Long Live the Queen

I just finished watching the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and I also watched the Republican National Convention (RNC) last week. I didn’t watch every speaker, but I did watch all of the prime time speakers on every night and some of the non-prime time speakers.  And my source for most of this viewing was from CNN. They had the most uninterrupted coverage and didn’t have their annoying anchors talking over the speakers about plagiarism.

I am a die hard Liberal at this stage of my life. I usually watch NBC for news, but even I had to say enough is enough already after they just kept harping on about Melania Trump’s speech, which was really good. It was an honest mistake; move on people. And props to Melania who has held her head high in all of this

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However, the mistake in the speech and how the Trump campaign and the Republican Party handled the aftermath once it was known part of the speech was plagiarized is why every Republican needs to be concerned. It was complete chaos and confusion. It shows the Trump kids are complete rookies at running a campaign and the Party is not helping them at all.

There is clear division in the Republican Party. Neither President Bush (George H. nor W.) showed up, let alone spoke on behalf of their Party’s candidate. They have both publicly stated they would not show up and would not support Trump.

And then there was Ted Cruz shoving a torpedo right up division road with his, “vote your conscience”.

Ok, enough beating on the Republicans. They are making it far too easy now.  The Democrats on the other hand are for more devious in their devilry.

Bernie Sanders can say all the right things publicly about “getting behind The Party” and “Hilary Clinton must be President or else…” (FYI: I am a huge Bernie supporter) But you cannot hide how miserable he looked sitting in the stands over the last two nights of the convention. Every time the camera panned to him he looked exactly liked you would expect a man to look after he made a deal with the devil (the DNP, not Hillary) and then got publicly humiliated about it: the leaked emails and forced resignation of the Chairwoman was a huge slap in Bernie’s face.

Senator Sanders gave into the DNP for a few meager concessions. They embarrassed him first by picking their VP, Tim Kaine who is far too conservative of a Democrat for any Sander’s supporter and then the public humiliation with the emails and resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz the morning of the opening day to the convention with Sanders speaking that night in prime time.

And Schultz already has a job…with the Clinton campaign.

There is clear division in both parties. So who do you pick? You vote for the party and not the person and hope for the best. It’s going to be a crap shoot either way. The reality is our next President will not be able to do anything without the permission of their respective Party.

Despite Donald Trump’s bolstering that he can fix everything by himself, he needs Congress to get anything accomplished. And Congress is now and will be in 2017 controlled by Democrats and Republicans. Sorry my Libertarian brothers but that is reality.

The Party that controls the House and Senate ultimately controls what the President can and can’t do. Congressmen and Congresswomen typically vote their Party line with very few exceptions. And they vote based on the platforms they have each established. Or so they say. And that is what most people believe.

"Outside special interests like to spend money in Ohio," Senator Sherrod Brown (D) Ohio said in an email. "Back in 2012, they spent $40 million trying to buy my seat in the Senate. … Right now, the special interests are up to $30 million spent against Ted (Ted Strickland (D) running against incumbent Republican) -- with the Koch network spending more money in Ohio than anywhere else in the country." ^{http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2016/jul/28/sherrod-brown/are-koch-backed-groups-spending-most-ohio-senate-r/}

FYI: Charles and David Koch, of Koch Industries, are tied as the sixth-richest people in the world, each worth an estimated $42 billion.

Both Parties raise hundreds of millions of dollars year after year after year. Where do you think that money is coming from? It mostly comes from the 1/10^th of the 1% of the wealthy in this country. Either by personal donations or through corporate donations. The same super rich that Hilary Clinton has pledged to pass a huge tax cut against. She says she will make them pay their fair share.

Really? I’m calling bullshit on that one. Are you really going to kill the hand of your masters that have been feeding you and sustaining you for the last 188 years. I don’t think so lady.  Your own Party is never going to let that happen. And we already know the Republicans are against it as well.

Both Parties have and will continue to make outlandish promises and will say anything to get your vote. Who knows, maybe one of them will be stupid enough to ask a foreign country to commit espionage against an American citizen. Oh shit, hang on this just in…Trump did say something this stupid.

If you don’t think this country is stupid enough to elect Donald Trump then I will remind you of this. George W. Bush was our President….twice. We were stupid enough to elect him TWICE! Although the second one I still have issues with thanks to the good folks in the sunshine state of Florida.

So who do you pick?  Look at what each Party presented as their message to you. The Republicans painted a very bleak picture of America with crime out of control and radical Islamic terrorist living next door to us. They believe unemployment is too high and the economy is in terrible shape.

The Democrats painted a more positive outlook on American today. They believe the last 8 years have been great and we should continue to move forward with the Democratic Party. And here are just a couple of ideas the Democrats have planned.

They want to revitalize our nation’s postal service.  Why? Why spend money resuscitating something that should be self-sustaining and is in fact a relic. In the modern digital age we should be downsizing the postal service, using our tax dollars for something sustainable for the future and of course, save trees with less snail mail.  I am pretty sure Hillary Clinton has heard of email by now and knows what it is.  Paperless bitches, let’s go paperless.

“Fostering a manufacturing renaissance” is another DNC initiative. Reality check here. The United States can’t compete with the manufacturing capabilities and COST that overseas manufacturers can get away with. This is just another empty promise the DNC knows they can’t actually follow through with. Their super rich overlords will never let this happen anyway.

Most Americans do not want to work in factories. The ones that do want do want to work in factories want too much money for their labor (wages and benefits) compared to the 3^rd world countries that can produce the same sneakers, jacket, tie or whatever with the same quality but for pennies. Trump would be bankrupt if he didn’t use overseas manufacturing and in fact he does have many products that are manufactured in the US.  Both Parties tell lies and half-truths.

The US needs a cheap labor force in order to get manufacturing back in America. Oh wait, why don’t we let in a lot more immigrants to fill those jobs?  Sounds like the Democratic platform to me.

By the way did you notice what Hillary Clinton was wearing for her coronation as the Queen Presidential nominee?  An all-white pant suite. She looked great but the color choice is what I am pointing out. White. The Republicans have portrayed themselves as a rather dark/evil, closed-minded group. You better believe that Hillary’s choice of white was intentional to be seen as “good.” Ha. And soon I will have a Star Wars reference in here. Good versus evil.

Believe it or not the best advice I can give anyone at this point is to take the advice (*gulp* I can’t believe I am going to write his name) of Ted Cruz (yuck; spit; I can’t believe I wrote his name down). Vote you’re conscious.

Is your own personal life here in America dark, bleak and dangerous? If Yes, vote for Trump. If you feel safe in your community and you think the last 8 years of your life here has been good, then vote for Clinton.

If you want a larger war presents in the Middle East and a lot of US flag draped coffins coming back to the US with our soldiers in them, then vote for Trump. He will get thousands of our sons and daughters killed in another pointless war.

If you think Obama’s policy of surgical air strikes and limited boots on the ground is good enough for you, then vote for Clinton. Notice I did not say this strategy is working. It has worked well so far but we will not be able to rid the world of extremist Islamic terrorist with air strikes only.

Neither full scale war nor “from a distance” air campaigns are a winnable formula for long term peace in the Middle East. But that is a subject for another time.  Personally I like the air strikes and the almost zero dead US soldiers coming back home.

When you walk outside into the world each day, which America do you see?  Dark and gloomy or bright and hopeful.

When you walk into the voting booth you can vote for good or evil. It’s that simple.  And that is why Senator Bernie Sanders is sitting their eating shit and taking it up the a-hole and trying to smile through this. Bernie is taking one for the team; for us. We should listen to him.

Long live the Queen.

Fear Regulations Hurt Local Town Growth

Since 2012 local boards of health from Metrowest communities have been passing fear-based regulations that will shutout one of the biggest and re-immerging industries about to take off in Massachusetts.  Town health boards have the power to pass regulations without approval from Town Meeting or a higher governing body. What these regulations are actually doing is undermining economic growth.

Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Needham and Wayland are among the towns that will not be able to take advantage of the pending recreational marijuana industry.

In 2008[1], 63% of Massachusetts residents took to the polls and declared, “We do not believe having marijuana on you is harmful enough to be a crime.” Possession was decriminalized and given a small civil penalty. In 2012[2] it was 63% again favoring the use of marijuana, this time for medical use.

And recent polls[3] show 53% of Massachusetts residents support recreational use of marijuana as opposed to only 37% disapproving of recreational marijuana use. 

Despite the majority support for the use of marijuana for medicinal and recreational purposes, the individual communities do not want this industry in their town. Only 15% support having a medical marijuana dispensary in their own town, while 41% do not want this business[4].

But the “not in my town” stance residents and local governing boards are taking is a big mistake.

It is estimated Massachusetts could add sales and excise tax revenue from medical and recreational sales of marijuana between $50,000,000.00 and $100,000,000.00[5].

All of the local boards of health tell their communities their regulations are “to protect the children” and “prevent access to tobacco products by children”. This sounds good, and no one would argue against protecting children, but how they are going about this negatively impacts important small business growth.

The key aspect of these new regulations is this statement, which is found in all of these towns’ regulations: “At any given time, there shall be no more than X number of Tobacco permits...”

All of these towns have put a cap on the number of new Tobacco permits they will issue and the cap is being set to the current number of permits already in use. In effect, no new businesses are allowed to open in these towns if they need a tobacco permit to sell any of the tobacco related items in their product offering. This includes any retail store that wants to open up a 21 or older establishment. Despite the fact these new business would never allow a person under the age of 21 into their businesses, these establishments are being kept out of these towns.

The only thing these regulations are going to accomplish is preventing the small business owner from opening new businesses in their towns. One of these towns, Framingham, already has a waiting list for new tobacco permits (which will never be issued) after only two months of their regulations taking effect in September 2015.

What impact does this have on the re-emerging cannabis industry?  One of the best ways entrepreneurs can begin taking advantage of this $10 billion industry is by establishing the ancillary businesses that will be needed to support this industry. Businesses like lawyers, accountants and security consultants are a must in this industry. In addition, there will be a need for many supporting products (aside from the plant material itself) like: child-resistant cannabis containers, vaporizers and glassblowers.

Shops are needed to sell these products and it is these types of shops that are being kept out of local towns by a fascist government body that answers to no one.

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[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Sensible_Marijuana_Policy_Initiative,_Question_2_(2008)

[2] https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Medical_Marijuana_Initiative,_Question_3_(2012)

[3] http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/SUPRC/2_4_2014_marginals.pdf

[4] http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/SUPRC/2_4_2014_marginals.pdf

[5] https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/cities/how-much-money-states-make-marijuana-legalization/

Urban Dare - Boston, September 28 2013

This past weekend Beverly and I did the Urban Dare race. It is like a mini version of the television show The Amazing Race, which I love to watch. Teams of two walk, jog, run, take public transportation to locations around a city (in this case it was Boston) and either do a physical dare/challenge or simply have a photo taken of both teammates at the location.  You find the location of where to go by figuring out clues given to you at the beginning of the race.  I should also mention the "dare/challenge" is incredibly easy to do.

You can do to each location in any order you desire, but you do need to go to all of them before going to the finish line.  Figuring out the locations of the clues first and then mapping out a strategy for getting to all of them in the most efficient manner is really the best way to run this race. And having a person at home (or in their office) in front of a computer helping you to search the Internet and figure out the answers is a huge help. I want to give a big THANK YOU shout out to my friend Gary for helping us with this. The other thing you should have is a good smart phone and a street map of the city. Check and check.

So without further delay, here are the 12 clues, answers and our photos from this years race in Boston in September.  We can't wait to do this again in May 2014.

1. This Greek revival building currently houses something blue. In the past, it was three different houses of worship but later sinned as the Lido of Venice. Get your picture with this building's marquee.
ANSWER: The Charles Playhouse (which is the current venue for The Blue Man Group).

2. In 1837, this philanthropist petitioned for the first public botanical garden created in the United States. Locate the plaque dedicated to him.
ANSWER: We were told before the race started this one would be hard to find. Thankfully other racers we encountered helped us out with where this was.  There is a very small plaque laying flat on the grass near the entrance to the Boston Public Garden just in front of the Bronze Statue of George Washington. Finding this on our own would have been very hard to do. The tiny plaque is in our shadow between us.

3. It is the year 1917, Stealth boats are threatening your fleet. What do you do? Lay thousands of mines of course. Locate the memorial dedicated to the brave men who led this North Sea mine barrage and get your picture with a mine.
ANSWER: The Sailor and Soldiers Monument in the Boston Common.

4. Get your picture in front of the only bar in town where you can enjoy a cold Sam Adams while looking at a cold Sam Adams.
ANSWER: Find the Sam Adams statue (a cold Sam Adams) in front of Faneuil Hall.

5. This famous gilded insect was stolen in 1974 but recovered before a ransom could be demanded. Take your picture on the steps of the building it sits upon.
ANSWER: There is a grasshopper weather vane on the top of the Faneuil Hall building.

6. If you ever played the piano, you probably played this song written by Hoagy Carmichael. On July 3, 1961, it reached No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100...who knew? Find the store that resembles the name, with a twist (HINT: think feet not spirit), to this beloved piece of music and take your picture.
ANSWER: Heart and Soul

7. Everyone knows October 31 is Halloween but do you know why? It has something to do with the day after. Find the storefront that shares its name with this lesser known holiday for your dare:
ANSWER: The answer was a store named AllSaints located on Newbury Street. And the dare was to count all of the sewing machines in the storefront window display. All 212 of them.

8. Famous runners in Boston placed their feet in the cement outside the now defunct Eliot Lounge. Unfortunately, the original sidewalk was destroyed but a piece of the recreated one still exists somewhere in the city. Find it and get a picture of it with your feet.
ANSWER: At the Eliot Hotel to the right of the restaurant on Mass Ave are two tiny foot imprents. Very hard to find. Again we were fortunate to have our friend Gary tell us exactly where to go and there were also other racers gathered around taking their own photos.

9. You are looking for a bronze artwork in the shape of a fountain. It was presented to the city in 1930 to beautify this triangular park. Find it for your next dare.
ANSWER: It is the Statler Fountain in Statler Park. Our dare was simple enough. Each team had different words on their "passport" cards. You had to walk around the fountain and find sticks in the ground that had a letter and corresponding number on it. Add up all of the numbers to the corresponding letters in your word and give the answer to the official. Easy to do.

10. Can a building be knocked up?  This one looks like it was. Locate this unusual architectural styled building and get your picture with it.
ANSWER: Again, big thanks to Gary for knowing exactly what we needed to find. A building that looks like it is pregnant.

11. What does the wife of our second president, an abolitionist, and a slave turned writer have in common? They all have a statue dedicated to them. Find them to perform you next dare.
ANSWER: It is the Boston Women Memorial just outside the Public Garden. The dare was a very easy three-legged race around the memorial.

12. Photo Hunt: Get your picture with a person playing a musical instrument.
ANSWER: This was rather funny because Beverly and I were sitting on a bench in the middle of Faneuil  Hall working on answering all of these questions, when all of sudden she heard a guy playing on a guitar and jumped up and screamed lets go, quick.  This poor guy playing a guitar got swarmed by a half dozen teams that seemed to come out of no where. Everyone helped each other to take the needed photos, but I think we were the only ones to actually leave the guy a little tip.

BONUS: Get your picture sitting on Henry C. Merwin's bench.
ANSWER: We were walking toward the Boston Women Memorial when we were stopped by another race team sitting on a bench and asked us to take their picture. They told us it was the answer to the bonus. We were actually never going to do the bonus, but hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth right? So we took their picture and they took ours. Turns out they were right.

We had a great time and will definitely do this again next year. We probably covered about 5 miles on foot and it took us a little over 3 hours. We only used public transportation once toward the end because we were getting very tired and it was going to be a bit of hike from Boston Common to Hanover St in the North End.

We loved doing this and we hope others will join us next May.

Go to hell scumbag

I would like every state and our federal government to pass the following law.

Any criminal convicted of any crime that gets him/her sentenced to life in prison without a chance for parole should get:

1. One and only one appeal at either the state Supreme Court or federal Supreme Court (determined by the lower court that convicted him/her: if convicted in a state court their appeal is in the state Supreme Court; if convicted in a federal court their appeal is in the federal Supreme Court).
2. If the appeal fails than the inmate has the option to a quick and humane death sentence to be carried out immediately.

Of course what I would really want is for any criminal convicted in such a manner to be instantly put to death without giving them the option, but I know that is a long way from actually happening. So the above are baby steps toward my ultimate desire.

I hate paying for these lowest of all life forms to live out their natural lives at my expense. Yep, that’s right I desire this because I’m sick and tired of my hard earned tax dollars paying for these scumbags to live until they die of natural causes (or shank – fingers crossed).

In 2010 the VERA Institute of Justice (http://www.vera.org/pubs/price-prisons-what-incarceration-costs-taxpayers) completed a study that concluded it costs tax payers an average of $31,286 per year per inmate. The total cost across the US in 2010 to taxpayers was $39 billion. BILLION DOLLARS!!!

Let’s find out just how much money we could save by having a study performed with all “lifers” to see if they would take the option. Even if only 10% say Yes, I would still take those savings.

The slow death of baseball or how to save it

Let’s face it professional baseball is on a slow death march to oblivion. Baseball hasn’t been relevant since before the ‘80’s. It is obvious the NFL has been the preeminent sport in America for a long time. Even the NBA and NHL are more interesting then baseball, but both also need some “fixing up”.

Baseball owners don’t care, they are laughing all the way to the bank even though they love to cry poor. Eight work stoppages since 1972 and every time it is all about the money and the owners telling us they are losing money hand over fist every year. Bullshit. If you don’t believe me, go to Forbes website and due the research. Trust me; every team is making tons of money for the owners.

So the owners have no motivation to fix baseball. They will let this go on until it’s too late. Once they stop making money they will just let it die. They won’t care about fixing what is wrong with the game. These are businessmen who only care about profits. When there is no more profit they will sell and move on leaving empty ball parks and disheartened fans behind.

Fact 1: 1970 All-Star game posted a 28.5 TV rating. In 2013 the TV rating was an abysmal 6.9.
Fact 2: 1980 World Series posted a 32.8 TV rating. In 2012 the TV rating was 7.6; the lowest rating ever. Even the NBA in 2013 posted a 10.4 rating for the “nobody cares outside of Miami and San Antonio” Heat/Spurs matchup.

People would rather watch a bad Monday Night Football (Jaguars/Titans) game then a great baseball playoff game. Just look at 2010: ALCS game 3 pulled in a 6.5 rating and MNF pulled in a 7.2. America would rather watch bad football then good baseball.

So how do you fix baseball: does anyone even care? If I were the commissioner of Major League Baseball I would:

1. Eliminate the designated hitter rule forever. A real baseball player should play the field and try to hit the ball. No more coddling the American League pitchers. Make them go to bat.
2. Shorten the game. In 1970 the average MLB game took 2 hours and 30 minutes. Since 2007 the average game now takes 2 hours and 50 minutes. Enforce a pitch clock of 15 seconds. In 2010 the average time a pitcher took to throw a pitch was 21 seconds; that is ridiculous.
3. Shorten the game part 2. Limit warm-up pitches to 5. Everyone knows the new pitcher has already warmed up in the bullpen. Why waste more time.
4. Shorten the game part 3. Keep the batter in the batter’s box once he steps in. No more stepping out after every pitch to adjust your hitting glove or read the same signs from the 3^rd base coach over and over again.
5. Shorten the game part 4. And the most difficult change to implement…fewer commercials between innings. Shorten the time between innings so TV networks are forced to show fewer commercials.
6.  Shorten the season. 162 regular season games, makes most games meaningless. Make the regular season games mean something.  Here is a 120 regular season formula:
   - play 4 (2 home; 2 away) – 3 game series against your division rivals. That is 12 games x 4 division opponents equaling 48 games.
   - play 2 (1 home; 1 away) – 3 game series against the other division opponents in your own league. That is 6 games x 10 opponents equaling 60 games.
   - play every team in just 1 opposing league division in 1 3-game series. That is 12 more games for a grand total of 120 regular season games.
7. Start the season after April 15^th and end before Labor Day. Early April/November games can be dicey weather wise in northern cities. Plus baseball players don’t like to play in the rain and cold. End before Labor Day so you can take advantage of no NFL games to compete against.  The NFL does not start until after Labor Day. The first baseball playoff games should begin Labor Day weekend.
8. Eliminate the winning League of the All-Star game gets home field advantage in the World Series. This is a monumentally bad idea. The team with the best regular season record should have home field advantage. A tie breaker can be the best winning percentage in the playoffs. And a third tie breaker is a flip of a coin.

Well that is my opinion and I’m sticking to it. I can’t wait for football season to start!

Do Not Save Detroit

From the immortal words of Dr. Klahn, “Take him to…Detroit!”

For thirty-six years those words held true. Nobody wanted to live in Detroit. Nobody would ever want to visit Detroit. And this week the city of Detroit finally gave in and filed for federal bankruptcy protection.

Emperor Hirohito, from his grave, has a little smile on his face today. Japan may have never successfully taken down the US in World War II but today they officially destroyed an entire US city.

Please do not save Detroit. Build a giant wall around the city and turn it into the world’s largest prison. It is already 80% of the way there; they just need the wall to complete it.

It is nobody’s fault but their own (corruption in the city government is rampant) and the big 3 auto makers: General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

I don’t know if the Big 3 were ignorant, stubborn or just bad businessmen but they never recovered from the 1970’s gas crisis and the Japanese. By the time the US automakers realized the Japanese were building better cars it was too late and the end of Detroit was a foregone conclusion. The only reason it took 36 years to become official is because Americans love to buy on credit and live on debt.

Who do you think will ultimately pay for the $5.3 billion dollar debt Detroit owes? It will be you and I, the tax payer.  I don’t want to pay a single cent toward saving a city nobody wants to live in. The people who are there are simply stuck and unable to move because they have no money. I would pay to relocate them. Abandon the city.

Give each of the 700,000 remaining residents (excluding government employees and auto industry executives) $5,000 to either relocate or become residents of the new Detroit Penitentiary City. That will only cost us $3.5 billion dollars.

I am not 25 any longer

Last week my wife and I spent a wonderful vacation in Cancun, Mexico despite a minor setback; me getting sick and not able to do anything for 2 days. And despite what you might be thinking, “Hey it’s Mexico don’t drink the water”, that was not the cause of my downfall.

My belief that I can still eat, drink and be as active as I was 20 years ago was the real culprit here. My ego is a bit out of whack when it comes to being realistic of what I can and cannot do. Frankly the whole thing sucks; getting older sucks. Having to watch what I eat and drink sucks. Having to be more realistic about what I physically can and cannot do sucks.

I told my wife I should buy a t-shirt that says “I am not 25 any longer” before our next vacation and wear it for the first few days.  Her reply was:  “I will buy a t-shirt for myself that says ‘You are not 25 any longer’”.  She has always been very supportive of my decisions, even the bad ones.

So no more day long drinking fests of Captain Morgan and Coke and Long Island Ice Tea’s. Now it’s a Peña Colada after dinner and done. And dinner is now a piece of plain chicken. I remember Grandma Ruth always ordered plain chicken no matter what restaurant we went to.  We were all just a little bit embarrassed and all of us tried to convince her it was OK to splurge a little and eat something that tasted better then plain chicken. Now I know what she was up to. She knew better than we did: Wise beyond her years.

So, 4 bags of I.V. fluid with medicine (Ranitidine, Butilhioscina, Amikacin, Ciprofloxacin, Metoclopramide) later and I was back on my feet, mostly. The doctor at the resort, Dr. Manuel de Jesus Cruz Toledo, who was fantastic and very nice, recommended I take it easy the next couple of days and of course I still had to take medicine, ciprofloxacin, twice a day for the next 7 days.

Lesson learned? Only time will tell. J