This really is posting #1701. Seriously, it has been that many postings. I hadn't been thinking about milestones, and quite frankly "1700" is not a number that is typically recognized as such, but what the heck...I need a topic.
The mock milestone did give me pause to think about how much I enjoy writing this "stuff". Like most things that wax and wane in life I do go through phases where it's harder to think of something to write, but the one constant is that I really do enjoy writing.
Speaking of writing, when I started writing this blog I set some rules up for myself. Andy Palumbo's posting the other day (link HERE) made me think of this as well. Now my rules are not all that formal, instead they are more like things that are tucked inside my head that I test my content against whenever I write. Because these rules are as much oral history as anything else, I don't actually have them formally written down. This is quite odd for me, as I normally write everything down, but so be it. I do know that I've referred to my rules in a posting or two before, but given that there are 1700 postings to contend with, even I probably couldn't find that content.
Anyway, in celebration of 1700 postings, here are a few of my blog rules.
People - I try to only say nice things about non-public figures. Or I don't say anything at all about them. I decided a long time ago that blasting nasty things over the Internet about a person (or persons) that I somehow think did me wrong was nothing short of crude and vulgar. Public figures? Well that's a different story. Even then though, I will offer a critical opinion about a public person's ideas and actions, but not about who they are as human beings.
Honesty, Part I - I try to say what I think. Now there are some postings that I know generate more controversy (in fact I know of several magic words that I can use in posting titles that will almost guarantee page visits) than others, but that's okay as long as I am being honest with myself. In the end, I think this is something I owe myself and anyone else who reads this stuff.
Honest, Part II - It's not just being honest in my writing that matters, it's also about being honest about how I feel. I have written things in the blog that, upon a later re-read, I had a strong desire to remove because they were too descriptive about how I felt at a particular moment. By and large though, I don't remove postings. Even thinking about some older postings makes me cringe. But I'm still not going to remove postings.
Original Thought - I always try to provide my original thoughts on a topic, bolstered by supporting and cited sources. Now once in a blue moon I've passed along some information that didn't come from me, but I try to be very diligent about disclosing information sources. Hyperlinks are wonderful.
Conflicts of Interest - Andy Palumbo referenced this in his terrific blog posting the other day. I always try to note where I may have some personal involvement in an issue, to the point of mindless repetition. Virtually anything I write about Penn State, for example, is qualified with a notation that I am a graduate and a life member of the Alumni Association.
My Employer - In 1701 postings, you will not find a single reference by name to my employer. Now in fairness, I think I once referred to the company, but not as my employer. This somewhat bends the "Conflict of Interest" rule, but so be it: sometimes rules have to be malleable for the right cause. Anyway, I don't write about my employer because I'm not authorized to do so; I'm not an employer spokesperson, and besides, I never want anyone other than me to have control over this content.
Blog Promotion - I mostly don't. Granted I did get a listing in NEPA Blogs early on, and recently I've started to publish my postings via Twitter, but by and large I don't go out of my way to promote this space. The phrase I've heard others use when this kind of promotion is over done "blog whoring", which is a apt description of how I feel about this kind of thing. Why? Well I didn't start this as an exercise in "look at me"; it was simply more about having a creative outlet for someone (me) who lacks other creative talents.
Identity - I always post under my own name and I always comment on other blogs using my own name. I am a firm believer in having the courage of your own convictions, and few things impress me less than folks who comment on blogs anonymously.
There are probably more, but I think the listing above is good enough.
Here's to 1700 more.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Dear Congress,
The following are two things that the United Stated federal government does that deeply offend me:
1) Spying on U.S. citizens
I find it inexcusable that innocent individuals, right now, are having their private communications intercepted by government employees.
2) Spend money in support of the two major political parties
See THIS and many other examples of tax dollars being used to subsidize two political parties.
I pay federal income tax. In fact, I pay more than my share of federal income tax. While I know that my individual federal tax dollars don't directly go towards spying and political party support, I do know that they go towards other things that then allow other dollars to go towards spying and political party support.
I therefore respectfully request that I no longer be required to pay federal income tax, at least for the next year.
Kindly get back to me.
Thanks,
- Steve
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Pope Francis Speaks about Religious Fundamenalists
This is worth your time to read if you even have a passing interest in organized religion.
Reference HERE and HERE. A few choice quotes:
“Our God is a God who is close, who accompanies. Fundamentalists keep God away from accompanying his people, they divert their minds from him and transform him into an ideology. So in the name of this ideological god, they kill, they attack, destroy, slander. Practically speaking, they transform that God into a Baal, an idol,”
“No religion is immune from its own fundamentalisms,”
“In every religion there will be a small group of fundamentalists whose work is to destroy for the sake of an idea, and not reality. And reality is superior to ideas.”
He also made a comment about those religious fundamentalists who take a legalistic approach to their ministry:
“When a priest isolates himself, in his solemn or legalistic posture, or in the posture of a prince … when he distances himself, he embodies in a certain way those persons to whom Jesus dedicates the whole of chapter 23 of the Gospel of Matthew. … Those legalists, Pharisees, Sadducees, doctors of the law that feel themselves among the pure.”
One has to wonder if he was talking about, among others, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke.
For the record, the gloves Cardinal Burke is wearing in the picture above cost more than what I spent of my first two cars...combined. The hat? That costs more than twice the value of the first car I ever financed.
Reference HERE and HERE. A few choice quotes:
“Our God is a God who is close, who accompanies. Fundamentalists keep God away from accompanying his people, they divert their minds from him and transform him into an ideology. So in the name of this ideological god, they kill, they attack, destroy, slander. Practically speaking, they transform that God into a Baal, an idol,”
“No religion is immune from its own fundamentalisms,”
“In every religion there will be a small group of fundamentalists whose work is to destroy for the sake of an idea, and not reality. And reality is superior to ideas.”
He also made a comment about those religious fundamentalists who take a legalistic approach to their ministry:
“When a priest isolates himself, in his solemn or legalistic posture, or in the posture of a prince … when he distances himself, he embodies in a certain way those persons to whom Jesus dedicates the whole of chapter 23 of the Gospel of Matthew. … Those legalists, Pharisees, Sadducees, doctors of the law that feel themselves among the pure.”
One has to wonder if he was talking about, among others, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke.
(From a wonderful blog that all Roman Catholics should be reading.)
For the record, the gloves Cardinal Burke is wearing in the picture above cost more than what I spent of my first two cars...combined. The hat? That costs more than twice the value of the first car I ever financed.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Comments Made in Response to Gort42's Posting, Donald Trump
You can read Gort's terrific posting on Donald Trump HERE.
Being someone to never miss an opportunity to re-purpose content, below you can find my reply to the posting.
Before that though, a two thoughts.
First, Donald Trump is a cartoon character; he might as well be one of the residents of South Park squawking about "There took our jobs".
Second, he appeals to the worst instincts and emotions in folks. Compassion seems like an alien concept to Donald Trump. He teaches that money equates to success. He is arrogant and misogynistic. He's the last thing the GOP needs running for President and would be a disaster if selected as the GOP nominee.
Anyway, here's my comment.
Good post Gort.
As noted by a fellow GOP candidate back in 2013, the GOP needs to "...stop being the stupid party...". Trump's mission seems to be make sure "stupid" stays firmly entrenched in the GOP lexicon.
For example, do these folks who support Trump REALLY want to live in a country where you have federals hunting down 11 million illegals? Hell, in that scenario, how many times will Lou Barletta (and other sufficiently ethnic looking folks) be asked to produce "papers"? It's yet another example of a 1000% angry emotional appeal, common sense be damned, from a man who probably only laughs when he makes fun of older women. I don't even like Carly Fiorina and I was repulsed when I heard Trump mocking how she looks.
My guess is that at some point these same angry supporters will be done with Trump. Anger seldom has a long shelf life. Like kids on Christmas morning, they will eventually tire of playing with the same Trump toy, and they'll find another. By then though, the damage will be done. Trump is a walking misogyny machine...couple that with his cheesing off 98% of thinking Hispanics (the remaining 2% includes Rafael Cruz and Marco Rubio...and perhaps a few that work construction for Trump) and you have the makings of a GOP disaster. The "high information" GOP folks (i.e. George Will, Charles Krauthammer and others) have already figured that one out...hence the almost daily stream of Trump attacks.
The truly sad part? Hillary Clinton could very well be damaged goods in 2016 and Bernie Sanders is simply too far left to win a general election. The GOP should have a decent shot at this election, but Trump seems to be doing his best to make sure that never happens.
Maybe this is an example of Big Dan's infamous "false flag" operations, political style.
Anyway, rant concluded.
- Steve
Being someone to never miss an opportunity to re-purpose content, below you can find my reply to the posting.
Before that though, a two thoughts.
First, Donald Trump is a cartoon character; he might as well be one of the residents of South Park squawking about "There took our jobs".
Second, he appeals to the worst instincts and emotions in folks. Compassion seems like an alien concept to Donald Trump. He teaches that money equates to success. He is arrogant and misogynistic. He's the last thing the GOP needs running for President and would be a disaster if selected as the GOP nominee.
Anyway, here's my comment.
* * * * * *
Good post Gort.
As noted by a fellow GOP candidate back in 2013, the GOP needs to "...stop being the stupid party...". Trump's mission seems to be make sure "stupid" stays firmly entrenched in the GOP lexicon.
For example, do these folks who support Trump REALLY want to live in a country where you have federals hunting down 11 million illegals? Hell, in that scenario, how many times will Lou Barletta (and other sufficiently ethnic looking folks) be asked to produce "papers"? It's yet another example of a 1000% angry emotional appeal, common sense be damned, from a man who probably only laughs when he makes fun of older women. I don't even like Carly Fiorina and I was repulsed when I heard Trump mocking how she looks.
My guess is that at some point these same angry supporters will be done with Trump. Anger seldom has a long shelf life. Like kids on Christmas morning, they will eventually tire of playing with the same Trump toy, and they'll find another. By then though, the damage will be done. Trump is a walking misogyny machine...couple that with his cheesing off 98% of thinking Hispanics (the remaining 2% includes Rafael Cruz and Marco Rubio...and perhaps a few that work construction for Trump) and you have the makings of a GOP disaster. The "high information" GOP folks (i.e. George Will, Charles Krauthammer and others) have already figured that one out...hence the almost daily stream of Trump attacks.
The truly sad part? Hillary Clinton could very well be damaged goods in 2016 and Bernie Sanders is simply too far left to win a general election. The GOP should have a decent shot at this election, but Trump seems to be doing his best to make sure that never happens.
Maybe this is an example of Big Dan's infamous "false flag" operations, political style.
Anyway, rant concluded.
- Steve
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Road Apples, #164
Comcast...File this under "giving credit where credit is due". The local Comcast supervisor, a Mr Donald Kondraski, really came through for us. It was his intercession that got the local pole wiring replaced, and since then our Internet service has been flawlessly working, and actually faster than before. While I said some unkind things about Comcast (all true), in the end this gentleman pulled it out. Give that man a raise Comcast!
The End of the Mac Experiment...Yes, my Mac is being donated to my youngest daughter. This posting, as a matter of fact, is being typed on my new set-up, an HP desktop running Windows 10 on an Intel i3 processor. It's fast enough, and I can further juice up the RAM. The hard drive is 1TB, which is plenty of storage. So far, so good. It's nice to have a familiar set of tools in front of me, and I can safely say that I've been cured of the Apple bug. The transition wasn't without some extra work, as getting my display to work with the new PC via an HDMI connection required some finessing, but all's well that ends well. All that's left is to finish installing some software.
By the way, Windows 10 is great, particularly when compared to that unmitigated disaster, Windows 8. There is a part of Windows 8 that remains on the machine, but thankfully the basic interface is classic windows stuff, complete with that I missed the most, namely painfully easy file management.
Radio Face...While working on a group presentation for my current graduate school class, I was paid a nice compliment about the quality of my speaking voice. I've gotten the "you have a radio voice" compliment before, and it's nice to hear. It does make me think though that I also happen to have something of a radio face to boot. Now in truth, I know that's not completely true. At my best I clean up rather well.
BBC...is getting ready to ruin Top Gear. It will just never be the same without Jeremy, James and "the Hamster". I don't know who the new host is, and quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to find out. I mean how could you possibly top the old guys? The played soccer with cars once and had a lit gas grill going in the back of a truck.
Uma Thurman...I confess, I really like the Fall Out Boy song "Uma Thurman", in spite of the fact that Fall Out Boy seems a bit Emo to me & that the song uses a sample, which I find a horrid, unoriginal practice. It all works though in this song. See for yourself.
It's catchy & clever (kind of like Blurred Lines, but without all the perv-y elements). The video is fun to watch as well.
The Turn...I can feel "the turn" happening. This is when the seasons really begin to change, and despite the heat wave we had in these parts through part of last week, I'm thinking that things are changing. In as much as I really don't like Winter all that much, I have to confess that I enjoy there being an end to endlessly hot days. This is why there won't be any retirement for me in the deep south or southwest; nice places, but just not for me. Now to begin my favorite season, Fall.
Presidential Race...It looks like the smart-person glasses haven't been enough to keep Rick Perry in the Presidential race. In terms relative to the current GOP field (compare him to Trump & Huckabee) Perry was one of the more moderate candidates, which in and of itself is a shocking statement. I suspect that his 0-1% support might end up going to Rafael Cruz, which will make exactly no difference. This will be the first of many, although I've always suspected that some are in this race simply because:
1) It's a kind of job.
2) They can use the exposure to sell books and stuff.
See Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.
On the plus side, Dr Ben Carson is doing well. While I don't think I'd vote for him (one never knows though...), he's the kind of outsider that I think most GOP voters want, without the monstrous ego and woman-hating of Donald Trump.
The End of the Mac Experiment...Yes, my Mac is being donated to my youngest daughter. This posting, as a matter of fact, is being typed on my new set-up, an HP desktop running Windows 10 on an Intel i3 processor. It's fast enough, and I can further juice up the RAM. The hard drive is 1TB, which is plenty of storage. So far, so good. It's nice to have a familiar set of tools in front of me, and I can safely say that I've been cured of the Apple bug. The transition wasn't without some extra work, as getting my display to work with the new PC via an HDMI connection required some finessing, but all's well that ends well. All that's left is to finish installing some software.
By the way, Windows 10 is great, particularly when compared to that unmitigated disaster, Windows 8. There is a part of Windows 8 that remains on the machine, but thankfully the basic interface is classic windows stuff, complete with that I missed the most, namely painfully easy file management.
Radio Face...While working on a group presentation for my current graduate school class, I was paid a nice compliment about the quality of my speaking voice. I've gotten the "you have a radio voice" compliment before, and it's nice to hear. It does make me think though that I also happen to have something of a radio face to boot. Now in truth, I know that's not completely true. At my best I clean up rather well.
BBC...is getting ready to ruin Top Gear. It will just never be the same without Jeremy, James and "the Hamster". I don't know who the new host is, and quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to find out. I mean how could you possibly top the old guys? The played soccer with cars once and had a lit gas grill going in the back of a truck.
Uma Thurman...I confess, I really like the Fall Out Boy song "Uma Thurman", in spite of the fact that Fall Out Boy seems a bit Emo to me & that the song uses a sample, which I find a horrid, unoriginal practice. It all works though in this song. See for yourself.
It's catchy & clever (kind of like Blurred Lines, but without all the perv-y elements). The video is fun to watch as well.
The Turn...I can feel "the turn" happening. This is when the seasons really begin to change, and despite the heat wave we had in these parts through part of last week, I'm thinking that things are changing. In as much as I really don't like Winter all that much, I have to confess that I enjoy there being an end to endlessly hot days. This is why there won't be any retirement for me in the deep south or southwest; nice places, but just not for me. Now to begin my favorite season, Fall.
Presidential Race...It looks like the smart-person glasses haven't been enough to keep Rick Perry in the Presidential race. In terms relative to the current GOP field (compare him to Trump & Huckabee) Perry was one of the more moderate candidates, which in and of itself is a shocking statement. I suspect that his 0-1% support might end up going to Rafael Cruz, which will make exactly no difference. This will be the first of many, although I've always suspected that some are in this race simply because:
1) It's a kind of job.
2) They can use the exposure to sell books and stuff.
See Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.
On the plus side, Dr Ben Carson is doing well. While I don't think I'd vote for him (one never knows though...), he's the kind of outsider that I think most GOP voters want, without the monstrous ego and woman-hating of Donald Trump.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
2016 Presidential Candidates - Two Words
Democrats
Hillary Clinton - Entitled Ego
Bernie Sanders - Leftwing Dilema
Martin O'Malley - Who's That?
Jim Web - Notta Chance
Lincoln Chafee - He's Running?
Special Bonus...
Joe Biden - Fun Uncle
Republicans
Donald Trump - Misogynistic Megalomaniac
Scott Walker - Hates Unions
Jeb Bush - Neil's Brother
Ted Cruz - Frighteningly Weird
Mike Huckabee - American Theocracy
Chris Christie - Jersey Mafia
Ben Carson - Low Key
Carly Fiorina - HP Disaster
Jim Gilmore - Happy's Brother?
Lindsey Graham - Neat Video
Bobby Jindal - Kenneth (the) Candidate
John Kaisch - He's Republican?
George Pataki - Simply Lost
Rand Paul - Odd Duck
Rick Perry - Smartperson Glasses
Marco Rubio - Bland Salsa
Rick Santorum - Right (of) Mussolini
Special Bonus...
Sarah Palin - Box (of) Cats
* * * * * *
Okay, so I took a few liberties.
Hillary Clinton - Entitled Ego
Bernie Sanders - Leftwing Dilema
Martin O'Malley - Who's That?
Jim Web - Notta Chance
Lincoln Chafee - He's Running?
Special Bonus...
Joe Biden - Fun Uncle
Republicans
Donald Trump - Misogynistic Megalomaniac
Scott Walker - Hates Unions
Jeb Bush - Neil's Brother
Ted Cruz - Frighteningly Weird
Mike Huckabee - American Theocracy
Chris Christie - Jersey Mafia
Ben Carson - Low Key
Carly Fiorina - HP Disaster
Jim Gilmore - Happy's Brother?
Lindsey Graham - Neat Video
Bobby Jindal - Kenneth (the) Candidate
John Kaisch - He's Republican?
George Pataki - Simply Lost
Rand Paul - Odd Duck
Rick Perry - Smartperson Glasses
Marco Rubio - Bland Salsa
Rick Santorum - Right (of) Mussolini
Special Bonus...
Sarah Palin - Box (of) Cats
* * * * * *
Okay, so I took a few liberties.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Comcast Follies
Well it was two wasted afternoons for me where I could have been working on school or work "stuff". Yes, my Internet service is still about as reliable as the Philadelphia Phillies' pitching staff (proof HERE...and I don't even like baseball smilies).
I don't want to discredit the work of the in-person technicians who have been to my home, a total of FOUR times already. In fact, the last gentleman brought his supervisor along for the ride. This was yesterday afternoon. They made with laptops, pole climbing and gadgetry that would make the Ghostbusters look underprepared. The supervisor also provided an explanation of sorts:
- I am not crazy.
- It's not my router (which as been now been replaced a total three times).
- It's not my wiring, all of which has been replaced.
- There is no noted squirrel damage, which apparently is a big issue in West Pittston.
- It does have something to do with the heat.
- It also has something possibly to do with someone in the area who may be doing a little internal signal boosting, causing some kind of feedback into the system. Thanks neighbor!
Did I mention that the Internet service died about 10 minutes before my graduate class yesterday evening? Yes, while I was trying to focus on the finer points about whether or not Emotional Intelligence can be taught, I was instead worried that I'd be booted from the virtual classroom, courtesy of Comcast. Not a good experience.
The Internet was not working the this morning, for the record.
A small glimmer of hope has emerged from this all though, in that while on the Comcast International Roulette Wheel of customer service, a representative (named "Nina"...I think...) suggested that I disconnect the coaxial cable from the back of the router and then reconnect it. That operation seems to restore the service...until it goes down again.
Somehow I'm thinking that if my payments were about as reliable as Comcast's Internet service I would have already gotten the boot. Credit to me for being more patient than Comcast, which provides absolutely zero benefit for anything as far as I can tell.
Anyway, I just want what I pay...a lot...for, namely Internet service that works all the freak'n time.
Rant concluded.
Monday, September 7, 2015
Labor Day 2015
Few things get folks more riled up than the subject of labor unions, and many take Labor Day as an opportunity to tout their value. I'm not going there today. Well maybe I am. I have issues with labor unions, but I also recognize that sometimes they are essential. Case in point: Public school teachers.
There was a time when I thought that public school teachers should not be unionized. How many other professionals (doctors and lawyers) have you known to go out on strike? Then I had something of an epiphany: Given how corrupt local school boards are, can you imagine just what kind of shenanigans would be happening if good teachers didn't have the protection of a labor union?
Granted that teacher's unions are far from perfect. For example, it's too hard to fire ineffective teachers. In fact, given the debate centering on teacher evaluations, unions are making it difficult just to figure out who the ineffective teachers are (although if you get a good teacher aside and ask, they all can point out the rotten eggs), let alone performance manage them out of a district. There are other issues as well (innovation, as in changing the construct of a school year, is another), but I don't want to pile on because in the arena of public education there are no clean hands.
In the end, I do think that labor, as a general concept, is under-valued in this country. In many corners of the country working is not valued at all. Perhaps in our desire to make the lives of our children better, we've gone too far, failing to teach the nobility that comes from working hard at any endeavor. That needs to change.
I'll end this with a nice prayer from the Facebook page of The Episcopal Church.
There was a time when I thought that public school teachers should not be unionized. How many other professionals (doctors and lawyers) have you known to go out on strike? Then I had something of an epiphany: Given how corrupt local school boards are, can you imagine just what kind of shenanigans would be happening if good teachers didn't have the protection of a labor union?
"Teacher Fran Jones fired for poor performance."
Could very well actually mean...
"Teacher Fran Jones fired for not contributing to school board director Ty Goodwaddy's re-election campaign.".
Granted that teacher's unions are far from perfect. For example, it's too hard to fire ineffective teachers. In fact, given the debate centering on teacher evaluations, unions are making it difficult just to figure out who the ineffective teachers are (although if you get a good teacher aside and ask, they all can point out the rotten eggs), let alone performance manage them out of a district. There are other issues as well (innovation, as in changing the construct of a school year, is another), but I don't want to pile on because in the arena of public education there are no clean hands.
In the end, I do think that labor, as a general concept, is under-valued in this country. In many corners of the country working is not valued at all. Perhaps in our desire to make the lives of our children better, we've gone too far, failing to teach the nobility that comes from working hard at any endeavor. That needs to change.
I'll end this with a nice prayer from the Facebook page of The Episcopal Church.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Not Ceasing to Explore (Marigolds and such)
It occurred to me that, when I named the blog (back in 2008), the title might imply a desire to explore the world around me. That may, in fact, be the intent of the quote by T.S. Eliot. As for me though, I've never really thought about "exploration" in the context of travel.
Growing up we didn't really travel. In fact, I can only remember traveling to two places: South Central Pennsylvania to visit with relatives of my mother and to Atlantic City (twice, maybe...pre-gambling days) on vacation. Not exactly globe-trotting.
Those family visits seem, to this very day, surreal. I don't think my mother actually got along all that well with the rest of her family, a point which she later made quite directly on numerous occasions. I've since learned life lessons around the value that family brings from a support system perspective, but that simply wasn't part of the experience I had growing up. We were, that is my immediate family unit, pretty much an island among ourselves.
My Mom's family were different people. They spoke differently ("Couke" for "Coke"...as in the carbonated soft drink), went to a different kind of church and had nice houses. I don't know if they all actually had nice houses, but those that I remember were nice. It's important to remember that the idea of "nice" is relative though; they seemed like palaces by my perspective then, but now they were simply well kept ranch homes (again, those that I actually recall). One thing that has remained with me though are Marigolds.
Ah, Marigolds. My favorite flower. Rumored to repel Japanese Beetles. Claimed by some to smell like urine, but I do so love them. That love goes back to when I was a kid and we would visit my Mom's relatives. As noted above, they all lived in nice houses and they all had Marigolds planted in front of their homes. To this very day I associate Marigolds with nice homes, and ever since I've owned a home I've always planted Marigolds. It's my way, I suspect, of saying that I have a nice home too. A kind of bizarre status symbol of sorts.
The Marigolds in front of my house are now reaching that ratty phase, where they very well may need to be pulled out and perhaps replaced by some Mums for the balance of the pre-freezing weather. It will only be temporary though, as next Spring will come, and along with it more Marigolds.
Growing up we didn't really travel. In fact, I can only remember traveling to two places: South Central Pennsylvania to visit with relatives of my mother and to Atlantic City (twice, maybe...pre-gambling days) on vacation. Not exactly globe-trotting.
Those family visits seem, to this very day, surreal. I don't think my mother actually got along all that well with the rest of her family, a point which she later made quite directly on numerous occasions. I've since learned life lessons around the value that family brings from a support system perspective, but that simply wasn't part of the experience I had growing up. We were, that is my immediate family unit, pretty much an island among ourselves.
My Mom's family were different people. They spoke differently ("Couke" for "Coke"...as in the carbonated soft drink), went to a different kind of church and had nice houses. I don't know if they all actually had nice houses, but those that I remember were nice. It's important to remember that the idea of "nice" is relative though; they seemed like palaces by my perspective then, but now they were simply well kept ranch homes (again, those that I actually recall). One thing that has remained with me though are Marigolds.
Ah, Marigolds. My favorite flower. Rumored to repel Japanese Beetles. Claimed by some to smell like urine, but I do so love them. That love goes back to when I was a kid and we would visit my Mom's relatives. As noted above, they all lived in nice houses and they all had Marigolds planted in front of their homes. To this very day I associate Marigolds with nice homes, and ever since I've owned a home I've always planted Marigolds. It's my way, I suspect, of saying that I have a nice home too. A kind of bizarre status symbol of sorts.
The Marigolds in front of my house are now reaching that ratty phase, where they very well may need to be pulled out and perhaps replaced by some Mums for the balance of the pre-freezing weather. It will only be temporary though, as next Spring will come, and along with it more Marigolds.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
More Senseless Violence
The video I watched on the news today...where the "news" was actually the news...was shocking and disheartening.
I do not believe that there are easy answers to this kind of violence. Why? Well to solve a problem, you first have to understand what the problem is, and quite frankly, we just haven't managed to tackle that yet in this country.
Ideologues on the political Left will tell you that this is another outcome of our failing to address the easy access to handguns. Maybe there should be more restriction of handgun availability, but in the end just focusing on this is a bit like blaming the car when a drunk driver kills someone.
Ideologues on the political Right will use this to stoke fears of "now they will take away your guns", solely, pretty much, for purposes of raising money. While part of American weeps, the NRA's money machine will be getting all greased up for another round of pandering.
Those of us in the Center will be left just shaking our heads in a mixture of confusion and disgust.
We, as a society, to look into why mental health issues are so rampant. What drives people to such depths of despair and anger that they act on the worst of impulses? Maybe it's that we've managed to define things like "happiness" and "success" in terms such that they can never be achieved. That's truly a recipe for disaster. When Donald Trump's narcissism screams to the world that happiness and success means being a billionaire, despite the fact that Donal Trump seems like one of the most miserable men* on the planet, well then you've got a totem for modern United States that breeds this kind of thing.
The bottom line? The real solution to rampant violence isn't going to come any time soon, pretty much because most of the country simply doesn't want to look for it. Maybe we are too afraid of what we will find.
(*) While I am not a fan of the late President Reagan, I do miss his iconic "happy conservative warrior" attitude. Happiness seems like one of the many things that Donald Trump can't buy.
More violence.
More death.
More proclamations.
More searching for answers in the wrong places.
I do not believe that there are easy answers to this kind of violence. Why? Well to solve a problem, you first have to understand what the problem is, and quite frankly, we just haven't managed to tackle that yet in this country.
Ideologues on the political Left will tell you that this is another outcome of our failing to address the easy access to handguns. Maybe there should be more restriction of handgun availability, but in the end just focusing on this is a bit like blaming the car when a drunk driver kills someone.
Ideologues on the political Right will use this to stoke fears of "now they will take away your guns", solely, pretty much, for purposes of raising money. While part of American weeps, the NRA's money machine will be getting all greased up for another round of pandering.
Those of us in the Center will be left just shaking our heads in a mixture of confusion and disgust.
We, as a society, to look into why mental health issues are so rampant. What drives people to such depths of despair and anger that they act on the worst of impulses? Maybe it's that we've managed to define things like "happiness" and "success" in terms such that they can never be achieved. That's truly a recipe for disaster. When Donald Trump's narcissism screams to the world that happiness and success means being a billionaire, despite the fact that Donal Trump seems like one of the most miserable men* on the planet, well then you've got a totem for modern United States that breeds this kind of thing.
The bottom line? The real solution to rampant violence isn't going to come any time soon, pretty much because most of the country simply doesn't want to look for it. Maybe we are too afraid of what we will find.
(*) While I am not a fan of the late President Reagan, I do miss his iconic "happy conservative warrior" attitude. Happiness seems like one of the many things that Donald Trump can't buy.
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