It's Really Not That Important

I used to think there are a lot of things in life that are important. Too many things, maybe. I used to think that it was important to determine what is important, and then to add those things to my priority list. But the list would keep growing, and there would always be something of priority waiting to be addressed. I guess it’s good to pay attention to things, but not necessarily to everything that might end up on the list. Anything, really, could find its way to the list, and then once it’s there it would become a priority, no matter how far down the list it might happen to be. After all, if it’s on the list it takes on the mantle of importance, and that makes it important whether it’s actually important or not. Sometimes my list has been written, and sometimes mental, but a list, nevertheless.

Today I think it’s important to sit on the porch and listen to a baseball game on the radio.
I would never put the game on a priority list, but I will make a point to listen sometimes. There’s something about a time out, time away, a break, of sorts, in the middle of the day. Something I’ve not only come to enjoy, but seem to need as well.

Sometimes all that other important stuff can just wait.
People too.

Trails

Over the past year my wife and I have spent considerable time cutting in walking trails through the forested land that we are fortunate enough to ‘own’ (as if the earth can actually be owned by someone). But the sections we worked were those that, by virtue of their natural flow, kind of designed themselves. We just had to follow their lead and do the clearing. Of course there was some decision making in the process because there were many junctures where the trail could have gone this way or that, or the other way even. Although most of the options appeared to be good, ultimately, we had to decide on the direction. When those trails were finished we could walk them, pleased with, and somewhat proud of, the outcome because it truly was a partnership with nature. Nature, in a sense, quietly guided our willing hands.

But there is an area of our property that is so thickly forested that I have not even had the inclination to explore it.
Until recently.
We took on the laborious task of creating trails through the thick undergrowth of its secluded beauty, and opening that part of the land for our enjoyment. We are, at the same time, creating better access, and easier passage, for the different animals that traverse the property. It’s different than the previous section that we worked. There is no path of least resistance, there is no natural flow of the topography. We pretty much have had to navigate our way on instinct, but instinct gained by the experience of creating the former trails. Even at that, our best guesswork has been playing an important part in the process.

With the kind of density we’ve been cutting through it has often been difficult to see more than a few feet ahead of us, and consequently almost impossible to know if we’re taking the trail in the best direction, even a good direction for that matter, one that will eventually connect with the other paths we made. Every step of the way has been challenging, but rewarding, as we break into a small clearing, or make a turn that feels like it is in harmony with the land. Starting out it had all been pretty harrowing, and somewhat overwhelming, but retracing our steps on a new path, with increasing distance, back to the starting point has enabled us to realize the beauty of our accomplishment. The walk feels natural, the path does feel like it conforms to the lay of the land, almost as if it were set into the forest from above, as if it were created by someone who could see where he wanted to go, and not by someone simply navigating blindly, or relying only on instinct and experience.
At the outset it would have been easy to face this particular section of forest and conclude that it would be too difficult to tackle, too encompassing of a task, too time consuming, with no guarantee of a satisfactory outcome. It would have been easy to forego the challenge and just enjoy the trails we were already using.
And it would have denied us the enjoyment of this part of our land.

Life brings with it a certain natural flow. Like the first section of forest we worked, life kind of designs itself at times, and in ways that requires very little of us but to follow its lead. And we do so, at least most of us, willingly, and without concern. We ‘fall’ into jobs, relationships, communities etc. Life and opportunities present themselves along the way, but it is up to us to choose the ‘what’ the ‘where’, the ‘when’, and the ‘how’. That is kind of our partnership with life. That is our privilege.
But, as you know, it is not always quite that smooth.

Sometimes the future looks very complicated, it feels unpredictable, confusing, and tangled. We fear it at times, are intimidated by it, and we put off approaching it as if it were that thick forest with dense undergrowth, an as yet unknown part of our lives that might be easier left undisturbed. It feels like it would be futile to engage with it, too much work, or too much of a mystery, a particularly daunting endeavor were we to enter its beckoning landscape. We are often left paralyzed, unable to take a step forward.
But in considering the future, and what it might ask of us, we must understand that there is no qualification necessary for motivation, or for intent. There is no skill required for desire, or for courage. These are internal qualities we can call on to the same degree that we have cultivated them in the past. They are qualities we can wrap in faith to move us in, and through, an otherwise unapproachable future.
Life calls each of us to carve out our own path at times.

I am enjoying our new hiking trails.
What once seemed like an impossible task has now become a source of great pleasure for my wife and I.

It began with our first step into the forest.

I Don't Trust Happiness

Unhappiness is something you can depend on. It will never leave you as long as you continue to embrace it. It will be your constant companion, through thick and thin, through brief moments of elation even. It will be waiting to comfort you as those occasional, but fleeting, feelings of happiness return you to its care. Unhappiness takes little effort, and it comes quite easily to those who seek the familiarity of its presence. It can be like a warm blanket, or an old friend. It can be shelter from the world, or from the wind. Unhappiness will follow you like a shadow, without invitation, and without argument or disagreement. It will cling to your soul like molasses.
Unhappiness can find you unexpectedly, like a package from FedEx sent to you by someone you love, or by a stranger. You only need to sign for it to own it. You could turn it away, I suppose, but how many people really do that? Unhappiness is very difficult to turn away, or to turn away from.
You can trust it.

Happiness, on the other hand, is fickle, it is unreliable, and it is cruel. It will tease you with promise, and try to lure you with faith. Every time you think you find happiness it turns out to be a temporary condition. Every time you think happiness has landed in your lap an unexpected trauma, or calamitous event, will visit you like an uninvited neighbor. Just when you get comfortable with it someone will hurt you, something will overwhelm you, or some unforeseen circumstance will arrive to ensure that your happiness cannot be sustained. Someone will acquire the keys to steal your bliss.
Happiness will only disappoint you.

I don’t trust happiness.
You have to work at happiness, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and even circumstantially. You have to work to overcome the natural gravitation towards its opposition. Happiness doesn’t ever just arrive, at least not freely. There is always some deal it wants to make with you. Happiness is sometimes promised in exchange for your soul, but they say the devil is the one who wants to make that deal.
As far as I can tell, God doesn’t promise happiness. I think He just promises to be with us through the struggle.

Unhappiness comes naturally.
But I think happiness is a learned experience.
It’s not for the indolent, or the unprepared.
As I said before, “It never just happens”.

I’m happy. At least for now.
I don’t trust happiness.
But I do trust God.

Clearing Out The Clutter

A man I know has recently been working around his property, clearing brush, trimming trees, cutting down the dying, the dead, and the unproductive, and opening space to provide himself with some breathing room and a better view.

I have been doing the same since becoming owner, and caretaker, of some beautiful acreage in the mountains. When property is neglected, left unattended, it becomes whatever it will become by virtue of its own untamed nature. However, in order to coexist comfortably with nature, one must be, undoubtedly, amenable to compromise. One must allow for the natural world to exist partially on its own terms, but require it to exist partially on the terms that he decides on for himself. To allow the full force of nature would prove to be overwhelming, and eventually threatening, to the sensibility and wellbeing of any individual. To succumb to the will of nature would not, could not, ever turn out for the better. But, conversely, to subjugate nature entirely to one’s own will would, ultimately, reduce a persons life to confinement in an over-controlled, finely manicured ‘natural’ prison of one’s own making. A gated community, if you will. A place where you pay other people to control the wild around you, to protect you from the natural world.

And so it is within us. It is important for us as individuals to clear the clutter, to establish open space on the inside, within our mind, within our soul, and yes, within our hearts, to eliminate the dead, the dying, and the unproductive, to provide some breathing room, to allow ourselves an unfettered and fresh perspective, to create for ourselves, as it were, a better view.
Clearing the clutter can mean moving away from addictions, from self-destructive behaviors, from stubborn points of view, from family drama, religious dogma, social conformity, intellectual bigotry, or ‘spiritual’ or political righteousness. It can mean letting go of baggage that weds you to inherent self-defeat. It can mean the severing of a lifestyle, or relationship. It is when we hang on to all the people we’ve ever known, and all the habits and concerns that we have collected over the years, that our lives, and relationships, become like that of the hoarder who ends up buried alive in the accumulation of his own unremarkable junk.

We must find compromise with our own nature. We must channel its raw energy into productive forms of expression, rather than enabling it to have its way within us, growing unencumbered, exponentially, like bacteria in need of antibiotics. We must draw parameters for growth and then cultivate that which we have allowed to take root. We must disallow the brush and weeds from gaining control of our lives.
Only then will we be able to co-exist with our own nature. Only then will we be free
of those we pay to help control the wild within us, and who we ultimately rely on to protect us from ourselves.

There is freedom in a clear perspective.
And in an organized life.

Number 2 Hundred

I like that number. I like the way it looks, and I like the way it sounds. When I was younger, playing on different sports teams I always wanted to be Number 2. I never wanted to be ‘1’, or ‘#1’, or even ‘Number 1’. Being ‘Number 1’ would be way too much pressure. And it’s kind of a self-aggrandizing number anyway. But, actually, I wouldn’t mind being ‘Number Won’. That would be kind of cool. I like the implication of that.

Anyway, back to my point. I didn’t really want to be ‘2’, or ‘#2’ either. But I always wanted to be ‘Number 2’. I never could be. They don’t allow special numbers like that for guys like me. Maybe for LeBron James, if he wanted it, but not for me.
If I’d had to settle for ‘2’, or ‘#2’, I’d rather have been ‘two’, or ‘too’ even. Or better yet, ‘Also’. Being ‘Also’ would be awesome. ‘Also’ means ‘too’, which sounds the same as ‘two’, which actually is ‘2’.
Well, it gets complicated.

This is my two hundredth blog, ‘Number 2 Hundred’, if you will. I like that even more than ‘Number 2’. It kind of rhymes, it looks balanced when it’s written out like that, and it kind of rolls off the tongue if you roll the R’s with a foreign accent.

Over these past 199 blogs I’ve always tried to give you writing of some substance, or at least of some interest. It has often been introspective, sometimes controversial, sometimes silly, angry, or convoluted. I have expressed psychological and spiritual dynamics that you may, or may not, have agreed with, but you have at least had the opportunity to embrace, or reject, a point of view. I just put out there what I know, or think I know, illuminating the obvious. My truth is how I see a very complicated world, the picture through my lens. Your truth, obviously, is just as valid as mine.

I have given political perspectives that might have made you mad, that might have caused you to consider me to be a nut, or an ideologue (same difference, I guess), or even worse, a ‘conservative’. But, along the way, I hope you have been wise enough not to pigeon-hole me, or marry me to a specific perspective. That would be a convenient rationale to enable you to disregard, or even outright reject, anything of value that I might have left to say. That would be your loss, as the disregard, or rejection, of you would be mine.
Perspective is a living organism. It changes and evolves. At least mine does, and I hope that’s true of yours as well. And even though my thoughts have always made sense to me, I acknowledge that they may not have necessarily always made sense to you.
But the beauty of thought is that it takes thinking to figure it out.

In writing those past 199 blogs, I have, admittedly, not always been successful in my attempt to communicate my thoughts and feelings, and some of it might even be considered to be mundane drivel. But I can say, without equivocation, that I have always tried to write honestly. That is what has always been important to me.
Drivel, or even Profundity, be damned.

I will keep writing as long as you keep reading. And probably even if you don’t.

Number 2 Hundred.
And they said it wouldn’t last.

As I’ve already mentioned, I used to want to be ‘Number 2’.
But, if I were on a sports team today, I’d want to be ‘Number 2 Hundred’.
I like that number.
I like the way it looks.
And I like the way it sounds.

An Ode To Spring

Here in North America Spring is rapidly approaching, there is an amorous arousal on the Continent, and with it comes the inclination, compulsion even, for humans to do what most humans do to ensure that we, as a species, continue to exist.
Friending on our Facebooks, and Tweeting on our Twitters.

I thought the weather was going to hold for Spring, when we had a weeks worth of high 70’s / low 80’s sunny days. But a snowstorm snuck its way in here a couple of days ago, covering the trees, and the ground, with a beautiful fresh blanket of sweet surreal virgin–white mountain foam. An image to die for. Nothing digital, or technical, in the visitation. Purely natural, a cool exhaled breath from the mouth of nature’s own magnificence. An unexpected pleasure, like a postcard from an old friend, or a kiss on the forehead from one’s lover. The snow lasted only through the next day, and then was gone, melting into the earth like a heart melts into the arms of a warm embrace; winter, having quietly exited stage left, with clear skies, and that glorious sunshine, emerging to enchant the restless patrons with its own particular brilliance.

This change of season has enabled the canoe to find its way out of the barn, and the fishing poles to jump into the hands of eager anglers. At least with an amateur like me the fish should be safe for another season. Portions of the day can now be spent, gratefully, beneath an ever-expanding sky. Lake-time like no other time, and taking time to love it makes for harmony in, and of, a far-too-often flat and dissonant soul such as myself.

The buds (not those kind) are popping out on trees and bushes like measles on a six-year-old boy. Some have already begun to bloom, our dogwood trees, typically, running well ahead of the others. The Dogwood’s know when Spring’s about ready to emerge. I think the Grand Designer may text them ahead of time, allowing them the pleasure of the first display.

Early morning time writing, after-breakfast walks in the forest, or cruising the pristine shore of the lake, working on the land, evenings sitting on the porch, then laying awake all night in anticipation of being able to get up early tomorrow to enjoy it all again.
It’s a good time of life for me. I’m very thankful for that.

But as I sit here writing there’s a buzzard perched on an old Oak branch just outside my window. Ironically, he’s probably waiting for me to die. Although some may argue that I’m already dead, Spring indicates to me otherwise. I can feel helium in my blood again, and life in my creaking bones. I’m hoping you can feel that too.

Not the ‘creaking’ part, of course, but the ‘life’ part, for sure.

Loving / Being Loved

Humans spend an inordinate amount of time wanting, wishing, waiting, and trying to be loved. Many of the untold decisions that we make are made with the hope of being loved. Many of the seemingly inconsequential actions we take are for the same reason. We feel incomplete when we lack the love of someone we hope to be loved by. We feel alone, we feel unwanted, we feel insignificant. Our self-esteem plummets. We are minimized, and become marginalized by our own experience, in our own eyes, and in the perception of others. Those of you who have been without love understand that all too clearly.

However, many people are controlled by their need to be loved, and some even try to control others regarding the manner in which they wish to be loved. Many suffer serious debilitating illnesses when those expectations are not adequately met. I knew a woman who, in an attempt to be loved ‘the way she wanted to be loved’ took on a mysterious illness as a means of getting the love (attention) that she was lacking. Doctors never found anything wrong with her, but for many years they appeased her in that need by sending her to a myriad of different specialists, and prescribing a pharmacies worth of different medications to make her feel better. She welcomed those drugs like a fish welcomes water. It has, over the years, been a horrendous abuse of the Health Care system, and an even worse (self-generated) collapse of her own dignity. Of course, her basic need for control continued to prevail. It was easier for her to be sick than to be honest. That, obviously, was the actual illness. It was easier to illicit sympathy than to embrace reality. It was just easier for her.
Eventually the illness will kill her. It is the case with many people.
Dishonesty kills.

Love takes courage.

Lacking that courage, it is very common for people to make themselves unlovable, rejecting the love of others because it is not the ‘kind’ of love they want, and then resenting not being loved by the same ones whose love they have dismissed. That resentment, ultimately, leads to depression and eventual personal deterioration. Defining how one wants to be loved, rather than accepting someone else’s love for what it is, is, also, often what drives people to seek compromised solutions, becoming willing to settle for a semblance of love, oftentimes in the forbidden, in the mysterious, or the profane. Some will embrace a substitute as if it were love itself.

Love is something we don’t really want to live without. The modern day ‘love yourself’ theology, and movement, emerged as a comfortable way to compensate for our own un-loveliness, for our own compromised position in the world, and for the ever deepening void of authentic love in our lives. Those lacking a fundamental love will eventually embrace either self-loathing or self-love to fill the emptiness. Love is a very powerful thing. I believe that we should respect ourselves, we should love that we are diverse, unique, interesting and complex individuals, and that we should embrace the presence, and growth, of love within ourselves; not ‘of’ ourselves, but ‘within’ ourselves. The ‘I love myself’ way of thinking seems just a little creepy to me. I know people who are in love with themselves, and believe me, it’s not very pretty.

Then there are those who want to be loved by everyone; everyone they know, and everyone they meet. They can’t be happy unless they feel loved by all. But if everybody loves you based on how you act in seeking their approval, more likely than not, you have some deep, secret, and serious issues, some honesty avoidance issues, or some kind of chameleon personality. No one really knows another like they think they do, and love seekers are not really known by anyone. They conceal their faults and failures like a cheap suit covers a flawed body. If one’s consuming focus is on being loved, one will never really love somebody else, they can only pretend at it. When one seeks to just meet their own needs, to the exclusion of the needs of others, they compromise the act of receiving love, they subvert it, and they invalidate it. They seek to take love, rather than to be given it. They cheapen love, and they overthrow its basic intent. Love will not be taken. It is always given because that’s what love does. That’s what love is.
It gives of itself.

Loving is not necessarily always doing what somebody else would like, or even what they think might satisfy them. Sometimes it is being, for them, the voice of reason, the solid ground from which their soul can take root and grow.
Sometimes love is coming to the rescue.
And sometimes love is doing nothing at all.

In many respects it takes the love of others to enable our own ability to love. But it can also be said that loving enables ones ability to be loved.
It works both ways.
Personally, I think that when we cultivate loving, the love of others finds us.
It just finds us, usually unexpectedly,
but it finds us.

It’s Really More Simple Than It Seems

Life is never easy, but there is a less complicated way to live, there is a general guide to live by, a means of keeping ones equilibrium in life. It is often the second choice of any given individual, but it is, ultimately, the best choice. It is a tried, true, and historically tested manner of being. It is ancient wisdom, and it is applicable in contemporary life as well. It is not complicated, and it is embraceable by all but the truly self-indulgent. It is for those wishing to live in harmony with consciousness, and for those simply wanting not to stray too far from what they know to be of value and importance. It is a principle that allows the pleasure, and the enjoyment of life, but holds at bay the temptations that call to us like sirens in an enveloping fog. It is a place where honesty trumps deception, and where kindness supercedes self-service. It is a place of self-denial by choice, rather than by imposition. It is where integrity resides, and self-importance falls away like dead skin.

There is satisfaction in the process, and reward in itself. It is an automatic system of checks and balances that does not really need to be checked, or balanced. It is moving in the slipstream, and it is living in the blessing. It is a state of mind, and of practice. It is being comfortable with the intention of one’s life, and uncomfortable with one’s adversarial nature. It is what enables a thankful heart, and perpetuates a sense of gratitude. It incubates faith. It encourages liberty, and provides sanctuary. It allows for the expansion of the soul.

As I said, “Life is never easy, but there is a less complicated way to live.
It’s really more simple than it seems.”

Be IN the world,
but not OF the world.

What Are We Thinking?

You’ve probably been reading about the sexual abuse scandal involving U.S. swim coaches who have been molesting, groping, and secretly taping numerous young female swimmers around the country. Thirty-six coaches have been banned for life. Now I bet that really makes us feel good about ourselves! Not that they’re going to go coach somewhere else, or anything like that!!!

Have you had about enough of the phony righteous concern being expressed by the U.S. Governing body, and other presiding authorities, who pretend they want to ‘clean up the sport’? Don’t we go through this every year? With swimming, gymnastics, ice-skating? And, obviously, not only with U.S. Olympic sanctioned sports. It happens every day in youth soccer, Little League baseball, girls softball, wrestling, and other sports as well. Oh, they’re intent on catching the perpetrators. . . . . . . . . . .yeah, after the f***ing molestations have already occurred! That does the kids a lot of good.

Question: If all these so-called ‘authorities’ are so motivated to prevent the devastation in these children’s lives, why do they not have the courage to make changes that actually work?
Answer: Oh, I don’t know, could it be that ‘harmless’ little Political Correctness (Personal Cowardice) gene I’m always talking about? Just wondering.

Solutions? Hey, I’ve got an idea. Of course it would have taken a genius, like myself, to think of it. It’s not like any ordinary intelligent adult could conceive of such a solution!

NO MORE MEN COACHING YOUNG GIRLS. ANYWHERE. EVER.
(Oh, did I say that out loud?)

Let me repeat. EVER. Not in youth sports, not in High School. Not until girls are Juniors in College, or at least an equivalent age. Not until girls are old enough to read the intentions of their coaches, and experienced enough, and confident enough, to navigate that minefield, or at least mature enough to make their own choices in the matter. That means they must be ADULTS. Do you hear me? There is just too heightened of a sexual presence in today’s world. Does anybody think that these coaches do not indulge their fantasies on the Internet, and then not succumb to the compulsion to ‘play them out’ with the kids on their teams? Predators almost always gravitate towards the youngest, the weakest, the most vulnerable and clueless. That means children and adolescents. Is there anybody responsible for Youth Sports in our country that does not understand that?

You say, “But what about the boys?” Simple, until boys are juniors in High School every male coach must be complimented by an equal number of female coaches present on the team. Let me say that again. For every male coach on a Youth Sports team there must also be a female coach on the same team. I don’t care if all she does is bring snacks (that is not a comment on women as coaches, it is a comment on the importance of having a female presence). To further ensure the protection of our children, no male coach should have any contact with a child, or teen, away from the court, or playing field, for any reason, unless the child is accompanied by a parent, or another female coach. You say, “But what about sleepovers? They’re a tradition for youth sports teams” Yeah, they are, and I say, “Exactly what kind of adult male coach (married, or not) wants to have his team sleep over at his house?”
Please!

By the time a boy is in his third year in High School, he is, by and large, through the most difficult part of his adolescence, the most vulnerable time of his young life. The male coaches of Junior and Senior High School boys should, still, be closely monitored; and then, beginning with College, the boys could be under the guidance of male coaches without the presence of a female. Hopefully, by then, they will be seasoned, and savvy enough to fend for themselves.

And the locker room? Keep the friggin’ coaches out of the locker rooms until the boys are finished dressing. They don’t need to ‘supervise’ boys taking showers. If they’re already predisposed towards adolescent boys, they shouldn’t also have a free pass to ogle them.

Now, are these concepts that difficult to understand, or implement? You say, “But no ‘male-only’ coaches up until the Junior year in High School for boys, but the junior year of College for girls; that’s treating boys and girls differently.”
Well, let me just say this about that. “BOYS AND GIRLS ARE DIFFERENT.” And I’m sorry to have to offend you, but if you don’t understand that, if you’ve bought into the PC lie that boys and girls are the same, then you should not be raising kids.

Mothers, do you think you know the men coaching your kids? For that matter, do you think you know your Pastor, or Priest? Do you think you know their teacher? I know you’d like to think you do. Well, I don’t mean to alarm you unnecessarily, and you’re likely to hate me for this, but you probably don’t even really know your own husband.
Put that in the context of a coach who ‘seems like such a nice guy’.

OK, I’m ready to be arrested by the PC police (hands extended, ready for handcuffs). Better me for what I think, and what I say, than the men who are actually molesting the kids, or the ‘governing bodies’ who perpetuate it. Right?

I’m really just the messenger, but we like to get mad at the messenger. Makes us feel like we’re doing something to solve the problem.

People, this is not our grandparents world. And if we don’t wake up and understand that, the incidents of molestation of our children are going to continue to rise exponentially. Wake up, stop hiding behind Political Correctness, and insist that these solutions, or similar ones, be instituted, post haste, in your own communities.

In today’s world, Men, unsupervised, coaching children, or adolescent boys?
Men coaching young girls?

What are we thinking?

PoliTricks

Warning: Don’t read this if idealism creates, and governs, your ideology. It’ll only make you mad.
Idealism used to be the social/political domain of Hollywood, thirteen year-old girls, and fifteen year-old boys. Unfortunately, it has now infected a disproportionate number of actual adults. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the pot we’ve been smoking like tobacco, or the pharmaceuticals we’ve been chewing like candy.

* Obama has pretty much just invalidated our nuclear deterrent by saying that the U.S will not use nuclear weapons, even in self-defense. Isn’t that like putting a sign on the front door of your house that reads, “I have an arsenal of guns in my closet, but come on in, take whatever you want; rape, torture, and murder my family, and, because I want to be perceived as an enlightened man, you have my word that I will not raise a single weapon against you? I will lead by example.”

Oh, and concerning deterrence, when you’ve given someone carte blanche to use a nuclear first-strike against you, hasn’t the concept of ‘not using nuclear weapons, even in self-defense’, really just become a ridiculous oxymoron? Like you’d actually be alive to defend yourself?

I know, if Obama is such a trusting soul, how bout he take a walk through any city in America, or the world for that matter, without the deterrent of his Secret Service protection. I think he’d learn (just a little too late) how important it is to have that deterrent in place.

* Well, Obama promised ‘transparency’, and it is becoming quite ‘apparent’ that his administration is interested not so much in what the people want as they are in what they want for the people. That has become very transparent.

* Have had some time to let this really sink in now, so let me see; after suffering devastating, and debilitating depression, and unwanted, and unwarranted intrusion by the government into his life and finances, the suicidal guy who flew his plane into the IRS building in Texas is, by that same government, branded a terrorist.
But the Muslim psychiatrist, who murdered all those soldiers at Fort Hood, and who acted under the guidance of one of the most extreme Imams in the country today, is labeled a criminal?
I’m not telling you anything you’re not already aware of. I just want to remind you of the profound disinformation policy this administration operates under.

* And now you can’t call a government official a liar, a hypocrite, or refer to them as ‘intellectually dishonest’. That’s pretty good protection ‘progressives’ have designed for themselves. If you can’t call them what they are, God forbid, what can you call them?

* Concerning the Tea Party movement, of which I am not a member; how interesting is it that a grass-roots movement raised up in response to the unbearable tax burden being imposed upon the American people, is being made out to be, by the politicians, and by the media that controls them, a ‘dangerous radical extremist fringe group’?

Protest a liberal Government? Not unless you want to be targeted. As you may have already realized, when liberals protested George Bush, threatened him, disrupted speeches etc., they were referred to as ‘patriots’. But when Tea Party members protest Obama’s policies, well, hmmm, ‘dangerous radical extremist fringe group’? Funny how one’s particular political ideology determines whether or not they actually believe in free speech for somebody else.
In my mind, and in my experience, the Government is a ‘dangerous radical extremist fringe group’.

The Tea Party movement, in case you don’t know, evolved as a result of an unreasonable, and unbearable, tax burden on the American people, and citizens being forced to submit to Taxation without Representation.
Do you really think any of those politicians in Washington actually represent you?
No wonder Washington is afraid of the people.
They ought to be.

* I am also not a member of the Democratic, Republican, Socialist, or Communist Party.
Oh, same Party? Sorry, my bad.

* Free Health Care?
I remember reading a Twitter comment posted by an actual twit, which read, “Yeah, free health care, a helping hand.” And who exactly was given the choice to help you?
Let’s see if I have this right. According to the Health Care bill, they’re going to take (steal) money from everybody who they think has too much, no matter how hard they worked to earn it, and they’re going to give it to all the people who sit on their couch drinking beer all day, smoking their ‘medicine’, anesthetizing themselves with The View, Oprah, Ellen, Tyra, ET, and TMZ? Sounds fair to me.
ObamaCare?
RobamaHood.

* And Barney Frank? Lovely. What a piece of work. He gives ‘sleaze’ a bad name.
Do you realize that people actually elected him?

* And speaking of drugs, if you have to take a drug test to work in a warehouse (or wherever), don’tcha think its only fair that we know what chemicals are influencing the thinking, and behavior, of these Congressional imposters?

Just sayin’.



OK, I got all that out of my system.


*But the good news is that There Are Humans Among Us.
I know, because every once in awhile I’ll run across one.