Day: June 13, 2016

There Are Sad Stories And Then…….

WE hear sad story after sad story almost daily…..whether it is children starving or morons with guns killing innocent people or well…….. whatever.

Then there are the ones that hit you on a more personal level……

I am an old fart so some of my guitar heroes were masters like Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton…..and this is where the sad story of mine picks up……

A tough break for Eric Clapton: The 71-year-old guitar legend says he now struggles to play at all because of nerve damage. “It started with lower back pain and turned into what they call peripheral neuropathy—which is where you feel like you have electric shocks going down your leg,” he tells Ultimate Classic Rock. It’s “hard work to play the guitar, and I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that it will not improve,” says Clapton, who recently released I Still Do, his 23rd solo album. His touring days might be finished, but Clapton says he’s lucky just to be here. “Because I’m in recovery from alcoholism and addiction to substances, I consider it a great thing to be alive at all,” he says. “By rights I should have kicked the bucket a long time ago. For some reason I was plucked from the jaws of hell and given another chance.”

How sad is that?  One of the world’s best guitarists and he cannot play …..just sucks!

Linda Ronstadt now Eric Clapton…..just sucks!

We keep losing our greats and yet Bon Jovi and Ted Nugent are still breathing….where’s the justice there?

Big Money’s Conquest of Democratic Party

The class that I was suppose to teach this week has been cancelled because of lack of interests…..it was going to be an intro to national security…..so I have all Summer to irritate the blogosphere…..

Many these days are pissed about Hillary’s closeness with the big money of Wall Street….they should not be if anything they should have expected it….why?  Bill that’s why.

In the ’80’s Bill ran as a Dem but he and his cronies of the DLC were in the pockets of the wealthy especially Wall Street and he has NEVER left their employ…..then why would anything be different with Hillary running for office?

The Clinton’s sold their political souls to the rich and the influential in an effort to beat Bush 1……and  since those days the Dem Party has been in the pockets of the controllers….

Dems eager for a win went along with the money and the influence……

As Hillary Clinton finally clinches the Democratic nomination, the big question facing Democrats is: are they now the party of big money and elite special interests or will the Sanders’ revolt live on and grow, write Bill Moyers and Michael Winship.

Return with us now to the saga of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the soul of the Democratic Party. First, a quick recap: Rep. Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, chair of the Democratic National Committee, also has been an advocate for the payday loan industry. The website Think Progress even described her as the “top Democratic ally” of “predatory payday lenders.” You know — the bottom-feeding bloodsuckers of the working poor. Yes, them.

Low-income workers living from paycheck to paycheck, especially women and minorities, are the payday lenders’ prime targets — easy pickings because they’re often desperate. Twelve million Americans reportedly borrow nearly $50 billion a year through payday loans, at rates that can soar above 300 percent, sometimes even beyond 500 percent.

Source: Big Money’s Conquest of Democratic Party – Consortiumnews

This is what the Dems wanted…..this is how you win an election….throw your scruples on the trash pile of political idealism…..and that is how we got the trashiest people as candidates…..

Now wallow in the slop you created…..

Bad Day At Black Rock

By now everyone has heard or read about the dastardly attack in Orlando’s night club…..

Sunday morning’s bloodbath at Pulse Orlando nightclub was far bloodier than police initially indicated, with the city mayor now confirming at least 50 casualties in what is now the worst mass shooting in American history, reports the AP. At least 53 people have been hospitalized. “There’s blood everywhere,” Mayor Buddy Dyer told a news conference. The gunman has been identified as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Fla., an American citizen born to Afghan parents, reports ABC News, which characterizes Mateen as “on the radar” of authorities, though not on a specific watchlist or subject of an investigation. “It appears he was organized and well-prepared,” Orlando’s police chief tells CNN, adding that Mateen had an assault weapon, handgun, and “some type of (other) device on him.” Florida Gov. Rick Scott is en route to the scene and says in a statement that “We will devote every resource available to assist with the shooting in Orlando.”

To tell you the truth I have more interested is seeing what the comments from those of slower mental processes over this bloody attack.

Let me explain…..first, this was committed by a person of “Arabic” descent and second it was an attack on a gay club….now those two factors will make for some outrageous accusations and comments…..

Already there has been one from an extreme anti-gay person……

Anti-gay Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick tweeted a Bible verse from Galatians 6:7 – “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows” early on Sunday morning as news was breaking across the nation that dozens had been killed in an overnight massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando.

Patrick has been an outspoken opponent of LGBT rights, telling Texas judges that they may refuse to marry same-sex couples, applauding the defeat of Houston’s LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance HERO, and defying President Obama’s direction to schools on transgender rights, among other things.

Texas should be proud that they elect such unfeeling SOBs….

Now I await the inevitable digs at Arabs over this attack…..keep in mind this is NOT a refugee he is an American citizen…just like the California attack of several months ago….

The MSM is speculating its ass off over this attack…..and as usual they bring forth the “profilers”….which in my opinion are nothing more than bullshit artists.

I am sure there is more to this attack than we are aware of as of today……I will keep an eye on the situation.

And while I was watching for updates….this came in……

An Indiana man armed with three assault rifles and chemicals used to make explosives was arrested in Southern California on Sunday and told police he wanted to do harm to a gay pride parade—an event that annually draws hundreds of thousands of people, authorities say. The early-morning arrest in Santa Monica of James Wesley Howell, 20, came just a few hours after at least 50 people were shot and killed in a gay nightclub in Orlando Florida, though authorities said they had found no evidence of a connection between the suspects, the AP reports. Residents called police to report suspicious behavior from Howell, who was parked facing the wrong way in a white sedan, police say. When officers arrived they apparently saw an assault rifle sitting in Howell’s passenger seat.

That prompted them to search the whole car. They found two more assault rifles, high capacity magazines and ammunition, and a five-gallon bucket with chemicals that could be used to make an explosive device, police say. Authorities would answer no further questions on Howell or his motives. The FBI has taken over the lead of the investigation from the local police. Heriberto Gomez, a lifelong resident who says he watches over the neighborhood, says he stepped outside at 3am Sunday and saw Howell’s white four-door Acura sedan in the street. Gomez says the man then ran across the street and hid in bushes and overhanging trees. It appeared the man was looking back at him. “I was looking at him for a minute, for a long minute,” Gomez says. “He didn’t want to come my way because he seen me standing right here.”

There are two things that will be certainties……one the media will have a feeding frenzy and two, somewhere this will be all Obama’s fault.

Silencing America as It Prepares for War

This election is a carbon copy of all other elections…..promises that we want to hear and then we vote and nothing ever happens….this time we are promised a wall or that the banks will be held accountable…..as usual the voter starts drooling over their candidates promises and votes the loser into office….and then we set about bitching and moaning….and then they do the same thing over again….

This time the voter is voting for more war and more death and destruction…all in the name of some ideal that is neither wanted or ideal.

Sit back and read this piece with a bit of historical perspective…there is more going on with this election than you can possibly know…..look back and see what was and what will be…..simply because you are too f*cking lazy to do the research before you vote.

Returning to the United States in an election year, I am struck by the silence. I have covered four presidential campaigns, starting with 1968; I was with Robert Kennedy when he was shot and I saw his assassin, preparing to kill him. It was a baptism in the American way, along with the salivating violence of the Chicago police at the Democratic Party’s rigged convention. The great counter revolution had begun.

The first to be assassinated that year, Martin Luther King, had dared link the suffering of African-Americans and the people of Vietnam. When Janis Joplin sang, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”, she spoke perhaps unconsciously for millions of America’s victims in faraway places.

Source: Silencing America as It Prepares for War – The Unz Review

“You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can only make a monkey out of the voters every four years!”

Have you ordered your bananas yet?

Has It Always Been So Violent?

This is the post that all have been dreading for days……one of the Professor’s historical perspectives.

In my attempts to explain or at least help people understand the Middle East I am always confronted with the same explanation…..”those people have always been a violent bunch”…..or something along those lines….

Let me begin this post with…of course there has always been violence but that can be said about any region of the planet and as always something changed somewhere for the present day to be happening…..

I was fortunate enough to study Middle East studies while in school….so I hope that this short and concise history lesson will answer your questions….if not I can provide reading material if one cares to check out my conclusions….

In the begin there were wandering peoples that came together to form the first settlements and the beginning of civilization.  A natural progression was that these cities became self-contained states on their own…..the Sumerian were never a mighty empire but rather a collection of city-states similar to early Greece.  During these time there is not much evidence of widespread violence or major warfare.

Then came the Akkadians…this became a kingdom after absorbing most of the Sumerians culture.  Again not much evidence of widespread war but the culture was expanded to modern day Lebanon most probably through trade.

Next up were the Amorites or the “Old Babylonians”…this kingdom consolidated the old Akkadian empire under the rule of a monarch with strict legal code…..think Hammurabi.  These citizens of the Futile Crescent were more interested in their area and made life good for its citizens.  Again warfare was not a major component of the kingdom.  Life thrived through trade and commerce, not war.

Coming down from Anatolia (Turkey) were the Hittites….these people brought the concept of a violent conquest to the people of Iraq and Syria…..wars helped the Hittites stretch their empire from Turkey to Iraq and Egypt and even onto Greece.  The ideas of warfare were introduced to the region and as they say everything changes.

Enter the Assyrians (1200 B.C.)–this is when warfare became a science….the Assyrians used technologically improved weapons to fight and conquer ……the had strict laws and they would take conquered people and have them migrate to another region to prevent uprisings….the Israelites were one of these people.  They conquered regions but then there was a peaceful co-existence, for the most part.  (There is so much more and I would gladly cover it if it is wanted)

Rising up next were the Chaldeans or new Babylonians…..these became an empire through conquest and they even adopted the migration of conquered people that the Assyrians had employed to keep the chance of uprisings down to a minimum.  Once the war was over then the empire settled down and life went on through trade and commerce.

Then about 540 B.C. came the Persians of or modern day Iran….The Persians belief in one god had them having to dominate the world for good….after the conquest the local people were allowed to continue to belief in the religion and customs as long as there was peace then the Persian army would not intervene.  (On a side note it was Cyrus the Great that conquered Babylon and allowed the Israelites to return to their land).

The the Greeks came with their army and Alexander gave the region its first taste of savagery….up until this time wars were fought and then followed by a peaceful co-existence but Alexander turned the region into a river of blood….from Lebanon to norther India.  He had to deal with uprising after uprising until his death in 323 B.C.

Greek commander Seleucus was given the territory of Iraq, Syria and Persia after the death of Alexander.  Not much is known about the period after until its fall in 170 B.C. to the Parthians.

The next major event for the Middle East was in 634 A.D. when the armies of Islam conquered Mesopotamia.  By 762 the Abbasid Dynasty established the city of Baghdad as the capital of the Islamic world.  By the 10th century Baghdad had become the cultural and intellectual center as well as a successful trading center.

All was safe and prosperous for about 200 years….then the murderous horde that the world called the Mongols entered into the Middle East….the grandson of Genghis Khan entered into Mesopotamia in 1250 and set about massacred the citizens, plundered the country’s riches, wrecked irrigation canals, flatten most cities and left the countryside totally barren….this effected the region terribly.

After the Mongols destruction the region suffered constant economic depression so the once noble civilization gave way to the rivalry of the tribal or clan based existence….and existence that continues to this day.

So to say the the region has always been a region of constant conflict is just wrong…..the destruction wrought by the Mongols doomed the region to the events and violence of today.

The history is more complex than the post would lead you to believe…..I just wanted to let my readers know that the region has not always been a source of conflict.