Barrington Area Library Continues in its Abject Refusal To Suck
the Blood on Overdue Fine from its Deceased Card Holders
by Mark Ganzer

Mirable! I found the Barrington Area Library book, Lake Bluff, the First 100 Years literally in the last place I could have possibly looked on the floor where our family room and my bedroom (staging area) are located! Praise the Lord and thank You Jesus! It was in a box that had been under two boxes and three book bags full of trinkets, baubles, books, and sundry papers.

This was huge for me, because it was a book that my recently deceased mother had checked out and was over due. A week ago, there were two books in this category, and I was able to locate one and take it to the library, where THEY DID NOT CHARGE ONE CENT for late fees “under the circumstances.” the librarian told me.

So, when I went to return this book, the librarian checked, and didn't find that it was overdue. She further checked and could not find a record of my mother's library card. The book WAS reported as missing, on their computer data base, so, the librarian made the proper annotation. I asked if there was a fine to pay. “No,” was her reply.

So, what happened was that the first librarian, without me asking, did all the administrative (computer) things, and if the book have never been found, there would still have been no fine.

Talk about taking the initiative. God Bless You, good people who work at the Barrington Area Library and are such wonderful ambassadors of good will!

WE ALL MUST BE AGAINST BULLYING
by Bradley Sinclair

"The Girl you just called fat? She is overdosing on diet pills. The Girl you just called ugly? She spends hours putting makeup on hoping people will like her. The Boy you just tripped? He is abused enough at home. See that man with the ugly scars? He fought for our country. That guy you just made fun of for crying? His mother is dying. Put this on your status for an hour, if you are against bullying. You never know what its like until you walk a mile in their shoes"


Village of Barrington Workers – Brilliant, Knowledgeable Helpful
By Mark Ganzer

At Macdonald's this morning, three Village of Barrington employees dropped in to have their lunch (these guys start REAL early. Dad took the opportunity to ask about something that could be used to seal Mary Catherine's (our neighbor just across the street, and Mike Singletary's sister-in-law) broken driveway. There IS a magic substance: UBM – ultimate bonding material which can be purchased from one of the big hard ware store outlets (whose name escapes me at the moment – further and clearer, ever clearer evidence that my short term memory is a thing of an ever more distant past), but that you'll need twice as much of the material as you think. You just scoop it out of its container into the hole, and then roll it over. As dad and I were leaving, we thanked them for providing such useful information at breakfast. “We usually don't do this at breakfast,” the one of them explained. “No, usually we do this at lunch.” Nice, knowledgeable gentleman. Thanks guys.

Damn Fine Advice From
Steve Jobs
"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."

Good Shepherd's Past Rapine Pricing Pracitces
and Technical Shortcomings Have Been
Replaced by Compassionate, Efficient
Employees and Fast Service

Went to get a tegretol level blood test yesterday. Tried Quest Diagnostics, but they close at 4:30 p.m., so we proceeded to Good Shepherd which used to charge $450+ for a CBC and Tegretol Level, back in the late 1990's. (Today these tests cost $123 at Quest – you can see why I wanted to go to Quest.)
It took them about 6 minutes to call me, another 3 minutes to process me (they needed new contact information now that mom has died) and another 2 minutes to decided which arm to prick and prick and draw the blood. And we wuz oudda 'dere! Amazing what you can do to improver you efficiency if you put your mind to it! Nice going Good Shep!

Siblings Blow Perfectly Good Opportunity
To Get Into Knock Down Drag Out Fight
Divvying Up Dead Mother's Possessions
by Mark Ganzer

My sister Marianne came in again from Providende, Rhode Island, to help with the clean up of the house. She and Gay (my udda sistah) went through mom's closets, took the things they liked, put the rest in 64 gallon bags, and took the bags to the Salvation Army Place in Lake Zurich, Illinois. They had not arguements over who would get what.

These kind considerations were extended also to Gay asking me if it was okay for her to take a picture from HER own old bedroom. Of course.

Marianne asked me about some jewelry, a necklace. It's fine, sez I. But you should know, sez she, that it has pictures of Adam (son) and Scott (nephew). Marianne, those pictures mean SO much more to an aunt, becuase you are Auntie Marianneski to both of them, while I am merely see him twice a year father and uncle to each one of them. Minimally, you will get double the pleasure from wearing it!

Ralph and Anne really fudged up raising their four kids. Not a materialist amongst them, not a one!

The Poetic Muse Calls Unto Mark
At the Event of the Barrington
Children’s Christmas Concert
by Mark Ganzer

While watching the Children's Christmas Concert in the auditorium of Barrington Concolidated High School was a spectacular treat. The young children came out and semi-circled the audience, and then, they each lit a flash light, shining upwards from their hands held chest-high, and illumination their faces. Of course, old sedimental me loses it, and tears start silently pouring down my cheeks. A soulful flushing. Thanks, Heavenly Father for moments such as these. And when I returned home, I wrote down the following poem:




THE CHILDREN'S PRAYER

Lord grant
that children
be loved, for
if they are loved,
they shall be loving.

Grant too that they might
find their instrument, for with
their instrument, they will come
to know their song. And when they
know their song, they will be able to
make music, and give all of what they are
and more, to a world which needs their song.

Finally, Lord, find ways to remind us, that in Your

eyes we are
all children



Fondly, and with the deepest
gratitude and warmest regards,

Mark Raymond Ganzer


Kind and Thoughtful Advice From John Prine

Had an apartment in the city. Me and Loretta likes living there. It's Been years since the kids have grown, a life of their own, left us alone. John and Linda live in Ohmaha, and Joe he's somewhere on the road. We lost Davey in the Viet Nam war, and I still don't know what for, on't matter anymore.
CHORUS: Ya' know that old tress grow stronger, and old rivers grow wilder ev'ry day, Old people just grow lonely, waitin' for someone to say, "hellow in there, hello."

Some day I'm gonna' call up Rudy, we worked together at the factory. But what would I say if he'd ask "What's new?" "Nothin' much, what's with you?" "Nothin' much, what to do?"
CHORUS:
Me and Loretta. we don't talk much now. She sits and stares and the back door screen, and the news just repeats itself, like some forgotten dream, that we've both seen.
CHORUS:
So, if you're walkin' down the street sometime, and spot some hollow aged eyes, Please, don't pass 'em by and stair, as if you didn't care, say "Hello in their; say hello."

The Most Accomplished Person I Have Known
is the Honorary PhD, Marla Hegel
by Mark Ganzer

Homeless when I first met her, Marla Hegel, who graduated from Northwestern University with a double major: English Literature and Journalism. Marla went on to obtain five more advanced degrees: comparative religion, environmental studies, etc, etc. She received an honorary doctorate from Cal Tech in Environmental Studies and has written and continues to update “THE BOOK” that the EPA uses to base its rules and regs on. She taught for a couple of years as a guest lecturer in Edinburough, Scotland. One day not long ago, she got calls from a couple of her students asking if she was getting residuals for her book which was being used to teach the seciont on environmental studies at Edinburough. “Of course not,” she replied. There is no honor in the univeristies. We would like to think there is, but, times are tough, the fight for students and fighting relentless, and, in the end, even at the most prestigious colleges and universities in the world, the quest for students and funding goes unabated, and, so long as you don't get caught, upper management WILL NOT crack down on you. Au Contraire!

And then Marla got pneumonia. She called me in May when I was not here. She has not called since, although she did leave two phone numbers, both hospitals, and I have called those numbers and she is no longer a patient there. And I have returned to the All Night Rock 'N Roll Macdonald's on the North side, and she hasn't been seen there. So, I will continue to pray for her, continue to think happy thoughts about her landing on her feet softly and in clover and lots of cabbage ($$$$$)!

But, Marla, if you get the chance to read this, for Gawd's sake, PULLEASE call me at (224) 234-3550 (I have my own cell phone now!!!!)

Marla's parents escaped from Nazi Germany and immigrated to America. They found a house in Winnetka, Illinois. Now, you might think they wanted their daughter to go to the vaunted New Trier High Shcool System, but, au contraire, her father wanted Marla to get the best education available, and so Marla attend St. Assumption.
Which brings me to the GOOD NEWS of this particular article. After just nine indifferent holes of golf (worse, I was LITERALLY “the bogey man – nine over for nine holes”) dad and I stopped at Mickey D's for our normal breakfast -- for him: two sausage sandwiches plus a senior citizen's soft drink, and for me two sausage burritos plus the senior citizen's soft drink. We parked in back, in the Park District Parking lot, and got a little more exercise as we walked the rest of the way. Dad got to the door before I did (me wuz SMOKIN'!) and went inside first. As I got to the door, I saw a lady wearing a red T-Shirt, which I thought said “MaryHurst” where my good buddy Chuck Sweet went to school. Actually the shirt said, Marlhurst, which, upon inquiry, I learned used to be an all women's Catholic Liberal Arts College in the Portland area. I averred how the Catholics had ALWAYS provided the country with the best eduction. (In fact public education in America was a knee-jerk response TO catholic parochial education; the die-hard right-wing America-firsters full well recognized the value of an excellent education, and decided that the states would fund it at the elementary and secondary school levels. To keep the Catholics from owning the country!

And then I told her the story of Marla Hegel, by way of example!
It was a delightful conversation, AND, she even held the door for me in return for my holding the first door for her!

GOOD NESW AMERICA – strangers will almost invariably be courteous to strangers! Praise the Lord; all thanks to God!

Shock and Awe and Daylight Precision Bull Roar

30 Aug. 2011 by Jeff Huber
An experiment in color photography!

Parts I and II of “Post-Clasuwitzean Bebop in the New American Century” outlined the pathetic state of today’s American military intellect.  Part III describes how Shock and Awe and Network-Centric Warfare evolved from fundamentally flawed air power theory.   

COIN (aka counterinsurgency) is the latest in a panorama of dogmas from the war shamans to promise a new and better way to fight armed conflicts.  But COIN is actually a degenerative development in warfare philosophies, a return to manpower-intensive operations that high dollar gizmos of destruction were supposed to have made obsolete. 

The collision between soldier-centric and gadget-driven conflicts began in the American Civil War and reached critical mass during World War I.  Napoleonic infantry tactics designed to break through lines of sword and musket defenders withered in the face of machine gun fire.  More than 10 million military personnel were killed in World War I and total military casualties topped 38 million, an unimaginable horror to Europeans who thought their races were far to civilized to ever allow such carnage to occur.  Little did they know at the time that they’d only seen a preliminary bout—total World War II deaths exceeded 60 million.    

World War I was combat airpower’s debutante ball.  Much ado was made (and still is) of the magnificent men in their flying machines derring that do that they did so well in the skies above the pathetic mud knockers slogging it
The birth of air power theory.

out below.  But as a Naval War College professor who was also a senior U.S. Air Force officer once confessed to his airpower elective seminar, “World War I did more for air power than air power did for World War I.”  What ended the trench war of attrition stalemate in that conflict was the late influx of American bodies that ensured the Central Powers would bleed white before Allied Powers did.  The flying circuses were sideshow entertainments. 

Interwar air power advocates like Billy Mitchell, Giulio Duhet and Hugh Trenchard pandered the “strategic bombing” doctrine that advocated use of bomber aircraft to defeat enemy states by destroying their economic infrastructure and their publics’ will to wage war rather than battling their armies and navies.  To this day the goal of air power psychopathy is to make all other forms of warfare obsolete and to redirect the budgets of armies and navies into air services’ coffers. 

Strategic bombing theory and its space-age progeny, Shock and Awe and Network-Centric Warfare, suffer from a number of famously flawed assumptions.  First among them is the dictum that “the bomber will always get through,” a maniacal mantra first mouthed by Sir Stanley Baldwin in the late 1920s that promised that of bombers would always be able to sufficiently defeat air defenses and destroy enemy cities.  That philosophy alone had sufficient holes to guarantee that air power would never live up to its hype.  


Let's make that, "The bomber will sometimes get through."

The 8th Air Force bombing campaigns in Europe gave us a veritable entertainment franchise chronicling the adventures—dramatic, tragic and absurd—of bomber crews shot down over Nazi Germany who spent the duration of the war trying to escape from a Luft Stalag.  What would post-modern life be without our fond memories of Steve McQueen bouncing his baseball against the wall of the “cooler,” or of William Holden organizing mouse races, or of Bob Crane threatening to pull some stunt that would get Werner Klemperer transferred to the Russian front? 

The preponderance of Allied air casualties came about as a result of the daylight precision bombing concept, which was itself flawed in multiple respects.  The most incongruous of these flaws was the assumption that heavily armed B-17 flying fortresses would be as able to defend themselves against enemy fighters during the day as well as they could at night, a notion spawned in an era when fighter aircraft were strictly visual combatants and did not fly at night.  Daylight precision bombing also assumed that the B-17s’ super-duper Norden bombsights could consistently put bombs on whatever targets they were trained on.  That assumption blithely ignored easily anticipated probabilities like changes in wind direction between the bomber and the target, clouds and fog and haze obscuring the targets, bombardiers not recognizing the target and so on. 


The public's will to wage war.

“Conventional” strategic bombing did manage to destroy cities in World War II, Dresden and Tokyo being two of the most horrifying examples.  But this type of bombing—also called “terror bombing”—failed to destroy the publics’ will to wage war.  In fact, the publics’ will is seldom a factor in totalitarian nations like Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan or in so-called liberal democracies like today’s America where state-of-the-art propaganda distributed through the mass media has seduced the public into a state of bovine torpor.  The only known instance of successful terror bombing was the 9/11 attacks that goaded malleable Americans into going along with ill-advised invasions of countries that had nothing to do with the attacks. 

Asserting that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the decisive blow that ended the war in the Pacific is like saying that Julius Caesar died from a massive injection of tetanus bacteria.  The Japanese had already been defeated through a years-long series of horrible land and naval campaigns.  A very good argument, and one that I subscribe to, says that Hirohito would have forced his government to surrender without the need for atomic operations if we had communicated to him via back channels that he could stick around as emperor, which was what we apparently planned to do all along.  (Please note that the argument over whether the nuclear option was necessary with Japan is a separate issue from whether or not nuking the two Japanese cities was moral or legal.  If I were in President Truman’s shoes I would have dropped the nukes too.)

Air power made its greatest contribution to the war in Europe when General Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower, supreme commander of the European Theater of Operations, ordered the 8th Air Force to switch its priorities from strategic bombing to support of the Normandy Invasion and the subsequent land operations that led to the defeat of the Wehrmacht, which Ike correctly identified as the German’s center of gravity.   

In instance after instance since World War II, airpower’s useful contributions have consisted not of independent, strategic bombing but of strikes in support of ground and naval operations.  We’ve seen that as recently as our Libyan lark; strikes against infrastructure and regime “target sets” had little impact.  It was only when air power was used in support of rebel offensives that balls started dropping into pockets.

Shock and Awe and Network-Centric Warfare are little more than a 21st century take on strategic bombing theory.  GPS guided munitions replace the Norden bombsight and computers replace the bombardiers, but the strategic effect remains nil. 

Next: A COINfederacy of Dunces

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) is author of the critically lauded novel Bathtub Admirals, a lampoon on America’s rise to global dominance. 


Great News About Mellisa Kick
by Mark Ganzer

I spoke with Mellisa's mom at chruch this past Sunday in Ingleside. The lung replacement has been a success! The spaghetti dinner at the Fox Lake Fire Department raised $2,500 on an outlay of $25 for spaghetti. TWICE they had to go out and get more spaghetti. This reminds me so much of the bibilical story of the loaves and the fishes. So many thanks to all you who have been there raising monies to offset the cost of what the insurance won't pay! It will be handled. The Lord of Hosts has deemed that it will!

One of the Very Few Thank You Cards
Your Correspondent has ever Sent
by Mark Ganzer

Dear Adam,
I want to tell you how nice your Christmas presents to Scott, Gay, Mike, Grandma Anne, Grandpa Ralph and me were. Christmas time is a time for giving just as God gives us His love and Jesus gave His life for us. These things you will learn at Saint Anne.
It made me feel very happy and proud to hear your mother tell us that you used your own money. You picked great presents for us all.
Thank you very much. You are a very fine young boy, and I love you very much.

With love, your father
Mark Ganzer

The Psalms Still Speak to Us and Resonate With Us
Psalm 112

 1Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.
 2His seed shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the upright shall be blessed.
 3Wealth and riches shall be in his house: and his righteousness endureth for ever.
 4Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.
 5A good man sheweth favour, and lendeth: he will guide his affairs with discretion.
 6Surely he shall not be moved for ever: the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.
 7He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD.
 8His heart is established, he shall not be afraid, until he see his desire upon his enemies.
 9He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever; his horn shall be exalted with honour.
 10The wicked shall see it, and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away: the desire of the wicked shall perish.

First Corinthians 2 Verses 1-5

1) And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
2) For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
3) And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
4) And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
5) That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Prayer for You All

Be well, my brothers and sisters
Keep faith in Love, in the Love of God for we, his defenseless creatures, who can do much good. AMEN

FORMER BOSS, RESPONSIBLE FOR HIRING
YOUR DILIGENT CORRSESPONDENT COMES THROUGH
LIKE A CHAMPTION WHEN ASKED TO HELP OUT
By Mark Ganzer
It had been too long a time since I'd last seen and talked with Will Burgess, former Vice-President and Chief Actuary of Bankers Life & Casualty Company of Chicago, Illinois, but I had messed up and simply made too much spaghetti and knew that without another belly to eat it, my weight would have increased two pounds. So, asking and receiving father's permission to invite Will on down (he lives but a mere 1.25 miles away), I attempted to skirt the issue: “Will, this is Mark Ganzer. I need your help.”
“Well, Mark, what did you have in mind?”
“Will, I've made too much spaghetti tonight, and if you don't come down here and help us eat it, I am likely to grow my triple and double chins again. Can you make it?”
“Let me check.” A few seconds elapsed and he returned to the phone. “What time do you want me to be there?” “Fifteen minutes before six would be good, five-forty-five.” “I'll see you then.”
Since man does not live by spaghetti alone, dad asked me what else we needed. “A loaf of Italian bread, and a head of lettuce. Also, some ketchup, we're just about out.”
So Ralph headed off for JEWEL-OSCO foods and I poured a quart of water into a pitcher and added eight tea bags and set the concocction out on a chair on the patio that was going to get sunlight for at least an hour. I had cooked the spaghetti the night before, adding one and a half bottles of sauce and six slices of velveeta cheese, so I put the cooked spaghetti bowl into the oven, set the temperature for 225º and let the wonders of modern electricity take over. Dad returned pretty promptly, he had also purchased two quarts of ice cream, for which I was quite grateful. I sliced the head of lettuce up, sliced up about eight tomatoes, tossed them up, and put the salad in the freezer. Then spent the next half hour straightening up the upstairs (moving papers and books around, hiding some in the guest room, placing others, fully defined boxes, bags, shoe boxes on the table on the patio, under the awning. I had a plan in mind, and thought it would work; to eat, then watch NCIS and talk, and then talk some more.
The appointed 5:45 p.m. Hour came and went. No Will! Five minutes later, and still, no Will! Ten minutes, the same, fourteen minutes, no Will! Stunning, the man is one of the three most punctual people I know, and here he is 14 minutes late. But, at 6:00 p.m., he pulled his brand new Beemer into the driveway.
Dad had already sat himself down at the table (a sure-fire sign that he is HUNGRY, with capitals everywhere). So we did too. I took the spaghetti from the stove (had turned it off after about 30 minutes, so it was just resting in the heat, it looked good!), the tossed salad from the freezer, got out the two bottles of dressing – french and ranch, and took drink orders. Will wanted iced tea, no sugar. WHEW! Glad I didn't put the sugar in in advance, a matter of “convenience,” NO, not when your guest doesn't take sugar in his iced tea. Dad had water. I put lots of sugar in my iced tea. Also took out the bread from the oven. I had melted an entire stick of butter on the inside of half a loaf of Italian bread, but Will wanted more butter. He got margarine instead; soft margarine. Dad drank water.
And so we ate, and conversed, always about the old days, some of the people – Susan B. Gillies (married to a mailman, former Viet Nam vet); Chrstine Frasier – not really sure, hadn't seen her in a long time; Nancy Lyons – doing real well having reinvented herself as a financial consultant after 9-11: Will had run into her (rather she into him) at JEWEL-OSCO within the last week, and didn't recognize her!
“Will,” I said, “how could you have forgotten those breasts!”
“I wasn't looking at her breasts,” was his painfully honest answer, which, of course, had I given the matter ANY thought whatsoever, I would have known, without having had to ask.
And then it was 6:58, and time for NCIS. I have a plan, I said, we should move downstairs to watch NCIS. “I'm all for that plan,” said Will. And I will fix the ice cream. How much ice cream do you like? I asked my mentor. “Well, Dorothy used to get real mad at me whenever I dished out my own ice cream. Will,” she'd say, “that much ice cream can't do your heart any good! And even now, I feel guilty whenever I dish up a lot, but, I still would rather dish up a lot than a little.” Spoken like a true man after my own heart!
Will and I talked about Mark Davis, the ASA who took up Joel Berstein's challenge to hack part IV of the Actuarial Exams (as configured circa 1983) and succeeded in guessing the pass word, and getting a copy of the exam, he had already passed, and then, coup de grace, BRAGGING about it to Joel, who duly reported the hack to his boss, the closet queer queen Jon Neihaus, who fired Mark Davis on the spot. Of course, like all the brightest young actuaries, Mark called me, and I called Bob Larson, the one-eyed actuary that could drink any railroad man in the world under the table (his last gigue was with the Railroad Retirement Board, as its chief Actuary, a minor job that paid out $2 BILLION a month in benefits. Bob alleged how it would not be imossible for Mark to get work in the field again, but that it might be a tad difficult, and it might take some time.
So I called Mark back and invited him to play Thunderbird County Club with Susan B. Gillies, my father, and me. Mark shot 69, so, naturally, I called Greg Carney (perv) the Vice-President and Chief Actuary of Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company (VALIC) and reltated the story to him. Greg told me he'd give the matter some thought. When Greg got a call from an actuarial recruiting vulture, Greg asked, “by any chance, would he have been formerly employed at BL&C, and would his name be Mark Davis?” Well, yes, and yes, so Mark married Julie, the Iranian Coptyc Christian who was a math teacher over their in Tehran under the Shah, and decided living in the USA might be a better deal (which it has turned out for her to be). Mark went to work at VALIC for a while, and took his wife (of course) who also got a job there, and then he got tired of the Houston scene (who doesn't) and moved on to greener pastures. One of my favorite ESCAPE FROM BANKERS stories of all time!
Then I asked Will about the fire, and why the decision was made to do a seriatim valuation, rather than estimate. He told me exactly why! He went to the Life Valuation Division and spoke with both the clerks and supervisors. Pauline Strahota, she of the earthy mouth at the Christmas parties, at which more than a little booze flowed through the office, upon listening to Will's pitch, and learning that Bankers' top management would settle for an estimate for the interim statement said, “Let's just do it right, we can get it done in time.”
When Will spoke at Pauline's funeral (her daughter Wilma Kay and I worked together at Jewel Foods for a while, and we were both members of the Lutheran Church of the Atonement in Barrington for more than 30 years togther, he said, “I could work with Pauline, but she could never work for me!” Which is simply a riff on the old line by Leo Lehane, the one-legged actuary, to whom John D. MacAruthur offered a 50% stake in BL&C when the company was in receivership back in 1932 (it would have cost Leo $1,000 to buy in). But Leo said, “No, John. I can work for you, but I can't work with you,” and Leo NEVER once regretted his choice, not even in those moments of drunken levity when he'd unscrew his wooden leg at Little Joe's across the street from the Actuarial Division and drink beers out of his wooden leg. Those were the days my friend, with Paul Harvey advertising Bankers' White Cross Plan on the radio twice a day, while he gave you, “and now my friends, you know the REST of the story.”
Will had forgotten where we had lunch when I interviewed at Bankers. It was the Greek Family House down at the corner of Lawrence and Western. All male waiters, and me, never having eaten anything more ethnic than Chinese carry in before. I went with the braised lamb, and the lemon soup, and when the four of us, Bernie Rabinowitz, the South African actuary with only a high school education, Paul Janus, head of the Individual A&H unit, and a former caddie, Will Burgess, and I had finished lunch, and the first bottle of Rodytis, the waiter came and asked if we wanted more, and I, yes, you read that correctly, I said, “Yes,” resoundingly. And we did, and it was good.
Will told me that they were only hiring candidates who had passed exams. “But Will,” I said, “I didn't have any exams.”
“But we knew you were going to pass.”
“You mean, you actually looked at my college transcripts and noticed that more than half of my college credits were in math; that my electives were graduate level math classes? Wow, did you guys ever do you homework.”
So, it was an affirmation. They had made a great choice (plus I programmed in FORTAN and could type 100+ wpm, and these skills {glorified clerk} made my star shine brightly, yes, very brightly indeed at BL&C in the years 1973-79.
Dad fell asleep listening to our conversation, not one word about golf – NO, wait, that's wrong, because dad was often recruited into playing in the corporate outings, there were five a year in the summer, and Will remembered the time that Perv (Greg Carney) and I played with him, and that we were both at the peak of our games. (Well, not hardly. Greg had played freshman golf at Yale University and part of their training involved running five miles a day. “Best shape I was ever in; best golf I ever played,” acknowledged the part time bartender on LSA and at the River Shannon. And my best friend, who has ALWAYS come to visit me in the mental hospitals, and has always carried out my requests. God bless you, Greg.
John Ganzer's magical mystery tour
From BCHS TO BROADWAY
By Mark Ganzer
PART 1:   JOHN GANZER - THE EARLY YEARS
Born 4 February, 1955 in Streator, Illinois, John was always an energetic enthusiastic child whose wide-ranging interests and God-given talent for singing made him a family, friend, classmate, and teachers' favorite.
John was also blessed with a common sense pragmatism leading his siblings to speculate that he was not related to any of us. He never made things complicated. He loved to make us laugh, and in our laughing, love our lives and our God all the more.
As with all the Ganzer children, John sang church solos and took piano lessons (from Louise Castelli).  He also joined band, following his brother Mark's trail by choosing to learn the Baritone (since he was forever feted to be a first tenor, the contrast seemed a logical fit).
 His favorite school subjects were English and History.  Had his acting career not fared as well as it did, he would have become a High School History teacher.  He was always small, owing most likely to the X-rays given at birth.  Were it not for his Uncle Bill Richardson's keeping abreast of developments in the medical profession, John might not have survived his first year. But Uncle Bill told mom to stop having him x-rayed.
 He survived and he thrived. His perseverance was even more diligent than his father Ralph's, and his forward planning was stupendous - an incredible thing to behold, to see a 4th grader plan four years down the road to running for President of the 8th grade middle school council was astonishing - almost as devastating a table run as Barack Obamamade after coming to the forefront of "liberal-democratic" conscienseness after delivering the Democratic Primary Keynote address for John Kerry.  When the Student Council votes were tallied, John and his running mate had garned more than 1,000; his opponent (and good friend, who would follow John into the acting business in New York City, going so far as even to swipe a rent-controlled apartment out from under John's best laid plans) had less than 50.
Having proved to himself he could succeed in politics, John was able to devote all of his free time efforts to studying and perfecting his singing and acting talents.
 John had the great and good fortune to attend Barrington Consolidated High School whose legendary performing arts department was begun the the genius Richard C. Johnson.  John kept every one of Dick's hand-written stage notes for every play he was in (that would be twelve of them!).  John was also in the first high school class that would have the benefit of four full years of Philip Mark's music directorship - the results comparing Christmas and Spring Concerts over the years are flabbergasting.  Phil took the choir programs to heights not even Deadaluas dreamt to fly.
 John was also blessed with as talented a group of high school performing artists as has EVER been assembled, and he loved them all, and they all him.  The effervecsant Colleen Zenk first befriended him, and embraced him into her arms and under her bossom.  Ditto for Claire Bataille, Chris Limber (the finest Tevyev actor every born, or ever likely to be born), Matthew Ward, and I do all of you others a serious injustice (oh, Mark Parker, Bob Ploch) by ommitting your names. Forgive me, please.
Randy Nolde played as large a role as an adult teacher-mentor as anyone, and John simply loved the man (it was reciprocated). And oh the girls, OH, the girls. They loved him in so many beautiful ways, that my lust for his harem(s) was kind of trashy by way of comparison.  But we shan't forget Janie Kinchloe, Heather (the Wench) Watson, Dawn Duhaime (and her brother Brian).

 PART2:  HE'S A BLOOMIN' DRIVIN' IDJIUT
John was mechanical. He loved to drive. We had a tractor lawn mower that he leapt on, like a dog in heat to his master's leg, and mowed round and round, back and forth all that summer of '67 long.  When he was 14, he asked mom if he could practice driving with her.  She had him (so she thought). "Well, if you can back out of the driveway, I will let you."
Again, he LEAPT at the opportunity. Mom thought that he'd get the wheel moves backwards, but, John hadn't been tractor-mowing for three years to mess up this grand opportunity.  So driving lessons it was, which went swimmingly well, EVEN when he bumped our 1964 Studebaker (the automatic, we got a second one with a clutch, which only John and Papa Ralph could drive - hmm, fancy that!) into the back of a local car dealer's vehicle.  When the police officer came to check the situation out, the dealer just waved him away. "All under control here officer."

PART 3:        SHOWBOAT & HIS SENIOR YEAR - ONE TRIUMPH,
SEVERAL HUMILIATIONS
Show Boat was a grand triumph, both for John and Chris Limber.  Dick Johnson always picked his plays to fit the talents of his most veteran thesbians.  This was a great match.  The following year, it was Fiddler on the Roof.  Holy smokes, talk about being on fire! 
The rest of his senior year was not so triumphant.  All three of thebitches girls he asked out turned him down.  He was in the dumps, but then, things go like that: when you're hot you're hot, when you're not you're not.

PART 4:        JOHN'S SECRET DREAM - GOES UNFULFILLED AS HE
TRIES TO ATTEMPT A TRADITIONAL ROUTE

He was accepted by the University of Illinois, majoring in Music, minoring in History, keeping the options open. But there was a secret John, that only he most trusted and beloved knew, and Secret John wanted more than anything to do his night club act (a la Mel Torme) on the Johnny Carson show (after all, John and older brother Mark used to spend hours practicing their wit, accents, cadences, emphases, etc, into the reel to reel tape recorder their beloved Uncle Floyd had given the family on one of his usual Crown Jeweled Christmas present days).
 John withdrew from the U. of I. after one year (1973-74, the Year of the Streaker) and returned to Barrington where he managed a PLITT Theatre for a little more than a year.  He also performed in Summer Stock in Milwaukee and Indiannapolis, making ever more contacts who would later help and support him so much when his time came to invade New York City.
PART 5:        PACKIN' IT UP TO HEAD FOR THE BIG APPLE

Well, the PLITT thing wasn't getting him any nearer to Johnny Carson (especially since Johnny C. had pulled up out of NYC to go broadcast on the left coast - generally a wrong move for a bona fide mid-western kid with a quick mind, a compassionate soul, and a never-ending cornucopia of God-given talent with the self-discpline to develop that talent). So, John up and left for the Big Apple, where for the first several years, he made far more money cleaning toilets and decorating fake Christmas Trees at Macy's than he did from his acting craft.  He also got work as a singing waiter at the most excellent restuarant, Panache.
 But John always had an advantage, a HUGE advantage over about 90% of the actors he ever auditioned with: He WANTED the part, always. And so, he started to get work, and as is always the case, work begets more work, and he landed his best gig ever, stage manager for Joseph and the Amazing Colored Dream Coat, where he was responsible for eleven understudy parts.  This shortly led to a lead, which he never relinquished, performing in all 743 consecutive performances, with Anthony Gibb, and the dork (Donnie Osmond?) from the stupid 60's TV show, The Brady Bunch.
Will never understand high school girls. Who WOULDN'T want to go to senior prom with this good lookin' stud muffin.  Hell, I'd have gone if only he had asked, and I have let him get to second base, too!
 Your loss ladies, your inestimable loss.
 Try to imagine how much fun this would have been for this lusty, holy trio!  The experience of a lifetime, and memories to last even longer.
 JOHN!  BOZO!  HOT THEATER CHICKS -- DID YOU EVEN TRY?
Maybe the reason all those other bitches fine and upstanding moral young ladies slapped you down was because YOU WOULDN'T PUT OUT!  YA THINK.
HELL, I am getting more pissed off by the second, and to think, I never forced myself, or even thought about it, on any one of them.
 What Kind of Fool am I?
PART 6:        YOU WANNA RASSLE, SUCKAH?
 Well, this is about the wrap. Except for the time I was back from school, a 172 pound college graduate and John was his stylish 115-pound self, when I casually said, "So, you wanna wrassle?"
 Little mutha dropped to the floor - "You got top" he said, and pinned my flabby white ass in under 8 seconds.  HOLY SHEE-IT!  It was payback for all those years I paid him $0.35 every week to deliver 30% of the papers on the streets with the only two dogs what ever bit me (my weekly take was $8.50 - so, John was actually entitled to about ... $2.55 each week).  Good lesson young brother of mine - You're family will screw you when it comes to money.  Take THAT to Actor's Equity Council and Bite On It.  (Which, btw, I'm quite sure, he did).
 Oh, and that summer, when John and Colleen Zenk put on the production to raise money for St. Joseph's, at the after performance cast party, I was introduced to some sweet young thang as "John Ganzer's older brother," within earshot of the man his own self.  Double triumph bro - the way it was always supposed to be.
 The perfect way to end this would be to show John and Colleen Dewhurst. Sadly, that picture was never taken. Instead, here he is shaking hands, in Ford's Theatre, shortly before he was hit by The Virus, shaking the hand of the most calculating draft-dodger Communist who ever swore the oath "To uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, both domestic and foreign.)
 With Love, John - to You, and All You Loved.

PART 7:        ON THE GIPPER: JOHN'S THOUGHT ON RONALD REAGAN (POLITICS REARS ITS UGLY HEAD)
John would be the first to tell you that this former card-carrying member of the Communist Party, who freely finked on his brother actors during the Scoundrel time of the McCarthy HUAC Hearings - son of an alcoholic father and highly motivated mother, Reagan learned that by renouncing all the causes of his youth he could convert his boyish good looks into lots of money, power, and political prestige.  And he never once, in all his terms in office said the word, "AIDS," as if,  in not brining its name to the light of day, he could save his own son from it.
 And if you two had it all to do over again,
A cosmic mulligan, as it were,
Please, oh please, just this one thing I ask of you,
That you would not do one single thing differently than you did,
That you love and adore when we were the kid that we would once again
grow up to be,
Light, effervesant, free,
Star dust - from here, the present, to the end of time,
and back to the beginning again -
Unbounded and unbounding, confined only by our own imaginings
We return, again, and again, and again, and again.
GOD BLESS YOU BOTH TOGETHER
PART 8: MAKIN' IT LARGE ON BROADWAY : JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT

Royale Theatre, (1/27/1982 – 9/4/1983)
Opening:    Jan 27, 1982                      Closing:    Sep 4, 1983
 Total Performances:    743
 Category:Musical-Comedy-Original-Broadway
 Opening Night Production Credits [see more]
 Theatre Owned / Operated by The Shubert Organization (Gerald Schoenfeld:  Chairman; Bernard B. Jacobs: President)
Produced by Zev Bufman, Susan R. Rose, Melvyn J. Estrin, Sidney Shlenker and Gail Berman; Produced by arrangement with The Robert Stigwood Organization Ltd. and David Land; Associate Producer: Thomas Pennini, Jean Luskin, Jerome Edson and The Rose
 Originally directed by Frank Dunlop at the The Young Vic
Originally directed at Ford's Theatre by James D. Waring; 
Originally choreographed at Ford's Theatre in by Wayne Cilento
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber; Lyrics by Tim Rice; Music arranged by Martin Silvestri and Jeremy Stone; Music orchestrated by Martin Silvestri and Jeremy Stone; 
Musical Director: David Friedman; 
Book by Tim Rice
Directed by Tony Tanner; Choreographed by Tony Tanner
 Scenic Design by Karl Eigsti; Lighting Design by Barry Arnold; Costume Design by Judith Dolan; Sound Design by Tom Morse; Wig Design by Charles LoPresto; Beaded Headpieces Designed by Paige Southard; Assistant to the Lighting Designer: Toni Goldin; Assistant to Ms. Dolan: Danajean Cicerchi; Assistant to Mr. Eigsti: Tom Cariello 
General Manager: Theatre Now, Inc.; Company Manager: Helen V. Meier
 Production Stage Manager: Michael Martorella; Stage Manager: John Fennessy; 
Assistant Stage Mgr: John Ganzer
 Musical Supervisor: Martin Silvestri and Jeremy Stone; Assistant Conductor: Allen Cohen; Copyist: Music Services Int'l, Ltd.; Orchestra Personnel Manager:Earl Shendell
Casting: Meg Simon and Fran Kumin; General Press Representative: Fred Nathan & Associates; Dance Captain: Joni Masella; Asst. to the Choreographer:Joni Masella; Photographer: Martha Swope and Associates; Advertising: Ash / LeDonne
 
OPENING NIGHT CAST
 Bill Hutton - Joseph             David Ardao - Potiphar Ishmaelite          Laurie Beechman - Narrator 
Tom Carder - Pharaoh             Philip Carrubba - Ishmaelite            
Benjamin - Robert Hyman 
Reuben - Randon Lo    Mrs. Potiphar - Steve McNaughton         Levi
Charlie Serrano 
Napthali - Gordon Stanley         Jacob - David Asher                
Asher - Lorraine Barrett 
Chorus Woman - Karen Bogan         Chorus Woman – Kenneth
Bryan         Simeon - Butler 
Katharine Buffaloe - Chorus Woman     Lauren Goler – Chorus
Woman             Stephen Hope - Judah 
Peter Kapetan - Issachar         Randon Lo - Chorus Woman        
    Joni Masella - Chorus Woman 
Kathleen Rowe McAllen - Chorus Woman              James Rich -
Dan             Barry Tarallo - Gad Baker 
Doug Voet - Zebulon             Renée Warren - Chorus Woman     
IBDB - Internet Broadway Database®
 
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat 
John Ganzer      ( b. circa. 1955 - d. Dec 3, 1988 ) Male:     Stage
Manager, Performer
Productions    747                 Dates  of  Productions
[Original, Musical, Comedy] Jan  27,  1982 - Sep  4, 1983
    Assistant Stage Manager: John Ganzer 
        Swing: John Ganzer [Swing] 
            Understudy: John Ganzer
                Joseph - Replacement 
© 2001-2011, The Broadway League, All Rights Reserved.
(Copyright and Disclaimer) 
PART 8:        MAKING THE DREAM COME TRUE  |      PANACHE -- 149 E. 57th St.  955-0244  

11/1 at 8,  Dianna Templeton;         11/1 at 11, Tonnia Silicato;      
  11/2 at 8,   Tonnia Silicato,        John Ganzer  11/4-6  at 8,        
John Soleather at 11
 
PART 9:        THROUGH MARIANNE, JOHN'S LEGACY OF GOOD WORKS LIVES ON
And yet, after we depart this mortal coil, the good works we've done live on, in the lives and memories of those who held us so fondly, so warmly, so empathetically, and thus it has come to pass that my youngest sister, Marianne Catherine Ganzer, each year on her birthday, 8 November, 1959, gets up early, gathers her few brave friends, dons her wet suit, and embarks on that 120-mile RIVER RUN TRIATHALON which has enabled her to raise over $100,000 for Actors' Equity Fights Aids -- and these are but rivulets that rain down from the generosity of those who knew John, those who experienced John, those who have come to know him through the surviving recordings, and those who know only that their friends who have loved John are worthy of their free will contributions (in at least one case, as much as $10,000) to the cause, so that one day we may understand, and be able to sustain the lives of EVERY human being on the planet with the HIV virus.
 In' Sha' Allah - God Willing

 PART 10:    EXITING STAGE LEFT LEAVING WORDS FILLED WITH MUCH AMBIGUITY
John's final words were spoken to our sister, Marianne, who was staying with him. He was very sick, the priest was drunk, and John was concerned. "I'm afraid, Marianne," he said.
"Oh John, you've been to the hospital before." "No, that's not it, that's not what I'm afraid of."
"Well, John, you've had the drugs before, you know you can always get lots of valium." "No, that's not it. That's not what I'm afraid of."
"What is it, John? What is it that you afraid of?"  "I'm afriad they'll never know how much I loved them."
AND EVEN NOW, 23 years after, typing these words, reading these words, hearing Marianne say these words, I weep, uncontrollably for the genius lost to us all - my brother's genius: the oracle of Manhattan. For of whom, or to whom was John speaking? You know it in your hearts; you know it in your guts; who was speaking for us all
FOR JOHN SO LOVED THE WORLD.
Blessings and Peace be upon us
And the Spirit of Tolerance,
The Spirit of Forgiveness.
In Love, With Love, Through Love
Until by Love's Loving, our fears are betrayed
And we ascend to alight the light of days.

PT XI: OF JOHN FRANKLIN GANZER'S PERSEVERANCE
In the matter of John Franklin Ganzer's legendary perseverance, our Great Uncle Harold took us Pullman First Class on the Great Empire Builder to Seattle in the Summer of 1966. We stopped in Havre Montana, where we have many relatives. We went on a picnic and John and I climbed a small mountain in the latter party of the mid-day afternoon. The scenery was breath-taking (this was August, under a cloudless Montana sky). John had to get a picture, but we had left the camera at the picnic table. He didn't even ask me to accompany him back down the mountain to fetch the camera to climb the mountain again whilst the sun was setting every more rapidly. He made it back in time and got some great photos. Persevere my man. Keep on keepin' on, my brother.
 The summer after his high school senior year, he was selected as one of Barrington Consolidated High School's two representatives to the local song and dance troupe Great Waves of Care, which put on one heck of a show and toured the country. From that experience he made many more friends, and the following summer, he and Colleen Zenk put together a musical, song & dance ensemble to raise money for the Little Sisters of the Poor Catholic home. The talent was incredible! I wrote the musical score for Summer In the City, for which Matthew Ward was eternally grateful, because that was not one of his favorite numbers. I sang Luck Be a Lady Tonight, solo, and Peter Hayward got a perfectly fitting tuxedo for me for the part. Probably helped that his father was the President of the Chicago Bar Association.
 To truly delve and ken the power of performance to seep into the cracks of people's minds, you would have had to watched the duet of Hey, Johnnie Look Sharp. The sad song ends when Johnnie, after singing to and with his mother, is shot dead, and dies. This was 1972, as my memory serves me, and this was a very powerful anti-war moment, when you could literally have heard a pin drop in the audience. As Ian Anderson wrote for Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick Album - "I may make you feel, but I can't make you think. Your sperm's in the gutter, your love's in the sink."
 And in a moment when the audience was dazed, almost as if it were a bull, about to be killed by the matador, we lifted up the curtain to expose the Wizard of Oz, the meek, mild, weak puppet master pulling the strings, trying to maintain the illusion of power, and the entire ensemble pulled tiny American flags from our sleeves as we sang "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Familiarity, the audience burst out into a resounding round of applause that didn't stop until more than a minute after we had finished singing the song.

PT XIII:        JOHN DUMPS ON THE GIPPER (HE HE HE HE)

The last John Franklin Ganzer story is this. He is in the hospital in NYC, the AIDS virus has mestastisized into the pnemoniua from which one never recovers. John awakens. The medical staff begins its interogation:
"What's your name?" "John Ganzer." 
"Where are you?" "Hospital in New york City, New York."
"What day of the week is it?" "Tuesday."
"Who's the President?" "Colleen Dewhurst."
I will carry you in my heart, my brother so dear, my brother so fair, unto my last breath, unto my last memory fades, and I emerge, a star burst, perhaps a single drop of rain - perhaps I may become a highway man again; but I'll come back again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. 

PT XIV:    JOHN FRANKLIN GANZER SOME MORE FINAL
WORDS - ON A GOOD FRIEND
I was so depressed when we went to New York City to celebrate the life of my beloved brother, John, that not even the most overt of the gay guys could bring themselves to console me; it was as if I were the Bermuda Triangle, and they put their very souls at risk by boating too close to my troubled waters. But there was one collegue of John's who did come forward, and in so doing, taught me one of life's most important lessons.
 After the celebration, while munching on crumpets and eating tea, Werner Von Klempf approached me, stretched out h is hand, and said, “I loved your brother as a son; I was in awe of his vocal talent; and I had the highest respect and regards for him as a man.”
 Thank you Werner, too late, for you too are with brother John in that heavenly balcony, watching the grand comedy unfold, and wondering, “where in the WORLD do these writers come up with this stuff?”
 Of Werner, with whom my brother served on the Actor's Equity Council under the most well run Council President, Colleen Dewhurst, John had this to say. “He could be a real horse's ass. When I came to New York City, there were sixty-six dinner theaters. Now, there are but nineteen. What profiteth an actor to have Equity Wages if he cannot find work to pay him those wages?”
 Of course, Werner was wise in the ways of the world, in the ways of management, in the ways of old money, and well knew that a concession today might well lead to a surrender and disorderly retreat tomorrow.
 They were both right. Neither one was wrong. We can agree to disagree, we can agree to be horse's asses unto each other, when speaking truthfully, passionately, about that which we care so much about, and, aside from God, Country, and Family (not necessarily in that order, but, on the other hand, are they not all one and the same?), what can be of more importance to the artisan than the payment he receives for the years spent perfecting his craft?
 God Bless you Both, Brother John, Colonel Klenk. May you clank your glasses together as you drink the finest of wines, sniff the most expensive of brandies, and smoke the most fragrant Cubans together, and watch as the Great Mandella rolls round and round – never repeating exactly, but as always, reveaeling there are no new things under the sun.
IN FOND REMEMBRANCE,
WITH THE GREATEST RESPECT,
AND THE MOST PROFOUND AND DEEP LOVE,
THIS, I GIVE TO YOU, FRERE JAQUES.

PART XV:    A MOST UNUSUAL AND UNLIKELY STORY IS TOLD AT THE NYC MEMORIAL
John and Jay spent a lot of time going to memorial services for AIDS victims (90% of the operatic men, 50% of the theatre men, 10% of the TV men would eventually sucumb in the early days of this mystery killer) and they would rate the various events.  A lot of planning was put into making sure John's would be memorable. Colleen Zenk, good friend that she has always been, spoke at length;  Laurie Beehman sang;  Colleen Dewhurst offered some very rare words, but John was the special to her.  Marianne closed with the service.
 While  munching on refreshments, Jay Poindexter approached me, kind of excited, "Mark, you've got to see this, they are naked on stage."  (O Calcutta! was playing).
 But the most mystical of all the experience was the man whom no one knew, who got up and spoke of John's love of cheese sandwiches, on Wonder white bread, with Miracle Whip, who released a bevy of balloons for "Cheese Sandwich John."
 Did John do this on purpose, and not even tell Jay about it?
That would explain just about all of it.
Good God Almighty!
What a MAN - My Brother John!!

YOUR CORRESPONDENT IS INVITED TO JOIN A
NEW FACEBOOK PAGE: THE POWER OF PRAYER.
A true honor; something I would have wanted, but did not even know existed.
MEDITATION ON FEAR AND BELIEF 

There are some days, sadly few,
but recently more frequently occurring,
when I seem to breech the barrier built by humankind,
ever thicker and ever higher, which prevents us
from sensing the touch and guiding hand of the divine.

But these past few days I've felt, aye, e’en seen,
the hand of the Creator, gently on my shoulder,
guiding me in His pathways.
I do not resist.
I am open to all possibilities.

It was always thus, I believe.
It was always thus, I fear.

In the child's soft fresh openness to the universe,
I believe,
having watched my son grow in wonderment,
grow in delight, and grow in love,
the presence of the Divine surrounds, and glows;
sings beauteous melodies and choral anthems --
the lullaby of the cricket,
the woodpecker's wake up knock,
the call of the gently flowing stream,
the power and grandeur of the lightning bolt.

It was always thus, I believe.
It was always thus, I fear.

I believe for I have seen God's glowing love
reflected in my son's mirthful eyes.

I fear for I remember not my own childhood's wonderment.

I believe, for no other explanation fits the facts --
and this is good.

I fear, for no other explanation fits the facts --
and this is not good --
that I once held the universe in a grain of sand
in my small child hand
and cannot remember.

I believe, for to not believe means
that death conquers all.
And greedily, for to not believe means
that death conquers all.

At one time, I must have known that
love is, was and ever will be the answer.

At one time, I must have chosen to forget that
love is, was and ever will be the answer.

Aye, the world's pleasures and temptations o’er came me.

I believer, I fear.
I fear I believe -- for reasons all wrong.

And to believe for reasons all wrong means
that death conquers all.

And yet,
There are days
When I breach the barrier
And feel the touch of the Divine guiding me.
And I am open, to all possibilities.

I believe, I fear.
I fear, I believe.

And since I cannot reconcile these outliers,
I choose instead
the middle path.

I choose to hope.
To hope to be a follower of The Way.

........Monday, August 28, 2006
........After a weekend in God's country where
........an alien, I was not.

The world is full of wonderful people,
Joyous beyond words, almost,
Learn to forgive yourself,
And then, fall in love all over again
(Agape love, for those of you
(that are married or in a committed relationship.)
These two secrets remain the
Secret to the bottled water of the Fountain of Youth.
Be well, be wary, and always take the time
To make a new best friend, forever!
A M E N!
Grant Me Compassion, Oh Lord,
Above All Else
Grant me compassion oh Lord, above all else
And humility, that I not dare to judge
That I not forget my own foibles
That I strive to give comfort at all times to those in discomfort
And thank You, for the many gifts you have given me
For drawing me back from the edge
When I looked into the abyss
And saw no other way out.

Oh Lord, please grant
That there be Karma on this earth
So that the good that Your good ones do
Shall feed them in their hour of hunger
Shall shelter them from the storms
Shall bind them safely unto their own
That they always know their own,
And their own shall know thee.

GOOD NEWS TIMES CORRESPONDENT LOSES IT
THREE TIMES IN CHURCH; BREAKS DOWN
CRYIN' LIKE A BABY By Mark Ganzer

Ingleside, Illinois – At the 10:30 a.m. Service at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church here, your local correspondent for The Good News Times found himself so overwhelmed with emotions that he broke down, crying' like a baby for its mother's milk. Fortunately, for the emotional one, tears are God's healing gift to human kind, and these were tears of joy and great emotional release.

The first instance wasn't even a huge outpouring, just a little hanky-dabbing, as Mark watched the mother hold her daughter to her chest as the daughter drew in her comic book, pretty much oblivious to the service, other than to realize on some very elemental level, that this was a GOOD PLACE TO BE, what with the drawing, and the music, and the singing, and mama holding you so soft and gentle. And then the mother kissed her daughter ever oh so ever gently on the forehead: it was the mother and child union!

No I would not give you false hope
On this grand and glorious day
But the mother and daughter union
Is only one gentle kiss away

Seated next to Mark was a grandmother and her four grand children, two girls, including the one who was oh so silent, and oh so well behaved, and two boys. The boy nearest Mark, the eldest and the biggest, was cutting out a mustach and stringed goatee beard, and scoth-taping them to his mouth. Your dorrespondent could not help himself, as he found a pencil and wrote a short note: “You look like Bill Russell.”

The boy, as well behaved as any child you would ever want to take to church, but quite delighted in his disguise magic, would later return the note with one of his own: “You look like Bill Ghost.” We did not get a chance to interview the boy to discover just who Bill Ghost is.

The other boy was clearly the independent minded one. He sat one row up, in a world of his own, rambling up and down the otherwise empty church pew, and just having a grand time.

The older daughter caught her grand mother's attention, and was escorted, along with the youngest daughter, up the aisle and out of the sanctuary, leaving the two boys to amuse them selves, which they did, with much obvious delight and glee!
Then the children were called up front for the children's sermon. The youngest boy was able to seat himself atop the altar railing, which was pointed out to grand mother, who scooped up the grand daughters and made a strong move to the front of the altar to take down Deadelus from his, the most lofty of perches.

Pastor Janet put a collection plate on the floor, and asked if any of the children had any money to put in the plate. None had (or, if they did, they were NOT giving it up). So Pastor Janet gave them another option: how about if you were to put yourself in the collection plate? Do I have any volunteers? And Bill Russell's hand shot up, that enthusisatic smile still one his face. “Do I have any volunteers,” again asked Paster Janet, for her peripherial vision was not good enough to see “Bill Russel” sitting right next to her. Finally, one of the young girls took the plunge, stood up, and stepped into the offering plate. That's great, said the Pastor, who then told the following story:

A chicken and a pig were out walking one Sunday morning, when they came upon a church that was having a special Sunday breakfast. “We ought to contribute something to that breakfast,” said the pig. “I know what we can do,” said the chicken, “we can give them ham and eggs!” “Now wait a minute,” said the pig. “That's just an offering for you, but for me, it's a commitment!”

“So when you give your whole body to God, you are making a real commitment,” she said.

Any more volunteers? The Pastor asked, two more time, still not seeing the hand of Bill Russell, flying like the star spangled banner in the breeze, so enthusiastically, yet so calmly. And just when it looked like the pastor was going to end the call for volunteers, your local correspondent sprung to his feet, and walked up before God, the congretation, and eveyone, because if there was one thing he was NOT going to let happen, it was to have Bill Russell denied the opportunity to make the whole commitment. And as I neared the altar, Pastor did the most wonderful of things, saying, “If any more of you want to step in, please do so now,” knowing that these children are SO well trained, and so kind, and so sharing, that they would NOT in anyway cause chaos nor anarchy.

And in that moment, I cried again, for a 10-year old boy had taught me a most valuable lesson (which I was actually able to put to good use later that afternoon, while riding the train): that we reatin our enthusiasm for a project that we are not immediately called to partake in, and that we should respectfully and politely attempt to gain the attention of those with the power to let us undertake the project. Again, I cried, a few soft, damp, tears, for such an important lesson had not been brought to bear on me since that April first morning back in 1994 when my son, Adam James Ganzer showed me how important it is, when we see a hungry, homeless person that we do everything in our powers to at least relieve his hunger.
I had put a prayer request card in for Michelle Crabtree's back surgery, and had asked that my face book friends offer up prayers for Michelle's healing (and several of you did, many thanks to John Dodge, Sharon Schmidt, Joanna Dolder and Wanda Roberts for their prayers, and to all the rest of my face book friends who took the time to offer up an intercessory prayer for a stranger. The interecessory prayer from one stranger for another is, I believe, the most powerful prayer of all. I am pleased to report that Michelle's surgery was a success and she is recovering nicely. Thanks to all who prayed, or read, and gave her a second thought!

But here's where I really broke down. The first friend I made in Barrington was Luther Raymond Tourville, otherwise known by one and all in town simply as, “Ray the Barber.” A memorial service for Ray was held at Salem Methodist church on 30 March, 2010, and I attended with my folks. I was the first person to stand up and give a remembrance of Ray, which was the least I could do for my best friend ever in Barrington (and quite possibly, the best friend I ever had). Ray's brother was a theologian with a coupld of published books, which Ray had given to the pastor of Salem Methodist, saying, “I've read 'em both once and won't be needing them any more. Maybe you can find something you like in them. The Pastor read them both and remarked that only one page had any annotations, a page with this passage from John 10:14 I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and they know me. And so I find myself trying to sing verse five of “Built on a Rock,” and when it comes to the line: “I know my own, my own know me,” I am leaking tears like a NASCAR race car with a blown fuel pipe leaks fuel. FINALLY, I cry for the best friend I ever had in Barrington! (Consdering it to me almost 14½ years before I cried for my beloved Uncle 1st Lt James Raymond Hockett, who was mortally wounded in Viet Nam, near Tay Ninh, 22 September, 1968, a mere 17 months before I cried for Ray seems like a very short time.)

Quick anectdote that I simply must relay to the Pastor at Salem Methodist – and it relates to the passage from John 10:14. One afternoon when I was visiting Ray's, just sitting in a chair, hanging out, which I frequently did, especially when I was depressed, because it was better to be around Ray, totally depressed than it was to remain hiding under the covers of my bed in my befroo, but I also hung out at Ray's when I was not depressed. I just liked haning out at Ray's; I liked being around the man, meeting his customers, listening to the conversations, and, BEST OF ALL, having a beer at the end of the day (Ray always had a sixer in his freezer; he was a gin drinker, so, he would have his gin). A woman approached the door to Ray's shop, and he LEAPED out of his chair ran towards the older broad and starts yelling, “get out of her, you get out of here and never come in; you, go away.” And while this was the most unusual thing I'd ever seen Ray do, because it WAS Ray doing it, and I always sensed that part of him which expressed so cogently, “I know my own, my own know me,” that I did not even CONSDIER asking for an explanation. If Ray behaved that way, this was one evil bitch, and GOOD RIDDANCE.

I'm ending this Ray the Barber tribute with one of his finest jokes (which I shall paraphrase, lest the politically correct police bring down to bear on me: What did the racoon say about having intimate relations with the skunk? Haven't had all I want; but I've had all I can stand. Those of you who didn't know Ray missed out on a LOT!
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Why Being a Caddie is Better Than Being and ACTUARY.

1. The phone rarely rings.
2. When the phone does ring, it's not for you.
3. You never work past sundown.
4. You never work before sunup.
5. Your astute clients recognize that your boss is a no-talent gladhanding, boot-licking back-stabber.
6. Your clients are mostly astute.
7. Your clients never ask for an itemized statement to verify your
charges.
8. Your answers are always positive numbers.
9. When you make a mistake, both you and your client know it, so
you don't have to, or even attempt to, pass the buck.
10. Your clients know that most of the disasters which befall them
are due to their own shortcomings, not you mistakes.
11. Vice presidents don't seek your counsel' they'd ignore it
anyway, and then blame you for being correct.
12. You'll never be a vice president.
13. Fortune 50 CEO's and CFO's seek your counsel, trust your
counsel, and make every effort to abide by it.
14. When an assignment takes longer than expected to complete,
it's at most a matter of two hours, and it was not your fault.
15. You don't need to invent jargon to convince your clients that
they need your services.
16. Both you and your clients know that although they don't need
your services, they will perform better with you than without you.
17. Even when your client needs your psychotherapeutic services,
they usually don't need your baby-sitting services.
18. When you client complains about your services, you know they
needed a baby-sitter.
19. When your client thanks you for doing a great job, you know
they mean it, and you know they are correct.
20. You never need to equivocate. If you're not sure, you say so,
and tell why.
21. If you do equivocate, you do so out of kindness – not for money.
22. Four is an acceptable score.
23. Three is a very good score.
24. Two is a great score.
25. One is the best score of all.
26. There are no zeroes.
27. There are no mid-life or existential crises; you've chosen your
profession because you enjoy it, not because you're paid more
than you're worth to book-lick and suck up.
28. You can chain smoke in the office.
29. You can urinate on the office floor with no reproach.
30. You don't have to count the sick and the dead.
31. You serve the living.
32. You never have to be told that your check is in the mail.
33. You can do your job even when the computer goes down.
34. On your worst day at the office, your client loses money and you
get struck dead by lightning.
35. On that worst day when you get struck dead by lightning, the
club establishes a scholarship fund for your progeny and awaits
with trepidation your personal injury attorney's lawsuit.
36. When you die and go to hell, those few jerks who never gave you the benefit of the doubt are chasing your car on Medinah #3, in 100° heat and all the water fountains are broken. You have ample cold beer, but you can't share with them, because the rule is, in hell as on earth, caddies cannot drink beer on the course.
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The Dream Deferred – Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up
      like a raisin in the sun?
      Or fester like a sore—
      And then run?
      Does it stink like rotten meat?
      Or crust and sugar over—
      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags
      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?
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DES MOINES REGISTER COLUMNIST RIGHTFULLY USES THE WORD “PISSER” IN AN ARTICLE! CALLING A THING BY ITS NAME!

Honorary toilets? You read that right.
Aug 22, 2011 | by Michael Morain | 

So it’s come to this: Legion Arts is accepting donations for unusual naming rights at its newly renovated CSPS hall in Cedar Rapids. Here’s the latest from an e-newsletter that went out this weekend. (I’ve underlined the key paragraph for your convenience and/or delight.)

“Thanks to a $4.8 million I-JOBS grant from the state and incredibly generous support from throughout the community, we’ve not found it necessary to attract donors by offering to name various features of the building in their honor.
Until now, that is.

So here’s the deal. I think it’s safe to say that few improvements at CSPS are likely to be more appreciated than the new toilets. Now you can connect yourself to this conspicuous improvement in a tangible way, while helping Legion Arts raise some much-needed operating dollars.

All told we have six shiny new pissoirs (urinals) and 15 sparkling new commodes (toilets). We’re selling the naming rights to each one for $1,000 a pop.

Here’s your chance to honor a loved one, a colleague, a favorite artist or yourself. Use your imagination. You could join with your neighbors to salute a beloved legislator or council representative. Express your respect for a teacher or mentor. Or go in together with a couple of co-workers to surprise your boss. The possibilities are endless.
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BARRINGTON AREA LIBRARY REFUSES TO BLOOD SUCK ITS DEAD LIBRARY CARD HOLDER, DESPITE HER OVERDUE BOOK

Mark Ganzer – 22 August, 2011: Imagine my delight at locating one of my recently deceased mother's over due library books. Oh thank the Lord, I can return this and pay a nominal fine.
“Not so fast,” said the librarian. “Under the circumstances, there will be no fine.” And once again, I wept.
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OBERWEISS ICE CREAM DONATES FREE QUART OF
BLOOD TO HEARTLAND BLOOD DRIVE DONORS:
DAMN FINE DEAL – A QUART FOR A QUART
By Mark Ganzer | August 22, 2011

Imagine my delight in locating the receipt for one quart of Oberweiss ice cream, the reward for my having been a blood donor for the Heartland Blood Drive in McHenry, about a month ago! Oberweiss, y'all ROCK. My selection of Chocolate Caramel Chew was inspired by the Lord Himself. Um, Um, good; had no idea ice cream could taste so good!

AMERICA'S FINEST JOURNALIST, REKHA BASU of the DES MOINES REGISTER WRITES A COMPELLING STORY ABOUT A DIFFICLUT LIFE, BEING LIVED WELL!

Sadessa Hernandez and Tabitha Overton met as high school freshmen in Des Moines and have been best friends since. So after the unthinkable happened in February and Overton’s 7-year-old daughter was diagnosed with brain cancer, Hernandez went to support her friend in a Memphis hospital, spending her 30th birthday there.
But four months after Allison Overton’s diagnosis, came staggering news:

Hernandez’s own son Leland had a brain tumor. It had wrapped around his brain stem and sprouted five or six others, cutting off the blood supply to nerves behind his eyes, and causing him to be legally blind.

Lee is only 4 years old. It’s slow moving but inoperable.
The first call Hernandez made was to Overton. She was screaming, and the two just screamed together. Then Overton went to her daughter’s doctor at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and appealed to him to treat Lee, too. So they were back in Memphis in June, this time for Lee. Doctors removed a section of the tumor and drained a large cyst to relieve pressure they said could have, in another week, put Lee in a coma.
They were there for a month. Overton spent her 30th birthday with them.
This weekend, some people are holding a fundraiser at Big Creek State Park in support of four Des Moines children with cancer. Allison is the oldest. The youngest is 3½-year-old Nadia James, who has leukemia. So does 6-year-old Katie Wilkins. And then there’s Lee.
Last week, 7-year-old Zowie Kile of Des Moines died after battling leukemia since age 3. In trying to make sense of this, Sadessa Hernandez is up daily at 4:30 searching the internet. She says 27 Des Moines children have cancer. She finds that extreme. So the east-sider, who has three years of nurse’s training, finds herself wondering about the chemicals in the environment she grew up in near Four Mile Creek and in the drinking water. She wonders about flooding-related pollution and about corn additives in everything from food to drinks to gas.
Doctors have told her it’s not her fault, though Lee may have had the cancer since he was in the womb. “But it’s your child and how can you not feel guilty?” she asks.
Whatever she’s doing, her attention is never off her son. Even under the best of circumstances, it would be hard not to focus on Lee, and not just because he’s a whirlwind of energy. He is a beautiful little fellow with a wide grin and an irresistibly impish, affectionate and gleeful manner. Except for the long scar on the right side of his head, you might not know anything was wrong. But when he plays make believe, a little stuffed doll becomes a patient, getting five different drugs through a syringe.
For the next 18 months, he’ll get chemotherapy every Tuesday. One of the drugs makes him lethargic, one steals his appetite and one makes him nauseous. Every eight weeks, he must return to Memphis for eight days of scans and MRIs to see if the chemo is working. If not, there may be radiation.
If Lee’s normalcy seems remarkable in light of his struggles, Sadessa’s is incomprehensible. But though she comes across as in control, she confesses, “I’m completely shattered on the inside.”
The single mother of two is on medication for anxiety and to sleep. She searches frenetically for stories of children who beat the odds of an astrocytoma diagnosis, which accounts for 2 percent of childhood cancers.
She’s constantly cleaning to keep Lee’s environment germ-free. “It’s probably getting a bit obsessive,” she admits.
“It is, Mom,” replies her 13-year-old son, Randy, gently.
She talks to Overton daily and they give each other strength. She also gets support from Lee’s dad, Jesse Hernandez, and his mother, musician Janey Hooper — and her own family.
“I don’t blame God,” she says. “You can’t have faith in someone and blame them.”
But she wants answers to why so many children are getting cancer even before their permanent teeth. Someday, she says, she will dedicate herself to seeing that research is adequately funded to understand it, and stop it.
But that’s down the line. For now, “I just make every day count for my two boys.”
Monday, August 22, 2011
Preview: All that Clausewitz Jazz by Jeff Huber

Part two of “Post-Clausewitzean Bebop in the New American Century” reprises themes from some of my older foreign policy routines.  Lamentably, if you’re old enough to read this, their pertinence will persist throughout your lifetime and probably your grandchildren’s as well. 

If you think that what our generals and war wags and other military experts say in the media only sounds like gibberish to you because you have no military experience, you’re wrong.  It sounds like gibberish because it is gibberish. 
Contemporary American war scholars and military leaders alike agree on the importance of the Clausewitzean center of gravity concept, but nobody agrees on what a center of gravity is.  An Air Force pilot will tell you the center of gravity is anything he can drop a bomb on, so you need to buy him a lot of $2 billion bombers so he can bomb all the centers of gravity.  A naval aviator will tell you the center of gravity is always the aircraft carrier; a Navy SEAL will tell you the center of gravity is always him.  A Marine major will tell you there can only be one center of gravity but that’s because Marine’s can only remember one thing at a time.  An intelligence officer will tell you the center of gravity is a secret, and if you ask an Army general what a center of gravity is he’ll start breathing through his mouth.

The center of gravity concept is a lot simpler than war wags would like you to believe.  “The point against which all our energies should be directed,” as Clausewitz described it, should be directly tied to our objective, the prime determinant of all acts of war.  Without a clearly defined objective, war is loosely orchestrated but pointless violence—a description that, not surprisingly, precisely defines our present armed shenanigans in Libya, Iraq, the Bananastans and elsewhere.   

Our center of gravity is the thing that can achieve our objective and the enemy’s center of gravity will be the thing that can thwart us from achieving it.  The purpose of tying what we call centers of gravity to objectives is what keeps us focused on the objective.  When we start prosecuting “centers of gravity” that don’t directly relate to our purpose, we get in big trouble. 

Not surprisingly, “floating” centers of gravity, and a printer’s plethora of them, are practically a trademark of our Long War on Ism.  Since 9/1, centers of gravity identified by America’s war wisenheimers have included Saddam Hussein, his Republican Guard, his air defense system, his command and control system, Baghdad, his sons (Hoodoo and Voodoo? I forget), his weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist, his ties to al Qaeda that didn’t exist either, al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in Pakistan, al Qaeda in Yemen, al Qaeda in general, Shiite militias, Sunni militias, militia leaders, militia leaders’ followers, the Iraqi people, the Afghan people, the American people, the Pakistani people, the supply lines that run through Pakistan, Pakistan itself, Iran, the news media, world opinion, Congress and the poppy crop.  

You don't need to know much about all that Clausewitz jazz to know that centers of gravity are like priorities; if everything is one there is no such thing, and the warfare wisenheimers who tell you otherwise are whistling out their fat dumb toot fruit chutes.  A good 90 percent of the people you see pawning themselves off in the media as experts on the art of war don’t know a center of gravity from their elbows and, more horribly, the tank thinkers who actually cook up our war fighting doctrines don’t either.  All any of these yahooligans know of Clausewitz consists of bite-size buzz phraseology passed down from generation after generation clueless combatants, and most of them think Sun Tzu’s prime directive is to “Baffle them with bull roar."

Our New American Century’s strategic brain trust has produced three major post-modern military doctrines: Shock and Awe, Network Centric Warfare and COIN (aka “counterinsurgency”).  Shock and Awe and Network Centric Warfare are related military “transformation” dogmas that promise to scare and/or confuse the enemy into submission with a top dollar concoction of Buck Rogers gee-wizardry and magical mystery mantras like “full spectrum dominance” and “rapid dominance” and “information dominance” and “dominant battlefield awareness” and “dominant maneuvers” and a “network of networks” that constitutes a “net-centric collaboration” of “self-synchronized” and “shared situational awareness” as an intrinsic element of its “organizational behavior”... 

Catch the rest Tuesday at noon Naval Air Force Atlantic time.  

BOB SOMERSBY of THE DAILY HOWLER and his exceptional staff issue mordant chuckles as they deconstruct how the MSM (main stream media) LIES every day to your face. Even Somersby misses a key point; that the unemployment rate in Texas ain't even hardly 8.2%, no matter HOW often that statistic gets wrongly reported!
THEY JUST CAN’T DO IT! Clifford Krauss, a very slow child, affirms a jobs boom—and a miracle:

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The reign of the very dumb anecdote: In the Outlook section of Sunday’s Washington Post, Paul Waldman wrote a fascinating piece about the reign of the very dumb anecdote.

Every four years, we’re ruled by these anecdotes, in much the way Waldman describes. But alas! As if to prove that we can’t escape them, Waldman himself advanced one such narrative, even as he scolded his colleagues for doing the same darn thing:
WALDMAN (8/14/11): In every campaign, candidates' verbal miscues draw plenty of attention, and the GOP primary race this year is no different. At a stop in Iowa on Thursday, Mitt Romney blurted out that "corporations are people" and engaged in a mini-debate on the issue with the crowd. In recent weeks, Newt Gingrich came under heavy criticism for describing Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare plan as "right-wing social engineering." Tim Pawlenty referred to the Affordable Care Act as "ObamneyCare,"then backed down when asked to repeat it to Romney's face in a nationally televised debate. And Michele Bachmann has been caught in a series of factual errors, such as placing the Battles of Lexington and Concord in New Hampshire rather than Massachusetts; claiming her birthplace of Waterloo, Iowa, as the home of John Wayne, when it was actually serial killer John Wayne Gacy who hailed from there; and asserting that the founding fathers "worked tirelessly" to eliminate slavery.
Bachmann was wrong about the shot heard round the world and about the founders’ tireless work. But when he dragged John Wayne Gacy in, Waldman was involved in the same practice he decries, or pretends to decry, in the rest of his piece.

Bachmann was wrong when she named Waterloo as the birthplace of John Wayne; Wayne was actually born in Winterset, many miles away. At the same time, “journalists” have enjoyed linking Wayne to Gacy as they’ve mocked Bachmann for this error. In this favored rendition of Bachmann’s mistake, “journalists” mention Gacy’s connection to Waterloo. They fail to note that John Wayne’s parents lived in Waterloo before they moved to Winterset (click here).
Why include the one fact while dropping the other? Obviously, this is done to create the latest of the brain-dead anecdotes Waldman decries, or pretends to decry, in the rest of his piece:

It sounds like Bachmann is reeeeaaally dumb if you include the fact about Gacy. It would undercut that impression if you included the fact about Wayne’s parents. But so it has gone, for many decades, as “journalists” invent, advance or improve preferred claims about disfavored candidates.

(By the way: Gacy was born in Chicago. A long string of journalists have said he was born in Waterloo, even as they “fact-check” Bachman. But so it goes when these subhuman creatures enjoy their very dumb anecdotes.)

Your “journalists” simply aren’t very smart. Beyond that, they aren’t very honest—and they like to work in packs. For that reason, they have dealt in such anecdotes about White House candidates for at least the past thirty-nine years, a number we choose for a reason.

In at least one case, and perhaps in two, they have changed the outcome of a White House campaign through the use of their very dumb, often mistaken, stories. At the start of his piece, Waldman takes us back to the winter of 72, to the foundational episode.

Just how dumb was that very first very dumb anecdote? Waldman avoids asking—and omits a key name. As we start our new White House campaign, we’ll be seeing other such crap—and we’ll be in the hands of other “journalists” who won’t tell you the truth about the way this game is played.

In our view, Waldman is telling the truth extremely slowly in Sunday’s piece. Tomorrow, we’ll return to the winter of 72—and we will recall some things he left out.

It’s a basic tenet of Hard Pundit Law: Major journalists won’t tell the truth about other major journalists. Rising journalists won’t even come close.

Tomorrow, we’ll review that foundational anecdote. As we do, we’ll include some facts a rising scribe left out.
Special report: There’s no surviving the Times!

PART 1—THEY JUST CAN’T DO IT: Sorry.

A modern nation simply can’t function if its “press corps” is as dumb as Clifford Krauss and/or his editors.

This morning, Krauss writes a front-page report, above the fold, in your nation’s best-known newspaper. Within his first four paragraphs, he adopts a set of remarkable claims. Sorry! A modern nation won’t survive when its smartest “newspapers” are willing to reason this way:
KRAUSS (8/16/11): In Texas Jobs Boom, Crediting a Leader, or Luck

Texas is home to at least one-third of the jobs created nationwide since the recession ended. The state's economy is growing about twice as fast as the national rate. Home prices have remained stable even as much of the country has seen sharp declines.

Is Texas lucky, or has the state benefited from exceptional leadership? As Gov. Rick Perry campaigned Monday in Iowa for the Republican presidential nomination—with the economy dominating the national political landscape—the answer to that question is central to his candidacy.

Even before he formally entered the race over the weekend, Mr. Perry and his allies set out to dictate an economic narrative on his terms. A radio spot last week in Iowa told voters that the governor ''has a proven record of controlling spending and creating jobs'' and suggested that he could replicate the success of Texas on a national scale. In a budget speech a few months ago, Mr. Perry, who declined through a spokesman to be interviewed for this article, boasted that Texas stood ''in stark contrast to states that choose to burden their residents with higher taxes and onerous regulatory mandates.''

But some economists as well as Perry skeptics suggest that Mr. Perry stumbled into the Texas miracle. They say that the governor has essentially put Texas on autopilot for 11 years, and it was the state's oil and gas boom—not his political leadership—that kept the state afloat. They also doubt that the Texas model, regardless of Mr. Perry's role in shaping it, could be effectively applied to the nation's far more complex economic problems.
Jesus Christ. That’s just dumbfoundingly stupid. And no, a nation will not survive with that sort of public IQ.

Let’s consider the things Krauss says in these opening paragraphs, which appear above the fold on the New York Times front page:

The Texas jobs boom: In the headline, Krauss—or his editor—asserts that a “jobs boom” has occurred in Texas. That seems to derive from the following statement: “Texas is home to at least one-third of the jobs created nationwide since the recession ended.”

The Texas miracle: By the time of his fourth paragraph, Krauss is saying, in his own voice, that a “Texas miracle” has occurred. He doesn’t say the miracle is alleged; he doesn’t put the phrase inside quotes. This creates a wonderful, if predictable, irony: Just this quickly, Krauss has agreed to adopt “an economic narrative on Perry’s terms”—the political goal he described right there in paragraph 3.

A jobs boom has occurred in Texas, helping define the Texas miracle! By paragraph 4, Krauss has made these assertions. In the rest of his piece, he attempts to determine how much of the credit should go to Governor Perry.

It’s almost impossible to get this dumb, unless you work for the New York Times. Let’s examine the oddness of these Perry-dictated claims.

About that alleged Texas jobs boom: Has a “jobs boom” occurred in the state of Texas? It says so right there in that New York Times headline! But inside the paper, on page A12, Krauss types this, in paragraph 12. Please read carefully:
KRAUSS: As the Republican race pits the Texas governor against a former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, the economies of the two states are bound to be contrasted. Texas has far outstripped Massachusetts in the number of jobs created over the last two years. But by other measures, the Massachusetts economy has been stronger, with a lower unemployment rate in June and economic growth of 4.2 percent last year, compared with 2.8 percent in Texas.
Say what? Massachusetts had “a lower unemployment rate in June?” By the use of that peculiar phrase, Krauss means the following: Massachusetts has a lower unemployment rate than Texas. (June’s numbers are the most recent available.) But then, a whole lot of states have lower unemployment rates than Governor Perry’s miraculous state! This was Christopher Hayes, hosting last night’s Last Word:
HAYES (8/16/11): Paul Krugman dismantled the “strongest economy in the nation” myth in the New York Times today.

Krugman says, "It`s true that Texas entered recession a bit later than the rest of America, mainly because the state`s still energy-heavy economy was buoyed by high oil prices through the first half of 2008. Also, Texas was spared the worst of the housing crisis partly because it turns out to have surprisingly strict regulation on mortgage lending. Despite all that, however, from mid-2008, unemployment soared in Texas, just as it did almost everywhere else."

The unemployment rate in Texas 8.2 percent. That’s slightly lower than the national average, but it’s worse than 25 other states, including—and I have not seen this noted anywhere today—including every single one of Texas’s neighboring states, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.

In fact, if presiding over a local commodity boom is the best qualification for government, well, then, Jack Dalrymple, the governor of North Dakota with its 3 percent unemployment rate, should be your guy.
The official state-by-state data can be viewed here, supplied by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Question: How can a state with an 8.2 unemployment rate be said to be enjoying a “jobs boom?” We don’t know how to answer that question, but if Texas is enjoying such a boom, so are 25 other states! And according to official data, there are just fifty states in all!

Eventually, Krauss mentions the fact that some other states have unemployment rates lower than Texas. He does so in paragraph 24, in the following manner:
KRAUSS: This time around, the state has not escaped the downturn. The unemployment rate is 8.2 percent, a full percentage point below the national rate but still higher than other boom states like North Dakota and Wyoming, and Texas has one of the highest percentages of workers who are paid the minimum wage and receive no medical benefits.
At this late point in his pitiful piece, Krauss has no time to explain how a state with an 8.2 percent unemployment rate can be said to be in a “jobs boom.” Nor does he say that North Dakota has a three percent unemployment rate (3.0); a reader would have no idea that other states go that low. Nor does Krauss think to mention the fact that twenty-five states (out of fifty in all) have lower unemployment rates than the miracle state. For the record: Oklahoma’s unemployment rate is 5.3 percent; Nebraska stands at 4.1 percent. If the state of Texas is caught in a boom, what can be said about them?

You won’t find out in the New York Times, which persistently seems to be composed by the nation’s very slowest children. Or by grown-ups who can’t resist having their narratives dictated.

About that alleged Texas miracle: Is the state of Texas enjoying a miracle? Krauss seems to say so in paragraph 4. He spends the rest of his pitiful piece deciding how much credit Perry should be given.

But is Texas really caught in a miracle? Inside the Times, on page A12, a graphic is appended to Krauss’ report (just click here.) As part of the graphic’s good news about Texas, you will learn the following:

“Texas’ economy grew faster than the country’s as a whole last year.”

If you look at the numbers, you will see this: Texas grew at a rate of 2.8 percent, as compared to 2.6 percent for the nation. No, that isn’t a typo—and no, it isn’t a miracle.

Did named person Clifford Krauss write this report in good faith? His front-page report is so blindingly stupid that many people will assume that it can’t represent an honest effort. Krauss is a stooge, these people will say—Krauss and his posse of “editors.”

Amazingly, we don’t think that’s obvious. At the Times, the “journalists” really are this dumb, whatever else may be clouding their work. Tomorrow, we’ll look at three other examples just from today’s Times, including two pieces in which Times “journalists” are trying to savage Republican narratives.

In the case of these two pieces, we do not doubt what they’re trying to do. They trying to challenge Republican claims. But they aren’t smart enough to know how.

They just aren’t smart enough to do it! And no, your nation has no chance with very slow children like these in charge—and with a career liberal world too store-bought and dumb to react to this garbage.

Hayes should savage this piece tonight. Just a guess: He will not.
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EDITORIALS BEING A TRAITOR CAN BE MANDATORY
TRAITOR – Mark Ganzer

I am a traitor
A traitor to my race
A traitor to my creed
A traitor to my gender
A traitor to my former corporate standing
A traitor to my former socio-economic status
A traitor to my cultural inculcations.

In my treachery to these, the circumstances
of the random and improbable mating of seed and egg,
of the accident of my birth, I am empowered,
and have become the most dangerous of all creatures.
walking cloaked like those, and speaking to language of
those who cleave unto their unfounded beliefs:

I am the creature which haunts their nightmares,
I am the born again human who has looked into the mirror
Seen his true self and been lain low by the painful realization
that my life's choices had corrupted me, and made me and turned me
upon my genuine self -- I had let creature comforts numb me
from what the universe first called me to be and called me to do.
I have rejected all that for which they stand; all that they worship.

Their unfounded beliefs and idols of worship revolve around these matters:

In the superiority of the white race over all other races,
In the superiority of christianity over all other faith traditions,
In the superiority of men over women,
In the wisdom of the corporate elites over the working class masses.
In the superiority of western "culture and civilization"
to all other cultures and civilizations.

They self-justify these beliefs by their material "blessings" that have accrued unto them resulting from the circumstances of the random and improbable mating of sperm and egg, of the accident of their births, and, at the upper echelons, by their celebrity.

The gospel of prosperity and the cult of personality
are sufficient self-justifications.

This gospel and this cult I reject out of hand,
and will oppose to my last breath.

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Conversation amongst college students, in Macomb, IL, cira October, 1970:

Chaz: I'm not a virgin anymore!
Kiff: That's because you fell into the sewer.
Chaz: I'm afraid that if I came now (while tripping on LSD) that's I'd shoot my head off, instead of my rocks. See how much fun and how interesting drugs are!

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Some of you might not consider Dave Somersby's article a “good news” piece, but then consider this: Somersby criticizes the high and mighty; he names names to help explain why we cannot have an intelligent political discourse in this country at the present time. Somersby points out that we are being fed a steady diet of propaganda, lies, and trivia; there is no meat on the bones of the stories reported in the main stream press, and the U.S. TV news is FAR worse. Critical thinking is our best antidote to what passes for news, but, in actuality, is propaganda that serves the interests of the rich, the powerful, the politcial and even academic elites. If you want to know why our country is in the sorry shape it's in, then follow the story arcs that you are force fed on a daily basis. Truly, for an institution given specific protections under the U.S. Constitution, “the Press” has abdicated its role as a non-partisan reporter of facts.

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Conversation amongst grade school students, circa 1993.

Adam: Oh there's that cute little lion! I used to want one of them.
Scott: But it's just a symbol of marketing.
Adam: It's a shame when the truth is revealed to children.

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