HOW-OF-WHY

In memory of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2012-01-16T09:50:00.000-08:00

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..." – John Donne, Meditation 17, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke the above verse during Nobel Lecture, on December 11, 1964. His lecture was entitled "The Quest for Peace and Justice", delivered in the Auditorium of the University of Oslo, Norway. At the age of thirty-five, he was the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

Today is the Monday designated as a American National Holiday commemorating the birthday of Dr. King. He was born as Michael Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta on January 15, 1929 (his father was also originally named Michael). He was renamed when he was about 5 years old when his father decided that they should both change their first names to Martin.

The authorized, idealized, sanitized version of Dr. King's life story is that he fought for racial justice in America. The reality is, in the last years of his life, Dr. King articulated a far bolder, broader and very radical American revolutionary vision, encompassing a clear minded analysis and a severe criticism not only of the role of the United States in the world, but of the very nature of our political and economic system.

Dr. King's vision was articulated most powerfully in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at Riverside Church in New York City. He gave the speech on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City.

He was quickly condemned by the NAACP, civil rights leaders, the Democratic Party (he had campaigned for Lyndon Johnson) and the mainstream media.

It is doubtful that Dr. King would even be allowed to speak at any of the memorial events being held in his own name were he alive today. But he does speak to us still as we again find ourselves at a time, well as he said in 1967:

"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
He also said:
"These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born.
The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions."

Others, wiser, much more experienced and articulate than I have pointed out that these are still revolutionary times. Our country was born of revolution.

I would argue that our society, our nation, our democracy can only be served by continuing the American Revolution each and every single day.

But now, it seems to me, we have, in fact, given in and given up.

The shirtless and barefoot people of the world continue to rise up.

But we do not support them.
In fact, in many places, we support and we are the very forces who use our overwhelming economic wealth, access to natural resources and unprecedented military power to enforce the conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice.

I suggest that we revisit Martin Luther King's words.
I suggest that we re-read them in the light of the present day.

"…A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Dr. Kings words are as meaningful, powerful, truthful and dangerous as they were in 1967.

Our own federal administration and many adult Americans condemn and trivialize anyone speaking out against the present invasions, escalations and war.

Exactly to the day, one year after breaking his silence and speaking out against his nation's injustice, materialism and war waging, Martin Luther King, Jr. was silenced. Assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Those who call for us to celebrate his birthday but dishonor his life and work and spirit dishonor all human beings. King spoke well to use Donne's poem to remind us of who we can be, who we need to be, who we absolutely now must be.

"…therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee."

Republicans of 2011

2011-10-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

Republicans pretty much want everyone not like them to suffer & have less rights than them. It's ironic because they are usually the most religious. Why do you think they are so mean-spirited? No gay people. No help for poor people. No health care for the sick. The 1 thing they want is tax beaks for people who are already wealthy.

Educate. Resist. Share. Act. Now

2011-07-09T08:03:00.000-07:00

Educate.

Resist.

Share.

Act.

Now

Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus

2011-04-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

This was originally sent to me via an e-mail from Dr. Ingrid Buxton: The overturned Wisconsin Supremer Court election is not the first time Kathy Nickolaus has done this. Attention
seeking? or fraud?

Given that, County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus is just doing what comes naturally
in Sneezeville. Commenter "We Won" cited this rather impressive list of
County Clerk Capers as cited on Rachel Maddow In 2004, she [Nickolaus] gave voters the wrong ballots and their votes were counted anyway.
In 2005, she gave newspapers sample ballots that were pre-marked
with a vote for one of the candidates.
In 2006, her county was plagued with botched election problems;
including having an entire city's data misreported - overturning a
candidate's victory after it had been declared - just like this most recent
election.
In 2007, the same thing happened again, and Mrs. Nickolaus found
some "missing votes" that overturned another candidate's victory.
3 months ago Waukesha County audited her operation and recommended
she improve her security and backup procedures. She did not.

Okay, Enough Is Enough!

2011-03-18T12:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, Enough Is Enough! Soldiers fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan, come home. Those telling you the war is necessary are lying. Just come home. Keep your weapons. We need them here. Our nation has been taken over by Enemies of the People.

LISTEN

In memory of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2011-01-15T08:56:00.000-08:00

Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke the above verse during Nobel Lecture, on December 11, 1964. His lecture was entitled "The Quest for Peace and Justice", delivered in the Auditorium of the University of Oslo, Norway. At the age of thirty-five, he was the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

Today is the Monday designated as a American National Holiday commemorating the birthday of Dr. King. He was born as Michael Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta on January 15, 1929 (his father was also originally named Michael). He was renamed when he was about 5 years old when his father decided that they should both change their first names to Martin.

The authorized, idealized, sanitized version of Dr. King's life story is that he fought for racial justice in America. The reality is, in the last years of his life, Dr. King articulated a far bolder, broader and very radical American revolutionary vision, encompassing a clear minded analysis and a severe criticism not only of the role of the United States in the world, but of the very nature of our political and economic system.

Dr. King's vision was articulated most powerfully in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at Riverside Church in New York City. He gave the speech on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City.

He was quickly condemned by the NAACP, civil rights leaders, the Democratic Party (he had campaigned for Lyndon Johnson) and the mainstream media.

It is doubtful that Dr. King would even be allowed to speak at any of the memorial events being held in his own name were he alive today. But he does speak to us still as we again find ourselves at a time, well as he said in 1967:

"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
He also said:
"These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born.
The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions."

Others, wiser, much more experienced and articulate than I have pointed out that these are still revolutionary times. Our country was born of revolution.

I would argue that our society, our nation, our democracy can only be served by continuing the American Revolution each and every single day.

But now, it seems to me, we have, in fact, given in and given up.

The shirtless and barefoot people of the world continue to rise up.

But we do not support them.
In fact, in many places, we support and we are the very forces who use our overwhelming economic wealth, access to natural resources and unprecedented military power to enforce the conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice.

I suggest that we revisit Martin Luther King's words.
I suggest that we re-read them in the light of the present day.

"…A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Dr. Kings words are as meaningful, powerful, truthful and dangerous as they were in 1967.

Our own federal administration and many adult Americans condemn and trivialize anyone speaking out against the present invasions, escalations and war.

Exactly to the day, one year after breaking his silence and speaking out against his nation's injustice, materialism and war waging, Martin Luther King, Jr. was silenced. Assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Those who call for us to celebrate his birthday but dishonor his life and work and spirit dishonor all human beings. King spoke well to use Donne's poem to remind us of who we can be, who we need to be, who we absolutely now must be.

"…therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee."

CHANGE NEEDED

2010-08-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

Real Jobs, Real clean energy, Healthy food, Safe biodegrible products = legalizing USA Industrial Hemp. Why won't the Democrats support it? Money from Big Oil/petro-chemicals, paper companies, Big Drug companies, etc...

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S 09/09/09 SPEECH

2009-09-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

In light of the immoral political response by the GOP. My neighbor, a university professor wrote this:

"The far right wing and the silent Republican congressmen who are not out
front denouncing this crap are just setting up the conditions conducive to,
and whipping up the hatred that will lead to the assassination of President
Obama. If they arent denouncing the hatred, denouncing the birthers with
the obvious attempts to diminish President Obama thru questioning if he was
born in the US and therefore not rightly president, thru acquiescing when
the haters start throwing denunciations at President Obama, they are part
of the conspiracy to assassinate. Their actions in the Congress last night
is just another act of conspiracy by treating President Obama AS IF he
really isnt the president and worthy of respect. And I dont believe for a
moment they dont know what they are doing! They know and have their little
speeches of "plausible deniability" all ready. Others may think this is
silly, it is stupid, it is disgusting or even entertaining, for me this
just makes the awful lump in my stomach increase in size every day. Those
of you who lived thru the assassination of John, Martin and Robert know
about the lump in the stomach, know to what ends the heads of the
industrial complex will go to preserve their power and control of this
country. The Mafia has nothing on these guys.

I live in fear every day. Ingrid"

EASTER, PUBLIC RELATIONS, FEMINISM & MASS MURDER

2009-04-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

A Little EASTER History:
You Have Come a Long Way To Earn The Right To Poison Yourself.

1929, The father of spin, Eddie Bernays convinced young stylish debutantes to smoke in public during the Easter parade in Manhattan, as a show of defiance against male domination.

The demonstrators were not aware that a tobacco company was behind the public relations stunt. Bernays own wife smoked herself to death.

I still wanna write a play about Bernays, an American Jew whose books PROPAGANDA & CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION were bibles to Hitler's Minister of Information, Goebbels, who used them to turn Germany against the Jews and imprison and murder mass numbers in concentration camps.

Read the entire text of PROPAGANDA at this LINK.

SCIENCE REVEALS BUSH/CHENEY WTC 9/11 COVER UP

2009-04-05T14:21:00.000-07:00

If you believe the Bush/Cheney lies about 9/11, Science proves you are wrong.
READ THIS!

AND THIS (LINK TO DETAILED PDF FILE)

ENOUGH!

2008-12-30T20:39:00.000-08:00

It is time for the USA to take the lead and the other nations to follow and demand that Israel & Hamas stop killing in Gaza and sit down and talk. Neither leaves the room until a treaty is signed. Right now peacekeepers from around the globe must step in to protect civilians in Gaza.

Enough.

WARMONGERS

2008-11-19T09:23:00.000-08:00

The last eight years show just how deceitful U.S. presidents can be. The past provides portraits of how it has changed history and how greed, ego, war and national armed force seems to guide Presidential power

As of 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had failed for eight years to get America out of the Great Depression। FDR knew his historical legacy was destroyed if he couldn't come up with something big to overshadow his failure stoping the Great Depression. The mass media in America had been pushing for America to enter World War Two on England's side. Roosevelt decided to rescue his historical legacy and satisfy the media by pushing America into World War Two, despite the massive opposition to another war by the majority of Americans.

(A very few small nations such as Sweden and Switzerland have successfully avoided the bloodbaths of recent wars. Both of these nations are prosperous and have avoided amassing huge national debts that usually happens during major wars).

America was at peace until Pearl Harbor was attacked (Dec. 7th, 1941).The American public had pressured Congress into creating a series of Neutrality Acts during the 1930s. Most Americans saw World War One as a needless and costly war that America had been misled into entering. The USA lost 120,000 soldiers to warfare and disease, and another 200,000 had been injured. American’s perception is that our nation got exactly nothing out of World War One, but had insured that England avoided losing the war. The Neutrality Acts were designed to keep America from selling weapons to belligerent nations engaged in war.

FDR had promised the American public that he would keep America out of war during the Presidential campaign in 1940. Then as soon as he won the election, FDR began work, doing everything he could to push America into the war. Roosevelt secretly allowed tons of war material to be shipped to the English from the very start of the war in Europe. He completely ignored the Neutrality Act when he gave the British 50 destroyers in September 1940. England had illegally received long range Catalina observation aircraft from America, thanks to Roosevelt. One of these Catalinas played an important role, spotting the German Battleship Bismarck, which led to its sinking. Roosevelt passed the Lend Lease Act in March 1941. England then received unlimited military aid from the U.S. Shortly after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. FDR began sending military aid to the the Soviet Union, sending two billion dollars in war material before Pearl Harbor. Most Americans opposed Communism, yet Roosevelt sent Stalin two billion in weapons.

In August 1941 the U.S. was still at peace, FDR secretly met Winston Churchill in the north Atlantic on a British Battleship and established the "Atlantic Charter." The Atlantic Charter called for "free trade, self-governed nations and military disarmament." But Roosevelt and Churchill made plans to pull America into the war ignoring of what the American public wanted. The Atlantic Charter proved to be a joke. India and the Philippines somehow never got "self-determination" under Churchill and Roosevelt. The "free trade" provision was violated in just a few months when FDR ordered an embargo of scrap iron and oil against Japan. FDR was arming America to the teeth and reinstating the draft in despite to his call for "military disarmament."

The truth always comes out in the long run, and the more truth that comes out, the worse FDR looks. Two incidents were well known from 1941, which involved German submarines torpedoing U.S. destroyers. FDR had ordered US destroyers to hunt down German U-Boats. If the American destroyer sunk the U-Boat, it was covered up. If the U-Boat defended itself and sunk the American destroyer, the Germans portrayed it as an “unprovoked” hostile action. FDR traded the lives of American sailors on a destroyer for a chance to get into World War Two.

FDR discovered another way to World War Two by way of Japan. In July of 1941, Japanese assets in England and America were frozen, illegally confiscating Japanese property. Churchill and FDR cutting off 90% of Japan’s oil supply and 75% of its foreign trade, also imposed a trade embargo. During a meeting with Churchill in August of 1941, Roosevelt made an agreement with Churchill to declare war on Japan if Japan invaded British or Dutch colonies in Asia. On November 26th, 1941, FDR's Secretary of State Cordell Hull delivered an ultimatum to Japan; dictating what policies Japan must follow.

FDR approved a CIA operation in April 1941 to allow American fighter pilots to transfer to the "Flying Tigers" squadron to fight the Japanese in China. The CIA actually recruited fighter pilots from aircraft carriers and fighter bases during peacetime. The first pilots arrived in China in September 1941. The Flying Tigers had every intention of waging war on Japan whether war officially broke out or not.

Before the Pearl Harbor attack, 80% of Americans opposed getting involved in World Two. And FDR had covertly sent massive military aid to the English and the Soviets and did everything possible to ignore the interests of the majority of American citizens. FDR was another deceitful President. World War Two increasingly looks like a war that did not the highest interests of Americans.

It is clear that FDR and Churchill did all they could think of to get Japan to attack English or American Pacific islands.

On November 25, 1941 Japan’s Admiral Yamamoto sent a radio message to the group of Japanese warships that would attack Pearl Harbor on December 7. Publicly released naval records prove that from November 17 to 25 the United States Navy intercepted eighty-three messages that Yamamoto sent to his carriers. Part of the November 25 message read: “...the task force, keeping its movements strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet in Hawaii and deal it a mortal blow...”

Since World War II many people (notably Gore Vidal) have claimed that Washington knew the attack was coming. When Thomas Dewey was running for president against Roosevelt in 1944 he discovered America’s ability to intercept Japan’s radio messages, and thought this knowledge would enable him to defeat FDR. Dewey planned a series of speeches charging FDR with foreknowledge of the attack. General George Marshall, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, persuaded Dewey not to make the speeches.

Japan’s naval leaders did not realize America had cracked their codes, and Dewey’s speeches could have revealed America’s code-breaking advantage. So, Dewey said nothing, and FDR was elected president for the fourth time.

Robert Stinnett, author of Day Of Deceit, provides the proof. Stinnett’s book is dedicated to Congressman John Moss, the author of America’s Freedom of Information Act. According to Stinnett, the answers to the secrets of Pearl Harbor can be found in the large number of documents he was able to attain through Freedom of Information Act requests. Cable after cable of decryptions, scores of military messages that America was intercepting, clearly showed that Japanese ships were preparing for war and heading straight for Hawaii. Stinnett, an author, journalist, and World War II veteran, spent sixteen years delving into the National Archives. He read over more than 200,000 documents, and conducted dozens of interviews. The research led Stinnet to this conclusion: FDR knew.
“Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars,” was Roosevelt’s campaign statement of 1940. He wasn’t being kidding. FDR’s military and State Department leaders agreed that a victorious Nazi Germany would threaten the national security of the United States. In White House meetings the strong feeling was that America needed a call to action. This is not what the public wanted, however. Again, eighty to ninety percent of the American people wanted nothing to do with another European war. According to Stinnett, FDR provoked Japan to attack the USA, let it happen at Pearl Harbor, and used it to lead the country into another war. Many who knew Roosevelt during that time hinted that FDR wasn’t being forthright about his intentions in Europe. After the attack, on the Sunday evening of December 7, 1941, Roosevelt had a brief meeting in the White House with Edward R. Murrow, the journalist, and William Donovan, the founder of the Office of Strategic Services. Later Donovan told an assistant that he believed FDR welcomed the attack and didn’t seem surprised. The only thing Roosevelt seemed to care about, Donovan felt, was if the public would now support a Declaration of War. In October 1940 FDR adopted a specific strategy to incite Japan to commit an overt act of war. Part of the strategy was to move America’s Pacific fleet out of California and anchor it in Pearl Harbor. Admiral James Richardson, the commander of the Pacific fleet, very strongly opposed keeping the ships in harm’s way in Hawaii. He expressed this to Roosevelt, and so the President relieved him of his command. Later Richardson quoted Roosevelt as saying: “Sooner or later the Japanese will commit an overt act against the United States and the nation will be willing to enter the war.”

If you believe that government conspiracies can’t possibly happen, Day Of Deceit proves otherwise. Stinnett’s well researched and documented book makes the case that the highest officials of the government—including the highest official—fooled and deceived millions of Americans about one of the most important days in the history of the country. It now is considered one of the most definitive book on the subject. Gore Vidal has said, “...Robert Stinnet has come up with most of the smoking guns. Day Of Deceit shows that the famous ‘surprise’ attack was no surprise to our war-minded rulers...” And John Toland, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Pearl Harbor book, Infamy, said, “Step by step, Stinnett goes through the prelude to war, using new documents to reveal the terrible secrets that have never been disclosed to the public. It is disturbing that eleven presidents, including those I admired, kept the truth from the public until Stinnett’s Freedom of Information Act requests finally persuaded the Navy to release the evidence.”

DO THE RIGHT THING

2008-10-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

I am disabled and once a week I go to the St. Ann’s Center for Intergenerational Care for therapy. The Center is a microcosim of American diversity. There are people of every race, skin color, age, Religion and income level who are staff, volunteers and clients.
One married couple I met there, who happen to be middle aged African Americans, and I were talking about the presidential campaign. We all supported Obama for President. We all also agreed that the main fear of Obama was American Racism. It will be a miracle if racism does not destroy our very troubled nation.

One of my online friends responded to one of my recent blogs.
I have always found her blog entries very well written, interesting and compelling.
She has a very young son, and is married.
I have two young adult daughters and am divorced.
I am literally old enough to be her father.
I am not implying that my age makes me anything better or worse than anyone.

I do think, however, know that my political life experience during the illegal, criminal and senseless Vietnamese invasion has fundamentally shaped my actions, decisions, values and judgement.

John McCain was a Navy pilot in that illegal military action.
Our government threatened me with prosecution and prison if I refused to serve in the military.
I refused and the government did nothing.
I have made many mistakes in life, but that was not one of them.
I am happy, even proud of my actions.
History (even the architect of the war and admitted war criminal Robert S. McNamara agreed) that I did the right thing, while too many (including john McCain) did the wrong thing.
Even today I would reuse to be trained to kill strangers in a foreign land.

John McCain killed peasants fighting for their own nation.
He delivered death from above in his multi-million dollar war plane.
There is no denying that the Vietnamese invasion was about conflict between the USA and China, and that the peasants who shot down his warplane had been armed by the Chinese government.
But John McCain liked to ditch his multimillion dollar warplanes for the fun of it.
He did it 3 other times back in the USA.
McCain was never a "maverick", war hero (he never has served in an actual declared war) and was a foolish, angry, adulterous, bigamist, pathological liar and sociopath.

He remains an untreated mentally ill man.
His illness is officially recognized by professional psychologists as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). He displays all the symptoms.
http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/9/14/9551/68488

For an in depth, well researched article on John McCain online, see:
http://tinyurl.com/3toabc

My online friend and I differ politically.
However I agree with her thought,
"We need to vote wisely."

These are perilous times for our nation and for the world.
Economically (recession/depression),
environmentally (global warming, polluting our home - the earth, food shortages)
and politically (the American invasions, nuclear arms and power conflicts, America's enormous debt to fund the invasions, worlrd wide terrorist attack and civil wars).

I do not think John McCain, another dangerous, mentally deranged and incompetent former war criminal, should be elected to lead us during these historically chaotic and dangerous times.

Unfortunately in less than two weeks we will be faced with only two individuals to choose from. I have already voted. I chose to vote for Hope, Education, Problem Solving , Intelligence, Critical Thinking, Honesty and Our Best Chance. I am not trying to tell you how to vote.

I am asking you to do the right thing.

Here is a well written editorial that makes a strong case.

October 24, 2008
EDITORIAL from the New York Times

BARACK OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT

Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation’s future truly hangs in the balance.
The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush’s failed leadership. He is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens — whether they are fleeing a hurricane’s floodwaters, searching for affordable health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs, savings and pensions in the midst of a financial crisis that was foretold and preventable.
As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.
•
Mr. Obama has met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change. He has shown a cool head and sound judgment. We believe he has the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus that is essential to finding solutions to this nation’s problems.
In the same time, Senator John McCain of Arizona has retreated farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism. His policies and worldview are mired in the past. His choice of a running mate so evidently unfit for the office was a final act of opportunism and bad judgment that eclipsed the accomplishments of 26 years in Congress.
Given the particularly ugly nature of Mr. McCain’s campaign, the urge to choose on the basis of raw emotion is strong. But there is a greater value in looking closely at the facts of life in America today and at the prescriptions the candidates offer. The differences are profound.
Mr. McCain offers more of the Republican every-man-for-himself ideology, now lying in shards on Wall Street and in Americans’ bank accounts. Mr. Obama has another vision of government’s role and responsibilities.
In his convention speech in Denver, Mr. Obama said, “Government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.”
Since the financial crisis, he has correctly identified the abject failure of government regulation that has brought the markets to the brink of collapse.
The Economy
The American financial system is the victim of decades of Republican deregulatory and anti-tax policies. Those ideas have been proved wrong at an unfathomable price, but Mr. McCain — a self-proclaimed “foot soldier in the Reagan revolution” — is still a believer.
Mr. Obama sees that far-reaching reforms will be needed to protect Americans and American business.
Mr. McCain talks about reform a lot, but his vision is pinched. His answer to any economic question is to eliminate pork-barrel spending — about $18 billion in a $3 trillion budget — cut taxes and wait for unfettered markets to solve the problem.
Mr. Obama is clear that the nation’s tax structure must be changed to make it fairer. That means the well-off Americans who have benefited disproportionately from Mr. Bush’s tax cuts will have to pay some more. Working Americans, who have seen their standard of living fall and their children’s options narrow, will benefit. Mr. Obama wants to raise the minimum wage and tie it to inflation, restore a climate in which workers are able to organize unions if they wish and expand educational opportunities.
Mr. McCain, who once opposed President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy as fiscally irresponsible, now wants to make them permanent. And while he talks about keeping taxes low for everyone, his proposed cuts would overwhelmingly benefit the top 1 percent of Americans while digging the country into a deeper fiscal hole.
National Security
The American military — its people and equipment — is dangerously overstretched. Mr. Bush has neglected the necessary war in Afghanistan, which now threatens to spiral into defeat. The unnecessary and staggeringly costly war in Iraq must be ended as quickly and responsibly as possible.
While Iraq’s leaders insist on a swift drawdown of American troops and a deadline for the end of the occupation, Mr. McCain is still talking about some ill-defined “victory.” As a result, he has offered no real plan for extracting American troops and limiting any further damage to Iraq and its neighbors.
Mr. Obama was an early and thoughtful opponent of the war in Iraq, and he has presented a military and diplomatic plan for withdrawing American forces. Mr. Obama also has correctly warned that until the Pentagon starts pulling troops out of Iraq, there will not be enough troops to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Mr. McCain, like Mr. Bush, has only belatedly focused on Afghanistan’s dangerous unraveling and the threat that neighboring Pakistan may quickly follow.
Mr. Obama would have a learning curve on foreign affairs, but he has already showed sounder judgment than his opponent on these critical issues. His choice of Senator Joseph Biden — who has deep foreign-policy expertise — as his running mate is another sign of that sound judgment. Mr. McCain’s long interest in foreign policy and the many dangers this country now faces make his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska more irresponsible.
Both presidential candidates talk about strengthening alliances in Europe and Asia, including NATO, and strongly support Israel. Both candidates talk about repairing America’s image in the world. But it seems clear to us that Mr. Obama is far more likely to do that — and not just because the first black president would present a new American face to the world.
Mr. Obama wants to reform the United Nations, while Mr. McCain wants to create a new entity, the League of Democracies — a move that would incite even fiercer anti-American furies around the world.
Unfortunately, Mr. McCain, like Mr. Bush, sees the world as divided into friends (like Georgia) and adversaries (like Russia). He proposed kicking Russia out of the Group of 8 industrialized nations even before the invasion of Georgia. We have no sympathy for Moscow’s bullying, but we also have no desire to replay the cold war. The United States must find a way to constrain the Russians’ worst impulses, while preserving the ability to work with them on arms control and other vital initiatives.
Both candidates talk tough on terrorism, and neither has ruled out military action to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program. But Mr. Obama has called for a serious effort to try to wean Tehran from its nuclear ambitions with more credible diplomatic overtures and tougher sanctions. Mr. McCain’s willingness to joke about bombing Iran was frightening.
The Constitution and the Rule of Law
Under Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the justice system and the separation of powers have come under relentless attack. Mr. Bush chose to exploit the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, the moment in which he looked like the president of a unified nation, to try to place himself above the law.
Mr. Bush has arrogated the power to imprison men without charges and browbeat Congress into granting an unfettered authority to spy on Americans. He has created untold numbers of “black” programs, including secret prisons and outsourced torture. The president has issued hundreds, if not thousands, of secret orders. We fear it will take years of forensic research to discover how many basic rights have been violated.
Both candidates have renounced torture and are committed to closing the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
But Mr. Obama has gone beyond that, promising to identify and correct Mr. Bush’s attacks on the democratic system. Mr. McCain has been silent on the subject.
Mr. McCain improved protections for detainees. But then he helped the White House push through the appalling Military Commissions Act of 2006, which denied detainees the right to a hearing in a real court and put Washington in conflict with the Geneva Conventions, greatly increasing the risk to American troops.
The next president will have the chance to appoint one or more justices to a Supreme Court that is on the brink of being dominated by a radical right wing. Mr. Obama may appoint less liberal judges than some of his followers might like, but Mr. McCain is certain to pick rigid ideologues. He has said he would never appoint a judge who believes in women’s reproductive rights.
The Candidates
It will be an enormous challenge just to get the nation back to where it was before Mr. Bush, to begin to mend its image in the world and to restore its self-confidence and its self-respect. Doing all of that, and leading America forward, will require strength of will, character and intellect, sober judgment and a cool, steady hand.
Mr. Obama has those qualities in abundance. Watching him being tested in the campaign has long since erased the reservations that led us to endorse Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries. He has drawn in legions of new voters with powerful messages of hope and possibility and calls for shared sacrifice and social responsibility.
Mr. McCain, whom we chose as the best Republican nominee in the primaries, has spent the last coins of his reputation for principle and sound judgment to placate the limitless demands and narrow vision of the far-right wing. His righteous fury at being driven out of the 2000 primaries on a racist tide aimed at his adopted daughter has been replaced by a zealous embrace of those same win-at-all-costs tactics and tacticians.
He surrendered his standing as an independent thinker in his rush to embrace Mr. Bush’s misbegotten tax policies and to abandon his leadership position on climate change and immigration reform.
Mr. McCain could have seized the high ground on energy and the environment. Earlier in his career, he offered the first plausible bill to control America’s emissions of greenhouse gases. Now his positions are a caricature of that record: think Ms. Palin leading chants of “drill, baby, drill.”
Mr. Obama has endorsed some offshore drilling, but as part of a comprehensive strategy including big investments in new, clean technologies.
•
Mr. Obama has withstood some of the toughest campaign attacks ever mounted against a candidate. He’s been called un-American and accused of hiding a secret Islamic faith. The Republicans have linked him to domestic terrorists and questioned his wife’s love of her country. Ms. Palin has also questioned millions of Americans’ patriotism, calling Republican-leaning states “pro-America.”
This politics of fear, division and character assassination helped Mr. Bush drive Mr. McCain from the 2000 Republican primaries and defeat Senator John Kerry in 2004. It has been the dominant theme of his failed presidency.

The nation’s problems are simply too grave to be reduced to slashing “robo-calls” and negative ads. This country needs sensible leadership, compassionate leadership, honest leadership and strong leadership. Barack Obama has shown that he has all of those qualities.

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED TO ME ON THE WAY TO THE ELECTION

2008-10-08T12:54:00.000-07:00

THE SCHEDULED DEBATES
WERE REPLACED BY BAD POLITICS
AS SEEN ON BAD UNREALITY TV

Angry, Bitter, Retired Tommy Mushmouth.
Bad toupée, worse diction, lame newsreading talking head, faux journalist,
incompetant moderator,
who thinks he is Brett Favre (still wants to play) even though he never had an "A" game.

The Angry, Bitter, McCain campaign hand-picked Tom Brokaw
to moderate the October 7 debate.

HOW MANY RETIRED NEWS ANCHORS
DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHTBULB
OR MODERATE A NON-DEBATE???

Will the third and final Presidential Debate on Wednesday, October 15 th, at Hofstra University, be an actual debate, or another Looney Tunes, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones style absurdist comedy romp where ElmerFudd McCain and Bugs Bunny Obama fiddle as America's revolutionary democracy burns, Silly Sara Palin plays the flute and Say-It Ain't So Joe Biden runs into the fire trying to save the Constitution for our kids?

I guess it all comes down to this guy.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

NEXT PRESIDENT? YOU HAVE BASICALLY TWO CHOICES.

2008-10-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

THE SOCIOPATH OR THE OTHER GUY...

Suggestion: do not read this just before or after eating. It may make you feel like throwing up - m

A VIDEO THAT TELLS IT LIKE IT IS

Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals
a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty

The Double-Talk Express
From tax cuts to torture, John McCain has flip-flopped on a host of issues
- including his own immigration bill

Mad Dog Palin
The scariest thing about John McCain's running mate isn't how unqualified she is
- it's what her candidacy says about America

LISTEN TO THIS MAN

2008-10-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

Don't listen to Bush or his crew of crooks.
Don't listen to Banks & Wall Street thieves.
Don't listen to the Presidential Candidates or other political puppets of the wealthy thieves.

Instead:
No bailout necessary ~ economist Dean Baker PhD

THEFT VIA FEDERAL BAIL OUT

2008-10-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

We citizens and organizations will be damaged by the Federal BAIL OUT scheme. I'll let the analysis of an older, funnier, wiser writer explain what is happening, how it works, and why WE THE PEOPLE have allowed our government to be hi-jacked (again).
THIS I BELIEVE
(edited to remove profanity)

"Forget the politicians, they're their an irrelevant...
The politicians are put there to give you the idea
that you have freedom of choice.

You don't.

You have no choice.

You have owners.
They own you.

They own everything.
They own all the important land.
They own and control the corporations.
They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State houses, the city halls, they've got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear.

They gotcha by the %#@® s!

They spend billions of dollars every year, lobbying.
Lobbying to get what they want.

Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody, but I'll tell you what they don't want.
They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking.
They don't want well informed , well educated people capable of critical thinking.
They're not interested in that.
That doesn't help them.
That's right.

You know something?
They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table to figure out how badly they're getting %#@®ed by a system that threw them overboard thirty %#@®ing years ago. They don't want that.

Ya' know what they want?
They want obedient workers.
Obedient workers!
People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the moment you go to collect it.
And now they're coming for your social security money. They want your %#@®ing retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street.
And ya know something, they'll get it.
They'll get it all from you, sooner or later.
'Cause they own this %#@®ing place.

Its a big club, and you ain't in it!
You and I are not in the big club.
And by the way, its the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long, when they tell yo what to believe.
All day long beating ya' over the head in their media, telling you what to believe, what to think, and what to buy.

The table is tilted, folks.
The game is rigged.
And nobody seems to notice.
Nobody seems to care.
Good, honest, hard working people, white collar, blue collar. It doesn't matter what color shirt you have on. Good, honest, hard working people continue - these are people of modest means - continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don't give a %#@® about them!

They don't give a %#@® about you!
They don't give a %#@® about you!
They don't care about you!
At all!
At all!
At all!

Ya know, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.

That's what the Owners count on, the fact Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue
%#@® that is being jammed up their %#@® everyday.

Because the Owners of this country know the truth:
its called the American Dream,
'cause ya' have to be asleep
to believe it."

- George Carlin

UNITED STATES OF STUPIDITY

2008-09-03T16:11:00.000-07:00

This is an historical moment in our nation's history.

The Bush/Cheny Administration transformed the USA into the
UNITED STATES OF FEAR.

Now the McCain/Palin team will transform the nation into
THE UNITED STATES OF STUPIDITY!

One nation, under stupidity:
When defending the phrase “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, Governor/VP Wanna-be Palin said,

“If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.”

Really. Interesting.

Reality check time Mrs. Palin:

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892, long after the founding fathers died. The phrase “one nation under God” was added in 1954…

"Don't know much about history" I guess.

Or the Constitution.

Or evolution.

Or birth control.

Sarah Palin advocates abstinence.

Oh if she would practice what she preaches and abstain from running for public office, using a gun, teaching her nut-case, whacko beliefs to her kids, and ever speaking in public.

PASS THE CHIPS, HOLD THE FREEDOM

2008-08-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

PASS THE CHIPS, HOLD THE FREEDOM
or WOULD YOU LIKE SOME FEAR WITH THOSE CHIPS?

They Are Watching
From Inside You and Your Children (or want to very soon)
On SpyChips (Radio Frequency Information Devices - RFID)

By Michael Mendizza

Plans have been cooking for many years to monitor the movement,
consumer habits and behavior of every man, woman, child, pet and
livestock in the United States and eventually in the world. The
technology that makes this possible is spy-chips or Radio Frequency
Information Devices (RFID). Millions have been inserted in passports
and hundreds of products, eventually in the cash you use to
purchase, well, just about anything.

Imagine an interactive barcode inserted under your skin, sometimes in places that
cannot be removed, which transmits information to strategically placed receivers in
every neighborhood in the country and this information being monitored, analyzed by
corporate-government on a daily basis, including what kind of underwear, toothpaste,
banking information and just about everything else that you or your children do.

Fear is the classic tool of social manipulation and control. We demonize the other so we
can invade, conquer and take control of people and resources. The King and Queen of
Spain along with the Pope, governments conspiring with ideology (sound familiar), gave
us the Inquisition. Fear was used to demonize Jews and then women, to divide,
conquer, confiscate personal property, to control entire populations for several hundred
years through public displays of unmanageable human brutality. Fear equals control.
The general fear level of our society is growing. What is the level today? Light Orange?

The revolutionary war, the authoring of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, the very
foundation of America, was a massive and united movement to preserve individual
freedom and liberty. How afraid do you think Jefferson and the other signatories of the
Declaration of Independence were? How do you think they would feel if the King had
SpyChips?

Fear is being used today to justify inserting tiny radio transmitters
(RFID SpyChips) in shoes, books, clothing, cars, lipstick, shaving
cream, just about everything we use including the skin of animals,
our children and – that’s right - you and me, thus creating a radically
new vision of liberty, individual freedom and personal rights.

As a child I roamed the neighborhood freely until dark. Today parents are so fear-
conditioned that they willingly allow microchips to be inserted in their children – tiny
GPS tracking devices, just in case their little darling is lost, kidnapped or abducted by
aliens - just in case they cut their compulsory-government-regulated classes or buy a
Playboy or Harry Potter book that has been branded satanic by the King and Queen.
Clearly we are all watching too much TV.

After all, governments are there to serve the people. Aren’t they? Isn’t that why the
King, Queen and Pope hired their secret police, the Dominicans, to hunt down witches
and Jews, so they wouldn’t eat little children (which is, in fact, one of the prevalent
claims made of the accused)?

Today and expanding exponentially into the future the hunt will be ever so much easier
with Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) purchased using billions of tax
dollars so that corporate-government and its many forms of mercenaries (public and
privately paid police) can do their job.

If parents were bonded, awake, attentive, if they had established a relationship of basic
trust and respect with their child before conception, during pregnancy and every day
thereafter, they would not be crippled by fear – and be so easily convinced that they
need Big Brother (now turning a profit from its social engineering and control schemes),
to watch out for their children.

I feel a lot better knowing that they will be watching everything I do
from the inside out. Gee – they even have SpyChips that can zap
me, even paralyze me for doing something that isn’t approved –
from a satellite any place in the world. Isn’t it great that you and I
will be paying what’s left of our taxable income to purchase millionsof little VeriChips that will be inserted into us – beeping out thesignals – day in and day out – allowing anyone with the receiving
technology to monitor every move we and our children make – forever.

I feel better already. Don’t you?

For more on this:

Google: RFID Children School

Google: SpyChips - read the book by Katherine Albrecht

Stay informed. They are.

Michael Mendizza

BRONZE FONZ = MILWAUKEE DESPERATE

2008-08-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

I have nothing at all against Henry Winkler.
The Fonze made the NYC born performer a full time, working actor (a rare occurrence within the profession that boasts a 95% unemployment rate) and eventually a Hollywood/Big Apple celebrity, producer and TV/film director.
He paid his dues (as we say in the biz) and was educated in his art/craft at Emerson College and the Yale School of Drama.
A talented and fortunate fellow.

But the "Bronze Fonz" seems silly, expensive, ill conceived and bordering on another "Milwaukee desperate".
Plus it does not look like the character very much (as sculptures go).

I doubt people will visit Milwaukee specifically to have a photo op with a bronzed fictional mannikin.

The Calatrava (which looks like a big bread slicer to me, and attracts more drug commercial shoots than visitors), Miller Park (looks like an alien space craft crashed, and keeps a fair number of people away) and now the faux Winkler are another Milwaukee embarrassment (and all relatively expensive mistakes).

"Bronze Fonz" should include a 24/7 web cam and a digital counter per photo.
Maybe a coin operated Polaroid in place for instant pictures to pay for the up keep and ward off vandals.

Couldn't a few live Fonze look-a-likes be hired to show up in the warm months to pose for tourists?
Milwaukee actors need work. Spend the $$ on them.

The Chicago Bob Newhart statue makes perfect sense.
Newhart is actually from Chicago.
His original TV show pretended to take place there and used location footage in the intro.

The map is not the territory. In the case of HAPPY DAYS the TV show is not a representation of Milwaukee.

Cable's "IN PLAIN SITE" films in Albuquerque and New Mexico.
Why can't a current TV show film in MKE - WI? (good project for your organization)

Milwaukee has many worthy attractions to bring people here as well as many famous former residents.
How about public statues of Milwaukee area actual people who made a difference: Al Jarreau, Tom Snyder, Gene Wilder, or Liberace, to mention a few...

Visit Milwaukee seems to want to sell the sizzle and ignore the steak, hype gimmicks rather than the real deal.

WALK ON THE WATER +

2008-08-12T11:30:00.001-07:00

Please read my blog:
AN INDEPENDENT BAY VIEW VOTER'S DILEMA

ABANDONING OLD TECHNOLGY & OLD WAYS OF THINKING

2008-07-02T06:36:00.000-07:00

NYT
July 2, 2008
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Shoot to Stun

By PAUL H. ROBINSON
Philadelphia

A NARROWLY divided Supreme Court ruled last week that the Second Amendment gives Americans the right to keep a loaded gun at home for their personal use. Presumably, citizens can use these weapons to defend themselves from intruders. But given the growing effectiveness and availability of less lethal weapons, it is likely that state laws will increasingly keep people from actually using their guns for self-defense.

The states impose carefully defined limitations on the use of deadly force in self-defense. (These rules are fairly uniform, state to state; most are based on the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code of 1962.) A person may use only as much force as is “immediately necessary.” If a less lethal means of defense is available, the use of deadly force is illegal. Firearms are by law deadly force. (The police are given somewhat greater authority to use force, even aggressive force.)

Guns have been considered a primary weapon for self-defense. But now there are nonlethal alternatives — some not yet on the market — that can quickly disable an attacker even more reliably than a firearm can.

The best known of these are Tasers, handgun-shaped devices that fire a dart that delivers a painful electrical shock. A hit from a Taser causes an instant muscular spasm that can disable any attacker, no matter how determined. And the Taser works no matter where on the attacker’s body the dart hits. A bullet, in contrast, instantly disables only if it hits a couple of vulnerable spots, like the space between the eyes. A shot to the arm, the leg or even the torso may not stop an attacker.

A Taser works only within a limited distance, up to 35 feet for advanced models. But most firearm confrontations are at less than 10 feet. More important, the legal limitations on self-defense typically do not allow use of force at a distance. Defensive force is considered “immediately necessary” only when the defender can wait no longer, when the threat is “imminent.”

Newer kinds of hand-held weapons that are less lethal than guns — many already in prototype — may be even more effective than Tasers. These include light lasers, designed to blind temporarily, and microwave beams that instantly cause the skin to feel as if it is on fire, but cause no lasting harm.

Of course, anyone who uses a gun in self-defense may argue that he would have used a less lethal weapon if he had had one at hand, but there was only the firearm. The problem with this argument is that the limited option is the person’s choice, and the law may not be blind to that choice.

If you are a surgeon and you leave your glasses behind on the way to the operating room, then botch a delicate procedure, you can’t convince a judge that the resulting death wasn’t your fault because you couldn’t see well. If, on your way to confront an intruder, you choose your gun rather than your more effective but less lethal weapon, you can hardly complain later about your limited options.

Similarly, when a person shops for a weapon of self-defense, anticipating some day a confrontation with an attacker, his choice of a gun over something less lethal but more effective is a choice to limit his options in a confrontation.

Should we worry that by expecting people to use only nonlethal weapons in self-defense we would sacrifice our personal autonomy and safety? No. On the contrary, personal autonomy would be even more vigilantly protected.

The reason for this is a second limitation on the use of defensive force, what might be called the “proportionality” requirement. Typically, a defender can lawfully use deadly force only to prevent death, rape, kidnapping or bodily injury serious enough to cause long-term loss or impairment of a body part or organ. But a nondeadly weapon can be used to defend against any threat of unlawful force.

As effective less-than-lethal weapons proliferate, the laws of self-defense may ultimately relegate last week’s court decision to the status of an odd little opinion, one that works mainly to ensure some special constitutional status for gunpowder technology. Gun collectors will be fond of it, but for most of society, it will have little practical effect.

Paul H. Robinson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, is the author, most recently, of “Law Without Justice: Why Criminal Law Doesn’t Give People What They Deserve.”

ONE WAY TO QUIT SMOKING

2008-06-04T09:38:00.000-07:00

Author David Sedaris explained how he quit smoking on The Daily Show
(and wrote a new book).

LOOK HERE

EXERCISE YOUR RIGHT TO CHOOSE

2008-05-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

Yet another terrible, hideous and tragic American anniversary

2008-04-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

April 4, 1968. At the age of 39, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis.

In 1997, King's son Dexter King, met with James Earl Ray, and publicly supported Ray's efforts to obtain a retrial. In 1999, Coretta Scott King, King's widow, along with the rest of King's family, won a wrongful death civil trial against Loyd Jowers and "other unknown co-conspirators". Jowers claimed to have received $100,000 to arrange King's assassination. The inter-racial jury found Jowers guilty and that "governmental agencies were parties" to the assassination plot. This is rarely mentioned during yearly MLK memorials.

A story also never mentioned that one of the “mystery” hobos seen in Dealey Plaza and later arrested on the day John Kennedy was assassinated, who gave a false nane, was eventually identified by some investigators as James Earl Ray.

Each year I republish a Martin Luther King memorial essay I wrote in 2005. I am reposting it here:

IN MEMORY OF REVEREND DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR

"No man is an Iland, intire of its selfe: every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine: if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were: any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde: and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee." - John Donne

Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke the above verse during Nobel Lecture, on December 11, 1964. His lecture was entitled “The Quest for Peace and Justice”, delivered in the Auditorium of the University of Oslo, Norway. At the age of thirty-five, he was the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

Each year one Monday designated as a American National Holiday commemorating the birthday of Dr. King. He was born as Michael Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta on January 15, 1929 (his father was also originally named Michael). He was renamed when he was about 5 years old when his father decided that they should both change their first names to Martin.

The authorized, sanitized version of Dr. King’s life story is that he fought for racial justice in America. The reality is, in the last years of his life, Dr. King articulated a far bolder, broader and radical American revolutionary vision, encompassing a clear minded analysis and a severe criticism not only of the role of the United States in the world, but of the very nature of our political and economic system.
Dr. King’s vision was articulated most powerfully in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech delivered at Riverside Church in New York City. He gave the speech on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City. He was quickly condemned by the NAACP, civil rights leaders, the Democratic Party (he had campaigned for Lyndon Johnson) and the mainstream media.

It is doubtful that Dr. King would even be allowed to speak at any of the memorial events being held in his name were he alive today. But he does speak to us still as we again find ourselves at a time, well as he said in 1967:

“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

He also said:
“These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born.

The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.”

Others much more experienced and articulate than I have pointed out that these are still revolutionary times.

Our country was born of revolution.

I would argue that our democracy can only be served by continuing the American Revolution each day. But we have given in and given up. The shirtless and barefoot people of the world continue to rise up. But we do not support them and in fact, in many places, we support and are the very forces who use our overwhelming military power to enforce the conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice.

I would suggest that we revisit Dr. Kings words and read them in the light of the present day.

“…A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Dr. Kings words are as meaningful, powerful and dangerous as they were in 1967. At least half of adult Americans condemn anyone speaking out against the Bush/Cheney administration's invasions and war.

Exactly to the day, one year after breaking his silence and speaking out against his nation’s injustice, materialism and war waging, Martin Luther King, Jr. was silenced.

Assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Those who call for us to celebrate his birthday but dishonor his life and work and spirit dishonor all human beings. King spoke well to use Donne’s poem to remind us of who we can be, who we need to be.

“…therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.”

THE NEW BLACK

2008-04-02T22:16:00.000-07:00

IT WAS 40 YEARS AGO TODAY

2008-03-31T09:39:00.001-07:00

(please share this with others)

On March 31, 1968, President Johnson stunned the country by announcing he would not run for another term of office.

Back in February I wrote about where I was and how I am connected to this historical even and how it formed my political consciousness.
I was attacked for what I wrote. So It goes.

I wrote:
I had already joined the ranks of those opposed to the war in Viet Nam. By 1968 I was supporting Gene McCarthy, and actively worked for him as he campaigned for the Wisconsin primary.

On March 31, 1968, President Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election. His words: "I shall not seek," "will not accept" — are very well known.

Eugene McCarthy was giving a speech at Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. I know, because I was there.

Early in the speech the student stage manager, my best friend, Butch Lohmiller, came on-stage and handed a note to McCarthy who read it silently and then just stood there for a moment. He then told the news to the audience. He cut his speech short, and left the stage.

It was an extraordinary night for those of us in the audience. Two days later, Gene McCarthy won the Wisconsin primary and then went on to be abandoned by the Democratic Party machine, much the same as they abandoned Dennis Kucinich this year.

McCarthy did play an important role in our history and he did escape the fate of assassination that awaited Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

And America got Richard Nixon.

So in some ways it was a wondrous time for our country because there initially was hope. Amid the hated and vile military-industrial complex, the endless war, and the hideous party politics which blocked the nomination of the One People's Candidate. We then young Americans, in large numbers, had genuine strongly held beliefs for which we were willing to march, protest, fight and sacrifice.

Now, all these years later, our country finds itself entrenched in 2 new illegal, undeclared wars, just as vile, hopeless and disgusting to many of my generation as Vietnam was then. Now I do not have the any sort of the hope and optimism I had in 1968. Now, I am an impoverished, disabled senior citizen and seem to see next to nothing from the youth of today in actual protest to these horribly misguided and immoral wars. All I see is the lowest form of party politics and the most self serving for mof political celebrity worship.

In a way history has come full circle from where Eugene McCarthy led me. I am disgusted and despairing. Maybe Gene was a bit despairing even back then. He said that "being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important." Yet, in spite of knowing the game, he was not dumb and accomplished removing a bad president, and focusing the values of a generation that went on to lead the entire nation in ending the awful undeclared war.

And so, here we are today.
The one leader with the character of Eugene McCarthy,
Dennis Kucinich has been abandoned and discarded.
We have, it seems, learned nothing from our history.

The political process of narcissism, ego, lies, materialism, greed and fascism thrives in the United States of America. And those who would celebrate the current campaigners are well described in William Shakespeare's Macbeth:

“A poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more:
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

Worse than nothing. It signifies a delusion so deep, a denial so unrecognized, and an ignorance so complete, that it makes thoughtfulness, critical thinking and intelligent discourse seem impossible.

- Michael John Moynihan
03/31/08

Every American Must Become an Activist for Tibet

2008-03-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

The Dalai Lama has been a life long example of an advocate and practitioner of World PEACE. China's vile President Hu Jintao has no record except for corruption, violence, murder, torture and shame.

Where are the American Presidential Candidates on Tibet freedom, citizen safety, religious freedom and independence?

I read that one of Obama's half brothers lives in China.
(Barack's daddy, Obama Sr. fathered eight children with four women)

Where are Clinton & McCain on Tibet?

My sense is every American must become an activist for Tibet. Use the planned Olympics, do not boycott them. Every American there becomes a supporter of Tibet and the Dalai Lama. Every Olympic event begins with a silent protest where all Americans (and our friends) raise a fist holding a small card or banner reading FREE TIBET. Every business, political, personal interaction begins and ends with a minute lecture to the Chinese and a demand for President Hu Jintao's resignation, trial and imprisonment.

FREE TIBET

THE GOVERNMENT OF TIBET

INTERNATIONAL TIBET INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT

sincerely,
Michael John Moynihan

Happy St. Patrick’s Day (Lá ’le Pádraig)

2008-03-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

WHERE BEAUTY GOES UNRECOGNIZED

2008-01-25T13:58:00.000-08:00

Saviors, like teachers, appear when you least expect them, but exactly when you are ready to recognize them. Many people have appeared and saved my life, figuratively as well as literally.

Some were friends, loves, peers, my own daughters. Some were artists, comedians and grifters.

Some I never met, the dead heros and heroines. And, of course rock n' roll has saved my life again and again.

The new and old poem/songs of Bob Dylan continue to bring me solace, courage and even hope in sometimes hopeless times and situations... Do you hear Patti Smith. I listen to her as often as I am able. And even for her, I have to thank Bob Dylan.

In 1995 Patti was lost and hiding. A widowed housewife, with two young son's, who had once surfaced as American Music’s Princess Punk Poet and Rocker, blasting out soul searing poetry set to music so it would mainline right into the listener’s heart.

Life brings you heartbreak as a wonderful/hideous choice. When your heart is broken you can hide it and armor it and close your self to all of life's lessons and gifts. You will then grow cold and adopt ways that maintain and deepen a living death...

Or you can see that the heartbreak miraculously has opened you and your heart and let the Pain, Confusion and Healing expand you and your understanding and capacity to love unconditionally and with indefinable but amazing compassion.

Sometimes you need an act of kindness to open the door. And that is when the savior comes in, often thru a window accidently left open rather than the front entrance.

Patti Smith's friend and mentor, the controversial artist Robert Mapplethorpe, had died. Her partner in life and rock, Fred "Sonic" Smith and her brother Todd had died within two weeks of each other. Her parents had also recently passed away. She was hiding out in Michigan. She didn't drive a car. That is not so remarkable in NYC, but in the upper midwest, it is a serious brach of Americanism. And then there were her two boys.

Patti had not performed for close to 15 years in NYC. Bob Dylan invited her to do a show with him. He arranged for her to get to NYC and the Beacon Theatre.

As a 12 year old New Jersey girl she had been schooled as a Jehovah's witness. "I quit the Jehovah's witnesses," she said, "because they said the Museum of Modern Art wasn't going to be around after Armageddon." She heard James Brown. She dropped out of teachers college. No teen boyfriend matched her desires, so she adopted Rimbaud as her fantasy boyfriend.

Then she heard Bob Dylan singing with Joan Baez. Better a live poet than a dead poet as a fantasy lover.

She studied Buddhism, and prayed every day for the Dalai Lama, She saved up money and traveled to Paris with her sister, learned to be a street busker and a pickpocket, met more poets.

Once in NYC, Sam Shepherd would bring her onstage to yell her poems while he banged on drums. Sam taught her how to tune her guitar and gifted her with a '30s black Gibson, that she still plays. She swam in the shallow pool of NYC celebrity for a time. In 1977 she fell off a stage while performing and her eyesight was damaged.

Patti Smith disappeared off the scene and the map.

Fast forward to 1995. Bob Dylan finds out where she is and arranges to get her to NYC to perform once again.

Patti, barefoot, in a long baggy T-shirt was back and was better than ever. After their set’s her teen fantasy lover, her idol, her savior, Bob Dylan asks her to sing a duet of his song DARK EYES.

“They tell me to be discreet for all intended purposes,
They tell me revenge is sweet and from where they stand, I'm sure it is.
But I feel nothing for their game

where beauty goes unrecognized,
All I feel is heat and flame and all I see are dark eyes.”

Patti was born the same year as I was, 1946. In 2007 she was inducted into The Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame. At the end of the induction the gathered musicians sang Patti’s anthemic song, PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER. Every time I hear it, to paraphrase Lou Reed, my life is saved by Rock N’ Roll.

PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER

Read & Consider

Bob Dylan + Patti Smith - Dark Eyes

THE SHOW BIZ

2008-01-22T09:48:00.000-08:00

Title of a very short clip on my YouTube Channel.

.

IN MEMORY OF REVEREND DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR

2008-01-19T13:47:00.000-08:00

(Originally published on 01/17/05, I have republished my essay each year on whatever online space I am allowed to. - mjm)

"No man is an Iland, intire of its selfe: every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine: if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were: any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde: and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee." - John Donne

Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke the above verse during Nobel Lecture, on December 11, 1964. His lecture was entitled “The Quest for Peace and Justice”, delivered in the Auditorium of the University of Oslo, Norway. At the age of thirty-five, he was the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

Each year one Monday designated as a American National Holiday commemorating the birthday of Dr. King. He was born as Michael Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta on January 15, 1929 (his father was also originally named Michael). He was renamed when he was about 5 years old when his father decided that they should both change their first names to Martin.

The authorized, sanitized version of Dr. King’s life story is that he fought for racial justice in America. The reality is, in the last years of his life, Dr. King articulated a far bolder, broader and radical American revolutionary vision, encompassing a clear minded analysis and a severe criticism not only of the role of the United States in the world, but of the very nature of our political and economic system.
Dr. King’s vision was articulated most powerfully in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech delivered at Riverside Church in New York City. He gave the speech on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City. He was quickly condemned by the NAACP, civil rights leaders, the Democratic Party (he had campaigned for Lyndon Johnson) and the mainstream media.

It is doubtful that Dr. King would even be allowed to speak at any of the memorial events being held in his name were he alive today. But he does speak to us still as we again find ourselves at a time, well as he said in 1967:

“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

He also said:
“These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born.

The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.”

Others much more experienced and articulate than I have pointed out that these are still revolutionary times.

Our country was born of revolution.

I would argue that our democracy can only be served by continuing the American Revolution each day. But we have given in and given up. The shirtless and barefoot people of the world continue to rise up. But we do not support them and in fact, in many places, we support and are the very forces who use our overwhelming military power to enforce the conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice.

I would suggest that we revisit Dr. Kings words and read them in the light of the present day.

“…A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Dr. Kings words are as meaningful, powerful and dangerous as they were in 1967. At least half of adult Americans condemn anyone speaking out against the Bush/Cheney administration's invasions and war.

Exactly to the day, one year after breaking his silence and speaking out against his nation’s injustice, materialism and war waging, Martin Luther King, Jr. was silenced.

Assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Those who call for us to celebrate his birthday but dishonor his life and work and spirit dishonor all human beings. King spoke well to use Donne’s poem to remind us of who we can be, who we need to be.

“…therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.”

`

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

2008-01-14T10:30:00.000-08:00

YOU HAVE TO SEARCH FOR IT.

Saeed Sheikh linked to Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Pakistan’s intelligence agency - the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the CIA, mujaheddin guerrillas in Afghanistan, the Saudi Arabian government, 9/11 and our own government.

All of it has been documented on the London Times, Time Magazine, CNN, The New York Times, The Nation, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Times of India, The Wall Street Journal, and others.

"Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the son of a wealthy Pakistani clothing manufacturer. He grew up in London, a brilliant student attending the best private schools. He studied mathematics and statistics at the London School of Economics. While still at school, he started a successful shares and equities business and also was a chess champion, world class arm wrestler, and martial arts expert—a rare combination of physical and mental prowess." - The South Asian Outlook, 3/02

Seek and You shall Find.. Knock and it will be opened to you... ETC.

THE TRUTH EMERGES FROM THE WORDS OF BENAZIR BHUTTO

2007-12-31T09:45:00.000-08:00

I was recently listening to some news and heard that Benazir Bhutto's 19 year old son has stepped forward to take leadership of her Peoples Political Party. Seems like he is volunteering to also be assassinated.

Benazir Bhutto herself seemed to be willing to give her own life when she was interviewed by Sir David Frost in November 2007. This was just after the failed assassination attempt on her in Karachi.

At that time she spoke of many things related to her nation and what had and was happening and who was, in her opinion, most dedicated to killing her. She spoke of wanting the retired Brigadier Ejaz Shah to be removed by Musharraf because he (Musharraf) had put Brigadier Ejaz Shah in supervision of the security that was supposed to protect her (Bhutto) in her travel within Pakistan. The problem being that Brigadier Ejaz Shah had been he the handling officer of Osama bin Laden and Taliban chief Mulla Omar when he was attached with the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence.

One of the most surprising revelations was her belief that Ossama bin Laden was dead.

But the details are even more revealing.

She said he was murdered by Omar Sheikh. Sheikh has also been implicated in the kidnapping and murder of American Journalist, Daniel Pearl, and is now imprisoned in Pakistan.

Omar Sheikh is Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. Other aliases are “Sheik Syed” &"Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad". He is s a British-born militant of Pakistani descent with alleged links to various Islamic-based organizations, including Jaish-e-Mohammed, Al-Qaeda, and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. He was originally recruited by British intelligence agency, MI6, while studying at the London School of Economics.

I repeat, he was hired & trained by the British!

Omar Sheikh was sent to the Balkans by the British MI6 to engage in jihadi operations. Pakistan’s Musharraf later claimed that "At some point, he probably became a rogue or double agent". In other words he was trained by the British and then flipped sides.

On October 6, 2001, a senior-level U.S. government official told CNN that U.S. investigators had discovered Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, using the alias "Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad" had sent about $100,000 from the United Arab Emirates to Mohammed Atta. "Investigators said Atta then distributed the funds to conspirators in Florida in the weeks before the deadliest acts of terrorism on U.S. soil that destroyed the World Trade Center, heavily damaged the Pentagon and left thousands dead. In addition, sources have said Atta sent thousands of dollars - believed to be excess funds from the operation - back to Saeed in the United Arab Emirates in the days before September 11. CNN later confirmed this. The 9/11 Commission's Final Report states that the source of the funds "remains unknown."

The Wall Street Journal was one of the only Western news organizations to follow up on the story, which is why Daniel Pearl got involved and why he was murdered.

Mohammed Atta was one of the suicide pilots who flew his Boeing into the World Trade Centre. General Mahmoud Ahmad, the FBI investigators found, fully knew about the transfer of money to Atta.

In the David Frost TV interview, Benazir Bhutto claims that Omar Sheik, the former MI6 agent now in a Pakistani prison killed Osama bin Laden.

And of course that makes all the bin Laden video and audio tapes bogus. The have been many reports stating that the Osama bin Laden in the video and audio tapes is an impersonator. And that makes our own CIA and Government assertions that they are valid to be lies. That fits nicely with the years of the Bush/Cheney lies to justify their Never-ending War. It also leads closer to the path that people in the Bush/Cheney cabal had knowledge of and perhaps a hand in 9/11. The Bush family business ties to the Saudis have pointed to it for years and as yet the real 9/11 questions asked have never been answered.

And perhaps the reason Bush abandoned looking for Osama was that he already knew that he had been murdered by a British spy.

You can watch the entire Frost interview of Benazir Bhutto HERE

Bhutto revels the murderer of Osama bib Laden at about 6 minutes and 10 seconds into the over 14 minute interview. David Frost doesn’t bat an eye, so one assumes that he was knowledgeable of this before the interview.

2007-10-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

The # 1 rule of smart hiring:

HIRE FOR ATTITUDE
TRAIN FOR SKILL

read more on my BVN blog

Loose Cannon Mercenaries

2007-10-02T09:23:00.000-07:00

I am watching the congressional hearing that is questiong Eric Prince, the founder & CEO of Blackwater USA.

Why does is security of USA State department in IRAQ contracted out to mercenaries like Blackwater?

Why not our own military or State Department employees. Why not our own Secret Service?

Why do people like Prince and Bush talk like babies,
using the term "bad guys" to refer to the enemy?

IMHO all Blackwater government contracts should be terminated.

They should be investigated, charged and prosecuted for war profiteering,
as well as murder and many other war, criminal and corporate crime and offenses.

Eric Price and all Blackwater employees & contractors should be imprisoned
in Guantanamo until a full investigation is completed and published.

-

HALF TRUTHS VS LIES

2007-09-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

I think President Ahmadinejad was telling a half truth when he claimed there were no homosexuals in Iran.

Outed homosexuals are put to death by order of the real head man, the highest state authority, "Supreme Leader", Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran President Ahmadinejad is much like USA President Bush.
Both are puppets.
Dick Cheney is the puppeteer here in the USA as Ali Khamenei is there in Persia.

Neither Ahmadinejad or Bush is dumb. Both seem to know how to play the fear card in politics.

One difference is that Iran (Persia) is and long has been a theocracy (fundamentalist Muslim).
The USA only recently became a theocracy (fundmentalist Christian).

Bush was appointed to his presidency. Ahmadinejad was elected to his.

Bush hates and discriminates against homosexuals. (<-satirical link)
Ahmadinejad denies they exist (& Ali Khamenei has them killed.)

IMHO both policies are immoral & hideous.

It is not alway easy to read about all sides of an issue in the USA. The mainstream media is quite selective in reporting.

Have you come across this Persian/Iranian take on the Ahmadinejad visit to the USA?
Bill Sell posted it on the Bay View Matters Yahoo Group.

Iranian academic society condemns Lee Bollinger remarks September 25,
2007, Iranian Students News Agency - Tehran Service: Foreign Policy

TEHRAN, Sep. 25 (ISNA)-In response to the insulting remarks of the
Columbia university president against Mahmoud Ahamadinejad, Iran's
university presidents raised their objection to Lee Bollinger.

Ahmadinejad was elected in a free two-level election and by the
nation's direct votes they announced in a letter to Lee Bollinger.

"Your insulting words to the president of 72 million people who have 7000 years of rich civilization and culture is embarrassing. Although apparently you have stated those hateful words under great pressure of the media it is disgraceful and surprising to see that the Media direct university president's words." In this letter they have put 10 questions to Lee Bollinger with the purpose of clearing up the ambiguities between the two countries.

1-Why did American media put you under pressure to call off
Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia University? Why do they broadcast
hours of programs and news against him and do not allow him to answer the accusations? Isn't it against freedom of speech?

2-Why did the U.S. government oust the nation-based government of
Mosaddegh with the aid of Iran's dictator, Shah in 1953?

3-Why did the U.S. support Saddam who used chemical weapons against
Iranian soldiers and even his own nation during the imposed war?

4-Why doesn't the U.S. recognize Palestine's government which was
elected with Palestinian's vote? Why does it pressurize the
Palestinian's government? Why is the U.S. against Iran's proposal on solving the 60-year old problems of Palestine through referendum?

5-Why couldn't the U.S. army find Bin Laden despite all of its
equipments? How do you justify the old friendship between the Bin
Ladens and the Bushs and their cooperation on oil? How do you justify Bush's spoiling the investigations over the 9/11?

6-Why does the U.S. government back the terrorist group of Mujahedine Khalq Organization (MKO) while it has claimed responsibility over many bloody bombings in public places of Iran and Iraq? Why doesn't it allow the Iraqi government to evacuate the MKO base in Iraq?

7-Did the U.S. invade Iraq based on international vote and with the
permission of international organizations? What was the real purpose of occupying Iraq which has left hundred thousands of its people dead? Where are the weapons of mass destruction which the U.S.claimed were stored in Iraq?

8-Why are the extremely undemocratic states with absolute monarchy
regimes the U.S. best friends in the Middle East?

9-Why did the U.S. disagree with the "Middle East free of nuclear
weapons project" issued in the board of governors while all countries agreed with it but Israel?

10-Why is the U.S. displeased with Iran and the IAEA agreement and
why does it disagree with negotiations within the framework of
international regulations for solving Iran's nuclear issue?

At the end they have announced that they were ready to host Columbia University president and other faculties who were interested in seeking the truth to know about this nation without the filtering of the West media.

video?

2007-09-21T22:56:00.000-07:00

That's what storms were made for

2007-07-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

A long time ago
A million years BC
The best things in life
Were absolutely free.
But no one appreciated
A sky that was always blue.
And no one congratulated
A moon that was always new.
So it was planned that they would vanish now and them
And you must pay before you get them back again.
That's what storms were made for

And you shouldn't be afraid for
Every time it rains it rains
Pennies from heaven.
Don't you know each cloud contains
Pennies from heaven.
You'll find yor fortune falling
All over town.
Be sure that your umbrella is upside down.
Trade them for a package of sunshine and flowers.
If you want the things you love
You must have showers.
So when you hear it thunder
Don't run under a tree.
There'll be pennies from heaven for you and me

G R E E N ! (071207)

2007-07-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

It's the economy, stupid...uh... strike that...

It's the GREEN, stupid.

IT IS FOOD, FUEL, PAPER, CLOTH, PLASTIC, LEGAL IN CANADA (not in the USA), FORD'S FIRST CAN RAN ON IT AND WAS MADE OF IT & WI FARMERS COULD MAKE $100 AN ACRE IF THEY GREW IT.

one more thing: It Is R E N E W A B L E !!!

SEE THE VIDEO

Hemp! A profitable, renewable resource
Elizabeth Gartshore
"Marijuana resembles hemp about as much as a garden rose resembles its cousin the strawberry," explains author Mark Bourrie in his new book Hemp: A Short History of the Most Misunderstood Plant and its Uses and Abuses (Firefly Books, $14.95). The exceptionally useful plant has been underutilized due to its unfair association with marijuana, argues the author. Bourrie explains that hemp, the world's strongest fiber, can also be used for food and skin care through its seed oil. It also can be refined for paper, clothing and medicine, and can be burned as fuel. The author doesn't just provide a list of hemp's commercial uses; he also takes on the controversial topic of its (and marijuana's) decriminalization for private use, making this book both educational and compelling.
"Marijuana resembles hemp about as much as a garden rose resembles its cousin the strawberry," explains author Mark Bourrie in his new book Hemp: A Short History of the Most Misunderstood Plant and its Uses and Abuses (Firefly Books, $14.95). The exceptionally useful plant has been underutilized due to its unfair association with marijuana, argues the author. Bourrie explains that hemp, the world's strongest fiber, can also be used for food and skin care through its seed oil. It also can be refined for paper, clothing and medicine, and can be burned as fuel. The author doesn't just provide a list of hemp's commercial uses; he also takes on the controversial topic of its (and marijuana's) decriminalization for private use, making this book both educational and compelling.

* * * * * * *

Hemp - Truth About This Misunderstood Plant
By: Matthew Hick
Hemp is one of the most misunderstood and underutilized plants grown in the world today. One of the first plants cultivated by man, and maybe the most versatile one ever grown, Cannabis Sativa l. Cannabis (Hemp), has been used for thousands of years in China and Egypt as a medicine.

Criticized for the indulgent use of higher tetrahyclrocannabinol concentration plants by some to dry or compress into marijuana and hashish, hemp’s attempts to gain respect in the worldwide market have been thwarted by its critics. It’s important to realize, however, that industrial hemp is much lower in TCE, making it useless as a psychoactive substance.

For centuries this versatile plant was grown to make clothes, paper, ropes, medicine and fuel in most parts of the world. Until petroleum became a popular source of fuel, most lamp oil was made from hemp seed.

Regardless of how some segments of the population abuse forms of hemp, the fact remains that it is extremely useful when grown for industrial purposes.

Hemp Fabric.
Hemp has been used to make clothing, rope and canvas fabrics for centuries. Before the Industrial Revolution, most textiles worn throughout the world were made using hemp. Fabrics made from hemp are traditionally stronger, more durable and more insulating and absorbent than many other materials available. Hemp fibers last three times longer than cotton ones. Traditionally a coarser fiber used to make canvas and rope, advances in breeding the plant have resulted in a much softer and finer fabric ideal for weaving into cloth for clothing. It is an excellent fabric choice for making clothing that must be durable and long-lasting.

Its Medicinal Uses.
It is true that some people have abused the use of high TCE-containing hemp products to make “feel good” drugs, but the fact remains, in many parts of the world, the hemp flower has been used to make medicines for centuries. Rich in nutritional fats and some vitamins, hemp is frequently used to make salves and balms, as well as nutritional supplements. Today, many over-the-counter medications contain hemp flowers, seeds or oils. One benefit found in the use of hemp in medicine is the fact that it seems to be a non-allergic ingredient. In thousands of years, there have been no documented cases of death, overdose or allergic reaction to hemp or hemp products.

Although industrial hemp is legal to grow in 29 countries throughout the world, and exempt from strict international drug treaties and laws, the United States continues to forbid the general production of hemp plants and products here at home, despite its long list of benefits. Some growers are allowed to grow the plants on U.S. soil, under strict governmental regulation, while other countries in the world, including neighboring Canada, allow free production of the lower TCE-breed of plant for industrial use.

* * * * * * *

SUPPORT ALAN JOHNSTON

2007-06-25T07:26:00.000-07:00

UPDATE:
GAZA (Reuters) - Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist held hostage in the Gaza Strip, was freed on Wednesday after a deal between the ruling Hamas Islamists and the al Qaeda-inspired clan group that kidnapped him in March.

RUNNING SCARED

2007-05-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

Greed is NOT good.

No matter what the money men love to think or say, Greed is Not good.

In fact Greed is SUICIDE.

Greed is STUPID.

A well developed form of Greed is called Capitalism.Capitalism is not merely stupid, Capitalism is self-destructive.

And Capitalisim is scared.
Hysterically scared silly.

Capitalism looks to guys like John Doerr to know what to do.
And John is scared.
Really, really sacred.
John thinks that Capitalism can save the world from... well... Capitalism.
I’m afraid I don’t agree.
But who am I? (rhetorical question, please keep reading).

John Doerr is a partner in VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
They made upwards of $1 billion picking the hot dot-com stars like Amazon, Google, Compaq and Netscape. He was famously quoted saying, "The Internet is the greatest legal creation of wealth in history."

"John Doerr is, by all accounts, the most influential venture capitalist of his generation." - Fast Company

So the running scared Capitalists will pay $6000 each to attend the annual TED (technology, education, design) Conference in Santa Monica to hear what John has to say. You can hear it for free on what the president of the USA calls the internets:
John Doerr: Seeking salvation and profit

I’d really like to know what you, dear readers, think about what John Doer is proposing,
because every one of us could work on what he suggests.
Have a look and please respond.

- moynihan

VOTE: Beware April Fools

2007-04-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

William G. Andrekopoulos has been the superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools since August 2002. His 27 years as an educator, has included work at the high school and middle school levels first encountered him as Principal of Fritsche Middle School. As Frische principal, his rhetoric was that of a marketing and Public Relations professional , rather than a visionary and revolutionary agent of schange, improvement, rethinking or reform. To be sure he was saddled with a highly contentious and dysfunctional Board. But as a Principal He did have the power to redesign his one school and work for continuous improvement, innovation and accomplishment.

Unfortunately he failed substantially. Worse, he masked his failures and problems with claims that were untrue and technological terminology that, if one paid attention, proved that he was apparently ignorant on how to actually use educational technologies to enable students, parents and the entire school to move forward, toward meaningful quality excellence and education for all students. His same Public Relations, Techno hype and vaulting ambition got him out of the middle school and into the role Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools. Above all Mr. Andrekopoulos is a salesman. And the products he sell do not improve education in Milwaukee.

Mr. Andrekopoulos found some like-minded cronies on the School Board. Using cliches and catch phrases such as achievement, quality teaching, learning, children come first, parents are valuable partners, student achievement, the classroom is the most important place in the district, community partnerships add value, and leadership and accountability are keys to success. He built a marketing approach to replace an educational plan. The result has been teachers forced to teach for testing rather learning and achievement. Amplified fractionization within the already damaged system. A falling attendance and graduation rate. Expensive but dysfunctional schools and school security. Actual meaningful progress has been impossible with Andrekopolis, the Board, the teachers, the support staff, parents, students and the community never able to agree on the very purpose and intention of a public school system , now in the early 21st Century of America.

Mr. Andrekopoulos intrinsically lacks the ability to discover how to do the right thing. The best he has are predigested notions, and thinks that he brings answers., before anyone asks the question. He has never provided one example of a discovery process that will open to all ideas from all stake-holders, discuss them and then facilitate fashioning objectives and goals that would result in a unity of intention for MPS. The result is a combat war zone, with good ideas never proposed, considered or tried. And Milwaukee is left with a bad school system getting worse.

The fact that several elected school board members advance personal agendas that are transparent designs to destroy public education and replace it with forms of private corporatist and/or religious education. The fact that these private forms, some of then operated for profit by corporations, have already proved to be hideously failed endeavors, while others masked as charter schools have demonstrated that they are expensive forms of organized crime that exploit students, parents and teacher. Oversight is non existent at the City level, and it is not until the State steps in that the criminal activity comes to light. by then the money is gone and the students have been abandoned

The elected state representatives that opened the flood gates to destroy Milwaukee Public Schools used low income families as a distraction to move taxpayer funds from public school support to private schools, heretofore banned from state funding due to religious/cult association, discrimination against certain kinds of students and lack of fiscal and/or education accountability. Into this hideous mess come the candidates for the school board.

Bruce Thompson knows the marketing buzz words to use. He was elected to the Board once before. All that he brought to the process was the money. Out side the community cash carried Thompson, who was bounced from the Board one before. He is the puppet of the Big Monied Choice Mob of morons:Howard Fuller and George and Susan Mitchell. Fuller and the Mitchells should be locked in stocks in Cathedral square for their crimes against the people and once their sentence is served they should be banished from ever being in or near Milwaukee for any reason. Short of doing penance for their high crimes, misdemeanors and sins, they are sociopathic examples of the worst of the Education debate. Thompson is one of their Judas Goats, and not a very bright one to boot. Of course the Journal Communication Corporation embraces him. When he loses her he will probably be assigned by his wealthy media masters to try to destroy education in Arkansas and Florida.

Joey Dannecker also already served on the Board. He displayed a notable talent for violating the open meetings law and working behind the scenes, making deals and plans without bothering to include the public in the know. As Board VP he was sort of like Federal VP, Cheney, running interference for his President, lying, strategizing, spreading disinformation. People For the American Way Foundation caught his crimes and he was busted. Joey also takes money from the three Choice Mob of morons: Howard Fuller and George and Susan Mitchell. Joey is a big choice/voucher opportunist, because he knows that he must serve the money rather than the schools if he is going to get ahead. During his rerun for the Board Joey seems a bit confused as to what area of the City he is to represent, claiming contact with schools outside of Bay View and ignoring some within Bay View. It can be rough when you are in realty a hired hit man, taking directions from the Choice/Voucher Mob bosses.

It is curious that the Journal Sentinel endorse Joey even though hr refuse to answer their questionnaire. May be it’s BEACAUSE he didn’t fill out the questionnaire that allows them to characterize his crimes and lies as “reform”. BTW, TRUTH -IN-BLOGGING: Journal communications who publish the Journal Sentinel as well as this Bay View Now, are charter members of the Choice/Voucher Mob.

This Criminal Mob gas given Milwaukee higher taxes, wasted taxes, stolen tax money, unsafe schools, high drop out rates, low graduation rates, NO LEADERSHIP, NO VISION, NO IDEAS, CORPORATISM OVER DEMOCRACY.

Fortunately there is a choice. Two experienced, truthful, honest, community, grassroots candidates are running .
Terry Falk, an actual career educator and activist and grassroots community leader and our neighbor.
Bama Brown-Grice, a parent advocate, coalition builder, Grant getter for school, grassroots leader.

VOTE FOR EXCELLENT EDUCATION IN GOOD SCHOOLS
TUESDAY APRIL 3RD

TERRY FALK
&
BABMA BROWN-GRICE

THE ONLY CHOICE FOR MILWAUKEE STUDENTS & PARENTS

USUALLY EVERY MONDAY, USUALLY

2007-03-09T17:33:00.000-08:00

I update, that is write a new entry,
to my BLOG on BAY VIEW NOW.
usually...

NEWS

2007-02-26T07:34:00.000-08:00

TWO (2) THINGS:

#ONE:

I live in bay View WI.
The nearby, beautiful and under-appreciated city of Cudahy is proud
to announce the Grand Opening of Aldona Studio and Gallery! This may be
Cudahy's only operating art gallery.
Location: 3770 E. Layton Ave. Cudahy WI 53110 (10 minutes south of the Third Ward in Milwaukee, three blocks from lake)

When: March 9, that's a Friday, from 5-9pm.

The Art and Artists:
Danuta Kraszewski - Black and White Photography, Fine Jewelry, Paintings
and Sculptures
Martin Kraszewski - New Sculptures
Katie Musolff - Figure Drawings and Paintings
Connie Musolff - Fine Jewelry

If you have any questions, please call Danuta at 414.588.0072
Gallery hours: Wed - Friday 11-4pm.

# TWO:

My Bay View NOW blog!
Blogging from the belly of the MJS Corporate Media Beast.
New usually once a week.
No $ (except for the corp) but oh the Cred!

Check It Out Please

BUSHISMS TONIGHT (01/23/07)

2007-01-23T16:22:00.000-08:00

(Are we lovin' it yet?)

Pop the popcorn and ready the beverages of your choice.
People's favorite TV escapisims, faux predator scams and entertainments will be temporally preempted tonight,

The latest will enter the list (sure to be on the YouTubes soon) tonight as George Walker Bush spews all over members of. Congress in what has become his annual Stand-Up Vomity Routine. If there was one chance in a million that he would actually write the words he will expel, the air might not end up stinking quite so bad.

But to his famous Mommy & Daddy's shame, he dances to a "higher" power, and be that I do not mean anybodies version of transcendent,

Omniscient Deity

No, George Walker Bush's religious Belief System and Sacred Gospels were invented by a small group of ideological and political throw backs to the Masters of War Theology that won World War Two and lost the Vietnam War.

Worse it is sure to lose the battles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and probably North Korea.

Just in case Americans have forgotten that we are a fully owned subsidiary of China, and that they now own the Space that surrounds the Earth, they used a small guided missile to whack a weather satellite.

The "official" Chinese rhetoric is that Space is to be kept "war free".

We'll see.

Maybe this was a first warning. When the USA introduced the world to the atomic bomb we showed the world three examples:
Alamagordo (New Mexico, Hiroshima and Nagasaki (both in Japan).

Nagasaki was not the intended target. The more military production centered city of Kokura, was. It was too hidden in smoke from earlier USA bombing, so the plane turned towards the secondary target, Nagasaki. Over 95 percent of those murdered at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilians (termed collateral damage in military & insurance lingo).

22 Days before my birth, on July 1st of 1946 the United States showed off and warned the world of our Nuclear Bomb by exploding one over the Bikini Atoll, a tiny island in the Pacific.

Four days later Bikini swimsuit debuted at a French fashion show. Irony or New World Order preview? Another explosion, on a ship just offshore of Bikini was demonstrated when I was 2 days old, July 25, 1946. Talk about life beginning with a BANG (darn that T.S. Eliot)

But back to Daddy George and Mommy Barbra, GWB's own parents. Make no mistake Babs is and always the brains of the clan since she managed to marry money & power by managing Poppies' post Fly-Boy War Job and building his Saudi related Oil connections (seeded by Gramps) into his Government CIA Super Snooper role into the Vice and eventually the Presidency.

You can bet that Bab's evil genius was what captured the brain of not only Poppy Bush but also his Hawk Posse Crew. Get the Muslim Oil owning national players to fight each other so we can "appropriate" the black gold treasure buried beneath their sand.

They found, groomed, trained and placed an ambitious guy named Saddam Hussein, and he was Bush's boy in Iraq. Bush '41 pretended to bomb Shock & Awe Iraq in a PR-Media War, encouraged Hussein's local enemies to over throw the dictator, and then withdrew to watch the blood flow on the Smartbombcams, and count the money.

Poppy and Babs are distraught that baby George not only drank the Neo-Con cool-aid, but also damaged the family franchise, but put the K-BOSH on the chance for
Jeb or Neal to get their turn at bat.

The American body politic disapproves for a variety of reasons. A small core has always had a political pulse, but most are scared, lazy apathetic or just tired of all the mid-season reruns. They'd rather watch DEAL OR NO DEAL or the latest Reality Humiliation Show to capture their lack of imagination.

Me, I'll watch and try not to become sick.
But to tell the truth, I'd rather be in America described in the Constitution.

M J M
© 2007 all rights reserved

2007-01-14T09:16:00.000-08:00

In memory of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2007-01-09T20:16:00.000-08:00

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Please See
My New Short play

" S E V E N
W O R D S "

THE BUNNY GUMBO THEATRE COMPANY

PRESENTS
COMBAT THEATRE

Friday, 01/12/07, 8PM

INFORMATION

tickets available at the door only
please arrive early

How To Change Your World

2007-01-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

I got a holiday present from my younger bro, in the mail yesterday. (btw, snail mail, including 1st class, is VERY backed up. Local letters sent over 2 weeks ago has been sitting in various places)
It was a book:

"Worldchanging: A Users Guide for the 21st Century is a groundbreaking compendium of the most innovative solutions, ideas and inventions emerging today for building a sustainable, livable, prosperous future. From consumer consciousness to a new vision for industry; non-toxic homes to refugee shelters; microfinance to effective philanthropy; socially responsible investing to starting a green business; citizen media to human rights; ecological economics to climate change, this is the most comprehensive, cutting-edge overview to date of what's"

Just about every subject that is discussed on this site is also covered in this book.
Plus the book, even at almost 600 pages,
is just the "tip of the iceberg" as a resource for change.
It is linked to even more info & people by a web site

yours in being the change & the imagination

the m

Well Imagine That...

2007-01-03T13:54:00.000-08:00

Please tell everyone you know near Milwaukee, WI, USA

Imagine that,
I survived (thus far) a massive heart attack,
disabling complications,
deep poverty & soul crushing debt,
and my 60th birthday.

Hope I have not lost my sense of humor,
because I will be writing a new play for the Friday night (only) performance:

Please Read This...

THE BUNNY GUMBO THEATRE COMPANY presents
COMBAT THEATRE XIV

8 playwrights, 8 directors, 30 actors
2 Nights, 8 New Short Plays a night,
each written, rehearsed and performed within 24 hours.
Featuring Milwaukee's finest theatrical artists:
Chris Abele, Logan Adams, Lee Becker, Brad Bingheim, Laurie Birmingham, Amy Booth, Flora Coker, Susan Currie, Todd Denning, Tom Dillon, Michael Duncan, Matthew Ecclestone, Jason Economus, Jason Fassl, James Fletcher, Beth Gardiner, Neil Haven, Paul Helm, Nicole Henebury-Farmer, Bridget Hicks, Tim Higgins, Patrick Holland, Doug Jarecki, Bo Johnson, Alison Katula, Dan Katula, Robert W.C. Kennedy, Katie Landa, John Maclay, Steve Midthun, Anne Miller, Karl Miller, Michael Moynihan, Laura Nicholas, Nate Press, Diane Rector, Tom Reed, Randy Rehberg, Tami Rentmeester, Jocelyn Ridgely, Brian Roloff, Cheryl Roloff, Desi Rosas, Stephan Roselyn, Jeana Stillman, Amie Strader, Jim Thibodeau, John Van Slyke, Eric Westphal, Matt Whitmore, Ken Williams, Rachel Williams, Tony Wood and Jeremy Woods!

Friday, January 12 and Saturday January 13, 2007 (all new show each night)
8PM
Milwaukee Youth Arts Center, Youth Arts Hall
325 W. Walnut, Milwaukee, WI

Tickets at the door (come early, bring friends)
Milwaukee's Most Unique Theatrical Event

(I will be there in word, thru character & story)
Bunny Gumbo Theatre Company

m j m

THE GIFT OF GIVING

2006-12-23T06:52:00.000-08:00

In early America
Christmas was often not celebrated.

In 1664, when the Netherlanders relocated to New York [New Amsterdam], they carried their customs with them. Dutch youngsters awaited a visit from Sinter Klaas (Saint Nicholas) and presents he’d leave in their wooden shoes on the eve of December 5. But by the 1820’s the Dutch political and cultural domination had been replace by Americans of English descent. Chief among them was Washington Irving and his wealthy pals who called themselves, ironically the Knickerbockers, a social and literary society which heavily represented the older and more established wealth of the city.

MISRULE

There was no established tradition of gift giving except the plebeian practice of MISRULE, when rowdy bands of the poor would invade the neighborhoods of the rich and powerful for one night, moving from house to house accosting people for money or food and ale.

Opposed to Democracy

Irving and his aristocratic pals were openly politically conservative, reactionary, and opposed to democracy. He devised a plan to invent an American Christmas that we celebrate today. He convinced his brother in law, John Pintard, to handle introducing influential society to a character called Santa Claus*, patterned after Saint Nicholas. Irving’s friend, Clement Moore was assigned to write a holiday poem. Irving even provided Moore specific written descriptions of Santa Clause in order to make it popular and honorable to make Christmas a time to keep your wealth within the family, by giving gifts to each other. The goal was to put an end to the threats, demands and needs of the growing masses of the immigrant urban poor and make a holiday dependent upon a modern concept of Christmas that could be marketed, especially since it involved the giving and receiving of gifts. A Christmas required rudimentary commercial practices - everything from advertising the idea of exchanging (purchased) gifts, and creating a safe environment in the cities where people of means could shop - which would become popular and widely accepted.

The First Capitalist Holiday

We all know the result of this substantial marketing plan. “The Night Before Christmas:, originally entitled “A Visit from Saint Nick”, was published and soon became a “tradition” of our national consumer identity.

So as you are searching the many unique shops, malls or discount stores for those last minute gifts, take a moment to silently thank those who long ago made Christmas the first capitalist holiday.

* John Pintard

Prior to “A Visit from Saint Nick” being published, John Pintard commissioned the printing of a broadside to be distributed and posted. He got Moore

"Knickerbocker Santa Claus"

Oh good holy man! whom we Sancte Claus name,
The Nursery forever your praise shall proclaim:
The day of your joyful revisit returns,
When each little bosom with gratitude burns,
For the gifts which at night you so kinkdly impart
To the girls of your love, and the boys of your heart.
Oh! come with your panniers and pockets well stow'd,
Our stockings shall help you to lighten your load,
As close to the fireside gaily they swing,
While delighted we dream of the presents you bring.

Oh! bring the bright Orange so juicy and sweet,
Bring almonds and raisins to heighten the treat;
Rich waffles and dough-nuts must not be forgot,
Nor Crullers and Oley-Cooks fresh from the pot.
But of all these fine presents your Saintship can find,
Oh! leave not the famous big Cookies behind.
Or if in your hurry one thing you mislay,
Let that be the Rod--and oh! keep it away.

Then holy St. Nicholas! all the year, Our books we will love and our parents revere,
From naughty behavior we'll always refrain,
In hope that you'll come and reward us again.

PEACE . Do Not Miss This.

© 2006 Michael John Moynihan ™®

You Assitance Please...

2006-12-21T09:48:00.000-08:00

I collaborated on a short video.
It is a contest to create a promotion on YouTube for a Milwaukee, Wisconsin Art Gallery called Hotcakes Gallery. The video with the most YouTube hits will win.
Plese take a look as often as possible & tell as many people to also take multiple looks.
It has its own title, but I call it:

ZOMBIE TEEN LICKS HOTCAKES AT HOT ZOMBIE ART GALLERY AS ZOMBIES WATCH & DO THE AT ZOMBIE VODOO THAT THET DO SO ZOMBIELIKE!!!

YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!

2006-12-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

I think in the future historians will agree with the evaluation that the 2oth century was the American Century. The 21st Century is barely up and running but by most indicators Asia and Africa seem to be taking over the store. Then again, the very reality of "a future" for the human race maybe up for rethinking. If one of several comets/meteors now heading our way does not end all life as we have known it by 2012, human caused global warming may re-landscape the entire planet into something like Kevin Costner's WATERWORLD scenario. Despite his constant career reinvention, I doubt that Dennis Hopper will become the man in charge. In fact if carbon based life forms like us survive the next bigger bang-like cosmic event, it may only to replace ourselves with some sort of silicon life forms like the non-meat android types in AI or I ROBOT.

But closer to home and this moment in time there are three American's who seem to be the main boys close enough to world power to maybe suggest a few strategies on how to stave off the global eruption of World War Three and the planetary meltdown where those with gills rule.

They are the policy wonk-ish, big brained Bill Clinton, the elected but robbed Al Gore, and the smartest, most ethical, most honest ex-President still alive, Jimmy Carter. There are many other who have Best & Brightest, but hey have been marginalized, often by their own human flaws. People like Ralph Nadar, Hilary Clinton, Jesse Jackson, Senator Kerry, Senator McClain, Senator Obama, Ariana Huffington, to name but a few

And, oddly enough, celebrity, bigoted, talented Mel Gibson, whose latest film, APOCOLYPTO, lays out a story that diagrams the self-destruction of entire cultures as he also draws allusionS to how it mirrors America's current Presidential Administration led path to war, disaster and the end of the world.

From an economic and political stand point whoever is our fearless leader should tell China, Japan, Iraq and Israel "You are not the boss of me.” All three, of course, will reply. "Oh yes I am!" Then our nest line is, "Oh yeah, well then you can cover our debt and pay us back for services provided."

China, forgive all our debt and start acting like 21st century citizens of the world. End slavery, accept labor unions, establish a democracy and skip the whole coal and oil phase of human progress and embrace wind, solar & biofuel. Oh and get out of Tibet, let the Dahli Lahma back in. And American Congress and President, MAKE IT SO! Oh and Mr. Pope, Listen up. Co author a book with the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, and another high end Muslim cleric. go on a personal appearance tour with the Beasty Boys and maybe Bono, Bob Dylan, the Dixie Chicks, and Merl Streep and raise some consciousness and bucks.

Oh and Gates and Buffet, fund every school in the USA and healthcare for all. We are not fooled by your gifts to Africa. We know that you know that that is where your future business markets are. We are not stupid, and Billy, give up on Windows Vista. It just gets worse. Go back to the CPM OS you stole and leave the high end computing to an OS designed by Apple. BTW, Steve Jobs, slap some sense into media giant Disney/ABC/ESPN, will ya?

Israel, even though you have a military and booming arms sales industry, we have been functioning you client state for too long. Pay us back for every cent in protection we have provided and recognize a Palestinian state, and return the land you stole and free your palestinian brothers and sister who you have forced to live in refugee imprisonment for decades.

Iraq, recognize Israel as a nation, pay us back every cent with your massive oil income, hire the Israeli military to train your own and provide the interim protection that we have been doing, and provide life long financial support for each & every surviving family member of every American Soldier and civilian that has given their very life (or been injured) for you. Japan, we have been your military protector since WW2. Payback time. No, we won't trust you to re-militarize (we are not that stupid), but you can make the cars. Employ every autoworker in the USA with a family supporting job, speed up the production of renewable energy running vehicles & technologies. While you are at it get one of those cute robotic doggies to every American families who wants one and one of those pigmy sized humanoid robots to do household drudgery work and other jobs like bomb squad duty in law enforcement.

Also, Wal-Mart, knock it off! You too McDonalds! American Republican's & Democrats, the party-time is over. Remember Tommy Jefferson's line: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." Well , brothers & sisters, the manure has hit the fan. Dismember your party.

Don't us come over there!!!

NO GRACEFUL EXITS

2006-12-01T11:34:00.000-08:00

©2006, Michael John Moynihan, all rights reserved

WARNING
THIS ESSAY INVOLVES THE ART & CRAFT OF COMEDY & POLITICAL SATIRE.
YOU MAY NOT GET IT OR IT MAY OFFEND YOU.
IT ALSO CONTAINS A VARIATION OF THE CLASSIC BLUE JOKE "THE ARISTOCRATS".

READ ON AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION

"I know there's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq. This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever. We're going to stay in Iraq to get the job done as long as the government wants us there." - President GWB

John Kerry has more credibility than GWB in every single regard,
except one.
Telling a joke.
Kerry flubbed a punch line and the Republican'ts all wet themselves.
The GWB puppeteers should be very familiar with jokes
That would be because they all are the human embodiment of a joke.
Except for Roving Karl, that is.
Karl is a dirty, filthy, nauseating obscene joke.

BUT just about everything that GWB has ever said or mouthed is a joke.
Were he on a tiny small town comedy club stage, he would actually be sorta funny.
But he is on an international stage.
And his jokes result in public policy as well as thousand of human deaths and injuries.
Those are also dirty, filthy, nauseating obscene, pornographic GWB jokes

Lets diagram the joke above.

The introduction or set up:
"I know there's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq"

The body or build-up:
"This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever."

And conclusion or Punch Line:
"We're going to stay in Iraq to get the job done as long as the government wants us there."

Now this particular punch line is filled with multiple payoffs
depending on the listener's interpretation.

By "We're" who is Bush referring to? He is not there, but American soldiers are.

"get the job done" means what? Kill everyone? One faction or the other? All factions but one? All Americans? All Iraqis?

"as long as the government wants" Which government? The USA? The Iraq government.
If the government in a democracy is the people,
does it mean as long as the American people wants?
The majority do not want. "us" there.
The people of Iraq? The majority of the people of Iraq do not want "us" in their country.

So the question basically boils down to a version of "Who's On First?"

And the Kerry punch line holds up "then you end up in Iraq".

Solving John Kerry's joke telling problem is easily solved.
Hire Gilbert Gottfried to travel with him and when a joke is to be told,
turn the stage over to the professional.

GWB's problem is a little more difficult to solve.
When everything you say is a joke, well, it just isn't so funny anymore.

Here is the joke that Kerry and every Democratic Presidential wanna-be should tell in every speech:

A talent agent is sitting behind his desk when George Bush, his wife Barbara and his sons George W. and Jeb and George W.'s wife Laura enter his office.
The talent agent looks up and says, "Yeah, whatd'ya want?"
Bush is a little nervous, but he enters, followed by his family.
Laura is carrying a boom-box.

"Have I got an act for you, sir," says Bush.
"If you sign my family we'll make you the richest agent in the entire world!"

The talent agent's heard it all before, and shakes his head in disbelief.
"Fella," the agent says, "Everybody who's come through that door promises me the same damn thing.
Besides, I don't sign 'family acts."

"Oh, but we're different from any family act you've ever seen before!" Bush claims.
"Our act is special!"

The talent agent resigns himself and sighs.
"Okay, buddy, you have one minute. You guys better impress me."

"All right!" Bush exclaims. "Laura, cue the music."
Laura then puts the boom-box down and hits "play," and a Sousa march starts playing.
The whole family starts dancing, jumping, turning and balancing on one foot, and then the mother and sons start doing flips around the room.

Then Barbara forcefully grabs George, rips off his clothes,
and then starts deep yelling at him while spanking his butt.
"Act like a MAN" she screams. "Show me the money", she yells

George W. and Jeb begin to have a contest to see who can execute the most convicted felons, pushing and shoving each other into the walls.

Laura rips off her own clothes and begins passing out fist fulls illegal drugs to everyone.

The men then proceed to squat and defecate all over a small globe, yelling at each other to kill the unbelievers and do the Lord's work.
The two wives soon the join in.

George senior grabs a big handful of steaming hot, wet broccoli and rubs it all over his face. He starts yelling "Mommie! Mommie! Oh, Mommie!"
while the son's and wives laugh so hard they begin to choke.

Jeb suddenly throws up.

George W. quickey takes out a copy of the Constitution and spreads it out
and they all vomit all over it.
The whole family is exhausted, but then they dump several buckets of money
and five cans of oil and gasoline all over the mess on the floor.

Whoever still has any clothing on, has it ripped off of them
and they all begin drinking bottles of hard liquor
and rolling around on the big disgusting mess on the floor.

Suddenly as if on cue, they all become absolutely still for three seconds.

They then jump to their feet, turn to the talent agent and yell, "Ta-daaaah!!"
Then they take a deep theatrical bow.

The talent agent is beyond words.

After a long pause he's finally able to talk again and he says,
"That is a hell of an act!"

The family just smiles back at him while patting each other on each other's butts.

The agent continues, "I gotta know, what do you guys call yourselves?"

George Bush senior snaps his fingers in a grand theatrical gesture and says,
"The Aristocrats!"

THE VEGETABLE OF THE DAY IS CATSUP

2006-11-28T15:18:00.000-08:00

Ronald Reagan Elementary School

I am in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In the very city, in one of the older neighborhoods, Bay View.
Not one of the metro area's many suburbs.
Milwaukee's once thriving economy has suffered over the years. Once a vital industrial, factory, manufacturing, machine shop, brewing, automobile, farm equipment and strong labor union town, as jobs diminished, and a divisive freeway system carved up the already divided by waterways neighborhoods into an often blighted urban cityscape, the inevitable "white flight" followed.

Funding for education shrank, two generations of young people were basically abandoned, and school buildings fell into disrepair. Building new schools was mostly out of the question.

Out west of the City that boarders the eastern shore of the lower coast of lake Michigan, some of the business leaders who led the urban flight have built a school and named it after their mythic hero, President Ronald Reagan.

What is telling is that the school project demonstrates how to get the rich right wing Rep0-Bli-Kanotz Big-Biz-Owners to loosen their double-knotted purse strings and $pend buck$ on new school buildings: Promise to Name the building after one of their Hideous Heros.

While Ronny R. did (by comparison) make Georgie WB look like an even worse version of a president, he was (long B-4 his Alzheimer's set in) a fine example of MIP (Morons In Power). His son, Ron, however is probably one of the sharpest, smartest, critical thinker and best news pundits around. He beats the pants off (not literally - a metaphor) most of the CNN, FOX or MS-NBC squawk-a-like-talkers.

Then again the white flight west-of-the actual city Rep0-Bli-kanotz Big-Biz-Owners only monied up a miserly $60,000 for a schoolhouse costing $18.7 million. That is a mere 0.0003209 of the total cost. So I guess the middle class & working poor get to pay the $18,640,000 balance.

Those tight fisted neo-conmen & neocon-wymyn sure are clever. Same way they got the public to pay for the Alien Space Craft like Miller Park and the Big Bread Slicer of an Arts Museum Addition.

Maybe they should sell the naming rights for every locker, desk, floor tile, urinal, toilet and vegetable - that is ketchup* - bottle. Then the school grads will somedays be able to brag how they sat their elementary school butts in a chair engraved with the face of Ayn Rand or took a doo-doo in the Irving Kristol memorial Commode. And when the catsup bottle needs a good whack to give up some condiment they can exclaim, "H. E Double Hockey sticks, why can't I get some friggin' red dyed processed corn syrup mixed with vinegar out of this piece of schmidt plastic Norman Podhoretz memorial condiment container! Does not anything work as intelligently designed in this over priced, over budget multi-purposeless room, named in honor of Herr Doktar Henry Kissinger? Mein Kampf, public/private hybrid of an institution sucks like School Choice!"

* "The source of our word ketchup may be the Malay word kēchap, possibly taken into Malay from the Cantonese dialect of Chinese.

"Ketchup was one of the earliest names given to this condiment, so spelled in Charles Lockyer’s book of 1711, An Account of the Trade in India: “Soy comes in Tubbs from Jappan, and the best Ketchup from Tonquin; yet good of both sorts are made and sold very cheap in China”. Nobody seems quite sure where it comes from, and I won’t bore you with a long disquisition concerning the scholarly debate on the matter, which is reflected in the varied origins given in major dictionaries. It’s likely to be from a Chinese dialect, imported into English through Malay. The original was a kind of fish sauce, though the modern Malay and Indonesian version, with the closely related name kecap, is a sweet soy sauce.

CRIME IN THE STREETS

2006-11-24T12:30:00.000-08:00

The above title
makes reference to a film directed by the great Don Siegel.

It is a 1956 B film made on a shoestring budget and filmed on the studio lot in Hollywood. It was based on the television play by Reginald Rose. It had a deadbeat juvenile delinquent played by a very young John Cassavetes, who went on to become a famous actor and gifted director. An earnest social worker was played by James Whitmore and the movie is unremarkable except for the to be famous cast and a few well-executed action scenes. A 15-year-old baby gang member is portrayed by Sal Mineo and another psychotic thugs is played by Mark Rydell, long before he became a respected film director. Cassavetes, Mineo and Rydell played the same parts for the original television play. It was Cassavetes' debut as a film actor. But the guilty as well as the innocent are punished in the movie.

However I am writing about actual CRIME IN THE STREETS in 2006 and set in the neighborhood I live in, Bay View in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Right on the main business street of the neighborhood actually, at 4:49 p.m. On a Monday, at Kinnikinnick Avenue and Otjen Street, an 85-year-old Milwaukee man was crossing the street to get to the library when he was hit by a vehicle. He died died of his injuries late that same Monday night. The police said they are still looking for the driver of a midsized, dark pickup that left the scene of the murder. Charles Perry, aged 86, was hit as he walked eastbound across South Kinnickinnic Avenue to return a book to the Bay View Library. Milwaukee police are still looking for the killer as far as I know.

On November 14, 2006, a driver who hit a 5-year-old boy and then sped off, leaving him critically injured in the street. Police said a man driving a light green, mid-1990s pickup truck ran into the boy, Chance Brannon, as he stepped off his school bus Monday afternoon at South Kinnickinnic Avenue and Fulton Street, not very far from where Mr.Perry later was struck down later. The kindergartner was admitted to Children's Hospital in Wauwatosa, in the intensive care unit, with a severe concussion, a fractured ear and a broken pelvic bone. WISN TV12 News was in possession of a video tape of the hit and run, but did not to air it because of its graphic nature. Police are still searching for the driver, after examining videotape of the crime.

No Hollywood ending for or justice for the innocent young Mr. Brannon or the late Mr. Perry.

Not on these mean streets.

© 2006 Michael John Moynihan

THANKSGIVING EVE MEMORIAL

2006-11-22T08:09:00.000-08:00

I was writing and directing a play in Vancouver,
British Columbia. Working collaboratively with a talented company of young Canadian actors, designers and technicians, far from Milwaukee. It was July 4th. Not a holiday in Canada. I was homesick and lonely. During the afternoon I went to see a movie on a giant big screened theatre. It was as American of a movie as I could have chosen. For the 157 minutes that the tapestry of the film played I was enmeshed in a contemporary portrait of America, told with country music, satirical comedy and dramatic tragedy. My home, America surrounded me in the darkened theatre.
As I walked into the bright lobby after the movie I silently gave thanks to Robert Altman.
It was his masterpiece ensemble film, NASHVILLE.

Five years earlier I had been studying film in summer grad school in Madison, Wisconsin. Another war was being fought by Americans as young as I and younger. For one of my classes I was to see a film and write a critical essay. My entire grade would be based upon my paper. I chose a commercial film playing in Madison and saw it probably half a dozen times. It was my first exposure to Mr. Altman.

The campus was like a battle zone, with windows boarded up for as many as 20 blocks around what was left of Sterling Hall, a building that had housed a Math Research Center funded by the United States Defense Department that had been blown up by anti-war protesters. They had called in a warning on the early morning of the explosion but ironically, the department hardest hit by the blast was not the MRC but Physics, many of whose faculty were actively and vocally against the war. A 33-year-old physics researcher named Robert Fassnacht was one of those working late and was killed by the detonation of a van loaded with explosives that was driven up what was then Lathrop Drive and parked in a loading area by the newer East Wing of Sterling Hall. Fassnacht was killed, and four others in Sterling Hall were injured because they had been working all night in the otherwise empty building.

The film I had chosen to see and write about was set during the Korean War but was actually an anti-war comedy that was mostly regarded to be against all war and specifically the Viet Nam conflict that was going on. Young men were being drafted to fight and die in Southeast Asia in a land war that had all the appearance of an insurrection and civil war. America supported the South and China the North. The unrest on American campuses led the growing national anti-war movement that eventually drove Lyndon Johnson out of the office of the Presidency and the American Military to cut, run and abandon the conflict. The movie, made for a modest budget and abandoned by the Corporate studio went on to make millions, being nominated for several Oscars (and winning one) and launch the careers of many of the actors was entitled MASH.

Now, in 2006, a fitting and appropriate online tribute and memorial to distinctly American artist Robert Altman,
whose technique, vision and work inspired my admiration & enriched my life for 36 years:

HERE

HERE

AND HERE

Robert Altman died a couple of days ago. His creative life is one of many things to recall and be thankful for on the eve the very American tradition of Thanks giving.

©2006 MICHAEL JOHN MOYNIHAN

A Short History fo the How of Why

2006-11-22T07:02:00.000-08:00

For a period of time in the 1990's I worked at the Milwaukee Access Telecommunication Authority. That was the fancy-schmansy name of the Public Access cable TV nonprofit organization. Public Access was an amazing, visionary, paradigm shifting idea.

MATA (as it was called) was funded by money from Milwaukee cable subscribers that passed thru the monopolistic franchise holder for the City, Time Warner Cable. When the 15 year franchise was renewed Time Warner Cable renegotiated the franchise contract with the City of Milwaukee. All but a couple of the members of the Common Council were bribed to sell out the citizens in favor of becoming business partners with the monopoly.

In the process they gutted the Public Access funding and screwed over the public they were sworn to serve.

During the first 15 years one could pay $4.95 a month for cable TV. Now the lowest fee is ten times that amount.

While all but a couple elected politicians sold out the citizens, MATA was not faultless. We fought a good fight and many citizens and community groups showed up at a hearing to speak for continued full funding of Public Access. Even the then afternoon daily newspaper giant (the Milwaukee Journal) wrote an editorial supporting Public Access.

But in the end money talked again, and the people lost, again.

The City had a watchdog Cable Regulation Office. They office was closed and the staff laid off. The City Clerks Office now "regulates" cablr in Milwaukee.. But there is actually no regulation for the life of the 17 year period of the franchise.

MATA was, and is, maybe the worst managed & administered non profit agency I have ever encountered. The rather highly paid (compared to the resy of the staff) Executive Director is as devoid of those qualities requisite for effective leadership a any person I have ever worked for.

Back to THE HOW OF WHY. The column originated as a monthly element of the MATA newsletter. It was then mainly a media literacy column. Next it became a column in a print publication, THE BAY VIEW COMPASS, which basically serves the Bay View neighborhood on the southeast side of the City of Milwaukee. It expanded beyond media literacy content at that time. It had a short print life. Now it is in the present form, a blog. And it is less neighborhood centric in content.

With the INTERNET now in the middle of a big battle to either stay somewhat open or go the way of commercial sponsored media, who knows how long the present diversity of blog forms will survive? As long as it can the HOW OF WHY will continue to be one version of thousands of Milwaukee voices online. Check back from time to time, won't you?

© 2006 Michael John Moynihan

PRICELESS

2006-11-12T17:01:00.000-08:00

Iraq war cost per minute: $100,000

Diebold voting machine Election System lease & service per county: $60,000 a year

What the GOP paid to steal the '04 Presidential Election:
$16.12 per citizen vote or
$3,496,504 per electoral vote

Presidency of the United States of America:
PRICELESS!*

* as Actor Billy Crudup says on the TV

HOW-OF-WHY-WHERE

2006-11-12T12:18:00.000-08:00

Where are you as you read this?

As far as I know I am writing from latitude & longitude 42.98 (42°59') -87.8 (-87°52')
The Bay View Neighborhood
The City & County of Milwaukee
The State of Wisconsin
Great Lakes Bioregion
(aka Great Lakes Basin-Great Lakes Watershed-Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Bioregion)
Potawatomi (Nishnabec) Nation traditional lands
The Nation State of the United States of America
The North American Continent, The Planet Earth
The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
The Universe
The Multiverse

HOW-OF-WHY

2006-11-09T08:30:00.000-08:00

HOW-OF-WHY

NOVEMBER SEVENTH VOTES IN MILWAUKEE & WISCONSIN

I question why so many voters voted YES on the SO CALLED "MARRIAGE" amendment to the State Constitution.
Others are also asking how to work to overturn this fascist, discriminatory, hateful amendment.

1) I think the first step is to find out why so many Democrats won at the same time as this civil rights issue lost. Why did democrats vote against equal rights & for discrimination and special privilege?

2) I also think that it needs to be understood that this was and us far more than a LGBT issue and fight.
It is a civil rights and human rights fight.

3) Lawyers. The lawyers need to get to work on every constitutional and discrimination class action suit possible. The biggest labor and personal injury law firms need to weigh in pro bono and hit these bastards with a law suit a day for 365 straight days.

4) The hard working & brave Fair Wisconsin volunteers need to stay in the fight and canvas businesses for support and money. And those who preach and support bigotry need to feel the economic pressure of consumers.

5) Sponsors of Belling/Sykes local Radio Loud Mouths need to be informed that this is also an economic battle that will impact them.
Pull their advertising or get boycotted and protested.
Money talks in our pathetic capitalist world, so take the game to those who depend on our money to stay in business.

6) And every Democrat who got in, especially Doyle, needs to keep their teams together to raise money and join the fight. War against this bigotry needs to be declared and the Democratic and Green parties need to step up.

7) Encourage every person who voted NO to join the fight in any & every way they can.
Speak out & speak up. Silence means the bigots have won.

The actual threat to marriage and the children born into a marriage is the high divorce rate. A study showed that the highest divorce rate is among married fundamentalist Christians and the lowest divorce rate is among married agnostics and atheists. Go Figure. Says something about tolerance perhaps?

Just a few thoughts off the top of my old balding head.
-m

What the His Holiness knows...

2006-09-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

I became interested in Buddhism as a teenager.
Raised by not terribly orthodox Catholic Parents
- excommunicated (because he got divorced) Irish American father
and French/Indian Canadian mother -
But there was little opportunity to look into Buddhism at my one room
school in a village of mostly Lutheran converted Scandinavian or
German or Polish - American families.

Even tho my initial "spiritual crisis" hit at age seven and then was
amplified by the death of my father when I was 15, it wasn't until
when I was a student at a Presbyterian affiliated college that I had
any real chance to meditate on Buddhist writings and practices.

Eventually, of course, I became aware of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
Tibet, the Tibet/China conflict, etc.
I have since been very intrigued by the demeanor of the Dalai Lama and
how he seems to wear his personal and political tragedies with such a
lack of fear and hatred towards those who have murdered his
countrymen, attacked his religion and occuped his nation.

I've wondered what is is that he knows that most of us, and certainly
me, seem to be missing.
Just recently I can into some information about something that he as
well as his Chinese oppressors (and the USA Inc's good
political/economic friends, now) know that has not gotten a lot of
mainstream press:

The United States CIA probably is not made of devout Buddhists, but
has shown quite a bit of interest in Tibet of late.
That may be because "Official Chinese pronouncements have
confirmed the existence in Tibet of the BIGGEST URANIUM RESERVES IN THE WORLD."

So His Holiness grew up amidst the highest mountain peaks, most
pristine rivers & water sources and potentially most powerful/deadly
fissionable material on earth. Maybe that accounts for the twinkle in
his eye and slightly bemused smile...?

You can access the white paper report:
http://www.tibet.com/WhitePaper/white9.html

mjm

Have I told you lately that...

2006-08-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

So I have been absent from the world wide web (or the "internets" as George Bush calls them) for a few weeks.
Here is the low down:
7/7/06 - I have what turns out to be a massive Heart Attack (HA) around 3PM.
Luckily my x-wife calls 911 and a fire-truck and an ambulance of paramedics arrive quite soon, stabilize me and haul me to St. Lukes South.
At 3AM I am suddenly transferred to St. Lukes Medical Center, just off Oklahoma & KK, order there by a Cardiologist, Dr. Paul Bernstein.
Within a couple of days (not the same day) I undergo a Cardiac Catheritization followed immediately by an Angioplasty. Dr. B and his hot shot crew brag that they can do 50 of these a day (sort of a Jiffy-Lube mindset applied to heart trouble). To do this they get to my erratically thythmed heart by going through a very large artery in my groin area.

During the next few days they do a bunch of mysterious, complicated and painful procedures looking for blood clots, and trying to get my heart beating normally again. I'm told each one might kill me but if not I will not remember a thing that happened.

Finally a rather large crew gets assembled to basically shock my heart back into its regular rhythm.
They put me under and anesthetic.
I come back up and the crew and their machinery are gone. An hour has passed but I have no memory of what I experienced even though they tell me I was "awake" during the process. My nurse yells me the procedure worked. My heart beat is stable.

Trouble is that there are life threatening complications in their Jiffy Lube Angioplasty approach in one out of 5 cases. MD B (who suffers under the delusion that he is a god rather than a Jiffy Lube type technician) misses that there was a screw-up despite my telling him that the pain in my right leg is worse than the HA pain. Not even examining the wound site or my hideously swollen and bruised right leg/hip/lower back he denies me ANY pain meds and simple says "you'll get used to it" and walks out. When a nurse intercedes on my behalf by calling him he tells her "no pain medication, and NEVER call me again" What a god like Jiffy Lube charmer!

He/they send me home in extreme pain, unable to walk, no pain meds. My 19 year old daughter an a stranger walking down the street manage to get me into the house. I am in agony.

Ross Bigley, Director of the Milwaukee Short Film Festival & Dirty Job Films and James Fletcher of the Bunny Gumbo Theatre Company (who produces COMBAT THEATRE twice a year) were planning a Benefit for me even prior to the HA. It was held on 7/29/06 at BucketWorks. Actors & directors volunteered their time & talents to stage 3 of my short plays and three films I have made in were also shown (plus a clip reel of films of others I have performed in).

In mid September Ross is shooting a film version of my short play HAPPINESS IS A LONG SHOT. It will be available on DVD from Bunny Gumbo Theatre Company and Dirty Job Films.

I lived on the 2nd floor at home but have had to be on the first floor since.
The person I was pre HA seems like a memory of someone else. He is gone.
I'm someone who has replaced him and has some of his memories, but someone else.

Today I was taken to see the non-Bernstein cardiologist.
He says I am healing.
I am still in quite a bit of pain.
But no one will prescribe any pain relief medication.
I have lost some weight.
I'm about 50 pounds above where I was when I graduated from high school.

On 7/23/06 I turned 60.

I have been in the hospital 5 times in 4 years.

During #3 or 4 I asked the most communicative Dr. (named Tim Allen) why I had these health problems. He explained that I had made a big mistake early on. I chose the wrong parents.

My father died, when I was 15, when a blood clot in his leg (from a 20 year old industrial accident) moved to his heart and killed him. My mother lived into her mid eighties, but lost a leg due to vascular problems

Right now, much of just living is challenging.

None the less, it is good to be alive.

mjm 7/25/06

On the Al Zarqawi Assassination

2006-06-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

Personally, I wish the local and national media and our government spokespeople gave some focus, pictures, screen time and info about the pregnant woman, the children and the other people who were assassinated in our name. Their names, backgrounds, pictures when they were alive, etc.

I cannot say that I am very impressed by the strategy, power and military ability when it takes thousands of troops, two multimillion dollar warplanes and two 500 pound bombs to stop a guy who was basically a murderous street criminal, kidnapper and gang leader most of his life.

Plus the indications are that bin Laden (where is HE anyway) and the higher-ups in the Iraq insurgency, and Al Qaeda found Al Zarqawi to be troublesome, a loose cannon and an embarrassment, and that setting it up for him to become a Martyr to the Cause was a smart/save face way to take him out of the picture. Look for renewed calls from Iraq insurgency/Al Qaeda branch for the a new leader who is actually from Iraq (Al Zarqawi was a carpet bagger from Jordan).

And wouldn't Al Zarqawi been worth much more to the anti terrorist effort to be taken alive, questioned, interrogated and eventually charged and tried?

So now our tax money/ war injured and killed go to playing the role of the expensive "hit man" for the very terrorists who want us all dead.
Would have been much cheaper to have Al Zarqawi go quail hunting with Dick.

What a farce. Another very sad, hideous farce.

Wealthiest 5 Percent vs the Rest of US

2006-05-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

In the USA the wealthiest 5 percent own more than half of all wealth.

1998 figures: they owned 59 percent of all wealth.
Or to put it another way, the top 5 percent had more wealth than the remaining 95 percent of the entire population, collectively.

The top 20 percent owns over 80 percent of all wealth.
This is a very concentrated distribution.

The bottom 20 percent basically have zero wealth.
They either have no assets, or their debt equals or exceeds their assets.
The bottom 20 percent has typically accumulated no savings.

Households in the middle — the "Average" median household — has wealth of about $62,000.
$62,000 is not insignificant,
but if you consider that the top 1 percent of households’
average wealth is $12.5 million,
you can see what a difference there is in the distribution.

Under a One Tax* (all others abolished) System if you were the "average median household" — with wealth of about $62,000 — and the One Tax, the National Wealth Tax, was one-tenth of one percent of total wealth, per year, you would have paid a total tax of $62!

A top 1 percent of household with wealth of $12.5 million would pay would have paid a total tax of $12,500! (not really that bad, considering)

The wealth inequity in the United States is more unequal than any other advanced industrial country in the world.

What was not always the case.
Up until the early 1970s, the U.S. actually had lower wealth inequality than Great Britain,
and even than a country like Sweden.

But things have really turned around over the last 25 or 30 years.
In fact, a lot of countries have experienced lessening wealth inequality over time.
The U.S. is atypical in that inequality has risen so sharply over the last 25 or 30 years.

One reason we have such high levels of inequality,
compared to other advanced industrial countries,
is because of our tax system.

A National Wealth of $25.4 trillion (1997 estimate) would created $25,400,000,000 in tax revenue
(a trillion is 12 zeros, right?)

* Every politician that we elect should push for policies and practices
that best serve the interests if their citizen constituents.
So, elected officials, please drop me a note as to WHY you are not advocating and
facilitating the following idea:

"Here’s my proposal: Get rid of the property tax altogether—
Property taxes are wealth taxes that end up discriminating against poor
and middle-class communities. Let’s move instead to a national wealth
tax—say, one-tenth of one percent of everyone’s total assets each
year..." – Robert B. Reich (2004 commentary on NPR)

Robert B. Reich is the Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and
Economic Policy at Brandeis University, and was the secretary of labor
under former President Bill Clinton.

Edward Wolff, a professor of economics at New York University, is the author of
Top Heavy: The Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America and What Can Be Done About It.
He has written many other books and articles on economic and tax policy, and is managing editor of the Review of Income and Wealth.
I recommend that every working & middle class taxpayer educate themselves on this issue.
And then act.

In Memory Of

2006-05-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

In memory of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
(originally published on 01/17/05)

"No man is an Iland, intire of its selfe: every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine: if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were: any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde: and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee." - John Donne

Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke the above verse during Nobel Lecture, on December 11, 1964. His lecture was entitled “The Quest for Peace and Justice”, delivered in the Auditorium of the University of Oslo, Norway. At the age of thirty-five, he was the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

Each year one Monday designated as a American National Holiday commemorating the birthday of Dr. King. He was born as Michael Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta on January 15, 1929 (his father was also originally named Michael). He was renamed when he was about 5 years old when his father decided that they should both change their first names to Martin.

The authorized, sanitized version of Dr. King’s life story is that he fought for racial justice in America. The reality is, in the last years of his life, Dr. King articulated a far bolder, broader and radical American revolutionary vision, encompassing a clear minded analysis and a severe criticism not only of the role of the United States in the world, but of the very nature of our political and economic system.

Dr. King’s vision was articulated most powerfully in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech delivered at Riverside Church in New York City. He gave the speech on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City. He was quickly condemned by the NAACP, civil rights leaders, the Democratic Party (he had campaigned for Lyndon Johnson) and the mainstream media.

It is doubtful that Dr. King would even be allowed to speak at any of the memorial events being held in his name were he alive today. But he does speak to us still as we again find ourselves at a time, well as he said in 1967:

“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

He also said:

“These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born.

The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.”

Others much more experienced and articulate than I have pointed out that these are still revolutionary times.

Our country was born of revolution.

I would argue that our democracy can only be served by continuing the American Revolution each day. But we have given in and given up. The shirtless and barefoot people of the world continue to rise up. But we do not support them and in fact, in many places, we support and are the very forces who use our overwhelming military power to enforce the conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice.

I would suggest that we revisit Dr. Kings words and read them in the light of the present day.

“…A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Dr. Kings words are as meaningful, powerful and dangerous as they were in 1967. At least half of adult Americans condemn anyone speaking out against the Bush/Cheney administration's invasions and war.

Exactly to the day, one year after breaking his silence and speaking out against his nation’s injustice, materialism and war waging, Martin Luther King, Jr. was silenced.

Assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Those who call for us to celebrate his birthday but dishonor his life and work and spirit dishonor all human beings. King spoke well to use Donne’s poem to remind us of who we can be, who we need to be.

“…therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.”

THE GIFT OF GIVING

2006-01-01T13:02:00.000-08:00

Originally published Sunday, 1 January 2006
LOOKING BACK: CHRISTMAS

THE GIFT OF GIVING

by Michael John Moynihan

In early America Christmas was often not celebrated. In 1664, when the Netherlanders relocated to New York [New Amsterdam], they carried their customs with them. Dutch youngsters awaited a visit from Sinter Klaas (Saint Nicholas) and presents he’d leave in their wooden shoes on the eve of December 5. But by the 1820’s the Dutch political and cultural domination had been replaced by Americans of English descent. Chief among them was Washington Irving and his wealthy pals who called themselves, ironically the Knickerbockers, a social and literary society which heavily represented the older and more established wealth of the city.

There was no established tradition of gift giving except the plebeian practice of MISRULE, when rowdy bands of the poor would invade the neighborhoods of the rich and powerful for one night, moving from house to house accosting people for money or food and ale.

Irving and his wealthy, aristocratic pals were openly politically conservative, reactionary, and opposed to democracy. He devised a plan to invent an American Christmas that we celebrate today. He convinced his brother in law, John Pintard, to handle introducing influential society to a character called Santa Claus, patterned after Saint Nicholas. Irving’s friend, Clement Moore was assigned to write a holiday poem. Irving even provided Moore specific written descriptions of Santa Clause in order to make it popular and honorable to make Christmas a time to keep your wealth within your own family, by giving gifts to each other. The goal was to put an end to the threats, demands and needs of the growing masses of the immigrant urban poor and make a holiday dependent upon a modern concept of Christmas that could be marketed, especially since it involved the giving and receiving of gifts. A Christmas required rudimentary commercial practices - everything from advertising the idea of exchanging (purchased) gifts, and creating a safe environment in the cities where people of means could shop - which would become popular and widely accepted.

We all know the result of this substantial marketing plan. “The Night Before Christmas:, originally entitled “A Visit from Saint Nick”, was published and soon became a “tradition” of our national consumer identity.

So as you are searching the many unique shops for those last minute gifts, take a moment to silently thank those who long ago made Christmas the first capitalist holiday.

DISASTERULES

2005-11-01T15:07:00.000-08:00

DISASTERULES
by Michael John Moynihan © 2005 all rights reserved

Edward A. Murphy was born in 1918 and died in 1990. During the late
1940s, Edward was a research and development officer at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. In 1949, he was
involved in Air Force Project MX981.

It was at this time that Edward set up measuring devices to investigate
the effects of rapid deceleration of human beings. The point of this
was to attempt to find out how very much sudden deceleration a person
can stand in a crash. A human test subject was strapped to a "sled"
that could accelerate to very rapid speeds and then decelerate very,
very quickly. Edward devised a harness to hold the human guinea pig in
place during the tests.

To record the effects on the volunteers who took part, Edward Murphy
devised a harness carrying strain gauges to measure the gravitational
forces generated in each test run. During one run, everything seemed to
go well. But the harness had failed to record any data at all. Edward
was called in, and discovered that each and every single strain gauge
had been wired incorrectly. Upon discovering the problem, Murphy cursed
the technician responsible and said, "If there is any way to do it
wrong, he'll find it."

After rewiring the gauges told his colleagues that this highlighted a
very important rule that all engineers should keep in mind: "If there are two ways of doing something, and one of them can lead to
disaster, you should assume that's the way it will be done."

The MX981 project manager kept a list of "laws" and added this one, which he then named "Murphy's Law".

Soon afterwards, Dr. John Paul Stapp, who rode a sled on the
deceleration test to a stop, experiencing 40 Gs, held a press
conference. He said that the positive safety record on the project was
due to a firm belief in "Murphy's Law" and in the necessity to try and
circumvent it. A reporter misquoted Murphy's Law and as it was repeated
and repeated it morphed into the truism that we know today, about life
in general:

"If something can go wrong, it will go wrong".

But that was just the beginning. Many scientists regard it as nonsense.
But one who doesn't is Robert Matthews. Since the mid-1990s, he has
discovered that many cases of Murphy's Law really can be explained by
serious "scientific" principles. One such example (and you can test this at home): Toast usually lands
on the floor butter-side down. But according to Matthews, there are
many other examples of Murphy's Law at work in our universe.

Have you ever wondered why the supermarket checkout line you're
standing in so often moves slower than the one next to you? Or why the
place you're looking for in an atlas is so often on the difficult to
see part of the map? Or why string or rope ties itself in knots most of
the time?

Take that case of the supermarket checkout line. Why does the one we
pick so often move slower than the one next to us? Robert explains, if
we pick a longest line, or one with a family of 7 shopping for the
winter, then it's not hard to see why your line will be slow. But, says
Robert, scientists insist that on the average all the lines are as
likely to move at the same rate as any other, so there just can't be a
"Murphy's Law of Supermarket Checkout Lines": That if your line can be
can move slowest, it will.

"The trouble with this argument is that on any one visit to the
supermarket, we don't care about 'the average' ", says Robert, "We just
want our line to be the fastest on that particular occasion. And if
there are X lines, the chances that we've picked the fastest-moving one
on that trip is just 1/X "So�, explains Robert, �this holds the key to
the reality of Murphy's Law of Supermarket Checkout Lines: "When we
line up, there are three lines we care about: the one we're in, plus
the two lines to either side. So the chances our line will move faster
than both our neighboring lines is just 1 in 3. Therefore, in almost 70
per cent of trips to the supermarket, Murphy's Law will prove correct,
and one or other of the lines next to us will be faster than ours !"

And why is it that when we're using a road atlas, the place we want so
often turns up on the difficult to see part of the map, down the
central crease or on the edge ? The answer, he says, is that although
those "difficult to see parts" don't seem very wide, they track the
total perimeter of the map - and simple geometry shows they actually
take up over 50 per cent of its total area. So a location picked at
random in an atlas has a 50/50 chance of turning up in the map's
difficult "Murphy Zone".

Why string and rope gets knotted so easily is the subject of �Knotted
rope: a topological example of Murphy's Law� in a issue of Mathematics
Today. It can be found on the internet at:

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rajm/knotfull.htm

My own variation of Murphy's Law�
If something can go wring, it probably already has,
and will not be discovered until it is too late.

Oh, and most people will not care about it.

ON TIME MEDIATION

2005-10-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

By Michael John Moynihan

"Time is the fire in which we burn."
-Gene Roddenberry

What time is it? What time does it start? When will it end? When? “When” is right up there with “Why” and “How” as far as questions go. Maybe even more than “Why” or “How” we want to know “When”.

And we wanna know “Right Now”. Which, of course, is when literally everything happens: right now. We only have right now. Past and present are concepts that occupy much of our thought, but in terms of direct waking experience, it is always right now.

Even our memories of the past or projections of the future happen right now. To be “media literate” one would understand the time elements of the various media. TV can be called “time based media”. The creator of the media pretty much determines the timing of its presentation. A VCR, DVR or TIVO allows the media user to re-view or skip elements, but re-arranging the elements, or editing to ones own tastes or purposes is not something very many TV viewers want to “spend time” doing.

Time perception and how it has changed throughout cultures and history, because of technological developments of time measurement is the subject of another... time. My purpose here is to suggest that the more well versed and aware we are of the effect and importance of “timing” in media, the more creative, competent and effective we can be in mediating information.

After all that is what the present “media” is. It is the “middle man” between you and information. Most broadcast and cable programming puts specific time parameters on the programs it runs. On television a 30 minute program is not really 30 minutes, not because there is any information indicating that that is a good and proper length for a TV show, but simply because television began as an advertising tool based upon a previous tool called radio. And those traditions have remained, even on premium cable channels or noncommercial broadcast channels.

Perhaps the best length for a TV show, based on human perception, is seven minutes and fourteen seconds, but we will probably never know and the people who create TV shows could care less. From a TV watchers point of view, the common rule of thumb is shorter is better. TV has taught us how to watch TV and commercials (the entire point of most broadcast and cable TV) started out being one minute long (Pat Weaver, actress Sigourney - Alien films- Weaver’s daddy thought that one up, along with the Today and the Tonight shows.) Over the years commercials have moved to shorter formats. Most today are 15 seconds and Milwaukee's own Master Lock Company actually had a 1 second TV commercial.

But shorter might not be better or smarter when thinking and conceptualizing time. To investigate your own time-mind, I suggest you take a trip to the library and try The Clock of the Long Now by Stewart Brand and Einstein's Dreams by Alan P. Lightman. Both are quite small books with big and challenging ideas, that can be read in a short time. If you like long books try Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Whatever you decide, take the time to spend some time rethinking how you use time when you mediate the media. Do it now, because now is the only time you have.

ONCE UPON A TIME (part 1)

2005-06-18T15:11:00.000-07:00

© 2005 Michael John Moynihan

If I ask what is the most unique characteristic of the human species, what would you say? Homo sapiens, the tool-making animal, the social animal, the language using, communicating animal. Other creatures do some of each of those things. But there is one thing that no other species does: tell stories.

The human ability to tell stories is fundamental because we live by storytelling. We invent our world with the stories we hear and tell. Our reactions are seldom in response to the immediate physical environment. We experience what we call reality as we exchange stories. Our reality has been acquired not through direct experience but through stories we hear and tell. Each story makes us adjust our sense of who we are.

Stories emerge from and then animate our imaginations. The only tool humans have to figure out how things work, what they are, and what to do about them, are stories

Basically, there are three kinds of stories.

The first kind of story illuminates one of the most important parts of life: invisible relationships. It reveals how we relate to each other – the hidden dynamics of the relationships in which we live. These stories tell the truth about how things really work, because how things really work is not apparent, is not visible. "Make-believe" is the construction of a story that allows us to see what is usually covert. These kinds of stories – what we call fiction, myth or fairy tales – are often dismissed as unreal or fantasy when they are in fact the unique and indispensable ways of clarifying not that which is, but that which shows how things work.

The second kind of story is that of factual explanation and illustration. Histories, documentaries, the news – these are all examples of the second sort of story. By themselves, these stories are meaningless. A news story – a story of fact – makes sense only as it is fitted into a framework that is erected by the first kind of story of how life really works. Once we understand that we can use the facts, we can fit in the facts to confirm our fantasy we call reality and say, "Yes, that is real." If it doesn't fit, we discard it, or we say it is biased or false.

The third story is a story of value and choice. It asks, "Well, if this is how things work and if this is how things are, then what should we do about them?" These are the lectures, the instructions that present a little tale about a style of life that says, "This is how it works, how it is, and this is a desirable outcome for us (or an undesirable outcome that you want to avoid), and therefore you should choose this particular direction.

These three kinds of stories are interwoven together to create what we call the “culture”. A system of stories that regulates human relationships, into which we are born and which we absorb and acquire as we grow and become socialized into our place in a social structure. They have been woven together in very different ways at different times in history. More on that next time.

THE WHY OF HOW – MIDSTREAM 2005

2005-06-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

© 2005 Michael John Moynihan

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas.
I'm frightened of the old ones."
– John Cage

"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
– Pablo Picasso
Almost summertime, and a few years into this new century. What better time to attempt to clarify THE WHY OF HOW. What is the purpose of calling a monthly column THE WHY OF HOW? Stay with me here.

HOW we do things is very important. Part of any discussion or proposition involves HOW something is created, HOW it works, HOW you and I can master it. But HOW is always a secondary understanding. Its a good question, an important question. Its also a question that should not even be asked until the most important, primary question is answered. WHY?

WHY is always the first and most important question. HOW is meaningless and silly unless we know WHY. HOW will be determined by the answer to WHY. Leave out WHY and you create HOWS that are at best useless, at worst, ignorantly destructive.

Lets look at several examples. Take education. Please. Public schools, school choice, charter schools, for profit schools, vouchers – all of these are HOWS, none of them are WHYS. And so the entire school/education debate in Milwaukee (and the nation) is basically useless at this point, because we have not started out by asking the very simple all–important first question: Why do we want to educate our children, here and now at the beginning of the 21st century. To be compliant and productive future workers? To be curious adults and life long learners? To be critical, intelligent and informed citizens of a democratic republic? To keep young children and adolescents out of the job market until they reach a specific age? To sort and authorize children according to intelligence, talent or class? To help all children reach the optimum potential as individuals and members of society. Advocates of educator John Dewey will have quite different answers than most members of a chamber of commerce. There are many possible answers, but since educational policy and process is public and societal, we have to come to some agreement on WHY. Once that is agreed upon we could try all the HOWS we could think of as long as they supported the WHY. But first we must ask WHY.

How about Politics. WHY make politics the main way we determine public policy. Given that we can all observe and study history, its not hard to make a case that the WHY of politics is and always will be the seizure and maintenance of power. Is that compatible with the WHY of social order, economic stability or cultural progress in a democratic republic?

It should not be hard to see that we, as a people, have confused HOW with WHY. Many of our best and brightest only talk about HOW, never venturing into the realm of WHY. It is as if we assume that the WHYS are all a given, worked out by our ancestors. Of course that is nonsense. Each generation, each culture, each individual needs to ask WHY anew. Actually asking WHY every seven years or so is the most functional way of keeping any organization or association alive and vital.

So, WHY the present electoral process? What is the overall purpose of the process in light of the relatively new and rapidly converging and developing technologies? What purpose could print, broadcast, cable, satellite TV and the Internet, be in the electoral process? To merely sell the attention of the viewer to the highest party or corporate bidder. Or should the HOW of this unprecedented set of advanced communications technologies serve a less pedestrian, more democratic, more socially progressive, more ecologically sustaining, more educational and more humanly scaled guiding ideal? Mass communications as it now is commercially employed primarily sorts and markets human attention for a reductive industry called Marketing. What would it look and sound like if its main purpose was to interconnect the minds of people in order to advance human understanding, wisdom and progress?

Pick any topic of public concern and apply the WHY/HOW equation. The viability of the human race is now in question largely because of HOW we employ our extraordinary abilities to create and apply technologies. It is high time for every discussion to begin with the question WHY.

NOWARCZYK PARK

2005-05-02T15:16:00.000-07:00

© 2005 Michael John Moynihan

You remember Frank don’t you?

The guy who sat in front of you in 9th grade English?

No, not that Frank. Frank Nowarczyk.

Oh yeah, didn’t he save some guys during the war, they named a park or something after him?

No not the Frank Nowarczyk I mean.

Oh, now I remember, he was that guy... became a lawyer, elected to Congress, became our Ambassador to Poland...

No, think back. Earlier. Frank was visiting Bay View.
There are no parks or streets named after Frank Nowarczyk. He might have gone on become a soldier or a lawyer or a congressman. He might have become a doctor, or a business owner, or a teacher or a parent.

But Frank never got the chance.
He was only 12 or maybe 13, nobody seems to know for sure. He was skipping school that day because of all the excitement.

He was following the protesting workers. They had closed down all but one of the factories in the area and were determined to shut down the Rolling Mills in Bay View. Most of the Mill workers would have none of it. They had just survived a plant shut down and were finally working again.

So as thousands of workers of mostly German and Polish decent marched from Saint Stanislaus Church, young Frank Nowarczyk followed along. He probably didn’t know that the business owners had told the Governor, Rusk - yeah there is a street named after him - to call out the state militia to protect their properties. As the workers approached the Mill, the militia blocked their way. General Treaumer ordered his men to shoot into the crowd. Some did, but because some of citizen soldiers knew the citizens marching for the rights of workers, so they aimed high. One of those bullets killed a 69 year old retired Mill worker named Frank Kunkel, feeding his chickens in his own back yard. Five marchers were killed right where they stood. At least eight more were so badly wounded that they died soon after. No streets are named after any of those men.

And one of the stray bullets accidentaly killed Frank Nowarczyk, a child, a visitor to Bay View, a curious onlooker, witnessing history in the making. That bullet took away Frank Nowarczyk’s future.

It is May as I write this. Spring in Milwaukee is full of a sense of promise and possibility. But in Bay View, it also means looking back to that past day in May of 1886. Perhaps a street, avenue, park, playfield or school named after young Frank Nowarczyk would be a good way to link our community’s history to our own children’s future.