Miami, Florida

At this time of year in Pennsylvania, when temperatures are in the 20s, a lot of folks start dreaming about Miami.  

And whenever I tell people I grew up in Miami, people always say the same thing:

“Why did you ever leave?”

Don’t get me wrong:  I like Miami.  It was interesting growing up there and I still like to go back from time to time.  There are parts of Miami that are beautiful, exciting and fascinating.  And the blended culture – Anglo and a hodge-podge of Caribbean and Latin American influences – makes it an adventure; it’s like leaving the continental U.S. and going to a largely Hispanic tropical country that doesn’t require a passport and accepts U.S. currency at face value.

What’s not to like about that? 

However, when people ask me why I ever left, it’s obvious that they’re from someplace else.  Probably the Northeast or the Midwest.  Chances are they’ve only visited there.  Or have only seen something on the Travel Channel. 

Clearly they’ve never lived there for any period of time, as I did. 

If they did, they’d know the following:

Living in Miami is different than visiting there …

First of all, Miami is not all of South Florida, but all of South Florida is pretty much like Miami. The only difference is that the further south you go, the flatter and hotter it is, the more congested the traffic, the more hostile the natives are, and the less English you'll hear.  

The killer is really the heat and humidity.  If you’ve flown there, you‘ll remember when you landed and the door opened to the jet way. 

That first rush of hot moist air was like walking into a steam room.  It felt good then. 

Now imagine day after day of that same unrelenting heat and humidity.  You’re always hot.  You’re always sweaty.  And nothing ever dries.  Including you. 

In a polo shirt and shorts it’s tolerable.  But think of wearing long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, and on top of that a jacket.  You can’t go out to a nice place for dinner – or a wedding or funeral -- in shorts, so guys will at some time be wearing a sport coat and long pants. You will suffer.

Now it’s true that practically every place in Miami is air-conditioned, so you just have to scurry from one air-conditioned outpost to another.  

Another strategy is to wait until the sun goes down and the temperature may drop from 85-88 degrees to a “refreshing” 78 degrees.  Still 80-90% humidity.  Time to open the windows, right?  

But you still have to get from your house to your car to wherever you’re going, so you will be outside and trust me, that heat and humidity day after day will wear you down.   

Nice for a week’s vacation after you’ve been freezing your butt off.  Sucks after a year or so. 

  

Miami is flat, and every day is pretty much like every other …

A friend of mine in Florida – who moved to South Florida from Canada – once remarked how flat it was. 

“You can watch your dog running away for three days …” is how he put it. 

Now when you’ve never been anyplace else, you don’t know anything different.  But once you’ve been someplace with hills you realize how flat Miami is.  There’s no going back. 

That leads to a kind of sameness about Miami.  You’re never going up or down or over a hill, unless you’re in a highway with overpasses and underpasses.  There’s nothing new or exciting over the ridge because there is no ridge.  The only things that break the flat horizon line are buildings.  The only change in the topography is manmade. 

The same goes for the weather.  There are hot, really hot, and somewhat less hot days.  There’s really little difference.  It’s pretty predictable.  It will rain someplace every day.  It will be cooler early in the morning – but only in a relative way – and hotter with a breeze later that day. 

The only thing that breaks this monotony is a severe tropical storm—common – or a hurricane – not that common.  When a big tropical storm dumps inches of rain, as soon as it passes steam rises up from the roads adding even more humidity.  There are occasional freak cold snaps where it might dip down into the 60s, or God forbid the 50s – time to break out those winter clothes – but those are rare.

There aren’t seasons as most of us know them.  It’s always summer; there’s no fall, winter or spring.  The leaves don’t change color.  There’s never a crisp snap in the air for a few weeks.  No snow.  No watching trees budding in spring.  That’s because nothing ever really changes; there’s nothing to look forward to except more of the same.    

There’s only a season when there are more out-of-towners, and a season when there are somewhat fewer.  It’s not quite as hot in the former; a bit hotter in the latter. 

While that monotony appeals to the winter-weary in the North, when you live there year round it can seem like you’re unstuck in time.  And you’ll find you miss the seasons. 

Habla espanol? 

If the answer is no, you’re in for a surprise. And you can pretty much kiss off getting a good job in Miami if that job entails dealing with the local public. 

That’s because the majority of people in Miami speak Spanish a lot of the time; some only speak Spanish, or pretend not to understand English when it serves them.  Like virtually all service people you’ll have to deal with.  Like every place you try to call locally – the bank, the auto repair shop, the air-conditioner guy – and most waitstaff in hotels and restaurants.

It’s not such a big deal for most locals – they’re used to it.  And most Hispanics there do speak a little English, but it’s not their first choice.  Plus, when they know you don’t speak any Spanish, they can talk about you to each other freely.

And they will. 

Here are some key terms to listen for:

• Pendejo (pendeja – female) means “asshole”  …  As in: “Que el pendejo” (what an asshole …)

• Marico means “faggot” ; maricon means “huge faggot” … (the worst insult to a Hispanic)

• Besame el culo means “kiss my ass” …
  Don’t let that warm smile fool you.  To the local Hispanics, most native Anglos – and ALL tourists – are pendejos in Miami.  And if you think differently, you can besame el culo. 

It’s Mother Nature’s funhouse …

Thanks to the climate, some well-meaning but misguided early residents, and gross stupidity by some current inhabitants, South Florida is an ad hoc ecological experiment gone haywire. 

It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature and upset her balance.  This is her blowback. 

Every strange tropical species lives there – giant, fearless cockroaches that fly; walking catfish; piranha; scorpions; exotic ants; boa constrictors; poisonous toads; and of course alligators and many, many more creepy, crawly, biting, bizarre things on land and in the water.

The ever-present dampness and heat also offer you a rich variety of otherwise unusual fungal diseases, rashes and infections, not to mention almost epidemic athlete’s foot and jock itch. In Miami, there’s almost always a fungus among us.

Alligators, mosquitos, a species of deer, some birds, a few flowering plants, and a few other animals and insects are actually indigenous to Florida. Practically everything else was brought in by somebody, either intentionally or by accident.   

Most of the more exotic flora was brought in from Indonesia.  Florida’s famous oranges originally came from Spain.  Most of the tropical fruits – like bananas – also came from somewhere else.  Then you have the experiments gone awry, like Melaleuca trees from Australia – planted in the Everglades to drain the swamp –and now a nasty invasive species. 

And if it ever grew, crawled or slithered in a rainforest – plant, beast, or insect – it thrives in South Florida.  It’s probably there right now.  And surprise – because the genius that brought it didn’t bring along its natural predators that kept it under control in whatever steaming, mucky, pestilent environment where it grew naturally, it’s now out of control.  Thanks a bunch. 

You and the kids might find all this biodiversity fascinating.  Residents, not so much. 
The first time you see a coral snake in your front yard, find scorpions in your garage, see something crawling on you that looks like it’s from a Tim Burton movie, or have giant roaches fly toward you in broad daylight, you’ll be less than enthused. 

In South Florida, and especially Miami, Mother Nature is a bitch.    

Have a great time.  

 

Repeal the 22nd Amendment?

That Amendment limits a President to two terms.  Now, some Representative from New York has proposed a bill to repeal that.

Not surprisingly, it’s a Democrat.  And it’s not something new – the same guy has been proposing the same bill about every two years since the late 1990s.

In the past, it’s gone nowhere.  The odds of it getting all the way through the legislative process successfully would seem to be slim.

However, we need to remember that Obama has said he’d like to have a third term.  He believes he should have a third term.  A lot of Democrats apparently concur. 

There’s just that pesky, old-fashioned Constitution in the way, and we know the disdain some have for the Constitution these days.  You know the argument:  how the Constitution’s practically irrelevant today because it was drafted so long ago by a bunch of rich white guys who couldn’t foresee how the world would change.

As specious as that argument is, it still has a lot of traction, especially among the far left who prefer a nation of whims rather than a nation of laws.  They wrap themselves in the Constitution when it suits their needs, but attack the Constitution as hopelessly out of date and out of touch with today’s realities when it doesn’t.  

Well in this case, it’s not like the 22^nd Amendment dates back all that far.  It was only enacted after FDR was elected to four consecutive terms.   

And it was enacted for good reason.   After seeing how FDR used the power of incumbency, people realized that more than a couple of terms might open the door to an Imperial Presidency.  Or worse – a dictator for life.   

There’s no doubt that FDR was a gifted public speaker and communicator and well-loved by the masses in his time.  First elected during the Depression, he positioned himself as a champion of the little guy and the unions, always fighting against the greedy banks and rich capitalists.   

He was a master manipulator of the media of his time and the media loved him in return.  They also largely ignored anything negative about him.  He was their bigger-than-life hero.   

He helped create Social Security – which was a good, altruistic idea.  But he also made the use of massive government spending, soaring deficits to cover that spending, and ever expanding government bureaucracy a foundation of Democrat ideology for decades to come. 

Unfortunately, he also ran roughshod over the Constitution at times to achieve his goals.  His New Deal spawned a variety of work programs and agencies out of nowhere, and often with little regard to accountability, expense or even legality.  When many of those programs were subsequently struck down by the Supreme Court, he didn’t hesitate to criticize the Court publicly as “nine old men” and strong-arm them.  He even threatened to expand the Court by as many as six justices to try to get his way.    

And as to the claim that FDR’s leadership pulled us out of the Depression, well some now believe that many of his free-spending economic policies and big-government approaches may have actually extended the length of the Depression unnecessarily.   Eight years into FDR’s first two terms – and when all his New Deal programs were in full swing – unemployment was still at about 17% and we were even deeper in debt.  It was WWII that pulled us out and brought our economy back; not FDR’s WPA

Now as I write this, it occurs to me that this is sounding more than just a little familiar. 

Honestly, I wasn’t planning on tying Obama to FDR when I started drafting this.  I was just going to make the case for maintaining Presidential term limits at two terms.  But I realize that the similarity outlined above is inescapable.

Like FDR, Obama believes he is above the law.  He considers his re-election as confirmation of his authority to do whatever he wants.  The Constitution and the equal balance of power among the Congress, the Judiciary and the Executive branches be damned. 

He surrounds himself with allies who also believe the ends justify whatever means.  Nancy Pelosi – who famously said Congress had to pass ObamaCare to learn what was in it.  Geitner, who thinks simply minting a worthless trillion-dollar coin and depositing that in the Federal Reserve Bank, and then using that as collateral to print more money, is a perfectly acceptable way to avoid hitting the debt ceiling.    

If Obama can’t get his way through proper channels, he’ll simply sign an Executive Order and dare the other two branches to challenge it.  Or task one of his minions to find some dubious technicality he can exploit.  The trillion-dollar coin is just one of those.  He’s also exploring using an obscure clause in the Constitution to start making the case that he doesn’t need any Congressional approval to raise the debt limit unilaterally. 

He intimidated the Supreme Court into deciding that a key provision of his ACA was indeed a tax, and as such permissible, even when his own attorneys had argued that it wasn’t. 

He doesn’t really care how he wins, just that he wins. Like FDR. 

Also, like FDR, the media loves Obama and refuses to acknowledge any mistakes he’s made.  And he’s made a boat load.  His massive stimulus programs haven’t worked.  His bailouts to GM and Chrysler are largely smoke and mirrors.  His green energy projects have wasted untold dollars with little in return.  Unemployment remains high.  As much as he cooks the books and fudges the numbers to appear otherwise – with the media complicit in promoting this nonsense – the economy’s in shambles and practically nothing he’s done is turning it around. 

And now there’s talk of allowing him to run for a third term.  Honestly, that’s just delusional.  He didn’t deserve a second term, much less a third.

But with the media on his side, he probably thinks he has a shot.

The 22^nd Amendment is the only thing stopping him.  He and his supporters know there’s not much of a chance they can get that tossed out in time. 

So I’ll bet they are working on some way of getting around it.  Maybe have Michelle run.  Maybe run Biden as a figurehead.

Or maybe he'll just issue another Executive Order to ignore the 22nd Amendment. 

Trust me, they are trying to find some technicality as I write this.  It’s his style. 

He wants to be king with unlimited powers; he’s been acting like one for the past four years, and will for the coming four.  That’s more than enough. 

“Go f*** yourself …”

John Boehner said that to Harry Reid’s face.  Without the asterisks, of course.    

It came after Reid publicly blasted Boehner for running a “dictatorship” in the House and near the end of the recent fiscal cliff legislation fiasco. 

I’m sure Reid was surprised.  He asked Boehner to repeat what he’d said – and to his credit, Boehner did.  Just so there was no misunderstanding.   Boehner said it and he meant it.    

Good for him. 

Now maybe you were offended that Boehner used such language. 

I wasn’t.  Sometimes it’s completely warranted. 

In fact, Boehner probably just articulated – with enviable brevity – what a lot of us would like to say to any number of sitting members of Congress and to the President and Vice-President as well.  And let’s not forget the political hacks like Axelrod and Plouffe that surround them.

Go ahead … tell me that you haven’t had those words cross your lips.  Ever? 

When some Democrat lectures us on TV that Obama and his party have a mandate from the American people to do whatever they want, I know my response.  Maybe yours as well. 

Sure, I may be saying it to the TV; I still wish they could hear me.    

I also wish John McCain had said it to Obama after the 2008 election.  You know, when Obama staged a “bipartisan” meeting to exchange ideas and then cut off suggestions from McCain and other Republicans by saying:  “The election’s over … I won.” 

What a perfect time for McCain to say “Go f*** yourself.”  We would have cheered. 

There’s still time for Mitt to do it, but I think McCain would have been more likely to drop the F bomb than Mitt.  Not saying Mitt isn’t thinking it; just that he doesn’t seem the type.  Pity. 

Back to you … can you honestly tell me you haven’t had those three little words at least cross your mind, if not your lips at some point recently? 

Like, say, when some Democrat acquaintance unjustly accuses you of being a racist, bigot, or worse, simply because you don’t agree with everything Obama’s doing?

Or perhaps when government officials try to make you feel bad because you run a business? 

Or when politicians attempt to make you feel guilty because while you’re working your ass off every day, you tend not to have a lot of compassion for those people who’ve taken a two-year paid vacation on their unemployment benefits – and now they want even more? 

And when somebody attacks you as a heartless monster merely for expressing your view that some social programs might be a waste of money – those three words don’t occur to you?     

I know they do to me. 

  

Granted, saying the words doesn’t change anyone’s mind.  But the act of saying them can make you feel better.    

So take a moment.  Take a breath.  And say them out loud, without the asterisks.

Sometimes they are precisely the right words, at the right time. 

Give it a shot.   

It’s Tuesday

There’s something lost in all the discussion of tax hikes, tax holidays, sequestration, entitlements, quantitative easing, and the fiscal cliff.

As a nation, we’re broke. 

That’s a simple fact.  Democrats ignore that.  A lot of Republicans seem to be ignoring it, too.  The general population doesn’t seem to grasp it either.  Nobody wants to pay higher taxes, but everybody wants more and richer benefits.  You can’t have both.  You can’t keep pretending that everything’s going to be peachy-keen if we simply ignore the obvious.   

So I’ll repeat the obvious once again:  We’re broke.  We have no money.  We can’t afford to pay our current bills.  We keep sinking deeper in debt every day; we’re borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend.  We can’t even cover the interest payments on what we are borrowing. 

There's no new revenue coming in.  We’ve already robbed Social Security and replaced those funds with IOUs.  We’re kiting checks by printing more money.  Yet we keep spending like nothing’s wrong.  In fact, we keep increasing our spending every year and can’t find anything we’re willing to give up to staunch the flow of red ink. 

Who is running this show?  Wimpy?   We keep telling our creditors we’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today, but guess what – it’s Tuesday. 

And we have no way of paying.  We don’t have the money now.  Unless we drastically change things, we won’t have the money to pay our debts anytime in the near future.

That’s why I think my head’s going to explode every time I hear someone in Congress, or the Administration, talk about the need to preserve and expand entitlements while extending tax cuts.  Or how we need to front another round of stimulus money.  Or how we need to provide over $60 billion in funding to help those affected by Super Storm Sandy – and also include money to help Alaska fisheries .  Plus extend unemployment comp even further at the same time. 

Where is the money for all this going to come from? 

Higher taxes on the rich?  Nice political talking point, but that’s a drop in the bucket and everyone knows it.  At best that brings in $89 billion a year; nothing to sneeze at but not even a rounding error when you’re talking about increasing our debt by a trillion dollars or more each year. 

Somebody needs to stand up and tell everyone that this is insane.  No one – not even the United States of America – can continue on this path and survive.

While politicians blather on about what Americans want, and what Americans voted for, someone has to have the balls to tell Americans that you can’t always get what you want.

Personally, I’d like to have $100,000 a month – tax-free – deposited into my checking account for the rest of my life.  While we’re at it, I’d also like to have all my hair back.

Is that going to happen simply because I want it?  If I elect the right Representative, Senator or President, is that going to make it all happen?

Nope. 

I know those are unrealistic dreams.  However, a lot of Americans don’t understand that pulling a voting lever doesn’t grant anyone magic powers to fulfill their every wish either.   

The simple truth is we have to stop this nonsense.  We have to make cuts in social programs.  We have to trim back on entitlements.  We can’t afford to be patrons of the arts or every seemingly worthy cause that comes down the pike.  We can’t afford to spend billions to maintain vacant government buildings, or to waste even more billions on specious defense projects the Pentagon doesn’t even want.  We can’t afford to pay for projects in some elected official’s backyard to help them get re-elected. 

And even after we’ve made all those cuts, we’re all going to have to pay higher taxes either because we reduce or eliminate deductions, tax credits, and subsidies – for people and businesses alike – or through higher tax rates for everyone.  And yes, those who pay no Federal taxes now will have to pay something. 

Everybody’s got to chip in.  Nobody can be spared.  It’s a harsh reality, for certain. 

Unfortunately, I don’t see anyone in public office today who has the willpower, the courage, or the balls to tell the American public the truth.  Someone has to.  This can’t continue. 

Doing essentially nothing, or kicking the can down the road, is unacceptable.  Talking about how everyone can still have whatever they want, and keep whatever they have now, is ridiculous and insulting.  It may be politics as usual; that doesn’t make it right. 

Congress and the President know we don’t have any money.  We’re living on borrowed dollars and borrowed time before it all comes crashing down.  Why they keep avoiding the issue is unfathomable. 

Maybe we need to go over the fiscal cliff.  Maybe we need to refuse to raise the debt ceiling and watch our credit rating sink even lower. 

Maybe it will take the first time the Chinese decide to sit out one of our bond auctions.

Maybe when we see that no one is willing to loan our government more money it will finally sink in.  Or when inflation starts zooming up because we're printing too much money and everything now costs more, while wages remain stagnant, the light will go on.    

Only then will Americans understand the gravity of the problem.  We’re broke.  And things have to change. 

Harry Reid …

In the pantheon of BS artists, Harry Reid is at or near the top.  Only Nancy Pelosi – another top- shelf BS artist – comes close. 

The difference is that Nancy’s crazy and doesn’t know it.  Harry’s disingenuous and hypocritical, and does know it. 

He’s also one of those rare people whose remarks look better in print than on video clips.  In print, he seems bold and aggressive; in video clips he looks like a wispy ghost and sounds like an agitated, whining old man. 

He’s clearly a dim-witted little weasel prone to saying stupid things – such as that he knew that Mitt Romney hadn’t paid any taxes in 10 years – and other crackpot nonsense, yet the media treats him like a respected, noble statesman.  Given his persona, and his propensity for spouting silliness, it’s hard to see how the media could take him seriously.   But they do.   

In case you didn’t know, Harry – this erstwhile noble statesman – happens to be the Senate Majority Leader who single-handedly has prevented almost every House bill from coming up for a vote in the Senate.  Under his leadership – if you can call it that – the Senate also hasn’t passed a budget in almost four years.  Nor are they likely to, as long as he’s in charge. 

Yet he routinely accuses House Republicans of being obstructionists – which might be the height of hypocrisy given his record.  And yesterday, he called Boehner’s management of the House a ”dictatorship” – another incredibly hypocritical statement.  He claimed Boehner refused to bring up the Senate’s bill on the Bush-era tax cuts because if House members had a chance, they’d approve the Senate bill.  Meanwhile, he won’t let the House bill passed in August come to the floor of the Senate, probably because he fears it might pass there. 

It’s simply amazing that whatever the Democrats in the White House and Senate want is apparently good, while anything the Republican House wants is beneath contempt.  As Harry said a while ago, anything from the House is DOA in the Senate.

That’s statesmanship at its finest.  Really?

The media spin is predictable.  Once again the Democrats and Obama are trying as hard as they can to get things done – and save us all from rising taxes – while the Republican-controlled House blocks everything the Senate and Obama propose on our behalf.   And when we lurch over the fiscal cliff, it will be entirely because of obstructionist Republicans who are pandering to the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class. 

There are a couple of problems with that.   

The Democrats and Obama are the ones holding things up.   There are a lot of legislative tools they could use to buy time.  However, it's clear they don’t want to compromise at all, even though it would seem that the two sides aren’t that far apart.   

The bill passed by the Senate in July raises taxes on the wealthy (HHI over $250,000), lets the estate tax rise, and extends and expands some tax credits.  And, of course, has no spending cuts, which is what the House is clamoring for.   The bill the House passed in August is not that much different, except that the House bill would extend the Bush-era tax cuts for just about everyone, keep estate taxes where they are and close loopholes and limit deductions for the ultra-rich, instead of raising their tax rates.  Revenue goals are about the same; details differ.        

But the House also passed a bill to limit some of the harshest budget cuts that would happen through the sequestration process.  That’s something the Senate didn’t do. 

The net/net is that the House bills would increase revenue to roughly the same level as Obama’s plan to raise tax rates on the rich, and gently cut spending.  Together, both House bills would appear to be sure-fire winners even to Democrats in the Senate, accustomed as they are to making sure almost nobody feels any pain from anything anymore. 

But Harry won’t bring the House bills to the Senate floor.  Nor is he willing to engage in any dialogue on coming up with a compromise version.  Republicans in the House have said they’d be willing to compromise more on the tax cuts for the wealthy and other items, but would like some commitments on spending cuts in return. 

So there would seem to be room for reasonable compromise.  Not with Harry – the spokespuppet for Obama – who has ruled out any rational give and take.    

With Harry in charge, and Obama pulling the strings, a compromise is not going to happen, and neither of them apparently wants one.  Harry and Obama know that a great way of ensuring a stalemate, and diminishing any hope of compromise, is to demonize the people with whom you need to reach agreement.  That’s his strategy.  Obama’s as well.   They are both doing their best to make sure no agreement is reached.     

Honestly, I believe Harry and Obama want us to go over the cliff.  Harry, because he’s in a snit; Obama because he wants to pound the Republicans at any cost.  Seriously, they are eager to have everybody’s taxes go up, and widespread budget cuts to happen, while they keep their hands clean of it all.  That’s the reason for all the posturing about the Republicans being intransigent and as such being solely responsible for taking the country over the cliff.   

That’s not to say the Republicans are totally blameless.  Letting the House shut down while this is going on appears petty and churlish.  Going tit for tat on accusations with Harry is childish.  And Boehner has stepped in it a few times by trying to whip his caucus in line and failing, which makes him look weak to the Democrats. 

With all the Republican dithering, they’ve also allowed Harry and Obama to reframe the argument.  It’s no longer how best to balance the budget though cuts in spending while increasing revenues.  Harry and Obama have successfully recast it as something resembling class warfare – a battleground more familiar and favorable to Democrats – where the rich need to pay more so the poor and middle class don’t have to.    

Harry is not the only reason we’re headed over the cliff.  He is part of the reason, but he’s just a self-righteous little toady, without the backbone to do the right thing. 

The right thing is to either pass the House bill in the Senate now and amend it later, or pass something to extend the deadline while the House and Senate bills go to conference committee to hammer out compromise legislation.  Harry knows that how it’s supposed to work. All tax legislation has to originate in the House, under the Constitution; the Senate cannot initiate tax legislation.  The Senate can make wholesale changes to a House tax bill, or reject it outright, but it can't simply create its own bill and expect the House to pass it.  That’s the way legislation gets finalized and passed, and has been for generations.  

Maybe he knows it’s all a waste of time.  Obama’s already said that he will veto the House bills.

Meanwhile Harry is doing his best to keep up the attacks on Boehner and House Republicans to ensure that there’s no compromise.  And when all Hell breaks loose on January 1, Republicans get all the blame.

Nice job, Harry.  Real statesmanship at work.      

A special place in Hell … Ho, Ho, Ho

I know it’s the holidays.  I know we should all be thinking happy thoughts.

But there are some people and things that just tick me off.  So here’s my wish list for the coming year:

Westboro Baptist – These smacked asses protest at soldiers’ funerals, and now plan to protest at the Connecticut massacre victims’ funerals.  They claim these deaths are God’s wrath because of homosexuality in general and gay marriage in particular.   

I don’t even know where to begin in condemning these bigoted, insensitive, ignorant clods who add misery and pain to grieving parents and loved ones at a time when they are already devastated.  They are no better than Muslim extremists who wrap themselves in bombs and twisted interpretations of Islam to justify wreaking havoc on the innocent.  

I don’t know who they think their God is, but I hope the God I worship takes a page out of the Old Testament and delivers some well-deserved Biblical-style wrath on them this year. 

Or maybe they could take up poisonous-snake-handling as part of their worship.  Let’s see how strong their relationship with God is then. 

Handicap parking abusers – Those decals and spaces are reserved for people with real handicaps, not for lazy, thoughtless bastards gaming the system just so they can park closer to the front door or escape paying for parking. 

This is more than just a pet peeve – it’s an insult to decent people everywhere who try to do the right thing, while some jackass thinks it’s all a game.  These morons believe there’s nothing wrong with it unless they get caught.  In fact, they’ll tell you everybody does it, like that’s a justification.

Maybe they think being stupid, selfish and insensitive is a true handicap.  It’s not.  So what I wish for this year is that people have to prove – in person -- they are truly physically handicapped to get that decal or license plate renewed.  If you have a real disability that’s documented, you should be fine.  But just being old or lazy doesn’t count – you need to have a real doctor’s note, or be walking with a cane, in a wheelchair, or on a walker to get approved. 

I’d also like to see a crackdown by police on the abusers and fines actually being enforced.  All police have to do is stake out any handicap spot and see who sprints from their car with nary a care, and who appears to be legitimate.  If there’s any question, police should ask for proof.  Barring proof, the offender should have their car towed and be fined on the spot. 

Big-ass SUVs – It’s not the vehicles themselves that offend me, it’s their drivers and their lame excuses.  Unless you're planning an expedition to the North Pole or the Amazon wilds, why anyone needs one of these cruise ships with wheels escapes me.  

Please note that I'm not including so-called crossovers and the smaller SUVs -- just the road monsters, like the Expedition and Excursion.   

Okay, I get that you have a dog.  Okay, you’ve got a couple of kids.  But really, do you need a vehicle with the cargo capacity of a U-Haul truck and the seating capacity of an airport shuttle?  I mean, seriously, how big are your freaking dogs and kids – do they take up that much space?   And do you know how to maneuver and park something approaching the size of a small RV?

Based on what I’ve seen, no to all of the above. 

But hey, it’s your right to own whatever you want.  I’ll defend that right at all times. 

Just don’t whine and bellyache about high gas prices.  Or tell me how you feel so much “safer” in your SUV, while you are bullying and terrorizing all the other drivers on the road. 

And for Christ’s sake, learn how to park your behemoth.  When you practiced the three-point-turn in Driver’s Ed, it didn’t mean that you should also take 3-5 attempts to dock your land yacht in a space at Walmart.   For the record, you’re only supposed to park in one space at a time, BTW; the lines are there to give you an angle reference, too.    

I personally think any vehicle that seats more than six adults should be painted yellow, have to stop at all railroad crossings, and require a special bus license.  But that’s just me.      

Texting while driving – We all know when someone is texting while driving because the car is swerving all over the road.  People who do this might as well be drunk or blindfolded – the effect on driving is the same.  They are a menace to themselves – and frankly that’s of little concern to others – but they are a menace to all the rest of us, which is of concern.

It’s another one of those “it’s not wrong unless I get caught” kind of things that makes a lot of us nuts.  It’s on par with “what’s the big deal?”  It’s maddening. 

 I’d like to see some enforcement on this.  And if someone is caught texting while driving, they should be treated like anyone else driving under the influence or charged with reckless driving.  Because that’s what they’re doing.  Maybe they lose their license for a spell; maybe have to attend a driver safety course, or better still have to do some jail time. 

It’s that serious.  We’ve all been behind some airhead texting and trying to drive at the same time. 

Maybe it’s vitally important to them to tell their friends on Twitter or Facebook that Sally’s a slut, Timmy’s a bastard, Cindy’s posted naked pictures, or that Mom’s a jerk.  The rest of us don’t give a rat’s ass what they’re tweeting, texting or sending; we’re just worried about them careening all over the road and possibly hitting us.   

It’s only a matter of time before they crash into something.  Or someone. 

If we can’t get them off the road permanently, then let’s take repeat offenders’ cars and remove the seatbelts and airbags.  Maybe a little practical Darwinism will do the job for us.   

Well, that’s my holiday wish list. 

Assuming the world doesn’t end on 12/21/12, have a wonderful 2013. 

The elephant in the room

The tragedy in Connecticut horrifies us all. 

Even the toughest among us struggles to hold back tears when we see the pictures of those innocent children, teachers and staff gunned down for no reason at all. 

The stories of their young lives, cut down by a madman, break our hearts.  These were just kids – most 6 or 7 years old, and teachers and staff that lost their lives trying to protect them. 

They did nothing wrong.  They didn’t deserve this.  No one does, especially not children.

Now the soul searching begins.

Some will blame too-easy access to guns and ammo.  Some will blame the failure of schools to have better security.  Others will say we need to do a better job on mental health issues.

A few brave souls will address our culture that increasingly glorifies violence through movies, video games, music, and television.  As older adults, we may be somewhat out of touch with what today’s children, teens and 20-somethings are bombarded with.  Or the desensitizing effect all this might be having on them.      

And that’s certainly an important discussion to have. 

But the elephant in the room – the one that everyone apparently tries to ignore – is the role of the parents of monsters in all this. 

That’s right, parents.  Especially parents who seem to be asleep at the switch when it comes to seeing their offspring careening toward disturbing behavior, and do nothing.  Or worse, ignore all the warning signs and pretend that they don’t know something is desperately wrong. 

Now not everybody is equipped to be a good role model.  Or has the skills to raise children properly so they don’t become murderers, rapists or other violent offenders.  Or has the willpower to admit that their offspring is mentally damaged and needs help, and gets that help.     

That’s crystal clear. 

In fact, in this latest massacre the shooter’s mother bought all the weapons he used, and trained him how to use them.  She also knew he was mentally ill.  He’d been declared mentally incompetent by some court already.  Yet she enabled him – what was she thinking?

We’ll never know.  He murdered her as well. 

The Columbine mass murderers’ parents claimed they had no idea what their kids were up to.  That’s disingenuous at best, given what we now know.  They had to know something was wrong – why on Earth did they ignore the clear signs?  Why didn’t they tell authorities? 

I’m so tired of hearing parents of killers claim that their son or daughter “was a good kid.”  And that they were ignorant of their kids’ tendency toward violence.   

I’m equally tired of hearing that schools and counselors told these parents their children had serious emotional and mental problems, and the parents did nothing. 

Look, as a parent your job is to raise your kid right.  Do your job.  Use diligence.  Know what your kids are doing at all times.  Go ahead and impose on their “freedom”; it’s your right – nay, your obligation as a parent – to be aware of what they are doing, what they are buying, what they are watching, and who they are associating with. 

If you see a problem, address it.  Don’t think because they are looking for recipes online to build pipe bombs that “it’s just a phase.”  Or that the padlock they put on their bedroom door is just to insure their “right to privacy.”

And for Christ’s sake, if they are buying body armor, call the police now. 

Better that you put your foot down before they put the hammer down and kill someone. 

Before we pass another gun law, or increase the numbers of counselors in schools, we should pass a law that holds parents responsible for raising their kids properly. 

It’s time to stop ignoring the elephant in the living room.  We need to make “Reckless Parenting” a serious crime with significant jail time for repeat offenses. 

My heart goes out to all the parents and families of those slaughtered in Connecticut.  I simply cannot imagine the pain and anguish you are going through.  America mourns with you. 

I only hope this event’s a wakeup call for other parents everywhere to start taking their job more seriously.