peppermint pickle

Helen of Troy

2011-09-22T12:17:00.004-05:00

"Loving me kills people, destroys families, causes such grief
you cannot imagine." -Helen, from the tv movie 'Helen of Troy' (2003)

Troy Davis was executed last night.

Cindy Anthony, spent the second half of June and the first half of July, 2008 repeatedly asking to see her granddaughter Caylee. Her daughter! Casey, made up an assortment of reasons why that would not be possible, including her being away with a nanny named Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez (also referred to as "Zanny the Nanny" by Casey).

Troy Davis was executed last night.

On July 13, 2008 George Anthony, Casey's father, received a notice from the USPS to pick up a certified letter at the post office. On July 15, 2008 he went to the post office to retrieve the letter, which informed him that his daughter Casey's car was in a tow yard. When he went to pick up the car, he and the tow yard worker each noted that the car had a strong stench emanating from the trunk and each described the smell as that of "decomposing flesh." When they opened the trunk there was no body, but a bag of trash they determined not to be the source of the smell. When George returned home and told his wife of the discovery, Cindy Anthony did not call her daughter, she called 911.

Troy Davis was executed last night.

Cindy Anthony did not report her daughter, the owner of the car, as missing to police. Instead, she reported her granddaughter Caylee missing and, more importantly, said she "had been missing for 31 days (the last time SHE had seen the child). In her conversation with police she told them, "There is something wrong. I found my daughter's car today and it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car."

Troy Davis was executed last night.

When the original detective investigating the case questioned Casey Anthony, she told him Caylee had been kidnapped by her nanny, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez. Police questioned friends and family; not a single person had ever seen this nanny before—not even once.

She told investigators she worked for Universal Studios. When they took her to the company and asked her to show them to her office, Casey walked them around the campus for a few hours before admitting she "had not worked there for years," even though her family was u der the belief she was still employed there.

Troy Davis was executed last night.

Cash Anthony was arrested on July 16, 2008.

Troy Davis was executed last night.

On August 11, 2008 a meter reader reported seeing a suspicious trash bag in an area of brush not far from Casey Anthony's house. Police told him to call the case's tip line, which he did, but the call was not returned. The next day he called police again and a car was sent to the scene. The police canvassed the area without him, and reported they saw nothing strange in the area. The meter man walked the area again on December 11, 2008 (TWO MONTHS LATER), and called police again. When they arrived they found the partial remains of a child in a torn trash bag. A wider canvas of the area found bones from other body parts scattered around the general area of the discovery. On December 19, 2008 the medical examiner determined the remains to those of Caylee Anthony.

Troy Davis was executed last night.

Hair found in Casey Anthony's trunk was found to match that of samples pulled from Caylee's brush at the Anthony residence.

Forensic evidence proved that "a decomposition event had occurred" in the trunk of Casey Anthony's trunk., where traces of chloroform were also found.

Among other bits of digital evidence pulled from the computer in Casey Anthony's home was evidence of Google searches of the terms "neck breaking", "how to make chloroform", and "death."

The prosecution also showed that the same type of laundry bag, duct tape, and plastic bags discovered at the crime scene were found in the Anthony home.

Cindy Anthony had told investigators her granddaughter's Winnie the Pooh blanket was missing from her bed. This type of blanket was found at the crime scene.

Troy Davis was executed last night.

Casey Anthony's defense team told the judge and jurors their clients was not guilty because Caylee had died accidentally in the family's swimming pool. And that the reason Casey had not reported the death to ANYONE was due to her having a habit of hiding pain as a result of her being sexually assaulted by her father since the age of eight. They provided ZERO proof for the explosive accusation toward her father, and George Anthony's denial of having molested his daughter while he was under oath went unchallenged by Casey's defense team.

Troy Davis was executed last night.

The defense admitted Casey Anthony made up the nanny, Zanieda Hernandez-Fernandez.

Troy Davis was executed last night.

The defense put forward the theory that the meter man had found the remains elsewhere and brought them to the spot of discovery.

Troy Davis was executed last night.

The trial lasted six weeks, and on July 5, 2011, the jury found Casey Anthony not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated manslaughter, and aggravated child abuse. She was, however, found guilty of four misdemeanors associated with her lying to law enforcement officers. The charges were for:

Count Four: The defendant told law enforcement that she was employed at Universal Studios during 2008, pursuant to the investigation of a missing persons report. [source:Wikipedia]

Count Five: The defendant told law enforcement that she had left Caylee at an apartment complex with a babysitter causing law enforcement to pursue the missing babysitter. [source:Wikipedia]

Count Six: The defendant told law enforcement that she informed two "employees" of Universal Studios, Jeff Hopkins and Juliet Lewis, at Universal, of the disappearance of Caylee. [source:Wikipedia]

Count Seven: The defendant told law enforcement that she had received a call and spoke to Caylee on July 15, 2008, causing law enforcement to expend further resources. [source:Wikipedia]

She was sentenced to four years, one year for each count, and a fine of $4,000.

Troy Davis was executed last night.

On July 17, 2008 Casey Anthony walked out of jail a free woman, not quite serving the full term of her due to having time knocked off because of "good behavior."

Troy Davis was executed last night.

There was no physical evidence that tied Troy to the murder of police officer Mark MacPhail. The ballistics expert testifying on behalf of the PROSECUTION stated that "there was no conclusive evidence" that the casing from the bullet that killed Officer MacPhail was fired from the gun associated with Davis, "only a possibility."

Troy Davis was executed last night.

With no physical evidence, the case would turn to eyewitness testimony. Of the nine key eyewitnesses testifying against Troy Davis:

-Seven would recant their testimony for various reasons, including: intimidation, coercion, being misquoted, fatigue and being fed foreknowledge.

-One other, it has been determined, could not have seen the crime committed from the vantage point she claimed based on the poor lighting and distance between herself and the spot where the crime was committed.

-The last of the nine eyewitnesses has been identified by MULTIPLE SOURCES AS THE ACTUAL KILLER of Officer MacPhail.

And yet, at 10:53 pm...

Troy Davis was executed last night.

The Help: Two Takes on America's #1 Movie

2011-08-21T09:50:00.003-05:00

by Arnum Cohran and Sirami Cohran

Editorial Note: I never planned to see the movie The Help. Really, such things do not interest me beyond a bit of ridicule based on what I see in the commercial for them. I can remember literally laughing out loud when I saw the trailer before seeing Thor, of all things.

However, my nephew Arnum, whom I have profound respect for, and with whom I share a pretty similar world view, saw The Help on Friday night against his will, and LOVED it!

I called him on Saturday morning with a question: Would he write a short piece on why he loved the film, if I agreed to immediately go to the cinema, watch The Help, then write a piece on why I hated it? He readily agreed to the terms, and this is the result. We did not have the benefit of seeing each other's work before publication, so this is not in the form of a rebuttal. Just our thoughts on what has become the #1 film in America.

One major warning: ****THERE ARE SPOILERS GALORE****. Other than that,we hope you enjoy our work.

by Arnum Cohran

Every so often, Hollywood makes an attempt to cinematically express the harsh reality of racism and its effects on the African American community, as well as the country as a whole. Great films such as Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Glory, Amistad, Rosewood, Remember the Titans, and countless others have made valiant efforts to capture the realism and depth of what it must have been like to have suffered at the hands of White Superiority. Sadly, all of the above have fallen short in one way or another. In my opinion, this is due to the fact that although Hollywood loves to appear to care about the plight of African Americans, their true goal is to capitalize on the emotional content that this topic effortlessly incites, tugging at the underlying sympathies of many ticket buying moviegoers. In an effort to appease and or soothe the target demographic, they often rely on what many refer to as the “High John the Conqueror” technique, which means that even though by definition, the antagonist in a movie about American racism must be white people, the hero of the story must always be, whether directly or indirectly, a white person.

Sadly, the 2011 movie “The Help” is no different in that respect. It is the sole reason my girlfriend had to drag me kicking and screaming to a theatre in Highland Park, IL to see the film last night. I intentionally mention the location because, for those that don’t know, Highland Park is one of the wealthiest suburban cities in the country. Its residents according to the 2010 census happen to be 91.2% white and 0.18% black. Suffice it to say, we weren’t just the only black people in the theatre, we were also the only non-whites. I remember walking into the theatre thinking to myself, “Even if the movie sucks, this should make for an interesting experience.” As I would soon find out, that was an understatement.

Referring back to the “High John the Conqueror” technique I mentioned earlier, “The Help” proves the old adage “It’s not what you do, but how you do it.” If you are going to make some random white person emerge from a sea of racism to stand up for the plight of oppressed African Americans in the old Jim Crow south, at least respect our intelligence enough to show how that might be possible. Basing the movie around the premise of white children being groomed into racism while simultaneously being raised by black women seems to fit the bill, at least in my opinion. My limited knowledge of that era in our history leads me to believe in the mere possibility (however improbable) of that sort of moral conflict.

Speaking of morality, or the lack there of, the movie depicts the behaviors and views of citizens in an openly racist society quite accurately. So much so, that it nearly obliterates the unbelievably prevalent myth that racism in America is on a rapid decline. Although the movie takes place in the Old South, the inhumane, disgusting and morally depraved behaviors portrayed in the movie seem all too familiar. We see them every day. Not only do we see them, not only are we affected by them, but we are often tormented by the fact that people go out of their way to convince themselves and others that they don’t understand what’s wrong with this type of behavior. People who display these attributes often rationalize and pretend not to be unscrupulous to the point where eventually, they become convinced.

“The Help” does an amazing job of forcing the aforementioned disillusions into non-existence. When the movie ended, we sat and watched the people around us in the theater, and could not believe what we saw. As the credits rolled, no one moved. They just sat there, looking straight ahead. People who had come in groups weren’t even speaking to each other. It was like they were under some sort of trance. If I were to guess what they must have been thinking, I would start by assuming that whatever it was, they were ALL thinking it. I believe that the movie had done such a good job of showing the TRUE face of racism, and that many of my fellow moviegoers were seeing their own behaviors, as well as those of their communities, unabridged, for the first time.

Now, by no means am I saying that all white people are racist, or that they are all monsters. What I AM saying is that racism is far more prevalent than most Americans like to admit, and I am also saying that this fact is and has been well known by non-white Americans for quite some time. The inconvenient truth is that racism is woven into the very fabric of our great nation, and if anything is ever going to be done to alleviate it (which every American I know will vow means a great deal to them), we must first be able to properly identify what racism truly is. In my opinion, “The Help” does a superb job of this, while being simultaneously entertaining. I hope that this movie serves as one of many catalysts for “The Help” needed to push our society closer and closer to the dream had by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., rather than the pretend version we have today.

by Sirami Cohran

There are only a few films I knew I would hate before watching one frame of the film: Birth of Nation, Gone with the Wind, Madea’s What-What Extravaganza. What leads me to watch such films is their supposed sense of having a “wider cultural importance.” In each instance, I walked away from the viewing unchanged in my original opinion.

On Saturday, The Help joined their number.

I could easily rip to shreds the film’s historically inaccurate—or should I say, purposeful obfuscation—of Jim Crow-era Mississippi, which I found doubly-vexing, considering I am the son of two Civil Rights pioneers and a student of History. Instead, I will try not to impose the gravity of what surrounds the movie’s place in time, and just take apart what I saw in the film, itself.

The Help, as it’s press release states, is described as:

“A look at what happens when a southern town's unspoken code of rules and behavior is shattered by three courageous women who strike up an unlikely friendship.”

To start, I was led to believe I would be seeing “three” courageous women in this film. What I saw were many courageous women, in excess of 30, and even a few courageous men, but not the three the filmmaker promised.

Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer play two Black maids, Aibileen and Minny, who work for seemingly middle-class White families in early-1960’s Jackson, Mississippi. They, and others who toil in their trade, deal with a multitude of every day indignities, threats, tasks and challenges, all while never being elevated beyond the status of an afterthought in the minds of the families they care for.

Emma Stone plays Skeeter, a White, southern society girl who returns home college determined to become a writer, is forced by a NewYork publisher to “send her something fresh,” so decides to document the plight of the maids that populate the same space of her social class, without the benefit of basic human consideration.

And so we are off on an adventure.

Problem being that, while I clearly understand the bravery that Aibileen and Minny display—waking up Black in the South is still courageous in 2011—by agreeing to risk their very lives, and the lives of their families, to speak out about the injustices they encounter on a daily basis, I am left with an absolute blank as to what Skeeter does that is praised by those in the film and you, the real-life public, that can be remotely considered courageous?

Here is a list of opportunities Skeeter had to display courage, and failed:

When she asked her parents what happened to her own beloved maid, they tell her an obvious lie. She presses the issue a bit, but then leaves the room instead of searching for an answer she wants to know.
When attending the society bridge game, she hears a proposal to make all White homes have a toilet in them for exclusive use by the Help (thus the title), and directly from the creator of the proposals mouth. Does she shout her down? Does she vigorously, or even mildly, debate the insanity of the issue? No, on both accounts, she makes a glancing remark then continues on with her game.
When asked at a Society meeting, why she is stalling on doing what was asked of her, she stands up and does not have the courage to say what is really in her heart, instead promising to follow through and get it done.
She is forced to go on dates, by her friends and her mother, that she has no interest in going on. Yes, she walked out, but she also showed up before she walked out.
Seemingly every opportunity, great and small, to show courage and fortitude by Skeeter is, instead, passed up.
Even the book she writes, published as a tome authored “by Anonymous,” allows her to remain in the shadows amongst all, save a very select number of people who have deeply personal stories written about them in the book. Yes, I know her name could not be on the cover because it would have threatened the lives of the maids who shared their stories. Yet, I can’t help but feel it to be another example of Skeeter’s willingness to never confront anything!

Played against the two women who, again, routinely risk their lives, and the lives of their families, to meet with her, Skeeter’s cowardice is magnified. To believe Skeeter is courageous, is to believe there are different types of courage—and I don’t believe that to be the case.

I believe it courageous to be an Societal pariah and yet, not move away and take on the most popular woman in town, as Celie Foote did.

I believe it courageous to continue to try to have children when your body rejects them, and quietly and poignantly keep your suffering to yourself, as Celia Foote did.

I believe it courageous to try to organize a group of your friends to try an change a system that oppresses you, as Aibileen and Minny did with other maids.

I believe it courageous to lead an economic boycott against Jim Crow merchants, as Medgar Evers did.

I believe it courageous to take the side of righteousness, even against family, when it is presented to you, as Holly’s mother did.

I believe it courageous to pass information about organizing in the segregated South on to members of another race, as Henry the Waiter did.

I believe it courageous to take a one in a million chance at providing your children with the best possible future (this time by attempting to send them to college), no matter how wrongheaded, as the maid who took the ring did.

I believe uplifting the earthly lives and giving purpose to a community, while under the threat of lynching, is courageous, as did Preacher Green.

I believe it courageous to face the certainty of your mortality while battling cancer, with grace and without complaint, as did Skeeter’s mother—an otherwise unsympathetic figure.

And I certainly believe all those Black people in the background, who decided not to flee north, instead choosing to stand their ground while living amidst terrorists, were courageaous.

All of this courage was swirling around Skeeter, yet her contribution to the ‘Courage Pot’ was to document it... and secretly.

Even after the story is resolved and the book has been published and the villainess has been rebuffed and the marriages have been strengthened and the stereotypical abusive Black man has been put out to pasture and, as required, Kennedy’s funeral has been relived and the mother has come around to see the quality of the daughter and the maids are m=now being fed by their employers and the church has said, “Amen,” and the older people have faced their demons and come to grips with the folly of the ways and daylight has come and he wants to go home. After all this, Skeeter is yet given another opportunity to be brave.

Momma: I want to buy you some new clothes for New York.

Skeeter: How did you find out?

Momma: I’m a mother, and your publisher called.

Skeeter: But you have cancer and are dying.

Momma: This little ol’ cancer? I’ll be okay.

Skeeter: That works for me, let’s start at Macy’s…

Then again (after she has already told her mother she has decided to go to New York)

Aibileen and Minny: You are going to do great in New York.

Skeeter: I’m not going.

A & M: Why?

Skeeter: I can’t leave you two. After all you risked for me; there are bound to be nasty blowback as a result of the book. You could be killed!

A & M: We will be fine.

Skeeter: Works for me, can you give me a ride to the airport?

Never has the lead character of a movie been given so many opportunities to shine and come up empty. If this were and Indiana Jones film, our hero would have contracted gout on the plane and died of measles during the opening credits.

I get this movie and, more importantly, I get why it works. Every 6-8 years Hollywood decided to discuss the undiscussable: RACE. Sometimes it is done in a profound manner (To Kill a Mockingbird, Do the Right Thing, In the Heat of the Night); sometimes in a decent fashion (Crash, Imitation of Life, Finding Forrester); sometimes it's done tragically (Dangerous Minds, Lakeview Terrace, Obsessed). Regardless of quality, each time one of these films is put out, their importance is discussed widely because our society is yet again presented with an opportunity to discuss the Race Issue. Which is never done in any meaningful way.

I have never understood this phenomenon, as I discuss and am aware of Race in all things. That is not to say I see racism in all things, but being a Black man requires, for purposes of survival, I see things from more points of view than my own. And since I was not raised by cowards, nor raised to be a coward, I discuss all manner of things with everyone I know, Race included. I have never required popular culture to ignite that in me, though I understand my upbringing and life experiences to be unique.

My issue with The Help is not that it is an inferior movie about Race. My problem is that it is an inferior story, which means it had no opportunity to be anything other than an inferior movie, full stop. So by definition, since it is not good film, it cannot be an important film.

And that is my take on The Help.

(As an aside, should you want to see the companion film to The Help, which follows what these “Society Women’s” husbands where doing during their bridge games, please rent Mississippi Burning)

Hand Job

2011-08-10T23:21:00.006-05:00

Everything written in this article is based on economic information gathered on Wednesday, August 10, 2011. All sources for claims made in the article have been hyperlinked for substantiation purposes.

The President is talking about job creation.

The Speaker of the House is talking about job creation.

The Senate Majority is talking about job creation.

Your Mayors, Governors and local governments are talking about job creation.

The reality, my friends, is that they are only talking about it. More jobs are not going to be created in the foreseeable future. I have the proof that will make you second guess your desire to spend money on that Career Coach, drop $40,000-100,000 on going back to school to "be better equipped for the job market," or plan any aggressive move to "get your name out there" in this market.

Regardless of what everyone else is saying about bringing jobs back to America, the reality is ...those jobs which have left, and are gone permanently. How do I know? Read on...

I never rely on what media says about anything to make my mind up, so screw those links I laid out before. Here is what I have been monitoring to make such a bold statement.

Monster

Monster.com is one of the Top 20 most visited destinations on the web, out of over 100,000,000 sites. It is the second most visited job site in America.

So how has Monster been performing in this wonderful, "everyone who is important is talking about jobs" environment?

Their stock price, due to the jobs outlook, has dropped exactly 50% since the beginning of May 2011, or more plainly, the last 3 months. The market snapped another 10% off the online job center in Wednesday's trading. Does that sound like insiders are thinking a furious crush of jobs are about to be thrown the public's way? I don't think so either?

To compound the problem, Manpower, the largest temporary staff solutions provider? employer in the world, is down 45% since the start of May, or, more plainly, in the last three months. Does that sound like great things are in the offing for new job creation? I don' t think so, either.

By watching these two companies, and using them as metrics for the future, it is not hard to surmise, jobs are not in the plans for America's near future. Sorry to break it to you, but as Levar Burton used to say on Saturday mornings: "Knowing is half the battle."

Plan accordingly.

Bull(sh*t) Market

2011-08-09T21:16:00.009-05:00

Of note: I am writing this after the close of the bell on Tuesday, August 9, 2011. Therefore, any mention of stock price, metal price or index performance is in relation to the close of business on this day. All highlighted text are hyperlinks to my sources, so feel free to click through for proof of what I am saying. Other than that, I stand by everything you will read in the following article.

This afternoon, in a rally that started 35 minutes before the closing bell, the Dow Jones industrial average closed up 429 points, to end the day at 11,239. And while the world stood up and cheered the magnificent run-up to end the session - and 1,000+ negative swing over the last few trading days - I thought it the worst possible thing that could have ever happened in an uncertain investment environment. Here's why:

The Bizarre

The responsibility for rally lie solely in the lap of the Federal Reserve, whose chairman, Ben Bernanke, made a nationally televised statement centered around two points:

1. The economy is in worse condition that they, the Fed, previously thought.

2. The have seen fit to keep interest rates, for financial institution borrowing, stagnant for the next couple of years.

On point one: The sole job of the Fed is to manage the money supply, ie watch the economy. Nobody in the world has more adept men and women in their job to do just this task. Chairman Bernanke is one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject of economics during the Great Depression. So if he, and they, are telling you that they are in new, unexplored territory, then you are in new, unexplored territory.

On point two: The Fed, which historically (before 2007) addressed the issue of interest rate adjustments once per quarter, has usurped that process by announcing that the rate for institutional borrowing will remain near 0% until at least 2013. In the past, traders had stood breathlessly awaiting the word of the chairman of the Fed on that one Tuesday per quarter where he would announce a rate increase (bad for markets), or decrease (great for markets). The actions of the chairman today were indeed bold and, perhaps, necessary to stave off a market implosion. However, he shot the entire load on this one announcement. There is literally nothing else left in the Monetary Policy bag of tricks to counter whatever roadblock is put in the path to economic recovery later on. This is vastly important to remember, but more on that later.

On a day when markets supposedly "rallied," GOLD closed higher - and not by a little bit. Gold is the place money goes when it is worried about the future. That is why Gold, that closed above $1700 for the second day in a row, has risen 132% since the day President Barack Obama was elected. Don't you find that a strange occurrence during a "rally?"

Here is more bizarre for you: Where does money go to hide in time of uncertainty? Switzerland. The Swiss Franc rose another 2.2% against the U.S. Dollar today, to continue it's steady climb toward parity to the Euro (or death to the Eurozone, should that happen). Why all the interest in Swiss Francs? Because in war and peace, in good times and bad, Swiss banks make good on all accounts; always have, always will. But why, you ask, would this happen during a "rally?"

More bizarre for you: Oil fell nearly 3% on the day, which allowed for the most bizarre news of the day. Exxon, as a result of the oil dip, lost market value at the same time the market darling, Apple, was shooting up. Apple would overtake the energy giant to become the World's Most Valuable Company, if only for a brief moment before close. Now help me understand how, in the midst of a Global Depression, with tightening credit, and massive job loss, and Austerity measures being put in place in every country in the Western world, a consumer products company (Apple) overtakes and energy giant (Exxon) in market cap? IPhone 5, my ass! Yes, Apple makes much desired products. Yes, they have the most anticipated product of 2011 hitting shelves sometime in the next six weeks. But, no, people will not have the money (or should i say "the available credit" to make the splurge. Some will, but I am certain many won't, if only because they can't. Anyone sitting on Apple shares will be crying for mercy come October. $374 will look more like $275, or even $249 (since Apple likes to end prices with nines), but more on this later.

A Few Major Companies Peek Into the Future

GM - They of the Biggest Car Company in this, or any Universe, has announced their doubts about hitting their year-end target for auto sales in the United States. Now that is a pretty odd announcement to make before your brand spanking new 2012 models hit the showrooms later this month. And even before all those great rebates and sales marketing blitzes to clear out the 2011 models have taken place.

What does GM know that the market doesn't? They know that even if you: like the car, love the car, want the car, the bank is not going to approve your loan without a substantial down payment (which you do not have), or a stratospheric credit score (which you also do not have). Banks know you do not have these requirements because if you did have them, you would not be buying a GM vehicle. That is not a joke, and was not meant to be a putdown. It was merely intended to convey the thinking behind the determination made to refuse the vast majority of loan applications that will cross their desk this Autumn. Believe it!

Fossil - The watch company that makes FOSSIL, MICHELE, RELIC, ZODIAC, ADIDAS, BURBERRY, DIESEL, DKNY, EMPORIO ARMANI, MARC BY MARC JACOBS and MICHAEL Michael Kors watches, announced that it will be coming up short this year, and shares promptly dropped 12.5%. What does Fossil know that the market doesn't?

They know that purchase orders for 4th Quarter, far and away the busiest time of the year for retailers, are trickling in this time of year, and the ordering is clearly lighter than in years past. Normally a store can write an order and have it filled within 30 days. However, the orders for 4th Quarter are so large, Fossil needs more lead time to make the product, so they require orders to be turned in by mid-July or mid-August, for delivery at the beginning of November. This year's orders must look mighty bleak for them to come out mid-year and say, "we ain't gonna make our number." But, that is exactly what they did.

Bank of America - Yes, that Bank of America. The one that nearly every person on the West Coast has an account with. Bank of America has lost half of it's market value in the last 4.5 months. That is a loss of $77,000,000,000.00 (with a "b") in four months, and oh so quietly has tis taken place. Raise your hand if you knew they are actively being sued by multiple partied to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. It is not a question of if they are going to lose, but how much the company will end up paying in damages. So the Big Five will become the Big Four, and possibly before next Summer. Doesn't seem like a good thing for the market's long term outlook.

Europe in Crisis

I have hollered about the PIIGS countries long enough, so you should be well aware of that problem be now. I will only say, if it weren't for the Arab Spring, you could look at a heat map of all the rioting in non-Islamic countries, and my case would be made. Austerity is not going down too smoothly in Europe.

There are two major stories that have come out in the last week that have not been covered by the American Press, and so here they are:

1. Italian banks, in a move to make themselves more handsome for bailout funds from the EU, have openly stated their intent to give fewer loans in the foreseeable future. That will directly impact the cost of everything at all of the world's favorite luxury goods makers. And right before 4th Quarter production runs begin. Ouch!

1.1. France, the main motor behind the Greek loans just one month ago, is now in the crosshairs for a Rating downgrade. There is a critical need for the government there to reduce their spending through passing Austerity legislation. This would show the EU that they were serious about their debt issue and, perhaps, qualify them for immediate loan assistance from the European Union. One problem: the French don't play that shit. The last time someone tried to thrust Austerity on the French, via "let them eat cake," her head wound up in a bucket. This, though necessary, will not be easy. So it cannot be good for the long term health of the market.

2. Only two (2) traditionally White Western countries are creditors at the moment. Wow, can you repeat that? Yes, I can. Only two (2) traditionally White Western counties are creditors right now.

Only the United Kingdom, which is on the Great Britain Pound, not the Euro, and Germany, which is everyone in the Euro zone is indebted to, are creditor nations in the Western world, at the moment. All of the rest of the European Union and the Americas are indebted to Asian countries (specifically Hong Kong, China and Japan). The Old Boys Club way of settling repayment "issues" out of the public eye is over! There is no more back room dealing to be done; things will not be done publicly, regardless of how embarrassing it may be.

China has already said they are not buying any US Treasury Bonds until they are backed by something other than "good faith." They want assets, and that poses a problem because I am not sure America has any assets. I am serious.

The United States

Which brings us back to the Untied States. The U.S. Credit downgrade was a major embarrassment to the political class, characterized by their flummoxed, rambling, uncoordinated and incoherent response to the news. The one unifying theme that both sides of the political aisle coalesced around was, the Super Congress being put together to look for further deficit reducing implementation strategies to bring the budget more in line. This is exactly why the more the investment community looks into what will come out of this Super Congress, the more uncertain, and unpalatable, the market's future become.

Here are a few factoids you can feel free to bank away:

There will be 12 members on this special committee. Yes, we elected 635 members to Congress to represent us (535 House of Representatives, 100 Senators), but the future of our country will be decided by only 12 members of that body - less than 2.5% of the total - and their decisions will be binding.

The findings, defining up t0 $1,500,000,000,000.00 (that's trillion with a "t!"), must be made public on November 23, 2011. For those keeping score at home, that is the day before Thanksgiving. But more importantly, two days before Black Friday, the most important shopping day of the entire American calendar year. I can't think of a better idea than releasing the most catastrophic slashes, sure to impact every soul in the country, in the nation's history, the day before everyone is meant to go out and spend all the money they do not have. Doesn't sound good for the market, does it. But wait, there is more...

After the Super Congress's determinations are made public the day before Thanksgiving, the law states that they must be voted on by, you guessed it, December 23, 2011 (since Congress does not sit on Christmas Eve or Christmas). So then these massive cuts will be made into law just in time to make it under the Christmas tree of every American, young and old. Historically, the last Saturday before Christmas is the second busiest day on the American shopping calendar. Though, since this year Christmas falls on a Sunday, that will most likely fall to the Friday before Christmas (American store usually close early on Christmas Eve, and I say "usually" with great hesitancy). So what is the date of the Friday before Christmas this year? Yeah, December 23rd. Do you think that bodes well for the market? For anyone? I don't either. But wait, there is still more...

If the Congress decides that they are afraid to vote the recommendations of the Super Congress into law - perhaps because it will be political suicide to have your name attached to this - and so vote them down, or decide not to vote at all, an automatic across-the-board cut of $1,200,000,000,000.00 (with a "t") will go into effect. So it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. Austerity is coming to a Christmas tree near you this holiday season. Which can't be good for the markets, can it?

On a side note, Max Baucus and John Kerry were just named to the Commission, so Democrats can forget it! 75-90% of the cuts will come from your side of the aisle. I'm serious.

In Closing, and Back to That Big "Rally" on Tuesday

The run up to a +429 point win for the Dow took all of 35 minutes. It was done with the full knowledge of everything I just posted ...by a few people. And those people just manipulated the market up so that they might get rid of a few of their more questionable investments. And now that this problem has been solved for those few, what is in store for the rest of us? Investors are not stupid, and they will be up all night, just like me, putting together this puzzle i have just laid out for you. When they walk into work tomorrow (Wednesday) things are going to be crazy!

That fake 400+ point rally has to disappear. So I will share with you that, the worst single day drop in the Dow Jones' history was on September 29, 2008, when it fell by -778 points. Due to the faux run-up on Tuesday afternoon, that number will be eclipsed sometime in the next 8 sessions, or between Wednesday, August 10, 2011 and Thursday, August 18, 2011.

Hold on to your hat.

The Final Score . . .

2010-01-28T09:07:00.003-06:00

The Telethon: A Photo Essay

2010-01-26T10:54:00.007-06:00

Dear America,

I watched the Hope for Haiti telethon the other night.

The funds will go to rebuild schools . . .

Rebuild the commercial buildings destroyed due to neglect and poor building standards . . .

Hopefully the Arts can be rebuilt as well . . .

So many have died in these ruins . . .

Tens of thousands of homes sit abandoned, in unlivable condition . . .

While so many of us live a homeless existence . . .

Thank You for your efforts on behalf of the afflicted in Haiti.

What about us?

Yours Truly,

Detroit, Michigan

ps. All images taken inside the city limits of Detroit, Michigan.

The "Right" Kind of Populism

2010-01-26T09:00:00.006-06:00

Last week, in light of the stunning loss of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts, I pointed out the two forks in the road for Democrats in general and President Obama, specifically.

The left fork led them down the path of Progressive politics, which is the platform he, and they, ran on during the historic 2008 election. This would have them focusing on Job creation through domestic infrastructure improvements, a 6 month moratorium on foreclosures, creation of a federal loan modification agency, launching investigations into how and who crashed the financial system in 2008, tearing up the Health Insurance bill and forcing through a Health Care bill that covers every American, and embracing direct government lending to small businesses to get the economy rolling.

Exit polling from Massachusetts showed voters were displeased with the President and Democrats because they were not being Progressive enough, not because of spending.

This seems like a lot, but President Lyndon Johnson did more, and in less time.

The other, right, fork led down the path pocked with the footsteps of Bill Clinton. This fork led to governing from under the desk in the Oval Office, embracing the ideology of the Right in hopes of squelching the criticism from the Conservative media.

President Obama, as I thought he would, has take his first, Jesse Owens-sized leap down the path on the right.

In announcing a $400+ billion DOMESTIC spending cut, President Obama has embraced the three-headed dragon of Conservative policy. And resoundingly so. The Conservative credenda requires:

Cutting government spending on Americans. It is so easy to call it "domestic," but in fact, all things domestic have to do with Americans. The "Domestic Spending" argument from the Right has been code language for "Americans have too many services," though we rank nearly last among our Western counterparts in nearly every category.
Not touching Defense Spending. This is important for the right because this is where they all go to die, or retire, or go after they retire from politics. The privatized militias and defense contractors are all run by, not just Republicans, but hyper-Neo Conservative Republicans, the Rightest of the Right. There is never, EVER any fat to be skimmed away from this part of the budget, though it comprises nearly 50% of the entire Federal expenditure each year. Obama chose to leave these in the category of "hands off" in his cutting.
Balancing the Budget. This is the most oft-repeated phrase you will hear from the Right. the problem is, they do not believe in it, do not pursue it when in power and only make it a platform when they are thrown out of office after going on spending sprees that would make Imelda Marcos blush. Ronald Reagan, the deity himself, said (while he was in office, of course) "deficits don't matter." This of course while he was busy spending more money than all 6 Presidents before him, including some on illegal weapons deals that were part of Iran-Contra. George W. Bush put the country in a debt box from which the country could not possibly emerge, but now, after 8 years of silence while putting the tab for two wars off the books, it's time to balance the budget. The purpose of the Domestic cuts by President Obama is to meet this measure.

So he's running to the Right, and, barring a shocking, 180 degree directional shift during his State of the Union speech, look for Democrats to fall in lock-step.

I wondered what he would be able to say from the pulpit on Wednesday night, with his first year being so full of fluff ("concerns, conviction . . .the emotional kind, sympathizing and being clear") and dander (Heath Care? Murder at a yet-to-be-closed Gitmo? Afghanistan? Pakistan drone escalation? Iraq continues? No Climate legislation? No Green Jobs? Bonus Scandals? Resurgence of the opposition party? 10% Unemployment? Failed Mortgage Relief programs? Monster Banks? Bankrupt Municipalities? Massive Trade Deficits? Blanket Immunity for CIA? Prosecuting Whistle-blowers? Loss of 2 Governors and Ted Kennedy's Senate Seat? Rise of the Tea-Baggers?)? I guess the answer comes in the form of this announcement.

While watching the speech on Wednesday, expect the Democrats to give standing ovations for nearly everything the President says. And though the last time he spoke to Congress he was called a "liar" mid-speech, when President Obama announces the Domestic Spending Freeze, expect the Republicans to get out of their chairs to take their two hands off the neck of Congressional legislative pipeline, and applaud this "Right" kind of populism.

A Most Uncomfortable Moment

2010-01-24T07:48:00.004-06:00

This coming Wednesday, January 27, 2010, at approximately 8pm EST, President Obama will stand at a podium to deliver his 1st State of the Union Speech to the nation. The irony of the timing could not be more pronounced.

For on that very day another address will probably steal the the President's thunder. Steve Jobs is expected to use his highly-anticipated early afternoon talk to unveil the latest in a string of innovative, revolutionary Apple products, the iTablet, which will dominate the consumer electronic category, breathing life into a dormant economy. . . which is a bit more than anyone expects will come from the pulpit in the evening.

But back to the President and his speech.

The State of the Union proceedings are full of customs, with attendance, seating arrangements and even the first line of the President's speech, already laid out. And therein lies the rub.

This will perhaps be the most uncomfortable State of the Union in our nations history. Since the State of the Union was not read aloud by a President from 1801 to 1923, instead being delivered in written text to Congress, there was no SOTU address preceding the Civil War, which would have been the only time I can imagine being as uncomfortable.

The problem is not in what the President will say after all the formalities are covered, it's everything up to that point.

The President has to stand in front of a seated Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice-President Joe Biden. While Biden remains a fairly popular figure with the public, he has, much to everyone's surprise, been pushed far into the background during this first year of the Obama Administration. Speaker Pelosi,on the other hand, has one of the lowest public approval ratings of any person to hold that position. And she is the person who must call the chamber to order.

Next, we must then consider that both the entire House and Senate will be seated before the President. This at a time when these members Congress are under attack (rightfully) by members of their own party.

Democrats are only now awakening to the wrath of the Progressive members of the party, who are seizing on the loss of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts this week, to redirect their political contributions and assail the parties actions over the past 12 months in print and in the blogosphere.

Republicans are grappling with how to appease the Teabagger element of it's party, who have already won seats in the Senate and Governors mansions across the country, by running it's candidates against other Republicans.

Congress, as a whole, is polling far worse than even Speaker Pelosi.

Seated in front of the Congress will be members of the Presidential Cabinet. Among their number will be the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The public dismay with two costly and increasingly deadly wars (one of which we just escalated), allegations of murder at Gitmo, military contractor misconduct (some criminal), ballooning budgets (46% of the total national budget) and the increasingly shocking revelations about CIA actions in regard to secretly run black sites still being run around the globe, have a growing chorus calling for the President to relieve Secretary Gates of his duty, in an effort to seek a needed new direction on these fronts.

And then there are the members of the very first row, the Justices of the Supreme Court. After Thursday's ruling in favor of granting 1st Amendment Rights to corporations, this will be the first time in the television era where these nine men and women will be more than "the people people in black." Without getting into the details of the decision itself, the public outcry over the ruling has been rancorous and, with each day giving understanding of it's impact, fearful.

Then there's President Obama, who has spent a year throwing away nearly every bit of the enormous political capital he was swept into office with in his efforts to "make friends" with legislators who have: questioned his citizenship, distributed political fliers with racist themes about himself and members of his family, called him a liar ON THE FLOOR OF CONGRESS ON NATIONAL TELEVISION, refused Cabinet positions he has offered, stalled every piece of legislation he has asked for from the Congress and spent the summer starting and stoking fears of his creating "Death panels" that would kill their family members.

In the 1st year in office, no President has ever seen a larger drop in the public approval rating. Made more remarkable because, no President in the modern era has ever entered the Oval Office with higher approval ratings than Barrack Obama.

President Obama's signature piece of legislation, the Health Care reform that became the Health Insurance reform Bill, is hugely unpopular and has still not reached his desk. This despite the President setting a deadline of early-August 2009, then October, then Christmas and lastly, before his State of the Union speech.

With Congress, at the President's direction, working on appeasing the minority opposition party, every other piece of important legislation had to be tabled in an effort to "get things done" on Health Care. And things have not "got done."

So it is in this environment, with the specter of; 10.5% (officially, though some estimates are now at 18.9%) Unemployment, Wall Street Holding the country's credit system hostage, record foreclosure, record evictions, municipal and state governments cutting back on critical services due to financial struggles (to the point of California holding a state-run garage sale) and withering American industries, from automobiles to insurance to retailers, hanging over his head, the President is required by protocol, to deliver this as the first line of his speech:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the State of the Union is strong."

Regardless of how eloquent or soaring the speech is from that point, this requirement will seem detached from the realities for many in the country, and make for a most uncomfortable moment.

Three Party System

2010-01-22T09:31:00.011-06:00

As a 17 year-old, I can distinctly remember sitting in the cinema, watching the curtains part (they used to do that, you know) and escaping into the fantastical world of RoboCop for two hours.

At the time, RoboCop was one of my favorite movies, and though I have only seen the original one time, it was such a visceral experience, I still maintain almost complete recall of it's story.

In those younger days of mine, the takeaway from the movie was an awesome, kick ass police officer who, when challenged, BLEW SHIT UP! Bank shots off metal plates to save a witness, bionic arm smacks that sent bad guys 200 feet into the air and an internal laser-sight, which allowed for perfect targeting with each shot. I was a teenage boy, and nothing could have been a better source of escape than an invulnerable half-human super robot crime-fighter. Pathetic, eh?

Now I am much older and have not thought of the movie for years. Yet, yesterday, upon hearing the Supreme Court decision ruling in favor of corporations being granted 1st amendment rights, right after thinking, "OH MY GOD, NO!," my thoughts travelled back to RoboCop, only from a different perspective.

I thought about the corporation in the film, Omni Consumer Products, and how the Mayor of Detroit (where the corporation is located) was, literally, always at their headquarters. In every scene where the CEO of OCP needed to speak to the Mayor, he would take an elevator, walk into another room, or just spin around in his chair and, abracadabra, there he was.

Additionally, the Mayor of Detroit not only does exactly what the CEO of Omni Consumer Products tells him, when in trouble, he actually seeks council from the company as well.

This, in my younger years, slipped by me as outlandish and impossible. Chief Justice Roberts and four other Justices just made this, not a probability, but an eventuality.

In giving corporations the legal right to directly finance political campaigns, much like the life of Jesus of Nazareth, life in America can henceforth be known as B.D. (before decision) and A.D. (after decision).

If you feel this is an overreach, here are 10 questions you need to ask yourself before telling me I am crazy.

10. Walmart will chart $405,300,000,000 (that's Billion!) in sales by the time the fiscal year comes to a close at the end of this month. That's $1.2 billion a day, $50.5 million an hour (on a 24 hr sched.) and $842,070 per minute.

The maximum allowable donation an individual can give a candidate is $2300 per election contest (you can give $2300 for primary, then another $2300 for a General).

Walmart makes $2300 every 0.17 of a SECOND (as in $14,030 per full second).

For a person making $75,000 per year, this is the equivalent of donating ONE PENNY of your salary each year.

How do you think any individual, or group of donors, will be able to compete with that?

9. The hardest thing to do for any political candidate, is getting a crowd together. That is why President Obama's run for the White House was so amazing. His ability to pull in crowds, was the main reason media could not overlook his candidacy. Same with all the (wrong-headed) "buzz" about Sarah Palin's book tour.

If the company you are working at calls a "meeting" at which a political candidate is going to speak, what percentage of the people who work in your office are going to be no-shows? EXACTLY!

8. What will stop corporations from getting a bailout every time they have a poor quarter?

7. Since it is now legal to directly finance elections, what will stop your company from sending you, or hiring a workforce, to distribute campaign literature, knock on doors, drive people to the polls and work the phones, on behalf of their candidate?

6. What is to stop companies from REQUIRING you have a Voter Registration Card as a condition of employment?

5. What is to stop corporations from using their candidates to overturn all the workplaces freedoms we currently take for granted? Sick pay, vacation, cost of living raises, medical benefits, privacy of our records (medical, education and employment), the ability to seek arbitration, severance packages, maternity leave, OSHA standards, workday limits and workplace injuries come to mind.

4. What is to stop, say, Microsoft from getting their legislators to change Eminent Domain laws, then removing every resident from the south side of Chicago, so they can the land cheaply, build a new campus for headquarters, all in the name of "civic beautification?"

3. Is not disposing of toxic materials in the air, water and soil illegal ONLY BECAUSE THE LAW SAYS IT IS? Change the laws and it is no longer illegal, and all you need to change the laws are new legislators.

2. Since all corporations are essentially multi-national now (most certainly the biggest and most powerful are), how can we deny the immediate impact of foreign influence on our political system AND LAWS?

Sony (Japan) says only it's eReader will be allowed in public universities, CitiBank (Saudi Arabia) says only it's credit cards are allowed for LINK payments, Mercedes (Germany) school buses are required in all districts and Nestle (Switzerland) products will be the only approved products for school lunch programs. All mere examples of the limitless possibilities in the offing.

1. Why would your "representative" EVER answer the phone, shake hands or answer your email?

This ruling will make raising money from individuals unnecessary. I foresee, in the very near future, that much like the charitable drives that have invaded the workplace (ie Susan Komen walk and United Way drives), your political contributions will be "suggested" to be done through your place of work.

"Jim Wilson is going to keep our plant open, and he got that government contract for us. You WERE going to give him that money, correct? Why not just write the check out here?"

These are only a few of the most rudimentary questions for those of you, Republican or Democrat, to ask yourself.

Others include:

Why the need for social services? Why would a company want to fire you, then pay for you to "do nothing?"
Why fund schools with government money? This has been in the cards for years. It can be a reality now.
Why allow the Internet to remain a place where ideas (dissent) can be exchanged?
Why not make it harder (impossible) for people to change jobs by claiming humans (and all their accumulated knowledge) as intellectual property? This is already slowly working it's way up the courts.
How can there ever be a reform of any industry when the industries are writing the law?

Here in America, the most progressive of us have long wanted a third party, so as to check the Democrats and Republicans on their back and forth shafting of the taxpayers.

Unfortunately, through the 5-4 decision of the Court, we have just witnessed the birth of that 3rd party. Which in a matter of a few short years, will be the dominant force in American politics . . . and our daily lives.

Post Script:

I have noticed two prominent Republicans, John McCain and Olympia Snowe, out on the stump decrying the actions of this court. They are both two politicians who are on their way out the door and are looking for "legacy points."

When the chips were on the table, at confirmation time for Justices Alito and Roberts, let us see how these two pillars voted (click for enlargement).

As the late, great Bernie Mac put it: NUFF SAID!

Will You Hear Us Now?

2010-01-19T14:23:00.010-06:00

President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel infamously stated, "there is no need to worry about the left." He was talking, of course, about the deafening screams coming from the ordinary citizens who call themselves Democrats, each time a piece of the Healthcare Bill was stripped away to make Republicans happy.

His thinking was, what are Democrats going to do? Vote for a Republican? Stay home and not vote?

Well now that the seat of the most famous Senator on the issue of Healthcare, Democratic Icon Ted Kennedy, has gone to a Republican in today's election, that question has been answered resoundingly in the AFFIRMATIVE!

Make no mistake about it, this is a smack in the face of the Democratic Congress and their overly-mollifying leader, President Obama, of stratospheric proportions. A Republican holding the Senate Seat that was held by Ted Kennedy for over 4 decades, inherited from his brother, Jack, upon taking the Office of the Presidency, is akin to Israel electing a Palestinian to the Presidency. I am not kidding about that either, Massachusetts is on fire tonight.

This election result is that devastating.

A rapid switch to bullying position, with a series of 15 minute prime-time press conferences to explain why he has abandoned his courtship of the do-nothing, stall-everything Republican members of the Congress, and is now forging ahead, with the full support of Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, on a broad and immediate Progressive Agenda.

So now what? There are two roads. I will discuss the least (nearly impossible) likely first.

President Obama could fire the Republican-lite Emanuel as Chief of Staff. Since the COS decides who sees the President and sets the Administration's Agenda, anything other than the resignation of Emanuel will signal a "Stay-the-Course" policy. With new blood in the Office, Obama would gain access to the many (and growing) voices from around the country that been grotesquely disappointed by the President's inaction on many fronts thus far, from jobs to healthcare.

Using the Executive Order as a weapon, Obama could:

Create jobs overnight with the stimulus funds still in the bank.
End "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the Armed Forces.
Close Gitmo.
Redirect money and resources from the two War theaters to Haitian relief efforts.
Open investigations into those responsible for the collapse of the entire world's Financial system.
Ask members of Congress to stay in town until a new, single-payer healthcare bill is passed, and make said bill effective in January 1, 2011, not 2013, as the current bill calls for.
Place a national moratorium on all foreclosure action for 6 months, while your team puts in place a Federally-run mortgage re-negotiation network.

This would cause his (and Congress's) poll numbers to plummet in the short term, as, while many Americans expected such actions after his election in 2008, many are wary of such overt strong-arming these days. But as more Americans start to see jobs return to their communities, neighbors start to share stories of mortgage relief, news reports start to show arrests of those few financially malevolent persons on Wall Street and health clinics begin to reopen in communities across the country, those concerns will give way to broad, firm support for the President's actions.

This, of course, will not happen.

What will happen is, the President will go the route of William Jefferson Clinton, and start to govern EVEN MORE to the Right, as a political survival tool.

When Clinton lost the midterms in 1994, he ran to the Right with warp speed. In his haste to please Republican legislators in the run-up to the 1996 Presidential election, Clinton gutted the "socially irresponsible" Welfare program, decreased unemployment benefits and gave employers the go-ahead to reduce COBRA benefits by two months. The coup-de-grace was his signing into law, the Financial Modernization Act, which was the origin of the Financial collapse of 2008 and, conversely, made each of those reductions in the societal safety net all the more devastating, as more Americans were in need of a helping hand than any time in the last 60 years.

I have already suggested President Obama as Carol Mosley Braun, the last "promising" Senator from Illinois who squandered their national spotlight, only to be roundly defeated in a re-election bid. The threat of Obama irrelevancy is real: President's that serve one term are not the stuff of legend. Just ask Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson. What he does to get a second term, which is now certainly threatened, must be closely watched.

The decisions by Clinton were not just awful, they were dangerous. Fortunately, they were amidst the backdrop of an America in the primacy of of it's financial heft. Should this President choose to go down the same path, which seems likely, the consequences will be incalculable.

Oh, Pat!

2010-01-14T23:51:00.013-06:00

So Pat Robertson says that:

"Haitians freed themselves in the 1700's by making a pact with the Devil, who subsequently helped them defeat the French." And since then (due to the "pact"), have been cursed by one disaster after another."

Well here is the real history of the time period Reverend Pat is talking about.

In the late 18th century, Haiti's Black native population was almost entirely enslaved, though a few were free land-holders. The overwhelming majority of the island was in possession of France, followed by Great Britain, then Spain.

A former slave by the name of Toussaint L'ouverture, who up until 1793 considered himself a French Loyalist, joined the Spanish armed forces in Haiti, because he saw the Spaniards as being the group most likely to free ALL the Island's slaves.

By the end of the year, slavery in all the Spanish territories was abolished. And when Britain sent thousands of reinforcements to the island to protect their "business interests," Haitian emancipation was forcibly put down in every territory the troops took back.

Choosing to hide and rethink his former strategy, L'ouverture was able to, in a few months, organize nearly all the islands 3,800,000 former slaves into a militia. Yes, he was uneducated and lacked an understanding of military strategy, but, as the saying goes, they had more on the line than the opposing forces.

L'ouverture started by routing the Spanish, his former allies, as he saw them as being willing to renegotiate the articles of emancipation, in an effort to keep a part of the Haiti in Spanish hands.

The Spanish defeat was swift and thorough. Within 11 months the Spaniards would lose control of over 85% of their former holdings and spend the following 9 months buying time for rescue ships to pick up the remaining infantrymen, who were allowed to live in peace during their wait, as long they did not pick up arms again.

Next, in 1795, after subduing the Spanish battalions, L'ouverture and his army turned to fight the British. While the ultimate victory over the British army would come, officially, in 1798, the Haitians would need only 13 months to beat back the Brits to the ocean. There were few, if any, British fighting forces anywhere on the island, save a few coastal towns, after 1796.

In 1801, after the Spanish formally surrendered their remaining interests in the island, L'ouveture announced a new Constitution for Haiti. In summation the Constitution:

Abolished Slavery
Made Him Governor of the Haiti for the rest of his life
MADE ROMAN CATHOLICISM THE OFFICIAL RELIGION

Yes, Pat. you read that correctly. Within the founding document of the newly-free Haiti, are articles making the State religion, CATHOLICISM! And TO THIS DAY, 80% of all Haitians consider themselves CATHOLIC.

No voodoo. No devil. No talismans. No blood rituals.

They went to Sunday Mass, celebrated Easter and Christmas, built churches and sent to Rome for members of the clergy. And still do!

There was no "pact with the devil." However there was a "pact" with a young nation by the name of the United States of America.

You see, Pat. One of the Founding Fathers had grown up in the Caribbean Islands. Alexander Hamilton had vivid memories of watching slaves beaten half to death, or crushed and burned in the sugar cane mills that worked around the clock to sate Europe's insatiable appetite for the sweet substance.

His horrific memories of those younger days translated, in 1799, to Hamilton supporting a Trade Agreement between the United States and Haiti. Hamilton, at the time, was the highest ranking economic figure in America, so his support was the difference. The agreement, Hamilton understood, was a crucial first step for a newly-formed country, as he had been part of the diplomatic effort to secure trade just 10 years prior for the brand new U.S. This, and a similar agreement with the British, proved to Haiti's dominant source in it's quest to become economically empowered.

Unfortunately, the Agreement between the countries would be nullified in 1801, with the ascension of a slave-owning member of the Southern Planter -Class, Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton's biggest political rival (at the time. Of course, in time Aaron Burr would come to define "political rivalry."), to the Presidency. The idea of Black self-governance was just too beyond the pale for my distant ancestor to be able to come to grips with.

In the end, Napoleon would mount a furious attack on the island in 1802, and his troops successfully captured L'ouveture. Though, instead of killing the Haitian leader and inflaming the passions of the island's 4 million plus inhabitants, Napoleon suffered him exile.

This would prove disastrous, because with knowledge of L'ouveture being alive, there were frequent uprisings against the French troops and officials living in Haiti.

With France already in terrible economic shape from the infamous Revolution which had ended only a few years before, and with brewing plans for war with Great Britain, Napoleon had few avenues available to him for the purpose of raising the funds needed to raise, outfit, train, ship and pay the number of troops necessary to secure Haiti from insurrection, properly.

As a matter of fact, he had exactly one option in his pocket, so he reached for it.

Napoleon would, in the Autumn of 1802, instruct his Treasury Minister to raise funds by selling off their "useless" western holdings. The "western holdings" sale was finalized in the Spring of 1803.

History, correctly, never refers to it as the "western holdings" sale. Generally it is referred to as "The Louisiana Purchase," which more than doubled the size of the United States and abolished from our lands, the greatest foreign threat to our young nation, thus allowing the U.S. to grow in peace.

That is what I think of, Reverend Pat, when I think of Haiti.

So if you want to take your ball and go home because this particular poor country has not allowed your 'ministries" to make significant inroads with the population, that's fine. Just try not to call a country chockfull of fellow Christians, "heathens" on the way out.

The Mission to Honor A Man's Mission.

2010-01-09T10:17:00.014-06:00

When John Conyers put forth legislation to commemorate the birth date of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a national holiday in 1979, he felt the universally high esteem with which the late Reverend was held would translate to easy passage of the bill. Instead what he got was a dose of reality, in the person of several Congressmen from southern states stonewalling his attempts behind the scenes and on the House floor.

Despite his efforts, the bill would fail passage by 5 votes.

On October 10, 1980, the King Center was granted National Historic Site status by the United States Government. The King Family and the Trustees of the Center used the new designation to wage a furious public relations campaign, targeting the public and private corporations, to engender support for the bill.

Just as the King Center got it's campaign underway, the consortium of southern Congressmen got a new ally in their fight, in the person of the recently-retired U.S. Navy officer, newly elected as Representative for the 1st District of Arizona, John McCain.

Rep. McCain's opposition for the King legislation cannot be overstated, as his coming on board gave the regionally-isolated southerner's argument in the negative, cache. This, much like the Olympia Snowe "bipartisan" health care vote, could now be called "national," not regional, opposition.

Not to be outdone, the King Center countered the move with a new recruit of its own.

In 1981, after getting word of the actions taking place in Congress, and making a confirmation phone call to Dr. King' widow, Coretta Scott King, an artist decided he would not got to sleep until he had come up with a way to support the effort. Stevie Wonder would, in the process of 3 days, write, produce and record the song "Happy Birthday."

The song was crafted as equal parts honorarium and protest, to those that would choose to oppose recognition of a man, Dr. King, who had literally given his life in the effort to bring justice to all those experiencing injustice.

The song was made with no financial consideration, as Wonder literally gave away tens of thousands of copies, but instead purely to get the public behind the movement to break the congressional stalemate. Few people know this to be the reason for the song never being a Billboard chart-topper. Though in London, where the record was exclusively sold (Brits can't vote in the U.S.), the record would rocket to #2 on the charts, and stay there for 5 weeks.

Across the America, while Wonder's "Happy Birthday" was receiving heavy radio rotation, workers canvassed neighborhoods to collect signatures from voters in support of the King holiday. I can recall watching my teacher at Nettlehorst Elementary signing her name on the petition as we were filing into my 6th grade music class.

Mrs. Burns' signature would be joined by another 6,000,000 others, eventually becoming the single most successful (in terms of verifiable signatures) petition campaign in United States history.

By 1982, with the overwhelming majority of Americans in support, the bill would be reintroduced in Congress, pass both Houses easily, and, by late-1983, find it's way to the President's desk.

On November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan, who reversed his staunch opposition in the face of the bill's wide-ranging public support, signed the bill to make Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day a National Federal Holiday, beginning in January 1986.

I wish that were the end of our story, but it ain't.

South Carolina and Arizona refused to recognize the holiday in their states. The latter's Governor, Evan Mechem, with the full-throated support of Representative McCain, leading a well-documented national media campaign to not just refuse to observe the King holiday, but call for other states to join Arizona's stance in snubbing the Civil Rights leader.

It would take 14 years for the two states to join rest of civilization (and the country) in their observation of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday. That same year Utah, a state founded by a man, Joseph Smith Jr., who founded Mormonism, which precluded people of African descent from entering heaven (under ANY circumstance), would officially recognize "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day." For the prior fourteen years it had been known, exclusively in the state of Utah, as "Human Rights Day."

2000 would also bring about the official adoption of "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day" in the great state of Virginia. From 1986 until then, the state had, UNBELIEVABLY, chosen the third Monday of January to celebrate, in this order, "Lee-Jackson-King Day." If those names sound familiar, it's because they are familiar.

Robert Edward Lee and Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson were the two most prominent Generals in the army of the secessionist Southern States in the Civil War. The idea of honoring Dr. King was considered politically untenable in Virginia, so they chose to include these two people who had only a January birth date in common with the man the rest of the nation was choosing to honor at the same time.

So this January, as the nation prepares to honor the memory of a man whose life's work was so much more than the "I Have A Dream" speech, we stand united as a country in saying the work he laid as foundation for our society was relevant, important and worthy of application.

The night before he died, while speaking to a group of striking sanitation (sic. garbage) workers, Dr. King said the following:

"Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation."

Is that not the least possible debt we owe? To carry the torch he brought so far along that difficult road for the betterment of us all? I think so as well.

The "I've Been to the Mountaintop" Speech, in it's entirety:

Looks Good on Paper

2009-12-29T09:59:00.008-06:00

(*ALL PICTURES CAN BE ENLARGED BY CLICKING)

This simple equation, looks this way on paper:

This way in theoretical mock-ups:

This way in application:

And this way after realization:

In August of 1945, for the first, second and only time, nuclear weapons were used in warfare. The formerly thriving cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan were the targeted, with these pictures showcasing the damage done by the two bombs.

This is what I think of when politicians like "DICK" cheney, and others, use the threat of nuclear apocalypse as a scare tactic, when others talk of the uselessness of negotiating with unfriendly nations and the few remaining ultra-war hawks who seek to restart the Cold War with a Missile Defense System.

Most of those that took part in the development of the weapon and the execution of dropping the bomb, became the biggest proponents of disarmament and negotiation, most notably Albert Einstein.

I tend to trust intelligent people on subjects which are beyond my intellectual grasp. Few were, or are, smarter than Einstein, so I am in his camp on this one.

People Know So Much . . .

2009-12-28T13:36:00.008-06:00

Or do they?

I am constantly amazed at how much people "know."

Comment sections on political blogs, sports talk radio callers (and hosts), friends, enemies, co-workers, even those annoying "got a moment for the environment" people, are all rife with (self-identified) lucid observations on any number of topics. "You choose the topic, buddy. I'll do the schooling," seems to be the norm these days.

The most troubling occurrences happen now, during cocktail party season, where we are regaled with one full year's "information" in a matter of minutes or, God forbid, hours.

In my attempts to get to the bottom of the font's well-spring of knowledge on so many topics, the most common response happens to be, "I read the (or several) newspapers every day!" This, I had no idea, was the purest path to scholarship on any and every subject in the known world.

If only my mother had known. She spent an entire afternoon listening to a pitch from an Encyclopedia Salesman, then made payments on the set over the course of a years' time. The many hours I spent in those volumes, traveling to far-away lands, learning of people an cultures long gone, sprinting alongside the big cats of the African Plain as they brought down their prey, copying hieroglyphics to the point of calling myself an expert, visiting the top of every mountain and, conversely, the bottom of every sea. That solid foundation, could easily have been formed by a subscription to the Chicago Tribune? Momma was cheated!

Never mind that those encyclopedias were a supplement to all the children of my family, who were required to read the newspaper, biographies of historical figures, watch Ted Koppel and films that I still have no idea their meaning. The point being, my family stressed, not academic or social excellence, but intellectual excellence -- full stop!

We were taught to learn beyond what is taught, explore beyond the borders of easily-available information and access or develop new tracts of thinking in order to understand the world in which we live.

That said, I'd like to share with you a few things that are not in the newspaper, on the season's hottest cocktail topics. This way you'll either command the flow of the conversation, or feel as nauseated as I when bombarded with Fox News, CNN or MSNBC talking points all night. Enjoy Yo'self:

Health Care Reform

The dominant theme of every gathering I have found myself a part of.

Here is the only thing you need know to know more then everyone else you know.

The bill is H.R. 3590.

Nobody you know has read it, me included, so they cannot know this. I have spent about 6 hours, total, reading the bill but find I have only made it through 25% of the legislation. Which happened to be more than enough for me to find fault with the bill. How anyone can cogently discuss a book without knowing it's title is beyond me.

Bad Human! Bad Human!

The United States Senate

The U.S. Senate was never intended to be the "Voice of the People."

When the constitution was drafted, the House of Representatives was created so that the (then-small) voting pool would have political representation. The short election cycles (two years) were put in place, so as frustration with the actions (or inaction) of said Representatives could be corrected fairly quickly. This is why the House is apportioned according to population. Incidentally, the Electoral Collage is set up the same way for the election of the President.

The Senate was created to serve the monied interests of their home states. This is why Senators were APPOINTED, not elected, for the first 138 years of our nation's existence.

Until the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified in 1911, and put into practice in 1914, members of the Senate were appointed by their local legislatures. This meant anybody, and I mean ANYBODY, could serve as a Senator, provided they met the stringent rule of being over 30 years-old, a resident of the State (at time of swearing in) and be a male (there were even African-American Senators before 1914, but ZERO women).

Since the House was created to "represent the citizenry" and the Senate was a body of unelected officials, beholden only to their monied elite masters back home, which body of government was allowed to make treaties, ratify treaties, approve judges for the bench, appoint federal officers and approves ALL Cabinet Officers to the President (who are essentially the heads of all functions of the government)? If you said anything other than the unelected members of the Senate, you'd be wrong.

There are 100 members in the Senate, of which, 61 are confirmed millionaires (and 7 more that are thought to be millionaires). Senators serve six-year terms and are therefore vested for medical, dental and life insurance for life and receive robust retirement benefits after a period of 5 years, not even one full term.

Lastly, the push to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment is gaining real voice. The hope is to take the voting (accountability) out of the voters hands and put it back "where the Founding Father's intended." This would be laughable, if not for what the American Electorate has allowed and enabled (the systematic dissolution of the American Ideal) over the past 30 years, in the name of "remaining (?) safe."

War (Iraq)

People seem to know so little of the country we invaded on March 20, 2003. The idea of this being a backward, babbling, unsophisticated people plays as a convenient narrative for our going along with the invasion, which has turn the country, literally, upside down.

Had the very Christian President, George W. Bush, said, "America, we are going to bomb the country that God gave to Abraham (Genesis 15:18) and where Daniel heard the voice of God (Daniel 10)," I think it would have been a hard sell.

It is standard corporate jargon to say, "Don't re-invent the wheel." Iraqi's do not have such a problem. For it is was the ingenuity and intelligence within the borders of the of this nation of 31,000,000, that their ancestors actually invented THE wheel. Writing that predates that of the Iraqi people is unknown. Many of the fruits, vegetables and spices that adorn your and my table were developed, hybridized and put in usage for human nutritional consumption sprung from this land.

These are far from a non-modern people. The reason they are not understood in the West has more to do with our having to carve out a culture for our new republic, America. Our country is less than 250 years-old, so the firm idea of what American Culture is has not fully taken hold, we change frequently because we have not yet found the fullness of our identity as of yet (which we will).

Iraq was 250 years-old in 6,422 BC! What we see as primitive, or out-dated, in the Iraqi culture, is really a time-tested culture which has been manicured over the ages at the hands of history's greatest poets, scholars, agrarians, social designers and leaders.

That is not the totality of the picture of Iraq, but to discuss the country without the knowledge of the small few important facts, to me, is OUTRAGEOUS! Depth People.

War (Afghanistan)

There has been a continuous (and ongoing) Civil War waged in Afghanistan for the past 844 years. Yes, sometimes it quiets to a trickle, sometimes it explodes into full fury, but the war has not ceased since it's beginning in 1165!!!

We have, much like the former Soviet Union, just chosen a side on which to fight. When we have "achieved victory," as President Obama has guaranteed recently, the War will continue to be waged by these two massive factions.

Afghanistan is so big in relation to it's number of citizens, to have an understanding of how sparsely populated it is, one needs to imagine searching for an eyelash in a bathtub full of water, with ripples. Throw in the vast cave networks, which were created to avoid the frigid elements in the winter (like Minneapolis's and Indianapolis's walkway networks) and the tub now has bubbles, to boot.

The reason the primary method of attack has been with Drone planes is because the terrain is not conducive to movement on foot (or vehicles, for that matter). It is difficulty in movement which has led to the country not having it's population see tremendous growth in relation to it's size. This development, known since Alexander the Great wrote about the inhospitable nature of the Afghani landscape in 327 B.C. (and where 100% of his military advisers begged him to stop), will prove difficult on our infantries, making it impossible for them to successfully prosecute the war with purpose.

Committing Ground Forces to Afghanistan made, and makes, no sense when weighed in terms of "risk/reward." This is why so many informed persons were thrilled with President Obama's decision to table all the plans for Afghanistan in September, but ultimately dismayed when he forged ahead with the troop increase. The strategy has no chance for success, it only mollifies the war hawks by keeping the wars theater open.

These nuggets, combined with all your previous understanding of these topics, will greatly aid in your deftness or grief, I am sorry to say. It is a great responsibility, knowledge. Just remember the words of Elbert Hubbard:

"The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge."

My Christmas Wish

2009-12-24T12:07:00.005-06:00

After time spent among the cast-offs of their society, treating and healing what ailment's were bought before them, this band of six continued on. Their past professions now meaningless, their past alliances now meaningless. Their past discretions, triumphs, battles, thinking processes all meaningless.

Four fishermen, who had spent much of their life watching the steady pitch and roll of bobbers against a vast blue liquid blanket, would never fish again. The (largely-ignored) exhortations of the middle-aged preacher would no longer be necessary. They walked with Him now.

And he walked . . . and walked . . . and walked. And when his feet found that He had reached a suitable station, the autonomous height of Sinai, Jesus turned to his audience and spake these words:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me." (Matthew 5:3-11)

But he chose not to leave it at a divine blessing, and continued:

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:14-16)

My Christmas wish is that each and every one of you keep the plight of the less fortunate in your hearts and minds throughout the year and ,equally as important, remember the inextinguishable light that is within you is meant to be shared with the rest of humanity.

Merry Christmas

Jobs, Well Done

2009-12-24T08:14:00.007-06:00

Apple Inc. is my choice as Company of the Decade and it's Chief Executive, Steve Jobs, is my CEO of the millennium.

As we entered the 2000's, with the palpable fear of Y2K behind us, the word Apple was still synonymous with fruit in most households. By the end of the decade, a survey of children between the age of 7-9 found 75% of them to think the fruit was named after the company.

Within ten years, the company:

Democratized the audio medium. Before the iPod was launched people listened to CD's, which allowed for 76.5 continuous minutes of listening before requiring a switch. With the iPod, listeners could not only listen to 3 days worth of music without interruption, we could now tote our entire musical library around wherever we were. The iPod also gave audio books their first viable platform, which expanded sales 14 fold during the decade. The same can be said for lectures and podcasts.
iTunes not only changed how we purchase music and how music is distributed, but the device changed the very music we listen to. Before iTunes, artists were required to spend their energies looking for a record label to sign them, support them and, hopefully, distribute their music. iTunes enabled any artists, with the ability to upload their work from a computer, to launch themselves onto the world stage. Many of today's top record producers were discovered by major artists in this very way: think Danger Mouse.
iTunes helped stave off inflation. A compact disc, at the beginning of the decade, cost $13.99-$18.99, depending on where your purchase was made. The iTunes store launched with the price of $0.99 per song, and seven years later has only just sought to raise it's prices. I firmly believe the cost of a compact disc, if I use the movie ticket barometer, would cost roughly $22-$28 today if the iTunes store did not exist.
Changed the aesthetic idea of what consumer products should look like. Before Apple really "got after it" in the desktop PC game, computers were chunky, as all that mattered was performance. The designers and engineers at Apple, the world's most innovative company, made powerful desktop computers also. However, and perhaps as a result of the skepticism of the operating system not running Windows, made their desktop computers visually appealing. The move won the company praise and design awards for each successive product design launched during the decade. Now all PC-makers strive to make visually-pleasing products, not just internal improvements, when bringing products to market.
Changed the way we view media. The opening of the decade saw the mad rush for bigger and bigger televisions, for which to partake in our rapidly expanding home viewing options. Of course the iPod would change that by becoming the most successful movie distribution system in history. Ditto television distribution. They also, for the first time ever, were able to sell music videos, which brought a new revenue stream to record companies, as previously videos were made solely to promote an artist. Think of it for what it is, they sold commercials.
Changed what we expect of our cellphones. Who could have foreseen that by the end of this decade, we would be able to walk out of the house and take every map in the world, a dictionary, a compass, our entire computer, our entire music collection, every photo of our loved ones, every piece of critical mail we have ever received, our favorite books, our favorite newspapers, the entire phonebook, every video ever made (home movie and otherwise), our entire stock portfolio and have it delivered in real-time, games, movie schedules, banking information, GPS, bibles, every radio station on earth, tens of thousands of restaurant, film, book and music recommendations, etc? And it would all weigh less than a sandwich, be affordable and also make phone calls. Yet, the iPhone does all this and more. Bravo!
Apple TV has already changed how we rent movies and television shows by streaming the content directly to our home. No more trips to Blockbuster in the snow, only to find out the last copy of "The Notebook" is out. Blockbuster and Netflix both adapted to the change, so as not to perish. Now we ALWAYS get to watch the movie we want to watch, not the movie that is available.
The revolutionary Apple Store opened to wide acclaim. Just think back to the 1990's. Computer and Customer Service were anathema to one another. Any information you wanted, or problems you had, meant long hours on the phone tapping your feet to hold music, then sheepishly asking the usually derisive tech on the line to help you out. The Apple Store's immersive environment welcomes questions, solves problems on-site, provides one-on-one instruction, group instruction, encourages product testing, does repair, exchanges and displays the full Apple product line in a friendly, beautiful, well-planned mecca of computing.

Apple does so much more, but my evangelism must be getting a bit tiresome for you by now.

Here's to you Apple and Steve Jobs, my Company and CEO of the Decade. Job well done!

As we look to the upcoming decade, most other companies should slump their shoulders, as there has been a January 26, 2010 press conference called (and confirmed) for the announcement of Apple's next weapon of choice, the iTablet. So 26 days into the new decade, most companies will already be playing catch-up with a company that is in the lead and taking very long strides.

Young and the Restless

2009-12-23T09:04:00.004-06:00

The old adage about old people sending off young people to fight their wars came to mind last night as I was reading over some of the proposed Senate Health Care Reform Bill.

The Cosmetic Surgeon lobby had the proposed 10% tax on Botox injections, meant to stem the cost of the bill, successfully purged from the bill. In it's place will be a 10% tax on all tanning services.

Botox injections are overwhelmingly performed on 40+ year-old clientele, but the median age over the last three years has been 53. Who goes to the tanning beds in America? Primarily 15-32 year olds, according to the Indoor Tanning Association, the industry's trade group.

This means the tax burden was shifted from a group of older, more established, obviously wealthier group that can more easily afford the cost, to a younger, less-affluent demographic, as when we think of tanning, our minds tend to conjure images of college-age kids who know no better.

The same can be said for the additional income tax proposed in the bill. The original version (and house version) of the Senate Bill called for a small increase on the income of individuals that made more than $500,000 annually, or couples that had a combined annual income in excess of $1,000,000. This would obviously be an older group of Americans, as even in the wild days of the Internet 1990's, the median age of millionaires never dropped below 40.

So, would these older, more-affluent, Americans take the new ax sitting down? No! A new method of closing the funding gap had to be resourced. The answer? Unbelievably, the Senate decided to shift the new tax to "Health benefits of unionized workers." This, once again, skewed the burden toward a younger and less-affluent portion of the population.

Lastly, the Health Care Bill, overall, was meant to target everyone. The President made universal health care a theme of his run, due to the tremendous amount of pressure his Primary foe Hillary Clinton put on him with the issue. President Obama, shifted the benefit of this Senate bill to helping only those above the age of 55, by lowering the qualifying age of Medicare, a provision that may not make the cut. Once again shafting the young electorate.

So let's recap: Young people are going to pay more for their elective services (such as tanning), get a tax increase thrown at them (on those flimsy benefits we all wanted reformed/ improved) and receive no new medical benefits from the new legislation.

Does that sound like a square deal?

The idea that President Obama could sweep into office on the backs of the youth vote, with so many giving their time, money, enthusiasm and ideas, then so abruptly turn his back on that core constituency is appalling. And telling. And unforgivable!

What he and other Democrats are counting on, hell, banking on, is that you will not dare vote for a Republican in upcoming elections. They are hoping that you "stop thinking of yourself" and start thinking of Dad and Grandma when the 2010 and 2012 elections roll around. Then perhaps at a later date, they will have something for you. Some "Change" at a later date.

Well in the President's "Closing Argument" speech, right before we went to the polls in November 2008, he said that "we could not wait" and we "had to take advantage of this opportunity." He talked about "the fierce urgency of now." We had to do "whatever it took" to get him into office and provide him with a Democratic majority. And WE DID!

Too bad his exhortations have had ZERO reciprocal value.

Health Care Reform Made Simple

2009-12-17T18:35:00.005-06:00

Keith gets "it."

Normally I do not post videos, as I would rather share my point of view with you. I am making an exception because Keith Olberman is spot on in his analysis.

Please take a moment and listen.

Influence or Mollification?

2009-12-15T08:43:00.026-06:00

Most young people don't spend their time, after a long days work, rounding up wayward youth, listening to their dreams and hardships, then dispensing what knowledge he could to those few soles that stuck around long enough to hear his message.

Most young people could not find the mettle within themselves to spend the day with people of privilege, then seek those less fortunate souls, hiding underneath America's boot, in the evenings, in hopes of bring to them the realization of America's promise.

Those that he found and would take the time to learn, were always the better for it. And, after a few months, they came to trust him, his judgement and direction. Both parties were being were being transformed as a result of the interaction.

There was an understanding between the young people he reached out to: exceedingly poor and largely marginalized in the broader society, and their teacher: a professional who clearly could have been using his talent and access to powerful people to do something other than spend his evenings working with poor people he had never met in his life.

His Pupils were learning that this, too, was their America. Regardless of what had been a part of their daily experiences to that point, the application of, and investment in, self was the all-important factor in upward mobility. The teacher, on the other hand, learned that these minds, much different from the wealthier students at his day job in their access to the American Dream, were no less qualified, given the proper tools, or fervent in it's pursuit.

The experience proved to be so moving, it would shape the actions of the teacher in his later role as President of the United States. And so, Lyndon Baines Johnson wrote about that period of his life as such:

I shall never forget the faces of the boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American.

Lyndon Johnson would leave the teaching profession to run for a Congressional seat in the State of Texas. Ultimately winning the seat, he came under the tutelage of then President Franklin Rossevelt, who in the throes of the Great Depression, was in the process of forcefully applying drastic changes to an entrenched governmental bureaucracy, in an effort to ease the pain so many Americans were experiencing.

Ten years later he would be elected Senator from his home state of Texas and just three years later, in 1951, he was elected the the powerful role of Majority Whip, second most powerful position in the United States Senate.

When, in 1952, Republicans won control of the Congress, the remaining Democrats decided it was time for a leadership change. They turned to the Senator they knew was a person that could "get things done" and elected as Minority Leader, Lyndon B. Johnson. When Democrats took back both Houses of Congress in 1954, Johnson then had the role of Majority Leader, the most powerful position in the Congress. He would, in this role flower into one of the most influential legislators in American history.

In 1957, when President Eisenhower, a Republican, wanted to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the task of getting the bill through an unwilling Congress fell to Johnson. After twisting arms and pulling teeth, he allowed a long-time member of his party, avowed racist and Democratic Senator from South Carolina, Strom Thurmond, to go on record with the longest one-man filibuster in opposition of the bill the Congress had ever witnessed, then dropped the gavel and passed the vote. He just felt African-Americans having the right to vote was more important than party unity.

John F. Kennedy chose Johnson as his Presidential running mate in 1960, and upon winning the election, put Johnson in charge of newly created (an then powerless) Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. The unintended consequence of Kennedy's action was, Johnson kept overwhelming the White House with legislative requests and data. Johnson, you see, was an obsessive workaholic. So, after being in charge of all the legislation for the entire country for 7 years, aggregating data and creating new law on one subject was a piece of cake. The time spent at EEOC would put Johnson in contact with minorities of all flavors on a daily basis, and would prove equally influential as his years spent teaching the Mexican Students in his youth.

When Johnson ascended to the Presidency after the assassination of Kennedy on November 22, 1963, he felt it his duty to use the full force of his knowledge and influence in the Congress, to make Kennedy's political platform a reality. Nobody, before or since, has ever had such an understanding of the nuances required to bring a bill into law.

With his innate understanding of when to press (and when to pull) members of Congress, along with his years of tutelage at the knee of Roosevelt, Johnson became a prolific legislator and, in doing so, tremendous agent of change.

Consider that President Johnson passed laws on:

Civil Rights

Barred discrimination in voter registration requirements, a real problem in the Southern half of the United States due to the large population of Blacks who were under-represented in public office.
Barred discrimination in all public accommodations: theaters, hotels, motels and restaurants.
Barred discrimination in access to public facilities, such as parks, forests and beaches.
Encouraged the Department of Justice to sue school districts that continued to segregate on the basis of race.
Barred Federal funds being given to agencies that practiced discriminatory practices
Barred discrimination against interracial married couples in the workplace.
Barred discrimination against individuals due to political affiliation.
Gave Federal courts the power to prosecute State cases where there was sufficient evidence of tampering by segregationist elements, thus bringing justice to the southern portion of the U.S. for the first time in nearly 100 years.
Strengthened the tools of the EEOC to combat discrimination as a reason for being discharged from a job.

Transportation

Created the Federal Transit Administration
Made $375 million in matching funds available to States to use on large urban public rail projects (sic, public transportation).

Environment

Signed legislation protecting 9 million acres of wilderness, overnight. The protected areas now number in excess of 100 million acres.
Shifted the burden of proof for private encroachment onto public lands to the private party, thus clearing the courts of 1,000's of phony claims.

The Poor

Expanded, and made permanent, the Food Stamps Program. Before he did this, the FSP was running as a pilot program, not available in most communities in the country and with expenditures of about $17 million per year. Johnson made the program national, gave the Agriculture Department manpower and upped the annual expenditures to $75 million in the first year, to $100 million in the second year and $200 million in the third.
Created Community Action Program, which was instrumental in getting Native Americans the tools needed to move their communities out of poverty.
Created Head Start program, which fed, clothed, educated and gave access to medical personnel, to impoverished children across the country.
Created VISTA, which sent 50,000 volunteers into underdeveloped communities to assist in job creation, education, health-care and civic improvement.
Created Job Corps, a program, that for the first time, focused on training wayward youth in job skills, trades development and then assisted in finding them gainful employment.

All of this legislation was put through Congress, signed into law and put into IMMEDIATE practice, WITHIN THE FIRST 9 MONTHS of Johnson's Presidency.

His next 4 years would bring:

Education

Gave more federal money to colleges and universities, to "prepare America's best minds for the challenges ahead."
Drastically expanded the Community College system, thus giving millions of low-income Americans access to higher-education.
Created the federal scholarship program, for high achievement students.
Created the Federal Student Loans Program, which ensured every American that could qualify for College was guaranteed access to a low interest loan, should they need one.

Seniors and the Under-served

Created Medicare, the first-ever health-care program for senior citizens. The law gave ALL people over the age of 65 federally-backed insurance to cover all of their health care needs.
Created Medicaid, the first-ever health-care program for no and low-income citizens, suffers of chronic illnesses and Americans with disabilities. The bill was passed to assure that all citizens, even those without financial means, had access to health-care.
Expanded the free clinic system within the Department of Health, by quadrupling the budget.
Made it illegal to use age as a basis for discrimination, to be used conjunctively with the other discrimination legislation previously passed.

He also:

Strengthened the Voting Rights Act, by giving the federal government control over registration standards.
Dramatically shifted the immigration policy of the U.S. by closing the loopholes which allowed Western influx into the country to go unfettered and for the first time allowed citizens of countries such in Asia, Africa and South America to immigrate on a first-come first-served basis with the countries of Europe, the result of which is the wonderfully diverse country we know today.
Signed the Freedom of Information Act into law, which gives citizens the right to gain access to all governmental records that are not a specific threat to national security.
Created the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, the entity that would ensure there would always be a public voice in the electronic media. This would soon give rise to Sesame Street, The Electric Company and other children's programming that was considered "unprofitable" by the large media companies during that era. PBS would also introduce Americans to the rest of the world, as it was the first to show travel shows, documentaries and programming which originated in other countries. Additionally, in the networks decision to include cooking and craft shows, the large media blackout on females in programming was circumvented and, eventually, broken.
Passed the Fair Housing Act, which is the foundation, still in use to this day, for all laws banning discrimination in housing.
Passed the Bilingual Education Act, making it mandatory for communities with large non-English speaking populations to provide education for it's citizenry in a secondary language.
Passed the first major, prohibitive gun ownership law in 50 years: excluding ex-felons and the sale to minors. Also regulated the interstate transfer of weaponry much more heavily.

And while Kennedy announced the vision and Richard Nixon was (for 6.5 months) President during it's culmination, the idea for, funding of and drive toward, putting a man on the Moon was largely a result Johnson's efforts.

Lyndon Baines Johnson accomplished more in his time in the Presidency than just about anyone, save Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR. So why is this brilliant and effective legislator, who laid the foundation for what many consider to be the Liberal Platform, not mentioned as one of the greatest Presidents who ever lived?

Because he escalated a war (Vietnam) he had inherited from his predecessor.

The results were wholly disastrous, as the additional troops in the wars' theater produced dramatic increases in American combat dead and wounded. Back home, with the outrage, activism and cynicism of the public at heights not seen before (or since), Johnson would refuse to seek a second term, and largely allow his extraordinary achievements to remain overshadowed, historically speaking, by his Vietnam War blunders.

This was a man that achieved so much, and in a relatively short amount of time. His domestic policy was directly responsible for cutting poverty in the United States in half, to 10.1%, in less than four years. He was responsible for electrifying most of the rural U.S., after taking a walking tour of impoverished West Virginia in the early 1960's. He put Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Justice, on the Supreme Court. Extraordinary achievements by any measurement. And yet his legacy rests in the minds of our countrymen next to thoughts of tear-gassed college students, screaming half-burned Vietnamese girls and body after body of dead and maimed American soldiers seen on television news programs during those times.

As President Obama, who has accomplished far less in his year plus in the Oval Office, moves to escalate the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, my thoughts (and his, I pray) travel back to Johnson, who famously quipped:

"While you're saving your face, you're losing your ass."

Making the Unknown, Known

2009-12-13T08:02:00.008-06:00

That picture is a hum-dinger, ain't it?

Because perhaps these things get by you in the day-to-day.

Latest on Tiger

What if we all read this tiger Woods thing wrong. What if this was a big story, but the fascination with the subject, the zealous drive for facts, made it something bigger then what was at it's original core. For instance.

Tiger was asleep in bed on that Friday morning, his wife smashed a vase, or something like it in his face (his tooth was broken in half, apparently), then proceeded to do her best Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby-impersonation? Then Tiger fought her off, calmed her down and talked out the situation with Elin. After assuring her he would never see "that one woman again," the thinking shifted to "how to explain these injuries?"

A half-assed plan for a low speed accident was cooked up (did you see that tree?), so Tiger put on his Nikes, got in a big ass Cadillac Escalade and ran into a tree, but not head on, just a little bit. Only the right wheel hits the tree, and so soft air bags do not deploy, OnStar does not call and the electronics are messed up, so his wife, who is watching their plan go awry, comes and bashes the window with a golf club, thus freeing Tiger.

The car accident could now be used as the reason for the injuries, therefore his wife, whom he still loves and wanted to be around, is absolved of any possible criminal charges or future public scrutiny when supporting the World's Most Famous Athlete. The plan was flawless.

Then, as with all things African-American, the police showed up and things started to spiral downward. The police being called to the residence is what made this story fly, from the beginning. Had things been contained to that evenings events, everything else would have never happened. And I am NOT BLAMING THE POLICE for Tiger being a nerdy pimp, but if they did not file a police report then. . .

TMZ would not have started throwing money around. As I stated in a previous post, famous people AND THEIR HIGH-PRICED CONSULTANTS have not come to grips with the "New Financial Reality" of sharing money with potential problems, and copiously so. TMZ has a staff of people who's only job is to comb through the nation's police and hospital reports. It's a dirty job, but it pays well.

The police are only going to find out so much when investigating a person, TMZ, with it's truckloads of unlimited cash, is always going to find out more.

So the police reports brought TMZ to Tiger, TMZ brought money to a former mistress, the one mistress started a biding war in the E!, Extra, Entertainment Tonight, People, OK! Magazine arena for finding more, and, ultimately, the few jump-offs that wanted to remain silent, could no longer afford to remain so. Which brought out the MADAME (Damn Liger?!?!), who took this thing to a whole new level with her having tax records and all (did he want a receipt, with his cheap ass?).

Tiger Woods wanted his marriage to continue, and perhaps really was committed to being a more loving, caring and family-focused pimp going forward. However, he committed the one cardinal sin any African-American in a troubled relationship cannot afford to do, he allowed the police to get involved in his relationship. So now Elin's gone, the kids are gone, the sponsors are leaving and so is his precious good name, which can never return, BTW.

And now he knows what all Black men know, nothing good ever comes from the police being at your door.

On an aside, Tiger choosing to not participate in golf this season is going to spotlight what the tour found out when he didn't play because of injury, interest in the sport falls off -- DRAMATICALLY. Perhaps that will put pressure on those in the media to assist in cleaning him up a bit, so they can get him back on the links and get crowds roaring for him once more.

It's risky, but we'll see if it works.

Nobel, Nobel

The Nobel brothers spent the early years of their professional lives "working," as mine owners, in the South African diamond business, a sub-human, disgusting and exploitative endeavor. When, in the mid-1870's, the diamond mines hit "an impassible core of solid rock," the South African industry and region was plunged into a Depression. This forced the brothers to sell, at rock bottom prices, their mining claim to Cecil Rhodes, who was in the process of buying up "every mine in Africa."

Rhodes, who would later become the richest man in the world and, like Nobel, lend his name to one of the world' most prestigious awards, the Rhode's Scholarship, had knowledge of a new technology which could bypass the solid rock, and so therefore, could continue to unearth the diamonds.

At this point the Nobel brothers decided to part ways of sorts with the money from their claim. Alfred could not get beyond the notion of that solid, impassable rock, which motivated his drive that would culminate in his invention of dynamite.

Since he was trying to develop a tool for mining, when he saw dynamite being used in warfare, he quickly plunged from horror to depression. This led him to establish a prize for Peace, so as he, nor the world, would need ever see his invention "used against man."

In the years since the Nobel's became one of the world's leading families, they have obscured the dark secret of their involvement in the South African Diamond Trade, which is why most biographies of the brothers begin in 1876, right after they sold their claims.

When Twain stated, "There is no such thing as good money from a bad man," the Nobel Prize comes to mind. The horror that such a prize would be bestowed upon an Head of State that just escalated a war can only live in the mind of a person without the full sphere of the Prize's dark history.

Presidential Fractions

Why does it take a person to raise (and spend) $750,000,000, sound it out: seven-hundred-fifty million dollars, for a job that pays $400,000 per year? That's like spending $75,000,000 on an interview suit for a job that pays $40,000. That's like giving a $7,500,000 donation to a community college for a scholarship that costs $4,000. That's like spending $750,000 for rent on a studio that costs $400. That's like spending $75,000 to buy a coupon book to save $40. And more to our daily line of thinking, it's like paying $7,500 for your $4 latte at the Starbucks in your neighborhood.

I'll allow you too sit with that for a moment.

Anyway, I know you have had this question on your mind before, so let me help ease your stressing over it any longer.

President Obama raised more money, and spent more money, then any other presidential aspirant in history, a whopping $750,000,000! His salary for each of his 4 years in office will be $400,000. During this time he is not allowed to make investments in any company, buy any bonds or start any company whatsoever. His wife, equally, has the same restrictions on her, as well!

Before they took office, their combined incomes were in the low seven figures per annum, and before President Obama wrote his first best-selling book, Michelle was, far and away, the breadwinner. So taking this job was not only fantastically expensive ($750,000,000), it was a pay cut.

The short answer to the question is, the job of the President of the United States of America puts you, and your team, in control of the single greatest economic feeding trough in the world.

With an annual budget in the trillions, and the ability to spend beyond that when you feel the necessity, the $750,000,000 starts to seem more like a pittance.

George W. Bush received $26.5 million from his Wall Street backers during his two Presidential Election runs. On his way out the door, he handed them the $700 billion TARP bill as a parting gift, $210 billion of which disappeared, overnight, without a trace.

The Oil Industry was the former President's biggest campaign contributor, topping out at between $46.8-61.1 million, depending on what source you believe. In December of 2001, AFTER THE SEPTEMBER 11th ATTACKS, the price for a barrel of sweet crude oil stood at $16.21 per barrel. Even the terrorist attacks and the incursion into Afghanistan had not moved the needle on oil prices. Once the President circumnavigated the Congress and went to war in Iraq, the price of oil began to climb, and did so throughout his presidency, reaching a high-point of $126.33 per barrel for the month of June 2008, nearly 8x the December 2001 price.

President Obama ran a campaign initially financed, almost exclusively, by the less than $250 donations of individual donors, or ordinary citizenry. The strategy overwhelmed his primary counter-part, Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton had much more money to start, but since she was given the $4600 maximum by all her supporters, when the campaign dragged on longer than she (or anyone) thought, she could not go back to her donors list for more money. Obama could, and did.

Obama used the small donations route to raise money after each controversy, win, loss or attack, with his supporters rallying to his defense, financially, with each threat to the candidate. It was simply too much for the other candidates to withstand, with both Mrs. Clinton and the General Election adversary, John McCain complaining openly about the "unfair disadvantage" of Mr. Obama's fundraising apparatus.

However, once Mr. Obama's election seemed imminent, once the path seemed un-obstructable for this phenomenon, Big Business responded. Wall Street financial houses spent late-August thru early-October throwing lavish fundraisers for the future President, and in the end became President Obama's biggest single contributors, to the tune of $58 million.

Health Care and Pharmaceutical companies took note of the candidate's tough talk and, once he looked like a sure bet for winning the election, found a way to contribute $31 million to candidate Obama in the final 8 weeks of the election. Since the Pharma companies were so late to the party, knowing that Health Care reform was a big part of Obama's platform, they directed doubled the amount of money, $68.1 million, to Democratic candidates running for the House and Senate, as well as the DNC.

Thus far, for their efforts, Financial Regulation has been tabled and Health care reform has been scrapped.

If you look at it from a financial perspective, President Obama becomes less of a disappointment. He, like any other person in the Office of the Presidency, is looking out for his big contributors. Too bad we all came early to the party, because what really matters is who you take home at the end of the night.

I, Androcles

2009-12-06T08:50:00.014-06:00

Among all his notable fables, Aesop's most well-known is 'Androcles and the Lion.' The story of the escaped slave who, while seeking shelter in a cave, comes upon a dying lion. Starving and wounded, the lion cannot fight off the slave and expects to be slain, or worse, left to die in slow agony. Androcles, instead of killing the lion, chooses to assist the lion in it's recovery, by removing a thorn, forcing out the puss from the wound and using a piece of his tattered clothes to bandage the wound.

For his services, Androcles asks nothing of the lion, save that he not be bitten in the process of the operation. The lion, stomach growling with hunger (the thorn having forestalled his ability to hunt) and not understanding that he can be healed, trusts in the young slave and suppresses his instinct to kill while Androcles is in striking distance, tending to the wound.

The lion and the slave soon depart ways, with the lion promising, "not to forget his kind deed." And so it was, as I pause this story to start our own.

Winter of 2008 saw a fierce political battle for the Presidency taking place between a popular woman, with a household name, Hillary Clinton and a seemingly over-matched, out-resourced upstart, with a gift for communicating, Barack Obama.

Each, in it's own right, had merits that an engaged electorate found beguiling. The problem flowered from the fact that we couldn't have both. Over the Spring their battles continued, and come Summer, America decided that "experience and comfort in the known" would have to take a back-seat to the excitement and endless possibility of "change." America, rightly, saw the challenges that (then) lay ahead for our country were of a different variety, requiring a bold new direction, under the un-tethered stewardship of a truly visionary leader. Barack Obama, seemed to be more of that mold and so, would represent the Democratic Party in the Presidential election.

He would accept his nomination, with great reception, on the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech," a prospect the national media did not allow to go the least bit unnoticed.

The winds shifted, trees yellowed and, as migratory animals began their long journeys to new horizons, "hope" and "change" was pregnant and omnipotent. Autumn, for us, brought with it, a collapse of the world Financial Markets, the expose' of a Housing Crisis which had been suffering for more than two years, massive job loss and revelations of an economy that had been in a recession for 11 months without anyone in the government feeling the need to tell the American people.

These revelations, never mind the two wars America were fighting, and other problems extant before the Autumnal collapse, stoked the electorate into a frenzy. The long-held belief in America's unwillingness to elect a person of African-descent went out the window, as all came to understand, these were historically bad times for our country -the best man had to win.

Then-Senator Obama, led the Democratic Platform, of putting forth a bold strategy of bringing all things into order once more, by reaching out to embrace "new ideas," developing the country's "latent talent pool" and facing down "those who dare say America's best days are not in front of us."

What Obama and the Democrats put on the table was an exchange that appeared to be insatiable:

Universal Health care,
Job Creation and Protection,
Sensible Climate Legislation,
De-Escalation in Afghanistan,
Bringing the Iraq War to an end,
Closing Gitmo Prison,
Ending Rendition,
Equality for ALL citizens
Repeal of the worst parts of the Patriot Act
Massive investment in our nations schools
Reducing the cost of College Tuition
Huge Investment in Clean Renewable energy platforms
Using the Justice Department to "go after those that perpetrated" the Wall Street collapse
Help homeowners stay in their homes and stem the tide of evictions
and Other Shit

The Democrats needed only one thing from you, the electorate. That one thing was your vote. If you would just entrust the country to them. If you could just get out an knock on your neighbor's door. If you could just pick that old guy up at the end of the block and drive him to the polls. If you could do these things, the DEMOCRATS HAD A SHOT AT 60 SEATS IN THE SENATE, which would make all the initiatives "UNSTOPPABLE."

You delivered, and resoundingly so!

And then a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum.

With a 60 seat Super-Majority in the U.S. Senate, a filibuster-proof majority in the House and the ability to choose the heads of every Cabinet position, President Obama and the Democratic Leadership IMMEDIATELY turned their back on the throngs of people who had fought so hard to elect them. Instead they would begin building ties to those entrenched, (and thanks to the public's outrage) fearful elements of America's Corporatocracy.

Overnight, President-Elect Obama started filling his Cabinet with old Washington re-treads, the very lobbyists he said "needed to be run out of town," Executives from the Wall Street banking houses that caused the world-wide panic and, most-egregiously, Republicans.

If this President wanted to give away half the positions in the Executive Branch to Republicans, why did he not choose a Republican for a running-mate? He didn't even choose a Conservative Democrat. He chose Joseph Biden, a died-in-the-wool, die-hard, no-doubt-about-it Democrat. This was done because the President and his advisers knew, everyone was fed up with the way things were going and wanted blood.

He did this because Republicans were who the established Corporate bosses felt comfortable with, but President Obama sold it as his "being President of all of America, not just the blue states."

At a time when Republicans "enjoyed" 21% approval rating, the President's actions could be easily confused with fortitude. With the scope of time on our side, we can rule that out because he not to use that same "fortitude" to go to bat on Universal Health Care, a proposal 64% of the country agrees with.

There are many who foretold of a weak Obama Presidency from the very first moment. This is an ELECTION NIGHT clip of Green Party Presidential Candidate, Ralph Nader. You need not listen to the entire 10 minutes of the clip, thought there is much insight to be gained. Within the first 7:00, Nader lays out, point by point, an EXACT prelude into how this President and this Democratic Congress would sprint, away from all it's platform issues and, towards adopting the entire George W. Bush policy playbook, in it's entirety.

Please take a moment to watch:

As Nader predicted , President Obama has embraced the very worst of his predecessor's policies: Renditioning, Gitmo still open, Patriot Act expanded, allowing lobbyist's to write legislation, cozying up to Wall Street and, in his announcement of escalating the Afghanistan War, using the events of September 11, 2001 from the bully pulpit. Additionally, Nader correctly predicted that his (or any other) criticism would be met with the refrain, "Give him time."

For so many (aka, every person planet earth), news of President Obama not just not living up to his promise, but actually becoming a principle of the long Washington nightmare, is a bitter pill to swallow. But I, Androcles, am attempting to pull this thorn from the paw of an ailing, thoroughly confused, slumbering electorate.

No matter what else happens in the coming months:

Health Care will be not much different from what it is now for 98% of the population. If you cannot afford health insurance now, you will not be able to afford health insurance under the new plan. Health insurance premiums will continue to rise. Coverage will continue to be denied, unabated.
Big Financial institutions will continue to grow, unfettered. While the small, independently-owned lending institutions are allowed to fail at a historic rate.
Families will continue to lose their homes, while legislation continues to be "worked on" and "looked into" for debt forgiveness of mortgage-holding banks and the employees at these companies are paid with record billions in bonuses.
Young Men and Women in our Armed Forces will continue to die on foreign soil. Call it a surge, an boost or what ever you want, but, fearless as they are, America's youth is best served by being home with their families during these tough times.
Untold tens of millions of people will continue to fruitlessly look for work, while the stroke of a pen (and a reported $480 million of unspent Stimulus Package monies) could create jobs overnight for so many Americans and assist in bringing our nation's crumbling infrastructure up to 21st century standards.
Energy costs will continue to rise. The national average for a gallon of gas on President Obama's Inauguration Day was $1.76, largely on the concerns that new energy strategies were in the offing. Today that price has risen to $2.59, an increase of 47%.
Scores of children continue to attend inferior schools, with inferior supplies. Some must attend under the threat of losing their lives, with the President's home town of Chicago losing nearly 40 students to violent murders in the 13 months since the election.

I can go on and on, but I think with my having provided enough facts here to crush all rose-tinted lenses, the thorn from the electorate's paw has been removed.

In Aesop's story the Roman slave Androcles is saved when, after being captured and led to the Colosseum for slaughter, the lion he healed back when refuses to kill him and escorts him from the arena instead.

In our story, with so many people holding this President in such high esteem, I keep the words of the 10th-century Iraqi poet, Al-Mutanabbi, close at heart:

"If you see the teeth of the lion, do not think that the lion is smiling at you"

Mostly, because a lot of you will not be happy about the service I have just provided.

The Sporting Life

2009-12-01T03:27:00.009-06:00

After fighting the urge for three days, PeppermintPickle puts the world of sports in the spotlight.

Tiger or Tigger

The only thing more strange then the events that continue to unfold surrounding the Tiger Woods car accident/"domestic dispute,' is how people (media and regular folk alike) are the viewing the story.

From the very beginning, media outlets have done a horrible job of getting the facts straight and, more egregiously, ignoring common sense when it stares them in the face.

The initial report had Tiger involved in a "serious" car accident near his home in Florida, with all reports trumpeting the "heroic" actions of his wife, Elin, who we were told "smashed the window of her husband's Cadillac Escalade with a golf club and pulled an unconscious Tiger from the wreckage, before calling authorities."

We now know a few things for certain: a neighbor, not Mrs. Woods, made the 911 call. Mrs. Woods did not play the "Diana Princess"-role that initial reports portrayed. And, the full extent of Tiger's injuries could not be traced to his car accident.

I will go no further on the "facts" of the case, but since I am not beholden to anyone, I will share my OPINION of what i think of things thus far.

IF. . . Mrs. Woods physically abused Tiger, the fact that he is a man and a professional athlete (and therefore "strong") should not diminish the criminality of such an act. As I stated on my Facebook page yesterday, if Mrs. Woods had a car accident and the subsequent investigation held suspicion that her injuries were consistent physical abuse, we are not discussing this story in the context of whether or not "it's all a private family matter." Of that we can be certain.

IF. . .Tiger crashed his 2009 Cadillac Escalade SUV into a tree, at low speed (his air bags did not deploy), thus requiring his golf-club swinging wife to rescue him from the vehicle because windows wouldn't roll down and doors would not open, then I think it's the BIGGEST PUBLIC RELATIONS DISASTER FOR ONSTAR* ("standard in ALL GM VEHICLES") IN HISTORY!!!

Since I have to hear (and struggle through) all those "real life" radio ads where some child is crying because his mother has just hit a tree (Tiger hit a tree AND a hydrant!) and the OnStar operator calls the police, ambulance, opens the door, makes cocoa for the child, sings them a their favorite song, downloads the latest Pixar movie onto the cars entertainment system to calm the child and sends an electronic doctor's note to the adults job, letting them know she'll be off for a few day. . . the least they could do is open the damn door of the World's Most Famous Driver (Ali can't drive ya'll)!!! I am calling B.S. on OnStar for this!

IF. . . You believe Mrs. Woods is somehow smart because she messed up his face, but not his hands, arms or legs "because she didn't want to harm his golf career or earning potential. Consider this: Tiger Woods makes roughly $18-30 Million per-year from playing professional golf, another $12-15 Million in appearance fees and the remainder, $60-95 million per year, from endorsement/marketing fees. The PGA season runs from April to September, so the time between October and Early April is used to produce materials for those lucrative marketing campaigns (ie. the lions share of his income). Which is done with his FACE! Please don't give this woman credit where it is undeserved. She was, if indeed she beat Tiger, acting irrationally, passionately and foolishly.

IF. . . You believe Mrs. Woods will be seen at any of those award ceremonies, held at the 18th hole after a tournament, when Tiger wins next year, YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND! Glenn Close cooking rabbits does not make for good Sunday evening television.

IF. . . You believe I don't know that you have thought of Orenthal James Simpson at least once since this story broke, you would be lying to yourself. LOL!

IF. . . You think TMZ won't get to the bottom of this, ask the Jackson Family,Melvin Gibson Christian Bale , or any number of celebs that have called the slime ball gossip site a liar. All were proved wrong in the end. In the end, is a celebrity going to their housekeeper a $50,000 tip, just to "keep things between us?" No! TMZ knows that, which is why they spread the cash around liberally and loudly. When news leaked that TMZ had paid one of MJ's housekeepers almost $500,000 for information, every person in Hollywood with a broom in their hand took note. BELIEVE DAT!

Chicago Bears

Is there any wonder why we loved him, so? He had all the look of James Evans and NONE of the FIYAHHH!!!!!

Coach Lovie Smith must go because he fired the Defensive Coordinator, Ron Rivera, when the defense was ranked 3rd in the league, hired his buddy Bob Babich, who took that defense and ranked 18th last year, then took over the play calling himself this year and currently ranks 24th.

His dependence upon oft injured players (Brian Uhlacher, Tommie Harris, Mike Brown and Dusty Dvoracek) year after year, without planning for their imminent demise, is foolish, not resolve.

Also packing their bags should be:

Ron Turner, who is as predictable as Mentos and Dr Pepper, though results are always far less explosive.

Jerry Angelo, who, barring Devin Hester and Jay Cutler, has been HORRIBLE at acquiring talent. Yes, I know not everyone can draft well in the 5th round, but equally unique is his penchant for drafting horrible IN THE FIRST 3 ROUNDS!

Every player except: Devin Hester, Lance Briggs, Jay Cutler, Matt Forte and Johnny Knox. Everyone else MUST GO!

Our next coach should be Ron Rivera and he should hire CHARLIE WEIS as Offensive Coordinator. Rivera could shore up the defense and would come cheap (would the McCaskey's have it any other way?).

Weis is a proven offensive genius and has developed the following players into what they are: Vinny Testaverde (Jets), Drew Bledsoe (cut his INT's, from 26 year before, to 11), Tom Brady (6th round pick to MVP), Brady Quinn (1st round draft pick) and Jimmy Clausen (1st round draft pick).

We have bet the house, as a franchise, on Jay Cutler being the savior of our franchise. Don't you think having the proper coaching is essential to him getting his mojo back. I think Cutler will listen to Weis for the same reason everyone else has, he made Tom Brady.

And speaking of Weis. . .

Notre Dame

Notre Dame finally fired that bloviating gas bag of a pile of arrogance and bluster, Charlie Weis. Yes, i want him to go and help turn around the fortunes of my beloved Bears, but as the head coach of the Fighting Irish, I HATED THIS MAN. Everything about him.

When he came on the scene he was so full of himself, with what he would do for this program. How he would "restore the luster" and "bring back pride." He said 6-6 or 6-5 was "unacceptable at a school like Notre Dame." "I am coming here," he stated unequivocally, "to win championships." In the end, he was, to borrow a George W. Bush quote, "all hat and no cattle."

The press conference was almost as embarrassing as his tenure, with talk such as, "Charlie has actually won a National Championship while at Notre Dame...the Graduation Rate National Championship" and, quite hilariously, "We'll Miss Him" by the Athletic Director who inherited this nightmare two years ago, Jack Swarbrick.

Swarbrick was not around to enjoy that ephemeral moment in 2005, when the Irish LOST to Mighty USC, at a time when the Trojans were the #1 ranked team in the country. The unyielding glee by the Golden Dome faithful at not getting run out of the building, led to Weis getting a contract extension IN THE FIRST YEAR of his contract at the school. Had they waited, they could have walked away from him after his third season, when the Irish finished 3-9, or after the option year (4th) when the Irish "improved" to 6-6. Which according to Charlie, was "unacceptable." But such Irrational Exuberance led to more than trouble in Wall Street's financial markets, they end up owing the man they have just fired roughly $15 - 17 million. . . to do nothing.

Make no mistake about it, the Charlie Weis-era has been disastrous at Notre Dame. Zero wins vs. rival USC, zero wins against ranked teams, multiple losses to Service Academies, losses to horribly under-manned and inferior teams such as Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Connecticut, and zero development of any talent on the defensive side of the ball. Charlie was going to score so many points on the opposition, defense would be unnecessary.

Well Gene Wilder has something to say about that:

In the end we are left with a once-proud program, searching for ways to make the "g=Great Experiment" seem somewhat successful by stating he "did it the right way." Hell, i didn't know Ty Willingham had players selling crack and stripping for money before ol' Charlie came to town? Willingham, also, was a disaster, but he had come from Stanford, not the 1996 Dallas Cowboys, as some would have you believe. He was doing things the right way as well.

So what do they do now? They give Urban Meyer $4.5 million per year (and make him Lt. Governor of Indiana) to leave Florida and come back to his alma-mater. Or, more realistically, you hire University of Cincinnati Coach Brian Kelly. As a Cincinnati resident, let me assure you, THIS MAN IS BELOVED and universally hailed as a football genius. And that was BEFORE this season, when his team sits undefeated, with an outside chance of playing for the very National Championship Charlie promised 5 years ago.

He really wants the job and most of the city has resigned itself to losing him. I suggest, should Charlie become a coordinator in the NFL, he call in sick on days he plays the Bengals in Cincinnati because people here have spent the entire year hating his guts. His losing ways were followed closely, and warily, by the entire populace of southern-Ohio, as each loss brought the idea of losing Kelly closer to reality.

Because we know what Jack Swarbrick needs to know, Kelly is the right man for that job.

"Counter" Terrorism

2009-11-29T14:52:00.006-06:00

Orson Welles, one of Hollywood's most enigmatic figures, chose Elmyr de Hory as the subject of his final film, "F is for Fake". Welles felt de Hory's story, told to him at a party over cocktails, was the stuff of legend, but not for the reason one might think.

Elmyr de Hory, you see, was a painter of counterfeits. And, for a period of roughly twenty years he was able to sell between 750 and 1700 of his reproductions of Picasso, Rembrandt, Botticelli, Vermeer and others, as authentic. All done, most controversially, with the full knowledge of a network art-dealers and (a few) collectors alike.

Welles's documentary is difficult to watch and much too long for the subject matter, but the reward for your patience is this: The art world, with it's insatiable appetite for high-end works in post-war Europe and America, created the opening for de Hory and his kind. There was simply not enough of the good stuff to go around, apparently.

Welles details how in a boom economy, there is so much money floating around looking for a place to land, the demand for goods in the luxury category far outstrips the available supply. This synapse in the supply/demand chain creates a tremendous amount of pressure on suppliers. who must be able to deliver desirable merchandise for their customers, or risk being left behind in such an hyper-charged economic environment.

Fast forward to today. While most of the world suffers through what is being called an "prolonged economic downturn," there is a small, but (economically) significant, group of people to whom the last few years have been the rosiest of times. And in such panicked times, these people have made purchasing a hyper-priority.

Which makes a rich landscape for those few souls, daring enough to create, market and peddle their wares to those seeking the best of the best. Compounding the problem is the newly-created market-segment of "Accessible Luxury," which has introduced tens of millions more consumers into the luxury equation.

Counterfeiters, in the face of this demand, have really stepped up production of their goods, and started to drift into innovative new areas of opportunity. Here are a few cases that have recently come to light.

Marlboro Cigarettes

Philip Morris is bringing suit against 27 retailers, in New York and New Jersey, for selling counterfeits of it's signature brand of cigarettes, Marlboro. In an area of the country where it is not uncommon to pay $10 per pack (retail!), the company was having a hard time getting the law enforcement community to enforce extant law until an enterprising economist was able to show how much money is being lost in non-captured tax revenue during the sale of the fakes. Cigarettes are one of the highest taxed items available for sale in the U.S.

Fake Batteries

Undercover Police were led to a stash of 17,000 fake Air Jordan's, Calvin Klein clothing, Louis Vuitton handbags and other items, after noticing a newly purchased set of Duracell batteries had a strange addition on the package. . . the Energizer Bunny!

Phony Tickets

With ticket scalpers using the Internet to increase their customer pools, thus increasing the premium for great seats, counterfeiters have really stepped up their production of phony tickets. Just think, you can use paper to make an one-hundred dollar bill, or you can opt to make a Super Bowl ticket and get $5,000-$25,000 for your work. this is a much bigger problem in overseas, where demand for Football (soccer) tickets remains white-hot!

Fake Micro-chips

Micro-chips are what got Jack Nicholson in trouble in Martin Scorcese's Oscar-winning movie,"The Departed." In a case that smacks of fiction, a group of people were recently arrested for selling "thousands of inferior chips, which had been painted over with premium brands". . .to the United States Navy! Notice to aspiring counterfeiters, don't sell crap to an organization with an unlimited amount of money and resources to find and kill you, the U.S. government.

Counterfeit 'Scripts

Prescription medicine counterfeiting is growing by 50% per year. A recent arrest uncovered a ring responsible for selling fake Claritin, Vicodin and Viagra. Which begs the question: What can you use instead of Viagra?

Hair Care Products

Police in Canada recently made a bust that netted a cache of fake flat-press irons. The phonies were spotted because they lacked safety labels. The idea of an electronic heating product, manufactured by someone solely interested in making the initial sale, gives me pause.

Counterfeit Gift Cards

Police in Cleveland, OH seek a group of people who have, thus far, used phony gift cards to net $70,000 in real gift-cards. I can't say I understand how that would work, but it wouldn't be the first time I didn't understand a criminal process.

Counterfeit Cigars

The cost of premium cigars has skyrocketed, and with a continuing U.S. embargo on Cuba's most famous product, the market for Havana's best continues to be strong. One of the biggest fake cigar rings was recently busted up, an announcement that was big enough to merit space in the Cigar Afficionado.

Counterfeit Luxury Wine

The problem of counterfeit luxury wine is so pervasive, some authorities on the subject feel it has rendered the entire wine collecting business "in question." Benjamin Wallace's 'Billionaire's Vinegar' chronicles how the ultra-elite wine collecting set were fooled into believing an undiscovered stash of Thomas Jefferson's wine had been found and was available for purchase. If such a read is not up your alley, perhaps a short article about the difficulties being experienced during this holiday period.

Counterfeit H1N1 Medication

How could criminals resist the temptation to cash in on the biggest global crisis of our times? Fake Tamilflu tablets and H1H1 vaccines have been recovered in countries around the globe. Fortunately, the United States have been spared of such a discovery thus far.

So the truth of Orson Welles's theory has proven to be enduring. The criminal class adopts behavior, it would seem, tailored to the whims of the marketplace. Currently, they seem to be focused on just about everything other than the highly-penalized area of money production.

In the coming weeks and months one phrase will be at the forefront of my mind during my shopping trips, "Buyer Beware." If only because, in addition to F being for Fake, every other alphabet has joined the party.

Oh, Sarah. . .!

2009-11-24T08:38:00.006-06:00

I was introduced to reading at a young age. There is no way of confirming this for certain, but the first book I can remember thumbing through was Alex Haley's 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X'. . .when I was 4 years old.

I did not have the pleasure of growing up (initially) in a household that included the works of Theodor Geisel, like so many of you. Scholarship (not education) was bald, robust and omnipresent.

Eventually I started school and, in second grade, got introduced to "books for my age group." These books were bequeathed to me via a new program, Reading Is Fundamental (R.I.F.), designed to inspire reading in the very youngest of Americans by giving them a wide range of books to choose from (literally thousands for each age group), then allowing us to choose two books free of charge every couple of months.

I can recall the great joy of flipping the pages of that R.I.F. catalogue staring at the myriad assortment of fascinating reading choices, and the agonizing process of elimination, to get my choices down to just two.

Even worse were the annual visit from the R.I.F. Vehicle Days, when the choices came not from a catalogue, but instead a semi-trailer, outfitted as a rolling library. 10 children at a time would be allowed on the bus, for 10 minutes, to make their two book choices. The way I described the experience to my son Sabik was, "It's like accidentally running into God while walking down the street and having 10 minutes to decide which two questions to ask." I always left the mobile library unit satisfied, but far from content. For who knew how much I left back there?

My affinity for reading comes out of these dual traditions, of serious reading at home and leisure reading at school. It carries through to this day in that, the things I "have" to read for work, others or because of cultural relevance are much lighter than what I read for personal pleasure. And each year, I would say, I read between 50-75 books. Not quite the torrid pace of my mid-twenties, when I easily read 100-150 books per. But hey, old bones, alcohol and smoke-machines catch up to even the best of us.

Books are in the news in a very big way right now. Did Joanne Murray pen another Harry Potter tome? Did some abandoned parish in England collapse, only to discover an unpublished work from the Bard of Avon? No and, ehh, NO! Sarah Palin has 'Gone Rogue.'

If you type the word "book" in Google's news aggregation page, the first 1,610 returned queries will be for the "Barracuda" herself, Mrs. Palin. This normally would not bother me, because I believe book readers are a dying breed. The problem I have with the coverage, response to and the book of Mrs. Palin is, it PROVES book readers are a dying breed!

None of the coverage is about the book itself, it is only about the former Governor's magnetism. The book itself, much like her vice-presidential qualifications 16 month's ago, is an afterthought.

So what we are stuck with is an around the clock Sarah-thon, covered by all four major networks, each of the three major cable-news networks and hundreds of print media, all scrambling and fawning at "her ability to draw a crowd." This has created a news bubble that has easily over-inflated the importance of the book, the woman and the book-signings themselves. Before I burst this bubble and give a few of you liberals the relief you so desperately have been seeking since this farce began, let us examine a few of the headlines since the book tour began:

Popularity of Palin rising with book tour
Palin Draws Thousands to Book Signing at Fort Bragg
Thousands wait hours to meet Sarah Palin
Thousands line up in Michigan for Palin
Thousands throng to Palin as she begins book tour
Thousands wait in line in Fort Wayne for Day 2 of Sarah Palin's 'Going Rogue' book tour
Palin Supporters Crowd Noblesville Bookstore

and I would be remiss if I left out. . .

Billy Graham: God was using Palin 'to wake America up'

Which is a sentiment I can agree with, if the statement is taken only at the face value unintended by it's author.

So we are getting round-the-clock, up-to-the-minute, breaking-news updates on this book tour by every media outlet in this country because. . .Sarah has big crowds showing up at her book signings. The first reason to be unafraid by this development is clearly illustrated in the video below. In it you will see the kind of lucid, informed judgement residing in the folks that stand in line for an autograph from "Joe the Sarah."

So, seeing as though none of these interviews or book signings were held in the State of Alaska, each of these people are admitting to being without direction in their life before August 29, 2008, the day Sarah Palin was introduced to the world, as John McCain's Vice-Presidential running-mate.

Everything they had learned up to that point (and whomever they learned it from) was not worthy of stemming the tide of "you-betcha-ness" from America's Hottest Hockey Mom. A scene from "Up," one of the best movies of 2009, comes to mind. In the scene the main characters stumble upon a dog equipped with a collar that allows him to communicate his thoughts with an electronic version of the human voice. While the two humans are amazed by the invention and it's implications for understanding between the two species, the dog's thought process is regularly interrupted by his desire to focus only on chasing squirrels. The point being, sometimes that's all there is to it. For many of these people, Sarah is the new squirrel.

Next, I'd like to question the amount of coverage given to her crowd size. If this much coverage is warranted by "the sheer size of her crowds," as CNN's Andersen Cooper stated last Thursday, where were the media trucks and coverage on any of the following book signings? Feel free to click the links, as they are all real headlines.

Just this October, Celebrity: "Thousands flock to Katie Price book signing"
Last July, Boxer: "Oscar De La Hoya draws thousands"
Last September, Politician: "Ron Paul Crashes the Grand Old Party"
February 2009, Football Coach Tony Dungy: "Welcome the `Uncommon' man, Dungy's book tour renews his friendship with Fort Wayne."
August 2009, Celebrity Chef: "Paula Deen Book Signing Draws Hundreds to Downtown Savannah"

and perhaps more in tune with the Palin Tour. . .

Last November, university of Illinois MASCOT: "Thousands turn out to see Chief Illiniwek dance." Yes, this too was a book signing!

There was very little coverage of any of these stories, and appropriately so. Drawing a crowd to a book signing is not that big a deal, it's why they were created. And besides, I'd like to hear Katie Price's views on Cap and Trade. The answer could not be more ridiculous and may prove more interesting.

Last Wednesday, the "Going Rogue Tour" came to Cincinnati. Because of "security concerns" for Mrs. Palin and "overflow concerns" for the anticipated crowd, the bookstore was closed to the public for 6 of the regular business hours. The only people allowed into the store at this time had to have already purchased the book from the store and be in possession of a signing ticket. The books were on sale for 14.00 and 750 tickets were sold, which means they made $10,500 for the day, minus the expenses of printing, marketing, enhanced security and the like.

Borders bookstores, the nations second largest brick-and-mortar book retailer, is operating currently in "Liquidation Mode," as they continue to operate far below the depths of profitability, much to the surprise and guffaws of everyone in the retail industry. If Borders were taking in $10,500 per day, one week before Thanksgiving, at one of it's smallest stores, I'd have to think they'd shoot themselves in the head and abandon hope. So, for many, these book signings by Mrs. Palin are not the financial boon they are made out to be.

I think they are another example of what American Media has manufactured over the past 10-15 years, an escape from the reality of a sucky life.

At a time of record joblessness, record corporate and governmental graft, record foreclosures, record evictions, record governmental secrecy, record media consolidation, record public service cuts, record privatization of the public works, record loss of life due to no access to healthCARE, record reduction in home values, record low test scores for American school children, record violence being committed on those school-kids, record violence against women, record infrastructure problems throughout the country, record budget-busting immigration problems and record lack of leadership on any of these issues, the Sarah Plain (oops! I meant Palin) Tour is a distraction.

A distraction from the reality that America has a leadership problem. From the White house, to the boardroom, to the classroom and extending all the way to the dining room. What lead to this dearth of leaders and leadership, is a complete blackout in developing critical thinking in this country, which too often (at least in this country) is given a name: sedition, trouble-making, boat-rocking, red-personality, loony or rebelliousness.

Americans are for slow, incremental changes to problems that were created by swift, radical swings in the wrong direction. Which is why I am all for America reading more.

By expanding our viewpoint through learning (NOT EDUCATION), we allow ourselves access to new lines of thought with ourselves, previously unavailable.

I have no doubt, no matter how big the problem, the solution to America's issues lie in the bowels of that truck I first encountered 32 years ago. For reading continues to be fundamental!

Post Script:

God Bless Margaret McNamara. For at the very hour her husband Robert spent his days figuring how to drop bombs on the Vietnamese, she, on her own, created, founded and funded a program that has brought literacy to tens of millions of people, the world over. Innovation (and humanitarianism) in it's highest form.

3 Good Holiday Gift Books

2009-11-22T09:28:00.004-06:00

The Holidays are upon us. Lots of bad gifts get handed out every year. Yeah I know it's the thought that counts, but most of your relatives "thoughts" cannot be expressed around children after receiving another fruitcake or turtle-neck tank-top.

I plan on posting gift idea I come across that seem interesting, unusual and unique. I hope you enjoy and all products will have pricing and links to purchase when necessary.

Holiday Books

Books make the best gifts. I really mean that. I have preferred receiving a book to just about anything else, save the occasional pair of runners, since I was 23 years old. These are a few new and interesting finds from the book stores this November.

The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages 1851 - 2009

It's just what it says, every single front page since the newspaper began over 150 years ago. Yes you get to see when every World War began and every figure was assassinated, but the real delight is reading the "other" stories that have graced the cover in their shadows.

Riveting

Retail: $60.00, though Amazon has it for $36.00 + free shipping. (HERE)

Gourmet Today

Boo-hoo's were heard around the globe when the announcement came that Gourmet Magazine was shuttering it's doors after 70 years of excellence.

This is, at least for the foreseeable future, will be the magazine's last cook book. 1000 NEW recipes and a "free 12 month subscriptions (???)" await. Every foodie will bless you beyond the holidays for your kindness.

Retail: $40.00, Amazon has it for $23.50 + free shipping (HERE), though Costco has it for $21.00, if you have one nearby.

Art for Obama: Designing Manifest Hope and the Campaign for Change

Yes, I am admittedly kind of over the guy, but millions of you are not. This is the best of all the Obama books. Art for Obama is a compendium of all the amazing artwork; posters, placards, t-shirts, paintings and the like, that were created during the election and in the lead-up to the inauguration.

America (and the world, for that matter) didn't lack creativity in honoring this most inspirational of leaders.

Retail: $22.50, though Amazon has it for $15.30 + shipping (HERE)

Chopping Down A Trump

2009-11-22T08:45:00.005-06:00

News of two units going into foreclosure at Chicago's Trump Tower comes this weekend. The bank action will be the first of it's kind in the long suffering project, though more than a few expect this to be only the beginning.

Over 25% of the condo units and 36% of the hotel-condo units remain unsold. Those units (over 200 in total) remain in the possession and on the books of the hotel development group.

Two years ago (pre-opening) I warned about this very thing happening. I have regularly followed the buildings progress, and travails, since it's announcement on my favorite Chicago real-estate site, CribChatter. The Trump has had so many issues, it now has it's own tab on the site. And nothing in the past few years have changed the developments prospects for success.

Consider, since 2007:

Pre-construction condo-owners in the building have waged a fierce bidding war with the Trump group to dump their properties to prospective owners in the building. This has led to massive price reductions on the sale of every unit since the Grand Opening. All you need know on that front is 25% off is the opening, and it just starts going down from there. This is why the developer still has the same amount of units since opening.
Chicago has entered a housing glut some describe as, "the worst in the nation." We have more empty units in the city of Chicago (with more on the way), than any city in the country. At last count, there were 22,600 unsold, EMPTY condo-units in the Loop and 4 surrounding neighborhoods as of 09.30.09. All told, analysts believe the city-wide number to be as high as 110,000, counting only the empties,tens of thousands of more "condos" were transferred to rental properties after sitting on the market for 2 years. A lot of that has to do with...
The Olympic Dream was foiled in October, so the city's plan of filling all these empties with the workforce that was sure to come with the jobs the Games would have provided.
Trump has remained a dick. Please read THIS farcical article from 2007 on how demand for living quarters at the property was so strong, he had to "cut out friends and family." If the Donald were being eaten by sharks in the open sea, while drowning, during an alien attack on the earth, he would say that it is "all a part of the plan and good for business." Everyone told him the building was too big, had too many units and was priced to high for the Chicago market. But his ego told him that he was the person who could introduce New York-style pricing to the Second City. Uh, computer says "no."

Look for more fire sales in the coming weeks and more foreclosures in the Spring, as Chicago's long-term job market prospects become clearer and more dreary.

But I close on a high note. The building, I must admit, is the best and most stunning addition (and clearly my favorite) to the Chicago Skyline in 20 years. Thank you for that, at least.

"Ghost" of Christmas Past

2009-11-20T08:36:00.007-06:00

As we make the turn into Thanksgiving, all thoughts (in the Retail world) turn to the all-important Holiday Shopping Season. This year economist and retailers agree, there will be a rise in spending and moderate sales gains are expected in nearly every category.

This outlook was confirmed and strengthened by the announcement of October's Retail Sales figures. Headlines captured the enthusiasm thusly:

October retail sales show surprising strength

Stocks jump as retail sales rebound in October

Retailers post best monthly sales in more than a year

While many view a win as a win, there are too many factors stacking the deck against a winning Holiday Season for the Retail Sector, and a closer look at these indicators is enough to tamp down optimism across the board.

Starting with those "robust" October sales figures, the number came in at 1.4% over last year, and a paltry 0.2% if Auto sales are excluded. That (0.2%) number in itself is enough to cause concern, but coupled with the knowledge of that 0.2% was a year-over-year increase against last year's record-breaking -2.4% October number, which was even worse than the post-9/11 terrorist attack October of 2001. Including the increase, this year's number does not even get back to the 2007 level. So once again we have a case of media trumpeting a "win" in a situation that is much less "win" than "tread."

Next, the unemployment number is sitting at an official 10.2% (unofficial 16.5%), with the under-employment number at 18.8%. These are the largest numbers on record since 1983. There is no way you can have nearly twenty percent of the country's work-force fighting to meet their basic living needs and expect to have retail growth. The "ghosting" effect is to large to overcome.

"Ghosting" is when a trend, negative or positive, impacts one segment of the population and the demographic groups that abut the affected, though not currently feeling the similar effects, change their behavior in anticipation of being drawn into the fire. Examples of this can be seen in the build-up before the housing crash, where people decided to purchase houses that were a bit more expensive than they would normally buy because their neighbors and families were enjoying gains in their housing values, or in the almost rabid quest to be vaccinated against the H1N1 virus in communities that have not experienced an outbreak.

So the ghosting number on an 18.8% under-employment number would stand at, minimally, 25%, which is an insurmountable number to overcome for an entire sector. There can be (and will be) a few winners, but this precludes any hopes of a positive number coming out for the December figure.

Another problem facing retailers this holiday is credit.

Every retailer (smartly) took steps, late last year or early this year, to reduce the amount of risk associated with consumer credit defaults by closing the accounts of the bottom 4-13% of store credit-card holders. The step that retailers took that confused me was the "tightening" of credit on even their most credit-worthy card holders. Even the best customers saw the amount of available credit on existing accounts shrank by 18% on average. This would mean a person with a $2500 credit-card limit, saw their available credit limit reduced to $2100 and in some cases $1500.

While the drive to reduce risk by retailers can be understood, as it's not what they do (they sell stuff), what could not have been foreseen was the dramatic pull-back by financial institutions, the major credit-card issuers, this Spring and Summer. The fed just released a report that September saw a 10.1% drop in available revolving credit. Further, the expectation is that there will be a dramatic drop in credit-card purchases this November and December, anywhere between 10.1 and 28.3%! The tightening in both markets at the same time could prove catastrophic.

That leaves cash, in a country with a negative savings rate. I don't think so.

Last year I was able to correctly forecast retailers begrudgingly adopting the arcane and formerly frowned-upon practice of lay-away. While it was a boon for those few who embraced the practice last year, this year the practice has exploded:

Layaway's on rise, but know rules before signing to deal

Layaway for the holidays

Retail: Shoppers re-embrace the logic of layaway

"Big Gift" layaway becomes even bigger

But i think this headline says it best...

Desperate Retailers Bring Back "Layaway" Plans For The Holidays

So we are looking at a sluggish October closing out the last quarter, record unemployment, a drastic reduction in available credit than last year and retailers embracing layaway early as a way to allay their concerns. There are two other factors that loom just as large upon the retail scene this year.

The first is the lack of a consensus must-have product, not just overall, but multiple categories are missing that "it" item. The Nintendo Wii seems to have reached it's apogee last year. The season's most anticipated game, 'Modern Warfare,' was released earlier this month, and with $550 million in sales within the first 5 days of release (including a record $350 million on day one), I doubt there will be much left on the table for that title post-Thanksgiving. There is no toy for toddlers that appears to be a clear winner. The trend in women's clothing seems to be sweaters, but will that really be enough to carry apparel? In accessory world, designer handbags have gone from non-issue (last year) to a nuisance (this year), as retailers struggle to strike a balance on how much to pull back. The only bright spot in the department store world seems to be UGG boots and that trend is now 6 years old. How much more blood is left in that turnip?

Every major phone carrier launched their signature cellphones early, as every month they choose not to compete against Apple's iPhone, they were losing 700,000 potential customers.

And, speaking of iPhone, Apple chose to launch the next generation of their iPhone, the 3GS, in summer as opposed to holiday, so they are depending on their redesigned line of notebook and desktop computers to power another strong holiday season.

The lack of a strong item to drive business is troubling. Especially considering most every retailer in America made a conscience decision to reduce inventory levels this holiday season in an effort to protect margins by selling more at regular price.

Last year's margin blood bath was evident early, as additional 40% off new markdowns were available in early November and by the first week of December, 60-70% off was not an unusual encounter. Additionally, there was so much merchandise and discounting became so prevalent across the board, swollen holiday inventories clogged the merchants books through the entire first quarter of 2009 and into the beginning of the second.

This drove many of the country's biggest retailers into single-digit stock price territory. leadership at these companies have vowed to take a stand on both inventory and discounting.

Retail remembers the law of supply-and-demand

Luxury Stores Trim Inventory and Discounts

Empty Shelves at Luxury Stores This Holiday Season?

Let's hope they have found the right balance.

The last, and perhaps the greatest, difference between Holiday 2008 and Holiday 2009, is optimism.

This time last year, Americans were terrifically optimistic. The Presidential election had produced a young, seemingly dynamic, clear-minded and decisive leader in Barack Obama. The Congress had rushed through, first a Troubled Asset Recovery Plan bill aimed at reducing stress in the country's housing market, then passed an $800 billion Stimulus Package to jump-start the stagnant jobs market. The Federal reserve made moves to stabilize the Financial markets and, the end of a polarizing and unpopular President's term in office, was within view.

We can honestly say now that we are nowhere near that level of optimism this year, and much of that lack of optimism can be traced back to the failure of nearly everything on the previous list. The President is much less popular than a year ago, the TARP funds were not used as promised and therefore did not have an impact on the housing situation, over 50% of the Stimulus remains unspent, the Fed has come under fire for it's secrecy in dealing with the largest banks, economists are saying 2011 for a turn around and this President has 3+ more years in office and there are no elections with which to blow off steam. Optimism is really nowhere to be found.

I think this is too much for the retail industry to overcome. I am looking at a 2-2.8% decrease in sales for the sector and more than a few stores folding there tents for good. I feel there has not been enough emphasis on changing practices and getting smarter about winning market share since the downturn last September. Stores have focused, and maniacally so, on not repeating last years mistakes. But last year is gone. This economy presents, as I have laid out, a new set of circumstances. Looking back rarely assists in moving forward.

They are entering this year's gunfight with a knife.

The Parkers

2009-11-16T08:25:00.009-06:00

I was born in Chicago, grew up in Chicago and therefore, wherever it is I live, I still call Chicago home. The following post is about Chicago, but easily applies to anywhere in the Union.

We can all agree, Chicago's parking situation is the worst in the country. How did we get here?

When parking meters were invented in the 1930's, municipalities (Chicago included) banned their use, as most considered the meter's usage would constitute "selling something to the public that we already own," the streets of our cities.

After their adoption in Oklahoma City, OK was allowed by their city council as a way to "break congestion" on high traffic streets, other cities bought in under the idea of civic betterment, or keeping roadways clear and safe, as evidenced by this 40-second clip about the instillation of the meter.

The first meters were relatively inexpensive, but because parking anywhere else was free, the idea worked well in clearing out those busy thoroughfares in cities that adopted the meter program. This was the normal state of affairs, using a low-cost deterrent, in high traffic areas, to help motorist's move more freely when visiting their Main Street. The effect was largely psychological for the first 30 years of the program, to the point of their being nobody specifically tasked with collecting the (few) monies from the parking apparatus.

The "Car Crazy" 1950's did not impact this, as there was a subsequent boom in the establishment of suburbs, therefore negating the congestion in the downtown metropolitan areas of most cities at the time.

The 1960's did, however, bring about the introduction of the all-female Meter-Maid brigade, tasked with the full-time job of collecting the revenue from the parking poles in the largest of cities, as more and more Americans found themselves moving to suburbs to avert the civil discord the encountered in the downtown areas on the way to and from work each day. This living there/working here arrangement meant untold scores of cars clogging the highways during rush hour each day and a mad scramble for spots to park the cars, once the destination was reached.

It was not unfamiliar to see cars on the curb or at the corner, alleys choked with automobiles parked in any fashion and even some of the city's park greenery space used as impromptu parking lots. Chicago answered this problem swiftly and headily.

Mayor Richard J. (Daddy) Daley was one of the few mayors in America that decided not to surrender his downtown to "flight," and so instituted a wide-ranging program in the late 1960's to deal with it's upkeep, street parking would become a part of this campaign of re-invention.

Daley called for the instillation of meters along all of Chicago's "critical through-ways" (deemed so not for their residential density, but for the amount of commerce that flowed along them), tripled the amount of Meter-Maids on the City payroll, expanded police power over vehicles (fines and towing) and banned all parking in the alleys of the city's downtown area (bordered by Roosevelt, Wacker, Desplaines and Columbus Avenues).

This was the parking plan for the City of Chicago up until the late 1980's, largely driven towards breaking congestion and keeping the city's main commercial areas free of congestion so that business could flow unimpeded. This flew in the face of a North Carolina Supreme Court ruling (Britt v. Wilmington, 236 N.C. 446, 73 S.E.2d 289) which stated:

Streets of a municipality are provided for public use. A city board has no valid
authority to rent, lease or let a parking space on the streets to an individual
motorist 'for a fee' or to charge a rate or toll therefor. Much less may it
lease or let the whole system of on-street parking meters for operation by a
private corporation or individual.

But most considered it, rightly, in the public good, since revenues were used to upkeep streets and repair curbs, a serious problem at the time.

In 1989, Richard M. (Sonny) Daley would be elected, by the slimmest of margins, Mayor of the City of Chicago, and how parking was viewed by the city government would shift, radically, in a new direction.

Almost immediately after Daley taking office, the city would condemn (and purchase) a number of buildings in the downtown area, then turn them over to private interests for little or no profit to the city, regardless of their being located in the (at the time) best business district in the United States. Overnight, work began at tearing these structures down to build new office and retail structures, all with a bonus feature, new to the city, multi-level parking structures.

Next, the Daley administration moved to make owning multiple parking tickets a felony, which failed miserably. In it's place, he convinced a split City Council to approve suspending the license of those with more than 10 out-standing parking fines (later removed by the state of Illinois and subsequently re-instated in the late-1990's).

By 1992, with the newly-built multi-level parking structures completed, the Daley Administration started restricting more and more areas of parking in the area surrounding the lots. First on one side of Michigan Ave, Dearborn, Clark and Wacker, then the other as well. Soon parking along Lake, Randolph, Washington, Monroe, Adams, Jackson and Van Buren would be prohibited, leaving only Wabash, with it's many jewelers, furriers and legal firms, untouched. If you wanted to park while you worked or shopped in the Loop, you now had no choice but to head to the convenient new parking structures.

Since so many Chicagoans rebelled by parking their cars on the streets, hazard lights flashing as they ran their errand, the Administration needed a new weapon to deter said behavior. This came, three-fold, with the passing of the laws for: doubling your fine after 60 days (1993), the Denver Boot introduction (1993) and the city creating an partnership with auto auctioneers, by which to sell cars that owed (at the time) in excess of $1000 and were impounded beyond 30 days.

Lastly, the 1995 budget for the City of Chicago shows an unusually large increase in expenditures for "parking enforcement," as well as a tremendous spike in expected revenues. The city purchased six times the amount of tow trucks it previously owned, started giving quotas to their foot patrolman for ticket writing, expanded the automobile Pound-system, increased fees at all extant parking meters, increased fines for expired meters, increased the "storage" fees at impound centers, added a towing fee (even though the task is done by city workers, which is kind of like being charged a "policeman's fee" when getting a speeding ticket) and, for the first time in 20 years, added parking meters and parking restrictions to residential areas that had no ties to commercial well-being or congestion.

Chicagoans were told this was not meant to impact the citizenry, but instead, "in preparation" for the upcoming Democratic National Convention of 1996 (another reason to breathe a sigh of relief for the Olympic fiasco blowing up). It took all of six months for city residents to have their worst fears realized, the parking coup was now complete. The City of Chicago no longer viewed parking as a tool to improve the flow of traffic in business districts. Parking, henceforth, would be treated as a revenue production arm of the City government.

Since getting all this revenue-grab infrastructure in place in 1996, the Daley Administration:

Moved to become the first city in America to sell late parking fines to second-tier credit functions (debt-collection companies), thus allowing parking tickets to go on credit reports. This meant, for the first time ever, money that was not borrowed, and never changed hands in any fashion, became a financial (debt) product in it's afterlife (after the non-payment).

Increased the number of "No Parking" and "Tow Away" zones outside of the central business district.

Opened multi-level parking structures in neighborhoods across the city.

Increased fees and fines seven times.

Shortened the doubling of unpaid fines from 60 days to 30 days.

Hired a ticket-writing brigade that enforces the spaces on the few streets where they are available.

Introduced neighborhood parking permits, which granted the streets (city property) as a right to those that owned homes (private property) by proxy.

Recently, and illegally (see this article), became the first city in America to sell it's civic parking system to a private entity.

Meanwhile, the rates for parking in these off-street parking facilities have become prohibitively expensive. $20 for the first hour is not unusual. So there are fewer places to park and costs more when you do. We have not even included the tens of millions of dollars in revenue from red light cameras, installed four years ago.

All of this in an era of simultaneous, yearly budget cuts and rate increases on the public transportation system that many residents are forced to use, by Daley and team.

Daley has declared war on our wallet and we have been an unaware participant in this battle that has seized upon the assets of our fair city, sold them to the highest bidder and made life for all citizens and visitors of our fair city miserable.

And even these transgressions don't begin to explain his latest idea of selling off our share of one of the largest supplies of freshwater in America, Lake Michigan and our other waterways.

Incidentally,the first parking ticket went ever issued went to a Reverend, for an expired meter. He was able to beat the charge in court, explaining that he had gone into a nearby store to get change for the device. This prompted cities like Cincinnati to adopt, until this day, meters that give you ten minutes for free at the push of a button, so as motorists are given time to acquire the appropriate change to pay the meters.

I fear that in the case of Chicago,a Reverend won't do, we may need to seek his superior.

The Good Things in Strife

2009-11-14T08:10:00.020-06:00

An AP report released Friday about Consumer Spending in the United States found, that while the overwhelming majority of Americans are still making sacrifices (or holding back altoghter) in the retail habits, the wealthiest members of our society have returned to pre-(market) crash spending levels. The story can be read in it's entirety by clicking the headline below:

Rich buying again, but middle class still hurting

Since the economic downturn last September required tax-payer infused bailout money to flow to the coffers of so many companies, marketing efforts and purchasing by wealthier Americans have been slavishly pursuing one goal, discretion! And somtetimes to outlandish degrees.

Consider that last holiday season, Tiffany & Co., the premier brand in upscale jewelry, had a reward program for it's employees who brought in used bags from other retailers so that it's customers could leave their stores with anonymous purchases, well disguised from papparazzi that had stationed themselves along 5th Avenue.

At The Master's golf turnament in May, the familiar Banking logos that, up until then, grace the ultra-elite corporate sponsorship area, were missing. All the same companies were present, and at the same cost. However, the firms on Madison Avenue (rightly) decided it might put many Americans off to see the JP Morgan, Citibank, Bank of America or Goldman Sachs logos spending millions at a golf tournament mere months after recieving "emergency funding" from the government. The super low-key approach even extended to a "no business cards" ban in the tents.

This shroud of marketing secrecy has extended to most all product categories tailored to the wealthy, which has led to huge drops in revenue at magazines like Vogue, Town & Country and Robb Report, and even the demise of a venerable titan, Goumet.

I thought it might be interesting to illuminate, for the readers of this blog, a few of the products and services that have become available since last September. These were all launched during the downturn, have had viturally no advertising and are available for purchase as of today. Some are outrageous, some are alluring, and all make the Neiman Marcus Ultimate Holiday Gift look like Sharper Image.

The World

The World is a luxury residential property, which is not unusual distinction, in and of itself. What makes The World different is that it floats! The World is a private residential cruise ship that spends time in different "exotic locals" throughout the year. The boat stays no longer than two-weeks at a time in any one of it's twenty-three destinations. This allows diversity for residents that choose to truly live on board the ship, vs. those that keep it as a vacation residence and meeting the ship in different ports of call.

The residences start at Studio's, of which there a very few, and include one, two and three-bedroom condominiums that resemble nothing you will enocounter on a Carnival cruise. The ultimate luxury experience can be found in one of the two, six-bedroom Penthouses on board (one is still available).

The World boast a deli, a grill and 4 world-class restaurants that operate 365 days a year. There is a first-run cinema which seats 150 guests, at each port of call there are on-board lectures about the culture of the region being visited, a bookstore, a wood-paneled library, an full-sized internet cafe, a tea garden, tennis courts, a full (and beyond) range Spa and most luxuriously, the only floating Graff Jewelry boutique on the planet.

Price Tag: Unavailable, though the Studios sold for a bit more than $700,000 and were fractional ownwerships. Speculation is that the 2 bedrooms, which comprices the greatest number of the ships residences, start at $2.7 million + 8% ($216,000) annual maintenance fees.

More info at: aboardtheworld.com

The Manor

The Manor is a single-family residence located in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles, California. The home is not entirely new, but after the former owners could not find a buyer, a decision was made to nearly gut the home and give it a dramatic upgrade. Construction started at end of 2008 and will be complete in March 2010 (though the realtor states it's "move in ready").

The property sits on 4.7 acres of some of the most expensive land in the United States. One of the more unique things about the property is all of the acreage is on flat land, a rarity for property of that size in the hills of L.A.

The residenceboasts over 56,000 square feet, not counting the 17,000+ square feet of attic space, home to the in-house beauty salon. Additional features include: 16 carports, 3 tennis courts, an observatory, one indoor and one outdoor olympic sized pool, manicured landscaping and enough marble to make the Pope blush. The good news is it sells for $1.5 million per room. The bad news is there are 100 rooms (not counting the aforementions attic).

Total Cost: $150,000,000.00 from current owners Aaron and Candy Spelling.

More info at: Christie's Great Estates

Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita

I am no car-head, but I know "hot damn" when I see it. The Koenigsegg brand is known to produce some of the most expensive cars in the world, but they really went all out on this one. As soon as the nickname leaked (Diamond) the car world went all atwitter.

Since I have no idea how much power a unit of horsepower produces (or why we still measure cars by animal standards?), lets go straight to the particulars. All you need know is there are only (?!?) 3 available world-wide and the paint job for the car is done in diamond dust!

Seats: two
Total Cost: $5,ooo,ooo

More info at: koenigsegg.com or deatiled at jalopnik.com

Oakley Elite C-6 Sunglasses

The Oakley Elite C-6 sunglasses block the sunlight from your eyes. . . so you can see better. . .kind of like your hand. . .only more elite-like.

Each of pair of sunglasses take 90 man-hours to create, which is why the company has "limited production to 200." That was hard to type bcause the cost of each pair of these Oakley's will set you back. . .

$4000.00

More info at: Oakley

Hermes Crocodile Hoodie

I think the title is self-explanatory, but if I have to I will write it out for you again. This is a hoodie, made of crocodile pelts, by Hermes.

Who in the world is asking for such a thing, you ask? Well, one famous owner of this utla-indulgent piece of clothing is Mr. Pharell Williams. How much did he pay for his? More than likely, nothing. How much will you need to pay for yours?

$75,000.00!

More info at: Hermes

Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition SUV

The people at Dartz set out to create the world''s most luxurious Sport Utility Vehicle in March and, when they delivered on the promise this past October, the amenities became the talk of the industry. The automobile includes gold-plated bullet-proof windows, 22 inch Kremlin Red Star gold-plated rims, Tungsten and white gold gauges with diamonds and rubies, white gold, diamond and ruby grill and sideboards, Kevlar coating, a special-edition Vertu 9the world's best) mobile phone and three bottles of the most expensive vodka on the planet, Russo-Baltique.

However, all of these appointments took a backseat (literally) to the creative path taken in choosing seat covers for the Red Diamond Edition, whale penis. They choice was based on the mammal being "submerged for the entirety of it's life" and the organ only being exposed to the outside of the body for "short periods," which thus produces "a luxuriant skin, soft beyond compare." Since a whale's penis can "only reach 8 feet long, each vehicle needed nearly two of them for each car in production. How much for ride on this gentle giants genetalia?

$1,500,000

More info at: Jalopnik

Hublot Black Caviar Bang Wristwatch

While there are countless wristwatches that exceed the Black Caviar Bang's asking price, nothing in this price-range (or even close) has been produced in the hourolocical world since the market meltdown of last September.

The Caviar's cache resides not in it's complex mechanics, but instead in the watches surreal engineering. Although the case is made of 18 karat white gold, it is not visible to the eye because of the black diamonds, cut in various shapes and sizes, that seem to maghically float on the case and face of the watch.

The watch houses 28.5 carats tw of diamonds and took 2000 hours of work to produce. To hide this under your tree will cost how much?

$1,000,000

More info at: Hublot

Eton Diamond Shirt

The shirt-maker Eton was founded in 1928 and for the first 79 years, they were pretty much a sane company. That all changed when it came time to celebrate their 80th Anniversary. They wanted to celebrate the occasion with a bang. Instead from sartorialists around the world started measuring their management staff for straight-jackets.

What Eton produced for the big date was the Diamond Shirt, which is a shirt made of the "finest and rarest of Egyptian cottons" and features five colored diamonds on each botton along the placket and cuff.

There is no dry-cleaner on earth I would trust not to lose one (or all) of these buttons, but if you do, the Diamond Shirt can be yours for. . .

$38,300.00 each

More info at: nowhere. the shirt sold already at Harrods.

Ralph Lauren Notorious

What percentage of the cloth used in making Ralph Lauren's pants is needed for the area covering his balls? I would think nearly all of it, or at least 90%.

When he annouced a launch of his signature frangrance early this year (it's now available), nobody could imagine he would race to the top of the chart as one of the most expensive on the market. For the sake of comparison I have to let the cat out of the bag early on this one. The 2.5 ounce bottle comes in at a whopping $4,000.00.

I know there are (few) more expensive fragrances on the market (the Clive Christian's Imperial Majesty at $215,000 comes to mind), however none of them have launched in the past 3 years and on a per-ounce basis are arguably a better value. The IM comes in at $12, 800 per once, to Ralph's $1,850. The difference is, when you are done with the Notorious, you will have an empty bottle, whereas upon completing your Imperial Majesty, you will still be in ownership of a hand-crafted Baccarat container with an 18-k gold collar and a 5 carat diamond at the crown of the stopper.

Both Katie Holmes and Elton John wear Imperial Majesty, and unopened bottles (only 10 of each men's and womens are produced each year) are verified to be housed in airtight safe-deposit boxes as investment goods by collectors. Thus far, there are no significant names attached to the Lauren offering. And to quote David Allen Grier, Ralph Lauren "Have you lost your damn mind?"

Lastly and just in time for Thanksgiving. . .

4505 Meats Turducken

Is it possible that I could convince you that an uncooked Thanksgiving turkey could be considered a luxury product? Well you are correct, a turkey cannot be counted as such.

However we are not talking about a turkey, we are talking about a Turducken, which is described by it's seller, 4505 Meats, as:

a combination of turkey, duck and chicken which comes on a bed of root
vegetables in a roasting pan and includes an electric thermometer with a preset
alarm on it, making it simple for home cooks to follow the directions and pull
the bird from the oven when the thermometer beeps.

The 15-20 pound bird (or bird, bird, bird) is going fast so place your order NOW!

$225.00

More info at: 4505Meats and pick up an "spritual t-shirt" from them while you're shopping, because God help us all.

What's in a Name?

2009-11-10T08:05:00.002-06:00

Growing up with a name like mine was not easy. And while it provided (and to this day provides) ample fodder for idiots to mock, I never wanted out. Though it took me a while to love my name, I always fully embraced it.

The idea of changing my name to John, or Bill, or Harry crossed my mind about as much as John, Bill and Harry pondered the idea of making the jump to Sirami, which means never.

I often wonder why people make fun of names? The name "Shelonda," for instance, was outrageous in the 80's, but now seems tame and pretty mainstream. The martin family caused a mini-uproar when news started coming in that their baby was named Apple. 10 years later, no so much of a big deal.

As a youth in the 1970's, NOBODY had a name that was out of the ordinary. When my teacher took attendance, even she would join the chorus of guffaws as she butchers my name. Take a poll of the people you know older than 35, you will encounter nothing but biblical or Anglophilic names, usually running straight down the center of the mainstream. Perhaps this was because many of our parents were born in the 1940's and 50's, the very height of America and the American Ideal. Conformity as a stated goal never has been, and (hopefully) never will be so, universally accepted as the goal of society was the thinking of those times.

One recent trend is naming children after celebrities. Which got me to thinking about who celebrities were named after. This led me on a slippery slope to a startling discovery: many celebrity names are NOT their actual names. Why these people chose to go with a pseudonym is obvious in some cases, unclear in others, but sad in all. They would still be the fantastically-talented individuals they are today, but all the while carrying on the tradition their parents bestowed upon them.

So if you name your child a celebrity name, to borrow from Steveland Jedkins (sic Stevie Wonder), make sure you're sure.

A Sampling of Celebrity Name Changes:

Actor Cary Grant was born...
Archibald Alexander Leach

Actor Billy D. Williams name is actually...
William December Williams Junior (born in April)

Singer Shania Twain was born...
Eilleen Regina Edwards

Singer Garth Brooks was born...
Troyal (with cheese) Garth Brooks

Director Spike Lee was born...
Shelton Jackson Lee (which explains the glasses)

Actor Charlton Heston was born...
John Charles Carter (in a town called "No Man's Land, IL" later incorporated into the city of Wilmette, IL)

Author Danielle Steele was born...
Danielle Fernande Dominique Schuelein-Steel (her family founded Lowenbrau beer)

Singer Rihanna was born
Robyn Rihanna Fenty

Performer Fergie was born...
Stacy Ann Ferguson (and did voice-over work for the "Sally" Peanuts characters at age 9. Some may be of the opinion she currently does voice-over work for the adult characters in Peanuts while in concert.)

Musical Producer Ne-Yo was born...
Shaffer Chimere Smith (he was, reluctantly, given the nickname NEO (yes, that neo) for his "ability to see beyond the music." It would later morph into it's more familiar form.)

Comedian Jay Leno was born...
James Douglas Muir Leno (and was once advised by his high-school guidance counselor to drop out of school.)

Actor Will Smith was born...
Willard Christopher Smith

Ben Affleck was born...
Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt

Sports Reporter Ahmad Rashad was born...
Robert Earl Moore

Actor Albert Brooks was born...
(No Kidding) Albert Lawrence Einstein

Actor Ben Kingsley was born...
Krishna Pandit Bhanji

Chaka Khan was born...
Yvette Stevens

Charlie Sheen was born...
Carlos Irwin Estévez

Demi Moore was born...
Demetria Gene Guynes

Elvis Costello was born...
Declan Patrick MacManus

Fatboy Slim was born...
Quentin Leo Cook

Flavor Flav was born...
William Jonathan Drayton Jr.

Hulk Hogan was born...
Terry Gene Bollea

Jackie Chan was born...
Chan Kwong-Sung

Judy Garland was born...
Frances Ethel Gumm

Lady Gaga was born...
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta

Jamie Foxx was born...
Eric Marlon Bishop

Nicole Richie was born...
Nicole Camille Escovedo

Martha Stewart was born...
Martha Helen Kostyra

Pter Coyote was born...
Rachmil Pinchus Ben Mosha Cohon

Larry King was born...
Lawrence Harvey Zeiger (and remains my favorite person in all of media)

Sally Field was born...
Sally Mahoney

Snoop Dog was born...
Cordazar Calvin Broadus

Whoopi Goldberg was born...
Caryn Elaine Johnson

Winona Ryder was born...
Winona Laura Horowitz

Three, 3, Three: Part I - Health

2009-11-09T08:06:00.005-06:00

Three questions on the topic of:

Health

1. When you buy car insurance, or home owners insurance, do you look for the absolute "least expensive" policy on the market, or do you look for the policy with the maximum coverage you you can afford at the time?

You, like I, choose to get the policy with the best coverage within your budget.

The Great American Health CARE Debate has been turned into the Great American Health INSURANCE Debate.

We are no longer talking about the health, well-being, sanity, care and comfort that every person in this nation should have as a natural birth-right. The discussion started there, most certainly. We are now talking about every person in this great country of ours getting a the gift of an insurance premium as a birth-right. Yes, you cannot be denied coverage anymore, but the flip side is you can no longer deny coverage. Just as every 16 year-old new driver in the country is met with the demand of being insured to drive, we will all be met with the demand of health coverage. . .upon being born.

I can recall being told insurance premiums would drop upon passage of the bill requiring all Illinois drivers to be covered in 1990. My first premium, pre-passage, was $79 per month, with a $350 deductible. My insurance premium today, without an accident in 19 years, is almost double.

The Bill being celebrated by the Congress today will hand the Insurance companies a new crop of 50-75 million new customers, who can no longer refuse their services. This has been a high-jacking and this high jacking was done by the only person with enough cache to pull it off on an angry nation, Barack Obama.

2. If you need a prescription to put "medicine" in your mouth, why are there no set limits to what "food" you can put in your mouth?

These are not mutually exclusive issues.

Upon admittance to ANY hospital, the first thing you can expect to happen is, your being put on a restrictive, guardedly-watched diet. Health care professionals know, you cannot bring the body into balance without a healthy diet, the medicine will not do the job on it's own. If such thinking applies to an unhealthy body, how can it not apply to a healthy body.

You would not allow your friend Willy to write you out a pill combination for that pain in your chest, why then are his recipe or restaurant suggestions taken as the gospel?

There is not one person , well actually there is ONE person, that understands the highly-chemicalized ingredient labels on the products we eat for nourishment. Few know that, in order to allow more products to reach the shelves for consumption, a new category that could go around the food laws had to be created. That category is called "Foodstuffs."

The word is old, but the category is relatively new, dating to the late 1970's. The problem with foodstuffs is they have, since their introduction, become an increasingly larger part of the food supply and American diet. Well in excess of 60%, on average, of every Americans diet is a foodstuff of some sort. Those wanting to test this theory are free to pick up the item closest to them (barring the miraculous occurrence that item might be a fruit or vegetable) and read the ingredient panel. If you understand the entire label, you are eating food. If not, FOODSTUFF ALERT!

This obviously doesn't include the staple item of almost every American meal, meat. This product has no ingredient label whatsoever. You are only able to ascertain whether this animal "passed" or not. Meat is not raised in a uniform fashion, the way corn, beans, wheat and rice are not raised in a uniform way. Each farm uses their proven (or experimental) method for producing carrion at the highest possible (I bet you think the next word will be quality, but sorry it's) profit. This, literally, smacks of FOODSTUFF.

I think we should start requiring prescriptions for eating because we need to have such an important facet of our existence in the hands of "trained professionals." No?

3. Why do so many people shun alternative health altogether?

Nobody is telling you to turn your back of your understanding of medicine up to this point in your life (well, actually. . .), but why is there such a hard and fast aversion to anything offered in the field of alternative medicine? It is really like telling me you can't stand peanuts, but love Snicker Bars.

The peanut, many times, is what the alternative health field is offering you. For example, many people need help falling asleep. These people would never consider a chamomile tea (for mild assistance), massage therapy to re-balance the body and help blood flow (medium-level assistance) or melatonin (hard core assistance), all of which are non-threatening, highly-effective and carry no (or few) side effects.

No you would rather have the Snickers because it's packaged beautifully, you saw it on television and in US Weekly, your friends eat them, they are readily available in every store and it tastes great. You would rather have Nytol, Unisom, Sominex, ProSom or Rozerem, which all have the peanut (natural product), to produce the desired effect, and the the chocolate (for flavor), nougat (for bulk in the hand and to the eye) and caramel (for digestive assistance) which produce the side-effects associated with the drug.

Why not just eat the peanut? Or at least stop cursing the peanut and find out more about it, which is usually far less expensive than it's mainstream counterpart. Maybe you might like your peanut in a different fashion, say peanut butter? By opening up our minds to all the possibilities involved with keeping ourselves healthy, we can only improve the odds with which to produce a desirable result.

Hiding in the Sunshine

2009-11-07T08:04:00.009-06:00

So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

- Ecclesiastes 2:17

A brutal series of killings. A community suffering from the trauma of living in the midst of a monster. 11 young women dead at the hands of a man that openly dared the authorities to discover his inner-fiend. Bureaucratic finger-pointing and obfuscating to explain why leads and neighborhood complaints had not been followed though to their logical conclusions. A Police force that missed several, obvious clues of blatant social misconduct.

I speak, of course,of Chicago.

The 1998 serial-rapist/murderer case of Andre Crawford, who terrorized Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, went to trial on Thursday in the shadow of what is an almost identical series of crime and circumstance in the Midwest's other "City by the Lake," Cleveland, OH.

These cases both share a startling number of similarities. Consider

They both preyed upon economically-unstable, drug-addicted, young African -American women, using the promise of drugs as a lure..

Each involve the rape and murder of 11 women (so far).

Each involve a 12th victim that barely escaped with their lives.

Each involve police ignoring community complaints about the (alleged) killer for months, or years.

Each involve a suspect that remained in police orbit, or custody, for regular cycles during the investigation.

Each involve communities that had to literally beg (in Cleveland, to no avail) for a task force to be set up.

Each involve communities that came under fire by the media, after the discovery of the victims, as not being "aware" or "involved enough" with the neighborhood, thus creating an atmosphere that "allowed" the predator to thrive.

In each case the accusation would be proven to be categorically false

And in each case, the suspects misfortune, or stupidity would bring him to justice, not the "boots on the ground."

In the Chicago case, Andre Crawford freely preyed upon the women of Englewood, Chicago's poorest neighborhood, for a period of 6 years. When a task force was formed, 3.5 years after the missing persons reports started coming in, he regularly checked in with them to "see if there were any new leads in the case."

This despite the fact his whereabouts were unaccounted for, he actually sold articles of his victims clothes in the very neighborhood were they had mysteriously disappeared and he was know to be somewhat gregarious, but completely secretive about himself.

The neighborhood, during that period of 1993-1999, was in full panic mode. Understand, this is one of the most crime-ridden areas of the entire United States, but neighborhood alarm was never enough to move the authorities to act. No newspapers wrote of the disappearances, and only mild attention was given to the missing persons investigation. This was clearly not a priority, that is until the bodies started being recovered. By that time Andre Crawford had already disposed of his 9th victim.

Unlike the news reports of the time's boasting of "great police work" bringing him to justice, he was actually brought in because his twelfth victim, after spending weeks in fear, went to the police. He would be brought in and, almost as an after-thought, asked to give a DNA sample, which 5 days later came back linked to seven of the recovered corpses.

Paralleling this saga in the Cleveland serial-rapist/murder case are the exploits of Anthony Sowell. He preyed upon the same socio-economic group in that city's Mt. Pleasant neighborhood over a period of 3-4 years.

Mt. Pleasant residents also made numerous complaints about his odd behavior, unbelievably bad and unusual body odor and suspicious home (where all his victims have been discovered).

When residents of the neighborhood complained of the awful "smell of death" that emanated from the area around his house, and the postman that delivered mail to his home complained of the "horrible, putrid" odor of the dwelling, the city blamed the Sausage Producer on the corner of the block, forcing them to replace a sewer system and buy new grease traps. One store owner even spoke of how, upon entering his store, Sowell's body odor "immediately filled the entire place with such a disgusting smell," he had to open all the windows and doors to his establishment.

And yet, no suspicion from the authorities surrounded him. Even within a neighborhood with numerous missing persons reports, and living in a house that constantly gave off noxious fumes.

Because Sowell was a sex offender, police regularly were meant to check on him at his home to ensure he was in residence. Their last visit was, ominously, on September 22 of this year.

Later that very night, Sowell beat and choked a twelfth woman until she passed out, then raped her. The victim awoke and climbed out the front window of his house, naked and screaming. And, though neighbors reported the incident to the police, nothing was done.

Five weeks would pass before the victim could muster the energy and overcome the fear of reporting the crime. She told authorities of the attack and her feeling that she "would probably have been killed had she not awakened" when she did,

When two officers (not the S.W.A.T. team they seem to send out for the most routine instances these days) went to his residence there was no Anthony Sowell, they did, however, find two decomposing bodies in the middle of his living room floor. Finally, the killing would come to an end.

These cases are shedding light on an alarming situation that has long been a problem, effective policing policies in underprivileged areas.

We regularly (and rightly) get an Amber Alert within 15 minutes of a child's abduction coming to light. We routinely (and rightly) hear every footnote associated with the disappearance of any white female within the the nations borders, and sometimes outside (ie, Natalie Holloway).

Were is the "equal protection under the law" for the residents of such communities as Chicago's Englewood and Cleveland's Mt. Pleasant?

Robert Ressler, one of the founders of Forensic Psychology and Psychological Profiling, once famously stated that there are two serial killers at work, at all times, on average in each state in the Union. That means 100 predators are on the loose within the borders of our country. Increasingly, these predators are being born of, moving to and operating in the poor, minority, urban areas.

With such information in mind, consider that in the last 10 years the following killers have been apprehended (who knows how many are still operating?):

Terry Blair - After being released from prison for the murder of his children's mother and her unborn child, he would rape and kill 8 women, while raping another 3 in the Kansas City, Missouri area, all within a three-month reign of terror. He would go undetected until a person following the case in the newspaper thought it sounded like the same m.o. from the Blair killing of 25 years prior and called a tip line.
Ronald Dominique - Used the lure of money for sex to get his victims to follow him home in the suburban New Orleans area. He would kill 23 people, over ten-year period, before being stopped. He also went undetected until a man came forward to police with a story of Dominique's anger at his refusal to allow himself to be tied up. A casual, investigatory trip to the Dominique residence turned up bodies and brought the saga to an end.
Paul Durousseau - Killed 9 (as two of his seven victims were pregnant) women throughout the Southwestern United States from 1997-2003. He used as a cover his being a taxicab driver to gain proximity with his victims. Even though the mother of his first victim gave police the name of the cab company and the driver's first initial, "D," as clues to help them when her daughter went missing, police did not follow up on the lead. Midway through his spree, he would do a month in jail for forcing himself upon one of his passengers, who barely escaped. And still no detection. He was finally picked up for a parole violation and, while incarcerated, a DNA match linked him to the other murders.
Vincent Johnson - Preyed upon women in the impoverished areas of Brooklyn, New York in 1999 and 2000. While there was a task force set up after the 4th of his victims would disappear, he continued to go undetected. After police interrogated one homeless suspect over an extended period, they had to release him because his DNA did not match with the samples from the crime scenes. Upon his leaving he told them of another homeless man, Johnson, that frequently discussed "rough sex." When police approached Johnson, he refused to be questioned or to submit a DNA sample, which is voluntary in the State of New York. After releasing him, one of the officer's watched him spit when he got out of the car. They collected the sample from the street and positively identified him as the culprit of the murders. He soon confessed to killing 6 women over that period of time.
Maury Troy Travis - Murdered 12 (he claimed 17) women between 2000 and 2002 in the St. Louis, Missouri area. It took the discovery of the 7th body (he had already killed 13, according to his count) for police to admit to a serial killer being in the area. They would turn up few clues on the killer, while Travis spent his days talking with reporters covering the case and his nights claiming more victims. His downfall came when he decided to, anonymously, send a local newspaper a map to one of the body of one of his yet undiscovered victims. The reporter (not the police), thankfully, recognized the map was from the website Expedia.com. After contacting the company, the reporter was able to trace the map search back to Travis' computer. Authorities moved in and questioned a calm Travis over a two hour period. Finally, they asked if they might be allowed to look at his computer, to which he blurted out," DAMN COMPUTER!" and admitted to being the killer.

All killers of poor, ethnic minorities, in urban, economically-unsound communities. All of which break every notion associated with patterns used by serial killers prior to the 1990's. All pretty much left unchecked while they committed their crimes over long periods of time, while their communities cried out for help.

This is a new phenomenon and therefore needs to be taken much more seriously, as the clear acceleration of the number of predators is great cause for alarm.

I don't highlight these cases for the sake of sensationalism. I am merely pointing out the clear evidence of these criminals ability to thrive when preying upon a small underprivileged class of people that had the misfortune of sharing the same zip code with a monster. Every other serial killer (that has been apprehended) has operated in a large geographic, sometimes multi-state or national, area. It is only good fortune, not the full-court press of resources, that stopped the killing in each of the cases discussed in this post.

That is not good enough!

The lives of all people are sacred. These communities should not be forced to hang their heads in shame, as if they are at fault for the actions of these sick people. They are victims as well. But more importantly, they are fellow Americans and human beings that deserve our empathy and the support and protections that their, OUR, municipal leaders can provide before, during, and after such a crisis strikes.

Why is it, I ask, such a difficult thing for the people of these communities to have their concerns addressed? Even when it's a matter of life and death.

CONsterNATION!!!

2009-11-06T08:06:00.020-06:00

We the people of the United States,

in order to form a more perfect union,

establish justice,

insure domestic tranquility,

provide for the common defense,

promote the general welfare,

and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,

do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

What's going on ya'll?

Politics, Culture & Puppet Shows

2009-11-04T11:17:00.006-06:00

Joan Ganz Cooney could not have children. She wanted them, very badly she did, but her biological makeup did not, unfortunately, jibe with her aspirations.

This early diagnosis led numerous early relationships to fall apart, as this was post-War, 1950's America, children were an expectation, almost an after-thought to marriage. With her innumerable hours of free time, she decided to put all her eggs into one basket, her career.

Starting out as a lowly press-release writer for the Radio Corporation of America, she quickly became a master of communicating strong messages from previously dull material. Her specialty, way back then in the male-dominated corporate culture of the 50's, was forecasting. Forecasting trends for what the relatively new medium of television would become.

Her sterling work would bring her few promotions, but did gain admiration of some powerful allies. Eleanor Roosevelt asked her to do press for her Democratic Reform Movement, a task she gladly accepted. This relationship would put her in the sight lines of other influential people.

Joan then applied for a new, higher-paying opportunity with a new station in Boston and though the press position was filled, the head of the station gave her an opportunity to be a producer for one of the shows. 'Court of Reason' paid less, required longer hours and was a complete departure from anything else on television at the time. The success of the show came from Ms. Cooney's uncanny ability to pluck future news makers from obscurity and provide them a spotlight. One of the first shows to interview Malcolm X was 'Court of Reason.'

Her successes at the station continued with other shows and other formats, none of which she felt fully called on her inexhaustible mental energy, or passion. That all kind of changed when having dinner with her husband and a few friends that worked for Carnegie Corporation. The topic turned to the problems with educating children at early stages. Mrs. Cooney found herself uncharacteristically interested and impassioned.

The passion of that evening would carry forth in her authoring a paper on the subject titled: The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education, which offered a few random ideas about using television to assist children in the school preparation. The paper would soon catch the eye of the U.S. Commissioner of Education and several other foundations across the country.

Two years later, after raising eight million dollars from several of those foundations, Ms. Cooney wrote a press-release in March 1968, using her own hand, announcing the formation of the Children's Television Workshop. They would spend the next 17 months developing their first project, targeted at those very children she had wrote about in her paper a few years back.

The show they created, now available in some 110+ countries around the world, was Sesame Street, easily the most important use of the television airwaves since it's inception.

Here's to Mrs. Cooney's and her colleagues imagination, fortitude and intellect in delivering, if nothing else, one hour of safe, useful television to families around the world. And in doing so, became a Mother to us all.

Happy 40th Birthday Sesame Street!

Let's Innovate America.

Why So Serious????

2009-11-03T08:02:00.009-06:00

365 days ago America woke up to head to the polls, for a momentous election was at hand.

Not because, as so many people were led to believe, an African-American was on the ballot and the front-runner, but because the office-holder at the time could not run again, therefore the direction of the country was at stake.

Would America choose:

"A bold new direction," as so many characterized Barack Obama's candidacy?

"Politics as usual," as many, including Mr. Obama, characterized the campaign of John McCain?

We, as a country, chose the former. We chose the candidate that had made no missteps in his quest for the "highest office in the land," showed remarkable poise in handling the jarring blow to the Financial system in September and faced down every wrong-headed, foolish, biblically-foul accusation hurled from the mouth of that wombat out of Alaska.

America chose Barack Obama to lead this great country we live in.

The parties, good cheer and optimism after he was announced as the winner (let's be real, we did wait for the ACTUAL confirmation after two elections that can be called dubious, at best.) was unlike anything I had experienced in my lifetime, 9/11 included. America took a collective look in the mirror and said we have just done something quite radical (and good), so what else was possible with a little sacrifice and commitment to things beyond our immediate self-interest.

It was my best 48 hours of being an American. The evidence of a new tomorrow was everywhere. And I really mean EVERYWHERE!

One year after the election of President Barack Obama (still kind of surreal to write that), I am comfortable in calling his time in office, thus far, a phenomenal letdown.

If someone had told me, that after a year in office:

The banks that we, as taxpayers, bailed out would be stronger, less-regulated, more consolidated, giving larger bonuses and generating record-breaking profitability.

Smaller, community banks would continue to fail (close) at a record clip.

Unemployment would be at record levels.

Homelessness would be twice what it was at the end of 2007.

People would still be getting thrown out their houses at rates unseen in American history.

So many (37 million) Americans would be on Food Stamps ,that Costco starts accepting them.

50% of the nations children would be receiving some type of federal food benefit.

Government Social Services would continue to be slashed, at the City, State and Federal level.

The Stimulus Package, in the face of all this news, would still largely be unspent (only distributed $250 billion of $787 billion, thus far). Is this being saved for major projects in 2011, just in time for re-election?

Unemployment benefits would be allowed to expire on 18 million ACTIVE job-seekers.

Social Security beneficiaries would not get a cost-of-living increase for the first time, ever.

Zero major changes to climate legislation would occur.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the military's policy of making Gay's serve in silence ,would still be in place.

There would be a regular stream of LOBBYISTS walking through the White House doors, even though you promised to close off access.

The Defense of Marriage Act would still be as strong as the day it was passed.

It would be MORE expensive to attend college, then the year previous.

There would be less federal grant money available to the kids that are able to attend college.

There would still be reports of massive casualties in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no clear sight in exiting.

You would continue to fund these wars with "off the books" appropriation.

None of the people responsible for starting both of those illegal wars (only CONGRESS can declare war) would be actively prosecuted. And there would be no plans to do so.

The President would grant blanket commutation to the entire Central Intelligence Agency.

Nothing would be done on our country's commitment to Darfur, Sudan or East Timor.

The President would spend so much of his time trying to appease, reconcile and "win over" Republican law-makers.

His first strike against "terrorism" would come in the guise of Africans...pirates?

Pres. Obama would buy into, FULLY, the "Trickle-Down" economic policy of his predecessor, by giving untold trillions to the Banking Industry, billions to Detroit automakers and billions more to Pharma.

Chicago school-children would have to be beaten to death ON CAMERA, THEN POSTED ON YOUTUBE to get attention from his White House. Well actually, I did kind of know that one.

He would allow his efforts at reconciliation with the Republican to embolden the worst amongst them and allow their voices to go unchecked during a long, hot summer of visceral public debate.

The Patriot Act would be strengthened and broadened.

The claims of Executive Privilege would continue to cloud inquiries into access and release of documents

Gitmo would still be open.

If you had told me any of these things would be true one year after President Obama's election, I would have labeled you a fool. The fact that all of these things ARE true, as of this very moment, is disturbing beyond description.

The single biggest issue I have with this President (and the single biggest issue of his candidacy) is Health care.

Candidate Obama never discussed Health Insurance companies having the "right to make a profit." There is no such "right" in ANY economic system, especially Capitalism. The forces of the market shit you out, or you find a way to ride the tide. There is no "right" involved.

Yet President Obama has made such a comment on several occasions...and stands by them as of my writing this post.

Candidate Obama said the words "Universal Health Care" 17 times during his primary battle with Hillary Clinton. President Obama took Single-Payer (the only form of Universal care used around the world) Health Care off the table on his third day in office. Thus relinquishing the strongest bargaining chip we, as a people, had with the Insurers.

Candidate Obama stated a goal of "HEALTH CARE for every American." President Obama now talks of "HEALTH INSURANCE for every American."

Candidate Obama asked us to vote him into office "now, because we have too long lived on the promise of 'another day.'" President Obama's Health Care (Insurance) legislation is set to BEGIN in 2013, which is conveniently after the next Presidential election.

Listen to him before the Iowa Caucuses:

So his most important promise of the campaign, giving all Americans access to health care, has become a Bill that: will cover 2% of the population, force the REST OF US to BUY insurance from the companies that have denied coverage, given substandard service, priced premiums so high as to force bankruptcy on millions of families (medical bills are the #1 reason for bankruptcies in the U.S.), continue to disallow negotiated prices with the Pharmaceutical Industry on prescription drugs and do nothing about the high price of hospitalization in this country.

That is the REALITY of this Bill, regardless of how many times this Joker uses the fake word "robust" to describe it.

All that said, I am over the "promise" of this President. He has had more than enough time, more than enough of a mandate and more than enough support to eliminate all these issues that impact ordinary Americans. That is why we voted for him.

The timid, toe-in-the-water President we have witnessed over the last 365 days has been a resounding disappointment to me and, I suspect, you. So come 2012, he won't get my vote.

Democrats always know the Progressive (of which I count myself) wing of their party will not vote for a Republican (if there is one, once Sarah gets done with it), which is why he spends so much time and effort wooing the "Centrists and Moderate Republicans." And they are right, I couldn't bring myself to do such a thing. But I sure as well won't vote for him, even if that means I don't vote at all.

Too many in the echo chamber like to say that the Founding Fathers fought for, Dr. King marched for and and various others died for, our right to vote. That is the most patently ridiculous thing I've heard.

All of these people fought, marched and died in the quest for Representative Government. Since I feel I don't have a "representative," I think I'll just sit the next one out.

15 Hip-Hop Songs That Made My 80's Great!

2009-10-31T08:23:00.014-05:00

The 1980's appear to be all the rage right now and who am I to disagree, I (somehow) lived through them.

However, it seems when everyone is looking black, oops I meant back, there seems to nobody looking at the only music born in the "Decade of Decadence."

Well, that is what ya' boy is going to do right now.

In now way are these the "best" 15 hip-hop tunes of the 80's, just the ones that had the biggest impact on me.

Click the word "HERE" to hear the song discussed.

15. 'Sucker MC's' by RUN-DMC (HERE)

I start here because this is just about the first song I ever loved!!!!!

Easily the most influential group in the history of the genre. Before these guys came along emcee's wore fur, long earrings, knee-high boots, skin-tight suede pants and ponchos. Their authentically "hard" gear and delivery are what would later come to be called "swag."

This song is the one that is responsible for the very small burn mark I still wear on my ear today, as I could not resist the urge to break-dance on my Mom's carpeted floor every single time this song came on. Nerdy, yes! But I was powerless.

Side Note: I love that (Rev.) Run told us way back then, before the reality show and the millions, that he lived the life of "champagne, caviar and bubble baths." I guess some things never change.

14. 'Jingling Baby' by LL Cool J (HERE)

When James Todd Smith released his third album, 'Walking with a Panther', I could scarcely believe the noise emitted from the speakers in my bedroom. Was this at all possible? Had someone sampled my very favorite movie from the 1970's, "Black Belt Jones"? Was the person rhyming actually verbally "killing" every word, of every sentence, or every bar on the track?

YES!

And was I rewinding the cassette at the end of the song whenever it ended? ABSOLUTELY!

Side Note: While 'I Need Love' is so much more popular and came along earlier, this is the first song that both women and men could sing along to with equal passion.

13. 'Paul Revere' by Beastie Boys (HERE)

While I can say that Brass Monkey probably got more play and was more fun, this, my friends, was a revolution (sic: revelation) on wax.

Let me be perfectly frank about how much I loved this song: Nobody could convince me that the Beastie's were white, NOBODY! I didn't care about the album cover or the live performances, as we had just emerged from an era where even Berry Gordie had plastered white faces on black music to cross-over.

It was just too good to be white. When I finally realized that I was wrong and indeed the Beatsie Boys were white....I was mad. How dare they drop they most ridiculous beat in the (until then)history of the game.

But I kept listening, didn't I. HA!!!!!! Nothing had ever sounded like this, and it would take a full 10years for another track to supplant it as the beat I most like to hear free-styles over (Mobb Deep's 'Shook Ones).

Side Note: Rick Rubin said this was the first song he ever made that he thought was not up to snuff. That is why they decided to never film a video.

12. 'I Get the Job Done' by Big Daddy Kane (HERE)

All you need to know is there was really nobody like him in the annals of "Playa MC's."

'I Get the Job Done's' frenetic pace, produced by Teddy Riley (remember him?) was too much for my friends and I to keep pace with on the dance floor. We nearly died trying, though.

In an age where you had to be able to rhyme, dance and dress well to even get a number, he was KING!

Side Note: There are other, better performances of this song, but I wanted to remind people of the person that gave Hip-Hop credibility and, in the process, saved late-night television by bringing millions of teens to the medium, Arsenio Hall.

SN2: Loved Scoob and Scrap as well (Super LOL!!!!)

11. 'I Got it Made' by Special Ed (HERE)

Special Ed's tome to all the things he "got" single-handedly gave birth to all the Ultra-Braggadocio emcees of today. A simple, fantastic beat with an overly calm teen spitting about the things that range from the obvious (Cascade detergent for dirty dishes) to the absurd (a solid gold bone for his dog). An instant classic.

Side Note: The video is still one of my faves, as he decided to film a song about his riches in a....JUNKYARD! Hilarious!

10. 'Brand New Funk' by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (HERE)

Before he was a movie star, television star, Scientology person, all-around lovable guy and whack emcee, Will Smith was actually one of the best rappers in the (then) game. This is my favorite of the pre-'Parents Just Don't Understand' catalogue from the group. It actually still stands up, beat-wise and lyrically.

Side Note: The opening of this video presages Smith's turn as Ali in the much later Michael Mann film.

9. 'Buddy' by De La Soul ft. Jungle Brothers (HERE)

Revolutionary on many levels, including: the lack of gold chains, the messaging of wearing condoms (for disease protection, not contraception) the relaxed, cerebral flow.

De La is a universally beloved as being the group that gave birth to backpackers. I just loved that a this was a song about their "buddy." Hey, I was a teenager. But truly a masterpiece in it's time...and now!

Side Note: This song introduced the world to a superstar, in the form of Q-Tip.

8. 'We Got Our Own Thang' by Heavy D (and the Boyz. HA!) (HERE)

Quite possibly the most danceable song of the decade. I dare you not to dance after clicking the link.

This song really set the table for the 1990's, as it was much more R&B than your standard Rap fare of the time. The dances, movement, film style, clothes and even haircuts, lean more 90's than anything else from the 80's, which means it was ...FUTURISTIC!

Side Note: Two-years later they would release the exact same song (not really) with Aaron Hall doing background vocals, Now That We Found Love. It would be the biggest Rap song since Parents Just Don't Understand, reaching #2 (or higher) on the pop charts in 16 countries.

7. 'Paper Thin' by MC Lyte (HERE)

The thing about Paper Thin is it goes beyond musicality. Does that make sense? Didn't think so. Allow me to explain.

Mc Lyte was a movement all by herself. She was as hard as Cool J, good-looking, confident, wore the very best of clothes, drove the best cars and rocked Lotto's. Her swag was swaggarrific to say the least. In an today's era, so many women boast about being "down" with a crew, or attaching themselves to hip-hop groups that are male-dominated and running with them. Mc Lyte was the LEADER of her crew, and that comes across strongly in her music.

It was rather difficult to choose a song that best personified my love (I wanted to hit that) for this outstanding artist, though admittedly, 'Lyte as a Rock' had absolutely zero chance of making the list because so many deejays have played it out over the years. It came down to this and 'ChaChaCha.' As soon as I saw the video, it was a wrap. Brought back too many (GREAT) memories.

Side Note: The car she is in at the beginning of the video, a Volkswagen Jetta, used to be the very pinnacle of black youth's aspiration. I wonder if things will ever get back to such accessible dreams in the hip-hop game, as Lil' Wayne talks of "dumping" his Phantom for a Maybach?

6. 'Please Listen To My Demo' by EPMD (HERE)

Putting into words the eerie, haunting sample of FAZE-O's, 'Ridin' High' that is at the core of EMPD's 'Please Listen to My Demo.' What I can tell you is that id never heard the song before I heard this, and within 10 seconds or so, I knew I was listening to something that would remain with me for years.

EPMD at the time were probably my favorite group, as they fit the mould of what any brash teenager needed in a musical fix: cool, young, rich and confident to the nines.

This track grabbed me because these highly-successful young men decided to bare the struggles of their rise to fame on wax. It had not been done before and there was no questioning a single word of the narrative, as it smacks of self-deprecating situational comedy. Eric and Parrish made dollars and fans, but few bigger than me!

Side Note: It took all my strength not to put 'So What 'Cha Sayin' in it's place, but i decided to go more obscure.

5. 'Hey Young World' by Slick Rick (HERE)

Somehow, someway, on an album that begins with the song 'Treat Her Like a Prostitute' and ends with 'Lick the Balls', Ricky Walters decided to include this beautiful tribute to the world's youth.

12 years before Buddy Love, Rick Da Ruler had his moment of clarity in the middle of a recording session. Truly hilarious, truly improbable and, truly poignant.

Side Note: Rick is BRITISH!!! I never knew. Thank goodness he made it to the States, his pimping may have been to hard on those girls overseas. LOL!

4. 'My Philosophy' by KRS-ONE (HERE)

KRS-ONE was the single-most influential artist of my 1980's persona. He is the reason I got back to reading about black history and nutrition. I grew up in a VERY Afrocentric household. I was at odds with the culture I was a part of in the house once I left to face the real world. Nobody was named Sirami out there. Nobody was vegetarian. Nobody drank distilled water. Nobody knew, or wanted to hear, anything about Africa or Africans. In my early-teens I began to assimilate as more of my time was spent outside of the house, in that "other" world.

KRS put a stop to all that the first time I heard him. He talked about having big nostrils and Hannibal Barca. He talked about Mandela before it was popular. He discussed mad cow in 1987 (go back and listen to his song 'Beef'). He talked about the importance of sexual hygiene (Jimmy), Police Brutality and every other topic that seemed to be important to me. "My Philosophy' just happens to be my favorite from the 1980's. Still very potent.

Side Note: The iconic album cover, with Kris looking out of the window ala Malcolm X, is one of the 25 most recognizable of all-time according to Rolling Stone.

3. 'Express Yourself' by N.W.A. (HERE)

I used to be ashamed of my infatuation with NWA, then I looked across the horizon at what is going on now and find their catalogue to still be relevant in this day and age. As hard as Easy and the boys were at the time, they found a way to make murder music that you could actually dance to.

On their freshman album the group stuck to pointing out the vast discrepancies between the America blacks and whites were a part of. 'Express Yourself' is the best (and funkiest) attempt at communicating that gulf.

Side Note: Easy told Dre he needed to stop worrying about the beats and focus on his lyrics. After listening to the album in it's entirety for the first time, he told Dre to stop worrying about his lyrics altogether, as his beats were better than anything he had ever heard. Totally true story.

2. 'I Aint No Joke' by Eric B. & Rakim (HERE)

I missed the 9 months prior, but i can distinctly remember hearing, watching and experiencing the birth of modern lyricism.

I had fallen asleep on the couch while watching Friday Night Videos with my mom, when I was awakened by Eric B.'s sparse beat over maniacal scratching. Within seconds the screen was filled with a young, fresh-dressed, brash and completely serious figure that proceeded to beat me over the head with originality, insight and verbal dexterity here-to-fore unseen.

The MC was Rakim, the video was for 'I Ain't No Joke' and, as I felt it might, music history was being made before my eyes. This and Thriller are the only two videos that I can recall where I was when I saw them the first time. And this is the only one that I remember what I was wearing! It was that meaningful to me...and still is.

Side Note: My mother threw away the cassette because I played it too much. One of maybe disagreements, of any kind, I ever had with my mother.

Well, that brings us to #1, which because of it's exclusion thus far, becomes rather obvious.

1. 'Rebel Without A Pause' by Public Enemy (HERE)

Here is my feeble attempt to explain how whole-heartedly I loved and love this song:

.........

Side Note: Flavor Flav is a charlatan these days, but is universally considered a very serious and accomplished musician, adept at more than 10 instruments. Harry Allen has written for everyone. Chuck D has a very successful syndicated political talk radio show.

SN2: If you watch this clip you will get goodies through the roof, including: a television commercial for LL's 'Bad' album and a clearly-uncomfortable Don Cornelius, interviewing a group he has no idea how to categorize. Really fully-representative of the times.

Honorable Mention

'Manifest' by Gangstarr (HERE)

Released in November of 1989, the album made it to the Midwest in early 1990. The track 'Manifest' would otherwise easily be in the top 5.

I 'm certain I have a few glaring ommisions, but this was not meant to be scholarly and just like good hip-hop, was done entirely off the dome.

COMING ONE DAY...15 More from the 1990's, aka the Golden Era.

Arthritic xoxo!

2009-10-27T15:58:00.009-05:00

In 1989, a group approached what was a then relatively new design company, about the various troubles many, within their customer base, were experiencing with onset of arthritis.

The design company, Smart Designs, was less than 10 years old at the time, but it's founders had already burnished reputations as people that "think outside the box."

Smart Design visited hospitals and doctors' offices across the country to observe arthritic people and watch what frustrated them the most. After much observation, they moved to the interview phase and found what they had learned through observation to be "poppycock."

While conventional wisdom of the time said suffers of arthritis are frustrated by getting around, the real anger for those suffers flared at their inability to "grab things."

It was uncomfortable and difficult to:

Grab a walker to assist in walking.
Grab a railing to go up stairs.
Grab a wheel to drive.
Grab the basic utensils and tools one needs in a daily routine.

The pain of bending knee and hip-joints was very real...unbelievably real. But frustration, that came from the inability to grab, or hold onto once you did, the things that surrounded them.

Smart Design went to work. Within three months they created a non-slip handle for walk-assisting devices. The handle was much easier on the hand and did not hurt when the full weight of the patient bared down on them. They had solved a complex problem in short order and were just about ready for the congratulatory lap around the stadium, to the warm applause of a thankful audience.

But a question in the closing meeting with the client changed everything. Someone had the audacity to ask, "Why Stop There?"

After very little debate, the challenge was accepted...provided the client would continue to fund the research and would be interested in distributing the finished products.

All parties agreed and every person in the Smart Design firm was placed on this one project. The sole purpose of which was, to improve the everyday lives of people suffering from arthritis.

They were told to go home and try to function each day with "your hands in a claw, unable to squeeze (like making a "c")." See what problems arise and come back to work each morning with thoughts and solutions you may have found.

Within 9 months, they were ready to share their findings with their client company. And, perhaps more importantly, introduce a few products they thought "might interest the arthritic community."

Smart Designs client was a company called OXO International, and the product they developed became "GOOD GRIPS," the most award-winning line of housewares products in the history of the industry.

Additionally, the product line is so revolutionary in it's functionality, it has escaped the medical realm and now boasts millions of perfectly healthy evangelists around the world...including the author of this article.

Let's Innovate, America!

View more of the amazing Good Grips line of products HERE

News That Made Me Go "HA!"

2009-10-24T08:11:00.009-05:00

This weeks news that made me laugh (or cry):

Disney Admits 'Baby Einstein' isn't Educational

So you mean to tell me that if I plunk down $20 of my hard earned cash for a DVD of a screen saver with elevator music, then park my kid in front of the television for 90 minutes a day, instead of personally interacting with them, my baby won't get smart?

I swear, sometimes the best joy in my life comes from stories like this. EVERY single parent I know fell for this. And parents I didn't know (or care to) recommended it to me, without my having solicited their opinion. This was such an unexpected gift, I feel I am indebted to Disney for the rest of my life. Perhaps the playgrounds across America will start to fill up again.

Cost-Cutting Forces Hawaii Schools to Four Day School Week

Finally, something positive has happened for the kids!

In a Recession that has impacted children across the world, good news beckons from the Pineapple capital. There have been numerous studies showing the economic downturn had increased hunger, abuse, confusion, psychological instability and homelessness on children in disproportionate numbers.

Not only did the Great Recession force closure of schools for one day a week, but the Almighty went one step further by making that day FRIDAY! There are many things it takes years of life experiences and maturity to grasp, Three-Day Weekend ain't one of them!

Bronson Pinchot is in the News

So Tom Cruise hated Gays 20 years ago and Denzel Washington was a bad person 17 years ago. that is news? Hilarious!!!!

Balkii has been completely under a rock for so long, I expect we'll next get his great inside gossip on that venerable dramatist, John Wilkes Booth!

The only reason people are giving the story any gravity is because he is name-dropping. Nobody cares what this man had to say before last week, not even Cousin Larry!

Give me a BREAK!

Sam Worthington is Christian Bale

It seemed that Christian Bale was the choice for every major movie with an important male lead over the last few years (sorry Shia LaBeouf). But success in Hollywood mean hard, hard falls from grace. Don't cry for Christian, he is still getting plum roles. but clearly the tide has shifted.

Sam Worthington, who, ironically, had his biggest role in the film that slowed Bales' career, Terminator:Salvation, is Hollywood's new Man of the Hour.

Mr. Worthington will be the lead in what I think is this years most important (with sincere apologies to Black Dynamite) film, James Cameron's 'Avatar.' Then you'll get more Sammy in Clash of the Titans next summer, then 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, next Fall. If that is not enough of the Aussie for you then, I am pleased to announce...

He just go the lead in the highly-anticipated Mad Max sequel, Fury Road.

Stop, drop and roll brother, cause you're on PHI-YAHHH!

Well that's enough of this lame excuse for a blog post. But as you know, the Saturday paper is always the thinnest on information.

See you on Monday.

Star-Crossed Lovers

2009-10-23T09:37:00.020-05:00

Being a resident of Ohio ("the farthest northern state in The South), comes with a price at times. One of them is rather frequent encounters with entrenched southern symbolism. Everything from ceramic mammies, Nigger Jim lawn jockeys and door-stops, minstrel-like advertisements that still hang in more rural areas and, perhaps most ominously, Confederate Flags...everywhere.

The Confederate Flag is a highly polarizing (don't understand why), exceptionally controversial (do know why), reasonably off-limits (why I am writing about it) subject. There seems, to me, to be a wholesale acceptance by otherwise reasonable people of this symbol as, minimally, a Southern "institution" and therefore, not really subject to national discussion.

I beg to differ!

The Civil War (or "War of Northern Aggression" if you live below the Mason-Dixon line) was not fought "to end slavery," as so many still believe to this day. The war was instigated and fought to preserve the idea and practice of slavery, which was threatened by a sweeping election victory of the (Northern) Republican Party, led by President Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

This prompted long-time Unionist, "true American" and eventual President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis to relinquish his seat in the United States Senate and return to his plantation.

Before the start of the war Davis would write that the old United States was founded on the "false pretense" that all men were created equal. Continuing:

"The Confederacy, by contrast, is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; it's
foundations are laid, it's cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the
negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the
superior race, is his natural and moral condition. This, our new Government,
is the first, in the history of the world, based on this great physical,
philosophical, and moral truth."

So much time, money, research and scrubbing have gone into diminishing this
FACT. Instead, there seems to be a wholesale acceptance to a new Mythology:
One of "Northern Aggression" and "State's Rights" and protecting the "flower
of the South," white women, who were increasingly "under attack." The
problem with all of these theories are...they lack evidence.

When you go to war, the other side tends to be aggressive, thus the Northern Aggression argument.

If the country goes about outlawing a practice within it's borders and you want to keep the practice alive in your state, I guess you would then be for State's Rights.

If there had been, ever (I mean EVER), an instance of wide-spread (medium or small-spread, too) attacks on white women, by black men, in the South (or anywhere else) we would not only have heard about it, but still hear it as often as the out of place O.J. Simpson references that fall from the lips of commentators from time to time.

So what we are talking about is a War, proactively instigated by southern anticipation of change. Or as we would call it in 2009, "YOU LIE!!!" Syndrome.

Seven, then ultimately eleven, States chose to separate, fight and kill residents of, the United States of America. With the hope of bringing it's existence to an tidy end. They elected their own government, established their own capital (actually three), raised their own army, printed and distributed their own money and, to represent this "clean break from villainy," created their own flag.

When the public was asked for feedback on flag designs from a Alabama newspaper, the overwhelming response was to "leave it alone." So many respondents objected to the idea of a flag other than the Stars & Stripes, the new government was forced to keep the process in house.
The first national flag of the Confederacy, designed and made by a Prussian immigrant, Nicola Marschall, was raised on March 4, 1861. According to many Southern newspapers, this was done to great cheers and hoopla. However, more than a few accounts mention scores of "white men openly weeping as Old Glory (U.S. Flag) was taken down, as many of them had fought for the military under it's banner."

Another witness at the ceremony put it in more stark terms. Mary Boykin
Chestnut wrote:

"We stood on the balcony to see our Confederate flag go up. Roar of the cannon,
etc. Miss Saunders complained of the deadness of the mob. 'It was spiritless.'
'No cheering, or so little - no enthusiasm.'"

The flag raised that day, the new flag of the Confederacy, looked like this:

Not what you expected, I know. It was not what I expected either. My research has turned up so many inconsistencies and homogenized myths about the Confederacy, I may actually have to write more on the subject later.

Anyway, the more familiar flag. The one hanging in the South "You Lie!!!" Carolina capital, the one's I encounter so frequently and you, hopefully, less frequently, is the Battle Flag of the Confederacy.

this flag was only used in battles against the North (ie America/this government/U.S. citizens) in the Civil War. The flag was not universally used, as only two secessionist States (Virginia and Tennessee) and Kentucky (never seceded) adopted the flag for it's regiments.

Other little known facts about this Battle flag:

The flag was not rectangular, as you see it today, but square. The initial flag was meant to look the same, but with a vertical cross (religious people opposed it because of the symbolism of the cross),separating four equal quarters, so the cross was flipped on its side to make an "x" instead of a "t". The rectangular version came about after the war.

They put 13 stars on the flag, even though only 11 States seceded. The other two were for Kentucky, which never seceded, and Missouri, which did, but were not allowed to joined the Confederacy because Lincoln sent federal troops their early on to "change the sentiment."

Due to embargoes on the South, red dye was limited, so early flags were made of PINK instead. Orange was used on a few occasions and frequently, flags were made "much smaller" than regulation because a lack of material.

After the war, so few people knew of, or recognized, the flag, it was not generally used throughout the South in ceremony. It took it's adoption by the United Confederate Veterans to bring the flag to light in much of the South and bolster it's popularity.

The Battle flag was virtually unknown in the north until stories from recently migrating freed blacks told of terror campaigns and the flags adoption by the Night Riders and Ku Klux Klan in the 1870's.

So what we have here is a flag that is built around the totally false mythology of chivalry, political disagreement and "protecting" their homeland. When in actuality it was used by a group:

That wanted to put an end the United States of America.

Killed Americans in that quest.

Whose sympathizers killed an American president (Lincoln)

Has been adopted by terrorist groups WITHIN THE BORDERS of The United States of America.

And I am meant to respect and accept it as "a part of our American culture?"

I think not!

Imagine, if you will, encountering one of the many convenience stores throughout big-city America, owned and operated by recent immigrants to this country. What would be the national pulse if they chose to hang the flag of Japan (WWII), Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan in front of their stores every morning? I think so as well.

The Confederacy was not a part of America, it's government was only formally recognized for 35 minutes, long enough to sign the Documents of Surrender. So how did this thing become a part of our national heritage? The short answer is, it hasn't and it shouldn't!

Symbolism is too important to allow to go unchecked (see swastika for more info) and I think it's time we put this great (not really) national (not really) mythology (really) to rest.

Besides, most people only care about that thing because of the Dukes of Hazzard!

Alone in the Dark

2009-10-21T08:18:00.007-05:00

He awoke from a restless night's sleep without his usual pep, only to find he had made his start two hours early.

Undeterred, he slipped on his shoes, drank a glass of milk and proceeded to his oven. He was sure the problem had more to do with temperature rather then ingredients. If he could only find the right thermal hot spot in his oven, oh how that would change everything.

At 6:45 am he started at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, slowly increasing the fire inside his oven with a steady eye fixed upon his concoction. By 11:30 he had burned, split or dissolved entirely, every single recipe. That was it! No more for a while, he exclaimed! Besides it was time for lunch.

Always the lifeblood of any group he was around, especially his special collection of co-workers he ate lunch with each day, this day he found none of his usual humor. There was only "that bloody oven." Breaking custom, for no work was discussed at lunch - EVER, he decided to open up about his frustration. How could He, of all people, be going about something as simple as thermal control the wrong way?

This silence that fell upon the luncheon party was rightly read as discomfort and confusion, forcing him to wave it all off, crack a few jokes and change the mood. Nothing else was to be said of ovens and flames and setbacks. Though after lunch, his best friend approached him with an idea. He had been having setbacks in the oven with those very ingredients for a separate experiment, so had switched materials, and with reasonable success.

With that, he set off a double the pace. Not because he was excited by the prospects of a breakthrough, but instead to remove the experiment from his mind so he could get back to the job at hand.

Widely thought to be in possession of the world largest ingredient library, he stood amongst his large library of thousands of jars, wondering just where to start. He remembered his friend's mention of carbon, but wanted to start elsewhere. After 20 minutes of collecting various jars from the catalogue, he remembered that he was to remove the suggestion of his friend, so he grabbed several jars of carbon in various forms. And that is where he would start.

On his very first attempt with the carbon, he saw improvement, something he could not deny elicited excitement throughout his body. He would spend the next six hours improving upon the stability of his experiment, until finally at 7:30 he was ready for a test trial.

He gathered his laboratory team around for the trial, and though they were all prayerful and knew none were his intellectual equal, they also understood what was being attempted was impossible. All light in the room was extinguished, and...

On this day, October 21st, in the year 1879, Thomas Alva Edison broke the darkness with the world's first, stable, incandescent bulb.

It burned for 13.5 hours straight, while everyone in the lab could not avert their gaze. They were watching not just an invention that would drastically reduce the cost of illuminating the dark, but it shone so bright, much brighter than candle or gas lamps. And where were the fumes? Almost as a throwaway, one of the lab assistants mentioned that people could sleep soundly for the first time in human history without the threat of fire.

Of course, none of this mattered to Edison. Nothing at all mattered to him on that cold New Jersey evening. Nothing, save the fact that he had educed from himself, for the first time, something he thought he could not.

Let's innovate America!

Apple Does It Again

2009-10-20T10:03:00.007-05:00

An apple brought an end to Paradise, put Snow White to sleep and is probably, in the form of apple carts, one of the enduring images of the Great Depression. This economic downturn has its apple, too. And it may be the apple that shows the rest of the business community how to move forward out of stagnation.

Apple announces quarterly earnings today that shocked the world. The headline in the Wall Street Journal says it all:

Apple Shares Hover Near All-Time High After Strong Earnings

This from a consumer electronics company...in the middle of the worst economy of the electronic era...with negative savings rates in all but 6 of the 71 countries where it's products are sold...and consumer credit at an all-time low!

What Apple is showing us, time and again, is INNOVATION IS KING.

As a company, Apple had the lions share of the digital music device by early-2003, with it's iPod music player. That is good enough for most companies (see Sony Walkman for references), but not Apple. Since it's launch, the iPod has been reinvented several times, and for several reasons.

First, the device was improved to bring enhanced performance and additional storage. Then it was made smaller, for convenience. Then additional versions were developed for: Charity (red), Active Lifestyles (nano) and Entry-Level Access (shuffle).

Soon movie/ video-playing versions would come, to be followed by the current generation of iPod, Touch, which, along with the iPhone, is being viewed as the biggest gaming development platform in foreseeable future and the new Nano w/ camera.

All of this innovation is driven, not by the market, as capitalist like to say, but instead, by Apple anticipating the desires of current and potential customers. These subtle shifts have allowed Apple to remain the dominant force in this category, in all price-points and all demographics.

Pretty good for a device (iPod) has not celebrated it's 10th birthday, and will not do so until October 23rd...2011.

Yes, that would mean this company was bold enough to launch a new signature product in the Fall of 2001, after the September 11 attacks of that year on it's biggest market, the United States.

Developing a good thing from scratch affords you the confidence to have a reasonable idea of the success of the product. So you can quintuple that confidence when the product is being developed by the most innovative company in the world. Naysayers do not sway this company.

The Apple iTunes store (used to support their products) was announced to widespread doubt from the music industry. It took 5 years to sell 1 Billion songs and in the subsequent 3.5 years they have sold an additional 7.5 Billion songs.

The motion-picture industry said people like to see movies on large screens, so doubted Apple would be successful in selling movies in the iTunes store. They have since sold over 50 Million music videos, 3.7 Million feature-length movies and 200 Million television episodes.

The introduction of it's revolutionary phone device, the iPhone, have only strengthened the supremacy of the iTunes store. It took less than 25 months from it's initial launch to reach 2 Billion App downloads.

With the almost slam-dunk certainty of Apple launching an e-reading device in the next 6-12 months, iBooks will, no doubt, take the company to new, higher ground.

So perhaps others can pay attention to the company that does what everyone says is a bad idea. Because innovation and invention is the only way out of this mess. For as they say, "An Apple a day..."

(I refrained from the Pixar people being told nobody wanted to see animation that was not 2-D, because Steve Jobs owned the company, not Apple. but it bears mentioning that Pixar films average nearly $315 Million per release, by FAR the industry leader)

Video inspiration courtesy of Rocko:

Fools Rush In

2009-10-19T16:34:00.009-05:00

Much was made over the past few weeks about a bid, by ultra-conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh, to purchase the indescribably bad National Football League franchise in St. Louis.

Hordes of folks came out of the woodwork (literally and figuratively) to condemn, block, threaten, picket, write, march and/ or do anything else that would prevent Rush from using his own money to purchase the Rams.

Callers jammed talk radio phone lines, television commentators found a plethora of willing souls, ready to "man up" before the cameras, to stop this "national embarrassment" from happening. Most laughably, a few professional athletes, not known to speak out about ANYTHING EVER, took to the mic, saying they "would not play in St. Louis," should Rush become an owner of that franchise.

I could see it now, the strong determined look upon their faces as they accepted retirement and the loss of hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars, instead of accepting a contract from the only team willing to pay them. Does anyone really believe any professional sports franchise, in any sport, will have a hard time filling out a roster...with professional athletes? Me either.

The woodwork refers to the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, emerging from the (Presidential Election-induced) Cone-of-Silence, to "stand up" and "fight" for what they felt was a slap in the face of minorities and women. This was especially telling, in that, for the first time in their storied careers, they were covered as an almost afterthought. America is far from being a post-racial society, but the television punditry world has already decided to agree that it is.

Don't get me wrong, I hoped he wouldn't be allowed the prestige (that is what this is all really about) of joining one of the most exclusive clubs in the world, NFL owner. But that's kind of as far as I took it.

When Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, spoke up against the idea, saying he thinks "a higher form of decency" should be required for admission, I applauded. When I heard he personally sat with NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, to explain he would never vote yes, under any circumstance AND actively campaign against the proposal to other owners, my applause became a standing ovation. Such ethics are hard to find in the strata of the hyper-wealthy.

Jim Irsay's stand differed from all others in that, he was a member of the organization Mr. Limbaugh was attempting to join. Everybody else had a very clear path to showing their displeasure with a team owned by a bigoted, woman-hating charlatan...not supporting that team.

Anybody that thinks they can turn a profit on a product that requires millions of people to support it financially by appealing to a White-American-Male-Uneducated-Rural-Usually Poor fan base, to the exclusion of all immigrants, minorities and women, is living on another planet...or inside a booth or something for the better part of the day. Uh...oh.

Anyway, I think the hype on the part of Rush and the part the dissenting millions was false, pithy and convenient. For if you really want to go after the fool, here is a recipe.

STOP SUPPORTING HIS EMPLOYER

When Rush Hudson Limbaugh III picks up his $40 MILLION paycheck at the beginning of each year (yes he is paid before he works), his check is imprinted with the name : Capital Cities/ABC.

Now avoiding this company will be kind of hard, as it is wholly owned by...The Walt Disney Company!

So that means:
No more theme-parks, no more Lost , Scrubs, Grey's or Ugly Betty (ABC).
No more Broadway productions (Walt Disney Theatrical).
No more Desperate Housewives (ABC), College Football Game of the Week (ESPN/ABC), Hannah Montana or Jonas Brothers (Disney Channel/Disney Music).
No Nickelodeon, High School Musical (Disney Channel), Snow White, Lady and the Tramp (Disney Pictures Classic).
No Monday Night Football, SportsCenter or sports talk radio (ESPN)
No more Mickey, Minnie or Goofy (Disney Consumer Products).
No more Marvel comics (recently acquired) or Tarantino (Mirimax).
No Rascal Flatts or SHeDAISY (Lyric Street Records), Los Lobos (Mammoth Records).

And because the 2006 sale of Pixar to Disney made Steve Jobs the largest shareholder of Walt Disney Company stock, no more of the most consistently well-made movies in the business...or Apple (iPhone, MacBooks, iPod) for that matter.

And so on...

Since there is no way you are ready to take such a stance, why not use your time, energy and intelligence on more useful endeavours (like coming back to reading this blog).

Rush Limbaugh had lost his "shine" over the past 6 months. Overshadowed by his far more idiotic counterpart, Glen Beck, who spent the summer months asking for (and receiving!!!) the resignation of several high-profile persons in the Obama administration. With his glacier-sized ego being melted by the greenhouse gases he denies exist, this was his masterstroke in reclaiming the hearts of those fringe elements that have sustained him for so long.

And thanks to all the uproar, he succeeded.

Swine Flu & the Economy

2009-04-30T21:09:00.000-05:00

This is a 2007 video of the BRILLIANT Laurie Garrett discussing pandemic readiness. Her talk is in relation to the H5N1 virus, but covers the 1918 Swine Flu Outbreak, as well as our current state of preparedness for handling such an event.

Since Mexico is ground zero for the swine flu virus that has all the world's attention, I have been watching that country's governmental response to the problem.

Yesterday they decided to suspend all operations of private businesses and forced all travel to ground to a halt. This type of response can be expected to spread as the virus threat-level is raised.

I thought it relevant to post this video here at the Oasis because, around the world, shopping habits are already beginning to change in the face of this somewhat mild threat.

Mrs. Garrett also spends a portion of her presentation discussing over the counter and prescription products that are associated with controlling flu outbreaks.

Her talk is 14 minutes long, with an additional (and very informative) 6-minute Q&A to follow.

Enjoy:

Someone You Should Know

2009-04-28T23:05:00.000-05:00

Barry Schwartz is BRILLIANT!

Here he talks about a new pathway to turning around the fortunes of all members and organizations within our society.

I find his section on education particularly illuminating.

Enjoy!

70% off HOME PRICES?

2009-04-22T19:08:00.000-05:00

Homes that sold for $275,000 in 2006 are selling for $80,000 now.

The problem is there's still loads of inventory on the market at these unbelievably low prices.

Read the Forbes article by Matt Woolsey HERE

Uh Oh!

2009-04-16T14:28:00.000-05:00

After 5 months of predicting (but ultimately praying I was wrong) this is where this company was headed, the shoe dropped on a Giant.

The Guardian of UK's headlines reads:

America's Second Largest Shopping-mall Owner Collapses

Read the article HERE