Spirits in the Sky - John Lennon born October 9, 1940 - Heart of the Beatles

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Today is the 75th birthday of John Lennon, born October 9, 1940, died December 8, 1980.

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Obamaville 10/8 - POW! WHAM! KA POW! SPLAT! Are you kidding Me? The People Seem to be Winning! Down with the Establishment!!!

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POW!  WHAM!  KA POW!  SPLAT!

Oh man, this is far better than the old Batman TV shows I used to watch.  Here is how you can sum up the race to be the next president of the USA, LET THE INSTITUTIONS FALL!!! 

In about four months, the results of the Iowa Primary Caucasus are the first test of the People's Will in controlling their destiny.  Can the People Take Back America and restore the former Glory of the good old US of A?

Presidential Candidates

The Silent Majority of both political parties have stunned so-called political pundits by propelling the underdogs to the overdogs position as the first sign of the collapse of the Institution called politics.

The result is startling.

The Race for Nomination by the Democrats

The Queen of the Democratic party, Hillary Clinton, who has been in politics since birth and is the epitome of "politics as usual" has watched in horror as her favorability rating literally shattered the glass floor as it dropped toward oblivion.

Poor Hillary is so bad off she had to unleash the Big Dog of presidential politics, hubby Bill, a sure sign of campaign desperation, far ahead of schedule since the election is still over a year away.

Is it just me, or do you also find it rather ironic she sent Bill Clinton to win back the female vote that is deserting her at an astonishing pace.  Hillary must know best after all her experience with Bill.

Thus, Hillary was anointed the ONE in the Democratic Party to shatter the glass ceiling of no woman ever being president.  Her campaign began in earnest a long time ago with her about a thousand points ahead of her nearest rival.

Ever since, due to being over-managed and isolated from the News Media, she watched her favorability rating flame out.  But lo and behold, and defying all odds of political reality, there is an old socialist who is not even a Democrat, he has so little regard for the Institutions, and he keeps getting bigger and bigger all the time in her rear view mirror.

Hillary slipped into the position of representing the dreaded Democrat Establishment, the Potomac Politicians who think everyone in America is stupid.  Only those on the Council of Foreign Relations, who embrace abortion, and are in bed with Wall Street and Big Pharma, deserve to be a Blue Hearted Democrat.

Of course that did not sit well with those of the far left, make that far, far left.  When Hillary tried to sell herself as a reincarnated far left liberal, the image smacked of deception.  Called out by genuine true left spokespeople like Elizabeth Warren, the rising star from Massachusetts, and Bernie Sanders, the long-standing Vermont Voice in the Wilderness for the real Progressives, she had mishandled the challenge.

Now not only do people not trust her, she has slipped behind in the polls to the man who hopes to become the oldest person ever elected president.  Bernie could become the first president from the hippie era who actually represents hippies and advocates socialism.

What is stranger is that the youngest generation, the millennial 18-35 years old, also love Bernie.  It might have something to do with the popular movie Weekend at Bernies, featuring an old dead guy being pushed around in a wheelchair all weekend by his young guests.  Who knows what motivates the young.  Well, you get the picture.

Never mind that most socialists in America wound up in jail, not in the presidency.  True to form for progressive progressives, Bernie does not need to explain how to pay for the trillions of dollars in wonderful, popular, and budget busting promises he made, but then neither did Barack Obama.

The result of all this nonsense is clear, the Democrats are a single candidate force, either Hillary, the prohibitive favorite in spite of collapsing polls, or the oldest dude to covet the presidency who is neither a Democrat, nor a capitalist, Bernie Sanders.

The Race for Nomination by the Republicans

While Hillary has been the favorite for the Democrats since Obama was re-elected in 2012, the GOP is quite the opposite.  The closest the GOP had to a favorite was Jeb Bush, whose brother and father were presidents.

In fact, George Senior lost his second term to an unknown named Bill Clinton because of a rebellion against the Republican establishment by populist Ross Perot.  Sound familiar?  Unfortunately, for Jeb, he is the political Establishment.  As a result, instead of leading in the polls all year, Jeb started at his peak and has been slipping ever since.

Nowhere has the people's rebellion against the establishment and status quo been more obvious than in the GOP contest.  As many as seventeen candidates were running at the same time, and some of the best and brightest young Republicans were in the race.

Then along came Donald Trump who quickly trumped the news media, the political pundits, even the political establishment.  To a person they labeled Trump an "entertainer" with no chance to become a viable candidate.

Described by Iowa focus group participants as conceited, conniving, and competent, or words to that effect, Trump jumped into the race with both feet racing and his mouth at warp speed.  He quickly established himself as the Patrick Henry of the modern revolution against the politic establishment.

His campaign took off like a rocket bullying its way to the top of the polls.  Ever since he began his detractors, Democrat and Republican, along with the political pundits and news media, have been predicting a variety of reasons why he will not survive.  Among them his pending collapse, his loss of interest, his forthcoming drop in the polls, his inexperience in government, blah, blah, blah.  In every instant, they are dead wrong.

Trump has changed the rules of modern campaigning.  As the consummate outsider, a successful real estate and gambling tycoon, and free speaking conversational business man, he defines what is wrong with America to allow someone like Trump to belong to the elite 1% of the population that controls most of America's wealth.

When Trump is attacked by a cynical liberal reporter Trump counter-attacks normally leaving the journalist dazed.  The same is true when opponents attack Trump in the course of the campaign, you better be ready to hold on.  He has a great advantage and not just that he has no political baggage, he believes "political correctness" is senseless.

For a non-politician Trump sure can outflank the politicians and stand alone as the only true protector of the middle class.  He stole it from Hillary since no one believes she is sincere.  If you add the poll numbers for Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina, the three outsider GOP candidates, they represent over 50% of the electorate.

Most recently, Carly has been getting all the attention with her 14 point surge in the polls, the most in either party race.  She dominated the debates, has by far the best TV and viral commercials, is policy wise and politically savvy.  Carly is no longer a dark horse but a potential winner.

What an exciting political campaign it could be, if Hillary and Carly won their party nominations and squared off in the general election.  With women on both tickets, America would not only shatter the glass ceiling on women presidents, it would pulverize it.  They are clearly the most knowledgeable candidates in the fields.

Just behind the three outsiders Marco Rubio trails, with the preseason favorite Jeb Bush squandering in the middle of the pack.  Of course, it is early, and even the Donald seems to be stuck in the 25-33% range.

Speaker of the House

Just when we think the political situation is stabilizing and the world may survive, it reminds us of the seven years of foreign ineptness by the Obama Administration as the Middle East, specifically Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen among others, are all disasters.

Our strategy failed, our plans and policy is non-existent, we failed to see the refugee crisis we would trigger, and our traditional allies are skeptical.  When it comes to our adversaries, like Obama archenemy Vladimir Putin among others, they are embarrassing us daily.

So the Pope comes to town, addresses a Joint Session of Congress, and the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, resigns as speaker and congressman stunning the world.  He says he decided after talking to the Pope.  The radical Republican right is joyful.

About a week later, the leading candidate to replace Boehner, Kevin McCarthy, also withdraws minutes before the first ballot to elect him.  Again, the media and politicians are stunned.  All is still well with the people who could care less about the persistent politics on capitol hill.

Stay tuned folks the chaos is bound to get even better in days and weeks to come.

Now if only the Chicago Cubs could win their first World Series in 107 years and break the longest championship drought in history.

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CPT Twit - Reporting from Hurricane Joaquin Part 2. - Potomac River Tidal Basin - Coltons Point, Maryland

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Remember the monster hurricane about to destroy the east coast of the USA last Friday?

Remember the spaghetti chart showing all the possible places it could hit the USA?

 
Well here is where it went after all the people on the east coast were scared to death with dire predictions of the fury of the storm.  Not to Washington DC, not New York City, nor Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk or even Hilton Head, but to London as in England did this wayward hurricane   go racing across the sea, exactly the opposite direction from the spaghetti charts we saw all week.

By my count that is about the 20th time the weather service people caught the attention and ratings of the unsuspecting public with emergency bulletins of a monster historic storm headed our way.  Only twice in the past ten years have such storms even hit here, Katrina and Sandy, both of which cost a huge amount of money and lives.

Yet every few weeks the weather stations decide they need to capture the television ratings so they pick out a storm to feature and promise it will wreak destruction for the next year.  Of course, the warning continues until all the stores have sold out their emergency supplies when miraculously, just like Joaquin this past weekend, the storm vanishes and people are left with thousands of dollars in emergency supplies and food.

Do you think it is an accident, or coincidence?

Remember, all those stores selling out their merchandise are advertisers on the very channels predicting the storm.  The worse the prediction, the more money the station gets in revenue.

I would suggest a Congressional investigation of whether there are conflicts of interest in this false storm hype that financially benefits the storm channels, but then nothing would ever get done.

After billions of dollars spent on super computers and high tech equipment and new weather equipment and jet planes to chase the storms, my grandfather sitting on his front porch had a far better result in predicting storms.

Add weather reporting to the professions with the worst reputation, they earned it.

Of course one of the 12 states that were supposed to be paralyzed did get it bad, South Carolina, but not from the wayward hurricane but from being trapped between a High and Low weather pattern leaving parts of the state with 27 inches or more of rain.  In fact, more rain fell in 48 hours than the state usually gets in one year.

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Amelia Earhart, the lady, the myth and the family secrets

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Before I write the news, and it has been a slow couple of days, did you hear...

I recently exposed, I mean mentioned, my dreadful Putnam family secret regarding the curse of the Salem Witches. It was one of those "on you and all future generations of the Putnam family".

Well one earlier manifestation of the curse may have taken place about 84 years ago when Amelia Earhart, perhaps the greatest female aviator of all time, married one George Palmer Putnam of the New England Putnam family (the same one as the Salem Putnam family).

GP asked her to marry him six times before she finally relented, and they tied the knot February 7, 1931. Six years later, July 2, 1937, she was declared missing trying to fly around the world. So 78 years ago another Putnam succumbed to the Salem curse.

Amelia and George Palmer Putnam

For those of you who haven't a clue who Amelia Earhart might be, the following is from her official website and gives a neat, and short biography. This website has to be the most accurate since it is hers.

Aviator Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas. On May 15, 1923, Amelia Earhart became the 16th woman to be issued a pilot's license.

Yet another example of the magic of the Internet. Amelia died 78 years ago and has an official website today. That would be so much like her. Her hunger to shatter barriers and records in planes matched her desire to shatter social and cultural barriers in life.

Now I must admit, when I think about her life and death it is really strange to think she was 40 years old and trying to break the record flying around the world.
 

It was probably because she spent much of her youth growing up in Iowa, (my home state by coincidence), where clean air and living made the Midwestern families a quite hardly bunch.

One last tidbit. Back in 1937 it took about 25-30 days to fly around the world. When Amelia checked in last time on her trip she had flown over 22,000 miles and had about 7,000 miles left to fly, meaning the entire odyssey would have been just about 30,000 miles.

That is one tough lady.

From her official website: http://www.ameliaearhart.com/about/bio.html

Biography

When 10-year-old Amelia Mary Earhart saw her first plane at a state fair, she was not impressed. "It was a thing of rusty wire and wood and looked not at all interesting," she said. It wasn't until Earhart attended a stunt-flying exhibition, almost a decade later, that she became seriously interested in aviation. A pilot spotted Earhart and her friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing, and dove at them. "I am sure he said to himself, 'Watch me make them scamper,'" she said. Earhart, who felt a mixture of fear and pleasure, stood her ground. As the plane swooped by, something inside her awakened. "I did not understand it at the time," she said, "but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by." On December 28, 1920, pilot Frank Hawks gave her a ride that would forever change her life. "By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground," she said, "I knew I had to fly."

Although Earhart's convictions were strong, challenging prejudicial and financial obstacles awaited her. But the former tomboy was no stranger to disapproval or doubt. Defying conventional feminine behavior, the young Earhart climbed trees, "belly-slammed" her sled to start it downhill and hunted rats with a .22 rifle. She also kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management, and mechanical engineering.

After graduating from Hyde Park High School in 1915, Earhart attended Ogontz, a girl's finishing school in the suburbs of Philadelphia. She left in the middle of her second year to work as a nurse's aide in a military hospital in Canada during WWI, attended college, and later became a social worker at Denison House, a settlement house in Boston. Earhart took her first flying lesson on January 3, 1921, and in six months managed to save enough money to buy her first plane. The second-hand Kinner Airster was a two-seater biplane painted bright yellow. Earhart named the plane "Canary," and used it to set her first women's record by rising to an altitude of 14,000 feet.

One afternoon in April 1928, a phone call came for Earhart at work. "I'm too busy to answer just now," she said. After hearing that it was important, Earhart relented though at first she thought it was a prank. It wasn't until the caller supplied excellent references that she realized the man was serious. "How would you like to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic?" he asked, to which Earhart promptly replied, "Yes!" After an interview in New York with the project coordinators, including book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam, she was asked to join pilot Wilmer "Bill" Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis E. "Slim" Gordon. The team left Trepassey harbor, Newfoundland, in a Fokker F7 named Friendship on June 17, 1928, and arrived at BurryPort, Wales, approximately 21 hours later. Their landmark flight made headlines worldwide, because three women had died within the year trying to be that first woman. When the crew returned to the United States they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade in New York and a reception held by President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.

From then on, Earhart's life revolved around flying. She placed third at the Cleveland Women's Air Derby, later nicknamed the "Powder Puff Derby" by Will Rogers. As fate would have it, her life also began to include George Putnam. The two developed a friendship during preparation for the Atlantic crossing and were married February 7, 1931. Intent on retaining her independence, she referred to the marriage as a "partnership" with "dual control."

Together they worked on secret plans for Earhart to become the first woman and the second person to solo the Atlantic. On May 20, 1932, five years to the day after Lindbergh, she took off from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to Paris. Strong north winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems plagued the flight and forced her to land in a pasture near Londonderry, Ireland. "After scaring most of the cows in the neighborhood," she said, "I pulled up in a farmer's back yard." As word of her flight spread, the media surrounded her, both overseas and in the United States. President Herbert Hoover presented Earhart with a gold medal from the National Geographic Society. Congress awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross-the first ever given to a woman. At the ceremony, Vice President Charles Curtis praised her courage, saying she displayed "heroic courage and skill as a navigator at the risk of her life." Earhart felt the flight proved that men and women were equal in "jobs requiring intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness and willpower."

In the years that followed, Earhart continued to break records. She set an altitude record for autogyros of 18,415 feet that stood for years. On January 11, 1935, she became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific from Honolulu to Oakland, California. Chilled during the 2,408-mile flight, she unpacked a thermos of hot chocolate. "Indeed," she said, "that was the most interesting cup of chocolate I have ever had, sitting up eight thousand feet over the middle of the Pacific Ocean, quite alone." Later that year she was the first to solo from Mexico City to Newark. A large crowd "overflowed the field," and rushed Earhart's plane. "I was rescued from my plane by husky policemen," she said, "one of whom in the ensuing melee took possession of my right arm and another of my left leg." The officers headed for a police car, but chose different routes. "The arm-holder started to go one way, while he who clasped my leg set out in the opposite direction. The result provided the victim with a fleeting taste of the tortures of the rack. But, at that," she said good-naturedly, "It was fine to be home again."

In 1937, as Earhart neared her 40th birthday, she was ready for a monumental, and final, challenge. She wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world. Despite a botched attempt in March that severely damaged her plane, a determined Earhart had the twin engine Lockheed Electra rebuilt. "I have a feeling that there is just about one more good flight left in my system, and I hope this trip is it," she said. On June 1st, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan departed from Miamiand began the 29,000-mile journey. By June 29, when they landed in Lae, New Guinea, all but 7,000 miles had been completed. Frequently inaccurate maps had made navigation difficult for Noonan, and their next hop--to Howland Island--was by far the most challenging. Located 2,556 miles from Lae in the mid-Pacific, Howland Island is a mile and a half long and a half mile wide. Every unessential item was removed from the plane to make room for additional fuel, which gave Earhart approximately 274 extra miles. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca, their radio contact, was stationed just offshore of Howland Island. Two other U.S. ships, ordered to burn every light on board, were positioned along the flight route as markers. "Howland is such a small spot in the Pacific that every aid to locating it must be available," Earhart said.

At 10am local time, zero Greenwich time on July 2, the pair took off. Despite favorable weather reports, they flew into overcast skies and intermittent rain showers. This made Noonan's premier method of tracking, celestial navigation, difficult. As dawn neared, Earhart called the ITASCA, reporting "cloudy, weather cloudy." In later transmissions earhart asked the ITASCAto take bearings on her. The ITASCA sent her a steady stream of transmissions but she could not hear them. Her radio transmissions, irregular through most of the flight, were faint or interrupted with static. At 7:42 A.M. the Itasca picked up the message, "We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet." The ship tried to reply, but the plane seemed not to hear. At 8:45 Earhart reported, "We are running north and south." Nothing further was heard from Earhart.

A rescue attempt commenced immediately and became the most extensive air and sea search in naval history thus far. On July 19, after spending $4 million and scouring 250,000 square miles of ocean, the United States government reluctantly called off the operation. In 1938, a lighthouse was constructed on Howland Island in her memory. Across the United States there are streets, schools, and airports named after her.

Her birthplace,  Atchison, Kansas, has been turned into a virtual shrine to her memory. Amelia Earhart awards and scholarships are given out every year.

Today, though many theories exist, there is no proof of her fate. There is no doubt, however, that the world will always remember Amelia Earhart for her courage, vision, and groundbreaking achievements, both in aviation and for women. In a letter to her husband, written in case a dangerous flight proved to be her last, this brave spirit was evident. "Please know I am quite aware of the hazards," she said. "I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others."

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