Government Shutdown: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

What are we to say when our children learn from our leaders in congress that it is okay for you to take your ball in the middle of a game and go home? How are we as adults going to explain to these young adults that congress is having a temper tantrum and that they are going to make the American people pay for their childishness?

It is one thing to argue and disagree about philosophy, but it is entirely different when you refuse to do any work because your view is the only view that is right or correct or whatever it is that the Tea Party Republicans see as their position.

Democracy is founded in the idea of compromise. It is inherent in the institution. Without compromise, there is no democracy.  This is evident in any country that tries to replicate democracy and does not understand or is unwilling to give into it underpinnings.

Russia is a perfect example. They have democracy in name only. Putin has made sure of that. He is an autocrat that has found a way to game the system so that democracy cannot live and breathe. He has bullied and changed the constitution so that he can become the next dictator of Russia, while pretending to be the democratically elected president.

In the Middle East, murder in Iraq is desired long before compromise.  For democracy to work, there has to be a certain level of mutual trust amongst the rival parties. There has to be a certain level of mutual respect amongst the rival parties. When that is absent, then, all sorts of ill-conceived ideas will take root causing chaos and mayhem. Democracy cannot and will not work in countries that do live and believe in these foundations no matter how much America tries to force the issue.

This is what is happening in Washington DC. As I sit here three thousand miles away in Seattle, I see the three ring circus known as the federal government ready to cut off it nose despite its face. I see sad, angry men unwilling to see beyond their tiny corners of the country.  I see men so saturated in their own narcissism that they refuse or are unable to have a vision for America.

Even, during the darkest days or Vietnam or Watergate, there were politicians that had a vision for America. I may not have agreed with their vision, but they had one. This idea does not exist in today’s world. With politicians more worried about their reelection or preparing a bid for the White House those ideals about the country are dead on arrival.

Today, it is not about what I have done; it is about what I can stop.  It is about listen to me because I am me. Vanity and public attention seems to be the endgame. There is no thought to the idea that the American people need politicians to tackle big ideas and bring about big change so that the country can grow and prosper.

I see no Lyndon Johnsons on the horizons. To me he was one of the greatest presidents we have elected. He was a flawed man, a vain man, yet one who looked at the future of America and saw something few others did. He was a man that changed the course of history with the Great Society. He blew it with Vietnam, but who at the time would have done it differently? I don’t know.

The one thing he had was compassion for the American people, and a belief that he could set America on a new course. I don’t see that ideology from any of our current politicians. At the end of Johnson’s first term, he stood tall as a statesman, and acknowledged his politically fatal mistake we know as Vietnam. 

Where are those men or women today? I don’t see them. This makes me sad for America.  We have no one to draw strength from. President Johnson refused to run for a second term.  He made the ultimate sacrifice for the nation: his ambition took a back seat for the country. This cannot happen in 2013, and we as a nation and a people are suffering, and will continue to suffer until this changes.

Mass Media’s Obsession with Mass Murder Or Looking Beyond Virginia Tech

What is the point of gaining notoriety if you are not going to stay alive and bask in the glory?  What is so cool about suicide? You only get to go out in a blaze of cowardice.  Why send a manifesto and video if you are not going to be around to revel and rejoice in your own grotesque comedy masquerading as a tragedy?  These are some the questions that I would to ask the shooter if we were sitting across from each other eating lunch in some out of the way dinner. 

Anyone who gets 15 minutes of fame should want to be recognized for his accomplishments.  He should want to see himself on the small screen and walk to the courthouse to hear the jeers.  More importantly, he should be able to clearly articulate the reasons that the world owes him something and that he should be allowed to extricate payment through death.  Unlike serial killers, spree killers are able to grab immediate public attention for themselves though there is no long term glory.

This too is one of the stumbling blocks for all serial killers.  They are unable to fully enjoy their accomplishments because they cannot let anyone know what they are doing or it will all end.  Yet, they desperately need to be acknowledged for their ability to outwit the police and other pursuers.  However, their obsessive, compulsive inadequacies drive them to seek the attention that will be their ultimate demise. Ironies of ironies.

Yet, serial killers driving need for approbation and appreciation for their superiority is far more important to their psyche than the monstrous murders and rapes that they carry out to prove that they are not inadequate and impotent: a drain on society.

Profilers and psychologist may argue with the simplicity of this premise and point out its short comings, but the interviews with these men bears these ideas out.  Ted Bundy basked in his role as expert and tried to manipulate all his taped sessions refusing to reveal too much not because he was afraid to give away his secrets, but because, he was afraid that the klieg lights would never return.  It is narcissism at its most pure and unadulterated.

Our Korean friend bears witness to this fact with his package being mailed to NBC.  He knows full well that the media’s need for ratings under the guise of news will get his picture plastered all over the air ways.  They will migrate from television to the internet in a matter of nanoseconds and live on perpetually as electronic impulses that resurface on U Tube whenever there is a new spree killing.  He may not be able to enjoy it, but we will.

How different would Ted Bundy’s killing be if he knew that his crimes would be floating effortlessly from household to household?  You may say that the early beheadings during the Iraq War have become passé and that we don’t seek them out with the same regularity, but anyone who wants to perpetrate that same crime can use them as a blueprint.  How easy it is to view and get insight into how to carry out your version of that crime. 

What is more revolting and disquieting is the idea that these creatures film their atrocities for the voyeurs of the world.  As we have all become aware, through crime drama and real life murder shows, these people keep trophies of their crimes, and digital videos and pictures are a perfect trophy.  I predict that it will only be a matter of time before one of these individuals sends pictures of their crimes over the internet to celebrate their mental and physical superiority.

I was disappointed that our Virginia Tech murderer relied on classic 20^th century technology to get his ideas out: snail mail.  It reveals the level of his own impotence and lack of understanding of the power of the web.  Other modern day terrorists seem to clearly understand the power of words and pictures as they stream unfiltered across our computer screens.  He evidently was unable to fathom this concept.  As with the news media, once this idea reaches critical mass, we will be desensitized to its power and it will no longer hold any sway.

Until that day, expect the internet to be inundated with mass mailings of unrestricted words and pictures revealing the devastation brought on by the most heinous acts of humankind.  Television news may presently act as a filter, but that is only a ploy.  It will be the news media through the internet that exploits the next wave of national and international terroristic acts of violence and aggression as a means of gaining fame, notoriety, market share, and profit.

Denver, Sandy Hook and the Navy shipyard are the latest obsessions for our media organizations.  As I write this, there are more than five new atrocities that are being broadcast on American television under the guise of journalism. Murder sells. I am not talking about the fictional worlds of Dexter or Breaking Bad.

News programs need to make money. They need to keep and grow viewership so that they can raise ad revenue. Murder is the name of the game. Whether it is as bad as it seems, it matters not. News organizations are looking as hard for death as a looky-loo is looking for blood at a traffic accident; therefore, mass murder or serial murders work in their favor. It does seem to me that mass murder has taken a commanding lead with television news because of it immediacy and the multiple angles which can be exploited to keep the story in the news cycle.

Right-wing Tools Can Kiss My Libtard Ass

The attacks keep coming from the right over Obamacare. I don’t get it. All these southern crackers keep voting against their own best interests. I guess it goes back to the idea of fear of the unknown or fear of the trumped up known as expressed in hate speech. Who would vote against healthcare, but an idiot? An idiot that is being led by the nose by the richie riches.

I think about that Pennsylvania small town sheriff, Mark Kesslar, and he’s obscene laced tirades about his guns being taken away by libtards (huff.to/1bN6vO2). Like conservative morons he shows his true colors by having no cogent arguments and relying on personal attacks that have nothing to do with reality. He will get votes when he runs for Sheriff because some backwoods cracker that can barely read and write will go to the polls and exercise their democratic rights.  

The moral and intellectual irony is so great that it makes me laugh as these right-wing tools play army in the woods. You have no fucking clue as to what you are up against. Because you have all the freedoms this country offers, you get to play army and yell and scream to your heart’s content. You need to go to Russia with Snowdon and see where your revolutionary bullshit gets you. A fucking Gulag.

Scream all you want. Rant all over the internet. You are all conservative pussies that have no idea what America is all about. You are against the niggers, slant eyes and wetbacks to name a few. I grew up with dumb fucks like you. Intolerant, ignorant small minded crackers who can’t see beyond the end of their pointy little noses.

When you have a few beers in you and a gun in your hand you are all tough mother-fuckers. Of course, when your dumb-ass boys are backing you up you’ll step up. Always safety in numbers. You and your ilk make me sick.  If you have read this far, I want to give you a shout out. I hope you used a dictionary so that you understood some of the bigger words I used. I tried to avoid writing beyond a 3^rd grade level so that I could reach as many backwoods crackers as possible.

Keep you screaming and ranting going. You and your brothers are Viagra sucking impotent revolutionary wannabes. You have no idea how easy you have it in this country. You have no idea what has been done to make your lives as easy as they are. Most of you don’t vote. You just yell and bad mouth the country you live and anyone that disagrees with you.

Disagreement is what makes this a great country, but when you want to step on the rights of others then you are perpetuating the truly ugly history of America. And, we have an ugly history of attacking our own to prolong small minded power base: Selma. Need I say more? Maybe these crackers are still butt-hurt over the fact that African-Americans are allowed to vote, or that so many white libtards voted for a black President. With these jackalops there is no telling where their misguided hate comes from except INGORANCE.

Keep making those YouTube videos so the world can see and hear your ignorance. It is a beautiful thing when a right-wing tool can make a left-wing nut job look reasonable. I love Mark Kesslar. He makes being a libtard a beautiful thing.

 

Just remember that all you right-wing tools get to join that same healthcare exchanges as all members of congress. You now get the same healthcare coverage as a DC politician. Many of these same politicians are angry about the changes. Put that idea in your pipe and smoke it.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

There comes a point in one’s life, in which you think that you have something to say, but you figure out that you are as full of garbage as the next guy, however, that does not stop you from typing some junk about nothing in particular.

What I have found with the internet is that the rubbish keeps coming at unheard of volumes.  It is amazing the amount of words that can be regurgitated about the same thing and they are just as meaningless as the first thousand words. 

It is unheard of today to let sleeping dogs lie.  We have to interview the lying dogs and their neighbors and the neighbors of the neighbors to make sure that everyone knows how important this event or incident or controversy is today.

Tomorrow it will become inconsequential unless we can find a different angle so as to breathe life into the case of the lying dog.  Does all this inquiry truly matter? Not really, but it can be fun for the investigators and the journalist, and it keeps them working so long as they are able to chase down the next lying dog story.

When we are tired of the current lying dog story, we will find the next lying dog story, and it will be the most important issue that has ever been raised in the history of man and womankind.

The sad end to the story is that once the media hounds have tired of the current lying dog story they will move on to more pressing lying dog stories and the old lying dog story will be long forgotten, however, for the lying dog, this is not the end.  In his or her life, there are messes to be cleaned up and bowls to be filled that are outside the light and glitter of the media.

That lying dog is all alone with his or her thoughts or pain or heart break or success.  Today, you are the media darling with your lying dog story and tomorrow you are an afterthought.  Yesterday, you were trending on twitter and tomorrow there are no retweets or favorites.

When reality sets in, there is nothing but yourself and your problems.  Facebook and social media work because we have a need to be seen and heard.  We do not want to be the lying dogs of yesterday.  LOOK AT ME!  SEE ME! Oh how Oscar Wilde and Dorian Gray would flourish in this new world of instant gratification.

In today’s world, would Narcissus even need to look for his reflection in the pond or would he die at his keyboard searching for likes.  Trolling through Facebook, people can come across the post that has traveled the world and had millions of likes.  What is the point of these posts?  Why the millions of reposts?  What purpose does it serve?

Well, for the original post, there is a chance for unanimous fame.  You can say look what I did.  I broke the record for most post in a 3 day period or longer.  So what! Where does it ultimately lead?  Nowhere.  It becomes forgotten amongst whatever is currently trending.

What does all of this mean in the long run?  It means that ideas and conversations are changing in ways that the people in power don’t totally understand.  The Obama team understood it better than the Obama White House, but that is neither here or there.  In two years, it will be all different.

Death on the Horizon

You think that when you are confronted with your own mortality that it would have greater impact on your life. It doesn’t. Least not for me. It has made me more aware of my limitations and that time is constrained.

You go on with your life as if you had forever. I know this sounds rather disingenuous, but in my case it is a fact. I get up and go to work. I put my writing on the back burner. I argue with my wife and eat and drink too much and watch too much television.

When I turned 50 four years ago, I came face to face with my own fear of death. I saw the end. It might have been the atrial fibrillation in its 6^th year. At the time, I thought of my own father who died a year after his own retirement at 64. It could have been anything or nothing; I saw my own imminent death on the horizon.

With that a change of behavior should have been a part of the equation. Not at all. I’ve been electrified more than ten times over the past ten years. I still like a well poured Manhattan and too many late night snacks. It is completely illogical behavior, rather human. I’d rather have a drink with my friends than worry about my own longevity. At some point, a person has to prioritize. What should you prioritize? Relationships? Creativity? Adventure? Life.

Do you want to live as long as possible and deny yourself certain pleasures or do you want to live fast and burn out quickly? At 54 life has zoomed past. When I was my son’s age, I’d have never said that, but I have the benefit for of those extra 20 years, and I can say it flies by as retirement creeps up.

Facing my own mortality has done nothing to change me, but if I don’t take it seriously there will be nothing for me but silence. I have to make wholesale changes. I say I’m ready, but there is nothing to stop the bad behavior. Electrification makes bad behavior possible. I have started to make important life style changes such as diet, exercise and alcohol. I want to be able to go and do things without the fear that my heart will hold me back. I am not looking to live to 100, but I am looking to live and ski, run, ride bikes, go 4-wheelin’ and travel.

With all that said, I am afraid of death. I have seen it up close and personal too many times. It is an ugly emptiness. It’s like getting older. It sucks just like getting older. Your mind says one thing and your body says another. I wish my internal matched my external.  That is not the case. So what…

I will head off to the next adventure. There is no time to sit around and whine about it. Put it in the rear view mirror and plod ahead. This is the end or the beginning of the end. Whatever. Have some fun chasing the sun across the surface of the earth.

I will put it all in motion. There is no point in sitting around and dreaming and wishing. Action is all it takes. Time to head out and attack life. This is my mission to see the farthest corner of the world. Taste all that life has to offer.

Live for the moment and look to the present to bring about the changes that make life exciting and worthwhile. See what there is to see. Work for enlightenment and self-actualization. Nothing is greater than knowing yourself.

Always remember there are mountains to ski and oceans to cross. Cultures to clash and words to write. Beers to drink and hospital rooms to visit. What is waiting for me at the end of the rainbow? Don’t know, but I will find out just like everyone does.