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The iconic singer’s biggest contribution was not entertainment but pushing social acceptance

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David Bowie died over the weekend and while many will merely remember him as a wildly successful pop singer, his bigger contribution was promoting acceptance of all people.

In the 1970s, after the convulsive 1960s, the World War II generation and those who came of age in the 1960s were still entrenched in deep cultural disagreement, albeit much more quietly.

Homosexuality was clearly one of those topics that was to be ignored and rejected according to the older generation and even the children of the ’60s didn’t embrace the acceptance of gay people.

As many musicians do, David Bowie promoted social themes, one of which was the acceptance of people no matter how out of the mainstream they may seem

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Mr. Bowie led what was labelled the glam rock movement which was characterized by male performers wearing exaggeratedly flamboyant clothes and makeup. There was no missing the underlying as well as overt tones of the alternative lifestyle and its people.

By becoming famous and mainstream with his breakout album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, he showed that not only could what was considered abnormal be acceptable, it could also be celebrated.

This, coupled with the Stonewall Riots a few years earlier that was the birth of the modern gay movement, laid the groundwork for the ultimate acceptance of homosexuals as well as others.

While his music is not what this writer would ordinarily listen to, his social effects are greatly appreciated.

-I.M. Windee

THE FOLLOWING IS UPDATED AND PUBLISHED EVERY CHRISTMAS

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Another maniac, and not the gun, commits senseless violence

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Today a gunman killed a reporter and photographer during a live television broadcast at a shopping center in Moneta, Virginia.

The suspect, a disgruntled former employee of the station, shot himself hours later, and is in “very critical condition” as of this writing.

The gunman has been described by a station manager as someone who was angry and unstable during his employment at the station, which fits well with his actions.

Bryce Williams joins the pantheon of murderous monsters that includes James Holmes and Charles Manson

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As the barbarity was committed with a gun, the inevitable calls for heightened gun control will bellow out of the usual precincts.

But whether Mr. Williams shot his victims with a gun or bludgeoned them to death with an egg-beater, this was someone who was going to do harm no matter what means he had at his disposal.

It should also be noted that today, while Mr. Williams committed this atrocity, tens if not hundreds of thousands of people appropriately fired a gun while hunting, on a gun range or on some other acceptable venue.

Thus, today’s event was not an indictment of guns but yet another reminder that there is evil and mental illness out there that must be dealt with as best possible, realizing that some tragedies are unavoidable.

-I.M. Windee

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…..Long Live Batman!!!!

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Lenny Robinson, a Maryland man who spent his free time visiting sick kids while dressed as the Caped Crusader, died after being struck by a car on Sunday night. Robinson, who was 51, had pulled over to the side of a highway after his vehicle—a customized Batmobile—suffered engine trouble.

Lenny Robinson was a real-life caped crusader of the finest kind; may there be many more to replace him

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Robinson gained national fame in 2012, after a video of him getting pulled over by police while in character went viral. (He’d forgotten to replace his Batmobile’s fake plates with the real ones while driving, and jovially posed for pictures with the officers after the matter was cleared up.)

Working with the Washington-based Hope For Henry Foundation (http://www.hopeforhenry.org/), Robinson spent 13 years and apparently hundreds of thousands of dollars acting as Batman, visiting hospitals around the country, giving gifts to sick children and doling out gravel-voiced inspiration. He also volunteered for regular functions at his local firehouse, library, and basically anywhere else someone in a Batman suit could be expected to show up and make kids smile.

Mr. Robinson could have easily just cut a check to the Hope For Henry Foundation and sat poolside forgetting about a cause he just supported, like so many of us do (this writer being Exhibit A). But he took it upon himself to reach out to and visit kids who were ill, which is wrenching.

Let us hope that there will be other Batwomen and Batmen to replace Mr. Robinson and it’s safe to say that if there is a Bat Heaven, Mr. Robinson is there.

-I.M. Windee

Dear Hillary:

I believe you!!

Really.

Yes, I know I’m a lifelong Conservative and critic of you and your husband since the early 90′s, but this kerfuffle over using a private e-mail server while Secretary of State has finally convinced me that there is what you aptly pointed out: a vast right-wing conspiracy. And I’m ashamed to say that I was (unknowingly) a part of it.

But I can explain why: it was the perception of scandals (btw: Wikipedia has a page entitled “Clinton administration controversies” that cover 46 of them; I never woulda thought Wiki to be a part of the conspiracy. Do you think they have a server dedicated just to this?).

Hillary Clinton is an unjustly maligned public servant with bad judgment, not bad ethics

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And I don’t mean the controversies that happened before you and Bill entered the White House. I never once dis-believed that you had a talent at commodities trading and were able to turn $1,000 into $100,000 in a short period of time. And instead of becoming richer than Bill Gates by continuing to do such, you selflessly chose public service. All for the ingratitude of accusations of impropriety by those right-wingers.

It also didn’t mean much to  me regarding your defense of your husband on 60 Minutes about those scurrilous (but ultimately true) allegations of your husband’s philandering. That’s between you and your husband (and his mistresses).

Whitewater? The Feds never laid a glove on you and as you know (and live by) the old saying, “it’s not illegal unless you’re caught.”

What first got me into the feeding frenzy was what happened once you were in the White House. I don’t have enough time (life expectancy constraints) to outline it all but what aroused my suspicions were things like the FBI files controversy in which 500 files on Republicans suddenly showed up in the White House as well as the travel office controversy in which you fired employees and brought in your own.

But I was wrong and please forgive me. I realize now that it was not unethical motivation but just plain old bad judgment.

Yet therein lies why you should not run.

I know that you were just using your own server as Secretary of State in order to give State’s IT department one less thing to worry about (I haven’t heard you forward that rationale but suggest you add it to the list of reasons). Yet doing such makes even the a-political, non-cynic think that there were less noble reasons for doing such.

You don’t deserve this kind of grief and that’s all you’d get as President for all of your inevitable future misjudgments. Why endure it in your Golden Years? So spare yourself (and the country) from it all and enjoy an early retirement; you more than earned it.

One last thing  as I don’t write to you that often: having been on the staff of a congressional committee looking into Watergate, has your opinion of President Nixon changed since then?

-I.M. Windee

“Going Greek,” long associated with discomfort of a certain kind, has expanded in its scope.

Now, creditors of the Greek government (bond buyers), have faced several delays in repayment of Greek debt as well as re-negotiation of terms less favorable to them.

In short, the Greeks have their creditors bent over a barrel, so to speak.

Was the Greek God Zeus an unbridled Socialist?

This has been the result of spendthrift ways including generous pensions and work rules that stifle the Greek economy resulting in inadequate growth, when growth even occurs. This model is not contained to Greece but parts of Europe as well as many states in the U.S.

So the next time someone offers to sell you a Greek bond, opt for the Brooklyn Bridge, instead.

And don’t Go Greek.

-I.M. Windee

Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015)

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“[People] recognize in themselves this wish that they could be logical and avoid the pain of anger and confrontation…………How many times have we come away from an argument wishing we had said and done something different?”

-Leonard Nimoy in a 1995 interview

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The resignation of Oregon’s governor is the latest example that de facto lifetime tenure for a politician is a bad idea

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Lord Acton observed that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” A corollary to such would be that prolonged power corrupts ultimately.

Such was proven yet again today when Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber resigned, giving in to mounting pressure to abandon his office amid suspicions that his fiancée used her relationship with him to land contracts for her green-energy consulting business.

In a lengthy statement, the state’s longest-serving chief executive insisted he broke no laws. He said the resignation would be effective Wednesday.

The announcement is a stunning fall from grace for a politician who left the governor’s office in 2003 after 2 terms as governor and then mounted a comeback in 2010 and won back his old job as well as re-election in 2014 for a fourth gubernatorial term.

Governor Kitzhaber’s prolonged tenure built up an immunity to knowing right from wrong

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A Liberal in a Liberal state, no one would argue that he was not a dedicated and honest public servant in his first tranche of governorship. But ultimately he lost his way as perhaps he was in the office for so long that he became insulated from and immune to the ethical strictures of a public servant.

There’s a lesson here for voters.

History is replete with politicians who would not let go of office either because of ego or the honest belief that the government and society they served would collapse without their sage participation. Yet there has never been a politician where such has been true. And the longer they stay in office, the higher the chance that they will get into trouble, especially as they feel they are acting with impunity given multiple election victories and a sense of mandate for anything they do from the voters.

From George Washington stepping down after 2 Presidential terms at the birth of this republic to Ronald Reagan’s departure as the Cold War was winding down to Mario Cuomo’s defeat in his bid for a fourth term as governor of the Empire State, the republic, or the mini-republics as states are, always find a way to plod on and even do better with an infusion of new people with fresh ideas.

Whether Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal, no politician is indispensable, even if valuable.

Such dispensability rings true especially as government has been failing more often than ever before. As the manager of the losing baseball team said in defending the trade of their star player, “we lost with him, we can lose without him.”

-I.M. Windee

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Maybe mayors are as human as police

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In defending his decision to virtually shut down NYC Monday night from what was predicted as an impending blizzard, Mayor de Blasio said “Look, it’s a run-and-gun situation,” meaning that he was working in a highly compressed timetable and had to make spur-of-the moment decisions that could mean life or death for people affected. Kinda sounds like a typical NYC cop’s day.

No reasonable person (which is about 1/2 of Gothams’s population on a good day) could fault him or Gov. Cuomo for taking precautions especially given the dire forecasts that he received from the weather service.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has discovered that some jobs require quick decisions that may not be correct in hindsight

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But Mr. de Blasio is now on the wrong end of the lynch-mob atmosphere that he has helped to whip up, if not create, with his positons on the police and the rich, amongst other quarry he’s gone after.

Perhaps he can empathize a bit more with the police the next time they face a “run-and-gun situation” that doesn’t have a happy ending.

-I.M. Windee