S.O.S. from the U.S. Constitution!

First the feds wanted to nationalize health care, now the banks. My tax dollars are being used to bail out lenders and borrowers who made bad decisions and entered into private contracts without consulting me first. I am beginning to feel like I have been transported back to 1930's Germany during Hitler's rise to power. I don't know my country any more. Personal liberties and States' Rights are laughed at by those in power. The rest of the great unwashed masses don't even know what you're talking about if you bring them up. Glazed over deer-in-the-headlights stares. The idea of a Constitutional Republic is poo-pooed as so old school. The federal government can give us anything that we want, or rather what that they want to give us. Can we possibly save ourselves from ourselves? The Constitution, the document that gave this country life was supposed to keep the federal government in check. But now it seems more like check-mate. Unfortunately, we're just the pawns. I keep screaming, how do we mere pawns enforce our Constitution upon an unwilling federal government??? It seems that the only thing left to do is to roll the darn thing up and use it to shoot darts at the politicians. S.O.S. !!!!

P.T. Barnum Call Your Office

A con-man’s job is not to convince skeptics but to enable believers to continue to believe what they already do and want to believe.

Schoolyard Bullies

What has become of adult society that makes it impossible to deal appropriately with children’s behavior? Take three boys in middle school, ages 12-14. One is of mixed racial descent. The other two boys are verbally taunting and ridiculing him. So he puts one in a headlock. There ensues an altercation. What happens? The one child is charged with assault and the other two with racial harassment. All are in court!! Good grief. We hear other stories of 8 year-olds being charged with sexual harassment for playground antics. These kinds of stories go on and on. What has happened to parents, teachers and principals? In the 60’s when I was in grade school, events like these would have resulted in a trip to ‘meet’ with the coach and a call to my parents who would have reinforced the coach’s teaching when I got home. That followed by a round of public apologies to the offended parties. We would have all learned our childhood lessons, moved on and been the better for it. No waste of law enforcement, court and lawyer time and resources. I know what has happened. It’s a combination of baby-boomers and way too many hungry lawyers. Not to mention the wacky parenting principles that came with the narcissistic boomers. I am embarrassed to be counted among that goofball generation. Instead of teaching children right and wrong, good and bad, behavior and consequences; boomers were told not to force values into their children, but rather build their fragile little self-esteem. Wrong! That’s not how the real world works. Unfortunately this cockeyed mindset has carried over into the adult world. Boomers think that they should never have to be offended and that nothing in life should ever hurt. If it does it must be someone’s fault and that person or company must be sued to compensate me for having my delicate sensibilities and self-esteem bruised. Suck it up and get over it! Life hurts and people are rude. Always have been and always will be. God save this country from my generation!

Like a Dimestore Lawyer

(Tune sounds like Rhinestone Cowboy, sung by John Edwards)
Dedicated to personal injury lawyers, trial lawyers and class action lawyers...

I've been walkin' these halls so long
Singin' the same old song
I know every crack in these dirty hallways and courtrooms
Where hustle's the name of the game
And nice guys get washed away like the snow and the rain
There's been a load of compromisin'
On the road to my horizon
But I'm gonna be where the lights are shinin' on me

Like a dimestore lawyer
Riding out on a Caddy in a star-spangled legal show
Like a dimestore lawyer
Getting checks and letters from people I don't even know
Settlement offers comin' over the phone

Well, I really don't mind the strain
And a frown can fake all the pain
But you're down when you're tryin' the claim that's takin' the long way
And I dream of the things I'll do
With a subpoena and a cervical collar tucked inside my shoe
There'll be a load of compromisin'
On the road to my horizon
But I'm gonna be where the lights are shinin' on me

Like a dimestore lawyer
Riding out on a Caddy in a star-spangled legal show
Dimestore lawyer
Gettin' checks and letters from people I don't even know
Settlement offers comin' over the phone

Like a dimestore lawyer
Riding out on a Caddy in a star-spangled legal show

(FADE)
Like a dimestore lawyer
Gettin' checks and letters from people I don't even know

Doing the Luddite Lindy

There is a movement afoot, particularly amongst fundamentalist Christians to disavow science and embrace everything wacky. From acupuncture to goofball ‘nutrition’ to herbs to magnets to magic water the Christian Luddites are on the march. Even some physicians and scientists are not immune, though financial gain may be a factor for them. If people are going to buy into this stuff anyway and it won’t hurt them why not get a piece of the action? But is all of this really harmless? How many people delay getting real medical help for real medical problems because they are detoured by some charlatan or snake oil? While there is no serious science to support any of these products’ claims, the lay literature is replete with anecdotes and personal testimonials that they will cure everything from dandruff to lumbago. And if you just sign up in their business they might even cure your financial woes. Ah, P.T. Barnum would be so proud. If all of these claims were true there would be multiple Nobel prizes awarded, emergency world science symposia in Geneva and news flashes on FOX and CNN. All of the medical and science textbooks would have to be rewritten. Do you see any of that happening? Is that a hint? If it looks and sounds too good to be true… It’s sad and amusing to listen to people untrained in anything scientific lecture real doctors and scientists on why their product is for real and the real science is phony. There's almost a gleeful smugness about their 'in-your-face' ignorance. Now that’ll set us back 200 years. “We don’t need rigorous scientific studies; my grandmother’s warts fell off! You must be part of the grand medical, science, big pharmaceutical conspiracy.” Flush the black helicopters. Wanting something to be so does not make it so. And if all of that fails they resort to the final argument. “Well, this is so advanced that real scientists don’t understand it and can’t explain it, thus it threatens their current positions and beliefs so of course they will try to discredit us. The fact that they are trying to discredit us proves that they are wrong and we are right. And of course the big pharmaceutical companies who control the world won’t let the scientists and doctors tell the truth. If we stop taking their drugs they will lose all of that evil profit. Now please buy our product.” E.T. phone home. Oh well, for them that have ears.

The Meaning of Life

Someone recently remarked to me that they're not crazy about people because there are so many crazy people. The older I get the less patience I have for foolishness. And it seems that foolishness is always increasing. Unfortunately it also seems that there is really little that we can do to stop foolishness from increasing. Outside of one's religious faith, life really comes down to great food, great wine, great company, great music, great art, great literature and beautiful sunsets.