My "dream team"

For President and Vice President

War! Guess Who's Winning?

What is more disgusting than the shout of the wealthy that the liberals/progressives are engaging in "class warfare"?
CLICK FOR SOURCE and an article

There IS a class war going on, and the rich and powerful are winning. They have been winning for 30 years. But, they started the war.

Consider these political happenings.
1. Proposals to privatize (that means "end") Medicare.
2. Proposals to cut (that means, eventually, "end") social security.
3. Proposals and serious efforts to end "Obamacare."
4. The end of pensions, so far mostly corporate pensions, but also now probably public pensions.
5. The end of employer provided healthy care coverage.
6. Inflation of prices of food and energy.
7. Slashes to public school budgets.
8. Income tax cuts.
9. Huge budget deficits passed to the next generation.

Who do these steps benefit?

Some odds and ends

Disney Cruise Ship leaves Canaveral for Caribbean tour



Seafood and friends at Port Canaveral



At Five Guys



Pat, enjoying a vacation


Don't criticize us for noticing.

forwarded by Jerry -- and on the mark!

Is Wisconsin really 'broke'?

Governor Walker keeps saying that. Is it true?

Not really: CLICK

We suffer from falling dreams.

I believe that the "American Dream" pursued by millions of Americans over several generations, has always included certain ingredients that were understood as particulates of this living dream:

1. decent working conditions

2. good wages

3. better and better opportunities for each generation, including college for the kids.

4. a chance to own one's home

5. health care and a safety net

6. lots of leisure time

7. assured pensions and social security

Now I have that dream, it's in my possession. I live better than my parents, who lived better than their parents, and so on. I have some level of health care so that if I face a health crisis I won't have to bankrupt the family. My children went to universities and got good jobs.

I own the home I live in.

I have a pension. Ah, now there's the rub. While millions of Americans stood silently by, their corporations and companies (with the complicity of their government and the complicity of the wealthy class of people who control our economy) stole their pensions. Sometimes, they didn't take it all, they just swiped whatever they could reasonably get away with.

But, I still have a pension. This is because I was a teacher. And this galls people. It galls the next generation which will have to provide for its own pensions because this society has tossed out the American Dream. Even one of my children speaks bitterly of my pension.

My pension also galls a lot of those folks who lost their own pensions --- that is, who watched while these were stolen from them. It also galls the government of this state which made a deal with me to provide this pension, and which now cannot believe they are obligated by it. That agreement was no secret. It was nothing done by surprise or fiat, nothing accomplished in the dark of night. It was not a crooked deal. It was a system established long before there was any teachers' union or any teachers' contract. Teachers would get pensions that they paid into during their working years. Yes, they paid into them, and they still do.

It galls the Republicans. Those Republicans have bankrupted the federal and state governments, and now they say, "We're broke!" They took the treasury of the United States and gave it to the wealthy. This was not done ignorantly or by mistake. It was deliberate. Now suddenly, society cannot afford to pay my pension. Now suddenly, we must "share the burden!" Or as one of my closest friends told me, "It's the teachers' turn to take the hit."

Don't you know that it isn't the teachers? It's also all the government workers. It's also the police. It's also the fire fighters and the park workers and lots of other folks who belong to one of the last unions willing to fight. I guess what people believe is that if one group (say, industrial workers) gets robbed, then everyone else should get robbed as well. Otherwise, we're not "sharing the burden". And meanwhile, those who were handed billions are asked to give up nothing. In our state, Michigan, the governor proposes that the wealthy be given more, out of the pensions of government workers to "business" which might produce us more jobs.

So, in this society, the wealth trickles UPWARDS. From the lower incomes to the higher ones. From those with little up to those with a lot. This is the morality of the current age. It is a morality without goodness or fairness. It is the morality of modern unbridled capitalism which expects all of society to pay its way.

This is a morality built on a set of deceptions which some people can pay to spread, and the rest of us cannot afford to fight.

Wisconsin corruption.

What? Crooked Republican? You don't say.

It's just all so common these days, and no one investigates, and most politicians don't even think of it as corruption.

Read it and weep, friends:

Just in his mid-20s, Brian Deschane has no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions.

Yet he has landed an $81,500-per-year job in Gov. Scott Walker's administration overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees at the Department of Commerce. Even though Walker says the state is broke and public employees are overpaid, Deschane already has earned a promotion and a 26% pay raise in just two months with the state.

How did Deschane score his plum assignment with the Walker team?

It's all in the family.

His father is Jerry Deschane, executive vice president and longtime lobbyist for the Madison-basedWisconsin Builders Association, which bet big on Walker during last year's governor's race.

Whole Story: CLICK

One step forward, and ...

Obama Care when the Republicans get done with it.

(Click on cartoon to enlarge it.)

We, the fools

You have to go read this, all you working class and retired suckers out there.

CEO pay soars while workers' pay stalls

CLICK

haunted Florida

I took these pictures of a haunted house in Florida. You can clearly see the ghosts.

Anyone doubt this?

Update on Libya Opinions

Just a reminder. This is an illegal attack on Libya. No matter how much they deserved it. A lot of people deserve to be "reprimanded" I don't doubt. But THIS is not our job, it's not our business, it's not our fight.

I never wish ill for our troops and armed forces, and I never hope they fail in their missions. It's the government I criticize, and especially Obama.

home and spring

We have made it safely home from Florida. The biggest reason to be here is because we needed to see and touch our family and catch up on goings on with all of them.

Another reason is that friends matter, so we need to reestablish ourselves with so many of them. We have discussions and debate to conduct and coffee or beer to drink. These things are important in the existential fulness of our lives.

Another reason is that spring will be here within the next 6 weeks or so. By spring I mean, warmth and birdies tweeting and no snow and some bright days. This should reward us with a show of spring flowers. We had planted so many bulbs and want to see the result.

Many people say they like spring, but they don't mean all of spring. They mean the alive and, bursting-with-new-growth spring. This, we hope, is going to be soon and fulsome! I may not survive to see another, after all.

what people say

1. SPARTY --- notes that the Republican leadership in Lansing is trying to find a way to get itself out of the problem they created. Their proposal that all pensions be taxed as ordinary income has run into hostility from the elderly and reluctance from the right-wing. Now they're trying to sneak it in the back door by suggesting taxing all future pensions.

2. IRISH MIKE -- reports:

Hamilton, Mont. A Radio Shack is offering costumers who sign up for a satellite dish, a pistol or shotgun.Those not interested can get a $50 gift card from Pizza Hut.

3. PAT W -- There are thunderstorms in The Villages.

Goodbye Lenny Weinglass

Noting the death of Leonard Weinglass, an attorney, evokes for me the Chicago 7 and Abie Hoffmann, Daniel Ellsberg, The Weather Underground, the Yippies and the Hippies, disputatious groups and people who made a "movement" and made a generation. The radicals of the 1960's who needed to be defended in court against charges legitimate and trumped up, found in Weinglass, a champion who fought ably for them, the rowdy and indiscrete, the drug-adled and the unwashed, the long-haired freaks who spit on society's frumpiness and discriminatory traditions.

There is a kind of wistfulness in all these memories, for me, because in those far distant days, things "happened" for principles with which I often agreed, and the names and places come back with a force that makes me regretful of the contorted times and circumstances we now live in.

The Loyal Opposition

This billboard has appeared in Colorado (and maybe elsewhere). It shows 4 Obamas. From the right, they are caricatures of a gay man, a bandito, a slick gangster, and a dynamite wearing terrorist.

Draw your own conclusions about the motives of the sign posters.

Obama and his Privy Council.

How like a Monarchy's is the decision of Barack Obama who from thousands of miles away is able to launch a war against a victim population without even consulting his people. He and his "Privy Council" or "War Council" or whatever, make their little secret plans and then simply announce them. Who is he? Queen Victoria?

Now is the time to make a wave -- to speak up. This is not denied you so far.

Who participated?

I have never been an Obamaniac, as those people were called who seemed to swoon over Obama and regard him as the great genius and savior and change agent.

I was pulling for Hillary Clinton, there not seeming to be a Roosevelt or Kennedy available. Yes, I voted for Barack, but that didn't mean I wanted him to go around the world bombing people. I do absolutely disagree with what he's doing, but then, he never asked anyone -- so far as I know -- what we should do. Certainly not the American people.

We have a right to discuss and debate things like whether or not we ought to hit with 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles a country we're not at war with. Who got to participate in this decision? Some military people who have to do whatever this tin-pot King Obama says?

It's enough that the Republicans want to strip away little by little, the perquisites of democracy which ought to belong to their political opponents. Now, are we to accept that the Democrats also want democracy scrapped? I think that's what it means.

Goodbye Warren Christopher

The passing of another great Liberal of the old style.

"One always wonders about the road not taken."

Who's Kidding Whom?

I don't think anything in the world could bespeak the truth of American politics better than this:

Multimillionaire Republican Businessman/Governor of Michigan Demands Tax Break for Businesses and Tax Increases on Pensions.

For Leprechauns everywhere

Being, myself, of extensive Irish background, and the name being common in county Tyrone, I feel highly qualified to wish all you with any drops of Irish blood in your gene pool, a very happy St. Patrick's Day.

County Tyrone is actually in Northern Ireland, and the family religious background is Protestant, but nevertheless, we often go bra.

Special happy wishes to those whose names speak for themselves like:

Hanley: Sean and Gigi, and Bob and Michael, and Bridget, and Laura, et. al.

Lafferty: Michael and Amy, and Danny and Matthew, et. al.

The Fitzgibbonses

Felix McGillicuddy

There are many other friends whose names do not speak for themselves, but they are included in my sweep because (a) They have the gift of the blarney, or (b) They drink Guinness, or (c) They have bad tempers, or (d) they live in shanties.

Not that I would ever stereotype.

IT'S RAINING today in Central Florida. Good day to stay home and create some creations.

Send in your nominations

Several states have or are considering license plates that celebrate the Teabaggers(Texas, Arizona, Virginia) by putting "Don't Tread On Me" promotions on them. These all show the traditional snake.(If you don't believe it, go ahead and Google.)

Please submit your ideas here for other things besides snakes that you would like to see on the Don't Tread On Me license plates.

Example:

DON'T TREAD ON ME

Here be-eth the answer

In great parts of this country, Spring has decided to give the country a real slap in the face. If it's not tornados, it's ice and snow, or floods, or high winds.

We all have learned from our fundamentalist preachers that when the weather gets really bad, it's a sign from God. So I went to my local Little Church of the High Hopes and asked around: "What's God's grievance this spring?" I talked to the Pastor, the Youth Pastor, the Four Deacons, and the Chairwoman of the Mittens for Soldiers Program.

Here are the possible answers:

1. Some Lesbians got married in Pennsylvania. Some cousins got married in Georgia. An old man married a young woman in Delaware. Some guy in Ohio married his horse.

2. We are evil people, we are terrible sinful people, we are foul creatures who have strayed from our values. We are disgusting and should purify ourselves. We are sleazy and look at naked women. We are filthy and low creatures undeserving of good treatment. We slither in slime and degradation. We are repulsive. We need a bath.

3. Charlie Sheen. Lindsay Lohan was bad enough for a hurricane, maybe, but Sheen is horrible enough to bring God's wrath on everyone.

4. The country elected a man who was born in Botswana or some such Godless place. What-did-ya expect? Kudos?

OK, I'll mention Charlie Sheen

CBS is suddenly discovering its moral standards.

It is firing Charlie Sheen for breaches of the moral clause of his contract. This is the network that created and brought us one of the sleaziest comedies ever, Two-and-a-half Men. The show celebrates inebriation, promiscuity, irresponsibility, and all the other malefactories of drink and sex.

I love Two-and-a-half Men. I hope to see every episode, if I haven't already. But, contrary to whomever governs CBS, I have no complaint about the sleaziness. I know that my watching it implicates me in its dirt. On the other hand, here comes CBS, totally without scruples, to pass judgment on someone else. What hypocrisy.

No!

I'm not happy that the American fleet has reached the shores of Libya. Why are they there? If it's to intervene, this is my vote against that mad idea. Sorry, but I am tired of running the world, especially when it's so obviously for the purpose of securing oil.

That's it, isn't it? Oil! The drug, the opiate of the masses, the purpose of our existence these days.

Thanks to Scot and his friends.

"A Teabagger, Union Member and a CEO are sitting at a table with a dozen cookies. The CEO immediately takes 11 cookies for himself. The CEO then turns to the teabagger and says, 'Watch out for that union guy he wants part of your cookie.' "

some TIGERS

Not being in a very creative or cheerful mood this day, I will confine myself to this remark:

The Detroit Tigers may not bring ANDY DIRKS to Detroit with them this spring, but I am very very confident that he will appear on your television screens sometime this summer wearing the old English "D". He is a wonder at spring training.

Also you will see AUDY CIRIACO who has played some terrific third base! Besides, we need someone named Audy on our team.

just sayin'

Two items in the mornings news before I go on to the rest of my beautiful day.

1. A 91 year old man suffering from severe dementia took up his twenty-two handgun and shot his daughter in the stomach. She is also an elderly person who is his primary caregiver and was helping him with his bedpan. In what bizarre world is OK to arm a 91 y/o man with a handgun when he's severely demented?

2. A Florida legislative committee has recommended a bill that would make it illegal for doctors or psychiatrists to ask their patients if they own handguns.

Sail on, oh ship of fools!

from a friend

Taken from a friend's posting on Facebook.

Joan Fitzgibbon

I was a public employee and am not the problem. The US has lost billions in Wall Street speculations that went awry. I followed the rules. Your community's school teachers, police officers, paramedics, firefighters, street and highway workers, and others are NOT the enemy. We live here, pay taxes, work hard, and are trying to support our families, too.

Reagan, once again.

In my opinion, it is a mistake to believe that the bankruptcy of America was an accident. It was nothing of the kind. The whole point of the last 30 years in American politics has been to undo the welfare state that history brought us, to destroy the unions, and to "make the government small enough to drown it in the bathtub" as one right-wing wag has put it many times.

People should begin to analyze this crisis according to when it happened and who had the power. It began under Reagan who ran up a national debt that was almost inconceivable at that time. You may remember that he based his economic theory on"trickle down" economics. If you make the rich richer, they will spread the wealth.

Of course, that didn't happen. But, as much as he criticized the "welfare queens" and the "greedy unions" those people did not in those days hold power in Washington.

Reagan managed to maneuver a slash in the "revenue sharing" program begun in earlier times, and this caused a serious hurt to a lot of states and localities who were required to find new sources of revenue or cut programs, like road repair.

Then came G.W. Bush with his tax cuts that brought the country to the edge of bankruptcy. And when times got difficult, whom did he choose to favor? The wealthy interests that brought him to power, the wealthy interests that controlled the Congress (through legal bribery). Hence, the "Wall Street bailout" which most Republicans now blame on Obama who chose to fight for it.

Never forget that they will serve themselves who control the government. And right now, that is none of us.

Wisconsin

I received this message from SPARTY this morning-

Has news of the situation in Wisconsin reached paradise yet? A very angry L.N. called last night and left a message on our answering machine - we were in Lansing till late. I googled the Wisconsin State Journal this morning to see what has pissed her off so and discovered among other things that the 2600-strong teachers' union closed the Madison schools today with a blue flu. This follows a crowd of 12,000 packing the the capitol grounds yesterday. When you get a chance see what this Republican governor is up to - this is the same guy who refused the federal bullet-train money.

Here was my answer: (Other Birchies are welcome to chime in.)

My sis called me last night to talk about the Wisconsin thing. She wants to head for Madison today but is no longer able to drive that far and so wants one of the local unions to send a bus. After her call, I watched MSNBC for a couple of hours and got caught up in it. I cannot believe that all this is happening. It ruins my concept of the America I once knew.

While we're clamoring for better teachers and improved education, we want to slash the school budgets, lay off teachers, cut off their bargaining rights, cut their pensions and benefits, and blame them for all the ills of the system. What a load of shit this all is.

Yesterday, Governor Boychild of Florida turned down the fast train offer from Washington.

my life

I clambered into my golf cart and drove ten miles to a coffee club gathering (it's 74F right now), then to lunch and now on the computer, but hereafter, I will meet She Who Must be Considered, for golf. Then it's home in the dark on the golf cart which I hope will still have enough battery power to get me home with the headlights on.

Just now, life is very nice.

from MARSHA

sent by MARSHA as a point on the discussion of Bush and the Middle East, below.

hi and "help!"

I have to hand it to AirTran. In the dead of winter, they got us every where they said they would, and on time, and they didn't bump us at all. Of course, we weren't checking luggage.

From 36F to 67F in 3 hours. Bright sunshine.

Was George W. Bush right? He said if we could establish a democracy in one place in the Middle East, it would spread to the whole region.

I am having a terrible time trying to answer this question, now. I haven't been able to ever accept anything he says as being right. Who will help me?

Please,

you have to comment on this thught, one of my newer deepest fears.

A modest proposal for our wacked out friends on the far right fringes of paleo-politics.

I see that the mouth foamers are meeting in CPAC , which I believe is a planet just east of K-PAX, in order to look at some likely presidential candidates. This is pretty much akin to a sudden gathering of vagrants at an accident scene, looking at the bodies strewn on the pavement and trying to figure out whose pockets to rob.

In any event, Michele Barkman, who has enough mouth for three sets of teeth, says that they must unite behind whoever is most likely to make Obama a 1-term President. Usually, when a well-intentioned group of politicians gather to choose a candidate, they are looking for a person who would make a great office holder, but the Republicans haven't done that since 1980.

I have a modest suggestion: Jared Lee Loughner. He would be right down your alley. Not only is he conservative on social issues such as gun control, but he's a loyal right-wing campaigner, and has a history of political participation that appeals to so many conservatives like the Sarah Palinese. His mind is in the right place, and he wouldn't be the first guy to run for President from jail.

BAH!

4 days later

I've been away from computers for about 4 days.

I suppose Mubarak believes he can win a violent confrontation. The army must have a big hand in all this uncertainty.

As for the U.S., I believe the best policy is to keep hands off and keep encouraging a transition to a new governmental form that is more representative.

the RR years #2 from Sparty

These further graphs were sent by SPARTY, to whom, many thanks:

(As always, Click to enlarge)

remembering the RR years

During the current memory cleansing of the Reagan years, which were good to many people, this should be remembered: Most people, but not the rich, had a wage freeze. (Click to enlarge)

From "Mother Jones" CLICK

snaps

Marsha shows off the Championship Trophy won by University of South Carolina, winners of the College World Series.

Found online.

Click to enlarge.

BIRCHES just wanted to note that a Canadian woman, Mary-lu Zahalan-Kennedy, has become the first college graduate in the world to receive a degree in "Beatles studies." Imagine the homework required for such a degree. The exams must have been real bears.

Meanwhile, those Chinese students are wasting their time in engineering and mathematics. Well, we can't all be hip, eh?

oppression?

Now, this one really pissed me off.

Click to enlarge.

snaps

This is the Snowangel.

This is an Irish Bigfoot.

snow

This picture was lifted from Grace Ombry's Facebook. Wow! At some point, this snow storm gets annoying.

More on Education

People are talking below about what content should be taught in the public schools. Who should decide which version of history to teach? Which values to teach? Who should select the textbooks?

These are good questions for which I have offered no answer. I remember when I taught, the teachers in a discipline, such as the "social studies" teachers, chose the history books. I never thought that created much of a problem. However, I do recall that the Humanities teacher glued together pages of every textbook because they included the "Miller's Tale" from Chaucer (or was it "The Wife of Bath?") and that included the word "farting".

update

I watched Hillary on TV today explaining the U.S. position on the Egypt situation. I thought she did a great job of walking the tightrope that the U.S. has to walk at this moment. How hard this is for the American government. We have to cheer for the future of Egypt which is not Hosni Mubarak, but we can't seem to be meddling. The strategy seems to be to avoid talking about the dictatorship and instead focus on reform and future democracy.

Every day, I try to make time -- usually in the morning -- to read email, to check on Facebook, and to attend to Birches, in some degree. I love being in touch!

Bud

and now: Egypt, Yemen. Who's next?

I think something new and different is happening in the Muslim World. Not the riots of course, that's old news, but what the riots are about and what reforms they seek. I wonder if we Americans are clever enough to figure it out and treat with it on an appropriate level of acceptance. With all the Islamo-hatred in this country, based on some distorted concept of "christianity", I am inclined to be pessimistic.

follow-up

Thanks for the discussion under the Education challenge below. I want to add a new dimension. Scot says, in his comment something that some of you might like to comment on:

However, the poor quality of public education in some states is arguably a violation of kids' civil rights.

a modest proposal

My friends know that I have made this proposal since Obama got elected. I wish he would listen to me.

We should build a bullet train (a.k.a "fast train") link between the East and West coasts through both a Northern and Southern corridor, and link the two between, say Seattle and San Diego on the one side, and, say, New Haven and Jacksonville at the other. We should stipulate that any state which becomes a partner in the enterprise will have 2 stop stations in its borders. The United States government should be a partner, and private enterprise should be offered a chance to invest and profit.

We should stipulate that all the steel used to build this rail system will be manufactured in the United States, that the rolling stock will be built in the United States, and that all labor used in the effort will be legal residents of the U.S.

This would be a definite stimulus to the economy, it would fill the American people with imagination and hope, and it would bring our transportation system into the 21st Century.

photo

Here is a picture that SPARTY sent me and I thought was wonderful. Everyone I know will know who this is.

Oh, I dunno ---

--- just for the hell of it. This is borrowed from anonymous online. It's a rainy day here, so I'm playing round.

from: 60 Minute/Vanity Fair poll

What the public is saying:

So, I am issuing this request. The Republicans want to terminate the Federal Department of Education. Can you give reasons why it should be kept alive? (The 2010 budget for the Dept. is $3.6 Billion. )

SPARTY'S first answer:

I'm assuming that your question assumes the legitimacy of a federal role in education but questions the need for a separate department rather than a sub-cabinet office incorporated into another department such as Health and Human Services. With that, these are the reasons why I support a Department of Education: 1. It places education at the table when decisions are made in the executive branch 2. It gives education a position of importance in dealing with Congressional authorizations and appropriations that it wouldn't otherwise have. 3. Ronald Reagan wanted to abolish it.

Today has been the perfect day we paid good money to come to enjoy. It won't last of course, but it will return.

Our grandkids live some distance away from us, but we "Skyped" them this week, and they are beautiful, growing nicely, and are being missed like crazy by their grandmother. I asked for Skype for my Christmas present and got it!

Goodbye Sargent Shriver

A very good person is dead.

"Being accused of enthusiasm is something I’ll never live down."

foreign policy

I have been making a kind of mental review of Obama-Clinton and their handling of foreign policy.

Do you realize it's been 2 years since anyone seemed to think they hate us, at least publicly? I can't think of a single foreign policy stumble they've made. Can you? I suppose the additional troops in Afghanistan is a debatable situation, admitted.

Oh, I've heard the far right squealing about him for supposedly apologizing for some of our past policies, but I never heard an "apology" and am convinced that such talk is just political bullshit. What I like is the liberal talk I hear from Hillary so often, admitting our problems in the US, not trying to hypocritically excuse them. It makes us look stronger, I think, when we don't try to paper over our weaknesses.

Going on this Sunday

RIGHT THERE IN TUCSON

TODAY

(Y'all come now, ya hear?)

note

I know I have been less good about posting things this winter. I simply have fewer chances on the computer these days. Bear with me, if you will.

I appreciate your contributions as well.

My Latest Love- illustrated

CYNICISM ALERT!

Well, Obama has spoken -- and very, very well, I might add. If nothing else, he is a good-hearted man, one of the most decent men we've had as President as far as I can see. Anyway, he wants us to work together with the people we don't like, in a more cheerful, cooperative way.

So, I guess I'll set up a gun give-away program --- you know, like the needle give-away deal in skid row that stops the spread of AIDS. ( Evil things that kill a lot of people are common in our society, from disease to drunk drivers, etc., and we have to learn to cooperate with those things.) My gun-give away program will allow poor people to have access to self-defense. This will demonstrate my cheerful willingness to cooperate with the very fine, decent people who own and shoot guns.

From here I hope to expand into gun exchange programs in big cities, so that when you get tired of the gun you have, you can pick another one.

Can anyone out there tell me if I'm supposed to hate either the gunman in Tucson, or the gun? I can't get a handle on that. So far I've learned to love rapists but hate rape. And I have been working on the same for shop lifters. Any advice out there for a reluctant hater like me?

Tom the crook

I see Tom Delay got a prison sentence. I always knew that old son-of-a-bitch was a crook. He was also very bigoted about race, and way too clever in carving up the congressional districts in Texas.

concerning the gun murders in Arizona

I have taken time to watch some of the coverage of the Arizona murders. Here are some of the words being used, and what I think of them:

"OUTRAGEOUS" - I have seen the shooting down of two Presidents, a bunch of peaceful demonstrators at a college rally, the shooting death of two candidates for President, the curbside murder of a peace-loving musician named Lennon, the wiping out of several rap stars, and now suddenly this act was "Outrageous"? Hold on, it seems quite "in-rageous" to me. Quite fashionable in our country, actually.

"SURPRISING" - Anyone who claims to be surprised by this act is a simple liar. No one is surprised by gunplay anymore, or the murder of prominent people in the country. All of it is perfectly foreseeable, if not the specific target, at least the act.

"UNEXPLAINABLE" - Anyone who claims not see an explanation for this lacks the simple level of perspicacity to see the connection between cause and effect. If you take an emotionally disturbed person, give him high powered guns, inspire him with vitriol, then you are going to have murder. How's that for an explanation?

gunning 'em down in Arizona

Of course I noticed that someone shot up a Democratic rally in Arizona, or some such gathering of people who imagine that they know what's best for the country. Probably a socialist rally or something.

This is exactly why there are so many privately held guns. Have you not been told over and over again that these guns protect us against an evil or dictatorial government? You're not surprised that they're being used are you? Don't be silly. Only a fool would think these millions of guns will lie idle why the Socialists and Communists that now dominate out government try to turn us into a healthy place, or place where everyone is included. My God, friend!

As this generation often says: Get Real!

passing thoughts in early January

1. Many thanks to ALICE for being one of the best-hearted people in the world.

2. What you hear when old people talk too loud in restaurants:

"I went to the oncologist for five years and now he says I have to take no more treatments. I'm in total remission. This is God's will. He hasn't finished with me yet."

"No, there will be four of us. They're still pawking the caw."

3. While I waited for my car to be done at the car wash, I was people-watching an old gentleman who had no shoulders, but a very broad ass. Then he got into his big Cadillac with the New York license plates. Just before he did, I saw him drop a dollar into the tip box. I thought as how he probably made a fortune off other people's money and was determined that this would not happen to him. There is a place in hell ... I do hope.

4. Florida, Michigan and California have just sworn in new governors. One of them is not a Republican millionaire. How the hell did that happen?

passed on from BRENDA

Questions asked by BRENDA.

(And, we would like you to add your answers, or else your two cents worth!)

Now that the Republicans have control of the House, where are those jobs? Why isn't the economy fixed yet? Why do we still have a deficit? Why are we still in the midst of a recession? Are Republicans secretly Muslim and trying to ruin our country?

Jan 4 return to action

The BIRCHES have been silent lately as I have been busy with other obligations. People who know me know what that entails. However, I haven't received any complaints. I suppose it would be as if the Saginaw News would suddenly stop publishing. No one would object.

(Not that I consider BIRCHES to be on a par with the Saginaw News.)

IRISH MIKE has forwarded a swipe at New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, from New York RTimes columnist Paul Krugman:

Snow Job

It’s always important to realize that someone can disagree with you politically without being a bad person. But there are bad people in politics, too. Maybe it’s just my bias that gives me the impression that there are more mean, self-centered whiners on one side of the aisle than on the other; but anyway, a spectacular performance by my governor:

When asked about the hundreds of people trapped in their homes for days, Christie said unless they lived on state roads, it’s not something his administration would have been able to change.

“If someone is snowed into their house, that’s not our responsibility,” Christie said.

When asked about mayors who said they were forced to divert their resources to unplowed state roads instead of clearing local roads Christie said, “I know who these mayors are and they should buck up and take responsibility for the fact that they didn’t do their job.”

Just brimming with generosity, he is.