TO A MOUSE & BIRD-72

My apologies to the 18th century Scottish poet, Robert Burns, for paraphrasing the title of one of his epic poems. What my essay undertakes to comment on is my experience in 2013 with rats (which are overgrown mice really), squirrels, and the birds that I supply with supplementary victuals in the form of commercially available birdseeds. In spring of 2013 we installed a four perch cylindrical bird feeder, first in our patio, then moved it to the area just outside of our kitchen bay window on the other side of the house. For two days or so the birds were nonplused and as frustrated and confused as their little birdbrains could be. In those inchoate conditions some even flew through the air space where the feeder had been hanging apparently trying to sort out whether their eyes were deceiving them and the feeder was actually still there, but invisible. No, sadly it was gone. Not to be overly concerned – within two to three days our little avian friends discovered its new location. C’est bon - all was now well. Well, actually not completely well – a new species had discovered the free food source. Mr. Rat and his extended family now began feasting on the bounty. I put the seeds out for the birds so, quo jure, did this rodent conclude that he could share in ingesting the seeds? One evening we saw as many as four rats at one time on the feeder or in a small tree next to the feeder waiting their turn. I vowed that putatively this would not do; absolutely would not do. Time to take “arms against a sea of troubles” as the Bard of Avon phrased it. Rat traps were the ticket to end this intrusion on the feeding of the birds, and the more the better. Still, some precaution was in order to prevent trapping the naïve little feathered creatures. The first night I set out four traps on the ground around the feeder, baited with peanut butter. The next morning – nothing. After consulting with our daughter who had experience with birds, rats and such, she suggested using the seeds themselves as bait. The next morning - success. Four traps set out and 4 rats caught; the following morning 4 traps & 3 rats; then 4 traps & again 3 rats; 4 traps 2 rats; and 4 traps 1 rat. All totaled that summer there were 30 rats caught in traps and slain, big, small, & in between, in that area and on the patio where the rats were eating flower petals. I am glad and relieved to say that nary a bird was caught in a trap. I would set the traps out at night after the birds had stopped coming to the feeder and retrieve them early in the morning before the birds had commenced breaking their nightly fast (breakfast). Indeed, to almost quote the late actor James Cagney, those hapless, but far from helpless, dirty rats (Cagney actually said “you dirty, yellow-bellied rat” in a 1932 movie) found out their “best-laid schemes…. Aft gang agley.” Early on when the feeder was transferred to its new location there was another species that was interested in getting to the comestibles. It was a bushy tailed critter known as a “tree rat” or squirrel. These animals have a reputation for being persistent in their endeavors to gain access to food. That reputation is deserved. In particular, one indefatigably risible squirrel made a game and persistent attempt to get on the feeder. First he would try to egress the top of the fence going to the top of the feeder, but the rain guard on the feeder was unstable so he was unsuccessful after multiple tries. Then he would reach out from a limb of a nearby small tree and eventually made it. Not for long. After we pruned any branch from the tree that he could use to access the feeder he was stymied. The fellow returned a couple times in the next few days – all to no avail and apparently realizing that apodictically he would not success, he gave up in abject frustrated failure. Now about the birds. The species that came to the feeder either regularly or sporadically were sparrows, finches, cardinals, blue jays, and mourning doves. The smallest birds (sparrows & finches) often would come in large motley groups of from ½ dozen to a baker’s dozen at the same time. Naturally they would then fight each other for a place on one of the four perches or on the pan at the bottom of the feeder. I tried to get across to them that if they came in fewer numbers at a time there would be more eating and less fighting. I was not successful in conveying this stratagem to them. In this regard they were not unlike miscreant little human children. There was one sparrow that hung out alone at the feeder for hours. After the little bird’s appetite was sated he just sat on a perch on the feeder some times even with his eyes closed. Clearly he felt safe and serene in that location and would not stir until another bird or birds came to the feeder. This went on for weeks until he was seen no more. Likely he was done in by his natural life expectancy or by predation. Later there was a finch that became a semi-permanent resident (in a manner similar to the Arthur Conan Doyle story of the Resident Patient) although at longer intervals and shorter durations than the original sparrow. The cardinals, both male and female, but especially the males, are extremely wary or more judgmentally, cowardly in their reaction to humans even with a number of feet of distance and windows between them and us humans. They would fly away far more quickly and precipitously than other birds. As could be expected, with inclement weather, the bird traffic at the feeder increased and as I have indicated would, at times, become intense. Although usually one or two mourning doves would visit the feeder at the same time, sometimes there were more. One day I counted 5 of them on the feeder, on the fence next to the feeder, or on the ground gathering in the seeds that had dropped or had carelessly been ejected from the feeder by dissipative and undisciplined fellow flying creatures. At one point there was the episode of the male (red) cardinal, overcoming his usual reticence, feeding what was obviously his two offspring. The adult would get a seed or two from the feeder and go to either the nearby top of the fence or a limb of the small tree next to the feeder where the young cardinals were waiting and feed them beak-to-beak. Mr. Cardinal would continue this procedure several times at the same feeding and repeated it over several days. In fact we observed the youngling cardinals getting bigger over this interval of several days (young birds grow really quickly) such that they were fully 2/3 the size of their father by the end of this time with the feathers of one turning increasingly red and the other not. With one appearing to be a male and the other a female and the two almost certainly coming from separate eggs laid within minutes of each other, would they not be considered dizygotic twins? Talk about human parents pushing their overgrown offspring figuratively out of the nest, here was a poor harried and probably not too bright bird father feeding his offspring when clearly the young birds were fully capable of getting their own seeds out of the feeder. This is an obvious example that lazy ingrate offspring are not limited to the human species. Even though birds are not receptive to taking direction and advice they also much refrain from complaining – about anything. Never did I discern any grousing (so to speak) or whining about the type or lack of variety of the proffered provender. Try that with humans, especially teens and tweens. And by that I do not mean seeds, but foodstuffs that some people, normal people, would find tasty and nutritious and come back for 2nd helpings. Although I am not an inveterate birdwatcher whose métier is to go traipsing off into the woods to observe or listen to the many species of these fascinating fowl I do derive some enjoyment and relaxation in occasionally watching them congregate just outside (and I want to emphasize OUTSIDE) our kitchen bay window as they feast and fight and in general act in a termagant manner with their fellow species. Puck, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was incomplete when he said “Lord, what fools these mortals be”, referring to humans. He could have included the devilish little creatures in the class: Aves. N’est-ce pas?

RUSSIA TODAY-71

Many people believe the United States has serious problems and they are not mistaken. However, I could ask compared to what? Here is a country that is clearly in greater peril than the USA. Below is a credible scenario supported by FACTS. I sent this to a long time friend of mine now living in London. We worked together for several years at Mobil Oil. He is a PhD in geology (now retired) who grew up in Leningrad, worked in the Soviet Union, and came to the USA in the middle 1980's. He agrees with what I have presented here, but hopes he does not live long enough to actually see the collapse of motherland Russia: Are you familiar with a man named Ilan Berman? He is Vice-President of an organization called the American Foreign Policy Council and an author of a recent book – Implosion: The End of Russia and What it Means for America. I heard him discuss his book over the weekend. He was born in this country and has made many trips to Russia. His parents were “Refuseniks” (otka3hnk). Berman talks about three intersecting trend lines that are difficult for the Russian government to deal with individually and taken together eventually will be catastrophic for the country. The first trend line is demographics: Berman says that Russia is dying. The replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman. As you know there are many countries in Europe with a lower fertility rate (F.R.) than that and Russia is one of the lowest at 1.6. In the last 8 months or so there has been an uptick in the F.R., but demographers say that is not at all unusual and the trend is clearly negative. There are other reasons for Russia’s declining population. Through natural death and emigration Russia is losing ½ million people per year. Currently the population is 142.9 million with a projected population of 107 million by 2050. The male life expectancy is 60 years – the same as Madagascar. The female life expectancy is 73 years – the same as Saudi Arabia. Russia experienced no “peace dividend” as did the United States after the end of the Cold War. The spending in Russia on health services is the same as it was in the mid 1990’s. These are all United Nations statistics. There has been a collapse of the family after the end of the Cold War. Previously the family was the glue that held people together even if not everyone in the extended family liked each other. Russia has the highest divorce rate in Europe and 60% of the divorces end in the 1st decade of marriage causing fewer multi-children families. Even during the Cold War abortion was high and was the main method of birth control. It is even higher now with an official estimate of 1.2 million abortions/yr. According to some medical people outside of the government that number may actually be twice as large. Therefore abortion may be approaching 2% of the population/yr. The Russia government admits there is an epidemic of AIDS in the Russian population with 1% being HIV positive and is fueled by drug use. Worldwide 1/5 of heroin consumption is in Russia and 1/3 of drug users are HIV positive. The population is fleeing. The pace of the exodus rivals that at the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union. Of Russians in general 1/5 want to emigrate and fully 40% of young people in the 18 – 35 age bracket want to leave. The 2nd trend line is that Russia is transforming: The Muslim population in Russia is currently about 15% or 21 million. It is projected to be close to 20% by the end of this decade and 50% by the middle of the century. The same maladies that plague non-Muslim Russians are significantly less in the Muslim population: i.e., lower rates of abortion, divorce, drug use, AIDS & HIV, and a higher fertility rate. And more like Western Europe rather than the USA, these Muslims are not well integrated into Russian society. Everyone has heard of the problems the Russian government has had with Muslim extremists in the North Caucasus, and in particular in Chechnya and Dagestan. This problem and this area are not in the world’s headlines as much now as previously. That does not mean that the trouble has abated; on the contrary it has migrated into the Russian heartland. Recently in the capital city of Kazan in Tatarstan two Muslim clerics were assassinated for not being radical enough. Rather than having the problem under control, the Russian government may have to face several Chechnya’s in the future. The third trend line: the Chinese are coming. The Russia Far East is huge; it is 4 million sq. miles. Berman says in the Soviet Union his parents were told where to live, as were tens of millions of other people. Now people are essentially free to migrate wherever they chose and they chose NOT to live in the Far East of Russia. In Western Siberia and the Far East there are 25+ million people, that works out to about 6 people / sq. mi. – not exactly the population density of Hong Kong. The Eastern part of Russia is an energy super area, especially for oil & natural gas, as well as exploitable for many mineral deposits so it does matter. The Chinese are making large financial investments there and increasingly so. Clearly the Chinese government sees this as an important area in their future. The airline distance from Moscow to Vladivostok is 4000 miles. The distance from Beijing to Vladivostok is 830 miles or almost five times closer. This land has been disputed between Russia and China for centuries. In 2001 there was a treaty concerning this area signed by Russia and China. The Russians wanted the agreement to have a long term “sunset” clause thereby extending the treaty well into the future. The Chinese said no, let’s have a 20 year length. The Chinese figured the demographics would change in their favor and they could then be bargaining from a stronger position. Clever those Chinese. Vladimir Putin seems to think only in the short term. He has a close circle of followers who engage in massive corruption, kickbacks, and graft. Putin used to give lip service to “managed democracy”, but does not even bother with that now. For Russia to fundamentally change that system would have to go and there is not the least chance of that happening. Putin has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as one of the greatest calamities of the 20th century. And both Bush and Obama thought they could do business with him? What is the operative word here: naive or stupid? Putin may very well have achieved recent international success with his handling of Syria and Iran vis-à-vis the USA, but it could also be interpreted as drawing attention away from the internal problems of Russia. Not much is likely to change in Russia in the next few years, however the real challenge for the USA in the next 20 to 30 years will be dealing with the weakness not the strength of Russia. And a still nuclear-armed Russia may look westward and attempt to again gain hegemony over Eastern Europe.

BIG SPENDING POLITICOS-70

In these troubling financial times will the American public become increasingly aware of the unprecedented (with the possible exception of WWII where the survival of the nation was at stake) expansion and expense of the federal government? According to Republicans, they are the party of smaller, more efficient government with concomitant lower federal taxes and lower expenditures while the Democrats are the party of big, expensive government and high taxes. Does that scenario stand up to scrutiny? I tell you what – let’s do something novel and exegetically look at some pertinent data then attempt to arrive at a conclusion. D’accord? As I have shown previously in a blog essay (THE USA SPENDING & DEBT PROBLEM), here are the increases of the national debt during the terms of recent presidents: Ronald Reagan $1 ¾ trillion in 8 years G.H.W. Bush $1.5 trillion in 4 years Bill Clinton $1.5 trillion in 8 years G.W. Bush $4.9 trillion in 8 years Barack Obama $6.0 trillion in 4 years For a historical perspective let’s look at the national debt over the centuries. In analyzing this type of data over a long time span the logical and legitimate method is by using inflation adjusted dollars. Here then are some inflation adjusted (2012 dollars) figures down through the centuries and decades. I will follow up with an analytical commentary: YEAR DEBT YEAR DEBT 1791 $1.8 billion 1940 $704 billion 1801 $1.5 billion 1946 $3.2 trillion 1811 $842 million 1949 $2.4 trillion 1821 $1.8 billion 1957 $2.2 trillion 1831 $1.0 billion 1975 $2.3 trillion 1835 $0.0* 1980 $2.5 trillion 1843 $1.0 billion** 1986 $4.4 trillion 1851 $2.0 billion 1987 $4.8 trillion 1861 $2.4 billion 1990 $5.7 trillion 1866 $40 billion 2000 $7.6 trillion 1888 $41 billion 2003 $8.5 trillion 1900 $58 billion 2009 $12.7 trillion 1919 $365 billion 2010 $14.3 trillion 1930 $222 billion 2013 $16.8 trillion *President Andrew Jackson paid off the debt – the only time in USA history where the country had no debt. ** At the end of the financial Panic of 1837 – 1843 the national debt had increased to the 1831 level. Everyone can draw their own conclusions concerning these numbers, however I will mention a few factors I find significant: (1.) When considering the absolute size of the debt through time it has to be remembered that the economy of the country grew tremendously. Therefore the sustainability of the debt has to be considered in light of the ratio of the debt to the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country at the time. Nevertheless, there has been a real increase in the debt over the centuries. (2.) Even a casual reading of the numbers reveals that only in the last four decades or so has there been a monotonic increase in the debt. (3.) The periods of war (1861-1866 Civil War; 1900-1919 WWI; 1940-1946 WWII) reflect a sharp increase in the debt as the federal government borrowed and spent money to carry on its wars. The Great Depression also saw a large increase in the national debt, going from $222 billion in 1930 to $704 billion in 1940. In the 47 years following the end of the Civil War there were 36 years of surpluses and 11 years of deficits. During this period 55% of the national debt was paid off. As a rough proxy for the GDP, the USA population over the years is as follows: 1791 (4 million); 1860 (31 ½) million; 1915 (100 million); 1940 (132 million); 1968 (200 million); 2006 (300 million); and today circa 315 million. Using the past population of the country as a ratio to the current population and multiplying this ratio to the debt at that time gives an idea of the comparative debt then to now. E.g., in 1791 the population was 4 million, so multiplying the 1791 debt ($1.8 billion) by the ration of 315 million (current population) over 4 million gives an adjusted 1791 debt of $142 billion. This is a far cry from our current national debt of $16.8 trillion. In truth, using population as a measure for the country’s GDP is an imprecise method for comparing the size of the debt relative to its productivity at various times in the history of the country. The increase in the country’s GDP owing to its increased mechanization in the gathering of resources, production of goods and services, and distribution of its products will clearly outstrip the mere in crease in the population of the country. Yet recovering valid GDP data beyond more recent times is also problematic. Perhaps one can say, without being overly precise, that by any measure, the debt to GDP ration has increased over time; especially in the last four decades or so. For the first time in the history of our country, federal spending exceeded $1 trillion in fiscal year 1987 ($1.004 T). The president at that time was Ronald Reagan – who, if I am not mistaken, was a Republican. For the first time in history, federal spending exceeded $2 trillion in fiscal year 2003 ($2.011 T). The president at that time was G.H.W. Bush – who, if I am not mistaken, was a Republican. For the first time in history, federal spending exceeded $3 trillion in fiscal year 2007 ($3.107 T). The president at that time was G.W. Bush – who, if I am not mistaken, was a Republican. The increase in federal spending from 1987 to early 2013 is astronomical. Barack Obama is on tract to break this Republican trend by being the first (Democrat) president to preside over federal spending exceeding $4 trillion. And given the size of the national debt increase during his administration, his is by far the biggest spending federal government in history. Democrats have lived up to their reputation as high tax and spend politicos and Republicans have shown that they are not pikers when it comes to spending the people’s money either. Currently the federal budget is approx. $3.8 trillion. From $1 trillion in 1987 to almost $4 trillion in 2013, even though not corrected for inflation, this is such an explosive expansion in federal government spending that everyone from left wing Democrats to right wing Republicans should not only be alarmed, but be prepared to vote for politicians who will promise and then act on reversing this ruinous trend. Think about it: What are the odds that corrective action will be taken? I am not sanguine that it will happen before the country undergoes a severe financial depression with serious social unrest. Can anyone envision Democrats and Republicans stopping to blame the other party for the country’s troubles long enough to agree on a solution that will save the country any time soon? Based on recent history it is beyond my imagination.

OUR WEIGHTY COUNTRY-69

According to a program of studies designed and implemented with the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 69% (approximately 160 million) of adult Americans are overweight. This is defined as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of greater than 25. The BMI is calculated by the formula: BMI = mass (kg.) / (height (m.)) sq. or mass (lbs.) / (height (in.)) sq. x 703. An obese person has a BMI > 30 (36% of adults) and a person classified as extremely obese has a BMI > 40 (6%). The obesity rate in this country has doubled since the 1970’s. It is true there is no accounting in the survey of factors such as the size of an individual’s frame and their musculature to the extent that one person may be classified as a bit overweight, while another person is not considered overweight. However, when considering those factors the reverse could actually be true. Still, these are averages that are definitive overall. I can personally attest to this massive (so to speak) change in the heft of the American people. In a 1939 extended family photo of 38 people (I was the cute little tyke in the front row) one woman could be described as fat (obese) and two as “chubby” (overweight); that is all. The rest of us were not overweight. There is a hypothesis that during the Great Depression being poor meant being thin while now, owing to the abundance of cheap, but high caloric fast food, being poor means being overweight. There may be some validity to that, however I also believe being overweight means putting on the feedbag too often. Clearly there seems to be a more widespread (again, so to speak) tendency for a lack of discipline pervading the American population to a greater extent now than in the past. As with other excesses, this also applies to eating. A further breakdown of the weight situation of American adults by gender and race is given below: OVERWEIGHT OBESE EXTREMELY OBESE White Males 74% 36% 4% Black Males 70% 39% 7% Hispanic Males 82% 37% 4% White Females 60% 32% 7% Black Females 82% 59% 18% Hispanic Females 76% 41% 6% In 2012 I briskly walked 760 miles in segments from 2 to 5 miles that is the equivalent in distance of walking from Plano to Texarkana and back, twice. That seems like a lot, yet it is only circa 15 miles/week for 50 weeks. At a walking rate of 15 minutes/mile I thereby burned approx. 54,720 Kcals (190 hrs. @ 288 Kcals/hr.). The classical definition of a calorie is the amount of energy it takes to heat one gram (one cubic centimeter or 1/1000 of a liter) of water one degree Celsius. The calorie associated with weight loss/gain is really 1000 calories (commonly referred to as a Kcal or the amount of energy it takes to heat one kilogram, 1000 cc, or one liter of water one degree Celsius). There are approx. 3600 Kcals burned per pound of weight loss, therefore I lost about 15 lb. (only!) of weight for one year’s worth of walking (calories continue to be burned for a while after exercise stops so I may be understating the weight loss a bit). Look at it in the long term. By walking 50 weeks per year at the same distance/week the weight loss would be at least 15 lbs. and over 5 years, everything being the same, it would amount to 75 lbs. or a bit more (270,000+ Kcals). Of course everything would not be the same, nor would I want it to be else I would look like an inmate in the Civil War Andersonville military prison camp. Ironically, my exercise regimen means that I have to eat more than I would otherwise just to keep from expiring. Now for the amusing part of this essay which I extracted from my 2007 blog essay, Fools, Frauds, and Fakes and applied it to the weight problem of myriad Americans with a story as told by Jack Cashill in his 2005 book Hoodwinked: How Intellectual Huckstered Have Hijacked American Culture. Paul Ehrlich was not a fraud or a liar. He was a good old-fashioned fool and fanatic who sincerely believed all of the folderol he espoused. His exegetic antagonist would be a man named Julian Simon. Ehrlich wrote a number of best selling books – the two most famous were The Population Bomb in 1968 and The Population Explosion in 1991. Among the crack pot predictions he made were: “By 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth’s population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people [this writer’s note: the current world population is 7+ billion].” He predicted that by 1980 the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 years because of pesticides, and by 1999 its population would drop to 22.6 million [the current USA population is about 315 million]. He envisioned the president of the USA dissolving congress during the food riots of the 1980’s, followed by the United States suffering a nuclear attack for its mass use of insecticides. Jack Cashill opined that Ehrlich was postulating that the United States would get nuked for killing bugs! In his 1968 book Ehrlich’s most optimistic outcome for the world in the next decade or so was that a new Pope would give his blessing for abortion and only half a billion people would die of starvation. The most pessimistic prediction was that worldwide famine would cause a nuclear war and the most intelligent survivors would be cockroaches. And you may have thought I was grossly exaggerating when I intimated this guy was a real nut case. But don’t think he was some obscure ‘mad as a hatter’ recluse writing out of his basement in his B.V.D.’s. His book The Population Bomb sold 3 million copies and he made 20 appearances on the Johnny Carson show alone. Ehrlich helped push the Sierra Club and Greenpeace to even more leftwing radical positions – which is like encouraging an alcoholic to belly up to the bar more often; and he was, surprise, a founding father of Earth Day. The left just loved him, tendentiously supporting him and his risible theories, ipse dixit. He was awarded a $345,000 MacArthur Foundation grant and the Crawford Prize from the Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel equivalent for environmentalists. Jack Cashill says about him, “In his naturalist faith, and rejection of God, Ehrlich hews to type. Giving Ehrlich the benefit of doubt, his is not the conscious fraud of the Bunco artist, but rather the self-deception of the blowhard. He appears to have drunk often at the well of his own snake oil.” Julian Simon became increasingly tired of hearing Ehrlich’s twin themes of population increase disasters and acute shortages of natural resources so he decided to challenge Ehrlich. Simon attended Harvard on a naval ROTC scholarship and served as a junior officer after graduation until the completion of his tour of duty. He received a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Chicago and then returned to New York to work in direct marketing. Not finding that line of work fulfilling, he went to the University of Maryland as a professor of business administration until he died in 1998. Simon made a famous bet with Ehrlich. He told Ehrlich to pick any five commodities and hold them for ten years. If scarcity caused the prices to rise at the end of ten years, then Simon would buy then from Ehrlich thereby giving Ehrlich the profit difference. However if the prices declined then Ehrlich would have to pay Simon the difference between the current price and what Ehrlich purchased them for. Ehrlich picked chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Not only did the prices decline on all five commodities, but of 35 standard metals 33 dropped in price as did oil and food. Ehrlich paid Simon $570.07 and he paid himself much more in lost reputation. Ehrlich allowed as how the bet might have been a mistake – he could have laid long odds that it was. Simon also had a thing or two to say about Al Gore’s book Earth in the Lurch (well, perhaps the actual title is Earth in the Balance). Simon said, “The book is as ignorant a collection of clichés as anything ever published on the subject.” And he exposed the clichés of vanishing farmland, poisonous DDT, deadly dioxin, and lethal Agent Orange with hard and undeniable data. Al Gore never tried to answer Simon anymore than he tried to justify calling the internal-combustion engine the most destructive invention of man in history. To this day some on the paralogistic left still support Ehrlich in his long ago discredited chimerical theories and Ehrlich himself said just last year that refutation of his predictions is like the man falling from a building who has not yet reached the ground and stating all is well. If Ehrlich were alive 100 years from now he would likely still dispositively be saying, you just wait and see, the world is about to end – et c’est definitif.

GUN LAWS AND MASS KILLINGS-68

Rather than react emotionally and unthinkingly either for strict or unrestricted gun control laws in response to the unspeakable and horrendous shooting and mass killing at the Newtown, Connecticut school, I believe that a rational and logical reaction based upon facts would be a superior response. Here then are some facts in regard to mass killings in the USA: Mass killings in the United States (defined as three or more killings in one episode), rose from the 1960’s to the 1990’s, and then dropped in the 2000’s. Contrary to popular opinion, these mass killings have declined in the decade of 2000-2009 to 26 as contrasted to 42 in the decade of 1990-1999 and 32 in the decade of 1980-1989. The murder of school age children declined by 42% in the period 1992-2008 from the previous same time - span. Although it is still a haunting tragedy only 1% of school age children who are murdered die at school. Was the Newtown school shooting the biggest mass killing at a school in the history of the country? Not in terms of the number of human beings killed. On May 18, 1927 part-time caretaker, Andrew Kehoe, at a school in Bath, Michigan, killed 45 people, including 38 children from the 3rd to the 6th grade, and wounded 58 more with dynamite then shot to death two first responders and himself. He spent months placing explosives inside the school and in fact 500 lbs. of unexploded dynamite were discovered under the school that did not explode owing to faulty wiring. It was estimated that if all of the dynamite had exploded there would have been hundreds killed or severely wounded. He killed his wife before committing this insane act. What was his problem? He was having financial difficulties and was angry about having to pay taxes. There is never an adequate explanation of why madmen take these murderous and terrible actions. Despite this abomination in 1927, according to criminalist Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, the year 1929 is known to be the high point for mass killings in the USA. Part of this is attributed to organized crime killings by Al Capone and his ilk. I doubt if the Main Stream Media in their zealotry to banish guns from the American public will mention the past mass killings in the USA. In 1994 there was an Assault Rifle ban lasting 10 years. This ban limited an ammunition clip to 10 rounds or fewer. What was the result of this ban? In short, nothing. There was no increase or decrease in the numbers of shootings during this time period compared to the previous 10 years. The likely reason was that people already owned the type of guns that were prohibited. There are an estimated 300 million firearms of all types in private hands in this country at this time. When Australia passed a strict gun control law in 1996 the type of guns that were restricted were confiscated from gun owners with severe penalties for those people who did not turn them in to the government. As Charles Krauthammer has said, can you imagine what would happen if the government tried to confiscate guns from Americans. The gun law passed in 1994 and those being talked about today, including what Sen. Dianne Feinstein has proposed, grandfathers in what people already own. It does appear that the current mass killers are younger that those in the past. Why? Some answers might be that there is less discipline imposed upon the youth of today and therefore they are subjected to more harmful external influences outside the family; movies, which the youth flock to today as opposed to older gents, are more graphic and violent than in the past; and the explosion of video games where gratuitous violence and nonstop shootings are experienced and played by these young people without consequences. Of course, it should go without saying (I will say it anyway) that a vast majority of the youth are not affected or impacted by all this senseless violence, yet for the relative few who are already mentally unstable this might push them over the edge of sanity. Thanks to the ACLU (American Criminal Liberties Union) and other left wing groups, there has been a movement in recent decades to make it more and more difficult to have clearly troubled people, especially youth, restrained or even forcible treated for mental illness. It is not that anyone wants everyone who is considered odd or a bit strange to be incarcerated else everyone excepting you and me might be locked up and I am not quite sure about you being allowed unimpeded freedom; just joking – I think. Gun-free zones have been the most popular response to previous mass killings. But many law-enforcement officials say they are actually counterproductive. “Guns are already banned in schools. That is why the shootings occur in schools. A school is a ‘helpless-victim zone,’” says Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff. “Preventing any adult at a school from having access to a firearm eliminates any chance the killer can be stopped in time to prevent a rampage,” Jim Kouri, the public-information officer of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, told Mack earlier this year at the time of the Aurora, Colo., Batman—movie shooting. Indeed there have been many instances – from the high-school shooting by Luke Woodham in Mississippi, to the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo. – where a killer has been stopped after someone got a gun from a parked car or elsewhere and confronted the shooter. Economists John Lott and William Landes conducted a ground breaking study in 1999, and found that a common theme of mass shootings is that they occur in places where guns are banned and killers know everyone will be unarmed, such as shopping malls and schools. According to columnist John Fund, Lott told him “Disarming law-abiding citizens leaves them as sitting ducks. A couple hundred people were in the Cinemark Theater when the killer arrived. There is an extremely high probability that one or more of them would have had a legal concealed handgun with him if they had not been banned.” Lott offered one more damning statistic: “With just one single exception, the attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the USA in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.” According to a 2005 to 2007 study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Bowling Green University there is no evidence that private holders of concealed-carry permits (which are either easy to obtain or not even required in more than 40 states) are any more irresponsible with firearms nationwide than the police. What can be learned from this current tragedy? (1.) Mass killing is not a new phenomenon, which means it has been an unsolved problem with no easy solutions for some time. (2.) Simply passing gun control laws have not and will not solve the problem in this country. (3.) Intervening more forcibly to treat and/or restrain identifiably dangerously mentally ill people, especially young people, should be part of the solution. (4.) A voluntary or, if necessary, a mandatory reduction in gratuitous violence by movie and video game makers should also be part of the answer.

THE USA SPENDING & DEBT PROBLEM-67

Let me cut through the fog and folderol of political partisanship in regard to the subject of this essay. First I will document the data in regard to the national debt increases during the presidential terms of the USA presidents going back to the Ronald Reagan administration. Notice I did not say the debt accumulated by each of these presidents. Although the president is not a mere bystander in regard to the national debt increase during his administration (for better or worse the masculine form of the pronoun can be exclusively used to date) he can certainly legitimately be held responsible for a large but not sole contribution in this regard. Here are the increased national debt data for the specified presidents. Even though President Clinton is credited with having budget surpluses in the last three years of his presidency, in all of his eight years as president the national debt increased. In fact, the last decrease in the national debt occurred in the 1956-57 fiscal year (when Eisenhower was president). As you can see the national debt increased more in the 8 years of the G.W. Bush administration than in the three previous administrations (20 years) and will have increased by circa $1 trillion more in the full 4 years of the Obama administration than in the 8 years of G.W. Bush. The national debt increase under these combined last five presidents accounts for about $15 ½ trillion of the total $16 ½ trillion debt. Of particular interest is that three of these presidents were Republicans and two were Democrats: Ronald Reagan $1 ¾ trillion in 8 years G.H.W. Bush $1.5 trillion in 4 years Bill Clinton $1.5 trillion in 8 years G.W. Bush $4.9 trillion in 8 years Barack Obama $5.9 trillion (est.) in 4 years Back in 1955 foreigners owned less than 5% of our national debt. Today nearly 50% of our national debt is owned by foreign governments and foreign private investors. A big chunk of this lending is from China and Japan. Even with low interest rates currently being paid on US government bonds the US government paid $230 billion in net interest in 2011. The reason the US government can pay lower interest rates than other countries is that investors still have more confidence in the $US than other currencies. There is no guarantee this will continue for long into the future unless we get our debt under control. It has been described as the USA being the largest midget. When Franklin Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, federal spending stood at 4.3% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP); today it is almost six times that, accounting for one dollar out of every four in the overall economy. As has been stated by practically every economist extant, such explosive government growth and expense is unsustainable. Anyone can check these data, as they are readily available from official sources on the Internet. The numbers are rounded to the nearest $.1 of a trillion ($100 billion) and are calculated starting with the first year of the presidential term and are not adjusted for inflation, but are the actual dollar amounts at the time. On our current course this country is headed towards financial disaster. What does that mean? It indicates that unless corrective action is taken this country’s financial institutions and hence social structures will collapse. What is going on in some of the countries of Europe, especially Greece, will be replicated here in spades. Can this be avoided? Yes, of course, but it will take the co-operation of both Democrats and Republicans as well as the popular will of a majority of the people in this country. I don’t believe this catastrophic condition will happen. However, I do believe that the situation will get worse, perhaps much worse, before enough of the populace is alarmed to the degree that they will demand that their representatives in Congress and the White House fix this deadly serious problem. Given the big government and massive spending philosophy of most of the Democrat politicians and the still big spending, but not quite as big as the Democrats and the more reliant on the private sector philosophy of Republicans, a compromise solution as everyone must realize will not be quick or easy. Given what will certainly happen if no solution is agreed to it is not unreasonable to believe after much complaining, bloviating, and posturing eventually a meaningful compromise will be worked out. What course of action would I suggest? First, let me layout the problems as I see them. What are the biggest expenditures of the federal government? Here are the percentages in 2011 of the $3.6 trillion federal budget: Medicare & Medicaid 21%; Social Security 20.1%; Defense 19.4%; Benefits besides health 15.1%; Interest on the debt 6.4%; and Everything else 18%. It is therefore plain that since the first three items comprise 60 ½% of all government expenditures, then that is where the most meaningful reductions in expenditures can be made. Not that it is not worthwhile that the myriad other unnecessary and wasteful expenses be cut or even eliminated to have an important impact on reducing the debt, yet the large expenses are where the most dollars to be saved are to be found. Democrat politicians need to risk offending part of their constituency by reining in out-of-control welfare spending. It has grown like Topsy such that now there are some 82 means tested federal and state welfare programs (not including Social Security and Medicare which are only partially subsidized by the government) that cost almost $1 trillion annually. This country, or any country, cannot afford such massive government paid public largesse. Additionally such large-scale welfare programs have an enervating effect on the self-reliance and individual initiative of a great many people all to the detriment of what might otherwise be a more flourishing economy. Republican politicians need to take on the military hawks by significantly reducing our military budget. The USA defense budget at almost $700 billion annually (as late as 1990 the defense budget was $300 billion annually) is greater than the combined defense budgets of the next 17 largest spenders. These are China, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, India, Italy, Brazil, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, and Israel. This is a ridiculous, wasteful, and completely unnecessary expense by the USA. For a more exhaustive treatment of the USA military read my blog essay THE USA MILITARY. The federal government gives up almost as much money for tax loopholes, deductions, credits, and other tax breaks as it collects in individual and corporate income taxes. That makes this area of potential increased government revenue a fertile source to consider as the Republican politicians, at least some of them, have stated they are willing to negotiate on. The Democrat politicians would be well advised, if they have the wellbeing of the country in mind, to actively engage Republicans on this aspect of financial reform rather than stubbornly insisting that income tax rates for the higher income cohort (where the most jobs are created) be the backbone of their increased revenue strategy. One Republican “talking point” is that we have a government spending problem, not a government revenue problem. There is a great deal of truth to that, yet the overriding problem is our ever burgeoning national debt (state indebtedness is also a major problem and a barrier to economic prosperity at the state level) which, if there is any hope to greatly ameliorate it, will require the co-operation of both Democrats and Republicans which will mean a two-pronged approach of reduced government spending and, at least temporarily, increased government revenues. I believe that a compromise solution to our debt problem is the only one available to us. The alternative: a failed, discredited, disgraced, and pitiful nation.

THE 2012 ELECTION RESULTS-66

I was puzzled that every voting group that was broken out and analyzed except Latinos (+700,000), Whites (-7.8 million), Blacks (-1.6 million), ages 18-29 (-1.8 million), and women (-4.0 million) had a lower voter turnout in 2012 than in 2008. Why not Latinos? After thinking about it (taking into account my advanced age, I am likely a bit slow with my thought processes) I then came up with the answer. Between 2008 and 2012 the population of the country increased by circa 6 million and of this figure approximately 3 million were Latinos (they currently comprise 16.5% of the USA population). Therefore the RATE of the Latino turnout was lower as was every other group, but the inordinate increase in population caused an increase in their absolute votes. Republicans need not despair too deeply because elections in this country run in cycles, comsider the 2008 presidential election, won by Democrats; the 2010 midterm election won By Republicans (+63 House of Representatives seats); and of course this election. As an aside, for the only time in the history of this country, of the 16 United States presidents who won reelection, Barack Obama is the first president to win reelection by a narrower margin in his second term than in his first. Hardly an auspicious accomplishment is it? That is what is called a rhetorical question as all of you gentle readers know well. I will now expand on my theme of elections running in cycles. Following the 1920 elections, Republicans gained 62 seats in the House, holding a 302 to 131 majority and had 59 Senate seats to 37 for the Democrats. By 1928 the margins were 267 Republicans seats to 167 for the Democrats in the House and a 56 to 39 edge for Republicans in the Senate. After the Great Depression of 1929 where Republican Herbert Hoover was unfortunate to be president, the public turned on the Republicans with a vengeance in the election of 1932 where the House and Senate changed configuration to Democrats 313/Republicans 117 & Democrats 59/Republicans 36, respectively. In the midterm elections of 1934 Democrats increased their majorities to 332 in the House versus 117 for Republicans & 69 seats in the Senate to 25 for the Republicans. In the presidential election of 1936 the Democrats again increased their majorities to 334 seats in the House to 88 for the Republicans & 76 Senate seats to 16 for the Republicans (Can you imagine – the Republicans held only 16 Senate seats!). Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Alfred Landon by 523 electoral votes to 8 in the presidential election that year. With the Depression taking a turn for the worst after some improvement had occurred in a couple of previous years and the infamous and unpopular "Court Packing" scheme of Roosevelt, the midterm elections of 1938 saw improvement for the Republicans with an increase of +81 seats in the House & +6 in the Senate. Still, the Republicans were so far behind that the alignment was still Democrats 262 seats in the House to 169 for the Republicans and 69 Democrat Senate seats to 23 for the Republicans. Fast forward to the presidential election of 1980. The country was in a blue funk and malaise (high unemployment, even higher inflation, and eroding public confidence) under the inept leadership of Jimmy Carter so the presidential election saw Ronald Reagan sweep to a 489 to 49 electoral victory and Reagan winning 44 states to 6 for Carter. With the economy now humming along at a robust level and confidence building with the American people under the sunny and optimistic direction of Ronald Reagan, "The Great Communicator", the election of 1984 was an overwhelming mandate for the president to the tune of 525 electoral votes and 49 states to 13 electoral votes and one state for the hapless Democrat, Walter Mondale. In 1994 in what was called "The Gingrich Revolution" the Republicans gained control of the House for the first time in 40 years, increasing their seats by +54 with 230 seats to 204 for the Democrats. The Republicans also gained control of the Senate 52 to 48 with a 9-seat increase. You may say this is all very well, but the country has now fundamental changed in our ethnic makeup and general approval of a big government welfare state that will permanently favor the Democrats. Nonsense! The country has been changing since its founding. Yes, there have been periods where change has occurred more rapidly than others, for instance during the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century where immigration was even higher than now. Those people in the past assimilated into the mainstream of the American population and became more conservative and traditional as they did so. It was author & longshoreman Eric Hoffer who said the immigrants who build this great country were not the elite and upper class of mostly Europe and also Asia and Latin America, but were the common folk who possessed a hard-work ethic and were "lumpy with talent" and dissatisfied with their lot in their homeland. I do not know why modern immigrants will be fundamentally different from those in the past. Pat Buchanan and his ilk believe the USA will be overrun with illegal immigrants from south of our border putting our country at risk for permanent decline. He is so pessimistic about the future of conservatism in the USA that he seems to think it is fey. That goes against the grain of political history, some of which I detailed above. And there are those who believe that because these new immigrants have higher birth rates, or as demographers say “Total Fertility Rates (TFR)”, they will increase even faster than the settled population. Quoting Bergen Evans on another subject, this is like “The blind mouth of Demos babbling in darkness.” Read my blog essays on the subject or the 2004 book “Fewer” by Ben Wattenberg. This is only a temporary situation, as these immigrants become more prosperous and even before, as they realize a key to more prosperity is smaller families, they will respond accordingly. At one time Catholics in the United States, for what should be obvious reasons, had a higher TFR than Protestants. Now it is about the same. Likewise, currently in Europe some of the countries with the lowest TFR are the Catholic ones of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. The same is happening with Muslims countries around the world, and in fact in the world at large. Time will tell, but I am more optimistic about this issue than some others are. What I am concerned about is an expanding development of a "welfare mentality" among a troubling segment of the population that would enervate the work ethic that has characterized this country for so long and built our prosperity. Are people in this country really that different from people in the past? Perhaps, yet when one thinks how a president could be reelected with the economic conditions so dire in the country today, I hark back to the 1930's. Entirely in the Roosevelt administration during 1934 to 1940 the median annual unemployment rate was 17.2%. The highest unemployment was in 1933 at 24.9% and lowest at 14.3% in 1937. In 1937 there were 11 million unemployed people and 3 million who were underemployed. With a total country population of 130 million in 1937 that would be equivalent to unemployed and underemployed numbers of 26 1/2 million and 7 1/4 million today. You can believe no president today could have been reelected with such dismal numbers when that was his best employment year. Roosevelt was reelected in 1936 (16.9% unemployment) and 1940, all depression years, before the start of WWII, so it seems that the Americans of the 1930's were even more patient and forgiving of their president then than now. We, current Americans, may be different from Americans in the past, although hopefully not as different as some would postulate.