Different Slants

In June of this year, I wrote a heartfelt opinion piece about ten very specific things that Obama should do, when, not if  he’s elected, to help America be all it can be for the greatest number of its citizens.

You can click here: http://www.differentslants.com/2008/06/12/obama-a-blueprint-for-a-better-america-this-is-what-you-should-do-dont-waste-your-time-by-robert-m-katzman/ and read each item and see for yourself if you agree with me.

I knew Obama would smash through the primaries and arrive at this point today, four days before a momentous election in this country, because there is a momentum to history and sometimes, positive forces among men and women become too powerful to hold back, and a good man with wonderful qualities is put in the position to positively affect millions of lives.

We’re in a period similar to when Herbert Hoover was this country’s President during the Great Depression’s earliest years, just before FDR was swept into power by that same sort of unstoppable momentum. So much was going wrong for so many ordinary, hopeless, jobless people, that a man with energy, good will, an imagination and a first-class mind was too essential to the survival of the nation to not be given the opportunity to turn this country around.

That is the same situation we’re in now, except that in fact, Herbert Hoover was a man with good intentions and a generous heart who did much to organize and feed the starving post World War One Europeans, but was somehow not temperamentally suited to be our President. It happens. Hoover was fundamentally a decent man in the wrong executive position.

George Bush with his thieving, scheming, self-serving gang of incompetents with their blatant indifference to this nation’s terribly frightened and suffering average people whom he has surrounded himself with, is not.

The price we will pay in too many ways, long into our nation’s future because of the bottom-of-the-barrel gang of them, is a signal to the voting population that NOT voting gets you the worst common denominator. And if anyone is “common” it’s Bush. America deserve a higher level of motivation and intelligence than has been on display nationally and regrettably, internationally, for the last eight years.

There are tens of millions of wonderful, decent, caring, responsible people who believe in the Republican philosophy of governing, and I respect that. But unfortunately, Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt are not available right now, when we need them, so vote for a man as good as either of them: Barak Obama.

God save us, we sure need the best we can get, right now. Please vote. Thank you!

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Note from the Author:

Robert M. Katzman, owner of Fighting Words Publishing Company, with four different titles currently in print and over 4,000 books sold to date, is seeking more retail outlets for his vivid and non-fiction inspirational books: 

Independent bookstores, Jewish and other religious organizations, Chicago historical societies or groups, English teachers who want a new voice in their class who was a witness to history, book clubs, high schools or museum gift shops.  I will support anyone who supports me by giving readings in the Chicago Metro area.  I have done this over 40 times, and I always sign my books, when asked.  Everyone, positively everyone, asks.  I was amazed, at first, by that.

Individuals who wish to order my books can view the four book covers and see reviews of them at www.FightingWordsPubco.com 

There are links to YouTube and podcasts, as well.  Or, anyone can call me directly at (847) 274-1474.  Googling my name will also produce all kinds of unusual results.  That other Robert M. Katzman, now deceased, whose name will also appear and who also published, was a doctor.  He actually bought one of my books!  Such a nice man.  Rest in peace, Dr. Katzman.

There will be short poems, stories and essays published in this space every two weeks by either myself or my co-blogist Richard G. Munden, or both.  If you find our postings thought provoking, moving or even amusing, please tell others to come view this site.  We will find our strength in your numbers.

 Next year, I will publish my fifth book, a collection of my best poetry and essays, called,

        I Seek the Praise of Ordinary Men

Individuals who know of independent bookstores that might be interested in a rough-hewn guy like me, who ran a chain of newsstands for 20 years in Chicago, please tell them about my books, will you?  I am partial to independent bookstores, having owned two, myself, until my last one was killed by the giant chains, in 1994. I still miss it. 

I’m also looking to find someone who would want to make a play out of some of my stories in the Chicago area, so I could go there and do some readings sometimes.  I think there’s enough honest sex, drugs and rock n’ roll to hold anyone’s interest, as well as a lot of authentic dialogue from ordinary people in extraordinary situations.  I think the plays would work anywhere, frankly, in some intimate theater with talented actors.

© October, 2008

(# 3 of 4 chapters)  

My last day in Wales had a very full agenda, so I was up at 6 am, ready for double-barreled tourism.

I filled my gas tank, loaded in some road food and set out for adventure.  My first objective was Caerphilly Castle, about twelve kilometers west of Cardiff.  I had read about it, imagined it, and even seen some pictures of it. But it turned out to be cooler than any other castle I’d ever been in before. 

Before includes Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France and William Randolph Hearst’s (stolen from Europe) vast San Simeon Castle in California.  Since seeing Caerphilly, I can add The Czech Republic’s Prague Castle to that list, too.  With the herds of beautiful women floating all around Prague like gazelles, I’m amazed I even noticed the somber castle. But, I did. And Wales still trumps them all.

No, I haven’t seen every castle in those countries, and the ones I did see were big and impressive, especially sailing north up the Rhine River.  But after a while, you can get “castled” out.  A kind of sensory overkill, with yet another vast pile of chiseled stone and hand carved everything inside of it.

After a while, I was able to accurately follow the many twists and turns on my intense Welsh road map, which eventually led me to the drab little town of Caerphilly.  The town seemed to me to be a post-industrial kind of place where the local coal mines finally ran out of extractable coal and the local economy reflected the hard times that followed after that.  I was initially disappointed, as I slowly drove through the grey and empty streets trying to find some sign that would tell me where the castle was. 

But that didn’t take long, and I quickly understood why the town would do nothing to slow down travelers seeking their claim to fame.  A couple turns here and there, and…Damn!

I was inside of a Disney movie!

The castle stands alone, surrounded by a moat.  It has a drawbridge and four massive, round, tower-like structures at each corner.  It’s not the largest of its kind I’ve ever seen, but there is a kind of majesty to it that the others just didn’t have.  They were all very nice museums of former royalty, but this was a CASTLE.

As a kid, I played with my little plastic armies of mounted knights in shining armor, as well as cowboys, Indians and World War II soldiers, sometimes all taking part in the same battle.  In my imagination, all the wars I waged on my South Side of Chicago basement floor were equal opportunity conflicts, and neither time nor technology were barriers to my assorted armies from different centuries. 

(Read on …)

 Mwy o `straeon gan yr Ymwelydd Americanaidd dryslyd

    (More stories from the confused American tourist)

  (# 2 of 4 chapters)

After a difficult night, the little of it I had left after leaving that surreal fish n’ chips place in Cardiff, I lay there for a while in the big bed with its creaking wooden frame in someone else’s house, just staring up at the ceiling.

I was recovering from that 2 am fried fish meal, which was an early indicator that I was becoming unable to digest various oils, increasingly, and which would soon include olive oil and shaved Parmesan Cheese in Italian restaurants (to use on good crusty bread instead of butter) and house salads and eventually even popcorn in movie theaters, too.  Peanut butter was already taboo, after thousands of sandwiches I devoured as a little kid in Chicago.  .

One thing I didn’t want, was to discover a new surprise food allergy while alone on a foreign island.  This was new and I would have to mentally add it to my banned shopping list, now too long to easily remember.  I would adapt—I’ve always adapted—but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t morn some wonderful flavors that were now permanently off limits to me.  Peter Pan Peanut Butter, Welch’s Concord Grape Jelly and Silvercup White bread.  Good bye old friends, from the Fifties.

That other worldly-blond?  Ahhhh, I don’t want to think about her at all. Ever. Terror in the night, man.

But, I was ok enough to get up and out of my lonely room.  Long married and used to snuggling a very warm and attractive wife, for decades by then, sleeping alone was always cold when I traveled.  I missed the dogs that slept with us too.  Traveling alone can be a mixed blessing: I could do whatever I wanted with no negotiations, but I could also shiver at night. A very mixed blessing.

I suppose replacements could be rented, but not by me.  Perhaps a dog, but that would be as far as I would go.

So, slightly nauseous, lonely and with much to explore and no clue how to get there, I dressed and left my three-day home.  At least it was warm in Cardiff, and the natives were friendly.

I consulted my detailed road map covered with little pictures of big castles to lure the average tourist, and I decided to aim toward Swansea and see the southern coast of Wales.  Swansea was the next sizable town southwest of the capitol and fairly close, too.  I’d read about a place called Three Cliffs which was supposed to be especially beautiful and that was the kind of experience I wanted.  Castles would be later on.

I went back to the same small grocery and gathered up some supplies for breakfast.  Besides grapes, a crusty loaf of bread and cheese (that looks so romantic as I type those words on this page…) plump red tomatoes plus a little shaker of salt to sprinkle on them are very good road food, too.  Tomatoes are like juicy apples: both food and drink together.  Very practical and you can’t spill an apple or a tomato while driving.  European dark or bittersweet chocolate was always welcome, of course, as long as it wasn’t too hot outside and a small enough bar for me to knock off in a short time.  Dark chocolate always made me a little happier. 

Also, I always kept a plastic water bottle, with me wherever I went.

Always.

There is a big difference between having water and not having drinkable water, as I learned in 1969 when my van broke down twenty miles east of El Paso, Texas, about an hour before noon and the shimmering universe of heat was something, at nineteen years old, I had never encountered before.

                                                                                                                                                                 (Read on …)

 (# 1 of 4 chapters)

 Bendith Duw ar Bobl Cymru a`u plismyn gwaraidd!!!

(God bless the Welsh People and their civilized policemen!!!)

My original motivation to travel to Britain for the first and only time, in 2001, was to investigate Notting Hill.

Notting Hill was long famous, even before the warm-hearted film of the same name with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, for its incredibly congested, unbroken mass of bargain-seeking and perspiring humanity crushed within its mile long length, as the best flea market in Europe.

While I did find beautiful ceramics, overflowing tables of eccentric flotsam and jetsam, and the original 1964  Beatles periodicals I was actually seeking, as well as a priced-to-sell full suit of medieval English armor for mounted combat or jousting, the memory I find that lingers longest are my three unplanned days in Wales.

The distance from London to Cardiff, the capitol of Wales, was slightly less than driving from Chicago to Madison, Wisconsin.  Interesting places are much closer together in Great Britain than in the States.  The approximate size of the former homeland of the world wide British Empire is about the same size as Illinois and Indiana, together. 

Britannia...small, but mighty!

To me, the charm of travel is experiencing the unexpected, and that is what the Welsh Police Force was unprepared for, when I attempted to explore their part of that lovely little island, and they kept crossing paths with the continuously confused Jewish guy from the far more dangerous South Side of Chicago.

I just love those guys.

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In May, 2001, without warning them first, I flew from Chicago to England for four days, three of them of exploring Wales.

I was going to rent a car in London so I could wander through the Welsh hills, dales and towns. A helpful guy from American Express advised me that my rental car was covered by them as an additional benefit of having their Optima card, and not to take the expensive local insurance policy because that was unnecessary.  I thanked them, packed up my guide books and road maps and left the American Midwest to seek British adventures.

                                                                                                                                                           (Read on …)

A new documentary was released October 2 called Zeitgeist: Addendum. It comes from the same people who brought you “Zeitgeist” described in my post of May 23, 2008.  You can click on the image below to view this 2 hour long feature.

The topic of this movie is money.  How it is created in a fractional reserve system such as ours, and how it affects government policies and our lives.  This is a conspiracy theory movie but still well worth the time to watch.  A document, “Modern Money Mechanics” published by the Federal Reserve, is referenced and may be downloaded here if you want to read it.

This documentary is highly relevant to the current financial crises and the government bailout of the banking industry.