Nice lady can't afford a mammogram ?

TV news was interviewing Americans hit suddenly by hard times.

    You don't need the imagination of Charles Dickens to picture their

    daily challenges. One lady -perhaps comfortably and safely middle

    class- had lost her health insurance. " I can't afford a mammogram ",

    she said. Every hospital in the country should be available to this

    woman - and millions more without health insurance. And without

    pitiful pleas for help. This truth should sink into the moral

    consciousness of America: Health care is human right!

                How odd that car insurance is compulsory but the very

    idea of a national health care plan raises conservative eye brows.

               It is impractical to think health care can be absolutely

    FREE for everybody. But we can begin  by making it more affordable

    for everybody. The one truly GREAT Kennedy,  Senator Ted, has been

    keeping this idea alive. God bless him for it !

              Most medical doctors see themselves as professionals-not

    plastic hearted shop keepers. The GOOD doctor is eager to help

    sick people get well again -whatever their economic status.

                I believe a national health care plan will also

    eliminate the terror of nasty law suits.

               And nobody who ends up in a hospital accident room

    should be rudely quizzed - while in a high anxiety state of

    mind -about their financial resources.

                  " What, no blue cross ? I guess you'll just have

    to drop dead ! "

KIDS IN PRISON on Discovery Channel

 Ask the whole world: HAVE YOU NO SHAME ? That's what I

    thought while watching a Discovery Channel documentary- a world-wide

    perspective on kids in prison, in Texas, in Britain, in Russia, in

    Brazil ( most horrible of all ! ). This is indeed the stuff for a

    United Nations report, for Amnesty International.

              Not for nothing I decided more than 20 years ago that

    I never want to bring children into this abominable little world !

          You do not need a PHD in sociology to see the common denominator

    in their lives ( with few exceptions ): They had wickedness to choose

    ignorant paupers for parents !

                One kid says : " If I'm living on the street -and I don't

    steal- I'll starve ! ".  But he promises his crying -dying - old

    mother ( prematurely old ? ) that he'll be a GOOD BOY when he gets

    out of that hell.

               How does their society attempt to REFORM them ? By pure

    terror, fear of  AUTHORITY (" You forget to say SIR, punk ! " )

           To SIR with love : Get a life. Too bad for you to miss out

    on the Nazi thing !

              All the other people who deal with these kids -if not

    evil and well intentioned - look like comfortable, well fed,

    petty bourgeois bureaucrats -with hearts of pure plastic.

              How many of these kids have a future in terrorism ?

Praise R.I. Congressmen on Cianci help

I like Arlene Violet but I can only praise our Rhode

    congressmen, Kennedy and Langevin, for trying to help our " Buddy "

    find a constrained residence closer to home and to his troubled

    daughter. EQUALITY for me does not mean equality in meanness.

               Just because there is great injustice in our prison

    system, that is no excuse to treat  relatively privileged persons

    with undue meanness -when they fall from grace.

                 The Cianci trial was more blunder-dome than plunder-dome.

    Just how much did " Buddy " steal and where did the money go ? Facts

    and figures count for something in the world of science. I guess the

    LAW is rather womanish, emotions decide the fate of people.

            As for Cianci's relationship with his daughter, family matters

    are not easily or fairly judged by outsiders. LOVE is often two-faced

    and ambivalent. The LAW does not recognize HUMANITY anymore. It has

    become an inhuman punishing machine crushing millions of lives.

               The LAW is an ass !

Egyptian TV and a mummified prejudice

Without seeing an English language version of the controversial

    Egyptian TV drama - which, they say, gives a certain credibility

    to a mummified prejudice, that there is a Jewish conspiracy to dominate

    the world - I cannot  condemn it. But I know this much about American

    TV: it rots the brain and corrupts the soul. I guess everywhere the

    damn boob tube is busy 24 hours of the day making monkeys out of

    human beings.

               Here is a possible location for the international Jewish

    conspiracy: the public library. I cannot fail to observe that Jews

    read more books and write more books than other people. By ridding

    the world of the " Jewish conspiracy ", civilization will be the

    loser, and humanity in general all but lobotomized.

              Here is a Darwinian explanation for the " clever Jew " :

    If  a people is hounded for centuries - how else should you treat

    Christ killers ?  - the clever ones are more likely to survive

    and teach the tricks of  the trade to threatened kin.

             I'm still trying to figure out why people think Communism

    was a Jewish conspiracy.  An alternative plan to rule the world ?

    But what ingenious flexibility !

Support British firefighter's strike

 I just read the AP story about the nationwide strike of

    some 50,000 British firefighters. Knowing something about the moral

    and ideological degeneration of the Labor Party, I am not surprised

    to read these British firefighters -no less heroic than NYC's finest-

    have a bitter foe in Prime Minister Tony Blair: " There is no government

    on earth that could yield to such a claim , " he says. I wonder:

    just what can a LABOR government do for LABOR ? The answer , I see,

    is right on the same page : " Drinkers raised their glasses to

    Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday after his government announced

    plans to let pubs stay open later ".

             Drinkers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose

    but your change !

           A REAL revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, ridiculed the likes of

    Tony Blair many decades ago : " The ideal socialist leader for

    successful dentists " . What they all have in common is a genuine

    horror of CLASS STRUGGLE. When a LABOR government crushes a strike,

    it is responsible statesmanship; when the workers fight back it's

    odious class warfare.

             Global capitalism has become the opium of a " respectable "

    Labor Party which cannot stir up a tempest in a teapot !

            I say to the American workers : Support the British

    firefighters strike !

Bribed journalism at its worse

n bold print a courageous Boston Herald columnist, Thomas M. Keane Jr.,

    puts in a kind word for the despicable class of greedy slumlords- who

    have made homelessness a plague : " Rent control feels good... because

    its only foes, property owners, are few in number and easily demonized "

       ( Nov.13 column : " It's just low rent political posturing "  )

          I guess this was also true of Southern slave owners before

    the Civil War. They were few in number compared to the their black

    slaves. Moralizing bullies from the North shamelessly DEMONIZED

    them. But this OPPRESSED minority knew how to put the fear of God

    into the slave class. If they did not like slavery, they could just

    find another master, move to a different plantation. Oh the sting

    of ingratitude !

            As for the poor and the working class - " low rent " types -

    they should praise the Lord -or the LAND-LORD - for housing them.

              Nothing deplorable about handing dee Lord the bulk of

    your monthly income. Dee Lord is always there for the rent but

    always out of town when dee damn toilet don't flush  !

               Just a daydream : " Praise dee Lord and pass the munition ! "

          When " property owners... are few in number ", there is something

    wrong with DEMOCRATIC capitalism.

           And demons are easily demonized, to be sure !

Popular Rule as foolish as tyranny ?

              The days after an election put the unhappy voters or non-

    voters in a pensive mood. I was not very interested in ivory tower

    political cogitations, but I now realize that the deep thinkers in

    our culture must rethink the very meaning of DEMOCRACY.

             A little thinking will reveal that direct popular democracy

    can be as disastrous for a people as the rule of a narrow minded

    oligarchy. On just what questions and issues can a mathematical

    majority claim more wisdom than the informed minority and a tiny

    number of specialists in every field of knowledge ?

              For example, what can I possibly know about Iraq's real

    intentions -belligerent or otherwise ? Or, what does it matter

    what the majority of voters think on the REALITY of global warming ?

                Should we consult a kind old socialist about a complex

    problem of international finance ?

              A person elected to high office in the United States must

    somehow manage to be a voice for his constituents AND a LEADER - in

    a position to explore issues more deeply.

               Popular wisdom can predominate -perhaps - in one area: on

    the general distribution of wealth and resources in a society. Here

    COMPROMISE is always possible: A " bum " in the street might ask you

    for 5 bucks. You are inclined to give him nothing or a quarter. Then

    you recognize him as a truly needy person - of the worthy poor. You

    give him 3 bucks and a " good luck " wish.

                 The Hubble telescope is a gift to all mankind -even if

    it took pennies away from every pauper in the country.

             A man is a man even in the gutter: He looks up at heavens

    with wonder. A wonderful picture of the infant universe is even more

    inspirational than a cigarette and a cup of coffee.

                Even in the gutter the bum dreams dreams !

Long-hair and crypto-homophobia ( Fortunato ruling )

A nice kid in a private Catholic school thinks his long hair

    style is really just his own business -and does little to subvert

    the education process there. The matter -sadly- gets settled in a

    Rhode Island court room: the kid can keep his idiosyncratic hair

    style - a small patch of free turf in a highly regimented little

    world. Thank God here for that " er-eccentric " Judge Fortunato !

    ( see PROJO editorial ).

              Consider the crypto sexism -or subtle homophobia here :

    Imagine a girl in a private school being told her hair is too long!

           Where can they draw the line ? Not at the barber shop !

           Looking at myself right now, I could pass for an aging 60s

    hippie. But I have a good excuse to avoid the barber shop- apart

    from making a rebellious STATEMENT:  I am getting cheaper and

    barbers are getting nosier !

              At age 55 some guys would LOVE to have a long hair

    problem.Eat your hearts out skin heads !

            UNPRINTABLE :  ( And they respond: " go to hell, faggot ! " )

          The 60s have been overbashed. Nice to be ALIVE back then.

              But don't expect to see my name in the POLICE LOG :

    " Cranston man busted for LSD possession ".

              Even back then my rebellion was confined... er to my

    HEAD !

Post election blues ?

Bob, I just read your column. I am not ashamed to confess that

    I just could not get myself to vote for ANYBODY in this election.

    The negativity was horrendous. Every candidate's opponent was a moral

    monster -or a dangerous weirdo. I KNEW Myth York would lose with that

    shameless TV ad making a fiend out of the affable Don Carcieri.

              No wonder politics in America no longer attracts the best

    and the brightest. What type of people want the public to fall in love

    with them on the basis of short introduction and vapid and asinine TV

    and radio sound bites ?

                I personally feel more affinity for the 1950s beatniks - BEAT -

    than left wing politicos or phony 60s  flower children. But I abhor the

    FAR RIGHT. But the Left in general should rethink the gospel of political

    correctness.

               I feel sorry for those loser political hacks who invest their

    heart and soul -and future - on a the sham democracy of the political

    circus. I might have voted for the Cool Moose character - he had the

    right idea.

A merit badge for bigotry ?

I just read about the outstanding boy scout whose militant

    atheism has got him evicted from the organization. A lesson in

    Civics 101 if he ever wants to run for political office: IN YOUR

    FACE contempt for popular prejudice is usually paid for with

    defeat or ostracism.

              Talking or writing to people with power in this country

    is lot like talking to a horse's ass. Still it is not futile.

    Even hopeless philistines are at least entertained by unorthodoxy.

                I think if the kid were wiser and the Boy Scouts were

    wiser this embarrassing situation could have been handled more

    felicitously. The kid could have been asked to write an original

    essay on the conflict between Science and Faith - and how it is

    only human to try to square the circle. He should realize that it

    is indeed necessary to respect religion in a multi-cultural world.

          Then the Boy Scouts should have awarded him a Religion

    merit badge at a scout ceremony. Sort of like the president

    awarding Frank Sinatra the Medal of Freedom ! But hey, he just

    did it all his way !

                A good way to be POPULAR is not to take ourselves

    too seriously. Once Isaac Asimov, a popular science writer - of

    the HUMANIST faith -was cornered on this  sensitive issue of

    God's existence: " Hey, why can't God just find me ? " he

    wondered.

Pro-Life cranks:GET OUT THE VOTE !

The Catholic TV station I see this morning -unlike most American

    Catholics - is obtuse on this matter of separation of Church and State.

    Sheeplike, all GOOD Catholics should vote for boldly anti-abortion

    candidates- THAT is the message. The Church big-wigs have no real passion

    for any other issue but LIFE IN THE WOMB ! And at a time when newspapers

    are telling unflattering stories about the Catholic hierarchy- the sexual

    abuse of innocent children.

                  In short because of the nature of the two party system here,

    they are telling GOOD Catholics to vote Republican. These same Republicans


    might be pro-war and pro-death penalty and great supporters of the NRA.

    And there is nothing Christ-like about their proposed legislation against

    the poor and the working class. LIFE IN THE WOMB monomania -for three decades

    now- has destroyed old fashioned Catholicism.

             What is so wrong about Catholicism for Catholics ? Let the

    pro-life fanatics all move to Vatican City - where they will get along

    with modern Italy as well as Israel get along with the Palestinians.

                 Why is abortion the only issue the " modern " Church

    feels passionately about ? Any two bit psychiatrist will tell you

    that obsession can be a sign of lunacy !

                I'll admit I myself am a very nominal " born Catholic ".

    I can't remember the last time I was inspired by a sermon in a Catholic

    Church. All pro-life unction and " give generously " !

                  Perhaps God himself sank into a bored deep sleep too !

             But I have never been involved in the abortion BUSINESS . So

    my CATHOLIC conscience never troubles me.

                  I'll vote for a Republican - like our Don Carcieri - if

    I like him. The pro-life fanatics are invariably nasty people !

                God save the Church !

Israel and D-day

I  have just reflected on your front page headline today:

    "Israel quietly helping U.S. prepare for war with Iraq " ( USA

    TODAY,Nov.4 ) . Oddly enough Saudi Arabia -a neighbor of menacing

    Iraq- is not enthusiastic about helping us at all. And a lot

    of healthy young rich kids in Kuwait -which owes us - will applaud

    a U.S. invasion of Iraq in the safety of their own luxurious homes.

    An old fashioned  American woman would scold them : COWARDS !

                The same for young Jews who rarely risk their lives

    against rock throwing Palestinians. Just study the casualty

    figures for Jews vs. Palestinians !

                I say if a war with Iraq is inevitable, an invasion

    should be led by soldiers - thousands of them ! - from Kuwait

    and Israel.

             Remember D-Day - the ALLIED invasion ? I would prefer to

    see multi-cultural pictures of bloated corpses. It is only fair

    to America's youth.

              After the election: THE WAR !

Naderite recommends Carcieri

As Mr. Robert Whitcomb says in his column today reality is a
    lot more complex than those horrid political ads. But let me simplify
    things a little. LIKABILITY is no small factor even in bourgeois elections.
    Too often third party candidates comes across as kooks - Ralph Nader was
    an exception!  The PROJO was right to endorse Carcieri and Kennedy as
    being more right for Rhode Island than their opponents. To hell with
    consistency. No, Carcieri is not fiendish corporate rat- with a heart
    corrupted by Catholic religious prejudices ( opposed to abortion and gay
    marriage in his personal moral conscience, like most Catholic politicians,
    but no fanatic and no threat to Roe vs. Wade . And certainly no homophobe )
             I agree with one WHJJ talk show regular, the very sane " Laurie "
    -who finds the Kennedy opponent Rogers " scary ". For me he is as charming
    as a junkyard dog. A step away from a right-wing skin-head.
                 The oh so politically correct Myrth York thinks her comfortable
    East Side molehill is the REAL world. Coming from her that line about
    "people before profits " sounds a little phony !
                I'll bet LIKABILITY wins on election day. But the WORKING CLASS
    will lose whatever. Karl Marx was not very likable but he was brilliant
    and honest.He should be awarded - a little too late - the Noble Prize
    for economics. Yes, a COMPLEX question : How do we re-distribute all that
    capitalist surplus value and still get the workers out of bed in the
    morning ?