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Save Our Veterans
By Michael Boyajian
60 Minutes reported tonight that thousands upon thousands of veterans from our most recent wars are homeless. This is a vast sea of humanity, a sea of heroes who put their lives on the line defending their country a country where they now find themselves without a roof over their heads.
I suppose part of my posting obits at the passing of the great soul heroes is to get Daylife to once again revert to the days when they said my writing was 90% "National" and 10% "Entertainment," instead of being 100% about politics.
Anyway, I would be the last to put General Johnson in the same category as the unforgettable Solomon Burke. But how many guys founded groups with cult status for both aficionados of Detroit Soul and N'awlins?
I first learnt about the General because of my Allen Toussaint obsession, though I'd surely heard the Showmen's "It Will Stand" on CBS-FM. A Toussaint production notable both for Johnson's soulful lead and the fact that it was Johnson who wrote it, and not Toussaint, it became a Rock and roll anthem (Doo Wop branch). Johnson also wrote one of my least favorite songs by one of the great unsung soul singers, Clarence Carter's "Patches."
But "Patches" was recorded not only by Carter, but a group tailored for Johnson by the Holland-Dozier-Holland production team, once they started their own Hot Wax and Invictus labels. Johnson not only piloted the Chairmen of the Board, hitting big with "Give Me Just a Little More Time," but also wrote hits for the rest of the H-D-H stable, including Freda Payne (the anti-war “Bring the Boys Back Home”) and The Honeycone–the indescribably great "Want Ads', the best Martha and the Vandella's song never recorded by Martha and the Vs–in fact, the best Martha and the Vandellas song PERIOD! [He later produced Martha herself (she’s now a Detroit Councilwoman for those who insist on the political link)]
In their dying days, the Chairmen also recorded the wonderful album, "The Skin I'm In" (the best P-Funk album George Clinton ever had nothing to do with, though his musicians, especially Eddie Hazel and Bernie Worrell, are all over it as session men).
After the bubble burst, Johnson eventually moved down to the Carolinas, where he became the leading exponent of the soul genre known as "Beach Music." (Like "Northern Soul, an utterly unexplainable genre– although it' other leading exponents seem to include the Platters and Bo Diddley).
Johnson is a leading member of the Academy of the Underrated; General, we salute you. Chairmen of the Board – You got me Dangling on a String www.youtube.com
In general, research and news articles on public employee pensions have focused on state systems. Why? Because there are only 50 of them. But the separate NYC pension system is larger than that of most states, and more troubled than all but a few of them, even though NYC taxpayers have contributed more to those pension funds that those living just about anywhere else. Because the state legislature has granted richer and richer pensions to NYC public employees, the richest of whom live outside the city. It seems that some researchers, having finished with the states, have moved onto the cities, and one finds that NYC's pension funds will run out of money in 2021.
But that's not a problem for anyone that matters. The rich will continue to get around in black cars and send their kids to private schools, donating to their own "public" parks if they want them. The public employees will live in the suburbs, before taking their tax-free pensions to Florida, drive everywhere and park for free with their placards. The pensions are guaranteed by the New York State Constitution, and the senior citizens in the New York State Legislature and Congress will make sure today's senior citizens make absolutely no sacrifices. Only the serfs and younger generations will lose, as public services and benefits face an institutional collapse.
In the particular comment linked here, a poster name Winston takes me to task for what he perceives to be my preference for Republican Comptroller candidate Harry Wilson.
I have not endorsed Harry Wilson and may not do so, though I will admit I have been considering it. The article to which the comment is appended is, I think, the third mention I've made of Wilson, and my least positive so far. I think Wilson’s failure to endorse a change in the "sole trustee" status of the Comptroller casts doubt on his credentials as a potential reformer.
But the commentator did hit one nail upon the head; part of my reason for being reluctant to endorse a Republican is my record of outspoken opposition to Democratic Party officials doing so.
But, I am not a Democratic Party official (not even a County Committee member), I’m a blogger. And unlike Democratic Party officials, I have no fiduciary obligation to the Democratic Party.
Read Caputo's Statement: lots of outrage, but no denial. More Paladino emails emerge – Maggie Haberman www.politico.com
Yes, Carl Paladino makes for exciting copy.
Yes, he makes a boring contest interesting, but at the end of the day New York is looking at lay-offs and other serious consequences of the times we live in.
Entertainment can be a good thing, but who gets the last laugh here? You can call Paladino everything but a child of God, but (in less than a month now) Paladino returns to his million dollar Buffalo development company, and New York State is left holding the bag. 
Thomas DiNapoli, having been appointed State Comptroller by Speaker Sheldon Silver and the rest of the State Assembly in the wake of the now-convicted Alan Hevesi’s resignation, is running for election against a Republican opponent, Harry Wilson. My general voting rule is to vote against all Republicans at the federal level, on generational equity grounds. To vote against all Democrats at the local level, because they always support the interests of producers of public services (who in NYC often live elsewhere but contribute to campaigns here) against the interests of those who use those services, whether that is fair or not. And to vote against all incumbents of either party at the state level in New York, where politicians of both parties are guilty of both offenses.
Thus far the campaign for State Comptroller has revolved around one issue, albeit an important one, the proper assumed future rate of return for assets of the New York State pension system. This ignores, among other things, the New York City pension system (some times it seems like DiNapoli and Wilson are running for Comptroller of a state that New York City is not part of), the fair level of pension benefits, all those pension enhancements, the level of past employee and taxpayer contributions and the fair level of both, and the debt and capital investment issues I covered in the previous two posts. For these ignored reasons, as illuminated by the information presented in those posts (which you should read), I will not be voting in favor of DiNapoli remaining State Comptroller.
Last night I engaged in the masochistic act of attending City Hall News' party celebrating 40 overachiever's under 40 years of age. Someday soon I hope they get around to honoring 50 underachiever's over the age of 50, so I too can get my props.
At the party, I got into an animated discussion about the Comptroller's race with City Hall's Edward Isaac Dovere and Larry Park of the Trial Lawyers, and asked "OK, if you were investing your own retirement funds, who would you hire to chose your investments, DiNapoli or Wilson?"
Park, whose group is essentially a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Assembly Democrats (or maybe it‘s the other way around) responded sharply in defense of his candidate (perhaps Shelly does not wholly own Tom, but he surely has is the majority shareholder).
Although I’ve surely done it, I have always been quite reluctant to criticize the hierarchy of a religion other than my own for its internal conduct. Rock actually took me to task for such reluctance at the Room 8 dinner this year.
But I’m a blogger. Commenting upon things which are none of my business is part and parcel of my calling. The calling of a politician is to remain silent even when an answer is called for. Yet, in Carl Paladino we have a politician speaking up even when discretion would be the better part of valor.
In my previous post, I showed how the future of New York City, the rest of New York State and New Jersey have been diminished by retroactive pension enhancements for active and retired public employees, and past pension underfunding. That post contains two spreadsheets with a series of charts and a table that I will continue to refer to here.
This post will talk about the weight on two sides of a seesaw, the negative weight of state and local government debts, and the positive weight of past state and local government capital construction expenditures, investment in public buildings and infrastructure. Older and former residents of a community are on one side of the see-saw, and younger and future residents are on the other. If the older residents bore the weight of more capital investment, while leaving behind less debt to weigh future residents down, the quality of life of those future residents will be lifted up. That essentially describes the condition many in older generations were born into. If, on the other hand, older and former residents contribute less in capital investment, while shifting more debt onto those who follow, the quality of life of younger and future residents of that community will be diminished as their taxes rise. So how have New York City, the Rest of New York State, and New Jersey fared by these measures compared with other states and the U.S. average? Lets look at the charts and table and find out.