Category Archives: Random Access

Random Access, the op-ed.

Memorial Day

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Today is Memorial Day in the United States. The holiday once known as Decoration Day commemorates the men and women who perished under the flag of this country, fighting for what sets our America apart: the freedom to live as we please.

“Holiday” is a contraction of holy and day; the word originally referred only to special religious days. Here in the U.S. of A. holiday means any special day off work or school instead of a normal day off work or school.

The Uniform Holidays Bill which gave us Monday shopaholidays moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. Today is May 30 so perhaps we can shut up and salute.

Lest we forget, the Americans we honor did not “give their lives.” They did not merely perish. They did not just cease living, check out, croak, depart, drop, expire, kick off. kick the bucket, pass away or pass on, pop off, or bite the dust. Their lives were taken from them by force on battlefields around the world. They were killed. Whether you believe they died with honor, whether you believe our cause just, died they did.

Today is not a “free” day off work or school. Today is not the big sale day at the Dollar Store. Today is a day of Honor.

“All persons present in uniform should render the military salute. Members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are present but not in uniform may render the military salute. All other persons present should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, or if applicable, remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Citizens of other countries present should stand at attention. All such conduct toward the flag in a moving column should be rendered at the moment the flag passes.”

[Image] The American flag today should first be raised to the top of the flagpole for a moment, then lowered to the half-staff position where it will remain until Noon. The flag should be raised to the peak at Noon for the remainder of Memorial Day.

There are those in this country who would use today to legislate the man out of the fight. They can do that but the men and women we honor today knew you cannot legislate the fight out of the man. They have fought and they have died to protect us from those who would kill us. And perhaps to protect us from those who would sell out our birthright.

There is no end to the mutts who would kill our men and women and would kill their own. If I had but one wish granted on this day, I wish not another soldier dies. Ever. But die they did around the world again this year and die they will. For us. For me.

Because those men and women died, I get to write these words again this year. And you get to read them. Please pause and reflect as you go to a concert, stop at an artist’s studio, or simply read a book in the sunshine the price we pay to keep our right to do those things.

Editor’s Note: This column is slightly updated from one that appeared first in 2008.

Freeeeeee!

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I’m not pregnant.

But I AM™ barefoot.

And despite all the photos to the contrary, I do not have a foot fetish.

But I certainly spend much of my time without shoes.

According to Wikipedia, “being barefoot is regarded as a human’s natural state, though for functional, fashion and social reasons footwear is worn, at least on some occasions.” Like when shoveling snow. “Many people do not wear footwear in their home and expect visitors to do the same.”

Perhaps it is a modern thing. Ötzi the Iceman had, well, shoes. And, of course, Errol Flynn died with his boots on.

Until the early 20th century, “the bare foot had been perceived as obscene, and no matter how determined barefoot dancers were to validate their art with reference to spiritual, artistic, historic, and organic concepts, barefoot dancing was inextricably linked in the public mind with indecency and sexual taboo.” Ruh oh. Salome shocked 1908 London with a barefoot dance of desire; Maud Allan became the lust object of the world.

Turns out I’m not alone.


Three Feet

Sandie Shaw was the Barefoot Pop Princess of the 1960s. Adele Coombs dreams of it. My hero Jimmy Buffett regularly performs barefoot. Deana Carter, Jewel, Patti LaBelle, Cyndi Lauper, Anne Murray (Anne Murray!), Linda Ronstadt, Shakira, and Ronnie Van Zant all have embraced freedom and splinters on stage.

According to the Society for Barefoot Living, neither OSHA nor state and local health departments require people to wear shoes in stores, restaurants, and other public places (the current regs apply to employees, not customers).

Say? Can I get some service over here?

The Email Lied

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If any other of our presidents had doubled the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

Dean “Dino” Russell is a roofer here in the middle Keys. Dancing about on roofs all his life has made him the most physically fit man in the Home Depot; it also gives him an overview of life. He is the third-most conservative man I know.

He also likes his role as rouser of rabble.

He sent me another ubiquitous email. You know the kind; it starts with “Did you know?” and ends with “send this to all your friends.”

This one blames President Obama for doubling the national debt — that masterpiece that we as a nation, Dino avers, have spent 220 years building from the original pence that fell out of Alexander Hamilton’s pocket. As an interesting digression, Andrew Jackson had four Secretaries of the Treasury, more than any other U.S. president; Mr. Jackson also paid off the entire public debt in 1835. That was the only time in U.S. history that this country has been debt free.

The email was wrong about Mr. Obama doubling our debt. He hasn’t quite done that. Yet.

I know a lot about public debt partly because I know how to Google but partly because it isn’t rocket science. Debts are like diets. Whether you have a spending problem or an eating problem, when you consume more than you work, somebody gets fat.

Dino’s email made 23 claims about all the bad things Mr. Obama has done from doubling the debt twice to not reading Arizona’s state law on illegal immigrants. The mail says the president joined another country to sue the great state of Arizona. The email called him out for mispronouncing Marine Corps and miscounting the states and not knowing Spanish; for putting 87,000 people out of work by using a forged document and for needing a Teleprompter; for spending “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to go to a play, to pitch the Olympics in Denmark, and to plant a tree on Earth Day; for stealing General Motors from we stockholders and firing the CEO; and making a joke at Special Olympians. He is called cheap for the gifts he gives other heads of state, subservient for bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia, and criminal filling his cabinet with crooks. He apparently won’t help white flood victims in the Midwest and has created 32 Czars.

“Every statement and action in this email is factual and directly attributable to Barrack Hussein Obama,” Dino claims. “Every bumble is a matter of record and completely verifiable.”

Erm, well, no.

The gist of the email was correct. Mr. Obama is sinking the economy. He did nationalize industry and health care. He did steal General Motors from me. He is centralizing power even more. He is almost single-handedly turning the United States of America into the Union of Socialist American States.

But the email got too many facts wrong.

President Reagan doubled the debt Carter left. Bush 41 bumped the debt Reagan left by more than 50% but Clinton did double the debt Reagan left. Bush 43 nearly doubled the debt Clinton left. Bush 43 left a $10 trillion debt against a $15 trillion GDP. Obama admittedly bumped it to $14 trillion against about the same $15 trillion GDP but he ain’t the Lone Ranger.

The email got too many facts wrong about Presidents in general.

We know Mr. Obama didn’t read Arizona’s law. Politicians don’t read laws. Let’s tar the lot of them.

Mexico did file an amicus brief supporting the Obama Administration, not the other way around. Yawn. Let’s worry about the Feds usurping states rights.

Good that Dino didn’t have any problem with George W. Bush’s pronounsations; of course, Mr. Bush knows Spanish.

Many of the 87,000 people affected by the Gulf oil spill are back at work but my wife isn’t and neither are the 15.4 million out-of-work Americans Mr. Obama promised he would help. We should tar him for that but the email didn’t go there.

I use a Teleprompter. So does your favorite soap star but the email didn’t go there. Let’s tar everyone for that, eh?

Every president spends “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to go out of town; it’s the cost we pay to keep them alive until election day but the email didn’t go there.

And so on.

The “facts” ain’t quite what the emailer would like us to believe. That’s too bad because Mr. Obama’s factual performance is so bad for the country that we don’t have to make things up.

“The email tells a story about how atrocious it is in Obamaland,” Dino said. “‘Tis better to lie in a good cause than tell the truth in a bad one.”

That’s the leftist mantra he used to deride. Now both sides believe ideology trumps facts.

It doesn’t.

Ban Bread!

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The Earth is in trouble and our carbon dioxide output is obviously to blame. I know this because Al Gore told me so.

We can fix the Earth and lose weight at the same time.

One of the oldest prepared foods and long called the “staff of life,” bread has been baked around the world for at least 30,000 years. Starch residue on rocks used for pounding plants some 30 millennia ago in Europe shows that prehistoric man ate flatbreads with no worries about carbon dioxide output.

CO2?

Yeast devours sugar, then releases carbon dioxide bubbles and small amounts of ethyl alcohol. When the kneaded dough is baked, the heat from the oven forces the yeast into overdrive, which quintuples the rate at which carbon dioxide is produced.

The released carbon dioxide is responsible for bread rising.

Former Vice President Al Gore and Live Earth founder Kevin Wall have called for a 90% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions worldwide by mid-century. “Nations all over the world are making progress in tackling the climate crisis. But too many proposals fall short of the strong, decisive action that’s needed,” Mr. Gore said in 2007.

Victor Preedy, Ronald Ross Watson, Vinood Patel report in Flour and Breads and Their Fortification in Health and Disease Prevention that “Worldwide, bread is one of the most consumed foodstuffs.”

After extensive, even exhaustive 10 minutes of Internet research, I discovered very little statistical data on worldwide bread consumption where “very little” is actually a vanishingly small number approaching, well, zero. I did the next best thing. I asked answers.yahoo.com and found that eating “a TON of bread each day” is the best answer — chosen by voters!

That seemed an order of magnitude or two over the top so I did the next best thing. I asked former North Puffin car dealer and Democratic party official, Mr. Paul “Buster” Door for his take. As a card-carrying member of the Far Green, Buster is always willing to chase assumptions around and around in his head until he comes up with an answer that sounds right.

“Well you see, Dick, it’s like this,” Buster said. “Man can live by bread alone but only the strongest do so. It is well known that prehistoric man ate flatbreads but it wasn’t until Bastet — she was that famed Egyptian foodie — invented yeast that bread sales really puffed up. The market expansion of bread swelled pretty much unencumbered for centuries but it suddenly plummeted in 18th Century Europe, particularly in France. The good news is that worldwide growth of yeast breads has risen back to a high of more than a pound per person per day now world-wide. And that’s why Frenchmen are 2.4 inches taller than they were in 1789.”

“Don’t forget,” Rufus added, “a pounder of beer is the equivalent of a pound of bread!”

The total population of humans is currently estimated to be 6.92 billion. “That’s on planet Earth,” Buster confirmed.

Earthlings release some 25 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. Plants like rice, wheat, and corn eat some of it but there is plenty left for free floating hyperbole in the atmosphere. That works out to about 6.9 million tons per day.

“A pound of bread is mostly hot air,” Al Gore who should know said. Fresh bread is baked daily in every nation, in every state, in every city, in every hamlet in the world. The production of that 3.46 million tons of daily bread releases something slightly less than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide each and every day.

And that doesn’t take into account the energy required for the great bakery ovens nor the fuel burned to truck the bread from bakery to store.

Mr. Gore and Mr. Wall have called for bakeries to buy carbon credits until engineers can develop commercial methods to eliminate the emission of this dangerous greenhouse gas from bread production.

“We’re looking at salt breads using salts recovered from water desalination plants in Qatar right now,” Mr. Wall said. “The technology is very promising.”

It is worth noting that each and every person in Qatar releases 44.8348 tons of carbon dioxide annually, more than twice the per capita output of Americans. We need to eat more bread to catch up!

Except we can’t.

The new Gore-Wall diet embraces a balanced intake from all the food groups but bans bread.

That’s it. Don’t eat bread. Save the planet. It’s only good science.

Will Free Surgery Take this Screw out of My Backside?

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ShumpleCare = ShumlinCare. You say “rose,” I say “tomato.”

Vermonters will spend about $5 Billion on health care this year.

Last year, Harvard’s William Hsiao developed three models to reform this state’s health care system. Dr. Hsiao, an economics professor, and his team recommend a Single Payer Health Care System. It should be financed, they reported, by a payroll tax of 9% on employers plus 3.5% on workers.

The payroll tax would be imposed on all employers whether they currently provide insurance or not, whether they have a self funded ERISA plan or not. That idea scared Vermont’s largest private sector employer, IBM, which self-insures its thousands of Vermont employees as well as every small business owner in the state.

Five billion dollars.

New state revenue.

There is not a politician in the world not attracted to five billion dollars in new revenue.

The Vermont Assembly passed H.202, the UNIVERSAL AND UNIFIED HEALTH SYSTEM, last week. Governor Peter Shumlin is expected to sign it today.

ShumpleCare (H.202) has four principle components. It institutes a Health Insurance Exchange. It concocts a new bureaucracy, The Vermont Health Care Reform Board. It commits to single payer as the future of health care in Vermont. And it spawns Green Mountain Care to operate the single payer system.

Gov. Shumlin visited Northwestern Medical Center on April 25. The governor dispelled rumors of hospital closures under H.202. (He had told the St. Albans Messenger that some smaller hospitals would be closed.) Hospital CEO Jill Bowen noted that NMC and the governor “disagree on the need to understand the financial and operational details of healthcare reform before it is passed into law.”

Did Gov. Shumlin actually say there is no need to understand the financial and operational details of his healthcare reform plans before they are passed into law?

“Universal health care means universal,” David Karindler, a Vermont Workers Center organizer, said as he decried an H.202 amendment that excludes undocumented workers.

“This is the first time such hateful language has been put in legislation,” he added. “We’re all about inclusion in this state. This is about undocumented people flocking to the state. Why would they flock to a place with no housing and no jobs?”

Did Mr. Karindler actually say this is a bad law because it doesn’t cover people in this country illegally?

The Hsiao report predicted $580 million in savings. The law should spend $395 million of the expected savings to cover the uninsured and under insured, to provide basic dental and vision services, plus another $50 million to recruit new and retain current primary care providers. Wow. An extra $135 million for the Demorats to spend! Woo hoo!

Rep. George Till wouldn’t vote for ShumpleCare until the bill removed all traces of the term “single payer” and replaced it with the words “universal and unified health care system.” Wow. We changed the words. That makes it all alright. Rep. Till, a Democrat, represents Jericho, Underhill and Bolton in the Vermont State House. He is in his second term.

A rose by any other name still falls under Title 32, Chapter 233, §9772 of the universal and unified tax code.

To recap:

  • Vermont’s legislators want to control five billion new dollars each year.
  • Vermont’s governor told us not to sweat the details like cost.
  • Vermont’s lefty loons are revolting because the bill doesn’t cover illegal aliens.
  • Vermonters are left holding the bag. Again.

One great part about living in Vermont is our access to public officials. I’ve called four of the last five governors by their first names; several of them have sat in my living room. I don’t know Peter Shumlin. Yet. One great part about living in Vermont is our ability to talk to public officials. As long as they listen.

As Vermont goes, so goes the nation. Don’t say I didn’t Warn You.