Trump for President? Are you insane?

He's not really running, at least not yet. Of course, the candidacy rules are useless, because you can run for president all you want if you don't "declare" your candidacy. But I've started hearing people say that he could straighten out the country, and "run it like a business." People, please - they already "run it like a business" - and the people running it are making money hand over fist. The USA is not a business, it's a Constitutional Republic with democratically elected representation. Its purpose isn't to convert political power into profit, its purpose is to secure the rights of the individual citizen.

But based at least in part on Mr. Trump's persona on his television show, people believe he can turn the country around. Worse, they think he will. Those are two different assumptions, and they are both incorrect.

In the "boardroom" of his TV show, Mr. Trump is in complete control. He is, in the context of each task, an absolute dictator. Of course he looks capable. Everyone around him is kissing his ass, because he is the only one who can say "You're Fired." In the final segment of each show, he appears to be reasonable, listening to opinions and excuses with an open mind - but in truth, by the time the players walk into the set, he knows which team has won, and he knows whom he's going to fire. And it has little to do with who is responsible for losing the task that week.

We are given the strong impression that it's all about responsibility and performance, but it's not. It's about ratings, and who will best keep up the ratings. If he wants the task manager to be fired, that's the easy one. He simply states that the team lost, x is the task manager and therefore responsible. "You're fired!" But if he wants to keep the task manager, he simply manipulates the blaming until everyone is ganging up on the player he wants to fire. All the players are more than willing to point fingers when they can, because just as in real corporate life, you either blame or you get blamed. When the focus is on the correct victim, he lowers the boom, and we see the victim getting in that cab and going home. I hated to do that, but it was the right decision, he says to those still in the boardroom, and they nod in unanimity.

You don't think so? Consider last night. More than on any other task this season, perhaps any season, the task manager was clearly and indisputably at fault for losing. Star, a lawyer with the heart of a predator, a lawyer whose mentor is Johnnie Cochran, had complete control of her task and her team. It was her concept, it was executed by her command, and there was no mutiny. The team did as they were told. There was no way in the land of sanity that it could be blamed on anyone else. Bear in mind that the women's team did the task with five members, while the men were down to three. But when it was almost time to roll the credits, Trump stated that the men's team was very strong, and he wanted the women to have a chance. So he fired Latoya Jackson, and kept the woman who was clearly at fault. You need conflict to have good ratings, you see. And that conflict will continue.

So what he's good at is doing whatever the hell he wants to do while making us think he is being fair and listening to dissent and considering all viewpoints. He misdirects us. This is not the skill of a statesman, it is not the skill of a president who will do what is best for the country. This is the skill of a politician. For the love of God, do we not already have enough politicians? They are lined up like vampires, waiting their turn to bite America's neck.


Trump can't fix what's wrong with this country unless, as in the board room, he is given dictatorial powers. But that's what our problem is in the first place - too much of our government has assumed dictatorial power. Do you really want to elect a man whose life's goals consist proudly of money and power? Really? If so, you would do well to question your own sanity.

60

Today, I am 60 years old.

That means that 60 years ago today, in an Air Force base hospital in Tarrant county, Texas, my saintly mother popped me out like a fat turkey from an oven. I was born at a very early age, as my favorite high school choir teacher used to say.

It has been a good life. In fact, it has been a truly great life. Not that I plan to die right away, but if I were to die right now, I could not complain that I didn't get enough experience while I was here.

My memories of childhood are very, very dim. (I usually complain about excessive use of the word "very," but now that I'm an old fart I figure I can break the rules a little. I will now allow myself to say "fart" in public, for example.) I remember swinging on a rope and board contraption over what seemed at the time to be a raging river, but which was actually a small creek in Savannah GA. I remember returning again and again to volume five of our encyclopedia, because I was five years old, and because it contained the letter D, which meant that there were pictures of dinosaurs.

(I briefly googled for dinosaur images hoping to find one that had been used in that encyclopedia, but instead I found a photo of John McCain).

I remember a visit to Disneyland, and being confused that the castle in the distance didn't look quite right on that little ride. I didn't understand about miniature scale modeling, and I was so near-sighted that I couldn't really get a firm grip on distance.

I remember walking to school in the snow in South Dakota, and discovering that if the snow wasn't too new, I could actually walk on the surface without leaving prints, if I was careful enough. It was an Air Force school, and the mascot was Jets. They would often make snow jets instead of snowmen out in front of the school. It was in Rapid City, and my greatest joy in those days was the occasional trip to Dinosaur Park, where they put cement dinosaurs up on a nearby hill. You could see the brontosaurus from Rapid City:

The brontosaurus. We didn't call them brachiosaurs back then.

The T Rex. Looks cartoon-ish, doesn't he?

Finally, the stegosaurus. You'll see them better portrayed in Jurassic Park II.

The photos are actually of GA's family with the dinosaurs, because I don't have any of me there. But the point is that the dinosaurs are up there on that hill, and they allowed kids to climb around on them. And I still love them today, though I haven't been back to Rapid City in a half century. (For a followup visit to Dinosaur Park, see this)

There was a point to all this, now what was it? Oh, yes.

Back when I was a five year old kid, I couldn't even imagine being 60 years old. Old people were a type - you could be fat or skinny, old or young, mean or nice. I was a kid, and the fact that I could someday become old never occurred to me. There was no reason for it to.

In the next couple of decades, I spent my time learning, without really meaning to. It just kind of happened. A lot of it was just satisfying my curiosity, a lot of it was a matter of survival, and a small minority had to do with passing tests at school. The years went by, and my political views changed in all directions, along with my religious views. At some point, I started thinking in terms of principles, rather than what seemed good or made sense at the time.

They don't call the Libertarian Party the "party of principle" for nothing. And once you start taking stands based on actual principle, and you have to define the principle, it becomes awkward and sometimes silly to try to defend things like socialism. I mean, try to articulate and defend an assertion like "nobody should own anything and we should all be forced to share." If "feed the poor" is a principle, follow the reasoning to socialism and see how sloppy your logic has to be. Define your principles, force yourself to test them.

Once you begin holding fast to the principles as you prove them (if you can't prove a principle, it may be bad and you should discard it), it becomes easier to understand what government is: sheer force. You understand that freedom isn't just a pretty word you can use to justify starting a war, but rather a concept that involves responsibility and real independence, and something that nobody talks about: self ownership. You almost have to arrive at the understanding that certain good, desirable things cannot be achieved by simply having a government do something for you. You have to make things happen by your own effort, or by persuading your neighbors to your point of view. If you want to feed the poor, then feed them. Figure out why they are poor. Figure out how to help. But handing  your responsibility to the government, letting them force other people to do it, is not the answer - it only gives more power to corrupt people.

Here's a clue: the original Constitution of the United States was about limiting what government could do. The purpose was stated in the document itself, more than once, and the ninth and tenth amendments were added just in case anyone didn't get it on the first reading. There was nothing in the Constitution limiting what we could do until Prohibition was adopted - and it quickly proved to be a huge mistake.

But I digress. I was going somewhere with all this. Something to do with becoming an old man. No worry, I'll remember before I hit the publish button.

It has been humbling to consider what I have learned along the way. You know how I learned that people and relationships are more important than stuff? My house was blown down by a mile wide tornado in April of 1979 in Wichita Falls TX. Granted, I had insurance, so I didn't really find myself with nothing, but if I truly found myself with nothing, I know that I would have a difficult time climbing back to my wealthy status, so that I could cavort in my money vault, sliding down my piles of coins. I am not anxious to be broke again. But I am less afraid now of losing all the material goods, than I was on April 9. And since, after the tornado, I shortly lost my wife to divorce, and came close to losing my two daughters, the comparison wasn't close. It's your loved ones that matter, not your stuff.

Since that time, I was given a replacement wife, a much nicer model, one with common sense and integrity. And together we have explored caves, and cleaned them, and we've enjoyed sitting quietly in them during rest periods when nobody is yelling at us to hurry because we're running out of time. We've been in places underground that most people don't even know about, and couldn't visit even if they did know, no matter how much money they have.

We've been to Mexico, Wales, England, Scotland, France, Spain, Portugal... and I've been to the Dominican Republic, though it isn't exactly a garden paradise, except for the awesome coffee beans. Sure, anyone could go to those places, but most people don't, except on carefully controlled tours. GA and I have wandered the streets. See if you can find out what mondango is. And have you ever eaten haggis in Scotland? Well, I have.

I've been on stages in several cities, playing various roles in comedies and dramas and melodramas. I've had the thrill of singing to a crowd that was so loud and appreciative that I couldn't even hear my own voice. I've written an award winning play. I've trusted, and been trusted by, more theatre people than I can count. I have friends that I love so much that I would risk dying for them - seriously.

And in my own limited way, I know God. Now... I hesitate to even say that, because there is knowing God and then there is Knowing God. But I think I do. And I hope I don't arrive in front of the Throne of Judgment™ and hear: "Know Me? Are you kidding?" That would be bad.

On your Facebook page, you can type in all sorts of information about yourself. Most of it doesn't show up anywhere, and I have only recently figured out how to see what other people put, other than the basic stuff like your home town and high school (it's the "info" button). But for religion I put that my God is YHWH, and my Lord is his son, Jesus Christ. People make such a big deal about the mystery of the Trinity. Come on people, there is one God, and he is the Father, YHWH is his name and he created all that there is, including you, which proves he has a sense of humor. Jesus is his son, and he has all the authority of God because it was given to him. You obey the son just as you might have obeyed the King in the person of somebody he sent in his place. Holy Spirit is the comforter, who dwells in us by that same delegated authority. (No, the Catholic Church is not the Holy Spirit! I don't even know if they still teach that heresy.) They are three in one, yes, the Trinity, but it does not violate the principle that there is only one God, I don't care what your local muslim may say. Besides, muslims worship Mohammed with more fervor than the average Christian worships Jesus - so if I have three gods, they have at least two.

By the way, to "worship" means to ascribe worthiness to. It is not idolatry.

But there I go again, getting off topic. Where was I?

When I was in high school, I was terrified of girls. They were mysterious and desirable and completely out of reach. I have sometimes said I had a crush on most of them, which I guess isn't exactly true. I did have crushes on most of the women in a capella choir, though. For some reason, the best girls were in choir. It was a moot point, though, because I was scared of them.

I got a scholarship in choir, and could have gone to a college over in north Texas. But I didn't because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to pay for the rest of the tuition, or make ends meet, or whatever. I made too many decisions based on fear. That is probably the single greatest regret I have about my life - that too much of it, too many opportunities, were wasted because I was too afraid to take risks.

I outgrew that in time, and it's a good thing, because so much of what has made my life wonderful could never have happened if I had not learned to accept some risks. Caving? Risky. Getting on stage with a hundred pages of lines memorized? Risky. Opening my heart and caring about people who might very well reject me? Very risky. Most people never do any of those things, and only secretly wish they could.

So I've reached the age of 60, or as I like to put it, level 60 in the Game of Life™ - and no free plays left. My eyes are getting weaker, and my hearing is getting worse, and I run out of breath a little sooner and with less exertion. The caving is pretty much done. It's possible that I've memorized my last play - but you never know.

But I love a lot of people, truly love them, and I like to think that some of them may actually love me back. And that, my friend, is what makes life good. Well, that and home grown tomatoes.

Coming Soon to a World near you

© March 2011

Something is coming.

It's coming like a T-Rex comes
   to the research trailer on the edge of the cliff.

The lying, thieving raping bastards who run this dying world are calling it.
They dance naked under a full moon,
calling it,
offering to exchange our lives and our future
   and our children's inheritance
   but not their own, if they can help it
   just ours
   for the power they can gain.

and it comes crashing through the trees
  snarling and biting
  and we don't notice the tree tops getting snapped aside
  like so many weeds
  because CBS and CNN sing their soothing lullaby
  Hush li'l baby, don't you cry,
  Mama gonna throw you to the Rex

The world changed when the towers fell into Pearl Harbor in 1929
And it's about to change again.
The beams are going to break
The restraint is going to give way

And it will come
And the image will explain it to us
as we're eaten.

Daylight Savings: end it now!

Today, once again, we observed the pagan ritual of Daylight Savings Time.

We do this twice a year, forcing the sun to advance in the sky the length of a time zone in the spring, and then forcing it to actually move backwards in the fall. This cannot be good for the sun!

So I did some research. It turns out that NASA and our government are aware of a phenomenon they secretly call "Sun Fatigue," but of course they aren't going to tell us about it. And when this gets out, they will deny deny and deny some more. But here are the photos.

First, the sun just before the government began requiring DST:

Notice the healthy yellow glow coming from our friend, the yellow sun, which gives Superman his powers.

Now notice the sun five years after they began tampering with the Universe itself:

You can see that the yellow has faded, and old sol is a little closer to being a Red Dwarf, and a little closer to imploding from exhaustion, absorbing our Earth in a black hole of utter destruction.

But a couple of years ago, they made it worse, much worse.

DST is now the law a full half of the year, leaving the sun even less time to recover from the enormous strain of going backwards every other half-year. And, because of new TSA regulations requiring the sun to also go through a security scanner every time it reaches a new time zone - after all, it is in our air space - our sun, our faithful friend, the source of our energy, is actually ill.

Just look at the sickly green that is infecting the face of our best friend in space:

Forget about global warming. This is the real danger. Something must be done. Write your congressman now, and demand that our sun be given its freedom once again.

Maddening phone tree systems

You've navigated through them. We all have. You call a large mega-company, and you press one for English. That's the cliché, but it never stops there. And by the time you get what you want done, you're at least a little irritated.

I've been doing the finances for GA's parents, because they're no longer able. I pay bills for them, take care of address changes, and help them call companies who need to be called. I'm kind of a problem solver for them. Recently, my father-in-law lost his health insurance card sometime during one of our trips to get medical visits done. It's not a terrible problem, because we can always use a recent statement from them to get the numbers required. But he needs something to carry in his wallet, and an 8 x 11 monthly statement isn't the best thing to carry in your wallet.

So I called the insurance company, and began my journey through the labyrinth of their phone tree.

Press "1" for English.

OK.

Do you have a current policy with Mega-Giant Health Insurance Corporation?

Yes.

Please enter the contract number.

I did so.

If you are inquiring about an existing claim, or a potential claim, or a denied claim, press "1".
If you are inquiring about a....  

...and on and on, but of course without any option for a live person. Eventually, at about number four, one of the offers had to do with requesting a form. "Aha! I thought. An insurance card might be considered a form. I'll go there." I pressed four.


If you are requesting a form ***, press "1" - if you are requesting a form ***, press "2" - if you are... and so on. None of the options was an insurance card, but one of the options was a blank space for about a second. Should I go for that one? I decided to chance it.

If you are requesting... and they named yet another form and another blank space. So I took a chance. I said to the phone computer, in a clear, firm voice, "I need a replacement insurance card."

I'm sorry, I didn't understand that, said the polite computer voice.

I said it again. "I need a replacement insurance card."

I'm sorry, I didn't understand that, said the polite computer voice again, with the same tone.

I said, with absolutely no irritation in my voice, "That's because you're an idiot."

And it said, "Would you like to speak to a customer service representative?"

I should have guessed that they would have the program listen for the word "idiot" as a clue to the customer losing his patience. Duly noted. I'll bet this works everywhere.

Things I love

In no particular order:

Enjoying the company of good friends. They can do the talking if they want to, and I'll listen.

The rich smell of earth carried gently out of the entrance of a cave.

The clean, non-earth smell of a limestone cave with no mud.

A good rehearsal in a production with good, committed actors.

A warm hug that lasts longer than the don't-misunderstand-this limit, because they know I won't misunderstand it.

Picking a perfectly ripened fruit from the garden. This goes for fruits, beans, whatever.

Solving a problem successfully. Computer, printer, you name it.

Getting a phone call from someone I love for no reason.

Long walks on the... well, anywhere. A hiking trail, a beach, a sidewalk.

Children laughing and playing with each other.

Moms and dads playing with their children.

Hearing wives say good things about their husbands.

Being appreciated. Oh, don't we all, though?

Hearing the hedgehog giggle on Frontierville.

Hearing the words "It needs more butter."

Eating in a foreign country. That little ham sandwich bagette thing in Paris tasted better than escargot at home.

Old photos

Lately I've been on a project.

It's been rewarding, and time consuming, and my eyes are starting to cross.
I've been scanning family slides, dating from the 40's to the 80's. Slides that old look monochrome, either blue or green or yellow, depending on the film used, and you would think that it would be impossible to coax true colors out of them. Sometimes it is impossible, but often you can get amazing results with a little patience.

The first set I tackled was my dearly departed dad's collection. There were slides in there that I had never seen, probably because on those occasions when he set up the projector, he mostly showed the ones that we were most likely to enjoy seeing. But he never threw away anything, and so there were some rejected slides that I am thrilled to discover - though, granted, I probably wouldn't have appreciated them as a ten year old lad.

Take a look at this one:

OK, you can tell that it was shot from an airplane, sure. But where is it? That, my friend, is the city of Tokyo, in 1945, before the end of the war.

Here is one taken in Alaska, in the Aleutian Islands, where he was stationed. Did you know we had bases set up in Alaska during WW2? Well, it made sense. When you hop from island to island on the way to Japan, Alaska is a great place to start.

 Anybody know what kind of plane that is? I didn't care back in the day, but now it looks kind of interesting.

Look at these guys trying to stay warm. They were all Air Force buddies of my dad, but of course I didn't care. I didn't know them. I didn't try to stay warm with them. I suspect that one could really learn to appreciate a hot cup of coffee when it's this cold all the time.






Now, here is another one, from 1946, at least I think it is. This was in the rejects box, and I did some serious color correction to bring out the natural colors. I have no idea who these people are, except that they are relatives of some kind. I wasn't even born yet, so I didn't know them until they were grown up. But it doesn't matter. Look at the stuff on the table. Look at the appliances in the background. I think it's a great little photo.

I'm probably not doing as great a job as a professional might, but then I'm giving each slide a lot more individual attention, so who knows?

But now, take a look at this slide, taken in Morocco after the war.

Look at the way the locals are dressed, sure, but notice the guy on the bicycle! I think I saw this movie.

But here is one that I think I remember seeing when I was a kid, but probably when Dad returned from Morocco, and not again, because it was in the reject box. Thing is, at that time, it was strictly forbidden to take pictures of women because - I don't know, but whatever it was, it didn't really hurt anybody, and so he slyly took a shot as he walked down the street in front of the gas station, and he somehow managed to not get beheaded for it. By now, the woman in the photo has been stoned to death for sneezing wrong or something. Or she's died of old age before reaching 50. You know how it is.