Happy birthday daughter Lisa! Love you dearly!
This is #49 for Lisa. She will not be offended that I mention the number. A father could not have a better daughter. She has been the best! I am a lucky man.
It took four days for us to come up with her name. We expected a boy. Previously, we had a boy and two girls. It was time for another boy. His name was to be Louis. Since it was a girl, we were unprepared!
Lisa’s middle name is Marie. It was easy to arrive at. It rhymed with Lisa. Lisa Marie.
Lisa was born while we were remodeling our home. Typical of construction, the job was two months behind. Lisa came home with the work not quite complete. No furniture yet. Workmen busy. Lisa received her first meal from her mother while sitting on steps inside the house. We had beds and a crib. That was it!
Lisa always was mine. My little girl. Even now at 49. She showed me great love and attention. From her early years and into adulthood, Lisa would frequently jump in bed with me on a weekend day, cuddle up, and tell me how much she loved me.
She was the fourth of four children. I believe parents tend to be easier and more lenient with each successive child. Which means we imposed on Lisa the least with regard to rules to be followed. I believe she took advantage. She was a hellion. The ultra conservative Lisa of today compares little with the high school and college Lisa.
I discussed on Friday’s TV/internet show the number of arrests in the U.S. each year. Something like 12.2 million. The unusual thing was that only 500,000 were for serious crimes. Over 11 million were for minor misdeeds. Misdemeanors. Of that number, 80 some odd per cent were for drug possession. More than half the possession crimes related to pot.
The U.S. has 5 per cent of the world’s population. However, we have 25 per cent of the persons jailed world wide. An abnormally high number. The reason being that our mind set for more than half a century has been to jail most drug offenders. Even those carrying small amounts of marijuana.
I pointed out it costs $85,000 a year to maintain a prisoner in jail. A lot of money. Especially in these difficult economic times.
A news article this morning stated how much it cost per prisoner for New York City to maintain its jail Rikers Island. $167,731 per inmate. My figure was an average. Rikers has to be on the very high side.
I had to get out my KONK Life column for next week. It took all of my Sunday!
The article will be published next Thursday. Its title is Governmental Waste…..Buried On Our Backs.
I shared some wasteful activities discovered. What I revealed is a mere drop in the bucket. I was motivated to write concerning the topic because of the House’s cutting $40 billion in food stamps this past week, breakfast food for children coming off the table, Republicans wanting to get rid of Obamacare, etc. Plus the cries for reductions and/or abolishment of Social Security and Medicare. The poor, young, sick, and elderly are under attack!
Some of the wasteful examples included a U.S. Senate barber shop that runs $500,00 in the red each year, a $2.6 million study on how to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly, a credit card abuse by the U.S. Postal Service involving a charge of $13,500 for a dinner party at a Chris steakhouse, the Pentagon spending $998,794 to ship two $ .19 washers from South Carolina to Florida, $500,000 authorized to promote specialty hair and beauty products for cats and dogs, $97,000 for floating outhouses for Oregon fishermen, and $386,000 for a study on how best to massage rabbits.
There is more in the article!
Congress and branches of government are wasting tax dollars at the same time there is a movement to deny the least of our citizens the benefits needed to properly survive.
Tomorrow night Tuesday Talk with Key West Lou. My blog talk radio show. I will be discussing the government shut down amongst other things. Plus, the wastefulness already described.
Join me. A quick half hour of interesting material. Nine in the evening my time. www.blogtalkradio.com/key-west-lou.
Enjoy your day!