You are an intelligent woman.  So am I.  It is therefore difficult to understand how we can have such divergent views on the IMPERATIVE nature of Free Speech and the FUTILE nature of Compelled Morality.  

Less in the spirit of coming-out-swinging and more in the spirit of time’s-a-wastin’, I will venture to suggest that your Homosexuality excites a staunch root-for-the-underdog loyalty that kinda self-servingly pimps the notion of protecting Some at the expense of Others.

As they say at touchy-feely laboratory schools of an oh-so-liberal inclination: THAT’S NOT OKAY.

That’s Animal Farm stuff.

Lemme guess, I’m a Racist?  I’m a Homophobe?  Since immersing myself in American politics four brief years ago, I have been called Racist, KLAN MEMBER WHOSE SPAWN SHOULD DIE (as a Mom, a personal favorite), Nigger Lover, Neoconservative, California Liberal, Kook, Republican Water Carrier, Democratic Water Carrier, COINTELPRO, Enemy Belligerent, Agent Provocateur, Fascist, Socialist, Marxist, Communist, Christian, Buddhist, Heathen, Infidel, Troll, Retard, Moron, Bitch and SON of a Bitch.

RACIST falls squarely on the Harmless end of the STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES BUT NAMES WILL NEVER HURT ME spectrum.  This isn’t a Popularity Contest.  

Except for YOU, it kinda IS, isn’t it?  Can we call a spade a spade, or is that RACIST?

FREEDOM OF SPEECH is not “merely” enshrined in our Constitution, it is SHOWCASED in our Constitution.  I will argue that the Pursuit of Happiness, ALSO showcased in the FOUNDING DOCUMENT THAT DEFINES OUR SOCIAL CONTRACT, does NOT extrapolate to the right not to be insulted or have feelings slighted.

We are DROWNING in Political Correctness, Micro Management, Hyper Regulation and False Civility.  Not YOU though, eh?  Your TREATMENT of Rand Paul — not your interview, your TREATMENT — of Rand Paul was JARRING. I’m not even a fan of his and I’m telling you, you exuded A-G-E-N-D-A.  You kinda stooped to COY to get-er-done.

All but Assholes will grant that Nineteen-Sixties America was a “special” time.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Necessity is the mother of Invention. A stitch in time saves nine.  Take yer pick.  Done is done.  Crisis averted. I trust you’ll concede that we DO pretty much careen along from brink of disaster to brink of disaster.  Does that seem like a Human Necessity to you?  Or does that seem like Political Jockeying WHICH, in a two-party System, implicates BOTH parties roughly equally?

All but Assholes will grant that there are privately owned businesses/facilities that cater to such scope of Audience as to constitute a Public forum, for the Practical Purpose that can be the only Reason to ever initiate ANY force upon an Unwilling Free Will.  Sports stadiums, concert arenas, theaters and such.  If you don’t wanna rub elbows with GaysNiggersSpicsChinksMicksKikes et al., DON’T COME HERE. 

But if private enterprises shall be held to Anti Discrimination, so must Clubs and Associations.  Feelings are FEELINGS. No favoritism, right?  RNC must tolerate AND promote Democrats.  DNC must tolerate AND promote Republicans.  Girls must move up in the Boy Scout ranks.  Straight people must move up in the ranks of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Dot Org.  I suspect you have thrown dinner parties without inviting me.  Ouch.  

There is literally no END to the rules that Equality mandates, if we would “fairly” spare EVERY person EVERY bruise to his or her psyche.

WHY would people want to cozy up to people who don’t like them?  Who could possibly feel better if people who don’t like them are COMPELLED to pretend they DO like them?  Ewww.  I don’t know about you, but about the LAST place I’d wanna eat is where someone was FORCED to serve me.  I’d be afraid they’d SPIT on my food.  It’s so illogical and farfetched, it seems likely that Community Organizers and Politicians kinda sorta AGITATE people into being “properly” outraged.  

How many restaurants, hotels, shops and service providers do we imagine could stay in business by refusing to serve Paying Customers?

I’ve been a Kid and I’ve raised a Kid.  If we’re REALLY serious about forcibly setting people Right, Parenthood probably oughtta require a LICENSE.  Y’know, issued by Authorities upon Expert certification of mastery of some EFFIN’ COURSEWORK.

Another means by which to TRACK AND CONTROL the population.  Win-Win.

Are you aware of the increasing surveillance and increasing regulation or, being a Media Celebrity, are you above the fray?  Do you FEEL the greater and greater intrusion of Government into Personal Space or, as a Media Celebrity who retreats to a second home  in the country, are you spared THAT assault on the psyche?

Chris Matthews played coy in a recent interview-slash-ambush, as well.  With a New Hampshire Libertarian who “open-carried” to an Obama Kodak Moment.  HUH?  WHADDYA MEAN, EROSION OF CIVIL LIBERTIES?  It was all news to Politico Chris Matthews.  And maybe it WAS.  Maybe it’s the Mainstream Media parallel to Senator Ben Cornhusker Kickback Nelson not knowing shit from shine-ola about ATM fees.  O-BLI-VI-OUS.

Michael Douglas as Andrew Shepherd in An American President: “…America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours…”

If Liberty is not entire, it is not Liberty.” – Eamon de Valera.

Of what are people so afraid?  That if some Asshat caters only to Whites (or Mexicans, or Chinese, or Indians, or Armenians, or Persians, or Greeks, or Vietnamese, or Poles OR BLACKS), everyone else will become likewise exclusive, seizing the opportunity to cut off their snooty noses to spite their financial faces?  Do we imagine that, despite the presence of 11-or-is-it-14 MILLION Illegal Immigrants, discrimination is reserved for “special” races?

Do we imagine that, if we bring enough FORCE to bear in violation of enough Rights, we can COMPEL people into cheerful, cooperative, constructive Citizenship?  It reminds of a dreaded Family Vacation, HURRY UP AND GET IN THE CAR, GODDAMMIT, WE’RE GONNA HAVE A GOOD TIME IF IT KILLS US. 

If we really ARE  so Balkanized, hadn’t we better LEARN that about ourselves?

“A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” 

There ARE Racists in America, yes?  Hence the laws, right?  I’m not saying they are Right, I am saying they ARE.  They EXIST.  Therefore, they have RIGHTS.  Same as everyone else.  Otherwise, WHAT?  Line ‘em up and SHOOT ‘em?  Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom from Tyranny.  Wars for THESE preceded battles for A MORE PERFECT UNION.

Kum-Bay-Ah all around.  Setting aside wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, PEACE ON EARTH.  Do you imagine that, although earthly nirvana has eluded man for all of recorded time, somehow THIS is the Bumper Crop that knows the Secret Sauce recipe?  We’ll simply OUTLAW Racism, between rounds of sorting out Mideast Issues that pre-date the Bible? 

Magical Thinking with a side of Force is not a REMEDY.  On the contrary.  As with the hysterical war on drugs or parental disapproval of a boyfriend/girlfriend, it increases Resistance and deepens Commitment.  Blah blah blah.  Psycho babble.  There is room for disagreement.

But there is NOT much room for disagreement on the significance of Free Speech to Freedom.  Name ONE tyrannical government that did not include A.) a call to surrender Arms and B.) suppression of Speech.  Too intense?  It could never happen here?  Rome couldn’t fall.  Titanic couldn’t sink.  America can never be attacked on American soil.  No sir-ee, not after Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and Fort Hood.

Ultimately, in the final analysis, all things considered, at the end of the day, in your heart of hearts, where the rubber meets the road, do you want to realize and relay Truth or do you want “your side” to win?  Are you a Journalist for the People or an Advocate of Special Interests?

I would like to take the time to remark on what a Nice Person you are, and to let a Nice Person and presumed Patriot know:

A.)  If you ever in a tired or angry moment wonder whether anyone REALIZES what all you shoulder without complaining of weight, indeed without it BEING objectionable weight . . . *waves* Over here! I recognize it.

and

B.)  Not Bill Clinton, not Mainstream Media, not Talking Heads, not Barack Obama, but YOU have influenced me to re-visit  the breadth and intensity of my Criticism.

Like Neil Cavuto sez, not ‘cuz YOU’RE right (humor, yes?), but because you are gracious and grateful and nice.  You are willing to confront — bravery, in any book — but you are diplomatic and flexible.

I’d LIKE to take the time but, alas, I don’t HAVE the time.  That is how it always FEELS.  Like a race against Time.  So much Injustice, so much Chicanery, so much MANMADE Misery, in MY country, former Super Hero to the WHOLE world, on MY watch.  Combined with remorse over MISUSING so much of whatever Time I “have,” I am obliged to quote the Bad Guy who FUCKING DERAILED MY LIFE (forgive my language): Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, People, let’s move, move, move, move.

As an aside, several paragraphs from now, this thought is likely to cross your mind, JIMINY CRIPES, I THOUGHT SHE SAID SHE DIDN’T HAVE ANY TIME. 

In a box somewhere I have stationery imprinted with a quote by French Mathematician and Philosopher Blaise Pascal: I am writing you a long letter because I lack the time to make it short.

See, I thought twice about the Cavuto posts.  Not just your input but your follow-up graciousness make me realize I might better have sent the message by “private” email rather than public forum, as I have done with a few others.

Don’t get me wrong, I was ALSO impressed by his story.  Seriously, you’d hafta have a heart of stone not to be moved by stories like that.

BUT, there are SEVERAL but’s.  I would acquaint you with them as I imagine our forefathers wrote to one another.  How they pulled off Independence without cell phones and laptops, I do. not. know.  But that they DID write letters is a matter of record and good fortune.

I have clocked more than half a century as an American, born into a Middle Class family of the Upwardly Mobile tribe.  Not rich or spoiled by TODAY’S standards but we never wanted for or worried about ANYTHING.  Roof, food, medical/dental care, fresh clothes, new cars, summer vacations, COLLEGE EDUCATIONS PAID BY HARDWORKING DADS, these were common.  Upwardly Mobile = Better ‘n Better.

Among my “possessions” is a quite theatrical imagination.  Being dark and brooding Irish forbidden to drink — like Adam and the apple, THAT is — my imaginings not infrequently trend, well, dark.  Never, never, NEVER did I imagine that my country — AMERICA, fer cryin’ out loud — could be in shambles like this.

What are we doing about it?  Basically, nothing.  Basically, we are riding the train wreck right into a brick wall or over a cliff.  I’m not sure, I can’t make it out through all the bullshit. Not even a PRETENSE of applying brakes anymore.

I go out not far on a limb in guessing that your family of five features three Kids.  Congratulations on that, truly.  But you have GOT to be worried about their futures.  WHAT futures, for starters.  Alleged Grownups are playing Biblical End Games as though their Book Of Choice does not EXPRESSLY say we will not know The Time.   It’s JUST as likely North Korea or Pakistan would launch a nuke as Iran.  Is our future to march around the world enforcing order?  How very . . . Prussian.  Then serve as the Global Medical Center for Walking Wounded?  How very . . . Democratic.

You know the spiel: spending like drunken sailors, wacky welfare, CORPORATE welfare, greed, pork, earmarks, blah blah blah.  Those are SYMPTOMATIC.  The disease is DISHONESTY.  Highly-paid people with fancy pants degrees are LYING AND CHEATING WITH IMPUNITY.

America has Bad Guys in high places.  The Mortgage Meltdown and ensuing Financial CATASTROPHE are manmade.  Made by men.  Most of whom are STILL living the High Life, and some of whom hold Office.

What has any of this to do with Neil Cavuto, you understandably ask?

No matter HOW you cut the blame cake, Mainstream Media gets a hulking slice.

Who, What, Where, When, How, THOSE are the essences of Journalism.  Journalism is about sleuthing and dot connecting, crafting sentences jam-packed with INFORMATION and delivering them unto People.  Information is a key ingredient of Knowledge.  Knowledge is a key ingredient of Power.  For MASSES of People to RIGHTLY be more powerful than an Informed Elite, the People must be in command of the same INFORMATION as the Elite.  

Regular People are consumed by the endless Mechanics of Living.  For them NOT be hoodwinked into being bushwhacked by the Clever & Dastardly, WHO ATTEND EVERY PERIOD OF HUMAN HISTORY, People must have the SCOOP.   PRESS must deliver it.  Otherwise, People too busy keeping their noses above water to see yonder shark.

Stipulated, that deep in the bowels of the cloak-and-dagger world of Espionage, Spies, Counter Spies and nudge-nudge-wink-wink Intelligence, also inside certain types ongoing Investigations, there are bits of information to which only a Select Few will be privy.  But I dare say, bona fide National Security interests are a FRACTION of what is being hidden.  National Security interests are entirely separate, OR SHOULD BE, from the secrets held tight beneath labyrinths of Creative Accounting.

That some people BOUGHT Derivatives and some people SOLD Derivatives fairly well clarifies that not everyone had the same Information.  I realize, of course, the Market IS speculation, the MANIFESTATION of risk-taking.  Not everyone places the same bets, that’s what makes horse races, etc.  But these were TOXIC ASSETS, with unethical-if-not-criminal underpinnings.  Some knew.  Some didn’t.  It is safe to say that the PUBLIC was not in the vanguard of this learning curve.

PRESS and BEARING ARMS were pointedly protected in the Constitution for excellent and superlative reason, respectively.  EXPOSURE is the last line of defense before EXPLOSION, y’know what I’m sayin’?  

Beloved Anchors and Glitzy Studios, thy other names are Bells and Whistles.

I will argue that relatively uniform pricing amongst airlines and gasoline stations speaks to Price Fixing.  Read that, Collusion.  A hop, skip and a jetset away from Racketeering.  Yeah, yeah, price of oil, price of oil.  It is but ONE cost, therefore ONE component of price.  Different management, different marketing strategies, different methods of operation, intuitively, you’d see some price discrepancy. Moreover, in a market like this, you’d expect to see some price WARS over fewer Travelers.  But nooo. They all decrease service and hold up the prices.  Which Government is also doing with Housing, by the by.

I’ve been on the road for a year now.  It’s the same situation with the motels.  Parking lots practically EMPTY in many of them, but prices remain almost identical by class AND holding at pre-Crash prices.  INTUITIVELY, we’d see Price Wars.  But nooo.

Lots of Good Hardworking Americans lost HALF of everything.  In some cases, EVERYTHING.  And yet prices are holding in industries dominated by Behemoths, which are dominated by high-flying Players. How very . . . convenient.

Returning to Mainstream Media, how is it possible that day after dispiriting day, all the “Majors” have the exact same stories, albeit with different spins?  With an entire GLOBE of activity from which to report, in blocs of time pre-shrunk by RELENTLESS advertising, how is it that they all report largely the same stuff?  I’ll grant some variety with feel-good Human Interests stories but, for News?  Lockstep.

They turn to the same Sources.  Then, despite an ABUNDANCE of evidence of deception and corruption, they take at face value the words of the people who have greatest motivation to lie.  They rely on and relay OFFICIAL versions of decisions and events when OVERSEEING Officialdom is, in fact, their highest calling.

So, in calling out Neil Cavuto, I am first of all coming from a place of HAD IT UP TO HERE.  It’s been EIGHTEEN MONTHS since Hank the Bank Paulson either TERRORIZED or ENTICED Congress into forking over the TARP funds.  Can you imagine a gang of traditional Bank Robbers successfully on the rampage for so long?  Would not EVERY state and federal resource be brought to bear on their apprehension and prosecution?  But nooo.  Not the White Collar Criminals.  They were all set to make NEW Derivatives outta Cap & Trade.

When DID Cap & Trade, which made a mockery of Green, become Cap & Tax, which makes a mockery of Green AND Enterprise?

I am no more interested in the personal lives of Journalists than I am in the personal lives of Paris/Britney/Lindsay or, indeed, of a supermarket checker or gas station attendant.  Oh, that’s right. We no longer HAVE gas station attendants, that a woman traveling alone might refuel without exiting her car.

It drives me BONKERS when they reflexively flash 8 x 10 glossy smiles at inappropriate times.

It WOULD make me hate them them when they laugh and joke around, but I am forbidden to hate.  So I criticize them instead.  NOTHING IS FUNNY.  It is BECAUSE well-paid, comfortable, secure people   carry blithely on with makin’ money in the REALLY old-fashioned manner of WHATEVER WORKS FOR ME, that the bullshit continues.  American Rank & File can expect little Correction or even relief until Press, the  Representatives who are meant to watch the Representatives, put principle over paycheck by playing hardball with Robber Barons AND Corrupt Officials.

“We” killed OVER A HUNDRED Afghan Civilians last week.  CIVILIANS.  Nobody bats an eye.  People trumpet SANCTITY OF LIFE while funding SLAUGHTER OF CIVILIANS. It ain’t right.

That HIDEOUS reality contrasts garishly with swanky productions of sanitized newscasts is one aspect of the irritation I felt at Neil Cavuto’s interjection of Personal Backstory.  ”ONE TIME, again.”

But I ALSO object to the content itself.  Inspirational story notwithstanding, it struck me more as UPBRAIDING than uplifting the Despondent.

In my experience, Despondency is a TREAD SUPER LIGHTLY area.  Warning signs all OVER the place, from CURVES AHEAD to DANGER KEEP OUT.  Neil Cavuto seems like a Good Guy.   Maybe I am over-ready to pounce (which is what You have obliged me to re-visit), but his Monologue smacked of defensive challenge: IF I CAN DO IT, YOU CAN DO IT.  BUCK UP.  

You never know what will put a Troubled Person over the edge, and Despondent Folk ARE on edges. With backs against walls.  Wow, if he overcame all THAT, I really AM a piece of shit — off with my head.

It doesn’t matter if a person’s circumstances are not as bad as another’s or not as bad as they think.  It matters how they FEEL.  Otherwise, none us would ever be able to gripe about ANYTHING on account of others having endured the carnage of war or 9/11 or whatever.  Many, many, many are the actions of great consequence, good and bad, that can be traced to FEELINGS rather than FACTS.  Owing to a surplus of lawyers and litigiousness, Wrongful Death suits pop up in the most peculiar places. 

Sometimes Tough Love works, sometimes it backfires.

Can you/he imagine if Neil Cavuto’s sermon, which I sensed had a distinct TELLING OFF quotient, turned out to be one Sad Sack’s camelback breaker?  No indeed, news Celebrities and the DEEPLY pocketed news organizations behind them do NOT want, nor should they HAVE, exposure in the Mental Health arena.  So emotional.  Such a crapshoot.  Who knows WHAT a jury is liable to feel.

THEN, even though you know and I know that Money isn’t everything, the Truth is that Money IS an especially big deal in a Moneyian nation during the worst economy since the Great Depression.  In this respect, Neil Cavuto IS sitting pretty.  People who are sitting pretty lecturing people are down-and-out is always a dicey proposition.

It is vital to keep an eye on the real issue.  The real issue is not whether Neil Cavuto has a “better” Life Philosophy but whether ANOTHER sovereign person has the inherent right to say THIS IS WHERE I GET OFF, and do it with more dignity than is entailed with blowing one’s head off or hurling oneself from a lethal height.

Who didn’t love the actor Brian Keith?  When cancer got to a certain stage, with death a certainty and only dissipation and pain between him and it, he took matters into his own hands.  Who cannot understand that  a Free Person might, at a highly idiosyncratic point, CHOOSE to exit with greater haste and less hassle?

Anyhoo, the handy-dandy Word Counter right in my line of vision tells me this has been anything but brief.  As I expected.  The “shortage” of Time manifests in disorganization, rambling, unclear thoughts, typos, missing words.  In short, all the stuff that COULD result in misunderstanding or offense.  Please accept apology in advance in that is the case, for it is assuredly not the intent.

On the contrary.  Because we are on the same “side,”  what I like to think of as the American side, I wanted to explain why I believe that relentless pressure on what has become the Industrial-Military-Media complex is not only Right but Necessary.  But also to thank you for reminding me that I do NOT have to blurt every thought that pops into my head and that, of those I DO feel obliged to express, there are ways and there are WAYS of saying the same thing.

Peace to a Peace Maker, from a Shit Disturber.

The people of a country that finds itself in the ridiculous position of being sustainedly at war…beneath a cloud of worldwide terrorism and over a cauldron of economic chaos…all the while with porous borders that practically invite cheap labor and/or violent crusaders, are obliged to either acknowledge and eradicate worthless government officials or admit that they themselves have no Will For Change.  The People will fearlessly take on their Corrupted Government, honorably taking Corrupt Public Servants to fullest task, or the People will concede one of two things: Defeat or Complicity.

Elsewhere I will that Execution by Firing Squad should be the industry standard for capital punishment, but also that it is suitable penalty for conviction of Treasonous Corruption in Public Office.  I will further argue that ALL corruption in Public Office is treasonous.

Here, I offer for contemplation possible solutions to our inexplicable but nevertheless enduring Fence Problem.

It is always the way, yes?  A brilliant doctor cannot repair a frayed electrical cord.  A brilliant professor cannot change a tire.  A brilliant financier cannot manage a load of laundry.  A model for governance once revered the world over cannot secure the borders of the country over which it presides. 

If it is true of a baseball diamond that, “If you build it, they will come,” this is even more true of a fence…If you build it, they will NOT come.  Fences keep people out.  That is why people build fences at the borders of their properties.  Unless we mean to globalize unto One World/No Countries, that is why America should also build a fence at the borders of ITS property.

A niece attends Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, majoring in Landscape Architecture.  They’re working on all kindsa cool stuff…all environmentally sound and energy efficient.  A group of students is going to Africa in August, to build an eco-friendly playground at an orphanage.  I will suggest that if our government would assign the job of building a fence to the students at Cal Poly, they would produce a fence of structural, aesthetic and environmental integrity before government officials could even decide at which shape of table to hold further discussion on Phantom Fences.  

For that matter, the government could round up Illegals themselves and let THEM build The Fence.  It would go without saying, except a government that lurches between Automatic Pilot and Knee Jerk Reaction necessitates that EVERYTHING be spelled out, the efficacy of this method would be reliant upon Illegals standing on the Mexico side of The Fence during construction.  Offer them Amnesty in exchange for a Fence, and they’ll have that sucker up lickety-split…you want chain link or white picket?

Happily, it is unnecessary to involve Interlopers in building a fence to keep out Interlopers.  America has able-bodied Unemployed aplenty, who show up on the first of every month to pick up General Relief and Food Stamps.  TWO sums they collect…every month…year after year.

No doubt I have heard some whoppers from among the scores of homeless with whom I have spoken in the past couple years.  However, comma, there are common threads that speak to Truth.  “Waiting on a check from New Orleans” is a common theme.  I will not be surprised to learn that slick shysters have snapped up prime French Quarter real estate for peanuts, and that they dole out penny-ante payments as a cross between “development costs” and hush money. 

Early release from prison, along with a one-way bus ticket to another state is also a common theme.  Sunny Southern California is a popular destination…sleeping on the street is one thing, sleeping in the snow is quite another.

But of this, I am certain.  While whatever staggering number of homeless have suffered traumas and endure miseries that the snugly sheltered cannot fathom, there is also a staggering number of homeless who quite prefer life on the street, absent all structure and pressure.  They do.  This is also something that the snugly sheltered cannot fathom.  

That the number of elective homeless is smaller than the number of crisis-based homeless is irrelevant to the reality that there IS a population of Drifting Loitering Drinking folk who simply choose to live out of doors…no overhead means no overhead…without schedule or responsibility or obligation or hurry or worry, who ALSO AND REGULARLY collect federal and state assistance.  Read that, Political Largesse at Taxpayer Expense.  Drink, panhandle, drink, shoot the shit, drink, rummage through trash, drink, bed down, drink, pick up welfare, drink…drink, panhandle, drink, shoot the shit, drink, rummage through trash, drink, bed down, drink, pick up welfare, drink.  Daniel Raleigh Nicks says he’s been doing it since 1988…why would he lie to the person who bought his lunch?

A country that is unable to build effective deterrent at its border and that simultaneously finds itself with an extraneous population of Paid Drifters has, quite at the ready, a means to kill two birds with one stone…if only the squeamish, the Misguided, and the Uber Compassionate will bow to Reason and Reality.

If America will oblige everyone to come in for their welfare checks we can sort the Infirm from the Freeloaders, the Destitute from the Drug-Addicted, the Overwhelmed from the Overboards.  Sorting the wheat from the chaff is preliminary to any reorganization.  Crucial in any business, an honest inventory is no less vital to the Big Bad Business of Welfare.

Waaa-waaa-waaa, cry the Bleeding Hearts.  What about “all” the people who are homebound in wheelchairs?  They need only call us and let us know…and know that they will have to have medical records available for inspection by the Official that we will send out to deliver their assistance.

Those who are able of body and reasonably sound of mind shall receive no further financial assistance.  When the country comes to its senses and accomplishes national healthcare, they shall be as welcome as any Citizen to come in to a G-Med facility for medical attention, but not another dime by way of freebie-here-ya-go cash.

Barracks-In-A-Barn is one plan for the Purposefully But Purposelessly Itinerant…rebels without causes or funds.

Another solution presents itself for consideration by open-minded and determined sorts, it bearing mention that open-mindedness and determination are required as never before in my lifetime.  It is a two-birds-with-one-stone proposition, which typically resonates with American Consumers.  It would ease the welfare roles…read that, provide relief to overburdened American Taxpayers…while simultaneously securing borders that are as open as a fraternity keg party.  

Democratic and compassionate people will be inclined to dismiss the proposal as hard-nosed and far-fetched, which is as it should be.  Society NEEDS democratic and compassionate people, to counterbalance man’s reliable tendency toward self-service at the expense of others.  But I would draw their attention to the REALITY that we don’t have any more fingers to stick in any more holes springing in any more crumbling dikes.  We’ve got bigger problems than we’re used to, and more OF them.  And as best I can tell, not only are we declining Change wherever and whenever possible, this country is running on autopilot right into the ground and the People are clearly on board.  What we’ve got here in River City is Trouble with a capital T…and Business As Usual.  

At the end of the day, it’s not rocket science, think outside the box. 

The Liberties is a section of Dublin, Ireland thusly named not to signify Freedom but to signify that the area once lay outside the city’s medieval walls, therefore beyond the city’s jurisdiction.  There were multiple Fee Collectors in this outer limit section that specialized in weaving and mayhem, but regulation of “society” was pretty much a Free For All.  Read that, Might Makes Right.  

Deliberate Drifters, Bully Cops, aspiring Bully Cops, Hard Asses, Incorrigibles…give ‘em loner-sized land grants along the U.S./Mexico border.  Here’s your mini-Ponderosa…there’s your fence line, minus the fence.  Here are some mateials.  Build your own fence, and guard it with your life.  Here’s your shot gun and ammo…shoot to kill.  Invaders, not each other…and not folk within range on the other side of the fence.  

This, here, is your last stand.  Work it or lose it…we’ve got plenty more of you where you came from.

We’ll airlift in government surplus food, the same way we do in other Hot Spots.  Even so, y’all will want to think about gardening, girlie as it seems.  You’ll figure it out, once your option is hunger.  We’ll send the military through on an ad hoc basis…make sure it isn’t turning into Sodom and Gomorrah.  Keeping aspiring Illegals as sex slaves or gophers or trophies, starting your own Coyote operation, cannibalism, shooting each other for sport…that shit will get YOU killed.  By a firing squad, on the spot.  Next!

A “natural” order always manifests.  Leaders always arise…even, or especially, among Misfits.  Overbearing Guard-types always exact order…very often also a pound of flesh, but the Tough Guys will sort that out amongst themselves. 

Beastly, declare the Well Established…cruel and inhuman, cry the Well Heeled….barbaric, cry the Well Protected, each from the megaphone of his keyboard plugged in at his Ivory Tower.

It is not dissimilar to the manner by which Australia and New Zealand were populated and settled.  

B-b-but that was then and this is now…we have civilized beyond such Machiavellian methodology.

Apparently not…one has only to look at our reinstatement of Torture.

Think of it like the Wild Wild West, niftily contained in the Sordid Southwest’s Bully Belt.  Years and years from now, it is liable to be quaint in the manner of an old mining town…perhaps home to a future film festival.   Recalling the production of cloth in Dublin’s Liberties in Dublin, it would be visionary to encourage an industry.  Hemp comes to mind.  Hemp could BE the fence…it grows like a weed.  

Think of these former drains on the economy not as dregs of society, but as Minute Men of Last Resort.

If the concept still causes anguish in Christian hearts, think of it like Iraq…which is to say hardly at all.

From where I sit, NOT in an Ivory Tower, it feels like HATE SPEECH.

I wrote “The Magic Suit” on 22 December 2008, en route to the TOTALLY BULLSHIT Iowa Caucuses.

Point me to Change.

THE MAGIC SUIT

I don’t know who died and decreed that The Suit…apparently forever more, with scarcely a change per hundred years…shall constitute Dressing For Success and Dressing For Failure, Dressing For Show and Dressing For Sorrow, Dressing For God and Dressing For Government…Dressing For Wheeling, Dealing AND Stealing, Dressing for Convention, Compliance AND Court.  However, comma, since the time of THAT stroke of fashion wizardry, The Suit has clearly-but-not-clearly, surely-but-surreptitiously transformed into an Invisibility Cloak.

What other costume has commanded so much respect while committing so much mayhem? 

It’s been a long, long day.  It’s time to loosen the neck ties and go through pockets…take the soiled Suits to the cleaners, and the shiny Suits to the Goodwill.  Some a them shiny suited fellers are goin’ to jail, I expect, and will be wearin’ orange for awhile.  Orange, I once read, is the color of Madness.

copyright 2008 Implausible Endeavors LLC

Recovery Circuit Wisdom emphasizes PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION.  I would ask the obvious question, WHERE IS THE PROGRESS?

I wrote AMERICAN COALITION OF COCKSUCKERS in June 2008.  Instead of being Governor of New York, disgraced Emperor Club stud Eliot Spitzer, graces national TV and newspapers with, what, Thoughts From A Pensive John?

By contrast, the Washington DC madam is dead.  Like Mary Jo Kopechne and Chandra Levy.

AMERICAN COALITION OF COCKSUKERS

A series of sexual perversions, infidelities and indiscretions committed by several elected representatives of the People…some of whom have simultaneously championed legislation disfavoring other citizens based on sexual criteria…obliges the People and Government of a Just Society to review all Law pertaining to sexuality and morality, with an eye on rectifying the inconsistencies that are hallmarks of hypocrisy.

Once an institutionalized inequity is recognized, regardless whether it makes certain of us squirm or blush or cringe or revolt, a Just Society has no alternative but to review all Law underpinning the inequity.  A Just Society has no choice.  America proclaims itself ’round the world…including, fantastically, by force of arms…to be a Just Society.  It is just, therefore it is necessary and right, to redress injustice.  Principles only…moral relativism and shades of gray need not apply.  Some things ARE black and white.

Whether the Law that contrives for prostitution to be illegal is worded to connote the equal guilt of both parties of the willing if temporary partnership established by outright monetary payment for sex, there is no question that the repercussions of the outlaw of prostitution fall disproportionately…indeed, overwhelmingly…on one half of the transaction’s participants.  A prostitute is, by definition, a criminal.  Prostitution, selling sex, is a crime…therefore, a prostitute is a criminal.  

By contrast, the client of the prostitute…the one who buys the sex that the prostitute is selling…has historically, euphemistically, discreetly and oh-so-anonymously been referred to as A John.  Presently, it is even fashionable to speculate, with a good deal more compassion than is commonly afforded victims much less perpetrators of crimes…as to the textured troubles that torment the complex psyche of a man who pays for sex when he “has it all.”  

Prostitution is a crime that cannot be committed without both buyer and seller and yet, simply and unmistakably, there is not routinely a matching prosecution of the buyers who noted lawyer/journalist Greta Van Susteren referred to on national television…where products are sold…as Consumers.  

Whether because of or in addition to a regular absence of prosecution, these Consumers, generally male, are also regularly spared persecution.  Whereas a hooker is widely viewed as an inferior class of person, granted not so much honor as even the label of Labor, Customer John or Client Nine is largely at liberty to resume his version of normal affairs.  While there may be hell to pay on the home front if, say, a wife learns that he has has been lavishing community assets on hookers, the husband is scarcely scorned by the society in which his marriage thrives, security-wise if not sex-wise.  Far be it from Country Club Existentialists to cast the first stone.

It bears mention that the gender inequity that is evident in Prostitutional Law is, predictably, accompanied by class inequity.  Consumers tend generally to be of a higher socioeconomic group than the hookers they patronize…that is why they are paying the hookers and not the other way around.  The gross lopsidedness of prosecution and persecution reinforces the mounting impression that justice in America is a matter of affordability.  

The State cannot oblige its citizenry to regard hookers and Johns equally, even were it to issue edict that hookers shall henceforth be called Janes.  Society’s views of Janes and Johns differ in no small part BECAUSE of the variance in their respective statures before the Law.  Inequities in administration of Prostitutional Law that favor John over Jane exacerbate rather than mitigate a historical prejudice, which is counterintuitive to the essential precept that Law is intended to protect one from another, not to benefit or penalize one over another.

It is incumbent upon us to either legalize prostitution, or criminalize infidelity.  It is.

Instantly upon objective consideration of the hypocrisies and inequities that have been institutionalized via Prostitutional Law, one recognizes that the same fundamental injustice underlies illegality of prostitution concurrent with legality of pornography.

Pornography, a multi-billion dollar industry, is predicated on the outrage that a woman’s body may lawfully be employed as suits the fancies, fetishes, wants and needs of men while it is unlawful for a woman to employ her OWN body as suits HER wants and needs.

On its face, its is garishly sexist and altogether unjust.

The Inhibited, the Prudes, the Gladys Kravitzes, the Parents, the Preachers, the Holy Rollers and the Holier Than Thou’s will prefer, no doubt, to criminalize pornography than legalize prostitution, but the task would be fiscally ruinous as well as futile.  Guys have been secreting girlie magazines between their mattresses since they were, what, twelve?

Besides which, even those who nay-say the nay-sayers are in agreement that the American economy is in shambles.  What we need are additional sources of revenue, not additional costs of authoritarian and moralistic heavy-handedness.

It stands to Reason that American prostitutes shall organize into a labor union that will maximize both revenue to the state and reputability to the individual…what is known in contemporary parlance as a win-win.  It is a non-marriage, to be sure, and it is perhaps not made in heaven, but it is absolutely rendered in the halls of Justice.

All of our clamoring for change notwithstanding, it can be supposed that there will be initial resistance to a legitimate, unionized prostitution class of labor.  There will be the usual moralizing.  As well, there is the crucial question of public health.  But the truth is that Infidelity is already an established hobby, practically a national pastime, including is it the documentable hobby of some people who would confer the title of Convict upon others who practice similarly.  Unionization and regulation of the Prostitution class is likely to heighten and standardize such precautions as may best protect the public health…again, considering that nothing is 100% safe and people are avidly engaged in screwing around anyway.  Professionalizing the oldest profession on earth is liable, I contend, to have a mitigating affect on the divorce rate.  Spouses are much more likely to withstand the damage inflicted by infidelity if it is a crass service rather than an emotional involvement.

A just society is obliged to recognize the feasibility, indeed the inevitability, of the American Coalition of Cocksuckers.  Plus the acronym ACOC will slip right in to our line-up of alphabet agencies.

copyright 2008 Implausible Endeavors LLC

Nearly two years ago…  What would JESUS do?  Weep.

Right now, this minute, is the time to decriminalize marijuana and hemp. The savings of beau coups bucks on enforcement/prosecution/incarceration predicated on illogical, inconsistent, capricious legislation has always been ignored to the peril of Justice. It is ignored to economic peril. God knows — literally, God knows — we care about money in a way that we do NOT care about Fair Play.

Hemp is a completely renewable energy source, the oil of which can be used in biodiesel. Independent truckers are dropping off the charts. Trucks deliver America’s Stuff. America can’t live without Stuff. If there will only be a few giant Trucking Companies…no different than a few giant oil companies, no different than a few giant airlines, no different than a few giant telecommunication providers…there will be rapacious pricing.

  Every part of the hemp plant is usable.

  Hemp was instrumental in America’s galvanization for WWII.

  It is right and just that marijuana be as legal, as regulated and as taxed as alcohol. Get over it. Or get ready for a class action discrimination action. All we need is coupla generous maverick attorney…who will, in turn, gain fame and fortune. Attorneys are big on fame and fortune.

It is right and just to decriminalize marijuana, or it is right and just to reinstate Prohibition of Alcohol.

Prohibition of Alcohol will address a number of societal ills. Let the Drug Lords have alcohol too. They are better businessmen than businessmen…a ROBUST Black Market will constitute a tremendous economic stimulus, with money ending up in hands that are more contributory to more economic stimulus.

  The fantastic sums of money that are thrown by Alcohol Pushers at advertisers and lobbyists will never be the influx to generalized economic health as those fantastic sums of money trading hands on the street. Them’s the people that still have to buy all the Stuff. Pay large sums to fancy-pants Advertisers is Big Money paying Big Money to Big Money…what’re they gonna do, buy a twentieth big-screen TV, a tenth car, a third house?

Well, yeah, actually they ARE snapping up foreclosures. Speaking of which, I am hearing ads on the radio that gush excitedly, “The foreclosure market has never been hotter.” The ad is urging the Moneyed Class to add real estate to their investment portfolios by capitalizing on the opportunities afforded by record foreclosures.

Right now, this minute, is the time to cross-reference the predatory lenders with the investment-in-foreclosures people. Any match-ups should be the focus of most rigorous investigation, with intent to prosecute to absolute fullest extent of the law.

Me, I believe that Seizing The Assets is a reasonable and effective punishment for crimes attributable to Greed. Take it ALL, except one million dollars…nothin’ cruel and inhuman about having a million bucks waiting for you when you get out of prison. Ask all the pot smokers who are languishing in federal penitentiaries.

Whatever percent of the corn crop, poof, gone. Swoosh, really. Homeowners know the nightmare of traveling water. Even apartment-dwellers…and Street People, obviously…know ALL about water damage. Not for the faint of heart, Trouble With Water. As of last March when I drove through New Orleans, I can attest that the full force of the federal government does not have a handle on water damage. Is not trying to get a handle on that water damage either, as far as I could see. Except in the financial and tourist sections, those are spiffed up.

The farmers are fucked…theoretically. But the farmers are not as fucked as the Taxpayers, who underwrite the SEVERAL programs that are mitigating the farmers’ losses. For sure though, those corn crops are not toast, but mud.

This season, for corn, is lost. The ground is too wet to plant corn, even if it weren’t too late which it pretty much is. It’s getting close to Harvest Time…when Drifters oughtta be drifting toward the farming communities that need cheap day labor.

But they could plant hemp right now. They could plant hemp in a swamp. It is called Weed because it grows like a weed. Given resolve and the swift stroke of a pen…such as Congress is CLEARLY able to muster when they give a shit about something important, like Terri Schaivo…farmers can plant hemp the day after they secure seed. This year, while those acres are unusable for corn, hemp will yield one full harvest.

If you grow it, the infrastructure will come.

There are myriad uses for hemp, from fiber to resin…recall that our Constitution
 is written on hemp paper. Innovation is inevitable. It perhaps represents an opportunity to incorporate, so to speak, more of our Native Indian population by means other than gambling. It is my understanding that hemp was a mainstay for their ancestors.

For that matter, we could invite a few Drug Lords in from the cold. They’re better businessmen than farmers, too. And, really, what’s the difference between Drug Lords or Drug Lords when it comes to working the land at a profit?

As things stand, Monsanto is buying up the arable land. Monsanto = Big Farming. I guaran-fucking-tee all those people who NOT being allowed to earn money/pursue happiness by farming and trading marijuana and hemp that marijuana and hemp will be just as legal as you please once Big Money owns the lion’s share of the arable land.

I am told that Monsanto has developed a hybrid corn seed, tres expensive, that farmers are obliged to buy in order to yield a competitive harvest. Then, whereas farmers have historically “held back” seed from each harvest, for planting the following year, they are forbidden to hold back Monsanto’s Wonder Seed. They must buy new seed.

The price of corn has tripled. Food prices are skyrocketing. We are clear that corn is not merely consumed as corn on the cob and popcorn, yes? Just like crude oil is not consumed only as gas in our cars. 

Corn feeds animals…note the price of meat and milk.

Monsanto is in Big Farming with an expensive hybrid corn seed, at the same time that Mysterious Powers are driving the use of corn in ethanol…at the same time that Americans are suffering and people elsewhere are starving to death.

Corn is not efficient in production of ethanol. The alcohol part of ethanol comes from sugar. Corn, being a starch, must be converted to sugar. That constitutes an extra step, compared to use of sugar beets or sugar cane.

Whereas stubbornly perpetuating the capricious criminalization of marijuana and hemp has always been hysteria-based and hypocritical to boot, I submit that given revised “conditions on the ground,” it constitutes gross, willful fiscal malfeasance.

copyright 2008 Implausible Endeavors LLC

That includeS Owners of Message Boards.  Insofar as I cannot defend myself against heavy-handed protectionist measures perpetrated by agenda-based Board Owners, my alternatives are to SUFFER IN SILENCE or VISIT OBJECTIONS UPON CANDIDATES. 

See, I GET IT that different people have different Pet Peeves and different Cherished Rights.  I am a BIG fan of TO EACH HIS OWN and LIVE AND LET LIVE.

If you are a Bible Thumper, know that I feel about Free Speech the way you feel about Freedom of Worship.  If you are a Gun Toter, know that I feel about Free Speech the way you feel about Bearing Arms.  Know that without Free Speech, you can’t articulate YOUR Grievance or petition for its Redress.

Not to suggest that my Free Speech is MORE consequential than one dude’s religion or another dude’s rifles, but “mine” IS specially enshrined in the Constitution.  Come to think of it, so is my Right To Bear Arms.

Dot Connecting is not a popular pastime in American Politics but, trust me on this, the inalienable right to free thought and expression and our UNEQUIVOCAL right to Bear Arms are like two peas in a pod, or two pistols in a dueling pair.

The way I see it, there are as many ways of seeing a thing as there are people looking.

My way of thinking isn’t for everyone.  By the same token, the thinking of the Majority isn’t for me.  I am NOT gonna spend the rest of My Life being bossed around and penalized.  I am resolved about that.  It surely does seem EXTREME for Bad Guys to kill me over over Individual Sovereignty but, if they must, they must.  Death over incarceration, if I am allowed any Choice.

Life is short and the world is big.  Insatiable and insecure quote-unquote Officials would tie us up in paperwork, lines and traffic for all the waking hours that we are not industriously earning enough to pay rapacious taxes.  THIS IS INSANITY.  I’m not playing anymore.

Remember when George Bush moronically asserted that IF YOU’RE NOT WITH US, YOU’RE AGAINST US?  That’s not my Jingo Lingo.  If you’re not with me, PERFECTLY understandable — Peace.  But if you work against me, well, then you ARE against me.  If you are not my Friend and you are not Neutral, it stands to Reason that you are my Foe.

Pussy Footers can keep right on pussy footing.  They can spend the rest of their lives at it, but not me.  I don’t know how many years I have left, but I am NOT going to spend them hamstrung by paperwork and penalties.

I reject laws-I-use-the-term-loosely that are contrived by the Governors to protect the Governors from dissent by the Governed.  I WISH Free Speech was “only” my Right.  For better or worse, it is my Responsibility — my DUTY, understand — to energetically exercise Free Speech toward the restoration of Reason to Governance of the United States. 

I reject revenue schemes that compel me unto a comparative SNAIL’S PACE, while Public Servants-I-use-the-term-even-more-loosely jet over the American heartland like modern-day Royalty.  Stipulated, OBVIOUSLY, the criminality of reckless endangerment.  HOWEVER, comma, given the brevity of Life, the Bad Faith of regulations and the ALARMING increase in police brutality, I consider myself not only Free but Prudent to drive as fast as safety permits, and to proceed through traffic lights as traffic permits.  I’ll not waste and simultaneously risk another minute of my life sitting still at a red light when there is NO opposing traffic — an engraved invitation to carjacking.  Sadly, incredibly, it would be gambling-unto-LUNACY to stop for Law Enforcement-emphasis-on-Force on a desolate stretch of highway.  I shall drive to the nearest Truck Stop and present myself to our nation’s Haulers for protection.  MEMO TO SELF: Keep tank above half-full.

If my country’s WHACKED Officials will leave me to my devices, I have a better than average chance of generating income upon which they can levy their festival of taxes.  Win-Win.  If Officials will persecute, prosecute, torment and/or hunt me — FOR LIVING THE DREAM, MY WAY — jeepers, that there constitutes workin’ AGAINST me.  

I am not a Subject or Object.  I am an American.  

It’s still the same old story
The fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by

Let that not be a lesson, for it is a lesson already learned.  Let it be a REMINDER that saving/waiting/procrastinating in the name of Best Possible is not even Exercise In Futility.  It is DELUSION.  Let it be a reminder to DO, first, whatever Right thing is right in front of me.  

Without fanfare — hell, without content — I slip this post in before midnight and, voila, I am on track with a resolution to WRITE EVERYDAY.  

It seems like a modest enough goal, eh?  You’d be surprised.  Someone once said to me — I feel certain she was quoting someone else but I can’t remember whom and I daren’t risk a Google Search when midnight bears down as on Cinderella’s glass slippers — that the hardest part of writing is keeping your butt in the chair.

Years and years ago, a literary agent who regularly ate at Cafe Figaro in West Hollywood when I worked as the Night Cashier, confided to me that the secrets to Writing are three: writing, writing and more writing.

Remember back in the elementary school day, when an assignment to write 300-500 words was daunting?  Whereas I typically struggle to bring a blog entry in at under a thousand words, lo and behold, I discover that waiting until the final hour of the day brings it in swiftly, and at well under 500 words.

Good to know.  Short and sweet being generally thought to be Good, less sweetness warrants more brevity.

On the first day of Christmas, my Changed Love gave to me
Lip service to democracy.

On the second day of Christmas, my Changed Love gave to me
Two chicken hawks
A-and lip service to democracy.

On the third day of Christmas, my Changed Love gave to me
Three Fre-ench whores
Two chicken hawks
A-and lip service to democracy.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my Changed Love gave to me
Four calling bids
Three Fre-ench whores
Two chicken hawks
A-and lip service to democracy.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my Changed Love gave to me
FIIIVE GOLD NESTEGGS
Fo-our calling bids
Three French whores
Two-o chicken hawks
A-and lip service to democracy.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my Changed Love gave to me
Six bailouts bailing
FIIIVE GOLD NESTEGGS
Fo-our calling bids
Three French whores
Two-o chicken hawks
A-and lip service to democracy.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my Changed Love gave to me
Seven senators scamming
Six bailouts bailing
FIIIVE GOLD NESTEGGS
Fo-our calling bids
Three French whores
Two-o chicken hawks
A-and lip service to democracy.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my Changed Love gave to me
Eight cartels colluding
Seven senators scamming
Six bailouts bailing
FIIIVE GOLD NESTEGGS
Fo-our calling bids
Three French whores
Two-o chicken hawks

On the ninth day of Christmas, my Changed Love gave to me
Nine warships warring
Eight cartels colluding
Seven senators scamming
Six bailouts bailing
FIIIVE GOLD NESTEGGS
Fo-our calling bids
Three French whores
Two-o chicken hawks

On the tenth day of Christmas, my Changed Love gave to me
Ten lobbyists bribing
Nine warships warring
Eight cartels colluding
Seven senators scamming
Six bailouts bailing
FIIIVE GOLD NESTEGGS
Fo-our calling bids
Three French whores
Two-o chicken hawks
A-and lip service to democracy.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my Changed Love gave to me
Eleven lawyers lying
Ten lobbyists bribing
Nine warships warring
Eight cartels colluding
Seven senators scamming
Six bailouts bailing
FIIIVE GOLD NESTEGGS
Fo-our calling bids
Three French whores
Two-o chicken hawks
A-and lip service to democracy.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my Changed Love gave to me
Twelve taxpayers paying
Eleven lawyers lying
Ten lobbyists bribing
Nine warships warring
Eight cartels colluding
Seven senators scamming
Six bailouts bailing
FIIIVE GOLD NESTEGGS
Fo-our calling bids
Three French whores
Two-o chicken hawks
A-and lip service to democraceee.