Nothing but Little Things Compel Me to Blog Again

I have spent the last few years commenting quietly about the world outside my doors rather than posting blogs and making a minor nuisance of myself on the Internet. The result has been a backlog of frustrated comments passed to my longsuffering wife and those close enough to me to bear my irritability. So I have decided to take up my pen and poke some fun at the established order once again. I am returning from a hiatus that became rather extended after the tragedy and horror of 9/11 interrupted my last run at commenting on the world we all share. I largely left George W Bush to his own devices as a gesture of good will toward reconcilliation between the two parties. Of course that never happened. I have forebore to build a website during that time and largely left the blogging to others.

Just now I seem to have reached a new understanding of how badly many of our institutions are broken and how they got that way. I have some rather new ideas regarding how to fix them. So perhaps I have some things to say that might be worth writing down. My health suffered for a while over the last decade and I gained some unwanted weight. One business we owned failed and another we have participated in for many years is on the verge of dying. My wife and I moved out of Southern California and found a place we are more suited to live in that costs less and gives more back than Palm Springs. In the matrix of those and many other changes I have given a lot of thought to what is wrong with this nation today and what can be done about it. I have also had a chance to reflect on what is right and how to keep those parts of the world working.

I have decided to be more merciless in my comments and less reverent in my approach to things that simply make no sense to me. I have also determined that humor often makes a point better than anger or bitterness. So you will find more attempts to poke fun at the world than appeared in my first series of blogs. I hope you enjoy the new approach and find some of these pieces worth reading. Please comment if you feel compelled to do so, I will use your comments if I find them useful in making a point. Please remember that a merciless fox is my namesake and govern yourself accordingly in regard to your comments.

Power and authority are the most misused forces in our world today, perhaps they always have been. While I am not a high priced historian like Newt I do have some reading behind me. I certainly do know more than enough history to see the future we will create if we keep following the paths we are on today. Wealth has become far more concentrated in fewer hands than ever before in our nations history. Since none of those grasping hands are mine I am certain that this forebodes no good for most of us. At the same time I am irredeemably appalled at the governments intrusions into the daily lives of the citizenry of this nation.

My experiences with the modern medical disease that plagues this nation were particularly informative. I have a rather large backlog of statements saved up for that topic. I am at least equally appalled at the way our banks handle the trust they have been given. Our money is worth less every year and the labor most of us depend on for our incomes is worth less today than at any point in my lifetime. Greed appears to have won the day and the results, while totally predictable, are certainly worthy of comment. The nimbys have moved on from the nuclear power industry and bypassed coal to threaten wind power and solar power as nodern evils to be located far from their homes. I have a few choice words for them and their precious little sensitivities to visual pollution in a world so damaged by the real effects of pollution of our air water and land.

Homes have become more affordable again but getting a loan is not as easy as it once was, in some cases for a very good reason. Still, many reliable borrowers are not able to buy or sell a home in this market. Jobs are scarce but thankfully my children all seem to have good ones that they at least seem to enjoy. Thus none of them have appeared at my door with their broods and animals looking for a place to reside. I understand that this is a great piece of luck and not due to any merit I might have been able to impart to them but here's hoping that my lucky streak keeps going. Not all of us are as lucky as I have been in that regard.

Gardening has become one of my favorite things, helping things live and grow is a very healing act, you might try it yourself. Life is good if we live each moment as it is given to us. Largely aging over the last ten years has had an impact but the old brain still seems to be as intact as so many years of abuse could allow. There is of course room for debate regarding how well preserved it is but my daughter's vision of a pickled or smoked cerebral cortex has not come true for me as yet. My love of my life is still tolerant enough to keep me company a lot of every day, for that I have only gratitude.

Cruelty and anger are not in short supply, nor are their old friends hatred and intolerance but that is as it has been for every age of man. They are only worthy of note in passing and not dwelling on them makes life better not worse. Institutionalized versions of those symptoms of the worst nature of humans are still not in control of this nation and hopefully never will be again. Demonizing your neighbor because of their religion, politics, relative success or lack of it still is a social disease with a lot of infectious power. Thus far we have not succumbed to its siren call in spite of a political realm where that is the most common medium of exchange.

Nobody ever seems to win wars started to make the other side behave civily. Thus our adventures in fixing what is wrong in the areas of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, however well intentioned they might have been and however much merit our troops might have brought to the task, appear to be turning out badly for us. War is a last resort and not a very good choice as an instrument of social change unless you are willing to kill them all and let God sort them out. We thankfully have resisted the obvious benefits of that approach to conquest but the results of our efforts are not commensurate with the cost in both lives and money.

The Republic Benjamin Franklin and his cohorts gave us to preserve is frankly in tatters and torn by too many disputes to enumerate. Nonetheless it remains the greatest hope of the human race for some sort of resolution of the need for government that we all share. The call of Empire is powerful and man is weak and often too shallow to appreciate what a great thing the establishment of this nation was in a world of Kings and Emperors. While leaders sell their souls and bodies to the industries that exploit rather than serve the public and the price of Congress is dropping as fast on the market as is its approval rating; there are some reasons to hope we may yet survive as a nation governed by its people as the founders intended.

I find far more hope in the great unwashed action heroes of Occupy Wall Street than I do in the halls of power in Washington. The place where everyone's hands are as clean as Pontius Pilates'. Pilates is only recognized in that place as a fad aid to bettter health rather than an example to be shunned. Oh yes there will be blood in the streets before the history of this time is written no matter who prevails. Events have gone too far for any change to come via political resolution of the best sort which in my lifetime always meant compromise was reached between the two extremes.

War over the power the corporations and their owners have usurped from the people will break out and it will be bloody before it is over. There is too much to lose on both sides of this conflict. Propaganda will not continue to prevail as more and more of the middle class of this nation disappears into the invisible grasp of poverty. People with good educations and who have become used to a semblance of wealth will not go quietly into that dark place that swallows up all dignity and joy. Revolution is in the genome of this nation and as revolting as the prospect might be to some we will see it take place in most of our institutions before the history of our time is written.

Meanwhile I will quietly sit here and write down my thoughts for you to share. I hope to bring some joy along with a grand helping of humor to this task. Please feel free to send me your thoughts, even if they could be easily engraved on a grain of rice. I will attempt to turn them into more than they were ever capable of becoming on their own. May your Gods, wherever and whatever they might be bless you and keep you safe in these trying times.