Lies & Reparations

The democrats have turned the current campaign into one big circus, with everything from bald-faced lies by one candidate to a connection by the other with a rabid racist preacher whose hatred for white people and this country is palpable. A few years ago, the services of the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, a mesmerizing preacher when he isn't screaming, were regularly scheduled on one of the cable networks (Trinity, I believe) and I heard him preach many times. He preached routinely in the vein of the clips featuring his racist remarks that have been reproduced over and over lately, so much so that I e-mailed him, wondering why. No answer came from him, though a response of some kind was sent by one of his daughters.

It's doubtful that Senator Clinton will mention again her trip to Bosnia in 1996. Her excuse for cooking up that scene was that she simply misspoke is laughable – no greeting party and dodging sniper's bullets on the tarmac as she and Chelsea ran for their lives. She had the tale rehearsed and told it over and over, apparently never dreaming that someone would produce a comprehensive film of what actually happened – a greeting party including the Bosnian president and small children and a truck loaded with paparazzi clicking away as she and Chelsea grandly marched from the plane on the tarmac. Could she possibly be so arrogant or ignorant that she would think no one else in her entourage would also expose her? This sort of disingenuousness (outright dishonesty, actually) is not a desirable attribute in a president.

Obama is stuck with Wright, who, though acclaimed for building a huge church and doing good works, is the albatross around the candidate's neck. Wright has cancelled or been cancelled or relocated with regard to his scheduled appearances this week in Florida and Texas. To add to Obama's woes, Wright wrote this in the Nov.-Dec. issue of the Trumpet magazine, run by his daughters, "The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge…". Connecting the U.S. government with the clan is a slap in every American's face. Much of the rest of Wright's rambling hate-filled speeches/writings such as his allusion to "garlic-nosed Italians" have been well-documented lately, but probably such documenting and airing are only just beginning. Clinton, as well as her supporters in the liberal media, will see to that.

In a Fox News segment the other evening, Dick Morris, former democrat apparatchik and confidant of Bill Clinton, described Hillary Clinton as simply disposed toward lying. He mentioned that she said daughter Chelsea was in the area of the WTC on 9/11, when Chelsea indicated that she was at home watching the event on TV. Morris mentioned Hillary's claim to have played in the women's intramural soccer league (or some such sport) in university, when actually there was no women's soccer league. Morris is probably telling the truth, although his credentials might bear constant adjudication. One remembers his famous phone conversation with President Clinton while he (Morris) was enjoying a tryst with a lady (toe-sucking?).

Dr. James Cone, the designer of "black liberation theology," is Wright's mentor. To see where Wright is coming from, I listened to nearly all of Cone's one-hour-plus lecture, Strange Fruit: the Cross and the Lynching Tree, at Harvard in October 2006, part of the Ingersoll series, which Harvard has placed on the Internet. I listened/viewed a couple of other snippets of Cone in other venues, an interview and panel-discussion presentation, also available on the Internet. Cone makes much of what he calls "white supremacy" and the "cross." He insists that white Americans (supremacists) can understand the cross only in the context of the lynchings of blacks in this country, comparing those lynchings to the crucifixion. He mentioned 5,000 of them.

According to Cone, the white supremacists can obtain forgiveness only as they provide reparations to blacks. Wright, the keynote speaker at its convention in 2007, is a darling of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA), thus putting Obama squarely in the must-position of declaring how he feels about this matter, since Wright has been a mentor of sorts to Obama. Obama hasn't said, but he's saddled with the problem, and Clinton can be counted on to push it. According to Morris-think, she might be for or against reparations, depending on which way the wind blows.

The usual reparation argument is based on the reparations awarded to the Japanese a while back as an actually nominal payback for their interment in camps in the U.S. during World War II at a time citizens on particularly the west coast were horrified at reported attacks to be possibly mounted against them, too, soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor. German submarines were plying the waters in the Atlantic at the same time, surfacing easily within sight of the night-lights in cities in New York and Florida.

The most infamous prison operated during the Civil War was Andersonville, located in Sumter County, Georgia. During the 15 months during which Andersonville was operated, almost 13,000 Union prisoners died there of malnutrition, exposure, and disease. These were lynchings of white men dying in the process of freeing the slaves, albeit dying slow, misery-ridden deaths instead of the relatively quick one of hanging. It isn't likely that either Cone or Wright would agree, but such is the proper comparison, notwithstanding that no white descendents of the Andersonville dead or the other 347,000 union dead have clamored for reparations from the black community…or any community.

Assuming reparations to be in order, those made to the Japanese were made within the generation of those affected. By contrast, the government did not act to settle grievances, real or imagined, within the generation of those affected in both the Native-American and Black communities in the 1800s, so the comparison is with apples to oranges and doesn't work. The latter generations are long dead. Indeed, in just the battle termed The Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864, the Union dead numbered 17,666. Their white descendents have not clamored for reparations, though these men were willingly lynched in battle. The source for these figures: The Civil War, Strange and Fascinating Facts by Burke Davis.

McCain has his problems with the conservatives, but he has the bona fides gained through both civil and military experience to be a strong president. Clinton and Obama are saddled with having neither a comparable extent nor kind of experience, plus proclaiming to one and all on a daily basis each other's unfitness for office. Indeed, their petty squabbling and mudslinging make them out to be more adolescent than mature. The nation deserves better. One is a liar and the other unable to shake loose from a damning entanglement.

One wonders about the fate of the country when viewing the shenanigans connected with the current election-year campaigning. The conservative republicans are unhappy with John McCain because they feel he's too much like a democrat masquerading in a red cape as a republican and about to suck the life out of the party. Some of the high-profile diehards are seemingly trying even now to sabotage his efforts mostly out of spite and throw the country to the wolves, otherwise known as dem-libs. Disgusting! The alternatives to McCain are scary.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

DNC Memorandum #29

From the office of Howard Dean, M.D., chairperson

***First, a word of apology for not advancing the regular monthly memorandum for February, though I had it scheduled for Feb. 30 but was advised that the day did not exist (little joke there). Recent days have been frantic, especially since operatives from both the Obama and Clinton camps have insisted upon a personal endorsement by me of McCain, explaining that such would allow at least two weeks of the media extensively covering something so bizarre, meaning that such things as Jeremiah Wright, Obama fairytales, and a possible Clinton botoxing would be off the front pages and nightly newscasts. As a "non-typical white person," I fear neither candidate and have refused. Thanks in advance for your appreciation.

***There have been reports of snickering around the bottled-water and low-fat-noncarbohydrate-veggie-candy-bar machines over the recent endorsement by Governor Bill Richardson of Obama's candidacy, as well as bets being made as to which cabinet position he has been promised. Please put out the word that no deal has even been discussed, much less promised, and that both men have said they will not talk about it again. Anyone caught discussing this again will be sent to knock on doors in Kentucky, where the Primary is in May and where it is rumored that even first-graders can completely assemble an M-16 in forty seconds and are trained to recognize an unfamiliar knock on the door.

***Please put out the word that the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright has been dropped from the Obama campaign team since he is observing his after-retirement sabbatical, whereabouts unknown, and thus hasn't the time to contribute as a spiritual adviser or, even more importantly, to prepare the morning coffee. The rumor that he is joining Michael Moore in a new film project inspired by My Fair Lady and tentatively titled The Pain in Maine Is Mainly in McCain is untrue, as well as info concerning a new hymn featured in the film by Wright entitled God Damn America. The ACLU has sued to have the hymn placed in every hymn-book in the country to balance the hymn God Bless America and thus ensure equity in religion. Wright has said he has not written such a hymn and will not sing it again.

***Senator Obama is preparing a White Paper explaining precisely what a "typical white person" is. This is in response to inquiries related to his recent use of that term, especially as it was applied to an 84-year-old white woman and then applied to all white people. He has asked that judgment be reserved until he discovers what he meant and will appreciate any help, especially from white people, in determining what he was thinking (or if he was thinking – little joke there) at the time he coined this phrase, which will be used constantly between now and the convention…perhaps even the November election. Senator Clinton has asked for suggestions from the black community as to exactly what a "typical black person" is, insisting upon equal treatment. Since her husband, with her approval, was identified as the first black president, notwithstanding his obvious lack of the proper skin-pigmentation and since he obviously is not typical of most male humanoids in dealing with interns and cigars, she insists that clarifications be made; otherwise, the villages engaged in raising children will be conflicted as to who should be where and when and why, as well as the identification of dangers lurking when "typical white/black people" are uncomfortable in their surroundings.

***General Petraeus will be speaking in Congress in April, so Senator Clinton, who was brave enough to call him a liar to his face in a hearing last fall, and Senator Biden, who agreed with her later in a comment in Slate, have requested that all effort be expended in explaining that "suspension of belief," the term used by Clinton, actually does not mean what it obviously means. This means that a $500-prize is being offered to anyone who can spin her remark into a profound compliment, and the money will be awarded immediately. Do not – REPEAT – do NOT suggest, as some have, that she enunciated "suspension of relief" because the lines were too long at the ladies restrooms. The video-tape is very clear as to her exact words. Also, insist that Clinton did not use this term because she felt that nobody in the redneck South – pickup-as-religion country – would actually understand that she was calling a four-star general a liar.

***There's been a tendency among staffers to complain that the new "spouse-alarm" system is not working when the candidates' spouses make speeches. These devices are designed to guard against such statements as the "Obama fairytale" term used by Bill Clinton. The use of the word "fairy" has angered the gay/lesbian/transgender/transitioning/trans-whatever-else community, whose vote is badly needed. The alarm should have garbled that part of Clinton's speech, as well as the "only now proud of my country" comment by Michelle Obama. The alarm didn't work when Senator Clinton suggested that President Johnson worked with M.L. King in the civil rights matter. While she was correct, the alarm should have garbled those words for the obvious reasons. The black community has been furious over this. Similar alarms have also been designed for all campaigners, so that the truth will not overcome the facts (little joke there). They, hopefully now correctly adjusted, will be distributed soon and are keyed to monitor blood pressure, temperature, tongue-speed, and EQ (emotion quota) at all times, so that such gaffs will be eliminated when someone is about to say something stupid or truthful, whichever comes first.

***Perhaps you're aware that the newsmagazine published as an arm of the Rev. Doc J. Wright's church gave its 2007 Empowerment Award to the Right Rev. Imam Doc Louis Farrakhan a few months ago. He's made the claim publicly that the U.S government empowered the levees on Lake Pontchartrain to rupture in 2005 in an effort to kill black folk. Since any other empowerment possibility has not been mentioned, everyone is instructed to explain that the Empowerment Award was granted in recognition of Farrakhan's empowerment to make a violin sound good…something he does well. When explaining, please refrain, however, from referring to the R/R/I/D Farrakhan as "Calypso Louie." This offends many Caribbean-extraction voters who favor reggae, which depends on guitars and bongos, not violins.

***For now, impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney are on hold, so don't waste time campaigning for it. Speaker Pelosi is busy reinstalling the Dalai Lama in Tibet and complaining to the Chinese about the smog that might fatally affect Americans in the Olympic Games during the summer monsoon season this year and doesn't have time to fool with extraneous matters. Also, do not – REPEAT – do NOT mention anything about climate change and global warming since many top scientists are exposing the entire CO2 Gore-thing as a hoax. Do NOT mention that his film may not be shown in English public schools unless its lies (9 or 11, depending on perspective) are explained beforehand. Also, the polar bears, except the four that slipped off the world, are all alive and well.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

N'COBRA, "Typical Whites" & the Candidate

On the Web-site of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA) is this suggestion: "Order the new DVD "N'COBRA 2007 Annual Conference Gala: A Call For Justice And Repair" featuring Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.!" The featured speaker at that conference was Barack Obama's pastor, whose hate/racist-rhetoric Obama has been trying hard to condemn lately.

That conference was held in June 2007. This is a paragraph from the Philadelphia Daily News of 21 June 2007: "Tonight, a fiery supporter of reparations for black enslavement, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, the Chicago pastor of presidential candidate Barack Obama, will deliver the keynote speech for the 18th annual N'COBRA conference at 7 p.m. at First District Plaza Ballroom, 3801 Market St."

This is a note in the Philadelphia Tribune of 20 March 2008 and refers to a conference in progress sponsored by N'COBRA: "The conference opens at 7 p.m. Thursday [at Temple University] with a gala led by the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Its theme is 'A Call for Justice and Repair.'" It's been reported that Obama mentioned on CNN's Larry King Live show on 20 March something about Wright being on a cruise, so who knows?

It turns out that the African American preacher who glibly (well…pawing the air and screaming, actually) called for God to damn America (he probably meant only the USA, not Canada or Mexico or any other Latino America) also wants America to grease his palm with the tax monies paid mostly by white folk, such handout supposedly establishing justice and repair, though one wonders what injustice Wright has endured (perhaps too many traffic tickets?) or how he (or whatever) needs repairing.

In his ill-timed and ill-informed "race speech" on 18 March, Obama made no mention of N'COBRA or of any thought of reparations, yet in discussing the sayings and activities of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, whose statements he attempted vehemently to condemn but which had everything to do with race and injustice, he didn't mention this matter, one which is so high-profile that representative John Conyers has introduced a Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act bill in every Congress since 1989, including in this Congress.

So…the plot thickens. In an Obama presidency, in which he will surely surround himself with African Americans in the highest appointive offices, how will the reparations business play out? One believes the Congress will never enact such a bill for a "study" – especially since it actually assumes reparations as a fait accompli – much less an actual reparations law. But, the current social-engineering crowd that came of age in the hippy-dippy 60s and 70s and is very much in evidence in Congress will not die out for a while yet, so…

Obama compounded his error in even bringing up the race question, much less the speech, when in an interview in Philadelphia on 20 March he referred to the "typical white person," whom he described as one who is wary of the company of people she/he doesn't know. Would Obama consider defining a "typical black person" or a "typical Chinese person?" His remarks had to do with the slander he awarded his own grandmother, a white lady who probably heard his speech in her home in Hawaii, as having made comments that made him "cringe." Did his cringing make him a "typical black person" in the company of a "typical white person?" More to the point, did this stereotyping of white people make him seem racist?

One thing has been made abundantly clear with regard to this race dustup as other black preachers have been interviewed. They seem to form a solid consensus that Wright's pulpit performance is fairly typical of that in other black churches. This is sad, but it explains a lot. Unlike in the white population, the church is still the most important institution in the black community and the preachers are often the best educated/motivated members, thus probably exerting more influence than any other professional. If black preachers have been spewing hatred like Jeremiah Wright's throughout the nation's black churches, should one assume that they've planted attitudes that will die hard, if ever?

One wonders if this has something to do with the statement by Obama's wife, Michelle, who reckoned publicly that only now, with her husband's candidacy, presumably, has she ever been proud of this country, never mind her inordinate success, as well as his, in simply "making it," in spades. Did she listen to Wright's rant week after week and buy into the hatred she heard? Did she actually believe him when he accused the U.S. of inventing AIDS and spreading it around to kill people of color, or that the U.S. inundated the black community with drugs?

This "race thing," precipitated by the recent wholesale citizen-awareness of Jeremiah Wright's pulpit performances and his intimate connection with Obama, then enhanced by Obama's untimely speech and subsequent white-stereotyping, and now even further enhanced by an inevitable notice of Wright's solid connection with N'COBRA (such as in this piece), raises yet another stink. Obama will do well to try to head off the predictable accusations concerning N'COBRA that he is a "reparations person" by getting out ahead of the crowd and denouncing N'COBRA now. If he doesn't, he is toast, for sure.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Obama & the Race-Card

For his speech in Philadelphia on 18 March, Barack Obama chose the subject of race, a high-decibel noise-maker that most people, white and black, have had quite enough of for decades. If he was trying to neutralize the well-documented anti-American remarks of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, recently resigned from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he chose the wrong approach. His speech should have been about hate, the quite obvious motivation behind Wright's outrageous charges, such as that this country is ruled by rich white folk and that the U.S. government invented HIV/AIDS in order spread it around in order to arrange a holocaust of people of color.

Speaking of a "stained Constitution," he went to some pain to dredge up the existence of slavery, as if anything more needs to be said about something studied by every schoolchild for scores of years, but which black preachers of the ilk of Wright, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton insist upon using to try to lay a guilt trip on white people for something more than 140 years in the past and for which no living American for scores of years has borne any responsibility. In other words, Obama played the race-card, thinking he was somehow unifying the electorate when actually he was making it more divided than ever.

Amazingly, he attempted to explain why Wright and other older African Americans might feel the animosity which drives some of them, never mind that Wright, as well as Obama, has had all the best of what can be achieved in this country by those who work for it. One remembers the time when Bill Moyers allowed Mansour Farhang, a California professor, to use two entire programs in his PBS series in 1979 to help Americans "understand" why the Iranian government kidnapped the hostages, 52 of whom they held for 14 months.

Both efforts wallowed in irrelevance, especially Obama's, since these "old guys" have been around long enough to see actual CHANGE, Obama's slogan, and get over it. Anything Moyers, also a member of a United Church of Christ congregation, does or did is not surprising, no matter how far out.

For two entire generations plus, this government has tried to redress grievances, real or imagined, of African Americans. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy used troops to enforce integration in education in 1957 at Little Rock and in 1963 at Tuscaloosa and other Alabama school districts, respectively. Wide-ranging civil-rights laws were passed in the early 60s, and rights for everything from voting to affirmative action (quotas) were enacted so that blacks would have an even chance to be successful in the society. Today's white population, whose ancestors died by the tens of thousands erasing slavery, is fed-up with this claptrap, and Obama jerked all the wrong chains with this speech.

His religion angle took the form of the cliché that the most segregated hour in the week is at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning. He also described the services in most African American churches as full of shouting, screaming, clapping, physical activity, and bawdy humor in the pulpit, but seems not to understand that most white people would be repelled by that sort of "worship," not to mention the extended length of the services. People tend to congregate in like-minded groups, and race has nothing to do with it. Expecting white people to go to Trinity at 11:00 a.m. to listen to Jeremiah Wright screech over and over that God should damn America, as he is well-documented doing, is a bit much, anyway.

Obama reached his nadir when he dragged his grandmother, who is white and a successful businesswoman, into his speech, literally calling her a racist because of some things she had said, when she, at age 84, is part of the generation whose motivations he tried to ameliorate in the case of old-timer Wright, who is only 66. Rather than trying to explain her background, he used her whiteness in this intimate way to further play the race card…inexcusable and profoundly insensitive.

Obama's speech was a definite plus for Senator McCain, compared to whom he came off as merely whining. He didn't explain McCain's background, either, in condemning the Iraq War, which McCain has supported. After all, McCain should be explained since he belongs to that "old" crowd at age 71, and underwent torture for more than five years at the hands of ruthless communists (now exemplified in the Muslim jihad-crowd) and surely should be given some slack for daring to suggest that fire must be met with fire. Obama is on another planet with respect to the world situation and the dangers this country faces.

Too bad! Obama would have been better served to have at least picked another subject, since he felt he had to say something. Actually, he should have held just another press conference and let the chips fall where they may. That would have been tough, though, even with the mainstream media solidly in his corner. It's much easier to speak with no debate and use the usual bromides and shibboleths about "togetherness" and other such warm/cozies. He's a good speaker, but at least the average John Doe's, when they think it over, will see it for just what it was…mush.

Ironically, while highly respected black leaders like Bill Cosby, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and Shelby Steele are relentlessly calling for an attitude of self-reliance in the black community, Obama is pandering to the "victimhood" crowd. A divider instead of unifier, he just doesn't get it, and certainly is not ready to be president, but he plays well with the university crowd…the intellectual know-it-alls.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Obama: the Wright Stuff?

Senator Barack Obama has disavowed ever hearing his pastor, Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, utter the vitriolic anti-American, anti-white spewings that have been presented over and over on the TV/radio networks and printed extensively in the media for a number of days now. Obama has denounced Wright's pronouncements, as expected, but one wonders whether or not he's been telling the truth about what he hasn't heard.

This appeared in a New York Times article of 06 March 2007 by Jodi Kantor and referenced the canceled invitation by Obama to Wright to pronounce an invocation during Obama's announcement of his run for the presidency on 10 February 2007, after the preacher had been scheduled in January: "According to the pastor [Jeremiah Wright], Mr. Obama then told him, 'You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we've decided is that it's best for you not to be out there in public.'"

In other words, Obama was very much aware of Wright's hateful rhetoric; otherwise, he wouldn't have referred to it personally. This was Obama talking, not one of his gofers, and by then he knew he didn't need for Wright to be unduly noticed in connection with his campaign. This is from Kantor's article, also: "'When his enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli' to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, Mr. Wright recalled, 'with Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.'"

It stretches the imagination much too far to believe that in his 20-year association with Pastor Wright the president wannabe didn't know about Wright's trip to hang out with this country's premier anti-Semite and one of the most notorious terrorists in the world, the dictator of a nation fostering terrorism, responsible, for instance, for the downing of PanAm flight 103, in which 270 people were killed over/in Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Coincidentally, that was just 20 years ago, about the time that Obama's relationship with Wright began.

Nor does it help that Wright was obviously pals with Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, and Obama has certainly been aware of this. Farrakhan stated that the U.S Government sabotaged the levees on Lake Pontchartrain so that black folk would be killed by a levee-break, such as the failure of the levee during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He claimed to have the proof, but he never produced it. Indirectly therefore, Obama is linked with Farrakhan, but, in all fairness, shouldn't be saddled directly or even remotely with Calypso Louie.

Or should he? The Trumpet newsmagazine, begun by Wright and/or his church in 1982 and whose editor and publisher are Jeremiah Wright's daughters, awarded Farrakhan its Empowerment Award in 2007, something Obama had to know about…but has he said anything about it – approval or disapproval? After all, Farrakhan has accused the country of which Obama is a senator of the worst sort of perfidy, not to mention his flagrant consorting with a known enemy in 1984. In a Nov.-Dec. Trumpet article, Wright is quoted: "Minister Farrakhan will be remembered as one of the 20^th- and 21^st-century giants of the African American religious experience."

Giant, indeed? Perhaps Obama should inquire of Farrakhan as to whether or not or how much money the trip to Libya meant to him and/or the Nation of Islam…or even the Trinity United Church of Christ/Jeremiah Wright. Perhaps Obama – in the interest of establishing Farrakhan's "giant-hood" – will demand that Wright, his friend of 20 years, demand that Farrakhan produce the proof that the U.S Government plotted the levee-failure.

What price credibility? Obama may discover, albeit obviously in desperation, that some strong statements by him are in order now, as well as seeing the need to put some big-time distance between him and Wright and, by inference, Farrakhan. This country is not about to be handed over to someone who can credibly be accused of consorting directly or indirectly with subversives, well-documented in the personages of Wright and Farrakhan.

According to Fox News of 14 March, Wright stated: "The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied." As in the case of Farrakhan and the levees, Wright should come forth with proof that the government (1) invented AIDS and (2) covered it up and (3) used it to produce a holocaust of billions of people. If he can't do this, Obama should call him out publicly, denounce him publicly, and separate himself from the church if it or its current pastor still holds that view.

Wright is time-warped like fading black-leaders Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in the past and preaches victim-theology for his people, notwithstanding all the civil rights legislation passed since the 60s, with its reverse quota-systems, the mangled school-systems under the same sort of quota nonsense, fueled by such catastrophes as school-busing (hated for decades by blacks and whites alike), and affirmative-action programs designed to help people who in many cases didn't want any help.

Notwithstanding all the good things Trinity Church does and for which it should be commended, Wright has been for years an anti-American apostle of hate, perhaps the highest profile "reverse racist" in the country. If Mitt Romney in 2007 and John F. Kennedy in 1960 were compelled to explain their faith to the voters, Obama should do no less, since the faith as interpreted by Jeremiah Wright, who has been highly endorsed by his denomination, the United Church of Christ, is under the darkest cloud, both Wright and the denomination.

The Rev. John H. Thomas, UCC general minister and president, in a statement on the UCC Web-site March 17 said, "Is Pastor Wright to be ridiculed and condemned for refusing to play the court prophet, blessing land and sovereign while pledging allegiance to our preoccupation with wealth and our fascination with weapons?" So…where does that leave the UCC, especially considering Wright's claims regarding things such as the invention of AIDS for the purpose of killing people?

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Obama's "jeremiah"?

Via many elements in the media currently, both conservative and liberal, the racist and outright dishonest sayings of Dr. Jeremiah Wright, recently resigned pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, of which Wright's close-friend Senator Barack Obama has been a member for many years, have been repeated over and over. As tapes of his abundant sermons and writings are being constantly scrutinized, his positions are being profoundly examined and dissected, especially by conservatives who see something ominous in the relationship of the two men. Obama characterized that relationship on the Fox Channel on 14 March as Wright being a sort of "uncle" to him. The dictionary defines a jeremiah as: "person who is pessimistic about the present and foresees a calamitous future." Whose future?

Newt Gingrich put an entirely different spin on Wright's flagrantly anti-American statements a few minutes later by explaining that Wright's sayings are not so much racist as simply the reflection of what is being embraced and taught on college and university campuses throughout the nation, to wit and paraphrased, that this country is the "evil empire" in the world and the cause of all that's bad. It has been well documented that practically all the campuses – now dominated by the generation coming of age in the 60s-70s – are far-left in both the administrative and teaching areas, with the possible exception of the "hard sciences," where incontrovertible truth is paramount. The same could be said for the liberal political establishment, also dominated now by the "if it feels good, do it," crowd.

Wright's church – or at least Wright in some fashion – began the Trumpet newsmagazine in 1982, the same magazine that last year awarded its achievement recognition to Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam and rabid anti-American and anti-Israeli. Its publisher is Jeri L. Wright, Jeremiah Wright's daughter. On her page in the Nov.-Dec. 2007 issue (complete with full-length picture featuring plenty of cleavage), she wrote, "Our history teaches us that all of civilization began in Africa. Those of us in the Diaspora, who are conscious, know it was on the shores of Africa where our ancestors were captured, enslaved, and shipped like cattle to these yet to be United States."

This is how the church officially describes itself: "We are an African people, and remain 'true to our native land,' the mother continent, the cradle of civilization." Besides totally disinviting therein any white people to be a part of its membership, this church has even a distorted notion of history, at least with regard to the "beginnings" as not only conceived by perhaps most scholars (though they actually haven't a clue) but also by the Bible it proposes to use, along with all other Christian denominations.

Ms Wright considers African Americans as part of a Diaspora, or a population of displaced persons. This might be something like the Diaspora of Israelites to Babylon in Old Testament times or the Diaspora of Christian Israelites from Jerusalem soon after the crucifixion of Christ in New Testament times, both occurring hundreds of years before what Ms Wright considers the black Diaspora brought on by slave-traders, though she didn't mention how those blacks were made available to the slave-traffic by each other in Africa as the result of their internecine battles, similar to those of the Indian tribes in this country, in which the losers are fair game for whatever disposition the victors decide to make of them. And that disposition was never as mild as water-boarding.

Indeed, if civilization began in Africa, Ms Wright should perhaps explain how a previous Diaspora made it possible for the slave-traders, who came from somewhere else (England, mostly?) and were therefore descendents of some other group of "once-Africans," came to be, as well as how they became white instead of black. This is not to speak disparagingly of any ethnicity or skin pigment; it is merely to call attention to the gaps in Ms Wright's explanation of historical process.

Much is made of the fact that Obama hasn't distanced himself far enough from Jeremiah Wright, but little if anything is said about what his denomination, the United Church of Christ (some 1.22 million members), thinks of Wright, one of its premier pastors. This is from a 14 March 2008 article on the UCC Web-site: "'Trinity United Church of Christ is a great gift to our wider church family and to its own community in Chicago,' says UCC General Minister and President John H. Thomas." The denomination, by its profound endorsement of Wright, automatically endorses his positions, his obvious and well-documented abuse of tax-exempt status notwithstanding, and to say nothing of his rabid dishonesty and anti-Americanism.

This was in a 10 March article on the UCC Web-site: "The UCC has been granted a three-week extension to respond to the Internal Revenue Service's inquiry of Sen. Barack Obama's June 2007 speech at the UCC's General Synod in Hartford, Conn." The IRS is also interested, apparently, in the tax-exempt status of the entire UCC denomination, as it should be in questioning what must have been a political speech at a denominational gathering. The IRS should also be investigating a host of other churches/denominations for the same reason.

Perhaps the second-best-known UCC member is Bill Moyers, among the farthest-left high-profile political figures in American politics. He also spoke at the UCC General Synod meeting in Hartford in 2007. This is what he said, "And it is a small, committed, determined People of Conscience who can turn this country around!" Moyers and Wright…people of Conscience? The United Church of Christ…the hope of the future? Egad! God help us if that should be true.

Significantly, Moyers was advertised for months as one of the five main exclusively-Baptist speakers at the New Baptist Covenant convocation, the creation of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, held earlier this year in Atlanta. This is what Moyers also said in that Hartford speech last summer: "We joined the UCC Community Church forty years ago this year [Stewart Avenue in Garden City, Long Island] when we moved to Long Island from Washington. … I am – or was – a Baptist, after all." One wonders if Moyers cancelled because of the obvious subterfuge.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Political Nonsense

Politicians are funny creatures…at least much of the time. For instance, the governor of Kentucky, while running for office in 2007, promised to bring on casino gambling to solve the state's financial woes while stating flatly that he would not be for increasing the tax on cigarettes. So…now that the guv has discovered that there will be no casino business, his legislature refusing to structure a system that will satisfy the "horsy set" by letting the pony owners run the "gaming" show, he has recommended an increase of $.70 per pack on cigarettes, with – get this – part of the reason being that there will be "health-care" benefits, meaning that people will be discouraged from smoking, therefore not buying the coffin nails and paying the new taxes that will solve the state's revenue problems. Egad!

Or, take the case of Clinton-supporter and onetime Congressperson Geraldine Ferraro, who said the other day that if Barack Obama were a white guy he wouldn't even be where he is today. She may be right, but she seems to have forgotten that the only reason she was on the democrat ticket in the vice president slot in 1984 was that she was a woman. One need only remember that the feminist movement was in high gear in the 80s, so why not hornswoggle the populace into voting democrat by putting a woman on the ticket and recognizing the end-all of existence itself…namely, DIVERSITY. Egad!

It gets worse for Ferraro. According to CNNPolitics.com of 12 March, "In an April 15, 1988, article in The Washington Post, Ferraro is quoted as saying that because of his 'radical' views, 'if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race.'" Does this woman have no memory, or, if she does, is she simply making what to many appear as racist statements because she thinks this plays well in certain segments of the population? Hopefully, she's just blabbering without thinking.

Or, take the case of currently resigning New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who made the promise of cleaning out the criminals an important part of his campaign in 2006. After all, he had trashed the prostitute rings and at least some of the Wall Street thieves as the attorney general, so he had the bona fides – he said – to be the governor. The rest of the sad tale is in the media every day now, his spending tens of thousands of dollars having trysts with call-girls, even transporting at least one object of delight across state lines as recently as last month. Some say he was just arrogant…but maybe he was just a bit dumb to think he was beyond the reach of the law, his enemies…or both.

There's no way to one-up Senator Clinton's inference the other day that Obama would be a fine addition to the democrat ticket in November…as the vice president candidate, of course, with her in the catbird seat. Problem: Obama was well ahead in the democrat presidential sweepstakes then and is even farther ahead now, so why on earth would an apparently reasonable U.S. senator make an outrageous suggestion like that? Suggesting that the first-place vote-getter should play second-fiddle to the runner-up is like asking a horse (okay, the jockey) 20 lengths ahead in the homestretch to wait ten yards short of the finish line in order to be overtaken by a nag. What are these people thinking…that the great unwashed out here in the boondocks have sand between their ears?

And then there's Obama, who makes a big deal out of his always being against the war but didn't even have a vote, while claiming Clinton was for it before she was against it – sort of like John Kerry in 2004 – but then talks about invading Pakistan to go after bin Laden if Musharraf doesn't collar the butcher. This guy thinks he's ready to be the big enchilada? Egad again! Of course Clinton doesn't think he's ready now, but, since the veep has to be ready at any time if a prez becomes incapacitated, thinks he would be ready by November. And the dummies out here on the fruited plain or in the purple mountains aren't supposed to notice this stuff?

Wannabe First Gentleman "Loathe the Military and love interns" Bill Clinton, who couldn't dodge the impeachment bullet, took some pain to explain the other day how a Clinton-Obama ticket would simply be unbeatable since she could gather the women's and the old codgers' votes while Obama (not yet 50) could get the young vote and the black vote. Only the old white guys are left, and what do they matter anyway? They mostly have made this country what it is, but so what! They can vote McCain…if they can find the polling place and understand all about hanging chads.

Clinton's latest ad (a copycat version of Lyndon Johnson's in 1964 – that h-bomb cloud by Goldwater over the little girl with the daisies, remember?) describing how a girl-child can sleep peacefully if Hillary is at the helm (not so with Obama, apparently at least before November) conjures up a gal in her yellow pants-suit meeting the enemy with a lethal hatpin. Neither she nor Obama would know a salute from an obscene gesture, but so it goes. And we're supposed to believe these people are serious? Egad!

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Sleaze in High Places

Crooked/corrupt/immoral politicians have been around as long as there's been political action, with its built-in apparatus for profiting in every way imaginable. In the early 90s, a passel of them were convicted in Kentucky in a federal sting operation that sent some of them to the Big House, the most notable being the speaker of the House…for something like three years, where he was required to pay for his own keep. A Kentucky governor leaving office in 2003 was disgraced when the news hit the state that he had been seeing a mistress and using the state police as chauffeurs to transport him to his trysts, in the bargain. Think Bill Clinton.

The latest sleaze-official outed on the national scene is New York Democrat Governor Eliot Spitzer, caught in a prostitute-ring operation, though probably just as a john, although only a fraction of information has been made public thus far. The complaint lays out a sordid business, with the payoff for the assignation some $4,300, not to mention the transporting of a prostitute across state lines, also paid for by Spitzer, apparently a somewhat regular client.

Two things are necessary for the maintaining of an ordered government – (1) an educated populace and (2) integrity, especially on the part of public officials. The nation has the first, collectively, but woefully lacks the second, as witness daily media presentations of all kinds of shenanigans by elected officials and bureaucrats. One wonders how long a society can last when it abides scumbags in high places.

Spitzer had the gall to have his wife at his side in his "confession press conference," thus humiliating her, but at least he didn’t shed crocodile tears, the usual melodramatic adjunct to such public pronouncements of wrongdoing. The tears, of course, are not for what’s been done, but simply for getting caught. The wives who put up with this, one wonders, either lack dignity themselves or – most likely – are caught in a Catch-22 situation wherein they may be forced, like Hillary Clinton, to grin and bear it. In her case, she had hitched her ambition to Bill’s star and couldn’t let go. In any case, she could hardly have kicked him out of the White House.

Spitzer will lose out politically, no matter what happens, which makes one wonder about the nation with respect to Bill Clinton. Had the citizenry become so immune or inured to moral turpitude in 1999 that it just yawned and collectively said, "Well, boys will be boys"? Okay…he was impeached, but the senators, another group about which one wonders, couldn't bring themselves to convict.

In 2004 in adjoining New Jersey, then-governor McGreevey announced at a press conference that…well, he had been having an affair with a man. His wife stood beside him, of course, devastated. In San Francisco, he might have been awarded sainthood and given a key to the city. He knew he couldn't last in New Jersey, even though he hadn't committed a crime, unless the state Constitution had something in it about moral malfeasance. Two years before, Senator Torricelli dropped out of his New Jersey reelection race just five weeks before the vote because of "ethical problems."

Just last year, Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig actually pled guilty to soliciting homosexual hanky panky in an airport bathroom, then later amazingly tried to un-plead guilty, promised to resign from the Senate, then decided to stay on until the end of his term this year (probably that pension thing). The Senate can do nothing about it. After all, a homosexual committee chairman in the House, democrat Barney Frank, has been there forever, even through the sordidness of some sort of pimping shenanigan, apparently, that was operated from his house. There's no shame among these officials.

True to form, Spitzer, before admitting his moral failure, gave a recitation at the news conference of what a great public servant he had been in New York, where he had also served as attorney general with a penchant for trashing prostitution rings and slamming white-collar thieves, especially on Wall Street, where he was genuinely unloved. Perhaps the best he can hope for is a simple misdemeanor charge, if even that, but if the "transporting of a prostitute across a state-line" complaint stands as true, he's in deep trouble.

All of this pales into comparative insignificance when compared to the lurid antics of Bill Clinton, both while governor of Arkansas and as POTUS. He had the good fortune to hold national office during a time of great prosperity not of his own making but riding primarily on the huge impact of the age of technology. While he was playing around, the nation was sliding into the hands of such outfits as Al Qaeda. He finally paid off Paula Jones to the tune of $850,000 to go away, but Monica Lewinski, as well as Gennifer Flowers and her ilk, is his legacy.

Leadership marked by perversion cannot long endure, nor can a nation led by such practitioners of the pornographic and pusillanimous. Homosexuality is virtually glorified in parts of the society – even in many of its churches, notwithstanding that the military cannot abide it and it represents perverted lust and biological violation on a grand scale that has led to egregious societal dysfunctions. Women are sent into combat, a sure sign of either male emasculation or official co-ed idiocy among the solons, the sacrifice of the most vulnerable as the norm. Disgusting! These are just a few examples of the inner rot that is damning this nation, never mind its current military strength. The old Greeks and Romans learned…too late.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Clinton a Monster? Egad!

"Samantha Power was head-hunted by Barack Obama to become his foreign-policy adviser in 2005 and combines this role with her job as a Time magazine columnist and professor of practice of global leadership and public policy at Harvard," according to the Scotch newspaper, The Scotsman. One wonders about a university course entitled "practice of global leadership and public policy," but nothing that happens at either Harvard or TIME is very surprising.

Currently, the best practice of global leadership seems to be the willingness and the ability to dispatch Muslim jihad-mongers, and it certainly doesn't take a genius to understand that. As for the practice of public policy, ditto, with a gaggle of tinhorn dictators thrown in for good measure.

Ms Power was on the record as referring to Senator Clinton as a "monster," defined in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate, 11th Edition, as "an animal or plant of abnormal form or structure; one who deviates from normal or acceptable behavior or character." For her trouble, Ms Power did the expected apology and resignation (unpaid position, anyway) and went her merry way, though presumably not to Sherwood Forest.

This is just the latest episode in the neighborhood (otherwise known as the Democrat Party) spat between Obama and Clinton. The spat has involved such things as drug-use (Obama) and the refusal to release financial information (Clinton). What it actually involves is a vicious internecine bloodletting by perhaps the two most ambitious people in the country currently.

Politically and philosophically, there's virtually no difference between the two people, so their battle has to be waged in an effort to gain popularity, the better to look forward to November. Gaining popularity often comes as the result of making one's opponent very unpopular. This was seen vividly in Kentucky recently when the attorney general (democrat) said he would run for governor only if the incumbent (republican) became unpopular. The a-g then took a case(s) that should have gone to perhaps an ethics committee and made it into the threat of Armageddon, thus making the governor very unpopular, eventuating in his defeat last year, but not by the a-g, who rode the wrong factional horse.

Clinton is not a monster, though she is a political animal, and political animals are expected to deviate from "normal or acceptable behavior or character." The fact that they speak with a forked tongue, depending on the demographics of a given location, bespeaks a bent toward, if not outright dishonesty, at least a profound disingenuousness. Clinton promised everything but the annexation of Canada in a speech in Austin the other day, revving the crowd to fever pitch but knowing full well that she can't deliver a fraction of what she promises.

Obama tickles the ears with visions of afternoon teas with the likes of Iranian President Ahmadinejad and fellow butcher Hugo Chavez but is bound to know that this is a foolish position. These guys would have him for lunch and then laugh uproariously about it. He's even talked of sending troops into Pakistan if current President Musharaff doesn't toe the line, but surely knows how ridiculous such a statement is. If not, all bets are off if he should somehow get elected.

So…what's going on here? It's a matter of gaining popularity, contingent, of course, upon the notion that the citizenry, collectively, is too dumb to see through both the almost psychotic ambitions and all the underhanded shenanigans by either the candidates or their surrogates. The constant insistences of deniability are just a bit too much, though everything is designed to keep the principals above the fray. Obama wouldn't think of calling Clinton a monster, and Clinton would never accuse Obama of grandstanding vis-à-vis Pakistan or smoking a little Mary Jane in his oat-sowing days.

Both democrats constantly drone the "change" mantra, but one or the other should denounce "change" as the prime motivating factor to snow the voters. "Change" is always used in elections…and means absolutely nothing, mostly because the thinking voters don't want change in the most prosperous and strongest nation in the world, not to mention the fact that change never occurs to any great extent anyway. Incumbents return to office routinely. Except in watershed years like 1994, House incumbents can be expected to survive at an average of about 90% in each election cycle, meaning that significant change domestically, dependent upon the Congress, not the president, is never likely to take place on any large scale. With regard to military matters, neither candidate has a clue, but drastic change is not in the offing.

Since "change" is not likely and most voters know it, one wonders how it would be if a candidate would just decide to tell it like it is and poke ridicule at his/her opponent for even trying to hornswoggle the public with all the idiocy about "change." Telling the absolute truth might incur an attack of psychological trauma, but just think of the headline: CANDIDATE SPEAKS TRUTH! The subhead would probably be: Then Faints at Rally. Now that might make for some good electioneering.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Non-Super-Tuesday...Now, Overtime

The voting on Non-Super-Tuesday this week settled the matter for the republicans, but only added to the dilemma of the democrats. John McCain, for all practical purposes, can take a rest now while his people work on funding and watch fellow Senators Clinton and Obama duke it out over the next 4-5 months, each explaining to all the citizens why the other is incapable of being president. Every utterance, advertisement, all printed matter, TV interviews, etc., will be parsed by the Clinton people and stored for use in the general election.

This reminds of 1988, when Al Gore brought up the "Willie Horton matter" in his presidential primary race with Michael Dukakis, former governor of Massachusetts. The George Bush 41 campaign pounced like a hawk on a June-bug on that unbelievable gift from a democrat and used it to help defeat Dukakis in the November election. For his part, Dukakis didn't help himself by being filmed while riding around in that Sherman tank (or some kind of army tank), just as Obama looked kind of silly on that farm tractor the other day. Acting silly is still part of campaigning, though there seems to be less baby-kissing these days.

McCain has taken stands that conservative republicans don't like, at the same time cozying up to hyper-liberal democrats in the process. Remember McCain/Feingold? He's set a lot of conservative molars on edge with his approach to the illegal-immigrants problem, for instance, though he, like President Bush, seems to recognize the complex facets of the problem better than many if not most others. He is gradually coming around on this, especially concerning the security of the border, while having the advantage of correctly stating that Hillary Clinton was for driver-licenses for illegals before she was against them.

Obama's claim that Hillary was for the war before she was against it while he was against the war before he was against it carries no weight because Obama didn't have a vote in the Senate in either 2001 or 2002 vis-à-vis the Afghanistan and Iraq actions, respectively. The truth is that he doesn't know how he might have voted if he'd been a senator and had been given the information that everyone else had, including the president and the members of Congress. Speaking from his Illinois-Senate seat carried about as much weight as would his speaking in a 150-mph gale during a hurricane.

McCain has a good thing going in his consistent war against congressional "earmarks," the giveaways that the legislators enact in order to secure their incumbencies. His fight has been against the backdrop of democrat governance, which is based on increasing taxes – actually redistributing the wealth – to take care of everything. Neither Clinton nor Obama can successfully fight him on this, especially Clinton, whose "health-care" plan in 1993 bid fair to bankrupt the country.

The interesting thing will be the cat-fight between Clinton and Obama, as each tries to de-claw the other. Obama's people will surely make capital of the question as to whether or not the citizens want another "two-for-one" in the presidency. Would two Clintons be acceptable? It's hard to see how that would be tolerated. One remembers the fact that Hillary, un-elected by the citizenry and un-appointed to any official position by the president, sat in on Cabinet meetings. That was appalling.

Clinton also brags about visiting 80 foreign countries during her time in the White House, while not carrying any official weight and therefore having no claim to the "experience" she's always harping on. She was a tourist. Obama, of course, has virtually no foreign-affairs experience, no military experience, and has talked about "sitting down" with those who hate this country…to talk, as if he could snap his fingers and they would appear, like a genie out of a bottle. Weird!

This co-presidency thing cuts both ways, of course. One has only to watch Michelle Obama on the campaign trail to suspect that an Obama presidency might be another "two-for" thing. She is every bit as strident as Hillary Clinton and exudes the impression that Barack Obama would have to deal with her with respect to anything he might do or say. This is scary, especially in light of the fact that she hasn't had a good opinion of this country until just lately…and has said so. Patriotism is still alive and well with respect to most of the folks in this country. She may not have a "Rose-Law-Firm/Whitewater" background, as did Hillary, but she will be under a microscope in the coming days. Any enemies she's made along the way may come out of the woodwork.

McCain now has the luxury of getting his ducks in a row, planning to campaign in every state and working out his differences with the people who can make him or break him, while his opponents are stuck with fighting for support within their own family, thus causing division. In the process, they will be forced to raise more and more money, and taking a second or third or fourth shot at the contributors might get a bit old with them.

In any case, in a way the fun is just starting. By the time the conventions are held just before labor Day, the country will have been treated to a summer of fine entertainment…almost as fascinating as a long murder trial.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Horseracing "Signature Industry" Myth

The shameful power-grab by the governor, the casino-crowd and the horse industry in Kentucky is remarked exponentially when the claim that horse-racing and the breeding, care and feeding of racehorses comprise the state’s “signature industry.” Nothing could be farther from the truth, at least in financial terms, the only area that makes much of a difference as far as putting food on the table is concerned.

The inordinate effort by the folks mentioned above to sew-up casino gambling for the racetracks, guaranteeing them first dibs on the “gaming” facilities, which means outright control, as well as the huge tax-advantage (30%) over all other “gaming” establishments is not even a subtle approach in the matter of “fixing” the so-called sport. It’s outright thievery, an expected characteristic of anything connected to gambling, whether on horse-races or anything else.

According to the Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP), the state’s equine economy exerts an estimated $4-billion impact on the state. It also makes claims for greatly enriching tourism, even though only a relative few days a year are devoted to racing with most of the benefits only then accruing to the Lexington and Louisville areas. It claims to offer 80,000 to 100,000 jobs to the economy, but does not mention the wages made by the thousands who knock stalls and otherwise do common labor on the farms and at the tracks. A good bet would be that most of those jobs are at or not far above minimum wage.

By comparison, the payroll at Toyota in Georgetown, according to its Web-site, is some $565 million annually, earned by 7,000 workers – in other words, jobs allowing for a good standard of living. Indeed, that annual income is more than 14% (just one factory) of the $4 billion claimed by KEEP. Since Toyota draws from 90 suppliers in Kentucky, its economic impact is obviously much greater than that of the horse industry, as explained below.

According to the state Cabinet for Economic Development, Kentucky’s Gross State Product (2006) was $146 billion. In 2006, manufacturing accounted for the greatest share of GSP – 18.7%. The horse industry was not listed among the top 20 contributors to the GSP, except as possibly part of agriculture, in the 17^th slot at 1.6%, along with cattle, tobacco and other farm products.

These are hard, cold facts about Kentucky’s “signature industry,” notwithstanding “Unbridled Spirit” and all the rest. Observed in this light, KEEP may be shoveling a lot more propaganda than anything else. In any case, those who would lock casino “gaming” to racetrack gambling – with all that goes with that combo – are attempting to “fix” the “sports” so that the proper outcome is achieved, the devil take the hindmost – in this case the citizens who pay the freight (that 30% tax-break thing to allegedly “prop-up” the horse industry) and the suckers who pay the price.

As for “signature industry” claimers (the two-legged type), tobacco, bourbon and fast women arrived long before the fast horses…and the lottery, of course. Let’s hear it for the suckers!!!!

And so it goes.

Jim Clark