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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

April 28th and what has been going on the last few days!!!

During the past few days we have seen many disturbing images on the TV regarding Baltimore riots.  We have had speeches, denials, and statements which are blatently misleading.  Why people would not remember what they had said and blame others for twisting their thoughts is beyond my comprehension.

The poor mayor of the city is so caught up in not understanding what she is doing it is really quite sad.  What appears to have happened is that she came out of meetings with officers and others in her command posture and then said what she had been thinking in private.  Not realizing others heard her correctly, but she could not believe herself coming out with those strange utterances.  

By the way, she is the Secretary of the National Democratic Party!  A leader who has fallen on her sword!

Ferguson:


Can we ever understand why those people in Ferguson are now back in the streets?  This Freddie Gray incident was not theirs.  Yes, it seems that he was killed in a way that leaves a lot of questions which need to be answered!  There will be responsibility leveled at those who did this and they will have to pay the consequences, but why are the people in Ferguson taking to the streets?  There has not been anything yet said and the settlement of the issues need to be addressed by the justice system.  Cannot blame a whole police department and a mayor for the problems which came about, yet that is what is being done.  Are we going to have a summer of discontent all over the US?  Very sad indeed.

Curfew:

A curfew should have been put in place before 15 buildings were set on fire, 100 plus cars burned, and 20 or so police officers injured.  Waiting a day only added substance to the statement made by the Mayor that we had to give the protestors space to vent their rage.  A CVS store had been courted to come to Baltimore to provide quality and reasonable prices for their products.  Now will they even think about  rebuilding?  Remember, the riots of the 1960's destroyed neighborhoods of the minority communities and it took many years to rebuild them.  It took a lot of effort to get the stores to re-enter markets which had been so bad on them.  Now...the same thing is happening again and might just spring up in other communities across the nation.  The only ones who get hurt are the people living in this area of the minority neighborhoods.  Youngsters who have nothing to gain or lose are responsible.  Saying they need opportunity is not the answer!

What can we do to help the situation of impoverishment among black youths?

President Franklin D Roosevelt had a solution in the 1930's long before WWII bailed out the economy.  There were specialized job corps programs for both youths and adults.  People were given opportunities to work and earn their way back from poverty.  Today we do not have that setup at all.  We have food stamps, great, but there is no pride in getting them!  We give dole outs of clothing, housing, and the like, but no pride in getting them!  We need to change the system, Obama Phones are nice, but there is no pride in getting them.

Giving people jobs, doing work will instill pride!  Earn while you learn!  No, we don't pay youth to go to school, we should however, have  on the job training.  The infra-structure of this country is in disparate need of repair.  Why not have a summer of fixing.  Fix the bridges, roads, buildings, and build items of pride in communities.  High Schools in the great depression were able to obtain  stadiums whose construction created jobs for the people who built them.  Is it wrong to do the same thing once again?  Housing is sorely needed for low income families, Habitat for Humanity is a great program, but a government sponsored program would be a great step forward in getting the homes needed, giving jobs, and teaching skills that could be carried over into the creation of prideful jobs!!!

Wonder what ever happened to community gardens?

Looking back over the past 30 or so years we have seen many communities build parks, gardens, and spruce up neighborhoods.  Is that going on today?  The only  reason I question, I have not seen much of it in either the news or discussion on talk radio or community papers!  It would be very interesting indeed to see if this is still going on.  Food for those who need it!  What about paying for produce from a  community garden with food stamps which could be turned into cash to pay the youth who would tend these gardens and have pride in produce!  Pride in earning money so that they could go to school in the fall it will be with a little jingle in their pockets!

Sign up if you like this blog so that you can keep getting the messages. 

I am putting out thoughts which I have regarding today's events, tomorrows events, and trying to make this world a better place.  Having taught college, practiced law, and participated in many community events through the years I see things through a more humanitarian set of eyes than I did so many years ago.  Please let me know if your are getting the message.  I am friends now with people all over the world!  Do  we speak the same language and care  about our  fellow personages enough to speak up when things go wrong?  I hope so!!!

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Can you believe it is April 19th?

Here it is the 19th of April and it only seems like it was yesterday that it was January...I guess when you are living out in the area of the country where the weather stays nice and you do not have to suffer with snow, rain, and all the other maladies of life you can forget how long it takes to find sunshine and flowers.

Yesterday I was reading about some of the pioneers who helped develop the West.  It was interesting to read about some people who had been Minnesotans because they wanted to and then they branched out to make huge strides in the rest of the country.  There was James J. Hill a train baron who was helped by his good friend Frederick Weyerhauser in building the rail system which extended to the Northwest.  Both were very wealthy even by today's standards.  St. Paul was the city which they lived in because they liked it.  Weyerhauser was a man who loved the woods and back country.  He had many children and a wife who he left alone a lot of the time so that he could develop relationships with other timber barons in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and then in the Pacific Northwest.  There are several great books out there which bear looking into for the education of your children and their children.  

 Are you going to toss your hat in the ring?

Election campaigns are heating up and there are many more people stepping into the forefront so they can get their ideas into the mainstream.  Realize that only one person will be President!  There are so many who are announcing they are going to run, is it because they want something else out of their campaigning?  Many jobs are available once the President takes office.  Folks who run swiftly back the chosen candidate and help that person gain the office.  It is in this spirit that the chosen one gives patronage to those who helped getting elected.  Back in the day when Jimmy Carter ran I somehow had been put in place as the Chairman of Veterans for Carter in Minnesota.  When he won the election I was sent an application to apply for a job in the administration in the Department of Veterans Affairs.  I did not want to return to Washington DC so I declined.  I still have that application.  In fact, they even sent me an invitation to the Inauguration ceremonies and the balls which took place that evening.  I kept those as mementos, but did not attend!  Do you know how cold it gets in DC in January?

Summer is quickly coming...are you ready?

Is it quirky or is it just me?  I think of the heat of summer when I am out here in the desert, but reality is that we treat summer as though it were winter here.  We rarely go out into the 90 and 100 degree days.  What we like best is Spring until about early June.  Then we look forward to late September or early October when it cools down once again.  Right now we have our tomato plants out in pots, watering them daily as it is getting into the 80's now.  There are these nice green globules dangling from the plants and the yellow flowers are attracting critters which will pollinate them.  We have a plum tree and it is loaded this year!  The pomegranate tree is in full blossom and looks like it will have a bumper crop this year.  We placed a new shed in the yard and had to trim a couple of trees to get it there.  What resulted is that the trimmed trees have been going bananas and growing far larger than they ever had before.

Hoping that you all have a great summer!  I would like to get out there and do some fishing for a change.  Since being out here we have missed that part of our lives.  In Minnesota I used to fish a lot with my great friend George from Kentucky.  Life sure has changed a lot since those days.  When we lived on the houseboat we did a little fishing, but never really got into it on the scale that I had done before.  We purchased a lake place and it was great for fishing, but we only did a little.  My step dad Max went fishing when he and my mom joined us for a vacation at our lake place.  Max told me that it was the first time that he had ever gone fishing...I was happy to have given him that experience.

So long for now....
Clark    

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

April 1st...Fools and their money shall be soon parted!

The Main Theme today is Thrift: 

Are you saving money for the rainy day?  Do you live from paycheck to paycheck?  Have you ever thought about winning the lottery?

These are elements which get into today's thrift message.  Saving is great, but where do you put the money that you save?  The banks have such low interest rates that it might be better to invest your money into candy and gum...LOL.  The reason is simple, the prices of commodities shall be rising as the time marches on.  Look at the cost of oil, food, and other necessities of life.  They are constantly going up and yet wages are stagnant and in some cases are retreating. 

Those who are on fixed pensions get a little relief with cost of living increases, but do those increases really reflect the rising of prices?  There are some things which we all need and those prices are up and down.  Take oil for instance.  The cost of gasoline affects everyone.  Even if you take a bus the costs are passed onto you in one form or another.  What can you do about it?  VOTE!  Yes, vote for those candidates who are not aligned with interests which are detrimental to you.  You can easily check out the voting record of Senators, Congressmen, and local officials in your states.  If they seem to be voting along with the bloc of money grabbers, get them out of office.  If they are voting independently and based upon principle, then by all means keep them in!

One of the things that the internet is providing is a means for us to invest in foreign countries which have the same values that we have here in America.  An example is Australia.  The banks there are paying higher interest on deposits than we are paying here in the US.  We see that interest on savings accounts amounts to 1 percent if that.  They are paying more than that and we should investigate the banks there and determine if it is wiser to send out hard earned savings out of this country to another.  There are taxes to consider because you can be taxed on earned income from foreign countries just the same as the income from here which you earn.

It is the Day of Fools!

I can recall being pranked on a job when I got out of the Navy way back in 1958.  It seems that one of my co-workers thought it would be a good thing to leave me a message that Mr. Bear called and needed me to call him back.  Now, the co-worker did not know that my Step-Father was named Baer.  I thought tht it might be an emergency that he called because my mother had been ill.  However, there was a phone number left with this call so I returned the call to this number all day long.  It seems that the number was for the Zoo.  The Zookeeper kept getting calls all day long for Mr. Lion, Mr. Bear, Mr. Fox and so forth.  He was very pleasant about it when I finally got through, but can you imagine the number of hours this fellow wasted of the taxpayers money just because of foolish pranks?  If you try a April Fools joke make sure that it is of short duration, does not waste time and further that it is not a complete annoyance.

Just a personal note...my cold is a lot better now and at least I can sit without coughing or having a runny nose.