The Purple Onion

Buried in the floor of the National Cathedral, Washington DC, along with President Woodrow Wilson, side-by-side, the ashes of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, Keller's teacher and companion. Anne Sullivan had her first experience helping someone totally disabled, a deranged child in an asylum. Later, Helen Keller's parents sought her help for a child who could not see or hear, a child in a world of total darkness. Sullivan first made neurological contact with Keller at a hand water-pump by pumping water over Keller's hand. She then used the methods first developed by Spanish monks, sign language on her hands.

As we know, Keller went on to be one of the world's great inspirations; honored around the world for her writing and speaking. Hitler so despised disabled people that the first book on his list in his book burning, cleansing, of German libraries, The Autobiography of Helen Keller. Keller one said that her food would probably taste better, if just once she had the chance to see it. In modern day parlance, the fancy restaurant sells the sizzle, not the steak. So, sight and hearing leads to dining appreciation.

Thank God, I was not blessed with an expensive palate. From a poverty stricken home, we were blessed with anything to eat. Through many years of college, I settled for the drips and drabs of food (for eight years, ate on $1 a day). My great gastronomical experience was in the military service...I even enjoyed hospital food, food on airplanes. Even now, living alone, preparing my own food, I am blessed with whatever I can “round up”. “Going out” to eat, entails stopping with my driver at a fast-food place. But, over the years, traveling the world, I have been exposed to outstanding cuisine in extraordinary restaurants, mostly as a guest of someone wanting/willing to pay the price.

At a meeting in San Francisco, I ate at The Purple Onion, one of the world's famed restaurants, founded in 1952, where such stars as Phyllis Diller and Bob Newheart were discovered. Over the years, owning a prestigious co-op apartment in Manhattan, where I would spend a week each month, I was invited several times to eat at the Russian Tea Room, operated by Russian Immigrants from 1927 until 1989, this famous restaurant is right next to Carnegie Hall, a favorite eating place of Ayn Rand and Toscanini.

Whether in a famous, expensive restaurant or a fast-food place, the line of demarcation between success and failure, always, management. There was a time when we stop at a McDonalds on the way to the beach, the last time, I said, “never again!” Such filth, recognized even by a blind man. Surely you have been in a business and said, “I would like to manage this place for 10 minutes.” Surely, one would think that any management worthy of the name could see the sorriness of the operation. It all starts in the home, children who cannot be disciplined, children who are unclean, who have no sense of class, will later as adults demonstrate their ignorance on the job. Whether you talk with the largest employer in town, or the smallest employer in town, all will give you the same answer when it comes to success in business: employees.

Your employees can make or break your business, at the Purple Onion, Russian Tea Room, McDonald's, Hardees, Walmant, Sears, anywhere, anytime, any place that you eat, shop, obtain service of any type, it is all a matter of management.

I once heard a recording of Walmart's business practices, everything in that, the world's largest business, done to exact specification. I believe you will find the same in franchise operations such as a McDonald's. Of course, as with government operations, where SOP (standard operating procedures) manuals are right there to tell you how to do everything. Some managers and employees just don't care, so it is in government, local, state, federal, where many bureaucrats just go through the motions until retirement, many elected politicians just get out of the job “what they can, while they can”. Many teachers, technicians, military people, professors, pastors, just play the games.

Cultural elites have no trouble with honesty, sincerity, passion as long as it involves them; they are a member of the “me” generation. Matt Drudge said, “anyone can be a specialist with a brain and a modem.” I have never known a con man I did not like, this is their forte. But, don't try to fool this old, blind man, there are things I can read about every individual I meet, like reading a book. Most of the time we are not fooling anyone, you can see the deception in their eyes, hear the fakery in their voice, determine their passion in their body language.

Speaking of food, one of my cousins came by my house and brought me a plate of food, he and his family had been eating at a restaurant, they took all their scraps, leftover bread, put it on a paper plate and brought it to me. The fakery of some people is not easy to discover, on that same day I gave him hand-painted, valuable glassware which his great grandmother kept on her dining room buffet. The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. (Proverbs 15:3)

In my lifetime, Americans have become callous, fat and lazy. We have gotten a report from the commission appointed by the President to analyze our nation's deficit, over $200 trillion dollars. Any cuts, anywhere, will be considered draconian. After all, with such low interest rates, it costs no more to pay the interest rates now than it was a few years ago when the deficit was much, much lower. When you come to the reality of inflation, interest rates, the horror pit of taxation on property, you understand what poor management has been exercised on the national, state and local level. It is so simple, the more cuts in spending that are made, the more money which comes through taxation, money supposedly to payoff debt. Politicians can hardly wait to spend that money on some new hypocritical programs. The government has effectively destroyed all incentive toward success, hard work, providing for your future. Obama, Pelosi, Geitner, does not care anything about management...their, or your savings, only their or your spending, they still think you can manage your way out of a hole if you keep digging. The risk, the cost of employing people, insurance, the present day tort system, is not building a business or economy by destroying it, we have now seen what it is like to build a big, beautiful house, the American Dream, and then put a match to it.

Spin the Bottle

From 1962 to 2009, perhaps the most famous movie series produced in history was that of Ian Fleming's hero, James Bond, 007. I have stayed in two hotels in Asia where the Bond films were made. Although I cannot read the books or see the films, I still think the episodes of the Bond exploits are very exciting in this world of science fiction. I often feel I am living in a James Bond movie, with the technology and characters, stranger than any fiction writer could imagine, operating in seats of power in Washington, state capitals, and even county office buildings. Ian Fleming, on his most imaginary day, would be unable to create a Paulson, Bernanke, Obama, or God help us, Rahm Emanuel.

In a country, which was first in flight, actually “supposedly” had men walking on the moon, we do not send up a space vehicle if a bad cloud is on the horizon. In a country, whose scientific laboratory have coughed out such life-saving and life extending pharmaceuticals such as Enzyme inhibitors, insulin inhalers, microscopic transplants and peer review knowledge astounding to the rest of the world, we are about to totally cripple our admittedly flawed health care with Obama death care. This care concocted in a bill covering over 1,000 pages, on page 16, prohibits private insurance and speaks of reproductive services throughout, which is nothing more than abortion. And, as in England, lesbians can become artificially inseminated. Right here in this county in North Carolina, lesbian Julia Boseman, married to another lesbian who was inseminated, just went through a ridiculous, decadent divorce proceeding in Raleigh where it was pointed out that they are both druggies and unfit to raise any child as well as to represent the lowest of the low in a legislative body.

The media, totally under the hypnotic spell of these liberal “wanna-be” socialist nations have spun deceit with Indy 500 record speed. In traveling throughout the world, the first question any young person asks me, “Can you help me get to America?” We have been the guiding light, the land of opportunity, for people “yearning to be free” (Emma Lazarus; Statue of Liberty) from the time Dr. Franklin said, “We have a Republic if we can hold onto it.” But, the “forbidden fruit” of greed which inflicted our first ancestors and caused them to get thrown out of their garden, has so enticed corrupt officials, government and financial, that hard-working, tax-paying, God-fearing citizens now are faced with the disaster of homelessness.

Just in the US Energy Department, $90 million was spent last year on legal fees, trying to keep citizens form learning about their activity. In North Carolina, $635 million was spent in the Department of Mental Health and they have no earthly idea where the money went. President Bush, number 39's, retarded son, number 41, spend $350 billion trying to elude a recession and no one knows were Mr. Paulson spent that. His successor, the Obama-Bernanke-Geitner has spent over $700 billion and no one knows where that money is. The land of the free and the home of the brave has become the land of the shackled and the home of the cowardly.
To date, $915 billion has been spent in Iraq to rid one county of a tyrant, Saddam Hussein, a man found cowering in a rat hole; a man who had brought near-disaster to an entire area of the world through his treachery. We have lost thousands of our finest simply because of the ineptness of such state department officials as April Gillespie and military officials as Donald Rumsfeld. Could anyone, with any intelligence, explain why, in a country at war, the number of motor vehicles in Iraq could have increased by 80% while the people were at war? Perhaps the enemy needed more cars with which to haul bombs around in which to kill our finest.
One of the greatest generals the world has ever known, General George Patton, who led American troops to victory in a marvelous way, was killed by his own country, and it did not ruffle one feather. A great president, President John F. Kennedy, was murdered by his own country, and every means possible has been used to cover up the killing.

The news, visual and print, have learned to spin anything, anytime, just to suit the purposes of those who cherish the thoughts of a defeated America. Even Pat Robertson, son of a US Senator, noted university president, probably best known media commentator in the world, has said, “Obama is here, socialism in America is a fact.” Even Roger Baldwin, communist chairman of the ACLU for 30 years, could not have imagined how easily it has happened. Nikita Khrushchev, successor to Stalin, who had to murder an estimated 100 million of his fellow Russians in order to establish Marxist Socialism (Communism) predicted that we would become socialist one politician at a time, “by drips and drabs.” A black communist said on a local radio station here recently, “Socialism is good. We already have Social Security, we have socialized food programs in the schools and in the communities, we have socialized medical care (Medicare and Medicaid), the schools and universities are all socialized and all have socialist instructors. Everything you do in your life is controlled by a license or a permit. The government is slowly but surely controlling all your needs and you can feel free to spend your own money on your wants.” He further stated, “You should be willing to pay more in taxes and just learn to relax. We no longer need God; God never needed us. We need government and government needs us.”

When we were children, we played the game 'Spin the Bottle.' The lucky or unlucky person, as the case may be, was “it” when the bottle pointed. We are all “it” now. Each man, woman and child, in spite of the spin of the liberal media, owes the Federal Government $500,000 each. Do you have yours? The time has come to cut out such useless government programs such as NASA (When is the last time NASA accomplished anything?). It is time for the government to retire all politicians and bureaucrats with the same expectations as the rest of us. It is time to end all grants to college students, let them work through their college education like the rest of us did. It is time to end all government subsidies for school food (we took a peanut butter sandwich to school and we ate breakfast at home). It is time to end all subsidies to farmers, it is time to end all food stamps. The disabled, the veterans, most elderly do not participate in these programs. It is time for the average citizen to learn to live like the largest minority in this country (estimated 38 million), the disabled live, they live and survive the best we can: thankful for crumbs from anyone's table. The veterans, many of them disabled, again, thankful for crumbs from anyone's table. At least, rich, poor, black, white, learned or unlearned, we are not facing the certain fate of the abortion of the unborn or the certain euthanasia of old people. This is not spin, this is a roller coaster of facts.