Disneyland Closes At 35

On Blogging

When I began to blog I did not know much about the process. I had to enlist help in setting up a blog site. I then looked at any number of established blogs to determine what sorts of topics were interesting to people. The subjects that I know best did not seem to be among the most popular at the time and they don't seem among the most popular now. I think I now know the problem with my blog.

I'm not the best writer in the world; still, I am certainly not the worst. Writing isn't the problem with my blog.

I'm not the most intelligent person blogging; however, I am not the least intelligent. Intelligence is not the problem.

I'm not the best educated person in the world, but I have had a good  deal of formal education. Admittedly that education came from State universities, not the Ivy League. I don't think lack of education is the problem with my blog.

The problem with my blog seems to be a lack of passion on my part. I do not, or so it seems, care deeply enough about anything to be interesting. I have been thinking about a list of things about which I might have been passionate during 2011,

I could have been passionate about Occupy Wall Street. I could have deeply despised the movement or deeply supported the movement. I did neither. Why?

It was and is boring, disingenuous and so 1966. It was, and is, a yawner. It was, and is, for the most part, a group of out of work, not looking for work, unwashed, irritating and lazy people who want to blame the dificiencies of their lives on someone else. They keep working people from getting to their jobs, mothers from getting their kids to school, businesses from conducting their business, and don't change a thing. Sounds like a bunch of the same kind of people who raised a bunch of unnecessary hell during the 60"s. Most of them moved on to be insurance salesmen, elementary school teachers, social workers, soccer moms and the like.

I could have been passionate about the corporate fat cats who screwed the public, not however without our assistance. I believe that the American government is by and large controlled, manipulated and directed by mega corporations. I could be very passionate about this situation, yet I am not. I cannot do one thing about it. I could vote for the current President, Romney, Gingerich, or my mother and it would not make any difference. Big business has ruled from behind the scenes for the past one hundred and fifty years or longer, probably since the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

I could have been irate about the enviroment, the plight of the white mini owl or Global Warming. I am not. Why? Because I do not know the truth about the environment, or the owl whose name I just coined, or Global Warming. I know that I do not want the highways, the byways, the rivers and streams, the mountains or the seas to be further contaminated and I do feel a bit passionate about that. As to Global Warming, who really knows. Of course someone from both sides will tell me that they do know.

I have a friend, a former Air Force officer, a trained meteorologist, who claims that Global Warming is a hoax. I know others who think that it is an established fact. For every scientist who claims that Global Warming is a serious problem there is another who claims that it is not.

I wrote a blog article last year concerning the Social Contract. I said that it is not really clear how the contract should be amended and I was roundly attacked as disingenuous. I was told that all I need to guide me in this area was to follow my conscience. Well, it's not quite that simple

Passion sometimes clouds judgment. In fact it almost always clouds judgment.

Perhaps its not so bad to be a bit dispassionate.

And What About the Bullies?

I have not thought about bullies in a quite awhile, at least not in depth; still, I listened to a news story this evening about a young gay teenager who committed suicide after years of being bullied because of his sexual orientation. Then I remembered all the bullies I have ever known and I really felt  badly for this young man. Bullies can ruin a life if they are allowed to do so.

I remembered a young man who I will refer to as CJ. He was in my grade school and junior high classes from 1953 until 1959 in a small Texas town. He lived a miserable life. He was small, frail, scared and anxiety ridden every day that I knew him.

He harmed no one. He was disrespectful to no one. He was a better than average student, and yet he was picked out by the school bullies from the 4th grade forward to be one of the primary targets of their torture. His life must have been hell on earth and I have no idea what eventually happened to him.

I was never unkind to him, but I never really helped him either, although I tried on at least one occasion. I told him to pick out just one of the bullies. I told him to walk up unobtrusively and hit the bully in the nose as hard as he could and to keep swinging until his arms wore out.

Bullies pick on people that don't fight back. If they have to pay the price of enduring any pain whatsoever they will find someone else to torture. I told him to strike first, to yell and scream and give the impression that he was a bit of a crazy boy as he was throwing punch after punch. Bullies don't like to deal with people they believe to be demented.  They avoid people who fight back. They don't like to endure any pain.

CJ just couldn't find the courage. 

I'm sure the advice that I gave him as a 13 year old living in 1959 Texas would be thought of as Politically Incorrect today. I would be told that fighting in school just isn't permissible, even in self defense. I would be told that the educational system should take care of the problem. That notion is disingenuous.

School systems don't stop bullying. A kid who goes to the authorities is a marked boy or girl. The truth is that the school can do very little prior to witnessing an actual act of bullying, Bullies are good at clandestine torture and abuse.

I don't say that the school system should not be alerted. They should. I don't say that parents should not utilize this avenue first. Perhaps they should; stil, I doubt that it would work.

I wholeheartedly believe that the right to self defense is not a right exclusively retained by adults. Why should a young person not have the right to defend themselves whether they are in church, in school, or in a shopping mall?

Assault does not have to begin as a physical event. All that needs to happen is that a person be able to demonstrate that they were in fear of being assaulted and that the fear was justified. It is not always wrong to throw the first punch.

The whole notion that nothing should be done until one is attacked is, I think, incorrect. It is incorrect when dealing with the playground bully and it is incorrect when dealing with nations like North Korea or Iran. There are times when our country needs to walk up unobtrusively and punch our enemies in the nose. It is sometimes okay to hit them first and hit them hard.

 

Searching Through the Rubble

I re-read my post from yesterday and depressed myself. Today I sifted through the rubble to find some good things which have come from the misery of the past five years. There is some good news, but it is all anecdotal. I can't prove that any of these good things have come to pass, but it seems so to me.

Young people, and in fact many older people, have relearned the value of the dollar. I imagine that Starbuck's is selling fewer $5.00 coffees and more $3.00 coffees. Many people are foregoing any coffee at all other than what they make at home.

Far less money has been spent on consumer goods that none of us really need in order to live a good life. We may desire large SUV's, designer jeans at $200 each, massive flat screen television sets, access to 200 channels of HD programming, and five bedroom homes with spas and swimming pools located in an upscale neighborhoods.

I might have included smart phones and computers. I didn't because cell phones and computers have become necessities over the course of the last decade.

Families have been forced to reduce the amount of money and time that they spend eating out, picking up carryout or eating fast food. We have been compelled to eat at home, preferably with our wife and children setting around a dinner table discussing things of substance.

The nation has finally given appropriate homage to the men and women who serve our country at home and in foreign wars. Most of us treat these soldiers, airmen, marines, sailors and coast guard personnel with the high degree of respect that they deserve.

Most of us are more charitable than we were at the beginning of the decade because more of us know what it feels like to be out of work, on unemployment, watching the balance sheet of our savings or retirement accounts sink lower and lower.

It seems to me that family discussion, interaction and cooperation in trying to forge a living for the family has improved dramatically. We are not as much a ME First society as we were a decade ago.

These are all good things.

In the Age of Ennui

Ennui ( ahn wee ) is a French word meaning extreme weariness, boredom, disquiet and the like. Some also use the word to mean a generalized feeling that "the other shoe is about to fall." This definition implies a degree of anxiety and poorly defined fears for the future.

I realized today that millions of Americans are suffering from ennui. They are certainly weary. The economy shows no real signs of improving. The unemployment situation shows no signs of improving; rather, more and more large companies are issuing pink slips.

I heard on the evening news that the Merck Corporation will be laying off 30,000 workers over the next two years. The sagging infrastructure of the country is not being addressed. Highways, bridges, city streets, overpasses and sidewalks continue to deteriorate while State and local taxes continue to rise in many parts of the nation.

It seems that our elected representatives cannot agree on anything. Gridlock in government is more profound than perhaps at any time in the past quarter century. This situation is wearisome.

Either the President, the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader or the Senate Leader seem to find a way to get their faces on television and speak every single day without really saying anything new.

The Pundits on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and Public Radio speak ad nauseum everyday without really saying anything new. All this is wearisome and boring.

In addition to weariness and boredom many people are anxious, disquieted and wondering when the next shoe is going to fall. Will it come as the result of slipping back into an even deeper recession? Will it be brought about by heavy losses in the Stock Market and in personal retirement plans. Is the Middle East becoming more and more of a powderkeg just waiting for the next maniac to appear and wreak futher havoc? Will we really desert Israel? Will we really allow Iran to have nuclear weaponry? Will Social Security payments be reduced? Will more and more physicians choose to either not accept Medicare or give up medical practice entirely? Will young people continue to borrow heavily to fund a college education and then be unable to secure a job upon graduation?

There are plenty of shoes that could fall at any time.

I think I will turn on the television and bore myself even further. When one is extremely bored it helps to fight off worry.

Perhaps I also need to take the time to see if there are any positives that can come out of all this.

More to come.

 

The President's Deficit Reduction Plan

I do not classify myself as a Republican, Libertarian or Democrat. I suppose I am an Independent. I sometimes vote Republican and I sometimes vote Democrat and I sometimes write someone in, like my cat Faisal.

I also do not claim to be an expert on all the troublesome issues that pundits discuss with so much passion each and every day. I do not know how Wolf Blitzer, Sean Hannity, Chris Matthews, Rush Limbaugh and the others can maintain the impressive level of indignation that they demonstrate day after day. I could not do so.

It seems to me that usually there is no absolutely correct solution to anything, at least not one that human beings can fathom. Hannity cannot be right about everything and neither can Matthews or Blitzer. The truth is somewhere in the middle, and no one wants to go to the middle

Again, I am no expert, no more informed than you who are reading my posting; still, a few things seem clear.

The first Stimulus Plan did not work very well. How do I know? I know because few of the projections relevant to what the stimulus plan would fix came true. 

If I had made the same mistakes with respect to my family budget I would be bankrupt. The best predictor of X is X. If the sun has come up in the East for all of recorded history it is not unreasonable to think that it will do the same thing tomorrow. If the first Stimulus Plan did not work, why would the second? It's not that I do not agree with some aspects of the plan. I do. Why can't Congress simply implement the aspects of the plan upon which they agree and do it right away. Why throw out the baby with the bath water?

I'm not rich; still, I cannot understand why a rich person should pay more taxes, percentage wise, than me. I simply do not understand that point of view.

On the other hand, I don't think that oil companies and huge corporations should get SPECIAL tax breaks. They should not.

I do know that this nation is going nowhere fast. I hope someone smarter than me can come up with a fix.

Take Down All the Mirrors

I have recently been invited to two class reunions. As it turned out my schedule would not allow me to attend either of the events; still, I received a number of emails, photos, and information from those who did attend. I remembered almost everyone. I recognized hardly anyone. It was difficult to believe that the people in the photos were the same people with whom I had gone to school.

Many of the emails contained short summaries of an entire life. Left high school. Joined the Marine Corps. Came home and went to work in the steel mill. Married and had two kids. Retired from the mill. Like to hunt and fish.

I duly provided a short summary of my life for those who asked. Graduated from high school. Joined the Army. Came home and went to college on the G.I. Bill. Got a job. Married and had three kids with two different women. My second wife died. Raised my 6th grader who is now in college. Semi-Retired. Teach philosophy at a college.

It seems both sad and ironic that an entire life can be summed up in a short paragraph.

I wish I had gone to the reunions. There were many people in attendance that I have not seen in more than 47 years, but my memory of them is as fresh as yesterday. I just see them, and myself, as I once was, not as I am now.

I still feel the same way that I did in 1964. I no longer believe many of the things that I believed then. I have no doubt changed considerably over the years. Most of us reinvent ourselves over time. It is in fact difficult to say what a Self really is. Is a Self really no more than memories of our experiences? Is what we think of Ourselves dictated mostly by what other people tell us we are? How could we know that we a popular, or smart, or beautiful if other people did not confirm that notion for us?

I do know this. So long as I keep passing the mirrors in my house without looking at them I feel young, and vibrant. l feel like Myself.

Perhaps it is time to remove all the mirrors.

Why Should I Blog?

I have not been very active in blogging for quite some time. I think I know why.

I see that I have made more than seventy posts and have received about three, well perhaps a few more than that, comments. I must conclude that I am writing about topics that are of little to no interest to anyone. So, why should I blog?

Well, because I have something to say, whether anyone is interested or not. I have lived now for sixty five years. I have been all over the world. I have been employed in interesting positions that brought me into contact with a wide range of people. I have a good education. Something I say should be interesting to someone. Something I say should resonate with someone. Something I say should be helpful to someone.

I continue to blog because I believe the above. You can prove me wrong. Simply don't read the blog or don't respond.

Today I want to blog about politics.

Politics is generally held in low regard. I heard today that our Congress has an approval rating of less than twenty percent. Our President has an approval rating of less than fifty percent. Ever since Watergate there have been a seemingly endless parade of political scandals related to sex, money, power, perversion etc.

In my view to be a human being is to be political. Most all of us strive to improve our position, to increase our power, to gain more status, to become more important. We are political almost from birth. We vie for attention with our siblings, our classmates, our teammates, and our spouses. So, why are we so disappointed with our politicians? I think it is because they have not done a good enough job to earn a favorable rating.

If unemployment was low, earnings high, the stock market healthy, the price of houses going up, and the rewards of getting an education considerable, we would be applauding politicians. None of the aformentioned is the case; thus, all the grumbling about politicians.

We dont really dislike politicians.We just do not like those that are ineffective

The Last Thing I Believed In

We are led to believe that our lives have some importance, that we will live on in the hearts and minds of those who loved us best, in the remembrances of our friends, our families and all those who touched or were touched by our existence.

We are led to believe that some things, perhaps not a great number, are absolutely true and that others are absolutely false.

We are taught by family and religion that some things are wrong, at all times and in all places, and that other things are right, at all times and all places.

Many of the world's greatest thinkers call all these assertions into question. Friedrich Nietzsche holds that nothing could be more insignificant than the herd animal that is man. David Hume reports that humans are no more important in the great scheme of the universe than a single oyster alone in the vast expanse of the ocean.

As I get older I too question the significance of human existence. I have been assessing my beliefs and attempting to come to grips with the burgeoning doubts that creep into my mind in those last waking moments before sleep, or in my dreams, or in those first musings upon waking. I ask myself, what are the things in which I truly and confidently believe? It is much easier to list those things in which I do not believe.

I do not believe that my local, state or national government can solve the problems of high unemployment, rising medical, fuel and food prices, and myriad other social problems that exist. I do not believe that they will adequately provide for the least privledged members of our society such as the young, the elderly or the ill.  

I do not believe in the extremists on either end of the political spectrum. I, like many Americans, am weary of the harping, whining, complaining, back-biting, childish and self-serving behaviors that we see displayed in American politics everyday.

One thing that I still believe is that human beings should treat each other with respect. Human beings should help other human beings when they can. Most importantly, societies, and the governments that issue from them, should be FAIR.

I think all of us have a notion of what fairness means.

1. Not to take advantgage.

2. Not to be disrepectful.

3. To provide equal opportunity for all and equal protection under the law for all.

4. To disperse goods and services based on merit, but also to provide whatever is needed for those less fortunate than ourselves.

Most of us have an innate knowledge of these principles at our core. If we are not sociopaths we have a conscience. Most of us are not sociopaths.

If we all listened to our conscience we would not need government to become our conscience.

That's one of the last things I believe.

On Turning 65

I will experience my 65th birthday next week. I use the term experience rather than celebrate. I don't feel like celebrating.

I well remember my 40th birthday, the paper tombstones that my employees set all round my desk, and the over the hill posters of an old man with no teeth. I shrugged that all off. I didn't feel old. I didn't  look old.

In fact, at 40, I was at the top of my game. I had gone through the ranks of my profession quickly and was just on the cusp of being promoted to the second highest position in the organization. I went on a sailing trips with friends to celebrate and had a great time. We drank several gallons of scotch, caught more than our limit of fish, and engaged in numberless stories of one-upsmanship.

I felt no angst on the day of my 50th birthday. I had for some time been the number two person in my organization, I had two grown children and a much unexpected 4 year old to keep me young, and I still didn't feel old or look old.

My 4 year old is now nearing 21 and is a college student out of state. My high school class of 1964 is holding a 47 year reunion that includes the classes of 64/65 and 66 as a number of persons in each class have died. There were two new obituaries of persons who died this week.

What's to celebrate? Well, I have a long list. I have 3 great children, a loving and devoted wife, students that I mostly enjoy, good health, a mind that is still clear, a few good friends, two great cats, a nice home, and the list goes on.

I now feel a bit old, and I look old. If I could remove all the mirrors from my home I think I might feel like celebrating.

End of the Semester

There must be tens of thousands of parents eagerly awaiting the return of their son or daughter from college, especially those parents of students who are completing their freshman year.

It is a very difficult thing to drop off your 18 year old at college, help them move into their dorm, and then drive away, hoping that they will be able to handle all the new stressors that will impact their lives from this point on.

There is also an internal event which occurs in the parents. They come into touch with the knowledge that if their child is now in college they must be older than they feel. This is especially true of older parents like myself.

I was 45 years old when my youngest was born. Since she is now 19 years old it is not difficult to deduce my age. Most people think that she is my grand daughter. It was very difficult for me to drop her off at college last August, and it has been a struggle for me every day to begin the process of letting go of the life we had together for 18 years.

My wife died when my daughter was 10 years old; thus, we had a number of years together when it was just me and her. I miss those times; yet, I realize that I did the best I could do to prepare her for the life ahead of her, the life to come.

She has done very well over the course of her freshman year. Her grades are excellent. She has adapted to college life as if she were meant for it. I am very encouraged by the way that she has adapted to a new environement, except for the fact that she now has a boyfriend as well.

I have not done as well. I have been sad, even despondent, in her absence, but I am doing better. I am going to recover just as I did when my older children left home to go to college. I am playing golf again, writing again, hiking again, and getting on with my life.

It is also the end of the semester for the students in my philosophy classes.

I begin each of my classes with 42 students. When the semester ends I am fortunate to have 30 students remaining. Some simply disappear. They do not drop the class. They just never show up again. Others try the best that they can but they have child care issues, marital issues, legal issues, financial issues and so on. They drop out too, or simply hang on and fail the course.

Only  3 or 4 students out of the 42 who began finish with a grade of A. This is a tragedy; yet, it is a reality.

It is the end of yet another semester.