Category: Opinion

December 15, 2021 – When Your Fear of Dying Has Already Killed You

December 15, 2021 /

This is a tough subject and I am going to obscure some of the details for privacy purposes.  I am sure that there are people who can guess the subject and circumstances because they already know.  To them, I would say please respect the privacy of this person’s wish.  I am, by not naming or getting in depth with the details I think that this is a lesson for all of us. 

There is someone that I know that has a likely, terminal illness.  After seeking multiple opinions and specialists, the prognosis is ‘never been successfully treated’.  As every person in different, we don’t know what that really means in terms of what is the quality (and duration) or remaining life is.  I have an opinion based on observing  progressing symptoms, but I will keep that to myself.   

Growing up, I frequently worked with a local doctor doing odd jobs.  He told me one time that 90% of the men that make it to age 80 have prostate cancer.  I know people that have it right now.  The good news is that for the majority of men, they die of something else before prostate cancer.  My point is that there is ‘living’ with a fatal disease.

Let’s be honest, some day our day is coming.  I remember sitting in church one time and the subject of salvation came up.  The pastor was trying to get across and the idea of ‘still having time’ is one of the primary motivators for people’s sin.  I think death is like that as well.  When we do not have a sense of when the last day will be, we ignore doing the things that we should probably be doing thinking we still have more time.

Why am I talking about this today?  My observation of this person’s behavior is that they are so scared of dying that they are not living.  What does that mean?  I got a communication on Sunday from this person out of the blue that if I had been around any unmasked people that I should self quarantine for the five days prior to visiting.  Everyone reading this knows that Monday I talked about running around mask less on Saturday and Sunday.  

It is not that I am intentionally disrespecting this person, it is quite the opposite.  I even had a conversation with them in November stating that they have the right to direct treatment in any way they see fit; that includes barring people that have not worn a mask.  If I can, I will accommodate and I will take reasonable precautions and respect their wishes.  At this point, I am not going to change my values and beliefs just because we have philosophical differences.

As I do, I will digress a moment here.  This is a person that had Covid about three months ago and survived.   This is a person that has had all of the shots, including the booster.  Granted, I am not an expert in the current treatment, but I have dealt with enough doctors and the medical system to know that they are never going to give the green light to live your life, your way.  There is just too much risk out there, including their own liability.  

This is also a person never got deprogrammed and would see a headline and that would immediately support delusional constructs.  Try this one on “Immigrant Children Detained for Illegal Entry”.  This turned into Trump is coming for all of brown people and they have been separated from their parents to never be reunited as they will die in the concentration camps.  

When I talk about sharing more in similarities than differences I am talking about this situation.  I didn’t investigate the source of the information.  I would love to see the border open, if we get rid of the welfare state.  I am probably against separating children and parents in detainment.  But, who really knows the circumstances?  Maybe they were picked up separately, maybe it wasn’t safe to have kids with adults, what if the parents disowned them because they thought it was more likely they would make it into the USA?  My point is that you can’t just assume that the story is as reported.

A long time ago, I liked to listen to Dr. Dean Edell on the radio.  He was talking to someone about an eating disorder.  He said that they have done studies that starving rats would slow down metabolism and that they would live a longer life.  His point was however at what cost?  And do we know for sure?  What if you starved for 40 years to get cancer or hit by a truck, was that extra life worth it?

I have a step-Grandmother.  When I was young, she used to scare me (and my brother).  She would yell at us and shoe us outside from the pool table so that we wouldn’t interrupt her soap operas.  This was in the 1980s.  Amazingly, she had three VCRs to tape all of the soap operas concurrently.  My opinion now is that she was rough around the edges and didn’t have the patience for children.  As time has gone on, I have come to see a change to a sweet, old lady.  I do think it is a change of personality from my youth as a result of realizing that loneliness is worse than missing out on TV shows.

Getting back to my point here.  Fear is the result of programming.  Combine hope with fear and you have premature death.  By no means do I want to remove hope.  This is one of the main ingredients in successful treatment.    However, hope is not the same as living.  Hope will lead you to wait until the treatment is done and I think likely too late.  

End Your Programming Routine: At this point, I am not in a position to make the same decision fortunately.  I can’t help to think that if I was, I would choose my path differently. My wife accuses me of living in the future and not in the present, so I am not immune.  This does cause me sometimes to pause and analyze my behavior.  I still have time.

 

December 13, 2021 – Fascism 2.0

December 13, 2021 /

I heard something interesting on Friday. One of the reasons that Texas is in a different state of mind than Oregon is that people just decided that they were not going to comply, regardless of the rules.  When I was in Texas a couple of weeks ago, there were still signs everywhere that said masks were required however I would estimate 1 in 20 actually wearing one.  The rule became unenforceable.

I decided to run an experiment over the weekend.  I went out and about to check on mask enforcement and compliance.  I didn’t push too hard, but if I saw people going in or coming out without mask I would not where a mask myself.  So, I am going to run an point by point of my experience.

  1. Semi-Annual Gun Show –  There were a handful of people wearing masks but it was a busy event.  I encountered no problems.
  2. Local Music Store – I try to respect private property rights and it was posted masks were required to enter, so I did.  While in the store, two men came in without masks and the store owner confronted them and made them put on masks.  Neither side were happy over the situation.
  3. Sportsman’s Warehouse – No problems there. I walked in without a mask.  I would estimate 2/3 of the customers were mask-less.
  4. Costco – I was in there earlier in the week and I would estimate that probably 25% of the patrons were without a mask.  On Saturday I saw none.  
  5. Local pawn shop- When the people working there are wearing mask it seems pretty safe to enter without one and there aren’t going to be problems.
  6. Walmart- No mask-less customers
  7. Regional agriculture chain – 2/3 mask-less
  8. Local second hand store – No mask-less customers
  9. Liquor store – There were two ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ slogans on the glass outside.  I figured I was not going to have any problems here.

Emboldened by my experience on Saturday, yesterday I went completely mask-less.  When I did this experiment before, I was operating within compliance of the rules, it seems that few were willing to test that.  This time I was not.  

I am not looking to cause problems per se but I am looking to be a leader.  To be ungovernable means that you think as an individual.  If we had true, non-biased data with policy decisions made as such then I could respect and comply with that.   

I am going to change directions here.  Traditionally, people ‘comply’ when it is in their best interest or there is more to lose not because someone else says so.   Using one example, why do bribes work in China?  The practice is illegal and the punishment can be public execution.  Here are the reasons why: 1) the risk of being caught is low 2) the practice is extremely prevalent, see number one 3) Punishment is only used as an example, you have to have done something else wrong as well.

Today, my government has superseded freedom for the attempt at safety and security to the naked eye.  This is precisely the results of combining government and things that do not belong such as healthcare.  Now because they have become entangled, not only do they feel a responsibility to keep it operating, there are so many entities that are making crazy amounts of money under this charade. They all have a vested interest in kicking the can down the road as long as they can.  

This is why all the governments are pouring tons of resources into analytics and data modeling.  It is all in efforts to prevent the hospitals and the medical systems at large from failing.  The medical cronies get together with the ‘big ag’ cronies to create a food pyramid and other such propaganda to keep us sick combined with a system to keep us alive.  Those two enlist the help of ‘big tech’ to collect the data and market those ideas.  To which our society is addicted to and cant resist.  Don’t forget about the big banks who have created the monetary policy to help themselves to a lot of profit while funding all of these other endeavors.

And who runs the government?  All of those interests.  We are the witnessing Fascism 2.0 and guess what is their business? A compliant flock of useful idiots who think they are making a stand by picking one side or the other.  To be ungovernable means that we reject Fascism. 

I ran across this graphic this morning.  It is no surprise to me that Oregon ranks in the bottom 10%.  If I had a crystal ball, I would be willing to bet that Oregon could end up at the bottom of the rankings easier than all of the other states.  Why? It has the smallest population and it seems like the willpower to make it worse.

End Your Programming Routine: My prediction is that mask mandates are here to stay forever.  The only thing that will change that is if the people decide that it isn’t going to be so.  I also think that there is a window where we the people will have an opportunity to reverse it.  Once that window is shut, it is going to be very difficult to open it again.  It is interesting that the mask represents double entrendre.  When you are not wearing one, your face is visible and identity exposed.  That is the way it should be.  

 

 

 

December 6, 2021 – What Is Wrong with Batteries?

December 6, 2021 /

It am starting out with anecdotal observation. It seems to me that say 20 years ago, batteries rarely failed. It also seems like today batteries nearly always fail. When I say fail, I mean that batteries leak and frequently ruin the device in which they are placed.

I use to believe when batteries were treated poorly for instance left in a hot vehicle for years, those were the cases where we would see a battery failure.  I can understand that.  I now deliberately keep batteries out of devices unless I am going to routinely use them.  You can see from the photo above that the battery in question was well within expiration date and kept at room temperature (below).

What you are seeing is my weather center display that is plugged in on the kitchen counter and has batteries for power back-up for things like the clock setup.  It is less than two years old.  That also means that the batteries have been in place less than two years.

Batteries that are labelled as ‘alkaline’ mean that the overall chemistry of the battery is basic or a pH higher than 7.  This is different than the chemistry of a car battery which uses sulfuric acid with a pH lower than 7.  Why does that matter?  If you are going to salvage the device, you need to neutralize the reaction in the right direction. 

Looking at the chemistry of the situation, the leaking battery forms potassium hydroxide which then reacts with carbon dioxide to form a crystal of potassium carbonate.  That then reacts with the plating on the terminals.  You must first stop the reaction.  Use an acid like vinegar to clean the corrosion of the terminal.  Then, neutralize acid with a base like baking soda.

Hopefully, the device is still salvageable at this point.  I have even gone to the point of filing terminals to try and get a new conductive surface with mixed results.  The only reason I even checked this was because my time was off and I unplugged the device to reset the time and date.  

There may be more to this story.  I am debating about calling the guarantee number because I am upset about so many battery failures.  I also have a remarkable situation as well that I might talk about this week.  Suffice to say, the weather center that this replaced was ruined by leaking batteries.  Remote controls, portable radios, LED lights and flashlights are all things I can think of off the top of my head that have been ruin in the last couple of years due to leaking batteries.

End Your Programming Routine: I also used to believe that brand and cost mattered.  It seemed like I had consistent failure with one brand over the other.  I also thought that paying more for batteries was less likely for failure.  I do not hold that belief anymore.  Like I said at the beginning, the only safe way to protect your devices is keep the batteries out of them unless you are using them.

December 1, 2021 – A Tour of the Free States

December 1, 2021 /

The trip we took last week took us from Oregon to California, Arizona, New Mexico and then Texas. On our return trip it was everything in reverse.  I had an opinion on what I thought I would see and I will say it wasn’t quite what I expected.

First of all, it was standard fair for workers in all states to be masked. As we headed south, I expected California to be similar to Oregon in customers wearing one.  That was not always the case.  What I observed was in rural California people were not wearing masks and suburban California they were.  

As we moved into Arizona, I really didn’t see any mask wearing.  We only made one stop in New Mexico both ways and it seemed as though masks were an afterthought.  Finally, I would say ‘Dont Mess With Texas’.

Prior to 1836, Mexico occupied the Alamo compound as a fort.  They abandoned it and some locals took it over, still technically Mexicans.  The winter of 1836 the Mexican Army came back to retrieve a couple cannons that were left at the site a battle ensued.  That was the spark of the Texas Revolution.  The idea that Texans would submit to policy if it suits them is derived all the way back to this time period.  Among the chief disputes that lead to the revolution were individual rights and taxes, sound familiar?

What I think I observed was a general consensus of will not comply rather than what I see here.  If I could try to describe it I would say here there are two distinct camps, hard left and hard right.  What I saw in Texas is an acceptance that we are just not going to comply.  For instance, in all of my travels I did not see a single pick-up flying a ‘Fuck Joe Biden’ or  ‘Trump 2024’ flag which I see on any given day here.  What I did see were signs that ‘such and such city government requires masks to be worn in this location’ and no one complying.

To me this means that in the hard left states like Oregon pushes the opposition into extreme positions.  It is like trying to block the daily tides, you might get lucky but that is really unlikely so all you can do is hope for a miracle.  In contrast, in Texas there is a general ease that this is the way things are and doesn’t require people to go to extremes to promote one side or the other.

My overall impression was pretty favorable with Texas.  I have lived in the south before and I would say that Texas attitude is more refined that of say South Carolina.  Of course not everything is roses, there is high heat and humidity.  Fire ants and cockroaches and other bugs and no real public land.  But, you cant have everything. 

End Your Programming Routine:  Where I will come down here is that the real difference is the urban-rural divide.  It is not necessarily state lines that define attitude and behavior but common values.  If you are ever driving on I5, there is a barn between Yreka, CA and the Oregon border that has a roof painted the statement ‘The State of Jefferson‘.  That has been there  before I was in college (mid-1990s).  Despite being in California that farmer shares more in values with Ozona, TX then the next closest neighbor in Ashland, OR twenty miles away.

November 30, 2021 – Lessons From the Road, Part 2

November 30, 2021 /

Let me just say that, I am bushed.  The drive home wasn’t as smooth as originally anticipated.  Day 1 we drove from Houston to Blythe, California, that is 1200 miles.  The plan was to drive from Blythe to home at a little under 1000 miles.  After Day 1, it should have been easier – nope.

Sunday, we were only able to get 200 miles in 10 hours.  I kept watching the arrival time get later and later.  We got to the point that our arrival time exceeded my start time for the work day.  The freeway traffic was showing red from LA all the way to Sacramento and we were running on 5 hours of sleep.  We decided to bag it for the night.

It still took us nearly 14 hours to get home yesterday.  By that, I will be getting to my finer analysis of the trip below.

  • I was worried about the weather, I never considered the traffic in the drive.  I5 was a parking lot all day Sunday and I never had any idea this would be the case.  I think about traffic during the weekdays but not weekends.
  • The original plan for the trip did not included driving my mother in law back (with all of her stuff).  We barely had room to move and when we stopped, we had to move stuff to move people to move stuff to get in and out.
  • Our overall planning for the time in Texas was weak.  I expected to work two days,  which I did.  That being said, the rest of the family did nothing on Monday.  We spent all day Wednesday driving to San Antonio (200mi one way) and back even though we past it both ways on I10.  I think that we could have done a better job of planning the trip so that we could have done more sightseeing while we were there.
  • It was extremely difficult to keep 11 people on track with only stopping for fuel and minimizing the down time.  I selfishly wanted to get home as early as possible because I wanted as much time as possible before work the next day.  No one else had the same urgency that I did.
  • I think a daily cap of twelve hours is probably a good limit.  That is still a long time in the car but it leaves a little more room for not keeping a blistering schedule.  There wasn’t a ton of sites that I would have liked to taken a little more time but having some proper rest in between days would have been beneficial.
  • Overall, the kids did a good job for the most part, the adults not so much.  There were several incidents of inappropriate behavior for no good reason.  For that reason, I will never do a multiple family unit in one vehicle again.  Between the difference in urgency and the plain ridiculousness, I will not do it.  It is not to say that I wont travel together, just not in the same vehicle.  That way, I have the freedom to go ahead if I want to.

I will probably post one more time about the trip and a different subject matter this week.  I plan to talk about my assessment of the states we crossed and how they compared with Oregon.  There are definitely some differences.

End Your Programming Routine:  I am not trying to be negative,  I am saying that I would do things differently if I could. Overall, this was definitely an experience for the memories.  And, I am not saying all memories are good.  The focus was on providing an experience for the kids and providing one more family get together as its current dynamic.  I think that was accomplished.  I am pretty sure the kids felt like this was an adventure despite what my opinion was exactly and that is the best I could hope for.

November 29, 2021 – Lessons From the Road, Part 1

November 29, 2021 /

Never having done anything quite like this before, some things sound like a better idea then before you try it.  This was a two pronged approach to getting from our place to Texas.  The first one was that it would save us some money ultimately.  The second one was that it would be a family adventure.

There is no doubt that we have accomplished both but I also think that there are some lessons learned this trip, this time and this approach.  The original plan was to drive 36 hours straight from our house to Texas, hot swapping drivers along the way.

  • We didn’t actually rotate amongst all the drivers.  Adding additional drivers raised the overall price of the rental significantly to where we were starting to lose some of the cost advantage of driving over flying.  All of the driving was done by my wife and I, with me doing most of it.
  • Starting our trip on Friday evening was a good way to getting started from a time perspective but we were already starting to feel the fatigue Saturday morning from being up all night.  We haven’t solidified our trip home plans yet but it might be better to not start through the night and make the first day longer.
  • We only made 21 hours on the first day.  We had planned to go to El Paso but we only made it to Tucson.  That is where we stopped for dinner.  The thought of four more hours and arriving at a hotel at one in the morning to leave by seven was too much at that point.  
  • Thirty-six hours in a van is a long time.  I would give it a slight edge over an airplane from a leg and elbow room standpoint.  Of course the ability to stop and stretch was an advantage, but it was also a disadvantage that I will talk about next.
  • To think that nine other people were going to have the same dedication to the schedule and forethought about when and where to stop was a mistake.  We rarely went more than 100 miles without stopping.  And when we did, it was an event to get everyone back in the van quickly.  Out of our 19 hours traveling yesterday, over three of it was out of the car.
  • I never realized that my wrists and hands would be sore from driving.  There were very strong winds most of the day which required tight control of the steering wheel for a high-standing van blowing all over the road at any moment.   By late last night, my wrists were aching.  
  • Cell phone service coverage made the drive largely peaceful.  I am generally not a fan of the kids incessant use of the phone, however there was almost no fighting or complaining for the duration of the trip.  Between fatigue and phones the kids did a great job getting along.
  • Starting the trip with two cases of water and a tote worth of snacks was a good idea.  I think that it helped stave off some of the complaining along the way as well.  It also may have contributed to extra stoppage however.  

Getting in at 1AM and starting work at 7AM is less than ideal after a twenty hour drive.  We did also lose two hours (time zone change) by heading east.  That time is important when schedule is driving behavior.  

End Your Programming Routine:  I will definitely have a final opinion and recommendations in part 2 tomorrow.  We are still on the road as I write this.  That will be part of the story.

November 26, 2021 – Mindless Help

November 26, 2021 /

Maybe I am just in a snarky mood lately. In August, we received a letter from the Oregon Department of Human Services. My son’s were getting $700 a piece in the form of food stamps from the state for lack of access to food during the pandemic.  The truth is, I threw away the initial letters not believing that we were getting food stamps.  Sure enough one card showed up in the mail about a week later.  What I can only attribute to sloppy execution,  only one card showed up with the full $1400 on it.

Mind you, this is the same collection of helpful individuals that gave out free breakfasts and lunches five days a week to anyone 0-18 starting when school shut down. Lunches were bused to distribution points for those not within walking distance of the schools. Now, school lunches are now free and breakfast has always been free to my knowledge.

A little OpSec here, but last year we were audited by the state of Oregon for 2019 and they determined that we owed an additional $6000. Mind you, we paid $12,000 to the US government in addition to what was previously withheld. I am painting the picture that bills are high because my income is high.

I fail to see the connection between five days of free breakfast/lunch and a good income to qualifying for food stamps. I am not saying that no one had a hard time but the truth is I don’t know anyone that did. Someone I knew as a bartender lost her job but was making more on unemployment than working. She drew that benefit down to the last day before working again.

I do see kids using the card. I see them at Dollar Tree and Seven Eleven buying candy and junk food. I guess they didn’t have access to crap when everything was shut down and now we need to make up for it? Even the school lunches were half junk. Yes there were some fruits and vegetables along with chips and chocolate milk and rice crispy treats. The portions were such that it was almost lunch and dinner sized combined. I know because I saw the bag of carrots everyday unopened in the fridge with two too many chicken strips.

Never having food stamps before, I really don’t know the rules. It seems like they are pretty loose at ‘no prepared foods’. For instance, I learned that you can buy a fountain drink but you cannot add a straw.  Once that happens, it is considered ‘prepared’.  That really means almost anything edible at any store, no restaurants or alcohol. Everything else seems to be fair game.

End Your Programming Routine: I am extremely conflicted. This was my money taken from me to be used without discretion and thought. On the other hand, I do not need or want food stamps. I don’t mean to insinuate that people aren’t struggling. They likely exist in the shadows and the margins where I am not at. What I do know is that this country is awash with fraud and pork that are not necessary in the least.  The decision is we will spend our money, but I wish it didn’t happen in the first place.

November 24, 2021 – Interesting Demographic Information

November 24, 2021 /

Last week, I wrote about ninth amendment permits us the right to create a toxic environment through local legislation. I just happened to run across this article titled ‘Where People In Portland Oregon Are Moving To the Most’. It is really misleading because it talks about the top 50 cities about where people are coming from or going.

I made that statement last Monday using hearsay and not documented facts. I guess that is why I am not exactly a journalist. However, when I analyze the data I think that it supports my case exactly. So if this was a court of law, I would parse this list into bits and justify my claims last week.

According to the data, the majority of the changes were incoming. The were large slices were from San Diego, LA and the Bay area. Like I said last week, “a better California”. There were also big numbers from Chicago, Boston, New York/Jersey, Atlanta, Dallas, St Louis, Washington DC and other large metro areas. Again, who wouldn’t want to leave most of those places?

Many of the moves within the state are pretty understandable. When I graduated college, I too moved to the Portland metro area for opportunity. My professors only knew of one business that hired chemists in the area. At that time, I wasn’t ready to give up on Oregon with all of our family here, so Portland was the obvious choice.

It is the leaving that I found more interesting. There were three exceptions to places that were less conservative: Corvallis and Eugene which are both college towns that have 20,000 students and all of their support for that effort and Seattle. I don’t have a good grasp of that one.

I feel like Seattle and Portland have always been close. They share the same geographic positioning and climate. They are separated by about 3 hours of freeway and are similar in demographic makeup. My sister lives in that area, so I have been there some. From my long held opinion I have felt like Seattle was a more serious, mature and conservative Portland. That is how I am going to categorize that move. It does seem like the gap is narrowing between the two, so I would consider someone moving there a new start.

The balance of the other moves out are to places that I would consider ‘free-er’. They all would have lower tax rates for sure and definitely a more conservative mindset. Both high on the list Salem and Longview are commutable to Portland. Places such as Kennewick, Bend, Spokane, Salt Lake City and Boise fall into the American Redoubt portion of the country.

Others made the list as ‘I can see that’ such as Houston, Tucson, Phoenix and Las Vegas. Although I don’t know a lot about the politics, at least from a tax standpoint are more conservative.

From 2010-2019, Oregon was the number one destination for people moving into the state for several of those years. By far and away, those people moved into the Portland area. That also skews the analysis a bit. For sure a lot of people moved in, but when you look at the statistics, a lot moved out too as a result of ideological displacement. I have said it multiple times, that this is not the state that I grew up in. The left/right equilibrium no longer exists and this state has become politically unbearable for the moderates.

End Your Programming Routine: I didn’t cover everything here. There are some outliers still like more people moved to Philadelphia from Portland. I found the article in the link very interesting.  From a trend standpoint, I think it is pretty clear that that the data supports my accusation last week. 

November 15, 2021 – What Does Free America Look Like?

November 15, 2021 /

After spending a week in the Midwest, I can say that there is a stark contrast between the nanny states and free America. My tour was fairly limited to Minnesota and Iowa, but it was at least a sampling of somewhere else.

The biggest difference I would attribute to attitude.

  • Fear of Covid-19
  • Fear of the unvaccinated
  • Fear of government
  • Fear of what others thought
  • Fear of the unknown

I spent a night in Minneapolis waiting for my flight back home. Everyone that I spoke with said that I should walk the ‘Mall of America’ because I was only one mile away from my hotel. So, I did. And the first thing I observed was that 75% of the people were in the mall without a mask on.

I spent the majority of the week in Iowa and I would say that the status quo dissatisfaction quotient is higher there than in Minnesota. The official state policy is that masks are not required for the vaccinated. I would estimate that it was more of a 90% unmasked interaction.

My personal view is that I support right to choose. I also support the businesses right to go above and beyond and require masks. Masked were required by my employer, so I wore one even in the car for five hours with my co-worker. While in Iowa the policy changed and so did I (as well as all of the other employees).

You may live in free America… I don’t. I know that the official policy mandated by the state is mask required. I was at Costco last night and we were the other direction; 95% of the people were wearing masks. As to the others? I am not sure if they were disregarding the rules or they were taking them off after entry.

This should be the great benefit of a republic. We should have the freedom to live in idiotic states and be happy. If we are not happy, then we have the freedom to go somewhere else. Oregon has been my home most of my life but I have lived elsewhere and I am getting to the point that I would rather be somewhere else.

If we really believed in the Constitution, then the ninth and tenth amendments would be strong rather than non-existent. Specifically stating (9th) that powers not specifically mentioned in the constitution belong to the people and that (10th) the federal government only has powers mentioned in the Constitution. The ninth amendment gives the power to the state of Oregon to create mask mandates. The tenth amendment forbids 1) the existence of the FAA and 2) the FAA to require all airlines enforce mask use.

We the people have the right to create a near totalitarian hell if we so choose. We have the right to permit homeless camps to block access to municipal pumps so our houses and neighborhoods flood. We have the right to mandate business with the state require unproven vaccines that also don’t hep vulnerable people and who knows what future consequences will be. We have the right to create recycling programs that we pay for and cannot use. Because our first amendment and the freedom to assemble, we have the right to have months of daily riots and destruction without consequences. I will talk about the difference between enumerated rights some other day, but that is the premise.

End Your Programming Routine: Friday we are leaving for more of free America. We will be spending the holiday week in Texas. I am sure that there will be more on this topic later in the month. There is no surprise to me that population demographics are rapidly shifting. Oregon has grown dynamically in the last ten years because it is a cheaper California. Idaho, Montana and Utah have grown tremendously over the last couple years because they are are better and cheaper than Oregon.

November 5, 2021 – What Do You Say When No One is Listening?

November 5, 2021 /

I woke up this morning and the first thing that I read was a story by a local city counselor that resigned. You can read the story if you like and I am not going to try and paraphrase it. But to boil it down, he resigned over philosophical differences and personal priorities.

As I read the quotes by the different parties, the situation sounded hostile. But, I had to side with Counselor Day. He was the one that took a stand for right and also potentially suffered the consequences. It is easy to see on social media people acting in an echo chamber of similar beliefs or under the mask of anonymity using a screen name. What takes courage is to act on belief.

I have in my office a book by Paul Harvey called “Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor” which I have had in my possession since I was a in middle school. It was written in 1956, my book was printed for the bicentennial in 1976 and is about the risk this countries’ founders took by backing what they thought was right. It reiterates that the risk of publicly supporting independence was a potential death sentence. But even more so, most of the people that the book chronicles lost everything for what they believed.

I want to say that this book was probably ‘rah-rah’ patriotism. But, to me it is much deeper than that. If you have ever read the the story “Who Moved My Cheese?’ by Spencer Johnson. It is a cute, short story with a deep moral message about embracing change. Paul Harvey’s story is about people willing to stand on what they believe regardless of the consequences.

Let us not be fools and promote social suicide or even worse physical harm. You might believe that drowning cats is the best thing for the world because the kill wild birds and poop in your flower beds even though the neighbor owns the cat. Every action has consequences. What I am promoting today is having the courage to speak your beliefs and act accordingly. That also means tolerating other’s who let the ‘freak flag fly’. The anarchist non-aggression principal should apply here. Anything that does not harm others should be permissible.

With that disclaimer in place, we can get back on track. We all act differently when alone or within a close circle because the same behavior is inappropriate in all circles. It is knowing and understanding those boundaries along with the charge of presenting genuine self in situations that matter. I can’t say the number of business meetings I have left with the quote “Anyone have any further questions or comments?” to have silence. That is followed immediately by gossip and opinion.

It is unfortunate that my experience has led me to be jaded and mistrustful. Many (many, many, many) times I have found leadership to be unqualified or just plain poor. There is a delicate balance between trying to be firm and helpful and being obstinate. I know that my personality starts to shut down when conflict starts to occur frequently and I begin to write people off as potential to work productively.

I probably have covered this in the past, but I was very open about my unhappiness in my previous job with my employer. It was that openness that led me directly to quitting. When discussing the options with my boss, it was clear that what I wanted and what was were never going to merge for both of us. It was scary and it was conflicting but it was pure freedom. Here is the thing about freedom, we always hear about it like it is all sunshine and roses. Freedom has personal responsibility and accountability associated with it. We have to accept implied risk in order to reap the ultimate reward.

One last story here. Yesterday I saw a tall, chubby individual wearing a knee length dress and bright yellow t-shirt walking in a downpour across the grass toward the crosswalk. At first, I thought that this was a frumpy, young girl that lacked fashion forward clothing. Since I was at the intersection, I was watching what direction this person was walking so that I could do the right thing as the driver. Upon looking more closely, I could see extremely hairy legs and a mullet cut and I recognized that this was a male wearing a dress. There were uniform dolls and rainbow patches on the backpack solidifying my suspicion that this wasn’t a wardrobe mistake, this was a statement.

At first I was sad. I don’t know why God created individuals that struggle with their identity or their sexual affinity. I also think about future hardship with life living in a ‘normal’ world. But, then I had a slight change of heart. How much courage must it take to openly be yourself? Do I have the ability to be my true self? Would I stand for who I am because I feel differently than the status quo? I like to say yes, but here I am, another keyboard warrior typing into the abyss.

End Your Programming Routine: As I sit here typing, this one has taken a long time. I think about all the threads of life sort of coming at me in the last couple of days. The news and observations with the theme of being genuine might be a hint that I need to pay more attention. There are some situations that I am not exactly happy about but I haven’t done anything to change or address them yet. My tendency is to hope to weather the storm and that things will get better. That largely is often not the case. So, I have to decide if it is worth the risk or pain to be genuine.