The Objective of this Blog

This is my first attempt to communicate with a large number
of people via the internet I am certain that you will enjoy
this journey into my mind. As it is too complex to be explained
away in simple terms, suffice it to say that hardly a day goes
by that I don’t fall upon some tidbit of idiocy, hypocrisy,
tarnished notion, misplaced directive, or act of stupidity.
Most, fall in the realm of ‘well-do- gooders’ who have their
own simplified version of the universe and hold it out as an
umbrella for all of us to stand under. The problem is that
when you stand to close, you run the risk of being drawn into
narrow mindedness and intolerance, often masquerading as truth.

There is no end to the amount of exposition and the infinite number
of topics that I intend to broach. I will often switch back and forth
between the pseudo intellectual and the ignorant sidewinder,both,
up to their heads in crap, but determined to find an audience.

I view my purpose much as the Sunday drunk longs for his 40 oz.
before the stores open; the need is there, but nary a drop of
satisfaction can be found. Perhaps you may even view this indulgence
in terms of the expression “all dressed up and nowhere to go.”

Alas, I am dressed up and I do have somewhere to go. I also have
something to do and that is too reach out to the hundreds, thousands
of our kind who long for a bit of sophistication in life.

I do not subscribe to the notion that the vast number of us are
inherently naive, therefore it becomes impossible to educate on any
mass scale and that any effort to do so would be met with a resistance
comparable to swallowing a cucumber.

While we are certainly prone to dim-witted behavior from time to time,
the average person would certainly object to being classified or grouped
into this type of category. For certain, it’s not pleasant and this is
the exact reason a sounding board from both ends would benefit us all.

Many of our actions and behaviors toward others may not be conscious
acts of malice or a willful aim to disparage an individual or group;
nevertheless, the result is often the same as if the exercise were
deliberate.

If we allow ourselves to categorically ignore that which we know to be
wrong and do nothing about it, then we are complicit in creating an
unsavory environment, whether intentional or not. At the opposite extreme,
any good that comes from such ‘lack of action’ may have unintended
consequences to which we cannot lay claim.

We are not pawns in the conduct of our lives and the way we coexist
with our neighbor. We do have choices. Conscious or unconscious acts
influence our world and the way we view it. Choices allow us to chose
freely and the freedom to act without coercion carries a responsibility:
thoughtful and considerate deliberation on points of agreement as well as
dissension.

This is the very essence of what this sight hopes to achieve. So if
you find some of my opinions annoying, tell me so. If I hit the mark,
give me a pat on the back. If I’m way off course or completely out of
line, I want the feedback on that also. I’m here to offer opinion on
various topics, but I’m also here to learn. I want that to be a life
long process and I promise I won’t cower or pull back from my stated
viewpoint in the face of opposition; yet, that very dissonance may
be a pivotal point to reexamine my position on issues.

I don’t know and I can’t say how I’ll react as this site engages more
and more interaction. For now, let’s just get on to the first topic
at hand.

Mexican Drug Wars

The Mexican Drug War is an armed conflict taking place between rival drug cartels and government forces in Mexico. The crackdown has resulted in the arrest of some high-level figures in the drug trade, but as cartels are dismantled or left without leaders, violent power struggles erupt over who will take their place.

In December of 2006, Mexico's new President Felipe Calderón declared war on the drug cartels, reversing earlier government passiveness. Since then, the government has made some gains, but at a heavy price - gun battles, assasinations, kidnappings, fights between rival cartels, and reprisals have resulted in over 9,500 deaths since December 2006 - over 5,300 killed last year alone.

With U.S. forces fighting two wars abroad, the nation's top military officer made an important visit last week to forestall a third. He went to Mexico. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the trip to confer with Mexican leaders about the Merida Initiative, a three-year plan signed into law.

The plan called for flooding the U.S.-Mexican border region with $1.4 billion in U.S. assistance for law-enforcement training and equipment, as well as technical advice and training to bolster Mexico’s judicial system.


The concern is very real. Mexican drug cartels already control about 90 percent of the cocaine trade across the United States and most of the market for marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin, with operations in 230 cities, according to the U.S. Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center. They have essentially supplanted the Colombian and Dominican criminal groups that terrorized major U.S. cities through the 1980s and ’90s, the agency said.

Mexico is the main supply route for cocaine and other illegal drugs entering the United States and Canada. Colombia being the main cocaine producer.Historically, Colombian cartels have dominated cocaine trafficking.


During the 1980s and early 1990s, Colombia’s Pablo Escobar was the main exporter of cocaine and dealt with organized criminal networks all over the world. When enforcement efforts intensified in South Florida and the Caribbean, the Colombian organizations formed partnerships with the Mexico-based traffickers to get cocaine through Mexico into the United States

At first, the Mexican gangs were paid in cash for their transportation services, but in the late 1980s, the Mexican transport organizations and the Colombian drug traffickers settled on a payment-in-product arrangement. Transporters from Mexico usually were given 35 to 50 % of each cocaine shipment. This arrangement meant that organizations from Mexico became involved in the distribution, as well as the transportation of cocaine, and became formidable traffickers in their own right. Currently, the Sinaloa federation and the Gulf cartel have taken over trafficking cocaine from Colombia to the worldwide markets

The fighting between rival drug cartels began in earnest after the 1989 arrest of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo who ran the cocaine business in Mexico.The Mexican cartels commonly use assault rifles, military-style semiautomatic rifles, hand grenades, and a variety of other military weapons.

Mexican cartels are the predominant smugglers and wholesale distributors of South American cocaine and Mexico-produced marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin. Mexico's cartels have existed for some time, but have become increasingly powerful in recent years with the demise of the Medellín and Cali cartels in Colombia. Closure of the cocaine trafficking route through Florida also pushed cocaine traffic to Mexico, increasing the role of Mexican cartels in cocaine trafficking. The Mexican cartels are expanding their control over the distribution of these drugs in areas controlled by Colombian and Dominican criminal groups, and now believed to include most of the U.S.A.[

The East Coast of the United States (mainly New York and New Jersey have seen little dominance of the Mexican drug cartels. No longer just middlemen for Colombian producers, they are now powerful organized-crime syndicates that dominate the drug trade in the Americas. According to the FBI, Mexican cartels focus only on wholesale distribution, leaving retail sales of illicit drugs to street gangs. The Mexican cartels reportedly work with multiple gangs and claim not to take sides in U.S. gang conflicts.

Mexican cartels control large swaths of Mexican territory and dozens of municipalities, and they exercise increasing influence in Mexican electoral politics.[The cartels are waging violent turf battle over control of key smuggling corridors from Nuevo Laredo, to San Diego. Mexican cartels employ hitmen and groups of enforcers, known as sicarios. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports that the Mexican drug cartels operating today along the border are far more sophisticated and dangerous than any other organized criminal group in U.S. law enforcement history.

The cartels utilize grenade launchers, automatic weapons, body armor and sometimes, Kevlar helmets.

There was a lull in the fighting during the late 1990s but the violence has steadily worsened since 2000. Former president Vicente Fox sent small numbers of troops to Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, on the US-Mexico border to fight the cartels with little success. It is estimated that about 110 people died in Nuevo Laredo alone during the January-August 2005 period as a result of the fighting between the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels.

In 2005 there was a surge in violence as a drug cartel tried to establish itself in Michoacán. Although violence between drug cartels has been occurring long before the war began, the government held a generally passive stance regarding cartel violence in the 1990s and early 2000s. That changed on December 11, 2006, when newly elected President Felipe Calderón sent 6,500 federal troops to the state of Michoacán to put an end to drug violence there. This action is regarded as the first major retaliation made against the cartel violence, and is generally viewed as the starting point of the war between the government and the drug cartels. As time progressed, Calderón continued to escalate his anti-drug campaign, in which there are now about 45,000 troops involved in addition of state and federal police forces.

In April 2008, General Sergio Aponte, the man in charge of the anti-drug campaign in the state of Baja California, made a number of allegations of corruption against the police forces in the region. Among his allegations, Aponte stated that he believed Baja California's anti-kidnapping squad was actually a kidnapping team working in conjunction with organized crime, and that bribed police units were being used as bodyguards for drug traffickers. These accusations of corruption suggested that the progress against drug cartels in Mexico have been hindered by bribery, intimidation and corruption.

On April 26, 2008, a major battle took place between members of the Tijuana and Sinaloa cartels in the city of Tijuana, Baja California, that left 17 people dead.] The battle also brings about concern about the violence spilling into the United States, as Tijuana and a number of other border cities become hotspots for violence in the war.

In March 2009, President Calderón called in an additional 5000 Mexican Army troops to Ciudad Juárez. The United States Department of Homeland Security has also said that it is considering using the National Guard as a last resort to counter the threat of drug violence in Mexico from spilling over the border into the US. The governors of Arizona and Texas have asked the federal government to send additional National Guard troops to help those already there supporting local law enforcement efforts against drug trafficking.

Christian Hypocrisy

I was livid today, when in church, our minister mentioned that a lesbian couple had been asked to leave three different churches.Now, I'm not naive, I know that this has gone on in the past, but within the recent past, come on, I thought we had finally made it thorough the discriminatory phase in Christianity. How naive and how wrong I was.

Chritianity's ranks are fading, not because people don't believe in a higher power but increasingly don't believe that the higher power should be used to persecute others; those that by virtue of belief or lifestyle don't fall into rank.

We have a divided house on Christianity and that house is falling, slowly imploding from within because of intolerance and antiquated dogma that alienates rather than enjoin. I see too many so called Christians walking a road which slouches toward inhumanity rather than advance a common humanity.

Christian hypocrisy is borne of a singular fixation on the dated, the antiquated, "Sinners in the hands of an angry God" type mentality. That mentality is
the product of a rigid interpretation of biblical scripture and an adherence to fundamentalist moral codes.

Somewhere in this mix, God has been left out. What we get in the narrowly constructed concepts of Christian morality is a fix on mortal weakness and certainly not the vested conduct of "love thy neighbor."

How dare Christians use the cause of righteous indignation to persecute others and then throw it back on a higher power. What we believe at this stage and to what degree we've advanced is the direct result of our inclination to love, to move over when others are different, to move beyond the self imposed exile of ignorance, to father the words of forgiveness and to marry the likes of a kind heart with that of an open hand.

When power is truly returned to Christianity, the morning becomes a light, a beacon, and the night is none to be feared.The shadows where we hide with our wrong open to the rays of the sun and there is room for all to be blessed.

Quick Notes: Religion: Common Sense and the Peril of Christianity

The number of people who call themselves Christians is slipping dramatically. Ken Blackwell of the Family Research Council attempted to to justify the "ebb and flow" of this phenomena by citing past statistics; however, there is something more serious than this in the statistics. I refer to it as the "common sense" factor.

That is, many who are losing faith see religion being used as a tool to oppress groups of people. This oppression is at odds with the tenets of religious dogma and too often finds its interpretation in the hands of those who use religious scripture to hold on to outdated modes of thinking, prejudice against certain lifestyles, and a general willingness to pass moral judgment in terms of their parochial views.

Take the catholic church which vehemently objects to condoms; their exist an epidemic of aids in Africa, and condom use would go a long way in ameliorating this scourge.It's certainly not the only answer, but it certainly could help. I believe its irresponsible for the Pope and prelates of the Catholic church to be in denial about this problem.

I don''t care what your opinions are regarding birth control, this is a no brainer and once again the Catholic church is stuck in the middle ages, inflexible and struggling with diminishing ranks. They don't get it.They don't want to get it and so they hold on to these antiquated concepts. It's about birth control and the Catholic Church rejects birth control. This is plain out stupid!

Then there is the issue of rejecting Priests and the aspect of inclusivenesss within the Episcopal church, when it comes to gays. Splinter groups seek to disrupt an inclusive message by once again using religious doctrine against certain groups, choosing to narrowly define and interpret such doctrine to the exclusion of some.

Point being, religion is slipping further from mainstream America because of its treatment.If we see a higher power, Creator, God or whatever you conceive it to be, it derives from energy and energy is never stagnant; therefore, The Creator, a higher power or God is ever unfolding.

To use ancient biblical scripture or implication through prophetic writings as to the true nature of God's intention, in a way that minimizes the value of each person, be they different from you, is wrong. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see this at face value, but it does take a willingness to accept others of differing views and lifestyles, to put religion in its proper perspective and to stop using it as a weapon against dissent. This is really about common sense and Religion needs a big dose of it.

As for me, I'll keep believing and try to transform my words into actions. Nobody likes an ignorant Christian!

Gop Muckraking: Jackals at the Watering Hole

GOP Muckraking: Jackals at the Watering Hole


Mired in an ideology to which fewer and fewer Americans adhere, lost in a proverbial fight to win the hearts of the disenfranchised, the Republican party is clearly mired in a situation of its own making.. Without a clear leader and devoid of new ideas, it seeks proxy on outdated modes of thinking and exist mainly as an obstructionist conduit for parochial, mean spirited and narrow minded thinking. The "GOP" must change if they are to survive as a party.

This guy is an "idealist".

Think there's nothing novel about this? Well, yeah, you may be right, but rarely have we seen the likes of so much muckraking and trifling exercises into the ridiculous, that currently exist on the lunatic fringe of this party. The right wing of the party seems now entrenched in obstructionist behavior for the sake of it.

The lady in the following video is rather kind in her assessment of "Republicans". I must admit, I have a lifelong friend from a small town in Kansas who is a Republican and he fits this spirit of kindness. I know many Republicans and possibly untold acquaintances who espouse a conservative philosophy; many are kind, but simply have more intractable views on public policy. They often view the world from a narrow lens, preferring to judge others on the merit of their own achievements. I see this as an essential, but not sole, difference between Republicans and Democrats. The former is more geared toward self interests, the latter, more willing to empathize with the underdog. :

Barack Obama won the election and Republican leadership seems incapable of understanding that fact, but determined to undermine it. Soft catering nuances of conciliatory rhetoric don't jibe with the fact that the GOP leaders are determined to stall or undo many of the changes that President Obama is now putting into place. They don't have an alternate plan for many of his proposals, but they do have a collective face of "outrage" be it any proposal set forth by his new administration.

Barack Obama, although of mixed race, is characterized as a "Black Man", therefore his momentous victory will go down in the annals of history most likely as a victory for Black people, albeit he was overwhelmingly elected by all all segments of our society.

Hillary Clinton, a white woman, brilliant in her like pursuit of the Presidency, was defeated in the last stretch leading up to the election.

To counteract such overwhelming talent by Democrats, Republicans sought out at the last minute, a relative unknown in the likes of Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, also a white woman. I believe, as many do, that they put her on the ticket to draw sympathy votes from female voters and to give fodder to those with leanings toward Barack, but doubted his viabilty as a potential president owing to his race. At the time, this seemed a tacit admission of how deeply racism remains entrenched within our culture; however, borne of a young and diverse constituency, one such hurdle has been overcome.

Racism remains, and unfortunately the "Grand Old Party" is still the "Sasquatch" of this history, but they are not alone.

After the election and a Republican loss of the Presidency, they took it one step further by electing Michael Steele a black man as head of the Republican National Committee. One could invoke the issue of timing, and give the GOP credit for their inclusion, but I don't believe it for a second. Now, Michael Steele seems to be on a self-destruct countdown with his contrary statements in opposition to GOP ideology.

You may note that there is no clear GOP ideology, except that which promotes a party platform, which, at the core is always drawn to monied interests. The perennial favorite is "lowering taxes" and to hell with social programs. This type of thinking has always been the bulwark and nexus of a narrowly defined GOP,who often find themselves slipping into dysplasia at the suggestion of helping others. They are clever at hiding their self-interests;however, beneath the veneer of party rhetoric, lies the jackal at the watering hole, waiting his/her turn.

The GOP can always show you how helping people with money will also help the underdog, in this case, the impoverished. What a crock....! We see what monied interests have done for this country. Can you say class warfare?

This is one deceitful group, of which many in party leadership are nothing more than "Jackals", conniving to draw victory away from the Democrats, ready to resort to any act, as long as it curries favor with the public. We're talking about the same public, of which many were party to the GOP defeat.

From the moment of Barack's election, the GOP started touting its potential presidential candidates for 2012, often invoking the image of Sarah Palin, Eric Cantor, Bobby Gendel, who may be less of a contender after a disastrous Republican response to the President's speech to a joint session of congress. What was that about? I've heard children speak better than that before audiences.

The talent drain has definitely waned over the years for the GOP. Obviously, this idiocy compounded in the presence of man who spent the vast majority of his reign destroying the reputation of this country, disavowing basic liberties of its citizens, using presidential perogative to break laws and cover up torture of enemy combatants. There are so many other reprehensible categories, that each would probably be telling in itself.

So the Muckraking goes on by the "GOP". No novel ideas, just stalled rhetoric to a right wing constituency who would be better served beating their swords into plowshares and contributing something useful. Better yet, let them go hide under a rock.

Muckraking or just stuck in the mud while you muckrak?

This next perspective seems a bit extreme, but I can see the point. I would call this extreme perspective more of a "sociopathic" disposition.

Fountains at Bellagio

Bellagio Fountains from michael john on Vimeo.

Quick Notes " Bad Diets" ,"Prostitution Obsession","Juvenile Republican Behavior"

Why is it that the most expensive foods are those that are best for you. I see a widening disparity between the types of foods which are offered and available to those of greater economic means, as opposed to low income families.

I can readily buy the foods that I need, but it seems some of the healhiest foods are the most expensive and therefore beyond the budgets of most families.This is aside from our economic crisis. I'm referring to the conditions which exist now and before the economic collapse.

I go into a grocery store and it appalls me to see what lower economic families tend to put in grocery carts when they shop. Most foods are heavily laden with fats, carbs and sweets. It used to be a running joke that people in a certain area of our city could live on potato chips and Pepsi. naturally this stereotype is prevalent because many low income people tend to buy these sugary, carb and fat laden products, since they're filling and they cost less; however, in most cases they're the worst foods that you could possibly utilize for nutritional needs of your body.

With childhood obesity running rampant, I see it as a generation problem. Often obese children will have obese parents. Then those kids will eventually pass on those bad habits to their children and so the cycle continues.

The food industry is in large part responsible for some of this as their pricing often puts nutritional foods beyond the economic range of lower income families, thus they buy filling as opposed to the more nutritional foods.

With this in mind, if more expensive foods were made available, we would still have to change eating habits, which in some cases have been nurtured over several generations. Entire cultures can be predisposed to bad eating habits-eating foods heavy in fat, carbs and sugar.

I'm a diabetic. If I want a diabetic product, it usually cost a great deal more than a like product for non-diabetics. So I usually buy the regular product and then try and limit the amount of that product that I eat.

If I buy foods heavy in fat, carbs and sugar, I do have the choice to spread their consumption out and the frequency with which I consume them. Lower income families don't have this luxury. They have to fill bellies and what they buy is often consumed on a regular basis.

Chips don't stay in the cupboard where they are eaten at intervals. Ice cream is consumed fairly quickly, candy is abundant, kool-Aid, which requires lots of sugar and sugary sodas are everywhere and consumed on a daily basis. These foods are cheap and filling, but they do nothing for our nutritional needs.

So, is the food industry complicit in bad diets? You bet they are.

Prostitution Obsession

Now, I hear that the cops throughout the US are attempting to infiltrate Craigs List Postings to deliberately snare those individuals who arrange sexual hook ups in exchange for cash. This is yet another ridiculous waste of time and efforts and in my mind a greater perversion and misuse of public funds than the act of Prostitution.

We all know that the seeming act of prostitution is as old as Society and it will continue.Yet based upon a conditioned morality which politicians have fostered, drawn form the age old religious doctrine condemning prostitution and a public which has been long duped into believing that "prostitution somehow deteriorates the family", we yet continue in our quest to interfere with the choices of some.

The underlying cause behind Prostitution definitely has its roots in biblical and therefore religious parable. We blindly accept this excuse and add any additional societal condemnation to further pursue this act. It seems somewhat hypocritical to accept the ageless role of religion in this condemnation when religion has no business in the conduct of secular government.

Yet, we know all about his duplicity when it comes to politicians and public sentiment. They throw this notion under the bus and move forward in the knowledge that the enforcement of Prostitution laws can be furthered based around public dislike alone. Funny, outside of male politicians, when was the last time you heard a male citizen getting all fired up over pornography and prostitution?

Prosecution often takes the form of persecution in our society, and this is what exactly is happening with the cops and their attempts to infiltrate Craigs List. That organization should fight all attempts by the government or any judicial agency to interfere with a the rights of grown folks.It's simply none of their business. We need to stop legislating morality for others and deal with the problems at hand in this country, of which there are many.

Republican Behavior-An Elephant Mired in "Muck"

Sine the election of Barack Obama, the Republican party seems to have become encumbered under the weight of their own obsession to hinder and obstruct the plans of our new President.

They offer no substantive ideas or alternate theories outside of the ageless party rhetoric of cutting taxes, espouse that they have been left out on consultations by the president, which is ridiculous and furthermore an outright lie; then generally have the headset of obstructing a large part of his agenda in the hopes that his policies fail and that they will be in a good position to recapture lost offices in the 2010 elections.

Do they really believe that the memory of the American people is that short, that after 8 years of a regime which flaunted the law. presided over an economic policy which has brought the country and the world to a point of disaster and left the new President to recover a tainted image around the world-do they honestly believe that the American people are going to put them back in office that soon?

I have problems with many views of the right-wing base and the Republican party, which are traditionally the rabble-rousers. Yes, I would like them to hide under a rock and only show their faces in time to pay taxes, but indeed, keep their opinions and therefore their shortsighted and parochial opinions to themselves. Hell,I wouldn't care if they formed a new union of states. they do nothing but hinder progress under the cloak of religious zealotry and moralistic chicanery, inbred with distortions.

The Right wing of the GOP which seems to speak for the entire party is pure hell for our country. They are selfish at every avenue of change, save that which deregulates and benefits the rich. Where is their rock to crawl under? They are a persistent threat to changing the status quo. Let them linger in the dark for a long time. Who cares? They're of no use to progressive minds in this country.