Mr. Obama…  You have spent a great deal of time throughout the first year of your duties as the alleged “Commander in Chief” visiting countries and throwing us, the United States, on the sword for whoever would listen.  But I have a few things I would like to share with you and anyone that cares to read this.

My “Am Not’s” and “Do Not’s”.

I am not sorry that we used “persuasive” measures to obtain information from combatants and non-combatant sympathizers during times of conflict (war or police action) in which the lives of other Americans and the lives of our allies is at risk.

I am not sorry that we went into the European and Pacific theaters in World War II and kicked ass.  There are many men and women, Americans and otherwise, that were injured or gave their lives to protect what we were fighting for.  Imagine what would have happened if we had chosen to sit it out? I am sure that even you, Mr. Obama, would agree with me, so do not presume to apologize for what they did with honor.

I am not sorry about what you refer to as American arrogance; I think perhaps you might be thinking, instead of our PRIDE, while some would suggest that this is a “deadly sin”, I disagree. We are a truly great country, capable of great things and have accomplished great thing in spite of what you are trying to do to it and what you are trying to educate us and others regarding it.

I do not apologize for those faults that we DO have.  Ever person, every country and every culture has faults, what we learn from those faults are what make us better people.  Every mistake makes us stronger and smarter and more prepared for our next challenge.  It is not your place to travel the world, advertising our failures and apologizing for them.

I do not apologize for my personal stance against those that practice Radical Islam… a stance that I share with many people, even friends of mine that are also Muslim and do not support the efforts of these radicals that give other Muslims and practitioners of Islam a bad name and make life hard on them. <Link> There are enough other reasons out there to hate one another and while I will admit that the Radical Islamic movement has me concerned, I work each day to know that there is a difference between the two.

I do not apologize for America “Dictating Terms” when we have been asked to go in and help in countries that have asked for our help or in cases where we have gone in and provided assistance even when we were not asked but the situation required intervention on our part.  Terms control what happens after the troops and diplomats have gone home, they are a way of making sure that we were not wasting our efforts.

I do not apologize for slavery…  I’ve never owned a slave nor have I ever had a desire to do so… though I would like to hire a house-keeper to come in once or twice a month.  Yes, slavery was a black mark in our history, but it is nothing new and certainly nothing strictly Euro/American.  In fact, you will find that the black slave trade was in effect IN Africa itself before the white man started exploiting it.  There are still stories of people being sold into servitude in that country to this day.  Does that make the Euro/American participation right? Of course not! But I will not apologize for that which I had no control over, nor should you, on my behalf.

I am not sorry for the United States’ policies towards other countries in the Americas.  We are a sovereign nation; we have the right to protect our borders and to make sure that our neighbors are not acting in ways that cause harm to this great nation.  This requires us to take a strong stance to defend our borders and our policies against those that would do wrong by us.  Mexico cannot and appears unwilling to even try to keep their own people and illegal drugs from crossing into our country, yet if we try to stop it, those that are trained and assigned to do the job are taken to task for it, just look at Officers Ramos and Compean.

We treat countries with respect when they act in such a way that deserves it.  When dignitaries like President Calderon of Mexico and “President” Chavez of Venezuela, among others, start acting like they respect the policies and sovereignty of the United States… THEN, we can begin to ease our policies towards them.

I would like to wish all of you out there that celebrate it, a Merry Christmas.

It has been a tough year and I hope this holiday… no… this CHRISTMAS season finds you well and healthy.

What is it with these people that put stickers on their cars that have curses on them?  Do people think that this is cute or make them seem “rebellious”?

While I will not contest the legality of doing this, since it appears that in these cases the First Amendment overrides state and local laws that have attempted to curb this trend, as is pointed out in great detail on the site First Amendment Center.

That being said, I still have to complain about it myself because of the way I was raised.  People just do not swear, unnecessarily, in public.

I can understand if you are in a group of people and you smash your finger in a drawer or stub your toe.  Sometimes, especially if you curse as a regular part of your nature, these things slip out.  We have all seen situations where people have hurt themselves and words fly, often without even thinking about it.  Sometimes they are mild, like the people that say “Fiddlesticks” or the like.  Then there are people like me that have been known to utter a long string of expletives when I once, accidentally, hit my index finger with a sledge hammer.

Situations like that, while still not what I would consider “Appropriate”, are excusable.

Now… when you put a bumper sticker or ANY sticker on your car, bike, etc… you are advertising profanity only for the sake of uttering it.

As an example; the other day I saw a sticker in a car window that said “F*ck Dat”.  Obviously the “*” was not on the sticker.  To me, this is no different than walking down the sidewalk and saying the same thing to anyone that looks at you.  It is rude and, in my humble opinion, inappropriate.

Now… how this is protected under the First Amendment is beyond me.  I see the protection of free speech as protecting people’s right to stand up and protest a perceived wrong.  To speak out for or against something that needs to be changed or eliminated.  It should not be used to protect someone from putting profane language on their car or clothes only because they want to do so for no reason.

Sorry… just a mild rant.  Thanks for listening and/or commenting.

OK…  I do still go to McDonald’s from time to time, so you will have to excuse me for a moment while I rant about a recent decision that they, McDonald’s, has made.

I have to admit that I do like their “McSkillet” breakfast burrito and a extra large diet coke for a breakfast option, and the price really is not that bad either.  But recently there has been some changes afoot at the old McD that kinda leaves me scratching my head, and that is what they have done with their drinks.

A few weeks ago I stopped in my local McD and ordered my usual breakfast, only to be told that they had recently decided to stop carrying the extra large drink size.

This intrigued me, so I asked why they decided to do this.

The young lady at the store I always go to said that this was part of McDonald’s effort to help people start eating more sensibly.  TO help people start watching their portions and live healthier.

OK… so while the above is not a direct quote, I will attest to the fact that it was pretty much right on with what she told me, and I even thought at the time that it sounded like she was reading from a prepared statement, so I feel that McD had prepared their employs for such a question.  But I doubt she was prepared for the next questions I asked her.

1.   If that is the case, is McD also reducing the size of their burgers?

2.   Are they switching to a lower calorie mix for their ice cream and pies?

3.  Are they offering more non-beef options like more chicken, fish and/or vegetarian patties?

All of the above was answered with a couple laughs and several “No”s.  It was times like this when I am glad that I know a few of the people at the McDonald’s that I go to on a regular basis.  Otherwise I probably would have been asked to leave shortly after the second question.

So… the question that I have for McDonald’s, that only they, at the corporate level, appear to be able to answer, is Why?  I know that McDonald’s had a ongoing issue with trying to please the health conscious masses with eliminating the Super-Size meals and the drinks, then bringing the drinks back, and things like that.  You can find this info on the net almost any time you do a serious search for it.

But why are you getting rid of the extra large drinks, using the excuse that you are trying to be health conscious, when you are not doing anything about the other items on your menu that are more at guilty of being unhealthy short of pulling super-size meals from some markets?

Why are you now selling “Sweet tea” at the same time that you are eliminating the extra large cups?

If you are making ALL drink sizes $1.00, then why bother having smaller drink sizes at all?  Are there really people out there that will go in, see the new pricing and say, “Aw darn it, I am gonna get the small!  Screw conformity!”

I guess the point that I am getting to is this.  If you are going to change something in your menu in an effort to be more healthy, then there are many items you can change that make more sense than eliminating the extra large cup size from your menu.

I will start this off simply enough with stating the fact that I read a lot.  Not always actually picking up a book and physically going through it, but I also hit the occasional audio-book.  My favorite topics are usually History and Science, though I have always had a great fondness for Science Fiction works as well.  Mostly I will stay with the more realistic or truly philosophical stuff, but then there are the times that I like to read the things that are really out there.  This brings me to the topic of this article.

Is there a real “Super Villain” in store for the world?

I know…  when I say super villain, people automatically get mental pictures of Dr. Doom, Magneto or Lex Luthor.  People that media has established as the archetypes for what is meant to be true evil.  Villains that seem almost indestructible, except for that one little chink in the armor that only certain people know about and they never make any attempt to protect that spot.  A good case in point is what I would like to think of as the “Death Star Flaw”.  This is the process of building an almost impervious fortress or system that has only one weakness that is usually unprotected and poorly monitored.

In reality, I do have to wonder if there is a potential for someone to take the global stage as a world-wide threat to peace.  Someone who, through the ability of either terror or power, can cause the powers of the world to stop and take notice.  Not for the sake of awe, at least not awe in the good sense, bust because suddenly this person or group exposed a weakness that no one thought about and thus never thought about protecting.  Something along those lines.

Personally I think that the potential for such a person does exist.  It really would not be that hard when you think about it.  All you would need is someone that would be able to start by befriending the powers of the world.  A person or group that would start off by being trusted by everyone, at least all the law abiding people and leaders, of the world.   This would put him, her or them in a position to infiltrate the governments of those trusting countries.

Once that has been accomplished, it would simply be a matter of those key people to make a move to either topple those governements, their leaders or expose their weakness’ to the hostile group.

Oddly enough, this almost sounds familiar, does’nt it?  Yeah…  it’s called the United Nations.

Ok… I am not saying that the UN is going to become the next global villain, but if you think about it… REALLY think about it, is it really that hard of an idea to wrap your minds around?

In reality, I think that we are closer to something along the lines of a SUper Villain that you and I might think.  These days we are so busy bickering and fighting with ourselves that I do not think we are paying close enough attention to the things that might be happening out there.  People that are slowly and quietly gathering strength in the shadows and waiting for us to be completely unprepared.

I suspect that when and if this time comes, people like Osama Bin Laden and his ilk may be the least of our worries.

Then again… I tend to go off on these mental wanderings quite often.  I would like to think of them as little philosophic field trips into my own thoughts.  I will wonder around a while, take some notes, talk with some of the locals and then sit at the PC and write what I have found out.

Think about it though… just for a moment.  If someone like me can sit here and think about things like this for the sake of mental excercizes, then there are many more out there that are perfectly capable of getting together the resources to eventually act on things like this.

I am not trying to make people paranoid, nor am I telling you to stop trusting anyone, just be “aware”.  We all need to pay attention to what happens around us and in the world.

Thanks for taking a moment to listen to my prattle.  Too much caffeine today.

Why did you vote in the last election?

Who did you vote for?

Are you one of those people that voted for a person because you saw that they were on television more than the other guy, or because you thought “I heard that name before, I will vote for them.”?

Do you know what you are expecting to gain when you place that vote for the person you selected?

I think that too many of you out there… and yes, I am pointing at you and us… vote as “Lazy Voters”.  We rush to the polls, sometimes at the last minute, do not really THINK about who we are going to vote for, or do think, but only in the sense that you are asking yourself, “Who was that guy that was on TV last night.” or “Who was it my Union foreman told me I was voting for?”

Face it… we, all of us, have gotten ourselves into a little bind.  We have politicians that, for the most part, are idiots.

With rare exception anymore, they are acting in their own best interest, not in the interest of those that elected them.  They spend so much time planning on how they are going to win their next election, or how to get that book deal, or who they are going to try to pin their next failure on, that they are not actually doing their jobs.  The ones we elected them and are paying them to do.

THE INCUMBENTS MUST GO.

If these last election years have proven anything, it is that we need to become SMARTER voters.  We cannot vote with passion, pride, ignorance or prejudice any more.  That is the thing that put our current band of idiots in office.  Yes… that includes the biggest of them all… Citizen Obama.  You see… people voted for him NOT because of his successful history as a leader.  Not because of the long list of economic contributions that he has made to this country.  Not because of his ironclad grasp on foreign affairs and policy.  They voted for him because they got caught up in the hype.

People saw him as this prophet for change.  As some knight in shining armor that was going to come riding in and save the day.  But the problem is that one he was in, that “DAY” kept getting pushed further and further back.  People voted for a Black man… not a politician… a poor one at that.  They voted for what they THOUGHT was an ideal and a bunch of pretty promises and not for the facts.

I was almost part of that wave… until I read his books.  In his own words I learned where he was going and what he wanted long before he committed to running for office.  “Audacity of Hope” actually tells the tail pretty well, if you take the time to read and really pay attention to what he is telling you.

So this is my point.  You need to learn about who and what you are voting for, before you actually go into that polling station.  If you are not intimately familiar with the item or person you are voting for, then stay out of the booth.  If you are rushing to get your vote in and you have not had time to read or learn about what you are going to vote for… just forget it and go home.

If you are not an informed voter, then you just need to not vote.  I do not want your vote and neither does the rest of the country.  Voting without understanding is silly.  Do not listen to the commercials or radio spots for politicians… or listen, but under stand that all you are hearing is them telling you what you want to hear.  They are playing into your weakness as a human.  We all want to hear good news, we are all susceptible to being led or encouraged to follow a certain path.  Television commercials and radio spots will use audio and video stimuli to coax you into voting for the person that it paying for it… many times playing on your gullibility.

So my message here is not a hard one to figure out.  Take the time and read about the item or person that you are voting for.  Learn what the heck will happen if you vote one way or another.

If voting for a person, PLEASE take the time to look at the background of that person.  If they held previous offices, look at their voting record.  If more people had done that a little over a year ago, we might not have Citizen Obama in officer right now.  If you are voting for anything other than a person, then look at the text carefully.  Most places will give you a “Pros and Cons” section where they will tell you what will happen if the item is passed or fails.

You see…  it all boils down to one important fact.  Elected officials work for us.  WE are their employers.  WE pay their salaries.  WE have the power to hire and, YES, fire them.  These are things that I think we are forgetting and if we do not wake up and start using these powers as their employers, then one day… maybe not that long from now, we might lose them.

If you want to learn more, you need to visit this site.

www.voidnow.org

Ask always… I thank you for your time.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all… and especially to all the men and women, brothers and sisters all, serving in harms way, throughout the world, in America’s Armed forces.

In a past article, I shared with you how important being part of the Masons was to me.  The fact that it was a part of my family for a long time is only part of the reason, more importantly is the effect that groups like the Masons have on those around them.  Not just on a community level, but on a person to person level.

Being a Mason is not about uttering some phrases and hanging out with a group of people in your lodge, though that is an important part of the Craft.  It is about demonstrating that you are a person who represents all that is good and noble about Masonry.  That through your actions, through your attitude and through what you do for others, you are improving your life and the lives of others.  Thus you are exemplifying what it is to BE a Brother Mason.

Masonry is important to me not for what it can do for me, but for what tools, spiritually, emotionally and through the support of my fellow brethren, that let me help and support those around me.  This is something that I saw in my uncle when I was very young.  William Yelland, my Uncle, was a Mason’s Mason.  He lived the life and walked the walk.  He went to all the meetings and held various offices within the Lodges that he was a member of.  When he died, he was a 33rd degree Mason in the Scottish Rites.

My reason for writing this piece is because I see myself in the shadow of my Uncle.  I would like to think that he would be proud of me and because of that, I feel the need to carry on the family tradition to wear the regalia of a Mason.

The other reason I write this is because my lodge gave me the distinct Honor to appoint me to my first seat as an Officer of the Lodge.  I am now the Senior Steward for my lodge and while some may think this something trivial, I see this as the first step in what I hope to be a life’s work in Masonry.  Someone once told me that you get out of Masonry what you put into it.  I feel that I am going to get a lifetime of enjoyment and pride from my service in Masonry.

As always… thank you for your time.

For me there is just something exciting about Halloween.  It is not so much the day itself, though I will say that it is an under appreciated holiday.

Maybe it is just something as simple as the fact that it represents, to me at least, the change of seasons.  A time when there starts to be that little nip in the air, that little bit of electricity that you feel in the air letting you know that winter is on the way.

When I was young and went out for Halloween, fulfilling that seasonal childhood quest for candy, I remember the slight bite in the air.  Not quite cold enough for a jacket, yet there is that chill.  Then you have the smell.  You know what I am talking about.  There always seems to be that SMELL of winter in the air on Halloween, with the smell of a wood fire burning some where out there which just adds to this.

I would have to say that of the holidays throughout the year, Halloween and Thanksgiving are my favorites.  Christmas has never meant too much to me, it was always someone elses holiday, not mine, being Jewish.

Then there is the festivities of the day itself.  The company that I work for always has a pot-luck on the day of, or the day before, if it falls on a weekend.  There is also the outfits that people wear.  I have always been intrigued by what people chose to wear for that day.  I suspect that sometimes it is fun, but then there are times that I think that people dress to reflect something of themselves that they normally hide away, except this one time each year, you get to try your hidden face on the world under the guise of fun. As Billy Joel says:

“Well we all have a face
That we hide away forever
And we take them out and
Show ourselves
When everyone has gone…”

How do we end racism?

Can we end racism?

My opinion on this may be quite simple. You may even call it naive or short-sighted but it is my opinion none-the-less.

I feel that the biggest way in which to end racism is to stop teaching and promoting it.  That is, for us, the older generation, to stop giving the new generation a reason to dislike each other.

Look at the current “civil rights” leaders, the ones that appear in the news and the papers today.  While they may hide behind this front that they are trying to teach the new generation about the past in order to prepare for the future, they are not.  In fact, they are actually teaching them that because of what happened to their great-great-grand-fathers, they should, in some way shape or form, be eligible for some kind of handout.  You see, they seem to think that the only way that we will overcome racism is for someone to be a victim and for someone else to suffer.  This accomplishes nothing but creating more hate. Hate does nothing except breed and feed further hate.

I do not believe that anyone is naturally born with prejudice to one another… though there are those that will try to tell you differently, but I cannot see that as being so. When I was growing up, I was not aware that there was anything more than a difference in skin color between me and some of my friends… and that was not as important as, say, who was playing with what toy and when were they giving it back or if they were going to share.  That is not to say that I did not notice the color or hair difference, I did, but it was never important until I grew older and started to be influenced by the adults around me.

My Mother was the best about preventing me from being influenced by the “wrong thinking” out there, but there was only so much from which she could prevent me from being exposed.  There came the time that we were, as a family, attacked for being Jews.  That was, as you might say, first taste of prejudice and hatred.  Granted… I will not pretend that being singled out for being a Jew is the same as being singled out for being Black, Indian, Oriental, etc…  at least as a white Jew, growing up in Taft, California, my religion was not written on my skin.

This was, however, when I first remember starting to notice the differences between people.  Not in myself and how I acted towards them, but in the way that Non-whites where treated in Taft.  You see, this was in the early 1970s and at the time Taft College had a pretty impressive course offering for potential students and the football team was equally impressive.  Taft College drew in students from all over and as long as the non-white students stayed on the campus and kept winning football games, the citizens of Taft did not mind them being there.  There were several times my Mother, who was a student there, would take me to the campus with her.  I met all her teachers and her friends.  They were of all colors and ages, so I had a very rich experience with the people I met through her.  But to this point, even with the experiences I had had with the people who hated us because we were Jews, I had not had any experience with hatred because of race.  That would come later, when my mother and I would move to Bakersfield, Ca.

For me, growing up in Bakersfield was not easy.  My mother was newly divorced, we were in a town where we knew no one and on top of that we were had a limited income.  The apartments in which we lived were in what was then the outskirts of town and the school that I went to had a healthy mix of races in it, something that I had not experienced in Taft.  The funny part about this was that my teachers, whether or not they knew it, were the ones that started teaching me about racism.  The way they treated the white students versus the non-whites, had a small but cumulative affect on me.  I started seeing the differences more and more and I can even recall a substitute teacher once telling me that “black people do not bleed red, their blood is black.”  Something that I learned was incorrect a few years later when I picked a fight with a black kid and scored one lucky bloody nose on him before he laid me out.  Nope… his blood was as red as mine.

I guess that leads to the point I am trying to make here.  All our blood is red… we all have the same hopes and dreams and wants.  We all want to succeed and be better people.  What does color have to do with that?  It only matters because there are people out there who WANT it to matter.  There are teachers, parents, politicians, etc… that feel that we have to keep digging up the past and our failings for the sole purpose of keeping that divide there.  They push for the racial divisions and clashes because they know it will keep them in a job.

Do you really think that Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton and their ilk want to rid the world of racism?  Do you think that they, or those that are like them, would benefit from a world where people do not look at one another as races but as fellow humans?  I would humbly like to submit the answer as NO.  They would be out of a job if there were suddenly no further hatred based on the color of one’s skin.  There would be no more money coming into their various causes to be paid to the people that help them or their special interests.

This might have been part of the reason, among others I am sure, that Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated.  I do not think that his ideals for the future of the civil rights movement were the same as those of the people that worked with him and I firmly believe that he, King, would be very disappointed with where the civil rights movement has gone today.  People like King and like what Jesse Jackson USED to be, were the idealists, the people that might have truly helped to eventually end the need for such organizations.  Yes… history will always paint people in a better image as time goes by, but the effects of the civil rights movement on the late 1960s and early 1970s is still fresh enough that many of us who are willing to really pay attention, can see these people for what they really were and not for what the contemporary historians are portraying them.

Going back to my own experiences and looking at my life growing up.  I see that among the many gifts my mother gave me was the ability to not care what color you are to consider you a friend, enemy, lover, etc.  I have had many friends though my life, and their race has never meant anything more to me than a side note in the friendship, something that only ever came up if someone else mentioned it.  I have dated various colors and they have loved, laughed and lived no differently because of their color or nationality.  I married a woman who happens to be of Cuban/Hispanic descent and the only reason her race has ever made a difference is on the rare occasions that someone has pointed it out to me.

While the political climate today has made the term cliche and almost a joke, I DO consider myself colorblind to people.  Yes… I do see the difference between people, but the only time you will see me make a judgment based on a person’s race is if they are one of those people that feel that they need to live into the stereotype that has been created for them.  I will chose not to go into the details about the type of people I am speak of or the stereotypes, but I think that all of us know or have met someone in our lives that fits that mold.  They are an unfortunate lot and we can only hope that they will, one day, stop believing in what others expect of them and start believing in themselves.

So… my message to this and future generations.  Stop listening to those that will profit from you being a racial statistic.  Don’t accept that you are any less a person or any less capable because you are Black, Brown, Yellow, Pink, White or Olive.  Start living above your racial classification and stop labeling others by their race.  We should see ourselves as all being humans, nothing more, nothing less.  We all share better than 99% of the same genetic material so we are all brothers and sisters.  Once you look beyond the skin, we are all the same.

As always… thank you for your time and it is my sincere hope that this has touched or meant something to someone… anyone.  If even one person can take what I have said here and try to practice it, then maybe… just maybe there is a better world coming.  Maybe not for me in my lifetime, but for the generations that will follow.