Disneyland Closes At 35

Perhaps We do Live in the Matrix

I vowed to post my comments relative to subjects about which I actually know something; thus, today I am writing about reality. I imagine all who read this post have a notion, and some experience with, the question of what is real?

Many persons believe that reality corresponds exactly to what they can see, touch, taste, hear, or smell. The apple sitting on their dining room table is exactly as it appears to be. It is red, has a certain texture, a certain smell and a certain shape. This particular apple is simply a representative sample of all other apples, although some may be green or yellow or some combination of the two.

Other persons believe that what they experience when they look at the apple is not the apple at all, but simply a representation or picture of the actual apple. The apple, after all, does not jump into our head. We simply experience things like color and shape and smell and our brain does the rest.

Still others believe that we never experience anything in the physical world. What do we experience? We experience our thoughts and nothing more. It seems quite certain that I experience thoughts because I am the sort of entity that thinks. But do I also experience tables and chairs and cows and unicorns or only my thoughts about tables and chairs and cows and unicorns?

We know that we can be deluded by our senses. The mirage appearing on the horizon of a hot desert highway is not a lake, or pond. It is an illusion. I saw the robber as he ran across the road and into the parking lot. He was short, wore a blue flannel shirt, had long hair and was Asian. You saw the same thing, but in your experience he was of medium height, had on a grey sweatshirt and had medium length hair. Eye witness accounts are notroiously unreliable.

So what is real? Is our everyday life lived in a real world? If so, to what extent? Perhaps we are all attached to the Matrix so aptly portrayed in the movie by that title. Don't you ever sense that perhaps things are not really as they seem to you?

I sometimes do, especially when I watch politicians in action, as I did today. I took in perhaps 30 minutes of the Blair House Health Summit from our nations' capitol. I had the distinct impression that the proceedings were staged and unreal. It was a play, carefully staged, full of rhetoric, signifying nothing at all. What was your impression of this play?

Things are Getting Better?

I hear, mostly from various pundits who claim to be expert economists, financial strategists, news analysts etc., that things are getting better. By things, they are referring to the economy, job production, home sales, business upstarts, availability of monies to loan to small business, and so on.

If things are getting better why does it not feel that way? Why does it not look that way? Why aren't more persons in foreclosure able to refinance their loans? Why are so many people out of work, out of health insurance, out of money, and in some cases out of hope? Are things getting better?

I was recently in California visiting my son and daughter. My son owns what has been a profitable business which employed perhaps as many as 20 persons not more that 18 months ago. He established the business 10 years ago and has been very successful up until now. He still gets business. People sign contracts with his company and are then unable to garner the financing they need to move forward with the project. The projects do not materialize and his employees have nothing to do. He has had no choice but to lay them off one after the other and now there are only 5 persons on the payroll. Jobs lost. Insurance coverage lost. We all know where this trail ends.

I have been to California many times over the years and it has never looked less prosperous.

I have been to Oklahoma many times over the years. It never looked particularly prosperous. It now looks poverty stricken. I drove through many small and mid-size towns in Oklahoma not less than a week ago. Most of the old downtown business and residential areas contain vacant businesses, boarded up Movie theatres, broken-down houses, streets in need of repair and schools which need paint, more classrooms, new cafeterias and more.

I had the oil changed in my truck at one of the nationally franchised lube shops that have sprung up over the past 20 years. I asked the owner how business was going. He told me it has never been worse. His cost of business is up, his revenue is down, and most of his regular customers are no longer having their oil changed every 3000 miles but have moved up the oil change schedule to 5000 or 6000 miles. His daughter had to drop out of the state university and come home to community college. He said, "I pray every morning and every night that things will get better. Something has to give."

My wife is a real estate Manager for a large branded company. She shepherds more than 50 agents, many of whom are finding it difficult to remain in the business. Things are not getting better for the real estate industry. The agents have listings in plenty. They do not have sales in plenty. One of the reasons is that prospective buyers cannot procure the financing they need to purchase a home.

Are things getting better?

All I Have Ever Known

I read a number of blogs on a daily basis, and I am amazed by the fact that volumes are written by persons who have zero or very little knowledge about the subjects they choose to write about. I do not want to join the ranks of such bloggers; thus, I feel it incumbent on me to write only about subjects about which I am knowledgeable.

That pledge rules out writing about high fashion, pop culture, bird watching, interior design, ice dancing, carpentry, and a plethora of other subjects. I vow to write about only those topics with which I have a documented history, interest, and level of competentcy that will not draw hoots of derision.

I do know a bit about OPINIONS. I am in fact engaged in responding to many views about OPINIONS at this time, as the subject is a topic on the Discussion Board of one of my online philosophy classes. In general, most of the students have said that one opinion is as good as another, that all opinions should be treated as equal in terms of truth value, etc.

This is of course nonsense. If not, I suggest that the next time you are ill you give equal weight to the views of your plumber and your doctor as to the diagnosis of your problem. It is clear that some opinions are better informed than others. Opinions are not of equal value or weight. That is not to say that one should disrespect persons who hold uninformed opinions. One can disagree without being disagreeable.

People hold millions of opinions. At this moment a huge number of persons hold opinions relevant to the appropriate course of action as regards the United States' involvement in Afghanistan. Many think that we should simply withdraw, acknowledge the fact that our efforts have all resulted in failure, and worse, in the deaths of service men and women as well as the deaths of innocent civilians. What they say is true. The U.S. involvement in Afghanistan has resulted in the deaths of American men and women as well as the death of innocent men, women and children. How can this possibly be justified? I do not know that it can, but if it cannot, what is needed is a total redefinition of the meaning and morality of warfare. 

Warfare is divided into unjustified warfare and justified warfare. The philosophic question is simply what events justifiy the killing of troops on each side of an isssue, what justifies the killing of innocents, what justifies killing at all at any time or any place.

Obviously our government believes that the war in Afghanistan is justified. Is it? I do not really know the answer to that question. Is Afghanistan a hotbed of terrorist activity? It seems to me that the answer to that question is yes. Are the Taliban nice people? I think, no. Are women subjected to horrible treatment under Taliban rule? I think, yes. Are these brutal, repressive, and ignorant people. I would guess, yes.

Is Afghanistan a primary source of heroin production via poppy growth and distribution to those who turn poppies into heroin? I think, yes.

Is it ever permissible or morally correct to kill innocents? I know not. Does it happen? Yes. The United States, in the prosecution of what it believed to be a just war firebombed Germany and let loose the Atomic Bomb on Japan. Harry Truman thought it necessary and utilitarian in a moral sense.

I do think it immoral, and demonstrably so, to risk the lives of our American troops, both men and women, behind the veil of repressive and stupid rules of engagement. I have first hand involvement and knowledge about repressive rules of engagement. I have heard it reported that the same is true in Afghanistan. If so, that is immoral.

Should we simply cut bait and come home? Perhaps. But we should, in the meantime, have rules of engagement that allow our soldiers and marines to fight back with all the intensity that can be mustered.

I know something about this subject, so I acknowledge that I wrote this post and approve of its contents.

Waiting on Test Results

It seems to me that waiting on test results, whether academic, related to employment, or medical, is one of the most stressful events to confront human beings. I am particularly averse to both medical tests and waiting on the results of medical tests.

I feel, on the one hand, that no news is good news. Surely if some horrific findings came to light as a result of the tests the doctor would contact me immediately. Experience has proven that this is not the case. Many doctors want to delay contacting their patients in the event of horrible news. Why call on Friday and ruin the weekend when Monday will do just as well and allow the patient to have one last nice weekend?

My late wife, the picture of good health and only 49 years old, agreed to come with me to my doctor where we were both scheduled for physical exams. She was 5 ft 7 in and weighed 122 pounds. She was running three miles per day on the tred mill I had purchased for her as a Christmas present.

We arrived the first week in February for our exams. I was examined, and then she was examined next. We both underwent the usual blood chemistry studies and Xrays. One week later she was diagnosed with cancer. After 18 months of chemotherapy and radiation my wife died. Medical science could not save her. It had not saved her mother, or 2 of her Aunts, or 3 of her uncles. It merely held the inevitable at bay for a few miserable months.

My wife's brother, my brother-in-law, was diagnosed with cancer in June of 2009. He too has undergone all the tests, the chemotherapy, and the radiation treatments. He underwent a CT scan to discover how well the treatments have worked last week. He is to obtain the results tomorrow.

I cannot know exactly what he might be thinking on this night. It is after midnight, but I imagine he is still awake. He is 66 years old. What must he be thinking?

I am 63 years old. I have not had a physical exam in 8 years. I have no faith that medical science could cure me if they found a problem with my health. Stupid, you say. I should have a colonopscopy, my annual PSA tests, my annual chest Xray, all the blood chemistries. The early bird avoids the worm in this case. You may be correct; however, one thing I know is that if you go to enough doctors they will in fact find something wrong with your health. I also know that the attempted cure can sometimes be worse than the disease.

My wife had stage 4 cancer when it was found, even though she had no symptoms. She had no real hope of survival. Her last 18 months of life were spent in misery, pain, nausea and more pain. If she had known she would have opted for quality rather than quantity of life.

My brother-in-law is no doubt awake at this late hour as he prepares to confront his test results. I too am awake, thinking of all the test results I have waited on in the past and hoping for better news this time.

An Overabundance of Directness

I respect people who are direct, who get to the point, who don't (in my words) sugar coat or intentionally soften their remarks just to make certain that they are politically correct and in danger of offending no one. The fact that I prefer people to be direct has made me think that others appreciate directness and cogency as much as I do. I am chagrined to find that they do not. In fact, theyfind directness to be rude, offensive and hurtful.

I was direct, to the point, and steadfast with someone I love in a recent conversation. I thought I had been instructive in my argument, as well as insightful, even helpful. I was wrong. All I really accomplished was to intimidate my loved one and hurt her feelings.

Perhaps directness isn't the positive character trait I thought it to be.

After the Eclipse

I am writing a sequel to Disneyland Closes at 35, my first published novel. It is entitled After the Eclipse. The image is my mind is a period of historical eclipse that began in the 1960's and ended in the 1980's. The sequel is set in the period 2000 through 2009, remembering the eclipse, yet trying to move beyond this period in order to create a future.

I once thought of the decade of the 60's and 70's as frenetic, deranged and misguided. Society was in turmoil. Chaos was the order of the day. In retrospect, it wasn't all bad. Some degree of order came out of the chaos and some much needed change came out of the turmoil. Civil RIghts were finally honored for all Americans, although much still needed to be worked out. Women began to make some inroads into the employment and social mainstream, although there is still work to be done. So - some things were resolved and life, in some ways became more free. Who can argue with the need for human beings, all human beings, to be free?

At the same time that more people were becoming free, other people became less free. I think the name of this enemy is Postmodernism. This philosophy holds, strangely enough, that nothing is true, that everything is merely a narrative, with no one narrative being any more or less true than another.

Postmodernism, oddly enough, somehow became linked with Political Correctness. How? The two would seem to be diametrically opposed. Political Correctness, in the postmodern understanding, should be thought of as nothing more than a competing narrative, no more or less true that any other narrative.

That has not been the case. Political Correctness has been employed to make all Americans less free. Do you remember the last time you felt free to voice an opinion. It was long ago. Why do we not feel free to say the things we really feel? How many of you feel that you are walking on eggshells most of the day. At work. At school. In social gatherings. It has been a long time since most people voiced their true opinions. When will that end?

Let's Just Give it Up!

I recently wrote a post in which I questioned the logic and reasonableness of letting our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan know our plans, in regards to combatting them, by letting them know that we are only committed for the next 18 months. I also questioned the rules of engagements under which our troops labor. We cannot attack holy places, although these are the places which often serve as strongholds for our enemies. I wondered why we do not utilize our modern weaponry, our bombers, our fighter planes, our missiles, our advanced methods of attack. I now know why.

We do not have the will to win any engagement. We, the majority of Americans, believe that no one should be killed in a war, that nothing short of defending our own beaches justifies even engaging in a war, that waterboarding is a huge sin, although it does not kill anyone. In the words of Jack Nicholson, we can't handle the truth. The truth is that we don't mind short changing our soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines. We let them fight with rifles and bayonets as if it were the civil war. We do not support them with our big hitters. There is no shock and awe. There is no display of our real power. We do our troops a disservice. The enemy is attempting to kill them and yet we will not let our troops fight back. We tie their hands and we help the enemy to kill them. We have spent billions of dollars on weaponry that we do not have the guts to employ. Given all this, I have changed my mind.

The President should call our troops home. We should simply pick up sticks and retreat from Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany, Korea and everywhere else in the world where we have troops deployed. Screw it.

This is the best course of action given our lack of will to forge a war. Of course, those military personnel who have given lives, legs, arms, hope and future to our weak effort will be pissed. Can you blame them. Why did they lose their lives and legs and arms and hope and future? For nothing it seems. Just like Vietnam. How proud we should be of ourselves.

Once again we have shown ourselves to be weak of will and short of the abilility to live up to our committments. The world knows who we are and they laugh at us. We have no national intestinal fortitude and they know it. In short, we are a fat, lazy, self-absorbed joke.

We should be very proud.

On Civil Discourse

It seems to me that the pulse of civil discourse is thin, erratic and weak. The fact is that civil discourse is dying of old age. Its time, it seems, has come and gone. One can no longer disagree without offending someone, some cause, some special interest, or some sensibility. It is best to open one's mouth as little as possible, to utililize language only when necessary to obtain life's absolute necessities.

When sick it is necessary to at least offer the doctor some information regarding symptoms. When asked a question it is necessary to make a polite reply, but to do more is dangerous. To actually voice an opinion is very dangerous.

The cost of an opinion could well be one's career, one's reputation, one's status in the community. It is best to pretend that no one opinion is any better than any other opinion. It is best not to judge anything or anyone. One can be labeled, and once labeled one's life will change.

I don't want to be labeled as a Democrat, a Republican, a Conservative, a Liberal, a Chauvanist, a Bigot, or any of the other numerous labels. I do want to be able to hold a reasoned opinion and to voice my opinion without being castigated for having done so. I want to engage in civil dIscourse in order that my views can be heard and examined and in order to hear and examine the views of others. I cannot learn from others if I do not know what they think, feel and believe. They cannot learn from me if my thoughts and ideas are immediately rejected upon some partisan grounds.

I am weary of having to listen to radio talk show hosts, CNN, Fox, pundits, political operatives and government officials in an effort to be an informed citizen. Fox is partisan, CNN is partisan, Talk Show hosts are partisan. The narrative they weave is a partisan narrative designed only to pursuade. This is not intellectual discourse and it is certainly not civil.

I would like to have a reasoned, respectful and civil discourse with those with whom I disagree. For instance, I would like to be able to say that I do believe that our nation is moving towards Socialism without being attacked as a moronic alarmist. Perhaps we should be moving in that direction. Socialism is a term, it has a definition, it is neither moral or immoral or necessarily right or wrong. It is simply a form of government. It is not a four letter word. I might be convinced to take a different view by a reasoned argument.

I feel that it is ill advised to tell an enemy, in advance, that my forces will engage for eighteen months and then come home. It seems to me to be a poor strategy; still, I might be convinced by a reasoned argument.

I feel that Afghanistan bears a good deal of resemblance to Vietnam. I know that the Vietnam war could have been won. The definition of won is straightforward. The communists would not have taken over the administration of the country and one million persons would not have been killed or imprisoned when we left. I feel that the war in Afghanistan can be won. I have a reasoned argument in support of my views, but I dare not pose it too often or I will be labeled.

I feel that the rules of engagement in Afghanistan should be changed. I cannot understand why we do not employ cruise and tomahawk missiles to destroy Taliban strongholds. I cannot understand why we do not attack any position in which we find the enemy, whether it be a private home, Mosque or otherwise. I do not understand why many Americans think that our presence in Afghanistan is not justified. I cannot imagine why we do not put more pressure on the Pakistani government; still, I might think otherwise if I could have a civil discourse with someone who thinks differently and who presents a well reasoned argument.

I do not understand why our President was not more impassioned in his speech at West Point. I cannot fathom how anyone could have watched the reaction of the cadets in the audience and not observed how little they empathized with the President's speech. I don't think they wanted to hear about the cost of prosecuting the war, especially in light of the huge expenditures that have occurred both during the Bush administration and now in the Obama administration. I think they would rather have liked to have a rousing, committed, and heartfelt committment to prosecute and win the war in Afghanistan. Again, to win, is straightforward. The Taliban is destroyed, Bin Laden is killed along with all his cadre, Pakistan is cleared of terrorists, and the threat of terroism to the United States is repelled. I don't think they wanted to hear that we will play until halftime, forfeit the game, and come home; still, I might be convinced by a civil and reasoned argument.

It would have been fine with me if the President had simply said, "this war was a bad idea and I am bringing the troops home." It is the half measures that I question.

Is there anyone out there who wants to engage in civil discourse?

Rules of Engagement

I am not certain what constitutes the rules of engagement for our military personnel in Afghanistan. I heard a report from a usually good source yesterday that the rules of engagement do not allow our soldiers, marines, airmen or sailors to engage a Mosque, religious shrine or anything of the like under any circumstances.

I tend to believe this report as I know the same rule was followed in Iraq in places like Karbala. The enemy was engaging our troops and we knew the location from which the fire was coming; still, we could not engage.

I heard a further report, which if true, is genuine cause for alarm and disgust. Twelve of our military personnel at a remote Afghan outpost were killed, two by Taliban posing as Afghan police officers and eight by a force of more that one hundred Taliban who emerged from a mosque at the bottom of the hill just forward of our soldier's outpost. I'm told that we knew all too well that the mosque harbored a number of Taliban as well as their arms and ammunition; still, we did not act on that intelligence to remove the threat which killed our soldiers. Why?

American forces have the means to inflict complete devastation on the Taliban, on their strongholds and on their supporters. The mosque and the Taliban within could have been destroyed by a cruise missile launched from a thousand miles away. The options that could have been employed to kill these murderous individuals are myriad. What good are the finest weapons in the world if they cannot be used. Our troops are still slugging it out with rifles, machine guns and grenades. Why?

The President sent a highly decorated General to Afghanistan to revive and renew our mission. Now, the President hardly ever even speaks with the General and ignores his petition for more troops and more sensible rules of engagement. Why?

Perhaps we should not remain in Afghanistan. Why not just cut bait and run? Why not simply ignore promises made, like we did in Vietnam, and come home. Our government has got promise breaking down to a science. In this way we could once again ensure that the service of our military, and their deaths, were all for nothing. Prepare to hold your nose once more.

Above and Beyond the Call

In my role as a college professor I sometimes have students in my classes with disabilities. These disabilities have been documented and certain leeway or latitude is provided subject to the recommendation of the Disability Services department of the college, i.e., a student might be allowed to have additional time to complete a project or test, or they might be provided the opportunity to take the test in isolation from others so as not to be disturbed by sights or sounds.

I have such a student in my class this semester. I cannot define the student's disability, even anonymously; still, suffice it to say that the student is very bright, while at the same time having disabilities that should and do recieve special attention.

The student has not been able to be in class for quite some time. A note taker was assigned by the Disability Services department. She is a young lady from a foreign land, a land that obviously takes responsibility seriously. She has appeared in all the classes that the student missed and she has taken copious notes.

Today was exam day. I noticed that the student with disabilities was not in class. I did not notice that the note taker was in class. She was in class, she took the exam, she signed the student with disabilities name to the test, and came up to hand turn in the exam.

I of course told her that she could not take the test in the name of another student. She seemed surprised and disappointed that she could not finish her work. She had studied hard for the test and had wanted to do well for the student who could not be in class for the test.

Things must truly be different in the land that she calls home.