HEARD ON THE MEDIA AND IN MY HEAD

Re: tragedy shooting at Ft. Hood 11/5/09, : 'Ambulances were driving by, their sirens flashing.' delivered by an adorable young blonde newscaster.

On capturing soldiers, "Put up your hands and throw down your arms." by another newscaster a while ago as he described soldiers capturing enemies.

John Boehner, who should know better, quoted (11/5) in a speech to Michelle Bachman's motley group: waving a folded up copy of, he said, the Constitution, and proceeded to quote from it...but, in fact was quoting from the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, as did another speaker, pontificating that the Constitution which starts 'We the people....' also from the Declaration of Independence. We certainly do not need politicians who cannot differentiate between the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution...nor do we need them in leadership positions as House Minority Leader and loud mouth.

Michelle Bachman was quoting a long dead politician as saying we need a revolution every now and again. Unless I misunderstood what I learned in government classes, this is a no-no and rather subject to punishment...plotting to overthrow the government. Am I mistaken or was a law passed to change this, too, when my back was turned? Click here to learn how people lobby for your total destruction in the name of your salvation. She makes a strong plea, "Everyone needs to come to Washington tomorrow." That request really makes a lot of sense, doesn't it. As much as all the rest of the nonsense she purports to be truth!

For many years I have maintained that political jobs should not be voted on by people who have no idea what it takes to do the job, but rather, there should be tests and standards to be passed, just like any other meaningful job. The government should look at its Bible as having been written at a time when today's world could not have been anticipated, just as the Holy Bible no longer relates to the current real world though many people like to read into it whatever they want it to say.

THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NOT AGREEING AND BEING DISAGREEABLE

I've often wondered how one gets to be considered disagreeable. (dis·a·gree·a·ble (ds-gr-bl) adj. 1. Not to one's liking; unpleasant or offensive. 2. Having a quarrelsome, bad-tempered manner.) If one assumes that agreeable is the opposite, it should fit this definition: "Main Entry: agree·able Pronunciation: \ə-ˈgrē-ə-bəl\ Function: adjective Date: 14th century
1 : pleasing to the mind or senses especially as according well with one's tastes or needs
2 : ready or willing to agree or consent

That I have always felt different than most of the people around me stems from my inability to fit into either of those two definitions. Like the song made popular by Frank Sinatra, I Did It My Way and still do. However, I do not accept that my manner is bad-tempered or quarrelsome. I just see the world through a multi-faceted percept, perhaps like through the eyes of a housefly. Having sincerely tried to think like I was taught by my parents failed on too many points to discuss. When I was young I would be told that I acted older than my age, then patted on my head. (I always tagged along with older sibs). Now that I am old, I'm told I do not act my age; now younger. When that polar switch got made is lost to me. The polls that ask if you are 64 and older as the last age category mentioned make far more sense to me. There is something comforting about that span...64 to forever or oblivion, whichever comes first.

Politics and Religion have too often presented me with illogical logic. Does no one outside of New Jersey just accept that Obama won only his own election and didn't lose Corzine's because Corzine was just a BAD governor who lost it himself. The people of New Jersey were not voting against the Democratic party; they were voting against Governor Corzine. His ratings, before Obama ever made the mistake of trying to salvage a governor's vote, were low, a clear indication that the New Jersians just didn't think he was doing a good job for them.

I'm an Independent voter, which translates to: I do not vote with a party, I vote for ideas that I think will work and for people I think might be able to get them to work. When either party gets out of hand, a cleaner house is needed and individuals brought back to reality. It seems that Washington insulates too many politicians from the real world and they cease to know what their constituents want and get overwhelmed with the fear that they will alienate people and not get re-elected. They forget they were not sent to Washington to run the country but to vote to run it as they are advised by the majority of their constituents. Hanging on to your safe future on the job may be important but should not be at the top of the priority list.

When the talking heads come up with their wildest speculations, it always surprises me that they rarely have done their homework and gotten the answers they give from a more proper source than their own fantasies. I'm presuming that the media is taking the cheap way out, just as the reality shows did, and cast their performers to keep the Nielsens as high as possible. After all, massive viewings bring ad money, not quality shows that the masses don't appreciate...leave those for Public Television, right?

WHEN YOU ASS/U/ME

As Benny Hill used to say, when you assume, you make an ass (out of) u and me. Well, today the talking heads on cable media were doing just that. In a very insulting manner, they were blaming the change of gubernatorial political parties on a denouncement of Obama. This is terribly insulting to voters, many of whom did not vote for a party nor as a statement other than being (possibly Independent voters) who vote the candidate they believe to be the best choice for a variety of reasons, not the party.

If voters are like I, they might just want to split party lines away from the national politics. MSNBC guests pointed out that for the past 9 elections, Virginia has voted in a governor who represented the opposite party of the President. I wonder how pundits could relate this to Obama.

For those who believe that God is talking directly to them, it is not difficult to understand their assumptions. Those of us who believe the voices in our head are either our own, conscience,or recall of parental dictates. They are not omens or predictors of the future now does following them give us a free pass to the mythical Heaven.

For those who assume Obama is a failure, I ask them is that their wish (a la Limbaugh)or are they so out of touch that they believe that what took years to happen can be undone immediately without the cooperation of the House and Senate who created the problems in the first place.

THE CREED OF THE CEO HAS BEEN: IN GREED WE TRUST

Without a doubt there are very reasonable articles written to convince us that less government interference is to be desired. However, those who make the suggestions are assuming that children will not revert to behavior as in the novel Lord of the Flies.

Those of you who realize that adults revert to being young boys when there are no rules, enforcement of laws, or reason of safety to remain within them can consider the lesson the same as history. Those who choose to ignore history are doomed to repeat it. During the last 8 years we watched Greenspan allow an economic climate to run totally out of control.

CEOs are paid too much for what they do; too much more than their average worker By F. John Reh, About.com. Reh wrote: "According to Business Week, the average CEO of a major corporation made 42 times the average hourly worker's pay in 1980. By 1990 that had almost doubled to 85 times. In 2000, the average CEO salary reached an unbelievable 531 times that of the average hourly worker." This certainly suggests that there was not a conscientious attempt to care for the workers and that the top executives were on a runaway train to wealth so far beyond the common man that those with some morality might have stopped to question the fairness of it all. However, fairness is not an element of greed.

Bringing salaries back into a reasonable perspective is not Socialism, though there are those using that argument. Needless to say, that argument springs forth from the lips of those who have the most to lose if morality and fairness once again became part of the corporative world.

OF COURSE, IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE

This story has to be read in a boy's own words. There are always people around to say, well it could have been worse. I suppose there is truth in that but is there comfort in knowing that someone disqualifies your suffering because it could have been worse and wasn't?

Just when you begin to think the world may not be so bad after-all, you read a story like this one. Click here.