Heal Thyself, Musician

If I were, I would.  In some ways maybe I am.  I think I have good sense and a little tiny bit of knowledge.  Enough so that I can clue guitar players in on what key they are in if I know the chords they are playing, and if they capo up I can tell them where they are.  They don't always know because they don't know keyboard and only know the guitar chords and how the strings are tuned.

Some very good players, very good songwriters fit that description.  That doesn't make me a musician, just someone with sense who knows a thing or two.  Anyway, I think the original saying is a Biblical thing and they said, "physician" not "musician".

I changed it to suit myself like I do all Biblical things.  Another lie.  I don't actually do that so drastically.  I just do not, can not, believe in the zero sum game of punishment and sin.   Executing me does not wash it clean if you kill someone.  It just doesn't.  I don't believe the whole purpose and message of Christ is that the Creator tortured him beyond belief to make everyone else's screwups OK.

Forgiveness and redemption I go with, but not some other things.  And I do think that for however many hundreds of years the Church has played that and much else wrong. It makes it easier to control people.  Guilt is one hell of a tool.  I should know.  I was infused with at least the average dose given Catholic and Jewish children.  But my dose did not include the antidote.  Most likely I'm wrong.

I can't pretend to believe it in ways that I don't.  I can't understand how pouring a bunch of pain on someone over there fixes people over here.  Although most mothers go through a whole lot of pain trying to keep their children safe and well.  Just bringing them into existence...

Another story.  I'm not healed and it sucks.   This weather sets me off every few hours if I am not careful.  Just the drive to work in 100F temps found me unable to tolerate the great outdoors to do my job upon arrival.

I hope it either goes away quick or can be fixed whenever I do the next blood test.  The last two have been progressively outside the blood box.  So maybe the next one will include an obvious item they can pronounce, like incurable imminent death.  Or easily dealt with blood thing leeches can cure.

Of course, anymore, it feels like anything to do with medicine is already overrun with leeches.  What I don't think people get is that the doctors and practitioners aren't the leeches.  It is the system which forces them to test you for prostate cancer if you're a woman, just to cover any possible liability.

Obviously, that was a fabricated exaggeration to make a point.  I've found that people cannot follow thoughts most of the time, and cannot discern hyperbole from a hyperbola, so I have to watch myself if I don't want trouble.

But I'm not saying I don't want trouble.  Jury's out on that.  I still like the songs of Sande Lollis and I like playing with her.  She's a good soul I think.

But whatever is going on, I either want it fixed soon, or I want it to kill me quick.  That is how it is.  If I was a woman I might feel differently.  I've concluded that women are almost all way tougher and stronger than I am, so they are unlikely to relate to this at all.  I can relate to it and that is how I feel.

Ever since Christmas I've realized I'm an unproductive waste of life; no kids, wife, long term career or major benefit to anyone.  My family somehow held up that mirror and I got the message.  I won't go back to gaze in that looking glass again anytime soon.  It is not intentional for the most part, and I am in total agreement.  I just think it rude for a family member to make such views so clear even if not directly stated.  If I point out why others are a waste of humanity, and describe your life to a tee in describing them, come on.

Oh well.  That trivia is the least of my worries.

This heat has caused me to think it is no wonder the people in the mideast are such angry, raving, head chopping, woman hating, lunatic worshipping psychopaths.  It's the relentless heat and sunshine.  It's worse than Arizona, where the sun never sets, and no matter what you do, it is always in your eyes.  Southern Arizona.  At least in Arizona they don't mind if the women wear skimpy clothes and think and drive, and such.

The longer we pretend that the majority of Islam is sane, the more trouble we're in for.  I found a copy of the koran, in English, on an airplane.  I perused it for quite some time.  All manner of instructions about when to kill people and when not, and who to kill.  As long as you aren't in their way, you should be safe.  I guess that is the moderate viewpoint.  That's the difference between this recent activity and the Inquisition; nothing in Christian holy books really gave any justification to that stuff.
But the muslim holy book is very easily interpreted to justify any abuse of infidels.

The Great Pretense seems to apply to any group that is irrational, and troublesome and devoid of logic, and who make real pain in the ass neighbors.  Has nothing to do with any ethnicity--the problem is the behavior.  But we pretend that obnoxious behavior is somehow a wonderful expression of multiculturalism.

I think this physical issue is making me into an angry, yet proud, islamophobe and a phobe when it comes to all manner of lies and pushy bullshit entitlement and aggression.

No Film At 11

It must be something to do with me and video.  I tried twice with the Memphis band to get people to operate my video camera.  I put it on a tripod.  I said, "you don't have to do anything but make sure it is on and doesn't get stolen.  If you feel like it, zoom in when there's a solo, but that is not even necessary.

One time I got pictures of a bar ceiling and bottles of booze and it was turned off when it should be on.  The other time the sound was ok but more of the video was of port-o-lets, tarmac, sky, tarmac, building walls, tarmac, port-o-lets than of the band.  It was on a tripod.  WTF?

I'm almost positive that time was due to a deep seeded issue which drives that person to seek conflict while pretending never to do such a thing.  I used to think she must have been mad at me, but now I believe it was some need for me to mad.  I did not scream and yell.  Even then I smelled a subconscious trap.  Subconscious because I don't think she even knows it was an obviously bizarre thing to do.  Just leave it and make sure it doesn't get stolen, I said.  Any closeups are just an option.

This time the cam was not mine and none of the responsibility was mine.  In any case we played in front of a camera, once again on a tripod, which was only turned on after the show was over.  On and off had somehow been confused.  New cam and I don't know.

The way I am these days I'm sure it is my evil doomed mojo, karma, dharma, and bad vibes that cause it to happen.  That's all stupid but I just don't want to be mad at anyone because it wasn't my stuff anyway, and it won't fix anything.  So, I take it out on myself I guess.  "You no good waste of space, you can't get video right even when it isn't your video and someone else is responsible."

Musicians are all crazy or jerks or both anyway.  We like their music and they make it to offset their troublesome ways.  That's my theory.  Most people like music but how many really like the behavior of those creating it?  Don't answer.  I don't, so that means no one likes them.

That thread keeps getting a little thinner.

So, no video and that sucks. And I know I jinxed it, so as a result I pronounce all musicians to be jerks--and that's only to keep from putting down a more vulgar name.  See how this works?   And do you see why you shouldn't pay a lot of attention to anything I say?   At least as far as opinions about people.

But you mark my words and watch the way it goes out driving; it is always the person in the DODGE...


100F degree weather in east county San Diego.  This is not pleasant.  And out of nowhere it rained.  Didn't cool things down for more than a minute.  Just made it steamy, muggy and not fit for human consumption.  There is a reason SD has Stepford weather; something about the place makes it really unusually uncomfortable when it slides out of the norm.  I used to laugh because 80 is just a hhot day elsewhere.  Here it is tragic and feels different.  Maybe they will DO SOMETHING in Sacramento.  I know, tax everything!!!  That is what is supposed to fix weather.  I saw it on a chart on facebook.  It was put out by the World Consortium on DOING SOMETHING!!!  Be sure to say that with breathless urgency. "We have to DO SOMETHING to fix weather, human nature, gravity and other realities..,.

Hoping for Film At 11

These are certainly strange days.  Again, I thought I might be nearly cured of ailments because I have done a lot of work in the hot sun lately without the attack of being skinned alive one molecule thick layer at a time.  Or so it seems.

I was wrong.  I was at work and it came on like gangbusters--whatever a gang buster is.  I'm all for busting gangs--I despise people who hang packs, like hyenas.  Sorry, Hell's Angels, you suck, too.

Anyway, I kept trying to keep it at bay after it began and did OK long enough for others to leave, then it got bad enough I was yelling and screaming, sort of.  Crazy.

But tonight I met up with the Enter Blue Sky people--I do not call people folks if I can help it.  Only when it makes solid sense.  So we met up at a jam place, a musician bar.  A lot of those people are halfway making a living playing.

We only did three songs, but it is the first time I've play out in public with them, and only the fourth time playing with Sande.  It is the second time everyone was present.  That makes a bug difference.  I don't do it the same.  The unique sound really seemed to grab people and the last song brought down the house.   They clapped in the middle of my solo, which was an attempt at spontaneous combustion in B minor.   All original tunes by Sande.  I love her material.  I only hope it all translates to the video which will be made tomorrow by her husband.

A new experience for everyone I guess.  Harmonica is rarely paired up with high quality violin and keyboards.  With her driving rhythm guitar, and the bass and drums, it works.   Never been in a band of six before.  And they pulled me in last.  The blend is unique when we pull it off.  I'm very nervous, and excited about this. It is fun, keeps me off the streets, and out from under a dumpster breathing my last.  So, it is good.

Apparently I am not healed yet.   Well, who is?

I really want to change some stuff.  Like how I live.  Not so much where, just how.

Now that I think of it, it is pretty cool that I got enthusiastic reactions while I was doing my solo on that last song.  A little lighter fluid and the combustion would have occurred.    That was the only time that happened all night.  Every other time they just waited until the end for applause.  But there was some whooping in between, here and there.

What a sick glutton for approval or adoration or whatever it is that separates performers from sane and balanced individuals.  I always admired sane and balanced  to the extreeme and longed to be that.  At this point I'm thinking, "Forget that.  Go to plan B.

So, A Violin Player, Keyboard Player, Harmonica Man, and A Chick Singer Play a Ranch

Today the keyboard guy is off for a rehearsal with a symphony at a college off east in the desert somewhere.  They pay him to do it.

The violin player is another classically trained guy who tends to rock out.  The surprise is that they both consider me something good on stage.  Must be because I moonwalk and have good rhythm.   Maybe I'm stretching the truth with the moonwalk part.

There's a bass player and a drummer, as well.  They may be temporary and replaced due to scheduling issues down the road.  For Friday they are in.   The woman who sings plays guitar and has lots of original material.  She's very intense and full of joy and passion when she performs so I like her.

I didn't know what to think the first time I saw her.  She's very short and her hair is even shorter.  I was thinking many things which don't seem to be accurate.  Then she started playing and it stopped me in my tracks.  Intense and she rocks.  I like her songs too.

I was the last to be added to this group.  It surprised me since I rarely play with piano and you wouldn't think it would blend with violin.  But I am good at altering what I do so it does blend and the sound is pretty cool sometimes.

Also for the first time in forever, I'm playing with someone who suggested a name that isn't the same as four other bands in the same state or those nearby.  I can never understand why people want a name that's been done, and done.  It is a weird name but I like it, and I'm happy it is not a copy.

Enter the Blue Sky.  And she's a graphic designer so there is a nice graphic with it.  My job is trying to be ready with almost no practice and only one so far that included the fiddle.  I play very differently with no violin there so I'm flying almost blind.  That's alright.  The fiddle and I are both considered unique players in our small circle and a bit beyond.

I just hope I'm not as spaced out exhausted as I feel today.  Not sure why. Probably to do with the things that have been plaguing me for the last six months.  That has evolved so that the severity of some of the symptoms can usually be contained.  People tend to adapt and compensate for things after awhile.  Even I do that sometimes.  The thread keeps getting thinner is how I feel.

First see if I can get through Friday, then find a way to pay California the extortion they want.  I am not so sure I owe them anything but I think it easier and cheaper to pay this time.  Otherwise they could freeze assets or steal them outright.  I really hate what people have allowed to evolve in this country as far as governmental power and methods.  Very unimaginative and cruel.

But just look at comments on any news story.  Or any story.  It can be a story about dogs in the Yukon and someone will bring Obama or Republican party bashing into it.  Amazing.  F---ng MORONS!!
But most of those who do OK under this setup seem to consider me the moron for rebelling and for not going along and thriving.  They have a point.  They are still wrong and contributing to theft and murder while pretending otherwise but that covers 90% of the taxpaying public.  The non-taxpaying public represent a disproportionate number of the thieves rapists and murderers so there's that.

You subsidize them, you're an accessory to the crime.  But we pretend the bulk of riffraff aren't really riffraff and it is all a big misunderstanding.  Or we make them cops and irs agents.  How can anyone with the irs sincerely think they are doing the right thing?  Misanthropic bastards.

OK.  So I find a few hundred to pay the insanely greedy state of California just to avoid what I've known to happen to others who had no other income happening.  And they wonder why people are homeless and on food stamps.  I'm getting worked up big time.

I play Friday night at 8 pm at a big three day thing at a ranch in Ramona.  People will be camping, parking RVs, etc.  I'll probably play and then go home.  I'm in no mood to humor drunk campers.

Some Pictures Are Worth Being In, Others No

That's about all I have to say about that.   So, I am avoiding the pictures that needn't include me, and attempting to figure out where I should take up space.

OK. That really is vague.  I'm tired of humoring potentially dangerous lunatics because I don't find their enabling spouses so unpleasant.  See the deal?  Enablers and those in toxic codependency are often a large part of the intolerable problem.  If I do the same thing over and over in these cases, wondering why the snake bit me, I am a contributor to my own difficulties and can't legitimately complain.

Biting snakes bite because that is what they do.  Simple as that.  And as much as I might want to pretend that rattler is a cute puppy, my wishes will not change the nature of the viper.  And no matter what others say, a rattle snake is what it is.

That explains things.   It a metaphorical sense.  I have not dealt with any actual snakes or bears or other wildlife lately.  I thought I'd clear that up.  Last time I resorted to verbal symbolic illustration some people thought crazy things.

The Most Current Wackwittery Is Multiplying Like Rabid Rabbits in Heat

It is such a strange time.  There is absolutely no shortage of material, but after non stop crazy bombs one becomes numb and apathetic.  I do.  That makes me wonder if it isn't how it is done; just keep throwing down acts of incredible shamelessness, and nerve, and after awhile no one even calls you on it.

We are at that stage as a species, I think.  Where to even start?  I'll stick just to the USA.   Someone actually thought putting non-citizens on juries makes sense.  I don't think they've managed it yet, but just the fact that anyone would entertain the idea...

OH, explain to me how Al Sharpton was able to channel the desires of Michael Brown in the great beyond, yet Al cannot give a good, accurate real accounting of Michael's last moments.  He pretends to know but he mostly channels Mike's wish to be some thing---what was it?  Something about changing America?

I can't even channel Al and he's not dead.  I still don't know what he's talking about.  I guess we have more in common than I first thought.

Boots?  Bosnia, again?  Estonia and them.  Hell yea.

I don't want to talk about that because then I have to talk about Obama, and that is about like trying to rationally discuss the prophet, pbuh,  with a muslim.  Whatever you do, do not draw a cartoon or other rendering of him, pbuh.  Not even a stick representation of him on the back window of the mini van.  Nothing.

Are we still pretending that CAIR and other such outfits are honest and not sympathetic to radical jihadists?  To get into that I have to get into things I don't want to discuss.

Maybe I can use the fact that some unimaginably weird new insanity is probably just around the corner in this neck of civilization.  It always is.  I use that fact to give me a reason to bother.

It is how I see things lately.  I see relative value in people; meaning some probably have more value to the species, the human race, than others.  I rank myself about as close to zero as one can be.   I'm sure there are some plusses, but also minuses to offset that, but it nets out at zero, plus or minus a wee mite.

People who produce worthwhile and relatively happy offspring are up toward the top, of course.  After that would be people who actually invent something useful or cure a disease or problem.   Then those who find ways to remain in the human race providing some good service or whatever.  But not isolated and of no use.

You know, I actually felt bad for the North Korean psycho leader that time the Onion named him sexiest man alive.  Kim Jong-Un.  This is a real person who has power over a lot of people.  Enough to be a real pain to the world.

And I still want a cigarette.  Eight months.  I'm in the habit of not smoking even though I always want to.  I hope I don't and maybe sooner or later I won't have craving for cigarettes.  I don't crave thge burning of things, the mess, smell and some of that.  I miss the cost of course.  The amount of money it takes for that hobby is substantial.  I tend to buy other things.  Like now I cannot wear any of the usual size jeans and pants.  I had to buy some jeans and pants that I could get into. I've never weighed more than I do now.

I tied my record for chubbiest I've ever been.   This came on in a hurry.  Everything is changing and I don't know why.  I'm more and more able to be a little active without feeling like red ants are attacking.  So, now I have to do more and eat a lot less.  If I let it go further it will be exponentially more difficult to lose any weight or chubbiness.  I know this to be true.

When you think about someone losing fifty pounds, I doubt it registers how amazing that really is.  It is very tough to make such changes.  All I have to do is drop 20 pounds.  But that is a lot.  Four five pound bags of potatoes. Over twenty cans of Bustelo--way over twenty; then cans are 10 oz. each.

I  can't see anywhere that bags of potatoes or cans of Cafe Bustelo would fit.  Perhaps belly fat is very dense.  It must have a much greater mass per unit of volume.  My belly may be as dense and heavy as Portland Cement.  Yet is is softer.  Yea, try to explain that with evolution, professor.

You know, the UN is a lot like The Onion online.   They are really a joke, but none of those who are the butts of the jokes are aware of their own goofiness.  It is too bad that in this case people can or have been killed, impoverished, raped and used at the pleasure and discretion of idiotic masters.

Oh yea, Sande asked me to play a gig in Ramona.  A weekend, three day, camp out deal on some ranch.  May just show up, play, and hit the road.  Or I may camp a night.  I'll probably not do that because I doubt I have a ready hot shower there.  I still have to have that safety net. Sande L is an unusual woman--married, and I guess her kids are college age. Never seen them but know she used to cart kids around.  Anyone, she is one of those who is both strange enough, nice enough, and just an intense good singer.  A cut above, at least.  Sande is Unique enough I could see her playing Sat. night live or one of those.  She does not look like what you hear when she performs.  The contrast works well for her.

Anyway, she's been playing with a violin, bass, drummer, and her guitar.  And now they added me, at least for this show.  I hope it works.  She is good.  Oh and a keyboard player.  I know all of those guys.   This is quite a compliment.  I hope I don't blow it.  I feel like I'm in one of those spells in which it feels like I'm submerged in jello or mud.  And one of those spells in which I just give up and mess up.  I will probably not do that.  These people expect a lot from me. That is flattering, and pressure too.

I know the word; Sincere.  This is as real and sincere as any music I'm liable to accompany.  This is educated company.  Violin who has played everything from symphonies to bluegrass. Keyboard about the same broad scope of ability and experience.

So, we do some practice thurs and sun.  The thing is fri, sept 12th.  My brother's birthday.

Then they have another duck guy quote.  I didn't read the whole thing because I don't care what the duck guy says.  He has no power and I can only hope it is out of context or something.

The bigger picture is that a guy who makes duck calls seems to see the intractability and insanity of at least one religion.  No whether he really believes it is convert or die, I don't know because the blurb did not indicate convert to what.  I think he meant renounce or die.  Renounce your ways and quit the mass murder, sadistic behavior, etc. or we'll have to force you to stop, which means better stock up on chocolates and nylons for those scores of virgins who've been waiting  a long time just for you.

It's real.  No way does it seem real.  If I wrote the script of reality, even including some cynicism, I'd never have imaged in this century, beheading and crucifixions,  the whole duck thing, Jerry Brown, seventy two virgins, boots on the ground, Bill Maher,  really.  I just wouldn't think this stuff would fly, but it does.

What comic book writer created Al Sharpton?!  I'm convinced it is a genetic predisposition to use good information, and creative, brilliant logic to promote false conclusions.  It is just what they do.  That is the only explanation for why a university president would be behind the same political forces as the most blood thirsty of gang members.  And it makes them feel good that they managed to cleverly disguise their faulty logic so that they could feel as if they stand shoulder to shoulder with their badass brethren.  Makes the effete feel tough.

It's all a joke of some kind.  Or at least a con.  Maybe humans are mostly crazy.  But how humans ever figured out how to make metals and engines and friggin glass--imagine the first person to notice how cool melted sand can be--how did people figure it out?  They don't even know.  Lots of things that no one knows.  Allegedly no one.  Must be some pieces missing here.

Maybe It's Not Obvious But I'm Hiding From News

Well, yes and no.

After three or four times of hearing the radio news playing Al Sharpton giving a really bizarre talk at the funeral of the late Mr. Brown,  I think I cracked.  Something snapped.   I went from WTF? to You have got to be F'ing kidding me!!  To changing channels, deleting emails from various news or opinion sources.

Lately everything I see is nuts.  Team D for donkey is so far over the edge I am dumbfounded.  But you'd think their alleged opposition would be more pleasing and sane.  At least if you think like I think.  But you'd be wrong.

Now I catch myself yelling at those people too.  I think it is all one team and the one in power orchestrates their own opposition, and makes them look really full of it.  That way you don't notice the complete mafia style operation which is in power, or at least the window dressing for whatever is in power.

So, Al, who never met Michael Brown, was not there when he got shot so he does not know what happened for sure, has no idea what Brown was even like,  none, decided he is the grand jury, the judge, jury and prosecution. Who needs the relevant data?  Not the Rev.   He's a stranger to the place, the people, and the deceased.  But that won't stop Al.  He's a master at manipulating the lynch mob mentality.

He's up there telling everyone what a dead 18 year old wants in relation to the entire country.  He's dead, Al.  You have no idea what he wants.  We know what you want, and I can only imagine the cash register dreams you're tacitly planting in the minds those who are in shock and possibly actually have some shred of feelings and conscience, but I can't say yay or nay on that.

The big question I have about any of the bereaved is that they would allow a stranger to come in pretending to channel their son.  Pretending to know their son.  It's like allowing someone to crash the funeral of a loved one, and knowing that the interloper knows zilch about the dearly departed, you let him give the eulogy.

It makes me seriously wonder about them that they would sell out the respect of their boy that way.  But, I've finally come to believe that the average person is a moronic mercenary who is only affected by conscience if witnesses are present.  The evidence is overwhelming and I am tired of insisting that people are basically good.  If they were they would not be so scared of the very concept of freedom and self regulation in any sense.

If people weren't so damned stupid we would not have big groups running around shooting one another, wouldn't have fanatic lunatics cutting up people while our own self hating elitists pretend that all cultures and religions are equal and well meaning.

The effort to appear intelligent by smugly spouting misanthropic tripe about how we don't deserve to survive and all that is really just the ravings of the insecure--and those just smart enough to recognize they are almost bright, but not smart enough to have much confidence in their intellect, so they play the smug hater of their own kind.   Of course they give the impression that they are above it all.  They are superior and elite.

Anyway, if Al Sharpton and the people who pretend his opportunism is something noble, were a true cross section of humanity.  I'd certainly try to join another species.  Maybe become a dolphin or space alien, or a bear.  Bears can harass the hell out of people, and people put up signs telling each other ahead of time that it is their fault; bears are always right.

What kind of person could just march in and hijack a family's grief for his own ends?  And act like he knows what a dead person wants?  It is as shameless as I can imagine, though I know Al will prove to me that his capacity for shameless exceeds the bounds of my imagination.

.

When it Rains They Slurp It Up

Many things in life, nature, and the abstract tend to show an increase in growth, velocity, force, etc. exponentially.  Things just work that way.

Like the advancement of technology and such accelerated like crazy after awhile.  Other factors which grew in prominence have served to slow that stuff down and influence negatively how it is done.

So many opportunities for mass koolaid dispensing and guzzling with things like what's going on in the mid east, the Ferguson circus, the prices of everything, the reports that other people are just ecstatic over the new health care set up.  I got a letter telling me they have no idea when they will know if I qualify for what, and they certainly do appreciate my patience, but these things happen and they mean well.

Ebola.  We've got one comic book plot after the other flooding the scene, and people are naturally interested and full of ...koolaid.  Seriously, I see comment threads about some dumbass thing on facebook, and before you know it the Obama bashers vs the worshippers.  It is not always O bashers, but seriously, much as I know the guy is an actor, people come up with really stupid anti-Obama statements.

I hate that.  It sounds like the over the top Bush bashing of the past.  Of course they are still doing that.  In these threads where someone says a stupid Obama barb, the Obama worshippers will say things like, "Oh yea? lol what about the WMDS? roflao"

I mean out of friggin' nowhere, it's this "Well Bush and Cheney...blablabla...lol"  Gimme a break.

On a site with a quiz asking, "What Virtue Are You?",  someone comments, "Well Obummer would score zero because he has no virtue and is running our country into the ground and all he does is play golf with his gay Chicago pals".
 I often wonder if the democratic party doesn't pay people to write this stuff.  What could make the opposition look dumber than that?

People are lapping up whatever spin suits their fancy on this Ferguson incident.  And they do not yet know all the facts.  Why that is, I don't know.  The police look pretty bad to almost everyone, and for once I believe the looters and violent people are looking bad to almost everyone.

That is good.  The koolaid kicks in when you believe that white men are running around shooting young black boys willy nilly with no consequence.  You don't think the cop would breathe easier right now if the guy had been white?  If you can't see that then you've never been in much of a mixed community in the last twenty years, you are a moron, or it just doesn't fit your preconceived picture of the world which refuses to be tainted by reality.

Police of one sort or another--domestic government forces which carry weapons---have been abusing the rights of all who don't have the connections and power to stop them.  Not everyone gets abused but every ethnicity and demographic excluding those calling the shots are fair game.  If you look at incidents all over, everyone gets it. And not just from white cops.

There's where the koolaid comes in.  I'll bet some people living in Memphis just eat up that narrative, even though it looks like most cops there are Black.  And they are every bit as unreasonable as any we've seen in Ferguson.  I don't know about California.  Most I've met here have been mutants of unknown species and origin.

Anyway.  The asinine commentary and reporting, and the reactions of an increasingly domesticated, compliant, pliant, spineless, thoughtless public baffles the imagination.  The big pretense must continue at all costs.

I'm all for the president playing golf.  And for most of the government, federal and state, to join him.  

Another Guilty Viewpoint; shiver me timbers and get off your ice

*re-titled to better reflect my long history of class, taste, and something which eludes me at the moment

Many diseases are seriously annoying conditions.  Many can be debilitating, very painful, fatal, and otherwise life altering.  No feeling person wants others to experience these things.

I have great disdain for seeing others in pain.  Even when they have it coming.  I just don't like it.  But, I do not think walking for miles and miles, or dumping ice water on my head and making sure everyone sees me do these things will take the pain and disease away from others.

I think if I became a science and math ace, learned all I could about biology and organic chemistry, and set myself up to do hard core research on the cause and characteristics of a disease, I'd have a far better chance at finding a way to prevent it than by any tricks and speeches.

I understand the arguments.  Big charity has a monopoly on the market.

If I had the resources to pay someone I considered really sharp and a great trouble shooter and problem solver for a year, and enough to supply this scientist all the lab resources needed during that time,  I'd stand a good chance of helping to speed up the finding of a cure for the chosen disease.

Also, doing it on my own without permission would mean that, for tax purposes, I probably would not get credit.  Yet if I pour ice on my head and give some cash to a charity with big PR and IRS approval, I get credit.   But that outfit is no more likely, probably less likely, to find a real cure or preventative than my hypothetical independent researcher.

Just another of the flaws of our tax system, and how it serves to control; punishing some, rewarding others.  Big charity has little incentive to actually eradicate their disease.  Though they are painted as altruistic, they are big business.  It is an industry.  Fundraising for any purpose in the non-profit jungle is an industry.  Imagining that there is not corruption and that government is the best judge of who deserves charitable dollars, and who deserves a tax break based on those dollars, is as crazy as imagining that ice water being poured over your head will do anyone any good.

I feel guilty.  I'm sorry.  I have always found most charity and fund raising for them to be offensive, intrusive, nonsensical venues for people to draw attention to themselves under a shroud of altruism which puts them off limits to critique, and lands them the status of wonderful, caring person.  Look at me, I'm so good and wonderful.  I have ice water dumped on me and look at me.
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Boy the guilt is working on me here.  I'm sorry.  I knew a guy who did some research on his own.  Hospitals ended up buying his equipment for studying the blood.  He thought current practices at the time were primitive and not what they should be so he developed his own methods and equipment.   He was livid about the way these charities run and the way cures are avoided.

I'm sure he never gave another dime to the cancer outfit.  Don't believe this man, WW, would have ever been involved in any look at me stunt that had nothing to do with actually finding a cure or directly helping those in the throes of the disease.

Edit: I neglected to mention that he lost his wife to cancer and then became obsessed with learning all he could about it.  The man was truly a genius and a very rare sort of individual.  His research lead him to discover that the cancer society and the like were big bureaucracies which he felt retarded the progress toward a cure.  People point to what they see as progress, and "the good" done by many such outfits.  Walter could show how this is like being thrown a crumb as the real advancements are stonewalled.

He was far enough advanced in his studies and such that he actually personally worked with people in the grips of terminal cancer, and had some cooperation with University of Miami research.

I go to a gas station and step into the convenience store for a coffee.  Then I'm asked if I want to give more money to whatever Big Charity outfit they are pushing this week.  No.  It is rude to charge me $4 a gallon for gas then hit me up for money you are allegedly giving to a charity who is allegedly on the cutting edge and going to cure some kind of cancer right away.  Do I look like I trust you or the charity you rode in on?  No.\

Ever since my friends (or acquaintances--very few in Miami were honestly friends to anyone. Very fickle and self serving bunch)  in elementary school went around on Halloween collecting money for UNICEF and then threw away the official looking containers and kept the cash for themselves, I've been skeptical of fund raisers.

It's like this situation in Missouri.  There are many people who have a vested interest in dragging out the chaos as long as possible.  You think Jesse or Al actually want a nation where one is treated according to the content of his character and not color of his skin, or his gender, or sexual whatever?
That's why they jump in and spout made up stories before the facts are out and certainly before they know any details.  They only want to know the convenient details which serve their ends.  Truth is a bother.

Perpetual problems must be cultivated and preserved. That is what we have here.  And if they can convince people that to be compassionate you have to do the stuff they dream up, well they are in for a lucrative future.

I'm sorry I can't get excited about these things.  If only I could watch and exclaim, "You go, Girl!!!" You do that ice head challenge and look at you!  What a saint you are.  By the way, you look great in a wet T shirt, especially when the water poured over you was from the ice bucket challenge.  Double barreled fun, if you ask me.

I'm going to lose all my friends.  The You Go Girls are going to you go away.  And everyone will say, "That heartless bastard won't do the ice water dump or walk around the track, or wear ribbons,  and would only shave his head if someone was going to immediately and directly use his hair for a good reason.  Bastard doesn't like 'you go, girl'. So what's with that?"  Solidarity is kind of not there in this anti-solidrinosc mind.  I'll solidarinosc with only a trusted few, not the legions of parrots and look at me saint cluelessnesses.

All these things do something for someone.  Are they the only way to improved life?  Are they the most effective path to curing sadism or totalitarianism or shingles?  Evidence weighs toward the contrary.

Odd Guilty Opinions

Ever been in a situation in which you like all the people involved but they say stuff that sends you over the edge but you just keep your mouth shut because why spoil the mood or discourage a friendship and you wonder why they don't find some particular phrase as tired, trite and stupid and almost condescending as you do?

Well I have.  And the phrase that seems to have resurfaced lately is "You go, girl!"   hate that phrase.  Would anyone ever say, "You go, boy!"  in the same context?  If they did would it sound really dumb?  It just doesn't quite get it.

It is not that I think the go girl is any less than anyone else.  I guess it automatically has the feel of a gender battle, and it comes up when go girl is just doing something cool.

You go girl sounds like you're either saying, "Hey not bad!!!...for a girl", or hey you sure showed those stupid Mr Man mens that they suck and you are girl power and down with boys, beaatch!

Either case is annoying to me.  And that's the deal.  I feel guilty because lots of people just love to say "you go girl!".  To get just the right intonation, inflection and pacing is an art.  They should have "You go girl!" contests for who says it just right in that way that makes one want to tie their tent stakes to a bull elephant and let him run amok and ruin their campsite.

The only problem is, they would have done the contest twenty years ago when the phrase first hit the scene, if they were going to do it.   It is passé, I thought.  And I was glad.   Then I all of a sudden see it here and see it there, and I worry, "Is this the final straw that breaks the camel's back?" ( The camel's back being my sanity, my ability to stay this side of that famous Edge).

It is heartbreaking because I know nice people who said or wrote the phrase with pure hearts and happy intentions.  That is so bad.  It means they've been infused with just a tad bit of the cultural koolaid which makes the group think things, appreciate things, that they'd reject as nonsense without the influence of the group.

If the Go Girl is really on a roll, maybe making headway on enzyme research, or successfully blowing the whistle on corruption in federally funded science, for example---purely hypothetical made-up examples--and you say, "You go, girl!", somehow you've limited her accomplishment or formidability to something related to, or confined within her sex.  How stupid is that?

It's like people who cannot order breakfast without finding a way to make it a great racial divide and issue.  It's buying into the politics of condition of birth; race, sex, ethnicity, etc.  Either you believe in universal values and virtues, or you don't.  Universal applies across the board and across time.  Race, sex, and all that are not moral values. Not intellectual accomplishments or talents.  Those things are not a measure of character.

So, I feel guilty because I cringe at "you go girl", and I cringe when I read or hear people talk about "stopping climate change".  You cannot stop climate change.

Oh geez.  I don't even bother to argue any more.  How can any thinking person actually believe that taxes are the mother of invention?  Taxing carbon is not really the big answer.  It was heavy handed government "partnerships" that have retarded the development of what is mis-named "alternative energy sources" in the first place.  I was pals with people in the '70s who were buried alive by government directives and nonsense for their  efforts to develop independent, cleaner, better, cheaper energy sources.

By labeling things as "alternative energy", then picking and choosing which companies to subsidize, all they do is lock in a new variation of the status quo.  That's what happenes when government ignores its responsibility to protect the citizens and their endeavors against force and fraud, and instead micro manage the economy, and create myriads of regulations designed by those who put the lawmakers in power.

Anyway, I cringe at a lot of planet talk, earth day talk, and you go girl talk.  It is nice to see the latest purveyors of government subsidized alternative energy tout the virtues of localized power generation as opposed to the heavily centralized infrastructure we now have, as if that is a new idea.

The philosophical forerunners of such people are the same ones who have been in the way of those who privately tried to make energy much cheaper and much more localized and independenat long ago.

The same people who thought governmental control and micro-management of the direction of innovation and R&D, and use of resources,  was the best answer then, still think so now.  All these non-scientists telling us what "science" says.

That is how it is.  I feel guilty because so many of the people I really like are all up in the koolaid induced chanting frenzy and perception of reality.  But they are doing better than I am.

So, maybe I'm wrong but I don't think learning to like You Go Girl will bring me companionship, security, or peace.

It bugs me, that's all I know.

I wish Go Girl would turn and say, "No, you go.  I'm staying put.  Who are you to tell me to go?  You go."