This guy, Harry Bostick, was convicted of felony drunken driving in 2009, just after having been convicted in 2008 – for drunken driving.  He was still going through a court mandated drug rehab program when he applied for his pardon last summer. On September 30, the Mississippi Parole Board sent its review of Bostick’s application to Barbour, recommending a full pardon in a 3-2 vote. Then… a week after Barbour let him loose, Bostick was again driving under the influence when he pulled out onto a highway and slammed into a car, killing Charity Smith.  Barbour had said that he wasn’t aware of Bostick’s October 2011 DUI arrest when he chose to pardon him.  But e-mails obtained by CNN show that the governor’s office did, in fact, know about it.  Amanda Jones, the governor’s chief counsel, and Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann were told about the October car crash that killed Smith just days after it happened.
Jones and Hosemann were even urged by a lawyer in the firm that represented Bostick not to issue the pardon, according to the e-mails.

                          

Depakote is a medication that has proven effective for seizure and also as a kind of leveling agent for the manic phase of Bipolar Depression.  However, Abbott admitted that from 1998 through 2006, it “maintained a specialized sales force trained to market Depakote in nursing homes for the control of agitation and aggression in elderly dementia patients, despite the absence of credible scientific evidence that Depakote was safe and effective for that use.”  They also trained its sales force to promote the drug to health care providers and employees of nursing homes as better than anti psychotic drugs for controlling agitation and aggression in elderly dementia patients, and then went further and promoted the drug as a treatment for schizophrenia.

Though the company paid for two studies of the use of Depakote to treat schizophrenia, neither met the goals established for the study.
“When the second study failed to show proof of their claims, Abbott waited nearly two years to notify its own sales force about the study results and another two years to publish those results”.

                          

No offense, but why the hell would I celebrate the Battle of Puebla? Yeah, that’s – I just looked it up – what all the commotion is about. Some battle between the Mexicans and the French. I’m Italian. Do I ask everyone to celebrate the St. Valentines’ Day Massacre? No. We celebrate that quietly, here by lining up 14 pieces of fish against a wall and then eating them while making Tommy Gun sounds with our mouths.

Seriously, that’s how stupid this sounds to me. We have Labor Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Flag Day, Presidents’ Day, Columbus Day, Groundhog Day, April Fools Day, Patriot Day, Women’s Equality Day. We got days for it just being a day. Do we need a Mexico verses France Day? Really?

And how come we don’t have any Night Days? Halloween used to be a night thing, but because we are such a sick society, any parent with half a brain takes his kid out way before the sun goes down. I want a Night Day. I want a celebration that marks the onset of nighttime. No one sleeps during the day of Night Day, so that when night falls we can emerge zombie-like and crawl from bar to bar in a gleeful stupor celebrating the dark. Of course the Catholic Church will see this as some Satanic thing and ban Catholics from participating, but that will just make it more enticing. In fact, I suggest that all Catholics wear a big “C” on their chest during Night Day. This will entitle them to one free drink at any bar of their choice. Sweet!

                          

The BBC reports that that Mein Kampf is being published by the German state of Bavaria, for the first time since WWII.  It brought to mind the piece below (written in 2009), which used the Jews in pre-war Germany as an example of a larger human tendency, and of a looming global unease.  LK

Following World War I, there were millions of Jews living in Germany, Austria, Poland, and myriad other Western and Eastern European countries.  During the 1920’s and early 30’s the seeds of Nazism were planted and Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 sealed the evil deal.

During this Rosemary’s Baby-like gestation period there were Jews who felt the change coming and emigrated, despite having to leave careers and wealth behind, and despite having to deal with starting anew in foreign lands.

There were others who also felt the rumbles, but did the equivalent of sticking their heads in the sand, acting as if perhaps they were exempt from the oncoming tsunami, or deferring to their ultimately deadly sense of inertia, which caused them to stay put.

There were also those who were impervious to the odor of the foul winds, whose antennae weren’t sensitive enough, and who didn’t have the ability to process what they were able to feel, and went about their business as usual.  They too fell hard.

The second group, the group that, with effort, ignored the impressions received by their senses and souls, could rightly be called the true “victim class”, as they were the ones who, for lack of a gentler way to put it,  chose to become victims.

I submit that there’s something brewing in America, and in the world, that will result in changes as substantial as those that led to the World Wars, the Great Depression, the Civil War, the Crusades, and countless other historic tipping points.  It hasn’t yet solidified enough to have a name or recognizable shape, but vapors will turn into clouds, and clouds into icebergs,  and those icebergs will cause our Titanic world to undergo yet another tectonic shift.

While I’ve used the Jews in the period prior to WWII as an example of the types of choices we humans make in the face of foundational fissures, my point applies to all of us now living in the Western World.

The question is, will we, as groups and/or as individuals, choose to heed the early warning signs as they steadily become more apparent, or will we simply hope that by going about our daily work and daily play we can avoid the inevitable?  And will those of us with eyes to see and ears to hear make the extra effort to assist the third group, those without the ability to perceive or avoid the dangers ahead?

There is much to ponder, and much to do.

                          

That, I think, is the answer that works in the world that we inhabit.  How else do we make it through all of the incredible ugliness of what is all around us and not snap our collective noggins?  How do we sit through the recitation of horrors in the Charles Taylor trial?  How do we absorb the slaughter by Assad’s regime in Syria, as they actually make a game out of following the UN observers and popping off a fresh group of their own people as soon as the UN guys move to the next village?  The answer again…if the tree didn’t fall on me, I don’t care.  Translation:  If the mayor of my town is not setting up the Chamber of Commerce on the roof tops of shops along Main street, and arming them with sniper rifles, or – - if the Governor of New Jersey is not chopping hands off and collecting little kids to be in his revolutionary army, I’m not effected.

We shake our heads and sigh in disbelief, as we go back to waxing our cars and trimming the bushes.  Me?  I give some money to Amnesty International.  I give some money to the International Red Cross.  Man, I even bought some mosquito nets so the African kids don’t all die so fast from Malaria.  Yeah.  I’m one of the good guys.  Of course, it takes me about 17 seconds to ‘internet’ my part and then I get back to the important stuff, like the cars and lawn.  But, hey… power to the people, I say!  I will strike my thunderous blows to evil and tyranny everywhere!

To be fair, denial is salvation.  Should we all be absorbed in the misery that is painting most of the 3rd World, we would shrivel and wilt like the daisies we are- – having been born here in the Civilized West.  We are not made of the same stuff…at least not that we are aware of.  Yeah, somewhere deep in our darkest recesses we feel it…that black, ugly sense that if pushed, we could turn into a Charles Taylor, but we spend every minute of every day – according to Freud at least – pushing that down, as we attempt to fit into some societal model.  I guess that’s best, so remember, if you actually do hear the tree fall, pretend it was thunder or God’s bowling ball and get out of the way!

                          

Santorum got the poor evangelical vote but few other demographic groups.  One fascinating metric is that he did better with people who think the economy isn’t getting better, and Romney did better with those who think it is.

This initially seemed counter-intuitive,  as one would have thought that those who needed the economy to improve would lean towards the business oriented Romney.

However, after thinking it through,  it actually makes sense, as (and this is harsh, sad, and true) the poor, poorly educated and less employable take refuge in Santorum’s bigotries.

                          

In this case, we’ve clearly got a very troubled poor soul who didn’t wait for the “Post” part before directing, in the most tragic of ways, his Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome on other poor innocent souls.

In this case, 3’s definitely not the charm:

This is cold, politically way incorrect, and what I believe to be true:

                          

Out of the nation’s 10 largest cities, Philadelphia’s homicide rate is the worst. Last year ended with 324 homicides, up from 306 in 2010, and as of January of this year, 34 murders and counting.