Zuccotti Park

            The protesters in New York's Zuccotti Park have given us quite a show the last couple of months. We are getting reports that they have defecated on police cars, paraded in the nude, engaged in public sex, and defaced the park with mounds of garbage. That's called exercising your First Amendment rights. Thank you Mayor Bloomberg for your generous understanding.

            What does this unwashed rabble want? Well, we know from their signs that they favor, among other things, radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience, and violence, if necessary. Apparently, this is not a problem for President Obama and the Democrats. They have embraced this tattered mob. They are so envious of the Tea Party that they'll support any mass of protesters that mirror their left wing ideology. Appearance and odor notwithstanding.

            What do the Republicans say about all this? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a recent interview that the protesters have a right to express their opinion. Wow! Now that's taking a tough stand!

            Actually, Republicans look upon the rabble as lepers; they won't go near them, much less embrace them like the Democrats. A mistake, perhaps? I think they are missing a great opportunity to score points, not by supporting the mob, but by agreeing with its greatest complaint: greed, especially the kind infecting Wall Street.

            What are the protesters so angry about? The lowest 150 million Americans have a lower net worth than the 400 wealthiest Americans, many of them looking down on the mob from their Wall Street office windows. Put another way, the top 1 percent of Americans have more wealth than the entire bottom 90 percent. You want more? The average salary on Wall Street is over $360,000 a year, and that includes pay for secretaries, messengers, and mail room clerks. That's five times the average salary in the rest of the private sector. Five times!

            Let's take just one example. In 2010 Goldman Sachs had a pre-tax profit of $13 billion, down from $20 billion in 2009. But that didn't stop the Board of Directors from raising the CEO's compensation to $13 million. This year Goldman's stock is down 43% and it showed a third quarter loss of $428 million. Still, that has not prevented the firm from putting $10 billion into the compensation pool. God forbid the CEO should take a cut in salary.

            What's wrong with this picture? Does the Occupy Wall Street crowd have a case?

            Republicans have been adamant about not raising taxes on high income earners. But there's a difference between supporting small business owners who create most of the jobs in this country and remaining silent about the unconscionable greed of a securities industry that produces nothing and is dedicated only to creating wealth--its own.

            President Obama's incessant demand that the fat cats pay their fair share will continue to resonate with the masses as long as the protesters rail at Wall Street's greed.

            Republicans will continue to be identified with that greed as long as they fail to see the difference between the real job producers and the suits in the windows above Zuccotti Park.

Courage with a Smile

            I love writing about heroes. My latest is Primo Viray, a member of North Carolina's Sound Golf Links.

            Primo is the most beloved member of the club, and with good reason. His life story is one of courage with a smile. Born in 1936 in the village of Lingayen on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, he survived four years of Japanese occupation in World War II. He lost two uncles in the war, but evaded the occupiers by constantly moving with his parents from one hiding place to another.

            In 1958 Primo earned a degree in nursing from the college of Santo Tomas in Manila where he met Rose, his future wife. From 1958 to 1960 he volunteered his services in Laos and then emigrated to the United States where he became a nurse in Chicago's Cook County Hospital and eventually rose to become the OR nurse supervisor at the Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Chicago.

            In 1962 he was reunited with Rose who had also emigrated to the United States and was working as a nurse for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. They married and proceeded to raise a family of six girls, all of whom went to college on Primo's modest income. They number a teacher, an OSHA administrator, an engineer, a lawyer, a social worker, and a doctor.

            After Primo retired in 2004, the Virays built a home in Albemarle Plantation here in Hertford. Primo immediately endeared himself to the community with his sunny disposition, his marvelous sense of humor, and his passion for golf. At 5'4" and 140 pounds, he could be seen on the golf course every day swinging his 50-inch driver and outdriving most of his fellow golfers.

            While on vacation in the Philippines in 2008, Primo suffered a stroke that almost killed him and paralyzed his left side. After three months of intense therapy, he was finally able to stand without assistance. Months later he began walking, although very slowly, by using his body to swing his left leg forward.

            Upon his return home, friends and neighbors found that Primo had not lost his smile nor his sense of humor, despite his disability. More than that, they were amazed by his determination to return to the golf course. Swinging that 50-inch driver of his with only his right hand, Primo developed a fluid tempo that resulted in 150-yard drives with astounding regularity. With the club's permission for Rose to drive  his golf cart everywhere on the course, even to the edge of the greens, Primo could be seen playing every late afternoon when his slow pace would not hold anybody up.

            By 2011 Primo was ready to compete again. His entry in the Member-Guest tournament this October was applauded by his friends, although he was given little chance of making a good showing, even less of winning. Seeded dead last with his son-in-law as his partner, Primo surprised everybody by winning his flight, then shooting a net eagle in the shootout elimination round and a net birdie in the finals.

            When Primo won, his fans were delirious. Even his opponents in the shootout and the finals (me and my brother Phil) cheered wildly for the courageous little man with the perpetual smile.

            Primo Viray won the tournament. But he had already won the hearts of everyone who knows him.

Obama's Contempt

            With Obama's poll numbers on a downhill slide, it is not difficult to understand his growing desperation. He must find a way to get people to love him again. After all, it's not his fault that the economy is going down the tubes and people can't find jobs. Someone else is to blame: Bush, rich people who refuse to pay their fair share, Wall Street, the Republicans, the Tea Party. Everyone is to blame but the guy in the mirror.

            Obama cannot bring himself to accept that his poll numbers are going down because he is doing a lousy job. His popularity, which was sky high after his election, is plummeting like a burst balloon. Many of his formerly rabid fans who were once enthralled by his smile and his lofty rhetoric are now seeing him for what he really is: mendacious, radical, narcissistic, arrogant, and, in the end, transparently incompetent.

            In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens hit the nail on the head. In his view, it all comes down to Obama's contempt. Examples: insulting the British by returning the bust of Winston Churchill; slamming the Boston police for arresting a black professor; rebuking members of the Supreme Court in his 2010 State of the Union address; snubbing of Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Benjamin Netanyahu. The list goes on: the Religious Right, gun owners, billionaires and jet owners, the Marine Corps, the American flag, the American taxpayer.

            Obama doesn't seem to care about tripling our debt and passing the burden on to our children and grandchildren. He has no qualms about riding around the country in Air Force One to make fund-raising and political campaign speeches. It doesn't bother him one bit to spend a couple of million dollars to buy two fancy buses made in Canada so he could ride into Mid-West towns in a phony attempt to show he is a man of the people. He has no problem spending millions to send his wife and her entourage on vacation in Europe and South Africa. And he has no apologies for wasting half a billion dollars on a failing Solyndra just to advance his green jobs agenda. That, my friends, is contempt at every turn.

             Worst of all, in my view, is Obama's contempt for America, a contempt that requires apologies to the world for our history of racism, our class inequality, our arrogance, our power, our success, our exceptionalism.

            Why can't we have a president who loves his country and is proud of it instead of being ashamed of it? Why can't we have a president who feels something other than contempt for his country and its citizens?

           

The Raleigh Dim-wit

            Well, whaddaya know. The North Carolina legislature passed a whole bunch of laws that I agree with.  I'll list just three.

            One law caps non-economic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits at $500,000. Tort lawyers will no longer be able to persuade pliable juries to award millions of dollars for things like pain and suffering. This will help control runaway costs of malpractice insurance that are, of course, passed on to the rest of us.

            The legislature had to override Governor's Perdue's veto to get this law passed.

            A second law reins in state government bureaucrats' power to issue regulations that go even beyond federal government regulations that we all know are already out of control. Doing business in North Carolina is difficult enough without our state government making it even tougher.

            The legislature had to override Governor Perdue's veto to get this law passed, as well.

            A third law requires city and state governments to verify job applicants' legal status before hiring them. Shouldn't they have been doing that already?

            Governor Perdue apparently didn't have an answer to that question.         

            The governor did make the news in one other area, though. She is quoted as saying, "I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover."

            How do we characterize such a statement? Stupid, naive, ignorant, brainless, unhinged, laughable? All of the above, I think.

            Anybody who voted for this dim-wit should be embarrassed. Fortunately, there is no chance that the next North Carolina gubernatorial election will be suspended.

The Orlando Debate

For whatever it's worth, here is my evaluation of the Republican candidates following their debate in Orlando last night.

Winners:

1. Romney. Handled himself with aplomb, especially when fending off accusations from Perry. This guy is appearing to be more and more solid.

2. Huntsman. I expect his poll numbers to rise. He has the right perspective on domestic affairs and is by far the strongest on foreign affairs. A sleeper.

3. Cain. All his answers were right on. I'm not so sure his business expertise carries over into international affairs.

4. Gingrich. The brightest of them all. He proved it once again. Too bad he has so much baggage.

Losers:

1. Bachmann. A lightweight on every level. Her hour is past.

2. Paul: I love his acumen. If only he could get off his campaign against the Fed. His anti-war stand scares me.

3. Santorum. He has passion. No question about that. But is he a realist?

4. Johnson. I'd love to give him one year in the White House to clean up Washington. Otherwise, he is too scary for me.

5. Perry. I was a fan of his even before he declared. Now that I've seen more of him, I have to conclude that he is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Good record on jobs in Texas. But there has to be more than that to restore my initial opinion of him.

Codes Galore

            If you have any doubt that Obamacare is out to micromanage health care in this country, take a look at the latest medical billing system devised by the Health and Human Services Department called the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision.

            Most people who receive statements relating to medical care that is charged to insurers might notice codes associated with every diagnosis, treatment or hospital inpatient procedure. These are meant to improve payment strategies and care guidelines. Right now there are 18,000 of these codes.

            Now get this: the latest revision has expanded the number of codes to 140,000. There are codes  to specify precisely which part of one's anatomy is hurt or diseased; codes for where a patient got hurt (there are nine of them for mobile homes alone); codes for what caused the injury; codes to indicate how many times this injury occurred; and of course codes for the diagnosis and the treatment. Here's how it might work:

PATIENT:  I need help, Doc.

DOCTOR: What's wrong with you this time?

PATIENT:  I broke my nose.

DOCTOR: I'll have to look up that code. Is this the first time you broke your nose?

PATIENT:  No. It's the third time.

DOCTOR: I'll have to look up the code for the third time. Where did it happen?

PATIENT:  At my home. My motorhome.

DOCTOR: There's a code for that, too. Exactly where in your motorhome?

PATIENT:  I ran into the flag pole outside.

DOCTOR: There's a code for that as well. What caused you to run into that pole again?

PATIENT:  I was being attacked by a chicken.

DOCTOR: I have a code for that, too, and one for fixing your nose.

PATIENT:  What should I do after that?

DOCTOR: I have the perfect treatment plan for you.

PATIENT:  What's that?

DOCTOR: Move the pole.

PATIENT: You have a code for that, too?

DOCTOR: No. But when HHS finds out that for the third time you broke your nose running into the flagpole outside your motorhome while being attacked by a chicken, they'll come up with one. You have to understand that when it comes to the government, there is no such thing as a limit to absurdity.

Noise for Quiet Cars

            Ever since the government got into the car manufacturing business with its bailout of GM and Chrysler, it has salivated at the chance to tell Detroit how to build cars.

             I couldn't believe my eyes when I read about this beauty of a directive: By the end of next year it seems car manufacturers of hybrid and electric cars will have to add noise to their vehicles because they are too quiet. The reason is that blind people rely on sound to know if a car is coming. And pedestrians too consumed with their cellphone conversations might not check for oncoming traffic before stepping off the curb.

             I kid you not.

            So manufacturers of quiet cars are now scrambling to come up with the right sound to alert people trying to cross the street. A bird's tweet? A jet's roar? An engine's growl?

            To top it all off, the government is thinking of requiring quiet cars to have noise-makers at the rear as well as the front, because blind people need to know when a car has gone by.

            But I'm not finished. The warning noise will come on automatically whenever a quiet car slows below 20 miles per hour. Can you imagine the annoyance of neighbors in a peaceful suburb who will have to endure these warning sounds whenever a "quiet" car rolls down the street or into the driveway next door?

            I'm all for making sure the blind can cross the street safely. But since moving to North Carolina nine years ago, I haven't seen a single blind man trying to cross the street. I'm sure I can say the same for most people living outside of urban areas.  So, rather than mandating that manufacturers install on every quiet car hundreds of dollars of equipment that may never serve their intended purpose, might there be a more sensible and economical way of warning pedestrians?

            How about a horn? Doesn't every car have one of those?