Are You starting to feel like you are in the "Twilight Zone"

The Monsters are due on Maple Street...

This is the title of a short story from a book of short stories based on some of the old "Twilight Zone" plots by Rod Serling. Many of Mr. Serling's titles from this sci-fi series have stuck in My mind all these years and include the classic "Serving Mankind", a book that turns out to be a cook book.
The Monsters of ISIS have now overplayed their hand and have forfeit any consideration of themselves as Human, and with their barbarity, any quarter due a member of Humanity. They have raised the passionate ire of tiny Jordan, a county who now vows revenge against them for the cage burning of one of their pilots held as a prisoner of war. The United States should be humbled and shamed for not confronting the Monsters of ISIS with the same vigor and passion as Jordon. 
The peoples of  the World and the United States should collectively demand the destruction and eradication of the ISIS monsters who have placed themselves firmly among the other famous monsters of the last century and this one.
The tepid, weak and slow response by the United States seems to be a sort of  philosophical mindset that War is a bad thing, (and it most certainly is) ergo we should refrain from war, to serve Mankind. There are Monsters loose in the World and sometimes war, warts and all is the only valid response, lest we serve up Humanity...cook book style, to those Monsters.
Unless ISIS is confronted and destroyed by the entire Civilized World an soon...with all the passion it demands, truly...

The Monsters are due on Maple Street

_________________________________________________________________________________

Middle class decides to "Settle" goes back to work

I recall a few years back and about three recessions ago on the great bike ride across Iowa a  Mexican-American from Arizona and riding with Team Buffalo from Wyoming, told the group I was riding with, the Rouges Of The Night that he had decided, "Not to participate in the recession." This worked for this very personable and entrepreneurial man. He has done very well for himself, by his own force of will.

economy begins to rise, maybe

Nobody expected this "Great Recession" to drag on for six long years and now is seems to be ending...cross your fingers. Stinking Politicians are now stepping up to take credit for this hint of a recovery despite the fact that practically every economic tool they utilized to fight the recession seemed to prolong ad institutionalize and it. Vast numbers of people simply gave up looking for work and decided to ride it out on the dole or their savings. The middle class took it on the chin and six years later they realized that middle class jobs...with the boats, motor homes and toys are never coming back. They have collectively opted for survival, as they must and traded a job at the plant with all the benefits...for a survival job, with no benefits and thirty eight hours a week cashiering  at "Casey's General Store" or whatever amounts to a survival job in your area. People are going back to work having decided they must work. These are people who can't NOT WORK and vegetate on a couch being useless eaters and a voter bonanza for the slimy Politicians. They were repeatedly promised shovel ready jobs from those same slimy politicians...a promise that those creeps never intended to keep, and they have opted to work and decided that they cannot participate in the recession any longer.

Problem is they are no longer middle class or maybe just barely clinging on to the ledge of middle class. Gone are the motorcycles, boats and motorhomes and more importantly the dream of a good retirement and the dignity of working a good job for somebody and being compensated for a job well done. They can only survive by tapping into a plethora of Government hand outs. The dignity is gone for good and the middle class has "settled".

As I stated on this blog...what has become many years ago, the economy will recover on it's own. It has done so a little...for as long as it lasts. I never expected that this recovery would be such a stunted and fragile thing...the middle class decimated. For that, the stinking politicians may take full credit.

 The hardest thing of all is the realization that the children of this nation will not do as well, will not be better off than We, this eats at us and eats at us with all the guilt we feel that that it is our fault and that we have kept ourselves above water on their backs. Under this Government the rich have got richer (some might say fat, bloated and sassy), the poor have as usual, got poorer. 

____________________________________________________________________________________   
  A brief trip out of Iowa into the rust belt and back to Iowa. I stop for dinner at My favorite chop house...and back to Iowa's own little La La Land.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We take a short drive from rural America over the Mississippi in into a land of closed factories, old men tenaciously holding on to old stores that must probably close when they die and museums to industries that are no longer "extant". We ponder the birthplace of Carl Sandberg.

We stop and pay a call at Dick Blick for some Art Crap, an antique gun shop and look at an over and under 22/410 (many boys first gun)...broken, selling for 7 times it's original cost and walk around gazing at what "once was", taking pictures all the way. 

 I stop at a convenient store and admire a vintage VW bug (no rust), the kid that drove it up, with a for sale sign on it...he needs the money and there are no good jobs here-a-bouts...sad on account of he loves it. This guy is young, dumb and full of uh...callowness. He has lots of energy, probably just wants to leave his town to make his fortune in the World. He may have no idea that there are no good jobs there-a-bouts. I do not try an enlighten him about the fact that there may be nothing more over the horizon than more convenient stores to work in and that we have sold his future to live in the manner that we have become accustomed. That He may not do as well as his Dad or have access to the same toys, but he seems to be a good person, I go on My way, silently wishing him well.
  

 Then back to Iowa we stop at My favorite steak house in Davenport...to buy My Valentine a steak dinner...a good day, then back to the "Fun and Sun center of Iowa". ( He said, dripping of sarcasm)

It is little wonder that they don't do much recruiting at the University...this time of year.     

 

 
_______________________________________________

Nice speech, well said...
Good luck getting anybody in this moron infested state department to listen to common sense.
Update:
You do the right thing...Good things Occur
Congratulations on your reelection