American Gardening

I promised, a while back, to write a bit about skills we all may need in the very near future, when, and if, the economy again collapses. Not to panic, but with the Stock Market spinning up and down like a yoyo, China obviously in deep muck, and Europe trying to figure how it can deal with massive immigration, all topped off by the continued Mid-East madness, it may become necessary to do a few things the old way.

Gardening, growing a few vegetables, berries and fruits may not be a bad idea even if things take a sharp upturn. Nothing compares to fresh produce right off the vine. To eat a tomato, picked at the peak of ripeness is to realize what tasteless junk we have been eating. A melon, grown in your own patch will make you realize that waiting for melon season to roll around is worth it. The melons you buy in January are picked green and shipped 1000s of miles and taste like slightly sweet Styrofoam.
Also, there are health factors, beyond the obvious nutritional ones. Produce grown by some of our neighbors to the South has, with increasing frequency, proven to be contaminated with various bacteria that result in you missing work to sit in the bathroom.

Further health benefits are gained simply by getting off your rear, turning off the TV and computer (after you read my blog, of course) and moving around in the Sun and fresh air. Vitamin D is a hot nutrient (these change from month to month, tomorrow it may be some rare mineral) and just a bit of Sun a day takes care of that. To those who use treadmills or stationary bikes or any of the countless other overpriced workout equipment, a bit of digging and hoeing, of spreading fertilizer and pulling weeds is far better exercise simply because you use all of your muscles in coordination with each other. You will build as much strength while building healthier muscles by moving compost as opposed to lifting weights.

To those without a yard, apartment dwellers like me, you can grow a lot of small vegetables and almost any herb in pots. There are communities in urban areas who get together and grow produce, quite a lot, on building rooftops and in vacant lots. Why not? Besides health and financial benefits, it helps build community, something g America is sorely lacking.

Gardening is also a fine way to get kids away from gaming and cell phone addictions. You might have to push them a bit, use a little leverage, but, simply and as gently as possible, remind them that you are the parent, and thus, the boss.

Ob top of all that, there is a definite spiritual aspect to gardening. It connects us to our ancestors, reminds us that food does not just magically appear in the grocery store as if winked into existence by the Creator and dropped if the freezer aisle by angels. In gardening, you are participating in the on going creative process of the Cosmos.

And, you certainly do not have to stick to produce, feel free to grow any of the wide range of flowering plants and perennial shrubs. I have seen gardeners who worked with ferns and have even seen, small scale moss gardens that were fascinating.

So, while I think everyone would be advised to learn how to do at least some basic gardening, just in case thing take a nose dive, I also think that gardening is a fine way to promote physical and spiritual health, something we can always use a bit of.

America and the Constitution

A couple of mornings ago, I saw Glen Beck on CNN. In a surprisingly rational conversation with the host, Glen stated his undying devotion to the Constitution. This is certainly not surprising but, I have come to understand, it  is not a viable position.

Do not misunderstand me. I love the Constitution, just as I love my memories of small town America and my memories of our Nation's simpler times. However, to stubbornly cling to the past is foolish. I can say that because I have, at times, done just that. When you do, you grow stagnant.

My Dad loved the old days and spoke fondly of them often, but as he grew older, he grew more accepting of change and realized that things would not hold still for him. He slowly, but inevitable, came to enjoy, not all, but many of the changes in our culture. I, slowly, kicking and screaming at times, have come to understand that change is inevitable, and you cannot fight everything. This does not mean cheerfully accepting everything, but many of our changes, are for the better.

The Constitution was never intended to be eternal. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote much of it, said that he hoped it would be changed often lest, as he put it, it became nothing but 'dead leaves.' The document was a product of a time when America was sparsely populated and had a largely farm based economy. Jefferson lived long enough to see the first signs of the Industrial Revolution and knew that much of the Constitution would not work as time went on. In fact, he, seemingly quite seriously, said we should have a revolution about every 25 years, that an occasional blood letting was a healthy thing.

I once read a comment, and I wish I could remember who said it, that all politics is ultimately theological. Our view of God determines our view of government and many, such as Mr. Beck are stuck in the traditional Christian view of God as unchanging. They believe that everything God, according to Bible, has said is etched in stone. Thus, the Bible is always correct, and if you believe as they do, that the constitution was written by God-inspired men, then it must be unchanging. Jefferson and many of his colleagues would be amused at this since they were rational Deists. By the way, there are other interpretations of Christianity that are far more valid.

The World will change, that is inevitable. If you wish to remain a contributing member, you must change and guess what, that is not only fine, it is wonderful, because you stay engaged. Again, you do not have to follow every idiotic fad. You can retain many traditional values, adapting them to the current world. If you do not change, you will become irrelevant and isolated in your nostalgia. If you adapt, you can temper change with wisdom. If all of us who remember the past opt out, then the future will take a rudderless direction and God help us all. Then you will see a future society that will likely be a blend of Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World. The poor and uncooperative will feel the wrath of Big Brother and will be crushed under his boot, while those who play along will be treated to a mindless existence, numbed by the best drugs and rigid programming, mixed with a bit of genetic manipulation.

Traditional Christianity is no longer viable in a World where Science has disproven much of the Scripture and History has dealt much of the rest a crippling blow. Likewise, the Constitution cannot stand as is. The World is small now, there are vast numbers living in urban areas, and, thanks to the manipulations of the mega-corporations, there are too many poor folks lost in a poverty that will soon become hopeless. Something must change because I can guarantee you that there is no more dangerous creature on Earth than a human with nothing left to lose, and. since I see no hope of businesses willingly changing, the Government must step in and begin to balance things. If not, before long, this Nation will be swept with a violence that will make ISIL look like church mice. and do not speak to me of the Churches as instruments of change; the little ones are remnants from an ignorant superstitious past and the big ones have become little more than a blend of social club and big business.

So, to Americans who remember the traditional ways, I say, get over it, and move on. Cheer up, it's not that bad. Change keeps you alive.

America - Learn to Speak English

The English language, used properly is a joy. There is an incredible array of words, enabling a conveyance of  many of the subtleties, the nuances of human emotion. With English, we can plumb the depths of despair and climb the heights of love. We can explore our relation to our fellow creatures and give voice to their feelings. We can attempt to relate our lonely outpost here in the middle of this average galaxy swirling in the midst of the infinite. We can contemplate our Creator and try, usually with little effect, but still with nobility, to explain our relationship to the Divine.

I am not stuffy. I love slang and the diversity of dialect, but, in appropriate situations. I am not prudish. I have been known, on occasion, to let loose with amazingly colorful bursts of profanity, but, when overused, those expletives lose their punch and just become boring and tasteless. A little bit goes a long way.

Part of the problem is sheer sloth. We have grown lazy. However, part has come from the academic world. The post-modern philosophers have promoted the idea that what is written or spoken only has whatever meaning the reader or listener gives to those words. The author or speakers intent does not even matter,  just what you think. Thus, we may as well eliminate dictionaries. If I want to call the sky green, well, okay. If I write the word 'alligator' and you envision a squirrel, well, that is your interpretation.

This is dangerous on two levels. First, it puts an end to coherent communication. The Tower of Babel story explains why we have different languages. If we follow this line of thought, each individual human will have his own unique language and we will live in a world of pure solipsism. Certainly, we all have different associations we attach to words. Love may conjure up one image to me and another to a toddler, but at least their would be a basic agreement that the word refers to a positive  emotion.

The other problem is extremely dangerous. Do they even still teach George Orwell's 1984 anymore in schools? If not, educators should be chastised, if not actually tarred and feathered. Those who have read it will remember that in the book, Big Brother decided what words meant and preached that Love=Hate and Peace=War. If a society allows its basic language to be thus manipulated then we may as well all be lobotomized.

So please, learn the wonderful English language. How? Easy, read. If you see words you don't know, get a dictionary. Buy a real dictionary, they are cheap and much easier to use than an on-line version. Push yourself a little and try some of the classic writers. They told fine tales and really are not that hard to read. And please, try to speak the language. The occasional use of 'bro' and 'dude' is okay, but when used all the time they grow amazingly boring. If you try real hard, I will bet that you can use actual names of people and do so without every other word being obscene.

America and Violence

America is a violent Nation, always has been. Our myths are shaped around Warrior Archetypes. From the Alamo to the NFL, from John Wayne to Bruce Wayne, we have attached ourselves to the rugged individual, fighting for, well, just about anything, as long as he was fighting.

The Civil War was the World's first truly modern conflict and it was unthinkably horrible. Cannons and rifles had become sufficiently sophisticated to make killing a machine-like affair. Before, war had been almost a gentlemanly affair, with strict rules of engagement, sort of like football, but we cranked it up to new heights. Bodies were broken in massive numbers and those who returned were physically and emotionally scarred. The nation's first drug crisis came after the War, as returning soldiers sought morphine to stop the pains of old wounds, both of the body and of the soul. We should not be surprised that such is now the case with many returning veterans. And for those who avoid opiates, well, there is always alcohol.

On and on goes the fighting, and what has been our justification in places like Korea, Viet Nam and the mid-East? We are sacrificing lives to protect the interests of huge multinational corporations, the same ones who yanked jobs out of the US and sent them to countries where folks are still willing to, or are coerced into, working for slave wages. But we love the wars and we love the warriors and sing the praises of those who dutifully go off to defend the Empire of Corporate America.

You cannot constantly put energy into violence, senseless violence, without consequences, and we are seeing the chickens come home to roost. America is beset by acts of mindless violence. Not terrorism, not crime related violence. As shameful as those acts are, at least there is a sort of demented logic behind them. I am far more concerned with sheer, stupid, wanton violence. Kids walking into schools and blasting away, drivers deliberately slamming there cars into crowds on sidewalks, frustrated workers going postal, these are amazingly stupid acts with no comprehensible reasoning behind them. Just a day ago, I saw a short news story about a poor man who stopped to help a car broken down in the blizzard. Someone drove by and shot him. There is no why behind such an act.

When I grew up, yes, we saw violence on TV, but it was a comparatively sanitized violence, not a lot of blood, and always, the actions made some kind of sense. A robber shot a cop, horrible, but, at least it made some sense in the flow of the story. Now, movies are often non-stop violence without even much of a story to get in the way of the next explosion or shooting. Video games are worse in that the player gets to participate in the slaughter, and yet, I see young kids merrily blasting away, creating virtual mayhem. Boxing, once known as the 'sweet science' has been replaced by anything goes Ultimate Fighting matches. Why not just revert to pit fighting? Throw 2 guys in a pit, and the one who survives wins. Why not bring back bear-baiting or the gladiatorial games? If we just want blood and violence, look to the Romans; they were the masters. Maybe the days portrayed in the movie The Hunger Games are close at hand.

I am not a pacifist, not by any means, but neither do I worship the violence this Nation seems to be obsessed with. Violence is sometimes called for, but it should always be a last resort. You cannot constantly put out that violent attitude without getting some kind of feedback. Carl Jung said that we can easily get caught by Archetypes, primordial images from the human collective consciousness, and I would heartily recommend that we free ourselves from the Warrior Archetype. Jesus put it more simply, "as you sow, so shall you reap."   

America _ Take the Day Off

Across the Eastern US, we are having extreme cold and a nasty storm. Snow, measured in feet, winds up to 75 mph, storm surges along the coast, and ice spread about. Even here, in Southern Georgia, it is freezing, Travel in much of the land is unsafe, and, blessedly, people are paying heed to the warnings and staying home.

So, relax, take it easy, and put all your cares away. Worrying will not help anything and I will bet what little money I have that there is nothing on your agenda that cannot be put off for a bit. So settle back, put your feet up, and goof off. Sip some hot tea or hot chocolate, talk to your loved ones, let the dogs and cats cozy up next to you, and take a nap.

Maybe, as the time wears on, watch a movie or start a book you have wanted to read. Nice quiet music is treat on days like these. Work a puzzle, play a game, or just stare out the window. Days like these are good for the soul, if you just let yourself go. Let your mind drift and those tired muscles relax. Turn off the news and let the newspapers sit there unopened (unless you want to check out the sports section or the comics).

To those of you where the weather is nicer, join, in solidarity, your home bound brothers and sisters. If you have the day off, enjoy it. Problems can wait and I assure you of this, they will still be there when you get back to the everyday world. To those of you stuck working, I am so sorry, but, I have a plan. Take it easy. Unless you are a fireman or paramedic, odds are nothin g you will do today at work is of dire importance, so while I would never encourage goofing off, at least take it easy. On second thought, why not encourage goofing off? Just don't get caught.

This may not seem like much of a blog, no dire warnings no political commentary, no cultural analysis. Well, you're right. I am swearing off of serious for a day or two, or three. I am taking my own advice and I invite you to join me in a brief spell of relaxation.

American Disconnect

I want to mention a few things today. First, the Stock Market fluctuations. Today, so far, things are up a bit, but, mostly we have seen a horrible downslide, despite the fact that our leaders tell us the economy is fine. For starters, the economy is not fine. It is sluggish at best. That aside, we are told that uncertainty in China and the sharp decline in oil prices are responsible. As far as China goes, we really have no idea what is going on. Western press correspondents walk on thin ice there. One wrong word and they are subject to censure, arrest, and/or deportation. All reports seem to show considerable unrest in Western China among their sizable Moslem population and it is almost certain that they cannot feed their own population. They do import a tremendous amount of food. Since they have been called a great threat, I am not sure why their failing economy should hurt us. We have other nations we can trade with. China has lent us a bunch of money but, so what? If we tighten our shipments of food, they will have deep troubles. You cannot eat food. So, I do not understand why their economic decline troubles our investors.

Sliding oil prices help the average working man. Gas is now fairly cheap and the less money you put in your car, the more you have to spend. Yet, this troubles investors. Why? Stop and think. The Middle Class, the source, for years, of much of our Nations strength, has been largely wiped out as more and more wealth is in the hands of fewer and fewer people. The poorer we are, the easier we are to control. If we start having a few extra dollars, we might start to be a force in the nation again and the Powers That Be do not want this. A strong Middle Class is their worse nightmare. Does that make sense? Not a bit, but we are dealing with a group of people who have an irrational, no, an insane lust for power. Thus, when things get better for the Average American, such as happens when gas gets cheaper, they panic. We are seeing proof that the interests of Big Business and Big Money are diametrically opposed to the interests of Americans.

In a related story, folks in Iowa are in a snit because the subsidies paid to corn growers are being threatened. Of course, nothing on two or four legs eats this corn, It is converted into ethanol and added to gas. Now, ethanol does not appreciably reduce carbon emissions, and with gas prices low, it is not needed to stretch supplies. It makes sense in a place like Brazil, where they can grow massive amounts of sugar cane and use the scraps left after the sugar is extracted to make the ethanol. Brazil makes the stuff for almost nothing, as a by-product of a cash crop. Here, we have to grow a special crop and a lot of it. This takes up a whole lot of land that could be used for other crops and we see high grocery costs. Ethanol sells for so little that we have to subsidize farmers or they would lose money on the deal. The only legitimate way to use all that corn is to call ethanol what it is, moonshine, and sell it in liquor stores. So, to sum up, we are paying farmers a bunch of money to grow an unneeded crop to make an unneeded product, and they are upset because we seem to be wising up to the deal. This is similar to paying a subsidy to tobacco farmers to grow a product that we then try desperately to get people to quit using. Is it any wonder the Nation is in such bad shape?

Last, let me mention the latest Campaign debacle. I thought Trump had reached a new low when he appeared at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University trying to win over evangelicals. The preposterous image of the Donald trying ineptly to quote scripture was one of the funniest things I have seen in years, but, that aside, what was the point? When will we quit pandering to this group? Evangelical Christians are a small, and ever-shrinking, minority in this Nation. Then, to make things worse, Trump dragged Sarah Palin away from the frozen North Land and back to the spotlight, giving her a chance to once again bray like a jackass and ramble incoherently. Is Trump that desperate? I guess so, because he is hinting that she will have a place in his administration.

I, in the sick, twisted corners of my mind, was sort of hoping that we would, one day, have a Palin-Clinton race for the White House. The thought of those two, screeching at each other like wounded Banshees during a debate would have been worth seeing. Ah well, it looks like we will have to settle for Clinton-Trump. God help us all.

America and the Loss of Soul

The America that I knew is gone, history, done. I really did not wish to write something this gloomy, but true is true. If, you are in what used to be the Middle Class, the source of our previous greatness, you will understand.

Not too long ago, people, working, productive people, were the norm, and they lived pretty darn well.  Look around. How many folks do you know who are working multiple low-paying jobs to make ends meet. How many scrape and worry just to keep a roof over their heads. It was not always this way. I grew up, and lived most of my 65 years in a land where you worked a decent number of hours, made enough to live well, not extravagantly but well, and had enough time to relax and enjoy life. Now, we have very educated folks working fast food jobs and poorly paying service jobs and sweating out a living. When the media and the politicians get on and start raving about how great the economy is now and how much we have brought unemployment down, please, if you have a brain, do not believe them. The jobs that have been created suck. Low paying jobs that do not cover your living costs are not an improvement.

I have watched bright, decently educated people run themselves ragged and worry constantly over jobs that do not even cover their living expenses. They make ends meet by putting groceries, and sometimes even rent and/or car payments on their credit cards. thus insuring a lifetime of debt that they will never crawl out from under.

Then, guess what? When they go to move, either to buy a house or into a better apartment, their credit will not be accepted. Thus begins and continues an ever downward spiral. Add this into the mix. To rent a place, now, mostly, you have to prove that your income is three times the rent. I know many, many fine folks who cannot do this, and even if they can, one emergency, a medical bill or a car breakdown, and they cannot do it, so, some places are asking four times the rent.

Now, I know there are some people who say, and believe me, I have heard this often, "tough, tell them to work harder." This is what I mean about America's loss of soul. The funny thing is, I hear this from some who are barely making it themselves. To them I say, "I hope folks are nicer to you on your way down than you were to them when you were on your way up." Trust me, you will go down.

Just wait until you get older. You will not be retiring because you will never afford it. Say you have your income planned and it is sufficient? Think again. This economy so volatile that you too will find yourself searching for a decent place to live. Why in the hell have prices gone up so high?

Well, for the last 40 years or so, the little corporations have all been bought out by the big ones. When the big ones got big enough, they started to charge more and more for less and less. Then, they made things worse. All of the good jobs Americans held, were shipped to places where they work for $2 a day. I am in Georgia. At one time, we had a thriving textile industry and good jobs were plentiful, which in turn creates more good jobs, since those workers spent some money. Now, most of the clothes we buy come from places like Guatemala and Malaysia. To add insult to injury, the prices of those very poorly made clothes is going higher and higher. So, obviously, the profits of the big corporations goes higher.

The circle goes on and on, and more and more, a small, very small percentage, of the population controls the wealth. In the future, this will lead to higher and higher food costs and rents so high that few will afford them. Watch for this: we had a Housing Bubble break, and it was a disaster for many. One fine day, very soon, we will see the Commercial Real Estate bubble break and then the crap will hit the fan. What do you think will happen when stores in strip malls go bankrupt, when those mall and commercial developers cannot pay their bank loans?  What do you think will happen when folks, and believe me this is coming soon, cannot afford the rent most places charge? The property owners cannot lower rent and still pay their loans. They will default. I have seen this at a property I once worked for and it is a nightmare. When this happens enough, the big corporations who are all tied to the big banks, will own it all and you and me, the good ordinary working Americans will be in a deep stink.

The other reason I speak of America's loss of soul is the fact that there are damn few in this Country who are willing to face this and even begin to figure a way out. The only solution is to band together and do not let your friends and loved ones get hurt, but, you know what? I see very few who are even willing to do that. Folks say they will, but when it comes right down to it, "no, sorry. can't help."
The only way out lies with individual responsibility and to be honest, I am not sure that can do much to stem the coming disaster.

I should have some answers, after all, I am writing all these dire predictions and making all these harsh judgments (and trust me, I am just skimming the surface), but I am fresh out of answers. Sometimes problems build to a point where there is no good solution and all you can do is let the whole mess collapse and then salvage what you can, before creating something new. Not very cheery, huh? Well, perk up. The Super Bowl will be here before you know it.

American Gullibility _ Part 3

American are gullible simply because they believe these upcoming elections will change the path the Country is on. I will explain in a minute, but first a word about the major candidates.

Much is being made at the moment about Bernie Sanders' surge in the polls. He is surging in Iowa and New Hampshire, 2 tiny states. Clinton is beating him silly in the rest of the Nation so, bye-bye Bernie. Clinton is amazing. a phenomenon, simply because she is leading. How this woman, who has been implicated in so many sleazy doings is not in jail is amazing, but there she is, about to be nominated for President. At least Bill Clinton, if you overlook his disbarment and impeachment among many the other blemishes on his history, has a certain sleazy kind of charm. Hillary is about as charming as a rabid hyena. Yet, there she is, on top of the polls and with an excellent chance of being our next President. God help us all.

The Republicans are down to 4 possibilities. Rubio has an outside chance. However, he suffers from John Kerry syndrome in that he seems determined to take all sides of every issue.  That likely will not work, but who knows?

Jeb Bush is actually the most experienced candidate. I lived in Florida where he got that experience as Governor. You do not want this man as President. His major accomplishment as governor was signing a whole bunch of death warrants. He did, most of the time, sort of stay out of the way, which was a good thing, but at this point we need an actual President. I addition, he is a Bush, and call me biased if you will, but I refuse to, under any circumstance vote for a Bush. On top of that, hearing him speak is about as interesting as watching a toad.

Ted Cruz is a great Populist, a Tea Partier, a Man of the People, friend of the Average Citizen, or so he portrays himself. Nonsense. He is an Ivy League educated attorney, in the pocket of big business, and his wife works for Goldman-Sachs. Remember them from the bank scandals that led us into the last great recession? If you do, wave so long to Ted.

That leaves the Donald. Trump can give a speech and he darn sure has charisma. He says a lot of the right things, but I just don't trust him. He reeks of demagoguery and that is what we definitely do not need. Besides, I have a question. When elected, a President is supposed to put his assets in a blind trust, so his investments do not influence his policies. Does anyone really believe Trump will actually do that? Maybe, but I have serious doubts.

There was a candidate I found interesting, Virginia's Jim Webb. Webb is a conservative to moderate Democrat, ex-Marine, Viet Nam vet, former Secretary of the Navy, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, historian, and 2 term Senator. In other words, qualified and sane. However, he quit the campaign in disgust after seeing how things really work. He has hinted at a third party run. I hope so, and would vote for him, but he has less chance of winning than I do, and my odds are not good.

But, as things stand, none of this matters. it costs incredible sums of money to run for office. This money comes, obviously, from people with a lot of money, and they give to both sides. As a result, they own both Parties. When Republicans and Democrats fuss and fight, when the President and Congress quarrel and quibble, it is all just a dog and pony show. In the long run, everyone will do what they are told, what they are paid to do. Your vote is of little, if any, importance. Yet still, every few years we go through this charade, pretending that we are doing something important.

Is there an answer? Yes, but it a real long shot. If s third party could come up with a full slate of candidates, not just for President, but also for House and Senate, good people with real ideas and at least some charisma, and if that excited the average American enough to get some decent funding, then maybe things might start to change. Will that happen? No. Not this time around.

So, if you believe that this election is vital, that your vote is important, I have an announcement. I have just signed a deal with Newt Gingrich to handle those Moon Condos he's been wanting to build and I can get you a great deal.

American Gullibility - Part 2

Let us now turn our attention to some of the nonsense Americans have been fed, and have swallowed, on the domestic front. In the interest of brevity, we will skip Lincoln's rape of the Constitution and Wilson's unforgivable role in the creation of the Federal Reserve. Let's begin with JFK.

Here, 52 years later, we still have no clue as to Kennedy's assassin. We have theories galore, ranging from the laughable, Oswald acted alone, to the frightening, the CIA acted in cooperation with extreme right wing rich folks. It is certainly fun to play with the possibilities, we all love a good mystery, but it is absurd that we still have no idea what happened.

We do know, from their own records, that the CIA was, at that point, in the midst of the MKUltra experiments. In case you have not heard of these, in brief, the Agency, in an effort to learn how to control the human mind, were conducting a range of experiments on US citizens, involving, drugs, torture, hypnosis, and any nightmarish scenario they could come up with. By the way, a lot of those experiments were the suggestions of supposedly ex-Nazis scientists we had imported after WW2 as part of the incredibly illegal Operation Paperclip.

Then, we have LBJ. The man was insane. That is the only way to explain his belief that we could afford to send 500000 troops to Viet Nam while conducting a major social initiative, the Great Society and the War on Poverty. Guess what? It cannot be done.

Nixon, of course, was de-throned by Watergate. Much like the JFK assassination, this event has never been satisfactorily explained. It did not happen because Nixon was afraid of losing the election. At that point, the Republicans could have nominated Bullwinkle J. Moose and beaten McGovern. What really  happened? Who knows?

Skip ahead to Ronnie Reagan, we see a huge hustle being pulled off, two actually. First, he convinced everyone that all the Nation's woes were do to too many laws and Congress, like little puppets, said, "yes sir," and de-regulated most everything. You will see later that this was definitely a bad idea. Second, the Old Gipper turned loose Ollie North and his merry band, who, in an effort to illegally fund rebels in Nicaragua. flooded the Land with cocaine.

George Herbert Walker Bush, a loathsome individual, promised, repeatedly, no new taxes, before he oversaw the raising of taxes. By the end of his term, the economy was in awful shape.

Then, we have Bill "Slick Willie" Clinton. For now, I will not mention all, and there are many, of his sleazy escapades, to focus on his rape of the Social Security Fund. He makes much of his balancing of the Federal Budget, but always omits the fact that he did this by, with no legal justification, borrowing from Social Security, money that has never been paid back. To any younger readers, do not count on drawing Social Security in your old age. The economy did boom while he was in office, but that had nothing to do with him. He was just lucky to be around when the Tech Bubble was happening. Of course, like all bubbles, it broke, leaving many a poor yuppie.

Next, we move to George Walker Bush, a man as loathsome as his Father. Let us overlook 9/11 and the whole Weapons of Mass Destruction nonsense. On the Domestic front, he should be remembered for his lack of action during the collapse of the Housing Bubble and the monstrous Banking Scandals, both the direct result of Reagan's de-regulation program. How a President can sit by and do nothing while big time investment banks not only collapse, but continue paying those who oversaw the collapse huge salaries and ridiculous salaries is beyond me. He should have called for their dismissal and deep Federal investigations. Instead, he called for tax payer bailouts. Oh, he did accomplish something else. He oversaw the creation of the Patriot Act. If you wish to know more about that, simply read Orwell's 1984.

Leaping to the present, we find Barak Obama. Barry O has been a busy fellow. First, he has tightened the noose of the Patriot Act, after hinting that he wanted it repealed. Second, he has forgotten that he is supposed to, according to our much neglected Constitution, govern in cooperation with Congress. Instead, he has signed a dizzying array of Executive Orders. I am still not sure why the legality of these unilateral actions has not been questioned but, it hasn't. Finally, we have his pride and joy, the Health Care Act. After he rammed this through Congress, many discovered that they had to drop plans they liked in exchange for more, much more, expensive plans. Businesses in a time of a stagnant economy, had an expense added that they could not really afford, so many dropped workers and began using part-timers they didn't have to cover. There were actually cases of post-menopausal women having to take policies that included pregnancy coverage. Those who were poor were told, "don't worry, the States will help you," only to find that they weren't eligible for help or that their State was one of many who were not going to help.

Why do I say Americans are gullible? Simple. Many when confronted with these facts refuse to believe them. "Oh, no, our Government wouldn't do that." More, will admit problems but insist that all of these issues can be fixed by voting for the right Candidate in the upcoming election. That is the gullibility factor comes in, and that is what I will discuss in my next installment.

In the meantime, most Americans will not give any of this a thought. All they want is football on the TV and a full refrigerator they can waddle over to. It is no accident that you see so many of those annoying erectile dysfunction treatment ads on sports programs.

American Gullibility - Part 1

America sees itself as a worldly, sophisticated country. Well, sorry folks. I love this Nation for many reasons, one of which is our childlike innocence. Many Americans still live in a world of limitless possibilities, and this does give us an exuberance, an enthusiasm. This idea that if we work hard and follow our dreams, we will achieve greatness, is a wonderful attitude and even when we fail, we pride ourselves on our ability to  pick ourselves up, dust off our clothes and get back to it.

However, it is a fine line between optimism and idiocy. We, often refuse to accept hard truths and we can never get back to moving forward until we take some time, look back a little and really see what has happened.

Lord knows, I do not want to dwell on the past, so let me hit a few of the main points. World War 1 was a bit of lunacy, fought over European colonial disputes. We never should have entered it and did so only because huge money German bankers, the Rothschild's, wanted a Jewish state in Israel They betrayed Germany by getting England to pass the Balfour Resolution in exchange for having their man in Washington push Woodrow Wilson into the War. By this time they had pushed Wilson onto creating the Federal Reserve, an un-Constitutional body, and in effect, they owned him.

Then, these same folks, in collusion with big time investors, made a ton of money by manipulating markets. The bottom finally fell out of these markets, after a bunch of folks made a bunch of money, and we were in the middle of the nightmare of the Great Depression.

In the meantime, these same interests, who loathed Tsarist Russia, started funding a new social movement, and the Soviet Union was born. Then to keep them in check, and, I truly believe a love of mischief was also a factor, as the Depression worsened, they funded that little fool, Hitler. The Powers that run the World, love to see a good fight because by manipulating the outcome, they grab more wealth and more control. Keep in mind, America, through such luminaries as the Harriman's and Prescott Bush, yes the Daddy of George Herbert Walker Bush and the Grandfather of George Walker Bush, were still trading with Nazis throughout the War. This is not Conspiracy Theory. This is well documented and Americans just do not want to admit it.

Then, when the War ended, we decided that we needed an Enemy and that our Wartime Ally, the Soviet Union was it. So, we hired the ex-Nazi spy master, Rudy Gehlen, to come up with something scary, and the whole stupid Cold War, in which both sides spent unthinkably huge amounts of money on arms, was born. All we got out of it was a huge pile of bombs that no one can use, unless, of course, we finally decide we're tired of the fuss and blow the World to bits.

All of that wealth, all of that time, wasted, by both sides. I really do not fault the Soviets. After WW2, why would they think they could trust us. Remember, without their nightmarish, but successful, defeat of Germany, we could not have pulled off the Normandy Invasion that clinched the deal in Europe. From their point of view, we stabbed them in the back. Just think, we could have well fed, healthy and superbly educated populations had we not wasted all of our efforts on unusable weapons. We could be colonizing the Solar System and setting sail to the stars.

While all of this was going on, we spent the lives of countless young men in a series of wars that have never been logically explained. I have never heard explanations that made any sense for our behavior in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. Every reason we have been given for the lunacy of these military adventures has been shown to be lies.

Look at our behavior in our own hemisphere. We have intervened in Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, El  Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua. Why? Always because we were defending 'American Business Interests.' Well guess what? These are the same businesses who yanked the jobs out from under good, hard working Americans and sent them to places where people will work for $2 a day under slave-like conditions.

And yet, still, I hear on a day to day basis, about how wonderful our military is. Are they good soldiers? Yes. Brave? Beyond a doubt. But, they are being used to extort other countries into doing the bidding of the Powers That Be, the Corporate Elite who want to rule the World. We are fighting for the very people who want to control us, to see us weak and impoverished. The 1% who control most of this Country's wealth, and most of the World's wealth are tightening their control on the backs and with the blood of those who they are taking wealth from

It makes no sense, and yet, in this the year of our elections, no one talks about what is right in front of our noses. Instead we have a never ending paraded of idiots prattling on about how much they are going to change things, about how they are going to make us great again. And the worst thing, the American public is still buying it.

In Part 2, I am going to go over some domestic history and in Part 3, I am going to discuss some of the things about our Presidential Candidates you will not hear on the CNN and Fox News or any of our other producers of news-like programming. 

American Food

Iran is capturing sailors, The Stock Market is dropping like a rock, and Turkey has suicide bombings so I want to talk about something far more important, Food.

I have about decided that most of our Nations problems comes from our denial of our traditional culinary traditions. We were great when we were a Nation of meat eating, potato gobbling, desert eating folks who paid small heed to our diet.

Now, I see folks who are living on tiny bits of food and lemon water. This week I saw mention of pro golfer Jason Day's current diet of egg whites, broccoli, sweet potatoes and protein shakes. Tiger Woods has said that he lives on salmon and steamed broccoli. Babe Ruth, perhaps the greatest baseball player ever, lived on steak, hot dogs, pork chops and beer. See the difference?

I worked in a school kitchen and the kids ate what they wanted. It was absurd. For example, we, on occasion, served nachos, meat, chips and cheese sauce, and in addition, we always had Spanish rice and a cooked vegetable. What did the kids eat? Chips and Cheese. For the most part, that was it. No meat and certainly no vegetable. Occasionally, a bit of rice. How can the human body function with such sorry fuel? The answer, not well at all.

For fuel, which is really all food is, you need some substance. As the old Dire Straits song said, "if you want to run cool, you got to rely on heavy handed fuel." A few chips and some runny cheese sauce won't do.

And neither will rice cakes, tofu, steamed edamame or any of the other faddish health food do. Protein shakes are for folks who can't stomach solid food. Egg whites are the nutritional equivalent of the merengue we used to put on lemon pie. These are not foods fit for fully functioning humans.

Neither is junk food and quick packaged junk like box mac and cheese.

And, neither is Oriental food. Japanese, Thai, Viet Namese,  Korea, and Chinese food, while a pleasant change of pace, on rare occasions, is not substantial enough to keep you up and moving, mentally or physically.

Give me American food. Steaks, chops, burgers. Hot open-faced beef or turkey sandwiches with good, rich gravy over good bread. Give me meat loaf with mashed potatoes and green beans. Fried chicken, fried catfish. Grits and cheese and bacon. Eggs and fried potatoes. Rich white sausage gravy over fluffy biscuits. Hot dogs and baked beans, thick ham and Swiss sandwiches and good onion and cheese steaks. These are American foods. This is the kind of diet we ate when we were building this magnificent Country.

Good for you? Who really knows? Folks live a little longer now, but that is largely because of medical advances. But, you know what? At some point, each and every one of us is going to leave this lovely planet, and it won't be on a space journey. Do you want to live on tasteless food, constantly worrying lest you eat something yummy? Do you want to totter through life half starving your body and struggling for energy? Or, do you want to eat some hearty food that will keep you running like a locomotive. And for the weight conscious, Folks are more frequently obese now than they were in the days when I was growing up, the days when we ate decent, real food.

So America, if you want to be great again, eat up. Steak and potatoes tonight for dinner.

America and the Passing of the Shape Shifter

I was not going to write a blog today since I have a mountain of business to attend to, but the passing of David Bowie has brought some thoughts to mind. I was not a fan of Bowie. I found his voice annoying and his music simple and somewhat boring. However, I have been fascinated by his persona, or lack there of.

As America left the 60s, it, along with much of the Western World, was in an awful state of flux. Forgetting the politics, the psychedelic experiments had changed everything. Even those who did not participate in those experiments were changed by the art, the ideas and the spiritual aura that the acid days cast on the world. If you say you were unaffected, you are kidding yourself, unless you were living in total isolation in the Okefenokee Swamp. The effects of that era still resonate strongly.

We came out of that period a bit unhinged. The psychedelics, among other things, open you to possibilities. You can be who you want. Your choice, if you have guts enough to deal with the fallout from the choice. But, while this can be liberating, it is fraught with danger. Anyone who becomes aware of this freedom had best be centered, or they will find themselves buffeted about by a vast array of spiritual forces, some quite unpleasant, and often find that they no longer exist, not as a discreet, intelligent entity. They become, in essence, a shape shifter, bending and changing forms without direction. And, when given media promotion done by master manipulators, they become a kind of Pied Piper, leading mindless followers down aimless paths.

Bowie changed persona the way some change underwear. He was a semi-folkie, a psychedelic balladeer, a musical ET, a bisexual drag queen, a Nazi loving- coke snorting royalist, a devotee of experimental electronic music, a soul singer, a rocker, and, in the end, nothing but a rich celebrity, His choices of spirituality show the lack of direction as he wavered between the bizarre teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, with its strong emphasis on dark magic, and Crowley style occultism, which is a confusing blend of silliness topped with a threatening black magic aura.

For contrast, look at Stewart Brand, former Merry Prankster and acid head, now highly respected futurist and environmentalist. Or, look even at his old buddy Ken Kesey. Kesey, while never abandoning his mental and spiritual explorations, lived out his life in a most traditional way, as a dairy farmer and devoted family man.

The difference? Bowie never seemed to find a center, a firm place to stand as he went through the world and that, combined with the pressures of an entertainment industry that always demands new product to keep the sales up, lead him to become a simple shape shifter, a being who becomes whatever seems appropriate or advantageous at the moment. At the core, a shape shifter is nothing, the whim of ever changing circumstance.

Brand, Kesey and countless others, found a center. That does not mean becoming static. Change is the constant factor in the Universe, and I love the idea of re-inventing yourself from time to time, it keeps you fresh and energized. But, the question is this: do you decide how you want to change? Do you initiate the changes while operating from a solid core, from a centered self. Or do you allow yourself to be the whimsy of business managers, and, worse still, the creations of unpleasant spiritual forces? Not all spiritual beings, contrary to New Age beliefs, are benevolent, and if you constantly shift in the psychic winds, you lose yourself, and it is damn hard to find your way home. What is much worse is the damage you usually do to others, friends and family, for sure, but in the case of such a popular performer, especially during an era when his followers were as lost as he, the toll in damages can be very steep.

Still, the man was vastly influential, both socially and musically. I am very sure that is not a good thing, especially when true artists like Tom Waits and David Bromberg, Maria Muldaur and Lucinda Williams, incredibly talented men and women, true artists, are largely ignored.

American Sports - Bigger, Stronger is Not Always Better

I have watched, the last 2 days, the Tournament of Champions PGA event from Hawaii. More and more, golf is becoming a power game. How far you can hit it? How strong and how fit are you? These are often the major topics of the commentators. It is impressive to watch guys bang it out there 350 yards, but there is more to the game than that.

Proof? The leader is last year's phenomenon. Jordan Speith. Jordan is a slightly longer than average driver, barely longer than average. McElroy. Dustin Johnson, Jason Day and many other players can bomb it 40 and 50 yard past him, yet Jordan was player of the year, won the Masters and the US Open and finished 4th at the British Open and second at the PGA. How? Skill combined with thought. By planning the round, by being consistent and by being a fine chipper and a superb putter, he can more than  compensate for the lack of power. The Game is mental and he is as tough as they come. You win at Golf by avoiding mistakes, minimizing the effects of the bad shots everyone hits, and taking advantage of the opportunities that arise. Power, while nice, is not always an advantage. When long drivers are off and spraying the ball all over the course, they do not score well.

Golfers now, we are told, spend countless hours in the gym. If you want to do that. fine, I guess, but think of two things. First, the past greats of the game, for the most part did no such thing. Second, look at Bubba Watson. Bubba is as long as anyone, maybe longer, but by no means is he a great muscular guy. Actually, he is quite slender. Now, I am sure he does something to stay in shape, but his power doesn't come from hours in the gym. Instead, Bubba just seems to have an instinctual feel for how to get the most out of his swing. His power is the result of impeccable timing, each part perfectly coordinated to produce the utmost results.

An example of the limits of power and training is Tiger Woods. Tiger always had power, even when he was a skinny young man and that power, like Bubba's, came from the timing of his swing. Time went by, he became obsessed with fitness and muscle, and guess what? He got very little more distance. Then, as he became more and more bloated with muscle, the injuries started, and with each injury he spent more and more time in the gym. Finally, almost inevitably, he tore up his back. After surgery? Back to the gym, back to the course, and back to surgery, twice, and now, possibly through with the game. You can overdo exercise, and, unless you are planning a career as a power lifter, you need to use great care in the drive for power. Golf, like many other sports, is more that power.

Why this emphasis in Golf. Simple. They want to be as noticed and make as much money as other sports figures. Baseball and football, have over the years, placed more and more stress on power. The results? Season ending injuries in football  have become common. In the past, football players got beat up a lot but most made it through at least most of the year without catastrophic injury. Now, it is quite common for player to be out for the year before pre-season is over.

Same with baseball. Pitchers are constantly dealing with bad arms when in the old days, they pitched often, went deeper into the game (yes, they used to pitch the whole 9 innings, frequently). Position players got banged up and pulled muscles but missing months at a time was unheard of. Too much muscle is not a good idea. The building of unnatural muscle mass does not make you a lot stronger and those muscles are easy to tear. Also, in baseball, like golf, the drive for power causes other skills to falter.

Remember, in any sport, power is nice, to a limited degree, but how strong you are is not the issue. The important thing in any game of skill, especially at the professional level, is who wins.

America and its Southern Neighbors

I am confused about something, but of course that's nothing new. For my entire life, this Nation has concerned itself with Europe, the Mid-East and, to lesser degrees, Asia and Africa, We have, mostly, ignored our neighbors to the South. Why?

The only President I remember paying a lot of attention to the region is JFK, whose Alliance for Progress was a great idea that became lost in LBJ's Great Society and Viet Nam pushes. Oh sure, every now and then we give lip service to the area, mostly when a natural disaster occurs. Nixon did turn his attention to Chile but only to allow Kissinger to unseat and execute their properly elected President, Salvador Allende, a move that hardly won us friends. Clinton's NAFTA deal did nothing to help them or us. Our occasional mucking about in the affairs of Haiti has been disastrous for those poor folks. Mexico, who should be a dear friend, is only thought of when we get riled about illegal immigrants (they have been coming here to work farms as long as we have had farms) and when we want to pretend we are fighting a war on drugs.

Venezuela is a case in point. When heating oil was going through the roof, Hugo Chavez offered to sell cheap oil to the US. His efforts at good will were rebuffed and he was treated like an unwanted step child. Look at Cuba. Our sanctions have done great harm to the Cuban people. Forget Castro. Yes, he is a monster, but no worse than a bunch of other monsters we have supported. Remember, after we ousted Allende in Chile, we supported, avidly, Pinochet, a cruel creature who sent death squads through the streets slaughtering opponents, except for a select few who he had tortured to death.

But these, blessedly, are exceptions. Most of the time we pretty much ignore Latin America and we will regret that. Nations like Brazil and Argentina could be great allies and trading partners, as could Bolivia, Peru, and, now that I think about it, any country down there. Yet, we are so damned interested in the mid-East. I can't imagine why. It's not about oil. Mexico and Venezuela have huge oil reserves. Instead, China does a lot of business with Latin America, and not just oil. Several of those countries have large reserves of rare minerals, the kind that are used in almost every high tech industry. Yet, we seem to have no interest in cultivating relations with them.

If things go as usual, we will continue ignoring Latin America until we desperately need something from them, and that day will come. Then we will have to go either with hat in hand, begging, or we will try our frequent strategy, bullying. Those folks aren't dumb, they will remember and we will pay for our neglect

If I were a young person, entering college, I would study Spanish and Portuguese. I would learn everything I could about Latin America's history, culture and economics. I would study their climates and geography and natural resources. Because then, I believe, about the time the studies are finished, we will be looking more and more at Latin America, either as a very lucrative trading partner and ally or as a serious and perhaps even deadly rival. Either way, that knowledge would be indispensable and I would have a fine professional life ahead of me. But, you know, wouldn't it be nice if for once, we used a little foresight and entered into a new era of relations with our Southern Neighbors as friends.

America's Frontiers

Americans are a restless people. We have never been ones to stay at home. Oh sure, there are some who cling to hearth and home, but they always seem to have bred a bunch of young ones who were ready to take off just about anywhere. The grass has always seemed greener almost anywhere, except where we are at.

Thus, we explored and exploited this vast continent in comparatively short order. By the time the Great Depression ended, we were spread throughout the Nation and, ever since, there has been something wrong. There is no place left to go, and that restless energy has been eating at us ever since.

There are places on Earth that are still unexplored but who among us has the funds to set up camp and roam Antarctica? Who among us can build the sort of craft necessary to ferret out the secrets of the Ocean Floors.

So, we turn inward. Artists write progressively strange tales, ultimately forgetting the tale in search of new technique. Painters revert to some neo-primitive exploration of shape and color. Musicians, having exhausted standard form, traffic in atonal music and electronic bleeps and squeaks.

Some explore the body and attempt to plumb the limits of strength and longevity with the use of steroids and growth hormones and a plethora of enzymes and neuro chemical boosters. Ultimately, they will seek to transcend the body by turning themselves into a hybrid of man and machine.

Still others turn to the spiritual, employing exotic meditations, shamanic trances, and vision quests involving a hell broth of chemicals. The marijuana, peyote, mushrooms, and LSD of my day have given way to way to a dizzying array of designer chemicals and trips to the Amazon in search of ayhuasca are a trendy new vacation choice.

All of these are but vain substitutes for the real thing, physical exploration. I thought, given the speed with which we answered JFK's challenge and reached the moon, that by now we would be leaving the Solar System and on our way to the stars. But, no. Just the other day, I saw a brief article stating that our planned trip to Mars was now off.

What can be done? Short of a new determination by our Government to invigorate our space program, unlikely since most in Government can't find their ass with both hands, all we can do is to look closer at what is here. Yes, we have explored our World, but often we did so hastily. Let us go back and look again. Odds are we have missed quite a bit and now we should be sufficiently mature to take our time.

I chuckle sometimes at the silly shows on History TV that feature people searching for, well you name it: UFOs, the Lost Dutchman Mine, the Treasure of Oak Island, giants, sea serpents, Big Foot, the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, signs that the New World was visited by Egyptians, Chinese, Phoenicians, the Irish and/or the Polynesians. Is there anything to these weird stories? Sure, probably something is behind these persistent stories, but it does not matter. What is important is the quest, the search, for in the search, we find ourselves.

America: Calm Down

I think, and I can be as guilty as anyone, that we occasionally, well, okay, quite often, get a mite hysterical. On and on go our politicians and news pundits about the dangers of terrorism. I want you consider a few things.

First, the nature of terrorism. We seem to think that this phenomenon has sprung, fully grown, in the recent years. No, it is old, very old. At the time of the Crusades, there was a group who specialized in terrorist actions and assassinations. It was formed out of one of the many strange offshoots of Islam and was run by Hassan I Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountain. He, using a slick mind control technique that involved promises of eternal pleasure, mixed with heavy doses of hashish, programmed hit squads which sent terror into the hearts of all who opposed them. They were called Assassins, from the word hashish.

The Vietnamese defeated the Mongols by planting booby traps and picking off soldiers caught in them. Native Americans waged a constant series of harassing attacks against settlers which we, today, world call terrorism. Heck, the war we fought against the British in 1776 was a campaign of terror, beginning with the Boston Tea Party.

Anytime a small force fights a larger and stronger one, they can only do so through acts of terror, quick raids, planted explosives, kidnapping, harassing attacks. This is a simple tactic and, objectively speaking, it's a darn effective one.

However, it only works if the party attacked loses perspective, if they panic. Al Qaida, or whoever, the facts are a bit cloudy, but let's go with the official story for the sake of argument, destroyed the World Trade Center. It was a horrific act. But, then, not much. Yes, here and there, there have been attacks in other countries, and that is a horror that should be stopped, but, here, in the US? Again, not much.

There have been more incidents of domestic terror than those perpetrated by radical Islam. We tend to forget the Oklahoma City bombing, the Atlanta Olympics bombing, the many abortion clinics blown up and the DC Snipers. We forget the Weather Underground bombings of the 60s, which might have been worse had they not blown themselves up.

From Al Qaida, since 9/11? Nothing but talk. Now, we are beset with the threats of ISIL. So far? One attack by two people who sympathized with ISIL and managed to kill 14 and wound 17. I am not in the least making light of that horror but, that's 31 people out of a Nation of 350,000,000. Cause for concern? Yes, of course. But, reason to panic, to run frantically in circles, bemoaning the fate of the Land. No. We will not succumb to such organizations. We may succumb to our own greed, sloth and stupidity, but not to terrorism, unless we turn a blind eye to the most dangerous groups in the Land. I am speaking of the White Supremacist/Christian Identity Groups. They have been fairly quiet but do not, for an instant, think we have heard the last of them.

America has Lost Focus

Today, I turn on the news and find that the stock market is dropping like a rock, China's economy is tanking, Iran and the Saudis are at each others throats, Obama is about to unilaterally impose restrictions on gun sales, and a semi-militia group has taken over a building in Oregon. So, what is the news focused on? You guessed it. The Iowa Caucuses.

Now, with no offense intended toward the good folks of Iowa, who cares? This is a small state, without enough votes to sway an election one way or another. Their caucuses are a confusing sort of polling whose outcome largely depends on how heavy its snowing on the night they are held. They represent a demographic that is outside the mainstream and, again, they are just not a major player in National politics.

We have a month until those caucuses are held, yet we are getting almost hourly reports in the campaigning there. Just think, folks, this is just the start. Then we will go through the same lunacy in the tiny state of New Hampshire. By the time we hit the big states I expect we will have bulletins every 15 minutes, with special reports on how often Hillary sneezed and what Trump had for breakfast, and these are only the primaries. Then, God help us all, we have the actual campaigns, when I expect the coverage to be round the clock, with updates on how often the candidates are going to the bathroom.

In other countries, election campaigns are restricted to short periods, which saves money and forces candidates to get right to the issues. I do not care if Bill is going to campaign for Hillary and if the Donald is going to attack his aggressive sexual behavior. I will say that Trump should do so very carefully, lest someone dig up some skeletons in his closet.

But, as so often, the money is the issue. By having these terminally long campaigns, not just for President, but for all political offices, we are insuring that money is doing the talking. Candidates, to keep up, have to raise fortunes and the guys footing the bill are the guys calling the tune. To win, you have to become indebted to big money capitalists and that means, you will be doing their bidding. That is the interesting thing about Trump, he is the big money. What that means for his potential Presidency is beyond me.

I have no idea how this will all play out, but I do know one thing. Covering every slight change in the polls in tiny states, while ignoring potentially world changing events, is a bad idea and everyone connected with the National media should hang their heads in shame.

American Magic

America is a land of magic. No, no, not the David Copperfield sort of stage show. I mean the real thing; magick, as the occultists call it.

Let's be clear about the definition of magick. I am not talking about the conjuring of demons and elementals to do your bidding. Are such things possible? Probably, but that is just an extreme form. I am not talking about the dark dementia old Crowley and his ilk. Magick is simply changing the fabric of space-time, to suit your own purpose, by the strength of your will. That sounds fancy, but it isn't. Say I am hungry and their is ham and bread available. I will myself to go to the refrigerator and rearrange the fabric of the universe, which contains ham and bread, into a sandwich, which I will myself to take to the table and eat. I have worked an act of magick and there is so much going on in the brain and body when I do so that it really is magickal.

Think of all our technology. Sci-fi great, Arthur C. Clark said that any sufficiently advanced technology will seem magical to those who do not possess it. Cars, TVs, even vacuum cleaners would be astounding to the great Pharaohs of Egypt, and, again when you study the physics behind these devices, you realize that they are magick.

But, the greatest magickal act in American history was worked by an odd little fellow named Harry Smith. Smith was a beatnik, for want of a better term, and sort of a proto-hippy. He made fascinating experimental films and to this day, the importance of this broke down, alcoholic, pot smoking amphetamine addict is vastly overlooked.

Smith collected old 78 records, what were then called hillbilly and race records, blues, folk, gospel music. He, at the urging of a record producer, collected them into one package, and released The Anthology of American Folk Music. However, he packaged them in an interesting way. He grouped them by type and assigned each type one of the 4 basic elements of Classical and Alchemical thought.

Years later he explained his reason. He said that he was out to create a Magickal Working that would change America. He succeeded. His collection became almost a Bible for the late 50s=early 60s folk music revival. Out of that came Bob Dylan, perhaps our greatest songwriter, ever, and he has acknowledged his debt to Smith. Not only that, many of the 60s generation rock and blues greats learned their craft and found their inspiration from his efforts. Jerry Garcia and his lyricist Robert Hunter of the Grateful Dead were huge fans. You can hear his influence in artists as diverse as Springsteen, David Crosby, and Joan Baez, among countless others. Even artists who have never heard the collection have been strongly influence by those who devoured it.

But, as is often the case, the magick went deeper. The songs Smith chose are reminders of an America that many had overlooked, sometimes quite intentionally. In his songs you hear tales of the strangeness that contributed to our greatness. The world of tent show preachers and voodoo healers, of outlaws and con men, of jealous lovers and gambling men, of low down women and weird mystic ramblers, is opened in his collection. There is a refusal by the old, weird folks who, just as much as the straight-laced, narrow minded businessmen, built this country; a refusal to just disappear in a corner, to just dry up and go away and stop embarrassing the regular folks. Thank God there is that refusal because, without the strangeness, even when it becomes unbearably sad or unspeakably violent, we would be terminally boring.

I guess everyone has some strange relative, an uncle, perhaps, who shows up at the family get- togethers and gets drunk and rambles on with old, tall tales and generally causes a scene. Well, think of Harry as that uncle and his collection as the pint of liquor the old guy sneaks in to liven things up. My Lord, wouldn't life be a bore without characters like that.

The Anthology of American Folk Music may be the greatest work of magick in the history of this strange old world. And just think, the work of a cranky, half-crazy lunatic changed the Nation.