MODERN-DAY WEATHER VANITY

TIME TO BE COOL ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING.

THINGS 2 HEAT UP IN THE COMING ICE AGE.

THE VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS.

 

By John McCarthy

The Moderate Voice
 

Now that the authorities involved have irretrievably solved the mystery of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 (without even a scrap of evidence) …

Let’s move to another ephemeral topic of conversation as Winter transitions into Spring during this Global Warming in the year of our Zombie Apocalypse 2014 …

The Weather.

Now if Bob Dylan is right and “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” then this shouldn’t be hard at all.

Unless you are trying to divine the future of the Ukraine, the mental health of Vladimir Putin or the body language of President Obama as he told the height-challenged Russian leader: don’t take another step.

Human beings as mammals are subtropical animals that are ideally suited to be at 78 degrees Fahrenheit (25.555 degrees Celsius).

Another columnist seen regularly @ The Moderate Voice wrote a piece this year saying basically that Americans are whiners and need to buck up and get with the program: i.e., more shoveling and less sniveling. We tamed the Wild West – running a snow blower should be a breeze.

But what I am about to write next is very uncool – and also just coincidentally carries an NC-17 warning: Still, you get what you pay for when it comes to your weather: and wherever you live, you chose it bucko.

Where I’m from in Detroit, the folks got 78 inches of snow and experienced one of the coldest winters in 20 years. My family spoke to me only once – on my birthday this month – I think they blame me. Today’s forecast for March 26 – a time when normally the crocuses should be sprouting – calls for 18 degrees (-7.777 degrees Celsius) and “fair.”

Especially when the U.S. Census Bureau says more Americans are staying put where they live for decades longer than at any other time in our history – unless you have a trip planned to Bora Bora every Winter – you should be in a cold sweat if you are subjecting your body to weather conditions that it was not designed to endure.

You eat superfoods like broccoli, drink herbal teas and mineral waters and jog for your health; but, when it comes to putting your body into weather conditions that are most ideal for it – most people generally go where the jobs are … Got a great new executive position in Buffalo? Great! But get a stress test before shoveling your driveway every morning.

One of my college roommates at the University of Michigan was Architect Eng Liang Ong of Singapore. About once a month I would ask him what the temperature was in that city nation they call a “Mini Tiger” – didn’t matter what month of the year I asked him – the answer was always the same: 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius).

It got me to thinking: maybe I didn’t need to live in a cold climate nine months of the year? My first move after college was a step up weather-wise – New York City. The winters of the Big Apple seemed balmy compared to Ann Arbor – and the snow rarely stuck to the ground – a sign that the temperature was above freezing.

While I was at Michigan I took a course in meteorology – on the path to one-day being an on-air television reporter – one of the things the professor stressed in the lectures was that the weather records only go back to the 1880’s – not enough time/data to accurately predict anything in terms of future climatic conditions.

When I was growing up, Time Magazine did a cover story about “The Coming Ice Age” complete with wooly mastodons, white saber-toothed tigers and oversized polar bears. Still, I assumed that the future was bright. If you look at the Wikipedia entry for my hometown of Livonia – there is a picture of a futuristic-looking City Hall building in the middle of an empty, snow-filled parking lot.

It made me wonder if anyone would look at that picture and want to visit there – I surely wouldn’t. My high school art teacher, who had red hair and a moustache, Mr. Nesbitt used to always say that you didn’t have to stay where you were born – you are free to roam about the planet as you wish – “The World Is Yours.”

Now there was a new tsunami alarm testing warning signal this morning as I was writing this column. And the territory did have its posterior handed to itself after Hurricane Hugo in 1989 – but the building codes were improved – the infrastructure was improved – to the point that when Hurricane Marilyn devastated the islands in 1995 – the electricity was back on sooner.

I’ve had clients in Port Charlotte, FL; Binghamton, NY and Morristown, NJ warn me that I should leave St. Croix because it is likely that I’ll be slammed again by another hurricane in the fall. Soon after, those very same areas were smacked down by cyclones.

As Iggy Pop says: “You pays your money and you takes your chances.”

The average mean temperature for the U.S. Virgin Islands is 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Today’s forecast calls for a low of 71 and a high of 86.

But it’s not all good – the service is a bit slow today delivering me my Crucian Rum mojito at poolside – and then there’s the mosquitoes and the sand flies – still, I can’t complain (sometimes I still do).

Wherever you are on the mainland – be cool – it shouldn’t be hard to do this winter.

 

© 2014 John Francis McCarthy/Secret Goldfish Publishing House, LLC

 

John McCarthy is an investigative reporter, artist and photojournalist based in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Please send questions and comments to: johnfmccarthy807@msn.com

 

NOW IS THE TIME 4 ALL GOOD MEN 2 JUMP 2 CONCLUSIONS

http://themoderatevoice.com/192612/now-is-the-time-4-all-good-men-to-jump-2-conclusions/

 

LOST IN THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE – RATHER THAN BERMUDA.

THE CASE IS MADE FOR PROFILING PILOTS OVERSEAS.

THE VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS.

 

By John McCarthy

Moderate Voice Columnist

 

     It’s surreal enough to be the plot of a major TV series.

     In fact it already was – “Lost” on ABC – except even scarier than giant polar bears and smoke monsters – are pilots with extreme views bent on total destruction.

     The flight in the TV series was scheduled for 17 hours – Sydney to LA; the flying time of Malaysian Airlines’ Flight 370 was scheduled for about half that – going from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

     What happened along the way of that aborted flight path has been the subject of much speculation about terrorism and suicide since the ill-fated Asia-based flight went missing nine days ago.

     CBS News and The India Times call “pilot suicide” a taboo subject – but it is one that is likely to be more talked about in the coming days, weeks and months as the vanished Boeing 777 continues to dominate the 24-hour news cycle.

     “You cannot quite yet rule out everything because we don’t have the physical evidence we need to come to that conclusion,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) on CBS’ Face The Nation, meaning that he felt no indication means it is “at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.”

     If a “preponderance of evidence” could lead to criminal charges filed against a sitting American president – it only makes sense that a complete lack of evidence could also lead someone to reach a foregone conclusion in a case such as this.

     However, I feel quite the opposite. If Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is right and “the plane was last seen heading towards Pakistan.” And if we grant that the doomed flight was commandeered with the intentions of terrorism, then what is the worst possible scenario?

     That the plane – with 239 hostages aboard needing food and drink for nine days – has safely landed in an obscure South Pacific outpost – to be used “later” as a “flying bomb” just as the two planes that knocked out the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers were used.

     No one is writing about it online yet, but the Petronas Twin Towers – featured in the movie “Entrapment” with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones – is an obvious target for someone looking to make their bones via terrorism. Its 88 floors are the centerpiece of Malaysia’s futuristic Kuala Lumpur skyline – at 1,483 feet, it used to be one of the tallest structures in the world.

     As Slate Magazine reported, there are 634 such landing sites within the flying range of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 – including some in the middle of the Indian Ocean such as: The Cocos Islands (runway length 8,009 feet); Diego Garcia Naval Support Facility (runway length 12,003 feet); Gan International Airport (runway length 8,694 feet) and the appropriately named “Mal” (meaning “bad” in French) International Airport (runway length 10,499 feet).

     If Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 was heading west, it could have stopped off at any one of these remote atolls to refuel for use at a later time while hiding at a remote island airstrip that would have to be at least 5,000 feet long – but wouldn’t necessarily have to be paved (it could be hard-packed dirt) – experts say it could have even landed on a freeway. If it was heading northwest towards Pakistan, as Rep. King stated then it would have had to have cleared heavily monitored airspace near U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan.

     And if Rep. Rogers is correct, and Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 was on a suicide mission with 53-year-old Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and 27-year-old Fariq Abdul Hamid as the masters of disaster – then there is a corollary with the crashes of Egypt Air Flight 990 (LA to Cairo) on October 31, 1999 and SilkAir Flight 185 (Jakarta to Singapore) on December 19, 1997.

    The common denominator on all of these doomed flights – if Captain Shah (who is seen on Facebook wearing a “Democracy Is Dead” t-shirt and has links to the Malaysian terrorist group that bombed a Bali bar popular with Australians in 2002) – is likely to add fuel to the fire for Islamophobes everywhere – and lead to talk about mandatory psychological profiling of pilots.

    The Co-Pilot Hamid was known as a “Cockpit Romeo” for allegedly inviting two ladies in the past to join him in that restricted area for the duration of an entire flight – all of which begs the question: if the pilots do not own the airplanes – how is it that they can manually turn off transponders and other safety technology – when the reasons not to give them such leeway are obvious now?

     The good news is that the number of mechanically-caused commercial airline disasters have virtually been eliminated in recent times.

     Now the commercial airline industry has to devise a way to make the friendly skies freer of pilot errors – to include suicide.

 

© 2014 John Francis McCarthy/Secret Goldfish Publishing House, LLC

 

John McCarthy is an investigative reporter, artist and photojournalist based in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Please send questions and comments to: johnfmccarthy807@msn.com

 

 

With A Little Help From Our Friends

THE GRASS IS A LITTLE BROWNER ON THE OTHER SIDE.

‘CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG’ ISN’T A BAD PHILOSOPHY.

THE VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

 

By John McCarthy

TMV Columnist

 

     The more things change, the more they stay the same.
     Sometimes a truism just isn't true – so says a non-“truther”.
     Instant Karma was popular during John Lennon’s time (if only just to talk about) – “bed- ins” never really caught on – maybe it had something to do with bed head hair?
     Instant Rage is all the rage now – it plays out on the news every night and is spun the way you like it depending on which network you watch – but how did we get here?
     First, let’s look at how we’re all acting. You see the template at your local day care center every day.
     Males and females behaving badly – but it’s not really just badly – it’s exponentially BAD.
     Just take a look at the shenanigans in the Congress, where government shutdowns, filibusters and hair-trigger rage dominate.
     In the last five years (2009-2013), Republicans have conducted 82 filibusters of presidential nominees. Since that delaying tactic was first allowed in 1806 – it had been used 86 times UNDER ALL PRESIDENTS COMBINED – before President Obama.
     I am not a psychiatrist – or even a psychologist (although I have been recommended to some) but if you ask me, people are behaving markedly worse due to a push back from the 9-1-1 attacks.
     Osama Bin Laden set the low water mark for behaving badly on that fateful day in 2001.
     At first, immediately after the tragedy – people treated each other better – need to merge your car into traffic? No problem. Only two items and need to cut in line at the supermarket? No problem. Lost your wallet and need $100 bus fare to Podunk, Iowa? Well, OK, no problem, mon. Those were the bad ‘ol days after September 11th.
     Over time, the elastic band that holds good and evil together in this world got stretched beyond its breaking point by Saudi Arabia’s most famous Jihadi former son – like defective Spandex.
     Even a child knows that it is wrong to steal. But most children have stolen something of little value – like a piece of Bazooka bubble gum from the neighborhood store.
     No child would think to put a gun to the head of the owner of the store and steal all the money in the cash register. Yet that is exactly what Osama Bin Laden’s actions taught us was possible.
     The late World's Most Wanted man did the unthinkable – and by doing so made us all think again –he brought a New World Order to values by crashing four jumbo passenger jets into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
     Of course, 9-1-1 cost the U.S. stock market $1.4 trillion and the most recent shutdown of the government by Congressional Republicans “only” cost $24 billion (according to Standard & Poors).
     When the last shutdown engineered by the G.O.P. occurred in 1995-1996, the American economy in the dot com boom was just starting to rev its engines of prosperity. Times were good.
     There is a word for people who would sabotage what was already being called “The Great Recession” by throwing a monkey wrench into a fragile economy at a time of great vulnerability – it is: “terrorist.”
     Yalman Onaran of Bloomberg News warned that the government’s failure to pay its debts during the shutdown would halt $5 trillion in lending to people and businesses and raise the specter of “throw[ing] the U.S. and world economies into a recession that probably would become a depression.”
     And there’s still talk that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his band of merry Tea Partiers are planning to do it all over again. Why would anyone do that? The solution is not to govern by any means necessary – but to lead with diplomacy, finesse and fellowship – leave the Iron Fist to Putin.
     The easy answer is: Osama Bin Laden taught us all how to be as “bad as we wanna be.” It is for us as adults in the day care center they call “The Congress” to disregard that kind of information – no matter how powerful its black hole of suction is.
     When you think about it, after the attacks of 9-1-1, there was an outpouring of sympathy for New York and the good people who live in New York City – but it was an attack on America – the whole nation was under siege after those coordinated Al Qaeda attacks.
     People say the nation came together as one during that trying time – and that the strong, reassuring words of President “W.” Bush – made us all think that things couldn’t help but get better - after all, they couldn't get any worse.
     But starting in October 2007, with the anti-Free Market banking and insurance bailouts, the economic order of things charted southwards. It was a race to the bottom.
     The people who aren’t rooting for America to succeed have always liked to draw a parallel between the United States and the Roman Empire – implicit in that analogy is that one not so fine day this land of spacious skies, purple mountain majesties and amber waves of grain – will fall. Scholars say the fall of the Roman Empire took about 10 years.
     It’s tough to say what might motivate someone to purposely set a pressure cooker up in the path of a marathon race of human beings set to explode as they run by.
     You just have to look to the longest-lasting feud in history – the Arabs and Jews in the Middle East – to see what happens when "terrorism" is answered with uneven-handedness. It becomes a war that literally NEVER ENDS.
     No solution in sight. And that’s not the way I see it all coming down for America. We are too good and resourceful of a people to ever let that happen.
     John Lennon was trying to teach the world a song to sing in the 1970's - it was called PEACE - maybe if I hum a few bars you'll remember. Peace, like charity, begins at home.
     Washingtonians would probably laugh you out of the room if you tried to suggest there might be a Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, Jr.-type solution to our collective problems.
     Sounds old-fashioned, but sitting down and hashing it out face-to-face has been known to work. Skype, Face-Time, texting and email won't do it this time. What do we have to lose by trying?

     If Motor City Madman Ted Nugent had to look President Obama straight in the eye and call him what he called him – mano e mano – could he do it? I don’t think he has the cojones.
     But what do I know? I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist and I’m living in a grass hut with no electricity in the Virgin Islands.
     Does anyone know if it costs more to lie down on the couch than to sit in the chair?

© 2014 John Francis McCarthy/Secret Goldfish Publishing House

 

John McCarthy is an investigative reporter, artist and photographer living in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Please send comments to johnfmccarthy807@msn.com

WHERE JOURNALISTS DARE TO TREAD, THE GRIM REAPER SOON FOLLOWS

http://themoderatevoice.com/192083/where-journalists-dare-to-tread-the-grim-reaper-soon-follows-2/

 

Be Careful on your next Caribbean vacation:

Drugs and Crime Make For A Nasty Hangover:

The View From The Virgin Islands

 

                                                By John McCarthy

                                         Moderate Voice Columnist    

     Did you ever notice how some of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists – are also the most dangerous for civilians?

     When it bleeds it leads, as the old newspaper adage goes, but that also means that a lot of journalists get caught up in the fray.
     The mystique of the foreign correspondent overseas doesn’t extend to places like Honduras, Colombia and Venezuela.
     Honduras holds the dubious distinction of being the world’s murder capital. But only five journalists have been killed there since 1992. In Mexico, journalists are self-censoring to save their own lives. Forty-five journalists have died in Colombia over the same period.
     Not to say that I’m disappointed, but it does almost skew the stax enough to destroy the premise of this piece -- because Venezuela's murder rate is roughly half that of Honduras at 45.1 per 100,000 people.

     Experts say that 42 percent of all cocaine headed to the United States and 90 percent of all cocaine flights transit through Honduras. The drug trade, which also involves illegal gun running, is harder on civilians than journalists.
     Most of the murders of journalists are by native-born people on native-born people. So a reporter who is blown to bits by a roadside IED in Kabul is different than a journalist hung from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo – same result, just different ways to get there – and statistically more “foreign correspondents” die in the war-torn areas of the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
     According to the United Nations, Afghanistan had just 2.4 killings per 100,000 people last year. Honduras, at the top of the charts, had 91.6 killings per 100,000. Despite knowing those facts, I don’t believe Americans would chose to vacation in Kandahar over Tegucigalpa.
     It might be counterintuitive – but the region I live in – where white sand beaches, tropical breezes and turquoise ocean waters prevail – is a hotbed for murders. In fact, the U.S. Virgin Islands has a higher murder rate than Uganda in East Africa. According to the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) -- St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John have a murder rate of 39.2 per 100,000 people while Kampala’s is 36.3.
     In fact, in these places where “corruption is rampant,” the same percentage of violent offenders – two percent – are jailed in Honduras as are jailed in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Virgin Islands Daily News on St. Thomas won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for pointing out that fact.
     “The attorney general was recently suspended amid charges of corruption and incompetence,” National Public Radio reported on Tegucigalpa’s murder rate. “And the current police chief has been linked to extra-judicial murders and disappearances.”
     I once asked the local police chief in St. Croix about a murder of an American expat that took place in the Gallows Bay area in the 1990's and was told: “Well, John, that guy wasn’t well liked.” The wheels of justice turn slowly – or not at all – for murder victims who have no roots in the place they are killed.
     “My constituents also repeatedly called the local police for updates into the investigation, but were rebuffed and told that if they continue to call their case will be moved to the ‘bottom of the pile,’” United States Senator Robert “Bob” Menendez (D-NJ) wrote about the murder of 41-year-old expat James Malfetti III in St. John last month. “Even after over two weeks, the police have told the parents that they have not begun to trace the stolen cell phone.”
     Sen. Menendez also alleged that the Virgin Islands Police Department “discarded forensic evidence” and failed to do Detective 101 stuff like dusting for fingerprints at the crime scene. From my experience, Senator Menendez’s call from New Jersey is right – and unfortunately for us who live here – this one case is representative of them all. Most violent crime prosecutions are botched and bungled in a way that is disrespectful to the murder victims themselves. Menendez asked the FBI to help.
     Places you wouldn’t think to be dangerous on vacation – often are. Destinations like the Bahamas, Trinidad & Tobago and St. Kitts-Nevis have murder rates of 36.6, 35.2 and 38.2 respectively per 100,000 people. Jamaica is No. 2 in the Caribbean for murders – it ranks in at 40.9 per 100,000 people. Belize, though technically the northeastern coast of Central America – is culturally considered to be part of the Caribbean (where computer wiz John McAfee ran amuck in 2012) – it has the rare distinction of being the region’s murder capital at 41.4 killings per 100,000 people.
     The two tourist hotspots of the Caribbean – Cuba and the Dominican Republic – are a tale of two political systems when it comes to murders. In Havana you are "safe, mon;" but, off the north coast of the Dominican Republic they literally beat and hung a French tourist on his own yacht last year. Still, Santo Domingo's rate is more like Puerto Rico's at 25.0 per 100,000 people. (Cuba’s murder rate is roughly twice that of Afghanistan’s.)
     Honduras has eight million people and had 7,172 murders in 2013 – by comparison, Puerto Rico, an American Commonwealth about 120 miles north of here – had about four million people (before the economic exodus) and 1,136 murders in 2011. In one Honduran city alone, San Pedro Sula, 1,200 people were killed. New York City – with 22 million people had "only" 417 murders last year.
     One blog site, “The Canal” claims that one of the islands that make up the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico – Vieques (which was written about in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “The Rum Diary”) is the per capita murder capital of the world at 160 per 100,000 people with just 17 murders per year. People in the nearby British Virgin Islands tell me when I go to play tennis in Road Town, Tortola – that I must be “suicidal” to live in its United States namesake.
     But even in our worst year (2010) St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John "only" had 66 murders with a population of roughly 100,000 people. The whole territory could fit into the University of Michigan's football stadium -- so what would the reaction be if all 66 people were murdered in the stands during one game? Sounds like a Hunger Games sequel. Somehow when murders are spaced out over different days, they are more palatable to the public.
     I guess Virgin Islanders should be grateful that only one person was killed every six days here in 2012 – when at least 20 people are murdered per day in Honduras. In our worst crime years, this unincorporated territory of the United States is closer to the Ivory Coast’s murder rate of 56.9 per 100,000 people.
     I have a statistically small sample – but my best guess is – that people here are not “well pleased”  by that news.
     The Virgin Islands is the only part of the United States never to have had an incidence of terrorism -- or the death of a journalist -- at this writing.
     Kind of ruins the premise of this piece - but I count those two facts as good things in my book.

 

© 2014 John Francis McCarthy/Secret Goldfish Publishing House

 

John McCarthy is an investigative reporter, photojournalist and author. Please send comments to johnfmccarthy807@msn.com or (340) 514-4087

REMEMBER THE ALAMO AND REMEMBER MA LAUREYS: THE CHRIS CHRISTIE JOURNAL

http://themoderatevoice.com/191863/chris-christies-puerto-rico-vacation/

 

REMEMBER MA LAUREYS: SOMETHING ABOUT BOB:

CHRIS CHRISTIE VACATIONS IN PUERTO RICO:

THE VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

 

By John McCarthy

Moderate Voice Columnist         

 

     While Chris Christie was leaving for a vacation in Puerto Rico, Sen. Robert Menendez was making the front pages of a newspaper just 120 miles south of there.
     The two men are joined at the hip – here’s how.
     United States Senator Menendez (D-NJ) made the front page of the St. Croix newspaper because he was calling out the Virgin Islands Police Department for a perceived sluggish response to the murder of a 41-year-old New Jersey man in Chocolate Hole, St. John last month.
      What you might not know is that eight years ago Chris Christie (R-NJ) – then a swashbuckling U.S. District Attorney – began a prosecution of Robert “Bob” Menendez, a six-term Congressman who had been appointed to a one-year term as Senator to fill a seat vacated by John Corzine (D-NJ) when he was elected Governor of New Jersey.
     This is not a “French journal,” so with apologies to Ernest Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast” – there will be background.
     The question is: why did Chris Christie begin a federal investigation into a Bob Menendez real estate deal just 60 days before the senatorial special election? Menendez had run afoul of local Republicans who filed an ethics complaint against him for renting out a property he owned to a nonprofit agency that accepts federal funds.
     Christie says the conflict of interest case went forward because it had already broken in the press and it was timed to prevent destruction of documents and other evidence. But looking back today, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes: “Menendez’s claims of persecution now seem quite plausible.”
Christie was someone who weighed suing the government in order to run for political office before he reached the age of 18 – so he must have had higher political aspirations of his own at that time – the year was 2006 and the New Jersey heavyweight would be eligible to sit down in the mansion of Drumthwacket just three years later.

     But Christie had somehow earned the ire of the “W.” Administration – one he had campaigned and lobbied for so successfully that he was appointed to U.S. Attorney for New Jersey despite never having practiced in a federal courtroom before. He proved George Bush right because within a short space of time he was one of the top two or three District Attorneys in the whole United States. All total, Chris got 130 convictions or guilty pleas in seven years. He lost none; no wonder “W.” called him “Big Boy.”
    
     Not bad for a small firm attorney specializing in medical malpractice suits. But he was so good at securing convictions of corrupt politicians and obtaining deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) from corporations – which allowed conglomerates to avoid prosecution altogether if they paid a hefty fine and agreed that they’ll never do it again – that the U.S. Department of Justice had to institute new rules to ensure that like-minded prosecutors wouldn’t also give $52-million dollar, 18-month contracts to their ex-bosses or $5 million to the law school they graduated from.
     Just as Michael Jordan’s basketball wizardry brought about the “Jordan Rules” – a way to systematically defend the greatest player who ever played the game – the U.S. Department of Justice had to devise “Christie Rules” – new ways to guard against leaving it to future feds’ discretion as to which friends and organizations will benefit from these fines. Shakedowns are apparently questionable ethics even for U.S. Attorneys – but Christie’s groundbreaking tactic is still used nationwide today.

     How Chris Christie got elected to the Freeholder Board of Morris County in 1994 is also significant – he did so by stating incorrectly – and very close to an election – that his incumbent opponent was under “investigation” for violating local laws. So he knew the dirty tricks Nixon political game – right out of the gate in his own career.
     Which brings us back to Bob Menendez, the Cuban-American U.S. Senator from New Jersey who earned his chops by fighting political corruption in Union City as its mayor. It’s possible, just possible, that Christie thought that the town of New Jersey wasn’t big enough for two crime fighting McGruffs – so as a hedge that someone named Bob wouldn’t run against him as a Democrat for Governor of the Garden State one day …
     The biggest question that remains is why – despite raising $350,000 for the election campaign of George W. in 2000 and achieving “pioneer” status with the Bush Machine – by the time 2005 rolled around “Big Boy’s” name was on a list of U.S. attorneys facing dismissal? Big time Democrats like Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Krugman were outraged. They crossed party lines and came to his defense on professional grounds.
     Perhaps only long-time members of the Masonic Lodge subset “Skull and Bones” and former Christie backer Karl Rove know how Big Boy got on W.’s “enemies list.” Also, it has been widely reported that the Castro regime has long been looking to discredit Menendez for his pro U.S. sanctions stance against Communist Cuba.
     But when the subpoenas were delivered to Senator Menendez’s offices two months before the elections that eventually ratified Bob’s appointment anyway, Big Boy was safely reinstated in his old job as corruption-fighting prosecutor. Menendez's career; however, was badly tarnished by the federal witchhunt.
     Oh, how the pendulum swings.

     Now those same feds – in the office Christie once ran as an undefeated champion – is subpoenaing records of their former standard bearer.

     And Menendez, despite setbacks of an underage prostitutes scandal in the Dominican Republic and an Ecuadorean bank scandal in Florida – has found time to wax rhapsodic about the hinterlands of the Virgin Islands.
     “Remember Ma Laureys!” Some people in Morris County still say that today. The same way people in San Antonio say: “Remember the Alamo!”

     Ma Laureys is the mother of 10 Big Boy slandered to get onto the seven-member board of the Chosen Freeholders of Morris County twenty years ago.
     As Mark Twain said: “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
Big Boy said there was “an investigation” into Ma Laureys. It was actually just “an inquiry.” The difference between the two words is what put him into elected office in New Jersey for the first time.
     The writing has been on the wall – or water under the bridge – for a long time on Big Boy.
     And the bigger you are: the harder you fall.
     Or is it bully for you and chilly for me?
     How was your President’s Day holiday?

 

John McCarthy is an investigative journalist, artist and author who lives in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Please send comments to: johnfmccarthy807@msn.com or (340) 514-4087

EVERY NOW AND ZEN THEY CHOOSE A NEW DALAI LAMA, THE CHINESE WILLING ...

http://themoderatevoice.com/191550/in-china-dl-stands-for-more-than-disabled-list-ambert-alert-is-nearly-20-yars-old-on-the-panchen-lama/

 

IN CHINA “DL” STANDS FOR MORE THAN “DISABLED LIST”: AMBER ALERT IS NEARLY 20 YEARS OLD ON THE PANCHEN LAMA: THE VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

 

By JOHN F. McCARTHY

MODERATE VOICE COLUMNIST

 

     Ever wonder why you see those “Free Tibet” bumper stickers on peoples’ cars?

     We have a few of them here – in St. Croix, the U.S. Virgin Islands – where I live.

     For Liberals it used to be “End Apartheid” – a bumper sticker that you can still see on Danny Glover’s fridge in the movie “Lethal Weapon.”

     But in the year of Nelson Mandela’s death – Apartheid is dead but the reason to “Free Tibet” is not.

     One reason Tibet deserves to be a free and independent nation – free and apart from a China that controls it – is that it is the historical home of the Dalai Lama. A Dalai Lama who currently is forced to live in exile in northern India – and who has chosen his rightful successor – but now HE can’t be found – he was disppeared from Tibet nearly twenty years ago – and was last seen in the hands of the Chinese.

     How could that possibly be? You might ask.

     Well, six Nobel Laureates and four hundred celebrities can’t be wrong.

     Or can they be?

     A little background might help. The Dalai Lama is: the Buddhist spiritual leader from Tibet. More specifically – to about 20 million Buddhists – he is the “Pope” of their religion. They believe that he is the living reincarnation of the first Buddha, born Siddhartha Gautama.

     Great Wall of China. So where’s the problem?

     The problem is: The Dalai Lama (which means “High Priest” or literally “ocean guru” in Mongolian) chose his legitimate successor – and, uh, well – the Chinese government “vanished” him three days later.

     Unbelievable you say.

     Well, that was 1995 – when the once and future Dalai was just six years old – nineteen years later nothing has changed. Or nearly nothing. At least as far as we know.

     Because when it comes to “transparency,” the Chinese government is always on high smog toxic alert.

     What do you mean by “nothing?” Well, you might say: “nothing” if you feel that the 376 million people worldwide who practice Buddhism don’t add up. It is only about one-third the size of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. And the number of Buddhists who follow Tenzin Gyatso, the 14^th Dalai Lama – could fit inside the New York City metropolitan area.

     So we’re NOT talking about a lot of religious people here – only about 20 million – give or take a few.

     But what if, prior to Pope Francis of Argentina succeeding Pope Benedict of Germany, the government of Italy decided to kidnap Jorge Mario Bergoglio from St. Peter’s Basilica inside Vatican City – and not only kidnap him and make him disappear – but also Jorge and all of his immediate Bergoglio family members?

     Sounds like something out of “The Sopranos.” Or “The Gotti Files.” And that’s exactly the scenario the 79-year-old Dalai Lama (born Tenzin Gyatso) finds himself in today.

     If you have seen the brilliant documentary “10 Questions for The Dalai Lama,” then you have a better understanding of what happened to six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima – a person human rights experts used to call “the world’s youngest political prisoner” – only the movie suggests that neither he – nor his relatives – are still with us.

     So they ended up like that guy who accidentally bumped his car into John Gotti’s school-age son in Howard Beach, Queens – and then disappeared in a van four months later – never to be heard from – or seen – again.

     If you ask the Chinese government, as the United Nations Council on Human Rights did in 2007 – Beijing said that the then 12-year-old Panchen Lama –as the successor to the Dalai Lama is known – was a healthy and growing boy.

     "Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is a perfectly ordinary Tibetan boy, in an excellent state of health, leading a normal, happy life and receiving a good education and cultural upbringing. He is currently in upper secondary school, he measures 165 cm in height and is easy-going by nature. He studies hard and his school results are very good. He likes Chinese traditional culture and has recently taken up calligraphy. His parents are both State employees, and his brothers and sisters are either already working or at university. The allegation that he disappeared together with his parents and that his whereabouts remain unknown is simply not true."

     The part about his brothers and sisters “EITHER WORKING OR AT UNIVERSITY” must be one of those lost in translation bits – because it reads ominously today as if what we suspect to be true – is true.

     Seven years later – when “the boy” should be at least twenty-five years old – if he is still alive at all imprisoned somewhere – there is simply no credible report! Imagine if Italy had done the same thing with Pope Francis – as loveable and cuddly as the 77-year-old Pontiff is now – can you imagine the uproar? It might have caused even Mussolini to turn over in his grave – and most certainly would have triggered a brief World War III – with Rome bearing the brunt of a few Tomahawk missles.

     Instead, because it is China – where the record on Human Rights – is, shall we say “compromised” at best – no one says nothin’ at all – and gets away with it! In fact, everyone right now is talking about the Olympics in Russia, another place that is a total stranger to the Rule of Law.

     To make matters worse, the Chinese government, citing Emporer Qing from 1735 (when a Dalai Lama was once chosen by a lottery drawing the names written on barley leaves from a golden urn) installed their own Panchen Lama six months after they made the legitimate one disappear from Tibet – and his name is Gyaincain Norbu.

     Some magic trick. So as it officially stands – who will be the next Dalai Lama is officially in “dispute.” Like what happened in Tiananmen Square that the Chinese people can’t read about because the government has whited out most of the Internet there.

     This “dispute” was executed by the Chinese government in lands they control near the Himalaya Mountains – where they allegedly kidhapped Gedhum Choekyi Nyima from Tibet – along with him and every living immediate family member.

     Now Buddhists are known to be “Zen” in the face of difficult times – and the Dalai Lama himself  – who is 78 years old – has said that there might not ever be another Ocean Guru of Buddhism – and if there is – it might even be a woman this time – but it will definitely not be someone “reborn” in a country controlled by the Chinese, he insists.

     That means Tibet – the homeland of the current Dalai Lama and every “enlightened one” since Buddhism began (except the 3^rd Dalai Lama who was born in Mongolia) – is out. Places inside the Tibetan cultural beltway; however – India, Nepal and Bhutan – are in. That is – unless we can “free Tibet” – which seems unlikely at this point.

     So the next time you see a “Free Tibet” bumper sticker on a car in front of you, don’t allow your karma to run over my dogma.

     Or something like that – just remember that China has re-written the book on Human Rights when it comes to the Dalai Lama and Tibet.

     Now and Zen, you’ll be right.

 

© 2014 Copyright John Francis McCarthy/Secret Goldfish Publishing House

THE FOURTH STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA: WHAT TO EXPECT: A PROFESSIONAL JOURNALIST WEIGHS IN

THE OBAMA-NATION REVISITED: THE BLAME DOG GAME OF WHOEVER SMELT IT, DEALT IT: THE VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
 
    The State of the Union is nigh upon us again - a time to reflect back on the year that was - and look forward to the year - and the future - that still is - possible.
    But looking farther back, after the first such address – the administration had taken steps to counter "The Great Depression II (The Sequel)” and President Obama said that he was shocked, shocked that "they talk about me like [I'm] a dog."
    Still, no one actual person actually said that specific phrase on the record - and for attribution.
    So at long last - and, by popular demand – just hours before the State of the Nation Address - President Obama gets his! I'm going to do him the service of formally calling him "a dog" in print - (easier to track if you're the NSA spying on its own citizens - especially if the column itself originates in cyberspace).
    And as a Liberal Democrat (with moderate tendencies) - it carries more Chris Christie weight - what F. Scott Fitzgerald liked to call "leverage."
    And I'm not going to say this was all a "dream" sequence at the end of it and that it was actually the Red Chinese calling us all Running Dogs of American Imperialism.
    In other words, this ain't no "Family Guy" episode - no animals living or cartoon - will be harmed in the writing of this column. Nor is it a party, a disco or a "fooling around" of any kind. And if I start dressing like a housewife, or a student, not only will I owe royalties to Eddie Izzard or David Byrne, but we'll all know that that's not allowed.
(Tapping phone lines - that was also not allowed at the time that Talking Heads song was popular - but that was all pre-Big Brother NSA.)
 
    Now, first of all, the Vice President, Mr. Joe Biden, makes his Christmas and New Year's vacations (like Martha Stewart does) in St. Croix. While Mr. Obama vacations in his native Hawaii (which is also part of the United States unless you are a birther named The Donald.) Trump this, you're fired!
    So right off the old bat (no offense Martha), we've got a bone to pick with the President.
President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary spent a Christmas or two in St. Thomas, all very cool and in the gang if you're a Virgin Islander. Before them, former V-P Al Gore and his wife Tipper vacationed in Charlotte Amalie (the only major world city named after a female leader).
    So naturally, we'd be a bit miffed, I mean we traded up when we went from Alipper to Billory - only to go from President to Vice President in 2009 (no offense Joe, you're still welcome back this year!  I've got a cold "Greenie" on ice waiting for you at the Sally's Fancy Sportsman’s Club on the South Shore.)
    Meanwhile, I won't be the first Progressive to have called out the President, though. Oliver Stone called Mr. Obama "a snake" over the internecine tracking of phone calls by the NSA. Fellow writer David Mamet said he, too, was “no longer a brain-dead Liberal" (although he said it before the President was actually elected, so it would be difficult to ascertain his actual criticism of Mr. Obama.) Director Michael Moore took issue with Obamacare, saying it was an obamanation - good only if it led to a single-payer plan.
 
    It used to be - when you graduated from college - and you went for a big interview, say with FoMoCo (Ford Motor Company for you non-native Detroiters) the smart HR execs used to ask: "If you had to describe yourself as an animal, which one would it be? And why?"
    Oh, boy. One of my best friend's wives (as opposed to "Best Friend's Girlfriend" by The Cars) answered that question honestly, saying that if she had to choose an animal it would probably be a loving, protective, faithful dog like her dear pet, "Cujo" -
    [Buzzer gong sound] Wrong answer! You're fired again, Donald Trump! (Offense intended).
    You see, what they wanted you to say in The Interview, is that you see yourself as a predatory jungle cat, ready to pounce on prey big and small - to make more money for FoMoCo. What they ask now - and what they want you to answer - I can only wonder.
In those days, you couldn't just Google "questions they might ask in a job interview."
    And today, if you said in a job interview that you saw yourself as a dangerous lion or tiger on the hunt for fresh meat and blood - they'd probably put you on full Dahmer Alert, call security, strip search you twice, hose you down and frog march you out of the building with a Hannibal Lector mask on. Not bad for a night in Las Vegas, but for a gentle lamb like yourself in a quiet, simple job interview, it would be nothing to keep silent about.
    Which brings us back to Chris Christie and Donald Trump (no, not The Donald, he was fired) and what Americans want in a President. Honesty? Might be a good starting point. But, staying with this going-to-the-dogs theme - if Americans had to - I mean absolutely had to - (no choice) - choose a type of dog to be their President, what type of dog would it be?
    My contention is that Americans would NOT choose a pit bull (no offense Pit Bull - the Miami-based rapper for you folks born before 1980) but rather a German shepherd. The only bad thing you can say about a German shepherd, is that one of them was Hitler's dog, but that's not really the dog's fault.  And if you saw the brilliant movie "Downfall,” you know even "Blondie" got executed. John Gotti had a mastiff, which are huge prehistoric-looking Great Dane-like animals - and old Adolf used Rottweilers to guard his "prison" camps, maybe as a conservative cost-cutting measure.
    Sorry, I just saw a promo for Martin Bashir's new show on a faux cable TV network. [WAS HE REALLY FOAMING AT THE MOUTH? Or was that like the Devil Baby FX (“Devil’s Due” movie trailer) on YouTube?]
    Anyway, Americans want their Presidents to be more like German shepherds than pit bulls. They want them to catch security threats - but have the presence of mind to un-tooth them upon command - not bite down hard and release when euthanized.
    Of course, H.W. took this to extremes with Saddam Hussein. Catch and release might be sporting news for fish, but with genocidal dictators it was a Schwarzkopf too far.  Mr. Obama is the perfect German shepherd Président on paper, although he turned out to be judge, jury, executioner and mortician at sea. W. was: “What dog? I've been looking for eight years!” (And the dog ate my homework.) Clinton was: a pit bull in wolf's clothing. Reagan was: Tear down this wall, because that dog can't hunt! Carter was: well, Jimmy had a cat. Nixon was a pit bull. Chris Christie is a pit boss bully alley cat, because there is only one animal that toys with its prey after capturing it. So we can see which President he is setting up to most be like - let's just hope he doesn't griddle on the White House roof.
    My two favorite Republicans, Chris Christie before Bridgegate and Mike Huckabee before Libido-Gate, have left me wondering if foot-in-mouth disease doesn't have something to do with being bitten by a rabid dog? [Since you're having fun with this, Sarah Palin has many canine qualities, (one is a five-letter word that begins with a "b" and ends with you scratching your head (because you have an "itch") but she is officially classified scientifically as a "wild-eyed hyena" (genus slapus on the gluteus maximus) - and the Arkansas Governor-Preacher (M.H.) is a sloe-eyed sloth.]
    So when you add it all up, what do we gain by name-calling? As the late Rodney King said: “Can't we all just get along?" And in a way, he was right, because we should all strive to live in peace, harmony and happiness. But in another sense, he's wrong. Because all's we've been doing all along (the watchtower) is going along UNDER THE GUISE OF GETTING ALONG.
    And now, just to mix in a whole slew of zoo allusions and mixed metaphors, the crows have come home to roost. It was wrong when Malcolm X said that about JFK's assassination, and it felt wrong - even just looking at them - when Van Gogh painted them into one of his last paintings.
    The point being, if we are going to reap what we sow, why not start planting good seeds today? The same old tired advice givers, putting bugs in the oversized ears (if you read political cartoons) of the Chief Executive, running the same old dog and pony show - it might be good enough to win Westminster Kennel Club honors in New York (in Sean Hannity's old offices now that he's moved to Florida over Governor Cuomo's pro-choice comments) but it's not good enough for us as loyal Americans.
    So just when I thought it was getting better, it's actually getting worse. While I was watching TV, writing this column, Mr. Bashir just had another Homer Simpson-like "Doh!" moment. Oh, no he di'n’t. Oh, yes he did. I'm trying to scribble down everything Martin is saying, but it appears he's headed for another "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" just like the New Jersey Governor, because Bashir said that Christie, being a rather large man mesomorphically-speaking, "Houdini-like, made the smoking cone disappear somewhere on the Dark Side of the Moon."
    So it appears, then, that Martin Bashir will be fired all over again. Oh great, and over such a silly thing, really, because we all know Christie is a fan of Springsteen - not Pink Floyd.
    But all in all, it's just another brick in the Berlin wall.
    Mr. Obama's handlers trotted the President-to-be out in Germany in 2008 so that we could all be RE-inspired by John F. Kennedy's "Ich Bin Berliner" speech - and we were all appropriately inspired. He said then we are “a world that stands as one.” He was right then and he is right now. And who (besides Rush Limbaugh) was not inspired by President Obama's speech at Nelson Mandela's funeral? Remember the loud roar of the crowd? Goose pimples. Right?
    If America leads the world, why can't President Obama lead from a world stage? If he is being jeered at home, why not take the show on the road where he is loved and adored by millions -- and where he would be cheered? (My only advice would be not to stand too close to the guy who looks like he doesn't know how to do sign language next time.)
    We are facing exceptional challenges in this new century, America is fighting not to become Rome Redux. We have an exceptional new generation leader to lead us.
    This is not a time for him to be playing follow the leader. It is a time for him to be giving commands and taking command. Will the tail wag the dog, or the dog wag the tail in the last half of Mr. Obama's second term?
    Never forget it is the Year of the Horse. Let not the Democratic donkey be called an ass.
    After dog comes duck in the name-calling business - as in lame duck.
    If you lead, we will follow.
 
 
© 2014 Secret Goldfish Publishing House/John Francis McCarthy