Senator McCain no Choice for President

Senator McCain no Choice for President

The more I learn about presidential hopeful Senator John McCain (R. Arizona), the more convinced I am that he is not only a poor choice for the job as president, but as a politician and senator he is from another planet.

In December of last year, McCain introduced the Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act of 2006, an act designed in theory to protect our nation's many exploited children, but in all reality is nothing more than a thinly disguised piece of legislation aimed at limiting bloggers and their right to free speech as afforded by the First Amendment of our Constitution.

In his speech to Congress, McCain stated "The Federal government has in place a system for online companies such as Internet service providers to report images to National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The Center is directed by law to relay that information to Federal and State law enforcement agencies. This reporting system has been successful, but it is in need of several vital improvements. This bill would enhance the current reporting system by expanding the range of companies obligated".

Now don't get me wrong, I am certainly not advocating the right for anyone to manufacture and distribute child pornography, but this act was merely created as a way for Senator McCain to get his "foot in the door" for which allows for the regulation of "grassroots lobbying" and defines such as "the voluntary efforts of members of the general public to communicate their own views on an issue to Federal officials or to encourage other members of the general public to do the same".

While this section endorsed by McCain has subsequently been struck from the bill, it would have allowed Congress to "require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big "K" Street lobbyists", according to Richard A. Viguerie, columnist for the Washington Post. "Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself," McCain's proposal would have introduced legislation making it legal to fine bloggers up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on their comment boards.

This is nothing more than an attempt to impede our rights to free speech as afforded us by our Constitution, and McCain knows it. It's no secret that Senator McCain has aligned himself with anti-bloggers as evidenced by a May, 2000 commencement address he made to the graduating class of the Reverend Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, where he stated "When I was a young man, I was quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, if memory conveniently serves, I was so much more eloquent, well-informed, and wiser than anyone else I knew. It seemed I understood the world and the purpose of life so much more profoundly than most people. I believed that to be especially true with many of my elders, people whose only accomplishment, as far as I could tell, was that they had been born before me, and, consequently, had suffered some number of years deprived of my insights…It's a pity that there wasn't a blogosphere then. I would have felt very much at home in the medium".

What is McCain is saying here, that in his youth he felt so highly of himself that he felt the need to criticize any and all of those around him with any knowledge, and having the opportunity of using the "blogosphere" as today's society does, would have been his way of doing just that? Not only is this offensive to anybody with a blog or website, it's wrong of him to insinuate that those people with blogs only use them as a way to demean others, spread child pornography or endorse terrorist actions. It is certainly true that there are people who use their blogs as a way to push beliefs not popular with others, but haven't authors been doing that since the invention of writing implements? McCain's insistence of censuring bloggers and internet users amounts to nothing more than modern day book burning and is much in line with the way State Controlled Communist China regulates their citizens from world wide access, and any internet use is monitored by state officials which have banned such words and phrases as "Mao Zedong" and Chinese Government" as being too sensitive to include in writings by it's own people.

It's good to see McCain is still maintaining that "eloquence and wisdom" from his youth and no longer has an "infatuation with self expression".

The people of the United States would be doing an injustice to themselves and the rest of the world if they endorsed this right-wing's zealot in his bid for the presidency, and the people of Arizona should seriously consider whether his time as a senator has come and gone.

Jennifer Parcell, True American Hero

Smith a Hero? No. Jennifer Parcell? Yes
The Stupidity of American Hero Worship
by Brian C. Noell

There are times when I am truly ashamed of many of my fellow Americans.

I work mainly out of my home office when I write. That is where I am the most comfortable and productive. My desk faces the picture window allowing me brief little breaks to gaze out and reflect on my thoughts. Usually when I do write, I always have a radio or television on, not because I am watching or listening but more for background noise than anything else. Usually they are on some news station, and I am half listening to them, but as a rule I am usually not very interested in their content, preferring instead to read the news, whether it be over the internet or in newsprint.

A lot of Americans died yesterday, most of whom have names I have never known, and whose names I will never know. They were fathers, mothers, grandparents, uncles, aunts and some were children of other Americans. But in the course of my writing yesterday I couldn’t help but hear the news of the passing of two Americans in particular.

Every news network in America informed us yesterday of the death of Anna Nicole Smith, with many running a news crawl on the lower part of our television screens informing America of the latest updates on her death and the investigation that was to follow.

Smith, who was born Vicky Lynn Hogan in Houston, Texas in November of 1967, is best known for being a former Playboy Playmate of the Year in 1993 and will be remembered most for her marriage to 89 year-old billionaire J. Howard Marshall, thirteen months prior to his death in August of 1995. She subsequently battled Marshall’s heirs for her half of the billionaire’s estate, pursuing his fortune all the way to the Supreme Court. More recently, Smith gave birth to a baby girl in September of 2006, only to lose her grown son Daniel Smith later that same week while he was visiting her in the hospital. She also had her own reality television show known as “Anna Nicole Smith: Exposed”. Since her death yesterday, three men have come forward to claim paternity of her daughter, the first being Howard K. Stern, her attorney; photographer Larry Birkhead, and oddly enough Frederic von Anholt, 64, husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Many of you may think that I am heartless and cold, but who the hell cares about Anna Nicole Smith?

Anna Nicole Smith was nothing more than a two-bit, gold digging, “B” movie sex starlet whore, who got to the top because of her over-sized breast implants and her marriage to a man who was a billionaire and two steps away from death. It sickens me that the major television networks of this country or the world for that matter, as well as the newsprint people have devoted so much coverage to this shining example of American stupidity, and degradation. America should hang their head in shame for ever producing someone of this caliper, and for putting her on a pedestal for everyone to admire. Frankly the only media coverage that should be devoted to her should be the front page of the National Enquirer, and a ten-minute segment on Entertainment Tonight, right before they segway to an ad for penile dysfunction.

As I said earlier in this column, we as Americans lost a true hero yesterday. Nobody knows the name of Jennifer Parcell. Jennifer was a 20 year-old marine corporal whose life came to sudden and tragic end while defending her country in what the Defense Department has described as a “supporting combat operation” in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. I wish I could share more about her life, and I will share what I have found, but when I was doing research for this column earlier today I found over 6000 articles related to Anna Nicole Smith using the search engine Google. I found twelve for Parcell.

Jennifer Parcell, a Bel Air, Maryland native graduated from Fallston High School in 2004. In January of 2005 she followed her older brother Joseph into the Marine Corp. Joseph has been a Marine since 2003. For a month both Jennifer and Joseph were stationed together in Iraq until their tours of duty separated them.

Based out of Okinawa, Japan, Jennifer was a member of Combat Logistics Regiment 3, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, III Marine Expeditionary Force. She loved boating, scuba diving, yoga and music. She was a math wiz in high school, and received six medals while serving with the Marine Corp, one of which was the Humanitarian Service Medal, for the work her and her unit did following the earthquake that ravaged Pakistan last year. She also was the sponsor of a young African child through her church’s missionary undertakings.

Which one of these two women would you be proud to stand next to, call a friend, and more importantly an American?

The Art of Anger Management

The Art of Anger Management

Recently someone who reads a lot of my commentaries asked me if I was feeling alright. I must say I was a little perplexed by that question, but they went on to explain to me that it seemed to them that my writings of late appeared as if I was angry.

I can assure you that I am not angry. However, while I do occasionally write the fuzzy feel good stories, and will continue to do so, I find that there are so many wrongs and injustices in this world that I must speak my mind, and let the chips fall where they may. I consider my self to be a very lucky person. My health and that of my family is good, I have a home in one of the nicest places in our country. I am not wealthy by any means, but I do alright. More importantly, I have been blessed with a talent, and that talent is my ability to put my thoughts into words, and then put those words on paper to share with those not as fortunate as myself. For that I am eternally grateful, and I am especially indebted to those people who take the time to read my thoughts, whether they agree with those ideas of mine or they do not agree with them.

With that being said, I started thinking the other night about what makes people angry. Is it the changing of times, and the automation of our society? I know at times I can get very frustrated with that.

Have you ever had to deal with one of those automated telephone systems designed to make our lives a little easier? You know the ones I’m talking about. You have a question about a charge on your telephone bill, so you call the company to ask them about it and you get 26 recorded messages telling you to press one for this and two for that until seven minutes has passed, and you finally reach a human being who answers your question in 15 seconds. I find it strange that the telephone company doesn’t have someone who can answer the telephone.

When I call some place that has an automated system with a recorded voice that I am supposed to answer, I go from zero to angry in about 2.3 seconds flat. If I wanted to talk to a voice that can’t or won’t answer me, I’d call my daughter. I recently called America Online to get some assistance with my computer. They have one of those systems. After pressing numbers for a good fives minutes to direct my call to the technical support department, I reached one of those recordings. The recording kept asking me to say my screen name and every time I did it would say “I’m sorry, it sounded like you said Tom Smith”. After about four times the voice informed me that my call would be transferred to a representative, which was what I was trying to accomplish in the first place.

That’s when I hear this, "Hello, my name is Tubasi Padool-Ingoti Patel, but you can call me Bob". “Bob” it turns out is an Indian, and by Indian I am not referring to Ojibwa or Shoshone, I mean someone from New Delhi, who speaks pigeon English at best. America Online should be called India Online. This company has farmed out jobs that Americans should be doing, and that makes me angry too. Now if it’s a technical problem with my PC, I call my father who is 73 years old, retired, and works at his local library part-time. He is just as knowledgeable as some computer whiz on the other side of Earth, 13, 000 miles and nine time zones away. I should have done this in the first place.

Sometimes I think some of the smaller things make me angrier than the larger ones. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of the larger things upset me as well. The war in Iraq falls into this category; over three thousand good men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice for this cause, and for what? Oil? Democracy? You tell me. But aside from writing a letter to the president or my congressman what can I do?

It’s the small daily annoyances that get to me. The bank teller who insists on calling me by my first name comes to mind. Other than the fact that I come into the bank once a month to make my truck payment, how do you know me well enough to call me Brian?

What’s so wrong with referring to people you don’t really know as Mr., Mrs., Miss, Sir or Madam?

Car horns and the people that use them come to mind too. Why do we even need them on our automobiles? If you’re in a situation where you are about to collide with another vehicle and you’ve got time to hit your horn, you’ve got time to hit the brake. The other day I was waiting at a red light to turn left and when the light turned green, it wasn’t more than two seconds before the person behind me started blowing his horn. I’m sorry if you’re in a hurry, but I’m going to make damn sure some moron isn’t too busy talking on their cell phone and missing their red light before I pull out into the intersection. People that pull up in driveways to pick someone up and blow their horns make me angry too. Stop being so lazy, get out of the car and go knock on the door, and if you want to say hi to someone, call them on the telephone and don’t honk as you drive by their house.

On any given day there are a lot of things that annoy me. But when I get home, and walk around my place, feed my animals, and enjoy the quiet of my woods and open space, all of those petty annoyances seem to disappear. That is what I call the “Art of Anger Management”. More people should learn to master that art.

It's Pat a Millionaire on the Back Time

It’s Pat a Millionaire on the Back Time

Here we are again, another year has come and gone for the entertainment industry and we as the public are about to enter that long and tedious period of time that many refer to as the “award show season”.

You know the time of year I’m talking about. It’s the time of year when even the reputable networks and news organizations from television to print media bombard us with meaningless drivel about the so called “beautiful people”.

Aside from the people that are associated with the entertainment industry, who watches this nonsense, and who really cares? I find it extremely annoying to turn on the television first thing in the morning to get a weather report or an update on the news from some network like CNN, only to find that loud mouth, third rate comedian Joan Rivers and her equally obnoxious daughter telling me what I kind of evening gown I can expect Meryl Streep or Helen Mirren to be wearing later this week on the red carpet. What practical purpose does knowing this trivial bit of information have?

I get equally annoyed when I open a Time magazine a week later only to find an article of several pages about last weeks winners and losers, who were the best dressed, who were the worst dressed, who had the best hair style, and all that other foolishness they are trying to push down our throats as being newsworthy.

Let’s face it; shows like this are just for the shameless promotion of a bunch of millionaires who get together several times a year to pat themselves on the back.

These people of the upper echelon spend millions of dollars a year on these extravagant banquets, with their over priced evening gowns and tuxedos, hairstyles and jewelry. I would have more respect for these folks if just once, one of them were to show up at one of these affairs wearing a dress they purchased at J.C. Penney’s, and when asked about their attire they simply said “You like my gown? I paid $300 for it, and I gave the other $13,000 I was going to spend on a dress to a homeless shelter in my hometown”. When someone wears one piece of clothing worth more than the yearly salary of hard working American being paid minimum wage it makes me sick.

On the rare occasion when I do happen to watch one of these shows, or rather a part of one, because that is generally about all I can stomach; I am always amazed by the reaction of the actors and actress when they announce the winner of the category for which they were nominated. They’re always smiling, kissing, shaking hands, and hugging admirers and fellow actors all the way to the stage, and then when they get there, they turn into crying babbling fools. I thought these people were actors, if they can turn on the tears, can’t they turn them off, or is that all part of the act?

They all seem to have the same thing to say too, thanking their agents, producers, directors, mothers, fathers, children, and fellow actors for helping them master their “craft”. Why do they use that term craft anyway? I always thought crafts were something your aunt Edna and grandma did on Saturday afternoons to donate to their church for the annual bazaar to raise money to send the church members children to summer camp. You never hear a truck driver say “I want to thank everyone at the AAA Truck Driving School of Deviling, Indiana for helping me master my craft”.

We spend too much time, energy and money on all this glitz, glamour and garbage. We should stop treating these people as if they were royalty and put an end to encouraging their senseless, moronic behavior and lifestyles.

Rehab, Rehab, Rehab...Why are we Letting This Happen?

Rehab, Rehab, Rehab…Why are we Letting This Happen?

Maybe I’m crazy or something, but when did going to a rehabilitation center become fashionable? Perhaps fashionable is not the appropriate word, maybe convenient would better describe what seems lately to be the answer to every public figure who finds himself in a legal or embarrassing situation.

This past year countless celebrities, sports figures, and politicians have opted to check themselves into some sort of rehabilitation center rather than face the real problem…themselves.

Last December we saw our current Miss USA, Tara Conner face the public scrutiny as she tearfully broke down at a press conference and admitted her indulgence of alcohol, amid other allegations of inappropriate behavior at several New York nightclubs. Give me a break. This woman is twenty years old. How many twenty year old people have you met with perfectly clear judgment? Conner doesn’t need rehabilitation, what she needs is a good helping of humble pie. Stand up, take your dose of humility and move on already.

Comedian Michael Richards made a fool of himself by slinging racial epithets at several hecklers at one of his performances. He doesn’t need the Betty Ford clinic, maybe an anger management seminar or class, but 28 days of rehabilitation is probably not warranted, and in Richards defense he has made a concerted effort to admit his wrongs and try to right them.

A lot of these people need to admit to themselves and their families that they are just plain dumb. Being in the public eye certainly makes no one an Albert Einstein.

“Hey Lionel, your daughter Nicole was arrested this morning for being parked in the car pool lane on the 101 while facing the wrong direction and talking on her cell phone. Since her arrest she has admitted to smoking marijuana and taking a few Vicodin. Do you think she needs to go to rehab?”

The response by Lionel Richie should have been “No I think she’s just dumb. She’s spent the last few years hanging out with the likes of Paris and Nicky Hilton and that stupidity has leeched into her brain. She’s just dumb.”

Mel Gibson falls into this category too. Here’s a good idea Mel, stop drinking tequila. Better yet, just stop drinking. Do you know what the saddest part about his arrest was? The fact that the press and the public lost focus of the matter at hand was the real problem. Who cares if he bad mouthed the cop and the Jewish faith and its followers? The real problem was the fact that he was drunk, and he was driving under the influence of alcohol. He ended up being arrested and he should have been. People mouth off to the police every day; it just never makes the headlines because 99.99% of those people aren’t celebrities.

Then there’s another category of high profile people to be considered. Those people that put themselves into rehab for the sole purpose of avoiding jail sentences. Former congressman Mark Foley is a prime example of this. He spent last April pushing legislation through Congress aimed at convicting those accused of exploiting children and at the same time was sending explicit e-mails to underage male congressional interns. What about radio personality Rush Limbaugh? He coerced his Latino housekeeper to obtain fraudulently written prescriptions for pain killers on his behalf for his personal use. And when confronted, both these men failed to accept responsibility , Foley blaming the Catholic Church and an aging priest, and Limbaugh blaming poor judgment and addiction for his indiscretions. Both these men may need some sort of rehabilitation, but what they really need is some time to contemplate their mistakes, and frankly that time should be in the slam.

Back in 1987, I had some trouble with alcohol and the law myself. I embarrassed myself and my family. My father was working for the Michigan Department of Corrections at the time, and my mother was working for a circuit court judge. I didn’t stand before a judge and ask that my sentence be a 28 day program at some in-patient mental facility for people with addictive tendencies, I pleaded guilty and took my lumps. I did my 14 days in jail, seven weekends at a time. Am I proud of that? Of course not, but it is a part of my life and I regret that it ever happened; but in the same respect I know that I lived up to my end of the deal. I was young, stupid, and foolish. But I stood up, admitted I was wrong and took my punishment like a man should.

We are letting people shirk off their responsibilities these days.

And we shouldn’t.

Miss USA, the Donald and a Pig Named Rosie

Miss USA, the Donald, and a Pig Named Rosie

Whatever happened to journalistic honesty, integrity, and truth in both print and television? Is the American public that starved for entertainment that the on-going war of words between Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump has become nightly fodder for conversations around our dinner tables, in our newspapers, and on our nightly talk shows?

For those of you that may not know of their feud, it all started when questions were raised in December about what many considered to be immoral behavior on the part of our current Miss USA, Tara Conner. Apparently Conner was seen at several nightclubs in the New York area partaking in underage drinking, dirty dancing, and kissing the current Miss Teen USA Katie Blair.

After these allegations came to light, Trump being a man that desperately needs more face time on television immediately held a press conference to announce that since he was the owner of the Miss USA Pageant, he had decided not to use his trademarked and overused phrase of “You’re Fired!” on Conner and that every one deserved a “second chance”. To that, a tearful Miss USA took the podium, apologized, and announced that she was checking herself into rehab. A course of action that these days seems to be the answer for every celebrity, politician and sports figure who does something stupid regardless of whether they were under the influence or not. If I had checked myself into rehab every time I did something stupid, I wouldn’t have been released until I was 38 years old. Perhaps I’ll have more on that subject at a later time.

The next morning Rosie O’Donnell, being the crass, loud-mouthed, pig that she is, poked her snout into the whole affair by announcing on “The View”, a claptrap, feminist television show produced by Barbara Walters, that Trump’s decision was wrong and Conner should be dethroned. An act I might add, that certainly never hurt the career of former beauty queen and now singing and acting star Vanessa Williams.

That’s when all the name calling and adolescent behavior began. Both of these pea-brained nitwits should shut up now. Don’t get me wrong, I think Donald Trump is an egotistical, arrogant, mouth piece wind bag whose time as a television personality should be coming to an end, but I find O’Donnell to be one of the most offensive people to ever grace network television. Why Barbara Walters and the American Broadcasting Company would ever endorse her racist and anti-social behavior on their programming is truly beyond me. She has proven to the American public that she is nothing more than a mean spirited bully as evidenced by her interview with Tom Selleck, (read interview here) when she had her own talk show a few years ago, and attacked Selleck for doing an advertisement for the National Rifle Association on gun safety when he was merely on her lame excuse for a television program to promote his latest movie.

Its time for these two second rate celebrities to ride off into the sunset, if not separately then together; they certainly deserve each other. Trump should go back to developing real estate, and O’Donnell should concentrate on producing poor Broadway productions as she has in the past.

Then maybe we won’t have to be subjected to their petty indifferences on a daily basis.

An Open Letter to President Bush

I guess if I had to write a letter to President Bush, this is what it would say:

January 4, 2004

Dear President Bush:

I am sure that as a father, husband and friend you would be referred to as one of the best. But as a president, and more specifically the President of the United States, you are sadly, one of the worst in our nation’s history.

Yesterday our country mourned as we laid to rest our 38^th Commander-in-Chief. Both you and your father, George Herbert Walker Bush, our country’s 41^st president spoke highly of Gerald R. Ford at his funereal services. You should have, because neither one of you will ever be compared to him in history. His integrity, intelligence and guidance led our country through a time of indifference, a time when our nation needed a true leader, a time when being a leader meant more than living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

He left a legacy Mr. President, a legacy that you, and the Republican Party should have tried to equal; and as yet have failed to do so.

I realize that the plans and goals of your administration were drastically changed on September 11, 2001. And for this your ideals, your goals, and sadly the history of your presidency was written differently than both you and your party intended. However, the fact remains that both you and your political party have no one to blame but yourselves.

When our country demanded justice for nine-eleven, you sent troops to Afghanistan, and we supported you. When you told us of a man named Osama bin-Laden, and his bid to terrorize the world, and the need for him to be stopped, we supported you, and when you told us of a tyrant leader in Iraq who should be subjected to world justice, we supported you there too.

And now that chapter of your administration is complete. Thanks to the good folks at Nextel, Cellular One, Alltel, and You Tube, we have seen the proof of the fall and execution of a madman. We are thankful for that. We have seen the justice of your administration. But it is time for our country to put that behind us. It is time we move forward.

Mr. President, where is Osama bin-Laden? Isn’t it about time to get back to the matter at hand? Or has your administration gotten so turned around that that is not a possibility? Maybe at this point, with a Democratic Party majority in both the House and Senate, you should start acting like the president that you are, a lame duck.

You have let your poor foreign policy govern your presidency at the expense of your domestic policy. You and the Republican Party should consider it a sad day in American history when the voters of states such as Florida and Michigan take it upon themselves to raise the minimum wage, because they as voters knew your administration, and your party would not come to their aide.

Mr. President, over three thousand men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice during your presidency. Bring our troops home.

Then start working on your book and your post-presidency lecture tour speeches and quietly fade into history.

Sincerely

Brian C. Noell