Some election day thoughts

     Just offering some quick observations based on reading I've done on immigrants, migration, affordable housing, homelessness, and (un)employment. It's always felt rather obvious to me that all of these problems could be addressed with pretty much one single program aimed at creating community rather than creating restrictions placed on any segment of the population.

    Begin with starting a community entirely focused on getting homeless people off the streets and into a stable situation. This does not mean building a block of tiny homes and thinking the homeless can take it from there. Tiny homes was done in Vancouver, WA, and while well intentioned,  it doesn't appear that it does much more than place a temporary roof over their heads, and offers little in the way of real community, opportunity, or stability.

    What would offer those things? Think “a permanent community with decent apartments, shared community/recreational space, day care, medical care, drug treatment, gardening, music, transportation and, above all, safety.” This is by no means a comprehensive list as I could keep going with jobs, art, friendship, self-determination ....on and on.

    This vision includes purpose built structures designed for human comfort and not for profit to non-resident owners. Goal driven, democratic, and nearly self-sufficient contributors to the local economy, these communities would provide jobs for residents, jobs for the outside local area, and a means of demonstrating to the world that our country is dedicated to a better life for all and not just the winners.

    Finally, this idea could be a major export. Place them at every border to intercept migrants and keep them safe and contributing to society. Help build them in countries where migrants are leaving to give them reason to stay in their homes. Build coalitions with countries to keep these communities safe and viable in the face of drug cartels and 'bad' government.

    There is so much more to be said about this and I've waited until election day so as not to have you think I'm biased towards either outcome. I am, of course but, historically, both parties have had poor intentions regarding human rights around the world. One party wants “human rights” for the rich, and the other simply wants to avoid talking about it as much as possible.  There is, however, one of the parties who would be more likely to think, at this point in history, to think more humanely than the other.

    If you are interested in any of the books mentioned at the beginning, I'm easy to contact.

Too Much TV ?

 Here at home we have a TV schedule of lunchtime with "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" and suppertime/evening wading through "Dirillis: Ertrugrul" or "Resurrection: Ertugrul".

I've always had quite mixed feelings about watching TV....ESPECIALLY series of any kind.  I was so proud of never watching a single episode of "Dallas".  Now, we're both fairly hooked on both these series....and the mixed feelings still exist...in spades.  First, let me say that when I watch about anything on, say, Netflix...but particularly something war/spy/violence related, I am stunned at the end when all the suggestions for my further viewing pleasure come up and I'm overwhelmed with titles of movies I've never heard of but untold billions of dollars have been spent on to produce.  Now I need to shut my brain down a bit or I start segueing into arguments with my anti-Semite brother about whether it's the Jews or just the greedy wealthy who are screwing up the world, or into the book about the end of capitalism which says that theater (movies, TV, etc.) is a serious weapon of the Rontier (spelling/ renter) class to keep us distracted from noticing all the shit they're pulling.  But I digress.

Mrs. Maisel (Amazon Prime) is about a Jewish girl whose husband cheats on her and it frees her up to be a stand-up comedian.  As much as I don't like the portrayal of snobbish anyone, the idea that gross consumerism is normal life, or the implication that this represents real life in any way.....this series has grown on me.  Mrs. Maisel's stints on stage do tend to be pretty funny, if pretty cynical. What really bothers me quite a lot is at the production level as there seem to be enough extras in each episode to make "The Bible" blush with embarrassment.  Case in point...hiring a midget to run through the scene for 2 seconds.   And they take over pretty significant public spaces to shoot scenes, use around 50 locations with every episode.   Old cars, old juke boxes, old everything are freely plopped into every scene.   The wardrobe budget likely exceeds the take of most movies.   With Jewish parents playing mostly slapstick roles, the producers manage to make it pretty palatable.  Still, I can't help feeling a bit embarrassed myself for liking it.  It doesn't help much that I have somewhat of an opinion that Jewish people control a lot of the movie business.   I don't want to feel anti-Semitsh, but it's hard to condone what seems like insane spending for entertainment.

Now Ertugrul, (Netflix) on the other hand, is based on Turkish history.  It's entirely sub-titled, often with poor translations that are sometimes left on the screen for so short a time you have to keep hitting the "back 10 seconds" button either to interpret or simply see what was said.  Season 1 alone was 76 - 45 minute episodes and subsequent seasons go over 100 episodes.  As Christians, we tend to get the Crusader side of the equation, but the Turkish nomad side has the crusaders as sneaky bastards who will stop at nothing to see the Nomads destroyed and open the way for the next Crusade.  Dealing with the Crusaders is season 1.  Now we're about 1/3 into season 2 where they're facing the Mongol advance troops who are setting up supply and spy networks to weaken the Muslim locals.  The drawbacks on this one are, at least, less wasteful.  Way too much slow-mo....gets funny after awhile, pacing almost as slow as a soap-opera (not that I've ever watched one for long), lots of sword play but not too much gratuitous violence or blood-letting...so maybe that's not a drawback.  One sidekick of the hero is a rather goofy Alp (nomad fighting guy) who tends to get excited about the idea of killing infidels with his two sword style.  He's good comic relief where little exists otherwise (OK, none exists otherwise)....but the drawback that's coming a bit to light is that his killing of infidels, while it's aimed now at the invading Mongol hordes, is rather a bit too similar to modern Islamic extremist activity and  often repeats the idea that Islam is bringing light to the world and needs to replace all other religions. Another questionable bit...there's a fair amount of magical thinking going on with the character we call "Angel-guy" when he has predictive dreams and calls on God to heal, protect, etc.... and it works.  Interesting that today, Turkey is tending to suppress the nomadic Kurds....not sure what that means in the big picture-show.

So there you have it....the influence of religion on modern entertainment.  The effing Jews open a big can of worms by taking gods from the local, mostly harmless level, to One Big God who knows all, sees all, and plays favorites.  Then the Christians come along and try to get everyone in on the act...no favorites here...we can all be hobos on the freight train to heaven (ever hear that song ?)...but we don't especially like Jews...at least in Europe, for a few centuries.  And on to the Muslims who really complicate things by picking out the parts of the Bible they like best and the guy they like best and just going with that ....but lately, even they can't agree.  

I wonder why Mrs Maisel was made....to introduce the world to modern Judaism ?  Strictly entertainment ?  I guess to look for 'why' may be to look for conspiracy.  But so much money ?

Nuff said. 

Sports Psychologist

 You may wonder how, with the best politicians money can buy, we can't seem to take much effective action when trying to deal with things like the widening wealth gap, maddeningly expensive housing and health care, and the ever growing 'hate gap'.  That these problems are world wide as much as country wide hardly ticks on our radar because we tend to be increasingly self centered.

In the book we're currently reading, The Brothers K, a minor league baseball team is visited by the parent team's resident team psychologist with the intent, pretty much of any team psych-meister, of bringing the individual members closer to each other by increasing interpersonal awareness and understanding of individual differences.

Can we get a national team psych builder ?

Trust

 Abe Lincoln was considered quite a story teller and one of those brings up his description of the United States in the condition in which he found the country....that is, a collection of two kinds of states...those states who allow the ownership of slaves and those who don't allow slavery.  He said (approximately)  "it's not quite one thing, and not quite another."  Since Abe's time, the race question has undergone a long and very gradual transition, mostly for the better, but the past 20 years have seen increasing political and social division that threatens to split this country, if not as violently, certainly as thoroughly, as did the question of race.

When I was a kid, I always had the sense that my dad trusted about everyone and everything.  He trusted the people around him, he trusted people in business, and he trusted the people in government.  He trusted the products he bought, the food he ate, and society in general to be a Good Place.  While he wasn't particularly gullible, or any more so than many small town people of the era, it just seemed that he didn't want to be bothered with doing a lot of Mis-trusting.  Being mistrustful consumes energy and really doesn't add much to the enjoyment of life.

Fast-Forward to today....it seems that mistrust is pretty much the order of the day.  Sure, we still trust most of the people we know, but the past several years seem to have seen an explosion of mistrust.  The list is fairly extensive and includes a lot of entities and people who were on our list of Most Trusted.  And it can be quite confusing to sort it all out.

A few generalizations and contradictions.  We mostly trust our personal doctors, but distrust, thanks to CoVid, the CDC, the WHO, any government medical officer, CoVid vaccinations, the medical establishment in general and, by extension, a lot of the people who don't feel as we do.  We mostly trust the politicians we think are on the right side of the fence, but distrust every one of them who seem to disagree with us....and, by extension, a lot of the people who don't feel as we do.  Some of us trust the oil companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the mining companies, the food industry and the financial system as providers of a huge share of jobs and the infrastructure of modern society, while just as many of us distrust them as major contributors to everything from addiction to pollution and environmental degradation to the lopsided political and economic structure that is fueling even more mutual distrust.

It's been suggested that I suffer from the fallacy of "things used to be a lot better".  I don't think that's true because I'm fully aware that many things Are better, but I'm also quite aware that some things are Not as good as they used to be.  I'm even aware that many of the things I think are Worse would be called Better by a lot of people.  Going into listings of such things would take too much time and belabor the point,  The point is that until we try to tackle the issue of trust, we won't be moving in a positive direction any time soon.

'Nother Day, 'Nother Dollar

A smaller, more efficient government is often proposed, but what else will combat a few private people owning most of the world's resources But a strong government ?  Efficient ?  Yes !  Small ?  Probably not That small.  But it's about doing things that make some sense.  Corporations work almost entirely for profit and not to help most of the population.  Let's limit their power, both financially and politically.

I'm a conservative liberal....I want to conserve most of the world's resources and Not make those resources the tools of private and often greedy individuals.  Do I want to give up my way of life ?  Not really..... but, as much as I enjoy computer games, movies with messages, the convenience of a cell phone, and all the other techy shit we have.....I'd give it all up if the world population chose to do logical things like raising their own food, repopulating rural areas and depopulating urban ones, and moving towards a recycling economy.

It's the rich battling over resources that cause half the wars....and other folks battling over religion causes the other half.  It's Not people who just want to raise a family or have a life who go to war....they're just Used to fight them.

Elect Me !!

 Apparently no one read the last line of the last post, and if they did, it wasn't taken seriously.  Good job ! 

 While I truly believe electing me as president would be a good move, I'm not expecting the idea to gain much (any) traction.  Still, it will be fun to spend a few minutes, maybe a few each day for awhile, pointing out some things I've noticed or come to believe.  I'm not trying to convince you of much of anything other than "maybe there's a way to fix a pretty broken system."

Suggestion #1 - Pretty much everyone who has run for or been president in recent years fails the "Catch 22" test...defined as "If you want the job, you are, by definition, unfit to hold the position."  It's a powerful place to be, and if you want that power, you should definitely not have it.  Yes, there are ways to get people not interested in holding power, we're just not using any of them.

Stupid

     I'm not posting this to Facebook (yet) as I keep my promises, and when I last posted it said, "I won't do this again any time soon."  However, that promise doesn't prohibit posting here on the blog, "Thank you very much!"

     A friend whom I knew in college who was, and likely still is, a very nice person re-posted something picked up from some conservative website dedicated to hating on Democrats.  It said something along the order of "How could so many people be stupid enough to vote for Hillary?"  I don't remember if it was phrased as a question, but that's the question that needs an answer.

     Nothing here has anything to do with your opinions about things that talk show hosts may have convinced you of regarding either the Clinton's politics or their financial dealings.  I don't want to go there.  I don't know anything about that.  I merely want to address 'stupid'....oh, and to mention something about "this is 3 years ago....really?"

     1.  "Stupid" is a word used by children to express their anger at a friend or a sibling.  For an adult it generally needs to remain in fairly private use.  Fine, if you want to tell a friend "Boy, those Democrats are stupid."  I'm not the thought police, but posting it in a public forum is a reflection more on you than it is on them.  And I think your mom taught you better.

     2.  Accuracy counts, just like truth counts.  Statistically speaking, you may be smarter than somewhere around 1/2 of those people, and 'stupider' than the other half.  That's the way statistics works.  Even if you are a super-genius of some kind, you're likely only a bit smarter than the rest in terms of the ability to make an informed decision, especially as "genius often comes with a price."

     3.  I think you would take offense if I categorized all Trump supporters as exactly the same....dumb, misinformed, and racist....which I don't.  I'm pretty sure Trump supporters came from many walks of life.  My list is not likely to be all-inclusive....sorry about that.
      A.  There are those who voted for him simply because he was the Republican choice.
      B.  Still more looked at the immigrant issue and simply wanted a wall. 
      C.  And some, not many in my opinion, who understood what the Trump presidency would be. (I'm fairly sure that more count themselves in this camp than is actually the fact, neither here nor there for this argument.)
       D.  But I think the real clincher part of the population was from those listened and were thrilled at his disrespective-of-the-system rhetoric.

     4.  Let's not make the mistake of categorizing everyone who voted for Hillary as stupid.  Like the Trump voters, they are a diverse lot.
        A.  Some voted Democratic.
        B.  Some saw an intelligent, capable woman whom they believed could best handle the job.
        C.  Some weighed the candidates and thought Hillary the better choice.
        D.  And others looked at the candidates, saw them both as:
                  I. Too much a part of the system, one political and one financial.
                  II.  Rather abrasive, each in their own way.
                  III.  Unlikely to be an improvement.
     So, some voter choices were made on the basis of  the-lesser-of-two-evils....could have gone either way.

     You may think me liberal simply because I'm not exactly in the Trump camp but, as always, I speak with honesty.  While I didn't think I really wanted such an abrasive individual, Trump, in the White House, neither did I wish to see Hillary in residence there.  I didn't like Bush 2 and I didn't think we needed a Clinton 2, both smacking of elitism in that office.  But I also think people with too much money (Trump) tend to think much like the kings of old....that they are there

by "Divine Right".  

"Would I be here if God didn't want me here?"

Why don't we all think like that?   I don't accuse God when I get sick, why would I credit him for things to my benefit?  Things happen....and Trump saw opportunity in a divided America that was losing faith in its political system.  His timing was perfect.

     Here's the non-liberal part.  I applaud you, America and Americans, for electing Trump.  I really think the system is broken and Trump was one way to try to break it.

 HOWEVER,

with my apologies to all you conservatives, I don't think he's the answer, I think he's only the message.  With his destruction of national monuments in the name of mining and extraction, he's just another rich guy helping himself and his cronies to the spoils of the nation and the earth.

So, elect me if you want....I do dishes, scrub floors, cut firewood...all-in-all, work hard, don't lie, respect different points of view, and promise not to think I was 'chosen'.