Vladimir Putin Should Be Mummified

When I first read that the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left plans to have him embalmed, presumably for permanent display purposes, I was intrigued with why someone would do that, or what type of person would do that.  When learning the history of Russia in grade school, I was impacted when I learned that Lenin was embalmed and on display in the Red Square Mausoleum in Moscow.  People would stand in line for hours to have a chance to see his corpse. 

Embalming is common, but usually not for displaying the corpse long term.  During the U.S. civil war, the dead were often embalmed to be shipped back to families for burial.  The trip often took many weeks, making short term preservation important.  Today many cultures embalm to allow open casket viewing to take place, days after the death.  It is the permanent display aspect that makes me wonder.  Occasionally I read about someone that has their pet animal taxidermy, which I consider very wrong. 

When the Hugo Chavez embalming plans emerged, I read more on the subject.  A number of other world leaders are embalmed and displayed: Russia’s Stalin, China's Mao Zedong, Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh, North Korea's founding leader, Kim Il Sung and Argentina’s Eva Peron are the most prominent.  All of these people led during tumultuous times in their country’s history, requiring a personality of considerable ego.  I guess if you have a significant ego, you want people to admire you for as long as possible.

The problem with embalming is that it doesn’t work forever.  Lenin’s body is deteriorating after 90 years and pictures show evidence that it looks far less “lifelike” than earlier.  Mummification actually preserves the body much better than either embalming or taxidermy.  Early civilizations caught on, and thousands of years later we have their well-preserved corpses to admire.

Kim Il Sung had the biggest ego, before his death.  Kim claimed to have shot a round of golf at 38 under par, including 11 holes in one.  The funniest thing is the North Korean people believed it. Russian President Putin is the biggest egomaniac running a big show right now.  He could be described as a megamaniac.   The man tries to convey the image of a leader that is world class at everything he tries, and he believes he looks very good without a shirt doing these activities.  A man with this ego should be mummified and preserved for many millennium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Does Milwaukee County Tolerate Sheriff David Clarke?

“If jobs were like mental illnesses, the office of sheriff could be said to have multiple personality disorder. On one hand, you're a by-the-book law enforcement officer. On the other, you're a consummate, cunning politician. You're expected to crunch numbers like a slash-and-burn CEO, but turn on the celebrity charm when the TV cameras arrive.”  This was the opening paragraph of a story in Police Magazine’s June 1, 2005 article entitled How To Run For Sheriff, which went on to praise Sheriff Clarke and others.

In the Milwaukee area, Sheriff Clarke is often described as a bully, an egomaniac, a self-serving politician, a fake Democrat, a negatively disruptive force within the community and much more.  He loves the spotlight and seeks opportunities to grab it.  He is forcing the news media to pay attention to him, on an accelerating pace. Soon the late night comedians will pay attention too.

Clarke is well educated and trained, with a resume that suggests he would be highly qualified for the position. He worked for the Milwaukee Police Department for 24 years and was appointed by then Wisconsin Governor McCallum to the position of Sheriff in 2002.  Soon after the appointment, Clarke was elected to the same position, running as a Democrat, and then re-elected in 2006 and 2010, receiving the popular vote of 64%, 73% and 74% respectively.  People love a tough talking lawman…that’s why we watched John Wayne and Clint Eastwood in the movie westerns.

Often lost in the discussion about Clarke was his disastrous run for Milwaukee Mayor in 2004.  This event was not an ego check for him. Often discussed is his fake Democratic Party status.  By all appearances he should be a Republican.  His politics, his hero status and guest appearances on right wing radio shows, his rhetoric all suggest he is not a Democrat.  But face it Milwaukee County is a typical Northern urban county that leans heavily Democratic.  People in this county often vote a straight Democratic ticket, helping assure anyone claiming to be a Democrat would win.  Why Democrats tolerate his affiliation is uncertain to me.

Clarke has an open hate relationship with most anyone in power within Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee.  His ongoing feud with the Milwaukee County Executive is childish and should be embarrassing for him.  He has called the Executive a “puke politician”, a “small man” “an idiot” and recently accused him of having “penis envy”.  He openly lambasted the Milwaukee County DA, The Milwaukee Mayor, the Milwaukee Police Chief and many other officials.  The mainstream political structure within the county cannot work with the man.

Clarke recently gained international fame when he suggested the public arm themselves, because they can’t count on law enforcement to protect them anymore.  At a time our nation is beginning to have genuine debate about real gun control, many of us believe his suggestion to be poorly conceived.  He described gun control as the “second coming of an American revolution”.  This week he sent an apology to a Republican U.S. Senator over testimony from the Milwaukee Police Chief about a proposed assault weapons ban.  He wrote that he was speaking for his “constituents” and called the Chief embarrassing and rude.  Clarke’s behavior is embarrassing and not what you would expect from a stable, clear thinking leader.

Is the man a law enforcement leader or a politician?  Is he an egomaniac and bully or does he have more serious problems?   The mainstream press in Milwaukee has reported the frequent comments by the Sheriff, but has not called him out for his behavior.  Other press sources and blogs have suggested he has significant problems and must be replaced.  The Milwaukee Area Labor Council published an article on March 6 titled A Bad Sheriff Faces a Real Lawman, in reference to the September 14 primary, and the likelihood he may face Milwaukee Police Lt. Chris Moews.  Should Moews run, the county has an authentic choice. 

I have seen egomaniac bullies pretending to be leaders in business.  They get power, refuse to share it and make life miserable for the real leaders around them.  Eventually they crash and burn.   Afterwards people find the courage to say the person was a problem.  Sheriff Clarke looks exactly like those business people I have witnessed and I believe he is nearing his end as Sheriff in Milwaukee County.  Milwaukee County residents and the press need to find the courage to admit their Sheriff is/has problems.

Religious Flowchart

I am not a religious guy.  I grew up Catholic and my late Mother worked for the Catholic Church.   However, I had some bad experience with this religion and the history of the church is bad…really bad.  No, my bad experience doesn’t involve a Priest.  I am a big fan of their buildings and I never miss a chance to see a nice cathedral when I tour a country controlled helped by the Catholic Church.

I am a structured guy.  I also like to understand the history of religions.  I began to think about the process someone may go through to choose a religion, if they didn’t already have one forced on them by their parents or culture.  A flowchart with a logical decision tree is the way a structured person could make a choice.  I began the process of developing the various decision points, and planned to create the flowchart to help all of the people in the world choosing a religion for the first time, or possibly changing their religion.  If it was successful in English, I would have it translated to a number of languages.  I am a structured guy and I want to be a helpful guy.

Religions are very diverse and there are many to choose from.  Religions help shape many of the people in the world, though I would argue they are not shaped in a beneficial way.  I began to list the various decisions someone would make as they tried to pick a religion:

1)      Do you want one God or many?

2)      Does the religion’s God send a prophet to Earth to mingle with humans?

3)      Are you allowed to see a picture of the prophet?

4)      Does the religion require that you die for it?

5)      If you have to die for it, does it involve explosives strapped to your body?

6)      Does the religion go door to door and obnoxiously try to make you join?

7)      Can you have multiple wives?

8)      Is gay sex allowed?

9)      Can you eat beef?

10)  Do the leaders of the church rape young boys and tell you that gay sex is not allowed?

11)  Does the church discriminate against women?

12)  Does the religion make you feel guilty?

13)  If you sin, can you buy your way back to the God’s favor?

14)  Are you required to give the church a lot of money that you can’t afford?

15)  If you decide five children are plenty, and begin to use contraceptives, will the church kick you out?

16)  If you pretend you’re crazy and believe in aliens, can you meet a religion’s movie stars?

17)  Do the movie stars of this religion have gay sex?

18)  If you draw a picture of the prophet, will you be killed?

19)  Is it true one religion’s prophet was actually a thief?

20)  Are thieves worse than rapists?

21)  If you draw a picture of a prophet having gay sex with another prophet, will you be killed?

My list goes on and on, and I knew I had to scale it back to fit into an easy to use flowchart, that is translatable to many languages.  I went to the internet to obtain a flowchart template and found out that someone already created the religious flowchart.

 

Sequester Is Obama’s Perfect Solution

Imagine the President contemplating the start of his second term in office, after a first term where the economic devastation of a global depression was averted.  The cost to bail out banks and auto companies, and create stimulus was very high, objectionable to most of us, but necessary and it worked.  The cumulative budget deficit now is nearing crisis mode and everyone understands it must be dealt with.  Any temporary deal is described by the Republicans as another “kick the can down the road” ploy.  It is impossible today to actually sit down and have the two parties negotiate a real long term solution.  The issues facing this President are many and all impact the long term future of the country and deficit that must be addressed during his final term.

This President may be recognized as one of the greatest ever, if he is successful in reshaping the financial future of the U.S., following the game saving moves of his first term.  His public position includes leaving entitlement programs untouched based on rationale that it is a past commitment that must be honored.  He favors tax revenue creation over spending cuts, exactly the opposite of Republicans.  This is the classic scenario of both are right and neither are right.

Unsaid is that military reductions need to be a large part of a deficit reduction solution.  To say that would suggest he is soft on national security.  His public position is that the military must modernize, which is code for don’t spend money on large weapons programs, but rather focus on cyber-war and other less expensive military issues.

Knowing he must force action to reduce the deficit, preferring to leave entitlements alone, understanding that tax increases will be all but impossible to get Congress to pass, and causing the general populace to become engaged in the issues that will affect them directly is what the Sequester provides.

The Sequester was created in a 2011 budget battle, with both sides envisioning the actual implementation as highly unlikely, given the depth and arbitrary nature of the cuts.   The Sequester leaves entitlements untouched, and forces budget reductions equally from military and domestic programs.  The President is not obligated to identify where the cuts take place, which leaves him without blood on his hands.  He has already exempted military pay and veterans’ affairs, which leave the large weapons and logistical support programs as the targets to cut.  Unfortunately, these hardware programs support U.S. manufacturing given they could never be outsourced and offshored.

The President does not want to see air traffic control and safety, grants for scientific and medical research, education, food safety and homeland security, and other domestic standards compromised.  To engage the people, he is willing to let this happen and create a little chaos.  He probably feels we need to disrupt the average person’s life to get them to pay attention.  When the people become engaged, then true and needed tax reform can be created, allowing for the revenue increase the country must have to help reduce the deficit.

The Sequester is a political strategy the President is willing to play.  It is high stakes and risky, but given the likelihood he would be otherwise unable to reduce military spending, increase tax revenue and leave entitlement programs unscathed, it is a risk he feels is worth taking.