So what. I never called this a "blog" and therefore I can take a break from writing on my website any ole' time I feel like it. Sometimes, you just don't feel like sharing. However, I do have something to share today. The picture below really underlines (albeit crudely) the problem I have with the whole Obama mania. has everyone collectively lost their mind?
About 3 years ago I took up online poker. I was ok, but quickly found out that there are many people better. So I traded my other past entertainment (Chess, MsPacman, Doom, etc. etc.) for online poker. The aim was to get good enough to be competitive. So most of the evenings and and on most of the weekends I would play a game. First I migrated from my former favorite card game (7 stud) to Hold'em and then gradually worked my way up the skills latter. Texas Hold'em is a brilliant game combining elements of other cards games, chess, and just plain old judgment. Patience and Observation are key. Emotional equilibrium a must. Over time I have cashed and won a fair amount of tourneys. However, today I finally won a higher end tournament and without major assists from luck. it was a 5 houre battle with a $100 buy-in (I won a seat by winning a $10 qualifier tournament) and over 100 participants (including some pros). In the end I won 1st and about $2700. More importantly I knocked out a couple of pros along the way. Feels good to get here. And here is the screen shot fo the final results. 
Well with big efforts from Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama the issue of race is front and center again. Frankly, i am sure most would agree with: Enough. We are tired of it. The economist recently published what I thought was an excellent article in the issue of race relations in America.
(http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11326407)
Economist is always the clear and independent voice among the noise that our media has become. However, through the noise some things are still obvious. The woeful state of black community in America has little to do with racism anymore. It's time to stop hiding behind that tired old flag and face the facts. When it has become the norm for young black mothers to have many fatherless kids, when it has become the norm for the community and family nit to reward the black child for doing well in school, but to ostracize them, racism has little to do with it.
A couple of night ago I was at my youngest son school jazz concert. Now, Jazz is a unique musical gift from America to the world. The origins of jazz and its major contributors are black. It comes with deep roots in black community. As I looked around the room at the band, only ONE kid was black. And this is in a school that is easily 30% black. And that tells you all you need to know. Where are the families supporting the kids to apply themselves to something that is culturally theirs? Where is the community that would reward and hold up as an example kids who learn how to play rather than listen to gutter hip hop trash? This is not about racism. This is becoming as plain as can be and drives the "civil rights" leaders crazy. But they exist only to exploit the state of racism, which is no longer a factor.
My second oldest son Oliver is a firefighter check out this video of these boys going to a burning house. he is the one who shows up with a partner about 2 minutes into the video and they end up going into the burning house with the hose. Cool.
Senator Barack Obama,
possible Democratic Party of America Presidential nominee & some say next
Commander-and-Chief of the United States & Moral Leader of the Western World.
April 21, 2008
Dear Senator Obama,
My name is Leon Weinstein. I immigrated to the United States Iran Syria
I found some surprising and troubling words in your books and speeches, and found a profound luck of experience that you are proposing to substitute with judgment. You are saying that you have “good judgment” and this statement is based on one quote regarding war in Iraq US
Let me stat with a little historical observation. My great grandparents were Jewish and lived in a small village, with no legal right to move to a larger city, being prohibited to enter Universities, denied elementary human rights and frequently being subjected to pogroms. They were killed, humiliated and raped. This was occurring so often that my ancestors decided that we will call our children’s race by their mother’s. Thousands upon thousands of those children of rape were proudly calling themselves Jews, and joined their brothers and sisters in their faith and destiny. It was very easy to blend into a non-Jewish environment and abandon your race and fate. Some did, most stay. Let me honestly say to you that the very first thing that struck me in your book DREAMS OF MY FATHER were words: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race”.
As you may know, in a Jewish tradition a boy becomes a man at age 13. This is the age we Jews believe that a person can’t hide any more behind his parents, his ignorance or age, has to start choosing his path in this world and has to answer for his own words and actions. This is another quote from your book: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites”. You were not ready to stood up for people who raised you, fed you, schooled you and loved you. Those people where “whites”. I am white too. Will you be ready to stand by me if you are our next President?
Every year about one million people legally immigrate to the US America America
In my old country we had a saying “tell me who your friend is and I will tell you who you are”. Obviously you do not agree with this millennium-old wisdom. OK, you do not want to be judged by association with your friends. Let’s then see what’s going on in your own home. This is what your wife said: “…for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country!” and “ America America
I was told that this is your wife’s words, not yours. I was told that you do not feel or think like you wife does. I understand, I argue with my wife a lot. But if this is true, why didn’t you argue with her in front of all of us? You are in the spot light, it is easy to do. Why didn’t you say that you do not share those views, that you are proud of your country, that you love your country, that you teach your children to be proud of this wonderful country of ours, and that there is no country better then this one in the entire world!
I am sure you are a busy man and you do not have much time for your kids during weekdays. And that Sundays are your great opportunity to communicate those thoughts to your wonderful daughters. Did you communicate those thoughts to your daughters? Or you take them Sunday after Sunday, month after month, year after year to sermons by Jeremiah Wright, filled with venom and hate?
As a mater of fact I personally do not believe that your never heard your pastor and mentor saying that AIDS were created by Americans to wipe out all Africans, or that Christ is black, or that America
What else do I know about you? During student years you felt close to radicals and Marxists. It is perfectly OK at certain age to think that things can be easily and radically changed. Winston Churchill once said (or someone else equally smart) that if at the age twenty you are not a socialist, then you do not have heart. But if at age forty you still a socialist, you do not have brain. Are you still under a spell of Che Gevaras, Karl Marxes and Leo Trotskis? In Chicago America
Then you were elected to the Illinois Senate. You were present but didn’t want to express your opinion on some 129 subjects during your time in the state senate. What were the subjects? May be they were unimportant? One of them was an attempt to restrict the location of pornographic video stores & strip clubs within 1,000 feet of schools, churches and kindergartens. You refused to vote on this one. You were the only senator to be “present” but not expressing opinion on a bill that required teaching “respect for others” at schools. You voted NO on a bill that would require prisoners to pay court costs for frivolous lawsuits against the state. You were the ONLY vote in the Illinois Senate against prohibiting softening prison terms for sex offenders if they behaved well while in the prison. You voted NO on a bill requiring school boards to install software on public computers accessible to minors to block sexually explicit material. Why would you want the school age kids be able to watch porno on school computers? You voted YES to allow the purchase of hypodermic needles from pharmacies without a prescription.
Let’s also take a look on how you voted on fiscal issues. When tough was going tougher and tougher in your state, you supported … raising taxes. Not trimming expenses, but raising taxes. The state needed money and it was so simple to take them from the hard working people. You supported raising of more than 300 taxes and fees on businesses in 2004 to help solve a budget deficit. I will let your constituency to guess what you would do as a President every time we have fiscal problems in the US
But may be you are very trustworthy person? May be we shall rock solid believe in every word you say? Let’s examine this as well. Let’s call this part of my letter “Obama said”:
Obama said in a speech in a church in Selma (Alabama) that when John Kennedy offered all suffering people in the world to start believing in their own powers and come to study in the US, his grandfather in Africa heard it and sent Barack’s father to study in the US. When his father came (with the help of the air-bridge that was organized by JFK), he met his future bride to be, Barack’s white mother, on one of the civil rights meetings, actually on the historical civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.
Hmmm: (a) March from Selma Montgomery
Obama said that he would not tolerate power brokers and lobbyists in Washington
Hmmm: At least three of his main campaign advisors registered as lobbyists for British Petroleum, Lockheed Martin and Wall-Mart.
Obama said that he would clean Washington Chicago Chicago
Hmmm: In June 2005 Obama family purchased a 2 million house in Chicago Illinois
Obama said that tax burden in recent years became lighter for rich (Bush tax cuts help rich people to pay less) and heavier of poor.
Hmmm: According to the Congressional Budget Office and the Census Bureau information, the top 1% earners pay now 31.25% of the tax burden (up from 27.7%) and poor pay now 4.3% (down from 9.1%).
Obama said that the US defense spending is soaring through the roof, that they are historically high under Bush administration & it is a terrible and unprecedented burden on the US population.
Hmmm: Defense spending, even with the war in Iraq
Dear Senator Obama, you probably a very good hearted man. Not very honest, although. Che Guevara was a good man as well. Leon Trotsky was a very very good man. Mao Tze-Tung was probably a good man. I am sure many people think that Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez are good man. Those are very good man… but not for us. We need a good man with the clearly American values, with an ability to defend our nation against all attacks (as Bush did as a mater of fact), with an ability to reach across the aisle and unite the nation. We need one that doesn’t lie to us. Your autobiographical "Dreams From My Father" is not a story of reaching across the isle but of developing an African identity. Where is our dream of the melting pot? Instead of White Supremacy that I sincerely hope is already in the past, we are now facing Black Supremacy? Black Values? What the hell is that? Why simply not American values?
Do you know who said this: "There was no doubt in my mind that as a member of the black community, I am obligated to this community and will utilize all of my present and future resources to benefit the black community first and foremost“. Your wife said that. What did you do or said in public to counter this wonderful pledge of hers?
There is one more issue I would want to raise in my letter to you:
In 2003 you said according to The Boston Globe the following words: “The United States Iraq
In 2004 in your interview to The New York Times you said: “I'm always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought [the war] was such a bad idea was that I didn't have the benefit of U.S. intelligence,"
In the same 2004 in an interview to the Chicago Tribune you said: "… here's not that much difference between my position [on the war] and George Bush's position at this stage."
And again in the same 2004 on the Charlie Rose Show, when Charlie asked you if you would have voted against the Iraq
On November 2005 you made a speech and called for a gradual withdrawal of forces. You said: "Notice that I say ‘reduce’, and not 'fully withdraw'”.
Today, you vow to "immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq
How easy you turn your back on something you proclaimed as an "absolute obligation". I clearly remember that you made similar promises regarding the safety and security of Israel America Iraq
Let’s add to that when you called for renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, your key economic adviser Austin Goolsbee was reported to have told the Canadians that this was just campaign pander. What else you tell us, but do not mean? What else you promise that you do not intend to do? Are you that arrogant that you think that Americans are that stupid? For a politician who promises to tell voters "not what they want to hear but the truths they need to hear" this is a jarring degree of hypocrisy.
Dear Senator, I am sorry to say but you lost me as a potential supporter. You represent so many things that I despise, that I am very much concern now that you might be nominated and (God forbid) elected to become the United States President. I can assure you that I will work hard to stop you from becoming our next Commander-in-Chief. From this moment on and until November I am fighting against you as hard as I can. I will write letters, I will organize meetings, I will talk to as many people as I can, I will send money as much as I can to those who as myself will be feverishly working to stop you from changing this wonderful country of ours into the Union of Socialistic States of America
Sincerely,
Leon A.Weinstein
Los Angeles , CA
In Germany they catch you speeding via a camera. So when I was driving from Lithuania via Poland to Frankfurt in early March they caught me doing close 100mph in a 60 mph limit area. If I lived in Germany I would end up paying a $500 fine and would lose my license for a few months. Hard to argue with the evidence. The interesting detail is the black out of the passenger seat (which contained Mike Levi) from the camera view. This was done to address the outcry of citizenry after camera generated tickets began arriving to people's homes with pictures of very surprising passnegers that spouses may have not been aware of. While camera is efficient, I think I prefer the American tradition of arguing with the trooper.
The other night I was digesting bits of TV news when I came across an interview with Pastor Wright of Obama fame. I carefully listened to what he had to say. The mild mannered grandfatherly man with a twinkle in his eye explained that the media was out to get him and that he was taken out of context and misinterpreted.
In the interest of full disclosure, I will state for the record that I am not an Obama "backer". I have not joined the adoring throngs who squirm with Beatles like hysteria at every pronouncement he makes. I did think him an interesting candidate early on until I heard him attempt to take on some issues. Then it became clear: Great speaker, obvious dilettante. Now, it can be fairly argued that the current occupant of the White House is no great thinker either. But then at least he lacks the persuasion and seduction skills to convince the nation to follow him blindly. I am not so sure about this gentleman, and so I fear of what he may "accomplish".
However, this is not about Mr. Obama. This is about Mr Wright (or as I would prefer to call him Mr Wronhg). For he represents the most pernicious sort of a demagogue: A pseudo intellectual one. Worse yet, he does it under the cloak of religion.
So Mr. Wronhg asked us not to listen to text taken out of context. He laughed off the snippets published by the media and demanded that we examine what he said within full context of his sermons. I did as he asked. I went to Youtube and watched the entire sermons that were published. What it made clear to me that finally the chicks ARE coming home to roost. These chickens are products of decades of failed public education, dilapidated cultural structures of modern family life, and outdated religious dogma. A potent mix. If even a minority of his listeners were sufficiently educated (or even simply curious enough) to challenge his "facts" he would be ignored as any illiterate hack or laughed off the podium. Yet not only is he worshiped by his clueless followers, he now gets a national podium from which he can preach.
So when he speaks of a white man oppressing and terrorizing the native Americans, he ignores the savage laws of warfare and slavery by which these primitive people lived prior to white man's arrival. They killed each other as part of the normal daily tribal struggle among them. It doesn't justify what the white man did to them, but it does put it into perspective. The main bulk of white man's killing was done inadvertently, by new diseases. Not via scalp removal as was custom among these gentle, loving, folks. Mr. Wright ignores the entire history of human kind which over and over "oppressed" the native people by new, better equipped arrivals. What the white man did in America was not any worse (and in many ways was a lot better) than was perpetrated by "oppressors" of the past. Even a cursory reading of the history would make that clear.
But he really gets it wrong when it comes to slavery. if you were to listen to Mr Wronhg, you would think that the white man invented slavery and then rounded up free blacks from Africa and brought them to America. Here again, the facts point the other way. Slavery was rampant in Africa well before the arrival of the white man. In fact, it continues today under its various guises. No serious scholar disputes the fact that majority of slaves brought to America were captured and enslaved by other tribes in Africa. They were then sold to slave trading companies for shipping overseas. Prior to the existence of this ugly trade, the slaves were kept by the winning tribe or simply killed. Which fate was worse? I am not sure. But to heap the entire scorn of slavery onto a white man is a disgusting, racist lie.
And so it goes, HIV as white man's tool of oppression, 9/11 as reasonable payback,etc. etc. etc. Racist, unfounded lies fed to the audience too ignorant to know any better and not curious enough to ask any questions. What I don't understand is this: Where are the scholars, the people who know better? Is the fact that this man is black and that political correctness is the rule of the land has completely silenced any opposition?
Mr. Wronhg is right in one thing. The "outrage" generated by his pronouncements was misplaced. They were taken out of context. So the quality of that outrage was not any better then the quality of his pronouncements. In fact, cloaked into intellectually sounding sermons, his ignorance was hidden and the opposition's (which was based on snippets out of context) ignorance was on display. But why no erudite, educated people too on the FULL context, the "facts"? Is it possible that even in the era of Internet and instant access to facts, such bigot would be allowed to perpetrate his lies without challenge? Once again, the king has no clothes.
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