Friday, January 30, 2009

My classmate, the Judge

December 29, 2008

The Honorable Walter Barisonek
Assignment Judge – Union County
2 Broad Street
Elizabeth, New Jersey 07201-2202

Elizabeth, New Jersey

Judge Barisonek or, as you were known on 4th Street and 8th Street, Wally,

I already marked my calendar for 2055. I try to reach all of my classmates at least once every 47 years. Did I say 47 years?

I check the local Irish Sports Pages very early every AM. If my name isn’t in them down here I check the Star Ledger and the Jersey Journal. I opened the article entitled “Union County Jurist Retiring”.

I recall Brother Leo Sylvius telling us not to hide our lights under a bushel. At least you took his advice.

My retirement advice is from Tennyson.

“How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use.”



PS – In my checkered career I have 2 court events that stand out. I am the person responsible for Justice Clarence Thomas, an accomplishment of which I am quite proud. Also, do you remember June 3, 1993 at the Essex County Courthouse? The deputy whose life I saved later danced at my daughter’s wedding.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Congressman Ron Klein

January 24, 2009

Congressman Ron Klein
800 East Broward Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: Camp Gitmo and …and…what’s that word?

Congressman Klein,

I suppose it would be more fruitful “Waiting for Godot” than it would be waiting for the simple courtesy of a reply from you. After all, I am only a constituent of the district that you represent.

I write this with the sincere hope that you can get a message to the Big Guy in the White House.

He’s in charge. If he wants Camp Gitmo shut down tell him to imagine he’s back in Chicago and his name is Daley. “The wish of the Prince has the force of law” is just as valid in Chicago as it was in Florence. All the Mayor would have to do would be to whisper in one ear and the place would be broom swept and muzzein free in 3 days, 4 tops.

That leaves one vexing question.

What’s to be done with the prisoners?

How about bringing some of the really bad ones to the Super Bowl?

Weld them to some smart bombs, being sure to cover them in pig fat, and try to hit the logo on the 50 yard line. It would be the Logical next step in the tired Punt, Pass, and Kick contest. The winning pilot gets to lead the bomb run on Mecca

Too harsh?

OK. OK. Bring them to Broward County.

We have a lot of empty condos and apartment units. I am sure they would qualify for Section 8 subsidies. I know it could be construed as a bailout for land lords but look at the good side.

Broward is committed to diversity. It’s possible we could have the filthy WOG who cut Daniel Berg’s head off in an empty Century City condo. He could run for Condo Commando. I can see a Broadway musical and maybe a TV series coming out of this.




I may be over thinking this.

There may be a simpler solution at hand.

Cut a hole in the fence and send their sad sacked sorry asses to Cuba. Either they go to Cuba or, if they stay, they have to listen to Michael Moore talk over and over and over and over. And over. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment! They’ll be begging to be waterboarded.

I got it! I got it!

The word I’m looking for is…is…bullshit.

President Bambi is doing what President Lincoln, his idol, did.

#44 closes Gitmo except he doesn’t. #16 freed the slaves where he couldn’t and kept them in chains where he could have freed them.

The only difference I see is that the Democrats and the New York Times hated #16. You knew that, didn’t you? In fact, the Times called him a baboon. It will be a while before the Times calls Barack a baboon, don’t you think? It was acceptable, however, to compare Bush with Hitler.

Saint Augustine, another African of note, asked God to “make him strong but not just yet”.

When should we expect to be overwhelmed by change?

In anticipation of the courtesy of a reply I remain


Your most humble constituent,





PS – The Congressional Budget Office says that 2/3rds of the money in the current stimulus bill can’t be spent until 2011. How will that “create” jobs in 2009? Could it be that the theme of this note is valid again?

Vice President Joey Biden

January 22, 2009

Vice President Joey Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

RE: A sad tale to report: The “uncreation” of one very good job.

Dear VEEP Curley,

I know you’re asking – pleased don’t scratch your head lest the inorganic Chia Pet plugs you had Gorilla Glued and Moly Bolted on eject themselves and create a HAZ-MAT condition in the White House – why am I calling you Curley

Think of the 3 Stooges.

Who was the smartest one?

Bingo! Curley. And you got it on your first try! Good on you.

Anyway, the job you have “uncreated” is mine. I am in charge of very prestigious Awards Committee. Every week I have to find the public figure worthy enough to wear the crown

HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK

The other Awards, POMPOUS FART OF THE MONTH and SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR, are a bit beyond your reach. To be a POMPOUS FART you have know that you are pompous and, since you lack the wit to be a SMARMY BASTARD it seems that you are locked into the first level of awards. My father’s father, Jack Smith, went to his grave trying to figure out why there were more horses’ asses than there were horses’ heads. He thought that the number should always be in balance. He died long before The Godfather.

The good news is that I hereby name you

HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
in perpetuity – that means forever

Through skill and cunning I found out that you were always a horse’s ass. Several of you classmates at Archmere Academy – Brother Auks, if you will – told me that your Horse’s Ass tendencies began to show themselves in the fall of 1957.

Several of your football teammates called you a “cheesedick”. I too played football at a Catholic high school but it is a term – “cheesedick” – with which I am not familiar. I imagine it is some kind of Norbertine password known only to a select few.


Naturally my sources will remain confidential. President Bambi can sign all the Executive Orders he wants to. Thank God you’ve stopped waterboarding! I’ll never give them up. If pressed I will use the Geithner defense. It was a classic. “I forgot.”

Several of your classmates told me that while it was conduct very unsacerdotal every time he heard your name Father Diny shook his head and said, “What a putz!”

I will share something else with you. Since you are genetically incapable of keeping your mouth shut I expect you to babble about it instantly. Tell your wife – You’re right. She is a babe. – that I am going t make Congressman Barney Frank

SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR
IN PERPETUITY – IT STILL MEANS FOREVER

Barney is from Bayonne. He knows that all politics is local. Since he took a successful run at Father Drinan’s seat he takes care of the locals first. This morning’s Wall Street Journal tells of his effort to help a bank in his district. I had to get all the way to the end before it was revealed that it was a minority owned bank, the only minority owned bank in Massachusetts. He said it would have been a “social tragedy” if it had failed. Particularly, says he, since “the bank’s problems were caused by the Federal Government”. That it got in trouble on Barney’s watch – he ran the Committee that had oversight on Fanny and Freddy – is sent down the memory hole.

Since he has already admitted that he spent the better part of the last decade canoodling down the Hershey Highway with an internal [sic] auditor from Fanny Mae God knows what he was doing with the boys at OneUnited. He said he spoke to Federal regulators whose names he has forgotten about “giving them a Federal injection”. It is not known where he would personally supervise this “injection”, it being something with which he has working knowledge. Also, the story did not make clear whether it was to be under the TARP or on top of same.

Spread the story; save me some stamps.

I’ll be in touch with you from time to time to highlight your coming achievements. Who knows how many they will be? I may have to hire someone just to keep track of your rhetorical incontinence. Meanwhile, revel in the fact that you are the first member of Team Obama to be cited. I can tell you that Carole Browner will soon be wearing laurels. You toil in a target rich environment. As a patriot it is the least I can do.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

The Honeymoon Is over

January 20, 2009

The college football season is over. I would have liked to have seen Tim Tebow run against USC, particularly #10, Brian Cushing. It will be 8 months before the term “true freshman” is heard once again. There are quite a few 18 year old who could have been “true freshmen” who are in pressure filled jobs. There are no unsportsmanlike conduct penalties or time outs in Afghanistan. There are more than a few red shirts.

The NFL is down to one game. Thank God that neither Philadelphia nor Baltimore will be in it. It would have been like watching two drunks hit each other with bats. Since the game will be in Tampa there will be no chance of hearing the term “lake effect snow” until Halloween. If the Global Warming caca is true maybe it will be Thanksgiving before it makes its dreaded reappearance by a lake other than Okechobee.

Speaking of a term that sounds like tinkling brass on a good day, fingernails on a blackboard on a normal day, and reach for the barf bag on a bad day nothing but nothing tops “shovel ready”. Can we please use some of those soon to be created jobs, jobs that will be created out of whole cloth, jobs that will appear fully grown straight out of Zeus’s forehead, jobs that will be created from the plow speeding mantras of hard working, well intentioned smart, very smart people to bury, inter is better, the term “shovel ready”?

One thing is certain. People who use the term “shovel ready”, people like the President and his Gang of 40, people like the cheerleaders who are all leg tingled reptiles who couldn’t lie straight in bed save for the advancement of the Cause, have never spent one minute ever getting something, anything “shovel ready”.

[I watched President Bambi take a shot at painting a wall. He had several advantages. #1 – Someone told him which end of the roller to put into the paint. #2 – The wall was not moving. #3 – He paused after his 3rd stroke to tell us that “It’s not exactly rocket science”. Earth to Bambi. Earth to Bambi. The only thing that is rocket science is…rocket science. There are good painters and there are bad painters. Good ones get paid more than bad ones.

Only someone whose only job experience before he found an uncovered lactating mammary in the government sector was as a community organizer would say that. Scratch that. A good community organizer would never insult the people he is trying to organize. That common sense rule was installed by King Daley the First and reinforced by his sons, heirs, and loyal vaasals.

Begin with this simple fact.

“Shovel ready” ain’t forever.

Once a project is “shovel ready” the shovel has to be used. The first rule of loading a rifle is that the sharp end of the cartridge goes up the spout first. The same rule applies to shovels. The long skinny end is only good for resting a hand.

I recall John “Pretty Boy” Edwards using a shovel at a photo op in New Orleans. I wasn’t sure if the yard he was digging in was on one of the homes he had foreclosed on but he damn well didn’t know what to do with the shovel. He handled it like it was on fire. Throw in toxic also. Whatever happened to him, anyway?

Ask people who use the term “shovel ready” if they have ever pulled a permit.

When teeth are pulled Novocain is recommended.

A quart and half of industrial strength gaga juice would be needed in all 4 cheeks to get you through the process.

If it’s “shovel ready” the rule is simple. Use it or lose it.

Part of the game plan in getting something “shovel ready” is getting your financing in line. The only people who get things “shovel ready” without having their finances in line are those who work for government. [Kirwin’s Ditch is an example of how far back lunacy can dominate infrastructure discussions]

Prices change. Interest rates change. Specs change. Markets change. Minds change.

Who knows which of the myriad projects are “shovel ready”?

One sure sign that change is in the air is that Reagan Airport reported that it landed the most private jets ever in the past two days. Excluded of course from this corporate flyby was the not so big Little 3. They were last seen hitch hiking down I 79 hoping to get an Eastbound convoy straight into D.C.

I believe that these planes are filled with First Amendment enthusiasts. They convinced corporations and cities that the best way to advance their “shovel ready” projects was to hire them to plead their cases to Congress and the Administration.

Their motto “YES WE CAN POUR ENOUGH CONCRETE TO PAVE OUR WAY TO PROSPERITY” is sure to be a winner.

What a refreshing change from the old way of doing business.


KS


PS – Two things about the Inaugural Parade

#1 – Your salute has got to go. Not because you doing it wrong but because you shouldn’t be doing it at all. If ever there was a President who cold hand salute it was Dwight Eisenhower. Eleven months after he led 10,000,000 men into Western Europe [and my wife’s father was there on D-Day] Hitler ate his gun. He wore 5 stars on each of his shoulders. From the time he was sworn in until the day he left office he never hand saluted. He put his right hand over his heart. Ask somebody. End of discussion.

Perhaps a “true freshman” confused by the possibility of “lake effect snow” and overwhelmed by the number of “shovel ready” projects absent the immediate implementation of same will result in the end of civilization as we know it before the icebergs melt and we all cook to death in the Fire Next Time, Global Warming, as predicted by former Vice President Alpha Gump would make such a mistake.

Unless your name is Clinton there are no mulligans when you are President.

Don’t let it happen again.

You’re the President. Just because you have the right to do it doesn’t make it right to do it.

#2 – What the Hell was your wife wearing this afternoon? It looked like she made it to the final cut of the Outside Pole Dancer at the Club Bada Bing. Have that gold outfit cleaned and burned.

One more thing, as Columbo would say. Curly Biden, named after the smartest of the Stooges, and now occupying the Vice Presidential jump seat so marvelously held by Clinton’s #2, the legendary Alpha Gump, was kind of right. He is kind of “articulate” and I hope he’s “clean”.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Carl Hiaasen, The Miami Herald

January 18, 2009

Carl Hiaasen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693

RE: What a column! Forget a “tingle” up your leg. President Bambi has given you an authentic blue-veiner. A petard so stiff you could hang a bucket of water from it while a randy cat was trying, I hope unsuccessfully, to scratch it. No wonder the McClatchy lads raised the price of the Herald. What’s coming next week? Scratch and sniff? Box lunch at the Y? Lessons on riding Saint George? Does the Herald permit smoking in the outer labia? A somewhat different take on your paean to a Cook County Pol who was at the right corner when the right bus came along and had the great good sense to get on same otherwise maybe his kids’ tuition at private school would cause his wife to be really pissed off at this country.

Mr. Hiaasen,

I have a sense that tumescence and priaprism guided your hand in writing today’s column. Being experienced in these things I read your column back to front. Star with the climax, so to speak.

“…who once thought we knew better…”

You’re right. You should have known better.

Backwards I went to find the pearls you would have strewn. [At least I didn’t say “it was a dark and stormy night”]

Was the economy “purring” in 2000? I know that Darth Cheney was all powerful but even he could not have made the market tank in March, 2000, remember? Where did all those do.com companies go? Did Rumsfeld do them in?

You say the budget was in “surplus”. The first thing that tells me is that you have zero – zip – nada – knowledge of the Federal budgetary process. Any budget that treats aircraft carriers and “Midnight Basketball” the same can never be in balance. Any budget that has no capital items can never be in balance. I would tell you to ask the green eye shade guys at the Herald but they seem to be forming a circular firing squad.

If I grant – subjunctively, mind you – the presence of a budget surplus during the glorious years can someone tell me why the national debt, a debt that Hamilton said could be a national blessing, never, ever went down by as much as a one cent? My uncle Adam said that “running the affairs of a nation can scarce be different than running the affairs of a household”. When surpluses happen in households debt gets paid down and lockboxes become full. Why didn’t this happen in 1998, 1999, and 2000?

As a card carrying modern American Liberal you subscribe to the notion that facts can never interfere either with an argument or a belief.

So I read your wish list backwards hoping it would make some sense. It being Sunday I will have an extra day of rest before The Chosen One stands the Herculean tasks on their respective asses.

Actually, you gave him 7 tasks so the official day of rest is Monday.

[After he completes his tasks do you think he could do something about les merdes de Quebec?]

The original Doctor J, the great Samuel Johnson gave us the prescription of the caring and feeding of modern American Liberals. Although it was said in a different context his words, “the triumph of hope over experience”, are apropos.

You mention the shootings of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy by saying that “your country can be a mighty dangerous place for leaders who dare to speak out for change”.

I thought the shooting of any leader in a Republic would be a cause for alarm regardless of the change being spoken for. I think you feel differently. If you didn’t you would have mentioned Governor Wallace and President Reagan.

I am reminded of a story about Charles Parnell.

He was standing unopposed for reelection. Still, as a consummate pol – like Kendrick Meek after his mother willed him her Congressional seat without dying – he campaigned hard.

He came upon a group of workers cracking rock in an attempt to make the road smoother and straighter – Begorrah and to think we thought that our generation invented the term “infrastructure”! – who, after recognizing him, were beside themselves with joy. One in particular was unable to control himself. He said Parnell would make the salmon bigger and the bitter better.

Finally, in fear of the man becoming apoplectic with the malady of rising expectations, Parnell calmed him thus:


“Next week I’ll be returned to Parliament and the next day
You’ll be cracking rocks.




“The triumph of hope over experience” is made manifest by your last sentence.

“But it’s not a bad feeling.”

It’s a “short road to chaos” when supposedly rational adults confuse feelings with ideas.

Isn’t that what a lot of Germans said in the mid30s?







PS – After I finished the above I read that the Attorney General designate Eric Holder, he of the heavy thumb on the pardon scale when it comes to tax cheat fugitives and bomb throwing terrorists, said he approved of the FBI searching library and bookstore records to see who was reading what. Will you classify that as a “chilling effect” or a “slippery slope”? If you say it’s “different” when modern American Liberals do it I’ll be shocked, shocked. You may want to Google “eclectic indignation” for a diversion.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Pedro - Goodbye to a friend

January 18, 2007

Goodbye to a friend

I only knew Pedro for 8 years. We met in a saloon. I was there with 2 lawyers.

One of them was my son Sean, AKA The World Famous Attorney, the other was as

recently as last Monday, in my last conversation with Pedro, referred to as our “favorite

well dressed Cuban lawyer”, Carlos Reyes, un abogado grande y un amigo tambien

Although we kept meeting in saloons I never saw him take a drink. We spoke of

Many things; business, boxing, politics, and what has been called the “permanent things”

The reason why we bonded was because each knew that other believed, as the

Poet said

“That the world turns and the world changes, but one thing does not change.
In all my years one thing does not change
However you disguise it, this thing does not change:
THE PERPETUAL STRUGGLE OF GOOD AND EVIL.”

There are some deaths that upset the harmony of the universe.

This is one.

It is accepted that wives bury husbands after a long life. It is jarring when parents

Bury children. It is a consolation devotedly to be wished that good men lead long and

Useful lives.

Sometimes we stand too close to the tapestry. If we stand too close we see but one

Small section of the untidy, unruly, noisy, rough edged thing called life.






SURSUM CORDA!

LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS!

Step back and look at the whole tapestry.

There is but one truth, one fixed star that remains

Pedro, my friend Pedro, is where he wanted to be.

We are enjoined by the New Testament that it is indeed fitting and proper

To visit the sick and bury the dead.

Pedro visited me when I was sick – Indeed, this cane is a gift from

Tom Fiedler, his old boss when I was in the hospital.

I come now to help bury him.

The three of us, Pedro, Nuvia, and I were having lunch in an Indian

Restaurant. While I was trying to meld the cuisines Pedro said to me that a lot of Cuban

Didn’t like Indian food. I said that a lot of Indians didn’t like Indian food. That’s why

They come here. It’s hard to get even a bad Cuban sandwich at the Taj Mahal.

I was unprepared for the segue from whatever was on the plate to the coming

Rapture. What was a bit shocking was that they both, without qualifications, believed it.

More shocking to me, as an aging curmudgeonly New Yorker via New Jersey – 5 years

In the Empire State Building and 12 years twice a day in the World Trade Center – was

That they lived it.

They, by their professions, were in the world.

They, by their beliefs and lives, were not of the world.


“As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end he remains.”







UN CABALERRO VALIANTE,

UN HOMRE BUENO,

My friend, Pedro Bigantus


PASO POR AQUI

HASTA LUEGO, PEDRO, MI AMIGO

VAYA CON DIOS


And may flights of angels guide you safely home.

Congressperson Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

January 17, 2009

Congressperson Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
10100 Pembroke Pines Boulevard
Pembroke Pines, Florida 33026

RE: What to do.

My dear Congressperson,

In your interview with Gregory Lewis in the Sun Sentinel on January 15 featuring Florida Firsts – you being the first Jewish Congresswoman from Florida - you say

“Jews are less than 2% of the population in this nation.”

I have heard you defending Affirmative Action many times. I marvel at the ability of modern American Liberals, you of course being the paradigmatic template for that venomous species [perhaps poster girl might be a better way of saying in case there are people reading this who did not go to private school] to reconcile competing ideas. I have heard you say that while goals are not quotas if they don’t act like quotas they will become quotas until we can make them goals again. You would always end by saying “Mend it, don’t end it.” Meantime, a man with a badge and gun and the full force of the Law will visit you and ask why the numbers don’t jive.

If “Jews are less than 2% of the population in this nation” it can be deduced that Jewish women are less than 1% of the population. Blacks in America are a bit more than 12% of the population. I place the number of Black women at a bit more than 6%. That means that the goal for members of Congress who are Black females should be 6 times that of Jewish women. While it may be literally impossible for you to do it it is a classic case of being hoist on your own petard.

Since religious overtones were introduced by you I daresay the Christian thing for you to do would be to resign you seat and begin to campaign for a Black woman to replace you.

The name Miriam Oliphant leaps to mind. Don’t worry about where she lives. Residency laws don’t count for modern American Liberals in Florida. God’s Holy Trousers but we have a Congressman, Toad Wexler, who doesn’t even live in the state.

Further on in your interview you say “it will be nice to have a regular dad in the White House”. Again, it would not be an offense to logic to assume that you believe that George Bush was not a regular dad.

I am not sure what the criteria are for “regular dad” status. I do know that he sent his daughters to Westlake High School in Austin, Texas. Westlake High School is a public school.

“Regular dad” Obama is sending his two daughters to schools, private schools, private grammar schools where they will be day students, where the combined tuition is almost $60,000. I think that’s a neighborhood that most “regular” dads would be unable to afford.

Would it not have been a true sign of change if he had sent his daughters to the nearest public school in Washington, D.C.? No school district in the United States spends more per student than Washington, D.C. Isn’t that the criterion that modern American Liberals most often use to rate schools? In fact, I have seen you on TV hammering Republicans over the amount spent per child in Florida and how if we could just spend more and get rid of the FCATs our students would win not just Merit Scholarships but Nobel Prizes. Think of it; just a few dollars more and the solution to Global Warming/Global Cooling is probably lurking in Dillard High School. Plus, as a serendipity, oodles of good paying green jobs will be created. Talk about win/win!

Don’t you agree that the children of all elected officials, particularly those officials who hector the public on the need to spend more money on public education, should attend the public school nearest to them? If busing is required to make sure that a “goal” doesn’t become a “quota”, don’t you agree that the first kids on the bus should be those of said officials?

That would be a “change”, wouldn’t it?

That would be another “Florida First”, wouldn’t it?

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Queen Elizabeth the Second, Buckingham Palace

January 12, 2009

Queen Elizabeth the Second
Buckingham Palace
London, England

RE: The dustup about Harry and aren’t grandchildren wonderful.

Your Majesty,

There is a certain amount of irony involved when an American whose forebears came from Ireland [Ballyglass and Cork] can offer a comforting hand to an English Queen.

With regards to Prince Harry…

#1 – The video tape is 3 years old. It would not require a fantastic leap to think that beer may have had an effect on language and behavior. Speaking of language, it’s the way men talk, particularly when they are with their peers. Please not that peers is lower case.

#2 – Am I the only person left in the world who remembers Kipling? To give the first multicultural poet his due:

“We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints.”

#3 – Since the tape was made your grandson having “taken the Queen’s shilling” has “seen the elephant”. Cut him some slack.

#4 – For 30 years, beginning in a saloon in Antigua, I have enjoyed the friendship of two of your devoted subjects. I have shared pints and bumpers with Denis Greenough and Barrie Cooper. Both are army veterans. Denis landed in France on D-Day. Either of them will attest that I am good company in a pub. Should your grandson find himself on this side of the Atlantic have him give me a call. The afternoon will be on my slate.

#5 – Maybe you can help me. I found a 1919 American edition of “Heroic Record of the British Navy” by Hurd and Bashford. It belongs in your country. I am loathe to send it @ General Delivery – The Admiralty lest it fall into some civilian clerk’s hands [maybe a Paki] and not be appreciated. Give me the proper address to and it will be in the next post.

Fear God and Dread Naught!

Congressman Ron Klein

January 12, 2009

Congressman Ron Klein
800 East Broward Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: I guess it depends on who the “surge” is for or against.

Congressman Klein,

I enclose copies of three letters that you have not answered. Maybe you couldn’t; maybe you didn’t want to. Either way I am a constituent of yours and, at the very least, am entitled to the courtesy of a reply however obfuscatory or scatological.

Your public statements say that you are opposed to American military involvement in Iraq. Yesterday, your presence at a rally favoring the Israeli “surge” into Gaza – Are people living in Gaza called Gazanians? – tells me that your opposition to American military responses is not a universal one.

Sherman, the architect of a very successful “surge”, said his actions were undertaken to make the people of Georgia and the Carolinas “howl”. He shortened the war by at least a year, possibly 18 months. There was another “surge” at the end of the Civil War. Sheridan went through the Shenandoah Valley in such a manner that a crow flying after him would starve, such was the desolation wrought by him.

You seem to object to Muslims being killed by Americans but not by Israelis. Why is that? Is a Muslim with murder in his heart killed by an American any more dead than one killed by an Israeli? How can you be in favor of one and opposed to the other?

Can I anticipate the courtesy of a reply or am I just being naïve?

Stephen L. Goldstein, The Sun Sentinel

January 13, 2009

Stephen L. Goldstein
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: 2 thoughts plus how modern American Liberals fight through the pain of cognitive dissonance.

My dear Professor,

Holding two thoughts that are polar opposites would be a problem for a normal person. Modern American Liberals thrive on it. For example, it is wrong for Americans to kill Muslim terrorists but it is not wrong for Israelis to kill Muslim terrorists. All the elected officials who spent this weekend cheering on the Israeli killing of defenseless Gazanians are opposed when Americans do the same. Why is that?

#1 – Your epiphany moment – the one that said changing tax policy can influence behavior – came last week when you revealed yourself as a nascent “supply sider”, a Laffer acolyte, if you will. You probably have a shrine to the Great Reagan somewhere deep in a hidden closet.

The next step is obvious.

If higher taxes will discourage smoking lower taxes will encourage it.

Florida suffers from a severe revenue shortage.

Let’s cut the tobacco tax in half. We would have a tsunami of revenues flowing into the state treasury.

Think what you could do with the money

A – Midnight Basketball
B – Manatee suffrage
C – Health benefits for Sun Sentinel street vendors
D – Recount the 2000 election. Again. And again.

These are all good things that we have been neglecting. In addition, there is a public situation that cries out for a full court press. It is something for which modern American Liberals are justifiably famous. Things like the New Deal worked, Hiss was innocent, the Rosenbergs were framed, more money equals better education, the 1960 missile gap, a higher minimum wage is good for poor people, there is a “vast Right Wing conspiracy”, and “Why can’t we all just get along?”

#2 – Tim Tebow

Although I don’t think you are a big football fan even you must know that Tim Tebow’s performance in the BCS Bowl spread Florida’s name across the nation. The University of Florida is a public institution. It is supported by taxpayer money. The Constitution is not suspended when the referee blows his whistle for the kickoff.

Tim Tebow is a walking ad for religion. And he’s doing it on our dime. The eye shadow he wears is from the New Testament. It is some gibberish about dying for others. He is entitled to his own opinion. He is not entitled to use my tax money to proselytize them.

I call on you to lead the great crusade to ban all religious displays by University of Florida football players.

Maybe you could get all those goody two shoes – start with Coach Urban Meyer – to start smoking. The revenue flow to the state would be – forgive me – penance for the blatant public display of religion. Plus, it would keep your modern American Liberal license valid.

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?

Monday, January 12, 2009

Linda Robertson, The Miami Herald

January 11, 2009

Linda Robertson
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693

RE: Marve’s transfer

Dear Linda,

Me. Again.

What’s missing here?

Robert Marve, an independent contractor working for the University of Miami, wants to go elsewhere. The University of Miami takes a different view.

The University of Miami is able to dictate where he can or cannot work?

If that isn’t “a combination in restraint of trade” the term will have to be redefined.

In an age where every so called “right” seems to have been force fed steroids something is askew with this picture.

Speaking of contracts that are binding only at parties how can a 17 year old sign a document that commits him to one place for 4 years? He can’t drink legally. He can’t sign a promissory note for an automobile. To Hell with football playoffs! How about a Bill of Rights for student-athletes?

Andres Viglucci, The Miami Herald

January 11, 2009

Andres Viglucci
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693

RE: “Dawn of a New Deal” – Your Page One story of what never was maybe becoming never was again. As Churchill said, “This pudding has no theme”.

Mr. Viglucci

The sub-headline of your Page 1 story is “economic recovery”.

Laying aside the mostly bad art, the attempt to pack the Supreme Court, the shibboleth of fireside chats saving the nation, and the willing suspension of both belief and disbelief about 6y years of economic data, the one overwhelmingly large beyond belief elephant in the room about the New Deal is that it didn’t work.

Facts are hard things.

If we begin the timeline on March 4, 1933 and do a month by month, quarter by quarter, year by year, state by state, industry by industry comparison the country was in worse shape in 1938 then it was in 1933.

You cite Miami Mayor Diaz, a man who obviously never lets facts interfere with either an argument or a belief, who says “the New Deal is credited with millions of jobs if that’s what we want to do. It worked. It’s proven. It can work again.”

It did not. In fact, it made the problem worse.

Look it up.

Mayor Manny Diaz

January 11, 2009

Mayor Manny Diaz
Miami City Hall
3500 Pan American Drive
Miami, Florida 33133

RE: I saw you say it, so there!

Mr. Mayor,

I enclose a letter I sent to Andres Viglucci of the Miami Herald about the rebirth of the New Deal. You feature prominently in it.

There is but one conclusion that can be drawn from the article.

You’re dumb.
Dumb as a box of hammers dumb.
That’s dumb.

I like to limit my forays into local politics to Broward County. However, when an elected official within driving an hour’s driving distance says something so egregiously, so “My God, what he said was so dumb it makes my hair hurt and my finger nails curl backwards” I owe it to my public to call it as I see it.

Accordingly, and under the rules of the Awards committee, I hereby name you

HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK

Keep up the good work. You’ll find yourself in contention for even bigger awards. Aim high. Stay dumb.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Altaf Ali, CAIR of Broward County

January 4, 2009

Altaf Ali
CAIR of Broward County
900 SW 86th Avenue
Pembroke Pines, Florida 33025

RE: Free speech, hate speech, and can I exercise either in Mecca?

Mr. Ali,

As my friend, the legendary Big Mike from Bayonne, the noted restaurateur and sportsman always says, “What a country!”

A funny thing happened in the race for lions and lambs to overcome their Historical imperatives. Better still, it happened in Fort Lauderdale.

The poet said, “After the first death there are no others”. This does not imply moral equivalence between enemies. It would be like saying that the viper, the biter, and the victim, the bitee, are equal. It states, in the starkest of terms, “that only the dead have seen the end of war”.

With the nods having been made to the rhetorically incontinent purveyors of pabulum – perhaps caca would be a better way of putting it - who focus on something called the “peace process”, let’s talk about what happened in Fort Lauderdale last week.

Somebody shot up a mosque in South Florida last week. You said it was a “hate crime”. No one knows who shot up the mosque. I know that the Sunnis and the Shias have not gotten along for about 14 centuries. I know that neither of them likes the Kurds. I know that before your religion, a religion that I am told is peace loving, was less than a hundred years old it had conquered Spain and Portugal and was half way across France Maybe one of your enemies did it. I don’t know if it would still qualify as a hate crime if that were the case. It would still be a crime.

Laying aside the grievances of both sides in the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict there is one concrete truth in it. If you kick the big dog enough he is going to bite your ass off. There appears to be a huge supply of young men desiring to be martyrs for Allah. The Israelis seem to be willing to accommodate them. An American President was once advised of the results of a military action. He wired back asking, “Have you killed enough?”

[As an aside, and perhaps as a hint of where you should direct your efforts, this bothers many American Jews. It is well to note that Kumbaya is high, very high, on the list of songs every young Cantor must know.]

Some 50 supporters of Israel stood in front of the very large Baptist church on the corner of Broward Boulevard and NE 3rd Street. Across the street from them were some 250 supporters of the Gazanians standing in front of the Federal Courthouse

I heard one of the young ladies supporting the Gazanians shouting “Fuck Israel”, “Nuke Israel”, and “Jews to the ovens”.

Some other facts are necessary to complete this tableau.

#1 – She had nail polish and make up, a lot of make up, on. I say this because some of your co-religionists, the Taliban in Afghanistan, would discourage the use of nail polish by pulling out the finger nails of any woman wearing it. They also outlawed whistling and balloons. Nice people
#2 – She wore neither a burqa nor a catcher’s mask. I have seen both on Muslim women in foreign countries. They look great. Not here.

In World War 1 the Supreme Court of the United States held that “prior restraint” could not be used to stop the publication of a German language newspaper. At that time the United States was fighting Germany.

In World War 2 the Supreme Court of the United States held that not saying the Pledge of Allegiance was a constitutionally protected right under two parts of the First Amendment. [You may wish to become a bit more familiar with the First Amendment. In fact, while you’re at it, read the rest of them.]

There is a certain amount of irony – I don’t know if irony is permitted under Sharia law – in that the Israeli supporters, presumably Jews, were vigorously protesting in front of a Baptist church while the irenic Islamists were protesting just as vigorously in front of a Federal Courthouse.

Vigorous public protesting is a tradition and custom protected by Law in this country. This country permits blasphemy. This country uses tax dollars to support it. There may be a country that is ruled by Muslims that has such a tradition. I am not aware of it. If there is one could you tell what its name is?

Although it is unknown who shot at the mosque let us assume that it was a hate crime. I don’t know whether there is a “hate crime” squad of super cops. If there is it should be dispatched to investigate immediately.

Is “Fuck Israel”, “Nuke Israel”, and “Jews to the ovens” a hate crime? If it is there is video tape of this young woman committing it. There will be no need to conduct a far reaching investigation. How many foul mouthed, heavily made up Muslim girls are there in Broward County?

Should I decide to burn an American flag could there be a better place to do it than the steps of the Federal Courthouse that protected the Muslim protestors?

Should I decide to burn a Bible to protest religion could there be a better place to do it than the steps of the Baptist church?

Should I decide to burn a Koran to protest the hate crime of the above named Muslim slattern where do you think would be the best place to do it? If the fire got out of hand would it be OK to urinate on it to protect innocent bystanders?

Big Mike would end by saying, “That’s why you never see anybody swimming to Cuba”. For you he would say, “That’s why you never see anybody swimming to Yemen.”







PS – Almost 14 centuries after Christ Dante wrote The Divine Comedy. 14 centuries after Muhammed is there any chance of an Islamic La Commedia?

.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Steven L. Goldstein, The Sun Sentinel

Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: “Cut Through the Smoke and Raise Tobacco Tax” – The bottom line modern American Liberal answer to every problem up to and including merdes from Quebec, teen age obesity, Governor Blago, Mrs. Schlossberg and doesn’t she make Sarah Palin look like the head of Mensa, Global Warming, Global Cooling, and low FCAT scores is, perforce, raising taxes. Today, in the Sun Sentinel, you may have gone a step too far.

My dear Professor,

It’s good to see that some things never change.

Your low key Jeremiad this morning about heartless, gun toting, snake handling, gay bashing Republicans who hate poor people and do nothing for the children is, alas, typical.

Your premise is based on disavowing Logic.

If, as you say, smoking is evil, pernicious, and fatal to both the smoker and the people of Florida because of the increased Medicaid costs, would it not be a Logical imperative to ban all tobacco products in Florida?

Modern American Liberals like to ban things. Alcohol, DDT, Phisohex, and Free Speech leap to mind.

We can learn from the failure of the ban on alcohol. We learned from our failures in farm subsidies, didn’t we? We learned from the early failures in the War on Poverty, didn’t we?

Your solution to the tobacco problem, tax the bejeezuz out of the end user, still permits smoking in Florida.

The best thing to be done, the only Logical thing to be done, is to ban tobacco in all its forms in Florida.

That you want to discourage it but still permit inhaling is akin to being a German who sat around, hands in his lap, during the Holocaust. When it was over, when Patton surged through Bavaria, he said “Who knew? If only someone had told me.”

I am telling you.

Smoking kills. There can be no half way measures in fighting it.

[As an aside, and let’s keep this just between us, you are saying that raising taxes will discourage people from engaging in certain activities. I assume that cutting taxes would encourage certain activities. You are getting close to a “supply side” solution. It is one contrary to President Bambi’s take on “fairness” and the tax code. I guess there is no sense in being a modern American Liberal unless you like going through life squaring circles.]

You seem to be saying that raising the tobacco tax, while acquiescing in the death of countless Floridians – so close to Christmas and Scrooge saying something about “decreasing the surplus population”, remember? – will give us the money to fund needed social programs. Things like “midnight basketball”, 4th & 5th trimester abortions, manatee suffrage, and the old reliable, anything that can be labeled “for the children”.

Perhaps it is time to redo Florida’s tax laws.

An income tax is expressly forbidden by Florida’s Constitution.

May I suggest that, since you speak for the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party, we encourage all Democratic candidates for any office to come out of the closet? “Are you in favor of repealing the Constitutional ban on income taxes”? The follow up question, one that is forced upon us by Logic, is “Are you in favor of an income tax”?

Modern American Liberals favor “choice”, don’t they? Modern American Liberals favor “change”, don’t they? Bam! A double header, no?



PS – As the original multiculturalist Nobel Prize winning poet said, “A woman’s a woman but a good cigar is a smoke”. Leave it to President Handsome Billy from Hot Springs to combine them.