BooMac’s whereIstand Blog

     I am consistently amazed at the constant barrage of criticism that the Clinton’s are directing at Barack Obama. And they deny their surrogates every time! If Hillary had any moral center, she would be either supporting the people who speak for her or correcting them. She just denies that they speak for her at all! She denied Geraldine Ferraro, who paved the way for her candidacy. How’s that for a kick in the head!

      If Barack were now the democratic candidate, as he rightly should be, and John McCain and his supporters were attacking Obama in the same way, the Democratic cries of racism would be rampant in the press.  Why is Clinton given a pass? If she wins, it will be a hollow victory. She will have ruined her party’s chance for the presidency by her greed and her self centeredness.

     Hillary only hope is for a backroom deal at the convention. Is this the way America expects the primary process to end?  Republicans hope so. She will successfully divide her party, disenfranchise Obama’s supporters and hand the election to McCain.  Does anyone believe that the black people will come out and vote for her? Black people will have their lowest voter turnout ever if Obama is not the candidate.

   By the way, as a baseball fan, I am amazed Hillary can root for the Cubs, Yankees, Mets and Red Sox at the same time. I have seen her photographed in all four team caps. Need we say more about her lack of convictions?

     Eliot Spitzer is caught with a prostitute through FBI wiretapping and all Hillary can say is ” Let’s see what happens the next few days” Is this the kind of decisive action we expect from our president? This is a man that should have been thrown under the bus politically.

     The problem is Hillary has no moral compass, only a political one, and she is out of touch with America. Most Americans when asked about Spitzer gave the responsible answer, oh my God, that’s terrible, his poor wife, he should resign! That is the right versus wrong, gut instinct reaction of decent people.  Hillary always weighs her responses, her positions, on how it will affect her career, and people sense  that. I believe her years with cheating Bill, ” standing by her man ‘ have scarred her so deeply, she suffers from Stockholm syndrome. She has protected and defended him so many times, she cannot see right from wrong.

     If she is elected President, God help us. The phone will ring at 3 A.M., and she will be one on one on the phone with someone, deciding something very important, and she will have no moral center to rely on. I am sure she did quite well on her term papers in school, but I bet she struggled on the closed book tests. The Presidency is the final. Good luck America!

    Now that would be an interesting read! I can just imagine the first entry. Dear Diary: The Angel of the Lord came to me in a dream last night and told me I was going to give birth to the savoir fo the world. Wait til I tell Betty at the well tomorrow!

     She then had to marry a man she had not slept with, go to his hometown for the census and give birth in a stable! She had the normal parental responsiblities of raising a child, teaching him right from wrong, respect for others, making sure he studied and knew all the things he would need for His life’s work. So, did she prepare Him to be a preacher or a carpenter? Maybe both, based on his trip to the temple as a young boy. Then He proceeded to stay home until he wad 30 years old! What was she thinking? We get upset if our children don’t apply themselves in school, don’t want to finish college, etc. She knew what His life was meant to be, how did she react during all His time at home, working with Joseph as a carpenter?

    All of these are unknowns. But I would like to nominate Mary as the first religious of the Catholic church. She had more influence on Jesus than anyone else, and she obviously did an excellent job. So, my question. If the Virgin Mary was good enough to raise the Son of God, why are women not allowed to be priests?  

Hey, that’s just my nickel.

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     Who caused the mortgage crisis? How do we rescue the people who are in danger of losing their homes? I believe you can address both these by forcing some old time lending practices.

     I can tell you who caused the mortgage crisis, or better yet, how it was caused. In the movie ” Its a Wonderful Life”, George Bailey cannot give his depositers all their money when they want to withdraw it in the banking crisis since he had loaned this money to fellow depositers for their homes, farms, business’, etc. He had used the money deposited in his bank to help improve his community and the lives of the people in it, at a profit to which he was entitled, as was the common practice of those times.  

     Fast forward to 2007, the most common practice was for a mortgage broker to fine tune your application, then” shop it ” to several banks for approval. Once your loan was approved and you closed on the property, the mortgage broker was paid his fee, anywhere from 1% to 2.5%  His job was over, he had no responsiblity for your loan whatsoever. The mortgage was then sold to other banks, companies, investors, even packaged as mortgaged backed bonds and sold to mutual funds, hedge funds, even pension plans. Some of the more savvy investors even took insurance out against possible default of a certain percentage of the loans. All of this was done based on the mistaken impression that someone did due diligence. Ok, the mortgage broker was paid his fee and the bank has sold the loan and been repaid, at a profit of course.  So, who really cares if this loan goes bad or even if the borrower was a good risk? George Bailey is dead, and so are ethical lending practices! 

     The system of loan origination is broken. If the mortgage broker had to refund the fee he received for your loan if you didn’t make your payments on time, he would be darn sure you could afford the payments! We need a ” mortgage broker guarantee ” form. Hey, you sign enough forms at a house closing, what is one more.  Let him get his fee, but the bank he is working for should pay him over the first five years for the loan, not at the closing. If you make your mortgage payments, the broker gets all his money. Let’s see some long term responsibility!

     And let’s not forget the bank, they should have their name permanently attached to this loan and they should have to provide a guarantee to the buyer if this loan is sold. So, if the borrower defaults, the holder of the note can go back to the original bank to collect. Wow, that would make a lot of banks nervous!

      Ok, how does this help todays poor soul with a home he cannot afford and now can’t even sell it to cover the loan he took? I think the federal government needs to come up with a rescue plan for these people through the banks. If a bank decides to restructure a loan for a borrower and help him pay it off at terms he can afford, the bank should be able to deduct the lost interest from their taxes, like a direct credit. Give them good, financial reasons for helping people while you come up with laws to force more ethical lending practices. This will ease the problem away from crisis mode and pave the way for future good home loans.

 Hey, that’s just my nickel.

     Joe Biden said if a candidate does not finish in the top three in the Iowa caucus, they should drop out of the race. This sounds like crazy talk! If this were happening in another country, maybe one we didn’t trust or understand, we would say this was not an open election, and we would be right. Our candidates need to shake the hand of every Iowa resident by going to every diner, factory and Starbucks across the state just to get a chance to be on my ballot. This does not seem fair or logical.

     The caucus system does not have secret ballots. The delegates go into a room and go into the corner of the candidate they are choosing. I would hope peer pressure is not helping decide our president, but it sure looks like it could!

     A better system would be if there were votes in one randomly selected congressional district from each state, say February first of the election year. These fifty districts would have all the respective Republican and Democratic candidates on the ballot. This would give a nice cross section of American public opinion. The candidates would be forced to spread their message to the entire country, which would help them to hear our views as well. Now they can just ” adjust ” their message for every primary, so the Hilary Clinton you heard in January in Iowa might not be the one you hear in New York in June. Then the primaries could start after that, with the states rotating every four years who goes first and who goes ( irrelevantly ) last.

OK, that’s my nickel’s worth.

     I recently attended my daughters first day at college. The president of the university gave a welcoming speech, advising us that our " children " were now college freshman and they will be completely on their own now, the apron strings have been cut. He then said that they will have a reality check about college academic life starting October 22 with their first mid terms. The mother next to me wrote this date down. She then took some other notes, and proceeded to review these notes with her daughter after the president spoke. When does it end? When do the students start to do their work on their own? I have seen the parents of my children’s friends do all their homework with them night after night, through the end of high school. I have personally known parents that will read every book their children are assigner so they can " help them " with the  term paper. Help them? They write it for them! These grammar school students are handing in college level essays about books, and nobody thinks the teachers know. Of course they do, but what are their options? Fail the kids who get extra help at home? Their parents would be in an uproar. 

     When I was kid, my parents stopped helping me with my home work in about the fifth grade. Their help had grdually become more like " Do you want me to test you? " If I had a test tomorrow, or " I can drive you to the library to look that up". Today’s parents do not draw the line they should when they give their children homework help. Many do the homework for them, correct it so its perfect, do extensive research on the Internet, even work on projects while the kids are in school! My son saw a mother on line outside the high school college admissions office one morning last week handing in college applications. It made me wonder, who filled put their applications and wrote the essays? I don’t have to wonder, I know, I just hope they tell the student which college Mommy got them accepted to.

     We all want our children to do well in school, succeed in life, but helping them has gotten out of hand. At some point these kids are going to be on their own, and it will be a rude awakening for some. I hope the parents are always there to pick them up when they fail. Remember, butterflies need to be strong enough to break out of the cocoon, or they won’t be able to fly. These kids need their mental muscles exercised before its too late. Its usually SAT day - no parents allowed!

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• Should the government mandate paid parental leave?

    
      No one likes a judge. To me, the title implies " authority over my actions ".  So how could I sit here and be a proponent of capital punishment? Do I know all the circumstances of these incidents? Do I know the mental state or capacity of the murderer? And finally, who am I to decide if that person should live or die? I believe that people who support capital punishment have not fully examined this issue.

     The family of the victims of horrific crimes many times are for the death penalty. Emotionally, this must seem like justice for them, an eye for and eye, closure. But have we walked a mile in the killer’s shoes? How were they raised, what drove them to use deadly force, torture people, do horrible things that bring them to the brink of receiving the death penalty? I cannot in good conscience ever be in favor of this. 

     I do not think as a modern society, educated, that we need this kind of penalty to keep the criminal population in check. How sane can murderers and other criminals at that level be? We know they are not the people we want living next to us, but somebody grew up next to them, they are human beings, forgivable. Maybe forgivable is too strong a word.

      Human beings should not condemn another to die, we do not have that right.

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• MisterE
• CarolHoenig
• lamarhall
• Are there circumstances under which you support capital punishment?

     When your eight year old asks you this question, it is a tough moment. You just had the conversation that they were born because Mommy and Daddy loved each other and made them. Now, your child sees on television that another child has no father, only two mothers. This is very confusing, and not natural. If evolution has taught us anything, its that two species of the same gender cannot reproduce. How do you explain that they used the sperm of a man, who is the baby’s birth father, but not his " Daddy " ? This is when other peoples " choices " are brought into the home and become a problem for your family unit.

      I believe a child should have a male and female presence in the home to provide the most balanced upbringing. Divorce can cause this balance to break down, but same sex couples raising a child is a choice. When this choice is brought into my home on the television, this is where I have a problem. If my child is watching a show they’ve seen before and I approve of, but tonight there are new neighbors Jason and Tim with there seven year old, I cannot shield my child from that. I do not believe this represents a significant portion of society and it is not the kind of " family " model I want portrayed for my child. Is it so wrong to expect television to show middle of the road, regular situations instead of catering at times to the extreme element of society, most often just for shock value?

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• Should children’s media portray same-sex parents?

     The Yankees had 10 days to figure out the best way to replace Joe Torre, and the answer they came up with was to insult his performance and integrity with a pay cut and incentive package. Do you think Torre needed a monetary incentive to try to win?

     If the Yankees had any class, they would have approached Torre and asked him how he wanted to go out. Hey Joe, we want to move on, appreciate all you have done, let’s do this right. Press conference, player and management accolades,a list of his impressive achievements and the thanks of a grateful city for 12 exciting years. But NOOOOO! All the great minds of the Yankee brain trust ( a term I am using lightly ) decide to try to get discount Torre, the 2008 model.

     If Torre had manged in Seattle, Detroit, Minnesota, they would have a statue of him in the ballpark, he would be lifetime employee and his opinion would be valued. Only the Yankees could screw this up this bad. And let’s not blame senile George. His big boy sons finally have their first crack at public decision making and they blow it.

     The next Yankee manager can only fail. He will have to reach the American League Championships to be considered a success, most likely without Posada and Rivera. Let’s face it, why should they resign with the Yankees? Their best chance for returning to the World Series just got canned!

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• Are sports a crucial part of functioning society?

   No one but the individual couples themselves knows the ups and downs of marriage. Divorce is a necessary evil, no question. Some marriages are just not meant to be.  It’s difficult, giving up the single life or leaving the home you grew up in to get married. But love is the craziest emotion, so the married life still calls to many.

     It’s only in the past 50 years that divorce has become more and more common. Why? It actually should be less common, especially in this country. Everyone is educated, no one is forced into arranged marriages. Children can be planned, no " surprises ". Women are fully in the workforce, so two salaries are available for home ownership, vacations, luxuries that may have been unattainable for the last generation. Want to talk to your loved one? No need to wait for them to come home, call their cell, get the problem solved now, nothing is left to fester, keep the lines of communication open. Having some problems? Read a book about marriage, google self help topics on the Internet, find a good counselor, work through the problems. All these tools are available. Marriage should be a success story, but often its not. Why?

     I believe it is the amount of choices available today. It encourages people to be less responsible. Not happy with your job? You can move and get a divorce if the spouse wants to stay put. You have a right to your happiness, you shouldn’t let him/her stand in your way. Birth control has taken the risk of pregnancy away from any affair, so why not have that one night stand. I’m not hurting anyone, variety is the spice of life!. Marriage vows? Not if they don’t find out! Stay home at night? I have my cell phone, my spouse can call me if they need me. Children? Only when we are good and ready and we can hire a nanny. And I still want to go out with my friends, I deserve my " me " time, they don’t understand me at home. 

     We all know these people. They have a child or two, then decide they are not happy. Hello!! Who said it was going to be easy! For the first time in their lives, these people are faced with responsibility to another person, and they rebel! Hey, being responsible is difficult, no question. No one should stay in an abusive relationship, emotionally, physically, whatever. But too many marriages today break up because one or both parties just don’t want to deal anymore. And too often its the woman who ends up with the children, getting a check to cover expenses but little or no physical or emotional support. The children? Well, in the dating world, they are called " baggage ". I can’t do anything this weekend, I have the kids. We will have a good time when my ex takes the kids. Common phrases in our society, and its a shame. This isn’t my wife, its my baby’s mother, another of my favorites. 

     Has anybody thought about these children? Somebody needs to tell couples with children " Hey, you had children together. Sometimes its not about YOU in this life. These innocent human beings need your attention and love, and try not to screw them up.  They are your responsibility to raise, not baggage or an expense or a drag on your lifestyle! "

     Everyone talks about freedom, having more freedoms, etc. I would like to hear somebody say a little more often " I made commitment to my spouse and I am going to stick by it" . Is it old fashioned to expect people to live up to their commitments? I have a friend getting divorced for the second time. He has no children, professes to still love his wife, but he’s not  " happy ". So he goes back to his parents and tells them they did not let him choose his own career, they wanted him to be a professional and he wanted to be a construction worker. That’ s why he’s not happy. What a crock! If you are not happy, look in the mirror and have a good conversation. Most people control their own happiness. You are " Free " to be happy. Get used to it.

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• billyhallowell
• FreddieMontgomery
• Paul
• CarolHoenig
• lamarhall
• Should no-fault divorce be available to couples?