May they rest in peace.

Rest in Peace
By Joseph Walther


Memorial Day weekend rolls around every year right on schedule. For many in this country, it represents a 3-day weekend. Heaps of people travel to a beach; lots of others stay home and celebrate with cookouts and parades. And, for many others—police, fire, hospital, and other emergency service folks—it’s just another working day. Oh, and lest we forget, if you are a retailer or one who works in retail sales, Memorial Day is a major “sales” opportunity.

Memorial Day is something else, too. It is the one day each year that we’ve set aside to REMEMBER all of those who have died defending our way of life. There is no need for a collective obsession over it. We can all still have fun with the festivities. It’s just that each of us should pause for a moment or two of reflection. Even more important, is the need for us older folks to make sure that our children know what it’s all about.

Combat veterans never forget. We don’t need a Memorial Day because there isn’t a day in our lives that we do not remember, at least once, those with whom we served. Even though Congress never officially declared it so, my WAR was Vietnam. I am one of the many lucky ones who made it out alive and with all of my original parts in good working order.

To millions of people alive today, the many names etched into the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC are statistics. For me, however, five of those statistics have names and faces.

One of those statistics died in my arms on a God-forsaken jungle floor. He was just 19-years old. That was over 38-years ago, but I still bolt upright in the night, from time-to-time. I can see his face and feel him die as vividly as I did then. My forehead is sweating. My heart is pounding at a deafening internal decibel level and I can feel the moistness and stickiness of his blood on my arms and combat fatigues. I swear that I can even smell the cordite still hanging in the air from the explosion that ripped his abdomen open. Combat veterans NEVER forget.

I need to stop here because I don’t want to turn this into a political tirade against what seems to have been going on in this country ever since Vietnam. Let’s just remember all of those who have died in service to country. If you have a relationship with God, make contact now and ask Him to look after all of their devastated families and friends.

Let me leave you with this quoted passage. It belongs to the late Major Michael Davis O’Donnell. I met him when he was Captain O’Donnell. He died in combat on January 1, 1970.

"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.

And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind."

Have a great holiday. I’ll be back again next week as my usual smart-assed self, political tirades included.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.

The FDA wouldn't do that!

Even McGoofy Is Right Sometimes
By Joseph Walther

The McGoofy Group met this past Saturday at Mamma Gina’s Pizza in the New Castle Farmers Market. Earl, the group’s leader, called the meeting “a serious emergency.” He emailed me about it. I replied, asking what issues they’d be discussion. I also asked him to explain the difference between an emergency and a “serious” emergency. He then replied, in rather agitated verbosity, that he wanted me to attend. I rushed right over.

In the interest of clarification for any of you first-time readers, the McGoofy Group consists of seven males. They meet monthly to discuss pressing worldly matters that they consider critical to the “American” way of life. Actually, Earl does the talking. The other six nod in raptured assent. I am there to ask an occasional impertinent question, such as “do you have any proof?” So, with this in mind, let me get to the issues of the last meeting.

The first words out of Earl’s mouth were, “It’s damn well time that we got rid of the mucking FDA. (He didn’t actually say mucking.) The others in attendance, particularly Larry, his brother Daryl, and his other brother Daryl, agreed.

By “agreed”, I mean that Larry and his brother Daryl moved their heads up and down in what looked like an affirmative response. Larry’s other brother Daryl just looked confused. Of course, to Earl, this is an automatic yes vote.

Unfortunately, however, one of the remaining three group members had spilled his Pepsi all over the table, thus causing the other two to bail out of the way. So these three probably didn’t even hear what Earl had told me.

In the mean time, being scared to death that Earl was about to call the matter to a vote, I jumped in quickly with, “Um, why, Earl?”

Earl: “Do you need me to draw you a picture?”
Me: “Why, yes, if you’d be so kind.”
Earl: “Jesus Mucking Christ, (He didn’t really say mucking.) do you know anything about politics, Mr. True Facts?
Me: “Not as much as you do, Earl, Just the same, though, I have this nasty habit of checking things out before I make an ass out of myself. So, Earl, why should we get rid of the FDA? Do you actually know how the FDA functions?”
Earl: “Everyone knows that the FDA is in bed with the drug companies…”

Earl’s voice trailed off as both of us aimed our focus on a small disruption at the end of our table. A petite, young Mexican girl was crying as her faced dripped some sort of liquid. And her VERY heavy mother seemed poised to cause serious bodily harm to a member of Earl’s group.

Apparently, the three involved in the earlier spilled Pepsi fiasco had finally settled into the discussion, only to have one of them, Bert, drop a slice of tomato pie down the front of his tee shirt. So, again, the other two had to divert their collective attention to a more pressing matter, such as laughing frantically at Bert. They were laughing so hard that the one called “Ramrod” was unaware of his impending doom.

You see, when Bert dropped the slice down the front of his tee shirt, Ramrod, in an irrepressible fit of laughter had spewed a mouthful of Pepsi all over a 12-year old girl sitting at an adjacent table. The girl’s 300-pound mother was not happy about it and began aggressively expressing her feelings in words and gestures.

I didn’t completely understand what she was saying because she spoke in Spanish with a few broken English words thrown in. All I know is that her eyes really stood out because they were blood red and staring daggers at Ramrod as she spoke to him. Also, there was a very big, deep purple vein bulging out from her right temple. I swear it was throbbing.

As she stood nose-to-nose, expressing her concerns to Ramrod, I could not understand everything she was telling him. But, her animation left little to the imagination. Here’s what it sounded like. “[Something] [something] tonto Americano! El tonto hombre. [Something] ass! Tonto [something] [something]! (It sounded like sock trucker!) [Something] [something] [something] I’m gonna [something] [something] your head [something] up your [something] [something] ass!”

While I’m not sure, it sounded like she was talking to Ramrod about some of the conclusions that she had drawn regarding his intelligence, his parents’ marital status, his sexual orientation, and her intent to send him into the bathroom through the adjoining wall instead of the door.

Thank God that a security guard showed up out of nowhere. Earl decided to adjourn the meeting. He and a couple of the others were trying to get Ramrod out of that wall, although I think he was bleeding too much. However, Earl promised me that he wouldn’t do anything rash until I had a chance to check out his claims about the FDA and get back to him.

As I was leaving, they were making outstanding progress at removing Ramrod from that wall. I could definitely see most of his lower body as I turned the corner by the pizza counter.

I’ll bet everything I have that this sort of thing never happens during the Federal Reserve meetings.

In keeping with my word to Earl, I began my search about noon today and, to my surprise, I was able to find some information about the FDA. I found an exposé titled, “10 voters on panel backing pain pills had industry ties.” It was a New York Times report written by Gardiner Harris and Alex Berenson. It involved Vioxx, Bextra, and Celebrex. Two of these have been the subject of major lawsuits, as well as subjects of intense criticism by many mainstream doctors.

The advisory panel appointed by the FDA to revaluate these drugs consisted of 32 members, 10 of which had received grants, research fees, of other monetary compensation from both Merk and Pfizer, the manufacturers. Here is a look at the vote to keep them on the market.

Drug Full Committee Committee minus

Name With conflicts conflicts of Interest

Vioxx 17 Yes 12 No 8 Yes 14 No
Bextra 17 Yes 13 No 8 Yes 12 No
Celebrex 31 Yes 1 No 21 Yes 1 No

I was able to discover some other facts, thanks to AARP’s bulletin vol. 47 no. 5. The FDA currently has a backlog of about 800 generic drugs awaiting evaluation. This is because, according to AARP, the FDA has 200 employees currently evaluating 975 generic drugs while 700 employees are evaluating about 150 new drugs. What’s going on, you ask!

Brand-name drug manufacturers pay the FDA user fees in order to help fast-track the evaluation of their drugs. Generic manufactures pay nothing. Interesting, huh? I wonder if the fact that the introduction of generics lowers the price of prescription medications exponentially has anything to do with this.

At any rate, to his credit, Earl may have a point on the FDA. I’m going to snoop around some more and see what I can find.

Right now, though, I have to go. I’m going to stop by the hospital and see Ramrod. I understand the surgery went well and that he should be out of traction in a week or two.

Have a great week.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.

Oh, say it isn't so!

I Swear! I’m Not Making This Up.
By Joseph Walther

One of the unmistakable signs of a pseudo intellectual is the use of too many words—most often using the passive voice—to express a few simple thoughts. This, in my opinion, is an attempt to display more intelligence than actually exists.

The intellectualization of simplicity (AKA mental masturbation) has always been an obsessive endeavor of pseudo intellectuals. Its practitioners live for the opportunity to complicate simplicity beyond recognition. It’s a simple process. It requires one or more topic originators plus a myriad of gullible pro and con responders.

The topic originators do not have to be cerebral giants, only shrewd. After all, these folks are not the ones doing the intellectualizing. For the most part, the desire to increase their checking account balances is a prime motivator. Others, me for example, love watching idiots come out of the woodwork at the mere mention of nonsensical topics. Regardless, thanks to human gullibility, the supply of mental masturbators remains limitless.

The veracity of the topic is immaterial. It can be a complete fabrication, the brutal truth, or some combination of the two. The keys to a topic’s success are believability and contentiousness. Include a modest fear factor and the money’s as good as in the bank! Here’s an example.

This morning’s Sunday News Journal carried no less than three op-ed columns about “The Da Vinci Code” book and movie. The first one, “There’s no secret Catholic conspiracy”, was written by Leonard R. Kline, a Roman Catholic Priest in the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware. Father Klein clearly exposed the differences between the biblical accounts of Christ’s life and the fictional ones described by Dan Brown in his book. It was well done and to the point.

The second one, “Some truth about early Christianity”, was written by retired University of Delaware philosophy professor, Frank Dilley. The essence of Dr. Dilley’s column was a concern for Dan Brown’s literary style. It, too, was a well-written piece. He stressed that sometimes when writers combine “pure fiction” with carefully placed, historically valid facts, the former runs the risk of obscuring the latter.

The last one, “The evidence is suspicious”, was written by Bo Matthews, pastor of Brandywine Valley Baptist Church in Talleyville. Reverend Matthews’s column compares and contrasts The Da Vinci Code to a 1927 novel by the name of Elmer Gantry. Relative to “The Da Vinci Code”, Matthews accuses secularists of possibly hating, but certainly of insulting, evangelicals and Catholics, as author Dan Brown seems to do in his book and movie.

I was very comfortable with both Father Klein’s and Professor Dilley’s columns. In the case of the former, the writer clearly differentiates between Dan Brown’s “purely fictional” account and that of the biblical record. In the case of the latter, Professor Dilley seems to be writing a review of the dangers inherent in Dan Brown’s choice of style. Both pieces were free of emotionally charged personal accusations.

The last one, by Reverend Matthews, was loaded with emotion and emotionally based charges of insults. It makes Reverend Matthews appear to be on the clueless side of things. Where the first two writers left any conclusions to the readers, Reverend Matthews instructed his readers in why they should be incensed. Reverend Matthews appears to be an undisputed intellectualizer of simplicity or, if you’d prefer, a mental masturbator par excellence.

Overall, I am not sure which poses the most danger. Is it the emotional response like that of Reverend Matthews? Or, is it the implication that the bulk of the people who read “The Da Vinci Code”, or may see the movie, are intellectually devoid of understanding the difference between fact and fiction?

The fact is that the publishers advertised the book as fiction. Booksellers displayed the book in the FICTION section of their respective stores. The last time I checked, fiction meant that a writer made up a story plot. As long as a writer clearly marks a work as fiction, it’s still permissible to make stuff up.

To this day, conspiracy theorists, by the millions, question Kennedy’s assassination. In the same vein, conspiracy buffs still claim that our government has some crashed alien space ship, along with the preserved remains of its alien pilots, hidden from us common folk in some desert region in the United States called Area 51.

Sex has always been a good seller. It’s just flat out more exciting to believe that Jesus knocked up Mary Magdalene than it is to buy into that boring, sexless “Virgin Birth” stuff. Personally, I think it is a miracle that St. Joe didn’t get mad and off someone over that business.

I am not into fiction reading. I am most certainly thinking about it, though. People love conspiracy and sex. I am thinking about writing hot novel involving politics and sex. It’s going to be about a former United States President who found himself in deep trouble over ill-conceived sexual encounters and lies. I’ll probably name the main character Cill Blinton. I need a catchy title, though. Readers, all of you feel free to submit your recommendations.

Someone told me that history is nothing more than what people collectively agree happened, whether it actually happened or not. In the movie, “Liberty Valance”, a reporter from back East refused to print the truth as to who killed Liberty Valance because the legend was more interesting. He said, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

By God, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I just thought of a title for my novel about a fictional, sexually predacious former U. S. President. If I had thought of this title a year ago, I’d be on a book tour right now with millions already in the bank. I’m going to title the book, “Cill Blinton: Providing Temporary Relief to Nymphomaniacs Since About 1965.”

Watch for me at Borders. I’ll not only autograph your copy, we might also discuss my next fictional expose of those “baccy-chewing”, small government advocating, sunbelt conservatives currently morphing into Teddy Roosevelt Republicans who believe in using the power of the State to screw over us poor, illiterate yahoos. My good buddy Earl, from over at Mama Gina’s Pizza, wants to collaborate on this one!

I think I’ll send him an email. In the meantime, have a great week.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.

Alive? Yes! Unconscience? As Usual!

We’re Alive But Unconscious!
By Joseph Walther


Some people, with little or no effort, become living confirmations of Soderquist’s Paradox: There are more horses’ asses than horses. I know that you’re all bubbling over with curiosity as to why I’d say something like this. Well, here’s why. I witnessed a number of things this past week and all of them support my opening statement. Let’s dive right in!

Last Monday afternoon I stopped to get something to eat at a local Burger King. Please understand that I’m not endorsing Burger King… well maybe I am in the sense that I considered it the lesser of several unappealing choices. I’m digressing, though. Let me get back to the point.

I arrived in the middle of a field trip lunch break for fifteen second, or maybe, third-grade kids. I have no idea where they had been or the name of their elementary school. From my 63-year old perspective, the teacher in charge looked to be all of about 15, but she was in charge and every one of these kids knew it.

I received my order and proceeded to a booth. There was a group of four children–a boy and three girls–in the booth behind mine. They were describing their various religions. One of the girls was Jewish. The boy was a Catholic. The other two girls were Methodists. A fifth child, a girl named Emily, who stated that she’s a “Pressteerien”, joined them. Their conversation was fantastic!

What they said is not important. How they said it is. These kids were relaxed, open, and totally non-judgmental with each other. As each of them spoke, the others listened. They respected each other’s viewpoint and accepted each other’s religion as nonchalantly as they accepted their respective hair colors or genders. I did not hear even one of them threaten to report the others to the ACLU.

For now, Soderquist’s Paradox does not apply to these kids. If they can maintain their mutual respect for each other, as well as their open attitude toward and acceptance of other religions, the paradox will never apply and who knows what great things could happen in the world as a result.

Unfortunately, reliable statistics tell us that 78% of the world’s population believes in a Deity. All of the adults who represent the various religious beliefs—Christians, Jews, Muslims, Protestants, Hindus, Buddhists, accordion players, harmonica players, and polka enthusiasts to name a few—should just chill. Like these kids, they should talk to each other in an open and nonjudgmental way. Fat chance of that!

Nevertheless, if we all did this, we’d find out that all of us, with the possible exception of the accordion players, harmonica players, and polka enthusiasts, are human beings, complete with hopes and dreams and that we have more in common than not.

Unfortunately, I fear that adult logic, much of which displays the emotional depth and personal maturity of seaweed, will overtake these children’s thought processes. Over the next ten to fifteen years, this youthful openness and acceptance will yield to the typical dogmatic “my God’s righteous and your God’s not” pissing contest that we’ve all come to expect from most of our religious leaders.

Moving on, I made it a point to listen to as much talk radio, local and national, as I could this past week. The national topics covered a myriad of subjects: immigration; the war on terror; same sex marriages; rotten, lyin’, stinkin’, baby-killin’ liberal scum; and those miserable, lyin’, stinkin’, sanctity of marriage savin’ conservative slime buckets.

The local topics were basically the same as the national ones, except that the local hosts included some local issues such as those stupid, lyin’, smelly (pick one depending on your political stance) liberal/conservative jerks that are sending all of us to hell in a hand basket.

Becoming more and more obvious are two other notable differences between national hosts and the local ones. The locals, in addition to having nothing of essence to say, also talk funny. For example, one of the locals on WILM kept pronouncing w-a-t-e-r as wooder instead of the common whater.

While most of the nationals seem to have broadcast quality voices that can articulate shallowness reasonably well, I listened to one of the locals on WDEL afternoon who spent two hours mindlessly running his mouth and sounded like he was speaking through his nose. He made up for is lack of social depth with an unbelievable level of pure-assed crankiness.

I don’t care what they are saying. I firmly believe that 90% of everything the national and local talk show hosts say, while sincere, is unmitigated and exaggerated bullshit. Its primary aim is to stir people up into a rage until they foam at the mouth. What IS amazing, at least to me, is the ease with which supposedly intelligent people let strangers dictate what should offend them, as well as WHEN to be offended.

Sincerely believing in the righteousness of an action does not make the action righteous. And, sincerity does not override stupidity, either. There is nothing more pathetic, and ultimately dangerous to freedom, than devoutly sincere, stupid people. “What luck for rulers that men do not think.” Adolf Hitler said this to some members of his inner circle during his climb to power in Nazi Germany.

Finally, since this is a mid-term election year, let me give you a few thoughts of mine regarding this country’s state of affairs. We have a lot of critical issues to deal with in this country. While they are too numerous to list here, I believe that we can solve all of them, over time, as long as we’re willing to face the truth and recognize blind, logically questionable dogma for what it is: blind, questionable dogma.

I have a list of non-problems that politicians love to elevate to the status of DEFCON-5. Here are my favorite three. Keep in mind that politicians will spare no expense to scale any molehill, no matter how slight, to solve non-problems.

First, the Social Security Trust Fund is NOT broke. It’s not even close. However, if we don’t stop the politicians from raiding that trust every time the pork barrel runs shallow, it WILL go broke. Second, no one has to protect the “sanctity” of marriage. We certainly don’t need a Constitutional Amendment. When two people base their union on mutual love, honor, respect, and commitment, it is just as sanctified as the more traditional, religiously accepted heterosexual unions. Third, the “war on terror” is a crock, just like its predecessors, the “war on drugs”, the “war on poverty”, and the grand daddy of them all: the “war to end all wars.”

None of those wars worked because we failed to understand nature of the causes. In the case of drug use, people use all kinds of drugs and for incalculable reasons, many of which are so endemic and complex that simple answers are impossible. Telling a ghetto kid, making $5,000 a week selling crack to addicts, to “just say no” does not work. It also makes the person who said it look quite dense!

Poverty is a fact of life in all societies, even communistic and socialistic ones. But, it’s particularly prevalent in capitalistic societies. Given that the human species does not annihilate itself beforehand, we might eradicate poverty at some point. It’s not going to happen at our current level of evolution, though. The idea that we could eradicate it within a short time span, however, is one of those idealistic frauds politicians like to banter around for votes.

Humans tend to become very cranky whenever they perceive a threat to their personal status quo. When “outsiders” raise personal threats to a level of national concern, whether the threat is real or not, we start rattling our sabers. Given the right mix of nationalistic fervor, combined with just the right amount of need to let off steam, we go to war. Even if humans annihilate themselves right now, the cockroaches will survive. And, 250,000 years from now Palestinian cockroaches will be Israeli cockroaches.

I’ve had a long and successful career. I’ve learned a few things in the 63-years I’ve been on this earth. For example, we elect those politicians who are the most expert at providing credible, popular frauds that the voters can believe in. Additionally, politicians always answer the questions they wish the questioners had asked instead of the ones that they actually asked. Worse, this practice has become blatant. As long as we permit these two conditions to exist, we’ll continue getting exactly what we deserve.

FDR was president when I was born. I’ve lived through the administrations of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. I look forward to living though the rest of George W. Bush’s administration, as well as a couple more future administrations.

Please note that not one of these men was a saint, even though the conservatives have already canonized Ronald Reagan. Occasionally, each of our past presidents said silly things, some more than others. That’s why all of them have had a silly statement repair team. With the exception of the last two presidents, all of them knew when they said something silly and they let the silly statement repair team repair the damage as best it could so that we could all move on.

Not so with the last two presidents, though. Bill Clinton said silly things, knowing the entire time that they were silly and sometimes untrue. In fact, there were times, at least in his mind, when convenience was the imperative and truth was one of several options. This was undoubtedly true of his predecessors, but they all tried to be discrete about it. Clinton didn’t care about discretion. He was testing the waters to see how far he could go, knowing our collective gullibility. He was a fantastic “pain feeler” who could make people believe that he felt their pain, even from millions of miles away. We all fell for it, especially Monica.

George W. Bush, on the other hand, is a believer, as opposed to a thinker. It’s practically impossible to lie about what’s going on if you don’t know what’s going on. He has no clue that he says things that are not only silly, but downright stupid. He believes every word he utters and always has. Back in the day when he was drinking heavily, his words only reached the end of a bar. It was no big deal, though, because he was a good-natured, likeable drunk who bought lots of rounds. Everyone knew he was an idiot. But, hey, a free drink was a free drink!

To his credit, he’s overcome his alcohol-related demons. He’s the President of the United States now and the entire world hears his words. However, because he does not think before he acts on his beliefs, his words are every bit as silly and, more often than not, as stupid as they ever were. He, too, has a silly statement repair team. It’s a useless exercise though, because he does not realize silliness of his statements. Changing the official silly statement team representative doesn’t change anything.

God help Tony Snow. Also, if you hear an occasional rustling sound, along with what perhaps sounds like muffled sighs, it’s most likely Edward R. Murrow turning over in his grave.

Have a great week.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.