12/16/12

Sorry, but it hurts too much to just sit.

A friend of mine is an avid reader concerning religion and how it appeared deep in the history of the human race. From time to time he discovers some event or factoid that lends question to what he recalls learning when studying his own family’s faith as a child. Not willing to sit on these inconsistencies, he generally confronts his rabbi with questions at the earliest opportunity hoping to see some resolution to his frustration over this. He cannot help himself, and I’m certain his rabbi is amused and enthralled with his interest. 

Some several years ago, I happened to mention that moment back at the beginning of time when Cain slew Able by smacking him with a rock. Shows my ignorance. My friend hastily corrected me. Turns out, according to his reading, that Cain actually used a weapon known as a smiter (spelling unknown, at least to me). Now, you might wonder if anyone gives a care whether Cain used one or the other of these, and you would be right. 

The story of Cain and Able appears in several versions of the early writings penned by at least two major religions, as an object lesson presumably, to highlight one of the essential characteristics of the human. Many have used this as the second but most telling lesson we should learn about the human condition. 

You remember Adam and Eve. They were the first two humans on earth, placed in Eden by God in his image. Cain and Able were their two sons. Adam and Eve were driven from Eden and into the nasty real world when they disobeyed God over some silly apple. Life for these two went downhill after that. That disobeying God thing would have been lesson number one, and it does show something of the human condition. 

The murder of one son by the other gives some clue into the anger and inclination to murder that, along with all we do well, has to be included in mankind’s makeup, in the bad category. This is the second lesson. 

Others followed.

As an aside…when Adam tossed Cain out into the cold in his anger over the murder, Cain went to live with the bunch of other humans over there. You know, that bunch of humans those old stories never seem to account for. I figure those are the humans that descended from apes.  And yeah, they have the evil in some of them too. Which settles the old argument between the creationists and the Darwin folks. They are both right. So they can stop fighting among themselves.

Now, you all know that this is about the unfathomable tragedy last week. And probably you are wondering how I can make light of this. Am I that delusional? Do I not care? Should I in turn be taken out and shot?

For the record, I am sick, scared, enraged, confused, frustrated. Kinda like everybody else. That slaughter of tiny innocent children by one evil man has affected me more than any other malevolent act that I can remember. I didn’t live through most of the genocides afflicted by men upon humanity, but I know of them. I’ve seen many horrid things over the course of a lifetime. But right now I’m sitting here and I’m shaking and shaken. To the core. And like everybody else, I’m seeking some answers that might make it all better in my head and my heart. And I’m not finding all better. 

I am not making light of this. I merely hide in the writing.

I am trying to put some pieces together in my own head even if they don’t quite add up yet. I have reached some uncomforting conclusions. 

I am not going to get all better. This tragedy will stay with me forever, and only time will allow me to put it somewhere so that it doesn’t dwell always in the front of my brain. 

I am watching the people who we chose to be the leaders of this country, for better or worse, fall all over each other trying to appear most concerned while they plot to use this to further their own power. Spare me this, please.  Let the dead be put to rest at least before you start running for re-election. Don’t milk the anguish of so many for political gain, for in a piece written to talk of the faults of humanity, guess where you are placing yourself.  

I don’t wish to discuss the weapons used by a madman, for I see no reason to think I’d feel any better if he had used some other. When Cain murdered Able, the ground was littered with rocks and sharpened sticks, and boundless other methods of killing. His choice of a smiter over a rock could not be more irrelevant to the discussion. The action was the evil, not the tool.

I would like to know why this man did this thing. Everyone does. Somehow, if we knew why it could help. Perhaps such knowledge would prevent this horror from happening again. But of course it would not. This is wishful thinking only. Every evil murderer had a reason, and each reason was different.

I’d like to think that someone out there could act to prevent this from happening again. Perhaps we could outlaw something. That might work. Problem is… except for that notion in the ten commandments that thou should not commit murder, a rule that no one has ever violated, most rules we make to keep us safe are flaunted by the evil. Yeah, I know….

I considered asking the government to put uniformed armed guards in every school, on every street corner, walking behind every person to protect us. Somewhere safety lies, if we just put the government in charge of everything. We can trust the government to protect us if we just turn all of our freedom and convenience over to them.

Nah, I think I’ll steer away from this notion. It’s that who-knows-what-evil-lurks-in-the-hearts-of-men, thing. Evil too often lurks in the hearts of government.

I believe we have created a population of evil that has learned that the way to worldwide notoriety is to copy the mass murderer. Surely a way to report such news can be found which evil people won’t use to celebrate and magnify their acts. Right now the network news agencies are encouraging and milking the evil for profit.

I believe that the lesson found in the early writings, that Cain had anger and the willingness to murder, is still relevant. The human has not changed. All humans have anger, and some are capable of murder, and some thrive in this. This is a horror, but it is inescapable.

We all seek comfort and a solution so that children will never again be murdered by a madman. I’ll offer comfort, but I offer no solution. No one has changed the human since Cain. 

Too many who claim to offer solace and sure solution will be the next to deliver evil. Evil is opportunistic. So watch closely the most eager, which right now are the people hurrying before the cameras. History does not lie. 

Don’t know who said this but I’ll end with:

“You cannot hide from evil people. You can only confront them when they appear and strike them down before they do harm to others.”

We all must do our very best at this, for we are what stands in the way of evil.

Nov 18, 2012

Too early for New Years predictions, but to late to ignore.

“Tax the rich, feed the poor

Til there are no rich no more?” 

--- Ten Years After

I’m doing song lyrics again. Old songs. Songs from my impressionable youth. Songs from when we knew we could change the world and make it a better place for everyone. 

I’m old, and one of the symptoms of this disease is the cold realization that the world is not going to be a better place for everyone. The other is the obsession with listening to the music that once floated my heart. It’s kinda like remembering hip hugger bell bottom jeans, except that particular vision floated something else, way back then. I just like the old music, for it brings back feelings of that time of false hope.

I heard this song on the satellite radio while driving to the clinic yesterday. It tasted rather bitter, particularly in light of who some folks just re-elected to run the country for the next four years. So I looked up the lyrics on line, and the site I found suggested the question mark located at the end of that lyric. I wondered if the band had a question mark located there way back when. 

Was this a question about the wisdom of taxing the rich into oblivion? I couldn’t tell from the radio if that’s what the band intended, or if they were actually making a different statement that didn’t include a question mark and didn’t bode well for the rich. Many of us back then had little sympathy for the rich, and these days it is up for discussion yet again. Certainly it doesn’t seem as if the President and his impassioned boosters in The Media have any sympathy for the rich. More on that later if I can keep that thought in this old mind for that long.

“Maybe I’ll be there to shake your hand

Maybe I’ll be there to share the land

That they’ll be giving away

When we all live together.”

---The Guess Who

No question mark this time, from a song about the same age old. Clearly these lyrics suggested the upcoming better world that would be characterized by some mass redistribution of the available land. The Sixties version of 40 acres and a mule. Everybody would have a place to raise a family, with home grown veges and home grown dope, and happiness would swell the hearts of all. And when the next generation came along, they’d be giving them land too, and the next and the next. Until….

Wait a minute…

What were they gonna do when they ran out of land? Land is a finite quantity, and as any real estate speculator knows, they’re not making any more. So if they’ll be giving it away in any sustainable way, they will have to take some land from that guy over there and give it to this one over here. So I guess that guy over there must be rich. That’s how this works, right?

And who are these “they” folks who will be giving away the land? I suppose it could be the rich who have all the land so the others don’t. They might give it away. You know, like all those movie stars who have all those millions who think more people need government handouts, so those rich movie stars all give up all their own money first to set the example. Yeah, like that. 

So instead I guess” they” will be taking the land away from the folks “they” gave it to a few paragraphs back, to give it to somebody else. That will make those folks who had 40 acres and a mule real happy as they raise their families and grow their dope on somewhat less land, but at least these citizens will have the satisfaction of watching their land that they’ve worked for those generations  going to some folks who didn’t.

So if it won’t be the rich giving away their land, who is “they”? Raise your hands if you think it will be some government. Very good, children. And who can tell me how the government will do this without really annoying the folks with the 40 acres? Right!!! They don’t have to make those people happy, because the government can do whatever it wants. Thank goodness we have a government to make the other people happy.

Now, this next bit is a little long, but it leads to a point, so pour another cup of coffee and let’s go for a ride.

My friend and I were unrepentant liberals 40 years ago. Those were fun times but with the passage of years we drifted onto different paths. I became a small business owner and had to deal with employees, stupid silly government rules, and taxes. He became a mover and shaker in the union and he had to deal with bosses, stupid silly rules, and the shift to a world where unions became the problem, rather than an answer to the problem. We had the occasional difference of opinion, but remained friends, albeit polite friends who didn’t discuss certain things.

We met up again recently, and he told this story:

Last year he visited India, and passed through Singapore coming and going. I listened intently, for even though Singapore is a city and I don’t do cities, this story was interesting. 

Singapore is not suffering a recession right now. Business is good and the people are making money and the government isn’t yet running out of money, so that place is an anomaly right now.

The city is clean, the buildings new, and order is everything. Singapore is doing so well that people wander in from Malaysia looking for the good paying jobs. And many are thus employed. 

The Malaysians who do not find work are eventually rounded up, sent to camps for food, shower, clothing, and then shipped back to Malaysia at state expense. And they are given enough money to keep them on Malaysian terms for 6 months. What a benevolent government! And no pesky Malaysians are wandering the streets doing the pesky things folks do when they cannot find work.

My friend says there are no homeless people camped under bridges in Singapore, for the government rounds this lot up too and funds housingfoodclothingetc  for them. Apparently, the old folks don’t want to be rounded up, for they have pride, so the government cons them, telling them it built that housing especially for them, and that makes it OK. Pride, it would appear, limits the number of folks living off the government to a reasonable level, unlike what we all know would happen here. 

And the city is clean. Perhaps you’ve heard, but if not here is the warning….do not take bubble gum to Singapore, for this is a serious crime in this city. Bubble gum makes a city dirty. You get caught with gum and the punishment is caning. That’s where they take a stout stick and they whack you on the bare back a few dozen times until you are bleeding and scarred. Why do they do this? Presumably because it’s mostly young folks who might do bubble gum, and hanging them by the neck until dead or standing them in front of seven guys with rifles might not look very good. But you make their city dirty and they will get you.

The fine for not flushing a public toilet….$230.00. That’s harsh, but if you ask how they would ever know you didn’t flush, they will assure you that they are watching. Watching. 

They are watching public toilets. They are watching for bubble gum. They are watching for littering. Vagrancy. Homelessness. A bunch of things. Whatever “they” want to watch.

Now, this is my friend’s observation, not mine. And he is still the avowed liberal, so he likes when government is running things. He thinks government should. 

But now he says the city of Singapore appears nice, nearly a utopian world, and the people are well cared for, but for all this there is a price. “They” keep it their way because the government is totalitarian. 

BINGO!

This is only my conclusion, but it seems that the folks in government, any government, are forever doing things to the people in the guise of doing things for the people. Totalitarian rule is one way to do government, and certainly a popular version over all of history, but it is what it is.

The guy the people just re-elected over here says he wants to do things for the people by taxing the rich to feed the poor. Some who work at trying to get rich might object, but that’s only because there is something terribly wrong with them. Selfish bastards. Ambition only hurts the country. But the Prez can fix that.

The Prez will take the land from one to give to another, claiming to be fixing things. He garnered support for this notion, and we the people re-elected him and his minions so they get to stay in charge, and thus they get power and they become rich, while they make others less rich and less powerful, and the rest of us get 40 acres which becomes 20 which becomes ten. 

“The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

---Margaret Thatcher

Eventually every over-reaching government runs out of money, and then they fail to hold to their promises, leaving the folks who have become utterly dependent upon these gifts  drifting and vulnerable. But if anyone objects, they get to eventually meet that totalitarian part. That’s the plan, ya know. We had one of the few governments in the history of things that answered to the people.  The plan is to change that.

Now, if those other folks had been elected, they might be helping us by forcing their corruption of religion and its oppression upon us, and then they would become rich and powerful, and that guy we re-elected wouldn’t. And guess what… if we were to object, here comes the totalitarian part again. There is a common theme here.

Government always grows. People running government always grow rich and powerful, at the expense of everyone else. Government always eventually becomes totalitarian, so the rich and powerful running government can remain rich and powerful and running government. People who want to be in government will tell us they are there to help the people, but …ah no. They ain’t. They be helpin’ themselves to rich and powerful. And if the people object…well, governments hit harder than the people.

When we ask the government to fix things we should fix ourselves, government grows larger and more powerful. And people will lie like crazy so we will be silly enough to put them into power.  And to keep themselves in power. The more we ask government to fix, the sooner we turn control of our lives over to government.

Some people voted to re-elect that guy because he promised to help, and to tax the rich to feed the poor and to give away the land when we all live together. And although deep down they all knew he lied, they voted for him. And instead the people will get nothing but the pleasure of watching the guy become rich and powerful. 

Now the other side offered much of the same, but perhaps a little less and maybe not so fast. But they brought along the other extreme, an oppressive religion to do their dirty work for them, and even the stupid saw the harm in this, so they chose to re-elect the guy who promised only government control. Or they didn’t vote at all, because there no longer was a vote that made any sense at all. 

We the people are in an inexplicable rush to turn our lives over to the government, to see if we like totalitarian rule, and we were willing to drink the lemonade.

I wish us luck. We will need that. Jefferson warned about this. He suggested that government always trends toward oppression. That’s why he wanted that clever bunch of ten amendments. He wanted rules to protect the people from their own government. So he suggested we don’t have government religion, and he thought we all should be armed to keep government in check. This election offered government religion or the guy who promises a loss of freedom of arms. We, the people, are so freaking stupid to let it get to this, that we deserve to lose our freedom. And sadly, we will.

Nov 11, 1012

The touch of evil>>>>>

I always figured I’d feel badly about it if I killed someone.

I’m sorry. I mean, wow, what a statement to spew out, to be tossed amid unsuspecting folks. But bear with me. I have my reasons for bringing this up.

I suppose this is a rather odd thing to introduce here, the first sentence on a blank computer screen. Who would write such a thing? Who would even think it? Reasonable people don’t go around killing other people. It’s rather an uncommon action. So why would I even contemplate my own reaction to this? It’s not like I figured on ever learning how it would feel.

But my mind does wander into varied places, and I have actually found myself wondering about such a thing. The Vietnam War offered up an opportunity. College kept me out of the draft for years, but I faced one year in the lottery after graduation. And in those days it was not unusual for the candidates for canon fodder status to consider their options.

For instance, the wife at the time had told me in no uncertain terms that I would not be reporting for duty if invited. Nope, we’d be moving to Canada. But in spite of her dictates, I did consider the possibility of attending, doing my duty, testing my immortality in war. So I mulled about in my head the various consequences of such a decision.

Dying came to mind, as did living on with various body parts missing as a side effect of combat. And I contemplated the taking of life. War excuses many of the behaviors we avoid most days at home. In war, killing folks is not only accepted, it is mandated. So I suppose that contingency would make it all just fine. Strike down a few of them other folks, and then come home and take up my life again as if nothing had happened. Don’t give it a thought.

But I gave it a thought. Several, in fact. Missed out on any real experience, for my lottery number didn’t come up, but I finally concluded that I’d probably feel bad about killing someone if I was compelled to do it in war. And I didn’t feel wrong for that.

I’ve been around for several of the more significant episodes of civil unrest in the last 50 years. I’ve seen civilization suspended following Dr. King’s murder and when the disputed verdicts came down following Rodney King’s arrest in Los Angeles. I’ve seen the videos of the enraged mobs in the streets, the beatings and the attempted murders. I watched neighborhoods looted and witnessed blocks of businesses burned to the ground.

And I sat in my little business here, feeling vulnerable and threatened by possibilities with those images in my head. And I wondered, when faced with such a mob, if I would defend my life’s work, and also my family and my employees who are both friends and family to me. Or would I simply run away and hope to survive, and take the loss of everything as just the price of participation in history.

I brought the rifle to work on the day the OJ Simpson verdict was read, for I wondered what that night would hold for civilization. Would the mobs be in the streets of my town this time, and would the buildings soon be burning around me? Didn’t end up needing it, but that old question was again in the front of my mind. Would I feel bad if I had to kill to defend that which was important to me, or would I instead choose to run away in terror, or die rather than kill?

We received the news via the internet. The young woman arrived at work at the veterinary hospital in Florida early in the morning, to care for the animals and get things ready for the day. The practice owner arrived an hour later and was greeted by carnage and gore. The walls were splashed with blood, the floors flooded by it. The woman had been viciously beaten to death with a fire extinguisher, after the savage had raped and tortured her. He was a twice convicted sexual predator, but of course he’d been let out of jail early both times, for someone didn’t want to keep a man like this away from society. That wouldn’t be fair.

The owner of that practice has a concealed carry permit now, and she is armed always. Her practice is located in a marginal area where crime is common, a neighborhood into which criminals are often released from prison to prey upon the decent folks, kinda like my place.

We hear of the doctor nearly beaten to death in his own hospital in Southern California because he annoyed a client, and of the strong-arm daytime robberies of veterinary hospitals for the few drugs found on the premises. And yeah, I know of all the armed robberies and those several murders that have been committed in the businesses just around the corner from my clinic. So yeah, that haven we call our clinic isn’t all that safe a place after all.

We have contingency plans in place, and ready access to weapons in the clinic, and I acknowledge that it is not a stretch at all to consider that I might someday be faced by that old question again. And no… I don’t want to be put into that untenable position.

I resisted the assignment to jury duty last month, for I did not wish to be inconvenienced by closing my clinic for 5 weeks. But I did sit in the jury box for a short while to be questioned by the judge and the DA before a jury was selected without me. And I spoke briefly with the murderer who was serving as his own attorney. It’s not fair perhaps, to judge a man prematurely, particularly when charged by the judge with the notion that you must only consider his guilt or innocence based upon evidence presented later at his trial, but this man was a sociopath.

Twice I watched him walk across the hall to enter the courtroom while a gaggle of potential jurors wasted time in the hall. He walked tall, quickly, confident…or was it arrogant? But when he got up from his chair to question me, the potential juror, he was bent over, limping, smiling, shucking and jiving. A simple, humble man, trying to pull wool over eyes. But I also watched him as the attorney from the public defender’s office tried to offer advice, and he transformed into the monster, flashing anger and hatred and that look in his eyes as he ripped into the man who tried to help him.

He dripped with anger, narcissism, thinly veiled unspoken threat, and no suggestion of a conscience. Simply watching him for those few hours was instructive, for I am a trusting person, and a tad naïve. And he had killed trusting, naïve people.

So I missed experiencing the murderer’s day in court. The internet yielded the details, of how he gloated and abused his moment in the limelight of his own trial, and enjoyed being the center of the universe, even though that universe extended only to the limits of the room. He taunted his accusers, insulted his jury, and hurled pain and hatred at the families of the two he had murdered, screaming at them, torturing them, enraging them for his own amusement. He was glad to be alive, and utterly dismissive of those who were dead by his hand. No remorse. No second thoughts. No cares for anyone but himself. Capable of harm to anyone he chose.

He is the sociopath I had spotted in the first moments. He is a monster, but in his mind, he has done no wrong at all.

There is not even the suggestion that he feels badly about killing someone.

He is the kind of un-human that every person in that courtroom, having witnessed his evil and felt the touch of fear in their heart when looking into his eyes, likely would consider for a moment seizing the opportunity to kill him on the spot. But yeah, they would all feel badly, after.

That jury now is deciding his fate, choosing between the slim chance that California would eventually abruptly end his wretched life, or simply gifting him with a life sentence without parole, which he referred to as his “retirement”.

And I am left to contemplate, with the likelihood perhaps increasing every year that someone with this murderer’s eyes will one morning barge into my clinic armed and angry and conscienceless, that I’ll have to face that choice that I’ve dodged for all this time.

Nov 4, 12

Who remembers the way back time before the arrival of the ubiquitous ATM machine, when if you wished cash money to go out for pizza on Friday night, you cashed a check to get it? As long as you had money in the bank to cover the check, this was a viable system. You flashed your ID, or the cashier recognized you as a frequent customer of the store, or because she went to high school with your dad, and that was usually enough. This system depended upon a degree of trust, which generally worked out back then. You could trust some people back then.

Other people violated that trust. On the board behind the cashier, fastened by thumbtacks and on display for all to see, resided a few of the checks that had bounced because they were presented by folks who knew there was no money in their account to cover said checks, and yet they cashed them anyway. You’d see names of people you knew, and from this you also knew that you would never again trust them, for anything.

This leads to the story I’ve told before, of the little girl living with her mother. It was that end of the month moment, when the checking account was close to nil, but the little girl still wanted pizza for Friday night dinner. The mother had nixed the idea, but the child persisted. Mother stated that there was no money, for she knew the reality. The child, not understanding, wondered why. 

“Why can’t you just cash a check?”

A reasonable request in her child’s reality, for that trick had always worked before. The mom was frustrated, for there was nothing for her to do. She had already used up whatever trust remained with her family and friends, and they no longer would loan her a few bucks until payday. And she couldn’t even count on that ole float, where the check she cashed on Friday wouldn’t hit her bank until Monday, and she could deposit her paycheck in time to beat the bounce. For that Monday was further in the distance.

So the child fumed, and the mom raged at the un-fairness of it all, and life went on for everyone else.

I faced down four hungry cats this morning. Part of this was my fault, for it was my duty to bring home the food from the clinic. I knew the supply was perilously low. I knew where the food was stored in the clinic. I knew it was my responsibility to see to it that the cats never go hungry, for they don’t like that. I forgot and left the cat food at the clinic yesterday. And I feel real bad about it, but I ran out of food last night. There was none left for this morning.

And to make things worse, the clocks changed at 2 AM, and so I selfishly slept in for that one extra hour while the cats slowly closed the circle around our bed, silently tapping their toes on the carpet. Watching me as I slept. Watching me.

I stirred in my sleep, and suddenly three cats appeared on the bed, watching me, prodding me, beseeching me. Breakfast was already one hour late, and someone was going to pay. 

COME ON!!! WAKE UP!!!

GET YOUR FAT ASS OUT OF BED AND FEED THE CATS!!!

There was to be no more sleeping for this fellow. So up I got and I walked down the hall. Assuming that food was FINALLY forthcoming, four tails accompanied by four swinging prodigious bellies led me toward the kitchen. They were in a hurry. They kept looking back. HURRY UP!!!

Cats differ from dogs. Dogs ask for food. Dogs beg for food. It’s as if food magically appears when the person produces it. Cats don’t ask. They demand. Ya see, dogs have masters, and cats have staff. They say jump, and we persons are supposed to ask, “How high?” Cats demand food and they expect obedience. Cats have entitlement.

Cats expect to be fed. That’s kinda my fault too, for I once began to feed them, and then from that point on, the cats decided not to chase and catch to eat mice and such. Food showed up in the bowls every morning and night, and that was how it was gonna be. Worked out fine for the cats. The heck with the mice. Entitlement.

So, I lied to the cats. Lying to cats is OK, for lying is part of their culture. I lied and said I needed to wash their food bowls, so while the bowls soaked, I drove down to the clinic and came back with cat food. So I got to live. I didn’t end up like the crazy cat lady who runs out of cat food, and all the people find later are picked over cat lady bones.

There are lessons here. You can’t have pizza every Friday night if you can’t afford pizza every Friday night. You should watch how much money you have in the bank, and know when you can refill the bank, and not spend more money than you can expect to find in the bank. And you shouldn’t feed so many cats that you face all those angry faces when you run out of cat food.

Which brings us to this election on Tuesday.

Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but California can’t afford pizza this Friday night. The kids still want pizza, but California cannot afford it. Hasn’t been able to afford pizza for some time. And California is trying to feed way too many cats. And the cats aren’t finding a full bowl whenever they want. The kids have come to enjoy pizza every Friday night, and the cats are, as always, entitled. And now they are all pissed off.

When the kids and cats are both annoyed, you will hear from them. They will, in fact, nag you.

Somebody runs this state. Poorly, but somebody runs it. Nobody wants to admit to screwing the whole deal, but somebody did it. They screwed it up. They ran out of money, stupidly and irresponsibly. And now they want to be re-elected so, they say, they can fix it. That makes sense.

The teachers’ union, the public employee unions, and the various folks  who don’t hunt mice anymore because we feed them better when they don’t, are all getting shortchanged since the government ran out of money. They are angry. They are nagging. Those folks who don’t work for the government, but are responsible for paying for the government, are just a bit miffed too. Because we know what comes next.

What comes next is the folks who don’t work for the government, but are responsible for paying for the government, are gonna be told to pay much more. For certainly the children are not going to ask for less pizza, and the cats are still going to feel entitled. And we sure as heck aren’t gonna see the people actually responsible for this mess volunteering to stand down and let others give an honest and intelligent effort, rather than the stupid and crooked performance we generally get.

We can vote some people out of office. And should. We can vote against the propositions that are nothing more than higher taxes on the folks who didn’t create this mess. We can vote to limit the power of the unions that orchestrated most of this mess. We can disappoint the people who have run the government for their own benefit, and our loss, who stupidly let this mess happen. And on a national scale, we can depose a President who guarantees our children will be saddled with a similar disaster for generations to come. 

Or we can stand by impotently and watch a way of life die because of greed and incompetency. Our choice. We get the government we deserve.

Kehoe, revisited

This was written years ago, but I like to go back and read it from time to time....

Dr Bob

I keep a magic rock in the top drawer of my office desk. Please don't tell anybody, cause you know how they get when they hear you have a magic rock. Some don't believe in such things, so they stare at me with that funny look on their faces. And if they know about magic rocks I have to watch them, or they might try to steal mine. 

Still, it's worth the risk, for when the day begins to overwhelm me, I can close my eyes, roll the cool smooth stone between my fingers, and immediately I'm transported back to Pt. Reyes National Seashore, to Kehoe beach, where I found it….

I'm strolling the high tide line heading south, and if I choose, I can walk for hours. I might walk to infinity, for I cannot see either end of the beach from here. A fog bank hangs a few miles off the coast, but the sky above is clear, blue, and sunny.

Two ravens swoop and soar on the wind above the sand dunes to my left. On my right, a line of ratty looking pelicans commute to the north, gliding in formation with their wing tips just skimming the waves. They drop into a wave trough, and then reappear above the next crest with just a few wing beats.

Tide's out, so the waves break well down the beach, spreading out into a thin smooth sheet that peters out before reaching my bare feet. This creates a mirror reflecting a foraging gull standing knee deep in the receding water.

With a slight whistling sound, the wind blows into my right ear and out the left. The air smells like no one has used it before.

Nobody is on this beach but me, nobody to interrupt the thoughts crashing around in my mind. I burrow deep into the vault that is my brain, finding memories stacked one upon the other on shelves extending well back into the darkness. It looks like this place hasn't been cleaned for a while.

Brushing old cobwebs out of the way, I stumble across boxes holding the thoughts of a lifetime. Successes and failures, victories and losses, weddings and divorces, it goes on and on. And it is packed nearly to the ceiling. No wonder I cannot think straight.

So I unscrew the top of my head and dump out all this crud into a little pile on the sand.

As I'm picking through it, tossing out the bad and trying to rearrange the good, a half buried fragment of abalone shell off to the side catches my eye. Turning the shard over, the sand eroded layers inside flash into brilliance in the sunlight, and I marvel at the frozen rainbow that God hides inside each of these shells. I wonder if an abalone, without any eyes, can truly appreciate the beauty of its own home. I guess none of us do, if we don't look.

 

Distracted, I get up and wander further down the beach. I watch the shorebirds scurrying about. They poke their beaks into each hole in the sand looking for all the world like street people searching for cans in the trash. Sandpipers hurry off in a group--a Blue Light Special at the sand flea table was just announced.

I glance out into the surf just in time to spot a harbor seal poking his head out of the foam. Curious fellow, he is watching me. I stop walking to stare back.

My new friend disappears into the next wave, so I go back to my browsing. That's when I find the rock. It's oval, about an inch or two long, and worn smooth by years in the sand. My rock is probably a bit of low-grade jade, with veins of white and brown. It has no real value, except for the magic. I walk along rolling it between my fingers.

Wait a moment…what’s that noise? The beach vanishes and I'm back in the office. I put the rock back in the drawer, next to the one from Death Valley. Time to go back to work…this time, with a smile.

Somehow, I forgot the little pile of brain crud I left behind on the beach for the next tide to wash away.

Guess I didn't need it, after all.

Stop Obama

I’ve never felt that it is my job as a commentator on the human condition to make any suggestions on how folks should vote. I like this thing we call the American republic. Our version of democracy has worked out pretty well for a couple of hundred years, and that means we all have a voice. So I’ve let people make their own choices, even when I think they are out of their minds.

Americans changed the world when we invented this form of government. And flawed as we are, we have beaten down true evil in the guise of dictators, kings, nazis, communists, militarists, and radical islamists. We’ve been the good guys for a long time, for we stand up against folks who by any definition are the bad guys. 

This system is not perfect. It is prone to abuse because it offers freedom, which means some find the freedom to abuse that very freedom. It is prone to complacency due to its success. And it allows laziness, entitlement, and corruption simply because we allow most anything in the name of freedom. Freedom has always been its own worst enemy, for it lets those who detest freedom the right to attempt to conquer it.

But this is our system, and we should love it and protect it, for this is about the freedom of the individual in a collective. No other system of government in history gives a rat’s ass for the freedom of the individual. The alternatives offer nothing but loss of individual freedom and eventual oppression in the guise of calming the collective.

When somebody comes along promising to improve the collective at the expense of the individual, well you can forget any semblance of individual freedom… but welcome to the anthill. And low and behold, the somebody who promised a happy anthill has always become the emperor, dictator, king, fuhrer, imam. That’s how it has always worked out in the history of the world, and nothing has changed.

And that is why we need to put a halt to that Obama guy, and to those who put him in charge.

When I was writing for the paper, and I took some shots at Obama and his corruption, many commented that I was a tea party drone, and thus not worthy of oxygen, much less an audience.

Well, just for the record…I’ve been a registered democrat since I turned 21 in 1970. Every single year since then. I thought that Nixon was evil incarnate, and I’ve been made uncomfortable by most everything the republicans have done for those forty some years. I don’t like the abuse of Americans by big business, and I think that that version of religion that has adopted the republican party is harmful, if not evil.

So there…

For the record, I have voted against the democrats pretty much consistently since my last egregious mistake when I voted for Jimmy Carter. I have not voted FOR someone since that mistake, but instead have voted against, for my fears have overtaken my hopes ever since. And I haven’t voted for a democrat since that episode.

I grew up in the shadow of Mayor Daley in Chicago. This system was evil incarnate, and it was allowed to function within the freedom we call our way of life. The good mayor was elected time after time, for that is our system. And once elected he ruled without compromise. 

The people who worked within the unions were decent folks. They enjoyed a certain exemption from responsibility, but they were simple people who didn’t understand the bigger picture. Those who ran the unions were criminals by any definition, and they prospered by selling the union vote to Mayor Daley. And all those dead people who voted for Mayor Daley were just following the directions given them from above. Those opposed to Mayor Daley failed to prosper, and sometimes simply died. Funny how that worked out. And when they got John Kennedy elected to the presidency, they had total control. And those who think that organized crime got Kennedy killed, well they weren’t far wrong. Chicago politics was the furhrer in American, but nobody seemed to care. 

Mayor Daley finally died, which put an end to his personal corruption, but the people who benefited from that corruption persevered. They kept the corruption going. And they got Obama elected. Those who claim the man never had a job overlook that period when he paid his dues to the organization by “organizing” poor Black folks to vote for the corruption. Obama was a cog in the machine that perpetuated the corruption.

Obama has a nice smile, and he says all the right things and he comes across as a nice guy who is out to help folks. And he is DAMNED good at this. He is a natural, the perfect candidate, a dream to the folks who support him. That is why the corruption made this opportunity for him. He came out of nowhere, because this benefited the corruption. None of this is a surprise. But he is there to promote the corruption, and that is why we need to stop him.

The republican opposition are idiots. They favor corruption in large industry and banking, and they need to be stopped. They favor social nonsense, and would ban abortion and gay marriage. They are fools and deserve no consideration. 

So why will I vote against Obama, and urge you with considerable passion to stop this man?

It’s pretty simple. If the republicans win, we might lose gay marriage and abortion. And the corruption that is large business will run amuck for a while. But in time we can fix this. Lose abortion and gay marriage, and many will suffer, but this can be corrected in time.

Let Obama and his supporters get their way, and we may never get our country back. The corruption that is organized crime and Chicago politics may rule over us. The corruption and organized criminal enterprise that passes for world government may finally turn us into the anthill instead of the voice of freedom that has always stood in the way of this. And yeah, he might really be the key that opens the door to world domination by islam. Think those folks will go for women’s rights or gay marriage?

Answer only one question…

If we lose abortion or gay rights, might we ever get this back. Well yeah. just go out there and get it.

If we lose the second amendment, and the government disarms America…will we ever get this back?

Well, heck no. Go out and get it with…what?

That is Obama and the people who put him there. It’s time we stop him before there is no time. To me, it’s as simple as that. Vote the lessor of evil, or never vote again.