this writer is more than a little disappointed at the lack of proper protocol shown the Japanese Prime minister and spouse. Moreover, It was the kind of display one would expect from a fawning, bowing and scraping underling, and not the most powerful politician in the world. As a representative of the United States, need he be reminded that it is the U.S. that others in the world look to for primary guidance.

Even though our politicians and others denigrate the dollar, whine about taxes, and predict a black hole for the stock market and the economy, we are still looked up to by most of the world. People want to come here because of freedom, good wages, home ownership, and a respected education.
They like our easy styles, fashion, music and value for their money. They are free to go where they want without fear.

There are a few ignorant individuals who look only at the darker side of freedom, which allows adults to act against the mainstream. One nutcase even rolled around in the lower forms of entertainment until he got tired of it.
Then he became critical of the U.S., went home and bombed innocents that would never expect anything so evil in America.

Meanwhile, Mr. President, lbe suspect of security breeches that may be testing your protection.

Also, i heard you say in the campaign that the Bush tax cut for the rich would go out the window. Stop taking about raising their taxes and eliminate the tax cut-welfare for the rich- so that there is money for other programs, such as jobs and continuing the minimum medicare benefits now in place instead of cutting them.
Put some of the regulations back in place so that the wholesale ripping off of pensions, mob interest rates by banks on credit cards, and continuing threat to the markets by crooks who know they are going to get a soft sentence in a country club if they steal from widows and working people their life savings.

Since lobbyists and not congress now make the laws, it’s unlikely healthcare reform will lpass. Soon, not even special interests can save healthcare it is prersently administered. The costs will spiral completely out of control as fewer and fewer will be able to access or pay the increased price tag.

This is a great country with a system of government that helps right the ship of state when it blows off course. It is questionable, however, if special interests may continue sharing the goodies while an expensive war bleeds the country, and fewer workers are available to pay for the ones who don’t work. A great economist opined in the last century that it’s impossssible to have guns and butter simultaneously. In other words, sacrafices must be made by all if politicians must wage wars. It’s called pay as you go.
If there is sacrafice now, the burden of our folly won’t be visited on our children and grandchildren.

GOP Mocks Nobel Peace Prize

How extraordinary that the President of the U.S. receives an award that recognizes excellence and achievement and is shot down for it. This prize is not a trifle to be taken lightly or to be scoffed at. Many congratulate the Nobel Prize Committee for it’s surprising but wise selection, including the writer.

While the whole world watches and some praise the U.S., one only has to go back a year to remember the hatred directed from all parts of the world toward our foreign policy. If I know this president, he will bring a speedy end to the fighting when he sees we are attaining nothing by continuing the same course.

Like many others, I grew very disillusioned by the GOP “we against the world, diplomacy, you can go to hell approach.” When people talk, other people may be spared the horror of modern, efficient weapons that recognize human beings as worth nothing more than 6 ounces of lead.

Thank God we have a humanitarian in office for a change. This president knows his history and he knows how to use power. The GOP should be ashamed for blindly attacking this gifted and worthy bearer of the Nobel Prize for Peace.

What must our trading partners think when the president is atttacked personally, and not through his office. Holding the President up for ridicule sends a message that we don’t think much of the high office at all.

Hello dummies! That is the most petty, ignorant, and downright ugly insult about someone who is overweight I have heard in public. You have no manners, social graces, and no brains either, from the sound of it.

She can lose the weight all right, but you critics can’t lose your stupidity.

What is this notion that everyone has to be perfect to suit your tastes? Talk about narcissism! There was a time when people had some manners and allowed others the courtesy to deal with their own stuff. Now you get all this free information, most of it BS, and you think you are experts. You are expert dummies!!!

Maybe she will die from weight related problems some day. whose business is that but hers?

Perhaps her problem lies in her ancestry when the only food available was starch, how do we know?

Not one word about the white Barbara Bush being fat, or Betty ford’s alcoholiosm–but praise for her getting treatment.

It’s likely you will die from anal retention or alzheimers from watching tv.

So get off your high horses and look in the mirror or look in your mind. See how small you are? See how phony and ridiculous you sound?

Back in December no one knew what was going to happen with the economy and the markets.

A very courageous president steps in and with grace and skill propels us back on track. But that isn’t good enough either.
Nothing is good enough is it? Bush was good though, right? Cost of Iraq war-two trillion dollars. don’t forget that number dummies.
That was your man, Bush, who ignored warnings about airplanes from the FBI flying into buildings and then told the FBI man that found the plot that he “covered his ass” when he told the president about it. Bush thought he wanted a promotion!

Go back to Fox news and that FAT guy you all love so much, you know the drug addict that bought drugs illegally, what’s his name? Limpy, yeah thats it. Limp brain.
That’s all for today dummies.

The Year of Fear

Maybe it’s a bit harsh to say  2008 is the year(make that the champion ) of fear, even more scary in some ways than 9-11.  One other time in the last 60 years might be considered as least as scary-the post-World war II  race for nuclear  superiority.  Show your kids a nuclear blast on film, then the obligitory “duck and cover,” strategy that has the kids hide under the desk with their arms folded and elbows tucked in to cover the eyes against the  blast from a nuclear device.  The original drill was to have the kids bend down with their heads between their knees.   It wasn’t really suggested what they would do about their dead parents at home.  Sadly, this opened the door for all  kinds of jokes,  so it was sent to the “round file.” Naturally the jokes continued and are  heard on occasion now. (bend over,  put your head between your knees- now, kiss your ass good by!)

When the writer was a wee lad in the 1940’s,  people still talked about the great depression and how it might come back any day and rob the kitchen table of food and put everyone out 0f work.  My step-father hopped a rail car to the west- coast doing odd jobs for churches  along the way.  Drafted in San Francisco,  he was chosen as an MP and eventually made it to a battlefield  called the Bulge.  World War II signaled an end to the depression, but it took some other mighty changes in the way the people perceive government.  Up to the start of the war many programs to get people to work were initiated by the government and spurred on by President Roosevelt.  Great dams,  army engineer projects, electrical power in every home, and social security are a few programs pushed through congress and signed by the president.  Hoover dam(now Boulder Dam) and the Tennessee Valley Authority(TVA) are still  doing their jobs 79 years after they were just a dream.  At the time they had to over come the Communist or Socialist label but eventually passed.

Americans are a tough lot, though they may drift and seem unlikely to have the gumption to get up and go, they will rise to a task and take it too completion.  Although we complain about education, and rightly so in some cases,  these “bad” schools and “bad” teachers have produced some great people, if not scholars from the humble one-room-schoolhouse, which morphed into consolidated schools and the modern school system.  In retrospect, everything seemed pretty tame and innocent by comparison with crowded and understaffed schools today.  All in all,  it seems that just ten years ago there was a handle and someone had a tight fist on it.  Now it is not unusual for kids in lower grades to have been exposed to all the realities of life, before they have had a chance to live the innocent life of childhood, which was once an expectation.  Perhaps they are adapting to a newly configured world.  It is still scary.  I am sure many parents fret about it.

The last ten-twenty years have seen an introduction of a new kind of foe, however, more cunning, deceitful and with less regard for human life than a weasel or a black Mamba which kill for the joy of it, rather than just for food or to protect their young.  They are not the first to employ fighters who have no fear of death, in fact the Japanese deployed swarms of  planes designed specifically as a bomb so as to inflict the greatest possible damage.  The pilots were human.  It worked well but japan was without enough planes, fighters, or resources to continue.

When a country sends the heart of its youth into battle knowing they will die,  they are decimating their flowers of the future, though they may carry the advantage today.   How many future  leaders, scientists, and professors, inventors, and peace-makers  are killed off through martyrdom will never be known.  the number of potential fathers or mothers cut down in their youth we know to be 100%.  In 2008,  the threat of terrorism scares many people, at home and abroad.  Others are declaring the war as good as over.  Who can really say?  Ultimately, it is up to the people of a respective region to decide.  What foreigner has ever fought the Mid- Easterner to a conclusion?  Revenge is as much a part of their mind- set as daily washing and hospitality to strangers.  How may outsiders decide their destiny?  Would we allow such an outrage here in the U.S.?  I believe a troop is supported when they are not brought into harms way without a very good reason.

The scare that set nearly everyone back is the financial chaos in the stock market.  Few of the pundits predicted the fall, and fewer still had a clue about the severity of the problem or its lasting effects.  Who could have managed to hang on through the volatile  ups and downs of the market, the fading retail sector, crash of the commodities, and the collapse of the financial markets.  To top the whole thing off,   with  few exceptions,  similar scenarios are playing out in the rest of the world.

Will inflation soon drown us all?  Is deflation likely,   in the face of banks unwillingness to loan money at any interest rate?  Will roving bands of unemployed prey on citizenry who have jobs and relative security?  For the less informed, will Paris hilton surprise everyone by revealing she wore a girdle all along but she’s sorry for decieiving her fans…..

For the first time, it has been widely communicated by big oil that the easy crude is about all gone, what is left is increasingly hard to get and of a lower quality than “sweet crude.”  Now the forces of fear are beginning to come out as the spec tor of global warming threatens the human race, while already hundreds of species have gone or are threatened with, extinction.   Bibles are produced with “facts” that show the end is near.”

What does Nostradamus say?  What about the Oracles of Delphi? What about the weather and the price of corn?  The Bible, as most have forgotten, tells the world that man will never know the exact date of  the planet’s end.  The hope is that people with common interests (such as survival) will get together and begin the long, expensive and difficult task of healing the planet for our own as well as future generations.  At the same time, we do not want to leave our grand-children with out-of-control spending, wars,  and other diversions that take us away from what needs to be the main focus :  Stop global warming through alternative, renewable fuels  that are non-carbon.  It isn’t cast in stone that we all reach our destination through a wasteful and polluting horseless chariot the world got along without for 20 centuries.  Perhaps the new speed will be a reduction to 45  miles an hour, or mass transportation such as Japan’s Bullet train are another alternative.  A car in every driveway may not be a solution we should strive for.  The oil companies have protected their status quo by stone-walling through such tactics as whining about how hard it is to change.  So we rewarded them again this year by bending the rules on gas consummption, and giving them a few billion dollars, despite  their record windfall profits and greater contribution to global warming.   Furthermore,  Despite ads to the contrary, what are they doing to solve global warming?  According to Nader, almost nothing.

Your opinions are invited and contrary views are welcome.

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

Thank you WordPress.com for improving the blog experience and for making it free! The last couple of years we have been trying to learn how to do just a minimum for a decent page. The WordPress Blog has made it all very simple. I had just about given up on ever learning enough to do a good job so I’m very grateful. This will be one of my favorite blog sites where you can expect some provocative writing designed to educate, illuminate, and examine issues from all sides. Also I am prone to taking myself too seriously at times so I usually post something written to counteract any pompousness on my part, and maybe on yours as well.

I do few things expertly but I do write well enough. I have done many different things in my life, sometimes for money, other-times for joy, learning, or future reference. I have been a drug counselor, therapist, University professor, and on the psychology end of a heart transplant team. My PhD dissertation was developed into a book and used also as a suppliment for stress management classes. My experience includes advisory work with the national counseling association, director of counselor credentialing, and member of the governor’s task force on drugs, and especially tobacco education for youth. I have presented at many workshops and facilitated group counseling sessions for adult children of alcoholics, was coordinator for adolescent drug and alcohol program and directed family treatment activities while significant other was in treatment. I was a primary and senior counselor for over five years, and responsible for a large after care program, as well as a key presenter for the hospital on-going family program.

As a program representative, with the U.S. Public Health Service, and special health officer, assignments were as varied as skid row to Beverly Hills, rock groups to jockeys, and interfacing with free clinics, gay community center, the jails in Los Angeles County, and taking classes at the CDC, in Atlanta Georgia. In addition, I wrote a grant for the free clinics and was overseeing laboratory reporting and physician education at the county level, including the hospitals.

My teaching includes reading at the junior college level and stress management, health education, drug and alcohol prevention, and codependency at the university level.

Volunteering has always been a call well answered. Included are teaching reading at the Ryan Center, counseling at the free clinic, library at the VA hospital, and as a big brother. I have taught chess, and received a certificate from the gemological institute as a diamond grader, and worked briefly in the field before working on a teaching credential at UCLA. Church activities suit me sometimes, but I love to explore spirituality at many levels.

Right after my army service, I worked full time as a store manager, later as a regional manager for several stores on the west coast. I used to do a lot of work in scouting was awarded the silver and also became a boy scout with rank of life. Lettered three years in track and cross country in high school, passed out handbills for a volunteer group and sang in a school play. Came in second in a city race in jr. high and received a school letter for sports and school participation. Coached baseball for three years, two champions, and one went on to the state and interstate finals. Ribbons for 4-h and for running competitively at age 45. The world stock markets are a source of amusement, poker is good. Outdoor activities are too numerous to list.

My philosophy can best be described as onward, and up! Learn from the past, honor its leaders. Never quit. Honor our country and troops. Protect the dream of our forefathers. Preserve the Contitution. To change what has been paid for in blood would be treason and dishonor all wars for freedom since the American Revolution. To debate and disagree is the american way ; and leaders of whatever political persuasion have arrived at a state of wisdom , when they accept this truth, identify with it, and embrace it, as our leaders have always done.