Posts
February 24, 2011
Dana Milbank
The Washington Post
1150 15th St NW
Washington, DC 20071
RE: Backsides, keisters, Mrs. Obama, the return from an undisclosed secret location of the sorely missed “vast Right-Wing conspiracy”, and the politics of which that are artfully explained by you in an opinion piece in today’s Miami Herald.
Mr. Millbank,
Since you feel free to use Rush Limbaugh as an example of how not to make a living as a sculptor’s live model – I would have chosen the still dead Senator, Lard Kennedy [D-MA]. If he were to be dug up today he would still have more chins than a Chinese phone book. Do ad hominem arguments apply if the whackee is dead? – I feel compelled to point out that Mrs. Obama will have a post White House career as a Spandex spokeswoman. She could team up with Duct tape and industrial strength KY Jelly in a “6 Weeks to Size 16 bowling shorts” – “You can do it! I almost did!” TV campaign. But wait. There’s more. “If your shadow weighs more than a 12 volt battery, if you have to use a wheel barrow to answer nature’s call, if you fight Bowser for the last biscuit, call now for my 600 calorie baby back rib enema”. S&H extra.
I must tell you, as an aging, calorically challenged curmudgeon, that the only things that have 600 calories in any bar-b-q place I’ve ever been to are the empty ice tea glasses and the used napkins. Scratch that. If you smell a used napkin in a Texas joint it’s worth 600 calories. Being on the windward side of any decent joint sends the good and the bad cholesterol into a Texas Death Match worthy of HBO.
Lo-fat bar-b-q is like lo-fat crème brulee or lo-fat chocolate profiteroles. It is to be rejected out of hand. I’ve seen saloon fights over less. Is Pommery’s coming out with a diet magnum? Lo-cal Talbot? Sodium free Opus One? I am surrounded by morons.
[As an aside, and I add that it is truly a serendipitous stop on my quest to “know” things, you mention “organic Tuscan kale”. Thank God you didn’t mention the Southern version. We both know that’s how Mussolini made his bones. My question is simple. Where can I get some “inorganic Tuscan kale”? I’ll settle for “inorganic Florida kale”. If possible I would like the long strand polymer kind. Please don’t send me to Martha Steward’s website. I can’t associate with ex-cons.]
You say “the food criticism is an extension of politics”.
Since her husband is an internationally acclaimed Constitutional scholar, except for Article 1, Section 8, Part 11, perhaps he can point out which of the Federalist Papers, assuming he’s heard of them, mentions food advice.
I don’t know if Mrs. Obama ice skates. If she does and should she fall it would register as a miniature Haiti on the closest Richter scale. There’s a rumor that the glacier that calved in New Zealand was a result of Mrs. Obama going ass over tea kettle either as she was stepping out of the shower in Vail or wrestling Secret Service agents for the last whole brisket from room service. As I say, a rumor. The world knows more about what’s going on in Libya than it does about her vacation.
Speaking of Mrs. Obama and the Chicago Way Rahm Emanuel, her husband’s DC consiligiere, was just elected as the Mayor of Chicago. I remember the iron discipline the press corps showed when Rahm’s replacement, William Daley, of the Cook County Daleys, got off the plane in Florida just after the 2000 election, and said, “The recount starts now”. The iron discipline I refer to was an automatic shutting of sphincters that prevented terminal enuresis in the fawning press corps.
Was there ever a better description of “brass balls” than that? Perhaps Handsome Billy from Hot Springs coming back from church with bible in hand getting a hummer from Monica while his wife and daughter were upstairs waiting for him to come for lunch but at least that was inside. It is not known if he held on the bible.
There’s no sense in not celebrating the good old days, is there? Nobody’s getting any younger, right? Jeezus Haitch Keerist but I miss them.
You say that “the food criticism is an extension of politics”.
To Hell with all that nonsense about birth certificate or his buddy Qadafi.
How did Mrs. Obama wind up with an ass that’s an ax handle and a half wide?
She did it the old fashioned way.
She earned it.
Pass the gravy.
Kevin Smith
Monday, February 28, 2011
Steven L. Goldstein The Sun-Sentinel
February 25, 2011
Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd
Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 33301
RE: “Walking the Walk” – Your bi-monthly plea to make water run up hill. This time by taking a train as reported in today’s Sun-Sentinel
My dear Professor,
“I Get No Kick from Cocaine” was what Cole Porter told us more than 70 years ago. 70 years ago puts us in what is now known nostalgically as the “happy time” for modern American Liberals. F.D.R., the Blue Eagle, the WPA, Alger Hiss, the Wagner Act, the Dust Bowl [some newly revealed evidence of which suggests that the Cheney family had a hand in causing] the NRA [the good one], Court Packing, “Waiting for Lefty”, the Davis-Bacon Act, the Hitler/Stalin Pact, Eleanor getting ready to channel Hillary, the PWA, and drinking, legally. Come to think of it, drinking was the only way to get through the beginning of central planning in America. “Washington knows best” needs a goodly amount of whisky to beat the gag reflex.
Alas, the scoreboard, the one kept by the Gods of the Copybook Ledgers, tells us something quite different.
With March 4, 1933 as the fixed starting point absolutely every indicator, including some that were applied retroactively, things were worse in 1934, in 1935, in 1936, in 1937, and much worse in 1938.
In hindsight, when Boeing went to 3 shifts at their plant in Wichita, Kansas building the B-17, things began to perk up a bit.
It is still owed to the ledger to say that if Roosevelt had taken the advice of Pere Kennedy, the anti-Semitic, pro Nazi Ambassador, Prinz Wilhelm would be marrying Fraulein Fritzette in April.
I mention all the above because today’s modern American Liberals, “true believers” all, are like the Bourbons of old. They have forgotten everything; they have learned nothing.
You talk about “creating jobs” as if there were a secular deity just beyond the unreachable horizon who will, if summoned correctly, re-distribute jobs like “gentle rain form the heaven”. If we are extremely respectful he will favor the single mom, a woman of color who was hornswoggled out of any future by a poisonous educational system, with the skills necessary to compete in your whiz bang, hi-tech economy. Said economy, by your flexible standards, needs to be wakened by a train running from Tampa to Orlando and, hopefully, back again.
Here’s a dirty little secret that mush brained modern American Liberals – I just repeated myself, didn’t I? - don’t get.
Read carefully. Take your time. I’ll write slowly.
#1 – Nobody poorer than you is ever, ever going to hire you. He may need some of your skills to rob a 7-11. He may want you to picket WAL*MART. He may teach you the words to “Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow” as soon as he learns them. But a job? No. Never.
#2 – Rich people may hire poor people for 2 reasons.
A – They want to stay rich.
Or
B – They want to get richer.
Anything that makes #2 easier is good public policy.
Anything that makes #1 easier is criminal.
Poor people go to work for 2 reasons.
A- They don’t want to stay poor
And
B – They want to get rich.
Everything else is flap-doodle humbug balderdash. “Shovel ready” jobs? The “summer of recovery”? Better the “slough of despond” or the “winter of our discontent”. I know you believe that all things are possible if enough men of good will believe that they can make it happen. That’s why you are in favor of abortion. If you were a woman you’d have killed more rabbits than Brer Fox.
There are two other points.
You say
“Surely the governor realizes that the
Age of the Automobile is over…”
If it is perhaps you could tell me why we first kneecapped General Motors and Chrysler before disemboweling them. Why did we destroy the sanctity of contracts entered into by free men? Don’t you think it passing strange that Toyota has been carpet bombed by this administration? What better way to help the new GM and Chrysler than by taking out the main competition? If you believe that it was a coincidence check your medicine cabinet to see if you have any “morning after” pills.
The other point gave my great joy.
You say
“We’re balkanized”
I say
“While the light is left to burn the vilest sinner may yet return”
Your initial solution, to build a railroad form Tampa to Orlando, while your example is Key West to Pensacola, is one replete with typical modern American Liberal sophistry. Incidentally, my odometer from “Mile Marker 1” to “Welcome to Alabama –Arkansas is Worse”, reads 900 miles.
How about a high speed rail system from Ft. Lauderdale to Naples? Why don’t we ban cars on Alligator Alley? In addition to saving countless polar bears we could kill all those pesky Caribbean medflys. Is that a win/win or what?
Yugoslovakia was “balkanized”. So was Yugoslovenia. So were all the Yugos. There were at least 5 languages with as many dialects of each in the places. That’s why it was bound to fail as a country. There is a cheaper, quicker solution that covering Florida with grade crossings. Make English the official language. That is to say, all contracts, all court records, all leases, and all ballots are to be English only. No exceptions. None.
I have taken the liberty to include your name as Co-Chair of Make English #1. I have you as the head of the ink stained wretch division of the print media. I need your middle name to file my 501 C3 papers.
Hoping to hear from you soon.
Kevin Smith
Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd
Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 33301
RE: “Walking the Walk” – Your bi-monthly plea to make water run up hill. This time by taking a train as reported in today’s Sun-Sentinel
My dear Professor,
“I Get No Kick from Cocaine” was what Cole Porter told us more than 70 years ago. 70 years ago puts us in what is now known nostalgically as the “happy time” for modern American Liberals. F.D.R., the Blue Eagle, the WPA, Alger Hiss, the Wagner Act, the Dust Bowl [some newly revealed evidence of which suggests that the Cheney family had a hand in causing] the NRA [the good one], Court Packing, “Waiting for Lefty”, the Davis-Bacon Act, the Hitler/Stalin Pact, Eleanor getting ready to channel Hillary, the PWA, and drinking, legally. Come to think of it, drinking was the only way to get through the beginning of central planning in America. “Washington knows best” needs a goodly amount of whisky to beat the gag reflex.
Alas, the scoreboard, the one kept by the Gods of the Copybook Ledgers, tells us something quite different.
With March 4, 1933 as the fixed starting point absolutely every indicator, including some that were applied retroactively, things were worse in 1934, in 1935, in 1936, in 1937, and much worse in 1938.
In hindsight, when Boeing went to 3 shifts at their plant in Wichita, Kansas building the B-17, things began to perk up a bit.
It is still owed to the ledger to say that if Roosevelt had taken the advice of Pere Kennedy, the anti-Semitic, pro Nazi Ambassador, Prinz Wilhelm would be marrying Fraulein Fritzette in April.
I mention all the above because today’s modern American Liberals, “true believers” all, are like the Bourbons of old. They have forgotten everything; they have learned nothing.
You talk about “creating jobs” as if there were a secular deity just beyond the unreachable horizon who will, if summoned correctly, re-distribute jobs like “gentle rain form the heaven”. If we are extremely respectful he will favor the single mom, a woman of color who was hornswoggled out of any future by a poisonous educational system, with the skills necessary to compete in your whiz bang, hi-tech economy. Said economy, by your flexible standards, needs to be wakened by a train running from Tampa to Orlando and, hopefully, back again.
Here’s a dirty little secret that mush brained modern American Liberals – I just repeated myself, didn’t I? - don’t get.
Read carefully. Take your time. I’ll write slowly.
#1 – Nobody poorer than you is ever, ever going to hire you. He may need some of your skills to rob a 7-11. He may want you to picket WAL*MART. He may teach you the words to “Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow” as soon as he learns them. But a job? No. Never.
#2 – Rich people may hire poor people for 2 reasons.
A – They want to stay rich.
Or
B – They want to get richer.
Anything that makes #2 easier is good public policy.
Anything that makes #1 easier is criminal.
Poor people go to work for 2 reasons.
A- They don’t want to stay poor
And
B – They want to get rich.
Everything else is flap-doodle humbug balderdash. “Shovel ready” jobs? The “summer of recovery”? Better the “slough of despond” or the “winter of our discontent”. I know you believe that all things are possible if enough men of good will believe that they can make it happen. That’s why you are in favor of abortion. If you were a woman you’d have killed more rabbits than Brer Fox.
There are two other points.
You say
“Surely the governor realizes that the
Age of the Automobile is over…”
If it is perhaps you could tell me why we first kneecapped General Motors and Chrysler before disemboweling them. Why did we destroy the sanctity of contracts entered into by free men? Don’t you think it passing strange that Toyota has been carpet bombed by this administration? What better way to help the new GM and Chrysler than by taking out the main competition? If you believe that it was a coincidence check your medicine cabinet to see if you have any “morning after” pills.
The other point gave my great joy.
You say
“We’re balkanized”
I say
“While the light is left to burn the vilest sinner may yet return”
Your initial solution, to build a railroad form Tampa to Orlando, while your example is Key West to Pensacola, is one replete with typical modern American Liberal sophistry. Incidentally, my odometer from “Mile Marker 1” to “Welcome to Alabama –Arkansas is Worse”, reads 900 miles.
How about a high speed rail system from Ft. Lauderdale to Naples? Why don’t we ban cars on Alligator Alley? In addition to saving countless polar bears we could kill all those pesky Caribbean medflys. Is that a win/win or what?
Yugoslovakia was “balkanized”. So was Yugoslovenia. So were all the Yugos. There were at least 5 languages with as many dialects of each in the places. That’s why it was bound to fail as a country. There is a cheaper, quicker solution that covering Florida with grade crossings. Make English the official language. That is to say, all contracts, all court records, all leases, and all ballots are to be English only. No exceptions. None.
I have taken the liberty to include your name as Co-Chair of Make English #1. I have you as the head of the ink stained wretch division of the print media. I need your middle name to file my 501 C3 papers.
Hoping to hear from you soon.
Kevin Smith
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren Broward Mental Health Court
September 1, 2001
Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren
Broward Mental Health Court
600 South Andrews Street
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: Disabled man story in today’s Herald
Judge Lerner-Wren:
“Man slept
in yard for
five years”
Irate judge orders
state to provide aid
The Herald
Page one
Today
I read the above mentioned story in absolute awe. Synapses were shutting down with each sentence.
Darren Cooper slept outside his mother’s house for five years? Give him credit
for picking Ft. Lauderdale, Florida rather than Winona, Minnesota. If you are homeless and “mentally challenged” it’s better to spend Valentine’s Day here rather than there. It calls to mind the judge in Paris who said, “The rich and the poor have an equal right to sleep under the bridges over the Seine. The rich in the summer; the poor in the winter”.
I missed the announcement of the creation of the “Mental Health Court”. Is there a sub-section for neuroses? Psychoses? Do obsessions get the court’s attention? Are the court personnel on Prozac? How about you? Are you OK? Do you have some “white rabbits” to get you through motion day?
May I ask what role his mother played in all this? Is she negligent? Is she unfit?
I assume that Mr. Cooper was born thus. I don’t think second hand smoke or a high student/teacher ratio caused that wily chromosome to jump the double helix track. Is this woman also a victim of the things that modern American Liberalism strives so mightily to defeat? Mom lets her son howl at the moon for five years and you bellow at some poor weenie bureaucrat because the agency didn’t have a small suite with room service plus an increase in your self esteem and your net worth program available around the clock for Mr. Cooper? God’s Holy Trousers but the inmates are running the asylum!
May I offer a possible solution to what will be a continuing problem. Since you alone feel that you have the vision, the calling, everyone entering your court will do so at his peril. I have no doubt that by New Year’s Day you will be ordering the floggings of any social worker who dares look cross eyed at you.
Accept on faith when I tell you that there is not enough money anywhere to meet all the needs of society. Spare me the claptrap about how one less B-1 bomber will have all the less fortunate farting through silk. Each afflicted group will have articulate advocates demanding that their particular “need” will go to the head of the line. They will seek out friendly judicial ears to plead their cause. Since Judges seem to think that they can make leaves stay on trees by simply ordering them to do so you will be tugged at and pulled at constantly. It will become like the horizon. Try as you will you will never quite get there. There will always be one more cup, empty and upturned, whose bearer will say to you with plaintive eyes, “More”.
Each group will say one thing similar. “Don’t take from one group to make mine whole - unless there is no other choice. Give more to all the groups.” These groups, whose livelihoods depend on some form of human affliction, will seek out black robed boobs - such as you - for some surcease from the travails of an uncaring society. The problem of more dogs than bones and the problems when the dinner bell is rung has been with us a long time. Nothing you can say or do is going to cure that. I suppose we could try the hugely successful Cuban or Romanian models for dealing with that problem but that’s a different story.
One solution would have been for you to have brought Darren Cooper home. I think the picture on page one is probably more out of focus than he is but he seems rather docile. Having lived in his mother’s back yard for 5 years he should be familiar with the local flora and fauna. Perhaps some light yard work might lessen the burden of you taking care of him. Some environmentally sensitive weed whacking and pest control could prove to be a Godsend. Of course, if something goes askance then we can have those hapless bureaucrats whom you delight in seeing how tight you make them make their sphincters have a shot at you. That will keep you on your toes and show your support for the separation of powers.
At least fickle Fortuna landed victim Cooper in Florida. Had he been in Arkansas when Hillary’s husband was running for President he could have wound up like Ricky Ray Rector. You remember him, don’t you? Despite having an IQ just barely above a bucket of clams Big Bill had him wired up to Ole Sparky whereupon Hillary gave him a lap dance to keep him quiescent to prove that he was tough on crime. That’s one guy whose pain he didn’t feel.
“How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.”
Keep up the good work. It should be a snap for you. You’re gaining on it, sweetie.
KEVIN SMITH
Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren
Broward Mental Health Court
600 South Andrews Street
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: Disabled man story in today’s Herald
Judge Lerner-Wren:
“Man slept
in yard for
five years”
Irate judge orders
state to provide aid
The Herald
Page one
Today
I read the above mentioned story in absolute awe. Synapses were shutting down with each sentence.
Darren Cooper slept outside his mother’s house for five years? Give him credit
for picking Ft. Lauderdale, Florida rather than Winona, Minnesota. If you are homeless and “mentally challenged” it’s better to spend Valentine’s Day here rather than there. It calls to mind the judge in Paris who said, “The rich and the poor have an equal right to sleep under the bridges over the Seine. The rich in the summer; the poor in the winter”.
I missed the announcement of the creation of the “Mental Health Court”. Is there a sub-section for neuroses? Psychoses? Do obsessions get the court’s attention? Are the court personnel on Prozac? How about you? Are you OK? Do you have some “white rabbits” to get you through motion day?
May I ask what role his mother played in all this? Is she negligent? Is she unfit?
I assume that Mr. Cooper was born thus. I don’t think second hand smoke or a high student/teacher ratio caused that wily chromosome to jump the double helix track. Is this woman also a victim of the things that modern American Liberalism strives so mightily to defeat? Mom lets her son howl at the moon for five years and you bellow at some poor weenie bureaucrat because the agency didn’t have a small suite with room service plus an increase in your self esteem and your net worth program available around the clock for Mr. Cooper? God’s Holy Trousers but the inmates are running the asylum!
May I offer a possible solution to what will be a continuing problem. Since you alone feel that you have the vision, the calling, everyone entering your court will do so at his peril. I have no doubt that by New Year’s Day you will be ordering the floggings of any social worker who dares look cross eyed at you.
Accept on faith when I tell you that there is not enough money anywhere to meet all the needs of society. Spare me the claptrap about how one less B-1 bomber will have all the less fortunate farting through silk. Each afflicted group will have articulate advocates demanding that their particular “need” will go to the head of the line. They will seek out friendly judicial ears to plead their cause. Since Judges seem to think that they can make leaves stay on trees by simply ordering them to do so you will be tugged at and pulled at constantly. It will become like the horizon. Try as you will you will never quite get there. There will always be one more cup, empty and upturned, whose bearer will say to you with plaintive eyes, “More”.
Each group will say one thing similar. “Don’t take from one group to make mine whole - unless there is no other choice. Give more to all the groups.” These groups, whose livelihoods depend on some form of human affliction, will seek out black robed boobs - such as you - for some surcease from the travails of an uncaring society. The problem of more dogs than bones and the problems when the dinner bell is rung has been with us a long time. Nothing you can say or do is going to cure that. I suppose we could try the hugely successful Cuban or Romanian models for dealing with that problem but that’s a different story.
One solution would have been for you to have brought Darren Cooper home. I think the picture on page one is probably more out of focus than he is but he seems rather docile. Having lived in his mother’s back yard for 5 years he should be familiar with the local flora and fauna. Perhaps some light yard work might lessen the burden of you taking care of him. Some environmentally sensitive weed whacking and pest control could prove to be a Godsend. Of course, if something goes askance then we can have those hapless bureaucrats whom you delight in seeing how tight you make them make their sphincters have a shot at you. That will keep you on your toes and show your support for the separation of powers.
At least fickle Fortuna landed victim Cooper in Florida. Had he been in Arkansas when Hillary’s husband was running for President he could have wound up like Ricky Ray Rector. You remember him, don’t you? Despite having an IQ just barely above a bucket of clams Big Bill had him wired up to Ole Sparky whereupon Hillary gave him a lap dance to keep him quiescent to prove that he was tough on crime. That’s one guy whose pain he didn’t feel.
“How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.”
Keep up the good work. It should be a snap for you. You’re gaining on it, sweetie.
KEVIN SMITH
Douglas C. Lyons – Senior Editorial Writer The Sun-Sentinel
February 12, 2011
Douglas C. Lyons – Senior Editorial Writer
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
RE: Why are you chastising Governor Scott for trying to keep his campaign promises? Some comments on your column in today’s Sun-Sentinel
Mr. Lyons,
I remember when Senator Obama met the American Everyman, Joe the Plumber. He told Joe that his basic economic plan was to “spread the wealth around”. Giving the Devil his due that appears to be what he is trying to do. The only caveat here is that if all his “balloon juice” schemes are done there may not be any wealth left to spread around. As sure as “stones are hard and water is wet” you can’t make poor people rich by making rich people poor. Of course, as the great Dr. Johnson says, “Any public policy that involves robbing Peter to pay Paul will always have Paul’s support”
Speaking of campaign promises, I remember Candidate Obama saying that his election would calm the savage seas. Page 15A of your paper says that despite his siren call the oceans are not dancing to his tune. Pity. After making the tides behave I wanted him to get to work on gravity. Still, one out of two is pretty good unless you’re an airplane pilot.
I recall with warm and fuzzy feelings when Lord Barack the Beneficent told some Congressmen who dared to question his policies that there was an election and, further, that he “won”.
This was before he threatened to find some poor schlub from BP and “kick his ass”. It was after he told his more zealous fans “never bring a knife to a gun fight”. I really shouldn’t pick on him. He’s probably very tired what with his never ending quest to find those missing 7, or was it 8, states. Doubtless, one of them has that elusive dictionary, the Austrian/English one.
The people of Florida went to the polls last November and elected Rick Scott Governor.
He made promises before he was elected. He appears to be trying to keep them.
Education, for instance.
Every year I hear how bad the schools are. I never hear how bad the teachers are. I never hear how bad the administrators are. How the schools can be “bad” without the teachers and the administrators escaping collateral damage is one of those questions that assumes the laws governing gravity are only enforceable during leap years.
Every year I hear that the answer is more money. Every year they get more money. Every year they get worse.
Does anyone else see a pattern developing here?
If it ain’t broken don’t fix it. If it’s broken, and by every objective standard it is, try to fix it.
Every 2 years the voters get to correct their mistakes. Last November the voters of America began to correct the humongous, ginormous mistake made in 2008.
If the voters of Florida begin to elect more Democrats to the state legislature, if the voters of Florida turn Governor Scott out of office, perhaps the modern American Liberal karma of “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” will be restored. Until that happens your role as a “concerned columnist” will be that of a carping caterwauler.
Sincerely,
Kevin Smith – A “concerned citizen”
Douglas C. Lyons – Senior Editorial Writer
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
RE: Why are you chastising Governor Scott for trying to keep his campaign promises? Some comments on your column in today’s Sun-Sentinel
Mr. Lyons,
I remember when Senator Obama met the American Everyman, Joe the Plumber. He told Joe that his basic economic plan was to “spread the wealth around”. Giving the Devil his due that appears to be what he is trying to do. The only caveat here is that if all his “balloon juice” schemes are done there may not be any wealth left to spread around. As sure as “stones are hard and water is wet” you can’t make poor people rich by making rich people poor. Of course, as the great Dr. Johnson says, “Any public policy that involves robbing Peter to pay Paul will always have Paul’s support”
Speaking of campaign promises, I remember Candidate Obama saying that his election would calm the savage seas. Page 15A of your paper says that despite his siren call the oceans are not dancing to his tune. Pity. After making the tides behave I wanted him to get to work on gravity. Still, one out of two is pretty good unless you’re an airplane pilot.
I recall with warm and fuzzy feelings when Lord Barack the Beneficent told some Congressmen who dared to question his policies that there was an election and, further, that he “won”.
This was before he threatened to find some poor schlub from BP and “kick his ass”. It was after he told his more zealous fans “never bring a knife to a gun fight”. I really shouldn’t pick on him. He’s probably very tired what with his never ending quest to find those missing 7, or was it 8, states. Doubtless, one of them has that elusive dictionary, the Austrian/English one.
The people of Florida went to the polls last November and elected Rick Scott Governor.
He made promises before he was elected. He appears to be trying to keep them.
Education, for instance.
Every year I hear how bad the schools are. I never hear how bad the teachers are. I never hear how bad the administrators are. How the schools can be “bad” without the teachers and the administrators escaping collateral damage is one of those questions that assumes the laws governing gravity are only enforceable during leap years.
Every year I hear that the answer is more money. Every year they get more money. Every year they get worse.
Does anyone else see a pattern developing here?
If it ain’t broken don’t fix it. If it’s broken, and by every objective standard it is, try to fix it.
Every 2 years the voters get to correct their mistakes. Last November the voters of America began to correct the humongous, ginormous mistake made in 2008.
If the voters of Florida begin to elect more Democrats to the state legislature, if the voters of Florida turn Governor Scott out of office, perhaps the modern American Liberal karma of “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” will be restored. Until that happens your role as a “concerned columnist” will be that of a carping caterwauler.
Sincerely,
Kevin Smith – A “concerned citizen”
Andres Oppenheimer The Miami Herald
February 13, 2011
Andres Oppenheimer
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: “Aid Cuts Could Be Diplomatic Suicide” – Some comments on why xenophobia is making a much needed come back thanks to your article in today’s Miami Herald.
Snr. Oppenheimer,
You say
“My opinion: While the United States is the world’s
largest donor in dollar terms, it is already one of the
stingiest of the world’s richest countries in terms of
the size of its economy: it gives out only 0.2 per cent
of its gross domestic product in foreign assistance
compared with one percent for Sweden.”
The Miami Herald
Page 7A
Today
You
Lies. Damn lies. Statistics.
I am reminded of the restaurant in Paris with a sign advertising rabbit/horse stew. The waiter said it was 50/50. One horse and one rabbit.
If the United States were to increase its aid to the same percentage that the altruistic Swedes give how much would that be in absolute dollar terms?
If the Swedes were to double their amount, that is to say 1% to 2%, how many kroners would that be?
Could it not be argued that if my right foot is in a bucket of ice and my left foot is in a blazing fire place I would, on balance, be comfortable?
Constructing universals from particulars is akin to fingernails on the blackboard for anyone familiar with Logic and Rhetoric. Since it is empirically self evident that you have no knowledge of either I can continue apace.
You quote Congressman Eliot Engel [D-NY], as prototypical a modern American Liberal who ever preached the virtues and blessings of “Rainbow Stew” in Congress, as saying that cutting foreign aid is “penny wise and pound foolish”.
History, that cruel mistress of the inconvenient truth that facts are hard things, suggests otherwise.
How much money, weigh it or count it, has this country put down the rat hole that is Africa in the last 50 years?
10 Presidents from both parties and what do we have to show for it?
Zimbabwe? How about the at least 5 countries that have slavery? How about the charnel house that the Tutsis and the Hutus killed each other in? They did it such numbers that the UN had to fly in foreign crocodiles, the domestic ones having, for once, been sated. How many “success” stories are there in Africa? Why is it my fault? How can more of my money make poor Africans rich?
I search in vain for a Madison, a Franklin, or a Jefferson. I look for the fine hand of an Edmund Burke or the restraining hand of a George Mason. Instead, I find Idi Amin, Emperor Bokassa, Omar Bongo, Samuel Doe, inter alia. Special note should be made of Robert Mugabe. He turned a breadbasket of Southern Africa into the dark side of the moon in less than 10 years. Now you want me to give him more money?
The inmates are running the asylum. The boobies are now in charge of the hatch.
As an alumnus of the Peace Corps, as one actively involved in the original Alliance for Progress, I ask what has changed in Latin America in the last 50 years.
Other than the continuing problems of breakfast, lunch, and dinner it looks like the Castro Brothers, deo volente, have finally got their prison on the path to prosperity. That’s a joke. Is it not passing strange that on an island, surrounded by water, said water being overflowing with fish, this country is a mendicant on the world stage? When was the last time you saw a fat Cuban? In Havana?
Argentina is almost 200 years old. It is a country blessed by God with resources that makes other countries drool with envy. Their national heroine was a hooker. The only permanent contribution they have made to the Western Canon is the tango. I speak too quickly. They stole that from the Eyeties.
You can’t imagine the shame I feel when you wrote that Hugo Chavez is outspending this country in the reconstruction of Haiti.
Perhaps you can tell me why Haiti makes the Dominican Republic – they are on the same island, remember? – look like Switzerland.
Is it because the United States has not been “fair” to them?
I began my note to you with a horse reference.
I’ll end it in a similar fashion.
Your contributions to reasoned discourse are both Homeric and Herculean.
I hereby name you
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
Kevin Smith
PS – I no longer care what the man in the street – assuming they have streets – in Paraguay or Chad thinks of America. One suggestion we can all get behind, one suggestion that is specifically authorized in our Constitution would be to authorize letters of marque and reprisal and rid the seas of pirates. Shoot most of them. Take the rest of them into what passes for a port in those Hellhole countries that shelter them and hang them from what passes for a yardarm. What better form of foreign aid than that which allows the free flow of commerce?
Andres Oppenheimer
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: “Aid Cuts Could Be Diplomatic Suicide” – Some comments on why xenophobia is making a much needed come back thanks to your article in today’s Miami Herald.
Snr. Oppenheimer,
You say
“My opinion: While the United States is the world’s
largest donor in dollar terms, it is already one of the
stingiest of the world’s richest countries in terms of
the size of its economy: it gives out only 0.2 per cent
of its gross domestic product in foreign assistance
compared with one percent for Sweden.”
The Miami Herald
Page 7A
Today
You
Lies. Damn lies. Statistics.
I am reminded of the restaurant in Paris with a sign advertising rabbit/horse stew. The waiter said it was 50/50. One horse and one rabbit.
If the United States were to increase its aid to the same percentage that the altruistic Swedes give how much would that be in absolute dollar terms?
If the Swedes were to double their amount, that is to say 1% to 2%, how many kroners would that be?
Could it not be argued that if my right foot is in a bucket of ice and my left foot is in a blazing fire place I would, on balance, be comfortable?
Constructing universals from particulars is akin to fingernails on the blackboard for anyone familiar with Logic and Rhetoric. Since it is empirically self evident that you have no knowledge of either I can continue apace.
You quote Congressman Eliot Engel [D-NY], as prototypical a modern American Liberal who ever preached the virtues and blessings of “Rainbow Stew” in Congress, as saying that cutting foreign aid is “penny wise and pound foolish”.
History, that cruel mistress of the inconvenient truth that facts are hard things, suggests otherwise.
How much money, weigh it or count it, has this country put down the rat hole that is Africa in the last 50 years?
10 Presidents from both parties and what do we have to show for it?
Zimbabwe? How about the at least 5 countries that have slavery? How about the charnel house that the Tutsis and the Hutus killed each other in? They did it such numbers that the UN had to fly in foreign crocodiles, the domestic ones having, for once, been sated. How many “success” stories are there in Africa? Why is it my fault? How can more of my money make poor Africans rich?
I search in vain for a Madison, a Franklin, or a Jefferson. I look for the fine hand of an Edmund Burke or the restraining hand of a George Mason. Instead, I find Idi Amin, Emperor Bokassa, Omar Bongo, Samuel Doe, inter alia. Special note should be made of Robert Mugabe. He turned a breadbasket of Southern Africa into the dark side of the moon in less than 10 years. Now you want me to give him more money?
The inmates are running the asylum. The boobies are now in charge of the hatch.
As an alumnus of the Peace Corps, as one actively involved in the original Alliance for Progress, I ask what has changed in Latin America in the last 50 years.
Other than the continuing problems of breakfast, lunch, and dinner it looks like the Castro Brothers, deo volente, have finally got their prison on the path to prosperity. That’s a joke. Is it not passing strange that on an island, surrounded by water, said water being overflowing with fish, this country is a mendicant on the world stage? When was the last time you saw a fat Cuban? In Havana?
Argentina is almost 200 years old. It is a country blessed by God with resources that makes other countries drool with envy. Their national heroine was a hooker. The only permanent contribution they have made to the Western Canon is the tango. I speak too quickly. They stole that from the Eyeties.
You can’t imagine the shame I feel when you wrote that Hugo Chavez is outspending this country in the reconstruction of Haiti.
Perhaps you can tell me why Haiti makes the Dominican Republic – they are on the same island, remember? – look like Switzerland.
Is it because the United States has not been “fair” to them?
I began my note to you with a horse reference.
I’ll end it in a similar fashion.
Your contributions to reasoned discourse are both Homeric and Herculean.
I hereby name you
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
Kevin Smith
PS – I no longer care what the man in the street – assuming they have streets – in Paraguay or Chad thinks of America. One suggestion we can all get behind, one suggestion that is specifically authorized in our Constitution would be to authorize letters of marque and reprisal and rid the seas of pirates. Shoot most of them. Take the rest of them into what passes for a port in those Hellhole countries that shelter them and hang them from what passes for a yardarm. What better form of foreign aid than that which allows the free flow of commerce?
Steven L. Goldstein The Sun-Sentinel
February 11, 2011
Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd
Ft. Lauderdale FL 33301
RE: Here comes the Judge – Some comments on your column about the inequities of elections, particularly when “they”, those serpents, elect people who vote for “activist right-wing judges”. If only “they” would listen to Guru Goldstein.
My dear Professor,
“For 20 years, they [the Democrats] have let Republicans
pack the federal courts at all levels with
activist right-wing fanatics.”
The Sun-Sentinel
Today
You
One of the blessings of being a card carrying modern American Liberal, yea, verily a fire breathing volcano of Jeremiads, a condition that permits, indeed encourages the cognitive dissonance required to juggle flexible facts, the result of which always makes truth a casualty, is that you can say the above flapdoodle claptrap hoping and believing that there is no one in your audience who “remembers”.
It is 2011. 20 years ago was 1991.
How many “activist right-wing fanatics” did Bib Bill Clinton “pack” the federal courts with?
“Fairness”, one of those mAL objectives that is best compared to the horizon [no matter how fast you run you will never get there], demands that I tell you that I led a demonstration in 1999 in front of the White House. Wearing my “Vast Right-Wing Conspirator” cap, holding my newly born granddaughter in one arm, I shook my fist and shouted “Come out with your hands up, you son of a bitch, we have the place surrounded”.
Perhaps one of us was kidnapped and held hostage the past two years by the Florida branch of the Somali Pirates. How many “right-wing fanatics” has Lord Barack the Beneficent nominated to any federal court?
Are you telling me that Justice Sotomayor, a self described “wise Latina”, is a “right-wing fanatic”? Are you telling me that she and Justice Kagan worship at the shrine of Darth Cheney or, worse, his evil twin Vlad Cheney?
Do these ladies carry bazookas in their fanny packs? Are they underground members of the Federalist Society? Do they have a secret dance routine in honor of the right to bear arms? Do they have the Rule of Law tattooed where the sun never reaches?
Your call to block judicial appointments through filibuster is yet more proof of the lunacy of the thought processes demanded of mush brained mALs. This President will nominate Judge Roy Bean or Judge Dredd before he nominates a “right-wing fanatic”.
Speaking of filibusters, we have a pop quiz.
What 3 things did Senator Byrd and Justice Black have in common?
#1- They were both champions of the filibuster.
#2 – They were both members of the KuKluxKlan.
#3 – They were both Democrats.
I am positive that Justice Breyer, AKA “right-wing fanatic”, will be overjoyed when he learns that you have “outed” him a staunch supporter of the 9th and 10th Amendments. How did Big Bill slip him past Hillary, the head Hecate?
It is always an inconvenient truth but facts are hard, stubborn things. Permit me to call the roll of “activist right-wing judges”, people who because their asses are wrapped in black, people who have a gavel large enough to command the leaves to stay on the trees, who were Republican nominees.
Chief Justice Warren, Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, Justice Stevens, Justice O’Conner, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Souter.
It is easy to camouflage those nasty “activist right-wing judges”.
Did I miss anyone?
Have someone check your meds. The “white rabbits” are winning.
Kevin Smith
Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd
Ft. Lauderdale FL 33301
RE: Here comes the Judge – Some comments on your column about the inequities of elections, particularly when “they”, those serpents, elect people who vote for “activist right-wing judges”. If only “they” would listen to Guru Goldstein.
My dear Professor,
“For 20 years, they [the Democrats] have let Republicans
pack the federal courts at all levels with
activist right-wing fanatics.”
The Sun-Sentinel
Today
You
One of the blessings of being a card carrying modern American Liberal, yea, verily a fire breathing volcano of Jeremiads, a condition that permits, indeed encourages the cognitive dissonance required to juggle flexible facts, the result of which always makes truth a casualty, is that you can say the above flapdoodle claptrap hoping and believing that there is no one in your audience who “remembers”.
It is 2011. 20 years ago was 1991.
How many “activist right-wing fanatics” did Bib Bill Clinton “pack” the federal courts with?
“Fairness”, one of those mAL objectives that is best compared to the horizon [no matter how fast you run you will never get there], demands that I tell you that I led a demonstration in 1999 in front of the White House. Wearing my “Vast Right-Wing Conspirator” cap, holding my newly born granddaughter in one arm, I shook my fist and shouted “Come out with your hands up, you son of a bitch, we have the place surrounded”.
Perhaps one of us was kidnapped and held hostage the past two years by the Florida branch of the Somali Pirates. How many “right-wing fanatics” has Lord Barack the Beneficent nominated to any federal court?
Are you telling me that Justice Sotomayor, a self described “wise Latina”, is a “right-wing fanatic”? Are you telling me that she and Justice Kagan worship at the shrine of Darth Cheney or, worse, his evil twin Vlad Cheney?
Do these ladies carry bazookas in their fanny packs? Are they underground members of the Federalist Society? Do they have a secret dance routine in honor of the right to bear arms? Do they have the Rule of Law tattooed where the sun never reaches?
Your call to block judicial appointments through filibuster is yet more proof of the lunacy of the thought processes demanded of mush brained mALs. This President will nominate Judge Roy Bean or Judge Dredd before he nominates a “right-wing fanatic”.
Speaking of filibusters, we have a pop quiz.
What 3 things did Senator Byrd and Justice Black have in common?
#1- They were both champions of the filibuster.
#2 – They were both members of the KuKluxKlan.
#3 – They were both Democrats.
I am positive that Justice Breyer, AKA “right-wing fanatic”, will be overjoyed when he learns that you have “outed” him a staunch supporter of the 9th and 10th Amendments. How did Big Bill slip him past Hillary, the head Hecate?
It is always an inconvenient truth but facts are hard, stubborn things. Permit me to call the roll of “activist right-wing judges”, people who because their asses are wrapped in black, people who have a gavel large enough to command the leaves to stay on the trees, who were Republican nominees.
Chief Justice Warren, Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, Justice Stevens, Justice O’Conner, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Souter.
It is easy to camouflage those nasty “activist right-wing judges”.
Did I miss anyone?
Have someone check your meds. The “white rabbits” are winning.
Kevin Smith
Christine Dolen The Miami Herald
February 12, 2011
Christine Dolen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: “The Laramie Project” – Your review this day and the questions never asked.
Ms. Dolen,
“Though the impulse behind revisiting
‘The Laramie Project’ and following
performances with talkback sessions is
admirable the result in this case is not.
The memory of Matthew Shepherd and
the audiences deserve much better.”
The Miami Herald
Today
You
[Italics yours]
Matthew Shepherd was a 19 year old homosexual who went to bar frequented by homosexuals. He was picked up by 2 barbaric non-homosexuals. He was beaten in a most savage manner and left to die hanging on a barbed wire fence.
Jesse Dirkhising was a 12 year old boy who was kidnapped by 2 feral homosexuals. Over 2 days he was repeatedly raped and sodomized with objects both organic and inorganic. He died by strangulation. The method chosen was gasoline soaked rag that was shoved down his throat.
Why one was deemed worthy of being compared to the Oedipus trilogy while the other is still waiting to be written is a both a testament and a condemnation to and of modern culture. Alas. but “Trousered Apes” now rule.
Your review concentrates completely on the production rather than on the play.
No would remember “My American Cousin” save for the fact that it was the play that Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated.
Is it possible to say the “The Laramie Project” is a bad play without having the dreaded Word Police asking you, while the chorus throws flaming bags of cat scat at you, “Are you now or have you ever been a homophobe”?
Into the Gehenna of Kumbaya plays let me include “Corpus Cristi”, “The Vagina Monologues”, and “Angels in America”.
It is bad enough that they are “bad” plays but they are oft times government funded “bad” plays. Let me rephrase that. They are taxpayer funded “bad” plays. Let me clarify that. The cry of “No Taxation without Representation” would apply to these “bad” plays with but a simple adjustment.
The fact is that no one has yet topped the Greeks when it comes to theatrical production of murder[s] most foul. I must add that the last scenes of “King Lear” and “Hamlet” are up and coming contenders.
If, as you say, the “talkback session” after the play ends is something to be admired how about a Q & A talback session on Antigone? What does one say about Goneril and Regan?
And why does no one mourn Jesse Dirkhising?
Kevin Smith
Christine Dolen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: “The Laramie Project” – Your review this day and the questions never asked.
Ms. Dolen,
“Though the impulse behind revisiting
‘The Laramie Project’ and following
performances with talkback sessions is
admirable the result in this case is not.
The memory of Matthew Shepherd and
the audiences deserve much better.”
The Miami Herald
Today
You
[Italics yours]
Matthew Shepherd was a 19 year old homosexual who went to bar frequented by homosexuals. He was picked up by 2 barbaric non-homosexuals. He was beaten in a most savage manner and left to die hanging on a barbed wire fence.
Jesse Dirkhising was a 12 year old boy who was kidnapped by 2 feral homosexuals. Over 2 days he was repeatedly raped and sodomized with objects both organic and inorganic. He died by strangulation. The method chosen was gasoline soaked rag that was shoved down his throat.
Why one was deemed worthy of being compared to the Oedipus trilogy while the other is still waiting to be written is a both a testament and a condemnation to and of modern culture. Alas. but “Trousered Apes” now rule.
Your review concentrates completely on the production rather than on the play.
No would remember “My American Cousin” save for the fact that it was the play that Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated.
Is it possible to say the “The Laramie Project” is a bad play without having the dreaded Word Police asking you, while the chorus throws flaming bags of cat scat at you, “Are you now or have you ever been a homophobe”?
Into the Gehenna of Kumbaya plays let me include “Corpus Cristi”, “The Vagina Monologues”, and “Angels in America”.
It is bad enough that they are “bad” plays but they are oft times government funded “bad” plays. Let me rephrase that. They are taxpayer funded “bad” plays. Let me clarify that. The cry of “No Taxation without Representation” would apply to these “bad” plays with but a simple adjustment.
The fact is that no one has yet topped the Greeks when it comes to theatrical production of murder[s] most foul. I must add that the last scenes of “King Lear” and “Hamlet” are up and coming contenders.
If, as you say, the “talkback session” after the play ends is something to be admired how about a Q & A talback session on Antigone? What does one say about Goneril and Regan?
And why does no one mourn Jesse Dirkhising?
Kevin Smith
Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren Broward Mental Health Court
February 17, 2011
Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren
Broward Mental Health Court
600 South Andrews Avenue
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
RE: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” or “Support Mental Health or I’ll Kill You” – Some comments on your op-ed on Public Health Cuts
Judge Lerner-Wren,
You say
“One out of every four adults in the United States
suffers from some sort of mental health illness.”
Then you say
“A majority of those with mental illness also
suffer[s] from substance abuse addictions.”
Would it be a sign of my mental health if I were to carry your thoughts to their Logical conclusion?
There are 90 Judges in Broward County.
While some of their shenanigans and peccadilloes would suggest either dementia, a perpetual teen age wild ass wild oat sowing, de minimis thievery, or just some old fashioned ethically challenged activities, none of these falls under the category of mental illness as you define it. Using your math 22 Judges are a full bubble off plumb. Further, at least 12 of these are life members of the Peruvian Powder Marching Society or they subscribe to the dictum “there is no such thing as a large whisky”.
Maybe we could have an afternoon of competency hearings with the Judges judging themselves. That would be a new chapter in the proud and glorious history of the Broward Judiciary.
Your plea for more money or we will all perish is the perpetual mantra of modern American Liberalism. Every morning these very bright people get up and say today is the day that I will catch the horizon. I must tell you absolutely, positively that you will never get there. Step 2 in this process is to find someone to blame. Lately it’s been a President or a Governor whose names rhyme with Bush. It is painfully self evident that they have written your name down in their books and then drew a line through it.
Normally your lachrymose wailing- how could wailing be otherwise? – would get you some consideration in my weekly contest to find the
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
[JUDICIAL SECTION]
But wait. There’s more.
I found a letter that I wrote to you on September 1, 2001.
You made Page 1 of the Miami Herald in the matter of Darren Cooper. He had been living in his mother’s yard for 5 years. For this you blamed, certainly not him, certainly not his mother, but the poor “flack catching” weenies who run the hatch. NB that I did not say “boobies” who run the hatch.
As an aside, I rather think Mr. Cooper would be an improvement of anybody running a government facility. He went “green” before it became popular. He left no carbon footprint. He became the ultimate recycler what with 5 years of ca-ca to do something with. Organic fertilizer for organic vegetables. A win/win. No drowning polar bears.
Anyway, it’s 10 years later and you’re still at it.
I am reminded of the man in the rubber room, the room with the door with no handle on the inside, for 35 years. All he ever does is clap his hands. Finally a shrink is able to get through to him. “Why are you doing it for 35 years?” he is asked. “If I stop clapping poison snakes will fall from the sky and bite us.” The questioner looks out the window and tells him that there are no poison snakes to be seen. “See. That’s why I have to keep clapping.”
Anyway, it’s 10 years later and you’re still at it.
Somewhere the tune “Still Crazy After All These Years” is playing and I just can’t get it out of my head.
The inconvenient truth is that the state is running out of money. Unlike the Feds we can’t print it. We don’t have an Uncle Wong who will send us tons of Benjamins every Thursday afternoon. To say otherwise would be, in the words of Gary Larson, noted artist and pundit, “Just plain nuts”.
Kevin Smith
Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren
Broward Mental Health Court
600 South Andrews Avenue
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
RE: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” or “Support Mental Health or I’ll Kill You” – Some comments on your op-ed on Public Health Cuts
Judge Lerner-Wren,
You say
“One out of every four adults in the United States
suffers from some sort of mental health illness.”
Then you say
“A majority of those with mental illness also
suffer[s] from substance abuse addictions.”
Would it be a sign of my mental health if I were to carry your thoughts to their Logical conclusion?
There are 90 Judges in Broward County.
While some of their shenanigans and peccadilloes would suggest either dementia, a perpetual teen age wild ass wild oat sowing, de minimis thievery, or just some old fashioned ethically challenged activities, none of these falls under the category of mental illness as you define it. Using your math 22 Judges are a full bubble off plumb. Further, at least 12 of these are life members of the Peruvian Powder Marching Society or they subscribe to the dictum “there is no such thing as a large whisky”.
Maybe we could have an afternoon of competency hearings with the Judges judging themselves. That would be a new chapter in the proud and glorious history of the Broward Judiciary.
Your plea for more money or we will all perish is the perpetual mantra of modern American Liberalism. Every morning these very bright people get up and say today is the day that I will catch the horizon. I must tell you absolutely, positively that you will never get there. Step 2 in this process is to find someone to blame. Lately it’s been a President or a Governor whose names rhyme with Bush. It is painfully self evident that they have written your name down in their books and then drew a line through it.
Normally your lachrymose wailing- how could wailing be otherwise? – would get you some consideration in my weekly contest to find the
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
[JUDICIAL SECTION]
But wait. There’s more.
I found a letter that I wrote to you on September 1, 2001.
You made Page 1 of the Miami Herald in the matter of Darren Cooper. He had been living in his mother’s yard for 5 years. For this you blamed, certainly not him, certainly not his mother, but the poor “flack catching” weenies who run the hatch. NB that I did not say “boobies” who run the hatch.
As an aside, I rather think Mr. Cooper would be an improvement of anybody running a government facility. He went “green” before it became popular. He left no carbon footprint. He became the ultimate recycler what with 5 years of ca-ca to do something with. Organic fertilizer for organic vegetables. A win/win. No drowning polar bears.
Anyway, it’s 10 years later and you’re still at it.
I am reminded of the man in the rubber room, the room with the door with no handle on the inside, for 35 years. All he ever does is clap his hands. Finally a shrink is able to get through to him. “Why are you doing it for 35 years?” he is asked. “If I stop clapping poison snakes will fall from the sky and bite us.” The questioner looks out the window and tells him that there are no poison snakes to be seen. “See. That’s why I have to keep clapping.”
Anyway, it’s 10 years later and you’re still at it.
Somewhere the tune “Still Crazy After All These Years” is playing and I just can’t get it out of my head.
The inconvenient truth is that the state is running out of money. Unlike the Feds we can’t print it. We don’t have an Uncle Wong who will send us tons of Benjamins every Thursday afternoon. To say otherwise would be, in the words of Gary Larson, noted artist and pundit, “Just plain nuts”.
Kevin Smith
Charles Pope The Oregonian
February 20, 2011
Charles Pope
The Oregonian
1320 SW Broadway
Portland, OR 97201
RE: Civil fraud, no? – A comment on the campaign of incumbent Congressman David Wu.
Mr. Pope,
Federal statutes are quite clear. Fraud can be committed by lying or by failing to disclose a material fact.
Don’t you think it is passing strange that Congressman Wu’s descent into a place where snakes and brains are synonymous was not made known, in a most open and public way, to the electorate that he represented?
If Congressman Wu couldn’t use sharp objects or he was unable to operate heavy equipment wouldn’t that be a material fact? Why wasn’t it disclosed every night?
Has “My country right or wrong” been replaced by “My Congressman crazy or not”?
Would it make me a Yahoo if I were to remind you how modern American Liberals, particularly those of the ink stained wretch variety, welcomed in a most orgasmic way, the news of an alleged 30 year old DUI incident involving George Bush? If memory serves it was “leaked” to the press 4 days before the election of 2000.
Using the tortured Logic of true believers it was tried again in 2004. Dan Rather made up a story out of whole cloth about something that happened or didn’t happen 35 years before the election. Even after the story was proved false Rather said, “So what. Even if it’s in not true it’s still true”. That the press wanted it to be true is proof yet again of the narcotic effect of eclectic indignation.
Before your gag reflex of hanging chads and a packed Supreme Court kicks in I am quick to tell you that if Vice President Alpha Gump had carried either Arkansas, the home state of Handsome Billy from Hot Springs, or his own state of Tennessee he would have been President even if he got no votes in Florida.
Your story details public behavior of Congressman Wu beginning on October 27, 2010 that if he were a public school bus driver would have had him on a Thorazine enema and packed in dry ice in a heartbeat. Perhaps the bad Martians were after him. Maybe his Rootie Kazootie aluminum foil alien repeller antennae weren’t working like they were supposed to.
Quien sabe?
I know that the country is lessened by what was not done.
As sign of my displeasure with hypocrisy of your profession I will dispose of the remaining stock of my Full Sail IPA. Don’t fret. I shall do it in an environmentally sensitive manner.
What a state! Ducks, beavers, jackals, and sycophantic bumkissers.
Kevin Smith
Charles Pope
The Oregonian
1320 SW Broadway
Portland, OR 97201
RE: Civil fraud, no? – A comment on the campaign of incumbent Congressman David Wu.
Mr. Pope,
Federal statutes are quite clear. Fraud can be committed by lying or by failing to disclose a material fact.
Don’t you think it is passing strange that Congressman Wu’s descent into a place where snakes and brains are synonymous was not made known, in a most open and public way, to the electorate that he represented?
If Congressman Wu couldn’t use sharp objects or he was unable to operate heavy equipment wouldn’t that be a material fact? Why wasn’t it disclosed every night?
Has “My country right or wrong” been replaced by “My Congressman crazy or not”?
Would it make me a Yahoo if I were to remind you how modern American Liberals, particularly those of the ink stained wretch variety, welcomed in a most orgasmic way, the news of an alleged 30 year old DUI incident involving George Bush? If memory serves it was “leaked” to the press 4 days before the election of 2000.
Using the tortured Logic of true believers it was tried again in 2004. Dan Rather made up a story out of whole cloth about something that happened or didn’t happen 35 years before the election. Even after the story was proved false Rather said, “So what. Even if it’s in not true it’s still true”. That the press wanted it to be true is proof yet again of the narcotic effect of eclectic indignation.
Before your gag reflex of hanging chads and a packed Supreme Court kicks in I am quick to tell you that if Vice President Alpha Gump had carried either Arkansas, the home state of Handsome Billy from Hot Springs, or his own state of Tennessee he would have been President even if he got no votes in Florida.
Your story details public behavior of Congressman Wu beginning on October 27, 2010 that if he were a public school bus driver would have had him on a Thorazine enema and packed in dry ice in a heartbeat. Perhaps the bad Martians were after him. Maybe his Rootie Kazootie aluminum foil alien repeller antennae weren’t working like they were supposed to.
Quien sabe?
I know that the country is lessened by what was not done.
As sign of my displeasure with hypocrisy of your profession I will dispose of the remaining stock of my Full Sail IPA. Don’t fret. I shall do it in an environmentally sensitive manner.
What a state! Ducks, beavers, jackals, and sycophantic bumkissers.
Kevin Smith
Steven L. Goldstein The Sun-Sentinel
February 20, 2011
Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
RE: “You’ve been had” – Why I’ll never find out what those wich, wascally, Wepublicans are going to do to us today.
My dear Professor,
Back in my other life, I testified in a Federal Courthouse. Mindful of the dictum laid down by Thomas More that “a man on oath holds his soul in his hands as if it were water” and that “he opens his hands at this own peril” I testified honestly. [As an aside, the difference between lying and perjury and not knowing it was what made Big Bill Clinton, as George Will said, “Not the worst President but the worst man ever to be President”]
A Federal Judge agreed with me when I said that I had no need to read a particular letter because it began with “As you know”. Since I already knew it there was no need to go further. The Government objected. The judge said to move on.
Thus, when your column about Governor Scott proclaiming him as the new point man of the axis of evil began with “You’ve been had”, I saw no need to continue.
Quien sabe?
Maybe he encouraged teenage obesity. Maybe he banned les merdes du Quebec form crossing the Georgia/Florida line. Maybe he wants to know why, despite all that money, Johnny still can’t read. Maybe he thinks that nesting turtles should be put into the soup pot. Maybe he thinks the Everglades is a swamp and should be drained.
Like I said, Quien sabe.
I know you’ll tell me.
Speaking of “You’ve been had”…
In 1916, in 1940, and in 1964 Democratic candidates for President said that they “would never send American boys to fight in foreign wars”.
Would “You’ve been had” apply here? If not, why not?
Fast forward to Lord Barack the Beneficent, and Blessed be his Name, issued his first executive order in the White House proclaiming the closing of America’s first Caribbean adult sleep away camp, AKA “GITMO”. It is now one year and one month past the drop dead date pronounced ex cathedra in the Oval Office. Would “You’ve been had” apply there? If not, why not? Leon Panetta, his CIA director, said that if Americans were to capture Osama bin Laden, the head filthy WOG who lives to kill, he would be sent to – drum roll, please – GITMO.
Is that what you mean by being “had”?
I’ve been told by confidential sources, sources who insisted on anonymity, that Governor Scott is planning to round up all the manatees and put them into the business end of the world’s largest Cuisinart. After achieving several laudable environmental goals, among them the end to mammalian methane eructations, said flatulence contributing mightily to Global Warming and drowning polar bears, he is gong to have a hell of a lot of sausage with which to feed the homeless, the peripatetic victims of life’s cruel circumstances. If that isn’t a win/win I don’t know what is.
I am told that one of the reasons he is opposed to ObamaCare is that Medicare recipients will have to wrestle pythons and anacondas, the current residents of the Big Swamp West of Sawgrass Mall, or be able to take their drugs only on an odd/even day basis, like the good old days of gas rationing during the glorious reign of Jimmy Carter. I miss him, don’t you?
Although you don’t believe in evil – and how could a card carrying modern American Liberal think otherwise – you know how rotten Republicans can be. I count on you to tell me how bad it will be. If I’ve already been “had” why read on?
Kevin Smith
Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
RE: “You’ve been had” – Why I’ll never find out what those wich, wascally, Wepublicans are going to do to us today.
My dear Professor,
Back in my other life, I testified in a Federal Courthouse. Mindful of the dictum laid down by Thomas More that “a man on oath holds his soul in his hands as if it were water” and that “he opens his hands at this own peril” I testified honestly. [As an aside, the difference between lying and perjury and not knowing it was what made Big Bill Clinton, as George Will said, “Not the worst President but the worst man ever to be President”]
A Federal Judge agreed with me when I said that I had no need to read a particular letter because it began with “As you know”. Since I already knew it there was no need to go further. The Government objected. The judge said to move on.
Thus, when your column about Governor Scott proclaiming him as the new point man of the axis of evil began with “You’ve been had”, I saw no need to continue.
Quien sabe?
Maybe he encouraged teenage obesity. Maybe he banned les merdes du Quebec form crossing the Georgia/Florida line. Maybe he wants to know why, despite all that money, Johnny still can’t read. Maybe he thinks that nesting turtles should be put into the soup pot. Maybe he thinks the Everglades is a swamp and should be drained.
Like I said, Quien sabe.
I know you’ll tell me.
Speaking of “You’ve been had”…
In 1916, in 1940, and in 1964 Democratic candidates for President said that they “would never send American boys to fight in foreign wars”.
Would “You’ve been had” apply here? If not, why not?
Fast forward to Lord Barack the Beneficent, and Blessed be his Name, issued his first executive order in the White House proclaiming the closing of America’s first Caribbean adult sleep away camp, AKA “GITMO”. It is now one year and one month past the drop dead date pronounced ex cathedra in the Oval Office. Would “You’ve been had” apply there? If not, why not? Leon Panetta, his CIA director, said that if Americans were to capture Osama bin Laden, the head filthy WOG who lives to kill, he would be sent to – drum roll, please – GITMO.
Is that what you mean by being “had”?
I’ve been told by confidential sources, sources who insisted on anonymity, that Governor Scott is planning to round up all the manatees and put them into the business end of the world’s largest Cuisinart. After achieving several laudable environmental goals, among them the end to mammalian methane eructations, said flatulence contributing mightily to Global Warming and drowning polar bears, he is gong to have a hell of a lot of sausage with which to feed the homeless, the peripatetic victims of life’s cruel circumstances. If that isn’t a win/win I don’t know what is.
I am told that one of the reasons he is opposed to ObamaCare is that Medicare recipients will have to wrestle pythons and anacondas, the current residents of the Big Swamp West of Sawgrass Mall, or be able to take their drugs only on an odd/even day basis, like the good old days of gas rationing during the glorious reign of Jimmy Carter. I miss him, don’t you?
Although you don’t believe in evil – and how could a card carrying modern American Liberal think otherwise – you know how rotten Republicans can be. I count on you to tell me how bad it will be. If I’ve already been “had” why read on?
Kevin Smith
Andres Oppenheimer The Miami Herald
February 20, 2011
Andres Oppenheimer
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: The Missing Link – Some comments on your column this morning about why some law breaking is simpatico.
Snr. Oppenheimer,
“At the very least, they should have a serious discussion on
whether it makes sense to spend $4.5 billion in deporting
people who have not committed serious crimes and do jobs
that Americans don’t want to do, while slashing funds for
the FBI and other law enforcement agencies whose job
is to put serious criminals behind bars.”
The Miami Herald
Today
You
[As an aside before I get to main point don’t you think your choice of pronouns is a bit off? Wouldn’t they, as in they should have a serious discussion, be better replaced by we? If we have a serious discussion they won’t have to tell us what to do, right? One of the reasons why abortion is still a contentious issue is because we didn’t have a national discussion about it. We woke up one morning and learned that they had decided what was best for us.]
This could be a light bulb moment.
It certainly is a teachable moment.
One of the reasons why people walk from Punte del Este, why they swim from Cuba, why they risk all to get out of Mexico before it changes from one of the world’s worst countries to the worst country, one of the reasons why, to cite Lenin, that famous community organizer, they “vote with their feet”, is that they know instinctively that the Rule of Law prevails here. I will enclose as good a definition of the Rule of Law as I know.
It is not to be found south of the Rio Grande or south of Key West.
The last time I looked it was not too popular in Bolivia or Paraguay either.
What you are saying is that it is OK to break the law by entering this country illegally so long as you don’t break the law when you are here. Should illegal aliens be allowed 2 misdemeanors a year or one felony every other year before they are sent packing? If they go into bankruptcy should we hold them as indentured servants before deporting them, particularly if their bankruptcy disproportionately impacts other illegal aliens?
Let me conclude this morning’s tutorial with a brief primer on walls.
History tells us that they work.
The one in Berlin worked for 29 years keeping people in.
The other two, the one that the Chinese built and the one that Hadrian built, worked for centuries keeping people out.
The one that the French built worked also. Hitler wouldn’t have dreamed of going through it. He went around it.
One of the hallmarks of a sovereign nation is the ability to control its borders. Concomitant with that is the country decides who gets let in and who doesn’t.
Also, there is one language that is official. It is the language that is used when citizens enter into contracts. Yugoslovakia had 4 languages. Yugoslovenia is no longer a country. Yugo something or the other, right?
Absent that and we are like Venezuela.
Kevin Smith
Andres Oppenheimer
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: The Missing Link – Some comments on your column this morning about why some law breaking is simpatico.
Snr. Oppenheimer,
“At the very least, they should have a serious discussion on
whether it makes sense to spend $4.5 billion in deporting
people who have not committed serious crimes and do jobs
that Americans don’t want to do, while slashing funds for
the FBI and other law enforcement agencies whose job
is to put serious criminals behind bars.”
The Miami Herald
Today
You
[As an aside before I get to main point don’t you think your choice of pronouns is a bit off? Wouldn’t they, as in they should have a serious discussion, be better replaced by we? If we have a serious discussion they won’t have to tell us what to do, right? One of the reasons why abortion is still a contentious issue is because we didn’t have a national discussion about it. We woke up one morning and learned that they had decided what was best for us.]
This could be a light bulb moment.
It certainly is a teachable moment.
One of the reasons why people walk from Punte del Este, why they swim from Cuba, why they risk all to get out of Mexico before it changes from one of the world’s worst countries to the worst country, one of the reasons why, to cite Lenin, that famous community organizer, they “vote with their feet”, is that they know instinctively that the Rule of Law prevails here. I will enclose as good a definition of the Rule of Law as I know.
It is not to be found south of the Rio Grande or south of Key West.
The last time I looked it was not too popular in Bolivia or Paraguay either.
What you are saying is that it is OK to break the law by entering this country illegally so long as you don’t break the law when you are here. Should illegal aliens be allowed 2 misdemeanors a year or one felony every other year before they are sent packing? If they go into bankruptcy should we hold them as indentured servants before deporting them, particularly if their bankruptcy disproportionately impacts other illegal aliens?
Let me conclude this morning’s tutorial with a brief primer on walls.
History tells us that they work.
The one in Berlin worked for 29 years keeping people in.
The other two, the one that the Chinese built and the one that Hadrian built, worked for centuries keeping people out.
The one that the French built worked also. Hitler wouldn’t have dreamed of going through it. He went around it.
One of the hallmarks of a sovereign nation is the ability to control its borders. Concomitant with that is the country decides who gets let in and who doesn’t.
Also, there is one language that is official. It is the language that is used when citizens enter into contracts. Yugoslovakia had 4 languages. Yugoslovenia is no longer a country. Yugo something or the other, right?
Absent that and we are like Venezuela.
Kevin Smith
Tim Rutten The Lost Angeles Times
February 20, 2011
Tim Rutten
The Lost Angeles Times
202 W 1st Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
RE: “Known and Unknown” – A comment on your review of the biography of Donald Rumsfeld in this morning’s Miami Herald.
Mr. Rutten,
I suppose he could have tugged at his forelock, bit through his lip, and gotten choked up when he left the Executive branch. He could have spent the rest of his life giving away other peoples’ money while airbrushing a la Politburo prom pictures his life. He then could have gone tiptoeing through the tulips with his neighbor’s wife – Stop the presses! – That was Robert Strange McNamara, not Donald Rumsfeld.
I have one question.
We now know that he used his wife’s [alleged] ruptured appendix as the perfect cover, as the paradigmatic template of plausible deniability, to shield himself from the consequences of the American Army looting, looting like they were in South Central Los Angeles, and engaging in what Congresswoman Maxine Waters calls “alternative shopping”.
How did he manage to loot the museums in Cairo?
Kevin Smith
Tim Rutten
The Lost Angeles Times
202 W 1st Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
RE: “Known and Unknown” – A comment on your review of the biography of Donald Rumsfeld in this morning’s Miami Herald.
Mr. Rutten,
I suppose he could have tugged at his forelock, bit through his lip, and gotten choked up when he left the Executive branch. He could have spent the rest of his life giving away other peoples’ money while airbrushing a la Politburo prom pictures his life. He then could have gone tiptoeing through the tulips with his neighbor’s wife – Stop the presses! – That was Robert Strange McNamara, not Donald Rumsfeld.
I have one question.
We now know that he used his wife’s [alleged] ruptured appendix as the perfect cover, as the paradigmatic template of plausible deniability, to shield himself from the consequences of the American Army looting, looting like they were in South Central Los Angeles, and engaging in what Congresswoman Maxine Waters calls “alternative shopping”.
How did he manage to loot the museums in Cairo?
Kevin Smith
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
February 19, 2011
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
RE: A modern American Liberal explains it all
Dear Darling Debbie, Debbie,
It is so predictable. It repeats itself over and over and over. In the end you all put on your brown shirts and your hob nail boots. In the end all speech is free except that some speech is more free than other speech. In the end you make Nat Hentoff’s book titled “Free Speech for Me but not for Thee” seem like a road map to all the “slippery slopes” and “chilling effects” that mALs constantly caterwaul about. In the end you seek to ban speech that isn’t totally in line with the truth as revealed by the secular gods of modern American Liberalism. In the end you all become Nazis.
Yesterday you went to the floor of the House to ask the Speaker to stop the “disparaging” term of “ObamaCare” from being used, it being “disparaging” to President Obama.
Those pesky Death Panels notwithstanding, I am at a loss to understand why the President and you would not be bursting with pride as a result of passing such far reaching legislation. Even though Speaker cum Hecate Pelosi said that “it had to be passed so we could read it” it was a monumental tribute to the legislative process. That it was the result of free men choosing to send people to DC to enact legislation there can be no doubt. That there also can be no doubt that the people, realizing what a FUBAR mistake they made, began deciding November last, as free men do, to undo it.
This will come as a shock to you but “Free men speak with free tongues”.
It is a simple statement. It is a simple statement that you regard in the same way that a vampire regards holy water. Which of the words “Congress shall make no law…” don’t you understand? I can see where a member, a member like you, reading verbatim “The Vagina Monologues” from the floor probably wouldn’t make C-Span. Why does the term “ObamaCare” upset you? It makes the social legislation passed in the 1960s look like small potatoes Why not engrave “ObamaCare” on the soon to be issued $3 dollar bill? Why not put “ObamaCare” over the front door of every to be constructed Federal building? Why not put it on the soon to be issued $1.46 first class stamp, that being next year’s price for first class mail? I would think that the term “ObamaCare” should be tattooed on every newly born infant, just like the Nazis, your intellectual forebears, did.
I suppose it could be called “Wasserman-Schultzcare” but that’s not as euphonic as “ObamaCare”.
Are there any other “disparaging” terms you want to ban from usage in Congress? Please send me the list.
In the meantime, here’s to ObamaCare!
Keep saying it. It’s a LTD. A Liberal Transmitted Disease.
Kevin Smith
PS – If the Wisconsin Democrats can shut down their state government will it be OK for the Washington Republicans to copy them?
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
RE: A modern American Liberal explains it all
Dear Darling Debbie, Debbie,
It is so predictable. It repeats itself over and over and over. In the end you all put on your brown shirts and your hob nail boots. In the end all speech is free except that some speech is more free than other speech. In the end you make Nat Hentoff’s book titled “Free Speech for Me but not for Thee” seem like a road map to all the “slippery slopes” and “chilling effects” that mALs constantly caterwaul about. In the end you seek to ban speech that isn’t totally in line with the truth as revealed by the secular gods of modern American Liberalism. In the end you all become Nazis.
Yesterday you went to the floor of the House to ask the Speaker to stop the “disparaging” term of “ObamaCare” from being used, it being “disparaging” to President Obama.
Those pesky Death Panels notwithstanding, I am at a loss to understand why the President and you would not be bursting with pride as a result of passing such far reaching legislation. Even though Speaker cum Hecate Pelosi said that “it had to be passed so we could read it” it was a monumental tribute to the legislative process. That it was the result of free men choosing to send people to DC to enact legislation there can be no doubt. That there also can be no doubt that the people, realizing what a FUBAR mistake they made, began deciding November last, as free men do, to undo it.
This will come as a shock to you but “Free men speak with free tongues”.
It is a simple statement. It is a simple statement that you regard in the same way that a vampire regards holy water. Which of the words “Congress shall make no law…” don’t you understand? I can see where a member, a member like you, reading verbatim “The Vagina Monologues” from the floor probably wouldn’t make C-Span. Why does the term “ObamaCare” upset you? It makes the social legislation passed in the 1960s look like small potatoes Why not engrave “ObamaCare” on the soon to be issued $3 dollar bill? Why not put “ObamaCare” over the front door of every to be constructed Federal building? Why not put it on the soon to be issued $1.46 first class stamp, that being next year’s price for first class mail? I would think that the term “ObamaCare” should be tattooed on every newly born infant, just like the Nazis, your intellectual forebears, did.
I suppose it could be called “Wasserman-Schultzcare” but that’s not as euphonic as “ObamaCare”.
Are there any other “disparaging” terms you want to ban from usage in Congress? Please send me the list.
In the meantime, here’s to ObamaCare!
Keep saying it. It’s a LTD. A Liberal Transmitted Disease.
Kevin Smith
PS – If the Wisconsin Democrats can shut down their state government will it be OK for the Washington Republicans to copy them?
Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren Broward Mental Health Court
February 17, 2011
Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren
Broward Mental Health Court
600 South Andrews Avenue
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
RE: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” or “Support Mental Health or I’ll Kill You” – Some comments on your op-ed on Public Health Cuts
Judge Lerner-Wren,
You say
“One out of every four adults in the United States
suffers from some sort of mental health illness.”
Then you say
“A majority of those with mental illness also
suffer[s] from substance abuse addictions.”
Would it be a sign of my mental health if I were to carry your thoughts to their Logical conclusion?
There are 90 Judges in Broward County.
While some of their shenanigans and peccadilloes would suggest either dementia, a perpetual teen age wild ass wild oat sowing, de minimis thievery, or just some old fashioned ethically challenged activities, none of these falls under the category of mental illness as you define it. Using your math 22 Judges are a full bubble off plumb. Further, at least 12 of these are life members of the Peruvian Powder Marching Society or they subscribe to the dictum “there is no such thing as a large whisky”.
Maybe we could have an afternoon of competency hearings with the Judges judging themselves. That would be a new chapter in the proud and glorious history of the Broward Judiciary.
Your plea for more money or we will all perish is the perpetual mantra of modern American Liberalism. Every morning these very bright people get up and say today is the day that I will catch the horizon. I must tell you absolutely, positively that you will never get there. Step 2 in this process is to find someone to blame. Lately it’s been a President or a Governor whose names rhyme with Bush. It is painfully self evident that they have written your name down in their books and then drew a line through it.
Normally your lachrymose wailing- how could wailing be otherwise? – would get you some consideration in my weekly contest to find the
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
[JUDICIAL SECTION]
But wait. There’s more.
I found a letter that I wrote to you on September 1, 2001.
You made Page 1 of the Miami Herald in the matter of Darren Cooper. He had been living in his mother’s yard for 5 years. For this you blamed, certainly not him, certainly not his mother, but the poor “flack catching” weenies who run the hatch. NB that I did not say “boobies” who run the hatch.
As an aside, I rather think Mr. Cooper would be an improvement of anybody running a government facility. He went “green” before it became popular. He left no carbon footprint. He became the ultimate recycler what with 5 years of ca-ca to do something with. Organic fertilizer for organic vegetables. A win/win. No drowning polar bears.
Anyway, it’s 10 years later and you’re still at it.
I am reminded of the man in the rubber room, the room with the door with no handle on the inside, for 35 years. All he ever does is clap his hands. Finally a shrink is able to get through to him. “Why are you doing it for 35 years?” he is asked. “If I stop clapping poison snakes will fall from the sky and bite us.” The questioner looks out the window and tells him that there are no poison snakes to be seen. “See. That’s why I have to keep clapping.”
Anyway, it’s 10 years later and you’re still at it.
Somewhere the tune “Still Crazy After All These Years” is playing and I just can’t get it out of my head.
The inconvenient truth is that the state is running out of money. Unlike the Feds we can’t print it. We don’t have an Uncle Wong who will send us tons of Benjamins every Thursday afternoon. To say otherwise would be, in the words of Gary Larson, noted artist and pundit, “Just plain nuts”.
Kevin Smith
Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren
Broward Mental Health Court
600 South Andrews Avenue
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
RE: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” or “Support Mental Health or I’ll Kill You” – Some comments on your op-ed on Public Health Cuts
Judge Lerner-Wren,
You say
“One out of every four adults in the United States
suffers from some sort of mental health illness.”
Then you say
“A majority of those with mental illness also
suffer[s] from substance abuse addictions.”
Would it be a sign of my mental health if I were to carry your thoughts to their Logical conclusion?
There are 90 Judges in Broward County.
While some of their shenanigans and peccadilloes would suggest either dementia, a perpetual teen age wild ass wild oat sowing, de minimis thievery, or just some old fashioned ethically challenged activities, none of these falls under the category of mental illness as you define it. Using your math 22 Judges are a full bubble off plumb. Further, at least 12 of these are life members of the Peruvian Powder Marching Society or they subscribe to the dictum “there is no such thing as a large whisky”.
Maybe we could have an afternoon of competency hearings with the Judges judging themselves. That would be a new chapter in the proud and glorious history of the Broward Judiciary.
Your plea for more money or we will all perish is the perpetual mantra of modern American Liberalism. Every morning these very bright people get up and say today is the day that I will catch the horizon. I must tell you absolutely, positively that you will never get there. Step 2 in this process is to find someone to blame. Lately it’s been a President or a Governor whose names rhyme with Bush. It is painfully self evident that they have written your name down in their books and then drew a line through it.
Normally your lachrymose wailing- how could wailing be otherwise? – would get you some consideration in my weekly contest to find the
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
[JUDICIAL SECTION]
But wait. There’s more.
I found a letter that I wrote to you on September 1, 2001.
You made Page 1 of the Miami Herald in the matter of Darren Cooper. He had been living in his mother’s yard for 5 years. For this you blamed, certainly not him, certainly not his mother, but the poor “flack catching” weenies who run the hatch. NB that I did not say “boobies” who run the hatch.
As an aside, I rather think Mr. Cooper would be an improvement of anybody running a government facility. He went “green” before it became popular. He left no carbon footprint. He became the ultimate recycler what with 5 years of ca-ca to do something with. Organic fertilizer for organic vegetables. A win/win. No drowning polar bears.
Anyway, it’s 10 years later and you’re still at it.
I am reminded of the man in the rubber room, the room with the door with no handle on the inside, for 35 years. All he ever does is clap his hands. Finally a shrink is able to get through to him. “Why are you doing it for 35 years?” he is asked. “If I stop clapping poison snakes will fall from the sky and bite us.” The questioner looks out the window and tells him that there are no poison snakes to be seen. “See. That’s why I have to keep clapping.”
Anyway, it’s 10 years later and you’re still at it.
Somewhere the tune “Still Crazy After All These Years” is playing and I just can’t get it out of my head.
The inconvenient truth is that the state is running out of money. Unlike the Feds we can’t print it. We don’t have an Uncle Wong who will send us tons of Benjamins every Thursday afternoon. To say otherwise would be, in the words of Gary Larson, noted artist and pundit, “Just plain nuts”.
Kevin Smith
WarriorBard Classic: Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren Broward County Mental Health Court
November 8, 2001
Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren
Broward County Mental Health Court
600 South Andrews Street
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: The Beat Goes On - Judicial temperament, terminal PMS, and Justice....shaken
Judge Lerner-Wren:
“Treat him. I am ordering you to treat this man.”
The Herald
page 26A
You
“I am livid.’ She said it ten times....”
The Sun-Sentinel
page 2B
You
Are you the only member of the fabulously successful raree known as the Broward County Judiciary to have a medical degree? Mountebanks and grifters abound but are you an honest to goodness Medicine Woman also?
In the real world, the world where adults work, judgments are made and decisions are taken based on same. Medical professionals, presumably competent and assuredly certified and licensed by the state, made a medical evaluation of Mr. Steinsmith. You made a political/judicial - in this instance the two terms are interchangeable - decision. By the way, where did you do your psychiatric residency? At the world famed Rangoon School of Proctology or the equally acclaimed University of Haiti Dead Snake and Screaming Heeby-Jeeby Dispensary?
Here is my diagnosis of you. Also, I have outlined a course of treatment. You must do all the steps. Listen carefully.
If you are “livid” resign from the Bench. One serendipitous benefit of your leaving will be to vault Broward County past the judiciary of Kandahar with whom you are currently tied in the Jerry Springer “God! What Nitwits We Have Wearing Robes” poll. The next hurdle is the Burundi Bench where, if you lose an appeal, the Judges cook and eat you.
Run for the Legislature. Get elected.
Once you are there pass a bill that makes Judges primary health care providers for whomsoever enters their courtroom. You may want to consider certifying anyone who passes the Florida Bar Examination a nurse-practitioner or, at the very least, an EMT/CPR teacher. All non-Judicial court personnel will have the ability to “lay on hands”. Also, they will be able to change water into wine should a jury be sequestered and/or deadlocked.
Make sure that the Governor signs it. Enforce it. Vigorously.
In the meantime take the ailing Mr. Steinsmith - AIDS “victim” and because he’s about 6 degrees off plumb soon to be touring the country as Napoleon - home with you. I am sure it will take but a few Thorazine enemas, a trip to Lourdes, and some of your well known TLC and he’ll be doing 10ks by Thanksgiving.
“Ginger”? Where you ever a Spice Girl?
“Such an excess of stupidity is not found in Nature.”
Dr. Johnson never met you.
KEVIN SMITH
Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren
Broward County Mental Health Court
600 South Andrews Street
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: The Beat Goes On - Judicial temperament, terminal PMS, and Justice....shaken
Judge Lerner-Wren:
“Treat him. I am ordering you to treat this man.”
The Herald
page 26A
You
“I am livid.’ She said it ten times....”
The Sun-Sentinel
page 2B
You
Are you the only member of the fabulously successful raree known as the Broward County Judiciary to have a medical degree? Mountebanks and grifters abound but are you an honest to goodness Medicine Woman also?
In the real world, the world where adults work, judgments are made and decisions are taken based on same. Medical professionals, presumably competent and assuredly certified and licensed by the state, made a medical evaluation of Mr. Steinsmith. You made a political/judicial - in this instance the two terms are interchangeable - decision. By the way, where did you do your psychiatric residency? At the world famed Rangoon School of Proctology or the equally acclaimed University of Haiti Dead Snake and Screaming Heeby-Jeeby Dispensary?
Here is my diagnosis of you. Also, I have outlined a course of treatment. You must do all the steps. Listen carefully.
If you are “livid” resign from the Bench. One serendipitous benefit of your leaving will be to vault Broward County past the judiciary of Kandahar with whom you are currently tied in the Jerry Springer “God! What Nitwits We Have Wearing Robes” poll. The next hurdle is the Burundi Bench where, if you lose an appeal, the Judges cook and eat you.
Run for the Legislature. Get elected.
Once you are there pass a bill that makes Judges primary health care providers for whomsoever enters their courtroom. You may want to consider certifying anyone who passes the Florida Bar Examination a nurse-practitioner or, at the very least, an EMT/CPR teacher. All non-Judicial court personnel will have the ability to “lay on hands”. Also, they will be able to change water into wine should a jury be sequestered and/or deadlocked.
Make sure that the Governor signs it. Enforce it. Vigorously.
In the meantime take the ailing Mr. Steinsmith - AIDS “victim” and because he’s about 6 degrees off plumb soon to be touring the country as Napoleon - home with you. I am sure it will take but a few Thorazine enemas, a trip to Lourdes, and some of your well known TLC and he’ll be doing 10ks by Thanksgiving.
“Ginger”? Where you ever a Spice Girl?
“Such an excess of stupidity is not found in Nature.”
Dr. Johnson never met you.
KEVIN SMITH
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Jimmy Cefalo WIOD – 610, Part 2
February 16, 2011
Jimmy Cefalo
WIOD – 610
7601 Riviera Drive
Miramar, FL 33022
RE: Two tutorials in one day – Aren’t you the lucky one?
Jimmy,
What the Hell is so difficult in cutting the Federal budget?
Herewith some suggestions.
#1 – We have 50,000 troops in Germany. Why? We beat the Krauts, remember? i Bring our soldiers home. Now.
#2 – NATO. Trust me. The Russians will not be pouring through the Fulda Gap in a race to the coast. Shut it down. Now.
#3 – Crop prices are at all time high. If the farmers aren’t farting through silk now they never will. Shut down the Department of Agriculture. Now.
#4 – Send up a flare the next time, strike that, the first time the Department of Energy produces one barrel of oil, one ton of coal, or one kilowatt of electricity. Shut it down. Now.
#5 – Johnny couldn’t read in 1978. The Department of Education was “created” to help him read. Johnny still can’t read. Whatever they are doing isn’t working. Shut it down. Now.
#6 – If you can find out what the Department of Commerce does let me know. Speaker Pelosi – Don’t you miss her? One more face lift and she’d be peeing through her navel – said, “Pass Obamacare so we could find out what’s in it”. Shut the joint down. See if anybody notices.
#6 – The Post Office is the paradigmatic template for both SNAFU and FUBAR. Give half of it to UPS. Give the other half to FED-EX. Now. How much worse can it be?
#7 – I think “Corpus Cristi” is a terrible play. I love “Elmo”. Why should tax money be used to subsidize them? Stop Federal funding. Now.
Lest you think I am not aware of the revenue side of the equation here are my suggestions for “enhancement”.
#1 – Why should the country have to share the burden of owning a home? Cancel the tax deduction for local real estate taxes. Now
#2 – If Broward County residents want to build manatee rehab centers let them. Don’t ask the people of Winona, MN or Allen, TX to pay for part of it. Make the interest paid on municipal bonds taxable. Now.
#3 – Let’s see how charitable people are. Stop the Federal deduction for charitable contributions. Now.
#4 – Why should unlimited procreation be subsidized by the Federal taxpayer? Limit the tax deduction for children to 2.8 children per couple. Now.
#5 – The Death Tax, the Estate Tax, whatever it’s called, must be strengthened. In the case of the Kennedy family it should be 105%. It should be retroactive. Why should the swag stolen by an anti-Semitic bootlegger be allowed to influence America after 3 generations? Justice Holmes said “Three generations of idiots are enough” in voting in favor of involuntary sterilization. 3 generations of toss pot philandering Boob McNutts are enough. Shut it down. Now.
#6 – In 2007 Senator Reid said, “The war is lost”. Alas, he was talking about the wrong war. “Surges” work. Ask Sherman. Ask Pershing. Ask Patton. The war he should have been talking about is the “war” on drugs. Let’s have an immediate cease fire followed by a complete stand down. Whisky is taxed. Why not drugs?
#7 – Lyndon Johnson declared “war” on poverty in 1964. It was like the British Army attacking 5 miles of machine guns on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The guns win. The guns always win. 47 years later poverty has “won”. Stop fighting. Now.
Less money out; more money in.
Result?
Happiness.
Uncle Wong would approve.
Kevin Smith
Jimmy Cefalo
WIOD – 610
7601 Riviera Drive
Miramar, FL 33022
RE: Two tutorials in one day – Aren’t you the lucky one?
Jimmy,
What the Hell is so difficult in cutting the Federal budget?
Herewith some suggestions.
#1 – We have 50,000 troops in Germany. Why? We beat the Krauts, remember? i Bring our soldiers home. Now.
#2 – NATO. Trust me. The Russians will not be pouring through the Fulda Gap in a race to the coast. Shut it down. Now.
#3 – Crop prices are at all time high. If the farmers aren’t farting through silk now they never will. Shut down the Department of Agriculture. Now.
#4 – Send up a flare the next time, strike that, the first time the Department of Energy produces one barrel of oil, one ton of coal, or one kilowatt of electricity. Shut it down. Now.
#5 – Johnny couldn’t read in 1978. The Department of Education was “created” to help him read. Johnny still can’t read. Whatever they are doing isn’t working. Shut it down. Now.
#6 – If you can find out what the Department of Commerce does let me know. Speaker Pelosi – Don’t you miss her? One more face lift and she’d be peeing through her navel – said, “Pass Obamacare so we could find out what’s in it”. Shut the joint down. See if anybody notices.
#6 – The Post Office is the paradigmatic template for both SNAFU and FUBAR. Give half of it to UPS. Give the other half to FED-EX. Now. How much worse can it be?
#7 – I think “Corpus Cristi” is a terrible play. I love “Elmo”. Why should tax money be used to subsidize them? Stop Federal funding. Now.
Lest you think I am not aware of the revenue side of the equation here are my suggestions for “enhancement”.
#1 – Why should the country have to share the burden of owning a home? Cancel the tax deduction for local real estate taxes. Now
#2 – If Broward County residents want to build manatee rehab centers let them. Don’t ask the people of Winona, MN or Allen, TX to pay for part of it. Make the interest paid on municipal bonds taxable. Now.
#3 – Let’s see how charitable people are. Stop the Federal deduction for charitable contributions. Now.
#4 – Why should unlimited procreation be subsidized by the Federal taxpayer? Limit the tax deduction for children to 2.8 children per couple. Now.
#5 – The Death Tax, the Estate Tax, whatever it’s called, must be strengthened. In the case of the Kennedy family it should be 105%. It should be retroactive. Why should the swag stolen by an anti-Semitic bootlegger be allowed to influence America after 3 generations? Justice Holmes said “Three generations of idiots are enough” in voting in favor of involuntary sterilization. 3 generations of toss pot philandering Boob McNutts are enough. Shut it down. Now.
#6 – In 2007 Senator Reid said, “The war is lost”. Alas, he was talking about the wrong war. “Surges” work. Ask Sherman. Ask Pershing. Ask Patton. The war he should have been talking about is the “war” on drugs. Let’s have an immediate cease fire followed by a complete stand down. Whisky is taxed. Why not drugs?
#7 – Lyndon Johnson declared “war” on poverty in 1964. It was like the British Army attacking 5 miles of machine guns on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The guns win. The guns always win. 47 years later poverty has “won”. Stop fighting. Now.
Less money out; more money in.
Result?
Happiness.
Uncle Wong would approve.
Kevin Smith
Jimmy Cefalo WIOD – 610
February 16, 2011
Jimmy Cefalo
WIOD – 610
7601 Riviera Blvd.
Miramar, FL 33022
RE: Unanimous votes in the Senate and insurance rates
Jimmy,
Experts agree that whenever any statement of any kind begins with “experts agree” it is usually wise to bet the other side.
This morning at ca. 6:15, I caught the tag end of you saying, “How often do they do that?”, “that” being a unanimous vote in the Senate.
The Founders, particularly Madison, would have frowned on unanimous votes. It would have suggested a too close fraternization with Democracy rather than a Republic which was what they intended. Not for nothing does the name “Peoples Democratic Republic of Kafiristan” or some such nonsense always seems to be used for a government that can’t feed its people and then blames and oppresses them for the drought, the monsoon, the snow, the wind, the locusts, inter alia.
I can’t share in the euphoria about Egypt. Mubarak is gone, the constitution [sic] is suspended, and the army has taken over. How does that make anyone freer?
One of the definitions of Rhetoric [note the capital R] is the ability to argue a point to its midpoint and then turn around and argue the opposite.
Two correct unanimous votes in the Senate were the 97 to 0 vote for Antonin Scalia, one of your “people”, and the 95 to 0 “Sense of the Senate” vote against the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol, the brainchild of former Vice President Alpha Gump, would have prevented the economic meltdown of the past 4 years by virtue of having wiped out the economy before the turn of the century.
As to “consensus” being a good thing, how many times did Coach Paterno or Coach Shula get a consensus on a game plan or a particular play?
I was about to sign off on this when I heard you and your amigo vent a bit about insurance rates in general and sink holes in particular. I have no financial interest in any insurance company either by employment or stock ownership.
You may want to think about insurance companies being akin to Social Security, state pension plans, or the Florida Pre-Paid Tuition Plan.
Money comes into today to pay for something that may never happen tomorrow. Would it make taxpayers feel better to have a fire every other year just to see if the equipment works?
I had a friend who died 2 months shy of his 65th birthday. He had paid the maximum Social Security premium for at least 30 years. Did the government give his estate a refund check because he never made a claim on that which he had paid for? Do I have to answer that question?
As a former CFO of a public company I have some knowledge of financial statements. Insurance companies have the luxury of filing 3 separate financials. One goes to the IRS; one goes to the state in which they do business; one goes to their shareholders.
In the case of State Farm, a mutual company, a company theoretically owned by its policyholders, it gets to pay “dividends” to their overcharged policy holders. The IRS, an institution that would tax balmy afternoons and good intentions if no one was looking, says these “dividends” are not taxable.
Citizens Insurance, Florida’s insurer of last resort, is in worse financial shape than Social Security. As few as 3 years ago the Florida Pre-Paid Tuition Plan was a tremendous deal. Reality, in the form of greatly increased payments to cover greatly increased and greatly increasing future costs – Has anyone ever asked why Education alone is exempt from all the economic rules governing everything else? – has set in.
As to sink hole increases, if the underwriting pool were bigger, that is to say if insurance companies could use a national census, the premium required would be less. The hard fact is that a strongly capitalized private insurance industry is a necessity. Capitalized just doesn’t mean cash flow. If that were the only criterion the Post Office would be in better shape than Switzerland.
Thus ends today’s tutorial.
Kevin Smith
Jimmy Cefalo
WIOD – 610
7601 Riviera Blvd.
Miramar, FL 33022
RE: Unanimous votes in the Senate and insurance rates
Jimmy,
Experts agree that whenever any statement of any kind begins with “experts agree” it is usually wise to bet the other side.
This morning at ca. 6:15, I caught the tag end of you saying, “How often do they do that?”, “that” being a unanimous vote in the Senate.
The Founders, particularly Madison, would have frowned on unanimous votes. It would have suggested a too close fraternization with Democracy rather than a Republic which was what they intended. Not for nothing does the name “Peoples Democratic Republic of Kafiristan” or some such nonsense always seems to be used for a government that can’t feed its people and then blames and oppresses them for the drought, the monsoon, the snow, the wind, the locusts, inter alia.
I can’t share in the euphoria about Egypt. Mubarak is gone, the constitution [sic] is suspended, and the army has taken over. How does that make anyone freer?
One of the definitions of Rhetoric [note the capital R] is the ability to argue a point to its midpoint and then turn around and argue the opposite.
Two correct unanimous votes in the Senate were the 97 to 0 vote for Antonin Scalia, one of your “people”, and the 95 to 0 “Sense of the Senate” vote against the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol, the brainchild of former Vice President Alpha Gump, would have prevented the economic meltdown of the past 4 years by virtue of having wiped out the economy before the turn of the century.
As to “consensus” being a good thing, how many times did Coach Paterno or Coach Shula get a consensus on a game plan or a particular play?
I was about to sign off on this when I heard you and your amigo vent a bit about insurance rates in general and sink holes in particular. I have no financial interest in any insurance company either by employment or stock ownership.
You may want to think about insurance companies being akin to Social Security, state pension plans, or the Florida Pre-Paid Tuition Plan.
Money comes into today to pay for something that may never happen tomorrow. Would it make taxpayers feel better to have a fire every other year just to see if the equipment works?
I had a friend who died 2 months shy of his 65th birthday. He had paid the maximum Social Security premium for at least 30 years. Did the government give his estate a refund check because he never made a claim on that which he had paid for? Do I have to answer that question?
As a former CFO of a public company I have some knowledge of financial statements. Insurance companies have the luxury of filing 3 separate financials. One goes to the IRS; one goes to the state in which they do business; one goes to their shareholders.
In the case of State Farm, a mutual company, a company theoretically owned by its policyholders, it gets to pay “dividends” to their overcharged policy holders. The IRS, an institution that would tax balmy afternoons and good intentions if no one was looking, says these “dividends” are not taxable.
Citizens Insurance, Florida’s insurer of last resort, is in worse financial shape than Social Security. As few as 3 years ago the Florida Pre-Paid Tuition Plan was a tremendous deal. Reality, in the form of greatly increased payments to cover greatly increased and greatly increasing future costs – Has anyone ever asked why Education alone is exempt from all the economic rules governing everything else? – has set in.
As to sink hole increases, if the underwriting pool were bigger, that is to say if insurance companies could use a national census, the premium required would be less. The hard fact is that a strongly capitalized private insurance industry is a necessity. Capitalized just doesn’t mean cash flow. If that were the only criterion the Post Office would be in better shape than Switzerland.
Thus ends today’s tutorial.
Kevin Smith
Monday, February 14, 2011
Mayor Michael Bloomberg
February 11, 2011
Mayor Michael Bloomberg
City Hall
Broadway
New York, New York 10007
RE: What were you thinking, you shmuck?
Mr. Mayor,
You said that you were
“used to seeing inebriated Irish hanging out the
windows during the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.”
I am so Irish on both sides that if you were to scratch my double helix somebody who worked for Caesar would pop up. Nothing less that a Tribune, I’m certain. Maybe an aedile on mother’s side. Hibernia? Winter camp? “Beyond the pale”. Remember?
I have hung out some windows during the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. When I was a member of the Metropolitan Club I liked to watch the help march. When I was younger hanging out the windows on St. Patrick’s Day was preceded by furniture being tossed from same. If you drew the long straw you could get to see how high a TV would bounce. I was never “inebriated”, you putz. I was drunk.
A filthy WOG tries to blow up Times Square and you, well in advance of the arrival of those damn pesky critters, the ones that are called facts, tell the world that it was the work of some schlub who doesn’t like Obamacare.
The one absolutely perpetual “shovel ready” job creating machine, the one that is the Summer of Recovery in addition to being the Fall of Recovery, the Winter of Recovery, and the glorious spring of Recovery, is the abortion business in Harlem. Why no comments on that? Is it possible that you regard it as money well spent? Isn’t that what Margaret Sanger said?
After you find a way to ban tobacco but not the tax money you hypocritically raise from its sale and continued consumption you can move on to salt. The idea of refusing admittance to any transient who has high blood pressure, such pressure being tested before emptying any AMTRAK train, will catch on. I hope you have a George O’Jessell moment. It’s similar to Paul, my favorite reform Rabbi, getting knocked off his horse.
Georgie, a famous New Yorker and Uncle GaGa to his many Irish relatives, used to tell someone who couldn’t find his tuchis using both hands or, in the old days, “a Jew in the Bronx”, someone like you, to “look in the mirror, put your teeth in upside down and backwards, and chew yourself to death”.
Relax.
Other than destroying some Cohibas, and in a bow to diversity and multicultural diversity, some DeNobilis and a hookah, I pose no threat.
However, should I be hanging out a window on 5th Avenue on St. Patrick’s Day and see you, I will, in my finest Irish tenor voice, star yelling “Shylock, where’s my pound of flesh”?
Kevin Smith
PS – What’s this I hear about a stoning pit at the WTC mosque? Will it be a first, that is to say, will it be used for both sexes? The Village People will lead the S&M cheering section and Mt. Sinai hospital will have first crack at the salvageable organs. That’s one way to save on Medicare costs. Obamacare outreach death panels will be needed but that’s what makes this the greatest city in the world, right? I can’t wait for you to march in the Eyetie Parade to honor Columbus. Will your favors include ice picks?
Mayor Michael Bloomberg
City Hall
Broadway
New York, New York 10007
RE: What were you thinking, you shmuck?
Mr. Mayor,
You said that you were
“used to seeing inebriated Irish hanging out the
windows during the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.”
I am so Irish on both sides that if you were to scratch my double helix somebody who worked for Caesar would pop up. Nothing less that a Tribune, I’m certain. Maybe an aedile on mother’s side. Hibernia? Winter camp? “Beyond the pale”. Remember?
I have hung out some windows during the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. When I was a member of the Metropolitan Club I liked to watch the help march. When I was younger hanging out the windows on St. Patrick’s Day was preceded by furniture being tossed from same. If you drew the long straw you could get to see how high a TV would bounce. I was never “inebriated”, you putz. I was drunk.
A filthy WOG tries to blow up Times Square and you, well in advance of the arrival of those damn pesky critters, the ones that are called facts, tell the world that it was the work of some schlub who doesn’t like Obamacare.
The one absolutely perpetual “shovel ready” job creating machine, the one that is the Summer of Recovery in addition to being the Fall of Recovery, the Winter of Recovery, and the glorious spring of Recovery, is the abortion business in Harlem. Why no comments on that? Is it possible that you regard it as money well spent? Isn’t that what Margaret Sanger said?
After you find a way to ban tobacco but not the tax money you hypocritically raise from its sale and continued consumption you can move on to salt. The idea of refusing admittance to any transient who has high blood pressure, such pressure being tested before emptying any AMTRAK train, will catch on. I hope you have a George O’Jessell moment. It’s similar to Paul, my favorite reform Rabbi, getting knocked off his horse.
Georgie, a famous New Yorker and Uncle GaGa to his many Irish relatives, used to tell someone who couldn’t find his tuchis using both hands or, in the old days, “a Jew in the Bronx”, someone like you, to “look in the mirror, put your teeth in upside down and backwards, and chew yourself to death”.
Relax.
Other than destroying some Cohibas, and in a bow to diversity and multicultural diversity, some DeNobilis and a hookah, I pose no threat.
However, should I be hanging out a window on 5th Avenue on St. Patrick’s Day and see you, I will, in my finest Irish tenor voice, star yelling “Shylock, where’s my pound of flesh”?
Kevin Smith
PS – What’s this I hear about a stoning pit at the WTC mosque? Will it be a first, that is to say, will it be used for both sexes? The Village People will lead the S&M cheering section and Mt. Sinai hospital will have first crack at the salvageable organs. That’s one way to save on Medicare costs. Obamacare outreach death panels will be needed but that’s what makes this the greatest city in the world, right? I can’t wait for you to march in the Eyetie Parade to honor Columbus. Will your favors include ice picks?
Andres Oppenheimer The Miami Herald
February 13, 2011
Andres Oppenheimer
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: “Aid Cuts Could Be Diplomatic Suicide” – Some comments on why xenophobia is making a much needed come back thanks to your article in today’s Miami Herald.
Snr. Oppenheimer,
You say
“My opinion: While the United States is the world’s
largest donor in dollar terms, it is already one of the
stingiest of the world’s richest countries in terms of
the size of its economy: it gives out only 0.2 per cent
of its gross domestic product in foreign assistance
compared with one percent for Sweden.”
The Miami Herald
Page 7A
Today
You
Lies. Damn lies. Statistics.
I am reminded of the restaurant in Paris with a sign advertising rabbit/horse stew. The waiter said it was 50/50. One horse and one rabbit.
If the United States were to increase its aid to the same percentage that the altruistic Swedes give how much would that be in absolute dollar terms?
If the Swedes were to double their amount, that is to say 1% to 2%, how many kroners would that be?
Could it not be argued that if my right foot is in a bucket of ice and my left foot is in a blazing fire place I would, on balance, be comfortable?
Constructing universals from particulars is akin to fingernails on the blackboard for anyone familiar with Logic and Rhetoric. Since it is empirically self evident that you have no knowledge of either I can continue apace.
You quote Congressman Eliot Engel [D-NY], as prototypical a modern American Liberal who ever preached the virtues and blessings of “Rainbow Stew” in Congress, as saying that cutting foreign aid is “penny wise and pound foolish”.
History, that cruel mistress of the inconvenient truth that facts are hard things, suggests otherwise.
How much money, weigh it or count it, has this country put down the rat hole that is Africa in the last 50 years?
10 Presidents from both parties and what do we have to show for it?
Zimbabwe? How about the at least 5 countries that have slavery? How about the charnel house that the Tutsis and the Hutus killed each other in? They did it such numbers that the UN had to fly in foreign crocodiles, the domestic ones having, for once, been sated. How many “success” stories are there in Africa? Why is it my fault? How can more of my money make poor Africans rich?
I search in vain for a Madison, a Franklin, or a Jefferson. I look for the fine hand of an Edmund Burke or the restraining hand of a George Mason. Instead, I find Idi Amin, Emperor Bokassa, Omar Bongo, Samuel Doe, inter alia. Special note should be made of Robert Mugabe. He turned a breadbasket of Southern Africa into the dark side of the moon in less than 10 years. Now you want me to give him more money?
The inmates are running the asylum. The boobies are now in charge of the hatch.
As an alumnus of the Peace Corps, as one actively involved in the original Alliance for Progress, I ask what has changed in Latin America in the last 50 years.
Other than the continuing problems of breakfast, lunch, and dinner it looks like the Castro Brothers, deo volente, have finally got their prison on the path to prosperity. That’s a joke. Is it not passing strange that on an island, surrounded by water, said water being overflowing with fish, this country is a mendicant on the world stage? When was the last time you saw a fat Cuban? In Havana?
Argentina is almost 200 years old. It is a country blessed by God with resources that makes other countries drool with envy. Their national heroine was a hooker. The only permanent contribution they have made to the Western Canon is the tango. I speak too quickly. They stole that from the Eyeties.
You can’t imagine the shame I feel when you wrote that Hugo Chavez is outspending this country in the reconstruction of Haiti.
Perhaps you can tell me why Haiti makes the Dominican Republic – they are on the same island, remember? – look like Switzerland.
Is it because the United States has not been “fair” to them?
I began my note to you with a horse reference.
I’ll end it in a similar fashion.
Your contributions to reasoned discourse are both Homeric and Herculean.
I hereby name you
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
Kevin Smith
PS – I no longer care what the man in the street – assuming they have streets – in Paraguay or Chad thinks of America. One suggestion we can all get behind, one suggestion that is specifically authorized in our Constitution would be to authorize letters of marque and reprisal and rid the seas of pirates. Shoot most of them. Take the rest of them into what passes for a port in those Hellhole countries that shelter them and hang them from what passes for a yardarm. What better form of foreign aid than that which allows the free flow of commerce?
Andres Oppenheimer
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: “Aid Cuts Could Be Diplomatic Suicide” – Some comments on why xenophobia is making a much needed come back thanks to your article in today’s Miami Herald.
Snr. Oppenheimer,
You say
“My opinion: While the United States is the world’s
largest donor in dollar terms, it is already one of the
stingiest of the world’s richest countries in terms of
the size of its economy: it gives out only 0.2 per cent
of its gross domestic product in foreign assistance
compared with one percent for Sweden.”
The Miami Herald
Page 7A
Today
You
Lies. Damn lies. Statistics.
I am reminded of the restaurant in Paris with a sign advertising rabbit/horse stew. The waiter said it was 50/50. One horse and one rabbit.
If the United States were to increase its aid to the same percentage that the altruistic Swedes give how much would that be in absolute dollar terms?
If the Swedes were to double their amount, that is to say 1% to 2%, how many kroners would that be?
Could it not be argued that if my right foot is in a bucket of ice and my left foot is in a blazing fire place I would, on balance, be comfortable?
Constructing universals from particulars is akin to fingernails on the blackboard for anyone familiar with Logic and Rhetoric. Since it is empirically self evident that you have no knowledge of either I can continue apace.
You quote Congressman Eliot Engel [D-NY], as prototypical a modern American Liberal who ever preached the virtues and blessings of “Rainbow Stew” in Congress, as saying that cutting foreign aid is “penny wise and pound foolish”.
History, that cruel mistress of the inconvenient truth that facts are hard things, suggests otherwise.
How much money, weigh it or count it, has this country put down the rat hole that is Africa in the last 50 years?
10 Presidents from both parties and what do we have to show for it?
Zimbabwe? How about the at least 5 countries that have slavery? How about the charnel house that the Tutsis and the Hutus killed each other in? They did it such numbers that the UN had to fly in foreign crocodiles, the domestic ones having, for once, been sated. How many “success” stories are there in Africa? Why is it my fault? How can more of my money make poor Africans rich?
I search in vain for a Madison, a Franklin, or a Jefferson. I look for the fine hand of an Edmund Burke or the restraining hand of a George Mason. Instead, I find Idi Amin, Emperor Bokassa, Omar Bongo, Samuel Doe, inter alia. Special note should be made of Robert Mugabe. He turned a breadbasket of Southern Africa into the dark side of the moon in less than 10 years. Now you want me to give him more money?
The inmates are running the asylum. The boobies are now in charge of the hatch.
As an alumnus of the Peace Corps, as one actively involved in the original Alliance for Progress, I ask what has changed in Latin America in the last 50 years.
Other than the continuing problems of breakfast, lunch, and dinner it looks like the Castro Brothers, deo volente, have finally got their prison on the path to prosperity. That’s a joke. Is it not passing strange that on an island, surrounded by water, said water being overflowing with fish, this country is a mendicant on the world stage? When was the last time you saw a fat Cuban? In Havana?
Argentina is almost 200 years old. It is a country blessed by God with resources that makes other countries drool with envy. Their national heroine was a hooker. The only permanent contribution they have made to the Western Canon is the tango. I speak too quickly. They stole that from the Eyeties.
You can’t imagine the shame I feel when you wrote that Hugo Chavez is outspending this country in the reconstruction of Haiti.
Perhaps you can tell me why Haiti makes the Dominican Republic – they are on the same island, remember? – look like Switzerland.
Is it because the United States has not been “fair” to them?
I began my note to you with a horse reference.
I’ll end it in a similar fashion.
Your contributions to reasoned discourse are both Homeric and Herculean.
I hereby name you
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
Kevin Smith
PS – I no longer care what the man in the street – assuming they have streets – in Paraguay or Chad thinks of America. One suggestion we can all get behind, one suggestion that is specifically authorized in our Constitution would be to authorize letters of marque and reprisal and rid the seas of pirates. Shoot most of them. Take the rest of them into what passes for a port in those Hellhole countries that shelter them and hang them from what passes for a yardarm. What better form of foreign aid than that which allows the free flow of commerce?
Douglas C. Lyons – Senior Editorial Writer The Sun-Sentinel
February 12, 2011
Douglas C. Lyons – Senior Editorial Writer
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
RE: Why are you chastising Governor Scott for trying to keep his campaign promises? Some comments on your column in today’s Sun-Sentinel
Mr. Lyons,
I remember when Senator Obama met the American Everyman, Joe the Plumber. He told Joe that his basic economic plan was to “spread the wealth around”. Giving the Devil his due that appears to be what he is trying to do. The only caveat here is that if all his “balloon juice” schemes are done there may not be any wealth left to spread around. As sure as “stones are hard and water is wet” you can’t make poor people rich by making rich people poor. Of course, as the great Dr. Johnson says, “Any public policy that involves robbing Peter to pay Paul will always have Paul’s support”
Speaking of campaign promises, I remember Candidate Obama saying that his election would calm the savage seas. Page 15A of your paper says that despite his siren call the oceans are not dancing to his tune. Pity. After making the tides behave I wanted him to get to work on gravity. Still, one out of two is pretty good unless you’re an airplane pilot.
I recall with warm and fuzzy feelings when Lord Barack the Beneficent told some Congressmen who dared to question his policies that there was an election and, further, that he “won”.
This was before he threatened to find some poor schlub from BP and “kick his ass”. It was after he told his more zealous fans “never bring a knife to a gun fight”. I really shouldn’t pick on him. He’s probably very tired what with his never ending quest to find those missing 7, or was it 8, states. Doubtless, one of them has that elusive dictionary, the Austrian/English one.
The people of Florida went to the polls last November and elected Rick Scott Governor.
He made promises before he was elected. He appears to be trying to keep them.
Education, for instance.
Every year I hear how bad the schools are. I never hear how bad the teachers are. I never hear how bad the administrators are. How the schools can be “bad” without the teachers and the administrators escaping collateral damage is one of those questions that assumes the laws governing gravity are only enforceable during leap years.
Every year I hear that the answer is more money. Every year they get more money. Every year they get worse.
Does anyone else see a pattern developing here?
If it ain’t broken don’t fix it. If it’s broken, and by every objective standard it is, try to fix it.
Every 2 years the voters get to correct their mistakes. Last November the voters of America began to correct the humongous, ginormous mistake made in 2008.
If the voters of Florida begin to elect more Democrats to the state legislature, if the voters of Florida turn Governor Scott out of office, perhaps the modern American Liberal karma of “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” will be restored. Until that happens your role as a “concerned columnist” will be that of a carping caterwauler.
Sincerely,
Kevin Smith – A “concerned citizen”
Douglas C. Lyons – Senior Editorial Writer
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
RE: Why are you chastising Governor Scott for trying to keep his campaign promises? Some comments on your column in today’s Sun-Sentinel
Mr. Lyons,
I remember when Senator Obama met the American Everyman, Joe the Plumber. He told Joe that his basic economic plan was to “spread the wealth around”. Giving the Devil his due that appears to be what he is trying to do. The only caveat here is that if all his “balloon juice” schemes are done there may not be any wealth left to spread around. As sure as “stones are hard and water is wet” you can’t make poor people rich by making rich people poor. Of course, as the great Dr. Johnson says, “Any public policy that involves robbing Peter to pay Paul will always have Paul’s support”
Speaking of campaign promises, I remember Candidate Obama saying that his election would calm the savage seas. Page 15A of your paper says that despite his siren call the oceans are not dancing to his tune. Pity. After making the tides behave I wanted him to get to work on gravity. Still, one out of two is pretty good unless you’re an airplane pilot.
I recall with warm and fuzzy feelings when Lord Barack the Beneficent told some Congressmen who dared to question his policies that there was an election and, further, that he “won”.
This was before he threatened to find some poor schlub from BP and “kick his ass”. It was after he told his more zealous fans “never bring a knife to a gun fight”. I really shouldn’t pick on him. He’s probably very tired what with his never ending quest to find those missing 7, or was it 8, states. Doubtless, one of them has that elusive dictionary, the Austrian/English one.
The people of Florida went to the polls last November and elected Rick Scott Governor.
He made promises before he was elected. He appears to be trying to keep them.
Education, for instance.
Every year I hear how bad the schools are. I never hear how bad the teachers are. I never hear how bad the administrators are. How the schools can be “bad” without the teachers and the administrators escaping collateral damage is one of those questions that assumes the laws governing gravity are only enforceable during leap years.
Every year I hear that the answer is more money. Every year they get more money. Every year they get worse.
Does anyone else see a pattern developing here?
If it ain’t broken don’t fix it. If it’s broken, and by every objective standard it is, try to fix it.
Every 2 years the voters get to correct their mistakes. Last November the voters of America began to correct the humongous, ginormous mistake made in 2008.
If the voters of Florida begin to elect more Democrats to the state legislature, if the voters of Florida turn Governor Scott out of office, perhaps the modern American Liberal karma of “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” will be restored. Until that happens your role as a “concerned columnist” will be that of a carping caterwauler.
Sincerely,
Kevin Smith – A “concerned citizen”
Christine Dolen The Miami Herald
February 12, 2011
Christine Dolen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: “The Laramie Project” – Your review this day and the questions never asked.
Ms. Dolen,
“Though the impulse behind revisiting
‘The Laramie Project’ and following
performances with talkback sessions is
admirable the result in this case is not.
The memory of Matthew Shepherd and
the audiences deserve much better.”
The Miami Herald
Today
You
[Italics yours]
Matthew Shepherd was a 19 year old homosexual who went to bar frequented by homosexuals. He was picked up by 2 barbaric non-homosexuals. He was beaten in a most savage manner and left to die hanging on a barbed wire fence.
Jesse Dirkhising was a 12 year old boy who was kidnapped by 2 feral homosexuals. Over 2 days he was repeatedly raped and sodomized with objects both organic and inorganic. He died by strangulation. The method chosen was gasoline soaked rag that was shoved down his throat.
Why one was deemed worthy of being compared to the Oedipus trilogy while the other is still waiting to be written is a both a testament and a condemnation to and of modern culture. Alas. but “Trousered Apes” now rule.
Your review concentrates completely on the production rather than on the play.
No would remember “My American Cousin” save for the fact that it was the play that Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated.
Is it possible to say the “The Laramie Project” is a bad play without having the dreaded Word Police asking you, while the chorus throws flaming bags of cat scat at you, “Are you now or have you ever been a homophobe”?
Into the Gehenna of Kumbaya plays let me include “Corpus Cristi”, “The Vagina Monologues”, and “Angels in America”.
It is bad enough that they are “bad” plays but they are oft times government funded “bad” plays. Let me rephrase that. They are taxpayer funded “bad” plays. Let me clarify that. The cry of “No Taxation without Representation” would apply to these “bad” plays with but a simple adjustment.
The fact is that no one has yet topped the Greeks when it comes to theatrical production of murder[s] most foul. I must add that the last scenes of “King Lear” and “Hamlet” are up and coming contenders.
If, as you say, the “talkback session” after the play ends is something to be admired how about a Q & A talback session on Antigone? What does one say about Goneril and Regan?
And why does no one mourn Jesse Dirkhising?
Kevin Smith
Christine Dolen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: “The Laramie Project” – Your review this day and the questions never asked.
Ms. Dolen,
“Though the impulse behind revisiting
‘The Laramie Project’ and following
performances with talkback sessions is
admirable the result in this case is not.
The memory of Matthew Shepherd and
the audiences deserve much better.”
The Miami Herald
Today
You
[Italics yours]
Matthew Shepherd was a 19 year old homosexual who went to bar frequented by homosexuals. He was picked up by 2 barbaric non-homosexuals. He was beaten in a most savage manner and left to die hanging on a barbed wire fence.
Jesse Dirkhising was a 12 year old boy who was kidnapped by 2 feral homosexuals. Over 2 days he was repeatedly raped and sodomized with objects both organic and inorganic. He died by strangulation. The method chosen was gasoline soaked rag that was shoved down his throat.
Why one was deemed worthy of being compared to the Oedipus trilogy while the other is still waiting to be written is a both a testament and a condemnation to and of modern culture. Alas. but “Trousered Apes” now rule.
Your review concentrates completely on the production rather than on the play.
No would remember “My American Cousin” save for the fact that it was the play that Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated.
Is it possible to say the “The Laramie Project” is a bad play without having the dreaded Word Police asking you, while the chorus throws flaming bags of cat scat at you, “Are you now or have you ever been a homophobe”?
Into the Gehenna of Kumbaya plays let me include “Corpus Cristi”, “The Vagina Monologues”, and “Angels in America”.
It is bad enough that they are “bad” plays but they are oft times government funded “bad” plays. Let me rephrase that. They are taxpayer funded “bad” plays. Let me clarify that. The cry of “No Taxation without Representation” would apply to these “bad” plays with but a simple adjustment.
The fact is that no one has yet topped the Greeks when it comes to theatrical production of murder[s] most foul. I must add that the last scenes of “King Lear” and “Hamlet” are up and coming contenders.
If, as you say, the “talkback session” after the play ends is something to be admired how about a Q & A talback session on Antigone? What does one say about Goneril and Regan?
And why does no one mourn Jesse Dirkhising?
Kevin Smith
Steven L. Goldstein The Sun-Sentinel
February 11, 2011
Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd
Ft. Lauderdale FL 33301
RE: Here comes the Judge – Some comments on your column about the inequities of elections, particularly when “they”, those serpents, elect people who vote for “activist right-wing judges”. If only “they” would listen to Guru Goldstein.
My dear Professor,
“For 20 years, they [the Democrats] have let Republicans
pack the federal courts at all levels with
activist right-wing fanatics.”
The Sun-Sentinel
Today
You
One of the blessings of being a card carrying modern American Liberal, yea, verily a fire breathing volcano of Jeremiads, a condition that permits, indeed encourages the cognitive dissonance required to juggle flexible facts, the result of which always makes truth a casualty, is that you can say the above flapdoodle claptrap hoping and believing that there is no one in your audience who “remembers”.
It is 2011. 20 years ago was 1991.
How many “activist right-wing fanatics” did Bib Bill Clinton “pack” the federal courts with?
“Fairness”, one of those mAL objectives that is best compared to the horizon [no matter how fast you run you will never get there], demands that I tell you that I led a demonstration in 1999 in front of the White House. Wearing my “Vast Right-Wing Conspirator” cap, holding my newly born granddaughter in one arm, I shook my fist and shouted “Come out with your hands up, you son of a bitch, we have the place surrounded”.
Perhaps one of us was kidnapped and held hostage the past two years by the Florida branch of the Somali Pirates. How many “right-wing fanatics” has Lord Barack the Beneficent nominated to any federal court?
Are you telling me that Justice Sotomayor, a self described “wise Latina”, is a “right-wing fanatic”? Are you telling me that she and Justice Kagan worship at the shrine of Darth Cheney or, worse, his evil twin Vlad Cheney?
Do these ladies carry bazookas in their fanny packs? Are they underground members of the Federalist Society? Do they have a secret dance routine in honor of the right to bear arms? Do they have the Rule of Law tattooed where the sun never reaches?
Your call to block judicial appointments through filibuster is yet more proof of the lunacy of the thought processes demanded of mush brained mALs. This President will nominate Judge Roy Bean or Judge Dredd before he nominates a “right-wing fanatic”.
Speaking of filibusters, we have a pop quiz.
What 3 things did Senator Byrd and Justice Black have in common?
#1- They were both champions of the filibuster.
#2 – They were both members of the KuKluxKlan.
#3 – They were both Democrats.
I am positive that Justice Breyer, AKA “right-wing fanatic”, will be overjoyed when he learns that you have “outed” him a staunch supporter of the 9th and 10th Amendments. How did Big Bill slip him past Hillary, the head Hecate?
It is always an inconvenient truth but facts are hard, stubborn things. Permit me to call the roll of “activist right-wing judges”, people who because their asses are wrapped in black, people who have a gavel large enough to command the leaves to stay on the trees, who were Republican nominees.
Chief Justice Warren, Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, Justice Stevens, Justice O’Conner, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Souter.
It is easy to camouflage those nasty “activist right-wing judges”.
Did I miss anyone?
Have someone check your meds. The “white rabbits” are winning.
Kevin Smith
Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd
Ft. Lauderdale FL 33301
RE: Here comes the Judge – Some comments on your column about the inequities of elections, particularly when “they”, those serpents, elect people who vote for “activist right-wing judges”. If only “they” would listen to Guru Goldstein.
My dear Professor,
“For 20 years, they [the Democrats] have let Republicans
pack the federal courts at all levels with
activist right-wing fanatics.”
The Sun-Sentinel
Today
You
One of the blessings of being a card carrying modern American Liberal, yea, verily a fire breathing volcano of Jeremiads, a condition that permits, indeed encourages the cognitive dissonance required to juggle flexible facts, the result of which always makes truth a casualty, is that you can say the above flapdoodle claptrap hoping and believing that there is no one in your audience who “remembers”.
It is 2011. 20 years ago was 1991.
How many “activist right-wing fanatics” did Bib Bill Clinton “pack” the federal courts with?
“Fairness”, one of those mAL objectives that is best compared to the horizon [no matter how fast you run you will never get there], demands that I tell you that I led a demonstration in 1999 in front of the White House. Wearing my “Vast Right-Wing Conspirator” cap, holding my newly born granddaughter in one arm, I shook my fist and shouted “Come out with your hands up, you son of a bitch, we have the place surrounded”.
Perhaps one of us was kidnapped and held hostage the past two years by the Florida branch of the Somali Pirates. How many “right-wing fanatics” has Lord Barack the Beneficent nominated to any federal court?
Are you telling me that Justice Sotomayor, a self described “wise Latina”, is a “right-wing fanatic”? Are you telling me that she and Justice Kagan worship at the shrine of Darth Cheney or, worse, his evil twin Vlad Cheney?
Do these ladies carry bazookas in their fanny packs? Are they underground members of the Federalist Society? Do they have a secret dance routine in honor of the right to bear arms? Do they have the Rule of Law tattooed where the sun never reaches?
Your call to block judicial appointments through filibuster is yet more proof of the lunacy of the thought processes demanded of mush brained mALs. This President will nominate Judge Roy Bean or Judge Dredd before he nominates a “right-wing fanatic”.
Speaking of filibusters, we have a pop quiz.
What 3 things did Senator Byrd and Justice Black have in common?
#1- They were both champions of the filibuster.
#2 – They were both members of the KuKluxKlan.
#3 – They were both Democrats.
I am positive that Justice Breyer, AKA “right-wing fanatic”, will be overjoyed when he learns that you have “outed” him a staunch supporter of the 9th and 10th Amendments. How did Big Bill slip him past Hillary, the head Hecate?
It is always an inconvenient truth but facts are hard, stubborn things. Permit me to call the roll of “activist right-wing judges”, people who because their asses are wrapped in black, people who have a gavel large enough to command the leaves to stay on the trees, who were Republican nominees.
Chief Justice Warren, Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, Justice Stevens, Justice O’Conner, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Souter.
It is easy to camouflage those nasty “activist right-wing judges”.
Did I miss anyone?
Have someone check your meds. The “white rabbits” are winning.
Kevin Smith
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The Honorable Akramul Qadar
February 5, 2011
The Honorable Akramul Qadar
Embassy of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh
3510 International Drive, NW
Washington, DC 20008
RE: Is justice delayed justice denied? God willing.
Mr. Ambassador,
If the news accounts are correct, a 40 year old male raped his 14 year old female cousin in your country. For this crime she – repeat – she was sentenced to 100 lashes, absolutely “well laid on”. After the 80th lash she went into a coma. Despite being attended to by the world famous cat-n-nine tail EMT squad she died.
The opening scene of the 1936 version of “Mutiny on the Bounty” shows an unlucky Jack Tar being “flogged through the fleet”. When he gets to the Bounty he is dead. Captain Bligh orders that the flogging be continued, there being nothing in the orders saying to stop because he is dead.
Many people in my country are confused by the differences between the Sunni and the Shia. Many people in my country are bewildered by fatwas. Many people in my country think it passing strange for someone to shout “Allah Akbar” before blowing himself up and killing as many others as he can to advance his religion. Many people in my country are amazed when cartoons cause people to be filleted like fish. Many people in my country wonder why your religious army had raped and pillaged its way halfway across Europe less than 100 years after Mohammed died. Many people in my country wonder if Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven would have been allowed to write their music had the Islamist thugs prevailed at Vienna in 1685. Many people in my country wonder why your religion has been sterile for 1000 years. Many people in my country want to know why, in this day and age, your religion countenances slavery.
I humbly suggest that you do not have the dead 14 year old girl disinterred to complete her punishment. Since she is going to be dead for a very long time does she really need 20 more lashes?
I would say that not whipping her post mortem would be a sign of Christian charity but that might be taken as sign of incivility. Mecca delenda est!
Kevin Smith
The Honorable Akramul Qadar
Embassy of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh
3510 International Drive, NW
Washington, DC 20008
RE: Is justice delayed justice denied? God willing.
Mr. Ambassador,
If the news accounts are correct, a 40 year old male raped his 14 year old female cousin in your country. For this crime she – repeat – she was sentenced to 100 lashes, absolutely “well laid on”. After the 80th lash she went into a coma. Despite being attended to by the world famous cat-n-nine tail EMT squad she died.
The opening scene of the 1936 version of “Mutiny on the Bounty” shows an unlucky Jack Tar being “flogged through the fleet”. When he gets to the Bounty he is dead. Captain Bligh orders that the flogging be continued, there being nothing in the orders saying to stop because he is dead.
Many people in my country are confused by the differences between the Sunni and the Shia. Many people in my country are bewildered by fatwas. Many people in my country think it passing strange for someone to shout “Allah Akbar” before blowing himself up and killing as many others as he can to advance his religion. Many people in my country are amazed when cartoons cause people to be filleted like fish. Many people in my country wonder why your religious army had raped and pillaged its way halfway across Europe less than 100 years after Mohammed died. Many people in my country wonder if Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven would have been allowed to write their music had the Islamist thugs prevailed at Vienna in 1685. Many people in my country wonder why your religion has been sterile for 1000 years. Many people in my country want to know why, in this day and age, your religion countenances slavery.
I humbly suggest that you do not have the dead 14 year old girl disinterred to complete her punishment. Since she is going to be dead for a very long time does she really need 20 more lashes?
I would say that not whipping her post mortem would be a sign of Christian charity but that might be taken as sign of incivility. Mecca delenda est!
Kevin Smith
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Senator Nan Rich
February 3, 2011
Senator Nan Rich
777 Sawgrass Corporate Parkway
Sunrise, FL 33325-6256
RE: Promises, Politics, and Pensions – Some comments on your astonishing statement on the parameters of public policy as recorded in the Sun-Sentinel
Senator Rich,
“I understand that we need to do some reform, but a pension is a promise,”
said Senate minority leader Nan Rich. “Maybe the pension wasn’t well thought
out along the way, but it is a promise to people who have worked long and
hard and who have not gotten raises on a regular basis from the state.”
So seldom does as true-blue, card-carrying modern American Liberal pol, particularly one from Broward County, slip up and speak the truth that I was taken aback. I was actually plussed.
I can dispose of the “promise” part post-haste.
A lot of little old ladies, many of whom are widows who are single moms, believed the “promises” made by General Motors and Chrysler. Many of them took their widows’ mite and lent money to those two companies. In return, the companies”promised” to pay them interest on the principal. Further, the companies “promised” to pay them back all the money lent to them. They wrote this down in the form of an instrument of indenture commonly known as a bond.
Lord Barack the Beneficent and Blessed be His name said, “Even though I am a constitutional scholar and the statute [Article 1, Section 10] and the case law [Fletcher v Peck, Dartmouth v Woodward, inter alia] are well known to me I have decided that these contracts are only binding at parties. Not all parties but, rather, only at those parties that I decide to be “good” parties. Thus, the “promise” made by Florida to its workers is hereby rendered null and void. If you don’t like it…too bad. If you complain I’ll send my Brown Shirts – this year the thugs wear purple supplied to them by the fun loving SEIU – to explain the new paradigmatic template to you.”
The first time the government, any government, acquiesces in breaking a”promise” makes breaking the next one easier.
I am reminded of the scene in “A Man for all Seasons” where Thomas More says, “And after you have cut down all the laws to get at the Devil, and he turns on you, were would you hide, the laws all being flat?” Alas, although it was timeless it is not timely.
It is a characteristic common to all modern American Liberals that the Constitution is looked on as big Chinese menu. Pick this one but not that one. Ignore the broccoli and feast on the Crème Brule. After all, it is a living, breathing document, isn’t it? Besides, the people who wrote it were all White males, weren’t they?
As to absence of raises after working “long and hard” there are several solutions.
Lenin, the noted European community activist, said “People vote with their feet”. If the workers feel that they are overworked and underpaid they can, and here’s a new idea, quit. Slavery and indentured servants have long been outlawed in this country. Although Czars and their attendant ukases are becoming popular serfdom never took hold here.
Move on. Start a business. Help Haiti. Fight teenage obesity. Try to improve your condition. Try to teach les merdes de Quebec some manners. One of my favorite Texas saloon songs is “There’s a $5 Fine for Whining”. Cast off your chains!
As to working “hard” I think it is fundamentally unfair that I will not be playing Sunday’s Super Bowl. I can play as “hard” as any of them. Just because I can’t play as well should be no impediment to my suiting up. That’s “fair”, isn’t it? As victim of life’s circumstances I think some provision should be made for old, slow White guys.
On the other hand, a place where you usually find the other glove, a lot of football players say they would play for free. Do you know anybody in the Affirmative Action Outreach Program or the much maligned, under appreciated Department of Motor Vehicles who would work for free?
Neither do I.
Kevin Smith
Senator Nan Rich
777 Sawgrass Corporate Parkway
Sunrise, FL 33325-6256
RE: Promises, Politics, and Pensions – Some comments on your astonishing statement on the parameters of public policy as recorded in the Sun-Sentinel
Senator Rich,
“I understand that we need to do some reform, but a pension is a promise,”
said Senate minority leader Nan Rich. “Maybe the pension wasn’t well thought
out along the way, but it is a promise to people who have worked long and
hard and who have not gotten raises on a regular basis from the state.”
So seldom does as true-blue, card-carrying modern American Liberal pol, particularly one from Broward County, slip up and speak the truth that I was taken aback. I was actually plussed.
I can dispose of the “promise” part post-haste.
A lot of little old ladies, many of whom are widows who are single moms, believed the “promises” made by General Motors and Chrysler. Many of them took their widows’ mite and lent money to those two companies. In return, the companies”promised” to pay them interest on the principal. Further, the companies “promised” to pay them back all the money lent to them. They wrote this down in the form of an instrument of indenture commonly known as a bond.
Lord Barack the Beneficent and Blessed be His name said, “Even though I am a constitutional scholar and the statute [Article 1, Section 10] and the case law [Fletcher v Peck, Dartmouth v Woodward, inter alia] are well known to me I have decided that these contracts are only binding at parties. Not all parties but, rather, only at those parties that I decide to be “good” parties. Thus, the “promise” made by Florida to its workers is hereby rendered null and void. If you don’t like it…too bad. If you complain I’ll send my Brown Shirts – this year the thugs wear purple supplied to them by the fun loving SEIU – to explain the new paradigmatic template to you.”
The first time the government, any government, acquiesces in breaking a”promise” makes breaking the next one easier.
I am reminded of the scene in “A Man for all Seasons” where Thomas More says, “And after you have cut down all the laws to get at the Devil, and he turns on you, were would you hide, the laws all being flat?” Alas, although it was timeless it is not timely.
It is a characteristic common to all modern American Liberals that the Constitution is looked on as big Chinese menu. Pick this one but not that one. Ignore the broccoli and feast on the Crème Brule. After all, it is a living, breathing document, isn’t it? Besides, the people who wrote it were all White males, weren’t they?
As to absence of raises after working “long and hard” there are several solutions.
Lenin, the noted European community activist, said “People vote with their feet”. If the workers feel that they are overworked and underpaid they can, and here’s a new idea, quit. Slavery and indentured servants have long been outlawed in this country. Although Czars and their attendant ukases are becoming popular serfdom never took hold here.
Move on. Start a business. Help Haiti. Fight teenage obesity. Try to improve your condition. Try to teach les merdes de Quebec some manners. One of my favorite Texas saloon songs is “There’s a $5 Fine for Whining”. Cast off your chains!
As to working “hard” I think it is fundamentally unfair that I will not be playing Sunday’s Super Bowl. I can play as “hard” as any of them. Just because I can’t play as well should be no impediment to my suiting up. That’s “fair”, isn’t it? As victim of life’s circumstances I think some provision should be made for old, slow White guys.
On the other hand, a place where you usually find the other glove, a lot of football players say they would play for free. Do you know anybody in the Affirmative Action Outreach Program or the much maligned, under appreciated Department of Motor Vehicles who would work for free?
Neither do I.
Kevin Smith
Joy-Ann Reid The Miami Herald
February 3, 2011
Joy-Ann Reid
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: “Experiments in Democracy” – What the world looks like when your telescope is perched on Pluto
Ms. Reid,
I looooove movie lines. Don’t you?
I put up 2 pictures of you in my man cave. That way I can stand in the middle and say “Morons! I’m surrounded by morons!”
My wife made me take them down. She said they were scaring the cat.
First, a style point.
The New Yorker used to send up a warning flare whenever they saw one dripping with wretched excess.
BLOCK THAT METAPHOR!
“Vouchers, apparently, are the feathers in the pillow of Democracy.”
The Miami Herald
Today
You
If we parse that a bit some problems appear.
If the feathers are from geese or ducks then we have a PETA problem. I am sure you’re aware that most down feathers come from China. How is that “experiment in democracy” working out? It was passing strange that Lord Barack, the Nobel Peace Prize winner from 2 years ago hosted Uncle Wong, his Chinese banker, at a big White House dinner. Meanwhile last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner is locked up in China. The rumor that he is being forced to eat Jewish food can’t be confirmed.
If the feathers are polyester the carbon footprint problem is Herculean. Petro chemicals, fossil fuels, pollution in the Gulf, green house gases, drowning polar bears. How easy is it to connect the dots?
There are no easy answers for modern American Liberals. Try substituting a cinder block for a pillow. Your neck will hurt but you’ll feel really good about yourself. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it.
My suggestion is that you keep a large blue marker handy. Surely someone at the Herald remembers grammar and composition. Find him. Give him carte-blanche.
You congratulate Egypt “on their pending democracy”. I saw a man on a camel shouting Hi Ho Silver while he whipped the peasants. The main whipper looked like Omar Sharif, coincidentally, an Egyptian. Could T.E. Lawrence, one the 20th century’s great whippees, be far behind?
Speaking of “democracy” will Egypt use the hugely successful paradigmatic template created by Zimbabwe? It may be time to bring back the wonders worked by Idi Amin in Uganda. I can see a reprise of the Tutsi-Hutu dustup as a reality show shot by the Aswan Dam. It would be a marvelous tourist attraction.
You mention slavery and the failure of the Founding Fathers to end it in 1787. By 1865 there were graves holding the remains of more than 600,000 Americans. Thus was the Dred Scott decision overturned.
Speaking of slavery, would think me a cad or a bounder if I were to point out that at least 5 African countries – Nigeria, Sudan, Mali, Chad, and Mauretania – acquiesce in allowing slavery to flourish in their countries. Would it be impolitic of me to ask how did all those people get from the middle of Africa to the coast? Is it possible that Whites weren’t the only ones to profit from this “peculiar institution”?
As far as I can tell the only White people in those countries are the bag men from the UN bringing sacks of swag to the Big Boss Man du jour.
Your column has so many gems I will have to place a daily limit on myself.
You say that the “American right wing…favors the election of Egypt’s right wing”. Does that mean that Egypt’s left wing only allows fingers to be amputated rather than hands? How about flogging women who are “too quick to blush”? Does the left wing favor sensitivity training for Fatimas who step out on cuckolded Farouks, the alternative being stoning?
You say that the irenic Egyptians “achieved regime change without being invaded by the United States or Great Britain”.
It’s not that you are wrong. As the great Reagan used to say, “There is just so much that you don’t know”
Clio, the guardian of History, can be a cruel mistress. It may be an inconvenient truth but if you had to be “invaded” your best hope would be to have Great Britain do it. Those “invaded” countries – America, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa – are success stories without equal in the world.
It is owed to the ledger that we include Germany and Japan as countries that were “invaded” by the United States and Great Britain. Are you saying that we shouldn’t have done so?
On the question of democracy, however it is defined, shall we list the democracies in Africa? How many countries have had one man, one vote, one time? When was the last time Qadafi stood for election? How about Omar Bongo? Why should Egypt be different? Absent the collective memory of the agora, of the Roman Senate, of Runnymede, of 1688, of 1776 and 1787, of the Rule of Law, of the peaceful transfer of power after an election, of the unfettered transfer of property guaranteed by the government, of the codification of Natural Law, “gifts from beyond the stars” that are ours at birth and are not given to us by any government, in a written document why should Egypt be different?
Speaking of Egypt, do you know where and how WOG came about?
Meanwhile, after I finish my morning reading of the Federalist Papers, I must clean my BAR.
You can’t be too prepared for the upcoming voucher campaign.
Kevin Smith
Joy-Ann Reid
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: “Experiments in Democracy” – What the world looks like when your telescope is perched on Pluto
Ms. Reid,
I looooove movie lines. Don’t you?
I put up 2 pictures of you in my man cave. That way I can stand in the middle and say “Morons! I’m surrounded by morons!”
My wife made me take them down. She said they were scaring the cat.
First, a style point.
The New Yorker used to send up a warning flare whenever they saw one dripping with wretched excess.
BLOCK THAT METAPHOR!
“Vouchers, apparently, are the feathers in the pillow of Democracy.”
The Miami Herald
Today
You
If we parse that a bit some problems appear.
If the feathers are from geese or ducks then we have a PETA problem. I am sure you’re aware that most down feathers come from China. How is that “experiment in democracy” working out? It was passing strange that Lord Barack, the Nobel Peace Prize winner from 2 years ago hosted Uncle Wong, his Chinese banker, at a big White House dinner. Meanwhile last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner is locked up in China. The rumor that he is being forced to eat Jewish food can’t be confirmed.
If the feathers are polyester the carbon footprint problem is Herculean. Petro chemicals, fossil fuels, pollution in the Gulf, green house gases, drowning polar bears. How easy is it to connect the dots?
There are no easy answers for modern American Liberals. Try substituting a cinder block for a pillow. Your neck will hurt but you’ll feel really good about yourself. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it.
My suggestion is that you keep a large blue marker handy. Surely someone at the Herald remembers grammar and composition. Find him. Give him carte-blanche.
You congratulate Egypt “on their pending democracy”. I saw a man on a camel shouting Hi Ho Silver while he whipped the peasants. The main whipper looked like Omar Sharif, coincidentally, an Egyptian. Could T.E. Lawrence, one the 20th century’s great whippees, be far behind?
Speaking of “democracy” will Egypt use the hugely successful paradigmatic template created by Zimbabwe? It may be time to bring back the wonders worked by Idi Amin in Uganda. I can see a reprise of the Tutsi-Hutu dustup as a reality show shot by the Aswan Dam. It would be a marvelous tourist attraction.
You mention slavery and the failure of the Founding Fathers to end it in 1787. By 1865 there were graves holding the remains of more than 600,000 Americans. Thus was the Dred Scott decision overturned.
Speaking of slavery, would think me a cad or a bounder if I were to point out that at least 5 African countries – Nigeria, Sudan, Mali, Chad, and Mauretania – acquiesce in allowing slavery to flourish in their countries. Would it be impolitic of me to ask how did all those people get from the middle of Africa to the coast? Is it possible that Whites weren’t the only ones to profit from this “peculiar institution”?
As far as I can tell the only White people in those countries are the bag men from the UN bringing sacks of swag to the Big Boss Man du jour.
Your column has so many gems I will have to place a daily limit on myself.
You say that the “American right wing…favors the election of Egypt’s right wing”. Does that mean that Egypt’s left wing only allows fingers to be amputated rather than hands? How about flogging women who are “too quick to blush”? Does the left wing favor sensitivity training for Fatimas who step out on cuckolded Farouks, the alternative being stoning?
You say that the irenic Egyptians “achieved regime change without being invaded by the United States or Great Britain”.
It’s not that you are wrong. As the great Reagan used to say, “There is just so much that you don’t know”
Clio, the guardian of History, can be a cruel mistress. It may be an inconvenient truth but if you had to be “invaded” your best hope would be to have Great Britain do it. Those “invaded” countries – America, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa – are success stories without equal in the world.
It is owed to the ledger that we include Germany and Japan as countries that were “invaded” by the United States and Great Britain. Are you saying that we shouldn’t have done so?
On the question of democracy, however it is defined, shall we list the democracies in Africa? How many countries have had one man, one vote, one time? When was the last time Qadafi stood for election? How about Omar Bongo? Why should Egypt be different? Absent the collective memory of the agora, of the Roman Senate, of Runnymede, of 1688, of 1776 and 1787, of the Rule of Law, of the peaceful transfer of power after an election, of the unfettered transfer of property guaranteed by the government, of the codification of Natural Law, “gifts from beyond the stars” that are ours at birth and are not given to us by any government, in a written document why should Egypt be different?
Speaking of Egypt, do you know where and how WOG came about?
Meanwhile, after I finish my morning reading of the Federalist Papers, I must clean my BAR.
You can’t be too prepared for the upcoming voucher campaign.
Kevin Smith
Leonard Pitts, Jr. The Miami Herald
February 2, 2011
Leonard Pitts, Jr.
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: “Losing the Intelligence Race” – Your column in today’s Miami Herald about how “Trousered Apes” seem to be ascendant and why it is my duty to point out – how to say it gracefully? – some fallacies in your presentation.
Mr. Pitts,
Do you remember when the sun revolved around the earth?
Do you remember when tomatoes were thought to be poisonous?
Do you remember when the edge of maps said “Terra Incognita”?
Do you remember all the journalistic brouhaha about Global Cooling? [Actually there were two of them. The first was in the early 1920s. The big one, the one perpetuated by that fraud Paul Ehrlich was in 1970. He was/is/shall be to science what Bernie Madoff was to investing. You’ll doubtless be surprised to know that, both times, The New York Times was the most prominent drum beater for the “we will all freeze to death school” of reasoned discourse]
Experts agree that when a scientific claim begins with “Experts agree” it would be prudent to bet the other side.
My father was born before man flew. He lived to see men walking on the moon, picking up some souvenirs, and flying home. That didn’t come about because everyone agreed on everything. It came about because many men didn’t agree. It came about because someone said “What if” or “I don’t believe that” or “I’ll try this” or, best of all, “What do you mean I can’t do that?”
Incidentally, I know why Oedipus went to Colonus. I know the difference between Chiaroscuro and Caravaggio. I know what Hamlet meant when he told Ophelia to “get thee to a nunnery”. I know a lot about the 5 Emperors. I am conversant with the Burke/Fox debates, the Webster/Calhoun debates, and the Lincoln/Douglas debates. I still read the works written by people who had Pound as an editor. Although I have never seen “The Jersey Shore” I looove the Jersey Shore. If you live north of the Raritan River you don’t go “to the Jersey Shore”. You go “down the Jersey Shore”.
Don’t you think that “The Jersey Shore” with its Guidos and Guidettes is the poor White trash equivalent of feral urban Black youths screaming incomprehensible lyrics about “hos” and “pigs”?
And I know of no other theory, said theory being more than 150 years old that is treated as it came fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. Of course, I speak of evolution. I have a particular animus against evolution as posited by the followers of Darwin. I would prefer to be descended from bears as opposed to apes.
The facts, at least the ones that I believe in and until proved otherwise, would support that interpretation. Wasn’t that last sentence a pistol? For last 12 years the “Don’t vaccinate your children because they’ll get Autism” school of Lud/Lysenko used it.
As to the teaching of “creationism” – wink, wink – I am reminded of the eminently qualified scholar who couldn’t get a teaching job. After two futile years he finally gets an interview. When asked his opinion on whether the world is round or flat he says he is open minded on the question but is prepared to teach it either way.
The New York State Regents 11th year American History exam in 1989 was partially predicated on a newly discovered “fact”. Claims were made that the 5 Nations influenced the writing of the American Constitution. I did some pre-Google investigation. I could find no evidence of any meeting of Madison, Magua, and Mason. Since the Mohawk culture is light on the written word I know that there was no communication. Further, there is no contemporaneous record of any rain dances. I mention that because it was a brutally hot and humid summer in Philadelphia in 1787. In a quest for a surcease of that century’s Global Warming moment – Wait a minute! There were no internal combustion engines. There could be no carbon footprints. The only carbon dioxide was from photosynthesis and respiration. Where the Hell did that come from? - delegates would have gladly invoked any handy deity. Had I been an exam taker then I would have said that the document was dedicated to Manitou. Further, my essay would tell of vengeful White men excising the part specifically permitting scalping.
My original Sputnik moment was when – Surprise! – Sputnik was launched. It took about 3 days, Sputnik being launched on a Friday, for the chorus of Jeremiads to begin bewailing the lack of math skills, the lack of engineering skills, the lack of chemical skills, and the lack of a national purpose to overcome same. 12 years later, before the onset of micro-processors, before the age of calculators not requiring wheels to move them let alone personal computers, this country bitch slapped gravity, went to the moon, walked around, picked up some tsatchkes, and came home.
If there are bad biology teachers fire them.
Don’t blame Snookie and Nunzio.
Kevin Smith
Leonard Pitts, Jr.
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693
RE: “Losing the Intelligence Race” – Your column in today’s Miami Herald about how “Trousered Apes” seem to be ascendant and why it is my duty to point out – how to say it gracefully? – some fallacies in your presentation.
Mr. Pitts,
Do you remember when the sun revolved around the earth?
Do you remember when tomatoes were thought to be poisonous?
Do you remember when the edge of maps said “Terra Incognita”?
Do you remember all the journalistic brouhaha about Global Cooling? [Actually there were two of them. The first was in the early 1920s. The big one, the one perpetuated by that fraud Paul Ehrlich was in 1970. He was/is/shall be to science what Bernie Madoff was to investing. You’ll doubtless be surprised to know that, both times, The New York Times was the most prominent drum beater for the “we will all freeze to death school” of reasoned discourse]
Experts agree that when a scientific claim begins with “Experts agree” it would be prudent to bet the other side.
My father was born before man flew. He lived to see men walking on the moon, picking up some souvenirs, and flying home. That didn’t come about because everyone agreed on everything. It came about because many men didn’t agree. It came about because someone said “What if” or “I don’t believe that” or “I’ll try this” or, best of all, “What do you mean I can’t do that?”
Incidentally, I know why Oedipus went to Colonus. I know the difference between Chiaroscuro and Caravaggio. I know what Hamlet meant when he told Ophelia to “get thee to a nunnery”. I know a lot about the 5 Emperors. I am conversant with the Burke/Fox debates, the Webster/Calhoun debates, and the Lincoln/Douglas debates. I still read the works written by people who had Pound as an editor. Although I have never seen “The Jersey Shore” I looove the Jersey Shore. If you live north of the Raritan River you don’t go “to the Jersey Shore”. You go “down the Jersey Shore”.
Don’t you think that “The Jersey Shore” with its Guidos and Guidettes is the poor White trash equivalent of feral urban Black youths screaming incomprehensible lyrics about “hos” and “pigs”?
And I know of no other theory, said theory being more than 150 years old that is treated as it came fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. Of course, I speak of evolution. I have a particular animus against evolution as posited by the followers of Darwin. I would prefer to be descended from bears as opposed to apes.
The facts, at least the ones that I believe in and until proved otherwise, would support that interpretation. Wasn’t that last sentence a pistol? For last 12 years the “Don’t vaccinate your children because they’ll get Autism” school of Lud/Lysenko used it.
As to the teaching of “creationism” – wink, wink – I am reminded of the eminently qualified scholar who couldn’t get a teaching job. After two futile years he finally gets an interview. When asked his opinion on whether the world is round or flat he says he is open minded on the question but is prepared to teach it either way.
The New York State Regents 11th year American History exam in 1989 was partially predicated on a newly discovered “fact”. Claims were made that the 5 Nations influenced the writing of the American Constitution. I did some pre-Google investigation. I could find no evidence of any meeting of Madison, Magua, and Mason. Since the Mohawk culture is light on the written word I know that there was no communication. Further, there is no contemporaneous record of any rain dances. I mention that because it was a brutally hot and humid summer in Philadelphia in 1787. In a quest for a surcease of that century’s Global Warming moment – Wait a minute! There were no internal combustion engines. There could be no carbon footprints. The only carbon dioxide was from photosynthesis and respiration. Where the Hell did that come from? - delegates would have gladly invoked any handy deity. Had I been an exam taker then I would have said that the document was dedicated to Manitou. Further, my essay would tell of vengeful White men excising the part specifically permitting scalping.
My original Sputnik moment was when – Surprise! – Sputnik was launched. It took about 3 days, Sputnik being launched on a Friday, for the chorus of Jeremiads to begin bewailing the lack of math skills, the lack of engineering skills, the lack of chemical skills, and the lack of a national purpose to overcome same. 12 years later, before the onset of micro-processors, before the age of calculators not requiring wheels to move them let alone personal computers, this country bitch slapped gravity, went to the moon, walked around, picked up some tsatchkes, and came home.
If there are bad biology teachers fire them.
Don’t blame Snookie and Nunzio.
Kevin Smith
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Michael Mayo The Sun-Sentinel
January 30, 2011
Michael Mayo
The Sun-Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316
RE: All those deaths - Some comments about your column about the deaths caused by guns – legal or not – in this morning’s Sun-Sentinel.
Mr. Mayo,
Any chance I get to cite the second greatest quote from Mayor Marion Barry – the first being “The bitch set me up” – I jump on.
“Except for the murder rate Washington is a very safe city.”
He said it. Honest. As another Queens resident, the Old Perfessor, used to say, “You could look it up”.
Having been up close and personal in a gun fight, having seen the damage a large caliber bullet can do, having testified against the killer in a first degree murder trial I know the immediate and lasting long term effects of guns.
I am told that there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.
I saw an infant die from malaria. Its stomach was so distended that its gender was not easily determined. The thermometer only went to 106. I don’t what its temperature was when he died.
Malaria [literally bad air] is easily controlled. DDT kills the mosquito larvae before they become Cruise Missiles. In 1971, in a fit of affluent White people wanting to feel warm and fuzzy, this country banned the manufacture of DDT. This was primarily in response to the phony science posited by one of the 20th century’s biggest frauds, Rachel Carson. Her book, “Silent Spring”, along with the successful opposition to Storm King, set this country on a path of pseudo-science and intellectual quackery unmatched since the world was flat, alchemists ruled, and tomatoes were poison.
It was bad enough that we banned its manufacture here but we banned its overseas licensing manufacturing by prohibiting its foreign licensing. Global Cooling became Global Warming which became Climate Change. Swamps made glorious, furbish louse worts and snail darters becoming God-like, manatee suffrage and benefits for drowning polar bears – the world is turned upside down. Where facts, truths that are always inconvenient, are not allowed to interfere or even intrude on an argument the end result is always the same.
People die.
2,000,000 [that’s 2 million] sub-Saharan Black African babies die each year from malaria.
Notwithstanding the caterwauling of buffoons masquerading as celebrities, rock stars and movie stars who couldn’t find their ass using both hands while standing in a shower, bed nets don’t work. The academics who command the tides to turn should be flogged. They are murderers just as much as a kid with a Saturday night special and Stop and Shop target of opportunity.
DDT works. There is no proof that Peregrine falcons are diminished in their capacity to gorge themselves on peripatetic Budgies. How many Black African babies have to die before cries of “Genocide” fill the land? The only Logical conclusion is, that in keeping with a basic tenet of modern American Liberalism of collective guilt, it is proof positive of negligent homicide.
Speaking of killing, this country has permitted some 57,000,000 [that’s 57 million] abortion in the past 38 years.
Since no political act can be free of the broad brush of racism, intended or not, what do you make of the fact that 6% of the population has been responsible for more than 17,000,000 [that’s 17 million] of them? African-Americans make up 12% of our population. Since we are not yet China I can say that half of them are women. Res ipso loquitur.
All things being equal – which they never are – I would rather be a White guy in Broward County, gun toting or not, that an African-American in utero or a new born baby on the Equator.
I’ll save the deaths caused by automobile and by salt for a later time.
Mrs. Obama’s time will be well spent if she saves us from the ravages of sodium.
Kevin Smith
Michael Mayo
The Sun-Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316
RE: All those deaths - Some comments about your column about the deaths caused by guns – legal or not – in this morning’s Sun-Sentinel.
Mr. Mayo,
Any chance I get to cite the second greatest quote from Mayor Marion Barry – the first being “The bitch set me up” – I jump on.
“Except for the murder rate Washington is a very safe city.”
He said it. Honest. As another Queens resident, the Old Perfessor, used to say, “You could look it up”.
Having been up close and personal in a gun fight, having seen the damage a large caliber bullet can do, having testified against the killer in a first degree murder trial I know the immediate and lasting long term effects of guns.
I am told that there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.
I saw an infant die from malaria. Its stomach was so distended that its gender was not easily determined. The thermometer only went to 106. I don’t what its temperature was when he died.
Malaria [literally bad air] is easily controlled. DDT kills the mosquito larvae before they become Cruise Missiles. In 1971, in a fit of affluent White people wanting to feel warm and fuzzy, this country banned the manufacture of DDT. This was primarily in response to the phony science posited by one of the 20th century’s biggest frauds, Rachel Carson. Her book, “Silent Spring”, along with the successful opposition to Storm King, set this country on a path of pseudo-science and intellectual quackery unmatched since the world was flat, alchemists ruled, and tomatoes were poison.
It was bad enough that we banned its manufacture here but we banned its overseas licensing manufacturing by prohibiting its foreign licensing. Global Cooling became Global Warming which became Climate Change. Swamps made glorious, furbish louse worts and snail darters becoming God-like, manatee suffrage and benefits for drowning polar bears – the world is turned upside down. Where facts, truths that are always inconvenient, are not allowed to interfere or even intrude on an argument the end result is always the same.
People die.
2,000,000 [that’s 2 million] sub-Saharan Black African babies die each year from malaria.
Notwithstanding the caterwauling of buffoons masquerading as celebrities, rock stars and movie stars who couldn’t find their ass using both hands while standing in a shower, bed nets don’t work. The academics who command the tides to turn should be flogged. They are murderers just as much as a kid with a Saturday night special and Stop and Shop target of opportunity.
DDT works. There is no proof that Peregrine falcons are diminished in their capacity to gorge themselves on peripatetic Budgies. How many Black African babies have to die before cries of “Genocide” fill the land? The only Logical conclusion is, that in keeping with a basic tenet of modern American Liberalism of collective guilt, it is proof positive of negligent homicide.
Speaking of killing, this country has permitted some 57,000,000 [that’s 57 million] abortion in the past 38 years.
Since no political act can be free of the broad brush of racism, intended or not, what do you make of the fact that 6% of the population has been responsible for more than 17,000,000 [that’s 17 million] of them? African-Americans make up 12% of our population. Since we are not yet China I can say that half of them are women. Res ipso loquitur.
All things being equal – which they never are – I would rather be a White guy in Broward County, gun toting or not, that an African-American in utero or a new born baby on the Equator.
I’ll save the deaths caused by automobile and by salt for a later time.
Mrs. Obama’s time will be well spent if she saves us from the ravages of sodium.
Kevin Smith
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