The American firsts to which I refer are actually things in which my now adopted state, Nevada are head and shoulders above all other forty-nine states.  (Or is that fifty-six, President Obama)?

Nevada is first in having the highest rate of unemployment of any state in the nation.  Nevada is also first in the percentage of our land area which is owned by the Federal government.  I am not suggesting that the amount of land ownership by the Feds correlates to the amount of unemployment – but now that I said that, I will have to think about it a little bit more.

With the Presidential election only days away and with the worst storm in decades hitting the Eastern seaboard, I don’t know if this story has made it into the national media but it is big news here in Nevada.

WE STRUCK OIL IN THEM THAR HILLS !!!

Or more correctly, an Irish oil exploration company which goes by the curious name of U. S. Oil & Gas has discovered oil.  A lot of oil.

The find is about 230 miles north northwest of Las Vegas in an area known as Hot Creek Valley.  Although U. S. Oil and Gas is being closemouthed about the extent of the discovery pending the drilling of more wells to confirm their geology reports, the claims which are coming out of the valley are mind-boggling.

Several independent geologists have asserted that the reservoir of oil would be bigger than the finds in Texas and bigger than all the proven reserves that are in Saudi Arabia – the world’s mot plentiful source of light sweet crude oil.

If that should be the case, this will mean that Nevada can move away from its near total dependence on casino gaming for revenue and will have a new source of income.  That will also mean that we should be able to lose our ranking as number one in the nation’s unemployed and be able to create good paying jobs for those who need them as happened in South Dakota with the Bakken discovery.

U. S. Oil and Gas leased 25,000 acres of land from the Bureau of Land Management.  That is the agency that is a part of the Department of the Interior and is responsible for overseeing 260 Million acres of land, primarily in twelve western states.  The agency also sells land to individuals and corporations from time to time.

Now what is most interesting, as I hear from a confidential but very reliable source, is that Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the Majority Leader, recently acquired 2,500 acres of land from the BLM for himself – land which is a part of the oil field that U. S. Oil and Gas is currently working and evaluating.

It’s curious to me that  the good senator would have an interest in this particular acreage.  The landscape is barren, it is remote and other than being a great place to breed rattlesnakes, it’s only other potential is for oil and mineral discoveries.  Eureka!  Perhaps that’s what the senator had in mind with his acquisition.

That may not be totally fair.  With his predisposition toward green energy, having voted for the taxpayers to fund the failed Solyndra, perhaps he had a vision of creating a vast array of solar panels or windmills on the site of his newly acquired property.  Time alone will tell.

However, should the discovery prove to be as substantial as rumored, and should it later come to light that the Senate Majority Leader had “inside information” of which he took advantage and profited, it will be a scandal that will eclipse both Watergate and the Tea Pot Dome scandal of the Harding administration.

For the sake of those Nevadans who are actively seeking employment and are unable to find work and for the sake of all of us Americans so that we might obtain a new source of energy and reduce our dependence on foreign governments, I truly hope that this discovery pans out.

And to Sen. Harry Reid, all I can say at this point is, Mazel Tov.

If you’ve been following for a long time you may remember her kindness to me after my father died.  “Oh, you orphan – waitee here,” she said to me in her very broken English.  It was a Saturday and I had come to pick up some dry cleaning.  She went in the back and I heard the sound of food sizzling in a wok and when she returned she had prepared a little meal for me in a typical Chinese restaurant style carry out box.  She repeated this every Saturday afterward until three years later when she went back to Canton to take care of an older brother who was ill.

One day I went to the store to drop off my soiled clothes and pick up the ones she had laundered for me.  As it happened her son, Jimmy was in the store.  I could see that Mrs. Lee was upset.  This was a tremendous departure from her normal warm and friendly manner.

She was talking excitedly to Jimmy in Chinese and I could only understand a few words.  So I asked her son what was wrong.  He explained that a man had come into the store and threatened the two of them at gun point and robbed the few dollars that they kept on the premises.

I was saddened that this woman who worked so hard had been deprived of the little money that she made in her business.  Actually, I was really angered because I knew that this thug had about a ninety-five percent chance of never being apprehended as the Chicago Police gave this sort of thing a low priority.

Nevertheless, I asked Jimmy if he could describe the person on the off chance that I might see him on the street.  “Jimmy, was he white, was he black, was he tall, was he short?”

Despite the serious nature of what had just taken place Jimmy’s response caused me to laugh.

He looked at me and said with total sincerity, “You ask me hard questions.  All you white and black people look alike to us.”

It’s truly a pity that when we go to cast our ballot for President of the United States that we can’t be as color blind as Jimmy and his mother, Mrs. Lee.

You may recall that about a month ago the good Majority Leader of the Senate made the declamation that “he had proof” that Mitt Romney hadn’t paid any taxes for ten years.  Having laid that unsubstantiated bombshell on the public, there has been nothing further forthcoming from Sen. Reid on the subject.

Frankly, neither I nor the intelligent segment of the American public really cares whether that is true – other than to point to the incredible stupidity of our massive tax code which no one can understand – including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who failed to pay his own taxes correctly.  The Tax Code should be overhauled so that it is not only equitable but understandable to the average Jane Citizen.

A few days ago Sen. Reid was “involved” in a six car collision here in Las Vegas.  Not only was his vehicle damaged but two that were being driven by Capitol Police and two Metro Police cars, all four of which were “escorting” him were involved.  Now I do not know if the Senator was at fault in causing this accident since the media coverage conspicuously avoided describing the circumstances surrounding it.  But if the Senator’s driving skills are as compelling as his ability to bringing a budget to the floor of the Senate, I think that is a good possibility.

I’m not sure who the occupant of the last car was, but you can be pretty certain he was a Republican who had not yet participated in early voting.

Throughout this campaign, President Obama’s ads have leveled charges that Mr. Romney isn’t “paying his fair share” – or more accurately – “his fair percentage.”  This makes for good sound bytes and gets people riled up and angry – which has been a hallmark of the achievements of the Obama campaign.

People who couldn’t, with or without the use of a calculator, tell you what percentage 87/299 is,are totally stoked by this inequity.  The fact that Mr. Romney and his wife paid $3 Million or so compared to their $10,000 doesn’t seem to impress those who buy into this rhetoric as being “fair”.  Again, you can hardly lay the blame at Mr. Romney’s feet when it deserves to be leveled against those who wrote the code under which he made his contribution to the welfare of the nation.

Frankly, if I had been an advisor to Mr. Romney, I would have simply said, “Show them the returns and let them have fun with them.”  I would also have used that as an opportunity to address the fact that we need, not to revise, but to re-do the tax code.

Just think about all the jobs we could eliminate at the IRS, and H & R Block and public accounting firms if we had a flat tax.  We would no longer need those handy dandy tax software preparation programs nor would the firms that provide them need software developers.  And the amount of paper that we would save!  We could cut back on the number of loggers and employees at paper manufacturers as well, even as we were saving some of our remaining trees and forests.  And let us not forget that with the reduction in advertising all these tax preparation services, we could slash quite a few jobs in the media as well.

Earlier today I put up a post, “What’s Sauce For The Goose Is Sauce For The Gander”.  And given all the criticism which has been leveled at Mitt Romney and his tax returns, I thought it was only fair to turn the tables and look at some “dirty little secrets” that President Obama is keeping from us.  Specifically, I refer to his college transcripts.

Let me begin by saying that when it comes to the subject of Donald Trump, the most complimentary thing I can say is that he must be suffering from a perennial “bad hair day”.  I watched one episode of “The Apprentice” and was mildly horrified at the glee with which he pronounced the fatal words, “You’re Fired”.  I don’t care for the gentleman – but his offer to contribute $5 Million to a charity of President Obama’s choosing if he reveals his college record does underscore a point.

If the President has nothing to hide, why is this such a deep, dark secret?  For exactly the same reason that I believe Romney should have just given us his tax returns to diffuse the subject, the President could put to rest all the innuendos regarding himself by revealing the contents of his academic background.

It troubles me when unsubstantiated statements are made about anyone – including President Obama.  If those statements are intentionally fabricated with the intent to do harm to another, they are called liable and slander.  No one should be subject to that sort of calumny – and when those assertions lie about the shoulders of the person who is the leader of the free world, it does him and all Americans a tremendous injustice.

I have read several pieces which claim that when the President was at Occidental College, he attended as a “foreign student” from Indonesia under the name he used at the time, Barry Sotero.  Further, these reports indicate that he received grants to attend as a foreigner.  I do not know, nor does anyone other than the President and the Registrar at Occidental College whether this is true.  But if it is then it is certainly disturbing.  And I believe that the American people have the right, and the President has the responsibility, to put these matters to rest.

I try to keep my own counsel and share those things about myself with friends whom I trust when there is a reason for them to know.  I think that is good advice for most of us to follow.

But if you’re a public figure, there is a slightly different set of rules.  We should have the confidence that those in public office are telling us the truth about their personal life experience and conduct so that we can fully get behind them and support their efforts on behalf of the country.  Anything less is both unproductive and unpatriotic.

I find being on the same side of an issue with Mr. Trump to be a little disquieting.  But I must admit that he does throw down an interesting gauntlet.  I hope that President Obama takes it up, collects the $5 Million for his favorite charity, and puts to rest the suspicion and ends the talk about his “Dirty Little Secrets”.

“It can be hard to tell the truth; but it’s worse to live a lie.”

- juwannadoright

I am disturbed that so much of the focus of this election seems to be centered around the skin color of the two candidates for President.  There is no doubt that many people who are black will vote for Obama for that reason alone.  It is equally true that there are people who are white who will not vote for him because he is a black man.  While I consider people in either camp to be racial bigots, their bigotry is not the common ground which is the subject for this post.

I make no qualms about the fact that one of the few gifts that I possess is a keen ability to do math and calculations.  It may be one of my few redeeming qualities.  And so I started to look at the President and his genetic background from the standpoint of pure mathematics.

Now the nice thing about math, unlike political races, is that it is one of those absolute sciences on which we can rely for truth.  In our base ten math system, the correct answer to 2 x 2 will be 4 whether you are an American, a Chinese, a resident of Mali or a charter member of Al Qaeda.  I hope we are all in agreement so far.  I’m further hoping that even recent graduates of our public school systems have mastered this basic bit of multiplication.

But then we turn to the more difficult and challenging question of percentages.  (Please don’t hit the “X” button at the top of the page quite yet because I know even those who struggled with fractions will find this easy).

Moving right along, it is the consensus of belief and without dispute even from Donald Trump that President Obama’s father was a black citizen of Kenya and his mother was a white citizen of the United States.  That would make the President 50% black and 50% white.  Are you with me so far?  After all, this is just really, really basic math.

My question – and I would love to hear from anyone who can explain this to me – is why is it that we consider President Obama to be a “black” man rather than a “white” man since he has equal parts of his genetic material from each of his parents?  Are we saying (much to the consternation of women everywhere) that the male’s sperm contributes more than just its fair share to the fertilization process than does the female’s ovum?  If we make that argument it’s a good thing that Betty Friedan has passed on as it would undoubtedly require her to write yet another book.

And so we find our basis for the common ground between your run-of-the-mill-black bigot who will vote for the President because he is black and your run-of-the-mill white member of the Aryan Nation who will not vote for him because he is black.  We have found a point on which these two groups are in agreement, that the President is a black man.

I hope that members of both extremes will have the opportunity to read this post.  I am certain that knowing that they have found some commonality will allow them to sleep comfortably – although the realization of their agreeing on anything may cause them to endure a horrible nightmare.

As for me, I am going to take the alternate position and, supported by the mathematical analysis I provided, I am going to insist that President Obama is indeed a “white man”.  This simplifies my life and my voting decision since I no longer have even to consider the matter of race as a potential issue.  Hopefully, this might simplify your life too.

So what it all comes down to for me is the President’s track record and the campaign promises on which we relied in 2008.  One of those statements in particular keeps ringing through my mind.  That was, “If I can’t cut the deficit in half in my first four years, I would not deserve to be re-elected.”  Rather than a fifty percent reduction we’ve seen a sixty percent increase.

Relying on the President’s own words, I’m compelled to vote for “the other White Meat”.

The first was that without having to drive twenty minutes to get to the Strip should I want to risk a few dollars on a game of chance, I had several options which were far more convenient.  These were casinos that were more interested in attracting the regular business of “locals” rather than the mob of weekend visitors this city sees every Friday night and who go home on Sunday.

When I first started coming to town as one of those “weekend warriors” back in the ‘70’s I was bedazzled by what was then the Vegas scene.  As I drove down the Strip, billboard after billboard headlined the star who was appearing at that hotel.  The biggest people in show business were always in town, and if I planned the trip right I could see several of my favorites.  Even the real Elvis.

And as you walked in any of the casinos you could view the vast array of table games that were going to allow the gambler the opportunity to part with some of the hard-earned money he had brought with him.  All this excitement, and always in the background was the sound of coins spilling into the trays of the slot and video poker machines which held, at that time, a far smaller share of each casino’s space than did the craps and blackjack and baccarat tables.

Over several trips and a number of years I began to notice something different happening in Sin City.  The number of table games began shrinking and the number of slots began increasing.  And several years after I moved here I noticed yet another change.

The machines which vended the lucky winner his coins were slowly but surely being replaced by newer models which attempted to emulate the sound of coins clanking in the metal trays with synthetic replication, and which, rather than giving the winner his payout in quarters or dimes or nickels, handed him a printed ticket for the money he had won (or still had left).

From the slot player’s standpoint, this was a nice improvement.  No longer did the player have to scoop up his money and put it in one of the plastic containers that the casinos provided.  No longer did he have to look for a moist towelette to clean up after collecting his coins which inevitably left his hands filthy.  No longer did he have to stand in line at the Casino Cashier in order to have them run those coins through their counting machine and pay him off.  Now he merely had a ticket which he could insert in any of the ATM-like machines which would read its value and dispense the amount he was due quickly and conveniently.

This was progress – this was improvement – unless you were Mary or Bill.

Who are they?  Well Mary was a “change girl” at one of the local casinos and Bill had worked at the same casino for 14 years as a blackjack dealer.  They both lost their jobs – Mary because of the new technology and Bill because the casinos were downsizing the number of table games that they ran and eliminated some of their staff.

If you think about it from the casinos’ perspective, this transition makes a great deal of financial sense.  Although there is always a house edge built into any game of chance, baccarat, craps, blackjack or roulette, there is always the possibility that someone can get lucky (or as in the case of blackjack become an expert card counter – which is why it is NV state law that card counting is “illegal”) and seriously hurt the house with a good run of luck and skill.

No such chance exists with a slot machine where the ultimate house rake is pre-determined by an internal chip that exactly calculates the house’s percentage based on the money that is run through it.  And unlike a blackjack game which requires a dedicated person to staff it or a craps table which requires four employees, one hundred machines can be overseen by one technician in the event of a rare mechanical breakdown.

That’s why Bill lost his job.

And Mary, well she got replaced by more modern technology.  While there are still change people who help the slot players in the event of a jackpot win which requires the completion of a 1099 form, their number has diminished because the same machines which payout the winning tickets also break down larger bills into smaller ones.  Technology marches on and unfortunately for Mary and many like her, it marched her out of a job.

It’s interesting to me that the many people I know who talk about the evils of “outsourcing” never seem to feel quite as passionate about those who worked in casinos whose jobs were not outsourced but eliminated.  The reason I happened to write this post is that I had just listened to one of them go on at length about how we are shipping jobs overseas and the tragedy of it all.  This same person spends a few hours almost every day entertaining herself in a casino.  So I mentioned Mary and Bill to her and how they had lost their positions.

Her response was, “Well that’s progress for you.”  She displayed no remorse for them and I am certain that is because she doesn’t play table games and because she finds this new arrangement, not having to deal with coins, as a big improvement, far outweighing the human toll of Mary and others who no longer have jobs.

I thought it was inconsistent for her to be so empathic to nameless, faceless people whom she has never met and were outsourced, when she was so cold-hearted about now unemployed Mary (whom she knew).  While I do not believe it is right to make judgments about others, unless their actions affect me, still this acquaintance’s attitude is not uncommon.  At least that is my empirical observation based on a lot of anecdotal evidence.

So many are willing to descry the unfairness of the loss of American jobs to foreign workers, yet they continue to buy the same products those foreign workers produce in greater and greater numbers, thus supporting those companies which outsource and validating their policy.  Is the company which outsources or the consumer who purchases the outsourced products really at fault?  I would lay this squarely at the feet of those who make those purchases – for without their patronage, these companies would have no sales.

I believe in the reality of a global economy and I realize that the financial capital needed to produce a manufactured product will always find a home where it is best treated.  And that home is not currently in the United States.  That is not China or Bangladesh’s fault.

That is the fault of the Congress and the President for imposing onerous rules which add to the cost of every product manufactured in America and for continuing the policy of assessing the highest tax rate of any nation in the civilized world on its corporations – again further adding to the cost of producing goods here.

But to get to the heart of the matter, even if you accept my scenario that without the consumer’s co-operation, outsourcing simply wouldn’t happen – there is someone who bears an even greater share of the responsibility.  That person is the voter who empowers these bureaucrats with another return to office so that they may continue the same policies which got us here in the first place.

It’s time for a new, fresh and realistic approach.  It’s time that we set aside all the rhetoric about “Saving General Motors”.  It’s time we really took stock of those whom we elect to serve us – and to rid ourselves of those who believe that their election proves we were meant to serve them.  It’s time – no it’s way past the time – that each of us cut through all the hype and got down to the bare bones and the truth.

It’s time for the American people to vote intelligently.

In any event, those who are baseball fans are excited.  One of my friends from the dog park, a loyal San Francisco Giants fan, is flying out this morning to attend the first two games in the Bay Area.  A friend of hers has season tickets and has generously offered her the use of one of them.  I know her adrenaline is pumping hard as she assembles her jerseys and other paraphernalia which she will wear in attending these first two games of the series.

I have never attended a World Series game but I can imagine for those who love the sport it is truly a rush.  I picture my friend, having made the trek from Las Vegas, all excited at the prospect of watching her favorite game.  There she is in her seat, properly attired and all excited hoping that the Giants bring home a victory for her and all their other fans in the stands and the millions watching the game.

It gets closer to the time for the first pitch when she notices something unusual.  The Giants are out on the field warming up, but the dugout for the Detroit Tigers is mysteriously empty.  The Tigers didn’t make it to the game.

A rustle starts among the crowd in the stands.  “Where are the Tigers?”  The rustle becomes louder as the fans realize they are going to be deprived of their right to watch this game.  There will be no game because the Giants are handed a Win by Default.

If this were to happen can you imagine the outrage that would ensue?  This would not make headlines only on the Sports Page of our newspapers.  It would make headlines on the Front Page – and I’m sure that our columnists who wrote for Arts and Entertainment, Health and Beauty and Travel would all throw in their two bits as well.

Our blog commentaries on the Presidential election would be dwarfed by the volumes that would be written about this abdication of the Detroit Tigers’ responsibility to participate and the Tweets that would be Tweeted would be sent in record-breaking volumes.  The outrage would be phenomenal.

Well, of course, that isn’t going to happen.  But this scenario does point to the truth of that old saying, “Ninety percent of winning is ‘just showing up’.”  And that brings me to the actual subject of this post.

Several months ago I had called on Rep. Jesse Jackson (D – IL 2nd District) to step down due to his medical condition.  I had hoped that the Congressman would be a statesman and not a politician and do the right thing for the people of the district which he represents.  I lived in that district when he was first elected to the House and so I feel a certain vested interest in the matter.

Several days ago, his father the Rev. Mr. Jesse Jackson, acting as his spokesperson, indicated that the Congressman is returning to the Mayo Clinic for further treatment for his Bi-Polar Disorder which has kept him from fulfilling his elected duties since June of this year.  Apparently the Congressman is so unwell that he is not able to update his constituents himself.

With an election only 13 days away, Mr. Jackson will undoubtedly be re-elected as he has chosen to remain on the ballot.  Because of the way that the congressional district is delineated, Bugs Bunny, if running as a Democrat, would win in a landslide.  Certainly the people in the 2nd District are aware of Congressman Jackson’s condition and despite it will re-elect him, much to their discredit.

By the nature of his condition, I have to allow the Congressman some leeway, believing that he is not really capable of making rational decisions at this moment in time.  However, I do want to point to someone of influence over him, a person who has held a large moral sway over the community and who is no stranger himself to politics, who should exert his influence to persuade the Congressman to do the right thing and step down.  That person is his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

You may recall that the senior Mr. Jackson offered himself as a Democratic nominee for President in 1984 and again in 1988.  He has had a long and successful career advocating equal rights for our black citizens.  I have heard him speak (or perhaps preach) about how we should do the “right thing”.  And it is now time for the Rev. Mr. Jackson to do that himself and encourage his son to step down from a position which he is unable to execute competently, due to his medical condition.

There is no one in this country who doesn’t realize that we have significant challenges ahead which we must address in a mature, honest and thoughtful manner.  Whoever is the next President of the United States will need to work with a Congress that is composed of the best and most capable people we can find, people who are truly committed to doing the people’s business.

Rep. Jackson is not currently capable of being one of those people.  And if his father cannot persuade him to do the right thing, then the House, when it convenes in January, should make that decision for him by expelling him.

If, “Ninety percent of winning is just showing up,” we cannot expect to win if there are people who simply aren’t able to attend.  Congressman Jackson is one of those.

Rep. Jackson, please follow the advice your father gave us for years and “Do the right thing.”

Step down.

I don’t know if whoever scheduled the final debate, realizing that the subject matter of foreign policy was ho-hum to most Americans, didn’t feel there was a problem pitting it against the more important event of Monday Night Football (Bears vs. Lions).  But kudos to them.  The debate was rather hum drum and neither candidate did much to inform those of us who watched.

In the end, I think that I would give a small edge in delivery, if not substance, to President Obama.  But that might be “damning with faint praise.”  I say that because, by virtue of his office, the President ought to be far better versed on foreign policy than his opponent.  He has had four years to learn about the subject.

Governor Romney had obviously studied up on the subject and was fluent in mentioning hotspots around the world and opportunities which the Obama administration might have muffed.  He also had either learned or just enjoyed using the word “tumult” – at least three times that I counted – but I might have missed one or more.  Hey, I like tumult as well as the next person – the word that is – but enough is enough.

Foreign affairs is certainly an important subject – particularly if you’re having one with a visitor from overseas – but it is not going to be the reason anyone decides to vote for either of these men.  What it is all going to boil down to is the poor economy, the record high numbers of the unemployed and who has a better vision for how to get us off the side track on which we find ourselves with Railroad Obama.

There was one point that was made or implied by both candidates that I thought was totally overlooked by the political commentators who parsed the debate after its conclusion.  “That America is the moral leader of the world and that we have not only the right but the responsibility to share our vision of social and economic prosperity with those who are less fortunate.”

When I was a child of about eight it suddenly dawned on me that I was so incredibly lucky to have been born in the greatest country in the world.  You may be amused to learn the cause for this insight.  It was stamp collecting.

My parents had bought me a moderate-sized world stamp album and a number of packets of cancelled stamps containing issues from the U. S. and foreign countries.  They had also bought me a “U. S. Scott’s Postage Stamp Catalogue”, listing all the stamps which had been issued to date by the Postal Service.

I thumbed through the Scott’s catalog which provided my first introduction to the Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1892-1893; the Presidential Stamps of 1938 which featured the busts of 31 of our former Presidents; the National Parks issues which extolled Teddy Roosevelt’s vision in establishing the National Park system and setting aside land to conserve the pristine beauty of America for the protection of wildlife and so future generations would be able to enjoy them.

The United States had issued stamps commemorating the plight of the “Overrun Nations”, eleven of which were brought under the Nazi yoke during the Second World War and the final one commemorating Korea.

And there were stamps which commemorated the American experience in honoring the Louisiana Purchase and a series that celebrated the achievements of American authors, poets, educators, scientists, composers, artists and inventors; and so many more which told the story of the country of which I was so proud to be a young citizen.

I did not have a world stamp catalog but I did have my album.  There was something startling that I noticed, even at my young age, as I looked at the images over which I would place the  appropriate stamp if I should ever be lucky enough to acquire it.

The stamps which the United States had issued contained so many different subjects.  Those which other nations issued typically featured only one image – that being the face of the political leader who headed up the government

That was true for World War II Germany, with images of Adolph Hitler; for Iran (then called Persia) whose stamps bore a portrait of the Shah; for our ally the United Kingdom (and its Commonwealth States) with images of the King or Queen who was then reigning; Chinese stamps bore the portrait of Sun-yat-sen and Siamese stamps bore images of the King.

It was then that I realized why I was lucky to be an American.

While I could never be the ruling monarch of any country in the world where that institution still existed, I could, if I worked hard and had the talent, be one of those authors or poets or educators or scientists or composers or artists or inventors whom we had honored on our postage stamps.

It was that promise of opportunity that prompted hundreds of thousands to immigrate to America and sail into New York harbor under the beckoning torch of Lady Liberty, her lamp, a symbolic beacon of the brightest light that has shone throughout human history.

I had been born in a nation founded on principle and the rule of equal law for all its citizens, a country which came to the defense of our friends in both the First and Second World Wars.  Our generous people provided the lives of so many of our sons and when the conflicts were over we provided help in rebuilding the countries of both our friends and those who had been our enemies.  And by virtue of our acts of generosity, we earned the right to be the moral leader of the world – and the nations of the world respected us less because of what we said than because of what we did.

And we did a lot.

We enjoyed living in the most prosperous nation on earth.  We enjoyed having the best educational system in the world.  We enjoyed a healthcare system that was second to none.  We enjoyed the freedom to be whatever we desired to be – a freedom that is denied to the female population of many countries today.  We enjoyed material comforts that were the envy of others in less developed countries and were never imagined by the poor in yet more backward ones.

I am sad to say that the spirit and the hope which built America has been replaced by the dark shroud of selfishness and envy.  So many of us have given up the dream that each of us can be anything we choose with the belief that some who have been successful have no right to their achievements.  Rather than seeing them as inspirations for the rest of us, we view them as fiends and covet what they have attained, believing we have a right to share in the fruits of their labors although we have invested none of our own effort in what they built.

In essence, we have found excuses for our own failings and are content to wallow in a whining self-pity.  This plays well to our fellow under-achievers – and it is a drama which the rest of the world is viewing – with passionate interest.

People in foreign countries who have benefited from our generosity and friendship in the past must be shaking their heads in disappointment and disbelief.  And those who would do us harm are licking their chops in anticipation, realizing the truth of President Lincoln’s statement that, “A house divided will not stand.”

This is not the America in which I grew up and of which I was so proud.

If we are to resume our unquestioned role as the world’s leader, we must first set our own affairs in order.  We must put aside the rhetoric which has unfortunately dominated this campaign.  We must stop speaking of “Me” and “Them” and start using that unifying word, “US”.

I believe that those who are more fortunate have a responsibility to assist those who have less than they.  But those whom they help have the responsibility to accept that assistance, using it to improve their own situations through work and effort.  It’s an old concept called “work ethic” and it was that concept that built this country.  If we do not return to it, we will pass, as have so many nations, into the annals of history as yet another country that had its moment in time but lost its way and faded into obscurity.

I believe that Mr. Romney attempted to make that point during the debate.  Had he done so more clearly I would have given him a decisive win in the engagement.

Lacking that, I’d basically call the debate a non-event.  But for those of you who had the foresight to expect that and turned your attention to football instead, I can say with certainty that Da Bears beat Detroit by a score of 13-7.

But then you already knew that.

So I began thinking about this.  Several of them have identified pay inequality in the workplace as something that they feel would be better addressed by the incumbent than by a President Romney.  On this point I agree – not that Obama would do a better job handling it – but that differentiating payment and offering women lower wages for performing the same work is unethical, immoral – and most importantly, just plain stupid.

If you’ve ever worked in an office environment you know that the every office has a “grapevine”.  In fact, the intelligent manager, realizing this, will use the grapevine to transmit information she wants disseminated without the need to write memos or hold staff meetings.  And, of course, one of the items that is always on the grapevine’s agenda is, “How much are you making?”

Paying different amounts to people who perform the same job, whether it is because of gender, age or race, is just plain bad business and will always engender bitterness, jealousy and (in today’s age) lawsuits.  Mitt Romney, as a businessman, knows this and if those who admire (or are envious) of his success really think about it, he would most likely not have pursued that sort of policy in his personal endeavors – or he wouldn’t have gotten where he did.

On the other hand, the President has never held a real job (although arguably being President of the United States is one) – but if so, this is his first.

Another item under the category of “women’s issues” which my friends described is accessibility to various preventative medical tests such as mammograms and cervical examinations.

On this subject, I couldn’t possibly agree more.  Preventive diagnostic tests would greatly reduce the number of female medical conditions which we often do not address until we need to employ radical approaches to treatment.  (The same thing applies to men, by the way).

Once again, as with the case of discriminatory pay, common sense dictates that an enlightened populace would actively campaign for just exactly that sort of early detection.  But then again, common sense would also dictate that we would each of us make an effort to do everything in our power to ensure our personal well-being.  The explosion in cardiovascular disease and diabetes suggests that is simply not the case for the average American.

If we are ever to rein in the burgeoning costs of our “disease maintenance system” we must begin by starting to educate our children on the importance of a good diet and proper exercise so that they do not succumb to the same illnesses in the same quantities as their parents.  The explosion in the obesity levels of young children suggests that we have not seriously, or at least not effectively, addressed this matter, notwithstanding the 2,600 pages of the Affordable Care Act.

I believe, setting aside any of the allegations about Mr. Romney’s personal disdain for the average Joe or Jane, as a businessman he is far more likely to develop cost-effective common sense ways to rein in the skyrocketing cost of healthcare.  And irrespective of the media’s portrayal of him, if for no other reason than that it makes sound business sense, is much more likely than the incumbent to develop positive solutions which not only save costs but save lives.

Then, of course, we have the question of whether women should be allowed to get birth control pills as part of their coverage under medical insurance contracts.  In the interest of equality, I think that if that is the case, then men should equally be allowed to charge the cost of prophylactics to those same insurers.  I mean, fair is fair, after all.

I have never quite understood why our sisters even want to expose themselves to the risks inherent in birth control medicines.  Virtually all of them have side effects and some have been taken off the market for the danger they posed.  Yaz and Yazmin come to mind as recent examples  Wanting to expose yourself voluntarily to that sort of risk is beyond my understanding.  But McDonald’s has tens of thousands of outlets throughout the world, serving some of the most unhealthful food that humankind has yet invented – and they all seem to be doing quite well.  So it’s obvious that people hold different opinions.

While I would advocate that the best birth control available to members of either sex is, “Just Say No,” there are some of us who have found ourselves in a weak moment and offering birth control pills is a far better alternative to having an abortion.

If we do decide to be really equal and allow men the same latitude as our women, then I have a solution (no this is not facetious) about how we could make condoms acceptable even to those who hold a religious belief that this is interfering with God’s plan and the purpose of sexual engagement.  In fact, I think I could make what would be a theologically sound argument supporting my idea.

All we have to do is make prophylactics that have one or two of the tiniest pinholes in them.  This would allow those really aggressive sperm that happen to be in the right place during intercourse to escape their encasement.  Then, if it were God’s plan that the couple should conceive, they would be able to go out and swim and do their duty.  If we consider a God who can divide the Red Sea, getting some of these little guys out to fulfill their mission should be a matter of little difficulty.

Considering the obviously superior genetic material of a sperm that could overcome the obstacles involved in this challenging environment, we might, as a by-product, even elevate the quality of the offspring so conceived, thus improving the gene pool.  That would be something we could all welcome.

Of course, with this whole issue of birth control, as with the question of abortion, we are dealing with an inherent inequality.  More female children than male are conceived, so we are preventing a disproportionate number of girls from being born than boys.

Again on the issue of equality, statistically there are proportionately more female and minority embryos that are aborted than Caucasian male children.  I am sure that the reasons for this are numerous and beyond the scope of this post.  But it should give a person who is considering the question of “women’s issues” pause, why this should be and how their support of a woman’s “right to choose” impacts the disproportionate number of female embryos that meet an untimely end.

There are countries in which “gendercide” is routine and common.  We think of those countries as primitive and not yet ready to enter the 19th century, let alone the 21st.  Their attitude on the worthlessness of women has not advanced much, if at all, from countries who in ancient history viewed a female child’s birth as an unwelcome event and set the newborn out to be devoured by wild animals.  In those more compassionate societies, the girl would merely be sold into a life of prostitution or servitude.

In view of the historical evidence and what is happening today, I have to believe that Mr. Romney’s business acumen must be in direct conflict with his social views and moral beliefs.  His position on the “right to life” makes bad economic sense – and the President’s “Pro-Choice” posture makes good sense (possibly the only thing about the President’s economic policies which does).

Consider the cost of an abortion versus the cost of raising a child.  There is simply no question that getting rid of an unwanted fetus is far more cost-efficient than bringing a child to term; then having to feed and clothe this infant; getting her ready to enter an already over-crowded and under-productive school system; and since a greater number of our poor than our middle class or wealthy choose the abortion option, having to spend taxpayers’ money to support this child, adding further to the out of control costs of our badly broken welfare programs.

Clearly, abortion is the economically sensible option.  And I cannot but wonder why a heartless, out-of-touch businessman like Mitt Romney doesn’t automatically gravitate to it – unless it’s a matter of conscience.

On the other hand, my friends glowingly endorse a President who advocates a policy which wreaks the most havoc on the unborn of minorities and female babies and consider him to be a man who is in touch with the people.

Perhaps he is.  And perhaps that says something about those who support him – that is, that he directly reflects their own attitudes.

Equality sounds like a good thing.  I’m in favor of it.  Of course, the fact that I’m here writing this and you’re there reading it means that we aren’t two of its victims.

The truth of the matter as far as I am concerned is not economical. If I could do anything I wanted to change the nation, I would give every American a healthy dose of passion for Jesus Christ.

There is a difference in believing in Christ and having a passion for Him. All over America which is still statistically a “Christian,” nation,  passion for Christ is on the decline. Although there are small pockets of believers who are passionate toward God, generally speaking America is a perfect representation of the Laodicean Church Age spoken of in the book of Revelation chapter three. This church was scolded by God for having lost their first love. This church represents the final church in history. This church had a love that had cooled.

Our nation is under the crushing weight of a multitude of problems. Of course the economy is a big one, but there are others. The broken family, violence in our streets, people without jobs due to the lack of prosperity, war, terrorism, prisons over run with inmates both men and women, cancer and other diseases overtaking our friends and loved ones all are problems which defy solution even from the greatest think tanks in our nation. Men looking to themselves or another man for answers to this mountain of issues are totally at a loss. Personally, I do not believe that either man running for President of the United States of America has the solutions for these ills. I do, however, believe there is an answer. I believe there is a single answer for all these conundrums.

The single answer is a massive revival of passion for Christ. If all the persons who faithfully attend the Christian churches across America suddenly began to draw upon the Holy Spirit within allowing Him to fuel a new and heated passion for Christ, the heart of the Father would be smitten with compassion for our lost nation.

If every Christian began to seek God with his whole heart, God would be found. If every Christian began to live and breathe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, our country would experience a great awakening. If every Bible believing American began demonstrating love to his neighbor, the kind of love spoken of in Scripture, America would experience revival, and God’s heart would turn toward us once again.

American presidential candidates no longer even speak of the millions of babies aborted each year in dark places in our country, but the heart of God will not ignore the death of the innocent. Massive passion for God would bring about massive conviction, massive repentance, and massive action that could change our incorrect belief that abortion laws are set as an immoveable image over our nation. Daniel comes to mind as he spoke of the great stone carved out of a mountain that would fall on the feet of the “golden image.” Now, I understand that the passage is not written in response to abortion, but rather about the last ruling world government before the coming of Christ. The premise, however, is the same. God can destroy whatever He wishes, whenever He desires. The truth remains, that the heart of God can be touched when His people are engaged with Him in a serious way. The fact also remain that when the heart of God is moved by masses of men, He acts in behalf of their nation.

Understanding the necessity of moving the heart of God, the question changes. The question that arises sounds something like this. “I confess that my heart has lost its first love, but how do I get from lukewarm to passionate? I want to do better, but I’m not sure how to progress.”

Passion begins, with desire, but desire itself is not enough. Desire must be followed up with discipline. Refueling your passion for Christ begins by an opening of your own heart. How is that done? The reply is as simple as sitting down alone in silence before God. Begin by repenting for allowing passions fires to burn low or burn out. Be honest; be transparent. After repentance, allow God’s forgiving love to fill your heart. All passion begins with receiving affection. One of the hardest spiritual disciplines known to man is to be silent, to wait, and to just let your spirit be filled with the love of God.

The love of God is like fire dripping down from above; it sets aflame all the coldness within, and turns even the stony heart to molten love. From that point, it is much easier to follow through with the other spiritual disciplines, Bible reading, prayer, witnessing, church attendance and other actions of faith.

If millions of Christians would follow these simple steps, there will be a third Great Awakening in our nation which would impact the world. God’s heart would turn again toward our nation. We are the key. We hold the heart of God. In Song of Solomon 4:9 the Beloved of the Bride said to her, “You have ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; you have ravished my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one chain of your neck.” Jesus does respond to our cries of passion. Jesus does hear. His Father responds when we pray in Jesus name.

There is a solution to our dilemma, the solution is you and me renewing the fire of passion within. The only question remaining is this: Will we do it?

We are the government. We are the people.

The President had some energy and appeared far more involved than in round one.  I suspect he received a stern lecture from his election staff about the performance he turned in the first time.

Romney was as energetic as the first time – perhaps a little too much so.  He seemed unwilling to relinquish the floor even though asked to do so by the moderator.  That annoyed me.

But his refusal to stop talking annoyed me more because there was one question which provided him the opportunity to do so and put the President on the defensive.  That question was posed by a gentleman who had prepared it together with some of his co-workers.

“Who in the Administration was responsible for ignoring the Libyan embassy’s request for more security?”

That question was addressed to President Obama.  Instead of answering it, he talked about attending the funerals of the four Americans murdered and the grief he felt at their loss.  He talked about how he had been responsible for the death of Osama bin Laden.  He talked about ending the war in Iraq.  He did everything to use his time other than even peripherally answer that question.

If I had been Mr. Romney, when it came my turn to speak, I would have stepped back, addressed that fact and “ceded” a minute of my time back to the President so that he could answer the questioner.

Of course hindsight is 20/20 and as I reflect on some debates in which I have been involved I realized that I might have better responded in a particular situation.  Normally that happens about two minutes after the debate has ended and I have for all time lost the opportunity.

But this debate will not be over until the final ballot is counted in three weeks.  And, I am sure, like the gentleman who asked the question, I would still like to get an answer from the President.

The thrust of the ad is that Mitt Romney, that insidious successful millionaire, is planning on slashing the taxes of his fellow successful millionaires.   He will pass on the cost of the money this saves them to the remaining middle class who have survived four years of Obamanomics, by increasing their taxes $2500 per household.

This is fear in advertising at its absolute worst.

Let’s think about the scenario that the President paints in his ad.  You are already a multi-millionaire and this year you have another decent year.  You earn $10 million for your efforts and on your investments.   Depending on the sources of your income, that should leave you with about $7 million or so in pocket change.  Does any one of my readers know how they would possibly spend $7 million if they were given the opportunity?  And, of course, our multi-millionaire has already accumulated a great deal of wealth that goes beyond this year’s income.

So ask yourself the question.  If you would be hard pressed to spend $7 million on things that you really want, how would you spend the $7.2 million that the ad suggests you would have under the “Romney tax plan?”

Well, that’s all theoretical.  But let’s look at some numbers which are suggested by the ad and which Vice President Biden offered in the debate.

The Veep says that this scheme is designed to benefit 110,000 wealthy tax payers at the expense of all middle class tax payers.  Each of the wealthy would get a $200,000 tax cut – and every middle class family will get a $2500 tax increase.

If you do the math which underlies this statement, here’s what you will find.  According to Vice President Biden, the United States of America, out of our population of 310,000,000, has a mere 8.8 million families who are “middle class”.

I realize that things have been tough for everyone under President Obama but is the Vice President suggesting that is the totality of the middle class that is left in this country?  If that is true, that is sufficient enough indictment to throw the two of them out of office.

Let’ return to the debate for a minute.  Frankly, I was uninspired by both participants for different reasons.

I have heard Rep. Ryan speak on many occasions and have been impressed with the sincere manner in which he delivers his information.  By contrast, I thought he seemed very “mechanical” in the debate.  Perhaps that is because it was his first experience or perhaps because the main focus was on foreign policy.  I am not making excuses for him because “it is what it is”.  I have heard him do far better and was a little disappointed.

I felt insulted by the demeanor which the Vice President projected.  I thought he was rude, condescending and generally obnoxious.  He obviously has a wealth of experience, (he told us that several times) and I felt he would have better served his cause by simply delivering his message in a forthright and factual manner.  I half expected him at some point to turn to Ryan and say, “Listen, Sonny …”

He also had the annoying habit of starting to answer a question and then, without finishing his statement, change the subject.  This is the typical tactic of the veteran politician who either doesn’t know the answer or doesn’t want to offer an answer to a question.   If you taped the debate, I suggest you watch it again to see what I mean.  I counted six separate instances of it in the 45 minutes that the Vice President held the floor.

Well, according to those who are politically smarter than I, Ryan slightly edged out the Vice President – but it was, in essence, a draw.  But there was one part of the debate that I thought was most interesting and that was the discussion about abortion.

For the first time in U. S. history we have Vice Presidential candidates on both tickets who are Roman Catholic.  It’s common knowledge that the official view of the Roman Catholic Church is that abortion constitutes murder of the unborn.  Both the Vice President and Rep. Ryan are aware of that.

Ryan offered his explanation of why he is opposed to abortion from a personal standpoint.  He referred to his unborn first child’s ultrasound when she was only the size of a bean – but he could see her heart beat.  He went on to explain that because of this experience, he and his wife had nicknamed her, “Bean”.

The Vice President approached his support for abortion in what could easily have been misinterpreted as an almost statesmanlike way.  While he would never personally have a child aborted, he explained that other people did not accept his Catholic theology of life beginning at conception.  Therefore, it would be wrong for him to impose his personal beliefs on them.

There is a problem inherent with that statement.

Some people believe that murdering another adult – if it suits their purpose and is the way for them to attain their personal ends – is perfectly acceptable behavior.  You have only to read a newspaper on any given day to know that is true.  Thumb to the section covering the ongoing violence among members of the Mexican drug cartels.

Civilized societies dating back thousands of years have generally frowned on that behavior.  The Roman Catholic church considers murder to be so serious that it is classified as a “mortal sin”.

But if we take the Vice President at his word, I can only presume that he similarly is opposed to all the laws on the books, in every state and every jurisdiction, which punish adults who commit murder.  Even though  his Catholic upbringing informs him that it is wrong for him to murder someone, he shouldn’t impose that belief on others who hold a different view on the subject, just  as he refuses to do in the case of abortion.  Or is imposing his Catholic beliefs something which he only selectively declines to do?

Of course, the Vice President’s quasi-libertarian view on the subject of abortion introduces an obvious corollary issue.  If it is wrong for those who oppose abortion to impose their will on others, is it not equally wrong for those who favor abortion to require those who find it immoral to pay for it with their tax dollars in contravention to their conscience and right to Freedom of Religion?

Politicians promise a lot of things.  If you’re in your thirties or older and are the least observant, you will have noticed that those promises are very often empty.  While they sound good and encourage us to vote for them, hoping that they are sincere in their statements, the sad truth is that seldom is the case.

We have seen how “Hope and Change” have played out for four years of this administration.  In their ad, Obama/Biden asks the question, “Who you gonna believe?”

And we should all be asking, “Who do you think has the ability, understanding and committment to deliver?”

The cartoon ran for quite a few years.  Apparently there is no limit to the goofy stuff of which mankind is capable.

Some of the idiotic things in which these people engage are caused by those who seem to live there lives by using as little of their gray matter as they possibly can.  Most of their activities merely inflict disaster on themselves.  But, occasionally, they take their ineptitude into the public sphere where they have the ability to impact any innocent citizen who has the misfortune of being in their presence.  An obvious example is people who drive drunk or use cell phones or text while driving.

To protect ourselves from these people how does our society respond?  Our answer, as in the cartoon is, “There oughta be a law.”  And we do just that – we pass laws and hope that will solve the specific problem addressed in the legislation.

Certainly, until such point that each of us is innately a good citizen, a caring person, a responsible individual, (that day is far in the future), we will need laws so that those who are irresponsible may be punished when they infringe on the rights of their fellow citizens.  But those need to be good laws – laws which truly offer deterrence to misbehavior.  Merely passing a law does not, in and of itself, resolve the behavior we are trying to discourage.

Allow me to offer a simple example.

We all wish that disease did not exist.  I have never met anyone who felt otherwise.  If someone in Congress were to propose a law banishing disease from the United States, I am sure that it would pass unanimously in both houses and would be swiftly signed into law by the President.  Would disease miraculously disappear as a result of this enactment?  Of course not.

The first two years of President Obama’s administration produced two laws, The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and Dodd/Frank (intended to make sure that we never again faced a similar banking crisis to the one we endured).  Both laws, as they have been presented to voters seem, on the surface, to be good things.

I come from the K.I.S.S. school of management (Keep It Simple Stupid).  Both of these laws exceed two thousand pages – hardly what anyone would consider to be simple.  In fact, they are so complex that to date no one, including those who voted to adopt them, knows what they actually contain and for what they provide.

Why are these two laws so important?  Because, if you listen to the voices of small businessmen, not understanding their implications is the primary reason that they have been reluctant to hire new workers.  And that is the reason that our economy is still sputtering along at a 1.3% growth rate rather than the 4.0% rate that President Obama predicted as a result of his stimulus plans.

Should this matter to any of us?  Well it certainly matters to those who are still actively seeking work and continue to be unemployed.  And to those of us who are fortunate to have a job it matters because it is one of the primary reasons that our national debt load (what each man, woman and child owes) now exceeds $200,000 per person.

I have no doubt that these laws were passed with the best of intentions.  Nevertheless, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

This entire concept might be lost on the average person – particularly if he or she does not own their own business.  So let me offer an example of how laws can affect real people.

Many years ago in Chicago I was approached by a gentlemen whom I knew from the neighborhood.  Pete was a real estate agent, but his interest was less in selling houses than in trying to develop run-down properties and turn them to productive use.

One such property housed several small retail stores but the major tenant was a package liquor store.  Together with a number of merchants who operated their businesses in a part of Hyde Park known as Harper Court, which was directly behind this row of buildings, we were able to buy this property.

The buildings had become rundown and the liquor store was a haven for people who would panhandle outside it from anyone walking by – hoping to collect enough change to buy a cold quart of beer or a pint of alcohol.

The constant presence of these people, sometimes they were very aggressive and would follow a possible donor down the street until the person gave in and “contributed,” meant that the police spent a lot of their time patrolling the area and asking these people to move along.  Robberies near this property were frequent.

When we acquired the property the package liquor store’s lease was six months from expiration.  We chose not to renew it.  We performed all the maintenance which had been deferred, spruced up the outside and found a new anchor tenant to rent the space which the liquor store formerly had occupied.  It was an upscale restaurant which became one of the more popular, nicer places to eat in the neighborhood.  The neighborhood saw a significant improvement in terms of appearance and safety and the investors got a decent return on the capital which we had risked.

With that background, when Pete came to me with another real estate venture, I was naturally interested.  But this project was significantly bigger in scope and size.

Hyde Park had a fairly high percentage of the elderly – so many so that a number of residents coined the phrase to describe it as, “The Florida of the North.”  While there was one “old age home” in the neighborhood, run by the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, it was small and insufficient to accommodate all the elderly who lived alone and would benefit from being in a more closely-supervised environment should they take an unexpected fall or experience a medical emergency.

Pete knew that there was a large apartment building for sale in east Hyde Park.  It needed extensive renovation and work to bring it back to its former standards.  But it would have been an ideal place to situate a retirement home/skilled nursing care facility.  This was a big project and so Pete presented it to those of us who had invested in his first project, as well as a number of new potential investors.

Pete had, as in the first case, done his homework.  He had prepared detailed financial projections for the cost of acquisition and renovation and had secured a guarantee of financing from the Hyde Park Bank.  We were enthusiastic about the project.  Most of us knew elderly people who lived alone and we saw the need for this kind of facility.  There was only one possible fly in the ointment.

The building was sixteen stories tall and had two stairwells servicing its two sections.  It had been constructed in the 1940’s with the solid materials with which buildings at that time were built – real lath and plaster rather than the plasterboard which is used today and the water was delivered to each apartment by copper pipes, not PVC.  It was a rock solid building but needed a new roof and tuck pointing – both very extensive items, the cost of which Pete had incorporated in his analysis.

The fly in the ointment was that the risers in the stairwells did not meet the current city standards for retirement/nursing homes.  They were 1/8” too high.  In order for us to obtain licensing to operate that sort of facility, we would have to rip out 32 flights of stairs and replace them with stairwells that met code.  Despite the involvement of community leaders, all testifying that this project would be a tremendous asset to the neighborhood and would be a great benefit to our many elderly citizens, the city administrator who had responsibility for oversight remained inflexible.  “The law is the law.”

The cost of redoing the stairwells made the project impossible to accomplish.  The building we had hoped to acquire continued to deteriorate to the point where it was an eyesore and it was twenty years before the Episcopal Church replaced “The Church Home” with a new, modern and larger facility when a motel which had fallen into disrepair was purchased and demolished by them.

Think about what was lost through bureaucratic astigmatism.

This could have been a home where 280 of our elderly neighbors would have received first rate care and attention which was denied to them; renovating the building would have meant giving six months’ work to roofers, tuck pointers, plasterers and painters, carpenters and mechanics – all of whom would have been union workers; and we never hired the staff of 60 permanent people who would have overseen the care of the residents and provided for their comfort.

Now think about the illogic of requiring that we gut the stairwells and rebuild them.  The stairwells in a high rise are designed for emergency use.  Most of us would prefer taking the elevator either to climbing or descending 16 flights of stairs unless we absolutely had no other choice.

Because the building was well-constructed, it was unlikely that, should a fire occur, it would spread uncontrolled, requiring the evacuation of the entire building.  But let’s say that were required.  Would a 90 year old with a walker, be any better or worse off with stairs that were 1/8” lower than the ones which had been constructed when the building was erected?

There are laws which we pass that are so complex that they have a negative impact until their specifics are clear.  There are other laws which are so specific that they have a negative impact despite their original good intentions – such as the city ordinance regarding the height of stair risers.

If we feel that “there oughta be a law,” we should be certain that the ones we pass are good ones.  Otherwise, we may wind up getting far more than that for which we bargained.

Well finally we got there.  Or mostly so.  That is to say, we were in our nation’s Capitol – a city which, for the uninitiated, has to be one of the most confusing places on earth.

I have heard that the city’s circular design was, in part, intended as a matter of defense.  I would advise any foreign entity with aspirations of attacking
Washington by land that they had best bone up on the city’s layout before attempting their assault.

If there were one thing that I remember keenly about my father, it was that he had the most amazingly accurate sense of direction of anyone I have ever known.  Knowing where he was and understanding how to get where he was going was completely natural to him.  He had a built-in GPS system which was more accurate than the ones on which we rely today.

But apparently, there was something in the air in Washington which interfered with that ability.

My Uncle Howard, who at the time was an Assistant Director in the General Services Administration, the Federal agency which purchases most of the goods and services the government buys, had given my father directions on how, once we entered the city, we should proceed to get to his office.  Dad had pulled out the slip of paper on which he had written down these directions and was trying to follow them.

I don’t know if the instructions my Uncle Howard had given dad were inaccurate but we drove as my uncle had instructed and for some reason found ourselves back at our starting point, having looped around the city.  So dad tried again – with the same result.

Frustrated at his inability to do anything other than drive in circles, my father looked for a pay phone on the street so that he could call his brother at his office.  We finally found one and dad spoke with him.

I think my uncle must have sensed the aggravation in his older brother’s voice because he asked where we were, told us to sit tight and drove over to get us.  Apparently we had made a wrong turn somewhere and as my uncle explained, “You can’t get there from here.”

As it was now quitting time for my uncle, rather than going to his office we followed him to his home in Bethesda, MD.  To this day I don’t know for sure that there is a GSA building as I’ve never seen it.

We had a wonderful stay.  It is hard to visit Washington without coming away with a great sense of pride in what the American experiment had accomplished.

The buildings were more than mere structures.  They were shrines to the people who had worked together to show the world what could be accomplished by a rag tag volunteer army who fought and overcame what was then the mightiest fighting force in the world.  And all because of their desire to be free of oppression and to craft their own destiny.

I was especially privileged because my Aunt Rose was the secretary to the Director of the National Archives.  She received permission from her boss to bring me down to the Archives’ vaults where I was allowed to view documents that had been signed by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

If you have seen Frank Capra’s movie, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” you will have a sense of the pride I felt viewing these – in much the same way that Jimmy Stewart was overwhelmed when he saw the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials when he first arrived in the city as a newly appointed senator.

And you will understand how, when he is falsely accused of attempting personal gain by a corrupt colleague and the attempt is made to expel him from the Senate, this naïve, idealistic man retreats to Abe Lincoln’s feet at the base of his memorial and weeps bitter tears, so disillusioned by the government in which he believed and the reality that he discovered.

Perhaps I also am too idealistic.  After volunteering in the political process for several decades it is difficult to hold on to that attitude.  Like Senator Smith, I have learned the reality that people in public office are far more likely to be concerned about their personal interests than the interests of those whom they were elected to serve.  Maybe that is just human nature – or at least the nature of many who choose to run for public office.

Unlike Senator Smith, I cannot shed my tears at Lincoln’s feet.  The next best thing that I can do is watch this outstanding movie and write this blog, hoping to reach at least a few other people who care about what is happening in the land.

This country was founded by people who were great thinkers and its existence was secured by people who were great doers.  It was that combination which made America great – and it is the absence of it which is the reason that we have stumbled, and stumbled badly.

If we want the prosperity and the promise to return to this land, we have to make a change both to our political leadership and to our own apathetic attitudes.  We have once again to begin doing – and we need to elect people who are common sense thinkers.

There is one thing that is certain to me.  With the current cast of characters running the show and most of the people who are sitting in the audience, we can’t get there from here.

Reblogged from A Heapin' Plate of Conservative Politics & Religion:

Sarah and I have been friends from the first time that  we met.  She is one of the most delightful and fun people I know.  Well, actually, she is more like two of the most delightful and fun people I know.

It’s almost as though she is a female version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  On the one hand, she is refined, genteel and delicate in the way I pictured Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  But when she gets started on one subject – politics – she transforms into a gruff version of Ruth Gordon complete with the salty language that would embarrass the most hardened merchant seaman.

Sarah and her younger sister were born in Munich, Germany.  Her father was the Cantor at their Synagogue but he earned his living as a diamond cutter.  As a result, both the girls received an extensive exposure to classical music – something which Sarah and I shared and loved.

In 1934, seeing the storm clouds arise in his country, Sarah’s father moved his family to Antwerp.  But after four years in Belgium, the Nazis signed the “negotiated agreement” which annexed Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland and he feared, quite correctly, that this was merely the start of something far bigger on Hitler’s part.  Her father, Saul had a friend who owned a  wholesale jewelry business in Chicago and offered him a job – so the family left Europe and moved to the Midwest.

The family settled in Chicago’s Hyde Park.  At the time, a significant percentage of the population in this neighborhood was Jewish – in part because many of them were professors at the University of Chicago.  And directly abutting Hyde Park on the north was Kenwood, a neighborhood that was filled with 10 and 12 bedroom mansions.  K.A.M. Isaiah Israel Temple, Chicago’s oldest synagogue was located there and had a congregation of people who tended to be politically conservative.

But the large Jewish population on Chicago’s south side began moving north, particularly when the “Gold Coast” area became more fashionable.  Unlike some of their fellow religionists, Sarah’s parents stayed in Hyde Park and it was there that I met her 30 years ago.

I was working as the “precinct captain”  of my own precinct, making sure that every Republican vote got to the polls and was voted (if not necessarily counted) on election day that year.  Of course, this was volunteer work and was far from taxing.  Of the four hundred registered voters in the precinct, there were only about 20 who identified themselves as being Republicans.  By comparison to other precincts in Chicago, that was actually a pretty decent showing.

The Republican voters in Chicago’s 5th Ward fell into one of only several categories.

The first were older conservative Jewish voters who had not migrated to the north side, preferring the almost suburban and wonderfully inter-racially mixed neighborhood to the near-ghetto atmosphere which had been crafted by the nouveau-successful about 10 miles north.

The second were professors and students at the University of Chicago’s School of Business.

The third, (and they were few in number) were students at the University’s School of Divinity who had experienced a close, personal encounter with God.  As I said, there weren’t many who fell into this last category.

Sarah was a member of the first group and was the stalwart who rounded up the 10 Republicans in her building so that I could drive those who were too frail to walk to the polls and, when they had finished voting, drive them back to their apartment.

That was how Sarah and I met.  But there was something insightful and interesting in this wonderful lady, substantially older than I, that caused us to become close friends.  In part, it was the Sunday crossword puzzle.

Sarah loved to do the crossword in the Chicago Tribune (and I later was able to talk her into doing the Quote Acrostic as well).  But when she would get stuck on a clue, she would call me, knowing that I always was able to complete the puzzle, and ask me to give her a helping hand with it.  As the years went by we maintained this ritual of speaking at least every Sunday.

I would, if I had plans for Sunday afternoon after church, start on the puzzle early so that I was prepared for our conversation.  We continued to do this for 20 years – until I moved to Las Vegas where I found it impossible to get the Chicago Tribune.

Over the years I noticed that these conversations became longer and longer as Sarah had more difficulty with the puzzles.  A one hour conversation to complete the puzzle became somewhat standard.  At first I would simply create an alternate clue to the one that was given in the puzzle to try to help her out.  But as time went by, my assistance became more direct.  “Okay, Sarah, the next letter you’re missing is a vowel.”

I could see myself, thirty or forty years down the road, hoping that I had a friend who would similarly be able to help me out as my memory faded and although these conversations were a little boring for me, I tried to put myself in her place and realize that there was nothing more special than being able to help out a friend.

Despite her advanced age, Sarah is still vibrant and active – but annoyed that she now has to rely on the use of a cane to get around.  She still takes her mile long walk every day, although I suspect it takes her longer to finish it than when I first met her.  And she is still politically attuned – and incorrect.

I have been sending her copies of my posts as I write them, and she is probably my most severe critic.  She thinks that I’m far too polite in my comments about the President.  I know because she has told me so in no uncertain terms.

As I said, when she gets on the subject of politics she is expressive in a downright earthy way.

On my most recent call congratulating her on her birthday, she said, “What the hell is wrong with you?  You’ve got brains.  Why don’t you talk about that SOB (she used one word implying an illegitimate birth status) in the White House and tell people that he’s the biggest piece of sh*t that we’ve ever elected?  Look how he’s abandoning Israel.”

“What the hell is wrong with all these liberal Jews?  Don’t they remember what the holocaust was all about?  Don’t they remember what happened when they tried to find excuses about why Hitler wasn’t so bad?  Don’t they remember that 6 million off us died in that SOB’s gas chambers – only because he couldn’t find the rest of us and kill us too?”

“This guy is just as dangerous as Hitler – it’s just that people are too stupid to see that.”

As I said, Sarah has some pretty deep feelings when it comes to politics.

I don’t think that I’m going to mail this particular post to Sarah.  But I know that she will appreciate the cartoon.  (I owe credit to Rick and his blog “Billericapolitics.org” for it).  So I guess I’ll just make a copy of the cartoon and send it to her in the packet I’ve already assembled.

I’ll find out Sunday if she enjoyed it when we have our weekly call.

Argument in favor:  Having a valid photo ID will ensure that people who have been verified as citizens, residents of the district in which they seek to vote and are not felons, in other words, people who actually have the right to vote, will be able to do so while preventing those who are not so entitled from casting a ballot to which they have no right.  Thus, we will be able to insure the integrity of our election process.

The cost to the individual who is not already a licensed driver is minimal.  No documentation is required beyond that already required by Federal law to hold a job and work in this country.  It is not our intention to disenfranchise anyone who is a legitimate voter.  Most election jurisdictions have in place procedures where, should a voter not be shown on the official voting rolls, he or she may still vote if two other voters in his precinct or district attest through sworn affidavit that they personally know the individual and attest to his place of residence.

Thus, even if there is a clerical error in a precinct’s roster of eligible voters, the individual affected by this error will not be denied his or her right to vote based on this alternative means of identification.

Extending this means of identification to those who, for whatever reason, have not been able to get a state-issued ID should assuage the concerns of those who oppose the requirement to produce an ID for voting purposes.

Argument opposed:  The attempt to require voter identification is unnecessary and oppressive – disproportionately affecting minorities and the elderly.  It is little more than a disguised effort to restrict and reduce the number of voters and disenfranchise those who oppose the agenda of the parties trying to pass these restrictive laws.

The requirements for obtaining a state ID vary from state to state.  Thus, a voter who might be able to provide documentation in one state, suitable to obtaining such identification, might not have the documentation which another state requires.  In the case of Federal elections, this may result in a person’s not being able to vote simply because of the state in which he or she resides.  Clearly, the Constitution does not provide to the states the right to make these sorts of determinations which are less than uniform and affect people’s right to vote, merely because of their incidental residence.

While more could be said (and has been said) on the subject, I hope that I have provided a fair and impartial view of the core arguments for both side of this issue.  Clearly, there is a difference in outlook on the subject.

I would hope, however, that there are two points with which both sides might agree:

1.  Everyone who is eligible to vote should be allowed to vote;

2.  No one who is not eligible to vote should be allowed to do so.

I hope all fair minded people can agree with both those statements.  In other words, we want our elections to be conducted in a fair and transparent way.

Voter fraud has been around since paper was invented and the ballot box came into being.  I refer to some of the shenanigans that have gone on in Chicago because I have seen a great deal of it first hand in the years I lived there and worked as a poll watcher.

Back in the days when paper ballots were in use, some of the wards which were home to SRO’s (Single Room Occupancy “hotels”) which catered to people who were alcoholics and whose primary means of support was panhandling, developed an ingenious system for controlling the voting in elections.

Key to the system was stealing one unmarked ballot.  This usually presented little or no problem as, with a dearth of Republican election judges, usually all five of the judges were Democrats and sympathetic to the local precinct captain’s cause.

The unmarked ballot would be marked by the precinct captain and given to the alcoholic voter.  After he had gone into the voting booth with the ballot he received from the judges, he would pretend to mark that ballot but in fact he would leave it blank.  He would then hand the pre-marked ballot to the judges for inclusion in the ballot box, go outside and hand the blank ballot to the precinct captain.  In exchange for this he would receive a pint of whatever alcohol was being passed out that election.  The system was flawless and insured that the votes that were cast benefited the precinct captain and his party.

Naturally, this system insured that the votes of all these individuals were tallied just as the precinct captain wanted and, in no small measure, contributed to the massive Democratic landslides that the City of Chicago turned in election after election.

I would hope that liberals and conservatives, people who agree or disagree with the need for having voter ID’s would agree that this practice is despicable and totally undermines the concept of fair elections.

Of course, this example is intended to show how elections can be manipulated, even when voters are legitimate and are qualified to cast a vote.

But before a person may vote for Candidate “A” or Candidate “B”, there is a process which those people must follow so that their names appear on the ballot.  That is, there is a nomination process – which almost always include getting a sufficient number of signatures on nominating petitions.

The number of signatures of legitimate, registered voters, required varies from state to state and from office to office.  For an individual who is an incumbent or who is well known, this is not a problem.  However, it can be a significant challenge for someone who is new to politics and who is not familiar to the voters in his district.

I don’t know how many times I have been asked to sign a nominating petition.  The question put to me was, “Are you a registered voter in this district?”  I, of course, answered, “Yes.”

“Well, would you please sign a petition to put “X” on the ballot?”  Following that question, at least on the part of the more diligent of these signature gatherers, would be a little speech about why “X” was a great candidate for that particular office; why we would benefit from his serving the public; and so forth.

Not once was I ever asked by any of those collecting signatures to show any identification either proving that I was who I said I was or that in any way verified my actual residence.  Nothing more was required to make the collector of signatures happy than my name on the next available line on her form, together with the address I wrote down.  And therein lies a problem – a very big problem.

This is not to impugn either the good intentions or the integrity of those who feel it is their civic duty to volunteer their time collecting signatures for candidates in whom they believe.  But an intelligent person can certainly see that with the nonexistence of documentation that the signatory is actually who he claims and further has a legitimate right to sign the petition, there is much that can slip through the cracks, even unintentionally.

And for the reasons that I enumerated above, that is how Barack Obama got elected to the Illinois Senate – unopposed.

Apparently, his three potential opponents in the primary took some shortcuts when their supporters collected signatures to put them on the ballot.  Obama charged (and won) his challenges to a sufficient number of these “voters” as being ineligible to sign the nominating petitions because the signatures were forged.  I have no problem with that.

But more importantly, eligible voters were disqualified as signatories because the person who collected their signatures was not himself a registered voter – one of the requirements under Illinois law for a petition to be valid.  Proving that fact invalidated the signatures of the twenty legitimate voters on each of the petitions that such a collector had amassed.

Eligible voters who preferred a different candidate to Obama were disenfranchised – not because they did anything wrong, not because they didn’t have a “valid state ID” but because the candidate they supported either didn’t understand the requirements of the law or simply disregarded them for their own purposes – and Obama took advantage of that to his own benefit.

It seems a rather curious irony to me that those people with whom I have spoken who are supporting the President’s re-election consistently object to the idea of requiring a voter to prove his identity as being oppressive and unfair.

I wonder how many of them know that disputing the legitimacy of voters was exactly the tactic which President Obama used to get his first foothold in politics.  And had it not been for that, he might still be a community organizer somewhere on Chicago’s South Side and his name a matter of obscurity to all of us in America and the world.

-  Portion of a statement issued by the U. S. Embassy in Cairo on 9/11/12 in response to the protests outside that embassy and the burning by “militant ultra-conservative Muslims” of the U. S. flag.

After I read the embassy’s response I began thinking about the only violent episode in which I have ever been personally involved.  Previously I wrote about my college incident when I was mugged by three men carrying switchblades, kicked unconscious and spent five days in the hospital with a concussion.

If I were to describe this mugging in the way in which our embassy in Egypt responded to the demonstrations outside its doors, I might have said the following:

“Yes, it was unfortunate and tragic what happened to me.  But if you think about it, really it was my own fault.”

“If I hadn’t accepted my professor’s invitation to join him and his family for dinner, I wouldn’t have been walking where I was mugged.  I would have been safe in my own apartment.”

“So, you see.  It’s terribly misguided to lay the blame on my assailants.  They were just doing what they do.  It was just a matter of bad luck that they did it to me.”

I don’t want to sound harsh because that is not my style.  I believe that anger, hatred and vitriol never settle arguments effectively.  But having said that, let’s look at the reality of what happened in Cairo.

The people who were involved in the rioting outside our embassy are  thugs – and You Tube movie or not have an agenda on which they will continue to move.  That agenda is to hate us – and any excuse, real or imagined – will serve their ends.

Is there anyone in our State Department who believes that those who murdered our ambassador and three others in Libya or participated in the riots outside the Cairo embassy are the kind of rational people who will be placated by our making statements like the one they issued?  People whose first response to any perceived “injustice” is to take to violence seldom are people who understand the concept of sitting down at a peace table and resolving differences through negotiation.

They interpret kindness and rational explanations as signs of weakness which merely further encourages them to continue their behavior.  Having delivered these “nice-nice” lectures many times, there finally comes a point at which the rational person realizes that conversation is insufficient to remedy a continuing problem and further, more assertive action, must be taken.

Why should the terrorists involved in these attacks believe the following sentence which was part of the embassy’s statement?” (Perhaps more germane to the point is, do you think that they care if it is true?)  But we, as Americans, should indeed hope that it is true.

“Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy.”

These words directly mirror those expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution.  But is that what we really believe and how we truly govern ourselves?  Are we really committed to the individual’s right to practice his or her religious faith without government interference – or to allow our citizens to choose a non-religious path without fear of reprisal?

(Of course, this entire concept of freedom to choose or reject a particular religious path is abhorrent to the terrorists’ most fundamental view that there is only one true faith – theirs).

Let’s consider the crown jewel of the Obama administration’s four years in office, Obamacare.  One of the provisions, commonly known as the HHS Mandate requires that all employers must cover their workers by purchasing insurance which coverage shall include benefits for birth control, abortions and for abortifacients – or face severe government penalties.

This provision is a direct assault against those who are practicing adherents of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and many fundamental Christian denominations who view procreation as the primary reason for sexual engagement.  So by enforcing this provision on those who find it morally and religiously objectionable, we have essentially enacted a law that says it is alright for government to deny them their constitutional right to practice their First Amendment rights.

You might be a reader who is “Pro-Choice” and who believes that there is nothing wrong with practicing birth control or feels that abortion is acceptable.  The purpose of this post is neither to dispute or argue with your beliefs.  You are certainly entitled to your opinion – in fact your are guaranteed the right to hold that opinion by our Constitution.  I applaud the fact that we are blessed to live in a country where that is true.

But if we stand by silently and watch the rights of those with whom we might disagree be eroded by our own government, we should be conscious that we are opening the flood gates which might one day sweep our own beliefs away as well.

The murders in Libya and the demonstrations throughout the Muslim world are indeed acts of terrorism.  But they pale in comparison to the erosion of the Constitution that, if not the agenda of the Obama administration during the four years it has reigned, has been the ultimate result of their policies.

- Dr. Barbara Bellar (From a speech discussing the implications of the Affordable Care Act – a/k/a Obamacare).

Some of my acquaintances think that requiring a picture State ID or Driver’s License in order to vote presents an inordinate and cumbersome burden on some eligible members of our community.  They view this merely as a disguised attempt at preventing these people from voting (an updated version of the poll tax which was banned through the adoption of the 24th Amendment to the Constitution in 1964).

I find this attitude pitiable as I reflect on my own immigrant grandmother whose formal education ended when she was nine years old; who taught herself a foreign language (English); who became a citizen as soon as she was eligible to do so; and who viewed one of her most fundamental rights and obligations as participating in her adopted country’s electoral process by never failing to vote in every election.

Grandma had an interesting (and I think informed) way of deciding who deserved her support.  If there were a “Common Sense Party” she would certainly have registered as a member.  In its absence, she never affiliated with either of the two major parties but gleaned as much information about each candidate for each office and voted for the ones she viewed as offering the most practical solutions without respect to party label.  All this from a woman with only a third grade formal education.

Back in the days when grandma voted (and during most of the elections in my own lifetime) Election Day was THE day when you cast your ballot.  There was no such thing as “Early Voting”.  If it happened that it was a bleak and raw November day when she and I voted for our country’s representatives and President; if the lines at the polling place were long and people had to stand outside in the cold and snow while waiting their turn to vote, stomping their feet to keep the blood circulating, that’s what you did in order to express your opinion.

Sure, there may have been some grousing and banter among the voters, “Why is this taking so long?,” and “Don’t they train the election judges on how to do their jobs?,”  but we endured this.  And the people who had to wait an hour in line to cast their vote could look back on the inconvenience of their wait with pride as a small statement about how they had fulfilled their civic duty.

By comparison, the election process has become far easier.  And in a sense, that is unfortunate because that translates to trivializing the meaning of what it means to be a citizen and what it means to participate in the process.  Perhaps the statement that we hear regarding doing reps at the gym applies here, “No pain, no gain”.

And yet, even with the simplification of the electoral process, even with all we have done to make it totally painless to vote, according to the estimates, less than six out of ten of us will bother to participate on November 6th.  The word “shocking” comes to mind, but I believe it doesn’t go far enough to describe the apathy of forty percent of us Americans.

I can say with absolute certainty that if my grandmother, who never learned to drive a car, needed to get a picture ID from New York State she would have saved the money to purchase one, even if it cost $100.  There are two reasons for this.  She had a strong belief that a person had to take pride in her actions – and she accepted accountability for herself.

At this point you may wonder why I began this post with a quotation about Obamacare.  The reason is really quite simple.  Under the provisions of the Act, beginning in 2014, each citizen will need to prove that he or she has purchased health insurance – or be subject to a tax in the amount of $695 enforced by the IRS.

Thinking about this logically, if a person, needing it, cannot make the effort to line up transportation to get a State ID; if they cannot afford the nominal fee for obtaining one that most states charge; do you really think that they are going to buy a health insurance plan which is going to cost them several thousand dollars a year?  Or, for that matter, failing that and being in violation of the law, they will have the money to pay the tax which Obamacare imposes?

If you truly believe that, I hope you’re enjoying your stay in Never Never Land.

For those people who are considering the merits or deficiencies of a Federal health care system but are not currently on Medicare, allow me to give you a brief overview of how the system is structured.

If you are Medicare eligible (generally you either have attained the age of 65 or are younger but have won a disability case with the Social Security Administration) then you are automatically enrolled in Medicare Part A.  This portion of the program provides for payment to hospitals for their services.  There is no premium associated with this coverage.

Part B of Medicare is optional coverage which pays about 80% of the negotiated fee for services such as doctors’ visits, doctor ordered tests including MRI’s, blood work, etc.  The premium for this coverage ranges between $100 – $320 per month dependent on income.  Medicare pays 80% of the charges which a patient incurs for these services – the balance being the patient’s responsibility.

Typically, people who have significant medical conditions or want to avoid incurring such charges should they contract a new infirmity will purchase a supplement from a private insurer.  Depending on the plan, they may get private insurance coverage which may pay the balance that Medicare does not pay.  Premiums for these plans typically range between $200 – $1,000 per month depending on the insurer and their underwriting determinations based on an individual’s specific health profile.

Excuse the skip in lettering but we will now go to Medicare Part D.  This is the prescription drug portion of Medicare and is also optional.  The cost of participating in Medicare Part D is also determined by income.  Most plans require a monthly payment ranging from about $20 – $60 a month.  Plans have an annual deductible which range between $0 – $325 before making any benefit payments.  All require an additional co-pay for any prescription drugs a patient takes.  Most plans do not cover all drugs which a patient might be prescribed or will only pay for certain drugs in non-generic form.  They all contain a cap on the maximum amount of benefit they will pay annually and are underwritten by private insurance companies.

Medicare Part C is known as “Medicare Advantage”.  This is also underwritten by individual insurers at no monthly premium cost to the patient and include a prescription drug plan.  These plans include an annual physical exam at no charge.  For all other services including doctors and hospitalizations and drugs the patient must make a co-payment which varies depending on the service that is involved.  Of course, for an individual who is generally healthy, doesn’t make frequent trips to the doctor or takes a limited amount of medication, this is the most attractive supplement since there is no monthly premium – merely the co-payment which must be made for each service or prescription.

The reason I went into such detail on how Medicare works in its various components is because of a conversation I had with a friend the other day.  She is a young 66 year old, active and healthy and living on Social Security for the majority of her income.  She was covered under a Medicare Advantage plan but was informed by her insurer, Sierra Health Systems that they are discontinuing their plans in Clark County, NV in 2013.  Anthem (which is Blue Cross) also underwrote this coverage and they too are discontinuing their plans.

So my friend was advised by her insurance agent that she can expect to obtain similar coverage for next year, but instead of paying no monthly premium, she can expect a premium of at least $30 a month with a new insurer for the same coverage.  The reason which the agent cited – Obamacare.

This is a real person with an income from Social Security of about $1,100 per month who is currently paying $100 per month to Medicare for insurance coverage.  That is 9% of her income.  That cost (assuming that her Medicare Part B premium doesn’t increase at all) will now escalate to $130 per month – a 30% increase in the amount she must spend for insurance – thanks to the Affordable Care Act which the Congress passed and President Obama signed into law.

So for whom is the “Affordable Care Act” affordable?  Apparently not for the members of Congress who, without reading the law, were wise enough to exempt themselves from being subject to it.

AFSCME (the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) has produced a new attack ad featuring this gentlemen.  The copy reads:

“My name is Richard Hayes, and I pick up Mitt Romney’s trash.  We’re kind of like the invisible people, you know. He doesn’t realize, you know, that the service we provide, you know, if it wasn’t for us, you know, it would be a big health issue, us not picking up trash.”

“Picking up 15, 16 tons by hand, you know that takes a toll on your body.  When I’m 55, 60 years old, I know my body’s going to be break down. Mitt Romney doesn’t care about that.”

I’m not quite sure what the thinking was that AFSCME employed in creating this ad using one of their members.  I know that the going rate for salaries for people in Mr. Hayes’ profession range nationally between about $35,000 – $55,000 per year, depending on the area.  So Mr. Hayes would be required under Federal Law to file an income tax return and presumably pay some amount of Federal Tax to the Treasury.  Thus, he is one of the 53%  – not the 47% that Mr. Romney described as “committed to voting for the President,” – although I think that might well be his intent.

Perhaps we’ll find a little more about their thinking later as there are apparently two additional ads which are forthcoming – I presume with the same theme.  And what is that theme?  Mitt Romney is an insensitive, uncaring SOB who is out to rape the poor of the last dime of their entitlement dollars.

In truth, I wouldn’t want Mr. Hayes’ job if it paid three times the amount he earns performing his duties.  And I probably don’t have the physique to be able to discharge his responsibilities in a satisfactory manner.  I believe he makes a valid point about the potential health threat if he and his fellows were to walk off the job.  In fact, it was exactly for reasons of public safety that Sanitary Engineers in several major cities were ordered to cease and desist from the strikes on which they embarked during the last several decades.  On this point he is absolutely correct.

Furthermore, I believe his statement about having a broken body when he is older is also probably true, unfortunately.  We have seen the relatively short professional life spans of NFL players due to on-the-job related injuries, including brain traumas.  At least pro football players receive significant compensation for risking their bodies and their futures – a risk that I’m sure they evaluated before they made the decision to play the game.

Perhaps it is ironic but today, when I first saw this ad, it happened to be one of the semi-weekly garbage collection days in my neighborhood.  What is more ironic is that I actually had something at the curb to be picked up.  I had managed to accumulate one half of a medium-sized garbage can and had it out and waiting for the crew.  That was the first time I had placed any refuse outside in five pick ups.

I work diligently to buy things with minimum packaging and to recycle and compost as much as I possibly can – for environmental reasons.  The fact that this makes life easier for Mr. Hayes’ fellow Sanitary Engineers here in Las Vegas is a definite plus.  To me they are not invisible – as I always remember them with some homemade preserves during the Holidays and frequently offer them a cold beverage in the summer heat.

But let’s return to the point of the commercial – that Mr. Romney must be a hard-hearted and uncaring person because he doesn’t have an intimate relationship with those who provide scavenger service at his various residences.

Is there any reasonable person out there who believes that Madonna, Warren Buffett, Lady Gaga, Tiger Woods, Lee Saunders (the President of AFSCME who just won election over a reform candidate who pledged to reduce the salaries of the union’s top honchos), or Presidents Clinton or Obama are on a first name basis with those who provide the same service to them?  Let’s get real people.  I doubt that any of those I have named even knows when their garbage is collected.

However, despite the main thrust of the ad at disparaging Mr. Romney, there is an important lesson to be learned from it.  That is with regard to Mr. Hayes and all the others whom he believes have been “dismissed” by Mr. Romney.

If you’ve been a reader for several months you may remember that at one point in my life I had my own executive search and temporary help business.  The search business dealt with mid to upper management white collar individuals and the primary focus of the temp business was on support staff for people who held mid-level corporate positions.

Although I would be hard pressed to document it, I am guessing that during my twenty-six years in that business, I interviewed no less than ten thousand people, both for our clients and for my own staff.  After the first thousand or so, if I say so myself, I became pretty good at interviewing.

Now, if I as an interviewer were to review Mr. Hayes’ statement (transcribed exactly as it appeared on Yahoo News) as his introduction to our firm, I would give him the courtesy of a cursory interview, because I believe that we ought always to be courteous, but I would never have considered him for any positions which we had available.  I would probably have recommended that he would have better opportunities if he were to apply to a firm specializing in people who had greater numbers of job openings for which he might qualify – a firm such as Manpower or other day labor temporary help agencies.

This would not have been a dismissal of Mr. Hayes as a human being.  Rather, it would be a realization that the gentleman had either received or chosen to accept only a very limited and probably not very good education.  His speech told me that without needing to review his application.  I know because I have taken my time to interview many Mr. Hayes’ – and if I doubted that assessment I would only have had to look at their applications to confirm my conclusions.  I guarantee that basic words which we use every day would have been misspelled and that the handwriting would have been difficult to read.  I’ve seen it hundreds of times.

Does that make Mr. Hayes an “unimportant” human being?  I don’t believe that any of us has the right to make that sort of assertion about anyone.  But it does make him a poorly educated one – a man with few employable skills.  That is most likely the reason that he is doing the work he is doing – not because Mitt Romney “looks down on him” or has “dismissed” him.

There is a lesson we should all take from Mr. Hayes and all the other Mr. and Ms. Hayes’ in America.

Fundamental to our problems in America is that the quality of education for which we were once renowned has fallen – and it’s fallen dramatically.

We are willing to give movie stars and professional athletes millions of dollars a year to entertain us, paying them directly through the money we spend on tickets.  But we are not willing to recognize those gifted teachers who are educating the next generation by offering them incentive raises based on the quality of the work they provide.  That is because we apparently, as a nation, consider entertainment far more vital than education.  Could this be one of the reasons that so many American jobs have moved overseas to be done by workers who were better educated than our own?

I think that Mr. Romney is too much of a gentleman to “retaliate” with a similarly negative ad to the ones that AFSCME has produced.  But I can’t help but wonder what someone riding the garbage truck that services the White House would have to say to him, should he encounter President Obama.  That is, if the President weren’t attending to important matters of state on the golf course.

A few days ago I noticed that someone had pasted some little stickers in various places in the large dog park.  The stickers simply read, “OBAMA SUCKS”.  Several of the stickers have been removed from where they were placed but several remain.

As I approached the group that comes equipped with puppies and lawn chairs and enjoys hobnobbing on the little rise in the park, the subject of these stickers was in hot debate.  The group, people who mostly support the President, were indignant at this insult to his Greatness.  Generally I try to avoid getting involved in these discussions because I am, if not out thought in these conversations, certainly outnumbered by about a six to one ratio.  However, I was unsuccessful in this attempt last night.

One of the more strident members of the group asked me directly if I had seen these stickers, to which I replied that I had.  “And,” she continued, “What do you think of someone putting them up on public property?”  I responded, “I guess we’re dealing with someone who is perhaps overly enthusiastic.”

This woman said that she had removed “both” of them and looked at me with a true sense of righteousness.  It was at that point that I mentioned that there were several more in the park to which she might want to turn her attention as well.  Apparently she was unaware of this and looked appropriately disturbed that this public property defacer had done yet more damage to our dog park – and her political sensibilities.

One of the other members then began a rant about right wing fascists – and I confess that pushed me beyond the limits of my usual calm and composed demeanor.  I asked them, “Would you have been equally upset and removed the stickers if the word ROMNEY were substituted for OBAMA?”   “Of course,” they responded.  “It’s a violation of park rules to place any sign.”  To be honest, if the stickers were anti-Romney ones, it is more likely that they would have begun building a shrine beneath them.

“So then your objection is not based on the content of the stickers but is based on the infraction of the rules for the use of the park by the public?”  “Exactly,” replied the lady who made the fascist statement.  “Well, don’t you think some of those rules are pretty silly,?” I asked, setting up my straw man argument.

“NO!”

“You mean even if they are dumb, we are supposed to obey all of them?”

“Of course.  You can’t pick and choose.  If you don’t like something you have to get it changed.”   At least on that point we were in agreement.

“Well, let me ask you a question.  I know that you’re aware that the very first rule posted regarding the use of the park is that ‘No alcoholic beverages are to be brought to the park and consumed here.’  That is the reason (together with a warning from one of the Park Marshalls) that you folks no longer bring wine bottles with you for your evening gatherings.  But you now bring alcohol from home and consume it from individual containers.  Isn’t that a violation of a rule which should also be observed?”

As the rancor began rising among the group I realized that it was time to pick up the pizza I had ordered for dinner which provided me with a convenient reason for taking Gracie and leaving them to “mull” over my question.  So I wished all of them a good evening and left them to “stew” over my comment.

I guess it’s a good thing that you can choose your acquaintances.  I might have to go on a search for a couple of replacements.

I realize that there are many who do not have internet access or find it too intimidating, so for those folks I have noticed that team Obama has had some of their camp out soliciting people to register doing it the old-fashioned way – with paper and pencil.  I encountered one of these the other day.

Gracie, the goldens and I had just pulled into the dog park for our 10 o’clock p.m. final romp of the day when one of those darn idiot lights illuminated on my dashboard informing me that my supply of gasoline was low.  After we got back in the car I headed for the 7-11 which offers gas at a competitive price and is on the way back home.

The kids were all sticking their heads out of the car, watching me as I started filling the tank, when a young lady, I took her to be in her early twenties, came from behind my car and said, “I assume that you’re already registered to vote.”  Other than the four bumper stickers which adorn the back of the station wagon, I have no idea why she made that assumption.

But I decided to have a little fun as we were just beginning the short journey until the gas pump showed the magical $60 figure which is what it currently takes to fill the tank.  So I responded to her inquiry, “Why would you assume that?”

She looked at the rear of the station wagon and said, “Well, I just thought…” at which point I said, “You’ll forgive me but if I were doing the job you have chosen to do, I would simply phrase the question as, ‘Excuse me, are you registered to vote’.”

“I will be happy to answer your question if you will first answer two of mine.  But before asking you my simple questions about U. S. history, let me congratulate you for taking an active part in our electoral process.  Now, here are my two questions.”

Those of you have been following along for awhile will recognize these as the first two which were asked of a number of people in the You Tube video which appeared in my earlier post, “Be Afraid – Be Very Afraid’.  Although whoever recorded those interviews said that the video was not scripted, I found it shocking that people struggled with the first two questions they posed which are, in my mind, so easy and fundamental.

Those questions were, “In what year did the United States declare its independence and from what country?”

I looked at the woman for a few seconds and then, so as not to intimidate her by staring at her, I turned my head to see the progress that the pump was making toward my fill up.  I had about $35 left to go.  So I turned back to this young lady, thinking I had given her adequate time to compose her answer – only to find that she had taken herself and her clip board to another pump and another prospective new voter.

It would be presumptive to say that the reason she left without answering me was that she didn’t know the answer to these questions.  But it is equally presumptive to say the she did and simply chose not to answer.  After all, she was engaged in the business of soliciting people to register to vote and while she may have assumed that I was already registered because my bumper stickers certainly make a political statement, would it not be in her and her cause’s best interest to verify that before giving up on me?

As we approach the countdown toward voter registration cutoff, I applaud team Obama for making a concerted effort to get people involved in the political process.  Perhaps when that part of the campaign is over, they can turn their attention to some of their ads and edit them for a little more accuracy.

Now that Chicago has gotten back to normal – that is the teachers in public schools have returned to work after their strike – I thought about the principle that the City of Chicago employed regarding the residential status requirement for its employees and wondered why the Chicago Board of Education doesn’t employ the same for its teachers.

By this I am not referring to a residency requirement – which when I lived in the City was a requirement for assignment as a teacher.  Rather, I was wondering why it is that there is no requirement that teachers send their children to Chicago’s public schools.  The fact is that in Chicago, nearly four out of ten teachers choose to send their own children to private schools – and apparently their current salary of $71,000 to $76,000 a year is sufficient to enable them to do so, despite their not being able to negotiate the 16% raise for which they struck.

Think about it for a moment.  Four out of ten Chicago public school teachers apparently do not think highly enough of the school system in which they teach to entrust their own children’s education to it.  And those numbers are not dissimilar to the numbers of public school systems in other large cities.  Who is better able to understand the quality of education our children are receiving than those who are providing it?

For years we have talked about offering a voucher system for elementary education which would allow parents to make schooling choices that are in the best interests of their children.  Those efforts, strongly opposed by a variety of self-interest groups, including teachers’ unions, have gone nowhere.  Part of the argument in opposition to the idea is that, “parents, particularly poor and uneducated parents, are not in a position to make a good choice.”  While I dislike that paternalistic and demeaning view of the uneducated as unable to make an intelligent choice because of their own ignorance, think about the fallacy inherent in that argument against vouchers.

Let’s take an uneducated inner city person who receives a voucher.  What is the worst thing that can happen in her decision making process?  She doesn’t have the knowledge to do anything with it other than to pack up her child and send her to a Chicago public school – the same as now.  But what if only 10% of those parents decided, instead to use that voucher at a Charter or Parochial or some other Private School instead?  Given the fact that test scores which children educated in that environment achieve are significantly higher than those children who have a public education, that would give at least those 10% a better opportunity to have a better life and to be more productive people.

It would be unfair to measure education simply as a product of sitting in a classroom.  We know that a positive and nurturing home environment where there is an emphasis on the importance of learning is also an important factor.  That is something over which we have no control.

But the fact that some number of those who received an education voucher would choose to use it for their children by rejecting the public school alternative in favor or something else, suggests that in that very decision, those parents are likely to provide just such an environment.  Why deny them, and more importantly, their children, the opportunity?

Romney has taken a lot of heat for saying that “class size” doesn’t matter.  I’ve only heard that attribution on Obama ads so I don’t know if it is accurate.

I was fortunate to have been born to parents who thought a good education was extremely important.  Mom got a job so that they could afford the private school education they provided me.  My graduating class from Junior High had a whopping 26 students in it.  Logic suggests that I received more attention from my teachers than if my class were three times that size.  So if that is an accurate statement that Governor Romney has made, I would disagree with him and ask him to reconsider his thinking on the subject.

On the other hand, the teachers of the Chicago Teachers Union have demonstrated that small class sizes do not necessarily result in a better education for their students.  During their strike, they reduced their class size to zero.

Fortunately, that didn’t affect the children of the forty percent of them who send their kids to private schools.