LFS: The Storyteller

©2015 by LeeZard  I am sad. I am angry. I am frustrated and shaking my head in disbelief. As the recent Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shootings – which took place just a few short miles from my front door – still shudder through the country I can’t help but ask, What the Fuck is Going On??!!?? If we can forget for a moment the plague of international terrorism, let’s focus on what is happening right here in the world’s most violent nation – domestic terrorism, an increasing racial divide, fear and hate at every turn. Let me repeat, I am sad. I am angry. I am frustrated and shaking my head in disbelief. Moreover, I feel powerless to do anything about it but grieve for my country. We already know that America has more guns per capita than any other nation on the planet, almost 89 per 100 people with Yemen number two at just under 60 per 100 people. Saudi Arabia is the first Arab country on the list, checking in at number seven with about 35 guns per 100 people. [1] ...

©2015 by LeeZard This is a rant, a well-deserved rant. My younger readers – both of them – may think this piece doesn’t apply. Take it as a cautionary tale, however; sooner or later our screwed up health care system will jump up and bite you in the ass. As for my fellow Medicare inmates, read it and weep. It started simply enough on the early September day when I went to pick up a couple of prescription renewals. For years I’d enjoyed my Medicare Complete Plan through AARP and United Health Care (UHC) with great benefits and a more than reasonable premium. For a brief 18-month period, I utilized my employee benefits through Starbucks and Premera Blue Cross. That ended when I left the company in July 2015. I simply assumed my UHC plan would revert and become my primary carrier. Assumptions – always dangerous. On that day, I went to co-pay for my prescriptions and I received a whopping bill for more than $300.00! “Your insurance lapsed on August 31 st ,” the pharmacist inf...

--> ©2015 by LeeZard On The Hill, St. Louis, MO, August 2013. She is sitting and reading a book. I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t an attractive young woman in shorts and a college sweatshirt lounging on Yogi Berra’s front porch. I glance down and the bronze plaque embedded in the sidewalk tells me I’m at the correct address. “Excuse me,” I call, “I’m sure you hear this a million times but I’m still another tourist and Yogi Berra fan. Can I take a picture?” As a youth, Yogi Berra lived here for 18-years She smiles brightly, “Sure, go ahead.” I snap away but I’m not  done yet. I take a few steps up the short walk, “Listen, I’m sorry to bother you but I’m driving cross country and writing a book on my travels. Can I interview you?” She marks her place in the book and throws me another killer bright smile, even friendlier than the first, “Sure but I only have a few minutes.” I cannot believe my luck. She introduces herself as Courtney Brown an...

©201 6 by LeeZard   Donald Trump scares the hell out of me and I'm not just talking about his hair. When “The Donald” first announced his presidential aspirations I, like a lot of people, laughed him off as a joke, a sideshow. Well, the circus has come to town and The Donald is its ringmaster.  His rise and staying power in the Republican Party’s polls is simply beyond my imagination and, yet, the more I look at America today, the more I understand why his campaign is not merely a flash-in-the-pan. Let’s count the ways in which he scares me more and more every day. It’s not just about his billions. Not everyone can “buy” an election. As a journalist, I’ve covered countless campaigns and, as a communications professional, I’ve managed media for countless others. The winner is not always the candidate with the most money. It is more often the candidate who taps into the major blood vessels of the body politic. Sadly it is often the candidate who taps into t...

--> ©2015 by LeeZard I’m glad I live in America; it could be a helluva lot worse. I could be living in Haiti, Nepal, an African nation ravaged by Aids and/or Ebola or even Russia. But I don’t. The fact is, though, I don’t think America is the best country in the world anymore, far from it. Yeah, this is the part that will piss people off. So it goes. Blind patriotism, like anything in the extreme, is dangerous. There’s a reason the word ‘blind’ is there; it means you don’t see anything beyond your nationalism. It means you don’t see the racism, the violence, the poverty or the perpetually hungry. It means you think we don’t live in a dictatorship when, in fact, ours is a dictatorship of the wealthy. OMG, he’s talking like a fucking Communist! Really? Let’s compare. ECONOMY   We are no longer the economic engine that drives the world. According to Bloomberg Business:  “Emerging markets in Asia and Africa reign supreme: They're at the top of globa...