'Random Thoughts I Couldn't Think Of Putting Anywhere Else!-)'

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Its 2009 as I write this, General Motors and Chrysler are on the ropes. My feeling is that Chrysler would be the company to finally go out of business based primarily on its poor engineering and reliability problems. I really felt and feel of the two major auto manufactures just mentioned, GM would be the survivor as well as Ford. However, Chrysler is getting another chance as it is about to be the little brother of Fiat - so I guess that means Chrysler will have a dual heritage of being domestic and imported. GM is said it will begin to import sub-compact Chinese cars primarily from Chery Motors and re-brand them as Chevys. Well, its not a far jump in name if you think about it? However, I wouldn't touch them with a railroad tie. Here's the thing, people are no longer believing in the crap turned out by both, so they are buying Toyota and Honda. Now North Americans would prefer to buy cars made in North America, IF, they could be sure they didn't turn into crap by the second year of ownership! So what's the problem with selling US-made cars? Its legacy of poor reliability records and regular recalls. When both Toyota and Honda can build cars that stay on the road, GM, Ford and Chrysler have no excuses. Especially considering that some of the reliable models by Toyota and Honda are built right here in North America by North American factory workers. This says the factory floor blue collar workers can go 'toe-to-toe' building dependable automobiles - its just the CEO's and boards of Chrysler, Ford and GM who really suck!

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Friday 5.29.2009

I suppose I should really date these installments. Then the reader can put this in perspective. As I write this, North Korea has been blasting off practice bottle rockets - the real stuff will be loaded with nuclear warheads. After a shaky start, North Korea looks like its getting its act together in handling nuclear weapons. And at least for North America, that is not good. So what is the possible scenario? Well, one knows that North Korea's only standing friend is (as I write this) China. While the US will attempt to protect South Korea and Japan from attack, China will use its powers to protect North Korea. The best resolution would be for China to snuff out the 'Dear Leader', Kim Ill-Jong and annex North Korea to China - problem solved. Save for that solution, Ill-Jong in a crazy moment may send a loaded missile and start a nuclear war. At that point, the world can kiss its ass goodbye - no one will survive it. One note, if Ill-Jong bites the big one and a son takes over, its possible his son may realize his dad was a 'nut' job, and reduce tensions and care for the North Korean people in a peaceful manner.

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Saturday 5.30.2009

I remain heavily convinced that education is the only way for members of families to survive in the future. Too many unskilled positions are just one inch away from hopeless slavery. I am the first college-educated child in my family, Jason is the second. My hope is everyone in this family from here forward will have a college education with a degree that individual truly wants. I don't want to see any of my grandchildren to come, working minimum-wage jobs. Furthermore, I want sibling peace within the family. Their parents need to make the home environment positive with the effort on teamwork, than on competitive destructive behavior against each other. Everyone has their own skills, and those should be respected at all levels. Provide a home of smiles, not of fear. Everyone should be their own individual, but be willing to 'chip-in' with others for the greater good. Don't fight, talk and communicate peacefully among yourselves. Don't create enemies within!

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Monday 6.15.2009

I've sort of developed what I call the 'Three Lump Theory' when it comes to manufacturing. You can take two similar products by two manufactures and use almost the exact same materials both in item and quantity, yet one will end up better than the other. The reason I call it 'Three Lump' is because most items are made up primarily of glass, metal and plastic. If its a tv set, then the difference is in the circuit design and the quality of those aforementioned materials. As to improvements to the same product, it really would not require additional raw materials, again, just a better design in how the components are laid out. However, there could still be a great price distance between the competing products using those similar amounts of raw material.

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Sunday 7.12.2009

I remain forever convinced that it was a good thing I didn't marry Jason's mom, nor had another child by her. I can look back and realize her pregnancy was an attempt to 'own' me - she wanted a 'man' any way she could get one - knowing or at least feeling she would get one only through manipulation. I seemed as good a candidate as any? So, the lie of 'my doctors told me I can't get pregnant', turned out to be what I wanted to hear. Looking back and remembering the few things she said about her first husband were clues I should have picked-up on. Things like, "My ex-husband whacked off in an empty soup can rather than have sex with me!" Now that should have given me enough pause to think. However, I was so damn 'pent-up' horny to put the hot dog in practically any female oven, that I chose to ignore the obvious. I mean, her 'ex' might have fallen for the same line, but decided to go through with the wedding anyway - however, holding off for almost a year to see if she actually gave birth. Well, obvious she didn't, he realized it was a lie and left. So she'd do it with me, only this time she'd let herself get pregnant figuring that would 'hog-tie' me. I told her I wanted to be a father and acknowledge my son as mine - supporting my child as well...but there would be no marriage! When Jason was almost two, she asked me into her bedroom to check something for her. No sooner had I walked in, then the door went shut and she wanted to have sex. Very subtle!-) It took me a quick thought, and I realized what she was up to. She gets pregnant the second time, than I'd really have to marry her...she wasn't giving me much credit for intelligence. I was on to her and politely declined, opening the door and quietly walking out. Its sad, but she was willing to go as far as bring another life into the world, just to anchor a man. Hard lesson for this is, unless you feel that you could marry this other person and at least have a fairly good marriage, don't go to bed with him or her. Keep it zipped in your pants, or your panties up, or make damn sure you use rubbers (condoms), and take them home in a little sealable vial with you to dispose of later, or if you are a woman, make sure you are using the pill and a diaphragm. I love my son, however, I'd rather have had a child with someone I really loved. Cheryl was strictly utility sex in my mind.

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Sunday 7.19.2009

I guess today's little talk is about staying away from alcoholics and drug addicts. This is always true whether you are young or an adult. Their pain becomes your pain, especially if you follow in their footsteps. Become one of them, and you become a pain to others. No matter what age, hanging with alcoholics or drug addicts can become dangerous in ways unexpected. During the dating years, both as a teen and an adult, you are going to meet all kinds of people and their personalities - all the way from very good, to very bad. Alcoholics and drug addicts have very little self-esteem and negatively altered mindsets. And if they want to maintain that 'high', they will use anybody anyway they can to get that next bottle of booze or that illegal injection - including stealing from, robbing, up to killing another to obtain the money for that next fix. They will even try making others alcoholics and drug addicts as well...misery loves company! A woman who is a crack whore or an alcoholic will sell her body to anyone willing to pay the price, but it often comes with disease that can be contagious and life-threatening. She may also allow herself to get pregnant to force the guy into support payments for herself and her child. Or if you decide to marry her (a very bad decision), you'll be in for a lot of embarrassment to the point of being made a social pariah. Nobody is going to want to be around her, and thus not want to be around you either. You'll come home to things having been destroyed, or finding some other misfit knocking her up in bed...your bed! It will become very costly, both during and after the split-up, and if there are children involved...well, lets just say it can get very ugly.

The same goes for alcoholic and drug-addicted men, if you are a female. If that guy you are 'seeing' is an alcoholic or drug addict, he has only two interests, getting into your panties and seeing how much he can screw you out of. Chances are he will get suddenly violent if things don't go his way. He'll drive away your friends and family with his erratic behavior. Chances are he can't hold down a job and end up using you to live off of, while becoming very demanding and abusive of you. Oh sure, there's a lot of sweet talk when need be, but in-between there is a lot of abuse and being used. And if he gets 'mean' enough, you are in for a lot of physical and emotional abuse - up to and including the point of death. Heaven help if you have children together, they will be heavily abused as well...don't fool yourself no matter how cool the guy will act.

Look, most of us will have a social drink from 'time-to-time', but there is a point between being casual and harmful - you'll have to make the call based on your own experience. Note how he or she treats others...because once you are 'claimed' that is how he or she will eventually treat you. Don't pick up someone in a bar, overall it is a really bad place to meet someone for a long lasting relationship. Being under the influence may seem like a good time, but when you wake up to reality, it could be the most scary roller-coaster ride of your life - and almost impossible to get rid of that negative influence, no matter what the circumstance, especially if that someone in an altered state decides not to let go.

Monday 8.10.2009

Okay, we're going to talk about physical, mental and sexual abuse. To put it strongly in few words possible...it is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! While abusers may be physically stronger than their victims, they are nevertheless weaker in their minds and souls! Keep in mind, the abuser is the ultimate coward, since they rarely pick on someone their own size or larger. They are mean, vicious and just plain stupid! There was an interesting article on what eventually happens to some abusive assholes, and make no mistake, they are the crap of society. The piece appeared in Time Magazine in the 11.23.1992 edition. READ IT!;

In the tiny community of Cement, Oklahoma, trees and telephone poles are festooned with pink ribbons. People work tirelessly to collect signatures on petitions. The activity is in support of Billie Joe Powell, a 16-year-old girl charged with fatally shooting her father, who had allegedly abused her. Townspeople hope their efforts will help persuade the court to try the high school sophomore not as an adult but as a juvenile, so that she will receive more lenient treatment.

A few years ago, such sympathy would have been unheard of. Children who killed their parents were the ultimate pariahs. Regarded as evil or mentally ill "bad seeds," they virtually always earned the harshest judgment of the public and the courts. Says psychologist and attorney Charles Patrick Ewing of the State University of New York at Buffalo: "We take the commandment to 'honor thy father and thy mother' very seriously. The implication is that you're supposed to honor your parents even if they abuse you."

That attitude is slowly starting to change. Today youngsters who slay abusive parents are drawing more understanding from a public that has awakened to the national nightmare of child abuse. Last year an estimated 2.7 million youngsters were physically, mentally and sexually assaulted by their parents, % according to the National Center for Prevention of Child Abuse. Despite the prevalence of abuse, parricide remains rare. It accounts for about 2% of all homicides, around 300 cases a year. Most of those involve teenagers who kill abusive parents. Though the numbers are small, these youngsters "open a window on our understanding of child abuse in a way that no one else can," says Los Angeles lawyer Paul Mones, whose practice is devoted to defending children accused of parricide. "They allow us to understand how abuse is incubated."

Sons are more likely than daughters to strike back violently. "Men by and large tend to act outwards and be more aggressive," says Ronald Ebert, senior forensic psychologist at McLean's Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. "Girls tend to internalize pain and blame themselves more." Abused girls often become bulimic or suicidal.

Typically, the child who kills a parent is from 16 to 18 years old, from a white middle-class family. Most have above-average intelligence, although their schoolwork may be below average. They generally are well-adjusted in school and the community, though they tend to be isolated, without many friends. They commonly have had no prior run-in with the law.

Their target is most often the father -- usually a biological or stepparent rather than an adoptive or foster parent -- and the typical weapon is a gun kept in the home. These young people generally do not show any obvious sign of the mental disorders and self-destructive tendencies shared by children who strike out at strangers on the street or at nonabusive parents. In fact, dispatching their tormentor can be seen as an act of sanity, a last-resort effort at self-preservation. "They know what they're doing is wrong," says Dewey Cornell, a forensic psychologist at the University of Virginia. "But they are desperate and helpless, and they don't see alternatives."

Abuse is a mild term for the torture that parents inflict. When he went on trial for murder last August in Olympia, Washington, Israel Marquez, 17, recited a litany of abuse that began when he was seven years old. His stepfather, a deputy sheriff and martial-arts expert, liked to punch him in the chest and slap him on the head. When he went through a bed-wetting period between the ages of seven and 12, the stepfather beat him with a 2-in.-wide belt. After hearing the boy's tale, the jury found Marquez guilty of the reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter. He is expected to be released from prison in April.

Donna Marie Wisener's suffering at her father's hand started at age two and continued into her teens. To mark his displeasure, he threw oak logs at her; for amusement, he handcuffed her to a chair. Just as bad for the Tyler, Texas, girl was the sexual abuse. Her father would send her lewd Valentines -- "I would like your heart and I assume the rest of you will follow" read one message -- and give her "rubdowns." The agony culminated one evening when her father threw her against the wall, hitting her on the head over and over. He also beat her mother until she fell unconscious to the floor, then he threw Donna Marie out of the house. In despair, she returned and took a loaded revolver from her parents' nightstand. When her father came at her again, she shot him dead. Last February she was found not guilty of first-degree murder by reason of self-defense.

Mark Martone of Haverhill, Massachusetts, who killed his father, remembers abuse back to age five, when he told his dad he was scared of the dark. "Oh, Jesus Christ," said the parent in disgust. Then he led the terrified boy down to the cellar, handcuffed his arms over a rafter, turned off the light and shut the door. Mark dangled in silence for hours. "God forbid if I cried," he recalls. "I was just like a hanging Everlast bag, you know? Punch me, punch me." When Mark was nine, his father held the boy's hand over a red-hot burner as punishment for moving a book of matches on a bureau. And when he was 15, his dad, angered by a long-distance phone bill, stuck a gun in his son's mouth and "told me he was going to blow my brains out."

Most abused children suffer quietly. The lucky ones find other supportive adults who nurture them, typically a nonabusive parent, grandparent, teacher or coach. Some manage to cope by emotionally numbing themselves or by taking out their repressed anger on someone other than the abuser. Others find the torment intolerable. They may run away or try to commit suicide. Donna Marie Wisener once had a gun in her mouth when she was discovered by her father, who told her, "Next time do it right."

Some seek outside help, but often to no avail. "I spent my whole childhood trying to get help, and none ever came," says Roy Rowe, 19, who last year was sentenced to four to 12 years for killing his stepfather. Neighbors in Vestal, New York, sometimes called the police when the screams grew too loud from the beatings -- with a paddle, a belt and a two-by-four -- that Roy's stepfather gave him, his younger sister and brother, and his mother. Teachers reported their suspicions of abuse; relatives tried to intervene. But each time, police officers and social workers left the children in the home. On his 17th birthday, Roy shot and killed his stepfather on their front porch as he came home from work.

What makes some children finally snap? "They don't pay as you go with regard to aggression," observes Detroit psychiatrist Emanuel Tanay. "You might think they're passive, but they're also explosive." Many parricides occur when the child is on the cusp of independence, about to break away from a parent's domination. Sometimes the killing is triggered by a desire to protect the other parent or siblings.

Often an escalation in the level of violence precedes the slaying. Mark Martone was 16 when he shot his father to death. "This was not a routine beating," he recalls. His father had slammed his head against a radiator, kicked him in the ribs and struck him on the skull with a hammer. As he sat in jail the night of the murder, Mark was still terrified. "Oh, God," he said to himself, "what am I doing here! Dad's going to kill me!" Mark was convicted of homicide as a juvenile but was sentenced to six months probation. Like others who have suffered the same ordeal, he remains torn by his immense relief, guilt, grief, even love. "It may sound sick, but I did love him," says Mark. "I still love him. I mean, he was my father."

Although a "battered-child-syndrome" defense is beginning to be recognized, mounting a legal case for these kids is difficult because the law does not, for the most part, recognize such killings as self-defense. Though some occur during an episode of brutal abuse, most happen when parents are in a vulnerable position: coming in the door, watching television, cooking dinner with their back turned, or sleeping. That may be the only time youngsters can overpower their abusers, but it makes the killing appear to be cold-blooded murder.

Advocates for abused youngsters contend that such seemingly premeditated acts can be self-defense. People who suffer abuse for a long time can become adept at sensing impending violence. "They are hypervigilant, sensitive to aggressive cues," explains Mones. "They know when someone is going to hurt them even though it may not be apparent to the outside observer." He calls for prosecutors to assign parricide cases to trained child-abuse investigators rather than to regular homicide detectives.

- Many mental-health experts now favor treatment rather than punishment for battered kids, who rarely are violent again. "These kids don't need to be locked up for our protection," observes Buffalo's Ewing. "Some may benefit in the sense that they've been able to atone and overcome some guilt. But beyond that, it's really Draconian."

The larger issue is how to prevent the abuse that leads to the killing. In addition to strengthening social-service agencies and enforcing laws that require reporting of suspected abuse, experts recommend school-based programs that teach parenting skills to would-be mothers and fathers. Schools could also educate children about the difference between acceptable and abusive punishment and tell them where to find help when parents get out of control. Many abused youngsters think that hitting and kicking are normal, and most cannot conceive of turning in their mothers and fathers. Besides saving desperate youngsters and their parents, educational programs could go a long way toward ensuring that the violence is not visited on the next generation. No one should forget that the majority of child batterers were once battered children themselves.

Stay away from trailer trash! Stay away from anyone below a Bachelors' Degree when looking for a potential mate, you and your children will thank-me for this advice  over and over down the line. People who have no goals in life eventually spread misery - and many to follow have to live under that misery for generations to come. Someone who sits their ass at home is more likely to cheat, lie and harm, than someone who is doing something with their lives...ten times more likely. Also realize someone who is dumb or conniving is more likely to pull down the gene pool . And its as easy to marry an intelligent mate as it is to marry someone who is junk! You do not want to condemn your children to ignorance...at least if you love your children.