Letter to Hon. R DeSantis on welfare issues and corporate malfeasance

I agree that food stamp recipients should be looking for jobs, but let us also ensure that those who work do not need food stamps! Raise the minimum wage so that employees of notorious companies such as Walmart and McDonalds are not also on the dole because their bosses don't pay a living wage. Walmart and McDonalds are perhaps the biggest culprits others are surely there but Walmart also likes to extort tax breaks from communities and then move when the breaks are over. As a result they reap huge profits and we, the people, suffer. Reigning in corporate greed is more essential than whipping the suffering.

Let us look also at ways to make corporate malfeasance less profitable. If corporations are people too as Citizens United suggests then let us put culpable corporations in prison either by suspending their business activity for a period of time or by placing their responsible parties in jail. If they are allowed to pay small fines they write them off as cost of business, real penalties might just deter wrong action. Take a stand for America Ron, Do the right thing and show leadership.

Thank you.

Common Core and Common Sense

Perhaps the most appalling thing about the Common Core education standards is that I found myself almost agreeing with Glen Beck. The problem is not in the idea, I like the idea of a common standard so that we know that if a student transfers a credit of Geometry from Iowa to a school in Maine everyone will know what that student knows and will therefore be better able to place the student in the right classes. Brilliant and sensible. It is in the execution that the trouble comes.

A. Testing, testing, testing. Common Core still supports the dubious education machine of testers and evaluations that measure success in teaching by a standard that does not take into account the factors outside of a teacher's control sort of like evaluating your weatherman not on the accuracy of the prediction but on the desirability. We want 70% sunny days, 80% of highs in the mid 70's, now go and do it. Even if we are able to create a standard that allows for assessment of a teacher's ability to realize  X% of a students potential realized, the student still has control of a variable - they can choose to not work just as some students choose not to complete standardized  tests and proctors are not allowed to coach them to get the job done. Student potential and failure to reach it will always dog evaluations as will low potential that cannot reach the standards with anything short of a miracle.

B. Teachable moments. Teachable moments disappear with common standards and teaching to the test. We cannot stop to consider the implications of history on the developing revolutions in the Middle East.

C. Higher Thinking. High thinking is one of the new buzz words in education that all teachers should be creating in students but when we are trying to get the facts down for the test and don't have the time to assess (see for instance, B. above) critical thinking skills will not be developed, rote memory will be the norm. And with that comes

D. Boredom. "I'm bored" is already one of the most common expressions of student interest. Do we need more or less? The key to relieving the boredom is to allow for departures from the norm. Allowing teachers the flexibility to teach to need and opportunity to teach in the moment when student interest is highest.

Otherwise bring it on, It rocks!

Syria- Why Pacifism is the Only Way

Do nothing and we tacitly support the government that kills its own people with chemical weapons. If Assad wins he will not be our ally, he will not thank us for our non intervention. If we actively support the rebels we will either support a loosing cause and Assad will not be our friend or the rebels will win, but experience in the Middle East tells us that this rebellion is not going to produce a pro western government despite our potential help.  End result who ever wins we will lose in terms of influence in the area.

If we hold out humanitarian aid, accept refugees and provide as much suportfor non combatants as possible, we

A. take the high moral road, and
B. avoid a costly war that would sacrifice American lives for no discernible goal.

There is no real option. Support world peace, we cannot stop the war without joining the war. This not Hitler or even the Kaiser, this is internecine warfare and we are not welcome. If Iraq has taught us anything it should be this.

The War on Poverty 2014

Given the recent movement by the House of Representatives to cut back on anything that smacks of care for people be it food, medicine or wages and the continual cry for help for the upper 2% who need tax breaks "so they can give jobs" to the poor - jobs that increasingly do not even cover the costs of living let alone set a path toward betterment, the only thing I can ask is "Will the next war on poverty be with guns?" because French Revolution style desperation is going to kick in at some point. Michelle Bachman will finally have her day declaring "Let them eat crumbs. Oh sorry we didn't leave any, our bad :) "

Trayvon Martin trial - Monday Morning Quarterback

The one big lesson that I learned while doing criminal defense and prosecution is that the prosecution must keep a tight focus on the proceedings. Only one theory works for the prosecution. "This is what happened and this is how it was done and the defendant did it." Make you case with all points of the law in contention and keep it simple. In this case the prosecution allowed their own witnesses to muck up the scene, then in the final moments they got an included lesser offense. Fine but the elements of the crime are a little different and now the jury has to think this one or this. The prosecution looses it best weapon, certainty, when they are suddenly arguing two theories of the case.

The defense can argue as many theories as they want. Why? Because they claim not to have committed the crime so maybe it was this or maybe it was that doesn't hurt the case, or in this case I was just trying to see that nothing went wrong when this kid went ballistic on me. His word against a corpse.

I am not a fan of stand your ground, it is applied unfairly in Florida and would still be a bad law if it were applied evenly. Why? Because it encourages heroics that lead to tragedy. The long standing rule of retreat if you can is one designed to keep crimes form happening. George Zimmerman gave up on this one when he went looking for trouble when he confronted a kid in the dark, violence happened and a gun went off. Zimmerman should have stayed in his car and any law that encourages a different result encourages provocation and escalations to death. Any law that does that does not increase our security or well being, it makes our world a vigilante ruled wilderness.

Eyes and ears I fear not as good as before

I must confess that I am officially one of "them" those people whose eyesight and hearing are becoming as big a problem for them as they are for others. my eyes aren't really that bad, a little glaucoma (like being a little pregnant) and cataracts are developing well thank you but my vision impaired as it is by near sightedness should continue to thrive as long as I take the eye drops and as long as I don't get the other family disorder, macular degeneration. My ears are another thing

Just know folks that when people with hearing disorders tell you not so loud, they mean it loud noises hurt weak ears . I liken it to when you turn the volume up and listen real closely as you tune an old radio then BAM! you find a station and it blares out at you. It hurts. On the other side when almost everything a person hears anymore is mumbling which needs to be filtered intellectually and then interpreted for the most likely logical order of conversation, mumbling sure as hell doesn't help, nor do rapid changes of topic or dropped antecedents. We need all the help we can get. So be nice speak clearly at a pleasant deliberate volume let us filter the sound and maybe just maybe your ears will thank you several years from now.when others do the same.

Communicating with the dead or politically opposite

You might as well argue with a corpse than try to reason with a member of  an opposing political party. I occasionally get emails from John Boehner and I wonder if he is lying through his teeth or what, but this morning I had a thought. What if, as unreasonable as it may seem, John Boehner really and truly thought he was telling the truth in his posts? What if the liberal emails that I get are also telling the truth. what if we just don't trust the other side enough to try and see the truth in what they say that they have the best interests of the country at heart.

Maybe it is true, maybe we are all to harsh on one another, but who has the courage to confront the combative nature of what passes for civil discourse in the US today? It sounds so simple. Everyone wants to balance the budget so why are taxes taboo and entitlement spending off limits? Real progress will never be made until taxes are raised on the rich and entitlement programs are realigned.

Meanwhile we will get partisan bickering and bills that no one likes passed in order to avoid the discussion.

It is time, my friends, to start to talk again.

Body of Proof Dark City Darkly Dumb

I have no mouth and I must scream
Apologies to Harlan Ellison for stealing the title, but I just have to vent this inanity.

Body of Proof, I must confess I do watch it and have liked it, but the episode entitled Dark City finally showed me what idiots TV writers and directors can be (and here I thought I had already known). First opening piece is of a 747 in the night sky, cut to interior view, what not even a wide body plane seats are 3-3 in economy not 9 or 10 across as in a plane as big as shown .Next we are told that there are 83 passengers on this international flight. On a plane that big and when we saw the interior shots it looked like the plane was full . . .triple that number. Next the plane depressurizes, I am thinking that it was bound for Philadelphia International as people showed up from the airport so it should have been on final approach. The shots fired would depressurize but in approach the altitude wouldn't be bad. Depressurization doesn't cause a fireball. The pilot wouldn't have to dump fuel after a long run. All of these only set you up for the shot of a rapidly flying fireball behind several tall building. Trouble is a plane a distance appears to be lumbering. This plane was moving like meteor (and on fire) and that sets up the remarkable landing, crash. the plane is going so fast that the tail section is separated by a large distance and yet people live through it in both sections.

Oh and the kid who survives in the toilet, no bruises? and the flight attendant who was in the aisle forward when the plane is depressurized somehow ends up in the tail section?

Now for the nit picks, people weren't in their seats as for landing nor being instructed as such. When Sullivan finds the tail wreckage it is brightly lit with little fires here and there. The fires wouldn't give that much light and if they were that bright why was it so darned hard to find? helicopters would be in the air . . .

Generator with wires cut. Those were some big wires, guy walks in off the street with bolt cutters? and how does super Doc put them back together with no tools? OK he watches survival shows, really?

You now what, after all that insanity I am just going to buy that Sullivan can do an emergency tracheotomy. Oh yeah, pigs do fly.

Unbrella gate, Really?

"Corporal, you will hold this umbrella for the President and his guest."
"I would be honored sir, but I cannot touch an umbrella while in uniform."

Does anyone really think that the Marine would be justified in refusing a request from the President because he is prohibited from carrying one for himself? Or do we think that immediate disciplinary action would be taken against the Marine? There are times and places when even a seemingly lawful order can be refused. I myself as an enlisted man was once able to refuse a Colonel in front of his entire staff, but military personnel doing so do it at their peril. Obviously this was not the case for the Marines in the Rose Garden, they knew that a request for the President was one that they should honor, if possible, and they did just as untold service personnel have done in the past, they obeyed a lawful order (and let us be clear even an informal request from the President is an "Order").

Conservatives who have felt powerless in the wake of several non scandals lately have jumped on this non issue to vent their rage and it is to the same avail as the attacks on Benghazi coverups. Clearly had the Marines used the umbrellas for their own protection their stripes would roll, but that was not the case. the Marine Manual so often quoted in this non debate is talking about uniform protocol - what accessories can be used and worn by the service member, not what they can and can't do in the line of duty. We could easily see the problems if the rule was as strict as the conservative pundits make it sound. We could litter a field on Camp Lejuene with the things and the Marines couldn't clean it up without calling for help? I doubt if anyone would make a call to the Commandant of the Corps. "Pick up the blankity blank umbrellas and get rid of them now!" would be the order and the umbrellas would be gone, at least I hope so. It is rather disconcerting if the Marine Corps is unable to touch those pesky things. Use as a personal item, never. Hold one as a convenience for two heads of state, it is a honor to be chosen.


"Corporal, you will hold this umbrella for the President and his guest."
"Yes, Sir! Thank you, sir."