Channeling Mother - "For goodness' sake, Al, go home and take care of your family."

Today it was reported that Albert Gore, III, was nailed at 2:15 a.m. for driving at 100 miles per hour on a southern California freeway. In the car - which smelled of freshly smoked marijuana - the cops found a smorgasbord of drugs including: speed; uppers, downers, and pain killers.

Reports said that young Al's problems started in 1996 when he was bounced from the highly exclusive public school he attended just outside D.C. Back then he was caught smoking or possessing marijuana.

Also back then, his father was just completing four years as Vice-President/Lap Dog to Bill Clinton.

This young man is the same child cited by Al as having almost died when hit by an automobile - before Al Senior's very eyes - on a roadway. The story was used by the V.P. in various speeches during that period of his career.

It was a story meant to show that the future V.P. had his family priorities straight and that he had learned what, in life, really mattered.

Well - since that time, Al the Third, has been nailed several times by cops. Some of these nailings involved drugs, some were automobile violations and some - like this last one, involved both.

In those earlier years, young Al the Third had to bear up to the publicity created when his mother testified before congress about posting warning labels on CD's regarding violent and lewd lyrics. Though I believe his mother, Tipper, was correct in her position, nevertheless, I would imagine that young Al must have taken some awful teasing and ribbing about his mother - [she who was ALWAYS described by the press at that time as a 'former drummer' in a rock and roll band] - by his classmates.

I'm not saying she shouldn't have expressed her opinion. I am saying that I have little doubt that such maternal opinions might have caused him problems at school.

Additionally, we all know that his father has more piety than the average monastery. His old man knows several things: how all of us should live; who should be allowed to contradict him [answer: nobody - debate not allowed]; that he's a modern day prophet and visionary who only now is being recognized for his genius and prescience; that he thinks he and Tipper were the direct inspiration for Erik Siegel's "Love Story" characters; and that while he was 're-inventing the government' as Vice-President, his immediate boss, the President, was getting fellated by an intern while conducting business conversations on the Oval Office phone. [That act alone gives a whole new dimension to the phrase 'multi-tasking.']

Anyway - did all the activities of his parents have a negative effect, the results of which were, in part, played out this week on a California freeway?

Could be. I don't know. Unlike Al the Third's father, I am not an expert in much of anything.

But - there are two things I have going for me in writing this column:

Personal experience as a student, and personal experience as a teacher.

My mother was a high school teacher at the high school I attended. She was quite respected and was quite a great and wise character.

I loved my mother as deeply as can any son and as a result, I never told her what her teaching activity did to me.

What it did, and what she never knew, was this:

During my two years in junior high school, I was repeatedly told by my friends' older brothers who were then in high school, who was planning to beat me up when I eventually arrived in high school. It was made clear that the 'beatings' were to be a way to 'get' at my mother for perceived slights.

I spent the summer between junior high school and high school with my stomach in a rather terrified knot.

For the first two years of high school, I walked with great dread through the halls of the building. I feared going to the men's room.

On several occasions I was beaten up. I was also knocked around, repeatedly threatened, cornered and intimidated and, in general made to fear my daily entry into the school building. And why?

Why indeed. These bums did not, as it turned out, do it to me because my mother had done something to them. In fact, my mother actually got along with the bums who attended my high school back then.

I would guess-timate that only about five per cent of the harassment had anything to do with an 'action' taken by my mother.

The bums who made my life hell did so because they were son's of bitches. They were stupid young men - and, without exception - they were cowards.

Or - as we called them then and now: they were bullies.

But, no matter what you call them, they had mental baggage that made them vicious.

Again - I must emphasize that my mother was not some 'crone' who was hated by students. In fact, she worked very well with the slower students and often had some of the toughest guys in her classes.

She also never had any real disciplinary trouble. She was a veteran teacher and was respected across the board. In all the years she taught there, her classrooms were orderly, disciplined, interesting, and productive.

In all her years there, she sent only one person to the front office for a discipline problem. The reason she even did it on that occasion was because she feared that, if the boy remained in the room, a real brawl would break out. It was simply a matter of defusing the situation.

So - she handled her classes well and had few discipline problems. Plus, those she had, she handled herself and handled quite well.

So - why did I go through such hell?

Again - the demented s.o.b.'s who made my life hell did so just because they could. There really is no other reason.

Now - imagine being young Albert Gore, III. Your parents are out on the lecture circuit discussing morality - telling people that they have the 'answers' to the ways we should live - etc. etc.

If you're young Al, your father - whether with deep sincerity or not - has already used you - when you were about nine years old - as a 'speech prop' when he was trying to beat Clinton for the nomination in '91.

In what some believed was a craven attempt to acquire sympathy and to get some street credibility in the: "I have suffered just as have you commoners," department, Senator Al used to talk publicly about two events in his life: his older sister dying of lung cancer and the day an automobile almost killed this same son - Al the III, right before Senator Al's eyes.

Young Al the III's accident was a regular staple in Senator Al's speeches. Of course, sometimes the kid was right there with him and had to listen to the speech and - no doubt - relive that accident to some extent.

Now, I know nothing about Al, III, other than what I've read in the papers and heard in his dad's speeches.

Nevertheless - I cannot even begin to imagine the hellish crap that that boy has undoubtedly been through in his life due to the high profile of his parents.

Can you just imagine how 'ducky' it is to be in junior high school while your mother is campaigning against 'dirty lyrics' in rock songs? Imagine how the bullies treated Al III when pictures of his mother appeared on front pages of newspapers showing her when she was a 'rock and roll' drummer in her own band in her youth.

Then, all during your high school years, your father is vice-president to a president who is known for: screwing a former t.v. reporter/lounge singer known as Gennifer Flowers; is accused of requesting sexual favors from a young gal who is later called 'trailer trash' by the president's colleagues; and who is ultimately impeached for lying about receiving oral sex in the oval [oral?] office?

I'm not just beating up on Clinton here. Sure - V.P. Al didn't commit those 'sins.' But - kids being kids, can you not just imagine what Albert III's life was like?

"Hey, Alby, Baby, is your dad gettin' any of Bill's 'left-overs?' Was your dad there when Monica was doin' Bill? Your mom's gettin' long in the tooth, y'uh, know - so - just maybe - your dad's gettin' some 'referral's from the Prez' when your momma ain't lookin'."

Also, lest we forget, the Clinton/Gore administration was the first presidential administration to openly champion homosexual rights in general and in the military in particular. Adolescent boys can be vicious when they can use homosexual issues to taunt another kid. Even though young Al, III is most likely not gay, it wouldn't matter. The bullies would be brutal: "Hey, Alby - your daddy and Bill are in big with the 'pansies and fairies' ain't they? Does your daddy think a Drill Sargent oughtta wear a dress?"

Oh man - the potential harassment that I imagine in this column probably doesn't come close to what this young man suffered through his adolescent and teen years.

It must have been brutal at school and elsewhere among his peers for Albert III whose junior high and high school years ran concurrently with his father's eight years as vice-president.

On top of it all - he then has his father run for president. By then his father was the subject of merciless satire and parody for his inability to tell jokes effectively - and for his marionette-like woodeness.

His father was parodied on Saturday Night Live, on Leno, Letterman - you name it! Candidate Al was a punch-line in many a joke.

And, if I'm right, has the Gore family dealt with the such issues of harassment?

I doubt it. For that matter - I doubt that Alby has ever told them even one per cent of the crap he's been through due to their public personas.

So - to that extent - I'm guessing that V.P. Al and Tipper are unaware of how much he's probably suffered. If they aren't aware, then it's hard to blame them for not connecting his drug use and delinquency to consequences he may have suffered from being their child.

Yeah, it sounds like I'm defending Tipper and Al. And, I am - a bit. True, I cannot stand the former V.P., but I can empathize with the family. And my theory that the parents are not completely to blame is based on the premise that, indeed, Tipper and Al may have no idea that their son may have truly suffered a great deal of harassment and thus incubated some terrible resentments.

Why do I think the Gores are probably ignorant of their son's suffering? Well - I'm extrapolating based on my personal experience.

As I wrote above, I went through hell in high school. But I never once reported any of it to my mother or father nor to any school official.

I did not tell them for four reasons: My mother loved to teach. It would have ruined teaching for her if she'd known the fall-out in my life.

Secondly: Squealing would only produce more beatings and punishment.

Third: If I didn't learn to handle my own problems - I never would.

Fourth: [and most importantly] I was growing bigger and the older thugs were graduating. I knew it was a matter of time before I was a junior/senior and I'd be at the top of the 'pecking' food chain.

It was knowing that the crapola would totally end with high school graduation that made everything bearable.

But what of young Albert? When will his torment ever end?

His father has never stopped shoving his own face in the public eye. The father's has been parodied, imitated, scorned and been the object of immensely funny [or, depending on one's viewpoint, immensely vicious] satires.

It should be apparent to anyone watching the Gore family, that former Vice-President Al Gore is the 'child' cheered on by the family. He's the one who's the focus of the families energies and attention.

Perhaps the social pressures on young Albert have been too much.

He can never compete with his father's accomplishments and no matter what his father accomplishes - it is never 'enough.' His father always has to be 'out there' - pushing his mug and his philosophy and his so-called ideas.

Young Albert is now twenty-four years old.

The ages of twenty to thirty are the period when a young man should start making his mark and name in life. That's when his parents should be rooting him on.

But it is his father who is STILL out there, pounding the pavement, trying - at 59 years of age - to build his 'legacy.' And - from what pundits can guess - his father is still trying to get that 'big job promotion' that he's wanted his entire life - that is to say: the presidency of the United States.

In a way, young Albert is a bit like a 'Prince Charles.' He can never be a big cheese while his father is alive since his father can never stop trying to be king himself.

Getting back to dealing with abusive behavior: I'll also bet that young Albert has handled the incredible multitude of embarassing and angering situations involving his parents in the way I did: He has probably kept his mouth shut.

As noted, in some circles his father is a laughing stock as a 'wooden' and uncomfortable speaker with little real humor. And - as noted above - the second half of his father's vice-presidency was riddled with scorn and ridicule since it was dominated by the actions of Al's boss whose inability to resist oral sex was legendary.

As some national news anchors noted: They had never even referred to the phrase 'oral sex' on the national airways in any context whatsoever until Clinton's escapades during the Clinton/Gore years became famous.

Just this past year, Al the Third's dad was the subject of a merciless parody on the Comedy Channel's television series entitled 'South Park.'

I confess to a guilty pleasure: I am a huge fan of 'South Park.' I saw the show in which they made fun of former V.P. Al Gore.

More importantly, since Al the Third is twenty-four years old - I should point out that 'South Park' is a major - and I do mean major - hit show within that age group. Therefore - without doubt - virtually every one of young Al's peers as well as - probably - young Al himself - saw the episode I'm referencing.

Here I'm going to give you a brief run-down on that episode. Just imagine what young Al's days were like after this show ran.

In the Gore episode, V.P. Al is portrayed as an eccentric dooms-day lunatic. He stomps around the little Colorado town of South Park warning everyone that the horrible, vicious creature known as 'Man-Bear-Pig' is lurking in the woods. 'Man-Bear-Pig' is a blatant metaphor for 'global warming' throughout the episode.

Gore's character cannot convince everyone that the legendary 'Man-Bear-Pig' exists. Soooo what does he do? He dresses up in a combined man/bear/pig costume and haunts the woods.

The town's people decide he is a completely deranged idiot. Throughout the show, everytime he appears, characters make fun of him. And, everytime someone makes fun of Gore, another character says, and I paraphrase:

"Don't pick on him. He's lonely. He has no friends. No one likes him. He's just yelping about 'Man-Bear-Pig' to get attention. It's just something he made up 'cuz he's lonely. He's really just a harmless and partially demented fool.'

At the episode's finale, the Gore character is verbally shredded by a nine year old character who really insults him with quite carefully crafted psychological insights and repeats - 'Look, we know you're lonely. We know no one likes you. But you don't have to go around dressed as 'Man-Bear-Pig' to get attention,"...etc.

Can you imagine being twenty-four years old and having your own father [for whom you are the 'namesake'] humiliated on a show that is perhaps the most popular comedy show among your college educated age group - a show that virtually every one of your peers has seen?

Whew! It must have been brutal for young Al when that episode aired - as well every time it's been re-run. And believe me - it has been re-run several times.

So - I suspect that young Albert bears a lot of emotional scars and baggage.

And - let's take a look at the boy's chronology. He started getting into trouble with marijuana at the exclusive St. Alban's school in Washington, D.C. - the same school his father attended when he was thirteen. That would be the same year that his father was re-elected as vice-president and the same year that the young boy's adolescence - as well as that of any peer/bullies - would begin its full bloom.

He's been caught two or three times since the age of thirteen. That doesn't mean he's only been in trouble three times. It means he's only been caught three times. I suspect that, since the age of thireteen, he's been in trouble right along through this present incident.

And let's look more closely at his latest bust.

We have a young man, twenty-four years of age, possessed of every educational, financial, and societal advantage - alone - driving a car at 100 miles per hour down a southern California freeway - stoned on pot and with his car loaded with other drugs for his own use - none of which he attempted to conceal.

And - according to cops - as soon as they pulled him over he admitted who he was - and not in a way that implied he was seeking special treatment.

One doesn't need to be a 'shrink' to recognize a cry - or rather - a 'scream' for help and a 'shout' for some attention! The kid is a hurtin buckaroo!

Where was dad? He was out saving the world. I assume his mother was probably lining up the rock bands that are always so essential to saving mankind as well.

Anyway -- I never talked about my nasty high school experiences with my parents -- nope -- not once. My mother went to her grave not knowing about the little sadistic bastards - some of whom she'd had in class - who had endeavored to make my life hell. I am proud that she never knew.

And, I think it's a fair guess that young Albert, III, has been through experiences similar to mine - and, far more likely - has been through far worse experiences that are just horrible for an adolescent and a young man and which can result in deep scars.

Furthermore, I have little doubt that the taunting and controversy surrounding his father has not stopped and will not stop until the old man retires after becoming the world champion of 'show and tell' or finally gets tired of running around, metaphorically shouting: "Look at me - look at me! I'm going to save the world!"

Like I said: I never talked to my parents about my problems that resulted from my mother's job. Why? As noted, I didn't want to hurt my mother and destroy the great pleasure she took from teaching.

I suspect young Al hasn't talked to his parents about the problems he's suffered from their pursuits and for reasons similar to mine: He probably doesn't want to hurt his mother and father who so immensely enjoy being on-stage and telling the world how to live.

My problems ended when I graduated from high school. For young Albert, I doubt that there is - or ever will be, an end in sight.

But - what I suspect now, more than anything: Now young Albert may be ready to talk. His latest escapade is just too much of a cry for attention.

I entitled this column "Channeling my mother."

By that I mean: I can hear what my mother would be saying today if she read the recent articles about young Gore:

"For goodness' sake. The former Vice-President should shut up about his slide show and heat stroke and God-knows-what-else and go home. His family needs him. How the hell does he think he can save the world if he cannot even save his own son? The number one job he signed up for in this life was the one with the title 'father.' It's time he went home and took care of that job."

I wish you luck, young Albert Gore, the Third.

Your father appears thrilled to have everyone 'looking at him' and praising him.

I suspect that as long as there is a mirror in this world, your father will never feel lonely.

But for you, young Albert? For you, I don't think a mirror is the companion you need right now.

"Sicko!" ~ And The Day Old Diamondback Bit Michael Moore's Arse

In interviews given to promote his new pseudo-documentary, ‘Sicko,” Michael Moore has made clear that he wants to remove the evil ‘profit motive’ from medicine.

O.K. Fair enough. That’s his solution.

Now – further down in this column, I’m going to ask you, dear reader, a question based on the following hypothetical situation which is also based on a very old joke:

You are a tour guide. You are mountain climbing with your client, a certain well-known fellow named Michael Moore. Halfway up the mountain, you stop for a snack break and Michael plunks his prodigious arse down on a log. Behind the log, nestled on a rock and absorbing the midday sun is a fanged, cold-blooded creature of the forest nick-named ‘Ol’ Diamondback.’ [‘O.D.’ for short.]

Throughout your snack break Mr. Moore denounces the American health care system. “It’s that damned ‘profit-motive’ that’s ruining health care in this country!” shouts Mr. Moore.

In the meantime, our forest friend ‘O.D.,’ is beginning to get a chill. Moore’s arse has eclipsed the sun. ‘O.D.’ slithers three or four feet to get out of the way of this giant shape that’s shading his rock.

It doesn’t matter. Moore’s arse is huge. O.D.’s still in the shade.

He slithers another ten feet this way – then ten feet that way – but no matter how far ‘O.D.’ slithers, he can’t seem to escape the gigantic shadow cast by Moore’s gigantic ‘can.’

On top of that, ‘O.D.’s sensitive body is picking up the annoying vibes of Moore’s shrill voice. It’s all too much for ‘O.D.’

He needs the sun’s warmth and he needs some peace and quiet

Whap!!

With his jaws agape, ‘O.D.’ plants two fangs into Moore’s butt. Moore starts the laborious process of jumping straight up from his seat. In mere minutes he is off the log and screaming, “Oh m’ God! A rattlesnake has bitten me in my privates!”

“Uh, where, exactly, on your privates?” you ask.

“My balls!” screams Moore.

[Ooooh, you think – that’s just too much information -- more than you really wanted to know. Still - you have a touch of admiration for the fact the snake could even find them. It says something about the killer instinct, doesn't it?]

“What are you going to do?” cries Moore.

“What am I going to do?” you ask. “Are you kidding? I’m a tour guide, not a doctor.”

“But I could die! Aren’t you worried?”

“About what?” you ask. “You already paid me….and I have your credit card number if anything else comes up.”

“No – you idiot! Not about your fee – what about me? Aren’t you worried about me?”

You take a sip of your mineral water. “Nope – I’m not worried in the least. That diamondback was six feet long. He packs one hell of a wallop. Even though your arse is the size of Belgium, that snake has definitely given you a ‘killer’ dose.”

“But isn’t there something that can be done? Aren’t you going to do something?”

“Well, Mr. Moore,” you reply, “those are two very different questions. Let’s deal with your first question: Is there ‘something,’ that can be done? – The answer is ‘yes.’”

“What? What can be done?!”

“Well, Mr. Moore, you could first drop your trousers. Then, if a hydraulic jack was available, we would elevate your stomach until your upper thighs were exposed-"

“Uh – I’m beginning to feel dizzy….I’ll drop my trousers. You set up the jack!”

“Hold your horses, Mr. Moore,” you say. “We’re still dealing with your first question about what should be done – we haven’t gotten to the part about what, if anything, I am going to do.”

“Well hurry it up – goddammit – I can’t feel my arse – it’s gone numb!!”

“Don’t worry – it’s still there. Believe me - you can’t miss it. Anyway – with your stomach elevated we would then attempt to part your thighs with an expansion winch. If that was successful – and depending on the availability of magnifying glasses, we would commence a search for your privates.”

“Hurry up! You work the winch and I’ll find my privates!”

“Ooohhh, Mr. Moore – if it were only that simple….But, you see, after locating your privates, I would then gently hold your – pardon me – your ‘balls’ -- in the palm of one hand, while I gently palpated the little devils with my other hand.”

“Gaaaawwwdammitt! Will you get started?”

“Believe me – I’m almost done with your first question… -- Then, when I located the puncture wounds, I would take a razor blade from my snake-bite kit – “

“FOR CRISSSSAKES! YOU GOTTA A SNAKEBITE KIT? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?”

“Well, Mr. Moore, you see, we seem to have reached the nub of both of our problems simultaneously…”

“I feel faint – oh no – don’t tell me.. You’re a Republican aren’t you?”

“No – I’m a registered Tree Hugger. But that’s not the problem….See – I would then take the razor blades and ‘lance’ the entry point of each fang…and then – well, then, I, uh – well…then we start getting to the answer to your second question.”

“Wait a second - What??? You would do WHAT??? What are you supposed to do?”

“Well - then I would place my lips on the site of each puncture wound and suck out the poison. If I were to do that, then you might have a chance to be rolled down this hill and live to see another day.”

“What do you mean ‘if’ you did that? What’s stopping you, dammit? Why don’t you get started?!”

“Mr. Moore, we have now fully arrived at the answer to your second question: ‘What am I going to do? I am going to do ‘nothing,’ Mr. Moore. ‘Nothing,’ is what I am going to do.”

“Why? What do you want? Tell me!!! I’ll pay you anything!!!”

“Ahh! You see Mr. Moore, you’ve gotten to the heart of the situation. Mr. Moore: I WOULDN’T TOUCH YOUR BALLS FOR A MILLION DOLLARS!”

“What about two million dollars?”

“No way in hell…”

Moore groans…“How about ten million?”

“Ten million, it is! Mr. Moore, you have a deal!!”

All right then – dear reader. Let me now ask you the question I promised in my opening statement.

If Michael Moore and, let’s say – the first ten random people you met today – all came to your office, took off their clothes and asked you to examine every one of their bodily orifices – how much would you want to get paid to perform those examinations?

Remember – it’s not just Michael Moore, we’re talking about. Pick the first ten people you see today and imagine having to paw over their naked bodies all day long. Imagine having to peek into places that even they cannot see.

How much would you want to be paid for each appointment?

A lot? I would think so!

And now – let’s add a few elements to this hypothetical.

Each one of your ‘clients’ has some sort of infectious disease compounded by oozing bodily sores. And each one of these people expects you to breathe the same air as they are breathing and to touch their sores. They also expect you to do this for them in a gentle and caring manner.

Additionally – one half of your clients are guys who work at the fish docks. They have been hurt on the job. They have come to your office straight from work.

Not one of them had time to go to the fumigator or put his or her body through a car wash.

Now how much would you charge to pat and rub the bodies of your naked clients in an office that now smells like old Sea Bass?

Lots and lots and lots of money!! Right?

Of course!

Then why does Michael Moore, who – despite his politics and his lies is obviously an intelligent man - believe that - after you served twelve years of your life to achieve your medical education - you would want to palpate his nuts and, say, do a colonoscopy on him for, say, twenty bucks?

Well, Michael Moore is not only a purveyor of propaganda, he is apparently a believer in the propaganda of others.

He must truly have been suckered into believing that young men and women go into medicine for one reason and one reason only: ‘to help mankind.’

Yeah……Right.

Dear Reader, if you have a high school classmate who became a doctor, I want you to think back to your days in school with that person.

Was the Future Doctor you knew a person who was an ‘artsy’ type? Was he or she the type of person who was always leading little protest movements to save the starving people of “Any Third World Country?”

Was he or she the type of person who volunteered to do anything that wasn’t specifically recommended to help improve their resume for medical school?

No. And why? Because they were not stupid, that's why.

The kids who were determined to go into medicine were technical and scientific worker bees. And, like the bees, they worked day and night – skipping parties – avoiding wasted time – single-mindedly pursuing their goals to become doctors. And – not only to become doctors – BUT:

To become WEALTHY!!! [Not "J. P. Morgan Wealthy" - but certainly 'well-to-do.']

Yes!! Let’s say it! Forget the medical associations and their public relations stuff – they worked their noses to the grindstone so they could make a bundle of money! They wanted to make a bundle of money so they could have a nice home and provide for their families.

Oh – and – yeah, incidentally – we are the beneficiaries of a side-effect to all this worker bee activity in high school which was induced by the profit motive.

That side effect: Human beings were benefited, and a little piece of the world was saved each time these worker bees -- who became doctors – opened an office for business.

There was another tremendous side-effect from which humankind benefited: Some – not all – but some of those doctors dedicated portions of their lives to volunteer work.

Why?

BECAUSE THEY COULD AFFORD TO WORK AS VOLUNTEERS A FEW WEEKS A YEAR FOR NOTHING AND STILL AFFORD A SUMMER HOME, A MERCEDES, AND A BOAT!!!

Why?

Because: THEY ACQUIRED WEALTH BY PRACTICING MEDICINE!!! With their families fed and clothed, with college education money socked away - they could then afford to donate some of their hard-earned skills for charitable purposes!!!

For goodness sake, people – get a grip on reality.

Do the students who are less technically inclined become plumbers because they have an idealistic desire to bring ‘piping’ to the world?

Uh-uh. That’s not why they show up and stick their hands in our toilets.

They do it because it pays damned well. They do it because they can afford a summer home located next door to their doctor’s summer home.

Michael Moore has the same stupid flaw in his thought process that afflicted Karl Marx and his insane ideas about communism:

Moore and Marx forgot – or never knew - that people work to improve their own lives.

The profit motive is what makes them do it.

They may or may not also be motivated, secondarily, to ‘help their fellow human beings.’

But – and here’s the irony of the situation – the insight that Moore and Marx missed:

IT DOES NOT MATTER IF PEOPLE WORK HARD AT HIGH PAYING JOBS FOR THE BENEFIT OF MANKIND OR FOR THE BENEFIT OF THEIR OWN ‘SELFISH’ LITTLE FAMILIES:

EITHER WAY, WE ALL BENEFIT.

We benefit through the payment of taxes by the wealthy; by their creation of jobs; by their creation of medicines; by their creation of plumbing and by their opening of doctors’ offices.

We benefit by the creation of wealth.

And, it is because people in America have the possibility to create and acquire wealth that we have the greatest health care system in the world.

Remember – Britain has socialized health care. And, by all American standards, doctors in Britain are just barely middle class.

You must also keep in mind that when I say those doctors are just barely British middle class - that I'm referring to a British middle class - and that is several notches below what we consider to be American middle class.

When I visited Britain in the 1970’s, I was a second year public school teacher in Massachusetts. I was earning $9,800 dollars per year.

And guess what? I was making just one thousand dollars less per year than a fully licensed British medical doctor working under Britain’s National Health system.

[It might interest you to know that, at the same time, a college friend of mine was in his second year of medical practice in America. He was making ten times as much money as I was.]

There are a couple of other problems with eliminating the profit motive as was done in the British system.

The creation of the National Health System [NHS] in Britan resulted, many years ago, in a huge escaping migration of British doctors to Canada where they could make some decent coin.

Then - the Canadians, displaying an odd sense of humor, instituted their own 'single-payer' system and once again ruined the financial futures of the British doctors who had migrated.

The result, British doctors who moved to Canada, now want to come to the States.

But there's also been another effect created by Britain's socialized NHS that was unforeseen.

With the emigration of smart and motivated British born doctors to Canada, and now to the U.S. to avoid socialism, the Brit's have had to recruit foreign-born and foreign-trained doctors to fill the British medical positions.

Most recently it was reported that some 30 to 40 per cent of British doctors are now foreign-born physicians who emigrated to Britain to practice medicine.

And why did they move to Britain? For the money?

Uh-uh.

They emigrated because, for the most part, they were born and raised in Middle-Eastern hell-hole countries where toilets are a luxury item and where Katusha Rockets and Incoming Mortar Rounds are considered part of the weather report.

For them, anything was a step up.

Of course that has had another unintended consequence. Some of those physicians have taken up the hobby of bomb-making and we've recently seen the results of that actitivity.

Back to my personal experiences:

If I had stayed at teaching for ten years, I would have made twice as much as a British doctor was then making per year.

But, even though I loved it – I left teaching and went to law school.

And do you know why?

I left because there wasn't enough money in teaching. And why didn't I take up the profession of medicine?

Because no matter what I was paid, I never wanted to see my clients naked, let alone have to palapate any part of their bodies.

The defenses rests - case closed.

Illegal Immigrant Gang Members Must Renounce Membership - Same Procedure As Sen. Kennedy Quitting the Owl Club? [Uh - I don't think so...]

The United States Senate is administering CPR to the illegal immigration amnesty bill. One of the catastrophic provisions of the bill permits ‘gang’ members, here illegally, to become citizens if they just ‘renounce’ their gang membership on their applications.

Right….Well, perhaps they haven’t heard, but resigning from an L.A. street gang is not the same as resigning from the Owl Club.

The Owl Club, in case you haven’t heard, was a gang to which the esteemed blimp from Massachusetts, Edward Moore Kennedy [D-Goodyear] belonged for decades.

Its dues were one hundred dollars a year and its major criminal activity was preventing women from joining. It was due to this criminal activity that Kennedy had to resign from the gang in shame this past year.

But resigning from the Owl Club is nothing like quitting the street gangs of L. A.

Uh – uh….If anything, for those accustomed to a moral society - it’s more like trying to quit the Catholic Priesthood without having been de-frocked. As far as the church is concerned: once a priest, always a priest. Of course, there the resemblance between the Holy See and the L. A. hoodlums ceases, but you get the idea. Once you’ve been ‘ordained’ as a gang member, your membership is ‘irrevocable.’

Some of those gangs have a pretty straightforward policy: You leave when you are dead, and not one second earlier.

I happened to get an education about seven years ago regarding one particular L. A. street gang whose members were comprised of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.

I was working as a teamster on a movie being filmed in San Diego. The crew members all had 24 hour a day access to a ‘walk-in’ food service vehicle that was basically a cafeteria mounted on a six wheel truck.

It was easy for passers-by to slip in and take a sandwich, drink or snack since there were a couple of hundred extras as well as crew members working on the film.

On one particular afternoon I was waiting in line in the food truck. Ahead of me in line stood a very muscular and tall black fellow. He and his girlfriend were trying to choose from the snack bin.

I do not know what the black fellow said out loud, but a security guard for the movie company overheard him. The guard then told the man and his girlfriend to get out of the truck and leave the set – that it was not open to the public.

The black fellow immediately threatened the guard. He said something along the lines of, “Hey man, mind your own business or I’ll give you a beatin.’”

The security guard, a middle-aged fellow of average height and possessed of a somewhat stocky and overweight build, turned down the collar of his jacket. “Hey!” he called out to the man, “You wanna step outside? I’ll f--- you up real good.”

With that one gesture by the guard – that of the down-turned collar - the black man suddenly started apologizing and practically humiliated himself with his suddenly humble and submissive attitude.

He took his girlfriend’s arm, quickly turned and started out of the truck. As the pair squeezed between the on-lookers, the man kept calling out to the guard over his shoulder such phrases as, “Hey man, I’m sorry – like, no offense – O.K.? I didn’t know man, O.K.? We’re leaving……Come on, babe, let’s go, hurry it up…”

I was amazed. I had no idea what had just occurred. I walked up to the guard and asked him what that ‘show’ had been all about. The conversation went like this:

“What’s with that guy?” I asked. “What just happened?”

“Oh, nothin’ much, man,” said the guard, “I just overheard the dude talkin’ to his lady. I realized he wasn’t part of the film crew, so I told him to leave.”

“Yeah, I know,” said I, “but at first he wasn’t going to go. He started cussing you out…But then you did something with your coat collar - something that scared him…I mean – that guy was suddenly petrified of you. It was obvious he couldn’t get out of here quickly enough.”

Again, he turned down his jacket collar, just as he had done when talking with the black man. “I just showed him this, and he knew he should leave.”

I looked at his neck – but --stupid me. I still didn’t get it.

I just saw a bunch of tattoos. I had no idea what the hell this guard was talking about. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I’m from Massachusetts. I guess I don’t know what it is you’re trying to show me.”

The guard laughed. Then very quietly he said in my ear, “He saw my tattoos and realized I’m an ‘S.A.,’ so he knew he better leave or I’d hurt him real bad.”

[For purposes of this column, I am writing the letters ‘S.A.’ to express what the guard said. The way it is pronounced, the term sounds like the word “essay.” I’ve never heard a good definition of it. However, my guess is that the term comes from the abbreviation for Hitler’s original gang of street thug storm troopers which terrorized the Jews of Germany in the 30’s. They were known as the “S.A.”]

Anyway, at that point I decided not to push my luck. “Oh,” said I, as though I understood what he meant. “So that’s why he left?”

“Yeah…he knew better than to stick around.”

I was still amazed. No matter what the tattoo showed, the black man had looked like he definitely had the physical strength – and the youthfulness coupled with toughness and attitude - to stuff this middle-aged guard into a trash barrel.

Later I asked one of my fellow teamsters what an “S.A.” was.

He explained that it meant that the guard was a member of a street gang in L. A. I recounted to him what I had earlier observed.

“Oh yeah,” said the teamster, “the black guy was smart to leave. Those Mexican guys, they’ll kill y’uh, man. They are really, really tough. The black guys, especially if they’re alone, won’t screw with the Mexican gang members. They’re pretty much afraid of them. The black gangs will fight among themselves, but they leave the Mexican guys alone.”

Now I was fascinated. I wondered what a ‘street gang’ member was doing working for a security guard firm and what he was doing on the set. Remarkably, I got a rather full answer over the next few nights.

That evening, the same guard, whom I’ll call Miguel [definitely not his real name] was working a double shift. As part of my teamster duties, I was living on the set in a small trailer. Thus, he and I were there together.

Since it was a particularly cold evening, I asked Miguel if he wanted to sit in the trailer for a while and get warm by the propane heater. He was quite glad to accept my invitation.

Over the next three nights, from midnight until about four each morning, Miguel and I talked the nights away. He was a seemingly pleasant fellow and very soft-spoken.

We chatted amiably for hours. He told me of his girlfriend, who was toying with him and had just about dumped him. He told me about the new girl he had just met whom he wanted to ask out on a date. He also told me about a softball team on which he had played in the army.

And he told me about the number of people he had observed being shot, knifed, beaten, or robbed, depending on the circumstances.

In the same very soft voice, this man described all sorts of horrific crimes he had ‘observed.’ He discussed the gang structures in L. A. and the divisions of gangs between the northern and southern parts of California. He was careful not to say exactly what role he had played in the crimes he had happened to witness. But the implication was very, very clear: he had been heavily involved in the execution of these various crimes.

Miguel had also served in the United State Army as a young man. Even in the army, he told me, the gang divisions had reared their heads. He told me of fights that had occurred off-base between varying factions of gangs, including some stationed in Alaska.

As stated, some of the stories were horrific. Some were morbidly funny, and some were outright funny and rose to the level of practical jokes. Were they to be believed?

Or, were these tall tales like those of police ‘bloodbaths’ described by L.A.P.D. Detective Mark Furhman about ten years before the infamous O. J. Simpson trial?

I say that Miguel’s stories were true. Why? Well, it’s necessary to distinguish Furhman’s tales and tales told by folks like Furhman, from the stories told by Miguel during those evenings he and I spent together.

Furhman’s tall tales were brought out during his cross-examination by F. Lee Bailey. It was this cross-examination, more than anything else I can think of in our culture, that has resulted in newspapers and media resorting to the phrase “the ‘n’-word.”

[Incidentally – I personally find the phrase silly. When dealing with anti-semites, we do not refer to the ‘k-word’ for kike, nor when referring to disparagement of the Irish do we refer to the ‘H-word’ for Harp, etc. Whenever I write this column, I will state the word to which I’m referring – other than outright profanities – in full. I see no point in creating an alphabet soup of code words for racial, religious or ethnic words. We are – I hope, all grown-ups here.]

It turned out that Furhman had used the word ‘nigger’ repeatedly when talking with a woman who was purportedly writing a movie script about cops and criminals.

Furhman had sought to impress her. He told her story after story about cops beating up, as he said, ‘niggers,’ and leaving rooms with walls covered with blood from the victims of the police.

In fact, the stories Furhman told her were all urban legends that the cops told about themselves. Cops who told these stories were basically portraying themselves as the type of rogue cop one sees portrayed today on television by actors such as Michael Chiklis in “The Shield” television series.

But Furhman’s stories were told in a style of braggadocio. He was not apologizing for these [fictional] violent acts. He was using them to impress the young scriptwriter with how ‘tough’ he and his colleagues supposedly were.

But what about my gang member, Miguel? What distinguishes his wild stories from those of Mark Furhman?

Well, after three nights of these stories, I finally asked Miguel how he had gotten to be a security guard if he was actively involved with a street gang.

He explained that he was no longer in the gang.

How, I asked, did that work? Did one resign? Did you get kicked out? How did one end one gang’s membership since he obviously still had the tattoos that had put such fear in the black man days earlier.

Again, in that soft-spoken voice, he began to describe more of his history with the gang and spoke of a turning point that he had reached.

The story was this: He had joined the street gang when he was about sixteen years of age. For several years he had done the bidding of the gang leaders. Some of that bidding involved pretty violent and vicious stuff. Still other acts of violence he had done for the ‘fun’ of it.

Seemingly without doubt, these stories were the tales of a man who had no conscience. In other words – the stories were those of a sociopath.

In my lifetime, in the practice of law, I have had occasion to meet three people who turned out to be criminals who were sociopaths. However, with each of these three men, I had sensed from the first moments I had met them, that they were missing a piece of the ‘human pie.’ There was something not ‘there.’

I do not know how to describe it, but I knew that they, for lack of a better word, each had no ‘soul.’ In each instance, it was only later that I found out that each of these three men were, indeed, criminal sociopaths.

But I had not sensed that moral vacuum in Miguel. It was one of the reasons I had talked with him for so many hours. I did not sense that total lack of conscience in the man. And, this was in spite of the horrible stories he had recounted, some of which included vague descriptions of his direct and enthusiastic involvement.

He then described what one might call a ‘moment of moral clarity.’ Without going further into the details of Miguel’s life, suffice it to say that something terrible had occurred in his family’s life when he was about thirty-five years of age. By then he had been a gang member for almost twenty years.

This incident of ‘moral clarity’ had awakened his conscience. In one fell hit, the horror and repugnance of his actions and the life he had led had come crashing down on him.

He had had a moment of ‘empathy’ that led to this ‘clarity.’

‘Empathy’ is a quality that sociopaths are incapable of having. Miguel was not, in fact, a sociopath. Rather, Miguel had been a giant, walking-talking case of arrested moral development.

He was not a fully formed man with a full moral conscience when he joined the gang at age sixteen. As a young child he had admired the gang members. He had begun to develop a warped sense of loyalties and of morality. By the time he joined the gang, he had a totally twisted and misguided sense of what was right and wrong.

“Loyalty” was good.

Being ‘loyal’ to the gang was good.

The gang was his surrogate ‘family’ and the older members ‘surrogate fathers.’ Being in a surrogate family with surrogate fathers was a ‘good’ thing to the teen-aged Miguel.

Through it all, he had been able to ignore the havoc his acts and those of his fellow gang members had wreaked on the lives of their victims.

But, as I say, when he hit the age of thirty-five, something had happened within his own biological family. It had devastated him. This event had sledgehammered his psyche and what spark was left within him of a moral being.

It had taken but a moment for the door of ‘empathy’ to open in his very cold soul. But, when it did, repeated tidal waves of guilt and remorse had practically drowned him.

He had suffered a complete nervous breakdown.

With his hands trembling and his body shaking – his mind in a virtual catatonic state – he had been committed to a mental institution. It had taken him over a year to recover sufficiently to function outside the hospital.

After the year of hospitalization and with continued counseling, he had come to the conclusion that he could not continue in the ‘gang’ life. He could no longer behave as a sociopath – for – indeed, he was not a sociopath.

But he also knew the potential consequences of quitting the gang.

There was a penalty for leaving: it is known in the justice system as ‘the death penalty.’

Yup! Miguel would be murdered if he tried to quit the gang. His family, as well, might suffer consequences.

But, Miguel could not live with himself and remain in the gang. So, he decided to do the unthinkable: he would ask the local ‘board of directors’ of the gang if he could leave.

Everyone in the gang and among his family and friends had known about the nervous breakdown and what had happened to Miguel. After all, he had been in the ‘nuthouse’ for over a year.

When he made his request, he was told to come to a meeting. As he said, when he walked into that room the evening of the meeting, he did not know if he would ever leave alive. But he felt he had no choice. His mother and family were still in L. A. and his mother was an invalid. He could not leave her.

If he stayed in L.A. and tried to quit the gang he might be killed. But if he left L.A., his mother would certainly die without him there to provide home care. So – he faced a Hobbesian choice and decided to do so ‘head-on.’

The board had first met in ‘executive session’ without him present. They then heard his personal plea to be released.

They had told him that, due to his many years of loyal service on behalf of the gang [it sounds sort of like a speech at a retirement party for an insurance salesman, mais non?] that he would be allowed to leave the membership and to live in peace.

He was also assured that his family members would not be hurt or murdered. [Nice of those fellahs, ‘eh?]

So, about five years before I met Miguel, he had gotten his freedom. But the tattoos that had identified him as a gang member covered his body from his lower neck to his waist. There were a few small ones on the back of his neck and a couple of very small ones on his face.

But it was the ones on his neck that clearly identified him as belonging [or in his case, having belonged] to a certain gang. And it was those tattoos that had so frightened the black man in the cafeteria trailer earlier in the week.

As shown on that day in the trailer, Miguel had found that sometimes the old tattoos had come in handy during his security job. Sometimes when he encountered a street ‘tough’ who was not impressed by an overweight, 40-something ‘security guard’ who was armed with nothing more than a metal badge, it just took a flick of his collar to get the fellow’s respect, fear and immediate obedience.

So, that, my friends, is the story of Miguel, the L. A. gang member.

Senator Edward Kennedy may have had to resign the Owl Club in shame. They may have cursed his name for violating whatever sacred trust this little band of men had established.

But one can be sure that the Owl Club did not tell the good Senator that – due to his years of faithful service – they had decided not to murder him or his family members as a penalty for quitting the club.

Our distinguished Senators on both sides of the aisle are living in a total fantasy if they think that illegal immigrants who belong to the street gangs such as those found in L. A. are going to be able to quit the gangs even if they sincerely desire to do so.

Under this current proposed immigration bill, we will be granting citizenship to gang members, most of whom, unlike Miguel, have had no moment of moral clarity. These young men and women think nothing of driving by a group of people and opening fire in hopes that they might hit one of the people in the group – while taking down another six or seven who were unlucky enough to be in the way.

No, my friends, the folks known as S.A.’s live a world away from the Owl Club and the Whiffenpoofs and the super secret bunch at Yale known as ‘Skull and Bones.’

These clubs are groups comprised of the social and educational elite of this country. They play cards. They play golf. They have secret handshakes.

They are not, however, anything like the street gangs of L.A. and of other urban sites in California.

Those gangs are nothing short of a modern-day version of Chicago’s depression era mob known as “Murder Incorporated.”

If this immigration bill passes, these sociopaths-in-training or in-fact will not just own shares in Murder, Inc., will also become citizen shareholders in the United States of America.

This cannot and must not be allowed to happen.

"Planet Earth" Tries Global Warming Propaganda - Forgets We Already Know The Truth: Petey Polar Bear Will Live!

O.K. - so the documentary "Planet Earth" didn't have a polar bear specifically named "Petey." Nevertheless, I'm hooked on animal documentaries and I like to anthropomorphize animals. So, for purposes of this column, we are talking about "Petey."

Also, to give a little background to this column, I'm going to start with a digressive kick in the pants to the Reverend Al Gore. I'm doing this because it appears that the Reverend Al's documentary is part of what led to the "Planet Earth" fiasco I describe below.


The Rev. Al Gore's slide show and the movie based thereon, like "Planet Earth," also feature pictures of a Petey Polar Bear. He is stranded on a baby iceberg. He stares down into the water.

Oh what will Petey do? He's stranded!

Uh - not exactly. Well, all right...he's not even close to stranded. Then what's he doing standing on this little block of ice? Hasn't he been washed out to sea due to Universal Pandemic Global Warming?

Uh - again, not exactly. In that picture - which has gotten some worldwide fame thanks to Al - Petey Polar Bear is - most likely - waiting for Stupid Sammy Seal to come a' swimmin' on by.

If Sammy does show up - it'll be Sammy's last swim. Petey will jump on his back - whack him a few good ones between those dewey seal eyes - and then it'll be time to break open some mustard.

Anyway - the Reverend Al's documentary has managed to scare more than a few school children. [Yeah, it's palmed off as science and shown in public school classrooms. In a recent article it was reported that in one high school alone, a student had been shown the entire movie on four separate occasions for four separate classes. It was not reported whether or not it was featured in Sophomore American Fiction where it belongs.]

In another news item, it was reported that an eight year old girl started crying when she got home from school because all the 'polar bears are dying." Hooo boy....it never ends. [Thanks, Al.]

Anyway - now on to "Planet Earth" polar bear show - parts of which, as you will see, are loosely based on a true story - or rather - loosely based on a version of the truth.

As mentioned, I love watching animal documentaries. So, it was easy for me to get on board for the newest installments of 'Planet Earth.'

The episode that precipitated this column was, in large part, about our friend Petey Polar Bear. I happened to tune in mid-way through the show.

Bingo! - I was hooked. There was Petey, and he was a swimmin' away, king of all he surveyed.

We were shown a Pelican's-Eye View of Petey from helicopters. Scuba divers gave us some film of the bear from below the surface. This is the same view seals get just before they 'go to the light.'

So, I popped open a Diet Coke and settled back to enjoy the adventures of Petey.

It was just then that I became aware of exactly what the narrator was saying.

And what she was saying was deceptive, misleading and just short of outright lies.

Why, you may ask, would the narrator have anything to say about polar bears that was misleading almost to the point of being fraudulent?

She said it to scare us about the Global Warming Epidemic which we now know can be spread by a handshake.

I wished I had taped her words so I could type it here verbatim. However, you'll just have to trust me that my paraphrasing is fairly accurate. It went like this:

"Petey the Polar Bear is a good swimmer. He uses his paws as paddles. [she begins to speak with an ominous tone.] But, Petey has not yet been able to find any land.....he is some sixty miles [direct quote of distance] from the nearest shore.....the ice sheets are gone......small bergs of ice, too small to support his weight are all that he can see......if he cannot find land soon...[and the following words are verbatim]...he will drown." [my emphasis added, although the narrator, as well, sounded pretty worried.]

Before cutting to an advertisement, the helicopter's camera went wide angle and then panned the horizon. Oh-mi-god----No land in sight!!!!

Now I cannot be sure of this - but I suspect that in any home in which an eight year old parishioner of Rev. Al Gore's religion was watching the same show, there were probably some tears welling up in the parishioner's eyes.

"Mom! Dad! Petey Polar Bear is gonna drownnnn!!!! Whaaaa!!!!

Husband: "What in the hell is she watching?"

Wife: "I dunnoh, you're in charge of the 'V' chip."

Husband: "Cripes, don't tell me Disney's killing polar bears now....she just got over the 'hit' on Bambi's mother..."

Meanwhile, back at my casa, I was not in tears. I was furious. More on that in a moment. [There better be, or I don't have a column here.]

The commercial ended. The next scene unfolded.

The camera panned a shoreline that was chock-a-block full of yummy Wally Walruses. For Petey Polar Bear - finding this collection of tusked lard buckets would be like having 'take-out' delivered. But?! But?! Where's Petey? Last we knew, we had drawn the desired inference: Petey was lost at sea!!!

Oh, but look, over there, near the Wally 'take-out' counter, Petey has pulled his bedraggled bear's ass up onto the shoreline.

The narrator's voice then, somehow, combined a tone of dread and grim foreboding [the world's ending] with a touch of: 'wow, it's a miracle Petey made it.'

Again - I wish I had taped the show. Her words and tone implied that it was somewhat miraculous that Petey had not drowned. Further, her tone implied that that Petey was one lucky carnivore. We were led to believe that this was pure coincidence that Petey happened to wash up next to dinner.

Her words went something like this: [camera pans to bedraggled-arse-bear] "Our bear has somehow made it to this shore. He is exhausted. He must sleep before he can order his meal. [o.k., she didn't exactly say he would 'order' a Walrus, but we got the idea that some Walrus in the pile would soon be recycled.]

So, let's re-cap: We've been led to believe: a. the bear was lost at sea; b. the bear got lost sixty miles from shore because the ice sheet he expected to find had gone to Global Warming Heaven; c. if the bear survives and finds land, it will be a miracle; d. the scene after the commercial was a miracle; e. the bear's arrival at a Walrus smorgasbord is a fantastic stroke of luck and coincidence; f. global warming can be spread by toilet seats.

Well, your loyal writer got right onto the internet. I wanted to confirm a few facts before I wrote this column. So - I went to a couple of 'Pro-Petey' websites, including that of Sea World and one sponsored by Alaska.

Yep, my memory of the many, many documentaries I've seen on 'Petey' and his 'homeys' was pretty accurate. A summary will suffice:

a. Polar Bears have been spotted on quite a few occasions swimming as far as sixty [yep, exactly sixty] miles from shore.

b. Polar Bears do not get lost at sea.

c. Polar Bears can always find land. No scientist knows how they do it, but they always do. A Polar Bear's perfect sense of direction is two things: a mystery and an established fact.

d. Polar Bears can smell dinner up to twenty miles away. [Believe me, ol' Petey didn't park his butt next to all those Walruses by pure chance. He got a whiff of 'em - probably twenty miles out to sea where he was patrolling the shoreline - and honed in on the buggars like a laser beam.]

e. Polar Bears have such a terrific sense of smell that they can smell a live seal, hiding under three feet of ice, from over a mile away.

But, the Global Warming Fundamentalists of the Rev. Gore are religious dogmatists.

I thought it was bad enough that they named scientists who opposed them as 'Global Warming Deniers.' Not only were they bent on ignoring science that disputed their faith, they were bent on smearing the opposing scientists with a term associated with hateful anti-semites who are known as 'Holocaust Deniers.'

But now I've seen how far the members of this faith will go -- and about this, I am quite serious.

They are willing to twist, distort and lie about facts in other fields of science [i.e. the study of Polar Bears] to scare us into joining their church.

We are led to believe the damned polar bears are now getting 'lost' because ice melted. If they are sixty miles out to sea, they are in grave 'danger.' They may 'drown,' because they cannot find familiar land marks. They are very 'fortunate' to find a meal and do so by luck.

This is all unmitigated crap. And it is a sign of the Global Warming Church's desperation.

As more and more serious climatologists study old and new data, the members of Al's church are being asked to 'debate' the topic.

Those parishioner's - and the Reverend Al - are petrified at the thought of such debate. The good Reverend himself absolutely refuses to engage in a public debate with anyone - no matter what their credentials. After all, Al's a genuine lawyer just like me. What could an MIT meterologist have to contribute to a debate?

Also, Al and his followers know what happened to the Christian fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan in the infamous Scope's Monkey Trial.

Science buried him alive.

And, the Rev. Al's parishioners know - and Reverend Al knows - that despite the fact William Jennings Bryan was fat as a house - there's always more room in his coffin for those who denounce fact in favor of faith.

The parishioner's also know about the debate a few months ago at Cooper Union in New York. Scientists debated the topic of Global Warming.

A poll of the audience found the majority were true believers in Rev. Al's religion prior to the debate. At the end of the debate, the audience was again polled and it turned out that the majority had now become Global Warming Deniers!!! [Uh-oh....Hmmm....Debate's not a good thing now, is it boys and girls?]


One Deacon of the Warming Church - formerly a real scientist - decided that the public at Cooper Union was just too dumb to understand the problem and said so after the second poll was taken. [Y'uh know, in their only appearance in the northeastern United States, Abe Lincoln and Mr. Douglas had the same problem when they debated at Cooper Union....it's just the kind of forum that attracts dumbbells and the homeless. And, of course, when you advertise a debate among scientists - well - for sure you are going to attract every drunken illiterate in crawling distance.]

Thus, belief in Global Warming is reduced to an article of faith. It is not subject to discussion or debate. As Rev. Al knows: you lose parishioners, baby, then you lose donations.

So, dear readers, keep an eye and ear out the next time you watch, if you happen to watch, animal documentaries.

The Global Warming Fundamentalists are everywhere and they are desperate.

There's an old saying: "Truth is the first casualty of war."

Petey Polar Bear doesn't know that saying and never will. But if the scientists who have spent their lives studying Petey and his buddies saw the same documentary the other night, they saw their lifetimes of work and hard-earned knowledge flushed down the toilet by a bunch of religious nuts.

And, disappearing down the crapper with their science was something called 'the truth.'

Sen. Chuck Schumer: "9/11 Plot Was Doomed To Failure - Nothing But FBI Security 'Hype'"

June, 2007 - Six men were arrested for plotting to blow up a jet fuel pipeline at New York City's JFK airport. The ability of the plotters to complete their plans was 'pooh-poohed' by Senator Charles Schumer [D-N.Y.]

Also, whereas most of the major newspapers in the U.S. reported the plot on the first or second page, the New York Times relegated the story to page 37. Schumer and the 'Times' are part of a larger phenomenon.

Every time we hear of a foiled terror plot on American soil, a coterie of people and institutions immediately make light of the plotters and of the realistic success of the plot.

What follows here is a fictional press conference with Sen. Schumer. It is very close to what I believe would have occurred had the 9/11 plotters failed. Frankly, after I wrote it and re-read it, I realized how ridiculous their entire plot sounded.

To hear the facts recited is to hear a Hollywood fiction writer who has gone off the deep end. Even a Hollywood producer would have probably called for re-writes to make it sound more plausible: "They take over four jets with box cutters? Are you nuts? Why not have the plotters' secret agents place sleeping gas in the cockpit? Have the plotters be real jet pilots recruited from airlines in the Islamic world. Have them smuggle disassembled guns on the plane. I mean - for cripes sake - no one's going to be terrified or entertained if they believe the movie plot is a joke. People aren't that stupid....It couldn't happen the way you describe it......"

But - indeed - it happened just this way.....

New York - [September 10, 2001] - With all of the so-called '9/11 Plot' suspects in FBI custody, questions are now being raised about the 'panic' caused by the arrests. In a press conference held in front of the Twin Towers, Senator Schumer [D-N.Y.] said the following:

"Though I commend the FBI on the arrest of some fourteen suspects in an alleged plot to destroy the World Trade Center in New York City - I regret having to state that I believe the Administration is using this so-called 'Plot' to scare the American public and to consolidate its base through an outright appeal to fear."

Senator Schumer was quick to point out that - though the alleged 'terrorists' [or as the New York Times referenced them: the 'Abbot & Costello Freedom Fighters for Islam'] obviously had vile and criminal intentions - the 'alleged plotters' were virtually doomed to failure from the start.

"The sum total of their preparation," said Schumer, "was to spend about sixteen dollars on box-cutters at a hardware store."


Said Schumer - "I don't mean to demean the FBI - but let's be real. We're talking about some fourteen or so guys from the middle east - some of whom could barely speak English - who were supposedly plotting to fly two jumbo jets into the World Trade Center this past September 11th."

Schumer pointed to the Towers looming behind him. "Supposedly these jokers were going to 'topple' the Twin Towers....a-hem...I mean - how can I comment on that? Look at the size of those suckers!"

Schumer shook his head as he continued his prepared statement, "The weapons - if we can actually call them 'weapons' with which this Keystone Cop little gang intended to commandeer two major jets were 'box cutters.'"

At this point in the conference Schumer took a box cutter from his pocket and held it up for the cameras. Deviating from his prepared remarks, he continued:

"I mean - Pleeaase! Boxcutters? Can you get the camera to focus more closely? Thanks - You see - the ENTIRE blade protruding from this little device is - pardon my sarcasm - all of - what? Three-quarters of an inch long - if that?"

"Somehow, the FBI and Justice Department expect us to believe that the entire crew of the Jumbo Jets which they claim were targeted - could be subdued by a couple of guys wielding the equivalent of two shaving razor blades."

A ripple of laughter was heard among the reporters present.

"Wait!" said Schumer - warming to his topic and the obviously appreciative audience - "the allegations get 'better.' Supposedly, these fourteen or so alleged 'terrorists' not ONE of whom even had so much as a pilot's license for a single engine Piper Cub - were not only going to subdue the crew and two entire planeloads of passengers - somehow these fellows were then going to 'pilot' these jets straight into each of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. -- I mean - I don't know about you folks in the press - but it took me two days to figure out the new controls on my Mercedes. I got the car on a Monday and couldn't figure out how to signal a left turn or recline the seat until Wednesday."

At this point the laughter among the reporters was widespread.

"And these foreigners were somehow - what? Magically? On the spot - in the cockpit - somehow going to learn to operate the hundreds of gauges on the panel - figure out the geography below them that was speeding by at some five hundred miles an hour - and then - I know, I know, I'm being hard on the authorities - but please, we have to look at this rationally. ---- And then - like homing pigeons, these natives of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and who-knows-what-other country -- these foreigners were somehow going to navigate these huge jets from Boston to New York City - drop down to something like four hundred feet of altitude and then - with the precision of a fighter pilot landing on an aircraft carrier - plow one plane into each of the Twin Towers."

By now the reporters had stopped taking notes. The laughter and derision directed at Bush and the FBI was getting so loud that the Senator had trouble being heard.

"Please - please, if you could just quiet down for a moment!" Schumer waved his hands toward the floor to quiet the audience which, by now had some folks holding their ribs from the pain of laughing.

"Please, I know it sounds far fetched, but - "

"Far fetched!?" shouted Maureen Dowd of the New York Times between outright guffaws. "Shouldn't the FBI get nominated for a children's fiction award at this point? -- I mean, hell, Frank Rich would be a better pilot - at least he knows what New York City looks like from the air. He could probably find Broadway if the weather is fairly clear." [Frank Rich is a communist** for the New York Times and sometimes theatre critic.]

A voice from the back of the press room was heard to say, "Senator - what about the supposed plane that was going to blow up the Pentagon!!!????"

Again - laughter.

"Please, please - that's not been confirmed yet. But, off the record I have heard that - again - there are arrests underway right now for some more plotters who thought that they could snatch another jumbo jet and fly it into the Pentagon. And - though not confirmed - supposedly the plans included 'kidnapping' yet another jumbo jet and driving it straight through the White House."

"And - " called out Ms. Dowd - "I supposed they were somehow going to synchronize the airlines so that all these flights could be simultaneously kidnapped and simultaneously commandeered and, pardon me - simultaneously flown into New York City - not to mention the Washington, D.C.'s heavily monitored and guarded airspace - and - again - without so much as a pilot's license for a single engine plane - pull this all off without anyone noticing."

By this time the Senator put a hand over his mouth to cover his giggles.

Keith Oberman of MSNBC was then heard to say, "Senator - you're a straight speaking man. Please - isn't this nothing but an attempt by the Bush administration to panic the public so as to justify a huge power-grab to enhance their ability to spy on Americans? I mean, look at their proposed legislation for a Department of Homeland Security. Isn't this 'plot' just an excuse to introduce a Republican police state?"

"Well, Keith....Those are your words, not mine. I wouldn't want to question the motives of the President."

"And Cheney?" chimed Olberman.

"Well - Cheney's a different species of cat altogether. I actually think he was the guy on the 'grassy knoll' in Dallas."

After fifteen minutes of press conference - reduced to five minutes by the constant interruption of laughter - Senator Schumer called the conference to an end.

"I'm sorry - " he said. "But - yeah...I mean - this whole damned plot idea is just so damned ridiculous...I mean - what we've got here is a bunch of Wanna-Be Terrorists with grandiose dreams who apparently spent a hell of a lot of time 'B. - S.'ing about their 'clever' [sorry] plan for massive destruction on American territory."

"So you don't buy it?" asked NBC's David Gregory.

"Buy it? David - I wouldn't 'rent it' if I was on the Titanic and this conspiracy was the last life preserver....I mean --- please don't get me wrong. I can see why police and federal officials reacted. But, let's hope in the future they can show a little more mature judgment and discretion before they 'panic' the public. To have the traveling public believe that such a fantastical plot could ever be successful in America - and run by such a loose confederation of loonies - guys who can barely read American street signs - well - I just think there are better ways to spend out time and money."

"Senator? - My name is Mencken. I'm from the Baltimore Sun."

"I like your stuff," said Schumer. "Perhaps you could fit this 'plot' into one of your humorous columns."

"Yes - perhaps. But Senator - I was wondering if you heard about another plot, supposedly involving five or six illegal aliens, the goal of which was to 'blow up' some fuel line that supposedly runs into Kennedy Airport and from there under some of the major roads in New York City?"

"Oh please -" said Schumer, as he gave out a long sigh. First: - I would prefer you use the phrase 'undocumented workers.' I do not think we should refer to hard-working people as 'illegal.'"

"Second: "Hasn't George Bush gotten enough publicity out of this '9/11 Laurel and Hardy' plot to wipe out New York's trade district - and, who knows - the Pentagon, the White House - and I suppose - his ranch in Crawford, Texas? -- I don't think he needs to create another 'conspiracy' to worry Americans."

"You haven't heard about the JFK plot?"

"Come on, Mr. Mencken. I know your sense of irony. No, no - I haven't heard about it but - I'm sure if Bush overheard two wino's in some Newark bar planning it - it'd be the top story in the White House Press Room tomorrow."

This reporter has also learned that the alleged 'ring-leader' and 'mastermind' of this so-called plot on the Twin Towers and Washington, D.C. was being coordinated by some fellow named "Ozamma Be Lighten" or "Bean Laiden," who lives in a cave in Afghanistan.

A phone call to our Middle East bureau reveals that there are neither phone lines nor electrical service in the so-called 'Mastermind's' cave.

One is left to speculate - was this so-called plot coordinated by secret 'post cards' sent by mule pack from the cave of the so-called Mastermind? We can only wonder.

In the meantime, Senator's Schumer and Clinton have announced that they will seek to convene a bi-partisan panel of Democrats to "investigate this 9/11 investigation." Highly placed sources say the panel will investigate the Bush Administration and particularly the office of the Vice-President for abuse of police power.

The FBI's criminal 'investigation' of this so-called "Twin Tower Plot" is reported to have cost upwards of ten million dollars. Some sources believe the money was actually diverted by the Bush administration to fund hotly contested campaigns for seats in the next House of Representatives.

Time will tell. But the Bush-Cheney Administration is itself being accused by some officials from the old Clinton Justice Department of being the 'real' terrorists in this situation. Said one, on condition of anonymity, "Bush and Cheney are the only real terrorists in this deal. They found a dozen or so whack-job Arabs and trumped up a bunch of macho/drunk talk into a plot they could use to terrorize Americans into surrendering their freedoms and into pouring huge money into Bush's CIA for very questionable projects."

So, this reporter asked this unnamed source, "I take it that you don't regard this 'plot' as worthy of serious worry?

"Of course not," said the source. "And that thing Mencken said about the guys who were supposedly planning to to blow up a gas pipeline and incinerate the whole city? Well, all I gotta say is, you get more 'actionable intelligence' out of the butt end of a cow."

Tomorrow: When the dust clears - will their be sufficient evidence of abuse of power to force the impeachment of George W. Bush?

**Editor's Correction: Frank Rich is a "columnist," not a "communist" as stated above......Really!...He's a columnist..What? Why are you laughing? ~ Ed.

Bush: Christian Fascist? Not for Illegal Immigrants!

A former writer for the New York Times has published a book with a title referring to America’s Christian conservatives as Fascists. I heard this clown speak on a panel. He discussed his book. He also talked about what he seems to view as some sort of Christian conspiracy in the White House.

I suggest he is quite wrong. At least he is wrong regarding Bush. Bush is not a fascist, he’s an Apostle. And that ain’t necessarily bad, but it isn't all necessarily good.

First, however, the positive side:

When Bush first ran in the 2000 campaign, his handlers were amazed that part of his platform included huge amounts of financial aid for the fight against AIDS in Africa.

Yeah – Africa.

You didn’t hear about it? I’m not surprised. It wasn’t the type of thing on which the petite fascists at the New York Times would spend much time.

And, did Bush do what he promised?

Indeed, he did.

In fact, the contributions made to Africa through his initiatives have been so large and thus, so embarrassing to the lefties, that they don’t know how to handle it.

A few months ago the Boston Globe ran an article – not by an in-house writer – describing an international AIDS conference that featured – of course – our Ambassador to the World, Bill Clinton. The writer noted that, though the Bush administration had done more than any other administration and/or country to assist in the fight against African AIDS, Bush’s name was barely mentioned at the conference. It was as though he didn’t exist.

The Warm and Fuzzy Brigade just did not know what to make of it all. The article made the Brigade’s position clear: They looked at the undeniable success of much of Bush’s program just as one would regard one’s drunken uncle at the party. Bush was an embarrassment.

I suggest that they missed the point.

Bush regards himself as a practicing Christian. As such, he felt compelled to make financial aid to Africa into a part of his platform in his first campaign. And, though it could not benefit him much in America, he went ahead and fulfilled his pledge upon election.

Now – with no constituency left – with the right deserting him and the left hating him, what has he done?

This week he’s announced he’s doubling his aid to Africa for the war on AIDS! You didn't hear about that either? I'm not surprised.

Which brings me to a digression: You also probably have not heard that one of the Bush twins is starting her own book tour this summer. And why have you not heard much, if anything, about that event?

Wellllll......you may ask....What’s her book about? Her book is about a teen-age girl whose life she followed for about a year in Central America. This girl’s parents died of AIDS. She has the disease. Reviewers say it reads like a novel.

I must make a snide aside while I’m in this neighborhood: Note that the Bush twins are not in the news anymore. Once they stopped going to parties and started living exemplary warm and fuzzy lives – living as the democrats say we all should live – they dropped from sight.

One of the twins has been teaching in the Washington D.C. school system. This is a school system to which no one: not Clinton, not Gore, not anyone in the capitol will send their kids. It isn’t just because of poor educational standards – it’s because they don’t want their kids getting shot.

And what of the other twin? She’s been doing the equivalent of missionary work in Central America.

Chelsea Clinton? We paid for her repeated tours of the world with Mom when Dad was president. As soon as she got out of college, she started working with some publisher for $110,000.00 per year starting salary. Like her parents, she knows how to translate fame into fortune.

The Bush girls are – well – liberal types, apparently. Or – perhaps put another way – they are Christians actually trying to live a New Testament style of life. Hence, they have completely fallen off the front pages. You have not seen, nor will you, a documentary on a Bush daughter’s day in the life trying to teach and survive in the D.C. schools.

Anyway – let’s move on.

The various conservative groups in the country have been astounded by Bush’s insane immigration policy. At first I was disturbed. I couldn’t understand it. But, considering his religious propensities, it makes sense: it is part of a perfect whole.

As the President said this week as quoted in the Houston Chronicle:

"I feel passionate about the issue. It's something I have felt strongly about ever since I was the governor of Texas. Texas is a very diverse state, Houston is a very diverse city, and through that diversity, if you're open-minded, you get a great sense of how it invigorates the society," said Bush, a Houston resident in the 1960s and '70s. Growing up in Texas, Bush said, "you recognize the decency and hard work and humanity of Hispanics. And the truth of the matter is a lot of this immigration debate is driven as a result of Latinos being in our country." [Houston Chronicle, May 31, 2007]

I have no doubt that Bush’s stand is a result of his Christian world view. That stand has prevented him from enforcing the laws on immigration. Why? Because employers have used and abused the labor pool for years. Because of that abuse, some Americans [if we ignore the crime costs and lack of tax payments] have benefited from the illegals’ labor.

But more than that: I think Bush's immigration stand is a direct reflection of his Christian principles. I think he believes that - the law be damned - it is not moral to enforce the law against these people.

Add to that that we are all sinners and you hit a moral stalemate: No one is able to cast a stone in this situation so no one can win.

For Bush it IS a personal matter. And I have no doubt his view is through the lens of a Christian Apostle. He knows the Latinos. He thinks anyone who disagrees with him doesn’t understand Christian values. He thinks we are haters.

He is not a statesman. He is not a politician in the classical sense. Bush doesn’t interpret Plato – he doesn’t act as a mouthpiece for a particular political view – No! He is a practicing Christian, as he views that role.

It carries over into his world view of terrorism: there is good and there is evil. Evil must be fought and good must be promoted. In this, I believe he is 100% correct.

Unlike Jimmy Carter, he is not a Bible thumping Baptist Sunday school teacher. [We always hear about Bush’s Christianity but everyone’s forgotten that Carter was almost rabid on the topic of religion. It permeated his world view. It still does. It’s one of the things that made him an idiot rather than a statesman. But he was so extreme that he never understood the need to use force. Bush’s Christianity has a little more ‘realpolitik’ to it.

Far from being a fascist, George Bush is Christian gentleman. The world has reaped some good and some bad from this fact.

He is sadly mistaken – tragically for our country – if he prevails on the immigration issue. His hope now is to use the left’s tactic of trying to convince people that those opposing illegal immigration compromises [read: Amnesty] are haters.

Far from it. For most people I know it is an issue of fairness and not an issue to be analyzed through the lens of Christianity's charitable principles.

Another reason he favors the amnesty has to do with his being a wealthy man. Mind you, I’m not a class warrior. I’m glad for him that he’s rich. [Really - hell, I wish I had his money.]

But rich people have something most middle class and lower class people do not have. That ‘something’ is a corral filled with professionals to help them comply with every goddamned little creepy law that the federal and state governments foist upon us.

The case of Senator George McGovern's Bed and Breakfast business is instructive. A few years after the country handed his head to him in the Presidential election of 1972, he and his wife retired from public life.

It had been their ambition to open a quaint little 'B and B' to accomodate travelers.

With McGovern's talents - the skills of World War II Bomber Pilot, a career as a college professor, and the campaign organizational skills of a U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate - running a 'B and B' should have been child's play.

Not so. McGovern later wrote about the experience. He was shocked at the amount of paper work required to run this little business. Of course, as a person serving the public [not as a Senator, but as a concierge] he was astounded at the number and complexity of the regulations with which he and his wife had to comply.

It was all too much for this highly intelligent man. The business went under. [It is no wonder that the U.S. Congress usually exempts itself from all the restrictive laws it imposes upon us regarding employers' obligations and liability.]

As for the rest of us?

We have to sort through our trash like land-fill workers trying to make sure we don’t get fined for violating recycling laws.

We follow our little doggies with sandwich bags so we don’t violate the pooper-scooper laws.

We fasten our seat belts so a state trooper doesn’t have the authority to pull us over and start asking a ton of questions.

We install car seats for babies so we don’t violate the law against leaving the hospital with an unrestrained baby.

We get permits to burn piles of leaves in our yards so we don’t get fined.

We put smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors in our houses so we don’t lose our fire insurance for violating the detector laws.

We submit plans, land surveys, percolation test results, and in some cases environmental impact statements just to build our own little house on our own little piece of land.

We put up business signs that don’t exceed ‘so-many-square inches’ so we don’t get fined or have the neighbors dragging us into court.

We don’t smoke cigarettes within – pick one - : fifty feet of a public entry; in a public park; in a barroom; probably in a brothel; in a casino – all so we don’t get fined for violating laws.

We go through rigorous car inspections so we don’t get fined. If we run restaurants in certain cities, we stop using trans-fats so we don’t get fined.

If we live on a ‘scenic way’ in a ‘Scenic Way’ jurisdiction in Massachusetts, we have to get permission from a town panel of idiots to cut down one of our trees on our lawn, in our yard just so we can clearly see our children while they await the bus. If not? We get fined.

If we are employers we obtain Workmen’s Compensation Insurance so we don’t get fined or charged under some criminal statute.

In Massachusetts, when a father and son go fishing, they'd best comply with all licensing and limits laws lest the fully armed Ecology Police - complete with cruiser and siren - show up to investigate a suspicious looking trout.

The list is just endless.

But the last and most important thing is this: We file our tax returns every year. We are taxpayers. It is the price of being a member of Club America.

We pay these taxes to the same governments that impose so damned many restrictions on every aspect of our daily lives.

And then what happens? We’re told that people who broke the law, people who haven’t paid taxes to our government, people who have stolen identities, committed all sorts of frauds and violations of significant and insignificant regulations – should be ‘forgiven.’

It’s ‘the right thing to do.’ ‘It’s only fair.’

Many years ago I was a classroom teacher in an urban public school. I learned the hard way how to run a classroom.

The rules must be clearly stated. They must be evenly enforced. The punishments must be uniform. No one – NO ONE must ever be allowed to get away with a violation.

And why?

Because if you are not fair and just, your class will fall apart. They will turn on you like rabid tigers.

They will be demoralized.

There will be no uniform classroom culture to which they belong.

It will be ‘every kid for himself,’ and the teacher be damned.

Bush the Apostle does not understand this. Nor does Kennedy or any of the other culturally suicidal idiots such as Lindsey Graham.

I do not know a single person in Massachusetts who regards this as a racial issue.

It is an issue of what is right and what is wrong.

Bush the Apostle and his allies are determined to prove we have been fools for trying to obey every single little goddamned crapola regulation and law that has been foisted upon us.

We are to be the silently suffering brother who watches the ‘Prodigal Son’ get all the special treatment.

Y’uh know, I always had trouble with the story of the ‘Prodigal Son.’ I think most people do.

That’s because it’s a story about forgiveness, not about fairness. Furthermore, it's not a story that is literally meant to be applied to a family nor to a culture. It is a metaphor. The 'father' in the story is, in fact, God. The 'Prodigal Son' represents 'sinners.' When the 'Prodigal' returns home, he is returning to God.

The lesson of this little story has absolutely nothing to do with a culture or a society. It tells those living a 'Godly' life that they should not resent those who have sinned and return to the fold. God will accept them.

Forgiveness of a ‘Prodigal Son’ may be fine in a family that doesn’t care about it’s internal order and the cooperation of other family members.

In the American culture – a culture founded on the rule of law – such forgiveness will tear the culture apart.

Another Christian dictum comes to mind: Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God, the things that are God's.

Implicit in this admonition to pay one's taxes is the command to obey the law of the state while remaining true to God.

Bush should remember that his oath as President, sworn in God's name, is to uphold the laws and constitution of this country as President.

Bush is still a relatively young man. If he wants to be a priest and dispense forgiveness, there'll be time for that later.