Karen L. O'Grady 1941-2011

Tonight at 6:32 PM Pacific time, my mom Karen L. O'Grady died from complications due to multiple sclerosis. She had contracted double pneumonia. Strength, kindness,bravery and always a smile even when she was groping to breathe were the characteristics of my mom. She is now again being sheltered and protected by her father who was killed in an auto accident when she was only 13 years old.

My mom battled and fought to standstill one of the deadliest neurological diseases on the planet for 21 years. Two examples of her character stand out. When I was a boy she took me to bookstores often. I was looking in the history section with her as a boy of about 7. A young employee there came up to us and said, "he (me) is a little too young for this section, take him to the children's section." My mom stood a little taller than her 5' 8" frame and looked the clerk straight in the eye and said, "my son will read whatever book he chooses to read. Thank you but we are staying here."

Another example of my mom's character is that when Teresa, the other of my mom's caregivers besides me, first came to work for her Teresa was embarrassed about speaking english to alot of people because spanish is her first language. My mom said to her, "don't worry about your english Teresa, when you need to talk to someone, you can always talk to me.'

My mom realized that dying with dignity does not mean accepting an inevitable fate. It means fighting for your life. We are all dying in some way or another, so its time to fight for your dignity.

My mom loved a poem by William Blake:

He who bends to himself a joy

Doth the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

My mom will forever live in Eternity's sunrise and in my heart forever.

The Real China

Here is a fabulous antidote to the growing number of sycophants for the Chinese government in the American corporate-media-government complex, led chiefly by Thomas L. Friedman. They have a barely hidden admiration for highly authoritarian if not Totalitarian practices that the Chinese people are trying vainly to struggle against every day.

The facts are that almost all the "rise from poverty" that happened in China since 1978 began to dramatically slow in China by 1990 and has now virtually stopped. China today is the definition of plutocratic fascism with a facade of Capitalism to keep the Western capital flowing in. Chinese economic statistics are as phony as a three dollar bill (even more phony than US :) The numbers are collected by the CCP Central Committee in each province indivually and then all added together to get a total. Each province is given incentives by the CCP Central Committee in Beijing to put out the best numbers possible. They have a farcical relation to reality in China.

A wonderful historian once said to all those who laud the Beijing regime for its "progress" to take a bike ride in China from Shanghai to Xinjiang and then a bike ride from Maine to California and then say which society is healthier, wealthier, freer, and happier. Peasants riot against the ChiComs everyday in China. They get rounded up or slaughtered, it just never makes the news.

Bachmann's References to Chinese Issues

I am no supporter of Michelle Bachmann but there was a basis in fact to the references she made regarding Chinese counterfeit chips and the underground submarine base. From my perspective it never pays in the long-run to underestimate the capabilities of a historically powerful nation like China. It is one thing to underestimate Iraq or Libya. It is another to underestimate the capabilities of a nation that is potentially a military and economic power equal to or greater than the United States.

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Pulling out of Iraq but......

Leading from behind an Israeli operation.......perhaps......although I tend to think all of these bursts of jingoistic talk toward Iran are designed for effect.

Buckle Up

Anyone who thinks the economies of the world are slowly "healing",as we so often hear from economists on the payroll of governments,is drinking from a scalding chalice of delusion that will burn their throats and boil their stomachs. (or maybe they are just drinkin' the cool aid :)

But never to worry. We can rely on the technocratic experts to manage the economy. We know so much more than we did then.

Joe Frazier

In memory of Joe Frazier. dead at 67.