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There is no greater sucker in the United States than the major league baseball fan.

 
Now that the new baseball season is about to begin, I am going to again post our tribute to "American baseball."

 

There is no greater sucker in the United States than the major league baseball fan.

 

Consider the facts.  The game is played by mercenaries whose loyalty is bought by millions of dollars in salaries.  There are very few players, no matter how beloved by the fans, who wouldn’t move on to another team that pays more.

 

And yes, that same beloved player will be telling the fans of the new team he is now playing for how all of his life his unspoken dream was to be playing for them

 

Add to this major league stadiums that are built often at the cost of millions of taxpayer’s dollars. (No matter how carefully this fact may be disguised.) And you begin to get the idea.

 Now let’s consider the fan.  The average fan is a working stiff busting you know what to make ends meet.  His beloved team rewards him by outrageous ticket prices, charges usury rates for parking and than gives him the royal shaft by charging him for junk food and beer at prices, that if anywhere else, the vendor would be laughed out of business.  And all of this to maintain the ludicrous payout that everyone but the fan is enjoying. 

 

So the travesty continues.  The fan who takes his family to enjoy a game pays a couple of hundred dollars, or more, to root for a team that he loves but cannot afford, and yet the same fan willing allows this outrage to continue.

So Barnum was obviously wrong.  There isn’t a sucker born every minute.  For this outrage to continue there has to be a couple of hundred suckers born every minute.  

As for me, give me a cool beer that I just bought at my local supermarket and a soft chair in front of my television set. PLAY BALL!

 

Brother Giovanni, Worldonian Bureau Chief, Pizzaonian News Service

  

Radio talk shows - Most of the energy is directed to creating a money making machine.

 
The most fascinating part of our talk radio format in the U.S. today is the masterful way each host, regardless of point of view, creates an enemy that is about to destroy us. The created enemy must be so vile and so villainous that only a savior of extraordinary vision and persuasion can save us from the disaster that is about to overcome us all.

Guess who the savior is? Didn’t take long to answer did it? The question is how did we ever get in the position to allow this type of entertainment dominant the national political argument? 

Key word here is entertainment. There is little serious political discourse of any value here. Most of the energy is directed to creating a money making machine.  This machine sell products, books, lectures and other like products so poor deluded souls will spend their money on information that will allow them to be the saved ones when the moment of supposed destruction arrives.

 
The format is simple. Each day, each host begins by vilifying the enemy. If you’re on the right, the enemy is usually the President, if you’re on the left; the enemy is anyone vilifying the President. Sometimes, a creative host will make everyone the enemy. This allows the host to become an even greater savior than he or she may have been before.

The other enemy that always appears in order to give us some (comic?) relief is the culture that has been created by the perpetrators on the left or right.

Regardless of what has been said by the President or his detractors, it will be interpreted as the equivalent of Armageddon, and the host, depending on which money making machine they represent, will proceed to make themselves the savior that will save us all.

 
After a long discourse of woe and mayhem and the coming destruction of the republic, the listeners are allowed to call in and voice their reaction to the host’s opinion. This is akin to a batting practice pitcher serving softballs to Babe Ruth.

Each caller is given a few seconds and what follows in another long soloquy from the host essentially repeating every vile and villainous accusation against the created, perceived enemy previously made. 

At the end of the program, you either throw yourself in a hole in the ground and bury yourself, or, you can go and buy their products so you can be informed and thereby be saved. As for me, I decided to watch Oprah.

God save the Republic!

“The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he or she knows to be untrue to men and woman they know to be idiots.”  H. L. Mencken

Brother Giovanni, Worldonian Bureau Chief, Pizzaonian News Service

 

Nothing is more grating than to hear the cliché, “We honor your service.”

 Nothing is more grating than to hear the cliché, “We honor your service.” Please don’t misunderstand what I am trying to say.  Honoring those who wear the uniform and are willing to risk their lives for our honor and safety is a national duty. These volunteers are special people.

However, when we find our country engaged in two wars that are now the longest wars in our history, and you find a citizenry who is not at war, but at the mall, you begin to feel something is terribly wrong.

  Very few Americans are engaged in our current wars. Other than in some abstract fashion of knowing we are paying for all of this with our taxes, very few are called to make any direct sacrifice.

Add to this an all volunteer army that allows most families to avoid having any of their loved ones in harm’s way; and you create an abstract war in some distant land that gets lots of news coverage, but ironically, very little attention.

We need to get back to basic, national decency. No war should be fought unless all of us are willing to embrace the necessary sacrifice that war demands from everyone. If we are not willing to do so, the war should not be fought. Anything less is cowardly and unpatriotic.

 How long do you think our current wars would last if we had a military draft that called our loved ones to service? We all know the answer to that one.

Our history is clear. When “we the people” feel our national security is threatened, we willing come forward as a people to meet our obligation.  When we are not willing to do so, our course should also be clear.  Let’s stop letting others bear the burden we are not willing to bear ourselves.

Brother Giovanni, Worldonian Bureau Chief, Pizzaonian News Service

And then a funny thing happened on the way to utopia. One side bought the referees lock, stock and barrel.

 
It seems as if someone is always talking about free and open competition verses the need for rules and regulations as if they are diametrically opposed to each other.

For whatever their reasons, these two camps choose to see themselves locked in a life and death struggle for political supremacy. Unfortunately, they do so at the peril of us all.

No one to date has created the conditions for healthy competition to exist without sensible and just rules. This creates a fair playing field that allows the best of us to flourish in an open and free society. We all gain when this is allowed exist.

 
The question is what is fair and sensible, and who decides what the rules should be? This seems to be what all the fuss is about. And then a funny thing happened on the way to utopia.

One side bought the referees lock, stock and barrel. The government who is the legitimate arbiter of business competition can no longer fairly referee.

So we find the mess we are in today in the United States.

 
What was once the most competitive society in the world is no longer competitive? The folks who espouse competition now spend more time trying to own the game than they spend competing.

Obviously, if you own the referees you don’t have to spend as much time competing. Strange isn’t it. The folks who most want us to believe in the necessity of competition choose to expend most of their time and energy on not having to compete at all.

When you own the referees you do as you please. To make the game seem fair you don’t get rid of the referees, you just own them. Just imagine our Super Bowl Sunday with one team being able to have the referees always rule in their favor.  The winner would be obvious form the beginning.  But then again, I guess that’s the whole idea.

Brother Giovanni, Worldonian Bureau Chief, Pizzaonian News Service

 

Quotes for a weekend afternoon

 
“It is the theory which decided what can be observed.”  Albert Einstein

 

When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, you think it's only a minute. But when you sit on a hot stove for a minute, you think its two hours. That's relativity." - Albert Einstein

 

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school." - Albert Einstein

 

"The Tao is called the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds. It is always present within you. You can use it any way you want” Tao Te Ching

 
“Be ablaze with enthusiasm; let us be alive, burning offering before the altar of God.” Hildegard of Bingen

 

“To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness” Eric Fromm

 

 “Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says: 'I need you because I love you'” Erich Fromm

 

 “Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.” Erich Fromm

 

“The good life = a sense of self + motivation, determination and discipline. It also helps if you can sing and dance.”  Pizzaonian spelunker

 

Submitted by Brother Giovanni, Bureau Chief, Pizzaonian News Service

Can the U.S. still be the manufacturing giant it once was?

 
It seems we always assume that if manufacturing returns to the U.S., we will do it better and more efficiently than it’s currently being done offshore.

But what if that's not true?  We will lose our place in the world order and continue to fade into history.  Our exceptionalism has always been rooted in our ability to innovate and create.  We need a clarion call by our political leaders to be again "the future." The cliché has never been more relevant, "the future is now."

If we are going to focus on the emerging new markets and lead with our innovation and technology we need to start describing specifically what “the new emerging markets” are.

The visionaries have done their part. We now urgently need a serious, national and detailed discussion on where we are going, and how we are going to get there.  It is time for the “nuts and bolts” folks to work out the details. 

We need from our leaders the ability to believe again and take the risks that belief assumes. The role of government should be to lead this parade.

"We the People" deserve as much.

Brother Giovanni, Worldonian Bureau Chief, Pizzaonian News Service

Thoughts while listening to President John Kennedy's inaugural address

 

  

To influence people to action seems to be a major part of what political rhetoric is about.

 

 
In the wake of the violence that happened in Arizona, we now hear how the political and social rhetoric in our country has no influence on people who may be mentally deranged and prone to take violent action.

It begs the question: Why do we speak at all?  For most of us we speak to communicate and to influence.  To influence people to action seems to be a major part of what political rhetoric is about.  If it isn’t, then what is it?

The irony is that when a violent incident happens, it is immediately declared that the political rhetoric had nothing to do with it, no matter how aggressive or hostile the rhetoric relating to that incident was.

Now let me see if I got this straight.  We use political speech to communicate and to influence people to take action unless the action is violent and destructive.

This type of violent action is independent of the rhetoric and is not influenced by it in any way.  Is it possible the mentally deranged person receiving the message didn’t know you did not mean to influence him?

Someone needs to explain this to me.

Brother Giovanni, Worldonian Bureau Chief, Pizzaonian News Service

 

Brother Giovanni permanently assigned as Worldonian Bureau Chief, Pizzaonian News Service

 
Now that I am exiled to Worldonia, (Untied States) I am relieved.  As most of you know, I portalized to Pizzaonia a few years ago and found a place that became my home.  All went well until my conversations with Jesus became public knowledge.* The monks could not accept the fact that a normal person could have a conversation with Jesus and here I am.

However, rather than cut off our relationship completely, the monks felt that since I was already here, I should continue as the Worldonian bureau chief for Pizzaonian News Service.  And now that I am permanently exiled, it seems like the right thing to do. I will continue to report on political and social activities here, and I will continue my conversations with Jesus as long as he chooses to keep showing up.

As for goings on here in the United States, the new congress has met and concluded their first meeting of the new term.  One of the first things they did was to read aloud the Constitution of the United States.  I am still not sure whether it was a symbolic gesture, or they felt that most of the members were not familiar with it and needed to be brought up to speed.

 
My reaction was what it would be if after boarding your airline flight, you peeked into the flight deck, and the pilots were reading a book on how to fly. It is amazing how surreal grown people can be, especially after they have been bitten by the political bug.

One more item of interest:  Some of our new conservative members of our legislatures were elected on a “no new taxes pledge.”  It seems they are going to hold to this position even if we the people vote to raise taxes. I guess no matter how much you believe in the “will of the people,” it only works if the people agree with you.  Must be some earlier form of democracy I am not familiar with.

I look forward to continuing my visits with you. Till next time……..

Brother Giovanni, Worldonian Bureau Chief, Pizzaonian News Service.

 

*http://giovanniandfranco.typepad.com/giovanniandfrancocom/2010/12/pns-headline-news-pizzaonian-council-for-spiritual-assessment-and-arrestment-to-ask-for-censure-of-b.html

On our new Congress - a funny thing happened on our way to Utopia.

 

After listening to the member's speeches at the opening of our new congressional term, I am again reminded of Mark Twain’s comment in a similar situation.

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.'' Mark Twain

I believe he sums up the situation as well as anyone could. 

Brother Giovanni, Pizzaonian Bureau Chief for Pizzaonian News Service

 

A funny thing happened on the way to Utopia - part two

Commentary by Brother Giovanni, PNS Worldonia Bureau Chief

  

From part one:

 

We also created a nation of thinkers who were able to question things like they have never been questioned before.  Out of the fifties we bred the sixties and we began to scrutinize all institutions and authority.

 

We created the mechanisms to eliminate poverty, bring quality education to everyone and to create a justice system that would have equal access as its priority.  And then a funny thing happened on the way to Utopia.

 

Part two continued ……..

 

First of all creating Utopia costs a lot of money.  And while we were becoming more democratic, “we the people” had become a pain in the rear end to the powerful institutions. Educated, free thinking, free people have a way of doing that.  But undoing all of this energy isn’t easy.

 

The process goes something like this: First you have to let the managers, who are well paid to run the system as it is, know they are paying a significant part of their income in taxes to keep this equality thing going.  Then you have to let them know while they were deserving of government programs this new group now coming of age isn’t.  If these new people coming of age happen to be of different ethnicities and races this makes the sale a bit easier.

 

Still not easy do … not easy to do unless you can control the news, elected officials and equal access to the law.  And as hard as this may be do, this seems to be what has happened.

 

Corporate takeovers and bad economies go hand in hand.  Before you know it, the news, banks, and major institutions are in the hands of the few – and guess who they are.  In the meanwhile make sure that running for government office is so expensive it has to be financed by “sugar daddies” who just happen to be these same organizations. 

  

 We all know this, but sometimes accentuating the obvious is necessary.  And don’t forget, just to keep the process looking democratic, it’s important for political candidates to have the appearance of a “grass roots” organization behind them allowing potential voters to send in their individual twenty-five dollar donations.

 

So education goes unfunded, programs that allow equal access to the law are unfunded. (Class action suits and constitutional challenges are a real pain in the butt to anyone in charge.) In the meanwhile run up huge government deficits’ making sure the money goes to those who already have most of it anyway with little left over to go to anyone else.

 

Then cut programs for ordinary people and also cut taxes for the rich, and if you can get away with it, blame it all on the labor unions, government employees and retired people.

 

This may be just too far fetched to believe, or is it?  Edward Murrow and Henry Ford, where are you when we need you?