Animals Abandoned Becoming A Crisis

 

How could anyone just abandon their pet on a street curb, even if they left food? Close to a car wash that had been feeding her and even after sleeping almost non-stop for two days, she was still so tired from waiting when a rescue came to help. This is not only spreading nationwide, but is also becoming more prevalent in the media, publicity which animal lovers are thankful for. It's beyond shaming those who give up their animals; we need a national fix.

Some time ago I posted on Twitter and Facebook that it would be great if some millionaires/billionaires would step up and fund a huge animal sanctuary centrally located where these deserted animals could go. They could coordinate with Pilots N Paws, an organization that flies pets to locations where they are wanted. This would be a great move by those with means and help a lot of animals that have lost their forever homes.     THINK ABOUT IT!       READ MORE...

Kari Lake Turns On DeSantis

 

Most Arizona voters have gotten over Kari Lake and just want her to go away. I am one of those, but, and this is a huge BUT. Daily Beast says she...

"once fawned over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for having the “BDE [Big Dick Energy] that we want all of our leaders to have,” is now spreading conspiracy theories about the Republican darling."

We need a good liberal strategist, like James Carville, to put together a blueprint to wreck DeSantis' drive to the White House in 2024 and send him back to Florida where he can continue to ravage that state.  

Mississippi Turns Its Back On Healthcare

 

The Biden administration gave Mississippi $18.4 million in mid-2021 to hire public health workers after the state legslature had made huge cuts to healthcare. 18 months later, Mississippi had spent just $3.6 million of its grant. READ MORE...

"The number of babies born with congenital syphilis rose 900% over the course of five years in Mississippi, the state that already had the highest infant mortality rate in the U.S. in 2020." READ MORE...

DeSantis Wants To Amend The U.S. Constitution

 

There's Kevin McCarthy, carefully regulated by Marjorie Taylor Greene, mixed with other undeniably incompetent Republicans trying to change things like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But none is as scary as Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has devastated his state, and now wants to amend the U.S. Constitution.

READ MORE...

Want To Keep Your Social Security And Medicare? Dump Republicans In 2024

 

For those of us on Social Security and Medicare, we just got a significant raise due to an increase in the cost of living. Being one of the recipients, I believe this is more than justified based on contributions over the years. As the saying goes, these are entitlements which Republicans are regularly trying to take away from us. The new GOP House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, said both were off the table. McCarthy is just sneaky enough, however, to take them off the table but sneak them in the drawer underneath.

In the SOTU speech, "President Joe Biden slammed Republicans for their efforts to "sunset" Social Security and Medicare." You cannot trust Republicans...case in point Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida)...

"who has called for dramatic changes to the way in which those programs are funded. Instead of perpetual funding, Scott has called for Social Security and Medicare to 'sunset' in five years."

WATCH BIDEN: ‘We all apparently agree’ on saving Medicare and Social Security, Biden teases at SOTU...

You have to wonder what kind of an individual would even consider taking away the lifeblood of seniors in programs like Social Security and Medicare when the current system of retirement is based in part on these entitlements. Here's what Vox says...

"Sen. Rick Scott wants every government program — even entitlements — to expire after 5 years unless Congress approves them again."

There must be something in the water in Florida to spawn two ignoramuses like the Gov. Ron (the despot) DeSantis and Scott. You know it must be pretty bad when Joe Biden feels the need to target a specific Senator and taut the idiocy of what he wants to do. Here's the scenario...

"Scott’s proposal would radically overhaul how the federal government 

operates, forcing Congress to re-pass every federal law or else let them lapse — a move that, in Democrats’ telling, would endanger much of what the government does, including beloved federal programs like Medicare and Social Security."

Biden proposes, instead, "making the wealthy pay their fair share." Now that's an idea that has been floated for years now, but the millionaires and billionaires just keep racking up more and more $$$ and the rest of the country suffers. Even Moscow Mitch is disagreeing with Rick Scott, partly in retaliation for Scott's challenging McConnell's leadership, saying this was not a Republican idea. And, get this, Donald Trump promised not to cut Social Security and Medicare.

I urge you to read the Vox article which provides some history into both programs and more insight into the fight by Democrats to keep them.

Your Personal Health Data Available Worldwide

 

I should know. I was a data broker in the junk mail industry for 35 years. In my later years in the business I preached protection of private information but no one listened. The situation had become so bad that I proposed that individuals should maintain ownership of their name and personal date and actually be paid for its use. My proposal, which was introduced on July 4, 2006, in my earlier blog, The Dunning Letter...

was completely antagonistic to junk mailers, the Direct marketing Assn., and many privacy groups whose purported purpose was to protect your name and personal data.

Here is an excerpt...

"There is only one answer to protecting our names and personal data, and holding Big Brother at bay when it comes to business and government usurping individual privacy. Orwell’s 1984 predicted it, and we are very close to fulfilling his prophesy, but Americans are beginning to see the light and the need to protect their inner sanctum."

Americans actually didn't "see the light" and the data selling business has roared

ahead at lightning speed and arrives at a point now where the sale of your mental health data is being promoted, bolstered by information gathered during the Covid pandemic. Washington Post researcher contacted data brokers to find out exactly what they sell...

"Joanne Kim reported that she ultimately found 11 companies willing to sell bundles of data that included information on what antidepressants people were taking, whether they struggled with insomnia or attention issues, and details on other medical ailments, including Alzheimer’s disease or bladder-control difficulties."

There's more from WaPo...

"One company advertised the names and home addresses of people with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress or bipolar disorder. Another sold a database featuring thousands of aggregated mental health records, starting at $275 per 1,000 'ailment contacts.'”

It's all about money. There is a fortune to be made in selling your private information. Just concerning personal health data, a Google search of that phrase brought up 171 million results. And by the way, I left the junk mail industry almost 25 years ago and a health database available then is still around today: Experian's Behaviorbank which offers a myriad of selections including "health problems." Trust me, there is no privacy today so live with it.

To close, you should know that the exposure of your private information is floating on clouds around the world.

 

 

Memories of Sam Phillips and Sun Records

 

I met Sam Phillips in the early 1960s when Sun Records was in its location on Madison Ave. in Memphis. The place was a former Midas Muffler Shop and Hart's Bakery that Sam gutted and turned into Sun Records. I was fortunate to have a friend, Lou Harris, one of Elvis' Memphis Mafia, who knew Jack Clement, Phillips' top A&R (artist & repertoire) man. These were the people who "rode" the board, a mechanical contraption allowing them to mix sound for the records.

Sam Phillips would have been 100 on January 5, past, but the music he gave to the world will last 100s of years longer. I was fortunate in being able to hang around Sun Records regularly with my friend Lou Harris during the early days. Lou died a few years back and is no doubt sharing a stage up there somewhere with Phillips and Clement. Jack was Johnny Cash's A&R man and I was lucky one day to walk in Sun Records during one of their recording sessions. It was fantastic.

Never was lucky enough to see Elvis there but did have the opportunity to meet

him during that period where I worked at WMC-TV. I was setting up an evening show I produced when our receptionist ushered him into the studio and told me Elvis wanted to look around. Actually Elvis wanted to know just how television worked since he was going to be on the Ed Sullivan Show the next Sunday. I showed him around. put him on camera and introduced him to the guys in the control room. 

Elvis seemed almost shy but was very gracious in his thanks. Before he left, he pulled a Zippo lighter out of his pocket, held it up and asked me if I thought something like this would sell with his face on it; a Colonel Parker idea. I told him anything would sell with his face on it. He thanked me again and of course his following Sunday TV appearance is history. Sam Phillips sold Elvis' contract to RCA Records for a grand total $40,000, the largest amount paid a single performer up to that time.

Phillips said he was not necessarily conscious of "creating a new kind of music." His comment...

"I think I was conscious of letting out the insides, emotional insides, of people. And that was the challenge, to a great extent," Phillips added. "Oh man, I loved the music ... I dearly loved it. So this was a beautiful experience — it still is, to see the influence that it's had around the world."

 Sam Phillips 100 years, a MUST WATCH...

Like many others of the early rock & roll era, much of his inspiration came from Black workers who sang in the cotton fields where Phillips worked. He said...

‘’A day didn’t go by when I didn’t hear black folks singing in the cotton fields. Did I feel sorry for them? In a way I did. But they could do things I couldn’t do. They could outpick me. They could sing on pitch. That made a big impression on me.’’

My uncle had two large cotton plantations in Mississippi and his Black supervisor, courageously in those days called Man, took me in the fields during each of my visits and I experienced the music Phillips was talking about. One thing I did realize, it was completely natural for the Blacks, the prime reason it is eternal in the music. On his way to Sun Records Sam Phillips worked in several radio stations across the South, one of which, WREC, I worked there in television.

 Phillips didn't want to copy or duplicate...

“He wasn’t looking for somebody who sounded like someone who was already out there,” Roland Janes, former Sun session guitarist, said in a 2003 interview with Scripps Howard News Service. “If you had a unique sound musically or vocally, that would impress him.”

I could go on for hours with the history of this music icon but let me urge you to read the two articles here and here. There are also several pictures and more information on Sam Phillips and Sun Records here.