Dear Mr. President

Headnotes:  *1  I finished this article Saturday.  On This Week today, Sunday, July 21, someone finally said Travon Martin also had a right to stand his ground, or at least to use it as a defense had he been the one who survived. 

**2  There are multiple pieces posted on Facebook about black on white crimes, resulting in death, that are not getting the attention of the Travon Martin death.  One of these was a babe in arms.  Have we grown so used to black on white crime that we are immune to it?  Why is there no white outrage?  Because it is politically incorrect for whites to express it, but politically correct for blacks and others to protest white on black crime?

I am a Caucasian American great grandmother who listened to your remarks trying to explain why African Americans feel as they do concerning the Zimmerman trial verdict.  There are so many reasons why we did not need to hear your words.  There is an element in our country that is deeply prejudiced and nothing you or I can say will change them.  But, Mr. President, most of us are trying to make relationships between the various cultures work.

First, let me say that I voted for you in both elections.  I have not agreed with you one hundred per cent of the time and since I write this political blog, I generally say so.  Yet, I've made a continual ass of myself defending you to my conservative family and friends.  To my liberal Democratic acquaintances, no defense has been necessary.

Second, may I vehemently state that it is not just African Americans who are upset with this verdict.  Perhaps it might be wise to explain this stance by eliminating race for the moment.  Let's refer to the bias in this case as hoodie bias.  Don't laugh.  It is quite real and supported by television characterization.  There are signs on many store entrances saying "no hoodies allowed".  For warmth on cold, snowy days, I sometimes wear hoodies.  I have to pull down my hood in order to enter just like a young teenager, black or white.

Now that we have hypothetically eliminated race, let's examine what else was wrong with the verdict.  Mr. Zimmerman presents as a type of person I call a "hot dog."  Such hot dogs are attracted to the police force and/or neighborhood watches for the chase scenes and the power they can experience from the positions, rather than to serve and protect.  Mr. Zimmerman had the additional misfortune of being a frustrated, "wannabe" officer.  Now he has to focus all his power and chase desires on his neighborhood watch program.

Zimmerman happens to live in a state that will license residents to carry concealed.  Liberal Democrat though I tend to be, I happen to believe that is a good thing, not bad.  Mr. Zimmerman becomes licensed to carry concealed.  Now we have a frustrated wannabe cop licensed to carry concealed.  His enthusiasm for his power has not ebbed at all in the process.  The protection of the gun has increased that power. 

From what I have read and heard, during training he was taught he should not get out of the car.  Any suspicious activity was to be reported to the police department and he was trained to let the officers handle it.  In addition, there was a transcript of the dispatcher interacting with him that night.  The dispatcher apparently told him to stand down and let the police take over.

Zimmerman was not satisfied with these instructions.  Now our hot dog watchman took matters into his own hands.  He disobeyed orders and jumped out of the car.  He set up his chase scene and became the aggressor.  You know, I probably would have attempted to neutralize Zimmerman, myself, had he been following me.  (And, yes, it would happen to me.  Our own overly aggressive watchmen tailgated me as I returned from work just before ten p.m.  They were in a huge truck.  I was in a little Ford Escort hatchback.  It was a frightening situation.  I turned around and followed them).  He deserved it when Mr. Martin turned on him.  It doesn't matter whether Travon Martin was black, Asian, Caucasian or Hispanic.  (*1)  Travon Martin had a right to stand his ground and defend himself as well.  Has a single individual said that Travon had that right?  Everybody seems concerned only about Mr. Zimmerman's rights.

Now, let's reintroduce race to the equation.  All you people out there don't understand that Travon Martin was afraid?  You don't understand the history of African Americans in the South?  You don't know of the black Americans who have been beaten, hung, pulled behind cars, killed any number of ways?  You or I would have been afraid when some unknown individual began aggressively chasing us, much less Travon.   

It doesn't matter who Travon Martin was the day before this event or who he would have been the day after.  That night he was a teenage kid walking home from the grocery store, carrying a cell phone and a soda -- and some nut job started chasing him down.

It is my belief that Zimmerman should have been convicted.  So, he was afraid for his life at the last minute.  So was Travon Martin.

To Travon's family I would like to say this.  Your son does not belong just to the African American community anymore.  He's one of mine, now, too.  I'm sure a lot of us white folk feel that way.  Your son could have been Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic, or African American as he was.  He was the victim of a needy man who just had to exert his importance and his power over others.

This leads toward the end of this letter, Mr. President.  There is something we need from the African American community to help us make these race relations work.  (**2)  We need for every interaction between us to cease being evaluated as racist or not racist.  We need each event to be evaluated without the race card being played first.  Then, once we have discerned the truth without race, we will be better able to factor in that bias. 

We also need African Americans to stop saying things on television like "We need to stop this black on black crime," as if black on Asian or black on white crime is okay.

We need for all African Americans to understand that it isn't just black kids that cause us to lock our doors.  Any kid eyeing us or our purses gets the same treatment.  But when it is a black kid that hears the locks click, many of us have very real reasons for doing so.  It wasn't a white, Asian or Hispanic man that held a gun in my face, demanded my purse and threatened to shoot if I screamed.  It is not a white woman that apparently keeps trying to get my credit card number.  It's the same black fifty something one every time.

It takes both sides working together to eliminate the walls between us.  Our generation did not enslave African Americans, yet we take the rage from it.  Most of us are trying to make it up.  Please lend us a helping hand in the process.

Racism is, indeed, a two-way street.  We whites just aren't politically correct if we express our concerns to you.  We have to remain silent.  Well, now I have spoken.  Does that make me racist, too?

Sincerely,

Lou Hough

Stop the Power Struggles

When the country was first begun, divisions between State and Federal governments made considerable sense.  Maintaining contact between the different locations was a long and time consuming matter.  It was 1837 before access to telegraph.  The telephone wasn't invented until 1876.  Trains weren't much help in early stages of the railroad in the late 1800s.

The Revolutionary War was 1775-1783.  Signing of the Constitution was in 1787.  Granted, the area of the first thirteen states was small compared with the country, today, it still required horseback or primitive methods of transportation -- back and forth -- to keep in touch.

Only 39 of the 42 delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed on the dotted line.  Rhode Island refused to send anybody to represent them.  The reason -- you guessed it -- they didn't want the federal government interfering in Rhode Island affairs.  Ho-hum, ho-hum.

Everybody knows there would have been no union after the civil war without great concessions to the states.  It seems that states rights versus Federal control have been a never ending conflict ever since.  Sometimes it is simple childish squabbling, more or less power struggles for the sake of power struggles. 

But, really folks, some issues just are not Federal issues.  Perhaps gun "control" should be one of them.

Several states rights advocates are currently fighting the Common Core State Standards which were designed to make sure school children everywhere got exposed to consistent curricula.  In comes "Zorro and his sword" (conservative politicians) saying the Federal Government doesn't belong in education.  There is no more important area of government and none that will be better served by Federal oversight.  Such oversight would not only make sure all students were at least exposed to consistent subject matter.  It also assures that money is spread around better.  Students in impoverished states or districts will have more opportunities to learn than they would under local control.

There is a big enough discrepancy in teacher quality from classroom to classroom without aggravating the situation by letting local politicians get their unqualified selves in the mix.

Isn't it about time we set aside our power struggles and work toward the greater good?  This is especially the case concerning the education of our children.  It takes a lot more people to lead our country to success than just politicians.  You don't care about the kids?  Okay, care about yourselves.  They are your future, so you had best make good investments in them.

All Hail Malala!

May her words be heard to the ends of the earth and ring through all nations that we may find in any galaxies elsewhere.

What is wrong with Taliban and radical teachings today has been wrong since Biblical times.  For example, they did not count women and children when Jesus fed the multitudes with loaves and fishes (Luke 9:12-14). 

Webster's dictionary defines the word chattel ". . . any article of tangible property besides land, buildings . . . a slave."  In many lands, for many cultures, women have been treated as men's belongings.  It's no wonder men, including western guys of yore, are so reluctant for women to become educated.  Once they learn their capabilities, they will no longer allow themselves to be treated as chattel, as slaves.  They will "stand up and be counted."

In the movie, Syriana, the costuming, alone, shows a distinction.  Keeping in mind the Hollywood white hat/black hat view from the past, take a gander at the men decked out in blazing white while women swelter in black from head to toe.

American men, you've come a distance from middle Eastern style thinking, but the roots are still there.  When considering any of women's issues, take note of how hard the Taliban and other radicals fight to keep women in their "place."  That was your culture, your roots, in another time and environment.  And may the good Lord help us, you fight desperately to hold onto the idea that we are yours to control today.

Malala speaks to the real needs of women in the Middle East in this age.  She almost lost her life for wanting to earn an education.  It was, to these monsters, worth risking their immortal souls to stop her from being schooled and from finding her true capability and worth.  Don't you know those men are terrified of women finding that they are equal to them?   (Gentlemen, if you experienced the slightest rebellion against the idea we are your equals, I am speaking to you.)

Apparently the Almighty is ready for these oppressed Middle Eastern women to find their valid place in society at last.

Malala has risen from brain injury and near death like a phoenix from the ashes.  She speaks louder and stronger than ever.  All hail Malala.

To Trust or Not to Trust This Administration?

It's hard to figure out whether to laugh or cry about the "scandal" news these days.  A little of both is probably in order.  For sure, everybody but the politicians and the media are sick beyond belief of the constant sniping and fault finding.

I've been reading my way through several historical records about presidents and their families.  From After Camelot by J. Randy Taraborrelli, as well as The Passage of Power by Robert A. Caro, one gets the sense that both the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations faced constant stone-walling by Congress.  President Johnson, who cut his teeth in Congress, warned President Kennedy that he needed to carefully select the order in which he presented bills for consideration.  President Johnson said President Kennedy's most crucial and important work could be held up indefinitely if he introduced the most controversial work first.  With the typical disdain with which elitists hold ordinary people, they ignored his warning.  At the time of his death, much of President Kennedy's work was, indeed, bogged down as predicted.

President Johnson turned out not to be so ordinary, either.  His wheeling and dealing days before the Vice Presidency gave him a savvy, as well as power enough, to wheedle and ram through much of President Kennedy's and his own agendas.  Like many Americans, I've stood in awe of the Kennedy legend since it's beginning.  I also sold President Johnson's skills way too short.

In The White House Diary of President Jimmy Carter, notes on his work indicate his own struggle with the legislative branch.  In one note, he says that colleagues told him that Congress respected him, just not the office of President.  (Too bad, Congress. Do we have to send you back to school to study the reasons for our balance of power)?

I know I've had my favorite president's.  I've also had my dislikes. But favorite or nemesis, a President's role is an important one.  The Constitution was designed so there would be this balance of power mentioned above.  We, the people, sometimes forget this.  It is inexcusable for any branch of the government to devalue or ignore the importance of the other.  With the power balance, no one individual or interest group can take control away from the people.  We have a President, a Congress and the Courts to keep everyone in line. 

But, Congress is not the only culprit in our interchanges.  As to the phone and internet data collection, all three branches were supposedly involved in the "threat" to our personal freedom.  As to the IRS scandal, appropriate heads should roll.  As for administration staffers deciding what to and not to tell the President, other heads should also roll. 

As to the airhead geeks who keep downloading classified documents, you are traitors to your country, not heroes.  However much conservatives and liberals alike think we should know every time the President has to blow his nose or Congress makes a decision to improve our protection, we just don't need to know.  The fact that you could do such a juvenile thing is indicative of your inability to make rational and intelligent decisions.  Our Civil Liberties and our freedom are threatened by what you know?  So, our very lives can be threatened by what you did, to say nothing of the damage your actions do to diplomatic matters and our country.

You enemies of this President or you Congressmen looking for fodder to win elections, know this.  You are all standing in the way of important decision making and actions that could get America back on track and our people back to work at the helm in this world.  Calm down.  Stop to think.  Please find out what you can do to help instead of impede.  And for goodness sake, geeks and politicos alike, stop showing your ASSES to the whole world.  You are giving us a bad name and making us more vulnerable to our enemies.

And to all my government branches and your agencies, please feel free to collect information on my blog page views (louhough.blogspot.com), e-mail addresses and phone information.  In fact, statistics about my political blog show the following page views from other countries.  Please track these reads to find out if any of them happen to be from terrorists.  I would be delighted for you to use them to save innocent lives.  Besides at least 671 views from the United States, there have been 41 from Russia, 27 from Germany, 11 from Sweden, three each from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, Two from both France and South Korea with one each from Columbia, Hungary and Israel. 

You might also want to figure out who keeps hacking my Facebook page.  Hard for me to tell if it is friend or foe.

Bottom line, if collecting information on my personal information can save even one life, please feel free to use it.  I may be an irritant to many political figures, but I am committing no crimes.  I'm proud to be an American whose information can serve my fellow man, even if it is merely letting you collect my private data.  I don't think my trust is misplaced.

Damned Whatever You Do

Over and over, This Week returns to the usual topics with some of the usual suspects pontificating as if they (and I) actually know what's going on at the White House.  The airwaves and the Internet have inundated us for a couple of years now with outcomes of the Arab Spring, especially the ongoing Syrian Civil war.  In fact, for a couple of months, my conservative Republican cousin had been sharing posts bad-mouthing the Administration for providing arms to Al-Qaeda rebels involved in that war.  I laughed a weekend or so ago when said posts began reading "might be going to provide" instead of had already done so.  But then, it became a done deal.  The Administration is now sending a small supply of small arms to the "right" rebels in the country.

In a rare move for him, my most oft quoted conservative columnist, George Will, affirmed that he had said all along that Obama was right not to have gotten involved in that war.  Don't faint from shock at this particular conservative offering support to any liberal, especially a Democrat.  Predictably, the decision to provide arms, he now says is WRONG -- just that loudly -- despite the fact a previous Republican presidential candidate says we should be involved (McCain).

The general consensus of the Roundtable the weekend we jumped into the fray was that this step was too little, too late.  Maybe, but let's not be too hard on him for this part of the decision.  He had to make at least a token move now.  His real mistake was in stating some time ago that if Assad used chemical or biological warfare on his own people, we would have to intervene. 

In an earlier blog article ("The Folly of Lines Drawn in the Sand"), I certainly warned everyone that if you threaten, you must follow through when they call your bluff.  Anyone want to introduce this Administration to my blog?  Oh yes, who am I, an obscure author, to hold an opinion that might be of interest to political powers?

But even if they won't read me or resort to consulting experts, won't they at least look at the most recent president's example?  You tell a country's leader you will go to war if he doesn't show his weapons and you have to go to war if he doesn't -- even if he has no weapons to show and you wind up with egg on your face.

So, don't be too upset with our President over this.  He said he would act and he is.  He is sending a token supply of token-size weapons meant to reach "real" people conducting a civil rebellion.  But should the weapons fall into Al-Qaeda or other enemy hands, they won't have received the big guns they might prefer.

As we have all observed for the President's entire stay in office, it hasn't mattered what he has done.  His enemies have almost slammed shoes on tables to get him to move in a certain direction only to stone verbally once he did their bidding.  There's no question they will damn whatever he does.

May God see that all these people lose their hold on power as soon as possible.  The country needs reasonable people with cooperative, intelligent positions.

Why They Keep Coming

Immigration reform is one of those issues the media is beating to death right now.  We are hearing the pros, the cons, the dreams, the realities and the logistics for solving the "problems".  We get educated on how important the immigrants -- our own ancestors -- have been to the country, how much we need more as migrant workers, as well as how expensive it would be to pack them all up and send them home.  We are inundated with news about how expensive they are to our educational system and medical care.  We must not forget how much is said about building better fences and defenses to keep them out.  We are told we should not worry because our poor economy has stopped the influx, but video cams from border states show veritable parades crossing into American farm and ranch lands.  We are asked for empathy for their children who have known no other home.  In other words, sifting through all the verbiage to find the facts, could become a full-time job.

Let's fence them out, but keep them in once the fences haven't worked.  Let's turn our heads from the "problem" for years and then offer them amnesty periodically, or, okay, yes, offer them amnesty that isn't really amnesty.

So, why do so many unwanted, fenced out people keep slinking into our territory?  Because our illogical, unthinking policies reinforce them for doing so, and also because the message that even natural-born Americans are currently unable to achieve the American dream has not reached them.  They haven't heard or read the opinions of investment experts who have quit telling us how to invest in real estate.  They now try to assure us it is smarter just to rent.  And, also, because reinforcement theory is always in effect whether or not we choose to control it. 

So what does this mean?  A reinforcer is defined loosely as any stimulus or event that follows a behavior that increases the probability the behavior will occur again.  In other words, if you want something to keep happening, keep reinforcing it.  You want illegals to keep coming, keep giving them and/or their foreign born children amnesty and citizenship.

Better still, use an intermittent reinforcement schedule -- the strongest, most effective schedule.  This means keep them guessing all the time as to whether they will or won't get forgiven for breaking our laws and coming here outside our legal immigration system.  Don't just tell them they might get to become citizens every five years if they are here anyway, but let them believe coverantly it might happen in ten, or maybe in two, or it might never happen again.  Operant conditioning research -- research that has discovered what causes animals and people to behave as they do -- has proven that intermittent reinforcers keep us doing desirable and/or undesirable things longer and stronger than a regular schedule does.

Furthermore, reinforcers, punishers and reinforcement schedules are always in effect -- always at work -- even when people don't know they exist.  We can either ignore them and let them control us without our knowledge or we can take charge of them and get our environment under our control.

A lot of the verbiage today is about needing more aliens to plant and harvest our fields or to bring technological skills to our shores.  After all, some say, our own people don't want to work in the fields, so we need the illegals to work the farms.  Really?  So how come we see article after article saying that farmers have nobody to bring in the crops?  Where are those illegals working?  The fields?  Or, are they doing roofing and foundation repair cheaper than Americans can afford to do them, thus causing more native sons to be on unemployment?  Are they working in our factories and retail stores?  Are they running their own businesses and sending home for more illegals to come work for them?  Or, are they providing new jobs for America's existing work force? 

What we need is not our typical Band-Aid approach where we make a temporary fix of letting the current lawbreakers stay, but securing our doors so we don't get more lawbreakers.  We need a long-term measure that says this is the last, the final time that illegal aliens or their foreign-born children will ever be granted amnesty or amnesty by any other name.  From a specific arbitrary date on, every illegal not on our soils by the stated date, will be summarily returned to their homelands with no exceptions allowed.  And, yes, that will probably require profiling.  We need to prosecute any business owners that hire them.  We need to make temporary agencies that cater to them illegal, and we should prosecute them as well.

Or, we could just open our doors to one and all and forget the whole sorry subject.  It's a cinch the current approach is causing the problem, not solving it -- that is if it is a problem at all.  Just get a policy and make it work. 

I wonder if open borders might actually be effective?  If people can come anytime they want, perhaps coming might not have so much appeal.  We are a rather defiant species.  My daughter, at age one, would have climbed Mt. Everest if she had thought I had put it there to keep her out of something.

Questions for the Tea Partiers

According to the June 3, 2013 Time, the 1952 corporate tax portion was 32 per cent.  In 2012, it was 8.9 per cent.  So, where's the beef?  Is it your intention to reduce the taxes on the corporations and wealthy until they are nonexistent? 

When you voted for your Tea Party/conservative politicians, did you mean for the following to happen?

...Head Start Programs to be cut

...Entire schools to be closed

...Teachers to be laid off, contributing to unemployment, Medicaid and food stamp rolls

...Less social workers and psychologists in the schools diagnosing mental illnesses

...Less supplies for our school children

...College students, including your children and grandchildren, to have less access to loans and grants

...Federal programs to be dismantled, sending even more people to unemployment, Medicaid and food stamp rolls

...Other government employees to be laid off putting even more people on
   unemployment
   Medicaid
   and food stamp rolls

...Children and old people to go hungry

...Medicaid to be cut just when middle class Americans need it

...HUD Housing programs to be reduced

...Mental Health programs for the public to be reduced

...Drug and alcohol programs to be cut

...Roads to be swallowed by holes

...Bridges to fall into water

...For us, one satellite at a time, to lose our ability to predict storms


Did you think about how tax dollars are used or just that you don't like them?

Did you think ...?