An Open Letter to President O Bama

Mr President

I am writing this blog using the freedoms that have been guaranteed to me by the Consitution of the United States. Those freedoms include LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Depending on which agency you contact, you will find that I am, employed, and a homeowner in the city of Springfield Ma.. I have been married only once,and am still married to her after some 18 yrs.

I graduated from high school in 1972, attended Providence College for three years and got my B.A. from Rhode Island College in 1979. I went on to a brief career in the U.S. Army and was discharged under honorable conditions in 1982.

Over the years, I have been successful in a number of areas ranging from a career in the automotive industry, involvement in an auto racing ministry, and a period spent as an internet columnist for several regional and national websites.

Here is the problem Mr. President. I am both a handicapped person and a disabled veteran.
I was born with several defects including a hand/eye coordination issue. If I had been a fetus today, I would have never been born. The same could be said for my wife. In the 50s her mother took a drug. As a result, my wife could never concieve. We are a childless couple in our 50s.

I have accepted my limitations and have always worked around them. Despite my handicap, I was able to complete military training. My VA disablity has less to do with my handicap and more to do with some stupid actions on my part.

The move to nationalize heath care scares me. I may be 20% disabled, but I am still 80% able.
Last week I worked some 80 hours as a pizza delivery person. I spent another 10 hrs maintaining my home and several more assisting my wife. Sleep is an option.

My wife depends on Mass Health for her medical treatment and I use the VA. Each month my wife has to visit her doctor to get her pain killer medication. Every month it is a battle for her to stay functional Under your plan her life would be worthless. She would be classified as a non productive citizen. She would be amoung those forced to consider assisted suicide.

I try to avoid using the Veterans Administration. That currently leaves me with untreated diabetes. I would rather self treat than face the doctors and the wating lines. I use the mental health unit, but only under extreme conditions. My fear is that in time, I too will face the lable of a non productive citizen.

Mr President, You cannot give life nor should you or your government have the power to take it.
That includes forcing abortions on people as well as assisted suicide. I have always believed that we as Americans value life. Our elderly, our veterans and our unborn all deserve a chance.

Thanks

John Kokolski
an American citizen

Cash for Clunkers? I want to trade in John Kerry!

Disclaimer!!!

I currently am driving my wife's 98 Kia Sephia, which does not qualify as a Clunker. By choice, I have been driving 4 cyl fuel saving vehicles for most of my 35 yr plus driving career. I am also an admitted car nut. My favorite vehcles of all time include the Ford Capris of the early 70s and the Hemi powered Mopars of the mid 60s.

Could you please tell me where I can trade in Senator John Kerry for the Clunker credit? If the price is right, I will add in Senator Ted Kennedy and the House delegation from the state of Massachusetts. If the purpose of the legislation is to improve fuel economy and reduce carbon emmisions, I cannot think of a better way than to trade in our elected representatives for newer lighter and more efficient models.

In the long run the C for C law is the biggest bomb to hit Detriot since the Edsel and here is why.

Yes there are a number of cars on the road that could/should be scrapped. Most of these are driven by low income people. This law only permits credit towards the purchase of new vehicles. That alone puts it our of reach to those who need it. It requires that all vehicles must be scrapped after the engine has been disabled. This reduces the supply of used vehicles and thus the prices on them will rise, furthur hurting the poor. The requirement that the vehicles be scrapped has a double whammy. Prices for scrap have already fallen, this supply will push them down further still. Meanwhile, the poor get wacked again as prices for used parts will increase.

Detroit, Japan and other car countries share a common problem. There is only so much demand for new vehicles. The manufacturers have been building too many cars for too long and have resorted to discount pricing. All this does is move demand forward. The C for C law does more of the same. What will happen when the law finally ends? Demand will fall back to previous levels. What Detriot and the other car builders will have to do is to continue to reduce their production until the supply is equal to the demand. That is pretty simple. I leaned that in Econ 101. Oh, I forgot, Barney is capable of running a bank but never studied Economics.

Hey! for the right offer, I will toss in Chris Dodd and Deval Patrick

The "N" Word

Hello folks



I grew up in the 60's and 70' on the edge of what used to be know as a slum. The polite term then was "The Inner City". My neighborhood was made up of working folks of all races creeds and colors. We had our gays, our loose women and our welfare families.



My fmaily had moved into the area in 1960 when I was 6 years old. My dad had had a business in the area before that. While not in the upper crust of the community, we had "respect". Respect in those days was earned. It was how you treated people that counted. As early as I can remember, the one word that was off limits, was the N word.



I make no claims to perfection. There is only one person who was ever that way and he died on the cross. Still, I did try to do what my parents wished. I chose my friends carefully. It wa a pretty mixed gang, most of us were in Boy Scouts together and had other interests we shared.

Hanging together were some catholics, some protestants and even a lutheran family. My neighbor from across the street was darker than most of us. His family came from The Azores and was of Portugese decent. I met my first black family when i was eight years old. they were just like us, working folks. they went to church and like most others , we never treated them with anything other than respect. I might have used the N word once and got a beating for it.

My father then explained to me the evils of racism and how using that word would cause my family to loose the respect that he had worked so hard to earn.

From that background, I come into today. I am a middle aged white male. As part of my job, I spend a good bit of time in the inner city. Having been in this area and in this field for several years, I know that I have many customers who watch for me. I have earned the respect of people I work for and with.

What I do not understand is how certain groups of people use that word without a thought. I hear young people of many races refer to each other using the word, the word that would hav earned me scorn by my peers and a beating by my parents. I wonder if they realize the meaning of the word. I wonder if they realize that by using that word they are beating themselves up in a society that seems to have little use for them to begin with. I wonder where the pride is, where the self respect is? I for one do not see it. Until you respect yourself, no one else will respect you.

At the same time I wonder, why does so much of today's popular music glorify the inner city lifestyle? When growing up, tyhe inner city was a place to grow up and leave. Leave I did, for another city. My home today is still in a working class area. My neighbors today are a diverse lot. Will I choose to leave the area? I think not. We are safe and happy here. We have respect. In the end, that is what matters today.

NASCAR and More

As I predicted in my writing on another site, GM has announced cutbacks in their NASCAR activites. It has already been anounced that some truck and Nationwide series teams have lost support. Cuts in the Cup series have not been announced as of yet. This follows moves by both Ford and Dodge to cut costs. These moves have resulted in layoffs throughout the sport.

At Michigan, it was Mark Martin taking his third win of the season in race taht was decided by fuel strategy. A crowd of only 80,000 watched Mark win another one for the over 50 crowd.

While the current crop of car suppliers are suffering, Brian France is opening the door to more imported competition. This was announced following this weekend's race.

It has also been announced that NASCAR is going green. Following each race, trees will be planted to provide a carbon offset.

What does Brian France have in common with the captain of the Titanic? Both went down with their ships. The double file restarts are a plus, but if things do not start changing, look for NASCAR to get in line for a bail out.

If you want see some real neat vintage racing photos, check out the latest edition of "Muscle Machines" published by Hemmings. The spotlight is on Darlington in the 50s. Among the cars are a 51 Kaiser Manhattan and a 59 Buick Invicta. Drivers include a young Richard Petty, Fireball Roberts and other greats of the early years. Both "Muscle Machines" and "Classic Car" are good reads if you like cars the way I do.

The Chrysler -Fiat marriage is a done deal. We will now be blessed with ugly little cars that start rusting before they leave the lot. I have always been a fan of the US car companies, but scratch Chrysler and GM from the competition for the vacant spot in my driveway.

"Trains" magazine had an interesting article this month on trasnpotation comparing how various modes stack up for costs and efficiency. It costs less to build a mile of track than a mile of expressway. Lots of other intersting stuff there also. It vacks up my belief that we need a balanced transportation system in this country.

The Obama administration shudders every time unemployment figures are announced. They can be held directly responsible for another jump with almost 800 Chrysler dealers closing this month and thousands of GM dealers getting ready to follow. While BO has said that he does not want to run a car company, it looks like many of the closings have been dicatated by politics as opposed to economics.

I have not had as much time to blog or to participate in my favorite chat rooms, but that is a good thing. My personal economy has improved since I returned to work for Tony Patalano's
stores. I am now pushing around 60 hrs a week. That can easily grow, depending on sales.
We are negotiating with the bank and hoping to avoid foreclosure.

That it for this trip. John

Ranting at Random

Hello all

Welcome to any new readers. This blog now is being posted in the Soundoff Ct. chatroom, the Western Ma 912 discussion board and on my Facebook Page.

I would like Tony Patalano of Patalano Pizza for rehiring me. Tony has two Domino's stores in Chicopee and Springfield Ma. I worked a full week for the first time in about five months and it feels good.

Looks like the house is safe for now. I have spoken to our lender and we are now eligible for a loan modification. Looks like I will now have to mow the grass since it is now taller than a poodle.

A interesting development. Some old friends from Woonsocket High School have been finding me on Facebook. I wonder what they are thinking when they see the rest of my page?

I am a proud member of two conservative groups. The Western Mass 912 group and the Sound Off Ct chat room. The 912 group operates on priciples esposed by national talk show host Glenn Beck, while the Sound Off group supports Jim Vicevich who is a talk show host on WTIC in Hartford. The reason I support both of these organizations is simple. I live in Mass and work both in Mass and Ct.. I have also found the chatroom that supports Jim to be a really great bunch of people. They proved to be very supportive during my recent difficulties.

What bothers me is the inability of these two groups to get together. Despite the fact that they are built around many of the same priciples, they let geography and the fact that they support different radio shows keep them apart. I am trying to act as a link between the groups because I feel that if we really want to have an impact, we need to show larger numbers. We cannot do that if we are splintered into many small groups. Western Mass and Ct. have many of the same problems. We face high taxes and representatives who do not speak for the people but are bought and paid for by special interests.

I have read a copy of the NASCAR Substance Abuse Policy that was recently made public.
If you are intersted in the sport, you will find it of interest. Now what I would like to see is a list of banned substances and a quick end to the Mayfield case. I am sick of this sideshow. We should be reading about racing, not court cases. Jimmy Johnson won this week's race at Dover Downs. I missed the end of the race but what I did hear was a good one.

General Motors is now officially bankrupt. Another 30 Billion of our tax dollars will be invested in this company. If GM was going to go bust, it should have happened a year ago without taxpayer dollars. As a result of this bankruptcy, more plants are going to be closed as are more car dealers. Where will the administration find jobs for all of these displaced workers?
Another result is less choice for the car driving public. Both Pontiac and Saturn are being dropped and the Hummer brand will be sold. As part of the deal to sell GM of Europe, there was an agreement that the new company could not sell cars here.

While the Federal government prints and spends money, the states are in trouble. California is already bankrupt and voters there recently failed to approve new taxes. Mass and Ct. are not far behind however we cannot follow the lead of Ca voters. In Mass., our leaders recently approved a 25% increase in the state sales tax. A small band of us recently staged a protest at the state office building in Springfield. Why would our state reps listen to 25 protesters in Springfield when they are getting lobbied constantly by people who get paid to do just that?
Meanwhile, our brothers and sisters who own firms in Ct. are beins slapped with another penalty. Thye are being told that they have to provide paid sick time if they have 50 or more workers. This is just another form of taxation. More buisness will either leave or not grow in the Nutmeg state.

Till next week, Live long and pay cash. John

The Spirit of America

One of my liberal friends an I have been having a debate recently on my facebook page.
Years ago, she was my manager in a store that no longer exists. We both went on to other things. For some strange reason Facebook has brought many of us together. It was only a short time, micro seconds in a galactic clock. We worked together as a team. Our goal, a simple one, make money for our store owner and as a result achieve our own success. We have all gone our separate ways. Only a few are still working for Dominos. The companies for which we once worked, no longer exist. yet it gives me reason to think. What is the Spirit of America? Who is the Spirit and does it even still exist. I believe it does and here is why.

Citizens of the United States of America! Now doesn't that have a ring to it. I first saw you in my back yard when i was three years old. You were driving a massive black steam locomotive on the New Haven line between Providence and Worcester. You never saw me, but i was there.

I saw you sitting scared in my father's barbershop. Your house across the street was on fire.
You helped my mom serve coffee to the firefighters.

You drove the massive front end loader in the blizzard of 1978. You came through from Buffalo N.Y. and helped a snowbound city recover.

You caught me as I fell of the top of a forty foot tower in basic training. You risked your life to save mine.

I was a stranger in a southern city. You paid for my hotel room while we waited for my car to be towed from the interstate. I still have the Bible you gave me. It has traveled many miles and many years.

You working in the infield of a track which no longer exists. Your daughter sold me coffee at a nearby diner in the state of William Penn.

Another track and another time. You befriended a lonely young drunken racefan. Later we would serve the Lord together. You have gone to him and I remain.

You and I have never met. You made the steel for my cars, the flour for my pizza dough.

On a sunny spring day in a far away land, you saw a scared and broken man. You gave him hope.

Yes America, your Spirit is alive and well. I see you each and every day. I hear you on my radio. I chat with you on this thing we call the internet. I work with you in a pizza shop.
You pulled me over and did not have my car towed.

I know you. You are white and black, gay and straight. Your families, like mine came from all over the world in search of freedom and a chance to have a better life.

Yes America, your Spirit is alive and well. We have some tests ahead, but we will pass them together. We will pull together like we have so many times like we have since our country was born. We will succeed, we will win and we will prosper. No one man or group of men can defeat us.

We are the Spirit of America.

Will the real NASCAR please sign in?

Hello everyone

After a bit of work, this blog should now be read by a number of my very best friends. I do not plan on posting every day, but when there is something that I absolutely need to say, I will.
I promise that it will my opinion, pure and simple. No editor to muck it up either.

I have been a fan of NASCAR since the 1960s. I lived for the days when I could sit and watch Chris Economaki on Wide World of Sports. There was something that drew me to racing. Stock cars were the cars I saw every day on the streets in my hometown. I never could play sports very well due to a handicap. I remember asking my dad if I would be able to drive a race car.
He never said no.

From 1971, the year he died, until Janet and I met in the early 90s, most spring summer and fall weekends you would find me at a track. Sometimes you might find me in the pit area, if I knew someone or if I was helping Rev Pat Evans. Otherwise I would be parked in a grandstand seat.
The only break came during my time in the military, even then, if there was racing, I would find it.

The sport in general and NASCAR in particular has changed a lot in nearly 40 years. Not complaining, just stating a fact. When I came into the sport, the WWII generation was still firmly in control. You could still build an entry level car with a couple of trips to the junkyard, some rollcage tubing, a torch and hand tools. I know this because my best friend and I once built a car with the help of my next door neighbor who just so happened to be a darn good mechanic.

If you were racing in New England, you either ran NASCAR or an outlaw track. NASCAR controlled the two top series here, the NASCAR modifeds and the North Late Models. You coudl draw a line. If you were in Mass, R.I. or Ct. you were in modified country. The northern states were ruled by the late models. The two top events on the calender were the Thompson 300 for the modifeds at Thompson Ct. and the Oxford 250 for the Late models at Oxford Plains in Maine.

In 1971, I got my first taste of pit side action at Seekonk Speedway in Mass.. A social worker went out of his way to help our family. His cousin was racing a street stock there and invited me to come along. For many years I would call Seekonk, my home track. Later we would build a street stock to race there, we even had a car number and a sponsor. The car would never see the track.

Seekonk, like many New England tracks was a product of the WWII era. A first generation Italian American, Anthony Vendetti built a 1/4 mile oval on the family chicken farm on Rt 6 in Seekonk. He did so with lots of concrete and his own two hands. If you raced there, if you even attended races there, you were part of his family. In later years I had several conversations with him that I remember fondly to this day. The track continues under family ownership to this day. In fact, my nephew has raced there in recent years. With the help of his father and his sister's husband, Eric Boyko has followed his uncle's dream.

It is said that when a tree dies, the roots are the first thing to go. So it is with NASCAR. Where they once dominated the New England countryside, today their presence is limited to the two Ct ovals and NHIS. The weekly racing that they once ruled has become splintered. Many tracks have shut their gates. Those that remain, survive on a diet of limited late models and modifieds, hobby stocks, and other entry level divisions. The Late Model tour is now called the Camping World East and runs a limited number of races as a developmental tour. The Whelen Modifieds alos run a limited tour, focused on the two Ct ovals. There are a number of other tours in the region run by numerous groups. They range from the PASS and ACT Late Model tours to the 4 cyl mini mods and midgets. While the Thompson 300 remains in name, the Oxford 250 has become a part of the ACT . I have no bone to pick with any of these people. I have known many to be fine people who are devoted to their sport. It is just not NASCAR.

Now it seems that the illness has reached the upper levels of the sport. The first two generations of the France family were men of vision. Bill Sr took a bunch of bootleggers and made them respectable. Bill Jr,made them professionals and made the sport into something that attracted a wide range of interest. At one point I saw it becoming the fourth major sport in this country. I can see that I was wrong.

The current leadership has made mistakes that may not be easily repaired. Brian and his sister would rather manage their other interests than concentrate on the sport. For many years, NASCAR was seen as being free of drug abuse. The worst that could be said is that they were a bunch of hell raising good old boys. Not so today. Within the last two months, a former Nationwide series driver has been found dead in a motel room and a Cup series owner/driver has been placed on indefinite suspension for testing positive for an unnamed substance. The driver has been in discussion with NASCAR and is now taking them to court. This has rocked the motorsports world. To it's credit, NASCAR has taken the drug issue seriously. Following the rain out of the World 600, it was reported that ten people were randomly tested. While I am glad to see action, I really did not want to read this.

The sport faces many other problems. Last year's race at Indy turned into a tire failure nightmare. As you read this, eight teams are meeting to test tires. One of the biggest , most hyped changes in the sport, the COT is not helping the sport. A ban on testing has hurt teams who are trying to make it into a car which allows the good quality of racing that the series has been known for. Every week I see figures on tv ratings and attendence. It is down across the board. Not a good sign when teams are struggling to find sponsor dollars.

The final nail in NASCAR's coffin may come from the United States government. At this writing,
there are four auto companies involved in the sport. One, Chrysler is already in bankruptcy after accepting billions in aid. General Motors is following closely behind. Of the domestics, only Ford remains in private control, while Toyota, the lone import bleeds it's own red ink.
I cannot see either GM or Chrysler remaining in the sport once government takes control.
Our president is no fan of motorsports. We are not green enough for him. At a time when he is increasing mileage standards, I see little interest from this administration in helping the sport.
Cutting this funding will leave a major hole in the sport at all three of the major levels. Where will the teams find funds to compete? Will we lose at least one of the tours? Will we begin to lose tracks? Will our sport, a sport that many of us have come to know and love, fade into the carbon crazed sunset? I hope not, 40 years is a long time to waste.

Will the real NASCAR please sign in?