The Presidential Debate, Dutchman's Pipe in Bloom, that Blasphemous Video, and a Memorable Letter from Sid

The First Debate

Presidential Debate Number One is history.  It supposedly dealt with the economy and although the general consensus is the Mitt Romney fared better than President Obama, I find fault with both of them.

Romney lied like a rug.  He denied his economic plan involved a five trillion dollar tax cut over ten years which the President claimed it did.  If one adds up the numbers of the 20% across the board tax cut he proposes, that indeed adds up to five trillion bucks over ten years which significantly would be of great benefit to the wealthy.

This would leave the government short of that revenue, but Romney claims that reduced spending, efficiencies in government and reduced tax deductions over that period would get rid of the need for the revenue which the tax cut would eliminate, so it really isn’t a cut after all.  But he failed to get specific on those efficiencies, cuts (other than stopping subsidizing Big Bird) and deductions.

The President, on the other hand, did not challenge Mitt on such vagueness and even let Romney get away with the claim that to help finance Obamacare, $716 billion was being taken out of Medicare, reducing that program’s services.  That amount, consisting of reduced payments to providers, better policing of fraud and other efficiencies was also “taken out of Medicare” by Paul Ryan’s plan, and did not affect benefits. He also failed to point out Romney's inconsistency in planning to repeal Obamacare and then replace it with what appeared to be the same thing but on a state rather than a national basis.  Can you see the state legislatures in Mississippi or Alabama passing a state version of Obamacare or Romneycare?  I cannot.  And Mitt also was less than candid when he claimed his plan would provide insurance to folks with pre-existing conditions, a "stretch" which the President let him get away with as well.

(As this blog pointed out months ago, the word "Obamacare" has lost its pejorative sound and even was used by the President with one of his rare smiles.)

Summing up, the President came off as a quarterback protecting a three point lead from his own forty yard line with just two minutes left in the game. That's no time for a double reverse or a forward pass risking an interception. Nothing fancy, just keep running it into the middle and hang on to the ball.  Romney, on the other hand, while cheerful, aggressive and persuasive, came off as less than honest, particularly if one had listened to his earlier speeches, made before he shook up his "Ectasketch" thirty minutes before the debate.

Jack Lippman


                                                                      

Butterfly Garden Report

As we enter Autumn, there aren't so many butterflies in the yard as there were a few months ago.  There are a few caterpillars around though which I hope will hatch into black and gold swallowtail butterflies, but the big news from the butterfly garden is that the Dutchman's Pipe vine (Aristolochia Gigantica), the plant that hosts the swallowtail larvae, is producing flowers.

  Here's a picture of one taken where the Dutchman's Pipe has spread to another vine where the leaves are less obstructive than on the Dutchman's Pipe.  (and yes, that elongated dark thing about "10 o'clock" from the flower is one of the aforementioned caterpillars.)  The photo was taken with my Blackberry.  The caterpillar population also promises some late season Monarchs and Gulf Fritillaries.
 JL
                                                               

Why Was the Blasphemous Video Mocking Mohhamed Made In the First Place ?

Reporting on the making of that infamous YouTube video mocking Mohammed has disappeared from the papers.  No one seems to be asking why the video was made in the first place. The shady Coptic Christian gentleman who played a role in the video’s making, and whose name seems to change with every article that mentions him, isn’t talking but someone put up a lot of big money to produce the blasphemous video.  Why?  Certainly it was not made as a satirical piece for the benefit of laugh seekers in this country nor as a serious piece of cinematography.  Why then was it made?  Whose wallets opened up to finance it?

The other evening on a “talk” radio show, I heard a caller suggest that the specific purpose of the video was to inflame the Muslim world, and cause it to rise up against the West including Israel and the United States, who would be blamed for it.  This would result in a nuclear war which few would survive, an “Armageddon,” after which those who had accepted Christ as their savior would depart the Earth along with Jesus in the final “Rapture.”  In a weird way, and without hearing any other explanation for the making of the video, this made some sort of macabre sense. 

 
One artist's vision of Armageddon

While the video didn’t quite accomplish this goal, it did damage the relationship between Islam and the West sufficiently to perhaps convince some believers that Armageddon was one step closer than it had been before the making of the video, quickening the day when the Second Coming of Christ and the Rapture would occur.  The question remains as to whether there are people in the Evangelical Christian movement who are willing to finance such acts of blasphemy against Islam with this goal in mind.  

As the election season draws to a close, this might be a good avenue for an investigative reporter with nothing better to do to explore.  I would not be surprised if the Federal Bureau of Investigation is already doing that.  I've heard of crazier things, most of which were carried out by people of unquestioning faith in something or other.  The mass suicides at Jonestown come to mind. 

Jack Lippman


                                                                         


Sid's Corner

 A Letter of Thanks

Sid Bolotin

Dear Bill & Jim: 

I’m writing this to fulfil my latest homework assignment from my writing class.  I want to thank both of you for the gift you gave me as a child.

When searching my 70-year old memory bank for someone to thank for an intangible gift, I rummaged thru all the names that popped up from my mental Rolodex. Interestingly enough, all the names were males.  I wrote them down...30 or so...in no special order, just in a freewheeling list. Each name represented some male who had impacted me in some way as a father figure, offering some sort of replacement for the loss of my father when I was 22-months old. Although I made no conscious effort to edit, or classify, or rate their involvement, there was a microsecond of evaluation as each came to mind.

When yours appeared, there was a flare of brightness, a halo of light around each...first Jim, then Bill. When I allowed a deeper look-see at why this should be, the same feeling about each of you was rekindled in my heart. I realized that each of you had offered unconditional love upon me when I was a child. My memory search produced no sense of any agendas underlying your attention to me. From little Sidney's perspective, you were both crisp and clear as you reached out to assuage my half-orphan status created by my father's sudden, tragic demise. My memory does not grasp your attentiveness when I was 22-months old. But it does embrace the feelings that developed as I grew old enough to consciously experience your caring.

Jim, you became the live-in boarder, renting one room with bath privileges to help my distraught mother to survive as a single mom. The kitchen and the other two rooms...her bedroom and the den...were off limits to you — but neither you nor your room were ever off limits to me.

You and little Sidney created a daily evening ritual that endured well into my teens. I waited eagerly for you to return from your job as a machinist at the nearby nail-manufacturing factory. After I greeted you, and you went to wash up, I would kneel alongside your bed to read the comics in the newspaper that you had spread out. Sometimes you were slightly tipsy from your meal at the local pub, but I never knew a moment of fear. After you washed up, I’d leave you to your solitude in your tiny room to read, listen to your radio, and fall asleep to await the dawn’s signal for you to repeat your day...day by day.  A bed, a bureau, a window, and a closet made up your entire world. 

In spite of my mother’s occasional critique of your un-ambitious lifestyle, you were my hero, my ersatz father, and my early role model.  I remember watching you wash up so I could learn how a man washes...how you filled the sink with hot water to immerse your arms up to the elbows to clean off the day’s grease and oil.  I remember how you taught me to use a micrometer when I became an apprentice at General Electric in Lynn, MA.  All of your mentoring kindness was delivered with unconditional love and caring to the half-orphan.

Bill, you as the janitor of the apartment building, bestowed your own brand of support to little Sidney by allowing him to accompany you on your nightly rounds of the back halls to collect the rubbish for delivery to the coal-fired furnace in the cellar. Little Sidney was so proud to help throw

the debris into the roaring flames. When you let him help shovel coal into the furnace's gaping maw, Sidney felt so bonded to you. You and your wife welcomed Sidney to visit your humble baement living quarters with the low, low ceiling and overhead pipes that required you to crouch to clear your head.

You, too, became a mentor, sharing repair techniques, tool-use, snow shovelling, and other manly pursuits. And, most lovingly, when nine year old Sidney was given a rabbit as a pet, you looked the other way when he built a small hutch out of an orange crate in which to keep his pet, Junior, in the back hall. We both knew that the rules that forbade dogs or cats, but did not specify rabbits, were being violated. I can still see you with your white hair, glasses, and a cigar stub clenched between your teeth. Like Jim, you offered unconditional caring to replace what I had lost with my father's untimely demise.

Thank you both — may you both be resting in peace.     

 Lovingly, “Sid”

                                                     

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