Sexual hypocrisy

For the past several months, the television news media appears to have been falling all over itself covering the supposed wild popularity of the "Fifty Shades of Grey" franchise. Morning show co-hosts, both male and female, can't seem to contain their excitement over production of the first "Fifty Shades" movie due out some time next year.

In an era of high sexual perversion, I'm not at all surprised that the kinky, dark side of sex is being exploited, glamourized and sensationalized. However, I do find it surprising that mainstream media is embracing this darker side of popular culture given heightened vigilance society has toward sexual crimes and misconduct.

In a single morning show episode, NBC's "Today Show" co-hosts debated the appropriateness of a Colorado school district suspending a six-year-old boy for kissing a girl on the hand, while excitedly anticipating the upcoming release of the first "Fifty Shades" movie.

How can we say in one breath that what the little boy did was inappropriate, and in the next exclaim how excited we are to see a sexually explicit movie about bondage and domination? It makes absolutely no sense. It is absurd.

We chastize a little boy for committing sexual harassment, simply for kissing a little girl's hand; something that was a show of respect in times gone by. But we turn right around and act like a bunch of giddy school kids awaiting a movie that we want to see because it speaks to our inner desires.

The hypocrisy over the way our culture views sex and sexual expression couldn't be more evident.

We chide people for their public expressions of romance, calling such actions harassment. But we embrace "tolerance" and open-mindedness when it comes to sexual expression in art.

We cheer artistic sexual expression, but we ignore how these messages can get conveyed by viewers, readers and consumers of such. We seem appalled when consumers translate this expression in public.

Really?

Seems to me like a natural consequence.

If we say it's okay to promote alternative sexual lifestyles, but not okay to act them out publicly, where is the rationale in that? If it's okay to promote sex, but not okay to act out sex, what sense does this make?

I agree that acting out sex publicly can be very destructive and should be discouraged. But so should the explicit and implicit messages that our culture sends people through art and expression.

It makes no rational sense at all to condemn an act but embrace the message that can influence an act.

But that's what human culture does. We want it all: The ability to express ourselves without restraint, but then we want the ability to regulate our actions.

Until we recognize that thoughts influence actions, I doubt humanity will ever see its hypocrisy.

Compassion...journalist style

About a month ago, news about the Justice Department's official report on the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting was released. Survivors and victims' families were given the opportunity to view the government's final report. It was entirely voluntary, and no one was required to read the findings.

At the time, NBC "Today Show" co-host Matt Lauer reported that the network had made the decision not to air the findings out of respect for the victims' families. Then, in his next breath, Lauer commented that NBC made this decision because there was nothing new in the report. Because there was nothing new, it wasn't worth revealing publicly, and better to respect the feelings of the survivors and victims' families.

So, ultimately, NBC's decision was not made out of a measure of compassion toward those most directly affected by the massacre. Rather, it was made for pragmatic, practical reasons. There wasn't anything new, exciting or revealing in the report to waste NBC's precious air time with; so why bother? Instead, let's respect the victims' families and the survivors by not airing the details of the report.

However, if there had been something new in the report, then the victims' families and survivors be damned. The media would have aired these details despite any feelings about it, and irrespective of compassion toward those most affected by the event.

In my experience, journalists can be among the most callous and desensitized professionals in the business world. More ruthless than a commodities buyer or speculator. More heartless than a corporate executive whose company runs a sweat shop. More inhuman than a software engineer who talks to computers all day.

I know this, because I was a journalist for a decade. I saw first-hand just how separated from reality these people can be.

I remember my first year working in a news room. It was around 11 p.m., and one reporter was listening intently to traffic on a police scanner. The night had been a very slow one as news was concerned. Editors were worried about what their lead front-page story would be. Maybe coverage of a local quilt show? A high school sporting event? Something soft and not very intriguing.

Then, a few minutes later, traffic over the scanner indicated an automobile accident on the highway outside of town. The dispatcher reported to the responding officers that there may be a fatality.

Suddenly, the reporter came alive and with wide eyes and a smile on his face, he exclaimed, "Yes! There's our front page!"

I couldn't believe my ears. He was cheering over a fatal car accident? Who, in their right mind, would do such a thing?

The answer: A journalist.

I resolved at that moment not to ever let myself get so desensitized by my work that I would come to regard human beings and the things that happen to them as just words on a page, a headline, a tag line, a photograph that sells newspapers, magazines and air time.

The NBC decision not to air the final report on Newtown was equally as callous as the reporter rejoicing over a car accident. There wasn't anything new to report, so we will respect the feelings of survivors and families. But that wouldn't be the case if there was something new to report.

In other words, feelings and compassion are only important when it doesn't compete with "journalistic responsibility." I call this journalistic zeal; not responsibility.

Responsibility is acting on and exercising conscience. Something the news media rarely, if ever, does when ethics compete with a juicy story.

I'm just a little bit tired of the phony "compassion" displayed by news journalists. They relish in making themselves appear compassionate, tolerant and empathetic. But this ruse lasts only as long as there isn't something "new" to report on. Then these bastions of humanity become barricudas.

It is a frighteningly quick transformation, because a journalist can turn from a warm-blooded human being into a cold-blooded viper faster than Clark Kent stripped to his Superman suit in the telephone booth.

I struggle daily to respect news journalists because of their disingenuousness. I was too honest, too real, and didn't have enough onion layers on me to survive long enough as a news professional. I was too human, and not zealous enough.

Thank God for that.

Serious journalism...

...versus not so serious.

The distinction can be summed up by the difference between the Wall Street Journal and the National Enquirer.

Serious journalism is the gathering, organizing and reporting of information without all of the fru-fru. It is about communication; moving information from one source to another. Serious journalism can be dry, bland and boring. But it has a practical, functional purpose behind it.

There is a world of difference between the journalistic approaches of the nightly news casts and the morning shows that air on the alphabet networks; like the difference between an ice-cream cone and a hot-fudge sundae.

One is basic, and the other super sugar-coated. One is serious, and the other light-hearted. One is hard news, the other soft. One is structured, and the other laissez-faire. One is about delivering information, the other entertainment.

I don't mind so much the light-hearted nature of the morning shows. But I resent the hosts calling themselves journalists.

Bologne.

If they are at all journalists, they are overly fancied versions. They are entertainers on the level of Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno.

The difference between Brian Williams of the NBC Nightly News and Matt Lauer of the NBC Today Show is like the distinction between a sales representative and a used car salesman. While both are salespeople, one is focused on profession while the other on showmanship.

Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders are good comparisons. Both were professional athletes; but Rice took his profession more seriously. The football field was his office. For Sanders, it was a stage upon which to show off. Rice was a worker; Sanders a showman.

The same can be said about Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal. The former was a hard-working professional on the court, while the other was more of a showman.

Lauer is not a serious journalist. He's a showman. If he was, then he wouldn't be content to hosting a soft-news driven morning show, and would have ambitions of anchoring a nightly news broadcast. While I don't feel his former co-host, Katie Couric, was a particularly effective or serious journalist, either, she at least had the ambition to seek a more serious position in her profession; even though it didn't last.

Call me a morning show humbug, but I just am not impressed with these programs as premier journalistic venues. I really don't mind them being light-hearted and soft in their approaches. But I think it is a misnomer to really consider morning shows as serious journalism.

Of all of the hosts on the three networks in the morning, only Al Roker fits the bill of a morning show host. He's naturally funny and light-hearted; the way morning shows are designed to be. But he's also a meteorologist; a weather man. He doesn't fancy himself as a journalist.

Morning show hosts are entertainers above all. They are not journalists. Their job is to present information in an entertaining fashion; not to report it and pass it on.

If you want to see serious journalism in action, watch your local news broadcasts. If you want entertainment, then watch the morning shows. But don't think for a minute that these morning show hosts pass for serious journalists.

Serious journalists aren't content to write gossip columns for the rest of their career any more than broadcasters are content to host entertainment programs rather than news casts for the remainder of their careers.

You morning show people have traded serious journalism for entertainment. All fine and dandy.

Just do us all a favor and don't call yourselves serious journalists; because you're not.

A tale of two charities

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... or so Charles Dickens' story begins.

Picture this: A lonely old widow places a five dollar bill into the red bucket of a Salvation Army bell ringer. That money she was going to use to buy a few small food items for herself. Instead, she donated all she had to others in need, and left herself deprived of the basic necessities of life. Rather than hoard the money out of fear, she gave out of a joyful heart; and out of faith that her God would provide for her needs.

Then picture this: Multi-million-dollar celebrities appear in a television commercial for St. Jude's Children's Hospital and Research Center of New York. As soon as the shoot is over with, the stars have their make-up removed and change out of their wardrobe. Their charitable work is done. They then are ushered away from the studio into their limousines and chauffeuered back to their mansions in Beverly Hills or Malibu.

Without further thought, they go on about their leisure while their personal assistants and accounting staff worry about the details of their employers' charitable donations, which, for many of them, is required by contract as part of maintaining a positive public image. A few thousand here; a couple hundred thousand there. Mere drops in the bucket for these philanthropists.

Now, I ask you: Which donation meant the most, and had the greatest impact on humanity? The five dollar bill given by the needy widow, or the two hundred thousand a celebrity drops into the bucket of need for St. Judes?

By man's standards, the St. Judes donation would have the farthest reaching impact.

But measuring the charity by God's standards, the widow's donation meant the most to meet the needs of others, because it came from the heart. It wasn't some formality like the paper charities supported by celebrities.

While paper philanthropists like media personalities and entertainers can appear to have the largest of hearts because their money is farthest reaching, their generosity is eclipsed by the average, inconspicuous donation of a humble human being who just wants to do the right thing for somebody else.

So, before you begin admiring a movie star for his or her charitable contributions, look more locally at the humble donors in your own community as people to honor for the good that they do.

Most of them are anonymous. They do not want to attract attention to themselves for the good works that they do; the way celebrities naturally tend to do. Rather, they give secretly, because their reward exists not in this life, but the next one.

This is news?

A story was posted today on Yahoo! News about how more employers are passing higher costs of health care on to their employees.

For me, personally, this story comes about two years too late.

Beginning in 2011 the insurance premium I paid through my employer rose by 100 percent.

That's right. Within months of the Affordable Care Act becoming law, my premium doubled.

And it has remained just as high ever since.

Frankly, I dislike the phrase "See, I told you so," but this is one of those moments. I wrote a couple of years back about the likely consequences of Obamacare, and increased costs to the consumer was one of them.

I said back then that I am waiting skeptically for the "affordable" part of the ACA to kick in. Now, it looks like "affordable" will be more oxymoronish of the law rather than an integral part of it.

Fundamental economics teaches us that when demand for a product or service increases, the cost of said product or service for sale on the market also increases. This is particularly true for more "affordable" health plans; the supply of which remains dismally small.

In fact, when shopping for "affordable" health plans on my state insurance exchange web site, I found no individual or family plan below $300 a month in premium. Even the most basic plans with high deductibles were well over $300 a month.

How is this affordable for the average American household already struggling to meet expenses?

My advice is not to wait with bated breath for health care coverage to become more "affordable," in spite of what the President's law says. You may otherwise pass out from asphyxiation.

Talk is cheap, after all. Until I see the "affordable" side of things, I remain skeptical that Obamacare is a real fix to the problem of rising health care costs, and more convinced than ever that it was snake oil sold by a travelling charlatan, who just happens to have hung his hat at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue until January 2017.

A little late for sorry

President Barack Obama has apologized to Americans who are losing their current health insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act law of 2010.

"I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me," the President told NBC News.

Yes, I'm sure you are, Mr. President. You don't have to worry about another election now. You are a lame-duck chief executive, sir, and it is a little late for sorries.

"We've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this," Obama continued.

Really, sir? Will you work as hard as you did to rush Obamacare through Congress before the next election? Will you work as hard as you did to avoid the tough questions from Americans who read your law and raised concerns about it? Will you work as hard as you did in 2008 selling your snake oil of hope and change? I sure hope so, because this is your legacy, Barack. If this program fails before you leave office, the legacy of your eight-year tenure will be one great, big mess.

“Obviously we didn’t do a good enough job in terms of how we crafted the law," Obama said. "And, you know, that’s something I regret."

No kidding. You and your democratic buddies rushed this bill through Congress, ignored or downright silenced skeptics at townhall meetings, and insisted on getting this legislation passed into law before the next general election.

Mission accomplished.

Unfortunately, it came at substantial price. That being competency of the law, confusion over it, and the downward cascading effect it is now causing.

Obamacare is now circling the drain of irrelevance and is at risk of being flushed down the toilet of monumental, illegitimate failures.

According to NBC news, the Obama Administration knew since 2010 that millions of Americans could lose their health insurance coverage. Information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services dating back to July 2010 estimated that “40 to 67 percent” of the 14 million consumers in that marketplace could lose their policies due to turnover in the individual insurance market, NBC News found.

Let's recount the many ways in which the President promised that this would not happen:

• June 15, 2009, in a speech to the American Medical Association: “That means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”

• March 19, 2010, in a speech at George Mason University four days before the ACA became law: “If you like your doctor, you’re going to be able to keep your doctor. If you like your plan, keep your plan. I don’t believe we should give government or the insurance companies more control over health care in America. I think it’s time to give you, the American people, more control over your health.”

• October 4, 2012, during the first presidential debate with Mitt Romney: “Number one, if you've got health insurance it doesn't mean a Government takeover. You keep your own insurance. You keep your own doctor. But it does say insurance companies can't jerk you around.

• September 25, 2013, during a speech in Prince George’s County, Maryland: “Now, let’s start with the fact that even before the Affordable Care Act fully takes effect, about 85 percent of Americans already have health insurance -– either through their job, or through Medicare, or through the individual market. So if you’re one of these folks, it’s reasonable that you might worry whether health care reform is going to create changes that are a problem for you – especially when you’re bombarded with all sorts of fear-mongering. So the first thing you need to know is this: If you already have health care, you don’t have to do anything.”

• October 30, 2013, during a Boston speech on the Affordable Care Act: “Now if you had one of these substandard plans before the Affordable Care Act became law and you really liked that plan, you were able to keep it. That's what I said when I was running for office. That was part of the promise we made. But ever since the law was passed, if insurers decided to downgrade or cancel these substandard plans, what we said under the law is, you've got to replace them with quality, comprehensive coverage because that too was a central premise of the Affordable Care Act from the very beginning.”

Ah, yes, the power of political promises. It is a darned good thing that Obama is now in his second and final term, because if this had come out before the end of his first, he'd have been a one-term wonder instead of a two-term regret.

I am personally still waiting for the "affordable" part of the ACA to kick in. Since 2010 my family's health insurance premium has doubled in out-of-pocket cost, and there is no indication in sight that I will start seeing any savings any time soon. Some of my copays have increased, too, so this adds insult to injury of having to pay more for health care coverage since the the passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

The President's broken promise wouldn't be so tough to swallow had he not ended his apology this way:

“The majority of folks will end up being better off," he said of the changes caused by the ACA. "Of course, because the website not working right they may not know it."

Another promise from a guy who knows how to keep them.

The government has shut down...

...Now what?

I don't know about you, but I am so gripped with anxiety over the federal government shutdown that I just don't know what to do with myself. (read: sarcasm.)

The news makes it seem as though all life as we know it is endangered by the fed closing its doors to business until further notice.

Stories of personal suffering, of fear, of helplessness, and of hopelessness. This may happen, or that will. Germs will run rampant because the FDA is not on the job. Criminals will be turned loose or not caught. Children will starve. The elderly will be neglected. People will suffer and die, because Uncle Sam is unable to agree with himself and reopen his wallet.

As I recall, America got through the government shutdown we had in the nineties just fine. She will get through this one just fine, too.

Why?

Because the heartbeat of this country is not the federal government, but the people who support it and make it up. Despite all of the doom and gloom being talked about all over the media, life continues to go on. People are still working. They are still buying and spending. They are still raising their families, keeping and supporting their homes, and conducting business as usual; whether or not the government is.

But, having been a member of the news media for several years, I know that these doom-and-gloom reports are just that; stories meant to dramatize the impact, and sensationalize the severity. They are useful in boosting ratings, selling subscriptions, and otherwise filling the coffers of the news industry. The whole truth isn't often reported in the media; but rather the "facts" that sell its product.

There are greater concerns in this world than whether or not Congress and the POTUS can agree; like the moral health of our country; like the destruction of the nuclear family; like the financial viability of the government; like the degenerative culture that drives and influences peoples' lives; and like the absence of an internal compass that used to guide people and their decisions through the practice of self-control.

Our society today places such a premium on what is empirical and extrinsic that it is no wonder we suffer a hissy-fit whenever our "things" and "materiel" get threatened. We have become so co-dependent on government to provide for our needs that it is no wonder people panic when Uncle Sam reaches into his pants pockets and turns them inside out.

If anything can be gleaned from this shut down, I hope that people can recognize that their lives can and do go on when the government does not; and that the government is not the end-all, be-all of American existence. It is not the defining element of our culture. We are. And the end-all, be-all of the American experience is the individual resolve of the average citizen to continue pursuing.

Perhaps the longer the feds are shut down, the more obvious this truth will appear to more people. ...Or not. We shall see.

Manhood endangered

A while back, I was vegging in front of the television, letting the minutes tick away toward bed time.

Then a commercial aired that caught my attention like a stray campfire ember settling on my clothes.

Now, I had probably seen this advertisement dozens of times, along with other commercials similar to it, but thought little of them until this moment. The ad depicted a husband and a wife; one a wise sage and the other a village idiot. If you guessed that the husband was portrayed as the idiot, then you've probably seen the ad or others like it before.

It suddenly struck me that the traditional concept of manhood was being redefined by forces in human society that seek to destroy what it means to be a man. Conventional wisdom about manhood is that men are leaders in their homes and in their communities. They are supposed to be strong, courageous, and self-sacrificing. They are supposed to be moral. They are supposed to have integrity and character. But that isn't the message I get when I watch the average television commercial these days.

Has anyone else noticed how stupid men are made to look in advertisements, especially when paired with a woman? Ten times out of ten, the man assumes the role of the buffoon, deferring intelligence to the woman.

The powerful feminist movement obviously has influence over the way women are portrayed in commercials; and in particular when paired with men. God forbid that the woman appear to be the simpleton of the two. That just would be sending the wrong message; one we cannot have delivered to the impressionable minds of society's young women.

I don't disagree. But I do resent that men are expected to thus assume the role of "Tweedle Dum" just to curb the ire of a vitriolic political lobby. What's more, there doesn't seem to be much of any defiance among the male population toward this trend. It's as though the concept of manhood has been deluded to the point where men don't even seem to know what it means to be a man.

Multiple generations of males have grown up in fatherless households. They've been surrounded by estrogen most, if not all, of their lives. Making matters worse, popular culture has been delivering messages to males that they are, more or less, irrelevant to the health of society. Fatherhood has been denigrated to little more than a monthly child support payment or alimony. It is a signature on a check.

Institutions that once promoted and supported the advancement of manhood in society have been infiltrated by an aggressive feminist movement insisting upon "equal access," only to tear down or make irrelevant those institutions that men could call their own.

The American male, in particular, has permitted himself to be led into the castration chamber. He appears content with being a sperm donor rather than an active part of children's lives. He'd rather just sleep with women than develop meaningful, intimate relationships with them and serve as a leader in the home.

The overriding message I glean from popular advertising is that manhood is no longer an important human value. Feminism is now behind its contemporary definition, and it serves at the disposal of female empowerment. Manhood is overrated, and largely unnecessary to an educated and enlightened society that sees greater value in feminism or gender neutrality.

God forbid that men actually reclaim their manhood, and it's Biblical definition, which American culture once proudly embraced. Now, whenever I see a commercial depicting an inferior male and a superior female, I point it out rather verbosely. I don't think it should be a hidden truth, but rather a revealed one that needs to be exposed for what it really is: An obvious attempt to redefine who wears the pants.

Men are turning into cultural eunuchs, becoming passive spectators with an inferiority complex growing from the inside out. The goal, I believe, is to make the American male submissive to cultural changes meant ultimately to turn society against God and the truth of His Word. I feel it's time to take a stand, and take back what is the rightful place of men in American society.

Despite what popular culture is trying to sell us, men aren't prehistoric thugs, Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon knuckle-draggers whose extent of communication is "ugh" and "ugh."

We aren't impulsive morons or Gomer Pyle simpletons who need to be led around with rings in our snouts. We are men, men of God, who submit to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to make us the pillars of masculinity that appeals to the inner depths of our female counterparts, whether they care to admit it or not.

It's time we stop buying into the "men are pansies" message being delivered to our brains with the hope of rewiring us into useless subjects of society. It's time we stand up against the cultural trend of single women choosing to be single moms with no inclination to involve a man as a father. It's time we defy the gay agenda seeking to relegate "men" to effeminate status. It's time we tell the feminist lobby where to stick it.
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..Oops. Did I just say that? LOL

Can you afford Obamacare?

This is a question everybody ought to be asking themselves.

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 (also known as “Obamacare”) is already three years old, and we still know very little about its real impact on the health care industry, the marketplace, or on individuals and families.

What we do know is that, over the past three years, one complication after another has been surfacing. Details that were overlooked then are now beginning to come to light, and the policymakers are wrangling to head the problems off at the pass.

Unfortunately, there is very little that can be done to fix things until the law takes full effect and we actually see its impact. Until then, all we can do is sit back and wait…with bated breath.

Therein lay the real travesty about the “Obamacare” law: There was little foresight to begin with in crafting the legislation. Problems were likely not identified, because the policymakers didn’t want to see them. That would have set the legislation back a lot farther than 2010, and with a mid-term election looming that year and a general election in two more years, it was just a lot easier to slap a bill together like a “hero” sandwich and worry about the heartburn it causes later.

So, now we are stuck with a law that raises more questions than it provides answers. Isn’t that usually the way? Our esteemed lawmakers, always vigilantly looking out for our best interests, are so hyper-focused on their re-election that they fail to address the pitfalls. Getting legislation passed is the bottom line, after all; not doing right by the American people. They worry about the details later, when the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room has become somebody else’s problem.

For instance, there’s the problem of supply and demand on this new law. For the sake of argument, let’s say everyone who is mandated to complies with the law and buys health care coverage. Is that really going to keep premiums from rising?

What it does is cause a run on the market, an increase in demand for a product or service. And what, dear Mr. Adam Smith, is the consequence of higher demand? Yup. Higher prices.

In spite of the health insurance reform that Obamacare addresses, there is also the looming problem of a shortage of health care providers and an unprecedented increase in demand for care. How does the law address this?

The “baby boom” generation (born between 1946-64) has already started to reach retirement age. In the next decade, millions more will. As the “boomers” age, their need for care will increase, and the more of them there are that are demanding care, the greater the strain on services there will be.

Further complicating matters is the reality that fewer young people are choosing medicine as a profession. Medical schools are hurting for enrollment. When facing a half-million dollars in student loan debt, and the prospect of very expensive malpractice and liability insurance premiums to carry once licensed to practice, who can blame students for shying away from the medical profession?

This begs the question: Who is going to provide the professional care that the next generation of senior and geriatric patients will demand?

We can talk all we want about how increasing the pool of policyholders will keep individual premiums in check; but this theory says nothing about how the costs of rising demand and the wavering supply of services and care will be dealt with. I think we can realistically count on health care to continue to become more expensive in the near future because of supply and demand demographics.

You would be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t think there were problems with our current health care system, and who didn’t have an opinion about how to fix it. I agree that there has been a lot of hot air spewed forth about the problems with health care, and little or nothing of substance addressing the issues. However, passing a law simply because that would be a better alternative to passing nothing at all is equally irresponsible. It is a dangerous game to be playing, but one a lot of people have found acceptable. Let’s just pass a law, any law, to fix the problems. And if the problems aren’t fixed with that law, then we will pass another to amend it until the problem gets solved.

Such was the mentality of a lot of Obamacare’s supporters during its transition from bill to law. How about we pass the right law the first time, so we don’t have to keep revisiting, revising and amending the law ad nauseum? How about we do our homework and get it right, no matter how long it takes, before we slap a brand on it and start selling it on the shelves?

My dad used to tell me, “Work smarter; do it right the first time.” Because then I wouldn’t have to do things over again. Sage advice, and no doubt, many people adhere to this principle in their daily lives. Why the heck can’t politicians?

Because Obamacare was written in haste, we now face the likelihood of having to do things over again. Because the politicians refused to address the problems already foreseen with the legislation when they had the chance, and before the bill became law, now we will have to do this over again.

Redundancy isn’t just a waste of resources; it also fits in with Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity: Doing the same things over and over again, and expecting different results.

Yup. That’s the American politician to a tee. I’m further convinced now that Obamacare was an exercise in insanity. Thanks for reminding me, Albert.

Safe sex doesn't work, either

Critics of the sexual abstinence message and its "just say no" mantra say that this strategy for preventing unwanted pregnancies or the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and viruses doesn't work because people are going to have sex anyway.

They have no self-control. Granted.

Few people in the modern age appear willing to exercise much in the way of self-control. I concede that this cultural attitude of do whatever you want and whatever pleases you has shattered the protective barriers established by ancestors who believed in the liberating power of self-control.

But changing from a prohibitive to a permissive society isn't the answer.

Yet that's exactly what our culture has done. Forty some-odd years ago, counterculturists pushed and promoted an agenda of doing what feels good. A sexual revolution was claimed on behalf of the American woman. And soon popular culture embraced this movement for its racy controversy and juicy illicitness.

Popular culture has been behind the "safe sex" campaign for more than thirty years. But the sad reality for safe-sex proponents is that this strategy hasn't worked too well, either.

It replaced what counterculturists deemed an antiquated abstinence message. Because people cannot be trusted to exercise self-control, as the reasoning has gone, the solution to sexual epidemics has been to make sex "safe" through measures of protection.

The hard truth is that safe sex hasn't had a very good track record of preventing pregnancies or the spread of STDs and viruses. The big lie that no permissive "safe sex" proponent will admit to is that "safe sex" as it has been coined isn't really safe at all. It is "safer" than no protection at all. But it isn't as safe as abstinence, and an element of significiant risk still exists to the individuals involved.

Condoms, spermicides and birth control pills have been promoted and pushed as the tools that make the safe sex strategy work. And yet, in spite of an aggressive publicity campaign throughout the nineteen eighties and nineties, teenaged pregnancy continued to increase in many areas of the country. So, too, did the incidents of STDs and viruses.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) condoms are, at best, 87 percent effective at preventing pregnancies and only slightly better at preventing the spread of diseases or viruses. Essentially, then, about one in nine condoms can be expected to fail according to the data.

Female birth control measures aren't any more certain, either. Birth control pills vary in their effectiveness depending upon the brand. And they do not protect against the transmission of diseases or viruses. Even the female condom isn't fool-proof.

That's really the point. There is no fool-proof method to preventing pregnancies or STDs and viruses.

Except abstinence. It has a 100 percent success rate when used.

That is the key right there: When used.

Permissivists do not want to acknowledge that abstinence is the healthiest and safest strategy. They dismiss it as ineffective because "nobody" will follow it.

Well, now, I wouldn't be so cynical or pessimistic as to agree with that.

When and if popular culture's messages ever change from permissiveness to dignity and self-respect, only then will generations of young people begin to listen to the wisdom of waiting and exercising self-control.

But because mainstream social institutions refuse to practice self-control, we cannot expect most of our young people to do so, either.

Prevention begins and ends with popular culture. So does permissiveness. Until or unless the values and messages from this institution change, we can expect more of the same destructive sexual behavior to continue and possibly worsen.

We can expect teen pregnancies to continue being endemic as long as television programs like MTV's "Teen Mom" airs, and glorifies and sensationalizes the lives of troubled young teenaged mothers.

We can expect our young men and women to associate self-confidence, self-respect and dignity with the sexual liberties as long as we give celebrities like Kim Kardashian or "Teen Mom" star Farrah Abraham ink and a forum to promote their highly dysfunctional, delinquent behavior.

Abraham, 22, hired an adult production company and an adult co-star to film her in a pornographic video. She has defended this action saying that she did it for herself so she could admire her new, improved body status post breast augmentation. She also said she wants to be able to view the images of herself when she is older so as to remind her of when she was at her sexiest, most youthful, and beautiful.

Even worse, she evidently did this shoot sans condoms and only on birth control. She did report paying for STD exams for herself and her co-star. Talk about your poster child for safe sex: "Oops! I forgot the condoms. Oh, well. Who needs them anyway? I'm on birth control and everyone takes this for granted as being 100 percent safe...right? What the heck..."

It turns out that Abraham also has a substance abuse problem as well as obvious psychological issues; depression most notable. Besides making the porn film as a cheap ego boost for her self-esteem, she has also undergone multiple cosmetic surgeries. How sad it is that a young woman like Abraham would degrade and defile herself with pornography in an effort to boost her self-esteem. How unfortunate that she feels she needs to alter her body in order to feel better about herself.

What Abraham doesn't seem to realize is that porn doesn't make a woman look sexy. Rather, it objectifies her and turns her from a human being into a slab of meat. Incidentally, so does cosmetic surgery. Blemishes and imperfections get in the way of our egocentric pursuit of sex appeal. We apparently want to be on display, because we think this is the way to gain admiration.

Abraham is so convinced that she needs these cheap ego boosts to feel good about herself. What a destructive message to send to other impressionable young women; some of whom are also single moms and/or may have personal issues similar to Abraham's. This makes her an enabler, and certainly not a positive role model.

But Abraham is microcosmic of the obstacles our society faces in its effort to get control of the unwanted pregnancy and STD/virus epidemics that plague the public. If our culture is going to continue pushing condom and pill use as a means of getting the sexual epidemics under control, then we are well advised to not refer to the message as "safe sex," because that is disingenuous and misleading.

A more appropriate term for this permissive sex movement is "augmented sex." It is sex with physical tools that sometimes don't work and get us into trouble anyway.

Either J-Lo is an idiot...

...or her support staff is.

Regardless, there's a village missing somebody on the Jennifer Lopez team.

The mega-star actress and singer gave a birthday performance to the president of Turkmenistan, a well-known human rights violator. When news of this leaked out, J-Lo's collateral damage crew hit the information waves in high gear, by issuing a statement that had the entertainer known of the human rights abuses, she never would have agreed to perform for the Turkmenistan president in the first place. This is code for, "Oh, crap. We are so stupid!"

J-Lo, I have three words for you and your public relations staff: Do your homework.

As a mega-celebrity you have access to more information than us common Joe and Betty Sixpacks do. Yet even John and Jane Q. Public could have performed a conscientious information search to see whether or not this political leader was worth celebrating. The information is out there; plentiful and documented by legitimate and reliable human rights sources. But the J-Lo team failed to do a reference check on the Turkmenistan president.

In a world with a history full of human rights abuses, violations, and outright crimes, one would think that checking up on the leader of a former Soviet block country would not only be common sense, but second nature, for anyone from the western free world looking to pay him a visit.

The bottom line here is that neither J-Lo nor her staff gave much thought to international political nuances; of which there are many, varied and complicated. Rather, what the J-Lo brand saw was a way to make some fast, easy money by entertaining a politician for a few minutes.

Hopefully this is a lesson learned for J-Lo and the people she employs to protect her corporation.

Without bagging too much on J-Lo personally, she isn't the first or only celebrity to perform for less than savory international figures. She isn't the first to draw this kind of scrutiny, ire or controversy. And she won't be the last, unfortunately.

The evidence has convicted me to believe that celebrities--entertainers, athletes, artists, media personalities and so forth--aren't typically the brightest stars in the sky; they are the wealthiest, for sure, but I've examined sharper butter knives than many of these people.

It is most unfortunate that so many celebrities have more money than brains. They have more wealth than they know what to do with, and not enough brains to figure out what to do with the fortunes they have.

Jennifer Lopez is a beautiful woman. But she is also a glamourized bimbo. She doesn't appear to have the brains to think for herself, much less hire people with more brains than she does to do the thinking for her. It is a classic case of the brainless leading the brainless. Or, idiots forming their own village. Whichever.

Profiling Paula

What you see is what you get.

That’s according to Paula Deen, the television cooking star who built a fortune on her food and her down home, honest to goodness personality.

I’ve watched Paula Deen over the years, and frankly, I think she is as genuine as the real article she claims to be. Without personally knowing the lady off camera, I have neither seen nor heard of any evidence that she is not what she appears to be.

This is a woman who knows what it means to struggle, pull herself up by her boot straps, and keep trying to better herself.

After a failed marriage, Paula was living as a single mother of two boys, trying to make ends meet to provide for her children. That’s when she began making brown paper sack lunches that her boys would sell to business people on their lunch breaks. Pretty soon, her sack lunches were in high demand, being delivered to office buildings all over the city.

Business soon became not only brisk, but downright overwhelming. It wasn’t too much later that Paula would open a restaurant called “The Lady and Sons” in Savannah, Ga. Invoking the name of her original sack lunch business, this venture, too, became a local hit.

Then came television, the Food Network, and the big time. Endorsements and her own product labels soon followed.

For many years to come Paula Deen was the Food Network, for all intents and purposes. She was there in the network’s early years before it became the popular hit channel it is today. In fact, Paula was a main attraction on the cable network. One might go so far as to say that she was one of the reasons the Food Network took off like it did, appealing to generations of cooking fans who found her folksy appeal almost as endearing as her recipes.

But then, at the height of her success, word was leaked to the news media just a couple of weeks ago that Deen had uttered a racial slur.

Uh-oh.

Anyone who is media savvy knows exactly what this means: Your career is in jeopardy, and possibly over.

Several media personalities over the years have faded into obscurity following the controversies contrived over things they’ve said.

And just like that, the Food Network dropped Paula Deen quicker than a stick of deep-fried butter fresh out of the oil. The company that can bank much of its success on Paula Deen was the first to throw her under the bus. And all over something that someone accused her of saying.

Paula hasn’t denied using the racial slur. But she denies using it the way she has been alleged of doing.

According to Paula, she used the racial slur three decades ago while under pressure in the middle of a bank hold-up.

Now, there are those who believe this story like they believe Deen’s high calorie dishes are healthy for them. And then there are those who will take Paula Deen’s word just because she is Paula Deen.

I’m sure a lot of people have found themselves falling to one side or the other. Then there are those of us that look at the situation and are waiting for the evidence that establishes her guilt to surface.

I am not going to proclaim her guilty until I’ve seen the evidence. I’m uncertain if she’s innocent, either. But I do know that in America, an accused person is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. So Paula has admitted to uttering a racial slur at some time in her life. This was 30 years ago. If that is the extent of her “racism,” then no one, including Paula, should have anything to worry about.

As Paula noted, everyone makes mistakes and says things they may regret. She appeared quite contrite and genuine in her public apologies. Her appearance on NBC’s “Today” show brought her to tears…real tears.

So many media and marketing experts have analyzed and over-analyzed her television appearances since the controversial allegation came out. Many have said that Paula hasn’t said enough, she hasn’t done enough, to earn back the love she once enjoyed from the American public.

But, the way I see things, the only people panicking over what Paula Deen said three decades ago are her corporate partners who are in “cover your butt” mode to protect against financial fall-out. In other words, they are merely looking out for their monetary interests, because they know how knee-jerk the media is and how much the ignorant public can be.

Paula’s true fan-base is largely unchanged. She may have lost those who followed her as a passing fancy, because they think she has a funny accent and her food looks good. But those who truly admire what she has done throughout her life, how much she has accomplished, and the obstacles she has overcome, are likely to stick with her until there is hard, empirical, conclusive evidence that establishes Paula is not the person she claims to be.

I do have to question the motive of the individual who leveled this accusation; and the timing.

Paula is at the top of her game. Her name, her brand is worth millions of dollars. To someone who is down and out, and who perhaps was rubbed the wrong way by Savannah’s “Bag Lady,” making an accusation of racism would seem like an viable game plan to getting one’s hands on a piece of Deen’s fortune.

After all, Paula has all of the right ingredients to be labeled a white supremacist racist. She’s white and she’s a Southron. Quite frankly, I think that’s why the news media latched onto the accusation as quickly as it did.

Everyone in the media knows that every white Southerner is really a racist at heart. That’s the profile that is built by a supposedly unbiased news media.

If the accusation had been made of Ina Garten or Giada Di Laurentis, it wouldn’t have resonated through the media the way it did because the accused was Paula Deen, whose Southern accent is so strong, I swear I can’t understand some of the things she says; like “pah,” or “buhhhder.”

Now, I’ll concede that Paula didn’t come right out and say “I’m sorry,” or “I apologize” on NBC's “Today Show.” She did utter a pretty clear apology on YouTube, asking people for their forgiveness.

From the way the "Today" interview went, I think Paula was downright angry, frustrated and upset about the fall-out over something that is in the distant past. She felt railroaded, the target of a witch-hunt because of her success.

I’ll wager she is partly correct. She is also a target because she is a white Southron. Those traits plus financial success equal inevitable trouble over the hyper-sensitive issue of race.

Why? Because white Southrons are profiled as racists by virtue of the South’s history. They are guilty of racism without even having to open their mouths, because, dag-nabbit, we all know where a white Southerner’s heart and mind lay, don’t we? They are presumed guilty until proven innocent.

I particularly enjoyed Paula’s parting shot at her critics, who very clearly are ready to throw stones her way. Invoking the New Testament story of Jesus who stepped in to save the life of an adulterous woman about to be stoned to death, Paula looked into the camera and pleaded for anyone who has never said something they have regretted to pick up a stone and throw it so hard it kills her.

Anyone with an ounce of sophisticated thought could hear that Paula was admitting her guilt, but then challenging the rest of us to examine ourselves to see if we really ought to be condemning her.

Whether America turns its back on Paula Deen or she is able to rise above yet another obstacle remains to be seen. I’ll put my money on Paula. She is more resilient than the people and entities bailing on her right now.

Gay doesn't mean joyful anymore

Back in the day, the term "gay" meant joyful. Today, "gay" means to be part of an activist community and a protected minority group. In my humble opinion, there is nothing joyful about today's gay movement.

Recentlhy, a same-sex marriage proposal has been passed in the Nevada Assembly. The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) voted to allow gay boys into their ranks; after years of standing their ground firmly opposed to the practice of homosexuality. And the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down both Proposition 8 in California and the federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996.

Of course, permissive rationalists today don't call homosexuality a practice, but a biological preference, genetic orientation, and a natural lifestyle.

I find the Boy Scouts' reversal disturbing, because it means the leadership is caving on Biblically moral issues in order to save "face" with an increasingly more "tolerant" society and world view. ...And to avoid future discriminatory lawsuits.

I thought it was laughable to hear a Nevada legislator supporting the same-sex marriage bill say that it was about equality and civil rights.

Civil rights? Since when is marriage a right? Last time I checked, it is a freedom and privilege of liberty. I don't know about anyone else, but I am very tired of everything decent and Biblically moral being walked on as though nothing Judeo-Christian is sacred anymore.

As far as I'm concerned, the government declaring marriage to be open to homosexuals treads upon the religious practice of marriage, and may, in fact, violate the First Amendment forbidding government from abridging the right of the people to peacefully assemble and practice their religion.

Marriage loses its sacredness when secular government steps in and declares what it is and what it isn't.

I have nothing against homosexual people. I have a brother who is openly gay, and I would do whatever I could for him if he was in trouble and needed help. I love him. I neither fear gay people, nor do I want to deprive them of the same Constitutional rights that I enjoy.

But I draw the line with marriage. God ordained it, and He did so specifically between a man and a woman.

The homosexual lobby just cannot leave religion alone. Years ago, gays just wanted to be left alone. But now their activist lobby is pursuing to take down every sacred religious institution. It may not be long before a minister, priest or pastor is sued for refusing to marry a same-sex couple. Until then, they'll just be persecuted. But, I suppose this is all prophetic of things to come.

That flushing sound you hear...

...is the institution of marriage circling the drain on its way down the toilet.

The U.S. Supreme Court today just struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, and Proposition 8 in California. With this decision now in the books as case law from the highest court the land, it will be used to strike down laws by other states that prohibit gay marriage and seek to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman.

While I understand and appreciate the issues of discrimination and equal protection under the law faced before the court, I fail to see how the freedom to marry falls into the category of equal protection.

The "gay rights" community insists marriage to be a civil right. I contend that it is not a right, but rather a liberty and a privilege. It is a religious liberty for faith groups to exercise and practice under much higher laws than civil laws of men. Marriage is about the freedom to exercise one's religion.

The USSC's decision today ensures that neither the federal government nor the states may prevent the gay movement from re-defining marriage; but the decision will open the flood gates for gay activists to prevent religious groups from protecting their definition of legal marriage. As such, there is not only a double standard that already exists, but I foresee that "equal protection under the law" will soon not apply to religious groups or individuals who want to preserve their definition of marriage.

Another can of worms that could be opened by this decision is the notion that a minister who refuses to marry a gay couple may be sued for discrimination; thereby infringing upon the cleric's constitutional right to freely exercise religion.

The question will be which constitutional right comes first: The "right" to marry or the right to practice one's faith? In my view, the issue of marriage is a moral and Biblical one. For other faith groups, it is clearly a religious rite and issue. As a Christian, I married for two reasons: (1) Because I wanted to raise a family with the woman I loved; and (2) so that my sexual expression may be pure and righteous.

If the primary purpose of marriage is to establish our love and commitment to someone, then should I marry my mother, siblings and children to establish my love and commitment to them? Absurd as this sounds, that is the logical conclusion one reaches when listening to the gay rights lobby express why its members want to marry.

From a secular position, the pragmatic point of marriage is to create an institution that is stable for the procreation of humankind, and for the raising of next generations of such beings. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that the dynamic of a mother (female) figure and a father (male) figure in a family unit has proven effective for generations, centuries and millennia. There is something specific I cannot quite put my finger on that a woman (wife, mother) brings to the marriage and something specific that the man (husband, father) brings to the marriage. Whatever it is, it works. God has known it since before the beginning of time. That's why He established it when creating man and woman.

The USSC's ruling will not only permit homosexuals to marry across the country, but to adopt children, and perhaps even "procreate" through surrogacy and through artificial means. I do not see how this will be effective and productive for society.

How will the proven dynamic of a mother and a father figure be introduced in a "family" of two mothers or two fathers? How will young females benefit from two mommies if they do not have a solid male role model to develop an intimate relationship with, and learn how to have appropriate and healthy relationships with members of the opposite gender? Or, how will they learn to be healthy women if they do not have a solid female role model in their lives?

Same for young males. If they do not have the nurturing of a mother figure, how can they learn to interact appropriately with members of the opposite sex and develop healthy intimate relationships with them? Or if raised without a father figure, how can they be expected to grow up to be healthy men if they do not have a solid male role model from which to learn?

I feel that the dynamics of gay couples will confuse children as they grow into young adulthood.

Environment plays a significant role in the lives of children, and has a substantial impact on them and the choices and decisions they make. They learn from observation. To be a man is different from being a woman. The genders are very distinct in their behaviors, in the way they process information, and in their intrinsic skill sets. They play off and benefit each other in special ways.

How will a boy learn what it means to be a man in society if raised by two mommies, or two daddies and no mother figure? How will a girl learn what it means to be a woman in society if raised by two daddies, or two mommies and no father figure? The gay community hasn't answered these questions. It hasn't addressed these very important issues and what they mean to be a family unit protected within the bonds of marriage.

I feel that gay activists just want to keep pushing their way into areas of society that their religious opponents value. It is about getting in peoples' faces. It is about pushing and pressing boundaries of others; dissrespecting their spaces. It is about advancing an agenda.

Twenty-five to thirty years ago, the gay movement said it just wanted to be recognized as legitimate people and not in-human freaks. Fifteen to twenty years ago, gays just wanted minority status so they could be protected in their jobs, their schooling, and their ability to purchase property. And in the past decade or so, the ante has been upped to seek marriage. The envelope and the boundaries are continually being pushed.

What is next? A couple decades ago, to be gay was to have a sexual preference. The activist movement then attempted to legitimize its lifestyle by insisting this "preference" was really a biological orientation. It was genetic and couldn't be helped, fixed or reversed. This helped them to gain minority status.

What I don't get is how gays can defend their insistence that their lifestyle is a biological orientation when the same people said being gay was a preference just a few years before. Either it is, or it isn't a choice or preference.

If homosexuality was truly biological, then why isn't the animal kingdom as much homosexual as heterosexual? Why do animals continue to be exclusively heterosexual? Dogs perform what appear to be homosexual acts as a way to communicate dominance over another dog; but not as sexual preference. Many other species do the same.

I do not see conclusive proof that there is a homosexual gene, and that it is a biological orientation rather than an environmental influence.

I'm just concerned about what is next. Will the homosexual community insist that a gay-friendly version of the Bible be published to counter the "conventional" version? Will they insist upon equal time on TV, radio and in print? Can a doctor be sued if s/he refuses to artificially inseminate a lesbian couple? Or if a surrogate mother refuses to carry the child of a gay couple? Where will the boundary pushing stop...or will it?

Joe Biden needs surgery

To repair a jaw malfunction.

It seems like almost every time he works his jaw, his mouth opens and something wrong comes out.

Doctors have yet to diagnose him, but near as I can tell from my limited experience in lay medicine, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden suffers from Open Mouth Syndrome(OMS), a much more severe form of Foot-in-the-Mouth Disease because guffaws and gaffes occur much more frequently; nearly constant, in fact.

In the case of "Delaware Joe" Biden, OMS is a daily cause of embarrassment for himself and those around him, because he is unable to open his mouth without something bad coming out.

Given his latest guffaw made at a senate candidate fundraiser to replace John Kerry, I'm thinking it's time for Joe to be fitted with a muzzle.

At the event held Tuesday, June 11, 2013 Biden made comments to follow his introduction by Al Gore meant to be complimentary of the former U.S. Senator and Vice President-turned-environmental propagandist.

Biden said, "This man (Al Gore) was elected president of the United States of America...But for the good of the nation, when the bad decision, in my view, was made, he did the right thing for the nation." He went on, "I’ve served longer than all but 13 members of the United States Senate. I can’t think of very many who would put his country first like that at a really, really, really difficult time. There’s an awful lot of folks Al and I both know who have run for president and still haven’t gotten over it. ...Al, you set an example for this country that is going to live as long as recorded history, about the man who won by a decision that I think constitutional scholars now and in the future will conclude was an ill-fated decision,” Biden said. “The way you stepped up, it was amazing.”

*Sigh* How to start with all of this...

Well, first of all, Joe, Al Gore wasn't elected President of the United States (POTUS). The Constitution requires that, to be elected POTUS, a candidate must win a majority of electoral college votes. Gore, while collecting more popular votes in the 2000 Presidential election, failed to earn a majority of electoral college votes necessary to become President-elect. Rather, his opponent, George W. Bush, did. And the rest is history.

But perhaps there's the rub. Despite his comments, Joe apparently still ruminates over Gore's loss and still bitterly broods over its perceived subjective injustice. It was an injustice to Gore, his supporters and the Democratic Party because the Florida election results did not go their way.

Still, what the Veep said is categorically incorrect. Gore was not elected POTUS because he did not receive sufficient electoral votes to win the Presidency.

Now, concerning what Biden said about Gore being a gracious loser...

Unless my memory fails me, it was Al Gore and his campaign that drew the Florida recount out much farther than it should have gone. Votes were recounted twice, and twice George W. Bush came out the winner. On the third recount request by the Gore Campaign, then-Secretary of State Katharine Harris halted the recount, citing state law that supported sufficient recount had been performed to certify the election and that the results should stand.

And, as I further recall, the Gore Campaign didn't like Harris' determination, so an appeal was made to the Florida State Supreme Court, which, in turn, sided with Gore and overruled the SoS decision, requiring that a third recount proceed.

But the state supreme court's ruling was then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which collectively found that the SoS's original determination was correct and should stand. The state supreme court's ruling was overruled by the highest court in the land. End of story. George W. Bush was certified as the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes and became U.S. President-elect instead of Gore.

I see no evidence that Gore was a gracious loser. He couldn't demand enough recounts to satisfy his ego. And when his efforts to continue the recount were halted, he wouldn't accept the rule of law. He couldn't appeal the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling, so why even go there? That the Gore Campaign conceded after that is a foregone conclusion. By law, he sort of, kind of had to.

So, not only was Biden wrong about Gore being the rightful POTUS--which, by law, he wasn't--but he was also wrong about Gore being the gracious loser he painted him to be.

And make no mistake: The losers never did forget about Florida 2000. They made it pretty clear in the months following as GWB was sworn into office that they did not recognize him as POTUS. He was, in their words, illegitimate and he wouldn't ever be their President.

I would not be at all surprised if both Gore and Biden could be counted among those who held such a grudge that they couldn't even look upon GWB as he took the oath of office.

Gracious losers? Uh, huh.

Try instead "sore," a word that fittingly rhymes with Gore. And speaking of "getting over it," Joe, if you were really "over" the 2000 election, then why bring it up again and lament it as a mistake, a travesty? Obviously, it still bothers you enough that you've got to raise that haunting specter of yours yet again.

Frankly, I don't think Biden has ever really gotten over his failed presidential bids; of which there are multiple. The only reason he is able to remain composed when talking about presidential candidate failures is because current POTUS Barack Obama appeased him and the elders of the Democratic Party by naming him as his running mate.

The scalding comments that Biden is documented to have made against Obama during the 2008 primaries stand in stark contrast to the praise that "Delaware Joe" gives his running mate nowadays.

Naming Biden to the 2008 ticket was a purely political move on the part of the Obama Campaign.

Doing so prevented Biden from making a further fool of the party as a yet-again failed presidential candidate. It also pacified him in his zeal for executive power. And it satisfied all of the old-guard Democrats who wanted to see a "veteran" get his due.

Plus, who better to show "Mister Change" how to play the old game by old rules than ol' "Delaware Joe" himself?

Surgery, a muzzle, something needs to be done to help Joe overcome the handicap that his impairment causes. Otherwise, we will all continue to suffer. I wonder if this would qualify as a "pre-existing condition" under Obamacare?

What part of “share the road” don’t we understand?

To borrow a phrase, can’t we all just get along?

I found myself pondering this pearl of wisdom recently while on my commute home, having popped into my head all of a sudden while I was in a stand-off at a four-way stop sign with an automobile.

Either the driver was in complete shock over actually seeing a bicyclist stop at a stop sign, or she was too scared to go for fear that I might decide turn in front of her anyway. Whatever her reasons, I couldn’t help but shake my head and mutter under my breath in frustration over just how many drivers don’t know that the rules of the road apply to bicycles, too.

That’s right: Bicyclists who ride on the road are subject to the same traffic laws that cars are. The trouble is that so few drivers and bicyclists seem to know this.

What this has caused among automobile drivers is either resentment or outright hostility toward riders, or else an awkward fear of them because of the damage that could be inflicted in an accident.

Bicyclists have only themselves to blame.

Some ride with reckless abandon, showing total disregard for traffic laws and right-of-ways. For others it is a matter of ignorance of traffic laws and their application to all vehicles on the road—including those that are pedal-powered. Still others are just plain arrogant, adopting the mind-set that rules do not apply to them, and that drivers have to look out for them anyway.

The offenders know who they are. A good many of them are the very people who dress like they know what they’re doing; but they are too vain or egotistical to care about an insignificant yield sign they just blew past. There are also the youths that are bullet-proof until their first serious accident.

And then there are those who are about as oblivious on a bicycle as they are clueless behind the wheel of a car. You irresponsible bicycle riders give me a bad reputation every time I take to the road and share the same asphalt with a tractor trailer pulling 50,000 GVW.

Because of you, I have to deal with drivers who are too afraid to proceed at a four-way stop, even though I have clearly stopped and have motioned them to take their right-of-way. Because of you, I’ve had cars stop in the middle of busy four-lane roads and their drivers motion me to turn left in front of them despite the fact that I am supposed to yield to oncoming traffic from the left-hand turn lane.

What’s worse is arguing with the guy who has stopped in the middle of the busy road, trying to get him to go because (1) he has the right-of-way, and (2) because his stopping suddenly poses a traffic hazard to everyone else.

And because of you bad bicyclists out there, I must incur the wrath of some ticked off driver who has a bone to pick with you.

There’s something unnerving about a two-ton hunk of steel blowing by me at 50 mph and leaving little more than an arm’s length between me and a side-view mirror.

The bottom line here is that, at some point, bicycles and cars must learn to coexist and share the road.

This means that bicyclists need to be applying the same principles to the road when riding their bikes as they would be when driving their cars. And this also means that automobile drivers ought to be aware that the road is open to bicycles, too.

Just because I am riding my bike to work doesn’t mean I can stop driving defensively. And just because there’s a bicycle in the roadway doesn’t mean a driver can dismiss it as somewhat less significant than another car.

The reality is we need to look out for one another. That’s what driving—and riding—defensively is all about. A little mutual respect can go along way toward avoiding an accident and promoting a safer commute for everyone.

The next revolution...

…may well take place over the hotly contested health care law pushed by President Barack Obama and the progressive leadership of the Democratic Party.

In light of renewed efforts by the White House and Congress to resurrect the failed health care referendum of 2009, and succeed in passing it into law the following year, there are still some who are willing to stand for liberty.

Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter signed a measure requiring the Idaho attorney general to sue the federal government if residents are forced to buy health insurance. The republican governor is basing this measure on the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

To put it more succinctly (if that’s possible) what the Tenth Amendment says is that the powers that the Constitution doesn’t give to the federal government are instead granted to the states or the people therein. Last time I checked, health care and the ability to regulate and control it was not a power granted to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution. It is neither the responsibility of the legislative nor executive nor even judicial branches of the United States government.

As such, the health care issue should be rightfully delegated to the individual states and to the people to regulate as they see fit. What Gov. Otter was saying with his measure is that Congress and the President are acting outside of the powers that the Constitution limits the federal government to.

But wait: It gets even better.

Evidently, more than thirty other states have legislation similar to Idaho. This means that a vast majority of individual states are now poised to sue Uncle Sam for a breach of contract—i.e., the U.S. Constitution—as a result of the health care bill recently passed that requires all citizens to own and carry health insurance. What better way to hurt a bunch of lawyers and career lawmakers than with a lawsuit against the government they are in control of.

Now this is what I call fighting fire with fire.

What we are on the cusp of here is a modern American Revolution. Only this one will be fought with pens and paper, instead of swords and muskets.

Frankly, I hope the lawsuits can proceed and the public at large can get an education about the Constitution and the powers that it limits the federal government to. I hope we see a lawsuit so that the power-hungry progressives, who have run rough-shod over individual liberty with reckless abandon the past several decades, can be exposed for the frauds, phonies and fakes that they really are. I want their political agenda exposed for all to see.

Of course, this is assuming that people still have eyes to see with. Hopefully, the poisonous propaganda spread by the left over the last half century hasn’t done permanent, irreversible damage to our individual senses of what freedom and liberty are really all about.

The government needs to save us from salmonella

I’m only saying what nearly half the country is thinking and feeling, right?

News reports make it sound as though more government involvement would have prevented the largest egg recall and salmonella outbreak in recent history.

I heard it again yesterday: “Some blame the federal government for not doing enough to ensure the safety of eggs,” the reporter said. “They say tighter regulations might have prevented the outbreak from happening.”

What?

Could somebody please tell me how tighter regulations would keep bacteria in check? Do micro-organisms cower in fear at the very mention of big government? How utterly absurd to think that more laws and more government will cause there to be less bacteria.

How profoundly arrogant, too.

Somehow I rather doubt that microscopic, single-cell bacteria care whether or not humans and their organizations try to take greater control over their environment.

Case in point: Despite a massive campaign launched against the flu each year by government-run public health agencies, millions of people are stricken with one of millions of strains of the virus.

Yes, in spite of the popularity and prevalence of flu shots, the flu continues to affect a significant segment of the population each year without fail.

In 2009 the H1N1 “Swine Flu” virus became a national epidemic that claimed the lives of hundreds, even after the federal government intervened and authorized the release of vaccines to fight the virus.

Yes, sir, salmonella had better watch out because Uncle Sam is on the case, and he is going to pass more laws to fight its spread. I wish somebody would remind e. coli and botulism that they are also heavily regulated.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has very stringent sanitation standards for food industries. And yet, despite these tough regulations against food contaminants, e. coli, botulism and salmonella et al tend to raise their ugly heads from time to time.

Do you remember the California spinach scare a few years ago? That was an e. coli outbreak.

Salmonella and botulism are still such common threats in meat that they warrant additional food handling warnings to the consumer... despite FDA regulations already on the books. The U.S. meat industry has been perhaps under the harshest scrutiny for well over a century, since Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” was published, exposing foul and unsanitary practices of meat packing companies.

Since then, sanitation has vastly improved, along with the incidents of spoiled, rotten and infected meat. But federal regulations have neither reduced nor eliminated the risk of bacteria to the industry.

In spite of the laws meant to keep consumers safe, raw meat should still be washed in cold water before cooking, and hands cleaned after being handled. Most meats should be fully cooked all the way through to kill off bacteria and reduce the risk of salmonella or botulism poisoning; all of this after meat companies have complied with the law.

What good, then, are additional food safety regulations on business if consumers must continue safe food handling practices after producers have already done so? Isn’t the law supposed to address the problem so you and I don’t have to? That’s the logic of some in the wake of the latest salmonella outbreaks. But it is flawed reasoning, to be sure.

Bullied into the operating room

I recently heard a news report on a television morning show about children seeking plastic surgery to correct physical blemishes that they say make them targets of teasing and bullying.

Even more alarming is the fact that some parents appear to support putting their own children under the cosmetic knife.

What in the world?

So, little Susie comes home crying because her ears stick out too far and her schoolmates tease her about them. The solution? Plastic surgery, of course. Just pin those little ol’ ears back and Susie will never be laughed at again. Problem solved, right? Wrong.

I can speak from experience and with authority that the bullying doesn’t end just because there’s nothing visible for bullies to laugh at.

As a young boy, I had a bright red birth mark right smack-dab in the middle of my forehead. I looked like one of those Indian women with the red dots on their foreheads. To top it off, I wore thick framed glasses. I was laughed at and teased incessantly. By the seventh grade, though, both my glasses and my birthmark were gone. Yet, the teasing and the bullying continued. Why? Because it was me—and not my physical appearance—that the bullies targeted. I was just one of those children to whom bullies were drawn because of my quiet good-naturedness. I seemed like an easy target for being picked on.

Make no mistake: Bullies tend to know the kids that they can get away with teasing or bullying. They are the kids less likely to fight back; who will walk or run away rather than stand up to them; and/or who will take the abuse because they want so badly to be accepted and to fit in.

I think it is a grave mistake for parents to support cosmetic plastic surgery for their children as a solution to being teased or bullied. The negative messages that parents subconsciously send their children are that (1) they agree there’s a physical problem needing correction, and (2) there’s no other more reasonable solution.

My mother always insisted that she liked my birth mark because it made me unique and special. She told me God gave me my birth mark to remind me that I am His child, too, and that He loves me. Mom said that the birth mark made it easier for God to see me amidst the billions of other children in the world. Dad, meanwhile, told me that my glasses made me look sharp, distinguished and sophisticated. No matter how many times I came home crying, mom was always there with a reassuring hug that told me someone loved and accepted me just the way I was. I didn’t need to change my appearance to be loved and accepted. I believe that is the healthiest and most positive message parents can send their children.

There are three really big pitfalls to using plastic surgery as a way to combat bullying and teasing.

First, the root of the problem is not being addressed. Children are teased because of who or what they are, and because the bully has found them to be an easy target for their teasing or bullying. Physical blemishes just give a bully something to point at, but they are not the targets. The children themselves are.

Second, parents who consent to plastic surgery as an anti-bullying method are sending a destructive message to their children: It is better to run away from your problems instead of facing them. This teaches them nothing constructive. They do not learn how to handle themselves internally during hard times, because they find themselves stuck in “fight or flight” mode all of the time.

And third, the corrective plastic surgery approach only validates a bully's reasons for targeting a child. As a parent, I cannot even fathom telling my kid that, "yeah, you've got a big nose. Maybe we should get it fixed so you won't be laughed at anymore." The last thing parents need to be telling their children is that the bullies are right and justified in their actions. That is precisely the message we send our children when we agree that there is something physically wrong with them that needs to be corrected.

By encouraging our children to change their appearances because of bullying we are telling them that what they look like isn't good enough for others; and especially for those who love them the most.

Should we really be telling a kid that s/he isn't good enough the way s/he is, and that perhaps s/he will never be truly "good enough," because physical perfection is an impossible pursuit? I perish the thought.