Jack Kemp, If only

I will join others in mourning the passing of Jack Kemp. I had the opportunity to meet him when he was Bob Dole's running mate. (Long story)

His definition of social responsibility included Civil Rights for folks who did not fall in the grumpy old white guys club.

I'm sure his attitude was shaped by how members of his Buffalo Bills football team were treated. Sports have a funny way of breaking racial barriers. At the end of the day, talent trumps racism.

He and Dole activitely fought about a ton of issues, but Kemp was not pushed out of the infamous big tent. This was a time, when the Dems were a mess and the Republicans were engaged in the 80-20 rule. If we agree 80% of the time we can work together.

Michael Steele, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Anne Coulter and Sarah Palin are the face of the Republican Party. Their tent has been reduced to a pup tent whose welcome mat clearly states: PISS OFF, to folks who don't who don't think like they do.

Personal, fiscal, and social responsibility are only for folks who have low or no income. It has to be their fault, if you can't keep a job or have sex when and with whom they think appropriate.

Dear God, can you image the headlines, if one of Obama's girls were pregnant? Obama has a prescription drug problem or was working on wife number 3?

I believe it was W who didn't see a spending bill he didn't like. He and the compliant Congress who paid for a WRONG war off the books. Shall we talk about the derivative nightmare?

Sorry folks, there just aren't that many poor black folks who did not make their mortgage payments to ruin the economy. The bankers and those who failed to mind the store should be in jail, not receiving stay bonuses.

No one was watching anything. Responsibilty. Please.

Is the Republican Party dead? In it's current incarnation, you betcha.

The citizens of our nation instinctually mistrust one party rule, so there will be the emergence of another party.

Too bad the Fab Five, didn't spend more time with Kemp, they may have learned a thing or two.

Enjoy your rest Jack, you earned it.

Kids, Prisons, Bad for us

Kids do stupid stuff, loiter, cut school, get into fights in school. In most instances, a call to a parent, an in-school suspension, COUNSELING are usually workable solutions.

Too often in urban settings, kids are shuffled off to the criminal justice system FIRST. Worse, the schools they enter on a daily basis are filled with armed guards.

How about putting that money into cleaning up the schools, providing books and guidance counselors? These kids are conditioned to being in prison. Is this anyway to learn?

Most suburbanites take these things for granted, it is a luxury in urban and RURAL schools.

Where is the money flowing in these communities? The criminal justice system.

Mental illness has a terrible stigma attached to it. If someone  is depressed or has experience some type of abuse, they are told to get over it. The collateral damage is horrendous and it spills over to multiple generations...It surfaces in acting out. Where? School.

Are the parents covering up their pain with drugs, alcohol or sexual addictions?  The kids become codependent and deal with their pain through their own drama. A vicious cycle.

Who hasn't lost a friend to suicide? Or witness a friend or family member's inability to keep a job because of untreated ADHD? They can't get treatment because they have no access to care.

Let's start with accepting mental illness as a societal problem because it is....

Where is our humanity?

Roadkill

AAh middle age. My daughter has embarked upon creating domestic bliss and motherhood. She snatched adulthood. I took my hands off of her journey. Both of us have grown by my letting go.

Your children are not  your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.....

-Kahill Gilbran

For the first time in my life, I am embracing and enjoying my now. Although in my recent past I have talked of living in the moment, I am finally trying to do it. 

I have not only returned to Yoga but I am enrolled in the Teacher training program. I enrolled more to work on me than with the goal of teaching a class. It is teaching me to pay attention to everything. To what people say, my words, attitudes, what I consume, how I spend my time and with whom.

The 2004 election & Shrub changed my life. The love of my country, forced me off the sidelines. I had to get involved. I became a progressive activist. I went through DFA training; became a local Committee person; served as a Treasurer for a Township Supervisor candidates; a wrote checks for the candidates I supported. Finally, I took on leadership role in a progressive think tank. How do I have time to work? I love it.

Along the way I have encountered some intriguing folks. Enter stage left, a candidate for the 2008 election. The party and office are irrelevant to this story. 

I usually attend political events with my dear friend. On this evening, I attended this event solo. I arrived fifteen minutes after the start time and the place was packed. It was the final main local event before the 2007 election. As soon I walked in, our eyes met. We both smiled. It was a weird instant chemistry. The crap really bad Lifetime movies are made of but it was stunning. Have I met this man before? Who is this handsome man? I have met so many people at the events, I struggled to remember. 

I chatted with several of my neighbors, fellow hell raisers and the candidates. When the host gathered us in the living room for the speakers, there was a seat on the couch next to him. He saw me leaning against the wall and offered me seat. At first I begged off, but when I saw that all the candidates would speak, I accepted the invitation. OK, I accepted because he was a hottie and I was wearing heels. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I thanked him and we introduced ourselves. He handed me a few of his palm cards. "You seem to know people, you can help me with my campaign." He confessed to watching me with intrigue throughout the evening. I was grateful for the seat because ALL of candidates spoke, along with a few party regulars.  It was amusing, because he seemed to move closer as the evening continued.

As our conversation continued after the speakers, several people came up to kiss his ring. He was a political player. If I got involved in his campaign, it would be my first state election. We switched cards and promised  to stay in touch.

I guess a week or so passed before I heard from him. We exchanged e-mails and he invited me to a local fundraiser as his guest. The governor was slated to appear, not a bad place to be.

He said, he would be late but informed his chief of staff to seek me out until he arrived. He showed up as the event was breaking up. He worked the room like a pro. Hugs, kisses and handshakes. When he completed his mission, we went to a local pub to have a snack.

We talked for hours. He is a self-made millionaire, smart funny, on the sane side of politics.

He will serve his constituents well. It would just lovely, if not for.....drum roll, please.... the wife and kids. It is the usual crap, no sex or intimacy at home. He doesn't want to leave for financial or political reasons.  So predictable, so not my drama.

I left the pub thinking that I would support his campaign but that would that....

Surprisingly, he called, wrote and even showed up on my doorstep. I give him credit for persistence. He thought it through. He was not concerned about a possible scandal. To his surprise, I did not want to get involved in his fantasy driven melodrama. "If you get bored, you can always walk away with no hard feelings" he suggested. I wonder if he actually listened to words flowing from his mouth. It never occurred to him that I didn't want a scandal. My now, was meaningless to him. Helloooo, there is a person here. He was setting up a scandal before he was elected. Dumbass

Any time you get naked with another human, a piece of your soul is left between the sheets. 

I recommended that he find his way back to his wife. Maybe there is a reason, she doesn't want to sleep with him. 

Or, find someone else to cast in his Lifetime fantasy. 

In these manufactured relationships, the woman playing the supporting role is usually the roadkill left under the tires of the late model BMW. I am so not interested.

Worst Parents in the World

I read Tim McGrath's article with horror and delight. He was dead on in describing what good intentioned parents are doing with their children. Society has changed a little since we were kids. I could identify with section when he spoke of the neighborhood kids getting together to play ball. We kids organized the teams, gathered "equipment" and set agreed upon rules.

The only time a parent's voice was heard was when you were called to dinner or to complete chores.

Most of us were involved in some sort of organized activity, church or school choir, community or school team. But our parents did not schedule every waking moment of our time. Its funny, when I run into friends from the neighborhood, the self-organized activiites are the items of pleasant discussions.

I started to see the trend of over scheduled kids when my daughter was growing up. Mind you she was pretty busy but she had down time. She chose her all of her activities. The only rule was that she had to complete the season.

Her senior year I attended a ton of banquets from her soccer to the band. It was like working a second shift. These events were unbelievably long. Why? Each kid received a certificate on stage.

In the dark ages when I was growing up, only the gifted or star kids were given special recognition. Everyone else on the team stood up when their name was announced. The certificated were dispersed the next day.

Too me, that was sane. By dragging all those kids on stage it makes everyone feel special. (Disclaimer, my daughter was good in the band, choir, track, TV station etc. She was exceptional in soccer but she chose to cheer. So she fell in the certificate group.)

EVERYBODY IS NOT SPECIAL ALL THE TIME. You respected those around you. You sad quitely in church, assemblies, in restaurants, stores and theaters.

A second installment of McGrath's story should involve the grown kids. Employers are stuck with the end product. It took me two years to break my staff of their tattling habit or making my office the local dump.

Given the opportunity, the average person can work through any situation. I will be retired by the time this latest generation of brats hits the work place.

False Fantasy

"A lot of people more thoughtful than Oscar Goodman believe that prostitution should be legalized as a way of protecting and empowering the women who go into the sex trade. I’ve lost patience with those arguments, however well meaning. Real-world prostitution, in whatever guise, bears no resemblance at all to the empowerment fantasies of prostitution proponents. I have never seen such vulnerable, powerless women as those in the sex trade, legal or illegal."

Tag Banned

In sane environments, recess is the forum of self governance. Kids pick teams, clubs without adult intervention. Kids know who can run fast, who can hit the ball, who can sing and who can't. Is it a popularity contest at times? Ah, yes.

There are times when a child is not picked. OH WELL. The greatest advice my Dad gave my daughter, who very upset about not being picked to join a recess club, was for her to form her own club. Who the hell likes to be rejected? Nobody, but that is part of life.

What is happening now is parents are reliving their childhoods through their children. The result is children do not learn how to work issues out with their peers.

Fast forward to the work place. Employees who were raised in the trophy generation, (Every kid gets a trophy for just showing up.) do not learn how to work matters out with their peers. Worse, they tattle and pout when they don't get their way.

By the time these kids from Colorado enter the workforce, I will be retired or dead and I will not have to deal with them.

Labor Day is Important

“I just don’t think that as a country we’ve conceptualized that this is not our father’s or our grandfather’s economy,” Mr. Stern said in an interview. “We’re going through profound change and we have no plan.”

The feeling that seems to override all others for workers is anxiety. American families, already saddled with enormous debt, are trying to make it in an environment in which employment is becoming increasingly contingent and subject to worldwide competition. Health insurance, unaffordable for millions, is a huge problem. And guaranteed pensions are going the way of typewriter ribbons and carbon paper.

“We’re ending defined benefit pensions in front of our eyes,” said Mr. Stern. “I’d say today’s retirement plan for young workers is: ‘I’m going to work until I die.’ ”

Unless you inherit a nice trust fund, my daughter's soon to be obtained college degree will only increase her debt. We as a national are in a bad place.

When this is articulated by the liberal community, the Repugs scream that we are pessimistic. If you go to work everyday and do not fear for your job or benefits, this is not a issue.

Our true concerns should be the shaky economy not the portrait Guiliani and Bush continue to paint. One week of money currently being dumped into Iraq could be spent on affordable education and a sane health care delivery system.

We all should pay attention to Labor Day.

Size Matters, Again

"From Michael Gerson in the WaPost today:

"...Rove argues that Republicans win as activist reformers, in the tradition of Lincoln, McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. "We were founded as a reformist party," he said in our conversation this week, "not to be against something, but to help the little guy get ahead."

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it the "have mores" who got the huge tax cuts? And wasn't it the "little guy" who got enough for a Big Mac and fries?"

n/t to Neon Gods

Work it out

"Our desire to avoid letting bad actors off the hook shouldn’t prevent us from doing the right thing, both morally and in economic terms, for borrowers who were victims of the bubble.

Most of the proposals I’ve seen for dealing with the problems of subprime borrowers are of the locking-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-is-gone variety: they would curb abusive lending practices — which would have been very useful three years ago — but they wouldn’t help much now. What we need at this point is a policy to deal with the consequences of the housing bust.

Consider a borrower who can’t meet his or her mortgage payments and is facing foreclosure. In the past, as Gretchen Morgenson recently pointed out in The Times, the bank that made the loan would often have been willing to offer a workout, modifying the loan’s terms to make it affordable, because what the borrower was able to pay would be worth more to the bank than its incurring the costs of foreclosure and trying to resell the home. That would have been especially likely in the face of a depressed housing market.

Today, however, the mortgage broker who made the loan is usually, as Ms. Morgenson says, “the first link in a financial merry-go-round.” The mortgage was bundled with others and sold to investment banks, who in turn sliced and diced the claims to produce artificial assets that Moody’s or Standard & Poor’s were willing to classify as AAA. And the result is that there’s nobody to deal with.

This looks to me like a clear case for government intervention: there’s a serious market failure, and fixing that failure could greatly help thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of Americans. The federal government shouldn’t be providing bailouts, but it should be helping to arrange workouts.

And we’ve done this sort of thing before — for third-world countries, not for U.S. citizens. The Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s was brought to an end by so-called Brady deals, in which creditors were corralled into reducing the countries’ debt burdens to manageable levels. Both the debtors, who escaped the shadow of default, and the creditors, who got most of their money, benefited.

The mechanics of a domestic version would need a lot of work, from lawyers as well as financial experts. My guess is that it would involve federal agencies buying mortgages — not the securities conjured up from these mortgages, but the original loans — at a steep discount, then renegotiating the terms. But I’m happy to listen to better ideas.

The point, however, is that doing nothing isn’t the only alternative to letting the parties who got us into this mess off the hook. Say no to bailouts — but let’s help borrowers work things out."

Three More lost to the Mine

Having spent 25 years in the Risk Management business, I am not surprised by the disaster unfolding in Utah. The FIRST line item rarely to survive the pursuit of profits is safety.

The smart companies do not have to be talked into basic safety management. I listened in horror as the Ariana Huffington said in her interview on Countdown that there was not return on a companies investment for safety. She in no way was justifying this typical corporate behavior. However, she was wrong.

When an catastrophic claim occurs resulting in death or worse when the survive, companies will spend far more on these claims and increased premiums, state assessments, than the cost of implementing a basic safety program.

Our year began with a seasoned lineman who did not perform "lockout, tag out" procedure. This procedure is named after the policy and procedure. The worker is to shut off the electricity and "lock and tag" the source.

His chose not to perform this task which would have slowed him down by oh ten minutes. He is burned over sixty percent of his body.

To date we have burned through two million dollars. Unlike some employers, this client takes safety seriously.

"Safety first and last" is their mantra. Two years ago, they implemented a zero tolerance for failure to where the personal protection equipment and follow procedures. Furthermore, they empowered the safety directors to enforce the procedures.

In two years, they have seen a 25% reduction in claims. Even with the occasional catastrophic claim, 25% reduction has had an impact on their bottom line.

I have another client who had such a unsafe work environment, they could not afford purchase workers compensation insurance or satisfy the financial and SAFETY standard of self funding. The business had to close that plant putting 300 people out of work.

The data supports the fact Robert Murrary mine owner ignored the rules. He took advantage of this White House's failure to fund inspecting agencies. Or give them the authority to put this guy out of business. Murry has failed miserably to self regulate his business.

The money he used to donate to the Republican party could have been used to make a work environment, risky by its nature, safer for the people who have made him very wealthy.

The families will receive some form of indemnity benefits. Will it be enough to replace the person lost in the mine? I will leave that answer to the families.

Robert Murray should land in jail because of his REFUSAL to the best he could for his employees and community.

Buy American

When I was growing up, "buy American" was the mantra. Now that the lack of basic controls are rising to the surface on the cheap Chinese imports, Americans are looking for the American made label.

Who knows, maybe this will be the return of manufacturing jobs. If employers do the right thing and provide a living wage, create a safe workplace, there will be harmony. Everybody wins.

Bad toys

Wouldn't you rather buy less more expensive toys that wouldn't poison your kid? I was one of those parents whose kid's room looked like a toy store outlet. Most of the time she played with a $3 bunny she named Amy.

When products are manufactured overseas by countries that don't have the minimum safety requirements in place this in the end result.

How about we have China outsource those jobs to us?

Too Many

We are losing a war at home that far too many are aware that we are waging. The media needs to spend less time on the blonde Hollywood brats and more time on these societal ills.

But that is not as sexy.

Buy Coleman

Let's see, private equity companies are taking a breather from buying successful companies, sucking the life out them by doing the EBITA dance, shutting down divisions then selling the companies and record profits.

The collateral damage are the employees would made the company profitable in the first place. Either they are laid off and the survivors will be rewarded with more work and a 2% raise.

Here's an investment tip, buy stock in Coleman, because the folks who can't keep up with the AMR's will be living in a tent city near you.

"Those people" may look surprisingly like your college educated neighbors.

Lack of Hope=Urban Genocide

n Camden, N.J., on a Sunday morning in June, a 24-year-old nurse’s aide was killed in a burst of gunfire as she stood talking with a friend on a street corner. She was one of four young people killed in a four-day eruption of violence in Camden.

A teenager who lives in the city tried to explain to me what it was like to have a number of friends or relatives murdered: “You don’t exactly get used to it,” he said, “but you expect it.”

"Philadelphia, across the Delaware River from Camden, is struggling with an even worse problem. As if signaling the start of an accelerated killing season, six people were murdered on the first day of summer. Philly’s homicide rate is on pace to break last year’s tally of 406.

As Senator Barack Obama said during a visit to a Chicago church last month, “From South-Central L.A., to Newark, New Jersey, there’s an epidemic of violence that is sickening the soul of this nation.”

More attention to this crisis of violence is needed, and more police resources, and more jobs, and better schools, and improved prison re-entry programs, and tighter gun controls. But more than anything else, a cultural change is needed.

The communities hardest hit are those in which too many parents have failed their children. The most effective anti-crime effort begins at home with parents (fathers, are you listening?) who raise their kids to know better than to point a gun at another human being and blow that person away for no good reason.

That’s the essential component. Without it, all other crime-fighting efforts are doomed, and thousands upon thousands of poor youngsters will continue to be denied their most basic civil right — the right to grow safely to adulthood."

I AGREE WITH MR. HERBERT!

Fifteen years ago I met a smart, spirited and sort of cute attorney. We were thirty at the time. Through happentance our paths crossed. He had just left the DA's office and was working in a tiny minority firm. Another friend was looking to diversify his Irish, Jewish firm.

The transition to this all white firm was not easy for this gentlemen with the Muslim name. Part of the problem was his world view was different. As a practice he carried a gun. He didn't think twice about it. He wore it as easy as they all wore their Brooks Brothers suits. This was very unnerving for a corporate law firm.

Eventually, the experiment ended and he started his own successful criminal defense firm. On the eve of his firm's anniversary party, we had a reflective conversation. I inquired what do you think happened at the other firm?

He gave me a big smile and said, I really did not expect to make 30 so I never really planned for life once I got there.

Wow.

I grew up in a community with OLD people. Many of my most powerful life's lessons came from my GREAT Grandparents. They lived across the street from us. They worked everyday, went to church and travelled with us to all of our events. The loved baseball. Both my brothers played and they couldn't wait for the games.

They never quite understood the field hockey I played but they were always there.

It was expected that we went to college. My grandparents saw in us opportunities they could only dream of.

When I entertained "not walking" to pick up my college diploma, my Mom dimed me out to my Grandmother. After work that day, before I got out of my car, my Grandmother summoned me. My mother stood in the doorway smirking.

My grandparents informed me how important the walking across the stage was to them. I was the first person in the family to get a college diploma and it was going to be done right.

It was a very brief directive.

The day of graduation was record cold but we froze our backsides off taking pictures in front of the school signs. My father took pictures until my grandfather told my grandmother it was time to go home. He didn't say much, but when he did, Grandmom relented.

I am so glad I had family to point out positive rituals and accomplishments. They cared enough to fuss at me. The respect was instilled early and often enough that I listened. We expected to work and live in white America. We were taught survival skills with the expectation to get an education, a good job, get married have babies, get a pension, retire, THEN die. In that order....

What we are dealing with is a generation of kids who do not expect to make their next birthday. Unless this generation is taught there is the possiblity of life past 15, the issue will solve itself. They will all be dead or shuttled into the dysfunctional criminal justice system.

The hope must begin at home.

Too important to sweat the details

The basic CEO defense of “I was too important to worry about accounting details” would have become very popular if it had worked.

You got to love Gregory Reyes, CEO of Brocade Communications. My guess is he will look smashing in his prison garb.

Fear is the new kryptonite

"Yet the bill that passed the Senate on Friday and the House on Saturday attracted mostly Republican support. In all, only 41 House Democrats voted for it and its inclusion of new powers to force the cooperation of telecommunications firms and to tap into e-mail correspondence and telephone conversations without court approval; 181 House Democrats voted against it.

Democratic leaders said they did win agreement that the authority would be in effect for only six months, at which point it would be revisited, though the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, immediately called the law "unacceptable" and vowed to change it sooner. Vice President Dick Cheney urged Congress to make the law permanent.

The arguments behind the expanded wiretapping power - that failure to grant it would result in attacks here - were reminiscent of those Republicans aimed at Democrats during the 2002 congressional election, a contest that brought a Republican victory, and arguably helped Bush a year later to win Democratic votes authorizing the use of force against Iraq.

And Democratic memories are still fresh with attacks Bush used in 2004 against Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a presidential rival he portrayed as "weak on terror." That Bush would succeed this month - and on a program as controversial as the eavesdropping carried out by the National Security Agency - was somewhat surprising, given that the White House has seen its credibility on war and terrorism perceptibly erode this year.

In recounting the weekend showdown Monday, Democrats said they believed they had an agreement with McConnell on a narrow set of provisions that could address gaps in the surveillance law. But they said McConnell had pushed for broader presidential authority than they were ready to grant. "We acceded to them and said, 'If this is the bar, we'll do it,' " said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. But, he said, "then they would come back and say, 'That's not enough.' "

When Bush has no other card to play, he whips out the fear card. The Dems fall hard like Superman being exposed to kryptonite.

This is no way to run a country.

Wasted Farm Aid

"The average American family pays $320 a year in farm subsidies, through higher taxes and food prices, according to a recent study by the Heritage Foundation. And those subsidies, particularly for cotton, exacerbate poverty in Africa by depressing prices of crops raised by small African farmers.

There is a familiar trajectory when a political party takes power. At first, it brims with ideals. Then it makes compromises to stay in power. Finally, it becomes devoted simply to staying in office. Can Ms. Pelosi really have compressed this downward spiral into just six months?

President Bush had sought to place a ceiling on payments to any farmer of $200,000 per year, but the Democratic leaders have set it at $1 million ($2 million for a couple). Any time the Democrats find themselves fighting on behalf of fat cats, against a Republican White House that says enough is enough, it’s time for the donkey to kick itself in the head."

You can't make it up.

Shame of a Nation

There will be an investigation. If it is determined officials knew about the problems, then someone should go to jail. Bridges should not collapse in this country.

Too often, "those people" complain about too much government. The problem is poorly managed, incompetence and fraudulent government.

When I pay my taxes, I want my dollars to be invested is an sound infrastructure. In the meantime, my prayers go out to those families involved in this nightmare.