CULTURE WARS

The Republican (trump) party has lost all vestiges of its former self. They have given up on legislating for their constituents. They did not even put up a platform to state what they stand for.

Instead they choose to fight unnecessary culture wars to promote their own pious beliefs unto us all, not to make laws that BENEFIT us.

They have the right to their personal beliefs just not to impose it on us all. They claim ‘PRO-LIFE’ on abortion, please! To save children, please! Abortions will return to the backalleys once again and women and children will continue to die. I would give them credit if they would pass laws to care for the children not aborted and the families affected. But they will not. It is just a vengeful way for them to punish, what they concider amoral behavior. Stay in the pews!

I ask; When was the last time a gay or transgender person hurt you? And yet they want to pass laws ‘to protect us’. Its their piety they want to project unto us all. Preach in your pews.

Pass laws that balance our budget, that improves our healthcare and prescription costs. Give us laws that make our judital system more fair. And so many others.

STOP WITH THE REDICULOS CULTURE WARS!

‘ARE WE IN A WORLD OF EXISTENTIALISM?’

In the view of an existentialist the individual’s thinking starting point is called “the existential angst”. It is a sense of dread, disorientation, confusion, anxiety in the face of a meaningless, absurd world. Sound familiar in our current age? To myself that rings true and is getting increasingly worse.

I suppose there has always been this feeling to a degree. I am 73 years, young! I have never seen it quite as bad as it has been recently. I blame this current angst on our politics and social media. I have been a practicing Western Buddhist since 1980 and my practice has never been more difficult.

Our politicians give us more and more anxiety. Most of them have no moral compass, they shamelessly spew hypocrisy, seemingly unaware of the existence of videotape! Then there is the social media allowing unattributed content that confuses. allowing lies and conspiracies to fester and divide our society.

When I meditate I try to center myself to stand in the present, to release the past and not worry about the future. But the problem is the present world is in an existential angst!

IT IS SERIOUS!

During the Trump presidency he constantly trashed the institutional departments of our constitutional democracy. 

He led the march to sow doubt in those departments. He, with foul lies, made the free press an enemy. Our founding fathers thought a free press was important to maintain a transparent government.

He, with despicable words, made our Judicial system a source of doubt. He manipulated this separate department of our democracy into an arm of the legislative branch.

Now he has sown doubt in our system of voting. This is the danger of this delusional man! And now we have a new party, the trumplican party, who has picked up the baton and is spreading this cancer throughout our nation. 

Russia and China are watching and drooling in the anticipation of the USA destroying itself. 

Don’t just shrug you’re shoulders, take this as the real threat it is. THIS IS SERIOUS!

CIVIL RIGHTS… when?

In 1948, the year I was born, President Truman signed Excecutive Order 9981 to end segrgation. The modern journey began. After 319 years of treating a group of human beings as sub-human property. In 1954 the Supreme Court ended Public School segergation. To this day, by choice, there are still schools segregated.

In 1957 President Eiesenhower signedthe Civil Rights Act of 1957. It was a law to protect voters rights making it illegal to SUPRESS anothers right to vote. Now in this day republican state legislatures are attemping to do just that.

In 1964 President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A law to prevent discrimination in the work place. And we still struggle with that these days. Many more efforts have been made to make us the true fair and equal melting pot we want to be. The body of citizens, I believe, want this society. But, it appears, our elected political people struggled and fight what the people want.

The governor and founder of Rhoade Island, Roger Williams had it right. He accepted a diverse group of people into his community. Google search this and see how it worked. In Vietnam Airman Price, a black kid, saved my life. I will never forget that day or Price! Whenever I get into a Civil Rights debate that goes off the rail my mind goes back to that day. An event that had no racial overtones at the time. And I wish we all could look at people for who they are not what they look like. Jesus taught us, but people twist and turn his teachings to allow thier prejudices to be acceptable.

It is time we come to our senses and make our country the envy in Civil Rights, the melting pot of talent and people…CIVIL RIGHTS… WHEN? NOW is the answer!

FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

In 1960 I was enrolled into a unique residential school, SCOTLAND SCHOOL for VETERANS CHILDREN. It was nestled in the Cumberland Valley of South Central Pennsylvania. A quiet rural area breath takingly

FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

I was enrolled, in 1960, into a unique residential school; SCOTLAND SCHOOL for VETERANS CHILDREN. It was nestled in the Cumberland Valley of South Central Pennsylvania. It was a quiet rural area with breath taking beauty.

It was started just after the Civil War to care for the orphaned children of veterans killed in the war.It is a 1st thru 12th grade residential school. It grew over the years into a sprawling campus with several housing units, little cottage houses facing each other in a U shape.

I was assigned to ‘Cottage7’. My memories of that day are filled with the overwhelming smell of sauerkraut and a big older woman bent over a stove. The man introduced her as Ms. Davis. She smiled as the man left thru the enclosed porch off the kitchen.

She motioned for me to put my suitcase on the long table. She was dressed in a floral print, ankle length dress. A stained apron was tied around her waist. She wore black heavy industrial shoes that made her look authoritarian.

I placed my suitcase on the table and she began to go through my clothes; they would be replaced by the school uniform. At one point she pulled out a pair of socks and asked if they were mine(?) . and I replied with ‘yes’.

The next few seconds are seared into my memories, forever! With imperceptible speed she turned to me and her hand slapped my cheek with such power it turned my head causing me to stumble. That sound was instantly followed by the roar of her voice yelling…’THAT’S YES MAM!’

‘Sauerkraut’ and ‘Mean Woman’ are my FIRST IMPRESSIONS of the place I will live until I graduate!

@ ANOTHER TIME…

I was packed up and ready to take my “freedom flight” and leave Vietnam behind. I had spent the last two weeks in a down duty barrack.Here we got our things ready to DEROS out of country and return to “the World!”.  And we partied!

The night before my flight the base came under another rocket attack. At this point I had become use to the noise and commotion of these attacks, but it still set my nerves into survival mode.

The first thing I did, after the all clear, was go to the flight-line to check on my brothers at the 12th TRS  P.P.I.F.. When I got there I saw the devastation on the flight terminal. And was informed my flight, my ” freedom flight !” , was canceled.

It was a day later I was in line for that flight. We had to climb around a debris field of twisted metal and glass shards mixed with plaster pieces.We had to go through a military check point where they checked our carry on. For some reason they took some of my personal photos, I never knew why but wasn’t going to argue!

On board we watched the “round-eye” mini skirted stewardess and dreamed of home. The plane rose up and banked giving us a sight  of the land we had spent a year in. A LOUD CHEER FILLED THE CABIN! 

Finally I was on my way back to my fiancee, my high school sweetheart. We are now married for 53 years!

YOU ALWAYS REMEMBER THE FIRST.

I was picked for a special assignment at the Pentagon. So my very pregnant wife and I drove from March AFB, in California, across country with many, many bathroom stops, to an apartment in Alexandria Virginia.

One day after working in the lab I was taking a shower when I heard my wife scream. I jumped from the shower to see her in the kitchen doorway, hands gripping the frame, legs spread yelling… “My water broke!”

We had not had our phone hooked up yet. So I put on clothes and ran to the other end of the complex to the apartment of an Air Force friend of mine. I called for an ambulance.

He and his wife and I ran back to our apartment. His wife calmed my wife as we waited for the ambulance. When they arrived they did a triage then moved her down five floors and into the ambulance. I went in the ambulance as my friend and his wife followed.

As I was military they went to the close Walter Reid army hospital. We all sat in the waiting room waiting for news of her condition.

Time went by and by, I was worried. So I asked the nurse about my wife, and she said this; “oh, didn’t they tell you… She was transferred to Bethesda Naval?” So we all got in his Chevelle and headed out, again.

We checked into the waiting room and waited again. Time went by and went by… do I asked this nurse about my wife…and she said this; “oh, didn’t they tell you…it was false labor. We are going to keep her so you may as well go home and get some sleep, and we’ll call you.”

The next morning I drank coffee and waited…time passed by and passed by. I final went to my friend’s apartment to call Bethesda. “Oh, didn’t they tell you she gave birth last night?”

I drove, angrily, back to Bethesda to see them. She was radiant and holding our son. He was premature and was healthy.

You never forget the first!

“

ARE WE OKAY?

It seems to me , as a nation, we have evolved. Our nation, indeed the world, have gotten more contentious. In the last 15 years our nation has become more divided and bilegerant .

We have had a cancerous growth of racism in our nation for hundreds of years. We have cut away at it but within the past 15 years it has begun to metastasize. It has become more and more upfront and vocal. It has been allowed to be a proud badge of honor again.

And now a whole group of demented loud vocal conspiracy theorist have crawled out of the dark into the light. they have used social media to slither into prominence. To the dangerous point that they have been given a voice in our government.

It is a dangerou place for our nation to be in. If we do not clear this out we will be in trouble. If we allow racism to be acceptable we all lose. We are a melting -pot nation. that IS our strength! And to allow crazy conspirasies to run rampant through our nation without challenge is harmful. The whole social network needs to step up or be regulated.

If we can not fix these then I ask…ARE WE OKAY?

@ ANOTHER TIME…

I was an Air Force photo intelligence provider in Vietman in 1967/1968 providing aerial and ground photographic intelligence in support of the war effort.

Just after the initial TET 68 offensive this happened…

I was on the 12 am/12 pm shift. We were in the middle of a days long operation founded on the aerial photography discovery of two platoons of type 62 NVA tanks. They were being floated down the river under the canopy of trees on the river. Headquaters was of the belief they were being moved into a major operation.

My unit was a mobile attached trailer one set up to provide immediate intelligence turn- around back into the field. We were in a furry to get this latest information out, everyone was rushing around. I stepped from my individual trailer into the main body trailer and headed toward the last trailer, a maintenance trailer filled with replacement parts and walls of bolts and srews. There was a bottle water cooler there, and I was thirsty.

I had several small paper cups of icy water that quenched my thirst. The trailers were attached to each other by a canvas covered walk way of a steel plate. I had just stepped onto that plate when I heard that ‘WHOOSH’ , a horrific bang of sound that knocked me face down onto the steel. After a few seconds, my ears ringing, I pulled myself up and loked back at the maintenance trailer.

I was shaking at what I was seeing. The left side of the trailer was caved in. The heavy wooden bins holding nuts and bolts was shattered. I could see the holes on both side where shrapnel had torn through the trailer. And then I saw the shattered cooler. I knew then that had I lingered at that cooler one more second …