"THAT'S NUTS!

"I say we should increase the income tax rate on the rich, lower the estate tax, increase the gift tax, lower the sakes tax, increase the corporate tax, eliminate the charitable deduction, implement a savings tax, increase the excise tax, decrease the medical exemption, stabilize the tax on minors, impose a tax on illegals, tax unearned income, reduce stock transfer taxes, lower gas taxes, eliminate the luxury tax."

"That's nuts.  I say we should  reduce payroll taxes, increase property taxes, lower cigarette taxes, increase the self-employment tax, reduce inheritance taxes, increase consumption taxes, lower capital gains taxes, reduce dividend tax, raise retirement taxes, lower tariffs, increase tolls, lower city taxes, increase state taxes, lower unemployment taxes, raise Social Security taxes, lower fishing taxes, raise hunting taxes."

THE "EST" SUPERLATIVE

Parade magazine headline referred to Matt Damon as "the sexiest family man alive".  The missing words to the headline are "In my illogical unintelligent opinion"...thr "I" being the writer of the writer of the headline.

Why illogical and unintelligent?  Two primary reasons:

 1.  The writer did not meet each of the billion or more family mean alive on the planet to be qualified to give Mr. Damon that ranking
 2.  There is no one objective standard to be used for "sexiest".  Different people of the same ethnicity, different people of different ethnicity, cultures, ages, etc. would define "sexiest" in grossly different ways...from "makes me want to hug him" to "makes me want to jump into bed with him".to "makes me want to ---" (you fill it in).

We humans have a compulsion to label something or someone as biggest/ best/strongest/fastest INin the world, virtually always without reference to the two flaws mentioned above.  Logically, you can't even refer to the Olympic gold medal winner in the 100 yard dash as "the fastest human alive" (which is what he is always called).  At best, he may have been the fastest runner in that race on that day.  The actual fastest human alive may not have competed that day.     Secondly, even the guy who won the race may not be the fastest.  He may have won because he ran a smarter race and in fact may have been the slowest runner in the race, if capacity for speed is what "fastest" means.  And further, why is 100 yards the right distance...what about the guy who won the mile race?...the marathon?

Muhammad Ali may indeed have been right when he referred to himself as "the greatest".  But like Ali, the misguided use of "est" must now be retired.

THE DILEMMA OF THE COMPASSIONATE CARNIVORE

(This is a copy of an email I wrote to a CNN columnist.)

Regarding your support of the banning of fur sales in West Hollywood, CA, may I ask :  What did you have for lunch yesterday?  For Thanksgiving dinner?  Do you ever eat hamburgers, turkey, chicken, steak, duck, bacon, lamb, lobster, shrimp  (dear little cuties), etc.  Those all come from animals like the ones you don't want to see killed for fashion.

Are you consistent?  Do you argue against the killing of animals to eat them as you argue against killing them for their fur.  And please don't make the argument that we have to eat to stay alive.  We do...but we don't have to eat animals, we can survive quite well and healthily without them.

I do not favor the wanton killing of animals (I don't support keeping them in a zoo for our pleasure and amusement either, I don't support keeping birds in cages) but these are not proper political matters in a free society.

By the by:  do you own  any leather jackets, shoes, belts, wallets,  handbags, pearl earrings or necklaces ?

CAIN MAY BE ABLE

I would have liked to see Herman Cain remain in the race for the presidency despite falling popularity presumably due to the allegations that he had adulterous affairs.  I would have liked to see that because whether or not those allegations are true, they are irrelevant to his qualifications for the job.

It is time for America to wake up.  The job of President requires administrative abilities, leadership qualities, in depth knowledge of, and allegiance to, the Constitution,  and negotiating skills.  That is what the President should offer to the American public in exchange for their vote.  Whether or not the President is and always has been faithful to his wife may be of concern  to the President's spouse, but not to the American public.

Some of the most accomplished and admired Presidents are known to have had extra-marital affairs.  Whatever his or her sexual proclivities (if legal), whatever his or her sexual orientation, it is the list of qualities above that determines his qualification for the job.  So many Americans, however, seem more interested in a candidate's personality and how photogenic he or she is (listen to how often you hear that Sarah Palin is too pretty to be President. Newt Gingrich is too angry looking,  Ron Paul is too short). A candidate's  political views, policies and programs?  Eh..  What, after all, did American voters know about Barack Obama?

What is also worthy of note is that the woman who claims she had a long term affair with Cain and who took money from him  was interviewed on tv, with her attorney by her side, looking hurt and unjustly treated because Cain did not acknowledge the affair.  Please, lady, not for you to feel a victim in this matter, nor do you have the credentials to be a moral judge.  By your own statements, you acknowledge carrying on an extended affair without presumably any concern for Mrs. Cain.  If the affair took place, you were a co-conspirator, co-deceiver.  If there is a victim here, it is not you.

Herman Cain can help break this insensible voter practice by getting back in the race.  Then I can listen to him some more and decide if he earns my vote.

WARMING YOUR BLOOD

I looked up "excitement" in Roget's Thesaurus and it listed the following:

stimulation, provocation, inspiration, interest, fascination, ravishment, entrancement, passion, thrill, intrigue, glowing, soul-stirring, heart-swelling, tantalizing, enrapture, astounding, electrifying

It also listed "spicy"...the spice of life...and if there is one thing that the repetitious lifestyle which society imposes on us is missing from many people's lives, it is spice.  It is excitement (whatever that might be to each of us individually) that revs up our motor and carries us further on our quest for happiness.  Excitement is the best concrete proof that life is the glorious, wondrous, incomparable gift we ever receive.  Don't settle, compromise, merely go along/get along.   Normality, the popular, the usual, are sinister killers...of the human spirit

We each take only one trip down the mountain.   Make it an exciting one.

(Repeat of previously-published post, because we need a starting point to turn our society in a better direction.)

JUBEL!

Americans are often thought of as being so in a rush, they do not have the time to stop and communicate with others. And that has some truth in it.

Americans are often thought to be so self-occupied that they have little concern for others. And that has some truth in it.

I think it starts with the very first words we use when we see or greet each other. "Hello" has always seemed to me to convey nothing much other than "Hey, I see (or hear) you". And that short 5-letter word seems too time consuming to say in full, and is commonly reduced to the quicker "Hi" or the flippant wave of two fingers...which may give some credence to the ideas about Americans expressed above.

As a child studying Bible, I was fond of the way ancient wanderers greeted each other. "Shalom"...and its various offshoots, "Salaam", "Shlom", etc... all conveyed so much greater meaning. In various places in the Old and New Testaments, it is taken to mean peace, completeness, health, welfare, safety, tranquility, prosperity, fullness, rest, harmony, absence of agitation, distress and discord.

How wonderfully much to say in one word to the wanderer, to let the stranger know immediately that he is welcomed as friend, as tribesman, as family. How calming to be immediately gifted with spiritual affinity and camaraderie and blessing!

We need a word like that in the English language...a word that expresses the opening of one mind, one soul, one spirit, one universe, to another.

JUBEL!  Enter, be at peace, serene, safe, I am interested in your story.

THE TRUTH ABOUT APPLE PIE

Virtually all our attitudes in this country about sexuality are unfathomable, infantile, senseless.  We titter, chuckle, guffaw, when the subject of sex is brought up, even just hinted at, seemingly forgetting that all of the following are true:

*  there were likely over 1 BILLION acts of intercourse committed on the planet last nite, and every nite
* Mom and Dad had sex or we wouldn't be here
* sex is natural to our species...even Adam and Eve engaged in it
* sex is a very pleasureable experience
* sexual desire comes early in life, and remains to one's last breath
* most everybody wants more of it
* sex is necessary for the survival of the species
* the advertising business is intentionally sexually oriented
* women's clothing is frequently sexually provocative
* tell a woman she has a great face, and she is flattered...but tell a woman she has a great body, and
  she is overtly offended...but inwardly flattered?
* nudity is smirked about notwithstanding that we are all naked under the clothing mask we wear...and
  not one of us has a body part that every other member of our gender have
* giant biblical heroes had sex...frequently polygamously...and in Solomon the Wise Man's case, a thousand times polygamously
* jokes about sex are considered "dirty", though the cleanest, most upright members of our society laugh hysterically at them
* Hugh Hefner made a fortune showing us pictures of breasts...the first things we came to have
  experience with in our lives when we suckled our mother's breasts as infants
* references to sexual intercourse abound in euphemisms: "slept with". "went to bed with", "had relations with", "was intimate with", "made love to"...as if saying the truth of it makes us, well, dirty and perverted, a deviant, abnormal, when in fact we are as normal, as healthy, as apple pie.

Wouldn't you  like a piece right now?