Category Archives: Homespun philosophy

From all times

MIND THE PENNIES

Economics, Education, Homespun philosophy, Politics, , , , , ,

. . . AND THE DOLLARS WILL TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES. Folk Saying

Do you still pick coins up off the ground? Do you have a savings jar of some sort? Do you remember a time when people were taught that thrift is a virtue? Do your children and grandchildren have piggy-banks and savings accounts?

Having asked these questions I admit the biggest question I hear whispering in my ear is: “What possible difference does it make anymore?” (Shades of Hillary Clinton!) As the putative president of the United States, and his wife, run around the world spending money not their own, one has to ask why any of the rest of us should even “save” a single cent again.

When hosts of citizens don’t understand how the tax system works, or doesn’t work; how they think “drastic cuts” to the rate of growth are actual cuts and don’t know that the government shut down was all contrived; why we need “zero based budgeting” and a Balanced Budget Amendment, even the hardiest souls might quake at how to teach so foreign a concept as “real” government savings. But let’s begin with what that quaint Constitution says on the matter:

Section 7: “ALL BILLS FOR RAISING REVENUE SHALL ORIGINATE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES . . .”

This means that the House of Representatives holds the purse strings and is charged with submitting a budget for each fiscal year, and there is a debt ceiling which is, supposedly, not to be exceeded. The budget proposed by the House is sent to the Senate where that body adds its demands for funding, then the budget goes before a joint conference committee for resolution. Both Houses vote on the finished product and once it is passed they forward it to the President for veto or signature. At least that’s how things are SUPPOSED to work.

In reality the budget forwarded by the House is loaded with pork barrel spending by the Senate and by both Houses during reconciliation. Thus the politicians can reward themselves and their cronies, and powerful voting blocs in each state get more funding for their pet projects. The longer members of Congress serve, the more powerful they become and the more pork they bring home, keeping their constituents happy and voting for them. So they keep playing the same old game, year after year.

Other methods of increased spending include raising the debt ceiling, supplemental spending resolutions and adding a desired unfunded program or project and cost as a rider on a completely unrelated bill. (Didn’t the Senate promise not to do that anymore? Have they kept their word?) Everyone turns a blind eye to such shenanigans, and yet again the taxpayers are looted.

The President usually also presents a budget, making clear where his priorities lie. This President’s budgets have been rejected every year since he took office. NO ONE IN EITHER PARTY HAS EVER VOTED FOR HIS BUDGETS. Under this President the game has changed and there is a method to his madness. He prefers to have no limits on his power and with the budget and the budget makers under his thumb, he manages to unconstitutionally keep spending. That means that every time we reach the debt ceiling another battle erupts. And the cowards in the House of Representatives never have the courage to close the purse.

The passing of the fiscal budget is a CONSTITUTIONAL REQUIREMENT, so both Houses appear to have evaded their duties. However, the House has regularly forwarded budgets to the Senate where ONE MAN, the odious Senate President, Harry Reid, pronounced them DOA. Did he then negotiate with the House or attempt to resolve the issue? Not Slimy Harry. He threw the budget someplace (a drawer, a garbage can? Who knows?).

Now that a budget deal of some sort has been brokered, Congress can pretend to follow it while everyone happily keeps spending, and the government faces a trillion dollar addition to the “debt ceiling” to allow even more spending. The supposed “cuts” of course are way down the road. As the old children’s song says, “The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round.”

And so, with no budgetary restraints, the Senate President and the President of the United States have proceeded to rape the Treasury and the citizens of this country, and each year increase their power exponentially. After all, what’s a few trillion between thieves? They now think they are so powerful there’s nothing that can be done to stop them and they can take whatever they want. You can always tell who the bad guys are. . . They are the ones who don’t care what happens to ANYONE but themselves and THEY DON’T CARE IF YOU KNOW IT.

Now we can go on to the next manufactured crises. Is it immigration reform or the minimum wage this week? Both plus Racism? War on Women? Or was that last week?

There are words, dishonorable, oath breakers, liars and sinners come to mind, for those who have no conscience. Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear have many times been shown President Barack Obama, Senator Harry Reid and the House leadership for who and what they truly are. Hypocrites, every darn one of them.

Once again we as a nation are faced with the cowardice and lies of the political class and almost everyone connected with it. Is it even possible to recognize any semblance of truth coming out of Washington, D. C. or from the fools who pass themselves off as the brightest amongst us?

Obviously impeachment should be seriously considered for the president and Reid. But no one will do it. The court eunuch Boehner needs to face his own devil – himself. He needs to be put out to pasture post haste. The man can’t even find his way to state the facts which support his case and hates anyone who can. He seems to have totally forgotten the most important job of the House of Representatives, that of saving the nation from insolvency, and he seems to have even forgotten his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution.

John Boehner, you choose dishonor a whole lot and you have now failed everyone. None can trust you again to keep your oath for anything. Anyone who follows your lead is also guilty and should suffer the same fate.

What a shame it is that so few men stand on principle. And so this nation is led by fools and simpletons. Statesmen and oath keepers need not apply.
If political leaders were anything resembling honest, they would admit they have ceased minding any amount of money, whether on behalf of the country or that used for their own greed, power or comfort:

If Congress minded the thousands, would the millions take care of themselves?
If Congress minded the millions, would the billions take care of themselves?
If Congress minded the billions would the United States still be well over seventeen trillion dollars in debt?

Now here we are, another billion or trillion dollars more in debt each time the president wields his pen. Add Obamacare to this mix and try to guess the debt ceiling next time. After all, what’s a few trillion among thieves?

We would do well to remember that if the devil had fingers, his prints would be all over the world, and since the devil is always in the details, that is where his fingerprints are to be found. Unfortunately we know whose fingerprints help make the devilish details, but no political or moral fortitude exists to stop the carnage.

PARKINSON’S DISEASE

Dyskinesia, Homespun philosophy, Medicine, Parkinson's,
    . . . in sickness as in health . . .

    I had thought to be first to leave since you were
    . the one called upon to do the caring, and you soon did
    . as you stood always by me.
    Now I’m not so sure as you descend into your
    . own private hell of illness, PD –
    . Parkinson’s Disease.
    I dreamed last night of a time when you ran up the ladder
    . while carrying two bundles of shingles on your shoulder
    . something you can no longer do.
    I wasn’t worried then but I do worry now –
    . all the “I” sounds above are not about “me”, but about what
    . “we” are – in this together.
    Yesterday we met with Parkinson’s friends to share
    . news and humor (always mixed with pain) –
    . the only place where PD can be funny.
    Sallie wants her PD to “just go away” but says so
    . with laughter and everyone laughs, too,
    . because they know PD doesn’t “go away.”
    We laugh with Peter, who, like many others “freezes”
    . while walking forward. He can only move then
    . by walking backward.
    Once at the airport he “froze” after clearing TSA, then
    . had to walk backwards all the way to his gate and
    . onto the plane – no one even questioned him.
    Some PD people “freeze” but can be “unfrozen”- or
    . is it “thawed”? – by only a touch. Others must be led from
    . the front or pushed from behind.
    Some “freeze” if they try to step on a stool, or step on a line
    . or crack, or maybe the opposite is true, they can only
    . walk if ON a line or crack. Crazy.
    We discussed ways of coping with loss of balance, constant pain,
    . garbled speech, which medicines cause trouble for some
    . but not others, and the things doctors don’t know.
    Susan is newly diagnosed and wants to know if anyone
    . else has trouble with speaking, drooling, falling
    . sleeping, vivid nightmares, leg cramps –
    The three Dans, Deanna, Peter, Sallie and Bob answer as best they can –
    . Susan asks quietly, “Has anyone lost their sense of smell?” All
    . hands go up. She looks relieved.
    After all this is only a “movement disorder” that
    . makes your arms “shake a little bit.” I once heard a
    . doctor on the radio say so.
    He evidently has not seen anyone in the throes
    . Of dyskinesia, or shaking from head to foot, or walking
    . by running rapidly on their toes and moving mere inches at a time.
    Nor has he seen anyone who has not
    . slept more than minutes for what seems like months – as
    . they cry out for nonexistent help.
    Just before leaving I briefly touch again on a matter that intrigues
    me, one that PD people do not often discuss, even
    amongst themselves, and certainly not with doctors –
    “How many of you believe you were born with PD?” Eyes always
    drop as almost all hands reluctantly raise. No one, and I do
    mean NO ONE, will tell their doctor this.
    If a patient did, would it matter to the doc? Or would he think the person
    is assigning too much importance to tracing the cause of
    his illness, or maybe think he’s just crazy?
    You see, no one knows what causes PD. There have been no real
    advances in meds or treatment for nearly twenty years. Big things
    are always just around the corner.
    Until the Big Things happen, we live with what is. I hope you
    know how much of this I share with you as I clasp your trembling
    body in the night.

A THANK YOU TO READERS

Homespun philosophy, Musings,

CONFESSIONS OF A TECHNOLOGY DENIER ASPIRING TO  BECOME COMPUTER LITERATE

This is both a thank-you and an explanation of my entry into the blogosphere. It has been wonderful to find some readers who have been kind about my “homilies” even though I have not known how to put my words out to be more easily found. So “THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND WORDS.” Since one is never too old to learn, I  hope to do better in the future, but some explanation for my lack of savvy is required.

I was born in 1940, so, there, I have given my age away. For the first thirteen years of my life my family lived a generally more late 19th or very early 20th Century lifestyle. Just before I turned 4 years old we moved to the country. We had electricity, which meant one bare bulb in the middle of the kitchen ceiling and once or twice a week we listened to my grandfather’s old cathedral shaped radio. There was no indoor plumbing, in fact no running water except for an artesian well just a few steps from the front door of the four room “house” we lived in. We did have a party line where the operator still said, “Number Please?” And certain neighbors always listened in.

Some of the things we took for granted seem almost bizarre today. The outhouse was dark and grim, with hairy wolf spiders and black widows in warm months. It was also freezing in the middle of winter. We heated and cooked with a wood stove, so wood had to be constantly split and chopped, and bringing in the wood meant there were all kinds of the above-mentioned spiders ready to bite. Water was hauled in on Saturday night, heated on the stove and poured into the tin tub. We were bathed according to our sex and age, which meant that I, as the only girl, at least got clean water, then the boys were bathed. We washed our hair with soap, with the final rinse having vinegar mixed in the water. We put on clean pajamas and were sent off to bed in one bedroom. How my parents then took care of their own needs I never thought about. How would they even fit in the tin tub? Hmmm. Maybe they stood up and poured water over each other? Some things were rather primitive even for the time.

On the brighter side, we were always busy with hard work and play. My parents always made sure we had things like bicycles, roller skates in summer and ice skates in winter. We were all taught to swim at a young age. I had lovely dolls and an even lovelier aunt who had only boys, so she taught me to embroider, crochet and sew.

The boys worked with my dad to build a new house. Even with the shortages and hardships of the war our father found ways to get lumber and nails (even if they were rusty or needed straightening) for construction. My brothers always had Erector Sets, Lincoln Logs, model airplane kits and new Lionel Model Train additions to their set every Christmas. We all went bird watching, horseback riding, hiking and camping. We also had both indoor and outdoor chores and chickens and other animals to care for.

One thing I always seemed to lack was any concept of future changes. We finally moved into a fairly modern house when I was 13, but I was always surprised by technological advances. The first time a B-24 flew over our house I was totally astounded. How could anything so huge fly? And when my older brother told me that someday we would be able to see movies in our own homes I wanted to beat him up for lying to me. How could that possibly be? The first time I saw a TV it scared me to death and our first Mixmaster and steam iron were incredible inventions to me.

When I married my husband, Bear, who loves technology, he concluded that he had to drag me kicking and screaming into the 20th Century, just in time for the 21st. When he bought his first high end computer, a Mac LISA, I thought he had gone completely insane. He told me it was important for our little children to learn computer skills. Why? He told me that people would one day have computers controlling their homes and businesses and we would rely on them for everything. Says who? Why would anyone even want that to happen?

Al Gore invented the Internet (!) and it grew up around me while I paid no attention at all. I got addicted to PAC-MAN, learned to do letters at work on a computer and had to admire the ease of change and correction. Before I started this blog I had used e-mail and had a personal junk file. I read Frank Hebert’s DUNE books and still didn’t understand the possibilities of the “gom jabbar.” Was that man prescient or what?

So here I am today trying to catch up to my kids and grand kids and do a blog in cyberspace on what I consider to be important things. I am learning, but I have a long way to go. Bear and I will try to make this blog become more convenient to find and follow if you so desire.

My advanced age must be one of my excuses, even though my late father-in-law and his brother bought into the computer age long before I did. Is it (mostly) a guy thing?

I’ll go now to find what an RSS thing does.

Anniel

HISTORICAL MEMORY

Homespun philosophy, Politics, ,

Not to know what happened before you were born, that is to be always a boy, to be always a child. –Cicero

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana

So here we are today, historically illiterate beyond belief, and unaware of the dangers that beset us. How do we wake up those who have been taught no history, nor how to think with any logic or common sense? They are grown-up children with no real thought at all, no feelings for others nor knowledge of the needs and desires of their fellow beings.

Hannah Arendt famously coined the term “the banality of evil” and in our age that thought is true, many are so banal in their evil. But there are others who “think” and believe what they think is true simply because they are the ones who think it. Or, as someone else said, “If what you think about is BS, then what difference does it make?”

Are we to “repeat” history in our day? At a time when we are faced not only with a lack of historical context but have leaders and educators actively lying about that history, what are we, who lived that history, going to do?

I have wondered what some of these people who lie or rewrite our history do in the middle of the night when they awake, review their actions and have a crisis of conscience. I have finally concluded that they sleep the sleep of the just and never awake to question anything, especially not themselves. Thus we have IRS agents and other government bureaucrats who truly believe they have done nothing wrong, and see no inconsistency in hiding behind the Fifth. They continue their lies to advance their own agenda.

One of my grandsons watched “The Great Escape” and concluded that he “knew all about World War II and the Wehrmacht.”  Sorry, but not so. Later I gave the boys the series “Victory at Sea”, to watch. There was an episode about the Americans going onto a Pacific island and encountering a fearsome and very bloody Japanese attack. I was stunned to hear the boys talking about how “stupid” the Americans were to go there when there were that many of the enemy. I made them pause the episode and asked how the Americans could possibly have known the Japanese were there. Well, they could have seen them. How? Well, by satellites. They didn’t have any. Well, they should have flown planes over. What makes you think they didn’t? Have you ever heard of camouflage?  And planes have a limited range and get shot down. Their intelligence capabilities were very limited. The boys finally conceded that they knew very little and returned to their viewing. Then I heard a couple of them laugh about a dead body floating in the water. In black and white it didn’t look so bad to children raised viewing death and destruction on the big screen and seeing violent video games. Again I made them hit pause, and said, “That boy was somebody’s son or husband or father. He could have been my friend’s older brother. I remember the sadness and pain when he was killed in the Pacific.” That brought shock and silence.

The shock and silence of those who are not taught the realities of history.

We have many who are liars about history and everything else, and are too smug and self-satisfied to suffer “the long, dark tea-time of the soul” which leads to adulthood. They will always be children and condemned to learn the hard way.

It’s too bad they blind others and carry them to destruction with them.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

Homespun philosophy, Politics, ,

CAVEAT EMPTOR – BUYER BEWARE, OR NEVER BUY A PIG IN A POKE

Never buy a pig in a poke, the buyer’s beware of its day, has generated many explanations about sacks and pigs and stuff, but I prefer my mother’s take on the matter.

Many years ago women wore what were called “poke bonnets”. These bonnets were designed with a wide brim that projected out and around the wearer’s face. This allowed women to decorate the inside of the brim to frame and call attention to their lovely faces and away from other attributes that might not be so desirable. If a man were searching for a wife he might be taken in by the beautiful flowers, lace, and ribbons arrayed around a comely face and not see or think about flaws elsewhere. Or in the heat of the moment he might overlook personality or character issues.

When one falls for a (pardon the use of such an unladylike term) “pig in a poke”, he might not see clearly until he has brought the pig home and removed the bonnet, and we all know what happens when a pig, with lipstick or not, gets loose in the house.

This is not to say that women can’t be fooled, too. How many Jane Austin heroines got taken in by handsome men in “regimentals”?

The way I see it, the poke bonnet was the Madison Avenue of its time, the same false promises we are enticed with today by those who lie and connive for their own ends.

When was the last time you knew an advertisement was legit, or that a politician was telling any kind of truth? And yet we keep on buying things that don’t satisfy and believing what we really do know are lies. (Another old saying about “being led like pigs to the slaughter” comes to mind here. Sorry, that’s terrible, I know.)

There appears to be no area where politics does not rear its ugly head. Think about all the money and lies that go into a political campaign to make a candidate appear desirable, and the opposition not just wrong, but evil. Why oh why do we keep bringing the pigs home???

Please, don’t put your vote in a poke and then be surprised by the pig.

LIARS – Explicit and Implicit

Homespun philosophy, Politics, , , ,

THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO BE FOOLED. ONE IS TO BELIEVE WHAT IS NOT TRUE; THE OTHER IS TO REFUSE TO BELIEVE WHAT IS TRUE.
Soren Kirkegaard
. . . . . . . . . .

And so today we act as fools, because of a supposed “law”. The people of the United States can no longer close their eyes, minds and hearts to the explicit lies of our highest ranking leaders. We have also been treated to the explicit and implicit lies of all those who support those “leaders”: those who are true believers in the lies and those who just go along to get along.

What happens to a nation of liars and oath breakers? What happens to those who choose to believe and support and be enslaved by those lies and liars? If the truth will set us free then the opposite must also be true, when we believe a lie we become slaves to that lie.

If we believe what is not true, implicitly we are passive in our own downfall. If we refuse to believe what is true then we are explicitly partners in what our future holds.

Consider what it does to our own souls when we ACCEPT such lies and are either too lazy or too apathetic to confront the lies and demand the truth. Do we then also become implicit liars, no better than those in power who lie to perpetuate their power?

Lies at this point seem to be coin of the realm and are spent by many.

When our three older children were young (and we still had a TV), the kids liked to watch AMERICA’S MOST WANTED. They all had a highly developed sense of the necessity for bad guys to get caught and punished for their crimes and it pained them to see someone “getting away with it.” I tried to explain to them that no one “gets away” with anything, that we are what we are. One day I made it really simple and introduced the idea of a lie that they might have told and thought they “got away with” because no one else “caught” them. Then I asked, “Are you still a liar or not?” As young as they were they could see the point that until they confessed and determined not to ever lie again, they would remain liars. Then we could discuss whether a politician who lies, or a thief or a murderer can really “get away with it.”

Of course we have all told what we consider to be “white” lies, and we do have need of change. One can always find something positive to say without lying, or maybe the truth just needs to be out there. Until we accept our own culpability and make the necessary changes, we remain what we are. If we are liars we remain liars still. Our very souls remain calcified until we break the shells we build to hide from ourselves.

Our leaders seem to have highly calcified and impregnable shells, and they continue in their lies. We need to call their game so we are free from the lies placed upon us.