SOME PEOPLE'S KIDS!!..... AND A BIT ABOUT GRAMMAR

Take a look at this genius.  Will I ever go to Wendy's again?  Sure, I really like Frostys so of course I will be visiting Wendy's.  After all, Dave Thomas was a great guy who did a lot to help adopted kids plus their TV ads have that ultra cute redhead!  However I will only buy a Frosty if I can see it coming out of the machine and into my cup; not into some idiot employee's mouth.

Quote of the week goes to (drum roll, please!) witness for the prosecution against George Zimmerman, 19 year old Rachel Jeantel!  Not only did she change her story but when she was asked to read a certain document, she said:  "I don't read cursive."  What? I hope she is not representative of most 19 year old kids!  Ain't she got no book learnin'?

Now for the serious stuff.  Maybe the Frosty gulping idiot from Wendy's and Rachel should check this out although they would probably fall asleep instantly; that is if they are even capable of reading anything that even relates one iota toward academics.

PROPER GRAMMAR AND SPELLING DO MATTER

I read a column recently by a guy named David Goodloe.  You have never heard of him and neither had I until recently and only because he and I are on the same wavelength when it comes to using proper grammar and spelling in written pieces.

Since I do a lot of blog writing that reaches the public via the electronic media plus hard copy pieces through newspapers like the Scottsdale Republic and Arizona Republic, I try my best to be accurate with my tenses, spelling, and other forms of grammar.  

Goodloe makes some interesting comments about good grammar and speech usage. One is to never use abbreviations like BTW and IMO.  I’m old fashioned enough that I still believe expressions like “by the way” and “in my opinion” should be spelled out.  Unfortunately, in this high speed world we have, it usually takes too much time for many to do it the proper way.

A comical example of the above comes from the original movie of “The Odd Couple.”  Oscar was complaining to Felix about the fact that he left notes for Oscar on Oscar's pillow. Then he quoted one: "We are all out of corn flakes. FU."  He glared at Felix. "It took me three hours to figure out 'FU' was 'Felix Ungar.' " 

The only time you will find me guilty of using abbreviations is in informal notes.  I’m not adverse to using an occasional “LOL” when writing informal notes to friends but you’ll probably never see me use anything else even as simple as ROFL or LMAO.  Those items just indicate laziness plus I am sure there are some people out there (the “codger factor”) who have no idea what they mean.

Then we have the “emoticons.”   Do we really need little faces typed from colons, semi-colons, and parentheses to indicate the writer’s mood when they send a message to you?  Even worse are the ones that are supplied to us by certain email sites.

Should I even get into the misuses of “their,"  “they’re,” and “there”?  How about “your” and “you’re?”  I still get messages, from people who should know better, where all these forms are used incorrectly.

A lot of people are just plain sloppy these days when they write.  If they are corrected, they simply say “It doesn't matter; you know what I mean.”  It should matter as good grammar and spelling are a hallmark of intelligence and if one has a doubt as to what is correct they should follow the words of the two kids who used to exist in a monthly magazine from “World Books”:   “We never guess; we look it up.”  

PERUSING THE NEWS..............

I see today where our glorious leader is taking a trip with Michelle and the kids to Africa at a taxpayer cost of about $100 million.  One congressman said that the trip would cover the cost of 1,350 week’s worth of White House tours which were discontinued because of the sequester. 

One would think that a president of the United States would have at least one thread of common sense and avoid such nonsense.  Instead, we get this drivel from his talking heads: “The infrastructure that accompanies the president’s travels is beyond our control,” said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. “When you travel to regions like Africa that don’t get a lot of presidential attention, you tend to have very long-standing and long-running impact from the visit.”

 “The president and first lady have cancelled plans to go on a safari that would have included the additional expense of a sharp-shooting team, responsible for putting down a cheetah, lion or any other wild animal that became a threat.”  How nice of them to save us that expense.  I’m sure the cheetah and the lion appreciate it too. 

The White House had defended the trip cost saying the Secret Service plan determines the security cost and that the first family’s trip will result in long-term goodwill.  

There is a bright side to this story as the Real Clear daily political poll shows Obama’s un-favorability rating at -4.3% below his favorability rating.  I watch that rating every day and that is the lowest I have seen it. CNN is always on board with Obama but even they issued this gloomy news to his followers yesterday:  “President Barack Obama's approval rating is plummeting in the midst of American dissatisfaction with the recent privacy controversies and other scandals.

"The president's approval rating is 45 percent, marking an 8-point drop in the last month, according to a CNN survey. Weighing down on the Obama administration are the revelations of government domestic spying programs, the Justice Department's secret pursuit of journalists' phone records, the Internal Revenue Service's inappropriate scrutiny of conservative political groups seeking tax-exemption status, as well as the lingering questions over the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, last fall.”

“The survey, released Monday, also shows that 50 percent of Americans say they don't believe Obama is "honest and trustworthy," for the first time in his presidency, according to CNN. His personal trustworthiness was a measure that shined during his re-election campaign, where he continually outperformed Republican presidential opponent Mitt Romney, bolstering his position despite a struggling economy.”

Meanwhile, Chelsea Clinton has (surprise, surprise!) endorsed her mom Hillary for president in 2016.  She says:  “We need a woman in the White House!” No word yet on whether that astonishing news has the Republicans cowering and shaking in their boots.  However, Michelle probably isn’t too happy over that comment.

This just in from Middy:  Don’t you wish you had kids in school in that toddlin’ town especially with this idiot in charge?  I don't know what we are going to do with those trouble making white people!

IN RETROSPECT, NIXON WAS AN ANGEL

In 1928 the Democrats ran a governor from New York named Al Smith against Herbert Hoover.  Smith lost but still became famous for his line “Let’s take a look at the record.”

In a tribute to Smith, let’s take a look at another famous Democrat named Obama and his record.  As you review that record, do you get the feeling that Nixon was an angel compared to Obama?   Nixon had Watergate which caused his resignation.  Obama has a laundry list that fortunately even the Democrats are starting to recognize.

“I know nothing, I am not here, I did not 

even get up this morning!”

When will proceedings against him finally start?  Will Verizon finally wake up this country about this guy?  Two good indications are that he is losing some major supporters who have championed him from the beginning:  The New York Times and the Huffington Post although the Times, who initially stated that Obama’s government “has lost all credibility” has chickened out and revised its statement to add “on this issue”. The liberal Huffington Post says “Obama, Verizon, and Executive Power Run Amok”.

With that said, let’s briefly “take a look at the record” via a brief overview.  No sense going into details as you readers and I have been discussing this stuff for a sufficient amount of time to understand each point.  It’s just that with a laundry list this long, will anything happen or will guys like Holder and Obama continue to get away with their Sergeant Schultz imitation:  “I know nothing, I am not here, I did not even get up this morning!”

1.  Fast and Furious

2.  AP wire taps

3.  IRS scandal

4.  Benghazi

5.  Verizon

6.  National Labor Relations Board illegal appointments

7.  Sibelius and her HHS trying to illegally solicit funds for Obamacare

Nixon breaks into one office and he is kicked out.  It seems mild compared to the above list.  As Yakov Smirnoff would say: “What a country!”

By the way; you had to dig a bit this week to find the unemployment numbers for May.  That could only mean one thing:  they went up.  Bingo!  Sure enough, up .1 to 7.6 from 7.5 last month.  It’s meaningless since the real unemployment is over 13% but interesting in how the news is conveyed in such a partial manner.