Guns, Fantasy and Reality

I've never found conspiracies seductive; mostly just outlandish, as they attribute way too much intelligence to men who can't even keep their dick in their pants or control what comes out of their mouths. Of course, it all makes for some entertaining movies and video games, but otherwise, for me, it's the stuff of tin foil hats.

That said, there have been dark moments when I've feared that what we see today in terms of global politics, saber-rattling, new technology and ludicrous media like FOX News…that it's all eerily similar to the story in the popular video game, Metal Gear - Guns of the Patriots.

As the main character, Snake says in the prologue,"It's no longer about nations, ideology, or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines. War and its consumption of life has become a well-oiled machine. War has changed."

In short, war has become its own economy. Then again, it always has been. My father was a key player in naval military contracts in the 60s. He travelled all over the country and conducted business with all the top corporations. In the years before he died, he told me stories about many men; how deals were made and why certain contracts were awarded to certain people. You really don't want to know.

Small arms - handguns and rifles - are just another part of the larger global market and men like Wayne LaPierre are just shills for the industry. A whore in a 3-piece suit. A PR man who gets paid $1 million a year to do speaking engagements. The problem is, he's as crazy as any of the villains in Metal Gear. I think he actually believes what he says. It would be even creepier to think that he doesn't. LaPierre is not merely a cog in the machine, he's a sideshow barker, a snake oil salesman. He's Billy Reed, the guy in the plaid jacket. He sells weapons the way Harold Hill sold musical instruments in The Music Man.

And worst of all, there are millions of men at the grass roots level who either buy into all the political bullshit and dogma, imagining they are driven by "ideology," or they're just adult children, attracted to the fetishism of guns and "playing soldier."

Men being men, are attracted to mechanical things - engines, machinery, mechanical power - and even more attracted if those things make loud noises or large holes in things. They are - as a friend put it - ammosexual. And many will adamantly deny this, but they'd also deny their relationship with their own personal "equipment."

Being attracted to war in general - the militarism, much less the killing part - is really not healthy psychology. In no way is that mindset an extension of say, a simple sportsman hunting for food.

As Snake says in Metal Gear,"War has become routine." Unfortunately, domestic terrorism and violence is also becoming routine. And it is becoming so, not just because of people whose minds have snapped at some point, but also because of the people (mostly men) who have such an unhealthy love affair with tools of death and destruction.

And for some twisted minds, life, death and war have become detached from any sane sense of reality, from any pursuit of peace, and it's just become a game to them. A story line. It's come full circle.

They just enjoy dressing-up and playing a part, imagining themselves in some fantasy. They are Snake, in Metal Gear.

The guns, unfortunately, are real. The dead children, are real.

Militant Cognitive Dissonance

British political theorist Leonard Woolf said,"Anyone can be a barbarian; it requires a terrible effort to remain a civilized man."

Man has the potential to be noble and cultured, or merely a war pig, and in his heart, at the core, he is one or the other.  History is the story of both sides of man - creation and destruction, healing and homicide.  Here and there, occasionally there are such things as "just wars," but they are in the minority.  Occasionally there are egomaniacal rogues who truly oppress people, and their overthrow is justifiable, but for the most part wars are the failure of diplomacy and more the work of apes, not men.  Apes who can swing a club or pull a trigger, whether independent or mercenary, regardless of ideology.

There's a few things I find most depressing and pathetic about this whole gun worshipping - saber-rattling - dick-swinging - militia scenario.  First, there's the whole infatuation with violence as a means toward some peaceful and egalitarian end; the men who are so frothing at the mouth, so itching for gunfire and bloodshed to begin.  One could debate their true motives, but debate is not what they seek. Theirs is not a vision of peace, but an urge to kill.

I think the whole "dress-up" thing is humorous, in a way; the military camo, the face paint, the endless posting of pictures of weapons - the tools of death and destruction. Then there are the symbols; the logos, skulls and images of aggression.  Gotta look badass.  Men full of testosterone and hate.  The posing for pictures in uniform, bearing arms.  Look at me, I'm so dangerous.

There the incredible irony surrounding military weapons; that these men are so in love with tools of destruction that were created specifically to fight wars, by corporations that profit from wars, as long as those tools are only used by them for their means, and not used against them by the government they feel needs to be toppled and destroyed.  If you say to them,"Hey buddy…go ahead, start shooting. They'll bring in a couple air strikes and that'll be the end of your little platoon," then of course, you're one of the bad guys.  You're either with them or against them.  And any of them that might be actual veterans, who have served their country and seen actual battle, they know the score. They know that was is not just a matter of counter-insurgency, but of overall firepower and supplies.  They have neither.

And the vast majority of veterans - upstanding men who served in uniform - do not support the states rights militia movements.  They did their duty and put it behind them, returning to a more civilized way of life.

And the militants have no real plan - for after the smoke clears. They have only pamphlets and slogans.   No wait…they had a plan - to put the women out front. That's what a great strategic thinker would come up with. That's the kind of person I'd want as my country's leader (gag).  And if the shit had hit the fan, it would be their earth that would be scorched, first and last.  It would be their wives and children that would be caught in the crossfire, but hey, they're fighting for a cause, right?  Killing women and children is ok for them, as long as they're something other than white.

While most might agree that the federal government is cumbersome and inefficient, these "patriots" are convinced that it is evil.  They hate everything from traffic signs to Social Security, and especially taxes, although as any rational man would admit, that's how we create structure and infra-structure.  That's how we pave roads, distribute water and treat sewage.  That's how we create things like fire departments and libraries.  You know, socialist kinds of things that help everyone, regardless of their socio-economic level.

Here's the kicker:  where government is concerned, there are more than sufficient examples of countries with a similar structure, who provide for their citizens things like healthcare and free education.  You know, civilized kinds of things.  And their citizens aren't protesting, rattling sabers, advocating their destruction.

These self-annoited "patriots" want to dismantle our structure and replace it with what?  That's the big question.

Some of these groups are particularly religious-based.  Is that what they envision in their restructuring of America?  And don't forget that some of the most prominent separatists have been conservatively religious and racist.  That doesn't mean that all states rights groups are racist - it means that's where their roots are and there's still a lot of rampant (and disguised) racism in their "movement."

There will always be angry men with angry ideals, men who wave flags, weapons and Bibles, just as there will always be corrupt politicians, but for the most part, the system works.  It's not perfect, but it works.  If you want to change something, the civilized man does it within the system, by peaceful means.  You don't achieve anything constructive by shutting down the government (a la John Boehner) or in advocating it's destruction and overthrow.

Intuition

Alex Carrel, the French surgeon who pioneered vascular suturing techniques, said,"Intuition comes very close to clairvoyance; it appears to be the extrasensory perception of reality."

I've had a very strong and fairly accurate intuition all my life, although as a child it wasn't that well-tuned, and it has grown only stronger over the years. Some will laugh, of course. I've come to expect that, but those who understand will identify with much of what I write here. 

To qualify Carrel's statement, intuition is most certainly not fortune telling. I don't have visions of the future, I can't read your thoughts and I don't guess under which cup the pea is.  I've read numerous scholarly articles on intuition but my own life experience is sufficient to explain what it is. 

Intuition is a combination of all the basic senses combined with (and amplified by) experience. Thus, as you mature, unless you just spend your existence in a cave, secluded from society, all the data your brain absorbs from observing and interacting with people just fine-tunes your intuition. Life gives you a data-base from which to work. But it is not just experience. 

Actually, sometimes I almost think of intuition as a curse. There are times I wish I could turn it off, but the best I can do is to distract it with stronger sensory input or dull it a bit with something.  Remember that what Sherlock Holmes practiced was deductive reasoning; he eliminated what was not true to arrive at the answer.  Intuition is perhaps more like inductive reasoning, in that one can use things like speech patterns and body language to read someone. 

Does that mean I can't be fooled? Not at all. Intuition is not an exact science, but it's close enough.  A person would have to be a very good actor, a skilled huckster to accomplish that, because they would have mastered the art of illusion and duplicity.  Essentially, they know how to shape-shift their bodies.  The most effective gambling cheats can do this, and most people are just not good actors.  Anyone can tell a simple lie, but not everyone knows how to disguise it.  If you were to ask any ten people if they could get up on stage and do an impression of someone else, most would probably decline.  Yes, part of that is stage fright, but most people aren't schooled in the basics of acting.

So frequently, I know when someone is being disengenuous with me, and it pisses me off because I don't want to come right out and say,"bullshit."  Sometimes, but not all the time.  It depends upon the situation and whether that person's story has any particular consequence for me.

Other times, I can read some fairly creepy undertones from people; that they have something in particular to hide or that they might have some violent potential.  They don't have to look like a thug in order to be one.  Remember all the people who tell the media,"Oh, we would have never suspected him of _________."  

Still other people don't give me much of a read at all because - and I hate to sound elitist about this - they don't have a lot of depth, personality-wise.  That isn't to say they aren't nice people; they're just more like Walter Mitty with perhaps even less imagination. Sorry.

And as I said, my intuition has only become stronger over time.  These days, the downside is more like,"Oh, not this shit again," because there aren't really any new disguises under the sun.  Sometimes I just get the heebie-jeebies from people.  Creeps me out.  And yes, on many, many occasions my feelings have been confirmed by something people did or the outcome of a situation.  And - sad to say - there have been more than enough occasions when I made the conscious decision to give someone the benefit of the doubt, only to have my intuition say,"I told you so."

The fun and upside of it is that being married for 44 years, I often pick up on something from my wife and she laughs, accusing me of being on the same wave length.  She also has a damn good intuition.  And I realize that a lot of married couples do this from time to time; I just maintain it happens more often with us.

And happily, our close friends are all really genuine people, so it's not like when we're with them I feel the sensation of reading something other than who they are.  

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Success and Failure

Life has its share of painful situations, but one of the worst is having to stand by and watch someone you know - perhaps someone you have deep feelings for - just fail.  It's even worse if you possess the specific lifeline that could have pulled them in, or pulled them through, but they just didn't reach out or ask for it, for any number of reasons. 

The reason(s) for their failure to ask for help is both significant and not.  It could be lack of self-esteem, pride, lack of initiative, dislike of you, or a hundred other things.  Of course, if one knows what a person's particular mental roadblock is, that makes it much easier to devise a remedy or countermeasure. But key to their chances for success or at least for avoiding failure is they have to want it. They must have enough energy or drive to reach just one more inch or take one more step in the right direction. Even a physician is - in the end - just another counselor; he can only advise you how to improve your health. The rest is up to you.

And so, all you can do is just stand there, helpless to assist, because they won't ask for it, and you certainly can't make them do it.

This is just so agonizing and frustrating when the person in question is young, with hopefully their whole life ahead of them. 

I think it's safe to say that as adolescents, we all shared some similar traits and attitudes. We thought we knew more than we did, we were arrogant at times, we thought we were indestructible. We thought we had all the time in the world to attend to those things we didn't like but knew we had to deal with eventually, so we put them off. We didn't always listen to our parents or elders. Pretty common stuff.

A word or two about success, or at least my definition of it.  My heroes were never men like Donald Trump. It was never my goal in life to make as much money as I possibly could or acquire as much material wealth and toys as possible. I always understood the notion of enough.  At some point, enough is enough. It was never a question of motivation or drive - I always had plenty of that. I never really struggled with starting or finishing projects on time or fulfilling obligations.  I never had any strong, focused goals other than being an upstanding man with integrity and achieving some mastery in music. And I accomplished those things. Beyond that, I was never driven to achieve any level of wealth or to be esteemed as a big wheel.

My personal keys to success in life were basically 1) understanding that nothing of value comes without some effort and 2) knowing when to take advantage of opportunities when they appeared.  As a youth, I was passionate about music, and it was easy to see that it could yield both money and notoriety, and that it wasn't rocket science; it just required some dedicated practice. And shortly after I was married, I was given a ground floor opportunity to learn a trade. In retrospect, the funny thing is that given my attitude at that time, I could have very easily blown-off the opportunity, thinking I was going to land a much easier kind of job. "Let's see…hot, dirty and sweaty vs cool, dry and clean." But luckily, I was logical and practical enough to recognize a good opportunity when it happened. Another important element in my success is that I also had some dedicated, senior mentors that saw potential in me and were willing to invest their time with me as a novice.  The rest, as they say, is history. Forty years later, I'm happily retired as a skilled machinist.

So, I'm just saying that success (or at least avoidance of failure) doesn't have to be that difficult, especially if there are people around you willing to lend assistance.  But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what the nature of the person's failure is - academic, substance abuse, criminal record, health-related - they have to at least want to help themselves.  Until they come to that realization or decision, there isn't much you can do for them.

And of course, failure can be a form of success, if you learn from it.

Evolution?

Sonali Kolhatkar - writer and radio producer - suggests that we may not be as "evolved" as we think.  I couldn't agree more.  In today's article at truthdig.com she quotes Pulitzer-winner Jared Diamond:

"Neanderthals carried on for 470,000 years and then came Homo sapiens and within a few thousand years, Neanderthals are gone. In modern courts you can convict people of murder on correlative evidence less convincing than that."

Kolhatkar continues:  "Sadly, it is not clear that evolution has given modern humanity enough genetic foresight to stave off our own extinction. Our rapid pace of industrialization and the resultant climate change has led some scientists to believe we will kill ourselves off within a few decades."

She explains that the agricultural revolution was a mile-marker for both the start of civilization AND the beginning of back-breaking labor, social and economic stratification, indentured servitude and other related human misery.

She suggests:  "It turns out that we humans are so genetically similar to chimpanzees - with only 1.5% difference between our genes - that in purely genetic terms we could be considered a third species of chimps, after the common chimpanzee and the bonobo.  After all, if the very same features that distinguish us from animals will lead to our demise, we are certainly no better than our fellow animals. On the contrary."

As a supposedly "evolved" species, some of us are intelligent enough to recognize the need for a sustainable economy, while other political apes are much too preoccupied with our sexual and spiritual preferences."

Dealing With Chaos

Billi Gordon, a doctor of neuroscience, says humans must satisfy,"…basic neurochemical needs to promote the sense of control over the sense of threat in life; for some this is religion, for others science, others self-reliance…"

This explains a lot regarding our behavior; more specifically how we deal with the relative chaos of everyday life. Most mature, rational people prefer a modicum of order and routine in their lives. For example, they organize the flatware drawer, they put keys on a rack, they organize their clothing, they keep an address book. All pretty basic stuff. They're not thrown into a cocked hat by minor surprises and changes in schedule. They go with the flow and roll with the punches. They adapt and move on. But for a lot of people, life can just be overwhelming, and I'm not talking about living in an actual war zone. Some folks have more of an obsession about maintaining a sense of control, and that fixation can manifest itself in many ways.

Most of us have heard of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder).  About 1% of Americans suffer from this, but that's still a lot of people - about 2.2 million, or enough to populate Houston, TX.  One of the most common OCD activities is "checking."  They become anxious that they forgot to turn off a toaster or lock a door.  A nagging inner voice keeps asking,"What if…what if?"  And so, through the activity of constant verification and organization, they create a sense of order and security.

Security is an easy segue to the world of guns and home security. Just owning a firearm doesn't make you borderline neurotic, but at some point, there's a dividing line between sensible and beyond all reason. Just as some educated suburbanites might drive a Prius and other more wealthy suburbanites might drive a Lexus, a man with a holstered gun walks into a Starbucks or Walmart or a pub, not to deter crime, but to summon our deference. It is a badge of virtue, but more than that, guns give men power and power is status.

Look at the ads on TV for home security systems. There are five major companies vying for your fear money and ADT boasts $240 million a month in revenues. That's a lot of scared people.  "What if…what if?"

And even technology itself has become an instrument of order and security. At one point, we just had mobile phones. Then, cell phones became smart phones and we could carry a computer with us wherever we went, as if we needed a computer everywhere we went. Next, there was an app for connecting that device with our home security systems, so we could turn off a light or lock a door from anywhere on the planet.  As long as you had service.

There is disagreement whether hoarding is connected to OCD, but 25-40% of OCD people suffer from it.  Hoarders often believe they're building a sort of safety net; they might need those items some day. They can't throw anything away. 

And of course, both religion and science can be taken to extremes in the need to ascribe order, from our personal lives to the world at large.  "Jesus said" or "the Bible says" are convenient ready-references to what some people should or shouldn't do. I don't mean to devalue religion. In ALL of the major religions of the world, you're instructed to do several things. The big similarities are:  keep promises, don't lie, don't steal, and help people. That's not bad advice, by any means. But from that point, things begin to get progressively weirder for a lot of people. I can understand the concept of a priest blessing a fishing fleet; asking that fathers and husbands be delivered safe from the sea. But blessing motorcycles? I've seen a picture of an orthodox priest blessing a pile of rifles.

Now, inside my Jeep are 1) a fire extinguisher, 2) a tow strap, and 3) a first-aid kit; three things that are actually basic necessities if you're going to venture off the main road, into the outback. And frequently, this is not done alone, but like scuba diving, in a buddy system.  But, I don't carry a firearm, or emergency rations.  In my canoe, I carry a spare paddle. That's no different than a spare tire. But, I don't carry an extra flotation device, a GPS, or a flare gun.

Much of the extreme conservative politics you see in the southern U.S. is to a large degree an attempt to prevent change and initiate damage control over a sense of uncertainty. Change = uncertainty = fear and some will do anything, no matter how bizarre, to try to maintain stasis.

Consciousness

I ran across this fascinating article yesterday by Dr. Amir Aczel (mathematics - UC Berkeley) about the origin of human consciousness. Now, I'm not using it to prove or disprove any evolutionary or theological argument. Aczel just states that consciousness is key to the whole discussion about the origin of man.

Link to full article at the bottom.  Aczel writes:

"What do we learn from the fossil record?  We clearly see here an evolution over time that is characterized by increasing size…the improved ability to walk upright, better manufacture and use of stone tools, emergence of the exploitation of fire, and a marked increase in the size of the brain.

And at some point in time - one that we have not identified - we become human. Becoming human entails a mode of symbolic thinking and making art, as evidenced through the cave paintings of early humans. Earlier hominids, while they fashioned stone tools that allowed them to kill and butcher animals, did not create art - at least not much of it.  And this artistic capacity represents our unique ability to think symbolically - something that our nonhuman ancestors probably could not do.

When did consciousness arise?  Where is the invisible boundary in evolution at which an animal-like creature becomes human-like?  We have hardly any answers to these questions.

We don't know how and why and at exactly what point in evolution human consciousness became a reality. The inexplicability of such emergent phenomena is the reason why we cannot disprove the idea of some creative power behind everything we experience around us - at least not at our present state of knowledge.

Evolutionary science cannot indicate to us the location of the point on the continuous evolutionary scale - which Dawkins believes is there - at which human consciousness arises. The question about consciousness is key to everything we are discussing.

Why would evolution alone bring about such developments that appear to have little to do with the survival of an individual or a species?

The problem with consciousness is that we don't really understand what it is. There is a giant leap from the brain of a monkey or a dog to the brain of a human being.

We are face here with one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in the history of science:  at what point in hominid development and evolution does human consciousness appear?  What gives us the powers to create and to think symbolically and to develop language?

These may just as well be described as divine gifts."

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/19/science_doesnt_disprove_god_where_richard_dawkins_and_new_atheists_go_wrong/

So, what I am suggesting is that all of us - atheists and believers alike - should be developed enough as a species to check our egos, theories and philosophies at the door, and simply admit that we don't know the full answers. We should be big enough and honest enough to admit our lack of knowledge.

Between 3 million years ago, when it's estimated Man took his first upright steps to the oldest known cave paintings, estimated at 40,800 years ago, there's one helluva lot of wiggle room.  Whether human consciousness is a matter of evolution, divine intervention, aliens or all of the above, we just don't know.

What I do know is that as a species, some people act more like bratty toddlers than mature adults. I've seen so many bashing blogs on the internet that it makes me weary.  Like…get a life, eh?

Let me put it this way….as an accomplished musician, I'm much more interested in exploring the wide variety of global music styles than I am in arguing who was the greatest guitarist.  Do you see what I mean?

Helping

This may be a fairly redundant concept for many of us, but looking around in the world, it quickly becomes obvious that many don't get it.

Now, if one were to listen only to men such as Paul Ryan, one might get the idea that the most important thing in life is hard work; to concentrate so hard on monetary gain that one becomes almost totally self-sufficient, with absolutely no need of any kind of assistance, especially any kind of social service or even Social Security. And for some, that's fine. If that's your Life's goal - to make the highest wage possible and squirrel away as much money as possible - I sincerely hope you life long enough to enjoy it.

But what so often seems to go hand-in-hand with this extreme work ethic is a condescending attitude toward those who make considerably less money, who work at jobs other than banker, lawyer, or manager; people who work every bit as hard as anyone else, but who don't have the high end skills to own a $1,000,000 home and a Lexus. 

From whence comes this arrogant, smarmy attitude that people at the bottom of the economic pyramid don't deserve a living wage?  How do you get to the point where you look down on anyone who receives any kind of assistance?

You know, it would be nice if we could all go to college and earn Masters degrees. We'd all make a six-figure salaries and vacation in Saint-Tropez. Except WHO is going to make your latte' at Starbucks?  WHO is going to stock the shelves at Abercrombie or Hollister?  WHO is going to rotate the tires on your Lexus?  WHO is processing your arugula and truffles? WHO is picking the grapes for your $130/bottle Araujo cabernet?

Reality is that our modern, high-tech society is built upon the backs of people who work at McDonalds and Walmart, people who clean the toilets at 11 Wall Street, NY, and perform housekeeping at the Palazzo. These people deserve a wage that will pay the rent or mortgage, feed and clothe their families. 

And then, there are all those other people who are out of work who are trying to find a decent job.  And can't.

With all that in mind, I come to the real point of this blog. What's really important in life is that we reach out in some way to another human being. You don't have to be a carpenter working on a Habitat for Humanity home. It doesn't have to be disaster assistance. It can be something as simple as shoveling someone's sidewalk or mowing their lawn, or maybe just a kind gesture of listening over a cup of coffee.  It's not a matter of size or scope, it's the gesture, the state of mind, the attitude that someone matters besides just ourselves or our loved ones. It's the act of doing something for someone else out of common kindness. It's being part of a larger humanity and acknowledging that we're all in this together.

And yes, there are those who don't pull their weight. There will be people who don't have a decent work ethic, or perhaps not as strong as yours.  That's no justification for adopting an entirely supercilious attitude or slashing assistance to the less fortunate.

Conspiracy Fever

On other blog sites (not so much on Facebook) I'm seeing a lot of conspiracy-based reactions to police departments being outfitted with armored vehicles. OMG! OMG! They're going to use them to suppress the masses! Hey, Goober, settle down and take off the tin foil hat.

Before we go any further, a little disclaimer about data:  it varies depending on who wrote it and what their motives are, and you can't always get data from the same time period.  That said, keep calm and let's begin. 

According to the CATO Institute, in 2010 there were 1,575 reports of excessive force by police officers in the U.S., but only about 57% of them (592) involved actual physical violence (blows, strikes). Contrasted against FBI data from 2012, law enforcement in the U.S. made 521,196 arrests for violent crimes. Now, the following isn't really valid math, but 592 ÷ 521,196 = .1%  In other words, the cops arrested a helluva lot more bad guys than they committed bad acts, themselves. Let's look at a few other everyday scenarios where mistakes can happen.

On average, there are 85,000 medical malpractice suits each year (Galfand Berger - personal injury lawyers). That's a lot more bad incidents than the cops had. By those numbers, you'd think we should start avoiding doctors. But, on average, less than one-half of 1% of America's doctors face serious sanctions. Only 1 in 14 are actually sued annually (medmalfacts.com).

Every year in the U.S., there are 30 million dispensing errors out of 3 billion prescriptions at outpatient pharmacies (CNN).  I'm not about to avoid pharmacists and start self-medicating myself with herbal remedies. 

Banks make accounting errors with our money. Gee, maybe we should start stuffing mattresses or burying our cash in the back yard.

The NRA is one of the largest conspiracy mills. They'd have you believe you're not safe - nor patriotic - unless you buy some serious firepower and carry it with you wherever you go; shopping, movies, school, church, etc.  But overall, an American male's chances of being involved in a violent crime are 15 per 1000 or 1.5 chances in 100 (crimeinamerica.net). I'm not about to start packing heat.

People, the last I checked, we were still recruiting cops, doctors, pharmacists and bank tellers from the human race, and humans tend to make mistakes. Police brutality is not a good thing and yes, there are a few bad cops, but there is also such a thing as a bad situation. Let me explain.

In my home town, there was a municipal park that wasn't heavily used, and it was bordered by rather upscale real estate. It became a place where young hipsters would congregate and indulge in a variety of activities and intoxicants. One day, somebody probably looked out their expensive living room window and saw something, and dialed 911.

The cops showed up to check things out and apparently, one kid was acting fairly bizarre. They approached him and probably gave orders to put his hands on his head or lay down on the ground. But instead of complying, the kid made some kind of gesture, like he was reaching for something. Bang. He was dead. Shit happens. Sometimes you're in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing.

The cops are the good guys; there to protect you, get you out of harm's way, to save your life and catch the bad guys. If more municipalities are providing their police departments with heavy-duty vehicles, it's a fair guess that part of the reason is there are a lot more rabid gun nuts, and folks like those gun-brandishing Tea Partiers. "We came unarmed…this time."  How cute. How arrogant. Regardless of the 2nd Amendment, how small does your junk have to be that you need to openly carry, much less anything larger than a .38?? These days, there are a lot more people with a lot more guns.  Bigger guns with larger magazines and some of them are packing armor-piercing or hollow point ammo.

Hey, could I interest you in a career in law enforcement? Median salary is $51,266.  Is that enough to persuade you to don body armor and answer a domestic dispute in a shabby neighborhood?  I didn't think so.

So take off the tin foil hats and quit blogging like every cop is out to Mace your ass or suppress your rights. Because when somebody in the neighborhood goes off the deep end - that guy nobody suspected, the quiet one - and starts picking off innocent people from his second floor window with an AR-15, you're going to breathe a sigh of relief when the cops roll up in an MRAP to take care of this nut.

Gardening

According to the National Gardening Assn., as of 2009, roughly 37% of U.S. households participate in home gardening.  Why don't we see more participation?

Reasons why people say they don't garden:

- They don't have the space or opportunity. They might live in apartments or rent where it's not an option. Understandable. Although, at one duplex we rented, the landlord was happy to allow us to garden. Also, there are things like community gardens. Where we presently live, the population is only 2,500 people, but the town provides a very nice area for residents.

- Physical disabilities. They might be overweight or suffer from joint or back problems. Understandable.

- It's work. Here's where excuses wear thin. You could say it's work. It's also good exercise. Both upper and lower body gets a workout. It helps get your circulation going and contributes to flexibility. 

- It's hard work. No, it's not. Small raised bed and container gardens are dead easy to maintain. Someone in a wheelchair can do it. A 10x10 garden isn't any more work to maintain than a living room, depending on your definition of clean, I guess. In the spring, you lay down landscape fabric or (cheaper) use newspaper, which has the advantage of not only keeping weeds down, but helping retain soil moisture. Then, you put grass clippings over the top of that and at the end of the season, you turn the clippings into the soil.

- It takes time. Uh, everything takes time. You got just 5 hours a week you can spare? That's the average time reported by gardeners to the N.G.A.  Not even an hour a day. I realize that some people keep full and hectic schedules. I guess that's their prerogative - how they choose to spend their time. Personally, if I had a busy schedule, I'd enjoy spending a little time in my garden, getting fresh air, smelling all the wonderful aromas, listening to the birds, just de-stressing as I watered and tended.

- It costs money?  Uh, wrong. It actually makes money. According to the N.G.A. data, the average return for gardeners was equivalent to $530 per growing season. That means, if you're a guy like me who got paid $20/hr my skills, I could have opted to spend 26.5 MORE hours each growing season for the pleasure of being at work longer, to make the $530 and buying my produce at the supermarket. Sorry, I'd rather spend those hours in the garden.

Feeding is free or dirt cheap. Many communities have compost sites. Ours is totally free, but other's we've used charged only $20 a trailer/pickup load. That's a bargain. Price that out next time you're at a garden center.

Now, let's look at the reasons people DO garden:

- It's good therapy. One of the best ways to de-stress. Get your hands in the earth. It's aromatherapy, too. Brush against one of these plants and see what happens: basil, chives, mints, lemon balm, fennel, lavender. And it can be a kind of meditation. as when you concentrating on gardening, you're not thinking about a host of other stressful things. You become part of the cyclical process of life. You get to enjoy the visual beauty, color and textures of the plants. And, you can often taste and sample as you work.

- It's healthy. While studies have shown that nutritionally, frozen is not much inferior to fresh, the quality lies in that freshness. There's no comparison to eating fresh produce (raw or cooked) that just came from your garden. Plus, you have the added comfort of knowing HOW those crops were grown (chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers) and that as long as you WASH it, you won't be one of the 48 million people who get food-related illnesses each year. 1 in 5 food illnesses were linked to commercially processed leafy greens.

So, there you have it. We've been happy gardeners for over 40 years. Some plots were small and some were large, be we always got a good return in terms of dollars, flavor and satisfaction. No matter what the physical activity, it's just good sense to keep active. We still get more than enough couch time.

Like That

That's how it feels some days. Not lonely, not depressed, just sort of locked-up mentally, thinking,"So, this is where we're at as a country, as a society. This is where we've evolved. This is the state of Man." 

And thank God, I've got someone in my life to pull me back from the abyss; someone with whom I can share my joys and sorrows. It's good to not be alone. It's comforting to have a partner and a few friends who are a source of truth, who confirm that I'm not crazy, and that being a dreamer is a positive quality.

It's rewarding to have my music; to have the ability to create pleasurable sounds, to be able to express myself in just one more way. Sometimes music can express emotions as strongly as words, and sometimes music itself is a special language. And it's cathartic, too.

You know, Man is a complex creature, but his motives - the concepts that drive his thoughts and actions - are fairly basic. There is a little disagreement amongst professionals as to the definition of those motives (category and number), but there is more common ground than division. Maslow's pyramid is a sufficient explanation of our drives/needs.

At the bottom, we have self-preservation - air, water, food, shelter.
Once those needs are met, we can move up to social ones - friendship, love, sex.
Next, come higher-level concepts like self-esteem, confidence, achievement and respect.
At the top are things like self-actualization, morality, creativity.

So, when I look at people who expend energy (much less money), working against things like access to healthcare, equal pay, equal consideration under the law I attempt to reduce it all to it's basic terms. Instead of seeing people agree on basic concepts, basic shared freedoms, and saying,"Let's try to find the best, the most effective way to make this happen," they're fighting against it!

I'm looking at people in the comfortable position of having a certain thing, a comfort, a security, a freedom, and basically saying no, I don't think others should have this.

From what dark, twisted corner of their soul - assuming that they have one - do they come up with such utterly selfish and arrogant thoughts?

Just a little over 300 miles north of Washington, D.C. is the Canadian border, on the other side of which 35 million people enjoy the comfort, the security of a single-payer healthcare system. If you fall off the curb in Montreal and get hit by a bus, they pick you up, take you to the nearest hospital and fix you up, without asking who your provider is. Every. Single. Person. 

According to air-head Terri Land, women aren't that interested in equal pay.  What? 

And it's things like that which totally confound me. I'm like Robbie the Robot in the movie Forbidden Planet, where his electronic brain has a meltdown, because the incoming data just does not compute.  I think to myself,"No one could be that stupid. That clueless. That…evil. That selfish. That arrogant, to speak for an entire gender and say, no, they don't want that.'"

And again, I'm thankful that I have psychological mooring lines that keep me from just flying off into space, into madness, because it's impossible for me to adopt that attitude of,"Oh…doesn't affect me, so I don't care." 

Most of the time, I'm fairly stable. Safe. Secure. But that Dark Side of arrogance and stupidity is always out there, lurking like some unspeakable evil in a story by H.P. Lovecraft.

Anybody else out there who can relate to that feeling?

Communication

Communication

I'm writing this blog for the people out there who are in a relationship of some kind, whether just living together or married, and for those who are even considering a relationship.

No doubt you've heard or read about the importance of communication. I can't stress that enough. I've been happily married for almost 44 years and we've always communicated pretty well. Truth be told, I could be even better at it than I am. At the very least, I could improve my listening skills. I don't care how old you are, there's always room for improvement.

That said, I want to borrow from a recent article in Psychology Today entitled Awkward Silences - The Dismal State of Sexual Communication. The author presented some fresh  insight to the failure of couples to talk about sexual matters, and proof of the benefits of communication.

"Sex," says Dr. Noam Shpancer,"seems to be everywhere…" except in candid conversations between couples. Sex is used in our culture to attract, to scare and entertain, and to sell products, but most of the actual dialogue concerns gossip and other people - not ourselves. But why do people find open discussion difficult?

He suggests that perhaps the problem lies in discussing large existential problems in general, like death.  We all have sex and we all die, so it's a shared situation, a shared concern. Why can't people go there?

Mostly, he thinks we're just afraid of embarrassment; of being unmasked as foolish, ignorant or depraved. We don't wish to offend and we worry about being rejected. And so, we fail by avoidance. We say nothing, we ask nothing and we are rewarded with ignorance about the other person's desires, fantasies, etc. Wonderful.

But here's some encouraging news. A study involving Latino adolescents at Cal State University found that communication led to delayed first intercourse. 

Two other studies done by the University of Kentucky and North Carolina found that better communication led to more responsible use of condoms and (as expected) poor communication was linked to lower rates of condom use.

Another study by Iowa State University revealed that disclosing sexual information was positively linked to satisfaction and closeness.

I will again remind everyone that other developed countries kick America's ass when it comes to teen pregnancy and abortion. Our teen pregnancy rate is over four times that of the Netherlands. Our teen abortion rate is 50% higher than that of the Netherlands. Our overall HIV incidence is six times higher than Germany's and three times higher than the Netherlands. Those numbers alone should be sufficient to get the attention of any intelligent adult, especially parents and politicians.

But how do they achieve such impressive statistics? It ain't rocket science, folks. Governments support massive, consistent, long-term public education campaigns, through the Internet, television, films, radio, billboards, discos, pharmacies, and health care providers. Youth have convenient access to free or low-cost contraception through national health insurance.  Educators provide accurate and complete information in response to students’ questions. Families have open, honest, consistent discussions with teens about sexuality and support the role of educators and health care providers in making sexual health information and services available to teens.

In these European countries, adolescents have the right to balanced, accurate, and realistic sex education, confidential and affordable health services, and a secure stake in the future.  Society accepts that they have a responsibility to provide young people with the tools they need to safeguard their sexual health and young people.

As things now stand, a young adolescent finds it difficult or impossible to inquire about protection before first intercourse with his partner, a dating couple is afraid to confide in each other about their sexual wishes and worries, and a long married couple is destined to remain unaware of each other’s deepest desires and dislikes. 

Perhaps it’s time we start talking about it.

Now, I was fortunate to have married a woman who is a strong communicator. Don't interpret that as meaning,"she talks a lot."  She talks when she has something to say, and she's usually not afraid to say it. 

Both during our dating period and the first year of our marriage, we were very open about everything. In dating situations, people of every age want to find out about the other person; their likes, their dislikes, their favorite food, color, music, movies, books, etc., etc., because those are all fairly safe and easy topics for discussion. But all too often, people find themselves having sex without ever really talking about sex. 

Let me just ask you this:  wouldn't it be better to risk a relationship failure up front or early on, rather than to find out down the line, years later, that you have some rather significant incompatibilities? 

I would think you'd certainly want to know if you had any serious philosophical or spiritual disparities. Surely, you'd want to know if the other person had any serious health issues - physical or mental - any substance abuse problems or history of violence.  So why wouldn't you want to know about their sexual psyche and identity?  And if you did initiate that conversation and they had serious difficulty with it, wouldn't that be a concern?

Think about it. Talk about it. Share this information.

Gambling and 2016

Gambling and 2016

I don't gamble and I don't understand jack about professional football. I don't play slots or lotteries, but I do understand simple math and odds.

If I go to a Super Bowl party, it's more for the beer and food. I've got enough trouble figuring out who's got the ball much less what they're doing with it. If you don't wanna blow beer out your nose, swallow before you read the following:

I was in Green Bay on business and called my wife from the hotel. She asked where I was and I said I wasn't sure, but that I could see a stadium from my room. Uh-huh. You got it.

In 2011, in spite of the Nevada casinos posting losses, they took in almost $11 billion. The Vegas strip accounted for about $6 billion. Almost 49 million people went to Vegas last year; most of them with dreams of hitting it big.

Now, you'll have to admit, the odds or point spreads on sports games aren't usually that large, so we're talking about a LOT of people laying down a LOT of money on games that could easily go either way.

Football fans laid down a total of  $1.34 billion which was not even half of the total $3.2 billion bet on sports.

On the Super Bowl alone, fans bet a record $98.9 million. 

And face it, people will bet on damn near anything. Fantasy football bets amounted to $1.8 billion last year.

Fast fwd. to 2016 where in some parallel universe, some Republicans - politicians and voters alike - fantasize that they're going to pull off some kind of Hail Mary.

Are you fucking kidding me?

The GOP has effectively pissed-off the three fastest growing demographics - Latinos, women and young people. Even after Gov. Brewer vetoed that religious discrimination bill in AZ, conservatives continue to beat the drum against gays and anyone who doesn't describe themselves as "born again."  They refuse to distance themselves from billionaires like Sheldon Adelson or the Kochs. Guys like Scott Walker pass voting restrictions. Guys like Boehner and Ryan talk shit about blacks, the unemployed and about millions of Americans who have signed up for insurance coverage. What kind of crack are these guys smoking?

If the GOP were an actual corporation, there'd be more layoffs than Google or Ford.

So, just for entertainment purposes, the current Vegas odds for the 2016 election are:

Clinton 6/4

Christie 10/1

Rubio 10/1

Bush 14/1

Ryan 16/1

Paul 16/1

Santorum 50/1

Electoral estimates vary from site to site, but one I saw projected Blue 257, Red 191.

Kinda makes you wish you could get some of those red bozos in a game of Texas holdem…

Can you say rube?  How about faites vos jeux?