"I'm Smarter Than The Experts!" Really?

Regarding this current issue of Americans thinking: "I'm smarter than the experts"...(check out the article, it's pretty interesting and enlightening).

First of all, allow me this. For the record? I do NOT think I'm smarter than experts. Question, but verify. Not disagree and denigrate.

I grew up thinking I was stupid. My step-father didn't much like me. ADD helped with that belief in just making life more difficult. I read a lot in getting "grounded" at home a lot and so I actually knew a lot. When I shared those things, most others had no clue what I was talking about and so to them, and they weren't reticent in sharing it with me, they just assumed I must be... if not just weird, then stupid. 

I've written about all this before. I've shared my past like this from time to time for the most part, for those others who are going through the same kind of thing. All in an attempt to give them hope. I never thought I'd amount to much of anything or make a decent living and I've done quite well. I'm not rich. But I'm not poor either and I have worked with some brilliant minds in IT and in general. I've met very interesting people. I've raised two amazing kids to adulthood. I've had a very interesting life. How could I ask for more? So yea, there is hope. Always. 

For those considering suicide? Remember this. You can always just walk away from your life and let that be your suicide. But you'll always be there you go to. So seek help. Help yourself. Never day die. Never give up. I know, superficial view of depression and suicide. Some cannot be helped and will die. Others however, can be, and will survive, if they just keep these things in mind.

It wasn't until my third year of university in working closely with my psychology department professors, with my primary department advisor, Dr. Rees, that I was convinced I was not stupid, but quite the opposite. It's hard to counter a lifetime of belief, proven in poor k-12 grades and life being more difficult than others around you. 

But I was getting a degree in psychology. And these guys were the experts.

I learned three very important things, evolved through three very necessary stages in my college career.

The first was that I learned in college was, "Damn this is hard, but kind of fun in a painful sort of way." I could "feel" my brain (mind) at times, literally (seemingly) stretching. It was hard to find time to assimilate it all att as the pace in college is fast, at university it's light speed. In case you do not know already, colleges have masters level professors, while universities have doctorate level professors.

The second thing I learned and evolved through in college was, "Damn, I know a LOT now and I'm learning more all the time!" But I kept that quiet until my third year, at university. I got a two year degree, then transferred to Western Washington University, in beautiful Bellingham, Washington.

However, once my university professors saw that kind of behavior in me, which they were quite used to from undergrads I'm sure, they smooshed it right down and put me in my place. Usually, it just took talking to them at THEIR LEVEL, not MINE, and in doing so, realizing that compared to them, damn, was I ignorant! 

Two year colleges tend to do their best to build you up, to be able to handle being at a four or more year university. While universities realize they have to continue to build you up, but also keep you in your place to be as rational and realistic as possible. Although, some colleges one wonders about that latter part, such as with the "Ivy League" schools. It's easy to become full of oneself. 

One has achieved a lot by graduation. so enjoy it. But at tomse point, and as soon as possible, do come back down to earth. Yes?

Ever hear someone say, "I wish I was as smart as I thought I was at 16?" There is a reason for that.

Thus the third and most important thing I learned and evolved through at university. Something most armchair quarterbacks or those who just think they are smarter than the experts, may never have the opportunity to achieve as they do not have a structured course, or professors watching out for them. That being that the more I learned, the more I realized the less I knew that I knew. The semi educated know they know more than they knew, that they may know ore than many others in their group, or bubble. 

However, if you do not ever realize as you gain knowledge that the more you know, the less you know in the ever expanding envelope of the greater knowledge of he universe, then you are setting yourself up, and others around you, for a good deal of misery. 

Or appearing vapid and ignorant to those who truly are more aware of the all the universe has to offer one, overall. That is part and parcel of what we are seeing now in so many who think the Internet, is in some way an education. It is not. It's is an increasing of awareness, without form or structure in education.

My appraisal at that time at university was that for every single thing I learned, there were four or more things I didn't know. I felt I was becoming dumber and dumber, not smarter and not necessarily wiser. And indeed in the face of all experience and knowledge, so it is. Past experience, incorporated with current knowledge, can offer one some form of wisdom. But it is not the same as achieving knowledge and then applying it to current experience.

Along with that, however (luckily) went the appropriate feeling of my being humble, and in working with my professors, of being humbled again and again, before their vast knowledge and that of the universe at large. And of those others who were true experts. Those I should show respect to, 

All of who are what Kate Bush is referring to in her song, "Them Heavy People." Oh, don't know who Kate Bush is? You've missed the amazing and genius then, but...her videos and documentaries are still available. 

Those who were not only more knowledgeable, but more importantly, wiser, and that is very important, do deserve our respect and at times, our great respect. Knowledge and experience can become wisdom. CAN...become. Too often, they are not. Thus the importance of higher education in a structured form and Socratic and didactic methods with those far wiser than you.

Earth may now have the most knowledgeable people in human history, but we do not have the wisest people to be sure. And that is part of the great problem we are now faced with.

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

  Isaac Asimov
Delete or hide th

After I graduated university and went through the omnipresent and rather annoying graduate's period of "I know everything, let me share!" ....something not everyone "graduates" through and so remain an asshole the rest of their lives...I began to see in others less educated, a disrespect toward the educated and those far more knowledgeable. Even those far more educated than I would ever be.

And that truly puzzled me.

People I would feel honored to meet, to be among those types so much greater than myself in wisdom, while far too many seemed to feel bitterness or even anger toward them. Weird. Truly, really weird. Because being in their presence for a time can enhance who you are as a person and can alter your life going forward, making it easier, better, with more quality or even wealth. Which really in this context is the least of considerations. 

But surely, not to detract from it. I also always felt honored to share what I knew with others, and this is where some get caught up in thinking sharing, is about ego and it's not, and it shouldn't be. But a gift. Yet I was outwardly perplexed at how few were interested. Interesting in learning, in replacing lesser ideas with greater and more accurate ones. And for free. Without all the suffering and pain and effort I had to put into it all to finally achieve.

Seeing those wiser than oneself in a negative light merely puts one's own ignorance and ego on display for all those more knowledgeable than you. It can be seen like a beacon. When instead in seeking knowledge and sharing it, should make one appear brilliant both to oneself and to those less educated.

We have fallen down on this as a nation and a species. The Chinese in their "Cultural Revolution" for the People, actually murdered their elite thinkers, but luckily for them, only imprisoned some for many years. Some eventually brought back out when their communist nation remained their massive mistake. 

 All for feeling these educated people, doctors, scientists, historians, philosophers, were "elitist" (as opposed to being "elite" and an entirely different thing altogether), and not party of the common People. All which put China back by at least 50 years at the time. 

Just as America, in a way, in our own way, are doing to ourselves today. 

I suppose that is some of what annoys so many here and today. To feel looked down upon by those who consider themselves elitists. But too often that is a poor self esteem issue in oneself and hast utterly nothing to do with our elites whom we desperately need. IF you feel belittled in being ignorant, something I've always deemed as noble, everyone is after all, ignorant of something... then use the great inoculation against ignorance. Education. It's expensive? And why do you think that is the case? The ignorant are more easily manipulated and governed. 

Which America political party seems more against education, finding and supplying money to those institutions? Well, to be sure it is a complex subject. I did go to college in hope of better job prospects.

My older brother, after I got out of the USAF and had Vietnam Era VA benefits, seeing how down and out I was (I had lost my marriage, job, could not find a good job and that's why I went in part, into the Air Force, and I was floundering and on food stamps), tried to talk  me into college. He convinced me to think about it. 

When I graduated High School, K-12 as such a miserable academic experience, I swore to never go to school again. I took two weeks to think about it. I realized as much as I felt life, as much as it hurt emotionally at times, were I to become educated, I would find life even more in depth, I would understand everything better. I would feel greater pain in life. 

But I realized in the pro side of the pro/con list, I would also appreciate lief more, the quality of my life would be better. I would look at a picture, or film, or piece of music and have a greater appreciation of it. Or for human interaction. Or it would hurt more. 

In the end I decided the pros outweighed the cons and I started college. Never planing on more than a two year AA degree. But my girlfriend wanted a university degree. So I followed her. That was the catalyst. 

But then I was fully invested. My first college class toward an AA was Study Skills. I learned there is a way to learn in school. No one ever told me about that and so I suffered through K-12. None of us are taught that. But most of us make it through our "cookie cutter" 18th century style school systems Which has been changing to some degree of late. Having ADD just made it more difficult and yet, someone I graduated 12th grade. 

So in the end, I got a university degree. Something I'd never have though possible. Yet I did it. And others can do it. No, of course everyone doesn't need a college or university degree. Vocational schools are great things. It's really about what will make you happier, more fulfilled in life. It's not all about money! But we do have to make a living. We have to survive. But we don't have to be miserable all our lives, either. Sometimes only a little educate is all we need. For some of us we gleam that from living from day to day. But not all of us.

The important things is, remember that those who truly know more than us, should be listened to. Peer review is important. Picking out one "expert" because he agrees with you is foolish. Also ignoring the outlier can also be foolish. Confusing? Yes.

But that is why we need to educate and lean into knowledge, but ever more so...wisdom.

Yes there are indeed those who are bullies who lord it over others less educated, or poorer, or less advantaged. Many of those people however have psychological and personality issues have nothing whatsoever to do with wisdom. They give all others who are wise and would be helpful to us a bad name. 

Don't become sucked into that distraction. Too many of those bullies want you to hate all those smarter than you, merely so you will listen only to them. They can be hard to spot. But many times easy to see as those who claim they are the ONLY solution. ONLY they can save you. These are confidence hucksters, con men and women and do not trust them! Even though we have no elected on as President of the United States of America. But that too will pass. 

Still, that is no excuse for what we are seeing in America today.

Yet, there we are. Here...today.

In America.

The future is ours. It is yours. Make of it what you will

Just remember, you are not alone. What you do affects us all.

For better or for worse. 

Armed Protestors

What do all these armed protests, this religious-based hatred of government and news media all have in common?

A desire by those involved to be superior, but really, just to "feel" superior. It really sounds very Donald Trump-like.

Lansing Michigan: "Armed Idiots Storm Michigan Capitol"

That desire to feel more than.
To be considered with due respect to all those others who have earned it.


Which these protestors obviously haven't earned or deserve.
And boy, that pisses them off.

One has to have done something to deserve all that.
So, do something? Something of actual substance.

Because hat you're doing just isn't it.

But there is nothing. Is there.
And that frustrates you.
Doesn't it.

I feel your pain.
Welcome to most of the human race. Most of us aren't that special. Deal with it.

We're all so very happy for you in you're scaring the living hell out of others with your guns and anger. Like in the state capital in Michigan.

And in doing your best to neutralize actual journalism and continuing to prop up misinformation and disinformation.

That's not the answer you're seeking. It's a temporary fix. It's a short-sighted, short term "fix". and it's not a fix at all. Is it. But ego-stroking, inflating your ego. Your "Donald Trump" moment.

You're spreading a very bad virus. Stop. Think for a change. Seek real information. Learn. Get out of your bubble. Review all the information out there, not just yours, Not just want makes you feel good.

Because reality can be ugly. But not as ugly as what you are eating.

Read a book maybe...

IS Fake News the Problem? Not Really.

It occurs to me, who cries all the time about the MSM and Fake News? It's from the right, right? I don't seem to have that problem, fewer progressives seem to have that problem.
What's up?

Education? Ted Cruz went to Harvard. but a college education doesn't make you smart or aware or educated. I've met those types. Also, you can pick up an agenda, filters, limited considerations, closed minds. Sounds pretty conservative oriented.

What got me thinking about this just was, just, thinking about it. Wondering, how can conservatives have such a tough time getting accurate news from the MSM? Why does so much to them seem fake?

Well, they've been told to think that way. They have a news network hammering them about it. A POTUS who hammers them about it. Their culture buys into it. And they seek it out and call it out.

Problem that occurred to me was this. When I used to study international Sate covert activities, espionage, and how that world works, they don't have such a difficult time of it.

Honestly, if I was able to research spies and their lies and find the truth, you can't watch MSM and garner reality from it? REALLY? Look, our intelligence community does this on a daily basis almost without thinking. JUST think about how they must view all this whining about fake news. Not to mention the hard-working journalists who acutely do a good job, work so very hard to do so and then you simply lump them into, Fake News? That's just....embarrassing.

Why do conservatives? Or progressives who do for that matter.

DON'T watch a single news source dummy! Main Stream Media are Fake in your opinion, so you only watch Fox News? What? WHO does that? No, not watch Fox News, but finds something distasteful so locks themselves in an intellectual closest and ignores the rest of reality! Sure you should check the MSM for validity. Yes, they are wrong at times. Yes, they may even tell lies. Fox News doesn't?

Please. But you take the time, make the effort to see if it's true, or if your people are wrong. THAT'S what an educated person does. But they don't just cry FAKE NEWS unless they have a marked agenda. And that's what we have here with an entire political party following it. The left rebels against it, the right is offended and the Russians join in and voila! Polarized society and a breaking down of America.

Great job guys!

It appears to me to be a limitation on their parts. I like Rachel Maddow. She will set you up with a history of an issue, then tell you the issue, and you can see what's up and the surrounding issues. Yes, she can go a tad liberal at times. But I can see that clearly when she does it and she usually makes it clear. If you're paying attention.

Times like that, I note it and move on. But she's not fake news. Now, much of Fox News is fake. But conservatives don't see them as fake news. Why? Well, their culture, their president, and their belief system (cognitive dissonance).

The problem is that people don't pay attention, don't take the time to think, don't survey news, NEVER listen to one source. ALWAYS vet your info, it's not even that hard. SEE/HEAR when your sources go off track.

In researching covert ops that aren't available to the public, many of them are. By getting disparate sources, you can even when one source lies, uncover the truth.

It's not THAT hard, but it takes getting used to it. TO be sure it's easier and cathartic to yell, Fake News, move on, listen to YOUR pundits, and claim... KNOWLEDGE!

Uh-huh. Right pal.

My point? FAKE NEWS isn't the issue. People who scream fake news are. The facts are there. You just have to be able to recognize them, without cognitive dissonance, without buying into lies, especially when they so well and pleasantly fit YOUR agenda. Or when your leaders or pundits are telling you what to believe.

TRUST BUT VERIFY. There is NO need to be paranoid. But you have to put some effort into your assimilation of the facts and know facts from opinions, and lies.

And? When you find YOUR team is lying most of the time?

Stop being a Republican. Stop having a conservative mind. Those are generally speaking, closed off forms of thought, by definition, and by design.. Add in religion, it's like fuel to the fire. Conservatism is a form of government to limit things, not expand. To retard, not grow. By it's nature it is about austerity and isolationism, not wealth (for all, stop being so limited) and openness.

“In the social and civil context as well, I appeal not to create walls, but to build bridges," Pope Francis.

It's far more conducive to acquiring wealth and power, also. But in good ways, by being inclusive, where the strength is. 

Pope Francis also said: "In every religion there is always an integralist group that does not want to move ahead and lives from bitter memories, past conflicts, and seeks even more war and sows fear." @americamag

Same goes for political parties. And the one most closely resembling what he refers to here is the Republican party with their confused evangelical Christians. 

Open your mind. Learn. Expend effort. Survey information and news. Never use ONE news source. Talk or listen to your opponents. Pay attention to your pundits and heroes and question when they go off track.

Perhaps the current forms of progressiveness aren't perfect either. But they are in part a reaction to conservatism, which has led the way in many cases in pushing agendas out of fear and a dislike for change, a love of status quos. Which, status quos, require change even to maintain. So much of that is counter intuitive, which is frustrating to the conservative mind.

Overall, we just have to pay attention. And if we can't. Well, then Republican party is waiting with open arms, and you can go on whining disingenuously about Fake News with all your new friends.

Fake News is not the problem. We are. 

Streaming Network News: Quality?

Happy Labor Day holiday weekend! "Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country." 

America has turned into an anti-labor endeavor of the part of the rich and powerful. We need to consider and reflect on that today, and all that we can do to continue turning that around. A country is not built upon its wealthy and powerful, but upon the engine of its existence...the people.

Some argue Unions, labor concerns, and government caring about its citizens is socialism. Pure socialism is dysfunctional just as pure capitalism is but hybrids work. Like in America, when it's allowed by those in power who tend to fight it tooth and nail. Who tend to call entitlements such things as social security, Medicare, and healthcare for all. While actual entitlements THEY want, for big business, as unquestionably necessary and not to be discussed but simply given, no matter what. Even against all reason and the damage, it does to our government, our citizens and our trust in our leaders, mostly Republicans as the belonging to the party of big business and apparently citizen discare and abuse..

Irish Central argues: Labor Day is an 'Irish holiday,' as the Irish created the union movement

OK. Enjoy...

In 2016 I retired from a career in IT, sold my house of 16 years where my kids grew up most of their lives in and moved to another nearby town of Bremerton. Ironically a town I'd avoided all my life after being put in jail for the afternoon one fine early summer day when I was in 12th grade and visiting my girlfriend who lived in Bremerton and went to Olympic College (yeah, back then in high school, few believed a 12th grader in Tacoma, had a girlfriend in college, in another town, nearby or not...though my close friends did knowing I wouldn't lie).

I was just sitting there waiting for her to stop by for lunch, at a friend's house, with her best girlfriend and ex-boyfriend (older than me and her) who introduced us. when I was 17. I was innocent of anything that day, and they let me go. I've detailed this story elsewhere. In being the only town I was ever tossed into a jail cell in, and because back then Bremerton sucked (it's really nice now) and kind of a rough Navy town, I never wanted to return here after we split up. Until I moved here in 2016 and both myself and my two adult kids found it a pretty nice community ... now.

I was shooting for, as I still am, for a career change, not actual retirement. Like many, my retirement funds aren't what they need to be. But I had enough of a cushion to allow me this attempt into a creative career in writing and filmmaking. A luxury I didn't have while my kids were being raised. As I just noted to a friend who said he was impressed with what I'm doing as he wouldn't try it at this stage in his life...I had really had it with working in IT and it was quit or retire. So I retired and decided I had the ability to go for it. I'm making the best of it so far. In the end, I'll either fail and look stupid, bor succeeded and appear smart and courageous. Time, very soon, will tell.

That meant I needed to change my lifestyle, cut my overhead, and lose some amenities and luxuries. One of those being news and entertainment access. I dropped my DirecTV satellite which I'd had for years and had never wanted Comcast because everyone I knew who had it, complained about it and I'd had no complaints with DirecTV. Besides, for years they refused to run a line out to the community I lived in, which was in the woods. Not far off, only a mile out of town, but if you wanted "cable" you needed a non-cable cable. Or pay for the cable to be strung? Really Comcast?

Once I got moved to Bremerton (from Suquamish, where Chief "Seattle" is buried), I signed up with Comcast. I wanted faster internet speeds and had tired, to be honest, of atmospheric conditions screwing up my viewing times.

One of my favorite shows and one I missed the most, was/is Rachel Maddow. Also Comedy Central's The Daily Show. Which I still can't get.

One of the things I like about Rachel is her cheerful attitude, her understanding of what the hell is going on and her ability to deliver complex issues today through a historical perspective. Essentially educating her viewers.

Something I don'/t see on Fox News, or much of anywhere else. It's what I've liked about some PBS news shows. A deeper, more academic perspective. So I'm going to use her show as a vehicle to exemplify what I'm talking about in this blog for this week.

Let me take this brief aside as I've gotten hammered by various conservatives I know about being in a liberal bubble (while it really is them in a far more corrupted conservative bubble), saying I only watch MSNBC (I don't, only Rachel on there), Or only CNN (I don't, not at all, unless I'm at an airport maybe).

I actually have always gotten my news worldwide, since college, ever since the 60s as a kid watching PBS. I found it fascinating there were other ways of delivering the news, fewer articles and deeper perspectives. Back then I did watch Walter Cronkite, and so on. Those were good days when news was a "loss leader", not for profit, or for entertainment, but real journalism.

I watched broadcast news shows for years and then I did like CNN for a while, in its beginning. But in the past years since college, I've leaned on a wider perspective. How do other nations view us? How accurate is our news? What are they missing? What are they too focused on? And since the last Iraq war, how much are they too closely aligned with our government.

Informed consideration, not political belief.

I do my best to receive and assimilate actuality in reality. I don't see that effort much on the conservative side.

I get my news now from all over. I see someone post something, I research it (if it's interesting) before I share it (mostly). I research down two or three levels while most do one level if even that. I review news from all over the world. I rarely watch American news, not MSM, or faux news as is on Fox News entertainment "news" shows. I review other information from intelligence sources available to citizens. Janes, FBI, even CIA, sources, raw journalists' comments in areas of concern, and so on.

I watch news shows from Japan, Canada, UK, Al Jezeera, and other countries. I do NOT watch Russia Today (or their disingenuous obfuscating moniker, RT), Sputnik or read Pravda (the misnamed Russian State News agency which disingenuously means, "Truth").

So yes, I'm well informed, with a background, education, and history involved in professional levels research, world history, civics, and covert intelligence research. I am, therefore, far better informed than most American citizens. There are obviously others far more informed. But for a citizen, I think I do pretty well to stay level headed and rational with actual facts and information.

Before retiring I had MSNBC and so I had The Rachel Maddow Show (TRMS). When I moved/retired, I cut my paid channels down to basic and lost her show. I missed Rachel. But two years, no Rachel.

Then I moved a mile away into a far smaller home, with a much more reasonable monthly rent (yes, dumped having a mortgage and just rent now...I hope to buy another house, but I want to pay it off, with no mortgage as I do now when I buy cars).

I moved as I said, and moved my Comcast cable. A friend, an actor I had used on my audiobooks and now in my filmmaking, mentions Rachel at times, as he has her show at home, and sometimes good-naturedly teases me about my not having her. I got to wanting to figure out how to get Rachel's show back.

I discovered on my LG smart TV something I'd known about but never much bothered with, "Live TV", streaming TV off the internet. MSNBC is in there. So I started messing with it and discovered, Rachel's show was on it!

I started watching streaming TV and discovered some interesting things. Like, the network doesn't much care about the quality of their shows on streaming. It's a bizarre world of broken segments, ads you HAVE to watch (can't scan past or skip as with a DVR), and weird juxtapositions of shows, internally speaking.

I'll say upfront, even though I'm a high-level computer and internet savvy one time professional, I haven't researched this issue and don't know much about the format or issues of networks presenting their shows on the internet. I'm just relating it as a consumer and a viewer. So I'm happy to hear knowledgable explanations for my following complaints.

I couldn't figure out at first what the hell was going on with Rachel's show. And then, they took it off streaming on Live TV. I lost her show again. But, what I realized was, they were running the segments of her show...backwards! It was starting with the last segment of the show first, then go backward until at the end you had the beginning. WTF I mean, really? But before I lost access to her show on streaming, they seemed to be changing it around to be more in proper order. OK, progress. But again, what the hell? I even posted on their website asking, what the hell people?

Anyway, she was gone again. Until...Amazon Prime day. I have a Kindle Fire HD 7" and on Prime day I got a 10" Kindle. I'd also heard about Amazon Fire TV Stick. Cheap, so I got one. And discovered that I could now again access MSNBC and other things. And I had back, Rachel's show!

So I started watching again, though I have to wait until the day after to see the previous day's show. . It seemed the show was better handled on this format which is apparently streaming, but different, more ordered and not just seemingly (to me) so randomly presented. There's a menu system for each show offered.

However...

Again there are the ads I cannot skip as I can automatically now, on my Tivo Bolt DVR. Something I'd been looking forward to for decades. Still, the attention to detail on these shows is frustrating at times. At times, at the end of a segment, they cut it off before the end of the segment.

When the adverts are over, you see that cut off ending, then the brand logo, then the next segment. The commercials, ones you have to watch, or mute as I do as they are so annoying (I mean, animals selling big pharma products? bizarre) and the same commercials again and again, saturation advertising for the dumbest among us. So annoying.

My point? IF they know, and they do know, that we are forced (no ad-skipping capabilities) to watch their adverts, then they are making money off these ads. To be sure. So at least they could do some due diligence regarding the quality of their presentations of their shows.

IF the argument is there's only one tech putting these shows online and they are overworked or something, they're still making money! Give us the quality we're actually "paying" for in watching adverts. We're not just your poor unwashed, we're your customers, your ad viewers, so give us the paid for attention we deserve!

Enough with this sketchy quality nonsense on streaming!

Also, monitor and keep the audio synced up with the video? Just a basic tenet of production, right?

It's time that streaming is given as much attention as cable, paid cable or broadcast TV.

It's time. It's passed time.

You're all professional organizations.

Act like it. Be professional.

Middle East, Vietnam, All Over Again?

As a fiction writer, horror and science fiction writer and filmmaker, I wish you all a very Merry (or, Scary) Christmas Eve Day. Scary for fun. Not the scary reality we feel crushing us from every direction.

We do live in interesting times.

I had thought America lost its taste for war and playing chess with another country during in Vietnam. Although today with a ridiculous Pres. Donald Trump, we can all see we are now playing checkers... and losing.

And yet, Iraq. And then, Afghanistan. And illegally, Iraq and so on now within and all over the Middle East. Interesting times, indeed.

It feels like Russia and America are simply trying to sow chaos throughout in the Middle East for reasons of unethical self-interest. All when we should be trying to solidify the region and get the hell off fossil fuels, the Middle East's primary source of wealth.

In 1984 I wrote a screenplay. My first. It was titled, Ahriman. He was a prince/prophet on a violent desert planet who was trying to lead his historically extremely violent people to peace.

Not unlike sectors of the Middle East and even America today in many hating the idea of peace and many luxuriating in the cathartic concept of...hating.

I set it on that desert planet for the interaction between them and earth. I got two professors to let me write it as a self-study class I'd get credit for, and so I'd leave college with a full screenplay. I got two A's on it.

After a year of a special team script/screenwriting class toward my minor (psychology being my major), I was selected with seven others from my playwriting class. A class I was sent to by my intro to fiction writing professor to improve my short story dialog. Even though I was one of the top two top writers in the class.

At the end of my college career that spring, I was surprised to realize I still didn't have a full feature screenplay to leave my university with. Just short plays and TV scripts.

One of my university professors read it and asked, "Why a desert planet?"

I said that it fit what I was trying to do in using the ancient middle east religions and associations. I was concerned at the time about Dune, in having just come out as I was NOT trying to associate with that film.

Though I didn't see the film Dune until months after finishing the screenplay, I had heard about it and had loved the book when I first read it in 10th grade in high school. Which led to me finishing the book and writing my first ever short story, a science fiction story of an assassin school and one student's coming of age and realizing that the authorities were not what he had been led to believe.

As was happening to America at that time in 1970 with the Vietnam war and so many other things. Eventually, I did see and like the film and so I am now and ever since a David Lynch fan, who directed the film. I must say I would have loved to see the film that it almost became in having Alejandro Jodorowsky direct it, a project which fell through.

My professor thought about it for a moment and then said, "Well, desert or jungle, I guess you could go either way." And I didn't want to go jungle.

Which brings me back to the Vietnam jungle war and now these desert wars, and these problematic desert religions of Judaism, Catholicism and the youngest sibling, Islam. None of them towers of intellect or humanity as we've seen. And most recently in the actions of sectors of the Islamic Jihadi actors. Not to blame an entire religion for the actions of a few fools.

Our, Humanity's need or desperate lack of need for religion in today's modern world is another topic for another time. One which I've covered extensively in past blogs.

The Middle East did not just do all this to themselves. I'm just unsure now if we are trying to clean it up and retract to leave them to their own devices as should be done. We are seeing some behind the scenes defensiveness going on. But with this President Trump, not so much behind the scenes really. We are seeing clearly some of his actions as being for himself and that in any president is a serious if not a treasonous issue.

Or are simply disingenuously continuing the madness for fun and profit. Of which I assume we are and will continue do in following our trail of destruction of the latter. Along with the primary actors of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran. And how (or where) is China not surreptitiously involved?

The president's own party is not with him any longer.

Description

John Michael Mulvaney is an American politician of the Republican Party who is serving in President Donald Trump's cabinet as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, who called Trump a "terrible human being" on video, leading up to the 2016 election.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has just said: "It could be a costly mistake." And that it, "...not only threatens the safety and security of the United States, but also emboldens ISIS [which Mr. Trump just said was gone and we won the war against them, which is patently not true], Bashar al Assad, Iran, and Russia."

People elected Donald Trump to break the nonsense. To shatter the status quo. Oddly enough, maintaining a now gone perceived status quo is also the primary goal of conservatives who voted for him. That pretty much sums up the confusion of conservatives and the Republican party. And in part why we are in this mess in the first place.

Indeed, Donald Trump has shaken things up. Which in some ways is good. But that was incidental and truly not his plan, if he even had one. Which he does not. He has not. He's simply injected even more nonsense into an already self-induced mess. And for his own devices and profit. In fact, he has done far more damage than anyone could foresee. Except those many who would never vote for him.

What we need now is a real POTUS. One who will look around and fix this mess. For America. Not for one man. Putin. Or Trump.

We need to bring back America. Bring back sanity. Return democracy to the world and America in a better format.

And give the world once again, Peace. War, it is said, is failed politics. We need to elect high-quality politicians from here forward. Purge our ranks of these failed politicians.

I wish you all an island of peace in all this in this holiday season. A brief moment where you can look down and see you are all right. Your loved ones alive and hopefully well and around you.

All the best this season. We deserve a break. We deserve peace and a humane world.

It will come to us if we want ti enough. It will take time to be sure.

It will arrive sooner, if we pay ever more attention to it, nurturing it to move toward us every day, in ever action.

Socially Posting Reality

First up, Vote!

This is the process I try to follow for posting\sharing information on social media. It is important that we post the best and most accurate information possible. We need to pollinate social media with reality and accuracy. We have got to get a handle on it, somehow. It's not just all up to the government or the platforms and companies who own, support and run social media.

"Post Reality."

Whose Reality? As objective a reality as is possible to divine from current and available information. I don't see a lot of that today.

Not to mention by one expert's account to the Congressional Intelligence Committee: "1 in 25" partisan memes\postings are actual American human beings, the rest are bots. Mostly if not all, Russian bots. Which means, we not as partisan as it appears. Well, that's SOME good news anyway.

That being said, EVERYONE screws up sometimes.

Whenever I do I try to be gracious about it if someone points it out, typically posting in public, sometimes to embarrass.

IF it is something extremely obvious, and I am correct, and the person is being outright stupid, I deal with them appropriately. That can be anything from pointing out their mistake with supporting evidence to cutting them down to an appropriate size in their mind (that takes a degree of skill or talent and I see many screw that up and embarrass both parties). Mostly it's best to be compassionate and polite.

But some just need a kick because others need to see that on their side and feel some catharsis on my side. I say that because there are too many bullies out and about, trolling for fun not to educate, not to be accurate. Like children.

Just be aware that nowadays they may simply be a waste of your time in trying to educate them. If they are obviously not interested in actual education, in better and more accurate information, they are just being stupid, and by definition (my definition).

As hard as I try, and I'm a university trained researcher but, I make mistakes too, I may act too fast. I'm human. I may be tired, nor feeling well, distracted, maybe I really shouldn't be posting, etc.

These here are my gold standard points however for how I do try to act in trying to be helpful to others and to be as accurate (and mature) as I can be. Consider that when you read some things online that people post.

IF trained researchers can make these same mistakes, what kind of information do you think is being passed about by those who have no idea what they are sharing or how to go about it? What percentage of information do you think is accurate? Because today one really needs to ask instead, what percentage of information do you think is inaccurate?

When you have other nations like Russia trying to subvert our path, to add chaos to our nation, with national leaders like the POTUS Trump constantly being incorrect and constantly outright lying, constantly escalating the numbers of already inaccurate or irrelevant information. along with people with vested interests in dis- and misinformation, just how much bad information do you think is out there?

Information you may pick up and inadvertently become a part of sharing incorrect information.

Traditionally all through history, we have had incorrect information simply because of an overabundance of poor information, and a lack of available accurate information. Either by accident and simple human fallibility.

Today we have it because people want it there for questionable purposes, vested interests, greed, espionage and political purposes. There is also the allegation that many people actually do like and prefer wrong information ("Study Finds People Like the Wrong Stuff on Social Media Better").

Weird, right?

We simply have to be more careful and do our best to flood social media with the most correct information available that we can access. So....

• Think before posting.
• If possible, click on the post, following it. Does it exist? Check the date it was originally published.
• Do a quick search on the title or topic to see how recent (or valid) it is and what and if the source is reasonable. Especially if there is no publish date or if it is not obvious from content exactly when it was posted.
• The more important or controversial the information the more vetting (validating) is necessary.
• Post less assuredly from others you do not know or do not know well.
• Triangulate (see footnote1 below) research on a post prior to posting (find one or more other relevant, trusted and disparate sources to vet information). Typically cyber-vetting is used today as it can be highly effective and quick...and accurate when done properly. Highly inaccurate when done improperly, which we see a vast amount of from right-wing extremists. 
• As a general rule, if something agrees with your POV too much, it's probably a lie or Russian type disinformation attack on social media. So give it trust only once you've vetted the information.
• When friend or foe challenges your post, do not do an ignorant, or conservative "knee-jerk" type reaction. It's immature and counterproductive. Instead, although you can initially reply with something clever or snarky if entertaining to others in some way and especially to your challenger. But do then go and vet that information to be sure you are correct about it. Especially if challenged by someone you trust or is known to post valid information. There is nothing more foolish than to be caught in a mishap and then double down on what is then your stupidity. Do not be a Donald Trump. Best rule is after guessing it is correct and posting, always go vet that info at some point in the next hour to 24 hours and come back to correct it if you find issues with it, or to clarify it if you realize it may come across with options for being incorrect in part or whole.
• IF you post something incorrect, especially if it's gone viral before (or after your posting), leave it up online. Then, add to the initial post to indicate what is incorrect so as to allow others to read the updated post and attached thread below so they can understand WHY it's incorrect, along with links to associated vetted information. In that way, you help to decrease the incorrect information online. To simply remove it, typically so you are not embarrassed, leaves others who might have seen it, open to making the exact same mistake. 
• Never call something "fake news". It is immature and has too much Donald Trump, Republican, and conservative negative baggage. 
• Show don't tell. Telling is fine if accompanied with value-added information. But it's also all about the orientation and who your post is actually addressing. frequently we get emotional and address our side, not the other side and may even say things to force the other side to "dig in" and worse, "double down."
• When you vet information, research down through several levels or layers and over several sources of information. Use sources who should know, not just any source with that topic. Sites like InfoWars, typically do not know a damn thing. IF you find something on a site like that, you then have to vet THAT information several more times and it can go exponential, so best to leave them to the nut cases and ill-informed (you cannot help them, they are not interested in reality and really not interested in being correct, especially not by a member of their as they see it, ignoble opposition...ironically enough, they are typically the ignoble ones). Most incorrect postings on social media are not verified at all or sometimes worse, vetted only one level down, or out. I say worse because then they tend to incorrectly think that they DID do due diligence. Typically it takes two, three or more to finally know if something is true or not and that all the related and relative supportive information has been acquired.
• More questionable sources require ever more vetting.
• At times you may find something requires excessive vetting of never seeming to be enough sources, or you cannot seem to vet it. That's not hard to deal with. You simply admit it's merely your (maybe informed, maybe not so informed) opinion. Or that you tried and cannot fully vet it and/or that you got the information from some public figure who should know or whatever. The point is to state it in such a way so if you are later proved to be incorrect, it reflects not on you or your vetting process but on others. 
• That last part of the last point does NOT refer to "plausible deniability", a method used by national leaders and greatly abused by the Republican party. Don't stoop to their level. Though I do admit to using that at times for reasons that are hopefully overt, obvious and the biggest reason, humorous. 
• Truth. That is what is important. IF you should find you are wrong, and in vetting your information you learn something new and contrary to your beliefs, you have two choices. Absorb those beleifs, incorporate them into your overall beliefs. Update, reprocess and look at your understanding of things with this new updated information. Do no ignore it. Worst case,place it to the side and DO NOT FORGET about it. The other thing you can do if it really disturbs you is to start again and revet with this new information. You can try to prove your original beliefs right, or the new ones right. Just be careful of ending up with your beliefs being verified, when they shouldn't be. Because in the end if is not about you, not about your beliefs, but about what is really going on. Share the new information and help humanity. 
• Humor is almost always useful and one of the best ways to persuade or handle difficult information. Just be aware and careful, it can backfire. Joking about a mass shooting, typically will. 

In the end, we all want (or should want) ACCURATE information. Not Donald Trump type incorrect news and information, inaccurate and constantly changing information and faux facts and disinformation and misinformation all which benefits incorrectly one viewpoint over another.

There is a distraction involved in all this. One that has led to many new conspiracy theorists. Many new conservative Republicans who spook at a shadow in ever corner.

"How do you know what is true and accurate?" The ask.

That is for another article, this is for the foundational concept of sharing Truth. Next is the consideration for what is true or can be true or who to trust to disseminate what is true. But basically, a country has got to trust it's intelligence and law enforcement agencies over it's elected officials. See, for the most part, most of those people are like you or I. That is like most of us. We have a given job, we do our best to follow the mission set before us. To be honest, truthful. To do the best we cvan for our country.

Republicans and Donald Trump would have us distrust those people, until we distrust ourselves, until we have to trust only HIM. He wants us to believe we cannot trust our government, our judciary, our law enforcement, our intel agencies.

WHEN that is PROVEN untrue, then you act, you ignore, you refuse to believe. But at that point, you have far worse problems. Personally, AND socially.

But we are not there. Not by a long shot. Those whom extremists call the "deep state" or in some cases the "swamp", are just patriotic citizens, who remain in government from elected administration to elected administration. What conservatives have done in calling these people out is to sow fear into the basic fabric of America. Refuse them their fear mongering.

IF all information online were accurate and properly vetted, America would suddenly take a leap forward in education, politics and social interactions. Much of our bickering today is due to people either arguing the same point of view from different perspectives because one or both sides is lacking relevant information. Or one side is vastly incorrect and the other side has little or no grounds from which to debate the issues. It's like debating with a crazy person. Not to say the other is insane, but the dynamics are very similar.

In the end, we can help to alleviate this current situation by posting only the best information we can access. Also by focusing on the facts and not emotional reactions. Falling back to that old adage of "Hate the sin. Love the sinner." We have got to find a way to communicate, to see our opposition as noble opposition, and to help them find a way to become once again, noble. Just don't put yourself in that position where they have the same problem. Because then, we are all truly lost. Even though we have been seeing that effort pushed at this time by Donald Trump as POTUS. 

We find ourselves now at the point since Donald Trump became president, to truly need to make America great again.

We have got to get back to the basics, to pollinate reality into social media, politics, and culture. To get back to the facts, and back to...reality. 

Footnote 1:
Triangulation is three points, one being your POV. So one or two (usually at least two) other sources. A university professor of mine once explained this to our class saying to always get three other and disparate sources. Even better if you can find at least one on the opposition side who agrees with your POV. The other form is to go out to disprove your POV and if it proves true, you win. Either should be neutral in orientation so you don't involve personal information bias.

Either way: "'...triangulation ’ originates in the field of navigation where a location is determined by using the angles from two known points. Triangulation in research is the use of more than one approach to researching a question. The objective is to increase confidence in the findings through the confirmation of a proposition using two or more independent measures.2 The combination of findings from two or more rigorous approaches provides a more comprehensive picture of the results than either approach could do alone.3"

Modern American Ignorance Defined

Pres. Trump and the Republican party today are spreading and seeding ignorance to further their own agendas and those of the Russian president Putin. Accidentally or on purpose, it damages America and their own base who are one or another kind of ignorant. But what exactly is ignorance and how many today are truly what we once understand ignorance to be?

A few of my personal quotes from the past on what we see so rampant in America today, especially from #Trump the oval office and the #gop, real or worse feigned #Ignorance. These were gleaned from my blog pages Quotes Along the Murdock I, II and III where you can see other quotes I've posted or published elsewhere over time.

Ignorance is the provenance of Anger.

If as has wisely been stated, travel is the antidote to ignorance, Donald Trump is most definitely going to need a starship. And he should take most of Congressional Republicans with him.

It's sad when you're talking to someone new and you realize, your own ignorance is still far more informed than their best "facts"

Ignorance is the greatest threat humanity faces.
Beware always those whose words may claim even to crave knowledge, but whose actions deny it.

Religion is the Art of using Guessing and Desire to explain Ignorance, rather than trying to find and use Reality based Explanations for that which we do not yet understand.

Ignorance is noble but as practiced today, it's disgusting.

Ignorance is noble. Everyone starts out ignorant.
Sustaining ignorance, however, especially in this day and age, is a cancer that is easy enough to fight against, with knowledge. But you have to want to fight against your own (and your group's) bias and agendas, which is another cancer.
Knowledge, by the way, is actual information, verified information; not just what sounds good to you or yours.

Beware of false ignorance, it is ignoble and more dangerous than knowledge.
[The opposite of false ignorance is not knowledge. To be falsely ignorant would be one who is being ignorant, but not really, so that they have chosen their ignorance. This presupposes a kind of agenda that actually propagates false knowledge. It is a kind of behavior that is both insidious and fundamentally, dangerous.
Example: "Monsanto was exhibiting false ignorance in their understanding that the chemicals could not give children deformities."]

"Ignorance is noble. Stupidity isn't."

"Ignorance is not a pursuit. Stupidity is."

Finally and most important:

"Everyone is ignorant, it's a normal state of being. Stupidity, however, is consciously choosing to remain ignorant."

Home Schooling, a personal decision or a court decision?

Is it best to allow homeschooling? Or is it a dangerous thing to allow at least, unrestrained?

A mother is told she's too religious to home-school her daughter. The child has been ordered to attend public school. Watch the video, read the article here:
http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/01/27/too-religious-to-home-school/

From that article:

"Voydatch had home-schooled Amanda between 1st and 4th grades. Then came the judge’s order in 2009 which sent the then-9 year-old to public school. Voydatch has been fighting the ruling and Simmons argued the case in front of the New Hampshire Supreme court in early January.

But not everyone sees it as a Constitutional case, including the attorney for Brenda’s ex-husband.

“It’s not really about religion,” says Joshua Gordon. It’s simply about two parents who differ about child-rearing philosophy. He says the two parents disagree about what’s best for Amanda:

“One wants the child very isolated and cloistered and the other wants the child to be worldly and be exposed to all the experiences one ought to have as an adolescent.” "

This is a tough one.

If there wasn't one of the parents who disagreed with the other (the mother), it would be far more insidious. I've always had trouble with the concept of homeschooling. It's good for when the only alternative is really poor educational institutions, I would agree. But that is a quagmire on many levels.

The good thing about public education is that we end up with a commonality among the citizenry, a community. We've seen where too much religion can lead; it can be a good thing, it can also and more typically be a bad thing and at times, a very bad thing.

The argument about charter schools is another misguided mostly right wing concept. Ludicrous at times when we really need to pour money into making public schools work. Rather than give a special group of Americans a charter school system to use to escape. To siphon off even more money to give those special people the option of protecting their children while aiding the abandonment of the children of those who cannot help themselves or their own children out of a bad situation.

It was an idea that originally started as a seemingly intriguing and potentially good idea. But it has devolved into an elitist program leaving too many others in the trenches who do not have the freedom or choice for their own children.

We have abandoned our children, their teachers and education system far too much and for far too long in a one sided effort to dumb down America to support one continually defective conservative Republican party.

If the parent is teaching the child poor religious views, let's face it, that is bad. Though admittedly that may even be a moot point.

The parents can and are still welcome to teach and raise their kids involved with public education, their views on their religion. Is getting a balanced view bad for a kid? Is getting an intensely one sided view bad?

We homeschooled our daughter in first grade. Then we put her into public school for second grade. They tested her and said she could skip two grades. We (mostly myself, as I have a university degree in psychology) were worried about her emotional maturity and ability to merge with older kids. I couldn't have been more correct.

I didn't really notice the issues until she was of driving age and all the other kids were getting their licenses an entire year before she did. It caused her a great deal of difficulty and I would have felt the same had I been her. A car isn't just a car. It's freedom, from parents, from home.. It's experiencing. It's community with friends.

Still, we homeschooled her, raised her and our son in an open minded way. He was not homeschooled, his ADD made it difficult either way. In our case without religious training, which they absorbed before graduating K-12 on their own, and with our (mostly my) guidance. Neither of us were religions. My wife would say she was Christian oriented but not religious. I was raised very Catholic, but after a several decades long search and survey of religions and mental disciplines, I ended mostly on Buddhism, but my own hopefully more enlightened sense of it.

I had noticed my grade school foundation in Okinawan Martial Arts brought with it an Asian orientation on philosophy which gave me a more grounded view of my religion (I had even been head altar boy in our small Slovak church as my mother was Czech and dad was Irish). When I discovered Buddhism it felt familiar (obviously) until I realized that the basis of Catholicism, in it's rejection of Judaism was based in Buddhism.

When I studied psychology and philosophy in college and at university, I then discovered how familiar still various schools of psychology were to Buddhism, which is not a religion at all. Though many who were born into it in their Buddhist country, might think it is. Humans are somewhat OCD by nature, it's a protection, built in, and functional...until it's not. Therefore, humans tend to want to turn anything they get deeply involved in, into a dogma or a religion.

There are uses for homeschooling, many reasons for it to be used, to be sure, But it needs to be used, not abused. We need our public schools for community, for Americans all being Americans and to retain that among us. And our children are only as good as their parents homeschooling them. Not every parent should be homeschooling for some have no ability to take on the task and it can harm the child. It can also harm our society, our country. Even our ideals. There are some pretty weird parents out there, some pretty destructive subcultures. Antithetical to American ideals and society.

We, I myself, have always been into our freedoms. Into our individuality of thought and action. But as we've found recently, there is a downside. This was originally a reaction against a 1950s and before mentality of group cohesion. Through the Beat generation and on, once we began to really think about it, we could wear what we want, have our hair whatever length we wanted. To have alternative views to living. But that was a strong reaction to break out from an anachronistic mindset.

Once that was broken in the 60s and 70s and beyond as we continue to evolve and mature as a nation, we have to slow down, lighten up and realize we have made strides. We no longer need to be so adamant about our uniqueness. Some tried and true methods of living have been there, because they work.

We have to realize if we each and all diverge too much from one another we begin to lose our cohesive threads of commonality. In our over striving for our uniqueness, our individuality at some point we all lose what it is to be an American. Individuals of a like mind, able to live our uniqueness ... separately together. As we're seeing today in this polarized America, it can work against our own best interests.

What this comes down to, and it depends on the parenting plan if both parents have equal decision on the child's education, is what the parents work out on subjects. So the mother really shouldn't have the final say. If the mother is primary parent,and has the majority decisions granted for educational and religious issues, then Dad needs to shut up and it becomes a moot point.

Then again, I'm biased as I've seen my share of unbalanced mothers raising kids in a much less than reasonable way. That being said, the education the child gets in homeschooling depends entirely upon the parents doing the teaching. Children need socializing outside the home. With other children, with other adults, with other ways of thinking, and how to deal with foreign forms of thought. Not in a narrow minded way, but in an open minded and critical thinking way.

My primary concern is in those who are ignorant, teaching their young and propagating and increasing their ignorance. I never considered that before recent times when I've seen those who obviously espouse ignorance and foolishness with pride. Who have organized and become a voice evoking changes in far too many of the wrong directions. While all the time thinking they were doing what is right and good. Perhaps doing "God's job."

What is "right and good" is an argument for another time, but the primary concern remains, a concern.

In the end continuing on with our original direction (and I am for the most part a believer in freedom of thought myself) may be the only thing to do. But it leaves me greatly concerned for our future. It then becomes a numbers game. Will we have more ignorant, or more educated in future American voting pools?

Consider as I understand it, that the uneducated tend to be the ones who have more kids, which the more educated have less. Same traditionally for the religious, to overwhelm by numbers if not reason. We see this too in the Republican party in pushing to eliminate birth control, abortions, to increase their numbers if by nothing else, by overwhelming their ranks through birthrates.

I had always thought that Truth in the end would win out, just because it is more, and most functional.

But perhaps I should have considered that Truth, like Good, may not win out in the end as I had originally been raised to believe, because the other side breaks rules, in order to win at any and all costs. Because they believe themselves divinely inspired and even protected.

I was raised by parents who believed mostly only what their parents had taught them. Which in many cases was simply wrong. In my mother's case, this was at times judged even by her own Parish Priest. I do try to judge by people's own logic or paradigms whenever possible and reasonable. And so frequently I find even that enlightened view failing them. For the break with knowledge and logic not infrequently from without but as well from within their understanding of the world,.

What direction will this take us?

I guess that begs the question. Do we try to direct our path or, do we simply throw caution to the wind? For it seems we do need to allow people to do what they want, for the most part and when reasonable and possible. This still IS America.

 I just have to acknowledge that this is not at times unlike closing your eyes while driving. Or perhaps more so like closing your eyes while riding a horse. Which would be better I think as at least the horse doesn't want to ride into something dangerous.

But either way, driving or riding with one's eyes open is always the far better plan.

Too Many Faux Intellectualists

This is the faux intellectualism we are faced with today in America.

People who in trying to APPEAR intelligent, who wish to believe in their superiority, in their conflated intelligence, who may indeed seem and in general may even be smart people, still do not have the depth of mind, experience (or energy apparently) to see (or look) into a situation and NOT say:

"Well let's hear the other side of this, we don't know the other side."

Sounds typically reasonable, right? Well, not always to be sure.

Sometimes that statement merely points out how ignorant if not outright stupid we can be. I've certainly known people like that. In point of fact, we now even have a president who is the ultimate purveyor of such nonsense (one might even suspect "Nonsense" could be his middle name).

Everyone wants to think they are brilliant and yet at times, when no one is watching, you can see them if not metaphorically then physically walk themselves into a door frame. Apparently they are fully unable to hit the space between the doorway's borders. More often metaphorically, if you watch and listen carefully. Though many times anymore, not even carefully.

Some make these repeated faux pas simply because, though they may have booksmarts, they certainly seem to lack any sense of streetsmarts. There is simply no depth to them, no natural or learned sense of reality. At times even in the most simple of things and situations. And their followers, follow along, as if mesmerized by a pied piper of political absurdities.

In 1982 Billy Wilder on the Dick Cavett show spoke of two interesting things. More only two, but two that I'm mentioning here. One was how a friend of his went to see the play, The Diary of Anne Frank with a younger American friend.

Afterward the man said to this younger friend, "Can you imagine such things can happen?" To which his friend replied exactly and as I mentioned above, "Well let's hear the other side of this, we don't know the other side." Seriously? How uneducated or unintelligent does one have to be to make such a statement?

We have been hearing this same exact mindset from our American (supremacist?) right so much anymore and so sadly about white supremacists, right wing bigots and racists, and about authoritarianism and authoritarians, about Donald Trump, his family his klan.

The other thing was Wilder being asked how Jews in Berlin could possibly have stayed when they actually saw for themselves what the Nazis were doing to their friends and neighbors in dragging them away. Was it because they believed it couldn't happen there in the country of such great thought and giants of human culture?

And yet, it did. Could it now happen elsewhere too? Could it?

It is a sobering thing to consider. For we are there, now.


#POTUS #realDonaldTrump #GOP #Republican #Conservative #NeoNazis

Still Foolishly Waiting For the Old "Great" America?

People regret how America isn't the America of the 1950s. Are YOU the person of your younger years? No, and neither is America. Do you want to be? Disconnected from the world at large as it has moved on, even if you haven't? Therefore being completely dysfunctional, rather than just somewhat dysfunctional as any normal country is?

Obviously, this involves Donald Trump. Sadly.

Tonight is the first debate between candidates on both sides. America's and the world's hope for decency and progress, Hilary Clinton, and the InternNational Embarrassment that is... Donald Trump. It should make for interesting political viewing. Interesting Reality TV viewing. Interesting studies in the path politics is taking in the world. Because we're slow to follow other countries in some of this (like fights breaking out in congress...see Japan, Italy, etc.), but we're blazing the trail on other aspects of this complete nightmare.

Not American? Then Hope, and if you're into that kind of thing, Pray (not that it will do anything other than make you feel better for a little while, then let you down in the end), that this kind of thing doesn't befall your own country!

For the record, I don't believe any of those things in this article from the Washington Post on "Why Smart People Believe all the Crazy Things Trump Says", except the Bush Administration knowing about the WMDs in Iraq. That, as it indicates, shouldn't be on that list. Why? Because it's true/untrue in the best of presidential plausible deniability. From what I've gathered over the years from what those who have spoken out on it (and in some cases you have to read a book, remember those?), the Bush Administration pushed the intelligence community into finding what they wanted to hear. They had wanted to go to war in Iraq before Bush became president in 2000. And so on. All documented. All easily and reasonably pieced together. 

So no. The Bush administration WAS told there were WMDs in Iraq. But it's not that simple. It is in part how our government works, but in this case it was above and beyond and led initially to a reasonable conclusion which later turned out to be an unreasonable one.

But this here and now deals with things like Hilary's reputation, who she is, who the Clinton's are, who she would be as president. 

Right wing conspiracy about her as usual in these kinds of things, paints a picture of her as world class James Bond villain. It's a child's view of the world, such as Republicans and conservatives tend to paint it in "knowing" what they expect to believe, what they want to believe, what assuages their need for information where there is none. It's an amateur, arm chair quarterback view of the world. 

With just a little bit of knowledge in how to research, in digging into disparate information sources and discounting and supporting reality, in listening to and triangulating what those in the know, those involved in these things have said and shown to be true, the actuality is sometime, quite obvious.

It is the information and political form of seeking a black hole in space. A scientist finds what is there through what is available and what isn't. An amateur does not have full access to the same kinds of information and therefore there is a lot of chaff and fluff in that arena. To be sure there are professional style amateurs, but they are few and far between compared to the more lazy forms out there. 

And so we have a mass of people beleiving in conspiracies. And now they have a leader. First the Republican party since the 90s if not 80s, and now in Trump who will fight to win at all costs, at any price, even that of the veracity of America across the world, the ideal and substance of America itself, and the self respect and sanity of the American people, themselves.
Have you ever noticed how parenting, even just making it through life is a series of guesses and hopes that you got it right? Some seem to just slide through life making all the right decisions. Many seem that way but it's just their deftness at making people believe that is the case. Most of us make mistakes along the way and then it's about how quickly and accurately we react to make things work right. Sometimes it's a series of corrections we make to make our mistakes functional. Most of us find a way to make that appear effortless so our boss or coworkers or the public thinks we are brilliant when really, we are just making it through life. Those are the things conservatives yearn for. That illusion of our greatness rather than our effective humbleness. We present this bold and brash cowboy attitude to the world, but we're just doing the best we can. Bullies too, fearful of the world unless they are sociopaths, put forth a brave and brash face which behind that facade is a scared and ignorant child. The world has gotten so complex, no one really knows what the right answers are. Those who tell you they know, are liars and charlatans, or politicians. People we hired to make us feel safe and when we don't, we blame them, rather than ourselves. Once you realize... "We have met the enemy and he is us." You are only then approaching adulthood. Then you can look around and see how frightened and ignorant we are. Then you can realize those who profess greatness and wisdom, are just expert actors displaying to you what they know you want to see. You complain when you don't get what you want, and then when you do, you see how things don't work right and you complain. rather than tearing down, try to support and build up, to see the bigger picture, to see you count as much as everyone else and they as much as you. Once you see that, things will start to become more functional again. Until you see that, it will just be more of the same and you have to understand, we have built the world we wanted. Because what you do, is what you have done, have allowed to happen, have asked for. At some point ignorance is no excuse, not a justification and you have to take responsibility because being a part of a nation requires that. If you don't like it, leave. Because going up into the wilderness isn't disconnecting yourself from the nation, only leaving it, rejecting citizenship, does that. And you're not willing to do that. So get involved, learn reality and stop with your wishing for what never was or what you really don't want to go back to, when you merely think you want to because in your colluded memories, the past last sloughed off the bad and you're only remembering the good. Good us all around us. Make that your reality. And work to bring us all as citizens of one nation, as much more as we can, not just for you, but for Americans. Otherwise, you are not an American. You are an old Soviet comrade, bitching at real Americans who ARE trying while you call THEM comrade, push your form of belief onto them, those who have no idea what you're talking about. You need to grow up. That is why things seem so bad for you. Hurry up, because the rest of us are waiting on you.

NOTE: Now, post first debate between the two candidates, a lucid and accurate journalist in a Sydney Morning Herald speaks out. I give you, Jonathan Bradley: Donald Trump's debate performance shows he has no business being president.

Beware the Meme, Especially the Conservative Ones

After seeing yet another ridiculous meme posted recently on Facebook by a conservative I felt a need to take a bit of a look at it in detail, to share it because of the stupidity it presents and to take another look at the current state of political disinformation in this country. 

Conservatives exhibit a great deal of incorrect information in their beliefs and arguments. Ignorance by the way, is not suppose to display as disinformation. That is something that usually indicates either stupidity or intent. To claim one didn't know when not caring enough to vet one's beliefs is simply no excuse. And finally conservatives are not apparently, any longer, actually conservative.

In this meme our so called American conservative has offered us a great example of this ridiculous kind of behavior. Although it exists to some degree everywhere and by both sides at one time or another, it is in this case disingenuous to the point of disinformation:

Yes, yet another sad and tired meme that has been going around, forwarded by those who are rather sad in their exhibited fears and desire for whatever it actually is that they want, all at the cost of reality, legality or morality. The meme twists reality around, ignores some very important things and just doesn't make a lot of sense. But then, that's a conservative for you.

Can't make reality work? Feel quite free to twist it into absurdity.

There are surely sane, intelligent and honest conservatives. There are idiot liberals like many of the conservatives we hear from and media tends to use these extremes to get people's attention and to make more money.

When you see the majority of conservative (Republican) candidates as the exemplifications of the conservative bottom line, and the liberal or progressive (Democratic) candidates as be rational and adult, it seems quite clear what the differences and adherences are. I'm no talking about those few conservatives who are rational human beings.

I'm talking here about a Republican base who are illiterate even when they can read and based belief on religion and fantasies. Making up what information they don't have when they hear news that they find offensive and that media like Fox News inflames conservatives on purpose. Then they don't go research it to disprove what they want to be true. Not that they want it to be true, but that they want it to be true in order to support their disgust in a masturbatory loop of fear and negative emotions.

I'm talking about the types who would post memes such as the one under discussion here.

So, let's jump right into the stereotyping, generalities and bigotry, line by line:

"If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed."

First off, conservatives are generally the ones who want to shove their beliefs down everyone's throat. To say it is liberals albeit true at times, is far outweighed by the onslaught of this type of thing from conservatives. This comment of "if you don't like it don't do it", was taken from liberals originally saying it to conservatives who complained about popular music and TV shows back in the 60s and 70s.

Liberals have not pushed for banning all guns, but limiting them from those who shouldn't have them and to have common sense legislation that isn't blanketed by the NRA and extremists who apparently would like to pass guns out at grade schools (see how stupid this kind of reactionary juvenile diatribe is?).

"If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone."

First of all show me a conservative vegetarian. Vegetarians haven't pushed to ban all meat typically but to ban inhumane harvesting of meats and meat byproducts and to bring to the attention of the public how non humans who are marketed as a food source, are so miserably treated and then slaughtered, cut and ground up and packaged for sale.

"If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal, wonders who is going to take care of him."

Plenty of conservatives use the same social services as liberals. What about when you cannot better your situation? Just die? Liberals are asking for all people to have a safety net available to them if needed. It goes back to what the role of government is or should be. Conservatives want small government and ultimate freedom, but want to govern how people act as it relates to their (Christian) religious beliefs (depending on what nutcase is their pastor, minister or priest).

Conservatives think if you can't fend for yourself you are not worthy enough to receive help (unless they are the ones who need it, ostensibly because if THEY ever need it then it must be dire and far beyond the norm, if not an "act of God"). Conservatives are fairly closed minded, wishing to help apparently no one other than themselves (unless of course again, it it they who find they need governmental help). They follow a mindset that requires everyone to fend for themselves, even those who are incapable, which for them borders on eugenics and right wing race superiority.

"If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down."

Again, "he" switches channel. See item one above.

Conservatives tend to watch only shows that support their beliefs and selectively remember only what supports their frequently faulty logic. They also tend to switch logic within a single frame of logic, thus supporting their beliefs regardless of reality or logic, frequently breaking forms of logic in a single argument and using unrelated news items to support whatever they wish to see supported.

Conservatives also tend not to go to another channel to watch what questions their beliefs. They lean heavily on herd mentality and love calling those who disagree with things like sheep and cattle when they are the ones who tend to act in such a way. They have an inability to see outside the scope of mono level thinking, or they go so far beyond that into conspiracies, it rapidly becomes inane.

"If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and Jesus silenced."

Show me a conservative non-believer, first off. Many conservatives do not even go to church or have an in depth knowledge of their chosen or originally indoctrinated religion. They tend to give lip service to religion though it is dying off. It is interesting to note that they mention God and Jesus but not Allah, or Vishnu in a very ethnocentric orientation showing their ignorance and discare about others, which seems to be rampant in their life orientation. Liberals do not want no mention of God or Jesus, this is one of the primary sets of misinformation from conservatives. They want to be inclusive. Mentions of God or Jesus, is exactly to other religions that christian conservatives say is applied to them.

"If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his."

Two things right off. This implies someone with a need for health care can figure it out on their own and not everyone can, not even all conservatives. It implies everyone is the same and can find or access a job that supplies health care. It is a very shot sighted view of an entire nation of people. A liberal asks for others who cannot achieve a situation that includes health care for them be covered and as a part of a nation having a government, that government take care of all it's citizens, even those who cannot access what they need to live. Conservatives seem not to care about those  people at all.

"If a conservative reads this, he'll forward i so his friends can have a good laugh. A liberal will delete it because he's offended."

A conservative may very well forward this. And laugh at it. Even as others they are talking about are suffering. People who would read into this just how much it is a white, Christian, privileged view of the world. What is sad is even some non whites, non privileged think this also covers them. And it may to some degree but as is a conservative's view of the world they will not see that parts they should be offended about.

As one conservative I know says, he doesn't agree with much of the Republican party, but they won't take his guns. That shows the narrow mindset they are working with. Ruin a nation, keep your guns.

A liberal might just delete this meme and be offended, as should a conservative.

Better still a liberal might write a blog and tear it apart to show how offensive some conservatives can be in sharing an asinine meme such as this. Though I prefer the term progressive to liberal since it is a better description and counter to the term conservative. Who are basically not really conservative but regressive. Which fits them better than conservative (which sounds positive) and liberal (which sounds childish and overbearing).

Some of the comments that were posted below the meme on Facebook were the obvious like, "agreed", "Shared!", or "Yes!" But there were others, like:

"You could add Muslims RIGHT next to liberals can't tell thin apart."

I assume someone couldn't spell "them apart" and weren't referring to some imagined weight problem issues. But such is how conservatives are and tend to be. Overly generalized "truisms" and "factoids" that they pass around to one another over and over ad nauseum, perpetrating their ignorance, right wing nonsense and commonly racist and stereotypes of privilege.

But we all know that, don't we? 

So what about the format of what they say? Take the meme above as an example of how this is designed.

Over a hundred years ago the Soviets came up with the theory of disinformation. To take information, skew it to a purpose that is opposed to popular belief, or to support the darker sides of popular beliefs and twist the reality into unreality, leaping forms of logic within a single thought, sentence or phrase, to their own private subversive desires.

Delusional conservatives. There's a lot of them now. Which is to say, those crazies who love Donald Trump, I suppose. They simply love to play as if they are smart. Then instead of using that desire to actually become more than they are, they exhibit instead quite the opposite. Something we've seen time and time again.

They like to look down the road into that which is yet to be, to see what's there. And don't we all? But what do they always see? The most negative thing they can find. Our of what? Fear. Why are they so fearful? Rough childhoods? One can only wonder? They latch onto that bad thing coming down he road, shouting about how it's going to happen if we don't do something destructive and push for it across the board.

Hopefully it will even make some rich people richer in the end.

They would argue that if you see that negative thing down the road then you have to do something to stop it, to keep it from happening. Well, how can one argue with that?

The reality however as it turns out, in order to not work toward the future with a defective orientation and character, is that we need to expect the best and plan for the worst. But in all the fuzziness of what they do not understand, what they don't even know that they don't know, they get swept away and start hoping for the worst; all while saying they are not doing that. In those things they  cannot stand for or even know about, they project forward with what little information they have and expect then that they have easily perceived the future.

A perceived future that began on a shaky foundation to begin with.

And so we get people running for president like Trump, or frankly, any of the rest of the Republican flock of hopeful lackeys who are all drilling into that core of the conservative sadness. Finding respite and an energized field that props them up until eventually and always the deflation of reality finally absorbs all that ignorance and negativity.

What is most sad however is that whenever that happens after an election when they find themselves in office, then even more clueless than before... once they discover reality during their initial presidential briefings on what is actually going on in the world outside their tiny bubble of conservative  politics, right wingnut radio talk shows, and the dynamo of entertainment news media, they are stunned to find, they didn't know much of anything. And yet now, they need to fulfill their promises. Promises on things that now make no sense. That must suck.

Once achieving high office they can implement their solutions, the actions that will lead to even more negative things happening. Think of how George W. Bush was planning to take Saddam Hussein out before he won the presidency and then when he became president the first thing he did was to call a meeting to stat looking for a way to fulfill that desire. And so they did.

All in the hope that originally perceived fears (now enhanced by having listened to like voices that seeped and weeped to them on the winds of the bubble media and political polls generated to satiated their beliefs for money, all of which eventually will be neutralized, all of their self generated, right wing vox populi amplified negativity as the ensuing tsunami of reality hits resolving in a popping of their bubble.

In the quake of all that all of the rest of us have been sitting there all through the process, watching it all come to pass in horror and then for some reason, we are the ones to pay to clean up the aftermath of their atrocities which the perpetrators will then simply distance themselves from, turn a blind eye yet again to and say, "why do you always have to bring up the past?"

There is a condition Pilots have to be aware of where they are flying upside down and think, will fight to maintain the status quo, disbelieving even their physical flight instruments that say, they are indeed upside down.

This is the condition of our Republican party and their succoring conservative client base.

There is a thing called the aesthetic of the ugly. Where you come to think that ugliness is beautiful. That splits into to immediately.

Bear with me.

One side are those who see the ugliness and see the beauty in it. The other side are those who have been flipped upside down, believing that the ugliness is beautiful. That, is a very important and relevant point. The former understands where they stand. The latter thinks they are one place, where they once were and want to be, but believes they are still there. And obviously, they are not.

We have these people in control of the Republican party, less than half of our nation in people, but more than half of our nation in political power. Truthfully the other side has the political potential for power but are too lazy to take control of it. Whereas the other side are zealots and think they are trying to access air to breathe in every movement.

It's where we are today.

We are a strange and wonderful country. But not unlike many first world countries today. confused, lost perhaps, wanting, but not wanting what we need, wanting what we think we need. How we ever got here is quite beyond me sometimes in seeing those around us.

Conservatives who can't stand Obama hate the fact that he is intelligent, thinks up a plan, actually puts one into place and then keeps at it because it is working (and takes time) until it shows progress rather than acting like a knee jerk Republican who cries about doing something and then does something that only gets us deeper into that conservative created morass of dysfunction and more dissipation of action.

That is to say, he doesn't just punch, he looks where to and does it methodically and accurately as an American national leader should.

Americans displeased with his anti terror actions only want to see more destruction, more actions that create more jihadists and use more of the war industry's weaponry to raise their stock options (or being poor and ignorant, raise the stock of those rich people above them who do) and simply ACT as if useful action is being taken.

To Hell with function in action, they say. Let's see some boots on the ground... as long as there's no boots on the ground!

I've heard better thinking through of an issue from preschoolers than the republican party.

There is a large segment of our society who believes that the way to achieve a goal is to go big, go brash. Which is odd as these people seem to be on the right. Which is part of a contingent of American policy who likes to do things in the shadows, who likes to do things their lesser educated types, the backbone of their party, does not understand.

Which is how to use disinformation properly, to fool even their own. Which is to use money against everyone but those involved with the money, to make more money at any cost. To acquire power no matter who it harms.

They want to see a war to stop terrorism, something that doesn't do much of a damn thing when you need metaphorical can physical snipers, not a massive war machine. No not those behind their scenes, the Kochs, the Murdochs, and so on. They want the same things but they are smart enough to know it won't end things, only extend it. They want in order to raise their stock values, for more return on their capital gains. Something their base doesn't even know the definition of for the most part and will never have any of their own.

Those base people on the right say Wake Up to the liberal left when in reality it is they who are sleeping, and when they do ever wake, they drink more of the conservative juice, they breathe in more of the Right Wingnut gasses emanating from the anal orifices of those in power and fall back vastly and intensely asleep, only to wake when one day they look around and realize their ramshackle home is now a curbside and their children are enjoying the prestigious education hat living in the streets gives one.

Well, better street smarts some day than simply pulling the river over one's head and sleeping the slumber of the vagabond in a far and distant land, destitute and wealthy in their ignorance and their lack of material goods. But it's the emotional good they received from this abuse by their leaders they strive so hard for.

Should we let them continue? Should we warn them? Or let them seep into the soil as their bones slough off the flesh their forefathers and mothers fought so hard for them to lose?

It's hard to help those who are fighting to continue drowning under the weight of their own desired and perpetuated ignorance. Frustrating to fight to save someone who doesn't want it.

At some point, as in the President's recent need for so many executive actions, you simply need to go on and govern without them. As a pre school teacher does with students in the hope that some day they will age and mature into responsible world citizens.

Here's hoping....

We work, we think we see, are attracted toward and avoid, categorize in order to understand, use our excellent pattern recognition skills to simplify, sometimes simplifying too much, sometimes overusing our pattern skills and seeing what isn't there, but could be, and yet many times isn't, but still we act as if they are and we make poor decisions.

Then after a while we get too caught up in those specifics, we see the forest for the trees and we forget.

We forget all of it, merely for the bits of it.

If you are floating hundreds of miles above the earth in a spacesuit as Earth rotates there before us, you can see it then. The specifics are destroyed, we lose the concerns, the baggage and prejudices can only come to lead us to realize that there is only that there, down there below us, that planet, that Earth, that heaven.

Heaven?

Look around you, floating there in space.

Take off your space suit.

Does it feel like a balmy island beach moment?

When you are in the shadows freezing at minus 200 degrees, or when the sunlight with all the sun's deadly radiations, normally shielded from us by the Earth's protective atmosphere, it truly can be a hell out there, up there, floating above the Earth, above the billions of people, above all those specifics that continue to confuse us.

Until we see what is really there.

Until we return down to Earth and realize, so much of what we care about is just so much baggage and that we really can do so much more, and that there is so much more to do, that truly is what is important. and yet hadn't been, before we stood tall high up in the skies where we could finally see.

This is heaven.

And what have we done with it?