ON PET OWNERSHIP

I recently read an on-line article, “7 things you should never say to a dog owner.”  The article was published on Dogster and later published again on Yahoo!^®. Among the things you should never say to a dog owner, my two favorites were: 1) “You can come, but don’t bring the dog.” and 2) “I’d never spend that much on a dog, I’d put it down.”

Let me muse on these, please. I cannot, even in moments when my brain might be swimming in whiskey or cannabis, fathom anyone who might assume their doggie is also part of the invitation to my home.  Never!  It hurts to even wrap my grey matter around this concept.  

Second, dogs (and cats also) are pets.  I have owned dozens in my life.  I have humanized them with feelings related to the way they stand or sit or seem to sulk.  I, however, fully understood that this was me giving the dog or cat something they did not possess, a thinking and logical brain.  I was never delusional enough to think otherwise.

The television advertisement for Blue^™ Buffalo pet food to the contrary, there is no such human as a “Pet Parent.”  Pets are property, pure and simple.  Yes, you must not treat them cruelly.  But, they are not children no matter how much you allow them to cost you.  You are owner, not parent.  If you think you are the latter, psychological counseling might help.

And, speaking of how much they cost, a friend of mine is a National Market Representative for several pet products.  He told me that his trade association has data to suggest that many people who live on their Social Security check alone, when their monthly benefit arrives, go to the store and buy food and other supplies for their pet for the month.  Whatever remains of their benefit after that is for their rent, food, and healthcare.  I am sorry, folks, that is sick.  Even Alf Wight, the British veterinary surgeon who wrote “All Creatures Great and Small,” would wince in pain at that revelation.

Finally, please pet owners, quit bringing your bloody dogs to The Home Depot.  There is not one project I have ever worked on in my many home renovations that required I bring Mate, or Lady, or Blue, or Susie or any of the other dogs I have owned in my life.  Your dog is color blind, so she will be no good in the paint department.  Without opposable thumbs you can also rule out both the task of helping you measure for new doors or helping with the install of same.

Grow up, America.  If you have so much money you cannot think of anything else to spend it on there are thousands of poor children of all colors and sizes who could use support and love.  Look at the upside.   These little ones could ride to The Home Depot with you and actually help you choose the correct color paint to match your mood.

ON CONSERVATIVE IN AMERICA

ON PLAYING THE RACE CARD

ON JUSTICE

Two articles in Florida’s Tampa Bay Times caught my attention today.

The first article’s headline ran, “Sting nets 35 arrests.”  It appears the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, along with the Clearwater Police Department and numerous other local, state, and federal agencies, set up online profiles as girls and boys ages 13-15 on backpage.com, Craigslist, and AOL chat rooms.  On one end of this sting were law enforcement officers.  On the other end were 35 people who thought they were chatting with minors.  When the two sides agreed to meet, law enforcement was waiting to arrest the alleged predator at the meeting site.

Now, for those of us who think child predation is a scourge, this might seem like a righteous cause.  However, according to the news report the charges against these 35 detainees included, “seduction of a child using the Internet,” “traveling to meet a minor,” “lewd and lascivious battery,” and “sexual battery.”  Does anyone but me see the conflict here?

Does driving to meet a police officer meet any of these charges?  Does chatting online about your darkest thoughts regarding children meet any of these charges?  Was any child seduced in these conversations?  I am not a lawyer, but I cannot imagine these charges can hold up in a court of law if the Times article is accurate.

Predation needs to be stopped.  But, law enforcement needs to do a better job than this lame effort.  Surely there are other ways to catch predators?  If the police find an active case, they should be able to easily get a court order to tap into the child’s or website's computer chat room.  If law enforcement has a predator under profile, they should apply for a subpoena for that person’s computer records.  What these agencies have done with this sting is entrapment, pure and simple.  No matter the type of alleged crime, we are a better nation than this!

The second Tampa Bay Times article that caught my eye this morning was entitled, “Price of an ‘evil act’ is prison.”  In this case Federal Court Judge Richard Lazzara sentenced 29-year-old Andrew Welden to 13 years and 8 months in prison on the charges of product tampering and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. 

The act that drew these charges was giving his girlfriend one dose of a pill that causes miscarriages.  He did this without her knowledge.  His girlfriend was less than 7 weeks’ pregnant at the time.  Although arguments in court by experts suggested no one really knew whether the pill caused the miscarriage, the judge decided it did.  That decision is fine with me.  That is the job of judges, to decide what testimony is relevant and believable.

What I have a problem with, if this article is written correctly, is the judge calling young Mr. Welden’s act “evil.”  He uses this thinking to justify a draconian sentence to prison. Welden did nothing that harmed this woman physically.  A less than 7 week-old fetus is not a human; and, therefore, cannot be murdered.  And, despite the fact his girlfriend gave the fetus a name and repeated it over and over again in the sentencing hearing, there was not even manslaughter to be considered.  There was nothing done to deserve this type of sentence for the charges filed.

Based on the judge’s decision to accept that the pill caused the miscarriage, I accept the man is guilty of being stupid, guilty of lying to his girlfriend, and guilty of potentially jeopardizing her health.   He should have been charged with assault, a charge I believe he would be found guilty if this had been a Florida court.

I believe by using the word “evil,” a religious word that conjures images of Satan, it allowed the judge in his own mind to justify his stiff sentence for a stupid crime.  I believe by using the images of abused children, law enforcement officers justified the use of the internet to catch men and women with “evil” intentions. 

This is a nation of laws.  “Evil” is not a crime under any statute devised by Federal, State, or Local government.  Let us do a better job under the laws we have to protect us and leave "evil" for priests, preachers, rabbis, and mullahs to consider.

ON SOCIAL SECURITY

I started paying into Social Security in 1964. After contributing every year since, through 2010, I chose to take my retirement benefit when I was 62 years old.

The 2007 recession caused sales and income to drop rapidly in the business I owned in St. Petersburg, Florida. My 62^nd birthday in January 2010 allowed me access to a little income for myself, allowing me to use that money to pay my employees. In April 2010, however, BP bespoiled the Gulf of Mexico and forced our local economy into an even deeper recession.  By June our sales plummeted 60 percent more and remained down about 40 percent for the remainder of the year.  My local customers were also suffering, so they did not need my services.  One large out of state customer provided nearly 80 percent of total income during this time.

The small amount of money paid to my business by BP was not enough to cover real losses.  The nine-month wait to receive that money set the stage for the inevitable.  My thinking had been that my business revenues would increase enough over time to keep my business going. Hope was not enough, however, as the effects of the spill and the down economy lengthened the depression-like business atmosphere. I finally closed the doors September 2011.  I was “officially” retired.

My father and stepfather both died within weeks of their 62^nd birthdays and, with the exception of their death benefit, they did not receive a dime from Social Security.  Nada! So, I feel lucky to actually have lived long enough to use some of the money I paid into the Social Security system.  I understand you get more if you wait, but if you are dead I guarantee you will not receive an iota of benefit.  And, if you do apply early, you have to live a long time before you start “losing” benefits.  After 46 years paying in, I figured it was time to take what was owed me.

Applying for Social Security retirement benefits is a very simple process. You do it online at socialsecurity.gov.  They have all your work and birth records so all you need to do is answer a few simple questions and you are on your way.  The questions mostly pertain to a current address, to what bank do you want your benefit sent, and whether you were married or not and, if married, to whom. You will then find out what week of the month you will receive your benefit and what the amount will be.  My benefit arrives on the third Wednesday of each month.   Simple.

In the four years since I elected to receive my benefit my monthly payment has risen $93 per month, a rise of 6.4% in four years.  That’s an average of 1.6% a year.  WooHoo! I am getting rich on Social Security.  Oh, and so you know, whatever percent Congress allows Social Security benefits to rise, if it comes out with change dangling, say $1000.98, it is rounded down to $1000.  That may not seem like much, but it is a lot year over year to someone trying to put food on the table and pay their rent. 

Veterans disability benefits are not affected this way.  If your benefit payment comes to $130.94, the pennies are left for you to spend on yourself.  I receive a disability benefit from the Veterans Administration due to an injury received while serving in Vietnam.  The most important benefit I receive from the VA, however, is the health care provided to me at a minimal cost.  And, I damn sure appreciate it.   I pay for Medicare now, but I use it mostly to belong to a gym to stay fit and healthy.

Unlike many friends, some of whom stayed with their employer for life, I worked all around the country.  I earned a lot of money, but I never worked for an employer that provided me with a defined pension for a certain number of years' worked.  The money I earned gave me independence during my working life.  I have much less money now, thus less independence.  And, if you are thinking I should have saved more of my income, I did. Two divorces in my life, and two significant implosions in the stock market in the first decade of the 21st century, ate through a majority of the hundreds of thousands of dollars I saved.  I also poured a good portion of what was then left in my retirement savings into my business in 2008 through 2010 trying to save it from the economy.  It now appears as if I saved nothing.  And, from what I read about jobs and the economy, I do not think I am the only "boomer" who retired because of the recession.

I have learned (and I am still learning) how to live on much less and, in a way, it is a refreshing change.  I tried living outside the U.S.A. for a couple of years to save money, but I felt isolated by language. I would prefer the ability to spend more freely, but that is not possible now.  I am not complaining, just telling the truth.  Some of my friends sacrificed early. I, in my own way, chose to sacrifice now.  I have traveled all over the world (5 continents and 48 states) and I have a lot of great experiences.  Being single with no children means my choices have affected no one but me.

Who knows, maybe I will win the lottery!

ON THE ONE PERCENT

BELOW IS THE TEXT OF MR. PERKINS ENTIRE LETTER TO THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Regarding your editorial "Censors on Campus" (Jan. 18): Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?

Tom Perkins

San Francisco

ON KARZAI'S DEMANDS

ON TALKING HEADS™

For those of you who wonder how Talking Heads™ came to be, it all started in July 2009 as a way for me to discuss particular items appearing in the daily news.   Topics ran the gamut from mass murder to the rantings over Obamacare.

As the audience grew, and as the news item always seemed to be an absurdity, I added three characters to the mix to comment.  I let the three characters, Clem, Claude, and Clyde introduce themselves to you below.

In 2011 I visited Medellin, Colombia, and decided to move there.  I lived there almost two years and during that time Talking Heads™ was on respite.  Neither Clem, nor Claude, nor Clyde spoke Spanish. 

I returned to St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2013 and, since reading the absurd news regarding a man shot dead for texting during the previews before the showing of The Lone Survivor, I have blown the dust off my characters.  Talking Heads™ will appear on this blog from time to time.  I have begun the review of hundreds of previous editions and may drop them here for your viewing pleasure.

Please, as always, let me know what you think.

ON CONGRESS AND JOBS

ON LIFE AND WAR

Today I reach age 66.  As I pondered my existence this morning I realized that during 42 of those years, almost 64% of my life, the United States of America has been at war.  

American soldiers have fought in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, and elsewhere.  Troops are still fighting in Afghanistan as I write this blog.  And, even when we were not “officially” at war, we were at war.  Bosnia and Somalia are two engagements that come to mind.

I spent four years of my life, from ages 18 to 22, as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps.  I spent more than 18 months outside the country and served in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970.  I was part of a Marine squadron ordered to return to Vietnam to prepare to move into Cambodia in May 1970.  When I returned to the U.S. I was called a "baby killer", not a hero.  Most veteran's groups would not allow Vietnam veterans to join because we "lost" the war. People like to forget that part of history.  The affect of those four years on me, and my family, is still with me today.

I write this small piece because this year we are scheduled to end our war effort in Afghanistan.  Many think we should stay because they feel the need to win this war to assure no American died in vain.

Trust me, all members of the military die in vain; as they do in every war fought.  In battle soldiers do not fight to protect ideals, they fight to protect themselves and their fellow soldiers.

What I have learned in my years on earth is that no one wins at war.  All participants are losers.  War is a waste of life and a waste of treasure.  A strong society would be wise to find another way to settle differences.

ON CINEMA AND GUNS

I am a movie buff.  For more than 60 years I have spent a portion of almost every weekend in a movie theatre.  When I was five years old my brother took me to my first movie.  I do not remember the feature, but I do remember there was a Serial feature.  It ended with The Phantom stuck in quicksand about to inhale his last breath.  You had to visit the same theatre's Saturday matinee the following week to learn if our hero survived.  I was hooked.

Movies have always been part of my life.  I have sat in movie theatres as far away as Australia, the Philippines (during which I endured an earthquake), and Colombia to assure I did not miss the latest well-reviewed feature. As a pre-teen I walked to the corner to catch the next street car to downtown Baltimore. Arriving downtown I would search among the half dozen first-run movie houses and sit in the usually small dark theatre to enjoy the latest Fellini or Tati flick.  Later,  Pauline Kael, may she rest in peace, became my goddess of movie reviewers.  Her positive review of any film made it a must see. I would go alone, or with someone, but go I did.  I just could not stand to miss the latest first-run films.

This award season is typical of my movie going.  Of award nominated films, I have seen Captain Phillips (B), The Wolf of Wall Street (C), American Hustle (B+), Blue Jasmine (A-, Cate Blanchett my choice for Best Actress Oscar), Inside Llewyn Davis (D-), Dallas Buyers Club (A+, Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto my Male Lead and Male Supporting Oscar picks), 12 Years a Slave (A+, Best Film Oscar), Philomena (A), Gravity (B+), and Nebraska (B+).  Still on my list are Her and August: Osage County.

However, something happened January 13^th that kept me from the movies this past weekend.  A retired 71-year-old police captain decided that a father’s text messaging during the previews to the feature film, The Lone Survivor, was enough of an annoyance that he felt compelled to pull a pistol from his pocket and kill the 43-year-old man and wound the man’s wife.

I am someone who has always requested my theatre companions to sit quietly during a feature.  I have even on rare occasion risen from my seat and walked to another person’s seat to ask them, quietly and without anger, to please be quiet and let me and others enjoy the movie.  In my experience 99.99% of movie goers go quiet after something is said.  Since cell phones and text messaging have come on the scene, this has become more challenging.  The light from the telephone is always brighter and more distracting than the texter imagines.  It is very annoying.  However, it is not a capital offense.

Until now I never imagined someone in the theatre would have a gun with them.  I am a Marine Veteran of the Vietnam War and I have never found a reason to own or carry a weapon.  My brain, coupled to my mouth, has gotten me this far and I will continue to use it to get me out of jams.

Curtis Reeves, the former policeman, has changed all of that for me now.  I know I will not sit quietly and let someone spoil my feature by chatting with seat mates, talking on the telephone, or texting.  I do not believe in the rule of standing one’s ground.  So, I have used my brain to tell me to no longer visit movie theatres in Florida.  I will wait for Her and August: Osage County to hit Netflix.  And, next year, I will watch the Oscars to find out which movies I will rent.

ON BIGOTS AND HOMOPHOBES

ON RELIGIOUS BELIEF

1. I believe if you carry a gun and assume yourself a Christian, you are wrong in your assumption.
2. I believe if you think capital punishment is merited for certain crimes and call yourself a Christian, stop referring to yourself as a Christian, you are not.
3. Most people I have met in the United States who call themselves Christians are really “Godians” or “Old Testamentians,” i.e. they follow the Old Testament, not Christ.
4. I believe Pope Francis should immediately beatify Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy.  Each sacrificed their lives for their fellow man and each forgave their trespassers.  Those should be the two required miracles in this day of selfishness.  This list could be longer.  You do not have to be a Roman Catholic to be a Saint.  Who do you believe belongs on this list?
5. If you profess Islam and claim to be a Muslim in faith, and you believe in holy war, then you are not a Muslim.  Jihad is a struggle of faith, not a war against non-Muslims.
6. If your country’s laws are based on religion, your nation is a theocracy not a democracy.
7. If you think your god is right and the other gods are wrong, you are a bigot.
8. If you think the earth is only a few thousand years old because you use the Old Testament as your calendar, you are uneducated.
9. If you pray for guidance vs. ask your friends and neighbors for guidance, you will get nowhere.
10. If your religion tells you to let members of your family die rather than let a doctor help them, you are a potential murderer.

ON U.S. CITIZENSHIP

  

1. I believe all Americans have a right to practice their religion freely unless that practice impinges on another American’s belief(s), including the rights of those Americans who are atheists.
2. I believe that in America healthcare for all is a right, not a privilege.
3. I believe the National Guard and the military reserves are the “militia” mentioned in the 2^nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and, therefore, guns do not belong in the hands of the general public.
4. I believe to be an American citizen you must, after age 18, serve your country in some capacity (military or other form of voluntary service) for a minimum of two years.
5. I believe our borders should be as porous as possible, allowing more, not less, people to come and show us what they can contribute to our society.
6. I believe that as the richest nation in the world every American citizen should be guaranteed a minimum salary for their labors, a salary large enough to pay for basic food, shelter, and clothing.  
7. I believe that the Emancipation Proclamation, along with several Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, truly clarify that under the law all Americans are equal…men, women, white, black, brown, red, yellow, gay, straight, religious, non-religious, smart, stupid, educated, uneducated, famous, infamous, not famous, short, tall, blonde, brunette, bald, and whomever else is a U.S. Citizen by birth or naturalization.
8. I believe that white America has never come to terms with American slavery and will never understand that divide in our society until it does come to terms with this historical scar, i.e. despite what Chief Justice Roberts writes, racism does exist in America.
9. I believe Nelson Rockefeller, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama are educated and bright Conservatives.  I believe Mario Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Paul Ryan are uneducated and downright mean-spirited right-wing ideologues who have more in common with the John Birch Society than the Republican Party.  We have not seen a Liberal in Congress since Ted Kennedy died.
10. I believe there should be a 28th Amendment to the Constitution that states:

“Only those Members of Congress who have served in the

Military may vote to declare and/or fund war or vote to send

a member of the U.S. military to a location outside the borders

of the United States of America.”

ON INHERITED WEALTH

Of the twenty richest world citizens, seven did nothing to earn their wealth.  The Koch brothers, Charles and David, inherited the wealth of their father’s hard work building a successful oil-related business.   Liliane Bettencourt inherited her father’s company, L’Oreal.  Christy, Jim, S. Robson, and Alice Walton earned their money by being the issue of Sam Walton, the founder of the ubiquitous Walmart brand. 

With a total worth estimated by Forbes magazine at $205.3 Billion this collection of heirs and heiresses, according to a United Nations’ report published in 2012, has more wealth than the yearly Gross Domestic Product produced in 146 of the world’s 192 member nations.    For perspective, these children of fortune have more assets derived from birth than the collective sweat all the citizens of Peru or New Zealand can output in a year.  Their total gilt is only slightly less than that produced by Ireland’s hard working populace.

What do these members of the lucky birth set do with all this fortune bestowed upon them?  The Koch Brothers are using their father’s fortune to fund right-wing causes that help the rich and powerful while the middle class and poor are left to their own devices.  Bloomberg Business Week estimates David to have given only 3% of his wealth to philanthropic causes between the years 2003-2007 (no mention of poor Charles).  The Walton family, during the very same period says Bloomberg’s weekly, gave only 2% of their net worth to charity.  As for the one foreigner on the list, Ms. Bettencourt, it is estimated she gives less than 1% of her net wealth to charity each year according to French press reports. 

By contrast Ted Turner, says Business Week, gave 65% of his net worth, a wealth estimated at a meager $2.3 Billion…and he actually worked to build his empire.  Others who worked personally to build their fortunes were often shown to have given more than 10% of their net wealth to charity.   Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, two men who worked to build their collective fortune to more than $120 Billion, are giving all their wealth away.

It seems our very richest heirs and heiresses do not believe they should allow much of their wealth to “trickle down.”   It seems their papa’s hard earned cash was built only to keep these creatures and their offspring comfortable and well fed. 

I think that is selfish and sad.  What do you think?

ON GUN ACCIDENTS

After the shootings in Columbine High School in Colorado some anti-gun nuts tried to coerce changes by saying, “Gun and magazine laws need tightening to protect high school students.”  That approach proved to not work at all in moving the American public to change.

Next, after Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D) and others were shot, these same folks tried to change minds by uttering, “Guns and magazines need regulation to protect Congress.”  This tactic proved no less effective.  Even members of Congress were not moved by this logic.

Then, after 20 small children and 6 adults trying to protect them were gunned down in Connecticut, gun regulating citizens tried a line of reasoning sure to move everyone to action, “Guns and magazines need more rules to help us protect our grammar school children.”  Alas, even the slaughter of babies could not move Congress to feel guilt and shame enough to effect a change in gun laws.

The Orlando Sentinel recently reported that 40 percent of Florida emergency room visits for non-lethal gunshot wounds were accidental in nature.  More than $57 million was billed to treat those injuries, one half of that paid by tax dollars through Medicare and Medicaid, claimed the article.  The Sentinel went on to report that the average cost per patient was $85,024.  Extrapolated to the 50 states, could this mean we are spending nearly $2.85 Billion each year on this problem?  Could this be the cudgel Congress and State Legislatures need to begin the common sense regulation of weapons and ammo?  “No more taxpayer dollars should go to paying for seniors and the poor to play with their tools.” [Guns Are Tools, MamaLiberty, June 23, 2013]

Surely money spent on the elderly and the poor too stupid to handle a gun properly deserves attention.  As I learned many years ago in weapons and combat training in the Marine Corps, and advice I passed down to my son who is now a weapons and shooting instructor for the FBI, there is no such thing as “accidental” shootings.

The National Rifle Association has screamed at us for years that, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  They are right.  Guns cannot discharge a bullet without a person involved.  They must be loaded, the safety must be released, and then the trigger must be pulled. 

Governor Rick Scott believes those persons eligible for Welfare, including Medicaid, should be drug tested before receiving aid.  Since the Florida Supreme Court has ruled that unconstitutional, perhaps his next step in corralling the wanton wastefulness of poor Floridians should be to ask if they have guns.  Maybe the question could be broadened to include, “does anyone in your household or whom you know have guns.”  If they answer yes, rule them ineligible for Welfare and Medicaid coverage. 

Further, since our Republican Congress hates Obamacare so much, they could pass legislation to reduce its wasteful spending.  It should be easy to pass a law allowing no Medicare or Medicaid payments to any healthcare provider who treats someone stupid enough to shoot themselves, or allows themselves to be shot by someone else, no matter the type of weapon.  It appears on the surface this would cut $2.85 Billion in spending in the first year alone.

ON: TEXTING AND GUNFIRE