Jan. 30, 2002 - 17:12 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Pah!

Ball of worms ? Jeepers, here in Denver the traffic photo radar now is in danger. Why? The operation is in the hands of a private company, what is more it appears that the recompense to the private company is in proportion to the number of tickets issued.

This whole thing is stretched across the horns of a dilemma. On the one side it is not safe to travel under the speed of surrounding traffic although I will slow down to the advertised limit in school zones -- even if I am danger of getting rear ended. Okay, if the surrounding traffic is moving ten miles an hour over posted speed limit, then theoretically this private company can set up camp along a major artery or highway and issue tickets on every car moving in that direction, regardless that keeping up with flow is about the only safe way to go. Why isn't there some common sense method of enforcement in place ?

It seems to me that many corporations and arms of the government - local, state and national are, "Privatizing," various things to evade the responsibility of duty and fairness. It seems to be used to negate fair labor treatment. Sell arms of their company off - New company not obligated to pay union scale nor recognize the union. In addition gains in fair treatment over the years are being lost.

I hate to mention Enron right here, (but like Red Skelton's ornery little kid, "I'm gunna doot anyway.") -- but look what happened to the retirement funds employees thought would be coming to them. I've heard various approaches that seem to skirt around reality. One thing I do remember is that the way to get along in a company or corporation is to buy as much stock in it as you can afford. The pressure to do that is from above in the guise of, you "Being a team player." But what separates the sheep from the goats is when things get close to failure, those on the inside circle get the word and sell off as much stock as they can before the utter disaster.

I remember reading how Wackenhut security company got its start. At least that is how it has read in several accounts. Wackenhut ran the goon squad for Henry Ford and built it into the huge semi-official thing it is today. Privitization no ?

How many times have we heard about a company bigwig setting up a company to handle official business and reaping tremendous profits from doing so. How about the use of prisoners to do selling duty for some company or other on the telephone ? Of course if a prison population and those who administer it set up a prison factory to manufacture furniture for instance private industry comes unglued ? Seems to me that prison products should be required to price their goods the same as other products of that kind, then if they outdo private companies, which CEO goofed ?

The foreign scene eats on itself too. It should be no surprize, or as my Franklin electronic dictionary waffles, the word can also be spelled surprise. And it seems the mideast - Israel and Palestine - are still fighting the age old battle. To quote part of the article by Holger Jensen, International editor of The Rocky Moutain News in this mornings paper (Jan. 30, 2001) in his interview with Mayor Shaul Goldstein of Gush Etzion, Israel who is responsible for 15 separate communities on the West Bank said to Mr. Jensen, "We are surrounded by hostile Arabs," he points out. "Take away Judea and Sumaria (the West Bank) and the width of Israel becomes indefensible. We may not like it when our children have to go into the army and we have to go to funerals, but we have to fight for it. (My caps now) MOSES GAVE US A VERY TOUGH NEIGHBORHOOD TO LIVE IN."

Unquote

The Promised Land was occupied when Moses led the Israelites to that territory. And the fight has gone on since then.

In our country. Seems like the President and the Governor of Florida need some lessons on how to raise daughters, maybe they should check to see how Hilary and Bill have raised their daughter -- or has she demonstrated she too is only human? Don't know too much about it but Xanax is an anti-anxiety medicine and if I were in the throes of an attack and couldn't reach a doctor at that time I might have tried to do the same thing. I don't now how or why she got that way - which might or might not have a bearing on the case. That is the trouble with the news, the public never gets the full truthful picture, makes for a mess doesn't it ?

It seems to me that the most of the biggies in the Presidents entourage are going by the precept that they are not required to reveal anything about anything. In some part they seem to be smokescreening their involvement in the Enron hooraw.

Guess I verge on disaster here, sticking my neck out along with Colin Powell. Prisoners or detainees, whatever our upper echelon has decided they wish them to be called and regardess of what is suspected of them, regardless of what they are designated, and whether it is undeclared war or a "police action," to my mind there is such a thing as the Geneva Convention which our country once believed valid, and to my mind there are basic human rights to be observed along with that. Colin Powell thinks the "detainees" should be treated by the precepts of the Geneva Convention and so do I. Regardless of the results of some of the polls I have read recently which basically boils down to, "Throw them to the lions," I still believe that we should not lower ourselves to the point of treating others as the Nazis did and as Bin Laden and his poisonous group did.

Molly Ivins this morning's paper feels that there is governmental misbehavior in the Enron collapse. Two that she mentions are, Wendy Gramm's key decision as chair of the Comodities Futures Trading Commission to deregulate energy future markets. She has been on the Enron board since 1992 and Senator Phil Gramm received more than $97,000 in Enron contributions and passed legislation that exempted parts of Enron from government oversight.

The refusal of government people to help Enron in the end reminds me of the attempt of Pontius Pilate to wash his hands of what to do about Jesus. It seems that many of our government people have heretofore been involved, for too long a time to be innocent.

I guess I will just have to stop reading the so called news and concentrate on the comics to avoid a stomach churning acid. Should I maybe just look at the front page and turn to the comics while saying Pah ? . . . . . . .

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