Sea Cape Cod by Michael Mosier

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the sunny, cool, dry and gorgeous island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this Saturday morning, the 26th day of July, 2014, just in time for cartoons, and that is what you will get if you turn on the old television set or read this blog.  Do we still use those things anymore?  Paul Ryan, the wonderful congressman from the great state of Wisconsin sure does, him being a real ’serious thinker’ regarding the poor and all.  You see it seems the throw back cast member of the hit ’60’s comedy show, the “Munster’s”, is trying to help the down and out of this great, rich nation, with some little minded GOP dwarfs in both chambers of Congress.  A Congress that the Founding Fathers would be ashamed of.

“You’re going the wrong way!” (a young couple screams out of their window at a vehicle on the other side of the median, the other car flying at a high rate of speed down said highway, again heading, tragically--the wrong way. Inside that rental car is one John Candy and Steve Martin, unlikely bedfellows in the timeless struggle to ‘get back home’, to Chicago, presented beautifully in the classic 1987 film, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”).  “They’re  saying we are going the wrong way…”, to wit ‘Del Griffith’, quips, “Oh she’s probably drunk, how would she know where we’re going?”. “Yeah, how would she know? Thank you”… (snobby businessman ‘Neal Page’ waves his hand in ‘thanks’ to the good Samaritans as they plummet towards two semi tractor trailer trucks at 90 m.p.h).  I know the GOP has some sense of what side of the road reason is on, but this is ridiculous…or am I being too obtuse?

Broad state block grants don’t work.  According to Robert Greenstein, CBPP President and Founder, congressman Paul Ryan’s most recent rewrite (a new ‘draft’), of his bestseller, especially in Detroit, “Pathway to Prosperity”, republicans and the one percent, not yours, is nothing more than a big, steaming pile of hor$e$hit.  And his comment on the matter of Mr. Ryan’s sociology report went something like this–”…states would get their hands on money that is now going for basic food stamp benefits or basic rental assistance to avoid homelessness and they could use it for a whole array of purposes.  At it’s worst, he puts in there some programs that are really developer programs, so that at a local level, local officials could take some of the food stamp money and they could actually use it to make deals with local real estate and commercial developers to do things like build shopping centers on the end of low income areas.  Yes, it may be useful to do pilot projects and experiment.  But, as far as I’m concerned, one of the greatest social achievements of this country in the last half century has been the near elimination of severe child hunger and malnutrition.  Largely attributable to the food stamp program and it’s entitlement status of automatic response for need.  And any plan that blows that up, something Paul Ryan has been trying to do in his budget, for years, is not a path we should go down (path for prosperity,,, not mother?).  Now, if he is willing to take out of his plan food stamps, and let that be as the core nutrition safety plan for poor families, kids and seniors, and to find some protection for rental vouchers so we don’t have more homelessness, then we could look at some of these kinds of ideas.  But that’s not what the plan is.  He combines all of these things into a mega state grant, and he says it would be the same amount of resources as under today’s law.  Well that’s not true for two reasons I think.  Number one, you wouldn’t get the automatic increases in real time when the need goes up like in recessions.  And number two, we have a thirty year history where in the Senate, we take all kinds of disparate programs and throw them together in one big block grant.  It always starts with the same amount of money, but these block grants are so disparate and diverse that the history is clear.  They end up with big reduction in funding over the decade and they don’t compete well with other programs…”  So the seven GOP dwarfs assigned to ‘helping’ the poor are being called out for who they really are, well, their names should tell you all you need to know on that front.  That’s right, “Slimy”, “Shady”, “Sleazy”, “Wheezy”, “Boastful”, “Greedy” and our aforementioned pal “Sad”.  The pictured little thought ring leader of the crew, ever putting a frown on ‘the American people’s faces!  Pity that.  At least Snow White released “Happy” into the wild.  Knowing, as he flips the bird to the scary members of that GOP, shouting at the top of his lungs, “…you’re all just tiny minded wipers of other people’s bottoms’!” (credit the classic 1975 film, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”), you just can’t talk to a crazy person, especially one that does not think he, or she, is crazy. For is that not what the plutocrats want?  The Holy Grail? Coming in the form of a government they would ’shrink down to the size where we could drown it in a bathtub’? (credit Grover Norquist).  Turning back the tide on that American exceptional(ism) they speak of so often, i.e. the way we treat each other and the world, turning this nation into a serf state as it kills the planet for profit.  Have a great rest of the week end folks and we will, God willing, SEA you right next week--same bat time, same bat channel! PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the sunny, comfortable and peaceful island of Nantucket! Great to be back with you on a Saturday morning, the 19th day of July, 2014, just returning from kayaking Hyannis Port’s rich supply of wildlife in and about the waters of this sacred sand bar created 11,500 years ago by the Last Great Ice Age…Osprey, Chickadee’s, Cardinals, Laughing gulls, Greater Black Backs, Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Oyster Catchers, Terns, Green Herons, Piping Plovers, Blue Jays, Grackles, Common Gulls, Peregrine Falcons and the occasional Marsh Hawk as it swoops in and out of the reeds looking for it’s prey, repeating the never ending circle of life.  These animals seem to possess more nobility at times than man.

This past week has seen it’s share of that life taken in extraordinary ways, innocent life that is.  With the wars waging in Ukraine/Russian border towns, resulting in a mad act of blowing a commercial jet out of the sky, to the blood shed rampant now in the Gaza strip–Palestinian civilians taking the biggest hit, mostly woman and children; over 300 killed thus far in this most recent conflict between Israel and the people of Palestine–while in this country, the innocents come in the form of babes in the wood, “dangerous and diseased” woman and children from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, fleeing oppression and wars not of their making nor of their understanding, indeed escaping in full flight and fear to a land where at least they may have a CHANCE at surviving another day.  “Yet the humans would give no LOVE”.

Wouldn’t you like to take ‘ole congressman Louis Gomert out to the wood shed and have a little chat?  What an a$$hole!  That’s right folks, what the world needs now is not LOVE but more hate!  Just ask Roger Ailes of FOX “NEWS”, he’ll tell ya!  “Do we still have that booking with Sarah Palin?  Good, she is a fire cracker that one, and sharp as a tack, you betcha, oh my God, did I just say that?”…  So as we watch the western United States burn in more ways than one on national television every night, the question on everyone’s mind this morning is when is some sanity going to enter the picture?  When does the POWER of the collective good, combined with reason, win the day? When?

The innocent lives of people who only want to live those lives in peace and under a fair system of governance, one where the little guy is not stacked up against a billionaire whose voice is now paramount, (legally too thanks to SCOTUS), yes those lives, real lives that far outweigh the needs of the greedy few, are the lives that ultimately count the most and in a democratic sovereign nation. A TRUISM that will eventually DAWN on the many, who will–as the seas continue to rise and the temperatures go up–demand a FAIR SHAKE, destroying the rotten, can somebody say Denmark?, rigged system that is destroying our natural order, one based on the ebb and flow of God given waters that will be worth more than GOLD someday. You can bet your bottom dollar on that one.  Have a great week end folks and please come on back and visit us here at seacapecod.net, we will as always, leave the LIGHT on for ya!  PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the once again sunny, beautiful, breezy and dare I say sometimes above the LAW island of Nantucket! Great to be back with you after a GREAT 4th of July week end here on little old Cape Cod and those amazing aforementioned islands only a few steps (boats) from where I write these words every day, or almost every day…  What do you want? I do this pro bono for humanity.  Even though we had a bit of a bump in the road with Hurricane Arthur, who grazed Nantucket and Hyannis/Hyannis Port with some stiff winds and heavy rains, it is nothing compared to what Typhoon (what’s the name in Japanese?) is going to do to that country moments from now, for as the kids in climate denial land say, just in from FOX “NEWS”– it seems that the ‘heavy stuff probably won’t be coming down for quite a while, I’d keep playing’… ‘You’re probably right son, anyways, the good Lord would never interrupt the best game of my life…’ (credit the classic, must SEA film–starring Bill Murray as Carl Spackler, ‘assistant greens keeper’, circa 1978–“Caddyshack”; also starring Mr. ‘Bushwood’ himself, the late, great Ted Knight, who lights up the screen with haunting parodies of the one percent years before it became vogue), that’s right folks, it seems that “I think it’s about time somebody pump about 15,000 gallons of water down there to teach you, a little bit of a lesson about what it’s like to be an upstanding member of a society!”  “Is ‘dat what it is?  I ‘tink it is!” (thanks Bill!).

Yes sir, it’s ground hog day at the ‘ole police brutality video evidence room (how did that get out there?) in the great state of California where I am sure by now you have seen yet another example of police taking their various frustrations in life out on unsuspecting victims that they are sworn to protect and serve.  What was that?  You want a knuckle sandwich?  Well I am just the knucklehead you ordered up, but I can’t today ’cause I am scheduled to be at a Murrietta rally to keep them dangerous illegal alien children from takin’ all our benefits and such, but call me later, you know, after the Hannity cross burnin’, I mean pig roast.

I have to tell you folks, I had my share of personal police brutality for a lifetime, ironically over on my fair island of Nantucket, as I almost lost my life to a violent sort fella who reminds me of that bloke you have seen all over the airwaves, a C.H.i.P., a California Highway Patrolman who beat the living $hit out of some poor black woman who must have not obeyed one of his ‘commands’.  You know the old saying, give a little man a little power…

Now of course, not all cops are bad, in fact the cops in Chicago had their hands full with violent gun totting thugs who killed at least 11 this past holiday week end.  But, as was in my case in 2003, the coverups and the brutality is rarely caught on tape.  Fortunately for me, two witnesses saw the Nantucket Police Department officer literally slam dunk my face into the cement, resulting in a wicked, nearly fatal blow to the front of my face, blood included, and a coma for a few days…I wrote about that whole incident in a book called “Taking Fog to Nantucket”, available in hard copy soon. E book available on Smashwords.com.  The point of the book was to help people, like myself, who suffer from PTSD and to look beyond it to the next level, if one can, beyond the horrible brutality some people in power inflict upon the vulnerable and the helpless with genuine forgiveness.  Take this whole border thing.  ‘It has been told, ye of little faith, I’m lookin’ at you Rick Perry of Texas, that Jesus will come back like a thief in the night.  I do not think he will care that your excuse for not helping desperate children caught in life threatening situations, offering protection from a crumbling civilization, fraught with gangs, drugs and all that is evil in this world (remember Nicaragua?  Ronald Reagan?  Anything Rick?) was that you were ignorant and blind to all of that political nonsense such as you running for higher office.  Tisk, Tisk.  You have gone as high as you are going to go Rick, and I don’t mean in just this life time.  Where was I?  Immigration and the republican party in America, that’s right.  Oil and water, Israel and Palestine (pray for peace), dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!  Oxymoron’s are not just for breakfast anymore, they exist deep in the heart of Texas where they wait in desperate hope from the front lines of insanity, “tunnelin’ in from the construction sight over yonder”, yes, streamin’ in from the whack job leaders of the new right wing agenda–namely to follow the Koch brother.s money straight into the gates of hell.

For that IS the republican agenda–destroy democracy with that little letter ‘d’ one district at a time, buying Congress and the Supreme Court, hopefully the Executive soon, and thus establishing rule by the wealthy (plutocracy defined and realized, a new wicked GOLD-en rule designed to exploit the rest of the natural order, namely the natural environment and her resources until the planet is cooked to a fine medium rare taste, leaving little to the masses who will be decimated by water/food deserts (look at Detroit in 2014!) and climate cataclysm by the end of the century, not invited in, like Jesus 2014 years ago, to the newly designed man made ‘gated islands’.  Super uber wealthy islands much like Nantucket today (richest zip code in the U.S.).  This ideology of ’small government’ only touches on what ‘they’ (the .00001 wealthiest people in the U.S.) are not interested in, i.e. people, plants and animals that are not in their immediate circle.  Right Chase Koch?  You see, one of the new young Koch ‘donators’ to the cause was the aforementioned lad, who, as Rachel Maddow pointed out in here show Monday night, 9 p.m. only on MSNBC, gave to the cause of one Mr. G. Abbott, who is running for governor of that great state, hopefully (fingers crossed!) taking over for the ‘great’ work of Rick Perry.  God help Texas. Anyway, it seems ‘ole Greg was up to his old puppet ways, acting under those guiding strings professionally manipulated by young Chase to the tune of a half a hundred grand, yep, and what the puppeteer wanted was anonymity when it came to the FACT that ammonium nitrate is killing people in that great state, and soon nobody will know about the danger ’till their dead, as it is now legal to keep whatever dangerous chemicals you want around schools, hospitals and the like a complete secret, like the chemicals that exploded in a small Texas town a few weeks past.  All designed to create a living hell on planet earth as explosions rock the worlds of unsuspecting low information people just like they do when the oil laced rail road tanker trucks explode on the other side of town.   Yee haw mo fo!   You got yourself a double header!  Explosions on the north side of shit heal Texas and on the south side too!  Yes sir Mr. Koch, let’s fuck with poor towns of Texas and the like, towns with no water, as they deny it is even a problem… “Global Warmin’ just be a hoax ‘ya’ll…”

Over the next century bought puppets like our Texas friend here will go down in the history books as the REASON the United States of America fell victim to the greedy out of control hands of capitalism.   Capitalism is not good or bad, it depends on how it is used.  Corporations do not have souls, nor do many of the CEO’s who run them, that is precisely why we have a BALANCE in the USA with intricate checks and those balances that today, like the environment, are so far out of whack the concept of that word is laughable “at this juncture”… Thanks George H. Bush and Happy 91st by the way,  you were one of the good one’s.  I can only pray that with the rest of the oil and gas industry (quickly becoming the new U.S. government), raping and pillaging at will, we all wake up soon.  You know, before the corporation signs your soul on the bottom line with blood from the slave job you performed all of those years, and for what?  THEIR PROFIT!, think about it America and get out the vote this fall.  Your life and family’s lives depend upon a real democracy, not just one on paper.    “And that’s the way it is…”, (credit the late, great and fellow Martha’s Vineyard resident Walter Cronkite), we all miss you down here on this little blue rock we ALL call home for the moment, even those dangerous little kids from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.  God’s SPEED children, not you Rick, your job is to just sit quietly and watch that old 70’s hit “C.H.i.P.’s” and eat your cheerios like a good boy!  PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the sunny, breezy, and sultry island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this 2nd day of July, 2014, just returning from Hyannis Port’s Eugine Fortis Beach and the waters of Nantucket Sound, next to the very understated Hyannis Port Yacht Club, where the little sail boats go about their business untouched by commerce and goings on at the popular Hyannis Waterfront and Harbor, packed with people today and in the future, for WE are only a few hours away from the celebration of our nation’s ‘freedom’ from tyranny, the 4th of July, a day that will hopefully go off without a hitch, as the nation rallies around the principals set up by some very wise men indeed some 238 years ago.

Of course, those men are nothing compared to the five justices over at the Supreme Court in this here year of 2014, who decided once again to side with the almighty Corporations, whose piety  and charity, knows no bounds.

That’s right, corporations have souls too my friend, right Mitt?  It appears that the majority of people in the country, i.e. women, are not as important as the leaders of the band, the blessed corporation, for in a 5-4 decision Monday, Justices’ Alito, Thomas, Kennedy, Scalia and Roberts all voted to uphold the corporate entity Hobby Lobby’s complaint that they don’t want to offer birth control to their employees because it interferes with their deep religious convictions that refute science.  Leaving the door open for many abuses by corporations to come.  There is no doubt in this reporters mind that this court is doing damage to the very fabric of our democracy, as it slowly dies on the vine, for if the trend of corporate cuddling continues, it will not be long before the corporation is finally brought to life and becomes the monster it is becoming.  “…My name is pronounced Fronkensteen”. (please credit the classic film, circa 1974, “Young Frankenstein”, starring the incomparable Gene Wilder), and like our doctor friend from somewhere in eastern Europe, he is screaming at the top of his lungs, “…it’s alive, it’s alive, my creation lives!”

I wonder what will happen next?  Stay tuned, but for now, seacapecod.net wishes you and yours a Happy and safe 4th of July, keeping an ever watchful eye to that sky as we on tip of New England await the possible Hurricane Arthur. We will save some Lobster tails, cod, haddock, swordfish, and steamers, along with a boat load of all the other Cape Cod fixin’s for you, so some come on down and visit us anytime, we will, as always, leave the LIGHT on for ya!  PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M