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CASTING A SPELL    

By now the entire world knows about the radical Muslim, jihadist group that has beheaded several Americans and British citizens, and murdered hundreds of, according to them, non-believers.

When I hear them being talked about in the various media, I hear them referred to a ISIS, ISIL, IS, or Levant. I listened tp the hearings today on this situation and noticed that some, mostly the military personnel, called them ISIS while the politicians seemed to prefer ISIL.

FYI, ISIS stands for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIL stands for Islamic state of Iraq And Levant. IS is Islamic State and Levant is a translation of al-Sham, the phrase the group uses to describe itself. Basically, it’s a description of a much larger area in the mid east beyond the borders of Iraq and Syria.

To quote on of my least favorite people, “At this point, what difference does it make?”

This group, whatever you call them, is a group of radical, Muslim fundamentalists that is driven to destroy anyone, any society, any group of people that does not adhere to their core beliefs.

They are a particularly violent sect, literally advertizing and using social media to publicize their beheadings and crucifixions of non believers. They have murdered hundreds of people that they deem to be non believers. They are a barbaric, violent group intent on taking over not only the mid east, but also the entire world. They are an evil, blood thirsty group that obviously has no moral code. They are well funded by oil money and have been very active in recruiting new members via social media.

It seems to me that these fanatics are simply an evolution from al-Quida, Taliban, Hezbollah, and all the other radical groups.

It should be noted that we know about many so called Americans that have gone to the mid east to join forces and fight with and for the sect, They have gone from some innocuous areas like Minneapolis. The person that beheaded Foley was apparently a British citizen, a rap artist.  I remember when the 911 attack on the WTC, and the Pentagon, and possibly the White House occurred. I remember seeing videos of crowds of people cheering the event in Paterson, NJ and Dearborn, Michigan. That truly upset and scared me. NJ is my home state and Paterson is only 20 miles away. These people were cheering an attack on the US.

Today, it was announced that Australian authorities have arrested a group of ISIS sympathizers that threaten to behead normal every day citizens. When will they come to the US?

Now the US is in serious discussions about how to handle ISIS (I’ll use that term for now). The biggest question is now whether or not to put our military forces on the ground in the ISIS infected areas.

I feel that a more appropriate question is what to do about all the radicals currently on our soil and what to do about the American citizens, with US passports, that went to the Mideast to fight with ISIS. I wonder how many of those people that cheered for the terrorists on 911 are planning attacks on our own soil. Perhaps there should be an immediate ban on entering the US from any of the ISIS host countries. Perhaps it’s time to secure our southern border with Mexico. Perhaps it’s time to truly boycott Mexico.

I don’t know if many Americans feel as I do but I am more frightened now than ever before in my near 77 years of life.

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YUK!

The other day a friend told me that he was having liver for dinner that night. I can’t stand liver. My Mother served liver to us when I was a kid and I really didn’t like it, especially when I found out what the function of the liver in the body was. Mom would go on and on about how good liver was for you and its many benefits. It didn’t matter to me. I didn’t like the taste or texture, no matter how many onions or mushrooms were on the platter. I’ve never outgrown that distaste.

I had similar feelings about eating kidneys. She gave us the same arguments. Personally, I thought that they tasted like dried up mud. Also, it felt like I was chewing small rubber balls.

Anyway, that got me to thinking about foods that I can’t or won’t eat for any reason.

The first thing that came to mind was tripe. Tripe is a food prepared from the stomach linings of several animals, primarily cows. It is a dominant ethnic food in some cultures. Now I admit that it may be good, but there’s no way that I can force myself to eat stomach parts from a cow or any other animal. I simply can’t stomach the thought (pun intended).

Another eating no-no for me is “brains”. Eating brains is another ethnic oriented menu item, particularly in Asian countries. People eat monkey brains as well as brains from other animals. In the US, calves brains are most popular. Again, it’s one of those gourmet foods I just can’t put in my mouth. Seems to me that eating the brains from a baby cow is just not appetizing. Plus, isn’t that the preferred food of some “monsters?”

Another menu no-no for me is escargot! Basically, it’s a snail. I have had to wash the snail slime from my front walk many times and the thought of ingesting a snail simply initiates feelings of nausea in me. Just the thought activates my gag reflex. Yet I don’t have a problem with clams, mussels, or oysters.

Along more normal foods, I don’t eat lamb or fresh game, like venison, rabbits, etc. Some how I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that I was eating Bambi’s mom or one of his forest friends.

Another item that won’t be on my dinner plate is abalone. Abalone is a shell fish that I think is the subject of the Shell Oil logo. The problem I have with abalone is that I have never had one that I enjoyed. They always seem hard and chewy to me. I had a friend that lived in Washington state that used to scuba dive and catch his own abalone. He told me that the reason why I never had a good one was that they weren’t prepared right and invited me to his home to see how good it could be. To make a long story short, I could have resoled my shoes with his version. That was about 30 years ago and I never tried it again.

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PAIN

Anyone that knows me or reads my articles knows that I’m a cancer survivor. I went through chemo, radiation, and surgery 6 years ago to get me through a bout with Stage 3C colorectal cancer.

Over my lifetime, I have also had surgery to correct a mandible problem, had minor injuries, had a broken leg as a result of being run over by car at age 3, and in recent years have suffered through severe, painful bouts of sciatica, the last one lasting 4 months. I remember the nurse asking me after my surgery to rate the pain I was in, on a scale of 1 to 10. I answered, “After my episodes of sciatica, I’d call this a 2.” I’m no stranger to pain.

To this point, I’d have to say that my sciatica episodes are the worst pains I’ve ever experienced.

Recently, however, a new source of physical agony has come into my life that rates high on the pain scale: a chronic ingrown toe nail! It started about 2 years ago. The pain was intense and, according to Murphy’s Law, I seemed to bump that toe into every obstruction along my pathways. At first, I opted to go to a local manicure/pedicure parlor to get my nails trimmed. To be honest, I had trouble bending over to reach my toes. It was a very nice Vietnamese girl that worked on me and she did a nice job. Unfortunately, it only lasted a few weeks. After a few sessions, I decided to see a podiatrist. I’m writing this now because I have another appointment with him tomorrow. I am not looking forward to it.

Ingrown toe nails can be a real problem. It affected my ability to play golf and negated wearing some of my shoes. It’s amazing how such a little thing can cause so much pain. I am in awe when I think about the fact that my big toes are the farthest part of my body from the pain center, the brain. One would think that it would be less susceptible to pain.

Not true! The last visit to the podiatrist actually brought tears to my eyes. I was sitting in the procedure room in a chair with arm rests. As he worked, and by the way he was very good, he told me the next steps would hurt. Hurt??? I almost ripped the arm rests off the chair as I levitated 1 foot off the seat Tomorrow, I may ask for something to numb the toe.

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AND THE WINNER IS………

We can all remember playing games as kids, many of us as adults. Generally, the one that ended up with the most points won the game.

For example, in baseball, or basketball, or hockey, etc, the teams that outscore the other wins the game, Generally, the one that has the most property and hotels in Monopoly wins the game. On Easter egg hunts, the kid with the mist eggs wins. In fact, in almost every game except golf, the side with the most points wins.

I was thinking about that the other day and decide that it applies to politicians as well, especially the President of the United States. I won’t use the term scandals but I will apply the phrase “big mistakes” to several former and present Chief Executives. Remember, whoever ends up with the most points wins.

Jimmy Carter served as President from 1977 to 1981. In my mind, the most memorable event in his term was the Iran hostage crisis. Everything else was secondary and relatively forgettable. I’m an engineer and I’ve always felt that engineers make bad presidents. In short, politics is the art of compromise. Sometimes, 2 has to equate to 3. An engineer believes that 2 always equals 2. There is no compromise. Therefore, Carter gets 1 point.

Ronald Reagan had his Iran Contra situation. Beyond that, there were no real issues in his administration. Ergo, he gets 1 point.

John F. Kennedy, who I really liked and admired had his Bay of Pigs incident. But he followed that up with his defiance of the USSR, forcing them to leave Cuba. His assassination cut short what may have been a memorable administration. He earns only one point.

George H. W. Bush had to live with his “Read my lips!” promise. 1 point lost!

George W. Bush had a mixed results term. He was President when the Twin Towers in NY were reduced to ash and rubble. Unfortunately, 9/11/2001 will always be an indelible mark of his term. Also, he made the unforgettable remarks on the deck of a warship that the war in Iraq was over. In my thinking, the conflict in that section of the world will never be over. In short, I like George W. Bush but in all honesty, I think he has earned only 2 points.

Then we come to Bill Clinton, a man I think could have been one of our greatest presidents. Unfortunately, his Achilles tendon turned out to be a young woman named Monica. A lot of men might not think that to be a big problem. Unfortunately, it’s Clinton’s point.

At long last, we have President Obama, or should I say His Majesty, the Teflon President? He has been in office for about six years and he is setting an all time record for points earned.

To be concise, consider the following.

His previous relationship to Rev, Wright, the minister that said “God damn America” and Bill Ayres a suspected terrorist.  1 point!

The government phone tapping of several reporters. 1 point.

Guns to Mexico. 1 point.

NSA surveillance program. 1 point.

An undue number of his appointees and aides leaving, especially Rahm Emanuel. 1 point.

The IRS targeting conservative groups. 1 point.

The Benghazi situation. 1 point.

The Bergdahl prisoner exchange. 1 point.

The VA scandal. 1 point.

Then there’s Obamacare. The jury is still out. 1 point.

There are several other items I could mention but what’s the point.

We have added the points and by a land slide, the winner is Barack Obama.!

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FISCAL FOOLISHNESS

In the past several weeks, there were several stories in the news that caught my attention, not for the subject matter, but for implications.

First, there was a story about a retired police officer, killed in a car crash on I-80, at the age of 52. He was retired at the age of 51.

Then there was a story about a retired NY officer, allegedly shot and killed by his girl friend after a “bad” breakup. He was 51.

Finally, there’s the more recent story about the girl suing her parents, for tuition, expenses, and other items, after she left the parents home, at 18 years old, to stay with her best friend. It turns out her father is a retired police chief from a nearby town and he’s probably in his early fifties.

Why did these stories catch my attention? Simple! Two items: retired and 51 years old.

All three of these men, retired in their early fifties and based on other information sources are probably receiving pensions in the six figure range. And they also receive other perks like paid hospitalization, education, and uniform expenses.

Think about that for a minute or two! If the average is  $100, 000 per year pension and they live to 80 or 85, that will mean 30-35 years on pension totaling about $3,000,000 each. And that doesn’t include payouts for unused sick, vacation, and personal time.

And they wonder why we have such a tax problem! Think about it! The education

industry is somewhat in the same category. Education managers and executives are

receiving the same sort of benefit packages.

Teachers do pretty well too. I know quite a few that retired early only to go back and get other positions adding to the taxpayers’ burden.

In all these lavish retirements, it should be remembered that they are paid for by taxes. Public services are not funded by the sales of goods or services. They are paid for by taxing all Americans, the majority of whom are not public employees.

Sour grapes, I know! I but the point needs to be made. We cannot continue to allow the privileged public sector employees to use the system as they do now without seeing the fiscal dam burst. If we don’t do something about double dipping, retiring early, and abusing sick, personal, and vacation policies, we will condemn ourselves into financial oblivion. Look at how many cities have already declared bankruptcy. Detroit and Stockton come to mind.

It’s time to take action.

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DIVINE HELP OR?

I was reading the sports section of the Ledger over coffee a couple of weeks ago. There were a lot of interesting articles about professional and college football, the major league baseball play-offs, and high school football.

Needless to say, I read many of the articles, but one article particularly caught my attention. It was a list of the top 20 high school football teams in the state.

The name, St. Peter’s Prep, my alma mater, was prominent. At that time, they were positioned in third place with a 5-0 record. But that didn’t surprise me! We have been accustomed to seeing them highly ranked for years and years.

What did surprise me a bit was the fact that eleven of the top twenty were Catholic high schools as were nine of the top ten. The only non parochial school in the top ten was Montclair, a power house even back in our high school days.

There was a complete absence of many of the top teams that were common back then. Missing were schools like Memorial, Phillipsburg, Union, Clifton, and others that were perennial winners back in the 50s and 60s.

I started to wonder why this was so, beginning to think that God might be a football fan and was taking some sort of divine intervention. But, after further contemplation, I realized that the reason for this Catholic school domination might be more earthly.

Coaches are a large part of any athletic endeavor, Back in our day, Prep’s football coach, Bill Cochrane, Memorial’s coach, Joe Coviello, and Warren Wolf at Lakewood High were legendary figures. I have to wonder if the coaches at Catholic High schools today are better than their peers at public schools. It may be simply that they are better paid and thus tend to lean to parochial football.

Finally, one thought does occur to me. It seems that today’s Catholic high schools are more like pre college programs, particularly in the football and basketball sports. From what I can see, they are allowed to do things to help their sports programs that public schools cannot.

Recently, there was a newspaper article about a Catholic school in north Jersey whose football program has grown to super power status in the last couple of years. The article talked about how their program got several players that transferred from other Catholic  schools, immediately upgrading the team. It seems that this is common practice in parochial and other private schools.

Also they can travel, not only throughout the state but to other states as well to recruit promising players, offering scholarships to well respected schools. This also is common practice. Teams travel routinely to other states to play distant power house teams in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

I understand this completely. These are private schools funded by tuitions, grants, and reputations. Winning teams are a major advantage in these areas. But is it fair to most public schools?

Thinking  back to my own days at St. Peter’s Prep., before this recruiting emphasis was as large as it is today, I wonder how things might have changed if city high schools were allowed to recruit outside of their “territory”. What would have changed if good players could transfer between Jersey City schools, Lincoln, Dickinson, Ferris, and Snyder? I’m sure that quality of play would change drastically between schools.

All in all, I’m proud that my alma mater is doing so well in athletics. But I can’t help but wonder about the system when 9 out of 10 of the top football teams in the state are all Catholic schools.

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 MIDEAST MORASS/MIASMA

The United States has been involved in political or military affairs in the mid east for many years. Even the Marine Corps musical hymn, which was written in 1919, refers to the shores of Tripoli. There have been successful actions, but there seems to have been many more that have not been so successful, especially in recent years.

I have come to believe that we are fighting a losing battle in that geographical region. Obviously, oil and oil products are the primary driving causes for our presence and activities there. But it seems to me that we’re butting our patriotic heads into a brick wall.

Just in the last couple of weeks, I have read reports of atrocities all over the region, in spite of the dollars, efforts, and killed or injured military in some of the countries.

For example, just this week, Muslim terrorists, known as al-Shabaab, a Somalia based Al-Qaeda affiliate, raided an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, killing dozens, wounding hundreds and virtually destroying the mall. According to reports, the terrorists quizzed the people asking if they were Muslims. If not, they were killed. Many victims were innocent shoppers, women and children.

Another article said that there were an average of 100 murders in Afghanistan, and increasing as the American military amp down.

In Pakistan, 85 were killed and over 100 wounded at a Christian church wedding. 2 suicide bombers, identified as Taliban supporters, were Muslim terrorists.

In Iraq, beneficiaries of US training and education, over 50 Iranian exiles in an exile camp, were selected and murdered because they were known to be Hussein supporters.

Also, in the past several weeks, terrorist bombings have killed dozens more.

Syria has become the center of attention in the last few weeks due to atrocities committed against civilians, including the use of chemical warfare.

This kind of behavior is not seen in sane, civilized people. The desire and mind set to kill innocent women and children cannot be seen in normal, rational people. The terrorists are truly fanatics,

The one common denominator in all these situations is that Muslim terrorists were involved. That cannot be denied. Even the recent killings at Fort Hood here in the states were conducted by a Muslim fanatic.

When will we learn? It would appear to be obvious that this violence will somehow be imported into our own country. Heaven only knows how many sleeper terrorist cells are already here. Remember back on 9/11/2001 when Muslim terrorists hijacked airplanes and crashed into the pentagon and WTC? A third was forced down in western Pennsylvania by brave passengers. It was headed for the White House. I repeat “When will we learn?

Instead, the US continues to try to bring democracy and freedom to an area that can’t do it for themselves. Short of an all out war against these terrorist groups by the rest of the world, especially the peace loving people in those countries, they will continue their nefarious actions. The US cannot do it by ourselves. In fact, our actions are creating more intense hatred for US. The UN is a paper tiger. Until, and unless, world wide support of US actions is available, we should stay out of the area.

Webster defines a morass as “something that traps, confuses or impedes”. Miasma is defined as “a pervasive influence or atmosphere that tends to deplete or corrupt”.

I think both words define the current mid east region.

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