Good news for QualityService44 !

We received our first sale on eCrater.  This is a huge victory!  Like Bonanza, eCrater gives QualityService44 a lower commission fee to pay. So, the buyer doesn't pay as much and I don't have to pay as much of a commission fee.  You get the same product for a lower price. 

When I think about it, I think that I need to work harder on my social media.  Our success has come from the fact that advertising on Facebook has paid off.  The profit I make has greatly exceeded the amount I pay to Facebook !  However, I need to develop my website at Pinterest and Quora as my UPS friend, Donyel Billings, has as a wedding photographer.  

There's a lot of work, and I need to stop doing the hobby that my fiance and my counselor said I should do more of.  They think that I am too much the killjoy and spend too much time working.  I don't (when you look at the pure numbers).  I'm doing better.  2017 was an improvement over 2016 & 2015, but with Sinal Cleaners having a bit of hiatus until beginning of May, it's still hard to be prosperous.  

Another reason Reactionaries don't value life !

Last week, I wrote about how there are certain knuckle-dragging, reactionary Republicans that claim moral superiority to Democrats all the while they don't give a damn if Americans who want, need health insurance, can't get health insurance. They feel that way even when Americans died from lack of health insurance! 

The tragedy in Florida is another reason (a better Reason) why reactionary Republicans who only base their vote on a politician's  pro-life stance have an extremely hollow argument! 

Sure we care about the helpless fetus and unborn who dies at the hands of the terrible so-called Dr. who commits an abortion.  But we don't care and don't want any type of legislation that would limit to the slightest degree guns.  NOT EVEN ASSAULT WEAPONS!

Now here is where I have contempt for Republicans claiming moral superiority over Democrats.  Republicans and other "gun-nuts" forget about the Assault Weapons Ban passed in September, 1994.  There was a law passed under the Clinton Administration that barred assault weapons.  NRA and their supports and cretin cohort would have the populace, particularly citizens of the South, believing that if they were to ban assault weapons, THEN the US will pass weapons on handguns, rifles and possibly even BB guns.

Did that happen after 1994? NO
After the Assault Weapons Ban, was there any effort by the majority of Congress to even ban an average handgun?  No, again.
So while the NRA has the South and morons who choose to vote for pro-gun, anti-restriction-of-guns legislators, we keep winding up with tragedies in schools, in malls and at concerts like the ones in Las Vegas last fall.  President Obama called the morning after the Sandy Hook gun tragedy the "worst day of my presidency."
INDEED!
A majority of Americans want a ban on assault weapons but this timid Congress led by Speaker of the House "shame of Janesville" Paul Ryan won't pass a restriction on Assault Weapons Ban.
Wow............just let the killings continue all in the name of American Exceptionalism, rights of people w/ guns and just conveniently ignore the fact that Canada and Western Europe doesn't deal with tragedies with the regularity that American citizens DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
& those people still wonder why I'm the "family liberal". 

Good clarity, strong points

Approaching closer the wedding brings nice clarity.  This has occurred in the events that happened since the start of 2018. 

• Was almost killed the 1st Sunday in January.  I went through a tollbooth/I-Pass lane w/ a turn leaving it and hit black ice.  Within a second, I did 3 complete circles (a 1080, they discuss those at the winter Olympics).  Going from 50 mph and skidding into the left median I came to a complete stop before hitting the massive concrete barrier.  
• Working at a good place since January makes me realize what fucking assholes the lawyers were that I used to work for.  I work for a man who is forthright, who says there is "no drama",  then there is no drama from him (compared to the asshole who said that last year).
• Uber is a wonderful thing. I learned what an excellent driver I've been for nearly 40 years by driving in snowstorms in N. Illinois and doing just fine.  A couple weeks I made nearly $500 as well as over $100 in bonuses.
• I learned how much my dear fiance', Pat McCurdy, loves Paul Simon as she is going to spill a princely sum near my birthday to see his farewell tour at the United Center.  

I explained to my fiance that one of my flaws is being indecisive almost (but not quite) to a Hamlet like degree.  My depression has lifted as we prepare wedding plans.  She knows that.  We are saving money b/c I am having the wedding reception in a small condo clubhouse seating 50 or less people.  We are probably inviting less........who knows? 

Only 20 - 30 people from my side of the family and at least 30 people on her side of the family.  Well, maybe it won't be so difficult to decide who to invite from my side of the family.  Anyone who gives reactionary opinions or makes an attempt to defend that asshole Donald Trump or that "shame of Janesville" Paul Ryan doesn't have to come to the wedding.  

As I have been outnumbered in family arguments about politics in Wisconsin, they are going to know in no uncertain terms that they are in the bluest of blue counties - Cook County, IL, and they, not I,  will be the ones outnumbered on matters of politics.  But let's hope politics don't come up at the wedding.  

I mean after all, I have been on the most respectful of behavior at Thanksgiving gatherings and have brought up politics nary a time.  My brothers, sisters, in laws .........they are all good people.  I love being with them.  We had a great time for the Thanksgiving in 2017 at my older brother's place, my older brother's place in 2015 and my sister's place in 2014.  When one of my inlaws' brothers shot his big mouth off about liberals in 2014, I just smiled and was silent.  

However, there will be no silent politeness at my reception when it occurs next year.  They will be reminded about how our outstanding Pope thinks that tax cuts for the rich, "trickle down economics" as he called it (and was popularized under Pres. Reagan) is so much economic crap that leads to deficit spending.  It's better to be as economists point out a tax and spend Democrat than a borrow and spend reactionary.  At least Democrats lower the deficit and don't pay as much in deficit interest rates as Republicans do!

Remember that godawful Vice President known as DICK Cheney?  He was quoted as saying, "Reagan proved that budget deficits don't matter."
AS a horseshit historian, he conveniently left out the fact that the Clinton administration raised taxes for the rich up to the 30something percent with nary a Republican vote in Congress.  & who was the only administration to pay and cut into the national debt..........that would be the Clinton administration.
What the economy like when DICK Cheney left the White House in a wheelchair (couldn't happen to a nicer asshole!)   on Jan 20, 2009?  Come on you conservatives............come on you reactionaries try and see if you can get your self-righteous, sanctimonious brain upright and tell me what the economy was like on Jan 20, 2009.

Oh yeah, we had the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  What was the economy like on Jan. 19, 2017?  Unemployment down, stocks much higher than 2009, GDP in 2009 was at ___; GDP  at $18.624 trillion in 2016.  Police brutality was addressed more strongly than before with the Black Lives Matter movement which I agree with.

Republicans love to talk about a subject I happen to agree with them on......abortion. But they conveniently forget about an important youngster whose mother DIED because she didn't have health care.  They conveniently forget that people die and died even more prior to March, 2010 (when Affordable Care Act was signed) because they couldn't get health care insurance.  There were approximately 20,000 deaths.  Approximately. 
I state that a mother, particularly single mothers lives are just as valuable as the sad victim of an abortion, the unborn child.  You would have to be an insufferably IGNORANT to not know how important how vital any parent has been that died due to lack of health insurance.  Now, there are fewer people who are uninsured.  Of course, if Paul Ryan and Donald Trump have anything to say about it the number of uninsured will likely be greater on Jan 20, 2021 than it was on Jan 19, 2017. 
Seeing Speaker Ryan announce that he just didn't have enough votes last year to repeal the Affordable Care Act was one of the happiest moments I had in 2017.  Really.   Hearing him in his frustration (and is self-righteousness suddenly departing him) in his press conference was absolutely FUN TO  listen to.
--------------
At any rate, I will be able to solve the little dilemma of inviting 20-30 family members at my wedding and reception.  I have no problem squeezing them into our little clubhouse alongside my liberal future in laws who I love dearly.  & if they have the temerity and lack of manners (unlike me when I didn't speak of politics at past family gatherings), they will be in for a very rude awakening at the reception when they will be getting disabused of a younger brother with his sons and daughters and with his in laws explaining to them that they are mistaken reactionaries at a liberal wedding & reception!  
This is ONE TIME I WILL NOT BE OUTNUMBERED! ! !

You know, Republicans wouldn't be so awful, if they didn't run up such odious deficits.  As statesmen and economists both note,  tax cuts do not grow the economy.  It didn't happen with Reagan and it didn't happen with George W. Bush!!  Did the Clinton tax hikes help the longest era of prosperity? Don't believe me.........believe former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan (A REPUBLICAN, mind you!!!!!!!!!) who said that the tax hikes on the RICH did, in fact, foster the prosperity that occurred from 1992-2001.
Try telling me that Obama tax hikes on the RICH hurt the economy!  Really try it!
I will be armed with a lot of statistics from the best economists to show you how stupid your argument is.
There's a sinister plan that makes me hate Republican policies more as I grow older.  I hated greed when I was a kid and I loathe it far more as an older AARP adult.
The Republicans want a deficit so high that one of the few things the federal government can spend money on is money for the Pentagon.   They will argue, as they have done so many times in the past, that they don't have enough money (BECAUSE OF DEFICITS) SO they must cut at the social net.

Yeah sure, make the rich more rich by giving them big tax cuts.  Yeah sure, do it and cut the social net to help poor.  Right?  They are the assholes who declare and execute class warfare.  Again, even our venerable Pope Francis I ridicules "trickle down economics". If you don't believe me Google it!  Really!

the lesson

I heard a good sermon about a month ago. The priest talked about self talk and what we think about ourselves and what we can accomplish. 

In one Native American tribe, there was a belief that there was an animal, a bear inside all of us. As an Elder said to someone young, "The bear can go either way. The bear can give you confidence, make you happy, inspires you to be kind to others and inspires you to do amazing things!

Or the bear can fill you full of doubt, It can make you hate yourself, make you depressed, be mean to others, and there's very little you can accomplish!"

The Youth asked, "What makes the bear be either a positive or negative force?"

Elder replied, "It depends on what you feed the bear. Will you feed him confidence or fear?"

When I say confidence, I mean REALISTIC confidence.  Building up your hopes only to see them dashed is a sure route to depressiopn.
But, it's easy for me to get down on myself.  It's easy for me to be full of fear and downright PETRIFIED of the future!!

The older I get, the more I realize how disciplined our mind must be in order to fight all the large, disturbing challenges each and everyone of us face. 

& self discipline isn't easy when it comes to getting our mind to think one way when it really wants to think another way (usually negative).  Unless things are going well, we all face a lot of inner turmoil, and we will face it in the future.  We have to keep fighting and somehow find a way toward being more successful.  That's hard to do.

GOOD for Target

I remember when Christmas was something we really thought about in December.

In the 70s, you never saw Christmas trees or other promotions for Christmas in October or November.  The customers would have thought the store owner was crazy.  When stores figured that a big proportion of their sales came from Christmas, then Christmas shopping season became longer and longer. 

A casualty of all this was Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving has been very overshadowed due to all of this.  Not good.  We all need to be thankful for something!

So, Target listened to their customers and they didn't like Xmas promoted in October. They wanted some more promotion of Thanksgiving.  Therefore, Target is "dialing back" their Christmas promotion. 

Good for Target!  I am buying something from their store today.  Vote with your money.
 If you don't know what that means, let me know. 

Did you ever get this FEELING??

Thankfully, I'm back to work. I am reluctant to say what I'm doing fulltime for fear of jinxing myself. I also Uber. 
So, I am happy about that because that beats the hell out of being unemployed as I know all too well since Aug., 2015.  Since 7/31/2015, I've been in vocational hell, basically. I think I work hard; I think I am a cooperative employee.  I give my best effort and I want whoever I work for to succeed. But bosses since that date haven't seen things as I have. 

Enough about that as I really feel uncomfortable talking about employment issues. 

What I want to talk about is that feeling many of us have who live from paycheck to paycheck.  A day or maybe a few days before you get paid, do you ever have that feeling that you are sooooo broke?!?

It's terrible.  There are things I really wanted to spend money on (basically "pay for"), and I just couldn't do it because I didn't have the money. As the picture shows above, it feels like I can't breathe. When I can't do things because I have no money I feel like I'm asphyxiating.  

Then when you get your paycheck, you are gasping  for air after feeling like you ingested a pint of water. & sometimes (like today) you can't pay all your bills (not even w/ 2 jobs) so you go back into the water again to nearly drown. 

But you panic and you almost feel like you will "give up the Ghost" (like you REALLY WILL drown), because you really question if you will see the financial "light of day".  I got paid, and I feel rotten. 

PLEASE SHARE YOUR VIEWS ABOUT BEING BROKE, THEY ARE VERY WELCOME!! 

I panicked a whole room

Flashback to 2 times
In 2001          I was with the best paralegal I ever knew,  the late Mike Sullivan.  I bought a pair of sunglasses.  I needed a pair badly but they had a small selection.  To my disgust, I bought a pair with a little image of the Bugs Bunny character, Tasmanian Devil. I told him how disgusted I was with the glasses.  For 1 of the very, very few times the late Mike Sullivan was wrong, he said, "there's a value in scaring others, maybe you'll scare people with those glasses."  Well, I think I lost them within a few months.


Spring, 1987       I was in the last semester of college.  I was student teaching going to graduate mid May.  So, I was with a couple of roommates.  They were tough guys who weight lifted a lot. They had a friend named Hotter that could beat us all up at the same time.  The other thing about my roommates is that they were heavily into fooling others including me.  
Thought popped into my head. 
Hotter was there (bigger than LIFE!). The tough roommates were there,,, the sprinter, the weight lifter. Weight lifter says, "what's happening Vince?"
I shrugged my shoulders, then non-chalantly replied, "I'm going to check into a mental institution.  I might be going crazy."
HOLY SHIT! cried the sprinter.
Damn! said the weight lifter.

Then there was Hotter, a guy who I always got along with, but who could break me in half in a few seconds.  "Oh, my God! Get away from me!  You scare the HELL out
of me!"
 

I was surprised....to say the least, "Oh.........Sorry, Hotter. No, guys, I'm just shittin' you.  I'm going to throw out the trash."
When I walked out to the dumpster they all ran to the balcony and stared at me.  Like.......I don't believe Vince!  He's not coming back!  He's not throwing the trash out; he's going to go in his car and we won't see him for awhile. 
The weight lifter even asked, "You're really gonna leave, aren't you, Vince?"
I just gave him a vacant smile. 

I walked back in with a shit-eating grin and looked at Hotter.

It doesn't hurt, DAMNIT!

I had a dilemma this morning.  I was supposed to be at a locksmiith's place in the morning.
The problem was that the bike trail (victim of Berwyn hit-n-run car accident 4/5/2017 so I use bike now  {then the next damn week my son is in a car accident that totally demolishes his Saturn}) was really long....longer than I thought it would be.

So there I was less than a half mile from the locksmith's place.....12 minutes late.  I was looking at going through a forest because he lived on 150th St. and the street fragmented in front of my bike.
I said, "The hell with it!  I'm not going around.  I know if I go through this forest it's only 1/2 mile at the most!"

I was better than right.  The forest was a block long. The forest was thick.  I had to pull my body up three feet with twigs snapping and tree branches with frickin briars on them. I experienced a little pain.  But, I then saw a RR track; I crossed it, no problem.  Then, I had to take 2 steps to cross a creek and go through 12 feet through another forest.  I called the locksmith; he had no problem with me being late.

He met me on his lawn; I gave him my mailbox key.  You know why I went to a locksmith?  I so damn tired of dickin' around wasting time at a hardware store b/c the stores near us don't make them good enough and you can't use the key.  So you have to shlep back to the damn store and get a refund or say, "TRY AGAIN"  Screw that!  I'm going to a locksmith.

So, I was outside waiting for him to make the keys.  I told him I didn't want to come inside his house, because my shoes were soaked from that creek I crossed.  Then I noticed 2 bad things.  I had a tree branch stuck to the back of my t-shirt...the LENGTH of my shirt.  Why was it stuck to my t-shirt?  The damn thing had briars.

Then I knew I felt a dull pain and looked up and noticed I was cut.

SHIT! It didn't even hurt!
Really......supposing we have the pain scale the 1-10 pain scale......1=someone is touching your skin
10 = your crotch is impaled with a 3 ft. lance
Mine was a 1.5

But there was a really rotten implication to my cut.  I make money giving plasma.  Same routine everytime:
1. Answer 40 yes/no ?s
2.  Do the screening where they check your arms, temp, blood pressure and hematocrit ratio.
3. Give blood.

100% certain that they would have inspected my arms, taken 1 look at the above cut and disqualify me.  I cleaned it up; I put triple antibiotic (featuring neosporin) on the cut. My blood was fine.
But the plasma I give them has to be pure.
They don't know how I got the cut.  A briar in the forest isn't going to contaminate my plasma.
But of course, the plasma center will assume the worst.  They'll figure I got into a fight with a guy that tipped a knife in feces first and then cut me.  Dang, they can't let anyone donate with that happening to them.

So, I gotta hope that Saturday, this cut is absolutely, completely 100% gone.  Better read up on the best way to get rid of a cut.  I also will prep for my interview Thursday.  I think I'll probably get the job.

If you know a way to get rid of cuts.............let me know.

Chris Cornell, singer of Soundgarden, dead by suicide

Wow, Chris Cornell was 2 years younger than me. 

He killed himself.  That became very apparent. I don't know what to think, but I sure as hell won't write against him or say he's a very selfish man.  Most of all, I think I'm sorry and sad that suicide turned into the option to follow.  So sad and begging answers to ?s...................

What happened? 

What pressure did he have? 

What was the dynamic of being a "rock star" and coping? 

How was he relating to his wife, his kids??

What happened? 

Do the lyrics of his hit song of a few years ago have anything, reveal anything about Chris that may shed light on his suicide?????????Is it very wrong to supposed a song that a songwriter wrote is the way he really feels? 

I wrote some fiction and if someone were to think I was writing about myself, and that's how I thought, I would be really insulted. Sometimes, writing is a game of filling in the answer, "WHAT IF??"

But here's the song lyrics.  Do you know Chris' music? what do you think?  Are any of the lyrics relating to his suicide.......at all?
What happened???????

"Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart"
this is BY Chris Cornell, formerly of Soundgarden

Every time I stare into the sun
Trying to find a reason to go on
All I ever get is burned and blind,
Until the sky bleeds the pouring rain

When you came along the time was right
Pulled me like an apple red and ripe
Wasn't very long you took a bite
And did me wrong, and it serves me right

And I nearly forgot my broken heart
It's taking me miles away,
From the memory of how we broke apart
Here we go round again, again

Every little key unlocks the door,
Every little secret has a lie
Trying to take a picture of the sun
It won't help you to see the light
Every little word upon your lips
Makes a little cut where blood pours out
Every little drop of blood a kiss that I won't miss
Not for anything

And I nearly forgot my broken heart
It's taking me miles away,
From the memory of how we broke apart
Here we go round again

Every single feeling tells me this is leading to a heart
In broken little pieces and you know I need this
Like a hole in the head

Every single feeling tells me this is leading to a heart
In broken little pieces and you know I need this
Like a hole in the head

And I nearly forgot my broken heart
It's taking me miles away,
From the memory of how we broke apart
Here we go round again

And I nearly forgot my broken heart
It's taking me miles away,
From the memory of how we broke apart
Here we go round again, again

Every little key unlocks the door
Every little secret has a lie
Tryna take a picture of the sun
And it won't help you to see the light

Every little word upon your lips
Makes a little cut where blood pours out
Every little drop of blood a kiss that I won't miss
Not for anything

And I nearly forgot my broken heart
It's taking me miles away,
From the memory of how we broke apart
Here we go round again
Every single feeling tells me this is leading to a heart
In broken little pieces and you know I need this
Like a hole in the head

Every single feeling tells me this is leading to a heart
In broken little pieces and you know I need this
Like a hole in the head

And I nearly forgot my broken heart
It's taking me miles away,
From the memory of how we broke apart
Here we go round again

And I nearly forgot my broken heart
It's taking me miles away,
From the memory of how we broke apart
Here we go round again

Here we go round again

Be ready..............and love women

So who is older my fiance or me?
Definitely, it's me today, lol

I joke to my fiance, that....while she's older than me, I look older than her.

I took Ben Franklin's advice on older women, and it's served me very well!!

But I gotta say, I've enjoyed looking at pictures and making friends with women since I was 4.  Mom would laugh and tell a story about me when I was 4.  I was going to kindergarten in Aug of 1968. (Yes, I'm old or maybe even older than I look, HA!!)

So, I had to visit the school.  There was a little 2 yr old that was pretty precocious and talkative.  She wanted me to play with her toys.

So as I walked out of the little school........I gave her a kiss on the cheek.

3 cheers for women

Oh, about the shirt..........you know every now and then there just has to be someone in a crowd that "feels his/her Oats" and has to tell you that the Apocalypse, the LAST DAY is coming very soon.  I would get a laugh from the crowd when I would speak up and say, "There's no Apocalypse until the Cubs win the World Series!!"  That was good for some laughs.

&......Here I am wearing my Cubs 2016 Championship sweatshirt..........be careful what you wish for! 

Seriously, my point is we could die and find out if you go to heaven, hell or purgatory  tomorrow.  Your last minutes toward your death could start when you get into your car or someone else's.  I live on a very busy US HWY 6

Sigh…………death be not too painful.

The button issue....Will Republicans Change Healthcare

haha! total FAIL by Pres. Trump and the "Shame of Janesville" Speaker Ryan to get supposedly "better" healthcare for Americans! 
Hearing Speaker Ryan say "Obamacare is the law of the land," was the best political news since Fox News (gee, they're fair.....................NOT) was the first TV network in 2012 to declare that Obama was re-elected. 



The old Superman comic books used to feature a character named Bizarro, who looked exactly like the Man of Steel, except for his blocky, Frankenstein-like features and the fact that everything about him was reversed. Whereas Superman could burn things with his eyes, the lumbering Bizarro could freeze them; while Superman’s X-ray vision couldn’t handle lead, Bizarro’s could penetrate only lead. You get the idea.
That’s the image that kept popping into my head this week as I watched Republicans hurtle their way toward an ill-conceived overhaul of the health care system. In a sense, what Republican leaders are frantically trying to push through Congress is the Bizarro health care plan — a mirror image of the law it would replace, patched together from spare parts and castoff ideas.

They now seem bent on making exactly the same mistakes Democrats did in 2009, but in exactly the inverse way.
At about this time eight years ago, I was hanging around Capitol Hill and the White House, putting together a preview of the looming health care fight for the New York Times Magazine. (The piece holds up pretty well, I think, but judge for yourself.)
The pivotal Democrat on the Hill then was Max Baucus, the Montana senator — and later President Obama’s ambassador to China — who chaired the Senate Finance Committee. Like Obama, Baucus thought CEOs, health care providers and politicians who had once opposed reform could now be persuaded to support it, as long as the plan promised to get soaring costs and federal spending under control.
And Baucus told me that any new law had to have at least some measure of bipartisan support, even if that required painful compromises. That’s because no piece of massive social legislation had ever been perfect from the start, and in order to preserve and fix it, you needed at least a few members of the minority to be invested in its success.
A transformational law of this size, Baucus said, would be “unsustainable” if one party decided to enact it alone.
The problem for Baucus was that most Democrats, especially in the House, didn’t care at all about corporate competitiveness and public debt. They cared about bringing down the number of poorer Americans who couldn’t afford insurance, and they weren’t open to painful fiscal choices in order to get that done.
So while Obama and his congressional allies sold their plan to industry and the public as an economically necessary reform that would “bend the cost curve,” the law they ultimately passed was really more a wealth transfer program that birthed new regulations and taxes in exchange for expanded coverage for the poor and some middle-class protections — a program very much in the tradition of the Great Society.
The most difficult decisions involving public spending were pushed off years into the future, for some other group of politicians to worry about. And of course, as it turned out, Democrats ended up passing the law along strictly partisan lines, using a budgetary gimmick known as “reconciliation” to help it along.
This wasn’t their call, to be fair; they really weren’t given a whole lot of choice. But what all of this meant, practically speaking, is that Baucus was right — the law was probably politically unsustainable from the start.
What came to be known as “Obamacare” was wildly successful in reducing the number of uninsured Americans by more than 20 million, but the public saw little of the economic benefit it was promised. (Although in truth, health care costs have risen more slowly than they might have otherwise.) Democrats couldn’t make necessary fixes in the sprawling law, because no one on the Republican side had any interest in seeing the law fixed.
Jump ahead now to where congressional Republicans are this week with their American Health Care Act — which is precisely the upside-down version of where Democrats were eight years ago. Whereas Democrats took a bill that was principally about expanding health care and dressed it up as an economic measure, Republicans are taking a plan that’s almost entirely about economics and pretending it has something to do with health care.
They may advertise their bill as a market-based solution to health care inequities, but in fact, what Republicans really care about right now is shedding the new revenue and spending in Obama’s health care law — specifically by repealing taxes and eliminating subsidies for the poor and the Medicaid expansion in the states.
President Trump has promised that “you’ll see rates go down, down, down and you’ll see plans go up, up, up,” and, in distinctly Trumpian terms, that the new system will be “a thing of beauty.”
But the Congressional Budget Office, which is led by a Republican appointee and has a slightly better record than Trump when it comes to veracity, estimates that the plan will cost 24 million Americans their health insurance while saving the government more than $300 billion over the next 10 years.
This time there’s not even a question of bipartisanship. Republicans have been plotting a three-stage legislative process, including a reconciliation measure of their own, to pass their plan without a single Democratic vote — although it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that they will settle anytime soon on a plan that wins over both House conservatives and Senate moderates.
The problem — especially if you’re one of those moderates who actually care about governing and have to get elected statewide — is that the Bizarro health care bill wouldn’t be any more lasting than its predecessor.
Before long, the public would figure out that the law isn’t going to do anything to make coverage more affordable or the choices more vast, as promised, but rather the opposite. Eventually, the popular protections that Republicans say they’ll keep are likely to become unworkable without mandates and subsidies.
Mostly the bill would spare some small businesses and wealthier Americans from paying additional taxes and cut back the Medicaid rolls. The issue of what to do about the uninsured would roar back into the public debate.
And good luck trying to amend the bill in ways that would mitigate its harshest effects, because Democrats may well gain seats in the ensuing elections, and they’re not going to feel the slightest motivation to help clean up the mess.
In some ways, Republicans are in a more precarious position with the Bizarro bill than Democrats were in 2009. Obama, at least, managed to cobble together support from insurers and providers, which muted some of the criticism when premiums started to rise. Trump and Paul Ryan, the House speaker, haven’t even tried to assemble a coalition.
You have to remember, too, that Republicans are playing with something here that neither party has ever attempted on such a scale before: a rollback of benefits the public already has. It’s one thing to ram through a program with lots of subsidies and new rights attached. It’s an untested proposition to unilaterally take that stuff away.
Here’s what we do know: With a policy area as complicated as this one, and as reliant on theories about how the markets and consumers will respond to various incentives, you’re never going to pass one law and be done with it. Responsible governing in Washington — if we can still conceive of such a thing — means being able and willing to reassess and adjust to reality as time goes on.
Democrats were never going to be able to do that because of the dubious ways in which they sold and enacted their law. And Republicans won’t have that option, either, even if they manage to come up with something that satisfies their dueling factions.

Superman and Bizarro never actually resolve anything. They just retreat to their parallel universes and live to fight again.

by MATT BAI

Do you need a bargain on pet supplies or Gun Safety accessories

A website whose owner was trained at the art of selling on eBay.  Offers a wide variety of products.  The focus is in gun safety accessories and pet supplies.
However, if you need a bargain on a women's winter coat.....see my store ! !

I sell on both eBay and Bonanza.  
Coming soon:  I am selling at Etsy & eCrater
I will provide more information on ChicagoWing.

 

 

Part 3, One Leading, Others Trying to Follow

Bloggers Note:  Things have been a little busy so I haven't had time to finish this despite pledging to do just that.  Thanks for being patient.

After all the frustration Calvin and his wife, Gloria had with Ms. Shrill, the cheerleading coach, Calvin thought there might be a solution to their problem. He knew Joe Powers who was in a community group with Calvin.  In fact, Joe was the president of the group.  Calvin did not know many people who were as respected as Joe.  Joe was a master at developing a consensus among others and putting in place an effective plan that would be used and made to work.
Joe's wife was a longtime staff member at the Needsville High School.

Calvin explained to Joe the problem that he faced.  The fact that he spent all this money and if one did the math and multiplied 26 families giving all that money, the sum that Ms. Shrill was receiving was over $30,000! Joe was alarmed about that amount of money being raised.

Joe decided to help Calvin by talking to the athletic director.  He stated that there was an awful lot of money raised by the parents.  Did that alarm the director?  The athletic director shrugged and said booster clubs are not regulated.  When Cindy became a cheerleader, Gloria and Calvin  were automatically considered to be part of the Cheerleading Boosters.  As long as there wasn't much dissent and it wasn't organized, then Ms. Shrill could raise just as much as she wanted to.

Calvin had spent a whole evening one night writing and calculating the math of how much each parent gave, how much the parents raised for fundraisers and, in turn, the total amount of money they collectively raised.  They raised over $30,000.   Then he compared how much money, time and effort went into helping out Arthur who was in football.  Where him and his wife spent well over $1,000 for Cindy's cheerleading, they spent about $900 for Arthur being in football from 4th grade to senior in high school.  It averaged out to be $100 per year!

The next time Joe and Calvin got together, Joe relayed the disappointing conversation he had with the athletic director.  Calvin asked him a couple questions, but it was very clear that there was nothing he could do.  The only thing he could do with all the facts and figures he had was to use them if Ms. Shrill wanted Cindy back to cheerlead in her sophomore year.  Cindy was getting tired of all the demands Ms. Shrill and her assistants made on her and her teammates.  They wanted far too much.  Calvin became very hopeful that they wouldn't go through the nightmare of fund raising that occurred this past year.  If Ms. Shrill pressed for Cindy to join a few months from now, Calvin would have all the facts and figures to fire at her and send to her in an email.  He was going to make demands.  He was going to make Ms. Shrill wish she'd never met Calvin.  Unfortunately, he was a "voice in the wilderness".   He heard of no parent who agreed with him or who wanted to challenge Ms. Shrill.  All he could do is conclude that it was another expensive venture involving his daughter.  As much as his daughter expected out of Gloria and him, it wouldn't be the last expensive venture.  Calvin thought of his parents. They would never, ever considered getting themselves involved in a situation like he did.  They would have just pulled him out of that.  He might have been angry with them, but they were right.  There's so many other places to spend your money! 

Emails & more emails / Ted's year in football

is there anything more tedious than going through e-mails and having to delete MOST OF THEM OUT???? It reminds me of eating grapefruit.   I like grapefruit, but it takes 5 minutes to cut the slices out and 40 seconds to eat the slices and 30 seconds to drink the juice.  The pleasure of eating the grapefruit is so much shorter than the tedium of cutting out the slices.  The pleasure or importance of reading a few good informative e-mails outweighs the countless number I'm required to delete.

& I delete everyday, every single day.  It's like a bush that has to be trimmed on a regular basis.  I have had the same e-mail for 15 yrs. so that's part of the problem.  I use my spam, but that doesn't always help.  I contribute a little $ in politics on election years, but absolutely refuse to give anything on offyears.  & just like the bears in the parks that like it when they get food from tourists and keep coming back, the organization keep asking and keep asking.  & I just continually delete and delete.

Oh, here's some good news.  Ted can bench press 200 lbs. He's made his high school weight room Wall of Fame. The most I was ever able to do is 155 lbs.  I hope he is as successful as an adult as he is in high school.  Hope he could get a scholarship from that.  He might start at a very good football program, so who knows?  One can always dream a little.  Sure would help us financially if he earned a scholarship.  The offers on the numerous emails from colleges get a standard response from me...."unless you are able to offer a football scholarship from your illustrious school, my son, Ted, will be going to South Suburban College"

My son, Ted, turned 18 on October 8.   The first 2 1/2 months of his senior year have been very eventful.  In February of this year, Ted had reconstructive knee surgery. Due to injuries suffered during the first half of his junior year, he had tears in BOTH his ACL and MCL ligaments.  It was really awful for both, Maribeth (his mother), Ted and me.  Before the surgery, the doctor had very sad news for him.  He said he not only noticed 2 tears in 2 vital ligaments in the knee area but had bone/cartilage damage in his knee.  The doctor said, "You are not going to be in football your senior year!"
Now consider this, please.  Ted had spent months getting up at 5:30 to run, condition lift weights in anticipation of his junior year in football.  He was confident after an excellent year playing offensive line on the Sophomore  Team.  He made the Wall of Fame in leg press at well over 350 lbs!  He is one of the biggest players on his team (height wise) at 6 foot, 3 inches.  He's gained weight by the extra muscle he has put on.  You can see it in his junior picture that the muscles in his neck have strengthened and expanded the width of his neck!  He planned to play Varsity at offensive tackle his junior year and then his senior year.  He would play at Oak Forest High School varsity team a well-respected high school football program that has made 20 consecutive years in the playoffs.   He suffers a season-ending injury in football training camp in August, 2015.  He's out for the season. So, then, after months of getting up at 5:30 in the morning, running, lifting weights and doing agility drills, he finds out that after being out of football his junior year, he would be OUT OF FOOTBALL HIS LAST YEAR, HIS SENIOR YEAR.      

So, on that fateful, cold February afternoon, the doctor says, "You  are not going to be in football your senior year!"  Ted cries and cries with his mother comforting him.  For about a month, he was so disconsolate that he substantially reduced what he ate and lost a significant amount of weight.  He didn't want to talk about football anymore!

But Ted didn't quit.  His uncle Bill, said, "Don't let the doctors and the physical therapists get you down with what you CAN'T do!!"  Ted heeded those words and lifted weights, and he ran.  Ted told me that the head football coach literally stopped by him every school day starting in March, when Ted ate, lunch asking him if there was any hope he could play.  Every school day for a couple of months!!   He faithfully followed the doctors orders and went to physical therapy 2 times a week and did so for about 3 months.  He had regular checkups with his physician.  Then, this past summer, to our shock, the doctor said, "You are almost healed.  You don't have to see me anymore unless you have any problem with your knee.  I am clearing you to play football your senior year.  We will be careful, so you shouldn't practice yet.  But by mid-August, you can join the football team!" 

There were obstacles.  Ted missed the first month of Bengal football training camp.  He lost a lot of strength, nearly 100 pounds of strength in the knee which had the operation.  The coaches took him off the Wall of Fame in leg press because he could no longer do over 350 pounds (about 159 kilograms).  He certainly stayed on the Wall of Fame for being able to bench press 200 pounds and more!  His coach was honest with him.  "I don't want you getting hurt again.  We have a starting line-up for the offensive line.  However, if you are better than either tackle I will let you play.  The offensive tackles were very good.  One was almost as tall as Ted, and  a few of the starters throught the season weighed over 200 pounds.  Many of the games that Oak Forest Bengals played were close. They didn't put Ted in during close games, because he was a reserve. They had a winning season, and they made the football playoffs 21 consecutive years.  
Ted was angry and disappointed that he didn't play as much as he wanted.  However, he played against Clemente HS the entire second half of the game as left tackle and they beat the school 55-8.  He played in a conference game as well.  He blocked hard to enable the runner to make several touchdowns.  It wasn't as much as he wanted.   Yet, he got to work with the teammates who loved and respected him.  He enjoyed the camaradarie of working with them, and together, they suffered through the grueling, hard-hitting practices.  In a way, Ted was lucky the setback wasn't worse.  One day in his freshman or sophomore year, his teammate broke his leg in practice.  As soon as it happened and for the 20 min. it took for the ambulance to arrive, he was screaming constantly from intense pain.
Ted didn't quit.  He made a quick, strong recovery.  He learned the value of working out whether you play or not play.  (He certainly learned that lesson better than me.  He may be taller than me but I still outweigh him!)
Here is his football picture when the official photographer came to the Bengals football team.  He learned what teamwork really means, as did I when I played football, basketball and track.  That's a lifetime lesson.  It's one lesson that's very valuable!

saving money through Oatmeal! & working @ Chegg Tutoring

Money has been tight; I have to admit.
But I have been staying busy w/ Chegg Tutoring, selling on eBay and looking for a better job.  I've even been so busy, I cannot finish the last installment of the cheerleading saga that I wrote on this blog! 
Everything takes time to do.  There's a place that has caused a stir in Oak Forest due to its controversial nature.  I might work there, but don't want to discuss just yet.
If I take a job there, you'll find out.

One of the things I often eat in the morning is oatmeal with brown sugar and fruit.  Get the water very hot, add the brown sugar, use regular oatmeal and then I add either cut up apples, grapes (if my son, Ted, suggests and is w/ me at grocery store) or strawberries.  Apples are in season, now, so the picture above has apples in it. 

This looks a little messed up.   What happens is in that I make the mistake of making too much oatmeal.  There have been times, on Saturday for example, I would make it,  eat it, but then it would take until NOON TO FINISH eating it, b/c I would be doing all these other activities:  answering emails, reading and sending emails, reviewing or writing on Facebook, tutoring a student on Chegg, dealing with the pool problem at TMA or talking on the phone.  

The problem is that you have oatmeal in your bowl for several hours.  That's not good b/c it gets cold and your bowl is harder to clean.  I'm all for doing dishes quickly since we haven't had a dishwasher since about 1999 (drainage issue).  

So, I came up with a solution Monday.  Taking 3 hours to eat a huge portion of oatmeal is good for my diet (I skip lunch and lose weight, I've lost almost 10 pounds) but it's a shabby thing to have in the condo unit.  So, Monday, I said, "no more!!"

I put a medium portion of Saran wrap on my kitchen counter. 

I dumped the remainder of the oatmeal I ate after about a 1/2 hour, 45 min.  & voila(!).  I had a leftover for later.  I ate it this afternoon.  

I love working for Chegg Tutoring!  I have tutored English and Government/political science.  I've advertised on my profile that I can also teach: psychology, sociology, math and history.  I minored in history when I graduated from UW-La Crosse. I loved the 2 writing assignments I have received.  The first time was talking to a student who is going to college in Michigan.  I tutored her to write a marketing campaign for selling a food product at a grocery store.  I loved it! I loved the camaraderie with the student, learning a bit more about him or her, solving the problem together and of course, GETTING PAID.

It pays a lot  more than when I wrote at Law Bloggers last year.  I loved writing legal articles, but I became the victim of my own success.  Law Bloggers put me in touch with attorney D. Tyler Roberts. He's a very good lawyer working from his office in Lexington, Kentucky.  

I wrote about Kentucky laws when using guns (if you can use a gun in another state, it's very easy to use the same gun in Kentucky), probate laws, and I wrote about the awful shape of nursing homes in that state and investigated on 1 of the most severe fines Medicare levied.  The nursing home in Kentucky had an outbreak of scabies.  I also wrote about federal gun laws, gun trusts, estates, car and boat accidents (a fatal boat accident on the Ohio River just after 4th of July; it killed 5 people)  and an interesting dog bite case in Kentucky.  

The blogs that I wrote were on his website; they covered many of his areas of legal practice; they had the desired effect  of more clients, and he didn't need anymore blogs from me.  

flashback from 4 yrs ago, visiting Navy Pier!

We went to one of the more popular tourist attractions in Chicago last month, Navy Pier.  One of the nice features of Navy Pier is its very impressive collection of stained glass.  Here are some pictures taken, the first one was after my kids & I rode the ferris wheel, it is  150 feet tall (46 m):

The stained glass windows are great to see as they change depending on the month you go to Navy Pier.

Also, today is my brother's birthday.  He's been a huge influence on my life.

He is on the right with my youngest brother and sister.
My siblings are 2 sisters and 4 other brothers. 

Coming Soon!

The final installment, Part 3 of One Leads, Others Try to Follow.

The final conclusion of the cheerleading coach that talked parents out of their money will be written within the next few weeks.  

Oh No! Campaign 2016!

"What I want is power, more power
What I need is an innocent life
Want to do it in the broad daylight
I'm the truck, I'm the suicide

Gotta get into a fight
Can't get out of it
Want to get into a fight
Gonna get away with it
Gotta get into a fight
Watch me, watch me now"

Rolling Stones' song "Fight" written by Jagger, Richards and Ron Woods from the album Dirty Work released in 1985

It's ALL SO UGLY!

In the early Aughts, I knew my marriage was in serious trouble when my ex seemed to live in a parallel universe away from me.  I would come home from work at 6:30, by about 8 or so we would have a huge argument. Now, here is what is strange.  Only 1 set of events happened from 6:30 - 8pm!  If there were cameras, they may show the same exact event from different angles, but we all know that at precisely 6:37:00 pm, there wouldn't be one camera showing me eating spaghetti and another camera showing me smoking a pipe.  That's impossible for me to do both in the exact same second! 

So, it's clear for you all to see that there's only 1 sequence of events!

That's simple.....here's where it gets complicated.  

2 people can have very different points of view about the SAME events that occurred. This is especially true if they are really in disagreement like my ex & I.  If 2 people love each other AND feel they have a GREAT FUTURE together, then those 2 people usually (not always) will have the version of events that are pretty much alike, if not the SAME.  I think we've seen that.  

I remember reading a story. It was about a ho-hum one night stand. It was consensual sex.  The girl's version was amazingly different from the guy!  Now, the girl wasn't wrong and the guy was right.  It was just a matter of different biases, different backgrounds, different points of view, different philosophies about getting together and going to bed. The young man thought that something went wrong.  He was confused.  The woman was happy and thought things were a big improvement over most nights.  

Needless to say that when my wife and I saw things different, when we had our own separate parallel universes we were living in, we fought a lot.  When we fought a lot, night after night, day after day, our marriage eventually died of combat fatigue.  It was made a whole lot worse when she didn't want to accept that she was in some way to blame for the divorce, (just like I was to blame, too!), and there was this awful fictional story of grotesque things I supposedly did which had no truth to them.  Sadder still, was that she convinced herself to believe it.  She could recite the story so well, that it sounded like the truth when it was FICTION!! This is occurring in the United States too.  Some people actually believe that we didn't fight the Civil War over slavery!  That is only one of MANY false narratives going on in our nation.  There's worse ones, and they concern stories of what's happening now!   

Behold what is happening in the United States.  Some call us a superpower (maybe we are, we spend more money than the next several nations with a mighty militaries COMBINED!)

 However, some of us think we're a nation nearly bursting at the seams. Those same people (including ME) feel a certain heartbreak over people saying things about President Obama that seems completely alien to my point of view.  I'm also sad and disgusted about other people, mostly very angry people saying things about Donald Trump and that seems like fiction,too.  

It seems so shocking. 

Many, many Americans are struggling to get by financially.  That is the part we all agree on or about 80-90% of us agree on.   I took a number of economics classes and have a basic understanding of what happened.  This is a simplified version of events. Many people would think that my explanation is true.....here it goes: 

Mike and Mary were husband and wife.  They were married in 1955, then Jim was born in 1961.  When Mike and Mary were raising Jim, their total income was about $25,000 a year.  In those days, that was a pretty good income.   Many families like Mike and Mary had about $15,000 worth of expenses.  There were some more couples that had even less than $15,000 worth of expenses. 
If they made $25,000 and in the same year spent $15,000, we all see that they had $10,000 left over.  That's awesome.  In the 60s, many families had that type of situation.  

During the 70s, there were times when Americans and others around the world suffered from inflation.  The price of things shot up.  That meant that you were going to have a hard time, because if you bought your family $20 worth of groceries in 1971, and then the price of groceries went up to $35 in 1973 and that happened week after week, then that was disturbing.  (That would be $780 you would have to spend more during the year {52 weeks x the $15 increase}).
Fortunately, after 1982, the Americans didn't suffer from inflation.  Inflation is when prices rise dramatically.  However, prices raised some, just not very much.  The percentage of increase was rarely 10% or more.  That's the good news.
The bad news is that starting in 1980 and going up to this year 2016, incomes increased sometimes  but when they did, they increased slowly.  The increases were small.  So, let's go back to Mike, Mary and their son, Jim.   Jim starts working in 1980, he finds a middle class career similar to his father's career.  He gets married to Suzy and they have a child named Ben.
Let's do the math.  Jim and Suzy make about $50,000 a year.  That's twice what Jim's parents made. The problem is that while they make $50,000 a year, their expense are anywhere from $45,000 a year to $55,000 a year.   This type of situation (not exactly the same salary)  happens to millions of Americans.  LOOK AT THE MATH!!
While Mary and Mike saved $10,000 a year, Suzy and Jim are lucky to clear a mere half of that at $5,000 and a lot of years their expenses are exceed their income.  Then, Suzy and Jim use credit cards.   Now, some rich folks say that Suzy and Jim are stupid while their parents were smart.  But, that's Bullshit.  If incomes raise slower and slower, anyone can see that it becomes harder and harder to pay for things!  I don't use a credit card for vacations, because I never went to California or Canada or New York.  I'm happy to say my parents went to many states.  That's great.  They took me to Utah to see my sister one year.  Great trip! But many people in the US don't want to take a vacation if they're in debt by $10,000 or more.
I use a credit card to pay for a car repair.  That's bad too, some will point out, but really now, I need the car to go to work, so SHOOT ME.  Oh, that's right, the economy already did over the years.

So, there's not a big argument that people get fewer and fewer raises.  There's no argument that raises are often smaller and smaller.
People in the United States fight over many, many different reasons of what went wrong between 1970 to 2016.  Some blame it on foreign nations grabbing jobs that were once in the US.  Some blame it on groups of feckless, contemptible groups of people who live in projects and shoot up heroin and join gangs and shoot up people. Some blame the Arabs for making too much money selling us oil, then having people from those nations becoming terrorists. Some people blame ourselves for consuming too much gas in the first place and needing and importing so much oil in the first place.  Some people blame the government even though the federal government has lower tax rates NOW than they did back in 1970.  Others blame illegal immigrants (like Donald Trump).  Some blame the greed of the rich.  Some point out the income disparity between the rich, middle class and poor is as bad as in 1928, the year before the Great Depression.  Just an FYI: the last sentence is pretty much true; it's a fact.  We all agree that things have changed since 1970, but there's just so many people blaming so many other people and things. 

II. 
There's also a different type of problem going on in the United States.
There's a group of  people who are angry that in the 1950s white people had a lot more power than they do now.  Those people like the "good ole' days".  Those people believe that Blacks and Hispanics unjustly benefited from "hand outs" and don't work.  There's some rich folks bitching that half of the people are on Welfare.  Those same people don't know shit because the unemployment rate is 5.5% and when things were really bad in 2009, when there was a horrible recession, when Obama first became president, we were just over 10% unemployment. There's NEVER, EVER was a time where 1/2 the people were on welfare.  That's like the bullshit parallel universe that I complained about at the beginning of this story!! People just see things around them or look at a paper occasionally and think that's the way  things are all over.  They get about 1/11th of the real story.  They construct a group of people who are to blame while I believe another group is to blame.
There's White people who are terrified that in 2050, white people will be outnumbered by the minority population of Blacks and Hispanics combined.  That doesn't bother me one damn bit.  That's not horrible, that's just demographics!  You have these racists who scream about the "dying white race".
 It's awful.  I see Whites complain of Blacks and Blacks complain of Whites.  I've seen Blacks complain of Hispanics and Hispanics complain of Blacks.  I've seen Mexicans complain of Puerto Ricans and Puerto Ricans complain of Mexicans.  I had a close friend about 10 years ago.  Her parents were from Puerto Rico.  She was a good person, hard worker and ethical woman and probably still is.  The only time she yelled at me was the time I accidentally called her "Mexican".  Yeah, she screamed at me. I guess I made a mistake.

The United States is really not United that much.  I don't know if we'll ever be United.
  If we don't agree on the facts, how can we agree on the solutions?