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?
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Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Do Yourself a Favor....
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.
Four words.
Mumford and Sons.
Brilliant.
The New Busy is not the too busy. Combine all your e-mail accounts with Hotmail. Get busy.
Monday, April 26, 2010
That felt good......
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.
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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.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Happy Anniversary
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?
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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?
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Saturday, March 13, 2010
"Is there anybody out there? Nod if you can hear me, is there anyone home?" Pink Floyd, The Wall
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.
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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.
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Friday, February 19, 2010
You can truly never go back home again
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.
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Sunday, February 7, 2010
Sarah Palin’s radical speech
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.
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
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