Forty Six (Short Story) - 9/22/2024 3:31:01 PM
The self-righteous male dominated right-wing view of abortion using false illustration has ruined family planning that should be primarily within the right of each woman with counselors and her doctor. Not by a Supreme Court determined to change a long-standing ruling and taking away the rights of women and particularly, poor women who generally have more babies like newly arrived immigrants.
Anyone with half a brain knows that the inflation in prices was caused by the pandemic and not any action taken by the government. The supply-chain was affected greatly and the simple dynamics of scarcity increased prices. They have been coming down all this year. But those on the right side haven't seemed to notice. The tax cuts under 45 cunningly gave more to the ultrarich and corporations that it did to the middle class. Thank you, Mr. Trump. But the increase in the federal deficit can be largely blamed on the tax cuts and not on spending by 46.
There is no legitimate evidence that immigrants are causing more crime, per capita than the rest of society. But the turmoil caused by rhetoric and the readily available firearms, particularly those of an automatic nature, have greatly increased crime using guns and all kinds of irate anger spewed from the rally raised by none other than the Donald with every word that comes out of his mouth so that his believers can take up guns and behave like they did on January 6 when he refused like some kind of dictator, to give up his presidency like some crybaby. Even breaking the law and trying to get election officials all over the country to break the law and provided him with what he needed to win. We don't need a winner, we need an honest president. The right wing should know the difference but doesn't seem to.
The fear of immigration is basically the same old fear that this country has always had towards immigrants, nothing more. The call for keeping America out of the world is totally backward because corporations know no boundaries and we should stop thinking that boundaries are sovereign because 9 times out of 10 wars are merely land grabs like Israel has been doing to the Palestinian territories and Russia has decided to do to Ukraine. We can expect many more migrations caused by war and climate change in the future. If we embrace it rather than deny it, we will be better off. The countries of Russia, China, Japan and some others have economies at risk because they have not accepted immigrants to help fuel their younger workforce. Having more babies in the United States without giving them any rights will do the same to our economy.
Like in previous migrations, the generation born after the first generation become fluent in American English and not their parent's mother tongue. There is no Hispanicization of America. My city, Houston is 60% Hispanic but all government and business is done in American English. When I was land manager, I had a document showing that where Houston is was originally a Spanish land-grant. Texas was formed by a lot of ragtag criminals who came into Spanish territory creating a war that resulted in the country of Texas. Much of that Hispanic heritage has been here all along and is welcome. Except of course from the Republican government of Texas who believes that, although a bipartisan bill was passed by the House, rejected that immigration bill by the Senate. So number 46 took action to increase deportations without Congress approval.
The lion in the room amid all of the rhetoric is global warming and its subsequent climate change. The right, funded by big fossil fuel, bolstered by again, fraudulent data was beginning to be addressed, perhaps too late, by the Inflation Reduction Act providing funding for nonfossil sustainable technologies and jobs. Long-overdue.
I believe that the platform based on misunderstanding and greed of the Republican Party will be its downfall in this election, regardless who the Democratic candidate is. Some of it is some of the same fears generated about 44's ethenticity who bowed out gracefully and had no egotistical desires to be president forever like 45 seems to want. Narcissism has no place in the presidency.
Ron
There Is But One True City Of Sanctuary Part Four (Short Story) - 4/4/2024 2:48:26 PM
The last major migrant arrival near the Sanctuary City was that of the Poles. How did that turn out?
There's plenty of blame in this part for for those considered to be left of center following some evil leader. Having people removed from the ballot and charged with frivolous lawsuits for action that has not been seen since Benedict Arnold. That great patriot who wanted to be King George's Lord ruler of the new colonies with their upstart left-leaning idealists.
There's no magic carpet and there's no real danger, unless those leaning right would engage in acts of insurrection on crybaby grounds that they didn't get their slice of the wealth of America that they also wish to have without working for it, as their heritage.
Ron
There Is But One True City Of Sanctuary Part Three (Short Story) - 2/18/2024 1:22:31 PM
The facts behind the arguments about those coming to this country are simply not true. If you believe those arguments carefully crafted by the wealthy right to scare ordinary citizens like yourself, you have failed to study history (I guess that's a liberal activity that no conservative American would venture to do) and doomed to repeat it.
The right faction of this country is moving very close to the kind of hysteria created in the 1930s Germany where many good ordinary people began to despise the elite, the educated and the so-called non-Aryan element bringing the country down. All it needed was a strong leader with ruthless methods to make it happen. The final solution to the problem was hatched.
Do you not see the analogy between the way Germany was then and the United States is now?
Are you threatened daily where you live? I'm not, and my city is over 60% Hispanic. The biggest trouble in town and in many towns is the misinterpretation of the Second Amendment that allows anyone who has a gripe or bone to pick can buy a gun and use it. If someone cuts you off on the street, as a free citizen you can shoot the bastard for his/her bad driving.
Ron
There Is But One True City Of Sanctuary Parts One And Two (Short Story) - 12/23/2023 10:17:33 AM
"I feel it’s imperative for mortals to hold fast to those “realities of life upon Planet Earth” which have proven themselves to be of the utmost necessity to mankind as a whole."
A noble statement. For, while United States was isolated from the rest of the world until that infamous day in 1941, the United States is no longer a shining example of what is right and good, carefully engendered by public schools and grateful myths in song and legend like the "free land" for the taking by immigrants, many of dubious character, and the honesty offered by the church, of American people.
Most corporations are multinational. The language of business is American English worldwide. And so is the American dollar. It used to be Britain's role up until Pax Brittania was over around 1900. The vast resources for the taking (raping) of the country made us great, not the people… Not the lumber barons the captains of industry, the railroad magnates, or bankers. Certainly not the churchgoing slave owning hypocrites.
To isolate ourselves from the rest of the world is the death of the United States. Many Americans are choosing to leave this country to live in other countries because they find the lifestyles there and other amenities are better than they are here in the good old US of A.
"But I must not allow myself to find a scapegoat …"
But you have! You clearly point out illegal immigrants. I don't know exactly where this "City of Sanctuary" is, but it sounds like an elitist enclave like the historical castles and other walled places where, eventually, they all fell into ruin like the Roman Empire or the Third Reich.
I live in a cosmopolitan city. And I will name it. Houston, by last census, is 60% Hispanic, largely by white flight to the suburbs, but many of those who flew, are coming back into the interior of the city for its richness. Our leaving mayor, is black, the upcoming mayor is white and promises to deal with the growing "mental health problems" of our residents. The causes of which you may know, but are many. The county judge is a young Hispanic woman who is beleaguered by much criticism, but doing a good job.
One of the major concerns is all of the road rage, robbery and domestic violence that is using guns, so readily available because the very wealthy, the owners of the military-industrial complex, believe that if there are guns in the hands of citizens that they will be used properly, and not in a fit of anger or unnatural fear, or any of the other mental illnesses pervading and exacerbated by social media and extremist views.
For perspective, one of the greatest tragedies of the last year was the death of eight young people crushed to death against the stage of a musical event where the crowd got overexcited and pushed forward to the stage. No amount of security guards can prevent that kind of exuberant response. Nor the panic response as people rushed to the door of a crowded establishment when guns are fired.
My review of applicants for scholarships at my alma mater assures me that young people are far more intelligent, social minded, and goal seeking than the draft dodging, beer drinking, classroom cheating and otherwise slovenly classmates I had as a freshman in the same institution back when the "greatest generation" was our parents.
Why are we passing on our real problems to this younger generation rather than solving them ourselves?
Ron
Multi Man (Short Story) - 10/28/2023 11:30:11 AM
Prior to your Multi--Man there was a term for those who were able to see beyond the present and deal with what would become the future… The Renaissance Man, using the term for the periods of enlightenment where human beings left behind ways that were holding them back from being more human and open.
You're right, this professor, engineer, with a interest in science knows that the human being has a spectrum of sex, both physical and psychological. If this is accepted as normal, many human problems disappear. To think that rigid believers in ancient words written at a time of relative ignorance of human bodies and minds would trust only those who could father babies and have babies as the only true sexes. Currently tying up a lot of our time and energy for no damn reason and still restricting the freedom of so many people with fear.
The correct path has been proven to be the wrong path so many times. Individuals need to make their own decisions based on what they know and not what some "correct way of living" is imposed upon them. Modern law determines what is harmful living and what is not. When lawmakers use "correctness" to make laws that hurt people when they behave in a way that is not harmful, it is wrong. It is merely the use of political power to do what one thinks is right and fair. Not what is right and fair. Losing all the harmful laws would greatly free up society to do great things… Including your "exclusive" city. That term means that only the people that meet your correct requirements, can dwell there.
Modern tools have enabled scientists and historians to reveal history that powerful entities buried. Most of it is very shameful to the status quo. Probably why it is rejected by the rich and powerful. The ones who got rich and powerful by behaving the worst in the past. Why do some people worry so much about history being revealed and shared with the traditional "clean" and fairytale like history of the United States of America? The truth, once revealed, cannot be denied. The Internet cannot be burned like books. It can be banned, but not for long. Why teach our children fairytales. By protecting them from the truth do we make them better citizens? I think not. We insult their intelligence and limit their curiosity.
Finally, I think your Multi-Man is what I call just growing up, accepting responsibility, and becoming knowledgeable about why we are here. And why we abuse each other so much in the name of principles that no longer have any meaning because they are always mostly just myth of things that never were and never will be.
Ron
April, Wish Me Really (Short Story) - 4/23/2023 12:11:57 PM
This is uncharacteristic of your writing, but I like it. I'm looking forward to May and to see what she has to offer and then June. I can see where this is going. They are all women's names.
Ron
Blamesville Part One: Is It Real? (Short Story) - 3/1/2023 11:14:24 AM
What is a "relevant" religion. When looked at critically without bias, no religion is relevant in the 21st-century. And you are right about the righteous, they like to blame and ridicule. Their side is always with God and knows better than simple ethics. Religions have been the source of most wars and God is always on the side of the victor.
The sidetracking into religious gobbledygook does not help the article. But when you talk about breaking free from blame and the influence of the Joneses and others, I'm with you all the way. What we see on television is the worst of the worst. In general, life for most has been getting better than it ever was before. It is just with all the sources, good and bad, that are available to us, we often are steered toward the bad or sensational rather than a more normal view of our world. And sometimes, what we consider normal, like farming, maybe better suited to just be left to nature and nature's wonderful weeds. Weeds are not an example of damnation. They are nature's way of covering scarred and damaged ground, providing food for wildlife and insects in the process, and restoring the ground to a more natural state again.
I agree with you that there are bad people and bad influences in our world. But anyone can choose not to pursue them. That is the freedom we have of choice. For the person who feels that they are subject to some of these evil forces, all they have to do is realize it, and change. Some people change their lives easily and others find it hard. But we all know what a bad lifestyle is. It is just our resolve that stands in our way, not some outside force keeping us from being better.
Unlike your statement about liberals, I find that conservatives are behind most blame. Withholding the right of women to decide about their own bodies and blaming physicians who help them. Blaming losing the 2020 election on the election system being faulty when it wasn't. Blaming liberal politicians for having weak resumes when conservative politicians have padded their resumes with false statements. Blaming liberals for increases in the budget and deficit, when facts indicate that it has been conservatives. I could go on and on about blaming. But that is all political rhetoric unless it meets the standard of the scientific method. Attitudes speak louder than facts. A change in attitude to one that is less likely to blame but to help others, regardless of their assumed situation, is better, far better than blaming.
Ron
Interpretations Of M Part Two: Meet Me When School Is Ended (Short Story) - 9/2/2022 2:05:07 PM
Well, Moldy Moneyed Myron, you seem only capable of spouting traditional, clichéd, unproven Republican arguments for everything. Those simplifications don't hold water when viewed economically by experts that come out of higher education and government. These people are generally not political but merely analytical synthesizers creating the data that the Democratic Party uses, for the most part, for their proposed laws and improvements. The result is that any place where data like this is used logically, results in the insult by Republicans that it is the liberal end elite.
Since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have passed laws that benefit the welfare of some of the biggest welfare cheats in the government. Corporations who pay no taxes and the heirs of the wealthy who generally don't work and live off the tax-exempt trusts and foundations created by the founders for the purpose of avoiding taxes in the first place. The result is clearly, the wealthy getting wealthier and the poorest getting poorer while the middle class slides into poverty. More trickle-down won't help the drowning families in debt for various reasons but still working, some two jobs.
I taught business classes. Nine out of 10 businesses fail within two years. Those that succeed in business don't do it by hard work. Many people work hard at their business all their lives and still end up poor or driven out of business by corporations like family farms. For those few that are at the right place at the right time with the right capitalization, they are the ones who become the major corporations. But there are countless others, the bankers, the people who make money from money and never do an honest hard work job in their lives, who find themselves becoming fabulously rich just handling rich people's money.
How dare you blame the attacks on young people in schools on the schools, themselves! Behind every mentally disturbed carrier of an attack rifle meant for war goes out in glory like some antihero from the video games or movies is an insidious truth. There isn't a liberal among them. The tracks of their computer activity showing they are always inspired by far right wing militia groups and individuals. Funded by the NRA like the Republicans are to ensure that the gun manufacturers continue to reap profits from both military and civilian sales.
And if you check the backgrounds of those quick to anger and pull their gun during road rage, you'll find that those hot tempered salty impatient bastards are card-carrying Republicans. Perhaps you haven't read about several cases recently where upstanding Republicans acted on behalf of their neighborhood keeping the riffraff out, finding that they are subject to long sentences for their acts of violence to innocent people who have every right to be where they were when they were killed.
In its worst form, demonstrated on December 6, the Republican Party is generally angry. The Democratic Party may be outraged at the fact that much of the Republican Party's agenda is to take the country back or maintain the hold that certain industries have on our society and will not give up for better technology. It's as simple as that. Anger is a useless emotion as those poor people who got fed up and rioted in the streets have found out, destroying their own meager infrastructure.
Ron
Interpretations Of M Part One: Repeat The Line (Short Story) - 7/31/2022 2:04:53 PM
The way that the Liberals or the Democrats still trying to investigate and blame President Trump for everything that happened on January 6 years ago is sickening! They just want to bring down President Trump, because it was President who stood in their way when Hillary Clinton could have won; and they know President Trump still can win the next election.
Sandie
Interpretations Of M Part One: Repeat The Line (Short Story) - 7/30/2022 10:48:54 AM
I must admit that your reference to "M" totally mystifies me. Perhaps you are referring to majority or me. But you are once again, blaming "liberals" for high prices and shortages. The Republican thing to do regardless if it is true or not.
It has long been my belief that we are but children. Regardless of our political affiliations, we argue over small things blame one another, and then go on living extravagant lives that only monarchs wish they lived in 1900 with all of our technological servants working so well for us.
And that is the problem. The world population has grown immensely since 1900 and everyone wants a slice of the good life we in the United States enjoy. With all of our political bickering that you are very good at, we fail to see what intelligence tells us is real and favor of our wants and desires, blown way out of proportion.
If we don't get busy, worldwide, and work together on a scale larger and much more expensive than World War II, while cutting back to the bare bone our lifestyles, the natural world will overcome us and either make us animals fighting for our survival or partners, grown-up and working to get our world back from the edge of our own induced destruction.
Ron
None (Short Story) - 4/13/2022 1:03:06 PM
I really love your summing it up in the last paragraph. And I wholeheartedly agree with the subjects you covered.
The region and Eastern Europe has been war-torn for thousands years between clans to fiefdoms to nation states with religions trying to gain the upper hand. But the world did not be so tuned in when the Great Bear participated the same way against civilians in the Middle East in support of a heartless dictator more willing to kill his own people and lay waste to his land rather than give reasonable concessions of freedom. We are more awake today because of the atrocities that happened in World War II, in the very way that the Bear is bringing his weight to bare in this century.
And of course, gossip, rumors, fake stories, altered truth, innuendo and ideology should never be the source of rational thinking in solving the great challenges that face us. It is not better to be divided. Much better to cooperate and focus on solving the problem, not hating one another and stonewalling positive action.
Finally, con artists have just found another medium among the many to reach the ill-informed and gullible to either dump their false advertising on or downright deceive susceptible individuals into giving up key information leading to money, or money directly. We all need to develop means to thwart scam to the point where it no longer is profitable for the scammers to engage in their nefarious ways. Reporting any case if it to the FBI is a good way to start.
Ron
Putting (Short Story) - 3/12/2022 2:00:31 PM
As I started to read this, I was thinking of antonyms: putting and taking. In every family there are breadwinners, those that "bring home the bacon" and make the family, the business, the town, the country, and the world prosper. The others that could also be called providers and losers, found in every family, every business, every government where some are building wealth, tranquility and goodness. While their own brothers or sisters are lazy, on drugs or addicted to something else like gambling. So we can't use one-size-fits-all categories for individuals in individual places.
But I appreciate your honest appraisal of Putin. Believe me, there are Americans who honor him and actually think he is doing the right thing in taking his neighboring country like he owns it or that it was owed to him. Causing all the chaos and agony to perhaps 5 million people who are forced out through no fault of their own. But punishing Putin directly with military action may release a madman's desire to use chemical weapons like other despots have recently or worse, playing the (limited?) nuclear card if he smells the contrail of one NATO jet over his conquered skyway.
Unfortunately, while all of the insurgents who tried to stop the electoral college from operating, assaulting capital police officers resulting in death and destruction and even threats to the vice president's life, over 300 have been clearly identified by those "liberal" videos and are being brought to justice. The former president has taken boxes of illegal documents to his home in Florida and has been witnessed wadding and throwing away top-secret documents. For this insurgency, all of those who committed crimes will eventually be brought to justice with evidence.
Like in United States in 1956, when a Hungarian girl and her family came to my hometown in my classroom after their revolution, the US has agreed to accept its portion of the NATO decided asylum-seekers. Poland has been the most generous, but I believe Romania and Hungary are as welcoming. Most will return home when this is over. Hopefully, sooner rather than later when the Russian people have had enough and put Putin where he belongs, in prison from stealing from his own people and committing hideous crimes.
Ron
Views From The Circular Room (Short Story) - 2/11/2022 2:26:24 PM
As I tried to fathom this largely, psychological piece, I sensed, from the name dropping that looked similar to Biden, and your reference to the "circular" [oval] office, that you were alluding to the psychological musings of the current president. Perhaps faced with more perplexing problems than any president for a very long time. With stonewalling blocking most measures he tries to put forward.
But when you referred to a brother, I had to think of my own twin brother, who often seemed to show arrogance as a defense against his relative inferiority that largely came from my being dominant over him until he was freed by my becoming paralyzed and him going out on his own. He has a hard time being humble given his relative success and that of his children. Just today, I had to correct his memory of several of our ancestors lives that he was getting wrong.
Perhaps I am arrogant, for challenging him on most of the emails that come from right wing rumor mills that he sends me. He wants to believe in Ike again, Reagan again, and that the Republicans are not spending more on wars and the military-industrial complex than the Democrats are on welfare cheats.
But the arrogance of the former president, worshiped by so many of those who watched him on TV and got enough name recognition from it to vote for him, is unconscionable. His sociopathic mind cannot see when he is doing wrong. And his followers seem to be in the same rut.
Ron
Time Facilitation (Short Story) - 1/3/2022 12:54:08 PM
"And those who once wrote that certain people should work to supply the needs of others who either couldn’t or didn’t want to support themselves, should have been made to themselves do the physical labor they tried to foist on to others." By this statement you are referring to management, executives, owners and stockholders of the company, aren't you? These are the people who gain the most for the least work. And each year, their share compared to the workers' share grows greater.
There is "common good" written into the United States Constitution. For example, the Bill of Rights giving everyone equal opportunity. As far as everyone facing "salvation," that is a religious belief that may or may not be true, but has never been proven by any empirical data. But people do believe legacies that live well beyond their lives. Most of these are good, but infamy as a long life, too.
As time marches on, new ideas come into play. Conservatism tends to resist these ideas, but the good ones, backed by truth, considered to be progressive in nature, generally eventually become mainstream. I agree that extreme views and the resulting paranoia are very dangerous, and often result in human harm.
The brother of the fictitious writer apparently has left a wound in the family that has never healed. In the old days they were called erroneously, black sheep. But mental illness, both physically caused genetically, or socially caused, can turn any life astray. A considerable portion of any society is mentally disturbed.
My cousin led an adventurous life as an entrepreneur and doing things larger than life. Along the way, he did many good things and many bad things. Illegal things because he thought he was smarter than the government rules that restricted his freedom. As far as I know, he never went to jail, but his guns were confiscated as well as it as licenses for poaching. And as a drug user running two million-dollar companies, either lost his life at 57 in a car accident or faked his death to avoid eventual financial ruin. But it doesn't bother me much, I'm just curious.
Ron
A Robot At Blackhall (Short Story) - 12/7/2021 1:50:14 PM
Your third paragraph is refreshing. But until we can stop prosecution of and conviction of innocents there will be discord and finger-pointing.
Going back, I blame the willingness of corporations to hire and outsource tedious human work to foreign countries, thereby lowering prices of consumer goods and creating an American lifestyle of conspicuous consumption, even hoarding of cheap, disposable consumer goods. Even to the point where we Americans get most of our food from foreign countries. Very few are willing to "buy American" at a higher cost.
Inflation is not the result of the lack of working people, but basic economics of supply and demand. When the supply is short, like the freeze caused to South Texas citrus crop last year, this year oranges cost much more and are not of the same quality as those from the Valley. It will take a couple of years of regrowing trees that the supply will increase again.
It is estimated that 40% of the American population is disabled in one way or another. Disabled people tend to be the first laid-off or permanently terminated during times of cutting back, especially when the money saved is used to increase wages, most often among the management class, not the workers.
I ran into a wall applying for work over a thousand times in 1983 and 1985. In spite of my credentials, I could not get an interview from either industry or higher education. Professors were beginning to become migrant contract workers as adjuncts with no benefits while universities bloated their staffs with high paid administrations, following the corporate model.
Many in the American economy, while laid-off, receiving some meager assistance, realized that while working costs of child care and many other things really offset their meager salary and even if it was increased to $15 an hour, they were better off not rejoining the workforce.
Likewise, teacher salaries in schools have been devalued where they do not compete with corporate jobs. I received free government milk and our cafeteria and high school received surplus food to keep our lunches low cost in the late 1950s.
With so much of the young workforce sinking into poverty even while working, at last count, nearly 50%,
parents cannot afford adequate and healthy lunches for their children. School food programs are essential to keep children from malnutrition or even starvation.
The American population and the population of the world is increasingly becoming multicultural and multiracial. White purists are swimming against the tide. There is no reason to believe that blended persons like President Obama will be inferior then someone who is pure white ethically and culturally. Opposites simply attract and marry.
Murderers have always been with us. But injustice during murders is now being proven by video, DNA, and data gathered from smart devices. Injustice can no longer be swept off the table by collusion. Victims have a right to be angry and to speak up.
Let's name a pro team Handicappers in honor of that great gambling handicapper, Jimmy the Greek. Meaning "Cap in hand," accepting charity and basically unable to work, just like me.
Misunderstandings, if they are demeaning and hateful, need to be changed in the human psyche, often at great distress. But there is great relief when one changes. I was accosted for calling my black women coworkers, "gals." I thought the term was acceptable and probably is among 90% of women, even black women. But to these women, it meant that they were basically "whores,"and easily manipulated by men.
Properly used science tells us the truth. And the truth does not cause dilemmas, but overcomes them with fact. Both Bush administrations were favorable to immigration from south of the border because they worked for less pay without benefits just to be in the country and making the kind of money they couldn't in theirs.
But insatiable desire for drugs coming from south of the border by good old Americans everywhere, has created the cartels, the unstable governments, and the floods of refugees to our borders. There is no legitimate evidence that Obama or Biden is letting more immigrants into the country than Trump.
Personal property should never be valued over human life. And good should always overcome bad, the lesson of the United States so far, even though early settlers created atrocities for those already living here and enslaved Blacks from Africa for 250 years, followed by a de facto enslavement and second-class status until 1965, and in some ways, continuing today.
Multicultural and racial lending will make this country much stronger in the future. My experience with many immigrants is that they far exceed in goals and achievement over the average nativeborn individual.
It's good to see that your dilemmas may be turning towards what is right or what is wrong but considered to be right by those who have a lack of memory or the inability to change towards the future rather than simply idolize a fictional past.
Ron
Afghanistan Farewell (Short Story) - 9/5/2021 12:51:11 PM
President Biden is the commander in chief. And, publicly, unlike his predecessor, has taken full responsibility for what happened. But I must remind you, that it was Donald Trump, not Biden, first to order the troops to leave (conservatives tend to lose memory easily). At that time, against his advisors, who he liberally replaced with bootlicking lackeys, often with no expertise in the area they were supposedly in charge of.
Biden is not known for "purging" the higher levels of the military and intelligence staff in order to make them "liberal." It may have been Trump leftovers who wrongfully thought that spending millions on training the Afghan army had done its job, apparently now working with the Iraqi Army. Military intelligence should have known and told Biden that they would not stand, and allowed him to remove allies and Americans before the troops. But chaos would have probably erupted while doing that.
Conservatives should be happy that it is an isolationist, Trumpist, policy to get out of the affairs of another country.
It was Donald Trump as the lead example, acquiring COVID-19 himself, who purposely led his conservative people down the rosy of not wearing masks, highly unscientific treatments, and setting up all of the conservative generated phobias about moving too fast with vaccines when Trump was advocating just that… Faster than could be humanly or scientifically achieved. The result was the Delta variant from so many people with the disease who were unvaccinated continuing to spread the virus. And as long as unvaccinated people continue to spread the Delta variant, another, newer and more evasive or deadly variant may evolve.
Economists who are not in the pocket of conservatives show that the ones who pay the least taxes are the very rich and the corporations. But it is hard to close all those loopholes in tax law because money helps keep the conservatives promoting such worry about freeloaders in the conservative eye. Uneven taxation and failure to provide "a fair days pay for a fair days work" has contributed to great disparity between the very rich and the very poor. Conservatives who can't see that need to go back and take third grade mathematics rather than spend their time at the golf course or local watering hole.
It is the Internet and other scientific tools that is continually uncovering our history and finding out that what we call American History has been the Puritan version all along, with great slaveowning founding fathers and many myths like George Washington's honesty to lull our children into believing that we were always good to immigrants coming from places like Ireland, Italy, and the many places since.
But, our abuse of the history of black slaves and indigenous people is the most pathetic. Why do conservatives want to keep rosy myths about our greatness and not include our great faults like the lynchings and what happened to the black Wall Street in Tulsa from the history books? I think conservative are worried that the Pandora's box is now open and that's what's making them afraid. Myths no longer have any value when challenged by facts.
If anything, the Republicans and their favorite military-industrial complex lobbyists forays into other countries that were utter failures needs to be in the history books for what they were, failures. And the use of bullying words to describe people, in some cases, describing them as not being human that was used in war so that soldiers would not feel guilty for killing their fellow humans because they were not human, objects of hate.
The conservative denial of global warming, scientifically proven over 40 years or more, has accelerated the ramifications that are being seen globally and experienced by people who have never experienced those kinds of calamities before. This issue, not the Muslim religion that will die of its own weight or the gangs and dictators of South America who hold their people in poverty instead of providing economic growth and prosperity--fascists--is the war we need to fight. The cartels who do the same and only survive because conservative Americans hypocritically demand their favorite drug or opiate of choice. Paying more money for it than they do for taxes.
Afghanistan's greatest export is heroin.
Ron
Corzer's Second Letter To Ralph From Paris Part Two (Short Story) - 6/24/2021 9:18:57 AM
I have never been to Paris, but your delightful story had me thinking that maybe, they were prostitutes and the one was trying to get you to help her pay the rent. So I'm so glad that your protagonist did connect and it was perfectly innocent.
I do recall being attracted one time to a girl who came from Paris. She and I were at the pool alone and she kept nervously smoking cigarettes until I finally engaged her in conversation. She was actually German, but as a young woman went to Paris and met her husband, a draft dodger from El Paso. He was the one that told her to go down to the pool and meet people when she was lonely in their apartment when he was at work or school.
But I know what you mean about the beauty and character of French women. Opposites attract. The theme of a plastic full-size see through models of both a man and woman at the French Exposition in Montréal during Expo 67 was "Viva la difference." Easily translated into English.
Ron
Corzer's Second Letter To Ralph From Paris (Short Story) - 5/13/2021 11:59:08 AM
Corzer seems to be writing about his experience in Paris, and then suddenly, in one paragraph describes what he calls "pretenders" and anti-/non-intellectuals who know nothing but, "left wing ways?"
If Corzer is living in Paris, he should realize that it was and remains intellectuals who realized the absurdity of most of life as it was being lived by the followers of the feudal system that rules Europe and crept into the United States in the form of free enterprise and a hierarchy of value based primarily on wealth. The whole idea of the controlling elite coming out of the famous Founding Fathers, who insured that the European feudal system would continue in the United States disguised as freedom of choice (if you belong to the right church, went to the right schools, belong to the right clubs, entered the military elite, and were fortunate to have inherited fortune). Of course those who made it from nothing, often immigrants like Andrew Carnegie, were always remembered for their generosity and goodwill towards their fellow workers.
So I would say that Corzer was basically incorrect in his assumption that anyone leaning left would be less intellectual when those relating to the right have basically given up on scientific truth for conspiracies, half-truths, and lies as a justification for their continuing at all. And they even claim the best centers of truth and learning, higher education, as "liberal centers" along with all of mainstream media.
I think that Corzer should stick to his rather naïve view of the opposite sex as a lifelong or temporary companion rather than deal with philosophy or politics because he is not anywhere in the vicinity of the great masters of art, literature and philosophy that occupied Paris during its most turbulent times.
Ron
February: Once You Were The Year's Ending (Short Story) - 2/4/2021 9:34:29 AM
Your wish list of 10 items that "conservatives will not accept," contains some necessary reforms, like granting women the right to vote, as well as some fears that will not come to pass. The closest the country came to a dictatorship was during the last administration where the president tried very hard to dictate to the people from his bully pulpit and eventually was found out, even by his loyal minions. Many who still will not believe it. I recall all of the claims that Obama was going to stay in the presidency forever and establish a dictatorship. Phony claims that never happened and never will if the people have their way. There is no place for a dictator in this country, ever.
I will agree with you that most people just live out their lives based on what their peers are doing without much thinking about it. Actually, Thoreau, back in the good old days of early America wrote, "Most men live lives of quiet desperation."
Everyone can stand a hand up. But all this talk about "hard-working" is lost when the facts show that new immigrants always work the hardest, often at very low wages, to get ahead. And in every family in the North, you'll find dysfunctional members who draw on the family resources and stay unemployed most of the time, often addicted to something that drags down their self-esteem… Alcohol, food, gambling, opioids, sex… Conspiracy theories, etc. Of course, money is needed as a medium of exchange. But anything beyond a good life is merely greed.
Without a inheritance tax, family members of wealthy dynasties are the greatest welfare cheats and tax dodgers of all.
Most Americans are more concerned with the color of their backsplashes, their cabinets and their appliances than they are of how to really save energy, and money, with what they do daily.
What happened in DC was not a "riot." It was an orchestrated, planned attack on the sitting Congress carrying out a beloved conservative act of the Constitution, the electoral college. It was a bold attempt at insurrection and if carried out by paramilitary militia, a bold attempt at a coup.
When hateful rhetoric is cast at duly elected members of government, the danger of assassination or kidnapping is very real. The need for more protection is justified. Fortunately, unlike campaigns of the past, plots to assassinate have been thwarted rather than carried out.
I like your last sentence showing the courage of some Republicans to acknowledge that their leader was the one cheering on insurrection… In spite of the obvious error you made that may have been Freudian. ;-)
Ron
Someone Knows If No One Won Part Two (Short Story) - 1/3/2021 12:36:56 PM
I am really surprised at the creative name Marshall Lawe, perfectly positioned for the conservative focus on maintaining order through a police state. You could have used Law’n Order as well. Referring to the anal conservative practice of removing all weeds from view from the street (okay back in the closet) so that they have a perfectly green (biblically clean) appearance pretending that industrial, make a buck, science was much better than "fake science" preferred by liberal institutions of higher education and their followers in politics and government.
Law’n Order would make sure that your city sector (in a ghetto?) of artists (suppressed liberals in the media and entertainment?) conformed to the norms of conservative, backward thinking that the past is always better and the future, while factual, scientific data shows otherwise, once it is revealed, is not. So the lawns of the city will match perfectly in uniform green to the yellow of cheese wrapped tightly about everyone's head. My grandfather would love it… He loved head cheese.
History clearly shows that it is right wing conservatives that banned books or censored them. Book burnings in the past have always led to civil strife and war. Liberals have worked hard to remove obscenity laws engendered by conservatives preventing people from expressing normal behavior. The only effort by liberals to curtail conservative viewpoint is when that viewpoint is strongly pitched as true when there is absolutely no evidence of truth. As you stated, the general population is drawn to danger, evil, and violence. That makes the average reader want to read or even believe in, fake or false information presented as the facts. That's why conservatives in the states like Texas made great effort to rewrite history and censor to their own way of thinking books offered by schools in the state. There is a fear among liberal thinkers that much of the population, even while intelligent, could be drawn into Hitler hero worship of a populist leader gone megalomaniac. It happened in Germany and could happen again.
Extremism is possible when rhetoric fans the flames of thought. During the teenage years, particularly males go through a process of innocent childhood to responsible manhood. That may take several years. During that time, young men may band together, take up a cause, and behave very badly. That kind of thinking should not be applied to the entire population. Especially to the leaders who have gained the trust of those who elected them through good deeds and not bad. For example, the president exited the limelight with some reluctance, has fanned the fires of young outsiders from both sides of the political spectrum. Lying low can be considered a sign of maturity when strong action is not necessary to keep things on an even keel. Plans are underway to ramp up vaccine distribution that were not made under the rally cry, "Warp Speed." Conservatives unable to believe in the scientific validity of vaccination and the simple, physical ways that the spread of viruses can be curtailed like distance and cloth masks. Like in the world
Since the air and outer space are similar domains currently well covered by the Air Force, Army and Navy for all purposes defying gravity above the land and sea, terra firma. The idea of a Star Wars technology (we will be fighting extraterrestrials?) and the need for a Space Force is hardly a useful defense mechanism requiring huge expenditure to get underway, when almost all of the countries in the world have been cooperating on Antarctica and in space exploration and science, without the intervention of government leadership that still thinks war and separatism is the best solution to problems on firm land.
Finally, the high-profile maintained by the "art of the deal" president was highly reminiscent of the rallies of Herr Hitler in a time when all liberals, elites and Jews were not considered good, conservative citizens and we can all see what that grandstanding populist way of garnering votes led to. I much prefer low profile, well thought out, scientifically and factually correct approaches and plans using the best minds available to carry out. Thereby easing tensions and removing hairtrigger, shoot from the hip, deals meant to work for a quick buck and nothing more.
Ron
Not A Good Buy Then (Short Story) - 10/26/2020 11:13:07 AM
Another article in the stories section…
What people of your viewpoint have in common is a belief in unregulated capitalism and the value of "hard" work. But capitalism tends to be shortsighted, next year's gain, and letting the market forces determine next year's supplies for production. Historically, capitalism gathers the "low hanging fruit," and changes operations, leaving the dregs for the people left behind to clean up. Workers are "used" by giving them jobs. Both parties are guilty of claiming they will provide more jobs. They won't be coming.
The fact is, that while skilled jobs are always in demand and pay quite well, for those that just want work and a paycheck and have no real skills, those paychecks have become smaller in relation to the owner's take from the business. And jobs are disappearing. Two things are making jobs disappear: robots and AI. Especially in service sector where most of the jobs have been created, replacing manufacturing jobs.
There's a big concern about protest. Protest has been a part of this country since before it was created by rabble-rousers in Boston doing violent things like the Boston Tea Party to the British trade and taxes in the colonies. Violent protest and Civil War stems from long-standing treatment of people as less than human--property. And it was the Republican Party that led the charge to the abolitionist movement, not the Democratic Party. Looking at the past two administrations, violent protests did not occur during the Obama Administration because black Americans felt that they were well represented both in Congress and the administration.
That changed and the continual abuse of the rights of people of color to go about their business in the United States without police oppression and violence promulgated by white supremacists raised its ugly head during this past administration, not in previous ones. Why would anyone want to continue the thoughts and deeds of the Trump administration, filled with indictments, misdeeds and subject to firing for not being wild? We have no kings or dictators, do we?
Racists and bigot hypocrites hide behind the Bible and declare that "all lives matter," allowing unwanted children born and then, not taking care of or given any opportunity in life other than, "hard work."
When police forces serve the administration and business and do not serve the people unilaterally, while growing their budgets every year to consolidate power and ruthlessness, they deserve to be restructured to be less authoritarian and more, keepers of the peace. When we start making police the private bodyguards of business and landlords, we have violated the basic principle of policing. Just as using the military as police is heading in the wrong direction.
You seem to believe that something terrible is happening. And you count the ways. However, what is happening is an understanding that science trumps political action every time. By spouting words like socialism and communism to defeat your political enemies, defeats your purpose. Action does need to be taken and taken quickly to solve our two biggest problems: income inequity that can be solved by fair capitalistic practices and global warming that requires an overhaul of how private enterprise views the earth's resources.
We have created a society that hires immigrants to do manual labor. Just ask your kids. Most of them won't do it.
Ron
The Legacy of the Kneelers (Short Story) - 6/8/2020 8:39:28 AM
You may be unaware, but I don't think so, that there has been a lot of unrest and even, rioting in France over many issues in recent years. My partner tells me that the cost of living there is prohibitively high.
Have you ever noticed that professional football and professional basketball is dominated by African-American players? And while professional baseball initially was the first to allow black Americans to play professionally, fewer and fewer black Americans enter professional baseball? Jimmy the Greek lost everything over his opinion. Even though there probably was historical fact to back up his assertion. After all, he based his bets on facts, not on suppositions.
There's a big difference between kneeling as a form of submission used throughout history as a form of obedience to the leader of a family, clan, kingdom or country. And most of all, as practiced by the Roman Catholic Church, to God, than putting one's knee and weight to either crush bones or to squeeze the breath out of suspects… Kill them intentionally.
Looting is despicable and often the product of mob rule with certain individuals who are risk takers and often have criminal tendencies. I suggest that anytime anyone sees looting, they should take their cell phones and carefully record every perpetrator and then turn that real-time information over to the police. But I might add, that in this country, sporting events celebrations and beer festivals have brought out young people who like to burn cars and buildings, as well as sometimes engage in looting… Simply to get away with it.
Kneeling in protest while the national anthem plays was a humble way of showing that racism affected even the so-called, wealthy football players. Unfortunately, most white Americans have not felt the sting of racism and can't Identify. Thinking that quarterback's simple protest was a desecration of the flag, the national anthem, or whatever… And not a plea for understanding. Maybe after all the huge peaceful protests, the rest of America will begin to understand the hurt that black and brown people feel for being considered inferior.
It is time we change the Constitution to reflect our times. Amendments are in order.
White people are not hated. They're often just misled, thinking that their path to success is the same as everyone else. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a white person who has worked in predominantly African-American workplaces, I have been privileged to note that the lighter one's skin, even there, the higher chance one has to succeed. But as a person with an obvious visible physical disability, I have been denied, many times, opportunities that my background and skills would have allowed me to move forward into. Discrimination is not only against race or skin color.
Ron
CO VET (Short Story) - 5/11/2020 8:49:13 AM
A very clever way of using the virus as some kind of alien visitor that is unwanted, not only in this country, but every country in the world. As far as entering your city, I'm not sure if he has yet. It is both a matter of chance and a matter of resistance. Some works and some doesn't. Experts are scrambling to explain.
The virus is not a political football. Why do you make it so? I have seen the right-leaning Administration and Congress dig down into the treasury's coffers and give out "freebies" to the populace. Yes, you and I taxpayers got our $1200… Some needing it and some not. But the so-called loans to small business went to large businesses and small businesses basically have been unable to get any of the loans because the money has "dried up."
So, the only way to, "Get the country great again" after Co Vet has destroyed all the wonderful right wing gains of "free enterprise," is to open up the country and let him in like right-leaning administrations have done in the past, benefiting from the labor of his sweating back now that slavery has been forever banned. Certainly, a good thing for the wealthy in the past.
Probably the left-leaning idea by the new Republican Party from Wisconsin to ban slavery when the country could have prospered much more with having slaves to do the work that computers do so easily now. Humans were so much more pliable and usable than rigid computers that keep having to be upgraded. Easier to downgrade the slaves and keep them in line and happy with what they got.
But what of these handouts? Are they not left-leaning? And what of Social Security? Still paying the retired regardless of the crisis? And what about unemployment insurance? Doing what it always has done in times of layoffs, tide people over, but only those who have a legitimate claim verified by their small business employers. Not the money changers and the banks, flush with government money to invest in the stock market so that the economy can be, "great again," and the rich can get richer, public lands can be plundered for wealth and more can trickle down to the masses, yearning to be free but only able to live paycheck to paycheck, borrowing from loan sharks to have granite countertops and fancy backsplashes of tile. Eating fast food because it is convenient and cheap.
So, the right is now the left and all of those who thought they were "free" from the need for inoculations, are now clamoring for one, hopefully will think about what they are doing and why they are doing it. Nobody wants militaristic communism or the government owning the means of production and distribution (socialism), like the administration's requirement that automakers make ventilators, as though we were at war. The little guy just wants a chance to develop an idea without being bought out or blocked by the monopolies. The wage earner just wants to earn a living wage and enough to pay for the children to go to college if they want to. A good education and healthcare, free or inexpensive.
That's what freedom is about. Freedom from want and despair. Not freedom to take more than we deserve, each and every one of us.
Ron
Backyard Nothingness: Searching For R F (Short Story) - 4/10/2020 9:42:23 AM
Although the small type and dense formatting with no paragraphs made it rather difficult for me to read, this little piece had a lot to say that I found quite interesting. I've been thinking recently that conservatives are probably very upset because governments, both federal and state have instituted draconian measures to "flatten the curve," instituted draconian measures under the War Powers Act to nationalize industries into making hospital products. Use the National Guard to institute curfews and enforce restrictions on people movements, and give out lots of free money to undeserving masses who are not working or doing anything to earn it.
Sure looks like communism to me… Spearheaded by our Commander-In-Chief, war president, who will probably close elections and take on another term in office to save all that wasted campaign money and make himself even more powerful and loved. Kind of like FDR and Hitler. Who won the war against evil? Who will win the war against the Coronavirus.
On the other hand, I just wrote a poem that I call Rides, it is also the title of a chapter I am writing in my book about the ventures of my youth, titled Midcentury Tales: Unfettered Youth, Chapter 14-Rides that I am posting today. Certainly a kind of "anything goes," sort of lifestyle based on the glut of fossil fuel energy and throwaway automobiles. But, like you wrote, anyone who got his girlfriend pregnant was stupid, leading to a shotgun marriage that usually ended in divorce somewhere down the line. Uncanny how your writing here crossed paths with mine.
I also have compared 1920 with what happened in the subsequent decade. I have a feeling the Republican Congress and administration largess, reducing regulations, will create a decade, after the virus, of immense world prosperity that could be called the "Roaring 2020s." Unfortunately like what happened in 2008 and 2010, as well as 1929. Loosening the economic strings so that "anything goes" against all prudent science and understanding all prudent ramifications, can lead to serious disaster in 2029. Probably from global warming. Something that was highly politicized during Al Gore's run for the presidency, probably causing him to lose to George W. Bush by electoral college vote, while having a majority of the popular vote.
Ron
Backyard Nothingness: Searching For Cromwell (Short Story) - 3/12/2020 8:23:41 AM
The highest rated show on History Channel has two capitalists spending zillions to dig up the Oak Island "money pit," with unknown treasures supposedly put there by the Knights Templar, the French, the Spanish, or Pirates. Six will have to die before the treasures found. It is not fake, because they are digging up "real" clues. But the stories going around for the last 200 years are a lot bigger than the result--so far much ado about nothing.
Politico observers are fond of blaming "the other side, regardless of the facts." I must remind you that many of the stories that the right wing clings to were very carefully and cleverly created by the Russians during the last presidential election and since. Psychologically they are very aware of our consumer society, "keeping up with the Joneses and other failings." If our neighbor believes a fake story, then we will believe it. After all, we share the same card parties, bowling teams, etc. etc. We even believe our Facebook friends over the mainstream media. The overreaction to the Coronavirus is a good example of how rumors are considered to be much better than "fake" news getting our herd mentality operating.
There's a clear indication that money will no longer buy offices in elections. The Reagan inspired myth of general trickle-down wealth from stately figures who run everything just isn't working anymore. The media have exposed that the king "has no clothes."
The year 2020 has a similarity to 1920. A world war wound down to a pandemic flu that killed more soldiers than overseas. Still, with probation lifted, we entered the Roaring 20s with no brakes on the stock markets that resulted in the 1929 crash. I predict we are in for a period of great prosperity under progressive politics with clear brakes on the stock markets preventing major hedge funds, banks, etc. from profiting from international crises like the current Coronavirus. Believe me, they are while all the people with 401(k)s are losing.
In 1966, I roomed with three guys in a new California apartment with an Olympic size swimming pool, sauna and game room with television. I shared a bedroom with a guy from Chicago. The other of the two bedrooms was occupied by a guy from Boston, moved to California, and a guy from Manhattan. They announced to me one day when I said that I was raised well, that the proper word was "brought up," and that anything between the East and West Coast, was a "vast wasteland."
The trends show that this wasteland is being rapidly bought up by corporate farming, timber and mining, oil and gas drilling interests. The small businesses there cannot compete with big-box stores and the Internet. Family businesses are being taken over by franchises. Factories are being automated using fewer and fewer workers. Young people will move to the cities in greater quantities than they have before.
Ron
Cliched Codes: I'm Not A Teenager Anymore (Article) - 11/16/2023 1:01:38 PM
A clever fable about CovId-19. And how it is evolving into much later versions that may keep coming again like its cousin, influenza.
I agree with you about the nature of the beast. The more we overcrowd and don't prepare, the more likely more sophisticated, older version will come along to surprise us.
Ron
My Synthesis Of Vaguely Related Parts (Article) - 8/31/2023 12:41:00 PM
I've followed you for a long time reading your rather convoluted way of expressing what you think is wrong with society and sometimes couching it in questions for the reader to ponder.
As for your concern about the left. I find the right more conducive to restricting individualism. For example, passing tax laws, some of I use as a landlord, to ensure that the rich get richer and that the working people get poorer through rules like, "right to work." Actually, giving the employer the right to fire without any recourse. The wealthy do not work, they live off the power of their wealth to generate more wealth, thanks to the tax laws and pass on their wealth without any penalty to their children, ensuring dynasties of wealthy people. Most of them are right wing leaning.
The right often encompass religion, with ancient rules, to control the masses making sure that women know that they are only the rib and must do what man requires, including going scantily dressed in catalogs selling products for men to profit from freely and other men wipe their rears with in their outhouses, too poor to afford toilet paper.
The right want continue fairytales about George Washington's honesty and strength rather than the truth of his wealth being generated by slaves, strictly interpreted in the Constitution as property worth a three-fourths vote for the owner. And a host of aristocrats to correct the misdeeds of the individualistic people who must join a party to be acceptable and must vote for only two candidates because only a majority can rule.
No one lives like the man you are afraid to report, Jesus. Least of all the religious right. The right wants everyone to be born, regardless of the circumstances. And then leave it up to charities to take care of those who either live short and miserable lives, or bankrupt their parents with tremendous medical bills rather than just be euthanized like we do with our ailing pets.
And the ancient Greek oath that our doctors take, making sure that when we get old we cannot get euthanized. Rather, we must constantly go to doctors who charge us for cures that don't heal or help us while they get richer in the process. Always collecting their fee even if what they did causes more pain and agony.
If you are so individualistic, you should let individuals determine their sexual preference and keep your nose out of it. And by censoring books the right are tantamount to burning them. The tactic used by fascist regimes to eliminate any evidence against them finding ways to commit genocide to those they hate. The left hates bad ideas. The right hates people. Especially those who want to live individually from belonging to preferred groups.
Most of the mass killers are found to be right wing haters. Their weapons of choice are military ones that come from gun manufacturers between wars through a total misrepresentation of the Second Amendment right. Far more people are maimed and killed with weapons they bought for protection than statistics show because those incidents are not counted. guns are also aren't registered like automobiles as dangerous to human life and requiring insurance.
Ron
Butterfly Beautiful Part Three (Article) - 8/21/2023 10:53:36 AM
Your butterfly has covered a lot in this final (?) edition of its journey. About everything that's happening except the lion in the room. The leaders of this great country, while elected by the people sometimes, and other times by political power, can do little to change the direction we are headed.
The direction we are heading is total disaster unless we change, not our morals or our beliefs in love while living like Jesus, but in our lifestyles that are fueled by moneymaking enterprises that have no conscience whatsoever except to make a profit.
The weather events of this summer are a reminder that we are coming close to a tipping point that we can no longer change. We have a stalemate government that is stalling on the lion in the room. We need a war, not against Russia or China, but a war against global warming and we need to do it on a scale we did to fight the Axis in World War II. And it doesn't require building any more on our war machine. We really have no choice.
While we bicker over what right to life means, butterflies and all other insects are disappearing at an alarming rapid rate along with larger species like songbirds that we enjoy. We are simply fiddling away political squabbles while the earth burns. Time to get real.
Ron
Butterfly Beautiful Part Two (Article) - 6/22/2023 11:36:16 AM
Thanks for getting "down to earth" with this article. There are only two things that I have an objection to as I watch a giant swallowtail fly by. There is no truth in the statement that your descendants are losing their inheritance to refugees. It can be easily proven that conservative taxing policies are making the rich richer and the average American citizen poorer. Therefore, many wage slave jobs are not enough money to be above the poverty line, let alone save for the future generations. One such occupation, caregivers, were just denied even a living wage in my conservative state. There is no higher and more noble occupation than a caregiver.
Second, you trivialized throwing beer cans driving by a homeless man. Yet you claim that North Siders, like yourself, are good Christian people. Christ would have washed that man's feet and made sure he had a roof over his head and good food to eat. The next step above that childish act, is to shoot them with a gun in a drive-by incident. After all, to have guns is to use them--right?
Ron,
Butterfly Beautiful Part One (Article) - 5/27/2023 1:32:39 PM
If we really had true "free" will we would enjoy dogmatic organization like political parties and PACs that have very specific agendas that whoever belongs, must honor and follow. Why I like whistleblowers.
I had a bit of a problem trying to figure out who your mythical Butterfly is, but like all enigmas, I just let it go and don't let it bother after I read your piece. You certainly are confusing and contradictory. But I believe that was your intent, anyway.
Ron
Blamesville Part Two: Is It Symbolic (Article) - 4/6/2023 1:19:58 PM
I see Blamesville as a state of mind that a lot of people have. Sin hasn't increased, but the definitions of it have, and sin has been around as long as people have been defining what it is. If we look at history very carefully, animalistic practices are not new at all and sin wasn't defined by the 10 Commandments although some Christians would believe that it was.
It is much easier to blame than to understand why something is the way it is. That takes compassion, something that Jesus had in spades, but most people who call themselves religious under their particular religious "status quo," have clear defining lines that prevent them from doing certain compassionate things, even when they are obvious.
It was good to see your statement that guns meant for killing humans and not for traditionally hunting defenseless animals for food or profit, have become a problem. When blame turns into anger and guns are readily available, someone gets shot.
When a toddler chases after a golf ball thinking that it is an Easter egg and is caught it is cutely funny, but when a toddler picks up his father's pistol and shoots one of his siblings pretending like he sees on TV, it isn't cute at all.
What I gather from the article is the sooner we stop blaming and start understanding why things are the way they are, saying the right things about them rather than shutting them out of the "status quo," we all will be better humans and less animalistic as our minds evolve along with our bodies.
Ron
The Return Of The Man Behind The Screen Part Two (Article) - 1/31/2023 12:05:06 PM
Since I am an existentialist I'm quite pleased with your description of the philosophy. And your acknowledgment that there are Christian existentialists as well as ones like me who do not need the teachings of Jesus Christ to verify my belief.
And I'm not tied up in worrying about the afterlife because the sum of my afterlife will be my writing, now permanently on the Internet where it will be either brought to contemplation like an old story of mine from 10 years ago was today, or faded into obscurity like most of humanity's activities. Especially, the mindless rituals of so many past civilizations with their religions that observers find quite brutal sometimes like human sacrifice, cannibalism and the like.
But you are quick to blame the liberal left what you call "temporal" goals that only imprison us. The only blasphemy that I hear comes from the religious right spewing hatred at their rallies as though the world needs to bend to their ridiculous, meaningless rituals like counting the beads on the rosemary and making sure that women, from the rib of man, keep their place, producing children and doing all of the woman chores supporting her man to greatness, regardless of her sorrow in the process.
The worry about the "new people" taking over United States of America reminds me of the Europeans who came to the continent occupied with indigenous people already with their little wars and conflicts over territory, to be overrun and even poisoned by disease that came from the old countries in Europe. Would Jesus cast out the poor foreigner looking for a better life? No. But the good magistrate of the city will declare that a sweep of them in the lowest parts will drive them from the city for good.
Yes, war is not only bad in the stupid waste of precious resources and scarce time in the lives of us. But the United States, run by the right wing power of might declares right, have created a military with seven times the budget, proportionally, of any country in the world. National guards in each state that have the capability of war superior to most countries. City police with the capability of military action when none is required to keep the domestic peace. And right wing renegade militias holing up everywhere to fight the coming anarchy and win for their funders. Wanting badly to have United States become a fascist state under the powerful grip of dictators and wealth.
When I arrive to wakefulness in the morning, I find wonderful stories from my dreams and not a concern about reality. If you are concerned about reality, seek the truth and only the truth, do not be fooled by false prophets using the Scriptures to get what they want from you and many others who fall into the trap of religious embedded thoughts of no value whatsoever.
Ron
Sky Memories (Article) - 12/19/2022 2:44:44 PM
I see you have done a lot of "blue sky" thinking for this fable within a fable. Personally, I like the character of Jesus Christ, even with the huge gap in his life from his celebrated day of birth, until he was nearly 30 years old. But you didn't speculate on that like some others. Recent findings suggest that he was created by Roman writers who wrote the Gospels. Conveniently having him born a couple of generations earlier so the story could not be verified by eyewitnesses. Written to appease the rebellious Jews who were always seeking a Savior anyway.
Many people claim they know Christ. And they know what he looks like. Not the image gathered from the skull of a man found in a grotto or the famous imprint on the shroud of great fame, but an image gathered from many, many artists of old who painted him to their taste from the way they believed he looked. Repetition does that to us. If we see the same picture of a man taken that many times in many different ways, in our mind we have a composite image that we believe is our true depiction. And the more repeated viewing images, like reading dogma over and over, the more clear the image becomes. Some of us think that we can talk to Jesus. Even though he never talks back.
In this piece you have a left-handed way of getting to your point in the end.
Ron
Eternal Soldier (Article) - 11/3/2022 12:20:16 PM
While being "a little right of center," might seem to be safe, especially while staying on the "straight and narrow," there is great danger in staying the course. For one thing, it is only those that seem to go off the course, like Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Galileo, Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King, that things change for the better.
There is very great danger when the right becomes the moral. Every case of conservative morality throughout the world is a case of oppression. Those who follow the moral track are usually wrong when it comes to history. They always fall.
Two good examples are here. So many have remained straight and narrow while their great president Trump lied and lied again, committing crimes along the way, and then, lied some more about inciting insurrection and taking the people's documents as though they were his to use for blackmail. The worst president in history and one who survives on all of his, just right of center, steadfast, stay the course followers, who constantly help him think he will get away with it without any punishment.
I was insulted and disgusted to read that you compared president Biden's efforts to try to help working people from sliding into poverty with "throwing tomatoes at a Van Gogh. What about taking a hammer to Nancy Pelosi's husband's head. What kind of symbol is that?
Ron
Yes Myron. I Met You When School Was Ended (Article) - 9/22/2022 12:41:43 PM
It took me a while to get it, but the name, Myron was very clever.
While I hadn't noticed before, cities have often been divided into enclaves where the poor have their place and the wealthy have theirs. Where I come from in the north, the wealthy usually resided at the top of the hill where they had a commanding view. Their industries and businesses were either downtown or located where the poor workers resided, sometimes in pollution and dangerous conditions. But there are always more immigrants for those who died early as replacements for industry. Something that Andrew Carnegie thought carefully about at the end of his career as an industrialist and became a philanthropist.
When I traveled the South, the north sides of any town or city were usually very clean, neat and displayed some wealthy residents along with many ordinary white residences, golf courses, churches and cemeteries. But as I drove south, the city became mostly black and showed the signs of neglect and squalor. But you could be using United States for a metaphor of the North and the South before the Civil War. And now?
I have been watching on PBS the documentary, The Holocaust. The United States in 1938 had racist immigration quotas that originated trying to keep Chinese from coming to the United States in the early part of the century. But it went much further. The year 1938 was much like now. The country was deeply divided between the left and right. Millions of Jews in Europe were desperate to escape Hitler and the wrath that he was bringing on them as his excuse for conquering Europe and confiscating all their wealth.
I was awakened, enlightened (conservatives like to use the word woke) to facts I had not learned in history courses and in my reading before how powerful the American Nazi party was and their supporters like Lindbergh and Henry Ford who hated Jews along with the majority of Americans. Even Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who wrote my mother congratulating her when I was born, was against letting escaping Jews into the country. And, worst of all, it wasn't until over 4 million Jews had been exterminated in the worst way by mass execution and the gas chambers and furnaces that word got out what was happening in 1944, way too late.
This country has always benefited from the poorest immigrants who work the hardest to learn the language, and do the dirtiest jobs so that their children will have a better life. George Bush knew that having hired many "illegals" benefiting the state of Texas and many other states with agricultural harvests gathered no other way. Today, the border is faced with people fleeing oppression from Venezuela, Chile and Nicaragua. The cartels are not coming here, they already have adequate channels for feeding drugs to our addicted in all walks of life, including the most right wing and wealthy just as the families. The so-called, War on Drugs, is an utter failure. We could defeat the cartels immediately by providing counseling, treatment and prescription drugs to heal our addicted and eliminating our brownshirts.
You are doing what conservatives always do. Blaming the poor for our problems. Study after study has shown that the poor are no different than anyone else and if given a fair shake can rise up and excel. But as long as we let prejudice control our actions, like the right wing efforts to roll back the progress that women have made in our society, we will continue to have severe problems that we can't seem to resolve by cooperating. Instead we cordon off our cities into ghettos of poverty and wealth. Never the twain to meet. Preferring civil war and isolationism in a world that needs to get together and solve some very serious problems that have nothing to do with ideology.
Ron
Presumptions Part Two: I've Lived My Life For The City (Article) - 11/4/2021 11:34:27 AM
Those things are happening now. That is the problem. And ethnocentricity should not be honored but just acknowledged. With the way the world is intermarrying, we will all mostly become brown eyed, black haired, with light brown skin. There'll always be others but they will become more the honored exceptions.
Abuse has no "left" or "right." It is simply wrong. The status quo has tended to hide or dismiss abuse in the past, particularly towards women. I guess it hurts to be found out as an abuser. I for one, am learning more about the past all the time and I find that the commonly held, mostly patriotic view of our people are wrong. Certain sectors of our society have been abused and that abuse hidden. Today with cameras everywhere and DNA overriding eyewitness accounts, it is much harder to continue the abuse openly except in some sectors of the Internet were abusers go to congregate and share their mostly, hatred for the way things are, and not like they used to be.
Why would anyone want a second Civil War? Why don't we be civil and cooperate--change for the good. Why do people have to be legislated out of bad behavior? Why do we have to have a presidential proclamation to free people from slavery, or even working for slave wages below the poverty level because the very rich and influential want to keep it that way while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?
The truth is the truth. And facts define it, not opinion or innuendo. Change is hard. But it's not impossible and is needed for our very survival. Especially if it comes to denying climate change and global warming when it is now part of 99.9% of all scientific knowledge. And naysayers, finally, are beginning to believe that there is something in the scientific fact of temperature increase worldwide.
It was from your "normal" city that a college classmate of mine came. He was a street tough who got money by suing after being a passenger in some car crashes. He was known to "sucker punch" other guys in bars if he disagreed with them. A great fellow from your hometown. Wonder what became of him. Sure hope he didn't become a schoolteacher, coach or assistant principal.
As far as ill-gotten wealth. Much of the wealth in this country was ill-gotten. And today, a large contingent of the very wealthy have inherited that money, contribute nothing to society, do not work except for their foundations where they hide their wealth and pay no taxes. Isn't that wonderful?
Ron
Presumptions Part One: At Home And At The Mall (Article) - 10/6/2021 11:52:57 AM
As you meandered through some of the things you find wrong in our society, the mall, you tend to blame "liberals" for our maladies. While the core issue, if you had read Ed Phillips article posted just before this one is the growing difference in wealth between the very wealthy and the rest of us, including your surrogate, F. John Surells.
At least 47% of our country's citizens cannot make ends meet. Thet doesn't mean that they are slackers or losers. Some are. But the vast majority, especially newly arrived immigrants, work very hard, go to school to get ahead and do everything they are supposed to do, but because of the economic system, generally do not earn enough to get ahead, while the very rich get richer still without having to do any work or pay any taxes.
What a wonderful world it would be if everybody saw it, not as liberal versus conservative, but as the right, progressive way to look at it. Tax fairly to help distribute the wealth correctly and move ahead towards great things that can be accomplished with that money other than sinking it into endless war over wasted arguments.
Ron
Impressions Of Mona Lisa (Article) - 8/5/2021 11:39:35 AM
I have a bit of trouble with this fascination with Mona Lisa, the great painting and the discussion about a master (God), supposedly guiding things and requiring permission. I didn't get the point.
But I did get the point of the last line of the introduction. For the most part, those crossing from the south to the north are hard-working people. But they now, for the most part, work in menial jobs with long hours that pay them only enough to stay in poverty in the United States. For various reasons, they still want to stay in the United States and live in poverty, largely because returning home is not an option.
How we value things and people show us who we are. Leonardo da Vinci was a genius in his time. There are geniuses right now that are being held down and oppressed by their situation. They need wealthy benefactors in order to thrive.
Ron
Tripping Over One's Feet Out By The Airplane (Article) - 3/30/2021 1:47:39 PM
You have, quite compactly, summarized all of the fears that the conservative right have generated, proclaiming gloom and doom for the United States of America. While we are nowhere near the dichotomy preceding the Civil War, the ultraconservatives have taken over the Republican Party and therefore call the shots when it comes to dealing with our growing problems, most of which were caused by our growing too big for our britches in the twentieth century.
The Ehrlich's warned of the Golden Door in their book in the 1990s but presidents like Reagan and the Bushes did not discourage immigrants because they quickly took on dirty and hot jobs in the fields, construction and the trades. Enabling most American young people to flip burgers until they finished college and into white-collar occupations. Even American blacks fell for this fallacy that a desk job was better than working with your hands out in the open without any air conditioning and fancy furniture.
But now, you claim it is a democratic problem caused by liberal thinking. The president and others have clearly stated that they will not let everyone enter the country. There will be deportations. But it has been proven that a country without young people working in the trenches, like Russia and Japan in recent years, will suffer economic decline. So unless all of our children roll up their sleeves and get to work in the basic jobs of fixing our deplorable, aging infrastructure, we will have to import many who will do those jobs. Here in Houston, our city is 60% Hispanic but you would not know it. All of our major professions are filled with people from all over the world who came here for an education and stayed, rather than returning to their home countries. Our best scientists today are not homegrown Americans, but immigrants hired here by corporations for their skills, and not their ideologies. We have been and continue to be a melting pot. Like it or not.
The buck is supposed to stop with the president or CEO. Up until recently those positions have been held primarily by white, American, males. So it is only natural that white males would be blamed for the mistakes of their organizations because the nature of these organizations is that those in charge need to take responsibility.
I recall calling my former professor, Gerry Nadler, then emeritus at USC about 2005. He was my advisor and department head during my masters degree studies at the University of Wisconsin in 1966 with 23 Indian and Pakistani students and two of us from the United States in the industrial engineering program. Gerry's system design approaches were groundbreaking and used by the Japanese to become powerhouse producers of steel and automobiles in the 1960s.
All he said to me was… "I hope I did no harm." At first, I puzzled at that statement. But I now see that so-called "efficiency experts," first in engineering like my brother and I, and then, in accounting with the big eight accounting firms taking over consulting and focusing on "the money," that we began to go astray, creating a rich get richer hierarchy and to hell with all the rest. Republicans can seem to understand that it is the difference between the rich and the poor that is tearing us apart. All a result of accounting and money running our institutions rather than science and productivity. More than ever needed to be sustainable and less harmful to the environment.
You can malign the new president all you want, but he is a refreshing voice for America over the bombastic, narcissistic liar that the Republicans put in place to "Make America Great Again." And so they did… Scaring away most of those workers that made so many things inexpensive for us to enjoy. Like my former boss used to say, "They've got rising expectations--students." Something dangerous, expecting something to come from nothing. Somebody has to do the hard work.
Ron
I'm A Private I - But I'm Not Alone (Article) - 2/28/2021 10:28:54 AM
We are genetically wired to "opposites attract" and therefore our genetic makeup is stronger by mixing. That bodes something for the future of humankind now that we have such ability to travel from region to region, worldwide. I have found that those I've met from other countries and other cultures have enriched me greatly.
But I have never had that "electric attraction" that I could act upon when I had it. Unfortunately.
But I believe the city is where it's happening and anyone who is not interested in what the city is doing is, "living in the past."
Ron
Someone Knows If No One Won Part One (Article) - 12/19/2020 11:57:39 AM
It is easy to make It is easy to accuse loudly through an inexpensive and easy to use set of mediums thanks to the power of the Internet. The accusation that people who wish progressive measures are asking to become communist or socialist is absolutely false and has been from the very beginning. Our great country has enough wealth to go around. We do not need anyone to take over the means of production like nationalizing all the automobile companies, large and small. But only to give all citizens basic rights and privileges, like a fair wage for their hourly work. These accusations are difficult to prove true and never have been. But they keep cropping up as conspiracies and the tenets of religious and cultish structures that maintain followers in spite of absolute idiocy.
Your great state was the birthplace of the most progressive movement in our history, the Republican Party. Formed by those who saw the evil in slavery and other insider government practices and corruption. Your great state was also the first state to adopt a graduated income tax, helping to keep the individual incomes of citizens from becoming spread into a feudal hierarchy that inevitably results in violent revolution and destruction of almost everything sacred to society--anarchy! Only curtailed by what you fear the most--ironclad military and police state right wing dictatorships disguising as communism and socialism. And your great state was a leader in the suffragette movement that finally gave women a vote and the realization that they are not made from a rib of man to be used as a sex and servant for the rest of their lives because men are afraid that they have qualities of cooperation and intelligence that are superior and men fear.
The new progressive administration finally address the gorilla in the room, global warming. The new progressive administration will once again work for global alliances solve our greatest problems, the way that corporations do. And kudos to Pfizer for not allowing United States administration money to cloud their independent development of an antivirus inoculation that so many cultists fear because of the overreaching and very dangerous constant gossip garbage advice that social media people have taken from the neighborhood to the world with their ignorance and the power of their mistaken, unscientific, ideas and old wives tales.
Science and globalization of conversation in the global village is creating a movement that conservatives can't seem to stand… Tolerance. I recall growing up in your great state with bigots all around me touting the glory of their Packers while beating up those they didn't like in their private bars. Verbally demonizing, first the people they hated in war like the Jerrys, Japs, Wops and Commies into worse like gooks so they could try to kill them, other human beings, without guilt and failed--PTSD. And then, coming up with ways to degrade Poles, Swedes, Finns, Blacks and other cultures and nationalities that came after the original wave of German homestead grabbing oppressed from Europe. And then, why not persecute homos and other distasteful social practices and people like spatiks, cripples and fatties? That's why I always took up for the underdog. Even immersed in that culture, I found it distasteful. Left it with no regrets. Did not want to be part of arrogant ignorance. Today that is the center of conservative ideology. It is called freedom and liberty, but is a wishing to be as vile and distasteful as one wants without being held accountable.
I am a cheese head when it comes to wanting to see small-town Packers win against the big city franchises. But I will not sit in their living rooms and cuss everything going wrong the world when it isn't.
Personally, under the brilliantly put together administration of scientists and experts in the fields required for a powerful and generous country like ours to do good things for all of United States citizens. While making sure that the rest of the world is not ridiculed and put down, but brought into the fold of nations that Wilson envisioned because this country is capable of going beyond George Washington's need for isolationism from England and the rest of European influence that is no longer viable in the 21st-century. Unfortunately, like so many conservative, rural values still try to rule in a world of cities.
Ron
A Fix By My Dresser (Article) - 9/26/2020 8:50:06 AM
I've known people to cut their own hair quite well. A lost art. On the other hand, my partner has decided to "bald" me in order for me to get over a number of sins, one, of course, is not baldness.
I'm not sure what you're saying about existentialists, surrealists, godlessness, libertarians, atheists, lessers, liberals, and losers, except they are, "vague." Existentialists are quite clear. There is no God guiding our way with any great plan. There is no afterlife. All that we are and do will have to be done during this life. there is no convenient "escape plan" for those coming to that realization after living their lives badly without concern for others.
There is a definite flaw in the conservative mentality. The conserving is trying to keep all of the ideas, family and government structure the same as it always was (The Constitution? The Bible?) rather than facing the fact that what they are doing is rapidly consuming our earth. Interestingly enough, many who have been following the edicts: domain over all things and profit by productivity without consequence except profit as the guiding light, are gradually discovering the error of their ways and shifting their concern more toward conserving our home, the planet Earth, rather than the kingdom of heaven.
Ron
I'm A Salesman (Article) - 7/10/2020 11:15:44 AM
Thanks for standing up for the "working" middle-class. Unfortunately, too many young black males committed the equivalent of "stealing a loaf of bread" for their hungry families and were thrown into a justice system that prevents them from working legitimate work, no matter how hard they try. Try to get a job after imprisonment for having a joint in your car.
For Blacks, the way to wealth and respect since civil rights movement of the sixties has not been on the corporate ladder, although a few unknown have made it to CEO. The path has been through the back door, rap, hip-hop and other entertainment, sports, and in some cases, minority focused business. In spite of the largely peaceful protests of the civil rights movement success and law, full equality has not yet been achieved.
Bigotry, bias and insult leads to a sore festering underneath the skin of society when a certain segment of society is pushed continually further back into a corner of no return. The results of recent downturns in the economy, a backlash towards economic protections for those less fortunate, and, fortunately or unfortunately, the pandemic, laying off hard-working people making paycheck to paycheck living, results in the eruption of the anger. It has taken two forms: first, the peaceful protests that worked for the civil rights movement, of a people able to petition the government under the First Amendment. And, secondly and unfortunately, in a few instances, very small, anger and destruction of symbols held over black people predominantly since they were slaves. They were simply property that their owners did with what they wished.
Unfortunately, those long-held feelings reside in the hearts of men/women. They are not easily removed, as evidenced by your concern that white middle-class males being targeted, as though your lifestyles had no effect on others. Cheering your NFL football team while not even giving your star players the benefit of the doubt when it comes to abuse they receive while simply driving their cars through a white neighborhood. It isn't patriotism that's bothering you, it's bigotry. That symbol of pride and freedom, is not apply the same to those on their knees that it does you. Why can't you see that?
I learned quickly that when I called my coworkers in the office, "gals," I received a cold shoulder. When it was explained to me by a black secretary, I quickly stopped using the word, not for "political correctness," but because I was insulting her, making her my whim for abuse without repercussion if she would want to keep her job.
I sense, in your writing this, that you still harbor the primary upper Midwest prejudice that allowed you to throw off German heritage and fight for the right side during World War II, but your pride in accomplishment, in spite of trying financial times as a salesman, will not let you fully understand why people of color are so determined to finally get the change they have sought for over 200 years.
BTW, NASCAR has opened its season successfully with better seats at the television set than at the crowded stands with rebel fans. They have easily dealt with that longtime whiskey running heritage better than the rest of society. They have also gained a huge new following among lovers of car racing everywhere. I foresee many more drivers of color and more women becoming professional racers in a sport that requires athletic skill and good machinery with good mechanics behind.
Ron
The Lord Of The Palace (Article) - 11/21/2019 12:17:16 PM
Your story in the beginning reminded me of the time I was hired by the head of the department of business at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. It was for the second semester, and at that time of the year, especially after the holidays, Eau Claire was a rather cold and unfriendly place to be after the warmth and involvement I had in Atlanta. I moved into an apartment with a vinyl outgassing problem that caused constant sinus problems until I left the building. I taught production and operations management to students who were homogeneously boring business students, who for the most part, were not interested in learning what this course had to offer in their quest to graduate and "make money."
The head of the department that hired me departed for a business in the private sector in LA. There was no acting head and no departmental meetings the whole semester. I didn't meet any other faculty member in the business school/department. I did befriend an interesting young archaeology professor across the hall from me. And one day, while in the little lunchroom where I ate alone every day, I was invited by two anthropology professors to join in a lively listen to Dian Fossey, who had come to the University to lecture, talk of her gorillas and her love for them. I also remember being asked to speak to the local chapter of the World Future Society. They were very interested in my talk, but I had no further contact with any of them. In the spring, I was told that, "We have hired a bright young fellow to replace you." I was glad to leave that cold and unfriendly place, so unlike my wonderful experience on the "other side" of the Chippewa River, 30 miles away at UW-Stout.
Since that time, businesspeople like the ones I taught, and moneychangers, have given the conservatives the power along with celebrity presidents endorsing, trickle-down economics, to create a two-tier society very similar to what occurred in France during its glorious heyday in the 1700s creating the Palace at Versailles and the arrogant and rather stupid aristocracy who could not see what was coming in 1789. The contrast between what happened in England with the aristocracy and the commoners coming to terms by agreements like the Magna Carta, and what happened in France with the bloody uprising that ensued as a result of the poverty of the masses is obvious in the classic book by Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.
While you reminisce about the way it "used to be," you seem to close your eyes to the emerging schism that is being created when people do not wish to compromise and provide fairness to all, but rather divide people to different sides of the river and enclaves where special privileges are granted.
Most of the dangers (communism! socialism!) that the right wing have conjured up are largely nonexistent. But the elephant in the room is the growing schism between people who work hard every day to try to make ends meet versus the people who manipulate laws or corporate policies to make sure that they take all they can until they reach early retirement and then take a golden parachute to live in gated communities with people of their own kind, isolated in their own palaces of contentment with shining mirrors all around.
Ron
The King of The Underground Part Two (Article) - 5/19/2019 8:09:33 AM
I haven't said this for a long time, but you wax allegorical with your writing. Many would put it down because they want "easy" reading and not puzzles that they have to unravel to get the true meaning.
I'm not sure what you mean by the "King of the Underground." But suffice to say that maybe this strange president that those leaning right voted for because he was a "successful" businessman and a bludgeon of an actor on his 10 year running TV show where he gained a lot of face time that endears most people and helped immensely in getting Ronald Reagan and Eisenhower elected. You mentioned rumors and false accusations. Even I, as a layperson with some insight, have caught him many times lying in his press conferences and in his addictive tweets. Do we really want a liar as our King. And King he is, trying to violate the rules of government and the law by running the country from the White House rather than from the people, for and by the people. He has clearly committed, "high crimes and misdemeanors," that some people seem to give a blind eye to.
For example, my sister, who thinks that climate change is a political ploy by Al Gore who won the election by the people's vote but lost to George W. Bush based on the elitist electoral college. Yesterday, I sent her the latest report showing carbon dioxide has reached, in a very short period of the last 200 years, at an accelerating rate, levels far beyond anything in geological history for millions of years. She wrote back, "Not interested." What this clearly shows me is that she has already conceded that global warming is happening and she is wrong. She hates being wrong. Like when she told me recently that we were mostly English (because of our name?). I think she would be quite surprised with a DNA analysis, because on both sides of the family we are about 95% Germanic.
I really like your paragraph on reflection. Those are certainly turning points. Mine came shortly after my paralysis and I suddenly lost half my friends (mere acquaintances?). I read a little philosophy and decided that religion wasn't getting us anywhere and that God was merely a figment of powerful men used for controlling us with moral laws like the 10 Commandments. Since that time, I have spent my life defusing people's view of what a person can do with spinal cord injury and paralysis, making many jealous and some, downright hostile, when I outperformed them.
I always enjoy what you have to say with your unique way of writing.
Ron
The King Of The Underground (Article) - 5/5/2019 8:24:23 AM
The president of the United States has some immunity to prosecution from his/her responsibility to carry out activity like national defense. However, the president is not above the law and allowed to do illegal activity. It is now obvious that the Russians played into the American penchant to enter into new fads like social media originally developed to help college students interact with other college students, but has become a place that retirees share pictures of their families and funny stories with their viewpoints on almost everything. The Russians, through cleverly crafted nasty gossip with a certain amount of "truth" appealing to the baser instincts of older Americans definitely influenced politics. An investigation was conducted to determine if the Russians interfered with the election and many convictions have been made, unfortunately involving many in the cabinet, close to the president, and rewarded for their work during the campaign against blacks and women having a voice in the country's top leadership.
Economic studies show that a country's economy is driven by young people and growing populations. Countries that are not producing young people, like Japan, have declining economies. In recent years the primary growth of the US population has been to immigration from all over the world, not just Hispanic countries south of the border. As I witnessed in universities, those who came here from overseas were the brightest and most ambitious--leaders, movers and shakers. They are the ones heavily involved in Silicon Valley and other ventures that older folks sitting back in their retirement or near retirement based on entitlements like Social Security with a lot of backup provisions like Medicaid and Meals on Wheels when they run out of money because they didn't save enough even when they had enough to save but bought things they didn't need or didn't even use. They yearn for that America again and vote accordingly. They don't see the future picture when they dream of the past.
By the way, today's situation does not compare with 1969, historically it compares more with 1928, one year before things had to change in the way that working people were treated in America.
Ron
Lodestar (Article) - 9/30/2018 9:49:01 AM
You began with the conservative protectionist stance towards the unempowered, the wage earners and spenders that fuel our economy. If you view videos of conservative rallies, you will not see a representative cross-section of our country, you will see a mostly white, elderly group of people that cheer base slogans that often denigrate others. There is talk of jobs and prosperity but without government spending except for "security." A look at the "captains of industry" (old money freeloaders, bankers, hedge fund operators and conservative pundits) you will see the same white, aging, male group of people.
The general rule for those who create jobs is to seek labor at the lowest possible cost. As a result, since deregulation began and unions declined, wage earners have not kept up with management in terms of income. In fact, statistics show that over 50% of the working public has no assets. There are lots of conservative arguments against this inability to save, but it is a result of underpaying labor. And conservative elements have contributed largely to outsourcing jobs overseas, downsizing staff and hiding money in offshore accounts to avoid taxes (big government).
As for ethical behavior, you and I both observed unethical behavior in high school and in college, particularly among certain cliques, gangs and fraternities. I didn't report what I saw or heard, because it was small potatoes… Mostly racial insults… Sexual innuendo towards females… And marijuana use. Nothing that I wanted to report. However, women who were raped because they went somewhere for the excitement of a party, had many reasons why they couldn't tell even their best friend what happened to them, especially not the police who often would interrogate them more than their abusers. Rich boys always got off with a slap on the hand for vile acts. Their parents had money and influence.
Supreme Court justices should have the highest ethics available. Thirty years ago, Anita Hill had the courage to challenge the appointment of Clarence Thomas. Conservative elements allowed him to serve anyway. Last week, Bill Cosby was sentenced to prison for sexual assault of women. Many other men recently have been proven to be sexual predators. And we know of presidents that took advantage of their power. It is time that the double standard when it comes to sex between men and women cease. "Boys will be boys," is no longer a good excuse. Boys become men. Unethical boys become unethical men.
I looked up the best presidents. Aside from Abraham Lincoln in first and George Washington in second, the top presidents were all liberal leaning with the highest conservative being Ronald Reagan. Even the hated Barack Obama rated ahead of Reagan. Our current president ranked absolute last of all presidents, including some of very dubious character. His administration has been full of drama, leaks, firings, indictments and missteps. Along the way, some impeachable acts. No one of any ability to think critically would wish to continue to honor someone who so continually disgraces the importance of the work the people have elected him to do.
United States of America is a very important country, even great. As such, we should embrace the rest of the world in friendship, fellowship and work on our most severe problems. Conservative insistence on isolating ourselves like George Washington wanted nearly 250 years ago does not bode well for a peaceful, helpful and forward thinking world.
Ron
Questions, Ironies, And Fashion (Article) - 3/12/2018 7:38:01 AM
There is fierce opposition to a wall by landowners along the border that is not being listened to by those fearful at far distance from the border. A number of threatened species will be greatly affected by a wall, too. A 60 Minutes report last night stated that last year over 100 semi tractor-trailers carrying up to 100 trapped passengers who paid handsomely to be tortured in the airless confines were intercepted. If the border is magically sealed by a wall, there will be many ways that people will arrive by water to United States beaches like turtles laying eggs. Electronic surveillance and good old-fashioned dogs can be used to control illegal activity. We just have to apply them.
Speculation is not evidence. There is evidence of Russian collusion being investigated. Russian rumor houses have been found creating fake conspiracies and other speculation and have been successfully spinning it on social media. It is amazing what people will believe when they see it written (even anonymously) if it aligns with their particular attitudes and prejudices.
Two things curtail population growth: wealth and education. New immigrants are eager for both and generally arrive at both within a generation. The growth in United States population is not by childbirth, but by immigration. If we provide wealth and opportunity to all the countries of the world. People will not have a desire to come to the United States. All of the hard-working immigrants that I know dream about returning to the peace and quiet of their home countries.
I'm against violence of any kind. And oppression of those who cannot defend themselves. Women have been treated badly for too long. It's their turn. Our president has admitted, while being filmed that somehow he had the right to assault women because he was famous or handsome or male.
Virtual-reality is a reality. And we can't stop it from happening. We have an insatiable desire for violence embodied in boxing, football, hockey and other sports. Some men enter the armed services for the mere desire to be violent. Video games allow violent fantasies to take place. The most violent behavior occurs at a young age. Military guns may be needed by militias (the National Guard) but as once an avid hunter and NRA student, I abhor the use of assault weapons like this for hunting, or even recreational range shooting. A single shot makes a clean kill to save an animal from suffering.
We are not animals. More guns will not protect us more. Criminals get their guns largely from stealing them from legal gun owners. And how a deranged teenager can buy assault weapons is beyond me. Gun collectors also buy other weapons of war that will soon be used by deranged people like grenades, rocket launchers, and Claymore mines… Just examples. Should we let the free marketplace determine who lives or dies?
Populism does not come from liberal or idealistic thinking. Populism appeals to the needs of the "ordinary" people or who describe as the "working class." Populism elected the president and many of the conservative legislators because they know that speaking to the people in terms they like to hear will get them elected. Behind the scenes, the wealthy and organizations like the NRA give them tremendous amounts of money to use advertising and fund pundits to give the people what they want, "popular ideology." That's why the president always talks differently to different groups. He's appealing to what's popular for them. All "great people."
Automobiles are deadly weapons in the wrong hands and are registered and heavily regulated. Assault weapons are fun and collectible. Under the 2nd Amendment being misread, there is a continual resistance to collect information on gun death and injury while automobile death and injury is. What's wrong with this picture?
Ron
Polar Bi (Poetry) - 10/15/2023 10:45:18 AM
I guess, the state of the world according to bipolarism with all of its ups and downs as the world goes round and round. Nobody is steering steady as she goes. Everything is changing and we humans will have to adapt likely always have and find a place for our nest to heal or varmint machinations will be for naught.
Ron
The Scam Poems: Poem Three Point Nine M (Poetry) - 6/18/2022 11:46:21 AM
In all poetry, I find that its’ is a very strange convention. Its is already a possessive pronoun, so the apostrophe must be the plural possessive of a lot of its. From that ugly, stupid Stephen King movie and novel, one is enough! ;-)
I'm not sure what all the numerology is. But spammers are always trying to sell something and scammers are always trying to get you to do something that you shouldn't. Mine have taken to making charges for me on the Internet that I'm supposed to counteract by calling their sneaky number. I never do, unfortunately for them. And worse, they threatened my good name by telling me they have "those pictures" of me that were never taken, like I take their threats, never, stupid fools to think I will react and fall into their web?
What three, three and nine mean, I don't know, except I believe there were first three Charlie's Angels. At least one of them died, so then again there were three Charlie's Angels much later. And I believe either in Mission Impossible or Charlie's Angels, M was referred to as the mysterious voice on the other end of the line.
Otherwise, other than being a rather nonabsorbent observant of TV trivia, that's all I have to offer to solve the puzzle of this strange poem. Both of those TV shows and later, movies, were certainly uncovering and dismantling evil in this world. More fanciful than true.
Ron
The Scam Poems: Poem Three (Poetry) - 5/18/2022 8:57:12 AM
¿Hablas español? I don't, very well. But it's better to be bilingual than to be ignorant of other languages altogether.
You state that poetry should be short and in simple language and then violate your own principle. And you use timeworn excuses for hating new arrivals that always built this country and snatched it from the original occupants, driving them into poverty and despair. "Indians can't hold their liquor."
The conservative majority does little or nothing to build the country. Primarily building wealth and telling the millions that are not wealthy and sinking into poverty that all they have to do is pull up their bootstraps, start a highly marginal faddish business using overseas material and labor, and become rich and famous. Or, even worse, go to college and get a degree. Come out with the best job at a call center where you won't earn enough to pay off your college loans.
The fact is, the only Americans willing to work and do the really hard jobs that built this country are mostly new immigrants, not conservative natives either living off their families or hanging out at their various hangouts. Thinking they have a birthright when they don't.
The other topics are generally minor. But of a minority viewpoint. I will defend your right to state them including the one letter words that you seem afraid to put on paper or electronic paper because they are extremely offensive to some people who have had them used to describe them as property or animals rather than human beings.
Ron
October and the Embers (Poetry) - 9/7/2020 9:39:17 AM
A wonderful poem pointing out all of the high points of autumn, arguably the favorite season for those in the temperate climates because of the harvest and the changing of forest color and other beauty like cool weather.
It is interesting that the high points you mentioned are holy days. Our holidays. Generally in the past, when it turned cooler, everyone had to work a lot harder to bring in the harvest before winter set in. Time off was only granted during an hour or two for church. Seeking more free time, we invented the holidays so that laborers, honored today, Labor Day, could at least have a day or two with family to worship and enjoy everyone being together. That still exists, but we look at it a bit differently now for many reasons I won't go into. Probably the worst example is so many using those days for shopping-feeding our consumer habit.
Ron
Funding And Defunding (Poetry) - 8/6/2020 10:42:28 AM
The situation is not a simple this or that. Working closely with our police on campus, over the years their budget has increased, manpower increased, and a tendency towards using military weapons and tactics on civil matters. Fifty police cars on a stolen car chase. Another 50 police cars parked at a domestic dispute pending in the death of one of the spouses. SWAT called for domestic disputes. And of course, unequal treatment of those color when arrested, processed, convicted, and imprisoned.
Since the right minded people have been in charge of Congress, judges and the prisons have become privately, profit oriented, social services have been cut time and time again. In some cases, completely defunded.
Citizen witness videos are finally revealing injustice at every turn. Police that use their power for personal vendettas need to be removed to level the playing field. When it comes to policing, more not better. Police Department can be much smaller with investment, both public and private in surveillance that clearly show what culprits are doing and save public money in the process.
Ron
Fall Falls (Poetry) - 11/3/2019 11:12:31 AM
You start out with a look at fall and then launch into a tirade about something that is wrong with America. You claim that "money will be taken from working-class people" when it is the working class people that are losing income ever since Reagan economics began moving the power of the people to the control of the rich. And if you would look carefully at the funds raised by politicians, the ones leaning to the right will have far more funds given to them by the health damaging industries (fossil fuels, tobacco, pharmaceuticals) and insider deals on the side than those from the left.
I agree that extremism, name-calling, and petty, personalized attacks do not solve our problems. There is a great need to provide a equal playing field for entrepreneurship, fair wages for a fair days work (Texas pays $8 per hour to caregivers like mine--trying living on that--minimum wage is $7.25 and hasn't changed in years). Sure, it hurts small business. But nobody should have to work at those wages.
What you overlook is, for example, the current situation where as high as 60% of college teachers are on contract as adjunct professors. They have no benefits and some are paid so little, even with doctorates and post doctorates, that they have to live in their cars. The whole compensation system is geared towards money and not towards the well-being of citizens. Ask the Wisconsin farmers. They may tell you that they think it's the left wing regulations and taxes that are killing them (while saving their farms from poisons offered in the private sector) when it is the commodities market that buys the cheapest from all over the world and doesn't give a holy shit whether Wisconsin farmers get their due are not. People are now buying stupid almond milk while California is burning from almonds sucking up all the aquifers… Go figure.
Ron
Ode To The Guilt Trippers (Poetry) - 8/3/2019 10:07:38 AM
America's greatest challenge is the failure to see that using fossil fuels to make us warm and comfy in the winter and to cool our homes in the summer as well as drive our gasoline guzzling cars and trucks is raising the CO2 level in the air to the point where arguments about infiltration from our southern border will be moot as we all struggle to survive.
I live in the largest, long Hispanic, state in the lower 48. Also, the fourth largest city, Houston. Currently Houston is 60% Hispanic and we have a black mayor following a white lesbian mayor, both of whom have run the city well and helped it prosper. Our star citizen is JJ Watt, a football player from Wisconsin who has given back more than to the city than he has taken from his loyal fans.
While there are many undocumented people here from many countries, including Europe, hiding out from the wrath of landowning short or long time residents, crime is not a concern in our daily lives and undocumented people have contributed immensely to the city's economy and prosperity.
Yes, the border is a concern. Perhaps the administration should spend a lot more money on processing people crossing the border rather than guarding it like a military front. We all know that borders like the old Iron Curtain, trying to restrict people's free movement and commerce, never works.
Deportation should occur at the point of entry rather than years later with paramilitary raids on households. In other words, a two-week visitation visa should be up in two weeks. Anyone crossing the Rio Grande without food or water, should be put in a boat with food and water and transported back across the river as many times and it takes. Criminals found should be immediately sent to their home country in shackles to be imprisoned there. Why waste money imprisoning them in our private, profit making prisons on the US buck at cost rivaling the finest hotel?
Ron
Sylvia (Poetry) - 6/30/2019 9:58:13 AM
I am not a connoisseur of poetry or poets, but immediately as I read this long tirade on the art of poetry I immediately saw it as a tribute to Sylvia Platt. Yes, had she not committed suicide, she may still be commenting on the decades that followed her death.
In a style and length I am not familiar with, nor with your interest in poetry, I am familiar with your writing and I am glad that you chose to post this poem today.
Ron
Sixty Nine (Poetry) - 2/24/2019 11:34:37 AM
ah yes what a year, I am there myself, but I have always just seen each one as just another day. the more I see them pass the less I count them as more than a precursor to the next.
well said
budd
Sixty Nine (Poetry) - 2/24/2019 11:16:16 AM
Yes, after a certain age, each year is a milestone of progress made against all odds. For me, 69 was the year of my retirement from the drudgery of work, four years past what is generally considered as a retirement age. And marked the time when I could begin a new life as a full-time author unencumbered by those with ladder climbing ambitions using my talents for climbing.
Ron
The Small Radio (Poetry) - 1/8/2018 10:00:12 PM
Wise words...
The Small Radio (Poetry) - 1/8/2018 12:57:28 PM
A well-written commentary on the life and times of Charles Manson.
I have lived with a Vietnamese woman who watched the Vietcong arrive in Saigon in 1975. Her father was highly educated and he and her mother left Hanoi in 1954 when communism reached the country. They were very aware of what was happening. They tolerated the French but didn't like them. But when the French left, they knew what was coming from China was worse.
After 1975, she tried six times to escape, along with thousands of others who risked their lives and lost as the "boat people." A sister and brother escaped and came to this country. She was finally brought here by her sister-in-law, primarily to sew and make money for the sister-in-law.
As you may or may not know, communism has a way of turning into capitalism through bribery and forced or cheap labor. China is a very good example of how capitalism and communism can work well together. Without any regulations except those in favor of the monied, a great deal of money can be made from the backs of the young and willing, and often, very intelligent, workforce.
The young people that despised the materialism of their parents, the hippies, were often quite naïve. For example, Jane Fonda now realizes how she was so naïve when she went to Hanoi and acted like she did.
Charlie Manson was another animal altogether. He was a sociopath that took advantage of the largess of rock stars and the naivety of hippies to create a cult. Often it is irreverent and irrational behavior that creates cults. Like Jesus, he told his followers he was Jesus, returned. Believe it or not, most people like strong leadership and are easily sucked into the aura of seemingly strong people. There is a cult of Trump today.
Ron
Joyous Dogma Meets Middle Class Degradation (Poetry) - 9/10/2017 11:02:40 AM
Cults continue to form and most of them have very right-leaning ideology. The one you are referring to was particularly diabolical and had nothing to do with the "Summer of Love," and more to do with the drug induced power that a pathological liar had over innocent girls who were trying to escape mommy and daddy into the streets where they needed protection just to belong. Charles Manson, like Adolf Hitler and some other notables had the power of manipulation of minds. Especially minds like the disenfranchised working middle-class today eager for simplistic solutions.
From his high and mighty citadel of right-wing righteousness, Rush Limbaugh rightly declared that the fake liberal news were over exaggerating what the media were saying about Irma that everyone should evacuate early to avoid the rush. He told everyone on the air that they should stay put and not believe all that fake information. And then, he promptly pulled the plug on his broadcast and got out of Dodge.
Was he reporting from the height of the storm? Only the fake news was.
Ron
The Scam Poems: Poem Two (Poetry) - 7/9/2017 9:44:36 AM
That is a very story telling and "telling" example of your basic philosophy. This is the only social media that I am on, and hopefully, rumors do not go very far here. I'm not sure what your social media outlet is, but if you are receiving close to 400 million hits on a single item, it certainly is something that people "can't help but read", and perhaps, pass on to others.
"Never sanctioned or agreed
with the supposed right
of foreign or American born
lawbreakers, malcontents, or
just plain lazy people to live
off the labors of America’s
working people"
Is a very populous belief from the heartland that comes from an inner prejudice similar to "If they have one drop of that blood, then they are that." It Is based on anecdotal information that is locally based, and, especially in the case stated above, simply untrue. But the believers will not believe the facts that show that this is fake information because they have inculcated the belief through repetition and reinforcement.
It usually takes overwhelming evidence that can't be denied to change these kinds of hardened populist beliefs. People now do not believe real news because their friends and relatives are reinforcing their beliefs in incorrect or even fake news and information.
Ron
The Scam Poems: Poem One (Poetry) - 5/20/2017 12:56:14 PM
Interesting narrative. Unfortunately many of us in this most interesting of times, are familiar with much of what you speak of. Someday someone may be able to rid the world of these lowly buzzard-like creatures. Until then our best weapon is an informed defense. Good topic sir. Bob
The Scam Poems: Poem One (Poetry) - 5/9/2017 6:15:09 AM
An unusual prose/poetry (?) form. Reads like a semi-fictional memoir.
There is every indication that you have been singled out as someone who is older, losing your faculties, generous, kind and easily willing to clear up any financial difficulty you may have with prompt payment. Since many have this condition, scammers have learned that it's easy pickings. Much easier than door-to-door scams that require so much preparation and footwork. Via the telephone, and even faster by Internet, you can hoodwink hundreds, even thousands, in a single afternoon of batch phone calling or emailing. You can also cover your tracks.
You show us and suggest some nice deterrents. Thank you. I have taken to telling the most grievous ones that they have called an office of the FBI because we are in full investigation of their interstate activities. That one always pleases by the haste in which they are willing to hang up.
Ron
