Thursday, December 27, 2012

Gary Stein The Sun Sentinel

December 23, 2012
Gary Stein
The Sun Sentinel

RE: In for a pence, in for a pound

Big Stein,

“Philippines Bans Political Abductions”

I read the above headline in the Dallas Morning News today. And yes, while it is not Wynona, MN Dallas is waging a valiant fight against the dreaded Global Warming. 39 degrees Fahrenheit at dawn suggests that this monster can be beaten back if enough men of good will are just willing to work at it, right?

I’ll get back to the above mentioned, decidedly non-Western, headline later.

I confess to owning a pick-up truck. It was red with a five speed transmission. It had some bumper stickers but the ones I used in the ‘70s, ones like “Nuke the Whales”, “God Bless John Wayne”, and “Support the Right to Arm Bears” are no longer available.
“Al Gore is Still Dumb but Joey Biden is a World Class Horse’s Ass” got a lot of knowing grins and honks at red lights. Alas, the truck is gone.

It never had any Confederate flags on it.

The reason was simple.

I was 9 years old when, on route to Yellowstone Park from Bayonne, NJ, my father stopped at Gettysburg. We went to the Wheatfield. My father’s father had 2 uncles, both members of the Irish Brigade, who fought there. One of them, Uncle Luke, is still there, “wrapped in his favorite coat of Blue”. I like to think he died quick and clean and that someone said good words as they lowered his body down. The pipes always played “The Garryowen” before the battle. I am not sure what was played when the butcher’s bill was settled.

As an avid reader of Civil War History I would have enhanced Sherman’s [and may I add that his “surge” certainly worked so well that Bush used it, remember?] performance by having him flatten Savannah and then absolutely level Charleston. I mean nothing left save for cooling embers and mournful wails. Just like the Romans did to Carthage. It worked for Curtis Lemay, didn’t it?

Besides, my status a full-fledged, red necked, snake handling, dumb enough to get lost on a ladder, Good Old Boy would have been blackballed by the fact that my truck was made in Japan.

We know that Columbine was caused by McCarthyNixonReagan and the impending arrival of Young Bush. At least that’s what Michael Moore told us. Do you know when he will tell us from his Director’s ex-cathedra chair [forgive the intentional redundancy] why a mad man killed all those children in Connecticut? I suspect that the Tea Party is the prime suspect.

Soon, I hope.

My last gunfight happened on June 3, 1993. It was in Room 1104 of the Essex County Courthouse in Newark, NJ. Judge Leonard Ronco was presiding over a carjacking trial, carjacking being the crime du jour. One Newark police officer was shot in the back of his head and was dead before he hit the ground. The other victim, Deputy Sheriff Ralph Rizzolo, was shot in the sternum by a bad guy using a.357 Magnum. The bullet, with an entry wound the size of a quarter, went up to his right shoulder and then down to his right elbow where it became lodged. I saved his life. 2 and ½ years later he danced at my daughter’s wedding. His department, the Essex County Sheriff’s Department and Sheriff Armando Fortuona, did not do right by him.

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz told us that the reason why Congresswoman Giffords was shot was because the formerly irenic shooter was forced to kill people because he listened to Rush Limbaugh. Doubtless, the decision not to prosecute him because he had snakes for brains, made by a United States Attorney appointed by a Democratic President, was controlled by the NRA.

By now you must be aware of the crazy man who killed 3 dozen kids in Michigan in 1927. He didn’t use an assault weapon; he used dynamite. Did the world cancel the Nobel Prizes?

I am having difficulty following your column because your bankrupt employer wants me to spend 59 cents a day to access it. I read some of it and then a screen blocking ad pops up. I’ll not be buying it. I guess that means I won’t be able to send a link to your column I, believing that the world would succumb to the polar reversal and subsequent loss of gravity as predicted by the usually reliable Mayan shamans had all my outstanding notes come due on December 24th. That means I will be “in permanent disfavor with fortune and men’s eyes”. Since I am in Texas for Christmas there is no one selling it in the busy intersections. I think you want someone who is familiar with the subjunctive mood and fractional deposits, someone who is able to tell the difference between Chiaroscuro and Caravaggio, someone who knows the difference between malum per se and malum prohibitum to explain things.

I’ll try.

First, the Constitution, the document that modern American Liberals believe must adapt to modern times, says that the accused must understand the charges against him. Did Jared Loughner and Howard Unruh understand what they were accused of? If they did they would have been tried and convicted of their crimes. They did not so they weren’t.

Second, there is one thing that baffles, bewilders, and bedazzles modern American Liberals. It is the existence and presence of evil. I will let the theologians and psychiatrists argue why this is. Suffice to say someone who lives in the real world, the world where “stones are hard and water is wet”, knows this to be a cold hard fact. Another lump in the craw of true believers that creatures can change spots is that they don’t. If they did would not the War on Poverty been won long ago? If the tenets of modern American Liberalism worked why were there 27 homicides in Chicago last month? Sad to say, they do not. That it did not was, in hindsight, eminently predictable.



12/24/12

Big Stein,

My father was in an automobile accident last night. Any landing you walk away from is considered a good one. He hopes to finish this in 2 or 3 days. Meanwhile, he extends a culturally diverse, non-denominational Seasons’ greetings to all men of good will.


Sean Smith

Friday, December 21, 2012

On mourning the death of Judge Bork in a most narcissistic manner

December 19, 2012
On mourning the death of Judge Bork in a most narcissistic manner
Gerrino’s, a great Eye-Tie restaurant in Hoboken, NJ, was where I entered into a wager with then NJ Appellate Judge Geoffrey Gaulkin. We were there to attend a wedding. He was to marry the couple while I was there to celebrate it until a few years later when I had to ask myself how I could have been so very, very wrong about the groom.
The Judge and I had a mutual acquaintance. Jack Adams, my next door neighbor in West Orange, had gone to grammar school in Caldwell with the Judge. He recognized Jack’s name immediately and we settled into some reminiscences about long lost friends.

Elections are always numero uno in Hudson County. They rank far ahead of sex, religion, the weather, and high school football.

I said that the coming re-election of the Great Reagan would assure, inter alia, the nominations of Bork and Scalia to the Supreme Court.

Judge Gaulkin said that they both “scared” him, particularly Bork.

In the case of Judge Bork I said that I found it hard to believe that a devotee of Alexander Bickel could be “scary”.

He asked me how I, as a non-lawyer, would have become familiar with Bickel. I asked if I had to be a member of the Bar to read either the Federalist Papers or the Constitution.

I allowed that “The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress” and “The Morality of Consent” [both written by Bickel] have had and will have a permanent and growing influence on American jurisprudence and American culture.

Make haste slowly is still good advice. Judges who think that their banging a gavel can soothe the planet, calm the raging seas, and make lambs volunteer to spend the night with the lions are not to be trusted. They are so smart they’re dumb. The Judiciary should not, per se, be primus inter pares.

“How sad of all the things that men endure how few
Laws or Kings can cause or cure”


I said that I was willing to bet that the next 2 nominations to the Supreme Court would be Scalia and Bork

The stakes were simple.

Dinner at Gerrino’s.

The offer was accepted.

Sometimes the only contracts that must be enforced are the unenforceable ones.

I am still waiting for the good Judge to cover his marker. 1984 to 2012. I guess the statute on enforcing unenforceable contracts has run also. My last attempt was in 2002.

Judge Bork became a lexicographer’s delight. His name became a verb and a gerund. 25 years later to Bork someone is still widely understood. Although it is barely 15 years the question “Does she Monica?” is not as instantly recognizable as it once was.

The opposition to Judge Bork becoming Justice Bork was led by Lard Kennedy, the Senate’s longest serving moral slag heap, the paradigmatic template of modern American Liberalism, and the best argument for estates being taxed at 105%. In this endeavor he was ably aided by Joey Biden. His secret Service call sign is “Curly” who we know was the smartest stooge. In Joey’s defense let it be said that he is too dumb to know that he is meaner than cat shit.

The process of Borking had people going through his garbage looking for signs of aberrant behavior. Finding none they went to the local movie rental store to see if he liked sex and violence flicks. He was criticized for accepting an after-hours job so he could make his first wife’s dying a bit less painful. His views were opposed in such a manner that it made the traditional argumentum ad hominem seem to be a day at the beach.

It must be noted that Republican lack both the guile and the smamriness to do unto others as was done to Robert Bork.

The Senate took the President’s nomination under advisement and refused to consent to it by a vote of 58 to 42 .It took 13 years for the petard of Clio, my favorite Muse, to find a very big hoistee.

Albert Arnold Gore, Jr, AKA Alpha Gump, a polluting slumlord whose Secret Service call sign was Cementhead, a man who set a record by flunking out of 2 graduate schools in one semester, would have become President if the Borking of Judge Bork had not been so effective.

The urban legend says that the vote to make George Bush President was 5 to 4. It was not. The vote was 7 to 2. The vote to accept the case was 5 to 4. Two Justices, having voted not to accept the case, changed their votes once the case was accepted.

Judge Bork, had he become Justice Bork, would have voted against accepting the case. The lower court ruling would have stood. Bush would have gone back to Texas and Al and Thumper Gump and all the baby Gumpsters would have occupied the White House.

If it were Justice Bork who died today it would have given President Obama the chance to remake the Court in his image.

Funny how things work out.

I never did get to have my rack of Italian lamb, sliced a la Anglaise, some castagnas, and Riserva Ducale. No tiramisu. Zabaglione would have been my choice. Perhaps some Sambuca. Maybe a de Nobili.

It was a long time ago.

Let it be said of Judge Bork, as was said of Thomas More, that he was the guardian of the law, that he stood a watch on the towers that defend the law from being used as vehicle to attain a du jour political end, however desired.


Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Tom Moran The Star Ledger

December 14, 2012
Tom Moran
The Star Ledger
Star Ledger Plaza
Newark, NJ 07102-1200

RE: More about Wal-Mart

Mr. Moran,

I left one thing out in my note to you on December 9, 2012. It is an inconvenient truth that modern American Liberals either air brush out, a la the Joy Boys of the Politburo, or send it down the memory hole so fast it shatters glass.

When did Wal-Mart become evil? Was it evil per se? Ab initio? Did it become evil when Hillary Rodham Clinton joined the Board of Directors or did it become evil when she left it?

If you have an uncontrollable urge to pig out on Twinkies – and having belonged to 2 unions I can say that the ones present at their demise were/are dumber than a box of hammers - do not despair. You can get them at – You guessed it – Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart advanced the pay date for its dividend to this year so that its shareholders would have less Federal income taxes to pay on it. When was the last time the Star Ledger or its parent paid a dividend?

Have you thought about raising the price of your paper? That’s one way to increase circulation.






Kevin Smith

Congresswoman Frederica Wilson

December 10, 2012
Congresswoman Frederica Wilson
10100 Pines Blvd – B – 300
Pembroke Pines, FL 33025

RE: The trial of the woman accused of murdering Rilya Wilson and how you have made it infinitely worse.

Congresswoman Wilson,

Save the money. Why have a trial? Why don’t we just lynch her? Forget about the presumption of innocence. Forget about due process.

One more Black person hanging from a tree will not upset the karma of post-racial America, will it?

After we make her eye balls pop out, after we make her bladder and bowel explode, we can go after O.J. Simpson.

Are you in favor of public floggings?

I shudder when I think that you are paid handsomely by this country. I tremble when I realize that you have an impact on public policy.

Maybe the Mayans are on to something.







Kevin Smith

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Congressman Sander Levin

December 10, 2012
Congressman Sander Levin
27085 Gratiot Avenue
Roseville, MI 48066

RE: Jeezus Haitch Keerist! You are some piece of friggin’ work.

Congressman Levin,

I just saw you being interviewed by Gwen Infill about the passage, in Michigan, of a “Right to Work” law. Its enforcement is limited by the borders of Michigan. Your answers were clouded by the syndrome typical of modern American Liberals, that is to say, “non-malodorous fecal matter syndrome”. If you have problems with that send a SASE.

Some things jump out:

#1 – Your hair is much better than your brother’s. He begins his comb over from his arm pit. You don’t.

#2 – If memory serves, President Obama hosted a meeting of Congressional leaders in February, 2009. “There was an election, I won” was as effective and truthful an answer as he gave all day.

#3 – You may wish to familiarize yourself with the 10th Amendment. The last time I looked it was still on the books, still valid, and, until it is changed, the law of the land.

#4 – The state of Michigan, through its duly elected representatives, passed a law that guarantees its citizens “The Right to Work”.

#5 – You, in typical modern American Liberal style, hector a Michigan State Senator, a Republican, why a law, passed by the legislature and soon to be signed by the Governor, should be ignored. As a member of Congress what the Michigan legislature does is of no official concern to you.

#6 – Refer back to #2.

#7 – Are you of any assistance to the royally screwed annuitants of Delphi Motors?

#8 – Have you ever belonged to a union? Not the soft-edged Teachers’ union or the thuggish SEIU. How about the Teamsters?

#9 – I have created a new sub-division of my awards for you.

You are hereby named
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK

The sub-division is for “hypocritical modern American Liberal politicians who would not know which end of a shovel to use”.

Wear your laurel proudly.

Here’s a thought for yearend gift giving.

Why not give some of your hair to your folliclely challenged brother, the senior Senator from Michigan? I mean the poor bastard uses two quarts of Gorilla Glue to keep the 9 foot long night crawler coming out of his arm pit under control.

Brothers should take care of brothers, right?






Kevin Smith

Tom Moran The Star Ledger

December 9, 2012
Tom Moran
The Star Ledger
Star Ledger Plaza
Newark, NJ 07102-1200

RE: Wal-Mart – Let it become anathema but not before it builds a big store in Newark and “creates” a lot of jobs. Some comments on your column in today’s Star Ledger about the ethical tradeoffs of modern life.

Mr. Moran,

Such is your devotion to Mom-and-Pop retail stores that your hand would fall off before you would buy a book from Amazon, right? In fact, any Internet purchase would be verboten, right?

6 years ago 3 prescriptions cost me $95.00 a month. Then, and Allah Bless them, Wal-Mart sold them to me for $6.00 a month. Should I have continued to pay $95.00 a month to help Mom-and-Pop, AKA the local drug store, secure their golden years? Should I have sent the difference to the Fund to Repair the Hole in the Ozone Layer? How about the Committee to Undrown Polar Bears? What about sending some $ to Fight Teenage Obesity? If great minds can’t agree on what to do with this “windfall income” there is always the option of throwing it from the back of a moving train, it being my money, right?

I got to the part of your article about the possibility of a company other than Wal-Mart – “different retailer” is your term – building a store on the Springfield Avenue in the Central ward of Newark. The possibility always exists that all things are possibly possible, isn’t that what the Imam says?

I’ll try to break this gently.

Whatever happens to the space on Springfield Avenue you can rest assured that Nordstrom’s will not be there. Also, Whole Foods and Tiffany’s will not be there. Perhaps the Detroit Pawn Shop that is now a big TV reality show might like to expand eastward. Who knows? One thing is certain. The Short Hills Mall will not be opening an outlet mall there.

One thing the last 50 years of half-assed social policy implementation has taught us is that the best jobs program is…drum roll please…a job.

The most immediate benefit to the community of Wal-Mart being a for profit entity is that people get to work. Single moms, doubtless women of color, get to buy prescription drugs for their children far, far cheaper than they would have heretofore been able to do.

Since modern American Liberals occupy a universe where results don’t count, where policy is judged on its intentions, where the horizon can be reached as soon as good men, men filled with good will, come together and strive for it, the same lesson must be retaught and relearned over and over again.

Wal-Mart’s goal is not to rebuild downtown Newark. Its job is to protect and increase the security and equity of its creditors and shareholders. It’s what makes the dog hunt. By so doing, its invisible hand reaches out and helps everyone. If History is our guide the only way that the Central Ward of Newark can have a Summer of Recovery is if you allow the big guy from Bentonville to come in and work his magic.

[I can’t let your reference to “It’s a Wonderful Life” pass without it being poleaxed. I am the founder and director of the fast growing “Let the River Trolls Tear George Bailey Apart the Next Time He Jumps Off the Friggin’ Bridge Project”. Care to join?]

2 things of note:

#1 – Newark Mayor Corey Booker went on the Food Stamp Diet. The purpose of that is…is….what the Hell is the purpose of this? How many jobs will be “created” by him not eating? Wouldn’t Mrs. Obama be pleased if Food Stamp users were not able to buy high sodium food? Ice cream is a no-no. We know that sodas ain’t good for you either. Let him spend a week on tofu, granola, yogurt, groats, and boiled endives

#2 – The NJ legislature is debating raising the minimum wage. Forget about $ 9 an hour. How about $32.50 an hour? Let “them” get a taste of the good life.

Sometimes I miss Jersey. Particularly Bayonne.







Kevin Smith


Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Tamarac Vice Mayor Michelle Gomez

December 1, 2012
Tamarac Vice Mayor Michelle Gomez
7525 NW 88th Street
Tamarac, FL 33321

Madame Vice Mayor,

I saw a headline this AM from the U.K. Daily Mail. It said, in its entirety

“Man who grew up in foster care discovers his long-lost
Mother is world record holding bearded lady.”

At the risk of being culturally arrogant I said that this country could top that. It took me but a few minutes to find the first contender. From Page 2B of today’s Sun Sentinel, in a story about coyotes setting up shop in Tamarac comes the following:

“But Tamarac Vice Mayor Michelle Gomez said there’s little
people can do beyond discouraging coyotes from entering
yards. “They are animals we have to coexist with,” she said.
“We have to learn to live with them and be responsible for our pets.”

God’s Holy Trousers! Stuff like that, coming from what would normally be a responsible adult, just quickens the arrival of the Mayan Calendar Day of Destruction.

To Hell with coyotes. How about wolves? How about cougars? How about friggin’ lions? Cape buffalos have always been a favorite of mine. The sure would spice up Earth Day, wouldn’t they?

Logic, that cruel mistress, demands that learning to live with them dictates that Tamarac makes allowances for 16 foot Burmese pythons and 1200 pound bull gators be allowed to do the inter-species horizontal tango free from human intrusion.

I know where I can get a 12 foot Queen cobra that is filled with soon to be delivered eggs. If you could get a descendant of the original Riki-Tiki-Tavi we could have a teachable moment for the kids to take part in. Perhaps a few show and tell sessions with Tasmanian Devils might be interesting.

Since we know that polar bears are drowning why not bring a few of them to Tamarac? I would prefer a Kodiak bear but the only salmon we have here is in delis. Maybe the polar bears will think that manatees will taste just like those yummy baby seals.

Tamarac yields to no one in its devotion to Gaia. Perhaps a lesson to be learned here is that we should bring back literacy tests, not for voters but for those running.

Alas, “stones are hard, water is wet”. Thus, the real world intrudes.

Accordingly, I bestow on you the coveted title of

HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK

Wear you honors proudly. No Affirmative Action here. You got it the old fashioned way. You earned it, you boob.





Kevin Smith

PS – Do you have a beard?




Mayor Frank C. Ortis

November 27, 2012
Mayor Frank C. Ortis
10100 Pines Boulevard
Pembroke Pines, FL 33026

RE: Cell phones cause cancer, frogs cause warts, and every time I think the gene pool can’t get any lower I am shocked, shocked when it does.

Mr. Mayor,

Back before plaid became the favorite color of modern American Liberals, particularly those who engaged in the quasi-profession of education, people learned that correlation is not causation.

I am going to type verrrrrry, verrrrry slowly, it being the first time you have come face to face with Logic, one of the wonders of the ancient world. I’ll try to be gentle.

Jimmy Gonzales having headaches does not mean that his cell phone caused him to have cranial tumors. What caused my cranial tumors, the surgeon used the word “aggressive”, was and is known. The villain of the piece was/is….drum roll, please…. the sun.

Would not fairness dictate that Pembroke Pines ban all daytime activity, particularly for fair skinned males of northern European extraction?

I am sure you remember when the overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion [“overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion”? Where have we heard that before? You’re right. Global Warming] was that tomatoes were poisonous. Since I can find no evidence that they aren’t I suggest that, strictly as a precautionary measure, Pembroke Pines bans the consumption of pizza. As you so eloquently say “a lot of scientific data has to be done with…”

I am not quite sure what in Allah’s name you mean by that but I am absolutely, positively certain that it sounds like bullshit to me. Accordingly, as keeper of the keys and seals of the 3 most important awards in Christendom, I name you, Frank Ortis

HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK

Forget about literacy tests for the voters. We need to impose retroactive ones on all elected officials.

Some of the questions would be what color is an orange. Then, how do you spell TV. The tie breaker would be can you find your ass using both hands. Am I going too fast for you?

Here’s a thought for what you can give Pembroke Pines for a non-denominational holiday gift.

Think vasectomy.


Kevin Smith
PS – Next week we will study whether Ptolemy got a raw deal

Friday, November 30, 2012

November 29, 2012
Margaret Carlson
Bloomberg News
1399New York Avenue
Washington, DC 20005

RE: If but her shadow were to fall on us, if we could touch the hem of her gown…how many miracles have been ascribed to Venerable Hillary, the first non-dead person to be nominated for sainthood? Some comments on the stars in your eyes column in today’s Miami Herald.

Ms. Carlson,

Having gotten the gift of a free AM hour I could think of nothing better than to get out my trusty poleax and seek out your column. And no, I won’t be mentioning anything about American GIs being tax cheats. You covered that earlier.

I was a bit unfamiliar with the person in your column. I thought the article would end with her dying on a Friday afternoon and – mirabile dictu! – showing up for breakfast on Sunday morning. It turned out it was about Hillary Clinton, the poster girl for abused wives. That Hillary Clinton.

I know that going from a senior thesis saying what a swell guy Saul Alinsky was, to shattering the glass ceiling in Arkansas – Would it brand me as a bounder if I were to point out that the largest law firm in the state hired her when her husband was elected Attorney General? Would you think less of me if I mentioned that she was made a partner after her husband was elected Governor? A case, not a very good case but a case nonetheless, can be made that those things were coincidental. Like ”finding trout in the milk” as Jeeves told Bertie - to beating the big boys in the commodities market just by reading the Wall Street Journal, to using her life-long love of yogurt to getting a seat on the board of TCBY, to using her vast retail experience to become an outside director at Wal-Mart, to doing the one thing that she did superbly well for decades; viz. covering for her husband, Handsome Billy from Hot Springs, the King of the One-Eyed Trouser Snakes, to becoming the most admired chick in the world or maybe the universe is not done easily and should be praised.

I still marvel at how she, despite being born and raised in Chicago, was able to keep her secret of being a lifelong Yankee fan.

The beauty of being a card carrying modern American Liberal ink-stained wench is that you get to write the following:

“She gets credit for handling the crisis in Libya and took
responsibility when the U.S. Consulate was attacked.”

I know of no place in the real world where style points trump a disaster. In this case the disaster involved the murder of 4 Americans. She was quick to tell the families of those who were killed in battle that we would “get” the film maker who caused all this to happen. [Do you think the poor WOG in the pokey is the new Ezra Pound?]

I am sure the mail boxes of the White Star Lines were stuffed with letters from the families of the 1500 dead passengers saying how happy they were that the band played so well as RMS Titanic went down.

You mention how she has helped the Obamas – Wasn’t B.O. just called “Our Lord and Savior”? Won’t that make it a wee bit crowded when they call the roll in the Pantheon? – and their children “who attend the same school as Chelsea did”.

Pray tell, what school is that? Is it any of the really fine public schools in Washington, DC? If not, why not? As non-paying tenants of the largest single family public housing project in the universe wouldn’t it be fair if their children had to attend public school? In fact, I think it’s time for the children of all elected officials to attend public schools.

How long has it been since anyone mentioned Whitewater?

The deal died. That happens all the time. The most galling part of it, the part that will never pass the bag test, was the purchase agreement that was written by “one of the country’s 100 best lawyers”. It was designed to hornswoggle and then trap Mr., & Mrs. Rufus Redneck.

It succeeded.

A mortgage is a personal loan secured by a lien on real property. If you miss payments the lender begins foreclosure. No matter how unbelievable the story is the person in default gets to tell it to a judge. Something called “due process” is involved. In Whitewater the buyer signed a time-sales contract. It’s just like buying a used car. If you miss a payment a nice man with a tow truck comes to your house and repos it. Case closed

And that’s how you become the “most admired woman in the world”?

So there. I managed to get through this without mentioning the GI tax cheats you managed to uncover 12 years ago. I wonder how many of them got toe-tagged?


Kevin Smith
November 29, 2012
Jay Carney – Press person
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC

Mr. Carney,

As befitting any Presidential Chief Flack, the standard being set by Pierre Salinger who was demoted to the United States Senate before he would have had to exit stage left “pursued by bears”, you end up wearing rubber lined dark suits because an average non-lying bloke would have had his sphincter explode due to the tsunami coming from his bladder. What is probably worse than perpetually lying is the 24/7 protocol of telling half truths. It must be soul numbing.

I watched your snarky smirk as you went from the Keystone Pipeline to the murder of 4 Americans in Benghazi and how rascally racist it is for Republicans to suggest that Ambassador Rice’s pants are on fire, as in “Liar, liar pants on fire”. Nice job. Well played.

Accordingly, I name you

SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR

This award is not given lightly.

You got it the old fashioned way.

You earned it.






Kevin Smith

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Sheriff Scott Israel Broward Sheriff’s Office

November 26, 2012

Sheriff Scott Israel
Broward Sheriff’s Office
Broward Boulevard
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33312

RE: It it’s kosher for her it can’t be trayf for me. You did say that you wanted to make the Sheriff’s Office more diverse, didn’t you?

Sheriff Israel,

Accept my congratulations on your election. Sheriff Lamberti, unlike his predecessor, was a man of honor who served his constituents well. Allah willing you should do so.

Although I did not vote for you I have the macho chutzpah of someone born and raised on the mean streets of Bayonne, NJ. Thus, I am able to ask you for a favor.

On November 13th , in the Sun Sentinel, there was a marvelous photograph of 2 BSO deputies, men with badges and guns, escorting Congressperson Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on her long and treacherous walk from the x-ray machine to her departure gate at Fort Lauderdale Airport. One of them actually carried her small carry on bag to lighten her burden, a burden mostly consisting of whispering into the King’s ear. Why do I believe that she says “Yes you can” when the question of whether or not the rising and falling of tides is something that can be done by fiat by the time of the next “Summer of Recovery”?

Because of the above a minor flap, a Broward County political flap, a flap with a half-life of 48 hours, came and went down the memory hole so favored by modern American Liberals that it were as if it never happened.

I wrote a letter – copy enclosed – to the Sun Sentinel in re their editorial on the above mentioned lower case brouhaha. It was quickly consigned to the round file designated for curmudgeons, particularly erudite and literate ones.

In it I mention my various physical ailments. It is not for nothing that Broward County is also known as “God’s Waiting Room”. To the listed woes I can now add COPD. If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself. COPD has its own COPAY.

I chant the mantra of “equal protection”. If you can help her you can help me.

I am visiting my Texas Ladies for Christmas.

I will be flying from Ft. Lauderdale in mid-December. As my letter of 11/13/12 says, I have had cancer 3 times. I have congestive heart failure. My 2 titanium hips now have a new inorganic joint to gambol with; i.e. a metal knee I need but drive by the airport to set off the alarms. I have a magnificent scar on my head from cancer #3 that is perpetually viewable. If I wear shorts the scar from my knee replacement glows in the dark. You’ll have to take my word for the congestive heart failure and the treacherous COPD.

I am requesting a handicap accessible BSO van to get me to the airport. Like ex-Sheriff and now ex-con Kenny Boy Jenne, AKA Emperor Kenneth the Short, I would like you to help me jump the line so as to avoid the masses of tourists leading lives of quiet desperation as they buggylug their impedimenta through the airport.

So as to help you decide this matter in my favor I present 2 previously unused markers.

#! – My grandfather’s badge number was 291. He was on the job for 37 years.

#2 – There was a “1013” at the Essex County Court House in Newark, NJ at 11:14 AM on June 3rd, 1993 . 2 policemen were shot. One was dead before he hit the ground. One was hit in the sternum from 15 feet. That bullet, fired from a .357 Colt magnum, put a hole in his chest the size of a .25 cent coin. It traveled upward hitting his right shoulder. It then traveled downward became lodged behind his right elbow. I testified at the trial that convicted the police officer’s killer. I saved the life of the other officer who, 18 months later, danced at my daughter’s wedding.

Please have your office contact me to make all the arrangements. Also, please tell me if you have a new policy on tipping.

Kevin Smith

Sunday, November 25, 2012

November 24, 2012
Mitchell Kaplan
Books & Books
265 Aragon Avenue
Coral Gables, FL 33134

RE: Tom Wolfe, “eclectic indignation”, and why modern American Liberals need constant chiropractic care.

Mr. Kaplan,

Time really flies when I am enjoying myself.

December, 1996 was when you told me that as long as you owned the store Ezra Pound would not be found on its book shelves.

For years I marveled at your ability to celebrate speech in all its forms, be it written, sung, or performed.

For years I marveled at your ability to say with nary a hint of sardonicism that, while all speech is free, some speech isn’t as free as others.

For years I wrote to you saying that it was impossible to be a little bit pregnant.

Alas [for you] I have not been back in your store since.

This morning I watched you lead the televised Miami Book Fair paean to Tom Wolfe.

It is well to note that when the film version of “Bonfires of the Vanities” was in preproduction an attempt was made to rent parts of the Essex County Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey for courtroom scenes. It was stopped by New Jersey Chief Justice David Wilentz. His reasoning was simple: Cinematic depictions of stereotypical shibboleths – [Did I just repeat myself?] - concerning feral Black youth would not be permitted to be filmed in New Jersey courtrooms. [Do you think he liked “Ishtar”?] I suppose “Quis custodies custodiet” might label me as an elitist. I will settle for the majestic “Congress shall make no law….” A card carrying modern American Liberal jurist, one such as Chief Justice Wilentz, had no problem yelling “Fire” in a theatre that had not yet opened.

At least he didn’t lock Wolfe up like Ezra Pound was. You may remember that Pound spent 13 years in a Federal booby hatch. He was never arrested, he was never indicted, he was never arraigned, he was never tried, he was never convicted. The term “habeas corpus” was forgotten. At least Gitmo, America’s first adult sleep away camp, has better weather. Do you suppose that Pound’s release in 1958 marked the end of the McCarthy/HUAC Reign of Terror?

I have been addicted to Tom Wolfe since 1964.

You could have had a successful career as a “Flack Catcher”. You may have even been the head Flack Catcher. You would have not been good as the community organizers in San Francisco. They were the ones who were superbly skilled at “putting the boot in” as they did to the poor sap, the one who had the temerity to ask for “More”, when he realized that one bowl of Rainbow Soup would not get him through his busy, calorie consuming day.

All will be forgiven if you will allow me to burn an American flag in front of your store. I suppose I must tell you that a Koran, and doubtless it will be one of the perpetually “sacred” Korans as if there could be any other kind, will be wrapped in the flag. I will have a pot of pig pee nearby should the blaze get out of hand.

Join with me in striking a blow for freedom.

Who remembers “Nude Descending a Staircase” these days? Even “Piss Christ” and “Corpus Cristi” are fading from memory. I fear that Mapplethorpe’s more intense photographs will not soon be on American postage stamps.

It’s time, as Wolfe told us, to “stretch the envelope”.

Get back to me, OK?


Kevin Smith


PS – What would 20th century English Literature have been without Pound? His acolytes - Joyce, Eliot, Hemingway, Yeats – speak, still speak, of his genius. From August 22, 1939 to June 21, 1941 Dr. Seuss thought that Adolph Hitler was a really good guy. Do you stock “Green Eggs and Ham”? How about Wodehouse? Do you have any good bios on Walter Duranty?

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Gary Stein The Sun Sentinel

November 18, 2012
Gary Stein
The Sun Sentinel

Big Stein,

What’s that? Somebody broke your heart? Somebody broke the previously totally sheltered Little Stein’s heart? I am shocked, shocked to learn of this.

I can say with 100% absolute metaphysical certitude that neither you nor the recently wizened Little Stein is Irish. That I know this is simply a manifestation of a thing known to a millennium of Gaels. What’s the sense of having an Irish heart unless you know it will be broken? Isn’t Ireland known as “the land of happy wars and sad love songs”?

As a Board Certified Life Coach I hereby proclaim a teachable moment. It could be a get knocked off your ass onto your ass while traveling to Damascus moment.

It is modern American Liberalism writ large.

See if you can follow this. The clarity of my Logic can be blinding. Whether it becomes an allegory or a metaphor is a matter about which honorable men may differ.

I always vote against bond issues. No exceptions. None. It makes no difference what good or bad the money will do. I no longer read them. Count me as a NO. The reason is simple: The question is in violation of Federal law.

If you buy a used car from someone wearing suede shoes with a color matching his silk shirt who speaks with forked tongue through teeth that once belonged to someone named Babar he must tell you how much the car will cost if you finance it through his company. The total cost of the loan includes, gulp, interest.

If he doesn’t and you have Jose Werewolf and/or his brother-in-law Dracula Rosencrantz on your side you are probably going to get the car for nothing. If neither was able to get their Starbucks Mega Blood Bank Eye-opener you may wind up with the business.

It’s where the rubber of the Rule of 78 meets the road covering your ass.

Not so with bond issues.

“Do you approve of borrowing $500,000,000 for 30 years?”
Yes or No

What is not on ballot is the cost of servicing a mortgage of $500,000,000 for 30 years. $500,000,000@5% for 30 years is $25,000,000 per year every year. At the end of 30 years the voters who approved the loan will have paid a total of $1,250,000,000 to whoever it was who lent it.

[Most voters forget that the interest on the loan is tax-free to the owner of the bonds. Would not fairness dictate that the owners of these bonds, most of whom are rich White guys, be made to pay their “fair share”?]

Exactly how many “Summers of Recovery” chock-a-block filled with “not so ready Shovel Ready jobs” will we need to pay down this marker? Nowhere is this made clear.

But wait. There’s more.

If you push #4 on the modern American Liberal play list you get – with just a hint of “Fanfare for the Common Man” or “Don’t Stop Talking About Tomorrow” in the background, depending on the demographics - someone telling you that we have to make “investments” in the future. Further, we hear that the children are our future. Thus, if it is for the children, how can any man’s hand be against it?

The Logic of the above demands that, as America just did, Santa Claus be elected.

In addition to a world class, spanking new, look at all the jobs we “created” arts center, we have a world class, spanking new, look at all the jobs we “created” tunnel. The crown jewel would have to be a world class, spanking new, look at all the jobs we “created” baseball stadium.

The crown jewel would have to be a world class, spanking new, look at all the jobs we “created” baseball stadium.

How about we build a dome over Miami/Dade county and air condition with solar power – Hello Solyndra! and – Hello Canute! – tidal power?

That way we could have a world class, spanking new, look at all the jobs we “created” booby hatch.

Was there no one in Miami/Dade County who could ask for the right financials?
The Bank of Nunzio and Vito, a bank known for specializing in unsecured loans, would have known where the deep pockets were. How many underpaid, hardworking public servants were on Loria’s Christmas is the 25th of every month list?

At some point, probably just after we finally reach the horizon, modern American Liberals tell us that we all will be farting through silk and that lambs will be begging to lie down with lions.

Loria, and in a fit of multiculturalism, qualifies as a lower case Madoff or Corzine. The first thing he saw when he got here was the upturned neck waiting for a down plunging ax As Hinnissy, the noted publican, said, “He seen his opportunities and he took’em”. For this we owe him a debt of gratitude. Some people know, genetically, the difference between the buttered side of the toast and the dry. Some people don’t.

Thank you sir. May I have another?

“You’re young. You’ll get over it” is sound advice for a suitor unaccustomed to rejection. The shattering of Little Stein fills me with much sorrow. I will send via the good old, nothing world class or spanking new, look at how many jobs we’ve “created” United States Postal Service something that may assuage his pain.

Terra incognita. Pass it on at your peril.

I can’t wait for the Dolphins to say that, absent a gazillion dollars from the public, the world will end not with a whimper but with a very large bang.



KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET




Friday, November 16, 2012

Letter to the Editor The Miami Herald

November 16, 2012
Letter to the Editor
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693

RE: “Focus on the absurd lest reality drive you mad” – Some comments on 2 separate headlines in this morning’s Miami Herald.

Sirs,

“Pentagon wants to improve ethics” and “Bond vote delayed as $45,000,000 is found”. No wonder Dave Barry retired. He thought there was a limit to how many things could not be made up. It may be time for him to unretire.

I suppose ethics can be “improved”. Body mass index, SAT scores, the good cholesterol/bad cholesterol scale, the elusive “fairness” quotient surely can be made right, can’t they? I am sure the Pentagon will send up a flare to alert the media that, the horizon having been finally reached, men will now be angels.

[It’s 6:30 in the morning and those Allahdamned parrots are squawking again. Can’t we just ban the atonal, cacophonous bastards?]

Ethics, as Aristotle says, always seeks a balance. We always come in after the fact that someone has broken their vows. Those vows can personal, spousal, religious, institutional, or civic

“A man upon oath holds his soul in his hands as if it were water.
He opens his fingers at his own peril.”

Alas, that can’t be taught at boot camp.

It is not just doing what is right but, first, knowing what is right. What is wrong, what is evil, becomes an affront to man’s nature [“the better angels on man’s nature” perhaps]] and an insult to his Creator.

My favorite African Bishop said “Love God and do what you will”.

Which leads us to

“Bond vote delayed as $45,000,000 is found”.

“Found”?

Where? Behind the water cooler? In the lunch room? In the Affirmative Action office? Did someone turn in a suspicious portmanteau?

If ever a headline called for, nay, demanded 100 lashes well laid on followed by defenestration, that is the one.

If $45,000,000 can be “found”: would it be safe to assume that $45,000,000 can be “lost”?

As a former Chief Financial Officer of a public company I know, financial ledgerdemain – that my way of spelling it – notwithstanding, debits must equal credits.

Miami/Dade County seems to have lost sight of that.

That they induced their citizens to indenture themselves for decades to build an arts center, a tunnel, and a baseball stadium while losing sight of $45,000,000 suggests a scenario starring the Marx Brothers directed by Mel Brooks.

How fitting that picture next to the story about losing and finding $45,000,000 – and that money will go down the next open modern American Liberal rabbit hole quicker than a lamb chop could get past the big, bad wolf – is a picture of earnest true believers holding up signs that scream “End Homelessness” followed by signs that say “Feed the Meters”. Presumably the out of touch 1% will circle Ocean Drive and Lincoln Road to dispose of all their pre-1964 quarters into vacant parking meters, said parking meters being the source of “Ending Homelessness”.

Clio, the Muse of History, tells us that it would be easier to end the vicious cycle of high tide/ low tide than it would be to “End Homelessness” by “Feeding the Meters”.

Curses!

I have just sentenced myself to a fruitless morning of trying to find a suitable synonym for absurd.




Kevin Smith
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Letter to the Editor The Sun Sentinel

November 13, 2012

Letter to the Editor
The Sun Sentinel
500 Broward Boulevard
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33394

RE: Debbie & the airport – The back story that today’s editorial about Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz misses.

Sirs,

Full disclosure requires me to tell you that Little Debbie sent the police, specifically, Agent Thomas and Agent Mineva of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, both of whom had badges and guns, to my house because of something I had written. My upbringing on the mean streets of Bayonne prepared me for the “good cop/bad cop” routine. I enclose my letter to Little Debbie written just after the coppers left.

She says she has two degrees in Political Science from the University of Florida. It is inconceivable that she could have spent all that class time and never have heard of the Greek adage “Free men speak with free tongues”. It is a trait common to all card carrying, fire breathing modern American Liberals. The other way you can recognize them is a genetic ailment known as “non-malodorous fecal matter syndrome”. I have heard from confidential sources who, you know what I’m saying, must remain confidential, that she usually has an escort of 10 with 6 of them carrying her in the sedan chair reserved for really important politicians

Does anyone else remember Empress Debbie’s previous escapades at the airport?

Does anyone else remember when she arrived late to the airport and gave her keys to the nearest Sheriff’s Deputy to park her car?

Does anyone else remember when she called her pal Sheriff Ken Jenne, AKA Emperor Kenneth the Short, because one of her car windows wouldn’t go up? She gave him her airport garage location and he said he would look after her car ‘til she got back from her doubtless important public service. Just an example of, as you editorialize, “discretion and good judgment” exercised by public employees, right?

Allow me to paraphrase Orwell.

“All politicians are equal. Some politicians are more equal than others.”

The only thing missing from the recently ended campaign was the “Theme for the Common Man” being played at busy intersections. Had it been played it would have been an eternally cacophonous caterwauling about – you guessed it – the common man and why more must be done for “them”. It’s too bad that “Every Man a King” has gone down the memory hole.

Little Debbie’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, she has an air of entitlement about her that raises a stench in the nostrils of honest men.

As my aunt from Hester Street often told me, “Don’t pee on my back and tell me it’s rain”.

I have been operated on for cancer 3 times. I am grateful I don’t have eyes in the back of my head otherwise I would have to look at a most impressive scar from the last operation. I have been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. I just added a titanium knee to my growing collection of metal joints. Neither of my hips can be classified as organic. I set the alarms off when I drive past the airport.

I mention this because I will be leaving from the Ft. Lauderdale airport next month to spend Christmas with my family in Texas.

Forget about a Deputy Sheriff carrying my bag. [Debbie’s need for 2 armed guards to carry one bag can be attributed to the wretched excess that hubris causes] Wouldn’t it be an “act of kindness” if they sent a car to pick me up? Maybe they could jump the line like they used to do when Sheriff Jenne was boss, remember? Maybe they could bump me to first class?

Should this happen I will dedicate myself “to work together [to] find solutions to the real problems facing the state and nation”.

I am too old to believe in Santa Claus but a guy can hope, can’t he?




Kevin Smith

November 11, 2012
Glenn Garvin
The Miami Herald

RE: Oliver Stone and “eclectic indignation” or how modern American Liberals always remember how to forget – Some comments on your column about the good guys and the bad guys in the “Untold History of the United States”.

Mr. Garvin,

Maybe Walter Duranty was right. Maybe 6,000,000 to 10,000,000 Kulaks died of diabetes or Tay-Sachs disease. Maybe Hitler noticed that the deaths of “a faraway people of whom we know little” didn’t upset anybody in the West. [It should be noted that Hitler turned out to be a much better record keeper, particularly when it came to abattoirs.]

Your backhand snot smack of Stone when he compared America’s relations with Mexico and Canada – “Remind me again, was it Toronto or Montreal to which President Eisenhower sent tanks to put down a revolt, as the Soviets did in Hungary in 1956” – is worthy of bronze remembrance. As an aside, if Eisenhower had sent tanks into Canada, I hope, I mean I really, really hope that his target was Montreal.

The version of the Zhukov/Eisenhower that I heard was that it didn’t make any difference to the Russians whether it was landmines or machine guns. The order was always the same: Charge! It turned out that the Russians had more men then the Germans had bullets.

Speaking of an “alternate universe”, imagine if the 1934 winner of the Pulitzer Prize For Foreign Reporting, Frederick Birchall, the New York Times correspondent in Berlin had been as much the tank for the Gesztapo as Walter Duranty, the 1932 winner and New York Times employee, had been for the KGB?

The poet was right. It was “a low dishonest decade”.

And why did Dr. Seuss, Lillian Hellman, Woody Guthrie, and the as yet unnamed Hollywood 10 think that, from August 22, 1939 to June 21. 1941, Hitler was an OK guy?

Walter Duranty, Herbert Matthews, and Harrison Salisbury…one Helluva Murderers’ Row, no?

What can you expect from a newspaper that opposed Lincoln and wanted to settle with the South? That means they favored slavery, doesn’t it?

Less than 10 feet from where I type there is a framed scroll signed by President Truman. It says that Corporal Leonard Putnam died “in the Pacific area” on May 25, 1945. The “Pacific area” was Okinawa. He was a 42 year old piano salesman from Jersey City, N.J. He was my wife Amy’s uncle.

Directly below it is an autographed picture of Paul Tibbets. He is in uniform standing beside the Enola Gay.

His successful mission cancelled the ticket for the Tokyo Express that had my Uncle John’s name on it. Also, my cousin Jim and Amy’s cousin Andy got to come home, their scars, real and prospective, having stopped on August 6, 1945.

Has there ever been a more powerful nation than the United States was on September 2, 1945? No nation before or since has had the might that we had that day. We rebuilt our enemies, we fed the world, and we gave it up.

I shant be watching it but could you tell me if Margaret Sanger, one of the heroines of modern American Liberalism, is mentioned? If she is does that episode include the inconvenient fact that her writings inspired Hitler when he was assembling the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1934?

I don’t think so.

Being a mAL means you never have to say you’re sorry.







Kevin Smith
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET






PS – If Lysenko had been defenestrated would fewer people have starved?

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

"Though I am wounded, I am not slain. Lie me down to bleed awhile and I will rise to fight again."

"Though I am wounded, I am not slain. Lie me down to bleed awhile and I will rise to fight again."

"The triumph of hope over experience."

"The triumph of hope over experience."

Monday, November 5, 2012

November 4, 2012
Robert Lynn, Ph.D.
American Studies
Lynn University
3601 N. Military Trail
Boca Raton, FL 33431

RE: Thanks for the 50 year timeline of American History in today’s Sun Sentinel. Maybe you could produce one starting on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi.

My dear Professor,

If I read you correctly your 6 decade version of American History is not quite thus:
Franklin Roosevelt ran in 1932 promising to balance the budget and pledging never to engage in deficit financing. When his “Rainbow Soup” and “Balloon Juice
schemes failed to work he tried to “pack” the Supreme Court to make them work. The false premise there is that a legislature or a court can make water run uphill. It’s only a small turd in the punch bowl but the dirty little secret of modern American Liberalism is that none – zip, nada, zilch – of FDR’s flapdoodle claptrap worked. By every possible standard the country was worse off economically coming into 1939 than it was coming out of 1932. What got the big dog off the porch was when Boeing when to 3 shifts making B-17s at its Wichita plant. [Both the Birthers and the Truthers think that Pearl Harbor doesn’t quite pass the smell test but that’s a tale for a different time, no?] Harry Truman canceled my Uncle John’s ticket on the Tokyo Express by turning Hiroshima into sushi goo. For good measure he did the same to Nagasaki. My wife’s uncle is still on Okinawa. You may want to assign some of your more adventuresome students to prove or disprove the claim that nowhere and at no time has there ever been a country more powerful than the US was on September 2, 1945. It must be noted that Truman, your “great champion of the common man”, chose not to run in 1952 because the only man with a lower popularity rating was Julius Rosenberg. Your failure to disclose that it was a Republican President who appointed a Republican Governor as Chief Justice who ended school segregation is the stuff that civil fraud cases are built on. The same Republican President sent the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock to enforce that decision. None of that Andrew Jackson/John Marshall stuff there, right? Senator Irvin and Senator Fulbright, both champions of modern American Liberalism, have still not been heard from in re this matter. I never fully bought into the “torch being passed” in 1960. 11 months and 2 days after the American Army landed in Europe Hitler ate his gun. The thought that the man in charge, a man then President, would place his country in peril by allowing a “missile gap” is ludicrous. You may want to ask your students if they can identify – without help from Google - Quemoy and Matsu. See if they can find out how many times Mrs. O’Leary’s cow voted in Chicago in 1960. I promise not to mention Kennedy’s tax cuts.

Which brings us to Reagan…


He beat the Ruskkies without firing a shot.

The first words of the Polish Pope were Non timere. Be not afraid! He and Mrs. Thatcher did not have to wait long for the great Reagan.

Not only did the Congressional Democrats and their whining servy boy, the New York Times, believe that Stars Wars wouldn’t work, they believed it shouldn’t work. Clio, the beloved Muse of History, tells us that at least one man thought it could work. Gorbachev played his hand superbly well before he folded. I remember crying the first time I heard the GE ad that began with the simple line “The lights are coming on again all over Europe”. Leonard Bernstein said that in moments of tragedy and triumph people yearn for Beethoven. Fidelio and the Ninth Symphony were written for the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

GOD BLEST RONALD REAGAN!

Now you tell us that Republicans, under the whip hand direction of the Koch Brothers and guided by Nixon’s ghost, do not fill pot holes. Does that mean that Interstate 5, running the length of California, a state where Republicans are not allowed to spend the night in Sacramento, its capital, is as smooth as a baby’s bum? The short answer is no. The long answer is no.

Get to work on what the President know and when did he know it about the murder of 4 Americans in Libya on September, 2012. I thought all the WOGs loved us.

By the by, I think this campaign is strictly soft ball. 1800, 1824, 1876, 1884. They were something, weren’t they? I know that Romney killed the steel worker’s wife and that Ryan did a Johnny Udo on the Medicare Grandma but like Michael Corleone said, “Nothing personal. Strictly business.”

The trap bell just wrung. I love poached baby manatee fillets! Here’s hoping.







Kevin Smith

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Michael Putney The Miami Herald

October 31, 2012
Michael Putney
The Miami Herald

RE: As the legendary Big Mike from Bayonne still says, “What a country! That’s why never see anybody swimming to Cuba.” Some comments on your election column in today’s Miami Herald.

Mr. Putney,

Any column that begins with a back-handed swipe at the – Whodathunk – First Amendment and ends with a bow to Winston Churchill is worthy of a not quite resounding Huzzah. Relax. A muted Huzzah is better than any Harrumph.

[Is it possible that you, as a big time media mogul, could get me an absentee ballot from Miami/Dade so I could vote against Keon Hardeman, Esq.? I was once involved in a nasty dispute with Lawyer A. Lawyer B advised me against suing him. “Give him a beating in the parking lot” was his advice Lawyer Hardemon’s performance on your Sunday show is an example how sound the wisdom of Fat Jack was. And is. The only good thing to come out of it has now become an iron rule: In any contest between an ex-stewardess and a head up his ass lawyer always vote for the stewardess.]

As to the First Amendment and the Citizens United decision…

What is your problem with George Soros spending his own money to promote his political beliefs? It’s not like he is a cousin of the Koch Brothers.

Shouldn’t the SEIU – they’re the guys wearing the purple shirts that beat up old Black guys in wheelchairs, remember? – be able to take money from their members and promote candidates who advance their causes?

Are there any other parts of the First Amendment that don’t pass the Putney smell test?

Strict constructionists use the First Amendment when defending “Piss Christ” and “Corpus Cristi”. Not too many people wanted to see Nazis marching through Skokie shouting “Todt Juden” but the First Amendment begins with “Congress shall make no law…”

My plan to burn a Koran – Why are the Allahdamned things always “sacred”? - wrapped in an American flag with a bucket of pig pee nearby in case the fire spreads has failed to gain any media backing. When I go forward with it I expect the First Amendment to be my protector. I expect you to be in the front row, pike in hand, sounding like Voltaire.

Which leads me to another observation.

Where is the modern American Liberal uproar over the jailing of the film maker who portrayed Mohammed in a less than sterling manner? I guess he let his membership in the Hollywood Ten lapse. Can we assign him to a permanent Black List? I guess it depends on whose Gore is being oxed.

“When you’ve cut down every law to get the Devil where
would you hide when he turned round to face you? I’d give
the Devil the benefit of the law for my own safety’s sake.”

Which leads me to Churchill…

Full disclosure requires me to reveal that I am President of the local chapter of Churchill Forever. It is a situation up with which I will put.

Lady Astor, his American born piñata, observed that rumors of Churchill’s drinking in his underground HQ had reached Parliament.

“Mr. Churchill, it is said that the contents of the bottles of cognac and Champagne you have drunk would fill half these rooms.”

“So much work done; so much work to be done” was his wistful reply.

I’ll save the common denominator of the White House middle of the night gambol and the House of Commons urinal for a different time.






KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET




PS – It will be safe to wear pink tomorrow.

Monday, October 29, 2012

He Knew

I wish I had written this.
“How dreadful are the curses that Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has spread throughout central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
Winston Churchill did.
The River War, Page 248, London:.Langmans, Green & Co., 1899
So what’s new?

Friday, October 26, 2012

Dr. Brenda C. Snipes Broward County Supervisor of Elections

October 25, 2012
Dr. Brenda C. Snipes
Broward County Supervisor of Elections
115 S. Andrews Avenue #102
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301

RE: Hanging chads to hanging chumps – What the Hell is going on with 11/6/12?

My dear Professor,

Although it may just be an open casting call from the Theatre of the Absurd it is well to note that even hard core paranoiacs have real enemies.

Something called the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and why do I just know that they are a non-profit polar bear loving gang that constantly caterwauls “Why can’t we all just get along”, is coming to this country to monitor our Presidential elections.

Pray tell me that Florida and you will not allow this.

I don’t know what Florida law says about this.
I don’t know what power you have should some of these folks show up at my polling place.
I do know what power I have.
Should some snooty snotty Frog approach me while I am voting I will pummel him about the head and shoulders to the point of senselessness. I will revive him so I can do it again.

If it weren’t for the American Army German would be the official language of France.

The thought that those “cheese eating surrender monkeys”, a people who think it is OK to torture geese to get better liverwurst, a culture that believes that Jerry Lewis is a genius, have the temerity to peek over my shoulder while I am marking my ballot fills me with rage. “Don’t tread on me.”

Govern yourself and your agency accordingly!





Kevin Smith

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

First Draft

October 23, 2012
Inaugural address – draft 1
“I do.

Thank you Mr. Chief Justice.

By the time I get back to the White House I expect to have several executive orders ready to sign.

#1 – Since my predecessor has picked and chosen which Federal laws to enforce I will direct the Justice Department – and doesn’t the place smell better knowing that Holder is gone? Yes, it does. – and the Solicitor General not, repeat, not to defend furbish louseworts or snail darters when the other side of the law suit involves the only truly endangered species in the country. Of course, that is man. “Man shall not only endure; he will prevail” will be the motto of this administration.

#2 – It shouldn’t take more than 3 sentences to approve the Keystone pipeline. Consider it done.

#3 – Willful disobedience of any part of Obamacare on religious grounds will be fully supported by this Government.

#4 – If you don’t like coal turn off your A/C/. The math is simple. It is simple enough even for a mush brained modern American Liberal to understand. 50%, one half if you will, of the electricity produced in this country comes from burning coal. 50% of that power produces A/C. I am told by confidential sources that hospitals, particularly those with a high percentage of patients eligible for review by the soon to be installed “Death Panels”, shall be required to turn off the A/C in the afternoon. This stops now.

#5 – Solar panels and windmills, having failed the common sense test of the marketplace, will now have to make it on their own. They will make it or not make it with no assistance form the perpetually lactating Federal mammary. Whatever happens, the IV of taxpayers’ money has ended.

#6 – We have Homeric amounts of natural gas. It is now at an amount that is essentially incalculable. The author of this speech tells me that when he was in the oil & gas business his main source of transport in and around Crossroads, NM in 1981 was a big old pickup powered by natural gas. It shall be the policy of this government to advance the cause of natural gas driven vehicles by giving preference to said vehicles when ordering same for use by the Federal government.

#7 – Thank you and God Bless America.”


Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Justice Elena Kagan The Supreme Court

October 22, 2012
Justice Elena Kagan
The Supreme Court
1 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20543

RE: OY! Male, female. Smart, dumb. Semite, non-Semite, anti-Semite. BTB, are there any pro-Semites out there? Or, as, President Obama says, “You didn’t build that. Somebody else did.” Maybe you didn’t get your job the old fashioned way.

Madame Justice,

I had the pleasure of meeting Justice Fortas when he was in private practice. Yes, it’s true. His wife did smoke cigars. No, at no time during the conversation, even though I was the client, did I ask him about “Landslide Lyndon”.

“Not sure” if you would have gotten the job if you weren’t a woman?

Two things:

#1 – Being able to pee standing up is an overrated virtue. And, since more Americans die of prostate cancer than of breast cancer, there may be an additional benefit. Plus, in case you haven’t worked it out, if you didn’t get the job I wouldn’t be writing to you.

#2 – Institutions have, or should have, a collective memory. Try to find out how Justice Brennan, a Jersey guy, got his seat. All that mattered is that he got it. Was it he or was it Justice Douglas, a recess appointment, who gave us the great legal concept of “penumbras” and “emanations”?

My father’s father had two uncles who fought at Gettysburg. One of them is still there, “wrapped in his faded coat of blue”. He helped overturn the Dred Scott decision.

“The Supreme Court follows the election returns.”

Relax. You have tenure.





Kevin Smith

Friday, October 19, 2012

Michael Mayo The Sun Sentinel

October 18, 2012

Michael Mayo
The Sun Sentinel
500 Broward Boulevard
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33394

RE: “Politicizing the [Florida] Supreme Court” – Some comments on – you guessed it –
Politicizing the [Florida] Supreme Court

Mr. Mayo,

In addition to thinking that Logic is a parabolic curve, that facts, particularly inconvenient ones, must never interfere with an argument, and that History began with Obama’s coronation – Would you brand me a racist if I were to say that the oceans have neither receded nor have they cooled? – modern American Liberals believe both sincerely and profoundly that they can eat their cake and have it too.

My father was a Judge. Perhaps that might explain my animus.

Although I am a Jersey guy through and through I was astonished by the shtick and shenanigans surrounding the Broward County judiciary. I don’t want to suggest that there is inbreeding but a majority of those Black-robed bounders can see through a keyhole with both eyes.

Judicial candidates – that has a bit of stench to it, yes? – will spend $300,000 to get a job that pays $140,000 a year. Duh?

Judges then strong arm lawyers appearing before them for campaign contributions when they run for reelection. What’s wrong with that sentence?

Was there ever a more politicized judicial hearing than the one involving Judge Bork? I mention it because NJ/NY guys know that payback is a bitch. If Judge Bork had become Justice Bork he would have voted against accepting the case from Florida in re the 2000 election. The prospect of an administration run by former VP Alpha Gump both boggles me and whelms the imagination.

Modern American Liberals speak in reverence about “power to the people” and “participatory democracy”. “Occupy Wall Street” was hailed by progressives. They loooove it when courts rule in favor of rent control and gun control, when they smile on Affirmative Action and eminent domain. Any time a Judge says yes to “diversity” or “fairness” they become tumescent.



Since the people of Florida already have the power to toss Judges off the bench why shouldn’t they exercise that power?

The American people did not agree with the Dred Scott decision. They reversed it on the field of battle.

The American people did not like Prohibition. They threw it out.

The Florida Supreme Court has given itself the power to limit what citizens can vote on. It doesn’t matter how many photo IDs you have. The Black-robed Bosses have said “NO”. Maybe the people want to say “YES”.

Isn’t it time for a chorus of “The People United Can Never Be Defeated”?






Kevin Smith

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Letter to the Editor The Sun Sentinel

October 14, 2012
Letter to the Editor
The Sun Sentinel
500 Broward Boulevard
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33394

RE: Would being a thespian disqualify a Justice from keeping his seat. The perils of big boy Democracy as pointed out in your editorial today.

Sirs,

Having seen prospective Judges pander to special interest groups before the election, having seen sitting Judges strong arm lawyers appearing before them to finance their reelection even if there is no opposition - Might there be a cause and effect example here to explain the abysmal record of the Broward County Judiciary? – Why should politics in the retention vote of the 3 Supreme Court Justices so shock and amaze you?

The answer is to be found in the difference between a democracy and a republic. It is an absolutely straight line beginning in the agora, the forum, and running straight and true to the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

If the people in Florida get to vote who sits on the bench why can’t they vote on who gets thrown off the bench?

If the Judges chose to enter the political arena – raising money, seeking endorsements, proselytizing their beliefs – why should they be exempt from the political consequences? In this country politics “ain’t beanbag”. It’s a full contact sport. What’s the sense of having sharp elbows unless you use them?

If people can vote Judges in and vote Judgers out why can’t they vote on criminal cases? The next high profile child molestation can be held on the beach at Las Olas Boulevard. Thumbs up or thumbs down. Instant sentencing. Instant punishment. The never ending Summer of Recovery may yet see a revival of the mom and pop tumbrel industry.

Isn’t that the essence of democracy? The will of the people and all that jazz, right?

We entrust legislatures to protect our interests within specifically defined Constitutional guidelines. If we deny legislators the ability to confirm and retain Judges why should we be surprised when the people vote the way they see fit?

Incidentally, I intend to vote against the retention of the 3 Justices who are on the ballot for a reason other than ideology. Nota bene that ideology is part of the process. Not the only part, but a vital part.

Napoleon would pick 3 soldiers at random before a battle.

He would court martial them for cowardice. They would be found guilty and they would be executed.

He said “it encouraged the others”.

Nothing like vox populi being defined by someone carrying a 2 x 4.





KEVIN SMITH

Steven L. Goldstein The Sun Sentinel

October 14, 2012
Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun Sentinel
500 Broward Boulevard
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33394

RE: “Shining City” and how Nixon lives on to torment us still. Some comments on how, just when you think things can’t get worse, they do, they do. Some comments on your typical column today on why the letters GOP should be struck from the alphabet starting in Broward County.

My dear Professor,

You call the wascally Wepublicans “conspirators”. You say it is “a strong term but accurate”.

Such is the number that I get some conspiracies confused.

Is it the one that says, despite being approved by 3/4rs of Congress, Bush invaded Iraq so that his family could get control of the gas pipe line through Kafiristan?

Is it the one that says the Tea Party was really born when they blew up the levees in New Orleans in 2005? Talk about putting minority voter suppression on the fast track!

Is it the one that says Ronald Reagan started the AIDS “epidemic” because he didn’t like Clifton Webb?

Is it the one that says Franklin Roosevelt, in thralldom to Great Britain, knew about Pearl Harbor on Labor Day, 1941 but did nothing to interfere with it?

Which conspiracy have you pledged your fealty to?

“Birthers”? Bad.

“Truthers”? Good.

Or is it the opposite.

I get confused. Enlighten me.

In re Citizens United I am searching in vain for a synonym for “stupid” or “Homerically dumb”. Failiong to find any IO must settle for the lowest common denominator: modern American Liberal is spot on.

“Corporations are people” is an legal concept that has been around since the second half of the 19th century. The Clayton and Sherman Anti-Trust acts had to go after someone, not something.

IN the 1930s the Roosevelt administration frequently used it to advance their political agenda by judicial means. When the Supreme Court turned away his power grab – Remember, Mussolini was the poster boy of progressive modern American Liberals in that “low, dishonest decade” – he tried to pack it.

Can I ask which other parts of the First Amendment do you want to “reform”>

Friday, October 12, 2012

Karen Yi The Sun Sentinel

October 11, 2012
Karen Yi
The Sun Sentinel
500 Broward Boulevard
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33394

RE: “Race used in grading” – Some suggestions for additions to your Page 1 article on race based grading curves. The unasked question is why have we have waited so long to do this.

Ms. Yi,

Finally, one of my great ideas, perhaps a bit before its time, gains traction.

I have been advocating a 2 birds with one stone Geometry policy since the last century.

One of the great problems facing inner city youth is low self-esteem due to low grades due to low grades.

The hated, racist FCATs are now used to brand students, schools, neighborhoods, and cities with “D”, our new Scarlet Letter. It stands for “Dummy”. It also stands for “Dolt” and “Dunce”.

How simple it would be to reverse this trend!

If we were to change Pi from 3.1416 to 3.0 we would help our struggling youth in a variety of ways.

#1 - Geometry grades would improve.
#2 – FCAT scores would soar.
#3 – Potentially ferociously feral Black youth would be more inclined to be less feral because of higher grades.
#4 – A few decades out, when the bridges all start to fall down, we would have a built in, year round, Summer of Recovery. Provided, of course, that our Mandarin money lenders give their approval.

My plan to drop the past tense needs some work but I’m gaining on it.

Also, each basketball team must have a point guard who is a small, calorically challenged White guy who has at least 6 thumbs. No exceptions.

Since this is GLBT Appreciation Month perhaps we could find room for those who did not make the cut for the school production of “A Chorus Line” to make the football team? Tight end, wedge buster…the possibilities are endless.

I suppose that when the boobies are running the hatch stuff like this happens.

Madness.


Kevin Smith
Board Certified Life Coach

Stephen L. Goldstein The Sun Sentinel

October 12, 2012
Stephen L. Goldstein
The Sun Sentinel

RE: Like herpes, a gift that keeps on giving, your column about the perils of a representative Democracy [Sometimes the wrong guy wins] shows modern America Liberalism at its best. Did I say “best”? How about “worst”?

My dear Professor,

I almost got past your 3rd paragraph. Almost. That would have been a record.

One of the most endearing traits of a card carrying, fully committed modern American Liberal is the ability to never let facts interfere with an argument. Since you are the paradigmatic template of same it is always worthwhile to rake your offerings for gems

I looooove to tell mush brained, pointy headed the back story of the 2000 Supreme Court decision that kept the country safe from an administration run by V.P Alpha Gump. Buckle up. The truth hurts.

The vote to accept the case was 5 - 4.
The vote that made Bush President was 7 – 2.
It is empirically self-evident that 2 Justices switched their votes once the case was accepted and heard on its merits.
Look it up.

Here comes the fun part.

If Robert Bork had been confirmed as a Justice in 1987 the vote would have been 5 – 4 against accepting the case.

Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it?

I have some favors to ask

If I refuse to show a photo ID on Election Day can I count on your support? [You may not know it but a photo ID is required to get a Broward County library card. Strangely enough it is also required to give blood. Go figure.] As a non-felonious Caucasian it is the least I can do to support those who are - inter alia – felonious non-Caucasians.

My overseas confidential sources, sources that must remain, you should forgive the expression, confidential tell me that a bit more than what was reported at the American embassy in Libya happened.

The murdered American Ambassador was a homosexual.

He was apparently raped to death by the peace loving, live and let live, turbaned Islamic thugs. Since October is now known as GLBT month I think the assassination should be reclassified as a hate crime.

The Obama administration has always been keen on trying Muslim terrorists in this country. Round up a few of the more rabble rousing and try them here. Key West might be a good venue.

Great artists tend to repeat themselves.

Hitchcock always gave himself a bit part in his movies. How he got into “Lifeboat” is my favorite. Mel Brooks always had an obligatory Nazi scene.

In the end, modern American Liberals always put on their brown shirts, don their hob-nail boots, and goose step with a well-used whip in hand.

You say
“The votes are there to topple every Republican.”
The Sun Sentinel
Today
You

The prospects of Hell after life are grim enough.

You want to eliminate the death part by bringing us Hell on earth. How else could anyone describe a government run entirely by unbearable clones of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Broward County Board of Education?

If that were to be it would be time for the legendary Big Mike from Bayonne, noted sportsman, famed restaurateur, and now a shining public servant, a titan who introduced the phrase used in praise of this country – “That’s why you never see anybody swimming to Cuba” - to rethink it.




Kevin Smith
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLOSUTH. NET

Monday, October 8, 2012

Snoop Dog and the new Notre Dame helmets. Yes Virginia, there is a connection.




October 7, 2012
Snoop Dog and the new Notre Dame helmets.
Yes Virginia, there is a connection.

Of course everyone likes, indeed loves, the 19th century caricature of a red faced, ebullient, maybe one gin punch over the line, calorically challenged Santa Claus.

The illustrator of same, Thomas Nast, was a phenomenally proficient and productive portraitist of politicians. They were Democrats and as such early modern American Liberals. Since he worked for people who bought ink by the tank car it was impossible to defend yourself, particularly if you lived down to his expectations. Thus, his portrait of Boss Tweed, a pasty faced, pot-bellied, dirty fingered slug still stands vividly in the nation’s memory 135 years after it was sketched.

He also hated Roman Catholics. The only group he despised more was the Irish émigrés. Thus, the combination of them, particularly in New York City, sent him and his barbed pen into over drive.

One of his more popular sketches was of a small man in a finochio-like green costume assuming a fighting pose. He would fit the general description of a leprechaun. He had distinctly simian qualities.

The term “Fighting Irish” was the truth.

The cartoon would never be found anywhere near a group of Irish Catholics. To show it would ring the bell for a never endingRound One.

It could be a sign of God’s whimsy that a group of French priests traveled half way across this fair land before they found a place to plant their flag and His cross. Naturally the French priests called the place Notre Dame. As the clock began to tick faster the terms “Fighting Irish” and Notre Dame became synonymous and interchangeable. The drunken, bellicose, ape-like, layabout leprechaun was able to lose its hateful origins and become an accepted, indeed loved, symbol of the school and its football team.

[It is fitting and proper to note that 2 of the most famous football coaches there were neither Irish nor Catholic.]

Time softens the edges of language and insult.




Thus, when Notre Dame introduced their new helmets, the bug eyed ape stuck on the side was not big deal.

When Hamlet told Ophelia to “Get thee to a nunnery” he meant a whorehouse.

Was it Alice or the Red Queen who said “Those words mean exactly what I want them to mean”?

A few days ago we saw a debate in which the empty chair would have scored higher than the empty suit.

A day later I was told the following by a mush brained, pointy headed talking nit-wit who was so far in the tank for B. Hussein Obama that he could have drained his sinuses and tried to train his ears to heel from the inside. Governor Romney had to disown his more radical supporters or the main stream media would be really, I mean really really mean to him.

A day later I read of the Snoop Doggy Dog, AKA Snoop Lion, list of reasons why he is voting for B. Hussein Obama. I quote directly from his notes. Let me add that Edmund Burke and James Madison are not sure whether they should turn over in their graves or dig them down as deep as they can go.

“Romney is a white niggah” – “Obama is a black niggah.”
Romney’s wife – “bitch” to the Dog Man – “got a dancing horse”. Caroline Kennedy, she of “Sweet Caroline” fame, had a horse named Macaroni. It is not known if her father’s taste for bearded clam al dente precluded it from a decent 2 step.
Obama’s wife “got a fat ass”.
Romney is a “ho”. He is also a Mormon but he “ain’t got no hoes”.
The Snoopster says “Bitch I will beat the shit out of you”. It is syntactically unclear whether he is referring to the candidate or his wife.
He says he will not vote for Romney is because “this motherfucka’s name is Mitt”. The much maligned Fairness Doctrine compels me to include his reason # 9 for voting for Obama – Am I the last one to remember when Senator Lard Kennedy introduced him as Bahama Osama bin Laden Yomama Obama Salama? I hope not. - as one that is only whispered about in modern American Liberal circles. It is, “He smokes Newports.”

I am not sure of the difference between “a white niggah” and “a black niggah”. I do agree with his statement that Michelle “has a fat ass”. In a few years she’ll be using industrial strength WD-40 to get into her Aunt Jemima costume. She’s about 2 sweet potato pies and a mac & cheese IV away from having a keister that’s an axe handle and a half wide. She’s got those great arms from smuggling all those 5 gallon cans of lard up the back stairs of the White House. It is an inner city substitute for KY Jelly and can be used to do the girls’ do.

I am not really sure what Snoop Lion Dog does for a living. He must do it very well. He has a face that could cure diarrhea. But if he is, to quote VP Curly Biden’s apt description of Black people hoping to enter public service, “clean, bright, and articulate” it may be time to lay in some adult sizes of Kool-Aid.

I’ll say this for him.

“He never lets you down.”



Kevin Smith
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET



Sunday, October 7, 2012

Two Reasons to Celebrate October 7

October 7, 2012

There are 2 reasons to celebrate October 7th.
#1 – On October 7, 1571 a small group of good guys beat a much larger group of ferociously feral bad guys. To be more precise, the vastly outnumbered good guys gave the bad guys a Texas sized ass whipping that still resonates after all those years.

If they had not…

The world would not have seen or heard of – Let me list them – the Divine Comedy, Petrarch, St. Thomas Aquinas, St Francis of Assisi, Michelangelo, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Borgias, Titian, the Medicis, Raphael, chiaroscuro, Caravaggio – Dare I say the Renaissance? – Correggio, Vivaldi, nessum dorma, “thieving magpies”…

Columbus would have had to undiscover America.

Machiavelli would never have become an adjective.

David, the Pieta, the Last Supper, La Giaconda – all would have stayed locked up in the artists’ souls. Bernini would have stayed a stone mason, metal worker, and a house painter.

Prosciutto would have been banned.

Sausage? Fuhgedaboutit!

What happened on October 7, 1571 was simple.

A Muslim terrorist, rich beyond Croesus, assemble 1000 – repeat – 1000 war ships His goal, conquering and ruling Italy, was straightforward and announced.

Had he done so he would have kept the Islamic promise of “stabling their horses” in St. Peter’s Basilica.

HE WAS DEFEATED.
IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.

A world without the perpetual orgasmic qualities of Venice, a world without the endless debate between white sauce lovers and red sauce defenders, a world without sharp and clear Tuscan whites, a world with meatless melons, a world without Pavarotti, a world without Yogi Berra, a world where having a bottle of Riserva Ducale would be a flogging offense, a world without joy…The world would have been greatly lessened.

You may wish to check the years 732 and 1683. Both were years when turbaned Islamic killers tried to end Western Civilization. Might there be a pattern developing here?

Edmund Burke, as decidedly a non-Italian man as can be imagined, said “Alas, experience is the only school where most men learn”.

Will we ever learn?

#2 – It’s my birthday.




KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET

Saturday, October 6, 2012

October 6, 2012

Christy Cabrera Chirinos & Steve Gorten
The Sun Sentinel
500 Broward Boulevard
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33394

RE: Would I qualify for the next edition of “Profiles in Courage” if I were to object to your October 5, 2012 Page 1 article on the football team of Miramar High School wearing pink jerseys to show their steadfastness in the battle against breast cancer?

Ms. Chirinos & Mr. Gorten,

I have a legendary pink cashmere sweater that 3 generations of women have fought over. I had a pink tie that signaled the arrival of good times, particularly when I wore it with my world famous Lily Pulitzer pants. Pink, button down, monogrammed, pin point oxford shirts from Brooks Brothers were a staple of mine. I consider it, still, a point of ethnic honor to rescue smoked salmon from the clutches of Jewish delicatessens.

Pink, hot pink, dusty pink, salmon pink, rose pink…Crikey! I loooove pink!

For the entire month of October I will not wear a pink ribbon. I will not wear a pink shirt. If I had pink shoes I would not wear them. Ditto for pink knickers.

My reasons are simple and personal.

My wife, Amy, died on August 25, 2011 from uterine cancer.
What color is her ribbon?

My father died on Christmas Day, 1978 from pancreatic cancer.
What color is his ribbon?

More people did from prostate cancer than from breast cancer.
What color is their ribbon?

My Texas chainsaw skull scars from squamous cell carcinoma are always visible.
What color is that ribbon?

Lest you think I protest too much I point out that, despite being a devotee of corned beef, I never eat it in the month of March. My grandfather, Jack Smith, a veteran of the Ballyglass/Bayonne escape route, never saw corned beef until he got to this country. He recognized it as Bully Beef, a dish of Her Majesty’s Navy. Professional Irishmen, the ones who get teary eyed when the pipes skirl “Scotland the Brave”, gorge themselves on it on March 17th. It’s great in February and delicious in April.

The point of the above is to highlight the difference between feelings and ideas, between wish fulfillment and reasoning.

Let me add Barbie Doll Pink, the Energizer Bunny Pink, Pink Floyd, Pink Champagne, and the last half of the Pink Panther movies to my list of verboten Pink regardless of the month in which thehy appear

I must also add that Caroline Hanson, my 9 year old middle granddaughter, and one of my Texas ladies, raised $5,100.for St. Jude Children’s Hospital to honor her Grammy.

Which month has plaid as its color?




Kevin Smith

Letter to the Editor The Sun Sentinel

October 2, 2012
Letter to the Editor
The Sun Sentinel
500 Broward Boulevard
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33394

RE: “Free Speech for….somebody…maybe” – Some comments on your “Let’s cut the baby in half” editorial about free speech in today’s lead editorial.

Sirs,

If, as you say, “a matter of respect for what others hold dear” trumps the 25 century old Greek maxim “Free men speak with free tongues” how did “Piss Christ” or “Corpus Cristi” get into the public arena? It is owed to the moral ledger to say that both were, and are, subsidized by American taxpayers.

[“Piss Christ” shows a crucifix suspended in a vat containing urine. “Corpus Cristi” says that Christ was crucified because of a lovers’ quarrel, the lovers being Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot. Nothing controversial there, right?]

For that matter how did La Commedia – The Divine Comedy – come to be? How, pray tell, has it lasted 8 centuries

How many centuries would the cartoons showing Mohammed in a less than positive light – N.B. that I did not mention pedophilia or bestiality – have lasted?

If I were to criticize cliteroidectomies or to suggest that homosexuals should not be flogged would that make me into an insensitive Christian curmudgeon?

Why must we bear the burden of compromising with a culture that turned inward 1000 years ago?

This is a religion that was halfway across Europe less than a century after it was formed. This is a religion that promised to stable their horses in the Vatican. This is a religion that will not permit any place of worship other than their own in all the countries that they rule.

Why must we give up a right that is ours from birth, a “gift from beyond the stars”?

The encomium about not yelling “Fire” in a crowded theatre still applies. I promise to stay away from Mecca when I decide to attack sacred cows – N.B. again that I did not mention sacred pigs – that may offend some turbaned thugs.

Billingsgate is not just a destination. It is a precious gift that must be protected. The elections of 1800, 1828, 1864, and 1884 are examples of a free people expanding the envelope of free speech.

We are still standing.

Why have elbows unless they are sharp and in constant use?

We earned the right to use them as we see fit.

They haven’t.




Kevin Smith