Failure to Catch On

It's clear from the numbers that almost nobody is reading my blogs. This to me seems odd since at times I have considered writing another book of my thoughts but apparently I needn't bother because people won't read my thoughts for free. Of course you can enter a name like Chuck Hagel and get a whole raft of blogs with long dissertations on whatever subject you choose. I don't stay on one subject and run it into the ground but like Rush Limbaugh I consider my blogs news driven and I try to be "ahead of the learning curve" and come up with stories that are just breaking and may not be dominating the air waves for another two or three days. I will admit I don't do a lot of heavy research or heavy reading and the taking of extensive notes and organize them into some sort of "term paper" for my blogs. That's just not the way I do things. So I sat back and thought this morning "What is the most pround thing I could mention now?". Did you know there is a vast difference in popular music between the two years of 1979 and 1981? I was reminded of this this morning listening to the Drive's "Ten at Ten". There were still groups that were "behind the learning curve" in 1981 such as Tom Petti, Adam and the Ants, and some would argue- - Steely Dan. People growing up as teenagers in the 'eighties would understandibly see seventies rock or even Yahoo's "Glitter Rock" station- - as containing material that is markedly different from the material they grew up on. I'd like to talk about two different types of brains. There are the "A" people who come to a relatively quick decision on things. I can make a very quick decision on things where I actually have the facts. The only time I get even a little indecision is when it's some Christian or other person in moral or psychological authority over me suggesting I take a path with nothing but unknowns, but prior experiance tells me isn't a good idea but morally I don't want to let them down. If you give me the facts, I can decide. That isn't how some brains work. They like to emote. They like to talk issues to death and hem and haw back and forth for hours or days or longer and somewhere down the road after what seems to me a useless expenditure of mental energy, they finally get a "feeling" about something. I find it disturbing that a lot of people vote this way. I'd like to say something about "curiosity". The ONLY time Christians say curiosity is a GOOD thing is if they are being baited with a hook held out by some evangelist or Pastor-Teacher as they call themselves. Once you are under their control, you don't need curiosity any more in your life. People like John Lennon and George Harrison were "curious" about other religions. But today's pastors would call both John and George is "trapped in the flesh" because they still had curiosity. They wanted to grow. And if there is one thing Christianity is anathema to it's growth. For these people you step into some sort of 'seventies time-warp and are never heard from again. I want to talk about a caller Dr. Dean Edell has on his show yesterday afternoon on KFI. This guy's wife was talking about her husband with cerrosis of the liver and he drank a whole fifth of Vodka every "three or four days". I thought about my own drinking "twords the end" and my own rate of alcohol consumption markedly exceeded this rate. I would buy two "tenths" or half fifth bottles or either Thunderbird or those fruit flavored Cisco Coolers at 18% alcohol at nine o clock in the morning and buy two more half fifths of this same fortified wine- - like I say orange or strawberry or something flavored wine- - at night. So I was spending close to eight dollars a day on alcohol, which by the way I could easily afford with my money then. But the good doctor's words got me to thinking. If he thought the guy who drunk a fifth of Vodka every three or four days was in serious trouble and "addicted", I shudder to fathom what he would have thought of me. You know, over the past seven years I have cursed the date my drinking came to an end on June 1st. 2001. As I saw it the event ruined my life and I have longed for the good old days. But just maybe I should "change my way of thinking" and get real and look at the facts and realize I was actually headed tword serious trouble and be grateful I'm no longer drinking now.

John Mc Cain is in the news for alledgedly having an affair with a forty year old woman in the late nineties for a couple years, who physically resembles his wife. I didn't know that John Mc Cain was involved with the Keating Five that Rush Limbaugh used to always talk about. This involved Keating Savings and Loan and financial scandals and the government having to bail out innocent customers. All of the other parties to this scandal has to resign in disgrace but Mc Cain remained unscathed. People on KTLK 1150 are saying that Mc Cain is more heavily involved with lobbiests than Mitt Romney and Huckibee combined, and all this business about "Mr. Straight Talk" being "squeaky clean" is just a well constructed myth. But now the media (KABC) is saying "You know that Mc Cain story sure went off the air waves quickly. This is because John Mc Cain took bold steps to confront the issue. Well Mc Cain talked about the sex part of it. But this isn't the part that concerns liberals. In retaliation someone alledgedly put a You-Tube video up that made certain allegations about Obama I won't go into. Apparently John Wendell started this roomer Saturday morning on KTLK and the guy after him ran with the ball. But I looked for the accusitory video against Obama and didn't find it. Perhaps they already took it down. Conservatives no doubt want to use this Obama as a "bargaining chip" against the liberals saying "We won't talk about ours if you don't talk about yours", as if the two accusations were of equal value. In my book the one reedeming trait John Mc Cain had was his homisty, and now if it turns out he doesn't have that, there really IS no reason to vote for him.

On the NAFTA issue Berock Obama has come out against it. And this is one of the issues that I've been calling a key issue in this Presidential campaign- - what is the candidate's stance tword NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Apparently Obama has been sending out mailings in Ohio saying he's against NAFTA and that Hillary is for it. You need only to watch an old Mc Laughlin VCR tape from 1993 to know that the Clintons were very much for NAFTA, as "everybody" seemed to be. This is no big state secret. Bill Clinton as recently as a week or two ago compared to abolishing NAFTA to some guy going into a bank for a loan and insulting the bank president up and down, and after he's done then asks the guy for an extension of a loan. Apparently Bill Clinton sees us as an extortion victim of China and we have to do whatever they want or it's all over. I myself say "It's time to take our country back". In terms of Health Care, I don't like the idea of either mandentory Health Care or mandentory Social Security. That's where my head is at on these issues. My thinking is that if it's really a good idea people will volentarily do it. If they don't see it that way perhaps private people have a Better plan they want to try and my thinking is "This is America. It's a free country. Do what you like".

We have the Three Musketeers on Afghanistan, Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, and John Kerry. Apparently there was an election held in Pakistan last week I didn't hear about where Musharif's party was voted out of power. I''d like to know what the Bush Adminestration is going to do about that. To me, supporting Musharif has always been a compromize. Now they have the oppertunity to extricate themselves. Let's bring moral authority back in our quest to hunt down Al Qaida and the people responsible for 9 - 11. And the way to do that is not to "play games" with a leader like Musharif who blows hot one day and cold the other. We need leaders like John Kennedy used to be who had a clear vision and didn't go around making moral compromizes.

Ralph Nader is running for President again. He gave some pretty good reasons why on Meet the Press. He said that the issues he talks about such as corporate fraud and manipulation and mal feasence are the issues America cares about. He says by running in 2000 he actually pushed Al Gore to the left and using the Hartman argument, if you push a party in the direction of it's base, who brought then where they are, the candidate will get more votes. So by this reasoning Ralph Nader actually helped Al Gore get more votes. I have to agree with Nader that you can't forever second guess yourself. He isn't the only third party candidate to have ever run. The "two party system" has become an article of almost religious Faith in this country. I would be very happy with a poliferation of new ideas and new parties. Let's see what happens. As Nader points out if the Democrats can't win 70% to 30% against a guy like John Mc Cain this year above all years, then they'll never win. I think there will be a democratic land-slide this year.

Sixty Minutes had three disburbing segments on last night, the first two of which I had never seen before. They had a politically driven investigation against a democratic Governor in Alabama, who was successful and they couldn't stand this. They tried ruse after ruse to get him out of power and they finally came up with something that worked, once they could find a judge that was biased enough to even take the case. Karl Rove was the one who orchestrated the smear campaign of this democratic liberal individual. People say that Karl Rove does this sort of government involved political take-down of an individual all the time. I think Karl Rove needs to be investigated and hopefully, impeached or fired. The other case involved a "Donut shop" or something in Oakland that was run by Black Muslems. These people wern't nice. They were more like the mafia with very little "baking" going on at this Bakery. Worse yet they were more like a cult, like Johestown or something. If seems they even had friends in the Oakland PD. The final segment on the loss of the bee hives is disturbing. I couldn't help think that perhaps the UFO space aliens have switched their sites fro people probing to bees. Perhaps aliens have abducted these bees to examine them and contaminate the honey so that no other bees will touch it. Very unusual behavior. Apparently some nicotine based pesticide is to blame. I don't know, but as CBS pointed out last night, this troubling story is not going away.