berlinsblog

Why do you build me up. . .

2006-06-01T00:51:00.000-07:00

Everybody does their job. Very professional.
Fill out the computerized forms, look up the records, tag the wrist, interview by admitting nurse, wife helps me with the answers.
“Take of your clothes, put these on.”
Take some blood and some biological measurements. Graphs go by on the screen. They have peaks as they move across the screen, good sign. Low heart rate, normal blood pressure, also good, I guess.
It’s the middle of the night, no windows and fluorescent lights. It’s the same twenty four hours a day.
Homeless or junkie or just poor and disheveled?
Midwestern accent, firm, gentle, businesslike, professional. “You will have to leave.”
Inaudible response
“You will have to move into the reception area then, you can stay there, but you can’t sleep here, you’ve been treated and discharged, sorry, the pain medicine will help soon, but you can’t sleep here. . . “
Names and initials attach to my name on the flat screen hanging on the wall across the room.
Wheeled into a darker room,
“Please stand against the machine and don’t move”
Back to the curtained cube.
“No heart attack, but there’s a blocked artery that will have to be opened…”
“Time for me to leave, see you in the morning, I love you.”
“I love you, too.”

More sad than scared.
More scared of pain than dying.
Doctor is confident, it’s routine.
I can deal with it.
I’ve been through it once, it hurt plenty, but I’m still here, but it hurt, but you can handle it. Bullshit, it hurt like hell. You’ve been through it once, it’s a half an hour deal, you can put up with it for half an hour. Forty-five minutes, tops.
Ride the gurney through the maze. A basement is still a basement. Stuff lined up against the walls looks like old clothes and junk., guard nodding off in chair, wakes up to chat with tired lady who pushes the gurney, another tired lady operates the elevator.
Freezing cold operating room keeps these guys awake.
“Take off your underwear.”
“Those are the words I’ve been longing to hear you say.”
Almost a smile.
“We’ll be inserting a catheter ….”
“Doc, do you know the name of that song”
“Build Me Up Buttercup.”
“Very good, do you know who sings it?”
He’s too young to remember.
“It’s from ‘Something About Mary’…uh, no.”
“The Foundations. Doc, don’t let this storehouse of useless information die.”
Masked, no smile.
Pressure on my thigh.
“Do you want pain killers?”
“As much as you can give me!”
It’ll be over soon.

IF WE COULD SEE OURSEVES AS OTHERS SEE US…

2006-05-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

I once told my “blogging” daughter (hereinafter referred to as “BD” to preserve her anonymity) that I don’t post comments her blog because I’m like that outgoing, talkative kid that is given a telephone or microphone and then can’t utter a syllable. Many of her posts make me want to comment, but I’ll just blog instead, and because she’s the only reader of my blog, it’ll be like writing a real long comment.

Her last few posts made me think about how she perceives herself and then how we all perceive ourselves. As I thought about this and decided to write a piece on my blog, I went to my research assistant, GOOGLE, to see who had written the original thought and typed in, see ourselves as others see us…. Results 1 - 10 of about 66,200,000 ….

After reading the first 14,325,278, I realized that I might want to do a more defined search, I put it in quotes “see ourselves as others see us”... Results 1 - 10 of about 43,200 … after reading all of these and taking out the repeats, I still wasn’t sure about the original quote. I do remember that I was nodding off in high school English as a poem was being read. As my eyes rolled back in my head, and the drool ran out of my mouth, and just before narcolepsy took over and my head cracked against the desk, I heard these words. But who said them? Lord Byron, Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Who names a boy Percy Bysshe and expects him to grow up heterosexual? I believe he was (heterosexual that is) his wife was the author, Mary W. Shelley, author of “Frankenstein,” but I digress….).

So what was that going to tell me anyway? I wanted to know the exact quote and the context, but whoever said it could be interpreted on several levels; if “they” think we’re ugly, are we? If “they” think we’re cool, are we? If “they’re” cool (in our opinion) and we’re not cool, in their opinion, are we therefore not cool by extension? On, and on and on. Again, so what? What would it mean to her if I said, “You’re beautiful,” which several of her readers did say, and I now realize I never said it enough, and she is.

The posts on “BD’s” blog were about how she sees herself, not how others see her. I think she’s beautiful, and I know others do too. Can she accept imperfection in others, but is it that she can’t accept a few extra pounds on herself? Would she say to me “change your physical appearance (or anything else) so my love could be given”? We have to accept what we are and do the best with what we have. Not to say, don’t try to better yourself, but if you can accept imperfection in others and grant them love, is it important to be perfect in your own eyes to love yourself, or at least not hate yourself? I’m more than happy that her posts indicate she has turned a corner. I hope that she continues to be happy with herself; but who knows what’s in the cards, it’s all good, we hope, but fate or God or some random microbes may take a hand. We are what we are …until we’re not.

So hang in “BD.” BE HAPPY, and I hope you’re through agonizing about your physique, and as Percy Bysshe would say:

"The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If winter comes, can spring be far behind?"

PS -- By the way, it was Robert Burns who almost said “if we could see ourselves”…he wrote in Scottish, and I guess the line has been used so much, it’s English now. It’s in the last stanza of his poem, “To a Louse.” That’s the one about a flea that was crawling on a beautiful woman, in church, while Burn’s watched (no doubt bored by the Preacher, his eyes rolled back, droll came out of the corner of his mouth, just before his head cracked down on the wooden pew) he wrote:

O wad some Power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad frae monie a blunder free us

An foolish notion:

What airs in dress an gait wad lea'es us,

An ev'n devotion!

I remember the point now, as beautiful and well dressed as this woman was, to the flea she was just dinner and a home. Makes me want a glass of Scotch!

So L’chaim, Bobby Burns, and may we all BE HAPPY, especially BD, LF, MELBERITO, and DOOBIE.

DE-HYPENATE AMERICA – PART 2

2006-05-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

Back to the other post. So what is the issue with immigration?

I am not an immigration expert, but here are my assumptions:
We regularly allow people into the country legally, so there must be some legal procedure for entry
After that there must be some application for citizenship or at least the right to continue to live and work in the USA.
It must be pretty complicated or onerous, because so many people can’t follow the procedure

Is that what immigration reform about? Making it less complicated? Or there some National Board of Immigration Review whose job it is to let in some and keep out the “riff-raff?” And who decides who’s “riff-raff” anyway?

Here’s my plan. Immigration reform made easy:
Everybody is welcome to the party. It’s a bring your own. You have to contribute or leave. Do what you do, cut hair, hammer nails, file nails, be a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant or computer programmer if you want; hey, it’s America. You could even be in the mortgage business, if you can’t find anything better (or legitimate).

No unreasonable waiting periods. A background check and proof of a means to support yourself such as a job or a responsible legal US dweller or company to agree to sponsor you. If you have a substantial net worth, don’t even bother with the job, just bring the money and invest it here in legitimate endeavors.

A national registry and ID card. If you have one, you stay, if we catch you without one, we throw you out. Repeated offenders who keep sneaking back in should be thrown in jail. Or in the alternative, they could earn their legal entry by serving in the military or working on some other national priority that we can’t seem to find the labor to do. National priority does not include cutting somebody’s lawn.

You can get your registration if:
You have not broken any laws that would be enforced in the USA.
For example, if you were arrested in an Islamic Theocracy for being Christian, it wouldn’t count. Other things like being arrested for “economic” crimes such as profiteering in a communist country would probably be OK, too. I would recommend that we even tolerate arrests for not paying parking tickets or other “minor” offences. But no felons allowed. Arrests for assault, rape, theft, murder, and other generally violent or antisocial behavior would keep you out.

You agree to become a contributing member of American society within some reasonable period of time.

You lose your registration and right to become a citizen if:

You are convicted of a felony
You cease to be a contributing member of society or fail to pay taxes (i.e. no more working off the books)

Now that unreasonable barriers to entry are eliminated, and “American” is your new nationality, remember that you or your parents left some shit-hole country because it sucked, and DE-HYPHENATE.

YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP

2006-05-05T08:21:00.000-07:00

Did you ever notice that there is Braille on the key pad at the drive up ATM?

Add this to the mindlessness:

I’m driving in to work today and I hear a news article. Some of the details escaped me since I was typing an e-mail on my Blackberry while driving with my knees (also pretty mindless), but my ears perked up as the story unfolded:

Somewhere, LI -- Police answer a call about a wild pit bull dog. They’re familiar with this dog as there have been several complaints. The dog attacks one of the several responding officers. He shoots it with his 9MM automatic. The enraged dog continues the attack as the bullet entered his (the dog's) abdomen. Other responding officers shot the dog 3 more times. Dog and attacked officer are currently recovering from their wounds.

I can understand why they would treat the dog-bit cop, but why did they spend time patching up a lunatic pit-bull (shot four times at close range with police pistols). Surely they will euthanize this mutt, won’t they? Did they operate on it for the practice?? And another thing -- can’t they get these cops more effective weapons. Four shots hit the dog and it’s still alive. I’m not going to comment on marksmanship (or for the more PC, markspersonship), because its probably dangerous and hard to hit the attacker without hitting the attackee, but come on, if this were a lunatic person with a weapon, how about something with a little more stopping power?

And one last thing, what is it with pit bulls and their owners. These dogs are nuts! How about a nice cocker spaniel or or better yet, get your kid a gerbil.

De-Hyphenate America

2006-05-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

“What are you?”

“Italian-American”
“Irish-American”
“Mexican-American”
“German-American”
“Polish-American”
”Indian-American”
“Swiss, Scottish, Welsh, Franco-American”
"Member of the Former Soviet Union-American"

“What are you?”

My grandparents came to this country in the 1880’s. They left a place where they were unwanted. Most probably they were terrorized by pogroms. They were second class citizens (if they were even considered citizens), economically downtrodden, socially ostracized, or all of the above.

I don’t know their exact motivation (the only grandparent I knew died 40 years ago. It was believed she was in her 80's when she passed on, but she was a young girl when she came to this country). I’m of the opinion that her parents didn’t pack up their family and sell or abandon all of the belongings they couldn't carry to walk away from a comfortable existence to go 5 or 6 thousand miles to a country they never saw because things were going well for them. This must have been especially true when you didn’t just get on a plane and cruise that distance in 8 to 10 hours. Also they didn’t take the Berlitz “Learn Conversational English in Five Easy Lessons" course. And when they got here, I'm fairly confident that most Americans living here at the time didn't want to see some poor, Jewish family move in next door to them and compete for whatever jobs were available at that time.

I believe most immigrants come to America come for similar reasons. A sort of desperate run to the promise of a better life. No guarantees, just a fair shot at a better life. We are a country populated almost exclusively by immigrants and descendants of immigrants, most likely brave and motivated people, tired of being poor, or of being abused, no longer tolerating their existance in intolerable conditions. They decided to take matters into their own hands and change their condition.

Inspirational!

America, a nation populated by people that I characterize as “intrepid dreamers” driven to these shores seeking freedom and opportunity.

Except for the slaves.

What are you?

“African-American”

In the most horrendous way, which I can’t even begin to imagine, much less describe, these people were dragged from their homes and families to be brought to America as property. With no regard for their humanity, or any family ties that may have survived or developed during the “relocation,” they are brought to do the “heavy lifting.” Bought, sold and treated as “beasts of burden”. And today many of their descendants suffer from the bigotry and inequality of opportunity that is similar to the conditions that likely caused the “intrepid dreamers” to pack up and emigrate to America.

All that being said, whatever brought our forbearers here, we are now all in the same boat, and the boat is being swamped with new “intrepid dreamers” that want in.

What are you?

“American Indian”

The indigenous people have no hyphen.

More to follow….

SOME CATCH, THAT CATCH 22

2006-03-25T08:02:00.000-08:00

CATCH 22 by Joseph Heller, great book. I read it about 35 or 40 years ago, maybe I should read it again. They made it a movie. It became an anti-Viet Nam War statement.

I can't relly get into it all because this post would become a small book (read the book or rent the movie), but basically the hero, fed up with flying in bombers over Europe during WW2, and sure that he's going to die, figures he can get out of it if he can convince the army (the US didn't have a separate Air Force in those days) he was crazy. But here's the catch, rule # 22... If you report that you are crazy, then you are sane, since you have the ability to recognize your insanity, so you can't be insane if you think you're insane.... Or some circular reasoning along those lines. "Some Catch, that Catch 22".

Back to the last post...

Abdul Rahman may get to keep his head attached to his body after all. Islamic Catch 22.... If he is crazy enough to admit that he rejects Islam and converts to Christianity, he must be too crazy to stand trial for converting to Christianity. This is actually a pretty good catch for Abdul, as well as George W. and his gang. The US citizenry (and the rest of the "Coalition of the Willing") won't have to watch a public beheading on CNN (or in Cheny's case, FOX).

The bad news is that the Afghan Courts still don't recognize a basic freedom, the right to worship (or not worhip, as the case may be) as you wish. Oh well, we're nation building, and Rome wasn't built in a day. At least the thugs who are now in charge of Afghanistan are OUR Taliban.

2006-03-24T20:03:00.000-08:00

All I Know Is What I See On CNN

Back to Will Rogers. He said, “All I know is what I read in the newspapers.”

I guess most of us get our news via some form of electronic media these days. All I know is what I see on CNN. A CNN story:

Abdul Rahman is a man on trial for his life. This man has committed the crime of converting to Christianity. Apparently, in that enlightened part of the world known as Afghanistan, denying Islam is a capital offense.

"Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," said cleric Abdul Raoulf.

It was reported that George Bush was “deeply troubled.” Condoleezza Rice telephoned Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai seeking a "favorable resolution" of the case of Abdul Rahman. But in deference to the sovereignty of Afghanistan she did not demand the man’s release. A spokesman for Ms. Rice pointed out that “this is clearly an Afghan decision.”

Good idea, let’s leave it to them, the folks that brought you the Taliban, ancient Buddhist statue demolition (idols!!!), and public beheadings between periods of the soccer game (their equivalent of a halftime show). Not to mention Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist training camps. We wouldn’t want to interfere in the internal politics of a budding democracy, would we?

The article did say that the Afghan government was searching for a way to drop the case, but the article went on to say that conservative clerics claim "The government is scared of the international community. But the people will kill him if he is freed." and the country's main Islamic organization, the Afghan Ulama Council, concurred. "The government is playing games. The people will not be fooled."

Aside from the absurdity of demanding a man’s death because of his religious beliefs, how unbelievably difficult it must be to live in a place where cleric Abdul Raoulf is considered a moderate.

CNN article 2:
BATON ROUGE, La. Federal prosecutors in Baton Rouge will take up the misdemeanor case against a Mississippi sheriff accused of commandeering two ice trucks from a federal reservation and sending them to relief centers after Hurricane Katrina.

After watching residents of his county suffer for days while waiting for federal hurricane relief, fed up with the inept bureaucratic bull, Forrest County Sheriff, Billy McGee took a couple of his deputies to National Guard Camp Shelby, and commandeered two tractor trailer trucks loaded with ice. The ice had been there for days while the people of Forrest County sweltered without electricity or refrigeration of any sort.

The sheriff was confronted by army national guardsmen who refused to allow him to take the ice. He ordered his deputies to arrest the guardsmen, and then he took the ice to his townspeople. He did something while the federal government was watching the ice melt while trying to figure out their next move.

By the way, Sheriff McGee agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. He did this to make the case go away. Although he offered a plea bargain, the federal prosecutor wouldn’t accept the deal. Evidently, the US government thought it would be better to spend its (our) time and money to go after a man who tried to help his fellow townspeople. The US government couldn't just accept his guilty plea or (more appropriately) just drop the case. Frankly, a medal, not an indictment should be given to the sheriff. But then the federal government would have to acknowledge that its incompetance drove an obvioulsy dedicated public servant to take matters into his own hands to do the right thing.

Two unrelated stories, right.

How about this:

Afghanistan is one backward place, where the niceties of the rights of an individual has yet to be discovered. Women are still their husband’s property and adultery is punished by death by stoning and thieves lose their hands. We are trying to bring this country into the civilized world. The British couldn’t do it, the USSR couldn’t do it and we won’t succed either. The Afghan culture is still hanging on to social concepts that most of the people of the world abandoned in the 1700’s. The country is really run by warlords and their clans. They finance their activities by selling drugs (opium poppies) and the government consists of the "meanest mother in the valley" and his heavily armed relatives. In American cities we call these guys "gangs", and the government tries to put them behind bars. I'm still trying to figure out where the fundimentalist Mullahs fit into this puzzle, they must be the spiritual advisors to the "Robin Hoods" of these merry bands of Afghani men who really govern their clan's turf, sort of Islamic Friars Tuck.

The US has about 20,000 or so troops in Afghanistan. The Afghan government can’t get across to its people that democracy means that not only the majority rules, but minorities have rights, too. In fact the government only governs a small part of the country. Most of Afghanistan is probably in worse shape than Mississippi and Louisiana right afther Katrina. Some enterprising US major, colonel, or general in Kabul should take a couple of hundred heavily armed troops to the jail and escort Abdul Rahman to a safe place while the two national governments suck up to each other. Do this while Condi and George work their diplomatic magic, but before some enterprising mullah removes Abdul’s infidel head from his infidel body.

Who are we kidding? We can’t do anything because we respect their sovereignty? We've already invaded and occupied the country, what soverignity? Wouldn't want to offend the freedom loving people of Afghanistan now that we have given them democracy, would we?

2006-03-16T23:17:00.000-08:00

NATURE CALLS

Doctor, I swear I heard it with my own ears…. And recently this has been an on going thing. Periodically I hear voices emanating from my pants. No, it is not alcohol or drugs. At first I just couldn’t place them, but I do hear voices. They’re calling out “hello, hello, hello….” And they’re coming from my pants.

The last time it happened was last night. For twenty eight years in Atlantic City there has been The North East Regional Mortgage Bankers Convention
I’ve been to almost every one.

Same old same old, but like a lemming to the sea, I must go….

Fatter, grayer versions of people I’ve known or done business with for almost thirty years get to see that I am still alive and in the business (although also fatter and grayer, but I do still have my own hair --- unlike some). More business suppliers show up every year, selling a greater variety of the same shit to a larger number of companies vying for a smaller share of the home loan business…

I listen to people that assure me that there is no bubble, and others that assure me that when we meet again next year there will be a lot less of these companies in business after the bubble breaks.

Same stuff for the last twenty eight years, but this is the first year that my penis spoke to me. Yes, Doctor, and with my wife’s voice….

Back to last night, after my annual glass of beer at a convention reception, (ok, two, but they were small), social, party animal that I am, I left those wild and crazy mortgage bankers to their party scene (after all it was 10 PM) to go to my hotel room and read (that’s my story and I sticking to it). Now beer doing what it does, upon return to the room, I headed for the bathroom, and I began to do what men do when beer does what it does.. .

And then there it was …. my wife’s voice…” HELLO, HELLO, HELLO”… emanating from the open zipper in my unzipped pants. This is too much. I know that after 33 years of marriage some couples finish each others sentences, they dress alike, they even begin to look alike, but when Mr. Johnson speaks with my wife’s voice it’s time to seek help….

It all started when I bought a Blackberry, great for e-mail, but a shitty phone… Cumbersome, and the disconnect button’s in the wrong place, so I’m always hanging up on people. So I got a Bluetooth to go with the Blackberry. This makes it a more colorful, but still shitty, phone. Now the big button on the Bluetooth, when pushed, will recall the last number called on the Blackberry. So instead of accidentally hanging up on people, I accidentally call people. Dutiful and faithful husband, having already checked in with the Mrs. while on the way back to my room, her number was now on top of the list. While maneuvering into position, I must have pushed the button.

After finishing the task at hand, (no pun intended) I fished the Bluetooth out of my pocket, whereupon my wife says, “you were going to the bathroom, weren’t you?” Shitty phone, but a great microphone on that Bluetooth.

All I have to say is, as long as I have a Bluetooth in my pocket, I’ll be keeping my pants on….

2006-02-28T11:05:00.000-08:00

Some who know me may say that I am full of sayings. “Berlinerisms.” (anyone in the family know where the “er” came from?).

Most of my Berlinerisms are inherited from my Dad, but he probably borrowed them from somebody else. I went to http://www.brainyquote.com to see if I could find something to inspire a post. I found out that there’s a whole internet full of smart guys with plenty to say. It’s not plagiarism if you footnote. I could post all day like this, if you’re still interested in more, go to the web site Here’s one smart guy:

Will Rogers was a contemporary of my Dad’s (1898 to 1976). Rogers (1879-1935) died in a plane crash. He looked at the political landscape of his day and commented on it from the Vaudeville stage (while twirling a rope – he was a cowboy from Oklahoma) and later on the radio, the Dennis Miller or Bill Maher of his day.

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.
Sums up the Democrat party’s last, and it seems like the next, run at the Presidency. I can’t see how our guy could organize a girl scout troop on his own, let alone run for, and win, the Presidency of the USA. Those Republicans sure know how to get someone elected. As Will Rogers would say:
A fool and his money are soon elected.
This is going to be the easiest blog post ever:
I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

If you ever injected truth into politics you would have no politics.

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.

The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.

A closing thought (did he envision Iraq?):
If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out? Will Rogers

2006-02-22T14:37:00.000-08:00

I like this blog thing. These postings can't all be rants, or can they?

So what is the deal with the Olympics? I can't say I totally hate them, I do find the curling absolutely mesmerizing, but I also like to listen to grass grow while watching paint dry. I call that multi-tasking.

I love it when NBC plays that music. I feel that grand old "spirit of the Olympics" surge through my loins. But I bemoan the lost traditions of the Olympics. And I feel that the The Olympic Committee (whoever they are) should try to more faithfully re-construct the current Olympic Games to uphold those traditions. The games should try to be just like the ones from the old days. Every four years the ancient Greeks stopped everything, even the wars between their city states. They got their best, strongest men into a field and began throwing spears and stones and running and jumping and wrestling. . . I'm breathing hard just thinking about it. But if you recall the only remaining graphic depiction of these games, the decorative drawings on a few, rare, un-shattered Grecian urns, you will note that those games, unlike these games, were played in the nude.

I can say on behalf of all the Olympic purists, such as myself, that is the only way to have a true Olympics. So, let the games begin!!! Wouldn't that add an exciting, new dimension to the modern day games? All these young, virile men and women (women were originally excluded from the games, except for some sacrificial virgins, but I'm willing to bend on this) cavorting through their respective sporting events in their birthday suits. Imagine naked guys on their luges hanging on for dear life, trying to minimize wind resistance; naked skaters doing their camels. (Don't the Bedouins do their camels? Or Is that a summer sport?) The naked skating pairs with the men effortlessly supporting their partners over their heads! All that cold air magically enlarging some, yet shrinking other, body parts! Carrumba!!! Why not?

Assuming that the Olympic Committee could raise the minimum age of Olympic athletes from “the onset of puberty” to eighteen or so, this idea could really catch on. Then only one other problem would have to be overcome – funding. The days of the amateur Olympic athlete competing for the love of the sport was a casualty of the cold war. Those Godless commies inducted every promising athlete east of the Iron Curtain into the Red Army and produced the greatest professional “amateurs” the world had ever seen. So caught up by the concept that superior athleticism proved the superiority of the Communist system, the Olympic Committee not only had to check for performance enhancing drugs, but they also had to check for penises on the East German Women’s Swim Team. (If my concept were adopted this problem would also be easily resolved.) But not to be outdone, the west fought back using the power of Capitalism to crush the Evil Empire. Corporate Sponsors to the rescue. Training camps and equipment, supported by voluntary public donations (.5%) and donations from interested patriotic corporations (99.5%), can crush bankrupt socialist governments!

Let’s see – a united Germany, Mann und Mädchen (boys and girls) marching in goose step sporting Porsche and Mercedes logos neatly tattooed over their hearts on their muscular chests --- Sleek Italians featuring Maserati logos on their well formed upper arms – well muscled Swedish shoulders sporting Saab logos – Americans with so many products to choose from could have a rakish Nike swoosh on the ankle, a Polo logo on the left breast, a McDonalds' logo on a nice round butt. By the way, don't get any ideas, I've already approached Oscar Mayer, and they agreed, but only for the summer games . . .

2006-02-21T14:03:00.000-08:00

My dad told me there are different kinds of smarts, book learning and common sense. This may considered a self-serving analysis since he only had a high school diploma, but I guess the prime example of the truth of this statement is that even if you have an MBA from Yale, you could exhibit an amazing lack common sense.
The US has a bunch of ports that need operations expertise and supervision. This is necessary so that they work like well oiled machines. I always thought that our ports were operated by governments or quasi-governmental agencies (like the Port of New York Authority), evidently not. Since the average Americans that work in our ports could not possibly carry on operations without direction and coordination, I assumed that there was some governmental agency running the show. After all, a port is like a city. A complex entity or organism composed of thousands of people, machinery, warehouses, offices, railroad hubs, paved streets, cranes, container handlers and what-not that moves all manner of goods and products in from abroad, and out to our customers and trading partners. Envision humongous generators and sophisticated machines transported in the holds of ships, millions of imported cars and containers filled with everything from raw materials to novelty crap imported from China for little kids' birthday parties to tons of Chiquita bananas. There are containers loaded with food, consumer goods, electronics, medicine, toxins and anti-toxins, all manner of stuff. It comes in and it goes out, like corpuscles pumped through the circulatory system, but some imports are invisible like air through our lungs. Passing through the ports are people, good guys and bad guys, with visas (not the credit card variety) and those without any real identification, I bet. I remember a ship filled with Chinese illegal immigrants not too long ago running aground in the New York area, with those poor people jumping into the sea to take their chances to get into the "promised land." How many of those cargoes pull in every day?
Since 9/11, the "experts" have been saying our ports are vulnerable to terrorists. I guess no one knows what really is in the false bottom or hidden compartment of a container labeled "oranges." I bet a lot of what comes into the ports ain't exactly what US Customs thinks it is. So what is the risk of having a company owned by the United Arab Emirates operating the ports that handle a big percentage of our trade? And what is an Emir anyway? A duke, count, or marquis, Capo de Famiglia, caliph, or is he like an Abbott or perhaps a mullah? And how do you get to be one? Is there an application process, an election, or was your great, great, great grandfather the guy with the only water well in the desert for a hundred miles around? Probably the latter, and the good news for him was that when they dug deeper one dry season there was lots of oil (a sort of Jihad Clampett, eh Jethro.)
But I digress - the experts, well schooled, no doubt having plenty of book knowledge and common sense, are right when they say we still will control port security. And, I trust that we (the US taxpayers) have spent plenty studying this situation. The fact that four plus years after airplanes became missiles we still fail to grasp that ships can become floating bombs shows a lack of common sense or imagination. And these things don't have to off-load to explode biological, chemical or nuclear weapons and kill or maim thousands (or millions if they get a good wind). Maybe this lack of American common sense is why we have to go outside our borders to retain a company to manage our ports. We should object to this even if the company were owned by a reliable ally. Why hire any company to run our ports? How about airport security? There must be some recently unemployed Taliban that we could put to work taking nail clippers away from infrequent fliers. Too stupid, right? Of course we set up the TSA to screen passengers at the airport, but while it's watching the airport, someone floats in a container filled with anthrax or a ton (or ten) of plastique explosives shaped like souvenir Empire State Buildings or Statues of Liberty (ever see the Lavender Hill Mob with Alec Guinness?)
In the mortgage business, we have the Federal National Mortgage Association, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, the Government National Mortgage Association and all kinds of federal and state agencies regulating home loans because providing money for housing is important enough to motivate the congress and state legislatures to charter Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE's) and draft thousands of pages of regulations to ensure that money is available for home owners. We have a National Park Service to administer that national resource, because maintaining these sites is a national priority. We don't out source it to Disney because it knows how to run parks at a profit. How about a National Port Service? Maybe our governmental agency can't run as efficiently or as profitably as let’s say a foreign government owned enterprise, but at least it can be scrutinized by the people it serves, not a board of directors made up of Emirs (who are those guys?). Are the ports a less important natural resource than our National Parks?
Or we could just let the Danes run our ports. They have plenty of ports, I bet they know how ports work, and we can trust them more than any Emirate; and they could use the business. The Islamic countries won't eat their cheese because some Danish cartoonists had the nerve to exercise the freedom to express their ideas in their free press. Better yet, maybe we should run the ports in the Emirates and other countries that we deem less than friendly. That way we could stop the smuggling and bombs on the other side of the pond. Let's run that up the flag pole and see which Emir salutes it.

the first post

2004-11-30T13:25:00.000-08:00

if this is the future, i have to take this first step, so here's berlinsblog's first posting. typos and all.