Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass....... Sometimes it's good to slow down and look things over and see how they really stack up and to get a handle on mindset. Since the day the word terrorist was uttered we've used it to excuse our behaviour, bandied it around in whatever context needed to support the desired point of view, and manage to drift aimlessly along without understanding much about it and certainly not doing much to effect a cure for it. Terrorism is particularly brutal because activity is on a very personal level with the one who is doing it and very hard to catch because terrorist acts are usually committed outside the realm of any established government. Targets and methods are up to either individuals or small groups therefore odds of apprehending them before they acheive their deed are remote at best. We have demonstrated plainly we don't have the foggiest idea how to prevent such an attack, and it is an insult to less than average intelligence to pretend we have any idea how to identify with any certanty who will do what next. So why haven't we been attacked within our boundaries by the crazies we call terrorists? Really good question. And very hard to answer. There's no point in trying to convince anyone that it's just too difficult to penetrate our borders. That would draw guffaws from the most isolated natives in Africa. It can't be said we're watching them too closely for them to make their move, we don't even know who they are. It can't be said we're too vigil in our cities for them to move about because again, we have no clue as to what they look like. Most of those apprehended are Americans intending to do harm to Americans. We have displayed an incredible lack of thought in this fight we are imagining, and that's what it is at this point, imagination. If it were anything else, we would be picking up pieces off the streets in every major American city in this country. The possibility of terrorist attack is very real, but very impotent. We've acted so foo;ishly and irresponsible since 9-11 that daily those who would like to retaliate for our behaviour must take a measure of pleasure as they watch us scurry about and wring our hands in fear all the while closing ourselves in and locking more doors and giving up more freedoms and being dumb while we do it. The real way to eliminate terrorism is to stop our offensive intrusion into other governments across the globe and act only in what is truly in our national interest, which wouldn't be much. While we're at it, it wouldn't hurt a thing to stop cheering on the Iraeli's as they murder those under their control daily. This is probably at the heart of the Muslim world's hatred of us, and since it's our money, our fighter planes and our nuclear bombs, (yes, they have those too, we gave them to them) we will stand accountable for their behaviour as long as we fund it and condone it. It's not such a huge stretch to mind your own business, we just can't imagine doing so, but if we should re-learn that art, the terrorist threat will diminish. Because they simply don't give a damn how happy and free we may be, they just don't want our nose up their ass and on their soil. I can understand that..............

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass.......So...... we'll just tell 'em we've done all we can for them and they have to step forward and be responsible to themselves now. We'll appoint a date of 'no later than' for a time that all the folks at home can know when the war will be over and we can then become an observer in the trials and tribulations of the Iraqi's as they search for their destiny. How do you suppose this will play with the Iraqi on the street in Baghdad? Will he understand how we have opened the door for greatness for him and all like him as he looks out across a country torn to pieces by the ravages of an invader who possessed all of the toys to bring down a government and defeat a country while suffering almost no casualties as a direct result of combat. Will he appreciate his freedom as the same old hatreds fester and erupt into bloodshed, unchecked by any authority strong enough to govern? Will he be able to look for a time in the future that things can rationally be expected to be any better? As we train those, of which many was a part of a military and a regime who opposed us, to take charge of their country, reasonable thinkers must wonder, what have we done or said to show them how wrong they were and how have we demonstrated that we know how to achieve peace and prosperity on their turf? When all this is done, will we be safer? Will the world's inhabitants view us with a new found respect? Can we return to anything resembling a normal way of life in these United States? There are no answers in the positive for any of the aforementioned questions. Instead, if and when we leave, all of Baghdad and the rest of Iraq will sink into the most gruesome and brutal of civil wars as the religious factions battle and jockey for control and in the end either another Saddam Hussein or a cleric will rule with an iron fist that will resemble what it was before we got there. Some other things will remain the same, Israel will keep right on killing the Muslim Palestinians and threatening everybody else in their realm. We will continue blind support no matter what the cost. Inflation will keep on marching upward at Mach speed and with no manufacturing left to establish a competitive value base, trade balances and deficit spending will erode us into collapse all the while our politicians will be telling us it ain't happening. Those living off the government will find it impossible to survive on whatever they get, and those paying will find impossible to stand the load. When the Romans fell it ushered in what we call the Dark Ages and that lasted more than 800 years before the world recovered. Some thinkers believed we've advanced technologically too much for that to happen. I don't know if I believe that or not. Either way, we've made it big enough that we and our ways will be studied for thousands of years by scholars........ if anybody's left............

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass.. There comes a time in ones life that their mortality becomes a fact in realization. Mine has. I have become aware that 10 year plans are not particularly a good bet for me. 20 year plans are not likely to mature to settlement and anything beyond that is fodder for failure. It's somewhat of a surreal existence when I consider I have clothes and jewelry I've had 25 years, and when I look at them, the years we've had together don't seem so many, yet so be it. I've searched myself out about the way I feel about 'things' and some things are crystal clear in old age while other 'things' remain mysterious and elusive and plainly will remain that way after my exit. Sometimes I find myself judgemental with those who don't do as I think they should and at the same time find myself reluctant to join in characture assassination of those who clearly deserve to be roasted but maybe didn't do whatever created the desire to do them misery. I'm always aware that the rules governing right and wrong can be misapplied and ruin lives at the whim of someones selfishness or greed or even because of self adulation. All in all advancing age has borne uncertain answers to questions I didn't particularly think about as a young man. Absolute answers I enjoyed as a young man have morphed into debatable scenarios of outcome while rules of behaviour that were rock solid no longer apply. Meanwhile life is still exciting to the core and in my case shows no sign of slithering off to nothingness in defeat because the times command a different way to handle just about everything around me and seemingly in almost direct opposition to the simple ways of another time. If one can come to an understanding of our species time in charge of this earth as opposed to how long the earth has existed it quickly becomes evident that we are a unique happening of undisciplined in a world of which all other creatures are disciplined in life and death and uncluttered with doubt about how to live life and conduct themselves on their trip to wherever they go, if anywhere. No one knows if there's a final destination to look forward to for our kind and that in itself has been cause for us to kill each other in disagreement since we advanced enough to speak and forage together. After millions of years of perfecting our ways we're still much the same, just much more comfortable in our existence but just as unsure of our future. Somehow I've just rambled on and actually lost my point........ but that's the greatness of being a Dumb Ass.... especially an old one.................. ZZZZZZZZzzzzz

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass......The riches of this wonderful country are almost immeasurable to those who are of the mindset to recieve it needed or not. Our resources have been such that to be on the dole is an acceptable way of life and the benefactors of the treasury's deep pockets include the rich and well to do as well as the poor. In between those two segments of population everybody else can be found. People recieving government cash and services are so huge that no one actually knows how many there really are. Beyond that are those who have inherited 'old money' and estates that will provide a way of life that does not include respectable stress. I actually couldn't find a solid figure of how many people do not have to work, or recieve aid in conjunction with whatever job they might do, but I think in all fairness and sensibility the number will probably exceed more than 3/4 ths. of our entire population. Ridiculous you say?? Think again. A government check in the raw will include those made to a specific individual and includes those recieving social security. So, you say you invested in that and earned the right to recieve what you were promised. Perhaps you were promised, but to have the right to take away coming generations dreams somehow is selfish and impotent. All those other categories of checks are so many and uncountable, a real figure isn't to be had by anyone and includes farmers, ranchers, land owners and business people, and disabilities, assisted child care, foodstamps, foster children and adopted assistance and whatever else is out there, and then comes the ones who have inherited their way. Inheritance is something that all Americans believe is the right of all to pass on to their children and next of kin, and I have to share that truth. But there is a social problem that comes to those who have nothing to do except wait for the mail to run to support their existance. They seldom broaden themselves in any way other than physical and with all that free time fall prey to the medical community and become helpless to face life without the company of those who will go along with their hypochondria, and if their problems really are real their lives are ruined by the overzealous ones who deal with human illness while making themselves rich at the expense of quality of life for their victims. Then those who have inherited their way usually imagine they're intelligent far beyond their ability and mostly what they improve on is imagination. The one thing all of the above share in common is the ability to totally disregard the schedules and responsibilities of those who actually do get off their dead asses and on to their dying feet and get out there and earn a living minus handouts of any kind. Maybe I'm just having a bad day, Or possibly I AM a prick like those lined up for the mailman say I am.......... Sigh... I'm sick today and don't have time nor funds to accomodate my queasyness, and need to be out there humping.... Oh well............

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass....I use to complain regularly about Bill Clinton and his antics and contrary to what most of my friends thought, I did not and do not think he was a good President. We are creatures of the moment and thus are basically unable to identify the bad side of good times. When the stock market was being manipulated out the roof we basically thought it was great. When our souls were being given away through Nafta and Gatt we couldn't see anything that resembled the exodus of manufacturing jobs to foreign countries that would leave to never return again. When the housing market was booming we couldn't correlate the fake bookkeeping that was being installed by the government to contribute to the coming crash landing of the dreams of the ever shrinking middle class. Now that gas is $3.00 a gallon we are unable to look back and identify when the trip to oblivion started. Instead we insist on blaming all our current troubles on George Bush as if he is responsible for every ill we are enduring, all the while listening to the dribble of a very large segment of our populace that believes he's too dumb to tie his shoes. I think anyone who runs for and occupies the highest office in the land is anything but dumb. I do believe that all insanity has its time, and if the historical chain of events that brought us 9-11 had not occured I think the economic bad judgement of the Clinton administration would have been unmasked and we could have dealt with it and probably recovered to continue making the same bad judgements that would have taken another 50 years or so before collapsing our economy. But that's not the way it came down. Instead of having a weak President with no real Public mandate that would have wallowed through one term then be tossed out, we had a President that realized very quickly the great opportunity of building a legacy through tragedy that could reunite and make America great beyond imagination. The time was right for weakness and bad judgement to prevail, and through fear we grabbed on to everything that could be remotely considered and in the process gave away our freedom and our future. Because of the madness that fear instigates we are scared to death of each other, cannot get a job carrying bedpans in an old folks home without extensive background checks, and now I have to present my birth certificate, additional forms of identification, and a current utility bill with my name and current address on it to renew my drivers license. I also have to show approved additional identification to vote at election time. I cannot get a doctors appointment in a reasonable time and the asking price for a pretty good health insurance plan for me and my bride at our age is somewhere over $700. each approaching $1500. in total. A casual trip to the emergency room runs in the hundreds of dollars assuming you don't need much care. This is the legacy George Bush is leaving for me and my childrens children. While I don't think George is stupid, I do think he's very out of touch with reality and will drift on into history leaving behind a particularly vicious kind of misery that he will never experience in the same way the average American will. In missing his opportunity to be a truly great leader and uniting his people through truth, strength and resolve and instead ruling from a threshhold of fear, his stubborness in refusing to look at things as they are as opposed to what he wishes them to be makes him the worst president in history..................

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass.... In a conversation with a friend this morning about Iraq he said he thought it was about time that we pack up and leave the Iraqi's to take care of their own security. He felt we had spent enough money and lost enough lives and that we owed them nothing else. I just have all kinds of thoughts about that attitude. Those who supported the invasion of Iraq numbered in the 90 plus percentile the day we landed in Saddam's country. They have dwindled away until they are in the 20 percentile and even those who still support the operation are changing their stance from 'it was the right thing to do' to 'if we walk away it was all for nothing and those Americans who died will be dishonored'. This entire debacle was doomed to failure from the moment of inception. The very few who disagreed with the invasion and said so were quickly put aside as gutless, not able to see the picture and sometimes dismissed as out of touch or a traitor. It became a national obsession to support the troops as they fought for us and our freedom in this war on the evil. I said bullshit at the time and as far as I'm concerned the odor still lingers. No American should have been sacrificed to save the honor of politicians guilty of such irresponsible and disrespectful behaviour and judgement as those we elected to run our country at the darkest hour of of our performance as a free and democratic republic. There is no war. To have a war you must have opposing forces. There is no unified opposing force in Iraq today. Even the State Department says the membership of Al-quaida worldwide is less than 20,000 and we don't know where they are. Instead we have a forced occupation going on and those who we pretend to protect are the very ones killing us from the shadows. Those in Iraq for whom we want to establish a democratic government have no desire for such a thing and only wish for us to go away. The problem for us to do that packs long range problems that are sure to continue festering until it explodes in a civil war which will continue eating away at passions within the world wide Muslim community until one day we will likely be plunged into a world war. If we stay, the result will be the same. We truly have ourselves in a mess. There is no good way to get out of Iraq nor can we stay. Either way the ramifications will last generations and be deady and heartbreaking. For this, we should be grateful to all our politicians, all of them led us to this day regardless of party. As far as us? We put them there and supported them as they done their deed..................

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass...... Living within four miles of a State Capital building as the crow flys puts me in a world that is touched by constant politics. A clear majority in my neck of the woods make their living from the state coffers and many more are in associated fields that is State supported. Entire lives are lived from the cradle to the grave by those who trade the adventure of life in the real world for the security of the state paycheck and its benefits. Most of those who make the state government their career are grossly unhappy and only look forward to retirement only to find out they have to get another job to survive which makes them more frustrated than when they worked for a full state paycheck. Those who are in supervisory or management positions are in constant stress over who and what party is in and what their prospects for long term employment are. All in all a pissy way to survive. We also are the hub for government services to the entire state and consequently have state of the art 'in your face and up your ass big brotherism' as companions in everyday life. Our social services is huge with obvious huge budget allocations and unashamedly march around in peoples lives with gusto. In my own life I rubbed shoulders with that agency and found probably the most inept, inneffective, out of touch, unqualified and hopeless individuals in the biggest shameless collection of railheads including the lackluster attorneys that lurk the halls and meeting rooms in attendance of the meetings where idiots wreck the lives of fools on a daily basis. It took two years to untangle my family from the grips of that cancer of humanity and during that time I became familiar with several cases and do not know of even one that could boast of family reunification at the hands of the state even though willing and qualified family was available and eager to recieve and take care children the state was supposedly protecting. Those that were able to recover the children and get the state caseworkers out of their lives were the ones who could hire a lawyer and pry them loose in a courtroom. I know that surely they must have done a good job at some place and time, I just can't figure out where or when. Government and Big Brother are alive and well working in unison day and night to be relevant to everyday life as it is lived by every day people. A family I know is going through a divorce, and while this is tragic, it is a fact of life that is played out in every courtroom in the land every day. In this particular family both sides had done all the things with lawyers and courtrooms that was neccesary, divorce granted, and were told the final documents would be mailed. After a couple of months and no decrees in the mail, my acquaintances were told the hold up was because they (the parents) had not attended classes to teach them how to tell their children they were divorcing. As soon as they go to the social services office in the appropriate county and attend the class, their divorce decree will be mailed to them. Not much left to say about that. On another note of great efficiency and humanity I have two other friends who are employeed by state funded transportation who take senior citizens and disabled to Doctor's appointments on contract from the state. Each of their respective companies have 10 vans/busses which of course require 10 drivers and their mission is to pick up their clients and haul them to their appointments, up to 50 miles one way and occassionally up to 150 miles one way, pick them up after they've seen the doctor and return them to their residence. The average client load for each driver/vehicle is 3 clients a day. I just wonder how many clients board the state van/bus for their free ride and leave a perfectly operable vehicle at home. It's very hard to be sympathetic to those who claim they need help to survive. I need help too. I'm going to work extra tomorrow................

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass..... Change and advancement is never without complication and that could not be more evident than health care today. Gone are the days when you could make a same day appointment or some times just drop in and wait your turn to see a Doctor. Now we must make the appointment several days in advance then go through a myriad of paperwork, go to the office at your appointed time then wait usually far beyond the agreed upon time only to be brushed off with a probable less than 5 minute time with the physician who will in all likelihood refer you to some other Doctor who will start the process all over again. All the while the numbers of nurses, technicians, and supporting staff are running in to each other and grouchy about being there in the first place and claiming to be overworked. If you're sick enough or injured, forget the Doctor's office and go on to the emergency room where we all know you're not wanted to begin with. If you are not a regular patient the paperwork required is mountainous to qualify you for payment to the Doctor and hospital from the insurance or HMO. If you do not have insurance of any kind you will most likely get service at the emergency room sooner but will also find yourself outside the exit door sooner, because you are of questionable value to the medical industry and they aren't interested in your problems with no insurance to guarantee their payment. Even odder is the cheering of the American people to bring in more Government presence to an industry that has already been wrecked by insurance companies and regulation. With all the wonderfulness we are told the medical profession can give us, we're sicker than ever and stacked up waiting to be insulted in greater numers by a greater number of members of the medical community who are in search of the cash cow patient who will willingly settle for less and less and run don't walk for an oppotunity to become totally dependant on a world of sickness, real, manufactured, or imagined. It really doesn't matter what the medical cause of their sorry lots in life is, if any, what is real is the tragedy they promote for themselves in concert with those who make their livelihood from their situations. How did we get this way? Do we actually live any longer because of it? Can it get any more inefficient or bloated and still continue? We got this way because we wanted it that way, no we don't live any longer, except in rare cases but sometimes a hell of a lot more uncomfortable in the end, and no it can't continue. It is more costly to the Average American than the Defence of our country........ and that's the way we like it.................

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass....... As we get older I think the average person has a tendency to recall things in their past that formed who they became and try to compare how things were 'then' with how things are 'now'. We compare automobiles from our youth and remember them as much better than todays models, although today's will go several times over the miles they used to. Movies from the silver screen in memory were at least a million times better than those current, but those painted scenes behind Gene and Roy were dead give aways. Music was so innocent yet entertaining that we can't begin to understand whatever that is we hear today, but todays is more real for its time than the old ever was. Morals gets a big thumbs up in memory from all us old fossils, but we set the stage for what we've got today and the list goes on and on. As age insists on rampaging on for me I finally have come to the conclusion that hypocracy is what really affects each consecutive generation in it's judgement of the next. Americans have never been honest with each other or themselves and as each one is, the next one does, with growing excess. Perhaps a world cannot exist with honesty. We all know what that is and claim to hunger for it but promote its demise in our daily lives. Maybe all the old bastards like myself who feel as I do, and there are lots, couldn't actually survive and function in the kind of world we desire and should just go our way until we are no more, which of course is what nature will dictate. I grew up believing there was something wonderfully different and priviledged in being an American, and I still do, but I'm becoming more convinced everyday that we've always been hypocrites and will remain so, just as every country and society is and always has been. I'm certain that evolution of our species require those who mature and advance to take charge of the rest and lead the lessers on to better things. We done that in World Wars 1 and 2. While all the wars and skirmishes we've involved ourselves in since then have cost us in assets and lives, leading those who should be led hasn't been a part of what we've done. Instead on closer examination we have a troubling resemblance in behaviour and direction as those we defeated in the past. While our soldiers have not behaved as those from Japan who slashed the bellies of pregnant women open and stabbed the babies growing within and delivered them on the ends of bayonets to their commanding officers, it is very hard for me to appreciate the killings of mothers and their children in their beds in Iraq by our Marines. As we search for any grounds possible to excuse or explain away these kinds of actions by our soldiers and accept wrong for right we further strengthen this imperfection we know as hypocracy. While we stubbornly continue on in war that should never have been we participate in hypocracy. As we consider who will run this country we will invest in and guarantee a continuation of what will bring us down...... hypocracy........................

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass...... When is love love? Why are first loves never to be forgotten while those relationships we work for and plan on fall by the wayside in disarray, disappointment and disaster. Those we may have spent time and had dreams with are sometimes easily distracted by life itself and give up the security of comfort for the excitement of the unknown. All the while the first love usually has the lofty perch of never facing the test of application and therefore immune to lifes realities. Is love present when one partner takes on the responsibility of someone else's children? Or is that insecurity at work? Can we learn to love in time in the absence of that spark? Does a person who has had many partners either in matrimony or failed attempts toward permanancy have a shot at ever experiencing the real thing? Or, or they likely to just continue on searching even though whatever they're seeking remains elusive. Is it possible a strong first love experience is responsible for an inability to have a life long relationship with another? If what you thought was your first love is put to the test and fails, does that mean your first love wasn't your first love and your real first love is out there waiting and should be searched for? Are first loves always mutual? Or is it more likely that a first love is actually only experienced by one and tolerated by the other? Is it possible that the failure or inability to continue with a first love is a reason for homosexuality? When one leaves another oblivious to the needs of all except themselves and winds up in a relationship that continues till death do us part, does that mean they've found a reasonable facsimile for first love, or they've just taken the easy way and tolerated life all the while just a sunrise from another departure from what is to chase what could be. Life is so full of questions and so empty of certainty. We could all take lessons from the devotion of the lowly goose and have one partner for all of life, whatever that may be. My mother-in law was a wise and probably misunderstood lady. She said it should cost many thousands of dollars to wed and only pennies to divorce, and that the marriage should have a contract that came up for renewal on a timely basis and should be discussed and negotiated by both parties. If agreement couldn't be reached then a simple even up split of property owned at the time and 6 months a year possession by each parent of the children followed by a promise not to fight. What wisdom and simplicity, which is why it won't work for such a complicated species........