Suspect Suicide

I have a confession to make… I watch a lot of television, and I like police shows like The Closer, Chase and Detroit 1-8-7. I’m even giving Dana Delaney a chance with her new show, Body of Proof.

In the past few weeks I’ve watched several episodes that depicted the bad guys getting boxed into a corner and choosing to take their own lives instead of surrendering. At that point one of the cops steps in and defuses the situation, disarming or otherwise rescuing the villain from his or her life-threatening dilemma. The police take the perpetrator off to jail and the theme music comes up to end the show.

This week it was an old episode of Criminal Minds. In this case the bad guy chose to commit “suicide by cop” instead. Of course, Dr. Reed gave his own gun to one of the other agents and then talked the gun-wielding suspect out of shooting himself. The result was the same. The suspect was taken into custody and locked up to stand trial for the six or seven script murders—this is fiction, after all, not a reality TV show—he had committed during the course of the show.

Every time I see that kind of scene replayed, and also when I hear on the news of real life cases where a foiled suicide attempt of a suspect takes place, I question why the police risk their lives to save the life of that person. Is that cruel of me? I think not.

I just can’t help thinking that there is no up side to saving the obvious criminal so that a trial can be held and he or she will most likely be convicted and sentenced to death. Then that person will be housed at taxpayer expense for up to twenty more years and eventually executed. The cost of that trial, imprisonment and execution will probably run to millions of dollars.

The above is overly optimistic, however, because a lot of the guilty ones either go free or get reduced sentences. In fact, there have been several real-life cases in recent years where the convicted and condemned prisoner takes up law in prison and mounts his or her own appeal years later. Some of these appeals have actually resulted in overturned convictions. Even the worst of the worst, like O. J. Simpson, can get a hung jury with a good lawyer. But the act of suicide by the suspect at the scene of the crime is a pretty sure sign of guilt to me.

Getting back to the world of television crime, sometimes the person who risks his or her own life to save the felon is even treated as a hero. Other times they are scolded for taking the risk, but the script is rarely written that has the superior officer saying what a foolhardy act it was to save the person so that a ton of money has to be spent to bring the prisoner to justice.

On that recent episode of Criminal Minds where Reed (the ‘geek’ psychologist) actually committed that selfless and stupid act, after the suspect was cuffed and taken into custody, the team leader reamed Reed out for his risk-taking. However, in the very next episode, the team leader disarmed and took off his Kevlar vest to walk into a hostage situation and confront an armed murderer. Well, duh!!!

Maybe I’m not politically correct when I say this, but I get a special pleasure out of hearing that the shooter or bomber in one of those mass murder cases committed suicide simultaneously or shortly thereafter. The person committing murder and mayhem doesn’t deserve a trial in my estimation, so it is better for all if they just do the job on themselves as well.

Cicada Symphony

We here in Augusta are undergoing an invasion of sorts. It is an invasion from underground of the 13-year cicada. And wow, are they noisy!

If you Google “cicada” you’ll learn that the 17-year cicada lives in the
northeastern states, while its 13-year cousin resides in the southeast. The difference is in the cycle of their nap. Both emit a loud and earsplitting screech that is only voiced by the males. They are attempting to mate with the females, so it is actually a mating call.

The effect when you are living close to a forest is a constant symphony of sound from about an hour after dawn until an hour before dark. That is in itself kind of weird, since the call ceases long after sunrise and before sunset.
It comes on and shuts off like someone threw a switch.

The mating of the 13-year cicada will go on for about two months, and it truly is enough to drive you to distraction.

When they finish the two-month mating process, the female lays eggs at the ends of tree branches, which usually causes the leaves to brown and the tip to break off and fall to the ground. When the eggs hatch, the young burrow into the soil for their long sleep.


The parents don’t survive the mating, but die off in time to fertilize the soil under the trees where they were screwing around. The whole mating cycle takes place from mid-May to mid-July and then we have another 13 years of peace and quiet before they return in 2024.


Oh, just in case you’re curious as to what the 13-year cicada looks like, here is a picture of one. It is pretty in its own way, I suppose, but it sure looks pretty ugly to me. (At least they don’t bite)

Who Is Educating Our Kids?

There are many stories of our kids coming home from school with written or printed papers from their teachers with multiple spelling and grammar errors. There are run-on sentences, punctuation omissions or mistakes, misuse of words and sentences that are incomprehensible. We have to wonder who teaches the teachers, and how can they be qualified to teach our children.

Back when I lived in El Paso, I attended a band concert at my grandson’s middle school. I picked up one of the programs at the door to the gymnasium—lousy acoustics, but that is the only place large enough to hold a concert, since they don’t build schools with auditoriums anymore—and proceeded to my seat. When I opened the program to see what the selections would be, I came across a few of the language errors cited above.

One of the songs to be played was titled, Anchient Hunters. Then there was a page of acknowledgements with the following:

Thank you to all of the parents who sacrifice their free time, provide a constant chaffer service, and encouraging your children to participate in this musical experience.

Thank you to all of the students, it was a pleasure to step on the podium and work with you every day. You truly made music this year, you didn’t just “play the dots.”

The above quotes are verbatim in all respects, and I certainly hope that you can detect at least four errors contained in two short paragraphs. If not, you were probably another student taught by illiterate teachers.

We are currently spending over $10,000 per year per student to educate our children in this country, and they are still failing. Based on what I described and illustrated above, maybe the major problem is poorly educated and qualified teachers, and more money isn’t going to fix that, unless you think that higher pay will attract better qualified educators. I don’t think so. Besides, as we’re learning from the Wisconsin demonstrations, teachers unions seem to have iron clad tenure and pretty darned good benefits that the present ones aren’t about to abandon.

My wife and I both hold Bachelor of Science degrees in Elementary Education. We both went to the University of New York College at Buffalo, so named to distinguish it from another institute of higher education in Buffalo, The State University of New York at Buffalo.

Our college had formerly been called Buffalo State Teachers College, and was dedicated to turning out public school teachers. Somewhere in the 1950s someone on high in the university hierarchy decided that the college would be more diverse if it expanded to include Bachelor of Arts degrees and a wider range of degree programs. Most other teachers colleges followed suit.

Although teaching was still offered as a major at SUCB, I think the college lost the emphasis on excellence in the three Rs—a cute play on words that everybody used to know were misspelled, Readin’, ‘Ritin’ and ‘Rithmatic—and I know we completely abandoned the morality and pride that used to exemplify the teaching profession. How else do you explain the sloppy dress code and the huge volume of cases of teacher-student molestation in today’s schools?

It seems to me that there are only two logical choices for our children’s education. The first is private education at either parochial or tuition assisted schools. The second is home schooling. If $10,000 doesn’t get a good education for Johnny or Susie, along with the constant threat of teacher abuse at public schools, then what will? I’d wager that we could pay a lot less and get a lot more from one of the choices above.

Of course, we might still have to divvy up the taxes to fund our inferior public education too. There has been a drive on for several years now to provide vouchers to help parents with private alternatives. It is about time for us to scrap public education in favor of a system that actually teaches our children something besides environmentalism, sex, funky math and bad (or no) history.

Some cannot afford private education, and some don’t like parochial—read “religious”—teaching along with the basics. As for myself, I would rather a child get some moral education. They might even retain some of the goodness as they grow up. Many of us seem to have done that from the look of things today. Home schooling has been run by religious groups too, and has included some Bible teaching in the course curriculum.

My daughter home-schooled her son for six months a few years ago, and she tells me that the Bible study was at that time a requirement. She included a cursory study, if only to get credit for the remainder of the courses. Incidentally, it is no coincidence that home-schooled children are better equipped to start college without having to be tutored. They have been tutored all the way through school after all.

Okay, maybe I am a dreamer. Maybe I don’t get the big picture. But I certainly know an educated adult when I interact with them, and most of the young people I deal with do not fit that category anymore.

My grandson, the one to whom I referred at the beginning of this column, is now graduating from high school and is enlisting in the Army. He recently took the language skills test to qualify for the Defense Language Institute, but he was unable to score high enough. The testing uses some basic rules of grammar, similar to what we learn when we take a foreign language course, and as the rules got more difficult, he was unable to apply them all correctly.

I know he has a pretty high IQ, but I blame his public education for not teaching or challenging him enough to learn and apply grammar and spelling rules that would have prepared him for the testing. I don’t believe that anyone teaches those basics in our public school system anymore.

I want schools to get back to the basics. I don’t want my grandkids to come home from school with a paper that contains atrocious errors in grammar and spelling and tell their parents, “The teacher says it doesn’t matter how you spell it or say it, as long as the idea is correct.” That is just not acceptable!

The Bucket List

I finally watched the movie, The Bucket List, this past week, and it had a profound effect on me. In fact, I saved it on my DVR and will watch it again at least once and maybe twice.

If you aren’t familiar with the movie, which stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, then you might not get as much out of this column, so I’d recommend that you find it and watch it yourself.

I’ll give you a hint: a “Bucket List’ is a list of all the things you want to do before you “kick the bucket” as the saying goes.

We should all have a “Bucket List”, but we shouldn’t wait until we are at death’s door before we start to execute the goals on it. One of the few regrets I have in life is that I never got around to doing things I wanted to do until my health and my age made them too difficult to perform the way I would have liked.

Oh, I have seen the Grand Canyon several times, but I’ve never been able to go down into it either on foot, by mule, or on those huge rafts. That would have been on my “Bucket List”, but I waited too long before I first got to see Grand Canyon.

There are probably a hundred or more things that fall into that category of places to see and things to do that I just cannot accomplish to my satisfaction, and it is frustrating to realize that over and over again.

If you have known me for any length of time, you’ll know that I love to travel, mostly by car and in the United States, and I’ve seen most of the country in the past twenty years. I do have a trip planned for New England next month, so that will allow me to cross off another one of my “Bucket List” items.

Okay, I’m not writing this to complain about what I haven’t been able to accomplish. No, my purpose is to give each and every one of you a wake up call. If there is something you have always wanted to do—or maybe you haven’t yet even thought about it—then don’t wait until too late to do it.

As soon as you finish reading this column, I’d like you to sit down and write out your own “Bucket List.” And if you are young enough and healthy enough to do them, start as soon as possible to cross them off.

To borrow a line from the movie, on learning that both men are in the final stage of cancer, Nicholson’s character says to Freeman’s, “If you think the last 40 years went by quickly, wait till you see how fast the next three months goes.”

Don’t wait for those “…next three months.” Make your own “Bucket List” and get out there today and start doing the things you want to do before you die. You’ll never regret doing it, but you might regret that you didn’t do it.

The Case for 70

No, this isn’t a column about our highway speed limits. We already settled that a while back, though there are still some who insist that 55mph will save lives and gasoline, despite proof to the contrary. But that is grist for another column.

The 70 I’m referring to is age, and it is the proposed age at which full Social Security benefits would be paid in an ideal world. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that ideal world, so this will be a hypothetical exercise.

Even though it is only hypothetical, I will establish one ground rule, the same one that is used in every reasonable proposal offered by Congress: NONE OF THESE CHANGES WOULD APPLY TO ANYONE OVER THE AGE OF 54 AT THE TIME THEY WOULD GO INTO EFFECT.

I want to be sure you understand that rule, because it completely negates the entire usual backlash from the naysayers who accuse reformers of “robbing seniors.” That is how they are able to defeat some of the brightest and best proposals to “Save” Social Security and Medicare.

For lack of a better subject, I am going to use myself to illustrate how crazy the current system is in this country. You could do this yourself if you wanted to spend the time and effort to research it. However, I think my case will do just fine.

Okay, here is the proposal in its simplest terms:
· Full Social Security payments would commence at age 70 (up from age 67 for the generation that is currently retiring.
· Reduced Social Security payments would commence at age 67 (up from age 62)
· To discourage early payment (which depletes the fund way more than increased longevity in the modern age) the payment amount would be decreased twelve- percent for each year below the full retirement age, and would remain at that amount for the entire life of the annuitant.
· Medicare benefits would commence at age 70, regardless of when the applicant begins Social Security benefits.

I know some of you will consider this proposal to be “Draconian” (I think that word gets a capital ‘D’ it is so nasty) in its scope. Okay, let’s consider my own case, since I started my SS payments at age 62 and Medicare kicked in at age 65.

My total contribution to Social Security during my working lifetime was $49,577,and my employers also put in that amount for me, so I will claim that I put in $99,154. I have a chart that Social Security gave me that shows those amounts, so it isn’t estimated.

My total contribution to Medicare during that same period was $11,453, so using the equal employer-paid amount, I come up with $22,906.

I started collecting Social Security at age 62, and my first year payments were $14,000. I have since gotten several cost of living adjustments (COLA) so that my current payments equal $18,250. In those 11 years, I have collected $195,300 from Social Security.

My wife worked for the required forty quarters to qualify for her own Social Security payments, but she qualified for more as a spouse under my earnings. She also started her payments at age 62, and has received $74,700 to date.

So, with my payroll taxes of $99, 154 and my wife’s taxes of less than $5,000, we have received a combined total of $270,000, and we’re not done yet. If we both live another ten years—a probability—we will have collected over twice that amount.

I could try to compute how much Medicare has paid on my behalf for my contribution to that imaginary “fund” of $22,906. However, it would take a lot of research, and I already know that since I reached age 65 and went into my mandatory Medicare coverage, I have accumulated about $500,000 in medical and hospital bills. Medicare discounts and pays only a portion of those charges, but even so the amount has to be above $150,000.

Does my case do a pretty good job of illustrating why Social Security and Medicare are in deep trouble?

If my wife and I had had to wait until age 67 to start collecting Social Security, and to age 70 to enter the Medicare system, we would not have recovered even what we paid in at this point in time. We also would have probably contributed a lot more in payroll taxes in those intervening years.

Add to that the fact that I was diagnosed with what should have been a terminal disease back in 1980, and should never have lived to collect even a penny of Social Security or Medicare benefits.

Regardless of the facts, even if a miracle was to occur and Congress was able to pass the reforms above (they are quite similar to what Rep. Paul Ryan has proposed), it still would exempt all of us who are over age 54. We would continue to bleed the system, but at least there might be hope that our children and grandchildren would still have some form of benefits when they reach their golden years.

I do have one more note to add. You can probably tell from my writing that I am deeply opposed to government-run retirement and healthcare programs. There are those who have suggested that since I am so opposed to them, I should refuse to participate in them and sacrifice my SS payments and Medicare.

Well, aside from the fact that these are mandatory programs which I cannot opt out of, my refusal to take my benefits would be similar to the current proposals being put forth by both parties to solve our government debt and deficit crisis. My sacrifice wouldn’t make any difference, since it would be the proverbial “drop in a bucket,” or in this case, a “drop in the ocean.”

Higher Education

There is a comment that was made by Senator Kerry back in 2006, which applies to the column I’m writing today. What he said in part is, “If you go to college and study hard, and make an effort to be smart, you’ll do well.” He was criticized for his remark, but only because he followed it up with a slight to American military personnel, “If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” I wrote a column that focused on the first part of those remarks.

Perhaps Senator Kerry’s thinking is the reason that so many students fail in their first year of college, and why so many more get their degree but are incompetent in their chosen field. I refer to the idea that you can be smart if you try hard. That is totally false!

You cannot improve your intelligence by any effort. Intelligence is not acquired; it is innate. You are either smart or you are not. And if you are not smart, you will not be likely to do well in higher education. Unfortunately, not everyone is smart enough to go to college. Moreover, too many of the students who do go to college either crowd out the more deserving, smarter applicants, or waste time and resources in an unsuccessful effort, eventually dropping out with the stigma of failure.

We changed our attitude about education after World War II, when the GI Bill was first offered as an incentive for military veterans to get a college degree. Prior to that time, only those with above average intelligence qualified for and earned college degrees.

When the GI Bill cane into existence, the bar had to be lowered to enable more people to go to college. Never mind that a huge number of vets weren’t smart enough to compete in the academic world. They had earned the right to go to college. It followed that they also deserved their degree if they exercised that right.

The civil rights movement that blossomed in the late 1950's and continued for the next two decades brought more people to college, those poor and disadvantaged souls entitled to the benefits of higher education.

Soon it became everyone’s “right” to have a degree. Colleges and universities sprang up and became industries, cranking out legions of graduates. And just to make it fair, those with learning disabilities—in this case that meant not smart enough—were even given a handicap to enable them to enter and compete in college.

The resultant increase in graduate degrees did produce a huge number of excellent doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and scientists, many of who would not have been able to pay for their education otherwise. It also produced a larger number of mediocre and substandard practitioners. Books like The Peter Principle addressed the growing number of incompetent people in the business world, people whose position in the hierarchy of management far exceeded their expertise and ability to perform.

Through the years there has been a further decline in the quality of education offered at colleges and universities, fueled by the greater numbers of unqualified people allowed to attend. It has also lead to the inclusion of some really ridiculous courses, some of the most inane that end with the word “Studies.”

Thank God there are still some great people coming out of our institutions of higher learning, but I contend that those people would have done well anyway. They are mostly the ones with superior intelligence to begin with. And to put the lie to what Senator Kerry espoused and seems to believe, there are a lot of people like Bill Gates who did not stay in school and did well in spite of it. They just have the brains to excel.

As you can surmise, I don’t point to John Kerry as the sole promoter of false expectations for the youth of today. He is instead just one of a whole crowd who believe intelligence can be gained through exercise of the brain.

My view is that knowledge and intelligence are mutually exclusive. If you don’t possess the latter, the former will not increase or improve it. It will only make you more confused, unhappy and depressed.

With the cost of higher education approaching and surpassing $50,000 per year at some of our colleges and universities, it would make good sense to get back to the basics of enrolling only those with the intelligence to earn their degree.

A report came out earlier this week that the total amount of student debt is approaching one trillion dollars. That figure doesn’t even count the amount of money that has been given in grants and scholarships, which surely equals or surpasses that one trillion dollar mark. With that much money invested in higher education, isn’t it only fair to the students that only the cream of the crop be admitted to those institutions? After all, the lesser students always tend to hold back the class and lower the curve for learning.

It is also time to make all those courses that end with the word “Studies” non-credit electives. They are totally useless in the business world. One of my favorite columnists, Mike Adams, a professor at UNC-Wilmington, has proposed that African-American Studies, Gay and Lesbian Studies and Women’s Studies all be lumped into one elective called Resentment Studies, since that is what they all teach in one form or another. I agree with his assessment that none of these Studies courses have any value in any degree program.

A Modern Modest Proposal

First a disclaimer: There was a late—deceased, not tardy—writer with the unlikely name of Swift who wrote on a similar topic a few hundred years ago. Not wanting to be accused of plagiarism nor of stealing his thunder, I borrowed only his title; I swear that I didn’t copy his treatise, although I know that his work reached a similar conclusion to mine. Having published my disclaimer and without further ado, here is my column…

We have a problem with our borders, one that has received a lot of publicity, not a few demonstrations and petitions and a plethora of opinions from within and without our country. It is probably an injustice to compress the problem into a single paragraph by way of explanation, but time and space are limited. Besides, if we try to debate all the side issues, especially those raised by the “victims” and their supporters, we would never get to a reasonable solution to the problem. Therefore, we must ignore the illegal mob—those who broke the laws in the first place to cause the problem—and concentrate on the legal opposition to arrive at a just solution. So herewith is a short but concise summary of the immigration dilemma as I see it. (You might have a completely opposite view, and you are entitled to it, even if it is wrong)
Every year a steady stream of over 500,000 people—undocumented migrants, Illegal aliens, guest workers without papers (stop me when I get to your definition)—enter the United States. Some of them are caught on or near the southern border by our Border Patrol or by the vigilante groups known as Minutemen. However, very few are ever sent back to Mexico. Our government practices a “catch and release” program that seldom follows up with deportation.
People come here illegally for many reasons, but mostly to escape poverty and get work and free benefits from the generous American people. (There are other reasons, like terrorism and reclamation of territory stolen from Mexico, but we won’t get into that here) Unfortunately, most of the border crossers remain in poverty after arriving here and they refuse to adopt the customs and language of America. They and their children are a drain on our health system, a burden to our schools, and cause our welfare rolls to swell exponentially. They also raise the level of poverty in our country by their presence. There are an estimated twenty million of them!
Every twenty years or so Congress and the then current president propose their solutions to deal with the number of people who reside within our borders illegally. They did so in 1966 under President Johnson and again in 1986 under President Reagan. That the problem never goes away, but only continues unabated regardless of these so-called “amnesty programs” speaks to the underlying dilemma; mainly that we—The USA—are too prosperous and too generous to ever really refuse help to the rest of the world. Those words at the base of the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor…” apparently apply to anyone with the gumption to walk, crawl, swim, fly or sail across our borders. Well, it is time that we finally find a genuine solution to the problem of unfettered and illegal immigration. That is the object and the purpose of this essay. Here is my proposal.
1. Since we are not able to properly police or seal our border, we should allow any person who wants to enter our country to do so. We should welcome them and allow them to keep their own culture, customs and language. However, they should be sequestered in immigrant camps. They will be allowed to work and mingle during the day, but will be subject to curfew at night. We may not be able to fence in our borders, but we can surely fence in the immigrant communities.
2. We have long since established that the unborn are not human beings with the Roe–vs.–Wade decision. We are also well on the way to discounting the elderly as expendable—Dr. Kevorkian is the pioneer. It is a small step from there to the realization that non-citizens are also inhuman. We should have no trouble in eliminating those whom we find to be undesirable and inconvenient to our society. A first step would be the termination of all children born to the illegal immigrants in this country. Otherwise, they would be eligible for citizenship and we cannot permit that to happen anymore. Eventually, we could expand the elimination process to teens, non-working dependents and those in ill health. Those expendables would free up our overburdened schools, healthcare system and welfare rolls.
3. With the evolution of thought that non-humans are fair game for use in scientific experiments to clone or regenerate organs and such, it is also possible to expand that thinking to the provision of food sources for the illegal immigrant camps. They are likely to be poverty stricken and undernourished since their U.S. employers will obviously underpay them. What better plan could there be for alleviating their hunger than to feed them their own offspring? It would eliminate those unwanted “foreign” citizens while fattening up our new low-maintenance workers without having to deplete our welfare and food stamps.
4. Our news media will be encouraged to provide lots of coverage of the camps with emphasis on the revolutionary and beneficial solutions to the overwhelming problems we have lived with for so many years. People who are here illegally and those who wish to cross over our borders without permission must see and read of our humane solution. It might not stem the tide, but there is a possibility that some will think about the consequences of illegal immigration.
Well, there you have it. With the implementation of this modest proposal, we won’t have to build the unsightly wall on the border, we can ease the load on the state welfare and healthcare programs and we won’t have to concern ourselves with the expense and logistics of rounding up and deporting twenty million people.

Note: Now, if you are seething and having thoughts of murder and mayhem against me for having the temerity to even suggest such a “solution”, I have a word for you to look up in your dictionary: Satire.