Dr. Martin Luther King State of the Union

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." - Dr. Martin Luther King

Dr. King

Something that sadly, we cannot do with our current president. A man with whom character seems to be a problematic thing. A thing to be cast aside if not despised. A thing that money can buy, and morality not abide.

How have we gone so far down the ladder of humanity and morality in a single election?

i have seen the enemy and the enemy is us, or more rightly and far too often of late, them: #POTUS #realDonaldTrump #GOP #Republican #Conservative #MLKJrDay #MartinLutherKing #MLKDay

Dr. King would not be surprised, but like myself and too many, saddened by our backwardness in the face of all our potential and progress.

Have a decent and rewarding Dr. Martin Luther King Day

What Exactly Is Full And What Does This Teach Us?

Take a container.

Place three rocks in it large enough only to fill it.
Is it full now?  Yes.

Yet fill it now with sand.
Is it full now? Yes.

Yet, fill it now with water.
Is it full now? Yes.

What have we learned?

Jar of Life example

Take a container.
It is already full. Most likely of air.

Fill it with three large rocks.
It is full now, of air, but also now of rocks.

Fill it with sand.
It is now full of air and rocks and tiny rocks.

Fill it with water.
It is now full of water and rocks.

What have we learned? 

We have learned if we filled it with small rocks first, the big rocks wouldn't fit.
If we filled it first with water, adding the others would displace most of the water.

We learned that if we fill it in the wrong order, we cannot fill in all the things we can if we were to fill it in the most correct or most functional order.

We learned if we do the most obvious thing first, we very likely will fail.

We learned if we take the time to think, we can save time and potentially lost resources.

We learned we need to think in more ways ot modes than one.

We learned that sometimes we need to "think outside the box."

We learned that we cannot simply think in our normal, automated, linear fashion all the time.

We learned we need to be prepared for when we need to go off auto-drive and into multiple modes of consideration.

We learned we are not taught that well in our current educational system.

We learned we need to be prepared when we least expect it.

We learned.

Educating the world is what will save it.

We need to respect what should be respected and replace what should not be, with what should be.

We need to respect education.
We need to respect the educated.
We need to respect those who respect intelligence, education and those who support them.

We need to be honest.
We also need to have compassion, to know love for others.
Especially those we do not understand easily.

We need to respect Truth. Not lies because they can benefit us.
We need to respect Facts. Not lies because they can benefit us.
We need to respect the honest. Not the dishonest merely because they can benefit us.

It is harder for one to be honest all the time.
It requires more effort.
It builds more intelligence.
It builds more character, good character.

We need to respect teachers.

We need to respect those who try to achieve higher learning both for themselves and for others and not denigrate any them for trying or because we have not.

We need to learn.
We need to respect.
We need always to try to be more than we are and do it in the right ways.

Importance of Importance

I used to think i couldn't learn. My life K-12 was pretty miserable. Except when I found (or they found me) a teacher who saw my potential with just a little help. It wasn't until my first quarter in college, after spending years in the Air Force, when I took a class called, Study Skills. This article isn't just about education or college. I'm simply using that as an example.

This is really all about, life. About seeing and being able to see what is really there and needs to be.

Sunrise from my home in Bremerton

I realized, that yes, one actually can learn. There is a method. One that works. I have no idea why that wasn't taught in grade school. I knew others could learn more easily, I just couldn't figure out how they did it. Until it was explained to me.

During my university years toward my eventual B.A. in psychology, my main professor and adviser once said that the reason people can't remember things is they didn't think they were important enough to bother to remember.

Or, they didn't make them important enough to remember. Many, maybe even most (though I'd dispute that from what I've seen of late), seem to have an innate ability to remember things..I for one, do not have that ability come easy to me.

Another issue is taking things from short term memory and putting them into long term memory.

Either way it became clear to me at some point that it's all about importance.

Consider. You are in a serious traumatizing situation. It's one of those times when for the rest of your life you will never be able to forget what happened. Why? Because it was important at the time. One way or another, it was made to be important. Very important. More important than anything.

And so it was when I was in college. I realized I had to make things important to me. I had to make my mission getting that college degree. Secondary were good grades. When there was a choice between learning and good grades, I would go with learning. My entire experience of college therefore was two fold.

Get a degree and learn (but after all, do try to keep up your grades, so maybe 2.5 fold?).

Through life, once one is degreed, there is an alternating issue of which is more important. The degree, or the grades that brought it about? I never once had anyone check if I had good grades toward my degree, and seldom did they even check if I did have a degree. Some did, however.

For the most part I'd say learning is far more important than either grades or degree. However, one needs the degree so much of the time in order to be better situated in order to need and use that learning.

Thus it may be more important to get the degree in a sense, than to learn. followed up by good grades. Of course you need grades good enough (C or above) in one's major area of study in order to move past that class (and not have to retake it). But aside from all that, learning really is or should be, paramount. I saw too may younger students who thought partying was the most important aspect of college. And perhaps sadly, some of them may now be running companies, or even more sadly, parts of our government.

Learning really is more important in the end than anything else. More important than party time, rest, relaxation, personal relationships, or even (oh no!), money.

Beyond all that and perhaps intrinsic with it it, it is really all about what is important enough to remember, and what isn't.

IF you make the entire situation important, that is, if you see college in this case, as your life depending upon learning and graduating (at times more specifically on certain classes or papers), if it is most important to you and you see it as your life depending upon it, you will learn. And you will remember.

Of course, you also need to follow certain obvious and reasonable practices. Did you know if you do not review what has happened, or what you have learned, you can forget 80%? I had a method (one I was taught) to take notes during class, after class as soon as possible, review those notes, any handouts, or papers or content from that class. Review it that night briefly. Then the end of the week and finally at the end of the month.

Thus you force it all into longer term memory. You make it important. but you also make it important in class as you are learning new material, and see it, experience it, as you life depending on it. Not to stress yourself out about it, but to simply focus, being mindful, being present, and knowing at all times in the back of your mind, the rest of your life depends on learning and remembering it.

And that brings us to the issue at hand.

We have a culture now where little is deemed as truly important. We are distracted. We try to multitask which has inherent issues regarding learning and even health. Our attentions spans are shorter than ever. We are perhaps too oriented toward fun and what is easier in desiring shortcuts. And not enough oriented toward what is fun and pleasurable, in being able to not overwork too much and in not taking proper vacations.

Our priorities are skewed from what a human needs out of life. They are skewed by those who wish us to give as much as is possible and then some, for the least amount of payback by them to you for your efforts, and a loyalty to you that is lacking, while their expectations of loyalty from you is required.

Short cuts aren't that great unless they are also the best for the situation. Shortcuts for the sake of them are destructive. Don't be lazy, but do be economical. Work smarter not harder so you have the ability to make the important important and the non important, forgettable. Just choose carefully what is and really should be forgettable.

I agree. Economy of motion, action and resources is important. But that has come to be misconstrued as simply the best way to always go. And far too often it's just, not.

The caveats, are important.

Make what is and should be (and that's) important...important. Be mindful.

Bah Humbug, Holidays? Really? Still... Happy New Year 2018!

Welcome to 2018! Just be better than 2017!

Really so glad you could all make it!

2017 treated far too many of us with utter contempt and disrespect. I look forward to 2018 being much more congenial and powerfully friendly. And if it's not...then I look forward to wrestling it to the ground, cruising its face into the mud and beating the holy tar out of it because This year...I'm not putting up with that crap any longer.

And so say us all!
Let's celebrate. Or would you rather skip all the trouble? I know, I know. Many of us have felt through this year that it would be better not to bridge that gap and just relax and fall to end it all. But a new year brings hope. And more strenuous efforts to deny the stupid, remove the ill mannered, and better everyone's lives, not just the few.

I mean, what are holidays for anyway? Who cares about them? Why should we care about them? Especially if we find in them, celebrating things we are not that partial to, or in support of, or see only the negative in them. Like an "Uncle Mike's" annoying habits, or a "grandpa's" drunken grouchiness. Aren't they just another waste of human resources? Emotional exhibitions with too frequently no need or basis in logic? Or reality.

Obviously holidays are for the celebrations for which they were originally intended.

Though some do supersede those original reasons. Such as Christmas. A birthday. New Year's, Halloween, etc. They are a reason for celebrating their original intent, to be sure, but also for sharing communal experiences, renewing old alliances, expanding one's relationships.

They are for exceeding one's normal experience of any normal day. A reason to do the exceptional, a thing to plan for and enjoy the planning of, not to ruin it by stressing over that planning, not for exceeding oneself to the point of misery or destitution. But to be the abnormal, in a positive sense. To pamper oneself, or others. To use that which we save up for over time (to use, not abuse), to remember our reasons for existing in the first place. Whatever that may be. To show others that you care when normally it isn't considered, executed, or appreciated.

We have to face the fact that holidays are not only for what they are claimed to be, or originally were all about.

They offer one an opportunity to shine, in various ways. To know one is appreciated, to show that the appreciation of others. To build memories that will last a lifetime. To, in even the smallest of ways, give others acknowledgement of your appreciation of their existence, of their help, or their care for you. And to assure that this relationship continues or even expands in ways that are a benefit to yourself, to themselves and to your associated communities, both local and extended.

They are there to enjoy ourselves in our own experience of them and through the experience of others sharing in those experiences with us. It can be a bonding experience far outweighing the effort of experiencing them, as well as in the shared memories of those events many years into the future. Or even beyond life itself if recorded and later shared by friends, family or even unknown descendants or merely other citizens.

So don't blow off these holidays.

Do not fear them.

Embrace them. They will embrace you back.

In the end, we may all very well benefit by them.

All the best to you and yours in this new year of 2018!

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

A Christmas Reflection

Merry Christmas! May we all ever better mind our own business!

Walk with me a moment.

Yes, an atheist and a Buddhist of my own orientation, I can certainly celebrate Christmas. Especially having been raised with it as a Catholic. After all it was something that started out as a pagan celebration and was blended with Christmas and Christianity by the Catholic church in order to assimilate those pagan's lands they wished to acquire.

It certainly can be a pagan or secular holiday, too and has become one more and more anyway. And no we don't have to remember what it's roots are in order to celebrate it. But, it is wise to do so for several reasons.

Odd, I know. But true enough.

We can easily use it as a positive reason to treat one another with respect and love without needing to bring a deity into it. A strange consideration for a theist of that particular denomination but hey, there it is.

I think Jesus might just be more accepting of that than many want to believe, or his followers could accept.

Moses? Probably not so much either.. But then, he was a kind of an Old Testament sort of guy.

Muhammad? Well, let's face it. He had some pretty weird ideas and wasn't the brightest bulb in the pack and pretty much the same with anyone believing in all that.

I suppose Jesus had some odd ideas himself but he wasn't actually the one who turned his beliefs into magic. He wasn't the Buddha surely, but then according to the Dalai Lama, Jesus himself was a Buddha. And he taught some basic Buddhist beliefs in order to alter Judaism.

Perhaps Mohammed too was a Buddha, though I have my doubts on that.

Jesus had that need to blend with Judaism and the old Testament in order to build change into the nonsense he had grown up and into. Teachings that weren't so ridiculous back then before the advent of refrigeration and other advancements. Though he did as I said, incorporate elements of the Buddha Dharma to create his new Judaism (later, Christianity) and well, that was a very good thing.

But let's face it. In simply reading the record...we have Mohammed on the bottom, then Moses, Jesus and finally and foremost, Buddha, from least to most. It doesn't take a genius to see that's the order. Sad? Perhaps. But reality can be difficult. And besides, that is to be expected since Gautama Buddha, Siddhartha, was the best educated and least superstitious of all of them.

Still it matters little as all their legacies have been abused and subverted by some or many. It is after all what you pick and choose to believe. Sad as that is. It is much like trying to decide which is the best martial art. A foolish endeavor and does no one much good, for it is all about how you use what knowledge you have chosen, how you apply it, that is most important.

It isn't because I understand Buddha (not his descendants, not his followers, but The Buddha), makes more sense than all the rest of them combined. Consider, Jesus in his life had access to the teachings of the Buddha from travelers, if not from his own. He incorporated those teachings into Judaism and tweaked it so it worked to lead Jews into a more sane belief system. Just as Catholicism centuries later would incorporate paganism into their beliefs in order to assimilate new tribes and beliefs as they infected their world. These aren't wild beliefs. Just reality and history.

I read, I discussed, debated and analyzed and that's how it panned out. Look, don't get mad at me. If God supported anyone of those guys (and I don't think he does, or exists for that matter), then He would have made it quite obvious who was on top. Not much more to say after that, is there....

Yet that's not really what is important here, though. No, really. It's not.

First... allow me to wish you and yours a happy holiday season. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, a cheery whatever you wish you want to enjoy and celebrate at this winter solstice time.

But what is all this really? Let's lay off for a moment with what history, reality and tradition tell us and just think about what actually is.

You see, there is after all, magic in life.

It isn't the magic of religion or Gods or what we wished (or fear) exists. It's the magic of Humanity. Though we're mostly too humble to allow ourselves to accept that. As vain and greedy, terrified in the face of the universe and life as we are, we are still too humble to accept that we are it. That this is it. All of it.

Isn't that odd?

There is a movie that exemplifies what I'm trying to say here. A 2011 film with one of my favorite entertainers in it, Eddie Izzard. The film is Lost Christmas. It's not about religion but the magic that is Life. And if that doesn't work, here's some others who can explain Christmas a little better.

In life, we have who we have and the memories we have with them. We also have what we believe we will have and those memories that we will then have with them, whomever "they" will be. What we leave, after we no longer exist, really isn't what we will have ourselves at all. Though sometimes we act like it, but it is really what others will have after we are no longer there.

So all we really have is ourselves, our others, our memories. Then we're simply gone and it's the end.

It is hard for many to contemplate dying, or not existing. We don't relate to it as humans. And so we have invented ways, som rather bizarre ways, in our ancient ignorance to deal with it. Okay.

So now let's take a step beyond that and talk about....

Religion and Guns.

No, really, bear with me a moment longer.

Believe it or not, there is something familiar there between those two things.

I'm going to tell you a secret. Something people need to share. Something people need to not keep quiet about. In fact if you need one thing in life to shout to the world, this would be it.

Those who want to spread the "word" will tell you otherwise, but that is from their inside out. Possibly your inside out, too. But that is dysfunctional. It is dangerous. It is against the need of the many, the need of all. Here it is.

Do not share your religion with everyone. Please. Keep it to yourself. Share it with others of a like mind. Offer to those who inquire of you about it. And let that be it. For the benefit of us all. Be open to sharing. But be quiet about forcing the issue on others. You're only doing yourself and your beliefs a disservice. And a disservice to all the rest of us. Regardless what you religion or leaders tell you. Especially in the money grubbing  super churches and many of the evangelical corporate thinking type endeavors.

Evangelicism being one of the great banes America has infected the world and our nation with.

Although some of us do believe you should be ashamed to share your "faith" in these beliefs you hold, with anyone, you are welcome in my world to live your life as you see fit, to pursue happiness for the most part, as you see fit. This is America, still, and hopefully we will survive Trump and his minions.

And so everyone is welcome to their own delusions which we all have. Just be aware, if you bring down our most basic ideals of freedom in the  name of a faux freedom as designed by the greedy now in charge, you will eliminate not on that freedom but your right to your own personal delusions. In religion, in everything.

And you will have to begin to believe in what those in power want you to believe. Much as Trump is doing now, in forcing fakeness and diatribe upon us all in order to enrich both himself and his cohorts.

With only this exception.

For the good of all you should wear your faith under your coat, not on your sleeve for all to see. Signs of your Faith, quiet signs like jewelry, is fine. But the vocal part, you should wear just as you should wear your gun under your coat and out of sight. If you have a gun, and want to carry it around.

Though better it is best for all for you to leave it at home. Rather than forcing force by vigilante actions, force the government to apply funding and resources to protect us properly. THAT is a far better way. Hold our representatives to task to protect us so we do not have to protect ourselves to the degree tha is now perceived, many times incorrectly, but so many. And so many whoa re ignorant and believe whatever their favorite pundits say.

Faith extremists will tell you to preach the word to all and any! Spread the word to assure the continuation of your addiction! Shove your beliefs down the throat of any and all because your God demands it!

But no. That is the way of the immature.

As in religion they will say, propagate, raise your children up with your religion. Force religion down the throat of all humanity until they have no choice but to be subjugated to whatever your choice of religion is and to Hell with all others! Because they become indeed then, The Others.

But that is from within. Don't you see?

From without, from within the whole of humanity, we are many and varied. Diversity is good. But delusion not based in reality is of late, endemic and dangerous and could bring about our own demise.

We need therefore to coexist in order to be, together. That means we need to allow others to seek their faith as they see it. Even when it seems foolish or anti to your religion. Because your religion (even if it's guns) may seem anti to theirs.

Maybe you're right. Maybe, they're right. Because, what if you're wrong? But then, your religion doesn't allow for that, does it? Would it? No, because that is the design of religion in the first place. Isn't it.

And that is fine, I suppose. Mostly. For now.

I would say that in today's world it has now reached a point where we need to kill those who push their beliefs on others so that those who do not, who live to allow others their lives and beliefs, can be the ones in the end to survive and prosper.

Because we do not need those who will push their beliefs on others. Besides it will only, counterintuitively lead to the demise of those who are most obnoxious and pushy. As religion is on the decline globally anyway. It just seems like it's growing because any animal dying and in a corner, becomes louder and more dangerous, until it's dead.

For they are the troglodytes, those who push the ancient and archaic mythologies as reality. The proto humans who need to die off so the evolved humans can survive to propagate and replace them.

Just as children one day finally need to leave their childhood selves behind so that they too can become adults.

We all need to grow. But we do not all need to make others into our own image. Even if we believe that is the image of our God. We need... to all live together. Together in ways that will allow us all to live and prosper and be happy. Together.

And those who do not believe that?

They need to find their end. Quickly. And if they cannot then they need, they are asking us for, our help to end them in their difficult journey.

Hard words, right? Well? Life is hard. But it doesn't have to be. Global warming is real. To think that "God will save us" or "God will fix it", is ludicrous and childish.

We don't need to be making it any harder. Regardless what our beliefs are. We just need to get along. Believe what you will, but remember to treat others with respect and leave the judging to your God. Because if you don't believe your God will judge them, then you do not believe in your God. So either way...stop being demeaning to others.

So, a cheery winter's solstice to you and may you be happy and may you leave others alone, when they need it.

Sláinte!

I wish you all the best, the best of Life, Memories and the after...for your others.

One last thing....treat one another as if all you know was:

And you only have, one another.

Finally....

Special Post: US Government UFO Program Sightings

Hopefully this fascinating news release isn't just another #realDonaldTrump / #GOP distraction, cuz the timing is amazing.

The most important thing this former government official says in this interview about the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) is:

"A lot of times when we don't have information we tend to fill in those gaps with what we think is logical. And there's still by the way, a lot we really don't know."

And that, is how we get conservatives, Republicans, and nutty conspiracy theorists.

Just become it seems like it could be something has little bearing on what it actually is. In studying espionage over the years, and that is a good example of UFO studies, you see things that aren't there, and you don't see things that are there. Also, viewing in hindsight is very different from viewing in foresight, or actual eye witness accounts supported by facts (remember facts? I so miss facts in public discourse).

What we have discovered in #UFO sightings, that is, and listen to how he describes in an intelligent way, what he is discussing, it is left open for other unconsidered possibilities, many of them benign.

Aside from weather balloons, swamp gas, or aliens (extraterrestrials), our own experimental aircraft and drones (which have been sighted and labeled UFOs), we could be seeing natural phenomena explained by physics dealing with little known natural phenomena (interdimensional coalingments), rather than aliens from other planets, it could be us, from our own future, it could be others stepping through into this universe (so pan dimensional, not extraterrestrial), other things, or things we haven't even considered, thought of or known about.

Yes, it could be extraterrestrials. But we've remained too focused on that as an answer due to our own, especially public mindset.

IS someone visiting us and why? Perhaps they have monitored our insanity at putting Trump in office as president and they finally decided we really needed to be saved from ourselves.

Or perhaps it is exactly what some people fear. IS it yet another distraction from Trump, from government officials distracting from Trump and Republicans, or somehow from Russia interference to distract us yet again? Odd coincidence of timeframe.

The point here is, don't be so closed minded. Zanshen, total awareness, and not closed minded considerations. Some conspiracy types think how they don't want to look stupid because they don't "see" what is "really" going on. When that is typically exactly what they do.

And if it IS just aliens? So far, they don't seem to be interested in contacting us overtly. They haven't taken us over (unless they are running the Republican party (a group pretty alien and apparently anti Human after all). Yes, I jest (somewhat) about Republicans and even some conservatives (not so much about Trump, nothing like letting an idiot lead).

Anyway, try not to be stupid in trying to be "smart".

And also, this...and this from a Navy pilot.