http://www.theuncommonsenseblog.comtheUnCommonSenseBlogThis site has been a source of humor and indignation, insights and wisdom.  If you are like me, the Uncommon Sense of Dan Taylor has imparted a perspective and passion that will stay with you for all of your life. I am sad to report that Dan passed away on December 24, 2009.  He fought his long battle with cancer as courageously as he lived his whole life, and he is deeply missed. Please see the notice below for more information about Dan's life, and the event planned to celebrate him: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/charlotte/obituary.aspx?n=daniel-james-taylor&pid=138101003 Dan's friend,   Andrea Miceli  1/3/2010http://www.theuncommonsenseblog.com/comments.asp?id=358Mall cops all over the world must be splitting their sides with the recent screw up by the Party Crashers at the first Obama state dinner.  It's poetic justice that this happened with the President or Premiere or head Rajah of India. The only thing less conspicuous than a middle aged guy with his trophy wife trying to get in to do his version of dancing with the the Czars would''ve been to sneak an elephant through the West Wing.  In fact, the elephant would've been less noticed. The elephant wouldn't have been noticed at all if it had a sign that said "I support the public option on a 'sign around his neck. The vast majority of women in the country will remember that the guy was a little old, portly, with a worn out tux and the woman was hot in her "Sneak Dog Gown".  Five Years from now, they will still remember the gown, trust me.   Women are just like that.  The guy gets forgotten or shows up with his back to the camera in those bathtub in the wilderness Cialis Commercials.   So, who's at fault here?  Well, nearly everyone who was supposed to be paying attention and who wasn't.  The Secret Service, to their credit and honor, stepped up to the plate and took  responsibility for what was perhaps the greatest "guest list" failure in the world.  "I thought YOU were in charge of that" In the end, SOMEONE had the final responsibility for knowing who should be there and who shouldn't have and calling them out no matter what the embarassment.  Look at job descriptions, cut some pay for this Friday and let's move on. At one level, this is Fort Hood without the gunfire. These people were close enough to stab the President with a plastic fork and spoon, minimally a credit card swipe across the jugular.  Anyone who has seen the old Stevan Segal movies knows that.  It seems like all across our country we are afraid to just say:  "Mommy and Daddy do not know this friend of yours so we can't let them in".  It's not profiling, it's just common sense. At the end of the day, everyone got tricked by a hot blonde in  a flowing designer dress with a great smile and an even greater line of banter. The same couple that would think crashing the White House (criminal trespass if there ever was a case) was a good idea, would not hesitate in going back home to Terrorist Land and sharing with the other boys and girls how they did  it. I don't know how this all gets resolved.  I just know that the quality of Mall Cop applicants just got higher in the next few weeks.    11/30/2009http://www.theuncommonsenseblog.com/comments.asp?id=357  As a young lawyer nearly 30 years ago, I went to work in the Private Bank Trust Department of what was then North Carolina National Bank, in Charlotte, NC, for Robert Reynolds, now CEO of Putnam and a 20 year veteran  of Fidelity Funds.   Bob was a West Virginia  University graduate and so was I, of its law school.  I read an article on him in American Banker and with all the confidence that comes with ignorance and a huge desire to do well, I asked if I could come down and interview to work in their new Private Bank area.  Think of my job search as a sort of Neanderthal Version of "Monster.com". He took a chance on me and after the third interview where I was still chewing with my mouth closed and hadn't asked for 7 glasses of wine at dinner, or a Dickel chaser with my cheesecake ,he offered me a job.  I was to be a Financial Planning Associate and help get the department started with a guy named Charles Nesbitt  and another guy named Charles Smith the 3rd or 4th or something numbered.. Southern families often number their children in case they get lost or don't amount to much. I liked Nesbitt better because of his perspective on himself and the world and despised Smith because he had no perspective and treated me like I smelled badly.  Nesbitt treated me like I had a future and Smith treated me like I wasn't even there.  Smith had these glasses he looked over down a long nose with a professor's eruditeness and the smoothness of a Ukrainian ski run.  He had that sort of HIlton Head Tan and blonde hair that comes from too much golf and not enough gratitude and doing nothing  (at least from my perspective) most of the day. (Senior VP of Senior VP's or something ridiculous to take up space and money.  I used to pray that he died during the night.  He never did, but I have to confess that I still hope his death is an uncomfortable one.  It's amazing how someone above you can help destroy your ambitions with just a glance.  It's a sort of cheapness and insensitivity that comes with being born with a silver spoon in your mouth and  a stick up the the other end..... In those days we loaned money to people who really needed it.and to some who didn't.  It was a time when even the well to do needed some extra dough and since we were a bank, we kind of thought that was the thing we were supposed to be doing.  Our charge off rate wasn't really big because during that time as the bank was growing (it bought everything in Florida and Texas) most of the serious borrowers knew each other and none would've ever borrowed money from NCNB and not thought about paying it back.  After three years and no small amount of stress, I realized that I made a much better owner/operator than an employee.  (Huge surprise there)  Not only did I march to different drummer, I marched  most days in a  whole different country.  Still, it was a good time and despite not getting good things written in my file, I loved it and the guy who really ran the bank, Hugh MCColl.   Hugh and a handfull of visionaries put Charlotte on the map and me in business.  I know there are still notes in my file that says "Does not work and play well with others."  I was hoping Hugh could've gotten those things out before he retired. I remember being introduced to a young guy named Ken Lewis who was running Corporate out of New York.  My lasting impression of him was that he was a badger of a guy who you did not want to cross.  The current B of A Board, Paulson, Thain, Lord Gadfly and the other peckerheads who have shoved him out will eventually end up sleeping with the lights on in their rooms the rest of their lives.  His is not a face I want to see out my window  at night..   Think a sort of Brooks Brothers Freddy Kruegar.  I liked him though because of his intensity and because anyone who would fly a GulfStream 5 to Teeterboro and park it in the middle of the runway so Cuomo could see it out of his office, gets my vote  for confidence. My sense is that he was set up by the same New York Gang that never believed the South would be anything but a collection of shipping ports, swamps, rest stops, and dog lots.  We may be stupid in the South, but we don't have to buy $55 shrimp cocktails to prove it or create loans that have three names, can be divided by five, and can't be found with  DNA analysis of spy satellite imagery.. Banks have behaved dreadfully towards their customers in this recession.  My partners and I have watched friends go bankrupt when a 200k Line of Credit would've saved them, kept jobs alive, and funded the future.  They lost the businesses because of a flawed combination of fate and time and circumstance around capital flows, risk management, and "predatory lending" practices.  When you are trying to feed your family, even 33% money looks reasonable. The big banks are protected now.  The community banks don't need it. (they actually know their customers) and the middle tier are made up of the cowardly, mediocre and half ambitious who are using Tarp Money to buy Treasuries, bolster their balance sheets, and keep their overpaid middle management jobs while peddling 1% CD's and toaster ovens under the guise of prudence...and diversification.   As I look at them, the middle tier reminds me of a retail organization somewhere between K-Mart and SEARS without ever having the potential of becoming a Target.  The reason I would invest in a Big Brothel over a Big Bank is that the transaction is more straightforward and consistent.  In War and Prostitution, amateurs are often better than professionals, goes the adage.   The last economic cycle has born this out.  As the bankers are beginning to get out from under their baseboards and call on people to see if they can use capital, the early reports are that they are getting the "Thanks but  'no thanks"' rebuttals.  My hope is really that the door shuts in all of their faces for about two years so they feel what it's like to try and run a business without help or customers. As someone who has been in his own business for 24 years, won some, lost some, paid taxes, made a profit, and is building a bigger future for myself and my family, I find it somewhat discouraging that in attempting to purchase a new home, (with 50% down) I've gone through a process that makes me feel like I just crawled thought the desert near Juarez.  The truth is that the FICO scores, the credit bureau reports, the 30 years of tax returns are all attempts at keeping Immigrants, African Americans, entrepreneurs, and anyone who doesn't have a 9-5 job out of the housing market.  It's just all discrimination, masquerading as a sort of financial Neighborhood Watch. All this credit stuff, forms filling, and costs are just ways of pricing the untoucheables out of the housing market.  You don't need a gated community when no one can move near it or in it anyway. I bought the house in a short sale, on our premier lake, with 300k down and a bank appraised equity position of 275K more  than I paid for it.  Don't know how your math works where you are reading this but:  1. If it appraised by the bank for 875K and 2. I have a contract on it with them for 679 and 3. I'm putting 300k down  it sounds like to me this is a pretty good thing for everyone...yes or no?  But then again, I'm an attorney and not one of those high finance guys. Up until a couple of years ago, my most complicated finance transaction was paying off a "one year same as cash' transaction in the first month.  I never did figure out what the interest was. I thought that Cornell was Cornfield for the longest time.  Most of my real estate finance knowledge has come from reading used "Nothing Down" books. But in this case it worked. The last thing  I had to fill  out last week was a form stating why I was buying the house.  The tempation to write down:  Because I need a 'M*&^@#$%F*&^%$@!( place to live. was almost unavoidable.  I would've thought that would've been kind of transparent....you sell your own house and move into another one.  Unless your Les Stroud or Bear Grylis, most people do that. My point today:  As entrepreneurs, let's get banking back to what it should be:  A way of providing oxygen to those trying to hold their breath as they run down a field of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. trying to create value for their clients, community, and themselves. OH.  One more thing,,,,,,,give them their stadium blankets back if they offer them.  They may have Jerkwater Private Bank on the front but on the underside, it's "made in Bulgaria".   .10/25/2009http://www.theuncommonsenseblog.com/comments.asp?id=355  Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today before he had his breakfast.  The only problem is that he's done nothing to win it, unless of course you buy the idea that flowery rhetoric and great intentions are deserving of such an honor.  The only person who has contributed less content to deserve this award in the world is Al Gore.  Between Al's contentless and largely fictional "An Inconvenient Truth" and Barack's "Audacity of Hope"  media campaign, the two of them together might have enough contributions to win the wrapping paper and box it will be shipped in. The public face is that it's for Barack's efforts at bringing the international community together.  Well, I'm not sure I get that.  Here's why: 1. We're still in Iraq trying to figure out how to leave graciously without looking like we're abandoning the entire country (which we are) 2. We have waded into Afghanistan in the same manner as the Russians and Rambo did.  It took the Russians 15 years to realize you can't beat people who know the mountains better than you.  It took Rambo 120 minutes to realize that even if you can play a game of "Goat's Head Polo", there's still someone with a bigger gunship. 3. The Arabs and Jews are still fighting and will continue fighting until the Second Coming or until they destroy each other completely.  Barack's plans for a MidEast Theme Park-Six Flags over Gaza  can then be realized. 4. We're closing Gitmo down ( eventually, maybe) but moving them to Montana which is a little like Cuba but without the water.  Big improvement for the prisoners but more expensive for us.  We now have to buy them all North Face Parkas but suitable for Islamic Winter Dress. 5. We haven't done a thing about the guy in Iran who has a nuclear plant about ready to go into full production.  If the Nobel  folks think that not bombing this guy out of existence is the same thing as bringing the world together, let Stockholm agree to having them put the plant there. 6. The Russians are still living in the era of Dr. Strangelove or Spy Game and are fueling every arms inventory on the planet with the little pointy ends of the rockets all aimed at us.  7.  China is the largest polluter on the planet not counting the defective products it continues to ship over to us.  Getting the Chinese to agree to anything around what looks like collaboration is like getting your fat cousin to not bring her three illegitimate children over during the holidays.  I don't see any progress there for a long time.  The Chinese have us over the proverbial barrel:  We like their food and they like our money.  No great diplomatic skill  needed there. The most measureable act that Barack has done to bring to International Community together is to accept the Portuguese Water Dog from the late Senator Kennedy.  Not a lot of risk though.  Fully vacinated, house trained, comes from a reliable source, and no risk of a world war started by Portugal if it has to be given back. I think Barack should give this back until his 'body of work" becomes more substantial.  If growing up in a broken home, disenfranchised because of race or economics, and not doing anything measureable are grounds for nomination for a Nobel Prize, then half the world should be considered, not just him. So, my thought is this:  Don't be so hungry for acknowledgement that you accept something that requires real contribution just because you're the President..  That's the way this Administration is going to be viewed by accepting this. There's plenty of time to win a Nobel Prize.  There's not going to be enough time in three eternities to forget this debacle. Give the award to Lance Armstrong.  At least his slogan works.  10/9/2009http://www.theuncommonsenseblog.com/comments.asp?id=354  I was sitting on my deck yesterday on one of those "Carolina Blue" Fall afternoons where the air was crisp, the sky was clear, and the smell of a change was all around.  Sometimes it's hard to know when it's really Fall.  I don't think you actually know the day it happens, you just realize like I did yesterday that it's not Summer anymore. My three dogs, Zack, Roxanne, and Pearl were lying beside me, always vigilant in case they are needed.  Zack and Roxanne are chocolate and black labradors and Pearl is a labradoodle.  It's probably a fantasy of mine that any protective instincts exist among them unless it's over something that Science Diet manufactures.  Still, it would have to be close enough to put a big sloppy lab foot on without getting up.  But I digress... Every now and then I would be interrupted from my reading by the rustle of squirrels in the leaves behind the deck.  It was an interesting mixture of squirrels for a Fall afternoon.  Some were clearly calm and confident, going about their final days of storing nuts for eating and grass for bedding for the winter.  These were clearly serious squirrels who understood the necessity of being self-reliant, responsible, and community sensitive.  There were other squirrels, not as diligent, who appeared to be enjoying the equivalent of a sort of Squirrel Cigar Bar, chewing on pine bark twigs, discussing Squirrel Health Care Issues, and I suspect, halfway believing that they didn't have to work and prepare because some Big Brother Squirrel was going to be looking out for them.  They had this sort of smug Squirrel Look like they knew something the others didn't.  Because last Winter was an easy one, food plentiful, and a bird feeder that always had something in it, they assumed this coming winter would be the same.  You could just see it in their faces.  Entitlement Squirrels! Yep, that's what they were. It occurred to me that in the country right now, we have sort of a two squirrel culture.  One group of squirrels that I belong too takes full responsibility for what might happen to them down the road and is always storing and gathering nuts and not wasting them or acting like them.  The other group of squirrels that I know about are still living with their squirrel parents, have no extra nuts put away and truly believe (at least by their actions) that because today was shiny and bright, then tomorrow will be too. We need to get down to  serious nut gathering in the country. in a big and fast way.  It's not too late to start but we need to start.  The efforts of a few can't meet the needs of the many. Collegiality even among squirrels tends to go out the window as the food supply dwindles.  First thing you know they'll be Pine Tree Riots and Squirrel Garbage Strikes as people ask the Big Squirrel in the Sky to deliver what they believe they're entitled to. So, here's the lesson from the back porch:  The redistribution of nuts from those who earned them to those who didn't isn't likely to happen without great pain and anquish for everyone in the squirrel community.  Every sane working class squirrel is going to resist giving their nuts away even if the President of No Nut Squirrel Nation tells them too. I think the same thing will hold true for the human community as well.  So, let's all start gathering nuts and stop acting like them.    10/2/2009http://www.theuncommonsenseblog.com/comments.asp?id=353  Call me crazy here, but it looks like Obama taking the gavel at the much celebrated but highly impotent UN Security Council and threatening serious sanctions against Iran if it doesn't stop building nuclear weapons and practising the firing of the future launch mechanisms on Sunday afternoons is remarkably similar to all the UN Sanctions against Saddam Hussein in the 90's.. My prediction:  No effect at all on this madman.  The UN is fundamentally a group of tribes with flags and the Security Council members are just the biggest tribe chiefs.  Pot Belly's, bear claw necklaces, greatest number of wives gives you access.  Whatever the members of the Security Council decide to bar Iran from having access to, France will give it to them underneath the table or the expresso bar. The fact of the matter is that these public displays of displeasure are nothing more than two 5th graders standing in the middle of the road yelling: (First guy moves to middle of the road and shouts:) "If you make one more move  over this line, I'll tell the world you're a meanie". (other guy steps across line) "OK, I warned you.  You're a meanie" (Other guy now pees on first guy's side of the line) "You're really asking for it now.  Do that again and I'll tell everyone you have a tiny weenie" (other guy pees again) "OK.  You are a double meanie with a tiny weenie" (First guy gets hit with a truck he didn't see coming.in his own lane Moral of the story:  You can have a teeny weenie if you have friends with big trucks. Shoot this moron and let's move on.  If the SEALS can take out three Somali's bobbing in the ocean from a big ship bobbing in the ocean, certainly they can figure out a way to send this guy to Six Flags Over The Virgins permanently. I'd much rather try to explain to the world why "Mr. I didn't know they were nukes" head of Iran has a head that looks like a canoe from a sniper's bullet than explain to my daughter why our whole continent looks like a scene out tof Terminator One.9/27/2009http://www.theuncommonsenseblog.com/comments.asp?id=352  President Obama's media blitz today is sort of like a weekend in the summer with the movie Dirty Dancing: You can see it five times in a day or ten times in two and it gets worse each time you watch.  Cult classics often become cult classics because of idiosyncracies that only idiosyncratics enjoy.  In the case of Health Care, Obama seems Hell bent on having this program even if no one wants it.  So, his answer to mainline adaptation is to keep harping about it until we beg Congress to pass it or stab ourselves with a walking stickl instead. Dirty Dancing, the movie is in much the same position as Obama.  It's appeal is about a time and place where first loves, first kisses, and disobeying mom and dad were the naughtiest things you could do. There was a Higher Power and you'd better be listening.  It has an artificial but entertaining paternalism about it that disappears from each scene about the time you think you are going to wretch in Lake Chimney Rock.  Jennifer Gray's character, Babe, is much like the American Public: a little bit innocent, a little bit experimental, and a whole bunch of untested energy about to erupt. Obama is like her dad:  All knowing, wise beyond her years, and absolutely confident he knows best for her now and for apparently, centuries in the future.  It's an attitude born in smugness and nurtured in the arrogance nursery.  "I know better than YOU' because I'm older,, wiser, smarter, and have more money....so there.  There is so much useless tradition in Babe's father's  life that it makes a Thanksgiving Turkey look like a major food innovation.  God forbid they were to eat off paper plates on the porch deck instead of the dining room table during the holidays..  Sort of like giving Nancy Pelosoi the benefit of the doubt on her ideas without any basis in fact.. The reason I like the movie ending better than what I think I'm going to like Obama's health care ending is that in the end, the Dad sort of lets nature take its course.  He gives into Babe's emerging wisdom  and development and doesn't try to force the old view of the world on her.  The result is they both get along better, there's a great dance scene at the end where they celebrate, and Patrick two steps along.  It's almost as good as an Elvis picture ending. ThoughSwayze dancing with Babe is a lot better than Elvis singing to a clam. In the end, Patrick just wanted respect and the girl.  We just want our own way too.  If Barack will just follow the dad's lead, we'll figure it all out just like they did..9/20/2009http://www.theuncommonsenseblog.com/comments.asp?id=351  One of the things about being brilliant, prophetic, and clairvoyant is that sometimes they all come together so that you can be brilliantly prophetically clairvoyant.  I see a Perfect Storm of things occurring that, at least in my telescope, suggest that the problems with Obama's healthcare program being adopted are just the beginning of problems that the average citizen is going to have with bigger government, higher taxation, and attempts at more control over individual lives.  Obama's healthcare reform isn't happening because he doesn't know who his audience is.  That and the fact that despite being a champion debater he has done the worst job of communicating his ideas since Richard Nixon said " I am not a crook".The vast majority of wealth creators in the country are small business people with less than 500 employees who sweat profits out each month and  cash flow like a fat guy on safari.   To have an Ivy League Academic, who has not so much as run even a lemonade stand in his life but instead has been on the public dole, point his finger and tell me as a business owner what I'm going to do and not going to do is not a way to make friends and influence people.  It just simply isn't going to happen.  Most Americans are happy with their health insurance and Barack is just unhappy that they aren't happy with his new ideas.  Barack reminds of the kid in the neighborhood who on the first day of school invites you over to play in his backyard.  The problem is once you get there,  you really understand what the weekend is about.  It's about cutting his grass, cleaning his toys, and picking up doggie litter from the far corners.  But it's alright, because we'll at least be in it together.....and the dog poopy will be the best part of it.  Then what you find out at the end of your poopy picking up day is that you've been doing all this work so his real friends can come over.   Lest someone interpret "racist" innuendo here, just understand that I don't mind a black man being President and in fact, I am delighted that a man of "color" was elected.  I just wish it was Michael Jordon  or Magic Johnson instead.  At least they understand winning.  I would've voted for Oprah had she run just because of her success as a business owner.  That, and she likes dogs. The increased tax thing isn't going to fly long term either.  At a point, people will just stop paying.  And the reason they can is technology makes hundreds of transactions possible that weren't before.  One of the best transactions it makes possible is organized protest.  Imagine how the IRS would react to 60 million tax payers organized on Twitter just refusing to file.  They can't even collect all the taxes that are owed now, so imagine those 60 million saying the equivalent of "Bite Me" and throwing their forms in the waste can until some accountability is brought back to the way we spend money.  Understand that I am not suggesting that you don't pay your taxes or don't file.  I'm just suggesting you start asking where the value is. At a point, we go off the "Bank Standard" and go back to the "Barter Standard".  The FICO scoring system is such a joke and was really designed to take everyone without a steady job and make them wish they had one.  FICO tells the world what you've done wrong but not what you've done right.  It doesn't take into account that while bills are set up to be paid in 30 day increments, cash flow doesn't work like that as an entrepreneur.  In fact, the only thing that Ive seen that works in consistent 30 day periods are full moons, high tides and menstrual cycles. I've often said that the difference between a big bank and a big brothel is that in the big brothel the transaction is more straightforward.  It's interesting that in the Christian New Testament, Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple with some pretty harsh words and a pretty big whip.  Now, there's an idea.  The next time we find a bank who's done something like Bear or Lehman, let's just have an old fashioned Son of God flogging on Wall Street.  That'll show them.  What do ordinary people do when cash is tight?  In this last little slowdown, we've had to fundamentally extend terms to our best clients and we've had to ask for terms from our best vendors.  Why?  Because I don't have a machine in my office that prints $100 bills when I have to have them.  The FICO system is fundamentally designed to make sure minorities, the self-employed, and every other non-bureaucratic, enterprize stays in some sort of credit score purgatory that's designed to absolutely minimize the losses that large financial institutions face from lending money  to the vast unwashed millions.   I have to tell you that as someone who is both recovering and beating a Stage IV Malignant Brain Tumor, I'd much rather have the Tumor to fight than than the Banking Con Artists.  Why?  The rules for beating the Brain Tumor are much more structured.  Even  having Herpes II would be better than trying to correct a low FICO score.  It's just so humorous to me and more than just a little ironic that AIG can almost bring down the entire global financial system with it's lies and slow claims paying strategies and then borrow 130 billion from the Government while for the ordinary citizen it takes 6  months to get a late Visa payment notice off your reports. Here's how the Revolution or The New Boston Tea Party gets started: 1. Streaming Video: A $100 webcam, software like VM DIRECT or YOUTUBE, and a library with overhead can lights and you have the equivalent of your own TV studio.  Create your own channel.  Call it "I'm pissed off" of "Revolution TV" or "The Patriot Channel" but start broadcasting your own ideas.  You'll find a following.  Just mimic the TV Evangelists. These guys are the real experts at raising money for a cause.  Even Jimmy Swaggart, who was caught in a compromising position years ago is back on the air.  Your first show should be where you confess all your sins ( so no one else does it for you), ask for forgiveness, and then get on with the axe you have to grind. Here's a thought though: stay out of cheap hotels with midgets and choker collers if you're going to be a serious thought leader. 2. Social Networking:  Lance Armstrong got 1,000 people to show up for a casual ride in Ireland just by announcing he was going on one through Twitter.  Think of Twitter as sort of a secret society connector.  You can be like the Swamp Fox during the American Revolution.  It will take years for the Government to find you.  They are still waiting for the 8 track to make a comeback so Twitter is not even on their viewing screen.. 3. Technology Aggregation:  New technology platforms like VM Direct allow you to access broadcast quality capabilities such as video e-mail, pay per view, live broadcast, channel creation, etc. from one platform PLUS earn revenue from your creations. What the Government doesn't understand is that the older you get, the more conservative you get.  It also doesn't understand that the new media technology is the new goverment.  Let's hope they don't figure it out any time soon. In the meantime, just get started.  9/13/2009http://www.theuncommonsenseblog.com/comments.asp?id=350  As I watched the news channels this past week covering the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy, I couldn't help but be reminded of how the biggest people often take on the biggest causes.  It would be easy to trivialize the Senator's efforts by saying that all that was easy when you're that rich and have that big of a legacy.  Momentum, some would say, is easier kept going than started.  The Kennedy's have always seemed bigger than life to me.  I remember the Inaguration of JFK and watching the funeral  after his assasination.  I remembering watching Robert Kennedy stare down the southern aristocracy that would've kept African Americans on plantations forever.  I remember the thirteen days in October and the Cuban Missile Crisis where literally the fate of the world hung in the balance of a former young senator from Massachusetts and I remember how cool under fire JFK seemed. Even if you didn't like Ted's philosophy or his rhetoric, you have to admire his persistence, ambition, and courage.  Sure there were skeletons in the closet and poor judgements and bad choices, but we all have some of that, don't we?.  What was there was apparently a tireless and fearless worker who took the cause of the less fortunate and made it his own.  Maybe some of those causes were self serving and biased but in the end many of the people he intended to help he did.  Whether the motivation was guilt, duty, or just purely a sense of obligation, thousands benefited from his efforts.  My sense is that millions will in the future. What I was amazed at more than anything were the revelations that in the last months of his life he was making phone calls, working the aisles, joking with colleagues, knowing that he was dying but not letting that make a difference.  As a fellow brain cancer survivor and a patient at Duke, I can tell you that the energy required to just get off the couch in the morning is incredible, much less to promote the causes as vigorously as he did. The courage that is required to continue on when you've been given the news that you probably won't, takes a perspective on the present and a view of the future that can only be explained by those who have gotten that news. and continued on none the less.  The philsopher Erickson wrote that "We are what survives us".  In Ted Kennedy's case, his work with Civil Rights, HealthCare, and generally improving the lot of our less fortunate citizens will survive long after the rancor of devisive politics is forgotten. While I don't generally understand the Democratic  Party's positions on nearly anything, I do understand Courage, Ambition, and an unbridled Joy for life when I see it. Once I was diagnosed with the same brain tumor as the Senator I looked past his politics and his positions to see an individual who used his life, energy, influence and posessions to make life a little better for those who had it a little less well off .  Besides, anyone who likes dogs and sailing has some redeemable qualities. In the end, Ted Kennedy will be remembered for mattering and being useful for so many who feel like they aren't.  We should all be fortunate to have an advocate in our lives like Ted.  8/31/2009http://www.theuncommonsenseblog.com/comments.asp?id=349  The irony and inconsistency of a President who is trying to reform Health Care while sneaking smokes outside the Rose Garden (or somewhere) is just too sad to contemplate for a long period of time.  It's funny but it's sad. If we just stopped subsidizing the Tobacco Industry (and I live in North Carolina) and took that money to subsidize Health Care we would need no new taxes and no new plan.  The very fact that we have a President who has not come clean on how many he smokes, where he smokes, or what he smokes is not only deceptive but sad.  Obama's smoking habit is indicative of the lack of integration his entire Presidency has showed thus far with almost everything he's attempted.  Obama's tobacco habit has a kind of 'You can touch my left breast but not my right breast morality " to it.  The message he's really communicating is this:  Go ahead and keep your bad habits.  We'll take care of you down the road and your neighbors will pay for it.  The bad habits thing extends to the Unions (tomorrow's tobacco farmers), the Car Companies (the electric car is a kind of smokeless cigarette) and the strip malls that dot the countryside advertising cheap top end fashion.  Substitute Government Health Care for Ralph Lauren underwear and you will get the picture. The point Barack is missing is that he is the epitome of things we should not subsidize.  In this country you can drink, smoke, do drugs, turn your body into a landfill for disease and we take pity on you in the end.  We say, (at least in the South), "Well, bless their heart. They've had it so rough.  Smoking 53 packs a day was their only relief from the Hell that was their life".  "And, they were an only child you know" So, here's my plan for Barack and one that would almost guarantee our healthcare costs don't go up: 1. Come Clean on the Habit and get some Help.  Don't try. Do it.  You don't stop smoking by putting a cigarette in your mouth and working it around to your ear over time.  You just quit like you started.  Right Now.  If you won't, then guess what?  You pay a LOT more for your health insurance, private or government.  Here's a thought:  Barack should go smoke in front of his children if he thinks its OK to continue. 2.  Put a "Fried Foods Tax" on everything from KFC to Burger King.  In other words, you can eat that stuff but there's going to be a tax on it that pays for your bad health behavior down the road.  Here's a clue that what you are eating may have too much grease on it:  When the plate it's served to you on has a puddle of goo at the end of the meal that looks like the changing pit at Jiffy Lube. The two trillion healthcare budget is used by 20% of our citizens and 80% of that use is due to behavior related healthconditions:  Overeating, drinking, smoking, and other chemical addictions.  For example:  the "Pill Weight Loss" industry in this country is larger than the Mexican Drug Cartels and is nothing more than Speed masquerading as nutrition.  Watching some of the obese folks go into a hospital is like watching the US leave Iraq...it just takes forever. As a guy with brain cancer who never smoked in his life but watched a mother who did die of lung cancer, Barack's personal habit is not only deceptive but insulting. Come on Barack, light up in front of CNN.  That will move your program along.    8/20/2009http://www.theuncommonsenseblog.com/comments.asp?id=348