In an ideal world, we would go back to the beginning of the primary campaign and start all over, with an entirely news set of candidates. Now that we are approaching what appears to be Hobson's Choice, I had to answer Sherry in these words:

Cute aside: In one neighborhood where I had a small business, there was a neighborhood business association. The president was a man we will call "Freddie," and his wife/business partner a woman named "Marcy." Without fail, at every meeting Freddie would make an impassioned (and occasionally sensible) statement about some problem or another in the neighborhood. This would be followed, almost as if by parliamentary procedure, by Marcy seeking the floor and starting her own speech with the words, "Freddie didn't exactly say what he meant. What Freddie meant to say was..." (at which point she would thoroughly discredit every word of his little speech. Now, at the neighborhood level, it's funny--in a kind of cruel way--to watch a man being regularly emasculated by his wife in public. God knows, the two of them deserved each other, being a couple of pretentious jerks. But in national and international politics, we cannot afford this sort of entertainment.

Good Goly Miss Molly, CD, CGC

May 1, 1994 - June 30, 2008 

Hours earlier, I had parted company with my parents at the fence surrounding Fort Holabird. My father was weeping shamelessly, and my mom was doing her best to hold herself together. What happened during the intervening hurry-up-and-wait period has long since drifted from memory, other than the vague recollection of a couple of acquaintances struck up during the boredom.

My service to the military was neither valorous, meritorious, or in any way remotely auspicious. The best I can say of it is that when the Army decided to release me, six months earlier than my promised date, the discharge papers contained the word "honorable." The farthest from home my travels took me was Fayetteville, North Carolina, and for much of my hitch I was within driving distance of home.

I took away some valuable lessons from those thirty months, although a number of them took decades to sink in:

• You can push yourself a lot harder than you think
• You really don't need that much sleep
• Nobody ever died from a bad haircut
• Whatever it might be, it's probably not the worst thing you've had in your mouth
• Nobody ever died from simply being dirty
• Most of the time you don't get to do what you want; but you must do what you can to survive
• Sooner or later, all bad experiences end. This does not mean they won't be superseded by worse ones.
• Don't stand when you can sit; don't sit when you can lie down.
• Be as truthful as possible; lies are too hard to keep track of.
• People will lie to you and break promises: deal with it.
• Anger mostly hurts you more than it does the person or object you're angry about
• There will always be a toilet somewhere that needs cleaning.
• You have as much dignity as you are willing to assume, regardless what situation you're in.

That sucking sound you've been hearing all week is what's left of your privacy and freedom, circling the drain.

Monday the postman brought a "privacy policy" notice from Verizon, our internet service provider, that reveals this company has granted itself the permission to monitor everything that passes from my computers through their servers, on the suspicion I might be a terrorist or child pornography collector.

Tuesday the postman brought another such notice, from a company with which I have a few dollars invested. This notice revealed that if the company asks a consumer-reporting agency for information about me, that agency "may keep it and share it with others who use their services," with no limitation upon who these others might be. More tellingly, it revealed the presence of something called the Medical Information Bureau. This outfit, which usually goes by the more innocuous monniker MIB Group, Inc., justifies its existence thus:

"...persons whose health problems or hazardous avocations pose greater insurability risks should pay more than those who present a lower risk. (emphasis added)

Persons who unknowingly, or in some cases knowingly, withhold or give incomplete or erroneous information on insurance applications, cost the insurance-buying public billions. MIB serves in the role of an "advocate" for those persons who fairly and accurately report their information with the insurance companies and who are being penalized by, and are indirectly subsidizing, those who would intentionally or unintentionally defraud the system."

The existence of this shadowy group explains (although without adequate justification) why when I go to Walgreen's to buy prescription medicine, the pharmacy tech can pull up a list of every other medication that has been prescribed to me over the last five to seven years. Oddly enough, another federal regulation called HIPAA required my family doctor to get my written permission to have his office staff leave a message on my answering machine merely confirming an appointment, and to have the office nurse take my temperature and blood pressure behind closed doors (instead of in an anteroom to the reception area), on the off chance she might inadvertantly utter my vital signs as she's writing them down, and that someone with malicious intent might be lurking around the corner to write them down and use them against me. (By reporting them to the Medical Information Bureau, for example.)

Wednesday's mail brought another notice, this one from MetLife, which issues my paltry pension check. This notice, among other things, said that "We may also need...information about finances, employment hobbies (emphasis added) or business conducted with us...or with other companies." This little bomb was followed by a statement that MetLife reserves the right to get information form "other sources," including "adult relatives."  That opens the door to a world of mischief from estranged spouses and participants in other forms of family feuds (none of which, blessedly, exist in my own family.) MetLife also mentions, in passing, that "Other reasons we may disclose what we know about you include...Doing what a court or government agency requires us to do; for example, complying with a search warrant or subpoena."  Nowhere in the reassuring document does the company promise that it will inform me that a Government Agency has inquired about me.

Finally, an email received Thursday pointed me to an article in PC World revealing that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has asserted that it can search laptops and other electronic devices owned by U.S. citizens returning to the country without the need for reasonable suspicion of a crime or probable cause. (emphasis added, but read that again!) This news article has drawn some comments, among which appear to indicate that people have missed something important:

• The laptop search will become pointless. Anything illegal that can be put on a laptop can also be emailed across the border.
• Do you have any idea how many laws are on the books that aren't enforced simply because they're pointless? What difference does it make whether or not they're allowed to do something if it's a waste of time to actually DO it? Before long they'll realize they don't have the manpower to waste time doing the ineffective. Tell that to those TSA screeners at the airport.
• It is a great tool to aid the officers who are fighting to keep this country safe. You might not like it but there are some bad people out there. From child rapists, molesters, spies and yes terrorists trying to smuggle in all sorts of illegal digital work or images. Men who go on sex tours have come back with child porn on there digital devices. Think of it as a way of keeping the honest man honest when he travels abroad. I am sure you would agree that every effort should be expended to protect our children from these predators?
• Customs officers searching your laptop is no different than Customs officers searching your bags, books, or paper records. So much for that antiquated notion that "The People...shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects" unless someone in the executive branch (law enforcement) can demonstrate to someone in the judiciary branch (a judge) a damn good reason for snooping, and what exactly they are hoping to find.

 In short, the readers of PC World seem more concerned about being inconvenienced than about being violated.

Now if you will excuse me, someone is banging heavily on my front door...

LONDON  -  [A] Beijing-based billionaire has splashed out a record $500,000 on 27 bottles of red wine, London-based Antique Wine Company said on Saturday.The anonymous Chinese entrepreneur bought [who cares about the details?] "It is the highest price that has ever been achieved for a single lot," Managing Director Stephen Williams of the London- based Antique Wine Company told Reuters on Saturday." I don't think he has bought this as an investment -- he has bought it to drink," he added. "The fine wine industry is completely immune from the global credit crunch." The client's biggest previous purchase was 30,000 pounds ($59,880) for a case of 1982 Chateau Petrus.

So, do you figure that this anonymous Chinese entrepreneur has made his pile selling tchotchkes to Wal-Mart? Stuff nobody really needs, to be bought by people who ought to spend their money on necessities.

How is Obama planning to protect us from predators such as this? Hard-working Americans are having to make do with Mad Dog 20/20 while this guy drops $18K a bottle on some snobbishly pedigreed stuff that is still nothing more than fermented grape juice.

It's mad, I tell you, mad!

I am looking for donation of clothes and shoes  - been unemployed for 3 1/2 years now - living on Food stamps and energy Assintance

I am running out of clothes and with no income coming in it make it hard to buy new or second hand stuff

I am a size 32/34 34/36 dress or skirt and blouse 5 and 6x slack with at least a 32 in inseam - size 14 or 15 women shoes depending on the style of the shoes

I'll take anything but used pantys

Corsets - girdels - 58 D-cup bras ( that 5 inches smaller than the last time I measured) - nighties - slips - - blouses - dresses - anything that you don't want anymore - you can even send things that are a coulpe of sizes smaler because I am finially losing weight

I don't care what the style of clothing it is - I need it all, Day wear - eveingwear - work - fetish - whatever doesn't matter

Also wigs for a large head - I will clean them

I can only reach people who live on or within a 2 to 3 block walk from the busline - I have  bum leg and can't walk far

...

Cash Donation are all way welcome - I doubth that anyone will send a cash donation - but if you do send a cash donation make it out to [deleted] - I haven't legally change my name to [deleted] yet

I rather do some artwork to earn any money - so check out my art website

My art websites under my male name ---

[after which s/he drops the URL of a web site referring to the female name.]

...

Thank to any one can help in advance

 

The June 2008 issue of America's First Freedom carries an interview of McCain conducted by Chris Cox (Executive Director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action) and the redoubtable Wayne LaPierre (Executive Vice-President of NRA). If you are unfamiliar with this pair, they are the two most highly paid officials of the NRA who are not elected by the membership, and presumably cannot be fired.

I skimmed the article until I found a reference to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, more familiarly known as the McCain-Feingold Act. Yes, that McCain. Here's their question and the Senator's feckless answer, as published:

Senator, you were the chief sponsor of “campaign finance reform” legislation—legislation that, when passed, included a provision that restricts the NRA’s ability to run broadcast ads lobbying on legislative issues in the 60 days before a federal election. Many gun owners believe that this provision severely restricts their ability to participate in the legislative process, and in fact, many believe it to be unconstitutional. Would you explain your motivation behind campaign finance reform, and why the broadcast restriction was included in the final bill?
 
   I fought for campaign finance reform because I strongly believed that prior to the enactment of this legislation, our system of financing campaigns was seriously broken and in need of repair. I genuinely worried that legislative provisions were being passed or defeated based on the size of “soft money “ contributions made by affected interests. I can assure you that my motivation in this effort was directed at these out-of-control amounts of “soft money” that seeped into federal campaigns—not a desire to restrict the ability of gun owners or any other group of citizens from making their voices heard in the legislative process. I am fully committed to defending the constitutional right to petition the government for the redress of grievances. 
 

Interestingly, the cutline under the photo heading this article claims that Cox and LaPierre asked McCain some "direct questions," while the table of contents even says they are "tough questions." Damn shame they did not bother with a follow-up.

Compare this against NRA's strong statements over the last few years:

NRA FAX Alert March 22, 2002

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate joined the House in assaulting free speech when it passed H.R. 2356—the Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance "Reform" bill—on a vote of 60-40. Congressional opponents to this attack on the First Amendment have vowed to challenge it in the courts, and U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), one of the most vocal opponents of this bill, has already assembled a team of attorneys, including former independent counsel Kenneth Starr, to mount a legal challenge. NRA also remains committed to protecting its ability to exercise free speech and ensuring the privacy of its members, and your Association will fight this assault on the First Amendment all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, if necessary. (emphasis added)

 NRA First to File Constitutional Challenge (Press release Dated March 27, 2002)

JOINT STATEMENT BY WAYNE LAPIERRE , EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA and JAMES JAY BAKER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NRA`S INSTITUTE FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION

(Washington, D.C.) --"Early this morning, President Bush signed into law the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act ("BCRA"). When the federal courthouse opened for business today, NRA was there – we have filed suit to invalidate this unconstitutional infringement on the First Amendment rights of the NRA and our four million members nationwide.

We are proud to be the first plaintiff to formally ask the federal court to invalidate these new limits on the political speech of ordinary citizens because we believe that this law cannot be allowed to stand – not even for a moment.

Sen. Paul Wellstone said on the floor of the United States Senate during the campaign finance debate that it was his intention to silence the NRA. As a direct and intentional target of this law, NRA has no choice but to protect our right to be heard.

NRA has been mentioned by name – but the authors of this law have delivered a clear and straightforward message not only to NRA but to all American citizens. That message is this: ‘Keep your mouths shut.` ‘Stay out of our political debates.` ‘Be quiet.`

Our response is this: the First Amendment protects us from such directives from the government. The First Amendment does not allow Congress to make laws which deny us the right to speak out on issues, the right of our members to associate together on public policy issues and the right to petition our government for redress of grievances. That is what this lawsuit is about.

Through this law Congress has essentially granted speech licenses to giant corporate conglomerates such as Viacom, Disney Corporation and General Electric Company by allowing those corporations unlimited rights to spend money talking about issues and candidates, while silencing the voices of ordinary citizens and citizens groups such as NRA.

Why should corporations such as these media conglomerates, all of which own multiple non-news business enterprises and spend millions of dollars lobbying Congress—why should those corporations be allowed to spend whatever they wish, whenever they wish, saying whatever they wish regarding any issue or candidate – when a non-profit citizens organization such as ours is prohibited from even responding via the broadcast media?

The law imposes severe civil and criminal penalties on citizens who have the audacity to speak out on issues of concern – and we do not believe that the Constitution of the United States of America and the U.S. Supreme Court can possibly allow such a result."

The above, reprinted in part in "Grassroots Alert" volume 9, number 13, March 29, 2002

...under the headline "NRA Files Suit Against Sham Campaign Finance 'Reform' "

Quiet Time Campaign Muzzle (April 1, 2002)

"John McCain is an enemy of the First Amendment." 

Soft Money, Hard Feelings (May 16, 2002)

Links to a George Will column, quoting it thus:

"The document`s title is bland: 'Reply of Senator John McCain, Senator Russell Feingold, Representative Christopher Shays, Representative Martin Meehan, Senator Olympia Snowe, and Senator James Jeffords in support of their motion to intervene as defendants supporting the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.' But the document`s message is fascinating. "File the document under: 'Give them enough rope,' "

Foreign to the First Amendment (July 2, 2002)

Later this year the Supreme Court will be asked to consider the most recent attack on editorial issue advertisements that deal with the conduct of elected officials. The proponents of this new assault are elected officials--namely, Congress. The issue advertising ban in question is contained in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002--frequently referred to as McCain-Feingold, for its legislative sponsors in the Senate. Because this newly minted restriction is inconsistent with the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and a free press, the court should reject it.

Free Speech in the Twilight Zone ( November 2, 2002)

A few excerpts:

Americans are facing an Orwellian nightmare--a bottomless pit of regulation and rules, all designed to cut off collective free speech....

This is a ban on a major aspect of grassroots lobbying and has nothing to do with purely political activity. It has nothing to do with directly exhorting the public to vote for or against a candidate....

there is a major exception to the contributor disclosure, granted under two FEC Advisory Opinions in 1996 that "allowed the Socialist Workers Party to withhold the identities of its contributors and persons to whom it had disbursed funds because of a reasonable probability that the compelled disclosure of the party`s contributors` names would subject them to threats, harassment or reprisals from either government officials or private parties."

So the NRA-PVF has to cough up the names and addresses of contributors who give it more than $200, while the Socialist Workers Party`s funding sources are sealed.

Additionally, the commission boldly took powers never even intended by Congress--powers to regulate what state and local candidates are permitted to say in their paid political advertising....

In his "declaration" filed with the court, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre made the case succinctly.

"The Second Amendment and the NRA are at the center of a culture war LaPierre said. "The Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act effectively cedes the entire battlefield in this cultural war to the broadcast media corporations and politicians. It allows federal candidates and the big media conglomerates to say whatever they want about the NRA in the months before an election and shields them from any effective response by prohibiting the NRA from tittering the name of its attackers . . ."

The First Amendment on Trial (December 2, 2002)

...At issue is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA, alias McCain-Feingold), by which the just-adjourned 107th Congress followed in the footsteps of the 5th Congress, which enacted the Sedition Act of 1798.

An Appearance of Corruption (5/23/2003)

The Weekly Standard`s David Tell closely examines "the bogus research" undergirding the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

A Sad Day for the Constitution (December 12, 2003)

...So noted NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre when, on December 10, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision to uphold the major provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act...

Wayne LaPierre said, "You`re going to have to put an asterisk by the First Amendment, and a footnote, because for many months of the year it`s no longer in effect."  Wayne went on to say, in no uncertain terms, that NRA still has many ways to make its position known in federal elections.  "They didn`t say we couldn`t mention the U.S. Congress, or the Senate. And we will run advertising directing the American public to information sources as to where they can find the truth, and the facts, and who`s for them and who`s against them.  This is a sad day for the Constitution, but the 4 million members of the NRA will continue to be heard.  That I can promise."

In addition to expanding NRA-PVF`s fundraising activities, this, no doubt, will also mean an even greater reliance on the grassroots efforts of our nation`s 65 million gun owners who have answered the call time and again.  One clear advantage NRA has over virtually every other group in America is a large, passionate, and active base of grassroots support that is willing to not only vote on Election Day, but actively work on the campaigns of pro-freedom candidates.  The engine that drives the NRA machine is our grassroots, and you can rest assured in the months ahead, we will refine, improve, and expand our grassroots operations to meet the challenges that now lay before us.  Please keep an eye out on future Grassroots Alerts to find out how you can take on an even more active role in our grassroots activities in this new day and age of campaign restrictions.

Summed up in five words: "Wayne says, 'send more money.' "

Amending an Amendment (Dec. 22, 2003)

Introducing a Rich Tucker commentary at TownHall.com:

...political parties hardly matter anymore, because of another provision of McCain-Feingold. The law also bars them, and unions, interest groups and corporations from running TV ads that mention a specific candidate in the 60 days before a federal election. But if they’re not allowed to engage in politics during the two months before election day (when people might actually be paying attention), why should any of these groups bother engaging in politics at all? Or, maybe, that’s what the incumbent politicians want.

Democrats' Magic Number: 527 (March 10, 2004)

Introducing a MSNBC story:

With the unlimited “soft money” contributions to national political parties ostensibly banned by the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA, also known as the McCain-Feingold law), Democrats are counting on their 527 groups, organized under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, and bankrolled by billionaire currency speculator George Soros, Real Networks CEO Robert Glaser, labor unions, and others.

Standing Guard: A Win for free speech (September 7, 2007)

When Congress enacted this oppressive law, the National Rifle Association, as a grassroots corporation, was singled out for censorship. Our highly acclaimed infomercials were labeled "sham ads" and were targeted for broadcast speech bans.

Without this new ruling, NRA's running an educational broadcast alluding to any candidate for federal office anywhere in the nation during the pre-election blackouts could amount to a federal crime. A broadcast expressing NRA's staunch opposition to a gun ban could be seen by FEC enforcers as indirectly urging Americans to vote against a candidate favoring a firearm ban--say, Hillary Clinton.

So, Wayne & Chris, if I might be so familiar--and as a Life Member of NRA I think it's my right--what's the source of this sudden failure of courage on your part?  If I recall correctly, right after the BCRA was signed into law--and before NRANews.com was created, in the hope it would be considered a legitimate media outlet and therefore unaffected by BCRA--Wayne LaPierre wrote an impassioned letter published in all the NRA monthlies, saying that by God, he'd anchor a ship with a TV transmitter in international waters and broadcast the Truth, if that's what it took.

So why all the kowtowing to McCain in this interview? Unless there is some secret deal being cut, McCain has more to lose by being criticized by NRA than NRA has to lose by not endorsing McCain, or any Presidential candidate in November.

Now, it appears life has begun to imitate art, sixty years after the novel's publication. 

Florida's TV Channel 6 reports that a pets-only funeral home has opened for business in Pinellas Park. According to the station's May 17th dispatch:

The Pet Angel Memorial Center offers human touches to help pet owners mourn their animals, including viewing areas and a space for services. The service is part of a growing interest in pet loss services." We started the business because I don't have two-legged children," Pet Angel Memorial owner Colleen Ellis said. "All I have is four-legged children and I wanted her treated in the same way as the human funeral business, which is the business I come from." A new poll shows more Americans believe animals go to heaven. The funeral home will take care of all pets from dogs to iguanas, the report said. The services range in prices from $150 to thousands of dollars.

Now, if you can decipher the clumsy writing, you'll see that the owner of Pet Angel Memorial Center is a woman who has been in the human mortuary trade and has decided to branch out to a niche where there is as yet no competition.

But wait! ...

I had filed this absurd little story away, hoping to find a "hook" from which to comment. And damn if someone in Germany didn't come through. I was in the midst of a discussion about when and how it is appropriate to play Taps, on a forum run by Bugles Across America. My main question was whether Taps ought to be reserved for the military funeral honor rendered a veteran, and whether it would be more appropriate to play some other selection for general rememberances, such as the season opening of a yacht club (which had been proposed). The discussion drifted into the matter of whether a police officer or firefighter merits the playing of Taps at his funeral, if s/he is not a military veteran. I argued no, based upon the fact that at least in this part of the USA, the police and fire folks have their own funeral ritual, which involves Amazing Grace being played by a bagpiper or pipe band. I found myself in the minority, being attacked from both sides of the Atlantic when a couple of BAA members dropped the bomb that Hell, they'd even play Taps for the burial of a dog that had "served" in the military. (Never mind the question of that being involuntary servitude on the part of the dog, or of whether this practice insults human soldiers by equating them with canines.)

Next thing I knew, someone had mentioned the K9 Memorial Cards website, dedicated to "all working canines and law-enforcement horses." Shortly thereafter, I learned that there is actually a Canine Veterans' Day, apparently the creation of one JoeTheDogTrainer. As Joe explains, the US K9 Corps was officially created on March 13, 1942, and his goal is to have March 13th officially recognized by Congress as a holiday. (So now, we've even equated dogs with Martin Luther King, Jr.) "Joe" suggests that "you could decorate your local dog park that day, and simply be there to tell people why, or get your Mayor to make an official proclamation that day to pay tribute to the dogs, or help us to get names on our petition to Congress... I have made a list of additional ideas on our menu, and you are certainly welcome to send me your own ideas."

My German adversary included a press release that says this newly-minted holiday would "honor all the dogs of all our wars, to include the present war on terror. It will be a day when many breeds, plus mix breeds [mighty generous of them] are celebrated, as all have served in times of war. And because of 9/11 this day will also celebrate the honorable service of Search and Rescue Dogs, Police Dogs, Customs Dogs, Border Patrol Dogs, Secret Service Dogs, ATF Dogs, FBI Dogs, and more, as all are now involved in guarding our precious freedoms against terrorists.

Sorry to say, that just does not wash with me. Dogs used for these tasks do not "serve" because they made (or are capable) of exercising the free will to make a decision. The animal-rights weenies might even say they are "enslaved," and God help me, I think I agree.

Moreover, I think this mission-creep on the part of the buglers' association demeans the memories of those humans that we honor on Decoration Day and Armistice Day.

Suffice it to say that mine is the minority opinion: according to BAA it's appropriate for any bungler bugler to play Taps on any occasion whatsoever. Attempting to reduce the argument to the absurd (not a real stretch), I observed that next we'd be having Taps and funeral honors for all those bunnies and mice who gave their lives in service to the chemical/biological warfare defense labs of the Free World. And that the year after that, I fully expect to see funeral honors rendered to those mass graves--petri dishes--full of bacteria and viruses who sacrificed all.

The story has an interesting coda: I was dismissed from Bugles Across America by no less than The Founder Himself. As my father would have said, I've been thrown out of classier joints in my time...

The Seattle Star-Tribune reports that one of those hypersensitive born-again Christian protest groups finds Starbucks' new logo absolutely pornographic.

Here's the offending picture.

 

The Resistance, a Christian group out of San Diego says the new image "has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute,"  according to Mark Dice, founder of the group. The Resistance claims more than 3,000 members nationwide and has found a place  advancing various conspiracy theories.

Starbucks says the logo is based on a sixteenth-century Norse woodcut: a two-tailed mermaid, or siren. Bare-breasted and Rubenesque, that siren is meant to be as seductive as coffee itself. It's a somewhat bowdlerized version of the company's original logo from 35 years ago, on which you could actually see--gasp!--nipples. Most recently, the company has been using a stylized version of the Norse mermaid, as shown below.

These Christers, as Sinclair Lewis called them, are quite talented at discerning sexual content just about anywhere. Which might explain why so many of them have such large numbers of children. I'm of the opinion they ought to pray more and keep their pants zipped. 

Next, we have this tasty Reuters story about how obesity contributes to global warming.

A "study" done by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine claims that obese and overweight people "require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat," adding to food shortages and higher energy prices. This bit of pseudo-science actually found its way into The Lancet, which I have always assumed is a peer-reviewed journal.  The, um, scientists went on to say that because thinner people eat less and are more likely to walk than to rely upon automobiles, they occupy some sort of environmental high moral plateau.

I think they are missing something important. The ultra-thin, environmentally hip crowd includes a large proportion of vegetarians and vegans. A diet heavy in vegetable matter produces more intestinal gas than one laden with meat and fat. Thus vegans fart more copiously than normal people, and everyone knows that human flatulence is simply saturated with sulfur dioxide and methane, two of the most notorious "greenhouse gases."

Continuing on the subject of Obesity...

Philadelphia's CBS Channel 3 reports that if you are more wealthy and foolish than you are hungry, you can spend a hundred bucks on a cheese steak sandwich. Reporter Nicole Brewer tells viewers that Chef James Locascio, of Rittenhouse Square's Barclay Prime, created this "haute" cheesesteak, which includes butter poached lobster and shaved truffles. Locascio is quoted saying the sandwich has "every ingredient you want to try in a life time in one." Apparently without regard for whether you can actually taste lobster when it's combined with the other ingredients, and assuming there is something about the truffle--at $900 a pound--that makes it more desirable than the dozens of less expensive, and tasty, mushrooms that might be used. Of course this is not merely a sandwich: it's a status symbol, a paean to conspicuous consumption.

Brewer, on camera, sampled one of the sandwiches and pronounced it worth the price. Of course, you can bet the TV station picked up the tab.

To my cheese steak discerning eye, the thing looks puny and the roll looks overbaked. I may harbor a prejudice because I grew up two blocks from the place, and went to sleep every summer night to the aroma of sauteeing onions, but I don't think you can beat Captain Harvey's of Dundalk for steak sandwiches. True, the price of a half-sub has zoomed to nearly seven dollars, about double what it was a decade ago. But for your money, you get something about the size and heft of a truck driver's forearm, and infinitely more delicious. There is no eat-in, and I would recommend you wear something to protect your clothing from dripping juices. Last time I bought a Captain Harvey's sandwich, I ate my fill and had enough left over for a couple of hefty steak burritos for the next day's lunch.

Finally, this is not especially humorous, but it does involve someone who is overweight and tends to lunacy...

The new June edition of the Baltimore Beacon reports that President Bush signed into law last month S.845, known as the "Safety of Seniors Act of 2007," noting that Ms. Mikulski is a co-sponsor. This law, in the words of Beacon reporter Barbara Ruben, "authorizes new programs to help prevent falls among older adults." So we are now the beneficiaries of a program that is expected to cost at least $178 million over the next two years. Though I suspect the true beneficiaries will be the public health mavens who will be well paid to try to figure out who falls, where, when and why, and what troublesome architectural constraints can be put into place in a misguided effort to prevent it.

Mikulski bloviates, "Falls don't discriminate. This is a serious public health problem..." Except, of course that until the research is done, nobody knows how serious a problem it might be. Plus that little grammatical faux pas in her first sentence.

Yet in this presidential primary, I think we have reached a new low in political speechifying: changing the message to suit the audience, without regard to consistency. Say what you will about The Great Commoner (that's W.J. Bryan, for those of you who are college-educated), at least his message on the gold standard was consistent. What happened to him at the Scopes trial, God only knows. He seemed to have slipped his moorings altogether, and seeing that he died only a few days later, perhaps there was some underlying medical condition. A brain hemorrhage, perhaps.

This year, we have Hillary Clinton, who speaks in tongues. Depending what audience she is addressing, she adapts her style to the vernacular. This is especially demeaning when she speaks to a primarily black audience and attempts to affect ebonics. Forty years ago, she would have been booed off the stage for this, but not today.

Still a better example is Barack Obama. A few nights ago in Grand Rapids, John Edwards came out as an Obama supporter. He gave an impassioned introduction during which he pleaded so convincingly for the plight of poor and "working class" people that you'd almost forget how much money he has made by driving people into poverty with legal judgments.

This was followed by the O-man himself, who with the crowd already warmed up, delivered a genuine stem-winder. He kept hitting all the liberal statist talking points with no supporting information, and even without regard for whether what he'd said in one sentence would be incompatible with what he'd said in
the sentence before that. The crowd was eating it up.

Meanwhile, the press largely ignored the speech that Senator McCain delivered the very next day, in which he outlined some specifics of what his first term in office would be like. Too boring; not "sexy"enough.

Unsatisfied by Wednesday's spectacle, Senator Obama has now decided that President Bush's speech in front of the Knesset about the dangers of appeasement was directed at him and him alone.

This demonstrates as nothing else has the political callowness of Obama. If he over-reacts this way to some generalities uttered by the President, how can we expect him to react when Hugo Chavez calls him--by name--"Satan" or "Hitler"? One of the greatest things about Ronald Reagan was his ability to shrug off this kind of stuff. But Obama, who has been raised to believe that everything he disagrees with is a personal slight, it's a different story.

If the shoe fits, Senator Obama.

Brandon's death, attributed by the coroner to "natural causes" seemed an outrage, an obscenity. There is nothing "natural" about the death of one so young, who had barely tasted life. He had left the party early, leaving behind only his elders: parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and collateral relatives.

Mr. M------, who was buried this morning was an elderly gentleman who had made his mark in the world. He had retired from a successful retail business. He had fathered eight children, seven of whom survived him. And those children produced 21 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren. He was the elder of the family, having survived his wife by a matter of months.

Sad though his relatives may be at losing him, Mr. M------'s death, I got the sense that his purpose had been fulfilled, his mission completed. And this was beautifully illustrated by the youngest great-grandchild, a sweet little girl of two or three years. Eighteen adults stood at the graveside, showing all the proper solemnity. The great-granddaughter, exhilarated by the beautiful day and the grand outdoor space, capered about the edges of the crowd, picking dandelions. There were several attempts to rein her into the group, but no real anger or embarassment at her innocent energy. Each mourner had been given a long-stemmed flower, and after the proper words were spoken, Holy Water sprinkled, and "Taps" played, each came forward to place his or her flower on the grave. Last of the group, fittingly, was the little girl, who contributed the bouquet of dandelions she'd picked.

As I write these words, the words of Horatio Spafford came to mind:

But, Lord, ‘tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh trump of the angel! Oh voice of the Lord!
Blessèd hope, blessèd rest of my soul!

I am not a person of faith, but one of those show-me-the-money cynics. And somehow, a little piece of the puzzle fell into place for me today.

I have been saying for the last month or two, the "Stimulus Check"  would have been spent on more ammo. If asked by media or in a survey, that would be my answer.

Think of "Buy Back" in reverse. Think of the positive press it could make. Think of how folks can pull together on this one.

1) Publicize the "Stimulus for Freedom" with an Anti-Buyback.

2) Encourage Ammo and Firearm dealers to offer their own additional "Stimulus", such as a discount for anyone presenting the check in payment (or if by e-mail credit card order if invoking "Stimulus Day" event).

How might you use your returned hard-earned cash?

• Sign up for a shooting instruction course.
• Sign up for Women On Target or Refuse to Be A Victim
• Join the local gun club and get a membership for a friend.
• Join or contribut to the NRA, GOA, JPFO, VCDL, MSI, or Second Amendment Sisters.
• Sign up for a firearms instructor or range safety officer course.
• Buy AMMO and then take friends shooting, especially if you can invite an an anti-gun friend for a positive first-experience on a firing range.
• Volunteer at the Camp Perry matches, and use the money to pay your transportation.
• Contribute to the election or re-election campaign of a gun-friendly legislator
  

Do you have additional ideas along these lines? Please comment.

Dear Ms. Dorsey:

I am in receipt of your postcard that says there are some communications from Johns Hopkins that I am not receiving.

I have had several discussions with representatives of the Office of Annual Giving, which heretofore have been of the most amiable nature. Please consider this my final, and non-negotiable answer to that postcard. There are but two chances of my giving money to JHU: (1.) Slim  (2.) None The institution collects upwards of 3/4 billion per year in Federal tax money.  I consider my involuntary contribution, as gobbled into the gaping maw of the IRS and excreted through the cloaca of Congress to be more than sufficient. Moreover, JHU openly and willingly accepts hundreds of millions of dollars in donations from the Soros clan, and Michael Bloomberg, among the wealthiest of the USA's ultra-wealthy parlor socialists, and enemies of Consitutional freedom.  I will not voluntarily have my hard-earned dollars commingled with those of such execrable people. Out of concern for your student volunteers, I suggest that you be certain any and all of them refrain from telephoning me, now or in the foreseeable future. I assure you that any such telephone calls will be met with the most vile insults I am capable of dredging up, and we wouldn't want to hurt the little darlings'  feelings, now would we? Wishing you absolutely everything you deserve, I remain,  

 

Stan M------- 

Baltimore tax lien sale could lead to foreclosures

Advocates say a plan by Baltimore officials to sell liens for back taxes and overdue utility bills to private investors could lead to more home foreclosures. City officials plan to auction up to $70 million in liens next month to private investors, who would collect the debts as well as fees and interest, or foreclose. More than 20,000 property owners have liens on their properties. The liens are mostly for delinquent property taxes but also include water and sewer bills and charges for sidewalk and alley repair, as well as fines for trash violations. Louise Carwell, an attorney for the Legal Aid Bureau, says she would like to see the city keep water bills and fees for alley paving out of the auction.

From under what rock did this news reporter just crawl out into the daylight?

Of course selling the liens could lead to foreclosure. How else would anyone--whether it's the city or a private investor--stand a chance of collecting on the debts, other than by the threat of foreclosure?

Consider the alternatives: forgive the debts, or carry them on the city's books forever. Shoot, if the county and state didn't have that foreclosure sword hanging over you, would YOU pay YOUR property taxes and water bills? I didn't think so. Me, either.

When Verizon's Yellow Pages book arrived last month, I noticed that in addition to an unprecedented number of lawyer ads on both outside covers and the spine of the book, the publishers even sold an ad that was printed on the bottom page edges of the book. The latter ad touts an outfit that offers several competitive quotes on mortgages, and in itself appears a bit dubious.

This morning I was searching the directory for a photo-restoration service, and as it happens the listings related to photography alphabetically abut those for physicians. Then it struck me that the physician listings started with a display ad from a medical malpractice lawyer! Perusing the two dozen pages of physician listings, I noted at least six more malpractice attorney ads, representing two different law firms. There were a few other unrelated display ads in this section, including a plumbing repair company and the mortgage broker mentioned above. Far from being the "classified ad" directory it used to be, this particular Yellow Pages book seems to encourage businesses to advertise in any section where they might inadvertantly drum up a prospect. For an extra placement fee, no doubt.

But to test how fairly this works in practice, I turned to the real estate section of the book. Among the many, many pages of brokers, sell-it-yourself systems and we'll-buy-your-house offerings, there was not a single lawyer ad, nor was there an ad for the mortgage broker whose adverts pepper the rest of the book. 

Now, while you may on rare occasions need a lawyer to sort out a medical problem, you can't conduct a real estate transaction without coming into contact with at least one. (By my recent experiences you need a lawyer and a translator to work your way through a medical insurance matter, but that's another story altogether.)

This business of placing malpractice-lawyer ads among those paid for by physicians is a shabby practice that panders to people's base impulse to seek The Big Payday when some unexpected medical outcome occurs. There's an element of chance in medicine; which is to say that no procedure carries a 100 per cent probability of success. But the pervasiveness of malpractice litigation has created a health-care industry in which medicine is practiced defensively. Providers pile lab test upon lab test, to buttress themselves against the possibility of a malpractice suit. Other providers eschew riskier treatments, fobbing them off on specialists, who charge extra to offset the increased risk. And everyone in the medical profession is hobbled by paperwork, aimed either at getting paid or covering his ass legally.

The notion of lawyer advertising has long been out of hand, but this latest ad-selling policy from Verizon is over the top.

But Berry may just find herself an unwitting hero, in the same sense that Rosa Parks did the day she had her fill of being sent to the back of the bus.

Ironically, it was the Monday after the attack on Berry that Mayor Dixon and her yes-man, Police Commissioner Bealfeld, held a press conference to boast about the reduction in the murder rate for the first quarter of the year. Only 50 people were murdered, a reduction of "thirty percent" over the first quarter of last year. But that reduction amounts to only 21 fewer murders, a number that Baltimore's thug element has demonstrated that it can rack up on its scoreboard in no more than a weekend or two.

A change in the number of murders over as short a period as three months is too statistically insignificant to be a bragging point. Moreover, if the mayor wants to credit Bealfeld's tough new policies and new efficiencies in Prosecutor Jessamy's office, she had better be prepared to demonstrate a direct correlation between the policy changes and the number of murders.

Outrageously, this announcement came scarcely twelve days after the death of Zach Sowers, who had been in a coma since a beating he took last summer. In its zeal to close the case, the city cut deals with the four perpetrators that closed out the case in November, and precluded the possibility that any of them will be tried for the murder of Sowers. They will likely be out of jail before they are 30, and it's a sucker bet to say none of them will commit more violent crimes.

That's where the attack on Berry becomes important. Dixon will have to face the fact that irrespective of the number of people who actually died, the number of violent crimes has not been reduced. Nor, I suspect, has Jessamy's dismal record of obtaining convictions. Dixon can stamp her foot all day and utter platitudes such as "This might sound harsh, but I believe we have to come up with some very stern discipline action. Young people now feel, some feel, that it's acceptable, and it's not acceptable." But she cannot escape the statistics, provided ALL the statistics are revealed. And in the aftermath of Berry's attack, it will probably turn out that violent crime is being grossly under-reported. The president of the city teachers' union has said that administrators (read: principals and superintendents) routinely avoid reporting student assaults on teachers, out of a fear that more city schools will be declared "persistently dangerous" under the federal No Child Left Behind law. We can only hope that the union president has kept careful records of her own, and will reveal them.

The city will sooner or later have to face the fact that its main source of violence is black children of school age. Unlike the beat-down of Sarah Kreager, nobody will have the luxury of claiming that Berry used a racial slur against her attacker. Because Ms. Berry herself is black, and by all appearances is not one of that stiff-necked sort that black thugs like to characterize as "Oreos," traitors to the race.

Bealfeld told the press conference that citizens should play a greater role in reporting crimes. Perhaps now he will amend that statement to include school administrators. Notably, neither he nor Dixon have made any measurable progress against the witness intimidation and jury nullification that plague the city; that might be a motivator. 

The Baltimore Sun provides a useful database for tracking murders in the city. You can see a map showing the locations where murder victims have been found, and can filter the victim population by age, gender, race, and cause of death, going back as far as January 1, 2007. One thing you quickly discover is that among the hundreds murdered last year, only thirteen were white. That's provided you don't count Sowers, who was murdered last year but didn't die until this year; or the two white would-be witnesses who were tracked into the county and killed. 

The conclusion is inescapable that it's far more dangerous to be a black person in Baltimore City than to be a white, Asian or Latino, and few, if any, black Baltimoreans have recently been murdered by people of another race. Unfortunately, none of the local rabble-rousers (such as "Doc" Cheatham, Larnell Custis Butler, Dwight Pettit and his cohort of black defense lawyers,  or the myriad "reverends" around the city, not to mention those fierce-looking Nation of Islam guys selling bean pies on the street corners) have enough spine to point this out. They are too busy trying to blame some outside influence, primarily white people.

• The Dr. Spock philosophy. Parents are forbidden any kind of physical discipline beyond sending the kid to his "naughty spot." The argument is that spanking a child is violent. And the result of that has been that the children themselves have grown exponentially more violent.
• This is probably the third generation of children raised in day care. At home, a child is under constant supervision of Mom, and has contact with other children only as she permits it. In day care, there are fewer adults than children, and thus no close supervision. The children learn from each other rather than from the adults, and apparently what they learn is the baser part of human instinct. Certainly nothing polite, noble or altruistic. I don't think many of us are born with those characteristics. 
• Black people seem to lack the will to take the next step beyond complaining these days. Most of the murders in the city are black people killing other black people. But when someone like Bill Cosby shows up and reminds people that they have only themselves to blame, for not having disciplined their offspring, he is viewed as having sold out his race. Yes, the audience will nod and applaud in agreement. Then they will go back home to the status quo.

“’There is (a) class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. … There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.’"

In 2002, near the end of his five years as president of the NRA, Heston disclosed he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease.

The disclosure was soon followed by an unflattering appearance in Moore's 2003 best documentary winner "Bowling for Columbine," which took America to task for its gun laws.

Moore used a clip of Heston holding aloft a rifle at an NRA rally and proclaiming "from my cold, dead hands." The director flustered the actor in an interview later in the film by pressing him on his gun-control stance. Heston eventually walked out on Moore.

Moore's Web site, http://www.michaelmoore.com, on Sunday featured a photo of Heston, the date of his birth and death and a note from the actor's family requesting that donations be made to the Motion Picture and Television Fund in lieu of flowers.

There was no other reaction on the site from Moore about Heston's death.

Saturday's news of Heston's death was accompanied by some footage of an interview he gave--I forget to whom--in which he was asked whether he had any fear over the Alzheimer's diagnosis. The gist of his reaction was no, it's just another part of this big adventure called life.

It struck me as I watched that bit of footage, with the actor in his late seventies, that if ever there were an actor suited to portray Ronald Reagan during his Presidential years, it would have been Chuck Heston.

Among this morning's email was a transcript of a speech that Heston gave at Harvard Law School a few years ago, before his illness. The speech contained a few bon mots that bear repeating here:

I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you . . . the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is. ...

As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue.

No, it's much, much bigger than that.

I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated.

For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 - long before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.

I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.

I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.

Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country.

But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.

From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind like that? You are using language not authorized for public consumption!"

But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys - subjects bound to the British crown.

In his book, The End of Sanity, Martin Gross writes that "blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction.

Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name is undermining the country, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it." ...

If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist.

If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you sexist.

If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion.

If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.

Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism.

But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation? The answer's been here all along.

I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.

You simply ... disobey.

Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely.

But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom. ...

In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous laws that weaken personal freedom.

But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies.

You must be willing to be humiliated ... to endure the modern-day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water cannons at Selma.

You must be willing to experience discomfort. ...

So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobediences of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country.

Powerful words. Words that I suspect will be omitted from the eulogizing that all the neocons will indulge themselves in, thinking they know something of this man.

Having sent written testimony in favor of the school's plan, I received a copy of the summary of the hearing and the decision. I'm almost sorry I blew off attending the hearing, because it must have been a real circus. For one thing, the changes proposed at the school property are nowhere near as radical as they have been represented to be. And for another, the opposing neighbors appear, collectively, to be dumber than a box of hammers.

THE OPPOSITION AND ITS CASE

Graystone Community Association - an association without a community

Among the objectors were people claiming to represent two community associations, each of them suspicious in its own unique way. The Graystone Community Association claims to represent more than 100 households in the immediate neighborhood. Neglecting the minor detail that there is no such community as "Graystone," a few soreheads in this neighborhood whose plat is officially recorded as "Broadacres" incorporated early last December. During the time interval conveniently created for them by the undue and potentially unethical influence of two local politicians. The Association's web site describes the neighborhood thus:

Where is this development and when was it built?
Graystone is located in Woodlawn and built about the 19xxs. Homes in this area include a mix of mid-size single family homes and attractive townhomes.

Aside from the fact that there's not a "townhome" within half a mile of the residence of the association President, the members were too stupid or too lazy to know when their own houses were built. A thirty-second check on the Web revealed that the association president's house was erected in 1956, along with much of the surrounding neighborhood.

The Woodlawn Community Education & Development Association

What exactly does this group do? 

The other organization objecting calls itself the Woodlawn Community Education and Development Association, Inc. This outfit, a federal non-profit, was established in 2002, with the wife of a local Baptist preacher at its head. According to its corporate charter, this outfit was established for the following purpose:

"Establish a community based entity, formed to maintain a strong alliance between schools, police departments and our community. In addition, to strive to assure an active participative relationship with politicians through a focused, productive, educational and developmental agenda."

Now, having benefited from a privileged education at a public high school in a blue-collar neighborhood across town, it would be unfair of me to criticize the bad syntax of this statement of objectives, or to point out that it is a meaningless abstraction, so I will move on to other things. The officers of this corporation are listed as "V. Ross, D. Griffin, I. Zachary, C. Hayes, A. Truitt, M. Bowden and G. Jones," which makes them all but impossible to identify.

At the hearing, the preacher (husband of the Association president) spoke on their behalf. He "described his association as an umbrella organization representing a number of community groups on behalf of approximately 1,800 households."  That number represents approximately ten percent of the total number of households in the entire community known as "Woodlawn," and one would think that with such high participation and lofty goals, you'd be constantly hearing of the good works done under the auspices of the Association.

(Here again, let's ignore my personal experience: I've lived in the area this association purports to represent for 32 years, and have not heretofore heard of it. This, in spite of the fact that I was a regular contributor for several years to a community newspaper here, and spent more than six years canvassing the area as a real estate salesman.) As far as I can see, the Association has no presence on the Worldwide Web, in an era when Joe Sixpack might have two or three websites of his own.

There is a scant record of the Association's works. The county school board minutes from June 2006 note:

Dr. Manuel Rodriguez, Assistant Superintendent, Southwest Area, recommended that Woodlawn High School auditorium be renamed to the "Woodlawn Community Education and Development Association (WCEDA), Inc. Community Auditorium." ...

Ms. Shillman asked whether the funds for the auditorium had been donated by WCEDA, Inc. Dr. Rodriguez responded this group has applied for, and received a federal grant to renovate the auditorium.

Sure enough, Congressman Elijah Cummings managed to wangle a $65,000 federal grant for auditorium renovations. Exactly what role Rev. Ross' organization played in the process is not clear. But the Cummings "earmark" occurred in fiscal year 2004 [that's the year ending July 1, 2004], and according to a cached web page from the Association of School Business Officials of Maryland and the District of Columbia, a request for bids on the work was let only this year. That bid, number JMI-632-08 remains in limbo, the due date having passed on March 31st.  

Later that same year (October, 2006) the Reverend Ross testified as an "expert" on the idea of a light rail line connecting Woodlawn and Dundalk, tentatively named the Red Line. As the Daily Record reported [emphasis added],

The expansion of light rail and bus services on state government's Red Line was addressed by Daniel Pontious, regional policy director of the Baltimore City-based Citizens Planning and Housing Association, and Rev. Ezio Ross, a Baltimore County clergyman who heads the Woodlawn Community Education and Development Association.

One of the major points made by both men is that transit projects need to be better coordinated with economic development. Both said they saw transit as a way to boost commerce by creating "town centers" and "urban villages."

"It can bring developers into an area by creating amenities," Ross said, following a 15-minute review of transit projects in cities such as Boston, Denver and Los Angeles.

Transit establishes routes, something vital to fostering trade, they noted.

"A sense of permanence is important to economic development," Pontious said.

The Red Line is expected to create a transit corridor starting in Woodlawn and running through Baltimore City and out to Dundalk on the eastern side of Baltimore County, the presenters said, although the state Department of Transportation Web site labels it a 10.5- mile project that will only go as far as Fells Point/Patterson Park. The portion to be addressed within the next few months by state and local leaders is a section that will run from Woodlawn to Canton, Pontious and Ross said.

The article went on to say that even this truncated route would cost  between $525 million (for a surface rail line) and $2.6 BILLION for an underground line. And apparently nobody bothered to address the little complication posed by the fact that the route would probably not be allowed to run through the Leakin Park, owing to the same deed restriction that prevented I-70 from continuing eastward several decades ago, and resulted in the Interstate Highway to Nowhere, connecting Schroeder Street with Greene Street, a mere 45/100 of a mile distant, and through some of the most downtrodden housing in the city.

CONCLUSION: I still have no idea what the WCE&DA has been doing for the past five years, or what qualifies Rev. Ross as an expert on "development," since he is by profession (and presumably by education) a theologian.

The School's Proposal, and the arguments against it

The main part of the proposal was to create a dormitory to house 20 to 30 young male students. It was revealed only at the hearing that they'd be housed in the existing buildings, nearly all the changes would be invisible from the outside. A couple of neighbors made a great fuss over whether cars had been parked on the grass on this property. Bear in mind, it's slightly over an acre of land, and on a knoll overlooking the surrounding area, so while you can see whether or not there are cars parked, you can't tell where they are parked without trespassing on to the place.

Other neighbors contended they were worried that the tavern across the street and downhill from the school property would be a horrible temptation. Apparently this sub-group is so ignorant of Islam that they don't realize that alcohol consumption is strictly verboten to Muslims. And the bar is such a redneck joint that I can't imagine anyone looking remotely like a Middle Easterner, or even an American Jew, walking into the place and surviving. Not to mention that the students will all be between the ages of 12 and 20 years old. The protestors did note that police had to be called to break up brawls at the bar 21 times in the last six months of last year.

Still more protests focused on the miserable academic record and perpetual violence at the public high school about half a mile away. Nobody mentioned that there's a lot of parking-on-the-grass whenever the high school has a football game, and apparently nobody brought up the fact that this school is at the very bottom of the academic ranking in the county, despite the county's having dumped $13 million into it to graft a "pre-engineering magnet school" on to this otherwise ghettoized school, in the hope that the magnet school students would pull up the average numbers for the entire school. Which they didn't.

It was also revealed at the hearing that, in addition to the $628,500 the school's owners paid for the property being discussed, the man who will be its headmaster spent $380,000 on a new house built just across the street. Without enrolling a single student, this father-and-son team has invested more than a million dollars in a neighborhood where the average sale prices were below $150,000 before they nearly doubled during the short-lived boom experienced here in 2006.

The objectors weren't done yet, though. Besides the high school and the redneck bar, they noted that a commercial building across the street from the school houses a day school for what were described as "75 disruptive children." Now seeing that this bunch started out their opposition with the allegation that Darul Uloom would be yet another unwanted "group home" for the developmentally disabled, and that they subsequently brought up this day school, someone should have asked how many of them favored euthanizing problem children, since neither of these quite opposite alternatives satisfy them.

Yet somewhere along the line, they missed complaining about the "Adult Day Care" center for the elderly in another commercial property on the same intersection. Can you imagine the detrimental influence on young Muslim boys of seeing some Alzheimer's-addled geezer wheeling himself down the street, having escaped from day care? It boggles the mind.

For the county's part, they have managed to wipe away any public reference to the fact that the original hearing for Darul Uloom was pulled off the docket last October, due to the arguably unethical intervention of a state senator and a county councilman who is now under investigation for misusing his campaign fund as a personal bank account.

The Decision

Finally, on March 28, the Commissioner made his decision. The school will be allowed to operate, but with a few caveats:

• The size of the student population is limited to 20
• A privacy fence must be erected between the school property and the property to its immediate north, a place that has long been used for the storage of heavy contractor's equipment.
• The school will need to provide landscaping to screen its property from the three houses across the street to its east, one of which is owned by the headmaster!
• Parking will be permitted only in the designated (paved) spaces shown on the site plan. [How the county intends to enforce this without aerial surveillance, illegal search or surveillance, or further trespassing by disaffected neighbors remains to be explained.]
• The driveway into the place will need to be widened from 10 feet to 20 feet.
• [This is the one that makes me laugh] Petitioner shall use similar architecture and building material where applicable to assure compatibility with the surrounding neighborhood.*

* I will need to post some photos to illustrate the absurdity of this requirement. The Bauhof House, which is the site of Darul Uloom, was built as the home of the local baker, back in the twenties, and has a style of its own. The rest of the neighborhood is a mash-up of stuff, much of which Malvina Reynolds described as "little boxes made of ticky-tacky." There are a handful of the original farm houses predating the residential development of the area, ordinary little Cape Cods, a handful of stuccoed split levels, two faux-Spanish-mission houses, the general run of stuff built before World War II, and a couple of freshly-built split foyer disasters.

Then there's the real killer-diller: "Petitioner shall not utilize the property to perform religious services for the general public." Aside from the fact that this requirement appears to violate the First Amendment to the US Constitution, there again arise several questions: (a) How does one define "general public?" I don't believe you will find the "general public" at any religious service; only members of that particular religious denomination and prospective members. (b) Who is going to enforce this, and how? Does the county plan to station someone at Darul Uloom's entrance to "card" people going in and out of the place.

I maintain, and challenge anyone to convince me otherwise, that this matter would never have seen the light of day had the proposal been for a Pentecostal Christian church, like so many of the jump-up congregations operating in storefronts, converted warehouse space, and rented hotel conference rooms around this neighborhood.

This entire matter is shameful and un-American, but alas, it's business as usual in Baltimore County, where we have The Best Government Money Can Buy.

Dear Jordan family:

I recently read an article about Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and am disappointed that you take such a flippant attitude towards mental illness. Were you simply renovating a historic building and providing educational tours for the public, i would understand your business plan and agree that we cannot gloss over history. However, your “psycho path” program, although punny, is incredibly disrespectful and undermines efforts by those who work to eliminate the stigma associated with mental illness. As a person who has to care for a mentally ill mother, I find this quite distasteful and harmful to the public. Terms like “psycho”, “crazy”, “nuts” are devastating to a person who is fighting to simply get through the day in addition to their families and advocates working on behalf of those who are suffering. Further, by creating a novelty environment where mental illness is perceived as “frightening” (your Halloween and New Year’s Eve program) is appalling. In the AP article I read, Rebecca Jordan likened this facility to the Holocaust museum. I live in Washington, DC and recently visited the museum - the mood is somber and reverent - with the utmost respect paid to the victims of the Nazi regime– it’s an audacious analogy and I suggest the Ms. Jordan avoid making it again. Ms. Jordan’s claim that you aren’t creating a “freakshow” is a disingenuous one; it is apparent that you are more concerned with your bottom-line and attracting rubberneckers than educating the public on a very pertinent issue that touches many families.

The level of disrespect you have for those who were interned in the TALA is unacceptable and I sincerely hope that you reconsider your strategy in attracting visitors and take advantage of a potentially powerful educational tool.

Another one bleated thus:

People who like to abuse and degrade people(or to make money using any questionable method they please) ALWAYS use the bogus BS excuse of free speech; just like the boors here in favor of this renaming. That was never what free speech was supposed to be about.

It’s laughable to see some of you, and the owner, try to pretend that it’s to preserve a dark period of history so we can learn from it. She’s doing it because she’s a greedy lowlife using the cheapest tactics she can think of to generate buzz from people of your type. She’s pretty much akin to Jerry Springer and you people are the audience. It doesn’t matter that it’s her private property either. It’s open to the public; that makes a difference. We aren’t talking about a private residence here.

The more people I come across the more I believe free speech should have limits because it’s being misused and used as an excuse by all the wrong people. If you can’t use it responsibly with common sense you shouldn’t get to use it at all.

All this horror reminded just how accurate Lenny Bruce was when he observed that "... it's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness."

In the interest of avoiding my own controversy, I won't quote Bruce's night club routine directly on this page. Wikipedia's entry on Lenny Bruce cites it under "sourced quotes." Also, Honey Bruce talks about this bit, and there's a tiny clip of it on the YouTube clip "Swear to Tell The Truth Three." The pertinent/offending material begins around 01:40. Or if, heaven forbid, you want to read his exact words, click here, using the password "NotAPrude".

My personal conclusion: IF YOU ARE SO HYPERSENSITIVE THAT THE UTTERANCE OR WRITING OF A WORD, EVEN AN INSULTING ONE, SETS YOU INTO A TIZZY, OR A MURDEROUS RAGE, YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND YOURSELF BEING CONTROLLED BY SOMEONE WHO IS WILLING TO UTTER THAT WORD. TO EMPOWER YOURSELF, GET OVER IT !!!