I was actually stupid and naïve enough to think that perhaps, PERHAPS … after the unspeakable horrific Sandy Hook massacre, we, as a society would actually mature and get together as a society to BAN semi – automatic weapons. Well, I am now convinced that even if the children of every single NRA member were viciously gunned down in cold blood, this country would sadly never change.

America loves its guns and even if it means sacrificing his or her very own children, it will never give them up. I personally have given up on trying to do anything about gun laws – it’s an exercise in futility. This Isla Vista “monster” was deemed by the state of CA sane enough to own firearms, so…

Anyway, WhaDaYaThink ? What do you think ? Our species is completely NUTS and bent on destroying itself, so I guess it’s just a matter of enjoying your time while it lasts.

P.S. – After Sandy Hook, Pres. Obama made a rhetorical statement along the lines of ..”are we defenseless against random gun violence?”  Ummm, I think the answer is abundantly obvious now – YES !!!

The recent harrowing killing spree in CA has galvanized discussion regarding misogyny in the United States. There has even been a hashtag thrown up on Twitter stating:  #YesAllWomen   the goal of which is to unite all women to stand up against men who hate and marginalize women.

I have personally blogged over the last couple of years more than a few times regarding the remarkable strides and progress women have made over the last few decades … from the ‘Leave it to Beaver’ happy homemaker to CEO of fortune 500 companies. Hey, our next president may very well be a woman.

I was listening to the ‘Brian Lehrer’   show this morning and the misogyny topic cropped up. What I was able to glean from the discussion and female callers was how annoying, degrading, and sometimes even terrifying “catcalls” can be. My thoughts are 1. I, nor any of my friends or even casual acquaintances have ever whistled, made stupid and inane remarks to a woman walking down 5^th Ave (there’s a joke by some female comedienne who hilariously claimed that she always gives out her # and contact information and very frequently dates catcallers – lol).  2. Is some illiterate idiot whistling @ you on the street the worst thing in the world ??? (BTW, young women, your worries about catcalling will quickly no longer be an issue in about 20 years or so … just wait a bit, and father time will resolve the problem) 90% of the men out there do NOT catcall and are as respectful to women as they are to men.

So WhaDaYaThink ? What do you think ? I’m certainly not suggesting that it’s okay for a group of morons (especially if you feel physically threatened) to behave unspeakably moronic, but most guys are cool – believe me.

P.S. – My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and family of that twisted monster (I refuse to give his name)  who should have been in a mental facility and certainly it goes without saying he ought to have had zero access to firearms.

How many mob/bad – guy movies can you watch before you say “enough – already !!!”

When I was a kid (I actually appreciated the film more as an adult, when I was able to understand everything) my favorite mafia movie of all time was ‘The Godfather’, directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1972. I was shocked beyond belief when the sequel, The Godfather Part II released 2 years later was actually (not by much, but still …) better !!! Al Pacino portraying the formerly sweet & nice guy who wanted nothing to do with the family (well, we knew it was coming at the end of Godfather I) and turned into the surprisingly, most – vicious – Machiavellian don one can imagine (another blog).

Anyway, I just recently watched ‘Good Fellas’ and it brought back memories of  how GREAT that movie was. Wow !!! This film, ‘Good Fellas’ was made 24 years ago in 1990 and I can’t even begin to describe how powerful & how well this move has stood the test of time. Unlike the ‘Godfathers’ I & II (btw, Godfather III was a dog and perhaps one of the worst movies ever made) Good Fellas really sort of made you feel like you were right there with the BAD guys and what made it so intriguing was that it was so different from ‘The Godfather’. This film invited you to vicariously live the life of the “soldier” lifestyle of the Cosa Nostra. The Godfather’ films tried, and obviously succeeded, in portraying the mob as simply corporate America in which killing other human beings was just an occupational hazard.

I’m not going to elaborate too much, because I think everyone has seen the aforementioned films, but allow me to go back to memory lane and throw up some of my favorite ‘Good Fellas’ scenes.

·        If you see someone who looks like this and is looking at you this way, you probably don’t have much longer to live    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmF_Phk6eIE

·        This is great dark comedy here …. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeL8EYtbVw0

·        And of course, the – “ are you amusing me scene” is perhaps one of the greatest scenes in all of  cinema    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC5al-btIEw

So WhaDaYaThink ? What do you think ? Martin Scorsese has made some unspeakably great movies e.g. ‘Raging Bull’, ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘Cape Fear’, ‘The Aviator’, ‘The King of Comedy’ … & more, but the last few films have been major bombs. Is Marty done ???

How do we fix an obviously broken system? Frontline, the greatest PBS in-depth documentary television program ever, shared with us the scary truth this week about three facts: 1. It is prodigiously expensive to keep an (alleged) bad guy in jail or prison (wayyyyy more expensive than helping a poor person via welfare for example. It literally costs the state millions of $$’s for each inmate) 2. 90 % of the guys incarcerated are not killers and rapists. In fact, most prisoners have just been dealt a really lousy hand in life. The prisons and jails are full of poor, unskilled, and more often than not – BLACK folks whom society has abandoned and simply tossed away like trash. There are scores of people who would like nothing more than to just blot them out (ummm … whether this is your sentiment or not, the bottom line is that you the taxpayer are paying for their incarceration … an obscene 1 – 2 million dollars per inmate). 3. REHABILITATION is a joke!!! Besides, the majority of our society is more interested in retribution than rehabilitation.
Let me be clear here by stating the obvious: I am an emotional human being who would want nothing less than having anybody who harmed my loved ones, or my cats for that that matter, tarred and feathered & perhaps afterwards burnt at the stake!!! I think most folks are on the same page with me here. This however is not the issue. Most of the people in prison are minorities, incarcerated for drug – related offences, and have had pathetically poor public defenders because they couldn’t afford anyone else. Hence, what you see are two types of justice: one for the rich and one for the poor. Jordan Belfort, the Wall street scoundrel, spent a mere 2 years in a country – club – like prison for stealing 100’s of millions of dollars from hard – working honest businessmen. On the other side of the track, you have poor black or poor white people getting 30 years to life for selling weed or smoking crack. How fair is that??? Incidentally, Jordan Belfort, if you read his memoir, smoked more crack and snorted just as much cocaine as any poor person doing life. The difference is that because Belfort hired the greatest attorneys $$ can buy, he’s now free as a bird, and though he’s been banned from trading securities for life, he basically has most of his money back selling books and giving motivational speeches.
So WhaDaYathink ? What do you think ? I hope you can get this link (Unfortunately, I’m having a problem posting the link. If you have time, just google Frontline and watch the most recent episode called ‘Prison State’)

How can you not weep after seeing this insane injustice??? It’s hard to fathom that these appallingly poor people, with no family structure whatsoever, and years of unimaginable abuse have any sort of chance in this life.

Wow !!! It simply does not get any worse than this. I know Scorsese was just doing his dark humor thing: glamorize and satirize the bad guy – which he so masterfully accomplished with Henry Hill and the mafia with ‘Good Fellas’. However, Martin Scorsese released an absolute mess with his loosely – based biopic (same dark humor style) about the Wall Street tycoon, Jordan Belfort (Yep, the movie ‘The Boiler Room’ was also loosely based on Jordan Belfort), in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’. Martin Scorsese is a pint – sized 71 year old grown man who vicariously has had the amazing good fortune to make his want to – be, alter – ego come true on the big screen – you know what I’m talking about: small but powerful, handsome, ambitious, unspeakably rich, utterly fearless, misogynistic (why the marginalization of women ???) adolescent via commercial feature filmmaking. Martin Scorsese is a brilliant man who I suspect despises the fact that he is and has always been a frail, small man who could never, ever be in real life one of his anti – heroes for whom I truly believe he has this secret admiration and hence lives in his make – believe world of cinema. Marty sadly but perhaps fortuitously suffered from asthma as a child (Marty could never play with his friends and spent his childhood watching film – a curse and a blessing). Scorsese has always loved the rebels, and I earnestly suspect that he wanted to be one of those “bad guys. “Well, given his prodigious popularity in the make believe cinema world in which he now lives and with which he grew up, too sick to be a ‘wise guy’ (while his peers lived in the real world)… he can now be whomever he wants – that handsome, rich, powerful guy with the beautiful blonde by his side. Whatever the motivation behind any Martin Scorsese motion picture, one has to agree that he is a lover of film, unspeakably talented, a genius, and perhaps one of the greatest directors of our time, but, well, this movie was a bomb.
Okay to spin this movie in a positive light, one can say that, as outright ugly and disturbing as this film was, what Scorsese wanted to portray was a modern day Caligula, no holds barred. I suppose that on some level you can say that Wall Street seen in this picture is a microcosm of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. This is hedonism on steroids… debauchery to a nauseating degree (FOR 3 HOURS, how much can a person take watching 20 something millionaires doing drugs and having sex – BORING & STUPIDLY OVER THE TOP.
The motion picture begins with a make – believe commercial (now Marty is a ruthless Wall St. mogul instead of a Joe Pesci mafia hit man) and then quickly switches to a dwarf – tossing contest led by Martin’s new cinema darling, Leonardo Dicaprio (yep, Robert De Niro , you’ve been bumped). I personally could not believe my eyes … a brilliant film scholar and genius in Martin Scorsese, in some way giving validation suggesting that it’s funny or cool to throw around little people for money (Ummm, excuse me Mr. Scorsese, the Faustian Howard Stern already owns this domain). Well, hold on, I say… Martin Scorsese is short & maybe this is just satire and maybe this really happened (though Jordan Belfort claims it’s all B.S.) – right ? Ummm, hang on, the very next shot is Jordan (you know that’s Scorsese) snorting cocaine from a beautiful blonde woman’s rectum –– way over the top !!! I should have turned it off there, but I endured the whole 3 hours of Fu#@ing, drugs, and 20 something year olds behaving unspeakably badly and with way too much $$$ -UGGGGGH
Okay – fine, show the partying and excess, but for 3 HOURS and nothing else??? I mean, you may as well have watched, ‘Animal House’ – same stuff, only with a yacht and a lot of money. Hey and by the way, that Quaalude scene was as absurd as it gets (not true, and not funny). The movie in a nutshell is ‘Good Fellas’ (I mean DiCaprio’s voiceover sounded exactly like Ray Liotta’s, but on Wall Street) on super – charged drugs without any depth of character, plot, consequences, etc.
Yes, there were some powerful, gripping, profound and moving scenes (it is Marty after all, not unlike Woody, even the turkeys have @ least a scene or 2) but my question to Martin Scorsese, is why not touch on the repercussions of crazy behavior and excess; and why not dig deeper into the characters ?
So WhaDaYaThink ? What do you think ? I, personally, being a Scorsese fan, was offended and appalled by this piece of garbage of a movie. The films to watch are : 1. ‘Good Fellas’ 2. ‘Raging Bull’ 3. ‘Aviator’ 4. ‘Cape Fear’ 5.’ Taxi Driver’ 6. ‘The King of Comedy’ 7.’ After Hours’ & 8. ‘The Departed’ … ummm 8 films, not bad – lol….but don’t waste your time and $$$ on this one.
Btw, much to my dismay, a lot of the appalling stuff seen in the picture actually happened – it did??? (though, I personally don’t believe most of it) and if you YouTube Jordan Belfort, it is disturbing beyond comprehension, that such a less than intelligent person in Mr. Belfort could actually steal that much $$$ from real, legitimate businessmen.
Oh, and here is another FYI, though the motion picture was ultimately a success – grossing thus far over $389 million dollars on a $100 million dollar budget (aren’t those #’s in terms of $$ absolutely disturbing???) some folks who actually paid the $10 to see the movie when it was initially released, walked out and demanded a refund. I applaud those people and I want my time and money back too. Martin Scorsese is a 71 year old little boy who never grew up (literally and figuratively – lol) and never will!!! I would love to get your thoughts.

My route to work each day places me in its direct path, whizzes by most times, stops and lingers for passengers at others. Usually I don’t think about it, but at moments I still do, especially when the past is once again dredged up by yet another news article. But it deserves dredging up. It must not be ignored as Kitty’s cries were 50 years ago today.
The Kew Gardens Long Island railroad station is infamous for the murder of Kitty Genovese that took place on March 13, 1964. An area long associated with my past, I am thoroughly familiar with the surrounding fabric of the neighborhood, with the nightmare now interwoven into an underlying muted shade of gray. I remember when it happened. I was still quite young and yet it made an indelible impression, carried into the years afterward hanging out with friends. The whisperings of “It was right here……..on that spot” still induces tingles on the nerves of my scalp whenever I think of it. The back alley, somewhat secluded then, now inhabits an inviting Irish coffee shop and cozy pub frequented by many. What happened then seems the stuff of myth or legend.
I won’t repeat the details of the event. There are numerous articles to be found that were written at the time and continue to surface today. In essence, Kitty Genovese was murdered this day at 3:15 am upon returning home from her job as manager at (ironically) Ev’s Eleventh Hour Sports Bar. She was 29 years old.
Kitty parked her car in the railroad station parking lot and began the short walk home to an apartment she shared with a friend. She never made it. She was stabbed twice and stumbled into the back entrance of her building which was locked. Her screams for help were largely ignored by at least a dozen people. The attacker fled only to return and trace her steps to finish what he had begun. Unspeakable acts, random, inhuman, and so very very senseless.
Only one neighbor whose name bears mentioning, Sophia Farrar, bravely stepped forward and held the dying woman in her arms until the ambulance that was finally summoned came to her aid. Kitty died enroute to the hospital. It was 4:15. This horrific sequence of events took place within the hour.
Chilling testimonies from those who heard or witnessed portions of the attack but failed to respond prompted psychological research on the “bystander effect” and Kitty’s case has become a textbook classic used in social psychology. It also sparked the 911 system and enacted “Good Samaritan” laws for the legal protection of people who assist those in trouble.
It’s interesting to note that 10 years after Kitty’s demise, 25 year old Sandra Zahler was beaten to death on Christmas morning in an apartment overlooking the Genovese crime scene. Again, neighbors who heard the sreams did nothing. One might ask “Who was Kitty Genovese?” A better one to ask would be “Who are we?”

So……………..whadayathink? Have we learned anything as a society about getting involved in a cry for help? Where’s the compassion? All they had to do was pick up the phone.

Would you confess to committing a crime (not just a misdemeanor but also a felony like murder or rape) that you didn’t do? Certainly not !!! One might say, that most sane and rational people would not under any conditions admit to a crime of which they had absolutely no part and I agree, however, there is a phenomena called interrogation – induced false confessions which sadly and outrageously has led to the indictment, conviction, incarceration, and even death of completely innocent people e.g. mentally – ill, uneducated, poor, etc. YES, indeed it happens all too frequently and the bullying and coercive tactics of law enforcement officials has to cease immediately!!!

I’m certainly not suggesting that cops want to arrest innocent people, however there is unspeakable pressure coming from the press, public, and everyone else to get the bad guy ASAP, hence interrogators will resort to the most despicable tactics e.g. Sleep deprivation, lying to the purported suspects about being released, encouraging suspects to admit to a crime they didn’t commit, etc.
I think the most notorious case is the Central Park jogger case (everyone must see Ken Burns’ ‘Central Park Five’) in which 5 innocent black boys admitted to raping and leaving for dead a woman who was young, white, educated, and worked on Wall Street as an investment banker. The tragedy even prompted the clownish Donald Trump to pay for a full-page ad in the New York Times demanding that the boys be put to death. Fortunately, because of the advent of DNA, the boys were exonerated, but sadly not after having spent many years in prison – years in their prime, which they can never get back.

What I find prodigiously unbelievable is that these false forced confessions are still happening TODAY, 2014 in this country to our own citizens (of course to the poor, uneducated, and the neglected). I don’t have the exact # of these miscarriages of justice but I know it’s substantial. Let’s stop this type of coercive interrogation and call your congressman.
So WhaDaYaThink ? What do you think ? I honestly don’t think that law enforcement wants to “hang” an innocent guy, but when there is pressure, anything can happen.

Point #1:  The suicide bombers who attacked us on 9/11 are/were cowards.

·        Howard Stern believes they were cowards , even though they were willing to die for their actions.

·        Bill Maher adamantly points out that indeed the actions of the terrorists were beyond comprehension –  sick, evil, and twistedly evil, however the terrorists were nevertheless not cowardly, they actually were willing to give up their lives for what they believed in.

Point #2: All men who join the military are tough – ass – brave Mother – Fuckers.

·        Both Stern and Maher concur on this point.

Point #3: An advanced militarily – super powerful country with multi – million $$ jets are safely and easily able to twistedly lob powerful bombs on innocent civilians, killing scores of people and turning a town or city into a literal fireball (Yes women, children, and innocent babies were incinerated).  

·        Stern thinks this is courageous and ingenious.

·        Maher vehemently disagrees.

Point #4: Suicide missions, as a form of warfare are imprudent and never effective in terms of accomplishing military goals.

·        Stern thinks that anyone who would sacrifice his or her life in battle is insane and is strategically unsound (Stern’s words – insane)

·        Bill Maher couldn’t disagree more and in fact believes that this course of action is probably the wisest action in terms of having any possible chance at winning a war against a nation – state that has far superior resources and military power.

Point# 5: Dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a good idea.

·        The completely ignorant Howard Stern thought that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was just a swell idea (hearing this from big bird just makes me want to vomit).

·        Bill Maher knows his history and in fact was mindful of the fact that the Japanese were willing to surrender before the U.S. dropped the bomb.  Hey here’s another FYI , the U.S. completely bombed the living crap out of Tokyo turning the city into just one big fireball – the war was over & Truman simply wanted to insert the coup – de – grace and show – off to the Russians.

So, WhaDaYaThink ? What do you think ? Who do you like better, or do you think they are both jack – ass comedians who should not even talk about serious, weighty matters.  What angers me the most I think, is the misuse of the word “coward” – evil, disgusting PIGS !!! – YES, but not cowardly, they killed themselves …. Last I read Howard Stern and Bill Maher are still alive with their mansions, money and beautiful wives.

Just a little something about how absurd the word “war by conventional means” is : “ A defenseless city, Tokyo attacked by legal weapons designed to create a firestorm (can you imagine ???) here is a cut and paste from Wikipedia

The figure of roughly 100,000 deaths, provided by Japanese and American authorities, both of whom may have had reasons of their own for minimizing the death toll, seems to me arguably low in light of population density, wind conditions, and survivors’ accounts. With an average of 103,000 inhabitants per square mile (396 people per hectare) and peak levels as high as 135,000 per square mile (521 people per hectare), the highest density of any industrial city in the world, and with firefighting measures ludicrously inadequate to the task, 15.8 square miles (41 km2) of Tokyo were destroyed on a night when fierce winds whipped the flames and walls of fire blocked tens of thousands fleeing for their lives. An estimated 1.5 million people lived in the burned out areas.[12]

I guess this is all peachy – keen for Mr. Stern who makes millions of $$$ for penis jokes and who thinks dropping bombs (and even nuclear weapons)  on third world countries is a joke !!!

I am 50 years old and have never been arrested in my entire life; this is the case one can only surmise for all or at least the majority of solid citizens who are law – abiding and choose not to break the law. George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder and all manslaughter charges on July 13, 2013 in one of the most notorious and celebrated trials in recent history and already he’s getting into trouble.

Mr. Zimmerman’s wife, Shellie (incidentally she’s planning on divorcing him now) is alleging that her husband threatened her while brandishing a knife as well as a firearm. I know that Zimmerman has not been indicted and certainly, legally speaking, this has no connection with the Trayvon Martin case but wow, this certainly raises a red flag in terms of what type of person Zimmerman is.

So, WhaDaYaThink ? What do you think? Does this latest incident make you think twice about whether or not the jury rendered the correct verdict in the aforementioned Martin case or do you suppose this was just an unconnected coincidence ???

Is Pfc. Bradley Manning a whistle – blowing hero/martyr or a traitor? Even if you think Manning is a “Benedict Arnold”, I think the not guilty verdict of “aiding the enemy” is a sound verdict and the correct one. Contrarily, I also believe the presiding Judge, Col. Denise R. Lind, was right about the GUILTY verdicts regarding the other plethora of espionage charges – again, regardless if you think he is a hero or traitor.  Most people polled agree with the verdicts but what’s going to be prodigiously difficult, is the sentencing.

Private Bradley Manning released 100s of thousands of top – secret military and policy documents not to the New York Times, The Washington Post, nor to some of the other reputable news organizations, but rather he released this monumentally sensitive and classified  information to the highly questionable,  WikiLeaks for all the world to see, including such enemies as Al Qaeda. So, I think we all can agree upon the fact that Manning was stupid, naïve, and reckless and  obviously not just some innocent victim of our criminal justice system which the defense would lead you to believe that he, Private Bradley Manning was – just a guy who was outraged by the war atrocities committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact there are many people out there who believe in the theory that he was an angry, bitter,  and resentful closeted (or was he openly gay ???) homosexual who wanted to get back at for one, his right – wing conservative father who incessantly berated him.

It’s all very confusing in terms of what Manning’s motivation was, but one thing that bothers and scares me is how it was possible for a low – level guy just like Snowden had 1. Access to all this classified and profoundly deleterious information that could have (according to the prosecution) potentially crippled the security of this nation and 2. Why was this so – called “top – secret” information so easily obtained??? This is a quote from Bradley Manning, which I find to be absolutely mind – boggling: “  I got this information and it was so easy, there were weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counterintelligence, and inattentive signal analysis.”

So, WhaDaYaThink ? What do you think ? Believe it or not, Judge Col. Denise R. Lind can sentence Pfc. Bradley Manning to 136 years – wow !!! Just think about it, if I had information about a “My Lai Massacre” and the government deemed that information “top – secret and classified” I could get a life sentence for revealing the unspeakable evil that the government of the United States is capable of.