#1 Shutdown /#2 Education two posts for the price of one

I have been trying to write something for three days now and no luck. Now trying to write something and not watch the Rangers. My nerves aren't handling this 163rd game well.

I just checked the headlines and right now it doesn't look like we have a resolution to the shutdown. CNN released a poll saying Congress' approval rating is down to 10% and both parties are falling in the approval ratings too. Anyone wonder why?

And for us independent conservatives this is maddening to watch. The bigots and tea party members of the Republican party are so bent out of shape trying to do anything to keep Obama from being successful that we are blowing another opportunity to have meaningful dialogue on reducing govt spending and even the size of the government when the debt ceiling talks come up in a few weeks. They are hampering any chance we have of using the debt ceiling as leverage against more government spending. I saw one headline where apparently there was an attempt by "moderate" Republicans to get something done so we can move on. That has failed because the House voted to fund the government and delay the ACA.

I have said this before and I will say it again this group is slowly moving the country to the left. This is not because the overspending big government liberals have the better ideas, they just look more rational to the independents and moderates. And what is worse the tea party really doesn't have a plan. You cannot defund everything you don't like. Sooner or later you have to have some original ideas to move the country forward. Well maybe like a better healthcare plan if you don't like the current one. And I see none coming from the tea party. And the irony is the tea party is suppose to want to reduce government spending, this brinkmanship game playing will end up costing the tax payers more to shut the government down, then restart it. Serious ignorance and idiocy on their part.

We could be sitting down with moderate Democrats and say we will raise the debt ceiling for now, but you have to give us some serious (but not sequester) action on long term spending. They might listen if conservatives were talking rationally. Everyone knows we have to start coming to grips with our budget. It will never happen as long as the current House leadership and tea party extremists make the most noise. I don't know what to say anymore because you just don't see any strength in the moderates. They are really fearful of this tea party group. Yes they are loud and there are some numbers, but sooner or later they will take themselves down because they don't represent the general populace of the country.

We can fund the govt., reduce spending, and work on long term reduction in size of the government and be successful if the moderate conservatives, true conservatives, and moderate Democrats can get together and get to work. Instead the noise rules. Sad sad day and time for our most wonderful country.

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This next half is scarie, scaree, scarey, ......

I have talked about we need to improve the education quality in our country many times. I talk to people all the time and most are coming to the realization that our education system needs a major overhaul. You talk to anyone that works with child development and there are many ideas out there and most are somewhat related in the end goal of matching education to mindset (even a book called Mindset out there), attitude, matching brain development to what is taught in the schools etc. The over reliance on memorization to facts and test taking to facts is not educating our children. There is no critical thinking being developed. Language is a lost art and skill.

Yes we need to improve math and science skills, a definite must, but we aren't going to get there if we don't improve the basics. I talk about this, but I also see the example year end and year out. I have taught faith formation classes for years and still do. I have been working with middle and high school age children that go to public schools. And what I see week in and week out (we have one class a week) would absolutely scare you if you do not see this regularly. I don't blame the children, the teachers, the administrators, etc,,, this is a problem our whole country is facing.

In each week's lesson I try to incorporate reading materials, activities, and something from popular culture to discuss. This year I have 7th graders and last week I had an activity where I grouped them in small teams, and had a relay contest. The team would send one person up to get the question, go back to the group (and they could use the book) answer the question, the next person in line comes up with the answer, if correct, would get the next question etc etc etc.. (on a side note I see many students over the years struggle with reading. The material is not overly difficult. I am not an educator so I can't tell you if it matches grade level, but I suspect it is at the lower end of expectations of grade level based on my children being bored with the material, but we set up high expectations for our children when it comes to reading) Anyway I watched the students in my class struggle with reading, finding the material in the book, even though we just went over the chapter (and yes I know some probably weren't paying too much attention) and writing the question down. What scares me is the reading comprehension is weak, That is bad, the horror is the inability to write and spell. I gave very basic questions and the students struggled to write them down. It wasn't just that I had to repeat myself many times or go slow, it was the spelling. 7th grade is too young to be overly dependent on spell check, these were pretty common words, maybe the hardest were words like mystery or divine, but they would struggle across the board.

Sure there are some suburban schools in nice neighborhoods that still do pretty well, but urban and rural students are struggling. And what is funny I think it is the lack of the challenge we give our students that is partly to blame. We need to raise their expectations and of course match their brain development going forward. We are failing our youth everyday. If we want them to do well in math, science, life, jobs, etc we need to improve the basics. Think about this, most experts say children learn language best when they are very young. If we can't teach them to communicate and how to communicate well when their brains are ready for it, we are moving them backwards before they start.

Okay I am struggling to concentrate and keep my thoughts orderly since the Rangers are in the back of my mind, yet still I want to stress the importance of changing the way we think so we can change the way our children learn. Otherwise things don't look good going forward. There are great ideas being shared by educators and child development experts. It is time we started incorporating them.

And as I have said many times, the lack of critical thinking maybe playing a large part in our inability to demand our government get it's act together.


I just checked the score, the Rangers are killing me, behind in bottom of 6th, uuugghhhhh!!!!! how is that for spelling

And if you are coming to Dallas for the State Fair, expect to pay more this year. I heard five dollars for a corn dog and ticket prices are up. I hope I don't scare you away, but prepare yourself for some sticker shock. Saddens me that the Fair is getting out of reach for many financially, always a great time even off the Midway.

Have a great evening and GO RANGERS ....................................................

The good and bad of it all

The Cowboy offensive line looked damb good today. Kind of what we have been needing for quite some time. Lets hope it continues, been waiting so long that I am having a hard time believing it.


Our government looks pretty inept which seems to be the norm for quite some time. Folks it isn't about the shutdown. It is about their whole body of work. You have the economic oligarchy, the ultra liberals, and the tea party run by certain elements of the economic oligarchy which all combined can't be more than 35 to 40% of the country running or destroying the whole country. There is 60+% of this country watching us burn.

I started trying to figure out why nothing gets done to right this wrong . Is it apathy, ignorance, fear of something new, or what? Are most people like myself, willing to work hard to hide from trying to figure what truly needs to be done. I can spend the whole afternoon picking weeds instead of writing the stories I want to, is it; am I afraid of what there is out there, or not willing to make the sacrifice to learn and work hard to truly get what I want. Is the whole frigging country like me? Or are people thinking, oh once the shutdown is averted, everything will be okay, (sticking head in the sand)? This is all truly baffling.

There is almost two thirds of the country who by definition of our constitution should be running the country, but aren't. What gives? And we are not talking about major upheaval here either. We just need to make our representatives, represent us or replace them. Most of this 65% or so are rational thinking people,yet they tend to buy into we must accept things the way they are. Heck we spend more time analyzing how our football team could be better than our government. Again, willing to work hard, but not on what will truly benefit ourselves.(example of myself)

And now we have a shutdown looming in front of us. The political pundits are having a field day making their money talking about it. One article on Reuters says rational people from both parties will work something out. Most of the CNN trolls are spouting their ideological dogmatic idiocy. No one really knows. The ultra rich are having a field day making money off the market uncertainty. They don't care. And yet the majority of this country should care, they give lip service that they do, but don't make the effort to protect their own interests. Basically this 65% is the middle and upper middle class. Most are educated to a degree, have professions, make money, some volunteer at their church, others at their favorite charity, some are working two jobs to keep up or to get back ahead, all good people with good intentions, but the most important big picture element in their lives, how the government is run so they can continue with their lives is put on the back burner or accepted that they cannot do anything about it. And I hate to bring up this example, but this is exactly some of what happened that let Hitler come to power. (No offense to the Germans and congratulations Ms Merkel) And granted the economy was much worse in Germany at the time. Yet, it is holding off of action that can hurt us more than we realize now.

We just went through economic turmoil and that doesn't seem to be enough to spur people to action. Shoot we haven't completely recovered, but we don't force our government to do what is in the majority's best interest. And the answers are simple,just different from what we come to accept as the norm.

So this week begins the tick tock of the clock. Will our government shut down? And if it does, how bad will things get? Or is it the debt ceiling question that will cause more difficulty. I ask you America: what will it take for us to get off our backends and make Congress and the President respond to us.

And on a side note, Obamacare etc is not the right answer, but we need a better healthcare system in this country, one for the patients, run by the doctors, not the insurance companies. Yet this shouldn't be the reason the government shuts down. Rewrite it if you don't like it. Democracy allows for fluid government.


Finally it is a beautiful first day of fall here in north central Texas, warm, sunny, clear, super blue sky, could not get a prettier day. And yes the Cowboys looked exceptional today. Won't happen every week for any team in the NFL, but enjoying today overall. Of course other than my rant on why my countrymen and I can't get our act together and force the issue with the good ole government.

Have a great Sunday evening and prayers for the victims in Kenya and their families. Sometimes I do forget there are some real problems on Planet Earth that would be nice if those were addressed also.

You gotta love your world leaders

First I would like to agree with President Putin that it takes effort for any nation to call themselves exceptional or to become exceptional. And to label yourself as exceptionalism the expectation of who you are would be hard to meet. And I would like to thank him for creating this worldwide discussion of American exceptionalism. And for this post I don't want to stand up and say we deserve the label or not, but I would like to discuss it in general and then answer Mr. Putin as to why he thinks he can lead a charge against us on this topic.

There are many critics of the notion of American exceptionalism and even in the current American press there are critics. A broad discussion on whether the United States should be able to claim such a title is beneficial to us and to the world. Does it make us exceptional just because this discussion is going on? No. President Putin is right, in the respect that a nation must show the world how it is exceptional. Calling oneself such does not necessarily mean you have proven this to be a fact. Now in America we are very ethnocentric and see ourselves this way. And for most of us we have a general idea as to why, but I think there are many of us that don't understand what American exceptionalism truly is and how the concept developed. So this discussion helps many of us to better understand what President Obama was trying to say last week. Is President Obama right though?


There are many articles and history on American exceptionalism. Most of the articles you find now are on the discussion created by President Putin. I pulled up a couple of articles to get a better idea written before now to see if I can get a more scholarly idea of what is American exceptionalism. Two I found helpful, but for lay people somewhat difficult reading are: "American Exceptionalism A Double Edge Sword" by Seymour Martin Lipset and some articles and papers by Professor Ian Tyrrell of New South Wales. His articles are a bit easier to read, yet give a fair background of the subject. Of course there are many out there since this topic or concept has been around for most of the history of the United States. And if you read enough you will run across the exceptionalism of other countries or at least discussions of how other countries might fit into this discussion currently and historically.

Some general ideas to follow about American exceptionalism are the notion of our constitution, our creation of our liberties, the fact we started a whole new way to govern, and then the growth of our country. Alone our history stands out as something phenomenal and meteoric in our ascension into world power and eventually becoming the only remaining so called super power. This alone does not define the concept. There is more to being part of something called American exceptionalism. This is dis-illustrated in an article recently published by Bloomberg titled: "Putin was right about American Exceptionalism" This article uses the premise of we are not at the top of a wide variety of surveys that they say can define or they relate to defining what is an exceptional country. I feel strongly this article is a travesty to the subject. The idea of being exceptional is going to derive from intangible concepts and actions along with tangible facts. Deciding that one country is not exceptional because they are not at the top of a series of surveys is a gross injustice to the whole idea of exceptionalism.

I would like to use an example that I haven't seen used in the recent discussion, but I think has been used in general discussions about some of the reasons we might be worthy of the label American exceptionalism. The American Civil War represents one of the worst times in our country's history, but one of the most cathartic moments in world history. We fought a four year war over the concept of slavery. Slavery has been practiced throughout the world for thousands of years, but never in the history of man did a nation state bring this injustice to such a climax. This was not because of facts or laws, this was because people realized people are people. Granted not everyone then or now and there are still deep divisions among a minority of our country over this war and their own bigotry, but overall people decided something had to be done to right a wrong. This to say the least was an exceptional moment in time. Yet only one moment.

And throughout history there are more examples people might reference to add to this discussion, but unfortunately our history is not all positive. Do you add the sum of the positives and negatives to determine the answer? And what about other countries, at times or in general can other countries by considered worthy of an exceptionalism label. And make note there is a difference in the idea of being exceptional and being labeled as exceptionalism. For an interesting discussion on the concept of American(ism) see Mr. Lipset's article. And this "ism" is different from American exceptionalism, but is used as a reference to the whole.

And there is what others think.I read an article from Al Jazeera English publication. (always good to get an idea from someone you know isn't going to agree with you)And I was somewhat impressed with their efforts to make it unbiased or create an open argument. This article discussed the idea of other countries being up to the concept of exceptionalism, but overall they seemed to be picking at straws. One example was the Soviet Union and their reasoning for them was somewhat generic. The article was definitely not in agreement of America being unique to the world or to the world's history. And to this I disagree. It is our short history at the very least that makes us unique, giving rise to the idea of; are we doing something beyond historical comparisons.

America was conceived under a notion of religious freedom (one of our self basis for exceptionalism) with a large background of Christianity yet calling oneself exceptional goes against Christian teaching. This is one of President Obama's mistakes. To be truly exceptional your actions, not your words define you. A great nation, but humble is more in line of being called exceptional than touting your achievements to justify your actions. And even sometimes not taking action is a decision that can add to how you are viewed.

So are we worthy of still being able to use the term American exceptionalism? I don't know.This is more of a judgment of history not of man. A nation's actions can be a strong argument to prove this idea, but it is not the government's actions, but the people's actions. I would suggest our recent history does not lend itself to the notion, but our people seem to be laying dormant to what is our potential. Recent examples are: anger against our own government for spying, our anger towards an unresponsive Congress, (yet we don't do anything about it) and our ability to elect a Black man President based on his efforts while our issues over race are still unresolved. This shows that our people are still aware that we are able to accomplish much. Yet we have no right to label ourselves American exceptionalism, again this is for history to judge what we do as a people. And interesting enough about this argument and all the critics around the world please make note, we are,maybe somewhat disproportional to certain backgrounds, but still a collection of the people of the whole world. Maybe in some way that is an integral part of our whole being exceptional.

Now President Putin I do have a concern over your comments about American exceptionalism. You attack the concept and maybe for the world someone does need to make us live up to that notion on a more consistent basis. There are times when we excel and hopefully the world can see we work towards doing what is right, even with our faults. If you want to criticize us, also offer something better. What has Russia done that separates itself on the world stage that you can criticize us? You hide behind your inability to raise Russia to a super power status by trying to bring us down. How are you raising up the Russian people? If you want the world to view Russia has a new power show us through your leadership what it means to be exceptional. I know some of the American foreign policy experts will "vomit"* when they hear this, but maybe we should let you put boots on the ground in Syria as a peace keeping force. The civil war in Syria is becoming very convoluted. Are there now three sides as some argue? Can you put your troops in Syria, but treat all sides equal while they dismantle the government's chemical weapons and let the world watch you openly? Are you ready to be a legitimate player in a dicey situation? Can we observe you like the rest of the world observes us? What say you President Putin?

I hope it is more than words.

Is there a case for American Exceptionalism? The jury will always be out on that one, because it is an ongoing judgment. Leadership from the people, humble with your words, strong justice with your actions are just some of the ways that can be judged, but not all. Others' perception of what you are doing and have done will be the biggest judge. We, as Americans, will always have a strong opinion of ourselves. It seems to be in our nature. Going back to the Lipset article, there is an ideological argument to be made on what is American exceptionalism, but as mentioned the jury will always be out.


* On a side note and I forget his name, but the Congressional representative that said he about vomited when he read President Putin's comments is not a good reflection on how our leadership should address this situation. As an amateur writer, maybe I can use simple concepts to describe my distaste in this situation, but a leader in a country such as ours should choose his words carefully on the world stage. At the very least he could have said he was nauseated by President Putin's remarks.


Let us all prayer for a world where respect for each other becomes the ordinary not the exception. This will make us all exceptional. Have a great weekend.

Can't resist

Putin talking to Obama about foreign policy. This is equivalent to one prick talking to someone clueless about the subject. (in this case foreign policy) I don't see the uproar, this goes on in bars across America on any given night.

Please forgive me for this bad joke, but I couldn't resist. God didn't want me to post this, not my style.

Otherwise still not convinced about the Cowboy offensive line yet.


And no 9/11 post, still makes me very angry. What was ever accomplished, but unnecessary death. Syria is another disaster unless we let the Muslims figure it out.Not our war. We can be a world leader without being involved in everything. Sometimes patience is a virture. This is not Rwanda or similar.

disclaimer to previous post

Not that I support either side of the Sunni Shi'ite conflict, I am just saying the previous post is one possible scenario. We need to stay out of Syria. This is more than a civil war and our interests should be more focused on developing strategies for which side that wins because we don't win with either side.

Just another reason to create a diversified and independent energy strategy and become an exporter of energy products. It will help jobs and trade imbalance etc.. Again put our interests first.

Actually don't know what type of expectations to have for Cowboys this year, but tonight it all starts. No matter what J. Jones says we should have gotten more offensive line help. It is still a large question mark. We will see.

Have a great day.

Lets talk about ducks and who is lining ducks up in Syria

Lets start by being the master of the obvious:

The situation in Syria sucks. Down right horrible.

No one knows how to stop or corral the situation.

The war is a major proxy battle for all sorts of players now.

Obama is clueless as to what to do.

Putin is not the biggest obstacle to solving Syria.

Now what are the questions.

And there are many, but the one that really matters right now and it has been a couple of weeks, is why did Syria introduce chemical weapons into the war. And I am not 100% sure the government did it, maybe 90%,but not 100%.

So here are my thoughts on what is going on and who is pushing the buttons right now and why. And with recent events my thoughts are still far fetched, but my major antagonist is not going to be that surprising.

Who has the most to gain if Syria drags the United States into the fray, no matter how limited, how short lived etc. And the answer is Iran. My why is serious big picture for them and if they are thinking this far ahead then I am really scared so I hope I am wrong. Iran also has the influence to pull this off in Syria right now which is one reason I am leaning towards the government having done it.

Iran wants the US to get involved. It gains on the political front within the Islam community. It helps it gain credibility with all the terrorists, and gains and emboldens more enemies for the United States in the Middle East and now beyond. (see recent news reports with Iran asking terrorists to attack Iraq embassy) The US doesn't have a real friend in Syria to support so any action by us has no gain for the US. Iran basically convinces Al Assad to use chemical weapons because he needs their support in his civil war which forces Obama's hand and virtually no consequences for Iran while moving forward any plans they have to dominate the Islam world. They can sit back calling out the US as an enemy of the whole Islam world, getting surrogate groups to attack us in the Middle East and maybe beyond. This gains them more appeal to different groups for them including some of the more extreme Sunni groups even though ideologically they are not getting along. Gives them a huge one up on the Saudis and their proxy groups in Syria.

The above paragraph is pretty logical and doesn't take much imagination to see them trying to do this which leaves us with the next step. Iran wants to rule from China to the Mediterranean. There use to be something called the Persian Empire even before Islam took over this part of the world. Different emperors, different times, but still a history that makes me think that Islam is just part of the picture.The Saudis and there related oil rich countries are in the way. Dragging the Saudi's into a war would be counter productive. Dragging the US into Syria, dividing the Islam world even more then gaining traction with many divergent groups by attacking US and Israel in a Public relations game, allows them to have us waste energy and resources, diminishing any allies we might never gain in the Middle East and then allowing Iran to pick up the pieces as the big hero who stood up to the Crusaders. Iran doesn't use its military until they have an upper hand.

Who else gains? Russia, they take the northern half of Asia and rebuild their empire. So has an uneasy alliance developed between Russia and Iran through Syria, both using this civil war to weaken the United States both militarily, help for Israel, and our supposed credibility on the world stage. Israel becomes more in grave danger now with a large front of Islamist countries now more aligned against them. Any allies,(we never really had), the US may rely on like the Saudis now have their hands tied or they look like they are helping the US support Israel just because Iran played the anti America card better. Saudi Arabia doesn't want Iran to become any more powerful than they are, but they would be stuck with the only recourse being actual confrontation with Iran. So Iran gambles that the Saudis don't want this, and if correct they have created either a direct empire, a proxy empire, or a series of satellite states beholden to them. They now have the beginning of an empire they truly want. And the Russians go along hoping to rebuild their might because the United States is now truly war weary, wanting to back out of the situation except for Israel and have no stomach for a direct confrontation with Iran.'

So Iran looks much different in five years, Russia is worrying Europe and is much stronger in Asia, China doesn't want to support us, even with Iran and Russia growing towards their border. So my theory is that Iran if they have half my imagination is about to pull off one of the biggest usurp of power plays in the history of the world.  Lets hope I am wrong.

Or there is a new world order ( don't you love being paranoid) and all this is their way of camouflaging larger power grab and control of all things on planet earth.

Either way the whole thing sucks.

And will the United States ever get it if this isn't a New World order scenario.


Have a great night everyone, sleep well.................................. yeah right.  lol

Is there an opposite of an epiphany.... and then a bit of a facebook type post

Sometimes you can talk about things, read information, and just observe what is going on for years and not see what is happening. I have even have blog topics that seems to cover the details of what has been going on. Topics about education declining, people's loss of respect for each other, lack of civility in Congress for example. All this adds up to something that I haven't put together consciously. And others have talked about in the press, current literature, and I just haven't accepted or maybe mentally digested it.

It's like something that you are watching, but don't see until someone smacks you in the back of the head.

It probably started years ago, but came to a head the other night watching youtube. Yeah that strange thing called youtube. I rarely watch it except for an all night walk through 60's rock history with my youngest. Rarely, but I do check it out. I will pull up an old song stuck in my head and play it. This was somewhat the case the other night.

I was looking for something and ran across BBC report on YES from early 1971. Pretty interesting to see YES that early on. It had concert footage and interviews. Near the end Jon Anderson said how he was looking forward to what guitar work and music would be like in fourteen or fifteen years. And that is when it hit me. What happened?  Really who were the big artists in the 80's?  Heavy Metal bands, U2, Journey, an evolved version of Genesis, Country came into is own, Rap, but did music and guitar work evolve from what YES and a few others were doing?

I mentioned this before in another blog about something the good Dr Thompson wrote, but I can't remember now if it came from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or F. and L. on the campaign trail, but he commented if you look west (from his view point at the time) and look hard you can see the high water mark for the 1960's. A point where everything came to a head and then receded. The timeframe for both books was the early seventies or about the same time as the YES program.

And as we all know the sixties to seventies people (at least in western culture) were experimenting with all sorts of things, some not so good, but others were trying new religions, new ideas, communes, just about anything and everything in an attempt to enlighten themselves. You might say they were trying to broaden culture or our culture.

I don't know what was going on in the Middle East at this time except Israel was growing, and OPEC became a major player on the world stage. Yes and I know OPEC is not all the Middle Eastern members. China and Russia were dominated by socialism so there culture was hampered by government control. Japan even though in Asia, has tended to mimic western culture among their youth.

Overall by the early 70's I fear we as the human race reached a zenith in cultural growth and have been receding ever since. I know the above is not the greatest examples to prove my point, but everywhere you look things have not moved forward. And this goes along with more important factors, education in the United States has been declining since the 1960's, and one real interesting point, the middle class started losing true buying power since the early 70's. Wealth disparity started separating at this time. There is much in the United States that has not happened since then. You would think our education system would be by far the greatest in the world, but instead we became greedy, self centered, and put culture and true growth aside for short term gains in our lives.

Now does this apply individually to everyone, or maybe even the majority, actually no, but for some reason we just hit something in the early 70's and quit trying to move forward. The concept of self became so important that we put aside growing intellectually as a society and country. Now we have a whole host of problems that could have been prevented if we had taken the next step coming out of the sixties and done something with what we learned from both our mistakes and our exploration of the world around us while not losing our traditions of our country and values. Everything including the values seem to have been put aside. And I am curious if anyway can tell me why. I mentioned the me aspect of life earlier, but I think that is a symptom of what we put aside not the root cause.

So my dilemma or my back handed epiphany is our we headed backwards culturally?  I think most everyone probably knows this at one level or another including myself, but the other night it hit me like a ton of bricks, something so obvious, but something so distant from my thinking. And it is more than music, or history, or high brow culture, it seems to be a mind set. Everywhere you look you see problems, but there are answers to them that we ignore or fail to do what we can. And to me that is also part of a strong culture.

Culture and society grow when you tackle problems and move forward. It grows when you include the whole of society, maybe not everyone gets rich or a college education, but the general trend of all moves forward. And that hasn't been happening in the United States or anywhere else on this planet for decades. Maybe in some areas of the world, some pockets exist or a country or two, but the whole world seems to be declining and as time goes on the decline is picking up in speed.

I recently did a post on respect or lack there of being a problem, that is another example of the human race in decline. And I think the loss of respect is one of the true signals how bad things have gotten.

Can we overcome this decline? Of course, but it will take recognition and effort. The human race has had its ups and downs, but with all the technology, the ability more so than ever for all of mankind to communicate with each other, you would think we would be going forward now. For some strange reason we aren't.

In my original headline about what this blog was going to be about, I put I would try to have positive solutions to any problems I discuss and I would still like to do that. I just don't have an answer right now. How does one convince people to look at themselves and ask what can I do? Yes a famous President once said something similar, but it is true, what can we do for the whole of society not just for ourselves.

Since I am writing about the decline of culture it would be nice if I could write eloquently to make my point. Find some extraordinary vocabulary to turn simple thoughts into some grandiose vision that would make an impression upon people. Unfortunately that is not the case today. My hope is that an answer can be found from wherever or whomever so we can put ourselves back on track for the 21st century and beyond.

So like I said it is obvious when you stop and think about it, an opposite of an epiphany where a vision comes to you with the answer, but this decline we don't see it even when the writing is on the wall.



And on a side note... I am (cough cough) years old and had never been on a jet ski, but that changed the other day, got to ride one along with taking one of my grandchildren on it with me. Bit nervous being the first time and having a small child holding onto me, but thoroughly enjoyed it. (and yes we can grow culturally while having a good time) . Nothing like enjoying the outdoors even with toys.


For you sports fans, here we go, the long march to October begins its zenith now that September is here for baseball fans, College and high school football have begun, and the NFL starts next week. (oh yeah could this be a hindrance to cultural growth, I hope not, I still love my teams, but especially since the NFL gets more airtime than what our Congress is doing. Maybe we should spend as much time vetting politicians as we do the NFL draft)  anyway September brings much excitement in the sports world. Honestly I like my sports, but we do need to keep it in perspective to the bigger problems facing our world,,

so next up my thoughts on Syria, Obama, the middle east etc.. speaking of major declines, there are answers, no one has the fortitude to say them

Hope you had a great Labor Day here in the United States