Its Not Brain Surgery

Mobile phone manufacturers and carriers are being asked to voluntarily adopt a new “assistive cognitive device” designation in the labeling and marketing of their smart, PDA, and multimedia phones, according to Stephen Dolle, of Dolle Communications.

Mobile phone manufacturers currently meet the federal government’s 1973 Section 504 standards on accessability, but Dolle believes manufacturers, carriers, and mobile phone users would all bennefit if there were a new designation and standard features for phones meeting the cognitive needs of users with milder learning disabilities, developmental disorders, brain injury, autism, and a host of neurological disorders.

Dolle believes accessibility should be appended so that disabled users be given equal access to the same mobile phone “experience” as ordinary users, via a new understanding of the phones features. Mobile phones today allow their user’s access to a “lifestyle of independence,” well beyond the earlier use and benefits of merely a telephone. Dolle says his biggest aim is to help meet the unmet needs of the 20 to 50 million Americans with milder forms of cognitive and learning disability.

The mobile phones that would come under this new designation are currently marketed as “smart phones,” “PDAs,” and “muti-media” phones, and users with special cognitive and learning needs have to analyze each phone for their assistive features, to which very few users currently do. Dolle has proposed that industry work with he and others to establish this new designation of minimum features and specifications as an assistive device (cognitive, as well as other special user needs).

Dolle is asking manufacturers to voluntarily agree to adopt a set of standards for this assistive device designation. It may eventually entail legislation, especially when users seek insurance reimbursement. With the prospects for significantly increased phone sales as a result of better marketing and knowledge of the phone’s features, Dolle expects the mobile phone industry will be cooperative. He proposes a parent designation of “assistive phones,” where various special needs for disabilities relating to: sight, hearing, cognitive, and mobility, would then get a sub-designation, i.e. “cognitive assistive” phones. Milder forms of cognitive disability affect 10 to 20 percent of the population, and he says this group’s needs are widely unmet in mobile phones, and many other consumer technologies.

Currently, assistive PDAs and mobile phones only serve a limited cross-section of persons with more marked cognitive impairment, those mostly in schools and young adults in independent living, and these users are not marketed to by manufacturers. Instead, what little marketing is done is done so thru regional and rehabilitation centers, therapists, and special learning programs. Dolle’s proposal seeks to bring awareness to and meet the needs of those who are higher functioning, where most of these users are currently not aware of these assistive mobile phone features, and as such, these 20 to 50 million Americans do not have the same access to “independence,” which these phones afford to so many ordinary users.

Stephen Dolle
DOLLE COMMUNICATIONS

By: Stephen Dolle, DOLLE COMMUNICATIONS

In Politics

What’ll you have, “sex or oil?” This was a question and thread I had authored on the “Physics Forum” in September of 2005, just weeks after the Bush White House’s visibly failed response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. At that time, the country still believed in the Iraq War, the respected political party leaders of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Wall Street and the financial markets, oil and energy policy, and a host of other things that, many of which, we know not to be true today. I raise this discussion now because I believe through a symbolic perspective on where the two major political parties had been for some 15 years, it will help us “move forward” with where we need to go today.

In September 2005, Bill Clinton still stood for the successful image of the Democratic party in the 1990’s, something to emulate, and George W. Bush represented the image of a successful Republican leader. The Democratic party had no new front runner, though rumors were tossed about as to Hillary Clinton being the party successor. At that time, Al Gore had yet to return to popularity with his movie on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth.” And it was also right before the country began seriously questioning Bush on the war, and around the time music artist Neil Young introduced his big anti-war song. The country and parties were lost and clinging to the past in what they only knew: “sex and oil.”

Bill Clinton stood for anything and all things related to “sex” and people, whereas, George Bush stood for all things related to “oil.” But, today in late May 2008, everything has changed. What we thought to be true then, as for party leaders to emulate, has been proven false. Today, new leadership has arisen, that of Barack Obama and John McCain.

It would seem wise for our country and parties to move forward and away from old and failed leadership of the Clintons and Bush’s. So, What’ll you have, sex or oil? Or a triple serving of better times and new leadership through …. Obama or McCain?

Below, is my original discussion from back in September 2005 as posted on the Physics Forum.

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-90991.html

By Stephen Dolle, DOLLE COMMUNICATIONS

Once again, and for the 2nd time in as many weeks, my Network Solutions service cost me a real nice blog post. This latest one I had written in FU to my movie review of, “The Visitor.” It is frustrating to get so close to making these tech and Internet systems do as you want, and then to have it stripped away by a network server error.

I mean, you buy your PCs, software, materials to learn how to program, you pay your monthly Internet access bill, your web hosting bill, you integrate your webs and blogs with your host’s servers, and then in one cold swath of a moment or fluke, you see your efforts disappear into thin air. Any you ask, How can this be? This is supposed to be digitized to prevent such failures.

I believe the answer lies in perspective, and tailoring your firm’s products and services to this correct perspective. You see, Network Solutions is selling “web hosting,” when they should be selling the “web hosting and end user experience.” But given the right perspective, even you and your tech company can be successful in enabling the end user “Internet Experience.” If enough of us do so, it might come back around and cause the big boys like Network Solutions to improve their user experience.

By: Stephen Dolle, DOLLE COMMUNICATIONS

The April 2008 release of the movie, “The Visitor,” moved me to write this movie review. I write the following comments as a movie viewer, djembe drummer, speaker, and public policy advocate. The immigration law issues in this film were so compelling, that they had even me thinking about practicing law. Not that I agree entirely with the actions of the characters in the move in violating U.S. immigration law, but the movie makes you want to have a deeper national discussion on our immigration laws, and particularly, a refinement of applicable law with respect to political asylum.

The movie takes place in Connecticut and in New York, with university professor Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) traveling to New York to present a paper on economic globalization he supposedly co-authored. As the movie progresses, Vale eventually comes to admit that he never worked on this paper and admits that he had been faking much of his career for many years. He had also been lost for some years since the earlier death of his concert pianist wife. The early part of the movie focuses on Vale’s difficulties in trying to learn piano, and his clearly being repulsed by an elderly piano teacher who’s methods are geared more for an eight-year old child than a sixty-two years old adult.

The movie begins to take shape when Vale arrives at his New York apartment to find an immigrant couple essentially “squatting” there, though they were tricked into paying rent by an unscrupulous local man. Vale finds himself bordering on cruelty when he sees that this 20s age couple, Tarek (of Syria) and Zainab (of Senegal), will be forced to live on the street. The movie follows Vale’s experiences in New York after he invites the young immigrant couple to remain in his apartment with him, and how the conservative and unexcitable Vale is faced with a series of life changing decisions, that ends up with his learning to play the djembe drum from Tarek, and selling his piano to his former piano teacher.

As the movie progresses, the secret life of an illegal-immigrant couple in America is revealed, with Vale altering his conservative ways as he becomes infatuated with their lives. He even forms a bond with Tarek’s mother who arrives in New York from Michagan after not reaching her son for a number of days, because he was in a immigration detention center after being inadvertantly stopped in the subway en route back from taking Vale to a popular community drum circle. Vale takes up the cause for the younger Tarek, including hiring an immigration lawyer. But, it is not enough, as authorities one day coldly decide it’s his time to go back to Syria. Vale and Tarek’s mother even wind up in bed together, but only for caring company.

The most powerful moment in the movie came when Walter was told while at the detention center, that Tarek had been deported. Walter then became every one of us, nearly enraged beyond control. He stood for each of us, how we might react should someone we care about be treated unfairly by U.S. authorities and law. As an accomplished professor and a believer in U.S. law and global policy, he was tested by the very system he had come to support. I thought he was going to be arrested. He was ordered 3 times to “move away from the glass.” It was a defining moment in his life, and one which he would never again question. At that moment, he understood who he was: an American, a distinguished professor, but now most importantly, a MAN and a FRIEND.

One political fact of the movie that wasn’t clear to me was surrounding Tarek’s deportation from the U.S. His father had been imprisoned in Syria for writings and beliefs in opposition to its government. It would seem a plausable argument, then for Tarek, for an immigration lawyer to argue that for an imprisoned activist’s son to return to the same nation that persecuted his father, would place him in danger. But, the movie left us hanging on this point.

The role and meaning of the djembe drum in this movie was also interesting. It became an answer to Vale’s inability to play the piano, and also represented a way to share the cultural and spiritual commonalities with Tarek. By the end of “The Visitor,” the djembe had became the lasting celebratory bond between Vale and the immigrant people he had come to love, that he would likely never see again.

As a djembe player and speaker on rhythm and the brain, I know how difficult it can be to learn a new instrument. When I was learning the djembe and related percussion instruments, I also had to overcome memory and learning issues posed by an earlier brain injury and placement of a CNS shunt. So - I had multiple personal connections with Vale’s struggles in this movie. I am a big supporter of the djembe as I feel it offers an invaluable tool to communities to enhance relations and communitcations thru drumming, music, dance, and art. It is both a conduit to our past, and an instrument for the future in pave a way for better multi-cultural relations in the United States.

I rate this film A-. This film is surely to prompt further discussion and interest in drum circles, as well as in illigal immigration.

By: Stephen Dolle, DOLLE COMMUNICATIONS

I just got off the phone with Network Solutions where we discussed their offering for “web site marketing,” and I couldn’t get it out of my head the importance of the gold standard today, that of Googel hit numbers, in measuring the likely success and branding of a company, individual effort, project, or business model. You can have the best product, ample amounts of cash, and business model, but if they don’t add up to your getting 50,000 or more hits on Google, you will more likely than not be just getting by. However - when you or your project does pass this argitrary 50,000 Google hit threshhold, you’ll be hearing “cha-ching” and you’ll be able to contact most any organization, news source, or mover-and-shaker in your respective field for your project - and they’ll take that call. So - if we can agree that Google Internet search engine recognition is the gold standard for being able to successful conduct your business, What would YOU do to get 50,000 hits on Google?

One project that comes to mind was the guy who started bartering goods and services on the Internet, and eventually was able to trade a paper clip for a house in a small Canadian town. This was an incredible story of entrepreneurism and marketing, and I suspect the guy, who I believe was also a writer, is living rather comfortably because of all the attention he drew. I don’t recall how many hits he drew on Google, but I suspect it was more than 50,000.

Perhaps the widely used mechanism or strategy of surpassing the 50,000 Google threshhold has been through videos posted on YouTube. People such as the guy crying over public criticism of Britany Spears awful performance, or several young vocalists who posted their music video on YouTube, got discovered, and then were singing at 10,000 person venues. Each of these people could only draw a few hundred hits before things broke, and when it did, they jumped to 100,000 plus. Another tactic is to place boxes with blinking lights and tickers in them around the city of Philadelphia at bridges and points of interest like the video game company did. I know they got fined, but I wonder if when it was all over whether it was worth it. And ever more straight forward move would be to climb up atop of the Golden Gate Bridge. But, it’s been done so much it’s probably only worth a 1000 Google points.

I remember back in the late 1970s the gold standards in start-ups were companies like Apple Computers, OP Sports, and Nike Shoes. But the Internet wasn’t around, and each had to use person to person correspondence to promote their brand, and what took 3 or 4 years then, can occur in as little as several months today. And today, the things which people will do to attract the needed attention to get that arbitrary 50,000 Google hit mark, is undaunting. I mean, anything goes!

For me, the best thing I got going is my skill and heart at playing Afro-Cuban percussion. I mean, I rock. And for a middle-aged white dude, I’m almost a novelty. In addition to musical performing, I also create extraordinary rhythms and workshops for health and wellness, neurological conditioning, and personal /family /business communications, and seemingly am able to play and affect animals and the weather. Though these are some pretty unique and extraordinary talents, I still struggle over how to promote this to reach 50,000 hits on Google where every door I need to open will open, and the things that now slow me down will get taken care of by others. Paris Hilton - eat your heart out. You got nothing but a pretty face to offer. I can move thousands of people just by playing the right rhythm on one of my Afro-Cuban drums.

Outside of the day in and day out things in search of a 50,000 hit return on Google, I’ve also got my eye set on Oprah Winfrey. I know Oprah likes really good human interests stories, and even more so where the individual can play music good enough to get her to get up and dance on TV. I’m thinking I can play such rhythms - to get Oprah to get out of her chair and dance. I figure that if I were ever able to play for Oprah, it would be such a splash that I’d be at or above 50,000 hits on Google.

So - I’d be interested in hearing of ideas and things YOU would do to get 50,000 hits on Google. Maybe even right as you do it! What ever it is, I’d like to hear from YOU.

By: Stephen Dolle, Ph.D. (Unofficial), Neuroscientist and Speaker
DOLLE COMMUNICATIONS

Will we ever find the “holy grail” of supplements and exercises that can maximize brain performance and aging? Probably not. But there is a current formula or paradigm I have developed that can produce fairly immediate and long lasting positive effects on brain performance and overall health, which I call the “ADESSS Paradigm.”

ADESSS stands for assistive technology, dietary intake, exercise, sensory stimulation, sleep, and stress management. Employing assistive technologies and computerized devices like PCs, cell phones, calendars, inventory systems, and satellite navigation in cars in the proper way can make your life more comfortable, stress free-er, and efficient. Dietary intake of certain brain foods and supplements allows us to leverage our brain performance and optmization from the cellular level. There is so much written on this topic that I will only touch on it here. I like the benefits of fish oils and nuts, core cost effective supplements like ginko biloba and prosphatidyl choline, and lots of water. As a rule, if you are unsure, “keep it simple.” The exercise component of ADESSS means any type of cardiovascular exercise or activitity lasting longer than 45 minutes, and that you do at least several times a week. This could include walking, biking, dancing, drumming, types of yoga and stretching, and even horseback riding.

Sensory stimulation encompasses any activity that stimulates the brain (through any of its 5 senses) to undertake a task or thought, including listening to music, reading, musical performing, drumming, board and PC games, quality conversations and debate, quality television and movies, and even nature scenery. Sensory stimulation influences brain function and cognition far more than scientists had previously thought. In my 2002 study, I was able to confirm the destructive effects of extended exposure to excessive auditory and visual stimuli from loud and repetitive noise and music, and have examined the effects of some environmental and city noise, audio visual (video) gaming, and strong odors. Extended exposure to these sources, as well as exposure to repetitive rhythms and noise, can lead to what is termed, “sensory overload disorder.”

Sensory overload is a condition whereby exposure to reasonable and everyday audio and visual stimulation produces complaints like headache, dizzyness, difficulties in concentration, irritability, and behavioral outbursts. It is becoming increasingly common in persons with learning and/or neurological disorders, for people who have grown up amid noisy city and other surroundings, and amoung solders returning from combat (and even more prevalent in people with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder)), to report increasing intolerance of noise and repetitive rhythms. It is worth pointing out that soldiers undergo captivity survival training whereby they are subjected to loud repetitive noises, to teach them how to syncopate it and preserve their cognition and psyche, should they be captured. Drum circle facilitators (DCFs) similarly use the playing of drum and percussion rhythms to strengthen cognition and the psyche. In addition, activities like meditation, reading, biofeedback, quiet time, and walks offer relief to complaints associated with sensory overload. Sensory stimulation similarly has a significant influence on our tolerance to stress and sleep quality.

After I suffered a brain injury and CNS shunt placement in 1992, I began to undertake a great deal of research in artificial intelligence, music and art therapy, biofeed therapies, and with neurocompensatory mechanisms. These are touched on under various specialties of “alternative medicine.” In 1992, I already had 15 to 20 years experience in health care, medical imaging, and areas of alternative medicine. Individually, each of the above therapies offers a specific benefit to maximizing brain performance. But, through ADESSS and applications of technology, it can produce a customizable brain health program, like a type of “holy grail” if you will, in optimizing brain performance. Playing in drum circles is certainly pivitol to healthy sensory function and cognition in that it enhances our tolerance to problem audible noise, strengthens concentration skills, social integration and confidence, and boosts physical coordination and mobility.

Over the last 10 years, my research has revealed two very important discoveries in the area of sensory stimulation: I reported on how rhythmic patterns (syncopation) in room noise and auditory sources impacts reduces cognitive function, learning, and concentration; and I reported on how critical rhythmic patterning is to our development of language and coordination as very young children, and also as we age. Interestingly, researchers in Japan recently shared results of a study where chimpanzees scored the same in math pattern recognition tests as did college students. This suggests our primal patterning, from the amygdala of the brain, is not well used after the age of 4 or 5 years. I suspect patterning is closely linked to rhythm recognition, undertaken in part by the amygdala, and is tied to sensory overload intolerance and compromise of the “hippocampus” of the brain. I also suspect that mastery of patterning and rhythm recognition can greatly impact our ability to adapt to mobility and coordination challenges after neurological injury, as well as after the onset of age-related changes in the brain. For these reasons, I am a major advocate of drumming and participation in “drum circles,” and I cannot say enough how they have benefitted me personally. Today, I perform musically, speak, and consult using various drum and percussion instruments.

The final two SS’s of the ADESSS paradigm, sleep and stress, are pretty well written about, and I don’t feel the need to add much here other than to emphasize the importance of adequate sleep and minimizing stress, and to note how sleep and stress directly impacts each other, and how they collectively and separately impact brain performance. There are hundreds of sleep and stress supplements and aids available today. My best advice is to keep it simple. Find what works for you. And don’t become dependant on the supplements or aids you adopt. As a rule, I find it good to periodically alternate what you take.

You can read more on my coverage of assistive technology, neurocompensatory therapies, sensory overload, music and art and drum circle therapies, and about my services at www.DolleCommunications.com.

If you’re one of the 150 million Americans who subscribe to free Internet newsgroup and related services, you no doubt spend considerable time managing your various user names and passwords. For most of these free services, finding your user name and password when you need it is more than an inconcenience. It’s down right maddening!

For instance, I am subscribed to over 40 newsgroups and free services, some dating back more than five or six years with old email addresses. When I go to change my email address on the subscription, I spend more time trying to update my account than the value of the free service or subscription. Given there is no privileged or financial risks at stake, I don’t understand why these host organizations insist we navigate through these hoops? I mean, can’t their server recognize our computer’s IP address?

Hopefully, web 2.5 will resolve most of our user name and password issues with these newsgroup and free Internet services. Organizations whose subscription architecture does not allow ease of migration and updating of user names and email addresses will loose lots of subscribers. For you tech and web experts out there, feel free to comment on this discussion.

Stephen Dolle, CEO
Dolle Communications

I am not big on government initiatives where the crux of the policy is to throw huge amounts of federal tax money as a policy of social programs like in health care, education, and immigration. Money is helpful, but is not a cure-all. I prefer common sense.

In health care, I believe the first step the federal goverment must take is in the establishment and implementation of digitized and PMR (personal medical records) disease treatment programs. Huge sums of money are currently wasted on inefficiency and errors in treatment. This would both improve care and free up moneys for broader care. The 2nd step is in establishing free market competition on drug availability and pricing. On this, I favor Main Street over Wall Street. It would enable the vast majority of the population to widely afford and use prescription drugs and alternative medicines. The third step would be in creating insurance reimbursement for alternative medical treatments, care, and related directives. We are all going to die some day, of some ill. It makes no sense to force certain treatments on patients, while disallowing others when a person is ill and/or dying, per present Wall Street and FDA practices and business/government relationships. We need more reliable and timely independent scientific study on alternative treatments and directives. The U.S. has trailed the world in this arena.

In regards to education, it has always been a “given” that parents and family should play an integral role in the education of their children. Just like it is bad policy to give too much discretion and autonomy to schools and teachers, it is equally bad to not require families to meet some minimum participation in their child’s education. Why should this simply fall on the taxpayer? Isn’t that what prisons have become? Public housing of children now adults who were poorly raised? Clearly, the education solution rests more in accountability with the family, and in part, crosses over into the illegal immigration discussion.

Taxpayers foot huge costs to educate the children of illegal and ill-prepared immigrant parents. Why is that the tax-payers responsibility? Shouldn’t new immigrants be asked to meet some minimum criteria that they are prepared to meet job skills, community and education requirements? I mean, immigration should not be a net give-away!

I have a solid immigration proposal. First, change the Constitution so that all Americans speak one language, preferably English. Next, pass legislation enabling existing illegal immigrants to stay if they meet two criteria: 1. Perform 5000 hours of volunteer work in their community, in partnership with a new volunteer infrastructure the federal government will set up (like a modern day volunteer equivalent of Roosevelt’s New Deal). 2. Learn and speak English. And 3. To stem the influx of ongoing illegal immigration, impose 5-figure fines on employers who hire them, including politicians, government contractors, and Walmart. If the U.S. can follow the above, it would not need a costly and ill-conceived wall.

I think my common sense proposals would do more to make America safer, healthier, and more competitive in jobs around the world, than ANY proposal based on “spending” as a policy. A little more accountability can go a long way.

The more you know!

I don’t have a stake in the current Writers Guild of America (WGA) contract strike, but I’ll share my expert view as to their current public relations and public information strategies. SEE Los Angeles Times Dec. 24, 2007 story, “Holiday e-mail to WGA, East, members” [link] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2007/12/holiday-e-mail.html#more

In the above piece, WGA East president, Michael Winship, tries to use a new USA Today Gallop poll, which reported that some 60 percent of Americans support their strike, as a centerpiece in the WGA’s public relations and public information campaigns. But I must caution him on such strategies. WGA instead should keep their eyes and ears open to changing public sentiments, and how these changing sentiments will ultimately impact their final agreement. AMPTP and the major studios, by contrast, appear to be running the smarter PR campaign, saying very little other than an “open letter” on their web site. Their strategy is that of triggering little to no news stay, betting on “out of sight, out of mind” in public sentiments.

I see the WGA’s biggest PR liability in their image as that of a group of professionals who already make a good living who are willing to put the financial well being of thousands of other lesser paying industry workers at risk for their own additional gain, while aggressively appealing to the public for sympathies in their cause. It certainly seems the more compelling story lies in the thousands of disenfranchised workers who by no fault of their own are taking a huge hit in the strike. I mean, these folks have the more compelling predicament and image for taking to the streets. In the PR war, whichever side can best present (exploit) the plight of the disenfranchised workers will certainly find more public support and leverage to serve their end position.

Yet, as each and every day passes, I see one more day of missed opportunities to bring a “resolution” to this WGA contract impass and strike. And the knife of culpability for damages cuts broadly on both sides. As for the recent USA Today Gallop poll, the interesting thing about polls is that people will give one answer when it poses no direct impact on their lives. Yet, once it does, i.e. in January when TV viewers really start loosing TV shows, don’t be surprised to see a much different shift in point of view. My message to all involved: “Don’t be caught late to dinner!”

Stephen Dolle

[quote]
Michael Winship
President WGA East
writes:

“This week, a new USA Today/Gallup Poll reported that 60 percent of Americans support the Writers Guilds in their fight against the media corporations (only 14% backed the AMPTP). According to USA Today, “Six weeks into a strike by television and movie writers, public sentiment rests firmly against the studios.”

As the 2008 presidential campaigning continues to heat up, the field seems to be best defined by either sex, drugs, religion, or your next stock option. It is interesting today with all the uproar over Governor Huckabee’s use of religious crosses in his campaign ads, the guy has come on strong of late. I admit he is very refreshing, and to see a candidate speak so openly and honestly. I’d like to see all the candidates do so, and really be themselves. And that is why I chose the title for this piece.

Governor Huckabee by all rights is a preacher man, and no doubt that will be used against him as things get further along. But for now, he is successfully working the religious angle. We’re never had a preacher as president. I can’t even imagine having a preacher for a father if I were still a teen. My own father was a lot like a preacher, and that didn’t work in the 60s. I mean, what’s a teen say to their preacher father as they leave the house knowing well what they may do that night? Pretend? Well - I hope if he were elected, we adult citizens wouldn’t have to pretend! I already pretend about a lot of things, like, I still look good, I’m still a strong man, at fifty-something I haven’t hit my prime yet. You know the story.

As for Senator Clinton, I believe she just needs to be herself, whatever that is. I mean, I’d like to know what Bill was like. I know many woman (of all ages) who said they would have dropped their drawers for him. So - the guy had something special. Normally, you’d expect a really hot wife. But we got Hillary. And sexually speaking, she’s a total turn-off. I bet you could count on one hand the number of men in america who find her sexually appealing. So she needs to come out with the goods. Be real! It may be her best untapped potential. Run that up the flagpole against Huckabee’s religious scherades. I’ll take the sex as long as she’s honest. She should talk about what it was like to be a woman married to a man like Bill.

Senator Obama seems to be doing a great job coming out and being honest, maybe a bit too much though. He seems focused on the 60s and his teenage drug use. I think there is a very relevant message there, but he needs to bring it better to present day. I still think about the 60s. I’m not so sure our country GOT everything we should have gotten out of that period of upheaval. Here’s the odd thing. In WWII, we analiated Japan, the first ever and only use of the atomic bomb. They are a foreign country and they love us. They worship our baseball, our music, and we love their consumer goods and innovation. Yet, at home here in the U.S., many of our people and leaders angrily fight with each other. Over what? Damn near everything! What has gotten into this country? Where has the consideration gone? If you think a preacher as president will get people to be considerate to each other again, then he better be Jesus Christ! I mean, don’t look to other people to fix what you need to fix yourself! And as for Obama, I like the guy. I just wish he’d get more present day. And some rock and roll would be OK too.

Now Romney, McCain, and Guiliani seem too caught up in promoting wealth and fear, and how they’ll make you richer. After the housing bust and numerous financial crises of the last 8 years, I don’t think voters are buying it. And we all have fears. It’s just that we’re now learning we need to fear our own government as much as any foreign enemy. There is a lot to be said about having class and knowing how to treat others. How many elected officials would you do business with if they owned a local company? Romney, McCain, and Guiliani need to sell us something we can connect with. I doubt I’ll ever be as rich as Romney. And if I had hair like McCain, and wanted to be the head cheese, I’d put some color in it! The rest of the field has missed their boat. Maybe they’ll end up with cabinet positions, as guys like Richardson and Biden have marketable skills.

Yes - next year we may be voting for a president based on religion, sex, drugs, and stock options. And if anyone asked me, I’d take the stock options now if they’re available, my prescription drugs at a better price, and I wouldn’t mind having sex with this attractive woman at church. There - I said it.