Oasis

Into each life some rain must fall
But too much is falling in mine
Into each heart some tears must fall
But some day the sun will shine
(Sung by Ella Fitzgerald)

Those of us in the sunset years can still hear Ella Fitzgerald singing this marvelous song. There has always been such a disparity in life. For instance, one-half block from my house, taxpayers have spent millions for a river walk, I have never been on it. It is the sighted folks who enjoy river walks, bicycle trails, parks, libraries, concert halls. The country's largest minority, the disabled, are just expected to keep working and pay taxes.

If anything could affect my relationship with God, it would be the uneven “playing field” of life. Because, through the eyes of the world, not through God's eyes, things seem so unfair, the word fairness is not found in the scripture, rather “God is Boss”. He expects us to thrive because of His sovereignty.

The true oasis is found in desert areas of the world, you can ride for many miles, just sand, and then, all of a sudden you find a small area of arid land, trees, flowers, a watering hole. Can one even imagine the splendor of this place to people living in the hot sand of a desert.

Reared in poverty stricken eastern North Carolina (if eastern North Carolina from Highway 95 to the ocean were a state, it would be the poorest state in the union), farm people who worked hard the entire week, on a Saturday afternoon, would find an oasis at the country crossroads, where usually was located a country store where ice was available, cold drinks, snacks, this was usually the location of the country school. Always, without exception, the location of large ball-fields, this was the gathering place, on Saturday, of farm families, where younger men could play baseball, the old men could watch, the women could visit. There was usually areas where children could play games, this was the oasis of the poor people, both rural and urban. You could always hear one say to the other, I'll see you in church tomorrow, another oasis/escape for the hard-working people of the world. The wealthy have their country clubs, their golf courses, their swimming pools, and I suppose you could call this an oasis for the elitists.

In the world of the jet-set, I have had the privilege of sticking my nose into a few jet-set extravaganzas. I am not one of these people, just an observer, just passing through. On the Island of Majorca, in the Mediterranean, an island which you can always identify by their many windmills. A beautiful resort island of mountain retreats, and coastal, lavish hotels. One older man at one of these hotels, plainspoken, “nouveau riche” (newly rich), took a liking to me because I was someone who could never identify him (I have been totally blind since the Korean war). He had developed and owned the manufacturing company for a milk container, he had sold the engineering patent, the company, to a large conglomerate. This multimillionaire and his wife, just spent their time traveling from one wealthy “watering hole” to another. Occupying the most expensive rooms, eating the most expensive food, playing tennis in the morning, golf in the afternoon, if a casino were available, he spent his evenings in the casino. He and his wife's lives were devoted to self-indulgence. He said, “I have already given my two children all the money they will ever need. It is up to them to do the rest.”

You find this type Americans and Europeans all over the world, I found that the Asians just enjoyed life at home, rich or poor. In Greece, I met a couple from St. Louis, two married lawyers, I later visited them in their home. He had been left a tremendous trust fund, and they spent their entire lives traveling and visiting wealthy friends. They ate out every meal, in fact, I do not believe there was a cook stove in their house.

On a ship to the Arctic, I made the acquaintance of a woman lawyer from Maryland, she told me that she spent her entire life traveling the world. I said, “you must have had a very successful practice.” She said, “no, I never practiced law. My father left me well off...he was extremely successful, made more money than any man I have ever known, he was a connector. Connected politicians at Washington and elsewhere with people of wealth. The people in Washington who think they are lobbyists, know nothing, they should have known my father.“

60 years ago, when I was in college, few graduates hankered for government jobs. Firstly, in North Carolina, you had to be a Democrat to get a government job, whether working on the highway or even teaching school. Not much has changed during the last one hundred years, you still have to have the Democrat county chairman's approval to even drive a school bus. But, salaries and job benefits cannot be surpassed by the private sector. As bad as the corrupt situation appears in North Carolina and most other states, perhaps the zenith in political corruption has taken place in the poor California town of Bell.


Oct 22 (Reuters Legal) - California's attorney general asked a state court on Thursday to appoint a monitor to oversee the finances of the city of Bell, California, which has been embroiled in a scandal over the excessive compensation of some of its former top officials.

Attorney General Jerry Brown's move came as eight current and former Bell officials, including its former city manager, who was paid a salary of nearly $800,000, pleaded not guilty on Thursday to public corruption charges.

The eight defendants, arrested on September 21, are collectively accused of bilking taxpayers in the blue-collar city of 40,000 out of roughly $5.5 million through excessive salaries, benefits and illicit loans of public money.

They were charged in nearly two dozen counts of misappropriating public funds, including salaries they received for "phantom" meetings that never occurred. Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley has called the scandal in Bell "corruption on steroids."

LINK: (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69K3YU20101022)


In Bell, part-time city council members were earning $100,000 a year, City Manager Rizzo was arrested for conflict of interest and falsification of public records. It should not amaze anyone, included California attorney general Brown, now running for governor, again, ALL Democrats. Democrats have the art of corruption down to a science. But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. (1 Timothy 5:6) Money brings pleasure, money gives man measures of comforts, but it is just dead people walking.

Perhaps the world's great Oasis is Washington, DC. News reports tell us that the nation's capitol has been little affected by this great
recession/depression...that expensive restaurants are full. Housing prices have continued high. There are more federal workers now than ever before, now ~2.7 million. Senator Sessions (R- Alabama) “Over the time that President Obama has been in office, we have lost 2.5 million free enterprise system jobs, and, yet, 500,000 federal government jobs have been added."

When I analyzed the street on which I live, a small southern port city. Like most coastal states, prime retirement areas for government employees. I think of those living on my street, a retired state department official, a retired county official, a retired state judicial official, etc. and as is the case in most places, all drawing healthy government checks.

A retired New York state police official, and they draw the best retirement checks known to man, told me, “I make more in retirement than I ever made in working”. This is the oasis of life for most retired government officials and workers, including former presidents, former senators, former judiciary, former congress persons, former military personnel. Do we actually think we can provide an oasis for everyone, when we conclude that we have $202 trillion dollars in entitlements, and $46 trillion to which the government is responsible in the current foreclosure fiasco? Because of the government monetary policy's lack of regulation, everyone working for government, banking systems, healthcare systems and anything else involving government regulations are now government employees.

They are rioting in France, protesting in England, bitter across America, everyone wanting an oasis. The oasis is a place of refreshing and comfort after the daily trials of hard work and free will. Life on this earth is short at best, most of us are content to wait out time of eternal joy.

Electric Sofa

Just as death has become so sanitized, one of my friends, who is a funeral director, said many of the wealthy families do not even go to the funeral home to make a casket selection anymore. They just call and say, “I'm sending down some clothes, use next to the cheapest thing you have because the casket will be covered with the church pall anyway.” Since only the family will go to the cemetery, no one sees how cheaply the family member is buried. He said, however, they never say the cheapest, they say NEXT to the cheapest. He said the families who can least afford the expensive burials are the ones who go to the funeral home, make the selections and actually show love and concern for the deceased. He said, many of the wealthier families, never even look at the deceased and the entire matter has become just perfunctory.

Since I am totally blind and have not seen a newspaper in 40 years, I do listen to the obituaries on a radio which reads the newspaper and I noticed that a large percentage of deceased people are now cremated. This seems to be the preferred method for many people to dispose of their family members bodies. Since we, as a nation, as a people, even as a 'supposed' people of faith, have just made a 'fast-food' determination for our lives. I can remember when church members were always taken to the church for their funeral. I have stopped going to family funerals because they have all gotten so cheap that they no longer go to the blessed church where the member had served faithfully, but rather just have the service in the funeral home; sanitized, less scrutinized and now, I am not ashamed to criticize. I feel any Christian who has served the church their entire life, should have the blessed privilege of the final salutation in God's house where their worship and eternal security had been finalized.

As young school students, usually around the 6th grade, our teacher always arranged a field trip to Raleigh to visit the state capital, museum, etc. Back then, the governors were honorable men, not shameless thieves such as recent occupants of the 'Gingerbread House'. The governor always took time to shake the hands of the students, when they filed through his office. We would go to Central Prison, where a guard would show us the electric chair in which capital murderers were put to death. Like other deaths, already described, it has all been so sanitized now, and the death, even for a murderer is made nice and easy, just by the insertion of a needle. In Florida, the electric chair became a real problem, because it 'barbecued' some prisoners on their way to complete emulsification in Hell. Because of the grilled death, the chair at the Sing Sing prison in New York was called “Old Sparky”. These methods of putting to death the capital offenders of society were very effective to young people, much more than being put to 'permanent sleep' by the insertion of a needle. I am convinced that the guillotine (the ancient French method of beheading prisoners) or the still military practice of the firing squad (one convicted with the sentence of death, blindfolded, and 6 of his fellow soldiers firing a rifle, 5 with blanks and only 1 with a bullet so that no one ever knew who really did the killing) would perhaps cause some greedy politicians and others to hesitate before lying, cheating and stealing from the public.

I am suggesting a very economical solution for those convicted and sentenced to death; the use of an electric sofa, instead of an electric chair, whereby several can be put to death at once with less cost. For instance, yesterday a congressman, Representative William Jefferson, was convicted of 11 of a 16 count indictment for corruption; Mr. Bernie Madoff, who eats better than I do for the rest of his life in prison, should also sit on this sofa. Along with the former Secretary of the Treasury under ex-president Bush, who may even find himself on the sofa, Henry M. Paulson who is reported to have taken $4.7 trillion from the Federal Reserve bank in Richmond, for his own use, and God only knows how much more for the use of his associates at Goldman Sachs. Mr Paulson, a member of the Christian Science church, along with Baptist Jefferson and the Jewish Mr. Madoff, would probably have nice internments. Inching closer to the electric sofa, the present Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Timothy Geithner (Treasury Secretary, yet unable to pay his own taxes) and the un-seated governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich. (2nd Serbian to be elected governor in the United States) I firmly believe that a few people getting their 'just rewards' on the electric sofa, would ease the temptation of many others to rob the hard working people who were foolish enough to put them in office and might be the most effective 'change' in the history of politics.

Another electric sofa could be used very effectively at the United Nations building in New York, a building which has been almost useless for anything else. In the anxiety and anxiousness for 'ethnic cleansing' and peace around the world, seating such tyrants as Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who has ruined, murdered and robbed the country which, at one time, was the 'bread basket' of Africa; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who again, was installed as the leader of Iran, who has murdered his way back into power; Hamas co-founder, Mahmoud al-Zahar, who has turned ancient biblical Gaza, which hard working Jews had converted into an agricultural paradise, but were foolish enough to vacate, leaving behind 25 Synagogues, which were immediately destroyed, agricultural equipment and greenhouses (destroyed), by these terrorist infected Hamas/Palestinians, into a launching pad for missiles directed at the very people who have foolishly exchanged land for peace; Vladimir Putin, former KGB terrorist, trying to turn Russia back to the USSR threat; Hugo Chávez, dictator of Venezuela, wanna be dictator of all of South America; North Korea's “god” figure, Kim Il-sung who will die happy when he throws some nuclear missiles in every direction, while surrounding himself with the Nordic females flown in each week; and certainly the Castro Brothers of Cuba. A public electrocution on the electric sofa in the main assembly hall of the UN building would probably do more for world peace than all the billions of taxpayer dollars with which the US has tried to increase its influence throughout the world.

Unscrupulous, incorrigible politicians who have a 'winning way' of getting elected (I have never known a conman I did not like) and then by 'hook and crook', trying to stay elected. (most politicians, instead of taking care of government business, spend their entire hours day and night that they are awake, just raising the millions of dollars necessary to stay in power) Power means money and security for their life and the lives of their families. (the Clinton's reported an income of $107 million since leaving office) I have never known an elected politician, in office or out of office, who did not get high paid appointments to boards, unbelievable fees for speaking, and selling of books. (which some people are stupid enough to buy) There is no humility among politicians just as there is no honor among thieves.

The most dangerous virus to infect human physiology is the 'Potomac microbe', which can turn an otherwise decent human being into a money grabbing, notoriety graveling, media darling who had rather enjoy the 'heaven' he has found on junkets and attention of lobbyists, than the 'good name' that he treasured when at the bottom of the ladder. Family, friends, and faith, mean nothing to a politician who has sold his soul for a saucer of pottage.

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, Loving favor rather than silver and gold. The rich and the poor have this in common, The LORD is the maker of them all. A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished. By humility and the fear of the LORD Are riches and honor and life. Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse; He who guards his soul will be far from them. (Proverbs 21:1-5)

No Pain, No Gain

Much younger, much more energetic, much more ambitious, working out in the gym, one had to experience the strain and pain of opposing forces to build up body musculature. Only through discipline of exercise and limiting what goes in the mouth will you or anyone else ever get your weight, your general health, your appearance under control. It is as simple as that. These diets, regardless of their advertisements only help one person, the person who promotes them.

Dr. Atkins at the height of his diet in 1998 had 87 employees, treated over 50,000 patients and made $100 million dollars in one year. Dr. Atkins died of a head injury following a fall, but previously he had suffered a heart attack. THE MORTALITY RATE IS STILL 100%. Many of these diet promoters (South Beach, Jenny Craig, etc.) who have gotten wealthy by seeing people take off weight and then put it right back on, losing it and then finding it, will face the judgment of God for their deception. It may surprise both believers and non-believers that all will be judged (John 5:28) even those who have been dead for thousands of years. I ride by one church, mid-city, where, in it's early days on dirt streets, a cemetery was in the rear. I think of how long these people have been dead but, they too will be judged.

It was just announced that China had an increase of over 10% in their national economy last year...at a time when most of the world was in recession. Also, just announced, the only country in the European Union to have an increase in national economy last year was Poland. Poland's economy grew 1.7%. Why does Poland grow and the other European countries do not grow? Because Poland has known the totalitarian control and authoritarianism of Communism. The Pols are just happy for government to get out of the way, to let them have responsibility for their own lives.

Why does Communist China have a 10% increase? The first thing a company in the United States cuts is employees and employee benefits. I have been to China three times, I know, I have seen slave labor. You cannot beat slave labor production and sales by a slave-labor company cutting prices on all competition. Try getting into a Wal-Mart parking lot; Wal-Mart has put more small businesses out of business than famine or disease...all to the benefit of Communist China.

Last week, in a speech given in West Palm Beach, Attorney General Holder announced 5,000 pending indictments by the Department of Justice of individuals linked to financial institution fraud as part of an overall targeting of market manipulators and cheaters across the board. He said that he had devoted many years of his life investigating the sedition of brokers and other financial people in the cheating of the American public. It is about time. I have written SCC, North Carolina's Secretary of State, FTC, and everyone else who can read, about the cheating of the investing public. Many of these brokerage houses, much like a salesman in a shoe store, will just employ anyone who can breathe, the salesman in a shoe store-a shoe horn, the investment broker-a computer, and the public is at their mercy. My last broker, representing a large trust company had only two items in his resume which he always announced. He had been in the securities business for 28 years and his father was a Baptist preacher. On this, I trusted his integrity...much to my sorrow. If I had the money lost by investment brokers, taking advantage of a blind man, I would be a wealthy man. The Mayor of New York City is worth $17 billion, he paid $108 million to purchase his last term in office but, he can see.

I wonder how many times I have written Mr. Holder's Department Of Justice and his Department of Americans With Disabilities only to get the usual government generic reply, when it is obvious they did not even read your information or study the proof sent, “get yourself a lawyer”. Mr. Holder wants to pass out indictments to 5,000 thieves like Jesus passed out a small boy's lunch to 5,000 hungry men plus women and children. Christ was successful, all were filled, 12 baskets of leftovers collected. Mr. Holder, like the rest of the Obama Nation talk of “hope” and “change” but their words are empty. Like the woman running for US Senate in Massachusetts, they may be able to “ride out” their ambition, but the American people are getting less stupid. We know that the thieves who created the problems are the same thieves being asked to solve them.

Every other advertisement on television or radio entices one to buy gold. Not since F.D.R. dried up the gold market in 1933 or Nixon latched the gold door in 1971, has gold been so promising ($1,200 an ounce). You can be sure that the criminals are always a few steps ahead of you. God alone knows how much of the largess given by concerned citizens in the Haiti earthquake will wind up in the pockets of the greedy, not the needy. Tungsten has the same weight as gold...already, counterfeit gold bars are in play both here and abroad. Russia, China and India are the big buyers of Gold. China and India just bought 108 billion in gold bars from the International Monetary Fund.

China has learned that a well-financed criminal operation has put in its store house 60 metric tonnes of fake gold bars. We have heard of fake gold coins. Many of us in the antique markets have been fooled by fools gold. Like carefully-copied artwork, which often fools the art appraiser, fortunes and even hard-earned savings will be lost not just in fiat paper, but fake gold bars. Please tell Mr. Holder to double the guards at Fort Knox. More importantly, lock up Henry Paulson of Goldman Sachs, profiting $12.9 billion from the bailout of AIG...and even representative Charles Rangel, US House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, who did not know he is supposed to pay tax on his $75,000 in rental income...next to the prison cell of Bernard Madoff, who stole $85 billion from his investors and which is now in a Tel Aviv Israel bank...Tim Geithner, Treasury Secretary, who did not pay $34,000 in self-employment taxes, but is after you for your taxes, having just employed additional IRS collectors...making Arkansas congressman (Wilbur Mills) in a Potomac Basin with Fannie Flagg seem almost innocent though at the time this wet congressman and wet stripper eclipsed all news.

Don't mix reality with politics. Morality has ceased to have a part in Washington life. I knew the family of Lexington, NC native Judge Hubert Olive, judge at the Nuremberg trials. The Nazi criminals said they had not broken German laws...it was simply a matter of morality. Like abortion, prayer in schools, Nixon selling American real gold for $42 an ounce, it is not a matter of law, but a matter of morality.

When will Americans demand morals from their leaders? Under the Geneva convention, a warrior is held to a very high standard. Those who survive come home to a very low standard, a low standard of care in a VA hospital, a low standard of burial at death ($300 if not service-connected), a low standard of conduct from elected politicians. Those who have suffered the most pain, for little gain (IOUs at the Social Security Office) are the fathers and mothers who have reared the children who now work and pay the taxes for the bailouts, the sell outs, and the warriors who are willing to protect this less than honorable country.

Bye Bye Bernie

In April, 1960, I ventured to the West Side of Manhattan to see the new musical, Bye Bye Birdie, based on the induction of Elvis Presley into the military service. The play became a hit on Broadway and has remained one of Broadway's leading money makers.

Yesterday, the world got a chance to say 'Bye, Bye Bernie' to the crook, scammer, Bernard Madoff who has reportedly stolen $65 billion dollars from hard working, trusting citizens who believed that by giving their money to him for investment purposes, they would come out the better. After all, Bernie Madoff was a chairman of the board of the NASD (National Association of Securities Dealers), was a founder and director of the NASDAQ; even the SEC (securities and exchange commission) called upon him for advice. He was the “Perle Mesta” of the Congressional political investors. The parties which he gave and the parties which he attended in Washington, DC were the deception decoys, the guiding light, of the political hacks who are forever looking for an 'easy dollar', in the slime pit, of all slime pits, the decadence of Washington, DC (District of Criminals). Where was the Oversight, where was the SEC, where was the IRS; they were all busy bowing and kissing his ring, the grandest of all gadflys in the arena of Washington's political escapades.

Instead of putting him in a federal prison, with its 'country club' type atmosphere of golf courses and nice food, whether for 1 year or 150 years, he should be dangling and strangling at the end of a rope. Perhaps, if his fellow securities brokers, analysts, editors of the many periodicals involving the 'greats of Wall Street finance', could see him hanging naked at the end of a rope, instead of seeing him, cocktail glass in hand, entertaining the same people he entertained in his Park Avenue penthouse, looking down on we mere peasants, who struggle each day for subsistence, who clip coupons from the newspaper (not stock certificates), to pay the bills legislated by his friends, all would better understand justice.

For 320 years, the public schools of our great nation used the Bible as the dictum and revelation of God's justice and requirements of morality. But, since such people as Madoff and his ilk have 'purchased' the government, who have no fear of the judiciary or congressional oversight, or even investigations by peers; who actually believe that God chose them to enslave the rest of us, even those who have not lost all trust in their fellow man, we wander in the wilderness of deceit, not knowing that there are those whose conscious meets only the hardness of the diamond as a standard.

Please don't expect the American people to be so stupid that this one man, working totally alone, was capable of this extravagant feat. His family, his many employees, inspectors from government agencies, inspectors from taxing authorities (state and federal), should be immediately sentenced for the enabling and conniving, the destruction of lives, the disintegration of the trust of the public; ALL SHOULD BE IN PRISON. Until all the 'shenanigans' of this largest fraud in American history are exposed, any politically incorrect reporter left, should stay on the job, like a bloodhound, smelling out every rotten lead. There is a tremendous difference in robbing a bank and robbing an individual. There is a tremendous difference in robbing one alive today and those, yet born, who will pay the price of these criminals. The judiciary of this country should start an immediate 'cleansing' (we have heard of ethnic cleansing) of all securities agencies, all banks and other facilities that handle the hard earned money of the public.

I was not a Madoff investor. But, most investors have horror stories to tell of the churning of their accounts, limited partnerships, etc. Don't tell me that SEC, FTC, Congressional Oversight Committees, were not informed of such legal 'picking of pockets'. I can show MANY letters which I wrote to these agencies, protesting both legal and illegal treatment. It is rare to get a reply, but when one does arrive, on expensive stationery, you can depend on one sentence always, “Get yourself a lawyer.” It has been my experience, that most lawyers are 'scared to death' of government agencies. My worst experience, was with limited partnerships, which sales people at Merrill Lynch, peppered among their unsuspecting clients, making huge sums in commissions, for these worthless instruments. Most of the time, if you just assume, that like the figures in annual reports, the numbers are mostly imaginary or concocted by some weird formula, you will pay no attention to any numbers at all. How much better off I would be, if I had never invested one thin dime in the securities market.

Recently, a wonderful, thoughtful, daughter in Jerusalem purchased a new mattress for her mother, not knowing that her mother had 'deposited' around $1 million in her old mattress, which the daughter had hauled away to the dump. The mother disclosed that her money was in the mattress due to her 'horrible experiences' with banks. I can well sympathize, I could write a short dissertation about the $5k I have spent in the past 2 years attempting to get 2 national, no service banks out of my life. (First Citizens, Wachovia) It suffices to say that one was so terrible that I transferred to another, which turned out to be even more terrible than the other.

Last year, one of my friends, who had retired in Florida, was notified of the death of a sister. His two sisters, both retired school teachers, still lived together in the home in which they had been reared. Neither had ever married, and my friend had believed that a nephew was taking care of their needs; it turns out, that he was not. Anyway, when my friend arrived in Virginia to assist with final plans, he said to the surviving sister, “Do you have money for the funeral home?” He said, she just pointed to a closet. In the closet, he found their many years of retirement checks, which they had cashed, but since they did not trust the bank, the money was in shoe boxes in the closet and the total amount (he said he counted every dollar) was nearly $250k. Now, would that have not been an expensive fire, simply because, with good reason, these two educated women did not trust the bank! I believe this type activity will be considered brilliant in the future. I would advise anyone to find some good canning jars and use the dirt in their backyard for their banking system. (Be sure and leave someone the information as to the burial plot)

As a totally blind person, all life activities are a matter of faith, opening a can of food, (occasionally I cook something which I never identify) even taking change from someone at a cash register. I do not own a refrigerator that would hold the money cheated from me over a lifetime of doing business with people who have short changed me. I have this consolation, whether it pertains to me, Madoff, SEC, Congress, or even law enforcement; all will stand before our God of judgment and justice with NO defense attorney.

Let the rivers clap their hands;
Let the hills be joyful together
before the LORD,
For He is coming to judge the earth.
With righteousness He shall judge the world,
And the peoples with equity. (Psalm 98:8-9)