The Boys of Summer

I’ve lost my taste for baseball this year. St. Louis Cardinal Manager Tony Larussa and star hitter Albert Pujols attended the Glenn Beck “Restoring Honor” rally in DC last weekend.

They insisted the rally was apolitical. Tony had already expressed his admiration for Beck. He also recently expressed his support for Arizona’s SB 1070.

To make matters worse Pujols was one of the main contributors to Christian rock station JOY 97.7 which replaced award winning classical station KFUO. KFUO was my mother’s favorite station and was recognized as the nation’s best commercial classical station a couple of years ago.

Glenn Beck is a brand and can never be considered apolitical. He has been whipping up right wing hate and historical revisionism to an ignorant, xenophobic following for fun and profit.

I will be the first to admit what a disappointment Obama has been but saying he has a "deep-seated hatred of white people" is inexcusable.

Painting Hitler as a socialist because NAZI stands for National Socialist German Worker’s Party is his attempt to make all things evil come from the left. It is a lie and his following eats it up. The Nazis and the Fascists were ultra right wing and a response not only to the left but they used minorities as scapegoats just like Beck does.

I see comments on blogs that ask for proof of Beck’s lies.

How hard is it to Google “Beck’s Lies”?

Tony and Albert have a right to go to any rally they want to. I just can’t enjoy the Cardinals this year.

Where's the Oil part 2

It doesn’t seem to matter if our elected representatives tell us the truth about anything. As long as what they tell us is repeated we accept what they say as fact.

BP and the Obama administration tell us 75% of the gulf oil is gone.

It’s not likely the oil and chemical threat from dispersants are gone so soon and so completely. It seems to me both the Obama Administration and the petroleum industry are in cahoots trying to minimize the disaster.

Friends of mine say. “Nature has a way of taking care of itself.” I agree. If nature perceives human excess as a threat, nature will take care of us.

I’ve heard folks on talk radio point to the sudden disappearance of the oil as some kind of divine intervention.

It smells like a campaign of disinformation.

Too often the Obama Administration has supported big business over public well-being. I’m sure Obama feels our economy might suffer if the truth was told but the gulf’s ecosystem might if it is not. What ever happened to transparency? My girlfriend feels Obama has been exposed to the harsh realities of office and has had to change his point of view. I will not be an apologist for this administration! I don’t think I’m alone in my disappointment.

It's not just Obama and the democrats, of course, republicans are doing everything they can to please the big corporations too.

I can’t understand why BP didn’t use the dispersant VeruSol. According to EPA tests it’s 30 times less toxic than the Corexit they’re using.

The dispersants have kept the oil under the surface so the amount isn’t known anyway. Why are they giving us any kind of estimate at all?

Quality of Life, My Cause

I think our society as a whole needs to trend back toward quality of life as a goal.

I’ve always gone pretty much my own way when it came to making a living. The few times I’ve worked for the man the oppressiveness became overwhelming and I’d have to quit.

There are a lot of people who believe we should all buck up and be productive members of society.

I believe we live in an age of corporate servitude. More and more production is expected for less compensation. This is why we are going through a jobless recovery.

I’ve worked for the last 7 years as a courier. It’s a classic contracted position. I am theoretically self-employed. I pay my own taxes. I’ve never had a vacation and I’ve never been able to afford a sick day. If I don’t do as they ask, I don’t get paid. I am not my own boss!

It’s an employer’s market. Companies hire part time so they don’t have to pay benefits. I’ve applied for positions only to discover they pay half what they did 5 years ago.

The corporations in Europe are taking lessons from us. They’re calling their employees fat and lazy. Europeans have come to expect a lot of holidays and entitlements. This lifestyle is unsustainable!

There are actually ways to determine social happiness. The first World Map of Happiness has been published by scholars from the University of Leicester. The map is a global projection of subjective well-being taken from a variety of sources, and compared with related data from UNESCO, the UN and even the CIA.

People in Denmark and Switzerland have the highest overall satisfaction with life

The US Declaration of Independence clearly points out "certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."

I hope Europeans stand firm in their commitment to enjoy life.