That damn lottery ticket (part 4)

Bill had done much reading in his life. If things were different he may have worked for a doctorate, maybe in history, maybe in political science. Bill was also a fair writer and his tweets and now his website showed a bit of his skill. People were fascinated with what he had to say. He was melding large parts of the struggle of mankind into a blended manifesto of the middle and working class. He was not a Marxist by all means yet some socialism did creep into his writings. And he wanted a chance. He felt his life had been taken away by the very people everyone had just revolted against so he wrote towards a more promising future.

One thing he remembered from his readings had stuck in his head from many years ago and it played a big part in keeping Bill a bit convoluted on what future he did want. He remembered somebody had once discussed:

                [ the “ruling aristocracy of money,” he suggested, exercised “more and more control every day over the rudder of the state”: “Soon those people will constitute not only the supervisory board of the ___________________ company, but also the supervisory board of our entire society.” } *

Bill couldn’t remember if this was from a socialist writer or a different source, but it had been affecting what he had been writing before the revolution and played a major role in his thoughts going forward. He could not though completely give over to a socialist revolution. He still felt strongly for opportunity and reward for effort. He just was caught up like everyone else of his time that this had been lost by the very people who made it their political campaigns to say they were there to reinstitute the opportunity all longed for except that the other side had taken away from them. This major political dichotomy played back and forth between the two parties had been exposed. Bill was trying to rectify the “what next”.

Well as you can imagine once the US went headlong over the cliff, the world’s economy collapsed. The first two years after the eventful night teetered on the verge of complete anarchy.  The European countries held on, but socialism did prevail at first just so the countries could manage day to day economies and governance. The Middle East went into full scale war. There were multiple competing major factions. There were the peasants uprising against the oil royalty and the established countries; there was the historic religious clash between to the factions of Islam; and there was the explosion of terrorist groups who probably would have done terrible damage to the world, yet there were no resources. They basically created hundreds of small fiefdoms or self-proclaimed caliphates all vying to control the same territories with no one group able to consolidate any power. It was an absolute disaster with Israel fighting multiple wars, yet none of them significant since the different Arab groups were too busy fighting amongst themselves.

Some regions and countries survived better than others. Some parts of South America became self-sufficient and managed to thrive. Other countries went to historical dictatorships, yet they survived by working with the newer democracies. Africa had some successful countries, but also fell into a similar pattern as the Middle East in some areas, and unfortunately some pretty hefty dictators ran other countries.

Japan, South Korea, Australia, parts of Southeast Asia came out relatively unscathed and became strong trading partners. Russia grew, but ran into trouble with corruption and their long standing competition with China. China did come close to flourishing at first then their economy hit headwinds they could not overcome and certain parts of the country were breaking off with Beijing’s government.

And what happened to the U. S.? Bill was actually taking care of this; his popularity had grown exponentially from the first day of the revolution. His tweets and website were read religiously. And along with just the fact the average middle American really just wanted to have a normal life that many of them settled back down rather quickly. Small businesses that could get basics back on the market thrived. Many of the bureaucrats of the government took up the same tasks they had before. Local governments picked the pieces up quickly and local tax revenue was re-written so basic services could continue. Bill was very instrumental in finding people to take on the tasks of elected officials and some basic law and order was restored. People who had worked for the large multi-nationals were finding some work in picking up and reconstructing infrastructure. Utilities were left unscathed so people had jobs there and the general populace were able to survive the heat and cold of the different seasons.

Bill immediately began talking about new elections to bring back the country as a whole. Certain sections fell to some territorial fighting and parts were being run by gangs and other parts by somewhat fascist militias. Yet since most people still had a pretty good idea of democracy, these were tenuous at best. Some abuse of power did reign for some time since Bill could not get the elections up and running. As said before, many people were working in the government for basic functions it just took some departments longer to get started than others yet eventually some of the people who worked in the local election departments started getting paid and began the work of preparing for a national election.

And yes folks, our good friend Bill became the first President under the New Republic of the United States which encompassed almost all of what was previously the 50 states of the United States of America. The remnants of the military took up the call and came back to serve and within a few years Bill had put back together a working country.

And after all this madness almost ten years to the day, Jack was given an exception to the time limit and cashed his lottery ticket on his way to his new job.  This was the first opening of the national lottery that was reinstituted to help raise funds for the government. And this may not have been Bill’s best idea, but hey, Jack was happy.

*I can give you the footnote info for the quote above, however, I ask you to sit back and try and figure out when this was written, by who might be a task, but try to think about this for a moment. I left the one part blank because it might be a dead giveaway as to the time which is part of your little scavenger hunt for now.

First on a side note, does Sheldon Adelson still support Donald Trump? And if so, why?

And this is a stand-alone question and nothing to do with anything else.

The real paranoid post.

Running out of time here, but think about this and this came screaming back into my head after the Wasserman Schulz resignation etc..

Suppose you are a group of economic and political oligarchs and the pressure of maintaining the sham of a democracy was getting to you. How do you circumvent the system so you can preserve your economic power while instituting the government you want? You know how it is, sooner or later buying Congress can be a burdensome expense

You already know you have dumbed down the general populace pretty well. Social strife has been building, but you want to control it to your advantage, not get out of hand and wreck up your holdings/wealth.  As with any country some forms of nationalism can get ugly and be manipulated. You have had a party in power that lives off spewing fear for votes for decades now. Hmmmm maybe something can be worked out.

And lo and behold you realize one candidate has such a horrible history when it comes to trust maybe something can be done. And then you hear, maybe this candidate has made some pretty horrible mistakes, some that can be exploited. Yet you know you would have to exploit them at the right moment.

And on the other hand,  you have that candidate that is driving up the ugly nationalists, sure they are only a minority, but they are a very vocal minority. You can add in their hate, a large portion of the populace that is more concerned with other matters than government, general ignorance, douse it with the usual fear mongering stepped up and well does an opportunity exist.

So now Donald Trump wants to be President, he has ramped up some of the fear and anger in our country, the fringe elements are feeling embolden by him, most people are angry at the establishment, and lo and behold he got some serious traction with his birther hyperbole, so you think can we strong arm him through the primaries, pretty much split the opposition into multiple little pieces and win enough of the far right to carry forward. Boom, that is done.

And our little politician who has made so many mistakes and is seen as infallible by way too many has now manipulated the system to that person’s favor and oops is she vulnerable to some back office wrangling? If not, then, why not let the people believe she isn’t going to be indicted for some treasonous action. Yes, you have many of the beaurcratic powers to be in law enforcement, NSA, the military on your payroll in unique ways so let her run till either she capitulates to what you want or at the last minute, oops maybe it is discovered that we should charge a certain candidate with serious crimes, right about a week or two before the election. Oops she gets kicked off the ballot, no one is sure about does the VP nominee automatically become the candidate and by default one so called populist candidate becomes President and well he never cared about anything but himself so whether he is in cahoots with the planners it doesn’t matter. He is going to go along to get along since he is President and then one day he just seems to die of natural causes and the next Presidential election is not really an election anymore.

And now you have one scandalous manipulative candidate (the email scandal at the DNC and the State Department just beg too many questions) being screwed over to cooperate with the oligarchs or she loses everything? Either way, we are screwed.

So fiction galore tonight on this wonderfully hot and humid summer eve here in North Texas.

And if for some reason the tone of this blog ever changes or if it goes away, well after reading the above you know why. Yet this is why I call it the paranoid posts,,,, too much for reality you know….? Great works of fiction all around this evening. 

A person could add more to the details, but got to run

Fighting another paranoid post

You know how it is.  A thought creeps into your brain, you hear something, then it finds a neuron to latch onto, a synopsis lights up, it finds another connection, the electrical impulses bouncing around gray matter find a path and the next thing you know your whole being is consumed by an ugly thought. One that won’t go away. It dominates every part of your brain, growing worse than weeds throughout every cortex it can find. You drink a glass of wine more like a shot of tequila and it is still racing within and throughout that part of your body you rely on for reasonable action.

Your eyes turn so white you belong in a Paul Ryan selfie, your heart races along at a clip to blow two or three valves, your nerves are so on edge just the slightest sound makes you jump; everything in your being is consumed.

Yeah, sure, the reality is happening: The Republicans are actually going to nominate Donald Trump for President. Surely this one fact alone can’t be causing all this anxiety. No, it isn’t. You hear things, read things and it just starts to add up in this hyper vigilant state your brain is functioning.

And all your worse fears start to play out at a rapid fire pace. You can’t keep up, but overall one theme dominates the process. All day long you fight it. Every waking moment is put to the effort to keep your worst fears pushed aside, yet they grow back stronger and stronger, now to the point where rational reflection of what you are thinking is buried under the rubble of too many brain cells fried from long ago. What you actually fear is coming true is more dynamic than any fiction you try to create.  The panting, the wide eyed stare at nothing is only some symptoms of the raging paranoia completely engulfing the space behind my eyes. Is there even a soul to look into at this point?

My God you scream, what are we doing? How on Earth can a rational well positioned country with the best well written idea of government ever devised by man be nominating, much less electing the most narcissistic, irrational, pseudo fascist, completely devoid of any idea of how he would run this country once elected individual for the highest office in the land? How did we come to this?

And oh by the way his competition is the biggest most dangerous corrupt politician ever conceived of in this country. She makes Richard Milhous Nixon look like a boy scout. Yes, she hides it well and the Democrats will be nominating her next week.

Oh, but, don’t let me stress you out. This is just a moment that the history books will never mention. Whomever wins will get to write their interpretation and all will be copasetic. So do not fret over me, once November comes and goes, people like me will disappear into the wild blue yonder never to be heard from again. Can’t be upsetting the apple cart now, can we?

And heck, this is the mild version of what I wanted to write. I glanced at a story this morning stating where one delegate from Virginia was in a situation with one of Mr. Trump’s campaign workers and had to ask: are you threatening me or my State?” Just who exactly is working for Mr. Trump?

And in the end, people like me are labeled the bad guys. Wake up America,     please.

There is so much on so many levels..

..that suck

Where does a person start? I was pretty much in a foul mood before this weekend started and wow, talk about life putting so much into and normally I would say perspective, but I am to the point where I do not know where perspective is right now. So where is everything being put. Well hell in a handbasket again comes to mind.

I was going to write about Gov. Pence being chosen the presumptive VP and I will get to this in a moment.

First though I am glad I am not a citizen of Turkey. Normally this isn’t a country that is on my radar much, but from what I understood before Friday President Erdogan was consolidating power and certain freedoms such as speech, dissent, and the press were starting to disappear.  Now I am never in favor of a military coup even if it is ostensibly to bring back democratic processes as long as the country is still electing the political leaders. Yet one has to wonder were they ahead of the game or just another set of despots? Either way or no matter which side won (apparently Erdogan) the average citizen is going to be losing their political and general rights going forward. I think the general consensus his he will use this as an excuse to clamp down on any and all opposition.  Of course any military dictatorship would be doing the same thing. Just not a great time for the average Joe in Turkey.

And then this morning more police shootings. And in Baton Rouge of all places. Now do we know if this was a targeted attack on police officers I do not know. Honestly I have been so busy this afternoon I haven’t seen a news update since around 3. I definitely do not want to jump to conclusions and the last reports I saw were people trying not to jump to conclusions.  Could this be a real attack? That is one horror we will have to deal with; or is this like Dallas where a person with some serious issues uses the racial issues to relieve the inner demons tormenting their brain? First of all, there is still much to learn about the Dallas situation and we are over a week past the original night. And then there were some reports what happened in Baton Rouge was the police being called to a developing situation. I think those reports are incorrect, however, I am not 100% sure. Last I heard though they were determining it was just one person.

And on a side note and especially since this may have been one gunman with an unclear motive and going back to the Dallas situation. We have got to do more for mental illness in this country. I do not know if it is me, yet we study everything on and off this planet, but the one biological function on this planet that is the most complex we just don’t seem to study enough. In fact, it is the brain that studies everything except well itself. I do know there are scientists and physicians that do study the brain, yet there is more going on in our heads that we have yet to even begin to understand. So again why aren’t we addressing mental illness more in this country? And that is not a rhetorical question.

And so we gather together, pray for and console the families and the survivors and our wondrous leaders speak and say wonderful words and we are back to square one. This could all happen again tomorrow.

And now I come to a point I want to make, yet doing so I give away something I want to use in my next installment of the story I keep trying to write. So here goes the general statement, there is a danger when a government that is supposed to be self-governing by the people become disenfranchised by their own inaction and allow a small set of people that have only their concerns take over the general wellbeing of said government. Obviously I am talking about the infamous 1% and our little angst and suspicions that they buy off Congress for their own good. When the people relinquish their responsibility to others then we end up with what we have today. A very disjointed country with hatreds, prejudices, an ugly history all rearing its head and all off it against ourselves. It does no one any good for racial strife to continue in this country, yet it continues fed by ignorance and hate. And when the leadership is so inclined to pay attention only to the people paying attention to them, the needs of the people are forgotten.(and people mention this all the time and it still continues) Yes, many politicians will say we need action, yet it is their inaction over decades, their lack of leadership to move the country forward instead of being self-serving that is partly responsible for the downward cycle into this morass we see now. And yes it is our responsibility, too;, for not speaking up earlier against the continuation of the past and like I mentioned before us relinquishing our responsibilities and letting others have their way, we cannot complain. We are forced to act now, but we cannot complain. If we want to continue to be a self-governing people we need to start taking back our country.

And on another secondary note, I will be starting off my next installment with a quote. I will challenge you on this quote. I want to you to figure who said this and when. I will have to leave a few words out through the couple of sentences involved so as not to tip off the time frame too easily. I hope you read and research the quote. It will be interesting to note what was said and when and how it applies to today’s world. There will be more than what I quote that will not be directly discussed, but hopefully comes out in the story. The quote is not directly related to the story. It is only a partial relationship. And I am keeping to my word and only working on the story when I actually sit down to write. I just ran across this piece while reading the other night and thought it might fit. The actual story will move directly from the last post.

And back to why I originally became in a foul mood. Okay wait stop, also as part of my driving around today I saw a very horrible accident. I am trying to type my Pence thoughts so I didn’t see the ten o’clock news so I do not know if it was reported, but it was definitely an unsettling sight.  Again if you are going to pray for the people shot by the police and their families, the police and their families in Dallas and Baton Rouge and for the forgiveness of the souls of the two men who created the two tragedies, please add whoever was in this accident. There was a completely burnt car draped over the median wall of the highway, a light pole knocked over and some other vehicles on the other side of the highway I could not see over the median wall. All in all it was a horrible day for these families also.

And as you know I am outright against Mr. Trump and Ms. Clinton being President of our fair country. I, as many of you, feel we just do not have a valid choice for leadership amongst the two. I have expressed here and on the message boards of the internet news sights my displeasure with this choice. We are not choosing the lesser of two evils with this election we are choosing the horror of the results of giving up our country. How can anyone honestly feel Mr. Trump can act rationally based on what we have seen in the primaries? How can anyone flat out believe anything Ms. Clinton says at any given point? They are both narcissistic egoistic people who only want to be President so they can be President. Let’s not get into the seriously flawed what pretends to be platform either one of them is espousing, just who they are is crazy. We are about to elect by popular vote someone who gets votes based on who the majority of this country decides which opponent they hate more. Really folks this is how it is shaking out.

Anyway you know my feelings there, sorry to bore you with them again. Like I said I am in a foul mood. And so you ask, why are you upset about the Pence choice? Well maybe you didn’t ask, but what the heck I am going to answer anyway. Yep I am in a foul mood.

So Mr. Trump capitulates a bit and chooses someone who seems a compromise candidate to the hard right Republican base. Is he giving in? Is he showing he can work with people? I really don’t care. What happens now is the possibility of a brokered convention is weakened. And yes I wanted a fight on the convention floor so to speak. Now we have to be careful, I am not talking about real violence, but a good hard core political fight. Lots of votes, lots of accusations, lots of finger pointing and a result that leaves Trump out of the race or at the very least a split party where only his hard core base is left supporting him. Anyway somehow some way we get back to even though I detest the thought of what is called a lesser or two evil choice type candidate as the Republican nominee.

Does this mean I want it to get so crazy that it lets Ms. Clinton get handed the election? NO! I want the Democrats to look at how bad of a choice Ms. Clinton is and that enough delegates take a good hard look at the Republican convention and decide that doing the right thing is the right thing and blow that convention up (metaphorically speaking of course) sheesh got to be careful in today’s environment, but I do want to say how strong of an action I would like to see. And it gets crazy, lots of floor votes, lots of political infighting and the Democrats produce a detestable, but salvageable lesser of two evils choice.

And as you know I hate the lesser of two evil choices, I feel us choosing this route is one of the reasons we arrived at where we are today politically, but hopefully this time we can slow down the ship before it falls off the cliff to maybe buy us the time to actually learn something from this year and do something better in 2020.

By choosing Pence the hope of last minute rationality creeping into both conventions is now weakened and we are now stuck with horror being elected President of this country in November. I did see one article today that mentioned how it may be still possible, still far fetched, but possible that a third party candidate could get on the ballet. Two problems, still no one anyone wants to vote FOR has materialized and two there would have to be much court action to override some of the State deadlines for getting on the ballet. If only, if only, if only………….

Well enough said, it is late, this has gone long and I always want to be positive and nothing about these past 72 hours even portends to be positive. And I didn’t even talk about Nice in France. WOW.

Long live the Constitution, the Constitution is dying.   Please let this be a nightmare from which I can wake!

Irony

It seems strange that the people who most should be vested in improving this country overall seem to miss out on what is going on.

And you can see this at many levels. I know I rant and rave how the Republicans and Democrats have failed this country. And yet there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people over the years who have worked countless hours for both parties honestly trying to make things better. I forget that I do not want to lump these people in my rants, for it is the leadership they cling to year after year and uses them that is the source of my wrath. And I know I sound like I belittle them over and over again, yet I do not know how to separate them from what has happened within the parties.

I know many people who work for campaigns, ideals etc… but in the end after forty or fifty years why hasn’t the world improved for all their efforts. We work so hard to rely on systems and processes, but these very same processes are backfiring on all the good so many people have tried to implement or create.  And I am no better. Sometimes I spew some verbiage that probably upsets and irritates the very people I want to communicate my ideas and hope they see that their efforts are not the problem, it is the path they have been misled that is the problem. It is ironic that the people I want to help change the world for the better I probably spend excessive amount of time insulting in a backwards way.

And then it is ironic to me, that I have no idea how to wake people from this slumber of missed dreams and nightmare of the disaster this election year is foretelling. I can understand that if you have committed your life or your ideals to something you have been told is the right way to fight for what is right, one person is not going to automatically create a political epiphany.  So I rant on hoping to maybe hammer the nail enough times that it starts to stick. Probably not the most productive way to change minds.

Yet I also wonder after so many decades why more people aren’t questioning why this hasn’t worked.

For all the need to improve the middle class, shrink the wealth gap, bring back innovation and creativity in all aspects of our life, improve education at a much greater level than improving standardized test scores, everything that would combat and defeat so many of our problems facing us today, this very same middle class sits and stares at everything with inertia. The reality they need to be more involved with their community, their government and more than their peer group passes by them like a dream they have forgotten once they have woken up.

And I am as guilty as everyone else. It is we see one windmill and spend our time trying to defeat it, yet, there are so many we either ignore or run away from. When I was young I use to think I was better if I found someone that was a bigot or racist I would not associate with them. I thought I was being the better person by distancing myself from them. This was the worst path and I fear there are many like me. It is ironic I ran from one of the very problems that needed to be addressed head first. Instead of solving the problem I ignored it, maybe like many others. And so it continued to fester and today it is like we are back to square one of the 50’s and 60’s. And in some ways probably worse because other problems have grown such as poverty, education is bad for the middle class and much worse for the neighborhoods left behind even more so. The separation of which schools are the “good schools” is definitely following along social economic divides. This is exactly what we do not need or even more importantly what we should not want.

Everything we dream of, everything we value, we cherish, is still available to us, yet we are more consumed by consumerism than drive. The exact things that should be bringing us together such as community involvement, church, sports and entertainment, only bring us a brief respite. We go home and our ignorance or our hatred or are indifference continue to thrive. There are times when we do exhibit being great; when our country does show that this historically youthful concept of self-government is something to behold. And then we let the parts of us, our humanity, that we should strive every day to conquer be consumed with what is wrong with us. The small minority that live by the hate, that do not want others to succeed because they feel so insignificant that others’ success tear into their soul that they lash out and do harm to others. I am not talking about the one person who is suffering from mental illness etc, but the person who can be rescued, but has sunken so far away from humanity that he or she tries to drag everyone down around them. And in doing so finds the others they can manipulate, they can feed their anger, and send another person spiraling down into an ugly abyss.

It is these people we need to confront. We can say all the right words, but without the right action we are fighting an unnecessary uphill battle.

It is ironic that we spend so much time working to do what we are told is right, we miss the true battles. We do not see the real enemy and it is not us, yet us.  Tomorrow you and I will get up and go about our daily routines. We will see the same people we see most of the time. Some of us will interact with different races or cultures or religions regularly some not so regularly. We will smile and be polite. Some of us have friends that do not look like us, yet do we still notice. And quite frankly it is okay to notice if we notice for all the right reasons. Can you enjoy learning new things, trying new foods, listening to different viewpoints? Dropping these barriers are noticing the right way. It is when we notice for the wrong reasons, such as they are taking something from me, they are depriving me of something I think I have, they are ruining my advantage in life (and many times this is an imagined advantage) that we are failing ourselves.

Yes, without question there are people that have more than others. And quite frankly some people have a much better opportunity at the very moment of birth than others.  This is because of money, this is because of color, this is because of the exact spot and time they were born. Starting ahead though does not make you a better person. As said by many before you are a better person when you make others better. Someday I hope to be a better person until then I will continue to rant and rave and hopefully through my folly I can learn what it is to be better with you.

So it is ironic that we, the people of the United States, at times produce and create and become one of the greatest nations in the history of the world and simultaneously we strive to destroy our own dreams our own ambitions by ignoring ourselves, ignoring our own hopes and dreams by letting a minority of hate and self-loathing become the dominant player in our world. I hope tomorrow you find that moment each of us has each day to bring out what is best in you and in others. Somedays it may not be a pleasant moment, but we have one each day. You do not have to fight a war, just win the one moment. 

Downtown Dallas was all blue last night

The Dallas downtown skyline was all blue last night. Every building that could change its nightly colors changed them to blue. The Reunion Ball, Bank of American building etc…. all were blue.

And in Dallas the sadness and shock will last for quite a while. And it will be hard not for it. In any city, someone always knows someone that is a policeman or deputy or other local law enforcement person. My wife and I know quite a few. She has texted some condolences and we hope to see a few of our friends this week. I also know members of other local law enforcement agencies through work and will get to talk to them next week. I do not know what I will say at any given moment. These will be personal conversations.

To what happened though we need a much broader dialogue. The original rally/march was to protest the killing of two individuals by police officers. I do not know much of the circumstances around the original killings that took place earlier in the week. Obviously there is some concern about them hence the protest that took place in downtown Dallas. By all accounts the organizers and the police had met and had made preparations for the rally and march to take place. These meetings are always a helpful beginning to make sure a normal exercise of free speech accomplishes its goals.

The shooting of the police officers though is a separate incident from the rally and I hope people realize this fact. Hate has taken over too much of our country so people want to place blame based on their hate and ignorance. This only makes the problem worse. Hate begets hate, ignorance begets ignorance. We need to stop these cycles or the whirlpool into the cesspool of evil will continue.

I went to the service they had at noon on Friday the day after the shootings. It was very hard to hear due to the noise of the news helicopters whirling overhead. Ironically I eventually I had to listen to much of it from clips and news stories. Everyone though seemed like they want to do something. Some speakers made very impassioned speeches and prayers. The big question is will we finally follow through on what was said.

And following through will be very difficult. Once you have something as large and engrained as the bigotry, ignorance and hate that permeates throughout our society, it cannot be changed overnight. We have generations of work ahead of us.  I just hope this is the time we find the will to make this work or everything this country stands for will waste away because of the hate and ignorance.  The misguided anger the shooter directed at people protecting the protesters is our future unless we, who understand, the problem start the real work.

It can start with words and prayers, but it needs action and action now. Even if we take baby steps at first it is our time to start. The tragedies will only multiply if we don’t and we may unfortunately have to fight through some more tragedies even if we start making the right steps forward. That will make it even more difficult.

And yes all sides in this endeavor have a responsibility to work towards a better country.  There is a horrible history and nothing can change that, but for the future to work all need to get involved.

We have to fight through the ignorance created by generations of ignoring what was developing that is leading to these moments; these shootings either by the police and now at the police.

This is a large country and everywhere you go there is going to be someone who should never have the role or job they own.  Sometimes it is people in management who have no idea how to manage people, sometimes it is a doctor or lawyer who somehow got by on the tests, but are unable to practically apply their knowledge and yes sometimes it is a person who has been given a job that possess a firearm that has years of ignorance bred into them about their fellow man and makes the ultimate mistake. At whatever level we cannot accept the factors that lead to people being placed in responsibilities they are not prepared for or not understanding of their role and how it affects others. Am I trying to lessen the police shootings by these examples. I hope you do not feel that way. I am trying to show we have to do more to make sure the higher the responsibility the more we need to prepare the person or learn they are not the person for the job whatever it may be. This takes more education, this takes more awareness of who we are as human beings and our failings and more positively what we can do as well.

An ignorant person filled with misguided hate has no business being a police officer. What are we going to do as a society to learn how to address these issues in the hiring and training process? And what are we going to do as a society to help a family understand there is a family member that needs help. Something has gone wrong in their brain and it needs to be addressed no matter how painful that may be or difficult because the family member is not going to cooperate with addressing either their misguided hate or mental illness that causes a person to do harm to others.

And what are we going to do to start working together to begin the real process of attacking the weeds of hate and ignorance that permeate through our society. Digging out weeds means getting to the roots of the problem and getting it all so it does not grow back. As always many people have spoken and spoken eloquently. I have heard Friday from those here and throughout the country. Everyone knows killing police officers is not the solution. Everyone knows we need to protect each and every citizen of this great country from being a victim. Unfortunately, I fear, who of us knows what to do next.

If ever there was a time for a country’s leaders to take action it is now.  And sometimes what we need to do may not please everyone. This will be the sign of real leadership. And again unfortunately we do not have the leaders in our current system that want to address the true problems facing us. Some will say the right words, but actually following through in our current self-serving group of political leadership will be interesting to see if it happens.  There are many individuals that will make the effort to do the right things. I feel very confident about that statement. I just hope the people that need to get out of their way do so we can support the right leaders in moving this country even more forward than we have already come.   

Our forefathers and Fathers did so much for us, let us continue the good fight and right this wonderful ship and bring back a sense of morality and respect for all life in our country. Each person is a wonderful human that needs to be nourished to succeed. That to me is one of the first steps we need to implement. Respect for yourself and others is what we have been given as the first step to greatness.

God bless everyone and I pray we do not have to see what happened 07/07/2016 again to move us in the right direction. I hope this is the date we truly start changing.

On secondary note, I am frustrated with some people who call themselves conservatives. Remember the root word of conservative is to conserve. Our country was founded on the principles and values that life has value and that we need to let a person flourish in life (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). We our charged with the opportunity to self-govern, that means we have a responsibility to make sure all participate with the ability to make good decisions for the common good.  If your thoughts, words, and ACTIONS do not follow through to meet these principals, how can you call yourself a conservative? It is time we continue the fight for our values here at home.

On a more extraneous secondary note, I am going to finish my story. Unfortunately, in letting myself go with the flow when I write, it is gone on a path I wasn’t prepared. I still have my ending that I originally planned, however, I may need to guide it back to this ending. I should be able to finish in one or two more posts. I have found I enjoy these bits of story writing without purpose so I hope to add a few over time. I am still working on my other stories where I do spend a bit more time developing the story. One of these days I will figure out how to make a cover fit Smashwords requirements to get included in their broader publishing so hopefully some of you can read these stories also. (and yes make a penny or two)

And finally I have been working on this throughout the day, doing a little bit here and there. I keep hoping in my humble way I might encourage you to begin the start, yet we went to another service dedicated to the slain officers, we come out and now there is a lockdown or something going on at Dallas Police headquarters. Also I just read a headline there is a shooting in San Bernardino with three killed including a 9 year-old boy. I ask again, can we make this the time we start making the changes needed?

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Open letter to Mr. Cuban

and then some un necessary advice

First:

Mr. Cuban,

Please start today, this year with a new mantra. I want a great team. Please say it again and again, I will help you. I want a great team. I do not need the flashiest free agent, I want a great team.

I do not need the flashiest free agent; I want a great team.

If you start now, maybe by next year you will be better prepared for free agency July 2017.

Yours truly,

A fanatic and concerned fan

And now for some unsolicited advice to someone who has more skins in the game than I can imagine, who has 2,000,000 to the 2,000,000^th  more basketball knowledge than I. I just wanted to suggest to Coach Carlisle that at times you might be able to still consider #41 a starter, but have him come off the bench against certain teams. Think about times when you are playing bruising power forwards with weak benches. You can start Powell at the 4, let him go toe to toe with the 4 and then have Dirk come in and light up the score board off the bench for 20 or so minutes. Yes I know this won’t work for most teams, but this might help manage some of his minutes for the next two years so we get the most out of him come April, May etc….

I am confident you will be able to guide this team to another playoff run. You always do so well with what you are given. I am hoping we might find a wing player that is real strong on defense to help Matthews and then as described above with a few games off preserve Dirk as best as possible throughout the year because unlike others I feel if a few things were different we would have had better opportunities in the playoffs lately and I think if we get another strong young wing we have good potential going forward. I think Matthews, Barnes, Anderson, and Harris to back them up give us a solid base; I just ask you kick Mr. Nelson in the shin to get another complimentary athletic player for the wing.  I know you need a good third point guard for the mix also, but if I may be so bold the wing player would be a great addition

I see 60+ points from starters and 30+ from bench, we just need to hold other teams to less than 100 on a regular basis. 

Have a great summer

Yours truly

A fanatic and half glass full fan

Happy July 4th

I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful day. Let us remember we are celebrating 240 years of a group of people saying we think there is a better way to be governed. Their ideas still offer us the best chance to move humanity forward and do the best for all. Again let us remember what we are celebrating.