Walkabout Thoughts #65

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…

Today is the first day of Spring! 

Nice out today (I'm writing this yesterday), but I'm feeling no motivation lately. I've had the worst experience since end of December requiring being on anti-virals. Thanks again Long Covid for the gift that seems to keep on giving. I hear they may have a new long covid test coming out. I knew winter would be rough, but it's over now. Now I have to get back up to speed. It's not easy though.

Listening to the Pod Save the America podcast today, "Republicans' Work Till You Die" Pretty good episode.

First couple of blocks though, my heart was pumping so hard my chest hurt. So I stopped to slow it down. It's like the vagus nerve can't adjust to changes fast enough. Or histamine issues. Thought about taking a Benadryl but heart slowed and the rest of the 2 miles (really want to get back up to 5) was pretty great. Got home, had lunch with the door open, like yesterday (until it got too cool out) and feeling better than before the walk. 

The world however, still insane. People fighting against their own best interests, demonizing other citizens who don't deserve it. Decency for some is looked down upon. Some wanting America to be what they want, screw all others, even though it is THEY who are in the minority. Decades of the GOP realizing they ARE a minority but there are dirty tricks to be used to offer them an American Apartheid of sorts.

Yeah, that's NOT American by any definition of the term.

First off. This:

Potential 2024 ‘Chaos’: Election Deniers Refusing to Certify Results

Election officials in eight states have delayed or refused to certify results since Trump’s 2020 loss — a likely preview of this year’s elections BY JUSTIN GLAWE MARCH 17, 2024

That's disturbing. Lot's going on that is lately. I have on a lot of news, documentaries, C-SPAN shows of government, interviews, and so on while I'm working on line or writing. And yes, I pause or mute at times when I really have to concentrate (either on the writing, or the show, to be honest). I realized I don't need much of the news shows info as I've already heard it elsewhere. So I put on a new show, always DVR-ing it, fast forward to where they have guest experts added into the discussion and only then hit play (unless I noticed something on screen zipping by I don't know about but often, no, nothing I don't already know of). It saves a lot of time and I learn a lot. You'd be surprised how much good stuff I've seen on C-SPAN (1,2,3). Author interviews, history lessons, etc. I've been an information hoarder since childhood. Anyway, I just wanted to mention this because if you're watching a lot of shows and can skip what you already know, great time saver and you learn even more than otherwise. Cheers!

So... Putin is President again for 6 years. What a lowlife criminal who has a nation of 85% supporting him. Delusional. Like MAGA in America. Clueless while believing they're on the highroad. "High" is about correct on that.

Democrats: probably right a lot, but...fighting an uphill battle and with Trump, there's always some new chicanery no one ever thought of before because it's either illegal, immoral, or no one ever considered doing it before because it makes you into such a vapid lowlife (vapid: adjective. without liveliness or spirit; dull or tedious: a vapid party; vapid conversation. lacking or having lost life, sharpness, or flavor; insipid; flat: vapid tea)...you're welcome.

I'm not a Trump hater. I don't hate anyone. "TDS" is a purely MAGA condition, no other Americans have "TDS", only them. I do believe some people earn state execution. People like Putin, Trump, Bibi in Israel is working on it, maybe succeeded. I started disliking Trump in 2015. Comments about Pres. Obama were a warning shot. But my cousin whom I was visiting in late 2015 had worked for a union and dealt with Trump. I'd liked what I knew of Trump in the 89s/90s, etc. I loved that David Letterman could call a NYC billionaire on his show and just chat. I'd read his book. I'd watched most seasons of, "The Apprentice". But my cousin gave me an earful and I left my pleasant several days at his Florida home with an altered mind on Donald Trump. 

From there forward I began to find just how bad he was until I was warning people that electing a guy like that as POTUS was the absolute worst job there is to give a person like him. Now we know how true that is, how bad it is to get so much power to a greedy career criminal and pathological narcissist. A second term for Trump is a huge mistake and may be the end of America as we know it. May end elections. Here's the thing. Electing Biden again I guarantee you, there will be elections in 2028. Electing Trump, we cannot offer that guarantee. And that's the bottom like, the last straw. 

Look. Criminals can break the law. Police have been up against this from the start. They have laws and rules, criminals don't. Trump can skirt reality and decency all he wants. He/They don’t have to follow OUR (all our) rules while actual citizens and Democrats (or others who won't stand for this MAGA/GOP crap)  just have to be smarter. 

Al Capone got away for a long time... but not forever. 

For Trump? Seems like the end of forever is rapidly approaching.

There’s a reason I referred to MAGA as "The fooled".

They’re not fools.

It’s in their actions that you are made to think that.

There’s no acceptable level of lead and pipes for children to be consuming. That realization has brought us years ago to start removing damaged pipes with lead in them and lead-based paints, because originally it covered walls more opaquely than anything else. It’s hard to imagine how Donald Trump hadn't as a kid, in seemingly so very  symptomatic of having consumed a great deal of lead as a child. Maybe he was eating the paint in that old mansion. He does seem like a kid who ate dried mucus, lead paint, or paste, a lot.

The only reason to remain pro-fossil fuels is if you have a stake in it. Moving towards Green energy does so much more for us It gets us off fossil fuels. It builds jobs. It enhances our infrastructure and national security. It advances our technologies. It makes new things cheaper, better and lighter. Being so tooth and nail against it just doesn’t make any sense. Using it as a political platform merely points out who you are and who you’re paid by. So? Just stop it. These people in our government bending over backwards to come back down through their bowed legs, in order to kiss the ass of the powerful and wealthy? THOSE are who we should be going against. Mad at. Infuriated with.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan on talking to Republicans behind closed doors: "They don’t challenge me on the climate science." Also, everybody wants clean air and clean water, so why are some Republicans (and MAGA) fighting against it as their token boogeyman, "wokeism"? Because it pays, in many ways for them. Because they are in the Party of Big Business. Because they are in the Look at your feet Party, the do NOT look up or into the future party. The America really doesn't need the GOP Party because it's literally trying to strangle America. Yes, we have an issue at times with Dems supporting the toxic part of our power structure. But seriously? They can't hold a candle to the GOP, or MAGA who is the deadly mold upon the Republican cesspool of partisan politics.

Cheers! Sláinte!

I wish you all great success and health! Until next time!

Cheers! Sláinte!

Dumping the Draft Registration

Maybe? Maybe we need compulsory service? Wouldn't that change things in this country, in various ways? My family wasn't rich. There was no consideration or drive for me to go to college. When I graduated high school, I had no plans, other than to get out of school as K-12 sucked for me.

Though I kind of liked the social aspects of high school. Once I shot up a few inches to 6'2", having been rather short, lost a few pounds and suddenly in 10th grade wasn't sure what was going on when girls started to pay me a lot of attention.

Doesn't every country need to know where their young men are (and possibly women) in case of national war or disaster, to call upon our strongest citizens in case of ultimate need? And let's not forget war is a young person, especially male's situation. Women aren't so testosterone based and older males are smarter and less testosterone based. So young men are the mainstream of wars.

I've always hated the draft because I grew up as a child with the Vietnam war. I watched older guys go through it. Friends of the family, eighteen, nineteen years old. Maybe going away to the war and never coming back. How that affected their other male friends and family and the country at large.

I finally went into the military at twenty, because I couldn't get a decent job. Full disclosure... I discovered my heritage late in junior high. I'd grown up knowing I was Czechloslovakian, Slovak really because I lived with my mother and step-father and mom and her mom and dad were Slovak (not Slavic as one is a people, the other is a language that includes various nationalities and not just Slovaks).

However, my father was Irish and I took to that like I was full blooded Irish for some reason. Perhaps because familiarity breeding contempt and all that and Slovak was boring to me, Irish was fresh and new. And, it's Irish, so...not to mention, I idealized a father I never saw or seldom so. So, I was Irish with a touch of Czech (Slovak but I thought of myself as Czech until I was an adult).

I can remember in high school in 10th grade going around to friends at lunch in the school cafeteria and educating them on the Irish "Troubles" that were going on (this was 1970). I wanted to go fight for the IRA and tried to recruit for them. My friends looked at me like I was nuts.

But I had been in martial arts (Okinawan Isshinryu Karate) starting in fifth grade and fought in tournaments. Then I was a Flight Commander in Civil Air Patrol (auxiliary of the US Air Force mostly doing training on search and rescue for small downed local aircraft); I was on a private kid's rifle team in eighth grade sanctioned by Tacoma Police Department and I "lettered" in riflery on the HS rifle team for three years.

I was primed for the military from childhood. Or something more covert. But that's another story and in part leads into my screenplay I'm prepping hopefully for production, "The Teenage Bodyguard". I'm scheduled to begin working with screenplay consultant Jen Grisanti in November 2018. That after I keep hearing it has to see production. From those at The Blacklist, the Bluecat Screenplay Contest and even a famous entertainment lawyer in Hollywood says it's time for my story. So hopefully, at a screen near you someday soon.

Considering all this, I wasn't very happy in the military in having to live the redundant lifestyle day in and day our, follow sometimes stupid orders, put up with some ridiculous (not all) officers, to hear every single day in the morning how we were all there to be cannon fodder, to die for our country and citizens, if and whenever we are called to. Personally, I found that a little disturbing. Not the fighting and dying part, the being cannon fodder part. I just believed that I had more value than that.

After a year or so of it, I finally asked my shop supervisor and Tech Sgt. one day why he had to do that every damn morning, to remind us of our as I saw it, lack of value. He said it was: "because we all have to remember what we're doing here as it's a time of peace and it's easy to forget. It's important, especially for you younger guys, to remember that."

A lot of those older Sgt.s (not even that old really, remember I was in my early twenties) had been in the Vietnam war. So I heard a lot of war stories that were still fresh in their minds. In the end I came out with a much greater respect of the military and for our country. And I thought I had that going in. But I was a sign of the times, of the 1960s and 70s, hippies, punk rock, individuality, and rebellion

I hated it, the military. But I also appreciated it. The whole thing was a pain in the ass but I later realized that I appreciated what they tried to teach me in basic training (in order to keep us alive in war) and just how much benefit I got out of tightening up myself and my attitude toward life.

Which wasn't that bad to begin with really, but I hadn't fully gotten the whole world out there clearly till then. It hasn't been perfect by a long shot, but I'm not now living under a bridge somewhere and I have achieved a decent and respectable position in life. And I made more money than I ever foresaw happening. In part because the military made me realize I could actually do anything I wanted to.

Still, I'd had a lot of that when I was younger, too. Which was probably why I excelled over others when I was in the military. So I later got through college when previously it had never been a desire or a consideration. Not to mention, I doubt I could have done it if I hadn't first gone into the military.

As for the draft, one thing a draft does is maintain a real connection between certainly male citizens and the existence of the government and an awareness of the rest of the world. When you consider how few young voters don't get it or care enough to even vote, the military makes a visceral connection that forces you to realize there is a government and a real world out there. And that you really need to pay attention to both.

To be sure there are other forms available to young people to serve in nonviolent and productive ways and are carried out in other countries. Peace Corps and other NGOs (non-government organizations). So perhaps a war draft isn't so much needed as a requirement to do SOME thing. Something to make us all as citizens more cohesive, to see what's out there and to have a real-world connection with it.

There is too much delusion in this country's citizens about what the real world is and in what they tend to believe in. Which especially of late, leads too many to vote in ridiculous ways that are up against the reality of the world as it really is and not just as political diatribe and partisan politices. Some that are simply delusional in practice. Living in the world is not about political beliefs and ideologies, but about what is actually happening all around us and not just what some say is happening.

The "me" from those younger years would never have believed that I would even hesitate at ending draft registration entirely. But I can say only one thing about it at this point.

Maybe? Maybe everyone, male and female SHOULD be required to do something for others and not just for themselves. It would quash the ridiculous political nonsense we hear so much of lately. And we need that bridge again to reality.

I would suggest we do not need such a massive military. A functionl and productive one, to be sure. But we've gotten addicted to easy answers that all too often really are not answers to anything. We do need a more educated population, however.

Free education was decided upon around the turn of the 20th century and instituted. K-12 was offered free and it was a boon to this nation. And now conservatives seem to think that's a waste of money as they block and damage our educational system time and again. When we really now need to open up education to be free beyond into higher education.

We in these modern times require at least a free two year community college or vocational-technical education. And I would push beyond that to where a four-year degree is the new end of the K-12 educational years. We would benefit greatly from it. Instead of giving all our money through tax breaks to corporations and funding the military even when they don't want it as a jobs programs for the military industrial/corporate complex, we need to enhance our thinking capabilities.

In the end and before it's too late we need to bring America back to Americans. And at his point with social media and so many avenues for Americans to wander off from the primary orientation that has made us so great, we need to pull that all back in and become one again. One in our great diversity. That diversity that has made us so great and so strong.

Because anyone educated in animal husbandry will tell you, diversity is strength. Purity is a path to inbred monstrosities. Just as we are now turning into one in thinking we don't need minorities.

America has changed. We need to change with it, to maintain just who we are, have been and want to be. Education and cohesion in all our vast differences is the way. Celebrate your history, your ancestry, your "tribe" to be sure.

Just remember what tribe you are in as an American citizen and ask yourself, how can we make that our new and even better reality?

TUNN - The Useful News Network - News That Gets Things Done

This is an adjunct blog to today's earlier blog (USCNN).

Our news networks have been sucking, long and hard for some time now. Worst offender in the realm of Journalism? Fox News. Others? MSNBC. Worst News Network overall? Probably, CNN. Which is so sad considering what they initially achieved in their birth and creation of the twenty-four hour news cycle.

Sadder still, currently one of the best journalistic networks in the classical sense, is a foreign held news network (based in Qatar), Al Jezeera. What does that say about our home grown, bloated, biased news networks?

Some of the issues?

Instant media. The need to fill a twenty-four hour news cycle, even when there is nothing really going on in that period. Also, the belief by networks that people are only attracted to certain types of news, and the whore-mongering race to present those news pieces, regardless of what America needs to be hearing about. Advertisers. Advertisers who might pull their support if the wrong news is presented. Also, an overwhelming deluge by some networks of their corporate opinion. OpEds, over editorializing. Companies pushing agendas to make a buck at all costs with considerations of journalism taking a back seat, especially with politically partisan ones.

We need useful news.

We need a news network that isn't beholding to anyone. Who can do pure journalism. We need news that gives us what we need and not what they want, what their owners want, what a political party wants, what religious organizations want, what extremist conservatives or, liberals want.

We the American people are being held hostage by these groups, and it needs to stop. We need to start using our minds, to be intelligent, and to be a knowledgeable, even if in many cases not an educated citizenry. We need to be educated, even if only by our news networks.

This new network could be one where, between "hard news" segments, they could have alternative shows like the Jon Stewarts and The Daily Show type shows. Humor is a great way to get people to absorb news that is hard to hear, or accept. Stewart is an obvious liberal in his orientation. Perhaps a humorous liberal show followed up by a conservative show; but I'd suggest going another way.

Still, these types of shows show us the foibles in our ways, much in the way that the original Star Trek TV show, exhibited to us through science fiction, through aliens ("Those stupid aliens, who are nothing like us!"). They showed us things we needed to look at but couldn't, unless we saw it through the filter of it being others, outside of who we are.

We still need to see this kind of news, to deal with it, to ruminate on it with enough information so as to make useful, informed decisions. And we can't currently do that with the type of news we are receiving. The American people need news. Real news. News presented in a way that is useful. And news that we need to hear and not just want to hear.

In short, we need a news network that is giving us what we need to hear, and yes what we find interesting, but most of all not just editorialized and opinionated but real information with possible solutions; or at least a path to finding those solutions; ways to think about how to achieve solutions. Those are the key elements.

We need to know what to do about some of these intense issues so that when we talk to others about them, debate them, even argue about them, we have some meat, some fuel to use in order to achieve some kind of consensus.

We need news media that helps us to find the right answers and not just the answers for us, or for our group, our preferred political system. We need to put down the crazies, the extremists, the right wing fools, the left wing absurdities.

We need a news Network with programs that reports the news, even news we don't care about, until it is reported properly, and that offers the best case for fixing those issues; solutions as supported by the educated, the knowledgeable, even the public; and then updated over time in revisiting that news as better solutions and information make themselves known. Canvassing discussion groups, listening to the public, combing available information and actual journalistic endeavors.

The American people need to be informed. We need to be informed properly so that we support what our government does, so that they do what is needed, so that the American voice to our government not only supports what is done, or to be done, but can even offer solutions upward to our head of State and not only and always, downward from our head of State. It would need checks and balances but that can be figured out.

We need a new kind of news: a New News Network, a new kind of, "Triple N" that covers our nation's needs. Remember what John F Kennedy said: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

Many people take that to mean, leave your homes, go out and volunteer, join the military, enter public service. But no, not only. It can be as simple as knowing what is happening all around you. Knowing the correct information, having an informed decision, speaking out what is true and necessary and others having if not the same understanding, at least an educated, intelligent understanding of the issues. Because in that, we can have productive debates. And in a productive debate, you can arrive at what is the best answer.

You have to have accurate information for a good debate and you have to have information on the things most important at that time in the world, as well as future considerations and their possible repercussions.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I just wrote a blog on this today titled, USCNN, that talks about this kind of thing, in part.

We need this new network to serve up to us the major and important news pieces. We need them to offer up to us perhaps the top three best solutions to the situation as it stands using (and over the next days and weeks), using all available resources, government, foreign governments, Vox Populi (the Voice of the People) via the internet and other news networks, using everything to continue to offer us the best solutions, possible solutions and not just that network's opinions, biases and hidden agendas.

Much as in the ancient Roman belief that a nation state should be run by the people, it takes an educated citizenry to properly support that best case type of a Republic.

In theory, we are a great nation.

To truly be a great nation and to continue being one will require us to pay more attention to what is going on; but first, we need to be sure that we are being supported in order for us to support our people, our government and thus, our position in the world and their perception of just what and who we really are.