“Let’s go Crazy”

Okay I am not Prince, and maybe this is just my usual ranting and railing, but America, what is it with you? Why do you let 10-15% of Trump’s alt-right insanity and the other 10-15% of the ignorant know it all elite liberals with the 1% percenters run our country (into the dirt)? I can honestly say I expect better from you.

Come on Middle America you are the majority, it is time you start flexing your muscle and quit listening and following all these groups who have and are leading this country to insanity.  It is time we stop letting 30% of this country divide us with misdirection, mis-information, self-serving missives, and just about everything except doing what is right for this country.

I know you are better than these POS criminals who are destroying our country. Time to step up and take our country back. We do not need to make America great again, we just need to get to work again. There are so many good ideas out there by you and millions like you. You do not need to be led, you need to be the leaders.

Is it difficult? Actually, I think not. If I can conjure up ideas or piece together policy for our country sitting at this computer I know you can too. It is a matter of exercising our rights and listening to ourselves instead of the madness being thrown at us so others can take advantage and thrive.

And just earlier today I was thinking of two or three ideas about improving the employment situation and thinking of ways to getting the marginalized back to work. Nothing difficult, just some basic homespun value oriented ideas to retrain the workers losing their jobs to the inevitable transition of moving forward in the 21^st century. And most of them were not original, just me realizing it can be done and we do not need hyperbole to do it.

Melancholy is a “b” of a word

Or to say the least a feeling also.

I always talk about how terrible certain people have screwed the country or try to make some input into how to make things better.

Sometimes you forget the wonderful is right in front of you.  And it can be in the simplest of actions or events.

I forget there is a future, no matter if someone does well or screws us all there will be a tomorrow.  And overall there is great potential for a good future. People do not want evil to win or bad things to happen. People find ways to survive. People find ways to achieve. People find ways to flourish.

And sometimes it is just a gathering of people that remind you of that. My generation was active, reactive, demanding, and then flopped. I should have known the deal went down when Jerry Rubin went from Yippie to Yuppie. Actually, I am being harsh, most of the Chicago 7 (8) went on to successful careers, it was his change that personified the concept of selling out a cause for something superficial. This embodied some of my anger at why people who once stood up against the machine became a cog in getting people to play along.

And of course, I am not talking about going from liberal to conservative, but continuing a fight for a better way of life. And by better way of life I am not talking being rich for being rich sake.

And this brings me back to what can happen. I went to an event this weekend, mostly young people, mostly middle class, moving up the economic ladder, all educated, and a very diverse crowd. All Americans, all happy, well some usual stresses of middle class living, but happy, glad to spend time with each other. Basically, what we think this country should look like going forward if you believe in the high ideals of our Constitution and phrase that came later in our history that we are a melting pot of the world. Again, what we, that want a better country, want to see.

Are they as politically active as we were when we were young? I do not see it. They may be, but it would have to be in their own quiet way. And for someone as politically charged as I am, this bothers me. So, I wonder, should it?

I want them to have the life they are living. I think all parents would want their children to be successful. I fear though their worlds will come tumbling down because of all the demons I rant and rave about on a regular basis. So, am I crazy to rail against the machine or is it up to them to fight their own battles for their own future?

I have my opinions and I will continue to spout them off, yet I hope these and all young people look for more practical leadership than we have now or have had for the last few decades.  I fear we have left good people a bad situation and hence a bad case of being melancholy this evening.

Or is it late Sunday night and I have no desire to deal with Monday. Ha ha ha

There are many great young people in our country. I hope they get the opportunity to be great. 

Mavericks talk

I have been thinking about the trade discussion for the Mavericks and want to chime in and also the Dallas Morning News put out their analysis today so why not.

First of all a caveat; I am a fan, not an impartial sports writer.

So remembering all too well the Rajon disaster, I do not think the Mavericks should make a trade.

Some say we should trade Bogut, yet he still can add value to this team even in this late playoff run possibility. And if we make the playoffs we would definitely need him. He has the size and is the rebounder we would need even if he only played 20-25 minutes a game. No one is going to give us an upgrade at the center position without giving up much more and right now I prefer we keep all our youth and let them sort themselves out through the rest of the year on who we want to keep.

Some say we should trade D-Will. Again we won’t get the upgrade we would want without giving up other pieces we do not want to lose. We may have two new young guards that have upside to high upside potential yet they both have one drawback and Deron helps cover this well and that is size. He is a bit bigger than Yogi and Curry and we will definitely need this and his experience if we are making an honest push to the playoffs. And we have a great guard rotation potential and so could play D-Will 20-25 minutes a game for stretches and have him healthy for the playoffs if we get there.  Yes we have five guards with Williams, Ferrell, Curry, Barera and Harris that can all contribute, yet I do not think we have one to spare. And if we did trade one, I still want real significant upside potential for now and the future. Most teams do not like making one sided trades so getting the better half of any trade right now is just wishing. And as mentioned before Rajon still haunts the memory banks. And even if he had played to capability and made serious effort he may have been good only for the year he was here.

I do not get the big bucks to be a general manager for a reason, yet I feel doing the best we can this year, keeping the youth we have, and thinking through this summer (meaning Mr. Cuban needs to worry less about big fish, but best player for team potential) and we still might a competitive team for Dirk if he decides to stay next year.  We have some pieces and finding a young solid center that can consistently give us 10 pts, 10 rebounds, and play serious defense is not a bad team to have.

I am a big believer that teams win championships, not superstars. And this is even more so with good coaching. Next year we could roll out new starting center with upside and numbers mentioned above, Barnes at the 4, Matthews at the 3 or 3 and 2 with either Anderson or Finney-Smith panning out playing the 3 some, or Powell at four and Barnes at 3, a new guard with some size and Curry and Ferrell running point and switching into the 2 spot. And yes if you noticed I didn’t mention Dirk starting so Dirk stays and plays 4 and 5 off the bench and wins the 6 man award on a strong competitive team.  Or he starts with Barnes at three and Matthews starting at 2 and helping with 3 as Barnes helps with 4.  As you can see we have some really good potential and nice options going forward. So keep the team this year with Bogut and Williams; really work through all the young players to find out who has best potential, if necessary make trades in the off season or free agency for either the center or guard that may be needed, evaluate the draft class to determine if you want to use pick in trade or keep stocking youth to really look forward to the future.

I think Barnes is part of the present and future in a big way; Matthews is the present and near future in a big way; Curry and Ferrell also can be big for the future; keeping the best four or five best young players out of the bunch we currently have coming from the bench; finding a stud at center, doesn’t necessarily have to be a superstar yet have upside and strength; find Dirk’s role for next year and we can have a good to great year next year and then growing better years post Dirk.

Yes I am a fan, so optimism is part of my nature. I do see the potential and am excited for now and going forward. The only coaching decision I want to throw in is to start lowering Barnes and Matthews minutes a bit. I know we need them on the floor as much as possible, yet every season is long and keeping them healthy is important.

I see problems for Oklahoma and Houston if either of their star players plays too many minutes throughout the season. May not be good for either if they aren’t healthy at end of season. This may apply to Cleveland too. There is some tread wear on Mr. James’s shoes.

Spring came early here in North Texas so now worried about bugs and allergies, a little bit of snow would have been nice.

And if you ask me moderation is a four letter word.    Cheers

This is why

Slapping this together in a hurry as always, but wanted to say something while everything is still somewhat fresh.

None too pleased with the Republicans right now. People keep wanting me to be a Republican because I am a conservative, yet I keep trying to tell people the Republicans are not really conservative. Well correction; many of the rank and file are, but the leadership at the national level is not. And not only are they not conservatives they continue to prove repeatedly they do not care about our country, our future, or actually what any sane person may think of them.

For example, think about what one of our country’s needs: better education. I hate slamming educators as a whole because many of them are very good. I am talking about the overall concept of education by Republicans in D. C. Shoot you would have thought that the business leaders would have actually stepped up and said do not confirm the appointment of Ms. DeVos. They are always saying we cannot find the people we need or find people who are trained or educated enough for the jobs we have. Yet nope, no lobbying for sanity in our country. And of course, the go along to get along Republican leadership rubber stamped the horrible choice for Secretary of Education.

We need to overhaul the public education system of this country. And as a conservative I believe much of that overhaul needs to come at the local level. I truly do, yet we need to make major changes at the national level to give our local public schools the help they need to be successful.

Instead we confirm a person who has no concept of the problems many school districts face. Our future is how well we educate our youth. Our education needs to be well rounded and do more than teach to standardized tests. Ask any decent educator and they will tell you these tests interfere with real education. We need to improve math and science yet also civics, history, arts, physical education, literature, and most important the ability to communicate well.

Corporate leaders truly know how important it is for new employees to be able to communicate with upper management or across great distances. Email scandals aside, corporations need their managers and workers to be able to express complex thoughts to each other and email is still the major form of communication in corporate America. How many times has someone made a mistake or wrote something that wasn’t clear in an email? How much time and effort was spent trying to clarify the meaning? Sometimes it is cleared up quickly. Sometimes it is days later that the mistake or mis-communication is discovered. Writing well is important. And yet some school districts are graduating students who have what is determined to be 7^th and 8^th grade reading and writing comprehension skills. And the determination of what is 7^th and 8^th grade is based on older models. Quite frankly we are regressing by holding onto the same standards. The levels of measurement must move on an upward gradient scale. We must improve to succeed. Mr. Trump keeps talking about making America great again. His choice for Secretary of Education proves he does not care at all about the future of America at all, much less making it great.

And I prefer to be an independent conservative than to join the charade shoved down the rank and file Republicans who hang onto a misguided hope the National Republican Party has their best interest at heart.  And then there are the Republicans who are so accustomed to being told what is good for them they have no idea how to think critically and so misunderstand the message they are receiving is in sharp contrast to the actions being taken against them. IE the election of Mr. Trump.

So I believe conservatives care about our country, our values, our society, want to share these values with others so they too want to participate and contribute. I believe you can maintain a value system and still transition with the times. A successful business person certainly understands this or they run the risk of going out of business. Conservatives feel strongly about protecting the community and having a say in what is going in in their cities and towns. And this is good.

Holding onto the past is counter-productive to being a great country. The real task of a conservative is to maintain a core value system that protects the overall strength and good of the community and country and still moves forward incorporating changes that can benefit the whole and includes more and more people. The more we grow and share our values the stronger we become. Relying on others to tell us what is right is counter-productive to being a good conservative. Conservatives understand greed, hate, ignorance, self-serving interests or choosing the few over the many are dangerous traits to a Republic like ours. Conservatives strive to find the best people to do the best in any endeavor that is needed. Unfortunately, the National Republican Party has forgotten all this and this is why I cannot be a Republican. Ms. DeVos appointment and confirmation is an ugly and glaring example of this problem.

Just a thought

We are given eyes and a sense of wonder. I wonder why we are still using FOSSIL fuels.

The Paranoid Posts briefly revised and other stuff

I read an article the other day that said Russia and the USA owned 90% of the world’s nuclear arsenal. Well I do not know how true that is (you know … facts nowadays), but it got me to wondering. What if all these accusations about Russia and Trump were a bit different than presumed by the I know more than you elite liberals.

Let’s say one day Donnie boy and Vlad were hanging out doing shots of cheap potato liquor and playing Risk. The board game Risk.(it is a copyrighted game) For those of you who don’t know, this is where you can conquer the world with little plastic pieces and dice. Unfortunately, no nukes, but Vlad says Donnie let us do this for real. You run for President, I help you win and we slice and dice up the globe like we are today; only this time it is for keeps. Donnie loving the cheap shots agrees whole heartedly. And lo and behold we now have Russia stepping up the aggression in Ukraine while Mr. Trump builds walls on our southern border because every good risk player knows capturing Ukraine is one of the keys to Asia and Europe to receive all the extra bonus armies. I bet Vlad won the original game that afternoon because sooner or later owning Asia and Europe gives you much more bonus armies than South America. And there is a great advantage to have extra armies to lose in the throwing of dice or maybe nukes.

There is this car commercial about the car buying experience sucking,,,, the commercial sucks.

Come Sunday while Ukraine falls to team Asia because of the 6s Vlad throws; America will be watching something called the big game. My thoughts are why do so many people care when their team is not in it. And yes I am a hypocrite, I will be watching, but the fanfare and hoopla beforehand is still beyond belief. I am an unabashed Cowboys fan so once they lost my level of football watching tumbles to almost nothing. And again I am amazed at how many people who don’t follow football will be watching, just because it is the big game and the big party.  Can you name more than one or two players on either team?  Seriously I can’t. If my team was in it, I grant you I would be preoccupied with everything going on, but otherwise why are so many people obsessed with teams they normally do not care about. Confounds me.

And yes I would like to see Atlanta win, I hope they do. And I hope they win overwhelmingly. I mean straight forward ugly rout. My fear(this is the paranoid posts) is the opposite will happen. I fear it will be over quickly and won’t be merciful until late in the second half. Whatever the result only the fans in two different cities or regions will really care. The rest of us will get up and go to work on Monday and discuss ads and music.

And supposedly it will be a big deal out sin city way, there will be betting mania on all sorts of craziness or at least that is what the good doctor use to describe many years ago. Whether it still goes on that way, I do not know. One day I may head out there for this weekend and find out for myself, yet even then I will probably stick to very basic bets on the game.

I can only hope that someday soon I will get to say go Cowboys on the first Sunday in February. And yes on that day I will care.

Jon Daly is off his game, if not a bit off. He rambled around on TV tonight and eventually ended with a half way decent point. I hope for better than his eventual point, yet at least we can hang onto that hope as a last resort.

I know everyone is talking about the legalization of marijuana, yet the problem for the liberals is most potheads cannot keep up with crack heads and meth addicts which seems to be the drug of choice for a different crowd nowadays.  While the liberals are all running around being cool, the rug is being pulled out from under them by people moving much much faster than they can imagine. Only problem is meth tends to burn people out very quickly while making them very mean and eventually taking out large swaths of others with them. The liberals and unfortunately the rest of us are in very serious trouble.

The better half is not talking to me anymore, she feels I have gone completely doomsday in my thoughts and is tired of all my fear mongering. Why can’t we give him a chance she asks? So I tried and then I remembered his current address on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The more technologically advanced we become, the more we screw ourselves. Sheesh everything is being hacked and we just give away our access like flower petals. And the more convenient it is, the easier for the bad guys. Trump is right, maybe less on computers is better. Easier to hide secrets, paper can be burned.

And as I always say there is a difference between being conservative and being far right. The verbiage gets played on the same record sometimes, but the end of the album is completely different.

And finally I need to pull my head out of my backend. I recently wrote a post about a wonderful future of space exploration and exploitation. And oops, there is a show on the Syfy channel that has taken that thought to full fruition with normal human conflict and everything else. I saw the ad for the show the other night. Oh well, two years behind as always.

It is too warm here in North Texas for January for too long. Hate to see two ultra-mild winters in a row. It is nice to have a bit of snow every now and then.