A Cautionary Tale

 

So, as many of you know, I have bladder cancer and have been undergoing chemotherapy as my preferred treatment plan. I have now completed two treatments. Each cycle is three weeks. Next week completes cycle 1 of 4 cycles where, for my aggressive chemo plan, requires 2 weeks Chemo and the third week off.

 By mid-January, God willing, I will be finished. But the last time I had chemo, my plan was a 24-week plan which had complications which lasted nine months. But yes, I am extremely positive that I will finish on time.

 The purpose of this post is to let you know I am a cautionary tale. Both cancers can be caused by cigarette smoking. There is no direct proof that it was for me, but science shows that it certainly was a big contributor. I started in February, 1961, and had my last on Christmas Day, 1995. Almost 35 years, the last 15 years as a three plus pack a day smoker.

 When I started, every TV show, starting with I Love Lucy, Dick Van Dyke, Fred Flintstone and so many movies showed characters smoking all throughout. Family members and friends smoked. My Dad, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and even on occasion, my Mom.

 Even advertisers glorified smoking where “four out of five doctors recommended smoking Lucky Strike for better health”, Winston tasting “good like a cigarette should”, walking “a mile for a Camel”, and having “a lot to like with a Marlboro”.

 By 1965, we had our first warning placed on every pack, carton and ad shouting that smoking was bad for our health. Remember, I started at almost ten, and now I was almost 15, hooked and feared nothing because I was invincible. Yeah, right!

 By 1980, I was smoking those three packs a day I mentioned above. And I saw first-hand what happened to many people around me who smoked. But I said it wouldn't happen to me. After all, I was not yet 30, running several miles a week, unwinded, a strong specimen of a man in excellent health and shape at a fit 170 to 180 lbs, six feet tall, with a mass body index around 18.5 before anyone really cared about this measurement.

 Did I stop smoking? No, of course not.

 Fast forward to 1995. I stopped smoking because a pack of cigarettes on Long Island was approaching $2.00 a pack. When I started in 1961, a pack was $0.25 a pack. Plus, you could try what you liked with "two-cent loosies" the guy in the candy store displayed proudly in a tray on the counter of the popular or "exciting" cool brands available for purchase. By 1965, this was illegal. And so was selling cigarettes to people under 18. 

 While "loosies" stopped being displayed and sold because doing so was an obvious violation, selling packs to minors, like me at thirteen, was not enforced. Along with the Sen-Sen Gum. Or Violet square candies.

 Back to 1995. I used the patch which was only sold via prescription. Of course, I did it my way. It took me six months to finally complete the three-month plan because I added weeks by cutting the patches to make the level of nicotine wean me slower to the next level down. 

 21 mg to 14 to 7 to 0 in three months. Not me. I went from 21 mg for 25 days, to 18 mg for 25 days by using a scissors, to 14 mg for 25 days to 10 mg for 15 days. 7 mg for 30 days to 3 1/2 for 50 days to finally 1.75 mg for 10 days or so. I stopped this on June 30, 1996.

 I have helped others stop smoking, too. By being there and encouraging them. As part of their support team.

 But, I learned in 2011, I had Stage 3 Colon Cancer and now I have Aggresive Bladder Cancer. I blame no one. It was my choice to smoke. I actually felt I stopped on time.

 Ehhhhh... Wrong!

 As I said earlier in this commentary, I am a cautionary tale. I am in no way interested in blaming anyone for my choices or for a pity party. That is just so beneath my own dignity and self-respect. I have always been a man who takes responsibility for my own choices, my own decisions with no regrets. I like the man that looks back at me in the mirror. I am the man I am for those decisions I made for me. Maybe not happy with some of the outcomes. But proud that I made them for ME. And those who know me, know that this comes from my heart.

 When you read this, take this message as it is meant. Not as a reprimand. Not as a criticism. But as a lesson. Stop. Today. If you know someone smokes send it to them. If you have young children, sit with them and explain that the dangers are not immediate, but rather, long-term. If they smoke already, don't yell or punish them. Instead, show them this.

 There is longevity for my family to live well past 80. I will be grateful as a seventy-year-old man to reach 75.

 And now, I am just a cautionary tale.

 

The Many Lessons of the 2021 Election

Okay. So now the pundits and prognosticators have had a day or so to lick their wounds and have begun to make excuses for how their data was wrong, or misinterpreted, or didn’t see the red wave hiding in plain sight, or the election gremlins affected the turnout and results. Or, maybe, instead these self-proclaimed seers that the media and the parties rely on to predict the outcomes of an election with their sophisticated polling formulas (see https://frankmchalesviews.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-poll-that-matters-first-tuesday-in.html for more details) really don’t know squat about reading people. 

Hey pollsters! Lesson One on polling is the only poll that matters is the one done on Election Day. And Lesson Two? People will lie to you if they feel your questions are intrusive or misleading.  

You see, if the questions are slanted in a subliminal way toward one candidate or party, most reasonable people with any elementary understanding of social behavior, will see through you and tell you what you want to hear to make your point. Or, maybe, you want to slant the outcome to your candidate that you will only hear what fits your agenda. Or the agenda of the person or party who is paying you to come up with the desired result. Either way, the margin of error a poll uses as a fallback is a cover to make the poll seem more legitimate. 

But the poll taken on Election Day doesn’t need the trickery of deceptive questions or spinning the outcomes to fit an agenda. Why? Because the poll taken on Election Day is real and doesn’t factor in a margin of error, because there is none.  

And by the way, the same can be said of exit polling, a strategy used by the media to help them come up with how the polling got it so wrong before Election Day, and gives “legitimacy” to their “experts” that report all night long after the votes are counted. 

But here is the thing. The people see through all of this and vote the way they feel about the President, the Congress, the Governor, etc., and the policies these entities are foisting on the American people may not be in line with how the people feel in the months leading up to Election Day. 

You know, like MANDATES which take away the FREEDOM TO CHOOSE what the people want for their own well-being, without the government, Federal, State or Local saying the word “MUST” and making the people feel like WE are the government’s chattel. Certainly, if a government official wants our votes on Election Day because they believe we are smart enough to vote for his or her agenda, then they must also believe we are smart enough to make our own decisions for ourselves. Right? RIGHT?

So, here is the lesson with the Election of 2021. The people are tired of being TOLD what we MUST do. And government officials must remember that THEY WORK FOR US. Not the other way around. They need to go back and re-read the Constitution of the United States. And focus on the Preamble which says all of this in less than sixty words with these following six promises:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

This is the lesson that the non “leaders” need to learn, like Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Hochul, Newsom, “the Squad”, and other wannabe dictators. Because WE THE PEOPLE will vote you out if you continue to go down that path. 

And no pollster that you hire will be able to save you from your own deserved self-destruction, no matter how the questions are asked. Because we can see right through it.

The Government Is Out to Fxck Us Again

I did research 10 years ago when I had Colon Cancer. Cigarette smoking is the leading cause for both colon and bladder cancer in men. Ta-da! If I knew I would have gotten both, you know I never would have started.

The argument about cigarettes is that it is a cash crop and the Department of Agriculture is the agency which supervises its entire production right up to the federal tax applied. Then, each state applies its own tax. A lot of money to be made on a product which the Department of Health and Human Services warns people not to use through the Surgeon General's office.

If the government cared about health more than money, tobacco would not be permitted to be grown in the United States. But the government, instead, is complicit in promoting tobacco because it realizes the fortune it reaps in the product.

So, both Democrats and Republicans in government need to STFU about caring for Americans' health because their hypocrisy is nauseating. 

We are a free people who can still make our own choices about everything, including our health. The government's reponsibility is to advise us on what might be the result of our own action, but cannot force us to do so. 

So until the government,  whether it is Joe Biden, Donald Trump or any other "leader" begins by shutting down the MULI-BILLION DOLLAR tobacco industry, please take a seat and shut up with your "mandates". 

I chose to smoke in 1961 and did so until almost 1996. I am now the recipient of both colon cancer and bladder cancer. It was my choice.  And now, I choose not to take your ineffective vaccine which the science is proving that it isn't for our health. Even NPR has linked tobacco with the covid-19 vaccine. Once again, the government is in bed, reaping the rewards from another industry, this time, Big Pharma. 

Stop the BS and being FUCKED by our government as it lies to us once again.

And this time, no cigarettes after, okay?

New York's Modern-Day Dictators

 

So, is Govenor Hitler going to fire all the men and women who stood by over the last year saving YOUR loved ones while sacrificing their own personal lives for the good of us all? Is that the card she wants to play? All becauae they won't obey her dictatorial order to sacrifixe their CHOICE to do what they feel is right for their bodies?

And then, does Mayor Dedumbo think it is a good idea to fire all the men and women who spent hours teaching YOUR children in the classroom, exposing themselves to a virus with a 0.06% infection and death rate, making certain that YOUR children got a reasonably decent education under extraordinary circumstances? Is that the legacy he wants to be remembered for?

Or the others we called heroes just one year ago, like cops, fire fighters, EMT and others who sacrificed their time and families for us all.

What happened to PERSONAL CHOICE in NYS? Is it only about selected CHOICE?

Apparently, the state and the city had no problem with the celebrities on Sunday disobeying the 'mask mandate' at the Tony awards. And I did not see anyone checking for vaccination cards because I believe the majority in attendance were not.

It amazes me how many people stand by with their heads in the sand, in order not to stand up and fight for our health care professionals' and teachers' rights.

I hope YOU don't ever need a doctor or nurse or cop or any others who did so much for all of us, when we had no idea how the pandemic would turn out.

For those of you who support the unconstitutional removal of your FREEDOM OF CHOICE I say you are all no better than Stalin or Hitler or Mao and those who professed their obedience to them.

Or today, you can join me to stand up for what you know is right to save the people who were there to save us last year.

That is YOUR CHOICE. Unless, of course, you only believe in SELECTED CHOICE. 

Then, your hypocrisy sickens me to no end.

A Non-Union Guy Teaches the Teachers' Union President About What A Union Means

 

I have never worked in a job where I needed a union. But isn't the purpose of a union to stand up for workers whose rights are being violated?

Why is the teachers union in NYC not standing up for its members who are being threatened with job loss for not following the dictates of an incompetent Mayor?

If Mike Mulgrew really had a pair, he would call for a wildcat walkout on Monday, October 4 to stand up for his persecuted members. 

That would be what a real union leader used to do. People like Mike Quill of the TWU, John DeLury of the Uniformed Sanitationman' Union, Albert Shanker, of the UFT and AFT, and Victor Gottbaum of District 37 were REAL LEADERS who stood up for their union members' rights by calling for a strike with no notice to the Mayors of NYC. This included Mayors Wagner, Lindsay, Beame, Koch and Dinkins. 

Remember when the city was paralyzed all the time? Because real union leaders protected the rights of the city workers, causing these Mayors to give into the unions' demands. 

The PBA and UFA found a way to strike by coming down with the "Blue Flu" on more than a few occasions in my life. And those mayors paid for that, too.

Even a 2019 opinion piece in The New York Times contrasted blue flu with a strike, calling it "a quiet form of protest, with no stated principles or claim for public attention or sympathy."

The problem here is that DeBlasio has no real skin in the game since he was term-limited out to run again. But If the teachers went out on strike, Governor Hochul and the entire NYS and NYC Democrat Party could feel the repercussions one month out from the NYC Election races. And into next year.

Hmmmm. Then, DeBlasio's ambitions to run at state levels next year would be thwarted. And probably forever. And Hochul's dream of being elected would be shot, too. And only Letitia James would come out of this with any shot for state-wide office. And she, too, would lose.

THAT would be DeBlasio's Legacy. The destruction of the Democrat Party in NYS. because he thought HE was in charge.

Stand Up For Your Members, Mike. And be the Union leader you were in 2020 when we didn't know about Covid and you protected ALL your members' rights by threatening DeBlasio and Cuomo with a strike.

Show us you are standing up for EVERY teacher, vaccinated or not. Otherwise, you are all about collecting your paycheck and Union stipend. And nothing more.

Except a poor excuse for a union leader.

Frank McHale

A Proud Son of a Great Union Member and Shop Steward

The Failure of the ACLU on the American People

 

Where is the ACLU? Shouldn't that organization be stopping the Marxist and Dictatorial Federal, State and Local governments from usurping Americans' Civil Liberties? Wasn't that its Mission Statement?

 Isn't that the whole point? To defend our rights under the Bill of Rights?

 When a government MANDATES that a citizen MUST COMPLY with its edicts, then we are dealing with a tyrannical government. Soviet and Nazi style governments.

 Or does the ACLU only protect citizens on a random, selective basis? If that is the case, then the ACLU is no better than the cabal of lawyers which defended Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and Mengele for the atrocities they committed against the Jews, Poles, gypsies and homosexuals from 1933 to 1945.

I bring you the most important clause of the Declaration of Independence for your consideration: But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. 

 And anyone who wishes to turn a blind eye to the government's usurpation of these Civil Rights on mandated shots to a still infant non-vaccine, is as guilty. One day, the government WILL usurp your rights on something you just might think is unjust. Then what will you say about what was not done in this time and place in our history? OOPS?

 We are allowing Stalinist and Hitlerian action by our government if we continue compliance to these dictatorial activities.

 And you thought Trump was a bad man? Biden, Hochul, Cuomo, Newsom, DeBlasio, Schumer, Pelosi, AOC, Whitmer and their Democrat Socialists are absolutely EVIL.

 #DoNotComply  #IWillNotComply

The Fall of the American Conscience

 

First, let me offer my condolences to the marines who were murdered yesterday and to the families who have been forced to accept that their husbands, fathers, sons, wives, mothers, daughters will not be coming home anymore to smiles, hugs and kisses. Instead, they will be coming home to people who love them who are filled with untold and immeasurable grief for their loss of a loved one.

I know. War is hell on earth. And that's why it should be avoided. Beginning with this reason. Soldiers die. Families cry.

Having said that, let me make a point here I have done a bit of critical thinking.

In 2001, I supported President Bush in his decision to invade Afghanistan to try and capture Osama bin Laden, a terrorist who master-minded the attacks on our embassies, the USS Cole, the Pentagon, the World Trade Center, and probably with the third plane, the Capital or the White House in DC.

And while I supported our troops who were placed in harms way in Iraq, I was not in favor of putting them there in the first place. What was happening in Afghanistan and why had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein.

Once bin Laden was captured or killed, our presence and why we were there was completed. The Obama/Biden team decided to keep our soldiers there, ostensibly to continue to nation build. I guess these two geniuses, like the two idiots before them, thought that trying to establish Jeffersonian Democracy was a good thing to force on people still living in 600 AD.

When Donald Trump was elected, he promised to finally pull our troops out, which he did incrementally, like Nixon in Vietnam. He also gave them a deadline of May 1, which Joe Biden moved to August 31. It seemed reasonable at the time he did so, because he needed to understand the circumstances and potential outcomes of such a withdrawal on the Afghan government. And all sides agreed to the Trump date which was negotiated and to the Biden date which was accepted.

This included NATO forces, the UK, the Afghan government, the Taliban and the US. To me, reasonableness is always the process to achieve a goal.

Then suddenly, disaster began to unfold earlier this month. At least, that's when we started learning about it. So, decisions had to be made and who was the decision-maker? Donald Trump? No. Obama? No again. Why, it was Joe Biden. The current ‘President' of the United States. This disaster is squarely on him.

But amazingly, Biden, his team, the Never-Trumpers, and the Lame Stream Media think this is Trump's fault. If you accept this, then you are sadly mistaken.

Your boy cannot take credit for things he inherited which were good, and then, blame his predecessor for things which go bad. Especially, when your boy created the disaster.

And as of two o'clock this afternoon, there are still thousands of Americans and Afghans who supported our troops for the last twenty years. As of now, it appears that they will be stranded by your boy. And it seems that the Taliban plans to take swift retribution by slaughtering Americans and Afghans left behind. It is incumbent on your boy to stand up and make sure he gets them out. If he doesn't, the military should go in and get them out today, tomorrow, before there is no chance to do so safely.

And if even one soldier is captured, tortured or killed because you boy took the coward's way out, then he needs to be removed, either by the 25^th Amendment or by impeachment for crimes against America.

If you think ANY of what I stated is wrong, then you are even a bigger dumb@$$ than I thought possibly could exist, to think Biden deserves remain in office after he allowed the enemy to kill our soldiers and probably mutilate them, like Obama allowed to happen to Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team in Benghazi. Over a video that didn't exist...

God Bless America and save our soldiers from what is about to befall them.