Early View of President Obama’s Legacy

In a couple of weeks, we the people of the United States of America shall elect someone to follow President Barack Obama as president of the United States.  This election is as important as 2008 when he was first elected and in 2012 when he was affirmed by the people with reelection.  President Obama is […]

My First Tattoo

Oceanside, California, is located on the border of Camp Pendleton, that really big Marine base.  I was there.  Not Camp Pendleton, Oceanside.  It was 1969 and I was doing what I would later learn was called a ‘walkabout’.   I was drifting with the wind, facing the draft, Vietnam, adulthood, and ultimately responsibility.  Oceanside was […]

Donald Trump Jokes

“Last night, Donald Trump said if he’s elected, he will employ a ‘deportation task force.’ It’s not really necessary, because if he’s elected most people will probably leave voluntarily.” –Conan O’Brien “The Boston Globe just reported that according to his campaign staff, Donald Trump wouldn’t take any vacations as president. I think that’s because he […]

Clinton Trump Debate Can Go Off The Rails

WOW!  We are in for a treat.  Maybe I should restate that – if we like fireworks we might like the Clinton Trump Debates.  If we like the idea of diplomats debating world affairs we are probably not going to enjoy the evening.  Let the debates begin – with more potential for fireworks than any […]

“Conservative” Does Not Mean Smaller Government

Ronald Reagan hijacked the term “Conservative” and twisted it to his own political purpose.   Remember his famous quote, something like this: “Government does not solve the problem, government is the problem.”  The dingbats get goosebumps every time they hear that quote.  More military they say, but less government.  The government should leave my social security […]

Oh Lord Won’t You Give Me?

I loved and love Janis Joplin. I like the song she sang, Mercedes Benz, because it reminds me of a Church I attended with a friend when I was about 16. It was located in South St. Joseph. There was a neon sign outside proclaiming PENTECOSTAL SOMETHING OR OTHER CHURCH. A bright white two story […]

Where is Woody Guthrie

It was hot. And dry. The wind blew and a dust storm raged. People finally just started calling it a dust bowl. The Midwest was overwhelmed with drought, the country overwhelmed with depression. People got tired. They got hungry. They got desperate. They could not feed their children. But they heard a story, a story […]

“…an organized, nationwide system of care…”

Civilized industrial nations have searched for many years for an appropriate response to public health.  Individual health care financing in the United States was somehow attached to one’s job as a part of the benefit package.  A good job came with good health insurance.  By 2008 there were fifty (50) million individuals without health insurance. […]

Karma and Life Lessons

Shorthand, I know what it is, but can’t read it. Many years ago at Lowy Enterprises. I received a promotion to work with Dave in Accounts Receivable. At high school I refused typing and shorthand because I didn’t plan on being any man’s secretary, Hah. So, one of my new jobs was to take dictation […]

Another Senseless Death from Drug Addiction

Another young man from St. Joseph died this past weekend – apparently from long term drug addiction.  I knew him.  I knew him when he was about seven years old.  I also knew his family.  He was second generation drug addict.  Not his parents, as far as I know, but many of his aunts and […]

A Rebuttal of Trump Criticism….

My colleague, Nancy, posted this on facebook – we thought it rose to the level of an observation worth documenting and sharing.  Two videos follow – one with Chuck Todd and a second with excerpts from a ‘focus group’ that seems to portray Trump supporters as fearful, less educated, and naive Americans. (Note:  Nancy is […]

Barking Dogs and Refugees

Nearly thirty years ago, I was living through a particularly rough patch of life. My husband and I were divorcing. All the usual ugliness that comes with divorce was going full force. My family was literally diminishing before my eyes. My oldest son was in the Navy on board the USS Forrestal which was in […]

Social Regulation, Political Correctness, Merry Christmas, and the Media

Sometimes we hear someone huffing with anger, “I can say Merry Christmas if I want to!!!”  And they are correct in their assertion – while being incorrect in their anger.  Some act as if Congress passed a law against saying Merry Christmas – no such thing has happened, and it will never happen in the […]

Life After Tuberculosis

As suggested by a good friend and cousin of mine, I will try to shine a light on a personal experience regarding Tuberculosis, the “Curse of King Tut”. The year was 1965 early Autumn. My mother’s estranged husband was taken to Mount Vernon, MO. This was at the time a ‘sanitarium’ for individuals with ‘lung […]

Walking the Roof of Methodist Hospital – Circa 1972

It was literally ‘the good old days’.  Data Processing.  No MIS or IT or IS.  We processed data – and the data came in the form of punched cards.  Everything was ‘batch’ processing – almost no ‘real time’ interaction.  But that is an aside for the purposes of this post.  This story is about walking […]

Stop Fighting

Most of us do not know how to fight.  Sadly, most of us think we do know.  We are proud of our wit, our sarcasm, our humor at the expense of others.  If not, then we act as if we are in control – proudly and falsely saying that we would not ‘stoop to that […]

Just One More Alcoholic Story

Note from Ohg Tone – I am just passing this story along.  I changed the names to protect all. By-line: Tommy C. Last January we started a new Al-Ann group at our Alano Club in St. Joseph, Missouri.  We have just finished restoring the room. http://alanostjoe.com/2014/08/09/new-hope-al-anon-has-a-fresh-look/ About a month ago, while working on that room, […]

Surrender – Man’s Eternal Conflict

Surrender is personal.  Every day we are faced with decisions that concern surrender.  We surrender to traffic laws, to office protocols, to the School Evening Program of our children, to the irritable clerk at the grocery store, to unwritten codes of conduct spelled out by our particular culture.  Sometimes we surrender to our base instincts […]

Founding Fathers Commentary on Religion

  “If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.” – George […]

Moveon.org Medicaid Petition

The Somber Occasion of An Abortion

My friend, Jubila, and I were having our daily debate about how smart we are as compared to the people with whom we disagree.  Generally speaking my friend and I are thought of as liberals so it should not surprise anyone that we think highly of ourselves.  Oh if life were so easy.  It is […]

Alcohol is Not a Truth Serum

My volunteer work takes me to the front lines of the war on addiction.  Yesterday I was quietly minding my own business, in a place known for alcoholism traffic, when a staggering drunk passed by.  Ron was a happy drunk.  He laughed when he told the obvious, “I’m pretty drunk”.  Personally, I don’t believe anyone […]

Smoking Alcohol – No Calories and No Brains

Drugs and alcohol – the elixirs of a giddy walk down the path of doom and despair – have many different modes of ingestion.  Until about five hundred years ago alcohol and drugs caused few problems for mankind.  It was about that time that some Chinese bricklayer working on a really big wall discovered that […]

Suicide – The Burden of the Village

Most of us have some experience with suicide – someone we know has taken their own life.  Such a death is difficult in every possible manner.  Families cry together.  Distraught disbelief overwhelms us.  Our emotional system is shocked to the core.  We feel personally defeated.  We often feel we have failed, failed our loved one […]

Nostalgia from the Left and the Right – Shallow Thinking Prevails

The baseball player was right about one thing – Nostalgia is not what it used to be.  Rewriting history to favor any particular opinion is not new or unusual.  What is different is the opportunities of expression.  Social media, for example, allows for immediate dissemination of whatever nonsense is popular at the moment.  Little effort […]