The Thinking Tinker

Thinking

I don’t ‘think’ that schools are teaching students of today how to think.

My wife, after noticing that I was in the kitchen and on my way back to the living room asked me to bring her a ‘couple’ of cookies. So, knowing my wife and knowing that, even though she asked for ‘a couple’ I brought her four cookies, not just two. Did I mishear her? Or did I think that she really wanted ‘several’ cookies?

I just bought a smoker for meat. My smoker is big enough for two large pieces of meat, so I put two large chunks of meat in the smoker since I would be using the same amount of wood pellets for one piece of meat as I would for two. Was I ‘thinking’?

I was prepping the washing machine for a load of ‘unmentionables’ and did not have enough for a full load, so I thought my wife might have some to wash also and that might make a full load. Was I thinking?

Students of today are not taught how to think. I have a guy that I work with that is usually a thinking person, but when it comes to former President Trump, he becomes very ignorant. They named it ‘Trump derangement syndrom’. My associate, we’ll call him Sean, is usually a thinking man and, I might respect his opinion at times if he actually ‘thought’ more and hated less. I posted a photo of a Tesla EV car with a windmill mounted on the hood as a ‘California’ EV special. I was making fun of the state of California. You see, the governor of the state of California, Gavin Newsom, passed a law stating that no car with an internal combustion engine could be bought in the state after the year 2035. Making the only car you could buy an EV vehicle. The same week as that announcement, Californians were instructed ‘not’ to charge their EV’s because the electric grid can’t handle the load of charging them. The state has a large number of EV’s, but it is very small number compared to the total number of cars in the state.

Now, a thinking man would see a problem in this instance. Unless the state of California makes changes to strengthen and enlarge the electric grid, you will force a large number of citizens to be stranded, forced to walk or take public transportation. Yet we don’t see the state trying to prepare for the future. My associate, Sean, thinks that all is good. He believes that this is the path to the future and I am just afraid of change. This proves he is not a thinking man. So, if you have accepted the pablum from CNN, NBC, CBS and the NY Times, then stop reading now. Otherwise, you may need to grab your emotional support hamster and go to the nearest cry room because you are not capable of actually ‘thinking’.

My friend Sean said that I am still free to buy whatever I want and that the law passed in California doesn’t effect me. But is he right? First, the governor of California does not have the constitutional right to forbid a type of car from being sold in the state. At least it should be up for a vote by the citizens. Next, that eliminates choice. In a free society, people have a choice. Only socialists eliminate choices. Next, a gas powered car can stop in a gas station and refuel in several minutes whereas an EV takes hours atm. Next, I never said EV’s are bad and I am not preventing others from buying one if that is what you want. The technology has made vast improvements since 1910. Yes, there was an electric vehicle manufactured in 1910 that had a top speed of 25mph and a range of 100 miles. It was called the Detroit Model D Electric, look it up. Now, I have alot of respect for Elon Musk and his Tesla roadster with a top speed of 250 mph and a range of about 600 miles on a charge. But every choice has its limitations. Depending on temperature, charging time is 8.5 to 10 hours. (Tesla model 3) or 14 hours (Tesla model X) and if you need to replace the battery, that will run $10,000 USD or more, not including instalation. Then there is the cost to install a special charging station in your garage as you wont be just plugging in an extention cord to charge it. Then, the strangest thing… where does electricity come from? (Only a public school educated bubble headed moron will say ‘from the wall’. Most electricity is created by fossil fuels (coal, natural gas) and since we can’t build nuclear power plants, wind AND solar represent less than 15% of electricity. The batteries for EV’s can not be fully recycled yet…YET. But they are working on solutions. Like I said, technology is improving, so why not supliment our power needs by utilizing both responsibly?

More thought needs to go into EV’s, but the technology is here. There is a place for it in society. Remember the VCR? My wife and I had to finance our first VCR. Then, the last one we bought was from Walmart for around $50 dollars. It will take time. But the answer is not forcing everyone to buy one, but rather let the free market dictate its place in our society. A new Toyota Prius starts at $25,000 on up. A Tesla model 3 starts at $38,000. Reasonable for the technology in them. And the more genuine demand for them, the more manufacturers will invest in research and developement which will spur innovation.

However, I wont be getting rid of my 1992 Ford F250 HD truck and replacing it with a Tesla anytime soon. I can fill the tank in about 5 minutes. I have a 30 gallon tank with an average of 18 mpg. The truck was not made for hauling 1 or 2 people but for hauling cargo. Trips to the dump, hardware store, nursery for trees and shrubs, and hauling a camper or a boat. Your Toyota Prius wont be used to haul a ton of clean fill dirt for your landscaping needs. It is also impracticle to drive my truck just to drive 5 or 10 miles to work everyday. Your needs will dictate your choices. Don’t you think people should have chices?

Thinking is hard, so is ignorance. Choose your hard. Yes I make fun of EV’s, but only because I can ‘think’ ahead and see the clues. Gas powered cars are not evil and neither are the owners that choose to drive them. The same way that EV owners are not evil. Each serve a purpose. But ask yourself, try a thinking excersize, which will still be driven in 50 years, a Ford Bronco SUV made in 2022 or a Toyota Prius made in 2022? Or maybe, in 50 years they will have perfected Mr. Fusion from ‘Back to the Future’ where a partial can of beer and a banana peal will generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to power your car. Short of that, screw your feelings. My coffee is stronger than your feelings and I don’t give a flying rats ass about your feelings. Instead of emotions, I think.

Warning, this article may insult you…I don’t care.

I was recently gifted an old Asaia Honeywell Pentax 35mm camera. I belong to an online social group centered around the ‘submariner’(R) style watch. A fellow member had inherited this camera and did not know what to do with it. After mentioning that I had one very similar to it back in High school (1977) he gifted it to me. It needed a little maintenance around the battery compartment (it used an old lead button battery to power the built in light meter which has become out of production since) and after some simple research, I found a supplier of a replacement alkaline button battery. I also found that Ilford still manufactured 35mm film in my favorite medium, black and white. And now I was ready to take some pictures. A flood of memories came to the surface as I loaded the 35mm film.

As a child, my parents had purchased something big that came in a large cardboard box and, like a child I found that cardboard box to be fuel for my childish imagination. A place to hide from God, a rocketship to a planet of all girls, a clubhouse for me and the inside of a camera. Actually, I was inside of a very simple ‘pinhole’ camera. There was a small hole in the side which was the only light in that dark box. And I noticed my dog ‘Chief’ on the inside wall opposite the hole. I could see the grass, trees and my dog playing in perfect clarity. But the picture was upside down. It was like a projector was playing life in full color but had been set up upside down.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was actually inside the basis of a camera.

About that time, a breakfast cereal that I liked, I forget which one, has a special deal at that time. If you sent in a certain number of boxtops and a small amount of money, presumably to cover the cost of shipping, they would send you a camera. I remember it was a simple camera that used a film size called 120 and the film came on a large paper covered roll that you loaded. I became the scurge of the house, taking pictures of everything, including a picture of me mother scrubbing the toilet (eww!) The power that I had to capturea moment on film for everyone to see for future reference, and yes, 50+ years later that very picture of my mother scrubbing the toilet still exists much to her dismay.

Then, in Jr High School, I begged my parents for a Minolta Weathermatic A waterproof camera in 110 cartridge film size. And on Christmas, even though ouf family was not rolling in money, I recieved that camera.I had wanted to become an Oceanographer/Marine Biologist and loved to swim. And I got my chance to do what I loved one day at a place called Marineland California. They had an attraction called ‘The Baja Reef’ in which you could don a wetsuit and swim through four seperate areas filled with different types of fish from California rays to colorful Gerabaldi fish. My mothertook me there and I took a whole roll of pictures underwater with that camera, snorkeling down amongst the fishes.

And my interest in photography did not end there, no. I High School, I took photography class and my parents got my a 35mm camera from a pawn shop. An Asaia Honeywell Pentax screw mount camera that I used in two semesters of Photography class. The only computer we had in our cameras was our brain. Some, like me and my camera, had a light meter but you still had to know how to use the light meter, how to set the shutter speed and aperture ring for optimum picture quality.

With the gifting of a camera very similar to the camera I had in 1977, I still knew how to use the settings to take pictures and, with a little refresher course in developing, I can process my own 35mm film negatives. I have a digital single lens reflect camera. It is a Nikon D530, but I ask, while looking at that suprised snapshot of my mother cleaning over 50 years ago and I still have my grandfathers negatives of pictures he tookalmost 90 years ago, I have to wonder if a picture I take with my digital camera will be viewed and/or valued in 50 years? Also, look at the creativity and knowledge lost in the digital age. Anyone can purchase a digital camera that does it all but press the shutter release for you. Now, you dont even need to buy a camera since there is a built in camera in your cell phone. Now everyone feels like they are a photographer.But look at the knowledge lost. I had to leard how a camera works, how to use light like a pain brush to create a moment in time. The lens in my camera is the size of a soupcan compared to the lens of a cell phone. And no matter how good digital photography becomes, it can’t compare to the clarity and versatility of film photography. I have to ask again, in 80 or more years, how many digital pictures will still exist, be viewed and charished as much as the negatives like my grandfather left me? Or the 50+ year old embarasing photo of my mother cleaning.

The digital progress has made us all dumber and more reliant on digital technology. Your cell phone is no longer a tool but a device of worship. How long can you go without your cell phone? When was the last time you looked up something in an actual dictionary or read an actual book? The periodicles of old have been replaced by digital content. Even this blog post is created on an iPad for posting on the internet. How lost would we Americans be if the internet was somehow turned off? Could you survive in a non digital world? How stupid have we allowed ourselves to become?

How do you fight a fire?

When I was in the 3rd grade, my school had a fireman visit my class. He told us all about basic fire safety and gave us a booklet. When he came back the next day, he gave everyone a quiz. I had read the booklet and learned about the hazard of an electrical octopus. An outlet strip with way too many electrical devices plugged in. I passed the quiz and was granted unofficial Fire Marshal status. My uncle was a fire fighter in San Jose for decades when he retired as a fire captain. Then in Jr High School, I joined the Sea Cadets, kind of like Boy Scouts sponsored by the US Navy. A fire on board a ship is a big deal, so I had to study about fire suppression and fire fighting on board a US Navy Vessel. Now I am not a fire fighter nor a real Fire Marshal, but I do remember what I read when in the Cadets. Do you know the answer? How do you fight a fire? Answer: you have to understand what started the fire before determining the tools you will use to attack. The three things that feed a fire are oxygen, heat and fuel. A simple wood or paper fire and you can use water, CO2, a simple ABC fire extinguisher. An electrical fire requires CO2, Halon ABC extinguisher (a white powder that basically suffocates the fire). Do not use water on a live electrical fire as water and electricity don’t mix well. You also don’t want to use water on a gas fire. (It takes alot of training to be able to do that because gas and water don’t mix and the gas floats on top of the water) Fight fire with fire, water, foam dirt or whatever works. So the basic answer to the question is anything and everything it takes to put out the fire quickly.

So how do you fight communism? Communism, liberalism, progressivism, socialism its all different variations of the same thing. Answer: with everything you got, fair and unfair, whatever it takes to quell the enemy of socialism. We have, in Congress right now, many republicans and conservatives that want to be ‘a kinder gentler’ type of politician. I call them wussies, cowards, milktoasts, mats. Ronald Reagan said it best when he said we need boldness not pastel conservatism. Create a bold contrast to what the left extremists are doing. We needed to see politicians fight back against the lies. The American people were subjected to daily lies perpitrated against a man before he even became president. No one, not even many in the republican party would investigate. So here we are, 6 years later, after a year of campaigning, 4 years of a presidency and nearly 2 years of a failed, feckless, mentally impared administration lead by Joe Biden and the American citizens are now beginning to feel the failure. Gas prices unnecisarily at an all time high, the national average today, May 18, 2022 is over $4.50 per gallon with many areas like California closer to $6.00. Diesel is at around $6.00 to $7.00 per gallon. Limited bread and a major shortage of baby formula. (How can we be experiencing a shortage of baby formula when breast milk is better for our babies?) Beef and poltry shortages and empty food shelves all can be attributed to Joe Biden telling Americans that we as a country can not pump our own oil even though we have over 200 years worth of oil under our feet not to mention the amount of clean burning natural gas that we have available domestically. Higher taxes is driving corporations away after Donald Trump brought many of those corporations back. And Vladimir Putin embolden to attack Ukraine after the monumental failure of the American withdrawl from Afganistan which left billions of high tech weapons to our enemy and many American citizens still trapped behind enemy lines to die at the hands of our enemies. High inflation, high interest rates which will lead to massive unemployment and a real estate crash paralleled only by the great depressionjust a century ago. AND WE DESERVE WHAT WE HAVE because most everyone believed the now proven lies perpatrated over these many years. So much shock and investigation into the January 6th riots, some imprisoned citizens are still awaiting trial all while no one wanted to investigate the hundreds of violent protests by BLM and ANTIFA. No one seems to care about the war on law enforcement and the defund the police groups. Now, at the time of this writing, Denver CO is the worst place to own a car with over 100 cars per day being stolen just in the Denver Metro area. All crimes are up, police are retiring and leaving when they can when we need MORE not less of them. In 2001 we celibrated the bravery of our police and firefighters and promised never to forget the evil that perpitrated America that day, now groups of anarchists chant pigs in a blanket fry them like bacon, throw frozen water bottles and bricks at them and sometime flat out ambush them and murder them. Is this the America you want?

The pattern is clear to those with a brain and are willing to use it. The country is broken and those in power see an opportunity to gain more power. If 2024 sees the election of a conservative president, It is like a skin diver trying to swim upstream while sharks are swimming downstream. That person will have to fix what the democrats in Washington have broken. It took Donald Trump a couple of years to start to fix what was broken and we were rewarded with record employment among all groups, low taxes, low inflation, a growing stock market and economy with restrictions on illegal aliens being a burden to the American taxpayer. It has only taken mr. sippy cup nappy nap Biden less than 2 years to break what Trump did AND break Barrack H Obama’s record of increasing the deficeit all while passing more Presidential fiats than any other president ever. And watching Biden is less exciting than watching grass grow in the desert because he can’t talk coherently, probably from advanced dimentia.

Our country is on fire. How do you put out the fire? With everything you got, fair and unfair.

How do democrats view woman?

Prominate democrates can not identify or define what a woman is, so how can they have any reasonable views to effect laws that effect them? I leaned before kindergarten the difference between girls and boys. That difference still holds true today. A woman has internal plumbing where boys have external plumbing. Scietifically, a female has XX chromosomes where males have the XY chromosomes. The chromosomes are encoded in the DNA at the moment of conception. (Because I know this, am I smarter than the democrats that can’t define a woman?). So these so called defenders of what they can’t define are up in arms over abortion rights, however they claim women have fewer rights than men. Really? The ultimate right to life is being denied to women by another woman. Science, true real science recognizes that abortion ends the life of a viable baby. In New York, the mother can opt to have an abortion AFTER THE BABY HAS BEEN BORN. The dictionary defines that as infanticide.

Infanticide:

1: The act of killing an infant.

2: The practice of killing newborn infants.

3: One who kills an infant.

The average ratio of men to women is about 50/50 worldwide, so that equates to 50% of abortions kills a viable woman. How can you claim to be the arbiter of womens rights when you clearly support the murder of women before they have the right to a life? How can they claim to know what is right for a woman when they can’t define what one is?

So, lets look at what will actually happen if the supreme court reverses Roe v Wade. The subject of abortion will be sent back to the states as a state right issue as there IS NO CONSITUTIONAL RIGHT TO A TAXPAYER FUNDED ABORTION. These same democrats claim that women that want an abortion will have to travel to a state that allows said abortion, but these democrats are busing illegal aliens to other states and expecting those states taxpayers to pay for and support these law breaking immigrants. (Isn’t it already against the law to assist people in breaking the law? So isn’t the democrats assisting and thereby supporting the breaking of Federal laws against illegal alien imigration?)

Protecting womens rights? When they support a man who that day identifys as a woman to participate in womens sports and win against real women, how is that supporting womens rights? (What if I, as a biological man, claim to identify as a woman and therefore have a right to go into a female locker room just to be able to see nude or semi nude women. Should I have the right to do that?)

It is what the liberals always do. Claim to help the very people that they hurt and wrap it up in emotionally charged rhetoric.

Example, the war on poverty has only increased the number of dependants on government. The war on drugs has only increased the number of people in prison for drug crimes. I call it the war on imigration has only encouraged millions of illegal aliens ( that is the proper legal term as the first act of an illegal alien is to break our countries soveignty law and they are an alien who did not enter this country legally)

And dont forget the war on the Constitution in which liberals must chip away at in order to secretly make you more dependant on government by persuading you to give up your constitutional rights given to you by God, not by man.

Scientific fact: an abortion stops a beating heart. To knowingly and purposefully stop a beating heart is murder. By making it a psuedo right, taxpayers fund it. Besides, if the Supreme court reverses Row v Wade, it will NOT mean abortions are made illegal. What will happen is what should have happened so many years ago…it becomes a States issue and not a Federal one. It means that states like New York will still allow infanticide by killing a baby after birth, Colorado passed similar legislation allowing abortion well after the first, second and well into the third trimester and Texas can say that once there is a heartbeat, you can’t kill the baby.

Dont become blinded by emotion but use reason to see the truth. That is the difference between a sheep and a person.

Death of knowledge

“They are allowed because they are a private corporation” they say about large social platforms like  Twitter, Facebook, Google and others. These platforms have become so entwined into our society, that  you could not function without them. Gone are the days of long research in libraries or reading  microfiche reels in library basements. We no longer buy or use encyclopedias or dictionaries. We all  have volunteered to carry locator beacons on us everywhere we go. Try going a day without your  cellphone. That handheld computer with a phone application has become so ingrained in our society  that we ‘worship’ it. Technology was supposed to be mankind’s servant, but our society has become so  dependent on technology that we have become slaves to it. We use our android or apple phones to give  us directions, research information, take pictures, read books, obtain our news, watch movies and make  phone calls. We rely on them so much that the owner of Google has become one of the richest people in  the world. Those that control the flow of information control society. Now, you can become banned on  Google for posting verifiable truth because that information does not conform to the narrative of  Google. And because Google and all other platforms are privately owned, they have the right to  maintain and censor its content. What is worse, is we know it, we see it yet we do not force these  owners to stop it. Our government not only allows this, but they encourage it. 

It is an old idiom, “those that do not study history are doomed to repeat it”. Yet we do nothing to study  our own history. Our current society has not been taught nor do they care to know our own countries  short history of a little more than 200 years. That makes it easier to erase opposing thoughts thereby  washing history. So let us take a short look at the lost knowledge of mankind and see the scope of just  how ignorant we humans are. 

If you were to perform a simple Google search you would find that to manufacture and smelt aluminum  from bauxite, it is a very complicated process requiring great controlled temperatures and the control of  electricity. But the Chinese were making aluminum decorations over 2000 years ago. Titanium require heat of over 1800 degrees Celsius to smelt it, yet titanium jewelry has been found in  tombs over 2000 years old in the middle east. In the Baghdad museum, there is evidence of a dry  battery that is 1600 years old. During the Roman empire, there is evidence of bendable glass. Known as  vitrium flexile, some glass craftsmen knew how to manufacture glass that would not break if it was  dropped or hit. 

There is evidence that pre Colombians were experimenting with airplanes. There is gold jewelry that  shows almost perfect dimensions of a powered airplane. About the same time in Egypt, a model was  found with proper aerodynamics for flight. Lumir Janku wrote a whitepaper on these in 1996 on how  

these ancient models had proper dimensions for flight. One piece of jewelry actually showed an engine  with a pivot so thrust could be reversed with the same “engine” that was used to get the aircraft into  flight. 

This information was not taught to me. The closest I came to understanding the pre-Columbian airplane  was in a television program call “Chariots of the Gods” and they seemed to get it wrong with the  postulation that they were space ships from ‘outer space’. 

I had to search for this information. So I asked myself what happened to this information and why is  mankind seeming to be behind the eightball, so to speak. 

Is it possible that there have been times of great knowledge purge? 

In Alexandria during the Roman Empire, the great bathhouse in Alexandria were heated by burning  scrolls from the great museum which were thought to be useless or redundant information. Even the  possability of opposition ideas were thought to have been burned as well. 

Tiberius Caeser was afraid that bendible glass might deminish the value of gold and other precious  metals and jewels as this bendible glass might become more valuable, so he had the knowledge of  bendable glass destroyed and the craftsmen killed. In Germany prior to and during WWII, mass book  burnings of books from libraries, private collections and stores were burned that had opposing 

viewpoints and ideologies. All books authored by Jews were burned, Eventually all books that did not  support Hitler and Nazi-ism were burned. The Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot had a great knowledge  purge by murdering anyone thought to be educated. Anyone with any education, glasses, knew how to  read and write were murdered. Approx 2 million people died during this great knowledge purge. Socialism, communism, liberalism, nationalism almost always started with the control of education.  Any opposition were victims of executions, forced famine, forced manual labor or deportation.  Democide (look it up) politicide and classicide are the tools used by tyrants and communist throught  world history. Look up the 1849 article by Friedrich Engles about the Hungarian struggle to see a small  example of that thought process. It requires the abandonment of civil rights protections and individual  freedom. 

Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates may or may not have set out to assist political tyrants and American socialist but by their actions and money, they are ushering in yet another knowledge purge.

The old ways

10; 9; 8; … 3; 2; 1 lift off. As a kid, I, along with many other children and adults, followed along with the Apollo space craft program. Our 2 or 3 astronauts riding a rocket ship into space, going bravely into the unknown with the knowledge that all the components for the Apollo series space capsules were made by the lowest bidder.

The TV would show a control room of what seemed like 50 men in white short sleeve shirts with pocket protectors sporting several pens, pencils and red markers staring at their computer screens or TV screens and reel to reel computers with less computing power than one of the first smart phones. And what makes this American accomplishment even more astounding is that the engineers of that space capsule used slide rules the design it. Every piece had to fit perfectly or our astronauts would be dead shortly after lift off. It was not like the engineers could take out their iPhone and ask SIRI to calculate the trajectory of the booster rocket after seperation. They had to do it with a slide rule. (Go ahead and ask google what a slide rule is)

The analog wrist watch is a marvel to observe. What is even more amazing is the engineering that went into making that watch. I am not taking about the quartz watch that uses a small piece of quartz crystalto maintain its timing, I am talkingabout the manually wound spring watches with many small gears and cogs and a prcisely made mainspring to maintain time so accurately that you might gain or loose a second every week. Think of the precision and skill needed to manufacture a Swiss timepiece like a Rolex or Tudor. Like the old TV commercial for Timex said “…it takes a liking and keeps on ticking”

As a sailor in the US Navy back in the early 1960’s, my father served on board a destroyer, the USS Robison DDG-12. He was among the deck crew and as such had to learn certain skills to maintain the ships effectiveness. One of those skills was of course knot tying and leather work. The deck crew had to not only know how to tie specific knots, but also untie the knots in a second or cut a line (rope) in a flash of an eye. So the members of the deck team had to have a knife that was always sharp. Not just sharp, but so sharp you could shave with that knife. Since you needed to keep that knife at the ready, a sheath that had a flap to retain the knife was useless because of the time it took to unfasten the snap was time needed to cut the rope, it could mean your life or the life of a fellow crewman. So the need for a reliable leather sheath that could retain the knife yet still be able for easy accesability is apparent. Each sailor had to cut, shape and sew his own sheath from a pattern that was based on the knife that sailor chose to buy. I aquired the leather sheath that my father made. After some rubbing and buffing with some saddle soap, the sheath still looks good, the stitching (which you cant see as it is what was known as a hidden stitch to protect the stitching from wear) is still tight and the knife still fits in that sheath after 60 years and firmly retains that knife when inverted and shook.

I am sad to say that we, as a society, have lost and continue to loose the skills and knowledge that made us who we are. Yet there are still pockets of people that know these skills like farmers, tradesman, sailors and …. our elderly. Think of the wealth of knowledge we loose every day. Our society has become dependant on computers and have lost the ability to provide for themselves.

I am, what some may say, is the oreo generation. The last of the ‘baby boomers’. The ones that still remember the old ways and know the new ways. Yes, it is true that I write this article on an iPad connected to the internet and shared around the world to those that might be interested, but I make my own pens, I write in cursive with a fountain pen that I made, I wear an analog watch made in Japan that winds itseld with the movement of my hands, I shave with a safety razor and just yesterday, I made my own leather sheath for my own knife patterned after my dads that he made so long ago. I tried to locate a copy of the book that my dad had in the Navy that taught the skills needed to tie knots, work with leather and canvas only to find it is no longer available, not even the vintage books. Once these skills are gone, it is unlikely to be used or discovered again, yet these very skills and abilities are what made us what we are. Now, our leather work is done by slave labor in a Chinese work camp, bought by us in America because we can’t do it ourselves. We had better learn to provide for ourselves before it is too late and our sources of knowledge are gone. Just like in the book ‘The Time Machine’ when our victorian time traveler traveled far into his/our future only to find that the eloi, the child like surface dwellers who had life so easy, they had neglected their education. Their books of knowledge had turned to dust and they, the eloi had become the sheep for the morlocks who devoured them. Todays American society are fast becoming the eloi and the morlocks are everywhere. Those that do not study history….

We were already engaged to be married when she became pregnant. Nobody knew that she was several months pregnant when she walked down the isle in that beautiful dress to say the words “I do”. And it was that moment that we started our partnership. How naive I was, and immature. Reality has a way of slapping you in the face to get your attention, and just a few short months after we both said “I do”, she was in the hospital prematurely giving birth to our daughter. She was born under two pounds, and at the time, the hospital had a policy of not trying to save any child born less than two pounds. She was just a few ounces shy of that two pound marker. I got to hold my daughter in my arms and for just a moment, our eyes locked and I was overcome with grief, not for me but for her. She lived just a few short hours and I am secure in the knowledge that I will see her again, in heaven on a playground that God made for children, forever young and innocent. I see her in my minds eye in a yellow dress and I know that, when my lifeclock stops and I am in heaven, I will be brought to that playground and she will know me.

But even after having to goto the funeral home and make the preperations for my daughter, I was still immature. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, not really one or the other but internally fighting to stay immature. On the outside, I looked the part and I was happy, but I know that my beautiful young wife was more mature than I.

The doctor told us that if we wanted to hame more children, we needed to follow some medical advice, and we did. And she became pregnant again. Nine months later, I had a son. Yet I was still immature. I was angry that I now had to share my wifes attention, not at my son, but at the realization that I was unprepared for reality. Then, maternaty leave was over and my wife had to go back to work. She worked the “graveyard” shift. That meant she left home at around 10:00 pm and returned home shortly after 7:00 am. So after she left for work, I was responsible for baby duty. It was a few days after my wife returned to work, and it was late, or was it really early, I wasn’t fully awake to remember, but he was choking on something. I panicked and reached my finger in to scoop out what he was chocking on. I was awake then. As I held him to make sure he was alright, I was swept away. Like standing on a beach as a wave crashes over you and the undertow grabs your ankles and pulls you under. I was swirling under, fighting to come up for air. All of my memories of the time spent with my father was slapping me, tugging at me, trying to bring me to the realization that I was no longer a child. I loved my dad, I hated my dad, I reveared and feared my dad. I was awash in memories and the stark realization that he, at one point, realized he was responsible for me. As I broke the surface of those memories and had to swim to shore, as I stepped out of the ocean of memories onto the shore, I became a dad. It seemed to take an hour, but in reality, it was just a short moment. But in that moment, I was no longer a child, I was a dad.

I now have two sons. Both of them have found wives and have created families and lives of there own. My sons have loved my, hated me, reveared and feared me. I am blessed as my dad is still kicking. He has 4 great grand children. My sons are a great source of pride to me as they are good husbands and great dads. Their children love their fathers and will grow to love, hate, revear and fear their fathers and my fathers legacy lives in them, but I will always remember the moment that reality grabbed me by the ankles, pulled me under an ocean of memories and slapped me awake. I went in as an immature “pre-man” and emerged a dad.

Thank you dad for not a puddle or tub of memories, but an ocean, enough to bring me to dadhood.

With or from

Have you ever taken an online IQ test? I have taken these intensive tests 3 times since college, and the ones that I participated in took about an hour each time. And, to my dismay, I am not as smart as I once thought. Test 1 indicated an IQ of 130 where test 2 and 3 were 131 and 129 respectively. To become a member of MENSA requires a minimum of 131 (depending on the specific test taken). Imagine being the one of a group with the lowest score. But I remember what section I got the lowest score on. It was the comparitive section. You have probably had a few of these questions in school before. They usually go like “All racecar drivers can drive a car but not everyone that drives a car is a racecar driver” true or false. That was a simple example but you get the idea of word manipulation. Are you able to see thru the word manipulation to be able to figure out what the sentence means?

My parents took me out of public school and put me in private school when I was in the third grade. Upon testing, it was determined that I was functionally iliterate. Instead of making me go down to the second grade, they went into debt and bought me a Worldbook encyclopedia set. Not just the encyclopedias but the “full boat press” (what the heck does that really mean?) which included a big 2 volume set of dictionaries, a book of synonyms and antonyms, a world atlas and something called a “cyclotron”. With both of my parents tutoring me as well as my teacher, by the end of the 3rd grade, I was in the top of my class. I used to get so angry when I would ask what a certain word meant only to be told “look it up in the dictionary”. You see, words mean things and while there may be two words that mean something similar, each word has a specific meaning.

With: definition 4; having, as in a possession, addition, accessory or an accompaniment. Websters New Twentieth Century Dictionary, second edition 1962

Of: defenition 2; caused by, resulting from. The American Heritage Dictionary second college edition 1976

I heard it said “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos” Henry Louis Mencken

(Yes, I have both dictionaries in print form and did not use any of the internet web sites. Do you have a printed form of dictionary in your possession? I unfortunately do not have my original World Book Dictionary, but I don’t have my original Spiderman comics from the 1960’s either, darn it!)

Pay close attention to the Covid 19 reports. Now Covid is short for Corona Virus Disease and there are many. Identified by the crown-like spikes on its surface and include, among others, are:

5. MERS-CoV (the beta coronavirus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS)

6. SARS-CoV (the beta coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS)

7. SARS-CoV-2 (the ?novel? coronavirus that causes severe acute resiratory syndrom version 2 nicknamed by some as the Wuhan flu for the Chinese labratory that modified a ‘bat’ virus that would not normally effect people but was paid more than 3.7 million USD by the American National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases to conduct ‘gain of function’ experiments. (The head of NIAID is Dr. Faucci)

The reports by local and national media agencies claim ‘x number of people died with Covid-19’. You will notice the reports do not clIm ‘x number of people died of Covid-19’. This is a very important distinction once you realize the word manipulation.

If I give you a coin that you place in your pocket and trip and fall and, for the purposes of this example only, hit your head and die, did you die because you had the coin in your pocket or simply die with the coin in your pocket. With or from, use your brain.

There are numerous reports of word manipulation, or simple manipulation. A man in Colorado is in an automobile accident with 4 times the legal blood alcohol level. He had Covid-19. Did he die with covid or die from covid? Use your brain

Many reports claim that the hospital ER wings are “70%” capacity with Covid-19 patients. But upon closer examination, we see word manipulation. A certain hospital has 20 ER beds and requires 1 nurse per 10 patients, but the hospital is running ‘short staffed’ and only has 1 RN nurse. So the hospital shuts down 10 beds due to staffing shortages which gives them 10 beds. Let us fill 7 beds with covid patients which gives a 70% ER capacity because of staffing shortages. Have you hears of the recent staffing shortages nation wide? Add to that a large number of medical staff refusing to take the Covid-19 vaccine and are being fired by governmental mandate and you can now see the word manipulation. Use your brain.

“Civilization, in fact, grows more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary”. Henry Louis Mencken

In other words, in order for government to maintain and grow its power, government MUST make the populace believe only government can save them.

“…government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Ronald Reagan

Ask yourself some questions and think for yourself. If the Covid vaccine is such a good, well developed and researched medicine, why are close to 25% of medical professionals refusing to get it? Use your brain

Why is government officials demanding that even people that have had Covid-19 and have the antibodies, get the vaccine? Use your brain

People are being segrigated by whether or not they have been vaccinated. A government mandate, not law but a mandate, is beeing seperated by whether or not they have recieved, dubbed by some as the “ouchy from Faucci”, the experimental vaccine. I thought segrigation was a bad thing. Now, people are being forced to take this experimental drug or be fired from their jobs. Many bars and restaurants mandate that you prove your vaccine status. Many, and soon most or all airline companies will require proof of vaccination just to fly on their airline. Hmm, can’t work, get food or beverages without some kind of proof or vaccine marker. Sounds like Germany in WWII when the people of Jewish heritage were forced to wear a patch signifying that they were an “under-class” and were prevented from getting certain services simply because they were Jews. Use your brain.

Yes, Covid is real. Many people have died FROM it. But the survivability rate is close to 99%, much better than other types of flu. Yes, there are co-mobilities that make it worse, but this is far from the “pandemic” that it was originally claimed to be. We shut down our economy, not for “just two weeks to flatten the curve” but for over a year and a half. This is not normal and we should not accept it as such. Use your brain.

Mrs McClaine, mom and dad, thank you for your sacrifices so I could not only read, BUT THINK for myself.

my dad worked at Anhauser Busch in Van Nuys, California. Then, it was called Busch Gardens and was an oasis in the city. “old man Busch” as my dad called him, had created a park like setting open for anybody not just employees, that you could bring family and friends to. It had large grassy areas with plenty of different shade trees, bushes, a large man made lake with water features, a boat ride that would take a trip around the lake to the 3 pavillions that provided a shaded pic nik area. There was the Budweiser Pavillion, the Busch Pavillion and the Michelob Pavillion. These pavillions would provide free beer to those old enough to enjoy beer but were nice enough to bring the family for a pic nik lunch. There was even a log ride that went through an aviary where there were hundreds of different birds in a setting specifically for them with trees, shrubs and waterfalls inside the aviary followed by a log ride fall that Disney would be envious of. And in this family safe environment were performance stages that would have vaudeville style acts including one of my favorites at the time, the marionette show.

The marionettist, or puppet master, would control the puppets from above with strings on a control bar. I had bought a simple puppet and the control bar was a cross with fishing lines going from the ends of the rods to the feet, head and tail (it was a bird puppet that I could control its head, feet and tail). And the puppet master was on stage where you could see him. But he was good enough that you would forget him and just watch the marionettes. But in the end, they were just carved wood with faces painted on them.

I have infered before that I am a sci-fi nerd. I remember watching the original Star Trek on TV with my dad. I used to be a treker but now, I am just a trekkie, but there was one episode where Kirk, Spock and McCoy were searching for a federation historian in a Nazi like world. (Season 2 episode 21 ‘Petterns of Force’) The federation historian had become the furer but as it turns out, was drugged and being controlled by others.

The President of the United States of America is one of the most important and powerful positions in the world. The President is accountable to the people and is not a dictator. Unlike the Queen of England who rules over her subjects or Vladimir Putin, a former member of the KGB who rules with an iron fist over the Russian people, the President of the United States is ruled by the Constitution of the United States which regulates the government, not the people. This all too important position is too important to give to someone who is suffering dimentia. But let us look at this mans first few months in office:

Biden inherited energy independance. For the first time in decades, America was exporting energy. The industry was creating jobs, good paying union jobs that could transform a persons family financial position. But Biden shut down not just the pipeline to transfer oil between America and Canada but most private oil production. Americas oil production has been so stiffled that Joe Biden has actually begged OPEC to increase production to America. Members of OPEC hate America.

Biden inherited a stable southern boarder where those seeking to come to America had to wait in their own country. Those coming here was first vetted (investigated) before being allowed in. Those infected with Covid 19 or other numerous diseases had to wait as dictated by American sovereignty laws. Now, every illegal alien is being let in, unvetted, with those various diseases being sent to various cities across America. Maybe even your city.

Then, of course there is Afghanistan. Biden inherited a stable country where the Taliban was affraid to attack any American for fear of being destroyed and smashed into the sand. For months, the world watched the taliban march across the country taking control of each city. Our president looked in the camera and promised that could not happen. Then, in an act of mental incompetance, turned a third world army into a superpower that is more armed than some of our allies. The taliban is now empowered enough to demand a seat at the UN. They are murdering the American hostages (those hundreds of American citizens left behind enemy territory) and those that helped American military when we were there. Biden even proudly claimed to have killed a top taliban leader with a preditor drone strike, only to find that the man killed was actually someone that had helped American military and his entire family including several children. How does this make our allies ever trust us again. Biden has broken many promises and the damage done can not be reversed.

Then of course, there is the Covid vaccine that was expidited by the actions of Donald Trump. While Trump was still president, Biden, Harris and many other liberals claimed that they would not take the vaccine because Trump was involved in its developement. All Trump did was remove the red tape involved in the developement of a vaccine and called it ‘warp speed’. But instead of teaming up with Trump to encourage people to get it, Biden is acting like an American Marxist and creating even more segrigation by creating two more classes of people, vaxxed and non vaxxed.

Not to mention the fact that someone is controlling the microphone for Biden so the numerous gaffs uttered by Biden are not broadcast. One of the most recent (as of Sept 17 2021) is when President Biden was discussing wilfires to a panel in Idaho when the white House abruptly cut off his microphone. This was not the first nor will it be the last, but it contrasts with Trump who would give a press conference for over an hour without notes. Now, Biden can’t talk WITH NOTES. It is no longer funny but sick and sad. In his prime, Joe was mediocre at best. But now, he and the current administration are just clowns. Actually, they are Marxists in clown suits.

The marionette show had a puppet that resembled a large breasted opera singer. In the act, he had her sing and hold a note for a long time, so long that she had to take a breath and you could see her heaving boosums lift as she took that breath. Everyone watched the marionette and not the puppet master. Today, Biden is the marionette and someone in the shadows (possibly Barrack Obama) is pulling the strings. Nobody is looking at or for the marionettist. Perhaps we should.

Indecision

I have found that, after 36 years of marriage, not to ask my wife what she wants for dinner. She might take hours to figure out what she wants and by then, it is time for bed. So I inquired with many other married men about their experiences and they, too, experience the same delema. I even found a neat trick, I will give her three choices, on of which is a throw away and two other choices. That narrows her options and reduces the time required to answer. I even have an idea to get an old ‘see n say’ and put labels over each of the barnyard animals for restaurants so ‘ the cow says moo’ could be steak at the Outback and ‘the chicken goes cluck cluck’ could be chicken from Canes restaurant. My wife even knows of her indecision and will ask me for ideas.

Today, my wife was thinking of this problem as even those she works with admit that they, too, also have indecision problems when it comes to chosing something to eat. Well, my wife figured it out and the answer is in the bible. In Genesis, Eve once made a decision on what to eat and look at the trouble that led to. Poor Adam had to answer to God for taking Eves choice for dinner. So God must have had one of those fatherly talks with Adam telling him to be more careful in the future as to what choices to give Eve. Adam must have given that advice to his children and his childrens children. So, there is why women are undecided about what to eat for dinner. Pass it on.