Items from The Nation Dec 21, 2015

One of every seven black children has a parent in "behind bars', while one in every 57 white children do.  Jailing of blacks, while obviously impacting the male black population, is also having a huge negative impact of children, something that is not often noted.

Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, wrote Unsafe At Any Speed causing a major impact on auto safety in this country.  It is noted that his book caused the creation by LBJ of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  The standards the NHTSA created (safety regulations) "reduce(d) the rate of deaths per mile driven by nearly 80 %"...saving as many as 3.5 million lives (some experts claim).

"Laissez-faire" is really "laissez isn;t always fair" re article on Nader.  There are three ways that capitalism can be improved by government.  First, prohibit, like discrimination in hiring.  Second, mandate "floors of behaviour" like how much pollution can be tolerated.  Third, disclosure of things like nicotine and tar in cigarettes, or industrial pollution, or cribs that kill, etc.

United States history;  the period after the Civil War was marked by and increase in democracy-former slaves could vote.  That was called Reconstruction.  That was followed by a reduction is voting rights for black, a period called Redemption.  Then with the passage of the Voting Right Act in 1965 (VRA) a period called the Second Reconstruction.  Now with the Roberts Court and the gutting of the VRA we have a Second Redemption period.  What next?

Some thoughts for today Dec 13

One of our few key Arab allies in the Middle East has just now decided to let women vote.  Saudi Arabia- an oil rich dictatorship with human rights issues and possible support for Islamic terrorist-is a partner of ours in bringing democracy to that part of the world.  Doesn't seem to me like the plan is working.

In an op ed article in The Record today a writer for the Bloomberg news noted that a "erstwhile Republican campaign icon" (?) wrote a letter to a father who lost a child in a shooting rampage in California in 2014 and said that while he sympathized with the father for the loss of his child he also said "...your dead kids don't trump my Constitutional rights".  Could someone have really sent that letter?

The Navy reported today that its newest ship-USS Milwaukee-broke down at sea on the way to its home port in Mayport, FL and had to be towed home by a salvage ship.  This is the littoral combat ship (whatever that is) 

My Bio re Ben Carson.

I was just re-reading the Ben Carson bio the other day and I thought I should up-date my own.

Just in case I decide to run for president one day (of my nursing home), I thought it would be wise to start on my biography so that I could use it for a campaign book at that time.

My life started at a young age and the first memory I have is the attack on my mother when I was 8 years old.  She had tried to limit my time reading smutty magazines so I attacked her with a meat cleaver.  But it wasn't too serious, other than to drive our car with on one arm (standard shift); it was only a "flesh wound".

In high school it was during the time of the Soviet space shot of Sputnik.  Students in my school were very much enraged as this was the time of the Cold War and many kids wore t-shirts with phrases like "Kill a Commie for Mommy" on them.  Tensions were very high and at that time there was a foreign exchange student, a Union of Soviet Socialist Republican, who was under threat of physical abuse.  I took it upon myself to shelter the young lade-whose ID number was 34-22-34...wait that was another number.  Well never mind that.  At risk to myself i sheltered the young lady in the back of my family station wagon in the parking lot of the high school; the school backed on to a wooded area and was very private.  We had to hide under blankets to keep from being seen by the squads of roaming students bent on violence toward this young thing.  It was touch and go the entire time.

Nearing graduation I was in a quandary as to where to continue my education.  I was pleased to have received a full scholarship to the Electoral College, but realizing that I would only have to go to class one day every four years, it was obvious that completion of a degree would have taken a lifetime.  For that reason I decided to enroll in NorthEast Puduck University in rural Missouri.  It was just a coincidence that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republican babe was enrolled at the same school (in order to escape form those right wing nut jobs in my high school).

It was at NEPU that I encountered personal violence of the extreme nature when I was held at gunpoint by a gang of gun toting militia members in a Mexican fast food exchange.  They were determined to find the cook's helper-a Mexican-and do violence to him.  I protected him by shoving him into the meat locker.  Unfortunately, I forgot that I hid him there till the next week when he was found frozen stiff.  I tried to do the right thing but in fact I just f---ed it up.

I will continue with my bio at some later time.  Stay tuned.

Pentagon Spending

The US spent $ 150 million on "unnecessary housing(villas)" and security for an ultimately doomed Pentagon (effort) to revitalize Afghanistan's "economy" according to a "congressional  watchdog".  This reported on huffingtonpost.com 12/3/15.  Those in the housing could have stayed in the US Embassy in Kabul for a fraction of the cost.  A Pentagon "task force" on business operations spent $ 800 million between 2009 and 2014.  "Billions in US spending on Afghanistan "may have been misspent due to "poor American and Afghan management".  Why don't we spend that money to "revitalize" Detroit?.