When Will They Ever Learn

• 61% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.  Up from 49% in 2008, 43% in 2007.
• 43% of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.
• For the first time in history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth than all individual Americans combined.
• 21% of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line.

How can this be in the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free?  Here's a hint:

• 83% of all U.S. Stocks are in the hands of 1% of the people.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1.  Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to 1.
• 40% of Americans who are employed work in service jobs.

The middle class is being destroyed.  Our jobs have been shipped overseas.  Our financial institutions and their government stooges are driven by greed.  Our children go hungry while Wall Street bonuses increased 17%.

Make no mistake about it, this IS a class war.

photo by Mr. Charleston

Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:

 I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.  If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

A Shout Out To Punch

Our old friend Punch, at Theatre of the Absurd, has recently had some serious arterial surgery and is home convalescing.  Let's all send our thoughts his way by commenting on his site.

She's Big, She's Bad, She's... Beautiful?

At 6 foot 8, Amazon Eve, right, might be the world's tallest model. The Federation of World Records has already bestowed the title upon the towering beauty, and Guinness World Records officials are planning on measuring her up soon. Before becoming a model, Amazon Eve says she worked as a personal trainer, a paralegal and a movie actress. 

Tackle that James Bond.

GOD is DOG spelled backwards

He's a story to melt even the hardest of cockles.

By Jill Kasparie, Reporter

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – A community came together to grant a homeless man his last wish. That dying wish was to see his dog one more time. It was a simple request, but one that meant the world to him in his final days.

..."Yurt " used to live with a homeless Cedar Rapids man, 57-year-old Kevin McClain, in his car.  But a month ago he became ill with lung cancer.  Paramedics rushed him to Mercy Medical Center and later to Hospice House. Yurt went to the animal shelter.

“In the transition of moving him over from our ambulance cot to the bed, he told me, 'I have a dog,'” said Area Ambulance Service Paramedic Specialist Jan Erceg.

To grant the dying man's last wish, Erceg, who happens to also be a volunteer at the animal shelter, tracked down Yurt's new owners and arraigned for the reunion.  McClain died two days later. 

I've heard it said that without dogs, mankind might never have domesticated other animals and we would all still be living in Yurts.  But apart from all of the other things dogs give us, companionship is foremost and central.

The Bible says God created woman to be man's companion.  If that's so, he must have realized that he hadn't done such a hot job in the "compatible companion" department, and created dogs to make up for it.

After all, you know how the story goes;  If you want to know who loves you most, your dog or your wife, lock them both in the trunk of your car for 30 minutes and see who's happy to see you when you open it.

Dan Gurney - American Legend

One of the things my friends have to tolerate about me is my total, lifelong, love affair with Formula 1.  The cars, the technology, the competition, the glamor and excitement of Formula 1 grabbed me when I was a teenager and hasn't let go since.  While most of my childhood friends had heroes named Petty and Pearson and Yarborough, my heroes were named Moss and Fangio, Ascari and Clark, Hill and Gurney.

So, this post is dedicated to an All-American hero, Dan Gurney, and his 1967 Eagle II F1 race car, the only American built F1 car ever to have won a Formula 1 race.  Coincidentally, it just happens to also be one of the most beautiful race cars ever produced.  1967 was the last year that totally mechanical F1 cars were made, for after '67, F1 cars, and eventually all race cars, would have aerodynamic wings attached to them and ground effects soon became the single most important aspect of a car's performance.

Here is my homage to the '67 Eagle.

My rendering of the Eagle II from a photo I took at the Amelia Island Concours de Elegance in 2002.

The Titanium Eagle at The Dutch Grand Prix in '67.  Gurney qualified on the front row and ran at the front of the field but had to retire due to mechanical problems.

Gurney and team take a victory lap at Bands Hatch, site of the '67 British Grand Prix.

If I could choose any car to drive before I die, it would be a toss-up between two '67 Formula 1 cars, the Gurney Eagle, or Colin Chapman's wonderful Lotus 49, in which Jim Clark won two world championships.

Of course, Dan Gurney is an international racing legend and the first driver ever to win races in Formula 1, NASCAR, Indy Cars, and Sports Cars.  What makes this feat even more significant is that it was done at a time when one out of four race drivers lost their lives in competition.  It was Gurney's spontaneous celebration of spraying the crowd with champagne after winning the '67 24 Hours of Le Mans that began the podium tradition that continues to this day.

To give you a little idea of just how fast and dangerous these cars and the courses they ran were, here is a clip from the best computer racing simulator ever created, Grad Prix Legends.  It's based on the '67 F1 season and was uncannily accurate, devilishly difficult, and the first racing simulator that allowed you to play online against fans from all over the world.  This clip is from Spa Francorchamps, the Belgian GP, which was Gurney's first win.  It features an Eagle II and a Ferrari.  Great fun.

Time to test the waters again

I was visiting over at Lost in the Bozone where Crum had just taken his political compass test.  For those of you who don't know what this is, it's a test wherein you answer a series of questions (multiple choice) and your answers are measured on a chart based on these criteria:

Here's my chart:

Hummm.  It seems I've drifted to the left since the last time I did this a couple of years ago.  Of course, the questions could be different than they were then or maybe watching the first Republican debate and Bill Maher in the same evening pushed me over the edge.  Who knows.

Here's how I compare to others, although I'm not sure how some of them were tested:

It looks like me and Nelson Mandela would get along perfectly (although I know nothing, nor care anything about, rugby) and rubbing elbows with Gandhi and the Dalai Lama wouldn't be so bad either.  And how about Pope Benedict.  To the Right of Robert Mugabe!  One too many wafers.  I suppose Ronnie Reagan is simply off the charts.

Anyway, here's where you can take the test yourself.  Political Compass  Let me know how you do.

I didn't do nothin'. Honest.

A Guitar, A Gut-bucket, and a Hot Chick or... Why I Love St. Augustine

Happy Birthday to Me

Yes, today is my birthday. June 2nd. Normally I don't even think about birthdays, but a couple of things happened this past month that give me cause to reflect.

One was the death of my former wife, Susan. Ten years my junior, ours was probably a star-crossed union from the get-go. There isn't a whole lot of commonalty between a Jewish girl from New York and a Florida Cracker but we found enough to have fun times together and to form a union that lasted a little over 5 years. But, her dreams were of returning to Brooklyn and mine the Virgin Islands and... well, you get the picture.

Susan was the most gentle and generous person I've ever known. She wouldn't even kill a roach. She would try to coax it onto a piece of paper and put it outside.

Our parting was mutually agreed to and cordial. We even enjoyed a celebratory dinner the night of our separation and remained good friends over the years. I loved her and she me and we kept in touch.

Breast cancer. She had become Buddhist and wouldn't give modern medicine a chance until it was too late. True to form, the last time I spoke with her she down-played her illness and never let me know the extent of the cancer that was killing her for over a year for fear that I would worry. A tragic and unexpected loss and a stark reminder of my own mortality.

Rest easy sweetie. Your radiant smile will forever live in my heart.

The other thing that happened was an invitation for me and my brother to be the guest speakers at the local historical society. We presented a slide-show and talk about growing up in a fish camp and were recognized as being a "pioneer" family.

Jesus Cresus. I didn't realize just how old I was until reminiscing to a room full of people about my childhood in a fish camp with no electricity. We were in tall cotton however because we had an artesian well. That's a deep well that reaches the aquifer and so it had plenty of water pressure. Therefore we had indoor plumbing, unlike our neighbors who used an outhouse.

The fish camp was a partnership between my father and his brother-in-law, Pappy. They bought it in 1945 on a part of the St. Johns River that was the tarpon capital of the world. It was a boy's paradise. River, boats, woods, alligators, snakes, fish, hogs, chickens and dogs. We were poor as dirt but didn't give a damn. We had it all.

This is what the compound looked like.  We lived in the cabin to the right, under the tree.  My aunt and uncle lived in another, a couple were for rent to fishermen.

The fish camp proper.  Note cane poles and picnic tables.  We had a generator that my dad would fire up on Saturday nights so as to run the jukebox for the weekly fish-fry and shindig.

My dad in his little fishing boat.  It seemed so much bigger then.   

He used to drag a trawl behind it and the family lived off of the fish and shrimp he caught.  I recall the whole family going out at sunset and dragging the net.  When dad would pull in the catch he and my older brother would sort out the shrimp and throw everything else back.  I used to pick up handfuls of baby fish, flounders, hermit crabs, puffer fish, blue claw crabs and even the occasional star fish.  Today, none of that exists.

The dock with rental boats.

My big brother and me.

Me, catching a ride with "Uncle" Dennis.

Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high.

Our house.  My brother and I shared the room with the windows overlooking the river.

The view from the dock today.  What was once so deep in the woods there was no electricity is now inside the beltway.

Nicer than most, yes, but nothing close to what it once was.  Then again, neither am I, as I watch another year go by.  But you know, I'm feeling good.  In fact, I would go so far as to say I'm feeling downright lucky.  Think I'll go buy a lottery ticket.