The Global Outrage of an Educated Man

Language and the Media

2011-12-07T11:36:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man..........vol.147

The role of the audience member has changed due to online content and other forms of digital communication. We no longer just consume the media on a daily basis, but a very large portion of society is constructing the media as well. The global population has become "citizen producers, citizen journalists" creating "user-generated content." What's causing this rapid transformation is due in large part to the growing number of choices we as audience members have from which we get our news and entertainment. The two have merged into what is now called "infotainment" as seen on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." The media is no longer what is offered on NBC, ABC, CBS and the major newspapers and Hollywood studios, but has morphed into a constantly changing dynamic of ever increasing outlets, whether they are blogs, podcasts, or virally spread YouTube clips that span the globe. The veil between the producer and the consumer of media has thinned, and in some cases been removed altogether.

The most obvious place this increasing distortion is taking place is in news broadcasts around the globe. News is presented in often times, non-linear fashions, where the viewer has no idea what caused the "news event" to have happened. The viewers are left with only the biased opinions of the power brokers behind the scenes that pull the strings for their broadcast mouthpieces, and if presented on a major network, the story becomes all the more credible. The problem is trying to wade through the white noise and make sense of the stories presented, each viewer receiving their own perceived version of the truth. Issues are used as tools of division, which can then be used to divide and conquer the masses into passive participants ready to accept what is given to them on a daily basis without question. In order to maintain sanity in a world gone mad, skills in Critical Literacy need to be developed and maintained if one is to avoid being just another patient for the large pharmaceutical companies that often times are the largest advertisers during the nightly news broadcasts.

Although, there are those in the positions of power that have been growing ever fearful of an educated and informed society; signs of progress are being made. For if knowledge is truly power and the Internet and its multiple avenues for communication and the rapid spread of information is any sign we are on the right track towards something truly revolutionary; is it any wonder that current dictatorships, despots and other forms of totalitarian authority states around the world are facing the uprising they are? However, they are not going to go quietly, for there is currently a movement by the hegemonic puppet masters of a push for more copyright protection on the Internet, so they can slow down or outright eliminate the world audience from becoming larger players on the field of the creation and dissection of their desired mainstream media messages. Something extraordinary is taking place. The ground beneath our feet is shifting. Guttenberg's press has long since been dismantled and stored in museums around the world. In its place is now, texting, emailing, podcasts, blogs and streamed content via the Internet, wirelessly to every mobile digital device on the planet at the click of a button. What language and its effects on the media has done, has turned the driver gawking at a traffic accident, the option to choose his or her own preferred accident, and often times what is the case, to create his or her own accident for the whole world to see, over and over and over and over again.

Happy Holidays, hope you are prospering in the new global economy.

What did you expect?

2011-10-13T14:49:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man..........vol.146

Ladies and gentlemen, "damn it feels good to be a gangster." I know that I've been away for far too long, with my thoughts occupied with the necessities of finishing school so that I can begin indoctrinating the future masses of disgruntled youths to demand their fair share, when I begin my student teaching this Spring. Although, they will be required to work for it. You hear me Republicans. I know that you were about to get all upset about a welfare state, so don't get your tucked in polo shirts and parted hair cuts all out of whack over nothing.

I however, am very happy with the knowledge that my ties to my better half, and I will be marrying up, will be made legal in 8 short days, on a beautiful joyous fall evening next Friday the 21st. Cheers to all and thank you for all of your support and well wishes. You know who you are.

I am also happy to see that the Tea-Party has their antithesis occupying Wall Street and demanding that greed take a back seat to what is morally appropriate. Survival of the fittest Capitalism clothed by church going men and women who seem to forget the gospel once they leave the church are no longer going to be tolerated.

I would love to be shaking hands and kissing babies with those rabble rousers down there. Maybe in 10 years I'll be in elected office looking to ignite the masses for much needed community involvement. Community organizer anyone? Troy, don't get too upset. Everyone knows the day will come when you'll check off the ballot for Jack Scharber, or be picking up my latest bestseller. Word. Verb, its what's happening.

More to come in the next couple weeks, but don't be suprised if were in Iran over Christmas. World War 3 may have started on the backs of sub-prime mortgages and complex derivatives, just in time for 2012??? Hmmmmmmm.

Come on, what did you expect from my right brain thinking. When 95% go one way, go the other. Trust me.

Here's to prospering in the new global economy.

Meltdown

2011-07-20T12:06:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man..............vol.145

It's just another sign of how big a sham our U.S. government's willingness is to get to the bottom and persecute those responsible for the global economic collapse in March 2007, that more attention and more heads are rolling in the U.K. over a phone hacking scandal involving the media empire of "Fair and Balanced" Rupert Murdoch than the time our mainstream media and their talking heads and our incompetent elected officials are giving towards a solution to the economic crisis, and instead is raising the specter of a looming financial meltdown because our two parties refuse to work together to avoid such a coming disaster. I agree with many that instead of raising the ceiling, we should be raising the floor, the lower and middle classes should have more opportunities to rise up, or get a boat to paddle to the jobs that have moved off-shore, but alas, more attention is given to NFL/NBA labor disputes than what is truly important, the ever decreasing chances of a promising future, the ever increasing difficulty of people affording them the opportunities to pay their bills, buy a home, get a job or simply be happy. Now an ad from our sponsors, Cymbalta, or wait, penile erection difficulties solved with Viagra and weight loss pills for gout, instead, The Matrix continues.

"Fool me once, shame on you..."

2011-06-28T11:50:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.............vol.144

The bells are ringing, the water is rising in many parts of the country, fires are blazing out of control and the crazy woman from Iowa has announced her intentions to run for President of the United States. In a world gone mad, it is evidently possible for respectable people to continue to make silly decisions. Towns are underwater, families are drowning in debt and what will surely be an issue in the coming election will be whether or not people of the same sex will be allowed to be married. That will be the important issue used as a wedge to drive more people to the polls and create a bigger divide between our common desires to create a better world. Instead, we in Minnesota are watching the horizon for the looming shutdown of our state's government that hardly generates more than a whisper among the richest 2% who are having their way with the rest of the 98. In an economy in shambles, what may possibly give us the push over the cliff may be our elected officials' inability to compromise? I am seriously considering voiding all of the attempts that our government will take to grab my money away in the form of taxes that will continue to go to a government incapable of doing the right thing, and that is keeping the wheels of the machine appropriately greased. Oh by the way, don't forget that the United States is continuing to fight a war in three geographically different areas. Our government is spending 2$ billion dollars a week, combined in the different theaters. We have no money to feed the hungry, house the homeless, provide job creation or a proper education for all children, but we do have money for the justification of taking lives all the while providing easier access to the world's oil reserves. It's a sad state of affairs to realize that Obama is just the continuation of a long line of false promises offered in political campaigns with candidates who offer no real desire for implementation. I hope that the Arab Spring spreads across the Atlantic, and we truly do "take our country back."

The smokescreen is lifting

2011-03-30T12:14:00.000-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man........vol.143

I hope everyone got a chance to see our fine, upstanding President scold the American public for doubting his judgment last Monday evening on national television. At least with the former President you knew what you were getting, but with this guy, he's horrifically seemed to have forgotten the many things that we were promised when he was elected. There has been little hope and no change at all. The campaign promises of shutting down Guantanamo, getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but instead we seem to be starting up the engines of what may turn out to be the vehicle for World War III.
Meanwhile, people in our own country, go without food, without jobs, without healthcare. For once, other countries can step up and take the role of "watchdog of the world." We have pressing issues of our own here at home. But instead, we help out the rebels in Libya, some of which are being supported by Al-Qaeda in Libya, to overthrow an evil dictator who just years ago was our ally in the never ending War on Terror, but we never, haven't even brought it up, why we haven't helped the poor people of Sudan who have lost almost half a million of their own people over the last 10 years to their own civil war. What gives President Obama? And I thought you said we were broke? What happened to that? Instead we are going to be helping out in a "humanitarian" effort, not a "war", "let me be clear," without an exit strategy or end game? After all is said and done, Qaddaffi better not be allowed to go live in exile, but should instead be thrown into the Hague and stand trial for what he has been doing these lo-40 years. So, American people, instead were firing teachers here at home while we fire tomahawk missiles into Libya.

At least with George W.,
You knew what you were getting.

I hope we can chalk it up to March Madness?

2011-03-19T11:51:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man......vol.142

Everywhere you look the turmoil is spreading like a terminal cancer. The tentacles of it's reach are grabbing whatever it can get its hands on and it doesn't appear to be letting go anytime soon folks. From the historically mammoth Earthquake in Japan that resulted in a massive Tsunami that has breached the supposedly indestructible walls of their nuclear facility in northern Fukoshima, the devastation has no bounds. Men, women and children, the destruction that mother nature can impose has no bias. One only has to turn on the nightly news to see catastrophe and panic, riots and revolutions, the loss of life and the loss of electricity with sprinkles of radiation on top, making everyone with a pulse a little bit more nervous than usual these days.
Then there is the quelled revolution revolt in what once was our sworn enemy turned ally in the war on terror back to sworn enemy, the one and only, Libya and it's out of control despot who could give Charile Sheen a run for his money on outright lunacy. Winning!!?? No matter how you spell his last name, the man has style, but he has no sense of reality or maybe he's just an evil genius who happens to be insane. Anyway you slice it, the price of oil is going to increase.
There is also Bahrain, run by a Sunni minority, supported by fellow Sunnis in the Saudi Royal Family, who are trying to put the kibosh on their own domestic strife, which is very upsetting to the Shia majority and the nearby middle eastern rabble rouser, the Shia government of Iran and their "members only" jacket wearing president. We could be watching what may turn out to be the beginnings of World War III or the coming four horsemen of the apocalypse. So grab your socks and hose and pull, this could get messy, for everybody. 2012??

One final piece of disturbing truth is, last week the U.S. government released information pertaining to it's TARP plan, listing those financial institutions who received large amounts of tax-payer funded bailout money. The winner was, get this, Citigroup with an astounding 476 billion!!! That's right, almost half a trillion dollars in bailout money was needed, and I bet you heard very little of this information didn't you, and instead, were told by Republicans dripping with new found power, that Unions are responsible for the deficit we see currently in our state's and federal governments. Which leads me to ask, when was the last time you saw a Union, private or public, needing a bailout??

"Say you want a revolution......"

2011-02-19T14:39:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.....vol.141

From Tunisia to Egypt, Bahrain to Yemen, and from Tehran to Madison, Wisconsin?!?!, there are protests, there are groups forming, some of them growing into micro-revolutions demanding that old dictators of the past be replaced with something other than the same ol' same ol', and fast. The lower and middle class majorities are no longer going to put up with the "status quo" that says to "shut up and get back in line," or its timeless mantra "because of all of the foreigners" that this is happening, because there always is an inherent need for someone or something to blame for our own mistakes, our own reckless greed. Liberal Media Elites??? People are using technology harnessing the power of social networks, Facebook status updates and 140 character Tweets to help keep the momentum going in their favor. The powers that "be" are huddling in small cramped sweaty darkened offices, facing the flickering flames of their eternal control of the power grab fading in the winds of change. The Saudi Royal Family is getting nervous and rightfully so. People are becoming motivated to participate in the act in the manner of empowered citizens, demanding more from their elected officials than just security from an unseen villain and a bid to host the next World Cup. People, women and children, young and old are demanding that their "just" and "elected" rulers start to begin to show positive results after 30 years of monarchic rule while they were tasting the sweet seduction of unlimited U.S. money and military influence, while the United States at home in her own discomfort and realization that we are no longer going to be the "big enchilada", we are now bankrupt, and the fairness of it all is that the passing of the debt down to the states, the states to the counties, the counties down to the cities and finally down to the taxpayers who will end up footing the bill in the act of seeing some "essential" government programs cut, spending to be slashed, teachers to be fired and schools to be closed, but yet our health insurance premiums continue to increase at a pace that is similar to the tuition for a years worth of higher education and we are being told that we need to shell out more money to build a football stadium so that we can all enjoy 2 hours of commercials with our 1 hour of actual game every week??? Priorities are being pitted against desires, and the desires always seem to win out because after all, we are all savage primal beings by nature.

My 2 Cents.....for what it's worth.

2011-01-07T07:07:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man..............vol.140

From the opening frame pitched against a gold and black dissolving picture, slowly coming into focus, we are witness to a dead man at the foot of front steps, and a horse with rider quickly gallops past, the viewer is once again brought into the cinematically visually striking world of the Coen Brothers and their understated genius. One is watching the opening scene of "True Grit." The story is about a young girl, Mattie Ross, played by first time actress Hailee Steinfeld; she is a young woman who is out to avenge the death of her father, struck down by the coward Tom Chaney, portrayed brilliantly by Josh Brolin. In watching the film, I began to assess the importance of the book of which the film is the adaptation against the back drop of our country's present day circumstances, opposed to the John Wayne 1969 version of the film which strays further from the book's intentions, and not ever being a considerable fan of John Wayne's work, never have wished to see that picture and probably never will, I was nonetheless struck by the connection that we the American Public have with the young girl Mattie Ross. We the American Public have been robbed of our "father figure" the American Dream by the coward Tom Chaney and his posse', portrayed by the Big Banks, all encompassing greed, reckless spending, the unnecessary wars, and a growing number of uneducated and physically unfit citizens unable to carry the once promised torch of hope and change for the better, only to be left holding an empty bag. We wanted to hire our 'Rooster Cogburn' to set out and avenge the losses that so many of us have had to deal with these past couple years, only to find out that what we got instead was just another selfish politician drunk on his own power. The film has the utmost relevance for today's society and for todays' young men and women, and I look forward to the day when I will be including it in my 8th Grade English classroom, accompanied by the book, as the summation of the artistic expression of the loss of innocence, a study of art, from fiction to film. I haven't seen "Toy Story 3" yet, nor "The King's Speech," but I have seen "The Social Network," "Black Swan" and "Rabbit Hole," and for now I can say that the Coen Bros, with the help of brilliant acting turned in once again by Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, they have made yet again, another film worthy of being named "Best Picture."

"Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?" Dylan

2011-01-05T12:10:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.................vol.139

Dead birds falling from the sky in Arkansas, Louisiana and now Sweden? There is massive flooding in the dry arid land of Australia, and a bible group from Pennsylvania announced on Monday that the Rapture would take place on May 21st 2011, and that the end of the world would occur 5 months later on October 21st, 2011, my wedding day. Coincidence? I'm just saying. I believe that maybe the birds flew into an invisible UFO, or maybe it's just the wrath of God is all, it's no big deal. Anyhow, if we are at the last days and these are signs of whatever it is, whoever it is, where it is coming from, who the hell knows, way of telling us to batten down the hatches, get some gasoline, grab some batteries, some canned goods, grab some hard liquor and party like it's 1999, I say why the hell not? Anyhow, keep a look out for more falling stuff, but it will probably only be white stuff around here. Just had to get that out there. Peace, Love and happiness. Stay strong and continue to try to prosper in the new Global Economy.
Some call me crazy, but as Tom Waits once said, "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a Frontal Lobotomy." The man's got a point. Cheers.

Do you hear what I hear?

2010-12-20T09:58:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man..........vol.138

In just two days and two years from now, the world as we know it, just may end. That's right, December 22nd, 2012.
It seems to me that it is quite possible the birth pangs have already begun contracting. There have been mssive mudslides in California, 20 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada's, tragically cold weather across Europe and Great Britain; and all of this after a year of Earthquakes in Haiti, Volcanoes in Indonesia, floods in Pakistan and India, again, and so, this past year 250k people have died from natural disasters, which is minuscule when compared to those that die worldwide from cigarettes, and yet we are more concerned as to whether homosexuals can openly serve in the military?? 250,000 people, that is the largest yearly total for deaths caused by natural disasters in a generation, and that's not all we have to worry about. North Korea continues to display how unstable they are by firing missiles and artillery shells in South Korean islands while China sits by and says basically "we don't want to have to deal with them, they're crazy," Iran is leaving the world no alternative except invasion if they continue on the path toward nuclear power, we are still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, which sucks up more of governments tax payer taken money, and for what? Terrorists will just raise their arms and give up if we stay there long enough and spend enough American lives and treasure? Israel continues to build settlements in the West Bank,thus enraging the Arab world, and the United States is visibly financially bankrupt, along with Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece. But still, the gap between the richest 1% in the world that controls 90% of our wealth and that of the growing smaller by the day percentage of those who can consider themselves middle class and the increasingly growing numbers of lower class poverty stricken members of the global community who can't find clean drinking water or an education that is provided by a Madrassah continues to grow. Across the United States and the world, pensions are being slashed, our social security safety net is considered to be on the chopping block, and we still don't have a decent health care system. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs is still doing business and appointing Treasury Secretaries and henchmen into the Obama administration along with Bank of America, while a man name Julian Assange who received classified government information from someone, some believe to be Bradley Manning who is already in solitary confinement on a US military base in Virginia for his criminal act, releases it onto his WikiLeaks website in the guise of "Freedom of Information" is considered to be a terrorist destabilizing our government and governments around the world, who is then wanted for rape in Switzerland, accused by two young ladies who objected to having sex with him without a condom, and government's anywhere have never done anything nefarious that would consider these two women to possibly be on the payroll of a certain government's intelligence agency? But it's okay for the LA Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Le Monde and other newspaper sources to print the same material and go unscathed. Something has to give, and yet I look onto the students rioting in England and Greece with a cynical belief that it would take quite a lot more for that to occur in America, because that would mean becoming angry instead of complacent, educated instead of walking around in a pharmaceutically enhanced stupor treating the unhappiness of your private parts inability to provide happiness to your spouse, and instead get up get active and get involved. But I do remain optimistic that the end isn't near, because if it is, all of the time I will have currently spent on my book will have been for naught, and so I remain naively hopeful.

"A mystery wrapped inside a riddle, inside an Enigma. Even the shooters don't know, don't you get it?" David Ferrie portrayed by Oscar winning actor, Joe Pesci-----the film, Oliver Stone's masterpiece.... JFK

Happy Holidays, warm seasons' greetings, Merry Christmas, post Chanukah and pre-Kwanzaa. Drag out the aluminum pole from the attic, celebrate Festivus and prepare yourself for the feats of strength.

Short and Sweet

2010-12-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man....................vol.137

With the fall semester close to being over, there will be more time in the coming weeks for me to pursue my passion of creative writing and critical thinking. So I will leave you with just a taste of what is sure to come.

How long will it be, before we find on our nightly news channels that the leader of WikiLeaks Julian Assange turns up dead in a single car accident on a lone dirt road, or dies in a commercial plane crash or is shot by a crazed lone gunman? He's got more targets on him than a Osama Bin Laden right now, and he's got a major U.S. bank in his crosshairs next. I'm just saying. The man's a dead man.

Happy Holidays and remember, the 17th annual Old Spaghetti Factory Holiday get-together, Saturday the 11th, 6:30pm cst. Viva la tradicion'!

Because you may not know.......

2010-10-20T12:49:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man...................vol.136

We can't afford to fund our schools, health care, social security, but we can do this???? What are we getting out of this?

AMERICAN CASUALTIES

· US soldiers' deaths under Bush [2001-2008] in Afghanistan: 630[i]

· US soldiers' deaths under Obama [2009-Oct. 2010] in Afghanistan: 693[ii]

· Total US soldiers' deaths in Afghanistan: 1,323[iii]

· Total US soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan: 5,748[iv]

· Total US contractor deaths from 09.01.01 through 09.30.10 30: 2,400[v]

· Total US soldiers wounded in Afghanistan: 8,530[vi]

· Total US soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan: 40,464[vii]

· Total US contractors wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan: 44,152[viii]

· Total US military suicides during 2001-2009: 1,985[ix]

AMERICAN CASUALTIES TAX DOLLARS SPENT

· Direct costs/month in Iraq: $12.5 billion[x]

· Direct costs/month in Afghanistan $16 billion[xi]

· Total direct cost, Iraq: $737.5 billion[xii]

· Total direct cost, Afghanistan: $354.4 billion[xiii]

· Total projected direct and indirect costs, Iraq: $3 trillion+[xiv]

· Total projected direct and indirect costs, Afghanistan: $1 trillion+[xv]

Published by Tom Hayden, The Peace Exchange Bulletin is a reader-supported journal, critically following the Pentagon's Long War in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, as well as the failed U.S. wars on drugs and gangs, and U.S. military responses to nationalism and poverty around the world.

I have some questions to ask you.

2010-10-11T06:42:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man....................vol.135

Where are the catchphrases for today's society? Where are the "Squeal like a pig boy!", "You're gonna need a bigger boat," "Make'em an offer they can't refuse," "Use the Force", and "Is it safe?" Where is the shock and awe in what was once considered a maverick industry? Where's the beef? Where is the weird, the scary, the off-the wall? "Are you talking to me?" In fact, where has our society's Travis Bickles driven off to? What happened to creative cinema, creative writing, and the counter-culture that could stir things up from the working class all the way to the upper class? Where is the earth shattering inability to accept the status quo? Instead we've seen our society's focus dropped from a tall building and shatter into a million pieces, unable to focus our concentration on anyone or anything for longer than the fifteen minutes of fame they so preciously desire. We get celebrity game shows that hold no meaning other than to sell us a product every ten minutes. We may be the last generation that actually holds books in their hands to read. The scary thing is that although there will no longer be the need to burn books, they'll simply hit the delete button instead. We get sixty minute football games with two hours of commercials. But no one seems to notice, no one seems to care. We are most the time unknowingly and unwittingly pawns in the game constructed on Madison Avenue so that we consume more and think less. The alcohol industry floods the market, distilling sex, fame, fortune and fantasy, all in a twelve ounce bottle. But perhaps we should be thankful; at least they're still made in America.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/insidejob/

Food for thought.

2010-09-03T13:44:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.......vol.134

As the weeks have progressed since the economic collapse began falling like dominoes in the late fall of 2007, we have heard over and over again that it is going to be a long, slow and tough road to recovery. I agreed with that philosophy for some time, but have recently begun to wonder, why was it so easy and so fast to bailout the banks that got us into this mess, and yet for companies that have returned to massive profits, have never resumed hiring new workers? Is there no such thing as Research and Development these days? Which brings me to my point today, and that is the fact that we are going through the largest redistribution of wealth since the Industrial Revolution. We live in a Global Economy. The World is Flat and we need to adjust. So, without telling it straight to our faces, our elected officials continue to walk the high wire act of choice vocabulary words in place of the honest truth. For instance, since 1973, the U.S. Economy has tripled in size, yet the average workers' salary has decreased from $32,135 (adjusted for inflation to 2007 dollars) to $31,528, according to the New York Times. For example, "wages amd salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation's gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960's." What gives? I implore all of you to read Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine for further education into the matter. We are being dumbed down with awe-inspiring technical skill by psychotic scientific reptile brained mass murderers masquerading as proponents of peace.
I will leave with an excerpt from Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, who writes for the Web Based News Site, Counterpunch, as some food for thought. Because if you thought the main stream media was going to give it you straight, your further from the truth than I thought.

"The kleptocratic rulers in the US, EU, and other debt-burdened countries know exactly what they are doing: to let the recession drag on, to take advantage of the crushing recession in order to extract "enough" concessions from the working people until welfare states are dismantled and labor costs in the more developed capitalist countries are made competitive with those of the less-developed countries. This explains why despite new signs of further global economic contraction, the reigning governments in these countries (whether they are nominally headed by Socialist, Social-Democratic, Labor, Democratic, Conservative or other parties) are maintaining their coordinated abstention from expansive or stimulating fiscal policies while continuing their brutal spending cuts on health, education, wages, pensions, and the like.
This is not to say that these governments do not want to have economic growth or job-creation--they do---but that they want them on their own (Neoliberal) terms, that is, through Neoliberal policies that would create jobs that would pay wages on a par with those of workers in less-developed countries. In other words, they prefer the kind of lopsided economic growth whose fruits would be reaped mostly by the wealthy--the so-called trickle-down or supply-side economic growth. As writer/reporter Patrick O'Connor points out, "In the US, Europe and other advanced capitalist economies, the aim is permanently reducing the living standards of working people."

Now cheer up, the stock market was positive today.

And now, a word from our sponsor............................

2010-08-31T17:39:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man......vol.133

On this last evening in August, 2010, our president, Barack Obama gave a speech to the American Public. I wondered, was anybody watching this tonight? Does the American Public even care anymore? Have we noticed that he just announced the end to U.S. Military Combat Operations in Iraq? Did you notice that there will still be 50,000 U.S. troops remaining behind in Iraq as a "transitional force?" After 7 1/2 years, 4,500 dead U.S. soldiers and estimated to be 150,000+ dead Iraqis, the time to "turn the page" is here. Someone, que the Bob Seger song of the same name. As I watched, disappointed in the fact that the U.S. troops will only be moved to nearby Afghanistan to continue fighting a war that will never end, "the war on terror," I was pleasantly surprised that 9/11 was only mentioned once, but I know that we must remain ever vigilant against that shadowy group of evil-doers lurking behind every corner in the middle east, Al-Qaieda. President Obama wishes for "lasting peace and long term prosperity" for Iraqis and so do I, but I find it very ironic, that after 7 1/2 years of the exact opposite, combat operations can be considered to be over. However, there is no government to take the reins in Iraq. What we are going to be left with is another vacuum to be filled with corrupt officials and bureaucracy. President Obama said that all U.S. military will be out of Iraq by the end of next year, but can you really believe it? He hasn't closed Guantanamo, he said that when he immediately took office he would pull the troops out of Iraq and that he would get out of Afghanistan as well. After spending 1 Trillion dollars in fighting endless wars these past 7 1/2 years, he is setting us up for disappointment once again. His slogan of "hope and change" still rings in my ears as empty promises from just another empty suit in Washington. He mentioned that we must help the Iraqis to "secure the dream." I only wish that it doesn't ring true like the deceased genius comedian George Carlin once said, "The American Dream, you have to be asleep to believe it."

It's about time

2010-07-25T12:29:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man............vol.132

The clock is ticking. The well has been capped and the bells are tolling for the end of Tony Hayward, soon to be former CEO of British Petroleum who only "wants his life back." Poor poor Tony. After news has come out in the last two weeks that BP may have in fact been behind the release of the only man charged in the Pan Am flight 103 that was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 that killed 270 people, the man was returned to Libya in exchange for better access to oil reserves in that country, there has got be a point where we as citizens will take no more of this lechery. We expect deception like this from spy novels, or elected politicians, not business executives. The free-market has principles that were founded in manners and good will and the competition to do what thou wilt in order to gain ever larger profits for the common shareholder. Slave wages under the netting of Free Trade. Slaves were paid too and they were given Sundays off to rest, we get Saturdays as well. Back in line.
Goldman Sachs, that investment firm of the highest regard was only guilty of selling bundled sub prime mortgages held as securities, where they then would bet against what they had just previously sold, is the fox guarding the hen house. It's like a European banking dynasty in the 1800's, the Rothschilds, funding both sides of the American Civil War. But, they paid their debt, they paid their fines and nothing has changed. Did anyone even notice that last week, the Obama administration was able to pass a Financial Reform Bill that in it simplest form only created another bureaucratic agency to watch over multitudes of firms?? No, really, oh, caught up in the Shirley Sherrod thing, right. You have to love the internet and it's spreading of truth, but given the other options, I would take this over China's or Iran's stranglehold on the internet, any day of the week.

The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. Get started.

Ssshhhh.....keep quiet and keep to yourself.

2010-05-05T15:16:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man........vol.131

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Last night I watched a film, via Netflix, Drag Me to Hell and I must say, I was thoroughly entertained. If not for the simple fact that it was a breath of fresh air amidst the stagnant horror films that have graced the cine-plexes in recent years. It was a 'B' horror film type that seemed to have come from the era of the 70's, but was made in present day by Sam Raimi, director of the SpiderMan franchise movies and the cult favorites The Evil Dead. I must say it's title may be very relevant to the times and what is currently happening in present day Greece. When was the last time you can remember, a country going through a fiscal crisis of this magnitude? Argentina in the late 90's early 00's? There is fear spreading like the supposed end all 'flu virus' that is going to awaken and bring the dead back to life and reek havoc on our simple yet privileged existence. Spain may be next they say, and then Portugal, and then Italy and then Ireland. The collapse of the European Union and their currency is at stake the pundits say. Or is it all a way to move us closer towards a one-world currency? Will it result in the United States being able to profit from Europe's mistakes or will it spread to China where fear of inflation is starting to spread like volcanic ash over the U.K?
We saw the NYPD and the FBI come together on Monday night to capture a Pakistani born militant who was intent on turning Times Square into what is normally found in parts of Jerusalem. Are we only steps away from suicide bombers boarding buses in the United States? Is Arizona correct in asking for identification from what are suspected to be illegal immigrants, or is it too eerily like Nazi Germany asking that Jews wear armbands for identification purposes? We seemed to be suffering from the all too dangerous fear of the other. Fear of the unknown. Isolationism is spreading. We want to build a wall and lock the country down from all outsiders, from anyone who thinks or acts differently or looks different. The powers that be are going to be playing on those feelings to make profit and further their agenda, I guarantee you that. Oh, and we have nice oil slick growing down in the Gulf of Mexico.
Drag me to hell? Seems that's where were headed, doesn't it?

The New Busy think 9 to 5 is a cute idea. Combine multiple calendars with Hotmail. Get busy.

Do Yourself a Favor....

2010-04-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man...........vol.130

Four words.

Mumford and Sons.

Brilliant.

The New Busy is not the too busy. Combine all your e-mail accounts with Hotmail. Get busy.

That felt good......

2010-04-26T10:08:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.....vol.129

According to the US Geological Survey, there have been 22 earthquakes this year so far, of a magnitude of 6.0 or higher. 22!!!Today a 6.9-6.5 earthquake has struck off of the coast of Taiwan. Are you freaking kidding me?
A volcano has recently erupted and caused billions of dollars in economic turmoil due to it's troublesome ash floating over Europe causing delays in air travel that is now backlogged 5 days. But we shouldn't be worried, right?
This has nothing to do with the correlation of December 21st, 2012? Or does it? Maybe it is time to start hunkering down and building up some rations. I know I need to get glasses before it hits the fan. Cause when it does, I'm not going to be able to find saline solution or disinfectant around anywhere. No joke.

6 Banks in the United States control 60% of the nations GDP. 60%!!!! Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase. All that the financial crisis of the last two years has done, is create a monopoly of wealth concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.
We are in the midst of a ever expanding Oligarchy which is quite simply put, political power derived from economic influence.
Banks are spending a million dollars a day to lobby against any kind of reform against Wall Street, and the only thing the tea-partiers seem to care about is that the government is getting too big, letting in too many foreigners illegally and that they are reaching into my health care??? Are we serious?
Pay attention people. Health care is great so that we are going to cover those that can't cover themselves, but seriously, the real crooks are the ones that seem to still be writing the rules around Washington. The person they are most afraid of is an informed and active citizen. So get up and get educated.

If corporations want to be able to contribute limitless amounts to campaigns and be considered citizens by the Supreme Court, then they too should be held responsible like citizens to the 3 strike rule. How many corporations would be still around if they had to serve the time for the crimes they have committed against innocent citizens??? They shouldn't be able to hoard season tickets to sporting and entertainment events and then write them off as a business expense, and then be allowed to contribute any amount they wish to make sure the Congressmen or women vote the way they want. They can't have it both ways. Joe the Plumber and Susie Six Pack don't get it that way.

And another thing....the internet should also remain neutral. Verizon, Comcast and AT&T shouldn't be allowed to term it "information service" and thus have it not fall under the regulations of the FCC. If they do get their way, the speed of your internet access will be based on how much money you spend. Life in the fast lane. Not equal for all.
Justice sometimes means, Just-Us.

Hotmail has tools for the New Busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. Learn more.

Happy Anniversary

2010-03-19T16:56:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man..............vol.128

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I just wanted to extend a happy anniversary commemorating the 7th Anniversary of the Iraq war and the fact that we have spent 787 billion dollars over the past seven years to help out the Iraqi, Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni peoples find their way to democracy and freedom. Not to mention the extra 100 billion we spend every year in Afghanistan to allow the opium warlords to extend their reach with the help of the Taliban to further drive the price of heroin up on a global scale, and also the access that our participation provides for us to the oil pipeline in the Caspian sea, because as former ambassador to Afghanistan for UnoCal, we can be safe in knowing that President Karzai has our back. I truly want to extend my deepest hearfelt thanks and understanding to all of the military service men and women who have volunteered and faithfully executed their beliefs in serving our country and the families of those service men and women as well, and I hope that they will never have to pay a dime for excellent health care coverage, ever, and will always be treated with the utmost respect they so readily deserve. But I am always left wondering, if we were never to have abandoned Afghanistan in 2003 to invade Iraq, where could we use those dollars now?

Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox. Sign up now.

"Is there anybody out there? Nod if you can hear me, is there anyone home?" Pink Floyd, The Wall

2010-03-13T05:26:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.............vol. 127
　
Is there anything in your life that is transcendent? Is there something that gives your life meaning? Can science and religion exist at the same time and space? Sure they can. They are both flip sides of the same coin, the search for truth.
I was lucky enough to catch Bill Moyer's Journal last night on PBS, where his guest was NYU President John Sexton, and they were discussing the class that Dr. Sexton teaches, "Baseball as a Path to GOD." The title immediately grabbed my attention, and I began to wish where do I sign up? It is the vehicle for finding something, anything, in our daily lives that gives us meaning as a people, a person, a wife, a husband, a mother or father, son or daughter, friend or neighbor. It is asking us to "think strange." Some of us may be more advanced than others at that. I'm just saying. Sorry, had to get that in there. Other than the obvious answer of children giving your life meaning, what else is there? What do we as a general public, or myself as a person, give myself and ourselves meaning in this attention deficit disordered, immediate gratification world of today? In the past for America, there was Baseball, and for some there still is, that each spring rewards us with glimpses of what might be, but as Bill Moyers asked, "How do you respond to Mark Mcgwire, admitting that he took steroids to break the home run record?" Dr. Sexton's response was perfect...."There have always been bad Popes."
Dr. Sexton posed questions to ask of ourselves such as "Am I living a useful life?"
He educated me to the fact that our political discussions have "fallen into a discourse by slogan" or sound bites if you will. There is no substance, no nuances that people can wrap their heads around. Instead, we as a people "listen in feedback loops" only listening to what we want to hear, simply reinforcing our own beliefs, and not forcing us to "think strange." For 8 years we had a president that would not change his mind on anything, and did we then adapt that quality of his for our own, or have we been sliding down the slippery slope for so long, that it just seems natural to never hear another side of a discussion. To never admit that we might be wrong or be headed in the wrong direction. That there might be a different path to take to get to the final destination we are all headed.
Are we too far on either the right or the political left to reach any common ground? How long will we go on getting nothing done of any substance because of it? Instead we are left with the fact that "there is no marketplace of respect" in today's political discourse. We've given birth to a "society of distrust and cynicism" and unfortunately a lot of our elected officials have done nothing to deserve any respect, and I admit I can be rather distrustful and cynical when it comes to the government, but I still believe that there are more than two answers to a problem. There are more than two viewpoints held so firmly by the two major political parties in this great country of ours. So as a solution, we need to set up ourselves for "making new memories." We need to more often than never at all, take ourselves out of our comfort zones. We need to stretch our minds more and begin to "think strange."

On a personal note of accomplishment, a monologue-rant of mine has been selected to be performed by the Metro State University theater group at the end of the month in their "Theater Du-Jour" performances, and if interested in attending please contact me and I can try to get you RSVP'd for seats, there is no charge, just donations if so moved. My monologue will not be longer than 4minutes, to not demand too much of anyone's attention, but, it's another step on this beautiful path.
Much peace and happiness.

Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox. Sign up now.

You can truly never go back home again

2010-02-19T06:41:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man…….vol.126

The air was filled with anticipation and the fog of inebriation. The ice house was filled to the brim, overflowing with smells of caught fish, bodily outtakes the sounds of laughter and a black and white monitor of fish cruising the lake floor searching for food, like single men looking for future wives at the clubs on Friday and Saturday night. The weekend brought us back together again in his family's cabin on Lake Clitherall in northwestern Minnesota for the continuation of a tradition that has been around since the early 90's. A time and place for men to revert back to childhood adolescent behaviors and some things their parents should never discover. There are always leftover remnants of magazines, cover to cover, lodged under sofa cushions, spilt spitters and the greasy grime that lingers on the white counter in the kitchen. No women are allowed Super Bowl weekend. There are no compromises. Nothing is done half way. Full tilt for 80 or so hours. Phrases that abound are as wide as the guest list's commonalities and differences when it comes to rarely discussed relevant political and spiritual conversations. Sometimes it's best to keep my mouth shut. Instead it's the rehashing of old stories, old memories and the nostalgia for yesteryear.

"Are those real?"

"At least I'm not wearing a gay shirt…"

"Moneyball!!"

And last but not least everyone's favorite bar stool hunter of big game and timely pork-chops that lead to quiet drives back to the cabin in from town in the early morning hours……

"Ketchikan!!!!" Built to withstand the heaviest loads.

Whether or not some of the good times of this year were remembered or not is anyone's guess, but what is certain is there is a change in the way that we make it up to 2 or 3 in the morning. Fighting tooth and nail to never let go of the wonders of yesteryear, we always have the next get together to look forward to…..and we'd have to ask our gracious host to when that will be. Until next time, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for those Miller Lites.

Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free. Sign up now.

Sarah Palins radical speech

2010-02-07T14:00:00.001-08:00

From Obama as Hitler to Sarah Palin's radical speech, Wingnuts author John Avlon reports all weekend from Nashville. Click here for more on John Avlon's new book.

Ed Reinke / AP Photo

Sarah Palin's rousing speech looked more like a State of the Union address—and the crowd loved every word. But, John Avlon reports, it wasn't enough to steer the group's uncertain future.

The National Tea Party Convention ended with a Palin for President rally.

This was always slated to be the weekend's main event, with a $100,000 prize purse. But the organizers still hadn't seen a copy of the speech as the crowd streamed into the banquet ballroom. What they got was less a Tea Party manifesto than Sarah Palin's State of the Union speech—an address to a domestic spending protest group which spent its first 15 minutes focused on foreign policy.

It didn't matter. With plenty of anti-Obama red meat and Palin's patented folksy-sarcasm, this crowd was rapturous about just being in her presence. She remains the Queen of the Conservative Populists.

The Tea Partiers, munching on a decidedly non‑populist steak and shrimp dinner, were geared up. Seated at my table were two Revolutionary War re‑enactors in full regalia as well as an aspiring Republican congressional candidate from Oklahoma and an independent-conservative Senate candidate from Arkansas. When the time came time for toasts with our water glasses "Death to tyrants" was chosen.

s3ed4r5t6y

Sarah Palins radical speech

2010-02-07T13:58:00.001-08:00

From Obama as Hitler to Sarah Palin's radical speech, Wingnuts author John Avlon reports all weekend from Nashville. Click here for more on John Avlon's new book.

Ed Reinke / AP Photo

Sarah Palin's rousing speech looked more like a State of the Union addressand the crowd loved every word. But, John Avlon reports, it wasn't enough to steer the group's uncertain future.

The National Tea Party Convention ended with a Palin for President rally.

This was always slated to be the weekend's main event, with a $100,000 prize purse. But the organizers still hadn't seen a copy of the speech as the crowd streamed into the banquet ballroom. What they got was less a Tea Party manifesto than Sarah Palin's State of the Union speechan address to a domestic spending protest group which spent its first 15 minutes focused on foreign policy.

s3ed4r5t6y

Article II, Section 3

2010-01-28T11:34:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man..........vol.125

It was a historic night. The crowd was assembled. The usual suspects were there with their blue and red ties, ready to applaud at a moments notice and the others were to sit on their hands and make tired faces for the t.v. cameras. Obama, the chosen one, who was going to rebuild the country from the ashes like a phoenix rising into the sun, pleaded his case to the public that more time needs to be given. We have to be patient.
I was wondering how many times he would say "let me be clear", but it didn't happen. Instead he rolled into a populist message, like Presidents of the past, promising things that seem unattainable.
Two parties, both flip sides of the same coin working together? Good luck. But still I have hope.
"Change has not come fast enough" he stated and to our impatient public I can agree, for who has time to wait around these days for anything. We need things done now, and fast. As if we somehow know the end may be near.
He was supposed to part the Missisippi or free us from bondage or come down from a mountain top declaring that Yehovah had shown him the way, but instead he's just another politician, who can give really good speeches. The common enemy in the land of Obamica are "big banks" too big to fail but definitely in need of our handouts. "I thought I'd get an applause on that"....his demeanor was the most candid of any State of the Union that I have witnessed in my young life, and Slick Willy was pretty damn good if you can recall, that's Bill Clinton to you folks in the cheap seats. I was glad that there wasn't any mention of any "Axis of Evil" lurking in the aisles or telling us to buy up ducktape to ward against a bio-attack.
"I do not allow 2nd place for the United States of America" got everyone riled up and fully aroused.....the drums were sounding, que the porn music as their tongues wagged......but then he went on and on and started to loose me, but forever the optimist, Obama got me believing in him once again. In the end it was another great speech from one of the best speakers we have had as President......but actions speak louder than words and I, like the rest of this country, am waiting for something to be done in the cesspool that is our nations capital. But I do believe that our tomorrows can be better than our yesterdays.

On a sidenote and I may ruffle some feathers, but here goes, if you're anti-gay, why wouldn't you want gay men and women to serve in the military. With any luck they'd be taking a bullet for the country they loved and the enemy would simply be doing something that you wanted to do yourself in the first place. Do ask don't tell? By all means go right ahead, Afghanistan and Iraq are thata way.

I'm just saying. It's no big deal.

Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft's powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now.

Blame it on Obama?

2010-01-20T09:11:00.000-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.............vol.124

A rude awakening was awakened by the hour of the morning and the silence of the White House was brought down with a scream, "My God! what has happened in the land of Kennedy?!!" For yes, how ironic is the fates and twists of the almighty to tease us with carrots and kick us with sticks in the presence of universal healthcare no more are we, downtrodden are the masses of Democrats distancing themselves like lepers to Roman soldiers, we have no cross to bear any longer just a bad economy, and the Vikings are they getting stronger? For the old lion's seat to go to a Republican is like Saturday Night Live not being funny. Which is the truth, no longer worth the ordeal to watch on a Saturday night when found on the couch and nothing else on because you have no cable and your Netflix has yet to arrive, a book will be stretched forth or maybe a rinsing of the mouth. We've had earthquakes and aftershock s and the Haitians are running mad, and can you blame them. Just ask the victims of Katrina if we are going to help them. And maybe just maybe, now is not the time for a health care debate, for we have no more money, just a larger pile of made up dollars that never seem to go anywhere that is needed, i.e.; Main Street. But I bid you all a fond hello and see you scratching your heads, but I will warn you now, that I have been reading Finnegans Wake and there in lies the answer. Until next time, the aftershocks will be reverberating, so go safely to your warm beds.

Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now.

At least it'll be warmer......

2010-01-09T07:40:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man...................vol.123

Happy New Year 2010…….good morning ladies and gentlemen I hope that all is well out there for you and yours, but can I ask you this, where are the flying cars?? I was sure as a kid that they would be here by now; then again, we can't even make it back to the moon. We'll never find Bin Laden. I will begin by stating that this is going to be filled with more random thoughts stretched forth from the ether and grabbed from the nether regions of my brain as it deals with this ever expanding vortex of a universe. You've been warned.

The push for real climate change began in Copenhagen, Denmark in mid December where 192 countries were involved and nothing was finalized or agreed upon, except that Obama is a very busy man and can't be at everyplace all of the time, or can he? The "media elites" once thought he could catch bullets with his teeth and part the clouds to bring in more rays of hope to our recession dreary lives but that hasn't happened has it? But, then again, W left us with quite the mess didn't he? Or maybe it was Greenspan? Or maybe it was us? Oh, sorry, it's all Obama's fault. Instead we have Democrats huddled behind closed doors now and shutting out C-Span as they "debate" far from the public's eyes and ears about what to do about the future of health care in America. More transparency, my…... proving my theory that both parties are just flip sides of the same coin, flipping us off!! Did you see that Democratic Senator Chris Dodd from Connecticut has announced his retirement? Saving his face and his keester, because as a leading member of the finance committee supposedly put in charge to change things and regulate the financial industry so as we don't have a repeat of the bubble of the past, got out while the getting was good, because you can't take money from the Wall Street companies and then be expected as voted in by the voters in your district to change things anymore, without the chickens coming home to roost, cue Reverend Wright.

As a meager low level part time team member within the produce department of a shall not be named department store franchise that spends more on it's marketing then on it's employees, think red and white with a bullseye, aimed at the consumer, sorry, guests, the lack of holiday spirit permeated the building and grocery aisles every day I was there. It was oppressive and stifling as the mist of anger and impatience was overwhelming at every turn down every check out lane. But I digress, it was Christmas, oh, sorry, the Holidays, They some time get you down, like "rainy days and Mondays", I don't want to offend any one out there. But here goes, this may really get some people going, and I'm just spit-balling here, I'm not saying that I believe it, but it's just the hamster in it's wheel in my brain, that maybe just maybe, the Bible was created to impose a One World Government, because think about it, if as in the book of Revelations states that we have to submit to a One World Government before the second coming of the man from Nazareth will arrive and save the day, and dealing with all of the rapture hoohah and putting up with the beast rising out of the holy sea (Anti-Christ), but what if, what if he never was here to begin with, the man from Nazareth, gasp…..I know it's just a thought, but what we would all be waiting for would never arrive, and we'd be stuck in a heavily securitized and monitored, full body scanners One World Government run by a fascist leader promising hope and change. I asked myself, why was there a push from Paganism (many Gods) hard to control the people many many years ago to a Monotheistic approach (easier to unite and control the people)??? Then again, Islam vs. Christianity, is it just to divide and conquer the masses?? Anyhow, just some random, blasphemous thoughts, better get my sunscreen ready, it's going to be a hot one in the after life, for all eternity, I kid I kid. Chew on that.

Now get back in line, go to work, be thankful you have a job, shut up and take the mark. Happy New Year!!

Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft. Get it now.

Best of GOEM....no.3(volumes 85-116)....take your time.

2009-12-22T17:52:00.000-08:00

The Best of Global Outrage/Musings of an Educated

Man.....no.3(volumes 85-116)

The moon bares witness to the folly of coming night as stars play their masters and children dance on coals.

November 21^st, 2008

With the economy spinning out of control and unemployment climbing to heights not seen in my lifetime, I have been finding myself thinking of the Dow Jones and S&P 500 as a limbo party on board a cruise ship, where the destination is unknown, and we have no captain, no map or course to chart. I see us continually dancing along, our hands waving in the air and some, some of us falling to our knees, tears streaming down our cheeks and praying for whatever it is, to come, to spare us and lift us far far away from here. Meanwhile, others go along without a care, not wanting to face the mirror that has become our feeble existence.
Maybe it will bring the revival of simplicity. A rebirth to the ways of myth and legend. A life where we find meaning and hope in what we do in our everyday life occurrences without question. Seeing the wonder and the divine in the most mundane circumstances; just try brushing your teeth with your other hand sometime.
Maybe the revelations of realization that we should only want we've already got or been given will return to our natural tendencies, and only making purchases in the extreme necessity would somehow bring us back to reason.

Maybe it's all created fear and hysteria? Maybe what we should be doing is packing our things and violently storming the gates of our nation's Capital and demanding that the seven hundred and fifty billion that we've loaned to the soon to be nationalized financial institutions be given back to it's rightly owner, the American People. Maybe we should be more outraged and be asking what the.......?

November 30^th, 2008

We all were spending beyond our means and now it's time to pay the piper.
Responsibility is growing up.
It's not fun, but it is necessary.
That plasma flat screen cable t.v is just going to have to wait.
Reading a book sounds great, or maybe just taking a walk outside.
No head phones, no Ipod.
Nothing to listen to except myself, and I think way too much.
I know Karla. I hear ya.
It is time to embrace what have. Instead of reaching for things we want, reaching for things we need.

December 9^th, 2008

Does anyone know this? That during the Stock market crash of 1929, the stock market didn't regain it's highs of 1927 until 1954!!!! 1954!! I know that it is all cyclical and that every generation looks back on the one before and thinks, yeah, but that was different, and these kids today?? What's with them and their crazy clothes and music? Is it all just a little bit of history repeating?

December 20^th, 2008

It wasn't meant to be, the thoughts in my head,
placing me where I shouldn't be and changing my mind instead.
I now find myself heading on the correct path in the right direction.
A teacher I will become, learning never to cease,
but knowledge will always encompass and I will impart it to my students,
so that it will ever increase.

December 29^th, 2008

It is amazing that 2000 years ago, St. John of Patmos would write the book of Revelation and would predict the end to come at the town of Megiddo, just outside of Jerusalem, and for this area of the world, because of it's embrace of three major religions would still remain relevant to this day. Is it all just a means to separate us from each other? Why did God have to pick that part of the World for Yahweh to be feared, Jesus to die and be resurrected and Muhammad to ascend to heaven? Is there a shadow group of elites since the dawn of time, that has only continued to propagate these "myths" or "facts" so that they will continue to have a means to divide and conquer the masses? Or maybe I simply think too much?

January 1^st, 2009

2009 is here and as year's go, it shouldn't be any worse than 2008. 2+9 equals 11, and 11 means new beginnings. 9/11 equals, 9+1+1=11, that's why it happened when it did. They planned it that way. The twin towers, two big erect 1's, fall down, the end of an era and the beginning of another. Call me crazy, I can live with it.
And I'm telling you, there is something fishy about the government's need to push everyone into digital television. They are giving us money to go and buy converter boxes. They want us to go out and buy more stuff that we don't need. They don't even do this type of thing to encourage people to get registered to vote. I'm just saying. Call me crazy, I can live with it.

January 3^rd, 2009

There Should be Sparks

The lightning
that struck me once before
has seemingly left the storm,
and all that I saw
when I approached her
was the consolation
of a wet blanket
that once was warm.

January 9^th, 2009

Dire signs and ominous sounds come muttering to us through horrific job reports, local corporate buyouts(Best Buy), and endless wars, frustration and humanitarian crises in the Gaza strip (Israel once funded HAMAS to fight the Arafat led PLO, sounds familiar like the US funding IRAQ to fight IRAN) where the meek are not inheriting the earth, only bloodshed and the loss of whole families. The Happy Holiday shopping and relative greeting season has given way to grim forecasts, limited possibilities and mounting national debt. But, there may be a silver lining in all of this. Hear me out people. Maybe the Global Financial Crisis was necessary as a means for a world shift in consciousness, from the material to focusing on the immaterial, from the self to the whole. History has shown that revolutions only occur when the people find themselves so downtrodden that they will take it no more, and only then will they demand action and results. These may just be the birth pangs of a new global awakening. The poles are shifting. The playing field is being leveled and maybe, just maybe, our aspirations for what is necessary, for what is truly important like good will towards others, no matter their religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality or social standing will rise above the unimportant complacency of what is not needed, only desired because of its relative ease of past tradition.

On December 21st, 2012 an occurrence that only occurs once every 25,800 years will take place. The Earth will be in exact alignment with the Sun and the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which scientist's have found has a black hole in the center. What does it all mean? Where are we headed?

January 15^th, 2009

It is only fitting that the first of the new century of Global Musings be on the night of his farewell address. I feel empathy for him as I do President Nixon. It has to be the most challenging job in the world, but one that he wanted and maybe stole in 2000?? But I digress. In his eight years as president, we've seen 9/11, the invasion and hopefully liberation and birth of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. We've witnessed Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib. We've been through Katrina and now the economic crisis, and we've left no child behind in the process. They just have to run to catch up.

"Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear." General Douglas MacArthur

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." James Madison

"It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world." George Washington

January 19^th, 2009

I'm very suspicious of the fan fare that has been given to Obama's inauguration. I know that it's historic and that it's a sign of how far we've come as country and I'm proud of that, but I cannot remember there ever being so much media coverage and media dry humping over one man. I hope that he does have some answers to our country's ills, but putting all of our faith into one man is what happened to Germany. It's very eerie to me, to see a special on HBO with a concert for the man, and Bruce Springsteen is there, and Beyonce and Stevie Wonder and Garth Brooks, and he hasn't even done anything yet? Am I being racist for simply being cautious? I voted for the man, but then again he was the lesser of two evils and Ron Paul never had a chance, and Paul Wellstone was murdered in 2002. Never before in the history of politics has a man risen so far so fast, and he's already got two autobiographies. Two. If ever there was a candidate for the anti-christ, he would have to be on the short list. Look at all of the power and control that we've got centralized into the office of the President in just the past 8 years. He's had a pretty good set up reliever for him in George W. Bush and his administration; now all he has to do is close the thing out. I hope to God he doesn't. But it does seem quite surreal what's happening nowadays and the falling over each other the way the major media outlets have been to get close to the man. So, I am keeping my eyes on the road ahead with both hands on the wheel.

January 23^rd,2009

Is there anyway we can get justice other than watching Law & Order? What do we have to do to have these horrible excuses for human beings get their just desserts instead of desserts, while we get stale bread and salmonella from bad peanut butter? Is there anyone out there who can be the Robert F. Kennedy taking on the Mob? Bernie Madoff is on house arrest for swindling $50 billion from his maybe not so bright investors, and isn't it a crime more serious than selling dope? Is there anyone out there who has the guts to stand up and ask the hard questions to get the results, or are we all too scared to know the truth of the extent to their diabolical plans? Oh no, that would hurt the economy. We can't do that. What the???!! If you have been living under a rock, the economy is already hurting from a financial crisis created by financial firms that create nothing but simply move money from one place to the next and continue to do business as usual and go on with their mergers and acquisitions in order to better position themselves once the long neglected phrase of recession is over. Please, oh please Mr. President, grow the necessary (insert male genitalia here) to do what is right and what is necessary and hold these people's feet to the fire that is burning out of control before we are left with even less than what we've got left and do the right thing, please. Put childish things aside, grow up and grow a pair.

February 13^th, 2009

But yet I remain hopeful and confident that this turbulent time will be one of invention, catharsis and growth. It may just be the best time to invest in the market since the mid 80's. If you have 20-30 years to watch shrewd investments develop into retirement funds instead of relying on a soon to be non-existent social security program, the future looks very bright indeed, if it all doesn't end on December 22nd, 2012. Buy low, sell high. It can't get much lower can it? Imagine if they had privatized social security the way W. had wanted? Lehman Bros. and Goldman Sachs in charge of your social security account? Good call. How about if you just wrap those up in some mortgage backed securities if you will? The economy is fundamentally strong". As Thomas Friedman said, "The stone age didn't end because they ran out of stones."

Creation requires destruction. Renewal. Rebirth. Strength and courage. Adversity develops character. I hope.

February 21^st, 2009

Can we consciously will for the well being of others through concentrated thought, prayer, meditation and by being open to whatever invisible force there is out there protecting the universe and everyone of us in it? Do some of us have more of a heightened awareness of it than others? Is that why some of us heal faster than others? Or Is it just genetics? How do individual cells know to develop into two eyes, two hands, two feet and two ears and one brain? Do our thoughts reside in other places outside of our brains'? Why is there is a sense of attraction to someone or something? There must be an intelligent design or force making these things happen or is it all just blind luck? Do the dead stay behind in the "Field" and can they cause harm or do good after their physical bodies have gone? What is the importance with ley lines and the many sacred sites that have dotted the Earth since recorded history? Is there more reality in our dreams than in the illusion we call our waking lives?

For I believe in the power of the force. The power of attraction through the action and belief of positive thought, and that Quantum physics and the string theory that posits, that all things are connected by a zero point magnetic field, and that we all need to be open to the thought and belief that anything is possible. Because if you can think it, than it is. Maybe not now, but in the future. So if you get the chance, please take a glance, browse a review, or simply read "The Field-The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe ", by Lynne Mctaggart, c.2008.

It can't hurt anything. It can only help. Seriously, and as we all know, the world sure needs some positive thoughts these days.

April 1^st, 2009

If I were the Clash, at one time, the most important band in the world, I would be singing my own song, "London Calling". But, I'm not, and only the world's elite will be doing that come tomorrow as they jangle the keys to the asylum in front of our very eyes. The day after April Fools' is only appropriate timing for the people that think of anything other than coincidence, because we've all been fooled again by the masters' that hold the strings, and we dangle, bouncy bouncy bounce for their enjoyment to run like rats in our cubicle cages nibbling for that ever just out of reach piece of cheese that sits atop open hands well manicured and their laughing eyes from their house arrest confinements because they stole and keep stealing billions away from ordinary tax payers. Oh, to be young again. Maybe the G20 meeting in London is a good thing. A plan will be developed for a worldwide recovery from the mess that they put us in. The same people in charge of supplying the solution are the same as those that have given us the problems. Oh, to be young again. There may be violence and there will be outrage and there should be outrage. I was outraged once, and sometimes I was even taken seriously. Oh, to be young again. I am guessing that Mr. Barack Obama will be emerging from his whirlwind world tour as the undoubted king of swing. The golden calf in carmel colored skin with a million dollar smile. He's been on the cover of every magazine for the past year and a half and you have to admit that his inauguration was something almost biblical. The answer man. The man with the plan. At least that's how the major media darlings will portray him. Then again, I voted for him. And then again, look what he was left with. But I digress. And then he will go on to meet with the leaders of the Czech Republic and Turkey and offer them the United States unwavoring support for anything against the still from the viewpoint of the western world, the much despised USSR, China and their threatening quasi-capitalism and Iran and their beautiful yet shrouded women and their unrealistic and unfortunately uneducated clergy, in what may be the first steps towards World War III. Should we be checking his scalp for three little sixes?
Oh, to be young again.

April 26^th, 2009

The spring rain is greeting my backyard window pane with the pitter patter of falling feet touching the glass from God's outstretched toes that seem to need their nails clipped, and touching down on the deck and stucco that bounces to the ever greening grass below. Puddles form along the side streets and the brick brack courtyards church bells ring to the drive way behind the house and beyond. And yet I still sit wondering, will I get the Swine Flu? Is this the pestilence that was warned about thousands of years ago by a distant relative on the island of Patmos? Are we hearing wars and rumors of more wars amongst the people picketing against the higher taxes and ever expanding reach of bigger brother's federal government as we slowly slide to a global centralized bank in the hands of a waiting dictator who will have all the power in the world to do whatever he or she may want? Or am I on too many medications like the rest of America and the quickly growing population of the world to notice or to be trusted with knowing the difference? Or is it all going to end on the 21st of December in 2012?

May 9^th, 2009

Was the global economic collapse coordinated with the intent of starting over with a clean slate in place throughout the world, to impose the rules of the Chicago School of Economics main theory of "laissez-faire" fostered by Nobel Prize winner economist Milton Friedman?
"that Chile under Chicago School rule was offering a glimpse of the future of the global economy, a pattern that would repeat again and again, from Russia to South Africa to Argentina: an urban bubble of frenetic speculation and dubious accounting fueling super profits and frantic consumerism, ringed by the ghostly factories and rotting infrastructure of a development past; roughly half the population excluded from the economy altogether; out-of-control corruption and cronyism; decimation of nationally owned small and medium-sized businesses; a huge transfer of wealth from public to private hands, followed by a huge transfer of private debts into public hands." Naomi Klein The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007)

Can we say "Bail-out"?? Eerily clairvoyant.

September 15^th, 2009

A week ago, on 9/9/9 or maybe it was really an upside down 6/6/6, our young president gave what may turn out to be his most important speech in his young presidency, when he stood before Congress and pleaded for Universal Healthcare. It was as if once again, he was saying to himself, "I've saved the day, for the time being." Even Nancy Pelosi, whose bo-tox hasn't slowed her ability to speak, was fumbling over her own words announcing his introduction, and thank God Biden didn't have to open up his mouth. Whoa, that would've been our Kanye West moment. The Democrat majority in Congress though was very apparent, "but let me be clear," there is much work to be done. Maybe we need a tax on soda pop for our ever increasing nanny state to save the day. We can't get thin without a tax. That's common sense. But for now, the health insurance companies are the boogey man to fear and yet, the financial institutions that helped get us into the mess that we are currently in are continuing to do their own little song and dance and getting away from any actual reform at all. Oh how sweet it was, Lehman Brothers, where are you now? Our President continues to tip toe on the fence, causing our ever impatient media and ourselves to question, which side is he exactly on? What exactly does he want? Does he do this in homage to Lincoln who always kept people guessing? One thing is for sure, he can sure as hell give one heck of a speech. And come on, people, that's what got him elected. He's inspirational and charismatic. A true politician. Now he's trying to be the biggest community organizer the world has ever known, and good for him. We need a community these days, we don't need twitter updates. But, what's to say that your employer won't drop health coverage if a public option is being offered? It would save a lot of money for businesses, and that in the end is the bottom line. Shareholders over employees, unless you want to risk your retirement again on your 401k that's up to you. "It's time to give every American the same opportunity we give ourselves", damn straight. That got a thumbs up endorsement from Mccain. But, instead of drug testing our athletes, lets start drug testing our elected officials. How about that? But where are the death panels? Won't all the senior citizens be considered expendable. We will all be required to have health insurance, just like car insurance. Sounds reasonable, no sending a man to the moon or anything like that. By the way, did you hear, we aren't going back to the moon. Too expensive. Too expensive??? They just print more money. That's all. But maybe we didn't go in the first place? I kid I kid. "Significant details need to be ironed out," chuckle chuckle chuckle from the audience. Isn't that the truth. "I just want to hold them accountable." Yeah, no two page TARP application for those guys. The financial institutions sure got it right in the kisser, didn't they. Oh, wait, his whole cabinet is former Wall Street execs. That's right. Tim Geitner, you did one helluva job as Fed Chairman of New York. Good thing you kept it all in line when you were in charge. Now, you're Secretary of the Treasury, going to DisneyWorld next? Hank Paulsen former Treasury Sec. was former Head of Goldman Sachs, and who got a nice big bailout instead of Lehman Brothers, you guessed it, good old Goldman. Anyhow, everyone sitting on their hands during the speech was old and white. That's the party I want to belong to. Ha. But, hey Mr. President, what happened to getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan? What about shutting down Guantanamo? "Hey, my door is always open," if you have enough cash. Sorry, did I just say that. But Mr. President, please end the speech while going for the jugular, bring up Ted Kennedy, and talk about moral issues for social justice and "the character of our country," while our men and women continue to fight in wars we will never win. "I still believe.....", was it his best speech yet? I don't know, but you have to give us hope in order to cover up for the things that won't be taken care of. Not much has changed from 4 years ago has it? We just substituted a better speaker.

Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free. Sign up now.

Help a brother out....

2009-12-22T17:37:00.001-08:00

www.change.org/actions/view/legalize_marijuanait_only_makes_sense

Do it!!!
And if you want, forward the address on to your other friends. Now that's change I can believe in.

Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free. Sign up now.

Just in time for the Holidays......................

2009-12-16T08:49:00.001-08:00

The Best of The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.........no.2 (vols. 67-84)

I saw it on the television.

August 31^st, 2008

Personally, I think they need to move New Orleans about 100 miles north. It's just a thought. And maybe move St. Paul 10 miles closer to Minneapolis, because nobody in the major media can tell the difference between the two anyway, and nobody from Minneapolis seems to venture over to our other city very much anyhow.

Fanaticism can be both Christian and Islamic. There can be no deviation from that. None. Remember, Guantamo is still open. We have places to put you people. Salt of the earth type people. But we must remain vigilant. We must remain on guard, because the terrorists will never stop. Ever.

September 20^th, 2008

It's nice to know that the average citizen doesn't have a safety net as neat and tidy as the Federal Government does for Wall Street big businesses. I know that if the federal government didn't step up to the plate and beg for more money to stave off another Depression we would all be going for each other's throats and looting and burning whatever cash we do have on hand, because we'd realize once and for all that not only is our country morally bankrupt but financially as well. 700 Billion dollars on top of the 10 billion that we are spending every month in Iraq. Who would want to be President of the United States? Look at what they are going to inherit. Ouch. But at least the President has been telling us that our Economy has been "fundamentally sound." Whew, that is a relief. I almost thought we may be in trouble here. I mean how much is our dollar really worth when all we do is print more and send more out into the marketplace when we know in our heart of hearts that we are never going to pay off our national debt. Never. Then again, if the world is going to end or whatever changes might occur by December 22, 2012, this is kind of leading us down that thorny path. Can't you just smell the roses?

October 4^th, 2008

They did it. It is done. It's finished. Signed and sealed and hopefully it will deliver us from the brink of extinction. Although, I still plan to get eyeglasses as soon as possible, because when it all falls apart in the end and the players are left watching the house of cards that they've built come crashing down, it's not going to be easy to get saline solution and disinfectant for contact lenses when there is widespread looting and murder over fossil fuels at the gas pumps. What we've seen in the just the last 8 years is right on schedule with an end date of December 22, 2012. We've witnessed 9/11, War in Afghanistan, War in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, The Mortgage boom and bust and now the credit crisis. What they told us was $700 billion but will probably cost us $5-$10 trillion. Of course they are going to low-ball us. Why not? The average American is clueless anyhow. So, we now have Henry Paulson, who was once head of the investment firm, Goldman Sachs, to be the lone man in charge of pricing and buying the bad debt. The man who was partly in charge of creating those exotic mortgage backed securities known as collateralized debt obligations, is now going to be the one to help "bail" us out. That's right. We're all in jail, we're all enslaved and only a few of us know it. I have to believe that Goldman Sachs will be one of the first firms with their hands out to get "bail" out money. Just a hunch. It is the fox guarding the chicken coop.

"I will make them famous, you will know their names." John "The original Maverick" Mccain

October 11^th, 2008

Has not this current economic crisis got you at least a little concerned? Problem, Reaction, Solution. That's how they operate. They create a problem, wait for the public's reaction and then wheel out the solution. That's how the Patriot Act got passed so quickly. How else would you get the American public to give up their civil liberties? Tell them that it's necessary in order to stop terrorism. We don't want "the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Now they have a reason to wheel out their steps towards a one world currency. Create a problem that would affect the world's economies, wait for the public to react in a frenzy of panic and fear, and then say wait, we've got the solution right here; let's just have everyone back at zero and playing on the same level. Taa-daaa. You may be laughing to yourselves and saying "Scharber, he's crazy. He's paranoid. He's finally lost it."

We are being led down a slippery path towards socialism. The United States Government is taking control of our banks. We are handing over our "free" markets to the G-7. But then again, would you have expected anything less from these blood suckers. They are vampires that feed on the fear that they create. Only blood sucking vampires would say that it's crazy and utopian to dream of peace. We need to get a grip and get educated. People be ready. Get ready. Remember, December 22nd, 2012. And if I'm wrong and that day comes and goes without a sound or a hiccup, I will bother you no more, at least about 2012, I promise.

November 1^st, 2008

Now, let me focus my attention on the recent ads against Al Franken. If I understand them correctly, Al Franken "humiliates minorities, believes child abuse to be a joke, writes pornography, demeans women and laughs at the disabled." The only thing they leave out is that "he drowns puppies in garbage cans filled with dirty water."
Wow. Good thing Norm Coleman went positive.
Maybe we all should have the knowledge like Michelle Bachmann that we "are right in our hearts", and "embrace Freedom and Liberty".
If you could get more generalized than that, let me know.
Which leads me finally to Barack Obama's Wednesday the 29th of October 2008, 30 minute propagandadvertisement on three major networks. How do you compete with that?
I mean, I'm voting for the man, but honestly, have not the powers that be and the unseen hands already placed the mantle upon his head?
And 4 years ago, nobody knew his name and he was a junior senator from Illinois that simply gave one of the best speeches at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston.
I just hope he delivers on what he has been promising, because if I remember correctly, George H. W. Bush, in 1988 said "No new taxes." And what did he do? Raise taxes.
No wonder William Jefferson Clinton is such a good friend of his.
Oh how we are fooled into believing that there is a difference between the two parties.
Freedom is a choice between the lesser of two evils once every 4 years. But then again, maybe I'm too cynical?
Maybe we only have a little over three years left until a giant shift in cosmic consciousness comes along to change us for the better? Or worse? December 22, 2012.
I will state it again, that if I'm wrong I will be the first to admit it.
However, you'll have to admit that we are inching ever closer to a one world economy and a one world government would you not?
The Global Economic crisis is necessary for the tip toe to totalitarianism. We've already begun socializing our financial institutions. The next is Health Care.
They don't just let things happen without a reason. The ends justify their means. 9/11?? Bam. The Patriot Act. The War on Terror?? A War that will never end.
Just keep on keepin on, and trying to pay the bills.
"Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage."
So get out and vote. That's entertainment.

November 3^rd, 2008

Historic times are we a part of. An historic election is only a day away. I hope that Obama is victorious, if for the only reason being that he would get us out of Iraq, but then who are we kidding. The money that we've been sending there will only be sent then to Afghanistan. It will never end.

November 4^th, 2008

The Republican Party may have to do some soul searching after tonight. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and Sean Hannity will be chomping at the bit. I think it's only fair. Eight years of W. We should get at least four from Obama.

November 15^th, 2008

What we have in America today is the costliest enterprise that our country has ever been a part of, besides the on going, ever increasing balance of the price of war in IRAQ. What we've spent as a country, on the economic bailouts, is more than what we spent as a country during World War II, adjusted for inflation. And we've only been doing this for the last two months. Or have we??
We are teetering on the precipice. Well, that's what they've been telling us everyday and every night.
They've given a bailout for people to get back into their houses; but what good is that going to do when they don't have a job?
Gas prices are getting lower right now, so people can drive to jobs they don't have. I'm sorry, it's getting contagious out there.
Remember to get your flu shot.
Someone slap me.

Maybe we need a gigantic shift. A drastic change.
It was only 150 years ago that as a nation and a world we were leaving the Agricultural society (business and farming don't mix) and beginning the Industrial revolution (man and machine don't mix??).
Maybe now, we are going through the "birth pangs" the prophets had spoken of thousands of years ago.
People, the age of Aquariuous is about to begin and a new age will start.
For, without pain, there is no growth.
So lets not go jumping out of windows and declaring that the sky is falling just yet.
2012 is still some years away.
Or maybe that is all a part of what we are moving towards?

We as a people, use only 10% of our brains.
That's scientific fact, and you can't stop science, even Costanza knows that.
Maybe these drastic measures are pushing our subconscious to use more than the normal 10%.
Maybe we'll all be able to become the image that is God, in ourselves.
We were made in its image, and maybe finally, we will begin to start using it for the better of mankind.
For that, I am hopeful, and I keep my eyes on the horizon.

More is on the way, check your stockings.

Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service. Get it now.

Are You Serious??

2009-12-09T07:09:00.000-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man..................vol.122

The following has been submitted to the theater group at Metro State University as monologue, in the hopes that they will present it on stage in April.

Somewhere between the birth of Man and knowing the Sun was King,

To the time we thought the Earth was flat,

The human being has begun to believe,

That our own selves are the

Center of the ever expanding everything.

But I wonder,

During the time of Buddha, Yahweh, Christ, Muhammed and Shakespeare,

Did they ever need Viagra, Prozac or Paxil?

I wish I could come to you and discuss the benefits of having cell phones attached to each and everyone's head, allowing more and more people to make calls while being stuck in traffic to and from their cubicle occupations for hours every week. Discussing what to make for dinner. Where to pick up the kids from at the mall, if they hadn't already been abducted and had their pictures placed upon cartons of milk while you eat your morning cereal before going off to deal with the pain you call your job or made to be the latest 24 hour tragedy to overtake the airwaves of our beloved cable news networks. I wish I could discuss the benefits of I-Pods and not having to communicate with strangers. To be able to download porn right to your cell phones, to attach those headphones and climb a stair-master instead of walking outside in your own safe neighborhood without the fear of being held up or raped at gunpoint. I wish I could say that the oceans rising mean nothing to me. Social Security being there when I need it is not realistic. I wish I could come here without knowing that China owns our beloved country. But I can't. I can't even smoke a joint to relax.

WAR WAR WAR and more WAR. Protecting this country means blowing other ones up. Democracy is good. Democracy is great. Democracy works when people participate and don't allow their leaders to become dictators, because Fascism loves complacency. There is never ending war to maintain peace, so just go buy another i-pod, go buy another flat screen LCD HD TV and never mind the details. When is the last time you saw an army of Buddhist Monks invade a country under the guise of spreading peace and freedom, or testing nuclear weapons? Those crazy monks sitting up there in their mountain enclave, what do they know? Don't have cable. Don't even own a television.

You can still legally treat your son or daughter's Attention Deficit Disorder with medication that may or may not cause him or her to commit suicide, but you can't smoke a joint.

Now get back in line. It's for your own safety.

Do you hear me?

Shut up and take the mark.

There must be a common enemy for the United States war apparatus, in order to keep us all servile and numb. After World War II, we had to find someone, and look, our ally during the war Russia, now became our hated enemy. We could now build and construct more weapons and feed the beast which has become our shadow government, the military industrial complex; Big Oil and Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics…etc, etc. After the fall of the Soviet Union, because you cannot have a Soviet Union when you are trying to get the world to the point where there will be no more countries, just free trade agreements, we had to create another enemy, and you probably guessed it, Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaida network. Don't mention the fact that we used him, probably through the CIA to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, and now we are fighting him and his Saudi backed construction company worth millions; never-mind the fact that we need his country's oil so desperately that we may have even sold our souls for it. But you still can't smoke a joint.

Never mind tricky Dick Cheney, and his Sesame Street Count like corner of his mouth grin, who is grinning from ear to ear now that the Supreme Court ruled that he doesn't have to reveal with whom he did meet in 2001 when he was doctoring up is infamous energy policy. A publicly elected official doesn't have to reveal with whom he or she meets, with what they discussed when they meet in private. Only citizens of America have to reveal what they do and with whom they do it in private under the guise of the Patriot Act. Equal in wrath is concealment. One should not mess with the federal government. Now shut up and pay your taxes. And yet, you still can't smoke a joint.

Dying men and women, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives, suffering unimaginable pain, now find it, thanks to the omnipotent wisdom of the Supreme Court, the Alcohol Industry and more than likely, the Pharmaceutical Companies, they can be incarcerated for easing their pain with a funny smelling cigarette. You can legally assist a loved one in his or her own suicide in the state of Oregon, but you can't smoke a joint.

Now get back in line. It's for your own safety.

Do you hear me?

Shut up and take the mark.

You can go to war and invade a sovereign country preemptively, one that you helped fund militarily to fight against Iran, all because you claim that they have weapons of mass destruction and you don't want the smoking gun in a the shape of a mushroom cloud. You can then continue on in your efforts for years, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, all in the name of collateral damage and the war on terror. You can set up prison camps on foreign soil, where you house "enemy combatants", for any period of time you see fit, all the while charging them with nothing, and never allowing them to speak to an attorney. This all happens under the control of the "land of the free and the home of the brave", but you still, you still cannot smoke a joint.

You can be elected President after 8 years of war and economic boom and busts and promise to shut down Guantanamo and pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and do nothing of the sort, but you can't smoke a joint. You can order a fight on Pay Per View at the price of $49.95, to watch two grown men beat each other into submission inside a steel caged octagon, but you can't smoke a joint. You can light fireworks in some states and die as a result of some freak accident in the spirit of our national holiday. You can voluntarily join the military at the age of 18 and be sent to a foreign land where you are instructed and trained to kill the enemy. But you can't smoke a joint. As a member of Congress by the urging of the President you can pass a $787 billion dollar stimulus package, but legalizing marijuana, that would be crazy. You can drop nuclear bombs on Japan killing hundreds of thousands of people to end World War II, but you can't smoke a joint. You can legally drink yourself to death, but you can't smoke a joint, because that would lead to other things. What other things are they so afraid of? How much worse can it get?

I would love to start a revolution of the mind, but I'm too busy trying to pay off my credit card debt. The revolution will not be televised because Rupert Murdoch already owns the channel. It has to start in the small towns and on the internet and spread indiscriminately like cancer. The truth must live on despite the stem cell destruction of minds by ignorance and indifference. We must be educated, think radically and act locally because, no longer smoked, the joint is the place where you will be sent.

Chat with Messenger straight from your Hotmail inbox. Check it out

Let me be clear....

2009-12-02T15:06:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man...............vol.121

Obama, Obama, man elected by the people on the promise of hope and change, you have seemingly turned into yet another puppet pulled by the strings of big business and the military industrial complex. Let me be clear. 30thousand more troops into Afghanistan. 30thousands troops at a cost of one million dollars per U.S. Soldier per year and we are a country in crisis, a country in debt. Let me be clear. Our federal deficit in 2010 will be 1.5 trillion. 1.5 trillion!!! Oh, and did I mention that China owns about 800 billion dollars of our debt, and we better make sure that they will still believe that we will pay them back. Remember how our prior President W. would continually trumpet 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, and the drumbeat for war would never cease. Even though you have inherited a great mess, you are continuing down the path of least resistance once again. More money for wars, weapons and occupation, just so long as you call it by some other name, fighting terror. Let me be clear. Yes, we as a country will never forget what happened on 9/11 but how about positively assessing what exactly are we going to get for being in Afghanistan and still in Iraq, and still holding people for as long as our government wants in a place called Guantanamo? Weren't you going to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan and shut down Guantanamo? Instead your largest campaign contributor Goldman Sachs has made out like a bandit and we are still waiting for the stimulus to take effect and turn this sinking ship we call America back to the land masses, the people that deserve better than empty promises. Let me be clear. Maybe I am too impatient, but I think when you set the bar so high during your campaign and on the historic day of your inauguration, you are going to get what you deserve, and that is criticism.

And now on to another black man in the spotlight, Tiger Woods, your world is crumbling down all around you. Will we ever see your magnetic smile and fist pump at a golf tournament again? I feel so very sorry for you, a billionaire athlete that has to pay the price of endorsements, poor poor billionaire. You sure can read a green but you've been having a hard time reading the media's appetite for a juicy story. You must realize in America, we love to build things up, tear them down and hope they rise from the ashes like a Phoenix. Good luck Tiger, you're going to need it.

And folks, believe me when I say it, I truly don't own a white hood. Seriously I don't.

Until next time, Happy Holidays.

Chat with Messenger straight from your Hotmail inbox. Check it out

I have been short on words lately...........

2009-11-15T07:51:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.................vol.120

For that, I do apologize. I am sorry for leaving you wanting more than has been given, and for that I thank you as well. It shows that "you love me, you really really love me", must reference Sally Field oscars' acceptance speech.

So, without further ado, I will get right down to the meat and bone of things.........the health care reform issue. The issue that needs more discussion and repercussions. I am for Universal Health Care, and anyone that truly knows me would say, duh....but I would like the government to pay for all of it, like they do in France or Canada. And once again my friends would say, duh. Socialist Scharber. If the Government can bailout the banks, with our taxpayer money than they can give me free health care. If they can spend $11-12 billion dollars a month, a month, in a war the Soviet Union couldn't and we will never win in Afghanistan, then they can give me free health care. And we all know what happened to the Soviet Union, kaput. Like the fall of the Berlin wall that Obama was too busy to attend the anniversary ceremony of, because he had to visit the dead and dying on Veteran's Day. Which was appropriate I think. But what do I know? Seriously, I don't even have cable. But, I think the time for Universal Health Care and Health Care Reform should wait until at least we have gotten out of the economic storm we are currently and probably will be in for the next 5 years at least. I do not think now is the time to spend another Trillion dollars over the next 10 years when we as a nation need to seriously tighten our belts like a fat man at Old Country Buffet we have gone way too far in our appetites for material items. But I may be right in the realization that it is already too late and the train has left the station, and deeper in debt we as a nation will be. Because, one day, and the day will come when China will no longer buy our debts from us because they will have begun to think that "Hey, I don't think the United States is ever going to pay us back". But then again, what do I know? I don't even have cable, or an Ipod.

So, we as a nation need to find a way to get more money into the coffers of our state government's around the country, and here is an idea, one that I've bet you've heard from me before, LEGALIZE MARIJUANA!!!! TAX IT. Like alcohol sales to help us out of the Great Depression, let's do the sane thing, the rational thing, the logical thing and all admit to ourselves that the War on Drugs doesn't work. Why should we have to pay 30k a year to keep a drug user or dealer in jail, when the Pharmaceutical companies get to ring the bell on the NYSE? I mean, no one has ever committed suicide from Prozac, or driven their car while they were sleeping using Ambien?? Just kidding, they have. But Eli Lilly and Phizer, they are multinational Pharmaceutical companies and they are run by old white men who believe in Eugenics, so, let them keep on dumbing and numbing us down. Okay, well anyway, Just down the street from our house in Northeast Minneapolis, an entrapenuer opened up a glass works shop next to the local bodega, and it's name, Twenty past 4. Oh, my heart goes pitter patter in the thought that they may have gotten ahead of the curve and the day will soon come when a Friday night rolls around, no pun intended, from a week long tiresome at work trapped in a cubicle, despite all our rage, we are still just rats in a cage, thanks Billy Corgan, and I'll be able to stroll over to the bodega and purchase a joint or some buds, and then stop next door and purchase a device to smoke it in, and begin strolling and rolling home, pun intended, to listen to some music, maybe some classic Pink Floyd or some new stuff from Radiohead or just some Jazz on 88.5fm or as Kinger would say, "play some OASIS, something with Liam singing it", and put in a pizza, and just relax. Not hurt anyone, just expand the mind a bit and relax. Get out a notebook and see what kind of crazy ideas come out of the synapses in my brain. Knowing that hey, they treat chemo patients with this stuff. They treat MS sufferers with this stuff. They treat AIDS patients with this stuff. They treat arthritis pain with this stuff. They treat 8 years of a Bush Administration with this stuff....sorry I just couldn't resist. Never heard that said for beer before, except for the Bush Administration comment, that would be NA beer. But then again, what do I know?? I don't even have cable, or a flat screen LCD HD TV, que Col. Kurtz 'Apocolypse Now', "the horror, the horror".

Chew on that, and by the way, Troy and Minn, thanks for the push.

Now get back in line for your H1N1 shot, take the mark and shut up. Everything is going to be just fine.

Windows 7: It works the way you want. Learn more.

Some music to smile to

2009-11-14T07:00:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.......vol.119

Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes......"Home"

The White Buffalo.............."Love Song 1"

It's a day to go to a wedding. Much love and peace and happiness.

Bing brings you maps, menus, and reviews organized in one place. Try it now.

"War......what is it good for???"

2009-11-11T12:49:00.001-08:00

Global Musings of an Educated Man..................vol.118

Driving to my normal location for some rest and relaxation and no it's not an anything goes massage parlor...although it helps massage the mind, as my nephews call it, Barnes O Nobo. I was listening to the Current and was ever aware of the fact that it is Veteran's Day. I was almost brought to tears by listening to Ray Charles' beautiful rendition of "America, America", and would just like to give my thanks to all of the men and women of the military, past and present for their service. I may be anti-war but I am not anti-soldier. So, with that, I will leave you all until the next time and hopefully sooner, rather than later. Much peace and happiness from the revolutionary of the mind.

Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft. Get it now.

Bad Medicine....

2009-10-23T08:24:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.......vol.117

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I am back from the ether. From the waves of the outer realm of the produce aisles of Target their frigid cooler and horrid ordering quantities of cauliflower and cucumbers, and from the inner sanctum of Metro State University within the Urban Teacher Program. North to the Future. I apologize for the lack of information that I may or may not be relating but that is for the reader to decipher, for wisdom to the masses would be unwise because they would be unable to render it useful, ala a Nobel Prize for Obama. I however, am still waiting for mine to arrive in the mail in the next 4-6 weeks. You should see me twirl bags of grapes.
But seriously, I want to relate to you women and men the nauseating realization that I had come to on the trip north yesterday while turning switches on the radio dial and found myself listening to ""Bad Medicine" by Bon Jovi on a local radio station and almost had to pull the car over to the side of the road amidst the sunshine so I could lean out the door and safely vomit what I had leftover from a crispy peanut butter and chocolate protein bar mixed with diet Coke. Ouch that is awful music. Can you hear the chorus now in your head, "da danna like bad medicine...", more like bad music, which only strengthened my resolve to donate more money in the pledge drive for Minnesota Public Radio, especially the Current. Please do the same if you find the time and opportunity. And while were at it, let's eliminate the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan (if we can learn anything from the Russians in the 80's) and hope that maybe Obama will actually start doing something that he pledged during his campaign. Please, I remain hopeful that he can and will, but in the end, he may just be the false prophet John of Patmos warned us about. Did someone check his scalp for three little 6's?
Until next time, much love peace and happiness in this world of madness. Brad Childress may get a contract extension, can anything be more ridiculous?

New Windows 7: Find the right PC for you. Learn more.

"I still believe....."

2009-09-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man......vol.116

A week ago, on 9/9/9 or maybe it was really an upside down 6/6/6, our young president gave what may turn out to be his most important speech in his young presidency, when he stood before Congress and pleaded for Universal Healthcare. It was as if once again, he was saying to himself, "I've saved the day, for the time being." Even Nancy Pelosi, whose bo-tox hasn't slowed her ability to speak, sure was fumbling over her own words announcing his introduction, and thank God Biden didn't have to open up his mouth. Whoa, that would've been our Kanye West moment. The Democrat majority in Congress though was very apparent, "but let me be clear," there is much work to be done. Maybe we need a tax on soda pop for our ever increasing nanny state to save the day. We can't get thin without a tax. That's common sense. But for now, the health insurance companies are the boogey man to fear and yet, the financial institutions that helped get us into the mess that we are currently in are continuing to do their own little song and dance and getting away from any actual reform at all. Oh how sweet it was, Lehman Brothers, where are you now? Our President continues to tip toe on the fence, causing our ever impatient media and ourselves to question, which side is he exactly on? What exactly does he want? Does he do this in homage to Lincoln who always kept people guessing? One thing is for sure, he can sure as hell give one heck of a speech. And come on, people, that's what got him elected. He's inspirational and charismatic. A true politician. Now he's trying to be the biggest community organizer the world has ever known, and good for him. We need one these days, we don't need twitter updates. But, what's to say that your employer won't drop health coverage if a public option is being offered? It would save a lot of money for businesses, and that in the end is the bottom line. Shareholders over employees, unless you want to risk your retirement again on your 401k that's up to you. "It's time to give every American the same opportunity we give ourselves", damn straight. That got a thumbs up endorsement from Mccain. But, instead of drug testing our athletes, lets start drug testing our elected officials. How about that? But where are the death panels? Won't all the senior citizens be considered expendable. We will all be required to have health insurance, just like car insurance. Sounds reasonable, no sending a man to the moon or anything like that. By the way, did you hear, we aren't going back to the moon. Too expensive. Too expensive??? They just print more money. That's all. Maybe we didn't go in the first place? I kid I kid. "Significant details need to be ironed out," chuckle chuckle chuckle from the audience. Isn't that the truth. "I just want to hold them accountable." Yeah, no two page TARP application for those guys. The financial institutions sure got it right in the kisser, didn't they. Oh, wait, his whole cabinet is former Wall Street execs. That's right. Tim Geitner, you did one helluva job as Fed Chairman of New York. Good thing you kept it all in line when you were in charge. Now, you're Secretary of the Treasury, going to DisneyWorld next? Hank Paulsen former Treasury Sec. was former Head of Goldman Sachs, and who got a nice big bailout instead of Lehman Brothers, you guessed it, good old Goldman. Anyhow, everyone sitting on their hands during the speech was old and white. That's the party I want to belong to. Ha. But, hey Mr. President, what happened to getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan? What about shutting down Guantanamo? "Hey, my door is always open," if you have enough cash. Sorry, did I just say that. But Mr. President, please end the speech while going for the jugular, bring up Ted Kennedy, and talk about moral issues for social justice and "the character of our country," while our men and women continue to fight in wars we will never win. "I still believe.....", was it his best speech yet? I don't know, but you do have to give us hope, in order to cover up for the things that won't be taken care of. Not much has changed from 4 years ago has it? We just substituted a better speaker. That's all. Hey, did I say that? Sorry, got to take my meds, but hey, at least they're cheaper now.

Ready for Fall shows? Use Bing to find helpful ratings and reviews on digital tv's. Click here.

Jack Scharber has invited you to sign a petition on Change.org

2009-08-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

Jack Scharber has sent you an invitation to sign the petition "For the love of God, Legalize it already!" on Change.org.

Click the link below to view the petition.
http://www.change.org/actions/view/for_the_love_of_god_legalize_it_already

Peace, Love, Dope........

2009-08-20T12:17:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.......vol.115

Greetings ladies and gentlemen. I'm back from the country we call California. Today's blog will be a travel log of that excursion out west with my future Fiance. So let's begin, as not to take all of your precious time studying up on the health care reform that Democrats and Obama are trying to get passed, which is more than likely just going to throw more gasoline onto the fire that is our national debt, but don't worry about that, marijuana is bad, bad, bad, and there would be no sense legalizing it and taxing the hell out of it to help pay for some health care reform.
We all want to be pro-life but once that baby's out, it's on it's own.
Sorry, about that. I am known to get carried away. Okay, on to the trip. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

On the Saturday of our landing in Colorado for our lay over, our voices were sent over the loud speaker, "Miller and Scharber, please report to gate 31, your flight is waiting." True. Troy and myself having been there years back, not in Denver, but in the airport in Phoenix, drinking to our hearts content on our layover and walking drunk and confidently aboard a plane that was waiting for us to head to San Diego and home of the comic-con, where we would spend quite probably one of the best three day vacations ever. My arms around two cute asian women at the Lamontagne concert at the House of Blues, getting free beer at the Padres game and watching Troy douse himself with water because he was redder than a lobster after spending all day Saturday at Pacific Beach, doing what he does best, mingling with the ladies and trying to score a beach volleyball game. The voice of my brother in his head, "I'll make you guys leave if I have to." The gate attendant behind her desk looking annoyed as I explain that I am Scharber and that I am waiting for my girlfriend, no need to tell her future fiance, is in the bathroom, again, ha. Like we had anything to do with the delay in our take off from Minneapolis because of a thunder cloud. Sheesh. After then landing in San Francisco, and navigating the tram to our rental car, and waiting for about an hour in a stuffy un-air conditioned building, where Johnny Sweatback was noticeably uncomfortable, we got our white Chevy Cobalt and headed for downtown Soma district to our hotel, the Courtyard Marriot. Nice digs. That evening we crossed the Golden Gate bridge to head to my brother's place in Mill Valley, north of San Fran to meet and greet and see my new niece, Mizu, cute as can be, but sassy like her Momma, we headed to Pizza Antiqua for dinner, after of course the twins, Taiki and Tomoki climbed all over uncle Jon-Jon. Wow, they are exhausting. Saturday was a blur. Sunday morning came and Kristal and I walked down to the pier along the Embarcadero to weave our way amongst the vendors and crafts stands and took in some homeless people gazing and street performers playing before meeting up with my brother and the boys for the afternoon baseball game at beautiful AT&T Park where the Giants couldn't keep up with the Reds of Cincinnati, but what a stadium, what a display of media at the game. $8 hot fudge sundaes. No kidding. The Twins would be smart to send some people out there to look at how you do a baseball game right. Beautiful outdoor baseball, seated 29 rows up from first base just under the over hang of the upper deck, awesome seats, thanks mammy for those, priceless. Watching as the boys nervously eyed the cotton-candy man walking up and down the aisles, and my brother teasingly telling them, "I hope he doesn't run out before he gets here," the boys eyes widening in fear. Taiki trying to figure out how exactly to eat the stuff, balling it up on his fingers and my brother, prepared as always ready with the wet-wipes. 6 years old, Montessori kids and smarter than whips, but man oh man is Taiki a troubled eater. Ha. Tomo the general and order maker of the two had no problem.
Starbucks Starbucks Starbucks. They are everywhere out there. On every street. Like homeless people in Key West, Florida.
That evening Kristal and I took in North Beach and I finally made my pilgrimage to City Lights Bookstore, once home to such beatnik luminaries as Kerouac, Ginsberg and Corso. That was my wailing wall. But once again, no air conditioning in there. As Hoium would say, hotter than bologna sticks, and if you ever want to head to a strip club, there is no shortage in North Beach. Seriously, there was more strip clubs in that small part of San Fran than Minneapolis has total. No kidding. We walked around Chinatown that evening as well, and I watched as Kristal's face changed from shock to awe as she saw fresh chickens, dead, hanging in the storefront windows. Funny stuff. At least there was no bugs.
We had dinner at Viva's in North Beach where the server was as cute or cuter than the ambiance. Cute little French girl.
Monday we took the car up the north coast an hour north to Pt. Reyes Station where we took on the windy windy roads, amidst the huge redwoods and cedars, and I watched Kristal hang on to the car for dear life, she was truly frightened that we would fall of the small two lane road and down the hills to where our car would naturally explode like in TV. Kristal finally got to see and experience the ocean, up to her knees, but not by choice. The hot sand almost burning our feet. We then headed to Kristal's favorite destination of the trip, the hippie Mecca, Haight Ashbury. The hippies are still there. Peace love dope. Good thrift stores, and I got a kick out the angry hippie, oxymoron, seriously that was harassing the girls. Tourists tourists tourists. Everywhere. French, Italian, Japanese, middle eastern, you name it you got it. Didn't see Michael Savage though. He's was problem in his
panic room somewhere.
Had dinner at Magnolias in the Haight and thought if you were to live in San Fran, scooters would be the way to go, because the parking sucks.
Tuesday we made our way down to the tourist trap that is Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf. Had to see and smell the sea lions. Stinky. T-Shirts t-shirts t-shirts. Had lunch at the In & Out burger and thanked my lucky stars I would never have to work in a place like that. It made the floor of the New York Stock Exchange seem tired.
We then drove up to Twin Peaks but it was way too foggy to get a good view, but it did seem that you would fall through the clouds and were sitting somewhere up in heaven. We then drove down the coast about 20 minutes south of San Fran to a town called Pacifica where we had dinner at the Pacifica Beach Resort. I could live there. Absolutely beautiful. Someday I will.
Wednesday was Alcatraz and Angel Island, and that was an event. An all day event. From 9am to 5pm. The ferry ride to Alcatraz was pretty cool and the audio tour inside the prison was amazing. You can sense the haunting spirits. Definitely worth the price, but you don't need to see Angel Island, or if you do, do it last like we did, or else you'll be asleep by the time you get to Alcatraz. Wednesday night, room service and stallionaires. In bed by 8:30.
Thursday the flight back home.
So there you have it. San Francisco in 5 days, from ultra liberal-tree hugging hippie-progressive thinker Johnny Scharber, and no vitamins either. Damn. "Peace, love, dope, now get the hell outta here!"

Windows Live: Make it easier for your friends to see what you're up to on Facebook. Find out more.

Some Fun Facts from the fallout

2009-08-15T09:03:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man......vol.114

This comes from true revolutionary, David Icke and his brilliant research. I think I smell a rat, don't you?

The bailouts were instigated by Boy Bush Treasury Secretary, Henry 'Hank' Paulson, who was chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs before he joined the government in 2006. As one article said: 'The Secretary of the Treasury, who used to be the Goldman CEO, just spent $85 billion to buy a failing insurance giant that happened to owe his former firm a lot of money. Does that smell right to you?'

No, it's crooked, because Paulson is crooked, a man spawned by a company that is based on crooked and controlled by the Rothschilds who could have invented the word.

Paulson appointed former Goldman Sachs vice-president, Neel Kashkari, to decide who got the bailout money as head of the Office of Financial Stability. Kashkari, in turn, appointed Reuben Jeffery, a Managing Partner at Goldman Sachs, as interim chief investment officer.

Other important players in the Treasury were Dan Jester, Steve Shafran, Edward C Forst, and Robert K Steel, all Goldman people. Goldman executives at the key New York Federal Reserve Bank were also involved in the bailout discussions, including Stephen Friedman (Rothschild Zionist), the head of the board of governors.

Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin (Rothschild Zionist), who did so much to prepare the ground for the collapse of 2008, was CEO at Goldman Sachs. Rubin, the Co-Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, was also named in Obama's interim team.

Two of Rubin's 'protégés', Timothy Geithner (Rothschild Zionist) and Larry Summers (Rothschild Zionist), were appointed by Obama to decide his economic policy. Goldman Sachs paid Summers $135,000 for a single day's 'appearance' in 2008. Geithner, a former executive of Kissinger Associates and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, appointed Goldman Sachs lobbyist, Mark Patterson, as his chief of staff at the Treasury.

Who was the biggest single private donor to Obama's election campaign? Goldman Sachs.

Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. Check it out.

"A green plastic watering can...for a fake Chinese rubber plant...."

2009-06-21T07:35:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man........vol.113

I will begin this entry from the days of the summer of 1994. It is off the beaten path and having little to do if anything at all with Father's Day, but I am overwhelmed with nostalgia and music and the fact that I have had these notes for some time now and it has been rather elongated in the terms of linear space and time since I posted anything new . What I am trying to get at, to quote former Eagle, Don Henley is "the heart of the matter", the times of days of old and the soundtrack that went along with it when we were young and naive and had never heard of anything like 9/11 or Columbine of I-Pods. I return again to particularly the sonic sound burst of music from Radiohead.
Pablo Honey- beginning with the opening track, there is no hint at what's to come for this band from Oxford. No one would think that in 3 to 4 short years a band that was putting out the song "You", would create the seminal works of The Bends, Ok Computer and Kid A. But that thought is quickly discarded along with the notion that Oasis is the better band, I know, coming from me, back then would have been blasphemy, but get a grip, people change, sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better, after getting to their second track on the album, "Creep". A song any boy in his late teens and early twenties can relate to. Unless of course you've never kissed a girl or dumped your would be girlfriend on the curb outside of Barnes and Noble in Blaine and caught her completely off guard. I apologise for that Kim.
There were hints by the end of Pablo Honey of what was to come, but nothing of the sort of what I firmly believe may be the best album of the 90's, The Bends. The memories of the 1st Avenue concert in the early summer of 1995 or was it 96'? It's difficult to remember, being the haze and all. Passing the one hitter back and forth and round and round inside Hambone's little red Civic between Fernando, Jeff, Hambone and myself, as we cruised down 94East to the parking lot that straddled 394 and provided many pre game moments, while we followed Minn and Hoium in Wang's little blue Ford Ranger, fresh from works bomb spills on the dashboard. By the way, does anyone know where the tape is? Trailer people. Ha ha ha.
Running across the highway to the concert as fast as young male inebriated individuals can run. Good times. The image of Hambone throwing up into a garbage can inside 1st Avenue, as it being I believe, the first time that he participated in, to coin a phrase from TT boy the "hippie lettuce". Then again it's better than doing it in line while outside of 1st Avenue. You know who you are.
It is watching Jeff Olson, now a father of three, wow, that blows my mind, play the air guitar to the Statue of Liberty riff on the "The bends", or myself, discussing the hidden meaning of the breast implant theory to "Fake Plastic Trees" with Fernando and Karla, sitting in my blue Plymouth Sundance outside the fenced in tennis court off of University Avenue in Fridley on an ordinary afternoon sometime in the mid 90's. Ahhh, to be young again. To be continued..............

Happy Father's Day.

Microsoft brings you a new way to search the web. Try Bing™ now

"When you think that you've lost everything.....you find, you could always lose a little more." Dylan

2009-05-09T16:06:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.........vol.112

Man oh man, even the panic created by the media who are trying to save their precious newspapers and their Swine Flu cannot stop the rally on Wall Street. But then again, when has logic and common sense ever been hand in hand with Wall Street? With the speed of everything "quickening", will the pace of the upswing be as fast as the collapse of October 08'? Will it rebound off the wall like a billiard ball off the green felt and will more and more people being seeing green by the end of the year instead of red? Only time will tell. Oh, and will Brett Favre be a Viking? And wouldn't it be ironic, that the only way the Vikings win a Super-Bowl would be with an ex-Green Bay Packer quarterback. Or, will Bud Grant think he's a moose and shoot him?

Was the global economic collapse coordinated with the intent of starting over with a clean slate in place throughout the world, to impose the rules of the Chicago School of Economics main theory of "laissez-faire" fostered by Nobel Prize winner economist Milton Friedman?
"that Chile under Chicago School rule was offering a glimpse of the future of the global economy, a pattern that would repeat again and again, from Russia to South Africa to Argentina: an urban bubble of frenetic speculation and dubious accounting fueling super profits and frantic consumerism, ringed by the ghostly factories and rotting infrastructure of a development past; roughly half the population excluded from the economy altogether; out-of-control corruption and cronyism; decimation of nationally owned small and medium-sized businesses; a huge transfer of wealth from public to private hands, followed by a huge transfer of private debts into public hands." Naomi Klein The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007)

Can we say "Bail-out"?? Eerily clairvoyant.

Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail®. See how.

"My policy is to have no policy"....................founder of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, (take that Rush Limbaugh)

2009-04-26T09:24:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.........vol.111

The spring rain is greeting my backyard window pane with the pitter patter of falling feet touching the glass from God's outstretched toes that seem to need their nails clipped, and touching down on the deck and stucco that bounces to the ever greening grass below. Puddles form along the side streets and the brick brack courtyards church bells ring to the drive way behind the house and beyond. And yet I still sit wondering, will I get the Swine Flu? Is this the pestilence that was warned about thousands of years ago by a distant relative on the island of Patmos? Are we hearing wars and rumors of more wars amongst the people picketing against the higher taxes and ever expanding reach of bigger brother's federal government as we slowly slide to a global centralized bank in the hands of a waiting dictator who will have all the power in the world to do whatever he or she may want? Or am I on too many medications like the rest of America and the quickly growing population of the world to notice or to be trusted with knowing the difference? Or is it all going to end on the 21st of December in 2012? I know that I always have many questions to ask and may from the fringe think too far "out there" for some people to truly accept, but I must digress and ask questions that interest me, like did Dan Zamlen get abducted by the Smiley Face Killers or did he just drink too much and fall into the river in the early morning hours of Sunday April the 5th outside of St. Thomas University on the corner of St. Clair and Mississippi Blvd, like apparently so many young college aged men appeared to have done in the last twelve years, not to mention the 8, yes 8 that have met their tragic fate in the small college town of Lacrosse Wisconsin, or do men really like to go swimming when they're drunk? And if so, why oh why is marijuana still illegal? I will never stop believing that it should be emancipated like the slaves of old by father Abraham, although knowing that there are some things people just cannot handle. Like Gay marriage being legal in that state of cornfields we call Iowa, but not in the liberal elite land of California???? Oh, is it safe to eat ham or bacon with my classic eggs favorite from Perkins? Peanuts aren't going to kill us anymore are they mother? I can have peanut butter and honey sandwiches and live right? Please just let me watch my baseball on a rainy Sunday afternoon on channel 29, cause I don't even have cable, and continue to naively believe that hopefully the people in power know what they're doing and that they will one day get it right.

Until next time, open arms and open minds. Just please, cover your mouth will ya.

Windows Live™ SkyDrive™: Get 25 GB of free online storage. Check it out.

"How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms into leaving his post......" Dylan

2009-04-05T16:52:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man........vol.110

The revolution will not be televised.

On Saturday April 4th, I partook in the democratic process at the ground level, for I was a seated delegate in what was the Ward 1 DFL Convention for City Council. We were electing the person who would receive the DFL's endorsement for Ward 1's City Council Member spot, vacated by outgoing member Paul Ostrow. The convention in and of itself was an eye opening experience once again, and this time knowing full well the excruciating minutia that would be glossed over was needed and the caffeine to withstand the assault against common sense and reason would go hand in hand, I spent my Saturday morning and afternoon watching and waiting and finally voting and shaking the hand of our city's proud Mayor and maybe future candidate for Governor, R.T. Rybak as I sat in the front row, for leg room, in the Edison High School Auditorium. The Convention was a lesson in coordinated chaos. I was all the while searching for the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson as he would have lived through such an event, being there no shortage of bars in Northeast, but I never did find the cigarette holding man anywhere and his white tennis shoes. But what I did find was a strongly reinforced belief that what we have in America may not be the best model for living proof of man's ideal state of freedom, but it is the best that we mankind at this present moment have to offer and so I'll gladly take it, because it also affords me these finer luxuries in life. Take that China and you're paranoia against freedom of information and North Korea's Kim Jong Il....appropriate any other terrorist persona here. The version of freedom that is displayed at a convention is properly aligning yourself with the candidate and their steam powered engine instructing you what to do, when to do it and how to do it. Some people may have had a better time watching Canadian Parliament, as we voted for Chairman of the convention, Co-Chairman, Head Teller and Time Keeper. There were those who were instructed observers and sergeant-at-arms at the doors to lock those out who had left their seat during the time of the casting of the ballots for there are strict rules during a convention, when all time and space are suspended for party benefit, because without rules there is only chaos. I was continually asking myself, "They still shoot horses, don't they?" or at least the film of the same name came to mind throughout the day. Sometimes, you need to just put it out of it's misery. Some may say the same about some of my musings too and Jack Kevorkian would agree whole heartedly. Among the field of candidates of Jose Velez, Doron Clark, our man Kevin Reich, and Susan Howitz Hanna, we cast our lot. After the first round of votes, where 60% is needed to earn the endorsement of the DFL and anyone less than 10% is dropped from the next ballot, Jose Velez had 15.2%, Doron Clark 24%, Susan Hanna 3% and our man Kevin Reich, 56.9%. It was clear our ground force of yellow t-shirts had prevailed. After casting our 2nd round of votes, Doron Clark and Jose Velez conceded and unanimously elected Kevin Reich as Ward 1 winner of the DFL endorsement for City Council for the city of Minneapolis. We were triumphant. He will now be running against the Republican party's candidate, who is to be determined, this coming November. All of this for a City Council member spot. The keys to power hang in the balance. In conclusion, grassroots organizing and spending my free-time on a Saturday morning and afternoon was not wasted, physically, it only felt that way.

"Freedom's just another word, for nothing left to lose.." Kris Kristofferson

Quick access to your favorite MSN content and Windows Live with Internet Explorer 8. Download FREE now!

"And now, the end is near...." Old Blue Eyes

2009-04-01T16:04:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man..........vol.109

If I were the Clash, at one time, the most important band in the world, I would be singing my own song, "London Calling". But, I'm not, and only the world's elite will be doing that come tomorrow as they jangle the keys to the asylum in front of our very eyes. The day after April Fools' is only appropriate timing for the people that think of anything other than coincidence, because we've all been fooled again by the masters' that hold the strings, and we dangle, bouncy bouncy bounce for their enjoyment to run like rats in our cubicle cages nibbling for that ever just out of reach piece of cheese that sits atop open hands well manicured and their laughing eyes from their house arrest confinements because they stole and keep stealing billions away from ordinary tax payers. Oh, to be young again. Maybe the G20 meeting in London is a good thing. A plan will be developed for a worldwide recovery from the mess that they put us in. The same people in charge of supplying the solution are the same as those that have given us the problems. Oh, to be young again. There may be violence and there will be outrage and there should be outrage. I was outraged once, and sometimes I was even taken seriously. Oh, to be young again. I am guessing that Mr. Barack Obama will be emerging from his whirlwind world tour as the undoubted king of swing. The golden calf in carmel colored skin with a million dollar smile. He's been on the cover of every magazine for the past year and a half and you have to admit that his inauguration was something almost biblical. The answer man. The man with the plan. At least that's how the major media darlings will portray him. Then again, I voted for him. And then again, look what he was left with. But I digress. And then he will go on to meet with the leaders of the Czech Republic and Turkey and offer them the United States unwavoring support for anything against the still from the viewpoint of the western world, the much despised USSR, China and their threatening quasi-capitalism and Iran and their beautiful yet shrouded women and their unrealistic and unfortunately uneducated clergy, in what may be the first steps towards World War III. Should we be checking his scalp for three little sixes?
Oh, to be young again.

Rediscover Hotmail®: Get quick friend updates right in your inbox. Check it out.

Ron Paul for President and common sense

2009-03-14T16:30:00.001-07:00

Legalize it, and please, Stephen Baldwin is the voice against it??? Are you kidding me?

http://www.prisonplanet.com/ron-paul-debates-stephen-baldwin-on-legalizing-marijuana-on-cnn-larry-king-03132009.html

Windows Live™ Contacts: Organize your contact list. Check it out.

"We are Stardust leaving a comet trail of our own." Jack Scharber

2009-03-14T09:16:00.001-07:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.....vol.108

Good morning. Right from the get go,let's turn this mother out.

3.6 Trillion dollar budget. 3.6 trillion!! Nothing big, just 3.6 trillion, "it's no big deal" (Ricky from Trailer Park Boys). That's not ridiculous, but legalizing marijuana is??? When have you seen a stoned & disorderly running rampant in the streets? Maybe legalizing it would definitely help out the poor police chiefs down in Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo from getting their heads chopped off after being on the job for only a week, or from getting gunned down on their way to work or for just stepping out their front door. Maybe there would be a lot less kidnappings going on down there? It's just a thought. We need tax dollars from any place we can get it.

The United States is searching for a moderate in Iran to work with, or how about just a moderate in Congress?

There is nothing that is impossible; it just hasn't been done yet.

When will we see the bottom of the stock market? Or did we this past week? Are we now beginning to look up again at where it is going and how long it will be until it get's there? There are numerous buying opportunities out there. We need to stop shoveling the fear down our throats that they seem to be always handing out to us on the nightly news and focus on the positives, and realize that this may be the best opportunity for growth and expansion and educational development in our lifetimes'. My generation has the ability to now become what we've dreamed. Self sustaining with integrity because anything is possible. Democrats are cutting spending on K-12 and Republicans are against it?? Have we just gone through a wormhole into some kind of parallel universe?

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a caucus for Ward 1 in the city of Minneapolis to become a delegate for the upcoming convention in April, to vote for a City Council Member and I can tell you, the system needs fixing. I have never in my life been more frustrated and annoyed by a proces, and I love Democracy!!! But man oh man, the system is very un-user friendly. We got to our destination to caucus at 7pm on that Tuesday evening, and we didn't start voting as to who would be a delegate until 8:30pm!!! And there was 73 of us in a class room in Northeast Minneapolis. From one precinct for Ward 1. There were 10 other precincts that were caucusing at the same time. All this to just become a freaking delegate!! So that you could vote for a City Council Member!!! Not the President, not a member of Congress or the Senate!!! A City Council Member!! The government makes it very easy for you to pay your taxes on line and for you to get your refund if you get one, in a matter of weeks. What I've come to realize is, they want your money and your information, but not your opinion. Well, I feel better after that. Thank you. So, you are now listening to a alternate delegate from Ward 1 to vote on April 4th at the convention for nominating City Council Member Kevin Reich to the board for Minneapolis. Power to the people is great, but damn they could make it a helluva lot easier. Just look at the Coleman-Franken debacle. Maybe having a dictator wouldn't be all that bad??? He or she would get stuff done that's for sure. Anyway, NBC is prepping the American public for it with their new show "Kings" on Sunday evening, and I do like Swearingen (those of you know what who I'm talking about). I'll tune in. Can we say, King Obama???

Call me crazy. I've been called a lot worse.

Until then, open arms and open minds.

Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. Check it out.

"The chosen few, who will judge the many, when the game is through...." Dylan

2009-02-21T06:10:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man....vol.107

"Ring them bells Sweet Martha,
For the poor man's son,
Ring them bells so the world will know
That God is one.
Oh the shepherd is asleep
Where the willows weep
And the mountains are filled
With lost sheep.

Ring them bells for the blind and the deaf,
Ring them bells for all of us who are left,
Ring them bells for the chosen few
Who will judge the many when the game is through.
Ring them bells, for the time that flies,
For the child that cries
When innocence dies" Ring Them Bells Dylan.

Can we consciously will for the well being of others through concentrated thought, prayer, meditation and by being open to whatever invisible force there is out there protecting the universe and everyone of us in it? Do some of us have more of a heightened awareness of it than others? Is that why some of us heal faster than others? Or Is it just genetics? How do individual cells know to develop into two eyes, two hands, two feet and two ears and one brain? Do our thoughts reside in other places outside of our brains'? Why is there is a sense of attraction to someone or something? There must be an intelligent design or force making these things happen or is it all just blind luck? Do the dead stay behind in the "Field" and can they cause harm or do good after their physical bodies have gone? What is the importance with ley lines and the many sacred sites that have dotted the Earth since recorded history? Is there more reality in our dreams than in the illusion we call our waking lives?

For I believe in the power of the force. The power of attraction through the action and belief of positive thought, and that Quantum physics and the string theory that posits, that all things are connected by a zero point magnetic field, and that we all need to be open to the thought and belief that anything is possible. Because if you can think it, than it is. Maybe not now, but in the future. So if you get the chance, please take a glance, browse a review, or simply read "The Field-The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe ", by Lynne Mctaggart, c.2008.

It can't hurt anything. It can only help. Seriously, and as we all know, the world sure needs some positive thoughts these days.

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Windows Live™ Hotmail®:…more than just e-mail. Check it out.

Here he goes again....

2009-02-16T08:16:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.........vol.106

In honor of Presidents' Day, I would like to provide an excerpt written many years ago from a wise man, but more than applicable and in dire need of use in this day and age.

     "America can not refuse the challenge of leadership in the post-war world. Mere physical reconstruction of ravaged countries and the reorganization of political, economic, and social systems is the lesser task we will face. The larger problem and the great challenge is in how to set up a new order of world ethics firmly established on a foundation of democratic idealism.
     Experts in various fields have already submitted programs designed to meet the needs of those nations whose way of life has been disrupted by war. But with the failing common to specially trained minds, these planners incline to think mostly in terms of their own particular interests. As yet, no one has touched the fundamentals of international ethics. No one has advanced a working plan securely based upon a broad, deep, and sympathetic understanding of the human being and his problems. The thinking has been in the dual fields of power politics and material economics, with remedies expressed in terms of charts, blueprints, patterns, and industrial programs.
     But there is one new and encouraging element present in most of the recommendations of today's experts. They are recognizing the necessity of conceiving the world as one interdependent structure. Yet even as they recognize the need for a unity of human interests, their recommendations are for the perpetuation of highly competitive economic policies, which, if they are consistently applied, must lead in the end to war and discord.
     It is not an easy task to unite the efforts of the human race toward the accomplishment of any common good. Mankind in the majority is selfish, provincial in attitude, and concerned primarily with personal success and acquiring creature comforts. It will not be possible to build an enduring peace until the average man has been convinced that personal selfishness is detrimental to personal happiness and personal success. It must be shown that self-seeking has gone out of fashion, and that the world is moving on to a larger conception of living.
     The postwar planners have more of idealism in their programs than has ever before been expressed in the problem of the relationships of nations. But it is still not enough. A clear and complete statement of a world purpose is required--a world dream great enough to inspire unity of world effort.
     These are the days of America's opportunity to lead a still troubled mankind toward a better way of life. If we meet this challenge, we will insure not only survival of our nation for centuries to come, but we shall gain the enduring gratitude of our fellowmen and Americans will be remembered to the end of time as a great enlightened people.
     It is not enough that we solve particular problems. We must solve the very cause of problem itself. Wars, depressions, crime, dictators and their oppressions are the symptoms giving clear indication of a greater ailment. To examine each problem solely in terms of the problem itself, without recognition of its true relationship to a larger and more universal necessity, is to fail in the broader implications of an enduring peace and prosperity."

Manly P. Hall The Secret Destiny of America (1944)

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Windows Live™: E-mail. Chat. Share. Get more ways to connect. Check it out.

Tippy Type Tippy Type, type some more....ting.

2009-02-13T20:15:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man......vol.105

Ladies and Gentlemen, here is a thought....and it may be far out which is not a long shot by any means, but maybe the economic crisis will allow us to do what is necessary, by not having all those people employed at jobs that were no longer needed, energy consumption around the world would be curbed and a new means of development and research into renewable sources of fuel could prosper and flourish? For there is a need for a green revolution and not just green talk, and no I'm not talking about Michael Phelps. But since I brought it up, what a hypocritical society we live in, when it would have been okay for him to drink a 6 pack of beer or even have done a beer commercial, but getting caught taking a hit off of a bong, oh jeez, please, oh my, he shouldn't be doing that. That's crazy. That's wrong and in poor taste. The outrage. How many times have you heard, killed by a drunk driver? Now how many times have you heard, killed by a stoned driver? Not too many. Brought to you by the good people at Anheuser Busch.

How about our new Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, and his plan for saving the Financial institutions? Another $1 to $2 trillion or more for the banks who can't handle our money or invest it wisely, and the details are what again? Oh, that's right, you didn't say. Good plan. That inspired a lot of confidence in the investors. Wow. Change has come to Washington, huh??? Sounds like more of the same, throwing gasoline onto a wildfire of money and watching it burn.

But yet I remain hopeful and confident that this turbulent time will be one of invention, catharsis and growth. It may just be the best time to invest in the market since the mid 80's. If you have 20-30 years to watch shrewd investments develop into retirement funds instead of relying on a soon to be non-existent social security program, the future looks very bright indeed, if it all doesn't end on December 22nd, 2012. Buy low, sell high. It can't get much lower can it? Imagine if they had privatized social security the way W. had wanted? Leehman Bros. and Goldman Sachs in charge of your social security account? Good call. How about if you just wrap those up in some mortgage backed securities if you will? The economy is fundamentally strong. Remember, as Thomas Friedman says, "The stone age didn't end because they ran out of stones."

Creation requires destruction. Renewal. Rebirth. Strength and courage. Adversity develops character. I hope.

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Windows Live™: E-mail. Chat. Share. Get more ways to connect. Check it out.

RE: Please Mr. President....

2009-01-23T22:39:00.001-08:00

How bout Obama's Latest Mr Scharber...........

Is this for real? "I won". What a smug, arrogant, little shit Obama is. (In addition to being a whacked out lefty, commie/Socialist)

Don't be partisan. Do it MY way and don't listen to Rush or anyone else that may have an opposing view point!! WHAT?
I am not believing this!! Oh, yeah. That's a great way to work together and build trust with other elected leaders during the first week.
Who is this bozo? We are so screwed!!

From: jackscharber@hotmail.com
To: jackscharber@hotmail.com; anderson2.0.globaloutrage@blogger.com
Subject: Please Mr. President....
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:44:45 -0600

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.....vol.104

Greetings everyone. I just got done using my commode with legs, priced at $37,000. Just kidding. I'm not John Thain and I haven't been handing out bonuses to my employees because I have no bonuses to give out and I have no employees...but I'm fed up with the Wall Street CEOs and their business as usual lifestyle of smug smiles and nice suits. I would like to see congressional hearings about what went wrong on Wall Street and have them drag up kicking and screaming those slimy slick scheisters in front of Congress and the American Public and explain to us, the American people, why they think they don't have to tell us what they're doing with our money. We've given them half of the TARP funds, at $350 billion dollars, that's $1100 for every American. We should know where our money is going and how it's being used to fixed the mess were in when were literally owners to companies we have no say in. All I hear is change is on the way, and that eventually the money will get back into the market through loans they are not wanting to hand out, but it seems to me that these banks are only using it as a last hurrah to give themselves and their fellow higher-up employees lavish bonuses and team building retreats to luxury spas while we the American public get bent over for another over the barrel, out back whipping. We are going to have a Treasury Secretary who can't even pay his taxes while he was working for the IMF. What the???!! But we yawn and watch American Idol. Is there anyway we can get justice other than watching Law & Order? What do we have to do to have these horrible excuses for human beings get their just desserts instead of desserts, while we get stale bread and salmonella from bad peanut butter? Is there anyone out there who can be the Robert F. Kennedy taking on the Mob? Bernie Madoff is on house arrest for swindling $50 billion from his maybe not so bright investors, but isn't it a crime more serious than selling dope? Is there anyone out there who has the guts to stand up and ask the hard questions to get the results, or are we all too scared to know the truth of the extent to their diabolical plans? Oh no, that would hurt the economy. We can't do that. What the???!! If you have been living under a rock, the economy is already hurting from a financial crisis created by financial firms that create nothing but simply move money from one place to the next and continue to do business as usual and go on with their mergers and acquisitions in order to better position themselves once the long neglected phrase of recession is over. Please, oh please Mr. President, grow the necessary (insert male genitalia here) to do what is right and what is necessary and hold these people's feet to the fire that is burning out of control before we are left with even less than what we've got left and do the right thing, please. Put childish things aside and grow up and grow a pair. What good is closing down a Guantanamo when the American people are living in a prison of debt and unemployment themselves. Please Mr. President, become the change you've talked so much about. Be more than a good idea. Be a man of action. That is my call to action for you. Now I'm off to one of my 11 Inaugural balls I have to attend. Gotta run.

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Hotmail® goes where you go. On a PC, on the Web, on your phone. See how.

Please Mr. President....

2009-01-23T19:44:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.....vol.104

Greetings everyone. I just got done using my commode with legs, priced at $37,000. Just kidding. I'm not John Thain and I haven't been handing out bonuses to my employees because I have no bonuses to give out and I have no employees...but I'm fed up with the Wall Street CEOs and their business as usual lifestyle of smug smiles and nice suits. I would like to see congressional hearings about what went wrong on Wall Street and have them drag up kicking and screaming those slimy slick scheisters in front of Congress and the American Public and explain to us, the American people, why they think they don't have to tell us what they're doing with our money. We've given them half of the TARP funds, at $350 billion dollars, that's $1100 for every American. We should know where our money is going and how it's being used to fixed the mess were in when were literally owners to companies we have no say in. All I hear is change is on the way, and that eventually the money will get back into the market through loans they are not wanting to hand out, but it seems to me that these banks are only using it as a last hurrah to give themselves and their fellow higher-up employees lavish bonuses and team building retreats to luxury spas while we the American public get bent over for another over the barrel, out back whipping. We are going to have a Treasury Secretary who can't even pay his taxes while he was working for the IMF. What the???!! But we yawn and watch American Idol. Is there anyway we can get justice other than watching Law & Order? What do we have to do to have these horrible excuses for human beings get their just desserts instead of desserts, while we get stale bread and salmonella from bad peanut butter? Is there anyone out there who can be the Robert F. Kennedy taking on the Mob? Bernie Madoff is on house arrest for swindling $50 billion from his maybe not so bright investors, but isn't it a crime more serious than selling dope? Is there anyone out there who has the guts to stand up and ask the hard questions to get the results, or are we all too scared to know the truth of the extent to their diabolical plans? Oh no, that would hurt the economy. We can't do that. What the???!! If you have been living under a rock, the economy is already hurting from a financial crisis created by financial firms that create nothing but simply move money from one place to the next and continue to do business as usual and go on with their mergers and acquisitions in order to better position themselves once the long neglected phrase of recession is over. Please, oh please Mr. President, grow the necessary (insert male genitalia here) to do what is right and what is necessary and hold these people's feet to the fire that is burning out of control before we are left with even less than what we've got left and do the right thing, please. Put childish things aside and grow up and grow a pair. What good is closing down a Guantanamo when the American people are living in a prison of debt and unemployment themselves. Please Mr. President, become the change you've talked so much about. Be more than a good idea. Be a man of action. That is my call to action for you. Now I'm off to one of my 11 Inaugural balls I have to attend. Gotta run.

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Hotmail® goes where you go. On a PC, on the Web, on your phone. See how.

Short and sweet.....

2009-01-20T19:21:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.....vol.103

At last. Beyonce's cover may have nailed it. The man has alot on his shoulders and I hope to God that he is up to the challenge and we as a country do not squander this opportunity to help to continue to change things for the better, but never forget to hold his and our feet to the fire. I hope to God that we can. I hope to God we can, with open arms and open minds. But why did they have to spend $170 million on his inaugrual ball?? Aren't we in the middle of an economic crisis??

Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. Check it out.

"Please to meet you, hope you guessed my name..." The Stones

2009-01-19T07:45:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man......vol.102

The Arizona Cardinals are in the Superbowl???!!! Canadian Geese take down a commercial airliner on Thursday in New York City, plunging it into the Hudson River, and all of it caught on tape. The landing I mean. What is going on with the birds these days? Is it the year of the Bird? The crashing of a plane, onto a very frigid river into a heavily populated area in January 2009 and footage of that plane crashing into the river and yet, still, there is no visible and discernible proof released from our government of a plane hitting the Pentagon on 9/11???!!!. I'm still scratching my head over that one. It's not going to go away anytime soon. There is still something very rotten in the state of Denmark. Like MLK, I have a dream. That one day we'll know the truth of what happened. I know that I'm naive and possibly crazy for believing that, but I have to hang on to hope. It's all we seem to have these days. And finally, I'm very suspicious of the fan fare that has been given to Obama's inauguration. I know that it's historic and that it's a sign of how far we've come as country and I'm proud of that, but I cannot remember there ever being so much media coverage and media dry humping over one man. I hope that he does have some answers to our country's ills, but putting all of our faith into one man is what happened to Germany. It's very eerie to me, to see a special on HBO with a concert for the man, and Bruce Springsteen is there, and Beyonce and Stevie Wonder and Garth Brooks, and he hasn't even done anything yet? Am I being racist for simply being cautious? I voted for the man, but then again he was the lesser of two evils and Ron Paul never had a chance, and Wellstone was murdered. Never before in the history of politics has a man risen so far so fast, and he's already got two autobiographies. Two. If ever there was a candidate for the anti-christ, he would have to be on the short list. Look at all of the power and control that we've got centralized into the office of the President in just the past 8 years. He's had a pretty good set up reliever for him in George W. Bush and his administration, now all he has to do is close the thing out. I hope to God he doesn't. But it does seem quite surreal what's happening nowadays and the falling over each other the major media outlets have done to get close to the man. So, I am keeping my eyes on the road ahead and both hands on the wheel. Until next time, open arms and open minds.

"We don't get fooled again...." The Who

Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. See how it works.

I'm going to catch hell for this one.......

2009-01-15T17:56:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.....vol.101

It is only fitting that the first of the new century of Global Musings be on the night of his farewell address. I feel empathy for him as I do President Nixon. It has to be the most challenging job in the world, but one that he wanted and maybe stole in 2000?? But I digress. In his eight years as president, we've seen 9/11, the invasion and hopefully liberation and birth of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. We've witnessed Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib. We've been through Katrina and now the economic crisis, and we've left no child behind in the process. They just have to run to catch up. He inherited a recession and he's leaving a recession. What must be going through his mind these days? "Please, please, may history show me to be correct." We've gone 7 years without a terrorist attack in the U.S., and to me that is not surprising. I know I am going to ruffle some feathers here I am sure, but that is one of the greatest ideals of this country, the freedom of speech. But wasn't it amazing to see how well he responded to 9/11 and then how horribly he did to Hurricane Katrina? Could it be that he saw one coming and the other he didn't? I will say that for me, it doesn't seem far fetched for the powers that be, the men and women behind the politicians, pushing a global government, to use him as the puppet they needed to have at the time and the place. The United States ended World War II by dropping two nuclear bombs on Japan and killing 200,000 people. Would 3,000 casualties on 9/11 be such a horrible consequence to start a war that will never end in order for them to continue their quest for a one world government? Because in order to have a one world government, you must have an enemy to rally against. The war on terror. It has no defined boundaries, only ideology, and any country can be invaded in pursuit of it. Nation states are slowly going the way of the dodo, and we will only have markets. But maybe it's all for the good? Maybe we only have till December 21st 2012 anyway? I don't know, I just like thinking is all.

"Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear." General Douglas MacArthur

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." James Madison

In Gaza right now, 1000 Palestinians are dead, 1/3 of them children. Israel has lost 13 people. 1000 to 13. Seems fair doesn't it? I'm not taking sides but if I were a Palestinian living in Gaza, HAMAS would have another soldier, and if I were living in Israel and being threatened by rockets fired from Gaza, I would want justice too. But, can Israel go about it another way please? Do they really think that by taking out HAMAS, that anti-Israel emotions will subside? Do they not realize that by cutting off the head of HAMAS, another will simply grow in its place. Or is this current military action in Gaza necessary to ratchet up the war machines of the world once again? Are we going to be asked in the coming months to start taking sides?

"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be." Thomas Jefferson

"It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world." George Washington

4 more days to go, but the cynic in me thinks that Barack will be little different. They will say and do anything to get elected, and he's already got the media wrapped around his little finger. I hope I'm wrong. I really do. And it is just that he be sworn in the day after MLK day. Funny how these things work out. So, until next time, open arms and open minds.

Windows Live™ Hotmail®: Chat. Store. Share. Do more with mail. See how it works.

"I've just reached a place where the willow don't bend." Dylan

2009-01-13T14:04:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.....vol.100

It just hit me as I was typing this in like the blast of arctic air that is outside the front door. 100. I have reached the century mark. What began out of an act of encouragement from a true friend, you know who you are Mr. Thompson, has become so much more to me. It has helped me cope with the ups and the downs and the ins and the outs of mine and this crazy yet beautiful world's existence. I couldn't have imagined it a couple of years back that I would release 100 of my rants, musings, or suggestions, but then again, if you ever have met me with a couple of Stella Artois's down the hatch or tokes in the lungs, you would only expect it, I guess. I feel like Barry Bonds without the steroids, which makes me I guess feel nothing like Barry Bonds. Oh well. I digress yet again. But, enough about me.

How about Slumdog Millionaire? Yes it's a great movie, about over coming odds and obstacles and class struggles. But yet, it seems to me, only righteous and subtly ironic that the movie that captured the Best Picture award at the Golden Globes this year was Slumdog Millionaire. Could it be the zeitgeist of our times coming through our collective unconscious? A year of Global Economic Crisis and America teetering on the edge of a depression, it's fitting that the movie about a slumkid from Mumbai, who becomes India's biggest winner on their version of "Who wants to be a Millionaire" by relying on his own life experience, where it is all written, would capture such a wide audience. Could it be that we are all, or we may be becoming Slumdogs' ourselves if we don't fix the problems of our crumbling economy and look to the solutions of the future. And yes, we all want to be Millionaires. Don't we?

"So how can we encourage economic growth in a world in which natural resources are limited, not growing? One of the most innovative ways to think about this challenge is the "cradle to cradle" concept the architect William McDonough and the chemist Michael Braungart describe in their book Cradle to Cradle:Remaking the Way We Make Things. They argue that our current approach to recycling is that we take bigger and higher quality computers, electronics, boxes, and cars and turn them into lower quality, less sophisticated products-and then we throw them away. It is not really recycling, they say, but "downcycling"--just slow motion waste and resource depletion. In Cradle to Cradle, they argue that we can and must make every TV set, chair, carpet, piece of furniture, and computer screen out of materials that can be either completely reusable in other products or completely biodegradable, so that they can be used as fertilizer. All product components, they insist, can be designed for continuous recovery and reutilization as biological or technical nutrients--"eliminating the concept of waste."

"Cradle to cradle means, in counter distinction to cradle to grave, that we close all the cycles, so we don't just send things to landfills and incinerators, we put them into closed cycles so that we can use them over and over again....Like this chair that you're sitting on is aluminum and fabric. The fabric goes back to soil. The aluminum goes back to industry, so nothing is ever wasted. We eliminate the concept of waste--everything is in a closed cycle....We look at all these materials, (and) instead of worrying about where they're going to end up in a landfill or incinerator, we design them to be completely safe, so they go back to nature or back to industry forever. And importantly, this creates massive new opportunity for job creation---in our own country, because in the future, as labor costs begin to level out, logistics will be the most expensive thing and the local will become not only the most cost-beneficial but the necessary. So imagine, today there are 4.5 billion pounds of carpet that get thrown away every year in America. Instead of throwing it away to a landfill, shipping it to China, or incinerating it, what if it all could become carpet again because you designed a cradle-to-cradle product. Not only would you be able to change your carpet as often as you wanted without guilt, but you would be producing massive amounts of jobs in America."
"One day, McDonough suggested, all appliances could be leased-refrigerators, microwaves, television sets, even all cars-and returned to their manufacturers to be completely recycled, over and over and over: not cradle to grave, but cradle to cradle. Some variation of this approach is the only viable solution for economic growth in a flat world." Thomas Friedman Hot, Flat, and Crowded (2008)

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. See how it works.

"Because something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?" Dylan

2009-01-10T09:01:00.001-08:00

The Global Musings of an Educated Man.....vol.99

Thank you Mr. Mahan for enlightening me to the idea that my outrage is probably overdue, due to the fact that we will no longer have W. to kick around and maybe Norm Coleman too. Plus outrage was getting a little tired. Loud shouting will get nothing done, only irritate those who disagree. So, from now on, the outrage has turned to musings.

Today I would like to give an excerpt from a speech Ron Paul gave to the House of Representatives back on September 19th, 1984. My regret is not having found out sooner, despite the "media filter" about knowing more about this brave, wise and honourable man and what he stands for. How the major parties and the major media have pushed him to the side as a crack-pot is nothing short of sad, but not suprising. History has shown that prophets are on the fringe.

    "Some have said my approach is not practical, but most concede, "At least he's consistent." Since I first came here in 1976, the number of lobbyists has doubled and the national debt has tripled-$550 billion to $1.59 trillion-to me a most impractical trend. Business cycles, unemployment, inflation, high interest rates, and trade wars are the real impracticalities brought about by the unwise political and economic policies. I've been impressed ove the years by those who concede to me the consistency of my views, yet evidently reject them in favor of inconsistent views. Who, I might ask, is served by the politicians of inconsistency-the special interests or the general welfare?
    "The petty partisan squabbles that are today more numerous and more heated serve no useful function. The rhetoric now becoming personal is not designed to solve problems, nor does it show a correct perception of our country's problems. All are motivated by good intentions, but that cannot suffice. The narrow partisan squabbles are a natural consequence of an intellectual bankruptcy, whereby correct solutions are not offered for our economic problems. The "good intentions" prompts those involved to "do something". It seems that narrow partisanship on the House floor contributes nothing to the solutions of today's problems.

     "We have strict drug laws written by those who generously use the drug alcohol. Our laws drive up the price of drugs a thousandfold, to the delight of the dealers, the pushers, and terrorist nations around the world who all reap huge illegal profits. Crimes are committed to finance the outrageous prices, and drug usage never goes down. Enforcement costs soar, and it's success remains "mysteriously" elusive. The whole system creates an underground crime world worth billions of dollars; and addicts must then entice others to join, getting new customers to finance their habits-forever compounding a social problem epidemic in proportion. Any new suggestions for changing our drug laws-that is liberalizing them-is seen as political suicide by the hypocritical politicians and a society legally hooked on alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, aspirin and valium.

     "I have trouble believing that the foreign policy of the past 70 years has served the best interests of the United States. The policy of international intervention has been followed during this time, regardless of the party in power. The traditional American policy of strategic independence and neutrality based on strength has been replaced by an international policy of sacrifices, policy that has give us nearly a century of war. The last two wars were fought without formal declaration and without the goal of victory in mind. There are many specific examples to show how irrational this interventionist policy is.

    "We condemn the use of poison gas by Iraq at the same time we aid Iraq, along with the Soviets, in preventing an Iranian victory, forgetting that Iraq started the war. Inconsistently, the administration pressures Congress to manufacture new nerve gas so we have something with which to go to the Soviets and draw up some unworkable treaty regarding war gases. We allocate low-interest loans through the Export-Import Bank to build a pipeline for Iraq, giving huge profits to Shultz' Bechtel Corp., while hurting our domestic oil producers.

    "There are 42 wars now going on in the world, and it's reported we're involved in many of them--on both sides. We have troops in a total of 121 countries. National security is used as justification for all this activity, but rarely is it directly involved.

    "Campaigns are won on promising tax cuts; some are given but are quickly canceled out by numerous tax increases associated with accelerated federal spending.
    "Archconservatives champion tobacco subsidies, which are criticized by archconservatives who champion milk subsidies. Government then spends millions of dollars to regulate the tobacco industry and points out the hazards of smoking.
    "We pay for bridges and harbors throughout the world and neglect our own. If we feel compulsion to spend and waste money, it would make more sense at least to waste it at home. We build highways around the world, raise gasoline taxes here, and routinely dodge potholes on our own highways.
    "Why do we cut funding for day care centers and Head Start programs before cutting aid to the Communists, Socialists, and international bankers?"

These comments are excerpts from the speech. There will be more to come, and hopefully more from Ron Paul in the future. If the world doesn't end on 2012, and if Obama hasn't pulled off his mask hiding his Socialist tendencies, then I say we need to start a grass roots campaign right now, just in case, to get Ron Paul in the White House, or at least to continue spreading his message. Paul Wellstone must have love the guy. Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. Check it out.

"This is not my house, this is not my beautiful wife...." Talking Heads

2009-01-09T10:03:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.....vol.98

Dire signs and ominous sounds come muttering to us through horrific job reports, local corporate buyouts(Best Buy), and endless wars, frustration and humanitarian crises in the Gaza strip (Israel once funded HAMAS to fight the Arafat led PLO, sounds familiar like the US funding IRAQ to fight IRAN) where the meek are not inheriting the earth, only bloodshed and the loss of whole families. The Happy Holiday shopping and relative greeting season has given way to grim forecasts, limited possibilities and mounting national debt. But, there may be a silver lining in all of this. Hear me out people. Maybe the Global Financial Crisis was necessary as a means for a world shift in consciousness, from the material to focusing on the immaterial, from the self to the whole. History has shown that revolutions only occur when the people find themselves so downtrodden that they will take it no more, and only then will they demand action and results. These may just be the birth pangs of a new global awakening. The poles are shifting. The playing field is being leveled and maybe, just maybe, our aspirations for what is necessary, for what is truly important like good will towards others, no matter their religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality or social standing will rise above the unimportant complacency of what is not needed, only desired because of it's the relative ease of past tradition.

On December 21st, 2012 an occurrence that only occurs once every 25,800 years will take place. The Earth will be in exact alignment with the Sun and the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which scientist's have found has a black hole in the center. What does it all mean? Where are we headed? Am I just crazy, or did I forget to take my meds? I will say this, if it comes and goes and nothing happens, I will be the first to admit that I was wrong and I apologize, or maybe you'll just want a place on the Ark that I'm going to have to build. Ha. Like the Beach Boys sang,"God only knows".

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. Check it out.

It's never too late to change for the better....

2009-01-07T18:13:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man......vol.97

Wisdom never goes out of style. We need radical measures.

     "Just go through this mental exercise: What kind of America would you like to see--an America that is addicted to oil and thereby fueling the worst autocracies in the world, or a green America that is building scalable alternatives to crude oil and thereby freeing ourselves from the grip of countries who have drawn a bull's-eye on our back and whose values we oppose?
     "What kind of America would you like to see--an America that is steadily outsourcing more and more blue-collar, labor intensive manufacturing jobs to China, or a green America that is building more and more knowledge-intensive green-collar technology jobs--for making green buildings, vehicles, and power sources-which are more difficult to outsource and will have to be the industry of the future, as fossil-fuel energy supplies dwindle and world population grows?
    "What kind of America would you like to see-an America with more urban sprawl devouring more and more open lands, or a green America where cities start to grow up rather than outward, where mass transit becomes the norm rather than mass traffic jams, and where the only new buildings are green buildings?
    "What kind of America would you like to see-an American where government relaxes energy and efficiency standards on cars, buildings, and appliances, prompting our industries to get innovation-lazy, or a green America where the U.S. government imposes steadily higher efficiency standards, forcing a constant flow of new thinking around materials, power systems, and energy software, making us the most energy productive country in the world?
    "What kind of America would you like to see--an America where there is no big national goal, or a green America, where inventing a source of abundant, clean, reliable, cheap electrons, which could enable the whole planet to grow in a way that doesn't destroy its remaining natural habitats, becomes the goal of this generation--inspiring young people to go into math, science, biology, physic, and nanotechnology?
    "What kind of America would you like to see--an America that is spotlighted as the last holdout at international environmental conferences, earning the world's contempt, or a green America that is seen as the country most committed-by example-to preserving our environment and the species that inhabit it, earning the world's respect?
    "There is a Chinese proverb that says, "When the wind changes direction, there are those that build walls and those that build windmills." What will we do? Build more American walls around our embassies, walls around the headquarters of our companies, tariffs around our products, trade barriers to wall off our economy, legal walls to protect our automakers, electronic walls to protect our borders, military walls to isolate us from our allies and further motivate our enemies, and visa walls to prevent visitors from entering our country, living the American dream, melting in with our people, and enriching our culture? Or will we build windmills that we will use ourselves and export to others in every shape, color, flavor, and style?
    "Yes, the wind has changed direction. The era we are heading into will be an era in which our lives, our ecosystems, our economies, and our political choices will be constrained if we do not find a cleaner way to power our future and a better way to protect our natural world. So I say we build windmills. I say we lead."        Thomas Friedman Hot, Flat, and Crowded (2008)

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Windows LiveTM: Keep your life in sync. Check it out.

Comedians are also truth tellers

2009-01-04T10:25:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.....vol.96

Do us all a favor for bettering our society and the world we live in and watch and listen to this. It's only 3 minutes. Trust me, you have the time, you just don't have any money. Prophetic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktIECyzf4YM&feature=related

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Send e-mail faster without improving your typing skills. Get your Hotmail® account.

"My love, she speaks like silence, without ideals or violence" Dylan

2009-01-03T08:56:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man......vol.95

Because of the new year beginning I would like to begin again with some warmth and beauty that is hard to find in the cold cruel winter. I will provide an original work of my own and I also will include some of our current Poet Laureate of the United States, Kay Ryan, and her poetry as well. So, let me begin with a work of mine dating back from October 16th, 2006.

There Should be Sparks

The lightning
that struck me once before
has seemingly left the storm,
and all that I saw
when I approached her
was the consolation
of a wet blanket
that once was warm;
to put out the fire
of my discontent.'
                                                           Jack Scharber

Now some works by Kay Ryan. Enjoy.

The Elephant in the Room

It isn't so much
a complete elephant
as an elephant
sense--perhaps
pillar legs supporting
a looming mass,
beyond which it's
mostly a guess.
In any case, we
manage with relative
ease. There are just
places in the room
that we bounce off
when we come up
against; not something
we feel we have to
announce.

Things shouldn't be so hard

A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn-out place;
beneath her hand
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space-
however small-
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn't
be so hard.
                                                                  "can you not see that one being read at a woman's funeral," observance by Kristal Miller.

Lighthouse Keeping

Seas pleat
winds keen
fogs deepen
ships lean no
doubt, and
the lighthouse
keeper keeps
a light for
those left out.
It is intimate
and remote both
for the keeper
and those afloat.

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Send e-mail anywhere. No map, no compass. Get your Hotmail® account now.

To Begin again........

2009-01-01T10:57:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man......vol.94

2009 is here and as year's go, it shouldn't be any worse than 2008. 2+9 equals 11, and 11 means new beginnings. 9/11 equals, 9+1+1=11, that's why it happened when it did. They planned it that way. The twin towers, two big erect 1's, fall down, the end of an era and the beginning of another. Call me crazy, I can live with it.

"The great philosophic institutions of the past must rise again, for these alone can rend the veil which divides the world of causes from that of effects. Only the Mysteries-those sacred Colleges of Wisdom-can reveal to struggling humanity that greater and more glorious universe which is the true home of the spiritual being called man. Modern philosophy has failed in that it has come to regard thinking as simply an intellectual process. Materialistic thought is as hopeless a code of life as commercialism itself. The power to think true is the savior of humanity. The mythological and historical Redeemers of every age were all personifications of that power. He who has a little more rationality than his neighbor is a little better than his neighbor. He who functions on a higher plane of rationality than the rest of the world is termed the greatest thinker. He who functions on a lower plane is regarded as a barbarian. Thus comparative rational development is the true gauge of the individual's evolutionary status."

The Secret Teachings of ALL AGES Manly P. Hall (1928)

And I'm telling you, there is something fishy about the government's need to push everyone into digital television. They are giving us money to go and buy converter boxes. They want us to go out and buy more stuff that we don't need. They don't even do this type of thing to encourage people to get registered to vote. I'm just saying. Call me crazy, I can live with it.

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

It's the same Hotmail®. If by "same" you mean up to 70% faster. Get your account now.

Would you want me teaching your children?

2008-12-29T16:34:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man......vol.93

     Just in time for the New Year and just after the end of Chanukah, the ever present idiocy of Israel's foreign policy actions is cemented once again by their bombing of the Gaza Strip in their hopes to rid themselves of the terrorist organization Hamas. If it were only that simple. When will the powers that be realize that this act of violence, mindnumbingly expansive compared to Hamas's mosquito like missiles fired in Israeli settlements, will act to only further the Arabs of the Middle East hatred toward Israel and continue to throw gasoline onto the fire that has been burning there since 1947, when the Zionist movement decided to move in and kick out 750,000 Palestinians who had been living there since the diaspora had been dispersed to all parts of the globe. What would any one expect would happen? Thanks for kicking us out. We love people who foreclose on us because they believe to have a divine right. Were going to be great neighbors from here on out. Peace be unto you.

     I scratch my head at actions like these. Innocent Palestinian and Israeli citizens hurt, maimed and killed as collateral damage because of two neighbors unable to agree on who has the better God. Allah or Jehovah? They both preach tenets of peace but are never so slow to not pick up weapons of war. Whether it be rocks from the street slung shot against tanks or Apache Helicopters firing missiles on mosques or compounds, when will it ever stop?

     It is amazing that 2000 years ago, the St. John of Patmos would write the book of Revelation and would predict the end to come at the town of Megiddo, just outside of Jerusalem, and for this area of the world, because of it's embrace of three major religions would still remain relevant to this day. Is it all just a means to separate us from each other? Why did God have to pick that part of the World for Yahweh to be feared, Jesus to die and be resurrected and Muhammad to ascend to heaven? Is there a shadow group of elites since the dawn of time, that has only continued to propagate these "myths" or "facts" so that they will continue to have a means to divide and conquer the masses? Or maybe I simply think too much?

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Life on your PC is safer, easier, and more enjoyable with Windows Vista®. See how

"God bless Me I'm a free Man, with nowhere free to run." Neko Case

2008-12-20T10:29:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.....vol.92

Personal Update.

It wasn't meant to be, the thoughts in my head,
placing me where I shouldn't be and changing my mind instead.
I now find myself heading on the correct path in the right direction.
A teacher I will become, learning never to cease,
but knowledge will always encompass and I will impart it to my students,
so that it will ever increase.

Send e-mail faster without improving your typing skills. Get your Hotmail® account.

If you can think it, it can be done.

2008-12-18T17:45:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.....vol.91

"I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form, come in she said I'll give ya, shelter from the storm." Dylan

"In the ranks of the so-called learned there is rising up a new order of thinkers, which may best be termed the School of the Worldly Wise Men. After arriving at the astounding conclusion that they are the intellectual salt of the earth, these gentlemen of letters have appointed themselves the final judges of all knowledge, both human and divine. This group affirms that all mystics must have been epileptic and most of the saints neurotic! It declares God to be a fabrication of primitive superstition; the universe to be intended for no particular purpose; immortality to be a figment of the imagination; and an outstanding individuality to be but a fortuitous combination of cells! Pythagoras is asserted to have suffered from a "bean complex"; Socrates was a notorious inebriate; St. Paul was subject to fits; Paracelsus was an infamous quack, the Comte di Cagliostro a mountebank, and the Comte de St.-Germain the outstanding crook of history!
"What do the lofty concepts of the world's illumined saviors and sages have in common with these stunted, distorted products of the "realism" of this century? All over the world men and women ground down by the soulless cultural systems of today are crying out for a return of the banished age of beauty and enlightenment-for something practical in the highest sense of the word. A few are beginning to realize that so-called civilization in its present form is at the vanishing point; that coldness, heartlessness, commercialism, and material efficiency are impractical, and only that which offers opportunity for the expression of love and ideality is truly worth while. All the world is seeking happiness, but knows not in what direction to search. Men must learn that happiness crowns the soul's quest for understanding. Only through the realization of infinite goodness and infinite accomplishment can the peace of the inner Self be assured. In spite of man's geocentricism, there is something in the human mind that is reaching out to philosophy-- not to this or that philosophic code, but simply to philosophy in the broadest and fullest sense." Manly P. Hall The Secret Teachings of ALL AGES (1928)

To be continued, with open arms and open minds.

Send e-mail anywhere. No map, no compass. Get your Hotmail® account now.

WHO THROWS A SHOE?! Bush and Austin Powers BEST MASHUP!!!

2008-12-15T16:04:00.001-08:00

"You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." Lennon

2008-12-12T17:01:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.....vol.90

"There are no problems, only solutions." Lennon

         "Ignorant of the cause of life, ignorant of the purpose of life, ignorant of what lies beyond the mystery of death, yet possessing within himself the answer to it all, man is willing to sacrifice the beautiful, the true, and the good within and without upon the blood-stained altar of worldly ambition. The world of philosophy-that beautiful garden of thought wherein the sages dwell in the bond of fraternity-fades from view. In its place rises an empire of stone, steel, smoke, and hate-a world in which millions of creatures potentially human scurry to and fro in the desperate effort to exist and at the same time maintain the vast institution which they have erected and which, like some might Juggernaut, is rumbling inevitably towards an unknown end. In this physical empire, which man erects in the vain belief that he can outshine the kingdom of the celestials, everything is changed to stone. Fascinated by the glitter of gain, man gazes at the Medusa-like face of greed and stands petrified.
       In this commercial age science is concerned solely with the classification of physical knowledge and investigation of the temporal and illusionary parts of Nature. Its so-called practical discoveries bind man but more tightly with the bonds of physical limitation. Religion, too, has become materialistic: the beauty and dignity of faith is measured by huge piles of masonry, by tracts of real estate, or by the balance sheet. Philosophy which connects heaven and earth like a mighty ladder, up the rungs of which illumined of all ages have climbed into the living presence of Reality-even philosophy has become a prosaic and heterogeneous mass of conflicting notions. Its beauty, its dignity, its transcendency are no more. Like other branches of human thought, it has been made materialistic-"practical"-and its activities so directionalized that they may also contribute their part to the erection of this modern world of stone and steel."     Manly P. Hall The Secret Teachings of ALL AGES (1928)

To be continued.

Until next time, open arms and open minds.

Suspicious message? There's an alert for that. Get your Hotmail® account now.

Just Imagine

2008-12-10T16:07:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.......vol.89

The moon stares witness to the folly of coming night as stars play their masters and children dance on coals.

"Philosophy bestows life in that it reveals the dignity and purpose of living. Materiality bestows death in that it benumbs or clouds those faculties of the human soul which should be responsive to the enlivening impulses of creative thought of ennobling virtue. How inferior to these standards of remote days are the laws by which men live in the twentieth century! Today man, a sublime creature with infinite capacity for self-improvement, in an effort to be true to false standards, turns from his birthright of understanding---without realizing the consequences--and plunges into the maelstrom of material illusion. The precious span of his earthly years he devotes to the pathetically futile effort to establish himself as an enduring power in a realm of unenduring things. Gradually the memory of his life as a spiritual being vanishes from his objective mind and he focuses all his partly awakened faculties upon the seething beehive of industry which he has come to consider the sole actuality. From the lofty heights of his Selfhood he slowly sinks into the gloomy depths of ephemerality. He falls to the level of the beast, and in brutish fashion mumbles the problems arising from his all too insufficient knowledge of the Divine Plan. Here in the lurid turmoil of a great industrial, political, commercial inferno, men writhe in self-inflicted agony and, reaching out into the swirling mists, strive to clutch and hold the grotesque phantoms of success and power." Manly P. Hall The Secret Teachings of ALL AGES (1928)

To be continued.
Until then, open arms and open minds.

Suspicious message? There's an alert for that. Get your Hotmail® account now.

Can you believe these people?

2008-12-09T16:59:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.....vol.88

I have the golden ticket. I have the golden ticket, and I want to make some money off of it. There is no way I am handing it over without first receiving some cash down payment at least. These are hard times. Everyone needs every buck they can get.
I mean, there it is, an open seat in the senate and I can appoint anyone I see fit, and along with that, let's get rid of some of those creatures that slithered out from under the scum of the Earth on the editorial board at the Chicago Tribune while were at it.

Nice work. Corruption has no partisan ideology. The actions of the Governor of Illinois have once again made that abundantly clear. What makes these people tick? Who do these people think they are? Do they not have a moral compass? Is there no sense of right or wrong anymore? And how do people like this, get to where they are in the first place? Were they using the same tactics in the first place? Amazing. They promise a lot and give very little. The world we live in. Wow.

And does anybody realize that we are still in a War in Iraq? Weird.

Now, Mr. Obama, where is the break from the politics of the past and where is the act of real change and reaching across party lines? Everyone in your cabinet is step and fetch Democrats except for Mr. Gates, and maybe that is because were never going to be out of Iraq, or maybe I'm just crazy. I can live with it. Mr. Obama, where is the taxing of big oil and their huge revenues?
People, everyone gets their feet to the flame.
Sorry, I saw Milk on Saturday afternoon and I say flame on. It was only the second film I have seen in the theater, where, at the end of it, the audience applauded. The first being the classic The Usual Suspects. Gay is the new Black. Wow, how do gay black men do it? That's a hard one. No pun intended. Or wait, maybe a black lesbian. First you're female, and then you're black and on top of that, you're gay. Three strikes and you're out. Not in my book. Equal right for everyone. If you're not hurting anyone physically and not hurting yourself, then so be it.
Go Wanda Sykes!! Sorry. Anyhow, Sean Penn just maybe Daniel Day Lewis's equal. Up next is Frost/Nixon and then Slumdog Millionaire. I love the winter Oscar season warm up and not to forget 7 Pounds and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Good films are on the way once again. "I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!!"

Does anyone know this? That during the Stock market crash of 1929, the stock market didn't regain it's highs of 1927 until 1954!!!! 1954!! I know that it is cyclical and that every generation looks back on the one before and thinks, yeah, but that was different, and these kids today?? What's with them and there crazy clothes and music? Is it all just a little bit of history repeating?

I hope that we can learn from our mistakes.

Lastly, you can better your life by learning to adopt and adapt to things you dream. What you have problems with, dream them and defeat them in your dreams and you will see the residual effects on your waking life. Call me crazy, I can live with it.

Until next time. Open arms and open minds.

Send e-mail faster without improving your typing skills. Get your Hotmail® account.

A Song Everyone Should Listen to....

2008-12-02T17:00:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man..........vol.87

At least once, and then again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZez_k4vAzU&feature=rec-HM-r2

You live life online. So we put Windows on the web. Learn more about Windows Live

"It's not he or she or them or it that you belong to......."

2008-11-30T08:57:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.........vol.86

Good morning and good afternoon ladies and gents.
I would have written sooner but I accidentally shot myself in the leg with a handgun I was carrying while drinking bottles full of bub at a night club on Friday night.
Just kidding.
I'm not Plaxico Burress and my life isn't under duress.
I am however not choosing the gym over church, although I probably should, but then again, I'm not our newly elected commander in chief and I don't have to deal with any dog issues other than spending time with the ones that I've got.
Shout out to Lucie and Rufus, my city dog and my country dog, and cannot forget Shima and Lu-Dog.
What what.

Citigroup gets a bailout because it's too big to fail.
It's as if all of these financial institutions were acting like they were a part of the former administration, where ineptitude was rewarded. I know I know, cheapshots.
But, you have to admit, Brownie did one helluva job in Katrina.
Bremer, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and on Donner, and Blitzen.
Sorry sorry sorry, I can get carried away. Tis the season.

Me myself and I share the blame for the financial mess as well.
We all do.
Maybe.
We all were spending beyond our means and now it's time to pay the piper.
Responsibilty is growing up.
It's not fun, but it is necessary.
That plasma flat screen cable t.v is just going to have to wait.
Reading a book sounds great, or maybe just taking a walk outside.
No head phones, no Ipod.
Nothing to listen to except to myself, and I think way too much.
I know Karla. I hear ya.
Time to embrace what have, instead of reaching for things we want, instead of for things we need.
"Just because it is, doesn't mean it should be." Lady Sarah Ashley Australia.

Access your email online and on the go with Windows Live Hotmail. Sign up today.

How low can we go?

2008-11-21T19:35:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.......vol.85

With the economy spinning out of control and unemployment climbing to heights not seen in my lifetime, I have lately been finding myself thinking of the Dow Jones and S&P 500 as a limbo party on board a cruise ship, where the destination is unknown, because we have no captain, no map or course to chart. I see us continually dancing along, hands waving in the air and some, some of us falling to our knees, tears streaming down our cheeks and praying for whatever it is, to come, to spare us and lift us far far away from here. Meanwhile, others go along without a care not wanting to face the mirror that has become our feeble existence.
Maybe it will bring the revival of simplicity. A rebirth to the ways of myth and legend. A life where we find meaning and hope in what we do and in our everyday life occurrences without question. Seeing the wonder and the divine in the most mundane circumstances. Try brushing your teeth with your other hand.
Maybe the revelations of realisation that we should only want we've already got or been given will return to our natural tendencies, and only making purchases in the extreme necessity would somehow bring us back to reason.
I see the assumption of greed in billionaire Mark Cuban who wanted to save an extra seven hundred and fifty thousand, selling stock of a company that was yet to go public.
I ask myself, when are going to get to the bottom of this crisis?
Maybe that is not for us to know? Maybe this is all necessary?
The fact that maybe, if individuals become fiscally responsible it would destroy our trembling economy. We are now at the season of spending, or so I'm told continuously by the powers that be, but will not be for long. When they tell us that it is very necessary for us to consume and feed like the sloven pigs we have become or is it all just a gateway to the One World Currency?
Senator Harry Reid said, "no one should be overly concerned" about Congress not reaching an agreement to lend twenty five billion to the life support of slowly dying big three American Automakers. Tell that to the families on whose paychecks they depend.
Maybe it's all created fear and hysteria? Maybe what we should be doing is packing our things and violently storming the gates of our nation's Capital and demanding that the seven hundred and fifty billion that we've loaned to the soon to be nationalized financial institutions be given back to it's rightly owner, the American People. Maybe we should be more outraged and be asking what the.......?
Well, at least tomorrow will be the last game for the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the Metrodome.
I hope we will still have baseball to watch in the Spring of 2010. I would like to see a game in our new stadium.
Amen.

Windows Live Hotmail now works up to 70% faster. Sign up today.

Wow, that was good, I think?

2008-11-15T06:45:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.......vol.84

With the world crumbling, tumbling and falling down all around us, a good cup of coffee in the morning is one of the simplest ways to combat the descent. Whether it be opening the paper or turning on the t.v. or listening to the radio, or surfing the web,
we are caught in a endless display of bad news getting worse, day after day.
It's hard to remain to struggle against the opposition and stay positive. To keep fighting the good fight.
Keeping your eyes on the prize and to glorious horizon in the distance.
We find ourselves in the midst of a global economic crisis and the on going war in IRAQ seems to no longer exist. We find ourselves living in Orwell's 1984, where Big Brother has manipulated us into war after never ending war, and eventually we cannot remember who we are fighting against.
Now, it doesn't seem too far fetched.
I hope that the world leaders of the G20 that are meeting in Washington today can iron out the wrinkled patterns of the landscape we call everyday reality and find some common solutions. Then again, maybe they already have and this is only a mirage to get us to accept a Global Dictator?
What we have in America today is the costliest enterprise that our country has ever done, besides the on going, ever increasing balance of the price of war in IRAQ. What we've spent as a country, on the economic bailouts, is more than what we spent as a country during World War II, adjusted for inflation. And we've only been doing this for the last two months. Or have we??
We are teetering on the precipice. Well, that's what they've been telling us everyday and every night.
They've given a bailout for people to get back into their houses; but what good is that going to do when they don't have a job?
Gas prices are getting lower right now, so people can drive to jobs they don't have. I'm sorry, it's getting contagious out there.
Remember to get your flu shot.
Someone slap me.

Maybe we need a gigantic shift. A drastic change.
It was only 150 years ago that as a nation and a world we were leaving the Agricultural society (business and farming don't mix) and beginning the Industrial revolution (man and machine don't mix??).
Maybe now, we are going through the "birth pangs" the prophets had spoken of thousands of years ago.
People, the age of Aquariuous is ending and a new age is beginning.
For, without pain, there is no growth.
So lets not go jumping out of windows and declaring that the sky is falling just yet.
2012 is still some years away.
Or maybe that is all a part of what we are moving towards?

We as a people, use only 10% of our brains.
That's scientific fact, and you can't stop science.
Maybe these drastic measures are pushing our subconscious to use more than the normal 10%.
Maybe we'll all be able to become the image that is God, in ourselves.
We were made in it's image, and maybe finally, we will begin to start using it for the better of mankind.
For that, I am hopeful, and I keep my eyes on the horizon.

See how Windows® connects the people, information, and fun that are part of your life Click here

Do you believe in Miracles???

2008-11-04T20:25:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man......vol.83

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.
Now, let's get out of Iraq.
Remember, Hitler too was charismatic.
Let's not give blind faith and stop questioning.
Let's get to work.
Let's love one another no matter what.

What a great country we live in.
God Bless America.
OBAMA!! OBAMA!! OBAMA!!

See how Windows Mobile brings your life together—at home, work, or on the go. See Now

Let's not climax too soon...

2008-11-04T18:49:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man....vol.82

Call me crazy, but how can you call it a win, at 8:30pm central standard time, a victory for Obama in the state of Ohio, when only 3% of precincts are reporting?
Do we not remember 2000?
Let's not count our chickens too soon. As Reverend Wright said, "They may come home to roost."

Get more out of the Web. Learn 10 hidden secrets of Windows Live. Learn Now

Devil's Advocate

2008-11-04T18:32:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man........vol.81

What if Obama doesn't win? What if by not winning, the million or so people in Grant Park, Chicago decided to vent their frustration by doing what college hockey fans do in the state of Minnesota, ala looting and burning in downtown Dinkytown??
So far, the winds of change that are blowing outside are hopefully ushering in a new era. America can have it's first Black President and no, I'm not talking about Bill Clinton, and if so, Obama should be giving a great big hug to George W. Bush.
The Republican Party may have to do some soul searching after tonight. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity will be chomping at the bit. I think it's only fair. Eight years of W. We should get at least four from Obama.
God Bless America.

Stay up to date on your PC, the Web, and your mobile phone with Windows Live. See Now

"Been to the mountain top..."

2008-11-03T08:12:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man..........vol.80

Historic times are we a part of. An historic election is only a day away. I hope that Obama is victorious, if for the only reason being that he would get us out of Iraq, but then who are we kidding. The money that we've been sending there will only be sent then to Afghanistan. It will never end. Or will it?
So, tomorrow get out and do your part, or else you cannot complain.
It's only been 40 years since the Civil Rights era has passed and sadly I do not see an America where George W. Bush has won the last two elections, an America that is smart enough and ready for a black President, with a last name that rhymes with Osama. But I hope. I hope.
Old man Mccain may win, but it's going to be close.

You live life beyond your PC. So now Windows goes beyond your PC. See how

Billy Corgan was telling the Truth

2008-11-01T08:55:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man................Vol.79

The Autumnal call of the World Series has ended, and with it, has brought the sounds of College Football, and the NFL once again has meaning.
The Autumnal call has also brought with it, Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative. I read it as an appeasement, and for the age old adage, "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." That's why I watch Fox News.
But seriously, He asks the question, "Are we maximizing Freedom?" No. Are we allowing State's rights to govern themselves? No.
Barry Goldwater suggested that corporations and unions should not be allowed to contribute to political campaigns.
It is no more evident than our current Political atmosphere where half a billion dollars is needed to get your viewpoint expressed.
I agree with him on this, and I also agree with him that we as a country and as a people should abolish the graduated income taxes, and instead have a flat tax rate, equal for all.
However, I also believe that if you are a Goldwater conservative, who believes in the true and unfettered freedom that all men and women inherit and posses and that the Federal Government should stay as far away as possible from our personal lives and our right to privacy, then a woman's right to be Pro-Choice would ultimately be a conservative stance. Would it not?
I will leave you to ponder that.
Now, let me focus my attention on the recent ads against Al Franken. If I understand them correctly, Al Franken "humiliates minorities, believes child abuse to be a joke, writes pornography, demeans women and laughs at the disabled." The only thing they leave out is that "he drowns puppies in garbage cans filled with dirty water."
Wow. Good thing Norm Coleman went positive.
Maybe we all should have the knowledge like Michelle Bachmann that we "are right in our hearts", and "embrace Freedom and Liberty".
If you could get more generalized than that, let me know.
Which leads me finally to Barack Obama's Wednesday the 29th of October 2008, 30 minute propagandadvertisement on three major networks. How do you compete with that?
I mean, I'm voting for the man, but honestly, have not the powers that be and the unseen hands already placed the mantle upon his head?
And 4 years ago, nobody knew his name and he was a junior senator from Illinois that simply gave one of the best speeches at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston.
I just hope he delivers on what he has been promising, because if I remember correctly, George H. W. Bush, in 1988 said "No new taxes." And what did he do? Raise taxes.
No wonder William Jefferson Clinton is such a good friend of his.
Oh how we are fooled into believing that there is a difference between the two parties.
Freedom is a choice between the lesser of two evils once every 4 years. But then again, maybe I'm too cynical?
Maybe we only have a little over three years left until a shift in cosmic consciousness comes along to change us for the better? Or worse? December 22, 2012.
I will state it again, that if I'm wrong I will be the first to admit it.
However, you'll have to admit that we are inching ever closer to a one world economy and a one world government would you not?
The Global Economic crisis is necessary for the tip toe to totalitarianism. We've already begun socializing our financial institutions.
They don't just let things happen without a reason. The ends justify their means. 9/11?? Bam. The Patriot Act. War on Terror?? A War that will never end.
Just keep on keepin on, and trying to pay the bills.
"Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage."
So get out and vote. That's entertainment.

Stay organized with simple drag and drop from Windows Live Hotmail. Try it

Music for the Fall

2008-10-22T12:44:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man........vol.78

With the rain dropping down upon the newly fallen leaves brown, yellow and green, I think of proper music to fill the spaces in between the drops, and so appropriately I will be discussing some new music for the season.
I would like to first begin with a group that has been a favorite of mine for quite some time. Ever since I was introduced to them by a lazy eyed woman in Duluth named Valerie, in the Fall of 95'. Kinger and Hoium, you know who I'm talking about. The Champagne Supernova of Brit Pop. The best band in the world. Oasis.
Their new album "Dig out your soul", is fist pumping good stuff with only one slow song. The rest is pure rock'n'roll genius.
Turn up the volume to kick start the jam which begins with "Bag it Up" and crack open a Newcastle and light a cigarette, because the ship is taking off. 11 songs, with only one I could live without.
Not bad for some working class blokes from Manchester. See ya at the Target Center December 10th. Righteous.

The second album I would like to discuss is Rachael Yamagata's second album, titled "Elephants.....Teeth sinking into Heart". An album that is suited for a day like today. A day filled with grey clouds and rain. So light some candles and go through old scrapbooks.
Loves' lost and loves' remembered for the better, although you may have felt worse than the current state of the economy. Remembering, we can't always get what we want. We just have to learn to deal with what has been given to us and hopefully some of us will be giving back too.
Some of you ladies out there may want to make sure a bottle of wine is nearby along with fresh box of kleenex.
I'm not joking. I take my music and politics very seriously.
Phenomenal stuff and I am waiting for her to swing back around to the Twin Cities and play a larger venue than the Fine Line.

The next is by She & Him...vol.1. That is Zooey Deschanel and M.Ward's collaboration, which is much happier than Yamagata's angst filled album, but brilliant all the same for it's simplicity.
Zooey reminds me of a young Linda Ronstadt, the hot version. And those in the know, know what I'm talking about. Zooey and M's album could be placed in the mid to late 60's or early 70's.
Either playing the Grand Ole' Opry or Fillmore East. The whole album, all 13 tracks, and yes there is a hidden one.
It's good driving music and for getting dressed in the morning music to start out the day.
They too I am waiting for to come back around. An August show at First Avenue during a weeknight just wasn't feasible.
Hindsight is always 20/20.

Next up, is the getting ever popular singer songwriter Ray Lamontagne's third album, "Gossip in the Grain". It may be the most complete of his albums so far.
It include's an ode to White Stripe's drummer Meg White which is a favorite. Because, who doesn't like Meg White? If you don't, you may need to seek serious help.
I've pretty much been saying all along that Ray is great so, I will say no more. Just, that I'm waiting for the next Damien Rice album. You know whay I'm saying.

Finally and not least, the red headed cutie Jenny Lewis's second album, "Acid Tongue".
Oh the memories.
Dutch and I in the backseat of my blue m&m Plymouth Sundance, his smiling face like he knew what was going on, and Jeff Olsen behind the wheel.
I remember I couldn't figure out how to get into the house in Spooner. We watched U-Turn twice in a row.
Wow. "Purple Haze all in my mind".
Anyhow, if you like her other band Rilo Kiley you cannot go wrong. Minus the Watson twins, it's still good good stuff.
Put her together with Zooey and M.Ward and I would say we'd have one helluva a time.
Fernando, she plays a song with your name on it and it's a lot better than Abba's. That I guarantee.

So, with that said. Do yourselves a favor and get on You Tube and look them up before you download them to your Ipods'.
So, grab a favorite beverage and your favorite girl or guy, and put both feet on the coffee table and turn down the lights and turn up the volume and lock the doors from the neighbors and please, please, shut off the TV.

Want to read Hotmail messages in Outlook? The Wordsmiths show you how. Learn Now

A work of Fiction

2008-10-14T20:08:00.001-07:00

A Work of Fiction......in small parts.

The light of the full moon through the kitchen window is telling me that I'm hungry, and one doesn't argue with nature. She can be quite the bitch.
Man, I can hardly remember the last time. Was it last month? Or was it just last week?
I don't know. I don't think that I am starting to care anymore. I think I am starting to like it. It's sick I know.
Nothing. Go back to bed.
You have a big day ahead of you. Meetings, lunch with your sister and then picking the kids up from soccer practice. You need your sleep.
We all do these days.
I'll be in, in a few minutes. K.
Julie doesn't need to worry about me, and especially the kids. They don't have to know. They shouldn't know. They can't know and neither can she. Ever. It would kill them.
But it's just the taste, it's hard to remember or put a finger on it. It's almost like I need it. What it means I have no idea.
I mean, I've watched enough scary movies to kind of guess, but nothing like this. Not now. Ya know.
But lately, there has been a thrill in it. The chase and almost surreal hangover that lifts like the morning fog. Feeling rejuvenated. Energized. Without Gatorade or an aspirin.
More than human.
I've read somewhere that in certain areas of the world, they would consider it a delicacy. They would consider it a form of initiation, a rite of passage if you will.
The gift of immortality. The beating heart of man is nothing but a shadow of a glimpse of what he truly can become. Or so I thought.
I just remember being blindsided. The stirring in the bushes and the low thud of, it's hard to explain. Waking up in the cold wet grass of an early morning in late August. Naked. Covered in blood. Bits of grass and hair, underneath my fingernails and in dire need of a toothpick to get whatever it was out of my teeth. Spit. Out. Like really tough beef jerky. But Jack Links doesn't make anything like that.
The news said it was a mugging that turned into murder. But he didn't look like he would have any cash. It's hard to tell these days. Spending vast amounts of money on torn jeans and the look of trying not to care. The bed head.
Who knows. No motive. No reason. No witnesses. A lifetime petty criminal. Splattered about like paint. A child's idea of a gift for mommy.
Brief remains here and there. I guess they identified him by what was left of his teeth, poor bastard.
I guess he shouldn't have been out that night.

Get more out of the Web. Learn 10 hidden secrets of Windows Live. Learn Now

Into the Mystic......

2008-10-12T08:23:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.........vol.77

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzjzackVBpA

Performed by the Swell Season.......hopefully each and everyone of us will be able to do the same.

Stay up to date on your PC, the Web, and your mobile phone with Windows Live. See Now

"People say I'm crazy, dreaming my life away..." John Lennon

2008-10-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man........vol.76

Hello my friends. My friends, I am here to state that which is obvious to me, but may be less than obscure for some. My friends. My friends, are we not heading on a collision course towards a one world currency, which would be supported by a one world government? My friends. Okay enough of that Mccain speak. Let's be clear. Let's be clear about my opponent. Enough Obama too. Hell, I'm not going to yell "Kill him!!" at a rally, make no mistake, but I will let you know that I am as much afraid of Barack Obama as I am of John Mccain. Maybe I'll vote for myself as President, wait, I can't yet. I'm not 36 years old. You have to be at least 36 years old and an American citizen. So, please wait until 2012 to vote for me and my good friend as Vice President and new father again, Jeff "Arnie" Olson. Congrats. I'm still waiting on that BBQ invite. Ha. Just kidding. Seriously.

Has not this current economic crisis got you at least a little concerned? Problem, Reaction, Solution. That's how they operate. They create a problem, wait for the public's reaction and then wheel out the solution. That's how the Patriot Act got passed so quickly. How else would you get the American public to give up their civil liberties? Tell them that it's necessary in order to stop terrorism. We don't want "the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Now they have a reason to wheel out their steps towards a one world currency. Create a problem that would affect the world's economies, wait for the public to react in a frenzy of panic and fear, and then say wait, we've got the solution right here; let's just have everyone back at zero and playing on the same level. Taa-daaa. You may be laughing to yourselves and saying "Scharber, he's crazy. He's paranoid. He's finally lost it." But is it paranoia when it comes true?
People, check out Alex Jones website, PrisonPlanet.com, or David Icke or Texx Marrs or Noam Chomsky for that matter. We are being led down a slippery path towards socialism. The United States Government is taking control of our banks. We are handing over our "free" markets to the G-7. But then again, would you have expected anything less from these blood suckers. They are vampires that feed on the fear that they create. Only blood sucking vampires would say that it's crazy and utopian to dream of peace. We need to get a grip and get educated. Be ready. Get ready. Remember, December 22nd, 2012. And if I'm wrong and that day comes and goes without a sound or a hiccup, I will bother you no more. I promise.
But hey, at least we still have football on Sundays.
May peace, love and happiness be granted to all.

See how Windows connects the people, information, and fun that are part of your life. See Now

When the Deal goes Down......

2008-10-04T10:51:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man........vol.75

They did it. It is done. It's finished. Signed and sealed and hopefully it will deliver us from the brink of extinction. Although, I still plan to get eyeglasses as soon as possible, because when it all falls apart in the end and the players are left watching the house of cards that they've built come crashing down, it's not going to be easy to get saline solution and disinfectant for contact lenses when there is widespread looting and murder over fossil fuels at the gas pumps. What we've seen in the just the last 8 years is right on schedule with a end date of December 22, 2012. We've witnessed 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, The Mortgage boom and bust and now the credit crisis. What they told us was $700 billion, will probably cost us $5-$10 trillion. Of course they are going to low-ball us. Why not? The average American is clueless anyhow. So, we now have Henry Paulson, who was once head of the investment firm, Goldman Sachs, to be the lone man in charge of pricing and buying the bad debt. The man who was partly in charge of creating those exotic mortgage backed securities known as collaterallized debt obligations, is now going to be the one to help "bail" us out. That's right. We're all in jail, we're all enslaved and only a few of us know it. I have to believe that Goldman Sachs will be one of the first firms with their hands out to get "bail" out money. Just a hunch. It is the fox guarding the chicken coop. Nice. And people, the Federal Reserve is not a government entity. It is not controlled by the Federal Government in any shape or form. What we should've done is nationalize the Fed and thus kick that group of private bankers out and back to the rocks from which they slithered out from. JFK once tried to nationalize the Fed and look what happened to him. Seriously. Look it up. So instead of doing that, what we've done is created a fourth branch of government. A branch of government in the hands of one man. Hank Paulson. Let's hope he does a good job. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

On a much lighter note, I plead everyone to go and check out the band, Fleet Foxes. If you like the fall and the changing colors of the leaves, then you'll love the Fleet Foxes. My Morning Jacket meets Neil Young and Nick Drake out in the woods and they decide to jam on some wooden stumps. Good good stuff. Right up there with Lamontagne. See ya tonight Ray at the State Theatre. Awesome.

Much peace, love and happiness to all.

"I will make them famous, you will know their names." John "The original Maverick" Mccain

Stay up to date on your PC, the Web, and your mobile phone with Windows Live. See Now

"We need oversight"

2008-09-24T11:08:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man...............vol. 74

Hope everyone got a chance to use their economic stimulus check when they had the chance. Can you hear the knocking at your front door, yep that's right, now the government wants it back so it can bail out the "too big to fail" companies on Wall Street and also to put a stop to the 10,000 foreclosures that are happening every day. The US Government wants every dime we can spare so it can set up another regulatory body creating a system that with each passing day looks more and more like a form of socialism. That's right, the US Government swallowed up AIG, Fannie Mae and her brother Freddie Mac, and Bear Stearns, to the lump sum of $700 billion dollars. Coming to roughly, $2300 per tax payer. Thanks again for that economic stimulus check. That was sure a good idea. All we will have to do is fire up the printing press and get some more dollars into the market, or else people will actually realize that the dollar isn't worth much anymore. It has to backed by the full faith and credit of the US Government. How much faith and credit do we have anymore? I ask you that.
Oh, and it's a good thing for John Mccain that Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinijead supports Obama. That should get Mccain some more votes from the bible belt. Didn't Bin Laden release a tape endorsing John Kerry before the 2004 election? Kind of sounds familiar doesn't it. Deja vu all over again.

Want to do more with Windows Live? Learn "10 hidden secrets" from Jamie. Learn Now

On the Road again.....

2008-09-20T11:53:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.........vol.73

Lipstick on a pig. How about that? Lipstick on a pig is today's catchphrase. I was at the State Fair this year and I didn't notice any booth that was offering that kind of deal. I was too heavily focused on finding the freak show down in the Midway or was I sipping on my nice tall glass of Stella Artois at the time? I forget. Where is that booth? It may have been out by the Minneapolis International Airport and nearby Sen. Larry Craig's favorite bathroom stall. Can't you just hear the foot tapping? To the beat of a different drummer. No pun intended. Seriously, no offense. Getting off track once again. My apologies. This kind of stuff comes around once in a lifetime. Maybe the mud of the pigs' is America, and listen how we squeal.
Thanks a lot for those economic stimulus checks. Oh, what's this now? You want them back to bailout companies that are "too big to fail". It's nice to know that average citizen doesn't have a safety net as neat and tidy as the Federal Government does for Wall Street big businesses. I know that if the federal government didn't step up to the plate and beg for more money to stave off another Depression we would all be going for each other's throats and looting and burning whatever cash we do have on hand, because we'd realize once and for all that not only is our country morally bankrupt but financially as well. How else can anyone explain "Hole in the Wall?'". 700 Billion dollars on top of the 10 billion that we are spending every month in Iraq. Who would want to be President of the United States? Look what they are going to inherit. Ouch. But at least the President has been telling us that our Economy has been "fundamentally sound." Whew, that is a relief. I almost thought we may be in trouble here. I mean how much is our dollar really worth when all we do is print more and send more out into the marketplace when we know in our heart of hearts that we are never going to pay off our national debt. Never. Then again, if the world is going to end or whatever changes might occur by December 22, 2012, this is kind of leading us down that thorny path. Can't you just smell the roses? You know what you need for nice flowers to grow? Bull. Yep, you guessed it. Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy the filth.

Stay up to date on your PC, the Web, and your mobile phone with Windows Live. See Now

CISCO WEBEX EMAIL PRIZE AWARD

2008-09-12T08:27:00.001-07:00

Attn: Lucky Winner,

We are pleased to inform you that one of the best things that can happen to any Internet user is to be rewarded for spending money and time on the Internet. You may not have known that over one hundred billion people daily surf the Internet on regular basis for one reason or other. These Internet users including yourself, pay access fees to various Internet Service Providers (ISP) all over the word who in turn remit surplus funds to the numerous World Wide Internet Technology Companies (WWITC) for the development and advancement of Global Information Technology.

So much money is generated from people like you all over the World for using the Information Superhighway (the Internet) without your being aware the enormous sum that go to the stake holders (WWITC). Without your patronage, this would not have been possible. After we conducted a research on the issue, we concluded that Internet users should be compensated. As a result, we embarked on a worldwide lottery promotion with a sophisticated automated database to randomly select E-mail accounts that frequently surf the Internet. Consequent upon this, your E-mail address was picked for Category "A" Winners.

After the automated computer ballot, your E-mail address emerged as a winner in the category "A" with the following numbers attached
Ref Number: EH 9590 OG 0612,
Batch Number: 563881545-ES/2008

You and other category A winners are therefore to receive a cash prize of $2,500,000.00 (Two Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) from the total payout of One Billion US Dollars earmarked in the lottery for category A winners. Your prize award has been insured with your E-mail address, which qualified you for the lottery and will be transferred to you upon meeting our requirements, statutory obligations, verifications, validations and satisfactory proof of E-mail
address ownership.

To file in for the processing of your winning cash prize, you are advised to contact our certified
and accredited claims agent for category "A" winners with the information below:

CLAIMS AGENT.
Name: Harry Smith
Email:webexoffice@aim.com
Tel:+34-667-302-512

Fax.+34-911-015-931

You are advised to provide him with the following information:

First name:
Last Name:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:
Occupation:
Country Presently Located:
Ref Number:
Batch Number:

NOTE: All winnings must be claimed not later than 14 days, thereafter unclaimed funds would be forfeited after a trio repeated forwarding of this message to you without your response. Remember to quote your reference information in all correspondence.

You are to keep all lotto information confidential, especially your reference numbers and the password of your E-mail address. Since we do not know you, if an impostor hacks your E-mail account ID and claims your money without our knowledge, we shall not be liable. Double claims will not be entertained so be careful. Furthermore, should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible.

Congratulations!!! And thank you for being a user of the World Wide Web.

Thanks,
Martina Carlos,
Lottery Co-ordinator !!

"The hardest things to leave are the things you need the least." Dylan

2008-08-31T14:25:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man...........vol.72

Wow!! What a Democratic National Convention. What a scene. What a crowd. What a response. 40 million people tuned in on Thursday night to watch Barack Obama speak to 75,000 people at Invesco Field and get them fired up and inspired for the future, to take America back, or at least on a completely different path, and then, John Mccain names Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential candidate and a little bit of the wind was let out of the Democratic Party's sails. I think Hillary Clinton must have been biting her lip in some closed door hotel room with secret service agents standing guard just outside and punching Bill in the gut or kicking him somewhere else. Use your imagination. It was a week to remember in Denver. Now we turn our focus to New Orleans once again and to St. Paul for the first time since professional hockey returned to the state of Minnesota. Thanks in large part to Norm Green. Not Norm Coleman, or Tim Pawlenty or Al Franken, despite what they will tell you. And who knows, we may see the same thing in the next couple of years if we don't succomb to Zigi and help finance a new stadium for the Vikings. But, if I know Minnesotans, we will scream and holler about taxes and why should we have to pay for something like that and we will probably watch them leave and then be kicking ourselves for letting them leave and have to shell out even more money to get them back. That's only if I know Minnesotans. Just a thought. Where was I? I'm sorry for speeding recklessly off of the path of least resistance. Got to splash some water on the face and take a long look into the mirror. Back to reality. I have to get a grip. Whew. Okay then. Back to New Orleans and the people who decided to move back there after Katrina. People who obviously are as much of a dreamer as I. Either they had too much optimism or not enough reality or too many hallucinogens. Please no comment from the peanut gallery. It's just a little bit of "history repeating". Sad sad scene it may turn out to be. Get out your kleenex. Personally, I think they need to move New Orleans about 100 miles north. Just a thought. And maybe move St. Paul 10 miles closer to Minneapolis, because nobody in the major media can tell the difference between the two anyway. And nobody from Minneapolis seems to venture over to our other city anyhow. I know. I'm a redheaded stepchild myself. Back to the coming storm, not the RNC, but Gustav may be a blessing in disguise for the GOP, since they now will not have W or Darth Vader in St. Paul on Monday. I know. I would have liked to see the protestors getting a chance to really turn up the heat on Labor day and land some stink bombs or buckets of urine onto the two war criminals. But that's just me. What can I say. Instead the GOP will be seen as the party of responsibility and equality, just so long as you don't want to have an abortion even if you've been raped from a complete stranger or from an overly loving father or father-in-law, and you believe in God to the extent that you firmly believe it all started with Adam and Eve. Why not follow the custom of the middle east and banish and shun the rape victims because they brought shame upon themselves and their families? Fanaticism can be both Christian and Islamic. There can be no deviation from that. None. Remember, Guantamo is still open. We have places to put you people. Salt of the earth people. But we must remain vigilant. We must remain on guard. The terrorists will never stop. Ever. Just like the "Terminator". It should be a pretty interesting week.
Finally, to all of those U of M alumni, we've matched last season's win total. How about that for progress?
Happy Labor day. Abundant peace, love and happiness to all of you, wherever you are, whoever you are and whoever you vote for.

Be the filmmaker you always wanted to be—learn how to burn a DVD with Windows®. Make your smash hit

If only people could be more like lions....

2008-07-31T14:59:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man...........vol.71

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adYbFQFXG0U&feature=related

Use video conversation to talk face-to-face with Windows Live Messenger. Get started.

A song for the hungover Saturday mornings....

2008-07-29T18:21:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man .......vol70.

Hope everyone is having a great summer so far. State Fair is right around the corner. Halloween before you know it and then Thanksgiving. Anyhow, Vikings Superbowl?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLMotU8Tu9E

With Windows Live for mobile, your contacts travel with you. Connect on the go.

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man......happy birthday Bob, 67 years young!!!

2008-05-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man......vol. 69

The drumbeats of propaganda for war against Iran are getting louder and louder like hooves pounding the oncoming stampede.

We have a presidential campaign, an historic campaign, where only money can buy influence, but is anyone covering the issues? Is the Media asking important questions? Instead we see slow pitch softballs lobbed at the candidates and were not even at Be-Bops.

Did anyone know that there was a supposed suicide of the D.C Madam in her jail cell? You are probably asking yourself, who is the D.C madam? She was only the Heidi Fleiss of Washington D.C. She must have had some very important customers if not even a word of her death was given a moments attention by the major media outlets. Maybe someone on that list of her's needed it kept out of the spotlight for some time to come. Yeah, she committed suicide in her jail cell. Yeah. Right.
I may no longer believe that there was a great conspiracy to kill JFK, but I ain't buying that. Or the moon landing. Stanley Kubrick helped NASA film the moon landing shots. He was sworn to secrecy. He was paranoid. His last movie was "Eyes Wide Shut". Because the world had their eyes open but couldn't see the lie. How does the flag blow in the wind on the moon when there is no atmosphere? I could go on, but I won't.

The word of the year is Super delegate. Democracy is great when it's decided by 400 Super delegates. YAAAAAAY!!!

Finally for now, we do have some good news. Some pure news. Innocence with hooves. We have Big Brown and his busted ankle trying to be the first horse in thirty years to win the triple crown at the upcoming Belmont Stakes. It is a great thing to watch and cheer for. However, I urge all of you to watch and cry like I did to Secretariat at the 73' Belmont Stakes.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c_ylcxgCaI

Who says the divine doesn't exist?

Make every e-mail and IM count. Join the i'm Initiative from Microsoft.

"Last night I knew ya, tonight I don't"

2008-04-23T12:26:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.......vol. 68

Happy birthday Bard. Happy birthday to you and your rapier wit.
The father of English literature.
The writings of which all else are to be measured by.
Happy birthday to you William, who on the same date, some 52 years later, would die mysteriously.
Here is to all of the great plays and lines of rhyme and meter you composed.
Thank you for your symphony of words that brought imaginations to life in the Middle Ages and for the year that followed.
Thank you Mr. Shakespeare.
For we are all just players on the stage of our lives'.

And, congratulations to you Hillary on your win in Pennsylvania. Now what do you do?
The Republicans unknowingly or unwittingly have now successfully divided the Democratic party and are ready to conquer as old white man Mccain can sit idly back with his feet on his ottoman hands around a martini, at his favorite country club and watch the festivities.
How could the Democrats, after Iraq, Katrina and the sub-prime mortgage meltdown be in the situation they are currently in?
Stupidity?
Karl Rove couldn't have written a more Machiavellian outcome.

Oh, by the way, Happy post Earth Day.
Can anyone really afford to save the planet? It's so expensive. We have to dispose of those light bulbs really carefully.
I mean they are filled with mercury.
Icky.
It's such a nuisance.
But then again, so is clean air.

Did anyone else hear about the 3rd graders in Georgia, that were plotting to kill their teacher. 3rd graders!!!
Plotting to kill their teacher?! 3rd graders!!!
They were assigning fellow students tasks, such as who's going to bring the broken steaknife and who's in charge of watching the door and closing the windows.
3rd graders!!!

What's the price of a barrel of oil going to end at today? $120? $130?
Mahmud Ahmadinijaed says $115 is way too low, and it probably is too.
I predict that we will be paying about $5 for a gallon of gas by the end of the summer of 08' in the US.
But, when compared with England's $8 a gallon, and they have to pay $50 a day, just to drive their car into downtown London(which is a really good idea), doesn't seem so bad.
We will finally be able to point the finger at China and India and Southeast Asia as the ones who need to clean up their act.
Too bad we don't have a finely tuned mass transit infrastructure throughout the US.
We better start building one quick or build a lot more hybrid buses.

Finally I would like to end on a celebratory and positive note.
On April 8th of this year, a native son of our great state of Minnesota and from the small Iron Range town of Hibbing, near Duluth, won a long deserving honorary Pulitzer Prize.
Robert Zimmerman has been writing and recording great music and art since 1961 and is still going strong.
From "Freewheelin" to "Highway 61 Revisited" to "Blonde on Blonde" to "Nashville Skyline" to "Blood on the Tracks" and "Desire" to "Time out of Mind" and "Modern Times", he still searching for and producing that "mercurial sound".
The former U of M student still performs 200-250 shows a year. The most influential musician of the 20th century.
Not bad for being a card carrying AARP member.

Back to work after baby– how do you know when you're ready?

Another Spring has sprung a leak.....

2008-04-02T09:03:00.001-07:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man......vol.67

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
I apologize for the long delay between messages and it will probably happen again, but hopefully not as spaced out as they appear or myself seem to be.
I am back and ready to report the news.
The truth with consequences.
A couple of Sunday evenings ago, I had the chance to catch an episode of 60 Minutes and on that evening's episode they were detailing a new Active Denial System that is being developed by the Pentagon to help combat crowd control.
The system is a ray gun.
Yes, this isn't science fiction, a ray gun that emits an intense stream of heat and energy up to a 300 yards away which without serious harm to it's targets, will cause them to run like hell.
I got to believe Tim Pawlenty is going to want that around in St. Paul for the upcoming Republican National Convention.
This is true.
Maybe not the Pawlenty remark but check it out.
I saw it on the television.

The two headed monster that is the Democratic Party could hopefully end up being a dream ticket instead of the nightmare that it is developing into.
If Hillary and Obama keep this up, we may be looking at 4 more years of a Republican in the White House.
The Republican Party, the party that abolished slavery.
Can you believe that? I'm not making this stuff up.
Maybe Superhero Al Gore needs to step in between Hillary and Obama and for the greater good of the United States of America and declare himself the Party's nominee for President.
That would be awesome.
Or else we're going to end up with a very old white man in the oval office singing "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran."

March 3rd, 2007, Oil was at $60.00 a barrel.
March 5th, 2008, Oil was at $104.52 a barrel.
OPEC says bite me.
Guess who's over the barrel now.
Yeah, were looking into renewable sources of energy. Yeah. That's a good one.

Just like the economic stimulus package the President signed is going to really help Middle Class America. For about a week.

Client number 9? Number 9? Number 9. Number 9? Client Number 9.
That was a Beatles White Album Reference for those needing help.

Okay okay.
I will bet a Mr. Thompson that is a good friend of mine will be glad to see this next comment and know that it has been a long time coming.
Not one Muslim Cleric has issued a Fatwa against Osama Bin Laden for his role in 9/11. Not one.
An for those who don't know, a Fatwa is a verbal death warrant.
In 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a Fatwa against Islamic author Salman Rushdie for his novel "The Satanic Verses" because he took liberties with his fictional portrayal of the prophet Mohammed.
The hypocrisy and stupidity of radical Islamic terrorists is simply amazing.
A man writes a book. Let's kill him.
A man helps to kill 3,000 people and nothing. Silence.
You can hear crickets chirping.
And this is supposed to be a "religion of peace." Well, that may be so, but it has been hijacked by sick and twisted idiots.
I know that not all Muslim's are terrorists and not all Christians want to convert by way of military force, but come on people.
Where is the common sense and decency in the world today? It sure in the hell isn't in the majority or helps sell newspapers or get television ratings.

Will someone let the monks have Tibet? Please.
China, you can do the right thing and stop buying oil from Darfur, a government that is condoning genocide, and give the Dalai Llama what he wants, a Free Tibet.
You can keep Taiwan and have the Olympics.

Well at least we have the housing market fixed. Ha.
Adjustable rate morons.
Sorry about that ladies and gentlemen.
I helped with the whole crisis.
Giving mortgages to people who couldn't afford them.

Stay on message.
Buy stuff buy stuff buy stuff.

"The whole world is a very narrow bridge. And the most important thing is to not be afraid." Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

_________________________________________________________________
Pack up or back up–use SkyDrive to transfer files or keep extra copies. Learn how.
hthttp://www.windowslive.com/skydrive/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_skydrive_packup_042008

"Children, Wake up"

2008-03-01T06:32:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man.......vol.66

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

I want each and everyone of you to check out this video of the band the Arcade Fire from the month of April 2006, before they became tied for the best band in the world with Radiohead. David Bowie as special guest, was pleased enough to join them on stage. Please watch and like the caption says, if you are not moved, then check yourself for a pulse, you may already be dead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-wEBmLht5g

It was nice to see the crowd by the end of the show, rocking along, as were you, hopefully.

Now for some news.

The proverbial sky is falling on the heads of investment bankers. The bubble has burst on house flippers and struggling home owners. I hate to say I told you so, but when has a one story rambler in Columbia Heights ever been worth $210,000. Please. One bedroom condos in downtown for $160,000. What??? If the lower and the middle class do what they should do with their soon to be received rebate check from good ol' Uncle Sam, which is to save it instead of spend it, then our economy just like our image of foreign policy will go right down the toilet along with our sense of complacent entitlement.

But don't worry, because our lame duck President wants us to be safe. He is very concerned for our safety. Just tell that to the victims of Katrina. He didn't realize that gas could hit $4 a gallon. He hadn't heard that. Too busy playing mad libs. George is begging Congress for a law to remain permanent that would give the federal government permission to eavesdrop on supposed enemy combatants without warrants. It does make sense. I mean you have nothing to hide unless your up to something evil. Right. But then again, Big Brother takes one more step into our living rooms. Next February, we will all need digital TV's. Why??? So they can manipulate our thoughts with some cold war tested mind control? Mk-Ultra baby. But don't worry. Governments can always be trusted to do the right thing.
Germans thought so too.

Currently I am reading "The World is Flat" by Thomas Freidman. Great book. I'm a little late on the ball on this one. But, he speaks the truth. And the truth is that the technology of the 21st century will spread Democracy and free thought to all countries, for one will not be able to stop the inherent human need to consume what is the next exciting new thing and they will be blanketed by free trade, because that sure as hell beats the slave trade, and Capitalism will give it them, whether they like it or not. You have been warned Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia. But it will also trigger what may be the last of all wars. Because totalitarian regimes in the Middle East and due north will not allow their control to slip so easily through their fingers and they will then need a scapegoat to point their meaty war machines at. Everybody needs an opponent. Life is duality.

The steamroller that is growing momentum heading down the hill toward November and may be usurping the "inevitable" candidate is a feeling we call "Obama." I just hope that who may be the first ever Black President doesn't find his way into a bullet from a crazed lone gunmen. It wouldn't surprise me if he did. Or if he turns out to be the Anti-Christ. 20,000 people everywhere he goes, to listen to him speak. What has he really done? Then again, what have I done? Hopefully he is not just another in a long list of false prophets.

Finally, I urge you ladies and gentlemen to give a listen to an artist called Bon Iver. French for good winter. His album "For Emma, Forever Ago" is stark, simple and brilliant. It is the feeling of a winter cabin with a glowing fire place. If you like Van Morrison, Ray Lamontagne, Nick Drake or Damien Rice and even Bob Dylan, give Bon Iver a listen.

That is all for now. Much love peace and happiness.

Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. Get it now!

We are a sub-prime society

2008-01-21T07:55:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man....vol.65

"I look at people, and I see nothing worth liking." Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) There will be Blood. My pick for Best Picture, Best Actor, Cinematography and Director for 2007.

Good morning. In honor of Dr. King and all that he did for the cause of civil and human rights I give thanks. I would love to remain overtly optimistic and positive, but because of the times we live in and despite his achievements and successes, I cannot because I've come to realize that despite the pleas for differentiation of Republican and Democrat nominees for president, which is the longest job interview of all, is that the power that controls them, is a power that we, the voter have no control over, unless, you're an old white male board member of a fortune 500 Company. Because in the end, we'll most likely be in Iran, fighting the modern day crusades of Christianity vs. Islam.

2008 is looking a lot like 1992 all over again. A Bush will be leaving office, we will be leaving a mess in Iraq and the economy is tanking and quite possibly a Clinton will be living in the Oval Office. A little bit of history repeating.

Meanwhile our good friend Israel is test firing long range nuclear missiles to the dismay of Iran. Only a week after after George W. had left the region, talking of peace and co-existence between Israel and the Arab nations. But I guess being on the receiving end of a holocaust gives a nation a free pass.

Has anybody been paying attention??? It's the economy stupid!! Recession??? We could be heading into a depression. The Bond insurers that have backed the banks that have backed the subprime loans now may be going in default and may be unable to pay the insurance to the banks that have made those loans. What that simply means, that if you're bank can get paid, you're not going to get paid. The federal government needs to step in and buy MBIA and AMBAC, or else, we will slide back into the 1800's. But I'm crazy.

Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging. You IM, we give. Learn more.

Advice from a Good Friend

2008-01-13T09:01:00.001-08:00

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man........Vol.64

Good morning ladies and gentlemen on this grey Sunday morning, the 13th of January 2008. It's been a long time coming since my words have reached this outlet of the 21st century.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am writing this from the advice of a good friend. I am writing this because sometimes it takes others to tell you what you need to do, because you can't see the forest from the trees.

This is all original material that I've been compiling since the last time. So hopefully it will have been well worth the wait.

If some of you are confused, at least it is minus the hate.

I am writing this morning to push the blankets of the bed and the dirty sheets aside with the kindling of a fire stoked within my belly, amid the outside temperature of the barely hovering above freezing.

I am writing to inform the uninformed of the bitter sweet pain of being unable to grab the wrist and to draw her to you, as she sits indian style right in front of you, reading a book much too young for her age, as you imagine a young Audrey Hepburn reading "Harry Potter", giggling as she's whispering to her father.

She has the bare shoulders of a woman who has needed to be restrained in the past. The tilt of her neck gives an attitude of indifference and underlying anger. She is a beautiful woman that has had ugly things happen to her and she's been fed up for far too long. She is the fanaticism generated by the accumulation of wealth within the stock market that may be nearing a collapse. Sucking like an ocean's wave everybody in, and then crash. Lying stranded ashore. Alone on a barren beach. She is the opening of the window on the morning bus ride into work that helps cool my feverish mind of the having the obligation of attending the mid week Wednesday, but being reminded that it's all down hill from there.
I have an invisible shield around me that silently forces the oncoming passengers to never sit in the same seat next to me for I am protected from their negativity.

Meanwhile a woman, no more older older than 26 drives a $40k BMW SUV through a neighborhood where her vehicle or symbol of worth is more than people's yearly salary, or at least mine. Where are the children of Darfur on her mind?
It is the joy of the first time. Sitting atop of a neighbor's white suburban garage under the moonlight of a weekend and the parents are out of town.

It is every morning's bus ride with her that is another first date.
It is the street musician serenading the passers by with "Walk the Line" being played upon a flute. It is daring the audience to find the song within their absence of attention.
It is the bus ride through Northeast Minneapolis as we would talk about castles and Loch Ness. It is traveling through England and touring the Guinness brewery. It is if we are getting to know each other better, than someday we'll go together.

As if possibly we've already been and with each other would like to go again.
It is a woman that smells of grape bubble gum with an engagement ring, as she talks of hope for the future and things that will come. It is a tortuous soul, a woman in the coat the color of my car, showing enough leg and nylon to the dangerous men who are no longer boys, and I am reading of coincidences and Beethoven, the influence of novelties and fortuities grace.

She looks my way. It is the idea that her name should be Sunny Rosewater. Cursed to meet a woman I cannot get inside of without having to deal with an itch that can never be cured by a scratch.
It is being blessed by a morning of rainbows, the first of 2008 from across an ocean with a smile and a warm cup or coffee.

Make distant family not so distant with Windows Vista® + Windows Live™. Start now!

The Global Outrage of an Educated Man

Language and the Media

What did you expect?

Meltdown

"Fool me once, shame on you..."

The smokescreen is lifting

I hope we can chalk it up to March Madness?

"Say you want a revolution......"

My 2 Cents.....for what it's worth.

"Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?" Dylan

Do you hear what I hear?

Short and Sweet

Because you may not know.......

I have some questions to ask you.

Food for thought.

And now, a word from our sponsor............................

It's about time

Ssshhhh.....keep quiet and keep to yourself.

Do Yourself a Favor....

That felt good......

Happy Anniversary

"Is there anybody out there? Nod if you can hear me, is there anyone home?" Pink Floyd, The Wall

You can truly never go back home again

Sarah Palins radical speech

Sarah Palins radical speech

Article II, Section 3

Blame it on Obama?

At least it'll be warmer......

Best of GOEM....no.3(volumes 85-116)....take your time.

Help a brother out....

Just in time for the Holidays......................

Are You Serious??

Let me be clear....

I have been short on words lately...........

Some music to smile to

"War......what is it good for???"

Bad Medicine....

"I still believe....."

Jack Scharber has invited you to sign a petition on Change.org

Peace, Love, Dope........

Some Fun Facts from the fallout

"A green plastic watering can...for a fake Chinese rubber plant...."

"When you think that you've lost everything.....you find, you could always lose a little more." Dylan

"My policy is to have no policy"....................founder of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, (take that Rush Limbaugh)

"How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms into leaving his post......" Dylan

"And now, the end is near...." Old Blue Eyes

Ron Paul for President and common sense

"We are Stardust leaving a comet trail of our own." Jack Scharber

"The chosen few, who will judge the many, when the game is through...." Dylan

Here he goes again....

Tippy Type Tippy Type, type some more....ting.

RE: Please Mr. President....

Please Mr. President....

Short and sweet.....

"Please to meet you, hope you guessed my name..." The Stones

I'm going to catch hell for this one.......

"I've just reached a place where the willow don't bend." Dylan

"Because something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?" Dylan

"This is not my house, this is not my beautiful wife...." Talking Heads

It's never too late to change for the better....

Comedians are also truth tellers

"My love, she speaks like silence, without ideals or violence" Dylan

To Begin again........

Would you want me teaching your children?

"God bless Me I'm a free Man, with nowhere free to run." Neko Case

If you can think it, it can be done.

WHO THROWS A SHOE?! Bush and Austin Powers BEST MASHUP!!!

"You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." Lennon

Just Imagine

Can you believe these people?

A Song Everyone Should Listen to....

"It's not he or she or them or it that you belong to......."

How low can we go?

Wow, that was good, I think?

Do you believe in Miracles???

Let's not climax too soon...

Devil's Advocate

"Been to the mountain top..."

Billy Corgan was telling the Truth

Music for the Fall

Sarah Palins radical speech

Sarah Palins radical speech