Tom on Russia, Plane Rides and Florida Crimes

It seems that the Ukranians are raising merry hell with the Russians by employing more asymmetric warfare against their numerically superior  foes.   I've always felt that the Ukrainians should adopt a more robust guerilla focus as a way of forcing the Russianns to devote resources to areas that they once thought safe.  Commando attacks on Russian naval facilities. have kept the Russians off balance.  Targeted incursions into Mother Russia that result in civilian casualties are the way to go at this point.  The Laws of War should not be applicable to

only one side in a conflict. By flouting the norms of civilized behavior toward civilians, as the Russians have done through the entire course of the war, the Russians should forfeit any protections afforded their own civilian populations by the various Geneva Conventions.  

An Alaska Arline's pilot who was deadheading on a flight from Everett, Washington to San Francisco attempted to seize control of the aircraft from the pilot and co-pilot in order to cut the power to the engines and cause the craft to crash, presumably causing the deaths of all aboard.   He was subdued by the crew and was charged with 80 counts of attempted murder, among other things. This sort of thing happens from time to time. If a pilot is of a mind to commit suicide, what better way to do it than to take a planeload of folks with you?  There was that Malaysian Airlines plane that recently disappeared under mysterious circumstances that wes last seen heading straight down, which is not how crashing airplanes behave.  No trace of that plane has ever been found. And I dimly recall an EgyptAir pilot who took a plane load of passengers with him when he decided that that particular day was a good day to die. 

You've probably heard of Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law that's an important part of Gov. Ron DeSantis's "Kulturkampf', (culture war), against gay people..  The State Rep who authored the bill in question was recently convicted in federal court of fraud in a scheme to misappropriate $156,000 in Covid relief funds for his personal use.  He's a home health executive, a breed that's known for gaming the system for their own benefit.  The health care system is under constant attack by boodlers and grifters, large and small.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about scams involving purveyors of Durable Medical Equipment who took advantage of what medicare would pay for a particular piece of equipment and what it would cost to purchase that same equipmenton the open market.  The practice is called arbitrage, if you're interested.  Another favored form of fraud is manipulation of billing codes, which has been at the root of some of the largest healthcare frauds known to man.  It was that sort of scam that caused the Justice Dept to go after the healthcare chain, Columbia/HCA a while back.  The feds fined the rogue operation nearly a billion dollars, but the firm's CEO Rick Scott, now a US Senator from Florida, walked away with a billion dollars.  Aother huge fraud was connected to a company called 'HeathSouth', which was founded by a Respiratory Therapist named Rich Scrushy, who made a boatload of money before the feds caught up with him and tossed his sorry butt in prison..

Tom on Florida Education and White Supremecists

 The State of Florida announced it's new standards for the teaching of Black History yesterday, and to say that these new standards are controversial would be an understatement.

 The standards were developed by 13 members of a group handpicked by Florida's Board of Education, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the DeSantis for President Campaign, whose purpose is to ensure that no White child ever heard a discouraging word about the beneficence of the White Race.

 Lest you think that I exaggerate, consider this bit of guidance from the new standard, which states that the standard should show: "...how slaves developed skills which in some instances could be applied to their personal benefit...". To their way of thinking slavery was good for our "Niggrah" charges, for they are simple folks who benefit from the guidance of the White Man.

 The new standards aim to restrict kids in the lower grades from learning anything about our Black forbearers, save for anodyne lists of inventors, athletes, and tap dancers.

 High School students will learn that while Black people were sometimes sinned against by Whites, Blacks sometimes sinned against Whites. The entire purpose of this exercise is to sanitize the history of the Black Experience in America, because the common belief that slavery was a bad thing was a fabrication of the ' 'Woke" left. 

 The late Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, was once quoted in Rolling Stone magazine as saying that what a Negro most wanted from life : "I'll tell you what the coloreds want: It's three things: first a tight pussy; second,loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit. That's all!!!". This, my friend, is an admittedly crude look into the mind of your typical White Supremacist. The author of the article was former White House Counsel John Dean, and also present was the singer Pat Boone. After that enlightening anecdote was published, Sec Butz was forced to resign. 

 Tribal hatreds and historical ignorance have combined forces to make America into a land where fear of "The Other" has become the defining characteristic of Modern American Life. Sometimes, it seems as if White men who claim to have built America; that: "...shining city on a hill..." ,out of sheer force of will, fear everything and everyone who are not exactly like them. They fear immigrants and folks with dark skin. They fear the "Elitists" who they imagine look down on them with contempt. while never realizing that their political champions are almost universally products of the very elite institutions that they so loathe. Many of their wives and girlfriends are better educated and make more money than they do and, deep down in the dark recesses of their souls, they understand that they are inadequate to the demands of modern life.

 Most men who find themselves in this state recognize the reality of the situation, and happily take on a subsidiary role in their families, but others rage and lash out at everyone who they see as 'keeping them down'. Many of these men fetishize guns, follow false prophets who promise a new world where White Christians dominate and women know their place, and where liberals are thought of as pedophliac vermin. 

 I'll end this screed by saying that while some folks are ignorant and hate-filled deplorables, most Americans are fundamentally decent people who want to live their lives in peace, whatever their party affiliation. The culture warriors of both the left and the right will soon find themselves on the ash-heap of history. One can only hope...