saddened.  What does it matter if one lonely voice in the Patriots' crowd is upset? I guess nothing and that is too bad.  We suffer in this oft touted exceptional nation a lack of ethics and fair play.  Football is a game of war except no one is supposed to get killed.  International war of lies and wholly immoral conduct seems to be a national and international pastime too.  Except people in that arena do get maimed and slaughtered.

If Coach Belichick or anyone one else taints this great team, the players who are innocent and the fans who love them suffer.  Whether its real war or simply a game of football ethics matter and cheating should not be part of the game.  Say it ain't so, Bill. Say it ain't so!

 
Story today -- http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/.../report.../related/

Report: NFL found 11 of 12 Patriots footballs under-inflated

The New England Patriots may have some explaining to...

profootballtalk.nbcsports.com

“Selma”—a film Review—God at his side

No need to beat around the proverbial bush I loved this film. It took the highlights of the Alabama Edmund Pettus Bridge march for equality and the struggle for civil rights nearly fifty years ago and turned it into a film masterpiece.

This amazing non-violent man, Dr. Martin Luther King, did things to improve the lives of millions; things that no one would or could have done and he did so in the face of humiliating provocation, hubristic insult and the crushing brutality by the forces of malevolence few could endure. He turned the other cheek for the haters to smash as well.

This film shows to those who knew him and to the youth who can only study about him the inspirational charisma he possessed. He brought hope to hopeless millions and changed centuries of misery’s darkness into the possibility of freedom’s light. He brought his power to a recalcitrant, mean and vicious slice of oppositional white power and galvanized a nation of all colors, religions, and creeds to his moral cause.

We saw, through the communicative media of the time, the Edmund Pettus Bridge walkers bludgeoned when they tried to cross it by white and Confederate flag-flying racists as Dr. King forged a path for those that walked with him toward a better life.

People say for all the world to hear malevolent and mendacious things whether there is evidence for it or not against the giants of men and women upon whose shoulders we stand for the progress of mankind.

The larger truth was that a David honed justice against a Goliath of Billy clubs and bats. “Selma” was a snap shot of that time. It was a time of attack dogs, fire hoses and police Billy clubs used on old men, old women, children and anything black (and sometimes white) that got in the way of a white life of privilege. Persons of color wanted to merely sit anywhere on a bus, anywhere in a movie theater, at any lunch counter or, indeed, the right to vote free of literacy tests no one could pass and poll taxes many not afford.

Dr. King helped extricate his people as the metaphorical Moses of Biblical antiquity allegedly led the slaves out of Egypt. He was historically huge and this film portrayed him as that. I do not care about his personal life that some scurrilously impugn nor do I care about small poetic justice historical error there may be in the film. I care about what Dr. King did for those who lived under the jackboot of a backward brutal south that tried to crush people of color for any invented reason they could think.

The movie, “Selma” was great. We who empathize with those who suffer injustice and who are on the side of the arc of justice as it bends towards it will love this film for the truth it brings.

The lessons, though, are for our time as well. Again the shouts of injustice fall on seemingly deaf ears. The deaths of innocent Black men whether at the site of a burning cross, at the base of a Poplar tree or at the hands of some present-day bully can be seen in our nation now. Voter suppression, intimidation and hardship with the most egregious “conservative” Supreme Court nullification of the most important part of the 1965 Voting Right Act exist in our time. They have now the blood on their hands that so many shed to attain what rightfully should be America’s promise to everyone. The efforts of Dr. King and those who followed cannot have been in vain.

On Martin Luther King Day I say rest in peace, Dr. King, and may you be for all time at the side of the God in whom you believed!

The Calling of Our Time

The extremes on the right and that which Orwell and other dystopian writers feared are operational all over the world.  Fascist-like extremists from my point of view are the biggest threat to all of us.  They are brutal, inhumane, totalitarian in their hearts and unapologetically violent in their actions.  They are severely anti-Muslim and in the past at least were virulently anti Semitic as well.  If this were simply a sub-group or an out-on-a- limb phenomena it would not worry me.  But we can see from so many states in our union so many extremist right wing Republicans, a Party that has NO room for moderates, people of color and certainly no room for those from the LGBT community.  They are now in control of two of the most powerful three divisions of US power.  If Republicans gain the presidency and both Houses everything and I do mean every good social program that Obama, Lyndon Johnson and even FDR passed that saved a nation and your life will be at risk. I am NOT waxing histrionic.

Across Europe right wing extremism is popular and has resurrected its ugly head.  Just take a look at Mari Le Pen's right wing extremist party which has gained strength in France and this can be said surely most fearfully in Germany, in Belgium and even in the Scandinavian nations.

Am I delusional?  Did not Barack Obama, a supposed liberal Democrat, usher in total control of Congress in 2008?  What happened?  2010 was, indeed, our Waterloo.  All the good feeling and hope melted like ice cream in the heat of the summer. 

I am flummoxed, I am sickened by it all but MOSTLY I live in fear that all the good and hard-fought-for-rights for persons of color, women and the LGBT community will somehow be reversed. All it takes is time and not so much of it at that for a president to appoint local Republican federal judges, and worst of all Ginsberg's SCOTUS seat remains at risk for Republican control.   Now, if a Republican takes the presidency and in 2016 we do not regain at least the Senate than it is possible to see another entrenched-for-decades Republican SCOTUS jurists eviscerating human rights across the board, keeping money unlimited in political campaigns, treating corporations as people and letting big banks off the legal hook for tax payer money they digested because the Congress, especially Republicans, are bought off. It could mean the disappearance of the middle class and the American Dream as we have always known it.

All of this is worrisome to me.  I need to figure out how I want to approach this sickening impasse and whether or not I want to even keep writing opinion and working for candidates like an Elizabeth Warren whom we desperately need to stay in the Senate where she can do the most good in opposing obstructionist Republican politics.  It is the conundrum of my life and the calling of our time to determine how much we can do together to ameliorate the injustice all around us?

Until I decide that for myself we -- ALL of us -- must keep working toward taking back the Senate and CERTAINLY keeping the presidency in 2016.  I am rather tired of saying this as I said it so much about the 2014 midterms.  It obviously did not work as too many of us stayed home and simply let Republicans railroad themselves with ease into power.  I was vociferous about this because GET THIS: OUR LIVES ARE AT STAKE!  I am not kidding when I say that and I am no less fervent about it than I was in 2014 except now I am actually more insistent because time waits for no man and time is running out.

You who will inherit the earth, the wind and all that is vital for life on this planet MUST step up to the plate and for God's sake GET OUR PEOPLE OF COLOR, HISPANICS AND WOMEN REGISTERED TO VOTE ALL OVER THE NATION.  WHEN WE VOTE OUR NUMBERS WE WIN BUT IF WE STAY HOME WE LOSE AND ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES FAILURE BRINGS!  So I will say it again.  Begin as early as you can because you can be sure Republicans are not waiting and they are organizing  now.  WE MUST GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE.  No, Democrats are not perfect but it is the only home we, the 98%, have at the moment.  It is the calling of our time!