Proof of citizenship

I am tired. I went on a trip with my father for a week. We really had a great time. Five years ago I would not have taken time off work to go on a trip. My father wanted to take a trip down memory lane and kept talking about going for a final trip. So I went.

We went to Honolulu. While visiting the Arizona, my father tried to hide his tears but he couldn’t do it. He took his time to read the names of all of the people who had died on the Arizona and later after going back to Contemplation Point, he read the names of the soldiers, sailors, marines and civilians who died during the attack.

A few days later we went to Fort DeRussy Museum and looked at the exhibits that dealt with Hawaii’s military history. While the United States was locking Japanese Americans in camps for national security reasons, Japanese American soldiers took some of the highest casualties of any American military unit in World War II. They had to prove that they were loyal Americans.

Likewise, African-American soldiers served. The Tuskegee Airmen flew missions to protect American Bombers and were segregated from the rest of the Army Air Corp. They had to prove that they were as skilled, as capable and as dedicated as their White counterparts. While they were fighting to liberate Europe from oppression, their families suffered oppression here in the States.

Native Americans operated as “code-talkers” and served with distinction trying to prove that they were also equally “American.” While fighting for the United States, their families were on reservations and were treated as incapable of handling their own affairs by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Historically, minority groups have had to fight harder to “prove” their worthiness to be an American and to prove their loyalty. We have fought for liberty without extending the complete rights of citizenship and liberty to those who were citizens.
As a nation, we have come a long way toward looking at people based on character and not on race, religion, or gender. We still have a long way to go.

Today, on the news there was a report on the rise of racists groups in the United States. This bothers me. In order to keep our democracy secure, we need to practice tolerance. We cannot deny one group rights without putting our own rights in jeopardy. It is frequently our differences that our strength is built on. Evil cannot succeed when good men and women speak out against it.

Ship of State is sinking

Jimmy McMillan, who is running for Governor of NY, is a candidate for the “Rent is 2 damn high” party. A lot of people have been listening to him on Youtube. It would be a great laugh, if the economic situation wasn’t so dire. Unfortunately, not only is the rent too high in most places, the general cost of living is steadily rising as incomes continue to plummet. There doesn’t seem to be much growth in the economy. At this rate the United States will be a third world county in less than 10 years.

Maybe that is what the power behind the power wants. Education is in the toilet, good jobs are overseas or filled with people from overseas. Outsourcing, removal of tariffs, accountable talk without accountable action, laws that aren’t understandable, and politicians that are either corrupt or indifferent represent only the tip of the economic iceberg that our ship of state has hit.

Like the Titanic survivors, we are going to have to tough and lucky to survive the icy waters of this new economic reality. I hope that it isn’t like the real Titanic where the Wealthy were guaranteed survival and the poor were locked in the bowels of the sinking ship depending on going out the windows and breaking through barred doors.

With every election in the United States, we have a new opportunity to express our will and our consent. As we move toward the mid-term election we need to ask ourselves whether the people running for office at the local, state and federal level of government are taking care of us or themselves.

We are in a world of hurt right now. Be sure to vote carefully after researching the background of the candidates or we might be worse off.

The lies of children and politicians

I went with my father to Hawaii last week. It was a trip down memory lane. My father has fond memories of being stationed at Hickam Air Force Base. I have fond memories of my father.

My father has always taken great pride in his flowers and his yard. I was little when we lived at Hickam. My father would come home and find his flowers had been dug up. I would have the Hawaiian red dirt on me and one of the kitchen spoons would most likely be found in the flower bed.

When Dad would ask me if I had been digging in his flower bed, I would assure him that it wasn’t me. There is a great deal of research done on young children and lying. Children, as young as three years old, can make a deliberate decision to lie in order to hide their misdeeds.

My father had recently bought a movie camera and when he saw me digging in the flower bed, he got the camera and slipped around the edge of the house to film me. When the film came back from being processed, the whole family was sitting in the living room watching the film.

The moment I saw the footage of myself digging in the flower bed, I immediately said “Daddy, look at that other little Debbie digging in your flower bed.” Even with clear evidence that I was the guilty party, I denied that I had been digging in the flower bed.

While the first lies that children learn to tell are to conceal misdeeds, the second lies they learn to tell are the ones make false claims in order to make themselves look good.

What does this have to do with politics? Children grow up!

The democrats have recently accused the Chamber of Commerce (which is supporting Republican candidates) of using contributions from foreign contributors to fund the Anti-democratic. Looking into the matter, New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau said: "A closer examination shows that there is little evidence that what the chamber does in collecting overseas dues is improper or even unusual, according to both liberal and conservative election-law lawyers and campaign finance documents.”

When President Obama’s senior advisor, David Axelrod, was asked by CBS’ Bob Schieffer if he had any evidence that the chamber was using secret foreign funds to influence the election, Axelrod responded ''Well, do you have any evidence that it's not, Bob?'' Mr. Axelrod said. ''The fact is that the chamber has asserted that, but they won't release any information about where their campaign money is coming from. And that's at the core of the problem here.''

The skills learned by children to tell lies in order to hide misdeeds and of making false claims to look good has been taken to the political level. Mr. Axelrod has just made the Chamber of Commerce appear criminal without any evidence. His argument is simply that there isn’t any evidence that they aren’t doing something wrong.

Save me from this type of politics.

Queen of the World

Do you remember playing King of the Hill when you were younger? I do! Right now I am mentally playing Queen of the World in my head. If I were Queen of the World what would I do?

If the children weren’t playing well together and were constantly fighting, I would send them to their rooms and isolate them. This practice involved making sure that the children didn’t share a room.

Well the same principle could work in international affairs. Right now we are on the edge of calamity in the Middle East. The children aren’t playing well together. With the Israeli and Palestinian people both seeking solutions to problems, violence has played a role in the problem resolution/escalation.

If both children had their own room, then they could be separated and isolated until they could deal with each other without violence.

The Palestinian areas are impoverished places to live. According to the CIA the Gaza strip has a 40% unemployment rate and 70% of the people are impoverished. If I believed my children were without hope of surviving, I would be angry. The Palestinians, need freedom from Israel. Obviously sharing room doesn’t work for them
Israel has to sleep with a gun beside them for fear of attacks. Obviously sharing a room isn’t working out for them either.

The objective of compromise is for each side to give up something in order to gain something they really want.

Both sides need to give up claims to land just like my children had to give up claims to disputed toys. At the same time, Palestine gains freedom and real hope to develop their country. Israel gains a greater sense of security and hope that their children can walk the streets safely. It is a win/win situation.

Mothers in both countries could celebrate brighter futures for their children.

If I were Queen of the World, I would send them to separate rooms.

The media and politics

Words are frequently spoken that we wish we could pull back. They come back to haunt us. All we can do is apologize and keep going forward. Sometimes we speak out of ignorance and sometimes we just get our words crossed up. Politicians have to be very careful that they don’t do the first and when they do the second they are crucified by the press.

So far in my blog I’ve talked about the poor choices of politicians. As I’ve stopped to ponder the poor choices we have in the election pool this year, I believe that anyone with integrity would absolutely refuse to run for public office. The media creates images of people by playing and replaying mistakes and goofs as if the person running for an office is an imbecile. The media has a lot to answer for in the failure of our political system.

With great efforts the media idealizes or demonizes candidates and potential candidates. Every misdeed going back to birth is exposed. Family issues which are best left private are revealed and speculated about. Who in their right mind would run for office and face the sensational media circus that follows candidates.

I respect the media and believe that they should report events and news accurately. Their job is to keep us informed. They should continue to do so but they should stop all this speculation, sensationalism and replaying of unimportant stuff. Their job is not to make the news, only to report it.

Talking too much

My youngest son didn’t learn to talk during the first two years. He had been very sick when he was a new born and as he approached two years old without speaking, the doctor speculated that the speech center might have been affected. I took him to the developmental evaluation center and they confirmed that he couldn’t speak.

Every day I prayed “Dear God, please let Charlie speak!” God has a good sense of humor. Charlie’s first words were in a sentence and they were obscene. I faced the same challenge most parents face at one time or another - do I beat him or do I praise him? I praised him. After that, I bribed him to talk.

We tend to create our own monsters. Today, Charlie can’t shut up. He talks constantly and I nod as he talks. I don’t understand a fraction of what he talks about but I listen anyway. When I get tired of listening, I go to another room and close the door. I think he is still secretly waiting for my approval and praise as he talks.

Politicians have the same problem. They talk constantly. The more nervous they are, the more they talk. They want our approval. Unfortunately, like my son, they talk too much and they don’t listen or take action very often.

Republican Senator Voinovich said that republicans have been blocking a vote on a small business bill since July. In an interview with the Washington Post, he said that the GOP's opposition "didn't have anything to do with the bill," but was about political "messaging." The republicans are more interested in playing party politics and talking about what needs to be done rather than taking action and doing what is best for the people. Good for Voinovich. He isn’t interested in just talking about taking action. He is willing to separate himself from the political machine that is still sitting on idle while the country goes down the drain economically.

Likewise, Democratic Representative Glenn Nye of Virginia broke with President Obama and stated that he would vote to extend the Bush tax cuts to everyone and not just families making less than $250,000 per year. He said that he was voting the way his constituents wanted him to vote. Imagine that! A politician has heard the alarm bells ringing and has stopped talking in order to listen to the desires of the people who elected him.

Other politicians need to stop talking and start listening. The voters will be heard.

There is nothing like a hurricane

Since Hurricane Camille, I become a little revved up when a Category 3,4 or 5 hurricane is announced. There is something about the anticipation of danger that intrigues me at the same time that it frightens me. My children tease me about recording the weather channel during hurricane season. I do like to keep track of what is going on in the tropics.

I also like to keep track of what is going on in the economy and the political sphere. As we approach the November election, it feels more like the approach of a cat 5 hurricane than it does an election. The problem with category 5 hurricanes is that they cause unbelievable destruction in their path if they land in heavily populated areas or come in at high tide. Their destructive power is felt inland as tornadoes are spawned and floods occur. Camille was felt all the way to Nova Scotia.

The frustration in the US with elected officials is developing a tremendous storm surge and the winds of distrust of elected officials are gaining momentum. American citizens are tired of riding the waves of corruption, party politics as usual, meaningless rhetoric, and name calling. If the electoral storm momentum continues to gain force, citizens will vote in record numbers for a mid-term election and in January the American citizens will watch a new congress sworn in. The storm will damage existing political stalemates, create a mess with for good old boys who are running things in both political parties and call attention to the fact that the people can still get their point across.

The Party of "NO"

Mr. Obama calls the republicans the party of “NO.” It doesn’t matter what he suggests, they say no. He’s right. Although I frequently disagree with Mr. Obama’s economic decisions, he has had a contentious time with the Republicans.

We are in a fragile state of politics now. Mr. Obama wants to change everything and the Republicans want to change nothing. It reminds me of when my children would fight over a toy. One didn’t want to play with it but he/she didn’t want the other one to play with it either. I still remember the mulish looks on their faces as I had to intervene.

When neither child would give in, there was ongoing trouble at home. The same can be said about our political parties. If neither side is willing to give in and negotiate, then the problems that loom over the country can’t be resolved. In this situation, only the voters can intervene. We need to change some things, but change needs to be carefully considered looking at all other factors. What we need is thoughtful people who are more concerned about the needs of the country than they are about personal interests and party politics.

It doesn’t matter whose toy it is, if the other child decides to break it out of spite instead of sharing.

It's going to be all right Billy

When I was in my early twenties, my parents were going to have a barbeque and they decided to barbeque a goat. We went to a farmer’s house to buy the goat. The farmer’s wife hugged the goat and petted it. As she loved on the goat for the last time she said “Everything’s going to be all right Billy.”

She knew were going to cooking that goat the whole time she spoke reassuringly to him.

Since then, if someone tells me that everything is going to be “all right” I think about Billy.

When President Obama gave his speech last Tuesday and spoke briefly about the economy I was reminded of the farmer’s wife talking to “Billy.” Mr. Obama’s tone of voice was hesitant and he stuttered as he talked about how the economy was slowly recovering. Like the farmer’s wife he didn’t believe what he was saying.

Last Friday, after President Obama’s speech, the announcement came that the unemployment rate grew as the temporary census jobs ended and the private sector didn’t produce jobs.

Mr. Obama, please don’t tell me that things are going to be okay. Don’t speak about a jobs bill that doesn’t mean anything other than more government spending. For small business to grow, it is essential that the scheduled tax increase planned for January be stopped. Small businesses are not going to hire while a growing tax burden is placed on them.

Most small business feels like Billy before the barbeque. They know change is coming but they aren’t sure what it is. The whispering of smooth words does not remove the fear and the real danger the economy is in.

The politics of the bra

As a divorced mother, I was very careful how I spent money. One of the luxuries I gave up was lingerie. For ten years I continued to wear the same bras. No one saw them, so it didn’t matter how old they looked.

During the ten years, the discomfort of wearing a bra become increasingly more unbearable. I was complaining one day to a good friend about how uncomfortable my bra was and lamenting the fact that I would have to spend money on new ones.

Mary asked me what size I wore. I told her a 32. Her mouth dropped open and she told me that her daughter wore a 32. Her daughter was pencil thin. I wasn’t.

During the ten years, I had gained weight and my bras had stretched as I grew. Finally, they became unbearably uncomfortable when they couldn’t stretch any more. Later, when I measured I wore a 40.

We become increasingly uncomfortable with things in life and we tend to tolerate it until it reaches a point that we can’t stand it anymore. Then we complain and someone comes along to help us understand what has created the discomfort.

I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the way that politicians have become so ugly. In a conversation a couple of months ago, I was talking to someone about the polarization of Americans. We have increasingly become a “we-them” society of labeled people instead of an “US.”

Any disagreement of policies or positions creates name calling and insults. People take hard stands on every issue and are unwilling to listen to the other side’s opinion.

This past weekend one of the prophets of the right held a rally and a prophet on the left held an opposing rally. One group was talking about taking back America and the other group was trying to keep their piece of the pie from being hijacked.

What would happen if people would discuss racism, social improvement, government budgetary issues, job growth with open minded willingness to compromise on issues. You know what I mean. A little give and take! This would be much more comfortable than the constant grandstanding for the crowds that is currently going on.
If our forefathers had not been willing to LISTEN to each other and reach compromise our country would not have been formed. As a nation we have struggled through difficult periods because politicians were willing to work together.

We have grown so much as a nation, but we have outgrown our ability to solve problems. The polarization of the nation has become increasingly more uncomfortable, just like my bra did.

Mama, aren't you going to get your change back?

When my oldest child was about three years old, we were at Church and I placed a $20.00 bill in the offering plate. Brooks was just old enough that he could talk clearly, but he was young enough to stand up on the pew of the church while everyone was sitting down.

As I put the money in the offering plate, Brooks asked in his loudest voice “Mama, aren’t you going to get your change back?”

Thirty years ago $20 was a lot of money in my budget. Until about five years ago, I always stayed on a tight budget. My entire grocery (and miscellaneous spending) budget was $60 a week. When I used a $20 bill I usually got change back. Brooks had watched me break the $20 bills and make sure that I received the correct change.

Once again, $20 has become a substantial amount of money in many household budgets. I went to the grocery story today and spent almost $60 on groceries. Instead of a buggy full of groceries, I bought about ten items. It is enough to take care of my needs this week since I eat simply and don’t have to worry about feeding a family.

The American people are facing an economy that is still in free fall. We are all counting our money a little closer and we are not giving as generously to charities and to our churches. We are becoming more like the people in poor countries and we work for our daily needs. While this helps develop character and trust in Divine Providence, it is depressing to face the day to day struggle.

As we approach the November mid-term election, we need to make sure that the people we elect understand that the economy is our number one concern. There needs to be a bi-partisan effort to improve the climate for small business growth and for capital investment. While President Obama spoke about addressing these issues, he and Congress have gone on vacation and left the issue on the table.

Since it is so near the end of this Congressional term, the attention in Congress seems to be focused on getting re-elected instead of fixing the problems that are causing the economy to continue to go sour. I wish I could get my change back from what I’ve spent on their salaries and benefits. Maybe, I could afford to spend more money.

Monitor the spending

While on vacation with my daughter and grandchildren this summer, I kept my budget under close scrutiny. When my daughter would use her debit card to pay for something, my son-in-law called her and would ask her what she had bought. He didn’t have a problem with her spending the money, he wanted to live the experience with her. Everyday, he would ask her what the expense was for and asked her to tell him about what we had done. He couldn’t go with us because he was serving our nation in Afghanistan so he would call every evening using some cheap international plan. He was actively monitoring the spending even from Afghanistan.

He and my daughter both check their checking account balance almost every day. They have a check and balance system to make sure that they stay in their budget.

It would be appropriate for someone to monitor the spending of the country. I listened to an economist yesterday who indicated there is real concern that the federal government will have to make decisions about bailing out state and local governments within the next year. The federal government is spending like crazy, unconcerned about where the money is going to come from.

If the bailout of state and local governments becomes an issue as expected, the government cannot raise taxes (taxes are expected to increase automatically as the Bush Tax cuts expire at the end of the year) and it is not wise to borrow more money from China. This tax increase will place a heavy burden on those who are only surviving by a frog’s hair and will reduce spending by the middle class. Reduced spending by the middle class will result in more jobs being lost.

President Obama’s stimulus plan is not working. The president and congress need to put more effort into stimulating business. I know from personal experience that I cannot borrow my way out of financial problems and I cannot spend my way to solvency. The people controlling our financial future, are not monitoring the balance sheet and the bottom line. They should take lessons from my daughter and her husband. When the cash runs low, they should stop spending and they should never spend without making sure that the money is going where it is suppose to be going. The government should also look at increasing its income by increasing jobs that are not paid for by the government.

Mr. Obama and the Mosque

When I was teaching school, I gave an assignment for students to do a Civil War simulation. They began the simulation using only the resources and manpower available at time Fort Sumter was fired on and the Civil War began.

As each side made moves in the simulation, the North consistently challenged the South’s ability to do something based on lack of resources and lack of industry. By the end of the class, the students in the class had become so emotionally vested in their side of the issue that they continued the argument about what could have been done and what was impossible to do. They argued in every class they had, in the halls between classes and after school. For them, the issue had become an emotional one and not an exercise in logic.

Like my students, President Obama, in his address Friday night, failed to understand that the Mosque is an emotional issue and not a logical one.

One commentator said that Mr. Obama addressed the issue as a law professor and not as a politician. We all understand the legal rights of the Muslims and we know that the Constitution protects them as much as it protects us to build Christian churches. However, this whole argument is not about the legal rights of the Muslims to build a place of worship on private property, it is about the Muslims being sensitive to the pain that still exists for the people struggling with personal loss.

Once again, Mr. Obama has shown himself to be out of touch with the feelings of the general population. While he clearly understands the legal issues and the Constitutionality; he doesn’t understand the emotional issues that are in play. There is a clear difference between legality and emotional sensitivity.

Mr. Obama are you telling the truth?

I listened to President Obama’s speech yesterday afternoon (July 27, 2010). He talked about stimulating small business through the Small Business Administration and removing capital gains taxes for investment. He talked about our need to invest in alternative energy and he reminded other politicians in Washington that they had all been elected to represent the citizens and not themselves.

For a minute I thought I was talking. It is good to hear him make these public statements. It will be better to see him and the other elected officials take actions to make these things happen.

As a mother, I quickly learned that my children would tell me what I wanted to hear. The only thing I knew for sure when they talked was that they had breath in their lungs and they knew how to talk. I never knew whether what they said was truthful unless I had witnessed the event myself.

People tell us what we want to hear beginning early in life. Politicians have mastered the art.

Mr. Obama, I am waiting to see if you are like my children when they were younger and whether your words are truthful. Are you telling us what we want to hear as part of a campaign strategy or will we see truth in your actions.

Shrinking Middle Class

I read an article in an on-line news journal about the shrinking middle class in the United States. According to the article, the cause is a result of the U.S. competing with countries that do not have a minimum wage, do not have environmental standards and do not have a minimum working age.

This isn’t a surprise to me. Economic and history books, that are used to teach our children, preach the value of corporations seeking the cheapest labor pool and gloablization. They also tell students that they should not expect to receive the benefits that their parents and grandparents received while working. One textbook goes so far as to praise the fact many Americans are “permalancers” who permanently work temporary jobs without benefits. Manpower was listed as the largest employer in the U.S.

Al Gore once talked about helping our children prepare for the global economy. I don’t know if he is aware that the global economy is based on wages of less than a dollar per hour, especially in developing countries where children work instead of attending school.

With the removal of discipline from schools and the use of high stakes test which are proven to cause higher drop out rates, I truthfully believe that we are in fact creating a generation who will participate in the global economy. Without education that produces critical thinking, the middle class will disappear. Students are not capable of understanding that they are being prepared to believe in an economic system that favors the wealthy at their expense.

Politicians understand. As they accept donations from large multinational corporations, they sell us out. Don’t get me wrong, I love the benefits of capitalism and I believe in capitalism but I believe in regulations that prevent capitalism from removing opportunities from my children and grandchildren. I also resent that my paycheck steadily goes down while my taxes and expenses go up and politicians tell me that I’m better off now than I was.

Retirement City

I’ve taken a long vacation away from work, technology and cell phones. I picked my mother, stepfather and grandson up in a small town just outside of Mobile and we drove to San Antonio. Since there was a tropical storm warning for the Houston area we drove from Mobile to Hattiesburg and on to Vicksburg to pick up Interstate 20. In one of the towns we passed through there was a sign welcoming us to the “retirement city.” The industries in the city looked like they were shut down. Many businesses were boarded up and there was an appearance of worn out and “has been” in the town.

My mother and I discussed the fact that many people are retiring because of the economy and I jokingly commented on the fact that the town could be retired because all of the jobs have gone overseas and there wasn’t anything else to do except retire. If that is the case, then there are a lot of retirement towns in this country.

Hilary Clinton announced that the U.S. government was going to invest in small and medium sized business development in Pakistan. I understand that this will help stabilize the region. Truthfully, I believe in providing the aid in the forms of loans to other countries, as long as they spend the money in the U.S. to buy equipment and infrastructure supplies. With a stable government, this would be a wise investment. The money would be repaid and the materials and supplies bought from U.S. producers would generate jobs in the U.S.

My question of the Obama administration is why they can’t do the same for the small and medium sized companies in the U.S. So far the government stimulus plan has been primarily aimed at the creation of government jobs (temporary ones). The reason FDR’s government spending worked was because he built dams which electrified large sections of the U.S. which did not have electricity. By providing access to electrical power, Roosevelt provided the initial round of jobs which provided money to buy products that could be used with electricity. This stimulated the private sector.

For Obama to provide jobs in the government sector that will achieve the same result, the federal funding needs to be spent on making new or desirable technology affordable , such as alternative energy. Many Americans would switch to alternative energy if it wasn’t so expensive. Well this is beside the point.

It seems that Obama would be willing to do for his own country what he is willing to do for Pakistan. He could create policies and provide accessibility to loans for small business growth. While it has been mentioned in rhetoric, it hasn’t been happening and more businesses are contributing to the “retirement cities.” Many businesses are hanging on, hoping that the economy will improve. They are hanging on, but the economy isn’t improving. Everyone I talk to tells me that they are worse off financially. How many businesses are going to go out of business before the Obama administration wakes up and takes action? More specifically, when will they treat their own citizens as well as they treat other countries?

I'll be back

This will be the last blog I write for about 10 days. For the next 10 days I’ll be spending time with my mother, step-father, daughter and four of my grandchildren, so I don’t know how much time I’ll have to blog. Don’t give up on me. I’ll be back.
I love my family. All them! I can’t imagine anyone not loving their family as much as I do mine. As a mother, I look at my mother and have greater respect for her every day. I’m not sure I could have done as well as she has done dealing with the same situations she has dealt with. Each generation has its own hardships.

We learn to appreciate our mothers when we become mothers. We learn to love without condition when we hold our babies in our arms and watch them struggle into adulthood. No loving mother wants their child to suffer or to live in hopeless conditions. That is why it is so important that we defend our democracy and that we don’t let it go so far to the left or to the right.

It would be dangerous for our children if we allowed our country to develop into a full Socialist state. While we have some socialist programs, it would be dangerous for our children if we allowed the government to take over too many areas of our lives. I want my children and grandchildren to have opportunities to advance in life that are not dependent on the government making the decisions for them. I want them to be as self-sufficient as possible.

It is equally important that we don’t go too far to the right. We must take care of the members of society who are vulnerable and can’t take care of themselves. We must also insist that the government protect us when we can’t protect ourselves and we are not always able to protect ourselves. The more complex the society, the harder it is. I can’t protect myself from contaminated waters sources when industries dump pollutants that can make their way into the water supply.

None of us can protect ourselves from the damage caused by the oil spill. We really need government to effectively regulate that industry. However, government should not focus on taking over business as they did with General Motors. That is not the role of government.

As a loving mother, I want my children to have the opportunities that capitalism offers, but I also want them to be protected from exploitation, environmental contamination, and unethical practices. We need a government that is large enough to do the job, but not so large that it takes over everything for us. Long live democracy.

Well I’ll be back on line in about ten days with some new stories.

Stick to the facts

I have been sitting in meetings for the past month with adults who cannot speak with civility when discussing issues. It is wearing on the nerves. How do people get to be adults and believe they can speak in any tone of voice they wish? Lack of civility simply escalates the problems, it doesn’t address solve any of the issues that are being discussed.

These same adults preened themselves and made sure that everyone in the room knew that their mothers’ had raised them correctly and taught them well. They called on their religious backgrounds to give evidence that it was okay for them to speak disrespectfully and block out any point of view that was not their own.

It seems to be human nature to take a position and to justify it even when it is not the opinion of the majority. Each generation of people have their own definition of acceptable behavior. For my generation, you didn’t take ugly in public. If you had to have a “discussion” with someone, it was done in private, resolved, and the parties emerged with an “understanding.” It was considered vulgar to shout at people, insult their ideas and insult them.

I insulted a teacher when I was in elementary school and my father took me home to explain it to me. Then he took me back to school and stood in the doorway while I apologized. The apology had to be as public as the insult.

Okay, maybe everyone didn’t have the same rearing that I had, but my rear was definitely held accountable for the tone of voice that I used as well as the words that came out of my mouth.

The mid-term election is approaching in November and the candidates, while not as ugly as during a presidential election year, have already started pointing out each others’ faults, insulting, and justifying their past behaviors. Enough is enough. Give the voters a break and just talk about the issues. Stick to the facts. What will you do if you are elected? How do we know we can believe you?

The Road Sign

While driving into Atlanta today, I saw a road sign that said “God is not a Socialist.” I have been thinking about it for a couple of hours and I would like to comment on this road sign.

God certainly isn’t a capitalist either. He would never condone the use of child labor in factories that Nike was guilty of at one time. He would never condone taking short cuts in drilling for oil to save money. He wouldn’t take advantage of his mortgage clients to make additional profits. He wouldn’t packages junk and sell it as “gold.”

The only time that Jesus became angry was with the money changers in the temple. They were taking advantage of the people who needed to buy sacrificial animals. He taught compassion, caring for the sick, caring for the children and caring for the elderly.

Since the New Deal the United States has been moving toward socialism. The United States practices socialist policies. We provide social security, unemployment, Medicare, Medicaid, aid to farmers through agricultural supplements. Title I in education is a means to level the playing field educationally for poor children. The federal school lunch program is a socialist program.

Try to eliminate social security benefits and every American who has paid into the program becomes a socialist except for those who can afford to retire because they made enough money and had enough knowledge to make wise investments. Most people I know who had their retirement in stocks, lost their large portion of their portfolios because of the loss of stock values in Enron, Worldcom and other similarly sleazy dealings on Wall Street. Even the government banking bailout only helped those on Wall Street and not those on Main Street.

While I believe we should have a free market, I believe that free market taken to its extreme hurts the average worker and there should be some government oversight. The whole nation is hurting because of bad business practice from a relatively small percentage of people.

How many people are now working but can’t afford to invest, can’t afford to visit a doctor, can’t afford to fix the air conditioner in a broken down car…. They keep on working and rely on the belief that they will be able to collect social security when they reach a certain age. While the socialism practiced in fascist countries is certainly not good and takes the role of the government to an extreme, we can practice something that provides protection and still allows capitalism to flourish.

Capitalism and socialism both have problems. Neither one is free from fault. Don’t let labels fool you. We need to watch and make sure extreme beliefs don’t take root but we also need to address issues of taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves.

Cost of College Education

My husband and I cleaned some stuff out of our storage room today. It belongs to one of my children. This particular child came to visit with 15 large suitcases filled with “stuff” and only left with four of them. I’ve decided that it is time that I reunited the owner with the “stuff.”

Another one of my children is going to move “stuff” out of the rented storage shed and move it into my Condo “temporarily” so that storage rental won’t have to be paid. By Wednesday of this week, I will have moved one child’s stuff out and another child’s stuff in. Just what every mother wants to do.

The revolving door between parents and children is happening more often with this generation than with mine. When I moved out, I moved out. In my circle of close friends almost all of us have adult children living at home or we are taking a heavy responsibility for helping them support themselves. As a young woman, it was expected that I would grow up to be self-sufficient. Jobs were plentiful, if not high paying. The possibility of advancement was there, and so was hope that things would get better.

Those hopes are gone. I read an article today that the purpose of a college degree was to create so much debt that a person would have it paid off by the time they retired. It took ten years for me to pay off my college loans when I earned my bachelors degree. Banks didn’t give credit cards out so freely then, so except for my college loans, I left college with no debt.

Students leaving college today frequently have $10,000-$20,000 in credit card debt and $80,000-$100,000 in college loans. The job market isn’t what it used to be. The college graduates are taking jobs that pay $10.00 per hour or minimum wage and commissions. To survive, our children are moving back in with us. My son’s college loans are $400.00 per month.

The tuition and fees for a college education has become such a financial burden that many students are dropping out.

If we want to keep a strong middle class, we must have an educated population. To have an educated population, we must have a strong university system. To have a strong university system, we must have government funding to maintain affordability.

Shame on a government that creates a university system for the privileged rich, scholarship entitlement for the poor, and a university education that the middle class cannot afford.

Don't come home, Mama

I was on my home from work one day when I received a call on my cell phone telling me that I needed to go somewhere else. “Don’t come home, Mama. I’ll call you when it’s okay.”

My daughter and two granddaughters were living with me at the time. It seems that my granddaughter had spilled chocolate syrup on the floor and had used some lipstick on the wall. It doesn’t take long for a small child to get into trouble. It only takes a few minutes without supervision. Small children have a great need to do things themselves and to experiment.

When my daughter discovered the mess, she knew I was on my way home from work and that my stress levels would go up when I saw the mess. So she called me and told me to go get a cup of coffee or margarita, go shopping or do something and give her time to clean up the mess.

I went shopping and about an hour later I received a call that I could come home. By the time I arrived back at the condo, the mess was cleaned up.

There is no doubt that President Obama has a mess to deal with also. In fact, he has several situations that are messy. One is the economy. He has placed his confidence in an advisory team that doesn’t seem to know what to do to fix things. Unemployment is still high, people who are employed are making less money, mortgage foreclosures are still high and people have quit spending on anything that is not an absolute necessity.

The minimum wage increase that was voted on before Mr. Obama became president, the uncertainty of health care costs and an unwillingness to invest capital have contributed to the recession.

President Obama has an economic team in place that is not able to clean up the mess. Economic models do not support the policies that have been placed in effect since he became president. His stimulus program has been called “schlock economics,” and “his Chicago colleague John Cochrane says they’re based on discredited fairy tales.” They sound good to people who are not aware of how the economy works, but they do not work.

Mr. Obama hasn’t received a call to come home yet. It might be a while before it happens unless he changes his cleaning crew or at least seeks suggestions from new sources that might lead to economic growth.

Stem cell research

Imagine what it would be like to have a family member cured of a degenerative disease. What it would be like to have a deaf baby hear or a cancer patient cured.
What scares me more than death is a long, painful illness or watching one of my children die from an illness. I have spent a great deal of time in doctor’s waiting rooms and in hospitals with my children and I know that people who appear healthy can have severe health problems.

Currently, there is a lot of research being done with stem cells and genetic engineering. Tonight, ABC news had a spotlight on a stem cell procedure that was used to cure blindness in people who had experienced burns on the cornea. As I think about the possibilities for this new medical technology, I don’t the United States doesn’t fund research. To ease suffering, to provide a higher quality of life for people with injuries or illnesses, and to create new technological innovations are all beneficial to the citizens of our country.

To ban stem cell research is the equivalent of starving people refusing to eat food because it is from genetically engineered seeds or a person refusing an organ transplant from a dead person. The person takes a moral stand, but the cost in human suffering is very high.

The Catholic Church placed a ban on scientific discovery during the Middle Ages. We also call that time period the “Dark Ages.” When scientific inquiry is banned, it will simply go underground, as it did during the Middle Ages, or to other countries. The scientific inquiry will still occur. The problem with the inquiry going underground is that it will not be regulated. The problem with the inquiry going to other countries is that the United States will lose its technological edge in the world economy. This is what happened when President Bush banned certain types of stem cell research in the United States. It went overseas.

I was happy when President Obama removed some of the barriers to what he called “responsible stem cell research” however, I believe that the government should increase funding of stem cell research or alternatively it should enhance the research incentives. This could save the lives of our children or grandchildren and it could make our own old age easier.

In the beginning

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. After that, humans have managed to mess up almost everything. We are always struggling to have things that we don’t have. We want more of everything. This leads to war, crime and personal irresponsibility.

Currently, the U.S. has troops in Iraq and in Afghanistan so that the United States can have “more.” President Obama has committed to a surge of U.S. troops this summer to Afghanistan so that we can “stabilize” the area. Look at the history of the area and see if you can find a time in history that it has been “stable.” I understand that we can’t just pull out until the infrastructure is more stable than it is currently but we are still in South Korea after sixty years. How long can we sustain being the world’s police force when we are struggling with our own internal problems?

Are we safer with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq than we would be if we brought them home? This is a question that I struggle with.

We can’t control the gun violence in our own country, adequately respond to the disasters that routinely occur here, and protect our borders from illegal aliens. Look at what has happened inside our own borders since January 1st. We have had flooding in Tennessee, Georgia, Massachusetts and southern California, wildfires near Flagstaff, Arizona, multiple outbreaks of tornadoes and the oil spill in the Gulf. We haven’t had a hurricane yet. Everyone is waiting to see what will happen then. We are also waiting to see if other terrorist attacks occur since the Time’s Square bomber has said that other attacks have been planned.

We moved quicker with the Haiti disaster than we have done with the oil spill, but then it was primarily private efforts and not those of the government.

The larger the animal, the slower it moves. Our government is no exception. It has become so large that it moves slowly, and stumbles over its own feet. It intrudes in other countries and leaves our homeland vulnerable in order to do so. There needs to be a greater balance between what we do overseas and what we do inside our own country.

Chicago gun violence

The news is always depressing. Chicago reported more than 50 shootings over the weekend. I am a strong supporter of the Constitution. At the time it was written, ordinary people needed guns to hunt for food and to protect themselves and their families. Originally there wasn’t an army to protect the settlers and as the more and more settlers moved onto Indian lands, the conflict grew. Indians had to protect themselves against the settlers and settlers had to protect themselves against the Indians. The French sponsored Indian attacks on English held territory and the English sponsored Indian attacks on French and Spanish held territory.

The desire for more and our willingness to kill to take land or to keep land grew as our desires grew.

The gangs of today want more. They want the territory of other gangs and to control the flow of drugs, prostitution, gambling, and protection. Like in the past, violence is seen as a means to an end. Guns are readily available to almost anyone who wants one. If you can’t buy one legally, you can buy one on the black market.
Our Constitutional right to bear arms is for self defense and for hunting. It isn’t to commit crimes or to kill for fun and score points with gangs. How do we keep our Constitutional freedom and maintain a civil society where gun violence isn’t just another event in the daily lives of citizens. How do we keep illegal guns off the streets and out of the hands of teens and children? We must address these issues.

Charlton Heston’s comment that they would pull his gun from his “cold dead hands” is fine if you are an old man who has lived a reasonable life but it isn’t a good creed for teenagers. With enough hormones and undeveloped frontal lobes they will use emotion instead of logic and are more prone to glorify the use of violence.

Look at the games teenagers play. The more violent the better! They are stimulated by and fascinated with violence. Frequently Mom and Dad are absent or they work two jobs to support the family. As a result, teenagers are, more often than not, unsupervised and left to roam in the afternoons after school, on weekends and during the summer. This is a prescription for trouble.

As a nation, we must address the increasing use of guns in violent crimes, the use of guns by children and teenagers and the sale of illegal guns on the black market.

Little Debbie Snack Cakes

I was in charge of a fund raiser for the drama department at one of the schools I worked in. We sold “Little Debbie” Snack cakes at school. I had cases of “Little Debbie’s” in my classroom. Every time I pulled the snacks out to sell them, I ate one and put money in.

During this fundraiser, I gained ten pounds. My children would come to the classroom at the end of the day and I would be eating a snack. One day, one of children told me that a lot of “Little Debbie’s would make one big Debbie.” I didn’t eat another snack after that.

The same can be said about government growth. We look at wanting the government to do one small thing. Then we give them another small responsibility. This keeps going on until the Government is too big for things to function properly. When we look at the growth of federal powers during the 20th Century our founding father’s would not recognize the government they created.

The government that began as three departments (War, Treasury, State) has eaten so many “Little Gov” snack cakes that it has become cumbersome, slow, indecisive, and has agencies that are redundant and fail to act with wisdom. Law enforcement is only one example. We have multiple agencies doing the same or similar jobs and they might talk to each other and they might not.

One private job site (federaljobs.net), disguised to resemble a real government site, currently is advertising that the IRS needs 17,000 agents to enforce President Obama’s new health care legislation. Although I hope that the IRS is not adding that many agents and that the job site has misleading information, I understand that any job added to a government agency is one more that I’ll have to pay taxes to support.

We need to audit the agencies and responsibilities of each agency. Doing this, we can streamline government services and at the same time we can help make government more responsive to the needs of the citizens.

We need to be careful about the number of “Little Gov’s” that we add to the government. When we give the government more responsibility, we give up our responsibility. We do not give our children very much responsibility and as a result they do not have many rights. When we turn our responsibilities over to the government we also turn over some of our rights.

Waiting for something better to come along

We had a guest speaker at work today. He was trying to motivate us to work harder and to understand that we could achieve our dream if we put had a positive attitude. Now remember, we’re teachers. Our positive attitude is usually gone by June after we have been cursed out by parents and students at least twice a week during the school year and documented everything that we did in case of a lawsuit. Almost every teacher I know wants to walk out the door and never look back.

It is sad that we have a country where more social prominence is placed on whether a student can pass a football, hit a baseball, or cheer than on how well students do with their reading and mathematics. Children have more electronic gadgets and toys every year, than I’ve bought in the last ten. They have Ipods, cell phones, Xbox, hand held video games…. But they don’t read many books. National Standards say that a child should read 25 books every school year. There is a direct correlation to the number of books a child reads and to how well they will do in school. Many students I work with can use technology, but they struggle to read because they wait and watch the movie.

I was on spring break in South Georgia last spring while a rural school system was still in school. I went with some friends to get a manicure and pedicure on Friday afternoon. A mother had checked her Junior High daughter out of school so that she could get her toe nails painted to match her swimsuit. The 12 or 13 year old girl was going to the beach on Saturday and her mother thought that it was more important for her daughter to get her nails done than to attend school. Just from the attitude of the girl and the way she talked to her mother and to the manicurist, I bet the teacher was glad that she left early.

We can continue to funnel more money into education programs that are “proven” to work, we can constantly reform education but we must address one of the most significant problems of all. There is a lack of respect for education in the United States. Until society places its values in the right place, teachers will do the best they can with the students they are given and will continue to pray for something better to come along.

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? Do you remember that game? Children would play it and using their geography they would try to locate Carmen. If Carmen were a terrorist today, that would be hard to do. We have more security issues in the United States than the sieve in my kitchen.

We all know about the border issues along the Mexican border. Those are on the front page. What has been hidden in plain sight is the fact that U.S. passport covers with digital chips are being made overseas and that security is not very good.

The Government Printing Office outsourced the manufacture of e-passports because they couldn’t be made in the U.S. (in a pig’s eye) but they did not develop “security plans and procedures for ensuring that blank e-Passports – and their highly sought technologies – remain safe from terrorists, foreign spies, counterfeiters and other bad actors as they wind through an unwieldy manufacturing process that spans the globe and includes 60 different suppliers.”

In other words, our Government officials are once again out to lunch while the new e-Passports are available on the black market to people who don’t like us. Gee, instead of sealing the borders, we have made it possible for villains to come here and through government negligence we have made it harder to locate and identify them when they enter the country.

I know the government is moving the manufacture of these documents back to the United States, but why did they send them overseas in the first place? They were first manufactured overseas in 2006. The World Trade Center was bombed in 2001. We knew that we had security issues when it was done. This is like putting ice cream on the table before dinner and telling my children not to eat it and then leaving the room. What terrorist or spy could resist.

Heads should roll on this one.

Put your big girl panties on

A long time ago, I worked for a law firm and was trying to collect a debt owed to the bank the firm represented. While talking to the creditor I was stunned when he said that it was the bank’s fault that he owed the money. He told me that the bank shouldn’t have lent it to him in the first place.

I was watching TV a little while ago and a commercial came on. It was for a debt relief company. The commercial started with a lead-in that said “if you are in credit card debt and it isn’t your fault, call….” How can people be in credit card debt and it not be their fault? They applied for the credit card. They used their credit card to buy things they wanted. They didn’t want to wait and buy things as they could afford them, they wanted everything immediately. They had no self control and they used their credit card to live a lifestyle they couldn’t afford. If a person is in credit card debt, it is their fault.

Where is personal responsibility? I know that when I borrow money, I have to pay it back. If I don’t pay the money back, it will damage my credit and I will not be able to borrow money in the future. If enough people fail to pay their debts, banks make borrowing harder and the same people who don’t want to pay their debt complain that they can’t borrow money.

I charged too much on credit cards and I had to negotiate a repayment plan when the credit card companies raised the interest rate. I cut up my cards. I’m paying the entire amount I borrowed and I make my payments the way I agreed when I negotiated with the companies. I was stupid. It was my fault. No one made me do it. I had to put my big girl panties on and handle it. I didn’t expect anyone to take care of the problem for me.

Debt repayment companies are setting a bad precedent when they feed the concept that you are not responsible for poor choices in life. Following this train of logic, a murderer is not responsible for killing someone because he had a bad childhood, the government isn’t responsible for outsourcing the manufacture of U.S. passports to a company in Thailand because it didn’t realize that terrorist would have access to “real” passports made in an area where terrorist activity is high, B.P. isn’t responsible for the damage in the Gulf because they didn’t know so much damage could be done….

There should be a standard of personal integrity where a person’s word can be relied on, their sworn oath should mean something, and people and companies should hold themselves accountable for their own decisions and actions. When will we quit making excuses for bad decisions and bad behavior? Having someone else pay for your mistakes is not an entitlement. A friend told me one time to put my big girl panties on and handle the problem. It is time that we put our big girl panties and our big boy underwear on and take responsibility for our choices.

No oil, not here, not now

I am at home this weekend. The gardenias are blooming and the air smells wonderful; however it is too hot and humid to spend much time outside enjoying the aroma. I’m sitting in the den looking out at the dogwood and other shrubs and trees in the background. There is so much beauty in nature.

I have spent a great deal of time in the national parks. When I was younger, I backpacked and camped frequently and was able to experience nature. There is nothing like it. I also camped on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay and enjoyed sailing in regattas on the bay.

I’ve been to the Great Salt Lake and marveled at a different type of beauty there. This country has such a variety of landscapes and opportunities to experience nature. My husband and I were talking about our descendents today and how we have forgotten them as we make our own lives easier. He commented that while we have forgotten them, they will not forget about us; nor will they be able to ignore the damage we have done to the environment.

He is right. Today, in addition to the Gulf oil spill, Chevron is trying to stop an oil leak before the oil reaches the Great Salt Lake, and a North Carolina company is battling a natural gas fire caused by a lightening striking at a tank farm near Greensboro, NC. There was a natural gas explosion in Cleburne, Texas earlier this month.

The oil and gas industries create a great number of jobs. The governor of Louisiana doesn’t want a moratorium on oil drilling because of the number of jobs that will be lost. At the same time he is demanding that clean up of the current oil spill be handled immediately. The estimates of how long the clean up will take vary from a year to a hundred years.

I know that the people working in the oil industry need jobs. I also wonder if I’ll ever be able to take my grandchildren to the gulf beaches for a vacation without subjecting them to toxic water. I wonder how far the oil will spread. Will it hit the Atlantic and poison the fish there?

The oil experts are now telling us that there “might be” problems at other oil wells in the Gulf with the same shut off valve that failed at Deep Water Horizon.

Not only is oil a non-renewable resource, it is extremely dangerous to the environment. It contains toxins and carcinogens such as benzene, toluene, and xylenes. The chemicals will enter the food chain in the Gulf, will create health hazards for workers doing the clean up, and will cause pollution of the air when the BP does the necessary burn of the oil.

It is time to completely revamp our energy policy. We need to look at how we can create energy jobs in renewable, clean, sustainable energy. Our slogan can not be “drill here, drill now.” It must be “No oil, not here, not now.”

1-800-gethelp

I listened to President Obama on the radio day before yesterday when he said he was going to kick ass over the oil spill, he just needed to know whose ass to kick. Today he released a video stating that he had limited powers. He couldn’t dive down and plug the leak and he couldn’t suck the oil up with a straw.

Do you think he is feeling desperate? I believe he is. What he does not seem to understand is that people are frustrated over the fact that there is red tape developing between the Coast Guard, the Army Corp of Engineers, BP and other agencies. The frustration is that no one knows who to talk to in order to get answers or action.

BP and the government need a common go-to person who can cut through red tape, give answers and mobilize resources to areas in need. If a city has a problem, or a suggestion for doing something to improve the situation, who do they contact? There is not common 1-800-gethelp phone number and there isn’t a person in charge of organizing all response who is coordinating efforts between BP and the different agencies and cutting through the red tape. There needs to be a unified effort and response. Make it simpler for the people of the Gulf Coast to get what they need or to talk with someone who can get answers for the problem. It is not the reality that causes problems as much as it is the perception of reality that nothing is being done.

If I were president, this is what I would do.

Chicken vs. Skunks

I used to fix chicken for dinner every almost night. It was versatile and cheap. I could do so many things with it. One chicken could be turned into three meals. We had chicken casserole (1/2 of the chicken), chicken salad (the other half of the chicken) and chicken and rice soup (from the skin and bones).

There comes a time when you just don’t want any more of something. By the time my oldest son reached adulthood, he didn’t want any more chicken. He said he had “had enough” and he quit eating it for several years. I wonder what would have happened if Brooks quit eating chicken and started eating skunk meat simply because it was different from what he had been eating.

I can’t image that it would have been healthy for him. Skunks smell so badly that it is difficult to believe the meat would be good.

Well, the voters of South Carolina are so fed up with what is going on in government, they voted for an unknown Democratic Party candidate who is facing felony charges. His name just happened to be first on the ballot and he wasn’t one of the incumbents. So they voted for him.

Please be careful who you vote for. Research the candidates. Don’t get so disgusted with what you have that you vote a skunk into office just to get rid of the unpalatable chicken you have.

Educational Reform

I have a job interview tomorrow. I know that it is one of those courtesy interviews and I really don’t think I’ll get the job even though I have been invited to interview for it. In education, hiring decisions are frequently made before the interview but hiring rules require that jobs be posted and that there are a certain number of candidates interviewed. The business of education is more about who you know rather than what you know. It is very political.

In the last few years I have seen signs that this is changing. To create serious reform administrators need to understand instruction and how learning takes place.

Most teachers work hard and they get little respect from administrators, parents or students. They don’t go to work thinking to themselves “well I think I’ll do a crappy job today.” They are caring and compassionate people who love kids, work to make a difference and go the extra mile. They use part of their pay check every month to buy classroom supplies, give students lunch money, buy performance rewards for their students etc.

Teachers are required to teach all students so that they reach the same level of achievement regardless of student ability level, regardless of whether students come to school or come to class if they come to school. This isn't always possible. Imagine being in a top chef competition and having to make a perfect meal missing half the ingredients while another chef has all of the correct ingredients. A teacher is evaluated based on whether his/her students reached grade level performance, yet the teacher cannot choose the students in his/her classroom.

What happens if one teacher gets all of the gifted students and another gets all of the students who are reading on a 5th grade level when they enter the 9th grade. The teachers are not evaluated based on making progress with students, only on whether the students can work at 9th grade level at the end of the 9th grade. On paper, the gifted teacher looks like she/he is a better teacher. This isn’t always so. Because of this merit pay based on students reaching absolute levels means that the principal’s pet will always have the best students, and ultimately will have the best test scores and with merit pay, they will recieve higher pay.

Schools are always being reformed but reform will fail as long as the people in charge of the “reform” don't understand the issues in the schoolhouse. Imagine if public school teachers made the rules for teaching law or medicine. It would be royally messed up. Truthfully, the people doing the work need to be making the rules. We are the only profession that is not allowed to regulate itself because of politics. Just because a politician went to school does not make him an educational expert any more than going to a doctor makes me a medical expert.

Income loss, foreclosures, job growth, SBA

I’ve heard a lot of commentary about the economy lately. While running for president, Mr. Obama said that he was going to bring change. I believe he has kept his word. The recession that started with the Bush administration and the banking crisis has changed for the worse under Mr. Obama’s leadership. For me personally, things have certainly changed for the worse since Mr. Obama became president.

Although my mortgage is not in foreclosure, many Americans cannot make that claim. The mortgage foreclosure problem is still with us and there is greater difficulty obtaining a new mortgage. As incomes decline, mortgages foreclosures continue.

Additionally, according to Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, the number of small business loans made by the SBA declined by 40 billion dollars over the amount loaned two years ago under President Bush. Bernanke also indicated that only 40% of the small businesses that applied for loans in 2009 had their needs met.

Okay, if small businesses can’t get loans, where are the jobs going to come from? Mr. Obama’s administration is acting slowly in this respect. The jobs he has added have been aimed at providing Mrs. Obama with more secretarial help than any previous first lady, misreporting job gains by manipulating the number of census jobs, and providing federal funds for improvements to be made last year and this year (what will happen to those jobs when the two years are up).

Mr. Obama doesn’t seem to understand the seriousness of the recession and the fact that many people are under employed, working reduced hours, or have exceeded the maximum number of weeks that they can draw unemployment benefits. With the last increase in minimum wage and little money available for businesses to expand, there are fewer jobs. People who are making slightly more than minimum wage or living on fixed incomes are really hurting. Most Americans have suffered a loss of purchasing power as the cost of basic needs has risen.

When the current two year stimulus package is up, we are likely to be worse off than we were before it was passed. There was little in the stimulus package that was aimed at long term sustainable economic growth. Now, we are looking toward what is called a double dip recession unless we do something that promotes private sector business growth.

I would like to suggest that the Small Business Administration temporarily loosen
the lending policies for small businesses. This is one way to jump start new business and create real jobs. Another possibility is that the federal government could increase tax credits for hiring and training unemployed workers and for creating and/or using non-petroleum based energy.

The Oath

When playing the word association game, why is it that the first word to come to mind when someone says “government” is “corruption.” We have a long history of political corruption. When Abraham Lincoln was president, he asked Thaddeus Stevens if Simon Cameron (one of Lincoln’s cabinet members) would steal. Stevens said that he would not “steal a hot stove.” Later, when Cameron confronted Stevens, Stevens was forced to retract. As a retraction he said, “Well, he is very mad and made me promise to retract. I will now do so. I believe I told you he would not steal a red-hot stove. I will now take that back.”

Dealing with political corruption is almost a daily event in America. It is evident from the lowest level of government to the highest level. Right now our former school superintended in a Metro Atlanta County is under indictment for racketeering, a County Commissioner in Mobile is under arrest for murdering his mistress, Rod Blagojevich the former governor of Illinois was arrested for corruption, bribery, wire fraud, and attempting to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat, David Paterson of New York has scandal brewing for interfering in a domestic violence case and soliciting free world series tickets. Paterson replaced Eliot Spitzer when Spitzer resigned after being entangled in a prostitution scandal. I can add John Edwards’ infidelity and Mark Stanford of South Carolina’s infidelity and trip to Argentina to see his girl friend. The list is endless. Tomorrow new names will be added to it.

What is it about power and corruption? Do we only elect people who are crooked enough to handle the other crooks or is it simply that only crooks will run for office?

When I think of all the funds that are spent to elect crooks to office, to keep them in office, to fund their personal projects and to provide for their retirement, I feel sick. Why do we have them swear an oath on the Bible when they are elected? It would be much more appropriate to have them swear the following oath. At least they would be honest when they took it.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of (fill in appropriate title), and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend my personal wealth, self centered desires as well as those of my closest cronies. At no time will I forfeit my own interest for those of the people who elected me. As an elected official, I promise to use your money, your children’s money and your grandchildren’s money in order to achieve these goals.

D-Day

Today is the 66th anniversary of D-Day. For two years the allied forces had been gathering and training troops for an invasion of Nazi occupied France. If this invasion failed, it would be difficult for the allies to gather enough trained troops and equipment to try again.

The allies used trickery to make the Germans believe that the invasion would happen at Calais and they assembled enough men to attack the Germans at Normandy that they could “afford” to lose a large portion of them to make sure the invasion was successful. The goal was to put so many troops on the beach at one time that the Germans could not kill them all.

How do we calculate acceptable losses? The soldiers in the European Theater of Operation did not want to be part of the “acceptable losses” but they went anyway. They landed on the beaches of Normandy, they watched as their friends died beside them, yet they continued to attack the Atlantic wall of defenses prepared by the Germans.

What drives people to sacrifice their lives to protect the greater good? What makes people sacrifice anything for the greater good? It is a sense of right and wrong. It is the belief that things will be worse if the sacrifice is not made.

Today, I want to thank the families of the people who have made the ultimate sacrifice and I want to thank soldiers who are away from their families serving our country. I also want to ask that we, as individuals in the nation, look at what we are doing individually and how we are behaving politically, socially and economically to make their sacrifices worthwhile.

Response to Hayward's "I want my life back"

Today, they were bragging on television about how much oil had been recovered from the leaking well. It seems to me that everything that BP has done since the explosion has been aimed at recovering oil and not at stopping the leak. I also take issue with the word “leak” as well. I have a leak in my bathtub faucet. The oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico from the oil well is more of an oil geyser than a leak.

Let me see if I understand what is really going on with BP. They are now able to recover 5000 barrels a day so that they have more barrels of oil to sell but there is still “some” oil is still “leaking” into the Gulf. Mr. Hayward, the CEO of BP is ready to get this emergency over with so that he can go home and "get his life back."

When Mr. Hayward finally is able to go home to England and live his “life,” the people on the Gulf coast will not have their lives back. The oil plumes that BP denies are below the surface have yet to come ashore. Sea life is dead or dying, estuaries are contaminated, beaches are ruined and oil is still gushing from the well in spite of the newest oil recovery effort. People working in the oil clean-up are also suffering health problems as a result of the exposure.

I understand Mr. Hayward’s sentiments. No-one wants to have to deal with something of this magnitude. If anyone wishes this had not happened, he does. However, he will not get sympathy from anyone on the Gulf Coast. He at least will have a life to go back to, while they will have to live in and with the results of the disaster.

Mr. Hayward did not make the decisions that caused the explosion but the company’s payment of bribes to inspectors did. Don’t you know that he now wishes he had set a different tone with his employees? It would have been less costly to have followed the safety inspection regulations than to clean up the mess, if it can be cleaned up.

The people of the Gulf Coast will struggle through this just like they struggled through Camille, Andrew, Katrina, Ike and other disasters. The biggest difference between this disaster and those disasters, is that this one could have been prevented by the use of integrity.

The big questions remain. How long will it be before BP stops the “leak?” How much life will be lost as a result of it? How long will it be before the damage is repaired? How far will the oil spread now that it is in the loop current? What happens if a hurricane comes through the Gulf?

Mr. Hayward, it will be a long time before you can "have your life back" and even longer before you will not think about this problem.

Creating new jobs

President Obama claims that the number of jobs has increased in the United States and has been celebrating the fact that the country is now in a state of recovery. The jobs added to the nation’s job recovery numbers are only significant in government service jobs, particularly the Census Bureau.

I find it hard to believe that we are in a true economic recovery. When teachers are laid off across the country, after several years of belt tightening, it tells me that the economy is actually getting worse.

I don’t know how long it will be before we have true recovery, but I have a suggestion that might help the people in political office reconsider their economic policy.

When my youngest son was young, he was the banker for the other two children. If they needed to borrow money, they went to him. He charged them interest and they were able to get what they wanted.

Where do you go when you need money for something? You go to the person with money! The older children would create incentives for Charles so that he would lend them money. In practical terms, if we want to create jobs, who has the money to do it?

The answer is simple. People with money! We don’t go to the poor for investment capital because they don’t have the money. The government has to raise taxes if they spend. Who is left? The rich or middle class with a willingness to invest and take reasonable risks with their money.

To create jobs, we have to provide some type of incentive for people with money to invest their money. Without incentives, Charles would not have loaned money to his brother and sister. Without incentives, investors will not invest. Without investment, there are no new jobs.

The socialist concept of government being the ultimate employer only works to a limited degree. If the government wants to create real job growth, it will happen when people with money are rewarded for investing in the private sector and in technological innovations.

The apology

Jim Joyce made a mistake. He made a bad call during a baseball game and the bad call cost pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game. When Joyce saw the replay of the play he admitted he had made a mistake but the results of his call remained the same. Armando Galarraga still missed his perfect game.

Mistakes happen in life. Everyone makes them and they move on to the next event in their lives. I would hate to always be judged by one event, one era in my life, or by someone else’s interpretation of what I did.

As I watched the news tonight, I was impressed by the character of both Joyce and Galarraga. Joyce apologized and admitted he made a mistake and Galarraga recognized that mistakes are made. Galarraga, although harmed by Joyce’s call, understood that sometimes things don’t turn out the way they are suppose to and he accepted the apology. The two men, then went out on the field and played ball again.

We need politicians and the media to take lessons from these two men. Greatness comes not from being perfect or showing an image of perfection but from recognizing that you have made a mistake and being willing to shake hands and continue to play the game. With the media harping on every mistake politicians makes, there is an increasing energy spent on spinning and protecting image. Politicians are human, they have made mistakes in the past and they will make them today and tomorrow. Good men and women do not run for political office because they do not want their past to be exploited on the news and their families to be targeted.

There is a difference in reporting the news and sensationalizing it. The media needs to look at how they report on candidates.

The other side of the problem is politicians. They need to do their jobs, make the best calls they can with the knowledge they have, acknowledge when they make a mistake, take responsibility for it, authentically apologize and move on and continue playing the game. They cannot become bogged down in the name calling that results when the game doesn’t go their way.

Maybe we should let Joyce and Galarraga teach them what is really important. Civility and understanding go a long way in making things better.

Kudzu

I was driving down the road today and I looked at what appeared to be a mountain of Kudzu. It made me start thinking about good intentions gone awry.
When Kudzu was first introduced in the United States, it was believed that it would help stop soil erosion problems. What wasn’t anticipated was that Kudzu would take over the landscape and that there would be problems controlling the Kudzu once it took root.

Kind hearted snake owners, whose pets had become too large to manage, released their pet pythons in the Everglade National Park because they didn’t want to kill their pets. Now we have a growing problem with pythons breeding in the southern part of Florida. Once again, an individual had good intentions for their pet, but they didn’t anticipate or expect that other python owners doing the same thing would cause the introduction of a foreign species in the United States.

Likewise, the introduction of foreign ideas can also cause problems. The idea that everyone is so special that they are exempt from the rules is developing with our children and is taking a toll on civility and decency.

The incivility begins to show itself in school. Students in school will curse at teachers for “disrespecting” them. While I always like to treat students respectfully, when did it become disrespectful to ask a student to show up on time, sit down in class, put up a cell phone, and be quiet during instruction?
Respect is something that is earned, it isn’t an entitlement. People who demonstrate rude and immoral behavior do not deserve to be treated as royalty. At some point in time, life teaches everyone that there is certain authority that we must obey and there should be certain lines that cannot be crossed. People who behave badly should not be placed on a pedestal or be able to earn money from their bad behavior. I question the value of the media creating celebrity status for poor conduct and low behavior.

A current example is the celebrity status of Rielle Hunter. Her claim to fame is that she slept with John Edwards and bore his child. When did being bad become “good?” I know that it isn’t possible to legislate morality, and I wouldn’t do it even if it was possible. However, the message that our children are hearing on television, at the movies and in music is that “being bad” is good for them and it is being reinforced through the difficulty of suspending students who have “behavior disorders” from school. The intentions of the rules for suspending these students are good and valid, the results are incivility in class, disruption of the educational environment for other students in the class, and difficulty in retaining teachers.

A salute to the Military

Today is Memorial Day. I hugged my father good bye this morning as I left to return to Atlanta. He was so emotional about Memorial Day. His frail body shook as he cried about the people who served in the military and who have died or been injured as a result of their service. He asked me to remember them today.

When I was very young, Dad was in the Air Force and we were stationed in El Paso, Texas at Biggs Air Force Base. At that time Dad was part of a squadron of Tanker planes that refueled other planes in the air. I’m not sure about what happened, but one of the planes exploded and the entire crew was lost. As a child, I went with my mother to make condolence calls on the families of the crew members. The flags on the base were flown a half mast and there I felt as if the entire base had become a place of mourning. When the grieving family members weren’t present, there were hushed conversations and quiet remarks made by the wives expressing not only sorrow but relief that it wasn’t one of their husbands.

Growing up in a family where duty to country was honored, I have a great respect for the members of today’s military. They face a greater challenge than generations of military before them. They have to fight on foreign territory without knowing who the enemy is. They fight to stop oppression and build sustainable democracies. Most of all, they fight to protect us from attacks against our own country.

The members of the armed forces leave their families and risk their lives and their safety to eliminate the training grounds that breed terrorists.

I am thankful that they are willing to serve their countries, to risk their lives for me. I know that when a member of the armed forces falls in combat today, the hushed conversations among family members on our military bases are still filled with sorrow and at the same time relief that it wasn’t their husband or father who was killed or wounded.

Members of the military deserve to receive pay and benefits that keep their families off of food stamps. They deserve to go into combat situations with the best equipment and intelligence possible. Most of all they deserve our gratitude for doing a difficult job with honor and for the sacrifices they make on a daily basis.

In the name of Jesus

I have a strong belief in God and my spiritual life has played an important part of my adult life so I don’t want anyone to take this as making fun of religious belief. That is far from my intent.

I went over to someone’s house, years ago, and she asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee. “Yeah, sure that would be good.” I answered. She went over to the coffee pot and pulled the basket out to put in a new filter and coffee. As she pulled the filter out, roaches ran everywhere. She raised her hand and said “In the name of Jesus, be gone. Roaches be gone!”

I am a believer, but I was shocked at her actions. I told her to get a can of bug spray and not to call on Jesus. To me this was something that she needed to handle and not something that needed to be turned over to the Almighty.

Why is it that we expect God to handle every thing? Common sense tells me that there are some things that I have to take care of myself. While I frequently pray about actions I am going to take, I cannot neglect to take care of the basics responsibilities of living.

As a country, we use the expression “In God We Trust” but I wonder if God can trust us to take care of things that need to be done. There are expectations that we will act with honor; that we will take care of things that are within our realm of responsibility.

I should not expect others to pay for my foolishness and I certainly don’t expect the government to step in and take care of me when there is a problem that I should be handling myself. The government, like the Almighty, should be called on to protect us when we can’t take care if ourselves. In both relationships, I have personal responsibility.

I cannot protect myself from industries that pollute the water and the air. The government has a role in protecting me in this instance. I like to know how many calories are in foods and what the ingredients are. Organizing disaster relief is a function of government, but why in the world do people expect the government to take care of everything?

People live in flood zones, but don’t have flood insurance. They expect the government to help them after a flood. People bought houses they couldn’t afford. With their knowledge, mortgage companies falsified applications so that those mortgages would be approved. When the economy went south, those same people expected the government to step in and help them. I could write a book about other examples but I’ll stop with these two.

We need to handle some things our self.

Dealing with mess

One of my best friends came to Atlanta today so that she could ride with me to see my parents in South Alabama over the Memorial Day weekend. My youngest son cleaned up the condo so that it would be clean when she got here.

He picked up everything and put it in my bedroom. The rest of the condo looks great, but I almost had a stroke when I saw my bedroom. Papers and files that I had sorted and was working with on the dining room table are lumped together and dumped in the floor. Dirty clothes are in a Rubbermaid tote next to the dresser. Boxes and bags of books that I had brought home from school, because I was afraid they would get misplaced over the summer, are in the middle of my bed.

As I lift things and sort through them, I expect to see a box of dirty dishes at any minute (I hope I’m wrong). It reminds me of when my daughter cleaned her bedroom before company. She put the lid down on the toilet in her bathroom and stuffed everything into the bathroom then locked and closed the door.

When my stepfather took his knife out and unlocked the door, piles of stuff fell out on him.

If you don’t do things right when you clean up a situation, you create a bigger mess or you just make a mess in another area. It is impossible to hide mess. You have to deal with it or it re-emerges in a different place.

There are several rules about dealing with a messy situation:

1. You can’t hide it. It eventually comes out.
2. The more you stir it up, the worse it becomes.
3. To eliminate it, you have to start with the root cause.
4. Sometimes you have to get rid of things.

Our government has become so dysfunctional that all we get from Washington is mess and messy situations. We have corruption, bribery, lobbyist and unethical behavior as the political norm. The media goes beyond reporting and they stir the situation to sensationalize the news (they don’t have to stir much, the news is pretty sensational without help). The root cause of the problem is embedded in a polarized Congress and a party system that chains members to party lines. Additionally, we have a system of political pressure groups and lobbyist who only look out for themselves. Sometimes as citizens, we need to use our power of the vote to clean house so that we can maintain a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

The Cookie Jar

When my children were little they played the blame game. They would blame each other for whatever happened. One day one of them broke my cookie jar. It really didn’t matter who broke the cookie jar, the results were the same. All of the cookies, along with the shards and slivers of glass that had been the cookie jar, went into the trash can.

Living on a tight budget, I could not afford to buy more cookies until payday. I loved cookies as much as the children did. All of us suffered the consequences for one person’s actions. It did not matter if they intended to break the cookie jar or not. It was broken and the cookies were gone.

Listening to Transocean, BP, and Halliburton blame each other during the recent public hearings didn’t make me feel warm and cozy. They sounded like older versions of my children shifting the blame and saying “not me.”

Halliburton with its history of cheating the citizens of the United States with cost-plus contracts and with its corruption charges in the Nigerian oil industry is one of the usual suspects in contract corruption. It reminds me of my sneakiest child; the one who was usually at the bottom of the trouble. Add to this the information that government inspectors and employees of the agency charged with protecting environmental interest were dipping their hands into the pockets of the oil industry in exchange for not doing their jobs. My youngest son would charge the other two to keep his mouth shut.

Halliburton might be completely innocent of any wrongdoing. BP might be innocent. Transocean might be innocent. Wrongdoing should be determined by an investigative panel with knowledge of best practices in the oil field and not by speculation of the media and the public.

At this point, it doesn’t matter which of the children was responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf, we all have to pay; however, we should ultimately hold those responsible for the accident accountable. The time for childish blame games is over. This isn’t a cookie jar.

The kids will pay

Today is a furlough day. All teachers in my school system are taking today off without pay. Of course all days off are without pay unless it is one of our accumulated sick days. Teachers only get paid for the contracted days they work. In spite of popular opinion they do not get paid holidays. Teachers take reduced salaries through the months they work, so that they can receive equal paychecks during the calendar year.

President Obama and the economic officials are telling us that we are now in a state of economic recovery. It doesn’t feel like a recovery to me. It isn’t that teachers are being given furlough days that bothers me. It is much more than that. Besides the furlough days, the metro area school systems have been in the process of laying off teachers and support personnel, increasing the number of students in the classroom, reducing the music and art programs in schools, eliminating effective programs and closing small schools in an effort to make the budget work.

It is proven that children do better in smaller classes and that the arts enhance education.

Teachers will do what they have always done next year. They will go into the classroom and teach to the best of their ability with the resources they have available but in the long run children will still pay the price.

This situation is not something that is happening only in the metro Atlanta area. School systems across the nation are finding it more and more difficult to meet the needs of children in woefully underfunded educational systems. According to the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, all powers not granted to the federal government nor denied to the states is reserved for the states. This includes education; however, the federal government has already stepped into the domain of education through several funding programs that could be relaxed a little in light of the current economic situation.

The federal government, in an effort to provide educational opportunity for the poor, provides funds for reading and math through Title I programs. The use of these federal funds are tightly regulated and closely audited. It is probably the only government program so tightly regulated. Since these are time of unparalleled difficulty as state tax bases and sales tax collections decline, it would be appropriate to liberalize some of the Title I spending to allow school districts to offset funding shortfalls from state and local funding sources. This should not be a permanent solution but could be used to temporary offset the loss of available funding.

Remember that the children we educate today will be drawing your blood at the hospital tomorrow, fixing your vehicles, and inventing the machines that might save your lives. They will be the artists, musicians, engineers, doctors, nurses, scientists, teachers and lawyers in our future. We cannot let them down.

Bubba can save America

I want to talk about Bubba. In the south, Bubba is an endearing nickname for the man who can fix almost anything. Today, more often than not, Bubba is a college graduate with a degree in Agri-science. Anyway, if something is broken, Bubba can fix it. He welds. He engineers and rigs equipment that he needs. He modifies what he buys to meet his specific needs. He is a natural born problem solver.

Look at those two southern gentlemen who proved that putting bahia and bermuda grass on the oil spill would absorb the oil. The hay absorbs the oil and can be scooped up like sea weed. While this solution only works for the surface oil slick and not the deep water oil plumes, it is only one example of the problem solving that occurs when there is a need.

My father is most certainly a “Bubba.” Until recent health issues occurred, if something broke, he would fix it. He is undoubtedly one of the smartest men I know. After a plane crash, instead of stopping work, he built machines that would help him continue to work. It was as easy for him to build an addition on the house and to engineer an elevator outside so that they would not have to climb the steps or carry groceries up the steps at their river house as it was for him to fix a car or airplane.

Inside the average American, Bubba’s spirit lurks. There is an unharnessed creativity and ingenuity that could change the future of this country. Somewhere, some Bubba has ideas about how we can solve the energy issue but because he is not from a doctoral program at some research laboratory, his ideas are not taken seriously. I would like to challenge every Bubba in the United States to work on their ideas and to put the oil companies out of business. This is a matter of national security and our future economic stability.