And may I ask? What happened to our President’s loud rhetoric on threatening us with government and economic shutdown (Sequester), immigration, health care and gun control?
Your thoughts?
Category Archives: History
Spill It – For the Good of Our Country
Sure… People will say its politics.
Democrats supporting the Adminstration.
Republicans attacking the Administration.
But there are four Americans whom I believe – BELIEVE – needlessly died at the hands of terrorists on 9/11 last year.
The four who died are pictured above…along with their names.
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For argument’s sake, let’s say the firefight DID last about eight hours…that it wasn’t over in a flash.
For argument’s sake, let’s say there were drones videoing the attacks.
For argument’s sake, let’s say there was a gunship up in the air with her dedicated crew’s fingers on the triggers of very accurate weapons. Well, their fingers were on very accurate targeting systems, not triggers.
For argument’s sake, let’s say the attack took place on any OTHER day instead of 9/11.
For argument’s sake, let’s say that the two former SEALs – our BEST – were killed SEVEN hours after pleas for help went out.
SEVEN HOURS?
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The deceased souls parents want to know. Here is just one letter from one mother to Congress. It’s a link so please feel free to click on it:
The mother was there when her son’s body – in a flag-draped casket – was off-loaded in Washington, DC.
(Yes. President Obama and Hillary were there.)
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Our country needs to heal.
Not just about Benghazi…but about nearly everything.
We are divided – right down the middle, it seems.
But what happened to CHARACTER?
A person I like to follow is Michael Josephson. He “teaches” folks about ethics and character. I would like to close this blog with this excerpt from one of his commentaries:
“The way we treat people we think can’t help or hurt us — like housekeepers, waiters, and secretaries — tells more about our character than how we treat people we think are important. How we behave when we think no one is looking or when we don’t think we will get caught more accurately portrays our character than what we say or do in service of our reputations.
Of course, our assessment of a person’s character is an opinion and it isn’t always right. Abraham Lincoln recognized an important difference between character and reputation. “Character,” he said “is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
Because the shape of a shadow is determined by the angle of light and the perspective of the observer, it’s not a perfect image of the tree. In the same way, reputation is not always an accurate reflection of character. Some people derive more benefit from their reputation than they deserve; others are better than their reputations.
Still, reputation matters. It determines how others think of us and treat us and whether we are held in high or low esteem. That’s why many people and organizations are so preoccupied with their image that they actually undermine their character by concealing or creating facts to make them look better. It’s ironic that reputations are often the result of dishonesty or the lack of accountability.”
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Hillary… No more conveniently-timed strokes or falls or other ills.
Parents want to know what happened and why their sons are no longer with them.
We want to know why NOTHING has been done to go after these terrorists, some of whom were in PICTURES…on the INTERNET. It’s been eight months, for heaven’s sake.
Hillary.
Spill it.
For the good of our country.
An Eight Decade Circle
My father’s decades old story about how he broke his elbow became the topic in the earlier story, “正覚時” (Shoukakuji).
Shoukakuji is the name of the Buddhist temple – a hop, skip and a jump from my father’s family home in Hiroshima.
The temple’s reverends supported my family’s religious needs for over a century now.
Aunt Michie’s wedding.
Funeral services for my grandparents and my father’s siblings. Including my Aunt Shiz just this last September in “The Spirit of Aunt Shiz and Kharma“.
Including my Uncle Suetaro who was killed in action as an Imperial Japanese Army soldier on Leyte in the Philippines.
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When Masako-san, my son Takeshi and I walked to the temple in 2013 to investigate my dad’s story of how he broke his elbow, we were greeted by the Reverend. He was 90 years old and still had his wits about him.
While he did not recollect my father, he validated the placement of a large round rock under the pine tree that hasn’t been touched for as long as he’s lived at the temple…. And that’s a loooong time. I’m sure he was born there.
And that there was a big branch of a pine tree that has since broken off recently.
He said he knew my Aunt Mieko who died in 1939.
And miraculously, he mentioned Uncle Suetaro. The reverend said they played together as children and that he was always a jokester and smiling…and that he could hear him playing his “fue”, or flute, from his second story room at the house.
Until then, not even Masako-san knew Uncle Suetaro played a flute…but there was no proof.
Just the recollection of a 90 year old reverend.
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My tennis elbow pain kept me from retouching the old vintage photographs I had brought back from Hiroshima last September.
And the project was at a standstill since late October. That was as depressing as Obama V2.0.
But from three weeks ago, I am attempting to slowly restart the retouching project as my elbow pain has subsided greatly…and I came across the group photo you saw at the beginning here.
This was the backside since I know you ALL can read ancient Japanese:
As retouched:
But as I enlarged the image to begin retouching, something caught my (old) eye.
I noticed Uncle Suetaro was clutching something in his right hand.
A case.
A case more slender than the others in the group picture.
It’s not a trumpet or a trombone, that’s for sure.
Or for a cue stick.
It sure looks like a flute case.
Oh, heck. It IS a flute case.
I say so.
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So words from the mouth of an old reverend started an eighty year old circle… to this vintage photograph of young boys.
All of whom likely lost their lives in a violent war.
As did my uncle who played a flute.
“PHONY” Express
The short-lived Pony Express of lore… We need you. I think.
In 1860, a number of riders apparently rode on horseback at full gallop from roughly St. Louis to Sacramento over a number of days. They would ride from station to station where they would switch to fresh horses. These stations were anywhere from five to 25 miles apart given the terrain. A rider would ride for about 75 miles. Wild Bill Hickok was a rider in his youth – about 15 years old. He rode something like 320 miles in a little over 21 hours because the next rider had been killed. Imagine that…
Anyways, it was a rider on one horse. One horsepower, you can say.
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About a month ago, I mailed an envelope with two DVDs from Los Angeles to Ohio. Not much further in distance than the Pony Express route in actuality.
I mailed it on Monday.
It reached its destination eight days later on Tuesday the following week (because Monday was a holiday). It took a week, for argument’s sake.
Perhaps the mail truck didn’t see a parked car along the way.
Or maybe the driver wanted a “Pimp-my-Ride” look and stopped off somewhere along the way to get it done?
Or maybe instead of one horsepower, it was one boy-power. Ignore the air mail signage. It’s fake.
In today’s time of man-made hearts and boson particles, I feel there canNOT be an excuse for such lackadaisical service. (Did you hear that Hermione’s invisibility cloak can be a reality?)
And the US Postal Service wonders why they are going out of business… as did the Pony Express after about a year. They lost $200,000 on about $90,000 in revenues.
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Well, you say, “Give the Postal Service a break. It was only one piece of mail.”
I knew you’d say that.
On February 26th, I sent via official “Priority Service International” a package to my cousin in Hiroshima. They alluded to “7 – 10 day service” in their ads.
This package had all the gizmos. Tracking number. Web tracking. Etc.
On March 8th, I checked the status as my cousin hadn’t emailed me to say she got the (surprise) package. Lo and behold, the last web entry was February 28th, that is was processed through the LAX sort facility…but that was it.
Fini. No more progress. Disappeared…like Obama during the Benghazi attack.
I had to call the US Postal Service as you are unable to inquire on an international priority package via email. Waited close to ten minutes.
She told me the package had left the United States, that it was in Japan, and that it can take “up to seven to ten days for it to be delivered”.
I said, “No, I believe it’s lost here stateside so can you please initiate a trace? Besides, its been 7 to 10 days.”
Her reply: “You can initiate a complaint (trace) after ten working days as it can take seven to ten days to get delivered.” Didn’t she just say that?
I said, “Well, I mailed it Monday two weeks ago and today’s Friday.”
She said, “Ten business days will be Monday, March 11.”
You can imagine the response when I asked for a refund.
Can you see steam or the egg frying on my head?
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Monday, March 11th. TEN working days since I mailed a Priority package to Japan – with the USPS assurance of delivery in “7 to 10 working days…” going through my head.
Had to call again. One “working day” later to place my complaint and initiate a trace.
This time, she asked me for details. “How much did you declare?”
“I don’t remember. Your clerk spent five minutes inputting tons of stuff and I filled out a form in triplicate. Shouldn’t it tell you on your screen?”
You can imagine the answer… No.
Had to hang up and look for the receipt from TEN DAYS AGO at home that I fortunately found.
Long story short, called again the next day (the 12th) and at the end, guess what she said? “It will take up to 21 days for Japan to research, find the package and reply.”
I said again – very nicely – the Japanese aren’t that sloppy. That the package was still HERE… in your SORT FACILITY at LAX.
She said (politely), “No, the information tells us it was shipped to Japan so its there.”
Double GRRRR….
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So they finally initiated a trace.
And guess what. The Postal Service was wrong. It was NOT in Japan.
I was wrong. It was not at the LAX sort facility.
Instead, the Postal Service found it… likely in the same post office I shipped it from as the package “re-arrived” at the LAX sort facility after the trace was initiated!
The Postal Service wonders why they are losing money.
The workers just don’t care.
Well, I’m making sure my future packages are arriving in Japan by using UPS or FedEx.
I’m through with the pHony express.
News Reporting? Pffft
This is what my monitor showed at 9:00 AM this morning.
For CNN:
For Fox:
If you click on the images, you can see the topics each news media “deems” important.
How can they be so different?
How can CNN essentially ignore the tremendous budget issues confronting the United States while concentrating on the election of the head of the Catholic religion? (Just being factual here – Catholicism is but one religion in this world. Just citing fact.) Well, Michelle Obama got a line in “for being in the vogue”.
Just weeks ago, CNN was headlining day after day Obama’s attack on the “GOP” as he greatly exaggerated the negative effects of the sequester. They even followed Obama when he went campaigning to bash the GOP…instead of trying to run this country.
I thought news was to be objective…or at least consistently applied?
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I will WRITE it.
Our country’s WOES are the result of two dictatorships… A dictatorship being defined as they do as they please as no one can challenge them. A form of Hitler-ism…
One dictatorship is the damn LAWYERS. We are better off without them. We don’t need lawyers representing jerks who go into small businesses just looking for minor violations. Attorneys WON’T restrict themselves as they feel they are “protecting us”. Pffft.
The other dictatorship is the MEDIA. Reporters are using it to spout off their personal feelings or agendas…or of their management…who gets revenue rewards of various “types”.
Media. Double Pffft.
Rant over.
“Let’s Play War”
When I was a youngster, the kids on our Oakford Drive in East Los Angeles would play after-school and certainly after homework was done.
Playing was comprised of two general categories:
1. Sports – like baseball (complete with broken windows) or football (on our lawns spotted with metal sprinkler heads), or,
2. War
Needless to say, I was never a member of the US forces when we played war. (Oh, how I longed to be Sgt. Rock with his bulging biceps and Thompson machine gun blazing away…fighting for the red, white and blue.)
No, I was always the “J” or the “K”… You know what I mean.
To be killed over and over again.
Like with elaborate booby traps: a wooden clothes pin armed with a cap and taped onto a piece of wood. When I neared the booby trap (countless of times), Steve would pull the cord (countless of times) attached to a little string of metal from a spam can holding the clothes pin open..and “POP!” I would crumble to the ground. Very effective weapon if you ask me.
Or shot with John’s toy Winchester. Wait a minute. Winchesters were for cowboys and Indians. I wonder how that got into our (imaginary) war. Oh, well. We were just playing while building our love for country.
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After all, this was only a little more than 15 years after a most bitter war’s end.
Toyota wasn’t even in our vocabulary.
Sony became part of our vocabulary only because of something called a transistor radio.
“Tofu” wasn’t even a gleam in Webster’s eye.
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But we were playing. Imagining.
Today, I read this news story.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2144044335001/
The gist of it? I hope you will read it and develop your own.
But…
Is this a case of hysteria? Of being afraid of being sued by spotlight-loving lawyers… or CNN making you out to look a villain to support Obama’s political agenda? Just my opinion, of course.
Of what HARM was it? The toy grenade didn’t even have a paper cap… Wait a minute. Was there EVEN a toy grenade? Or maybe it was a fuzzy tennis ball in place of his imaginary grenade?
OMFG.
Don’t punish the kid’s imagination.
Geezus H. Christ.
Maybe he just wants to be Sgt. Rock and save our country.
Economic Indicators – Simplified
(Copied from an email. I don’t know who wrote it but I randomly verified a few numbers.)
The state of America’s economy today will impact the prosperity of future generations tomorrow. We created this data card because we want every American to have a simple and easy way to track and discuss the key economic indicators that show the true state of our nation’s economy. The items featured in this card affect every American personally, whether we know it or not.
Join Allen West in standing up for the next generation by printing this data card and using it to start a conversation with your friends about America’s economy. The card will be updated monthly so you will have access to the most recent data.
SOURCES
- http://www.bls.gov (monthly)
- http://www.bls.gov (monthly)
- http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 (monthly)
- http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/ (weekly)
- http://www.usdebtclock.org/ (real time)
- http://www.usdebtclock.org/ (real time)
- http://www.census.gov/ (annual)
- http://www.realtor.org/research-and-statistics (monthly)
http://ycharts.com/indicators/sales_price_of_existing_homes - http://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/ (annual)
- http://ehbs.kff.org/pdf/8226.pdf (annual)
http://ehbs.kff.org/?page=charts&id=1&sn=6&p=1 - http://www.miseryindex.us/ (monthly)
I don’t think “hope” replaces “action”.
Protect Yourselves from Electronic Fraud and Hoaxes
We have fraudsters. We have hoaxers.
Are there victims? Sure.
But we must be vigilant in how we see – or read – things on the internet. It is easy for your sympathies to be played…and your hearts (or your wallets) drained.
Just one case in point… Although this involves Facebook (which I had abandoned a couple of years ago), the medium is of no consequence. A “blog” can achieve the same results.
And people will get hurt… Perhaps financially but always emotionally which can be the most costly.
It is NOT a victimless crime.
Link: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/facebook-fraud-warrior-eli-hoax-18196624
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We all want to feel we helped someone, some animal or pet, or a family in need after a natural disaster.
At the same time, help yourself before you find yourself – or your own family – getting hurt.
Look into a “feel sorry for me” post or blog thoroughly before giving your heart.
If too many things are happening to someone, and you start to feel more sympathetic than ever, take a deep breath… Think about the entire scenario first. You will be able to breathe easier later.
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Thanks for listening.
Happy blogging.
Ironies and Observations
Ironies with wise observations:
“If we lie to Congress, it’s a felony; if Congress lies to us, it’s just politics.”
“‘The Land of Opportunity'” is now “‘The Land of Handouts'”.
“The Government spends millions to house, care for and rehabilitate criminals but do nearly nothing for the victims or for our veterans.”
“The Government is unwilling to close our border with Mexico but have no problem protecting the 38th Parallel in Korea.”
We are in trouble, folks.
Quote Simplicity
“What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.”
Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)
Masako and Spam Musubi 