Traversing Today's Uncertain Waters

Basically these past four years Democrats have been just hunkering down and 'holding their breath' so to speak waiting for the danger to pass or whatever.  What was the "Lost Decade" didn't begin to get really bad until 2010.  2013 sure offered no hope things would improve, and 2014 seems to be starting off the same way.  2014 has been an even worse year for me so far than was 2013, which was pretty bad for all of us.  The left is so bullied and intimidated they dare not even make a move in their own defense of self interest for fear of offending the other side.  This "fear of offending the other side" has become an almost obsessional credo with President Obama.  But now there is at least a glimmer of hope that some future change may be in the offing.  Turning briefly to other news such as Syria and the Ukrane- - these areas are pretty depressing and peace treaties seem more wishful thinking than anything based in any real hope of a lasting peace.  In my prophecy book of 1980 I kind of vaguely imply that the Antichrist will be Russian - - as I try to find a link between the words Caesar and Czar, and Constantine - - and how Russia imported a lot of Byzantine culture along the way.  All of that pomp and ceremony.  There is a lot to be said for actually Winning a war- - as the United States did throughout most of their history.  Then came Korea and suddenly it was a truce- - a cease fire- - rather than an actual end to a War where one side is the winner and one side is the loser.  In 1964 there was a war of political idiologies in the Presidential contest.  And there is now doubt about who won and who lost.  We won and the Goldwater forces lost.  But in Korea, for instance- - here is is sixty years later and the North Korean government is still just as militant and oppressive.   It wasn't any real "End of War" but some kind of a Mexican Stand-off.  With Hillary Clinton at least running in 2016 we'll again at least have a real fighter on our side.  One to whom defeat is not an option that "You can force yourself to accept if you take enough Zoloft to ease that feeling of discomfort you have".

I watched Chris Matthews on MSNBC.  President Obama is showing at last a little toughness.  Like Germany of the last century- - President Obama has concluded “fighting a two front war’ is self defeating because you get it from both sides.  And let’s face it.  The ‘middle’ in this case is squeezed into somewhere in the thirty percentiles.  Perhaps this President has figured out that pissing all over his own base will not help him win congressional races in 2014.  It was thee major disaster of 2010 when the disillusioned left wing just stayed home.   So now the President in his infinite wisdom has decided that cutting Social Security would not be such a good idea.  (Any more than Lot offering up his two daughters to any man - - was such a good idea)  How about increasing our Social Security?  As far as the minimum wage goes- - is corporations such as the Gap now, or Cosco before them- - are voluntarily paying their employees more money- - then these companies must recognize that it’s just “good business” to do so.  Because really what have the Republicans got to run on now- - except Obama Care and what a failure it’s been.  I watched all of Friday’s program and the long opening segment of Thursday’s show.  If you didn’t think the Christie situation could get any worse- - - it has.  First of all the conspiracy is more massive than even I thought.  There were explicit instructions to keep the Mayor of Ft Lee in the dark- - and to “maintain radio silence”.  And they intended to keep the bridge closure going for upwards of four weeks- - till the mayor cried and moan and was willing to give into any demand the Christie forces might make.  All of these E mails are public now.  It wasn’t just some “prank” that was pulled on the spur of the moment.  This thing had been carefully planned out for weeks.

I listened to Rush Limbaugh after coffee and Rush was concerned with the news media now “becoming government run”.  There is a new charge against President Obama that he is somehow sending federal agents into news rooms, or wanted to, to monitor whether the news the networks were sending out was “fair and honest”.   Rush talked about how ‘in the old days journalism schools used to require a course in advertising, but now they are dropping that requirement because the news is no longer considered Free Enterprise and ratings driven the way it used to”.  Rush talked about how in the eighties how Dan Rather and other network reporters were insensed at the idea of CBS and other networks would insist on making their news departments profit driven just like other divisions, and Dan Rather (wrongly, according to Rush) wanted the networks to continue to operate the news divisions at a loss and “bleeding money” (according to Rush) and then to make up that lost revenue in other divisions.   Rush also talked about the jealousy between the print media and the TV network media where the anchor news men aren’t reporters but merely teleprompter readers - - and not having to do the leg and investigative work the way the print media does.  Rush Limbaugh also mentioned the Mc Laughlin group, where members of the print media got to be on TV.  This them was continued on the Sean Hannity program where this lady host- - with a pleasant enough voice- - had these various guests on and one was saying how the Fairness doctrine was a horrible thing, when we had that.  There is this continued theme of how President Obama is doing these “power grabs” and instituting an Imperial Presidency, which was a charge first used against Lyndon Johnson, which would have made just a smidgeon of sense then, but unlike Johnson, President Obama never learned how to successfully pressure and make deals and twist arms of key congressmen to get the legislation passed he wanted to.  John put 200 major pieces of legislation out there, and of these 182 were passed and implemented by congress.  Whereas President Obama is a big nothing.  Trying to portray President Obama as a “strong man” is beating a dead horse.

There was talk on the Stephanie Miller show yesterday continuing the Bill Nye the science guy debate at the Creation institute, which I listened to the first fifteen or so minutes of Thursday evening- -of how “God wrote the Constitution” and therefore any deviation from Christianity or “forsaking God” in our government, is “unconstitutional”.   Of course what struck me as really self defeating about that Creationism vs evolution debate is that the Creationists redefine science as “knowledge” and they say “God is science because God is the most important kind of knowledge, which is revealed knowledge”.  So they kick off their argument that an intelligent Force created life by saying “It all starts with God and the Bible and Adam and Eve and man’s fall from grace and the defeat of the devil in the Garden of Eden” or what all.  It’s enough to leave you pulling your hair out.  If they had any arguments actually based on science- - they didn’t present them.  They seemed to regard anything based on the study of “natural laws” or “nature” as misguided and Godless, and therefore needn’t be pursued.  I kid you not.

I was talking with Glen about 9:20 and Glen says “Sometimes things can seem a certain way when they’re really quite different”.  He also said he saw Dr Levy get in his car last Thursday afternoon, and I’m wondering who Dr Levy talked to here then.  Dr Levy came up to the patio and called my name and I went down.  Trying to muster a sizable group was initially difficult with a lot of empty chairs.  Dr Levy brought that Founders book and shared it with us and we saw Arleen’s pictures, in black and white only- - at the back.  He then showed us drawings painted by an even more talented 36 year old male artist.  Dr Levy read some of the poetry.  I looked at some of it- - often occupying only a small portion of a page.  The retail price of the book is twenty dollars but Dr Levy gets an author’s discount of ten.  I’m afraid I wasn’t very conversant when it came to commenting on the poetry itself, as others were.  What kept running through my mind was “How are these diagnoses made of mental illness and can you trust them?”   Does one person one time write something on a piece of paper that gets transferred from form to form over the decades.  Marcia says she’s happy with the new drug she is taking now and feels “freer from mental illness” than ever.  I never thought she was mentally ill before.  Wally talked about “Sometimes your day is going along fine and then something comes along to ruin it like one person or one incident”.   I told Dr Levy I was unhappy here - - amidst all the “happy talk” of the rest of the hour.  I said that if you bring a complaint to the office then seldom is ever do anything about it, and a host of people couldn’t wait to agree with me.  Then I mentioned Jim Spencer and how he’s the strangest person to live here in my twelve and a half years of being here.  Many said that ‘He fancies himself as one of the staff” and I think the theme of “enforcer” came up.  I wasn’t alone in my imagining of that.  But they also agreed that he lies and manipulates and is really hard to get along with- - and others chimed in with their own stories of encounters with him.  Then someone pointed Jim out right on the patio behind the window.  Dr Levy joked to me “Let’s you and me and Wally jump him in the alley and beat him up”.  I appreciated the humorous sentiment but it was too serious of a topic to laugh about.  The class was thinning out as Dr Levy spoke mainly to Joe about buying various books online.  It was 10:37 and time for Melinda Lee, which I listened to till eleven.  We had cold cuts on a long bun.  Jim was talking antimatedly with Silva.  We had chicken soup with a few sprouts in it.  We had pudding covered sliced bananas.  Then I listened to Leo Le Port on the radio which I kept on till the first commercial break after one.  Dr Levy had told Lisha that if she were having any problems with her tablet computer to come to me and I’d fix it.  I brushed such lofty praise aside and I complained “I can’t even write a decent blog any more- or at least nobody reads them”.