A Sniff Is Not A Kiss

People once used smell to determine a person’s mood, health and social status. By brushing the nose across another person’s face scent glands release secretions offering clues. Over time these facial brushes became a brush of the lips and a new social greeting was born, the kiss.

Meanings change and time is the master when it comes to change. Lately banks have been giving home shoppers a ‘sniff’ of low mortgage interest rates, and by offering these low mortgage interest rates, one gets a feeling the banks are ready to kiss and make up. Sounds good but it doesn’t pass the sniff test.

Upon closer inspection the prospective home owner finds details that may cause them to be brushed aside. Most potential borrowers will not have a credit score worthy of the low rates. The financial institution may have criteria that will cause the relationship to break up before the borrower gets to first base without a whiff of a kiss.

These deceptive relationships will not help remedy the housing problem almost every region of our nation faces. The banks were bailed out after they were caught using deceptive practices and they put our nation’s financial well-being at risk. Their attempt to regain our trust by agreeing to a recent settlement should not make them our Valentine.

Banks are still unwilling to make the ‘best of the worst’ situation by taking pennies less on a dollar to sell the millions of properties sitting dormant.

We gave them $200 billion and they kissed us off settling for $25 billion.

PACs One Year Later

A year didn’t change anything - public welfare still lagging.

It ain’t just corporate America providing the big bucks to elect presidents.  Individuals can wield power too by using their “Almighty Dollars”. $42 million collected by PACs and still rising.

Supreme Court Validates Trespass

Unfortunately the question of whether police can use intrusive technology by tapping into a factory-installed GPS unit gets left for another case to see if the Supreme Court’s position becomes narrower.

This goes back a long way.

Obesity In As Opt Out P.E. Rules

Here’s some more truth tellin’. From 1962 to 1990 weight increased among our adult population by more than 20 pounds. The average weight for males is 191 lbs. while the women average 164 lbs.

Why are parents choosing to let their children opt out of Physical Education (P.E.) as early as middle school? Most educators agree that 150 minutes per week (mpw) for elementary children is good. Middle schools would have required 225 mpw, but most only require one semester in middle grades. Different waivers apply at the high school level.

Academics are very important but physical education promotes lifelong physical activities and we should show our support. If chewing gum alone boosts mental sharpness, think what physical activity could stimulate. The only downside to chewing gum are rules at schools forbidding this practice, and ‘the latest research’ found users only get twenty minutes of peak performance during the test.

Opt out for P.E. is a bad choice and politicians allowing bad rules to become the norm are accepting responsibility for the rising cost of health care in our nation.

Happy Birthday Brother

Fitting that Obama’s State of the Union address should fall on my brother’s birthday, a real political science junkie from the late ‘50’s to his death in 1993. He’d have a difficult time accepting today’s depressed housing values, why we’d repeat missing an opportunity to produce more oil and gas domestically, and the fear of borrowing cheap money to stimulate the economy; it only looks bad in the short-term. This new year, 2012, needs a boost and Wall Street would welcome a new round of stimulus. David would be beating drums for the U – S – A and leading chants, U – S – A!, U – S – A!, U – S – A! Yea, my brother knew how to throw a party and always made everyone feel at ease by his infectious laughter. Though our economy is disheartening and agonizingly slow it is moving forward. It’s a reason for celebration and you, my brother, would have made it happen. He’d also have seen the need for filthy, rich people to contribute their fair share to our government. Time for some truth-telling, brother, but too many will watch tonight’s address by our President with eyes wide shut or they’ll be at McDonald’s helping secure a record annual turnover of $27bn for Mickey D’s.