Insights from an Oracle

I recently discovered that I'm  old because I can remember when America had a middle class. With this in mind I've decided to pass on some of my wisdom.

I've learned from Republicans that we were without a president from 2000 to 2008 at which time Obama came along to destroy our financial system.

I wonder what future a country has when 44% of its citizens do not believe in evolution? I've written about teaching at a public university where seniors ask "Dr. Turner, what's that verb thing you're talking about?"

For 20 years the man I most respected in Washington was John McCain and I couldn't wait to vote for him. Then one day I woke up and realized if he got sick a woman who was nuttier than a fruitcake would be running my country.

I felt like such a jerk for believing in the love story of John and Elizabeth Edwards that I find it hard to take any politicians seriously. Now if there's a rumor about crooked Washington legislators, I immediately believe it.

Rightly or not, if somebody tells me they are a banker, I put my wallet in my front pocket, and tell him I don't carry a business card.

Has Romney Already Been Elected President?

I woke up this morning wondering if I missed the presidential election. I'd grown up in an America where politics stopped at the water's edge. Until the regime changed we were all supposed to support the president and our country's foreign policy

But there was Romney attacking Obama for something he'd either done, or hadn't done well enough. This afternoon it looks like Romney really blew it. Hillary Clinton and Obama were proceeding carefully to respond to the deaths of American diplomats. The least Romney had done was jump the gun and it looked like he'd actually stepped into a septic tank, only to find out he couldn't swim.

I'm an Abba and support Israel but can't imagine going to Israel and telling Netanyahu that he could push around Obama anyway he wanted. Netanyahu has always been a hothead and implying he had carte blanche to tell our president what he should do was almost criminal.

He seems to support the video that's angered Muslims. Why doesn't that guy now make a movie about the lost tribe of Israel that was running around America 2000 years ago and what happened to the gold tablets after Joseph Smith reached the bottom of the hill near Palmyra. Of course if you believe all that you probably think Romney's qualified to be president. Whether he is or isn't, you must face the fact the election isn't over yet.

Dirty Harry and the Prez

It was all very tempting. When Clint Eastwood stood up at the Republican convention and talked about how disappointed he was in Obama, it resonated with me. I don't think Obama is a very good president, myself. It could have been possible for me to get swept up in my disappointment, but I can't let it happen.

The Republicans on the Supreme Court have already made it possible for the rich people in this country to decide who gets elected. I don't want to see anymore right wing jurists continue to build an unequal playing field. We used to be a country with tremendous upward mobility, but today our country isn't even in the top five in that category. Rich people are going to decide who runs this country and how little taxes they'll have to pay. McCain-Feingold was a good law, and it should have been upheld.

We can't get out of our mess with just spending cuts, we're going to have to raise taxes. The Republicans actually want to cut taxes more.

I count on Medicare and I don't want mentally challenged right-wingers to take it private. I don't think Social Security should be privatized either.

I've got a PhD, but one of the jobs I did to make money for college was work in a sewage plant (okay, okay, you can bring on the piled higher and deeper jokes. I've heard it all before). Is Mitt Romney really going to relate to someone whose dad died at seven and lived on Social Security? I don't think so, and I don't think many Republicans have the ability to relate to the African-American and Latino students I taught in college. When Clint was speaking, I noticed everybody I could see  in the audience was white.

I'm going to hold my nose and vote for Obama because the people at that convention don't want the America I grew up in. They're campaigning to install a white plutocracy, where the only people that are really going to make it are their own children

 

Teachers Unions and the state of American Education

A movie premiering next month, called "Won't Back  Down,"  tells the story of a mother who took on officials to try to improve her daughter's school system. A teachers union figures prominently as an adversary to her efforts.

The school district that produced most of the students who went to the California State University I taught at for 28 years was the Los Angeles Unified School District. It upset me that I had to teach college seniors what a verb was in a class called "Writing for the Media." I wondered how students could proceed that far without learning basic grammar.

When failing my class prevented students from graduating I was appalled to be the last stop on the road to failure (because obtaining a degree in communications and not knowing what a verb was, was a ticket to unemployment).

I found out the University writing exit exam was being judged holistically. An English teacher told me if he could figure out what they were trying to say he would pass them.

But out of all  this there was one saving remnant. Those students who had been bused to Palisades High School, and had Rose Gilbert as a teacher, had a wonderful use of the language. Already in her 70s she tutored UCLA athletes and gave money for scholarships to UCLA.

My stepdaughter had her as her English teacher and was in awe at her ability to teach English. But Mrs. Gilbert, and another English teacher at Palisades, were the only ones mentioned by students when I complimented their writing.

I wondered what some of the other union members, protected by tenure, were doing in their classes. Then I decided I didn't want to know.

Anti-Semitism On The Rise

I just saw a chart in "The Economist" that shows anti-Semitism is on the rise across the globe.

I was not surprised that 60% of Hungarians believe the anti-Semitic stereotypes.

A few years ago I traveled to Hungary with some fine people who had been born there and had lived through the Holocaust. Their relatives told stories of cabdrivers saying, "I don't carry Jews." The head of Hungary, who had a German last name, took time to announce, "I am not a Jew."

During the Holocaust, the Arrow Cross, Hungary's fascist killers, were more brutal than the Nazis themselves.

But it isn't only in Hungary that anti-Semitism is flourishing. I once asked a Pole, who was a professor at an American university, why anti Semitism is still strong in Poland. He denied it and told me, "all Jews lie."

This kind of thinking ended up causing the deaths of 6 million people. Has everyone already forgotten?

China's Government Has Everything Under Control. Right?

"Power comes out of the barrel of a gun."  Mao Zedong

"The only children of the first generation (those who fought with Mao against the Japanese) who aren't really rich are Mao's own children." Current Chinese saying

The word is that (like his predecessor, Jiang Zemin) Hu Jintao will probably retain control of the Army for two more years after he steps down as party leader.

Because of the preparations made by Deng Xiaoping, the changing of the guard in 2002 was the first peaceful, well orchestrated government transition in Chinese history.

A  lot is going on in China and this expected stage-managed transition is proving to be a lot more difficult to put together than many thought it would be.

You've heard a lot about Bo Xilai, the princeling who ran Chongqing. But you have to understand his serious trouble came after he went to visit his father's (Yi Bo's) old army group, which was not near Chongqing. This scared some members of the Politburo (the nine most powerful people in China) because everyone knows whoever controls the Army (PLA) controls China.

The new wrinkle is that thanks to Bo Xilai, and to other revelations, the Chinese people know just how rich the second-generation (the princelings) have become. The children of those who fought with Mao against the Japanese control many of the important sources of wealth in China.

(Many Chinese have told me the government has to be repressive or the Chinese people will go out of control. Very few of these people actually believe in communism. Joining the party is the way to get ahead.)

There have also been comments that the Army wants more influence inside the party. There is a tradition that a man is loyal to the leader who made him a general. In most cases they pay fealty to Hu Jintao.

What once was scheduled to be a show of solidarity has to stay cobbled together somehow. If you think China is a monolithic entity where everything always goes smoothly, you may want to keep your eyes on the news. There is a lot that needs to be buried before the turnover.

Giving Away Our Future

An American company has made an advance in battery technology that would allow it's cells to work in extremely cold or very hot climactic conditions. A123 systems would be able to do that without installing the expensive heating and cooling mechanisms which add to a battery's price.

A123 is in financial trouble and couldn't expect financial help from  Congress, but it has been saved by a Chinese company.

Wanxiang Group offered a $450 million assist to keep the company afloat. It will eventually own 80% of the company

The Obama administration, in an attempt to promote green technology, earlier gave the company a federal grant of $249 million.

Over the years federal money has helped provide for basic research, research that made our country an economic powerhouse.

Now we throw away our future and let the Chinese walk away with it.

Here's what a spokeswoman for the Republican national committee told the Wall Street Journal, "it is unfortunate Obama borrowed from the Chinese to give taxpayer money to prop up green energy companies the Chinese are now buying."

This individual, most assuredly an experienced scientist, doesn't understand that the Chinese command economy is pouring enormous amounts of money into developing and buying clean energy companies.Since the Chinese government owns a lot of these companies they can operate at a loss until they have a breakthrough that produces a positive balance sheet.

We used to invest in our future. We got more than "Tang" out of the space program.

The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health over the years have paid for basic research that made America great.

Now the Chinese are investing in the future while we walk into the American Sunset. I sure hope the Chinese will sell us a nice battery driven car so we can forget about the Middle East and have peace during those sunset years.

So the Bankers Walked

A lot of bankers dislike Obama, but people who wanted a fair and just settlement of the financial crisis aren't exactly jumping up and down for joy.

(First I must admit to voting for Obama in the primary and in the general election, so throw the ball and drop me in the dunk tank.)

The problem is that not knowing anything about running anything, Obama made Larry Summers (who never met a banker he didn't want to canonize)  his economic adviser.

So, right away he had no chance of becoming Franklin Roosevelt, or even Teddy.

Now we have a situation in which bankers are giving a lot of money to the Republicans because the G.O.P. thinks it's great to be purchased by rich people.

The list of bankers who should have gone to jail grows longer by the day. The Angelo Mozilla's of the world are working on their tans.

There might have been people around who wanted to do something about these bottom feeders, but they weren't in office. Did you expect Schumer to put the bankers in jail?

Americans Together in an Anomic World

When British poet William Wordsworth composed verses like "The Solitary Reaper," he was writing "spots in time" that would capture an image or a feeling. I've lately been experiencing some images where Americans were coming together the way they used to.

I'm not saying that we've lost who we are, I'm just saying in a multi-channeled, angry America, I rejoice when I'm part of interactions that remind me of how America once was.

The sight of a little baby, in her tiny dress with the littlest  crocheted cap, being baptized in the Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica brought me back to my childhood sitting in the Methodist church in Sandy Creek, New York.

The sight of a girl I'd known since she was three days old saying part of the Torah at her Bat Mitzvah brought me into the feeling of community in a Glendale Temple.

Lately, I've been treasuring these feelings of community as I walk through an America where everyone is caught up in their own little vision of what this country means. There are scribes that cater to each one of these visions, turning out television shows, blogs sites and other communication vehicles where people can have their own particular vision of our country reified.

I long for those experiences where I can feel part of a group that represents what is right with America. I haven't been able to get to a sporting event lately so my eyes could tear up while singing the "Star-Spangled Banner."

In an age where corrupt bankers control our Congress, and more and more people subscribe to Leona Helmsley's idea that "only little people pay taxes," I yearn to see the good parts of my country coming together.

You might say I've listened too many times to "Rascal Flats" singing "Mayberry," or you might concur there's an America out there that's still retrievable.

Bo Xilai and the Devil Woman

In a move congruent with Chinese history, the wife of Bo Xilai, the Chinese princeling accused of corruption while he was running Chongqing, will be put on trial for her misdeeds.

This phenomenon of blaming the female should not surprise scholars who understand the Chinese attitude towards “dragon ladies.” I mentioned this in my novel, ”Shanghai Rose:”

Settling in on the train, I attempted to read a Chinese poem about a beautiful woman who threatened a man because of her sexuality.  He eventually left her because he knew a woman like that could drain his life forces.

It seems that at least as far back as the Zhou dynasty, a very sexual woman was a threat to a man’s purity and ethical behavior. There was a story in which an empress had a fox inside her that turned the Zhou emperor into a merciless, brutal failure, in a time when B.C. was a useful chronological tool.

In the West, a man could take a woman’s honor and leave her behind, or a woman could use a man as a toy, but the Chinese only saw women as capable of taking souls and clouding minds.

The Mukden Incident, or the Death of Dong Bei

September 18, 1931

It was quiet near Liutiao He, a lake near Mukden, Manchuria. Lieutenant Kawamoto Suemori took a couple of men and placed a small charge of dynamite near Japan’s South Manchurian Railway tracks. Japan had received control of this railway, on Chinese soil, from white men who didn’t care what happened to anyone they could define as yellow.

Two colonels in Tokyo wanted to make sure that Japan could take over all of Manchuria, so the Manchurians could grow crops for consumption by the superior race that lived in Tokyo.

The blast didn’t really do very much and the tracks were in good shape when the next train went by. In Tokyo they said the Liutiao Railway Bridge had been knocked down by Chinese dissidents. There hadn’t been any Chinese near the blast area and it wasn’t a bridge. The blast didn’t really hurt anything or anyone, but now the Japanese had an excuse to take over all of Manchuria.

Chiang Kai-Shek  had ordered Zhang Xueliang, the young marshal of Manchuria, not to resist but let the Japanese take all the area that ended at the Black Dragon River.  The Back Dragon River was China’s border with Russia.

And so the slow dismantling of China began, a natural evolution since the Opium Wars let England and others seize Chinese ports for their countries.

The people of China were very angry about their country’s position and felt a communal loss of face. In Shanghai they started boycotting any products from the land of the rising sun.

The Japanese had decided that the Chinese were a weak people, undeserving of being treated honorably by their army, so the road to the Rape of Nanjing was under construction. In Heaven the Gods wept for the Chinese people.

From "Shanghai Rose"  http://www.amazon.com/Rich-Whitney-Turner/e/B004G7E40U/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Skies over France

My novel "Shanghai Rose," which takes the reader from skies over France in WWI to front row seat at the Japanese invasion of Shanghai, begins with this look at aerial warfare.

 http://www.amazon.com/Rich-Whitney-Turner/e/B004G7E40U/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0: 

We are flying from the fields of Flanders across the border to targets of opportunity in Ypres, Belgium.  As we had readied for takeoff,  a Royal Flying Corps  Officer told us the Germans had launched 50,000 mustard gas canisters against our soldiers there.

It isn't just the gas that has me concerned for those below. When a man's foot develops gangrene, doctors amputate it, effectively changing the course of his life. It happens all too frequently in the brutal, seemingly permanent, jagged slashes in the landscape, where soldiers'  feet rot away in rain soaked trenches. The guilt I'm feeling in being above it cancels much of the joy I once received from flying.

 My plane, the "American Angel," is one of four Sopwith Camels leaving France. Crosby's plane had earlier experienced engine trouble so we are late arriving at the battle. I think conditions are looking good until I  notice  nine German planes. My body suddenly tightens as I encounter the fear of death that travels with men in war. Concerns for other men cease.

 I'm a sitting duck and  mutter an oath as my Camel is hit. The plane shudders and I  find myself falling in a fast full power spin. I am right over the Hun trenches, so I decide to try to pull out, turn her around, and attempt to reach our nearest airfield. My Camel is badly shot up with many of the flying wires cut, so it won't be easy. Somehow, I interrupt the fall  and turn the plane towards our lines. I  say a quick prayer,  worry I am too close to the ground, and black out.

At the forward aid station, the first focused image I see involves a pair of hazel eyes with a nurses' cap perched above them. I quickly assume I must've crashed somewhere over British lines. When she speaks with perfect diction I feel I've fallen into the library of a British country house.

"Hold on flight lieutenant," she says. "We're going to give you something for the pain."

Update

For anybody left out there who still checks my blog, I've been writing them for two years with braces on my elbows and hands. I've done this because my neck has stenosis, arthritis and herniated discs. This affects the use of my hands. My lumbar region has the same problems, with scoliosis thrown in. Now my body has decided those braces are foreign objects and reacts strongly to their use. I am completing a book called "Shanghai Rose," which begins in World War I and includes a rewrite in the first person of a novel I pulled off Amazon called Winters in Shanghai. With a little help from my friends I should have it posted on Amazon in about a month. I hope you like it.(By the way, no matter what they say about dictation, if you can't position the cursor by hand in a rewrite, you might as well pack it in)  I'm pretty happy with my life and I figure obstacles are there to be overcome. Ganbatte, Jia You, Fi-Ting

Hongbao (Red Envelope) in China and America

The Hongbao (red envelope) is the name for bribing someone in China. It isn't just companies that need to bribe officials in the middle kingdom. I've worked with Chinese professors who had to pay off the reviewers in order to get a grant to do research in the United States. China, a country I really like a lot, is about as corrupt as possible.

By saying this I'm not demeaning the incredible work ethic of the Chinese people, or the fact that I've come to know Chinese with incredible integrity. These people have made my life richer and more fulfilled because of the opportunity I've had to work with them and know them as friends.

I always find it funny that we've passed international bribery laws, when the only way to get a foothold in China is to pay someone off. It's a universal truth.

I also don't want to sound holier than thou about my country. Many of my friends, who are well read and knowledgeable, believe that America, although not at the Chinese level, is becoming more corrupt. I grew up in a time when the average CEO made 40 times the amount  a man on the factory floor received. Now the average CEO makes 430 times what the factory worker does.

It seems more and more clear that our Congress is bought and paid for. Bankers own the Republican Party and Democratic senators like Chuck Schumer. Under Clinton they got rid of the Glass-Steagle act which separated investment banks from commercial, deposit accepting banks.

Under George Bush banks were allowed to be irresponsible and take incredible risks, which in turn ruined many of the retirement funds held by individuals.

The war between those who want this situation fixed, so we will never have to bail out banks again, and the bankers who think they'll make less of a profit with regulation, is an intense one with the bankers' lobbyists going all out. The fact that we save these banks from bankruptcy with taxpayer dollars seems never to be a bone of contention as they pay these lobbyists.

Because our history of anti-communism means the envelope will never be red, I wonder what color we will eventually use.

Why People are Running from Stocks

Yesterday I was watching Bloomberg television to escape the novel I was writing. Things were bad, with the unemployment rate rising and new job creation absurdly low. I listened to two different experts interpret the data:

One man said that you had to realize that the winter was warm and therefore the data is distorted because a lot of new employment was created in earlier months.

 The next man pointed out that not only was job creation in May very poor, but March and April had both been revised downwards. In other words the results for  labor creation in the two months before May were lower than the government had originally said they were.

It is this kind of manipulation by individual analysts which so distorts the true economic picture. People are running away from stocks in droves. The interest rate on the 10 year treasury is the lowest in history.

People are scared because they don't trust Wall Street. Given what these experts opined it seems like a perfectly rational response to me.

King Dimon and Congress

I just saw a headline which said "Dimon agrees to appear before Congress." The sub head says "he hasn't agreed to a date."

Well that's just fine. We learned long ago that Congress was owned by the big banks, so it isn't surprising he gets to pick and choose when he might drop by.

J.P. Morgan Chase, Dimon's bank, recently botched some really big bets (they prefer to call it hedging) which went bad. J.P. Morgan Chase, of course, doesn't really care very much since we, the taxpayers of the United States, will always come in to make them whole.

It's pretty clear that we didn't learn anything from 2008 and the financial crisis. The Republicans have been trying to fight off any new regulation of the banks. Dimon, however, really failed to oversee the bank's trading strategies and has made it more difficult for the GOP to hide the fact they're for the rich people.

The Democratic senator from New York, Chuck Schumer, wouldn't do anything to upset the banks under any conditions.

The common people in America may still not understand that they mean nothing to the congressmen, senators, and bankers who run America. Maybe we'll never get it.

Sorry Jews, You're Not Going With US

I find the position of born-again Christians fascinating when it comes to the state of Israel. They protect Israel because it must exist for the Apocalypse and the Rapture that follows.

So think about this, in the Rapture only Christians will escape to heaven, leaving the Jews behind in the smoldering ashes.

I suppose this doesn't bother the Jews, because they don't believe in what we call the New Testament anyway. However I'm a Christian who has a Jewish daughter, who was brought up in that tradition because her grandparents are Holocaust survivors.

Christians who use Acts 4: 8 through 12, to insist only Christians will have life after death are clearly setting up the Jews as a fall guy. In other words, you're not going to go, but we will use you for a while.

Somehow that doesn't sound like the Christian thing to do.

The Ballad of Zhong Yao Ren

               The American immigration experience wasn't always easy if you weren't white. I'm going to tell you a story, but change the name because his descendents still live in Arizona. It's a story that unfortunately is a part of American history. He was of Chinese heritage  so let's call this the Ballad of Zhong Yao Ren.

               A second generation American, Zhong owned a grocery store in Phoenix, Arizona. He was at a gas station near his market when a deputy sheriff came over and, without cause, beat him so badly he spent a week in the hospital. Phoenix didn't help with the medical bills. Later they let this deputy sheriff go. But back then in Arizona there was going to be no acknowledgment of a racially motivated beating.

               A patriotic man, Zhong loved America and all it stood for. He was proud and thought he should be accorded the same respect as any other man born in this country or naturalized here.

               One day he was in his new grocery store in a town outside of Phoenix (we won't mention the name of the town). All of a sudden this former deputy sheriff, who had turned into a common drunk, walked into the market. Zhong asked the man if he recognized him. The white man said no. At that point Zhong, who was cutting meet with a cleaver, raised his arm and chased the white man out the door, his cleaver above his head.

               He died a year ago, leaving behind his very successful children. They've never questioned their rights as Americans. My family came on the Mayflower, but Zhong knew what being American was all about. It doesn't matter when you arrived here; what color your skin is; or what your beliefs are. Everyone in this country deserves respect and Zhong Yao Ren never forgot that.

              

China: Where Supression of Infomation makesThings Worse for the Government and the People

In China, which has autocratic rule, you can shut down the channels of information available in most countries. In the Middle Kingdom, you can pretty much say what you want in an e-mail to one other person. The problem comes when you try to make a statement to multiple people. Your Internet provider will have to quickly step in and make sure this e-mail won't make political waves. China used to be very good at shutting down the flow of information, but just lately a crash of a new high-speed train got wider notice than party leaders expected.

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have very good coverage of China and the Wall Street Journal translates its stories into Chinese and posts them on a website. I read both papers, and from conversations with Chinese friends on the Mainland, seem to know more than they do about what's going on with Bo Xilai and the death of a British citizen.

It has all the ingredients of Greek Tragedy. An ambitious wife with a lust for power and money, combined with the death of a British citizen who was apparently helping the party leader of Chongqing get money out of the country to foreign bank accounts. However, when you listen to the stories many Chinese immigrants pass from person to person, you hear about sexual activities by both Bo and his wife, multiple murders and vast amounts of money. The stories defy credibility.

This is all because China has worked so hard to keep information from its people. Rumors abound when there is a lack of freedom of information. Whatever strange things happened in Chongqing, the rumors have taken over. Suppressing information only makes people want to know more. And in a country in which gossip is on a world class level, the most lurid is bound to get the most attention. At a crucial moment of change in the leadership of China, rumors only fuel an instability where citizens imagine the worst

ADHD and Memories of Unfulfilled Dreams

For those of us with ADHD there is a compensation. I call it memories of unfulfilled dreams.

I guess it really started in the hammock strung between two trees on our farm. Because I was seven I was allowed to lay in it and travel to different worlds as my mind wandered off. But mostly my mind focused on the future of living on the farm, learning about life from my dad, and how perfect it would be.

Then I got a mild case of polio, which my dad caught, and within five days he was gone. Because of a pre-existing condition my father had no insurance. The farm and all the equipment, that hadn't been stolen in the night by neighbors, was sold off. However, to this day, I have a memory about the world I created while lying in the hammock. When things were tough, and if I didn't know if the Social Security check was going to feed us until the end of the month, I'd  go back to that memory, as if life had really turned out like that.

Later on I got ready for college.  Because of all the old movies I saw on television I envisioned Proms where they played "Deep Purple," and you met the girl next door and started life together. We'd go to the bonfire and then to the big game and life would be idyllic. There are less and less days in which I allow myself to drift back to that memory of unrealized expectations. I became a college Prof., a University VP and saw that the politics played in academia were probably more vicious than that involved in reaching the CEO position at Exxon.  However, for years, during those frequent  days as I fought that inner railroad train that wouldn't stop, they could be  forgotten by letting my mind drift back to those perfect worlds I'd created that never had a reality to match.

The Knock on the Door That Never Came

The other day I was talking to a friend in mainland China. I was complaining about the gridlock in Washington. We talked for a bit about Bo Xilai and how little the Chinese people knew about what was going on.

He then said to me, "I think you live in a very good country."

Those words brought back my perspective. As much as I criticize politics in this country, I can never forget why my ancestors came here in 1620. And it isn't just religious freedom that marks our country as a fine place. People still can be outspoken about any subject they want and about any one of our leaders.

 Some time ago, when I was in China, I picked up the Chinese name for GW. He was called Xiao (little) Bush because his father was Da (big) Bush. Bringing that concept back to America I put it in a very different context, one that the Chinese never intended. But I could denigrate his decisions in a college classroom. In China, denigrating Hu Jin Tao could end you in the slammer.

Calling him little Bush was a cheap shot, but I took it. They never came in the night to take me away.

I think I live in a very good country

My Party is Right. Your Party is Evil

America's bifurcation has reached new levels of absurdity. More and more people are realizing this and 40% of the electorate are registered Independent. While Democrats have 38%, Republicans have just 28%.

When each party takes control of the presidency or a house of Congress they believe they've been given a mandate. This is patently ridiculous. The party that has gained the power quickly pushes things too far and the independents become disturbed.

If Santorum became the nominee of the Republican Party in the fall, Republicans would soon go the way of the Whigs.

With the revelation that John Corzine is a crook, just like all the other bankers, the Democrats can get off their high horse. He authorized the transfer of clients money into an overseas account the company used to meet the firm's obligations.

Whether the Justice Department, or the SEC will throw him in jail, of course, is another question. The fox is guarding the hen house and he was a powerful Democrat.

What I've seen from the Corzine incident is the inability of Democratic Party members to see that a member of their party could be a criminal. I already knew the Republicans were incapable of identifying the wolves among the sheep.

My guess is the percentage of the electorate that registers Independent will only grow. Both parties have blinders on. The Democrats don't want to reduce the deficit. The Republicans don't want to pay for the wars they start or the basic safety net required for the American people.

The next time you think you're right, and the other party is evil, try to think that you might be making another decision based solely on ideology. As they say, "the Devil knows Scripture too."

France, Savoir Faire and Soccer

As an American, when I used to visit France it was at best a mixed experience. Since I speak Chinese, not the lingua franca (which once was French), I was barely tolerated. But I've changed that situation.

When I lived in Europe, the last French official soccer jersey they had for sale was the home jersey. (They won the '98 World Cup in the Blue one.)  This white jersey stands out because everybody wanted the Bleu one.

Every day on my last visit to the City of Light I wore this, washing it at night in the hotel. I was waited on first in small restaurants. I also tried not to be an American, by not yelling and by being polite. (man, it was hard)

I also said only two things loudly which were "La Belle France, and "Vive La France."

I'm looking forward someday to once again being the Toast of Paris.

Bloomberg Tries to Destroy Whistle Blower

For the last 36 hours Bloomberg television has been trying to destroy the reputation of Greg Smith, the Goldman Sachs whistle blower. They've put on everyone they can think of who will demean him. They talk about how he'll never get another job. They talk about how low-level he is and they talk about the fact he only makes $500,000 a year.

This concerted effort to destroy his credibility makes me wonder if Wall Street learned anything at all about the financial crisis.

I no longer respect Mayor Bloomberg and will not watch Bloomberg.com. This unrelenting attack is one of the most vicious  in journalism and makes Bloomberg look like Rupert Murdoch.

People who know Greg Smith, who worked in the London office of Goldman Sachs say he is a man of the highest principles. He is someone who is ethical to a fault. Because of this, he wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times which talked about the culture of Goldman Sachs. He said the bank tried to make money for the firm at the expense of its clients. Goldman Sachs has had its ethics questioned over and over. Its  flagrant self dealing is a matter of record.

We now know that Wall Street has learned nothing from the Financial Crisis. It will continue to do anything to make money at the expense of its clients. MF Global shows how little ethics matters on Wall Street.

Bloomberg has shown how little he respects the average American. I can't believe how much I used to admire him. Now I wonder just how slimy he is. Our country is in trouble and our public figures don't care.