NEW YORK CITY VISIT: Melting Pot Still

Just got back from New York City (NYC) where we visited our son and his wife who live and work there. They just got into their new apartment and wanted us to see it.

I will admit that life in NYC is very different from life in Canton, Michigan or any city in Michigan for that matter. I was happy to see that my son and his wife have acclimated very well to city life and astonishingly, seem just like everyone else in NYC and this after growing up in Michigan suburbs.

We went to Coney Island on the subway. It was 92 degrees and many New Yorkers were heading for the beach. Imagine heading for the beach on the subway; families with coolers, blankets and beach chairs – on the subway?

Once we got there the place was hoping. I have never been to Coney Island in NYC and was surprised to see a massive boardwalk made entirely of wooden boards. The beach was huge and you could not get a hot dog at Nathan’s Famous Coney Dog places because the lines were too long.

The one thing that stood out for me as I wandered around was the huge ethnic diversity of the crowd. I hardly heard any American being spoken; I did not hear any Polish either. I did hear a lot of Russian and other languages I could not identify. The families seemed happy while enjoying a day at the beach.

The scene probably mirrored the early 1900s or late 1800 when Europeans descended on New York by the thousands creating Little Italy, Little Poland, etc. Now the immigrants come from Asia, the Middle East, Russia and the Caribbean – so nothing has really changed.

I like to point out to those Americans that resent “foreigners” that we are, after all, all foreigners and the children, grandchildren or great grandchildren of immigrants who braved the dangers and uncertainties of travel and re-settlement to a different country, a country that held the promise of a better life for generations to come.

It makes you stop and think that America still holds that allure for so many after all these years. It also shows us that the people of the world still need an America; a land of opportunity for all, because many other countries of the world are still repressive and regressive with no hope for a better life in the near future.

I admire the courageous human spirit of past and present immigrants and believe that, that spirit is what makes us great and has made us great. I decry the attitude of “America for Americans” because it is an attitude of ignorance and arrogance; just look how many non-citizen immigrants are serving in the armed forces.

NYC is still expensive as hell to visit but I did get airline tickets to JFK for $109 round-trip and that is not bad.

CUBA: Common sense at last!

I have to admit that Obama is bringing a fresh breeze or sunshine or let us say, some semblance of sanity and common sense to our government. I may not agree with everything he is doing but certain of his actions are so refreshing it gives me goose bumps.

One of them concerns CUBA. I am a capitalist. I hate Communism and history has shown that Communism does not work – period. I will talk later about how our economic depression and for that matter, all economic depressions, bring the old Communists out of the woodwork to revive a theory that has never worked but somehow seems attractive to people suffering the effects of a bad economy – take from the rich, they don’t deserve it!

Anyway, when Cuba’s corrupt dictatorship was taken over by a Communist, corrupt dictatorship under Fidel Castro, the U.S. went bonkers. We all know the history (Cuban Missile Crisis under Kennedy) etc. and the fact that an embargo has existed for a very long time making Cuba and it’s people poorer than dirt.

China was and is a Communist country but we opened our borders to them (trade) and accepted their form of government and now China is the economic leader of the world, their people have climbed out of their abject poverty to a new level of prosperity not seen in many, many years – the future is bright as hell! I have always maintained that if you introduce capitalism into a country that did not have it, you will show the people what kind of life is possible and from that point onwards, they will never go back to the old, poor ways and that is what happened with China so to me, capitalism is the best weapon against Communism.

Why did we not respond to Cuba like we did to China? If we did, Cuba and Cubans could be basking in new found luxury just like the Chinese are today. So what is the difference?

I don’t pretend to know exactly what the differences are but a large Cuban-American population in Florida, hell-bent on revenge and punishment were a big factor. In fact, haters of Fidel wanting him to be proven wrong were actually punishing the people of Cuba instead. In fact, recently Raul Castro has admitted that they (Fidel & Communism) may have been wrong for Cuba – did you hear that?

Politics is also to blame for us not reaching out to Cuba. We so wanted Cuban Communism to fail that we forgot about our humanity and left common sense out of our feelings.

Fidel is no longer president. His brother Raul is and he already has made changes, relaxing some of the authoritarian Communist rules in place for so many years. With Obama reaching out a hand of peace, Raul has said that topics like human rights, freedom of the press, release of political prisoners, free travel – everything can be discussed. Obama had requested some reciprocal gestures by the Castro government to show they are really open to making some changes in exchange for normalizing relations between the two countries. Obviously the removal of the economic embargo is the big goal for Cuba. Like I said it could bring prosperity and freedom to Cuba in no time at all.

Like I said, a fresh breeze is blowing across the country – the Obama breeze.

RELIGION: The Vatican Fights Back?

I would like to follow-up on a blog I did ridiculing Pope Benedict for saying that condoms cannot prevent AIDS. It appears that many have taken umbrage at the Pope’s remarks as well as some medical associations and a few governments.

Belgians were so angered at the Pope’s “dangerous” remarks that they passed a legislative action denouncing the Pope’s remarks and ordering their ambassador to the Vatican to deliver a message of protest.

Well, the Vatican is not sitting still for these attacks; they are counter-attacking. Obviously they cannot defend the Pope’s idiotic statement that condoms cannot prevent AIDS. The scientific fact is that if everyone in Africa wore a condom during sex, AIDS would be totally controlled if not eradicated.

So what can the Vatican say in the Pope’s defense? Well they can say that the “Pope will not be intimidated by those wishing to silence him” That his words were taken out of context? How about that what the Pope was really saying is that sexual responsibility through abstinence and monogamy is the only way to fight AIDS.

This reminds me of Sarah Palin advocating sexual abstinence for teenagers while her daughter was screwing her boyfriend right in the governor’s mansion. The boyfriend said Palin knew about it and the daughter said that abstinence does not work and never will; so much for that right-wing bullshit and hypocrisy.

Same goes for the Vatican. If you are so smart and speak for your god, why is he and obviously you, so goddamn dumb that you don’t understand human nature and a specific country’s cultural nature and continue to spout idealistic ideas and concepts that really have nothing to do with earthly reality.

If you really gave a shit about the welfare of people you should do something that may have a chance at actually helping them. Africans have had a certain respect for the “white father” from Rome but after hearing what the Pope said, they just laughed – bye- bye any credibility the Pope may have had.

The Vatican’s anti-condom position for any reason is a very bizarre position. Originally, I think the position was basically against birth-control of any kind and the reason for that was that the Church needs more new Catholics to keep the money flowing so don’t you dare limit your offspring. In the old days you could always tell which family was Catholic; the one with the ten (10) kids. Obviously, Catholics in America got wise and just took the pronouncements from the Vatican with a grain of salt.

My mother, the ultimate Catholic, said abortion is none of the Pope’s goddamn business.

What makes the Vatican’s anti-condom position so bizarre is that if they know how AIDS is spread (we have to assume they do) and the fact that AIDS kills not only adults but children and entire families and knowing that sexual abstinence and monogamy are totally unrealistic and unworkable concepts, why would they not take the path that would undeniably save lives?

This is where the Vatican and for that matter, the formal Catholic religion as lead by the Vatican, is so far removed from humanity and the way the world functions that they are, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant as leaders and teachers of the peoples of this earth.

IRAQ: I told you so...

I have been busy with an FDA inspection of my facilities and so had no time to do my thing, but hopefully things can come back to normal relatively quickly.

I wanted to touch on IRAQ because I have not mentioned it for some time but feel the need to do the I TOLD YOU SO thing again. I am not the only one saying this and all of us who argued for a partition plan for Iraq can be vindicated – unfortunately many people will die because the plan was not adopted.

Bush had only one plan in mind and that was to originate a democracy in the Middle East and hopefully set a pattern for the rest of the region. Well, the plan was arrogant and totally ignorant from the start and now many more people will pay the ultimate price including all those American soldiers already dead and their relatives now knowing they had died for NOTHING! Don’t take out your frustrations on me – talk to your buddy BUSH and his band of idiots!

Yes, you are hearing that AMERICAN deaths are way down – and they are. We are leaving the mess to the Iraqis. If you pay any attention to the news from the region, you will notice that there are steady, daily suicide attacks killing anywhere from 10 to 30 or 40 people. You don’t usually here much about these because they don’t concern Americans, but they are facts.

We trained the Iraqi army to keep the peace. The Iraqi army is all Shiites. We also trained the tribal, paramilitary squads to fight and keep the peace; these are all Sunni.

Recently, these two (2) American trained groups started killing each other – as planned from the start. Remember I told you that a civil war is the only logical next step. They are not even waiting for the U.S. forces to leave because they know Obama has other things on his mind and will not re-visit the Iraq problem and allow more Americans to die.

The Kurds in the North are building up their military strength for the inevitable attack by the Shiite army. It is only a matter of time.

May I say that this just pisses me off and I know others feel the same. This problem could have been handled and bloodshed avoided if the partition plan proposed by sane, knowledgeable people was at least considered – it was not and now someone needs to be slapped and kicked in the ass for their arrogant stupidity.

Bush is too stupid to recognize what he has done and his cohorts will always just blame it on others – FRUSTRATION!!!

ECONOMY: Auto Industry Ultimatum - about time!

Well, I hate to say I told you so about GM and Chrysler but I think everyone knew it was bankruptcy or nothing.

Today, Obama basically said just that. Chrysler has 30 days to merge with Fiat (which may not save it) or go bankrupt. GM has a little more time, but the message is the same.

I did learn a new term today when reading about Obama’s instructions to the auto companies, it is a “bankruptcy rinse”. I have stated before that bankruptcy does not have to mean the end of the auto companies in question. It could be a structured bankruptcy that would allow the companies to “clean or rinse” themselves off debilitating legacy costs and contracts, and allow a new, lean manufacturer to emerge.

Obama actually said that the U.S. government would “guarantee” all existing auto warranties thus eliminating the biggest negative to going into bankruptcy (people would not buy cars from a company in bankruptcy) even though in actuality, that may be somewhat of a factor.

Obama, to my pleasant surprise, called the auto dilemma just like a sensible, fiscally responsible and business savvy person would have; no socialist crap included. His plan will be good for the industry, good for the nation and good for the taxpayers.

I know many will cry and protest but the message must be strong and consistent, as far as the auto industry is concerned THE OLD DAYS ARE DEAD AND GONE BECAUSE THEY ARE NO LONGER SUSTAINABLE IN TODAY’S ECONOMY.

The auto workers that had a great ride (my family) should be thankful and enjoy what they got and enjoy the lifestyle that their labors bought for them and remember that they are the last of the highly paid, non schooled, basic laborers.

A new age is dawning!

RELIGION & SOCIETY: Don't let the assholes in Texas get away with it!

The forces of darkness are always at work trying to keep people in darkness and in Texas, they seem to have the upper hand.

TEXAS OPENS CLASSROOM DOOR FOR EVOLUTION DOUBT

The Texas Board of Education has always had an inordinate amount of influence as far as school textbooks are concerned. Texas picks textbooks for the entire state school system as opposed to other states at are divided into school districts that pick their own textbooks.

Since Texas ordered such a vast amount of books, publishers made those books the norm for the rest of the country so whatever Texas wanted the books to say, the publishers made sure the books said it – truth and facts be damned.

Because book printing is now digital and not type-set, publishers can easily print the same book with the changes demanded by various school districts. Even so, the Texas board has a huge influence over the education of every child in Texas; a big state.

The board majority is obviously composed of religious kooks that want evolution challenged, the age of the earth challenged, the Bog Bang theory challenged and the age of the universe to be brought more in line with the Bible; 10,000 years instead of 14 billion years.

All this in a state with supposedly, intelligent adult people who one hopes, grasp at least some reality around them. And yet, the morons on that board of education will influence the education of millions of kids. How can we allow such a travesty?

As a nation, can we stand by and watch the purposeful dumbing of America by religious nuts?

People, we have to make a difference somehow. Come on’ Baby Boomers, we fought against darkness in the 60s (remember rock & roll was devil music). Can we leave this nation worst off than we found it – I hope not!

RELIGION: Criticism of Religion, Against the Law!

There is something that recently read that made my blood boil. It appears that the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee, that is anything but, has approved and passed a proposal that urges the passage of laws around the world protecting religion from criticism.

Put another way, if you criticize religion, you will be punished.

Predictably, a Muslim nation (Pakistan) wrote the proposal on behalf of other Islamic nations. Twenty three (23) nations out of 47, voted yes. More significantly, only 11 nations voted against the proposal and the rest abstained – were they scared?

Obviously, this proposal carries no legal weight and the United States is not even a member of this committee which it considers bogus and dominated by Muslim and African countries that protect member countries from a variety of human-rights violations.

You notice that we are exclusively talking about Islam and the proposal mentions how Islam must be shielded from criticism in the media and other areas of public life; the Danish Muhammad cartoons were an obvious example. The proposal cited attacks or just depictions of the prophet Muhammad as UNACCEPTABLE EXAMPLES OF FREE SPEECH.

The immediate response should be, what the hell do you think free speech means, free only if it does not contain criticism of Islam? You have a lot to learn about the definition of free speech and since you never have experienced it, I can understand why you don’t understand the concept.

But the concept of free speech and its practice should never be allowed to be compromised – ever. I say that emphatically because I have detected signs where certain authorities (even in the U.S.) have expressed a willingness to abrogate free speech if it in someway insults, embarrasses or is offensive to certain people (in many cases, religious people). Some U.S. newspapers refused to publish pictures of the Danish cartoons even though the cartoons were legitimate news.

The only free speech I would legally prohibit is the yelling of “fire” in a crowded theater or any other speech that would willingly endanger human life, everything else is a go!

I have pocked fun at these outraged Muslims by asking why their god needed protection from his rag-tag followers; can’t he defend himself or maybe he does not object to people making fun of him.

All that logic is lost on people who do not use logic in their lives but follow what they are told to do by their religious leaders who have a stake in keeping their flock as stupid as possible; the better to control them!

RELIGION: Notre Dame Revisited!

Well I was wrong about Notre Dame not inviting Bush to address their graduating class; they did in 2001. It appears they invite a new sitting president routinely.

Which makes me think why didn't the Catholics object to “life-snuffing-out-war monger” Bush but do object to progressive, life-saving Obama.

It is the Catholic idiocy of cheering for the death of thousands of soldiers but getting all worked up against a couple of stem cells that were heading for the garbage heap anyway. This is ignorance at its highest level propagated by idiots at the highest level of the Vatican.

RELIGION: Notre Dame Invites Obama?

OK, here is my next Catholic issue.

Notre Dame, the great Catholic University with a so-so football team but a great history, has invited President Barack Obama to deliver the commencement speech at this year’s graduation. By the uproar the invitation caused, you would have though they invited Adolf Hitler.

Notre Dame has always been known to have an independent side as far as Catholicism is concerned so I was not surprised by the invitation BUT I guess the right wing Catholics are all up in arms cause Obama allows stem cell research and is pro-choice – the devil himself.

I don’t think Notre Dame ever invited George Bush to their campus. He blocked stem cell research and was definitely anti-choice and even wanted to repeal Roe v. Wade, so why was he not invited?; could have been because he was a war monger and an insult to the basest intelligence of the country.

One Catholic I spoke to, defended the choice of Obama, saying Obama’s concern for the poor and downtrodden of the world makes him more Jesus like than let’s say, Bush was. I find that to be a very intelligent and insightful answer.

Pope Benedict, as I have reported, is taking the Church backwards and is asking for the support of his mindless followers. The American Catholic Church can take a stand for enlightenment (Vatican II) and support Notre Dame in their choice of a graduation speaker that represents enlightenment and progress and does not advocate a return to the Dark Ages.

I will be following this issue as it develops. I just hope Notre Dame does not chicken out.

RELIGION & SOCIETY: Opening Day on Good Friday

Catholic issues just keep rolling in; this one right here in Detroit.

A number of local priests have complained loudly (on TV & radio) that the Detroit Tigers baseball organization has scheduled the opening day baseball game at 1:00 PM on GOOD FRIDAY.

Thirty other baseball teams around the country have games on Good Friday BUT they all start AFTER 3:00 PM; the official time Jesus died.

Well, I guess I can look at this in a number of ways. There is no law saying baseball cannot be played on Good Friday or at least between 12:00 – 3:00 PM. If we make an exception for the Catholics, wouldn’t we have to do the same for all other religions and their “sacred” moments?

Are the priests ticked off that people will go to the game and not the church and the priests will miss out on donations or are they genuinely concerned about the lack of respect for Catholicism’s traditions?

When I was growing up my mother would not allow music to be played on Good Friday, no meat could be eaten and we could not act happy or play happy games. If it was a rainy, cloudy day, my mother would always say, see, earth is crying. And if there was a thunder & lightening storm between 12:00 & 3:00 PM, she would be ecstatic; just like in the movie The Robe.

We are a secular society and baseball is a secular sport that also happens to be a business and a well regulated business at that; schedules are schedules.

If Catholics would rather go to opening day and not church, that is their choice since it is, after all, their faith and traditions we are talking about. In the past, we had “blue laws” and in some areas, still have them, which prohibited stores from opening on Sundays or bars from serving liquor on Sundays, all designed to eliminate any and all distractions that would keep people from going to church and putting money in the collection box.

I think the priests that are crying foul today are the same type of cleric that pushed for blue laws in the old days; they want society to help get people into their church and that is just plain nonsense and should be treated as such.

I also consider the priests’ complaints as pure arrogance and they need to be made aware of the fact that their sacred day and time may be someone else’s opening day and carry the same reverence and importance.

ECONOMY: Bring back regulations now!

Tim Geithner just called for sweeping regulatory powers over non-bank institutions “Geithner Seeks New Powers over Financial Companies”.

I mentioned previously that Congress (both Democrats and Republicans) slowly overturned all Depression Era laws that were designed in the 1930s to help keep a Great Depression from ever happening again. We are now paying the price for Congress’s folly.

I described before how the FDIC has a large group of financial experts that descend, in the middle of the night, on a failing bank and just take over. The bank operates as usual just under the FDIC.

Geithner apparently wants the same type of group to be able to descend on, let’s say, an AIG in the middle of the night and just take over.

Once they take over and see what is going on, they would have broad discretionary powers to sell off good assets and discount bad assets. I like the idea and have recently suggested it myself but guaranteeing people’s savings is one thing, what about life insurance, etc.

Congress has also allowed banks to spread into many other areas it was not allowed to in the past. On the other hand, financial institutions were allowed to become like banks which was also something they could not do in the past. I feel that this overlapping has created financial monsters with a lot of room to goof around in so I would want things BACK to the old days where banks were banks and investment houses were just that.

I want to see how the Republicans react to this latest volley from Obama. They want NO regulations but even they can see what the hell happens when you let the financial boys, and I mean boys, play without rules.

ECONOMY: No Going Back to the Good Ole' Days

People have been asking me what will turn the economy around and are we or at least our government, going in the right direction.

Tonight, you will hear Obama make a case for his plan. He wants the credit markets to unfreeze or put another way, banks to start lending again.

Yes, we want businesses to be able to borrow money because businesses cannot operate without some credit. My business has just received a renewal of its line of credit (for a $6,000 fee – that’s something I have not seen before) and so I think banks are actively lending to businesses, they are just making super sure that the businesses they are lending to are viable or at least will be viable in the near term.

But businesses rely on customers and the demand customers generate for a product or service that a business provides and I have a feeling that the Fed wants to stimulate a consumer “demand” by making money easy to borrow again and here is where I have a problem.

To my mind, easy credit is what helped us get in this mess in the first place. Without a steady income stream (job) no one in his right mind, would spend money on anything but the direst necessities no matter how easy the credit.

So it is jobs; keeping existing jobs and creating new jobs that appear to be the answer to our problem. But jobs are only created or sustained if whatever product or service the job provides, is in demand and people are willing to pay for that product or service. So we are in that cycle thing where a spark needs to create a demand that will eventually create the jobs that will keep the demand supplied and thus start and keep the wheels spinning.

Obama’s stimulus spending will create jobs which will create money for spending (demand) but because those jobs will be of limited duration (construction done and so is the job), those holding the temporary jobs will not feel safe enough to enter into any long term debt arrangements and so demand created by these temporary jobs will be limited in scope.

Obama will maintain that he is also helping to sustain existing jobs which are of a permanent nature and afford the workers holding those jobs, a little more of a secure feeling which may or may not, induce them to enter longer term debt obligations (buy something big and new) which will create the demand that creates the jobs, etc.

I feel that the intense, irresponsible demand of years past is dead, should be dead and should not reappear. The demand of the past needs to be scaled severely back to a responsible demand or one that can be paid for within a reasonable period of time just like on-lay-away, in the old days.

This in itself will scale down substantially our entire economic system which our government is probably not happy with. To them, they would rather go back to the red hot days of loose credit and consumer purchasing insanity. Well, that scenario is no longer sustainable or even attainable, in my mind.

Let’s tone it down and get back on the straight and narrow with regulatory oversight strong enough to prevent this nonsense from ever happening again and don’t forget I am a capitalist but I also need structure and not mayhem to do well in our capitalist system.

ECONOMY: Toxic means shit!

So our government has a plan to buy up the toxic securities in banks and financial institutions, to the tune of trillions of dollars worth, so those banks and financial institutions can lend more money out to the public?

In a nut shell, banks, etc. have to have a certain amount of capital on hand to cover loans they make; if they don’t have the prescribed amount of capital on hand, they cannot make loans and making loans is their business and without loans, economies do not work.

Capital is made up of assets (+) that the bank holds. If these assets are toxic securities, then the banks cannot sell them so they become zombie assets or unusable assets and they clog the bank’s capital position so they cannot make loans.

I have explained how these toxic securities were created in previous blogs. I can rant and rave all I want to about how these toxic securities were created but they still will be assets on banks’ financial statements.

Tim Geithner wants to remove them from banks’ books by allowing banks to sell them for real money; money that they can use as capital to make loans with.

Nobody wants to buy these toxic securities because they are “toxic” – no established value or guarantee of value in the future. So Geithner will pay people to buy them?

The people we are talking about are not Joe Blow and his buddies, no these are hedge funds and other big financial powers that created this mess in the first place. Our government will loan these so called financial giants, money at nearly no interest, to buy these, lets call them “shit securities”. It will also guarantee any risk these giants may take in buying them when it turns out these securities are really worth shit.

So lets see if we all have the big picture; the taxpayer pays for shit while the big boys again, make some serious money for themselves but at least the banks are in the clear?

I am not just a pissed off taxpayer; I actually have a suggestion for our government.

Let the banks write off the shit securities they hold unless someone wants to buy them for pennies on the dollar.

Our government should use TALF (Term-Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility) money to buy or make loans to people to buy, current securities backed by auto, student, small business & credit card loans.

You don’t see any past or present mortgage loans; you see current loans, hopefully made the normal secure way like they were in the past, and rated, correctly and accurately, according to their “real” risk potential.

Let me explain it another way. Have our government create a market for loan securities created in the “real”, financially responsible manner. Banks will make those loans and sell them into the after-market which will free up more money for more loans – get it?

I realize that “toxic” securities now held by institutions may be in the multiple TRILLION dollar range. Many of them insured by companies like AIG and that this would be an economic atom bomb but I don’t see any other way out.

I am also having trouble with the emphasis on “loans” as a way out of our economic dilemma; isn’t that how we got into this one?

Obama may need to get a few more economists to join his team; Geithner just doesn’t seem to get it sometimes and probably could use some advice – what about Sumner?

RELIGION: Catholic Priestly Celibacy just Silly!

I can’t help write about Catholic issues because they are in the paper every day; it’s just not me picking on them.

This time it was a radio interview which included the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Edward M. Eagan (76) who will be retiring soon and who is considered a conservative.

The topic was priestly celibacy and he was heard to say that the issue is a “perfectly legitimate discussion”. He said that sooner or later, the Catholic Church will have to consider whether to allow priests to marry.

We know that Pope Benedict is taking the Church backwards as fast as he can so we know where he stands on priestly celibacy but for a conservative, senior prince of the Church to allow the issue of celibacy to be even raised in discussion is big, really big.

I have written about this issue many times, debunking each argument proffered by the Church in defense of celibacy and I have concluded time and time again that the Church does not have a legitimate leg to stand on except that it wants it that way.

The good Cardinal stated that there are no “dogmatic” issues here. He also mentioned other “Catholic” faiths (Ukrainian Orthodox) that have always allowed their priests to marry without suffering any obvious “practical” difficulties like not having enough time to tend the flock.

Historically, and this is what really matters, priestly celibacy did not come into vogue until the 11th century when too many priestly offspring were demanding a potion of Church property as part of their inheritance. A simple solution was just to ban priestly marriage and therefore legitimate offspring.

Celibacy is not Church dogma; it is a habit or a tradition and can be changed immediately by the Vatican.

The shortage of priests is quite visible and will only get worst. The shortage of non-perverted priests is obvious and getting worst; celibacy was what drew the perverts to the Church in the first place – too long to explain.

Make priests into human beings and you will get a bunch of them signing up. Don’t want to pay for their families; other religions manage, sell some masterpieces!

MUSIC: Eagles brought some memories back!

I went to see THE EAGLES last night at the Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The last time I saw the Eagles was at Olympia Stadium in Detroit in the early 1970s.

The place was packed with baby Boomers, some like me fresh out of the military and newly married. It seemed that everyone there was smokin’ dope so even if you weren’t, you were stoned just like the rest of them.

We were all in our 20s with our lives ahead of us. Eagle’s music was all the rage and with us, has remained that till this day.

Last night, many of us are now in our 60s. Younger people said their parents played the eagles so much when they were growing up, they feel the Eagles belong to their generation also.

The people haven’t changed much. They still smoked dope but more drank like fish. The place was packed so the depression could not stop people from celebrating with their music, their band.

The eagles sounded as good as they ever did but I never considered Joe Walsh really a part of the band even though he is a great guitar player; they played way too many of his so called “songs”.

To me, Hotel California brings the time back. The ending guitar duo makes me get goose bumps. They ended with my all time favorite, Desperado, which for whatever reason makes me shed a tear.

They had some newer music, some music critical of our war on Iraq. Some booed, my wife cheered as loud as she could. My generation is not united. Too bad especially after all we have been through and are going through.

My closest, life friends are gathering this year at my house for a reunion. We will have a lot of eagles music playing along with the Beatles, of course.