Our Internet Today... and Yesterday

Nuts. I'm not 100% loving Facebook, but it's nice nationally and internationally to have a platform from which to easily and at least somewhat usefully do so. To do what? All that Facebook kind of stuff. Obviously.

Graphic from ITPulse

I started on the internet back in the late 80s.

I was involved in it, took classes in it, worked in IT (Internet, intranet technologies and...information technologies) in a variety of ways, jobs, levels and orientations.

It's amazing to see how far we've come. For that matter, how far I've come, as I've retired from IT and now am a full time author and filmmaker with at least ons screenplay in hopefully the right hands in Hollywood.

I even wrote a short sci fi story about America, the internet and media titled, In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear. It is recently available as of June 2018 as an audiobook as well as ebook. It was my first fiction sold to a horror quarterly back in 1990 and is the first story in my book of my older sci fi and horror fiction, Anthology of Evil. I have a sequel coming out of my newer writings, many of which have been published in magazines or anthologies with other authors.

Graphic from Zcorum

This Internet today is simply not what we wanted, in what we're seeing today. Like the Internet of things. Though it has surpassed the imagination of what many of us has conceived. We had wanted an internet free for everyone, where information was free to all... and open.

Much has even disappeared from online, or has become a fee based access situation. Overall, the Internet has benefited us all, if only we can get back some of our original orientation, if only we could counter some of the for profit issues and get back to the betterment of humanity.

At first for us it was, "information is free!" It should be Free! "The Internet is for Humanity!" Not big money! Not big business. Certainly not for Russia to alter our national elections!

Back in the 80s, if someone tried to sell something in the newsgroups back then in the beginning, or the middle, the late 80s, where we had mostly text based newsgroups, FTP, Telnet, Gopher, whatever text based stuff, they were crushed. Ostracized.

When the graphical internet, the World Wide Web, WWW, what came to be known as the internet as the dark parts sunk into the dark web...money started creeping its way in. A few of us pushed to keep it out until (I for one) realized that it was far bigger than us and far too powerful (money's like that) and that it could serve a good purpose. But then would obviously take a darker course. Simply because...it's inevitable.

Eventually I got it, as did others, but it worried me\us.

 I learned, I got educated about it, I took many classes. I worked in IT. First as a technical writer, then deeper and deeper into the mechanics of it all. Which led as it has to, to security. Something I'd been into before at a more physical level.

Graphic from Latest Internet News

I had stumbled into something awesome. Something that led to Internet security people and police as well as intelligence people at all levels and the government. Something I was headed into before. The great Soviet had died but that education and those skills were all still relevant.

Now here we are. We need a place for everyone to use. Not fractured, but cohesively. Not to polarize, but to feel to feed ourselves intellectually and other ways. To share with like, but also unlike minds.

We need this. It protects us. It also attacks us. Sometimes from those we elect or pay to protect us. Openness, transparency. THAT protects us. That and being able to share and openly so.

I don't care if it's Facebook or not. Or as I proposed in my above mentioned story, In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear, where the United Nations builds its own "Facebook" social media platform. Using experts from around the world to build it, all the best minds. It replaces Facebook. Everyone the world over uses it.

Photo from Daily Maverick

So that when any dictator or government shuts its people off from it, the UN pays attention, and immediately sends in moderators, "blue hats", to protect the people and stop more abuse as we've seen so much through the end of the last century and the beginning of this new one.

It became what it could become, as with Facebook or Twitter in the Arab Spring, or other national travesties. I had done my best back in 2011 to support that movement in Egypt and some did use my blog back then for updates to information their government was trying hard to keep them from. It was a hopeful time, that devolved into mediocrity, much as America has with the election of Donald Trump as president.

Before Facebook it was MySpace, which has changed into a music platform. Before that, there were others. Before that there were the BBSs, the Bulletin Board Systems you used a modem to dial your phone and PC up to.

Before that...well, it's been around for a while. This ability to communicate world wide. In the late 1960s when I was in jr. high and had a radiotelegraph license and could run a ham radio. I talked to other countries and wrote it all down as is normal procedure for hamm operations.

Before that it was telephones and before that, the telegraph. Although that technology was by a select few of trained and paid individuals, a kind of subculture grew up around it and telegraph stations across the nation. There are even very interesting books on that culture.

But we don't do that anymore. Though, we kind of do. Don't we? Everything now is recorded and saved, somewhere. And, we need that. For history, for our protection. For our coming together. For humanity growing closer, rather than continuing to take advantage of those less knowledgeable, less powerful, less whatever. But we're seeing humanity growing more apart. Why? We need to work on that, and turn things around, to be sure.

In that way we can make those others and ourselves, more than. Not less. Because as we're seeing, too many are trying to make us all, less than we can be. I'd really prefer to be more, for us ALL to be more than we are. Even if I don't always win. Even if I don't become rich. Even if I can't, have everything.

Graphic from WordlessTech

Just enough really is enough. That alone, would make me happy. For us all to better ourselves and come together. To be more informed, more aware, more proactive. More caring for all others as well as ourselves.

Especially if those around me, are happy too.

Beware, we're beginning to see the battle we're actually fighting.

I've posted this a elsewhere.
Why?

Because it's not just about this.I realized I needed to say something. There is more to this article than I at first realized, once I started considering it more deeply. Is what's going on because of NRA money to Congress so they do their bidding? As we're seeing? Or are we not fully understanding what is going on?

Most likely, the latter. Otherwise, things would have changed by now. We're obviously fighting a different battle than we thought we were.

We need to be very careful from here on.
We are being sold a bill of goods for something that is nothing if not standard operating procedure.
But also by design or coincidence, simply basic old Soviet practices.
Espionage gone mainstream.
Marketing on steroids, using what they've learned from professionals.
Wall Street working to drain us for their benefit using enhanced business and marketing practices.

Words at this time rise to the surface like bacteria on cream. Like subliminal. Like Social Engineering. Like PsyOps (psychological operations).

WAKE UP! Pay attention. Be aware. Educate yourself in areas most vital that you know and understand. So you can see it is actually happening.

This isn't a sci fi story. It's not an action adventure, a thriller movie, a horror film. Donald Trump as president thinks it is. More importantly he wants YOU to think it is. Or at least, to reacts as if it were.

"Are You Entertained?"!

This is for real. All of it. It's not huge evil monsters. It's not just an ultra right wing conspiracy. It's not just Putin abusing Western Democracies, in protecting his vast wealth and enabling his remaining outside of Russian gulags.

It's just people, doing a job, with a boss, with an agenda, with a goal, maybe even with what they believe to be higher purposes....but where any means justifies their ends. We are the target of a lot of people holding political, social and psychological "darts" aimed at our weakest emotional and intellectual and financial spots for their most benefits.

It's the usual misdirect by magicians and conmen.
Con People.
ConGressional Confidence People.
And their cohorts outside of Congress.
Their minions in and all about Congress.
We need to look at the actual problems, not the ethereal facades painted over to look like the problem.

Focus. Learn. Push back in ways that actually move the needle for us. It can happen. We can do this. Why haven't we yet been able to affect positive change in OUR direction?

Because we just didn't know the game we were all playing, or clearly understand just who the opponents were whom we hadn't recognized, or so very often, even seen. So much has been obfuscated, obstructed from view, redirected as our attention has repeatedly been sent off into directions having no bearings on our realities.

But we see you now....

So Begins the War on Capitalism - Finally

Years ago I said I was a capitalist. I didn't know what else to call it. Then I wised up. I also used to say we need a businessman to run this country like a business so it runs smoothly because obviously politicians can't do it. But back in the 90s I figured out that was a huge mistake.

Now I'm seeing capitalism is the cancer we are infected with and we've been fighting the wrong things. The riots in Hamburg today are on the right track as anti capitalist protests. They've got it, finally and will it spread from there around the world? Hopefully.

Now we have a capitalist running the country (running? LOL, okay okay).

Look they got people to chant stupidly how bad socialism is. But that's not the case.

It's not that socialism is bad, it's that pure socialism is bad. I've been saying this for decades. Pure capitalism for that matter is pretty much as we're seeing, pure evil. AS we're seeing....

Pure nothing is good for living things. Pure oxygen kills you, and rots things. Living purely on water kills you, robbing you of nutrients. Sure, there's exceptions to every rule. But that's not the point, that's taking the capitalist's platform. Pure humanity doesn't work, it needs some capitalist, or something. Pure capitalism forgets humanity. As we're seeing.

Capitalism breeds binary thinking. Bottom line thinking. Profit thinking. And most dangerously, Corporate thought.

The point is, we need as we have had, a hybrid of things to make the country run smoothly.

But we have to start with eliminating big money from elected officials in making rational decisions. We need people making decisions for people and not a few. We need to stop thinking we're rich, when we're not. We need to all start thinking.

First up, eliminate those we can clearly see aren't thinking by our standards.

Seriously. It's not rocket science. Well, maybe to Trump.

Conservatives fear the DemSoc! Absolutely not, dummy....

In some ways I see Democratic Socialism as a redundancy. Certainly, one doesn't (shouldn't) fear it. Children fear concepts in that way. Conservatives, Republicans do also where fear is a primary focus, rather than intelligent consideration, appropriate actions. And so this is a note to those conservatives and republicans who need to hear these things.

There is literally nothing to fear, but fear itself! 

Well, seriously now. We're living it now, we have been for many decades. So what suddenly is so horrible about i? It's not, it's just a way for conservatives to have a way to have something to sell for people to buy as they have so little. But really you're just buying air from them, animosity, disingenuous diatribe, and ... trouble. 

The idea that socialism is something we should fear, like it's communism in 1950, is ridiculous. 

First, it's not communism. Second, it's not 1950. Third, it's not even socialism. It's a lean away from capitalism and toward fellow human beings. It's not redistribution of wealth, which is a conservative Republican codeword phrase. 

It's paying into government so they simply do the job they have been tasked to accomplish. It's paying for our government to do the jobs we don't want, shouldn't need to deal with, like maintaining the common good across our nation and protecting us so we can get one with our lives.

Good roads, schools, rational healthcare and seeing everyone is taken care of especially those who cannot take care of themselves and others of us as we fall on very hard times. Especially when those hard times are perpetrated upon us by the elite or outside forces. With the dumbing down of America, making education harder to access and more problematic, it makes sense there are now more and more people who cannot take care of themselves. But conservatives would have us ignore them. Cast them aside, because it is easy and cheap. But it is not, either.

Conservatives want people to act like sheep, just do whatever they want and they have been getting their wish, although that comes with a price. Ignorant people lead to people needing more help and guidance and the more you guide them incorrectly, the more you have problems and need to guide them. 
Conservatives have a weird combination of ideals where they don't believe you should teach someone to fish (let them learn it themselves), but then you shouldn't feed them fish either if they don't have it (they should have learned to fish), to refer to an old parable. Then they make it hard to learn to fish.

Bernie Sanders is making sense. It's not news really. It's old information he is just trying to get us to face full on, to stop the nonsense and start the actions leading to making things better...for real.

It's been this long and we still cannot get it:

"The Soul of Man under Socialism is an 1891 essay by Oscar Wilde in which he expounds a libertarian socialist worldview and a critique of charity.^[1] The writing of The Soul of Man followed Wilde's conversion to anarchist philosophy, following his reading of the works of Peter Kropotkin.

"In The Soul of Man Wilde argues that, under capitalism, "the majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism—are forced, indeed, so to spoil them": instead of realising their true talents, they waste their time solving the social problems caused by capitalism, without taking their common cause away. Thus, caring people "seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see in poverty but their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it" because, as Wilde puts it, "the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible." - Wikipedia

Times they are a changin'....

America needs to clear her collective throat of the conservative sputum that has collected there for so many decades now.

We need to be able to breathe through passages clear and free of this miserable Republican asthma. Cough it up and spit it out into the conservative spittoon, America! Yes, it's almost full but it's on their side of the aisle where it belongs.

Times they are a changin'....

Freedom. Feel the change, feel the free air filling your lungs!

Times are a changing....

We don't need a "Big" Brother who beats us down at every turn. We need a Big "Brother" who squares his shoulders and says that we're not too heavy, who will then carry us to safety. Who will care to see we are all safe and able to be successful, not just his friends, not just his lovers, but all of his extended family.

Times they are a changin'....

I use the "he" metaphor but it could as easily be our "sister", right? Right? No. Not really. And it's not so much our brother, as it is our Dad, an old white guy (even if you're no white). But really i is more like our grandfather, those who have the souls of old codgers; in many cases of an old pervert.

Times they are a changin'....

Be afraid, those of you who have abused us for so long. Be very, very afraid. Or then again, don't even bother being afraid (though you're so good at being fearful, you probably can't stop it anyway). Because nothing you can do will stop what is about to happen.

Times they are a changin'....

Instead get on the bus with the rest of us because truly unlike you, we want to be inclusive. We don't want to cut you out. We want a cohesive and rational America who succeeds for everyone. Not just for a few.

Time they are definitely...
a changin'.

And now, this.... Ed Asner's cartoon explanation of America today.

What does TCMS mean for Republicans and Conservatives

Yet another one of those disingenuous memes from our CBDCFs, Our Confused and Brain Damaged Conservative Friends.

Yes, yes, of course big government is bad.
IF and WHEN it actually IS too big. 

Considering that we cannot now afford or even figure out how to fix our crumbling infrastructure (bridges, roads, rail, broadband connections (cell, internet, etc.)), government and funding (see military budgets, purchasing planes that don't work, funding that the military doesn't want in areas like yet another aircraft carrier, etc.), you certainly can break the government in under funding and shrinking it to the point of sheer idiocy (see TCMS below).

What they can't seem to understand of late in their having raging TCMS (Tiny Conservative Mind Syndrome), is that too small government is as bad or even more dysfunctional than too big government. It is a belief system support and disseminated through right wingnut radio, web sites and cable channels like the notorious Fox News network and their inflammatory twists on the news which does the nation such a great a disservice and really only services the rich and disingenuous.

Fox News leads the mentally infirm and old (no really, check their demographics) down the path to waste and falsehoods with their consistent avoidance of actual fact checked and properly Op Ed information with their "Fox Newisness". That phrase by the way was recently submitted to Urban Dictionary as we really need that phrase to more succinctly go along with Stephen Colbert's wonderful term, "Turthinesss". 

Would I prefer too big or too small? Don't be foolish. I'd prefer a professionally run correct size to run properly, government. Like with our security and intelligence departments. They are way too big and need to be shrunk before America only supplies the world with information as a GDP.

Of course an inflated bureaucracy slows things to a crawl if not just blocking things completely and outright (please refer to our current and recently previous US Congresses).

However, too small of a government also doesn't do a damned thing. Right?

What then is the attraction, what is the difference for conservatives?

In a too big of a government, you can point fingers at those bad apples to cut them, to fire them, to jail them. And conservatives hate that, because they know, they may be next. And they usually are. But they've instead (rather than clean up their act and be good citizens) raised slipping out of the bounds of justice into a new level, a new art form. 

In a too small government we have the same symptomatic and systemic dysfunction. However, you can't blame them as easily and their jobs are somehow perceived as more secure. You can't fire someone because they are overworked (or blame them) or as we see so much, those incompetents (see, Ted Cruz, et al), or criminals, (see Chris Christy, et al).

Of course in how things are twisted up anymore you can't even fire those who are drilling holes in our government either (see protected by big money).

This is also why region (Christian, typically here) and conservatives and republicans go together like chocolate and peanut butter. 

A leading Catholic Vatican Cardinal recently said gay couples shouldn't be invited to family gatherings if children are present US Cardinal Raymond Burke’s comments came in an interview during the Pope’s Synod of the Family in Rome, in which he also commented on the ‘aggressiveness of the homosexual agenda’. You know, the only reason it looks like gays have an agenda is they are struggling to not be treated like second class citizens, mostly BECAUSE of religion. 

Once again, religion as cancerous mind worms in trying to avoid reality for their beliefs, thus trying to alter reality into a preformed way of filtering reality. Surely why should we raise our children to deal with what is, rather than grow up dealing with what should be so we can have more dysfunction and prejudice and bigoted attitudes in the world for religion to disingenuously continue to claim to have the answers for, as they yet again try to side step reality and so it goes....

One thing conservatives and republicans (and granted, politicians in general, but certainly with our New Age Soviet styled Republican party ), know how to do is to fully actualize the Peter Principle. The ability to rise to your personal best level of functionality in a position, then rise above that to where you're completely dysfunctional but allowed to remain there until you want to move on. Rather than being moved back down to where you are fully functional, or simply fired (again, see protected by big money) as would\should be expected where obviously it is, TRTTD, The Right Thing To Do.

It's time the rational people took back their government and pushed back against the ignorant, the disingenuous, the defectively based religious beliefs. Look, I don't have a problem with you "believing" in religion, as silly as I see it is, just allow others to live their lives and we'll leave you alone. But when stupid thought affects others negatively, it's time to stand up and say no.

Let's get back to live and let live.

Remember how smoothly things worked back then compared to now? Really, that's all it would take to cure TCMS and bring republicans and, well I don't know if there's a cure for conservatism, really. You see, conservatism is a way to view things, not a lifestyle and that's where people got off track. They took a concept and made it a lifestyle and as we've seen, that never goes well. Purity in thought tends to be defective (try inbreeding dogs too much and see what happens after all).

Be opened minded, see what is and not what should be and work with that. Surely you can see how things could be better and take what you have in mind to make things better, but then make things better. Because what we have now is people taking what they think and making things worse while they think they are only trying to make things better, for themselves. And therein lay the crux of the matter.

Look, religion (2013, 2014, 2015)and the republican party are both dying off anyway and like Islam through things like ISIS, death throws can be ugly. However I don't see the republican party dying off per se, rather and hopefully, morphing into something better, though I'm willing to bet it will surprise us and morph into something worse to pleasure it's base who are dying off as Fox News polls show (even Fox is changing and becoming more rational though).

We all live on this tiny planet together.

How about we try to remember that and make room for everyone to live. That seems to be something that liberals have figured out and conservatives can't. But you can make TCMS go away. It's really not that hard to do.

Just have compassion for more than your own self interest. 

Bob Marley brand pot to be sold legally in the US next year

Yes, according to USA Today Bob Marley brand pot is to be sold legally in the US next year. It hias been sanctioned by his heirs and will be the first global brand of pot. Good news. From the article:

"My dad would be so happy to see people understanding the healing power of the herb," Miami-based Cedella Marley said in a company statement. She's the eldest daughter of the music legend who died of cancer in 1981 and is Jamaica's most iconic figure.

But there's even better news here in America.

Good bye finally to the war on drugs and good riddance to you.

May you die the most painful death possible. Now, it needs to be made official by the government. Kill the ineffective D.A.R.E. program, a bastardized child of the War on Drugs. Although the link indicates how ineffective the program has been (including "Keeping it Real" program), a new version of the Keeping it Real program allegedly shows some progress. I do believe that children need to be presented with the facts, honestly, and not just propaganda.

Government needs to restrain it's easy urges to lie and twist what is true in order to achieve their agenda. There are other issues involved there than just drug use that goes into kids trusting the government later in life as adults.

We do need to keep children from drugs and alcohol until their mid twenties, as science has shown their brains are still developing until then. That however, is pretty much a lost cause. We need intelligent damage control, not enforced abstinence. We do need to try and curb their usage as long as possible, at least past high school if it could be done (it can't mostly), but we also need to be honest with children as each generation is better informed than the previous and we need to stay current with that.

The officially sanctioned war on drugs and Americans, especially has affected minorities and led to overcrowded jails and generations of broken minority families.

Finally the legacy of alcohol prohibition with its roots in religion going back to Puritanism, the Temperance Movement, evangelical Protestant churches, Harry Anslinger (who had to find jobs for his agents one prohibition was over and found pot the golden ticket), and Richard Nixon (who turned his back on his own commission calling for decriminalization of pot), is dying its much too long overdue death.

So, what is the fight going to be, what is the next abuse on Americans by our government to tend to, and what or who do we need to rid ourselves of now? First, I'm against war, war on anything or anyone. Especially disingenuous wars that damage people rather than correct bad situations. War is to kill people, not incarcerate them. So let's stop with the Wars. Let's stop with having Czars on anything. We still however, have issues we need to deal with. Mindsets than need to go away. Political groups who are counterproductive in America.

Ask yourselves, who are our biggest abusers of facts, reality, who abuses their elective governing, who abuses gerrymandering the most, pushes election abuses of almost non exist fraudulent voters (no, those are actually few and far between), who consistently oppresses women and women's rights, minorities, attempts to kill empathetic or compassionate government legislation, who has consistently twisted national economic legislation in knots that is mostly devastating to building our country back up, who are the supporters of big money and elevating corporate concerns over US citizens (which runs into election campaign financing which we need to assume as citizens and stop big money let Americans pay for elections from now on and not allow them to any longer be bought by big money), and this list goes on and on.

Could it be that conservatives and Republicans are who we are fighting against in an invisible war on America and Americans who aren't the top 3%? Could it be their disingenuous proselytizing and disinformation has made them invisible to the average citizen (yes you if you support them) for what they are doing so that most people cannot see their abuses, even though they are right out in front of us?

What does that say about the Americans who support them? Perhaps very little, but it certainly speaks a great deal to the power of the old Soviet mechanisms of disinformation and shifting responsibility onto anyone but themselves, and their supporters are either benefiting monetarily as the top 3% do, or they are too lazy or uneducated to find out or be able to find out, what is really happening and so they continue to support those who are really against their best interests.

Maybe like in the old film, Wild in the Streets, we just need to get Congress high so they can see to start doing what is right against blindingly following political theories that are no in the best interesting of the majority of American citizens, and actually, the entire world.

Happy Labor Day! Now, about that....

First, remember that I'm still celebrating the re-release of my book, Death of Heaven. Check out my Blog from this weekend, if you haven't already seen it. Today is the last day my ebooks are up for free during this even. After today, my free short story ebooks are back to their normal .99 price, but I have lowered the price of the print version to $4.99 from now on.

Now, about labor....

I've been saying for years how the American worker is being abused by corporations, management and, our Government, who are heavily swayed by business interests, big money, conservatives and lately for some reason, religious factions.

I've been saying for decades that we should be working toward fewer hours, fewer days per week per worker. We hear complaints about there being not enough jobs and yet, workers are working more hours, rather than fewer (for the same pay) and more days; taking fewer vacations days, many times out of fear of losing a job. Where there could be jobs for others, the current workers (in the jargon of conservative and Republican types), are "STEALING jobs" from the unemployed.

How is all this not obvious?

On Fareed Zakaria this weekend Fareed had a piece on just this topic. It was rewarding to hear it finally being discussed on a national show.

Did you know that American workers are the only advanced economy country of workers in the world not guaranteed paid vacation days? As many as 23% of Americans get no paid holidays or vacation.Americans who do get paid time off take only about half of it on average according to one survey.

In contrast Europeans see a need for a work/life balance.

Why don't we? I do. I have worked for a health insurance company for years in their IT department on their web sites, for, well, April 1st, 2015 will be nineteen years. Nine months proceeding that I actually started as a contractor. So really, September 9th will be nineteen years, but it doesn't country toward benefits as I was a contractor and not a hired employee, yet.

My point in mentioning this company is they are a good company to work for. They want people to take vacation time as a relaxed and refreshed employee is happier, makes fewer mistakes and in general leads to a more functional workplace. They have also found that allowing remote workers was a plus for everyone involved. Since I work on web servers that are located in datacenters in Utah, Oregon and Washington, there's no real need for me to be in the office in Seattle.

So I have been able to work full time from home now for a couple of years. A big benefit for me as my commute is two hours long one way, twice a day, in driving to the park and ride, waiting and taking the bus, waiting and taking the ferry (which can be awesome in Puget Sound), and then walking. In the afternoon I'm reversing that. It's great for the exercise and reading time it allows, but it's four hours out of my day for no good reason, not to mention, it adds a burden on our state infrastructure and pollution levels. That's four hours I now have back for writing, or personal issues, which enhances the overall quality of my life.

Getting back to it....

German workers work 600 hours less than their Greek counterparts, but German productivity is 70% higher. There are many examples of this around the world which shoots a hole in the argument that more hours means more productivity. What corporations and government don't account for in expecting us to work more hours is the overall amount of money that is made and where it goes. There is no reason we cannot be working toward a four day work week.

If you ever bring up a four day work week to companies today the standard response is one of two. Either they say no, outright, or they smile and say yes, four work days a week is acceptable, of course you'd be then doing ten hour days to make up for it. But why shouldn't we by now in his most advanced country in the world be working four day weeks and six hour days? Then money is actually there for this and that would allow many more workers to make a living, to get off the government assistance in many cases, lead to a far happier worker and more money into the marketplace when workers have more time off and money to spend.

Adding those extra days and hours to workers lives can also allow them the choice, the leisure time to delve more into personal pursuits, family, the arts, entertainment; it could be a boon to the economy. There is a (and conservatives and Republicans will love this term) "trickle down" effect. According to a study commissioned by the US Travel Association (by Oxford Economics) shows that if Americans just used all their currently allotted time off, there would be an additional $160 billion in sales, not just in travel related businesses but across several sectors. That would generate an additional $52 billion dollars in earned income and 1.2 million additional jobs.

So if you are getting vacation time... take it! "Take it," as Fareed Zakaria said today, "as your patriotic duty."

And yet, big money pushes government to allow them to extract the money from the workers, to continue to burden the workers with extra hours, and therefore, fewer workers to do the job.

The accounting firm of Ernst & Young did a study on their own employees and they found that for every additional ten hours taken as vacation time the company saw their profits go up by 8% in improvement ratings.

This is not just a fantasy I've dreamed up. There are hard cold facts involved here. The things I'm proposing, these things I've been proposing for decades, are doable.

Consider also if you are salaried, if you are required as I am to work 38.75 hours per week, if you work on minute longer, you have just lost that salaried amount be a degree. Let's say you work one week double hours at 77.5 hours. How does that not mean your pay has literally been cut in half? So every minute you work longer than your baseline expected hours, is actually taking money from your bank account. Or your retirement.

Corporations put a major spin on this of course. Just ask them about that and see what they say. They have a very good and practiced argument for it. But don't let them fool you. The problem with most managers is that they cannot see the bigger picture either.

But, the bigger picture is indeed there.

Labor Day is a celebration of the worker, the laborer. Let's not just celebrate them, us, but let's dig deep and find out we can all step into the future, into a better future for everyone and not just those at the top, or the very rich and truly appreciate those who Labor Day is really about.

Wouldn't you like to be able to afford to take time off, go on vacation and enjoy a better life with more and not less, freedom?

News Shows or News Programs?

"When men yield up the exclusive privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon." Thomas Paine 1774.

As citizens we need information. Real, and accurate information. We cannot acquire it ourselves. There are people who actually have jobs dedicated to digging, locating, finding that information for us and then enhancing that information, morphing it into knowledge and serving it up to us in a economic and palatable way so that as citizens we can make the most use of it. They are called, Journalists. This service they provide serves us as individuals, them as citizen agents, and the country and the world, as a whole.

However, if this trust is compromised, it fails us all. Journalists by necessarily need to be, for the most part, neutral. Anything that gives them an air of being other than neutral detracts from their work and the benefit we all receive from it.

We need our news agencies, we need all of them. But we need them to give us the news unhindered by polluting factors: big money, corporate and vested interests, and news shows/news networks that have been monetized. We need to separate out entertainment for market share, vested interest and, the actual news. If a news department loses money in serving the public, that needs to be okay, as it once was as part of a bigger concern. Concern for our country and the citizens which is to say, the customers.

These "news shows" as opposed to "news programs", if you will, are not just adjuncts to big money. They are our life blood as citizens of our country and our planet in needing to know what is truly happening in the world.

We need clean, accurate information. Otherwise what we have, what we end up with, is what we have been seeing in our country and in our world of late. Inaccurate information that is oriented to pay off toward these vested interests. To make money for the owners of these shows.

Corporations are not people. And stockholders are not all there is to consider in the world.

We need those who serve the news up to us to stop abusing the information and start serving the public, their lifeblood. When they start doing that, putting us first, then life for everyone will increase in quality.

It is true that those who are now seeding this abuse, will lose some amount of power. That is true. They will not have as much power as they could have, had they as they do now, squeeze every iota of every possibility of every dollar out of ever second of their effort.

Still, they just need to realize that this is really not bad for them, in it being good for us. It simply limits the heights to which their power can achieve. But with the rise of power for the citizen, it will enhance the country and that will enhance the economy of the world. And that, is good for everyone.