I've Had It With Politics As Usual

I’m frustrated. I’m fed up with politics as usual in this country. I used to be a registered Republican but I just can’t identify with them anymore. They have strayed too far from the basics that drew me to the party to begin with and it doesn’t look like they are going to come to their senses anytime soon. That certainly doesn’t mean I’m leaning toward becoming a Democrat though. Not by any stretch of the imagination…

I used to think that the Republican party was for less government and more personal freedom, but now I think they are only for less government regulation as it applies to big business and not to benefit the average person.

When Bush went into the present war in Iraq, I supported the decision and even now I think the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein, but now that this war is dragging out with no end in sight, I am becoming more and more convinced that this war was engineered and not for the reasons we think. It was planned more from a standpoint of business and making money than it was a security issue. Even if it was a national security concern at the beginning, the opportunity to make truckloads of money from the war took over and I believe that is the main reason we are still over there.

There is no doubt in my mind that the connection between the administration and Halliburton and the fact that they got all the contracts they did is not random. It was part of the original plan when they first went in. The ties between the administration and this company are so close, they could be considered one and the same. If you want to find out about it, just rent the DVD “Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers” and prepare to be disgusted. Young men are losing their lives over there and it’s so these people can line their pockets.

Then there is the Bush – Big Oil connection. I don’t think anyone realizes the power that the oil companies have over our government. Anybody that doesn’t realize that one of the main reasons we are there is to insure the flow of oil is just deluding themselves. The oil companies aren’t going to back any candidate who says will get us out of the Middle East. They want us there as the police force for the region and the Republican Party is doing exactly what they desire.

What really scares me is that when you listen to all the presidential candidates, who among them is advocating that we get out of there? The only one that will stand up and say he’ll get the U.S. out of there immediately is Ron Paul and his message is being quashed by our biased media, who are also controlled by political interests and big business. He doesn’t stand a chance of getting the Republican nomination because he doesn’t fit into their mold. He doesn’t want to continue the partnership with big business and running the country from that standpoint, he actually wants to change things. Take a look at his website and actually read what he really wants to do and then see if it doesn’t make sense. Take a look at this video and see if you don't agree that we should head in this direction.

Ron Paul is really a Libertarian running as a Republican. He doesn’t think he could get elected as a Libertarian, and he’s probably right. Third parties in our political system never do well. Maybe it’s time for one though. I don’t agree with everything the Libertarian Party advocates either but maybe it’s time for a strong third party to emerge to give voters another choice other than business as usual. We could call it the Common Sense Party or the No Bullshit Party and the platform could be common sense, logical, intelligent solutions to the problems we have with the main goal being to make America the great country she once was. Maybe we could actually have a government that made policy that benefited the people of this country instead of themselves.

Wouldn’t that be a nice change?

A Clue as to Character.

As I've been following the political scene, I found it interesting that Hillary again showed no class or courtesy when she gave her speech the evening of the Wisconsin primary. She didn’t bother to mention her losses or congratulate her opponent at all, a repeat of her behavior after her losses on Super Tuesday. Not that it’s required or anything. It’s just something that most people with an ounce of class would do.

What is she thinking? Maybe if she ignores bad things, they will just go away? If she doesn’t acknowledge it, maybe it won’t be real? Or maybe if she concedes defeat, people will think she is losing. Maybe it’s just Hillary showing her true character. Maybe it would help if she cried again…

In reality, she is losing ground and Obama is gaining momentum with every primary. I think the reason is that people are starting to see her true character. Small clues are starting to show through that show the ruthless, “win no matter what it takes attitude.” She will do anything to get elected. She tried shedding a tear and now she is trying to smear her opponent with anything she can use. Plagiarism? Give me a break… As if she has never uttered words that were a quote from someone else. As if either of them actually write their own words anyway.

Give it up Hillary. If it’s a question of character, you’ve already lost.

Life and Death

The slow transition in life from young to old manifests itself in many ways. Your energy level slowly starts to taper off. You find that you need reading glasses when once you could see the smallest detail, no problem. You put on a few pounds and you notice a few more aches and pains than you ever had before. All of these aspects are inevitable and fairly easy to deal with.

One of the more hideous aspects of getting toward the second half of a lifespan though is that people close to you start dying. Yes, it’s a part of life but it’s not easy to face, nonetheless.

My Uncle, my Dad’s brother, and I were fairly close. I was named after him as a matter of fact and we shared a lot of the same traits and outlook on life. He lived in Tennessee and I drove up from Florida to visit him as often as I could. Especially after he got cancer. He fought it, which is the kind of guy he was. He went through chemo and radiation and it went into remission. I was really glad he would have a few more years and I planned on moving to Tennessee after my son graduated high school so I was hoping to have a couple of years with him. As it turned out, the cancer returned after about a year and it came back with a vengeance. He only lasted a few months after they found it. So much for my plan to spend a couple good years with him… I was with him when he died at least. He was wracked with pain that even morphine couldn’t touch. Cancer is a horrible thing. I only hope I never experience it. We buried him in February, 2006.

My Father still lived in Michigan, where I am from. He and Mom had gotten divorced a few years back and he lived by himself. We kept in touch by phone and I got back as often as I could swing it to see him and everyone else. He wasn’t much for traveling, especially by air, so he only came to Florida once to visit me. It was a very gradual thing but I started to notice he was slowing down a little when I would talk to him on the phone. He would forget things that we had talked about or other things that I thought he shouldn’t forget. I chalked it up to just getting old. Then I started to notice that his memory was getting worse. Even though my Brother and Mom still live in the area and looked in on him occasionally, I flew up to check on him. After getting up there and taking him to his doctor, the diagnosis turned out to be the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

I discussed everything with Mom, who is doing fairly well health wise, and she said she and my Brother would check on him every couple of days and make sure he was doing ok. He was still functioning well enough to not be a danger to himself but we both knew that it was only a matter of time until the disease got worse and he would need some type of full time care. I’m old school I guess when it comes to responsibility to family and I made the decision that since I was moving anyway, I would just postpone Tennessee a bit and I would move up to Michigan and live with Dad until he got so bad that I wasn’t capable of taking care of him anymore. His retirement income was enough for both of us to live on so I would be able to provide him with full time care. I would also be able to spend as much time with him as I could before he didn’t know who I was anymore… That was the plan anyway…

After some time, Mom called me and told me he had gotten sick with a bad cold or the flu and she was taking him to the doctor. Well, he ended up admitted to the hospital with a touch of pneumonia. The prognosis was good though. They caught it early and were treating him with the expectation that he would be released in a couple of days. Well, my Dad’s smoking habit that he was never able to break caught up with him. He collapsed after returning to bed from the bathroom and they weren’t able to revive him. They said it was either a massive coronary or a blood clot. He died suddenly and at least he didn’t have to go through the agony my Uncle did. We buried him in April of 2007.

Sometimes I regret having moved so far away from home. The distance from Michigan to Florida is far enough to make it a major trip to visit home very often to be with family and friends. When you do get a chance to go back, you tend to visit everyone you can around home before you have to leave again. Those that have moved out of the immediate area, you can’t always get to see before you have to head back to the grind.

That was the way it was with one of my closest friends, Rob. His brother Dave and I go way back to the 9^th grade and we’ve been best friends ever since. Rob hung out with us riding dirt bikes and the three of us basically grew up together. I think I spent more time at their house than I did my own. They are my brothers.

We grew up and went into our separate lives though and I moved to Florida and Rob ended up in northern Michigan. We kept in touch by email and I got back to Michigan a few times but didn’t manage to get up to Manistee to see him. I think it was a year ago last September that it got to bugging me. It had just been too long since I had seen my buddy Rob. I hadn’t seen his boys since they were just little tykes. I was going to make a trip up to Michigan and I got in touch with Dave and told him we HAVE to drive up and see Rob while I’m there. I made the trip and we made the drive and it was like we had never been apart. We sat outside that evening by a campfire in his backyard and swapped stories and laughed like I hadn’t laughed since the last time the three of us were together. It was great.

Since that time, I have been more and more anxious to make the move to Tennessee. Other than the fact that I hate Florida, living in Tennessee will put me a short day’s drive from home and I will get back much more often to see my family and old friends a lot more. I was looking forward to getting together with Dave and Rob and going on some motorcycle rides again. That was the plan anyway…

Then on February 1^st, I got a call from Dave. He told me Rob had been killed in a car crash earlier that day. I felt like I had just been hit by a truck. The emotions wash over you… first the shock, then sadness, helplessness, frustration, anger, depression… It just doesn’t sink in at first. You think it can’t be true. Then slowly reality takes over and you realize that it’s forever. Death is final. You wish you could turn back the hands of time and do it over but it’s too late. Gone forever…

A death like this is just hard to take. You’re not ready. You never dream it could happen that suddenly. It’s so easy to take life for granted but then you realize that it can be over in the blink of an eye and happen when you least expect it.

When my Uncle died, he had just passed his 79^th birthday and had lived a pretty full life. He was being eaten up by cancer and death was a relief from the pain. I hated to lose him but at least he wasn’t hurting anymore. When Dad died, it was sudden and unexpected to a certain extent but he was 78 years old and he was facing Alzheimer’s disease. Being the kind of independent guy he was, it would have been living hell for him to have to go through the indignity of it. Death spared him from going through that.

With Rob’s death though, it’s not the same. He was plucked from life while he was still living it to its fullest. He should have had another half a lifetime to live. His boys should have had their Father for most of their lives. His wife should have been able to grow old with him. There is absolutely no good in his death. There is no justification. Just an empty hole in the ones whose lives he touched.

The odd thing is that it makes me feel like I want to live my life more. I hear the clock ticking. I want to do the things I’ve always wanted to do before I die because now I know how fleeting life really is. It can be taken away at any moment. I guess I should work on my own “bucket list”… I also want to spend as much time as I can with the family and friends that I have left. I want to cherish every moment. I want to go on adventures. I want to hop on a motorcycle and tour the country and go to the places I’ve always wanted to go. Then park the bike and fly to everywhere I couldn’t get to with the bike… Then the next moment I feel a little lost and I don’t really know what I want to do. There’s only one thing I know for sure.

I’ll miss my friend.

News Media Influencing Politics

I have been following the political scene a little closer than usual lately and have checked out most of the presidential candidates for their positions on the issues. It's interesting to see the different approaches to campaigning that some of them take and how it affects the primary results.

The thing that really annoys me about the whole process though is all the polling they do. I think they place FAR too much emphasis on all these "poll results". There are so many polls and the results are reported and rehashed so much that they take on a life of their own and actually have an influence on the outcome.

Here is why I think that. While watching the news yesterday, I heard what I believe to be one of the most monumentally stupid statements made by a voter. This person said that she thought the candidate she really liked wasn't doing well enough to get the nomination so she voted for someone else. I wish I was hearing that in person instead of on TV so I could tell her, "HELLOOOOO!!! Did you ever think that your attitude is the REASON your candidate isn't doing well??? If everyone is thinking like you, it's no wonder he's not getting votes.

Now, this was an exit poll and no actual results of the day were being reported yet so what I really would have liked to ask her is what is she basing her opinion on? It's still very early on in the primaries and I don't think the average person would give up on their guy so early based on results alone without all the media hype and constant dissection and endless analysis by myriad political pundits that are so anxious to weigh in with their opinions. People listen to all this drivel and then believe what they say like they are some sort of mystical seer that knows what's going to happen before it does. When did it become the job of the media to MAKE the news instead of report it? If the news agencies make the statement that "Joe Republican isn't expected to do well in tomorrow's primary" often enough, people will start believing it and it will influence the way they vote.

People don't really realize the power that the news media has to exert influence in this way. They are supposed to report what happens in an unbiased fashion but if you really watch and listen to what they are saying, you will see that a lot of times they are putting their own slant on things. If they don't really like a candidate and want to show him in a bad light, they will use terms like "he and his cohorts" or “he and his cronies” to refer to him and his team. If it’s the candidate they like they use much more respectable terms like “he and his associates, aides or assistants.” Just simple things like that can make someone they don’t like sound bad and make their favorite sound better. Subtle influence.

They can also affect the candidates simply by giving them air time or not. For instance, even when Ron Paul came in second in one of the debates, he hardly got mentioned in the news at all. He collected more campaign funds than some of the other candidates but it was downplayed or ignored by the media. He has won more delegates than Rudy Giuliani but who gets all the attention in the news? What’s going on here? The liberal media do not like Ron Paul. It’s that simple.

Pay attention people. Be independent. Think for yourself and look for the real story and not just what they are telling you because much of the time they are only telling you what they want you to hear. Do a little research to find out what these candidates really stand for and what their beliefs are. Then vote for who you really believe in no matter what these media morons say.

AOL Really Sucks

I have known that AOL sucks for quite some time now but I kept my old email addresses I had with them just to make sure I didn't miss an important email that I forgot to switch to my new address. I would check it every couple of weeks just to make sure.

When I first dropped them for an Internet Service Provider that actually worked, they practically begged me to keep my email addresses active so I did. I had to "re-activate" my account online to switch it over to the new free email service, which was no problem. I did it and thought that would be it. No such luck...

After a few months of using the "free" service, I tried to log in one day and it gave me the "re-activate" your free email account again. I figured it was just a glitch in the system so I went through all the steps again so I could log in.

Then a few logins later, it did the same thing. I'm starting to get annoyed now, so I notified AOL of the problem and went through the steps again to "re-activate" my account so could check my email. My complaint to AOL was ignored and I never heard anything about it as to why their system was doing this.

Now, a couple of weeks ago, guess what... You guessed it! It's telling me YET AGAIN that I have to re-activate my account in order to log in. Well, enough is enough so I notified AOL of the problem and asked them to fix this or at least tell me the reason why I have to put up with this nonsense. Their response was to send me an email canceling my support ticket. No other explanation. I've tried several times to login to my existing email account and still have the same problem. I filled out the onsite form for customer support to report the problem again and got absolutely no response from them. This is customer service at its absolute worst.

Today I filled out the online form again and told them that I was very dissatisfied with their lack of support and they can put their "free email" service where the sun doesn't shine. Within an hour, I got another "support-cancel form" from them via email. No other explanation. So it seems as this giant corporation is letting this (former) customer know that they just don't give a shit whether they lose me as a customer or not. I guess they’re doing so well in the market they can just blow off customers at will.

So now, one of my missions in life is to tell every person I can possibly reach about how much AOL SUCKS and recommend that everyone drop their crappy service and go to a company that actually cares about its customers. They’ve got to have the most pitiful browser on the internet anyway… What does AOL stand for anyway? Oh yea, All Out Lousy…

Awwwwww....

Well, our local police are in the news again but at least this time it’s not because one got shot (thank God). This time it’s because they got caught on camera arresting a bad guy a little too zealously for some people’s taste.

It seems they came across a guy driving a car that matched the description of an armed robber and when they tried to pull him over, he ran from the cops leading them on a dangerous chase through Miami-Dade endangering the public, driving recklessly through city streets at high speed and into oncoming traffic. He finally drove into a barrier launching his car into the air almost flipping it. After it came to rest, he bailed out and started running on foot.

Just as the police were catching up to him and it became apparent he wasn’t going to get away, he belly flopped into some landscaping to give himself up. At that point, the cops arrived and jumped on him to take him into custody and there were some kicks and punches thrown in for good measure. This is what is now turning into a “Rodney King” like controversy.

The “victim”, Angel Soto and his girlfriend are now going to sue the police department. He didn’t think the officers were “justified” in punching him when he dove to the ground. Yeah right… Gimme a break. He showed the TV cameras where the bad ol' cops punched him and he had pain. Ok, everybody say, "Awwwww..." By the way, he didn't have a single mark on him so I don't think his "injuries" were too severe...

I heard the remark made that cops shouldn’t be allowed to beat bystanders any time they want… Bystanders??? I don’t thing Mr. Soto could be considered a “bystander” by any stretch of the imagination. Let’s see… Why did he decide to flee and endanger every innocent real “bystander” in the area? Because he was driving without a license. So he put everyone in danger just so he wouldn’t get a ticket. That’s good thinking, huh? So now we know we can’t consider him “innocent” either.

Oh, and by the way, he’s an ex-con that recently got out of prison for various charges including auto theft and, what do you know, fleeing from police. So he was breaking the law by driving without a license and then further broke the law by fleeing, committing numerous traffic offenses along the way, endangering everyone in the area including the police, intentionally crashes his car causing property damage, then tries to run on foot and he’s surprised that the cops punch him when they catch his sorry ass? HELLOOOOO...

Let me ask you something. If a guy walked up to you and slapped you across the face, what would you do? If you’re like me, you’d probably punch him square in the mouth. It’s just sort of a natural reaction to retaliate, right? Well, what if the guy slapped you and then right before you punched him he said, “No don’t hit me, I give up”, how would you react? Think about that. Well, Mr. Soto slapped the cops in the face.

Now the officers are on suspension and the scumbag is back out on the street. How is THAT justice? He’s out and ready to break the law again. Hell, I bet he drove home from jail. I think it’s about time we start caring more about the good guys and not about that we don’t baby the bad guys enough.

In my estimation, he got what he deserved and I hope he gets thrown back into prison. When you run from the police and endanger the public, you deserve to get your butt kicked. He’s a criminal. I really don’t care that the cops juiced him up a little.

So I’ve just got one thing to say to those Miami-Dade cops…

GOOD JOB GUYS!

The man has no class.

Well, it didn’t take long for President Hugo Chavez to show his true colors yet again. Merely days after suffering the defeat of his power grab referendum in Venezuela , he started spouting obscenity laced remarks and veiled threats to his opposition. It gave the appearance of a child throwing a temper tantrum. He vowed to keep working to push through his re-write of their constitution no matter what the people want. So much for graciousness in defeat…

It’s not hard to see through his attempts to appear as a responsible leader to realize he is just another wannabe dictator that craves absolute power over his people. Even before his grab at power, he used bullying tactics to impose his control over the opposition by strong-arming the media and shutting down broadcast stations that dare to voice any opposition to him. Now he tells opponents that are celebrating his defeat to “watch out” and “don’t provoke” him. He clearly has no tolerance for anyone that might disagree with him. Threats and heavy handed tactics will be his downfall. Even his supporters will begin to see what his true nature is and that he is not the savior they thought he was.

Already we are seeing people speaking out in other Latin American countries saying they have little confidence in his intentions for his country or his role in world affairs. Majorities in Chile , Brazil , Peru , Bolivia and Mexico all express their doubts about him. Is it any wonder when he makes public speeches ranting about how anyone that opposes his point of view are “traitors” and hurls insults at other world leaders that don’t happen to agree with him?

I think a lot of people in Venezuela are starting to feel a little embarrassed by his actions and are showing it with their votes. I wish them all the best in their fight to keep democracy and improve their country and way of life. It’s too bad their leader isn’t listening to them.