TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET

      Before I get to the heart of the posting, I would just like to mention that last night's show, Bravo Amici, was hands down the BEST show of the season and indeed of several seasons. It was classy. It was loud and it was soft. It was funny and heartrending. It was inspirational and brought the house down. And it wasn't even only opera!!! It was all that a show could be and if Abby hurries, we can and should book this show again for next season. Wow!! For the fear of a little word, opera, those of you who did not show up missed it, just blew the opportunity. Nothing ventured nothing gained, and in fact, it was your loss if you were not there.
     So, why the title? Simple. Just read the papers, the news magazines, watch the news on regular or cable channels and see if you come up with something different.
     This morning I read that now predictions are of another huge recession with prices to go down by approximately as much as 50% and that truly frightens me, a great deal. Went through another loss like that and do not think that this time there will be a way or time to recoup these losses and just to think of what it means to our savings, our nest egg, our emergency funds, our leaving anything for the kids, well......
     Today there is a story of the Taliban killing a former child soldier for daring to do what he did - a ten year old boy. Just about in the same category of attacking Malala for her stand on education and women. I read of the ongoing farce that is supposed to be, at long last, the peace talks for Syria. Of course, all facets are not even represented from the opposition, there is a huge elephant in the room with the absence of Israel, the neighbor of Syria and very much involved with its fate, and the supposed mediators in this farce are running back and forth like chickens without heads from room to room as the various groups cannot stand being in the same room. And we thought the round table at Vietnam War negotiations was ridiculous. Peace? Not very likely and so the slaughter there will go on and the migrant crisis will go on and the world will simply add this to the list of various crises over which they stand and helplessly wring their hands.
     Ah, but what can they do to ease things in the world? Well, turn to the perennial victim, the cause of all troubles in the world, the communist and the arch capitalist, the revolutionary and the status quo, the controller of all media, banks, professions and on and on. Oh, who you ask? Why, of course it is the Jews. The entire peace of the world seems to hinge on the fact that Israel exists. It takes extrajudicial steps in defending itself, we are told, when its citizens and soldiers actually take steps to defend themselves from knives and guns and cars and rockets and machetes and axes and bombs and suicide vests and we could go on. Why how dare they defend themselves and actually kill the attacker! Should they perhaps ask the killer very politely if he is done, if she would like to take any more strikes against the mother or child or elderly or soldiers that are being attacked? What? There is no answer, only the nonsensical refrain that "Oh, of course, Israel is entitled to defend itself," But when it does, the hypocrites come pouring out of the baseboards to call down mayhem on them. And in the meanwhile, their Hamas tunnels that they boast about are being built and luckily collapsing on them and may that long continue. And in addition, why does no one ask and answer this? Why is the so called new Palestine to be Judenrein, approved of as such, yet Israel is expected to welcome in all possible and future fifth columnists, spies and what have you. Double standards once again.
     Want more? Okay, today we are told that the Pentagon has declared that RUSSIA is now our long term enemy. Huh! Cold War heating up again and a rose by any other name time! Are we to expect that all the former SSRs are to reabsorbed into a new Iron Curtain and we are to stand by and allow this? Are we going to be talking about boots on the ground all over the place until all our boys and girls are being drafted and sent away to fight battles that should and could have been avoided if only we had had a standup leader, a true person of courage and capability?
     Are we to run around sending bags and bags of food overseas which end up in the black market providing funds to the very forces we oppose even as Americans right here in the USA go hungry, even as our children stare out at the camera with wide and soul shattering looks? Are we to elect people now who have no contract with society other than what is good for big business and make no mistake about it - business is essential for a good and prosperous society, but there are rules, there are boundaries and there are goals and limitations that must be in place. We are not the world of Atlas Shrugged and G-d forbid we were.
     People who speak out in Moslem countries are being lashed, beheaded, imprisoned, stoned, "honor" killed - if there can be such an oxymoronic term, and homegrown armies, much of which is composed of kidnapped and drugged up children and nauseating creatures who call themselves fighters for liberty or for Allah or for any cause they dream of, but nothing justifies the excesses in Nigeria or the Cameroons or anywhere. When we take as allies those countries that kill the Kurds even as we need them in neighboring countries to fight in a unified front, when we desert our allies such as Israel, when we look past the sins of some and focus only on others, when we "forget" that the Holocaust was focused on the Jews, huh, Trudeau, and do not try to say you "forgot". Please! When this is happening and the economy is for crap - well, yes, I look for handbaskets and I worry about finding them.
     And we are no different right here in good old CVWPB. We have that ninny, Elaine Brown, going on and on how David Israel works so hard, staying in his lair 60 hours a week. Yes, he does that and let us see what he has accomplished. We have broken down roads, benches that burn, water that stinks and reeks, that is a putrid green, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on WPRF and Levy owned properties and can look forward to spending more, seen our rights become things of the past, and of course, David should be congratulated on his unearthing of picayune laws from Code Enforcement that they ignore, but he needs to continue his wicked rule and ruin of the Village. That definitely accounts for his 60 hours.Oh, yes, he has worked so very hard - and accomplished wrack and ruin, dictatorship and incipient fascism, nastiness, exclusion, stale ideas and poisonous plans. Oh yes, for David is NOT an honorable man, in fact, something of a moral lacking individual as he descends even to the low point of letting a married woman buy him his clothing! There is a name for that. Need me to spell it out for you?
     Hell in a handbasket? Oh, yes and we begin right here, not in River City but in West Palm Beach, with new motels in our midst, dead associations that suddenly can name a delegate to the assembly - and how, with no board, no officers and no authority other than D.I. allegedly naming these delegates and making sure they show up and vote properly. G-d alone knows what is being promised or threatened. These delegates, all delegates, need to be publicly vetted. Where are the boards that appointed them? Fausto complains of all the associations showing up in UCO desperate for help and what are they getting? Well, look around you and see for yourselves. And yes, this comes from those 60 hour weeks, right Elaine? So thank you, David et al for our motels, for our broken associations, for our pathetic DA, for all that has gone wrong in the past six years as you took upon you the role of Dictator for Life as you evidently craved the company of other such wonderful leaders throughout history!
     Anyone smell the fires and the sulfur? Anyone see our Village melting in front of our eyes? Anyone have the answer to all this? Can we not look up and out and find a way out, a path up from the bottom to which we have fallen, led by a leader who buys his/her own clothing, who respects people, who respects new ideas, who looks to the future, a better future for all of us? Can we not get rid of that damn handbasket, at least here in the Village? Read the articles of Howie Silver and John Gluszak on the other blogs- (having trouble transferring them to mine). Read the truth. And then ... vote for Phyllis. Vote for new VPS that will work well with Phyllis and toss out that broken down Joy Vestal and the puppeteer, Ed Black who has for years usurped power that did not belong to him, unelected as he was and is. Throw out the useless Executive Board members who serve only to respond like automatons to the wishes of David. Vote for those who stand up to him, who know what we need and what we must do. Time for change. TIME FOR PHYLLIS.