Thursday, July 7, 2011

Dear Nancy Grace -

Dear Nancy Grace and Cronies:

Congratulations on the recent highest ratings ever.  Your tears over the Casey Anthony non-guilty verdict were on spot for the occasion.  Now that you've got the momentum going, how about shifting your ever powerful talking head toward the other  child murders to be prosecuted in the same area?  Or, don't they meet your criteria for media sensationalism?  Are the victims non-white?  Are they poor, black or hispanic and don't meet your definition of cute?   What is truly amazing in the coverage of this tragic situation, the hundreds of people congregating at the courthouse, the thousands (or is it millions) commenting on hundreds (or is it thousands) of websites and blogs and facebook  posts express their utter horror over  the verdict, but they have no awareness or opinion whatsoever of the child murders in their own communities.  The medical examiner could not determine a cause of death.  So the jury couldn't convict.
       Our society has supposedly come a long way since the days when an abused child's greatest agency of protection was the S.P.C.A.  But ask any local child protective services or law enforcement authority and you will be told of numerous attrocities  to children that are difficult to prove, go under the radar and go unpunished.  For example: a four month old infant dies when his parent "rolls over" on him.  He's taken  to the hospital but we are too busy watching Nancy Grace carry on to notice the ambulance on our street.   The physician examining the child notes evidence of abuse.  But the family of the victim's parent has money.  Clout.  The child's grandparents are best friends with the publishers of the only newspaper in town.   There is nothing reported in the media.  Not even an obituary for the child.  The family asks for a second opinion from another physician and the results are inconclusive - no obvious signs of abuse to the dead child.   No charges are filed. The public,  Nancy Grace and cronies,  is not even aware that this baby has lived  and died.   It happens on your street.  But keep watching headline news.  Nancy Grace will get tell you what to think.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Coming Soon....

      Stay tuned for Interviews with the "Candidates"......

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Attention New Parents: Save Your Baby's LONG FORM

       Today I asked my daughter, who lives in Arizona,  if she had the long form of my grandchildren's birth certificates and she said no, it must have got lost in the move because she couldn't find it and had to get  replacement birth certificates for  her twins Jeffrey and Jane when they started kindergarten.
    "Great," I said, "There go my dreams of one of my grandchildren becoming president of the United States."
     "Huh?"
     "YOUR state is trying to pass a law that will only allow someone to run for president if they have the long form birth certificate," I explained.
     "Huh?" she said again.
     "Never mind, I'll e-mail it to you."
     So I sent her this:
Within ten days after submittal of the names of the candidates, the national political party committee shall submit an affidavit of the presidential candidate in which the presidential candidate states the candidate's citizenship and age and shall append to the affidavit documents that prove that the candidate is a natural born citizen, prove the candidate's age and prove that the candidate meets the residency requirements for president of the United States as prescribed in Article ii, Section 1, Constitution of the United States. The affidavit prescribed in subsection a shall include references to and attachment of all of the following, which shall be sworn to under penalty of perjury:
1. A certified copy of the presidential candidate's long form birth certificate that includes at least the date and place of birth, the names of the hospital and the attending physician, if applicable, and signatures of any witnesses in attendance. If the candidate does not possess a long form birth certificate as required by this paragraph, the candidate may attach two or more of the following documents that shall take the place of the long form birth certificate if the candidate swears to their authenticity and validity and the documents contain enough information for the secretary of state to determine if the candidate meets the requirements prescribed in Article ii, Section 1, Constitution of the United States:
(a) early baptismal or circumcision certificate.
(b) hospital birth record.
(c) postpartum medical record for the mother or child signed by the doctor or midwife or the person who delivered or examined the child after birth.
(d) early census record.
         She called back.
        "So whose behind it? Those people who don't believe Barak Obama is a natural born citizen?"
       "Them and Donald Trump. "I said.  "If they do this crap, they better warn parents to save their children's long form birth certificates in the event that their child becomes a presidential candidate."
      "Right.  Well, we're not even worried about student council yet," she said.
      "Maybe not, but I bet Ann Dunham would have saved it somehow if she'd known her son was going to grow up to be president.  Then there wouldn't be all these wacky conspiracy theorists prompting such dumb laws that affect my grandchildren!!"
     "Well, try not to worry too much.  By the time Jane and Jeffrey have reached the qualified age to be president the courts will have long since thrown it out," she said.
    "They better.  It's just not right to impede on the rights of my grandchildren to be president!"

       So here's to you Ann Dunham. I know that if you had lived to see your son become president the "birther's" would not be obsessing about this because you could have filled in all the smallest of details of the most memorable event in any mother's life.
                                                     Ann Dunham with Barak as a boy
   


      Since you're not here to defend him, some of us will try to do right by you and dispel the nonsense.  Once again:
1961Barack Hussein Obama II is born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4 at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Woman and Children.II

Thursday, April 14, 2011

An Appeal to Save Life on Earth: forget SETI

    So, our planet is undergoing it's sixth major mass extinction, and there is a large array in
the desert searching for other life in the universe.  Why is it that we care about life in other parts of the universe but we could give a rat's butt about life on our own planet?  I'm so confused.  Coral reefs which contain such abundant, extraordinarily beautiful, awesome creatures are bleached and dying throughout the world.  In fifty years polar bears will be found at zoos and in the combined  DNA of grizzlies but nowhere else.   But, there is a large array in the desert searching for intelligent life outside our planet.  Well, perhaps on the other hand that's not a bad idea to search for intelligent life elsewhere, because we are certainly not finding it here, except in rare instances.  One such rare intelligence is a man by the name of E.O. Wilson. 

He says:

"In one sense we know much less about Earth than we do about Mars. The vast majority of life forms on our planet are still undiscovered, and their significance for our own species remains unknown. This gap in our knowledge is a serious matter: we will never completely understand and preserve the living world around us at our present level of ignorance.

"If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos."


Edward O. Wilson, The world's leading authority on Biodiversity, Emeritus Professor of Biology at Harvard and author of "The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth."

    As I write this, I can envision some believers out there thinking and saying that this is just all part of the foretold end of the world.  Nonsense.  We are called upon to be stewards of the earth.  Where is our estimation of sincerity for our home, our Earth? It is our gift and we have squandered its riches. 
     Instead of focusing on life outside the universe, lets concentrating on saving the one we have. 

    

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

A New Party

     In recognition of International Women's Day March 8 I've joined a new political party.  Inspired by the former candidate for Governor of NY who ran under The Rent's Too Damn High! party, a new political party is in the works:


                                            THERE'S TOO DAMN MANY MEN IN CHARGE


Look around the halls of the Congress and the white shirts and ties will blind you.  For these fellows two wars half a world away are not enough.  Now they've waged war at home against women.  While billions are spent on war, a billion in cuts for food and healthcare for pregnant women and children is proposed.  There is so much misinformation about planned parenthood it would take more pages than are available here to rectify.   The main purpose of Planned Parenthood is to provide low cost women's health care.  It's NOT all about the A word.  It's about HEALTH for women who don't have the financial wherewithal to get it elsewhere.   Those who have the financial means will always get their pap smears, but those who don't won't.  How much money will be saved when you've got financially strapped women needing emergency treatment for cervical cancer in a few years? And I really don't understand the bill that attempts to change the definition of Rape.  Rape is rape is rape fellas.  The list of assaults goes on and on and on.  What the-?  While Wall Street  boys are back getting richer and richer and richer,  the regular citizens are fighting against each other and women are taking the brunt of the assaults. 
   
 So what is needed is the new party:  THERE'S TOO DAMN MANY MEN IN CHARGE 
  Organize! Join today!!!

Monday, February 21, 2011

The Brawny Bros Wipe Up

So, I vowed to Be Good.  Went to the sixty day rehab for Sarah Palin Detestors, a nice facility in Texas for those who can't stop making fun of that poor vice presidential wannabe.   It's an affliction that affects not only lowly little bloggers like me, but the rich and famous. And they were at the rehab too.  I'm bound by oath to protect confidentiality so I can only tell you there was a certain former Saturday Night Live comedian I will call Fina Tey and a famous New York Times columnist named Daureen Mowd. (Names spelled backwards to protect their identity.)  Oh, the discussions we had, I can't tell you.  We learned that her purpose in life is just to get under the skin of right minded liberals and to give in to the obsession to satirize her was just feeding into the machine that made her a millionaire.
     They released me from SPD rehab in early February after the ice finally melted in Texas and at first it was okay.  Let the woman shoot caribou for stew if she wants, I was just going to enjoy life here in the cabin on The Hill enjoying my vegeterian soup while the winter storms off the lake piled up the snow.  But then she had to, just HAD to, run her mouth against the union protesters in Wisconsin...Wonder how much the billionaire backed tea party paid her to shout her nasally call for workers to "sacrifice".  Ugh.  I'm really, really trying though and I will resist the urge toward sarcasm.  I will try to replace it with a few facts, number one of which is that her call to "sacrifice" is a load of crap.

The economic crisis that she wants workers to "sacrifice" for was caused by Wall Street Greed.    They've tried real hard to make us forget that fact, but I for one, remember.

The big financial backers of the "grassroots" tea party are a couple of Billionaire Brothers named David and Charles Koch(pronounced coke).  Seems they made their money making Brawny paper towels among other useful items.  Check out the story in the February 21 New York Times if you don't believe me.  I first heard about these secretive bad boys in a magazine article last year and I was sickened to think that people were being hookwinked into thinking that their lofty political movement  to restore American ideals was in actuality  intended to serve the interests of the billionaire industrialists that got us into this economic mess in the first place.   Wall Street is back up to the level where it was before this mess began back under George Bush's tenure while the common people are still struggling ,and now fighting amongst ourselves. 
We do need a political movement. Call it the Coffee Party, Iced Tea, Water or Wine Cooler Party , or whatever, but please, pay attention to the real culprit here.  Hey Sarah, why don't you ask the Brawny Bros. to "sacrifice" a billion that they made off the backs of their workers?
   Fina Tey and Daureen Mowd,  I release you from your vow.  Go get her.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

"Why Ain't the Tee Party on the Ballot?"

 For some of us retirees, November is the time we earn our play money.  For years I have hired on in my town to assist with the duties of supervising the election process.  It's paid for my fun when I leave Northern New York's winter for a few months for the white sands of New Mexico. 
    In all my years of standing by the voting machines, there has never been as much confusion in my town as this year.  First was helping people get used to the "scan" method of voting. Voting started at 6 a.m. and it was  6:12 a.m. that the delay began with people lined up out the door. "It just doesn't seem like I voted when there's no levers," more than one lady complained and then there was "How the hell do I know if that thing really worked?  Them computer hackers could get in there and change my vote."
    The real mass confusion came regarding the "Tea Party".  It was so bad, I'm thinking of not working at the election next year and like other sensible retirees, sending in my absentee ballot from New Mexico.  A burly fella burst back to the registration table from the voting area.
      "I don't see no Tea Party on there, just Damn Democrats and Rotten Republicans.  Why ain't the Tea Party on the ballot?"
     "Oh, the Tea Party is not an official party, it's....more of a movement," I tried to explain.
      He looked at me like I was the senile one.  "Don't you watch the news?  It's been on TV for months about the Tea party.  I wanna vote the Tea party line."
      I tried again to explain what the tea party was, which was difficult to do because I don't truly understand what it is except that it exploits the anger of the hard working American for the purposes of the rich. 
    "Well, I ain't votin' then," he said and slammed out the door.
     He was the first of many who had misunderstood that the Tea Party was not actually a separate party.  However most of the others voted for someone, even if they didn't know who was for tea and who was not.  "They all lie.  I just close my eyes and pick one," one lady said.
     At the end of the longest 16 hours I ever worked, I thought back to the founders of our nation and their fears of the havoc that voting by the ignorant would bring.  The original restrictions that senators not be elected directly by the people almost sounded right to me.  We are a democracy, but we need to be an informed democracy.  And by informed I don't mean watching the yelping "news" commenentators.  There's still something called NEWSpapers out there which still do their best to explore real issues and the candidates views on them. 
      I'm afraid that when Americans find out that the tea party has pulled the tea bags over their eyes, and that it is really about serving the interests of the the rich who are funding a lot of the nasty lie filled advertisements for their candidates, there will be a real revolution.  Hell has not fury like an American duped.