For those Hard Times ahead...

Blogging from NY-NY - on the road

In Time Square an enterprising man was selling Obama Condoms (and you'll note the website on the sign). I approached him and told him I'd buy one if Barack's face was on the reservoir tip of the latex "glove". He thought it was a great idea -- but the models he sold did not have the chief executive's face on them.

You can get more or less anything you want at Time Square, NY, NY

Blogging from The Big Apple

Beginning tomorrow, I will be blogging on-the-road from The Big Apple. There will be intermittent rain in New York City all week and it should keep the heat down (the humidity is another matter).

A Message to Garcia

I served in the US Navy in a staff position at one point in my career with a US Marine Corps lieutenant colonel at Naval Special Warfare Group One, Coronado, California. This colonel, my peer at the time, stressed the importance of fulfilling a task completely and with excellence and his discussions of the Message to Garcia echo in my mind at times.

For those of you who read this blog who may be adrift in your lives, wondering what the world wants, this provides the answer. It wants people like LT Rowan who can carry a message to Garcia. As Hubbard (link below) put it:

"My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the boss is away as well as when he is home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aughte else but deliver it, never gets 'laid off,' nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is the one long, anxious search for just such individuals."

This is the first person account of First Lieutenant Andrew S. Rowan, 19th US Infantry, who took a message to Lieutenant-General Garcia, leader of an insurgent army at the outset of the Spanish American War who was "somewhere in Eastern Cuba". (CLICK HERE)

Elbert Hubbard commented on the Message to Garcia and his comments were memorialized in an essay of the same name. (CLICK HERE to read the essay)

Both the story written by LT Rowan and essay by Hubbard are written in the language of the day, maximum verbosity and a style out of fashion. Be warned.

What's a few $$ Trillion $$ ?

I never thought I'd see Democrats wince at spending a trillion dollars or two for shits and giggles whether or not the country was in financial trouble. CLICK HERE to read the latest on the health care mess the US Government is preparing to pull down on us (or maybe not?). The Congressional Budget Office reports that the new health care plan will cost $1.6 trillion and leave millions of Americans without health care. Based on past experience, you can take the projection from the CBO and double it for the real-life number. Am I the only one who is shocked by a potential $3+ trillion dollar price tag on universal health care at a time when we are financially unstable and the "financial recovery" is still projected at over a year away - best case?

Socialism doesn't work to spite the best wishes and desires of liberals. Think of it. If everyone who voted for Obama paid for health insurance for only one family without healthcare, the problem would be solved and they'd have the joy of having lifted up somebody. I like that solution. It's the sort of solution the socialists would never consider.

Riding the Tiger

We all choose our path through life. Some of us take the easy path, some of us find a clear and unobstructed path devoid of challenge and take a road well worn and smooth simply because it suits our nature.

I have taken a road less traveled through rocks, brambles, snakes and wolves because it pleases me to do so. My present consulting work takes me into situations where many people would not go. At times my family worries about me - with some justification. However, unless I am on the back of the tiger, I never feel quite whole.

Theocracy: Bad Idea

When I was young, people I knew thought that a theocracy - rule under God's law, was the highest possible form of government. While I didn't buy off on it, I did bide my time, look, listen and consider what I saw and what I heard.

Today I understand that there is no presently understood historical basis for this. Some claim that in "ancient times" it worked. I can't address pre-history nor can I vet any claims to such as valid.

In recorded history that can be vetted/validated and multi-sourced, there is no indication of any theocracy that wasn't despotic, cruel and repressive to the people it ruled, favoring one class (usually a priestly class) over all others. ie. All men are equal but some are more equal than others. It is clearly manifest in present-day Iran.

Once Broken - can we bring back Private Healthcare?

Nothing in history, nothing in the body of law, nothing in national precedent requires a national healthcare system that is MANDATED. Nothing indicates that the quality of health care will improve and the opposite realities exist in countries that have the sort of plan in place that the current administration wants to shove down our throats.

There will still be private physicians who will be wildly expensive - and we'll all be saving up to go there instead of dealing with the medical-mill the government will offer those who can't afford the higher tier of private care. I lived in Great Britain. I saw for myself. It was a gloomy, depressing system there and the Democrats want to pull us down.

Will the legislators go to the public/government clinics with the great unwashed in our Nation's Capital? Highly doubtful. But if they impose this health care program on us, they should be required by law to use the system they impose and ONLY the system they impose on the nation.