Stream of Consciousness

Have you heard that radio jingle: " 1-877-Kars for Kids?' I will donate one million dollars to that organization if they promise to take that annoying kid and the hick who sings with him and drop them off the Empire State Building. Is there a better dessert on the planet than Tartufo? My ranking of drivers from worst to best: Asian women; Asian men; all other women; all other men; and finally, me. What's with road signs in New Jersey? They will put up a sign saying the Garden State Parkway is 30 miles away, but no sign marking the Jersey Turnpike entrance 500 yards away. Somebody should recommend a good hair stylist for Mark Harmon, star of the CBS hit show, "NCIS". With that ten dollar haircut he looks like Boo Radley.

I am the only person left in the country who has never seen "American Idol". How cruelly ironic that I can't grow hair on top of my head, but I have these lovely flowing tufts growing out of my ears. One of the best shows on TV for my money is "24" with Kiefer Sutherland as super agent Jack Bauer. Saw a great "American Masters" last night on PBS about the life and career of classy lady Lena Horne...beautiful, talented, and principled. Illegal immigration is turning two of our most beautiful states, California and Arizona, into welfare havens for criminals. The quality of life for legal residents of these states is declining while the tax burden for all of us is burgeoning. Guess what the Federal Government is doing about it...zip, zero, nada. Americans, learn Spanish!

When did we start caring so much about the so-called rights of captured enemy combatants. How many Americans have to be killed before we stop treating these people like visiting tourists. There are so many things on the forbidden food list, how did our grandparents eat what they wanted and live to a ripe old age? If I wasn't able to record my favorite shows and had to watch TV with all the commercials, I'd kill myself. A drink at most bars today costs 10-15 bucks. A bottle of booze yields 22-23 drinks. How much money do they need to make on a $30 bottle of scotch? NYC cops are really busting chops with B.S. tickets...I guess the city is so desperate for revenue they feel the need to harass honest citizens.

I know Tiger Woods sowed the seeds (no pun intended) of his own downfall, but he must feel like he's living his worst nightmare. I would trade my monthly social security check for the sum of one dollar for every moron I see doing something stupid behind the wheel of a car in a month. I can remember the lyrics to songs I first heard 50 years ago...Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, Irving Berlin, Richard Rogers...too many modern songs consist of the same phrase repeated over and over, no imagination. Anyone else have problems holding on to those crescent-shaped cubes that come from the refrigerator ice maker? My friend just bought a car for $45,000 dollars. In 1971 we paid 45,000 for our house. Sarah Jessica Parker...am I missing something?

Andrew Cuomo is running for Governor of New York on a reform platform. Given the disgrace that New York politics has become, this is welcome news for the people. Standing squarely in the way and ready to defend the status quo, as he is anytime reform is mentioned, is Democrat Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Guys like Silver are allowed to amass too much power which in turn allows them and their campaign-financing allies to kill worthwhile reform initiatives. Cuomo needs to get in touch with his father Mario's old cronies with the bent noses and put out a contract on Silver for the good of all New Yorkers. I'm sick of him.

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Scams I Wish I'd Thought Of

Every once in a while you hear about a scam so outrageously phony that you wonder how anybody could fall for it. The commercials and infomercials come on at all hours of the day telling you how to make a fortune in real estate, how you could have the body of Adonis or Aphrodite just by working out with this glorified rubber band twice a week, or how this cream, when applied to your thunder thighs, will miraculously melt away the fat. Here are a few of my favorites:

A sure candidate for the Scam Hall of Fame is Rocky Moselle, the guy who dreamed up the 'International Star Registry'. For the sale price of $48.99 Rocky will name a star after the person of your choice. He'll even deliver a pseudo-authentic certificate attesting to the fact that he just scammed you for fifty bucks. The idea of selling naming rights to the stars in the sky is brilliant; all Rocky actually delivers is a piece of paper that's not worth the paper it's printed on. He has no more right to sell star names than I have to sell naming rights for the pebbles on the beach, yet with slick marketing and despite the lack of a real product, Rocky is a millionaire. Hmmm, the International Pebble Registry...it could work. God bless America.

How about the little plastic gadget that is being sold to exercise away double chins. I fell out of my chair laughing when I first saw the infomercial, yet I'm sure thousands of units were purchased by multi-chinned suckers who sit there every blessed day raising and lowering their heads with this dopey thing stuck under their chins. Products that promise to make you slimmer, less wrinkled, or more youthful have a gigantic edge in the daydream sweepstakes. We've had this notion shoved down our throats about how beauty means thin and young, and the lengths to which people will go chasing this false idol are sad and pathetic.

If you think there's a limit to what people will spend their hard earned money on to improve their looks, here's a quote about a product that vacuums fat from your body: "The Hypoxi Vacunaut gives you a non-surgical tummy tuck. Along with an exercise program and diet plan, it's designed to take off inches rather than pounds. A neoprene body suit is attached by three small hoses to the Vacunaut machine. When it's switched on, it removes the air between the body and the suit to create a low-pressure atmosphere, providing a vacuum around the stomach area. The fat is metabolised and is then excreted through sweat, which is sucked out by a vacuum hose." Probably any commentary on my part is unnecessary. (Hint folks, the exercise and diet alone will do the trick).

Get-rich-quick schemes are also powerful lures for separating suckers from their money. There must be a dozen hucksters in slick infomercials telling us how to get rich selling real estate. Is there money to be made in the real estate market? Sure. Are you going to make any? Probably not. The question I'd love to put to these crooks is: If these sure-fire secrets for making millions are so foolproof, why are you sharing them with the public by selling cheesy DVDs at two in the morning for $29,99? Why would you invite all this competition into the market instead of just making the millions yourself using your system? Answer: The millions come from selling the DVDs to us fools, not from buying and selling foreclosed properties.

Some of the stuff being peddled around is not just quackery, but can be downright dangerous. Dr. Lorraine Day is a woman who claims that all diseases are caused by a combination of three factors: malnutrition, dehydration, and stress. She tells people that drugs never cure disease. She spouts long lists of health problems that she claims are caused by commonly used foods and drugs. She apparently believes that it is appropriate to tell people that medical treatment has never succeeded in curing cancer, and that her ten step program is a superior cure. The medical community condemns her advice as untrustworthy and particularly dangerous to people with cancer, but people who are frightened, possibly desperate, decide to follow her advice instead of getting proven care. Doctors may not always be right folks, but this woman is a loose cannon, and in my opinion should not be allowed on the airwaves to sell her snake oil.

The saying: 'There Is No Free Lunch' may be trite, but that doesn't make it less true. We know in the common sense part of our brain that if something looks too good to be true, we are headed for a fall if we take the bait. Sadly, we are all susceptible to the come-ons that push our buttons, drop ten pounds in a week, get the six-pack abs you always dreamed of, lose those unsightly wrinkles and look younger in days...so we call the 800 number and whip out our credit cards. There are no magic bullets, yet every day we prove how right P.T. Barnum was to observe cynically that there's a sucker born every minute. The next time you feel tempted to send away for that "Learn Spanish While You Sleep" tape, write a check instead to the Children's Craniofacial Association at the link shown below.

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Braindrops Number 100

This is a milestone for Braindrops... blog number 100. I tried to come up with something momentous to mark the occasion, but all I got for the effort was a headache. So on we go...we spent some time this morning at the Richmondtown Flea Market here on Staten Island. They hold these events a few times a year to help raise money for the restoration of historic Richmondtown. The main village is located in the heart of Richmond County and occupies almost 50 acres featuring over 30 original historic structures, including homes and commercial and civic buildings, as well as an historical museum. Three additional sites include one of the oldest homes in the country, still standing on its original location for almost 350 years, and an 11 acre organic farm.

Flea markets are great fun if you like walking around sorting through other people's junk. Everybody's looking for that miracle find, you know, like the ceramic pot that the lady on Antiques Roadshow says she bought for two dollars and the breathless appraiser gushes that today it's worth fifty grand. We used to go to flea markets more often, but even with a ten-room house, we just ran out of space. Today I picked up some artist's brushes, a painted dish, and a book published in 1921 called "The Latch Key", a collection of writings selected and edited for children by Olive Beaupre Miller. The book was part of a series of six published by Bookhouse, containing writings by renowned authors like Charles Dickens, Beatrix Potter, Lewis Carroll, Hans Christian Anderson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joel Chandler Harris and dozens of others. The hand-drawn illustrations were as charming as the stories.

One of the fun things about flea markets is that you meet some interesting people more than willing to talk about the stuff they sell or collect. While strolling around with the book under my arm, a man noticed the title and ran around from behind his table, nearly tackling me. "I hope you don't mind, but I grew up reading the Bookhouse series, and seeing that book title really brought me back." He went on to say that his aunt and uncle had the books in their library, and as a reward for doing chores for them, they would let him read the stories. He flipped open the book to a random page with no title, read a few sentences, and correctly identified the piece as "A Wizard of the Twilight" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Amazed, I asked him how come he remembered the book so well.

He explained that as a kid he was a voracious reader, and that his parents had few books in the house. He went to his aunt and uncle's as often as he could, and having few books themselves, he wound up reading the same ones over and over. He explained further that the six books in the series were graduated in complexity, with the selections growing more mature, intending to challenge young readers as they moved up through grade school. He reached down to his table and showed me a modern children's book he was selling. "Look at the sentence structure and the vocabulary in The Latch Key" he said "and compare it to what kids get to read today. Modern writing is so dumbed down, and even with these watered down standards, the kids can't write worth a damn".

He was on a roll and I didn't slow him down because I agree completely about the decline of literacy in our society. He was also annoyed that the legions of the politically correct prevailed the last time Bookhouse published this series in 1971, and removed what they considered to be "inappropriate material that did not reflect modern American values". One of the stories was "Little Black Sambo", a children's book by Helen Bannerman. In the tale, an Indian boy named Sambo outwits a group of hungry tigers. The little boy has to give his colorful new clothes, shoes, and umbrella to four tigers so they will not eat him. I remember loving this story as a child and never thought of it as racially charged. Other deleted works included some of the "Uncle Remus" tales by Joel Chandler Harris. His "Song of the South" with Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit was turned into a children's classic by Disney. Instead of maybe footnoting these charming writings to explain how the times in which they were written were different, the book Nazis just threw out the baby with the bathwater.

The decline of reading among children is very sad. Do you know any kids who would do chores for the reward of reading time? How many kids will have had their imaginations fired by stories they read growing up? Will any of them be able to open a book they read fifty or sixty years ago to a random page and name the story and the author the way my flea market friend did? We all know the answer to that question. Buy your children books and read with them.

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Children's Craniofacial Association

What I Meant to Say Was...

GENESIS 1:1-2:4 tells us that on the sixth day of creation, God made the animals and man. It states further that on the seventh day, He rested. Biblical scholars have recently discovered new evidence that reveals that on the seventh day, God looked back on His day six efforts and exclaimed aloud: "Oh me, (normally He might have said Oh God, but he was God you see) I've created a race of idiots and I need to send out a recall notice. It was then that God instilled in the mind of Man that built-in censoring mechanism that allows us to edit the thoughts we are really thinking to make them more socially acceptable before unleashing them in verbal form. Without this critical modification to the race of Man, the world would have surely ended on the eighth day. Some examples:

You are hosting a major holiday dinner. You plan, shop, cook, clean and prepare to serve a standout meal. Your guests arrive and you greet and seat them. All is ready, but wait...one couple is missing. You do your best to amuse those who arrived on time. You know your dinner is on the stove too long, but what can you do. Finally the late comers breeze in 45 minutes late. "We just couldn't get going today..." they laughingly declare, "...hope we didn't hold you up". WHAT YOU SAY: "Don't be silly, we were just getting started". WHAT YOU THINK: "I busted my ass getting this meal on the table. All we asked of you two a**holes was to get here on time, and you couldn't even get that right"!

Your teenage daughter's date shows up and he's everything you never wanted to see on your doorstep. Dressed in black leather with assorted body parts pierced, and looking like the centerfold for "Father's Worst Nightmare" magazine. He comes in to say hello, only because your daughter told him this was the proper way to pick up a date; he would have preferred to honk the horn by way of announcing he was waiting for your little girl. "I guess we'll be going now" he mutters. WHAT YOU SAY: "OK, nice meeting you, you kids have a nice time now". WHAT YOU THINK: "If you so much as lay a finger on her, I will find you and kill you slowly".

You're on line at the supermarket congratulating yourself on finding a line with only one woman ahead of you. You put the little plastic barrier on the conveyor that keeps her items from contaminating yours, and get your credit card out in anticipation of a quick checkout. Suddenly you notice the cashier looking for a UPC code on this woman's giant bag of pork rinds. And then the dreaded announcement: "Someone from snack foods to register 6 please". Dead, dead, dead. The woman looks at you sheepishly and says: "Sorry, this always seems to happen to me". WHAT YOU SAY: "Don't worry about it, I'm not in a rush". WHAT YOU THINK: "You fat cow, maybe this always happens to you because you're too stupid to check your items for price tags before inconveniencing everyone behind you"!

You work for weeks on a comprehensive presentation, laying out your ideas in a cohesive, sensible way for solving a problem your department is having. Your pitch to senior management is flawless, and you can tell from their body language that they are about to congratulate you for being so ingenious. Then the favored intern of the week (probably female or minority) chimes in with some inane idea pulled right out of his/her ass on the spur of the moment. The audience looks doubtful but your boss says: "That's an interesting approach Jamal, why don't you and Jim work together on that". WHAT YOU SAY: "No problem, I look forward to it". WHAT YOU THINK: "This was my moment, I worked hard and nailed the solution to this problem and you want me to share the credit with this clueless ass-kisser"?

God realized that Man could never survive if allowed to express unfiltered what was really on his mind. Otherwise that first conversation with Adam might have gone something like this: God to Adam: "Why have you eaten the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge"? WHAT ADAM SAID: "The woman made me do it, Lord". WHAT ADAM THOUGHT: "Geez God, if you didn't want us to eat the freakin' fruit, why put it there in the first place? Hello, am I supposed to be a mind reader?" And so God spared Himself the need to hear Adam mouth-off, and spared Adam's descendants the embarassment of having to live with the consequences of uttering what we were really thinking.

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No Free Lunch

I frequently rant about the evils of giving people something for nothing. I am in favor of helping those who are trying to help themselves, but vehemently opposed to lifetime entitlement programs that dispense money to people who not only make no effort to earn it, but who bitch when their entitlements are reduced. What is the incentive to work when every month, while people are out there struggling to make ends meet, the non-contributors in our society sit home watching "The Price Is Right" and waiting for their free money. If they refuse to get jobs, let the cities put them to work doing something constructive. No work, no money, it's just that simple.

America made a huge mistake when it allowed a big part of our manufacturing economy to be exported overseas. We now buy so many manufactured products from countries like China that we are deep in debt to them. Our economy relies heavily on loans from countries we once dominated economically. So many manufacturing jobs were lost; entire cities that once thrived on factory jobs are now ghost towns. People lost the dignity that honest work brings, and started looking to big government to pay their way. How could this happen? Who was asleep at the switch when our very livelihoods were stolen from us? There is plenty of blame to go around.

Let's start with labor unions. At one time unions served a valuable purpose when workers were abused and unfairly treated. At some point they not only ceased to be useful but actually became a big part of the problem. They made impossible demands for more and more benefits, refused to embrace even the most fundamental productivity improvements, and shut down industry after industry in the face of foreign competition, while paradoxically professing to protect local jobs. The classic example is the United Auto Workers Union whose inflexible and unyielding leadership saw the destruction of one of America's greatest industries. The rise of the $150,000-a-year assembly line worker signaled the demise of Detroit and the dozens of subsidiary industries connected to the manufacture of cars.

At the same time computerization and the resulting need for smarter factory workers was on the rise, America's educational system was in a death spiral. Once the pride of the world, our public schools began to fail on a massive scale. Academic standards were weakened to give the illusion of progress, but in reality countries like China, India and Russia were blowing by us academically. The weakening of the traditional family unit and children being raised in unstable homes with no caring parents contributed to the collapse. Technical jobs followed manufacturing jobs overseas because our high school graduates were not capable of doing them adequately.

Let's not forget the government. Instead of finding ways to help private enterprise do what they do best, creating jobs, the government moved into the cradle-to-grave entitlement business, and taxed the socks off businesses and individuals to pay the tab. They failed to enforce banking and brokerage regulations which led to a near collapse of the American economy, and wiped out savings for so many citizens. They looked the other way as millions of illegal immigrants entered our country and not only failed to stop them, but instead gave them full access to the entitlements normally reserved for legal residents. These illegals took cash jobs off the books, depriving the government of income tax revenue and cheating the economy out of jobs normally done by bona fide citizens.

Some of these Tea Party folks are a little too rabid and coarse for me, but I do understand their frustration. It seems like fewer and fewer Americans are working and paying taxes while more and more free riders are climbing aboard the entitlement express. We want the government to stop "redistributing" our income to people who have done nothing to earn it. We need to win back the jobs we've lost, put a lid on illegal immigration, hold our public school system and parents accountable for educating our children. Finally, we need to aggressively enforce the laws we enact to regulate our financial institutions. Somewhere we lost our way and we need to restore the work ethic that America was built on...no more free money.

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The Masters

For golfers, today begins the tournament known as the Masters, one of the four "majors" in the sport and the Holy Grail of American golf. It is the only major to be played at the same venue every year, the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. Some may think of the Masters, and golf in general, as elitist, and maybe at one time that was a fair assessment. The man who demolished that image, and who opened up the sport to blue-collar duffers was the great Arnold Palmer. Arnie walked out of the coal mines of Pennsylvania and reshaped the character of the game, lifting it out of the realm of country club snobbery to the fairways of public golf courses everywhere. Were it not for people like Palmer and the great Jack Nicklaus, who encouraged minorities to take up the game by refusing to play in tournaments where discrimination was practiced, there would be no Tiger Woods today. Homage must also be paid to early African-American players like Charlie Sifford, Calvin Peete and Lee Elder who endured humiliating treatment in their fight to pave the way for those who would follow.

Back to the Masters. One of golf's all-time greats was amateur Bobby Jones. In 1930, Jones won the British Amateur on the Old Course at St. Andrews, the British Open at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England, the U.S. Open at Interlachen Country Club in Minneapolis and the U.S. Amateur at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, PA to capture golf's Grand Slam. In 11 of the last 12 Open Championships he played, nine U.S. Opens and three British, he finished first or second. Incredibly, at the age of 28, Jones retired from competitive golf except for playing yearly at the Masters. Jones was far more than a golfer. He earned a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech , then completed a BS degree in English Literature from Harvard. He later entered Emory University to pursue a degree in law, passing the bar exam after his first year of law school.

Looking to provide a service to golf by hosting a tournament, Bobby Jones and his friend Clifford Roberts decided to hold an annual event beginning in 1934. Roberts proposed the event be called the Masters Tournament, but Bobby Jones objected thinking it too presumptuous. The name Augusta National Invitation Tournament was adopted and the title was used for five years until 1939 when Jones relented and the name was officially changed. A mutual friend of Jones and Roberts recommended a 365-acre property called Fruitland Nurseries. Upon seeing the property from what is now the practice putting green, Jones said, "Perfect! And to think this ground has been lying here all these years waiting for someone to come along and lay a golf course on it."

The Masters is a unique event in that is is organized and operated by the private Augusta National Golf Club. The club is not beholden to sponsors, television networks or anybody else. In 2003 a lawsuit was brought by feminist Martha Burke to force Augusta to accept women members into the all-male club. Augusta chairman William "Hootie" Johnson touched off a firestorm when he issued a strongly worded statement denying Burke's request. "We do not intend to become a trophy in their display case," Johnson said then. "There may well come a day when women will be invited to join our membership, but that timetable will be ours and not at the point of a bayonet." Whether you agree with the policy or not, I found it refreshing to hear Johnson say basically: Its our club and we will run it as we see fit, so piss off.

Neither does the Masters kowtow to TV pressure, and allows only two minutes worth of commercial messages in every televised hour, a dramatic departure from other televised events where you get more like 20-25 minutes of commercials. You can buy a hot dog and a beer for four bucks at the tournament because the club does not believe in ripping off people who attend the event. Augusta National donates considerable money and expertise to poor countries around the world to help grow the game of golf and make it available to youngsters who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to play. When Tiger Woods had a chance to hold all four major titles by winning the Masters, the club invited Lee Elder to attend as a tribute to black golfers who had paved the way. They did it not for publicity about which they care little, but because it was the right thing to do.

I am a golf nut and the Masters, with its rich history, and incredibly beautiful but difficult golf course is something special to me. The event echoes with cheers for past winners like Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Gene Saracen, Palmer, Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and yes, Tiger Woods. In an age where the likes of Plaxico Burress, Roger Clemens and Jason Williams are sad representatives of their sports, I am proud to be part of a sport that (Tiger Woods' recent shenanigans not withstanding) emphasizes honor and sportsmanship. Golfers call penalties on themselves when they break a rule, sometimes costing themselves a tournament. Nobody else witnesses these infractions, but the players know what the centuries-old traditions of the game demand of them. So go Augusta National, tell them all to go to hell and keep doing it your way.

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Things I Wonder About

The new health care initiative is good in the sense that it provides universal coverage, but troubling in that the costs will be borne by working people for the benefit of non-working people. It reinforces the entitlement mentality, and minimizes the incentive to work....very bad for America.

How can there be any tractor trailers left on the road when every day hundreds of them are involved in highway accidents.

Has anyone ever actually rolled in the aisles?

If broccoli is good for you and chocolate is bad, why can't science make broccoli taste like chocolate and vice-versa?

Should the government regulate and tax things they deem to be unhealthy for us? Seems to me the minute they start making money on our unhealthy habits, their motives come into question. It's as if they're saying: We'll let you harm yourself by continuing to use these products as long as you pay us for the privilege.

Why do young guys wear down jackets and Bermuda shorts in the winter?

Why do delivery trucks double park when there is plenty of room at the curb?

Why do some major retail stores tolerate poor service. The other day in Sears, a clerk studiously ignored me while I was looking for help. She looked like she was ashamed to admit she worked for Sears. For a store that is on the ropes, they sure have a lousy attitude.

How can New York City pay Police Officers a starting salary of $26,000?

After the Bernie Madoff scandal and the failure of major banks, brokerage houses and insurance companies, to whom can I entrust my money?

New York City has an experimental program in place where they pay people to engage in "good" behavior like getting health insurance, attending parent-teacher conferences, setting up bank accounts and visiting the dentist. Just when I think we've hit bottom on our march to creeping Socialism, somebody drains a few more feet out of the pool.

Do all big lottery winners look like they were just evicted from a trailer park?

Lady Gaga has had her songs downloaded over a billion times. I wonder how many downloads Peggy Lee has?

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Miscellany

We had a severe wind and rain storm this past Saturday. They called it a Nor'easter, which is weather-speak for hold on to your toupee. Sheets of rain blowing sideways, sustained winds of 50 MPH and higher for six hours, trees down and power out all over Staten Island...I'd call it a freakin' hurricane. It began in earnest about 3 PM and lasted well into the night. As I sat watching TV (thankfully our power stayed on) I saw shingles from my neighbor's roof flying past my window. I had a Rhododendron bush planted in front of my house that blew up the block and was last seen crossing the state line into New Jersey. I kept expecting to see the Wicked Witch of the West fly by with little Toto in her bicycle basket! I've never been in a bad hurricane or tornado, but I can't imagine how much worse it can be. Am I eligible for federal handouts like our needy friends in New Orleans?

A couple of weeks ago we saw "Avitar" in 3-D at an I-Max theater. The movie was amazing and I'm glad we went. You still need the glasses to realize the 3-D effect, but the resemblance to the old 3-D movies ends there. In the old clunkers like "House of Wax" we wore those cheesy cardboard glasses; the 3-D scenes were blurry and the film colorization was terrible. For Avitar the glasses are now polarized, and the effects were spectacular, with no distortion whatsoever. We don't get to many movies because my wife is afraid I'll go into "shush" mode and embarrass her. I was sorry to see Avitar fare so poorly at the Oscars ceremony. The movie was outstanding and you should go, but be sure to see it in I-Max!

The other day in the NY Daily News, some letter-to-the-Editor writer was whining about his unemployment benefits not being extended. I hear others from the "Entitlement Generation" complain about reduced benefits, and how our society is going to hell in a handbasket. Let me see if I got this straight...I work and pay my exorbitant taxes so we can give people free money, and then I have to hear them bitch that it's not enough? Hello, it's FREE. Interestingly enough, in the same day's paper, there was an article that the Census Bureau can't fill the thousands of jobs open for census takers. What's wrong with this picture? Able bodied people would rather sit on the stoop drinking beer, or watch soap operas on the couch while shoveling Ring Dings into their pie holes that I paid for, instead of going out and working. The fact that we have created this entitlement mentality is why we're going to hell in a handbasket.

Not long ago my wife bought me a crock pot. It sat around the house for a while and finally we decided to try it. HELLO slow-cooked meats! This is the greatest invention since the TV remote. So far we've had a pork roast, a London broil, a pot roast and a chicken, and all were fantastic. Right now there's a corned beef simmering in that baby, with some potatoes and cabbage and I can't wait to get at it. There's something about slow cooking at low temperatures that gives meat a whole new flavor. Even less expensive cuts come out fork tender. We have cut way back on our meat consumption for health reasons, but now that this little appliance is sitting on the counter, we may have to step it up again.

Every day, Federal, State and City governments get scammed out of billions of dollars through tax evasion, Medicare fraud, welfare and Social Security schemes, government employees selling things like driver's licenses and green cards, and in a thousand other ways. Doesn't anybody check or follow up on anything? The problem is that it's so easy to give away other people's money. I'd bet the people who administer these programs and pay out these monies are a whole lot more careful with their own checkbooks than they are with the government's. It's time we put some money into auditing the recipients of these funds...start with the biggest payees and send people into the field to verify their claims. I'll bet things tighten up in a hurry as more crooks get fitted for orange jump suits. It's our money for crying out loud.

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Justice Takes a Holiday

The following statement was issued yesterday: "The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History will not be collecting O.J. Simpson's suit. The decision was made by the museum's curators together with the director." The Smithsonian's decision comes a day after California Superior Court Judge Joseph Biderman approved the plan to send Simpson's suit that he wore on the day of his acquittal to the Smithsonian, ending a 13-year legal dispute between Ron Goldman's father, Fred, and Simpson's former sports agent, Mike Gilbert, both of whom laid claim to Simpson's duds. Both Goldman and Gilbert agreed to the donation; even O.J. himself weighed in. In a statement issued from from prison in Nevada, where he's serving nine to 33 years for armed robbery and kidnapping, Simpson said he approved the donation provided no party made a profit from it. The only problem? No one asked the Smithsonian if it wanted the suit.

This is the latest development in a bizarre case that began over 15 years ago. Some time after 10:00 pm on Sunday, June 12th, 1994 a double homicide occurred in the Brentwood community of Los Angeles. The victims were 35 year-old Nicole Brown Simpson and 25 year-old Ronald Lyle Goldman. O.J. Simpson is notified of the murders while on a business trip in Chicago. He returns to Los Angeles, is temporarily handcuffed, and taken in for questioning. Robert Shapiro is contacted on Simpson's behalf and asked to become defense counsel. Five days later, about to be arrested for murder, Simpson slips out of a friend's home. Who can forget the events as they then unfolded on national television, like some bad episode of "The Streets of San Francisco".

Simpson is chased by police while riding in his white Ford Bronco, driven by friend A.C. Cowlings. The low-speed chase seems to go on forever, with police helicopters and an army of media people in pursuit. The world watches from the comfort of their living rooms as the commentators explain what is happening. When he finally returns to his home, Simpson is taken into custody. Most of us were already leaning toward O.J. for the double murder. Seemed pretty clear cut...fading athlete, beautiful wife, handsome boyfriend...an age old story of jealousy, rage and death. Not so fast grasshopper, this is America. The accused are innocent until proven guilty. Let the madness begin.

The preliminary hearing ends with Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell ruling there is sufficient evidence for O.J. Simpson to stand trial on two counts of first-degree murder. O.J. pleads "absolutely 100 percent not guilty" to the charges. Judge Lance Ito is assigned to hear the case. Jury panel is selected: eight black, one white, one Hispanic, two mixed race; eight women, four men. January 25, 1995 - Trial opens. Prosecutors Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden deliver opening statements. Johnnie Cochran makes opening statement for the defense. We'll be seeing a lot more of Mr. Cochran as he uses every trick in his bag to take apart the prosecution's case against Simpson. Their ineptitude made Cochran's job a lot easier.

L.A.P.D. criminalist Dennis Fung concedes, under cross-examination by defense attorney Barry Scheck, that procedural errors were made in the prosecution's case. Who can forget that scene in the courtroom when Simpson tries on the bloody gloves. They seem not to fit. Detective Mark Fuhrman appears on stand. He refuses to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination. Clark and Darden deliver prosecution's closing arguments. Cochran and Scheck deliver defense's closing arguments. Cochran makes controversial statements to the jury comparing Fuhrman to Hitler. The case goes to the jury. After less than four hours, jury announces that it has reached a verdict. Jury finds O.J. Simpson not guilty of two counts of murder.

Simpson's acquittal was one of the darkest days in the history of American justice. An open and shut case was blown sky high by overzealous prosecutors, an incompetent judge and a criminally moronic police department. Simpson was a pariah after the trial, but that didn't stop him from smirking at every opportunity like a man who had got away with murder. He even wrote a "what if I did it" book to further rub our noses in it. His recent conviction on robbery and kidnapping charges finally put his smart ass in jail. This past December there was a story that O.J. had been beaten in prison by white inmates motivated by racial hatred. Call it jailhouse justice if you like, but this monster took two innocent lives and got off scot free. The low-life bum deserves everything he gets.

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