The Princes of Power

Journalists have been taking a lot of flak for not calling out the lies and plain orneriness of the President but I begin to get a glimmer of the problem. The stuff comes at you so hard and often that it is hard to get a grip on exactly what to address. I've been having that problem trying to focus on my writing so if you will bear with me I'm going to give it a shot.

What I want to talk about is the way that our government is going headlong to give breaks to business and take services away from the people. Included in this is the massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top few percent of the population. Now, don't try to tell me they worked for it because they didn't. What they did was purchase the best legislators they could afford through the legalized bribery that we refer to as lobbying. It is very effective and returns profits of enormous proportions. In the midst of this there has been a tax cut that brings revenues to the lowest points since at least the Great Depression if considered as a percentage of GDP. When I was a kid the tax rate for revenues over a million or so was in the 90% range. We built the interstate system, schools and a military that we really don't know what to do with. We ignored President Eisenhowers warning about allowing certain industries and they patrons to accumulate excessive power. We have ridden on the back of those investments in infrastructure and the creation of the world's most prolific middle class for over half a century while we allowed those gains to be slowly stripped from us, most of us not even noticing.

In the 60s we got Medicare to go along with Social Security that provides a semblance of a safety net in our old age. Ever since those programs were initiated there have been elements of our society that have tried to take them away. They really don't believe it is the responsibility of government to take care of its citizens. They believe that government should serve corporate interests and then the corporate interests may deign to allow some crumbs to “trickle down.” I don't believe that at all.

Through the Vietnam Era there was always a surtax to support the wars but now we just put them on the credit card. You should realize that that borrowing to support wars ends up in the pockets of the very rich. War is a very profitable enterprise.

For a time we had progress on the idea that government should provide health care to all of its citizens like every other developed country does. We very nearly had it but now it is being stripped from those who need it most because “we can't afford it.” Really? Why not? The national debt has become so large that we are told that the only way to deal with it is “entitlement reform” which is another name for “let them eat cake.” It bears mentioning that Social Security has its own revenue stream which has in the past has shown surpluses. Those surpluses have been invested in Treasury Bonds which have been used to keep for raising taxes to pay for the services we have demanded. In other words, we have not asked the American people to pay their way and now we are looking for a way to keep those who actually have money to not have to pay it back.

Eventually what will happen is that we will unable to keep up and the burden of debt and services will cause us to have to make some drastic cuts. Where? There are only two places where that kind of money exists and that is in Social Services and Military. What gets cut? The military lobby is very strong and wise in the ways of statecraft. Those who rely on social services are many but disorganized and poor.

I read a rather lengthy paper some years back dealing with the role of the U.S. Military in our government. It was called “Caciques.” Google that word. Caciques are the princes of power who are the hands that steer profits and governmental policy. You may notice that there may come to mind some entities who fit that role. The paper went on to say that the U.S. Military dealt with National Security with about 15% of its resources. The balance went to serve the interests of these “Caciques.”

Our military is the most powerful the world has ever seen. We have 11 Carrier Groups while the largest number anyone else has is 2. Our Navy keeps the sea lanes open and is used to project power when our industries want to do business in any part of the world. Now, don't get me wrong. That is a noble goal but why should the United States taxpayer be on the hook for all of it? Who keeps the Strait of Hormuz open? Who keeps China from annexing then entire South China Sea? Who is it that is in the Polar regions trying to keep others from monopolizing resources that will be available after the ice melts a bit more? Who is it that provides the deterrence to keep North Korea from swarming across the 38^th parallel? Who provided the bulwark against Russian aggression in Europe? I could go on and on.

We must find another way. This way has worked but now it does not. Just like we have relieved the burden of taxes from the wealthy we have used the vast resources of our nation to further enrich them.

Try to ask yourself how the United States has been the victim of aggression and needful of a military that, as President Eisenhower said, deprives resources from schools, infrastructure and the needs of the American people.

I am not naive about this. I know it will be hard but we must begin to look for the resources and revenues that we require and taking it from the poor will only work for a very short time and it will destroy the soul of our country.

My Take is that as a nation we must make some tough decisions and stop lending credence to lies and fear. I have to tell you, I am not confident that we will be able to do so. Lee Kwan Yew who was the leader of Singapore once said “the United States is wealthy, it can have anything it chooses.” What will we choose?

Baby Charlie

I noticed a recent columnist for the Commonwealth-Journal going on about how much of a heathen nation that England is for its treatment of Baby Charlie. The English Medical System decided that there could be no benefit in continuing life support for this child who had been on life support for nearly 2 years and ordered the life support terminated. This has stirred up a hornet's nest of recriminations once again bringing up the topic of death panels and accusations that this is what liberals want for the United States. A British citizen remarked that the baby surely survived longer in Britain than he would have in the United States where he would have been cast aside if the parents did not have insurance, that the insurance would have been cut off far earlier. If Charlie's parents were not wealthy care would have been discontinued by default.

It strikes me as odd that some people will be willing to have our government pay millions to keep this baby on life support but will not favor life support for a child who has already been born and is healthy. Is death any less remorseful if it is by starvation and abuse than if it is by removing a non-sentient child from life support? How is it that we care about life if it has not seen the light of day but not if it has endured years of neglect and abuse?

Can someone explain this paradox to me?

Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later

Recently Steve Kelley, our County Judge Executive, made statements on television in which he alleged that our entitlement society incentivized people to remain on some kind of benefits. Since welfare really doesn't exist any more then I conclude that he means Social Security, SNAP or medical coverage.

You know, any time you have anything that provides sustenance to the poor or disabled there are going to be a certain number of abusers of the program. However, many, if not most, of those who receive these benefits actually have jobs that just do not pay enough to afford food security or

medical coverage. Even at that there are those who are trying to make it harder for those who depend on that assistance to retain it without jumping through hoops in the hope that they'll miss an interview or not get some letter delivered in time thus triggering a period in which they will be ineligible. Then there are the disabled who receive about $600 per month form Social Security, Medicaid coverage that is so restricted that one may die before receiving treatment and SNAP benefits for food that runs out by the middle of the month. If that is incentive to not work then maybe you should give living on that a try for a month or two.

Creating more hardship for these people is a knee jerk reaction of people who just don't want to see any of their tax dollars going to help people who can't work. The causes of poverty and reliance on this pittance are much more complicated than that and most people just don't want to have to think hard enough to examine the root causes. The root causes have to be acknowledged and examined to have any impact on the number of people who are gainfully employed contributors to our economic system.

First and foremost is parenting. Training and education have to start young and generational poverty is anathema to growing a successful child. Just about anyone will agree with that but then they just stop and blame the parents. That is not the answer. It's not even the question. The question is what can we do to enable those parents to do a better job. Both of my parents were reared in poverty. What they had to lift them were the frontier nurses and those saints who rode mules to deliver books to families up in those hollows. They brought not only books and medical treatment. They brought the outside world to my parents. Times have changed. Population in those days was a third of what it is now so methods have to change to handle the numbers. Social programs and social workers have been under the knife for over 30 years now. Without sufficient workers to go to homes and enable and teach families how to properly care for and educate their children the problem simply CAN'T improve. If families are left without care and instruction for prevention of health disorders we will inevitably be inundated with emergency cases and people whose health has deteriorated to a point that it is expensive to treat.

We have deprived our education systems of funding for things so basic as textbooks and paper so how in the world can we expect kids to learn? How can they learn if their stomachs are growling? We have treated our educators with disrespect for so long they are dispirited and now we are trying to deprive them of the one thing that gave them a sense of security. Their pensions went a long ways toward making their decision to teach acceptable and now we are trying to deprive them of that reward. I really don't know how we can live with ourselves if we fail the poor and the people that work for them. Relief from poverty is essential to give a child a sense of security in order to succeed. Sure, many have lifted their own way out of poverty but it is not even remotely a thing to be expected.

What happens to a kid that fails to survive his upbringing and then is released into a world to sink or swim. Often they descend into anything that will give them a break from the anxiety and depression and sense of failure and often that anything is drug abuse. Once there it is an expensive and desperate road back and often it just can't be achieved without assistance. I want you to understand that assistance is not useful if it is just incarceration and rehab. If there is not something productive to replace that addiction then recidivism is almost certain. On this end of the root cause it is expensive to deal with and we have woefully underfunded the resources necessary to help those people recover. Harsher penalties will not do the job. Our prisons are packed with non-violent offenders whose only offense was falling into the trap that was laid for them decades earlier. As the old ad used to say, “You can pay me now or you can pay me later.” Prisons are expensive to build, expensive to run and are excellent schools to create career criminals. You would think we could be a little smarter but we allow disproven ideologies to affect our choices and often we make it very difficult indeed to succeed.

So, disencentivize the use of social programs? Give me a break!! That may be candy to the ears of some people who vote but it will not help a thing. First, we must accept that digging out of this hole will take 25 to 50 years. Enough time to raise a generation IF we do the things that are necessary when the life of our citizens begin. Then we must accept that living in poverty without access to basic needs such as food and health care deprives our society of useful citizens. We must acknowledge that non-violent offenders need to have opportunities to reenter society and by that I mean jobs even if they have to be created by government. It's not like we don't need things done after all. My parents began to be able to see hope for their children following the Social Programs created following the Great Depression. That could be a good model. But the key is catching them young and giving them the resources they need.

My take is that we bring this on ourselves. Next we may examine what has to be done to enable these fixes to work. That is the message that our politicians need to be carrying instead of threats.

John Prine

John Prine

I'm sorry my son but you're too late in askin', Mr. Peabody's coal train done hauled it away.

I first met John Prine around 1974. By “met” I mean in the figurative sense. I have never gotten to actually shake his hand and tell him my name. Prine's music leaves one with a sense of intimacy though. He writes almost in the vernacular and let's face it, he doesn't have a world class singing voice. Kind of like Bob Dylan to whom he was compared in the early days. Heady praise indeed. Recently he was on the Americana award show and commented that he had always wondered what genre his music fit into and was happy to know that it is Americana. You know, a lot of artists have fallen into this category by default and finally someone just gave it a name. I'm glad they did because it has become my favorite genre of music. It carries strains of country, blues and rock among some older forms such as mountain music and oftentimes you can hear the old country. It sings of common things and it tells a story whether it be one of dismay such as The Civil War's Barton Hollow or musing about existentialism as in Jason Isbell's If We Were Vampires. But I digress.

I met John Prine around 1974 while I was in college at EKU. I had fallen in with a bunch of redneck hippies who were listening to music that I had ignored such as Red Headed Stranger or I Don't Think Hank Done It This Way. They had their own band made up of guys from the Shelbyville/Eminence area and they were very good. The Misfit Band played mostly Southern Rock. Marshall Tucker, Charlie Daniels, some Allman Brothers so I became a bit of a redneck too. But John Prine was some of the music they were listening to and I came to love songs like Paradise which suited the environmentalist in me and Sam Stone spoke to my hatred of the war in Vietnam and war in general. Angel From Montgomery was one of the most beautiful songs I'd ever heard being sung in that nasal drawl that detracted from the song not one bit. And Illegal Smile, well, you know.

That was 44 years ago and I was a young man full of piss and vinegar and I would sing those songs with John at the top of my lungs confident that I was at least as good a vocalist as he was. Matter of fact, I probably had to back off a little to match him. At least I thought so and he wasn't around to tell me any different.

My copy of that initial Prine offering has long since disappeared much the same as the guy that used to listen to it over and over. The good thing is that those things are never really gone as long as the spark remains and so it has. Now at my current age I can indulge some of those early passions and most folks will just write me off as some crazy old man but I am lucky to know some others of the same ilk. So, today in defiance of President Trump (this is the first time I have put those words together in print) I logged on to my Amazon web site and ordered up a replacement. I got the CD. Maybe I should have sprung for the vinyl being in the state of mind that I am in. I also ordered a copy of The Tree of Forgiveness, his latest work. It is sublime. He can't sing a bit better and maybe he's worse but that really doesn't matter. He writes about things that no one else does in a way that no one else does. On the cover is the face of a man that has weathered the almost 50 years about the same as I have. Well, in my opinion I've held up a bit better but I've not suffered a stroke and had to fight my way back to performing in public. That is what artists do. Artists can't be stopped by physical deformity because they will find a way to release the bomb that explodes in them. I stand in awe of that zeal and determination.

And this last offering is testament to that zeal. His imagining in a ragtime When I Get To Heaven is not only insightful but is hilarious in his way of bringing humanity to the divine. Summer's End calling to the lonely who have strayed to come on home, you don't have to be alone. Caravan of Fools reaches into musings such as Solomon may have had on writing Ecclesiastes. It almost seems as if it is recognition of the years and the toll that they take on the best of us.

Now those who have long admired but failed to see the art and artist in person will have the chance to do so at our own Master Musician's Festival. After years, shoot, decades of trying to lure him to our little festival Tiffany and the Board have landed their whale. Now, I don't know about you but God willing I'll be there. See you there.

Not Our Problem

Gabapentin (Neurontin) is a drug that is used for nerve pain and as an anti-convulsant. Some people have been using it for years and had no idea that if one took way too much of the stuff that some people would consider the “high” to be a desirable state of mind. The person that I know takes it to moderate headaches caused by spinal stenosis in the cervical vertebrae. A responsible consumer of

drugs, she found that when she took the prescribed dosage that she didn't like the feeling and so cut back to half dosage. Last year the DEA people (who are guardians of anything that might make people high) discovered that some junkies were using it for that purpose and so they listed it as a schedule 4 drug making testing necessary and checking it through KASPER a requirement.

I use a different schedule 4 drug that also became listed several years ago when legislators decided that it also needed to be tested and submitted to KASPER. This adds the cost of quarterly tests to the cost of insurance and drives the cost up to the consumer.

A few years ago when the Opiate Epidemic began to blossom legislators decided that something had to be done about it so they responded in the only way they know how which is to pass a law. Or laws making the possession on uncontrolled amounts illegal which had absolutely no effect on the junkie's

use of them. What it did do is exponentially increase police activity and overcrowd our jails dumping these people into a justice system that had absolutely no idea what to do with them so they either slapped their hands and told them to just stop it or, alternatively, send them up to the Big House so the taxpayer could take care of them more efficiently. Maybe create a few jobs in the process.

Now, it strains credulity to think that the manufacturers of these drugs and the distributors would not be given cause to wonder who in the world is taking all of these drugs since they were flying out of pill mills faster than corn flakes off the grocery shelves. However, every one of them sincerely asserts that they had no idea that those drugs were finding their way into the illegal market.

KASPER was created in 2005 to monitor the supplying and prescribing of scheduled drugs. It was the first such system in the United States and has been a model for other states. The Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting System (KASPER) tracks controlled substance prescriptions dispensed within the state. A KASPER report shows all scheduled prescriptions for an individual over a specified time period, the prescriber and the dispenser.

Given this system one could assume that over prescribing of drugs would be immediately observable and enforcement actions would be swift but for some reason that seems to not be the case. I don't know why. Since all prescriptions for scheduled drugs has to be submitted to KASPER then why in the world is anything else necessary? But, yet the legislature of Kentucky has seen fit to place further restrictions on reporting these drugs by mandating at least quarterly blood testing to determine whether or not the prescribed drugs are being consumed properly or to investigate whether or not a person is illegally selling their drugs or maybe even using other drugs. Mainly the latter since the state of Kentucky really doesn't care if you're using them properly, only if you're using them improperly.

Doctors now have the DEA and other drug cops who are interested in preserving their jobs peering over their shoulders to make sure they are doing their jobs right. Doctors are scared to death of the liability and some have stopped prescribing such drugs at all. So, here comes the testing. I only have a few cases that I am directly familiar with but anecdotal evidence suggests it is far more prevalent for people to run into the same problems that I have. One has to wait until near the renewal date to go into the doctor's office for testing. Sometimes its a urine test, sometimes a mouth swab. I have to do the mouth swab because I take so little of the drug that laboratories do not test for quantities that small. If the test comes back negative, which sometimes it does, then uh oh. You're at the end of your supply and still don't have a renewal prescription. One time I spent 2 weeks off these meds arguing with my pharmacy that the doctor had submitted a renewal and the pharmacy insisting the doctor had not. One time I stood in the doctor's office and watched the renewal done and the pharmacy still insisted it had not been done. I must admit that the combination of being off my meds and facing such frustration caused me to go ballistic and make a fool out of myself right in the middle of the waiting line. Two weeks is what it took and the pharmacy refused to replace the meds for the time I had missed. Now, if you have been through this for a while you probably have managed to rathole a few just in case of things like this which I had and I had maintained half doses for a while and I wanted to replenish this safety buffer. No way!! My friend is facing the same thing and is experiencing pain and anxiety while waiting for a retest. Was the failure of the lab my friend's fault? Absolutely not but who bears the burden? Why, you bear part of it because we all pay into Medicare. My friend will bear the co-pay. The doctor and the lab will get to bill another visit and repeat. How does that make sense? When my friend asked what she should do while off her meds waiting for the retest what do you think the response was? “Not our problem.” Verbatim.

My Take is that if you are a hammer everything looks like a nail. Legislators who have absolutely no idea what to do with medical procedures inflict laws that have no effect on those who are acting

illegally but have a profound effect on those who are acting legally. Why, in the name of heaven, is submitting the prescriptions to KASPER not sufficient? Illegality could be caught quickly and millions of dollars in policing and testing could be saved. But legislators have to do something to show the voters come election season. This is way easier than trying to formulate a budget.

The Business of Carnage

I've been seeing some reports of people calling the FBI inept, corrupt and other names for failing to connect the dots in the recent Florida school shooting. Personally, I think it is just an attempt to deflect growing criticism of gun laws that do nothing to ameliorate gun attacks in schools and elsewhere and may actually provide greater opportunity for those attacks. Upon consideration of the criticism of the FBI it seems that perhaps the expectation is too great. Consider, in a nation that has some 300 million weapons that are only limited by the ban on automatic weapons we ask a law enforcement agency to sift through the thousands of tips they receive and determine which ones are likely to proceed to attacks. This without doing the kind of surveillance that the FBI is accused of doing right now for political purposes. How would you feel if out of the blue the FBI came knocking at your door asking questions about your weapons, political leanings and governmental philosophy? Given the spate of “swatting” in which someone calls in on 911 and says there is gunfire at a residence and the SWAT team shows up and knocks your door in just think how mere accusation could lead to remonstrance and demonstration against you.

Yes, it does seem that the FBI missed the boat on this one but can we really expect them to do that job well in a populace that effectively has no gun prohibitions or is that just a way to shift blame from ourselves to a faceless governmental agency? I suggest the latter.  

Polling shows that a majority of Americans realize that some form of gun regulation is necessary but there is still a large segment that is unnaturally attached to their guns without logical reason. Nobody is suggesting that we make private possession of weapons illegal. What we are suggesting is that there is no reasonable civilian reason to possess some types of firearms. In reality those that are referred to as assault weapons are

little different from other semi-automatic weapons. What makes them different is their capability of firing dozens of rounds before reloading. Some hunting rifles do this. Most semi-automatic handguns have a 9 shot magazine which may be too large. I suggest limiting rifle magazines to 5 rounds. My 30/30 rifle holds 5 rounds and each round must be individually loaded into an interior magazine. I can't do that in less that a couple of minutes which is an eternity in a school shooting. Even at that this is the type of weapon that was used in the Texas Tower Shooting 50 or so years ago. Some Glocks have extended magazines that hold 22 rounds. This is the weapon that was used to shoot Congressman Giffords and kill several in Arizona. That's just crazy. There is no rational reason for that kind of murderous capacity. These kinds of things can be limited and still allow people to own their precious weapons.

The only thing that is really going to do the trick is to decrease the number of available weapons. “If we prohibit guns then only the bad guys will have guns!” Even this is not a perfect solution. To decrease the number of weapons we are going to have to realize that it is not going to happen overnight. It will take years for weapons laws to have the desired effect of reducing guns but it is a beginning. Gun laws can immediately reduce the number of weapons being bought and, over time, remove them from the clutches of the bad guys. Look at this for a minute. It is not criminals that are perpetrating the carnage. It is the people that we encounter at Kroger or the mall. It is the kid that your kid knows. Who knows what goes on the mind of the mass murderer? They look like us.  The shooter and attorney.

Be sensible! We are going to have to have a multi-pronged approach. Limits on magazines, tracking ammunition the way we would track guns, better insight into the mind of a mass murderer and better regulation of gun purchases. The gun manufacturers will howl but this is about their business model.

They have to sell guns to make money and therein lies one of the problems. The gun manufacturers are the chief source of funding for the NRA which is a major donor to political campaigns. It is a death lobby and our representatives are complicit in perpetrating the carnage. Eventually it is us. Can we be trusted to put the welfare of our country and our children ahead of our own passions and desires? Can we be rational and accept that there are some weapons that we just don't need? For the sake of our country and our sanity.

My Take is that a lot of people are delusional and will not do the serious thinking about this issue. They will prefer to allow their infatuation with tools of death to sway their intellect.

Willie Nelson: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize

Willie Nelson: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize: Rosanne Cash, Edie Brickell, Paul Simon, Alison Krauss, Raul Malo, Neil Young, and more pay tribute to singer and songwriter Willie Nelson, the 2015 recipient of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.



Well, I have to admit that Willie has lived long enough and written so many winners that he deserved this award.  The various stars that sang his classics was pretty good too.  And Don Was thumped along on his bass and the McCrory Sisters did their usual tremendous job at harmonies and backup.  I did wonder where Buddy Miller and Ry Cooder were.

 I realize that the Gershwin Award is not some rock 'n' roll type thing but I thought it might be something like the Kennedy Center Honors or maybe one of those invites to the White House like they had for Led Zeppelin and The Eagles but this was a more sedate bunch.  Some of them knew the songs and a few sang with Pancho and Lefty but I think I know what the problem was.  They were Republicans.



Before you go off on me just watch the thing and look at the crowd.  I spotted Rand Paul and there was another guy who is (was) one of those White House people.  Maybe Papadopolous.  But you could just tell.  They all sat there very politely and I didn't see a one who looked like he might have toked up one before coming in.  A crowd of Democrats will jump up and clap and shout but Republicans are afraid someone might see them having a good time although I did see some of the ladies get almost tearful to "Night Life" and a couple of those other Willie songs that he wrote for Ray Price or someone. To be truthful, Willie looked a little out of place.  I'm thinking they might not have even let him burn one before the show.  Even Neil Young was strangely reserved.



I knew that once President Obama was gone that we wouldn't see any more good music from DC.  Elvis has left the building.  But don't get too down.  Just vote, remember the music.