"Ukulele Caravan" and the Uke Man

Hey Folks,

I’ll be taking off soon for the east coast for four jam-packed Ukulele days, traveling with the “Ukulele Caravan” – seven shows in four days. I’m involved with three for sure (see the *)and may do a short bit in the others.

We’ll be in Lambertville, New Jersey*; Manhattan*; Cambridge and Shirley, Mass.; and Provincetown* on Cape Cod.

Check out the Ukulele Caravan site for more details: http://www.ukulelecaravan.com/

And I've included my "Provincetown" video (inspired by last year's trip) from a few nights back at Englishmanjohn's Stage.

- Uke Man

Hello, Raul . . . Raul?? Raul???

Why Bush can't talk to Castro.

Bush can't talk to Castro because Castro puts people in jail

Hey Folks -

Did you watch the "60 Minutes" and subsequent MSNBC coverage of Kkkarl Rove's criminal, kangaroo incarceration of a former Alabama Governor - for the crime of being an electable Democrat?

Well, Bush in his recent press conference claimed HE wouldn't talk with Raul Castro because Castro was a dictator who put people in prison for political reasons.

Hmmmmmmm . . .

On the heels of that is the AP story below which, among other things, shows that WE - with a population around 300 million - have more people in jail (2.3 million) than China (1.5 million) with its population of 1.3 billion !! NOT more per capita!!! (though we lead in that category as well - ahead of Russia and Cuba), but in ABSOLUTE numbers. There are more people in prison in America than in all of China!!!

Bush is a shameless monster!!!

- Uke Man


Record-high ratio of Americans in prison
By DAVID CRARY, AP

NEW YORK - For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs.

The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.

The steadily growing inmate population "is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime," said the report.

Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said budget woes are prompting officials in many states to consider new, cost-saving corrections policies that might have been shunned in the recent past for fear of appearing soft in crime.

"We're seeing more and more states being creative because of tight budgets," she said in an interview. "They want to be tough on crime, they want to be a law-and-order state — but they also want to save money, and they want to be effective."

The report cited Kansas and Texas as states which have acted decisively to slow the growth of their inmate population. Their actions include greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders and employing sanctions other than reimprisonment for ex-offenders who commit technical violations of parole and probation rules.

"The new approach, born of bipartisan leadership, is allowing the two states to ensure they have enough prison beds for violent offenders while helping less dangerous lawbreakers become productive, taxpaying citizens," the report said.

While many state governments have shown bipartisan interest in curbing prison growth, there also are persistent calls to proceed cautiously.

"We need to be smarter," said David Muhlhausen, a criminal justice expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation. "We're not incarcerating all the people who commit serious crimes — but we're also probably incarcerating people who don't need to be."

According to the report, the inmate population increased last year in 36 states and the federal prison system.

The largest percentage increase — 12 percent — was in Kentucky, where Gov. Steve Beshear highlighted the cost of corrections in his budget speech last month. He noted that the state's crime rate had increased only about 3 percent in the past 30 years, while the state's inmate population has increased by 600 percent.

The Pew report was compiled by the Center on the State's Public Safety Performance Project, which is working directly with 13 states on developing programs to divert offenders from prison without jeopardizing public safety.

"For all the money spent on corrections today, there hasn't been a clear and convincing return for public safety," said the project's director, Adam Gelb. "More and more states are beginning to rethink their reliance on prisons for lower-level offenders and finding strategies that are tough on crime without being so tough on taxpayers."

The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation's overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough sentencing measures, such as "three-strikes" laws, that result in longer prison stays.

"For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling," the report said. "While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine."

The nationwide figures, as of Jan. 1, include 1,596,127 people in state and federal prisons and 723,131 in local jails — a total 2,319,258 out of almost 230 million American adults.

The report said the United States is the world's incarceration leader, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and other former Soviet bloc nations which make up the rest of the Top 10.

Ahh, the joy of verbal battle!!!

Hey Folks -

Here it is!!

Directly below is my "Letter to the Editor," copied to the professor and to Columbus Dispatch editors, in response to the Southgate column (see last posting). Following that is the professor's reaction to my letter, followed by my response to that.

Nothing else has transpired.

- Uke Man

My "Letter to the Editor":

To the Editor:

Academicians are supposed to uncover truth by rationally examining the facts. Propagandists are supposed to obscure the truth without regard to facts or rationality.
The two are incompatible.

I don't know how Professor Douglas Southgate comports himself in the classroom, but in the newspaper he clearly gives rein to his political agenda without regard to facts or rationality.

Lynn Cheney, the vice president's wife, is concerned that college professors have been imposing their politics upon their students. Perhaps she should add Professor Southgate's name to her list of those who should be investigated.

Yours,

Tom Harker


Southgate's Response:

Greetings to all.

Mr. Harker's use of the word, academician, is revealing. It was and remains a preferred term of stalinists.

To be sure, his reference to Lynn Cheney is ironic, but I will show him the courtesy of taking him seriously. If Mr. Harker states that someone who describes FARC accurately - a group of "predatory nihilists" (if you will excuse my quoting myself) - should be investigated, he truly missed his calling by not coming of age in the Soviet Union during the 1930s.

Mr. Harker has my deepest sympathies.

Douglas Southgate


My Response:

Dear Professor Southgate et al.,

Well, I don’t know much about Stalinism, but if it is a rational deduction that my use of “academician” reveals my unspoken connection to “stalinists” [sic], then I guess we can all rationally deduce that the professor, by using the word “Greetings,” has revealed some connection to the Selective Service conscription process. Hmmmmm . . .

No irony intended regarding Ms. Cheney, but I’m not surprised that you misunderstood. You see, Cheney thinks professors should stick to their academic (is that word revelatory?) subjects. The reason you misunderstood is that both you and Cheney believe that this restriction should apply only to left-leaning professors. Conservative profs are somehow supposedly free to color their lectures with whatever politically-influenced notions they want (maybe because they are ideologically closer to Cheney).

Although you did not respond to me in any factual way, relying mainly on name-calling and guilt by association (as you also did a number of times in the column), I’ll share one factual example with you.

Not unlike your problem seeing that the Cheney harassment of college professors, at least based upon its purported rationale, cuts both ways; your praise of the Columbian president demonstrates that either you do not know the facts or you are truly propagandizing.

Chavez, whom you call a “dictator” was elected – by large margins just as was Uribe – whom you praise for that. Moreover, for seeking a chance for further reelection, an action for which you praise Uribe, the Right denounced Chavez. Cherry-picking, anyone?

I don’t find it difficult to determine whether this represents a search for truth or a distortion of it. It is quite clear, if one is honest with oneself.

And thank you for your sympathy. I will share it with your students.

Yours - Tom Harker

Being a professor is no guarantee of honesty (or rationality)

Hey Folks -

The column below is the kind of crap that passes for journalism in central Ahia (Ohio). This Professor Southgate has "written" several columns for the Columbus Dispatch over the last year or so, and they have all been slanted, right-wing hatchet jobs on Latin countries.

Maybe because he is a "professor" he thinks he can get by with distortions, name calling, guilt by association, double standards, and whining rather than by honestly considering the facts (see the evidence - his column - below).

On top of that, as I discovered via email, he is a smart-ass besides. He evidently sees himself as a wit armed in sarcasm. Nothing pleases the Uke Man more than a chance to take on a pompous nitwit.

In the next posting I will share his email and my response.

- Uke Man

Colombia's dust-up with neighbors underscores U.S. policy need
Friday, March 21, 2008
By Douglas Southgate


Early this month, war threatened in South America. Thanks to electronic eavesdropping, Raul Reyes, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was located in a jungle camp in Ecuador, less than 2 miles from Colombia's border. This triggered military action of a sort familiar in the Middle East, but without recent precedent in Latin America. The Colombian military bombed the camp and sent in troops.

The previous evening, Reyes and two dozen comrades had settled in for a long night's sleep -- a pleasure long denied them in their homeland. Only a few survived the next morning.

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, who had exhibited little concern about violations of national sovereignty by the predatory nihilists of FARC, suddenly became a stalwart defender of his country's borders and mobilized troops. His ally, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, followed suit, rushing 10,000 soldiers to a border region where another FARC leader has taken refuge.

Denouncing Colombia as the Israel of Latin America, Chávez and Correa severed diplomatic ties with Bogotá and encouraged other nations to do likewise. But only Nicaragua, governed by senescent Sandinista Daniel Ortega, recalled its ambassador.

The diplomatic campaign fizzled in part because of strong U.S. support for Colombia, which is the second-largest nation in South America and our strongest ally there. Furthermore, support for the Ecuadorian and Venezuelan leaders evaporated as the contents of Reyes's laptop, which was captured intact during the March 2 raid, were made public.

E-mails archived on the computer provided documentation of overtures to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi in 2000, as well as dealings with Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer arrested recently in Thailand. Also, unmistakable evidence now exists of FARC's ties with Chávez and Correa. The terrorists donated money, raised through kidnappings and drug dealings, to the Ecuadorian president's 2006 campaign. Support for the Venezuelan dictator dates to his unsuccessful coup in the early 1990s. Chávez has reciprocated by pledging up to $300 million to FARC's campaign to subvert the Colombian state.

Already popular because of his aggressive suppression of FARC and other armed groups, Alvaro Uribe, Colombia's president, has seen his approval ratings soar since the raid. He was returned to office with nearly two-thirds of the vote in 2006 and petitions are circulating for a constitutional amendment that that would allow for a second re-election.

The main accomplishment that eludes Uribe, whose father was assassinated by FARC, is a free-trade treaty with the United States. However, the AFL-CIO and other unions, which are prepared to donate $300 million this year to Democratic candidates, are vociferously opposed. And any doubts about Democrats' willingness to pander to protectionists were dispelled during the Ohio primary campaign.

Correa will end up suffering more than Uribe. His countrymen may be reluctant to fight FARC, but they are also unenthusiastic about harboring terrorists. Ecuadorians must also think about maintaining duty-free access to U.S. markets, where most of the country's oil, bananas, shrimp and cut flowers are exported.


If it cared to do so, the United States could subject Chávez to enormous pressure. Refineries owned by Venezuela's state-owned oil company and located along the U.S. Gulf Coast are about the only places where its crude petroleum can be converted efficiently into gasoline. Accordingly, banning imports from Venezuela, which might result if Chávez's regime is declared a state sponsor of terrorism, would devastate the national economy, perhaps provoking an uprising by students and disaffected soldiers.

But don't hold your breath for a confrontation. Few U.S. politicians from either party seem willing to do anything that might drive up gasoline prices, even though the declines that would result in consumption in this country would cause international prices to drop and put the squeeze on our oil-rich antagonists.

Barring our adoption of an energy-security policy worthy of the name, Chávez and other villains with whom he is allied, such as Russia's Vladimir Putin and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have little to fear from us.

Douglas Southgate is a professor of agricultural, environmental and development economics at Ohio State University.
southgate.1@osu.edu

Racism can't stand up to the truth

Hey Folks -

Racism is struggling to push its ugly head into the campaign. As far as I'm concerned, the Rev. Wright, as presented in sound-bite videos, has said nothing but the truth.

As it turns out, if one views the preacher's words in a larger context, it gets even more difficult to attack his positions.

Check this out:

http://baldeagle08.wordpress.com/2008/03/21/cnn-msnbc-cbs-abc-fox-news-lied-about-pastor-jeremiah-wright-see-911-sermon-in-context/

- Uke Man

More Truth

Hey Folks -

Education is a mess for many reasons, but the real reasons are almost never mentioned.

A wise person has said: "Every system is perfectly designed to give you exactly what it gives." If we want something different, we need to change the system. If we want to improve education, we will have to improve the standard of living for the poor and working classes.

That would cost too much; so we keep the old system and - besides scapegoating teachers and their unions - dress up what we have in shiny clothes and promise miracles that lead to nothing but new shiny promises.

This is a fact many teachers have observed over their professional lives, but in my 63 years of life, I've never seen it argued in the public media. Good for Professor Stephens!!

Below is, first, my letter to the professor and then his column.


- Uke Man


Dear Professor Stephens,

Thank you for speaking a long-suppressed reality. As a retired teacher (31 years) I can attest to the accuracy of your analysis regarding the revolving door of educational panaceas.

Parents' desire to have "all the children above average," businesses' demand that all highschool graduates perform at college-graduate levels for highschool-graduate wages, and the political desire to spend as little as possible on education all combine to create an interminable parade of shiny but empty promises.

I doubt that your excellent suggestions for addressing this self-delusion will be heeded, but I am, nevertheless, gratified that someone has publicly made the point - at last.

Thanks - Tom Harker



Charter schools need more oversight
Saturday, March 15, 2008
By Thomas M. Stephens

The history of public education is punctuated here and there by silver bullets that claimed to raise intelligence, cure learning problems, teach infants to read and normalize emotionally disturbed children.

These and other dubious promises reappear in ever more sophisticated wrappings, much like the spiels of the snake-oil salesmen of yore. They are promoted as tests, methods, materials, special diets and organizational schemes ranging from special schools to modified groupings, often giving false hope to parents, educators and lawmakers alike.

Amazing claims appear first in the popular media, inspiring distraught parents through anecdotal tales, hopes and questionable research. Later, after the sizzle fizzles, evidence of their failures is hidden in obscure professional journals, where they are read, if at all, only by those who tried to warn us early on.

Under the comforting umbrella of charter schools, called community schools in Ohio, we are offered panaceas for intractable education and social problems. I do not suggest that charter schools are unscrupulous and are making false claims. But the way they are created, promoted, funded and monitored in Ohio makes them open to questionable promises and practices. At stake are a lot of money and the education of thousands of students.

Ohio's share of the federal Public Charter School Program since 2001 is $161 million. The average award to a charter school is $450,000 over three years. In addition, Ohio taxpayers provide $5,565 annually for each student from local school funds. School districts are required to transport students at no cost to charters. Last year, Ohio's 310 charters enrolled about 77,000 students and received $532 million in state funds transferred from local school districts.

Of the 611 school districts in Ohio, 607 have students in charters. So, what quality does Ohio get from charter schools? Last year, 57 percent of charters were in academic watch or academic emergency. Eighteen percent of those sponsored by school districts were rated excellent, compared with 8 percent sponsored by other entities.

Charter proponents argue that such a comparison is unfair because they enroll more "at-risk" students. But only 19 percent of public schools in the eight urban areas that enroll most such students are in academic emergency, compared with 38 percent of charters in these same districts.

Ingredients that help create quality schools often are lacking in charters: seasoned teachers, experienced leaders, comprehensive offerings and good physical facilities. These and other important factors are not even evaluated directly by the state.

Oversight, when it occurs, is merely a written report made by the sponsor of each charter, much like a meatpacking plant without on-site inspectors.

Charters are supposed to provide quality educational options. Yet, the few studies that have been done don't show any significant improvements over public schools and often suggest that they are inferior.

More accountability is needed to continue charters with public funds. Ohio should have experimented with a few charter schools over several years before funding so many of them. Instead of educationally sound options, we have questionable quality.

Thousands of students and their parents rely on charters without assurance that what they are getting is better or even as good as they would have received had they remained in their home schools.

How can this situation be improved? First, place a moratorium on charter schools until a research-based system is in place. Then create an oversight body free of politics, with teeth, which has specific standards based on empirical evidence. Provide on-site inspections through the Ohio Department of Education under the direction of the independent group. Require schools that are out of compliance to make corrections before funding is resumed. And don't lift the moratorium until evidence shows that the existing ones are at least as good as traditional programs.

Public funds will be well-spent only when the state is willing to provide educational options with sufficient rigor. Otherwise, another silver bullet will ricochet into history.

Thomas M. Stephens is professor emeritus, College of Education and Human Ecology, Ohio State University, and executive director emeritus, School Study Council of Ohio.
etstephens@copper.net

How the Truth becomes the "truth" to serve our Masters

Hey Folks -

Here's my answer to the column in the posting directly below.

I haven't heard a word from anyone at the Dispatch., but what could they say?

- Uke Man


Dear Mr. Hallett,

It’s not “impossible” to do what “we need to” do; and the “Truth” isn’t that a dysfunctional Congress or a lack of resources or an “entitlement mentality” or a reluctance to sacrifice makes doing what we need to do impossible. That is not the Truth.

At the same time, I agree that we are seldom told the Truth, but it isn’t because we can’t face the truth. It is because the elite dare not speak the Truth; They can’t admit the Truth.

The Truth is that we do not live under a democracy – at least if by democracy we mean a government responsive to the majority of the people. As the Supreme Court has ruled, money constitutes free speech; and as political scientists have pointed out candidates with the most money overwhelmingly come out on top. To me, “one dollar-one vote” is a strange form of democracy.

Before you dismiss this contention, consider your own words. Why is it that you believe there to be a lack of resources? It has been demonstrated that simply applying the payroll tax to the top ten percent of earners on every penny they earn – instead of setting them free at $100,000 – would easily solve the Social Security “problem” – without making Grandpa work until he drops – and with no extra payments by “the rest of us.”

Why does no one ever characterize these exempted folks at the top as having embraced an “entitlement mentality”? It seems to me that this pejorative tag fits wealthy folks demanding big tax breaks much better than poor families seeking health care for their children and old people trying to get off their feet at 65 rather than 70.

If it is “next to impossible” to help kids and Grandpa, it is because too many people believe it “next to impossible” to have the wealthy relinquish some of their entitlements. It is misleading to suggest that to do what we need to do, “the rest of us” would have to pay. Over the years the rich have been getting richer, their percentage of tax responsibility has been continually reduced, and THAT is what has been foisted on “the rest of us” – the 90% of Americans who make less that $100,000 per year.- those who, for the benefit of the entitled elite, are already sacrificing via regressive taxation and inadequate social programs.

Sure, to do what we need to do, regular folks (the rest of us) will have to pay our share, but that will be oppressive only if the wealthy continue shirking their responsibility. Moreover, regular people don’t mind sacrificing so much when they know it serves the people rather than just their masters.

The elite have ingrained an acceptance of their unholy dispensation from social responsibility (their entitlement) in the minds of regular folks. It’s “the way God wants it,” or if not God, then the way the “infallible, invisible hand of the Market” wants it. It’s the only way it can be – ask a wealthy economist; he’ll tell you. The way to help “the rest of us” is to make the rich richer so they’ll spring a leak and trickle down on “the rest of us” (I don’t know about you, but that “trickle” idea always paints a picture for me – see: http://www.manneken-pis.com/intro.html )

Folks are led to believe all this stuff, but it is not the Truth; and I suspect it was this conventional “wisdom” that convinced you we lack resources to do what we ought to do. Unfortunately, this conventional wisdom is informed by the assumption that – as Leona Helmsley put it - taxes are for the little people (“the rest of us”).

This bias is accepted everywhere in the media – you know the saying: “The media is only as liberal as the Conservative businesses that own them.” Recently the Dispatch reported and editorialized on the KIPP school plans. As usual, the teachers’ union and some school board members were characterized as unreasonably difficult about cooperating with what the paper thought was wonderful – the paper’s elite bias was showing, however.

The cheerleading reporter gushed breathlessly about the program, editorializing on the March 1 front page that all the amazing magic she described from Washington D.C. is happening all around the country (how many schools did she visit?) and it “will happen in Columbus when the Kipp Journey Academy opens here this summer” (emphasis mine). The only critical aspects of her story were the implied and stated views that public school teachers were less able, enthusiastic, and dedicated than private KIPP teachers; that public school curricula were inferior; and that public school unions and school boards hinder such wonders as demonstrated by KIPP.

All this in the face of admitting that “KIPP schools have no tolerance for fighting.” I guess the fighters can just be sent back to the crummy public schools where when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Worse, the naïve reporter states: ”KIPP students – poor, mostly black children often from depressed neighborhoods – have been brainwashed, in a sense, to believe that they were put on the planet to pave their ways to elite high schools and on to college . . . if they learn more, they’ll go on to a great high school. And if they go to a great high school, they might get into a top-tier college, And so on.”

She’s talking about Washington D.C. !! How many “poor, mostly black children often from depressed neighborhoods” is KIPP serving? What about the rest of the kids – the vast number of D.C. kids not headed for “elite high schools” and “a top-tier college”?

If KIPP is so wonderful, why not use it for all the children?

Because it is an elite program. How many elite high schools are there for the KIPP kids to enter? Are there enough top-tier colleges to hold all the “poor, mostly black children often from depressed neighborhoods” now in Washington D.C. ? Obviously not. So, why is the newspaper so enthusiastic?

Well, helping all the kids is “next to impossible”; we “lack resources,” and public schools suffer from the “entitlement mentality.” Helping a few kids is all we can do, all that we can afford, all that’s possible.

This is not the Truth; it is the “reality” that the privileged choose to project regarding education and other areas where “we need to” do more. It does seem to be the conventional wisdom now, and it is a daunting challenge to change this self-serving “reality.” But it is not impossible.

The Bush administration has lied so often and so ineptly that - in conjunction with the economy, the war, the hurricane, and other inescapable facts that have filtered into public awareness over the last seven years - the people are getting glimpses of the Truth – Not Big Brother’s truth, but the Truth, the Truth the establishment works to obscure – the Truth of just how unimportant “the rest of us” really are to those who rule And out of that Barack Obama is raising the expectations you mentioned: “Yes we can!!”

Now, I understand and generally agree with your view that political candidates make promises they know they won’t keep in order to get elected and then, once in office, climb back into bed with the same insurance companies and owners of professional sports venues they promised to tame.. But a different outcome is not impossible.

In listening to Obama, I find myself acknowledging “he’s saying all the right things; and he’s saying that he will lead a united people to achieve these things, to demand these things.” Now, it’s possible that he doesn’t really mean it or that, if elected, he will be dissuaded from fighting for it; or –as happened to Howard Dean – his threatening candidacy might be squashed by the establishment of both parties. Nevertheless, if he means it, is elected, and the establishment doesn’t assassinate him, all of your objections can be overcome.

“The rest of us” constitutes the vast American majority, and any President who tells the real Truth to the people (an act the elite call “dangerous demagoguery”) will have no trouble bringing a dysfunctional Congress to heel when the People demand it.

As for resources, the Truth is: resources are never even considered when it comes to things such as unnecessary wars to please elite game-players with imperial wet dreams of power, control, oil, and domination (what are called “American interests”). Resources are only considered scarce when needed for the interests of regular Americans, and that’s another Truth whose name we dare not speak.

As for entitlements, Lincoln claimed this to be a government of, by, and for the People. The Declaration of Independence says, ”Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Pretending that there is something selfish about demanding the government address the needs of “the rest of us” while defending slavish kowtowing to the desires of the richest few among us is outrageous, upside-down, and more in keeping with Feudalistic values than with our American heritage. Our aristocracy of wealth – foreseen and warned against long ago by Alexis de Tocqueville – don’t have titles but they are “entitled” just the same.

In their minds these are invisible entitlement, perhaps - cloaked by the will of God, the Market, the Heritage Foundation, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and newspaper editorial boards. But they are entitlements just the same, paid for by sacrifices enforced upon “the rest of us” by diminishing the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness we foolishly see as our entitlements.

It may surprise you, but I agree entirely with your advice to the candidates:

“What the presidential candidates should be saying is, ‘You need to hear this . . .’ Real leadership is about telling people the truth, no matter how hard to swallow, and then persuading them to make the sacrifices necessary to accomplish public goals.”

Exactly!! But the truth you would have them tell is not the Truth, and the people who embrace that truth have no trouble swallowing it because it demands no sacrifice from them; instead, it calls on “the rest of us” to continue sacrificing for their good, the good of the few most able to sacrifice - but who would rather not. It’s the truth of “blame the victim” and is supported by the ingrained Puritanical notion that because of our “sinful nature” we deserve to be abused.

Now, that’s the Truth, and Obama seems to be saying something like that, and he says he will lead a united people to demand that the Truth be honored. If that should come to pass (admittedly no small “if”), it could be revolutionary. The Dispatch might even be forced to quit complaining about union workers costing the taxpayers a pittance now and then on a one time basis while it soaks the taxpayer year after year via tax abatements for its pet projects.

But whether or not Obama is sincere, whether he can get elected, whether as President he would fight for the people; he is still the only candidate telling the Truth. The others are busy manipulating “reality” to promote themselves - without regard to the Truth.

If “the rest of us” are ever to get a fair shake and a bit of dignity, someday we will have to embrace the Truth Obama has been presenting and stand up to demand that the powerful enjoy only one vote per person, not one vote per dollar. We will have to stand up and assert that government of, by, and for the People has nothing to do with the notion of a selfish “entitlement mentality.” We will have to stand up and demand that government derives its just powers from the consent of all of us – not only the top ten percent, but also “the rest of us” as well.

And that’s the Truth.


Yours - Tom Harker

Dear Joe, Yes We Can !!!

Hey Folks -

Here's a recent column by Joe Hallett of the Columbus Dispatch which really bothered me. He's got it exactly wrong!!

Check it out, and I'll share my response to him in the next posting.

- Uke Man

The truth hurts, so candidates usually try to avoid it
Sunday, March 2, 2008
By Joe Hallett

There is perhaps no phrase more oft-spoken by the presidential candidates than, "We need to . . ."

We need to bring manufacturing jobs back to Ohio. We need to change the North American Free Trade Agreement. We need to provide health insurance for everyone. We need to get out of Iraq. We need to go after al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. We need to cut taxes for the middle class. We need to make college affordable. We need to save Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. We need to stop the illegal aliens. We need to repair America's crumbling infrastructure. We need to put two chickens in every pot.

All of this we-need-to talk creates expectations in voters' minds that the candidates actually will do in the White House what they say we need to do.

But doing all that needs to be done is next to impossible, especially given a dysfunctional Congress, the government's lack of resources and an American populace that has embraced an entitlement mentality with little appetite for sacrifice.

It seems disingenuous, for instance, to say America is at war. More precisely, America's military is at war. Aside from the families devastated by the loss of loved ones, the rest of us have sacrificed little since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. By comparison, from 1941-45, America was at war.

What the presidential candidates should be saying is, "You need to hear this . . ." Real leadership is about telling people the truth, no matter how hard to swallow, and then persuading them to make the sacrifices necessary to accomplish public goals.

But any candidate who tells the truth, the real truth, most likely will be defeated, because we can't handle the truth.

Consider a Jan. 12 speech by Sen. John McCain, the likely GOP nominee, who spoke at a town hall meeting in blue-collar Warren, Mich.: "The jobs that are leaving the state of Michigan have left and are not coming back."

For speaking this truth about the auto industry, McCain lost Michigan, was labeled a pessimist by his then-opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and criticized by labor leaders.

In Youngstown on Feb. 19, Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic frontrunner, grabbed his favorite Ohio villain -- the North American Free Trade Agreement -- and blamed it for the city's loss of 50,000 jobs during the 1990s. In truth, Youngstown's steel mills began closing in 1977, well before NAFTA. Although free trade has cost the state some manufacturing jobs, Ohio's exports in 2006 were about $38 billion, a $10 billion increase from four years earlier.

At a Lorain rally Tuesday, a teacher complained to Sen. Hillary Clinton that she was struggling to pay her college loans. Clinton said that citizens who go into public service should have their college loans forgiven. So, who's going to pay the bank? The rest of us?

Clinton and Obama have health-insurance plans that annually would cost $110 billion and $65 billion, respectively. Each would raise about $55 billion by ending tax cuts for those earning $250,000 a year. What about the rest of the money?

Both of the Democratic candidates say they would end the war in Iraq, which is costing $322 billion a year. Money freed up from war costs could be used to support other programs, they say. But the war is being financed on borrowed money, and the country is running a $400 billion annual deficit and is $9 trillion in debt.

Maybe the candidates should speak this truth to voters: It's time to act responsibly with tax dollars because we can't afford all that you want.

The nation is heading toward a financial meltdown. With the baby-boom retirement onslaught on the doorstep, preserving Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare will require sacrifices that could include more taxes, fewer beneficiaries and lower benefits.

The candidates don't talk about those realities, or the true costs of insuring everyone, or the real consequences of leaving Iraq, or an unstoppable global economy that is marginalizing our might, or the financial bind we're creating for our children and their children.

The candidates promise us everything because we expect it. The truth doesn't get votes, and we really don't want to hear it anyway.

Joe Hallett is senior editor at The Dispatch.
jhallett@dispatch.com

Hey Folks - Check this out!!!

and Bush/McCain can't wait to start the bombing!! - Uke Man

Spin, spin, spin

Hey Folks -

Here are two news stories on the same subject put out on the same day. It struck me how much one tip-toed around the social justice aspects, concentrating on genetics/science. In the second story below you'd almost think the Vatican hadn't even mentioned such "sins" as causing social injustice, causing poverty, and becoming obscenely wealthy.

As the Uke Man has said many times: everything is presented from the perspective of the jerks on top and in a way that best serves keeping them there.

Uke Man -


Recycle or go to Hell, warns Vatican
By Malcolm Moore in Rome - Telegraph Media (UK)

Failing to recycle plastic bags could find you spending eternity in Hell, theVatican said after drawing up a list of seven deadly sins for our times.# Your view: What are the 'deadly sins' of our time?

The seven, which include polluting the environment, were announced by MonsignorGianfranco Girotti, a close ally of the Pope and the head of the ApostolicPenitentiary, one of the Roman Curia's main court.

Recycling could save your soul from eternal damnationPolluting the environment by failing to recycle is one of the new seven deadly sins

The "sins of yesteryear" - sloth, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, wrath and pride -have a "rather individualistic dimension", he told the Osservatore Romano, theofficial Vatican newspaper.

The new seven deadly, or mortal, sins are designed to make worshippers realisethat their vices have an effect on others as well.

"The sins of today have a social resonance as well as an individual one," said Mgr Girotti. "In effect, it is more important than ever to pay attention to your sins."

According to Roman Catholic doctrine, mortal sins are a "grave violation of God's law" and bring about "eternal death" if unrepented by the act of confession.

They are far more serious than venial sins, which impede a soul's progress inthe exercise of virtue and moral good.

Mgr Girotti said genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans,polluting the environment, causing social injustice, causing poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy and taking drugs were all mortal sins.


Vatican lists "new sins," including pollution
By Philip PullellaMon Mar 10 - Reuters

Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of "new" sins such as causing environmental blight.

The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils.

Asked what he believed were today's "new sins," he told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics.

"(Within bioethics) there are areas where we absolutely must denounce some violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulation whose outcome is difficult to predict and control," he said.

The Vatican opposes stem cell research that involves destruction of embryos and has warned against the prospect of human cloning.

Girotti, in an interview headlined "New Forms of Social Sin," also listed "ecological" offences as modern evils.

In recent months, Pope Benedict has made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race.

Under Benedict and his predecessor John Paul, the Vatican has become progressively "green."

It has installed photovoltaic cells on buildings to produce electricity and hosted a scientific conference to discuss the ramifications of global warming and climate change, widely blamed on human use of fossil fuels.

Girotti, who is number two in the Vatican "Apostolic Penitentiary," which deals with matter of conscience, also listed drug trafficking and social and economic injustices as modern sins.

But Girotti also bemoaned that fewer and fewer Catholics go to confession at all.

He pointed to a study by Milan's Catholic University that showed that up to 60 percent of Catholic faithful in Italy stopped going to confession.

In the sacrament of Penance, Catholics confess their sins to a priest who absolves them in God's name.

But the same study by the Catholic University showed that 30 percent of Italian Catholics believed that there was no need for a priest to be God's intermediary and 20 percent felt uncomfortable talking about their sins to another person.

(Editing by Keith Weir)

Hey Folks !! Let's pick away at Pickaway County where too many folks vote like George Wallace supporters!!!

Racism?? Naaaaaahhhhh . . .

Hey Folks -

As a resident of Pickyournose (Pickaway) County (in Ohio), it pleased me no end to see that the Columbus Disgrace (Dispatch) editor messed up Sunday and let it slip (via some Clevelander/Athenian columnist) what everybody knows but not many admit: racism is alive and well, and hiding in Ohio - particularly in Pickyournose County and neighboring Ross County.

See column below.



I've said for some time that our white, Democratic governor Ted Strickland was not as popular as the election tally indicated (60%). A lot of Republicans who would have voted for a white idiot of Ken Blackwell's stature just couldn't vote for a Black man (a lot of red-necked Democrats couldn't do it either).

It makes a fellah proud to be an American, an Ohioan (where, happily for the Clintons, fewer people are educated or doing well financially), and - particularly - a citizen of Pickyournose County (I can't speak for Rossians).

At last, at least one mouthpiece of the "mainstream" press hasn't said, "Racism is dead; we're all just one big love pot here in the greatest nation the world has ever known."

Still don't know how it got past the editor.

Maybe he was snowed in by the recent blizzard!!

Praise Cheeses!!

Rev. Uke Man





Ohio vote shows that race does matter
Sunday, March 9, 2008
By THOMAS SUDDES

In Ohio, Sen. Barack Obama was the yuppie candidate. Ohio is not a yuppie state. End of story -- though gender and race and the economy also figured in Sen. Hillary Clinton's statewide sweep Tuesday.

True, the Evita of the Ozarks is a New Yorker, a millionaire and as Ivy League as Obama. But it wasn't whimsy that led Clinton to campaign so heavily in Appalachian Ohio, where women struggle to hold families together and where Southern-inflected Democrats (Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton) win in November because ordinary Ohioans prefer Spam, Cheez Whiz and Busch beer to chardonnay and cheddar. Don't think so? Then explain away James A. Rhodes.

True, there's no assurance Clinton will land the Democratic presidential nomination. That'll depend on the Pennsylvania primary (politically, not mathematically), party rules and, after the National Convention assembles in Colorado, a guess: a federal or Denver County court.

But Ohio gave Clinton a second wind. And her tallies, especially in Gov. Ted Strickland's old congressional district (where she won 70 percent of the Democratic vote) added weight to Strickland's perceived Statehouse clout. But unless you're peddling conspiracy theories, exit polls are worthless, so what follows is impressionistic:

• Ohio's Democratic women helped win the day for Clinton. A friend's mother told him she couldn't vote against a woman. (In that department, you don't have to like the Clintons to be disgusted by people who criticize the senator for staying married. The "Christians" who "defend" marriage forget it's a bond supposed to endure not just "for better" but also, more virtuously, "for worse."

• The North American Free Trade Agreement might be as wonderful as economics professors say, and Bill Clinton sure helped it happen. But tell laid-off Ohioans in Cleveland, Akron or Youngstown that NAFTA offers them great futures as, say, software writers for Bill Gates. You'll be cursed in every mood and tense or, worse, seen, like Obama, as slippery.

• Surely the who-should-be-commander-in-chief angle favored Clinton, but on that front, President Bush has proved Elmer Fudd would be up to the job.

• Finally, hugs aside, race mattered. It's the chasm in American life, and a voting booth is the last place Americans may legally discriminate. So look at Ohio's map. Obama carried five counties. Four -- Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton and Montgomery -- have large black communities. The fifth, Delaware, is a Columbus yuppie satellite, which he carried by about 250 votes.

In 1968, Ohio gave almost 12 percent of its presidential vote to George Wallace. No big nonslave state gave Wallace a bigger percentage.

Let's run Wallace's numbers past Obama's Tuesday numbers. Backed by nearly 12 percent of all Ohio voters in 1968, Wallace drew 19 percent of the vote in Pickaway County. Obama last week drew the support of 44 percent of Ohio's Democrats, but far fewer (29 percent) of Pickaway's. The '68-'08 comparison is nearly the same in a neighboring bellwether, Ross County.

Glance at Brown and Adams counties, up the Ohio River from Cincinnati. The last Democratic presidential nominee to carry them was Jimmy Carter, in 1976. Adams, in 1968, gave Wallace 14 percent of its vote; Brown, 22 percent. On Tuesday, Adams's Democrats gave Obama just 22 percent of their votes -- half his Ohio percentage; in Brown, he bagged 25 percent of its Democratic vote.

No one needs polls or seminars to figure out those numbers; like Ohio voters, they're out there -- in black and white.

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University.
tsuddes@gmail.com

With a microwave, a color TV, and a flush toilet; who needs a Working Class Hero??

Double-Talk !!!

Hey Folks -

Young Robyn Blumner takes on a kind of elitist propaganda that has angered the Uke Man even longer than it has her.

It seems like forever that I've heard Republican/Conservative scum claim how the poor and the stressed middle class aren't poor or stressed because, unlike their grandparents, they can piss in a porcelain toilet.

They've argued that we are really wealthier than it looks because computers are much cheaper now than when they filled up a room.

They've even argued that slavery was a good thing because today more African-Americans own microwaves than do Africans.

And that wasn't some yo-yo in a bar mouthing off. It was a national columnist!!

Have these people no shame??

- Uke Man


Poor, middle class OK? Don't buy it
Monday, February 25, 2008 2:58 AM
By Robyn Blumner

I find few things as maddening as when economists try to persuade Americans that the middle-class and poor are far better off today than a generation or two ago because of all the things they can now afford that used to be luxuries.

In a recent New York Times article, two top people at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas offered up this tired bromide again.

According to W. Michael Cox, chief economist, and Richard Alm, senior economics writer, economic prosperity is much more widely enjoyed than this country's increasingly skewed income-distribution patterns would suggest. Instead, they say, to measure relative prosperity we should focus on household consumption, and by that measure, the poor aren't all that different from the rich.

"Nearly all American families now have refrigerators, stoves, color TVs, telephones and radios," wrote Cox and Alm. "Air-conditioners, cars, VCRs or DVD players, microwave ovens, washing machines, clothes dryers and cell phones have reached more than 80 percent of households."

Please. Because the poor can now heat their canned beans on a stove rather than over a lit ashcan, they're doing well? The authors offered this song and dance to warn against a protectionist backlash on global trade if a recession arrives. They want us to understand that all those cheap imports are the reason the poor can afford to live so much like the rich.

Boy, have they missed the yacht.

Leaving aside the externality costs of buying so much stuff from countries that take our manufacturing jobs and then employ helots in unsafe factories that pollute the water, air and atmosphere, Cox and Alm just don't understand what makes people feel financially well-off.

Prosperity is not how many DVDs you have stacked on a bookshelf. It is a sense of financial security and peace of mind. And by that measure, only a small percentage of the middle class enjoy it today, and certainly none of the poor.

Cox and Alm need to read a disturbing report by the public-policy group Demos and the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University. "By a Thread: The New Experience of America's Middle Class" says that only 31 percent of middle-class families are secure.

The report's authors studied those families earning at least $40,000 but not more than $120,000 annually. They then said, to achieve a middle-class existence of having long-term financial security and the ability to raise a family with a decent standard of living, families need the following:

• Financial assets that provide a safety net in the event of job loss or illness, and allow for the building of a nest egg for retirement.

• An education level that makes one competitive in the job market.

• The ability to afford a decent house and reasonable living expenses for a family.

• Dependable and affordable health care for all family members.

If a family had three or more of these factors, the authors said, they are securely middle-class. But families challenged by three or more of these are deemed at high risk of falling down the economic ladder.

Here's the scary news: More than 50 percent of middle-class families have no net financial assets. That means no savings, or debts that exceed any assets. Nearly 25 percent of middle-class families have someone who lacks health insurance. And 80 percent of middle-class families cannot cover the bulk of their essential living expenses for even three months if something should happen to their income.

The report's Middle Class Security Index says that 25 percent of middle-class families are at a high risk of slipping out of that class entirely and another 44 percent don't have what they need to remain securely in it.

The Demos study gets to the heart of our national economic anxieties. Men in their 30s earn less today, adjusted for inflation, than did their fathers at that age, suggesting that social mobility is reversing. The cost of essentials such as housing and health care is outpacing income, and the thing that brought security to retirement -- the defined-benefit pension -- is a relic.

That's why the microwave-oven argument just doesn't wash. Until the middle class gets back its economic footing, any talk about shared prosperity is a feint. Some Americans wake up every day with their stock portfolios bulging and others wake with foreclosure fears. The fact that they both have a clothes dryer doesn't make them the same.

Robyn Blumner writes for Tribune Media Services.
blumner@sptimes.com

Air America Benefit - opening song: "Sunny Day in Baghdad"

And YES!!! Folks -

That was the elusive Mr. Dan Dougan!!!

- Uke Man

If you are eating, wait until you finish to watch this video!!!

Hey Folks -

Tyler Barnes (bassman of "the Prodigal Sons") and I have been doing a Dynamic Duo bit at Englishmanjohn's Stage in Ashville, Ohio (at Papa Joe's, upstairs) every Thursday.

- Uke Man

Air America benefit "Jesus Chrysler"

A big crowd and a lot of support for Progressive Radio!!! Fun!!!

A "Conservative," by whatever name, is still wrong

Hey Folks -

Are Conservatives frauds or just idiots?

Check out the article below. The truth is obvious. Are Conservatives too stupid to see it? Or are they just lying MF'rs?

- Uke Man

Don't confuse conservatives with Republicans on issue of civil rights
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
By Leonard Pitts Jr.

This is for those who think I forgot the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

But first, let me tell you why I respect Bob Dole. During the Kansas senator's last campaign for the presidency, he spoke at a black journalists convention where he was politely, though not enthusiastically, received. Dole acknowledged that the audience had reason for reserve, given that he's a conservative Republican and conservative Republicans have historically shown little regard for the concerns of black people. He asked for their support anyway and promised that, if given a chance, he would improve that sorry record.

Dole never got that chance, but I've always admired him for the moral courage it took to come before that audience and say what everyone knows, but some of us have not the guts to admit.

Which brings me back to the Civil Rights Act. A week ago, in response to a reader's question, I wrote that black voters do not support the Republican Party because conservatives have never supported them. Dozens of you challenged that. You sent e-mails asking how I square that judgment with the fact that the Civil Rights Act had significant GOP support.

In a word: easily. See, I never said Republicans have never supported black people. I said that "conservatives" -- "whether you're talking Democrats of the 19th and early 20th centuries or Republicans now" -- never have. Yes, these days Republican equals conservative. But back in the era of the act, there existed a creature -- it seems mythical as the kraken these days -- called the moderate Republican.

That's who lent support to black people. But social conservatives of whatever party? Not so much. The Civil Rights Act bears that out. About 100 of the 126 nay votes in the final House tally were cast by representatives from that foundry of conservatism, the South. This would include Rep. Thomas G. Abernethy of Mississippi, who said the act granted "dictatorial, Gestapo-like" power to the government.

Thankfully, 289 lawmakers stood up for the principle of equality. Know how many were from the conservative South? Twenty-one.

So, with all due respect to my correspondents, what we have here is one of the older rhetorical tricks in the book: If you can't refute what the person said, pretend he said something else and refute that.

They are interested in having an argument about Republicans vs. Democrats. I'm not. Those are brand names, insignificant except insofar as they convey ideology. As noted, the Republican brand once included moderates; Democrats were the more socially conservative party. That changed, largely as a result of President Lyndon B. Johnson's support for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. Angered by this affirmation of democratic principles, Democratic conservatives fled their party in droves, running to a GOP that welcomed them with open arms. Johnson is said to have foreseen that outcome even as he signed the bill. "We have lost the South for a generation," he is reported to have said.

Which was true and then some. These days the GOP is so thoroughly dominated by conservatism that a rare moderate such as Sen. John McCain is regarded with wariness and hostility by the party faithful.

Credit where it's due: I respect social conservatives for pushing the issue of fatherless families into the mainstream when many of us didn't want to talk about it. But on issues of human rights, they consistently have been wrong. They were wrong on women's rights. History will someday show they have been wrong on gay rights. And yes, where blacks are concerned, I repeat: conservatives -- of whatever party -- have been consistently, repeatedly, stubbornly wrong.

The fact that no one has refuted that judgment strongly suggests that no one can.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald.
lpitts@miamiherald.com

Craig Robertson

Craig is a good friend from Boston who came through town, and we got a show together. I love this song, and I'm pretty happy with how my video effort turned out.

I didn't get the Espresso Machine Player's name.

- Uke Man

Hmmmm. . . that Evil Hugo Chavez is at it again, claiming that Latin American countries are sovereign and not puppets of the USA

Hey Folks -

Here's an AP video on the latest Imperialistic adventure against "terrorists" (people who don't do as we say).

- Uke Man

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=6758433&ch=4226714&src=news