While this country professes to honor the ideals of freedom, independence, liberty, and justice, that's just lip service. We have a long history of stifling each and every one of those ideals, and anyone who doesn't believe that should simply try suing a major corporation for an injustice, or try embracing the "freedom" to live an unconventional lifestyle. This country frowns upon those things just like any other country. Gays and women are learning that lesson as we speak.
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All of the institutions that are supposedly designed to protect our freedom and justice are nothing more than facades that are actually designed to give us the ILLUSION of freedom and justice. While I don't want to throw a monkey-wrench in anyone's comfort zone, it's very important for us to wake up and be realistic about what we DON'T have, in order to work towards actually achieving what I choose to call "The American Wish List."
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According to "TakePart.com, "In 2008, eight states had no laws requiring students recite the Pledge of Allegiance at school. That number has recently dwindled to five, with Nebraska being the latest state to adopt a statewide mandate." [Read more]

Frank Costanza: Serenity now! Serenity now!

George Costanza: What is that?

Frank: The doctor gave me a relaxation cassette. When my blood pressure gets too high, the man on the tape tells me to say 'serenity now!'

George: Are you supposed to yell it?

Frank: The man on the tape wasn't specific.

The "Serenity Now!" episode remains one of my all time favorite Seinfeld episodes. When I was fiddling with my previous blog, I had at one moment tried to expand my thoughts on the joy and happiness using Frank's approach to achieve peace of mind.  But in reading the wikipedia entry on the episode,  I discovered another thread in the episode was inspired by the same David Mamet play with which I was also trying to assimilate into the previous blog: Glengarry Glen Ross.

Frank Costanza: Starting tonight we're having a little sales contest. The loser gets fired. The winner gets a Water Pik. [Read more]

“Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.”
-- Rumi

Going back over some bookmarked articles, given my latest focus, a couple of articles caught my attention.  First there was the following passage from The Guardian article on Czech photographer Josef Koudelka::

After the Prague pictures established his reputation - or at least that of an "anonymous Czech photographer" - Koudelka left the country on a three-month exit visa to photograph Gypsies, a project he'd begun in 1966. Failing to return home at the end of that period, he became stateless, a status he craved the way others yearn for money or fame. He felt at home in exile. All he needed, he insisted, was a good night's sleep, plenty of film, and time. Everything else was a seductive distraction: the less he had, the less there was to miss. "I needed to know that nothing was waiting for me anywhere," he has said. "That the place I was supposed to be was the place where I was at that moment, and that when there was nothing more to photograph there, then it was time to leave for another place." [Read more]

Although my sister lives in New Jersey, I have been blissfully unaware of the post Sandy travails besetting New Jersey Transit due to some demonstrably poor pre-storm planning (must visit more)

Leaving aside the substance of the matter, we learn this amusing if alarming detail:

When asked by the Bergen Record for a copy of their prestorm planning documents (New York City's Transit Authority has a 5 volume treatise) the responsive document, entitled "New Jersey Rail Operations Hurricane Plan” required only 3-1/2 pages.

Beyond astonishing brevity, not much can be said about the document - it was blacked out except for the title.

WTF!!?? [Read more]

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree [Read more]

I scanned a nice article at NYT forecasting how our energy needs will change over the next decade.

But it really is the progress our nation has made over the last five years that astounds me.

We are really close to seeing America as a net oil exporter!

Alternative sources of energy are cutting our dependency on coal.

Alternative sources of energy are creating jobs!

New sources of traditional fuel are creating jobs; real jobs paying good money. [Read more]

Last Friday the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institute published their final working paper by Micheal Greenstone and Adam Looney.  The research shows through charts and grafts, that we would have 2.2 more million jobs in the economy if we followed the same policies that we had during the last 5 recessions.  The authors compare this recovery rate to past down turns and recoveries.  They place the blame squarely on the reduction of public employees in order to reduce debt. Also the authors point out that we fall short of 10 million jobs right now in this economy. [Read more]

Gwen Graham, the daughter of former Florida Senator(18 years) and Governor(8 years) Bob Graham, announced last month she will run for Congress in FL House District 2 against incumbent Steve Southerland-R(Panama City.)  She graduated from Leon High School while living with her father in the Governor's mansion in 1980.  She attended University of North Carolina and got her law degree from American University.  Returned to Tallahassee to raise 3 children and practice law.  She also worked for the Leon School District.  She is new to politics but is well known in Leon County.(Even I know who she is because of her work [Read more]

Senator Cruz

Speaking of revolutions:

Ted Cruz has been accused of setting himself up for a 2016 run for the Presidency!

Ted Cruz has denied these charges.

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/ted_cruz_will_never_be_president/?source=newsletter

Like Joan Walsh postulates:

IT AINT GONNA HAPPEN!

And yes, I would welcome a Cruz candidacy.

What a wonderful opportunity to run against Joe McCarthy! [Read more]

I had a wonderful day.

Spring was more than a month late but damn I had a wonderful day.

It was 67 F for chrissakes!

Seany notified me by email that he would arrive with the troop on the weekend, like two days before the event.

I did not expect the troop until sometime in May.

We had just experienced a blizzard six days beforehand.

The roads and paths were impassable. [Read more]

Do not drink too much. Do you hear me? I don't want you passing out or going to the dark side. No going to the dark side!

                             -- Jack Cole, Sideways (2004)

In the film Sideways, Paul Giamatti plays Miles Raymond, a forty-something unsuccessful writer, wine-aficionado, and  depressed middle school English teacher living in San Diego, who takes his soon-to-be-married actor friend and college roommate, Jack Cole (Thomas Haden Church), on a road trip through Santa Ynez Valley wine country. Miles wants to relax and live well. However, Jack wants one last sexual fling; at least that is their expressed agendas for the trip. [Read more]

In the 1993 film Falling Down, Michael Douglas plays a divorcé and unemployed former defense engineer, William Foster, who goes on a violent rampage across L.A. while trying to reach his daughter’s birthday party at the house of his estranged wife.  Roger Ebert writes of this character:

What is fascinating about the Douglas character, as written and played, is the core of sadness in his soul. Yes, by the time we meet him, he has gone over the edge. But there is no exhilaration in his rampage, no release. He seems weary and confused, and in his actions he unconsciously follows scripts that he may have learned from the movies, or on the news, where other frustrated misfits vent their rage on innocent bystanders. [Read more]