Hello breast cancer our old "friend," I hate to see you again .... Writing got me through this last time, until I was ready to talk to someone -- hopefully it does the same again. But, before I write, I need to start.

Back in 2012, my (then 41 year old) wife was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy one of the top cancer hospitals in the US. Her margins were clear and  nothing had spread to her lymph nodes. So, after a round of chemo and radiation, she was cleared and ready to go on with life.

Fast forward to 2016. Maybe even 2015. She started feeling pain in her bones, but wrote it off to arthritis. She was having trouble sleeping. Tamoxifen, which ultimately gave her blood clots, forced her to sleep on our recliner so she could keep her feet raised. After a short time, she discovered that was a more comfortable place to sleep. Still, she was constantly tired and unfocused. As spring went on, her mental lapses continued. Thinking it was due to lack of sleep, we finally broke down and bought a posterpetic adjustable bed for her (pretty comfortable actually).

At the time of the blood clot, she had a followup with her oncologist. Aside from the blood clots all seemed well. She was taken off the Tamoxifen (could that be where the cancer cells saw their opening and struck back?) and given other drugs that caused other side effects.More pain, more mental issues.

After a time she started feeling pain in her abdomen. She's not sure when it started, it was so gradual.  Maybe late spring? Hard to know. It didn't help that since her last round, she left her previous job and opened a law practice that required her to drive all around the state of NJ. If I had to guess, I'd say it became noticeable sometime in late May when she decided she no longer had the energy to run her firm and go to the gym (last time she went to the Y constantly as it made her feel better).

The firm was busy so she put off going to the doctor, though she did have a colonoscopy in early June -- all looked well (no blood work). She had good days and bad. Finally, at the end of July she went to her primary care doctor. Thinking it was gallstones. her doctor told her to go the ER outpatient for scans (just across the street from the office). Two oncologists came in and told her the scans (and later tests confirmed) that her liver was riddled with lesions. Stage IV breast cancer -- no cure.

To say we were shocked is to put it mildly. Long story short, we know the odds -- 22% survival rate after five years. Obviously there are other factors in that survival rate -- age, general health, wealth, access to care etc. Still, it was like we just died, at least our long term plans.

It is likely we will not grow old together. She will probably not see our children marry, her grandchildren ... At this point her hope is to see our 11 year old through high school, while realizing she may not see our 16 year old make it that far.

My emotions are all over the place. I need to vent but am not ready to talk. Hopefully this will help me collect my thoughts so I can, ultimately help my wife through this.

Why do people laugh at conservatives in the US?

What is being a conservative? Is it conserving resources for future generations? Is it keeping society pretty much as is? Is it something similar. That was what I was taught but it seems this century the term has been turned on its ear to mean something totally different, such as an activist agenda to turn society back a half century, or more, fore various reasons. The result is that thanks to caricatures of fools by those with their own interests, many think conservatives equals the path to a Jesus loving Third World America that is intolerant to anybody not white and Christian.

I point a lot of this at Fox News. Oh there is some truth in what they say but then they use their editorial "discretion" to run their own agenda. "We report, you decide"? Ha. Never trust a source who has to constantly tell you they are honest. They are not just the anti-CNN and anti-MSNBC. They report their stories in way that will energize Republicans (which may also be why some call the network (Faux News). 

Back in the day, conservatives were in both the Democratic and Republican parties. Now the conservatives have pretty much migrated to the GOP and hijacked it for their own means. Part of this is due to the race baiting that Fox pretends they do not do so they can keep their sweet market share of old white men.  Another part is the happy coincidence that this manages to energize the now GOP base. Fox keeps bringing up nonsense scandals and ignore the real problems because that is what their demographics want.

Speaking of the media, it is in the best interests of the corporations that own the newspapers, TV networks, internet providers etc., to have the people fighting over silly things like keeping the Christ in Christmas and how horrible it will be to raise the minimum wage so the sheeple are distracted from what is really important such as how the middle class is being gutted for various reasons with no real solutions to help the people. The solution for the security of the US is not bombing ISIS, it is investing in our people but you would never know that reading the newspapers. 

Thanks to the consolidation of the media, I believe is worse than the yellow journalism of the late 19th/early 20th century. The only reason you are seeing this is because i haven't bothered Google or your internet provider/ I suspect this will continue until some conservative politician tells the starving masses to eat cake when they can't afford bread and a hell breaks lose that the media will be unable to ignore. 

As to the rest, there are different level of conservatism. One strain that makes people think conservatives are crazy are the ones who live on social issues. You know, "good" Christians who think all who are not white, Evangelism, Jesus loving Christians and live according to their version of the Bible are all going to Hell. While I am sure of those people believe in their hearts they are correct, others go out of their way to make others suffer if they don't follow their particular conservative morality code. Like Sarah Palin telling the Pope he doesn't understand Christianity.

These are the folks who twist logic and scientific facts to fit what they think the Bible says. They want their version of Jesus to be taught in schools as if that will solve all of America's problems. They thank God that nobody died when their home was destroyed by a tornado but don't question what they did wrong to cause God to allow the tornado to destroy their home. These are same folks who refuse to be educated in the sciences and, God forbid, true religious studies. For example, Jesus wasn't killed by his fellow Jews against Rome's wishes, as has been taught in Christianity since around the time Rome adopted Christianity as the empire's official religion. Jesus was one of many zealots put to death by Rome for treason against the empire as being a zealot meant you didn't accept the Emperor as number one.

Then, you have the neo-conservatives who hijacked the government after we were caught with our pants down on 9/11 and used that excuse to spend billions of dollars bombing innocent brown people. These people think there is a boogie man around every corner. I will also throw the gun loving survivalists in this group (though why they want an AK-47 to blow up Bambi into pieces too small to eat when civilization and grocery stores fail I don't understand).

Now this is more a Democrat/Republican thing that just happens to fall into the conservative pie, there were the enormous tax cuts to their buddies while allowing deregulation that nearly destroyed the economy instead of just furthering tightening the noose on the middle class. If they truly believed in capitalism they would have let everything fail instead of providing corporate welfare while they let the middle class and lower go down the toilet.

What is the solution? Well it won't come from above. We the People are the only ones who can take back the government from the special interests, hiding under liberal and conservative labels.

The Hamas Concentration Camp? Blame Israel of Course.

Another article blaming Israel for Hamas and Gaza for shooting themselves in the foot for lobbing bombs into Israel that give liberals a bad name to protest Israel turning Gaza into a concentration camp through their occupation. It also touches on American Jews for giving money to Israel for the horrible nation building they have done over the last 65 years while the Palestinians through faults of their own and their own outside supporters have done nothing but play the victim card. When the Jews said never again after holocaust, they meant it. Tired of being the victim every time a country decided it was time to blame the Jews, the only thing left to do was build a place of their own, which many did not appreciate and still do not.

Israel left Gaza almost a decade ago. It is no longer occupied, except when Gaza attacks Israel and the IDF goes in to defend their nation.The Gazaians (is that a word?) has spent the last decade building and lobbing bombs into Israel instead of building up their infrastructure. Why? The stated goal of Hamas is to wipe Israel off the bat. Period.

I am not talking about the Palestinians. I am not talking about the 20% of Israel's population that are Israeli-Arabs with full citizenship rights. I am talking about Hamas. Hamas who happily accepts civilian casualties and even invites them by using human shields. You can say Israel is heavy handed, maybe she is. But don't ignore the little fact that Hamas is using the Palestinian people for its own goal. When you mess with the bull, you are going to get gored. In Hamas' case it is the civilian people which is horrible. But Hamas doesn't care about them. Those deaths look good for their propaganda and supporters.

What do you think the US would do if Mexico started lobbing bombs on a regular basis into Texas or California? Do you think the federal government would allow Houston or San Diego and its suburbs to be attacked without retaliation? If so, you are naive.

If Hamas laid down their guns and bombs there would be peace. If Israel did the same she would be wiped off the maps and the Jewish population massacred. And if you want to compare Gaza to a concentration camp, well Israel is not the only nation on Gaza's border.

If Gaza is a concentration camp, it is a camp of Islamic making. The Muslim nations have launched several genocidal war of extermination against the Israelis  since 1948. They lost them all. There are consequences to starting and loosing wars of aggression.

In the wake of those wars the Muslim nations drove out the Jewish populations, at least the portions of the population they did not kill. Israel took in those refugees and settled them in Israel. In contrast, the Muslim nations did not settle the refugees who fled Israel and what were then the Palestinian lands in 1948. They interred them in camps, and did so to score political points, displaying a complete disregard of the human suffering they created.

There is injustice on both sides. Both sides deserve to have their own land, and to live in peace. But it is ridiculous to blame all the the violence on Israel. They have the sovereign right to shoot back at people who fire missiles at them, and the camps were of Muslim making.

Net neutrality

Dear FCC,

In the last few decades, our economy has vastly changed to an online economy. From almost everywhere, people can work, shop, research, watch movies etc. online. A key component to this ability is broadband internet access. Sadly, due to many circumstances, most of the US is subject to the whims of their cable providers as the sole provider of internet access. Even sadder, this industry, unlike phones, electric and water, isn't regulated for the public good so the industry has taken it on itself to throttle down internet speeds unless people give them even more money, both the content provider and the content user.

Imagine if the same happened to electricity or water. Imagine if we told factory B they can't have the water pressure they need, even though it's available, because they haven't paid their ransom (which is what anti0net neutrality really is). We'd be laughed at as a 3rd world country. Yet that is exactly what is happening to the internet.

Bad enough the cable industry doesn't have any incentive to offer the higher speeds offered by our nation's competitors, they now want to damage our economy for their own profit by making it more difficult for the constructive demolition that has marked our economy's ability to change with the times as new businesses come in to replace older businesses that don't adjust fast enough to changing times.

These broad band internet monopolies are bad for our economy. While I understand there is not much that can be done about the lack of competition at this time, you can do something. Don't let broad band companies throttle back internet speeds for those who can not pay for the high speed lanes. We are an online economy, this plan can only harm it. Furthermore, I propose the FCC regulate the internet providers similar to the way other public good industries are regulated. Don't let the K Street lobbyists win, do the work of the people.

The bridge "scandal" that won't go away

Living in NJ, Governor Christie's "Bridge-gate" scandal remains in our news cycle, but I am more surprised it remains in the national news. If the governor wasn't seeking higher office (potentially) this would have just died down as NJ politics as usual with the usual cronyism from the NYNJ Port Authority.  I can't imagine that a farmer in Iowa cares about what happens here but what do I know, aside from I am getting tired of all the coverage.

Unless there is evidence to the contrary, I believe Christie had nothing to do with the lane closings. However, I feel he has been less than truthful as to when he found out and his relationship with Wildstein. Minor stuff and I wouldn't be surprised to find out he was trying to save his friends from their own stupidity, hoping nothing else would come out. It's not impeachable but the possibility of a coverup keeps the press amused, which is fine to an extent (got to have a press that flashes sunshine in the dark corners where politicians do ill). At this point it seems like the media has gone overboard looking for anything for a "gotcha" story.

No matter though, there was no way he was going to get the 2016 nomination for president in the current national GOP. He is too "liberal" for that crowd.

Hello 52,014

Well 52,015 but that title doesn't sound as cool. 50,000 years from now sounds better than 50,001 years. Why am I saying hello to the future? Well in the near future the spaceship KEO is about to embark on 50,000 year tour, a 50,000 year tour, and come back to earth, assuming the space weather doesn't get too rough.

As part of the KEO's 50,000 year mission, every person living on Earth, small, weak, powerful or rich is provided with four pages of liberty and equality to pen down his or her message destined for the future. All the messages received, without undergoing any censorship, will be embarked aboard KEO. Since none of us will be around so far in the future, I thought I would put my message in the public eye now. Here is my story [doink doink].

As I write this, it is January 13, 2014 (Common Era), approximately 3 weeks after the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. I am in the town [redacted] in the state of New Jersey in the United States of America. (Latitude: 40.058324, Longitude: -74.405661) [note: this is just a random spot in NJ]. Now that I have gotten that out of the way, I hope you can read more than my latitude, longitude position, even with your version of a universal translator (not to mention who even knows if there will be a civilization by then).

I grew up in the outer boroughs of New York City (a bit north of my present location). My childhood was somewhat typical of the last third of the 20th century. We lived in an apartment, one color TV, one black and white. No computers aside from primitive toys. My days were spent in school, my free time riding my bicycle with my friends to go to a park or video arcade. Occasionally we would take the subway or have my mother drive us into the city to see more exciting things. No computers in the classrooms then. We had to memorize everything, no simple recalling it on our devices. I and my brothers used to deliver a physical copy of the daily newspaper to our customers, the closest you could get to information that was more than a sound bite from the TV or radio news at your doorstep.

Assuming there is someone to read this in what we call 52,014, I wonder if you will see us like we see the ancient nomadic tribes from tens of thousands of years ago, a primitive people at the dawn of the information age or Gods from a lost, rumored magical time similar to the stories of the lost continent of Atlantis. I doubt the work I particularly do will be of little interest in a time so far away as well as my daily life's activities. Suffice to say, statistically, I will fall into the average highly educated, New York City suburbanite, top 10% demographic. Oh I may have some unique thoughts and feelings, but I imagine they will be as interesting in 50,000 years as the thoughts of an individual slave in ancient Rome.

It is easy to assume that in 50,000 years civilizations would have fallen, risen up, and fallen again numerous times. And if that is the case little will remain from our time except, maybe, some strange cuts in some mountains. Tales from our days, if remembered at all, would be like tales from the Bible, which is probably just exaggerated folk tales. Heck, we barely remember history from 5,000 years ago so I can't fathom what it will be like so many years in the future.

I am not worried of any of my possible descendants reading this, assuming my children and their children and so on keep reproducing. If I do have descendants my portion of their DNA code will be so small as to be de minims, especially as I have not had my DNA code saved anywhere, aside from swabs from doctors visits over my life, past and future.

So far I have said a lot of nothing, but I imagine many have written or will write about current entertainment and technology. Assuming history books from this time remain in some form, anyone reading this will probably have studied our ancient technology in their early grade education.

I suppose every generation says they live in exciting times, but to me it seems we do. 200 years ago was barely the start of the industrial revolution, where machines were just being created to help man fulfill their potential. Today we are creating machines and robots that are replacing man and are not sure what this will do to our economy. Information is always at our fingertips. If I want to borrow or buy a book, magazine or newspaper, I press a few buttons and voila -- information!

Speaking of computers, though today's computers that will be in this device will undoubtedly seem primitive so far in the future, computers 35 years were even more so.  When I was a young adult I could scarcely imagine that in less than 30 years time I would be typing out a message that could potentially be read in 50,000 years, or sooner if there is life out there or man is able to conquer the stars, and someone comes across this much sooner. Speaking of the stars, aside from landing on the moon, our travels so far have been limited to probes such as this satellite.

I'd say the biggest change in my life has been the rise of the computers. Not that long ago, much research was carried out using dead trees, pencils and papers as that was the most efficient. We used to have to go to a physical building and spend hours researching a specific topic using several physical books. People waited on line at the store, not go online via the internet. Today a few clicks on my computer while I am sitting on my couch takes care of that in a few seconds. I suppose it won't be much longer until our computers become internal devices that automatically link is to the rest of the world, finding information instantly. I am very curious to see what the next 100-200 years have in store for man and machine.

My religion or spiritual belief is Jewish. Basically our core beliefs are: 1) "do unto others as you would have done unto you," with the rest being commentary, 2) They tried to kill us, they failed, let's eat! We also believe in one great invisible spirit in the sky who created the universe and protects us, unless we piss him off somehow. I'd like to think there is some higher authority out there, somewhere, but logic suggests this is not so.

At the present, our civilization is poisoning the environment.  We use and throw strange chemicals into our grounds and waters without concern about what the effects of this may be. We are changing weather patterns and sea levels with our machines. It doesn't matter if some don't believe in climate change, climate change believes in us. I wonder if we will rectify this one day soon or if the Earth will simply shake most of us off like a bad cold. Right now it looks more like we better start working on some cold medicine.

Well 52,014 that about covers it. I will be barely dust by time you read this, my atoms scattered, reformed, and scattered again many times when you read this. To quote an ancient philosopher: "Live long and prosper."

So that was my letter for our spaceship in a bottle, for better or for worse. 52,014 will get a taste of our times, perhaps more intimate than tomorrow's history books will be. Even if an alien civilization stumbles upon this satellite before its journey's end, we of 2014 will most likely be long gone from this planet, giving those races an idea of what early 21st century earth was like. 50,000 years ago, cavemen were drawing pictures on walls, barely showing that can reflect on their dealings with the environment. I wonder if our descendents will see this time similarly.

Bad parenting

I found this interesting letter on a blog taking a radio host to task because he disagreed with the host's views on parenting. Basically, the father argued that he was helping his gifted, unemployed college graduate 29 year old son by letting him play video games in his basement because he is too good to take any job out there and should wait for the economy to get better so he can get the job he deserves. And he also bashed the host because he favored children doing chores, likening it to slave labor.

Slave labor? Oh dear. We require our 12 year old take out the recyclables/trash to the curb, get the mail, take care of the dogs and mow the lawn (and help me shovel in winter). Worse our 8 year old daughter is following in his foot-prints by helping him bring the trash cans back up to the house, helping with the dishes and feeding her cat. I didn’t know that we’ve been doing it wrong, according to Nick, all this time, even though our son got almost straight A’s (one B) on his last report card.

By the way, I started working at 12 (paper route) and have pretty much worked continuously ever since. I graduated college just as the Bush I recession was starting and was laid off around the same time that we invaded Kuwait. I spent two years working temp jobs, some that made use of my college education and some that didn’t. However, it was those additional skills/temp jobs in my field that I could add to my resume that finally got me full employment. Sitting at home would have done nothing.

Growing up I had a very good friend who really was gifted. He went to Cooper Union, graduated, worked as an engineer for the City of NY for a few years before going back to Columbia University to get his masters. He was on his way and then ... nothing. For the last 15 years or so he has been working in his mother's basement on a computer game that has been continuously become out of date (though, at least, it does force him to stay somewhat current in his field). 

It is not for me to say if he has illness or is on the autism spectrum (back in the day children weren't tested for Asperger Syndrome) that has caused him to retreat from life but I do suspect that the worse thing his mother did was allow him to move back home permanently after Columbia. Granted there were circumstances that led to this -- his father was in poor health and passed around that time and his mother needed help but that is still no excuse for his long term unemployment. 

In comparison my great-uncle, an orphan at 16 and forced to live with grandparents, went to Cooper Union, married, had two children and literally became a rocket scientist  by 30. I'm sure it helped that, aside from a brother providing a couch to sleep on, he had nothing to fall back on. Compare that to my friend who was babied by his mother for all these years. He was the one of our group that we all thought would do wonderful things with his life. Now, at age 45, those of us who remain his friend see that will never be. Sad that the letter writer can't see that this will be the fate of his son if he keeps this up.

And for the final shot, after the letter writer suggests that the radio host grow up and get some life experience, the host noted that at age 27, two years younger than the letter writer's son, he  was married with two children and on his way in his career at broadcasting and not wasting time in  his parents' basement. At age 29 I was in law school, while working full time, married and had been out of my mother’s house for years. I don’t think I could have accomplished law school and working full time without the work experience of my youth that forced me to do more than just come home after school. The letter writer is not helping his son.

Wannabe cops and profiling

When I was a child of around 12 or 13, my younger brother and I had a paper route that covered several NYC apartment buildings. As this was the early 80s several of the buildings had evening neighborhood watches that hung out in the lobby observing. Also, as this was the early 80s, no one thought it strange that two young children would be able to go after dark to collect money for their little business without adult supervision -- except one person.

One evening we were buzzed into one of the buildings on our route by one of our customers to make our weekly collections. This building had some residents in the lobby keeping an eye on things and, as we approached the elevator, we were questioned by the watch as to what we were doing there. We showed them our collection book, what floors we'd be going to etc (no ID at that time, it was a simpler day) and were cleared to proceed. As usual we took the elevator to the top and walked down floor by floor. Collecting the money could be time consuming, depending on the floor, as we had to go door to door. Somewhere in the middle the local gestapo decided we were taking too long and kicked us out of the building.

When we arrived home early my dad asked why we were back so early. When we told him, he got up (a big deal, once he was on the couch for the night that was it), had us go back to the building and started telling the lead watcher off as he told us to finish collecting. When we were finished our dad was still telling the guy off and had us wait while he finished, basically accusing the dude of being a bully and making up for a small penis. Then, when he was finished, he told the guy - by the way, your fly is open. On the walk home he commented that certain people, who are otherwise weak, abuse power once they get it and that was one of those people.

From the little bits I've heard from news clips of his trial, neighborhood watch person George Zimmerman allegedly seems more and more like that wannabe cop with delusions of grandeur that my brother and I encountered all those years ago. Ignoring whatever prior bad acts that Trevor Martin may have done before his encounter with Zimmerman, the basis of  the confrontation seems to be that Zimmerman allegedly just assumed a teenager with a hoodie (in the rain) was up to no good just as our neighbor did with us. Maybe Zimmerman felt he was doing the right thing, maybe he was just profiling, probably this whole mess has become political, but maybe he thought he was more important than he actually was -- a man who wanted to be something that he couldn't be and forgot that in the heat of the moment. Real officers are trained to not allow an encounter such as what occurred between Martin and Zimmerman to escalate (and that is true even if they are undercover). Neighborhood watchers are there to watch and report.

I guess I should be relieved that the apartment building's watch wasn't armed. I guess I should also be relieved we were allowed to quietly leave the building and go home (which probably would not have happened if we were a minority race in our neighborhood). Sad that Martin didn't get the chance to go home and get his dad to defend him like my brother and I were able to do because he was determined not worthy of standing his ground.

The delusions of the new conservatives

A recent article in American Thinker, a very conservative blog, almost made me laugh out loud. To prove their point that America is one step away from destroying themselves as usual they point to a quote by Rush Limbaugh who is complaining that "America as founded is slipping away daily." He's kidding right? That America is long gone and for the better. Keep in mind the vote was generally limited to white male landowners when the country was founded. Laws of the time permitted child labor in modern factories (which didn't exist yet), blacks to be slaved, women forced to obey their man. I could go on, but you get my drift. And though I lean more conservative these days, at least on economical and freedom issues, I don't vote Republican because I find that party to be too far away from my inner core.

The conservatives of today are not those I could never wrap my arms around. I find they have been hijacked by a backwards looking people who refuse to evolve into what should be a robust 21st century movement. Why aren't they leading the charge on over government involvement in everyday lives? Why are they not working to educate anti-gun citizens on what gun ownership means and how gun safety and care by manufacturers and owners can go a long way to resolving illegal guns (not all the way of course, but you need to start somewhere)? Why aren't they pointing out the slippery slope that all these feel good laws take away our freedoms while admitting that some are good for us (clean water and clean air are kind of nice, higher gas mileage cars is also a nice way for us to tell OPEC where to go once we are free of them)? Instead they focus on abortion, Jesus and other issues that were settled over a half century ago. You can be conservative and still move forward with the times.

Perhaps it is because I am not Christian and do not care if gays want to marry or am appalled that my children, already tempted by all the commercial excitement of Christmas, would be forced to pray to Jesus. Maybe it is because I don't look at a book written 2,000 years ago and was probably the best knowledge of the day, written as stories for a simpler people to understand, to take precedence over what science has discovered over the centuries.

Out of touch

I have to laugh at how out of touch the GOP still seems. The only reason I don't is because I realize how bad this is for the country. We are headed towards a one party system and that is good for non one.

The GOP thinks all their problems with the younger generation will go away with just better marketing. Are they for real? I have to wonder what they are thinking if the following quote is the root to solving their identity crisis: "Fortunately, our ideas are already grounded in concepts that appeal across generations: the notion of a free market, where effort is connected with reward and equality is discussed in terms of opportunity, not outcome." I don't necessarily disagree with that last statement, but they don't put their money where there mouth is. How about applying those ideas so our children can get an affordable education that will allow them to use their skills to achieve the available opportunities and rewards GOP? [sound of crickets]

How many times has the GOP been behind cutting spending of education over the decades? They see the rich getting richer and everybody else left behind as the 1% has pulled up the ladder. Sure some can jump and still catch that ladder but fewer and fewer are able to.

In any event, the GOP is doomed to dwindle to nothingness as long as they allow the religious right to control their policies. The young see the GOP's hypocrisy over small government  -- no government involvement unless it concerns what consenting adults are doing in their beds. Most young people don't want to be dictated by a religious morality that they increasingly see as behind the times, especially when you allow political leaders to ignore science etc because a book written a few thousand years ago, that was probably based on the best knowledge of the day, says something else. They don't care what God says about gays and who can marry who.They are tired of leaders who deny and mock modern science and ideals because it doesn't match the leaders' out of date ideological religious teachings

They are concerned about what climate change will mean to them and their children (long after most of us dead). They worry about the increasing costs of health care and how it still seems that the main beneficiaries of Obamacare are private insurance companies and not the People because the GOP refused to allow the government and its economic might strike a better deal for the People.

The young have seen the enemy GOP and it is you. Your small government ideals are fine, but they are not absolute. Yes, there is a danger of government getting too big, but no government is not the solution when the scars of a deregulated financial community is still fresh in our psyche. When you wake up to all this you will have mine and the youth vote.

American citizen to be tried as an American citizen

Today the Justice Department announced that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be tried in civilian court for his alleged acts of terror at last week's marathon that left three dead (four if you count the police officer he and his brother murdered a few days later) and almost 200 injured. This has angered some on the right who wanted him to be charged as an enemy combatant terrorist. This should not be an issue. Sadly, in 2013, some elected officials who have taken oaths to protect and serve have a problem with an American citizen being treated like an American citizen.

He's a US citizen, protected by the Constitution. End of story. He wasn't a combatant in the theater of war, he is accused of committing a single violent act of terrorism on the streets of Boston (again, excluding the shootout with police as the brothers tried to make their escape). There are many rights in the US Constitution, including the right to a jury trial in front of your peers. While we may decide what actions or crimes are worthy of a jury trial or just trial by a judge, we don not have the right to strip American citizens of their rights because we don't like what they have done. We are America. We don't stick up for the principles the terrorists supposedly hate by abandoning them the millisecond our own personal safety is threatened.

We start down the slippery slope of deciding citizens are not protected by the rule of law because the are accused of doing something especially heinous we open Pandora's box. When we start calling citizens "enemy combatants" we start to give up everything that the Bill of Rights were written for. It may seem harmless now, only using a reduced justice system, outside our legal system, where the right to defend yourself is minimized, on enemy combatants or terrorists as we know them now, but it is not hard to see some future administration come in with different or varied criteria as to what is a terrorist act and possibly strip anyone who does not agree with the government of their due process rights.

Terrorists need to be treated as the common criminals that they are.  Don't elevate them to some special kind of special super special enemy warrior status. "Terror networks" aren't that much different that the criminal enterprises that are and prosecuted under RICO (except perhaps for more civilian deaths). If the civil justice system is good enough for the mafia, it is good enough for Tsarnaev.

As to the questioning without Miranda for intelligence, all it means, at worse, is that prosecutors may be prevented from using whatever he may tell them against him when his trial starts (fruit of the poisonous tree). There already is plenty of other evidence to lock him up for three lifetimes. A fourth lifetime won't make much of a difference.

Education is not one size fits all

Attached is the retirement letter of a 40 year teacher who laments how the education system is failing our children with reforms that demean teachers. Coming from a family of teachers, I can see his point. While the current reforms may be great for burnt out teachers who mail it in, and can excel in the reform system of teaching to the test now in place, it must be maddening for those who went into teaching for the love of sharing what they have learned with younger generations.

I had some wonderful teachers when I went to school in the 1970s and 80s (and more than a few duds). For the ones that simply phoned it and taught to the test there were others who conveyed their love of the materials they were teaching us to get us interested in the discussion. Almost 30 years after high school, many of the details are long gone, but I still remember the hobbit English teacher, explaining the Hobbit trilogy and Mice and Men (that may have been for a different class) or the social studies teachers who used drawings on the blackboard to bring life to the industrial revolution. I recall classes that let us wander with reports, classes that would be so much better now with much easier access to information that can be obtained almost instantly.

I used to believe "No Child Left Behind" was enacted with good intentions and what we see now, such as teaching to the test, are unforeseen consequences. Now I wonder if what we are seeing today WAS foreseen and is exactly what the proponents of this law wanted. Already we are seeing our college graduating students chained to jobs because they need to pay back soul crushing college debt unable to speak out for fear of losing that necessary job. However, they realize they have been wronged. The next generation won't.  

My children are in school now and while I believe their teachers are dedicated and creative, I have seen them teaching to the test. And while they are still at an age where they don't really question what they learn, I fear they never will. Worse, I feel they will not let them learn the basics that will allow them to do followup reading when they are older. I may never have read, for example, a series of books about Theodore Roosevelt as an adult if I wasn't entranced by stories of him as a child battling asthma and boxing in the White House when I was in school. We can only hope that true reformers step in to teach our children how ideas are developed and tested and aren't dissuaded  by those who profit from the status quo before it is too late. 

And before you get the wrong idea, standardized testing isn't the problem - teachers should be held to some level of accountability and a simple basement standard may only be found through standardized tests. It is taking the concept of standardized testing too far that has created an inflexible system that doesn't really accomplish anything, aside from giving corporations,  such as the standardized testing companies, looking to make money over making sure our children are educated, a nice pay day. And we can't lay all the blame on the test companies without first looking at ourselves. After all we wanted this, didn't we? Oh we may have had good intentions, making sure all our children were equally educated, but this has devolved into something more, as things usually do when money is involved.

We spend our time cramming students with testing strategies and other efforts to improve a child’s ability to do well on a standardized test. We all want to see our town with a high score; that means we have  a ”good school system.” Not only will our housing values go up, but so will our property taxes, which coincidentally finance the schools, thereby providing them with more money - a vicious circle that benefits homeowners, municipalities, bankers and realtors, but not necessarily our children.   if you’re in a “good system.” It means that others will want to move to your area because of your “good school system.”

More troubling though, is the the though that this inflexibility is what the powers that be want -- a citizenship without the ability to question what they are told, without the ability to think of alternatives, to not even know how to question which is what this inflexibility is leading to. We are willingly and silently indoctrinating and conditioning our children to think there is nothing better than America.  Shame on us all for simply selling off what was the greatest experiment in human history to the highest bidder.

Gun safety

I guess it is a step in the right direction that in the wake of Aurora and Newton, the Senate has finally come to an agreement requiring background checks of gun buyers. However this is a feel good, not really do anything solution. Sure it will help keep felons from getting guns, but what good are those laws when the lawful owners then leave their weapons unsecured? In addition to background checks, maybe gun buyers should also pass a safety check.

Driving a car, a potential deadly weapon, requires a written test AND a driving test to demonstrate you know enough to earn a license to drive. A rifle, also a potential deadly weapon and whose sole purpose is to fire a bullet at something, does not. Am I the only one who thinks that is nuts?

Gay marriage debate

Now the social conservatives who want to take away our freedoms are looking at other religions to justify their opinion that homosexual marriage should be illegal. First, let us take every religious reference to marriage out of the discussion (you can argue that churches perform weddings and the state performs the marriage or whatever gets you through the night or at least this blog). Then tell me how this is any different then laws preventing blacks and whites from getting married a half century ago? It is not. It is bigotry no matter how you want to slice it and it is disgusting (the article also wanders into a discussion that says women belong back in the kitchen but I will skip that for now).

 

I don't care what the Koran says. I don't care what the Bible says. They aren't the laws of this land. I don't care how people want to live in their own private lives (and if that includes multiple wives then God bless that poor soul, one is enough for me). And I am tired of the red herring about procreation; widowed elderly couples marrying, for example, aren't going to have a baby at 65.Why are people so worried about what other people are doing with their bodies in their personal lives. Be a true conservative and get the government out of peoples' bedrooms. Life is too short to deny somebody else happiness.

The definition of marriage has constantly been evolving. The idea of marrying for love is relatively new, marriage used to be more political, with matchmakers (or whatever) pairing couples up based on dowries or other needs of the communities. My mother's parents met each other through friends in the very late 1920s, instead of through the Jewish community they lived in via their parents approval as was expected in those days (those darn trolleys that could take kids out of the 'hood). They eloped for love instead of entering relationships with people other people, such as their families, chose for them in 1933. That was almost as radical as gay marriage is today according to the stories I heard as a child.

You want to live like a social conservative? Go ahead. I'm not stopping you. However if your views infringe on the liberties of others that is YOUR problem, not theirs. You don't like abortion? Don't get an abortion. You don't like same sex marriages? Don't get married to a person of your own sex. How hard is that?

To much time is being taken over worrying about what other people in their private lives.This country has REAL problems, such as a run away deficit, infrastructure problems, an education system that is preventing talent from reaching their full potential due to cost or lack of funding and many others. Stop with this nonsense already.

Hyprocrisy

My brother-in-law is a New York City employee looking forward to his 50th birthday next year. Why do you ask is he looking forward to hitting the half century mark? Because, as a union employee who will have worked for the city over 30 years by then (he started in the good old days of the early 1980s when you could still make a good living without a college degree), he will be able to retire on a full pension and sit at home for the next 17-20 years while the rest of us continue to toil. Good for him. However, I am amazed at his attitude regarding taxes and biting the government hands that feed him.

He recently posted the greatest layoff letter ever on his Facebook page. To summarize, it was a layoff notice by an "employer" stating he had to fire staff due to the increased cost of ObamaCare and he reduced staff by laying off the owners of every car in the parking lot with a pro-Obama bumper sticker. My brother-in-law approved that letter, saying how we need lower taxes. I remarked how ironic it was that a government employee, living high on the government teet, would feel that way, noting that less taxes in general would mean less money for government employees, even those with tenure and not too far from retirement .

He responded that less spending requires less money, and less money means less taxes. He feels that if we cut spending, and cut the civil service workforce, which he noted would directly affect him in a negative manner but it IS the right thing to do. Fair enough, but then the conversation shifted over to government waste, noting that three qualified well paid employees could EASILY do the job of ten current employees in his department. Again, I'll take him at his word from this. I've dealt with enough antiquated union rules to not doubt this is true. In many instances I feel the rules are there to just add payroll (and union dues) regardless whether those jobs are needed or those rules are still necessary. However, I'm not talking about -- I am talking about hyprocisy.

Now, acknowledging that if I still lived in New York I, as a tax payer, I would be awfully annoyed I would be giving somebody money every year to someone starting at age 50 (basically our prime earning years) to NOT work, one who I might add could easily work another 15 to 20 years,  while cutting money to pay a teacher to teach over paying someone who  to stay home (ignoring I live in a state where a retired state employee can get a new state job and still get a pension), I questioned what does the waste of Civil Service protection keeping seven extra employees employed have to do with shifting the burden of uninsured patients from the taxpayers who fund ERs (law says hospitals have to treat regardless of ability to pay) to employers who don't offer health insurance?  

Pointing out our conversation had drifted to lowed taxes, he responded that creating a workforce that would be 30% the size but more efficient... saving taxes. He used the example that Walmart pays a certain wage and benefit package and people take the job.. nobody is being dragged into the stores and made to fill out the applications but after weeks they all complain (jobs are scarce, etc. supply/demand). Of course what he failed to acknowledge was: 1) Walmart has been cutting their workforce too, leaving many stores under serviced with customers unable to take their business elsewhere as Walmart has become a defacto monopoly in many areas and 2) that in states where Walmart is the largest employer, Walmart employees are the states' largest number of recipients of federal subsidized Medicaid and Food Stamps due to wages and arbitrary scheduling that make it impossible for those employees to currently afford health insurance. That is tax dollars paid by all of us to subsidize Walmart's business practices I don't think that the Walmart daughters coughing up a few dollars (for them) to cover their share will bankrupt them, do you?

At this point I remembered I was arguing with someone who had drank the Fox Kool-Aide (I already knew I was the "liberal" in my family) as he shifted the argument to how much he pays in taxes, that they are too high, noting that at one time his goal was to earn what he now pays in taxes. Faulty logic. His first mistake was noting what he pays in dollars, not what he pays as a percentage of of his income. If you think the federal tax rate is high now, I told him, look at what the rates were when our fathers were our ages. If you run the actual dollar numbers (referring to your goal from decades ago was to earn what you now pay in taxes) through an inflation calendar you would discover what we pay (ignoring we live in Nassau and NJ, the land of high property taxes) is not as bad as you think, I reminded him. 

He then opinionated that if only the Walmart workers had a higher moral compass they wouldn't need assistance, pointing out that the starting salary for a NYPD officer, falls well below the limits for WIC, earned income credit and SNAP, implying that officers/cadets who take take full advantage of these benefits have a poor compass because they don't pay those benefits back when they finally make enough money to not need the extra assistance. I reminded him that those cadets aren't taking "advantage" by taking WIC etc, they take it because they don't earn enough otherwise to, I don't know, eat? and that I pay taxes for welfare, food stamps, unemployment etc as insurance so that the benefits will be there if I need that. Being poor has nothing to do with a moral compass. 

On the other hand paying wages too low to live on does. In that case, the city is just as bad as Walmart using my federal tax dollars to subsidize the cadets. There's something wrong when someone working a full time job can barely support themselves. And, though I didn't point this out as I really didn't want to start WW3 in my family, one could argue that all the benefits he received from the city via his union could be equated with the welfare benefits the low paid cadets receive and that the low paid cadets repaid the benefits they received when paying taxes on their eventual higher salaries, something the Walmart workers probably will never be able to do. Not that heirs of Sam Walton seem to care. What do they know about meritocracy and receiving rewards for good work? Their financial success was guaranteed as soon as they received their inheritances (God forbid we put an inheritance tax in place to prevent an aristocracy from forming but that is another blog post).

I remember when my goal was to make $10 an hour, of course that was in 1985 when I was making $3.75 an hour (a bit above the then minimum wage) and was just finishing high school. Times change, and so do our expectations. I found the census for 1940 and saw what my grandfather, a bank executive, made that year. After running it through an inflation calculator I saw how low his salary was -- which explains in part why they lived in a 4th floor walkup in Brooklyn without a car. We pay more dollars because we make more dollars and I like having a house, phone, multiple cars and other items my grandparents would have considered a luxury. 

He then complained that he knows a lot of people, himself included, who opted for lower wages (much lower than comparable private sector positions) to gain benefits. His argument was that if benefits are given out to everyone, then pay will be the only deciding factor and companies can then use public sector wages as a standard instead of the other way around (NYC civil service law has provisions that an in-house title CANNOT pay more than 80% of private sector.. and they include benefit packages which are usually considered as 30 - 40% of total wages). As an example, he pointed to city electricians using a section of the law to gain equity with private sector wages because of the huge disparity... jump forward 8 years, they received a 77% wage increase but lost 23 annual days and pay their own medical ... overall they gained about 15% in salary but if they should get sick for an extended period that gain would be gone in a flash.... making choices. Well, gee. Welcome to the private sector.  

Basically, he was  arguing that Unions got too greedy. I agree to an extent. Certain work rules regarding job titles and duties that may have made sense in 1953 don't make sense in 2013. On the other hand, Walmart's low wages make the argument for unions; imagine if the union fervor of the early 20th century existed today. Even though Walmart is low skill, they would be pretty screwed if everyone struck at once. For them its all about money not the customers or employees and if they saw their bottom line was being affected they might react with higher wages or more employees. Unfortunately, in many places in this country the customers don't have the option of striking Walmart so the money will keep rolling in.

Going back to the waste, there is a lot of blame to go around for that but basically, like the debt, we are living through the consequences of labor/ social peace of 50-60 years ago where all parties kicked the problem down the road. Nobody cared about needed reforms. The result is that in the last decade or so government pay and benefits has exceeded the private sector. My wife, who works in the NJ court system, can point to many lawyers applying for what used to be high school diploma jobs in the court because the money is better than the private sector and I know that can not last, especially now that we are in a global economic market. But that is another argument

My other grandfather was a NYC school principal in the 1950s and 60s, retiring just after the teachers' unions "won." He was telling me in the mid 80s that while he understood the necessity of the teachers unions to curb the principals' powers that the pendulum had already swung too far left. Add on another 30 years, along with previous tax cuts, and here we are, the public sector being a superior place to work over the private sector for many at the same time you have people like my brother-in-law, a man who has done well on the government payroll, arguing to cut the ladder behind him now that he has gotten his. Complete hypocrisy.

I am not saying I like ObamaCare (I feel it is a big windfall for private insurance companies), and I can see his point about making choices, but I don't see why a union employee is upset over someone in the private sector having to offer a 10th of what his union has given him. I think it is marvelous that he gets great health benefits. I think it is hypocritical of him to say that no one else should have them because NOW he wants taxes and spending to be cut. If he put his actions where his mouth was, he would be working until 70 like the rest of us (which he will of course, he will be able to make much more money in the private sector with the engineering skills he learned from the city, even without a college degree).

Wealth inequality is as high as the years before the Great Depression. That only ended when we taxed ourselves like nuts for WW2 and then to build the post-war infrastructure that made us the most powerful nation in the world and whose legacy we are barely holding onto as we starve our schools, roads, power lines etc. of needed capital. Yes, the tax rates of the mid 20th century were insanely high, but they have been cut many times they hit their peak. Tax rates today are low, enough with the idea that a few cents or dollars more for Obamacare will destroy the country. 

Finally, happy minus 50 years to first contact with the Vulcans on a ship paid for by tax dollars but re-purposed by a private scientist.

Mom or rocket scientist?

It is 2013. The women's lib movement was decades ago and many adults, especially those in their mid 40s and younger, don't have any real work-life experience with the major discrimination women suffered years ago. Oh sure, some of us heard stories from our mothers about how the choices when they were young were to become wife and mother, or a teacher, a typist or some other low level job if outside the house. And there are still plenty of instances where there are glass ceilings for women in both blue collar and white collar offices, especially if they are working mothers, both actual and social, no matter how high in the company they may reach. In my working life spanning almost 30 years at this point, I have worked for many male and female bosses including, at one point, for a then Fortune 500 company where our CEO/President was a woman and, for the most part, have never seen women discriminated against, especially in recent years. Therefore, I am amused about the snit among some over an obituary for a female 88 year old rocket scientist who passed last week, started off with a comment on her cooking skills and being a great mother, despite the family noting that was how they wanted the obituary to start for personal reasons.

Maybe it is a generation thing, but I don't know many people my age, male or female, who worry about being defined by their careers. For many of my peers the bigger concern is a work/life balance, though that view may be due to the people I work with and befriend. Mrs. Brill sounded a lot like a woman of her times, who associated her life with her family over her work, even though her work is what she is remembered for on the national and world stage. Married in the early 1950s, she followed her husband around the country for his work, while she took time away from hers to not only go where he went but to raise their children. And it strikes a cord with me as her story sounds a lot like my mother's, a woman who started as a traditional wife and then moved on to better things. 

Back in the 1950s, a woman's role was, for the most part, standing by her man, running the home and raising the family, even if they had dreams of doing more. My mother was one of those women and she made a point of telling my brothers, sister and I that her dreams of being a geologist were put aside due to the times and how wonderful it was that that was changing (this was the 1970s). She often spoke how envious she was of her sister-in-law, about a decade younger, who came of age at the right time and was able to have a meaningful career. My mother told us several times the story of how when she went to Brooklyn College in the mid 1950s, one professor accused her of taking a seat from a man because he speculated she just wanted to meet boys, despite already being engaged to my father. This was not the case for my aunt a decade later. As a result, like many women of her day, my mother became a teacher, quitting for a time to raise children, before returning to the work force. However, due to her lack of education in the sciences, and other circumstances, she was unable to follow her passion.

However, my mother eventually was able to be more than a mother and teacher, finding meaningful volunteer work in several organizations, becoming quite prominent in one of them, and may have been remembered for that if she had died when still young. But that was decades ago and declining health forced her to step away from most of those activities over a decade ago. Now, as my mother nears the end of her life, with many of her friends and former colleagues already gone, she will be remembered as a mother and grandmother by the only people who will really care.

Finally, my grandfather (my mother's father) had his obit in the NY Times almost 30 years ago. And while I don't recall if he wrote it himself (it was one of the ones you had to pay for)  he definitely had final say. Therefore, I imagine Mrs. Brill did too. And if that was the case, then it was she who thought being a wife and mother was more important than being a rocket scientist and that was how she wanted to be remembered.

Oh, more thing ladies still upset that the obit started with Mrs. Brill's homemaking skills. As I noted above it is 2013. Please stop acting surprised when I answer the phone mid-day and tell you my wife is at work. Some of us men are house husbands while others work from home (like I do) some or all week days. Stop asking for her when the call could easily apply to either of us (I also take messages so saying thank you and hanging up before I can even ask what the call is about is kinda rude).

her story sounds a lot like my mother's, a woman who started as a traditional wife and then moved on to better things. My mother made a point of telling my brothers, sister and I that her dreams of being a geologist were put aside due to the times and how wonderful it was that that was changing (this was the 1970s). When she went to Brooklyn College in the mid 1950s, one professor accused her of taking a seat from a man because he speculated she just wanted to meet boys, despite already being engaged to my father. She eventually was able to be more than a mother and teacher and may have been remembered for that if she had died when still young. But now, as my mother nears the end of her life, with many of her friends and former colleagues already gone, she will be remembered as a mother and grandmother by the only people who will really care.

her story sounds a lot like my mother's, a woman who started as a traditional wife and then moved on to better things. My mother made a point of telling my brothers, sister and I that her dreams of being a geologist were put aside due to the times and how wonderful it was that that was changing (this was the 1970s). When she went to Brooklyn College in the mid 1950s, one professor accused her of taking a seat from a man because he speculated she just wanted to meet boys, despite already being engaged to my father. She eventually was able to be more than a mother and teacher and may have been remembered for that if she had died when still young. But now, as my mother nears the end of her life, with many of her friends and former colleagues already gone, she will be remembered as a mother and grandmother by the only people who will really care.