Sunday, November 9, 2008

Presidential Post-Mortem










Recycled Web Page   2010


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THE MOST EXPENSIVE
PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF THE POLITICAL SEASON ENDED WITH BARACK HUSSEIN

OBAMA AS BEING ELECTED AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA.



I have my own
post-mortem exam why John McCain, BObama's more experienced opponent, a great
American hero, was the loser in this election even though he fought a noble and
hard campaign:



  • BObama Cult -- The BObama team have been
    quietly organizing with liberal elitist groups and the corrupt mainstream
    media for more than 4 years, communicating through the internet with Bush
    haters from all over the world.  I equate his messiah mystique with the
    media hype of the Jonas Brothers.  But unlike the Jonas Brothers, who in
    the first place no one knew, the "ONE" was able to sustain his cult by good
    planning and harnessing the power of the internet.  BTW, I don't hear of
    the Jonas Brothers anymore.

  • Black pride -- Although not born from
    a generation of negro slaves but sired by a Kenyan father from the continent
    of Africa or country of Africa (same thing), American blacks and whites voted
    for him because his mother was white also.  After more than 200 years,
    America may have gone beyond racism, but racism have not gone beyond
    America.

  • Illegal immigration anger -- Hispanic
    and Latino voters very much remembered the anti-illegal immigration bill
    the Republicans put forth in 2006.  Hispanics and Latinos found it to be
    an unfair assault to their fellow brown brothers and sisters.  On
    hindsight, preventing illegal immigration by the Republicans might put on hold
    the brown majority over white very much later (2060?) than
    sooner.  Since then, there are more than 11,000 illegals being deported
    daily or monthly and border walls are being constructed currently.

  • Campaign finance -- Because BObama broke
    his promise to take public campaign finance, he was able to raise more than
    $600 million, receiving $40,000 from a California couple and many billionaire
    supporters (McCain, $20 only from supporters.) His ads were everywhere,
    including the more than $4 million ads he bought in three networks the
    night before election day.  Moreover, ACORN bought the elections for
    BObama in 12 states.  Take note: There will be a lot of disgruntled and
    rejected supporters of President-Elect BObama at his inauguration ball! 
    You betcha! [Let this be a lesson to future Republican presidential
    candidates:  from now on, never ever trust your Democrat opponent like
    McCain did with BObama.]

  • The Palin Pick -- No doubt it brought life
    to the McCain campaign, attracting conservative Republicans.  However,
    the corrupt mainstream media who gave a pass to BObama were out to get her,
    digging dirt, and hacking her emails by Democrat BObama supporter.  I
    wonder what happened to the sleazeball who did it?

  • The American and Global Economic Meltdown
    -- It was a chain-reaction of bad news on Wall Street and Main Street, totally
    not the fault of McCain.  However, I was taken aback by the misstep of
    McCain.  What's that, you ask. I said to myself then, self, why is he
    canceling the first debate with BObama because of the economic crisis? And
    then went to the debate!  Not a good move.

  • George W. -- Whether you agree or not, the
    Bush Administration quite accomplished many of their policies and agenda in
    the course of six years until the takeover of Congress by Pelosi and Reid in
    2006.  Since their coup d' etat, nothing was passed on bank regulations,
    the US troops are still in Iraq and the economy went on spiral
    downturn.  Still, wonder of wonder, BObama and the Democratic
    Party were re-elected and gained more seats in both houses of
    Congress.  Even George W. said, "awesome!"  My big bro Napoleon and
    I have figured it out about the economy and why I'm not really worried about
    it.  Not even Rush Limbaugh, Neil Cavuto or Maria Bartiromo will ever
    figure it out.  How and why so?  I'm unable to say right now why the
    economic crisis is really good for the country.  I will tell you next
    year and maybe never because I don't want other countries to know about
    the real reason behind it. 


ALL I CAN SAY IS I HIGHLY PRAISE AND ADMIRE
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION FOR THEIR GREAT SOLUTION TO THE OVERALL PROBLEM FACING
AMERICA.  GEORGE W., I SALUTE YOU AS THE BEST PRESIDENT EVER!

Published  11/9/08  altgroup multiply

Web Page:  FBPO on Presidential Post-Mortem

Monday, November 3, 2008

In Memoriam Robert



The Manila High School Batchmates of Robert B. of Greenbelt, Maryland, would like to extend their deepest sympathy at his passing to his daughters Cristina, Kyla, and Catherine.  He died of natural causes on Thursday, October 23, 2008, joining his beloved wife in heaven.


He was a constant inspiration to all his batchmates and his good humor will surely be missed a lot.  He never missed viewing all our YouTube h.s. videos; A few of his batchmates (Thelma, Lydia) and Ma'am Amor will always remember him for sharing his favorite CD collections of love songs.

Dear Bert, may you rest in everlasting peace in the arms of the angels and may the Good Lord forever keep you close to Him.

 


Published 11/3/08  ALT MSN Group
Web Page:  In Memoriam Robert



November 23, 2014  Felicitas Gudani Inverno,   RIP

Sunday, November 2, 2008

A Girl With An Apple Herman Rosenblat

 "Not a true story."  Fiction.  11/9/08


A Girl With An Apple

(This is
a true story and you can find out more by Googling Herman Rosenblat. He
was Bar Mitzvahed at age 75)
August 1942. Piotrkow , Poland


The sky was
gloomy that morning as we waited anxiously. All the men, women and
children of Piotrkow's Jewish ghetto had been herded into a
square.

Word had gotten around that we were being moved. My father
had only recently died from typhus, which had run rampant through the
crowded ghetto. My greatest fear was that our family would be
separated.

'Whatever you do,' Isidore, my eldest brother, whispered
to me, 'don't tell them your age. Say you're sixteen.

'I was tall
for a boy of 11, so I could pull it off. That way I might be deemed
valuable as a worker.

An SS man approached me, boots clicking
against the cobblestones. He looked me up and down, and then asked my
age.
'Sixteen,' I said. He directed me to the left, where my three
brothers and other healthy young men already stood.

My mother was
motioned to the right with the other women, children, sick and elderly
people.
I whispered to Isidore, 'Why?'
He didn't answer.
I ran to
Mama's side and said I wanted to stay with her.
'No, 'she said
sternly.
'Get away. Don't be a nuisance. Go with your
brothers.'

She had never spoken so harshly before. But I
understood: She was protecting me. She loved me so much that, just this
once, she pretended not to. It was the last I ever saw of her.

My
brothers and I were transported in a cattle car to Germany
We arrived
at the Buchenwald concentration camp one night weeks later and were led
into a crowded barrack. The next day, we were issued uniforms and
identification numbers.

'Don't call me Herman anymore.' I said to
my brothers. 'Call me 94983.'
I was put to work in the camp's
crematorium, loading the dead into a hand-cranked elevator.
I, too,
felt dead. Hardened, I had become a number.

Soon, my brothers and I
were sent to Schlieben, one of Buchenwald's sub-camps near Berlin
One
morning I thought I heard my mother's voice.
'Son,' she said softly but
clearly, I am going to send you an angel.'
Then I woke up. Just a
dream. A beautiful dream.
But in this place there could be no angels.
There was only work. And hunger. And fear.

A couple of days later,
I was walking around the camp, around the barracks, near the barbed-wire
fence where the guards could not easily see. I was alone.
On the other
side of the fence, I spotted someone: a little girl with light, almost
luminous curls. She was half-hidden behind a birch tree.
I glanced
around to make sure no one saw me. I called to her softly in German. 'Do
you have something to eat?'
She didn't understand.
I inched closer
to the fence and repeated the question in Polish. She stepped forward. I
was thin and gaunt, with rags wrapped around my feet, but the girl looked
unafraid. In her eyes, I saw life.
She pulled an apple from her woolen
jacket and threw it over the fence.

I grabbed the fruit and, as I
started to run away, I heard her say faintly, 'I'll see you
tomorrow.'
I returned to the same spot by the fence at the same time
every day. She was always there with something for me to eat - a hunk of
bread or, better yet, an apple.
We didn't dare speak or linger.. To be
caught would mean death for us both.
I didn't know anything about her,
just a kind farm girl, except that she understood Polish. What was her
name? Why was she risking her life for me?
Hope was in such short
supply, and this girl on the other side of the fence gave me some, as
nourishing in its way as the bread and apples.

Nearly seven months
later, my brothers and I were crammed into a coal car and shipped to
Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia .
'Don't return,' I told the girl
that day. 'We're leaving.'
I turned toward the barracks and didn't look
back, didn't even say good-bye to the little girl whose name I'd never
learned, the girl with the apples.

We were in Theresienstadt for
three months. The war was winding down and Allied forces were closing in,
yet my fate seemed sealed.
On May 10, 1945, I was scheduled to die in
the gas chamber at 10:00 AM.
In the quiet of dawn, I tried to prepare
myself. So many times death seemed ready to claim me, but somehow I'd
survived. Now, it was over.
I thought of my parents. At least, I
thought, we will be reunited.

But at 8 A.M. there was a commotion.
I heard shouts, and saw people running every which way through camp. I
caught up with my brothers.
Russian troops had liberated the camp! The
gates swung open. Everyone was running, so I did too. Amazingly, all of my
brothers had survived;
I'm not sure how. But I knew that the girl with
the apples had been the key to my survival.
In a place where evil
seemed triumphant, one person's goodness had saved my life, had given me
hope in a place where there was none.

My mother had promised to
send me an angel, and the angel had come.

Eventually I made my way
to England where I was sponsored by a Jewish charity, put up in a hostel
with other boys who had survived the Holocaust and trained in electronics.
Then I came to America , where my brother Sam had already moved. I served
in the U. S. Army during the Korean War, and returned to New York City
after two years.

By August 1957 I'd opened my own electronics
repair shop. I was starting to settle in.
One day, my friend Sid who I
knew from England called me.
'I've got a date. She's got a Polish
friend. Let's double date.'
A blind date? Nah, that wasn't for
me.
But Sid kept pestering me, and a few days later we headed up to the
Bronx to pick up his date and her friend Roma.
I had to admit, for a
blind date this wasn't so bad. Roma was a nurse at a Bronx hospital. She
was kind and smart. Beautiful, too, with swirling brown curls and green,
almond-shaped eyes that sparkled with life.

The four of us drove
out to Coney Island Roma was easy to talk to, easy to be with.
Turned
out she was wary of blind dates too!
We were both just doing our
friends a favor. We took a stroll on the boardwalk, enjoying the salty
Atlantic breeze, and then had dinner by the shore. I couldn't remember
having a better time.

We piled back into Sid's car, Roma and I
sharing the backseat.
As European Jews who had survived the war, we
were aware that much had been left unsaid between us. She broached the
subject, 'Where were you,' she asked softly, 'during the war?'

'The
camps,' I said. The terrible memories still vivid, the irreparable loss. I
had tried to forget. But you can never forget.
She nodded. 'My family
was hiding on a farm in Germany , not far from Berlin ,' she told me. 'My
father knew a priest, and he got us Aryan papers.'
I imagined how she
must have suffered too, fear, a constant companion. And yet here we were
both survivors, in a new world.


'There was a camp
next to the farm.' Roma continued. 'I saw a boy there and I would throw
him apples every day.'
What an amazing coincidence that she had helped
some other boy. 'What did he look like? I asked.
'He was tall, skinny,
and hungry. I must have seen him every day for six months.'
My heart
was racing. I couldn't believe it.
This couldn't be.
'Did he tell
you one day not to come back because he was leaving
Schlieben?'

Roma looked at me in amazement. 'Yes!'
'That was
me!'

I was ready to burst with joy and awe, flooded with emotions.
I couldn't believe it! My angel.
'I'm not letting you go.' I said to
Roma. And in the back of the car on that blind date, I proposed to her. I
didn't want to wait.

'You're crazy!' she said. But she invited me
to meet her parents for Shabbat dinner the following week.

There
was so much I looked forward to learning about Roma, but the most
important things I always knew: her steadfastness, her goodness. For many
months, in the worst of circumstances, she had come to the fence and given
me hope. Now that I'd found her again, I could never let her
go.

That day, she said yes. And I kept my word. After nearly 50
years of marriage, two children and three grandchildren, I have never let
her go.


Herman Rosenblat of Miami Beach , Florida
This story
is being made into a movie called The Fence.

-- Nestor H.
Rodriguez 


Published  11/2/08  ALT  MSN Group
Web Page: A Girl With An Apple  Herman Rosenblat



Saturday, November 1, 2008

What's Up? Texas Aunt Daisy



I'M BACK! I JUST CAME
BACK FROM THE VITAL VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE AND HISTORIC SAN
ANTONIO.


I snapped a lot of photos of my trip across
southern Texas and the big 80th birthday bash of my Aunt Daisy.  I'll
upload the photos upon my convenience.



While waiting for my connecting
fight at the George H. W. Bush International Airport in Houston, I
called my college batchmate Nilo on my cellphone just to greet him hello and
'Happy Halloween.'  He was not at his real estate office but his
very capable secretary connected me to his cellphone.  We chit-chat
for a little bit, about future medtech reunions, etcetera.


I took Continental flight because it's
always convenient; beside they still have peanuts not pretzels, meals, movies,
and free Coke.  I checked in one baggage for $15.  I like to travel
light  On my return flight I had to check my baggage again and paid
$15 again.  Now, I paid for a roundtrip ticket so I asked the lady at the
airline desk, "Shouldn't my baggage have a roundtrip fee of $15 also?"  No
dice.  That's a total fee of $30! I could have bought myself a
dozen beef steaks with that at Food4Less!


My tummy is growling and it's time to eat
the yummy siopao my favorite cousin Edith made.


Have a blessed All Saint's
Day!



Published  11/1/08   ALT  MSN Group

Web Page:  What's Up?