I can't get interested in local and state politics. National politics is what I really like. While looking at the states, one by one, I have discovered some interesting and surprising things.
New England, for example, consists of six tiny states with declining populations and influence. At one time they were the backbone of the union intellectually, politically and economically. At the time of the Revolution the British were amazed at the wealth of the area. Alas, this is no longer the case. In fact, the number of congressional districts has actually declined. Presently, they have 22 representatives.Over the years they have become increasingly radicalized to the point where not a single representative is Republican. 21 of the rest are Democrats and one is a socialist.
I wonder if this is about to change. Will the Republicans be able to pick up at least a few seats?
To my amazement, I discovered that I was hard pressed to name the six New England states. I wonder if others will find the same problem.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
OUR SPENDTHRIFT GOVERNMENT
The bloated State Departemnt is not often included in the list of government wasteful spending. Would it surprise you to know that there are over 190 embassies spread around the world ? These are large, fancy, fortress like buildings. (The new Iraqi embassy is costing$1,000,000,ooo.00. That's one billion)
Embassy staffs are large. I have been told , for example, that the Mexico City staff is over 400. London, Paris, Berlin and other major capitals are similarly staffed.
Each embassy has an ambassador. This almost always turns out to be a big contributor to the party of the president in power,or sometimes just friends of POTUS. Ambassadorships are well paid and very prestigious positions with many percs. They must live in the finest houses with enormous staffs as befits their importance. Their principal function is to throw lavish parties for the local bigwigs. His consular staff does what little work needs to be done.
The consulates are spread about in large numbers, maybe 5 or 6 in important counties. Figures are hard to come by but a good guess would be about 600. Each is like a mini embassy. Their function is to look after the interests of American citizens.
My personal experience with the consuls varied from terrible to unbelievably excellent.
Ambassadors to countries are only part of the picture. We also have ambassadors to international organizations and ambassadors at large (?). The Department of State
in DC has a huge staff needed just to keep track of all th ambassadors and consuls
Here is a partial list of US embassies to countries I have never heard of----Tuvali, Tonga, South Ossetia. Seychelle, Sao Tome y Principe, Nauru, Maritius, Kimbali, Djibouti, Comoros, Cape Verde, Benin.
How many of these you can locate?
Embassy staffs are large. I have been told , for example, that the Mexico City staff is over 400. London, Paris, Berlin and other major capitals are similarly staffed.
Each embassy has an ambassador. This almost always turns out to be a big contributor to the party of the president in power,or sometimes just friends of POTUS. Ambassadorships are well paid and very prestigious positions with many percs. They must live in the finest houses with enormous staffs as befits their importance. Their principal function is to throw lavish parties for the local bigwigs. His consular staff does what little work needs to be done.
The consulates are spread about in large numbers, maybe 5 or 6 in important counties. Figures are hard to come by but a good guess would be about 600. Each is like a mini embassy. Their function is to look after the interests of American citizens.
My personal experience with the consuls varied from terrible to unbelievably excellent.
Ambassadors to countries are only part of the picture. We also have ambassadors to international organizations and ambassadors at large (?). The Department of State
in DC has a huge staff needed just to keep track of all th ambassadors and consuls
Here is a partial list of US embassies to countries I have never heard of----Tuvali, Tonga, South Ossetia. Seychelle, Sao Tome y Principe, Nauru, Maritius, Kimbali, Djibouti, Comoros, Cape Verde, Benin.
How many of these you can locate?
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
MORE FAMILY HISTORY
In about 1950 I left Mexico to take a job,thanks to Uncle Tom Dean, in Gresham, Oregon with the Olympic Mfg. Co., a division of the Dean Co.. My peers in Mexico had all found decent jobs and were on good career paths. I had not been able to do so.
Gresham at his time was a tiny, bucolic town of 5 or 10 thousand and it's claim to fame was The berry capital of the world. There was a cannery, a milk company ( You can't beat our milk but you can whip our cream), one cinema, a few tiny restaurants and the afore mentioned Olympic Mfg. Co., a veneer slicing operation with about 50 employees.
I stayed with my brother Carl who owned a dairy farm in the nearby town of Boring. Carl introduced me to the Carter family.
Thomas ( Doc ) Carter (1885-1975 ) and wife Pauline had an enormous family of 11 children ( two deceased at that time) . Doc had served in the US Army in WWI and again in WWII and emerged as a LT. Colonel. Interestingly he had only a sixth grade education ( Not unusual at that time) but was able to qualify for a veterinary school in Canada. While there he met and married Pauline Horton from Michigan in 1914. After a number of moves he found himself in Gresham and had become the Multnoma County vet with a private practice as well.
Janet was child number 9. We were married in 1952. My job with Olympic was not working out well. Jan and I and three kids returned to Mexico where we spent 20 great if poverty stricken years.
Some time in the 1990s we visited Gresham and discovered, to our dismay, that it had become the second largest city in Oregon with almost nothing familiar to us.
Gresham at his time was a tiny, bucolic town of 5 or 10 thousand and it's claim to fame was The berry capital of the world. There was a cannery, a milk company ( You can't beat our milk but you can whip our cream), one cinema, a few tiny restaurants and the afore mentioned Olympic Mfg. Co., a veneer slicing operation with about 50 employees.
I stayed with my brother Carl who owned a dairy farm in the nearby town of Boring. Carl introduced me to the Carter family.
Thomas ( Doc ) Carter (1885-1975 ) and wife Pauline had an enormous family of 11 children ( two deceased at that time) . Doc had served in the US Army in WWI and again in WWII and emerged as a LT. Colonel. Interestingly he had only a sixth grade education ( Not unusual at that time) but was able to qualify for a veterinary school in Canada. While there he met and married Pauline Horton from Michigan in 1914. After a number of moves he found himself in Gresham and had become the Multnoma County vet with a private practice as well.
Janet was child number 9. We were married in 1952. My job with Olympic was not working out well. Jan and I and three kids returned to Mexico where we spent 20 great if poverty stricken years.
Some time in the 1990s we visited Gresham and discovered, to our dismay, that it had become the second largest city in Oregon with almost nothing familiar to us.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
BED BUGS
For many years the US was free of bed bugs. Rather suddenly they have reappeared and are becoming all pervasive. One might well quit going to movies, restaurants and especially, hotels. Hotel rules: Don't put your suitcase on the floor, use the luggage rack; never put your clothing in the dresser; Turn back the bedding and inspect the mattress; keep suitcase closed. Best rule of all, stay home.
We understand that bedbugs do not survive microwaving or cloths dryers. Should your home become infected, there are several fairly ineffective chemicals one can use. Or, one can burn the pillows and mattresses and pray that you got them all.
Once again our officious bureaucrats have screwed things up. Remember DDT ? Rightly or not its use worldwide has been banned. Malaria and other mosquito born diseases, almost eliminated, once again flourished.
The really simple solution to the bedbug problem: Ban the outdoor use of DDT where it might harm mother nature. Allow its use indoors where it can cause no environmental damage. This is known to be 100% effective .
We understand that bedbugs do not survive microwaving or cloths dryers. Should your home become infected, there are several fairly ineffective chemicals one can use. Or, one can burn the pillows and mattresses and pray that you got them all.
Once again our officious bureaucrats have screwed things up. Remember DDT ? Rightly or not its use worldwide has been banned. Malaria and other mosquito born diseases, almost eliminated, once again flourished.
The really simple solution to the bedbug problem: Ban the outdoor use of DDT where it might harm mother nature. Allow its use indoors where it can cause no environmental damage. This is known to be 100% effective .
Monday, August 30, 2010
SOME MORE GIVEAWAY IDEAS
The Senior Citizens League has solicited funds for their lobbying efforts on behalf of a group of old farts and crones born between 1917 and 1926. These are the so called notch babies who, thanks to an oversight by a long ago congress, got screwed on their social security payments.
The SCL has suggested a handout of five thousand dollars compensation. One might wonder if this includes dead notch babies heirs. We must, at all costs, be fair. I calculate that this could cost perhaps sixty billion dollars.
Our profligate,lickspittle congressmen (Oops!, congress persons ) call themselves public servants ( That's a laugh ) but all they desire is to be re-elected and so they like the idea of giving away our money to buy votes. Here is a hint of the groups with hands extended for a piece of the pie. N, U, C, B, OF,P and R. (Politically incorrect initials . Can you guess who they are?
The key word in all these schemes is fairness. That concept can put us ever deeper in debt.
The SCL has suggested a handout of five thousand dollars compensation. One might wonder if this includes dead notch babies heirs. We must, at all costs, be fair. I calculate that this could cost perhaps sixty billion dollars.
Our profligate,lickspittle congressmen (Oops!, congress persons ) call themselves public servants ( That's a laugh ) but all they desire is to be re-elected and so they like the idea of giving away our money to buy votes. Here is a hint of the groups with hands extended for a piece of the pie. N, U, C, B, OF,P and R. (Politically incorrect initials . Can you guess who they are?
The key word in all these schemes is fairness. That concept can put us ever deeper in debt.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
GOVERNMENT IN ACTION
We are perplexed by the steps that the FDA or maybe the Agriculture
dept. takes when it imagines that they have found something amiss with our food supply. I have assembled a small list of the stupidities they have perpetrated against our suppliers.
Some years ago it was apples. Alar was supposedly a deadly poison that the industry had been using for years, No fatalities. Nobody got sick. Apple growers were ruined.
One might recall the Chilean grape scandal. Someone found a grape in a shipment supposedly with poison in it. All Chilean grapes were destroyed. Chile took a big hit on this one.
Lettuce and melons were the next victims. These growers were nearly ruined. Californian
growers were ruined for a time.
Do you remember the tomato recall ? Florida and California growers were ruined. It turns out that it was a mistake and decided it was jalapenos that were to blame, another ruined crop.
Now the bureaucrats have outdone themselves. Eggs, the perfect food, are deemed to be infected. Something like a billion eggs have been recalled. Why, you might ask. 125 people have gotten food poisoning. That works out to be one in 4 million. Your chances of winning the lottery are about as good. It occurred to me that cooked eggs are free of salmonella and perfectly safe to eat. Wouldn't a simple warning be all that is necessary ? But no ! Our nosey intrusive government thinks nothing of destroying whole industries.
For years I have been making smoothies with milk, bananas, egg(raw) and Ovaltine. I intend to continue doing so. It is a delicious drink . I recommend it for breakfast.
We are perplexed by the steps that the FDA or maybe the Agriculture
dept. takes when it imagines that they have found something amiss with our food supply. I have assembled a small list of the stupidities they have perpetrated against our suppliers.
Some years ago it was apples. Alar was supposedly a deadly poison that the industry had been using for years, No fatalities. Nobody got sick. Apple growers were ruined.
One might recall the Chilean grape scandal. Someone found a grape in a shipment supposedly with poison in it. All Chilean grapes were destroyed. Chile took a big hit on this one.
Lettuce and melons were the next victims. These growers were nearly ruined. Californian
growers were ruined for a time.
Do you remember the tomato recall ? Florida and California growers were ruined. It turns out that it was a mistake and decided it was jalapenos that were to blame, another ruined crop.
Now the bureaucrats have outdone themselves. Eggs, the perfect food, are deemed to be infected. Something like a billion eggs have been recalled. Why, you might ask. 125 people have gotten food poisoning. That works out to be one in 4 million. Your chances of winning the lottery are about as good. It occurred to me that cooked eggs are free of salmonella and perfectly safe to eat. Wouldn't a simple warning be all that is necessary ? But no ! Our nosey intrusive government thinks nothing of destroying whole industries.
For years I have been making smoothies with milk, bananas, egg(raw) and Ovaltine. I intend to continue doing so. It is a delicious drink . I recommend it for breakfast.
Monday, August 9, 2010
IRRITATED ( AGAIN )
I have touched on the horror of the useless expression, you know, in some of my previous writings. Happily, my campaign against you know has been largely successful and only professional athletes and other mentally challenged individuals still use it. They elicit sympathy rather than irritation. Their innocent ignorance cannot be condoned but looked upon with tolerance. But----
But even more insidious phrases have infected our erstwhile beautiful English language.This infection is far more serious than the now fading you know. There are three of them, the worst being if you will followed by if I may and (right out of the ghetto) you know what I mean. These repulsive and totally unnecessary phrases come out of the mouths and pens of professional speakers, politicians and writers. The politicians automatically lose my vote. The other writers and speakers loose all credibility.
I, if you will, am angered and,if I may, saddened by the degradation of English, if you know what I mean.
I reserve the right to expound on he/she at a later date
But even more insidious phrases have infected our erstwhile beautiful English language.This infection is far more serious than the now fading you know. There are three of them, the worst being if you will followed by if I may and (right out of the ghetto) you know what I mean. These repulsive and totally unnecessary phrases come out of the mouths and pens of professional speakers, politicians and writers. The politicians automatically lose my vote. The other writers and speakers loose all credibility.
I, if you will, am angered and,if I may, saddened by the degradation of English, if you know what I mean.
I reserve the right to expound on he/she at a later date
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