Bob Crespo

When leaders stop dreaming of better things, they stop being leaders.

Mayor-For-Life of New York City, Little Mikie Bloomberg, has taken time out of his campaign to take the fun out of Fun City to appeal to President Obama to move the trial of the guy who masterminded the 9/11 attacks on New York City out of New York. They call it a change of venue, something normally done when a court of law determines that a defendant cannot obtain a fair trial in a certain jurisdiction. Well, Little Mikie has no such concerns for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, alleged al Qaeda mastermind behind the suicide bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

No, Little Mikie, the Little Billionaire Who Could, he’s concerned about the excessive cost of security involved in such a sensational trial. He’s also afraid of the unrest that might occur in New York City, and also the inconvenience and the trauma. Which leads one to wonder if he remembers how very sensational, traumatic and inconvenient were the events of 9/11/01. To New Yorkers, it was our worst day ever, when two hijacked jets toppled the twin towers, killing around 2,500 people. It was also our best day ever, when New Yorkers responded to death and disaster magnificently, performing acts of heroism and sacrifice without a second thought, and help and good wishes poured into our town from every part of our stricken nation.

For Khalid Sheik Mohammed, it was his finest hour. Years earlier, he had been given the green light and the funding by Osama bin Laden to carry out his audacious plan, to recruit and train 20 young fanatics to hijack 4 commercial airliners and crash them into New York and Washington. The plan succeeded beyond their wildest imaginings, with 19 out of 20 of the hijackers  taking part in the plan and 3 of the 4 jets finding their deadly marks. They killed close to 3,000 people and opened up a new chapter in terrorism. Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Osama bin Laden were heroes to illiterate deluded fanatics all over the Muslim world and jumped to the head of the Most Wanted lists of every law enforcement agency on earth.

Well, Mr. bin Laden, having been let off the hook by his old business associate Bush The Younger at Tora Bora years ago when he told American soldiers to stand down, is still at large, pursuing a very successful inspirational video career somewhere in the mountains of Pakistan. Not so for Mr. Mohammed, who has been in Federal custody for a few years now. He is finally being brought to trial for his crime, fittingly in Federal Court in Manhattan, the scene of the crime, but Little Mayor Mikie wants to move the trial elsewhere. Well, fuck him and the horse he is too short to ride in on.

And fuck the president for caving in to Mayor Little Mikie, who does not speak for New Yorkers and never has in his 8 years as mayor. LIke many wealthy men who enter politics, he did so only to straighten us out, figuring that a man with the ability to earn billions of dollars knows best in all things, and so uses his office as a forum for telling people how to behave and what to think. Little Mikie’s ego is so bloated that he even took it to the extreme of telling us what we can and cannot eat. This guy’s even more egotistical than former New York Mayor Giuliaini, who has been making a living selling his own fictional account of the events of 9/11, casting himself as a hero even though New Yorkers know he was just one more frightened New Yorker stumbling around lower Manhattan that day while abler men saved lives and gave theirs.

New York City is where this trial belongs, costs or no costs, sensation or no sensation. This is where thousands of survivors of this attack live, those who escaped death in the greatest rescue and evacuation operation since Dunkirk. This is where thousands more gather every year to mourn their dead, both the innocent victims and the heroic first-responders who gave their lives to save thousands. This is where Khalid Mohammed must face justice. The worst has already been done to New Yorkers, and we survived and thrived. What’s a little inconvenience or a few rallies by fringe groups? That sort of thing is merely part of life’s rich pageant around here, and frightens no one, with the exception of little Mayor Mikie.

Little Mikie is unreasonably frightened of the use of salt, tobacco and trans-fat by people other than himself, so it stands to reason that other things will frighten the little fellow too. New Yorkers deserve a better mayor, a braver man. Bloomberg and Giuliani now make it two in a row now who have used the office of Mayor to push their own narrow moral agendas that have little to do with governing New York and a whole lot to do with scolding its citizens, not a one of who needs life coaching advice from demagogues. New Yorkers have already seen the worst that Mohammed can do, and we trust our Police Department to keep our city safe while we put this monster on trial. Let the world see that we are not afraid of men such as this, delusional jerkoffs who think they enjoy broad popular support. Or maybe Little Mikie figures this town isn’t big enough for two such men and wants Khalid Mohammed out of town. Bullshit.

Let him have his day in court and face his accusers in the place where he committed his crime, since that is how America does things. Let him say whatever he wants to say, it can make no possible difference. What he did will always speak loudest, and the voices of the dead louder still. Moving the trial someplace else will deny the dead the justice they are due. The trial will bring none of them back to life, will not rebuild the shattered towers or restore the world to its pre – 9/11 sensibilities, but it will remind the world that the people who commit acts of savagery will answer for them in court. They will get a fair trial, with representation by an attorney and their rights respected until proven guilty, because that is how civilized people run their courts of law, openly and fairly with a single set of rules for all defendants.

To run and hide is to hand Mr. Mohammed another victory and deny New Yorkers some measure of justice, almost a decade after the crime. President Obama needs to tell little Mikie to go snoop around somebody’s dinner table for unhealthy ingredients and leave justice to the big boys. America needs to be America, not only to show the rest of the world, but to show ourselves that the things we stand for, the institutions we have created and the rights we afford our people are not flimsy things to be discarded when inconvenient or traumatic. The Bill of Rights is not the Bill of Suggestions, and our courts of law are not optional institutions to be substituted with other extra-Constitutional judicial venues created on the spur of the moment during times of crisis. These are some of the things that make America America, and if holding Mohammed’s trial in New York City is the harder thing to do, well, New Yorkers have never backed down from hard times or hard choices. This is no time to start. Unlike Little Mikie, few New Yorkers need to grow a spine.

If dogs could talk, they’d still be dogs, but at least we’d find out what the hell all that leg humping is about.

Life Coach here, you there. Today we talk about getting what you want. Always remember, other people are not important when it comes to getting your way, that’s Rule #1 for looking out for #1. Oh sure, you’ve got to put up with other people, there’s no getting around that, but if you change your attitude towards others, it won’t be so bad. Don’t look at them like you have been your whole life, as worthy individuals with the same rights as you, with feeling and desires and aspirations. That outlook is for saps. Look at other people as a means to getting what you want. They can do things for you, get you things and generally make themselves useful to you. Never do anything yourself that someone else will do for you.

For those that cannot serve your ends, well, who needs ‘em? Sure, they have their wants and needs too, but who cares? That’s their business and their responsibility to get theirs, not yours. Besides, you can’t feel what they’re feeling, therefore it isn’t real and has nothing to do with getting what you want. But first you have to decide what it is in life that you really want. Is it money and material things? Of course it is! What the hell else is there? Well, there’s poverty and misery, and Life Coach says you can have my share of that!

Or maybe you are one of those people who seek other things in life, useless crap like dignity, integrity, goodness, love, brotherhood and inner peace. In that case, you’re the perfect sort of person that Life Coach recommends his students seek out. You are ideal for helping others get what they want, and will likely feel good about yourself when you’re being used like a tool. Life Coach and his students appreciate it. Not grateful appreciate, mind you, but mindful of the fact that you fools can’t do enough for others, and thats right up our alley. Well take all you’ve got to offer, and then some. You may not like what I’m selling, but you can’t fault my honesty. The Life Coach doesn’t need saps as students, he wants those who want to take what the saps have.

That’s the name of the game in Getting Yours; taking. As far as we know we get only this one measly life, so you’ve got to take whatever you can get your hands on. Remember, money buys plenty of happiness and material things are a constant source of comfort and joy. Take Life Coach for example. I have six beautiful homes on three continents, two private jets, a dozen cars and a whole bunch of servants. I run around with all sorts of beautiful women, all of who eventually leave me when they realize that I’m not all that interested in the stupid shit they talk about or what they want (like that could ever be important to me!), and that works out just fine. Next! Happiness and fulfillment are mine.

So, before we get into the nuts and bolts of exactly how to acquire all you want, first you have to develop the proper attitude towards life. Before you can embrace The Life Coach’s philosophy, you must rid yourself of the emotional and intellectual baggage that has been preventing you from realizing your dreams. Stop looking at those other people as precious beings deserving of whatever goodness and rewards they can get from this life. If that was true they’d have already done whatever it takes to get what they want! The fact that they haven’t just proves that they are lazy drones undeserving of anything but whatever drifts their way in the course of their impoverished and unfocused lives. No, thanks, that’s not the way of achievers and accumulators.

Focus is paramount, and your focus must always be squarely on yourself. If you turn your attention away from what is important (you!), you wind up getting bogged down in the messy and chaotic lives of these pesky other people. Some of them might even expect you to share what you have or who you are just because they do! Who needs that horror? Emotional attachments are real focus busters and a drain on you. The Life Coach doesn’t welcome students who are unfocused. My seminars are for the seriously dedicated, and by dedicated I mean committed to themselves and their own pleasure, comfort and possessions.

You see, don’t you,  where this is leading? You think The Life Coach is going to give away all his secrets in a free internet blog? Get real! I only took this job at this Mickey Mouse web site to promote my Self Help Life Coach Seminars, at $300 a pop, in which I outline my surefire program for personal success. Individual sessions are also available for serious students, prices to be discussed at the seminars. If you don’t get this whole concept, you aren’t Self Help Life Coach Seminar material and don’t deserve success and fulfillment. There are givers and there are takers in this world, and takers are my kind of people. It’s just that simple.

So if you want everything you’ve ever dreamed of and don’t feel like sharing it, mail me a check or money order for $250 to reserve your seat in my next seminar and get the ball rolling! You can even submit the money via PayPal with your credit card, The Life Coach is not picky about where he picks up his long green, just so long as he gets his. Just pay your money and come equipped with the proper attitude: that it’s about time you got yours and screw everybody else! Money, power and possessions are waiting for you to claim them, women will beg you to use them! The Life Coach will show you how it’s done, then it is up to you to do it. All you have to lose is being a loser.

Silly robes don’t make a holy man, nor does a white lab coat make an effective scientist, but they sure do help fool some people. The better deal is to listen to what the person has to say before assigning them either sainthood or genius.

Now the inevitable reports start appearing that the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti may be the beginning of a trend. Scientists are “concerned.” That’s usually the term they use when they have no friggin’ idea, concerned. Now, after the fact, of course, we get word that one science guy issued a warning in 2008 that the fault in the earth’s crust on the island of Hispaniola that contains Haiti and the Dominican Republic could blow soon. Only thing is, he predicted an earthquake several hundred miles away, on the Dominican Republic side of the island. Looks like the study of earthquakes is at about the same level of sophistication that medical science was in the Middle Ages, which makes a lot of the non-scientists among us “concerned,” hoping they don’t start bleeding the earth to eliminate ill humors and amputating perfectly good peninsulas.

Then there’s the reports that the hole in the planet’s ozone layer is mending itself, which on the face of it seems to be a major victory for environmentalists. Not so fast. There’s a little concern coming our way from other scientists who fear that the closing of the ozone hole is contributing to global warming. Well, what’s the story? Do we start belching black fumes from our factories again? Or maybe just take a little time out and realize that these sciences of studying the earth’s tectonic plates, it’s climate and volcanos and the like are in their infancy and at this point about as accurate as the Roman scientists who decided that Vesuvius would not blow after studying the entrails of a dove. We all know how that one turned out: not so good for Pompeians, great for archaeologists and travel agents.

What we don’t know with anything resembling any degree of certainty, however, is whether or not the Haiti quake is the harbinger of things to come in say, Miami or Atlanta, or Caracas or Havana or Rio. Remembering the devastating tsunami in the Pacific in December of 2004, there was no shortage of predictions for similar events, a whole lot of concern, but no answers. Which is not to say that another Pacific tsunami won’t happen tomorrow or next week, or that the Dominican Republic won’t be stricken by a large earthquake soon. We just don’t know. Why pretend?

Time passes differently for a planet than for the creatures that ride its back. What may seem like only yesterday to a planet could be thousands of generations to humans, so our records of these things is by cosmic timing standards brand new and pretty sketchy. We’ve only been using written languages for about 6,000 years, and we’ve only practiced widespread serious science for a few hundred of those years, so our understanding of the forces of nature is on the light side so far. Our ability to predict seismic events is pretty lousy. Hence the “concern.”

We’re not even 100% certain about global warming, even though we are proceeding as if it is a proven fact. When we say that this past 10 years was “the warmest decade on record,” by definition that means it is the warmest decade that we know about. Our record keeping only started in the 1800’s, about 5 plus billion years into the life of the planet. Hell, we didn’t even start until a few hundred thousand years ago, a mere fortnight to a planet. For all we know for sure, the earth is cooling. Or that this warm decade is merely an acceptable fluctuation in temperature indicative of nothing in particular. The odd thing is that humans think we can finally stop talking about the weather and do something about it. Then a Haiti comes along to remind us that we have much to learn.

It’s a great idea to stop poisoning the earth and the sky on its own merits. Whether or not we are affecting the planet with our activities, it’s never a good thing to poison ourselves. Ideally, zero parts-per-million of any man-made toxin is the ideal number, but some of those toxins have provided the way of life that has enabled our other human sciences to flourish, thus vastly improving our short human lives. The science of medicine has progressed from using goose dung to dress wounds to replacing heart valves and curing polio. The science of aviation, in an incredibly rapid progression, went from a 12 second flight to putting a man on the moon in just 66 years. Our computer sciences progressed in a mere half century from computers the size of a house to laptops that outperform their huge predessessors. Hopefully, our earth and climate sciences will progress to the point where knowledge replaces concern. Until then, we’ll have to live on this earth as we’ve always lived on this earth, very precariously.

No one cares what kind of cell phone you have or how many wonderful things it does, only that you respond to their calls and messages. It’s called the “Consideration Application” and is standard equipment in human beings, but will cease to function if not used regularly.

Last night President Obama made one hell of a good speech at The State of The Union Address. The following has nothing to do with that speech:

So, here we are a year into Barack Obama’s presidency. The economy still sucks, there are still 2 wars being waged on Third World nations by the United States and the Senate and Congress are daily proving what corrupt scumbags they are. That being said, Obama’s doing a decent job. Not a great job, but as well as can be expected under the circumstances. Those circumstances are having the bad luck to follow the most destructive administration in American history, that of our first puppet President, Bush The Younger, and America’s first dictator, Shotgun Dick Cheney. It will take years to straighten out the damage they did; to our economy, to the Bill of RIghts and to the way our government operates.

The Cheney Administration oversaw the transfer of trillions of dollars from the American working classes to the super wealthy elite, to the point where less than 1% of the wealthiest Americans now own more wealth than the bottom 95% combined. The Cheney Administration refused to police the financial industries that handle everyone’s money, gutting and underfunding existing regulatory agencies. The result was an orgy of greed and larceny that nearly brought our economy to its knees. The Cheney Administration lied to the American people in order to attack oil-rich Iraq, and abandoned the search for Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the devastating 9/11 attacks.

The Cheney Administration betrayed an American spy, allowed New Orleans to drown, awarded multi-billion dollar contracts to Cheney’s company, Halliburton, to rebuild Iraq and New Orleans, which they then proceeded to fuck up completely, sticking American taxpayers with huge bills to repair their “repairs.” The Cheney Administration hired corporate mercenaries to illegally torture prisoners and carry out assassinations.

The Cheney administration oversaw the theft of millions of dollars of crude petroleum every single day for years in Iraq, and sent huge bundles of United States currency to that nation to bribe political, religious and business factions, very little of which has ever been accounted for, then used the corruption they engendered as an excuse to remain in Iraq for years after defeating their armies and hanging their leader.

The Cheney Administration stole elections, consorted with felons and mounted the biggest fear-mongering campaign since the Nazis of the 1920s and 1930s, creating a frenzied and divisive political climate that allowed the wealthy to pick the bones of the American economy clean, sending home foreclosures and unemployment through the roof. This mess they left behind will require the work of not only Barack Obama, but the next several presidents to repair.

The culture of greed and corruption has infested Congress and even the Supreme Court, which saw fit this week to allow unlimited corporate influence over our elections, potentially leading to foreign corporations and governments investing heavily in favorable elsection results in The United States of America. Favorable to them, that is. Mr. Obama has perhaps the hardest job of governing these United States since Abraham Lincoln, and the reason the nation is in such straits can be boiled down to one word: Greed. Greed for power, control and money by the dictator Cheney, and plain old fashioned greed for money by corporate America.

Now corporate America want us to listen to their “economists,” the same sad shills who have sold Americans out, that if we only listen to them them our economy will bounce back, like we’ll ever trust them again. They point to the election of a male stripper to Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat as a positive step, a guy who makes Sarah Palin look good! There are more potential puppets being groomed for political office too, intellectual lightweights perfect for fronting the ideas of the greedy and power mad, just like Bush The Younger.

If they are fooling anyone, it is only morons. Some people will buy dogshit if you wrap it in an American flag, and the Republican/corporate alliance is counting on such fools and anger addicts to create further divisiveness to divert attention from their greed. They will convince the jackasses that their blatant anti-Americanism is patriotism, and unleash them on the nation. They will use these dim fools like rented mules, make them eat their traitorous and elitist dogshit, then take whatever they have and abandon them when they have served their purpose. Don’t forget, they’re still licking their chops over the trillions in Social Security funds they failed to “privatize” under Cheney. Imagine if Social Security money was in private hands in 2008? Uncounted millions of senior citizens would be ruined, their work of a lifetime stolen to fuel rich men’s scams.

These are the people who were already fabulously wealthy and felt it was a fine idea to start aggressively stealing on a massive scale. Most of the unindicted co-conspirators in the financial industries still don’t feel they did anything wrong, only that they slightly miscalculated. Obama has to disabuse these people of such fantasies. Their “slight miscalculations” ruined countless American lives and made 5 to 7 trillion dollars of wealth disappear, so our president has his work cut out for him. Not only that, Obama also has to deal with a great many people, both the powerful and the insignificant, who are opposed to him only because he is a black man.

Anyone with a computer has been getting inundated with racist e-mails, both subtle and blatant, attacking our legally elected President and Commander in Chief. Having to fight this Neanderthal Factor as well as the entrenched Culture of Greed is one more monkey wrench thrown into the works of reforming an American Government severely damaged by 8 years of dictatorship and corporate anarchy. The State of The Union is weird, and it is not Barack Obama’s fault. It will take a lot of work to get America back on track.

Pain has a way of focusing our attention like a laser on parts of our body that we didn’t know existed. Pain killers restore our blissful ignorance. In extreme cases, however, an actual doctor and a cure may be called for.

In our never-ending pursuit of becoming the Best Website Ever, bobcrespo.com, currently the Second Best Website Ever, is including yet another feature for our loyal readers; The Life Coach. While previously we here at bobcrespo.com considered a job like Life Coach to be a pretty presumptuous thing to be or a scam at best, it seems that there is a great demand for being told what to think and how to live. Go figure. So we went out and hired one. The Life Coach, who prefers to remain anonymous, gives us all tips on how to effectively have better lives instead of just talking about our nebulous self-improvement plans or dreaming about winning the lottery. The Life Coach comes to us with a very impressive resume, having lived a full and rich life and accomplishing many things, not the least of which are climbing Mount Everest and nailing Courtney Love backstage at the Grammy Awards. Now he is willing to share his experiences with the lucky readers of bobcrespo.com. Consider his words of wisdom:

The Life Coach here, you there, so listen up. Today’s lesson for a more rewarding life: Leaving the house. This is aimed at house-bound couch potatoes wallowing in their own nothingness. When a junk e-mail pops into the inbox of your computer informing you that you can pursue a college degree while sitting on your chubby duff at home, if you have a shred of honesty with yourself you have to admit, that no, no you can’t pursue a college degree while sitting on your chubby duff at home, and the whole point of pursuing anything or anyone not already present in your refrigerator or in your living room means that you have to leave your house. That would be the very minimum definition of pursuit, no, leaving the house?

Even those of us fortunate enough to be able to work from home have earned that privilege by at some point in our lives actually leaving our homes in pursuit of something, whether it be an education, a job, a meal, a suit of clothes, a good time, a new experience or a spouse. This whole notion of having an ideal existence within the confines of your own home sort of assumes that within your own home is every amenity known to man, including several rewarding vacation destinations.

Unless your home is the size of a small nation or located within some sort of magic zone (and darned few homes are!), you need to leave the place every so often, probably on a regular basis. The Life Coach didn’t gain all his experience and wisdom sitting on his ass playing dumb video games, watching reruns of “Friends” and casting votes on who gets thrown off some island or who sang a song with maximum competence and minimum weirdness. That is not living, that is witnessing life! Big difference.

There’s a world out there, people! There’s people, places and things, the 3 pillars of living an interesting and rewarding life. Put it this way: The Taj Mahal or the World’s Largest Ball of Twine isn’t going to visit you. That beautiful, smart and interesting significant other isn’t going to ring your doorbell and ask if you can come out to play. You have to go out and find them! The museums and parks and ball fields and forests and beaches are a lot more impressive in person than on your video screens.

And guess what, couch brigade, there’s a lot of interesting restaurants with fabulous foods who do not deliver, so you actually have to wear something other than shorts and a T-shirt and attend them to experience fine dining or exotic culinary experiences. And if in these hard financial times fine dining is a little pricey for your budget, you can learn to cook something other than hamburgers and macaroni & cheese. That’s even something you can do in your own home, although shopping for ingredients might involve several stops at local food stores and green grocers. You will even save money obver your usual diet of Dominos, Chinese take-ouut and KFC.

So listen to The Life Coach and watch this space for more tips on turning around your mundane, ordinary and video-dominated lives. The things you need to do to change don’t come in a can or at the click of a mouse, so have patience and practice small things, like walking around the block, maybe finding out if the neighbors are still the same ones that were there years ago, the last time you bothered to check your immediate surroundings. Little by little you can venture out further afield. Before you know it you’ll have gone to interesting places, met interesting people and done interesting things. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, that of turning off the boob tubes that surround you and tasting what life has to offer.