Homo Sapien Prevaricator

Posted: September 23, 2016 in News and politics
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(A New Sub Genus of Human Beings)

Prevarication means that the subject under scrutiny is a lie. A prevaricator is the person or persons extolling the lie. In this case I am using it to describe a whole new species of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Yes look it up, Homo Sapiens Sapiens is the correct nomenclature for modern humans, to differentiate us from our direct descendants, Homo Sapiens Idalta. We are mistakenly called carnivores. We are of course carnivores, but since we also each veggies, we are more accurately described as omnivores, basically we eat everything!

So my premise is this. Since we can be classified by what we put in our mouths, we should also be classified by what comes out! Now all mammals, which includes humanity, also expel air, mostly carbon dioxide, in some cases spittle, and in extreme cases vomit when we have either contracted an illness or omnivored ourselves on just a little too much too fast!

However this premise will be based on the vocal content of what comes out of the mouths of modern Homo Sapiens Sapiens either vocally or in certain cases in writing to be vocalized later! Since the dawn of time, or since men and women learned to speak, and then later to write, prevarications have been told. Now sometimes this is just a storyteller’s way of making the story more enjoyable for his audience, the audience is generally aware, so we call this fiction or artistic license! It is generally accepted, even encouraged in writers of novels of fiction. Even plays and literary works based on actual historical events will have fictional sub plots to make them more interesting or exciting! All of this is expected and accepted.

But there is now a more sinister Homo Sapien out there. It is a Homo Sapien belonging to the family Homo Sapiens Sapiens, but does not know what the truth is anymore, or even if they did know they where lying the first time they told the prevarication, after they repeated it two or three times, their brain flips a switch and accepts that what they are saying is the truth! Unbelievable you say! Well there is more! There are receptors to this kind of vocal prevarication within the same classification. Although they did not invent the lie, just like the originator, after they have heard it two or three times they also believe it! Even when evidence to the contrary is given, if it does not align with what they prefer to believe, they still cling to the prevarication. The truth has no weight with either the originator of the prevarication, or the receptor of such information!

So these individuals need a new classification, because there are millions, maybe even a billion or so of the 7.8 billion on the planet who fall into this new classification! This new classification would be Homo Sapiens Prevaricator! Now this classification can be variable! Just like some choose to be vegetarians and give up being carnivores, education can protect you from this affliction. Education in world history is of particular importance, in geology, the study of early man and how we eventually evolved into what we are today can effect whether or not we will become a member of this new classification. And please forget monkeys when considering evolution, we did not evolve from monkeys, and no real scientist ever said we did! We can get into that some other time! Other sciences such as biology, physics, chemistry, aerospace, all are important! All education in general, so you will know that Columbus did not discover America, for example! Never even laid eyes on it or set foot upon its shores! The educated in the time of Columbus did not even think the world was flat; it had been common knowledge that it was round a long time before Columbus set sail. He was actually looking for a faster way to the East Indies by heading west rather than all the way around Africa! They just did not know there was a whole continent in their way, or the vastness of the planet earth! So if all of these things are understood by having an education system that is not rated near the bottom of the pile compared to other industrialized nations as ours is, it will help you understand the world around you! Most importantly it will help to better recognize the prevarication as it is uttered!

I will give an example of why just history, the real history of the world is so important. It can shed light on why our enemies are our enemies and point to ways to alleviate at least some of the animosity! Ancient Persia was a center of science, math, and language, education was alive and flourishing in what is now Iran! Our modern plumbing and irrigation, road building, almost all science, was influenced by Persians, or some of the greatest scientists of the time who lived and worked in Persia. You see, when it was one of the greatest and largest regions on the planet; they welcomed all religions and all nationalities of people, including the Jews, into their schools, universities, and halls of science. Then as time passed they had what we are now experiencing, their versions of Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox News, and yes their Trumps. Science and education was placing religion on the back seat and power was not concentrated as it once was. So in order for a small percent of the population to gain control of the empire, this smaller influential group taught them to fear their neighbors, to ignore science and education, put all their energy into their religion! Education of all types was frowned on because they did not want thinkers, they wanted a large force of people they could control and prosper from. Then they concluded that it could only be one specific type of religion, this so that even a smaller percentile could concentrate their power over the rest of population! Everyone in the empire, even the known world for that matter, had to accept their particular brand of religion or face holy war! So now you have what is now called Iran instead of the largest most powerful forward thinking empire on earth. Sound familiar? You bet it does! We have our 1%, the methods of control are more subtle, more in tune with mass media outlets and politicians who can be bought to maintain their control!

So register to vote, all of you! There is no such thing as two bad choices when it comes to this presidential election. No matter how much you dislike Hillary, she is at the very least qualified for the job! We must reverse the trend I have been talking about in this article or this nation is headed for a downward spiral we will not be able to recover from. And you also need to pay attention to your senate and house seats. We cannot have a do nothing congress again! We need to get moving and Trump is not the man to it. He will run this country into the ground. He is a con man, an egotistical narcissistic one at that, and cannot be given the reins of power! As my story points out, he wants to rule with intimidation and fear. He wants to narrow the power in this country to a very specific group by fomenting hate of anyone not like himself! We have to learn to fact check, not just think someone is what lobbyists or talk show host says a person is. Ask for actual proof, if all you get is, well I feel this must be true, or I heard this, I heard this a lot, that means that what you just heard is made up! It is a prevarication by that new portion of humanity I call Homo Sapien Prevaricator. Just keep in mind that none of our living Presidents, both Democratic and Republican, will endorse Trump. That every major country in the world does not understand why Trump is even being considered for President! That he changes policy every week or so as his old ones get him into trouble, that he knows nothing about world politics, or the history that goes along with understanding it. He knows no science, he is not well read, well he does own a copy of Hitler’s speeches, if that is any indication! Almost all of Trumps bad actions can be verified with facts. Almost all of Hillary’s supposed bad actions have no basis in fact. Email is one, I give you that, but not as bad it is being made to seem. Benghazi, well even the House Intelligence Committee, controlled by Republicans by the way, exonerated Hillary completely. She actually had been trying to get congress to increase the monies for the security at Embassies and missions for months on end, but was always stopped by the GOP. So who is responsible again? Actually that report, over two years in the making torched all the conspiracy theories put forth by the GOP members. You go down the list of supposed Hillary crimes there is no evidence of any kind! Just the innuendo and prevarications told by her enemies and her political opponents. A crime in itself!

When I was young & How I Got Old

Posted: July 1, 2016 in Life, Uncategorized
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A friend of mine was asking a question about remembering some of the old style things as kids, like eight track tapes, etc. Hell, I still have an eight-track player that works, and a box full of tapes!

 The first house I lived in that had a phone was the old crank style. Our phone number was one short, one long, and one short crank. There were about eight of us on the line. Anyone could pick up and listen in. We could only talk to those eight households or the switchboard board at Lucille Idaho, ten miles north of Riggins. Lucille had a permanent population of about eight people! The rest of us all lived up Cow Creek, which dumped into the Salmon River. The switchboard could call anyone and connect us to a regular phone. Oh yeah, we did have a radio that only got one station with elevator music on it, and then only when atmospheric conditions were right, no T.V. signal at all. We did have an old wind up Victrola with a few records like the Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, some old German beer drinking songs, really great stuff! Not vinyl, the old hard platters that would shatter if you dropped them. Idaho is weird, even then all that was 50 or 60 years out of date. The water for the house came out of Cow Creek. It ran into a little catch basin with a screen on it so tadpoles or leaves did not come out of your faucet or plug up the plumbing, but no other filter. The electricity came off of a power pole, but that was kind of new, we still had a paddle wheel electric generator mounted over the creek that still worked. However it would only run the lights. The fridge and electric stove had to come from Idaho power connections. I had over an acre of lawns, a 3/4-acre garden, thirteen flower gardens, two wood stoves for heat, and just who do you think roto-tilled, weeded, harrowed, cultivated, mowed, and cut all that wood? All with a push mower, a two hand scye, one axe, (no wedge or mall) a hoe and shovel? Me, that’s who, I was thirteen! Rode my bike down the mountain to the bus stop three miles away every school day and pushed it back home at night. That was actually my best and most relaxed time. I would read a book balanced on the handlebars as I pushed the bike back up the hill, which was my entertainment time! There was always chores to do until it got dark, then homework! If I got done with homework before bedtime, or it was summer, I was allowed to read, which I loved to do! Oh, it rarely snowed there in winter over a few inches, it was too freakin cold to snow!

 This was the first family I lived with after leaving my mother and step-dad. We had some weird rules. First of all I admit to having some bad habits. I used words like dang and darn, tended to leave lights on after leaving a room, said pitcher when I referring to picture, evil stuff like that. So the rule was, for any infraction of rules to numerous to mention was a swat with pants down, bent over, with a wooden paddle with holes drilled in for speed. Second infraction was two swats, and then doubled again to four, then added four every time there was another infraction! Twenty swats became the limit. Oh I could be repeatedly paddled at the twenty limit, it just did not get added to once I got that far. I am not against spankings, just the sometime idiots who are in charge of the spankings. I also went to church four times a week. Sunday mornings and evenings, Tuesday was youth group, and Wednesday we had prayer meetings. You see I had run away from home and taken my sister, but that is another story. But since my mother and stepfather were sinners, well it was catching and I had it! So they prayed over me at all of these meetings, waiting for me to be visited by the Holy Ghost and speak in tongues. They were Pentecostal, you see, so no Ghost, no saving. Now my sister actually lived with the preacher of this church, he was the brother of the family I lived with, who was going to also become a minister, and did sometime after I left them. My point is, I can only imagine the hell she lived in!

 So one fine day, having memorized the Holy Ghost speeches of my little congregation, they always said the same gibberish, I proceeded to spout what I had learned, thinking they would now leave me alone. Well it appears my thirteen-year-old brain had not thought this through. Everyone recognized his or her part when it came up! I was literally thrown out of the front door and down the stairs of that church as the spawn of the devil. And this, as I said, at the ripe old age of thirteen! I was still required to go to church down the road at the Community Church. You could be any religion and go there. Not a bad church. The minister, a Mr. Prohaska was very understanding and made it plain from the git go that he did not consider me a spawn of the devil. He also never prayed over me. For me, but never over me. So I planned a new escape. Again, not really a plan, just figured no matter where I ended up had be better, at least that was the thought running through my thirteen year old head.

 So you must understand where all this was taking place, the Riggins Idaho area. One way in and one way out, no other civilization for miles and miles. So running away was a problem, whether north or south it had to be down highway 95 and I knew that would not work. Going overland to the west only got me up against the Hells Canyon, kind of a son to the Grand Canyon. Going east was what they call a primitive area, nothing doing there but maybe a meal for a mountain lion or bear! Or if you were lucky maybe just getting lost and starving to death, you know, the old fashioned way! But luckily the family I was living with had a reunion scheduled I was now fourteen. This took place in Greenleaf Idaho, southern part of the state, and all kinds of places I could head out to. So I packed a ditty bag, you know, with the toothbrush, the couple of bucks I had stashed away, the only other pair of jeans I owned, and some underwear. Which no one looked sideways at, basically what I would have normally packed! I took off in the middle of the second night there. It was a long dirt road and then some county paved roads leading to all kinds of exotic places like Caldwell or Jerome, I mean we were in Idaho spud country!

 So I am trodding down the road, ditty bag in tow around midnight or so. I did not have a working watch. I see a car pulled off to the side of the road. In it was a lady, a school teacher, related by marriage to this family. I had met her before, so knew who she was as soon as she started talking to me. So on that dark night, she convinced me to go back and keep my mouth shut! She said she was in the process of trying to get them to let me come live with her and her family. She told me if I could just wait a couple of weeks that should come to pass. Their resistance had been that she was not religious, so she had joined the Assembly of God church in Council, which was also Pentecostal. I did not know this at the time. She then made me a deal that I would be treated just like her kids, and I would have some say over what happened to me. If I did not like living with them, she would help me find a place that did not include an orphanage. So we shook hands and that was the best damn deal I have ever made! Most of you will know who this women is, but as this will go public, I am not mentioning names.

 So I moved to Council Idaho. This very decent person kept working until she also got my sister, and then abruptly left that particular church. I did well. I had only been to two years of schooling and I was going to be fifteen that fall. Part of that other story I mentioned! So I had some catching up to do. I got straight A’s my junior and senior year. I was class president my sophomore year, editor of the school paper my junior and senior years, on the student council, science club, main string in three sports, and one of the football captains, we went undefeated by the way! So let’s just say I loved school, Council, and everything about it. It was a thriving ranching and logging town with a large mill at that time. I worked in the woods during the summer my junior and senior year. Fibbed a little about my age, but I was a big kid! All of the logging is gone now, mill torn down, so the town is suffering, but still hanging in there!

 So I went to Boise State, but ran out of money second semester. I joined the Marines for four years to get an aviation school guarantee, plus I also did not want to get drafted and become cannon fodder! I scored high so got into avionics working on a computer warfare bird. I wound up in Nam for two tours because my particular skills were hard to come by! They would bribe me with meritorious promotions to extend. I did that twice. So had been an E2 about two weeks before going to Nam and then promoted to E3, but it turned out there were no NCO’s in Avionics electric shop, so they promoted me to E4, a corporal so I could run the shop. So in six months my original one-year tour was up, so they promoted me to E5 Sergeant if I would extend for a second tour. I loved my job, however I did not like stateside troop and stomp. They offered me Staff Sergeant with guaranteed chance at Warrant Officer, but I was going to have to give them 8 more for all of that or four if I only wanted the Staff Sergeant, I was not willing. I should have at least stayed in the reserves, but hindsight is 20-20!

 So got out. Was always planning on continuing my education. Had been taking courses by mail while in the service. It turned out, even though I was not a grunt, but having a high stress job and hanging out on mission runs in Danang, lovingly referred to as Rocket City, gave me PTSD. Not that I admitted to that. However all I wanted to do was race my motorcycle, go boating, trash my 4×4, and was crew chief on a professional race boat, had the odd sand rail, etc. By the time I calmed down I was a daddy and had a mortgage. I had turned my military education into a career as an automotive computer and advanced engine diagnostics tech. I got my master ticket, became a smog tech, but mostly what I did was five gas analysis under load on a dyno. I could look at your tailpipe emissions and tell you what system was down, and usually what part. Once I got proficient at the dyno and 5 gas, I never used a scope again. Just my diagnostic computer and the dyno was all I needed. I knew how to do all the rest, brakes, alignment, pull an engine or trans out of a class A, the whole pie so to speak. But after my first year I was the shop foreman and usually the service manager, so if it was a dirty job, or heavy, I pointed and ordered someone else to do it. I lost nary a nights sleep over it either!

 So ended up working one job after the Corps for just under 30 years. The place closed down due to the owner’s ill health and being bought out by the State. I ended up as service manager for a private set of five Bobcat dealerships! It was stressful but the monetary reward was very, very, amenable! I retired after seven more years. This career did allow me to raise a daughter who has a Masters degree who became a teacher an now an assistant principal. She is the love of my life. Well aside from my wife, who I still have not managed to understand how or why I got so lucky!

 So in closing, I am not in love with religion as some of you may have guessed. As a matter of fact I am of the opinion that religion is the most dangerous entity this planet has ever experienced. Christianity just as much to blame as any other. So I do not begrudge you your belief, my daughter is devout, but for now I am not a willing participant. I am a good person and a great friend to have! I do not lie, well let me admit that I am a storyteller and will embellish if I think the story is boring. This piece is not one of those however, and my moral character, for whatever it might be worth, is a choice I make and not because I am afraid to be punished if I choose immorality!

 

 

Warren King, My Dad’s Friend

Posted: June 23, 2016 in Life
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Fathers Day and my posting of my Dad’s picture got me to thinking about the man who gave me almost every picture of my Father that thankfully I do have! Watch for the video at the very end of this article, it is the one I am most anxious for you to watch!

Warren King is a famous photographer and teacher who lived and worked here in Southern California. He was paired with my father during WWII, 167 Signal Photographic Company. They were both combat photographers, Dad specialized in combat movies when the opportunity presented itself. Not as easy to print up in the newspapers back home, but very valuable to military intelligence. Almost all of the photos I have of my Dad came from this man. A very good friend who I did not find until late in life whose name I had seen in letters sent to my paternal grandmother. He and my Father were very close, but after my Father died he lost contact and did not know what had become of us. I came across a website in which famous Hollywood photographers that had been taught by Mr. King had set up a scholarship fund in his name. I sent him a message via the web site asking if he knew my father and he immediately responded. So there is a documentary about the man, even includes a photo of my Dad!  You can see my Father at 5:16 into the film. It is the picture I am posting with this article and the one I posted on Facebook. At least my adopted families should take time to watch it. It was of course fascinating to me, but for obvious reasons. As I mentioned, Warren and my Dad stayed close friends after the war. After a couple of false starts Warren was offered a teaching job, among his duties he  started a career teaching photography to high school students. He became very famous, his students won prestigious awards every year, and so some of them also became famous in the photographic world. Mr. King took his students to a different foreign country each year on photo shoots, not your average high school photography class!

My father went to work for Hollywood Technicolor Corporation. He mainly worked on special effects for animation. For example, he told me the raindrops in Lady and the Tramp are actually milk drops that were later painted frame by frame to resemble rain and integrated into the animated movie. That is why they look so thick and fat! He loved his job, unfortunately his career was cut short by cancer, the Beverly Hills home we lived in had to go, not one of those mansions, just a regular home. But that is another story. Warren King or J Heslop, another very famous photographer, took most of the pictures in this article that I am including of my Dad. They were all in the same outfit at one time or the other and took photos of each other. So if King and Heslop are in a photo the chances that it was taken by my Dad are pretty good.

H_Warren_King_and_J_Heslop

The fellow pictured above with the camera is Warren King, and J Heslop is sitting to his left. No I am not forgetting to put a period behind the J, his first name is actually just the letter J, no period needed. Anyway, both he and my Dad wound up taking pictures and movies of prisoner of war camps, notably Jewish prisoner of war camps. Heslop used a still camera while Dad used a movie camera. I doubt they were together or at the same camp, but I do not know that one way or the other. I do know that because technology at the time could take still photos and get them in magazines and newspapers Heslop became famous! So there is a whole section at the BYU Harold B. Lee library digital photo section dedicated to J Heslop’s photos, he was a Mormon, you see. But he wrote books, was a journalist, and so was famous for more than just his war photos. There are several pictures of my Dad also in that collection taken by Hislop, however finding them took me a while, and some patience. Now the pictures of J Heslop himself obviously are not taken by him as cameras back then required a human to focus, aim, and pull the trigger, so chances are that Mr. King or my Dad could have taken them, no way to know. I will give you a link to the BSU site for Mr. Heslop, there are 75 pages of photos for you to choose from.

http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/search/collection/JMHes/

 

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This photo is of Sgt. Warren King

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Staff Sgt. Charles Love/Sgt. Warren King

Charles Edwars Love

Dad

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2007-12-27-2247-49Sgt. King/Staff Sgt. Love

Sgt. Warren King, Staff Sgt. Charles Love

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Dad being awarded the Purple Heart.

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Below is the short documentary on Warren King. Warren told me that other than my Mother and Father he was the first to hold me when I was born. He was also the contact for the VA hospital and came to tell me my Father had passed away. Donna was too young, and no one could find my Mother that evening, so he came to make sure I was ok.  I honestly do not remember that night, or him, until I found him about 15 years ago in an Internet search, as I mentioned. Any of you from my adopted families, I highly recommend you watch the video. It does not talk about my family, but it gives you insight into the kinds of people my Father considered a friend. Thank you for watching, and thank you Mr. King for being such a good friend!

 

 

 

 

 

The Truth Can Hurt

Posted: May 20, 2016 in News and politics
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Even if we were in different grades and classes back in school in small town Idaho, we knew each other. Maybe we did not run in the same circles, actually, since I was not related to half the town or had family who had lived there for generations it was different for me in some respects. Luckily I made school and sports work for me, and living with the town Doctor and a state legislator’s family did not hurt either. I loved being editor of the school paper for two years, and this after not going to school for more than a month or so a year until I was thirteen! My point is, when I lived there, and even in my early years in California after my stint in the Marine Corp, I was a Republican! This was before the advent of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and others. They changed the landscape of the party from a conservative viewpoint to fear mongering troglodytes and isolationists who blame the poor, the immigrant, and people of pretty much any color,  big government, and of course hippie dippy liberals, as the reason all bad things happen!

Christians, especially evangelicals, went on the warpath because of course we had been told by talk radio that we are turning into a godless nation and christianity was under attack. So I had to get the hell out. If I show someone how to access the facts, show them the entire script from where some sound bite or sentence is being made to sound or mean something totally different than what was originally intended, well they will not even read, view, or take two minutes to find the truth! They just throw some hate label at me and dismiss it. They do not want to know the truth, plain and simple! They vote against their own interests, believe what thirty-second sound bites tell them is the news produced by lobbyists, not any gleaned from actual facts! And polls asking Republicans basic facts about the condition of the country show they do not know the actual facts! They don’t know about unemployment being as low as it was before the crash, or that the stock markets are way up, not down!, The fact that the deficit is dropping, not climbing! They do not know that the their Republican representatives want to curtail or get rid of social security and medicare entirely. They think the opposite is true in overwhelming numbers because they believe the sound bites and never check the facts! Our current President does not want their guns, he has said so plainly! But because the NRA tells them different, that is what they believe. The pundits like Rush, Glenn, and Sean have learned that if you want to control the conservative vote tell them someone is after their guns, the poor and immigrants are the reason the middle class is disappearing, religion is under attack, and scientists are all just members of an evil cabal! They will gather like lemmings and run off any cliff you tell them to! Not politically correct some say, but it is the truth, and it is time for us to start telling it like it is!

Now some will say that there are millions who have timed out of unemployment but still are unemployed so the figures are inaccurate. That is true, but what is also true is that has always been the case, in both Democratic and Republican presidential terms, it is not endemic to the current administration. Keep in mind, figures do not lie, but liars can figure! You also need to keep in mind that Republicans met on the day of President Obama’s inauguration and agreed to block anything he tried to do, regardless of whether or not we the people wanted it, even if it was actually an idea they themselves were in favor of before he was elected. The Affordable Care Act is a perfect example! Republicans are on a renewed kick to try to repeal, or at least delay (in the hopes of killing), the “individual mandate” that’s included in the President’s health care reform law, aka the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The irony, of course, is that it was Republicans, via their premiere think tank, the Heritage Foundation, who came up with the idea in the first place! Now this is truth not fiction.

As you know, the “individual mandate” requires that every American buy health insurance, if they don’t have it through their work, or pay a penalty. The reason for the mandate is so that insurance companies can cover people with pre-existing conditions and to keep premiums lower. Insurance companies need large amounts of younger insured customers that need less medical care to balance it all out and keep costs down to the consumer. It also keeps that same segment from using the emergency rooms across the country as their healthcare provider, while you and I pay for it! And as I said, a Republican idea, an idea that they even published, but now they seem to have selective memory malfunction! They also forget to tell you the poorest among us are excluded from this mandate.

No matter who you are, you will make mistakes. Has President Obama made mistakes, yes he has. Are they more egregious than his Republican predecessor, I think not! If you want to strip it down, President Obama is one of our most intelligent Presidents. His IQ has been maligned, but here are some facts. The average IQ for a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree in the U.S. is 115. Barack Obama graduated from Columbia University, so the assumption is he must have had at least an IQ of 115. Barack Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School; such academic honors are only awarded to students in the top 10% of their class. Obama’s IQ has been estimated as high as 165, but again that is a guess based on his education. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as editor, and later as president of the Harvard Law Review; which is an extremely prestigious position. Obama also taught at the University of Chicago for 12 years, a top-ranked university in the United States. So no matter how you try to rate his intelligence, it is high! If you look at his predecessor, the junior President Bush, he will not fare well when compared to President Obama. If you come to a different conclusion based on facts, then there is another reason you disparage the President, but we won’t go there today!

It has been reported by Fox News, and others, that this president is looked down on by the rest of the world! However when you check foreign papers, speeches and interviews given by foreign dignitaries and rulers, you find the exact opposite to be true. If you poll the common men and woman of our peer industrialized countries, you find them praising our President, but castigating our congress as a do nothing body of government!

But like I said, he is not perfect, I am not in favor of our current trade agreements, some of the provisions look like they came straight off the desk of the Koch brothers, for example! But most of what you see on the Internet is either blatantly untrue, cherry picked to change the meaning, or fictional! You have to go to the source, and that takes time. If you want to know about Benghazi, for example, you have to read the entire report by the Pentagon. Which stated that they received no instructions telling them to do, or not to do, a single damn thing from the administration! They did the job as they thought it should be done based on real time information!  Then you should read the Republican controlled House Intelligence Committee report that also found no wrong doing by anyone in the administration! A FREAKING MIRACLE OF OUR TIMES! But that is not what you heard reported by those supposedly bringing us the facts! Facts are not sensational enough for todays news media who make up news as if it were a fictional show fighting for ratings so as to keep an audience tuned in! Especially since most in the Republican Party have reduced themselves to a lobby for the Oligarchs, with a few Democrats sprinkled in to make it even more spicy!

So what I am saying is do not be lazy! Check out your facts. Do not repost things on the Internet because they make you feel good, or because they back up how you wish things to be without fact checking. We are the most ill informed voting public on the planet, and that is a damn shame!

 

 

 

 

 

Reblog from the blogging couple; A Note From Abroad

Posted: May 17, 2016 in Uncategorized
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May 11th ~ Casablanca, Morocco Well, we were down to the last leg of our trip which included the bus ride from Essaouira to Casablanca. We were sorry to not have had more time in Essaouira as it was so charming and our free day got partly eaten away with lousy weather.

via Casablanca is More Than the Title of a Classic Movie — A Note From Abroad

My Travels of Yesteryear

Posted: January 20, 2015 in Life, Travel
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I travelled a lot from six to eleven, but not as a vacationing child of rich parents. So for this article, we will just leave that as a maybe blog down the line. For our purposes we will concentrate on my travels overseas courtesy of the Marine Air Wing commands. (By the way, all pictures are in Gallery format, so if you click on them they will enlarge and then you can arrow back and forth.)

My first stop after a year of boot camp, infantry training, Avionics school, and a short stint in a training squadron was landing on the Island of Okinawa. Now all of the marines I came over with were grunts, or infantry, with the exception of one other guy. They were all shipped out the next day, but they left me and this other guy, both of us to be assigned to an air wing somewhere, dangling for a week or so. This is where I met my best friend for my Japan deployment, he taught me how to play tennis, his name was Doc Holliday. To this day I do not know what his real first name was!

After a week and couple of days we both got orders to Iwakuni Japan. I was, at the time, a navigation computer tech, he worked in the photo lab of a different squadron. We kept in touch however. I eventually got myself transferred to his squadron by a lucky coincidence. They needed avionics techs on the flight line, and I wanted out of the windowless computer van that was my home 10 hours a day. I loved working on the actual aircraft. It was not long before I moved out of the barracks and into a small house with a couple of other Marines from my new squadron. This is where I met my other best friend, Neal Regan. We were not best friends yet, that did not happen until we went to the Philippines and Nam together.

Doc and I spent our time in Japan travelling. I was licensed to drive pretty much any tractor, jeep or 6×6 truck the squadron had. They also got me a license to drive outside the gate in Japan proper, so I bought a car. I don’t even recall the model; I just know it had a two-stroke motorcycle engine for power. It was a little miniature station wagon. Had to fuel up with mix gas, which back then was available at all gas stations. Ecologists would be aghast now! I was the only person in the squadron, enlisted or officer to have a license and car that was legal outside the base. Made me a popular guy. Mostly picking up officers wives at the airport in Hiroshima. They would even give me time off work to go and pick them up. They had some kind of agreement the officers wives could get a three month visa. We enlisted didn’t rate diddly.

This car allowed Doc and I to explore the country around Iwakuni and travel to places like Hiroshima regularly, and basically just get lost on a duty free weekend. We both had critical MOS so did not get assigned but the minimum duty required. (MOS is a job designator)

We made friends with a farmer by scrounging up a pump from the base, rigging up a transformer to make it work on his electrical grid and installing it at his water supply. He was a rice farmer packing water by hand. He spoke no English; we spoke basically no Japanese beyond hello, goodbye, excuse me, and thank you! The only other word I knew at the time was koko, which would get a taxi to stop and let you out! It means “here”. He had a niece that spoke English and he would invite her whenever he had us for dinner. Dinner was usually rice, fish, and a lot of Sake! At first we had stopped and proceeded to help him haul water. He had a fit. But we refused to go away, and when we installed the pump, well we were family! He turned us on to a little sandy beach we could pitch a tent next to a stream that had fish in it. I don’t know what kind of fish they were, they resembled perch. Cooked up well and had very little fishy taste to them. We fished by sitting legs spread in the shallows at the downstream end of a pool while someone else went to the upstream end and started slapping the surface vigorously and wading towards us. Fish would appear between our legs and we would scoop them up and throw them onto the bank.

About this time, Reagan and I had just made L/Cpl and got orders to the Philippines and then missions run out of Danang Vietnam. It turned out that we were both scheduled to go home, there were no NCO’s trained in our particular MOS, so they meritoriously promoted us to Corporal to extend for a second tour, which we did. They then bribed us again with meritorious promotion to Sgt if we would extend again. Best thing that had ever happened to either one of us! We were inseparable as much as possible, watched each others backs! We ran missions out of Danang, but due to reasons I will not go into now; we fixed the aircraft in the Philippines. Broke our little hearts.

When I was in Cubi Point in the Philippines I rented and lived in a three-bedroom house, one bath, complete kitchen. It came with a live in maid, gardener, and security. There were three of us sharing rent, Regan being one of the others. All included with groceries, I spent forty dollars a month. We lived in one of the nicer areas of Olongapo. Normal housing had no running water or toilet facilities. Were one or two rooms mostly, apartment houses were a little nicer, but had community bathrooms, but no bathing facilities. Our maid, unknown to us for a while, slept in a big round chair in the living room. She would stay in the kitchen until we all went to sleep before bedding down, and up and cooking by the time we got up! We increased the food allowance to include her and gave her a raise when we discovered this. We had no place to put her, so we just left the sleeping arrangement as it was. She was around 16, I think. We all treated her with respect, she was not flirted with nor were any remarks made. I had friends with morals, so did not have to police their actions. She cried when Regan and I had to rotate back to Japan and home. We tried to find good people to take our place with her employment guaranteed. It was all we could do. We were never able to find out who her parents were, or even if she had any. So back to Japan, everyone we knew was gone, then back to the world, that is what we called the U.S..

Had some leave in Australia, short hops and stays in China, S. Korea, and a few over nights in Europe, but very short, so I might include them in another blog, but I have let this one run to long as it is!

Short Stories; Aliens

Posted: January 17, 2015 in Life
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Short Stories

Aliens

Are there Aliens? Beats the crap out of me! Do I believe there might be aliens, well yes I do. Now whether or not they are a microbe or an intelligent being with his hand, paw, claw, or whatever, on the throttle of an intergalactic space craft, now that is the real question.

 So lets discuss a couple of basic theories, or facts, as I see them, that you also have to believe in to even fathom an alien! First you have to believe and understand that the earth is around 4.5 billion years old. Then you must believe that evolution is a fact of nature, and that nature will always try to find a way to produce life in any environment it can. So for those of you who eschew this statement and believe that the world is only around 6000 years old, well then just consider this a science fiction article!

 So lets say you agree with me about the age of the earth, evolution, the propensity of nature to promote life, and the advent of natural selection, then aliens on other planets is a foregone conclusion. Most scientists agree, with the vastness of the universe, the chance of planets having an orbit around a sun with a  similar makeup to earth is mathematically almost a certainty, and in credible numbers. So now we need to consider how life on our planet became self aware to the point it was able to leave the confines of the planet and start to explore the universe, albeit mostly by robotic means or deep space satellites so far, and how common an occurrence do we think this is in the galactic scheme of things.

 A couple of things to consider about how we did evolve, humans, that is. Dinosaurs, which were huge reptiles, ruled this earth for millennia. Their dominance would have very likely not have allowed the human race to develop, as any species as incapable of defending themselves against such an onslaught of predators would have been eaten out of existence before they really got a chance to start. So whatever catastrophe wiped the dinosaurs from the face of the earth, whether it was a normal or even abnormal natural climate change is unlikely as the extinction rate was way too quick. So I buy into the cataclysmic asteroid event, which created such a cloud of debris it blocked out the sun for a long period of time, and pretty much everything died. The new ecology that emerged allowed for smaller types of life to emerge as the huge amounts of tropical growth that existed in the dinosaur era of our history was not prevalent any longer. So without this earth-shattering event, humans might not yet exist, or at least may still be living fruit to mouth, as it were.

 So if what I surmise are the facts of our evolution, then how often do intelligent self aware beings of our caliber become a fact of life on other planets. No way to tell, but out of the billions of possible chances, probably at least a few, in my way of thinking. Maybe their planet was never capable of supporting such large creatures as dinosaurs, so smaller populations of life were allowed to take hold, thereby negating the need of a massive extinction event which gave us a chance to evolve. But then lets say something like us, or at least something as intelligent, or maybe even more so, has evolved? What is the likelihood they got in a spacecraft and came here? I think highly unlikely. The simple vastness of space, the fact that we are kind of out in the sticks in the galactic scheme of things would preclude being able to cover the distance. Now of course some aliens may have discovered a means to travel great distances with science way beyond our scope. This would also more than likely mean that these aliens would be, in the evolutionary scheme of things, far more advanced, making us seem to be unintelligent by comparison and not worth communicating with. Maybe snatching up and studying, so there is that!

 So I guess it comes down to one basic question, do I believe aliens have visited, no I don’t. Do I believe in life other than here on earth, yes I think that is inevitable. Do I believe that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe; yes I think it is definitely possible. Lastly, I believe if they ever do get here one of two things will happen. They will not have a none interference clause like the Federation, so we would definitely hear from them in some fashion. Or, and also likely in my opinion, they would look on this jewel of a planet, see the infestation that is destroying it, and take appropriate action! Sayonara takes on a whole new meaning!

 1/17/15

Short Stories

Posted: January 14, 2015 in Life
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So I woke up, or maybe I didn’t wake up, at this point I am not really sure of anything. I remember I was relaxing in my easy chair when I suddenly got the urge to go for a walk. Now usually, when I walk out of my front door there is the turn-around for the cul-de-sac I live on. Not this bright morning! A meadow spread out before me. Trees, but not too many, just enough to provide intermittent shade to hikers or visitors to this seeming paradise. Grass, but more like a very luxurious lawn sprinkled with colorful wild flowers, a few low bushes, a few fruit trees of various types, all with ripe fruit on them. There was a brook, you know, the kind that babbles. You could see a fish jump a small waterfall every minute or so. There was also small a lake off to one side, evidently fed by the brook. It was lined with willows, a few ducks and geese were seen paddling and feeding, and a fish would surface for a meal of some unseen delicacy. Off about a half mile under a huge oak was a little cabin, or so it seemed from a distance. Every once in a while an animal would walk out of a forest that seemed to serve as the border for this immense expanse of meadow before me!

Now you would think, seeing all that I described to you instead of the houses, culd-de-sac, cars, and kids playing in the street, that I would be freaking out. But for some reason I was calm, even peaceful. It was like the meadow itself was somehow emanating a peaceful, calming glow of goodwill! So I started to hike out across the expanse of meadow and taking in the wonderful smell of grass, flowers, trees, even the musky smells emanating from the forest were pleasant. I started to notice the animals that were wandering around, most not seeming to care that I was interrupting their day. I also decided, since I was seeing predator and what would normally be considered a food source for that predator seemingly not aware of each other, that I must be in some kind of preserve where the animals were fed and had not ever actually been in the wild.

The cabin by now was getting much closer. I could make out an older gentleman and a young man sitting in a couple of old rockers on the front porch, seemingly engaged in idle conversation. As I came closer I could see a couple of old willow poles with some line and a bobber wrapped around them leaning up against the railing. There were also a couple of fly poles and reels hanging on wooden pegs seemingly made for just such a purpose. As I walked up they both acknowledged my presence with a nod, pointed to a spare glass and what appeared to be a large pitcher of lemonade, indicating I should help myself. I had worked up a bit of a thirst so gladly did just that! They just went back to talking amongst themselves again, so I plopped down on the front step a few feet away and proceeded to enjoy my cool and delicious, as it turned out, lemonade!

We had not introduced ourselves to each other, but at the moment it did not seem necessary. It was a nice warm day, cool here under the branches of the big oak, so I was content to enjoy my drink and listen in on what the two behind me were saying. At present they were discussing who had caught the biggest fish early that morning, and who the better fisherman was. There seemed to be some debate over whether or not the stream or the pond was the better fishing experience. The willow poles and bobbers, from what I could make out, being the preferred method at the pond, while fly fishing seemed to be the choice along the banks of the brook.

I was just about finished with my lemonade, had actually just taken a large sip to finish it off,  when I overheard the older gentleman ask the young man if he had been to Earth lately. As I sprayed lemonade all over the front step while trying to catch my breath I overheard the younger of the two state that, no he had not, the last time he had visited they had treated him very shabbily! They actually nailed him to a cross and stabbed him in the side with a spear, so he was not sure exactly how he felt about that yet. He further commented that until he had worked that out he was not going back. I was at this point trying to be very quiet. I was thinking at least, apparently, I wasn’t in hell!

I am an Ex Conservative

Posted: January 11, 2015 in Uncategorized
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I am from a small logging and cattle town in central Idaho. It was a wonderful place to grow up, no one was rich, but no one lived on the streets or was starving either. The population in the fifties and sixties was almost entirely conservative and Republican. When I graduated high school and headed off to college I was a dyed in the wool conservative also. 1044980_576397282410598_1565005557_n

No, college did not cause me to change my attitude or become a liberal. I was the guest of the town doctor, lived in his home when I graduated high school. His eldest son and I were both co-captains of an undefeated football team, best friends, and Doc was a fan. During my first year of college I started running low on funds, although the Doc later told me he had every intention of paying my way through college, I was too proud to ask and joined the Marine Corps under a guaranteed electronic aviation school agreement. This was in 1968, the draft was active, Vietnam was raging, and I knew the minute I dropped out of school I would be drafted, in which case no guarantee of anything except cannon fodder eligibility! Click here for look at my hometown webpage!

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(on your left standing)

So I went to boot camp and the Infantry Training Regiment. From there I went to the Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Florida and attended the Aviation Electronic School provided by the Navy. I then went to a Marine training squadron at Cherry Point in North Carolina briefly before being sent to West Pac for over two and half years. Spent 10 months in Japan, with side trips to South Korea and Taiwan to train their troops in electronic countermeasures. After ten months I got a two-hour window to report aboard a C130 Hercules for duty a tad farther South. Although we were officially labeled as a detachment in and around Cubi Point in the Philippines, we were actually running daily missions to the north out of Danang! For political reasons we were not allowed to admit that at the time. I was an E2 or Pfc a month before we left Japan, so was a rookie L/Cpl when I started my first combat tour. Three months later I was an E5 Sgt and was the NCOIC of one shift of the Avionics Electric Shop supporting the Grumman Intruder EA6EA computer warfare bird for VMCJ-1. There were two of us. I got out of the Marines after four years, worked for the same employer for 30 years. No union, so no retirement or work sponsored 401k. A little late, then went to work for another eight years for a company that had at least a co-pay 401k and insurance, profit sharing, so managed to put some cash away the last few years. Click here for a link to info on VMCJ-1, my combat squadron! OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

(again, on your left and 30 years)

I give you this background because I was covering a lot of ground and being introduced to many different cultures, and I wanted to demonstrate that I was never a taker, ever! It became clear to me that I needed to rethink some of my conservative ideas. Some of these countries were doing fine as far as big business was concerned, but none of that well-being was trickling down to the masses. Japan was the only country in the orient that even appeared to be trying to develop a middle class. For the most part, there were the rich, the filthy poor, and the crooks in between. Without unions child labor was rampant, and older workers still lived in poverty. The only people getting ahead beside the ruling class who owned the industry, were the whores, pimps, gambling and drinking establishments, and criminals in general!

I was a good student in high school, loved school, and knew it was my way out. I had run away from a broken home at the ripe old age of eleven, never wanted to go back that life ever again. So I started to remember my history classes. I signed up for more college classes through the Corps, and tried to see what was what. According to history, before unions, children worked and died in mines and other industry, yes right here in America. The adult workers, especially in mining, were tied to and required to buy all of their goods from a company store. They were not paid enough to live on, but were allowed to charge, so they were basically slaves, as they were not allowed to leave employment unless they were square with the company store, which they never were. There are many more examples, but I think you see where I am going. Unions changed all that; all big business ever did was assassinate union organizers! Then I started to notice our education in America was not all it was cracked up to be. I started hanging out with foreign students at coffee shops and other venues when on leave, or when I would have any time after travelling to foreign soil to fix an aircraft that had been forced to land and seek repair. As almost every square inch of our aircraft required a secret clearance, techs who could work on it had to be flown in, I was in that lucky few. Anyway, the people from Europe, Australia, the Orient, or the Mediterranean on average knew way more about American history and politics than American students did! Believe me, I checked! As our education started to get more and more expensive, countries like Germany who were becoming very successful in the technological age, and had a very savvy and educated work force, offered absolutely free college education. So my notions of how things need to be started to shift.

In the fifties we had strong unions, we were building an ever-larger middle class by leaps and bounds! We built huge amounts of infrastructure, for example practically all of the interstate freeways, bridges, and overpasses that went with them all started in 1955! Our national debt was manageable, certain social acts to protect seniors were enacted and worked just fine until politicians robbed Peter to pay Paul, Paul being another word for pet project, or another would be pork belly. So there was my attitude being adjusted again. Every state that has large populations that are convinced government is to big and we just need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, well those states without exception take the biggest chunks of help from the big bad government to survive, ever single one, my home state included. I now live in California, and it takes a bad rap all the time, but it is not a major taker, like say Idaho for example, or almost any state in the geographic south, so go figure! Click here for more information on the history of unions.

Then in the eighties we were told unions were bad, just leave big business to thrive and the money will trickle back down to the middle class and others. So unions were weakened, nothing trickled anywhere, and now we make less per hour across the board adjusted for inflation than we did forty years ago. It trickled all right, but not in the direction we had hoped! So my attitude was further adjusted. Right now the bottom 80 percent of Americans own a meager 7 percent of the wealth, or, to look at it another way, the wealthiest 400 Americans have the same combined wealth of all the nation’s poorest – more than 150 million people, which is almost half the population. So, no matter how you slice it, when it comes to income and wealth, the rich get most of the pie and the rest get the crumbs.

Now you could argue that these are not true facts, however they are really not being disputed by anyone, on the right or the left. Of course the blame game is rampant and ongoing. You know those taker states that I talked about? Well if you take a poll and ask people questions about what they want, leave out party or ideology, the answers invariably align with a more liberal democratic view, yet every one of these people from these states will vote a conservative ticket, voting away the things they just said they wanted, if they bother to vote at all. So this kind of thinking made me adjust my attitude even further.

So now we are back to a basic change we need to make before we can start to make this any better. We have to get the money out of politics. We have to quit allowing money and the influence it buys tell us what is good for us, what we can have, and telling us how we should vote. We need each politician to be limited by term, money, and no cushy job offer after his or her term is over for a set period of time. I would like that to be a decade, but that is just me!

So are there problems with government handouts, you bet. Some people use a helping hand to do just that, use it as a way to get out and back into a productive life! But others, sadly, begin to depend on these handouts as a way of life and think they are entitled to them without any effort to get up and out of their particular predicament. In these instances the conservative adage is correct, get up and help yourself as soon and as often as you can!

Now I am going to tell you something you are not going to like, I am going to give you a link so you can see the pretty graphs and colorful maps, but suffice it to say the numbers, for decades now, have been quite clear: With some exceptions, what we regard as red states are sent a whole lot more of your hard-earned tax dollars than the traditional blue states. In effect, supposedly indolent, “tax and spend” liberals actually subsidize the individualistic, pure, and hard-working lifestyle of our conservative countrymen. Did you get that, my conservative friends and classmates, you are the takers, you are the ones sucking at the teat of big government, while we liberals pay for it! That is the hard truth! Click here for a link to the pretty graphs and maps. Pretty illuminating!

Truth in the News

Posted: December 6, 2014 in News and politics
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This article is not so much about the fact that Fox News lies, distorts, and just leaves out news it does not like, but why the loophole is allowed to stay in effect that allows them to it. To be fair, as I know I may send this to Jim, Fox News is not the only one who is guilty of the above statements I have made, but I do feel they take it to a whole new level! The link  http://foxnewsboycott.com/resources/fox-can-lie-lawsuit/, tells the story of a husband and wife team that were fired from Fox for refusing to knowingly include false information in their report concerning the Monsanto Company’s production of RBGH, a drug designed to make cows produce more milk. The case is also chronicled at the Wiki site, which the article does mention.

I also looked up the fairness law in broadcasting that used to be in effect. It was struck down during the Reagan years. Basically it stated that news agencies must report on stories that would in some way effect the lives of its viewers, and that both sides of the debate must be broadcast with no editing by the news channel, hence the word “fairness”. It was struck down because as the internet and other media came into existence the Reagan lawyers argued that there was enough places where arguments or opinions could be presented that news organization did not have to participate in presenting both sides of a debate, argument, or opinion. Just search fairness law in broadcasting followed by Wiki and you will get a lot of info.

After the fairness law regulation was struck down congress tried to make it a law, but Reagan vetoed it. It was tried again under Bush, but was again, vetoed. So in the comment sections of the link people are asking why this loophole has been allowed to exist making it legal to lie? My answer is politics, money,  and so far two presidents! Now the language in the legalese of the decision in this case does not use the word lie, but I can look up the definitions of words that are used, if you like, and they are definitely saying it is ok to lie. So I am demonstrating why this loophole is alive and well. It was first put into effect in 1949 and then struck down by the Reagan administration, as I stated earlier. It has since been twice resurrected as a proposed law and vetoed by Reagan and Bush, again, as previously stated. So this does not give Fox any more right to lie or distort, or simply not report news it does not agree with than anyone else, but consider what I say next. Find me a news organization that has fired broadcasters for refusing to knowingly include a lie in their reporting of the news as was ordered by Fox, I say you cannot do it! Also be aware that Fox does not deny that they did this, they only argue that regulations now in effect are not actually laws, so technically they did not break the law! Now they had to go through several judges and layers of counter-suits to find a judge who agreed, but they finally were successful. If you read the article I included the link to, it explains all this.

I wrote this because, using a Robert Kennedy article as a template, I said that Fox News could not broadcast in Canada because they do not allow you to lie. They did have a similar law, which was also struck down using some of the same free speech jargon used in the U.S., but that case was not about Fox, and did not ever stop them from broadcasting in some form or other, so I deleted the post after some reflection. This case in Florida is about Fox however.

Again, to be fair, all of the reporting by news outlets takes advantage of the fact they are not held to an absolute standard when it comes to telling the truth, or any versions of the truth they decide to broadcast! I just know, in certain areas, Fox is all that is watched because it reinforces pre-conceived notions that are popular in those areas!  So the truth cannot be known in my opinion, unless you hunt for it, which most are unwilling to do because  they would have to change the dogma they live by!

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