Linda Gutierrez

GOP isn't Rosa Parks

2010-10-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

I can't even believe some of the things that Barack Obama is getting away with saying. Republicans, even if voted into the houses of Congress by "We the People" are to be relegated to the back of the congressional bus. They can "help" if they want to, but they have to do what he tells them. Who the heck does this man think he is? Our Emperor? Der Fuhrer? Or does he sense that he is the next Washington, or Lincoln, or Roosevelt? This "King" and his "court" has certainly outdone past Presidents for urbanity, cool "nobless oblige" and glamour! He is the most arrogant President certainly. Can't you just feel how stupid he thinks we are? He is the cool kid in high school that everyone wants to bask in his ambience. He's smooth, he's cool, and others follow his lead. It's clear that he's confident and he feels a warm glow for the poorest of the poor. They love anybody who says there'll be a chicken in every pot. It was said by many others in their day. Other self-promoters that thought they needed no help figuring out what everyone else should do. I am not stupid and I am not affluent. Those things don't necessarily go together.

I will not be condescended to because I am one of the common people. I am intelligent and I am a college graduate. I am proud and independent and I try hard to make my way. But I am also disabled with a back condition and had to retire early, so I am also a Social Security recipient. There is a greater proportion of people becoming disabled than ever previously. And it feels like the dole when it should be a proud thing that this country takes care of people who fall ill. A society that takes care of its own is a truly civilized society.It is the stress of a society, gone to seed, in the wake of the industrialized and information age that developed along with technology in the last hundred years. The pace, to human beings, and our environment has been exponentially increased during that time, and the result is a society deconstructing in morals and traditions and rules. Most of the ills of civilization can be traced to the breakdown of morality, education, and hospitality. We became complacent. We failed to continue to value what we had until it was long lost. The cow is out of the barn now, and we are living with the havoc that creates. Our government has now become our nanny. We can only have as much freedom and prosperity that Obama determines. I shouldn't feel like a second-class citizen because I have limited resources, so he feels that the solution is to bring everyone else down to that level of government controlling their income. I don't like being manipulated, and that is exactly what D.C. has been doing to us for a long, long time now. Where are the Patrick Henry's of our day. The Ben Franklin, the Thomas Jefferson? I decided about a year ago, that Glenn Beck is the Paul Revere. Love him or hate him, he is being a beacon to a lot of people, not only Republicans. The Republicans have sinned, and I have a feeling a few of them shouldn't be throwing any stones!
D.C is an entrenched system, and all the newcomers are going to be told to "go along to get along". If they do, their first term will be their last.....I hope! I hope the tea party lasts. I don't even know about the Tea Party. It depends on what they now do. If they get caught up in more of the same, I hope they get unseated along with Obama in 2012. Obama is sure of a career after this anyway. He will have his own show on the Oprah network! He'll have to quit blowing smoke though!

America the Pitiful

2010-10-18T06:47:00.000-07:00

I am really getting tired of the sniping political ads on TV. I get annoyed by them every election year, but this particular election cycle, I am finding the ads more intolerable than ever. I don't know if it is because the GOP is behaving as though they had no part in taking this country down the wrong road, or because the Democrats are putting so much distance between themselves and the current administration. Probably both. I usually vote Republican because their agenda mostly matches my own, but the people in office now and in the past have so abused their privilege that they are just as much to blame for the country's ills as those now in power. Like the old fable about the ant and the grasshopper, they have been grasshoppers that played all summer long when they should have been gathering ahead for the long cruel winter. There are few "ants" at the helm these days and those that are gathering are feathering their own personal nests rather than saving for America's rainy day.

It's definitely storming in my neck of the woods. I have rarely been so hard-pressed as I am these days. Like many parents and grandparents these days, we are trying to help our grown children get back on their feet. Our bills are exceeding our resources every single month. Kind of like our country's bills are exceeding our resources. Our country's indebtedness is killing our independence, and no one wants to take responsibility for it. In fact. everyone is running away from the responsibility. The time for running away is over. I would love to hear a candidate make an ad saying "I have learned from my mistakes. I was busy feathering my own nest along with everyone else in government, but now I am going to do my best to get rid of earmarks, and to achieve tort reform, and give value to the American people who put their trust in me by giving me their votes". Wouldn't that be awesome?

Incumbents are going to be leaving in record numbers this election. Everywhere I go, I hear people say that they are going to vote against every incumbent representative. It's a backlash to punish whoever already holds office, but in many ways it is a misdirected action. It really isn't always the players that are the problem. Sometimes it's the game. In the U.S. government, it is the game that needs to be changed up. Our government hasn't always been run the way it is now. People became complacent when it came to being the watchdogs of their government. Furthermore, the American people became like spoiled children feeling entitled to getting more out of the government than we put in. Our constitution doesn't entitle us to be freeloaders. Sadly, some people die because of inadequate health care. But people also die with the best care money can buy. As tough as it is, we need to get back to a place where if we can't buy it, we can't get it. That is going to be the only thing that will make people grab hold of their bootstraps and pull. No politician is going to tell you that when they want your vote.

I can't wait until this election cycle is over, but I know that it is going to be a short time before it all starts again heading into the presidential election in 2012. It didn't really feel like we had a break since the last presidential election. But I know what I am looking for in a President. I want someone honest who will take responsibility for whatever he does or says. I want him to tell me the truth without the spin on it. I want someone who doesn't just pay lip service to the problems we have, but really works at being a problem-solver. I want someone who isn't afraid to look at the way the government can be changed to meet the needs of America in crisis. I want someone whose agenda isn't a hidden one. Does such a man or woman exist in America today that can be elected? I don't know, but I will be watching to see. Even if I have to listen to their campaign ads with a clothespin on my nose!

That's (virtual) Life!

2010-10-11T10:34:00.000-07:00

I have had quite a week. To tell you the truth, this is pretty much the way my life has rolled for a long time. Last week began with both of my adult children in the hospital via the ER and admitted. Then I became sick as well, and got loaded down with medication and relieved of my money by the pharmacy. The week then ended with the breakdown of my van and what could have been a very expensive repair. Fortunately, with the help of a couple of dear friends, I avoided a towing bill this time and minimal cost for a used alternator from the junkyard. Instead of writing a check from a badly depleted checking account, I asked for a little help from my friends. I have great friends, but I don't spend a lot of actual time with them in person. It is so much easier, seemingly, to email or call or use some kind of technological interface to connect with others. Our time is so used up with virtual life that we hardly have time for an actual one. By the time I get finished checking my email and attending to my virtual farming, I barely have time to shower before the pizza delivery guy gets here.

I have a very difficult time asking for help from anyone and I always have. I was brought up to be self-sufficient, but that doesn't always work too well in the world we live in. I have seen many people in the same boat these days. It is sometimes hard to preach self-sufficency when parents have to allow their children to come back home because for one reason or another, their finances went south, or you have failed to successfully launch an adult child. Some people who have never had to rely on food stamps have been forced to ask for them, or go to a food pantry or a church for help for feeding and clothing the extra people. For a conservative to have to rely on government help, feels really wrong and to some people looking on, it looks like hypocrisy. I have been thinking a lot about how we spend our money these days, and why we spend it on the things we do.

Life has gotten a lot harder these days, in my humble opinion. We suffer from information overload, and unprecedented dents in our personal privacy. We are wired from head to toe, every day. Our technology has advanced so exponentially, that it is possible for people with very limited incomes to have cell phones, and computers with internet access. These gadgets have become as necessary to most of the people I know as basic utilities like water and electricity. As a matter of fact, I know many people who would pay their cell phone bills or their internet providers BEFORE they would pay their other utilities, if they could only pay one or the other. Everyone I know is having money trouble of some kind, and technology is creating strange addictions that are contributing to the financial meltdowns and the demise of face to face relationships.

Is anyone still not on Facebook? I can't remember what life was like before I got started. Young and old have joined in social networking. It can be a good thing, or a very bad thing. Over the last year, I have found out things about my family and friends that I probably would never have known before due to social networks. That hasn't always been good news. I know that people have found out more about my family than I have actually wanted to be broadcast. Not trying to hide anything in particular, but do we really want all our business cast abroad on Twitter or Myspace, or Facebook? I have seen fights started and escalated and relationships ended over these networks. Many of us are clearly addicted to this new type of communication. Facebook says on its login page that it is "free, and always will be". But internet access clearly is not free, nor are cell phones. I grew up with free television, but that is another "necessity" that has gobbled up part of our paychecks in the last two decades. It became a necessity for most people, but clearly people must have lived happy lives for hundreds of years without it. That should call for us to redefine what is actually a necessity, and what is simply a choice.

I am part of a generation that has always had a phone and television, but my parents were born before the Great Depression, and started their lives, and even their marriages with horses as their main transportation resource other than walking. It is tough to get a kid these days to walk to the garbage can with their soda can! My parents had to walk miles every day to school, after they did whatever chores they had to do in the morning before school. In less than a century, life has changed drastically in this country. I know I sound like every old fuddy-duddy that has ever complained about "the young folks these days". That isn't even my point though when it comes to wasting our resources though. Resource isn't just about money. Resources can be anything of value to which we have access, like friends. I have a lot more friends than money these days, and I know I am not alone.

Our family's financial problems are a microcosm of America's financial problems. After World War 2, we had a burst of prosperity that was unprecedented in this country. From the leisure this gave people came the inspiration that gave rise to widespread re-invention to everything we already did, but it allowed us to do it with less effort and ingenuity. A lot of what we came up with is really good and valuable, but not everything has turned out so well. A lot of our conveniences have contributed to the ills of our society today that we all decry. Convenience food has gotten mom out of the kitchen, but it also forced her to go make a living outside the home to pay for the extra cost of convenience. It has also contributed to obesity and indolence. Stress and illness follow on the heels of all this overload, and we find ourselves not better off, but worse in many different identifiable ways. We all seem to be in a vicious spiraling-down of well-being that can be directly and indirectly related to lifestyle.

I am looking for a way out of the mess I've gotten myself into. I want a compromise between enjoying convenience and damaging my health and prosperity. I don't want to give up all my conveniences, but I want to down-size. I don't want a complete disconnect from techology, but I want physical and psychological health to be the priority in my life over convenience. Technology should enhance our lives and relationships, not take them over. Getting my van repaired this week led to spending quality time with my friends in person rather than on Facebook. It got me thinking about my time and my pocketbook, and it was a lot of fun. And it cost a heck of a lot less!

Beginning again.......

2010-10-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

I keep thinking about and writing about what I need to talk about in my blog. I write and then discard many things because of how inflammatory issues are these days. I didn't have any specific agenda when I began to write. I was involved with the Tea Party on tax day in 2009, and that is where I became acquainted with the managers of this radio station. I haven't listened to very much radio since I was a teenager because I never really cared for a lot of formats and I was busy yelling at my kids and listening to them yell for about 20 years of my life to date. I did have a few that I listened to in the car only, and since I retired, I am not in the car as much as I used to be. But if they don't play the music I want to hear, I flip around a lot even in the car when I am trying to get somewhere.Occasionally I have listened to WKVI, but usually it is at a friend's home or car because the music format is a little bland for me. I am not usually listening to talk formats either. I know a lot of conservatives are avid talk radio fans. I just don't think to try to find out when Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh are on and catch their program. I do enjoy news. I watch Fox news as often as I can get Spongebob and friends off my set for a few minutes. More about that later.

So anyway, I like to write, need to write, and have some talent at it, if I must say so myself, and I have to clear my head out of the zillions of thoughts that bombard my head every night and day. It is like mental clutter. If I don't write, I get stressed-out to the max. The need to express those thoughts is what has driven every human being to their particular bent in the way of art, music, or any other expressive art. It can easily go negative if our hearts and minds are beset by the inability to express it. For me, it results in depression and a kind of mental paralysis that sets in if I don't write about it. I started going to the WKVI website when it occurred to me that if I didn't get a newspaper or something, I was never going to know anything about what was going on in my community. One time there was an ad there asking for someone to apply for a columnist position for a new project the radio station was working on. I interviewed for it and was chosen. I always wanted to have a column in a newspaper, so I thought maybe this could lead somewhere. It is an unpaid position and there are no real rules about when I post or how long between posts or even what I blogged about. But, I guess I thought it had to be political. I can't even think about the state of the union every day, or I would go really nuts!
I was really hopeful and I posted quite often at first, but when I found so few people reading it, I got discouraged. I have had a heck of a year this past year with a bunch of personal problems in many different arenas. So I was already at a disadvantage and then on top of that, I couldn't have my little personal triumph. I have written several times that I didn't end up publishing for one reason or another, but more often I have written poetry, or the beginnings of books in my head that aren't really appropriate for a blog. I found myself asking inwardly; what is a blog supposed to be about?

I decided that a blog is about anything you want it to be. I am interested in so many things and I realized that I have to write what is in my head, or I will be stopped until I do. I write with passion and informed opinion about many things because I am a perpetual student. If something interests me, I have to learn more about it. I read extensively in many different genres. I have something to say about just about anything but I do have my peculiar special interests. Sometimes it will definitely be politics and the value of conservatism, but sometimes you'll be my companion in some of life's conundrums. So in my renovated column, the reader will get what is on my mind at that particular time, and I will do my best to have a new column every Monday. Maybe I will even get some readers this time

Time for a tea party?

2010-02-08T10:06:00.000-08:00

Well it is getting to be close to that time of year when everyone has to answer to the IRS for the financial success or failure for the year. I am willing to guess that for many of us, the picture hasn't been too handsome. I know it sure isn't for us. We have had a tough year. Actually the last 3 or 4 haven't been too great. Could we have been better managers? Yes of course. Life has been extraordinarily stressful for many Americans the last few years, but it has been hard to break habits of prosperity. Our downfall is not having the energy or time to cook which gives McDonald's a good fiscal outlook. Nor is it easy to do without cell phones or internet connections like it used to be. Even the government resents having to have other methods rather than electronic for all those folks who have resisted giving in to 21st century technology. Their public service announcements always tell you that you can access more on the web, but reluctantly gives you a phone number if you are gauche enough to not be computer-ready.But I digress.......

Most people in America have had it good for a long time. The rest of the world knows it, but Americans don't always acknowledge it. We have gotten used to having it all even when we can't pay for it. Kind of like a giant Ponzi scheme, it isn't really sustainable. When you break it down to what we really need to survive, our misery is all but laughable. What we need to be is what we are not anymore.Thankful!
I agree with liberals on few things, but I do believe in charity. Happily, that is something most Americans are good at. We believe we are the good guys,(and we are!) and we ride to the rescue when something is wrong in the world. I am happy about that. What I am not happy about is the same thing many other Americans are not happy about: our government growing so large that one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing. The fact that the political environment is so insular, and doesn't even hear the American people say "whoa" to the growing of our insane national debt! Our government is rife with corruption and, even worse, just the kind of habitat for people that want to make a career and a buck out of two-timing their constituents.

This is supposed to be a representative government. Washington, D.C. is so overrun with individuals that have their own agendas to tend to at the expense of the people they represent. A lot of us are fed up with it, and that is why you have the "tea party" movement. No particular leader, no particular party and no micro-management: just a bunch of tax-paying citizens that read the Constitution and don't believe the document our Founding Fathers gave us is being followed closely or correctly. There are a bunch of elitist people and organizations who put their agendas before the best interests and opinions of the majority of Americans in both parties. We are a diverse people but we can care about our environment without putting the" yellow-bellied, red-crested woodpecker" ahead of human beings. We can be fiscally responsible without being the party of "No", or the party of "Go"!

We had a tea party rally last year on April 15th on the courhouse square here in Starke County. Many people were amazed by the turnout for a quickly-planned, and under-organized rally, but that just shows that here in Starke county, we want our voices heard too! It was planned in just two weeks, and put together hastily, but it had an impact. We are trying to plan another event for this year, and we would like as much help as we can get. If anyone would like to help plan and carry out a rally, or a political "meet and greet" before the primary, contact me at (574) 241-5150. I don't want to vote for anyone that I don't know anything about. I've done that and it never felt right. It matters whom we elect here in Starke county. We could be furthering the career of a future advisor to the President or the President himself. Stranger things have happened. We need to know these nominees and their agendas in our home county too. It affects all of us.

Relationships

2010-01-04T12:27:00.000-08:00

Wow, it has been a long time since I have written anything. I don't really feel good about thing in particular, but neither do I feel passionately about much of anything right now. I think I am a littled depressed,and I may be getting worse as the winter goes on. I think often of writing in a fleeting sort of way. It takes more discipline than I have sometimes.

This life is all about relationships. Making time for fellowship with others. I think that is what all the social networking sites are about. People want to connect with other people that they like, but everyone lives their lives with such complications and tries to move their baggage around. And the baggage gets too heavy, and we abandon it somewhere, but we didn't leave the pain behind. We carry around all these suitcases of beliefs and practices that until that day the burden picks us up and carries us out.Some relationships spend all their time carrying around their luggage. Some don't ever unload it. Then there are others that mostly carry the luggage for as many people as we can pile on. Some of us with relationships with people whom we totally carry find that this bagless individual gets used to piling them on. A lot of them don't even want to place stress on the relationship this way. But we are a world of individuals with separate psyches. Some of us get tossed together and we decide we would rather muddle it out with the people we care about even if not having the relationship would be more peaceful. And as Martha Stewart says "it's a good thing.

It's important to keep families together. I would rather my kids have a network of family that would give a damn about their welfare. And I would hope that my children would return the favor and regard. It shouldn't be easy to leave good friends. Most of them come and go in life. Born in proximity, some of them wax and wain, and sometimes fade altogether. But those friendships that light you up, or give you warmth and camaradie should not be foregone or neglected lightly.After all we have one life to live as this human, in this body on this plane of existence that we know of right now. All other beliefs are in our future somewhere ahead and there are lots of beliefs held out there that deserve to be respected even if not held. That is civilized society.

While political correctness is not always comfortable, it serves a purpose. Commonly held standards of behavior, although certainly greatly relaxed since the greatest generation, are what keep great societies together. A lot of that is a good idea. But political correctness to cover up a lie? Not such a good idea. But that's another subject.I guess my point is that we should nurture the people who nurture us. That's what helps us carry on. The people in our life encourage us and motivate us and make us laugh or distract us when we just need a break for our mind. Some people are just naturally good at this. The relationships that strangle us or discourage us, we should change or limit. Rarely does someone deserved to be completely excluded, but it does happen for the good sometimes. It is always a pity.

Wow, a new year. Maybe time to shine off some of those people skills. Maybe time to get out of our own heads and see if we can do at least a little something that will improve our world; or at least, our relationships.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T11:43:00.000-08:00

If you haven't noticed by now, if you are reading this column, I am strongly opinionated. I am passionate about a lot of issues, and I admit to a little "attitude" every once in a while! But the thing I am most passionate about, after my faith in God, is family. I love my family! All of it; from the most ridiculous to the sublime! I am fortunate to have a big extended family. We are both flawed and fabulous! We squabble amongst ourselves at times, and yet, the loyalty and the love is tremendous. We may fight each other, but just let someone else jump on any of us, and it's a hillbilly jihad!

Today is the day we set aside to give thanks for all the blessings in our life, and I thank God for my family, my friends, my church and my country. Sometimes I let things that are happening in our country get to me and stress me out. When I do that, I lose sight of all the wonderful things around me, and I forget to be thankful. I am going to try not to do that anymore. Regardless of the hard times so many of us are having right now, there is still much to be thankful for about living in America! Even struggling financially, there is more available to us here than anywhere else in the world. Some of the poorest people here are rich compared to citizens in most other countries. We should be humbled by that and grateful for it.

I want to say to everyone that focusing on what we do have and being grateful will make everything better in our lives. Not just on Thanksgiving Day, but every day of the year. Get out of the house this holiday season, not just for shopping, but to re-connect with the reason for the season! Take your kids for a drive to look at Christmas lights. Go to a cantata or a Christmas play. Go caroling around your neighborhood or a nursing home. Volunteer to deliver Christmas baskets with a church or community group. Visit with family or friends and take them a plate of Christmas goodies. You will be blessed by blessing others.

God bless all of you and yours today and always.

Making a Difference in the World

2009-11-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I last attempted this column. When I started off, I was full of steam and ready to do my part to make change happen in Starke county and the world. I have lost a little steam since then. So much has happened both in my personal life and the world since then. I think I try too hard. I just got back from the doctor today and, of course there is a new pill in my life. I am recovering from whatever kind of flu hit me and most of my family last week, despite having had the seasonal flu shot a month ago. This new pill is for depression. The doctor thinks I am depressed. Heck, I KNOW I am, but I don't know if a new pill is going to make much difference. Just about everyone I know is on some kind of pill for anxiety or depression and no one seems to be getting appreciably better. I think it is just the way life is these days in the USA.

We all know that nothing seems to be going very well for us these days. Lots of unhappiness to go around and it seems like no one knows what they are doing, no matter how many "czars" we accumulate or polls we take or pundits we listen to. Oh, everyone has opinions, but that's all they are. No one knows any real answers to all our dilemmas. I think it's because it's all gotten too big, too convoluted, and no one country, even one as big and powerful as the U.S. knows how to reign it all in and fix it. No one has that big a lassoo!

People have all kinds of ways of reacting to troubled times. Many keep their heads down and work their butts off trying to just keep going so fast that maybe trouble won't catch up. Some stick their heads in the sand and hope that by the time they have to come up for air, whatever is wrong will be over, and then some of us run around like loose wheels trying to catch every piece of the sky we think is coming down. Regardless which type of human nature we are behaving like, all of us these days are doing the best we can each in our own way to make it work for ourselves and our families. Only one thing can really make it better, for sure, for all of us: encouragement!

Turn to your partner, your friend, your doctor, your mom or dad, or whoever is thinking about you, praying for you, doing the things that make life feel better every day, and say "thanks". To those who are keeping the house a comfortable, warm place to abide by their labor, to the "fairies" who keep us in clean sheets and clothes, or who make a nice hot meal, or even bring one home in a paper sack. Let's all encourage each other. We need it right now. All of us. It makes us do it one more day.

If we do this right we might run the pharmaceutical industry out of business! Umm, probably not, but it's a fun idea. I don't know if the new pill will help me or not, but it would feel good if the people in my life appreciated the efforts I make for them, and told me so. It's worth a try.

Doing the Right Thing

2009-09-10T05:31:00.000-07:00

I watched President Obama's speech to Congress last night on the health care problems. It sounded good if you weren't taking notes. But I was taking notes, because I like to check the facts on government. I have been this way a long time, and it didn't just start with Obama. In fact sometimes I remind myself of the Mel Gibson character in the movie Conspiracy Theory.
It isn't that I don't want to trust my government. I have just read a lot of history that tells me that a lot of people have been taken advantage of by trusting our elected and appointed representatives. For the last two years, I have been worried enough to make sure that I am as well-informed as our government allows us to be. As far as the health care bill is concerned, in contrast to most of Congress, I have read H.R 3200. As well-intended as I believe President Obama may be in wanting to fix our health care, I believe he is either naive or disingenuous in stating his case.

He promised big, but one of the problems with that is that the bean-counters don't agree with his proposal. That was one of the discrepancies I noted last night. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that during the first two years the Medicare cuts he proposes, and the new taxes on the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers will possibly, fund the first 8 years of healthcare costs, but the best-case-scenario is that the program will start to run into deficit in the 9th year. If that is the best projection, what is the worst? These Medicare cuts that he promises come from waste and abuse, and will reduce costs and improve quality of care, just doesn't add up. It's a fairy tale. If these waste and abuse options are recognized and available for cutting, why are they not doing that first to make sure the money is available. No new bureaucracy would be necessary to do that. President Obama is under a lot of pressure from all sides. We all realize this, but he is trying too hard to appease everyone, and making a lot of promises he can't keep.

He mentioned the need for tort reform, but was vague as to what he would do to curb nuisance suits. Almost all the people who run our government are lawyers, so it is doubtful any meaningful reform is going to be made there. In fact, if you look at the people who were his largest compaign contributors, you begin to understand that he is in big trouble trying to please so many special interests that he is going to be ineffectual in putting together meaningful reforms, and have any chance of being relected for a second term. Regardless of the rhetoric, no one is comfortable with having a one-term and very likely, a failed presidency.

As far as not funding health care for illegal immigrants, that is a ridiculous claim. If these illegals remain here, they will be included by default just like they are now. Anyone and everyone can still go to the emergency room whether they can pay or not. Those costs are simply absorbed into higher taxes for all Americans. As far as taxpayer-funded abortions, it is a ridiculous premise that no federal money is used to fund abortion. The federal money that gets funneled into Planned Parenthood and the United Way funds abortions right now. The label may be D&C due to miscarriage, but nevertheless, it is being done. It is naive to think otherwise.

Our President is hamstrung by his supporters that put him in office, and he lacks the experience to know how to deal with his opponents. I think that is what is behind the appointment of all these "czars". Obama is ambitious and idealistic. He doesn't seem to accept the concept that we have to have comprehensive reform in increments if we are not to fall victim to the same problems the U.K. and Canada have in their nationalized health care. Under the current proposal, those pitfalls are inevitable. I also believe there is something he is not saying. I think we are on the verge of financial collapse. Lots of private individuals have predicted this, but of course the government can't come out and admit this because it would cause widespread panic and undermine our national security. I think this is what is driving the rush to pass something, anything.

The time is coming when the status quo has to be changed, one way or another. Either our government starts to be honest and step up to the plate to regulate and reform the way things have always been done in Washington, or there will be communism. The way that works is that the very few at the top will have the best life money can buy, and the rest of us will have whatever the government wants to pass out. I still believe that Americans are a special class of people, and that given the opportunity, they will work hard and sacrifice for the greater good. We just have to figure out what that is, and who it includes. President Obama and our Congress needs a do-over. Now.

Are You Awake Yet?

2009-09-05T20:08:00.000-07:00

I'm not good at denial. I have been awake for a long time where the government is concerned and have never been "sheepish" enough to be herded into anyplace I don't want to go. I have been skeptical of power my whole life. I am also a big believer in the old saying that "absolute power corrupts....absolutely"! You know why? Because we all are human beings, and there is no human being that doesn't have some kind of agenda. It's what we do. We serve our own best interests for the most part. Even people like Mother Theresa had a human nature. Her human nature was obviously more humble than most, but she was known to get angry, smoke a Camel every once in a while(the cigarette, not the animal!), and toss back a glass of wine. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld would say. Actually, these are bad habits, but not the worst thing a human being can do. I'd feel better if a lot more people limited themselves to Mother Theresa's vices.

A lot of people watch Fox News Channel. Their ratings are huge, so it's not just self-styled conservatives or fundamentalists watching. They couldn't even get McCain elected, so it's doubtful to me that the Republican National Committee could be behind the ratings bonanza they enjoy. I think most people believe they can get both sides of the issues a lot straighter there. I know I do. They break most of the stories that expose the underbellies of our government. That explains why Obama is constantly on the defensive with them. But honestly, folks, can there be this much smoke without something being on fire?

So much for the new "transparency" in government. The Obama administration isn't volunteering all this information that comes out. He forgot that the "little people" that he hires to do the footwork to manage his agendas are people with human nature too. For many reasons, the secretaries, the interns, the "gophers" inside the White House are going to continue to leak things to the press. The reasons are probably: 1. money for info, 2. genuine alarm, and 3. plain old "I know something you don't know" gossip-mongering. Human nature once again.

Whatever the reasons, Americans are starting to wake up. Regardless of the personal reasons, as Reagan once said, "the scariest words in the American lexicon, are: We are from the government, and we're here to help"! Too much government has always been a bad thing for people who want to be free. There are already so many freedoms we have lost. People used to be proud of our Judeo-Christian heritage. Now, Christians are at the back of the bus along with white people. There are schools now that give Muslim students the special privilege of going into a special room for daily prayers, and Christian prayer have been given the heave-ho everywhere, not only in schools, but in government. Our president didn't observe the National Day of Prayer for the first time in our nation's history, but he is observing Ramadan, and Cinqo de Mayo and become an apologist for our nation all over the world. Why should we care? If you don't know, I will tell you. This cosmopolitan, urbane, sophisticated and articulate man has a blatant agenda for revising our history.

There was a recent special on Fox News (who else?), that examined our textbooks that are currently in the hands of our children beginning in elementary schools that brush over or completely ignore our founding fathers in favor of elaborating on all the other cultural beginnings of the diverse ethnic groups America has attracted to our shores. The great experiment of America as a free country is what attracted immigrants to come here in the first place. Why glorify the places they chose to leave behind? Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want to, but I think the entire premise for this agenda is to leave real freedom behind in favor of a perceived freedom in which we will be irradiated, homogenized, and packaged in identical containers just like milk. There are already so many things we can't say anymore without getting shamed and scolded by society. Have you seen the recent commercials for "that's so gay"? I hear people from adults to children say "that's so gay" all the time, and I am certainly not a fan of the phrase, but the commercial aggravates me too. I don't know how much they are spending on this indoctrination, but I really wish they would take half of that and spend it on telling the kids not to say the "F" word! I hear that all the time and it really offends me.

If there is going to be so-called sensitivity indoctrination, I have a list of things I would like to see that are a whole lot worse. Kids in school bully kids that are obese, and I can tell you that trickles down from the attitudes of their parents as well as the attitude of the government towards obesity. In the adult world it starts extending to smokers, poor people, and Christians. It is politically incorrect to say that Islam is not a religion of peace in this country. Wow, the entire Muslim world wants to either kill us or take us over and impose Sharia law here in America, and yet the power-elite wants to kiss their behind. What is up with that? Whether you think the war in Iraq against Saddam Hussein was predicated on false pretenses or not, did not radical Muslims fly two planes into the World Trade Center, one plane into our Pentagon, and one that patriots overtook and went to their deaths in a Pennsylvania field that was probably headed for our White House? Don't they oppress their own women, mothers and daughters with genital circumcision, make them cover from head to toe in burkas, and kill them for all manner of things that males can freely do? Oh yeah, that is way preferable to Christianity that mandates love and charity for all? (I hope my dripping sarcasm doesn't short-circuit my keyboard!)

I was reminded recently of all the bad things done by Christians all over the world through the ages, by a family member of mine. I didn't say much at the time, but the Crusades and the Inquisition were operating anywhere from 600 to 1000 years ago now. Once there was a lot of corruption in the Church, but I would submit that one can claim to be a Christian and yet not really be one, the same way you can claim to be a patriot, and yet subscribe to an agenda that is destined to destroy our nation. Christians do a lot of good in the world. They get in trouble for prosetilyzing in many places, and yet they still go and feed the poor all over the world. The whole idea of Christianity is to save as many people as possible. We are told by the words of Jesus to "go into all the world and preach the Word of God". That used to be a major goal in our government as well. It used to be in my textbooks when I was in school back in the dark ages. It was called "manifest destiny" and it meant that we were supposed to bring the light of Christianity to the world. You won't find that in textbooks now, unless it is in a college textbook under the heading of the "lunatic fringe"! They will point to Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker and equate them with Jim Jones and Hitler. Personally, I think there is a major difference between men who let their "human nature" lead them astray with women or money and psychopaths and megalomaniacs. Hey, but that's just me.

Hypocrisy has run amok in the world now. If you get caught doing something illegal or immoral, there is always someone else to push the blame onto. The most dogmatic, implacable, and hypocritical people I have run into in recent years have been the people who are so-called "liberals". They won't listen to anything that isn't part of the rhetoric the ideologues in our government and Hollywood have to say. How can anyone with an ounce of sanity believe that all these people who are multi-millionaires and elitists are really concerned for the "little people"? Because they say so? Don't listen for a moment, and look at what they do "for" the little people! There have been so many people who think that the democratic party is the party of the working man. I heard that all my life, especially from my dad who was a democrat. They may have been back then, but that's not who they are now. Republicans haven't always been much better, but they aren't the party of the rich elitists. I wish people could get off the party wagon and just elect a good man or woman who believes in our republic the way that Lincoln did. Abraham Lincoln was the last president we had that had any humility. I liked Reagan a lot too, mostly because he was a believer in the American Dream. All we have now is an American Nightmare from which we need to awaken. There may still be a chance we can get it back. But it's going to take a lot of work from regular people like you and me. We have to stand up and demand our rights under the Constitution back. We have to defy the human nature that says to us, "what can one person do?" We can band together and say, once again: :Don't Tread On Me!"

Time for some logical thinking!

2009-08-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

It frosts my cookies that Obama is now saying there is some right-wing conspiracy to block healthcare reform. And of all possible conjurers of this big conspiracy, he says, it is the GOP! Holy Christmas! The GOP couldn't pull both hands out of their pocket at the same time! At these town hall meetings, there are registered Democrats,Libertarians, Independents, and Republicans. Sounds like a garden party of cookie-cutter right-wing conspiracists to me! Hello, is anyone capable of simple observation?

Our illustrious leaders are scaring the pants off of the citizenry! All of us have looked at the so-called Stimulus, and the TARP money to bail out bankers,insurers and auto manufacturers, the projected 9 trillion estimate(and that is just the government's estimation,not necessarily a reflection of historical reality!), and double-digit unemployment, and we are getting a chill up our spines! And it seems like a few of us still have spines,which is a good thing. Now our current administration wants universal healthcare at any cost! I think many of us believe that the healthcare system needs overhauling. We don't want to see people who really can't access healthcare for themselves or their families. But it doesn't take a genius to realize that we are at a breaking point financially with all of these issues being tackled at once.

Everyone who is struggling now is wondering just how far down we are going to go, and there is no deficit of people and organizations that are willing to project apocolyptical theories to scare us further. But I think we are correct to be skeptical that something that couldn't be accomplished when our economy was booming in 1994, can be accomplished when we have record-breaking deficits! The main reason our economy was booming in 1994 is that Clinton decimated our military strength. Not everyone knows that, but because I was an Army wife and my husband was considered to be expendable along with many others because he was in a supposedly over-strength MOS, we were mustered out with bonus money along with millions of others. He balanced the budget by stripping our military to the bone. My husband's MOS was Combat Engineer, and those were the guys who went in front of infantry and tankers to build roads and remove explosives so the Army could move. Despite the fact that a combat engineer gets killed every 7 minutes, that was a wise move to have a lot less of those guys! When we got attacked on 9/11/01, our military was nearly down to sticks and stones. It really was no wonder George W. had to spend so much re-fitting our military. But I digress.....somewhat.

The GOP couldn't even get McCain elected!A war hero that was a moderate who opposed Bush as much as he endorsed him. People's disenchantment with George W Bush and the GOP is what got Obama elected. I am pretty sure there is a lot of buyer's remorse out there, but you couldn't get the Dems to admit that.A friend of mine pointed out that Obama stole Bob the Builder's motto of "Yes, We Can". Now he needs to stop watching cartoons, and actually lead this country, or change his motto to "No, We Can't!" He is a high flying idealist who can't even keep his campaign promise of "transparency". He got in there and found out that being the leader of the free world isn't as easy as criticizing the former administration.He has a put a new face on presidential privilege! We have more czars now than Imperialist Russia had in centuries! How can Obama even think that thinking American citizens are going to support legislation that amounts to changing and abridging our constitutional rights that have fostered the freedom to decide our lives for ourselves? We are close to economic collapse according to most experts, and our constitutionally elected representatives don't even want to read the content of the bills they pass in our name. That is what has people ticked off.

There may be right-wing conspiracies as well as left-wing conspiracies, but that is not what is driving the discontent behind these town hall meeting. Our legislators are driving that tank themselves by not doing the job we elected them to do. We have had a "bait and switch" from campaign trail to Oval Office from this president, and we are reading between the lines. "Taxes won't be raised for 95% of Americans". Yeah, right,and Superman is going to fly in and save the day with "Truth, Justice, and the American Way!"

If I were President

2009-08-17T08:11:00.000-07:00

Are you getting tired of the rhetoric? I know I am. Every day I turn on the news(it's like being a junkie, I think!), and I start getting frustrated. I can't seem to turn it off for long though. Watching the politicians and pundits in Washington is kind of like a horrific car accident. You don't want to look, but you can't help it. Why can't we all just get along? Wait a minute, I am starting to sound like Mr.Rogers or a playground supervisor. There are so many special interests and so many differing views of what needs to be done in this country. We can't finish one thing without treading on the toes of whoever doesn't agree with every aspect of any plan to fix anything! Why can't we just start on the points of agreement?

The first problem we seem to encounter is the language we use. We know what we mean when we say something(kind of!), but we worry about what the language is going to say to the people of the future in this country. Can what we put into law right now open the door to any other kind of interpretation in the future that will cause material harm to any part of American society in the future? Generalizing does seem to happen to virtually all language. All you have to do to realize the truth of this statement is try to read a book written by authors of previous generations. I am a pretty smart cookie, and a college graduate, but I can be intimidated sometimes by the change in the language. My best subject was always English, but when I read Plato's Republic in college, I had to read and re-read each paragraph several times to really "get" what he was talking about.

So, in the interest of simplicity, couldn't we get that guy that wrote all the "for Dummies" books to translate all these bills for us and put it in language the average American can understand? I have attempted to read a large part of the House Bill #3200 for healthcare reform, and the language is ridiculously complicated. That is why it runs over a thousand pages long. I am new to political activism, but not to political interest. I have been concerned with politics since my early high school years. Politicians have been progressively concerned with either pleasing everyone who seeks entitlements, or with trying to hide the more unpleasant aspects inside these massive appropriation bills even if they have nothing whatsoever to do with the original intent. It's a cushy life and they want more than anything to get reelected.
So, if I were President, instead of trying to sell a bill that is so huge and arcanely complicated, I would start working on consensus. My bill would start like this:

Can we agree that we are all living organisms?
Can we agree that all living organisms that can breathe and form sensate thought are human beings?
Can we agree that human beings need health care?
Can we agree that money is a necessary tool for civilized culture, but not the be-all-and-end-all goal for living?
Can we agree that fixing problems is a good goal?
Can we agree that fixing problems we already have is preferable to creating more problems to fix?
Can we agree that human beings not having access to health care is a problem that needs fixing?
Can we agree that Medicare and Medicaid have problems needing to be fixed?
Can we agree that fixing an existing structure may be more economical than building a new one, especially if no one knows how to build a new one?
Okay, I think we just hit a snag!

The snag is this: Great Britain, Canada, France, and Germany have built socialized medical models. Germany abandoned it already because it was not cost-effective and led to rationing of services. Great Britain, Canada, and France have models that are already in big trouble, bankrupting the countries and leading to the rationing of services. The people in those countries with money come here for health care, so why are we trying to follow them down the rabbit hole? People with money will always get whatever services they need no matter where they need to go to get it. We need to fix the services for people without enough money to access care. Instead we are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Many middle class people in this country have found that it is cheaper to go to India for health care services. It is a growing trend because the cost of the plane ticket and hospital care is cheaper there and the outcome is just as good. Not as many frills there. You probably won't have cable TV in your hospital room, but the cutting edge treatments are just as good as we can get here. Why can they do it there in a cost-effective way, and we can't? I don't know all of them, but I bet it's partly because their doctors don't have to worry about outrageous medical malpractice claims.

It is ridiculous that tort reform is not part of the healthcare reform consensus. How many people do you know have talked about the lady who sued McDonald's for the injury due to spilling hot coffee in her lap? How many ads for fat cat law offices have you seen on TV telling you to see them if you or a relative has had death or injury from a procedure or a medication? The advertising budget for just one of those big firms would support my family in style for a year! Insurance companies are in the same league. The goal of profits at any human cost is the biggest problem with getting anything done in this country.Insurance companies, lawyers, and unions are the most insidious lobbyists in this country, and anyone wanting to get re-elected has to bargain with these players to the American peoples' detriment.

I am convinced that most of our lawmakers want to do the right thing by the American people, as long as they don't have to sacrifice their own livelihoods to do it. I don't believe that most of these people get into office to be corrupt. They become corrupt because of our system. If they all had to play by the same rules, there would be no incentive. Campaign finance reform is another problem that needs to be fixed before we can successfully move America forward on all these other platforms. If we could prioritize these things and form task forces and ethics panels and get these other things figured out, any legislation would be a comparative piece of cake.

It seems huge and intimidating, and it probably is because of greed. But socializing government programs doesn't fix the problem, it just further polarizes the "haves" from the "have nots". We already have a 'class system' in American society, and it's getting worse, not better. No one is going to give up their wealth voluntarily so the rest of us can live better, healthier lives.
Can we agree that money should have nothing to do with curing a disease in a human being? I thought not.

America's Racial Divide

2009-07-29T14:53:00.000-07:00

I happened to tune in to the cable news program "Hardball" with Chris Matthews on MSNBC this afternoon, quite by mistake. I confess I rarely watch that channel because I already take blood pressure medication and I just can't afford to expose myself to that much pressure! There was a woman on there who was absolutely raving about how those people who were criticizing our President's policies were doing so out of a viciously racist motive. What!!? Now this was a white woman, and granted, she might have drank some really bad kool-aid, but she was espousing a view that, had there been any truth to it, we would still not have a black President. Actually we don't even now. We have a half-black and half-WHITE President. So what? His white side doesn't get much attention

I don't think our problems in this country center around color anymore. At least not black and white. I think the problem colors are green and red, and I am not talking about Christmas here. Money is green and when we don't have the green flowing, we are awash in red. Ink, that is, and it's on the fiscal balance sheet, not our skin. I am sick of the what we can "say" and what we can't freaking say. Could we be real for a minute? Ideology, we got it. We have culture, class, and caste. Yeah the world is certainly diverse, isn't it? Are you kidding me? I am talking the county I live in, my region, and my country too. Labelling! We've got that too, in spades. No pun intended.
We are living, breathing mammals, including humans that claim a Spirit too. Personally I think everything alive has a spirit if not a Spirit!

And anything with a Spirit can feel put down, denegrated by and vulnerable to another group. Our only way to prevent being unhappy in another person's power is to amplify our swagger and join up with others in our same predicament. I realized, just this week, and it really became clear to me that we are devolving, not evolving any more. I belong to the biggest generation living today, called the Baby Boomers. I just found out that they have added a few more years to the end of that. It used to be 1946-1959. I remember that because I remember thinking when I married my husband that since he was born in 1959, I had narrowly dodged a bullet .If he were just a few months younger than me, we would have been in different generations. That just wouldn't have felt right to me. To my spirit and my Spirit!

My husband and I witnessed as young impressionable children, a country at its strongest and business booming. War was looming and waning and we had an invincible military we admired and leaders we believed in. Then we observed the racial divide: far enough post-slavery for hope and prosperity to be coming for people who had long awaited its providence. Not far enough for institutionalized racism and prejudice to have unentangled itself. Most people of good will deplored the prejudice. We just didn't say anything loud enough for many others to hear. We talked among families and friends, the same way we do now. You had a few nuts around out at the edges that ascribed to whatever weird theory that promoted some stupid out-of-the-common prejudices about the differences between black and white. It's dumb. There are only superficial differences. Differences of culture and thought exist not only between races, but generations, personalities, beliefs, ideologies, and every other -ologies we can come up with.

That, right there, is where all the trouble leaks in. The more the populations grow, the more differences we have because we all have our own unique constellations of experience. That largest and most difficult uniqueness is perception. In my perception, another large can of worms was opened by Barack Obama a couple of weeks ago. As a nation we hit that benchmark
when Obama opened his mouth and commented on the arrest of his mentor, Professor Gates, by the Cambridge policeman, Sgt. Crowley. You didn't seriously think President Obama didn't bring his prejudices with him into the White House, did you? He is just a human being. He isn't above us except he has anything money can buy, and people fawning over him like he is some kind of Egyptian pharoah! Do you think someone has to be exceptional as a human being to be elevated to those dizzying heights of power?

Nope. Can I remind you of Hitler, Caligula, and Prince Vlad of Transylvania? Relax, I am not saying that Obama has any resemblance in any way to any of those historical figures or their personalities. No one really knows yet. I am not a revisionist of history, just an observer, and it is only far into the future that we know how history will judge him. Nixon was a villainous figure to most people for a little over a decade and then gradually people started to see that he might have gotten some things right. By the time he passed away, some years ago now, he functioned almost as an elder stateman. Senator Byrd from my home state of West Virginia just outlived all the guys that could recognize his shoes under the white sheet! So now, he charms the crowds with his cute "elderliness" and he still plays the violin. So, although I don't know what history will say of Obama, I do know what they probably won't say. They won't say he ever made anything that contributed to the problem of racism. Obama is the post-racial president. Yep.

My generation saw the civil rights battle in this country. Some of us from closer vantage points than others. My husband who lived much of his young life in southern Mississippi saw it first hand, not just on TV. He was one of the white kids who was bussed to a black school, and as a result, my husband had an education that was far inferior to mine in West Virginia. I was in an all white school. I do remember the black people from Huntington were going to march down route 60 between Huntington and my hometown Ceredo. There were pickups lined up down both sides of the road with shotgun barrels out of every window that went on for over 7 miles. The black people wisely chose not to march. I remember President Kennedy and Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy being shot. Those things didn't just affect Black people. It affected all of us. Society started to change.

We began the Age of Aquarius. Many of us resolved not to carry on the sins of former generations when it came to race, creed, and color. Many of us who had already let go of it, or never really had much prejudice in the first place, breathed a sigh of relief! My family collectively never had enough wealth or power to have really figured much in the whole business ever. My dad's side was probably the most prosperous having owned a slave or maybe two in a few parts of the family stretching across time from the beginning of this country. Mom's family probably never did though I don't know for sure. All I know is that my parents weren't even racist. Mom was raised in coal camps in Kentucky living with and playing with children of every color and nationality. In her elder years, she could still say a few things in different languages. In any case, I did not grow up hearing bad things about black people. We knew prejudice existed because we most certainly saw it happen on our TVs. In some cases, we might have witnessed some, but segregation essentially meant that black and white traveled different roads. We weren't ever in a position to defend anyone.

I think southern whites and southern blacks used to have more in common than northern and southern blacks. That is what my experiences have taught me. But when people started analyzing and exploiting the racial problems and putting all that on TV and in print, they made a lot more people mad. Every time someone says or does something stupid, why are we surprised? Why does it spread like wildfire? We have been going down this road almost as long as we have been a country. I am really tired of it. I know I am not alone in this. My mom used to say the more you stirred s--t the worse it smelled. The older I get, the more I agree. Germany has recovered more from the Holocaust than we have from slavery. Abraham Lincoln would be sad, I think, good old Kentucky boy that he was. I know you always hear he was "from" Illinois. He didn't go to Illinois until he was a adolescent, and as crooked as Illinois is now, he would probably try to get as far away "from" it as possible!

What most white people want to say is that slavery was stupid. We're sorry. Now get over it. Forgive us and move on! Blacks have opportunity now. Many of them are in the highest ranks of military, government, society and celebrity. White people might still have more as a whole, but we also out-populate minorities too. I feel a lot sorrier for the Native Americans who used to own and rule this vast expanse, and now they are stuck on little patches of land that aren't even technically the United States. They suffer from higher rates of poverty and disease than any other Americans. I am so tired of all the propaganda. I believe most white people are ready to move on, but when some black people want to keep stirring the pot, it stirs up the nuts too. When did Billy Graham ever show up and advocate for anybody just because he was white and they were too. I think the scorecards are evening up pretty well. Yeah we have Martha Stewart, but they have Oprah! At least their billionaie didn't lose a lot of her money and position by going to jail. I have never felt defensive like this in my whole life! When some black people started talking about "reparations", it started making a lot of white people defensive. When black people aren't held to the same standards as white people now, it doesn't make sense. Slavery was a bad institution but in my view God gave black people some intrinsic "reparations". Roman 8:28 in the new testament of the Bible says:

" And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,who have been called according to his purpose.

Black people have this unique brotherhood that exists between all of them whether they know them or not. The only time I have ever seen that level of brotherhood among white people is the masonic organizations. With black people, they have been able to draw on their unique experiences to excell in every walk of life. They have created a standard among the music arts that has not been enjoyed by any white ethnicity in centuries. I am not generalizing unequally here either. I am sure there are white people that have suffered for their art and black people who don't sing or dance well either. I am just saying that God has allowed a lot of great breakthroughs for black people to use their talent to reach splendid levels of success. Our government tried to level the playing field with Affirmative Action. There is no inferiority in any race. It's all in your head. But the change doesn't just have to be in white people's heads. Change has to occur in the minds of black people too.

Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton need to stop coming to the opening of an envelope! African-Americans need to just be Americans. Black people need to get the chip off their shoulder long enough, so white people can quit trying to knock them off, or amass a pile of their own chips to shoulder. No one who is even halfway educated or intelligent is proud of the history of slavery. But it is time for us to quit being slaves to our history. Every incident that happens, every time someone sticks their foot in their mouths, the media is all over it. It's one thing if it is a real injustice that is happening to someone. Why didn't Professor Gates think, "wow, my Martha's Vineyard home is safe. My neighbors look out for me and my property. I will show my identification and my respect to this police officer that is just doing his job, making sure someone isn't in my home that shouldn't be!" Why didn't Sgt. Crowley say to himself, "boy this guy has gotten me all wrong! I am going to explain to him clearly the premise of my visit.( Oh, he's not getting it, because he is a black professor with a chip on his shoulder.) I am just going to pull out my citation book and write him one for verbal assault and go back to the precinct and talk to my superior about it."

Because Professor Gates had the "you just saw me as a criminal because I am black and in this fine home" chip. Sgt. Crowley had the "you are making a fool out of me in front of this crowd, and I can't overtalk your big, irrational mouth" chip. Those are two big heavy chips to carry around. Obama had the "I have to show you I am a regular brother, and defend my friend whose facts didn't quite match up to the official report" chip when he blurted out that the police had acted stupidly when they arrested his mentor, Professor Gates. Well at least he is giving good old "foot-in-the-mouth" Biden a run for his money now

I know this is long and complex. So is life.I hope you stuck with me till now. I have not tried to offend anyone with this opinion. I am just trying to have an honest discussion about our problems between the races. I don't care about this stupid incident because it is irrelevant. Welcome to our crazy world. If people of conscience and good will let our better selves show up at every place we go and with everything we do, we can begin to fulfill the dreams that Martin Luther King talked about. This kind of infighting doesn't help. It only hurts the cause of equality and liberty along with our pursuit of happiness. We can't guarantee or legislate "attitude". We just have to change it! And could we please quit making a racial issue out of every misspoken word?

Who's Playing and Who's Paying?

2009-07-27T14:56:00.000-07:00

There are many times in the last couple of years that I have become extremely disheartened with the direction our country is headed towards. The funny thing is that lots of other people who don't normally follow the news much, are starting to notice. Listen I don't blame anybody who tries not to watch things that depress them any more than everyday life and its myriad problems we encounter every day! It is a testimony to the escalation of drug and alcohol problems that life in these United States has seen better days. I am talking pharmaceuticals here too. We are not only the Prozac nation, but I think we are the Xanax nation too! Most everyone I know admits to having anxiety. It's hard to make a living. Many of us have our adult kids at home; either back after a lost job or relationship, or one never having left home at all. Some of these kids you can't get rid of with WD-40 and a crowbar!! But, that being said, my Facebook tells me, people are talking!

Violence is up; Crime is up; Unemployment is up, the political divide is getting wider. Why can't we all just get along? Most of us keep our heads down and don't look up very often. One of my nephews told my brother that he "wasn't concerned about anything except his job and family"when his Dad tried to talk to him about political issues. My brother got very upset. He was telling me this on a recent visit, and we discussed at length the fact that people with that attitude don't seem to understand that job and family with its attendant freedom, rights and responsibilies, is the entire reason the people that do care, show it by doing whatever lay within their power to affect positive outcomes in politics. We elect leaders that then have the power to manipulate the policies that give us those rights and privileges. It is frustrating when no one seems to care.

I haven't done all with my life that I have wanted to do. It has been tough to find the time to be an activist when you are the custodian of a family. I mean that literally too. I failed to reach the intended audience when I taught "Pick-Up After Yourself 101" some years ago. But I digress. I did try to pass my values on to my kids. We found a church when they were small and kept them going until they were around 16 and 17 when most children turn heathen on their parents. We definitely talked about the issues. I have always been a pretty avid follower of the news and what is the point of hearing interesting news stories unless you talk to other people about them?
So I knew my kids were listening sometimes at least because I overheard them parroting my views when they were teens. It feels good, in a way, but I did always want them to really pay attention to the issues and look at both sides before they made their opinion. If they didn't end up agreeing with me, it was okay. They have their God-given right to be wrong.

My point is that if someone else was in charge of your bank account, you would be watching what they were doing with it. You would want to know what kind of a person it was that was making decisions about what to do with your weekly paycheck. If they took it and bought all kinds of things that left you too little to pay your mortgage or buy food, you would have something to say about it. That's what it's like because the people we put into power affect the policies that allow us to live our lives the way we need to do it. If they make mistakes because they aren't experienced enough, or are bad managers, or are character-disordered, it is our fault because we put them there. If we didn't raise Cain when we felt they were doing the wrong thing, or we failed to pay attention because we felt like we were powerless and alone in our efforts, then they used us to fix their own agendas without caring about ours! We have to get together with our friends, our families, our churches and civic organizations and do what we can do. If you can watch someone's kids while they do letter-writing campaigns or phone-calling, that is a great contribution. If you write one letter, make one call to your representative, donate a little time or money to a worthy cause that is representing your viewpoint, whatever that is, then I believe America can yet be changed for the better.

I know things are tough right now; tougher even than it has been for awhile in our country. Most of us struggle somehow, and I know how hard it is to make any effort than we don't absolutely have to in our lives and work. But I think the stakes are pretty high right now on a lot of issues. The Universal Health Care Initiative and the CAP and Trade legislation have not yet been passed. Everyone has an electric bill and everyone needs health care, so we will all be affected by these pieces of legislation. There seem to be a lot of people on Capital Hill that believe that they can do what they like without impunity. Both political parties try to divide and conquer by distracting the American people with all these emotional side issues while they go about their business feathering their own nests with commissions, bonuses, and pork. It's time to let them know WHO their employers happen to be.

If Nero fiddled while Rome burned, I think we have a symphony orchestra playing in Washington DC.

Starke County Drivers

2009-07-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

I have been a Starke County resident for most of the last 13 years, with the exception of about 9 months between 2007 and 2008 when we moved up to Portage. I don't miss that. I was living around my extended family for that time, and that is another complete blog I will entertain at some later date.There seems to be road rage all over the place. We don't seem to have much of that here, but we definitely have frustrations. My husband and I talk about the way people drive here all the time. I wonder if anyone else notices these things.

For example, you are driving through town and come to a four-way stop. Now typically,by law, the first one to stop is the one who is supposed to proceed first through the intersection. Do you remember the cartoon with the little gophers (or whatever they were supposed to be) that were so polite that they continually made excuses for the other one to go first: "after you! No, no, no, after you!" Well, that is what it feels like everyone is doing! My husband is continually complaining and yelling at people who thankfully can't hear him, "it's your turn! What are you waiting for; an engraved invitation!" I see no point in this, and I tell him that, but it is annoying.

Another thing that puzzles me is the new trees on Lake Street. New is relative really because they have been there for a few years now. They are very pretty, but I wonder who the genius was that placed them in positions that would obstruct the stop signs when they get foliage in the spring and summer? No offense to whoever that was,but it was short-sighted unless it was a police committee that needed more revenue for running stop signs. I have even forgotten about them a few times when I was pre-occupied or talking to a passenger in my car and had to screech to a stop! I know they are there, but I do admit to having senior moments once in a while, but surely I'm not that bad! I am only 52 so there must be a few more people who will admit they have trouble with it too!

All rural areas are different compared to the big cities, and that means the people are different too. I can't be the only one who's noticed this! I prefer even the absent-minded drivers like m e against the "road ragers" up there. Man, one time a few years ago, we had a guy chase us down because he was weaving in and out of traffic and scaring us all the way down McCool Road in Portage, and we were talking about him in the car. My kids were taking it all in from the backseat. My daughter flipped him off. She was 15 at the time and my son was beside her who was only her senior by one year! This man lost his mind and came after us with a vengeance until he finally caught up with us at the stoplight on route #6 and McCool, yelling all the way with the windows open. He was yelling at "the fat bastard in the back seat", and cursing him out crazily and with much malice. My husband tried to talk rationally to the guy and apologize and explain that it wasn't even our son, but our tiny, delicate-looking like butter -wouldn't- melt- in-her-mouth daughter who regrettably flipped him off! This man was in no mood to listen. I happened to be in the driving seat that time, so I just rolled up our windows, locked all the doors, and took off like a bat out of you-know-where! I know when to get out of Dodge!

So all in all, I am happy to be in Starke County with all of its peculiaries. I am even down with the trees. It's a lot better than living with a roadway parking lot down route #30 between Hobart and Schererville. I am sure I added my percentage of peculiarity when I moved here too.
So, I guess I am in for the duration, folks!

Letter I wrote to President Obama

2009-07-21T21:04:00.000-07:00

Dear President Obama,

You said you wanted good ideas from everybody, so I figure that I fit that description pretty well, so here I go: My name is Linda Gutierrez and I am a conservative Christian American citizen and patriot. I have a B.A. in clinical psychology from Purdue and I got pretty good grades. I ended up being in case management for my whole career after college. Fix problems and put out fires. That's a good job description for any kind of case manager. You were a community organizer, and I have done a bit of that too, so I think we might have a chance for a meeting of the minds. My faith does definitely play into my worldview, and manifest destiny. But I also know myself capable and desirous of treating my fellowman that disagrees with me with proper respect. And I will listen to other points of view, and if I disagree, I will still accord you, your First Amendment rights.

All that being said, I want to propose some of my ideas for you to mull over. You can't tell me that my ideas won't work, unless our government really does have an agenda that opposes America's Best Interest. If I get a little wordy, forgive me. I am passionate about the belief that this country can right its ship. America has always contained the greatest environment for dreaming of a better day. I dream of a better day, and I want Americans to step up their game. Not just those of us who must consume so others can make. Not just those of us who must pay the taxes on the hard-earned paycheck that barely stretches from week to week. I want our government to step up their game. Now.

We need line item veto. We need for the ones who stick a program that people are kind of ambivalent about onto one that they know is a shoe-in, and trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public. It gets done all the time, and you know what? We notice. Many of us. This is not the same world it used to be. You are not going to get away with that with a representative-style government anymore.
There is too much technology available. There are too many people watching you, and everyone has a camera phone, and there are too many people with no class willing to pay a buck for a picture of you doing something un-presidential, or some dirt from a servant or a driver, etc. We need to be able to trust in our government's honesty. You sure haven't delivered on the transparency any better than anyone else and in some cases, worse.

We need to see the end of "pork" by law. If you need to sneak it in, you don't need it. Just have a general appropriations bill and prioritize these needs. If it is a worthy cause then you can probably have your turn at getting your bill passed for your "pet project" if it meets a standard of need with regard to federal funding. If it doesn't pass muster and the federal government agrees it is a good project, you can try for State funds or municipal funds or even private funding.

We need, ironically, a lot of case managers to get those problems addressed. We don't have enough oversight for accountability within our government, much less in the marketplace. You need to do a lot of that same bottom-up management you did when you organized for the community. As you know, it's a lot of calls and hands-on help. What you can't do, you delegate, and then you check up on whoever you delegated the work done. You are an ambitious man with an ambitious agenda for your administration, but I don't think you are being advised right. But you have to lead us, not drag us, and it needs to be worth going to for most Americans. You are dragging us, and it's not working for you and it's not working for us.

We need to fix the healthcare system in this country. The better way and the most free market way to get everyone covered isn't socialized medicine or government option in my opinion. I do have some ideas you might use, if you haven't heard these from anyone else:

1. We don't have enough family practice doctors. Use incentives and encouragement to recruit more nurse practitioners, if they go into family practice for five years.
2. Organize a consortium of insurance companies to bid on covering small businesses. Let all small businesses opt-in on coverage with a lot of other companies in order to get insurance at a competitive rate.
3. There is no need to create a new infrastructure. There is already medicare and medicaid. Open that to cover everyone, and have the state’s pay for the administration of the system, and answerable to the federal government. Offer tax incentives or breaks to hospitals and clinics that forgive and absorb debt by consumers making a certain percentile of the poverty level. Encourage churches, community organizations to have a program to help cover co-pays. Have a Medicaid or Medicare case manager follow up accountability over medications and tests and ascertain what the ability to pay is for that individual and lead them through the system in the best direction. There are lots more ideas that I have, but this missive would be enormous if I detailed all of them.
4. Food items that contribute to health problems and obesity need to be taxed to pay for the health care. Right now, food in grocery stores isn’t taxed. This needs a tiered approach to levy taxes on the unhealthiest of fare. Food that is natural and least processed such as meat, dairy, produce, frozen and canned produce should remain untaxed to foster healthier eating choices. Convenience foods might be the first taxed tier. The lowest tier might be those items which have little nutritional value such as soda pop and snack cakes, for example. Fast food should be taxed. None of these measures will be popular or pleasant, but if we tax smokers and drinkers for their unhealthy lifestyle choices, there is no reason to exempt people who eat poorly.

We need a clean environment and we need to gain energy independence for our own security and financial interests. See, once again you are dragging us, rather than leading up with the Cap and Trade legislation. Just like with health care, there is a certain amount of mandate, but it has got to be sweetened with a lot of choice. And it has to be pretty easy. Once again, this needs bottom-up organization too. Things like recycling. If you are going to make it mandatory, you have to make it easy. But you have to involve us much farther than just taking our money to pay for a system. If you are going to have carbon offsets for companies, you need to have them for the individual too. You have to have incentive to do something that might well be in your best interests, but you can't see the profit right now. It's too subjective. You need to show us that we can, through our own sweat equity lower our tax bill for carbon offsets in some way.

There is much more I would talk to you about if we had a meeting but I felt that I needed to at least let you know what I think about. I didn't vote for you, but you are my President. I want you to do well because I want America to do well. I want you to represent well because I want America to present well. There is no substitute for honor. If our government would be great, it would be working for all American's interests honestly. And there is no substitute for confidence. You have it. That is easy to see. But we have to have it. Americans have lost a lot of their confidence. Especially recently. Especially white Americans. Why can't white Americans be proud? There is no race that doesn't have barbarism in its past. We've had much good deeds in our history as well. Why can't we just all be proud of ourselves, no matter what color or religion? Wait, I had better stop. Now I am trying to do God's work. Sorry, it is so tempting to dream.

Best of luck to you and your family.

Linda S Gutierrez
402 Main Street
North Judson, IN 46366

Go forth sinners and be taxed!

2009-06-29T19:06:00.000-07:00

June 29, 2009, 9:07 PM

I was just reading a news story on the internet about the price of cigarettes going up, and underneath the column as usual, there were comments supported for that article. As I sat here and read many of their comments, I became very motivated to write about it. I really don’t think people understand very much about what is at stake in our society right now. I don’t think very many people understand the real zeitgeist that exists in our culture in the 21st century. For example: many people were talking about wanting cigarettes to go up so that people wouldn’t be able to afford to smoke so his taxes would go down. One man said he had quit because he couldn’t afford them, but he still didn’t think it was right. Another felt kind of bad for the smokers because they shouldn’t have to fund everything when alcohol causes more in terms of accidents and tragedies than does smoking. Others railed against the “fatties and smokers” who run up health costs for taxpayers who don’t smoke and aren’t fat. They feel pretty self-righteous about it too!

We all know it is an unhealthy habit. Even people who existed and smoked prior to the onslaught from the surgeon general on our peace of mind and the tax man on our wallets, knew it was a dirty habit. It is empirical and observable. It stains our teeth and our fingers and clothing. It has made involuntary hacking assaults on our lungs. But John Wayne and Lucille Ball made it seem like the thing to do if you wanted to be a sophisticated lady or a man’s man. Then after Hollywood hooked us, they help lead the assault passing judgment on us with the helpful media that help us follow their every move. Tax the sinners who smoke and drink and can’t pass up a Big Mac with super-sized fries.

The thing that bothers me is that we, the common folks of America are being exploited and manipulated. As long as they can distract us and deceive us with our own differences, then the government and all the people who are in power over our lives can continue to live and work the way they do. They don’t only want to maintain their status quo, they want to exceed it. More power, more money, more guarantees of the good life, the sweet life; the lives all envy and aspire to have. They just don’t want us to scrutinize those lives very diligently. Have you ever wondered why the power brokers, Wall Street, unions, charities, businesses, service organizations, media and Hollywood all seem to intersect? How many times all these careers kind of lead in and out of public life and personal lives? Like people attract like people. Like incomes hang out together. What on earth does this have to do with a cigarette tax increase? Well, I will tell you.
As we go through our lives, we get ourselves focused on anything but what the government is really doing in our lives. Hence the tax. But that is not the real focus of what I believe about our government. It is in their best interests to keep us divided and distracted. As long as they can keep us from minding their business, they can go on with the ability to enact their own pay increases, have a golden parachute health plan, support their campaign by taking bribes and favors from those lobbying for their vote for money for their own pet projects. One hand washes the other so often in our government. They get us all hyped up about how good they are going to treat us and work for our betterment, and that takes a bundle of money. I have told my kids for years, “take my money and you’ll have to listen to me.” Works the same way in the world. No one is going to give you a bunch of their money without expecting you to vote their way. That is just one of the facts of life. So, as for the lust for justice, money, and all things material, are the first tenet for anyone looking for public office. And believe me, I am giving them a pass on that “justice” thing!

So if you are a do-gooder and you head for the political life, you have to get enough money to get yourself elected. To do that, you have to convince your donors that it is in their interests to help you. You make promises that when you are elected, they will be better off than they are now. So you author or support a bill that you believe will benefit your constituents and are getting ready to throw it in the hopper, and Congressman Smith, Jones, or Barney comes up to you and says “I don’t think you’d better push for that legislation because a certain lobby is going to be damaged in that bill. You know they are providing the money for something else for which you promised support. So you think, “uh oh!” But you can’t do without the money for it, so you table that and look for another sponsor or another way to get it done. But every way you go, there is another wad of money for some program that will be affected, or you will have to do without their monetary support. You won’t want to do that so you will convince yourself that now is not the right time to do what you knew in your heart was the right thing. I know, I am cynical.

I am skeptical too. I don’t think any of these people know what it is like to have to worry about the next meal or if they will have enough gas to get to work the next week. They worry about if their afternoon flight back to DC will conflict with their golf game with the Dalai Lama planned with photo op. We have nothing in common with these people except basic humanity and gender. They keep trying to show us view of themselves doing homey-type things as if they have any idea how the other half lives. Please! I will give Oprah this: when she has a chef on the show, she admits she doesn’t hardly know how to boil water. She doesn’t cook and admits it. But she doesn’t worry about groceries. She has staff who shop for her food and anything she wants to eat and I am positive she doesn’t stint at the cost. I doubt she even knows or cares what her chef spends. And if she didn’t have what she wanted, she would be able to call one of her assistants and have it delivered to her. I don’t know if she does this, but the point is she could. I can hardly get my 28 year old son who lives with me and I support, to go get me milk at the store when my hands are mixing the meatloaf and my back is killing me from making his bed! They don’t know about real struggle, because even if they did really struggle once upon a time, they have been a long time rich, and people forget pretty easily. They can’t argue with me about this. I would forget it if I only could! I know they have forgotten. And many of them were born with the proverbial silver spoon anyway. We have Hollywood dynasties, business dynasties, financial dynasties, political and social dynasties. That’s who they hang with, that’s who they marry, and that’s who they really care about. Oh, and the money to grease their way into any circle they want.

So, how could these elitists possibly know how we feel, in any respect. What’s the price of cigarettes going up mean to them. They can afford much better stuff. And if they smoke, well, someone is going to find a place where they can smoke. And if they need a lung transplant, they are going to get one: at the best hospitals, with doctors falling all over themselves to write them the best prescriptions. They’ll even fill the prescriptions themselves and deliver them to their doors. When you’ve got lots of money, you’ve got lots of friends. And options, and possibilities. The American working stiff and the IRS will make sure of it.