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American WASPs still stinging immigrants

So the U.S. has the worst immigration laws in the world?  Well, let me respond with a little ol’ American folk song, parodied by yours truly, to go somethin’ like this:

This land was their land.

It wasn’t our land

from California to the New York island.

We took it from them.

Sometimes we paid them.

Now we must share this land for all.

No other nation on earth has our history—and sole purpose to admit people from around the world including our own hemisphere—especially within the past 500 years.  Everyone on the planet knows America’s convoluted, though in premise sparkling, history.  Europeans started migrating over here in the 1600s.  But the land the White man named America was not uninhabited.  There were thousands of native tribes, mostly brown-skinned people (described as red-skinned by the White man).  What would become the United States of America was born in multicultural conflict, not to mention the issue of enslaved Africans dragged in chains all the way over here to work the land for free till death.  What a multi-cultural mess: this vast territory, unstable, shocking and terrifying until forced colonization by the English-speaking Christian British.

Anglo Americans can’t forget our shameful past in ‘settling’ this land, right up to the late 20th century when Americans began to realize through public education the damage done to ancient civilizations and Native people.  And we think we have the right today to squawk about illegal immigrants?  If there weren’t jobs for them, people south of the Rio Grande wouldn’t keep coming up here.  American businessmen had a lot to do with creating the alleged illegal immigration problem rued today.

And who’s doing the ruing?  Mostly businessmen and the rich of WASP ancestry.  This is why Americans who felt our nation was not-so-great returned to electing a forty-fourth white man president.  To put a stop once and for all to illegal immigration, even in cases of asylum, the new president’s policy was to separate Central American parents from their Native speaking children.  Say what?  Some of the Indigenous families do not speak Spanish let alone English.  Despite the new get-tough deterrent, after traveling hundreds of miles and undergoing insurmountable hardships, many families crossed over, assumed the position to surrender in arrest to the United States while watching their own children taken into separate custody hundreds and thousands of miles from South Texas.  Many of the little ones were understandably traumatized by the family separation.  What an unholy mess yet again by White-ruling Americans.

Red and yellow, black and white

Something drastic had to be done to stop illegal immigration.  Not really.  Illegal crossings along the southern border have been reduced substantially: from more than a million annually during the Clinton years to less than a quarter of a million annually with the vast majority of those people seeking asylum.  Decent people cannot and will not live in Central American narco states where drug cartels rule with brutal beat downs, shake downs, gang rule, murder and rape.

Now American history is coming full circle.  It was similar hostilities—called ‘religious persecution’ in our schoolbooks—when English and European families began to leave everything behind for the New World.  Some died during the rough six-week boat ride across the choppy Atlantic Ocean.  Naturally, many arrived sick, feverish, infected, infectious, and yes dirty.  Through the decades, most European immigrants did not speak English.  Yet somehow they kept coming and coming and coming all the way over to this land right here.  The Catholic Irish were discriminated against for employment.  Then Italians were treated similarly.  And on and on with each nationality, although most Whites generally agreed to uphold equal discrimination against people of color from Central and South America, Africa and Asia.

There isn’t a plot of land in the entire country that anyone can claim free of past Native occupation.  But Native Americans did not believe the earth was something man could own or possess—only to care for, love, appreciate and cultivate.  All the earth belonged to God—their Sky God, the Supreme Being.  Whites took advantage of the sincere spiritual philosophy, offering trade for land: horses, pots, rifles, skins, whatever, maybe coins.  Who knows?  God knows.

Many supported Trump’s campaign to Make America Great Again (evidently code for Make America White Again).  Americans of fifth and sixth or more generations have had enough playing around with Spanish and English: seeing grocery signs, billboards, government documents and election ballots in both languages; infuriated with every business phone call a language selection cue to press 1 or 2.  Public schools in states bordering Mexico are becoming majority Hispanic.  Much to worry about … if you’re White and want everything and everyone to stay as it seemingly was in the last century.

Things change.  Times change.  Territories change.  Societies change.  Of this Europeans still residing in countries with bloody histories spanning a thousand-plus years know well.  Human migration is nothing new—in truth, it’s the way of the world.  But to a Baby Nation not yet 300 years old, with a ruling class still carrying on our forefathers’ prejudices and bigotry, immigration is the number one cause of all the world’s problems.

During the 20th century, America was great at assimilation: everyone melting into White privilege and culture.  But by the end of the century, when hyphenated Americans began to have pride in their diverse ancestral heritage, a social push back began.  African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans, Native Americans, etc., will no longer resonate WASP prejudices.  Those days are gone.  So we Americans and all the wanna-be Americans can accept, understand and enjoy our multi-cultural past, present and future.  Or we can go our separate ways—refusing to live together peacefully.

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The lines of a Willie Nelson song: etched in his heart & face

Three cheers for Willie Nelson, the national treasure of Texas!  He’s turned 85 this year.  He and his fans probably thought he’d never live past 50.  But as he’s been willing to talk to the media all these decades, we can already guess what’s kept him rolling along.  (And I don’t mean the reefer, even his own mind-blowing brands, although he does say pot made him less prone to anger.  And that’s gotta do the heart good, right docs?)

Why, everyone knows the story of Willie Nelson: abandoned little boy raised by his grandparents in the tiny Hill Country community of Abbott, Texas; a stint in the Air Force; door-to-door salesman; radio dj; playing country bands; move to Nashville; hit songwriter.  His songs are standard in the American songbook: Night Life, Crazy, Whiskey River, Funny How Time Slips Away.  His songs were often first recorded to fame by the unique and memorable country and Western voices like Patsy Cline, Johnny Bush and Ray Price.

But back when Willie tried to emulate the country star image of groomed hair and suit circa 1960, it just wasn’t his style.  And they made fun of his singing, too.  Laughed him all the way back to Texas.  And as the life and times of Willie Nelson go, he just happened to be at the right place at the right time.  He grew his hair long and wore jeans and t-shirts or muscle Ts.  His beloved guitar Trigger always faithful to perform, he met up with other country artists ready to rebel against the polished Nashville sound, more skyscraper than honky tonk.  He released Red Headed Stranger, the album cover depicting him in a wanted poster from the 1800s.  The album featured his vocal style somberly singing Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain with his signature melodic guitar picking.  The album received wide appeal.

Along with country music friend Waylon Jennings, in 1976 Willie co-recorded an album that would top the charts for years.  Wanted! The Outlaws featured Good Hearted Woman and My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.  They say Willie brought together the rockers and the rednecks.  Willie went on to headline his famous Fourth of July picnics, support Farm Aid, and invest in bio fuels as well as marijuana.

And he’s received just about every music award America has to offer, including: Grammy Hall of Fame; Kennedy Center Honors; Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year in 1980; and Grammy Awards for Best Male Country Vocals in 1976, 1979 and 1983.  Talk about doing your own thing and believing in yourself!

The Tao of Willie Nelson

Yep, there’s a book melding Eastern philosophy with the life attitude of Willie Nelson.  Given the way he’s chosen to live his life, happiness is evident to the rest of us.  In figuring out what Willie has to offer us about life, assumptions could be:

First, do your own thing.  In retrospect, Willie was of his time: growing up in the Depression and loving country music.  He simply took the style and set his own plain yet poetic words.  Hint for songwriters out there, according to Willie: Melodies are in the air.  Just pick one.

Second, impress yourself.  Willie writes good songs because he knows it.  He didn’t need anyone to tell him a song like Crazy would be a huge hit.  But he was at the right place again: talking to Patsy Cline’s husband at Tootsies in Nashville.  Everyone in the country music business already knew Willie wrote great songs.  The topic was bound to come up.

But what didn’t come up was letting Willie sing his own songs his way.  Yet once again the Tao of Willie is about believing in himself.  He always thought he had a pretty good voice.  It just took a cultural change in America’s music tastes—the preference for denim folk rock with a lot less polished recordings.  Willie was already out there performing.  Audiences were willing to listen to and appreciate his own style and renditions of his songs, already nationally known melodically, lyrically and emotionally.

Third, don’t live to impress others.  Willie chased fame and fortune, but then the famous started chasing Willie.  When he decided to quit the music business, his attitude changed.  He may have been hurt and angry, but when his feelings turned to don’t give a damn, wham!  That’s the key to real happiness.  He split with the Nashville scene, returning home to Texas and found a personal freedom that allowed him to sing his songs his way, making a living doing what he loves.  Among the workforce, this is rare.  Willie would say he was determined more than just lucky that life worked out for him.  The lesson is to be in control of one’s life and pursuit of happiness.

Fourth, keep active.  As long as he’s been able, Willie has been athletic, running races and golfing.  He’s out there, breathing in the fresh air, taking in the sun, enjoying the day.  He found as a famous entertainer, he does not always have to be ‘on’ all the time.  He was able to handle success.

Finally, keep an open mind.  Willie has a sense of humor, can see the funny in time slipping away, allows himself a good laugh not necessarily produced by the wacky weed.  And though the once red-headed scrawny young man never would have imagined his life turning into a national celebration and social influence through the gift of time and age, Willie stayed true to himself: from the braided hair, twinkling smile, love and heartache, versatile endeavors, heart of gold—the face of human life.

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Taking a reality tour of our nation’s public schools

Dear U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos:

Given your job title, unawareness of American public education with its tumultuous and racist history, and that you and your entire family including your grandchildren have never had to attend a public school, I strongly suggest you take one year to travel the nation and each day randomly choose a public school to visit starting in our cities.  If you’re afraid to step into our public schools, let me be your guide.

First, students sniff fear, so keep a game face.  No smiling, waving, embracing, hugging, engaging in pleasantries or sorrowful expression at the sight of impoverished neighborhoods.  A polished businesswoman impresses adults not kids.  You might consider wearing a baseball cap, sneakers and slacks and tone down the bling.  A tattoo, nose piercing or strip of pink hair would be a good way to bond with kids, especially teen girls.  They’ll think you’re cool.

Let me guide you through this middle school entrance where everyone forms a single line before passing through metal detectors.  Like I said, ditch the jewelry; it’ll just set off the alarm and rile the adolescent crowd.  Then once inside the building, you should assume the position with hands up and legs spread as another teacher gently pats you down.  They’re checking for permanent markers used for graffiti and any sharp object that can and will be used as a weapon to harm others or themselves.  Yeah, some teens really do cut themselves just to feel something.  It’s so sad but not uncommon.  Don’t stare at the pregnant student either.  It’s nothing shocking.

Try to ignore the throbbing rap music blaring from parked cars with parents and students.  They both like the same music.  And if a parent does stomp through demanding an unscheduled conference or confrontation with the principal or a teacher, just step aside and keep quiet.  Mind your business.  Look straight ahead, and ignore rude cussing and shoving even between students.  Let administrators handle the rough stuff, my dear.

We can wait in the cafeteria where most students are provided a breakfast as well as lunch every school day in our public schools.  You’ll see many kids waste food.  Few really want the breakfast, yet they have to take dietary proportions given by cafeteria staff.  This is because of a federal government partnership with the U.S Department of Agriculture.  See, America produces tons more food than we can consume.  So the schools are a great place to at least get the food delivered, whether or not kids like it, eat it or toss it in the trash.  At least they have the option to eat at school.  But looking across the room, you’ll agree some kids are likely eating breakfast at home and then an extra something at school—which may contribute to our epidemic obesity rate.  Let me commend you, by the way, for keeping your figure slim and trim.  Very admirable.  You go, girl!

No school like an old school

That first bell is mind splitting, isn’t it?  All the kids are herding to their classes while a good ten percent of the student body will arrive tardy 10 to 20 minutes or later every day, the same kids from the same families all year long.  Now morning announcements will start, spoken through the office PA system.  In some schools, announcements will be in English and then repeated in Spanish, so this morning ritual may take quite awhile.  You might notice some classes remain talkative and do not pay attention while others are quiet.  You will undoubtedly notice very few kids actually saying the Pledge of Allegiance or bowing their heads for the traditional moment of silence.  It depends on the teacher, what’s important to him or her.  Maybe the class is behind in assignments, and completion is the priority.  Just letting you know it’s not totally about disrespect but could be.

OK, I’d like you to inspect student restrooms.  We’ll just stand inside the girls since the boys always smells of urine.  Look at this: little or no toilet paper, no soap, no paper towels.  You wanna know why?  Mischievous kids ruin it for everyone else.  Some exasperated custodians will not stock paper towels, leaving kids to air dry their hands or wipe them on their clothes.  Toilet paper can be a play thing to stuff the toilets, stopping them up to overrun—a big mess and common in schools.  The soap, well that was another thing some kids played around with, using way too much and making a mess, never cleaning it up off the floor or wall.  Many schools will not provide soap, bar or liquid, in student restrooms even in the newest buildings.  Too many students playing around in the restrooms, sneaking in for fights and other misadventures, is why restroom doors are removed or remain open at many schools.

Now let’s walk the halls.  Most classroom doors have to remain wide open to avoid potential lawsuits involving inappropriate teacher behavior.  But every kind of sound plus all the teachers’ voices echo down the corridor.  I don’t know how any kid can concentrate.  I wouldn’t have been able to.  What about you?

Oh, sorry you had to see that!  My goodness, look at that graffiti: stick figures in sex positions and words like ‘b—’ and ‘m—-f—-’ and gang tags.  Adolescents think they’re the first to shock us with sex stuff and bad language.  Just expect to see more of it on occasion: inside books; on walls; in restroom stalls; scratched into painted lockers, windows, steel doors, even video monitors.

I wanted to mention to you an outdated feature of our nation’s schools in the 21st century: Some classrooms still use VCRs and video monitors instead of DVD projectors or Smart Boards with internet connection.  You would think every single classroom in America would at least have a Smart Board by now and every student supplied or required to have a laptop for school.  Maybe by 2050, huh?  Of course, who knows how technology will change by then?

So classrooms here along the first floor seem to be running smoothly.  Most classes are very organized, some in apparent disarray.  It depends on the teacher and style.  Some administrators will demand a streamlined approach, however, and those schools will have to follow suit.  A school’s tone, its order or chaos, starts at the top with the principal.

Up the down staircase

Ready to go upstairs?  No, we can’t take the elevator, dear.  They rarely work in some schools.  I’m not sure how this inconvenience and hazard continues after the Americans with Disabilities Act, but it does.  Accommodations are made if a student needs to go upstairs.  For example, a kid in a wheelchair may have an assigned crew—and other kids will volunteer for this—to lift and carry the kid in chair up a flight of stairs.  Other arrangements may be to keep a kid in a wheelchair on the first floor, maybe arranging for a tutor if the math lab is upstairs, for example.

Let’s step into this classroom.  Ooops!  Gosh, were you hit by that tiny bit of eraser?  Feels like shrapnel, doesn’t it?  Dog-gone kids.  Just quietly walk around the room.  Notice how students suddenly are paying attention to the teacher, acting studious, reading.  They want to impress you because they don’t know who you are and why you’re here.  They think you’re monitoring their behavior.  At this moment, they’re truly learning and concentrating.  This is a beautiful sight, what school’s all about.  Sigh.

But look around the room.  See?  No cameras anywhere.  That’s a problem in this day and age.  If a kid is so inclined to misbehave or act out, it’s the teacher’s word against the student or students.  But with you here, there will be no outburst, not until you are gone and things get back to normal.  Unfortunately, school classrooms should have cameras by now, don’t you agree?

Oh no!  That sudden loud order from the vice principal means we’re in lock down.  We have to stay in this classroom for now.  We’ll know it’s over when we hear a special code over the PA.  See how the teacher places a red or green card outside the door then locks it, if it can be locked, while students remain in their seats or in worse scenarios crouch together in a back corner?  I think this lock down is to let drug dogs roam free, an unannounced routine.  Usually the dogs sniff out something in student lockers or backpacks.  Later we’ll probably see police officers escorting arrested adolescents, hands cuffed behind their backs, as they leave school.

Yes, this school is one of many with armed police officers, about one per high school and middle school.  This school district has its own police force.  Years ago schools used security officers without guns.  But in recent years, they’ve been replaced by real law officers who wear handguns.  I guess everyone feels safer.

Now that lock down is over, let’s go into the staff parking lot.  Students are not allowed access, but there’s no fencing or any way to prevent stragglers from passing through.  Today I see four cars have been keyed, all of them red.  That means it’s a gang thing, a retaliation of sorts.  Adolescents who are entrenched in gang culture assume their teachers are gang members, too.  There are cameras monitoring activity around the school’s exterior.  Maybe those who scratched the cars will be caught but not if they wore hoodies and aren’t from this school.

Let’s go back inside to watch lunch time.  Some cafeterias are tightly monitored with students not allowed to talk above a whisper while some schools allow low conversation.  The thing is: kids are known to get out of control quickly, group laugh, ruff house, yell, break into fights or throw food.  So don’t be alarmed if you hear a coach or loud teacher instruct everyone: “QUIET!!  NO TALKING.”  I’m sorry teachers have to come across as mean.  You know they really aren’t.  It’s just hundreds of youngsters and five teachers monitoring lunch, like keeping a lid on a boiling pot sometimes.

Skip to my Lou

Would you like to pop in to another public school for afternoon touring?  Let’s go!  This is an elementary school where most students are from Spanish-speaking homes.  Many of their teachers also speak Spanish as their native language.  This school has a bilingual program whereby every other day, lessons are taught in one language or the other.  For example, Monday may be English, Tuesday Spanish, and back and forth through the week.  The effectiveness of this type of bilingual education is skewed because a confused kid will often have to break into Spanish on those English-only days to figure out what’s going on.  It’s hard on them, and if the teacher only speaks English, the kid must figure out what’s being said and taught sink or swim.  Their mandatory state tests will be in Spanish until they reach middle school.  Some bilingual teachers support full English immersion at school.

Before leaving, let’s go outside to the rows of small metal buildings surrounding the school.  They’re called portables, one-room buildings placed here decades ago as a temporary measure until the school was expanded.  But by now, many portables are fifty years old, and few schools actually were expanded through the centuries.  Heating and air conditioning are problems in some portables but also throughout many school buildings.  There are all kinds of reasons, but mostly the air ventilation systems are not monitored and maintained by an on-site crew.  It can take years for air in one freezing wing to be repaired while another area across the school building remains unbearably hot.  It’s the way it is.  Students learn to bring jackets or wear layers every single school day: summer, autumn, winter and spring.

And that brings me to my final concern about our nation’s school system.  Why aren’t American schools year-round by now?  It’s practically the middle of the 21st century, and the long summer breaks have been unnecessary for decades.  Expanding the school year would be a good place to start in improving our students’ education and retention.  Teachers, families and states may kick and scream about it.  But you know a lot of knowledge has gone to the wayside in order to maintain a nine-month school year decade after decade.

I understand your reluctance to take American public schools seriously.  You support privatizing all services, providing school choice to everyone, and doing away with the U.S. Department of Education altogether.  In countering these proposals or grand plan, in actuality our nation’s schools should be under one command.  The Department of Education should enforce the same curriculum for every school, rural and urban, so communities aren’t set back by poverty and school board politics.  Communities and citizens have failed our schools.  The oversight for correction, modernization or privatization must be at the federal level.  States would disagree on student courses that are important and essential.  But that is a national decision.  And you, Madam DeVos, are the Decider.

It’s been my pleasure showing you just a couple of our urban public schools.  B’bye!  Feel free to call me any time.

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From Dead Bird Mall to Red Bird Mall once again

The former Red Bird Mall now resembles historic ruins.  For decades hardly anyone wanted to shop there, preferring to venture across Dallas or in recent years nearby Cedar Hill for its trendy outdoor walking mall.  Many cities across the U.S. are burdened with mid-century malls.  Old and gray and huge as the sea, they remain sprawled across a good hundred acres—taking up way too much space and offering no tax revenue.

The death of a mall is a pitiful sight especially for Baby Boomers like me with memories that keep us forever 16.  The biggest thing to have come to my neck of the Dallas suburbs was this very mall.  Opening in 1975, it seemed destined for eternal business with anchors like Sanger Harris, JC Penney and of course Sears.  The mall shops were crazy eclectic but competed to fulfill our every want and need.  More shoes and dress shops than a busy gal could visit in one day, a couple of record stores (for the latest album rock) and eateries galore made the mall an inexpensive teen date: a place to roam and people watch.  Christmas time was especially crowded.  As a teen I always liked going to the mall.  It made me feel alive.

My first real job was at that mall where I scooped ice cream at Baskin-Robbins.  We wore pink baseball caps and smocks.  I learned to operate a cash register, figure tax, and count correct change back to customers.  After school on the days I went to work, the price of a single scoop had increased a penny or two, sometimes a nickel.  If I recall correctly, a scoop at some point was 20 cents then more and more, corrections noted in pencil near the register.  The owners, a married couple, wanted to train me in management.  Turned out the young assistant manager was stealing from the register and summarily fired.  But I had greater dreams to fulfill and passed on pursuing management.  Besides, the job paid $2 an hour when the minimum wage was more than that.  When I inquired about the discrepancy, the owners explained if a company is small, employees don’t have to be paid the federal minimum wage.  After some months, I quit to finally earn minimum wage at a barbecue joint.

But working at the mall really appealed to me.  Many occasions I’d approach every single store, on both floors, and ask for an employment application.  Through high school and early college, I usually could land a job at the mall.  My sales clerk experience included the children’s clothing department at Sears and a clothing store called Woman’s World that specialized in the latest fashions for larger ladies.  I enjoyed my breaks at Sears because I could go to the candy and nut counter for a bag of warm cashews and an Icee.  At the ice cream shop, employees got a free scoop for coming to work.  I usually passed but when succumbing to temptation chose Daiquiri Ice on a sugar cone.  I was trying to be sophisticated.  Besides, I liked the cool turquoise color.

 All’s fair in mall and war

Because of the mall’s location, in south Dallas, a lot of whites referred to Red Bird Mall as Black Bird Mall.  What an awful thing to say, just because a lot of shoppers were black.  But see, the majority whites at the time were not yet willing to be inclusive or think of the community and our country as multicultural and multiracial—as I had come to realize in college.  The racial epithet of sorts was around 1989.  Yes, there was crime at the mall, perhaps more than other malls in Dallas, still at the time unverified as fact by the general public.  It seems an urban legend started the moment Red Bird Mall opened: a horrible story about a little boy attacked in the mall’s restroom.  Hearing the story as an adolescent, I believed it and was on guard if ever having to use the mall restrooms, eerily placed down long corridors.  After I grew up, going alone to the mall seemed unsafe.  I could tell things had changed.  The young crowds seemed rough, loud—and most importantly to business—weren’t there to shop.  But neither was I most of the time in junior high and high school.  I did shop for and buy a prom dress at the mall my junior year: a lacy baby blue evening gown and a very fond memory.

In an effort to rejuvenate the mall, it was renamed Southwest Center and its interior walls redecorated in a style reminiscent of the Old Southwest, more New Mexico and old Mexico than modern Dallas, Texas.  It just didn’t fit for those of us born and raised in this area.  As the poor economy of the late ’80s and early ’90s continued to threaten businesses from independent shops to national retail chains, my old shopping ground got a new nickname: Dead Bird Mall.  It was a hilarious yet honest depiction given all the mall vacancies.

Eulogy for a dead mall

A year ago the Dallas mayor proclaimed intentions to yet again reincarnate Red Bird Mall, first off to rename it as such because originally it referred to a nice upper middle-class Oak Cliff area of Dallas.  The city is working with businesses like Starbucks to once again populate the vast concrete territory still harboring some semblance of a mall.  But perhaps malls should be a thing of the past.  As wonderfully convenient, though costly, as shopping malls were—everything under one roof—times have changed.  People shop online first to purchase so many things.  Then there’s Wal-Mart and Target.

So what’s gonna bring ’em out to the modernized Red Bird Mall?  Perhaps a lot of small single buildings connected by outdoor walkways, fountains, floral landscaping with shade trees, benches, ponds and nature—a beautiful place for meditation, reading online and waiting while others shop.  Rule one should be in considering a new shopping development to revitalize Red Bird Mall: Why do people want to go there?

In retrospect, maybe we should list all the reasons people stopped going there: safety, loud unruly crowds, loitering, theft, assault, guns, drugs, evening hours, humongous terrain, accessibility, health issues, and impractical shops.  Consumers of the 21st century may have no need for the old mall experience that millions of us hold dear in our memories.  Our generation knows better than most: The past tends to be romanticized … because we don’t want to reminisce about the way things really were.

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Wanna run for Congress? Millionaires need not apply

New Rule: From now on, anyone running for U.S. Congress and Senate, cannot have an annual salary more than, oh I don’t know, $100,000.  ?  Sound good?  Still unfair?  No more than $75,000?  Something that would put him or her in the league of regular folks, maybe no more than $40,000?  Come on now, there are a lot of people in this country who earn salaries like $30,000 and $40,000  a year and even raise kids.  But the point I’m trying to make is NO MORE MILLIONAIRE POLITICIANS!!  Yea!!!!!!  Rahhhhhh!!!

With our usual federal government shut downs, it seems it’s not so much a liberal-conservative fight as a disconnection between millionaires and regular folks.  Millionaires have never cared about poor people (and for them that includes the vast middle class), what the Millennials used to refer to as the 99 percent (of us).   Remember when the kids protested on Wall Street just a couple of years ago?  Then we elect a self-promoted billionaire as president?  What’s up with that?  How did our nation change on a dime?  Just wondering what happened to the collective rage against all people rich.

Only millionaires play chicken with people’s lives and livelihoods.  Regular folks would never do such a thing.  We have more empathy toward our fellow man, sort of.  I mean, we are Americans, and since the Reagan ’80s our national motto has been “I got mine. You get yours.”  Works out great for some folks, maybe even most Americans with the wherewithal to earn a college degree or born with business savvy and ambition or tech or high-paid trade acumen.  But not everyone does well in our great land.  There are all kinds of reasons: physical disabilities, chronic illness, mental illness, addiction, low self-esteem, low intellect, anti social personality disorder.  Then there are issues dealing with race, color, sex, religion and ethnicity.  People of color have been saying for decades there are points against them in our great nation when it comes to who gets the jobs and promotions and why.  It doesn’t matter how many bi-racial family ads are on TV now.  The nation as a whole hasn’t let go of discrimination.

Billionaire Boys Club

So now really we have a billionaire club infiltrating politics.  And since politics is about governing people’s lives, I’d say it’s unfair and I’d go so far as to say non-Christian.  Wouldn’t you?  OK, let’s leave the issue of religion out of it.  Let’s not ask “What Would Jesus Do?” when it comes to a government shut down.  After all, the great majority of our nation’s millionaires and billionaires and Congressional representatives proclaim to be Christian.

The first time I was ever aware of our government’s money problems was in 1981.  That was the first time I heard our government was broke.  And we’ve been broke ever since.  Well, there was that shining moment when President Bill Clinton proudly announced our new national debt was $0.  That’s zero dollars.  The politicians, especially the ‘vast right wing conspiracy,’ had convinced us concerned Americans the budget could never be balanced. Shame on them.  Clinton was lucky he rode the perfect wave of the telecom boom … which turned into a tech and dot.com bubble that eventually burst.  Nevertheless, he did prove our national debt could be resolved.

Now I’m just thinking out loud, but does anyone else think our entire federal budget is just a house of cards?  We’re just robbing Peter to pay Paul?  If we are truly unable to keep our government financially operating time and again, then something’s, like, major wrong with our nation.

The one person I would never trust to fix our perpetual federal debacle and international embarrassment is a millionaire.  Wanna know why?  Because I know that millionaires never, ever, ever, never, ever, ever spend their own money.  Trump never did contribute faithfully and willingly and lovingly to his own presidential campaign.  He’s got to be the first in American history to not gamble on his own presidential bid.

And the likes of him, billionaires and millionaires, are in charge of our federal budget?  Something’s out of whack.  And it’s been out of whack for too long.

Roll over Tom Jeff’rson

Our nation’s Founders in their wildest dreams could have never imagined the vast financial mess of our great country, supposedly the greatest and richest on earth.  How could a nation built on democracy, free will, equality, and even everybody’s pursuit of happiness go so profoundly astray financially?  Maybe it is the guaranteed ‘free will.’  Humans don’t do well with free will.  We have a tendency to put off tomorrow what we don’t want to do today, like pay the electric bill.  We get credit cards to take care of our needs then our wants, then we can’t pay them either, blaming high interest rates.  Over a period of five decades—our prime working years—life becomes a series of calamities: illnesses, job losses, home and car repairs, spouse death, divorce, stock market crashes, loans, inflation, recessions, raising kids, college, etc.  We find we aren’t any better off than when we’d first begun to work.  The future looks bleak.

That’s the kind of thinking that got Trump elected.

The bottom line about governing is very simple: THE BILLS HAVE TO BE PAID.  That’s how families do it as well as cities and states.  In government jargon, it’s called a zero budget, where they figure out the money coming in over a year or two and budget it.  We don’t dip into money that does not belong to us like Social Security, Medicare, education and the military.  We don’t borrow from nations to fight our wars, because those nations may turn around and use our debt against us.

The real shame about being an American is how we allow millionaire congressmen (a few of whom, by the way, have nothing better to do than show us their junk on the internet) to play Kick the Can with federal financial obligations.  Why do we allow them to do this?  Too much trouble to get involved?  We don’t want to be thought of as old coots firing off phone calls, letters and emails to our elected officials in hopes they actually will be persuaded by our angry words to change their ways?  Why are we afraid of people we elected into office?  Who’s really in charge of this country?  We’ve forgotten: The people have the power.

For a couple hundred years, our form of government has allowed us to elect others to govern, to run the business of America.  And if the ones we’ve elected can’t govern, then we the people are going to have to start doing it.  A change in qualifications for office—especially banning millionaires—would be a good start.  I think the constitutional framers never intended for a bunch of rich men to run the United States of America forever.  Our 18th century American forefathers, those who lived during the Age of Enlightenment, who were free thinkers and fans of Western philosophy, knew a democratic government could only work and last if it’s tended to by all citizens including farmers and laborers, and not just and only by educated dandies.

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Age brings wisdom to accept ourselves

How do we measure a year, asks the song from the musical Rent.  As I approach another birthday this month, I look back at not only this past year but all the many marks of time preceding it.  As we continue to live on, year after year, life is seen in a much bigger picture.  To me, life is marked in phases and stages.  It would be hard to explain how someone raised in a Dallas suburb ended up living in East Texas for many years and then traveled the world for education and pleasure.  But that is the wonderful thing about life: We never know what we’ll end up doing.  So, here’s to our personal adventure called Life!

Mine began humbly enough.  For three and a half years, I was the center of my parents’ undivided attention.  One of my earliest memories is our family of three moving into a new three-bedroom brick home.  I helped by carrying a mop and bucket in the house.  I remember the floor, though carpeted, felt hard as cement, which was its foundation.  My next early childhood memory was the day my brother was born.  In the hospital waiting room, while my dad was not watching, I managed to walk away until I was almost in the very room where my mother was giving birth.  I was stopped and pushed back to the waiting area by a nurse in white stockings and attire as they wore in those days.  Perhaps I heard my mother’s voice in labor and was searching to help her.

Next thing I knew, a party was held at our house with everyone coming to see the new baby.  The tiny creature was on top of my parents’ big bed.  He still had that skinny stem on his belly.  Feeling left out, I remained in the hallway then found myself carving my name on the wall.  What would Freud say?  For a few years, my name remained there until Dad paneled over it.  In those early sibling years, my brother and I shared the same bedroom.  But I saw myself as much, much older and ready for some independence: riding my big trike up and down sidewalks along the neighborhood street.  I asked to move into the guestroom, changing it into my own bedroom.  Some girls around my age moved into the house next door, and that’s where I liked to socialize and grow ever more independent.  We played Barbie’s a lot.

The next memorable milestone for me was my first day of school.  I had wanted to go to kindergarten, which was not required back then, but my parents could not afford it.  Instead because of my birth date in the fall, I had to wait an entire year before starting first grade.  I remember feeling the whole year was a complete waste of my time.  (What kinda kid was I anyway?)  My mother was a teacher at an elementary school where she arranged for me to attend.  On the first day of school, she walked me down a long corridor of lockers, then outside to the new modern wing for first and second grades, bent down and pointed at the glass doors and told me that was where I was to go to first grade.  My teacher came outside the door and the two ladies exchanged pleasantries as I walked inside by myself with enthusiasm and satisfaction and the real taste of freedom.  I had waited my whole life for this day!

But soon I would discover a few things about life and myself.  First, there are kids older than me, and they were tougher, too.  I was intimidated by them and yet could not wait to reach their big impressive ages.  Second, there were kids in my grade who were preordained to be popular.  And I was not one of them.  Looking back it seems somehow kids take one look at each other and just know upon meeting who’s well liked and who’s not.  What were we judging this on: the most stylish clothes and hairstyles, shoes, sophistication, charm school, parents with prestige and money?  How would we even know such things instinctively?  Who knows the psychology of a first-grader?  In time I would gladly accept my place as a product of middle-class blue-collar heritage.  Within a couple of years, I would learn to utilize that work ethic and make a name for myself in accomplishments that mattered to me: creative writing and performing on stage.

I won’t continue to bore with memories of junior high, high school, college and beyond, but suffice it to say, that thing about popularity is universal.  How a class of kids can be mesmerized by another person their own age is fascinating, and accurate.  You’d think the littlest ones among us would be the most sincere, able to discern the value of every peer and adult.  But kids are highly impressionable, more likely to chase after a person who seemingly glows on the inside and out.  Now with decades-old hindsight, I suppose seeing the way the world was made me more sarcastic and cynical toward my classmates, the cliques common in every school.  I never belonged to one.  Independence meant everything to me.  Besides, I liked sitting on the sidelines in observation and making the occasional sardonic quip to entertain the like-minded.

If we live long enough to mature with grace through many decades (crossing two centuries for me), then we come to realize the popular ones were just like the rest of us.  I wasn’t left out as much as I placed myself out of the white hot spotlight of school fame.  But I was critical of them, and I’ve lived to regret the way I was back then.  No doubt for some, popularity was a trap, attention and expectations never pursued.  What’s left behind for all of us are memories and pictures of beautiful kids with sparkling eyes, fabulous smiles, radiant glow and presumed successful life in all endeavors.  But the reality was and is every person has equal sorrow, hardship and loss along with love, accomplishment and success.  We of a certain age come to realize this about each other: Life may be hard but still can be and should be a joy.  If we live long enough, life gives us wisdom to understand ourselves and appreciate each other, then and now.

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Confederate statues under attack by twisted history

“I do declare the reason why Dallas is removing all its silly ol’ Civil War statues is because the mayor is a Yankee.”

Old times not forgotten

Angry protests can erupt when the ruling leaders do not have deep roots in the soil they now call home.  A Dallas media poll revealed the majority (70%) supported waiting to remove Confederate Civil War statues.  Then an African American news correspondent remarked those statues in public parks and spaces make him feel uncomfortable and he should stay away.  Whites would say hogwash; blacks would say amen, so different is the American experience among the races.

I’m not sure how the plight to remove every Civil War statue from the South became a big, loud deal, but here we are in 2017 with much bigger fish to fry.  The economy, public education, worldwide terrorism and possible nuclear war can take a back seat to the hottest protests in America.  What started this movement against Confederate Civil War statues, things no one black or white thought about or looked at for decades?

Maybe it has been the constant reenactments of Civil War battles.  Maybe it’s because former slaves were never given what was promised to each and every one, 40 acres and a mule, if history records accurately.  Maybe it’s because African Americans were treated like second-class citizens for a good century after the Civil War, even with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 mandating everybody living in America is free and enslaved by no one.  Maybe it’s because of the brutal yet legal reign of the KKK in the early 20th century.  Maybe it’s because laws like Civil Rights in 1964 had to be passed; racial segregation had to be abolished; public schools had to be integrated; neighborhoods, employers, businesses had to be federally warned against discriminating based on race.  Maybe it’s because Martin Luther King Jr. Day is not a recognized and honored holiday across the nation city by city.  Maybe it’s because of the Black Lives Matter movement, sparked by on-camera deadly shootings of blacks by almost always white officers.  Maybe it’s because DNA has exonerated dozens of black men wrongfully imprisoned and undoubtedly means some were executed for crimes they did not commit.  Maybe it’s because the largest gang in America is made up of whites not blacks or Hispanics.  Maybe it’s because of the African American church massacre in South Carolina by a Confederate flag-waving self-proclaimed white racist.

That damn war

I didn’t know or remember my parents and I don’t see eye to eye on the Civil War’s outcome.  One day I brought up the movement to remove the Confederate flag still flown in some Southern states.  I compared it to Germany losing WWII.  The Nazi flags were removed, summarily illegal to display.  It was a punishment.  They had lost the war.  I implied the South lost the Civil War and the Confederate flag never should have been allowed to fly again.  “We did NOT lose that war,” my parents told me.  “We” I pondered my parents saying.  What a bond to the past yet somehow lost on my generation.  My parents were born into the Depression Era.  At the time “Gone With the Wind” showed on the silver screen in Atlanta, Georgia, and any black actors in the movie (and there were lots of them) were not allowed to attend the Hollywood gala opening.  Isn’t that incredible?  It is even more incredible that the lessons from America’s Civil War, still our most deadliest because all who died were Americans, are not agreed upon by historians and especially those of us from the South.

Southerners were taught no one won the Civil War; both sides lost.  Modern Northerners don’t think that way at all.  And the Civil War was not only and just about slavery but a whole list of other grievances against Northern aggression, we Texans were taught in school.  Here’s a non-slavery list of causes for the Civil War, according to Wikipedia: partisan politics, abolitionism, Southern nationalism, Northern nationalism, expansionism, economics and modernization.

In the 1860s during a political debate, Abraham Lincoln asked his challenger if he still supported slavery.  Lincoln held a mirror to society, which had included and begun with our nation’s very own forefathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both slave owners.  Lincoln saw slavery as immoral.  Yet Southern commerce and culture were ingrained in racial segregation.  Really it was about cheap labor and the inability to see a people who hailed from Africa as human beings.

Incredulously, Lincoln considered sending former slaves back to Africa, anything to preserve the Union.  History—like mankind—is messy, violent, unjust, cruel, contradictory and often less than truthful.  More recently President Barack Obama, trying to come to some compromise about the growing controversy over Confederate hero statues, suggested displaying them in museums but still removing them from public places.

Slavery and racism is the story of America.  It’s our past, our present, and apparently our foreseeable future.  Education that includes a lot of world history may enlighten some to see slavery wasn’t created by America but throughout human history had been spoils of war and a fact of life when one nation took over another.  Maybe that revelation could ease tensions and alleviate the need to maintain anger about the past—our collective bloody, horrible, bigoted, prejudiced, shameful entwined history.  Where does my generation fit into all of this?  Well, we were the kids who went to school with and befriended others from different races and backgrounds.  It was the 1970s—and for a brief shining moment we were living The Dream.

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From Obamacare to don’t care

What must the world think of Americans now since reneging on expanded public healthcare—and once again going alone from what works in every modern nation on earth?  They can think what I’ve come to know: Americans do not like taking care of other people—and by that I mean they only want to take care of themselves and their own families.  In fairness, I may be too hard on my countrymen.  After all, the rest of the world really can’t think of Americans as the unkindest people on earth.  Americans are usually first to donate to world catastrophes like typhoons, hurricanes, earthquakes and famines.  We probably raise more money and send more tax dollars than any other country in that regard.  Didn’t we practically rebuild Europe and Japan after World War II?  What about all the global goodwill from our Peace Corps volunteers?  Isn’t that the kind of altruism for which the world knows us, holding Americans in the highest esteem, the very best of humanity?

Chaps and spurs

Where did Americans get the idea that everyone should just take care of his own?  Well, from wearing blinders for one thing and never seeing how nonwhite people are treated in our own country and have been mistreated here for centuries: Africans, Native Americans, Asians, Italians, the Irish, Jews, Eastern Europeans, Muslims, Mexicans, etc.  But mostly, I have a hutch, this ideal of proud American self sufficiency evolved during the late 20th century … from watching TV shows like “The Rifleman,” “Gunsmoke,” “Bonanza,” “Big Valley” and “Little House on the Prairie.”

America is the only country with a cowboy heritage.  And we’ve romanticized our pioneering Western spirit to the point that fiction has become reality in our minds.  None of us, our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents really know how life was lived way back when, how men treated women, how parents treated children, how communities of mostly one race and religion treated others who did not fit in physically or socially.  We don’t know why Wyatt Earp hung up his guns in public places.

One thing we can assume is within the hundreds of small rural communities that cropped up across the American Western frontier post Civil War, people cared for one another.  If one family lost their home to a fire, the community probably helped rebuild and donated clothing, food and furniture.  Seems like our kin would have done that.  Seems like that’s what the Good Book tells us to do, to help our fellow man especially in time of need.

Modern times

There are a few reasons why Donald Trump won and Hillary Clinton lost.  One was Obamacare.  Democrats liked it; Republicans hated it.  Universal healthcare, like any policy President Obama tried to create, was blocked by Republicans.  President Obama had to take his healthcare policy all the way to the Supreme Court.  The Court found that health insurance was a right of every American citizen, not just for the gainfully employed.  So, expanded Medicaid was crammed down the throats of every American.  Americans don’t like being told what to do now.

From small business owners to young single adults, millions of Americans did not like Obamacare and its punitive clause to collect money from anyone not insured one way or another.  It did not matter that every single doctor, hospital, pharmaceutical and insurance company, and the entire medical profession supported the new law because it meant healthier people through immediate diagnoses and treatment—and maybe assured salary and career future.

Typical of Americans, the good ol’ days was romanticized as the better situation: when anyone who could afford insurance had it and the rest could just rely on Medicaid—which we all have to pay into anyway.  Self reliance and rugged individualism, that’s what built this country!

T’ain’t true!  What built our country was Americans working together, multicultural Americans working together, being allowed to work together.  Having strong charismatic leaders, more father than friend, and one goal at a time built this nation, made America the greatest place on earth.

The world probably still thinks America is great, probably believes in America more than Americans do themselves these days.  Our history is unique, yes built on self sufficiency and reliability and determination and total liberty.  But our nation was not built on mass disdain toward the down-trodden and underprivileged—the poorest, weakest and sickest among us.  Whatever their demographic number—10 percent, 25 percent, half the nation and more if we include the over-50 crowd—a nation is known for how it treats its own people.  That’s certainly how America judges all the other countries—often why we get involved overseas, to make things right, make a difference, improve the lives of our fellow man.  It’s the American way.

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Marijuana: all together now

Quietly—with little notice or even controversy—Dallas passed a new marijuana law.  Called ‘cite and release,’ the ordinance allows citizens to possess up to four ounces of weed without having to go to jail.  Like, wow.  This blows my mind.  Finally the Man gives a wink/wink to all the people, young and old, who smoke pot … who are never ever going to stop smoking pot … for the past fifty years or so … whether it’s legal or not.

We are seeing nationwide a huge shift in the marijuana debate.  There is no debate anymore.  NORML is normal.  Just breathe, breathe in the air …

It was bound to happen, though I figured it would be rather late in my lifetime.  I remember when Ann Richards was given a hard time by the mass media for not answering the drug question as she ran for Texas governor.  George W. Bush never had to answer the drug question either.  Barack Obama answered and still was elected president twice.  So our nation has changed.  The majority of Americans do not care about this particular drug being illegal anymore.

The ’70s show

You will not believe this but … back at my old suburban high school, there were two outdoor smoking lounges for the students.  Before my arrival, the campus had conducted a big debate and vote to allow a student smoking lounge so kids would stop smoking in the restrooms.  And it worked really well.  Yeah, in my day, the kids who smoked—and they were the cool kids even with subtle coughs and throat clearing and that awful smell on their clothes—would come to class, lay their pack of smokes on top of their desks, and pay attention to whatever subject was being taught.  I’m not kidding.

Of course, along with the leniency toward smoking cigarettes, which were somehow legal for kids to get in those days, (I forget this point; seems like only age 18 and older could buy them, so how were we allowing kids to smoke cigarettes anyway?) came a pushing of the envelope.  On occasion the sweet aroma of marijuana wafted from the teen smoke lounge and intermingled with the Camels and Virginia Slims.  Society forgot that kids push boundaries.  That’s what they do.  That’s what childhood is for.  Society also had forgotten that teen-agers are kids, albeit really big and immature kids.

I guess adults in those days were not going to see past the smoke and mirrors.  Cocaine and heroin were the big drugs that worried parents.  As the kids themselves would say, marijuana is like an aspirin compared to hard drugs.  Then some kids did get hooked, searching for that elusive high and rush from harder drugs.  But overall few who tried marijuana became drug addicts for any lengthy period.

The dance continued until the mid 1980s when the student smoking lounges—did I mention there were two, one for the new freshmen campus—were closed down.  The times had changed dramatically with a full-fledged, alleged war on drugs in America.  Youth were being programmed to just say no to drugs.  But teen life and modern childhood come with a lot of baggage, more so if the kids come from parents who themselves do drugs.  And that scenario was played out in a major anti-drug TV commercial: the one where the father walks into his adolescent boy’s bedroom and confronts him about a shoe box of pot, demanding to know where he learned to do this sort of thing.  “You!” the kid retorts, “I learned it from watching you!”  The father hangs his head and turns sadly in defeat.

Half baked idea

From Woodstock when Jerry Garcia held up a joint and proclaimed “Exhibit A,” police departments cutting out marijuana questions on recruit applications, to all the free-wheeling, pot-smoking, drug-toking movies and rock lyrics and concerts of the past half century, finally the figurative smoke has cleared.  The debate is OVER.  Pot won.  My generation of former high school cigarette and pot smokers must be dancing in the streets.  That is, if we can get off our hind ends without a walking cane.

Medical marijuana is becoming legalized throughout the nation and is recreational in Colorado.  For the past few years, the Texas Legislature has some young elected official who tries to open the marijuana laws only to be shut down by the Old Gray Guard.  But it’s just a matter of time before Texas sees the light, like Dallas.  The majority of the voting public—democrat and republican—do not care about marijuana remaining illegal and especially with a prison sentence.  And our prisons are mostly full of people convicted of nonviolent drug crimes.

The reason for Dallas City Council’s change of heart to permit a small amount of marijuana without a trip to jail came from listening to minority communities.  A black ministerial alliance had asked for a cite-and-release solution for up to four ounces of weed, explaining how rare it is for black youth—but really many, many people of all ethnicities and ages—to get a break if caught by police for low-level offenses related to, say, driving, no license, no insurance, no registration, and then a bag of weed, too.  If someone’s in jail, that person often loses a job, and many other financial problems follow.  It’s a hole the individual can never escape financially.

The flip side, the law-and-order side, is Don’t Do Drugs.  It’s that simple.  But a society is not at all simple.  There has never been in the course of human history a simple place, a simple time, a simple era.  And societies evolve and change slowly yet radically … especially in the span of fifty to sixty years.

Marijuana may be nothing to go to jail over.  It obviously does not create a violent streak.  The effects of marijuana are not the same as legal alcohol consumption or manufactured illegal narcotics, even prescription drugs.  Some pot smokers may feel the need to try harder drugs and will even spiral into addiction and criminal activity.  But like the old hippies have been trying to tell us since the ’60s: Marijuana grows on God’s green earth for some reason.  What could it be?

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The O’Reilly factor. Figures.

When I was a newspaper reporter, I used to watch Bill O’Reilly every night.  I figured I needed to stay in the know, and his show did present several sides of an issue, at least two sides.  My liberal friends cringed at the thought and asked how I could stand him.  “I don’t like watching him,” I replied. “I like to watch the sparring.”

In the late 1990s, O’Reilly did seem to cover important topics, inviting many liberals to come on his show to debate.  He also had many show biz types like Suzanne Somers who was writing books about nontraditional and holistic cancer treatment.  Being a man, he fawned over her, smiling while discussing her monumental stardom after just one year on “Three’s Company.”  Keeping her hair white blonde didn’t hurt.  Besides, her eyes sparkled, too.

O’Reilly kept his show cool bringing in Republicans from heavy metal bands to Hollywood actors and actresses.  The question always came up about people of their stature turning conservative, usually a quality their fans did not realize or assume.  The answer was the same:  They had traveled the world and seen dire poverty and social injustice.  Their minds were opened to the benefits of capitalism especially in nondemocratic and socialist nations.  O’Reilly smiled, his eyes sparkled in agreement.

Then something happened that turned me off “The O’Reilly Factor.”  George W. Bush was running for president, and O’Reilly appeared to be his number one fan.  Bush would come on the show and unpretentiously say things like, “Why do I need to go talk to Al Sharpton?”  O’Reilly gushed: finally a political candidate unconcerned about political correctness.  O’Reilly had lost his objectivity.

I stopped watching “O’Reilly” every night, catching it occasionally while flipping the channels to see a topic of interest.  What I started noticing especially on Thursday nights was the ‘babes’ he had on to ‘spar’ with him.  These professional women usually were educated attorneys well respected in their fields with specific details on topical and controversial court cases or arrests and could provide insight and maybe a counter to O’Reilly’s societal cynicism.

But I couldn’t get past the visual: the lips, the makeup, the hair, the tight dress, the full bosom, the cleavage.  What’s up with that?  The FOX network came along with shows like “Married with Children” and “The Simpsons” to cater to America’s love of the bawdy and OK maybe the body, the female body.  Somehow this in-your-face sex appeal crossed over into the FOX News division, too.  No other female network newscasters and reporters look or dress like the FOX girls.  There’s a reason.

Oh and somehow FOX News becomes the leader in conservative news.  How can this be?  Just put two and two together.  Or just two.  For all the sizzling hot female correspondents sparring on “the no spin zone,” O’Reilly remained aged and aging, turkey neck in check.  Never a face lift or jowl tightening.  Good thing for him there’s a double standard.

So what I’m saying is a professional woman cannot be taken seriously by men, white or blue collar, when she’s showing her cleavage.  It just isn’t possible.  My God, men are only human!  As much as I would like to blame O’Reilly for sexist jerk comments and boorish behavior—to the tune of millions of dollars in she-said-he-said pay offs—the women have to accept some part.  Sexy is a game we can never win in the real work world.  To my younger sisters who think they can portray themselves as overtly sexy and still be respected for brains and beauty … you can’t fool Mother Nature.