Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor
A Midyear's Musings

JUNE 25, 2006 --

LPR hopes …

… that the distant media does not assume "Frontline Plus" is a new
PBS series committed to bashing Bush brazenly. It is an application to protect dogs from fleas, ticks and lice.

LPR is concerned …

… that one day there will be no more parking violations in New York City. (No, not because cars will be banned -- because all meters are fed, alternate
side rules are obeyed, no one double parks, and so forth.) What will the city then do to keep the Parking Violations Bureau a revenue raising arm of the Department of Finance -- make it the Parking and Pedestrian Violations Bureau? Crack down on consumers of "fast food?" (There actually is a councilman who proposes a city campaign against fast food.) Put toll booths on sidewalks?

LPR would note...

… that the northeast has had abundant rainfall the past month (with super-abundant rain in the Houston area,
recently). Perhaps, this summer, we will be spared media alarms of a water shortage crisis. LPR reiterates its past concern that Iran (joined by North Korea?) has built a Weather Manipulation Device (WMD), not nuclear weapons. LPR presents this Freedom of Information request of the Bush Administration: do
satellite photos indicate an unusual and massive buildup of arks in Iran and North Korea? (LPR would not dismiss the possibility that the Iran-North Korea
WMD, as described here, and not U.S. cars, is also responsible for Al Gore's global-warming gloom.

LPR calls on the Treasury Secretary …

… to require every bank that pummels its credit cardholders with oppressive late fees and penalties to change its name
to "The Henry F. Potter National Bank of [fill in name of applicable state or locality]." Mr. Potter was the villainous banker in Frank Capra's movie "It's a
Wonderful Life," who,regarding people as "rabble," took advantage of them--including embezzling $8,000 from George Bailey's Uncle Billy who intended to deposit that amount in the Potter bank.

If we can't get banks to restore humane business practices, at the very least we can have them comply with truth-in-lending rules and there is so much truth in
putting the fictional name of "Henry F. Potter" on banks that squeeze customers with oppressive interest rates and late charges.

LPR bears in mind …

… that in in the Capra movie, George Bailey urged people to work together. Nowadays, it seems people are encouraged to turn to government, not to each other -- an approach that does not seem to instill a sense of personal responsibility as the mark of a good citizen.

The Capra view is consistent with the vision of the Founding Fathers that the People, not Government, are sovereign in the United States of America. (LPR also notes that the Constitution does not require that the President be a member of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, nor have the surname of Bush, Clinton or Kennedy -- not even Washington or Adams or Jefferson.)

LPR salutes …

… Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Robert J. Triozzi for dismissing a breach of contract action brought by Discover Card against a cardholder, declaring the sums Discover sought to recover from the cardholder -- far, far in excess of the original debt -- "unconscionable."

 

LPR has a hunch …

… that people demanding we release the Guantanamo detainees do not believe we are in a war against terrorism. In war, POWs are, generally, not released until hostilities have concluded. Should President Roosevelt have ordered the release of German troops under the command of Adolf Hitler who were taken
prisoner in combat? The Great Escape, a World War II movie about airmen held
in a Luftwaffe camp, was not a film about habeas corpus claims demanding that Herman Goring release downed pilots.

LPR has another hunch that if the media
thought we were in war, it would be less likely to use the euphemism :"insurgents" as the name for atrocity-committing jihadists.

(LPR must also note that the anti-Bush media gives, at best, passing mention of our enemy's atrocities and then goes back to Abu Ghreib. Was anyone beheaded at Abu Ghreib?)

LPR recalls another movie …

… Command Decision, starring Clark Gable, that showed in a bad light congressmen who meddled in military
operations. But, of course, that was a war movie.

LPR wishes …

… a happy midyear to all. If it's July, the November elections are just four months away. LPR appeals to the Founding Fathers in heaven above to help us get
leaders to represent the people, not rule them and who will recognize that populism is what you gave us, to rid us of government that was of the insiders, by the insiders and for the insiders for the purpose of achieving the "ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few."

LPR still believes …

… the country would benefit from an Aggrandizers Anonymous program -- kind of a sensitivity program for officials, business people and others who regard the "common good" as a function of their very substantial wealth and success.

LPR thanks …

… the people who have given this website 150,000 clicks since its first appearance, December 2003, and some 106,000 visits since last June. (LPR prefers to believe that that 95% of the visits are not robotic.)

And, LPR also thanks …


… Terri Fassio, its webmaster, for her super work organizing and laying out the LPR copy and photos, making it possible for LPR to have life on the internet.

LPR reminds clicksters …

… the Connecticut Agriculture Fair, with Terri as Entertainment Coordinator and Todd Gelineau, Fair President (and designer of the LPR logos), is just a month away. The fair is held on the
Goshen CT fairgrounds, July 28-30. For more information, please click the LPR link to the fair.

Please click the LPR link …

… to the Pamphleteer, which is filled with insight, humor and leads to other thought-provoking websites. Pamphleteer has been keeping track of losses in Iraq -- of Iraqis killed by other Iraqis. LPR has not
seen, or heard mention of, this statistic in our distant media.