ENTRY NUMBER 500

 I finally arrive at the 500th time I have published an entry here in this silly thing called a blog.  I have been thinking about this entry for awhile now.  I want it to be different from the other 499 entries.  I have no idea how this entry will look like.  There is a good possibility that some of what is written here will have been covered somewhere in the previous entries.  Let's see how it goes.

The first entry I published in this blog took place on October 6, 2010.  Doesn't seem that long ago but it has been about eleven and a half years running.  I have not published consistently.  I wrote when I felt like writing, not to meet a schedule.  

Entry number 001 was titled "GOLDEN YEARS".  It had nothing to do with the David Bowie song but may have been inspired by it.  I may have been listening to Bowie as I started writing it.  In short, it had to do with getting old.  My premise was we are always aging until the moment we die.  Those golden years don't happen until we reach our ultimate age, right before we die.  The golden years we all try to get to only last a split second between life and death.  Sounds silly now, but I think perhaps I was trying to come off as a deep thinker and philosopher than just being who I really am.

A few statistics on this tome of mindless thoughts from a "boy" in Missouri:

At the time I am writing, this blog has been looked at, if not read, 86,600 times.  That is an average of 173.5 times for each of the 499 entries.

It has been read in over 18 countries.  Only 55% of the views have been from the United States.  Countries that are represented in the viewing audience include Russia, France, Germany, Ukraine, Sweden, Canada, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Poland, Japan, India, China, Netherlands Brazil, Romania, Latvia and Czechia.

The most read entry, and this really surprised me, was the relating of a story that my grandfather use to tell me about an Indian in the Ozarks named Falling Rock.  Other popular entries include ones about my fear of tornadoes, about two young ladies named Rachel and Alesia and, of course, about Barbara.

These statistics are far larger than I ever expected to attain.  It is still a small blog in the world of the internet but it is out there.  Not all of the 499 previous entries were original writings.  In the early days I did quote Mr. Carlin and some of my favorite songs as well as a quote or two from President Nixon.  The clear majority of entries though are original.

I have written about people in my life.  I have written about events that I experienced as I went down this path.  I have also written my thoughts on things that were going on around me.

I wrote about the summer of 2018.  It was the hardest six month period in my entire life.  It was a time when I lost Barbara, my father, a long time neighbor and good friend, his daughter, and an uncle.  The years immediately before 2018 had their fill of loss as well.  In 2016 I lost my eldest sister and in 2017 I lost a long time friend that I met when I started working at Dit-MCO.  After 2018 I have lost two uncles and four aunts as well as a four coworkers at Dit-MCO who I adored.  One of the most striking posts on Facebook over this past year was put there by my Uncle Jim.  He is the youngest of 5 siblings and after losing his brother (my dad) in 2018, his sister (my Aunt Norva) in 2019 and then finally losing two sisters within the last year (my Aunt Fay and my Aunt Velma) he put up a picture of himself with his brother and three sisters and a one sentence emotion.  "Now all my siblings are in Heaven."  He had lost his family in the space of only a few short years.  I love my Uncle Jim and I know that his faith helps to carry him onward through his life.

I have spent my life observing and listening while occasionally making my maturing thoughts known out loud.  I like to think I was open minded about other ideas and I think I was.  I learned this from my grandfather.  It is okay to be wrong.  It is okay to change your mind.  This is called maturing, growing ... learning.  It is also okay to affirm your thinking and to believe you are correct and not agree with with what others may think.  To be able to stand for what you believe in is very important as part of our growth and maturity.  The important thing is to agree or disagree while being respectful to those who you are speaking with.  There does not seem to be much respect being shown in the world these days.  Disgust and hate have replaced the idea of respect.  What has replaced the importance of respect is the silencing of ideas, not only by individuals but also by corporate entities.  Sorry, I got off track for a bit.  What I was going to say is that these writings that are taken from my observations and some things I have heard and experienced are to show what I have learned from them through my 65 years on this planet.  Not all of it is pretty, but all of it is human.  None of us are perfect.  None of us are totally right in our thinking. What we all are though is human.  As we go about our day to day lives and interactions, I believe this is an important thing to remember.

"I don't think I'm racist."  I spoke these words to my grandfather on an afternoon visit after work one summer day.  His response was short and to the point, "Everyone's a racist .... everyone."  As he said these words he did not exhibit any of his ordinary mannerisms that he commonly used when making a point.  There was no leaning forward at me.  He didn't point his pipe and stub finger at me.  There wasn't a small "hr-mph".  He did not even look at me when making the statement.  He just looked straight ahead speaking steady and matter of factly.  There was no follow up, just silence as we both seemed to let his words sink in.  I have only seen him respond to me in this manner one other time.  It was a personal time when we were alone in the dining room of the old house.  This manner of responding was rare for the old man and reserved for situations that seemed to be very important and personal to him.  The conversation did not go much further than that on that afternoon.  He changed the topic shortly thereafter, his point being voiced and made.

I thought about that short conversation several time over the course of my life.  I still think of that afternoon even today, especially with society being in the state that it is in.  This is my theory on what my grandfather's thinking was.  Knowing my grandfather and his stories of life along with little hints that I observed of him over the remaining years of his life, I think it is pretty close to what he was telling me.  "Everyone is racist.... everyone."  My grandfather lived a life that he thought was proper.  No, he was not perfect.  He had plenty of flaws but when his flaws came out, as flaws always do, he did his best to make it right.  Grandpa wouldn't give this explanation in these words, they are my own, but I think the general idea is there.  The human species is a tribal species.  This is not unusual in nature, many are tribal, some more than others.  The thing about the human species is that although we are tribal that vast majority of humans try to not let that tribalism rule our behavior.  Even men like my grandfather, who are seen by those he encountered as being fair and treating everyone the same, deep down have this tribal sense of belonging.

"I don't think I'm racist."  One day in gym class at Ruskin High School we were playing volleyball.  It was a time when the Ruskin community was becoming more diverse as we were seeing the number of black kids increase every year.  Personally, this did not bother me.  I didn't see it bother any of my classmates that I could tell.  To be honest, it seemed to bother the parents more then us kids.  I had already reached my six foot frame when I was a junior, so I was fairly tall.  During this game that day I had the opportunity to lay down a wicked spike on my opponent across the net from me.  "Yeah boy!!" I exclaimed with a fist pump.  Then I looked my classmate who I had just spiked the ball on.  "Boy, huh.."  The black face looking at me looked both angry and hurt.  I did not say those words intending to hurt.  It was part of my vocabulary.  I did not even realize that he was of a different race.  The words just came out and it hurt and angered him.  I did not respond.  I kept silent.  I should have apologized.  The incident did not progress into anything but to this day I can see his face, I can hear my words.  I should have been more careful, more aware and more sensitive.  I understand that now.  Since that day I have taken care in my words as much as I can.  I keep that moment in my memory as a reminder to do so.

So this is what I got from my grandfather on that day.  We all think others are different.  We all think we are pretty good people and "our" people are pretty good people for the most part.  Every race has great people.  A lot of great people.  Every race also has very wicked people. Not as many as good people but still the wicked ones are out there.  Each one of us understand people of our own race better then we understand people of other races and, of course, each race considers it the better.  All of us have to train our minds to take on an outlook of keeping that behavior under control or better yet, completely hidden and not even thought about.  That tribal instinct should not even be known to ourselves.  Its should be so small in our minds that we don't realize it is there.  Still we have that basic tribalism that stays with us.  It stays with all of us.  "Everyone".  Some are better at this than others.  My grandfather was a master at it.  I am not so good at hiding it as he was.  We all need to try though because in order for this country, this world to survive, we have to.  As for me, I continue to work at it.  I try to see people by what I observe how they live and what they say.  I have a long ways to go.

It took me over three years since we lost Barbara, but I have manage to take another step in moving forward in life.  I won't try to trick you, moving forward has been a very difficult thing to do.  This spring with help from Brett, I began to make this house look more like "Bill" instead of "Bill and Barb".  I got my mind ready to let go of a lot of Barbara in the house.  Mainly her clothes, books and, to be quite frank, junk that she liked to have around.  By this I mean that stuff that didn't bring on strong memories of Barb or our life together, but just stuff that she liked to keep.  The house looks different now.  There is still a lot of Barb there, but I tried to transform into a house that reflects me.  Made it more comfortable for me.  I am happy with the result.  Her wedding dress still hangs in the closet and the shoes she wore on November 21, 1975.  Her chair that she sat in during the last years of her life sits with the crocheted throw that the nurses laid over her after she died.  It was difficult for me to do and I know I should have taken this step a couple of years ago.  It is healthy for me emotionally as well as physically I guess.  I still love her.  I always will.  At the same time I need to keep moving forward in life as difficult as that may be.  I'm getting there with the help of a few special friends, one in particular.  Thank you Lisa for your advice and help.

Barbara's Chair

All of my regular readers know of my love of music, literature and baseball.  What I haven't touched on very much, if at all, is my love for movies.  To start with I have a lot of favorite male actors but there is one female actress that rises above all others.  Sandra Bullock.  It has become kind of a running joke among my family and friends but I do like her.  She is very good in my mind.  Comedies, dramas, sci-fi, she can do anything.  By my calculations she has been cheated out of some 25 Oscars ... just my opinion. 

Seriously, movies have had a big influence on me by the messages they try to get across.   Not all movies are made for a message, most are for pure entertainment value but there are a few that have a statement to make.  I don't agree with all the messages put out there but I think it is a good thing if a movie makes you think after you have seen it.  

I think instead of getting onto all of the messages, I am going to list some of my favorite moves that reach for more than simple entertainment value.  These are not in any particular order as to how I favor them, just a little insight into my thinking.  Let you get to know me a little better.

    "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"  "Fargo"  "Dr. Strangelove"  "Being There"  "Catch 22"  "Grand Torino"  "Miller's Crossing"  "Network"  "Patton"  "Wall Street"  "Girl Interrupted"  "28 Days"  "Lincoln"  "The Man With The Golden Arm"  "All The President's Men"  "The Sunset Limited"  "To Kill A Mockingbird"  "The Mouse That Roared"  "Lilies Of The Field"  "Shawshank Redemption"  "Waking Up"  "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof"  "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner"  "Dog Day Afternoon"  "Forrest Gump"  "Up"  "Conspiracy"  "The Blind Side"  "Philadelphia"  "A Time To Kill"  and many more if I took time to really think about it.  These movies, though, come immediately to my mind so they are more than likely to be the ones I go to.

Over these 500 entries, I have tried to address things that I have learned during my 65 years.  I told them in song lyrics, the modern day philosophers as I refer to the songwriters as.  There is another subset of philosophers and I have quoted them a lot as well.  Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor told their philosophies by making observations of life and relaying these observations honestly but with exaggerations to show how ridiculous some human behaviors are.  If you listen to them, they will make you laugh, but if you listen to the sub logic under the exaggerations, you find the truth they are trying to bring out.

I also told of my observations through stories that, for the most part, are true and are a part of my life.  Some involved teachers and others came from a few interactions with authority.  A lot of the lessons I learned came from those who I looked up to with upmost respect. Family members and those outside the family.  Teachers and clergy.  Neighbors and classmates.  I have been extremely lucky in life and the people who have been a part of my life.

Observing and listening are perhaps two of the most important tools we have as we proceed through life.  Care must be taken though because observing or listening to the wrong ideas and actions can do more damage than good.  I was lucky and I made some mistakes.  I have made some big mistakes in life.

Hopefully, this blog of stories and ideas, good things and not so good things, can make even a small impact on anyone who stumbles across this collection of entries long after I am gone.

Thanks for reading my dear friends.  A lot has been left untold, but I plan on working at getting those things told in the future.

ENTRY NUMBER 499

Like ENTRY NUMBER 498, I will not be posting this on Facebook so I can pretty much say whatever I want without offending anybody.  More or less, as the mind speaks my fingers put down the words.  I was pretty pleased with ENTRY NUMBER 498 so let's try it again.

 My neighbor Sally turns 86 years old next month.  She is a petite lady rising above the 5 foot mark by about 2 inches.  Her mind is sharp.  She has a friendly and helpful personality.  You have to be careful though because she can also be a fiery lady as well.  She and her husband, Bob, moved into the house across the street back in 1996, good neighbors the whole time.  Bob passed away about 15 years ago and it seemed that Sally made the transition pretty good although it was difficult for her.

Sally is independent.  She is strong and does not like to ask for help although she readily gives help when she sees a need.  During the time when Barbara's health began to deteriorate, Sally, along with my other neighbor Charlene, kept a close eye on Barbara.  Barbara was as much of an independent as Sally is.   During the time when Barbara was still able to drive and able to accomplish things with difficulty, Sally was there.  Barbara would come home from grocery shopping and start to carry a bag at a time to the front porch where she would then carry a bag at a time into the house.  Sally would come over and talk Barbara into letting Sally carry the bags from the car to the porch so Barbara could carry them into the house.  As Barbara's health worsened, the more help our neighbors gave.  I am lucky to have the neighbors that I do have.

Sally, as I said, does not like to ask for help.  She has begun to acknowledge that at her age, she does need help here and there but that doesn't mean she likes to ask for it.  A couple of weeks ago I received a call from Sally asking me if I was busy.  The light bulbs in Sally's garage door opener and her overhead light in the garage were burned out.  Her garage door would not open.  I went over and replaced the lights and Sally pressed the button to open the garage door.  It would not open.  After looking at her door I discovered it was locked.  Somehow Sally had accidentally locked her garage door. I walked her to the door, explained what was wrong and showed her how to unlock the door if it should happen again.  As she was walking me back through the house and thanking me, she slowly broke into tears.  She expressed how she felt so alone and didn't know how to do things.  I told her that her, Charlene and myself were there for each other.  That's what friends and neighbors are for.  We lean on each other.

What I want you to take from the telling of that event are four things.  First, of course, is that Sally is very independent.  Second is that she feels vulnerable as she gets older.  Third is that the lady loves to drive her car.  That is not a bad thing.  Not yet anyway.  She is sharp minded.  She is a good driver and she knows her limitations while driving.  For example she does not drive on the highways.  She knows that her reflexes aren't what they use to be and so she stays on the side roads and never drives far from home.  The last thing is that Sally like a routine.  She does not like change or things that take her out of her comfort zone.  She does not like surprises. This leads us to what happened last Friday.

Last Friday morning Sally had gone to the DOV to renew her drivers license.  While she was there something happened that had never happened to her before.  She failed the eye test..  The lady at the DOV gave her a piece of paper to give to her eye doctor when she went to get glasses.  The paper was a sign of Sally getting older.  It was a paper that the doctor would tell the state if Sally was fit to drive or not.

She showed up at my front door shortly after noon that day.  She was anxious.  A wrench had been thrown into her day to day machinery and she did not know exactly what to do. At the DOV they had given her the name of an eye doctor that is approved by the state who was located in Belton.  To Sally, Belton might as well be a hundred miles away.  She did not know the town.  She wasn't sure how to get there and she certainly did not have a clue as to where the address of the eye doctor was located.

I did my best to calm her down and we talked about what had happened that morning.  I would make sure that we got this taken care of.  I had nothing else to do so I would drive her to Belton for the exam.  We called the phone number and made an appointment for Monday afternoon. After telling her not to worry and giving her a pat on the back, she headed home.

Saturday morning Sally called me again to make sure I hadn't forgotten about Monday's eye exam.  Her anxiety was building and I think she was a little scared that she would not be able to drive anymore.  The way I figured it, she was driving around the neighborhood without any problems so the adjustment to her eyes would be minimal.  That seemed to calm her down a bit for the time being.  I would not hear from her until Monday.

I had told Sally we would leave around three on Monday and so a little before three I stepped out of my house to find Sally walking up my driveway.  I smiled at her and she told me to let's get this over with and off we went.  It was a long appointment.  Sally is a talker and loves to tell stories to people.  I imagine there was a lot of story telling going on during her exam.  She came out of the exam with the paper the doctor had signed telling the state that her eyesight, with corrections, would allow her to drive safely.  She picked out some frames and we headed home with a much relieved Sally.

She insisted on buying me an early dinner on the way home so we stopped at Freddie's and got some pattie melts and fries before heading back home.  Sally was happy.  Today she mailed the paper to the state and now all she has to do is wait for her new glasses before heading back to the DOV for her license and her day to day routine returning to normal. 

Having good neighbors is important.  I am saying that from my perspective.  Me having good neighbors is important and I have two great neighbors, Charlene and Sally.  The three of us are single and live alone.  Sally losing her husband several years ago, Me losing Barb in 2018 and Charlene just lost her husband last July weekend.  We are the same the three of us and each of us need help from time to time.  I put a couch and a chair in the dumpster Charlene had rented last fall and Sally put a microwave and some boxes in the dumpster I rented a few weeks ago.  The theme between the three of us is that we are all in this together and we watch out for each other.  

Good neighbors are hard to find.  I am extremely lucky.  You get a good neighbor, help them.  It is indeed a rarity to have such fine ones.

It is 10:30 pm tonight.  It has been overcast but a nice temperature most of the day.  When I went to the store to pick up my prescriptions, a lady who was walking just in front of me into the store informed that it was a nice day but we would pay for it with storms tonight.  I did not ask for her weather forecast, she just offered it to me.  It is nice to have people feel relaxed enough in this day and age to talk to strangers like that.  It felt good.  She was right though.  Thunder, lightning and rain have arrived in Kansas City.

I like the rain.  I like the sound and the smell of it.  The only problem with rain, especially when accompanied with thunder and lightning is getting Dutch outside to do his business.  He doesn't mind the rain but the lights and the sounds make him rather skittish.  Tonight he will more than likely sleep close to my bed during the night as if I could protect him from it.

This rain is also a good thing for my dogwood tree.  It was one of my gifts from Dit-MCO on the occasion of my retirement.  They gave it to me as kind of a replacement for Barbara not being able to be there.  It was a thoughtful gesture and one that I very much appreciated.

Life is marching on.  I was thinking about that this morning as I sat quietly by myself eating oatmeal for breakfast.  Life does not stop and soon I will be a memory just as Barbara, all my grandparents, my sister, my dad and all those aunts and uncles as well as many friends have become.  Just a memory that will fade to obscurity as the generations come and go.

Going to school for the first time.  Playing baseball, then football and finally basketball and making the school team.  That first kiss from Valerie, who is now herself but a memory.  Time with Debbie and meeting Barbara then marrying her.  Working for dad and finding my place in the labor force. Meeting Ronnie for the first time and all the fun we had discovering music together to spending time with Larry and all the evening in the church parking lot playing basketball.  Seeing Brett for the first time and bringing home as my son followed by raising him on Beatles tunes.  Watching Barbara leave this world and telling people at my fathers memorial service in Alabama about my dad.

Memories.  We hold onto them as much as we can.  We lose a lot of those memories over the years due to time or age.  My dad was starting to lose his memory when Barbara died.  Barbara adored my dad and I think dad kind of like her as well.  To be honest dad "kind of liked" me too.  That was dad's answer all the time.

Me: Love you dad

Dad: yeah well I kind of like you too

It brings an unusual smile to my face these days.  I don't smile much anymore.  I am thinking that maybe I am forgetting how to smile.  What about a laugh?  Almost unheard of coming from me.  My sense of humor is fading like the memories.  I look at this world, in these times we find ourselves and I don't think there is much to laugh about.  As Americans we are divided and there is almost a hatred among the people of my country.  I remember studying and observing the fight to desegregate our country and it feels like just as we are right there. I look around and see that re-segregation is on the rise and moving fast.  The strange thing is that the very people who fought so hard to integregate the country are leading it back into segregation.  It saddens me.

I do not understand America anymore.  Hell, I don't think I even understand human beings anymore.  Everything seems to be upside down and sideways inside out.

I want simplicity to make a comeback.  I want critical thinking to become a thing again.  I want the Constitution of the United States to stand for something.  I want to see a return to true ... TRUE ... freedom of speech in this country.  Without that, this country means nothing.  That is what makes The United States so special.  The right to a free and open exchange of ideas.  We do not have that anymore.  The public square has been dismantled.

I think, at the moment I am typing this, that I am kind of glad I won't be around to see the path this country is headed down and where it ends up.  I truly believe that this country, this Democratic Republic that has proven itself, in my mind, is the greatest country in modern history.

My heart is truly saddened by what I have seen happening to it.

Enough for ENTRY NUMBER 499 in this blog.

MY COUNTRY? OUR COUNTRY!

I was not going to write anything about the turmoil that is tearing our country apart.  I tried to start writing about it once but things were changing so fast that my writing was woefully out of date after 24 hours.  Things have been moving fast ... too fast.  My perception of things will not agree with a lot of you and to be honest, I am to the point of not really caring one bit right now. The United States is being torn apart from within.  It is quickly becoming a country that I don't recognize and I feel it is changing for the worse.

Let me say one thing that I deeply feel is a true statement.  The vast majority of Americans, well over 99%, were shocked and outraged at the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  I know I was.  I want those officers to be held accountable and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  I want any cop that goes against his sworn oath and duty to be held accountable.  I also think that the police officers should be held to a higher standard when performing their job than ordinary citizens.  I would be willing to wager that most Americans, that 99%, feel the same way.  At the same time, the police should be given latitude for their actions in situations that are high stress with little time to think cognitively on how to deal with it.  A police officer must be able to think on his feet very quickly and to act in the most appropriate manner that he feels is justified.  It takes a special person to do that job and I for one am not equipped to be able to do it.

So what happened in our country to take us from total unanimity on the outrage of the actions of police officers dealing with Mr. Floyd to the subversion taking place in our country today.  Well, the story has been progressing for a long time.  For the sake of brevity let's just keep it in the recent past.  Let's say start in 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act.   That Act was a huge step in our country moving forward.  No, it was not a cure all.  It would take the Supreme Court to take it and mold it to the Constitution.  As late as 1967, a full three years after the Civil Rights Act passed, interracial marriage was against the law in several states, including the great state of Missouri.  When the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia in 1967, it was another very huge step towards bringing the Civil Rights Act to it's full potential to bring equality to all in this land.  We still had a ways to go and the Supreme Court is still to this day making decisions that are based on the Civil Rights Act.  Same sex marriages have been deemed to be under the umbrella of the 1964 Act.  Loop holes in racial equality continue to be sewn shut by the Court.  The police have been reformed somewhat by the Court as well.  The Miranda case is one of the biggest clamp downs on police in the last century making the police treat all people equal.  The decisions continue to be handed down from the Court and the country continues to strive towards that Utopian idea of total equality for all.  Where do I stand on the idea of full and total equality?  I am 100% for it.  I do not think our nation can survive without it.  The country continues to move towards that goal year after year and we will get there.  This I firmly believe.

Now many of you are probably thinking, why has it taken so long to get there?  Why are we still on that path toward total equality?  Well, the best answer I can give is that it is vitally important to not move too fast.  Some laws that are on the books might seem to be against the idea of equality but if we take a good look at them, they are important in the long run to keep equality instead of making it worse.  If we move too fast on such important matters, mistakes will be made and they could have devastating results for those that they are designed to help.  We should be careful and make changes methodically, rationalizing what we want the outcome to be and craft any new laws so that they accomplish what we intend to.  We are closer to real equality for all citizens of this country right now than we have ever been before.  We were anyway until a few months ago.  It has not taken long for a few political groups to start the dismantling of our country, our Constitution.  I feel like we are on a dangerous downhill path to the United States becoming unrecognizable.

So here we are.  The summer of 2020.  It has been 56 years since the  passage of the Civil Rights Act.  The country is only 244 years old.  Less than a quarter of our history as a nation has been under the conditions of the Civil Rights Act ... about 23% of our country's existence. That is not a very long time to bring forth such sweeping changes in different cultures, lifestyles and philosophies.  With every new generation though, a little of the old cultures, lifestyles and philosophies are discarded and it becomes more natural for the country to move towards the goal of equality for all as a greater percentage of the nation learns and believe in what is the right thing to do.  The right way to act and the right way to treat our fellow countrymen and human beings.

Ignorance still has a strangle hold on many members of our society though.  Those who are ignorant of what equality means, or what our country stands for are in the minority of the citizens of this country.  They are still out there though.  The ignorance pervades all cultures, all races, all religions and any other societal sect that there is, but they are thankfully still in the minority.  That is why I can look at this country and feel proud of  how far we have come in this pursuit.  Yes, we have a long ways to go, but we have come such a long ways.  That progress is in danger of being totally lost right now.  I believe the Great American Experiment is in danger of coming to an end. 

You know, for almost a week after Mr. Floyd's murder, we all stood as one.  It was horrible.  It was wrong.  The police officers who committed this crime should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  There was no question about it.  Then the agitators came.  To me these organizations could and should be labeled as domestic terrorist organizations.  Suddenly our cities started to burn and unlike anything before, the destruction accelerated at a pace so quickly, we could not keep up with the latest developments.  Crime has become rampant as these organizations continue to push their political agendas.  They moved so fast and with so much destruction, we saw our police, our leaders kneel before these agitators which pleased them a great deal.  Now changes are being made and they are being made to quickly, without forethought or logic.  Changes that will change what the United States represent to the world.  Changes that could very well never be walked back.

Bits and pieces of the Constitution is at stake in my opinion.  Free speech has been greatly altered to allow only the proper ideas and thoughts to be expressed in public without being brought down by the wrath of the radicals.  I have already seen the idea of due process greatly inhibited and even tossed aside.  We are treading in dangerous waters.

If Dr. King taught us anything, it was that change can be brought about peacefully.  Our country seems to have forgotten that ideal.

I pray for our country.  I pray for our citizens.  I pray that this great country that stands for freedom unlike any other country in the world will survive this tragedy.  I pray for a civil discourse to solve these problems that we face.  I pray that we can make changes, real changes, but in a thoughtful, reflective and wise manner.

I pray for all .. ALL of my fellow Americans.  

May God bless the country and bring us back together and help us to continue moving forward to real equality for all of us.  That is my hope for the United States of America.

THE BAKER AND THE GAY CAKE

Not sure I should address this topic.  I feel like I am wading into treacherous waters.....

Before I start I want to make sure everyone realizes something about me.  I know that this is a very controversial topic.  I do not consider myself to be racist, homophobic, misogynistic, or any other description that many people may place upon me because I am a straight white Christian male. I know that I am not a Constitutional scholar nor am I in any way a lawyer.  I lean a little to the right of center in my philosophy but am very much a centrist if not left of center on the domestic rights of all humans.  I believe in the Constitution.  I believe in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and all of the subsequent acts  and decisions that have come from it.  I firmly believe that each citizen of this great country DOES have certain inalienable rights as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams wrote. I believe that it is the job of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution and to uphold the laws of this country.  I believe that in the past the Supreme Court has made mistakes, major mistakes and that they will continue to do so in the future.  They are just nine human beings and are far from perfect.

Now, for the Baker v the Cake.  This is a very difficult situation and we must be able to walk an extremely fine line to whatever decision we come to.  I listened to the arguments made before the court three times now and I have a hard time coming to a conclusion that is not extremely narrow.  This case could, if decided too broadly, set us on a slippery slope that could undo all that we have accomplished since 1954.  We must stay off that slope.  There is far too much at stake here.

This case is far more complicated than religious freedom versus discrimination.  The decision of the Court could have an immense effect on everyone, particularly those who are considered part of a protected minority group.  However, the freedom of religion must not be broached either. So, what should we do?

After listening to the arguments, I feel like the attorneys for the baker took too safe of an attack on the situation.  They did not argue for freedom of religion necessarily, but rather freedom of artistic expression.  I feel like they did this in an attempt to broaden their argument to the Court.

I did some research and listened to other points of view.  One right leaning vlogger, Matt Christiansen, came to the conclusion that a business has the right to decide who they have as customers or not.  Starting with the standard "No shirt, no shoes... no service" argument he carries that to the Baker v Cake case via tearing down the majority of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  His reasoning, as far as I could tell, was that a shop owner should be able to discriminate and that by doing so he would put his business at risk because the majority of people would quit going to the business because they are offended by his stance and philosophy as well as his actions.

This is not right.  It left a bad taste in my mouth listening to his ideas concerning the case.  The Supreme Court has upheld many times the basis of the Civil Rights Act.  You can not arbitrarily deny service to someone based solely on their race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual preference.  You can however set up certain standards for a person to do business in your establishment.  The no shirt-no shoes argument comes to mind.  Some restaurants require men to wear a jacket and tie to be served.  These are not based solely on race or any of the other protected groups, but rather on a standard that the business wants to keep for its reputation.  It is the arbitrariness of not serving certain groups that makes it cross a line against the Constitution.

Then we have the freedom of religion, or more to the point concerning this particular case, the freedom of religious expression.  This is highly protected by the Constitution as well and it should be.  Now it comes to what qualifies as religious expression.  The argument for the baker here was that the couple told him the cake was for a same sex wedding and he refused to bake a cake for that event because it went against his religious views.  There was no writing on the cake and as far as I can tell no indication from the decorating of the cake that it was to be used at such an event.  The baker would not have known at all what he was baking the cake for if the couple had not told him.  If the couple had told him about the event or maybe just asked for certain words to be decorated on the cake or a sculpture be placed on the cake that indicated what kind of event it was going to be, then I think the baker would have the right to refuse baking that cake.  It is called "compelled speech".  You can not compel someone to create something or be of service to something or say something he does not believe in.  If the cake was already made and on display, he would have to sell it to them.  I believe if it was a cake that was simply decorated with fancy flowers or such, no harm done.  If the couple wanted something on the cake that said "Phil and Craig .. may you have a long life together" or had two men standing under a trellis holding hands, then I believe the baker could then say that he could not go against his religious beliefs in decorating a cake as such and suggest that they may be happier with another baker.  I mean, if you compel someone to decorate a cake against his personal beliefs, how good of a job do you think he will do anyway?  Not very I don't think.  One of the samples that the attorneys tried to give was if a black owned bakery was visited by customers claiming to be members of the KKK and asking for a cake with a cross sculpted on top of it.  No one would consider it outrageous if the baker refused to do so.  However that same baker seeing a group from a local church come in and asked for the exact same cake, one with a cross sculpted on it, he would have no problem creating that cake for them.  For me, I would agree that the baker in this situation has every right to not create a cake for the KKK.  No questions asked.

Conclusion... The baker can not deny service based solely on the sexual preference of the couple. If the couple wants a cake already on display, they have the right to purchase it, or if they want a cake created that has no symbols or words depicting anything against the baker's personal philosophy, the couple should expect the baker to create the cake.  If, however, the couple requests certain language or symbolism on the cake, the baker can refuse to bake that cake based on his philosophy that baking such a cake would be offensive to him.

This decision that I came up with will not agree with the Supreme Court's.  I can almost guarantee it.  I do realize I may have stepped on some toes here but that is not my intent.  My intent is to keep the Constitution as something that I can believe in.  I looked at it from a simple layman's view of the law and common sense and fairness.  I want to see our country continue making progress on civil rights for EVERYONE.  I want people to be able to do business without compromising their personal religious beliefs.  The down side to this is that it could open up numerous other situations along the same lines in future cases.  I can see, disappointingly I might add, a case in the future where we may end up seeing Loving v Virginia re-argued under personal beliefs.  That would signal that we are in danger of undoing everything that has been accomplished.

I know that this whole writing may sound very simplistic and it is.  I am just an average American of average intelligence with an average understanding of the law.  There is so much more at stake in this decision, from both points of view,  then I can even begin to express or understand.

I do think that it will have to be an extremely narrow scope to protect everyone's civil rights without dismantling all of the progress that has been made since Brown v Board of Education and the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  We can not, we MUST not undo all the progress that has been made and continue to make progress in the future.

THE ART OF DEBATE

Full disclosure to begin things.  I have never been a member of a debate team.  I have never participated in a formal debate.  I have never read a book on debate techniques.  My whole debate experience has been with friends, friends of friends, and family members.

Okay, so there are my credentials on this subject.  Absolute zero.  So with that in mind, here's my thoughts on what I have learned over the years.

There basically just two rules to be able to debate at least to a point where you can pull a good debate off.

First you have to know what you, yourself, believe.  You have to know what your philosophy is and how to talk about it.  This may sound easy but it isn't.  If you are human, your philosophy continues to change as you progress in life and it is important to revisit your thoughts every once in a great while so you don't get yourself confused.  Most time when I revisit my philosophy, it takes at least a week to feel comfortable with where I am at and make adjustments in my thinking.

Secondly, you have to know what your opponent believes and what the basics of their philosophy is.  This isn't easy either.  If someone were to look at my library, they would think I am nuts.  I have read the "Communist Manifesto".  I bought my own copy of Mao Tse Tung's little red book when I was young.  I have read the Ku Klux Klan writings of Ben Klassey as well as Mein Kampf.  I have read books on different religions and different philosophies.  I have watched debates, mostly debates of William F. Buckley debating whoever wanted to take him on.  I have read or watched the speeches of Adlai Stevenson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Barack Obama.  I have listened to Martin Luther King, Jr, Malcolm X, Ayn Rand as well as the classic philosophers. I have read writings and histories from our founding fathers including the Federalist papers.  Every American should be required to read the Federalist papers I think, along with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

I learned this lesson one afternoon from my grandfather.  I know I have written about this particular afternoon before because it was really a light bulb in my head going off.  I grew up with a conservative bent on my think.  I am not sure how that happened, but I did.  The whole extended family was very liberal except for myself and my cousin Jerry.  My grandfather was a Roosevelt liberal, an union organizer and president.  He was liberal from domestic policy on through foreign policy.  He use to enjoy talking politics if there wasn't anything else to talk about, i.e. football or baseball.  Grandpa was sharp.  He knew his own thinking and was able to express it very well.

He also knew what to expect me to say and he was always ready with any argument I might come up with and on this particular day, It dawned on me.  I use to visit grandma and grandpa a few times a week.  On a daily basis, grandpa would study the news paper and watch Walter Cronkite.  He knew what the Republicans were saying and he definitely knew what the Democrats were saying.  While he was reading the paper, if an article or editorial caught his imagination, he would clip it and put it in the pocket of his chair.  He would use these clips to remind him of something that he wanted to talk about.  On THE day, I showed up and sat on the couch next to his chair.  He whipped out a newspaper clipping and, I will never forget this, the sound of his voice, he said "Here, read what your buddy Pat Buchanan wrote." and then he sat there and watched me as aI read it.  When I was done I handed it back to him and he asked "Well?, What do you think?"  And as I thought about how to answer him, I looked at him.  He had a sparkle in his eye.  He had me and he knew it and that was when the light bulb came on.  The old man KNOWS what I am going to say!  Why bother?  I had been beat before I even started.

That was the day I figured out the key to debate.  Know what you think, and know how your opponent is going to respond.  It was shortly after that when I began reading about things I didn't really understand.  Most of my reading in my teens up until today is about history and what other points of views that there are out there and I noticed that even if the old man and my uncles were still whipping up on me, at least I could carry on a debate for more than a second or two.

The third part of making a good debate is the toughest one to accomplish.  To make a debate worthwhile instead of just a yelling match, There has to be some listening going on while the other side is making their case.  In entering a debate you have to keep yourself firm in your own thinking while at the same time be willing to listen with an open mind and be able to accept a different idea from your opponent.  This makes your philosophy more complete, makes your thinking clearer.  You must be prepared to make subtle or even large changes in your philosophy.  It is important to realize that you can always learn something new from somebody else.

I am not very good at this third part.  I think I use to be pretty good at it but as I have aged, I think that my thinking has become kind of set in concrete and not willing to change.  Instead of actually listening to an opposing point of view, my mind seems to jump on parts of sentences, take statements out of context and convince myself as to how little logic is being told me.  It is a problem and one that I try to work on, but really I don't succeed much in it.  Friends on social media will verify that about me.  Then again, there are times when I think they don't listen either and when you have two opposing viewpoints with neither side listening, it turns into an excersize as though you both are spinning your wheels on an icy patch of road with dry land just to either side of that ice.  Both sides get frustrated and to restart from before the debate and move on as if it never happened.  That seldom happens either.  Too often we hold on to what someone said and don't let them forget it and soon, what once was a friendship becomes a mind game that never ends.

Right now this country is a mess.  I don't think you can blame it on the current administration or the previous one.  It seems to be an over all society that has hardened the wills and the thinking of those that hold them.  Right now, I think, this country has forgotten how to listen to each other.  Without listening there can be no end to the debate that is raging.  Without each philosophy taking a little from the other and giving a little, things start to spinning terribly out of control and our society is hurt by it.  Our country is hurt by it and when the United States is in a war of words with ourselves, it effects the rest of the world.  This isn't the first time our country was deeply divided, but it seems like it is the deepest divide we have had since the American Civil War.  The art of debate has been lost and has turned into a huge power struggle.

This country needs to come together even if it is just a tiny bit.  We need to start listening to each other.  We need to strive to understand different ideas and thinking.  We need to bring this great social debate that we find ourselves in toward an understanding that can bring respect from each of us to each of us.  Everyone has their own thoughts, that is a truth as old as mankind has been discussing ideas.  That is a given.  You don't have to agree with a person to have respect for them.  Only with a mutual respect that a vibrant debate can bring out in people can this country continue to grow and to lead the world.

I don't know about you, but that is what I want for this country.  I want it to be strong.  I want our allies to follow our lead.  I want our enemies to respect us enough to be able to come to the table and work things out so everyone is safer in the world.

That is what The United States is supposed to be.

CRITICAL THINKING ... NOT THESE DAYS

You know, I was going to write out a long dissertation on how I see things that are happening, but I realize it would not do any good or be of any worth.

The Free Speech clause of the First Amendment is slowly fading away.

President Trump is not the reason.... he is an excuse to be and act however you want, to destroy public property.  He was right though... it did take more than just the "White Supremacist" or "White Nationalist" (Depending on how liberal your news source is) to cause what has become one of the worst chapters in the history of this nation.

The "Anti-Protesters" at Charlottesville were agitators.  We have seen them over the last 5 years.  These agitators are the same ones who burned Berkeley, rioted in Baltimore and burned down Ferguson.

At times, it feels like the anti-haters are showing and talking more hate than the hate speechers have.  Like I said .. I just don't know.

My personal philosophy?  I despise the Klan and in no way support any sort of white supremacy group or any racial supremacy group.  I am for equality on an even playing field.  I am for getting along with and enjoying your neighbor.  I put great value on the freedom of speech for everyone.  I put great value in our Constitution and the rights and protections it affords us.  I do not believe we should abuse those rights and protections.  Abusing them will make them disappear.

What is going on in this country irritates me, saddens me, angers me.

Research Evergreen State College.
Research Ferguson again
Research Berkely
Research Charlottesville and watch those clips again, closely, and you will see more than one side armed to the teeth and doing battle.
Revisit the fight for civil rights and the lives given to reach 1964.
Then research Loving v Virginia and try to figure out how after 1964 CRA that in 1967 Many states still had laws on the books outlawing interracial marriage... (Missouri was one of those states, not proud, just giving a full account)
Revisit the teachings of Martin Luther King, JR, Robert Kennedy, John Stuart Mill, and John Locke.
Better yet, revisit the teaching of Jesus Christ.
Research the Furman v Georgia cases from the early 70's that said the death penalty was being used as a racist tool by some of the states and so the death penalty was outlawed until they passed fairer laws (still not totally fair but a lot better than it was).

Haters on both sides.  Speech and thought being shut down.  Art being removed from Universities.  Check out Yale University and how they are handling things.  They are removing paintings that may be too disturbing.

Let me say this.  Disturbing is GOOD sometimes.  Disturbing makes us stop and think. And when we stop and think, we can set things straight.

It is just a huge mob mentality across the spectrum.  Doesn't seem like anyone is thinking for themselves,  just follow whatever crowd your beliefs set you into.

I don't know.  Like I said, I have been thinking this over very seriously over the last couple of days.  I had a lot to say.  Then this morning it occurred to me that it doesn't matter anymore.  I got nothing to say really.  I know what I believe and I can live with that.  I was taught and raised well.  I had many good influences in my life as I have grown old.  Nothing that I see going on in this country today... the clash of the races, the clash of the genders, the clash of right or left .. none of that sits well with me and I don't think it should.

I am not going to go to battle with cousins that I love but disagree a little bit with... it isn't worth that to me.  It isn't worth losing friendships either.

This country is what... 241 years old?  You would think that we could get it right by now.

My bottom line is that I don't want to lose family, friends, or any relationships that I may have out there, in real life or on social media ... Just isn't worth it.  If  any of these mentioned want to talk about things, I'll talk... but I won't argue ... I won't let my emotions get carried away to the point of losing some REALLY good people that I have around.  Not worth it.

I got some good readers I think ... and I know that you know what I am talking about, where I am coming from.  I respect each and every one of you and I thank you for reading this silly little blog over the years.  I think it is time to start remembering stories from my past and going back to writing and sharing those with you.

For all of us, a quote from my Uncle Dan... "Take Care and Be Safe"

May God bless y'all.

Bill

AS LONG AS WE ARE REWRITING HISTORY

As long as we are rewriting history and destroying monuments and statues that remind us of our past, in particular concerning the slave issue and the Civil War, I think we should take it all the way instead of just those monuments of Civil war participants and Confederate Generals and armed forces.

So my first proposal is to rename any national monuments around the country that honor any president who owned slaves and held slaves which would lead up to the Civil War.  First off lets look at the Presidents of the United States who did own slaves.

01. George Washington owned slaves
02. John Adams did NOT own slaves
03. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves
04. James Madison owned slaves
05. James Monroe owned slaves
06. John Quincy Adams did NOT own slaves
07. Andrew Jackson owned slaves
08. Martin Van Buren owned slaves
09. William Henry Harrison owned slaves
10. John Tyler owned slaves
11. James K. Polk owned slaves
12. Zachary Taylor owned slaves
13. Millard Fillmore did NOT own slaves
14. Franklin Pierce did NOT own slaves
15. James Buchanan did NOT own slaves
16. Abraham Lincoln did NOT own slaves
17. Andrew Johnson owned slaves
18. Ulysses S Grant owned slaves

 Grant was the last President to own a slave.

The obvious first step is to rename the Washington Monument to the Quincy Adams Monument followed by renaming of the Jefferson Memorial to the Adams Memorial.  Give these two early opponents of slavery their due finally.

Next, replace Washington with John Adams on the Dollar bill and the quarter.  Followed of course by Quincy Adams being placed on the nickel and the 20 dollar bill along with Harry Truman or John Kennedy on the 50 dollar bill.

The destruction or removal of all memorials, statues of slave owing Presidents across the entire nation is a must.  Any National Parks or federally owned lands named in "honor" of these Presidents should be renamed to those who did not own slaves with Adams and Quincy Adams getting first chance.  Consideration should also be given to great Americans who did not hold the office of the presidency.  Abolitionists like John Brown, Fredrick Douglas, Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks in particular.  That is not sarcasm, I feel these Americans have long been over due recognition, particular John Brown, as has President Adams and President Quincy Adams.

The removal from the Register of National Historic Places of the homes, lands, or anything to do with the lives of these Presidents who upheld Slavery should take place.  First stop would be to bulldoze Mount Vernon and turn those lands into a National Park or reserve.  Bulldoze Monticello and all of Jefferson's holdings, again returning these lands to the American people in the way of a National Park or reserve.  Neither of these should be named for their former owners, Washington and Jefferson.  The third in this process would be to destroy the Hermitage in Tennessee and again, reclaim the lands and holdings for the American people.

After these three national ceremonies are completed, a very quick and systematic destruction of all homes and holdings of the remaining slave owning Presidents, including Grant's Tomb, should be destroyed and removed from memory.

History books used in our schools should pull any mention or teaching of these Presidents that were slave owners, replacing that space with Native American history.  John Adams should be taught as being the Father of the Country and the first legitimate President of the United States.

A commission should be established on the feasibility of re-carving Mount Rushmore to replace the likenesses of Washington and Jefferson with a carving of John Adams and  Woodrow Wilson.  If the commission decides that a re-carving could not be done safely, then the faces of Washington and Jefferson should be carved off to a flat surface.  The second part of the duties of this commission would be to oversee the total destruction of Stone Mountain in Georgia.

All Civil War Battlefields in which the Confederacy won should dutifully be removed from the Register of Historic Sights.  Any depictions or statues of a Confederate soldier ought to be destroyed on these sacred grounds where Union soldiers gave their lives.

All museums in the country which have any confederate memorabilia, especially a Confederate Flag of any kind, should destroy these artifacts of insurrection.

And you know, I kind of think that Grant's signature on the terms of surrender should be redacted.  Just a black box where Grant's signature use to be.  Once you destroy history, it cannot come back.

Now of course, all of these suggestions are ludicrous and would never happen or so I hope they don't.  This writing was intended to be sarcastic and satirical.  I am not so sure anymore.  History is important people, even if you don't like it or if it offends you.  It is still history and it is history that we should learn from.  It is OUR history, the citizens of the United States and even though it has lots of blemishes, lots of scars, it is still the best in the world.

We have had good Presidents and bad Presidents, even great Presidents as well as absolutely horrible Presidents.  I take great pride though in the fact that through all of our disagreements, both politically and philosophically, this nation has always stood as one when it came down to the bare bones.  I can, and have, disagree with cousins and neighbors and my grandfather on issues that are very important and come away from it still respecting each other and continue to talk and carry on the relationship we have forged.

There is a lot of hate going on in this country and it pains me to see it.  It isn't just Charlottesville or Evergreen State and it isn't coming from just one group of people.  There are pockets of hate in every part of the populace.  It is these small pockets of hate from all around that give rise to a crack in the American citizenry.

Freedom of Speech is at stake I feel.  I also feel Freedom of the Press is in peril.  The whole First Amendment seems to be collapsing.  The fourth and fourteenth amendments are coming close to being in danger.

Communication is the key.  Respectful communication where there is someone who's turn it is to speak and others listen carefully, closely, respectfully so that if they do not agree with speaker, they can have their turn to talk and be listened to closely and respectfully.   I don't mean only in words but in our actions as well.

We need our great leaders, our great minds of all races, creeds, cultures, philosophies and political leanings, great Americans to emerge from the shadows to lead, to think and to communicate.  Don't let this nation, this United States of America, be ripped apart anymore than it has in the whole of its history.

Our country needs this for now, for the future and for the future generations to come.

RANT AT STOP TRUMP MOVEMENT

First things first.  This rant is not targeted at all people who do not prefer Trump as President.  I believe that the people that I am referring to are a small minority of the electorate of those that voted for Secretary Clinton in the election.  I respect the fact that everyone has a right to vote for who they think is best for the job.  It is that minority that have such a vitriolic hatred for the President-elect that they feel they have an obligation to not only degrade Mr. Trump but also degrade and offend those who do not agree with the way they see things.  I am sure that by the time I finish this it will be totally disjointed and not very well written.  I feel it will end up that way because the intensity that these folks attack goes off in several different directions and it isn't easy to tie things together nice and cleanly.  So keep in mind this is a rant, pointed at a specific group of people who feel they have to force their thinking on you and if you do not agree with them then there is something terribly wrong with you.  If I do not agree with them then I am racist, sexist, homophobic and stupidly narrow minded person that does not have a clue or have the ability to understand the issues as they state them.  Honestly, I have never seen anything like this and never expected to see anything like this happen after a Presidential election, or any election for that matter.  The Grand Jury in the Whitewater investigation drafted an indictment on Hillary Clinton but it was never released or served.  We still do not know what that indictment said.

So, where to start ....

Why didn't I vote for Clinton may be a good start.  I was not thrilled by the choice of Representative Sanders or Clinton.  Sanders' ideas and philosophy were just too liberal for me to think he would be good for the nation.  In my mind, his proposals would not be sustainable financially without raising taxes not only to the very well off, but also to the middle class Americans, of which I am one.  As far as Secretary Clinton is concerned, all I had to do was take a look at her personal history the number of legal scandals that have been targeted at her since her husband, the former President, had been Governor of Arkansas.  During her years as first lady, the Arkansas scandals followed the Clintons to Washington.  Just off the top of my head I remember Whitewater, the Travel Office, FBI files that disappeared only to show up again after the investigation had been closed   She accused of trying to steal property of the United States from the White House when they left after eight years.

Then there was the biggie.  She oversaw a breach of security while Secretary of State.  This was discovered after her office had been investigated for non action in the deaths of four diplomats in Benghazi.  The stop trump movement will say that she had been cleared of anything to do with that by anywhere from three to nine congressional investigations.  They say "Read the reports" from the investigations, which I have.  The thing is though, they don't seem to acknowledge the last report that was released by the House Oversight Sub-committee.  I have read that one as well and it does anything but clear the Secretary of any wrong doing.  The report is on the house.gov website but was kept from being published as part of the record by the partisan minority of that committee.

The House sub-committee hearing was called after discover of an unsecure server in the basement of the Secretaries house which contained classified e-mails sent to and from Clinton.  They deny this fact even though it has been confirmed by the FBI.  FBI Director Comey after an investigation into the e-mail server gave example after example of how Clinton had lied to congress and to the American people and then, amazingly in my mind, said it did not rise to bringing formal charges against her.  I sat and I watched the hearings on Benghazi and the hearings on the e-mail server.  I watched Director Comey's press briefing and his testimony before the sub-committee.  I firmly believe that Clinton acted recklessly and dangerously with our national security.  I believe that her actions put lives in danger and compromised our policies and actions around the world.  Actually, I think that it brushes pretty close to a treasonous act.

She continued to lie time after time as new facts emerged.  She lied all the way to election day.  These are not petty lies, or exaggerations or miscommunications, they are out and out lies and they put us all at risk of terror attacks around the globe.

Then there was the fact, in my mind, that she just lies about anything and everything.  The biggest joke was her lie concerning her arrival in Bosnia under sniper fire where she had to run across the tarmac ducking to evade the snipers and jump into an armored vehicle.  News footage showed this as a blatant lie and so she lied about what she lied about.  On and On it goes, lie after lie.

So the fact that she is a woman did not influence my vote.  The fact that she was a democrat did not influence my vote.  What influenced my vote was basically that I did not feel comfortable trusting her with my country, my money or my life.

The stop Trumpers started calling Trump a liar.  He might say something wrong here or there or get the facts wrong or be misinformed but I honestly believe that Trump did not intentionally lie to cover up any of his actions.  What I do not, can not understand, is how these fanatics can turn a blind eye to all of Clinton's negatives and heap those very allegations onto Trump without any hard evidence at all.

Well, then they uncovered an audio tape of Trump that took place eleven years ago making an off color remark to a reporter about women.  They jumped on this like wildfire and before you knew it, a dozen women came out of the woodwork to accuse Mr. Trump of molestation.  He was a rapist all of a sudden.  None of these accusations have been proven or followed up on because they did not happen.  They just kind of slipped off the mainstream medias charts because the stories had no legs.  But the Clinton breach of national security kept being out there.  Her habit of lying stayed out there.  I think those things stayed out there because people saw and listened to her lies and they did happen.

Let's see, I guess next would be the cheating the Clinton campaign did during the Democratic Primaries.  Seems that questions that would be asked during the debate were made available to Clinton.  Again, even though being caught red handed, lies from Donna Brazille, a CNN contributor, and from the Clinton campaign.  It doesn't matter what the truth is, we are suppose to hear the lie and then shrug our shoulders and say.. " oh... okay..".

Here is one of the oddest moments of the campaign.  Clinton was running partly on the empowerment of women.  Elect a woman President or you are a sexist.  Now the strange part of this drive to empower women, at one campaign event the singer Madonna offered a sexual favor to any men who would vote for Clinton.  Now it just may be me, but to offer sex in return for a vote doesn't really feed into empowering women.  Vote a woman into office to show all the girls coming up in the future that they can do anything ..... well, if you offer sex in return for votes.  Just kind of... I don't know, just doesn't seem very consistent.

Then there was the annual threat from celebrities that if a democrat was not elected they would leave the country.  Nothing new there, it happens every four years.  They think that they are SO beloved that the thought of them leaving the country would play a part in citizen's decision on who to vote for.  They think they are so important to the country.  Truth is, I don't think anyone would notice if they did leave.  Doesn't matter though, they never follow through with this empty threat. 

The Clinton Foundation.  Okay.  The details of this organization were released by WikiLeaks.  As the details became more and more disturbing, the Clinton campaign decided that the Russians had hacked into the campaign e-mails.   So far, there has be no proof to this, just accusations.  So I suppose it is possible that the Russians had hacked but given Clinton's track record, it is just another lie as far as I am concerned.  The emails told of a massive pay for play scheme that lined the Clintons pockets with millions of dollars to have the former President speak or to have a meeting with the Secretary of State.  One thinks slush fund?   To me it appears totally illegal and keeps in step with the reputation the Clintons have built for themselves.  I am not going to get into the incident in which Trump sarcastically told invited to Russians to keep hacking to bring the full truth out.  The Stop Trumpers use this to claim how reckless he would be with national security.  SARCASM PEOPLE.  In all fairness sarcasm is one of Trump's weaknesses but I believe he has learned from that and has toned his sarcasm down a lot.  This story goes on and on and is still on going but it put enough doubt in my mind to be another piece of the puzzle not to vote for Clinton.

That was all pre-election.  Now things get really crazy.

To the whole country, the election was pre-ordained to be Clintons for the taking.  Trump did not stand a chance.  I felt that way.  I could not believe that Clinton was a serious candidate for the presidency.   The main stream media was laughing at the prospect of a Trump presidency.  Clintons history was a non issue they thought.  Clinton was loved by everyone.  She would be the first female elected to the presidency.

Election night came and the numbers started drifting in.  Trump's narrow path to the White House started to widen.  States started to fall.  Clinton states started to fall.  Then came the big one in my mind.  When they called Wisconsin for Trump, I said aloud "whoa..."  I knew then that Trump was going to win this crazy thing.  Trump did win the election but it wasn't over.  You see, Hillary was supposed to win.  When the votes from California started to come in, Clinton took the lead in the popular vote but as far as the Electoral College was concerned, Trump had won by a wide margin.

As the returns came in there were scenes of people crying uncontrollably.  Suddenly everyone was scared for their very existence.  Universities cancelled classes because the students were too traumatized to attend class or take an exam.  Special rooms were set up for people to come and feel safe in and to cry over the loss.  Dogs were brought in to comfort those who needed comforting.  soon safety pins started showing up on shirts and clothing to let others know that the person wearing the safety pin was a "safe person" (i.e. a Clinton supporter) and they didn't need to be afraid of someone with a safety pin on.   Protest marches started in the streets of large cities, some of them turning violent and into riots because Clinton had lost.  People who had Trump stickers on their cars were dragged from them and beaten.  On social media sites, the barrage of insults were relentless as were the pictures put up and the condemning of the Electoral College.  News media called it a racist and sexist vote fueled by angry white men.  One commentator on CNN even called it a "white lashing".  It never crossed peoples minds that maybe, just maybe, people had heard enough of Clinton and her scandals and lies and did not trust her enough to vote for her.  No, if that was the case, then you didn't understand the issues, you were narrow minded, you were stupid, you were racist and homophobic ... etc etc.  As I watched these college kids cry their eyes out because their candidate did not win the only thing that crossed my mind was "This is the future of our country?  I am the one who should be afraid."

And so phase two began.

During the debates, Trump was asked if he would accept the outcome of the election.  He answered no, he was not prepared to say that.  The Clinton campaign came down hard calling him unpatriotic, going against the constitution and proof of how unfit he is to be President.  Then the shoe went on the other foot and now the question was if Clinton would accept the outcome of the election.

Jill Stein of the Green Party decided all on her own to call for a recount of three states that were suppose to go to Hillary.  She raised over seven million dollars to fund the recount in the states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.  The recounts started and by the time the courts called a stop to the recounts, Trump had actually picked up votes over Clinton.  (As an aside:  one million of that seven million that Stein raised went to... wait for it ... administration and consultation.  We will never know where that money really went but I have my own ideas.  Personally, I think there should be an audit of where those funds went.)  So the recount did not work and they had to find another way to get Clinton in the winners circle. By the way, the Clinton campaign who attacked Trump for saying he would not blindly accept the outcome of the election, joined the Stein recount efforts and did not accept the outcome of the election.  For a lot of her supporters, they still have not accepted the outcome of the election.

It seems that everytime a democrat loses an election, it is because of an antiquated theory called the Electoral College.  Cries from all over the stop trump movement called for the dissolving of the Electoral college.  The theory they have is that because the person who won the popular vote was denied a victory it meant that "my vote doesn't count"  So all the celebrities and the so called "Social Justice Warriors" or SWJ's began calling to amend the Constitution to get rid of the out dated Electoral College.

Just to be clear, here is my take on the Electoral College.  The Electoral College assures you that your vote will count even if the winner of the popular vote does not win.  This election gave us a classic example of how that works.  If you discard all of the popular vote of one state, in this case California, Trump would have won the popular vote.  One state.  Now Clinton took a massive percentage of the popular vote in New York and California and a sizable number in Florida, Texas and Illinois.  Not enough to actually win Florida or Texas, but she did grab California, New York and Illinois.  Now, seeing as how JUST the vote in California put her over the top in the popular vote, then add a huge popular vote win in New York, this means that in states like Iowa, Kansas, Wyoming, New Hampshire ... well without the Electoral college if you live in those states, or one of any of the smaller states in the union, then your vote really doesn't count.  Every election cycle, the President would be elected by the big five, being California, New York, Florida, Texas and Illinois.  This year as the numbers came in, everyone was looking at North Carolina, Wisconsin, and, dare I say, New Hampshire to see whose column they would fall in.  The fact is that those who voted in New Hampshire votes actually did count.  California did not elect the president.  New York did not elect the President.  It took a lot of states, with a number of electors determined by the states population, to put the President in the White House.  This is the way it should work, this is why it works and this is why it is needed.  I, for one, do not want California electing a President every four years.

Okay, so the recount didn't work.  Wait, they said, we still have the Electoral College!  The evil outdated Electoral College that discounted votes.  And so began a relentless attack on all of the Electors in each state to flip who their state voted for and vote for someone else.  This is legal in a lot of states, including my own Missouri.  They bombarded the Electors with emails, hate emails, threats, some even death threats to make them flip their vote.  Suddenly a commercial appears on television.  All of these celebrities who decried the Electoral College suddenly were lecturing us on the goodness of it.  In so many words, their basic message was something like this is why the Electoral college was created.  Our founding fathers created the college to keep someone who is unfit or unworthy of being president from taking the oath if the people were stupid enough to elect him.  So it was the Electors patriotic duty to flip their votes and put someone who is capable of being president into office.  <huge sigh>  So now the Electoral College was a good thing.

Well, yesterday the Electoral college met to cast their votes in the fifty state houses of the country and the SJW's were out in force to protest and make one last attempt at intimidating people from carrying out their constitutional duties.  Guess what happened.  More electors actually flipped from voting for Clinton than did for Trump.  Just as in the popular recount, Trump increased his total.  The outcry was typical.  A lot of crying, a lot of yelling, temper tantrums being thrown in the state houses .... AND the Electoral College is outdated and useless once again.

You know, it has always been my personal observation that when conservatives protest, it seems to be done in a calm, organized, manner,  Liberals on the other hand protest loudly, with intimidation as their goal and sometimes it turns violent.  JUST AN OBSERVATION of mine.  I may be wrong, but it just seems that way to me.

Last night I got on Facebook to see if it was causing a ruckus.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  There was one comment about it being one of the worst days in American history.  Really?  Lets see, Pearl Harbor, Japanese interment camps, JFK assassination, Boston Massacre, Lincoln assassination, Gettysburg, September 11, 2001 ... many others.

I didn't address the many ways the left demonized Trump.  Just hitting a couple of high spots, he was a White supremacist because a chapter of the KKK endorsed him (Robert Byrd comes to mind) He was a rapist and sex offender because of that one quote, He was a liar... still don't know why he was labeled a liar other than the fact that they had to come up with something to balance the fact that Clinton was a habitual liar.  Doesn't really matter.  Trump will be President and to be honest, I trust him, his philosophy and his thinking much more than I would a scandal ridden Clinton Administration.

The next step is January sixth, when Vice-President Biden will have to stand in front of the United States Senate and read the results of the Electoral College.  He will declare Donald J. Trump as the next President of the United States.  Not sure if there will be protest at the Capitol that day or not.  I kind of imagine so since a chance to protest can not be missed.

We have already been assured that on January 20th, when Trump takes the oath of office, the stop Trumpers will still be fighting and will do their best to  disrupt the nomination.  It won't accomplish anything and it will show a lack of class, but they will be there in full force.

Then over the next four years, I suppose we will have to hear yelling and see finger pointing every time he ties his shoes wrong, or whatever they can find.  At any rate it will be a long four years, but in four years, if the Democrats can find someone who is better fit for office, then chances are they will have a good chance of being elected.  If a democrat is elected in four years though, don't expect to see any riots, crying rooms, safety pins or disregard and respect for the peaceful transfer of power from the conservative side.

I am not saying Trump is perfect.  He has a lot of issues and a lot to learn.  He does not know how to play the politics game.  If anything he is more honest than people are use to in their politicians.  He says what he thinks and we are not use to that and a lot of it, even though based in reality, is not what we want to hear.  I think he will surround himself with good advisers and take that advice, weigh it out, and come to decisions.

As for Secretary Clinton, I feel that she is extremely smart.  I also think she is a career politician.  With what I consider to be overwhelming evidence about her character, I find that if anyone is not qualified to be President, it is her.  What I can't understand, and this is said with all due respect and sincerity, is how Clinton supporters or even just anti-Trump people have these blinders on that refuses to acknowledge anything negative about Hillary Clinton.  In spite of all the scandals, in spite of all the evidence that exposes her lies time after time, even after film footage of the famed Bosnia tarmac landing they continue to hold her up as the best possible candidate ever to run for the presidency.  It seems like instead of looking at Clinton in a reasonable way and admitting that she has flaws, they pound you with attempts to intimidate and insult those who do not agree with them.  I sincerely do not understand this mentality when it comes to the Clintons. 

Well, that is my take ... from a racist, sexist, homophobic, narrow minded voter who does not understand the issues and am clueless. If you know me even a little bit, you know that I am not any of those things.

I expect this may upset some people.  Some friends, some family but I want to sincerely state, as sincerely as I can, that if any of this offends you, it is not intended to.  That is not what I am about.  This was a rant.  This was off the top of my head.  This was my response to being labeled as stupid, clueless, narrow minded, racist, sexist, homophobic, white supremacist, neo nazi among many other things that are designed to intimidate me and my philosophy and thinking. 

Sadly, to me, it looks like the idea of a peaceful transition of power will not happen early next year.  The peaceful transition of power is one of the foundation blocks of our constitution.  It should be respected.

BOB DYLAN AND THE NOBEL

Since 1901 the Nobel Organization has awarded 113 prizes for Literature.  When I stop to think about it, over the last 115 years only 113 authors have been selected to be the recipients of this prestigious award.  I looked over a complete list of these authors and discovered that I had actually only read 17 of these men and women who used literature as a means for promoting new ideas in philosophy, poetry and general humanitarianism.   I haven't even heard of well more than half of the names on the list.  Until this year the most recent Literature Nobel that I had read was awarded in 1983 to William Golding whose "Lord Of The Flies" I have read.  Most of the authors that have been read by myself were from the twenties to the fifties.  These are the seventeen Nobel Literature authors that I have read over my lifetime:

Bob Dylan 2016
William Golding 1983
Isaac Bashevis Singer 1978
Saul Bellow 1976
Jean-Paul Sartre 1964
John Steinbeck 1962
Albert Camus 1957
Ernest Hemingway 1954
Sir Winston Churchill 1953
William Faulkner 1949
Pearl Buck 1938
Eugene O'Neill 1936
Sinclair Lewis 1930
Thomas Mann 1929
George Bernard Shaw 1925
William Butler Yeats 1923
Rudyard Kipling 1907

The Nobel committee assesses who will win the prize for literature on the whole of a writers work.  It is not based on just one book or work as the Pulitzer Prize does.  The committee each year gives an explanation of why a certain writer is  awarded the prize.  I read all of the explanations of all the literature winners over the years and there seems to be one thing in common.  Their works promote a philosophy that addresses the state of mankind and to expose the failings and victories of mankind to help promote the betterment of the human race throughout the world.

There are novelists on that list as well as poets, historians and philosophers.   There is one that is different from all the others though.  This years recipient is Bob Dylan who is a singer/songwriter.

The literature world exploded when the Nobel announced Dylan's awarding of the prize.  A songwriter?  Sentiments ran deep and one writer suggested that if that is the case they might as well put Hemingway in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.  Songwriting is not literature and fears were expressed that there will now be a flood of songwriters being considered and receiving the Nobel for literature.

The explanation the Nobel gave for awarding the prize to Dylan was this:

"for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition"

They considered his lyrics as poetry, which they are.  His canon of work dates all the way back to the late fifties which means that for at least the last fifty five or so years, Bob Dylan has been writing and recording songs that speak of individual rights that all men should be made available to.  The vast majority of his songs, or poems, deal with human conditions that have changed over the years.  He has written about civil rights.  He has written about the equality of man.  He has written about injustices.  He has written about political wrongs.  He has written of religion and his quest to find it.  He has written about the search for meaning and the search for truth.

If you don't like Dylan because of his style of music or because of his voice, then look up his lyrics and just read them.  Search for what the message is in each one of them.  Many people see Bob Dylan as a rebel, an instigator, a protestor and to a point he is.  Those parts of his philosophy are key to his special outlook on the American experience over the last half century.  He writes of things that need fixing.

Probably one of his most famous songs was one of his earliest.  "Blowing In The Wind" is a beautiful wonderful song but the words go deep.  The song lists problems and questions that the American people were addressing in the early sixties.  He addressed these problems and came to the conclusion at the end of each verse that "The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind..."

So what is the answer that is blowing in the wind?  Well, I am not positive what Dylan was thinking but as I have listened to that song nearly my whole life, and have sung it just as long, I have my own idea of what Dylan was trying to say.  The answer blowing in the wind was the American flag and what it stood for.  You take that flag and look at it and think of what it represents, the country it represents and the hopes that it gives us as Americans and you will find the answers in that thinking.  It is the Declaration of Independence.  It is the United States Constitution.  It is the freedom of Americans, some who have had to fight hard and give the ultimate sacrifice to save or gain that freedom and the hope of some who are still fighting for the freedom that this country strives to obtain for all of its citizenry.  That is what is blowing in the wind.  The flag and all it stands for.  Read these words and see what the answer is in your mind in this message from Dylan:

"Blowin' In The Wind"

Bob Dylan

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?
Yes, and how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, and how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows
That too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

I don't think the literature world needs to be worried about the Nobel being plowed through by a lot of songwriters.  The Nobel does not work that way.  You have to be a very special writer that really makes hard statements that promote your beliefs.  Think about it.  Out of all of the great authors over the last century or so and only 113 of them have gained this level of recognition.  There are not that many songwriters that even approach the bar that Dylan has set for them to win a Nobel.  I sat and thought about it a long time.  I thought of all the songwriters I know and if any of them approach what Dylan has accomplished over the last fifty years.   I came up with only four names.  Woody Guthrie, Paul Simon, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen.  Those four have written a lifetimes worth of song lyrics that addresses the social condition on a very steady basis.  But those three, as good as they are, do not come close to the quality and clarity that Dylan's songs do.  I don't think we will see another songwriter receive the Nobel for Literature anytime in the near or even the far future.

Dylan is special.  His music is special but most important, his message is special.

Bob Dylan more than deserves the Nobel for Literature 2016.

2016 ELECTION THOUGHTS

“Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.” 
 – President Obama to House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, January 23, 2009.

Looking back over the last eight years it is clear that the President was very sincere in what he said upon taking office and his Democratic leadership in Congress followed him down that path that has weakened The United States foreign policy, weakened the economy and empowered many governments around the world in relation to the United States including most importantly Russia and China.   We have seen Senator Harry Reid turn Senate rules upside down in order to silence the Republicans in that chamber and Representative Pelosi push through legislation without appropriate hearings.  Pelosi famously said in pushing through the Affordable Care Act, "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it"  What we found was a health insurance act that is crumbling beneath it's own weight.  It is a dismal failure that, while not necessarily needing to be repealed certainly needs a lot of tweaking to make it even close to workable.   After eight years of executive orders, it is over.  A new election has been held and Americans across the board from the White House, to Congress and on down to the state legislatures voted for change.  Elections do indeed have consequences but not the kind of power that President Obama thought his election gave him.   The country is set to go in a new direction.  

This election, to me, very much mirrors the election of Ronald Reagan over President Carter.  We want to be strong again.  We want to be respected.  We want our country to be safe.  We want a figure in charge that President Putin will respect instead of push around.  Americans voted to return to a Reaganesque type of government.  The difference between this election and the 1980 election is that everyone knew, even President Carter, that the country was ready to head in a different direction.  In 2016 though, voters, especially young voters, absolutely knew that Clinton would become President.  They felt entitled to what they wanted.  They were not prepared for what could happen, it never crossed their minds.  We live in such an entitled society that it carried over to the election and when it didn't turn out the way they wanted, they took to the streets protesting the outcome.  There were destructive riots in the streets across the country.  It seems that they had never heard of "a peaceful transfer of power".  One month out from the election and those that supported Clinton still can not or will not accept the outcome.  Donald Trump won and it is time to put all of this behind us and move on to setting up a government for the next four years.

Here are some of my thoughts that have crossed my mind since the election.  I have been fairly quiet about things taking time to observe how social media and the press were reacting to the Trump victory.  

Before the election, the people who were sure that Clinton was a lock were sending out messages that hopefully after the election, we can all come together in peace and harmony and support the new administration for the good of the country.  I was certainly all for that no matter who won.  I am not a great fan of President-elect Trump but neither am I a fan at all of Clinton.  Since the Trump victory, those same people who called for peace, harmony and acceptance have deluged social media with some of the most hate filled messaging and ideas I have seen since the campaign started a year ago.  Disagree with their sentiments?  Well, that is simply not allowed.  They will argue, put you down, call you names, insult your intelligence and question your sanity.  It is hypocrisy at its finest.

Clinton won the popular vote yet lost the Electoral vote, therefor amend the constitution to disband the Electoral College because it means your vote doesn't count.  Actually, the Electoral College makes sure that your vote does count if you broaden your thinking out a little bit.  Wait, I forgot that I am the narrow minded one ... I'll get to that a little later though.  ANYWAY, the Electoral College is based upon how each state is  represented in congress.  Each state has two Senators and then are given a number of representatives that correlate with the population of each state in the country.  What this means is that in congress, each state is fairly represented and has a fair say in legislation and all the other duties of congress.  It has the same effect on the national vote.  No one state can control the outcome of an election.  Each state has its representative say in how each state effects the election.  Think about it.  If our elections were run on a pure popular vote method, then basically five states would elect the President.  California, New York, Florida, Illinois and Texas would elect the president.  These five states have a mass of population that leaves the voters in the rest of the country meaningless.  However, thanks to the Electoral College, a lot of eyes were set on New Hampshire.  New Hampshire?  Trust me, without the Electoral College, New Hampshire wouldn't have been given a second thought and the votes of the good people of New Hampshire would not have mattered.  Can the Electoral College be improved?  Yes, I think it can.  If it were changed so that electors in each district of each state cast their ballot based on their district outcome instead of a winner take all for the state, it would be more representative of how each state went and would make our individual votes mean that much more to the process.  I would be all for that.  Actually I have been all for that for many years now.  But I do not want my vote dismissed because I do not live in one of the big five.  With the Electoral College, my vote does mean something, which is better than nothing.

Demand a recount in three strategic states that could turn the Electoral college to Clinton's advantage.  First off, the three states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan went to Trump by popular vote and wasn't even that close.  The recount is a futile excersize  in which it's only purpose is to drag out the process and give those who absolutely knew that Clinton was going to win false hope.  It keeps in the headlines that Clinton won the popular vote even though the recount will not change anything.  I predict that like the 2000 election, this will somehow end up at the Supreme Court which will have the same outcome as it did in 2000.  It is a waste of time and a waste of money.  I can look back in history and see how much things have changed.  How much the politicians and the electorate have changed.  It is well documented particularly in Theodore White's book "The Making of a President-1960" that in an extremely close election between Kennedy and Nixon that then Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago held back releasing the Chicago vote until the southern districts in Illinois released the vote tally from that part of the state.  In doing this, Daley inflated the numbers from Chicago (the infamous dead voters) so that Kennedy would get the Electoral votes from that state and put Kennedy over the top and become President.  Many of Nixon's advisors tried to encourage him to call for a recount, not to give up.  But Richard Nixon, being the evil crook that he was, insisted on not putting the country through the upheaval that a recount would bring.  Nixon as much said that the people had spoken and he accepted the outcome.  The stability of the country was more important to him.  I am not saying that Gore did not have good cause to ask for a recount in Florida in 2000, I think he did.  I also think that it brought to a standstill the organization of a new administration and precious time was lost in the endeavor.  The recount in 2016 though has absolutely no merit what so ever and should just be dropped so we can move along with the transfer of power.

Then there is the stereotyping of the Trump voter.  It goes something like this.  If you voted for Trump you are Racist, homophobe, anti-semetic ... well the list goes on and on.   Anything that would be a bad quality in any person is placed on the shoulders of a person who voted for Trump.  I will say right now, right up front that I did vote for Trump but anyone who knows me even a little bit knows how I feel about race relations, about what my feelings are concerning the LGBT community and that I am not a Nazi or a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan.  To hang those tags on me because I voted for Trump is an insult to me.  It isn't the way I was raised and it isn't the way I believe or act.  Being a white male who voted for Trump though, throws out the reality of who I am and replaces it with everything I am not.  I believe my actions over the last sixty years shows what I believe and how I think.

Let's see.... then there is the "if you voted for Trump, you are narrow minded".  Well, you know after thinking about this a bit, I probably am more narrow minded than the Clinton fanatics who think they are insulting me by say that.  The way I see it, to vote for a former first lady, Senator, and Secretary of State who was the cause of the largest breach of security in the nation's history and then covered it up by lying over and over and over and over again, it would take a pretty broad minded person to over look that and cast a vote for her.  And it isn't just the scandals that Clinton created as Secretary of State.  She has had two indictments written against her that were never issued.  That's right they were not issued, but on the other hand, to have those two indictments written means, to me, that there must have been enough evidence there to at least take that step.  Scandal had might as well be Clinton's middle name.  All the way from the governors mansion in Little Rock to the White House to her cabinet position, scandal has been tailing her every step of the way.  "READ THE BENGHAZI REPORTS" they say.  She was cleared twice by the House.  That is true.  But what they refuse to acknowledge is the third report.  The report that Representative Gowdy released after the third hearing, which was held after the private insecure email server was discovered.  That report is extremely damning to Clinton but the minority on the committee blocked it's release.  It is out there on the web.  You can read it if you care to.  It is on the House oversite gov site.  It does anything but clear Clinton.  Some of you should give it a read sometime although you will probably end up saying that the third one was partisan while the first two weren't.  <sigh>

Another thing I have noticed is that Clinton, in spite of all the evidence, is not a liar but Trump is.  I swear if the press asked Trump what he had for breakfast and he said "toast with strawberry jam" and the press found out he had toast with grape jelly the post all over social media and in the press would scream out that TRUMP IS A LIAR... WHAT ELSE WILL HE LIE ABOUT? .... My response is simply, really?  After decades of serious lies by Clinton, this is the best you can come up with? 

I want to take a moment to clarify what I mean by a "Clinton Fanatic".  I do not consider anyone who voted for Clinton or supports Clinton a fanatic.  Actually the term "Clinton Fanatic" isn't really accurate,  I should change that to be "Anyone But Trump Fanatic".  I know plenty of people and friends who do still support Clinton over Trump and wish it had gone the other way but are not fanatics.  A fanatic, in my mind, is one who can not accept the fact that the election is over.  They scream and yell about how the election was stolen.  Anyone who does not agree with them is stupid and narrow minded.  If you vote for Trump, you are not smart enough to know why you shouldn't have.  They deny that Clinton ever lied.  There is the idea that Trump is furthering his racist agenda by the people he is appointing to his cabinet.  Trump, to them, is the devil reincarnate, to many he is the actual anti-christ.  They deride those who hold a different opinion and hang labels on them.  A new thing I have noticed by the fanatics now is that if you don't agree with them, they simply delete your response to whatever crazy thought they had posted.

I want to make it clear that I do not consider Trump the best man for the job.  I do, however, consider him to be more fair, stronger, and trustworthy than I do Clinton.  There are several candidates that I would rather see in the White House then either one of these two.  The fact is that these were the choices Americans were given and all of us had to choose one or the other more or less and the American people chose Trump. 

You can wear all the safety pins you want, cry on each others shoulders, skip classes because you are too traumatized to handle the outcome.  You can, in my mind, over react and be scared and frightened because Trump is president (the only reason that you should really be a little afraid is if you are doing something wrong in the first place like being here illegally), but in the end things are going to be okay.  Look people, we have a constitution.  It has checks and balances that work.  It has held true time after time.  Afraid of the Supreme Court?  I'm not.  The Court is extremely stingy about overturning precedence.  No matter if it is a conservative court or a liberal one, that stinginess is there and it will stay there.  I can feel confident enough to say that Roe v Wade will not be over turned.  I feel confident to say that gay rights afforded to the states will not be over turned.  It takes a special case, with a special set of circumstances to cause the court to overturn precedence.  This country has survived so much over the years since we came into existence.  This country has survived because of that constitution.  I firmly believe in that document and I believe it will protect us and our country.  I always have and I always will believe that.

My suggestion, my desire, is that we put this last election behind us, accepting it for what it is.  That we have faith in the Constitution and the way it keeps the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial branches of our government from taking over the country and turning it into something it has never been or something we do not want it to be. 

It is indeed time for this country to unite as much as it can, because the tighter we are united the stronger we are, and prepare for the next four years.

To some this may sound snarky, to others it will sound like utter non-sense .... to that I say .."meh" or "whatever".  It is my thoughts and mine alone.  I want this country to move on and forward and in another four years, we can change things if we desire.

Well, that is it.  I have kept silent, reading others thoughts and ideas and have mulled this over in my mind.  As far as I am concerned, the election is over and there is no point in arguing about anymore.

Have a Merry Christmas all.