TWO ISSUES THAT REALLY CHAFE MY BUTT!

(USA TODAY, Green Bay Press Gazette Child Molestation Laws Kamelia Angelova)

(Child Welfare Information Gateway, Child Labor Public Education Project)

(John W. Schoen CNBC, Marc Thompson, Mackubin T. Owens, Frazer Chronicle)

 

Chaffer number one, gas continues at record high prices throughout much of the Midwest, and the description and reasons cited can baffle the mind…..if you don’t read between the lines. The issue is being muddled and the waters muddied just for our benefit(s). There is of course some very basic reasons why gas costs $3.99 a gallon, down from $4.09 a gallon at my gas pump late last week.

 

In my old home town in Michigan, Traverse City, gas last week was an astounding $4.29 a gallon, can you say WOW? Has anybody ever heard of “biting the bullet,  I don’t think so, unless you’re talking about the consumer…..industry seldom eats a raising cost…..it’s passed on to us, the impotent bastards that have to buy the wicked vapor.

 

Chaffer number two, child laws that can protect some of our most venerable, politics, the economy and legislators who are incapable of stepping up, and backing laws that protect our most precious of positions, our kids who are the future of our world.

 

There are child protective laws out there, both at the federal and state levels that most of us aren’t aware of, yet they mostly are designed to protect our children from the vilest of actions and situations. I have simple never understood why there is any question connected with these types of laws…..private issues be damned.

 

I have addressed my Chaffing points in level of importance, and of course the safety of our children is most important, and with that spirit in my, I have blogged the following.

 

LAWS PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM…..EVERYBODY

There actually are statutes and laws out there can only be called glitzy, laws that are well documented from cases of children and young people being ripped away from their parent or parents and never seen again. Unbelievably some of these rules of operation, (after all, laws, any law is nothing more than a description of how the public is supposed to act in a particular situation, being diluted for many different reasons.

 

Without exception child protection laws need to be enforced to the fullest extent of the law from the very first offense. There should be absolutely no leniency connected with any infraction against young people, no matter the circumstance.

 

I was party to an incident that involved one of my daughter’s friends…..and an old pervert…..the kids on the block called him “Grandpa,” and apparently for good reason, he would fondle the young girls, usually between 5 and 8 years old.

 

He was caught and served jail time, where I hope he was introduced to his bunk-mate, Willie, but would have served more time if the mother of one of the girls would have testified against the filthy old codger, but didn’t for reasons I have yet to understand.

 

All sorts of reasons are given as to why child molestation laws aren’t enforced, from the recession, to the drop in crime rate throughout the nation. In addition, the most violent of the offenders have been apprehended and dealt with, and a most preposterous assertion by some legislators that law-making should be done dispassionately.

 

 

Let’s mull over that last part of the previous paragraph, “law-making being done less passionately,” I wonder how many laws of our land were actually made without any passion…..very few I’m thinking. Our passion is one of the virtues that puts humans at the head of the intellectual chains…..we observe, think, reason and act on a particular issue.

 

When the issue is some pervert touching your daughter or mine, I don’t know about you, but I go right past passionate into a rage, and like the man said, “There will be blood,” could it be any other way? Passion is a good thing, passion gets things done, passion is usually what fuel’s change, not only in our society, but the society of mankind.

 

No matter the regulation that protects child civil rights as well as emotional and physical, money, privacy, or ease of business should never be an issue. Children can be abused in all sorts of ways, by corporal punishment, (sadly), neglect, sexual, and by inordinate labor…..yes some people still actually use children as low wage, or no wage labor.

 

CAUSES OF CHILD LABOR

The easiest answer to the problem has been, and is poverty, or low wages for services rendered by parents, or caretakers. In the past there was not an easy access to what could be called compulsory education for kids. Big families, often as many as 8, 10, or more kids were born into families so that there was a readymade work-force just around the corner.

 

Agriculture manufacturers, and the mining industries used to be the main culprits of child labor instances and the history of regulations and laws that would end abuse would take decades of haggling by legislators before meaningful changes were made.

 

Although in many cases, I personally disagree with labor union activity during the early effort to ensure that children had a semblance of work-place rights, from 1900 until 1938, when Federal regulations of child labor achieved in Fair Labor Standards Act a minimum age of employment and hours of work for children are regulated by law.

 

That would be just 75 years ago; can it be very surprising that protection laws for children with regards to kidnapping by a parent, exploitation for labor, sex or other violations that I don’t even know about would lag in our judicial system?

 

The bottom line with regards to violations of child labor laws, or laws that protect kids seem to be unenforced, or slow to be enacted to me is simple, the powers that be aren’t little kids, and most of these people do not have kids that have suffered through an experience…..so with no practical experience, issues move slowly.

 

Needless to say, “it’s time for a change,” one that recognizes that we have a problem, I do not know where law enforcement officials or political hacks come up with their figures that talks about crime being 15% better then it was 5 or 10 years ago. I live here in little Podunk Green Bay, Wisconsin, population 103,000, but I can tell you this, we had a string of gas station store robberies in the past couple of weeks, plus the usual domestic disturbances, and your assorted D.W.I.’s, I don’t see a 15% decrease in crime here which to me would signal a statuesque to me!

BACK TO CHAFE NUMBER ONE

With gasoline pricing spiking in several parts of the country, I thought it would be timely to again explore the reasons why it’s happening. Gas price hikes are nothing new, in fact gasoline prices have had all of us by the (little short hairs) since the early 1970’s when sadly the gas wars were basically over, and competitive pricing became a dinosaur of American landscape…..at least at the gas pump.

 

I remember back in the early to middle 70’s when there were lines at the gas-pump, and the scare tactic was that the world was running out of gasoline, and as a people, we were done. (What a crock of sludge), nothing could be further from the truth.

 

To be exact, in October of 1973 an oil embargo went into effect when the prices of petroleum went from $3 a barrel to $12 dollars. Of course the predictable followed…..massive gas shortages and panic at the pumps. There was gas by appointment only, regular customers only, and gas stations cutting hours to as few as 2 or 3 hours a day.

 

There was lines around the corner to get gas, there was a limit to the number of gallons that you could get, and some gas stations were actually abandoned, or some others altered the use of their building, like turning a gas station into a religious meeting…..building.

 

The country’s shortage of gasoline and other petroleum products led to big problems for motorists in finding gas as well as paying the higher price for it. There was theft from cars that were left unprotected, and warning signs tell potential gas thieves of the possible consequences of gas rip-offs, and a picture of gun toting menacing people who look like they were the result of an in-breeding episode.

 

Today the price of a gallon of gas at my favorite gas pump is $3.99 a gallon and holding, or at least that is what I’m told, and what I read. But exactly what do we read, and what do we hear about the condition of the current gas situation here in the Midwest…..welllllll, let me tell you.

 

A women in a front page article of the Green Bay Press Gazette talks about even though “it’s terrible, this is the best way the market goes about it; we just have to be patient and let things run their course.” Well big whoop, well actually two great big whoops, I’m so glad that somebody, in their infinite wisdom dissected the gasoline price problem and we can all just wait for a change.

 

I’m not gonna waste my time or yours by listing the monthly changes in the price of gas, we all know that the price of a gallon is so damn volatile that changes are so frequent that, like the Wisconsin weather, just wait a minute, it’ll change.

 

The market that all these jokers talk about is the engine that runs our economy, in the market, the consumer is supposed to have some sort of say in the situation…..but not in the enlightened age of 2013, no-sir-e, we have to wait a week or two for the market to adjust, these analysis’s are talking about a thing, the market like it has a life of its own…..it doesn’t, its facts on a spread sheet devised by human beings…..who at the end of the day are responsible for the Market.

 

We will get some relief in a week or two, after the oil driller, the speculation people, the hauler, the refiner, another bulk hauler, the fuel wholesaler, the state and federal government, and finally the gas station owner…..where my gas pump is located tacks on his measly 2 or 3 cents, and presto, the final price is posted on my gas pump! Life is good, and every day has its challenges…..just another day in paradise.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!