BarrieBergman

Yankee Doodle Dandy

I’ve become more patriotic as I’ve gotten older.  I always promised myself that  I wouldn’t become more conservative when I got older, but supporting our people in uniform seems the correct thing to do.

I try to remember what Memorial Day is really about.   The sacrifice of service people and their families to protect our freedom is important to me.  While Congress is cutting spending, which I totally support, I am opposed to cuts in Veteran’s benefits.  We have to take care of the people who take care of us.  I am opposed to war, but if we have to fight them, we have to make sure the soldiers who fight them are as comfortable as we can make them, when they come home.
                                                                ~
From the sublime to the ridiculous.  It’s nice to see Donald Trump supporting Mitt Romney.  Twenty-six percent of Americans said they would support any candidate other than one Trump’s supported.  George Will recently called the Donald a bloviating ignoramous showing some conservatives have amazing perceptivity.

Wolff Blitzer got into a wonderful debate/argument with the fool about Trump’s Birther Movement.  If you can find it, it’s worth watching.  It was great to see a newscaster have enough of this self-promoting asshole.  Trump responded by basically calling names and telling Blitzer his ratings were low.  With an intellect like Donald Trump’s, why isn’t he solving world hunger or curing cancer?

Why does this moron get air time?  Why am I talking about him?  What is the meaning of life?

~
The road goes on forever
And the party never ends
Robert Earl Keen

That Toddling Town

I spent most of the 60’s running a record store in Chapel Hill, NC.  Chapel Hill was called the Berkley of the East, so I got to see lots of anti-war demonstrations.  I was opposed to the Vietnam War, but I always thought most of the protestors were just pissed off college kids looking for a place to put their anger.  The demonstrations went on in Chapel Hill long after the war ended.  I guess the people just needed something to fill the time.

I watched a lot of civil rights demonstrations up close and personal.  I stayed in our Durham, NC store several times during rallies to protect it from harm, if there were a riot.  Although I have no idea what I would have done, if trouble had occurred.

I believe strongly in peaceful demonstrations.  I support peaceful assemblage for issues that I am opposed to, but that’s where I draw the line.  The thuggery, that occurred last week in Chicago, appalled me.  It reminded me of the insanity at the 1968 Democratic Convention, except that time the authorities and an insane mayor were to blame.  We probably have Mayor Daley to thank for Richard Nixon’s presidency.  Thanks a lot, Richard.

When I was trying to raise my children, I often told them that ”might makes right,” when they asked me why they had to do things.  I of course was bigger than they were, so it was a clever way of getting them to behave.  I publically apologize to my kids.  That’s no way to behave.  Just watch television news, if you don’t believe me.

~
Signs, signs, everywhere signs
Mostly say hooray for my signs
-Buffalo Springfield

Over the Rainbow

It seems like almost every week there’s a new billionaire entrepreneur.  They mostly come from the tech sector, but occasionally other types of businesses are represented.  This week Facebook goes public with an offering worth $16 billion, just the latest of these spectacular success stories.

I speak at colleges and universities about entrepreneurial pursuits.  The interest among kids in business ventures today is amazing.  Everybody wants to be Mark Zuckerberg.  When I went to school everyone wanted to work for IBM or later Goldman Sachs.  Doing ventures for oneself is an exciting way to use the freedom that we have.

The opportunity here is still unparalleled in the world.  I’m sick of hearing people talk about the lack of mobility in our society.  Individuals in this country are only restrained by their own lack of creativity and hard work.  The Horatio Alger dream is still alive.

At a time when Greece is failing because they refuse to live within any reasonable boundaries of spending, the US with its limitless resources can continue to prosper, if we just can find a way to compromise about our political differences.

I love America.   It has been so good to me and my family.  I am sick of hearing about all the things that are wrong here.  We have always been able to co-operate with each other, when the chips are down.  Tell the fools in Washington to accommodate each other and continue the greatest social experiment the world has ever seen.

~
I feel good
Like I knew that I would
I feel nice
Like sugar and spice
-James Brown

Stop the Madness

Bobby Petrino, the football coach at Arkansas, is caught with the swim coach’s fiancée on the back of his motorcycle, when he has a wreck.  He says that she is a random woman standing beside a country road, apparently watching the birds and the bees.  It is even more remarkable that he can lie so facilely with a broken neck.

The assistant football coach at Penn State is accused of molesting many small boys, while school officials look the other way.  This goes on for years.

The assistant basketball coach of Syracuse is accused of child molestation.  The head coach says that the accusers are crazy.  This allegedly goes on for many years.

An assistant coach with the New Orleans Saints incentivizes his players to hurt and maim other team’s players.   The head coach and general manager know, but do nothing to stop it.

The successful Baylor women’s basketball team, NCAA Champions, and the men’s football team send thousands of illegal texts and e-mails to prospective recruits, while the school does nothing.

It doesn’t end here.  It goes on and on and on.  There is no institutional control of sports in this country, as long as the coaches and the teams win.  As long as the money keeps flowing in from fans and alumni, nobody gives a crap.

When are we as a society going to say, “Enough of this”?  We can only stop this reprehensible behavior by voting with our wallets.  Don’t attend, don’t watch, and don’t donate in support of these thugs.

You wouldn’t make donations to your local meth dealer.  Stop supporting the great American addiction.  If you do, Carolina football can come back from its latest scandal.

~
Mr. big stuff, who do you think you are?
- Jean Knight

I Was Born a Poor Black Child

I was raised in a very traditional American family.  My parents, both first generation Americans, were similar to Ozzie and Harriet.  All of their parents emigrated from Russia in the early 1900’s to get away from the Pogroms (the Tsar’s army killing Jews).

In a way I’m here because of a search for religious freedom and because of a search for separation of Church and State.  My parents believed in keeping a very low profile politically in their community, because of their family background and being Jews in the South.  They were lifelong Democrats, but they never let anybody know it.  No matter how hard I’ve tried to rebel in my life, this apple has never fallen very far from my parents’ tree.  My politics are similar to my folks, and I’m not very outspoken publicly.

All these reasons come together in my fear and loathing for what is going on in the Republican primaries for President.  The devolving race to see who can be the most conservative among Mitt and the three dwarves is mired in social issues that were settled fifty to one hundred fifty years ago.  To talk about rescinding women’s rights or calling people who went to college “snobs and elitists,” makes me check the window for the guys on horseback coming to drag us away for our beliefs.

I know this crap is all posturing and positioning, but as our economy improves and we extricate ourselves from wars that we should never have started, the Republicans are running out of issues.  How about a campaign to help Angelina Jolie adopt more children or to find Katy Perry a new man?  Whaddya think, Newt?

Flying Down to Rio

For the last several weeks my wife Arlene and I have been visiting in South America.  It was a fascinating trip and lots of fun.  We visited Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and took a cruise up the Brazilian coast, which included a stop in Uruguay.

Rio was my favorite, even though Buenos Aires is a beautiful city, the “Paris” of South America.  Rio has an energy and vitality that only comes when a country is doing well economically.  Brazil has a huge amount of land and wonderful natural resources.  They are now being successful at using their products, including enough oil to be self-sufficient.

The people in Rio were sensational.  They are happy, forthcoming, and most of all beautiful.  We stayed at Ipanema Beach, and the women and the men . . . you get the idea.

Over and over we were befriended by strangers, when we were lost.  Several people took us by the hand to show us how to get somewhere, rather than just pointing.  I’ve only encountered courtesy like this in one other place, and interesting that it was in Portugal, the people who settled in Brazil.

The only problem I had with the trip is the density of people in the cities.  Rio has 17 million; Sao Paulo has 25 million.  I have encountered the population bomb in Asia before, and it’s really frightening.

As a planet we have got to figure out how to limit the expansion of population, or we are sure to run out of everything we need to survive.  We need to start now.  No one wants any government to limit family size.  In China it got a lot of female babies killed, but we better do something and pretty damn quick.

In Sickness and in Health

Yesterday, in a humbling experience, I had to call my insurance carrier to get an early refill on a medication I take.  We are taking a trip out of the country, and I’ll be away when the normal refill is ready.  The insurance company insisted I call personally, which is a torture I don’t normally have to endure.

It took two phone calls, four menus, and two humans to make the decision to let me do something that in the long run wouldn’t cost the insurance company a penny.  I repeated the same exact information three times, and at the end I wasn’t sure I still spelled my name with an “ie.”

It’s obvious that this procedure is created to get customers to give up and go away, which I almost did, and paid the money out of my own pocket.  Everyone was friendly, but non-committal.  I finally got my authorization, after about twenty minutes, and went on my way to wellness land.

I spent a large part of my business life trying to inspire organizations to give good customer service.  How can any company treat a consumer the way I was treated?  The health care industry is one of the worst offenders, but there are plenty of others.

Can’t businesses get their IT nerds to make these processes easier?  Why do we have to repeat the same information over and over?  Can’t a machine or a human input the info the first time you give it?  Doesn’t anybody give a crap?  I once intended to write a book titled, “Nobody Listens, Nobody Follows Through.”  I decided not to write it, because it was so dark.  I’m currently sharpening my pencils, getting ready to write.

Musings

I kinda like Mitt Romney.  He’s handsome, prolific (lots of kids), and he’s a good businessman.  He jumps around on issues, but then don’t most politicians.

I’m probably not his target demographic, since I’m a Democrat, and I’m not going to vote for him.  But among the respective Republican candidates, he’s an easy choice.  Thus, I’m sick of Romney getting pilloried for being a good business person.

If more people in government had a clue about how to make money (i.e. buy low, sell high) we might be able to finance our debt without running a series of fund raisers.  Perhaps, if we could get some of the same greedy bastards that run Wall Street to run the government, we would do better – Oh wait – we tried that under Bush, and look how it turned out.
                                                              ~
A fan at a hockey game was recently fined $200 for throwing a banana at a black player.  Police said there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him with a hate crime.  What do you think it was, a dislike crime?  Later in the game another fan threw a bagel at a Jewish player, but he wasn’t charged because there was no cream cheese or lox.  Yeah . . . I’m just kidding about the bagel.

It’s OK for hockey players to beat the crap out of each other, just don’t throw stuff on the ice, except in Detroit, where they throw octopi for some unfathomable reason.

Suggestions for a New World Order

I’ve been watching the child abuse scandal at Penn State with horror.  Assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was allegedly sexually molesting children, and it was covered up by the athletic department and by school administrators.  Joe Paterno, the iconic football coach, knew about it, but told only the athletic director, not the police.

It’s obvious that this was covered up to protect the football program, i.e. money.  College athletic programs are so out of control that they are virtually being run as private fiefdoms, purely for money, having nothing to do with education. Every school’s claim, that it’s all for the student athletes, is a bunch of crap.

This particular situation also brings up the issue of age.  Is an 83 year old too old to coach one of these large programs?  I think Paterno is a good guy, who is long past his expiration date.  He doesn’t have the energy to control this lunacy.

This terrible story has a backdrop of the unusual insanity that goes on in our world.  After a great amount of study, I have this solution for a complicated problem: 
    1.    Frank McCourt has to sell the Dodgers.  He’ll be out of a job.  Make Frank McCourt the commissioner of college football, sort of the head of greed, since he’s the greediest bastard I know.
    2.    Let Herman Cain be the football coach at Penn State.  There are no women on the football team,  so he can’t get into any trouble.
    3.    Nominate Joe Paterno for President.  He’s a kindly old man, he looks presidential, and I don’t think he’ll bother anybody.

A Walk in the Park

The sit-in demonstrations about Wall Street reminded me of the 60’s.  I had a front row seat for the 60’s, when I was running a record store in Chapel Hill, NC.

I was opposed to the Vietnam War, but I had a hard time agreeing with the demonstrators, most of whom I thought were a bunch of pissed off college kids.  They were angry with their parents; and the war, civil rights, school rules, etc. were a convenient place to let off some steam.

During the civil rights demonstrations in Durham, NC, I can remember being in our store with a friend of mine.  We were going to defend the store from looting and pillaging.  That we did this, in retrospect, seems idiotic, but I was young and stupid.

I am very much in favor of people’s right to demonstrate peacefully, but the leaderless mob of Wall Street seems to have no particular agenda, other than the quest for a good suntan.  Some of the financial guys are greedy bastards, but what else is new?  They didn’t act any worse in the latest financial crisis, than they did for the last hundred years.

The worldwide financial system has changed lately, but it has always changed as the world has morphed.  I would rather see the demonstrators use the same energy positively to elect officials who would alter the markets to run more efficiently and fairly.  Or I guess they could kick out the jams, smoke a little weed, and party like it’s 1968.