Workers of the world -- grovel for your crumbs!

The GOP's war on the blue collar worker continues. Hedge funds just got a $200 billion bailout, just to ensure no ones ascot gets in a twist. UAW workers? Grovel for your scraps. .... I said grovel!!!

Look, I don't have much sympathy for the UAW as they pretty much joined with auto management in the opposition to fuel economy standards, safety standards, environmental requirements -- all things that are coming back to bite the auto industry. The workers will have to take some of the hits - that's the downfall of working in an industry that has failed to move on with the times. It's just the government taking blood from the little guy while letting the rich get away fairly scott free, allowing them to earn whatever they can, is what bothers me.

I'm so disgusted by the hypocrisy of the GOP. They've barely said boo about bonuses much more than $65k to the guys in the financial industry who got us in this mess. But now, all of a sudden, according to the GOP, $65k a year is too much for the average American? Wasn't this the party of Joe 6 Pack a month ago?

The banking industry, who pretty much got us into this mess, gets a blank check and retention bonuses for their employees, while the workers of one of our last major manufacturer industries, are forced to settle for a lower standard of living. Again, I'm not holding the UAW blameless in the domestic auto industry's mess; they've done plenty kill work rule decisions or design of products that would hurt the their own interests over the years even though it would have left their companies in a much more competitive position. I just feel that they shouldn't be held to a different standard.

I believe that all parties need to accept changing economic conditions in the auto industry, but, if the government is going to force the blue collar workers to accept terms such as lower wages, I question why they have not done the same for the workers, who still have jobs, in the financial industry too. Not only do we not hold them to the same standard, we using our taxes going to pay them "retention" bonuses. Hey, if they want to leave in this economy, let them go. There are plenty of others who would be willing to fill their shoes and, after what has gone on lately, could probably do a better job.

If we're going to force UAW workers to take a pay cut, then I suggest every single employee in the financial sector (well, maybe not the janitors) take a similar pay cut. Fair's fair and they're the ones who really hurt the country. The same demands as are being imposed on the blue-collar workers of the automotive industry should be placed on the white-collar workers of the financial industry.

GOP to Joe 6-Pack: Drop Dead

The election is over so it is now safe for the GOP to cater to their Wall St friends and tell blue collar workers to stick it. I can't be the only one disgusted that, after giving a blank check to the people who got us into our financial mess, the GOP wants to stick it to one of the nations's last remaining manufacturing sectors so they can use the opportunity union bust and to further push the working man (or woman) further down the economic food chain.The irony is that Wall Street's insistence on quarterly profits, many times at the cost of long term investment, helped push the automakers into this dilemma.

I'm not saying the UAW shouldn't have to negotiate and accept lower pay and benefits, it's a global economy and domestic workers need t deal with the fact that their competition comes from other countries and lower wages. I'm also not saying that the Big 3 domesticautomakers shouldn't pay a price for making cars people want as opposed to making people want the cars they will build before customers know they want it (would have been handy to have a few more fuelefficient cars around when fuel prices rose -- something that has been foreseeable for years). There has been no inclination of management in the auto industry to produce vehicles that get even better fuel economy without the government mandating that they do so, because that would affect Wall Street's profits.

Still with all that, it's the hypocrisy from the GOP, supposed friend of the average guy, that gets me. Aside from fiscal conservatives, who seem to be running from the party, their base is the blue collar worker. Granted, many of them are in the south, where unions were never as popular as in the north, but if I'm a blue collar worker down there I'm wondering if the GOP is going to stab me in the back as soon as my interests and theirs go different ways. They are purposely destroying the middle class in the United States. This isn't some accident, or blunder... it's by design.

Like them or hate them, we all benefit from the presence of labor unions -- unless you're one of the ones working 6 days a week, 14 hours a day, for minimum wage and no benefits in an environmentally hazardous factory where children are running around assisting you. The labor unions rose to counter act excesses by management in a capitalist system. Labor organizations exist to look out for the interests of the workers, while management looks out for the interests of the owners--and somewhere in the middle the two meet, and figure out what is acceptable. In an ideal world, there would be no need for labor to organize. If management andpoliticians oppose the concept of labor organizations, then giving labor no reason to exist, such as paying workers a fair wage with adequate benefits, would be in order. Again, this is hard to do when other societies, whom we compete with, refuse to do the same.

If the government really wanted to help the Big 3, they would take their healthcare costs off of the carmakers' plates and offer universal healthcare. I'd have more respect if the GOP came out and said we're doomed if we keep handing out money like it was candy. We can't keep paying for bailouts, the war on terror, social security, medical care etc without eventually devaluing our currency and/or defaulting on the national debt -- something is going to give. But they didn't. Instead, the GOP continues to exploit every anti labor opportunity, even though their policies to weaken labor have also eroded the middle class and weakened the economy.

In a nutshell: If it's the GOP's rich, banker friends in trouble, they get a blank check. If it's Joe 6-pack, they get an unemployment check. Folks at the top get richer, snatching up corporate assets at bargain prices, while the average worker foots the bill.The economic disaster that the GOP has been engineering won't affect the super rich, and it won't affect the super poor; it is simply designed to bleed out all of the wealth in between. It is bad enough when it is done to us by our competitors, it is horrible when we do it to ourselves.

Zoom, zoom ... [crash]

Like much of the country, I have been paying attention to the fate of the domestic automakers as they desperately try to avoid death. The latest potential federal bailout was thrown for a loop when the UAW refused to accept government demands that employees immediately accept lower raises and benefits to make them competitive.Going by past history, I can understand why they are loathe to give into their employers.But they may have to bite the bullet and give in. However, it takes two to tangle and theautomakers themselves need to show some good faith.

Both my father and grandfather spent their entire lives working in unions and I saw the good they can do. I've also seen what can happen when they get too bloated and forget their purpose. The UAW negotiated great contracts for their members when times were good. Unfortunately those same benefits are now a humongous chain around their necks and the unions may need to agree to concessions and accept similar pay and benefits to what non-unionized autoworkers get in other parts of the US.

Foreign manufacturers, with plants in parts of the US have discovered that it is easy for employers to get rid of unions: just treat the employees as if they were unionized, offering them decent wages and benefits. And this is not limited to manufacturing. 7 years ago, Wegmans supermarket opened a store in my NJ neighborhood. Unlike the other chains in the area, Wegmans is not unionized. Yet, they were flooded with applications as they offered wages and benefits comparable to the unionized markets. The union had protesters outside the store's parking lot urging a boycott for almost a year. The protesters are gone now and the store is still there, bigger, cleaner than it's competitors with competitive pricing (some things are cheaper, some things aren't).

Many of the store's initial employees were kids from the other supermarkets. If working in those stores was like the unionized store I worked in when I was in high school and college, I can understand why. In my store, a management vs. employee attitude was always felt, even when it was detrimental to business and affected customers(fault of both sides -- why should an employee do something extra when they'll receive no benefit and just be sh-t upon by management later). Employees were always in a bad mood. Threats of a write-up were always present, along with contacting the union rep anytime somebody got pissed. Deadwood played the union rules perfectly. I don't sense that inWegmans. Wegmans itself is commonly recognized as one of the top 50 employers in the nation. More importantly, they seem to treat employees fairly so employees don't feel the need to unionize.

That said, love them or hate them, unions have and still do play an important role in our nation's economy. Many employers are not asbenevolent as Wegmans . Others, who pay union like wages simply to keep the unions out, would probably lower wages and benefits if the unions weren't there to keep them on their toes. It is irresponsible of lawmakers, with a hate of unions, to let the Big 3 fail, yet that is what some seem to advocate.

I and my wife have owned foreign cars for a decade. Unlike the domestic cars our parents owned, which always seemed to be in the shop, our cars have usually just gone in for basic maintenance (my 9 year old foreign car finally had a non-routine maintenance issue last month). I spend my money on quality, which has been foreign autos, even if made in the US, for a long time.

That still doesn't mean I want to see the Detroit automakers fail. Domestic car companies and their suppliers are an important piece of the US economy. At a time when the economy is in trouble and buying American may mean buying a Honda mostly built in Tennessee over buying a Ford mostly built in Mexico, it is foolish of lawmakers to make an example of the automakers past mistakes as a reason not to help keep them running for the short term just so they can kick unions when they are down. How many more hits can the economy take before we all discover that divided we stand, united we fall.

Things to be thankful for

Merchants are slashing prices, making deals, in the hope that they can get shoppers to buy and not just look this holiday season. Good luck with that. While I'm sure they'll make more sales than they would have otherwise, it feels like people are battening down the hatches for the storm, even those who still have healthy salaries coming in.

Despite the Fed loosening the credit market, making credit available again, the government is finding consumers do not necessarily want more debt and that "households and lenders may not respond much because of the wealth destruction from plunging property and stock values." Count us as one of those people. Our IRA, 401k and children's college funds were hammered this year. It is like we didn't put any money in at all the last few years. Now maybe those portfolios will come back, but maybe they won't, at least in time for our eldest to go to college in less than 10 years. So, while continuing to add to the college fund, in the hope I'm buying at the bottom, I'm also sticking a little extra cash into savings (our emergency fund) in preparation to add that to the college funds once we're sure things have stabilized.

At the moment we're fine as we've always tried to live within our means (emergencies like the furnace dying in winter notwithstanding). However, we know too many people who have been laid off, sometimes both the husband and the wife, and see that it could happen to us. We're not to going to spend what we don't have to. The 9 year old car, which needs a little work, still runs fine. Same for the non flat screen 32 inch TV.

We'll still do some shopping as we're in a house and there is always a project that needs doing, but anything optional is being delayed. And if I see a good deal on a car, and/or decide it is not worth it to fix an aging car, I might pounce sooner rather than later. Base case scenario, we go on a nice shopping and investing spree in a year or two.

Again, we are fortunate. We are not the working poor. Things could be much worse. My wife works for the state (NJ). Many of the people she supervises are lower level employees who make around $30k per year, the working poor. Originally, the last payday for the month was to be today. However, since the state offices are now open the day after Thanksgiving, payday is Friday. Yesterday, as I read a story about 30 million Americans (about 10% of the population), will be getting food stamps soon, she told me that several of the employees had to cancel their plans for tomorrow as they don't have enough money to buy a turkey tonight. Somehow, not shopping till we drop the next few weeks doesn't feel so bad.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Next on Capitol Hill Blues

Before the GOP gets all upset about a President Obama having a almost filibuster proof majority in the Senate, they should take solace in the fact that the Democrats may not be marching in step with him. The fundamental problem Obama faces within his party is this: He was not their top choice for the job. The Democratic Party's top brass wanted Hillary, not Obama. Though Obama will bring many new Senators with him to Congress, Senators who rode in on his coat tails, he will still have to deal with the entrenched group of insiders who were already there and like the DNC power structure as is. If they do so, this could be bad news ... for this out of touch group.

Washington insiders are out of touch with the rest of American, particularly those insulated from day to day activities of the real world. A lot of people hated Hillary for many reasons, some of them good. A lot of Reagan Democrats may have looked at Hillary and McCain, decided they were pretty similar and chose McCain as the better choice.

DNC chief Howard Dean had the grass roots idea right, if not too early, in '04. This was a season where more people wanted something to look forward to than for mommy or grandpa to protect them. Replace Dean with a more stable candidate like Obama and you get a win. Now we'll see whether Obama can turn things around.

What will be interesting is not if the GOP goes the grassroots round in '12 or '16, but who their supporters will be as they've made the conservative intellectuals feel unwelcome.

What next?

While I'm happy to see Sarah Palin head back to Alaska I am not happy about the bashing the Republican party has taken. Instead, I'm hopeful that this lost will lead to their day of reckoning a little sooner so they can rebuild the GOP (or a new party) as a true conservative party that will not pander to the religious loonies on the right, spend like there is no tomorrow but leave the bill until tomorrow and focus on making the majority of Americans poorer while making sure those with the right connections succeed (I'm not optimistic about the later).

The GOP needs to clean house and get the conservative movement back to their base. They used to be the party of small government and business, doing what they thought was best for the country as a whole. Better, they had the ability to debate with the Democrats to show voters why their ideas were correct. Though you may have disagreed with their conclusions, their opinions were generally well thought out and informed-- a good example would be dissenting US Supreme Court opinions where a justice(s) demonstrates how he or she came up with a differentconclusion than the majority based on a different philosophy . Now they seem to argue on fear: the other side will raise taxes (ignoring that they raised the debt so much with their drunken spending that any candidate will have little choice), he hangs out with terrorists, he is a Muslim etc, without the facts to back up their allegations.

They've chased away the best and the brightest in an elite intellectual purge, seeming to prefer the ignorant masses. I'm not saying the educated don't make mistakes: John Kennedy's best and brightest leading us into Vietnam being a prime example. However, there are two sides to every argument and I prefer a well thought out opinion over a "it feels right" approach. Poorly defined, bitter vitriol, complete with name calling, can not compare to a full debate on the issues, though it does make for a better sound bite.

There is nothing wrong with representing the blue collar, unprofessional Americans who live and move in a different world than professionals with different concerns. However, that can't succeed on the world stage. The GOP lost the election in part by scaring away voters, even the Joe 6 Packs, with a woefully inept Sarah Palin. The political qualities that make for a good Governor of a small (in population) rural state such as Alaska do not necessarily transfer well to the national stage. Yet, that could have been overcome with a crash course on current positions. The public would understand that the Governor of Alaska, while well versed in problems facing Alaska, would not be up to date on national issues. However the Governor seemed incapable of adjusting. More scary, the faithful kept lowering the bar, trying to convince Americans that the under study to a 72 year old POW cancer surviving President doesn't need to be smart. Americans, scared at what could happen, refused to support the ticket and McCain lost in a year where it would have been hard for the GOP to win anyway. Yet the GOP thinks the solution for 2012 is to not only go ultra conservative but to pick more empty shells to run for office and to manipulate. The well educated, with informed and reasoned opinions on domestic and foreign affairs need not apply. Meritocracy has no place in the new GOP.

Presidents such as Abe Lincoln or T.Roosevelt would not be welcomed today as they were intellectuals who were somewhat progressive for their day. Nixon would have been impeached not because of Watergate, but because he dared to talk to communist China. Reagan would never be able to have drinks with Tip O'Neil because O'Neil was the Democratic speaker of the house. The party that was less than thrilled with Senator McCain because he wasn't socially conservative enough for them deserves what they get. The sad thing is that blue collar workers, who they profess to love, the college educated professionals and the white collar, but perhaps not educated, middle class in the service industry have many things in common. Yet the GOP has chased away the college educated who could lead the next generation and, frankly, has not treated the white collar middle class that well either so they could focus on the fears of a few who do not like the way the world is changing.

The party seems to have embraced a policy that the more uneducated you are, the more qualified you are to lead the nation. By that logic Andy Taylor is as qualified to be the Supreme Court's chief justice as John Roberts. There is appeal and there is the ability to lead the nation. Just because you are successfully running your small computer business does not mean you have the skills to immediately be the second in command at IBM, yet that is what the GOP expected the Kool Aid drinkers to accept. 8 years of go by your guts and not weigh the consequences of alternate options has left this country in a horrible mess. It is one thing for your local leaders to be a Joe 6 pack, it is another for the national leaders.

As to Palin herself, not only was she unqualified at the moment, but she seemed to show a lack of intellectual curiosity. You don't need to have a Harvard or Yale degree to be intelligent. Heck, you do not even need to go to college, I've known many incredibly intelligent people over the years who did not go to college. I've also known plenty of college graduates who I thought were idiots. However, even those without a formal education stayed up on current events and could question what was being said.

I do not want the man or woman running our country to be the one I most want to hang out with, I want the one who has the ability to do the best job, whether they went to Columbia University, Queens College or Newark High School. Palin, who could barely be bothered to read briefing papers before her debate, was not that person. I may not agree with John Roberts, Pat Buchanan, Sam Alito or Newt Gingrich, but their positions are generally well thought out. They could properly frame an argument with a well balanced position. However, if they were starting their careers today, I wonder if they would be welcomed in the GOP of today? Perhaps, or perhaps they would be chased away because they are intellectual elitists.

All of us, liberal, conservative, moderate whatever are stronger when both sides can frame an intellectual argument to try to convince us of their points. We need people from all sides of the political spectrum with intellectual curiosity, analytical talents, and problem-solving skills typical of intensely intelligent people to be our leaders. Anything less is inadequate. Disdain for the intellectual, creative thinking base is not a good thing. If we think two party rule is bad, wait until we have one party rule.

The promised land

Growing up in a Jewish household in the 1970s and 1980s, I heard a lot about Israel's 1967 6 Day War. Many Jews expected a second holocaust with Israel being wiped off the face of the earth when the war started. Instead, Israel not only defended herself but was able to push back her enemies and take back East Jerusalem (leading to today's geopolitical problems, but that is another issue). In the decades before the war, Jews could look, but not touch the Western Wall of the old temple, one of Judiaism's holiest cites. Now they could. I have heard stories of the emotion of the day when Israel took over East Jerusalem, the tears of joy and happiness but never quite understood it. That is until yesterday.

Yesterday, the first day after Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States, and the nation's first African American President, the news was filled with stories from older African Americans happy to finally reach the reach the promised land. After years, decades, centuries, many African Americans see the election of one of their own by the white majority as a sign that they have finally made it to main stream America. They see a leader they can point their children to. Instead of being like the thug on the corner, they can be like the man in the White House.

More interestingly, I found similarities to the story of Exodus from the Bible in this election. Just as the Jews wandered around for 40 years so have the African Americans. It has been 40 years since civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated. As he said the day before he died, "And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land." Like Moses having to let Joshua lead the Jews into their promised land after their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, Barack has led Martin's to theirs. Hearing the stories of many who lived in segregation or were part of the civil rights movement express their joy in living to a day they never expected in their lifetimes reminded me of the stories I heard from my parents' generation about Israel.

Though President-elect Obama's election is just a symbol, it is a strong symbol of hope that fulfills a dream. However this symbol shouldn't take away from the hard work that needs to be done, he does provide hope, which is something that, hopefully, community leaders will be able to build upon. But I'm not here to rain on their parade. I'm here to enjoy their celebration and hope that we all will be celebrating with them as Americans unifying behind our new President.

The shallowest generation.

I have just read a fascinating article about how the baby boomers are going to go down as the shallowest generation. The premise was that the baby boomers have spent the last 25 years charging us into debt while refusing to invest in tomorrow. Now that the debt party is over, we're living the hangover now that we need to live within our means.

We have done worse then refuse to live within our means for the last few decades, we have sold our souls to lowest bidders for the almighty corporate bottom line. Profit is great, but if concentrated into too few hands it does society as a whole little good. How is it in the average American's best interest to be doomed to work for low wages so investors can make huge profit and the larger corporations squash any competitor. We have outsourced almost everything meaningful, both blue collar and white collar, to our competitors. If it can be made cheaply elsewhere, out it goes. Great if the freed money is being used to invest in something else, not so great if its just going into someone's stock portfolio to sit and increase a profit that will not be invested in our country, except to pay the minimal wages of the household help.

We've refuse to properly invest in our schools and infrastructure. What will this cost us later? We continue to argue over bailing out large companies while average Americans are losing their homes, even though they have some equity in them, simply because they can't refinance their current mortgages to a lower interest rate, even though that means the difference between them keeping their homes or causing their towns to lose another taxpayer as they are forced to leave.

The average hard working blue collar guy is finding his (or her) options getting worse every day. It won't be long until their white collar friends join them. And oh won't we have fun then?

Medical waste

Business owners are worried that Obama's potential healthcare plan will cost them too much money. And, if the medical business stays as is, I can see their point. All those different health care companies requiring different paperwork and I wonder if the overhead is going to be the real killer.

A few weeks ago I severely sprained my ankle (couldn't walk far etc) so I went to my primary care doctor. He looked at my foot for a few minutes and gave me referrals for an xray and orthopedic doctor. I spent more time with the woman at the desk as she wrote up the referrals then I did with the doctor.

First, she had to get the book of participating doctors for my health care plan out of a large pile of books. Then, she had to find a local doctor. Then she had to find the right forms to write out the referrals (that only took a few seconds). Then she had to fill them out.

When I went to the radiologist for the x-ray (walk in) and the orthopedic doctor (couldn't get an appointment for 10 days), their staff had to retype in all the information to their computers. The orthopedic doctor gave me a referral for physical therapy, so the staff for the PT had to refill in all my paperwork.

Ultimately all 4 offices will submit 4 individual claims (though the PT might be for each visit) which will be reviewed at 4 separate times and be paid on 4 separate times. Eventually all 4 of the offices I visited will send the checks to whoever does their billing so the accounts are all squared. Whew. I'm tired.

With the exception of PT, I spent perhaps 20 minutes with two doctors and one x-ray technician. All the paperwork took much longer than that. Something is not right there.

I'm mad as heck and I'm probably going to take it some more

Well the debates are over and I still feel that no matter who wins the election my 40 year old self better plan on working until the day I die as there will be no social security, no Medicare, no pension, no 401k etc (at least as we know them). Sending the children to college so they can hopefully get good enough jobs to support us in our old age? As if. All I see are mountains of debt, getting larger by the second, that will have to be paid down and no real plan to do so; just promises of more tax cuts and more spending. Aughhhh!!!!! And I thought NJ politics pandered!

Good grief people. We have been spending like there was no tomorrow for many moons and now that tomorrow is here it seems like we are using the opportunity to go on one final drunken spending spree. I wouldn't be so upset if all the recent deficit spending had been used for investing in our schools, transportation or energy infrastructures, but that has not been the case. Instead we went out and created thousands of jobs in Asia and the middle East as we ran out to buy fuel for large SUVs to haul home our 52 inch flat screen TVs.

Ok, fine. That was free choice. But what really gets my goat is that the politicians are still promising us we can continue living like that, a life of leisure followed by a long, healthy, luxurious retirement, despite mounting evidence to the contrary for most of us if only they can cut more taxes and increase spending on anything but investing in our country's future. The sooner we realize that we are being sold a bill of goods and we have some real hard choices to make, the better.

Sorry folks, the social security retirement age is going to have to be raised. The average person in their late 60s in the 1930s probably only had a few years to live when they started collecting their social security, today anyone dying in their 60s is considered to have died young. I am already realizing that I better plan to stay healthy, something that really came home this week as my mobility was quite limited (fortunately I can telecommute).

We're also going to have to do something about health care. One of the claims people make to say why socialized medicine is horrible is the long wait to see a doctor. Well, I severely sprained my ankle last weekend, and the earliest I can see the orthopedic doctor will be almost 2 weeks later, by which time my ankle will have healed or I will have really messed up my foot. And I get to pay a nice chunk of change, on top of the Medicare & social security taxes which I'll never see again, from my paycheck for this privilege. Whoopee. And about our infrastructure: we can short change our schools, roads, trains and ports all we want to save a few pennies, but our competitors are not and they will continue to take advantage of a country living off its past legacy.

Instead of tackling these tough problems we have instead been focusing on abortion, what associates did 40 years ago, whether cavemen had dinosaurs as pets and other irrelevant issues in these tough times. Those arguments are for a rich, fat, lazy nation at peace. Well we're fat and lazy but we are no longer rich or at peace. Low taxes are nice, but the goods and services we as a society want costs money, as is evidenced by a now over $10T debt. If we're not going to cut services, we can't keep cutting revenue like there is no tomorrow, especially when tomorrow will soon be yesterday.

Of course we the people are to blame. We listen and accept all this garbage and never concentrate on the real issues. The real issues are boring. Cutting the budget can be done, but that takes courage and will cost some pain. It is also dull. It is more entertaining to discuss whether Osama bin Barack blew up a weather station when he was 8 or whether Caribou Barbie really believes her ancestors had pet dinosaurs as she ponders international security matters from her suburban house. We can say we're mad as heck, and demand a government that will do what is best for the country, but we're probably going to take more of what we've been taking because that is much less work anyway.

The ant , grasshopper and the mortgage

I really hope I am misunderstanding Senator McCain's $300B home ownership mortgage plan. This plan is similar to something Senator Obama proposed a few weeks ago, so it sounds like this is what we're getting. If I understand it correctly, the government is going to borrow more money to give to the banks to make up the difference for those who have mortgages worth more than their homes current value. I have no problem making sure a person whose home is worth $330k, while they have a 350k mortgages can refinance to a 30 year mortgage so they can ride out the storm and stay in their homes. I do have a problem with writing off the balances entirely as someone, probably the taxpayer, will have to make up the difference when, under the McCain plan the government picks up those bad mortgages. The government should do what it can to let people stay in their homes but they should otherwise let the market collapse naturally.

I bought the house I could afford back in 2000 and stayed. I refinanced when rates went down (it was 8% for 30 years in '00), choosing a 20 year mortgage in lieu of a 15 year mortgage because the monthly payments would have been a bit of a stretch for our budget then. Silly me, financing what I could afford. I should have gone crazy and bought the bigger nicer house and maxed out my credit cards furnishing it.

Under McCain’s plan, I would’ve been better off selling 2 years ago and buying some McMansion I couldn’t afford so I can get bailed out by taxpayers today as I could just have written off the amount the newer house went down and let the taxpayers pick up the difference. My payments would be the same, thanks to the large down payment we would've had from selling at the top of the market and I’d have a much nicer house, while my older house decreased even more in value, possibly lower than even 8 years ago. Oh wait, I'm still in the older house! This is my reward for doing the right thing and playing by the conservative fiscal rules. Play by the rules like the ant and then subsidize the grasshopper when winter comes.

Too bad for those owners. They bet on continuing over priced houses and lost. While I don’t want to see them lose their homes, I don’t agree that they should now get a taxpayer subsidy to pay a lower mortgage. Again, I don't want to see them lose their homes, especially the many who got caught in the over-priced, inflated market by bad timing,. Adjust their monthly payments so they can afford to stay, but with the caveat we the taxpayers get part of their sales price when they finally sell. I already pay my mortgage. I don't want to pay the mortgage of someone who gambled and lost, yet came out ahead.

Is this how freedom dies?

Not unexpectedly, the gloves have come off in the Presidential campaign as Senator McCain continues to fall in the polls. Attacks on Senator Obama have gotten nastier, but that is part of politics. What I find worrisome is the attack on the press. The McCain camp seems intent on killing the messengers.

I speak of a recent rally in Florida where Governor Palin pretty much turned a mob against reporters covering a rally by blaming Katie Couric's "tough" questions for her less than stellar interview, and not her own incompetence. Next thing you know, the mob has turned on the press waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse.

What is wrong with these people? Don't they understand freedom of the press is one of the elements of our liberty? Government officials inspiring a mob to turn on reporters in the US? This is beyond getting ugly, this is the GOP turning against the freedom of the press. This is how freedom dies.

Has the NY Jew jumped the lox?

I just read an article about how success has ruined the NY Jew, accusing us of jumping the shark aswe assimilated into America and let Jewish NYC become a Jewish city run by non-Jews Meh. We didn't jump the shark, we moved to NJ, Westchester, LI and Boca. I can find plenty of old style kosher delis where I live now, a Jewish NJ suburb of reform, conservative and orthodox Jews. Same for bagels. BTW, the best bagels in the city are not made by H&H -- if you know where to look, you can find better. Yes, we're your Americanized grandchildren, yet we still go to temple, still associate and marry Jews (though many assimilate and marry non-Jews), still follow the traditions, which have warped over the years etc.

My grandparents generation, the first one born in America, forged their own path by not using a matchmaker and moving from the Lower East Side to Brooklyn. My parents generation moved to Queens, LI, NJ, Westchester and Staten Island. My generation is leaving the NYC area. My parents stopped going to the lower East Side to see their grandparents over a half century ago. My grandma, grandpa and all the Brooklyn aunts and uncles of their generation are long gone, so there is not much tying us there. That my generation has gone back to areas we, meaning my parents and grandparents, came from speak not so much as a return home, but because those areas became hip again in the 90s and 00s. I root for the Mets not so much because they are the underdog, but because I lived in Queens in the 1970s when Mets tickets were easy to get, as the team stunk. As opposed to the Yankees, the Mets were more fun for children in those days, with events like banner day and the ability to get to the railing to get autographs, unlike Yankee Stadium where I never even sat in the field level until they hit rock bottom in the late 80s. I might've remained a Jets fan too, but I never forgave them for abandoning Shea, but that's another story.

It was fun while it lasted, but the 5 boroughs are not home anymore. As our parents generation fades into the sunset, many of the cousins of my generation are leaving the NYC area. Some live as Jews, others do not, just as previous generations did or did not. Of course, thanks to the antisemitism that is still in existence in many parts of the country, those who wish to remain Jewish, go to areas where there are Jews, which explains in part why I have many friends and family in concentrated areas around the US. The Diaspora continues in the US, but as long as parents choose to raise their children as Jews, which has to come from within the heart, we will still flock to Jewish areas.

Dear Congress: Stop messing around already!

Dear Congress,

All I want to do this week is fill up my car with gas, go to work, make enough money to pay my bills and buy groceries and maybe save a little for my children's college. To do this my employer needs credit, especially from our customers. That will be a little hard if the credit markets freeze. Companies require credit to conduct their business, which is most of them. A lot of non-banking companies out there, even with good credit, may soon not need the money they need to conduct business as the banks either don't have the money to spare or they are too scared to lend. The thought of 700 billion dollars churns my stomach, but I think in the long run the economic fallout from bank and business failure will cost more than $700B.

At this point I don't really care who is responsible for this mess, I just have this horrible feeling that we're making a bigger mess by not fixing it now. I know its an election year and you have to posture against Wall Street and make sure Main Street is taken care of, but I worry you're really taking care of MainStreet in a bad way. Sooner or later the rest of the world is going to write us off as a bad debt and then where will we be? I understand you don't want to vote for it, because it's politically unpopular, despite being the smart thing to do. Some analysts think that we may even make a profit from this (of course that assumes that less than 50% of the bad mortgages fail), as we have in the past.

Just because the unwashed ignorant masses, which is pretty much most of us, think they'll be sticking it to Wall Street fat cats, doesn't make it so. Yes, some of those businesses made some bad decisions and they deserve to fail. But do we want to see them fail at our expense? Without the bailout, there might not be jobs for any of us to work as credit dries up. Look I don't like the bailout/investment of those who got us into the mess, which includes you for taking away the regulations that could have prevented this mess, but I like sleeping on the street even less. Just take your pound of flesh and move on already. Nationalize the banks if you have to. Take equity in the banks. Whatever. Just stop farking around and get to work.

I don't know if this plan is how to fix our markets or is just the delaying the inevitable. I'm not an expert on financial markets or monetary policy and this whole rush to pass the bill feels like the runup to Iraq all over again. But I think if we just stick by our laissez-faire guns, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. We've made our bed with the housing bubble and all the leveraging. Now we need to sleep in it. Stop digging in on principals before more people lose their jobs or houses. Don't make this an an ideological issue; put the good of the country first. And then, tomorrow, or next week, work on our 10 trillion dollar debt before the dollar is worth no more than monopoly money.

I remember reading in an FDR bio that in the last weeks of the Hoover administration the economy essentially stopped as banks stopped lending money as they waited to see what FDR would do. This had the immediate effect of increasing unemployment as business stopped as they became unable to pay payrolls, hire new employees and buy supplies. Farmers were unable to afford seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides for the next year. I really don't want to see the GreatDepression renamed World Depression I.

Next time on a very special episode of John & Sarah ...

I don't know whether to be amused or sad that the McCain/Palin campaign want to rip off the plot of The Birdcage and have Gov Palin's teenage daughter marry her baby daddy just before the election for ratings. Of course it will be a shotgun wedding as Gov Palin has already admitted she shoots things.

Me thinks this campaign has jumped the shark. You can always tell the ratings are tanking when producers go for the wedding, though they at least shook things up by having pregnancy episodes before the wedding episode. And of course Sarah will have to cut time out of her schedule for important things like security briefs and interviews with the press to plan the wedding and decide what lipstick to put on. I wonder what hijinks they have planned to go wrong that day for the traditional cold feet scene.

I think the season will end as a cliffhanger with Palin's son being shipped off to Iraq & the daughter going into labor. Left unanswered will be the important questions: Did Sarah or Todd have an affair? Is John ill? Did Sarah abuse her power? Will Levi be written out? What about Trigg? There is a real danger we won't find out what happens next if John & Sarah get canceled by voters in November, so vote McCain if you want to keep this soap opera running.

Caribou Barbie

Did you see the interview Sarah Palin had with Katie Couric on CBS? Yikes!! No wonder the McCain campaign is keeping her from the press, which finally seems to be waking up to this problem. More disturbing though is the thought she could be President one day. While I don't expect her, a governor suddenly thrust onto the national stage to be as well versed in national issues as Senators McCain, Obama and Biden after just a few weeks, I would expect her to at least be able to answer a question with a rudimentary, basic answer. That she can not disturbs me. It is not so much that she didn't know the issues facing this country that bothered me as her seemingly inabilityto still understand them. She is not qualified to run for the second highest office of this land.

Being governor of Alaska, a state with a population smaller than Brooklyn, is not the same as being a governor of New Jersey, Texas or Arkansas. She basically has the same executive experience as one of the many mayors of New Jersey's small towns. My father in law has executive business experience running his small radio communications company, that doesn't mean he has the skills to suddenly run CBS tomorrow, even though he watches the network on a regular basis. If Governor Palin can't handle Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric or even her own supporters throwing softballs, how can she handle Putin when he bombs Georgia again? How will she work with foreign leaders who already see her as just eye candy like Pakistan's leader did?

I'm not a Dick Cheney fan, but I wouldn't be too worried if he was suddenly President. He has been engaged in national and international issues for decades and would be an adequate President. Same for Al Gore if something had happened to President Clinton. Even Dan Quayle, who was also thought to be a lightweight, had some experience with national issues and, as I recall, was at least able to answer reporter questions (though not spell potato). But Governor Palin? Maybe 8 years from now, but not today. And, after this last round with Couric I think I am being generous.

Whether you agree with her or not is not as important as whether she can actually be President. Her running mate is a 72 year old former POW cancer survivor running for the most stressful job on the planet? Will he still be here in 4 years? What happens if we really do get a President Palin. As I said before, picking Palin was a great political move, but is it good for the country?

Yes, the role of the VP, which constitutionally is just to make sure the President is breathing and break ties in the Senate, doesn't require much, but when there is a chance that VP may be President, it is time to worry. And, as the recent financial meltdown has shown, we will need a leader who is not only engaged but also can understand what is going on. Senator McCain is intelligent and knowledgeable, Palin is not. Governing a nation such as our requires skills and an ability to make the right decision based on an understanding of the facts to make complex decisions, not just simply doing what your advisers tell you to do because all you are is an empty figure head. It requires a leader prepared to understand the issues facing him or her, able to partake in serious thought. I have yet to see a view from Governor Palin that would convince me she has these skills.

I like John McCain, though not his campaign (which reminds me of Gore's 2000 campaign filled will missteps because the handlers wouldn't let the candidate be himself). If he had won the nomination in 2000, I may have voted for him over Gore, but then I may not have. Though there were polices of his I disagreed with, I never doubted his ability to be President then. However, it is now 8 years later. He is 72 and has had health issues. While his mother is still around, both his father and grandfather died at much younger ages. While though those could be blamed on the stresses of WWII and Vietnam, both the stresses of our financial mess and Iraq will not be going away anytime soon and I worry about a President McCain making it to 2012.

There is a reason why some of the left leaning blogs came up with the nickname Caribou Barbie for Governor Palin (I think, I'v heard it many places). These are dangerous times, we can't afford an incompetent person running the show. As long as Governor Palin remains on the ticket, I will not vote for McCain. There are many competent conservatives who, while I may not agree with politically, are competent to step into the role of President if the need should sadly arise.

Mommy track

I was reading an article in the NY Times about the mommy penalty, though not necessarily from anti-mommy discrimination, working mothers face in pay and compensation. The article contained a section for readers to comment. Of course, the first one blasted working mothers for not working weekends or until 8 at night.

Even before I had children I never would take a job that required me to work weekends or stay late on a regular basis (I exclude from this the hour or so I take some Sunday evenings to clear out my email). Of course, that means my pay is lower (I’m an attorney earning nowhere near the salary I could if I had chosen a more stressful path) but my life is my own, something even more important to me now that I have children. I don’t know where some of these people with the insane hours work or what they do but it sounds unpleasant. One of the benefits in obtaining the skills to work in a high paying job is also the benefit of finding a position where I am able to work for less money but much more flexible time.

I work in an office that offers the same benefits to parents and non-parents alike (flex hours, telecommuting etc). It also offers the same pay. I’ve never noticed parents getting special breaks, if you have to leave early for an appointment, whether its for yourself or a child, doesn't make a difference. As long as the work/project is done when due, all is well. Instead of whining about the mommies leaving early, maybe those people should be considering a job that doesn’t require crazy hours.

While I do work at home half the time, the rest of the time requires me to work in an office over an hour from our home. My wife, on the other hand, works in the adjoining town, 10 minutes from home. So, on the days I'm in the office and an emergency arises with one of my children, my wife is forced to leave work early. Of course, left unsaid, is my wife is using up her sick or vacation time for these events. Like many families with both parents working, we haven't had a long vacation in many years, mostly because we have to use our time off at small chunks. She also does not stay late as my commute gets me home after the after school care programs are done for the day and we really don't feel like finding out what the child abandonment laws in NJ really are.

No complaints, it is the life we chose, but I really miss two week vacations, going to shows on weekends and having money to spend on ourselves. And, once the children are grown, I will happily work during school vacation weeks again. I loved those nice quiet weeks in the office, catching up on paperwork while the phones and email fell quiet, and then taking a nice cheap trip in the fall when all the families are stuck home due to school schedules.

Shea hey, goodbye Yankee Stadium

Well, in a little while, the House that Ruth Built will host it's final baseball game as baseball's cathedral gives way to the House that George Built, with taxpayer help of course. In a week, hopefully more, Shea Stadium will host its final baseball game and make way for CitiField. As a life long New Yorker, living in the city and the suburbs, I'm sad to see both go. Shea Stadium may be a toilet but, as a Mets fan, it is my toilet. Yankee Stadium to me is Cooperstown South and I'm major league annoyed that it is being torn down to put up a parking lot.

Growing up in the 1970s I went to many Mets games, not only because we lived in Queens, but because the Mets had horrible teams in those years and my dad's office had field level box seats customers did not want. It was a horrible day in 1985 when I had to watch my first baseball game from the upper deck. I had seen a NY Jets game from there before, against the Baltimore Colts, on a cold November day (Shea Stadium in late fall, with the wind whipping off the waters is not a pleasant place) but never a baseball game. It was that day I understood why the football/baseball stadiums of the 1960s stunk. Although we froze in the upper deck, we had a great view of the football game, if but from afar. Baseball was little harder to watch, especially when the ball traveled out of view.

My memories of Shea, which I visited for the last time a week ago, and taught my son why it is best to leave before the 9th, when the Mets bullpen takes over and blows the lead, are many. There are too many games my father took my brothers and I to to remember with specificity. Same for games I went to with friends, including a few girlfriends who were also Mets fans. I'll have memories of moving down from the cheap upper level seats, including climbing the wall between mezzanine and field where the seats are right next to each other, to sitting in a box seat adjacent to the field at the end of a losing season during Keith Hernandez's and Gary Carter's last season with the Mets. I'll remember the double header I went to when we were sitting in the right field mezzanine seats and, after Howard Johnson got hit by the pitcher, looking down at the bullpen, watching John Franco pump his fist, a few times and yelling to him "you know you want to!" just before he ran out of the bullpen for a fight at the plate (I'm sure he didn't hear me, most likely he was waiting to see if a fight was about to break out). It is kind of sad I can't remember the games with my dad in detail, but those happened when I was younger and were more frequent so I don't remember them as anything special.

I suppose I will always remember the first Mets game I took my son to, which was just last year. You see last year was the first year he was old enough to really be into baseball. I tried to get him into baseball, taking him to Lakewood Blue Claws games, a single A game team of the Philadelphia Phillies, before, but he wasn't interested. Finally, when he turned 6, he became interested in the Mets. So the following season we went to our first game. The Mets kicked butt. My best story of Shea Stadium, and my first visit, more or less, comes from my mother. My parents and god parents scored opening day tickets to the 1968 season. My mother, was a rabid Brooklyn Dodgers fan and adopted the Mets as the Dodgers successor in interest (though she also started following the Yankees, she liked Micky Mantle). Actually she still defines herself as a BROOKLYN Dodger fan. She has never forgiven O'Malley for moving the team to LA.

In 1985, my dad had a business trip to St. Louis, where the Dodgers were playing the Cardinals in the playoffs and my mom went with him for a little teenager free weekend. My dad got tickets to a game so my mom borrowed my brother's baseball cap with a Cardinal with wings to wear. The Cards won and as my mom gleefully walked down the ramps with her cap she was seen by NBC; they got her on camera and asked her if she was a happy Cards fan. Her reply: "No. I'm from Brooklyn, NY and I came to root against the Dodgers." The next day at school was not good for my brothers, sister and me. Anyway, I degress.

The Mets home opener of 1968 coincided with my due date. My mother wasn't going to let that stop her and off she went. My godmother asked my mother what would happen if I decided to make my appearance during the 7th inning strength. Her reply, "We'll name the baby Shea." Though we're not Irish, we lived in an Irish neighborhood so the name Shea wouldn't have been a major problem for a boy, except if I was a girl and, perhaps, with the rabbi and, for sure, my father's parents. Fortunately I was a boy and more fortunately I was born two weeks late.

I have different memories of Yankee Stadium, mostly because, as a Mets fan, I went there less frequently. The first game I remember (I was taken to the older version of the Stadium but don't recall it) was during the 1977 season. My friend's father got a hold of some free left field Con Ed bleacher seats. I recall it rained, we were annoying the visiting team's bullpen and Lou Pinella won the game in extra innings (I think with a homerun). However, the first game I remember with my dad was better. It was 1978, the year the Yankees came back from 14 1/2 out. It was September, and the Yanks were either in first, or just about to get there, and my dad got 4 upper deck tickets for my brothers and me. Awesome tickets at that time. One problem, we were Jewish and it was Yom Kipper, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. My dad had grown up in a religious family. I don't remember who won, or even who the Yankees played. What I do remember is my dad telling my brothers over and over "Don't tell grandma we went to the game."

Other than that, my memories of the Stadium are more generic. I've been to many games with friends. I remember the first time I went by the 4 train and the subway emerged from underground to stare at the Stadium face to face. I remember going to a Mets Yankees game there and being very quiet, less I get killed as a Mets fan (those were the days the bleacher creatures would strip down a Red Sox fan and surf him over their shoulders around the park). I remember cutting out of work to meet my wife and her office somewhere in the upper deck. I remember my first visit to Monument Park, which wasn't open to the public when I was younger, and wondered why I ever needed to visit Cooperstown again. I think that is why I'm more bummed about the Stadium closing than about Shea. All that history - gone for something new and sexy.

Anyway, tonight is the night to Shea goodbye to our Stadiums. Next year we will be in new, more expensive ballparks. Though we'll move there, we will leave a part of ourselves behind.

The stress of teaching

If it's September, it must be time to bash teachers. This week's bashing is brought to you by Fark, where various people commented about an article on stressed out teachers looking for a relief. Can't say I blame the teachers. I'd hate to have to deal with politics, standardized testing, parents who think their child is over entitled etc. Aside from the vacation, there is no way I'd want to be a teacher.

My mother was a NYC teacher in a working class neighborhood through the 1970s - early 90s. Though the school wasn't that great, it wasn't horrible either. That changed by the late 80s, NYC was in recession and all the kids who were in private school were crammed into her over crowded school and quickly consumed by the wolves (those who came to learn got their butts kicked).

She was old school and that didn't play well by 1990 when parents of children who refused to behave got mad at the teachers because their children were screwing up. One parent was upset that my mother couldn't do more to control her child in school. At that point, the child had been sent to the dean, been sent to detention, had a parent called etc (corporal punishment was illegal). Calling the parent was the final step -- it was supposed to be the part where the parent actually parented and tried to get their child back on the right path. For various reasons, that didn't happen in that neighborhood. If a teacher had told my parents I was misbehaving like some of her students were, I would have been killed, literally. Not so in her school, there the parents blamed the teachers.

All around she saw fail. Junior high kids getting pregnant, and happy about it. Parents who seemed ok that their lack of involvement was dooming their children to careers at McDonalds because they wouldn't sit their kids down and demand that they behave in school. Out of date books. Classes meeting in bathrooms due to lack of space. Pretty sad when you think about it. The school was so bad that a book was written about it.

By the end, the stress was so great, she was on tons of meds. One day, she just mailed in her keys and quit. She wasn't that far from a full retirement but she didn't care. She was able to retire on disability (her health had been declining the previous few years which didn't help in a school where the strong preyed on the weak) & was off her meds in about a month.

Somehow or another children did graduate from that school and have successful lives (I've worked with a few over the years who remembered my mother). They were the ones who had parents that worked with the school. Unfortunately they were the minority.

Granted, this was almost 2 decades ago, but I imagine that the same situation exists today. The son of a friend recently started teaching in an inner city school and is already ready to quit. It's not so much the kid who got expelled for selling drugs in school still showing up everyday to visit his clients before and after school, it's the children too tired to stay awake in class after working two shifts the night before or skipping school to work that morning, dooming their futures. I couldn't go to work and see that amount of fail every day for all the tea in China.

Should an ill child die over money?

I saw this story last night on one of the websites I frequently visit. The poster's son has been diagnosed with a very rare form of brain cancer. There is only one hospital that can help the boy, Sloan-Kettering, in Manhattan. According to the father they have been doing a study with this treatment for the cancer (Neurocutaneous Melanosis with Leptomeningeal Melanoma), and it has shown a lot of promise. But, because it is a But, because it is a clinical trial, funded by a grant from the National Cancer Institute, insurance won't pay for it; no exceptions, not even in life or death situations.

The boy did qualify for the study in New York but because of the Medicaid/insurance issues he couldn't be transferred there. According to the father, Sloan was excited to have his son come up to the city for treatment, but changed their tune once they found out there were money issues. The treatment will cost $100,000, which the family does not have. So, since they have been denied the medical treatment they need by virtue of a lack of financial resources, they are seeking donations, hoping to get 100,000 to donate $1 each. According to the website they are about a third of the way there. I know I'm not going to miss the $10 I threw into the pot.

I'm not going to rush to judgment on the hospital's reasons, primarily because I haven't seen their side of the story. Also, I'm sure emotion is playing a part in the father's fact pattern. It could very well be the father is grasping at straws to save a doomed child and this is his last hope, whether it is realistic or not. Still, as the parent of two children, and growing up in a family where a child died before adulthood, I could easily put myself in his shoes.

From the various threads I read, this doesn't feel like a scam, it feels like a dad desperate to save his child. I don't know these people, nor do I need to. Their son has a rare form of brain cancer and due to circumstances beyond their control they cannot afford the $100K treatment that their insurance company wont pay for. My wife and I are lucky enough that we could sell our house or take out a loan to cover the cost, and worry about paying the credit card bills and keeping our house later, many are not.

You can argue that the real tragedy here is not the fact that this child is terminally ill, but that we live in a country where we have the resources, the money and the power to prevent such things from happening but choose sit back and count our money like Scrooge instead (which I did - zing). However, this isn't about politics, it's about a dying child. Even if all I did was pay to finance hope, so be it. If you feel like contributing the link is above. And if not, we all know somebody who has cancer or had a relative die of cancer -- maybe you can throw a few bucks at your favorite cancer charity instead.

To boldly go where few gay men have gone before

Star Trek's Mr. Sulu, George Takei, married his longtime partner over the weekend, with best lady Lt. (or whatever her rank is now) Uhura, Nichelle Nichols, and Pavel Chekov, aka Walter Koenig. Yep, another Star Trek wedding. Nothing unusual about that except for one thing -- Sulu's partner is also a man. Another gay marriage and, aside from the Mets bullpen blowing another lead, nothing disastrous happened. The world did not stop spinning. The sun didn't explode. That weird snow cone shaped planet eater from some second season episode of Star Trek did not come to Earth and go all "nom nom nom nom" on us. All was well, unless you worked for Lehman Brothers or Merrill Lynch, but that's another story.

However, there are those to whom this weekend's events spell the end of civilization as we know it (ignoring that civilization as we know it always seems to be evolving anyway), so they can force their views onto others. Hogwash. Why is it anyone's business what two consenting human adults who love each other do? If they want to get married, let them get married. Let them suffer all the joys and sorrows like the rest of us. No need for all the hate. If you don't want gay married couples in your life, you are perfectly free to exclude them from your day to day activities. Just as it is easy to find religious organizations that welcome diversity, it is even easier to find those that are much more traditional. No one is forcing you to play well with others who are different.

Still, even the hating is progress, to an extent. 40 - 50 years ago, the photo below, from Mr. Takei's wedding, of a "negro" woman, a "jap" and two other "white" men would have been blasted for the mixing of races in many parts of the country. And forget about the idea of an aisan and white marrying. Today, not a peep about their different backgrounds, aside from the homosexuality. It just doesn't seem to matter to most people these days. It is no one's business but the happy couple's. Perhaps one day we'll think nothing more than fun party where all had a good time when we hear the term "gay wedding."

If pigs could fly and put on lipstick

The last few days, where the GOP has attempted to Swift Boat Obama have been fun but the GOP needs to be careful. They need to change their tune soon and get back to the issues. I can't believe I'm not the only one who is noticing that the GOP hasn't said anything substantive of late as they pander to the low hanging fruit.

I want to hear about how McCain's policies will be different than Bush. I want to hear about nation building here at home where we have crumbling infrastructures that will need investments. I want to hear about how our veterans will get the care they need and have earned. Are we really going to keep focusing on the superfluous, rather than anything of substance, for the remainder of this election? It's obvious McCain's people hope we do, but I don't know.

While this does seem like his campaign strategy, I wonder if this will backfire. Sooner or later someone will notice all they are really doing is tearing down Obama to McCain's level without building up McCain to Obama's level. Already, to me, McCain is making Obama seem like the better leader, or at least the more mature and level headed of the two. All I'm hearing is Obama wants to discuss issues and McCain wants to talk about gaffe's Obama makes. 7 weeks is an awfully long time for people not to realize that McCain hasn't said anything about his health, tax and economic policies differ from Bush's or are at least better than Obama's.

Of course, few have ever gone broke under estimating the stupidity of the American voter. Fewer still have won elections taking the high road and remaining above the fray, at least lately. Too many of us believe whatever a political operative will tell us to believe instead of taking the time to judge the facts for themselves. Denigrating the intelligence of the party that hates science, supports Creationism, thinks the War on Iraq is God's work, and gay marriage will destroy America? Not a problem as long as you have some cosmetic issue to turn that around on as your defense. As has been shown in the past, taking the high road and sticking to honest politics will not get you elected.

I won't be surprised if Obama is dammed when he fights back, and is portrayed as an angry black man as only Republicans are allowed to defend themselves against smear attacks, or dammed if he remains above the fray and is deemed another John Kerry who is too much of wimp to fight back. Obama probably wouldn't have brought up the subject of McCain's houses if he were not attacked for being an elitist by an elitist. I also won't be surprised if McCain is portrayed as just another old, angry white man afraid of real change, with a reminder that wars aren't won by those not fighting, like dead soldiers or POWs, they're won by those doing the fighting, by the Democrats. I'll be sad, but not surprised.

We keep buying the same story, vote the same way and then act surprised when the expected different outcome doesn't occur. If this keep up, the only loser will be us, the American people, as our future challenges get put off for another 4 to 8 years. You can put lipstick on a donkey but it's still a jack--- (well, I'm sure you know what I mean).

7 years already

Knock, knock. Who's there? 9/11. 9/11 who? You said you'd never forget. Well, it's been seven years...

Doesn't it feel like yesterday? A beautiful late summer day. Sun shining. Mild temperatures. Children back in school. Normal school year and commuting routines starting to get back to normal. Yankees and Mets fighting for playoff spots. Jets and Giants off to another season of aggravating football fans in the NYC area.

That entire day seems fresh in my memory. I was in my office listening to the radio, doing my emails, when the morning guy broke in that there was a fire at the trade center. I went to the employee lounge which had the view of lower Manhattan and watched the smoke pour out of the building. I went back to my office and soon my radio said the second tower was on fire. As I went back to the lounge to see both building burning I think I realized that it was an attack. I don't know why, but I do remember replying "what do you think?" when someone wondered how both buildings could burn.

Next was total confusion in the office. Rumors were flying. The White House is on fire. The Mall is on fire. The Pentagon is on fire. There are still missing planes. I remember sitting in front of my radio, still on the music station which had gone all news, wondering "what the heck was going on?" We eventually all convened in the lounge and watched the buildings burn, and then fall, one by one, pretty much in shock.

After the second tower fell, the lounge was packed but silent, except for the radio and some people crying. I remember one manager with his head in his hands and a completely devastated look on his face. We could hear the fire engines roaring past our building headed to the city (I guess). Soon we were evacuated and I remember standing in the street in a suit, sweating and thinking "now what?" "Fortunately" my office had recently moved to the Jersey side of the Hudson and I was able to get home before too long. It was very strange going down the Garden State Parkway and seeing nothing but army and emergency vehicles headed north. Same for seeing all the trucks just parked on the side of the road by the Outerbridge approach to Staten Island.

It seems like yesterday, but I've noticed that the shock and raw grief are long gone for us, which is interesting considering my wife and I had lived in Brooklyn Heights, just across the East River from the Twin Towers, for many years until 2000 when our son was born and my wife wanted to live near family in Central Jersey. I still think there is something missing when I look at lower Manhattan, though I can at least look at lower Manhattan again and not feel sad.

As to other changes, I hate the way the home of the brave has become the xenophobic land that is scared of our own shadows. For example, if I ride the subway I may have to consent to have my bag searched just so somebody in the middle of the country will feel more secure. Same thing for other public events: when I take my son to his final Mets game at Shea on Sunday, I either have to plan to arrive early so we can wait on long lines while our bag is scanned or plan on buying him food when we get there. Feel good measures that accomplish nothing.

Though we still fight the war on terror, the events of 9/11 are now in our past. Memorabilia from the day is in museums. A new generation of children is growing up with little or no first hand knowledge of the pre 9/11 world. The pain is mostly gone and we are a different people, and not necessarily for the better.

We've come a long way since then. The country is now deeply divided. Hopefully, Senators McCain and Obama's trips to NYC today will remind us of a time when America was united.

Knock, knock. Who's there? 9/11. 9/11 who? You said you'd never forget. Well, it's been seven years...

Doesn't it feel like yesterday? A beautiful late summer day. Sun shining. Mild temperatures. Children back in school. Normal school year and commuting routines starting to get back to normal. Yankees and Mets fighting for playoff spots. Jets and Giants off to another season of aggravating football fans in the NYC area.

That entire day seems fresh in my memory. I was in my office listening to the radio, doing my emails, when the morning guy broke in that there was a fire at the trade center. I went to the employee lounge which had the view of lower Manhattan and watched the smoke pour out of the building. I went back to my office and soon my radio said the second tower was on fire. As I went back to the lounge to see both building burning I think I realized that it was an attack. I don't know why, but I do remember replying "what do you think?" when someone wondered how both buildings could burn.

Next was total confusion in the office. Rumors were flying. The White House is on fire. The Mall is on fire. The Pentagon is on fire. There are still missing planes. I remember sitting in front of my radio, still on the music station which had gone all news, wondering "what the heck was going on?" We eventually all convened in the lounge and watched the buildings burn, and then fall, one by one, pretty much in shock.

After the second tower fell, the lounge was packed but silent, except for the radio and some people crying. I remember one manager with his head in his hands and a completely devastated look on his face. We could hear the fire engines roaring past our building headed to the city (I guess). Soon we were evacuated and I remember standing in the street in a suit, sweating and thinking "now what?" "Fortunately" my office had recently moved to the Jersey side of the Hudson and I was able to get home before too long. It was very strange going down the Garden State Parkway and seeing nothing but army and emergency vehicles headed north. Same for seeing all the trucks just parked on the side of the road by the Outerbridge approach to Staten Island.

It seems like yesterday, but I've noticed that the shock and raw grief are long gone, which is interesting considering my wife and I had lived in Brooklyn Heights, just across the East River from the Twin Towers, for many years until 2000 when our son was born and my wife wanted to live near family in Central Jersey. I still think there is something missing when I look at lower Manhattan and I hate the way the home of the brave has become the xenophobic land that is scared of our own shadows.

Though we still fight the war on terror, the events of 9/11 are now in our past. Memorabilia from the day is in museums. A new generation of children is growing up with little or no first hand knowledge of the pre 9/11 world. The pain is mostly gone and we are a different people, and not necessarily for the better.

We've come a long way since then. The country is now deeply divided. Hopefully, Senators McCain and Obama's trips to NYC today will remind us of a time when America was united.

Set sail on the vomit comet

Many years ago, I was on a cruise that had to be diverted from a port of call due to a potential hurricane. Instead of stopping at St. Martin, the ship docked overnight in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where we had been scheduled to only spend a few hours the following day. To compensate, the cruise line arranged for buses and cabs to various shows, casinos and bars (I went to a show and while waiting for the doors to open, sat down at a slot machine at the adjacent casino, threw a quarter in and promptly won $50) for the night we were in town. Judging by the hangovers the next morning I'd say most of use were happy.

Yet, even though the captain had saved his ship and passengers from bad weather, there were still passengers upset we were missing St. Martin. You see St. Martin was (and is I guess) well known for it's nude beaches and people had brought film to photograph the scenery.They really flipped when the storm only sideswiped St. Matin and, the weather was going to be half decent the day we were supposed to arrive (forget that the hurricane was still between us and the island). While we were waiting on line to get our tickets for one of the San Juan shows, they were really letting the cruise director have it when one older woman said something like "I'm sure all the women are going to stop cleaning up from the storm, run to the beach and takeoff their tops just because we're sailing into port." That pretty much ended the mutiny and the woman got her tickets for one of the shows.

I was reminded of this when I read an article about passengers upset because their cruise was detoured thanks to Tropical Storm Hanna.They were aghast that the captain, doing his best to avoid running into a storm, forced the ship to make less than perfect stops. Yeah, it sucks that the ship made stops in untourist friendly areas, but I think they'd have been even more upset to find themselves barfing all over the midnight buffet when the ship hit rough waters. Here's a suggestion, if you want to make sure your cruise ship doesn't get detoured by a hurricane, don't cruise during hurricane season.

Other than that, unless you have a direct line to God and can get him to change the weather, tough. Weather happens. It is part of life. The captain is not going to harm his multi million dollar ship so you can see topless women on the beach.When life hands you lemons, make lemonade ... or head to the casino and try your luck.