What Is That Hat For?

I saw something the other day that made me wonder what is what.” What would that be?” you might ask. Well, I will tell you what, after I explain to you that I, at one time, was a young person. I’m sure that I did some things that made older folks scratch their heads in wonder. I grew my hair longer than older folks normally did. I have to say, however that it wasn’t necessarily because of The Beatles. For some reason, I liked the look of much older folks of the masculine persuasion, like Ben Franklin, Buffalo Bill Cody, George Armstrong Custer, Jesus…  I think you get the picture. The point is I was, maybe, different than others of my age.  Never-the-less, kids my age tended to have longer hair and, as soon as possible, would grow face hair, if they could, and even when they couldn’t. Older folks didn’t care for it so much and would make comments like, “Isn’t that hot for the summer?” or “Doesn’t that itch?”  The answer was “I like it this way!”

In my town (Topeka, Kansas), during a few years in the 60s, there was a very strange phenomenon concerning clothes that I don’t think went past the city limits. It was very popular for guys to wear “flag jackets” (a kind of windbreaker with a large differently colored rectangle on the back similar to a signal flag that sailors used to send messages), Adler socks and very tight high-water 501 Levis that came down, maybe, to the tops of their Adler socks.  If they felt dressy, they would wear wing-tip-dress shoes—they had to be wing-tips.  I must admit that I never had a “flag-jacket”—I just now tried to google it but the only thing that came up was “American Flag-jackets.”  I did, however, wear wing-tips to church and other dressy occasions. What can you say? Wing-tips are very cool. I actually had a nice pair of black and white saddle-styled-wing-tips. I was the envy. I would get some to wear on stage today, if I could find some. I also wore Adler socks, because they felt good.  You maybe couldn’t tell that I was being stylish, because I wore my 501 Levis (I wasn’t completely out of fashion) longer than most everyone else. My best friend admitted to me much later in life that when we first saw me in junior high school he thought I looked like some kind of dweeb (probably not the words he used) and he was tempted to kick my butt.   Obviously his hesitancy to go down that road saved him from a terrible beating, but the point is that I was apparently not following the crowd to any great degree.

Before I get back to my original comment about “What is What?”, let me say that I don’t get the sagging britches thing that has been going on now for a couple decades or more. Why do so many kids and some young men wear their pants like that? Even some men in their mid-twenties are still wearing. Usually they have their underwear sticking up to the waste, but their britches about 4 or 5 inches below that.  Sometimes you can see they are actually wearing a belt, but how do they actually keep the pants up? It can’t be that they can run from the police any faster, holding their pants with both hands to keep them from tripping.

Then there are all of the piercings in different places in the face and hoops in the earlobes that you could put a clothes hanger hook through.  I guess it’s an attention-getting-thing, but it would be more simple to have a tattoo on their foreheads—they likely have many tattoos everywhere else, so one more wouldn’t be a big deal--that says “Hey, everyone, I am an idiot.” Am I being unkind or disrespectful? Probably. But I digress…

Back to my original “What is What?” comment. I was getting back in my truck the other day, after buying a cheeseburger to eat on the road. It was a hundred degrees out and I see two young fellows going into the burger joint. They were both wearing stocking caps! What is that about?  I suppose that they may have both gotten ridiculous haircuts and wearing the woolen stocking caps to hide their shame. I know, there probably isn’t and such a thing as a haircut so ridiculous that some young folks would be embarrassed over, but if there were, baseball caps would most likely have covered that.  Or, they could have had a killer air-conditioner in their car and their heads were getting really cold—they had their ears covered.  Of course, they may belong to the Michael Nesmith Fan Club, or have just been trying to cover the “Hey, I’m an idiot!” tattoos they had gotten the night before, when imbibing illegal substances.   

Where Is The Outrage?

I have to ask, where is the out rage? Seriously, I don’t like being angry and pessimistic all of the time, so I haven’t blogged much of late. Well, there is also the fact that I just can’t keep up with the multitude of things these days that keep me angry and pessimistic. Just about every one of the things has to do with the anger-making and pessimism-making president we have. Every time I think he has gone as far as he can go, he goes a little (actually a lot) further in doing and promoting stupid stuff that drags us lower and  lower. Is there really anyone who voted for Obama that thinks he is not an Israel hater?  Who thinks it’s a good idea to make it easier for Iran to create nuclear weaponry and at the same time reduce the United States military strength to pre-WWII levels? Maybe they are the same people who think it’s a good idea to fund Planned Parenthood, while Margaret Sangers’s ‘brain child’ harvests body parts from aborted baby human beings to sell on the open market. They are human babies, people. The thought that they are anything but humans is trully outrageous.

I have blogged about the evils of Planned Parenthood before, but the recent revelations of traffiking in baby body parts and financial gain for the greedy killers makes me beyond sick to my stomach; and I need to vent. Incidentally, does anyone else find the name, “Planned Parenthood as ironic as I do? Shouldn’t it be “Planned Un-parenthood?” Margaret Sanger was a racist proponent of eugenics. It was Sanger’s view, along with many of the progressives of the 30s and 40s, that sterilization of the feeble minded—morons and idiots, in her view—should be compelled to be sterilized. She was successful in this in 30 states resulting in an estimated 60, 000 sterilizations. Not unlike Hitler, Sanger was for culling negroes and Jews by birth control, Sterilizations, she said, “do not go to the bottom of the matter.” (“Birth Control and Racial Betterment,” Feb. 1919, The Birth Control Review).  She presented her beliefs to female groups of the Ku Klux Klan, and in a letter to Clarence Gable in 1939, Sanger wrote: “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members” (Margaret Sanger commenting on the ‘Negro Project’ in a letter to Gamble, Dec. 10, 1939). If you are a big proponent of Planned Parenthood, as is Hilary Clinton, you get a Margaret Sanger award. 

Last evening I visited my daughter and my beautiful new grandson, to whom she had that day given birth. I looked at him and couldn’t help but think of the total number of abortions in the U.S. 1973-2013: 56.5 million. That is 219 abortions per 1,000 live births (according to the Centers for Disease Control); 1.058 million abortions every year; 2,899 Abortions per day; 120 abortions per hour; 1 abortion every 30 seconds. Is it not bad enough that we allow such carnage unabated in this nation? Do I have to help fund it too. Yeah, I’m angry and pessimistic about this nation’s relationship to God. So, I ask, Where is the Outrage? Soilent Green, anyone?

Who Are You Going To Believe? Me Or Your Lying Eyes And Ears?

President Barrack Hussein Obama to reporters: "Gruber? Gruber? I don't know anyone named Gruber. I thought you were asking me if  I knew 'Goober,' that brilliant economist from the Andy Griffith Show that we all loved to hear lecturing on Obamacare and how it was going to save everyone so much money."  That is not what Obama said of course, but what he did say is that he "hardly knew the guy who lived in his neighborhood". No, wait, that was Bill Ayers, the ex terrorist bomber from the 60s who is now a college professor in Chicago, who sat on several boards with Obama and, in who's home Obama kicked of his candidacy for the presidency.  Oh yeah, Gruber was the racist pastor, who married Barrack and Michelle and baptized their children, and was recorded yelling anti-American communist crap, which Obama never heard  when he attended church. No... that was the "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright who wasn't all that close to the Obamas either.  Was he the the Communist party hack/pornographer who was a mentor of Barrack's in Hawaii? No, that was Frank Marshal Davis, who Obama later tried to not remember.

Well, who is Mr Gruber? He's the latest persona non grata whom Obama and the the Democrat party wish had never been born.  He was somebody everyone on the Left knew, when they thought he was a "brilliant MIT economist who, while secretly in the pay of the White House, could be quoted ad-nauseum  about what a terrific deal Obamacare was going to be. Everyone left of center, including the liberal news media--basically everyone but Fox News--helped make the guy out as an unbiased brainiac councilor to the president.

All of that has come back to embarrass the left, when videos started surfacing this week where "Economist", Jonathan Gruber, bragged about how it was necessary to "lie" to the American voters--who are pretty stupid by the way--in order to get the the smelly and misnamed "Affordable Health Care Act" through congress and on to the president's desk.  Gruber said that, if they told the public the truth, that they would not be able to keep the insurance that like and the doctors whom they liked and that it would necessarily be more expensive for the majority of the middle class, they would never go for it. Ya think? Gruber apparently thought he and the Democrat politicians were pretty slick. Well, as slick as Pelosi, Reid and the other Fools On The Hill (TFOTH) can be considered slick (I know, they keep getting elected). But, I guess they were as slick as they needed to be at the time. Remember, "you have to pass it in order to see what is in it?"  If you could listen to that lunacy and still pull the lever for the Dems, I guess you might be considered a poster child for Lenin's (you fill the blank) and the president, TFOTH

The sad thing is that some of us aren't going to hear much about it if the left-leaning news media or the Fools On The Hill can have some say in the matter. I can't help but think of the joke where the punchline goes something like,"Who are going to believe, me or your lying eyes and ears?" Maybe Goober would have been better a adviser to the president. "Judy, Judy Judy".

I Woke Up This Morning. Did America Wake Up Last Night?

I haven't been inspired to blog about anything for quite a while. But this morning I feel like indulging myself a bit. Last night enough voters woke up politically and turned the Senate over to the Republicans.  There were several things that felt good to me. Number one is that Tim Scott won the Senate seat he had been occupying by appointment. The important thing is that Tim is of the black Conservative Republican persuasion.  Not only did he win, but he won big, by a bigger gap than fellow South Carolinian, Lindsey Graham did; Lindsey being of the white Moderate (liberal) Republican persuasion.Tim was the first black man elected senator in  South Carolina since reconstruction. What was it that Mary Landrieu said about whites in the south not voting for blacks? Of course she has her own problems getting only 42% of the vote for Louisiana Senator, against two republicans in her race. She will have a runoff with republican, Bill Cassidy, next month, to see if she can keep the seat that she has won at least a couple times before. Can she she suggest that men in the south just will not vote for a woman? Even though white men helped her get elected a couple times before, she will not be ashamed to suggest it.

My number two reason for feeling good is that the elections clearly showed that the Democrats' ridiculous "republican-war-on-women" mantra is getting extremely old and pathetic. Joni Ernst, the first female--republican or otherwise--elected from her state of Iowa. She is also the first female military veteran to be elected to the senate of any state.  Republican Shelly Moore is also the first woman in the state of of West Virginia to be elected to the senate. Then there is Republican Elise Stefanik who became the youngest ever woman (30 years old) elected to US Congress in history. It was also fulfilling to see incumbent Democrat Mark Udahl ride the "war on women" position into defeat in the Colorado senate race.

My number three reason is that Mia Love won the 4th district of Utah representative seat. I was really excited about her two years ago when she lost to phony "moderate" Matheson in a pretty close race. With Mia, we have perfect the answer to the liberal Democrats' accusations that conservative Republicans are racist and antagonistic towards women.  Mia Love is an excellent example of a Republican woman of color trusted by a generally conservative constituency. The old crap about racism and sex bigotry that the Dems trot out when they do not have a valid position to stand on is wearing thin and it looks like voters are getting wise to it.

My favorite reason for feeling good is that the deceitful, despicable and power-drunk (also creepy weird) Harry Reid will be out as senate majority leader.  In a couple months, the Senate will be able to actually vote on bills passed by the house of representatives. Since the Republicans took over the House of Representatives in 2010, the House has passed over 350 bills and sent to them on to the Senate to be voted on. Reid refused to let them come to a vote in the Senate. Why? you may ask. Probably because  he is deceitful, despicable and power-drunk (also creepy weird), and did not want any of the Democrats in the Senate to be tempted to choose between doing right and wrong and embarrassing President Obama, by joining with the Republicans on anything.

Only way last night would have been better for me is if Obama had been on the ballot. But, in essence, he and his policies were on the ballot and the Democrats suffered because of it. I just hope the Republicans will have the backbone to take on the the left and fix the destructive stuff that the Democrats have been allowed President Obama to do. We have only two years to try to keep him in constitutional check before the presidential election in 2016.  They also need to shine the light on the corruption of this administration--Bengahzi cover-up, IRS cover-up, Isis debacle, etc.  Go team!!!

Along with Joni, Republican Elise Stefanik, a college freshman in upstate New York, became the youngest woman ever elected to congress,  And of course my                    Joni Ernst, Mia Love

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/11/05/245778/republicans-widen-control-in-senate.html#storylink=cpy

Naughty or Nice: Is it Not a Laughing Matter?

I had the opportunity over the weekend to see my son, Jesse, perform his stand-up comedy at the annual Salt Lake City Comedy Carnival. He was great. He got lots of laughs by using his intellect to expose the absurdities of life. However, I can't say the same about the other comics who shared the bill with him. The MC, who introduce each act, seemed to be trying to get as many obscenities  he possibly could in each sentence. The other three comics, apart from Jesse, followed suit, adding in descriptions of their deviant sexual behavior. Everyone at my table were incapable of separating the vulgarity from the truly humorous elements of the comics' bits. Where Jesse was able to get laughter and applause by his humorous takes on modern society's love affair "gluten intolerance" and  how work and jobs are like romantic relationships, The others found it necessary to shock the audience into uncomfortable laughter.

Maybe my friends and I are the exceptions, but we don't find gutter language and foul expletives funny anywhere else, so why should we think it funny or even slightly amusing on stage when a comedian uses it.  I work with the construction trades as a safety professional, so I visit job sites most days and get to hear expletives of all kinds and in more than one language. It never thrills me. I never feel compelled to laugh when I hear limited vocabulary of the meaner kind. It seems to me that the users of offensive language were once kids trying out the "adult" words, just as they did when they started smoking and drinking alcohol because it makes them feel older and more sophisticated, but they never realized the fallacy.   I suppose the same is true with the audiences who get a kick out of hearing the silly, offensive drivel.  I picture in my mind the little kids smoking behind the garage or barn looking at porn and giggling to each other and patting themselves on the back for their "adult" behavior.

It would seem to me that the "comedians"--I use the term loosely--who go in for the crude and racy material should look around to see who are some of the most successful in their chosen field, who shy away from the   Bill Cosby, Steve Martin, Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Gaffigan, Brian Regan, etc. are largely pretty clean comedians and have really broad fan appeal. Even the very mentally sick among us would agree that they are funny. I know that some will point to the likes of Red Fox and Richard Prior and say they were really funny and successful. I just say that they knew and played to their audiences. They didn't get really successful until they broadened their audience base, to include prime time TV and PG movies.

In my humble opinion, the truth is that clean comedians are funnier and more creative in their craft than the the crude and dirty comics.  They point out the humorous reality and absurdities in the world and help us recognize them and laugh at ourselves. The dirty comedians only titillate the darker natures of humanity. The thing we don't need is more crap thrown in our faces.

My Logic Is Unimpeachable! Sorry To Say, I Suspect The Same About BarackObama

Richard Nixon resigned as president because he knew that he was going to be impeached. He was advised by the Republican party leaders that he would not get support from them to withstand impeachment. The republicans knew at that point that Nixon had broken the law by knowingly covering up the illegal actions of his subordinates. Republicans regularly turn against their own when they know that one of their own has been clearly immoral or unethical in their behaviors.

With Bill Clinton, the democrat argument for Clinton changed from "You can't trust those sleazy trailer-park women he is accused of abusing" to "Come on, every body does it, and lying about sex is understandable". Even though he clearly perjured himself and coerced others to commit perjury, the democrat party circled the wagons around him and Bill survived impeachment.

Today, we have a president who has personally broken the law numerous  times, by presidential orders, making changes to the Un-affordable Care Act--yes, I know that it was called something else by the democrats, but I am calling it what it is--and refused to enforce numerous laws on the books, because he doesn't like them, or because he can score political points with a particular voting block by neglecting his duty as president. Though he has continually broken the law and deceived the public on numerous occasions, and merits impeachment more so than any president before him--maybe even more than Andrew Jackson or Woodrow Wilson, it is impossible for me to see that happening.  Why? Because he is the darling of the media and the democrat party has shown time and time again that power trumps morality or ethics every time.

Now I know that because I find fault with our president that many think that I must be a racist. It is sad to say that that race card being played when ever anyone questions a liberal black politician's integrity or even their good judgment still seams to work for the democrats. At least it does for the most of news media. Sadly, the same cannot be argued for Allen West, Ben Carson, Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Condolezza Rice, Michael Steele, Herman Cain, Ken Blackwell, Mia Love and many other black conservatives who have been labeled "Uncle Toms" or "White Men's Pets or something just as insulting by many on the Left black and white. Go figure. Oddly, these are some of the best and brightest among us. Because republicans are so frightened of being called racist, I cannot imagine the president being held accountable for anything, because the republicans think it would go nowhere because they believe, and probably rightly so, that the democrats will never do the right thing and will never put right before power. If the need should arise, they can look directly at the sun at midday and tell you it is midnight.

So, I  hold no hope that Mr.Obama will get his just deserts. That would require that the conservatives and progressives putting expedience aside for righteousness. Though I see my logic as being unimpeachable, I suspect the same can be said for Barack Obama in today's world.

Who Wants A Federally-Mandated Minimum Wage? Only The Gullible And Their Panderers

So, our panderer-in-chief said yesterday that “it is time to give the American people a raise”. He might as well have said “It is time to make even more American people unemployed or work only part-time and give the American people a raise in inflation”. It must also be the time for the president to try to repair his sinking poll numbers.  Everybody wants to make more money, so it is a feel-good thing to say that you need a raise.  Hiking up a federal minimum wage has been a staple of the Democrats—and some Republicans, who are afraid they might not sound compassionate—for as long as I can remember. When I was a dumb kid, I remember being excited about getting close to $2.50 an hour for a job that I needed no expertise to do.  But, on the other hand, I did not like the fact that comic books were going up in price to 15 cents. As a kid I did not see that higher wages were necessarily connected to higher prices.  As I got older I noticed that, as the minimum wage rose, so did the cost of living. 

Why are there so many adults who do not get the connection between the cost of labor and the price of a product? Maybe, it is the sorry education they received from public schools, but I am not convinced that these facts are lost on the Democrats and progressive Republicans in government who climb on the progressive bus. I am sure that most of them have studied simple college math and logic enough to get a grasp on some simple truths.  But, maybe I am giving them too much credit. Even so, I am cynical enough to believe that they are educated sufficiently to know that the ignorant masses will not make the connection and they can fool them into thinking they actually care about people more than keeping political power. 

Let me revisit the” When-I- was-young” argument to further explain the logic.  I remember my father earning about $400 a week as a roofer. When I was a baby, my parents bought a home for $6,000 with a 30-year mortgage.  I can remember my parents buying a new 1961 Chevy Impala for about $2,000. I also remember our doctor making house calls. I do not remember that health insurance was as big a deal as it is today and there were not as many frivolous malpractice law suits, requiring doctors to carry expensive malpractice insurance. You could go to the hospital and have a baby for around $200. I remember that I could buy a hamburger for 12 cents. I remember gasoline in the 20 to 30 cents range where a station employee pumped the gas for you.  In my youth, sodas were 10 cents. I collected bottles and turned them in to be recycled for two cents apiece. I would collect at least 25 of them during the week so that I could buy my way into a public swimming pool on the weekend or buy the comic books that I mentioned earlier. The truth of the matter is that people made less money in the good old days, but things also cost a lot less.

So, you might say that it was a wash, when you consider both wages vs cost of living, but you must consider that our standard of living is much greater in many respects.  Air conditioning, telephone service, digital media, medical advances, transportation; in almost any area you want to focus on, our standard of living for every American is far better than it was in the not-too-distant past.  And none of it had anything to do with how high the average wage has been.  The rise of our quality of life is due to technological advancements.

Supply and demand is the overall requirement for un-artificial raises in wages.  In many ways, advances in technology kill off a lot of low-end jobs. Construction and manufacturing, for example, used to be much more labor-intensive, requiring many hands to accomplish numerous tasks. Because of advancement in technology, many of those tasks are done by robotics or machinery operated by workers who have specialized training or education.  Today’s workforce often have to meet higher standards going to a particular job or start out on a job at a lower wage to get the training needed to perform tasks which pay more once the can do the job more efficiently.  Also, technology has changed the way may people shop for their needs. Today a buyer can go online and make purchase at a moment, rather than make a trip to store or mail-order a product that they want or need.  Such technology necessarily makes the labor forces shrink.

You can also argue that, if a wage needs to be controlled, that it should not be done on a federal level. If you think that a minimum wage is needed to match the rise in the cost of living, you have to look at the cost of living in various parts of the country. I know that my cost of living changed as I have moved from city ti city and state to state. How can you think that a $10 minimum wage would mean the same to a worker in Washington DC. as it does to a worker in Burlingame, Kansas?  Can you buy a decent $60,000 home with 3-bedrooms in Washington? If anything, a minimum wage, however stupid the idea is, could only be done equitably on a state or local level. But Obama wants everything under his control, especially the stupid things.

For logic’s sake, let us imagine that a business man, John, makes widgets and he employs 100 people. John pays 10 new employees who are largely unskilled and untrained in the widget making trade a wage of $10 an hour. His 60 employees who work on the production floor and have been with him for several years and know how to do their job in an efficient more productive manner he pays $15 an hour.  John has 29 middle and upper management employees who require specialized education in business and marketing who make salaries of make, on average, $75,000 a year. John is able to earn $500,000 a year with his company, in an average year. John is in a competitive industry, so tries to keep his quality wedges as cheap as he can to make the profit margin that makes his personal industry worth it to him. Then, the government passes a law that requires him to pay a minimum of $12 an hour to his employees.

Naturally, John finds himself in a dilemma: where can he cut the expense of manufacturing his good-quality widgets so that he can still be competitive in the market place and realize the same profit margin that made being a businessman worth it? He knows that when he pays more to his entry-level employees, his other employees will also expect a raise in their wages to be uniformly fair, especially if a union is involved. If his cost for labor is increased by even 10% across the board, John will have to charge 10% more for the widgets to meet the market place. Oh, wait a minute. We forgot that John’s material suppliers are faced with same dilemma and have to raise the price of their materials, because they also were forced to pay more to their employees, so raising the selling price of the widget may be another few percentage point higher.  So, everyone in the chain of production is faced with cutting something to remain competitive in the market place. They will, in many instances, cut the number of employees, so some folks will lose their jobs, because the profit margin requires a given number of dollars devoted to labor costs. Something has to give or the price of the widget goes up.

Now let us imagine a buyer of widgets, Barak, depends on widgets for his safety and welfare. Barak has limited income from the government—I really like the sound of that, for some reason.  Barak goes to the widget store and finds that widgets have gone up in price again. Barak wonders why the greedy widget manufacturers have raised the price again. Those @#$%$^%# widget makers!    I guess Barak needs a raise in his social security to meet the higher cost of living. That is nothing pandering group of politicians cannot fix.

Now, you may think that this little exercise in logic is too simplistic, but the math always works out the same. When we take from one place in the economy it has to be filled from another place. Free markets and supply and demand take care of the appropriate wages for a given type of work. When you do not have enough people wanting to do a certain type of work and the work is necessary from the market place’s perspective, higher wages will necessarily be offered. When the wages meet the laborer’s requirement, the job will be filled.  Just look at what menial labor is earning in North Dakota with the energy boom they have experienced.  I know that I would be just happy with $400 a week and a $20,000 home mortgage, 12-cent hamburgers, 29-cent-a-gallon gasoline and all the other stuff that went with it. A minimum wage should be set at what the individual worker is prepared to do and what the market will allow. If government did not try to manage so many things in our lives we would all be better off.