ROASTED, TOASTED AND DELIGHTED!

Susan and I just returned from a quick trip to the Bay Area where John and Trisha Parker hosted a big party and roast. Never did being insulted and humiliated feel so good! We had a reunion with many of the people who've joined us on listener cruises over the years and a great time was had by all--especially me.

Self-serving department: we also began preliminary planning for a Mediterranean cruise next spring. Details will be available in a few weeks, so if you're interested, contact me and I'll pass the word along to the agency handling the project.

"IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?" "NO."

If this gigantic fraud/fantasy that is Obamacare proceeds, that may very well become the common answer to that inquiry.

Some weeks ago I wrote an essay called "Six Doctors and a Funeral," which is still posted below. That brought some reaction from doctors who offered elaboration.

Since the threat of increased government intervention in medical care is not new, only larger, it should come as no surprise that today's professionals are very much aware of the decline in numbers of young Americans pursuing a career in the field. Thus the growth in outsourcing of medical practice, i.e., increasing dependence on foreign doctors. Whatever one may think of that dependence from the point of view of American patients, it seems inevitable that eventually the foreign countries that supply a large percentage of our imported practitioners will insist that those doctors remain in their own countries where they're badly needed.

While the liberal (Obama) thrust is for more general practitioners, one must also ask what happens when that GP refers a patient to a specialist. Will there be a specialist willing and able to assume that case? I know a doctor who is one of a half-dozen specialists handling an enormous case-load at a major hospital. Five of the six are planning to leave for medical careers in private industry. The sixth is retiring next year. Then what?

Among the major complaints regarding health care reforms that ARE needed: the lack of standardization of the endless paperwork required by insurance companies and frivolous lawsuits initiated by the legal leeches known as trial lawyers.

One doctor in a well-established career provided a summary of the economic facts of life for today's physician.

Considering the hours worked and the caps on payments under the government-run plans we already have, the pay works out to about the same as a big-city plumber can expect to make. No disrespect to plumbers, but they aren't likely to have spent the fourteen years of education and preparation involved in this doctor's career, under the burden of hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt accumulated in the process.

The entire Utopian fantasy that Obama and company are trying to perpetrate relies, once again, on appeal to the worst of human instincts: " I want something, and I want somebody else to pay for it."

ARIZONA'S HAD ENOUGH

Of the many manifest failures of the ignorance factories we choose to call "schools" in America, one of the most destructive has been the inability or unwillingness of our so-called "educators" to teach young people the distinction between legal and illegal.

This has not only created an inability to tell right from wrong in our indigenous population on matters of immigration and citizenship, it has given to illegal aliens grounds for the entirely reasonable assumption that if we don't take our laws seriously, there's no reason why they should.

Now, the climate of law has suddenly and drastically changed in Arizona, which has borne the brunt of criminal behavior by the illegal immigration industry. And it IS an industry, from the so-called "coyotes" who run the alien-smuggling business to the kidnappers who prey on the aliens themselves and have turned Phoenix into one of the most crime-ridden cities in America.

Since the federal government has utterly failed in its duty to enforce immigration laws, the people of Arizona--a majority, anyway--have had enough and the state legislature and the governor got the message and passed the nation's most comprehensive law allowing local law enforcement officials to make a reasonable effort to determine the status of suspected illegals, possibly leading to deportation. Republican Governor Jan Brewer, successor to the utterly ineffectual -- some would say downright silly -- Janet Napolitano, signed the bill into law.

Napolitano, of course, continues her mission of subverting the nation's laws as Secretary of Homeland Security.

This new legislation was prompted by the murder of a border-area rancher in southeastern Arizona, a man who'd been known to show humanitarian kindness to illegals crossing his land. This murder, with clear evidence pointing to border-crossing illegals, was far from the first barbaric act against American citizens on their own land. Home invasions, brazen theft, killing of livestock and the slaughter of pets and ranch animals--dogs, especially--have been rife and worsening for years.

It may come as a surprise to people in other parts of the country to learn that many Arizonans of Mexican descent, people who whose families have been in the state for generations, are among the most vociferous supporters of firm enforcement of immigration laws.

A series of presidents, more responsive to illegal alien lobbies than to their own citizens, have ignored the border situation. Their allies have included the senate's leading RINO, John McCain, who was one of the leaders of the movement to reward criminal behavior by legalizing illegal aliens.

McCain is now in a fight for his political life as Arizonans recall their Goldwater roots and have turned on the turncoat, who is now suddenly rediscovering his commitment to the welfare of the legal residents of his home state. His turnaround on immigration and other issues has been dizzying and revelatory of the sheer phoniness of the man. When his career is on the line, the "moderation" so beloved by his liberal friends in politics and media suddenly disappeared.

Predictably, liberals are outraged by the new immigration law with demonstrators referring to the police as "pigs" (echoes of the sixties, anyone?) and demanding "rights" for border-violating criminals. It is a further reflection of the failure of our educrats that many of these unenlightened ones believe the word "alien" refers to creatures from other planets, rather than the centuries-old characterization of persons from another country. It seems to prove that Hollywood has done a much better job of indoctrination Americans than has the education system.

ARIZONA TO SAN FRANCISCO--"THANK YOU!"

On behalf of my fellow Arizonans--at least the seventy percent who favor the state's new immigration law aimed at doing the job people named Bush, Clinton and Obama refused to do--a heartfelt word of thanks to Dennis Herrera, San Francisco's city attorney. We could also express gratitude to the other political demagogues who place racial politics above the law. You have again made clear your lack of commitment to either law or principle.

As a transplant to Arizona after many years of life in the outdoor lunatic asylum that is Mr. Herrera's city, I was delighted to learn that he believes San Francisco should boycott--yes, boycott--Arizona. Overlooking the fact that such a boycott might demand avoidance of natural-fiber clothing items (Arizona is a major cotton producer) or the copper-bottom kitchen-ware so favored by gourmet cooks ('zona produces most of the nation's copper) or coins containing copper, the aspect of a boycott many Arizonans would appreciate would be San Franciscans, themselves.

Many Arizonans are deeply suspicious of the dominant strain of political malady that infects so many Californians, most evident in San Franciscans. Enough of them infected Phoenix to contribute heavily to the

economic disaster triggered by a California-style housing frenzy and collapse. Some folk of that misguided mentality fill various local political offices, to the point where most Arizonans now look aghast at the destruction they've created. (Remember that seventy-percent figure.)

I know from personal experience of home-seeking throughout the southern two-thirds of the state that a wary eye is cast upon would-be California transplants, and especially when it's learned that a prospective buyer is--gasp!--from San Francisco. It took time and an oft-declared conservative mindset before the veil of suspicion was lifted.

Now, having established my bonafides for seven-plus years, I share that endemic Arizona suspicion of "California crazies." We don't want to be another California with its self-created economic disaster and political silliness. While we do have a few theme-park "reservations" for California-diseased wanderers (think Sedona, with its alleged power vortices, crystal-worship, etc.) where self-admitted inmates are humanely treated, they are nevertheless regarded with suspicion while being painlessly separated from their money.

K S F O, R.I.P.

    For the past fifteen years, KSFO has--had--been the major conservative media outlet in San Francisco and Northern California. For all those fifteen years--until February--I was the morning host of the highest-rated program on the station--higher than Rush or Hannity or anything else. O.V., Melanie Morgan, Sheri Yee and I built something of which we were justifiably proud.

    I write this reluctantly because I have friends who still work at KSFO. However, I continue to hear from (former) listeners asking, "What's happened/happening to KSFO?"

    When we began the project to revive the once-legendary call letters of KSFO fifteen years ago, a handful of us knew it would take bulldog tenacity with little corporate support to get the job done. KSFO was positioned by the owners as a conservative station not because of any philosophical commitment but simply to foreclose that option to other stations. It is, after all, a business--especially to owners.

    Despite the fact that KSFO was a low-powered (5,000 watts) station up against 50,000-watt giants, and still worse, suffered from a signal that covered only about half of the nine-county Bay Area included in the ratings, the station grew and prospered. Attempts to compete with KSFO failed. KNEW was never a serious challenge; KSFO beat them consistently on the order of four-or-five listeners to one.

    Then came the ownership of ABC Radio (of which KSFO and KGO are part) by Citadel Broadcasting, a wildly mismanaged corporation whose operating philosophy is "run it cheap." I wasn't cheap, but I'd brought in millions in revenue from a successful morning program, the key day-part in radio. Hence my being forced out a few months before my contract ended, when I planned to leave, anyway. Shed no tears; I didn't leave poor, and I expect to collect more Citadel cash in payment for violating their contractual obligation.

    The proximate cause of my departure was money. Citadel didn't want to pay what they'd contracted to pay. I have strong reason to suspect another motive. I was given to understand that my head-on attacks on Muslim support of terrorism were viewed unfavorably by Citadel management, led by CEO Farid Suleman (sometimes spelled Suleiman, as in "Suleiman the Magnficent", hero to Muslims worldwide) who has rendered the company stock almost worthless. I was apparently being ... "insensitive."

    KSFO for years consistently ran in the top-ten stations in overall 6AM-to-midnight ratings, despite a night-time signal that simply disappears in much of the Bay Area. The morning program--mine--was always in the competitive mix at the top, running usually 2nd-to-4th. And the "experts" had said it couldn't be done in the ultra-liberal Bay Area!

    Now, the most recent numbers tell the story. In the latest ratings, KSFO has tumbled to 19th place in the ratings. Yes... 19th. KSFO is once again, sadly, a nonentity. And sister station KGO, the longtime "establishment" station, has lost its decades-long market leadership. It runs third and appears to still be sinking as the Citadel ax continues to swing.

    Under the corporate leadership of Suleman the Magnificent and a handcuffed local management, it's hard to find reason to anticipate a turnaround in either facility. I have no personal stake, either way. I live in Arizona and never listen to either station. But I'm pained to see KGO, where I spent ten years as the token conservative, and KSFO, into which I put heart and soul, decay.

    Sadly, with the sell-out of American radio to a few giant conglomerators, local and independent voices are being silenced. It's especially noticeable on a cross-country drive. The same handful of voices are heard on station after station, and even music stations are largely programmed by another handful of people thousands of miles away who've simply voice-tracked (i.e., recorded) a few inane remarks to be played between songs.

    A further note: listen to the national talk-shows (and I've been approached about doing one) and rarely if ever will you hear a hostile word about the political fanaticism disguised as religion that is the supportive base for the greatest threat the nation faces, Islamic terrorism. Thanks to utterly gutless management(s), that's become the third-rail of American broadcasting: touch it and you (or your career) will die.

NO MONEY, NO HEALTH CARE?

A question for folk in the medical world: Is my experience extraordinary?

The vicissitudes of life have given me more experience with the health-care system than I'd prefer, starting with a foot amputation at age 13 due to an accident working in timber. Ours was a poor family, and we all worked or nobody ate. Cancer at twenty and a few other medical needs have caused me to spend time in more than a few hospitals.

Without fail, every one has had a sign posted on the premises saying that no one will be denied medical care for lack of ability to pay. That being the case, why the hysteria on the left proclaiming that people are dying in droves for lack of care?

In my own case, my family's meager resources were exhausted by the first accident, but we did manage to pay. Later, my work brought with it medical care. And when a lung infection put me in the University of Arizona Medical Center for a month in February 2010, one of my doctors informed me that, because I do have a good medical insurance plan, I was the ONLY "full-pay" patient on the entire floor of that huge facility. Does that not make a good case for the argument that much of the hysteria is unwarranted? Am I missing something?

KOREA, PART TWO

History is a great teacher for those wise enough to learn. That obviously excludes the wily but witless manipulator we have in the White House as well as far too many in Congress.

There is an object lesson in the news headlines today: North Korea threatening "all-out war" against South Korea if the south responds in any appropriate way to what was clearly the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel by North Korea, evidently under the director orders of dictator Kim Jong Il.

He, of course, defines the term "self-centered", with his enormous imports of the highest-priced cognac and history of bringing in planeloads of European prostitutes while his countrymen were verging on mass starvation. He clearly doesn't care what happens to his country--or anything else--once he departs the scene.

The enduring lesson is found in the Korean war, which was instigated in 1950 by another North Korean dictator, father of the present-day thug. It was suspended by a cease-fire three years later. There was never a peace treaty; still isn't.

Students of history can learn for themselves that our military commander at the time, General Douglas MacArthur, wanted to carry the war to a victorious conclusion including, if necessary, nuclear attacks on the bases in China that were funneling troops and and military supplies to the North Koreans. It was not a solo decision; the Joint Chiefs of Staff had authorized the order to be given.

Instead, he was fired by President Truman. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, a leftist relic from the Roosevelt administration, prevailed over the judgment of all our military leaders. Some would say it was the worst single decision of the Truman presidency.

With the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight, one can readily conclude that MacArthur was right, and Truman was foolish. At the time, we were the only nuclear power. The threats and trouble-making by by North Korea have now gone on for sixty years, and instead of being given a chastening lesson, China has grown in military power--abetted by Bill Clinton, among others--and is now a clear long-range threat. Of course, the economic sword they hold over our heads may make a military threat simple a subsidiary weapon, again thanks to a succession of presidents who have mortgaged our future to China. That mortgage has grown ever-larger under our present socialist president.

Look at the policies of appeasement and conciliation of enemies operative in the Obama administration and decide for yourself if he is capable of learning from history. Unless, of course, such concessions are key instruments of his own policies.