We need stricter standards for DNA testing

I am convinced as an employer that many of the problems employers encounter in the workplace with employees could be alliviated with stricter standards for DNA testing.

Don't know what that would prove?

Click this to find out more.

The Diamond Art of Self Defense

With all of the crime going on these days, it has become necessary for the average law abiding citizen to learn to protect themselves and their families.

You can either take shooting and gun classes or learn martial arts. The latter being something you can have with you all the time.

I've found a really good online course that is free and self paced. It's helped me a lot and I pass it on to you in the hopes of us all creating a safer and more crime free community.

Learning to overcome defeat

It took me years to realize that adversity and defeat were often times learning experiences for me to know how to overcome and conquer against indefinable and insurmountable odds. And today, forty eight years later, I can still remember the first time someone beat me up. But it’s funny that I don’t have many memories of the pain I felt at the time from having my lip swollen or my ribs hurting. I mainly remember the happiness and satisfaction of the day I stopped having those hurts anymore. I guess it’s like a lady delivering a baby, that . . . I’ve heard . . . hurts so much during labor but once the baby’s out, the joy replaces the memory of the pain.
At the end of the 4th grade, Mother and Daddy (the man I knew as my daddy, but who was really my step-dad) had just bought our first home. Until then, we’d lived in a duplex on the west side of Fort Worth. Since Mother had just had my baby sister Mary Lou, there were now five of us with me and my brother. And I guess they felt it was time to move on up and take the leap into home ownership.
They bought a nice little white frame, 3 bedroom and one bath home on the east side of town. 3108 Meadowbrook Drive. It had a one car garage that was about to fall down. Peach trees in the back yard and lots of cool hide-outs in the shrubs. Prices were cheaper there than the west side. Compared to where we’d come from I thought it was a giant leap forward. For me it was our castle. I later realized that it was simply a lower middle class working neighborhood. I can still clearly remember hearing Daddy complain day after day about having taken such an extravagant leap of faith. $9,600.00 to buy a house??? “Bettye, what on earth were we thinking?” he’d say to my mom. “I’m sure I’ll end up in the poor house someday over this”.
That was 1960, and the interest rate was a whopping 4.5% and with a 20 year mortgage, all Daddy could see in front of him was that he’d be obligated for the $95.00 a month house payment for the rest of his life.
Of course I wasn’t worried if he ended up in the poor house or not. I got my own bedroom out of the arrangement and my brother and baby sister got a bedroom to share. My mother even painted my room navy blue as I requested. I didn't know anyone with a navy blue room. It was . . .to me . . .my own personal mark of distinction. And what did I care if it caused us to end up in the poor house someday? For the time being at least . . .I had my own room. My own kingdom. My own escape.

I did wonder though, and often asked a few times . . .if we could drive by and see the poor house someday? Was it far from where we lived now? Would I have to change schools again if we lived in the poor house? Would I have my own bedroom there? I did . . .even at 10 years of age, have a mind that tended to think about the future more than the present. And if there was such a good chance our present home was temporary, I did want to know what I might look forward to at our future home in the poor house. Daddy would just say that I’d better hope and pray we never ended up there. But he’d never tell me why we couldn’t go see it.

My mind drifted sometimes to wondering about things and ideas that never crossed other children’s minds. Would there be other children at the poor house? Would they allow dogs at the poor house? Would we have to eat stewed okra at the poor house? Or would we even be allowed to eat at all there? Was it air conditioned? Our house wasn’t. Maybe, I thought to myself, it might not be such a bad place after all if it was at least air conditioned. Fort Worth Texas could be very hot in the summer time when the temperature might rise to 110 degrees. And daddy’s advice when I’d complain about the heat . . . .or anything else for that matter . . . .was, “just don’t think about it”. I never understood that. How could you not think about something that was leading us to all be so uncomfortable. Maybe in the poor house I wouldn’t have to think about being hot?

Our next door neighbors . . the Baxters . . . had an air conditioner. And they ran it all the time. Mr. Baxter said it was because his wife was sick all the time and he had to keep her comfortable. My mother and dad said it was because his wife should be on a loony farm somewhere and he kept it running to keep from blowing his top at her craziness. That of course, made me wonder what was it like on a loony farm? Where was the nearest loony farm? Was it nice there? Cows? Horses? Chickens? Did they have air conditioning at a loony farm? Why, I asked could, someone belong there but be living in a house? For that matter, why on earth would anyone choose to live in a house, when they had an opportunity to live on a farm? I loved farms. And so on. My parents could always offer these explanations for the way things were, but instead of explaining it to me it just caused me to have a hundred more questions.

I remember when we finally did get one window unit air conditioner. We put it in the living room. We couldn’t turn it on all day while it was hot. But we only could turn it on at night when daddy got home and we had dinner and then watched his television shows. I really didn’t care about watching Dinah Shore or some of the other shows he wanted to see. But I’d watch anyway just for the pleasure of being able to lay on the living room floor and feel the coolness blowing on me. And instead of paying attention to the program I’d fantasize about being rich and think to myself that rich people probably lay on the floor all the time in front of continuously running air conditioners.

I’d try to think of rational and logical discussions that I could have with Mother and Daddy about why I felt we should run it more often. I never liked to study much and didn’t care about making good grades. I could when I wanted to, but usually I just didn’t care enough to try. But several times I would decide to make a great score on a test. And I’d take the paper home and show the family and tell Mother and Daddy that this was proof that we should run it more because I had studied specifically for that test on the evening while I was cool in front of the air conditioner. My mom’s answer was that it had nothing to do with the air conditioner but was just a sign of my own natural brilliance and I should take it as an opportunity to learn of my own great potential. And then I’d have to discuss with her the story that I’d read (which I hadn’t) about how difficult it was for children to do well in school when they had the distraction of perspiration dripping down their face and into their eyes. I tried to tell them that I’d heard that adults lived longer equal to the number of hours they had remained cool. That didn’t seem to phase either of them. Whenever I would be sick, I’d tell them that I felt it was heat induced. Mother assured me that even kids with air conditioning all the time got measles. I tried telling her that studies had shown babies had fewer dirty diapers when they lived in air conditioning but I guess mother didn't mind my sister's dirty diapers because she got coolness no more often than I did. If my brother was sick, I'd always tell Mother that I thought he looked like he was having a heat stroke.

In the end, Daddy would just say that it made no difference whether I got better grades or not. But that running the air conditioner all the time would just speed up the time in which he’d be in the poor house. Then of course, I’d ask him if it wasn’t leading him to the poor house for us to have it on while he was home in the evening. And he’d tell me his own justification that “well, if I have to go to the poor house someday, I guess I ought to be as cool now as I can be now while I can enjoy it.” And then he’d just tell me to go outside and play or something. “ Just don’t think about it" he'd say. But I would. And I'd be hot. And I'd go back to making bad grades again.

In the afternoons when I did come home from school, it just was too hot to go in the house and since our front yard was completely shaded, I’d usually just stay outside and play in the shrubs . . .my imaginary office, or fort, or castle, or whatever I was fantasizing about at the moment. Often times I’d climb up in one of the big, tall Sycamores that were in the front yard and sit and pretend that I was a spy and on assignment from President Eisenhower himself to watch for the communist cars that would be driving by each day. The communists all drove Fords (I told myself) and I made it my mission to determine each day if the number of Fords was more or less than the day before. And which direction were they heading? Were they going into town or away from town. And I’d do that for two or three hours until dark and then go to dinner with the firm conviction that I was making the world a safer place for us all to live in. I would pretend that I was calling in my report by calling a freind of mine and "reporting in". I also knew that all the capitalists drove Buicks and Pontiacs and the people who drove the Chevrolets were the fence straddlers, that any day could be swayed over to one side or the other. So much hung in the balance every day . . I felt. It was a big burden for a lad of 10 or 11. And I alone, Lt. Colonel Bud McElhaney of the 5th Intelligence Brigade was the last line of defense to tell Ike whether we were winning or loosing in the cold war right here on our own homeland.

I remember well in the 6th grade, that on some afternoons, Carlton Mason would come walking home from school. We went to the same school and were in the same class. But Carlton was two or maybe three years older than all of the others in my class. When I was 12 and in the sixth grade, Carlton was already 14 or so. There was something that just wasn’t right about him. He talked a bit funny. Like he had a jaw-breaker in his mouth all the time. And he’d usually be late coming home from school because he had to stay after school almost every day for talking back to the teacher or something. I can remember that Mr. Gailey, our teacher, would often take him to the boys restroom and make him suck on a towel with Ivory soap to wash his mouth out of filth. If he had been born a crayon, he wouldn’t have been the sharpest one in the box. I'd heard Mother telling someone one time that he’d been stuck in a canal too long. I wondered if it was the Panama or the Suez? And what did they do to him while he was stuck there? Beat him? Make him eat too much stewed okra? Force feed him liver? What would it be like? It must be terrible I thought, because no one would ever choose to be like Carlton.

Carlton was bigger and older, and felt like he was ridiculed sometimes. I imagine he was ridiculed a lot because he was the meanest person I knew personally. He did not like being ridiculed. Who would? And he took it out on the smaller classmates. Carlton weighed in at about 160 in the 6th grade. I was a puny 110. So he was also one of the first bullies I have had to encounter. I tried to be nice to him for one whole year. I never said a bad word to him in all of the 5th grade. I even tried to get him to tell me what the canal looked like and where was it and was he stuck there long? Anything to be friends with the school yard bully. But he'd have none of it. He was never nice to me and always pushed me around when he got the chance. I didn't really take it personal. I'd had several nice people not want to be my friend before so why should I care if he didn't want to be?

Sometimes he’d come over to the table at lunch and just pick up my dessert or anyone else’s and take it and eat it and tell us that if we told anyone that he’d hurt us bad. I would lay in bed at night sometimes and try to imagine how he'd hurt us. I could imagine the worst. I retaliated against him in my own subtle and devious ways. I’d sometimes pick up very fresh dog poop on the way to school and put it in a bag and during the winter go in and put it in the pockets of his jacket in the cloak room. I put Red Ants in his pockets too many times. And always smiled all day thinking about recess. One time I got to class early and scotch-taped some really moldy cheese to the underside of his chair in the class room. I had hid that cheese out in the garage for a week in preparation for this day. It took a few more days to become really rank, and he had the most terrible odor emanating from his seat . . .which of course only added to the insults every one gave to him anyway. The other students were begging to not have to sit next to him. I didn't care. I was completely across the room from him with a seat by the window. He finally discovered the source of the foul offense and swore that he’d find out who did it and hurt them bad. I wasn’t scared a bit though. Since I’d only done it for my own satisfaction, I’d told no one so no one could snitch on me. Whatever they did to him when he got stuck in that canal certainly didn’t destroy all his brain cells. Because Carlton was smart enough to figure that whoever put the dog poopie and Red Ants in his coat pocket all the time was probably the stinking-cheese planter too. I carried a box of Chicklets chewing gum in my pocket for over a month with four Feen-a-Mint laxative tablets in it hoping he’d steal it someday, but he never did. Carlton didn't have the sense to know it at the time. But the worst was still yet to come for him.

Maybe I did have to put up with his threats and harassment and bullying at school. But after school, my front yard was my domain and I was determined to not put up with it there. It was my fortress. It was my battlefield on which I often stood on personal directive from President of the United States (now John Kennedy) to protect our country from the rise and threat of a bunch of communist Ford-driving thugs, that were hell bent on taking away all our freedoms. Actually, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that it was probably communists themselves who stuck Carlton in the canal he’d been stuck in. And just look how he turned out. But here I was. Right there in my own front yard observatory. In my hands lay the fate of an entire nation. Would we . . in the end . . .be a nation of Carltons ? Or could perhaps, one young patriot such as myself turn back the assault of Krushchev and his cronies and save our country. Someone had to defend us. And I was called to the task.

And if I was having the mission of saving us from a bunch of communist thugs . . . just like Carlton, then he damn sure wasn’t going to infiltrate my intelligence base of operations. And when I’d be perched up in my tree and he’d coming walking down my side of the street I’d yell at him to get over on the other side of the street and walk over there, and not come through my yard. He of course would look up in the tree and yell bad things at me and tell me that I couldn’t make him. And I . . .being the soldier I was . . .would come down from the tree and tell him it was my territory and my fortress and my yard and I wanted him out of it. And then Carlton . . .would quickly punch me in the stomach a few times. And sometimes in the face too. But usually just a couple of fast ones to the stomach would be enough to make me curl over and have the breath knocked out of me and then he’d give me one good parting kick in a bad spot or in the side and go off laughing down the street. What could I do? I was a soldier. And sometimes soldiers were injured. I took it in stride. And waited for the next time when I'd defeat him.
I certainly never told anyone he’d done it. And I tried to tell myself that the reason that he left was because he was afraid when I got my second wind that I would become an instrument of killing and destruction and he was trying to get away quick. Mother would sometimes ask why my lip was swollen or I had a big bruise. She did think that I got hit in the face a lot with baseballs at school and often times suggested maybe I play another sport because I certainly got a lot of puffy lips from that. But I’d have much rather she thought I was a sportsclutz than to know . . . or even worse my daddy know . . . that her son was getting his 12 year old butt whipped once a week on a regular basis.

It was about a once-a-week assault. I’d give it just about enough time for the swelling and soreness to subside and then I’d work up the courage one more time to confront him. By this time of course, Carlton made it a point to intentionally walk down my side of the street just to show me that he could . . .and would. And so . . . a week or so after the last beating, I’d tell him again to not do it. He’d tell me to come down out of the tree. He'd yell the same foul words at me as before. My gosh. He knew bad words that I'd never even heard before. And I would come down again. And he’d beat me up again. From March through May of my 6th grade year. Week after week after week he'd beat me up and the next week I'd try again.

I remember the last week of school that I thought to myself that I’d not have to endure it anymore because the next year we’d be going to Junior High and he would be taking the bus to school then and I’d not have to encounter him again. The previous week had been especially brutal and I was still swollen on my cheek from his pounding. Mother was really trying hard to convince me to give up baseball before I got myself killed or all my teeth knocked out. If she only knew! There was a part of me that thought about leaving him alone that last week. But a bigger part of me knew that I had to settle this once and for all. And so on that last week of school, I had a plan. And when Carlton came walking by, I went into my regular . . but so far failed . . .speech about not coming through my yard. He then gave me his regular . . .always to-that-date successful reply to get-down-out-of-that-tree-and-make-me. But there was something different that day that Carlton did not know would be coming. And when I came down from the tree, I stepped over to the shrubs nearby and reached inside and pulled out my Louisville Slugger baseball bat and I began to swing like a wild man. And I hit him on the side. I hit him in the ribs. I hit him in the neck. I hit him in the stomach. And then I hit him a good one in that special boy-spot-between-the-legs that he had kicked me so many times. When he curled over I gave him one more hard swing against his butt and he took off running and yelling and I could still hear him when he was a block away. I had saved my country! And I had redeemed myself. I had finally won. And I didn’t have a mark or scratch or bruise on me. Looking back, it’s a wonder I didn’t kill him or break his neck or something. I guess it was just fate and that God had not let me hurt him mortally since I was fighting for the righteous cause of freedom and liberty. (I rationalized). I didn't care. I just knew that he would not beat me up anymore.

That night sitting at the dinner table with the front door open, I heard a knock on the door and looked and it was Carlton and his mother. My dad got up and went to the door and had a long talk with them. And then he summoned me and asked if I had indeed done this to Carlton. I’ll swear, it did not help matters at all that I saw him and broke out laughing because he was so swollen up and bruised. He looked terrible. Much worse that he ever did to me. I was so proud. And he was so embarrassed that he wouldn’t even look me in the eyes. I told my dad boastfully that that "yes I had". He asked why. I could not tell him that it was because he had beat me up so many times, because my dad would have been even madder then that I’d let him. So I just said that I did it for the cause of liberty and because Carlton’s family were Ford-driving communists and I didn’t want him walking through my yard again. And then I looked at Carlton and told my dad and him that I’d do it again, but it would be worse he ever came back for more. So there! (I thought) . My dad assured Mrs. Mason that he would deal with me for the offense and they left and after dinner my dad took me, by pinching me on my shoulders right at the base of my neck in what I had learned to call his “Eric von Streeter torture grip” (Eric was my favorite professional wrestler on Saturday night wrestling) and lead me to my bedroom and jerked off his belt . . .as he had done so many times before. He told me to lean over the bed and pull down my pants for my whipping . . . .as I had done so many times before. And then he began to swing that one inch leather belt-strap as wildly as I’d swung the bat that afternoon. I have used better diplomacy with people than I did with my dad that night. Because that night receiving my initial lashes, I did not exercise my most excellent judgment with him. After he’d whipped me a dozen times or so, I didn’t wince or shed a tear. But I did look up at him and say to him defiantly . . ."that really didn’t even hurt near as bad as I had hurt Carlton today". And then . . . he whipped me some more. But I didn’t care this time. I did try to fight back the tears that night as long as possible and in the end when I did start screaming and crying, the whipping stopped. And Daddy went back to the air conditioned comfort of an evening with Lawrence Welk and the Lennon Sisters. But my tears quickly stopped. And I laid face down on my bed and smiled. I was proud of myself and 2,000 lashes couldn’t take that away from me. The only bad part of the whipping that night was that I couldn't wear shorts for a week because of my lashes. But that was ok. Sometimes soldiers are tortured and have their battle scars. I bore my proudly.

I learned that day, that any obstacle, or adversity can be overcome even in the face of insurmountable odds. All one needed was a little equalizing force. Just some small device or advantage to level the playing field. And all of that summer, and in the years to come, whenever Carlton Mason came walking down my street, he always passed over to the other side rather than coming in my yard again. And he never again stole my dessert. And today .. look where we are as a nation? Free from communism and living stuck in canals somewhere being tortured and fed stewed okra for being capitalists. Perhaps it’s because of my efforts in teaching one of the Carltons of this world that there are some people that you just can’t push around.

I’ve encountered other Carltons as my life has gone on. But I don’t sit there anymore and just keep taking the whipping. I look for an equalizer right away. But I’ve also learned that sometimes the first bat you grab isn’t big enough to do the job. So, you just have to find a bigger bat. And today 48 years later, I'm still having to find a good bat to use as an equalizer. Thank goodness though I don't get a belt whipping anymore.

open for debate. Is President Obama fact or myth?

I can honestly say that I have no preformed conclusions about the capacity of our current president to rule over the United States. His recent quest for a nationalized health care program does leave a few doubts in my mind though. I did not vote for him, but I was not saddened when he was elected. I decided on election night that it is God Himself who allows rulers to be placed in positions of prominence and leadership and that if he was the man chosen to lead this country that I would give him the benefit of the doubt and pray for him and hope he could lead us out of the quagmire that the previous president had taken us into. But I received an article several months ago and have wondered about many questions it posed. Many of the issues I'd heard of before and just decided they were the ramblings of conservative conspiratists. But many of these points keep coming up and yet, I don't hear anything from anyone except to just ignore the questions and give the man the benefit of the doubt. And I hear from others that most of the objections and questions are myths themselves. So I filed the article away and have spent time trying to research myself to find answers to many of the questions asked. The fact is that I can't find any. I can only find where his critics say these things, and his supporters say they are lies. I can't find any proof that either is right. It's almost like trying to prove that the light goes off in the refrigerator when you close the door. How can you know? So, after months of thought, I'm going to go ahead and post this article as an illumination for others to perhaps ponder these things. If the thesis of this journalist is right, we're not headed down a good road for America. If this journalist is wrong, then I'm hoping that someone will read this and feel perfectly free to comment and offer some firm and concrete example of proof that a statement or all the statements are false. I do know that one of the best defenses for a sound democracy is an electorate that is free to ask questions. Right now I still can question the motives of even those in the highest office in the country. If this journalist is correct, and the present administration has some agenda toward a leftist, and marxist oriented government and massive redistribution of wealth, I know that someday that right to question leaders would be taken away. I would not want that day to come and have to tell my children and grand children that I wondered but said nothing. The article is reprinted below. I have intentionally taken the liberty of deleting some comments that I felt were pure conjecture and noted the omissions when made. The authors name and contact information is at the end of the article. You can write her, or post a comment here. I will print rebuttal or substantiation if presented in a clear and evidentiary manner. I suppose I'm saying here that it looks to me . . . from what I can see . . . that the refrigerator light stays on all the time. If you can prove to me it doesn't please say so. But don't just tell me you know it goes off, unless you can tell me how you know. I hope the writer is wrong.

God is Great!

Obama's Revenge
Posted by: Joan Swirsky 02/15/2009
Once upon a time, a white teenager from Kansas got pregnant by her black Kenyan boyfriend, Barack Obama Sr., or was it her husband? Whatever. (I say whatever because we've never seen either marriage or divorce certificates). Some say the couple was in Kenya visiting relatives when the birth of their son, Barack Obama Jr., occurred. No matter. (I say no matter because we've never seen an authentic birth certificate). By the time the baby was two years old his father abandoned him for his other wife and child in Kenya. I wonder how toddler Barry felt when his father left him, and never reappeared until a single time when the boy was 10. Bewildered? Sad? Lonely? Angry? What do two-year-olds do with those feelings? It didn't take long for Barry's mother to meet and marry an Indonesian native named Lolo Soetoro. They moved to Indonesia , where her child became Barry Soetoro, took on Indonesian citizenship, and was presumably schooled in public, Christian, and Muslim schools. (I say presumably because we've never seen those school records). But when Barry was 10 years old, his mother sent him back to the U.S. to be raised by her parents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, although she kept her baby daughter Maya Soetoro with her. I wonder how the by-now fully-sentient young Barry felt when his mother sent him packing. Sad? Jealous of the baby who remained behind with mommy? Confused and dizzy by the disparate cultures - languages, customs, foods, sights, sounds, schooling - he had experienced? Resentful? What did Barry do with those feelings? By the time he was 10, the boy had been abandoned three times - by his father, stepfather, and mother. And although he was raised by his white grandparents in Hawaii - where "people of color" were not his color - he found out soon enough that his mixed-race background rendered him, in effect, an outsider. Did that make him feel self-conscious, indignant, victimized? But he wasn't altogether an outsider. In Hawaii , young Barry met Frank Marshall Thomas, his first and perhaps most influential mentor. The infamous Marshall, a Communist activist (and self-confessed pedophile) taught Barry – was it Obama, Soetero, Dunham? - that white people were the devil incarnate and that blacks were the most "victimized" people on earth. Yet the abandoned and rejected child was lucky. His white-devil grandparents gave him a comfortable life in Hawaii , and an education that apparently qualified him to attend several prestigious schools - Occidental College in CA, Columbia Univ. in NY City, and Harvard Law School in Cambridge , MA . (I say apparently qualified because we've never seen any of his college transcripts).

BARRY MORPHS INTO BARACK

After his undergraduate days at Columbia , Obama chose not to go to graduate school, but instead held various jobs in the Big Apple and then moved to Chicago to become a community organizer.. Although he had been exposed to American exceptionalism through his life in the United States and his privileged education, it is clear that his experiences in impoverished Kenya and totalitarian Indonesia , as well as his exposure to Marshall and the other radicals he had met during his years in New York - among them the unrepentant domestic terrorists William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn of Weather Underground infamy - made the deepest and most lasting impressions. Their messages of American imperialism and its white-devil culture clearly resonated in the thrice-abandoned boy. In his young-adult and adult years, free to choose his friends and pursuits, he opted exclusively for far-left socialists and Marxists, and activities aimed at relieving the suffering of people he perceived to be as victimized as apparently he felt he had been. He understood their feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and impotent rage, as well as the pain of fatherlessness. After all, his Harvard-educated father consciously chose to leave him. And his mother gave him away. Was that depressing to Barry? Infuriating? When given the opportunity to join one of dozens of churches in Chicago, Barry - who had morphed into Barack - opted for the Trinity United Church of Christ , which was led by the fire-breathing Rev.Jeremiah Wright, whose decades-long anti-American and anti-Semitic rants apparently resonated in Obama's rejected and abandoned heart and soul. (I say apparently resonated because in over 20 years of regular attendance, Obama said he heard nothing inflammatory or anti-American, and we've never seen the videotapes of any sermon, although each one was unfailingly recorded). "God damn America ," Wright raged. "The chickens have come home to roost," he "preached" to his whooping and hollering congregation after 9/11. Obama heard nothing. But it wasn't only Wright who Obama was attracted to in Chicago . He was also drawn to another hate-spewing radical, Rev. Louis Farrakhan, as well as to the raving Father Michael Phleger, the radical Islamist Khalid Rashidi, his friends and neighbors the Ayers, and to equally-close friends "Tony" and Rita Rezko - Tony being the notorious "fixer" and now-convicted-and-imprisoned felon for fraud, bribery, and money laundering. What did the seemingly mild-mannered Obama find so irresistible in these angry and/or crooked people and others like them? Was it the same thing that a shy man finds in his attraction to a flamboyant girlfriend - and alter-ego, a person who expresses what he really feels but is unable to give voice to? In these relationships and in community organizing - which offers inner-city mostly-black residents job training, tutoring, and methods to organize tenants'-rights groups and voter-registration drives, etc. - the twenty-something Obama apparently found his calling, and also a renewed and burning ambition.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE

While his community-organizing job paid a paltry $12,000 or so per year, Obama somehow managed to pay his way through one of the priciest graduate schools in the world, Harvard Law School. (I say somehow managed because we have no record of his tuition payments). Even more amazing, he became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review without ever producing a written paper - or at least a paper that the public has ever read. There is a good deal of evidence that Obama's acceptance at Harvard Law - and his tuition - were facilitated by friends who had a vested interest in the community organizer. Among them was Percy Sutton, a former Manhattan borough president and ardent leftist, who was also Malcolm X's lawyer. In an interview last year, the octogenarian Sutton stated: "I was introduced to [Obama] by a friend. The friend's name was Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, and the introduction took place about 20 years ago." Sutton described al-Mansour as "the principle adviser to one of the world's richest men" and suggested that al-Mansour was raising money for Obama. Knowing that Sutton had friends at Harvard, al-Mansour asked him if he would write a letter to Harvard recommending Obama, which Sutton did most agreeably. This took place about 1988 when 27-year-old Obama was applying Harvard Law. Two years [after he was admitted to law school], Cashill writes, "while still a law student, Obama improbably received an advance to write a memoir that would be called `Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,' which was published in 1995." His second memoir, published in 2006, was "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream." (I suspect Cashill said "improbably received an advance "because, as stated earlier, Obama had not produced even one paper or distinguished himself in any way to have inspired a major publishing company to approach him). All this begs the question: Who writes two memoirs about himself before the age of 45?

(text omitted here by Bud as speculation)


(text omitted here by Bud as speculation)

In the less-than four weeks of his presidency, the new president has taken volumes from the Marxian handbook, which dictates that the stupid masses be blitzed with an overload of information, hollow press conferences, appointments, dismantling of formerly effective national-security programs, et al., in order to set the stage for a massive, Soviet-style takeover of our government, including a civilian national security force that Obama has said should be "just as powerful, strong and well-funded as the U.S. military."

(text omitted by Bud as speculation)

He is closing Gitmo within one year, has suspended trials there, and dismissed the charges against the U.S.S. Cole plotter. [He] has just put our money where his mouth is and is using $20.3 million to bring in Palestinian refugees from Gaza ... [he] had the gall to pronounce the so-called economic stimulus bill absolutely free of `earmarks' and `make-do work'...but according to the Congressional Budget Office [this bill] will do worse to our overall economy than no government action whatsoever." And Obama has done all this with the predictable double-speak that characterizes malevolent intention, i.e., touting transparency while concealing everything, speaking of integrity while appointing crooks and incompetents riddled with conflicts-of-interest, supporting energy independence while killing off-shore and domestic oil-drilling and nuclear power, and feigning optimism while he speaks of impending "catastrophe" in order to push through a pork-laden, trillion-dollar-plus Stimulus plan that rewards the corrupt voter-fraud organization Acorn with billions and unions with discriminatory union-only labor agreements, paves the way for socialized medicine, and threatens to take away the most cherished rights of We The People. As blogger Eric Gurr has said: "We still talk about the health care crisis, the environmental crisis, the oil crisis, the banking crisis. Let me tell you my friends you are about to learn the meaning of the only crisis that matters, the survival crisis.. "You can be sure that the sad-lonely-angry two-year-old, the jealous-confused-resentful 10-year-old, the self-conscious-cheated-victimized adolescent, and the man who found solace in and identified with his hate-America mentors is now determined to redeem all of his demons. Unfortunately, he is acting out his rage on free-market capitalism, a free press, property and gun rights, a limited constitutional government, protection of the unborn, and everything else that is good and great about our country.This is Obama's revenge!

Joan Swirsky (http://www.joanswirsky.com/) is a New York-based author and journalist who can be reached at joansharon@aol.com.

Tough times call for tough strategies in the Job Market

With the current recession and higher and higher unemployment rates, it's time for networking and flexbility in finding a job. Employers too are trying to be adaptable and find new ways of recruiting. The jobs will go to those individuals who are willing to think outside-the-box.

Climbing Mt. Fuji in Japan 1972

I was sending out some random emails tonight and came across some pictures of me in the army in 1972. I'm going to go ahead and post it today even though it was 37 years ago. No one will probably ever read my blog back to the beginning and I doubt they'd go back that far.

These are a couple of pictures of us stopping on the way up and resting. I'd gone to Japan while I was stationed in Korea on the demilitarized zone. My best friend John Bradley and I had decided to make the climb of the 14,000 foot peak.

And then after we had climbed all day long, we stopped and spent the night at the 13,000 foot level and got up early to finish the climb to the top of the crater and watch the sunrise. By the time the sun did come up, the clouds had moved in off the ocean and we were so high that we were above the clouds. When John took the picture of me we didn't realize that it would come back looking like I was standing on top of the clouds. I guess for a moment I was super man!

The Train and the Kitchen Bitch

A mother was working in the kitchen listening to her 5-year-old son playing with his new electric train in the living room. She heard the train stop and her son saying, "All of you sons-of-bitches who want off, get the hell off now ... cause this is the last stop! And all of you sons- of-bitches who are getting on, get your asses on the train ... cause we're going down the tracks. The horrified mother went in and told her son, "We don't use that kind of language in this house. Now I want you to go to your room and you are to stay there for TWO HOURS. When you come out, you may play with your train ... but I want you to use nice language."

Two hours later, the son came out of the bedroom and resumed playing with his train. Soon the train stopped and the mother heard her son say. "All passengers, please remember your things, thank you and hope your trip was a pleasant one. We hope you will ride with us again soon." She heard her little darling continue...

"For those of you just boarding, remember, there is no smoking in the train. We hope you will have a pleasant and relaxing journey with us today." As the mother began to smile, the child added, "For those of you who are pissed off about the TWO HOUR delay, please see the bitch in the kitchen...."

Ten Reasons for lacking financial success.

Ten reasons that I have discovered that often times hinders me achieving the financial success that I want:


You feel entitlement: If you believe you deserve to live a certain lifestyle, have certain things and spend a certain amount before you have earned to live that way, you will have to borrow money. That large chunk of debt will keep you from building wealth. The world, the government, your boss, and no one else owes you a thing. With the rare exception of a few folks who inherited wealth, most people who have more than you have worked harder, saved more, and spent smarter than you have. Take some responsibility for youself and make a decision to do something to move forward. A man, who was one time appreciating a house that I was building (and paying cash for) told me that he wished he could have a house someday like mine. I asked him why he didn't think he would. And he said "are you crazy? I could never have enough money to have a house like this.". I told him that wasn't the problem. The problem was that he wasn't willing to "pay the price". And the price was not measured in $$$$. The price was measured in the fact that I was willing to work 50 or 55 or 60 hours a week to earn extra money to pay cash for something. Whereas he was primarily focused on how soon 5 o'clock would arrive so that he could get off and go get a beer. I deserved the house I was building. He didn't.

You care what your car looks like: A car is a means of transportation to get from one place to another, but many people don't view it that way. Instead, they consider it a reflection of themselves and spend money every two years or so to feel better about themselves or to impress others instead of driving the car for its entire useful life and investing the money saved. I drive a seven year old nice car that still runs wonderful, is very comfortable, and has 145,000 miles on it. My car payment is zero and I am just as comfortable in it as I would be in a car that was new or that I was making payments on. A car . . .unless it is a collector or toy . . .has no value other than to get you from Point A to Point B and perhaps to do it in some measure of comfort. Most cars lose money every day that you own them. Now . . I am not throwing stones at anyone. I have had nice cars before. But I wish now I had the money back that I lost on owning them. They didn't get me anywhere I was wanting to go any faster or more comfortably than the 7 year old Toyota I have now. I've also had two expensive collector cars that were sports cars. I did not buy them for status. I bought them for fun. I don't do many other things for entertainment that cost money, so I spent money on those cars as an entertainment option. At the time I could afford that kind of entertainment. The day came when I couldn't. Today I could again, but I choose to spend my money on things that will be more practical and that will make me money. And lastly, I should add, that sometimes the excuse is given (as I did to myself) that I "need" a very nice car for the sake of my business. That is rubbish. A client can be just as comfortable in my car as he ever would have been in a Cadillac. And if he's the type client that I need to impress, then I've decided that I'd just as soon not have clients like that.

You lack diversification: There is a reason one of the oldest pieces of financial advice is to not keep all your eggs in a single basket. Having a diversified investment portfolio makes it much less likely that wealth will suddenly disappear. It also helps you to see if one basket is going rotten you can dump it without contaminating or spoiling the other baskets.

You started too late: The magic of compound interest works best over long periods of time. If you find you're always saying there will be time to save and invest in a couple more years, you'll wake up one day to find retirement is just around the corner and there is still nothing in your retirement account. It would still be better to save 500.00 a month for 5 years, than it would be to save nothing for 30 years.

You don't do what you enjoy: While your job doesn't necessarily need to be your dream job, you need to enjoy it. If you choose a job you don't like just for the money, you'll likely spend all that extra cash trying to relieve the stress of doing work you hate. Many have been critical of me in because I've been a printer, a salesman, a school principal, a cotton broker, a builder and a hotel operator. It seems to a lot of people that I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. But the fact is that if something stops being fun, or I find something else to do that might be more fun than what I'm doing . . . . or more prosperous . . .I will get up and make a change. I have loved practically every job I've ever done.

You don't like to learn: You may have assumed that once you graduated from high school or college, there was no need to study or learn. That attitude might be enough to get you your first job or keep you employed, but it will never make you rich. A willingness to learn to improve your career and finances are essential if you want to eventually become wealthy. I flunked out of college for lack of enthusiasm and desire. But it didn't mean I didn't want to learn. I just didn't want to go to college. And even if you can't read well, or don't enjoy reading, you can watch the Discovery Channel or the History Channel, or The Learning Channel and learn more about life and how things work. But if you sit around watching the Simpson's, then you can simply expect to go through life as a cartoon character yourself.

You buy things you don't use: Take a look around your house, in the closets, basement, attic and garage and see if there are a lot of things you haven't used in the past year. If there are, chances are that all those things you purchased were wasted money that could have been used to increase your net worth. I personally think that if I look at something and can't remember using it in the past two years, that I don't need it. I can't see a reason to own more than six dress shirts, six sport shirts and six pair of pants. Three pair of shoes is plenty and anything else is excess. If you're hanging around friends that you feel would not think well of you for having a limited wardrobe, then you should get some new friends. Being "stylish" is about one of the silliest waste of money I can imagine. Take the money from buying a large wardrobe and invest it into something that will make you more money where you can achieve a point of not having to work as much. I just got back from the cobbler today a pair of shoes that I've owned for 15 years. I love those shoes and have had them repaired and resoled many times in those years. Today my bill was 62.00 to have them look brand new all over again and now they'll last me two or three more years. That's a cheap price for a pair of great shoes.

You don't understand value: You buy things for any number of reasons besides the value that the purchase brings to you. This is not limited to those who feel the need to buy the most expensive items, but can also apply to those who always purchase the cheapest goods. Rarely are either the best value, and it's only when you learn to purchase good value that you have money left over to invest for your future. And I'm not saying you can't have expensive things. If it brings you a value, either financially or mentally or emotionally, then it could be worth every penny of what you paid for it. But if you bought something just because it was the "designer" name then it was extravagance. (PS. I do own one Armani suit. It was extravagance. It's not much better than a $800.00 suit. But it is better. Its a great suit. And I like the way it hangs on me. I like the feel of the fabric. But it was still extravagance.) I regretted wasting the money on it ten days after I bought it. If I had put that $2,500.00 into my business ten years ago, I'd have $7,500.00 more in the bank today and could buy a closet full of suits if I wanted. I could even buy a modest suit every year off the interest that I made on the money I had saved by not buying it. In general . . .it was one of the dumbest decisions of my life.

Your house is too big: When you buy a house that is bigger than you can afford or need, you end up spending extra money on longer debt payments, increased taxes, higher upkeep and more things to fill it. Some people will try to argue that the increased value of the house makes it a good investment, but the truth is that unless you are willing to downgrade your living standards, which most people are not, it will never be a liquid asset or money that you can ever use and enjoy. Find a house that meets your needs and then buy that house. But try to find on that just meets your needs and provides your family a level of comfort and safety that will make the house and asset to your living standard and not a distraction. Or in some cases, you can rent cheaper and invest the difference. That can make sense too.

You fail to take advantage of opportunities: There has probably been more than one occasion where you heard about someone who has made it big and thought to yourself, "I could have thought of that." There are plenty of opportunities if you have the will and determination to keep your eyes open. I myself, have a tendency to consider new ideas and wonder to myself "well, if it was a great idea why hasn't someone else already done it?". And the answer is simply that maybe no one else has thought of it.

That's it for tonight. I'll write more later girls as I remember them. For a broader perspective on wealth, read back a few weeks to the letter from the employer to his employees about the Stimulus checks and taxation and redistribution of wealth.

facts bout Texas

Here are some little known, very interesting facts about Texas . 1. Beaumont to El Paso : 742 miles 2.. Beaumont to Chicago : 770 miles 3... El Paso is closer to California than to Dallas 4. World's first rodeo was in Pecos , July 4, 1883. 5. The Flagship Hotel in Galveston is the only hotel in North America built over water. 6. The Heisman Trophy was named after John William Heisman who was the first full-time coach at Rice University in Houston . 7. Brazoria County has more species of birds than any other area in North America 8. Aransas Wildlife Refuge is the winter home of North America 's only remaining flock of whooping cranes. 9. Jalapeno jelly originated in Lake Jackson in 1978. 10. The worst natural disaster in U.S. history was in 1900, caused by a hurricane, in which over 8,000 lives were lost on Galveston Island . 11. The first word spoken from the moon, July 20,1969, was " Houston ," but the space center was actually in Clear Lake City at the time. 12. King Ranch in South Texas is larger than Rhode Island .. 13. Tropical Storm Claudette brought a U.S. rainfall record of 43" in 24 hours in and around Alvin in July of 1979... 14. Texas is the only state to enter the U.S. by TREATY, (known as the Constitution of 1845 by the Republic of Texas to enter the Union ) instead of by annexation. This allows the Texas Flag to fly at the same height as the U.S. Flag, and may divide into 5 states. 15. A Live Oak tree near Fulton is estimated to be 1500 years old. 16. Caddo Lake is the only natural lake in the state. 17. Dr Pepper was invented in Waco in 1885. There is no period in Dr Pepper.. 18. Texas has had six capital cities: Washington -on- the Brazos, Harrisburg , Galveston ,Velasco, West Columbia and Austin .. 19. The Capitol Dome in Austin is the only dome in the U.S. which is taller than the Capitol Building in Washington DC (by 7 feet). 20. The San Jacinto Monument is the tallest free standing monument in the world and it is taller than the Washington monument. 21. The name ' Texas ' comes from the Hasini Indian word 'tejas' meaning friends. Tejas is not Spanish for Texas .. 22. The State Mascot is the Armadillo (an interesting bit of trivia about the armadillo is they always have four babies. They have one egg, which splits into four, and they either have four males or four females.). 23. The first domed stadium in the U.S. was the Astrodome in Houston

Easter Sunday

An Amusing Puppeteer

I thought this was cute. And certainly an interesting twist on playing with life size puppets.

April 1. Splash Day

Besides being a day for playing jokes on people, April 1st of the year means for me the day I get to take my boat back out of the marina. My insurance policy requires that I "lay up" from November 1 through March 31st. And that simply means that the boat can not be moved away from it's mooring during the winter months. Plus the fact that it gets cold enough up here in Northeast Oklahoma that I have to remove all the fluids from the boat and winterize it. Of course that makes it difficult to spend any evenings on it during the winter since there is no running water while it's "laid up". But the last week in March, marks the time of the year for getting her ready to take back out again. And April 1st is the day to start the engines and take her down river for a bit and check the systems out.

This year I am considering taking the Island Girl all the way down the Arkansas River to the Mississippi and then going on south to New Orleans. If I do go, I'm not sure if I'll turn and head toward Houston and Corpus Christi or whether I make take her down to the Florida Keys. But way, I intend to take things more easy this summer and spend a lot of time on the way.

The Scent of Vienna

October
Stepping off the plane in the Vienna airport I am reminded how wonderful it is that some things never change. I could be blindfolded, drugged, flown here, and taken off the plane . . . . and instantly I would know, from the mixture of musk and expresso, that I am in the Vienna airport. To me this scent says "welcome back Bud".

I don't even know the people here . . . not a soul . . but they are almost all smiling . . . and welcoming me . . I pretend. They are glad that I'm here even though I'm leaving again in two hours. I stop . . . closing my eyes . . .and tilting my head backwards . . . I take in the scent. I stand so long with my face upturned that the Austrian Air attendant comes up and says "Sir? Are you ok?". I smile and say "yes, I'm ok, I'm only intoxicated". And with a puzzled look on her face, I will walk calmly away.

I have always heard that to get to heaven you have to first make a connection in Atlanta. I'm not sure about that, but I do know that on the plane trip to Odessa, Ukraine you must always connect through Vienna. They tell me that the Austrian officials pay tremendous sums of money to keep Odessans from building an international airport. They legally keep people from flying directly to that beautiful city on the Black Sea that Catherine the Great ordered to be built. Unfortunately, Catherine's authority did not extend into the 21st century or international air travel. But it doesn't bother me this morning . . . or really any other morning I arrive here . . .because I would prefer to make a seven hour flight and a three hour flight, rather than one ten hour flight . . . any day. The man who wouldn't let me sleep last night on the flight from Chicago says that this is a unfair traveling penalty imposed on the Ukraines by vengeful Austrians in retaliation for Hitler loosing the war. Well if it is, then it must be something similar in severity to having your parents punish you by making you finish your chocolate cake before you can go outside and play. Today . . . this moment . . . I am not being punished. I am being aroused. My memories are being stirred. I am in another world.

I have always been more sensitive to smells than other people I know. Which is not a strange thing to me, because I seem to be very different from almost every one I've ever known.

I've been told that the sense of smell is the most closely associated with memory than any of the other senses. I know this is true for me. Smells take me back to far away places, and forgotten friends, and even memories that I wish I didn't remember. Sometimes it would be nice to be able to turn off your nose, but then I wouldn't be able to smell the good either.

I have memories associated with Root Beer, Tide Detergent, PIne Sol, fresh baked bread, vicks vapor rub, cinnamon and Apple Pies. Old Charter Bourbon, hay, cotton seed, and car wax all arouse me in one way or another.
A movie character, Dr. Lecter, taught me how to construct my memory palace and I can go back inside its rooms to many different places or events at the faintest whiff of Garlic Bread or bus emissions or Old Spice Cologne. Some days seem more "scentfull" than others and on those days, I probably spend more time in the past that I do in the present.

Scent of Woman was a great movie and one of my all-time favorites. I am like Al Pacino's character in at least two ways. One, I can tango and will do so with a partner as the only couple on the dance floor. And two, I can pick up a lady's fragrance from across the room. I know that to this very day, when I smell Jungle Gardenia perfume near me, I can still sense the presence of my 7th grade sweetheart, and I can still remember the first feelings of passion, as a young boy . . . having a girl slow dance close to me with "real" boobs . . . as opposed to the false ones the 6th grade girls had. I smell that perfume and I can even hear in my mind's super-high-fidelity-stereophonic-speakers, the harmonious strumming of Santo and Johnny playing their only top forty hit, Sleep Walk. My goodness . . . how many senses can one person have swirl over them at one time . . . but that night as a boy of 13 . . . I must have had every warm and fuzzy emotion a boy can have. And I can look back and remember that it was tortuous in a way. It was terrible to have all those feelings and not know what to do with them, or how to make them last. Forty years later, I still have this problem. Fortunately nature has a way of taking care of those frustrations. I think that night, dancing, may have been the first time a girl told me that my palms were clammy . . .a problem that I've had since then. But I have danced that dance over and over and over in my mind . . . at least one hundred times since.

This list of my smellories goes on and on. When I smell caramel, I remember a popcorn store in my neighborhood as a boy of seven and walking with my mother the four blocks to get there . . . she spent a dime and got me a bag and half way through the 25 cent movie later, I puked my guts out just as Vincent Price was about to strangle a beautiful lady.

To this day I avoid eating caramel and when I see it or smell it, I always think of that beautiful lady that I didn't get to see die, and having to walk home with semi-digested-sticky-caramel-coated-popcorn all over my shirt. Of course one of my biological discoveries has been the inverse relationship between scents and other scents. The smell of puke now reminds me of the smell of caramel and dying women. And people getting strangled in movies reminds me of puke.

Gardenia flowers, like the perfume are fond stimuli. They take me back to childhood and brief happiness. They make me remember lying in bed late on Saturday mornings in the spring time in my boyhood home. With no air conditioning, my bedroom window was open on any warm day and the scent wafted through my room and across my bed. I had seen a movie with Betty Davis and she had gardenias growing outside her bedroom. I learned attractiveness-through-association, from Miss Davis. I thought she was ugly, but Peter Lorrie thought she was beautiful. And I liked Peter Lorrie so therefor I liked Betty Davis. It was nice to be young and poor and a nobody, and still have something in common with a famous person. I really don't think though, that Vincent Price was a Gardenia-loving-kinda-guy. I imagine that he had deep dark blood red roses outside his window. I wonder though, what the beautiful woman he was stangling had outside her window?

The smell of a new baseball glove makes me think about rejection and being told to go away. It's a smell of sadness and melancholy. Wanting to play so badly, a boy of seven doesn't understand being told that he's not wanted on either team. I was sure that I could do good if they'd give me a chance. I'd even gotten my mother to get me a new glove to show them my earnestness. But the new glove wasn't noticed. It didn't do the trick to make me wanted. In hindsight, I can see that his mother could put a 200 dollar football helmet on Stevie Wonder, but he still couldn't have caught the ball and no one would have picked him either. Unfortunately the hindsight of a seven year old is not focused to wisdom . . but things like caramel popcorn and puke and horror movies.

Today I am older . . .and maybe wiser. And it's probably good that I didn't have a son. I'm sure that I'd have prodded him on to being a great poet, or mathematician, or writer, or dress designer, or something other than normal boyish sporting games. If I wasn't any good at it, how could I have ever taught him to be good. I was always most proud of my daughters in their financial or academic achievements rather than their sporting awards. I just never was comfortable playing softball with them. I should have told them so.

Campho Phenique always reminds me of summer days at the home of my great grandmother . . .she being the one who taught me that it is a good cure for anything that ails you if rubbed it in generous proportions on the disease or sore. I still keep a bottle of it in my nightstand. I also have one in my travel bag, and one in my vanity, and usually a bottle in my car. I think the small bottles make excellent stocking stuffers. I would rather die or listen to Neil Diamond than even think for a moment about using Walgreen's generic for this miracle drug. It is very likely to me that Mother Teresa used it often in treating her poor people in Calcutta.

Cow manure takes me back to the barn next to my great uncle's house and reminds me of hide and seek with my cousins . . .who I found out weren't really playing hide and seek with me, but were simply trying to loose me and get away from me to play by themselves. Maybe I should have tried showing them the new baseball glove that had never been used.

They were actually second or third cousins, I was told, and they were the first snobs that I ever met. My mother told me they thought they were rich because their mother had a lot of rich boyfriends, but that actually they had no more money than we did. I had overheard my mother telling my other aunt that my cousins' mom was a "loose woman". I tried so hard to understand what it meant, and for years just believed it was a woman who dated rich boyfriends. Maybe that is still what it means. My mother always had interesting explanations for why anyone had more money than us.

I was ten and my cousins made me feel so unwanted and like a such a loser that for most of my junior high and high school years I felt like people were trying to avoid being with me. But it also taught me to always gravitate toward the other "apparent" losers in life that I encountered and choose them to be on my team. I say apparent, because I've learned over the years that many people only appear to be losers. . . just like I appeared that way to my cousins. But in fact they aren't. They just need someone to believe in them, like my cousins wouldn't believe in me. I have many good memories of hide and seek with my leper friends from elementary school. I think I would have probably even chose Stevie Wonder to be on my team.

The scent of the salty ocean air reminds me of times in the 6th grade playing at my uncle's beach cabana, north of Los Angeles. It was small . . a shack really . . . but to a 12 year old boy it was grandiose and offered me a chance to live in the lap of luxury. I was sure at the time that celebrities like Steve McQueen did this sort of thing every day . . . possibly in this very spot on the beach. . .but he was gone today . . .because (I imagined) we were there. Maybe even Betty Davis walked on that beach. Of course today will be my fourth time this year to come to the Black Sea, and I have many new memories to associate with the smell of the ocean. But the cabana will never go away when I smell the salty ocean air. Somehow though, I just can't picture Steve McQueen liking it here. He didn't seem much like a Black-Sea-kind-of-guy when he was breaking out of the Nazi concentration camp in The Great Escape.

The smell of new car leather takes me back to being a child, of only five, and being picked up by my biological father for his twice-a-decade visit. His car seemed to have been a sparkling new Cadillac that was at least a city block long. And the lady that was in the front seat with him, with the long legs, flowing blonde hair, ruby red lips, and the plush mink coat . . . well . . . she was the closest I'd ever come in my life to a movie star . . . I thought. My mother had to explain to me that she was "one" of my daddy's girlfriends. Up until that time I didn't realize that boys might have more than one. Actually, I didn't even know until that night that men had girlfriends. I thought that men had wives and boys had girlfriends. I'm sure today that she was the finest woman money could buy. She called him "honeeeeeee" in a way that drew out the long "E" sound into what sounded like she had pinched her finger in a door. I learned later in life that this is the way some people trying to make their voice sound dramatic. I thought it sounded painful and today still detest that term. The back seat had a pull down arm rest that my daddy . . . (his term for himself . . .not mine) told me was in fact a child's seat for little boys my age so that I could see out the windshield. This was why he had bought this particular car . . . (so he said) . . so that I would have my own seat. I believed him of course, just as I would have believed him if he told me the moon was made of cheese or that he loved me. Five years without a father is a long time for a boy of five. I probably wouldn't have cared even then, if I'd known he was lying . . . I just wanted him to tell me anything. All of my friends had fathers who told them things all the time, all five years of their lives.

Looking back now, I wish that if he was going to be a liar to me, that he'd at least gone on farther with the lie and written me letters telling me of why his enlistment in the French Foreign Legion . . . or anything . . .had kept him away and caused him not be able to return to America . . . and to me. I was too young to know about postmarks. If he said he was writing from Africa, I just would have believed it. It would have been much more reasonable . . . if a five year old boy can be reasonable . . . to believe that the reason he didn't take me with him, was because it wasn't safe where he was going. I wish I'd gotten a hundred letters from him full of lies about missing me and loving me. And then maybe a final letter someday, from him, pretending to be his buddy, informing me of my father's death on the battlefield in Algiers after throwing himself on a grenade to save his platoon. Instead I got no letters to remember him by. Just the memory of the smell of new car leather, and a ride in a luxury car with a seat for a child, a trip to Mooreland's Drug Store for a hamburger, a movie, a trip to Bolin's toy store and then a trip home again on the child's seat, in the long new Cadillac, bought just for me to ride on. And then a good bye as he drove off with the movie starlet and me screaming at the top of my lungs to take me with him. And so now, the new leather smell does not remind me of good things, like for instance the smell of Jungle Gardenia. . . because even though he told me everything wonderful that night, he didn't tell me that he would take me with him to where ever he was going when he left. I'm not so sure that I really wanted to go where he was going, I just wanted to know that he wanted to be with me. I used to be under the impression that if you loved someone that you wanted them to be with you. And though I'm sure he must have told me that he loved me that night, that memory is totally gone from my mind because if he had loved me he would have wanted to take me with him and us live together forever like families were supposed to do. Something - even at five - told me that I would have been more loveable for him than Zsa Zsa. At least that's what I thought at the time. I must have been wrong.

Today though, is different than that night almost fifty years ago. It's not the smell of new leather coming through my flared out nostrils. And it's not the smell of manure and the memory of being left alone in the barn, or anywhere else. I have paused for a long, long time at the exit to the gateway and I stand here just staring at all the hundreds of other passengers in the terminal and I find peace in the knowledge that some things never change.

It was worth waiting seven hours for, to step off and smell this. It was worth seven hours of flying, to be reminded of the things in life I can count on. No one is trying to get away from me here. No one is thinking of leaving me behind. Or telling me to go away. We're all just here assembled in this great terminal area being swirled and stirred together in one big pot. It's sort of a human globogumbo. Today both those cousins are bums and losers and they are not part of the ingredients. I am the one on a holiday heading for the Black Sea and now it's my turn to hide from them. I am in Vienna.

Why can't we all just get along?????

Click here: http://www.youtube.com/v/D85yrIgA4Nk

I think that people can learn to get along with other types of people regardless of the background.

Hope you enjoy this. It's cute.

This is a video of a homeless man in Santa Barbara and his pets.
They work State Street every week for donations.
The animals are pretty well fed and are mellow. They are a family.
The man who owns them rigged up a harness for his cat so she
wouldn't have to walk so much (like the dog and him).
At some juncture the rat came along, and as no one wanted
to eat anyone else, the rat started riding with the cat and,
often, on the cat! The dog will stand all day and let you talk
to him and admire him for a few chin scratches.
The Mayor of Santa Barbara filmed this clip and sent it out
as a holiday card. A great video .....a MUST watch!

I want my Grandkids to learn better

We tried so hard to make things better for our kids that we made many things worse. For my grandchildren, I'd like better.

I'd really like for them to know about hand me down clothes and homemade ice cream and leftover meat loaf sandwiches. I really would. My mom made me think that getting a slice of bread with just some ketchup spread on it was a treat. I hope they learn the value of some simple things.

I hope they never think it's a waste of time to bend over and pick up a penny when theysee one on the ground. And think to themselves that they found free money.

I hope they learn humility by being humiliated, and that they learn honesty by being cheated.

I hope they learn to make their own bed and mow the lawn and wash the car.
And I really hope nobody gives them a brand new car when they are sixteen.

It will be good if at least one time they can see puppies born and their old dog put to sleep.
I hope they get a black eye fighting for something they believe in.

I hope they have to share a bedroom with their younger brother or sister. And it's all right if they have to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when they want to crawl under the covers with you because they are scared, I hope you let them.

When they want to see a movie and their little brother/sister wants to tag along, I hope they'll let him/her. I hope they have to walk uphill to school with their friends and that they live in a town where they can do it safely.

On rainy days when they have to catch a ride, I hope they don't ask their driver to drop them two blocks away so they won't be seen riding with someone as uncool as their Mom..

If they want a slingshot, I hope their Dad teaches them how to make one instead of buying one.I hope they learn to dig in the dirt and read books.

When they learn to use computers, I hope they also learn to add and subtract in their head.

I hope they get teased by their friends when they have their first crush on a boy or girl, and when they talk back to their mother that they learn what ivory soap tastes like.

May they skin their knee climbing a mountain, burn their hand on a stove and stick their tongue on a frozen flagpole.

I don't care if they try a beer once, but I hope they don't like it. And if a friend offers them dope or a joint, I hope they realize they are not your friend.

I sure hope they make time to sit on a porch with me someday and even listen to me tell them some story for the fifth time and act like they've never heard me tell it before.

I hope they learn to feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays.

I hope their mother punishes them when they throw a baseball through their neighbor's window and that she hugs them and kisses them at Christmas time when they give her a plaster mold of their hand.

These things I wish for them - tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness. To me, it's the only way to appreciate life.

I'm here for you. And if I die before you do, I'll go to heaven and wait for you.

Music that Calms me down a bit

It never fails, in any moment of stress or strife, I can listen to this opera piece and calm myself down.

Dante's La Vita Noveau

stepping into Paradise

My best friend Julia stepped over into Paradise today. I'm so anxious to see her again. And, though sad at our separation, I have joy that I have a confidence that I will see her again and enjoy her friendship. She was a stalwart of the faith. A saint. A bright shining candle. And the world will not be so bright now with her candle gone out.

missed goals

Today is my birthday. And I missed a major life goal. I had intended to retire by this time in my life at least 1 week out of each month. I have had some things that I'd hoped for that did not materialize. But nevertheless, I continue on. I will move toward that goal and hopefully soon be able to not work so many hours, nor have so many stressful things on my mind.

I've been here in the place before and thought that I'd learned my lesson and would never get so consumed again. But my business has consumed me and sometimes the responsibilities and pressures and stress seem unbearable. I will . . . by the grace of God . . .very soon . . . unchain myself from so much. I will get back to a place of life being more simple with fewer decisions and responsibilities to take my attention.

I have other priorities now and I want all the time I can have to pursue those.

I continue on.

As I have told my children, if you don't have a destination in mind, any road will take you to no where. I set the goal in front of me and continue on.

Something never change

There was a scorpion that walked down to the river one day and wanted to get to the other side. He found a frog there and inquired if the frog might give him a lift to the other side. The frog said "impossible. You'll sting me and I'll die and drown". The scorpion said "that is silly. Why would I sting you and you drown? I'd drown with you". The frog thought . . .that sounded reasonable.

So the scorpion climbed on and the frog began to swim. When he got about to the middle of the river, the scorpion uncurled his stinger and plunged it into the frog's back. The poison acted quickly in small frog and he began to gasp for air and started to sink with the scorpion on his back. As he was going down he said "why did you do this? you said you wouldn't sting me. Now we'll both drown."

And the scorpion just replied as they were going under "I know I said that, but it's just my nature".

Consider someone's nature. It never changes. If you want to be near a Scorpion, you must decide if you are big enough to not let the poison kill you. You will ALWAYS get stung now and then. They can't help it. It's just their nature.

letter from a friend to his employees

I received this email of a letter that one "rich capitalist" wrote to his employees. It does put a little different twist on the economic situation today and it's certainly not a perspective that you'll read in the newspaper.

To all my valued employees:

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests. First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life. However, what you don't see is the back story. I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you. My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business--hard work, discipline, and sacrifice. Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $25K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had. So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 6-month-old child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden--the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made. Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for. Yes, business ownership has its benefits, but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds. Unfortunately, the cost of running this business--and employing you--is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why: I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch. The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or the single, unemployed mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country. The fact is, if I deducted (read: stole) 50% of your paycheck, you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree, which is why your job is in jeopardy. Here is what many of you don't understand: To stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly the government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now. When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep. So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future. Frankly, it isn't my problem any more. Then I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it will be my citizenship. If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the Constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about!

Signed, (name withheld)