Benny Bellizzi

Today, October 28, a very good friend of mine, Biagio “Benny” Bellizzi, went home to be with the Lord. He had been suffering from a variety of cancer for quite some time. It is always hard for those of us who stay behind, but we have to be thankful for having had the privilege of having met him, that he considered us a friend. For somebody who still has both his parents alive I cannot say that I understand what his daughters and wife are going through, I can only feel empathy.
I worked with Benny in the late 80s when Thomas Cook Travel was based at Two Penn Plaza in New York City. For some reason that I still cannot remember he came to consult me about purchasing his first computer. I did help him purchase his first computer.
At the time the Bellizzis were living in Wayne, NJ in the Packanack Lake area.
In the early 90s when Thomas Cook Travel USA was purchased by American Express Benny did not like the direction that the company was taking, and at the same time of a former co-worker offered him a job in the Tampa area, so the family moved down south. By moving to Florida he would also resolve at the same time the move his wife and him would eventually make when they would retire.
We kept in contact, but it was the winter 94-95 when the Northeast was hit with 17 snow storms, so Benny offered me to come to Tampa as there was a job opening in his company, so I accepted the offer of to stay with them, it gave me a great opportunity to know the family closer, and how they were adjusting to their new lives there. I stayed over a weekend, and their hospitality is something I will never forget.
In 1996 my parents were visiting the US and as they were on their way back to Argentina we decided to go to Disney World, and having the Bellizzi family about a hour away from Orlando we spent the last day with them. My parents still talk about that visit to this day, with very happy memories.
The next time we saw the Bellizzi family was when they came to NJ to celebrate their 40th marriage anniversary.
In 2008 our family went to Orlando, so being so close to their house we could not let the chance of coming to see them go by
It was the last time that I saw Benny.
The last few times I spoke to him he would tell me that he had trouble breathing, that he got tired, and I knew that the illness was starting to take its toll, I knew that life had become more of a hardship.
I am so grateful for his friendship, for the love that he always expressed, and for being blessed by his existence. I am also grateful for God being merciful, and not allowing him to suffer any longer.
I do not believe in longing for the past, so, as Benny goes back home to our creator I will keep those memories close to my heart, keeping in mind how precious life is, and how blessed we are to have friends like him.
Benny, you will be greatly missed. God bless you my friend.
The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

The Romney choice, Paul Ryan, and what it means to the USA

We now have a VP candidate for the republican party, Paul Ryan.
With this choice Romney has told us several things, he is not popular with any group of the country, with the exception of the republican establishment, he is distrusted by the right wing of the party, so for these two reasons he was pressured to choose Paul Ryan, the brain behind the budget that Romney endorsed and called marvelous.  Romney is also telling us that he is betting on the white males that form the base of the party, writing off seniors, minorities in their entirety, young college students dependent of government financed loans, the poor, and middle class that need some kind of assistance.
This is a gamble, as the white males of the party are a group in extinction. The Tea baggers will love the choice, although Ryan is an insider as he has not held an address in his district since before his college days. He has been in DC since his early twenties working for Jack Kemp, and then as a representative for Wisconsin. Neo-cons will also be thrilled as they believe in the dismantling of the safety net, the transferring of wealth from the middle class, or should I say from the 99% to the top 1%, through taxation, and increase in spending in the military industrial complex.
Now let us look at Ryan’s record: The House has only passed two laws proposed by him, although he has been there since 1999. He was collaborator in the George W Bush tax cuts of the 2000s, that gave trillions of dollars away to the wealthy, he was a supporter of the privatization of Social Security in 2005, thus giving Wall St control over the future of seniors. The pressure of seniors forced the Bush White House to roll back its plans. He is the brains behind the dismantling of Medicare and the defunding of Medicaid. His idea of saving of Medicaid is put seniors into a voucher system, and force them to get covered by the insurance company who decides to accept them. This would put seniors through a tremendous stress both financial and emotional, creating unnecessary anxiety with a group of the population that does not have the energy to go through that. It will force seniors to pay another $6,000 more out of pocket a year than what they are paying now. This is throwing seniors under the bus.
With the poor the defunding of Medicaid and the roll back of food stamps, will put them into worse shape than what they are.
The middle class will see the elimination of deductions such as mortgage interests deductions, property taxes deductions, and charity deductions being eliminated costing the average middle class $2,000 a year in higher taxes.
Both Romney and Ryan believe in reinstating banks as the providers of student loans, with no benefit to students, and the middle class, as these loans are guaranteed by the Federal Government, and the banks, until 2009 were only the handlers charging people extra for that. President Obama took the banks out of the business and the republican team wants to pay back their banking friends by re-instating that process.
All this pain is not for a good cause, it is only to allow the top 1% to pay lower taxes, from 35 to 25%, and those paying taxes on dividends, zero. They would also increase the budget of the Department of Defense, with Romney saying that he would double it, to 2 trillion a year.
The Congressional Budget Office and independent economists said that all these measures would cost the Treasury 5 trillion in 10 years, thus pushing the national debt to 20 trillion. By then the cost of servicing the national debt would be the highest number in the budget, only surpassed by the Pentagon.
I have spoken to friends of mine who believe that they will be hardly any differences between the next four years with Obama and Romney in the White House. I completely disagree. To prove this we just have to look at what the republicans in the House have been like. They have done nothing in 19 months that would have created jobs, with 23 million unemployed in the US, they have voted to cut women’s benefits, they have voted to pass new anti-abortion laws, they have voted 33 times to repeal the Affordable Health care Act, nicknamed Obamacare by republicans, that will be just the beginning of a reforming of the health care system in the country, with a lot more to go, until everybody is covered, regardless of age, race, and income level. They were also the cause of the downgrading of the country’s credit rating. All the votes the republicans had in the House went nowhere because the Senate didn’t even consider them. The Senate on the other hand has been nothing but obstructionist, setting record after record for filibusters.
If the people who have lost their jobs because of outsourcers like Romney during his days in Baine, and even as governor of Massachusetts,  and because of job shippers to countries such as China and India such as Baine again, people who have been paying more and getting less, people who are having greater difficulties to vote because of laws passed by states where governorships, and both Assemblies and Senates are in republican hands with the excuse, or should I call the lie, of voter fraud, the seniors whose benefits will be cut, vote for the Romney/Ryan team, and for republicans for the House and Senate, I have a message, you ain’t seen nothing yet. My recommendation to them, starting digging the grave that the republican party will throw you in.

The election of November 2012

This year’s election is already starting to present itself as a very interesting one .
Regardless of the fact that this will be, just like most recent ones, a close election, we will probably witness some unusual and some previously seen methods of making the final tally more complex.
The previously methods we’ve seen are the purging of honest voters, such as in Florida, with Governor Scott trying to purge almost 190 thousand voters from the list, targeting primarily Hispanics, African-Americans, and seniors, the group of people who would probably vote for democrats. This, as I said earlier, is not the first time that it happens. In the infamous year 2000 Katherine Harris, former Secretary of State, and her accomplice and boss, Governor Jeb Bush, the brother of the candidate for president for the Republican purged hundreds of legitimate voters in Florida. The confusion that this created, together with the machine problems and with the US Supreme Court stopping the recount gave us president Bush. We know that Florida is a "banana" state. 
In this election we have all the newly elected republican governors in 2010 making it almost impossible for legitimate voters to come out to vote. Many of these voters are minorities, poor and seniors, possible voters that may come out to vote for democrats. Such states include Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Nevada. Maine was trying to do the same but Maine’s electorate in a referendum through this out.
As if this wouldn’t be enough we have the decision made by this intrusive Supreme Court: “Citizens United”.
President Obama is having his work cut out for himself, and this is true not only for him but for every future governor and president who runs under the Democratic umbrella, because millionaires and billionaires will throw the kitchen sink at the re-election of the president, just like we are seeing out of state wealthy donors defend Governor Walker in Wisconsin outspending his opponent 25 to 1.
If the president is defeated, and there is a very good chance that it will happen next November, the next president may be selecting one, possibly two, justices to the supreme court, pushing it further to the right, and allowing more unregulated money to corrupt the system, elimination of the safety net that people have enjoyed for almost a century, and also elimination of regulations that stop wealthy corporations from polluting the water and air, just like Texas is suffering now.
If people like a plutocracy what the forefathers rebeled against, the crown, over 200 years ago, may be going to waste, as we seem to be heading down that path ourselves, and we know how Louis XVI ended up.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (Part 4)

Conclusions

In this series of blogs I have found that there could be a some common denominators that fit into the three issues, and those are education, health, background, and I could include race into the equation as well.

Education is a major factor that allows the possibility of upper mobility. Having my daughter and wife in college I can see the high cost of education. With higher education cost increasing at a much higher rate than inflation or the cost of living, and republicans trying to cut education and thus making it harder for people to borrow to go to school this only concentrates the power in the very few at the top, and therefore making sure that upper mobility becomes almost impossible, except for rare cases such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, or other extremely successful individuals. When looking at education I know that there other models out there in the world, with many countries having free or very affordable universities.

Health. We think of it, and treat it as a commodity. It isn’t. Most people go about their business and don’t follow the stock market or the cost of other commodities on the stock exchange. But they do know how precious their health is, and that, if need be, they will lose their house and other material goods when their health and life is on the line.

Background. We talk about liberty, but if someone is born from parents who live in the “wrong” neighborhood their education is going to be limited compared to the child born in the “right” neighborhood. Now that child did not chose to be born in that family and that neighborhood, it just happened. Same thing could be said about race. Many people say let us dismantle the public education and fund private or charter schools. There is no proof that charter schools are better. They just simply make somebody wealthy, usually at the cost of public education. A woman that I used to work with used to say I don’t want my taxes going to the poor neighborhoods, I want them only for my town. The way the system is setup through property automatically creates a different tier of education, and thus discriminates “legally” against the people that are not able to afford a better area.

In conclusion, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are all greatly tide up with the education possibilities and what doors can be opened in their lifetime to achieve the pursuit of happiness that people would like. Same can be said with the health that people can receive and at what cost.

I, for one, as a believer, think of my happiness coming from knowing that, although I did nothing to deserve it, somebody died for me, and through that forgave my sins, no matter how big those are, through that demonstration of love I have liberty of my sin, as it is not through the constitution but through my creator and my savior I receive these rights, here in the US and anywhere else I may live.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (Part 3)

The Pursuit of Happiness.

As I was writing this blog I wondered what the forefathers thought what “pursuit of happiness” meant to them, and I came about an article that said:  “In composing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson understood that it's up to the individual to decide what pursuits will cause him or her happiness. However, the Founding Fathers also understood that government has a responsibility to create a society where one's right to pursue happiness is guaranteed by social and legal protections.”

I find this very interesting. I, for one, find the whole issue totally subjective, because many of us think of happiness as something  temporary at times, and others view it as I state of mind, a choice. A friend of mine used to say: “if a problem has solution why worry about it, it has a solution; and if it doesn’t why worry there is nothing you can do”.  As I said earlier that seems to be a choice, that some of us have a hard time living with it. We used to say that he lived in utopia, or as we used to call it in Spanish “la onda lira”.

I guess that Jefferson’s view, together with the others who signed the declaration of independence, had a very different view from the people whom they owned, and whom they did not consider themselves their equal.

I will not elaborate more on this one because in my conclusion in the next blog

to be continued

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (Part 2)

Liberty.

We love talking in this country about liberty.

Let us read what the dictionary says about the meaning of the word liberty:

1. freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.

2.  freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.

3. freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.

4. freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint: The prisoner soon regained his liberty.

5. permission granted to a sailor, especially in the navy, to go ashore

Having lived here for a while and also having lived half of my life in my country of birth I can see some differences and some similarities.

People seem to focus US on the Bill of Rights and primarily a few of them such as the 1^st one (Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression) that says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”, and the the 2^nd (Right to Bear Arms): A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

They probably know a few more but these are their primary focus.

We know that the forefathers had in mind during the declaration of independence that only white, land owners, males were included in these “liberties”. They did not include slaves, of course, and they did not include women, as they had no right to vote. Nowadays people love to fill themselves with the idea of liberties, and that we need to defend them at any cost, even if that means with huge Department of Defense budgets, with no regard that that may push part of their population into poverty, having a military cost equivalent at the rest of the world combined, being brainwashed with fear at the expense of erosion of their liberties such as the patriot act, and other measures taken by federal and state governments, conducting ethnic erosion of privacy for the “safety” of the population, or being frisked for no reason, or invading other countries because they disagree with us, all in the name of safety.  People who demonstrate in most instances are arrested because they “disturb” the peace and quiet of the rest of the citizens. The press cannot take pictures of their fellow citizens who are brought back in caskets from Afghanistan, not that the press seems to care nowadays in informing the public about the news, as I had pointed out in another blog, they are more interested in pushing their own interests and their own agenda.
I am a believer, like some countries around the world, in euthenesia. I don't believe that the government should consider it illegal. It does not mean that I believe in commiting suicide, it just means that I believe that we should have that right, if we decide to end our own life.
We also love to talk about freedom of choices. What choices? Swiss or American (cheese)? Pepperoni o sausage (pizza)? Big Mac or Chicken stripps (Mcdonald's)? Macdonalds or Wendy's?
Even when we vote many times the distinction between both candidates and both parties is somewhat fuzzy, depending who the candidate is, what state you live in, etc, as both major parties receive in many cases money from the same lobbysts just to make sure that they can mold the laws to their own convenience.

So where are the liberties?

to be continued

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (Part 1)

Before I start this blog I will say that I am happy living in the USA, and there is probably no other place I would live in.  I also know that many people will disagree with what I am about to say in the four blogs that I am writing here.

This series of blogs is about my view of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, the three pillars of the declaration of independence.  Here is the quote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Life. 

Many people in the US love to talk about life. They seem to think of life, as something we should defend before birth. Block and penalize any possibility of an abortion, even in the case of rape or incest, defund Planned Parenthood, eliminate it at whatever cost, even if they are one of the largest healthcare providers for women. They also seem to be against doctors who perform abortions to the extent of killing them, and that it seems is the right thing to do. What makes it ironic is that the moment that that unborn comes out of womb we turn around and say screw it.

Everything that we went bizerk about when it was in the womb flips over to the other extreme. Cut healthcare, cut public housing, cut education.

Wait a minute. Let’s stop and think what the hell happened with all this idea that we need to take care of the unborn? Now that it came out, dump it. That poor baby just transitioned from receiving his oxygen and food through an umbilical cord to breathing on his own, and the views and options have changed dramatically. That baby now seems to be at fault if he was born with the “wrong color of skin”, lives in the wrong neighborhood, has not the means to make it on his own, or the same possibilities as the one in the next town or even on the other side of town. The same people who defended the right of that fetus to live, now are willing to put him to death as an adult. We are willing to send him to harm’s way, but not to pay for his education, unless he enlists in the army and is willing to put his life on the line. Something doesn’t add up. What happened with the whole concept of life? Or was it just a bunch of b.s.?

At the end of the day what is the whole concept of Life? Is it just  the biological function, and that’s where it stops? What about the spreading of wings and being able to take off like a bird with the sky being the limit? That may have been the original idea why the independence was written but it looks like the powers at be have put some hurdles in this concept.

To be continued