what if?

"If I Don't Do It..."

"Who Will?"

After graduating from Duke, Regan turned down a job offer from UBS, a financial services company, and a scholarship to Southern Methodist University’s law school to enlist in the Army, where he passed on Officer Candidate School to focus on becoming a Ranger.

“He said, ‘If I don’t do it, then who will do it?’” said Regan’s fiancee, Mary McHugh, a medical student at Emory University who, like scores of others at the Park Avenue house yesterday, wore Regan’s high school graduation photo clipped to her shirt. “He recognized it as an option and he couldn’t not do it.”

Army Sergeant James John Regan was born June 27, 1980, in Rockville Centre, New York. He graduated from Chaminade High School in Mineola, New York, where his lacrosse skills earned him a scholarship to Duke. There, while earning a bachelor’s degree in economics, he played midfield on two teams that won conference championships and one that reached the NCAA semifinals.

Regan enlisted in February 2004 and spent three years in the Army, earning a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and several medals marking his service in Iraq and Afghanistan. He went to the Army’s language training school and read about the countries he patrolled, but remained humble enough to make his three sisters laugh with a Borat film-character impression or explain the region’s centuries-old conflict to his mother, Mary Regan, when he was home for Christmas.

He was “a best friend to everyone he knew,” said his youngest sister, Michaela, 16.

Regan’s stint in the Army was to end in February 2008, and he and McHugh planned to marry the next month. They were to move to the Chicago area, where her family lives, and he was going to become a social studies teacher and coach lacrosse.

Please keep the Regans and Ms. McHugh in your prayers today.  James John Regan, Sergeant, Army Ranger, gave his last full measure of devotion on February 12, 2007.

Free Enterprise

Part of what our military protects is this:  another form of freedom.

A Day to Remember

Today is the last day of my bridge tournament.  My team has had a pretty good week - and, as always, loads of fun.

But today, and every day, we should remember those who protect the precious freedoms we have in our nation.  Very few people like violence; fewer yet war and bloodshed and loss of life.  Still - without those who go to war for our nation, what we cherish could be lost.

To those who sacrifice all so that we can enjoy our families and pastimes, work in a free nation and have open to us the myriad of opportunities that being an American means - thank you.

 And my thanks to Pioneer Woman, for this superb collection of Memorial Day photos.

Never Alone

On Memorial Day weekend, remember these very special ladies.  They do.

There are approximately 30 funerals in Arlington every weekday and the ladies attend every one. All have their own reasons and stories.

There is Mensch, married to a retired Army colonel, who oversees the mammoth task of organizing the schedules for her 66 Army ladies and who says attending the funerals is the greatest honor of her life. And Doreen Huylebroeck, a 63-year-old nurse who remembers how desperately she wanted an Arlington lady beside her when her own husband, a retired Navy officer, died three years ago. Janine Moghaddam, who at 41 is one of the youngest Arlington ladies, and who felt a desperate need serve her country in some small way after Sept. 11, 2001. And Johnson herself.

She treks to the cemetery in spring when cherry blossoms burst over the rows of white stones and everything seems dusted in yellow pollen. And in the swelter of summer when the stones blaze in the heat and mourners sometimes pass out at services. Even in winter, when the wind whips through the marble pillars of the Columbarium, Johnson and the other ladies keep their vigil, clinging to the arms of their escorts as they pick their way through the mud and snow.

Remembering

 

A pre-Memorial Day photo via Pioneer Woman.

It Ain't Magic

George W. Bush was excoriated unmercifully for not "fixing" the ravages of Katrina immediately.  Now, Barack Obama is beginning to feel similar heat for not whisking away all the oil fouling our waters.

This morning, I read this post and found it refreshing.

It’s like Katrina in that many people’s attitude regarding the response to it reveals completely unreasonable expectations of government. The fact is, accidents (not to mention storms) happen. We can work to prepare for them, we can have various preventive rules and measures in place. We can build the capacity for response and recovery in advance. But these things happen, and sometimes they happen on a scale that is just too great to be easily addressed. It is totally unreasonable to expect the government to be able to easily address them—and the kind of government that would be capable of that is not the kind of government that we should want….

We seem to think that given our modern powers, there ought to be no accidents and no natural disasters anymore, and when those happen we blame the people in charge. Well, call me crazy but I don’t want a government so powerful that it could move half a million people in mere hours in response to a hurricane, or would have such total control over every facet of every industry that the potential for industrial accidents would be entirely eliminated. Such power would come at enormous cost to a lot of things we care about.

Presidents are human beings; not magicians.  Governments are not all powerful, all controlling entities.  It would behoove us all to remember this.

Bridge, Bridge, Bridge

With a big tournament in town, I am busy playing bridge from 9AM until about 10:30PM every day.  As you can guess, blogging is close to non-existent in such circumstances!

If you wish to see what's happening at the tournament, you can check out our bridge blog, MNBridge, here!  Posts an photos by yours truly.

We Are Doomed?

And as I go off to play bridge this morning, allow me to share this cheery little tidbit of opinion with you.  My favorite lines:

The tremendous economic Sophism of the day is that a nation can print its way into prosperity; “If debt and money printing equaled prosperity then Zimbabwe would be the richest country.

If deficits didn’t matter as many like Economist James Galbraith argue today, why should citizens even pay taxes?  It would make everyone happier if they didn’t.

Dear Germany

Skokie, Illinois is where I lived as a young girl.  Back then, Skokie was known for having more Holocaust survivors than any other city in the U.S.  When I was eight, I probably didn't know that.  I did know, however, that many of my friends had parents with long numbers etched into their arms. 

Once in third grade, we were watching documentaries about the concentration camps of Germany and Poland.  A scene depicting ovens with human remains came on the screen; one of my classmates ran out of the room, crying.  More than a few of the children in my school had family members who perished in Europe.

Some of the Jewish families I knew detested Germany beyond words.  For the rest of their lives, they would have nothing to do with that nation.  Purchasing anything from Germany was verboten - medications, tableware, vehicles.  If it had "made in Germany" on it, not a penny of theirs would go toward it.

Thirty five years ago, I made my first trip to Germany.  As I walked along the charming streets and drove along the Rhine River, with vineyards dotting the magnificent hills, my mind wandered.  "What did you do while the Nazis were rounding up Jews and gypsies and the handicapped," I would think as I saw middle aged people in towns.  "How could something have evil have occurred in the midst of such beauty?" I pondered.

Most of the people who had any culpability for Germany's crimes against humanity are now dead themselves.  While some of today's Germans may harbor similar hate for Jews or other groups, entire new generations are now the bulk of Germany's people.  They either were children, or not close to being born when these atrocities occurred.  Some may blame the sins of the fathers upon them; I am not one to do so.

A friend sent me this letter today.  Please read through it; the letter details how many Jews are doing what they can to forge new friendships and alliances with a nation that once committed some of the greatest horrors known to man.

I believe it to be important work.  If we allow future generations to be responsible for that over which they had zero control, then it seems we enable feuds and hate to linger forever.  As far as I'm concerned, we've had quite enough of that.

We will never forget.  Yet, we should allow the future to begin anew.

Two Barneys in One

Gotta love this; Wall Street Journal today.

• "We have, I think, an excessive degree of concern right now about homeownership and its role in the economy. Obviously, speculation is never a good thing. But those who argue that housing prices are now at the point of a bubble seem to me to be missing a very important point. Unlike previous examples we have had, where substantial excessive inflation of prices later caused some problems, we are talking here about an entity--homeownership, homes--where there is not the degree of leverage that we've seen elsewhere. This is not the dot-com situation. We had problems with people having invested in business plans for which there was no reality, people building fiberoptic cable for which there was no need. Homes that are occupied may see an ebb and flow in the price at a certain percentage level, but you're not going to see the collapse that you see when people talk about a bubble. And so those of us on our committee in particular will continue to push for homeownership."--Rep. Barney Frank, June 27, 2005
• "One of my biggest differences with the Bush administration, and even with the Clinton administration, was that they overdid that. I have always been critical of this effort to equate a decent home with homeownership. I think we should have been doing more to provide rental housing. My efforts have been to try and get affordable rental housing. I was very much in disagreement with this push into home ownership, and I think the federal government should not be artificially doing that."--Rep. Barney Frank, "Power Lunch," CNBC, May 21, 2010

Look For the Union Label

Remember when unions fought for decent rights for their workers and their members were honorable?  If you are too young, here you go.

And for those who aren't aware of how some union workers are behaving circa 2010, here you go!

Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that -- in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action -- makes his family fair game.

Waving signs denouncing bank "greed," hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer's steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer's teenage son Jack -- alone in the house -- locked himself in the bathroom. "When are they going to leave?" Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.

Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly "outed" him, and slipped through his front door.

"Excuse me," Baer told his accusers, "I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened."

And if you expect protests like this one to get as much publicity as Tea Parties do - I'm afraid you will be sorely disappointed.

Picking Sides

Mine is freedom and free enterprise.  What's yours?

This is not the culture war of the 1990s. It is not a fight over guns, gays or abortion. Those old battles have been eclipsed by a new struggle between two competing visions of the country's future. In one, America will continue to be an exceptional nation organized around the principles of free enterprise -- limited government, a reliance on entrepreneurship and rewards determined by market forces. In the other, America will move toward European-style statism grounded in expanding bureaucracies, a managed economy and large-scale income redistribution. These visions are not reconcilable. We must choose.

It is not at all clear which side will prevail. The forces of big government are entrenched and enjoy the full arsenal of the administration's money and influence. Our leaders in Washington, aided by the unprecedented economic crisis of recent years and the panic it induced, have seized the moment to introduce breathtaking expansions of state power in huge swaths of the economy, from the health-care takeover to the financial regulatory bill that the Senate approved Thursday. If these forces continue to prevail, America will cease to be a free enterprise nation.

The new statism in America, made possible by years of drift and accelerated by the panic over the economic crisis, threatens to make us permanently poorer. But that is not the greatest danger. The real risk is that in the new culture war, we will forsake the third unalienable right set out in our Declaration of Independence: the pursuit of happiness.

Free enterprise brings happiness; redistribution does not. The reason is that only free enterprise brings earned success.

A Novel Idea

Perhaps those who make and enforce the laws really ought to read the laws?

Just a suggestion!

Do It Yourself

We can't get rid of all the terrorists?  NO problem! Sometimes they do it themselves!

A man whom the U.S. described as a key figure in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula accidentally blew himself up, U.S. military officials told Fox News.

The officials say Nayif Al-Qahtani was "messing with a bomb" when it went off. U.S. officials had been watching him, but Fox News' sources insist the U.S. had nothing to do with his death.

Al-Qahtani was "a vibrant guy linked to ongoing operations planning, and his death will have an impact," one official told Fox News.

Happiness

My favorite photography blog, Pioneer Woman, is doing a contest on happiness photos.  So many divine shots, I don't know how she'll decide.  This one could surely be the winner.

Addiction

Our government officials and public unions are addicted to tax dollars.  Don't believe me? Read this.

In Yonkers, more than 100 retired police officers and firefighters are collecting pensions greater than their pay when they were working. One of the youngest, Hugo Tassone, retired at 44 with a base pay of about $74,000 a year. His pension is now $101,333 a year.

In fact, the cost of public pensions has been systemically underestimated nationwide for more than two decades, say some analysts. By these estimates, state and local officials have promised $5 trillion worth of benefits while thinking they were committing taxpayers to roughly half that amount.

Roughly one of every 250 retired public workers in New York is collecting a six-figure pension, and that group is expected to grow rapidly in coming years, based on the number of highly paid people in the pipeline.

Some will receive the big pensions for decades. Thirteen New York City police officers recently retired at age 40 with pensions above $100,000 a year; nine did so in their 30s.

Remember all this the next time your favorite liberal tells you that you're selfish for not wanting tax rates to be higher.

Symbiotic Relationships

Liberals - and quite a lot of libertarians and conservatives, too - worry about the symbiotic relationship between corporate boards and top executives.  These intimate ties have led to ridiculous compensation.  The benefits provided are not rational in light of what a corporation gains.

This, however, is worse.

Tooooo Cute!

Your TOO CUTE fix of the day!

As California Goes, So Goes the Nation?

Well. Let's hope not.

In 1999 then California Governor Gray Davis signed into law a bill that represented the largest issuance of non-voter-approved debt in the state's history. The bill SB 400 granted billions of dollars in retroactive pension boosts to state employees, allowing retirements as young as age 50 with lifetime pensions of up to 90% of final year salaries. The California Public Employees' Retirement System sold the pension boost to the state legislature by promising that "no increase over current employer contributions is needed for these benefit improvements" and that Calpers would "remain fully funded." They also claimed that enhanced pensions would not cost taxpayers "a dime" because investment bets would cover the expense.

What Calpers failed to disclose, however, was that (1) the state budget was on the hook for shortfalls should actual investment returns fall short of assumed investment returns, (2) those assumed investment returns implicitly projected the Dow Jones would reach roughly 25,000 by 2009 and 28,000,000 by 2099, unrealistic to say the least (3) shortfalls could turn out to be hundreds of billions of dollars, (4) Calpers's own employees would benefit from the pension increases and (5) members of Calpers's board had received contributions from the public employee unions who would benefit from the legislation. Had such a flagrant case of non-disclosure occurred in the private sector, even a sleepy SEC and US Attorney would have noticed.

Even if you don't enjoy that gorgeous Southern California weather - aren't you glad you live in Minnesota?  Or Texas?  Or South Dakota?  Or Georgia?  Or Iowa?  Or.... anywhere else?

The Big Chill?

I'm a Realtor and a bridge player, a photographer and a blogger, a voracious reader and a couch potato.  (Yes, very sophisticated training required for that last one!)  I'm a hopeless gardener - and when it comes to climate science, I have zero training.  All I know is from reading what real experts think on the subject.

What is out there, however, demonstrates to me that what the experts think they know is unclear.  Here is a new article about a highly regarded expert who thinks that not only do we not have man made global warming - we don't have warming at all. We've got cooling!

Contrary to the commonly held scientific conclusion that the Earth is getting warmer, a scientist who has written more than 150 peer-reviewed papers has unveiled evidence for his prediction that global cooling is coming soon.

The hottest new trend in climate change may be global cooling, some researchers say. 

Contrary to the commonly held scientific conclusion that the Earth is getting warmer, Dr. Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University and author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, has unveiled evidence for his prediction that global cooling is coming soon.

“Rather than global warming at a rate of 1 F per decade, records of past natural cycles indicate there may be global cooling for the first few decades of the 21st century to about 2030,” said Easterbrook, speaking on a scientific panel discussion with other climatologists. This, he says, will likely be followed by “global warming from about 2030 to 2060,” which will then be followed by another cooling spell from 2060 to 2090.

Are we really cooling?  I have no idea whatsoever. 

What I do know is this.  Until we really have more hard data that we:  a) have warming (or cooling), that b) we are the cause of that warming (or cooling) - and c) we can do something about it and d) it is fiscally sensible to do something about it, then we ought to sit back and observe.

If you want some advice about a bridge hand or how to frame a portrait, however - glad to assist!