The Malcolm Berko Blog

A thousand generations ago, long before the bow and arrow, sailing ships and Viagra, our ancestors worshipped the wind, the rain and the seasons. Those elements and their cycles were the alpha and omega of everything in man’s small world and they became his gods. His well-being depended on these gods who could be kind as well as harsh. So man sought influence to please his gods because they determined his fate and he feared their wrath. And fortunately there were those among men who talked to these gods and would tell man what made the gods angry or what pleased them. And man knew that there were no other gods but these gods. So he designates a sacred ground from which to pay homage and make sacrifices. What could possibly be more powerful or sublime than the wind, the rain, and the seasons? 

Ahhhh….. But the world grew larger, generations passed, and cultures matured. Man became venturesome, wiser and explored more of the world in which he lived. He was boundlessly in awe of the heavens so the sun, the moon and the stars became his gods and the masters of his universe. Man reasoned if the gods were pleased, their women would be fertile, food would be plentiful, and good fortune would be his reward. And if the gods were angry he knew he would grievously suffer. Fortunately there were those among men who talked to the gods and understood what pleased them or made them angry.  And because man feared the wrath of his gods he built monuments for worship and sacrifice. Another god is inconceivable and would not compute in his mind. Man could not imagine a greater god than the sun, the moon, and the stars.

Generations continued to pass, the world grew larger, and man began to consider the concept of destiny. So he ascribed human characteristics to his gods such as wisdom, beauty, strength and evil, and in his own image created Baal, Neptune, Isis, Zeus, and Mars. If man would please his gods they would give him power wealth and wisdom. Because man felt he must worship and venerate the gods to avoid their wrath, there were those among him who could speak to the gods and make their wishes known. So man built magnificent temples from which he made sacrifices and proclaimed his god’s supremacy. These idols decided his destiny and there could be no higher authority. What other gods could there be?

Well, the world grew even larger and even more complicated. And after generations of worshipping multiple deities man grew wiser. So about 6,000 years ago this fellow called Abraham appears on the scene and has an “aha moment”. Abe asks: “Is the sun god more powerful than Baal? Could the moon god be more caring than the rain god?” “Hmmm” he ponders:  “If I do this god thing right I could have one hell of a money maker here. In fact this will inarguably be the greatest con job the world has ever seen. All I have to do is convince these multiple-god-fearing suckers that there is only one god. It’s a posilutely foolproof———–what could be more logical, appealing or simple? I’ve just got to persuade these mooks that there’s this ONE BIG GOD-(OBG) who created all the other gods who in turn created the wind the moon, good crops and gave man the strength to prevail over his enemies.” What an ideal idea. OBG and one-big-voice to answer all man’s questions about life’s purpose and destiny. “ “Christ” he pumps his fists: “This could be the greatest money making machine in the universe. And no taxes.”

Abe knows that people are more likely to believe the authenticity and sanctity of god’s word if it’s in writing rather from stories which are passed down from generation to generation. So Abe has his sycophants codify a marketing and business plan with instructions for man to obey and keep this OBG happy. In the process, Abe and his fawning followers kept copious records of the amazing events that god caused to happen over 3,000 years. But Abe’s success was limited because it was slow heart breaking work and switching gods took a lot of faith. However these records, which were kept on special scrolls in special earthen jars and, were passed down from generation to generation, eventually got lost in the shuttle of time. But a little over 2,000 years ago some enterprising grifters found the scrolls; everybody got all shook up and all hell broke loose. Then with unabashed plagiarism, without royalties, copyright protection, or attribution, the world got itself a new book. It was jam-packed with rules, directives and commands handed down by god which were exponentially more confusing than our tax and criminal codes combined. Still this new book became a best seller.

It instructed OBG greenhorn what they must do and how to comport themselves to please the OBG and avoid his wrath. And fortunately there were those among men who could talk to the OBG and who understood his wishes. So splendid and colossal buildings were built to make sacrifices and to worship OBG. “Who is like thee oh Lord, our God, our Creator, our Salvation, our Redeemer, ruler of the heavens who gave birth to the sun, the stars and the universe?”  This OBG is the embodiment of all things good and evil, the reason we exist, live and die. No one could possibly imagine the concept of another god———like can you imagine a house that’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside or heat that causes water to freeze?

But could there be a higher power? Is it possible 3,000 years hence that man may worship a complex spatial dimension, an energy cluster or a sub-atomic molecular pattern? And if he does, would he worship that god with the same reverential awe with which our early ancestors respected their gods? Or would he worship a new deity with the adulation, passion, and fervor with which we ascribe to this culture’s OBG? Today when tourists visit the Temple of Luxor, Stonehenge or the Great Pyramids, they might ask: “I wonder what those people were like?” And 3,000 years from now, when tourists are visiting St. Peter’s Basilica or the Mormon Tabernacle or the Crystal Cathedral they might remark: “I wonder what were those people like?” But today I imagine 3,000 years into the future and ponder what will those people be like.

The United Nations, myriad human rights organizations, imperious dignitaries, and pampered world celebrities sanctimoniously condemn Israel and have turned this tiny nation the world’s punching bag. The Obama Administration, Europe and Asia continue to cudgel Israel’s leaders as did Helen Thomas before her sex change operation. Barack Obama winks while world opinion portrays Israel of ethnic slavery and white supremacy. Somehow the world’s opinion of the Israeli-Palestinian disaccord has been altered from a disparate territorial dispute to a dissolute conflict between the mighty Israel and the survival of a tormented, suffering people who a generation ago emigrated from Syria and Jordan and now have no home. These emigrants, self-distinguished by the cognomen “Palestinians” have nominated themselves as an ad hoc member of the Third World along with Ethiopia, the Congo, Sierra Leone and Niger to name a few. And today the moral template through which Israel is viewed by the world community is that of a bullying colonial power committed to the repression of a helpless Third World people. This template blithely demonizes Israel and has morphed into the latest fashion in world wide political correctness. The international runway now demands that all nations become outraged when Israel refuses to release 1,200 *Palestinian prisoners, or prosecutes suicide bombers, or when their commandos board Hamas ships that deliver arms and bombs to the Palestinians. But somehow it’s not politically correct to be outraged when Muslim suicide bombers blow up a Haifa restaurant killing 35 civilians or when Muslims bomb a school because it teaches girls to read.

*For the purpose of this discussion Palestinians and Muslims will be used interchangeably.

And with a righteous, straight face, the United Nations has the audacity to demand that Israeli officials submit to an international investigation for its defensive responses while Palestinians armed by Iran and Syria, continue to rein thousands of rockets on Israeli towns, torch civilian busses and raid Israeli settlements.

The Chinese are wrong. The U.S is not a paper tiger, the U.S. is a tissue-tiger, embarrassed by its past. We need to atone for enslaving the blacks. We need to apologize for our imperialistic behavior, for the manner in which we imposed our economic and social culture on other nations, and with tail between our legs we beg forgiveness for our corporate greed that siphoned riches from other nations for the benefit of our capitalistic system. The Left Coast and Eastern Establishment view us as pariahs so we genuflect to “fess-up” and asked to be absolved and forgiven for the sins of the past. What a load of “do=-good, feel-good, over-sensitive, left-wing crap.” So we suck up to their approval because they are this country’s self-anointed, pure-blue moral authority.

This corrupted thinking has been a growing part of our impressionable mindset for decades. Today we won’t use our military power because others will consider is to be imperialistic. Stuff it. So we refuse to enforce our southern borders because we do not want to be viewed as racist. Can it. We won’t require immigrants to speak English and assimilate because we are afraid to be labeled xenophobic. So what? We are told the “diversity is our friend.” Now we are leaning that diversity is death by a thousand cuts and the cancer of Western Civilization. We distance ourselves from the glories of our past and because we are told that we must be shamed by our imperialism, our racism and our economic dominance. This clouds our perception and prevents us from seeing the Palestinians as they really are. So we view them as they view themselves: a persecuted people denied basic human rights, education, medical care, jobs, homes- the fault of evil Israel and sinful America. We lack the fortitude to demand the truth because we are fearful of losing our moral authority. We ignore the truth that the Palestinians are driven to conflict, belligerency, suicide bombing, religious strife, sickness, poverty, and illiteracy not by the U.S. or Israel but by their own inferiority that is passed down from each dunghill generation to another like the genetic clap. For thousands of years these people have been goat herders and hunter-gatherers most of whom remain in the slime of the 14^th century. The Palestinian looks but he doesn’t see, he feels but he does not understand and he hears but doesn’t listen. He compares himself to us and senses he is inferior to the modern world by which man is defined. His intellect cannot fathom a solution because he knows if he is given everything he wants… a homeland, housing, food, jobs, medical care; he would still be covered by a heavy cloak of inferiority.

The Koran does not speak of love. As soon as a Muslim child can walk, the Imams teach him to hate, hate is literally and figuratively beaten into the child like an animal hater might chain a dog and whip upon it with a stick. This inbreeding over the last thousand years has caused hatred to replicate in a Muslim’s DNA and become part of his genetic code. Hatred is prominent in the Koran, it’s the focus of its teaching and it’s the over-arching lesson in Muslim schools. The Imams know that hatred is a forceful aggressive emotion that clearly hi-jacks Muslim’s inferiority which is a weak, passive emotion. Muslims are taught to believe that the problem is not themselves, but Israel, America, and Western Civilization. This is a cleverly calculated, victimization scheme providing Muslims with a moral enlightenment that they can understand. So the Muslim concludes that while Israel and Western Civilization may be modern and smart, The Muslim possesses innocence and that make him a victim. He may be impoverished, sick and homeless but the Muslim is blessed because his soul is clean. Even his inability to understand the world around him gives the Muslim a feeling of moral superiority because the success of Israel and Western Civilization is a testament to its inhumanity. The Muslim’s hatred is his self-esteem. Take this hatred from him and he has no identity. Hate is a life raft in his sea of despair giving him the buoyancy to survive. And this is the season why Yassar Arafat rejected the 2000 Camp David Accord in which Israel offered the Palestinians almost everything they demanded including recognition of a homeland and 90% of the Gaza Strip. Yassar was a fox, an extremely wealthy fox who straddled both sides of the fence. He knew that if he accepted the Camp David Accord that his Palestinians would be left without a scapegoat for their misery, denied their “raison d’etre”, and that their hatred would have lost its meaning. He knew if the Palestinians didn’t gave Israel to hate that they would have to face their inferiority… and so too the Muslim’s in Iran Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, and where ever Muslims live.

The Muslim’s hatred of Israel and Western Civilization is the glue that binds them. Without Israel to hate the Muslims will have lost their moral authority, their influence, and prestige. And once again they would become goat herders in the 21^st century and an embarrassment cultural stink in the eyes of the modern world. Yes, the Muslim World knows that Western Civilization is a tissue-paper tiger. The Muslim knows that we fear their rhetoric and their savagery and their commitment. The Muslim knows we are weak.

And because Western Civilization is insufficiently ruthless this conflict does not have a bi-lateral solution. Centuries of treaties have failed to establish peace. For obvious reasons neither Jordan nor Syria want their people back. Giving the Palestinians access to Israel is like inviting Chicago’s South-Side to live and work in Cape Cod. And suggesting an alternative homeland for the Jews (such as Australia) is an anathema to the Jewish people. The current situation is an over-ripe, festering boil from which a putrid, yellow puss is seeping. And when that boil pops Western Civilization will disappear because our Imams teach us to turn the other cheek.

Many investors who have been reading my column over the past 35 years have written and thanked me for the advice that they often find helpful in designing their portfolios. And many of you who read my column have been kind enough to compliment me on my sometimes timely information and unique insights to the murky world of investing. And some of you have offered to make contributions, in my name, to a charity of my choice. So I’d like to request that you make your contributions to my favorite charity which is S.T.A.N., Ltd.

S.T.A.N., Ltd. is an acronym for Save the Australian Nauga. Naugas as you may know are cute, furry, cuddly little animals about the size of a 3 month old cocker spaniel and just as warm and huggable. Naugas, until some 40 years ago, were as common in the Australian Outback as pigeons are today in New York City .

In the early 1950s a number of large furniture companies (Drexel, Lay-Z-Boy, Thomasville , etc.) recognized that the Nauga’s hide was less expensive and has qualities not available in the leathers of other animals. Its hide (trademark Naugahyde) does not require a long tedious tanning process, its more elastic, easier to shape, holds color better, has a longer wear-life and requires less maintenance than companion hides.. And certainly the millions of Americans who have Naugahyde covered chairs, couches, automobile seats, etc., will with alacrity, acknowledge these advantages.

So in 1952 a consortium of furniture companies from North Carolina and California hired crews of professional hunters to track the Nauga and transship the honey-colored hides from Australia to the States. And Naugahydes soon became a big business. I can even remember President Harry Truman extolling the virtues of his Naugahyde covered chair in the White House. And I can recall, in the early 1956, when General Motors took out full page adds in Life Magazine bragging that they were the “first motor car company to cover their automobile seats with luxurious hide of the Australian Nauga.” Of course those hides first appeared in the Cadillac Fleetwood. Studebaker, Hudson, Packard, Chrysler and Ford were soon to follow and the demand for Naugahydes began to increase by orders of magnitude.

As an aside, in 1982, Congress, through the intervention of an organization called Save the Whales, banned the importation of Naugahydes to the U.S. But demand did not slacken because the rage caught on in Japan , Germany and even France .

Anyhow, hunters, who were paid $2.00 for a male hide and $2.50 for a female hide (they are softer and easier to clean) soon decimated the Nauga population in Australia . Unfortunately the Australian Government, without regard for the Nauga’s reproductive capacity (females breed only once each 2.6 years) of those doe-eyed creatures, allowed the carnage to continue. And export demand continued to increase when the Russians discovered that the Nauga’s fur was nearly identical in quality to that of the Sable and even to the trained touch of a furrier, nearly impossible to differentiate. In fact, many Americans who have bought expensive Sable coats are probably wearing Nauga fur coats which are actually warmer then the Sable coat.

According to S.T.A..N., Ltd., domiciled in Melbourne , there are less than 6,000 Naugas remaining in the Outback. These loveable, soft, friendly creatures would seem to make ideal house pets. Unfortunately they are unable to survive in captivity and usually die after several months of domestication. Apparently, like the Lemmings of Norway and Finland , group bonding is essential to their health and survival. Attempts to breed these delightful creatures in environmental zoos have failed. According to Harvard zoologist, Dr. O. Leo Leahy, the Nauga has a recessive gene that triggers a self-destruct mechanism when confronted by an environment that is not their natural habitat. Only the aborigines of Australia have managed to domesticate the Nauga because they share and survive in a mutual environment.

So, I encourage you to send your kind contributions to S.T.A.N., Ltd., C/O the Australian Embassy, Washington , D.C. Upon receipt of your check the Embassy will send you a color photo, suitable for framing, of a Nauga family grazing in the Outback. I know that you will be richly rewarded by the knowledge that your tax-deductible contribution will S.T.A.N. 

The media may unwittingly be promoting enmity and conflict among Americans of different backgrounds. I’m referring to the repetitious use of ethic identities as Cuban-American, Muslim-American, African-American and the like. This practice encourages ethnic groups to flaunt their ancestry in preference to their country. The frequent reference to groups such as Polish or Mexican-American prompts its members to insist “I’m Polish first and American second” or “I’m Mexican first and American second.”

            It wasn’t too many years ago when we were just plain Americans. Today some of us feel we need to call ourselves “American-Americans” to distinguish ourselves from African, Haitian, German, Asian or Cuban heritage. The emphasis on ethnicity, heritage or ancestry to recognize their exclusivity as an adjective Balkanizes our culture and emphasizes our differences rather than our commonality. This redundant emphasis on group ethnicity builds dangerous and palpable layers of hostility between Americans of different ancestry. It pits Mexicans against Asians, Cubans against blacks and is disrespectful to those who wish to be called simply “an American.” The difference of heritage in one reason social tensions will always exist; because heritage implies differences, differences imply superiority and superiority leads to dominance. The media’s tautological use of heritage as an adjective caresses the veneer of social harmony with sandpaper. The repeated use of African-American or Cuban-American to identify oneself is perceived by many people as “it’s better to be an African or Cuban first and American second.”

            Many ethnic groups now wear their ancestry like epaulets, spawning rivalries between themselves and competing ethnicities while alienating mainstream America . And when a group’s identity becomes a refuge for its members, its social, political and economic goals become antagonistic, intractable and self-centered. Rather than a collective, common agenda that would benefit a majority of Americans, various groups with their self-centered ambitions compete against each other for America ’s limited resources.

            There are no winners in this covetous competition for ethic recognition and dominance. The losers are legion and their failures to control political, social and economic policy is reflected in their vigorous personal resentment and loud discord in the public arena. The metaphorical American “melting pot,” which was once a wonderful bouillabaisse, is now a caldron of indissoluble and irreconcilable differences.

            We are the only country in the world to encourage ethnic separatism as feel-good social policy and feel-good politics. Can you imagine a Haitian-Dutchman, an African-German or a Mexican-Englishman? Only in America do we acquiesce to an ethnic group’s instance on the use of ethnicity as an adjective. It’s irresponsible to flaunt ethnicity like a flag because it partitions millions of Americans into ethnic bunkers. Most of us have family who came to America from another country. They left their homelands for a better future in this country, and that you and I are here to discuss this proves that many of them succeeded. The failure to recognize that we are not hyphenated American but are Americans first is a dishonor to our country and millions of current and past citizens.

After frustrating decades of failed social experiments, many Americans have finally realized that being Politically Correct is a foofy illusion fostered by a delusional minority, and an effete left wing media, all of whom believe it’s possible to pick up a turd by its clean end. “Do not discriminate! Diversity is our friend! All men are created equal!” These and other politically correct, placable bromides are the mantric incantations of the Church, the Academes, the Nouveau Riche and Silly Flat-Earth Idiots (CANS) who rely on social causes to nourish their mental health. So they figuratively become messianic, soap-box agitators who believe in the goodness of man, that love conquers all, the Easter Bunny and the Great Pumpkin. And if you refuse to accept their bromidic theses, they will, with alacrity, brand you a bigot, a racist and heaven forbid an atheist! Well, what the hell, considering the number of people who have been killed and tortured in God’s name, many clear thinking Americans are eager to become born again atheists. However, it seems that these well meaning tub-thumpers conveniently ignore numerous examples from the most well read history book of all time – The Holy Bible. Frankly there’s not much holy about a book that is the most bloody chronicle in all the literature of the world..  The story of Abel, Cain and their daddy, Adam is the first example of discrimination. Consider the citizens of Sodom or Gomorrah whose behaviors god considered unacceptable…including all those cute, happy, blue-eyed babies and fair-skinned, pubescent children. Of course there’s the tale of the “Big Flood” wherein god took the life of every human except Noah and his family. Hells bells even Allah, Moses and each of the 265 Popes are guilty of overt discrimination, however those daft and dotty CANS will go to great lengths to explain that they possessed a divine right to do so. Still, the historical lessons here are (1) Man has always discriminated, (2) Diversity is not tolerated and (3) All men are not created equal. Many CANS consider this heresy and these who do, according to most psychologists, have problems with premature ejaculation. Some CANS know these historical lessons are true and refuse to acknowledge it. They’re hopeless romantic; and romantics spend a fortune on Viagra or Cialis. Other CANS tacitly admit the truth but fervently believe the truth can be overcome. They are balmy fools and neither Viagra nor Cialis will help them. Still other CANS publicly acclaim the truth but believe that man’s goodness will prevail. These people are neurotic, dangerous and spend lots of money on ladies of the night. And finally, some CANS admit the truth and work very quietly behind the scenes to deny it. They are psychotic, insidious and never get laid. These blithering idiots would rather that all of us be equal under slavery then unequal in a society of freedom. However most of us recognize that inequality is as dear to the American Heart as Liberty itself.

“Don’t Discriminate!” Poppycock! Discrimination is a natural human response and as much a part of our autonomic nervous system as a blink and a yawn. We practice discrimination in our preference of neighborhoods, clothing, art, language, hair style, music, job skills, etc. This is called (OD) or Object Discrimination. OD is an acceptable behavior and people practice it everyday. Though we may be roundly criticized for our choices, OD is not considered a negative behavior. But suppose that John discriminates against Lekisha because her accent is offensive. The modifying verb “against” colors the active verb “discriminate” as an unacceptable and negative behavior. Interesting? (1) WOULD you (a) Prefer to have a loveable, funny Christian friend or (b) A dull, Muslim friend without a sense of humor? (2) WOULD you choose a roommate who is (a) A law abiding, well read and from a middle class family or (b) A roommate who has unsavory friends, is on food stamps and lives in the ghetto? (3) If your business needed a receptionist WOULD you (a) Hire a lady who looks like Elizabeth Hurley, speaks with a delightful English accent and dresses conservatively or (b) Hire a Hispanic female who is 75 pounds over weight, speaks ghetto English and has visible piercings and body tattoos? Get my drift? Now, if you selected only members of the “b” group, do you think that members of the “a” group would feel discriminated against? However, if you selected only members of the “a” group it’s almost a certainty that “b” group members would scream discrimination. They would tell us that we are biased because of “b’s” differences in language, dress and appearance. Well darn, most of us (even the CANS) don’t want to “walk that walk,” “talk that talk” or “dress that dress.” So it’s logical to conclude that “a” is being discriminated against by “b” because “b,” who will not accept “a’s” differences but insists that “a” accept “b’s”differences. Major differences between people and their ethnic heritage is one of the reasons that antagonism will always exist; because differences imply superiority and superiority leads to predominance.  

People discriminate because they identify characteristics in others they perceive as negative and recognize that those characteristics give life to a discomfiting and non-productive environment. Well Jesus Christ on a Chris Craft, any normal, healthy, Native Born American (NBA) would feel threatened by other NBA’s whose characteristics are antagonistic to their milieu. If the characteristics of a specific NBA group are perceived as egregious then other NBA’s would naturally do their darndest to avoid the appearance of “guilt by association.” This is Social Discrimination (SD). It’s a flight response to avoid a potential threat and it is a natural behavior to avoid assimilation into a regressive culture. It’s self-preservation so unless you’re a wuss you are expected to discriminate because you have a duty to forebear that danger.

One of the most evident examples of this behavior derives from NBA blacks, an ethnic group that (according to Bell Curve, anecdotal evidence and empirical observation) figuratively stands lower on the intellectual and achievement scale than most whites. This reproach will be construed as racists by the CANS, and as an excuse for NBAs to discriminate against blacks. But that assumption is as wrong as Corrigan and two left shoes. The NBA black isn’t discriminated against because of his color; rather he’s discriminated against because of what his skin color is likely to tell us about him. Many observers believe that it is possible to make correct assumptions about some people if we know their heritage. For example: Asians have higher IQ’s than Caucasians, Jews are good business people, blacks are superb athletes, Germans are excellent scientists, Italians are great lovers, etc. etc. and etc. And its common knowledge that a significantly large number of NBA blacks have very evident characteristics that distinguish them from the NBA mainstream culture. Casual observation inarguably concludes that black crime rates, black homicide rates, educational level, language, dress code and social structures are behaviors clearly unacceptable to the majority of NBAs. The NBA black’s combative and provoking efforts to force their culture on the NBA mainstream is intolerably offensive and mocks the culture of most NBAs whose values form the tribunal of approval. Therefore they must discriminate to protect their values. However few things are more difficult for minority groups to accept than an annoying truth.

So let’s drop this palaver that “all men are created equal,” that “we must not discriminate” and that “diversity is your friend.” Those palliative bromides are promoted by all well meaning CANS who believe that equality is a right, but fail to realize that no power on Earth can turn it into fact. If you “follow the money,” you will note that pro-diversity is a Big Business promoted by whites, blacks and CANS who suck in billions of dollars a year selling consulting services, grant approvals, office space, legal and accounting services, computer equipment, organizational skills, printing and office supplies, etc. Anti-Discrimination is a multi-billion dollar business and a deeply entrenched interest (imagine how much Messrs Jackson, Sharpton, Reverend Wright and others make) stands to loose big money and important influence if discrimination ceased to exist. And these folks are tremendously successful because they tie most Native Born Americans into such politically correct knots that every governmental agency is afraid of being sued for discrimination by some smart-aleck, candy-assed, civil rights lawyer.   

“As bailout plans bloom don’t let the arts wither,” said Michael Kaiser, President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in a January 2009 Wall Street Journal opinion column. Michael suggests that this financial storm that is wreaking havoc throughout the country has also “weakened the fabric of our nation’s arts ecology” so he proposes immediate emergency grants for arts organizations in America. Michael, a serial lobbyist, has pleaded with members of Congress to carve a slice of the Federal bailout largess specifically for the Arts. (Why not send Federal funds to goat herders in the Ukraine too?) He also insists that “we need legislation that allows unusual access to endowments.” He also demands that: “Washington must encourage foundations to increase their spending rates during this crisis as well as immediate tax breaks for corporate giving.” As he eloquently states his case he disingenuously tells us that the “arts” provide 5.7 million jobs which account for $166 billion in economic activity annually.  Michael would tell us these big numbers represent a country-wide montage of rag-tag, store front productions, theatre and dance groups, artist’s colonies and musical wunderkinds the majority of whom live living in modestly low rent districts and occasionally get a concert hall gig in Waukegan, Syracuse or Norman.

Well I’m part of the very silent majority who has finally decided to speak my piece.  I strongly object and I’m damn offended that Michael would use my tax dollars to support the “arts”, whatever the “arts” maybe. Yep, times are tough and certainly a museum will close in Raccoon Lake an opera company will fold in Tampa, symphonies, stage and dance companies will probably shut their doors in Baltimore, Savannah, Corpus Christi and the Museum of Contemporary Art will (thank God) close in Los Angeles. But Stinky Candolla, Bubba Reese Jones, Mookie Marshall and a couple hundred million other Americans don’t give a flying kite about listening to Edward Bond’s Methuen Drama from a Punta Gorda stage or care a whit to hear Waltraud Mier singing Isolde at an opera company in Sheboygan or Maya Angelu recite her Victimization Poetry at a  Playhouse in Kokomo. Listen up Michael and compeers – listen good. Hundreds of millions of Americans don’t give a hoot or holler about your “arts”. And because our opinions from the tribunal of approval, it’s patently dishonest to use our tax dollars to support the gourmet art preferred by a few million of your minions who read the New Yorker. If a symphony in Kankakee can’t support itself with revenues from ticket sales . . . . let the bloody thing pull up anchor and float into oblivion. That’s capitalism. But taxing the majority so an audience of 287, fashionistas to the manor born can listen to Mahler’s Symphony #2, by a less than stellar St. Petersburg Orchestra, is patently pure, raw, stinking Socialism.

I’ve listened to some delightful Blue Grass bands that gave up their fiddles because they couldn’t sell enough tickets to buy blankets and keep warm on a cold night. I know two artists whose style I appreciate, a lounge singer whose voice I admire, a sculpture of whom I think highly and a left wing thespian with whom I enjoy an occasional debate. These folks can’t generate enough public support for their artistry because they’re talent is mediocre so they keep their day jobs to buy food and pay utilities and rent. They didn’t seek money from the JFK Center for The Performing Arts or other organizations less auspicious but with similar goals.  That’s not the “real” American way!

I’m peeved, piqued and provoked you and your compeers of highfalutin gentility would use our tax dollars to support regional theatre groups, dancers, singers, painters etc. who are failures on the public stage. Some suggest that Michael and others of elegant persuasion get their libidos bathed with adulation when they dole out our tax dollars to fawning performers, artists and writers. Michael and his well meaning friends really believe that a portion of our tax dollars should help these performers/artists. But several hundred million of us common folks really believe it’s all a bucket of night soil and that Michael and friends are dicked in the nob. We (the average Joe) don’t receive a subatomic particle of benefit from the sub-par performances and mediocre entertainment skills of local theatre/art groups. Proof of the pudding is defined by tickets sold. And their failure to survive in Moline, Jonesboro or Peoria is proof that the pudding is lousy.

There’s a better way to support mediocre talent without taking money from common folks who lack the fashionable sophistication to appreciate Opera, Euripides, Shakespeare’s Henry the 4^th, Expressionism, Modern or Classical Dance, Ballet, Poetry readings and other forms of artistic haute couture. Hells bells we prefer Line Dancing, Country & Western, Red Neck Humor, Jay Leno, Harrison Ford, Tony Bennett, Clint Eastwood, Julia Roberts, Josh Groban and Garth Brooks. This is the entertainment that forms the tribunal approval – this is the entertainment that most Americans want . . . not the prissy-classy-cissy stuff that you gotta wear an evening dress, a tie and tux to watch. The better way: tax the hugely successful entertainers who make more money than they can spend no matter how they slice their salamis: Entertainers like Hannah Montana, Justin Timberlake, Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Jim Carey, Sheryl Crowe, Beyonce, ad nauseum are enormously popular and their mass appeal fills concert halls, stadiums, attracts Network TV and fills movie theatres across the nation. Their films, albums and appearances generate billions of dollars of revenues from ticket sales and endorsements. These folks are prodigious cash generating machines and certainly a more appropriate source of “Funding for the Arts” than our using tax dollars from our paychecks. I think Hannah Montana, who purportedly (with endorsements) sucked up over $100 million in gross income in 2008, wouldn’t object a whit, a tic or a jot to a 0.5% tax on her gross income ($500,000) to support the “arts!” Jim Carey made $53 million, Madonna took in $133 million, Jay Leno, Meryl Strep, Matt Damon, Jackie Chan, Harrison Ford, Russell Crowe, and Oprah took in enough money in 2008 to buy San Antonio, Poland and the Island of Fiji! Then if we include baseball, basketball, football and hockey jocks, pretty soon it adds up to real money. All of these folks are in the entertainment business (the Arts) and I suspect they would, with alacrity, be happy as sunshine and rainbows to pay a few dollars in personal taxes to support the arts.

So, Michael Kaiser, President of the John F. Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts, perhaps it’s time to use your considerable influence with the successful people in the “Arts” and gently cozen them out of a few hundred million dollars a year. Certainly, Bill Cosby, Barbra Streisand, Brad Pitt, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, C.C. Sabathia, etc, would be proud to assist their fellow entertainers. Bon Jovi cares enough to raise money to help residents of South Africa, Rosie O’Donnell donates millions to her Children’s Education program, Oprah decided to spend $11 million for a girls school in South Africa, Barbra Streisand donated $1.5 million to the Bill Clinton Library, Angelina Jolie and her beau gave $2.5 million to an orphanage in Vietnam so they could adopt a kid, Jackie Chan donates millions to defuse land mines in Cambodia, Julia Roberts, Lawrence Fishbourne, Pierce Bronson and Jessica Lange are substantial contributors to UNICEF and Shirley MacLaine gladly gives millions to improve the lives of children in Botswana . . . . . certainly these wonderful, good people and their colleagues in the “arts” would wish to prove equally generous to their not so successful brethren.

Africa is the second largest and the second most populous continent after Asia. Africa covers 21% of the total land area of our globe and is home to 1.4 billion people; nearly 27% of the world’s population. It’s boundlessly rich in natural resources such as oil, coal, gas, water, uranium, gold, bauxite, platinum, timber, copper, etc., with thousands of miles of navigable coastline. And Dr. Louis Leaky, the famed archaeologist who discovered the oldest human bones (Lucy) on our planet, tells us that Africa is the Cradle of Human Civilization dating back 3.2 million years ago. And the esteemed geneticist, Dr. George Mendel, who was first to prove that dark genes are dominant and light genes are recessive, tells us that Africans are the original parents of all humanity. From the beginning of humankind to the rise and fall of great civilizations, we, Lucy’s progeny, have evolved markedly since the dawn of our species.

But Africa, almost completely populated by Blacks, remains a tribal continent that hasn’t progressed much further than the Bronze Age of 8,000 years ago. Today almost all of the 61 nations that comprise this continent are bumbling, pre-medieval satraps, with corrupt infrastructures that benefit only those in power. This continent and its indigenous people have never contributed anything of value to civilization. It’s a stockade for 1.4 billion people whose forbearers, some say, have failed to climb high enough on mankind’s evolutionary ladder. Most Africans lack modern survival skills. They are malnourished, diseased, intellectually stunted and rely upon the good will of technologically advanced nations for survival. Many Africans still live in the jungles; hundreds of millions live in mud huts and millions more reside in city slums without sanitation, potable water, electricity and reproduce at alarmingly high rates. Africa is said to be evolution’s toxic human waste dump.

But let’s quickly climb the evolutionary ladder to the Paleolithic Age 125,000 years ago when a few venturous African bipeds began to trickle to what we now call Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Russia. Little is known of their migratory patterns or social structures but we can conclude these people developed new skills to sustain themselves and survive the harsh, marked differences in climate, terrain and diet. The trickle slowly grew into a steady stream, flowing from the Stone Age 14,000 years ago and the Bronze Age 8,000 years ago from which we have evidence of exquisitely advanced civilizations in Sumeria and Mesopotamia. During the Bronze Age these people, whose ancestors trekked from Africa, divided themselves into 12 independent City-States, the boundaries of which were defined by canals and special marking stones. Each City-State was centered on a Temple dedicated to a favored God and each was ruled by a Priestly Governor. These Sumarians and Mesopotamians called themselves “sag-giga” literally meaning dark-headed people and they were the first civilizations to practice intensive, year-round farming about 9,000 years ago. This innovation allowed people to settle in one place, permitting greater population densities that required an extensive work force, division of labor, record keeping and development of a syllabary writing system. These intellectually progressive civilizations employed architects, builders, artisans and leaders with common community goals to build aqua ducts for agriculture, food storage, temples for worship, roads, and structures for religion, government and commerce. Eventually similar migratory and developmental records may be found in Europe, the Orient, Russia and the Mid-East where other Afro-centric civilizations flourished and prospered. But Africans who remained on their continent continued to embrace the Dark Ages while their adventurous and intellectually superior progeny prospered, explored and contributed to an advancing and modern world civilization.

Certainly during the last 700 years the world has enjoyed impressive progress in healthcare, communications, chemistry, architecture, agriculture, physics, transportation, education, mathematics, energy, climate control, etc. All these extraordinary advances, all this genius derived from Europe, Asia, the Mid-East, Russia, and North America. However nothing, not even a sub-atomic particle of this knowledge derived from an African architect, an African physician, an African physicist, chemist, geneticist, astronomer, engineer or mathematician. So, considering that Africa has a population of 1.4 billion people - the world today has 6 billion people - isn’t it reasonable to assume that at least one African be prominent among the world’s great minds like, Galileo, Newton, DaVinci, Einstein, Faraday, Edison, Salk, Shakespeare or Hawkings? It’s clearly evident that Africa, even in the last 700 years has contributed nothing of value to the intellectual and industrial glue that binds humanity and modern civilizations.

Perhaps it’s time to say “screw” political correctness and tell American Blacks (not Black Americans) that they must confront a truth about themselves. The truth is as self-evident as wet is to water. There are no great African minds because there are no great African minds. It’s that simple! While compelling and self-evident, this observation is deeply offensive to American Blacks. And because this truth is offensive we are cautioned not to speak of it though respected academics and knowledgeable observers believe it to be valid. There’s just no way to kindly say that African Blacks and direct descendants of African Blacks lack many of the intellectually tools which are more common to Whites. But it’s a fact of life like butterflies, honeybees, a bounced check and a common cold. And by multiple standards that our culture considers important, Blacks rank at the bottom of nearly every category. Specific examples are not necessary to enumerate because empirical evidence is legion and obvious by almost all objective economic, social and educational measurements. However, its neither politic nor good manners to discuss this publically, even in academic circles.

The first rule of problem solving is to admit that there is a problem. But this problem is unlikely to be solved because, for many of the wrong reasons, we are taught to follow the Emily Post rules of etiquette that it’s bad manners to discuss racial differences in intelligence. These Flat Earth Thinkers (FET) are so enamored of the prose on our Declaration of Independence that they would defend to death (ours - not theirs) the phrase: ‘All Men are created equal.” However common sense suggests, even to American Blacks (not Black Americans), that those 5 words represent the world’s biggest bucket of night soil. There are numerous respected studies that demonstrate marked and tangential intellectual and physical differences between various humanoids on evolution’s tree. Our ancestors began to climb the same evolutionary tree 3.2 million years ago. Some took the quickest route and climbed straight up, many took detours, others climbed slowly and some just got tired and gave up. Professor David Reich, PhD at Harvard’s Department of Genetics tells us (Harvard University Gazette 5-2006) that ancestral humans bred with chimps. Reich shows that this hybridization places an evolutionary pressure on the X chromosome, causing it to change more rapidly than normal. Reich’s research determined that mass interbreeding continued for several million years but began to “taper off” about 5.4 million years ago. And while FET found this conclusion repugnant, Harvard anthropologist, David Pilbeam and others believe Reich’s work is “brilliant and exciting.”  Geneticists at Harvard and MIT have now concluded that human beings and chimps differ in only 1.5% of their genes and that human blood and chimp blood are very nearly identical. And the resulting differences in intellectual capacity are substantiated by Professors Richard Hermstein and Charles Murry in their politically incorrect book: THE BELL CURVE (1994). In chapter 14 these internationally esteemed scientists clearly demonstrated that racial differences in intelligence exist. Their conclusions were vigorously attacked in a maelstrom of anger and vilification by FET and multi-culture idealists whose denials derive from an emotional concord rather than objective science. And to acknowledge racial differences in intellect is considered heresy and offensive to FET values that “All men are created equal.”  To deny the disparity in racial intelligence between blacks and whites is to deny the earth revolves around the sun. Galileo by the way was convicted of heresy by the Catholic Church in 1633 and was imprisoned for the last 8 years of his life. Oh well, someone once remarked that all great ideas begin with a minority opinion.

If you’re reading this article the chances are that you may be intellectually honest. Therefore you are willing to acknowledge that empirical evidence clearly demonstrates that Blacks have intellectually inferior skill sets that preclude them from participating effectively in our modern society. You will also recognize that there are few great Black participants in finance, economics, neurosurgery, banking, architecture, management and so on. And if you publically ask: “why is this so?” you will be roundly hooted down with screams and shouts of bigotry and racial discrimination by FET, multi-culturists, Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, and other Blacks who profit enormously by playing the “VICTIMIZATION” card. A legendary trial lawyer once told me: “If the facts are not on your side, shout and pound the table. But if they are on your side, use logic and reason.”

Once again I ask you to consider the social, economic and political infrastructures of Africa’s 61 nations. Most are abysmal failures and anathema to civilized society. So is it any wonder that since 1991, American cities (Newark, Philadelphia, Camden, Baltimore, Gary, Detroit, Washington, D.C. and other) that were governed by blacks have generally become smaller, older, blacker, poorer and more crime prone?

Take a snapshot of the U.S. Public School System in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Those public schools did a good job teaching the 3Rs until the FET, et. al. convinced Congress to bus and integrate. The public schools worked to accommodate Black culture, Black expectations, Black attitudes and sought to mix their alien predispositions into the White culture. It was like pouring water into a straw and in the process it created an overflowing cultural shock causing millions of Whites to become victims of an insidiously deteriorating education system. Why? Well, because it is so much easier to teach to the lowest academic level rather than bringing Blacks up to our higher academic level. And the consequence today is a growing phenomena called “THE DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA.” Waves of intellectually inferior Black students (whose culture, morality, and expectations are the antithesis to White values) descended like locusts on neighborhood schools. And the problem compounded, as the FET ordered public schools to hire Black teachers and administrators most of whom lacked the requisite skills and capabilities. In the process our public school system slowly imploded and segued into a pandemic failure. Admit it! If you had a choice between putting your children in a public school or a private school and had the money to pay for private schooling . . . which would you choose which is precisely what President Obama did?

If we cannot agree on the problem then we will become victims of a creeping rot in our culture, our industries, and our government. And the cascading into the future will certainly quicken the dumbing down of our country.

Today more than ever we need to save, and contrary to what some to what some might think, its easier to save today because we spend so much money on unimportant “things & stuff” than we did years ago. Saving can be fun. Some families have an enjoyable game of it, share their savings ideas with others and approach it like a competitive sport. Some saving families become so “gung-ho” that they consider it a “contact” sport!

Other folks consider saving money as cutting back or reducing expenditures. It’s that too but successful savers define it as a positive experience that begins with a discipline to learn new spending habits. They don’t think of saving as a financial diet . . . . that’s a negative thought. Rather it’s learning a new skill like the first time you figured out how to ride a bike. You will always remember how to ride a bike and you will always remember how to save for the best of your life. There will be uphill roads and down hill roads but when you get the hang of it and learn how to shift gears, it will be a level road and you’ll ride with a wind at your back.

Americans are the world’s most prolific consumers, the only species on earth that will spend $300,000 for a huge home with a huge garage then – pack it with ATVs, a boat trailer, camping equipment, a stair climber, rowing machine, weight bench, a riding mower, a Honda motor bike, an older color TV, a large-box PC, trays of tools, luggage, electronic games, toys, furniture and boxes of used clothing – - – and park their new Chevy and Toyota in the drive. Now you’re squeezed by credit card debt, merchant charge accounts, auto loans, home equity loans and mortgage payments. It’s a far cry from the good old days when we just had to chose between paying for food or prescription drugs. You’re over your clavicles in debt because your common sense gene lost the battle with your consumption gene. The chickens have come home to roost because you raced to embrace the world of conspicuous consumption and convenience technology and now you are damned by debt. Now you must return to basics when common sense and fun were renewable resources.

So here is a smorgasbord of recommendations to lighten the load to gentler times when folks talked rather then texted, made lemonade from real lemons and Coke was a beverage of choice not candy for one’s nose. And adopting many of these suggestions may allow a family of four to keep between $4,000 to $10,000 or more of what they earn every year. It won’t be easy but as success is often rewarded by more success your new habits can become a constant source of accomplishment and enjoyment.

You may be paying real estate taxes on a home that is valued in excess of the current market price. Ask the county tax appraiser to reappraise your home. Join Costco and get their American Express Card with a 5% discount on fuel purchased at any gas station in the country except Wal-Mart and save 17-cents a gallon. Cancel your whole life insurance, buy term. Most homeowners who didn’t have 20% equity at the time of purchase had to buy Private Mortgage Insurance that cost about $500 per year per $100,000 of the mortgaged amount. But if your mortgage is now less than 79% of the appraised value, the Homeowners Protection Act of 1998 allows that your PMI be cancelled.

Now may even be a good opportunity to refinance your mortgage at a lower rate. If you have a cell phone get rid of your landlines and save $400 a year. Check Vonage, it’s always cheaper and sometimes better. If your kid has a cell phone “ cancel it.” Then cancel all those “weenie” features on your cell that add a thousand a year to the bill. Use Google 1-800-411-7283 for free directory assistance. If you have a hobby, counsel with your CPA and he may be able to turn some of your costs into a tax deduction. Ask your CPA or accountant if he can be more aggressive on your tax return. Ask if you qualify for Earned Income Credit.

Ask you insurance agent if he’s giving you a discount for multiple drivers, a good driving record or perhaps you drive less than 7,000 miles per year. If one of your cars has very little value you may only need liability insurance. Increase the deductible on your homeowners and auto policy and cancel some of your cable packages. Stop paying big checking account fees to BankAmerica or Wachovia and move your balances to a bank or credit union where they know your name. Collect and shop the Internet for vendor coupons and purchase private label foods from Kroger, Publix, A&P. Make sure you have a full tummy and a shopping list when you go to the grocery store. Eat more peanut butter and jelly or toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches. If you smoke cigarettes buy the cheaper brands, if you smoke pot grow your own. Rather than dental check-ups every six months do it annually. Ask for senior discounts at McDonalds, Burger King, and movie tickets. Cut your toddler’s hair. You’ll get pretty good at it after a few times. Take munchies to the theatre for you and the kids. Cancel your memberships in unimportant social, civic and professional organizations, and be selective with your magazine subscriptions. Don’t buy battery-operated appliances.

Collect ball point pens and note pads from your banks, insurance agent or real estate broker. Reduce charitable contributions by 75% and eliminate those which are low in order of importance. Stop buying books and CDs at Walgreens, CVS or Barnes & Noble. Make better use of your public library. If you take a 5mg pill for an infection and a 10mg pill is available tell the doc to prescribe the higher dosage and break it in two.  If it’s a capsule cut it in half and put scotch tape on the exposed end for later use. Tell the doc to give you a 14-day supply rather than a 7-day supply. It costs just a couple dollars more and you have a second prescription in the med-cabinet if get an infection again. If you take a daily prescription medication ask the doc to prescribe a 3-month supply. You’ll save over 30% plus two trips to the pharmacy. Chuck the Starbucks habit. Buy your drive-away java at McDonalds, Dunkin Donut, etc. for half the price. Barter your skilled service for another skilled service. Lower the thermostat on your hot water heater and raise it on your refrigerator. Wrap the hot water tank with insulation. Don’t do small loads in your dishwasher or clothes dryer. Larger loads will save you big bucks. Consider hanging your clothes out to dry and save 20% on your electricity costs. If a neighbor objects send him a copy of your new power bill. Don’t use the dishwasher dry cycle “ open the door and let them dry over night.” Forget bottled water, it’s a bigger hoax than weight loss pills. Make your own if you don’t like the taste of the municipal stuff. Protect east and west windows from summer sun with aluminum foil and close vents and doors in rooms that are not occupied. Stop using paper towels and napkins. Eliminate other convenience disposables. Put a brick in two toilets and save $12 a month. Make your own baby wipes. Compost you own fertilizer. Turn the thermostat down 3% in the winter and use weather-stripping to block air leaks at windows and doors. If you have a 19 year old living at home it’s time you begin collecting an allowance from him or her.

Don’t burn incandescent lights. A 60-watt bulb burning 24 hours, costs18-cents a day or $66 a year. A comparable AC LED bulb costs a half-penny a day or $2.10 per year. Call your local electric utility and ask for a free “Home Energy Check.” Cancel your American Express Platinum Card, don’t buy Aleve or Advil rather buy Ibuprofen or Naproxen in bottles of 500 at Costco or Sam’s. If you drink expensive vodka switch to the cheap stuff. Put the cheap stuff in a Grey Goose bottle and your friends won’t know the difference. And don’t be a wine snob. Put Mondavi or Berringer’s in a clear decanter. Cancel your health club membership and join the YMCA.  Practice entomophagy. Offer money saving ideas to your boss. Don’t purchase eyeglasses from your ophthalmologists. Their prices are usually 50% too high. Have a garage sale then consider a part-time business organizing garage sales, planning parties or writing children’s poetry. Become a one car family; dump your iPod, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm Treo, Satellite Radio, and OnStar.  How did you ever survive without them a few years ago?  Put half soles on your shoes. Reduce your holiday gift and birthday card list 75% (call them on the phone) cancel your kid’s dance and music lessons and watch your savings pile up. Don’t send flowers for special occasions “ send telegrams, they last longer.” Every night deposit your pocket change in a large glass jar. It’s fun to watch it grow and in a year you could have a couple hundred dollars that would otherwise have melted into the ethers. If your kid is in college away from home bring him back, send him to a community college and tell him to find a part-time job. Inflate the tires on your car to 36 PSI, which will improve your MPH by 10%. If you drive a leased car use low test and change the oil every 10,000 to 12,000 miles. And you can change the oil yourself. If you need new wheels for your car there are bargains on good used tires. Buy spare parts for your car at a junkyard.

When you eat out remember that TIPS are not an entitlement “ rather an acronym for To Insure Proper Service.” If you are required to valet your car subtract the required complimentary parking costs from the gratuity and leave a note on your food check that you’ve done so. Consider a potluck dinner with friends. McDonald’s has great double cheeseburgers for a buck. Buy that dresser or table and clothes consignment shops or Goodwill; your toiletries, home stationery products, shirts, pants, socks and prescriptions and underclothes at Sam’s, Costco or The Dollar Store. Wash and reuse your zip loc bags. If you need to purchase a new big-ticket item such as a mattress, a washer/dryer, a TV set or furniture you can negotiate the cost from the sticker prices. Tell the employer: “I really like this mattress and I’ll buy it now if you take $150 off the price.” It works, even at Sears, Dillards, Macy’s, Bloomingdales and Saks. Rent a room or become a foster parent. Can you convert part of your garage into a rental unit or paid storage space? Consider part-time employment and/or earn a raise from your supervisor by improving your current job skills. Cut your lawn, take the bus to work, wash your car, brown bag your lunch, drink Folgers, clean and treat your pool, plan picnics and bike trips, collect bottle caps, become active in church and civic affairs. Become politically active in your community and land a paid county or state board appoint. If you’re a golf enthusiast buy used golf balls. Dry your razor blades on a towel after shaving and they will remain amazingly sharp for at least 30 days. Don’t buy lottery tickets. Your chances of winning are just as good whether you buy a ticket or don’t. It’s a good time to call your credit card company and ask them to lower the rate. Your bank might lower the rate on your home equity loan too. Always speak with some one who has authority to say “œyes.” Chow down on your pet food but buy it in bulk. Fido and Cinderella don’t need gourmet meals.

If your dog or cat is an inside pet don’t purchase a license tag “ you don’t need licenses for rabbits or hamsters.” Get their medications at PetMed Express. It’s much cheaper then the vet. Reduce family vacation costs. Go to www.restaurants.com and buy gift certificates (usually $10 for $25 face value) good at 8,500 restaurants. You can search by zip code. If you must travel go to www.lastminute.com for air/hotel/car packages priced up to 70% off. Or www.hostelworld.com that offers private rooms, fresh linens, flat screen TVs, free internet access, meals and transportation from $20 to $35 per person, per night. Go to the park with the kids. Fly kites. Go to the zoo. Walk a nature trail. Visit a museum. Drive to a dairy farm. Tour a private airport. Call the general manager and he will be proud to escort you on the tarmac allowing you to inspect the planes and maybe even let you spend a few minutes in the tower. Tour the municipal water plant. Ogle the boats in the harbor . . . tell the dock master why you’re there and eventually you may be invited aboard by a proud owner. Take a round trip on a city bus and pack a lunch. Visit a fire and police station. Plan a four-hour bike trip with plenty of stops. Carry water and snacks. Your vacation is limited only by your imagination . . . . look in the yellow pages for fun places to visit and get other ideas from your Chamber of Commerce. Most families have no idea how fascinating there cities are.

Malcolm Berko who lives in South Florida has been a portfolio manager for the past 40 years. He also writes a pithy and humorous financial column through Creators Syndicate, which is published three times a week. He can be contacted via www.malber@comcast.net.

According to the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington, D.C., Suicide Bombers in Iraq have succeeded in wounding 24,973 victims and killing 11,149 people including 326 Americans. The bomber can board busses, visit cafes and walk among the crowds in a market square with impunity. He knows the best place to hide a straw is in a haystack so his anonymity is virtually impossible to defeat. You could be having a latte in a bistro and never in a hundred, never in a thousand and never in a million years suspect that the young person at the next table is a suicide bomber.

Few of these zealots are Iraqis. Generally they are young Saudi’s, or Sunni Muslims recruited from mosques by their Imam, who come from middle class families that typically produce 8 living siblings. Most are middle children and tend to have discernible feminine characteristics. All have been inoculated with dreams of martyrdom and their special place in Paradise to be tended by 72 beautiful virgins.

The West can offer a thousand compelling arguments that logically and persuasively disaffirm the motives and rationale of the Bomber. And, from our perspective, we are as right as sunshine and rainbows. However the Bomber, from his perspective, is tutored in just as many persuasive and logical paradigms that justify his motives and rationale. We believe his motives to be insane and evil. He believes his motives to be sane and pure. Our social and religious ethics tell us he’s wrong-headed but his faith in Allah and the Koran tell him his purpose is true. And he believes in our destruction with a greater intensity than we care for our preservation. We have a lot to lose when we die. The Suicide Bomber has nothing; he knows that his future and his soul aren’t worth even a dime to the Devil in Hell Himself! And because of his faith in Allah and the Koran he’d really rather be a martyr in Paradise than a man living on Earth. He believes in the literal interpretation of the Koran and that the Koran is the inerrant word of Allah. He’s committed to his Muslim religion, he’s committed to the Koran and he’s committed to Allah. While we at best are casually involved in our God, are casually involved in our bible and casually involved in its religious interpretations. And the difference between the Bomber’s commitment to his faith and our involvement is best described as the difference between ham and eggs “ where the chicken is INVOLVED but the pig is COMMITTED.” We are no more able to communicate with the Bomber’s mindset than we are able to communicate the concept of God to a dung beetle.

Though we share a common genetic code with the Suicide Bomber our culture, expectations and values are as different as cheese and chalk. We are more of an enigma to them as they are to us and neither of us are able to establish a commonality for a basis of communication. Basically we’re like two deaf and dumb mutes engaged in combat for survival. But the Bomber has a significant advantage, he can see us from great distances and we can’t see him because he is camouflaged by his environment. So how do we confront a Suicide Bomber who can’t be seen or heard? How can we stop the killing of thousands of innocent people? We can’t identify the Bomber by sound or sight, infiltration seems impossible and we can’t compel every passerby to walk through a detector as one must at a public airport. Oh, we get lucky once in awhile and stop a Bomber before he detonates, but they keep coming at us like those Japanese Kamikaze pilots in WW2! And to date neither diplomacy, bribery, reason nor force has mitigated the carnage. It seems there is no solution and that everything “within reason” has failed. But within whose “reason;”ours or theirs? And now I ask for your indulgence to relate the Chinese fable of Hi Ku and the Homicidal Dragon of 100 Powerful Talons.

Hi Ku was one of the many warriors who would seek the hand of the Emperor’s beautiful daughter, Koo Kee. So the Emperor of China proclaimed that any warrior who could stop the Homicidal Dragon of 100 Powerful Talons from roaring and casting fire would be given his daughter in marriage and awarded the rank of General. This greatly upset Hi Ku as well as Koo Kee for when they were younger they played in the Garden of The Blue Lake and wrote love poems together. Destiny would have them betrothed because their hearts beat as one when they first met. Their young years passed and Hi Ku went off to war taking a magic sword given to him by Koo Kee.

Many seasons passed and warrior after warrior failed to quiet the Dragon’s roar or still his flame. Neither their swords, spears nor their arrows could pierce the Dragon’s hide. Arrows and pikes broke on impact and no warrior was strong enough to physically subdue the creature. Time passed and it became Hi Ku’s turn to face the roaring, fiery Homicidal Dragon of 100 Powerful Talons. Hi Ku recognized that common tactics using spears, axes, pikes, even reason, bribery and friendship have been tried often and failed ignominiously. Ki Ku reasoned that doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results was really dumb. But he knew where there was great power there was also great weakness. So when faced the Homicidal Dragon of 100 Powerful Talons he did something uncommon. As the Dragon lunged, Hi Ku nimbly stepped aside, whirled his mighty sword and cut off one of the Dragon’s huge, Powerful Talons. The Dragon roared so loudly that the ground shook, so Hi Ku ruthlessly severed a second Powerful Talon and the flame spat from the Dragon’s mouth charring the grass and trees. So Hi Ku, without mercy, swiftly cleaved another Powerful Talon and the Dragon screeched in pain. The Homicidal Dragon of 97 Powerful Talons became confused and uncertain; he was wounded and retreated to his cave to nurse his pain and clear his head. Nothing like this has ever happened before, but he still had 97 Powerful Talons each of which could crush a village.

After a time of quiet the Homicidal Dragon of 97 Powerful Talons regrouped his courage, charged Hi Ku with the ferocity of 1,000 tigers and Hi Ku aggressively rived another Powerful Talon. The Dragon howled in agony, fleeing once again, feeling pregnable and for the first time fearful. Well the National Dragon Klan loudly protested Hi Ku’s savagery, the Commission on Dragon Rights impugned Hi Ku for cruelty and the World Union of Dragon Affairs condemned Hi Ku’s tactics in the World’s Court. But Hi Ku remained resolute. He knew that the Dragon’s continuing loss of Powerful Talons would vary inversely with its attempt to roar and spit fire. And after a dozen avenging amputations the Homicidal Dragon of 88 Powerful Talons became quiescent, there was peace in the Emperor’s land and Hi Ku married Ku Kee. The Chinese then went on to invent fire crackers, kites, herbal tea, Mahjong, rice paper, silk and proceeded to build a great wall. And Hi Ku, the tamer of the Dragon and the husband of the daughter of the Emperor of China also became known as the First Honored General of The Great Wall of China. Hi Ku then sold the movie rights of his story to MGM with the proviso that only Charlton Heston or upon his passing, Sylvester Stallone plays the lead role.

Now I don’t want to marry the Emperor’s daughter but there’s a lesson here. Find a weakness which will give every Suicide Bomber a somber cause for pause, then exploit it zealously and ruthlessly. While the foundations of our two belief systems are as incompatible as matter and anti-matter “ they do share a very important common denominator”; siblings, parents and family members. That’s the Bomber’s weakness, the dragon’s powerful talons and also our strength. To exploit this weakness, zealously and ruthlessly, we must proclaim to the world that parents and siblings of a successful Suicide Bomber will be immediately targeted for extermination. Then do it zealously, ruthlessly, without remorse or mercy. And because the Bomber’s culture places a higher value on family than the culture of the Western World it won’t take long for us to turn the tables so these people will now begin to feel our message. 

Certainly the minions of Bombers may not be convinced after a first brutal assault. They’ll roar, spit fire, caterwaul murderers and baby killers as the world press genuflects and screams “butchers.”  Well screw the press, too many of whom are dope-smoking pissants with visions of personal grandeur that would make Caesar blush. But arguably, after four or five avengings, the Bombers, like the Homicidal Dragon of 88 Talons, will retreat to their caves and have some real serious “Come to Allah” meetings with themselves and their bomb supplier. Their personal value as human beings may not be worth a dime to the Devil Himself but now they must consider the worth of their families; certainly a somber reminder that a bomber’s success will also bring death to brothers,

sisters and parents. After a time there will be rare incursions but like Hi Ku we must zealously, ruthlessly and without mercy race to avenge. They will soon come to believe, and they will come to fear and even rogue bombers will be restrained. And because millions of beautiful virgins in Paradise will be spared unmentionable fates worse than death we (the Infidels) will be received in Paradise with open arms when our time comes.

Christ on a row boat that’s a cold-blooded, brutish and barbaric solution. Yes, it’s all those things but no more so than the Bomber’s conduct. And yes it’s ruthless and cruel but no more ruthless or cruel than the actions of the Bomber. “It won’t work,” so you say? Well let’s get up close and personal. Assume you’re a Muslim and you know that your kid brother is training to be a Suicide Bomber. And you know, as certain as Allah rules Paradise that if the kid detonates you may detonate too and so will most members of your immediate family. And if you don’t drop the dime on that kid your family will get vaporized because your mother’s son wants to get laid by 72 virgins in Paradise. Now your brother may not be worth a dime to the Devil Himself but I’ll wager a grand to a basket of goat turds that he will place a higher value on the life of your family and your children than ten cents.

This may be a difficult solution for lots of folks to accept because it violates some prissy moral values and is anathema to the codes of conduct that began to govern Western Society some 400 years ago. Readers who call this an uncivilized atrocity will foolishly insist that patience, understanding and discourse still offer a solution. The latter may work well to repair a lover’s quarrel however this is a war between antagonists for survival in which there are no rules of engagement. The Suicide Bomber truly believes his mission is commanded by Allah and that his reward will be martyrdom in Paradise and 72 virgins. And a lot of you who read this would quickly ridicule that reward and cast aspersions on the people who think it to be true . . . . . . the 2 billion Muslims who believe in the Koran which was written 1,500 years ago. But faith is stronger than reason and you should know that because Christianity requires just as much ridiculous, blind faith. So it’s terribly arrogant of us to believe that our faith in our bible and our God is any less absurd, less laughable, less crackbrained, or preposterous than the faith a Muslim has in his Koran or Allah. He believes he will be given 72 virgins in Paradise and you believe in the virgin birth and resurrection. Which one of you is right? 

The print media may unwittingly be promoting enmity and conflict among Americans of different backgrounds? This claim might be new ground for most folks and if it is for you than sit back and get comfortable. Pour yourself a warm glass of milk, a Budweiser or mix a dry martini and find a commodious chair.

I’m nettled by the media’s repetitious use of ethnic identities as Cuban American, Muslim American, and African American, ad infinitum. In effect this exhorts ethnic groups to flaunt their ancestry in preference to their country. The frequent reference to groups such as Polish or Mexican American prompts its members to insist: “I’m Polish first and American second,”or” I’m Mexican first and American second. It wasn’t too many years ago when we were just plain Americans. Today some of us feel we should call ourselves “American Americans” to distinguish ourselves from African, Haitian, German, Asian or Cuban heritage! The emphasis on ethnicity as an adjective to recognize nationality Balkanizes our culture and emphasizes our differences rather than our commonality. This redundant emphasis on group ethnicity builds delicate and palpable layers of hostility between Americans of different ancestry. It marks Mexicans against Asians, Cubans against Blacks and is disrespectful to those who wish to be called “American!!”

The media’s tautological use of heritage as an adjective is like caressing a veneer of social harmony with sandpaper. The repeated use of African or Cuban American to identify one’s self is perceived by many people as “it’s better to be an African or Cuban first and American second.” Many ethnic groups now revel in wearing their ancestry like epaulets, spawning rivalries between themselves and competing ethnicities while alienating mainstream America. And when a group’s identity becomes a refuge for its members, its social, political and economic platform becomes intractable and self-centered. So rather than a collective, common agenda that would benefit a majority of Americans, various groups with private ambitions compete against each other for society’s limited resources. There are no winners in this covetous competition for ethnic recognition and dominance. The losers are legion and their failures to control political, social and economic policy is reflective of their resentment and discordance in the public arena. And the metaphorical American “melting pot,” which was once a wonderful bouillabaisse, is now a caldron of indissoluble and irreconcilable differences.  

We are the only country in the world to encourage ethnic separatism as feel good social policy and feel good politics. Can you imagine a Haitian Dutchman, an African German or a Mexican Englishman? But only in America is it so easy to say Haitian American, Cuban American or African American a consequence of the media’s frequent weaning of ethnicity as an adjective. It’s irresponsible to flaunt ethnicity like a flag because it partitions millions of Americans into ethnic bunkers. Most of us have family who came to America another country. They left their homelands for a better future in America and many of them succeeded. And their failure to recognize that we are not hyphenated Americans but are Americans first is a dishonor to our country and hundreds of millions of Americans.

If blacks wish to avoid being characterized as “nappy headed hoes,” perhaps they should consider conforming to the mores, expectations, perceptions and appearances of main stream society. And if Blacks want Whitey to stop referencing them with words they consider demeaning perhaps they too should stop using the same words when communicating amongst themselves. Certainly you are familiar with the old axiom: “monkey see, monkey do,” or “monkey hear, monkey talk.”

Truth be told, though its not politic, the color of your skin is really a social and economic barrier in our society because we consider your difference as a threat to our culture. And truth be told your manner of dress, your unusual given names, your language, your pronunciations and your education accentuate your difference and positions you further from the mainstream which encourages, our active discrimination. Like it or not, this is the straight and skinny and I’m telling you like it is with some rancor and some demeaning intent.

Oh, yes there are sincerely idealistic people, who with alacrity, would passionately argue that discrimination is wrong and evil. They would also logically posit that discrimination has truncated your social, economic and educational growth and they blame your group-failure on the cultures of the people who comprise Corporate America and the American social classes. And while this is true “it’s true with good reason.”   

You are being victimized by your own culture. Blacks, because of the manner in which they comport themselves (language, dress, future expectations, educational levels, group achievement, etc.) insult, threaten and assault the values of my mainstream culture which is the final arbiter of what is acceptable. And your myriad differences are perceived by my white, mainstream, majority culture as hostile, antagonistic, predatory and septic. Is this discrimination? You bet it is. And rightly so because white, mainstream Americans equate its acceptance of your differences as a diminution of our culture. In your vernacular it’s sort of like “steppin on the coke.”  Sorry buddy, I and millions of other whites prefer our culture just the way it is and we resent your intrusion. We resent it because many Blacks who wish to impose their values on white mainstream society revel in the angst and negativity it fosters. And we resent your values because we perceive them as antithetical to what we objectively know as good and because they are destructive to the culture that we want to protect and preserve

Corporate America and mainstream society naturally discriminate against your attitudes, behaviors and expectations because we feel that its acceptance diminishes us and our way of life. And our reasoning is righteous: “Why must we change our values to accommodate your values?”  You folks are still a minority in our country so our institutions, governments, corporations and various social classes should not be required to accept your values.

Certainly the axiom: “when in Rome do as the Romans do,” is applicable? You folks have two choices: (1) Remain steadfast, continue to comport yourselves in manners we consider offensive and become even more disenfranchised or (2) Approximate the values, expectations and standards of White, mainstream America and then earn its rewards as many Blacks are doing and have done. And objectively you must admit that there’s no upside if you chose the former but there could be enormous benefits if you elect to select the later. 

If you want to change a group’s undesirable behavior you can place a gun to each member’s head (they may not like your method) and they will see the light.

A second alternative is legislation (the feel-good American way) which will be enormously less successful and the cost in dollars, time and social capital will be excessive beyond belief. A third method is to appeal to a group’s sense of community and its perception of a greater good. This method usually has the same effect as denying red meat to a hungry dog. A fourth alternative is to combine the efforts of churches, community groups, newspapers, government agencies and well known celebrities who will publicly support the desired objectives. Failure is guaranteed. But the most successful tool that easily shapes human behavior is ridicule. 

Convening public meetings, enacting legislation, police enforcement, appealing to a greater good to eliminate drug use, curb teenage drinking, reduce teenage pregnancy, improve education, limit gun ownership, stop smoking or to improve race relations have been text book examples of failure. The Ten Commandments, so simple, so noble, so universal, exemplify over 5000 years of failure. And certainly all forms of sincere, do-good social and government activism will have as much influence on those behaviors as would an Indian rain dance encourage a down pour.

Ridicule, a form of social persuasion is more powerful than a gun, more effective than legislation, doesn’t require legions of enforcement police and won’t waste huge sums of tax money. Ridicule can be used effectively as a stinging indictment of a socially harmful behavior. It’s a force so aversive that people will go to great lengths to avoid its stigma. Consider cigarette smoking. Public action groups, the AMA, health insurers and cigarette companies are spending billions of dollars each year encouraging us to kick the habit. And despite legislation, celebrity endorsements, community programs, public education ad nauseum, Marlboros, Kools etc. still sell like hotcakes at a church breakfast. Consider ridicule as a deterrent. What if all smokers were perceived by the public to be bumbling, inarticulate, unattractive, stupid, clumsy, beady-eyed with foul breath and rank body odor? Heck, my great-grandmother would give up her daily habit in a Sioux City second!

Newspaper, TV, radio and billboard advertising are some of the most powerful forces in the world.  It elects presidents sells tennis shoes, Tickle-Me-Elmo’s dolls, diet pills, pizza, Viagra, cell phones, and boob jobs and abortions. Advertising can skillfully promote patriotism, hate, empathy, excitement, revulsion, fear and love. Advertising is one of the most cost effective and efficient tools used to shape a groups behavior. Advertising can be used as a Weapon of Mass Destruction to eliminate or significantly reduce socially destructive behaviors. And advertising can also be used as a hugely positive reinforcement to encourage behaviors that are productive and desirable.

Consider the power; if Madison Avenue, Corporate America, the media (TV, radio, newspapers, movies, churches) combined their collective strengths and designed a commercial advertising scheme to discourage smoking. Forget the usual tripe that its habit forming, stains teeth, and fouls your clothes or that it can cause cancer and heart disease. While all of the above are true, it won’t click in Chicago or play in Peoria. 

Many of us remember WWII and the blitz of advertising (radio, poster, movies, and newspapers) that rallied every American to patriotism. We were proud, we were cohesive, we sacrificed and we hated the enemy. We sang “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me,” and “When Johnny comes marching home again.” John Wayne, Betty Grable and Humphrey Bogart made wonderful war movies. We sang the Star Spangled Banner with our hearts and the American flag was a symbol of pride. We had victory gardens, everybody participated in mock air raids and all of us took our tin foil and animal fats to a neighborhood depot. Americans had a unified spirit that transcended race, religion and ethnicity. Yes; remember “loose lips sink ships” or the recruiting poster that said “Uncle Sam Wants You.”  Our Nation was never so united! Yes, advertising and the cooperation of the media was a Weapon of Mass Destruction that helped us win the war. 

One of the most successful advertising schemes in American history was designed by Phillip Morris. Remember the Marlboro Man blitz? Good gosh did it sell cigarettes. Well if advertising can create a behavior it can also uncreate a behavior. So consider a WWII type of blitz that ridicules smokers and portrays them as social degenerates. Billboards and posters would depict smokers as beady-eyed, desperately insecure, financially unsuccessful, uneducated, sickly, friendless, pimpled with sour breath and a ripe body odor.

Then TV soaps should denigrate smokers in their daily sagas. Ravishing Rebecca might say to her roommate: “Bob smokes and he’s such an ugly man.” Magnificent Michael would say to his buddy ”I never date a woman who smokes it’s such a sexual turnoff.”  Then cleverly worded radio and TV advertisements, using the same genius that sold Nikes, Coco Cola and I-Pods would portray smokers as repulsive, pot bellied people with hooked noses, open skin sores and stained yellow teeth. Hollywood movies would portray smokers in a similar fashion as ugly people and losers, as those who are excluded from parties, stuck in low paying jobs and socially inept.

A coordinated campaign that ridicules and uses universally recognized negative characteristics to portray a smoker’s intellect, appearance, capabilities, health, social standing and accomplishments would eventually change the public’s perception of smoking and certainly the smoker’s looking glass perception of himself.

Methodical and constant use of aversive stimuli is a strong deterrent which can inexpensively and quickly and effectively shape the behaviors of large groups of people. Because these stimuli are associated with smoking and because they are unpleasant, belittling and even painful most normal people would go to great lengths to avoid that association. Psychologists refer to this behavior as Pavlovian.

It is not my intent to discuss Pavlovian conditioning. Rather it’s my intent to propose a simplified solution to some of societies self-destructing behaviors and propose a new solution for discussion. So far every solution that has been put on the table has failed. We’ve appealed to a smoker’s common sense and now we are finding that common sense isn’t very common after all and isn’t worth a bucket of warm beer. So a smoker’s decision to quit is based on how he as a single person feels about his habit. Let’s think outside the box. Most people, smokers too, are very conscious of how they are perceived by their contemporaries. This is called their “looking glass self. Most of us want to be held in high esteem, we want to be appreciated, loved, seen as attractive, held in high esteem and we want to be appreciated. So perhaps a program designed to create every day, in-your-face negative perceptions of the smoker, in the eyes of hundreds of people with whom he interacts would be effective. Certainly the every day disdain of hundreds of people would be more effective than the self disdain on one person.

The common opinion that there’s not an acre of Earth on which man hasn’t left detritus or a footprint is certainly the mantra of the Flat Earth Society. Just about 29% of Earth surface (57 million square miles) is land mass and if my reckoning is correct than there’s 140 million square earth miles covered by water beneath on which man hasn’t left a footprint. And that’s a lot of acres to cover. . . a surface area equal to four of our moons.

Flying to the moon, Mars and light years to the stars, exploring back holes for the mysteries of life is the dream stuff of poets, philosophers, theologists,cosmologists and the imagination of almost every 10-year-old kid who can read and write. And hundreds of billions of dollars are lavished every year pursuing this seductive dream, the quest for knowledge and answers a billion miles away.

However, an unexplored world, not quite so distant offers a keystone to the knowledge of the past, the present, and future, a literal sea of discoveries, sooner soothing mankind’s pains and sorrows,  quickly making good things even better and lighting our pathway to the future. And easily within our reach is this hydrous cornucopia of enlightenment, learning and discoveries waiting to be plucked from the seas. On the ocean floors lay the flotsam and jetsam of billions of years ago, pieces of galaxies billions of years away readily within our grasp just a few miles beneath us. On those ocean floors are unimaginable riches – - - not in the coin of the realm but in vast chasms of knowledge that would overload the combined capacity of every computer built on Earth since ENIAC (the first computer) was born in 1946. And if Poseidon and Neptune could speak they would tell us that the knowledge under the seas holds the answers and secrets of the universe waiting for mankind.

I sometimes ponder the cost to train teams of astronauts, construct a launch pad/control complex, build the rocket/command module, tracking stations and pay the thousands of people who make those things work. The last Discovery launch from Kennedy Space Center varies in costs (depending on which politician answers the question) between $27.62 and $106.89 per every person within our borders or somewhere between $773 million and $30 billion dollars. That may be small change to our bureaucrats but pretty soon that small change will add up to real money! The print, broadcast and TV media love the launch excitement and most of the free world usually tunes in for the count down. A blast-off is still a notable happening but not nearly as spine tingling as when many of us were 30 or 40 years younger. Perhaps space exploration is becoming too commonplace and some suggest that a fog of complacency is settling over the milieu.

Many believe spending between $773 million and $30 billion to “shoot the moon and the stars” is a vain and abortive use of taxpayer’s money. There’s no disputing the incalculable knowledge stored billions of light years distant from Earth. However, what is the value of the knowledge that has come back in relation to the money spent to retrieve it? And how has the application of that knowledge benefited 280 million people, wives, widows, husbands and children whose taxes support our space program?

Are we piddling away trillions of dollars on an interstellar swampland? Has the contribution of knowledge gleaned from Space Exploration produced tangible results sufficient to equal a positive return on the money that was spent? And can we be assured that next year or during the following years that new knowledge from space exploration can produce results worth $27.62 to $106.89 for at least a few million Americans in 2008 or 2009 or 2010?

The practical application of this knowledge and the time involved to bring it home are important factors in calculating the benefits. So some might suggest that we explore an unhandseled source for knowledge and take another first step for mankind. The oceans – - – - a dazzling world of undiscovered, thriving life forms, an arm’s reach away, contains a vast, unimaginable treasure of data that can be plucked in minutes and be studied in an Earth laboratory.

Life on Earth began about 3.6 billion years ago and there was no oxygen in our atmosphere. Hydrogen was the hot molecule of life, commencing with amino acids, the basic component of all living things from which the first hydrogen-consuming microbes emerged. The most primitive organisms of Earth are still hydrogen-oxidizing microbes, which are instantly absorbed by succeedingly complex life forms spawning the oceans hydrothermal vents – - – - some believe – - – - genesis of human evolution. And we could wax eloquently about how this oceanic ladder of evolution can lead to tantalizing industrial, commercial and medical discoveries in the fields of bioastronautics, biocatalysts, biocenology, biocenosis, biochemistry, biotechnology, biogenesis, biolysis, bioscopy, bioecology all of which could invite immediate and exponential leaps in unlocking the calculus of life. Compared to far away galaxies the oceans seem bereft of spiritual comforts eulogized by the church as well as the excitement and glitter that make media agents salivate. However, there’s no disputing that Flipper had some of the highest Nielson ratings on TV and enjoyed notable successes in Hollywood.

The U.S. has spent over a trillion on space exploration beginning with the first moon landing in 1969. Since then we’ve sent data-mining rockets billions of miles through our solar system and the information we’ve gathered has kept the scientific laboratories humming with promise. Yes, the operative word here is “promise!”  If one were to randomly tap on a thousand doors in Denver to ask: “How have you benefited from the trillion dollars spent in Space Exploration?” — it’s reasonable to expect a thousand identical answers of: “I don’t know.”  And that’s not a satisfactory answer after 40 years, billions of miles and spending a trillion dollars. Knowledgeable sources suggest that the U.S. has tossed a large portion of our Space Exploration budget into a black hole.

So why not pry $10 or $20 billion from our Space Exploration budget and plumb the ocean floors a few miles below rather than searching galaxies billions of miles above? On a knowledge per mile basis it’s inarguably inarguable that the ROI would be greater by orders of magnitude.

A billion miles above is just as inhospitable and perhaps as potentially rewarding as traveling a few miles below. The former, a long journey at great cost with a barely measurable Return on Investment or the latter, just footsteps away, teeming with extraordinary life forms and intriguing potential.  

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is very concerned about juvenile obesity. So those wonderful people at the RWJF have developed a noble $500 million program to teach children about balanced diets, proper exercise while encouraging the food industry to change the content of its various products. These fine folks at the RWJF believe, over the coming decade, that a half-a-billion dollars worth of gentle and friendly persuasion will markedly improve your children’s eating habits and their health. These are the same lovely folks that also actively encouraged “Just say “NO” to drugs” as the solution to the Nation’s drug epidemic. Oh wow! How unrealistic, misguided and naive can these neo-elegant and effete RWJF people be? It’s quite reasonable to assume that most who are overweight know that exercise and proper diet are the key ingredients of good health. And it’s also reasonable to assume that those who are obese know the value of good health. They’ve been told by their doctors, their friends, TV programs, newspapers and magazine articles, health insurers, various health based foundations and an alphabet of federal government agencies. There are enormous volumes of literature on the subject of obesity disclosing the benefits of exercise, diet and suggesting methods to maintain a proper regimen. And because obesity is becoming epidemic the RWJF has decided to add its prestigious voice plus a half a billion dollars to control the problem.  

 Well, the Roman philosopher Repetitious defined stupidity as: :doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  Gentle and friendly persuasion, tough love, hard reason, and common sense haven’t worked in the past and there’s little reason to believe they will work tomorrow.

But one of the most powerful motivators in our social universe is “ridicule.” Ridicule is often a stronger motivating force than praise, money, logic or reason. Inarguably dilly-dalling with RWJF’s educational programming and its feel-good persuasion techniques are like spitting into the wind. There are two ways to make a person change a behavior: (1) convince the person of benefits resulting from a behavioral change or (2) put a pistol to his/her head and convince that person that you will pull the trigger if they fail to lose weight. Well the former hasn’t worked so perhaps its time to consider less lethal version of the latter. Here’s how to do it. 

Use the power, the imagination and the creative genius of Madison Avenue advertising. These Madison Avenue people certainly know more about influencing and shaping human behavior than the RWJF people, government health agencies, psychologists and denizens of diet doctors. Rather than use that half-a billion dollars on touchy “feely education programs, use that fortune to ridicule the 35% of the U.S. population who are obese.” Consider an immediate onslaught of creative highway billboards that ridicule, deride and demean those who are obese. Newspaper and TV and radio advertising should embarrass, mock and taunt those who are obese while popular music should be written with words that scorn, tease and poke fun at those who are obese. Got my drift? Yes, it’s cruel.

Many kind and loving folks will be offended and stridently voice their objections. And while this scheme won’t meet with immediate 100% success, the results, after a year or so of Madison Avenue inundation, will be more effective by orders of magnitude than the caring and humane program kindly offered by the lovely folks at RWJF. It’s time that obese Americans begin to bite the bullet rather than the biscuit and no pun intended.

I believe there may be a logical and compelling resolution to the Islamic/Israeli problem or if you prefer the Israeli/Islamic problem. It was my intent to suggest years ago. I did not because I’m mindful of the potential harm to which I might expose my friends and family. However, recent events compel me to speak and present what can be an elegantly workable solution. The solution requires no armies, no tedious peace treaties; political and cultural differences need not be considered and neither the UN nor world opinion has to be canvassed.  

First we must be mindful of some basic facts: (1) The primary reason the Jews occupy Israel is to establish a homeland where they can live in peace, practice their religion, be free from persecution and create a State with an infrastructure allowing future generation of Jews to be “fruitful and multiply.” (2) The Jews have off-again and on-again occupied this land for 4,000 war torn years while these goals remain elusive. (3) The history of this region suggests that cultural, psychological, social and religious differences between Islamists and Jews will not permit these people to live in peace. (4) Since the UN Resolution of 1948 establishing the State of Israel, several major wars have been fought without closure. (5) Still, peace is as fleeting as a fist full of moon beams. The recent escalation of hostilities is a feeding frenzy causing more destruction and loss of lives on both sides. (6) Tensions and hostilities are reaching critical mass that could, in a nanosecond, escalate to a Holy war of epic proportions. (7) There’s a real possibility that some of these countries might use Weapons of Mass Destruction, including biological and chemical agents. If so, it’s almost a certainty that the world may be panicked and forced into a war in which hundreds of millions of people (billions including Europeans and Americans) will die. Our Defense Department calculates that 3.6 billion people will die and 1.3 billion will suffer painful, debilitating injuries.

And Armageddon is probable considering (1) The militant mind-set of many Islamist and secular religious leaders. (2) The intransigent anima of myriad millions of Islamists, (3) Their frightening interpretation of the Koran (preaching “death to the infidels”) and (4) The millions of zealots willing to die believing they will be served in paradise by 72 beautiful virgins. This is an intoxicating incentive for uneducated Islamists who believe in “martyrdom” and have nothing to lose in this life. 

We must give Islam credit for a thousand years of glory; a faith that once conquered and dominated the world. Islam once controlled the global economy and its civilization was the focal point for astronomy, medicine, mathematics, literature, physics and classical learning. But the Islamic world lost its eminence with Kara Mustafa’s military defeat at the gates of Vienna in 1683. The Islamic civilization came to an abrupt halt as the center of world civilization and learning shifted to Western Europe. This setback was repeated time and time again as Christian societies surged forward. As Islamists attempted to compensate, they confused “westernization,” (which they rejected), with progress and modernization. Eventually Islam followed a bleak, angry, mistrustful, almost psychopathic road to the Islamic world we know today. And this once proud, prosperous, vigorous Islamic civilization of 600 years ago is now bereft of everything except ignorance, terrorism and despotism. Islamists now feel victimized as they speed toward (what Bernard Lewis calls) a “downward spiral of hate, spite, rage, self-pity, poverty and oppression.”  And terrorism is how Islamists are taught to respond to the failure of their religion.

So the Mullahs and the Imams relentlessly fan this fervor of hatred with the jihad; a blood letting, unrelentless campaign of anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Jewish, and anti-infidel ideology. It’s eagerly financed by fundamentalist countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as the secular regimes of Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, and Libya. Their common ground is that everything the Arab/Islamic people need to be self-sustaining (economically) has been stolen by Israel, Europe and the United States. All their defeats and suffering are the fault of the West.  Love, Friendship and respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred of something. And the jihad is Islam’s solution to Western oppression. We can not defend against it because the restraints of our modern society will not employ the overwhelming savagery and ruthlessness necessary to prevail. Reason and logic are useless weapons against the primitive Islamic zealotry. There are over 2 billion Islamists in the world. And they will succeed because their religion offers the highest form of rapture of those who die or are sacrificed in pursuit of Islam’s goal; the destruction of Israel and corruption of Christianity.

Today, students in Islamic schools are taught to demonize the United States and pursue a “holy war” against all Infidels, Westerners and Jews. Rather than kicking a soccer ball, playing on a swing or a teeter totter, Islamic youngsters learn weapons training and hateful catechisms as school’s religious leaders and even parents preach “bathe your hands in blood of the infidels” and become “martyrs” by killing themselves. This role playing occurs in Yemen, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya and other Arab/Islamic countries. And the brainwashing of these children will have a profound impact on the safety of Israel as well as the world for generations to come. Islam is the only religion that teaches man to love his neighbor as himself but to slice his throat if his theology isn’t right. Again, we must be mindful that it’s impossible to reason with a people whose behavior, mind-set, intellect, and psyche are products of feral, religious rapture and fanatical, mindless emotionalism. These are the people who, with proper persuasion, would use nuclear weapons to solve the “Jewish problem.”  The West must be ever mindful that the resulting collateral damage will liquefy the social, economic, political and physical landscapes of their nations.

For 50 years there has been debate among the political ideologues in Washington about Israel’s strategic value. Yes strategic value not about the Israeli’s right to live in peace. And since “9/11″ there has been important debate in quiet but powerful circles about whether Israel is a net asset or net liability. Most observers’ think of this war as Israel’s right to secure its borders; a reason that sounds good on the world’s stage. However, they couldn’t be more mistaken. This is about the existence of a Jewish state and ultimately of the Jewish people.

In Iraq the United States is fighting war on two religious fronts: Al-Qaeda which is Sunni based and Shiite based Hezbollah which is sponsored by Iran. Now with Al-Qaeda’s strength apparently waning, Iran is using its billions to finance Hezbollah supremacy to accomplish two objectives: (1) Iranian hegemony among Arab governments and (2) The destruction of Israel. These two goals are inextricably intertwined wherein the former is the “raison d extre” for the latter. Mid-East hegemony, Iran believes will restore Islam to its former “one thousand years of glory,” and while the following may sound like a wild leap of logic ” the eventual Islamization of the world.” And that may have unpleasant consequences for Western Civilization.

Without fuel a fire can not continue to burn. And so it is with the rage, fury and anger of Islam. Israel and its Jews are today’s tinder and eventually the Western World (also infidels) is likely to be the kindling of the future. Israel’s proximity to the flame is a convenient, seductive and puissant fuel; a bright red flag to the bull. However, starve an Islamic fire and the flame will become an ember, occasionally glowing when a charismatic Mullah fans the passions of his followers. Islam has almost two billion reasons (believers who seethe in ignorance, poverty, hate and filth) to prevail, hundreds of millions of whom blame Israel and the decadent West for their miseries. And if 10% of Islam’s 2 billion followers (200 million people) are extremists, neither Israel nor the US/Europe can stop their onslaught. So until the free world is willing and ready to use sufficiently ruthless measures the only remaining solution is to remove the taunting, in-your-face, red flag. This time David can not slay Goliath.

Here’s the solution. As you read on I ask that you be coldly logical like Mr. Spock and erase all emotions and feelings from your psyche. It’s off  ”the-wall as some might say; but when you’re back is up against the wall, perhaps an of-the-wall solution is the only answer.” And because every attempt in the past has failed to bring peace between Islamists and Israelis, perhaps it’s time for an off-the-wall solution. It’s time for an off-the-wall solution because Democratic Nations lack the ruthlessness to stem the scourge; preferring the appeasement-on-demand statesmanship of Neville Chamberlain, believing that consensus and accord are mightier than the sword.

Consider Australia, is a continent with a land mass (40% desert or grazing land) the size of the United States and a population of 21 million people. Australia has abundant natural resources, is one of the leading agricultural producers in the world and is rich in animal and plant life. The official language is English and Australia has one of the highest literacy rates and best health systems in the world. The social, cultural and political ambience of Australia today is reminiscent of the United States of 40 to 50 years ago. 

Sell the Israeli’s a speck of the Australian desert the size of Ohio which is three times the current land mass of Israel. “Unthinkable:” most Israelis and American Jews would say. Can the Israelis chance to occupy several thousand square miles of “holy dirt” bordered by nuclear powder kegs, where Islamists, but for a hot enough match, would light the fuse forcing the world into an ice age? Or would Israelis rather live as a nation that is not a threat to the world where their children can live in peace and grow old be fruitful and multiply? So consider a new home in Australia that might be named “Israelia.” And with the exception of an ancient Wall and a miscellany of historic, un-air-conditioned buildings, the Israelis could have almost everything they dare dream. They would have a home land in which in which they can live in peace, be free to practice their religion, establish their own government, raise their children in safety, shop, travel and work without fear or danger, establish an economic and social infrastructure and for the first time in 4,000 years know that their future generations will be able to flourish. And certainly, within 25 to 35 years that Ohio size portion of the Australian desert would be molded into an industrial, scientific, agricultural, educational and economic oasis that would pay enormous dividends to Australia and the world. Israeli skills, Israeli technology, determination, pride, brilliance, culture and of course money, would triumph beyond orders of magnitude in a homeland where they do not have to spend 45% of their GDP for defense. 

Of course, there are Israelis who violently oppose this idea. But they may be just as fanatic and unreasonable as those who wear body bombs to blow up supermarkets, cafes and shopping malls. If they wish to remain in Israel they may and they can become martyrs just like their good neighbors. However, Americans and Europeans and Israelis have a responsibility to their families, there future families and the world to prevent the very real possibility of a world nuclear war.

So the Israelis must leave and allow the Islamists to occupy all the land from Dan to Beersheba. Certainly the Islamists can marshal their engineering, architectural, medical, farming, research, banking and technological skills, along with their pride, determination plus their vast financial resources and build this land into their vision of the future. They can turn it into theocracy of learning, industry, culture and progress in which all Islamists are equal. And certainly within a short time this land will have an Islamic infrastructure providing housing, education, health-care, job, business development and retirement security benefits for all Arabs and Islamists.

Currently Under Construction.

***Check back for more thoughts on the subject.