Category: Think-Scobe

Pronounce the “VA” “DOA”

The Veterans Administration should be pronounced dead on arrival.

The VA is a disgrace; it is corrupt and callous, often treating veterans as if they are enemy combatants. The agency is rife with scandal and many of our veterans have died waiting for treatment. The VA is a fetid swamp.

Veterans are American citizens that willingly put themselves in danger to protect the rest of us. In fact, without them there is no us, and no U. S.

The time has come to end the VA, to kill it dead and bury it with other rotted bureaucracies where it will, we hope, be forgotten.

The United States must start over. Here is the Scobe Plan for a fresh beginning in caring for our veterans:

  • Every veteran can go to any doctor he or she chooses. All doctors, nurses and other health care professionals are now members of the new system. A veteran cannot be turned down – ever – for care.
  • Veterans can have a card (much like Medicare and Medicaid) which allows them to receive health care – free (as in free!) in any medical office, clinic or hospital in the country. Think of this as payment for what they have done for all of us.
  • The current veterans’ hospitals should be sold to private concerns and they now become one of the innumerable hospitals serving the general public. They are no longer government institutions. If these former VA hospitals are good in their new roles as private concerns, they survive. If not, they fold. They have to make it on their own.
  • And what of the doctors treating veterans? Should they do it on the cheap? Not at all. They should be given competitive pay. I am not looking for doctors to be short-changed. Those who serve our veterans should be fairly paid.

The Scobe Plan will actually save money. We will no longer be throwing taxpayer money into the cesspool that is the Veterans Administration. Our veterans will get the care they deserve.

There are details that would have to be worked out, including how to make a Veterans Card that could not be counterfeited. I figure this would not take long, if those involved are truly focused on the task at hand.

The time has come to free the veterans from the VD of the VA and the Scobe Plan can make that happen.

[Read Frank’s book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! Available from Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

The Hitler Freeze

What happens when a speaker talking to any size audience mentions three of the world’s worst mass murderers, Stalin from the Soviet Union, Mao from China and Hitler from Germany?

Stalin may have murdered upwards of 22 million people. At the mention of Stalin’s name, the people listen intently. At the mention of Mao and his slaughter of some 60 million people, people also listen intently.

And why not? These are horrible crimes of unimaginable scale.

At the mention Hitler and his murder of between 11 and 13 million people – six million of whom were Jews, what happens? People become silenter than silent. It’s hard to tell if people are even breathing.

The word “Hitler” freezes people solid. His name takes the air out of a room. People become transfixed.

What is it about Hitler that brings such a response? Is Hitler in some other category even though he committed fewer murders than Stalin and Mao’s? Or is it something else?

It’s something else.

If any European country, and that means the Western civilized world including the United States, Canada and Australia, can lay claim to being a brilliant one, it is certainly Germany. Germany was the epitome of culture and class in philosophy, science, art, engineering, music. Germany was indeed the brightest light among the lights of the intellectual world.

Russia and China were not in such a class. They were not Western. They were merely the other in the public’s mind; countries that stood outside of the advanced world; countries from which you might possibly expect wholesale slaughter.

How could Germany, now composed of chanting, goose stepping, militaristic concentration camp monsters, espousing their racial superiority and finally instituting the “final solution”—in short, the killing of all the Jews in the world—how could such people be such beasts? How could this great civilization become totally barbaric?

There are reasons. The underlying hate of despised groups can undermine whatever veneer of higher civilization a country might seemingly possess. Despised groups included the Jews, gays, gypsies, and the physically deformed, among others.

But there is another reason for horror. According to Tom Beck, “The Nazis were exporting their terror. With each successive victory that Germany had over other countries, the ‘final solution’ was instituted in those conquered countries. The Nazi killing machine spread across the continent and Hitler made it plain that his ideas would take over the world, as would his slaughter.”

According to Tom, “Those whom Stalin murdered were Soviets; those Mao murdered were Chinese. They did not have a ‘final solution’ for the rest of the world.”

So Hitler, the resplendent ruler of a civilized European country, was able to militarize them not just to fight wars, but to slaughter select groups no matter where those groups resided.

To top it off, the final view of the ‘final solution’ had the Allied soldiers discover the concentration camps and their moribund inhabitants. Our soldiers got to see the horrors Hitler perpetrated, and pictures of these starved men, women and children were shown to the world. In the words from the great horror movie Night of the Living Dead, “They’re coming to get you Barbara!” and, yes, for each one of the despised groups and those of us who would defend such groups, the Nazis were coming to get us.

As a kid I remember when my father had Jewish friends with tattoos on their arms. “What are those tattoos?” I asked him. He looked at me and shook his head, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” He knew of the horror, as did his friends, and he was trying to spare me.

What my father tried to spare me from is exactly what freezes those hearing Hitler’s name. The Nazi terror is the real monster under all of our beds. It doesn’t just exist in one country; it builds concentration camps beyond its borders. That fact frightens adults and children. “The monster is coming to get you…”

[Buy Frank’s new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic. Available on Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

I was Injured in Cape May

It happened on the 13th hole. Until that moment I was having one of my best games ever. I was stepping backwards to get out of my wife’s way. I didn’t want to interfere with her putt.

The ground seemed level behind me as I stepped, stepped, slowly stepped backwards but the ground wasn’t level. I tripped over a small hilly section, lost my balance and went stumbling backwards and, trying to regain my feet and not fall (accompanied by the laughter of the universe) I swung my arms out; tried to get my feet under me in order to right myself but none of that happened.

I fell (oh, so pathetically) into the bushes surrounding the hole. The damn 13th hole. The unlucky 13th hole.

According to my beloved wife, I went all octopussy, my flailing arms all over the place, with my herky-jerky legs attempting to do the impossible – correcting my fall and regaining my balance.

I hit those bushes hard. Branches cut the back of my neck (one even stuck in there – a small one that still hurt like hell and made me bleed a lot). I slammed my knee to the ground and cut it; my shoulder slammed the bush’s main stem and still hurts me now as I write this.

I was down. I was so down. I was just happy that the entire world was not there to see this “fat man” go down. When fat men fall, it is funny. I know that. I do know that. And you can’t deny that either.

My wife the Beautiful AP came running over to me. I was trying to lift myself up and out of the bushes. “Let me help you,” she said. “Let me help you.”

“I’m fat. I’m heavy,” I said.

“Hey, can I help?” asked a man who came running over to our hole. I was still flopping on the ground trying to stand up.

“Oh, oh, thank you,” said my beautiful wife.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I said. I wasn’t okay. I was trying to be okay to diminish the torment of going down and looking idiotic in front of this man.

“I’m a lifeguard,” said the man. He was in great shape. Tanned and good looking. On the other hand, I was fat and flopping-flapping on the ground.

“I’m a lifeguard too,” said my wife.

“I just finished swimming a two and a half mile ocean race,” said the good-looking tanned lifeguard.

“I’m only a pool lifeguard,” said my wife.

“I’m an ocean lifeguard,” said the tanned, good-looking in-shape creep.

“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I can get myself up.”

So I did get myself up. Despite the tanned, good-looking lifeguard wanting to walk me off the course, I was able to leave without the bastard’s help.

I say this and I say this with all manner of conviction. I will never play miniature golf again!

[Read Frank Scoblete’s Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! Available on Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

A Chanting We Will Go!

Those of you around in the late 1960s and early 1970s will remember the anti-draft chant of “Hell no, we won’t go!” That chant was heard almost every day at colleges and street protests and during occasional riots.

In the 1930s the chant was: “America first! America first!”

Those of us in labor unions have used many chants as we picketed or protested this, that or the other injustice.

The recent anti-Trump rallies have seen many such chants, some which have been used long before Trump became President. Here are a few (taken from L.V. Anderson’s article “All the Chants I Heard….” from Slate website:)

  • No justice, no peace!
  • My body, my choice!
  • Muslim rights are human rights! (You can replace “Muslim” with any group.)
  • Black lives matter!
  • Education not deportation!
  • Say it loud! Say it clear, refugees are welcome here!
  • Love trumps hate!
  • Whose streets? Our streets!
  • Hey hey! Ho ho! Donald Trump has got to go!
  • Love! Not hate! Makes America great!
  • Donald Trump! Go away! Racist, sexist, anti-gay!

Many of you who are religious know the various chants of your faith. In Buddhism such chants are called mantras.

So why are chants used in protests? Two reasons:

  1. The chants keep people united
  2. The chants stop the chanters from actually thinking

Something said over and over and over again drowns out any other thoughts a person can have. This is an effective tool in meditation because it focuses the mind. Chanting is a thought destroyer that allows leaders to manipulate the chanters.

The next demonstration you attend (or watch on television) please note the faces of the chanters. Do they reflect deeply held thoughts and reasoned opinions? Or do they reflect the exact opposite?

[Read my book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! Available at amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

 

I Have Some Questions

  • In the movies when a person wants to carry a gun without a holster, he puts the gun behind him in his belt. Wouldn’t that be dangerous? I mean the gun can go off and create a new butt next to his old butt. Is this really where to put a gun?
  • I have been watching some of these recent demonstrations against President Trump. A noticeable number of women are wearing the hijab (a head covering) which is a cultural/religious thing Muslim women do – probably at the behest of Muslim men, meaning they are forced to do it.  Even our female politicians when visiting most Muslim countries obey this dictum.  Hillary and Chelsea Clinton have both worn them and, I, therefore, have this question: Shouldn’t feminists decry such headgear? Shouldn’t the leaders of the feminist movement rail against the diminishment of Muslim women? Why aren’t they?
  • Russia, it’s all about Russia. Do any of you remember that Communism and the Soviet Union were the “in” things among progressives? In the legion of horror, Stalin was in the top three despots – Putin doesn’t even make the list. Obama told Dmitry Medvedev to tell Putin that he (meaning Obama) would have more leverage once he (meaning Obama) was reelected. What changed with the left since then? Suddenly they are haters of Russia.
  • I can’t stand the self-righteous stance of those who know “the truth.” Didn’t Jesus stay silent when Pilate sarcastically asked him: “And what is the truth?” But I think the truth splashes both ways. We all know how it splashes on the political right – anti-science, silly theories of history, enslavement to ideas that are irrational, but what of the political left? Having met many in the pro-abortion movement, I see the same kind of religious fervor with them as I do with the most extreme Baptist in some tiny clapboard church out in the backwoods. Why is it that some secular tenets are adhered to with such religious zeal?
  • Does affirmative action and diversity on college campuses simply come down admitting people of different colors? Has college admissions actually become a coloring book?
  • [Read my book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!]

The Top 10 Zombie Movies

  1. Shaun of the Dead (2004): Simon Pegg (co-writer and star), Nick Frost, and co-written by Edgar Wright (writers deserve credit on this baby). Not only is this a great zombie movie, it is a great movie. The story of a near-do-well loser, his estranged girlfriend, her friends, his one friend, his mother and stepfather surrounded by zombies shuffling to take over England. It is a funny exploration of just how “off” the world of man can be with or without zombies. Just terrific and with each viewing you will see more and more that you missed previously.
  2. Dawn of the Dead (2004): I hate fast-moving zombies. Depending on when a person died the body is in some state of rigor mortis. Even freshly dead zombies can’t have fast-twitch muscles. With that said, this reboot of the original “Dawn of the Dead” has everything a zombie movie needs, a cast of great characters who don’t always get along; a great hideout that is surrounded by zombies and an innovative way to get away – if they can actually get away. Humor and horror equal a great mix.
  3. Night of the Living Dead (1968): The first of the modern zombie genre from George A. Romero. The zombies were not called zombies in this film but ghouls. A ghoul is a human creature that eats disgusting things such as, well, other humans. Scary as all get out and the black and white adds to the terror. A classic that still holds up.
  4. Night of the Living Dead (1990): Some weird thing happened with the original “Night of the Living Dead.” Romero lost the rights to it and the film became public domain. So Romero decided to redo the film, in color, and succeeded in making another great zombie movie. It is faithful to the original and almost as good. Who said you can never go home again?
  5. Dawn of the Dead (1978): George A. Romero. First movie that made me almost throw up in the theater. The scene where a man sees his sister? God was that disgusting. Tense, tightly written, well performed and a totally gross-out sequel to the original movie. The use of a shopping mall as the main location was a brilliant idea. Enjoy (and get a barf bag just in case).
  6. 28 Days Later (2002): The creatures in this film are filled with “rage,” which is a new virus that kills the victim and then reanimates him in a really pissed off mood. To make matters worse, the virus was made by man as a weapon and, as always, we screw up and it gets released. Don’t these stupid scientists learn from all the movies where their creations wind up killing the rest of us? Geez!) These zombies are fast moving but it seems appropriate for this movie since they are zombies filled with rage and not just hunger.
  7. 28 Weeks Later (2007): Might be better than the first movie. Hard to tell. This is a terrific story of where the world winds up a half year after the “rage” virus has devastated the land. The army is in control and as you know, in movies, they screw up just as bad as the scientists who invent the damn weapon.
  8. World War Z (2013): I didn’t think I’d like this but I was totally wrong. Brad Pitt stars in a movie with a heavyweight script and enough suspense to keep you guessing. Can mankind overcome a worldwide and devastating zombie apocalypse?
  9. Diary of the Dead (2008): George A. Romero. I don’t usually like the hand-held character-is-making-the-movie type of movie but this one works. A group of college kids, who are (thankfully) portrayed not as the typical idiot kids of the typical teenage movies, must flee an invasion of the zombies. Taut and suspenseful.
  10. Land of the Dead (2005): George A. Romero. The zombies have won and one city remains unplagued. It is surrounded on three sides by rivers which the zombies don’t seem able to cross and the fourth side is walled and guarded. The zombies seem to be incapable of breaching this Troy. But you know what happened to the original Troy, right? While the citizens of this city try to duplicate the lives they lived before the zombie apocalypse, the devastation comes.

Honorable Mention (not in any order): “Zombieland” (2009): Fast zombies again but still an adventurous movie of some individuals trying to make a go of it in a world gone mad. “Fido” (2006) my zombie, my pet; “Flight of the Living Dead” (2007) even first class can’t save you; “I Am Legend” (2007), the book was about vampires but I am not sure what the heck these things are; and “Juan of the Dead” (2010) – Spanish with subtitles – a real hoot!

Forget About: The “Resident Evil” franchise. Waste of time. “Warm Bodies” an awful movie. All the other George A. Romero films, no spark to them. Sadly, most zombie movies do stink but the above should satisfy your craving for the flesh-eating horrors. New zombie movies might make this list when I watch them after they come out on Blu-Ray.

Hollywood: The Home of Hypocrites

 

The Hollywood “elite” love to lecture us about morality and causes: “Wall Street is evil! Big corporations must not be given tax breaks! Mega-multi-millionaires and billionaires should be taxed more! Republicans are the party of the rich! Conservatives are stupid! Our new President is a greedy monster!”

They portray themselves as the voice of the “people”; the little people, meaning most of the rest of us.

Seriously, such silliness.

I have a friend who does voice overs and would also make a great television or radio spokesperson for some product. He’s had a heck of a time getting jobs.

Does he muffle his words? Is he ugly and ungainly? Not at all. He’s a good looking, true professional but those big jobs keep eluding him. What is the reason? He’s damn good…but he isn’t:

Jon Hamm; or Donald Sutherland, or Kiefer Sutherland, or Jim Parsons, or Kaley Cuoco, or Brad Pitt, or Matt Damon, or Samuel L. Jackson or Jennifer Aniston, or Angelina Jolie, or Catherine Zita Jones, or James Earl Jones, or Sofia Vergara, or Julie Bowen, or Ty Burrel, or Jesse Tyler Ferguson, or Morgan Freeman, or George Clooney, or Danny DeVito, or Oprah Winfrey, or Robert De Niro, or Al Pacino, or Daniel Craig, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Sylvester Stallone, or Kevin Bacon, or Ben Affleck, or Steve Carell, or Mila Kunis, or Leonardo DiCaprio, or Tina Fey, or so many, many more Hollywood stars that would complete this huge list.

Some of the stars on the above list make 10 million or more a movie or a million dollars or more per episode of their television shows. They are multi-millionaires being paid a pretty penny to do commercials.

Without needing the money, they are taking jobs from actors who need every penny they can scrounge. For each Hollywood star doing commercials, there is one fewer unknown not getting his or her break.

Why are such stars so greedy when they are rolling in dough? When they are living in mansions that could house dozens of homeless people or refugees?

Shouldn’t Hollywood stars be concerned about their fellow performers?

Seriously, at every awards show (and Hollywood gives itself so many awards that the statue industry is eternally flushed with cash) multiple stars give pompous speeches about politics, politicians or this or that social cause. Couldn’t some of them at least champion fledging and out-of-work actors?

But, no.

Come on, Hollywood stars, how about a helping hand? How about you don’t take the commercials to add to your immense fortunes, but instead make sure the unknowns, the struggling, or out-of-work get a chance to actually work? Wouldn’t that be a great social cause? A moral statement, far more effective than blathering about Wall Street, giant corporations, conservatives and the rich!

I am not asking for the government to step in and force these super wealthy to be charitable; I am asking Hollywood stars to give up these side jobs so other talented hopefuls can work.

Why don’t the stars do what they tell others to do – give up a little to help many?

[Read Confessions of a Wayward Catholic. Available on amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

The All You Can’t Eat Buffet

 

I was in one of the produce aisles at Best Yet in Franklin Square, lazily waiting for my wife, the Beautiful AP, to select which delicious fruits and vegetables she would force me to eat.

 

The man was several feet away and chewing madly. He picked several grapes from a grape bag and shoved them into his mouth. He had little finesse as the grape juice went down his chin and dripped back into the grapes’ bins. Some unsuspecting shopper would buy grapes sprinkled with his spit.

 

Then he moved to the next batch of fruit, and the next. If he could ram it into his mouth he’d eat it. He even pushed small tomatoes in there.

 

I’d guess the guy was about 75 years old, neatly dressed. He did buy some items—a cantaloupe, a few avocadoes, a half watermelon. I guess these were not easy to gobble down in a single swallow. He did eat the heads off a couple of small bunches of broccoli.

 

This was a truly annoying man (let me say it straight—this was a disgusting, drooling man) who joined my supermarket buffet list; you know, those characters who think they can nibble this or that in the produce aisle because they might buy something.

 

There was the harried woman with the little brat riding in the cart (“Ma! Ma! Ma! I want that!”). She actually gave this whiny kid “free” produce. There was the fat man who ate delicately for about five minutes as if he were at a gourmet restaurant. He even tried an apple! He bought nothing.

 

How about this one? A woman ate a small slice of peach and – this is horrifying – put the uneaten part it back in the pile! Or the fine diner who carried around a small plate with her as she sampled the “buffet”!

 

Maybe these and others like them think they can do this because none of the store’s employees stop them.

 

Many of these gourmands are older and they brazenly swallow their prey with pride and defiance. They know no one would tackle a person using a walker.

 

As I watch these thieves fill their stomachs, I could lose the contents of mine.

[My new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic is available at amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

 

Scobe’s 10 Commandments of Facebook

 

Facebook has been good for me. I have received hundreds of emails and public posts from my former students who told me in no uncertain terms that I did “the job” as a teacher. I have had readers of my books and articles tell me I have “done the job” as a writer as well. And my wife tells me when I take out the garbage that I have “done the job.” (I’m only kidding; she takes out the garbage.)

But Facebook does have its irritations.

Here are the 10 Commandments that you should follow, which will probably make most—and possibly all—of your Facebook friends happier and grateful.

Commandment #1: Thou shalt not tell people to “like and share if you agree.” Some posts go as far as to test people’s friendship by whether the person shares the post or not. If people want to share something you posted, they will without being told. Sharing or not sharing is not a measure of friendship.

Commandment #2: Thou shalt not try to spread “the word” because many of us don’t want to have words spread upon us. There are just too many “words” from heaven’s “wordsmiths” and you end up preaching to the choir, not the rest of us.

Commandment #3: Thou shalt not post that money, or good times, or magic moments are coming to us through angels, God, astrology or any new-age system unless you back it up with a guarantee and concrete evidence. Also if none of this happens to your friends give them your account numbers at the bank so they can get something out of your predictions. By the way, skeptics are doing nicely without any of these benedictions and predictions.

Commandment #4: Thou shalt not write posts that are hysterical; either politically (“Trump is Hitler!” “Hillary is a pedophile!”), religiously (“The world is about to end! Repent or be damned!”), conspiratorially (“The world is being run by a powerful secret group of people who have run it since the year 1300!” “The World Trade Center was blown up by Mossad!”), or anything truly dripping with anger, fear, despair or any other topics taken to such extremes that the person creating these extremities seems to be unhinged.

Commandment #5: Thou shalt not let your Facebook friends know too much about your problems. Yes, feel free to write about births and marriages and achievements of children, relatives, friends and you; and yes, tell us all about interesting trips and humorous times you’ve had. Come on, no one is a fan of neurotic people going on and on and on about their personal or mental problems. One “going on” is interesting and worthy of note (okay, maybe two) but 17 thousand “going on” posts are just too, too, too damn much. Thou shalt feel free to post about illness or other challenges in your life or in the lives of family and friends to ask for thoughts, prayers or assistance. Oh, yes, please don’t tell us “I’m really very shy” when you have blurted every thought you should reserve for your psychiatrist.

Commandment #6: Thou shalt know thyself. Don’t post saying, “I never write anything political, but I couldn’t resist this,” when 90 percent of your posts are political.  Read your own posts and learn about yourself.

Commandment #7: Thou shalt post no more than four pictures of an event (or pet) so that your friends can view them without further clicking. You must not open the possibility that your Facebook friends will get lost in a sea of photos and never get back to the original page.

Commandment #8: Thou shalt not call someone with whom you’re disagreeing any repulsive names. You can’t win a debate by calling the other person an idiot, a moron, a bed bug, a ploppy, a turd and so forth. If it feels good to say it, then you’ve said the wrong thing.

Commandment #9: Thou shalt not post links to “news” articles unless you are sure the articles are about events that actually took place.

Commandment #10: Thou shalt not post more than one picture of food. This is a commandment to help all of us fatties. Please, have a heart!

[Read Confessions of a Wayward Catholic which is available at Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and bookstores.]

 

 

 

 

 

Be Safe Not Stupid

 

You are away on vacation to some beautiful place and while enjoying yourself immensely you post all the details of the trip you are on. You are sure your Facebook friends will love to see pictures of you and your spouse and/or friends drinking, eating and visiting the sights. Ah, the fun of not being home!

Are you nuts?

With even the tiny bits of information that you give about yourself on your home page (for example the state, town, village in which you live; your job, age and interests) your house can be found quite easily by the denizens of evil who can make short work of anything valuable you’ve left around.

It makes far more sense to write about your vacations after your vacations rather than during your vacations. A vacation for you could fuel some criminals’ vocation for them.

[My new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! is available on Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]