Windy here

Winter is a cruel season.  I don't like the cold and snow and sleet and mess, as anyone who reads these posts will know.  But, that is not all the bad news winter packs into its months.

Yesterday, we dealt with humid, rising air, fueling instability and being developed by an advancing pressure gradient.  We got towering super cells.  These storms rose up to 12 miles into the atmosphere, hurling all the energy and vapor stored in that vertical column down to earth with savage glee.

The storm giants attacked yesterday.  And their advance stretched from the coast of Louisiana to the remnants of the North Woods in Maine.  In February, over 1800 miles of America pretended it was August, and watched tornadoes and straight line winds thrown by the storm giants topple the small toys of man.  As in any attack, there were casualties.  Though, I cannot report that we slew any of the storm giants.

This is rather melodramatic way to say that there is not rhyme or reason to the various pitfalls of life.  There are clear connections to choices and actions, you reap what you sow.  But, this is a remorseless world and life.  Regardless of choices and actions, this life can be over in an instant.  That is a terrible and sobering reality.

Many take the approach that given the random suddenness by which "this" can all be over, we should wring every ounce of "this" out of "this" that we can.  I am not sure what that means, or how that circular logic works.  The people that argue with me about God, sight our mighty science as proof of their theories.  Being somewhat well versed in the science, I always ask the simple question, in the understanding of science, is energy eternal?  Do you at least accept that there is something eternal in the Universe?

Many of us will remember from our foggy time in some laboratory/classroom in school, the 3 laws of thermodynamics (probably not, but assuming you all do makes me feel less like a nerd).  For those that do not: 1. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.  2. The entropy of a closed system always increases.  3. The entropy of a system approaches a constant number as the temperature of a system approaches absolute zero.

In reverse order, #3 entropy (the chaos or waste product energy or messiness of your house) stops changing as the temperature (available difference in energy between the system and outside or the difference in cleanliness levels of your living room and garage) approaches absolute zero (as low as you can go).  That is a practical truth we all know, if the living room is not clean, the crap will end up in the garage.  If the living room and garage are both clean at the same time, they tend to stay clean.

#2 entropy (messiness) increases in a closed system (your house).  I don't think I need to discuss this one, as I do not know anyone that does not need to routinely clean their house, whether they do it or not, the need (entropy) always increases.

#1 energy (stuff) can neither be created nor destroyed.  There is a finite amount of stuff.  It can be in the living room or the garage, or it can go away from the house and increase the amount of stuff outside the house.  But, stuff never, ever goes away.  It just changes location.  Like those relatives that you don't like to have visiting when company comes over.  That is stuff, energy.

So, if it can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change location, (and intrinsic value, that lamp I set on the curb because it is ugly, ends up in someone else's stuff as a prized treasure) doesn't that mean it is eternal?  If you are not into God, that statement is that just before the Big Bang micro instant, at absolute zero, the temperature (difference in messiness between the proverbial infinitely small dot and the indescribably large nothing) was zero, but there was a huge amount of energy (stuff) in the closed system.  Because stuff cannot be destroyed, when the messiness in the infinitely small dot reached infinity (all that there is) entropy happened in the indescribably large nothing.  Big Bang.

I just gave you a very concise primer for Newtonian physics all based on how much I dislike cleaning my house.  (Thank you Katrina, BTW, for everything.)  I don't subscribe to this theory of the universe as an explanation, though I concede that the designer of the universe did input these parameters for us.  They do not bind Him, He is ultimately in and is the Matrix.  Lord, I am nerding out this morning, please get me back on track.

But, energy, us, our soul, our life force, our us"ness" is eternal.  Newtonian Law, as amplified and better applied by Einstein, says so.  It can't be created or destroyed.  It exists forever and has forever.  That statement is important.  I have, often in my life, been referred to as an old soul.  Less often now that my body is reaching old, but back in the day, it happened alot.  I think we all are old souls.  I have science on my side to prove it.

The problem with thunderstorms, tornados, straight line winds, lightning, are not that they exist, it is that they can convert your life energy from you, like you are right now, to the you that you are in the presence of God.  Big Bang.  You do not cease, you change state.  I do and I don't want to go through that process.  I am not seeking help because I want to end my life, but I take Paul seriously in the Bible, and concur, I really want to be in the presence of God, praising and glorifying Him, just like I was designed to do.  The thought of being in that state does not scare me.  However, I don't think I want to ride lightning to get there.  If that makes sense, if any of this makes sense.

I do not fear storms, really never have.  I respect their strength and fury.  I find the storm giants interesting and entertaining to watch.  I truly enjoy being witness to the power of the world around me.  I am a science geek and always have been.  It entrances me to watch what simple evaporated sea water in the warm waters of the Carribean and Gulf, can do and produce in North Carolina.  Something that has almost zero substance, weight, almost indescribably small, water vapor, becomes a force that overcomes even the best engineering of man, thousands of miles from where it originates.

I had science teachers that were romantics and story tellers.  I include my grandfather in that.  I don't know where, or when, he discovered the weather engine description, but he did, and he told it to me as I sat on the porch, in that metal swing with him, watching lightning dance and wind blow.  It was incredible to see and experience.

Yesterday was tragic for many.  I don't take any glory or delight in the destruction that was caused.  I just don't worry about those folks that are tragically lost.  They are where they were created to be, and science says so.  You don't even have to believe in the Bible.  I suppose you could refuse to believe in the Bible, and refuse to believe in the empirically derived laws of science.  You could deny them both and live as a lawless and meaningless dot that is bound by and to nothing.  That is a sad, sad life and I choose not to contemplate that.

I am happy I did not get called home.  I will be happy to be there, but going like that kind of scares me.  It has to hurt like crazy.  I am happy that no one I know, at least as far as I know, got called home by the storm.  I was a sailor for a long time.  You appreciate, respect and always pay attention to the weather.  It is a force that you are not equipped to defeat, only to ride out and avoid as much as you can.  On land, that is harder.  You are kind of where you are.

It was windy here.  We lost some branches.  But, we did not see the violent weather that others experienced.  Our entropy did not increase significantly.  For that I am thankful to the Big Guy, who ordered and set in motion the Big Bang, and controls everyone's final Big Bang.  If for no other reason, that is sufficient to find joy in the rainbow.  It is no longer windy here, but it will not stay calm.

The world is a gigantic house that always needs cleaning, and we dirty it up crazy fast.  Too much stuff in one place, and it has to go somewhere.  It is science, as organized and set in motion by God.  For that, I am also thankful.  We made the mess, caused the need for these Newtonian Laws.  We get smarter about the nit noids, and dumber about the big picture.  That part is sad, regardless of the rainbow.

I think about that every time it gets windy, and I try to clean up my mess.  I hope and pray that you will too.

GLYASDI

Entitlement

I am currently in the midst of a disagreement with a very good man, a friend who I respect deeply, over the whole Beyonce turmoil.  In particular, that the police would refuse to provide services for her shows in their municipalities.

In essence, to me, the question is what is Beyonce entitled to?  It has been asserted that she is entitled to the same protections as we would give the Klan.  Also, asserted, and I agreed with, she is entitled to express her opinion openly and without reservation.

What she is not entitled to, is that the rest of the world have no opinion or reaction to her statements.  At the heart of the disturbance in Ferguson, Baltimore, all the other recent damage, is the reaction of the local citizens to events and statements and actions/inaction on the part of others.  There was a continued drumbeat that we should understand the motivations and frustrations and underlying concerns that drove those reactions.  The message was we were not entitled, as the non-rioting, non-destructive, majority in the nation, to condemn this violence and riot.  We were not supposedly entitled to an opinion because we were not black, latino, poor, drug addicted, gang related, insert special interest here.

I assert that we are entitled to our opinion.  Everyone, regardless of melatonin, economic status, sexual orientation,  profession of faith, regardless, we are entitled to our opinion.  Simply because we do not understand or experience the motivators of others does not mean that we cannot judge and applaud or condemn them.  It is wrong to burn down half of your city, whatever your believed injustice may be.  Whatever your color, whatever your religion, it is wrong to riot in behalf of your beliefs.  This is the same principle that allows us to jail psychopaths and sociopaths that commit crimes.  You could argue that they can't help it, that they were created by events and chemistry.  However, they have responsibility for their actions, and I have responsibility to see it and call it wrong.

That is what is getting lost in our nation at the moment.  I do not have a burning platform about gay marriage.  I do not find marriage defined in the Bible in such a way that allows us to call a Hindu marriage between a man and a woman okay, but the union of a man and a man wrong.  In the eyes of God, the Bible says that neither meet the definition of marriage as laid out by God in Genesis.  However, this is a secular nation of laws premised on Judeo-Christian ethics.  That does not mean, Mr. Cruz, that our laws come from the Bible, nor that we assume what was written in 1789 is forever correct.  (This is why there are provision for how, and why 26 times, we have amended the Constitution.)  We make laws that allow a collection of faiths, beliefs and cultures, in the hopes to coexist in harmony and enjoy the fruits of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

However, it is becoming fashionable to attach the premise of Nazism and intolerance to those that believe the Bible defines marriage as between a man and a woman.  We are beginning to assume that you are not entitled to that belief, if you are an enlightened person.  I think this is the genesis of the myth that there is a war on Christianity.  There is a war on common sense and a war on understanding of the basic underpinnings of our society and government institutions.  It comes from those that are Christian and those that are not Christian.  No one is entitled to agreement to their opinion.  You just are entitled to state it.

You are also entitled to continue to live your life, even though you have a divergent opinion.  I detest everything the skinheads and the Klan stand for.  But, they are entitled to continue to live their lives, state their opinions, as long as they do not violate the laws of the land to bring those opinions to life.

Kind of wandering here, but there is a thread.  You don't get to express your opinion, and then call into question the basic worth and humanity of those who disagree with you.  That is not what you are entitled to in the Constitution.  Of all the things the Founders would find offensive about Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, that demonizing strain that they are all infected with would frustrate them most.  They had it as well, and they acted on it.  Look up Alexander Hamilton, he got shot over what amounts to a political disagreement with a man that served as Vice President of these here United States.

We feel entitled to justification of our opinion.  Especially if we listen to the uninformed and inciting voices in the media that thrive on unrest.  We feel like others have to honor and understand and congratulate us for our opinions.  That is just not what the Constitution provides.  It provides that you may say it, believe it, relate it, and hold it dear.  What is unsaid, is God help you if you do profess craziness publicly.  The Founders relied on healthy and hearty public debate to rein in the worst excesses of lunacy.  They saw it everyday and accepted it as the only way to ensure healthy democracy.  You are expected to actively and principally disagree, as part of the price of your citizenship.

We are not entitled to be told our opinion is okay, because we are black.  We are not expected to not have an opinion about a statement a white person makes, because we are black.  That is generally accepted and what is generating Sharpton and Jackson's income.  What is less generally accepted and protected today, is that you can have an opinion about a black person's statement if you are white.  The message is that, that is just racist.  You, white person, could not possibly understand, that is why I get to use the word nigger and you don't.  Because.

It is immaterial if there is understanding.  Opinion is opinion.  Everyone has one, just like something else everyone has.  What is being lost is the understanding that there are consequences and outcomes of our statements and opinions.  This is the system the Founders relied upon to prevent the Donald's and the Hillary's of the nation from gaining unlimited power.  It works, or at least used to work.  Now, there is this false narrative that you can say almost anything if you are black or another minority, and any push back from someone that is white can be dismissed as racist.  It makes many people afraid to say anything.

That laziness of conviction has allowed our minority communities in crisis, and our white impoverished communities to become politically naive and uninformed.  The HipHop lifestyle that celebrates thug life, get it how you get it, reinforces that if you hustle, it should come to you.  It is a lie, and a shrewd one that I cannot tell the origin.  I don't know if it is from the racial dissent leaders that use it to drive a wedge between races, "they owe you because," or from the establishment majority "we will give it to you."  Either way, that they continue to accept it is crippling our national discourse and reinforcing a spiral into violence and chaos most inflamed in our urban populations.  Flint is on the shoulders of the citizens of Flint, they let their community become so bad that the state was justified in assuming control.  The poisioning crime is on the governor, but the causation is on the citizens and their lack of responsibility.

What happened to Michael Brown, the criminal that was killed in Ferguson, was wrong.  HE should not have attacked that cop and tried to take his gun.  It was wrong, but if you say that, and you are white, you are just racist.  Could the cop have done something different, or should he?  We will never know, because we threw away discourse and discussion with the first brick through a window.

What happened to Tamir Rice, the kid in Cleveland shot for having a very real looking toy gun, was wrong.  The cops should have tazed him, or at least attempted something other than shooting him less than 10 seconds into the conversation.  However, the video shows him going for his waistband, and the cop wants to go home to his family.  There is room for discussion here.  But, if you point that out, you are racist.  If you believe he was murdered, you hate cops.  If you believe the cops were justified, you hate black people, black children in particular.  You can't just be unsure, because it is murky and there is tons of wrong on both sides, including the parents.  That is not how the game works anymore.

The guy that got shot in the back 10 times in South Carolina, he was murdered.  However, if you say that, and you are black, it is considered by many to be racist.  I think that is criminal.  If that video surfaced of a confrontation that did not include a badge on one of the participants, or was two white people or two black people, it would be slam dunk evidence for a death penalty conviction.  Cold blooded, purposeful murder.  But, this is where we are, that it is not able to be discussed with evidence and logic.  It is not new, but it is sad it is this entrenched, 226 years into the Constitution.

You are entitled to the fruits of your opinion.  If you want to show the crack of your ass while wearing lingerie designed to pretend to honor the Black Panthers, you are going to get comment.  It is not racist, even if the person making the claim is white, to point out that it is hypocritical to arrive in a police escort, reminiscent of a Presidential motorcade, have half a batallion of state troopers doing personal body security, and then rely on the same motorcade to get away from the unwashed masses, to do a show that you proclaim decries the excesses of police violence.  It is not racist, even if you are white, to dishonor the choice to celebrate the Black Panthers.  Because you are black does not give you the right to publicly proclaim the virtues of a violent racial extremist group responsible for more murder and mayhem in the black community than the white, and not get called out for it.

As a white man, if I were to show up somewhere in a white sheet and hood and perform a show to show honor to the virtues of the Klan, I would be foolish to expect that people would excuse it because I am white.  It is ridiculous to expect that.  But, the public mood today is that this logic does not go both ways, black folks are entitled to a different standard of public discourse, a different standard of opportunity, a different expectation, a different level of available resource.  I think that is the root of the problem.  And it goes both ways.  Black, latinos, asians, not entitled to anything because of their color or culture.  Gays are not to be excluded from institutions because of their orientation.

It is the same argument, and the same issue.  The reason we can't get past it as a nation is that we are unwilling to give up our own entitlement fantasies.  We are entitled to keep people of the same sex from getting married, because of what we believe.  We are entitled to money from the government because 150 years ago, folks we probably were not related to, were slaves.  But, those other folks, they should not be entitled.  Debate is good, and the Founders relied upon it.  But, circular debate for 50 years is bad, and we can no longer accept it.

It is not that complex, but it is oh so hard.  You have to be willing to stand up and make a claim.  You have to accept that others won't agree with it.  You have to be able to hear that, and weigh it to see if perhaps those other voices are right.  I think that Beyonce is entitled to do what she did.  Nothing wrong in expressing your opinion.  What is wrong is the expectation that it does not have consequences, and that push back and dissent cannot be right.  Regardless of color, stupid is as stupid does.

And, that is all I have to say about that.

GLYASDI

Apple

I am a decorated veteran that served in every war zone and conflict this nation participated in from 1985 until 2007.  I despise, with all of my being, what the radicalized elements of Islam have wreaked upon the world.  I have absolutely, positively no issue with bombing, shooting, chasing, cornering and eliminating them.

I worry about it, being so willing to work the death and destruction of fellow human beings.  But, worried or not, I got no issue with doing the damn deed.  Us or them, and I am way more interested in it being them.

To do that, I think that all of the important and valuable things that America stands for are the basis for what makes us successful.  Our rights and freedoms, our liberties and our security are tied up in the prerogatives of being an American.

I don't often come to the defense of giant corporate interests, but I am going to come to Apple's defense.  They are being pressured, and sued, by the government to create a backdoor to unlock an iPhone used by a terrorist.  Apple claims that to do that, they have to create a tool that will unlock any and every iPhone, and they refuse to prevent the loss of security to everyone holding an iPhone.

I don't know about all of that, but the government should not be allowed to require a company to compromise its product and intellectual property.  If the brilliant, beautiful mind kind of spooky people the government employs for this stuff cannot get in that phone, then they don't get into it.  I believe Apple is right to refuse, and should fight to the Supreme Court to prevent what the government wants.

The terrorist who had the phone was the guy in California that went to a work function and shot a whole bunch of his coworkers.  The government has his phone, but can't break the security code.  So, they want Apple to do their dirty work for them.  The guy travelled overseas and brought back a foreign born wife/accomplice.  The government wants to know who he talked to, because they lost him, lost track of him and let a terrorist into a country in the company of a radicalized citizen.

That is still no reason to compromise the intellectual property of one of our most innovative and forward leaning companies.  That is still no reason to compromise the security of tens of millions of phones in American hands today.  That is still not enough to make me think the government deserves a golden ticket.

I mistrust the government, and it's use of intelligence gathering tools and information.  We have no reason to trust them.  I think the Patriot Act was a horrible infringement of basic American rights and principles.  I don't believe we found evidence of any of the things the government claimed were in Iraq, so I don't believe we should trust the statement that they used the information they gathered to keep us safer.

I would not trust my children to the keeping of Dick Cheney or George Bush Jr.  I don't think they are trustworthy.  They have earned that skepticism.  It might not be true for all of you reading this, but I truly did know people that died in Iraq, because Bush, Cheney and Powell lied to get us into the war.  I don't agree with much of anything from Trump's gaping maw, but in that, he is exactly right.  It is disgraceful to blame Clinton for 9/11, but not put blame on Bush for the loss of lives for no reason in Iraq.  I don't find Clinton responsible for 9/11.  He should have killed OBL, but then, Bush had the exact same opportunities and did not take them either.

So, there were plenty of chances to do the right things in the right ways, prior to a decade where we basically did the wrong things, in the wrong ways.  And, unless you have one or two of those ribbons I wore on my chest that say you served in theatre, don't start thinking I am just some disillusioned Democrat looking for a way to blame Bush for everything.  I am a guy that was part of the picture for a decade before 2003.  You can make all the claims you want for invading Afghanistan, and I might agree.  But, Iraq had zero capacity to harm us on American soil.  Now, Iraq is just a hotbed of radical terrorism with no central control to prevent exporting it.

Bush gave us ISIS, not Obama.  But, Obama had the opportunity to decapitate ISIS up front and did not do it.  Too much concern about what the rest of the region thinks and wants, when that has been a recipe for disaster for 50 years.  But, no amount of increased intelligence gathering or access to information has resulted in improvement in the war outcome.

We have the best military in the history of the world.  We have not failed to take, destroy, isolate, obliterate, or any other -ate we have been ordered to execute since Vietnam.  There is not a mission that the military cannot complete.  But, crappy leadership, that does not have military experience, personal integrity or basic honesty, keep us from exploiting legitimate military gains.  It keeps us from maintaining adequate coalitions and alliances.  It keeps us from finishing.  Finishing does not produce continued need for military spending and give always to Arab extortionists that are going bankrupt due to wold wide energy efficiency and improvement.  That does not play well with the foreign lobbyists that give so much money.

If you ask me, Apple is the heroic figure in this debate.  You cannot trust the illegitimate arm and illegal tactics of the government when it comes to information gathering.  If you think Obama is a traitor and a Muslim, but don't have the same suspicion of Bush and Cheney, you need to consider the evidence.  I am no fan of either.  But, Obama has killed more key terrorist on their own soil, than Bush did, even invading.  Obama has eliminated the massive terrorist recruiting tool that was the military presence on the ground.  Bush took us there, under fabricated pretense.  Bush left us there, for years after any clear military objective was identified.  Bush gave untold billions to the emirs, sheiks, khans and every other bearded extortionist that are now funding ISIS to levels never even considered by Al Qaeda.

There is plenty of blame to go around.  But, a lot of it will fall to us, if we stand by and let the most untrustworthy elements of the government get a golden ticket that unlock everything in hundreds of millions of Apple products all across the country.  Once Apple develops it, it is inevitable that the Russians, Indians and Chinese steal it.  Want some really cool virus issues with your Mac, your iPad, your iPod, your Apple Watch?  Just stand by and let this happen.

It is scary to give anything to a government that cannot even figure out which VA executives to put in jail for veterans dying waiting for care.  But, we will trust them to not inappropriately use our personal information?  It doesn't make sense, and it is not going to turn out any better than the Weapons of Mass Destruction claims did.   Just saying.

GLYASDI

Super Bowl was just wrong

I have been out of circulation on the blog front for a few weeks.  I confess that I let real life intrude.  I usually spend my early mornings doing this, getting my thoughts and feelings straight.  But, I have been working on end of year and start of year tasks for work, and getting myself better organized and sorted out for the year.

So, I have not been diligent at writing things that have nagged at me.  That does not indicate that things have not nagged at me.  There is a lot of stuff in there percolating.  This morning it is a bit of a small eruption, about things that do not matter at all, but drive a lot of conversation, so maybe they do matter and should not be ignored.

I, along with 113 million other Americans, if you believe statistics, watched the Super Bowl.  Unlike 99.999% of the rest of the population, I watched it to the last miserable, underwhelming and piss poor football snap.  It was the ugliest Super Bowl I can remember since the parade of whippings the NFC hung on the AFC in the 80's and early 90's.    The NFL should be sad about the quality of the football on display, the quality of the officiating (for the whole season) and the quality of the league they have assembled.  There is debate going on about whether Greg Hardy should be in the league, along with AP and Big Ben.  There was a time that they would not, and instantaneously.  It was a time of professionalism, adult accountability and good stewardship.  The quality of the management is directly related to the quality of the product, in every aspect.

It is for the same reason I would strongly suggest you never buy a Volkswagon, and should refuse to purchase a car that has that Takawhatever air bag deployment system.  Poor management and management accountability translate directly to quality of product.  If you heard about the kind of stuff that went on with the GM ignition switch or the air bag fiasco, at a pharmaceutical company, would you take that medicine?

That, all is a truth in my mind, but not the point of this missive.  I want to call out the racism involved in the half time show.  Let us consider the response if Kid Rock had done a half time show, and come out in Confederate grey battle dress, with the grey kewpie hat, wrapped in the Confederate flag, or just a white sheet and hood, just to promote history and heritage (it is the 150th anniversary of the end of the recent unpleasantness).  Or imagine the Red Hot Chili Peppers came out in thobes and ghutras and egals (those are the proper names for the long robe Muslim men wear, and the head dress).  You know, as protest to the treatment of poor Muslims the world over by imperialistic forces.

Can you imagine just one tenth of the explosion that would occur from either of those jackass stunts?  (And, I am not implying RCHP would do this, but Kid Rock damn sure would.)  There would be the equivalent of a public lynching and probably riots in places that can least afford additional damage to their cities and infrastructure.  I don't know that I would be upset at the outcry.  It would be tasteless, ridiculous and deserving of ridicule and anger.

It is development of a false narrative, that these groups are not key constituents of documented violence and racial tension and discrimination.  These are white and brown groups, that degenerated into war that America has waged, given blood to end and to abate.  It is serious.  If the above described incidents were to occur, there would likely be grounds for prosecution for inciting public unrest and riot.  Like the proverbial "FIRE" in a crowded theatre.

How is the mess that Beyonce put on any different from what I described?  It is not a myth that the Black Panthers are a group that were directly responsible for violence, death of civilians and police, contributed to civil unrest and continue to advocate violent overthrow of government institutions and public safety.  These are documented facts proven in court.  And, spare me the tripe about they were black so the court convicted them.  That is a worthwhile argument for the 16 year old kid popped for selling crack on a street corner, but not corporate terrorists defended by the best attorneys stolen money can buy.

It was sickening and should be called out for what it is.  It is race baiting.  There is nothing celebratory in the life of Malcolm X or the organization known as the Black Panthers.  To assert there is, is the equivalent of me asserting that we should celebrate Nathan Bedford Forrest, because of his impressive military exploits (which he had, legitimately).  But, he was a crazy, scary race terrorist that contributed to the material crimes against innocent minorities.  He is the American example of the hate crime, not a treasured ancestor.

NBF, JEB Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, these are great military leaders, and it is appropriate to study their tactics and leadership.  They had the wrong attitude and the wrong beliefs.  They were imperfect, and should not be held up as a tonic to the world, or examples of what we should emulate.  They just should not.  I am not ashamed of my family's participation in the Confederate cause.  Some died to defend it.  But, they were wrong.  I admit that.  It is what separates me from them, and what indicates my education and modern awareness.

Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, these are men of the same ilk as Forrest, Stewart, Jackson, Lee.  I don't know that they were even very good at insurgency or radicalization, which may explain why they are not well studied and understood.  You can be wrong and be the inspiration for study and understanding.  Many of our best minds tried to understand Manson and his mania and charisma.  I am not comparing any of these people to Manson, only that even terribly wrong behavior of uncommon significance is studied and understood.

In my opinion, Sherman is responsible for more death and destruction than any other American.  His brand of total warfare was studied and perfected by many armies and generals.  It is still practiced today.  (Being a variant of ancient warfare, I do not claim Sherman invented it, but he applied modern technology to the application.)

All this is by way of saying this is not a black and white, racial issue.  I do not misunderstand Beyonce's point and purpose because of the level of melatonin in my skin.  I understand her point and purpose because I know history, the breadth and width of flawed and unsavory people of all shades and all stripes.  Before you partake of political statement and demonstration, you owe it to yourself to understand for yourself what you are espousing.  Celebrating the anniversary of a home grown, internal terrorist organization that actively participated in crime against all races, is sketchy at best, and downright stupid at its core.

Listening to smooth voices that claim to have understanding, that lay one side of the equation open, is dangerous.  I do not deny that the FBI and the government were against the Panthers, like they are against Al Qaeda.  I lump them together for the same aims and the same tactics championed.  There were excesses and over prosecution.  But, there was also much more that was never prosecuted that indicates significant issue with the validity of the Panther organization.  There was plenty of documented terrorism, extortion, rape, riot, murder and theft, all against the black community.  Ignore the threat the government saw, this was an organization that was a cancer and an injury to the black community.  Proven in local courts, local juries, rock solid evidence, charges not brought by the FBI or US Attorneys.

Ignorance is never an excuse for public displays.  If you are given a stage that reaches 113 million people, maybe billions world wide, and you are going to engage in political expression, you are charged with the obligation to understand what is behind that expression.  This was not a display of black pride or black power.  It was a misinformed fool, dancing a jig for her handlers, railing against a system that she did not study well enough to understand her condemnation.  She had full police escort, to and from the stadium, yet felt obliged to decry the police and celebrate the group most responsible for the combative attitude in the black community that is contributing to unnecessary deaths to this day.

It made me sick.  Not because I disagree with her opinions, which I do.  She is absolutely entitled to support the Black Panthers and believe what they stand for and espouse.  Awesome.  But, the double standard of not being able to call it out, because it is okay because she is black, that is unAmerican.  And if you are involved in that, you ought to understand why it only contributes to the continued distancing of the African American community from the growth of the American community as a whole.

Regardless of what is said and who is saying it, or who is listening, actual output trumps rhetoric.  There is a gap, a huge gap, between the communities of color and the larger white community in America.  There are white people, like me, that see that gap, despair of that gap and desire to close that gap.  Not because I want votes, nor feel altruistic, but because it is unAmerican to see that gap anywhere.  It offends my patriotism.  Yet, the African American community continues to do all that it can to alienate me and those like me.  The uber liberal, fake black NAACP members that crawl through our society are immune.  I am not.  If you cannot help yourself, if you can not be societally aware enough to understand what you say, there is no help or hope for you.  When the bulk of America believes that, your struggle is most definitely real and deserved.  You are entitled to it at that point.

I do not celebrate those that fought for slavery.  I respect their skills and talents.  I do not celebrate those that argue for discrimination or heritage and history.  Masking ignorance with cries of personal rights is disgusting.  I recognize the flaws in those around me, and hope that in spite of them, and the flaws in myself, we can develop a path forward that improves and impacts all of America.  I just wish that was the real attitude of those that need the most help.  If you cannot see the plank in your own eye, how can you help your neighbor with the splinter in theirs?

So, no, Beyonce is not excused.  No, it is not illegal, but it is disingenuous and disgusting.  Just because you are allowed to do something, does not mean that you should do something.  And, if someone should make a poor decision as to how to utilize the massive audience that is assembled and paid for by an organization, that organization has an obligation to call it out.  The NFL is okay with murderers, cheaters, wife beaters, child beaters, rapists, and I guess ideologically retarded performances.  Not a peep.  And not likely to change.  Paying some big bucks to people that should not be associated with a federally protected brand.  It is appalling.

Yes, my anger is not just at individuals.  But, how do you change it?  You just don't stand for it.  And you don't let the uninformed that utilize the race card and the white privilege card and the ignorance excuse, stop you from calling it out.  It is uncomfortable, because everyone knows you are right.  Most just stay silent, because what is the use?  I believe that in America, the obligation to speak is what drives us to improve and overcome.

50 years ago, my uncle said something incredibly prophetic.  "Give it 50 years, and welfare will wipe out whole sections of DC, Detroit and LA.  They won't survive it."  That is not something I have ever been very proud of coming from my family, as I saw it as racist, and at its core it probably was.  That did not change the evidence of the truth of the statement.  The idea that entitlement comes from a color or a long dead history is incompatible with the American code of beliefs.  You are not entitled, you are given opportunity.  If that opportunity is stolen, then you are deserved of consideration for additional help.  That is not entitlement.  Entitlement is a cancer eating our community of poverty from the inside.

Those that have overcome it, are contributing to the cancer, by grandstanding and not understanding what their words and actions entail.  The saddest part, 98% of the people watching the Super Bowl just considered it another weird costume by another oversexed, underdressed celebrity.  They did not see a difference between Beyonce and Lady Gaga.  I did not like Lady Gaga's hair or clothes, but they were just not my taste.  I thought her version of the National Anthem was spot on, inspired and maybe one of the very best I have ever heard.  The Hunger Games costume was just mildly distracting.

If you don't see a difference between Beyonce and Gaga, your high school civics teacher, your high school social studies teachers, your high school English teacher failed you.  Your parents did not step up and fill the gap.  Discernment and analysis are dying in this nation.  We just like the way Beyonce shakes the bandoliers of magnums, we don't pay any attention to the statement.  Then we don't understand why Ferguson happens, why Baltimore happens.  We don't understand the steady drum beat of racism that pervades our communities of color, and we do not call it out.  We just duck our heads and run when racism is thrown around, too uncomfortable.  We reap what we sow when we do that.  It has tired me out, and is not right

What Beyonce did was ignorant, unAmerican and wrong.  I would love to understand how it is different from that.  Even if your argument is that I am not black, I don't understand, fine.  I think that is lazy arguing, but explain it to me.  I, maybe alone in the world, am a white, middle class, middle aged man that desperately wants to understand.  I don't want to give you a damn thing but my understanding and my help.  I will go to the end of the argument with you, if you make me understand it.  If you make me understand it, you can make anyone understand it.  Imagine how awesome that world would be.

GLYASDI

Heading there

Flint Michigan is a terrible place.  It is blighted, it is depressed, it is poorly led, it is poorly managed.  It is overwhelmingly minority.  It is overwhelmingly poor.  The education system and education basis of the population is poor.

But, the leadership of the city was elected in direct response to a phenomenon occurring all over America.  Educated and trained and capable people were elected for years that did not look like their constituents, did not respond to their constituents, and did not care about their constituents.  Honestly, I look at Congress and governors and state legislators, and I wonder what drives people to run for office.

They do not understand nor act in the best interests of their constituents.  They do not seek nor drive solution to entrenched problems.  They govern based on what they learned playing Monopoly.  Build stuff, hope that someone lands on it and gives you something that maintains everything else until someone else lands on it.  Except, instead of Boardwalk and Park Place, they are holding Baltic and Mediterranean.  Most of America is Baltic and Mediterranean.  That is just the economic reality.  America's Baltic and Mediterranean is still a better investment that almost any street in 80% of the world.

Yet, you must govern and manage within your realities.  You have to govern and lead with an eye to the future and to the sustainability of economy.  You have to recognize issues, drive solution and guide the ship of state to the place picked out in logic and careful consideration.  That is the characteristic of successful civil servants and government throughout the history of America.  Careful, logic, guidance, planning, best interests, these are hallmarks.

Nothing about Flint is associated with this.  That place is the antithesis of the successful and effective examples of government.  And, it can be laid at the feet of the people of Michigan.  I do not blame them, but they are responsible.  In Flint, they have elected people that are woefully unprepared to govern for decades.  They have mismanaged and misinvested civic funds and resources consistently and at the ignorance of the information available.  When the situation came to a head, and the city was completely insolvent, the state took over.  The citizens of Michigan elected a governor woefully unprepared to govern in this situation.

There is no way to fix the things that are occurring in Michigan, without raising revenue, quickly.  Whatever your opinion of trickle down, or pro capital economics, it is a death sentence for a government like the state of Michigan.  There is not time to trickle economic benefit down, when there are very real infrastructure failures and crisis confronting you today.  And, these are of the citizen's own making.

They have allowed their cities and services to decay and fail, with full knowledge it was occurring.  And, it is endemic in Michigan.  Flint cannot drink water, Detroit cannot educate children.  I don't live there, and I am not trying to be guilty of living in a glass house.  But, short sighted economic decisions by those elected to govern in the best interest of the community are condemning the financial demise of an entire state.  They knowingly put huge chunks of citizens at risk, which I think the governor did (I don't know much, but I know water purification, and what happened is criminally negligent and clearly the result of criminal decisions around quality and health.  We would imprison a doctor that treated a patient with a known poison, we should imprison this governor.)

They have a surplus at the state level that will not pay 10% of the investments needed.  Incredibly, instead of committing to utilize that money and make needed improvements now, there is talk about how the cities must be economically rehabilitated, how business must be attracted and how we must look at making the economy attractive.  You could offer me 100 years of free taxes and the property for free, and I would not move to Flint and poison myself, my employees and my customers.  Short sighted decisions couched in language of long term effectiveness are killing Michigan.

Michigan is a case study of ineffective and feckless government.  Illinois is as well.  So is most of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin.  There has been a fusion of the most diametric politic aspirations that is concocting a witches brew of doom in a enormous section of our national economy.  It has been brewing for 60 years, and is starting to overcome even the titanic capacity of America to succeed in spite of ourselves.

We have not enacted a single, sweeping infrastructure initiative since the interstate highway system in the 40's and 50's.  That started in the 50's under Eisenhower, and I remember the opening of the final original leg of the system in Florida in the mid 80's.  It was a huge effort and it took many years in a gigantic country.  We have done nothing similar in the ensuing 70 years.  We don't even have the money, nationally, to execute maintenance and upkeep of the system, much less upgrade and improve.

That is a fallacy.  We have returned huge amounts of money to the private sector in the last 30 years, that was then removed from the economy and the interaction of the public, and into the coffers of those most insulated from economic danger.  At the level of risk that is highest, in areas of poverty, old infrastructure and past environmental damage, we live continually on the drop edge of yonder.

Flint and Detroit have fallen over the edge.  So has Gary Indiana.  Huge cities, once key industrial havens that were entwined cogs in a massive industrial engine, have devolved into wastelands that are most notable for the poverty, bad education and health risk associated with living there.  That is coming in many other places, especially if we continue to follow the economic model that we have followed since the 50's.  Let's discuss the snake ready to give us an apple, LOWER TAXES.

To recover from the greatest economic ditch the nation had ever experienced, the government responded with a program that raised taxes, increased the income impact to every single American, but invested that money into infrastructure work and construction that built the spine of the economy we have today.  It has ruptured disks, fractures and misalignment, but it has served us remarkably well.  That was FDR and the Great Depression.  Out of that horror, came greater taxes, bigger government, social programs that were publicly funded, and national investment at a local level that improved the entire economy, not the blind interests of a single community or state.  We expected that we all bore a burden that was related to the national welfare.

We proudly went to work and made America great.  We accepted that desperate times required investment, sacrifice and long term thinking for long term solutions.  In the midst of our most immediate crisis, we took the long view and did the patient hard work.  It staged us for unparalleled economic growth for 40 years and laid the required ground work to mobilize, industrialize and defeat the combined might of the Western world simply because we could outproduce and outfight them all.

Today, we face crushing debt, crumbling and inadequate roads and bridges and services, poisonous water, piss poor education nation wide at a broad level, raging violent crime rates, and governmental deadlock.  In response to that, the solution we continue to discuss, in large part, is to cut government funding short term (tax cuts) to provide economic growth that will return much greater taxes in the long run.  We started this nonsense under Reagan, when we had the infrastructure and economic engine to support such a theory.  We had a correction under Bush the First, that updated the tax rates for economic reality, for which we rewarded that good public servant with defeat.  It drove prosperity that we had not seen in decades under Clinton.

Instead of investing even portions of that surplus in the work of the nation and the underpinnings of our economy and society, we used it to fund additional tax cuts.  When that failed to drive the engine of economy further, we tried the Kennedy/Johnson trick and fabricated a reason to turn on the war economy.  We tried to make that false input turn the wheels of our economy to greater gain.  But, we had failed already.

We had lost sight of the underpinnings and structure of what drove our nation.  We have antiquated electrical grids, antiquated water purification, antiquated bridges, antiquated traffic control and direction, antiquated communication structures, antiquated social services and medical care systems.  We have allowed the nation to degrade, and now the bills are coming due.  Instead of being forthright, instead of taking the long view, we continue to claim we should pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

We can continue to decrease the rate at which we bring in money that services the shared concerns and interconnections of the nation to see national economic benefit. We have too many corporate taxes, yet they have contributed to the environmental mess that our systems are failing to process and contain.  We have too much personal exposure to taxes, yet few, if any, of the tax cuts that have occurred in last 20 years have changed the average American's take home by more than $20 a pay period.  They have only significantly improved the position of the top 20%, in which I proudly belong.

I have worked hard, and gotten nothing I have not earned, except the blessings of having been born and American, into the opportunity that brings.  I am in the bullseye of what I am claiming here.  I know that what I espouse will impact me.  I am willing to make the investment.  I don't want to pay money I have earned to the government, that will then be used to fix the mess that is Flint, or Detroit, or Chicago, or Gary, or some place other than Clayton.  But, if I am not willing to sacrifice, there is no current path to success that has any history of being effective.  Nothing we have recently done has ended up with success at what is causing us issues.

Let me put it a different way, as to why I am not reluctant to be part of a holistic solution.  A significant chunk of the products we ingest from General Mills, you know cereal, oatmeal, etc., are produced in Michigan.  Battle Creek.  Do you think the water there, that is treating your food and what you are feeding your children, grandchildren, aging parents, anyone you care about, is significantly better than in Flint?  Do you think that the water is treated to a higher level of purification than the communities around it?  Do you think it is going to get better, with the status quo, or are you going to switch to Kelloggs?  That is Rust Belt toxic, too.

I have nothing against Michigan, other than they have been too stupid to get out of their own way.  But, before you get too mad at that statement, drive on I 40 anywhere around Raleigh or Durham, or take some miles on I95 anywhere in NC, and tell me how much better we are than Michigan.  Check into the changes that have been made in municipal water purification in this state, all over this state, driven by "economic reality".  Ask the folks that run those systems if they are safer and more effective today, or just cheaper to run.  There is always a trade off.  And, it is not that far off from where Michigan is.  Again, I don't know much, but I know water purification.

If we continue to be unwilling to invest in our nation, to make the personal sacrifice necessary to raise our community standards and levels, we have no one to blame but ourselves.  If we continue to elect candidates simply because they are against costing you any more money and can make you think they can quote your part of the Bible, we have no one to blame but ourselves.  If we do not elect candidates dedicated to our improvement, hold them accountable to that improvement and expect a better nation with real deliverables, out of our investment, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

There is no truth to the myth that we can fix what ails us with what we currently pay to the government, much less with lower taxes.  There is not enough time to wait for the mythical trickle.  Johnston County NC is an idyllic place compared to Flint and Detroit.  But, within 20 years, if we do not develop a way to improve and sustain our infrastructure, we will be in the same place as Flint and Detroit.  We are already growing faster than our investment level in services and infrastructure, and growing by means of deferring and delaying and in some cases forgoing, any tax advantage from the growth.  So there is nothing new coming into the coffers to improve the services this growth will need.  Maybe we will finance it?  No, we expect new people moving here to contribute and that will make it work.  Except we are getting people here, by and large, that work in Raleigh and Wake.  When we resemble Raleigh and Wake, because of growth, the new folks will live in Wayne and Sampson counties.

It is a self defeating cycle.  I don't like it.  I don't want to pay a bigger share.  But, just like I sacrificed a huge chunk of my life to the service of this country, I can extend some of my income to the service of this country.  That is the only truth you are going to hear for the rest of the campaign season.  We will, in large number, congratulate ourselves for electing another short term bandit to the government, because we are angry at the failure of the preceding short term bandits.  These are not bad people, they are just wrong.  And changing the face won't change the outcome.  Being mad that someone that was in the short term camp got it through their head that nothing comes for free and voted in the assembly to service the common good, makes you a short term bandit.

Most won't understand why I feel the way I do.  Most of the people I know are firmly convinced that taxes are too high, government is bad and ineffective and the problem.  But, instead of electing effective managers and overseers of the government, they will support people notable for their anger and their positions against things.  They will not ask how, they will not ask when, they will not ask for the proof it is working, or the signs it is effective.  They want someone as mad as them, period.  They don't look for someone that is mad, but is going to try something different.  Repeating what has failed and failed and failed is something that Einstein described.

It just infuriated me this morning, to hear about our problems, and hear nothing about how we fix it.  No one, not one single national or local government official in Michigan has asked what other communities are at the same risk as Flint, publicly.  Flint is not the only city along the Flint River.  This is just the 30 second soundbite window that our piss poor journalists can barely manage.  Not because they can't, but because if they get any more detailed than that, we as a whole, tune out.  Too much detail.  100,000 intentionally poisoned for 2 years in an American city, and we don't have time or interest in the details.  We are not outraged.  We are willing to send some cases of water, but not be part of the broad solution.  It is sad, and sad for the nation.  It condemns us for the future, because we do not understand the sins of the past.

I know there are many that disagree, and I welcome the debate.  But, the time is running short.  You would be surprised how very similar the treatment systems in Johnston County, coming from the Neuse River, are to the treatment systems in Flint, coming from the Flint River.  You would be surprised how many coal ash pits, abandoned mines, farm retention lagoons and industrial risks line the Neuse.  You would be surprised what the concentration and hazard of the effluent from fracking are.  We are less than a few years and less than a couple of "tragic accidents", like on the Dan River, from being in Flint's position.

I am going to get in the shower, because it is clean.  In Flint, they don't get that choice.  It can come here, much more quickly than you realize.  We are only waiting, especially if we don't soon make significant and pervasive investment.  It might be worth asking someone that you are supporting for office.  Beg them to connect the dots for you, how this gets better.  Write it down and hold them to it.  You don't want a container hub along the interstate because they used the term imminent domain, but you support adding industry on purchased land that the infrastructure cannot support with current growth rates.  Please ask those you are supporting to make that make sense for you, how it gets better, and when.

GLYASDI.

You might not like tech stuff, but...

You might not like tech stuff, but I DO.  I like the heat to turn on and off like it is supposed to, that is technology.  I want the lights to turn on and off from a switch, that is technology.  I want the refrigerator contents to stay cold, but not frozen, that is technology.

I like tech stuff.  I like the phones to work.  I like the computer to work.  I like cable.  I have worked my whole adult life to never have to go back to the farm.  I have fond memories of my childhood.  I don't regret a second of it, it made me who I am.  But, it also provides the fuel for my fire.

My house as a child was a single wide trailer, with two rooms added on when I was 3.  It was cold in the winter, so cold the sheets felt wet when you crawled into them.  It was hot in the summer, so hot that you slept naked with the windows open, and ignored the mosquitos.  At least once a winter, the surface well that fed the house was guaranteed to freeze and break at least some pipes.  The heat was an oil furnace that caught on fire at least 3 times before I left for the Navy at 17.  It failed to function multiple times each year.  I learned the basics of thermodynamics, internal combustion, fire fighting, electrical hazard (240V motor on the furnace fan that bit us all, at least once), and cussing from the result of that horrible, stinking furnace.

The road was gravel, 9/10 of a mile of red clay gravel.  If it rained, if it snowed, if it was sunny, if it was cloudy, if it was anything, the road rutted and washed out.  There was a homemade gravel pit that we hauled endless loads of gravel, bucket scoop after bucket scoop, to repair the road.  We had wooden bridges that we built by hand, to cross the two creeks.  They were about three foot deep and about four foot wide.  Every sizable storm, and we were using the tractors, our backs and sketchy ropes and chains to haul them back into place.  Transportation was work for us.

My grandparents lived about 100 yards up the hill from us.  They did not have an inside toilet.  My grandfather was of the firm opinion that you did not shit and eat in the same house.  Nor was he willing to spend the money to install one.  They had a luxury model 2 seat privy.  It was a daily chore, to lime the slots, and a weekly chore to clean the trench.  Next to it was a small shed that always held at least one snake.  I had foundations for the real fear men have of things getting their dangling bits as they are doing their business.

We did not buy meat, ever.  We had cows, pigs, chickens, God so many chickens.  We ate eggs every day, sometimes 3 meals a day.  We slaughtered pigs and cows for meat.  That was a community endeavor, every family working together, slaughtering at least a dozen at a time.  We salt cured a lot of it.  We had freezers shoved in every water tight building that held the rest of it.  We used every square inch of the property to grow food for the animals that we ate, and the vegetables we ate.  We were self sustaining, quite capable of living off the grid.  We were barely into the first square of the grid.

It was interesting, and I learned about hard work, self reliance and the value of family.  I will be damned if I live like that again.  It was such a load, every second of every day.  If you were not working on it, you were worrying about it.  Not so much us, as children, but we watched it.  If it was hot, it was going to scorch or dry the hay, the corn, the wheat, the chickens.  If it was cold, it was going to freeze the chickens, taint the corn, scald the peas.  If it was wet, it was going to mold the corn, soup the field, bust the squash.  If it was dry, everything was at risk.

It weighed on us.  We worked, all the time.  Nature was continuously against us.  We were blessed by it, but also cursed by it.  No one was immune, and it was what it was.  Today, it is what it is.

We were without electricity for 23 hours.  Our house is not equipped to be without electricity.  We have gas logs, which kept us from freezing.  But, we like the conveniences.  It pisses me off to have to use a bucket to fill the toilet.  It makes me remember that 2 seat luxury model with the ever present snake threat.  It pisses me off to be cold in bed, I remember those wet feeling sheets, and feeling the wind through the windows.  It pisses me off to worry over the food in the refrigerator, it makes me remember frantically filling freezers with ice.

I hate snow storms, because I remember carrying 5 gallon buckets of hot water 50 yards to thaw the waterers in the chicken house.  I remember sledding, and sliding in cow shit, mucking the ice layer out of the stables.  I am proud of how hard we worked and how well we lived.

But, I am happier working as hard as I do, in very different ways, to live so well.  I miss the convenience when it is gone.  Yes, I know how to survive, I know what it takes, how to do it, and a country boy can survive.  You don't want to live that way, trust me, you don't.  And, I dislike it intensely when I have to.

I said a prayer for electricity, cable and Internet, without a trace of guilt that I was praying for luxuries.  I got the necessities, the good Lord provided them to me in history and skills I will never forget or overlook.  I just hate it.  So, when people tell me they are going off grid, or miss the "good" ole days, I just stay quiet.

There is nothing wrong with that life, and there is nothing wrong in living that way.  But it is not a romantic thing, to be wished for.  We, as a race and a nation have struggled mightily to put that behind us, to create and enjoy so much more.  Every time we get a significant period without those conveniences, I think about this.

I hope to be spoiled and pampered all the rest of my days.  I might even spend an inordinate amount of money on a stand by generator, to sit in my yard for less than a day's worth of duty every year.  You could say it is the trauma of the daily chicken shit therapy I had as a child.  Whatever, I am not ashamed.  I won't die in the cold, or go hungry.  But I prefer just going to the grocery store.  I am happier living this life.  Memories are golden in retrospect.  If you have not lived that life, be careful what you wish for.

For 23 hours, we got to live the old way.  The hell with the old way.  Give me the age of computers, electricity and convenience.  I am spoiled, and I pray about it.  You are just going to have to live with that.

GLYASDI

Oscar boycotts, really?

If you were to list the things wrong with "Hollywood," it would be a ponderous and awesome list.  There is so very little right about it, that the list of wrong is probably approaching the definition of the mathematical term infinite.

So, to come to some kind of feigned horror about the racial inequality about Oscars, really stretches credibility, even for those in Hollywood.  In a place that produces the Jenners, the Kardashians, Jack Nicholson, Nick Nolte, Gary Busey, Lindsey Lohan, and continue on with the list, being concerned because they did not recognize enough black people is really kind of pitiful.

Of course they did not get it right.  They left getting it right in even the smallest way, around about June 11, 1979 when John Wayne died.  It was all kinds of boogered up even then.  It is a place of narcissistic and damaged people reflecting and magnifying the brokenness and tragedy inside themselves.  It is a wasteland of inappropriate attention and undeserved adoration.  It is vainglory come to life and a playground of the worst of humanity.  It has been since the 1920's.

Acting like it is shocking and frustrating it does not get racial equality right, in 2016, is hypocrisy at it's highest.  And, leading that charge, are some of the most significant "success" stories of Hollywood.  The not so Fresh Prince and his wife, boycotting the Oscars, over others not getting nominated.  It is not because Will did not get nominated for playing an African doctor fighting the second most narcissistic organization in the US, the NFL.  That would never be the case.  Because this year, damn it, it has just gone too far.

This is an industry that is notable for its destructive and horrific behavior.  It is hedonism, excess, waste.  Look, I am not rich.  I don't have the kind of money it should take to have the issues that these people have.  But, I have to tell you, I surely do.  They are folks like all the rest of us.  They have people they love that get sick, die.  They have people they love that betray them, hurt them.  They have people in their lives that damage them deeply.  They have reasons for the crazy, just like all the rest of us.

We, the little people, just keep a chip on our shoulder about it.  How can you throw your life away, when you have everything you ever dreamed of?  (River Phoenix, John Belushi, Kevin Farley, Marilyn Monroe, the list is too long.)  How can you throw away your work and career, after you worked so hard to earn it?  (Lindsey Lohan, Mickey Rourke, Corey Haim, Katt Williams, Covain, Morrison, Joplin, the list is too long.)  It is inconceivable, because they have money, fame, you know, everything we all want.

Except, it is not what we all want.  We want money because we think it will remove stresses and issues from our relationships.  We want fame because we think it will surround us with people that care about us.  We want what they have, because it solves all our problems.  In truth, that is all just a lie.  It just magnifies our problems.  Money becomes temptation and false invulnerability.  Fame becomes isolation and fear of the crazies.  What they have is a tortured version of the life they imagined, just like ours.

The Oscar outrage really pisses me off.  I don't care how bad the Smith's feel about being left out.  I could care less if Spike Lee gets nominated for anything.  I could care less if "Straight Outta Compton" got overlooked.  Those people, everyone associated with them and those projects, were so well paid for that work, it does not matter.  It is not what is wrong with Hollywood, nor is it even close to the most obvious symptom of what is wrong with Hollywood.

I don't care, and neither should the other white folks in America.  The good folks of color in this nation have been so bushwhacked that I am not sure how to get the message through to them.  Hollywood is not your issue.  And you will not solve it from that direction.  Want a prediction of what is going to happen in Hollywood, academia, business, military and all other areas of our nation over the next 20 years?  People of color are going to be more and more isolated and under represented.

If education, security in the home and relationships, and economic viability are not addressed in communities of color, nothing about boycotts, outrage and frustration will matter.  The false notion that the world is doing this to THEM is killing the communities of color.  You can claim I had white privilege all you want, but it did not feel very privileged shoveling crap out of the cow barn, and chicken house.  It did not feel very privileged, scraping 1/4" of tobacco gum off my hands at the end of the day.  It did not feel very privileged studying and working to make a career in the military, with nothing more than the high school education I got from my little FFA school in the boondocks.

I may have had the benefit of the doubt from many people, but I chose to do something with the benefit.  I worked, did the things that it takes to build a life, build security, struggle to get through.  I lost family and friends.  We fought cancer, addiction, betrayal, bad choices, unfair treatment, failure, lies, upheaval.  Yet, we continued to be focused on our family.  We worked hard to make our children see that the world could be better for them, should they choose to pursue it.

No one gave us anything.  We went and earned what we had, what we needed.  Nothing of value ever came on green tinged paper with dead Presidents on it.  Money came and went, still does.  Only love, care, concern, connection ever mattered.  Because of that, we focused on being better than we were.

We wanted more education for our children.  We wanted a better life for them.  To that aim, we taught them that work was required.  We showed them that they would not be given anything of value in this life.  Everything of value in this world is earned.  We taught them that they had a Creator, a Father God.  He loved them, and that was the important aspect of their lives.

We taught them that successful people were those that were loved, that had deep relationships with others, that connected.  We taught them respect of others, respect of themselves and respect for the order of things required to exist in peace in the world.  We have never heard our adult children ask why something was important, or why they should do something for themselves.  We have heard why is it so hard, why is it such a struggle.  That is an extremely important distinction, and it is missing on both sides of the Oscar "outrage."

It is not important, and it should not be a care.  Why it is hard and a struggle is obvious.  If it is truly your craft and your career, it is difficult to master and to apply.  Just because it is theater, acting, it is still a profession.  It is work worth doing well, if you are doing it for your profession.  That is true of any endeavor.  When there becomes a feeling of entitlement or deservedness, you have moved past a vocation.  No one owes me praise for my good work.  I appreciate it, certainly.  But it is not owed me.  I don't deserve it, because I was supposed to do it to the best of my ability.  That was the agreement I made.

I am owed respect as a human being.  I am owed opportunity as a human being.  In that, there is a huge issue in Hollywood that I support fixing.  But, more qualified, better educated, better prepared people coming behind the current professionals, is the only answer to improving the situation.  It will not improve just because we protest about Hollywood.

Living the thug life, the redneck life, while perpetuating the stereotype that Hollywood trades on to make money, does not prepare or equip one to be successful.  If you don't learn, don't make those coming behind you better, don't push and reinforce the correct values, the correct approach, nothing will improve.  It will change, change is inevitable.  But it will get worse.  That is what is happening, Detroit, Compton, Flint, Rochester, Memphis, Ferguson, Little Havanna, it is getting worse.

Want to be outraged, get outraged about the waste of the talent and potential of millions of young people with no rudder, no example to lead them to better and to different.  I don't blame the young men and women that are degrading to nothing in our judicial system.  It is their own doing and their responsibility, but I don't blame them.  They are emulating what they see in the role models they have.  Why is poverty entrenched and immutable in Appalachia?  Why are the hollers so depressed?  Because there is not a premium on education, there is not a culture of betterment.  It is not a black or color thing, it is a belief thing.

Butcher Holler has the same disease that Detroit and Flint have.  It is not about color, and it is not about Oscar.  But, if you are pissed you didn't get your Oscar nod, instead of trying to make old white guys with buckets of money change their mind, go make a difference in the lives of those young people.  Make them different to the point that even the old white guys can no longer ignore the evidence before them.  That was the secret of Dr. King.  He made it obvious, to even old white guys, that people of color could be reasoned, patient, upright, and worthy of consideration and respect.

Tupac, Big E, .50, Snoop, that is not exactly convincing anyone to respect or consider that lifestyle and approach worthy of respect.  I have nothing against those men, and I don't know enough to condemn them.  But, what they broadcast, what they portray for others to idolize, it is poison for their communities.  Keeping it real should not translate to making it permanent.  But, it is becoming permanent, and that ought to shame all Americans.

Whenever we decide to fix this, all of us, regardless of color, and work harder on educating and enriching our children to prevent that false reality from being their metric, their yard stick, their dream, we will restore America.  Electing Hillary, Trump, Carson, Cruz, none of them will do that.  Unless we make them do more than 10 second sound bites and the latest gotcha.  Liking or hating Obama is no qualification for fixing anything.  Neither is being rich, nor well educated.  But, compassionate, concerned and realistic, those are good qualities.  Find any candidate in the list with those qualities they are expressing?

No one ever gave us anything, we had to work for it.  Including making America better.  Don't like the Oscar mess?  Me either, but it is a distraction and false flag.  But, if you want to fix it, however minor it is, best start with those coming behind you.  It is the only solution.  It does not change today, it does not get better by devolving, as the segments of poverty are devolving.  The Mafia was not glamorous, but it was the subject of great story telling.  Why would the Hood be any different?  It is nothing to aspire to.  Yet, it what we glorify, and then sit befuddled as to what makes a Justin Beeber happen.  God help us all, but just look at Justin Beeber.

Read something yesterday about Carl Brashear, one of my personal heroes, who I had the opportunity to meet.  He was just a guy like me, but he made those around him better, as he made himself better.  When more of the world is emulating Carl Brashear than Kanye West (please, God help us all), we will be making a difference.  If you want better, earn it, make it.  Stop asking for it and expecting it.  I marvel at how little the community of color knows and understands Dr. King and the movement he represents.  It is the worst thing the establishment has ever done to those communities, taking that knowledge away from generations.  And shame on the adults, generation after generation, that allowed that knowledge to die in their communities.

Tell your children to pull up their britches, learn how to read and write, get a life skill, a trade, and raise their children to be better, be more.  Regardless of their color, they will bless you with riches beyond having 50 Oscars.  If we don't soon, nothing will recover the path of descent.  I won't be boycotting the Oscars, though I don't know if we will be watching.  Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old, he will not depart from it.  Proverb 22:6.  Thousands of years old, and every bit as true and important today as it was then.

I have been working on making programs and education paths that make people better at what I do, than I am.  I might spend that time working on that instead, putting my own preaching to action.

GLYASDI