How big is my insanity

First of all what is insanity, is it the same as insane, and how is it applied? Or the term madness? Are they the same or interchangeable?

Just a few crazy questions this morning. I have been thinking about this for awhile, what is insanity, and what is going on in this country for this election and for more than this election.

I think most people have heard Einstein's famous quote about insanity which is something like: insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

In comparison I was watching a repeat of CONAIR the movie the other night and the craziest psychopath character defines insanity has having the same job for decades then retiring to a home and doing nothing else for the rest of your life, or something like that. Okay it was somewhat late at night so hopefully that was the gist of it. And I wonder if I am there.

A couple of divergent definitions of insanity. Where does all this leave us now though?

I typed the word insanity into Google and there were 83,500,000 results. I typed insane and got 215,000,000 results. Some of this is duplicate entries from different sources, but with so much out there no one really has a handle on insanity etc.

And how we treat it in popular culture seems to lessen its impact. People say things like oh my God that is insane, or other trite statements. Or where does a joke like: what are a redneck's last words...hey bubba watch this or even the movie Jackass, haven't watched, but heard about and seen ads, could you not consider this insane?

Is insanity a mental illness like bi polar disorder? Or is it being addicted to drugs, alcohol, or pornography? Or is it unable to conform to social norms? Is it all or none of the above?

Everyone seems to view insanity differently. What I consider normal to many maybe insane. I ramble on occasionally about the need for a new political party, yet most people seem quite content with our current parties. Does this make me insane? And is that the definition, if I don't like what you are saying,then you are insane. There seems to be much of that attitude out there.

Or if we can't define insanity, can we define normal? And yes even with flipping the terms we still get the same answer. Some people's norms are different than others. So is this bad? And that could depend. I think we can define some clear truths or norms to a large degree, most people consider killing to be against some type of norm. Rape, Stealing, general violence, destruction of private property, and you hope you could put treating others with respect in this sentence, but I am not sure nowadays, you should be able to, but boy just listen to the world and wow.

Norm v insanity. Is that an argument? Are they diametrically opposed? So what got me to the point to actually writing something today? Get to that in a second, because it actually scared me what I read.

First back to my general arguments about the continued acceptance of our current political parties and their policies. We, as a country seem to accept that this is the only path, we choose one or the other and that's it. And you can say the modern Democrat and Republican choice has been going on for centuries now, but do they offer us the best solutions. (see Einstein's quote above) We seem to be missing the true problems facing our country. We have multi generational poverty, failing education system that has nothing to do with how many teachers or even the quality of teachers, well good quality helps and we do have good teachers, it is the whole education system that is flawed, healthcare debate is a shambles, no one trusts the other sides' interpretation of the facts, and this debate really shows two of the problems, a lack of trust and the ability to actually view facts and make informed decisions. And I say this is a great example of our failed education system. Everything the democrats and republicans have done over the last fifty years or more has led us into the current political mire we have attained. Yet we see them as the only feasible choice. We make no effort to find something better. And I have made this argument before, not in this context, but before so I won't spend too much time on the idea that it is time to find new ideas. We do need them and every now and then I try to write some ideas down to give a different perspective on how to deal with our problems. Our economic quagmire is another example of decades of bad policies run amok.

And maybe I spend too much time on CNN, Yahoo, etc reading all the posts to the different stories out there, but the posts are starting to scare me. First there is the hate being posted on a daily basis. Much of it is towards our current president. Fine if you don't want him as president vote for the other guy. What I fear is this hate emboldening people to take action. I was reading an article about a threat from the infamous terrorist organization, not named on purpose, and there were so many posts basically accusing the president of virtual treason. Wild accusations that just made no sense. Yet here they were over and over again. Is it insane to think these people are dangerous? Am I paranoid ( a mental illness or insanity?) that action could take place by these people or because of these people. It amazes me that there is so much. I would think this isn't the norm, but once it grows to a certain point does it become the norm? And that is one reason I started this whole post. Where do we keep a handle on what we consider the norm and prevent these people ( and is it insanity or worse) from developing into a norm?

If you have a Democracy and allow free speech, you will get some extremist thinking, we have to accept it to a degree. Is this speech though acceptable? For some obviously. What happens when one extreme group uses another to accomplish their goals? Could this be happening now? How do we define what is acceptable and what is dangerous, or where does it become dangerous? Back to my general arguments, we accept the democrats and republicans, but both are diverging away from the center. Especially the Republican leadership. Most Americans are centrist to moderately conservative, yet we don't stop this leadership take over of one of our parties. Is this insane? Why can't we not move back to the center ( in reality, and yes I admit I don't trust Romney's so called move to the center as his real intention as president). What about the Democrats taking a social policy that is extremely left of the center. And again no expectation of change by the majority of the country. You cannot keep expecting new results without changing what you are doing. Oops got off too much on this aside again.

Anyway where does all the hate discussed above lead us. This worries me. Then I read this post on Yahoo from the article I mentioned about the threat:

"If anyone hasn't realized that Revelations is speaking of this issue and what is coming, look again. 7 heads are 7 leaders of 10 nations of these people. Anyone who doesn't see this in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan,Afghanistan, Syria, Gaza, Lebanon, Turkey and all the breakways Russian republics known as "stans" needs to wake up. Fortunately, these subhumans don't win in the end. Let the hate begin."

quoted exactly as written. Again what is the definition of insanity? First just the fact that he is trying to paraphrase something from the Bible and ends the statement with the phrase "let the hate begin" is what, insane?. Just the fact that someone is that off base alone scares me. And then there is the potential for so many misapplied concepts from the Bible to be used by this person or others. Revelation is hard enough to understand without someone going to town with a statement like the above. Or can I say what does it all mean and leave it alone? Obviously I cannot. And I don't know if this is a one off situation or does this person reflect a growing religious right's true attitude. And to the situation of the growing religious right in our country, wasn't Jesus thumping the scrolls at the same type of people thumping the bible at us nowadays?

And what is the norm nowadays?

So if a person believes in a norm that most people don't see and think that this should be the norm, what does that mean? Whose norm is correct? And who determines what is a better norm? Or if I believe that we can make changes, good ideas are out there, but cannot get anyone to listen, how big is my insanity?


Much to do about nothing or are you ready to think. Then some finallys ( I always have finallys)

First to all the people in the Northeast I hope you are prepared. One heck of an insane storm coming your way. (bad pun intended). Truly though take care, take shelter, evacuate, whatever you need to do to come out on the other side. I think most "normal" people are praying for you safety.

And coming from Dallas, you know where conspiracy theories abound, does anyone get the problem in our country. It seems the uneducated heathen who have never read Mein Kampf seem destined to bring that problem to our country. Remember it starts with bullying, hatred, and finding a scapegoat for our problems. Goes back to my statement where one extremist group uses another to achieve their goals. I really don't want that insanity for our country or can we save the constitution and common sense by being aware of who we are and how great we can be as a country by just making the small efforts needed to find the right solutions.

Wonderful fall day in Dallas, TX

Sunday morning

If you decide to choose the lesser of two evils does that mean you don't want to make the effort to find something better. I don't know if something like this or similar has already been said, but I wanted to put it out there. And what is better//worse choosing misguided good intentions or no intentions? It is a somewhat warm Sunday morning, coffee is tasting good, and it is quiet around the house. __________________________________________________________________________________ Wrote above and then read the news and found out George McGovern has passed. My Dad was a fan and even worked for him for a short bit. May he rest in Peace.

Relax?

Watching the debate just makes me mad, listening to both of them just drives me crazy. What are the facts and what isn't is getting too hard to determine especially when half the fact checkers nowadays work for the campaigns.This is not what I am getting ready to discuss, but when they talk about trillions of dollars, who can comprehend it. Shoot most people cannot comprehend a billion dollars even some of the people that have a billion or more really don't know what they have. Anyway lots of promises and arguments. Some of their points are valid, but I cringe when I hear half truths and misapplied facts. What I do want to talk about is a totally different topic. How can you relax? I was thinking about this and what helped me to relax and three things came to mind. The first if I say it you will assume a whole bunch of things, but yes sex helps you to relax, but realistically it has to be intimate relationship sex. People who just run around really cannot get satisfaction etc from casual sex. That is why they keep running around trying to find something they cannot find because they are looking in the wrong area. To really enjoy love making you have to be in love,with someone you care about so you can enjoy the whole aspect of being with someone so you can truly relax. The second item is being with family. I see this in rich and poor people. If you have a good relationship with your family money doesn't matter, you can enjoy the time with them. You can see the happiness and smiles in people if they are out having a good time with their family. Their faces are relaxed, smiles come naturally, laughter is uninhibited, and stress is non existent. I may be a bit biased towards this because growing up I didn't have much family, but now when I am with my family and we are just doing things or hanging out, even watching our sports team lose overall we are happy, everyone finds humor in things, cares melt away even for awhile while we are together. If you don't have a good family dynamic my advice is to create one. I did and it has been a great blessing for me in times of stress and especially in good times. And sometimes you do have to create the dynamic, but don't be shy about it. And for third thing, I find reading and writing relaxing. And most people don't, especially writing, yes writing can be a chore if you feel forced to it,however, if you just write to write what you like or things you are passionate about it can be relaxing. I think the problem is most people grow up with reading and writing as homework so it becomes a chore, not something to be enjoyed. This is another one of the reasons I want to change our education system. Reading and writing shouldn't be a chore. There is great pleasure in expressing yourself. I know I recently said I admire writers that are prolific, and that I have a hard time doing the tiny bit of writing that I do, but when I get into it, when I can lose myself it becomes very relaxing. We need to use education to encourage people to desire to read and write. Now there are more people who do like to read, but both should be encouraged. I think once people can break the barrier of thinking of it is a chore they will find joy in the art of it and then can also find peace or being relaxed from the satisfaction of being able to express yourself. I never really edit myself so I avoid the chore aspect of writing, but even when I do when I am in the mood I don't find it to be too much of a hindrance to the satisfaction I feel once I have written something that excites me. Anyway since the debates stress me out, I thought I would try to avoid the crap and enjoy the evening. I am going to go watch the rest of it since I have been listening to it in the background, but now I am not so bothered by it all. And finally I don't go and look at my blog, but I did recently and lately for some reason my posts seem to run together. The paragraph breaks I make are lost once they post. So am I sorry these posts are somewhat difficult to read since it seems to be one long thought. And visually it isn't very appealing either. Goes back to that chore comment, hard to read when it seems all bunched up. Anyway I don't know if there is a setting or something I clicked on or if I can find to fix this, but I will work on it if possible. If you did watch the debate I hope you enjoyed it, or at least got the answers that might help you make a decision. My mind is made up. I will vote third party, and wish I was a type A personality so I would start to walk the walk of the talk about creating a new progressive conservative party I ramble about every now and then. Nice cool fall evening here in Texas, well cool for Texas. Cheers.

maybe a bit trite or sappy but...

It seems more people support the Potters of the world over the Baileys of the world. Maybe it is just me, but it seems every where you turn greed and hate seem to dominate. Or do I just read too many of the posts on CNN, Yahoo, to their news stories etc. Man there is a ton of crap on those posts. And what about how people get treated. I know everyone knows the phrase the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I don't see why we can't change that and treat the people that treat others with respect and get them taken care of. We have conditioned ourselves as a society that the only way to get anything done is to yell and scream. Sad state of affairs when if you do the right thing, you are put at the back of the line, or even if you yell you get placated, but the problem never gets solved. It would be great if you had a problem,you go in, explain it, work with someone (they don't even have to care as long as they do their job),and boom it gets taken care of. Yes I know it seems I am short changing the people who do their job well whether someone is yelling at them or not, but there is too much avoidance of responsibility, acceptance of okay the only way to get something done is to yell. Treating people with respect seems to be of little concern to too many people. And another beef, I try to keep my feelings about religion etc out of this blog, but they do show up here and there, but one thing I hate is when people try to use religion to do business. Using scripture in an ad or saying how they are Christian so they are a better business. This attitude that because I quote God I am better. It just irks me. Is this the money lenders in the temple,maybe not, but there seems something non Christian about using Christianity for personal gain. And I am not talking about the businesses that might advertise in a church bulletin or Christian store. People do have a right to advertise even to other members of their or any church, but it is the ads that state hey we are Christian so our business is better or makes being Christianity the selling point. You can advertise to a Christian etc, but you shouldn't profit off the concept. And yes I said this is going to be a bit of a sappy post. And I am pretty pissed right now so maybe take the second paragraph above with a grain of salt. It may not be as bad as I feel right now, but there is a problem. Somewhere in some previous posts to this blog is some sort of community bank idea, that is something I think that needs to be developed as one of my ways to start working against the spread and growth of poverty in our country and get that turned around. Using business to rebuild our infrastructure instead of our government is a way to cure more than one problem. Use government to develop the policy and framework and give the incentive to business to participate, much better than the government spending tax dollars on something that produces no long term business. It does take a mind shift though for most businessmen/women to buy into this so the incentive has to be good. Oh yeah I also talked about giving the tax breaks the businesses want to the ones that participate, hmmmm Oh well, there is one more sappy idea I had this week, but I cannot remember it, trying to type for a few minutes to see if would come back, but to no avail. Anyway hot and muggy this evening here in Dallas, OU and Texas at the fair tomorrow, so people are making money in the Big D tonight. Take Care.

Why should the rich give money to the poor..

Well technically... Lets face it, the current way we handle welfare is failing the people it is suppose to help. We are creating a multi-generational problem. What the people who say why should I give my money to the poor fail to realize is that the problem doesn't go away just because they stop giving to welfare. And the problem with poverty in our country is so ingrained that even with 12 million new jobs it won't go away without a whole bunch more. Imagine having cancer, growing internally so you don't see it and then don't do anything about it till the ugly sores are all over your body. Then the cost is huge to fix if it is not too late. This is what is going to happen to all the people that may have it good right now, but fail to realize the cancer growing. This is what poverty is to our country right now, a hidden cancer. And I have put this in a post previous, but the issue came up again and I wanted to re address it. Again the current welfare system isn't helping. And again you cannot ignore it. And this is one of the reasons I am trying to develop the idea of progressive conservatism. We need to take basic conservative principals to address the problem, but we have to address the problem. Ignoring it will only cost us more in the long run. And I will say this again. ignoring it will only cost us more in the long run. Like trying to cure cancer once it is past stage four. I have also posted some ideas on how to address it. I talked about rebuilding core areas of poverty not with federal money, but within the community. The importance of education is tantamount, and I mean more than just a high school education or being technically trained for a job, this helps, but with the problem being multi-generational there are whole new levels of education needed, including basic things like eating well (healthy). I could go on, but for this evening I just wanted to address this topic and get you to think. And this is one of the reasons I think the democrats and republicans are failing us, neither has the intestinal fortitude to tell you the truth. This problem exists and if you are honest with yourself you know it does. And since they won't talk about it they can't tell you workable solutions. (did you hear this in the debate) There are hundreds of good ideas out there that don't involve the federal government continuing to just hand out our money. We need to find the leaders that know the importance of implementing them. Conservative principals that show people how to become self reliant, not calling them moochers but teaching them a better way. Yes I am calling this Progressive Conservatism, taking an old idea and updating for the 21st century. And this is just one issue to me that needs this type of approach. So technically the rich don't have to give to the poor, but if you care about our country you need to realize you have to do something or don't complain when you can't cure the cancer anymore. Some musings while waiting to see if the Rangers can live another day.

The interest is out there

Read an article on Yahoo today about a surge in independent voter registration. How does a person connect all the dots. People are wanting change. And if I was a betting man, and I am at times, I'd say they are not radicals., but many who just are average folk wanting better representation. A true voice for their concerns. Anyway enough of that drivel. Glad to see the interest though but it's my eldest's birthday so Happy Birthday. Love

What did you think about the debate?

I hope you got a chance to watch. Did it make a difference to you? Were you expecting anything new? Did you hear anything new? Was there a game changing moment? What did you like, what did you dislike? Did you watch any coverage after the debate? Did the pundits change anything for you? Did you watch or read any fact checker stories? Or do any of your own? Have you decided on your vote? Do you feel either truly represents you? Or was it all white noise? If you read this blog regularly you know I am not a big fan of democrats or republicans. So I am not going to say anything for now. I could easily be critical of both or actually say nice things about both. If you plan on voting for either Presidential candidate I hope you spend the proper amount of time thinking about what each said, do your research, watch the next debates and be truly honest with yourself. ____________________________________________________________________________________ And then four years from now you will realize that neither can be successful until we do something about Congress. We need to change the game, not the constitution. And doing something about Congress will take work by all of us as citizens. I have nothing against Obama or Mitt personally, I just feel to keep us great as a country and world leader we need whole new ideas and both of them just don't have it, however, tonight isn't about me since I haven't put anything together to replace them I hope you do one better than me and if you are going to vote you start with my questions or your own, again do the research, comparison and study so you can feel good about who you vote for, and I am trying not to be sarcastic because I do have to be honest. If I want change and I want you to think about change I need to do more. So until I can generate the interest and resolve to get people to think about either a new party or getting the current parties to be more responsive to the people "YOU" I have to let you work with what we have. I don't like it, but again I have to let the people who are trying be given a honest chance of earning your vote. Any President that wants to be successful though needs more than a majority in Congress, they need you holding Congress accountable for what it does and how it votes on the day to day business of our government. For Washington to be responsive you need to respond. Otherwise nothing changes and our middle class gets squeezed out by special interests and your indifference. Not a positive note to end this one. and this won't be any better, but the freakin' Rangers are stressing me out. Okay I will be a bit honest, not much inspiration to write from the debate, frankly I was a bit bored by it which kind of scares me.

A tad bit of something you may not expect

I was hearing on the news this morning that Seth MacFarland will be hosting the Oscars. I think this is the same guy that created the show Family Guy. This normally isn't something I care about, but for some strange reason it caught my attention for a completely different thought.

This may show my age. I use to watch a show called Soap. This was a great show. It had great acting, it was well written, and it was a bit controversial. And it apparently touched some nerve with the Christian right of the time because they put some pressure on the sponsors and it was taken off the air. Serious shame because in my humble opinion this was a great show and downright drop down laughing funny.

 Now we have the creator of the most crass show ever created being picked to host the Oscars and some people consider this an honor to host. So what kills me is where is the righteous indignation for a show that should not be in primetime at all. This show is definitely adult humor only. The subject matter is borderline X rated half the time, but here we are a generation later from Soap and barely a whisper of complaint. And yes I know if you don't like it don't turn it off. The problem or what scares me is the large drop in what is considered unacceptable by society. Family Guy is not just crude it is downright baseless. Yet hugely popular. Just makes you wonder where we are as a society and a culture where something as tasteless as Family Guy is not attacked as strongly as something that actually had talent as the show Soap.

 I am Christian, but I am not a fan of the so called Christian right yet I wonder where we are going as a society. I think most of us still want a sense of decency in our society. We just can't find our way anymore because of a variety of factors. More on this hopefully another time. Lunch is ending so got to get back to the grind. And not a good day in Muddville yesterday for our local sports teams.