Asking For Proof in the Economic Pudding

There are no stupid questions, only stupid people. Ask an economist for proof of one of their pet theories and you'll find quickly that the age old axiom that we all learned in school and work place training seminars is dead wrong. You can ask a stupid question if you're talking to an economist and that question can, in fact, make you stupid.

It's a well accepted fact that scientists are not the greatest communicators around. They generally are not strong in the customer service or public relations fields. Scientists spend their time preaching to the well educated, well informed, scientific choir. When the time comes that a scientific discovery leads to a consumer product, it is not scientists that explain the benefits and dangers of the new product, a marketing company will handle that. Because of the disconnect between the science behind a product and the actual implementation of that science, there are a slew of products which are around 1.25% scientific fact and 98.75% marketing hype (take a look at your average diet pill). Consumers don't know the difference because scientists won't talk to us.

Economists also fancy themselves as scientists. They like to say that they have laws and they also don't feel the need to deign to speak to the general public about their work. They talk to each other, develop their theories, push for the implementation of those theories and generally think that Liberal Arts majors and auto mechanics should mind their own business. Maybe it's time that we lowly non-economists demand a few answers.

It's tremendously irksome to hear an economist speak about an economic law. Ask the economist to demonstrate the law and he will fall quickly to an explanation of the theories which, in his opinion, make the law true. Supply and Demand can only be verified by reading those theorists who endorse the idea. The theory cannot be measured, cannot be duplicated under scientific standards, cannot be certain to have the same outcome at all times, even given the same circumstances. It is therefore not a law. It's just a widely accepted theory.

I've got no problem with widely accepted theories. What I do find disturbing and even dangerous is the application of widely accepted theories into public policy without regard to whom is being hurt and without question as to whether or not the theory is working.

Take free trade for instance. It's an economic policy which is not demanded by the average working person, but which both major political parties endorse to some extent and which the Libertarian Party makes a cornerstone of it's platform. The theories all indicate that some job loss, even great displacement of a given society's workers, is to be expected. In fact, the displacement is a good thing, since it allows once unskilled laborers to study and become highly skilled technitions, or accountants or something. Unfortunately, the American people aren't privy to this part of the working economic theory and thusly aren't excited to hear that the reason that their job was offshore is due to India's comparative advantage in call center operations. The displaced worker may not feel that they are a worthy subject for the grand experiment of free trade.

Of course, no theory says that America has to be the winner in the free trade free-for-all rush to the top of the comparative/absolute advantage heap. No, economists don't often talk about nations at all. Their theories do not aim to find ways of make America the most economically powerful nation, or the richest, or the most comfortable; their theories work to ensure a true free market. The problem with a truly free market is that the displaced workers can just as easily be upper middle class Americans and the new skills that they may be acquiring just may be menial labor. Ask an economist why the displaced workers are always poor and always must be and I'll bet you money that they cannot give even a small piece of evidence to show a reason why that is so.

Yet our politicians, being taught economics in universities which are almost universally in support of free trade, themselves support free trade. They support an economic theory that has no evidence of actually being affective, but which may cause damage to the American economy, a fact which any honest free trade supporting economist would have to admit doesn't matter to them. Yet, the average person is not supposed to question these theories and certainly not the logic of the theorocrats that endorse them. If you fail to remain quietly on the sidelines of history and make the mistake of questioning the theory behind free trade, then you will be the recipient of a litany of the names of long dead authors who will all prove you wrong. You'll be called an idiot (trust me, I've had these discussions), they will threaten your mother's virtue before they admit that they can provide no evidence that they are correct.

Does a lack of evidence prove that the economists are wrong? Not at all. In fact, my desire for evidence is proof that I don't know enough about economics to ask more informed questions than, "can you prove that?" I do think, though, that is a damn fine place to start. Maybe more economists should start their path of theoretical enlightenment by questioning the fundamental truth of what they are being taught. Maybe economists should consider being the first scientists to learn customer service. If that seems like a bit of a demotion, just call it retraining for new economic conditions.


By Donald R. Carroll III

What Price Loyalty?

With the recent shakeups in the presidential cabinet, it has frequently been observed that the quality most treasured in the present administration is that of loyalty.

Is that such an admirable quality?

We prize the loyalty of our friends who protect our good name when we are not present. We respect the loyalty of committed couples who stay true to each other no matter the outside temptations. We recognize the loyalty of employees who stand by their ethics and keep competitors and enemies at bay. We treasure the loyalty of a soldier to his commander, if necessary to the death. We revere the loyalty of believers in their god and their unswerving commitment to their tenets of faith. We equate disloyalty with treason, dishonor, betrayal. We use names like Quisling, Benedict Arnold, Burgess and Hiss as epithets to express our loathing and disgust.

But loyalty has a darker side. In crime families, loyalty means embracing death or imprisonment rather than exposing crime, violence, and murder. In prison, the most despised inmate is the "snitch" who fails to stay silent about his knowledge of criminal acts, plots, and planned violence. Within adolescent groups and street gangs, the rule of silence and total loyalty is an absolute requirement for continued membership.

The old courts of kings and emperors were rife with sycophants: whatever the leader wanted to hear, they offered. Disagreements and alternative plans for the direction of governance were considered intrigue - dangerous differences of opinion to be rooted out and permanently excised from the body politic.

Where does the White House fit in? For all the positive connotations that loyalty may engender, we must look to the extent it is used and continually monitor it for abuse. No one would suggest that a President surround himself with staff who constantly criticize his ideas or regularly publicly disagree with his programs and proposals. However, the negative aspect of over-loyalty - zealousness - must be confronted if the goal is to weave plans for the common good through compromise in the face of diverse opinion.

The United States was born out of public political and ideological debate. While the framers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution has fundamental beliefs in common, they did not hesitate to publicly disagree and argue in an effort to reach the most workable goals. For more than two centuries, American political discourse has embraced differences more often than celebrating similarities. Commonly, the friction and arguments of elections become translated into legislation and leadership that seeks to bridge the gaps and bring all into the common fold.

What seems to have changed is the willingness to let disparate views and opinions coexist. We have moved from a mentality that celebrates diversity and multiplicity to a narrow conception of what is right, absolutely right. Other opinions are not valued for the richness their views add to the national fabric but are considered wrong, without value, discounted, dangerously unpatriotic. The second term White House has purified its dogma, filtering our nuances and opposing ideas until everything is distilled into the single voice of one man. The moat around the faithful has been filled, the crocs loosed, and the land lies fallow beneath the keen eye of the true believers.

Arrogance and disdain, disguised as "political capital," has the potential to morph into a level of power and intolerance that can only encourage eventual, inevitable, corruption.

By Virginia Bola

Recycling The Mentally Ill

30 years ago, California, later followed by other states, decided to virtually close down the State Mental Hospitals.

There had been multiple exposures of abuse throughout the Nation's systems such as over-medicated individuals kept on back wards for years without clinical justification. However, the primary force leading to the widespread closures was economic. Providing free room, board, medication and psychiatric care to the chronic and seriously impaired mental health population was expensive and failed to result in any positive financial or political benefits.

Theoretically, these marginally functional individuals would now be cared for by a network of community service agencies that would spring up on a local basis. Unfortunately, such a network never existed and failed to develop for the same economic challenges the State Institutions had faced. Counties continued to provide outpatient services, with occasional brief local hospitalizations for those who became unstable, and nonprofit organizations were founded, and often financially foundered, to provide services.

With few resources and the cognitive and emotional inability to connect with the few programs available, the mentally ill started to drift into the streets where they often self-medicated with illegal drugs. Within 10 years, police and social service agencies estimated that possibly one third of the growing homeless population had mental disabilities.

An increase in street crime, the resentment of business owners who lost customers who would not cross the crowds of homeless on the sidewalks, and the disgust of working citizens who resented the litter and potential dangers of large numbers of people living on the streets, led to a political decision to crackdown on the homeless. Sweeps of targeted areas moved the homeless away - to other areas where the resentment was just as great. Petty street crimes to enable the penniless to live, and drug use, provided the excuse for more draconian measures. The homeless started moving again, this time into the prisons.

It is now estimated that the penal system is the largest provider of mental health services in the nation. Apart from those Institutions designed for those who have been legally determined to be "criminally insane," the system houses mentally ill individuals who may make up a third or more of the total prison population.

Building more prisons and hiring more guards is politically positive: voters want to keep their communities clean and safe and willingly pay for the fight against crime. While the murderers and rapists are held up as examples of those who need to be contained at all costs, the fact remains that a majority of the enormous and growing prison population are serving their time for drug-related activities or victimless crimes.

The mentally ill have finally been fully recycled. They are still invisible but instead of vegetating in State Mental Wards, they are caught within a system which robs them of their dignity, provides less than optimal treatment, and costs far more to the taxpayers than would well-organized and efficiently run hospitals and clinics.

This is progress?

By Virginia Bola

The Ugly American Returns!

Originally published in 1958, "The Ugly American" (Lederer & Burdick) documented American blunders abroad and our failure to identify that what we termed communism in undeveloped countries was merely the screams of hunger and hopelessness becoming manifest. 15 years later, we extricated ourselves from Vietnam and licked our wounds for 30 years, finally coming to some sort of accommodation with free fire zones, Agent Orange, and My Lai. Never again, we swore. We would protect our nation's security but only move into war zones when gross injustice or humanitarian concerns demanded a response -- Somalia, Bosnia, the first Gulf War.

We felt relief: a line in the sand had been drawn that we would not cross. The new American protocol called for self-protection but also restraint, a hint of nobility, and the belief that, above all, we were the primary bastion of freedom, diversity, and the rule of law.

September 11 shook that hard-fought-for ideal. No longer must we simply protect our borders but now we had to look around us wherever we were - at the stranger waiting for a train, the sweating, swarthy fellow traveler at the airport, the foreigners in the upstairs apartment.

We felt betrayed. The quid pro quo of "You leave us alone and we'll leave you alone" went awry. Those who hate us were intruding into our private space. We felt violated. In a predictable reaction, we struck out, seeking the enemy in the hills and caves of Afghanistan where our agony had been meticulously planned with premeditation and cold indifference to our pain.

For two years, we slowly revised our goals, our ideals, our national commitments. Our outraged sense of self, revulsion, and anger gradually overcame our democratic belief in the rights of all to national self-determination. To fight the enemy, we became him. We adopted his mindset of the ends justifies the means. Angry and frustrated at his ability to strike at our very heart and make our world fearful and dangerous, we morphed into him, using offense as a means of defense against the terrifying vulnerability we feared to face.

In 2003, the decision was made to openly attack a sovereign nation state which, although famous for verbal saber rattling, posed no direct threat to us nor had it committed an illegal invasion or recent attack on anyone else since the last Gulf War.

With guns blazing, we marched into the OK Corral. Despite the absolute predictability of enemy combatants fading into the general population rather than standing their ground and being annihilated, we were "surprised" at the ease of entering Baghdad. We had forgotten the lessons of our own Revolutionary War when it became clear that standing face-to-face with well-supplied redcoat squares was a recipe for total destruction.

"Mission Accomplished" trumpeted the President, the Administration, the temporarily impotent and sleeping media. The worst was over. There were now simply "mopping up" operations left in a country which should be overwhelmingly grateful for what we had achieved. Instead, of course, more U.S. troops would die after our mission was "accomplished" than in the hot war itself.

Why the surprise? Once again, as in the days of Vietnam, the Tet Offensive, the bombing of Cambodia, once again the face of the Ugly American was exposed to the world.

Why are we hated? We are the superpower, the bully in the school yard.

Difficult as it is to forge an uneasy truce with us when we act with restraint and decorum, it becomes impossible when we throw our weight around and beat our collective chest with pride, hubris, and the will to move alone without trying to rally allies or international support. The Ugly American is loose in the streets of the Middle East, a target for all, a friend of none: arrogant, defiant, outcast, and alone.

Never again, we said. Oops - the isolation and the hate is back. We can now have the satisfaction of knowing we generated it all by ourselves. Who needs an enemy when we have us?

By Virginia Bola

Revitalizing The Power of the Baby Boomers

As baby boomers, we have been spoiled all of our lives. When we were teenagers, the world took note because there were so many of us. Our music, our beliefs, our fashions, our styles dominated the culture of the age. When we took to the streets to protest the war in Vietnam and to support the Civil Rights Movement, we found a ready audience. Television came into its own and we splattered ourselves and our causes across the living rooms of America.

For some of us, that was the best of times. We were young, idealistic, and naïve. We truly believed that we were making a difference. We were creating a future of hope, justice, fairness, and peace.

As we move towards retirement age, we look around us with diminished hope, broken promises, reddened eyes, and cynicism. Where is the new world order we so desperately sought? In the violence-filled streets of Baghdad? In the ruins of the World Trade Center? In the hills of Afghanistan? In the political condemnation of gay rights, resistance to a woman's right to control her own body, the death of Affirmative Action?

We look back in longing to the days before political assassinations turned the world upside down. Life was, indeed, so much simpler then. Involvement in revolution is for the young and naïve who, no matter the century, no matter the nation, no matter the cause, see only the possibilities and none of the difficulties that maintenance of profound social change demands.

Can we keep our ideals alive in the muck and mire of reality?

If our ideals are still there, perhaps hidden beneath the layers that decades of responsibility, work, fatigue, and the need to take care of personal matters have deposited, we can resurrect them. We can revitalize their tenets with the bolder judgment and broader understanding wrought by experience and maturity. We can still return to the fight we abdicated with the demise of the Great Society.

1. Political action.

We now know that marching in the streets has less of a lasting effect than the power of the voting booth and the closed door deals of professional politicians. Although many have fallen along the way, including some of the best and brightest, the boomers still have tremendous numbers and therefore significant potential political power. As our involvement in work and careers starts to taper off, we can use our newly found time to participate in the political process: listening, organizing, contributing, and supporting those who represent that new society we still so desperately seek. For us, the infringement of civil liberties generated by the Patriot Act and the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay demand that questions be asked, motives revealed, and expected outcomes honestly assessed. We can still throw off the conservative shackles of age we have unwittingly donned and re-enter the fray: as candidates, as volunteers, as individuals who demand accountability and justice from those in power.

2. Community action.

Supporting and fighting for civil rights no longer requires travel to the Deep South nor marching through the streets. The struggle now permeates all levels of our society: the workplace, the schools, the churches, the home. Community involvement may range from active support, to speaking out, to neighborhood organizing, all in the knowledge that our better world starts right outside our front door. Racial profiling, bias against those of Middle Eastern descent, and widely administered wiretaps confront us in our own corner of the world. An African-American child in a schoolroom without enough books, without internet access, without afterschool programs, without personal safety and a quiet academic atmosphere, is as cheated of his natural human heritage as his forefather in the back of the bus. A gay couple denied the social and financial benefits of married straights are as much the victims of prejudice as their forbears in their proverbial closets. A poor urban neighborhood without basic resources: libraries, museums, music, culture, is as disadvantaged in the modern age as in the shameful shanty towns of old. We may feel a lack of power to sufficiently effect a national change of direction but in our local communities the power is there for the taking if we choose to assert our energies and our concerns.

3. Personal witness.

We need to practice constant vigilance to bear witness to our beliefs. We must repeatedly re-assess ourselves to ensure that we have not inadvertently bought into the bias and prejudice that colors so much human thought. We cannot stand silent while others talk or joke about ethnicity, or religion, or sexual preferences. The need to get ahead does not require the sacrifice of all that we hold dear -- the winner of the rat race is, after all, a rat. We must consider our families and ensure that our children are fully exposed to the potential and worth of every individual, no matter how different from us they may appear. Our expectations and demands of coworkers and subordinates needs to be fair and consistent, regardless or race, gender, or cultural differences. We can stand up and speak out, letting all know that nothing less than equal opportunity and fair evaluation will be tolerated in our personal sphere. We will continue to look for quality of character, knowing that little else matters.

As each generation ages, the qualities it represented in youth tend to dissipate. With the addition of multiple personal and occupational responsibilities and the acquisition of assets and at least a degree of wealth, the earthquake of social revolution is no longer a promise but a threat. We jealously guard what we have worked so hard to obtain. We become a force for conservancy rather than a force for change.

The baby boom generation has the potential to shatter that familiar pattern. Born on the cusp of the most horrifying war the world has ever seen, we continue to represent an opportunity for the world to evolve, for mankind to rise above the baseness of his bestial nature and to internalize the human capacity for true civilization. As we enter the autumn of our lives, we are presented with the opportunity to finally, and lastingly, make a difference. It is up to us to stand together now, as many years ago we stood in the streets of Chicago, Washington, and Birmingham, for the rights and liberties of all.

By Virginia Bola

The Looting of American Taxpayers Social Security Disability by Fraudulent Employers Pt. 1

For more than a decade, you the American taxpayer have been burdened with my disability assistance. Why? Because my high-profile employer, a member of the bar and a politically connected entity in this area along with the assistance of his insurance carrier, insurance investigator and other members of the bar as well as a president-elect of a national civil rights organization at the local level assisted my former employer to get away with denying multiply sustained on-the-job injury and infirmities.

When one has never experienced this type of almost instant change in one's life and comes up close and personal to the negative illegal machinations of officialdom one may not be able to digest the level to which one's honorably titled employer official will stoop to get away with stepping up to the plate to assume his responsibility for his employee, who before accepting the hard earned position which was offered to her after weeks and weeks of waiting while other applicants were interviewed for the open position and was finally offered to her, was a healthy normal breathing, sturdy legged, strong back individual.

No high blood pressure, no acute respiratory dysfunction due to indoor air pollution and no injury to leg or back.

Inexperience can sometimes demand a heavy paying price for not seeing what can happen to one's right's in these circumstances. It is a very hard pill to swallow or believe.

Especially when one is dealing from a "Do No Harm" mentality.

One's integrity, veracity and value is all but eliminated by lies and omission.

One learns that those with honorable titles will not necessarily employ honorable methods when deciding to deny an employee's work related claims.

Insurance company investigator's do not show up until three months after the injury/infirmities first began. Wearing nice clothes, being well coiffed and wearing high heels, she acted like a two legged pitbull, attacking your claims, calling you a liar and accusing you of fraud. A well dressed, articulate bully, who just chewed up and spit out your rights.

So many improprieties. So much illegal machination. Waiting fifteen months to offer the surgery required for the damaged knee. Waiting too long. During the interim from the time of the injury to the surgery, the employee fell constantly, reinjuring her legs and back over and over and over again. The knees and back damaged and poorly functional.

Needing 9-1-1-assistance numerous times. Requiring emergency hospitalization for acute respiratory dysfunction, kept on oxygen for five and half days until the oxygen level of the blood had reached a safe level.

Years of physical theraphy, counciling due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Numerous surgeries. Inundated with medications that blew up the body, like prednisone and theophylline. Being taken for more than five years. Inhalers, and prescribed medications to help keep one breathing. The price charged for inhalers is off-the-chart.

None of this was in effect before accepting the position of legal accounting at this law firm.

The denigrating treatment from some intake worker's while being processed for consideration of state assistance. Racism open and in your face. Obstruction of one's rights, over and over and over again.

The Equal Rights Commission losing your file for two years, then advising you that time had expired on one's claim, even though they admitted losing one's file for two years. A favor for my former employer, member of the bar.

No attorney willing to take the case, because of personal and professional association with one's former employer.

The A.C.L.U. claiming they did not have the funds to take on another case. Yet a few days later, there was an announcement on the news that they had received a 25 million dollar grant.

When one is dealing with any entity who appears to be able to manipulate other entities into doing his dirty work for him, those with no power, no connections are thrown to the wolves.

Their lives soundly sundered. Meeting too many people in the system who continuously violate the rights of many and the law and no one seems to have the power to put a stop to it. It would appear that they are above the law.

My employer and his insurance company have stolen, looted more than half a million american taxpayer dollars from all of you. From city, state and federal sources.

There appears to be no way to ferret out employer's and make them responsible for their irresponsibilities and fraud.

Otherwise, why is my former employer and his insurance company still benefiting from their denial? Each time a deposit from ssd is made to me or Medicare and Medicaid provide prescriptions and medical care my employer and his insurance company have in the furtherence of federal law violation defrauded funded programs of benefits and taxpayer monies.

So I put it to the potential reader's of this article. Are there any answers? Why aren't politician's looking into these frauds? Each state stands to lose thousands upon thousands of Medicaid dollars, funded by federal source. The Medicare programs are diminished by many more thousands and thousands of dollars, weakening the solvency of said coverage. Then we come to the Social Security Disability funding. There is so much fraud it is mind boggling and it appears to be so very easy to get away with.

And our most illustriously perceived title holders are the perpetrator's.

Any answers?

By Julia-estelle (ginger) Ferrer, II

Dont Trade Rights for Security

"Those who sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety are not deserving of either liberty or safety." -- Ben Franklin, 1776

In the wake of 9/11 and subsequent terrorist attacks around the world, there is a real temptation to allow the government to take away some of our most precious rights in exchange for greater security. We must resist this temptation. In order to have a free society, there are certain prices that have to be paid. One of those is the possibility that someone will take advantage of our freedom and use it as an opportunity to endanger us. So what if they do? Giving up any part of our freedom is not the answer. In fact, that's exactly what the terrorists want. When we do that, they win.

The U.S.A. Patriot Act is a step in the wrong direction and could represent a slippery slope toward further erosion of our rights. Write your Representative and Senators and ask them to repeal the U.S.A. Patriot Act and avoid passing similar legislation in the future. If we don't do something soon, the U.S. could soon have policies similar to many communist, fascist, and Islamic fundamentalist countries, all under the guise of greater security!

People have accused me of being "obsessive and overzealous" on this issue but that's okay with me. Ask some of the senior citizens in Cuba who have been under Castro's repressive regime for 45 years how they feel now. I bet many of them wish they would have been a little more "obsessive and overzealous" about their freedom in 1959, instead of standing by passively when the communists took over. Look what it's gotten them!

If some of those currently under Islamic rule in the Arab world were free to say what they thought about their situations now, I bet many of them would tell you they wish they would have been a little more "obsessive and overzealous" about protecting their freedom instead of sitting by passively and letting the Islamic fundamentalists take over.

What about North Korea? Could a few more "obsessive and overzealous" defenders of freedom have prevented that country becoming the communist threat to the world that it is today?

What about Nazi Germany? Could Hitler's rise to power have been nipped in the bud if his opponents had been a little more "obsessive and overzealous" instead of being so timid? Could we have used a few more "obsessive and overzealous" defenders of civil liberties in Germany when six million Jews were losing their lives?

What if George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the other Founding Fathers would have just given in to England's demands instead of being so "obsessive and overzealous" about their freedom? And Patrick Henry? Surely he was an "obsessive and overzealous" person if there ever was one. Why he was even "obsessive and overzealous" enough to say "give me liberty or give me death" and really mean it!

There are plenty of well-meaning but misguided and fearful individuals out there who are lobbying Congress to limit our First and Second Amendment, habeas corpus, and other rights even further. We must let our voices be heard or the voices of those people will be the only ones they hear. It only takes a few minutes to make a difference. Of course, it doesn't take any time at all to sit back and let your rights completely erode. The choice is yours.

"I would remind you that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice." -- Barry Goldwater, 1964

By Terry Mitchell

Business: "Where Is America Headed To?", New York Millionaire Wonders

Hello! Happy new year. May you live a long healthy life and prosper.

According to a study by US dept. of Health & Human Services, 96% of Americans never achieve financial independence. They end up depending on charity, welfare, family, or are forced to keep working past their retirement age.

According to the IRS, 85% of the people reaching age 65 years don't have even $200 in their bank accounts! US Census Bureau says that 97% of Americans never realize their dreams and desires in life, and are forced to retire on annual income of $10,000 or less!

The average American is $15,000 in debt, not including their homes and car payments.

Parents will have to spend over $150,000+ to raise their kids to the age of 18 years, and will spend another $77,000 to send them to college.

Every day, about 2,200 Americans lose their jobs, while more than 20,000 families lose their homes to foreclosure every year, and another 500,000 file for personal bankruptcy.

Some of the largest US corporations have been continuously downsizing their work force and laying off thousands of people during the past ten years.

America is weakening and sinking deeper into a debt nation. The paradox is that America is the richest and greatest nation on earth, and yet millions of the people live below the poverty level.

Why is it so? Why is it that 1% of the Americans control 37% of all wealth, 60% of all the corporations, and 10% of all the real estate?

One of the reasons is that most people do not know the SECRETS of the RICH and POWERFUL and are ignorant of the dynamics of wealth creation, preservation and perpetuation.

The majority of the people have been misled to believe that to achieve financial security, success and happiness, all they have to do is to go to college, obtain a degree and get a job.

Nothing can be further from the Truth!

To make both ends meet, both husbands and wives have to go to work.

In some cases, some people have two or more jobs: day job, evening job, and weekend job.

They spend every minute of their lives running from one job to the next, and have no time to enjoy the money they make or the company and love of their families.

Both the husband and wife hardly have time for each other or their children.

The children have no role models and are devoid of proper parenting. Some start missing classes, hanging out with the wrong gang, using drugs and committing crimes.

This leads to moral decay, lack of discipline, dropping out of school and life in and out of prison, teenage pregnancy and welfare dependency.

It is pathetic! Even when both parents are working, they still have mountains of bills to pay: mortgage, car, credit card bills and personal loans.

When they lose their jobs, they are unable to continue with the payments, so they lose their car, then their homes and credit line and probably end up on skid rows.

This leads to marital strife, discontent, divorce and depression.

And life in other continents and countries of the world are not better!

Since the economies and the currencies of the other countries of the world depend largely on American economy and currency, whatever happens in America ultimately affects the other countries!

America gives billions of dollars in financial and military aids annually to many countries in the world.

But many of the governments of these countries (especially the developing ones) are corrupt to the bone!

They steal these billions of dollars and salt them away in secret Swiss Bank accounts.

They don't use it to build manufacturing industries that will create jobs for their country people.

They don't use it to build the infrastructures to enhance the quality of life of their people.

Their people have no modern amenities and infrastructures, good roads, electricity, running water, telecommunication service, or jobs.

They have no business, no future and no hope!

That explains why some of them dabble in scams, while others escape to seek a better fate in America and European countries.

Instead of giving billions of dollars to these corrupt governments that enrich a few corrupt politicians, why not give the same billions of dollars to American corporations so they can go to those countries and help them build up their economies and create jobs that benefit the people?

That is what American government should be doing, if it is seriously interested in helping people from other countries of the world.

This may help improve international relationships and restore the respect and love that other countries once had for America.

Please feel free to print or publish this article anywhere and read and also send to your friends and well wishers and please preserve the resource box below.

Have a happy new year filled with sunlight, success, good health and may your dreams and ambitions come true.

Warmly,

I-key Benney

Bush Victory: A Defeat for the Have-Nots?

The shouting is over and directions for the next four years selected. Judging by past behavior (the best predictor, psychologically, of future behavior), we can look forward to:

1. Continued and probably expanded tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and large Corporations. It is no surprise that the stock market soared on the election news: big business stands to gain greatly by the results. Predictions? A strong effort to curtail product lawsuits, no matter how valid, to protect bottom line profits and continued tax incentives to offshore jobs to third world countries where labor costs are low, worker protections minimal, and profitability unlimited.

2. Protection of drug companies by barring pharmaceutical imports from Canada and discouragement of the formation of purchasing cartels for Medicare and other public programs.

3. Semi-privatization of Social Security leading to the emigration of higher paid young employees into private plans, unavoidably diminishing the influx of money available for current and future recipients.

4. Expanded funding for the morass of Iraq and support for the new Afghani government, benefiting the Haliburtons of the world rather than the American worker.

5. Increasing isolation throughout the world as the perceived "big bully of the west" shuns any support which demands shared power and responsible accountability.

6. A decreasing emphasis on job creation as it is no longer a political football and therefore a dead horse. The hope is that the unemployed will eventually take minimum wage service and temporary jobs, the only widely available positions, and business will reap the rewards.

7. The jury is still out on what may happen to a woman's right of choice and committed homosexual unions but we would be well-served to fear cultural values legislated by anyone.

The Have-Nots - the jobless, the homeless, the powerless, and the poor - stand to lose what little they have in a nation where the wealthy gain ever more power while the working class, by the thousands, slips permanently below the poverty line.

"A society may be defined by how it treats its most vulnerable members."

Who said that and where is he when we need him?

By Virginia Bola

The Glorious Acts of Our Legislature

I always have to remember to take a deep breath when examining the laws being proposed by our grand Legislature. I detest most of the new legislation on the table, but have to forgive our representatives in the House and Senate for it. After all, writing laws is what a Legislature does, and if they don't write enough laws, it can begin to look like they've been loafing.

Call me strange, but I rather prefer a Legislature that goofs off and under produces new laws. I'm convinced we have enough of them already, and agree with Mark Twain, who famously said that no man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the Legislature is in session.

Mainly, that is because no lawmaker wants to look like a slacker, especially so soon after an election. It's bad form. As a result, we get some hideous proposals that I would chalk up as an effort to hide behind some broad good intention while looking meaningful, or at least busy.

House Bill 1508 is a textbook case as one such proposal.

Representative Vanessa Summers, an Indianapolis Democrat, has introduced legislation that would prohibit the use of cell phones, making exceptions for hands-free devices and for emergency use. The proposed fine for violations of the law would be up to $25.

The intent is to make our streets a little less hazardous. We have all groused at the idiot guilty of driving while in conversation that cut us off or made us miss a light, and we have cursed the driver and his cell phone. Summers' proposal takes its cue from similar laws passed in New York and the District of Columbia. As everyone knows, these cities now have the safest streets in the world.

This law is rife with problems, from practical application to the higher concerns of individual liberty.

I know four friends, right off the top of my head, who would gladly pay up to $25, as a cost of doing business. They think this highly of each and every one of their calls. $25 is no kind of deterrent for these people.

What is emergency use? I define emergency use of a cell phone as a frantic call to a friend because I suddenly had two tickets offered to me for a Colts' playoff game, and I have to accept within five minutes, or the tickets will be passed on to a co-worker. My wife defines it as having found a deal on furniture, and she's on her way home so I can look at fabric swatches. I'm betting that this is not what the Representative has in mind. Some revisions will be in order.

But why just cell phones? If the real intent of the law is to eliminate distractions from our roadways, why not ban them all? Summers could justifiably expand the proposal to include a ban on smoking in the car, adjusting the radio or inserting a Britney Spears CD, eating fast food, scolding the rug rats in the backseat, talking with your spouse, shaving or applying makeup, doing the crossword puzzle, using a laptop computer, calling for on-screen directions to Starbucks, and rehearsing your excuse that explains your tardiness to the boss.

Could we really ban Britney Spears CDs? I digress.

Before the law is done with revisions, no common person will be able to read and understand it, and mainly, drivers will just continue to take their chances.

This begs the significant philosophical question: Why bother?

Isn't it sufficient that citations can already be issued if the use of a cell phone is the cause of an accident? Why pile on? No harm, no foul: If the use of a cell phone isn't endangering anyone in the moment, why penalize for the harm that was not caused?

Ah, the law is to be a deterrent, to eliminate the possibility of harm. But won't it also become more than that? How much of a stretch is it to envision police pulling over drivers who endanger nobody on a deserted road at 11pm, but who are guilty of making a cell call, just so the officer can meet his monthly quota? Isn't that a harm all its own?

Say, if the police pull a driver over to the side of the road, isn't that the sort of distraction that could cause an accident? It should be banned!

Let's hope this Bill dies in committee. If it passes, Summers will run for re-election in 2006 on the basis of having produced this wonderful law? and of having been suitably busy.

By Mike Kole

Government Overregulation of Broadcast Content Could Backfire

Rush is right! The government's stepped up bid to regulate broadcast television content is indeed frightening. Limbaugh made his comments during one of his regular radio broadcasts last year. Those remarks were in response to the FCC's crackdown on broadcast indecency and Congress' threats to hand out much larger fines to broadcasters for such violations, in the wake of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl halftime show last February.

Limbaugh is the not only media personality alarmed by this intensified government scrutiny of television content. At the beginning of his news program on CNN during that same time frame, Aaron Brown said he thought the only thing worse than Jackson's Super Bowl debacle is the fact that the government is now getting involved in trying to prevent similar incidents in the future. Amen, Aaron!

Television, like any other business in a capitalistic society like ours, is and should be governed by the marketplace and the laws of supply and demand. I would love to see more family-friendly television programming. However, if there were truly a great demand for it, there would naturally be a lot more of it in existence (as well as a lot less of the offensive stuff). The folks who are pushing the hardest for greater government intervention to make TV more family-friendly will assert that they are in the majority of viewers and listeners in the U.S. However, the facts belie this assertion.

Of the seven broadcast networks, PAX, widely recognized as the most family-friendly, is last in the ratings. It's not just last, it is dead last! PAX gets about one-fourth of the audience of the sixth place network! Even in places that don't have a local PAX affiliate, it is usually available as a cable channel. However, it's not even among the 30 top-rated cable channels. On the other hand, some of the TV shows and cable networks with the most controversial material get the highest ratings. Go figure.

In reality, those who are clamoring the loudest for TV to "clean up its act" know they are in the minority. Instead of tuning their TVs to PAX or one of the other tamer channels (as I do) or even turning their TVs completely off, they go running to the government to force their tastes on everyone else. Oddly enough, most of these people consider themselves conservatives. Funny, I thought conservatives disdained government intervention in favor of allowing the marketplace to take its course. Where did I ever get such a silly idea?

What these people seemingly don't realize is that their efforts could very well backfire on them and all the rest of us. Broadcasters have generally submitted to the concepts of the V-chip and content ratings to help parents regulate their children's TV viewing in their homes. After all, isn't that what all of this hoopla is about? They have also meekly accepted reasonable fines from time to time for indecent broadcasts. However, the vocal minority is now demanding that the FCC and Congress play hardball, i.e., impose very large and numerous fines as well as revoking the licenses of stations found guilty of indecent broadcasts. In response to this demand, there are now bills circulating in both houses of Congress that would increase fines to the range of $250,000 to $3 million per violation along with threatening license revocation for habitual offenders.

Many people forget that the FCC and Congress are not the final arbiters of these matters. The courts are. In the past, the courts have vigorously defended the First Amendment and I believe they will continue this trend. By playing hardball, the FCC and Congress will leave broadcasters with no other option but to take them to court. Even though the courts have, in the past, upheld the FCC's reasonable jurisdiction over broadcast TV, things could change if the government's newly attempted heavy-handed penalties are challenged. Long ago, the courts stripped away the government's "right" to regulate indecency on cable and satellite channels. If the government decides it really wants to play hardball with broadcasters, it could ultimately lose any jurisdiction over broadcast content as well.

But let's suppose the government's more restrictive regulations are upheld by the courts. That's definitely a possibility. However, because of the greatly increase fines and the possibility of license revocation, the courts will likely force the FCC to be more specific and draw up more detailed indecency guidelines. They are currently vague, to say the least.

I'll use the following illustration to demonstrate how vague the FCC's current guidelines really are. Let's suppose that none of the roads or highways we all drive on everyday had posted speed limits. Instead, let's suppose they just had signs warning us not to drive too fast. Then let's suppose that the police were allowed to subjectively write tickets whenever they thought someone was driving too fast, but would never actually define what they thought "too fast" really was. That's similar to how the FCC operates. It doesn't provide any specific guidelines and only investigates a claim of indecency when someone files a complaint. It never explicitly states what a broadcaster can and cannot do.

Now, going back to our speeding analogy, let's suppose that we (along with the courts) tolerated this kind of speed enforcement because the fines were relatively small and no one's license was ever revoked. However, what do you think would happen if the governing authority decided to greatly increase the fines for speeding and allow the possibility of license revocations for such violations, without giving us specific speed limits? We would not stand still for such a thing and neither would the courts. Posted speed limits would be mandated.

With the FCC forced to write more specific rules governing indecency, it could find itself in a very precarious position. If, for example, the FCC strictly forbids specific words from being used and/or specific body parts from being shown on broadcast TV, it will invite another court battle that it will probably lose. However, if it explicitly lists situations in which certain words can be used and/or certain body parts can be shown, broadcasters will begin to find loopholes in these rules and exploit them. We all know that the more specific a law or rule is, the easier it is to find loopholes in it.

The bottom line is that more aggressive enforcement of indecency regulations on broadcast TV and radio could backfire and actually lead to even racier content. Members of Congress would be advised to look before they leap.

By Terry Mitchell

Affirmative Inaction

One of Abraham Lincoln's claims to fame is the fact that he is best known for abolishing slavery. While he may have felt some personal satisfaction from liberating the Negroes from their bondage, Economy was the main reason why he made his emancipation proclamation. He wanted all of America to move into the Yankee version of capitalism. Over half a decade later, and after a series of civil rights "victories", the roots of Affirmative Action were laid into law.

This was at a time when black civil rights leaders where being assassinated, churches were being bombed, and dogs were not the black man's best friend. Some blacks had managed to prosper in a separate, but equal America. They become lawyers and businessmen and doctors. However, very few businesses employed blacks in a management position, as they knew their white employees would not adhere to their direction.

There was a time when all that were true. It was the same time that smokers were not treated as social pariah; professional athletics made less than the average worker and the only way to send mail was in an envelope. Times have changed. The social landscape has evolved. Technology has made a huge impact in our social fabric. Millions of families have found a home, and built their families in North America from across the globe. Blacks are no longer the scorn of White America. And while the Civil Rights amendments apply to all races, colors, and ethnic peoples, let's face it, it is primarily applied to the African-American.

Between Affirmative Action and demands for reparations, the black community has continued to ask for government handouts needlessly for almost 2 decades. It is time for this to end.

When Italians and Irish peoples first came to Ellis Island, they were not treated any better than the people that were already settled. They faced most of the same persecution and challenges being directed to the black community as well. But they adapted. They formed close ties with their communities, and bought their way into mainstream America. That is the same for the Jews.

Throughout history, no peoples have been persecuted to the same levels as the Jews. Laws, throughout history, were made to keep them out of public office, and some times legitimate business, yet still they prosper. What are their secrets? Banding together as a community. Forming strong business groups. Supplying needed services or products to mainstream America. For some reason, since the wholesale pillaging of Africa, African-Americans cannot seem to imitate other ethnic communities in that regard. They continue to follow the African model of exploitation so that a few can maintain a hold over the many.

What I have stated may be controversial, but it is nevertheless factual. In your company, if a new Italian person is hired, he will be eating with other Italians by lunch. That is the same across most other ethnic communities, except the black community. Black people will look into themselves to find differences (Haitian against Jamaican, American against African, etc).

I believe that this goes against the spirit of Affirmative Action. Its purpose is to give a foothold into long-held white only corporations and their management staff. Most blacks today, once elevated into that position, try to take on the genetic make-up of those in the same position as them. They will not seek to promote other black candidates, in fear of looking too sympathetic, or incompetent. So no matter how many blacks may be working in the bowels of the company, the way blacks have applied Affirmative Action even amongst themselves does nothing but try and maintain a 2% average, even if there are more highly qualified blacks ready to get promoted.

The tide appears to be changing, as more and more black people have benefited from the explosion on their culture in White America, or with the incredible salaries now paid to athletes. They have re-invested into their communities to make a difference in both education and job opportunities. That being stated, if there were no more government sponsored welfare-type programs, those communities would be forced to band together to create a better environment for all their peoples.

Why should the government continue to fund programs and departments meant to uphold this archaic view of corporate practice, when for the most part, they are already in place. Let the communities speak for themselves. If a company has suspect-hiring practices, let the community speak out, and only then should the government get involved. Instead, the government should be focusing on getting kids of all ethnic communities the same opportunities for education afforded to those of privilege. Let's put affirmative action into the hands of each individual, to succeed in whatever profession they excel in, instead of limiting their own job opportunities to about 2% in each company.


By Gary Whittaker

A Viewpoint Not Represented in the Mainstream Media

The news media will regularly present views from Democratic (liberal), Republican (neoconservative), and independent (moderate) perspectives. However, I rarely, if ever, see my point of view represented in the mainstream media. Let me begin to sum up my politics by saying that I believe our most fundamental right as human beings is the right to not be bothered if we don't want to be. Supreme Justice Louis D. Brandeis got it right when he said, "The makers of the Constitution conferred the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by all civilized men - the right to be left alone." I am somewhere in between a Goldwater Republican and a Libertarian. I do not go along with the agenda of the neo-cons who currently control the Republican Party nor do I completely adhere to the Libertarian party line.

I believe in small government whose only functions are to do what we cannot logically do for ourselves as individuals. I don't believe in a "nanny state" that tells adults they must wear seatbelts. I believe we should fight wars only when our national security is directly threatened and only after all other means of resolution have been exhausted. I believe in pre-emptive strikes in certain cases, but never pre-emptive wars. When we do have to go to war, I believe we should use a take-no-prisoners approach, with the ultimate goal of vaporizing our enemies. I don't believe a military draft should ever be imposed. I do not believe in nation building. I believe in legal immigration and would increase the quotas for most countries if I could, but I think illegal immigrants should be treated like the criminals they really are - not given special rights or handouts.

I do not believe in attempting to legislate morality (or immorality). I believe people should be allowed to do what they want, as long as their actions do not adversely affect or directly threaten someone else. Just because something is vile is not alone enough to make it illegal. I do not believe in policing thoughts, i.e., I don't worry about what someone is doing or reading might cause them to think. At the same time, I believe in accepting personal responsibility for one's own choices and that each individual must bear the natural consequences for his or her actions, e.g., don't say you didn't know smoking causes lung cancer and don't blame the government when you get HIV due to your promiscuous, careless, and/or perverted behavior. I believe tobacco, alcohol, and pot are equally bad for a person's health, but should be equally unrestricted.

I believe the rights of speech and expression, no matter how offensive or inciting, should be completely unabridged except for direct, explicit threats or speech that directly endangers others, e.g., yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. I believe implied threats should be protected speech for the simple fact the implication could easily be misunderstood. I don't believe so-called "hate speech" by one person should be blamed for a violent act committed by another. I don't believe pornography, indecency, or violence in the media should be blamed either. If given the chance, most convicts will blame anything, everything, and everyone but themselves for their own actions. That's human nature, so I don't put much credence in studies that say outside forces like that cause people to rob, rape, or murder.

I believe abortion, except in cases of rape, non-consensual incest, or endangerment of the mother's life or health, is murder. I believe it's proper to use the death penalty against those who are beyond any doubt guilty of certain types of murder. However, I believe it should be applied fairly and consistently. If not, then it should not be used at all.

I believe punishment for those who deliberately harm others and/or their property should be swift and sure, but not excessive. Punishment should never include torture or humiliation and should be applied by the penal system, not other prisoners. Inmates should not be allowed to set up a "pecking order" or have any control over the conditions at a prison or jail. Any inmate harmed by another inmate should be allowed to sue those responsible for security at the facility in which he or she is detained. No arrestee or inmate should ever be subjected to a strip search unless probable cause can be established that he or she is carrying contraband on their person and is refusing to voluntarily hand it over. Homosexual behavior, both consensual and nonconsensual, should be abolished from our prison systems.

I believe in absolute property rights. People should be allowed to do whatever they want on their own property, regardless of zoning laws, as long as they are not creating a hazard for anyone else. Ugly paint colors or structures do not constitute hazards. The government should not be allowed to forcibly take all or part of someone's property.

I believe anyone who is mentally sound and has never been convicted of a violent crime should be allowed to own any kind of firearm he or she wants. I believe in capitalism in its purist form. I believe the republican (little 'r') form of government, which the United States has, is a much better form of government than a democracy. Democracy is nothing more than mob rule in which the good of the majority always trumps the rights of the minority. I believe in a colorblind society in which everyone is given equal access and opportunity without discrimination or special favors.

I believe in separation of church and state, but I'm not an extremist about it. I see no reason why the government can't play favorites with the majority religion (in our case, Christianity) when it comes to open displays, as long as those who practice other religions are free to do so without encumbrance. If someone is offended by the open display of the majority religion in our country, then they are free to leave anytime they want. I believe no one has the right not to be offended by another person's speech, religion, dress, etc. Being offended once in a while is the price we have to pay for living in a free and open society - a small price indeed!

By Terry Mitchell

A Noble Attempt To Bring Peace in Assam

United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), one of the most powerful militant organizations operating in the northeast region is in the limelight again but this time for a better reason. Attempts to initiate talks with the center and the group are in progress. The group was established in 1979 by Paresh Baruah along with his associates. The group aims to establish a Sovereign Socialist Assam.

In the latest developments the renowned Assamese writer Indira Goswami met PM Manmohan Singh on November 19 to initiate talks with the proscribed group. This step is seen as a path breaking one however the end result is still awaited. In 45 minute long meeting with PM Indira Goswami appealed to the Prime Minister to initiate talks with the militant outfit. Goswami submitted a written appeal on behalf of the ULFA to the PM. ULFA has demanded that the sovereignty issue should be part of the talk process. On 22 November Mr.Singh made his stand clear in Guwahati that "If they shun violence, then I will invite them for talks but violence and talks cannot go on simultaneously". Further stalking the process, on November 22 the ULFA chief Paresh Baruah said that "The comments made by the PM was not unexpected and not different from that made by his predecessors. It is evident that the Centre's colonial policy will continue."

The chances of peace in the two decade old insurgency torn state of Assam seems to very bleak, however Goswami's attempt has laid the foundation stone for a process. Indira Goswami the recipient of the nations highest literary award the Jnanpith Award association with the ULFA started thirteen years ago when she was invited for attending a function in Northern Assam. Her famous novel "Mamore Dhora Tarowal"(The Rusted Sword) is selected as a must-read by the ULFA for its women cadres.

Prime Minister showed his appreciation for the literary marvel for taking the initiative to bring ULFA to the negotiation table with New Delhi. The letter from the Prime Ministers office to Indira Goswami says that " the Prime Minister has a special interest for Assam and its people. He, therefore acknowledges the expression of desire by the ULFA for talks with the Government of India." The letter also said that the Prime Minister welcomed the expressed desires of the ULFA leadership to hold talks with the government of India.

Manmohan Singh has said that he is willing to talk to any "disaffected" group in the country, provided it gave up the path of violence. As per NDTV reports on December 7 the PMO sources said that the "Prime Minister has made the government stand with regard to talks with insurgent outfits clear during his visit to the North-East and Jammu and Kashmir last month.

Colts' Stadium Short on Horse Sense

The predominant discussion in the Indianapolis media over the proposed $500 million Colts stadium is how to fund it, not over the wisdom and propriety of taxpayers going into debt to build it.

Apparently the leaders of both major political parties in Indiana have signed off on the concept, including a poor building design, and are content to confine their discussion to who's picking up the tab.

Come hell or high water on White River, Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson has vowed not to lose the Colts during his administration. His plan in part is to raise $13 million annually through higher car rental, innkeeper and admissions taxes in Marion County, as well as with annual gambling profits of $46 million from 2,500 pull-tab gambling machines in downtown Indianapolis.

Regional Republicans have their own plans to fund a new stadium. Rep. Luke Messer of Shelbyville proposes giving Indianapolis $30 million in annual revenue from 2,500 slot machines at the Hoosier Park and Indiana Downs horse tracks. Marion County GOP chairman and state Rep. Michael Murphy has a similar plan that would divide the slot machine profits differently, giving Indianapolis $48 million annually.

Here are three problems with these major party proposals, besides any issues that readers might have over funding the stadium with gambling profits.

First, they do not address the issue of stadium obsolescence. Taxpayers cannot afford to again let government build a stadium that the NFL outgrows, especially one that is three-times the real cost of the first one. Proponents should guarantee that the stadium will be valuable for 50 years, or promise to indenture the lives of their children and grandchildren at double the rate of our servitude.

Second, their proposals treat businesses unequally. They subsidize rich millionaires at the expense of smaller or more deserving businesses. Likewise, they treat businesses such as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway unfairly by taxing them to underwrite their sports competitor. It's a slap in the face to the Speedway, which funds itself.

And why should we indenture each Indianapolis citizens with more than $1,000 in debt for eight regular-season football games each year? If gambling revenue projections are not met, are residents of Indianapolis willing to be on the hook for the balance? I'm certainly not.

But here's the real crux. The RCA Dome is perfectly good as it is, except for one basic flaw. No, the flaw is NOT the size of the Dome. Although it is the smallest in the league at 57,900 seats, the Colts barely sell the Dome out even with ticket prices just below the league's average of $54.75.

The problem with the RCA Dome stems from how NFL teams share revenue. Owners keep their revenues from private luxury suites. At the Dome, Colts owner Jim Irsay has 104 suites. The league's most profitable franchise, the Washington Redskins, has 280.

Irsay seeks a stadium with enough suites to give him a shot at a medium profit relative to the rest of the league. He would have already moved his franchise to Los Angeles had that city promised him a stadium with enough suites, which it could not afford to do.

So he and his franchise are leveraging Indianapolis and our state government into building him a stadium by 2008 that merely gives him more profit potential. Ironically, Irsay's best selling point is that he will not also hold the city hostage by making it guarantee that the suites it builds him will be sold. Huh? Until then, the city expects to pay him at least $36 million to keep the Colts in town.

Compare this to the real costs of a new stadium. Its $500 million price tag can triple by the time its bond is paid. For the 400 permanent jobs that the stadium creates and the hundred or so new suites that are created, that amounts to a public investment of over $1 million per job and $3 million per luxury suite. Plus, we will build a stadium with no more capacity than the original Hoosier Dome and, from the looks of the design, one with lousy viewing for NCAA basketball.

That's maddening. Our elected officials are about to build another obsolete stadium with limited capacity, a poor configuration and an exorbitant price tag. They will again saddle us with public debt that is tall on political horseplay and short on horse sense.

Seven Things That Make Me Angry

I watch the TV news and I get angry. I really need to quit that. It's not good for my blood pressure. However, there are certain things that always get me going no matter how hard I try to ignore them. They get me hot under the collar and I guess they always will. I feel a need to vent right now, so I'll discuss seven of them below. (Hey, that's a nice round biblical number).

(1) Unrighteous indignation. What right do convicted felons serving time in prison have to punish someone else for their sins? They have no right whatsoever, but they do it all the time and the system winks at it. Very often, we'll hear about a convicted child molester, for example, being assaulted or killed by another inmate. The sad part is that society has grown to accept this kind of behavior as a fact of life and, in many cases, seems to approve of it because of our deep hatred for certain kinds of criminals. Actually, God doesn't give anyone, not even the best of us, the right to hate anyone else, not even someone like Hitler or Osama Bin Laden. When it comes to punishment for crimes, only those with clean records have a right to apply it, and then only in a lawful manner in keeping with the due process of law. Apparently, most of us, including members of the news media, have forgotten this precept.

(2) Forced acceptance. I'm a very tolerant person. I believe in religious freedom for all. I don't believe in so-called "crimes against nature" laws. I believe everyone should be free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't directly affect anyone else. However, I wish the liberal busybodies would quit trying to force me to accept other people's life styles, religions, customs, and cultures. Isn't tolerance good enough? Apparently, it isn't. I'm now being told that I must accept homosexuality as the moral equal to heterosexuality or risk being branded a "homophobe." I must now accept other religions as being on a par with Christianity. It is politically incorrect to acknowledge Christianity as the only true religion. Instead, I am told that I must worship at the alter of diversity. In the name of multiculturalism, I must now refrain from viewing mainstream American culture and customs and as being superior to other cultures and customs. Otherwise, I risk failing the sensitivity test.

(3) Government coercion and confiscation. No law-abiding citizen should ever have to give up life, limb, liberty, or property (other than reasonable taxes) at the behest of government. However, all of these things happen or have happened, even in our beloved United States. People who have not been charged with crimes have been and continue to be detained for various reasons. The USA Patriot Act, among other things, places controls on where we can go and how we can use and store our cash. The concept of eminent domain is utilized every day to confiscate people's property. For years, we had a military draft in this country and may have it again soon. A draft is not needed as people can be enticed into the military with enhanced salaries and benefits (which I'm all for). In times when that isn't enough, I don't see why convicts can't be allowed the option of going into the military in lieu of their prison sentences. A draft, however, takes productive, law-abiding citizens by force and places their lives in jeopardy. To me, that's almost the same as executing innocent people!

(4) Censorship. Other than for reasons of national security, censorship should never be used. Free adults should be allowed to choose whatever they want to view or hear and should be allowed to regulate what their children can see or hear. The marketplace should be the only deciding factor as to what is available. A free market system will provide what people want and discard what they don't want. Each individual should have the right to decide what is offensive to him or her. No one should be given the right to decide that for another adult. Besides being a violation of a person's basic rights to exercise his or her own tastes, censorship is problematic for another reason. Those doing the censoring rarely have enough common sense to avoid throwing the baby out with the bath water. In other words, stuff that most people would find acceptable or even desirable tends to get thrown out along with the obvious garbage.

(5) Double standards. Why is it "okay" for a man to be sexually promiscuous, while a woman behaving that way is considered a slut? Why do many fathers tell their sons to "have fun", while telling their daughters they better not? In my opinion, sexual impurity just as bad for one gender as it is for the other. Why are only men required to register for the draft? Isn't that government-sponsored sexism? Why are married men with kids encouraged to be safe, while single men without kids are not? Shouldn't a high level of safety be stressed for everyone? Why can we have black history celebrations, Miss Black America pageants, black congressional caucuses, and so forth, but not the corresponding items for whites? Would their white equivalents be racist? Maybe, but not necessarily. Personally, I think we should forget about race and strive toward Martin Luther King's ideal of a colorblind society. However, as long as we continue to identify people by race, his dream will never come to fruition.

(6) Too many lawsuits awarding too much money. Many small communities no longer have the services of an obstetrician. Medical costs are skyrocketing. No company within the borders of the U.S. now produces flu shots. Most of this is due to out-of-control lawsuits in which juries award ridiculous amounts of money. Lawsuits for accidental or negligent behavior should be limited to actual damages only. No pain and suffering or punitive damage awards should be made in those cases. Lawsuits for intentional misconduct that don't involve physical injury should be limited to actual damages and punitive damages. Only lawsuits for intentional misconduct involving physical injury should be eligible for pain and suffering damage awards. Lawsuits involving the consequences from things that people do to themselves, ex., smoking or overeating, should never be allowed and not even be taken seriously.

(7) Nation building with American blood. If George W. Bush wants to "export freedom", that's fine with me. It's certainly an honorable endeavor and there are many ways to do it without placing our military personnel in harm's way. However, Americans should never have to shed their blood fighting for someone else's freedom, especially in when it's unclear whether many of the people we're trying to liberate actually want the kind of freedom we're trying to bestow on them. Despite what some will have us believe, it is neither our duty nor in our interest to remove tyrants that are not a direct and imminent threat to our security. If people of other countries yearn for freedom, let them take up arms and fight for it themselves. Americans will be more than happy to provide encouragement and send weapons and other types of aid.

By Terry Mitchell

The American Worker: Downward Mobility

All the indicators show an improving economy and, finally, the start of job growth. More than eight million unemployed workers see hope around the corner and re-enter the nightmare of job search with increased enthusiasm and the positive outlook they lost six months ago when they virtually gave up on ever finding a good position.

What do they find?

Service jobs: customer service, hospitality, tourism, food, travel, entry-level healthcare, retail. What are these jobs offering? 30%, 50%, 75% less income than the old manufacturing jobs which have moved to foreign countries. Where are the benefits, the insurance, the paid holidays, retirement plans? Where have the stability, seniority system and regular raises gone?

It is a new world, an evolving economy, a changed future. Everything will work out, government forecasters confidently predict. With tax reductions continuing, the economy will expand and thousands of high-tech, highly compensated positions will be created. Keep the faith, job seekers are advised -- this is the United States where innovation and entrepreneurship always prevail and life gets better and better.

Keep mouthing the platitudes and perhaps the 50 year-old former auto worker with an eleventh grade education or the 60 year-old dislocated engineer with outdated job skills and high blood pressure will actually start to believe it. At least until they return to active job search and encounter the real, not the hypothetical/political, labor market. That is when the true economic progression of twenty-first Century America emerges: an increasing number of millionaires, an increasing number of entry-level, low paid workers, and a great middle class vacuum.

The displaced worker is confronted with the choice of working at a level far below his/her skills, education, and abilities warrant, or staying unemployed. When the government reports that in the near future "Every one who wants a job will get one," the connotation of unemployment is that jobless workers do not WANT to work. This political myth leads to increased depression, diminished self-esteem, and the final conclusion by the legions of the unemployed that their personal fears turned out to be true: they are worthless, unwanted, redundant. The universal anxiety about not being quite good enough, not measuring up, not able to run with the big dogs has been validated and the mental health of the unemployed deteriorates further.

By Virginia Bola

Fact to Fiction: The Brutal Truth about the Practice of Stoning

"Like humans void of soul or mind, they jeered and yelled as they went about selecting their most jagged stones." - David Hearne, excerpt from Hulagu's Web.
Stoning is a brutal and outdated practice that is kept alive only by Muslims under Sharia rule. Although it has been practiced since biblical times, every other culture has systematically ceased the practice in favor of more humane forms of punishment. The torturous sentence leaves the victim in agony. David Hearne, in his book Hulagu's Web, shows us how painful it can be. "Terror ripped through her mind?then suddenly the first stone smashed into her?" (Hulagu's Web, 64) The only solitude the punished has is that they will soon die.
Stoning is typically a punishment for adultery, although it can also be use for cases of incest and other sexual or "moral" crimes. Typically, a stoning victim is first wrapped in cloth and buried up to the waist for men, or up to the chest for females. Then the crowd is to throw stones at the victim. However, it is very important that, "? no stone should be thrown that should kill with the first or second blow, or so small as a pebble to do no injury to the condemned." (Hulagu's Web, 64) Stoning is a unique form of punishment in that there is no single executioner. The simplistic act of gathering the victim's peers around him creates killers out of everyone.
Today, stoning is only practiced in Islamic culture in order to maintain the submission of its women and those in the lower cast. Only those impoverished or socially unimportant are punished by stoning. This barbaric act parallels those of the 4th century Theodosius who punished those who did not share his religious views. He ordered all non-Christian temples be destroyed and that all heathens be executed unless they convert. His decree now lives on in the hands of religious Islamic tyrants that now employ the brutal act of stoning. These acts of barbarism and violence far outweigh the moral transgression of those condemned.
Stoning has been in practice since biblical times. In the Old Testament, God is quoted as requiring stoning as a punishment for breaking one of the Ten Commandments, particularly for committing adultery. However, in the New Testament, Jesus is believed to have replaced that type of punishment for a more humane punishment. He is quoted as having challenged, "he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." This is why stoning has slowly been replaced with punishments that require less involvement of ones peers.
As we realize the impact of such a brutal death, we realize that we have no right to take part in killing another when we too have sinned. This imparting of sin on all those who partake in it is the very reason most cultures have abandoned the practice.
We already see a disintegration of the practice of stoning in Islamic culture. Only those under Sharia rule still practice it. In this culture, there is no distinction between religious and governmental law. Religion is governmental law. More information on Islam and Sharia law can be found at http://answering-islam.org.uk/.
Among the countries that still practice stoning are Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. Other Islamic countries denounce the practice as inhumane and indicate that the Qur'an provides no grounds for such a vicious practice. Those who practice stoning claim that it is demanded by Islam and have gone so far as incorporating it into their countries penal codes.
From these deep rooted laws regarding stoning, there have been a few recent cases of global interest where stoning has been received as a punishment. In December 2004 a woman in Iran was scheduled to be stoned to death after spending five years in prison for committing adultery. She was one of over 100 to be stoned to death in Iran last year alone. In Nigeria, a woman was sentenced to stoning after giving birth to a baby more than nine months after divorcing. To her good fortune, this sentence was overturned. More instances of recent convictions resulting in stoning can be found at http://www.religioustolerance.org/isl_adul1.htm. With international efforts to stop stoning, the rulings are being overturned with more frequency, hopefully giving less credibility to Sharia law.
David Hearne shows us a heart-wrenching account of a stoning in his book Hulagu's Web. He shows us that not only does the victim suffer the agony of the stoning, but also her anguish is unfelt by the executioners who relish their license to kill. "A spray of blood and spit now accompanies her cries of pain?The gore pleased [him], and he gleefully watched the proceedings to ensure that no one used a stone of the wrong size." (Hulagu's Web, 64-65) Through this account we can see that the emotional involvement of crowd creates the wrong message. Instead of invoking fear of being stoned themselves, the crowd comes to enjoy a good stoning and thrives off of it. In this fashion, stoning is no longer a form of punishment, rather a form of entertainment that breeds murderers out of ordinary people.
For those doing the stoning, it is a social event that becomes more of a religious sport than a true act of moral self-righteousness. An actual video of a stoning can be viewed at http://www.iran-e-azad.org/stoning/. The footage taken in Iran illustrates a party like atmosphere of those carrying out the execution. It is reminiscent of the family picnics at the old Wild West hangings or the popularity of people watching the slaughter of gladiators in early Rome.
Like other diabolical methods of torture, stoning has gone out of style as society realized that having others participate in the punishment of another, even a criminal, devalues life. Stoning also creates fear and terrorizes the minds of others. The Guillotine, whipping, pouring acid on someone or gouging their eyes out with iron have all been gleefully practiced over the ages by zealots. Regardless of the how brutal, none of these punishments have stood the test of time. Even those founded in the name of religion have died out because they are cruel and inhumane.
As these diabolical methods have failed, it is important to note one punishment continually in practice: Jail. Imprisonment has been a popular form of punishment because having "?her face pulverized by the stoning," (Hulagu's Web, 64) seems a little extreme no matter what the crime. Even though so many cultures have migrated towards this type of punishment, it is hard for westerners to understand why Sharia Muslims still sanction a punishment this inhumane.
As stoning is done in the name of Allah, Hearne has his character yelling "God is great." (Hulagu's Web, 63) The crowd is egged on even more as they become more involved with the stoning. Perhaps the worst part about stoning is that it brings ordinary God fearing people to actually fear life itself. They are put into a perpetual state of fear such as Hearne's Senator Laforge who imagines her own stoning in a nightmare. (Hulagu's Web, 63) Unable to let the memory go, people in these countries under Sharia rule cower and are plagued with fear of their life ending in such a brutal manner.
By Stoning

The Lemon Dance: Why Government Doesn't Work

Former Senator, Daniel Moynihan, accurately summed up the situation when he posited that,"[t]he single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because! it's so rare." In the case of politicians the public is protected from ineptitude and apathy through term limits. Unfortunately for John Q. Citizen, the vast majority of government bureaucrats exist in an environment devoid of responsibility or accountability.

The endless transfer of incompetent workers rather than their outright dismissal represents a choreographed farce known as the "Lemon Dance." The negligent, unqualified and indifferent workers that fill millions of government positions do so with the assurance that they will never be fired for their transgressions. For example, your average sanitation worker wakes up in the morning confident that regardless of missed routes, spilled garbage or traffic collisions while on duty, he will continue to have a job the next day.

A recent study by the Los Angeles Daily News concluded that only six out of thirty-seven thousand Los Angeles City government employees had been fired for poor performance. On the national level, the Federal Times reported in 2003 that none of the approximate half a million workers of the eight Cabinet-level departments were fired for poor performance from June 1993 to June 1998. The public must ask themselves whether local and federal governments have collected the finest group of individuals capable of error-free work, or if there are inadequate systems in place that are unable to address the rampant poor performance of government workers.

The outrageous misappropriation and waste of taxpayer dollars provides another contributing step in the offbeat "Lemon Dance." Consider a recent example where two Los Angeles sanitation workers made over $8,000 of unauthorized calls on city-issued cell phones. After several warnings, and continued misuse of their cell phones, the city workers were not terminated while management lamented that they "did not have an adequate policy explaining to their employees that it is wrong to use city cell phones for personal business."

The inability of government superiors to adequately discipline government employees makes the "Lemon Dance" the modern-day Achilles Heel of government. Entrusted with running society's most important institutions, government finds itself in a position where it can neither terminate its least qualified employee, nor reward exemplary standouts. Instead, government bosses tend to look the other way when faced with the poor performance of their subordinates. The complete lack of accountability present in government has, in turn, created a culture of apathy where workers have no motivation to perform at even adequate levels. Richard Riordan, former Mayor of Los Angeles and present Secretary of Education for the State of California, cites a lack of accountability as the leading cause of poor performance plaguing government institutions. Riordan admits that government run bureaucracies "do[es] not hold anyone accountable, because [it] might hurt somebody's self esteem by firing them."

Former General Electric Chairman Jack Welch's strategy for improving employee performance deserves consideration. Concluding that it was better to release an ineffective employee immediately rather than allowing them twenty-five years of wages and retirement benefits, Welch regularly fired the bottom ten percent of his employees based on performance evaluations. This type of approach could do wonders for local, state and national government. The termination of deserving employees sends a clear message throughout the organization that incompetence will not be tolerated.

Albert Einstein suggested, "bureaucracy is the death of all sound work." The current state of government employment certainly supports his assertion. However, government must begin to clean house. Until it becomes possible for government to dismiss incompetent workers, the public will continue to be held hostage by unions and ineffectual procedures that would prefer the "Lemon Dance," to even modest accountability.

By Michael Levine

The Divided Language

I was dismayed to learn the other day, that my all-time favourite George Bernard Shaw quote may not in fact have been uttered by him.

Nevertheless, even the misquotation that Britain and the United States are two countries divided by a common language, will ring true with any British Expat who has tried to make their new home in America.

There are hundreds and probably thousands of words that are different or embody a changed meaning or intent.

British people coming to America often assume that they've picked up everything they need to know about American English from a lifetime of consuming American movies and television.

There is, undeniably, a huge advantage Britons have over other migrants, just by speaking a variant of the same language. It is also astonishing how much British English has itself become Americanised.

Forty years ago it would have been difficult to find a British person alive who pronounced the word secretary in any way other than the short, clipped sec-rit-tree. These days, that sounds old-fashioned to many people in the U.K as the American sec-reh-tar-ee has taken full root. Mind you in Britain forty years ago, no-one said "hi" and few people knew what a teenager was.

In these globalised days American slang takes only a few months to cross the Atlantic, such as the 90's fad of adding "not"on the end of sentences, or saying "I'm like" as a substitute for "I thought" or "I said" which has regrettably survived well into the new Millennium on both sides of the Atlantic.

Perhaps it is because of the every day prevalence of American English in Britain that few British Expats realise what a linguistic minefield they are entering when they cross over that big moat.

The very worst attitude to adopt when arriving on these shores, is what the veteran transatlantic broadcaster Alasdair Cooke once referred to as immediately deciding that "....Americans are British people gone wrong."

There is a long and inglorious history of British sneering at the way Americans speak, often based on ignorant assumptions.

Now of course, we all have our own beefs about American pronunciations. I wince every time I hear the American president say noo-coo-ler for nuclear. I've never quite worked out why some Americans say eye-talians for Italians. (Does this mean the country is called eye-taly?) And I feel like inflicting a great deal of real physical pain on someone when I hear, even seasoned American sports broadcasters, call the tennis championship Wimble-ton or even more horribly Wimple-ton - as if the d in Wimbledon is somehow invisible.

But for every one of these ear-sores, we are equal opportunity manglers of American English. Brits routinely mispronounce relatively simple American place names such as Michigan, Houston and Arkansas. And despite pleas from the performer herself, the British adamantly refuse to pronounce Dionne Warwick's name the way it is pronounced in America - literally war-wick.

In fact, there is a great body of historical evidence that American English is much closer to historical English in England, than the version that is spoken today in modern day Britain.

It may come as a surprise to the sneerers to learn that words such as fall, for autumn, mad for angry, trash for rubbish and scores of other Amercanisms all come from Elizabethan England. Many linguists believe that the accent Shakespeare's plays would have been performed in would have sounded nothing like the classic renditions we've heard by Gielgud or Olivier. These linguists believe that the accent typically heard in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, would had a distinct twang that we would associate today with the west country. A little bit more like, shock of shocks, the American accent.

Indeed, Gielgud and Olivier spoke what we know in Britain as received or BBC English. This is now largely acknowledged to be an upper-class Victorian affectation. It nevertheless became the standard English of public schools and was rammed into the consciousness of the British people with the advent of BBC radio in the 1920s. While it may have created some sort of standard out of a chaotic collection of wildly differing regional dialects, it is an artificial, almost worthless creation that has almost no historical value in the understanding of the way English was spoken.

So if we accept that those early settlers in America took with them some of the vocabulary and sound of historic England, it's still amazing that the language survived the onslaught of subsequent settlers.

In the second half of the 19th century some thirty million people poured into America, including Austro-Hungarians. Germans, Swedes, Dutch, Ukrainians, Irish, Poles and Russians. By 1890 there were over 300 German newspapers in the U.S.

French was once spoken broadly in a geographical ribbon that stretched from Quebec (where it is still the first language today) to New Orleans. Cajun - a mangling of Acadian - still survives as a language today.

Words poured into the American linguistic landscape from all these groups and others: Cookie came from the Dutch, avocado and mustang from the Spanish, canoe and tobacco from native Americans.

It may be a short history but it has been an intense one. When you really stop to consider it, it's amazing American English does bear as much similarity to what is spoken in modern day Britain. After all, the Dutch and the Belgian Flemish actually share a border, but often find each other unintelligible.

But even when you've been humbled by the historical evidence, it does not prevent the unsuspecting Brit from cocking up (to use a comforting ripe old British expression).

In fact it is because the English is so similar between the two nations that the pitfalls become bigger.

You can make a complete fool out of yourself in the simple act of ordering a cup of tea. Unless you specifically ask for "hot tea" in America you're just as likely to be served iced tea. (Of course, some would argue that even the hot tea is neither hot nor tea).

Some of the differences are extremely subtle.

A word like jolly in Britain has gained a large range of meanings. There is the jolly Father Christmas of course. But we also say somebody is jolly when they're drunk, or in the sense of humouring or appeasing: To jolly along. It's used to describe perks or salacious fun; "I see he's getting his jollies". We describe things as being "jolly good". It's also used by some British people, usually those who sound a bit like Penelope Keith, in phrases such as "I'm going to jolly well go down there and give him a piece of my mind!".

In America jolly has only one meaning - merry. Other definitions used on this side of the pond will be greeted with bewildered stares.

Some words are just designed to be confusing. A pavement in Britain is a sidewalk in America - where a pavement means the actual road or street. How potentially dangerous could that be?

I once had an extremely long and strange conversation before I determined that that an aerial is an anttena in America.

Similarly video as a noun refers only to a tape, not the machine. In the States the machine is a VCR.

I quite recently had to carry out some swift damage control when I was taken to a party consisting largely of my girlfriend's family. My host, kindly introduced me to everyone.

"This is Lee." she said and then added helpfully, "He's English."

"Well spotted!" I replied, a tad sarcastically but meant harmlessly, possibly summoning up a little Basil Fawlty humour. The whole room fell into an uncomfortable silence as I searched desperately for a hole to open in the living room carpet that would envelop me.

Not only was the jovial sarcasm completely misinterpreted but nobody in the room had a clue what "well spotted" meant anyway.

That story does however illustrate what a lonely place being caught in between two cultures can be. This can be compounded by the cruel attitude of friends looking for any evidence that you've gone soft in the head when you revisit the U.K

"Hmmmm! You've got a twang!" is a typical observation usually accompanied by knowing looks signifying an innate cultural superiority. Then, with all the human empathy found in the act of pulling wings off butterflies they'll furtively search and pounce upon every piece of newly acquired vocabulary or potentially offensive pronunciation.

Once, when submitting a story to an editor in Britain, she noticed I had repeatedly used the word "lines".

"Do you mean queues?" she asked.

"Oh yes I do." I replied, embarrassed by letting an Americanism slip in.

"Mind you, " she added generously "Line is a much more logical word."

"Oh I don't know," I replied feeling a sudden rush of British nostalgia. "I think queue is quite a charming word."

"My dear Mr. Carter," she scolded, in her best schoolmistress voice, "if you're starting to find your own people charming then you really have gone native!"

And so this is the netherworld we inhabit. Neither one nor the other

But the next time you're struggling to order a cup of tea, or to make a fool out of yourself in the drug store, or if you're called a hopeless yank by your British friends, just remind yourself that you're actually a part of a new breed of hardy internationalists.


By Lee