I don’t know about you, but I have a finite amount of money. My bank
tells me how much I can spend and after that I have to wait to get some more.
But after this election process, there seems to be plenty of bucks to
spare?
If you have to buy gas for your car and new shoes for your kids and pay
the water bill before it is turned off, will you loan your friend $50 until
next week?
At the end of this election process, people start adding up all the $$
spent on advertising commercials and mailings, transportation cost, rallies and
food and the final celebration hotel bookings that might turn into coffee and
donuts without confetti. Still all these folks who stand out from the crowd to
run for an office or some position that requires approval, spend (yes, that is
a wink) hours speaking to others as an investment banker trying to get cold
hard cash.
And we are more than ready to open our wallets, like tithing for church.
The promise is always better than the results.
What about these constant disasters? Where does the money come from for
all those cots and tents and yellow blankets? Even the cities where mass
killings take place, who budgeted for that expense?
Now I know we are a kind and giving society, just check the red buckets,
and our generosity is overwhelming, check the telethons, but where does all
this cash come from.
I mean if we got all this scratch, how come we can pay off the deficit?
Did everyone forget that? We keep selling promises (bonds) when we could just
dip into our coffers and pay off all this debt.
Our country has lots of appropriation and ways and means and budget
committees to balance the books, but we kick the can down the road and only pay
our minimum fee required.
Imagine being in the black instead of being in the red all the time?
Do you have any idea how much it cost to move 15,000 troops to the
border? How much is FEMA costing in Florida while California burns? What is the
price of the “War on Terror”?
I think I have enough to get to the end of the road, but one never knows
and I could be sleeping under a bridge. Speaking of which, why don’t we have
enough money to take care of these folks?
Homeless vets? Mentally challenged? Single mothers? Abandoned dogs?
While Christmas is coming up and we all want to be surprised with all
the glittering ribbons and flashing lights and the joy of family and friends,
supposed there were no presents under the tree.
Conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational
associations based on an individual’s moral philosophy or value system.
Conscience stands in contrast to elicited emotion or thought due to
associations based on immediate sensory perceptions and reflexive responses, as
in sympathetic CNS responses.
Conscience leads to feelings of remorse when a person commits an act
that conflicts with their moral values.
An individual’s moral values and their dissonance with familial, social,
cultural and historical interpretations of moral philosophy are considered in
the examination of cultural relativity in both the practice and study of
psychology.
The extent to which conscience informs moral judgment before an action
and whether such moral judgments are or should be based on reason has
occasioned debate through much of modern history between theories of modern
western philosophy in juxtaposition to the theories of romanticism and other
reactionary movements after the end of the Middle Ages.
Religious views of conscience usually see it as linked to a morality
inherent in all humans, to a beneficent universe and/or to divinity.
The diverse ritualistic, mythical, doctrinal, legal, institutional and
material features of religion may not necessarily cohere with experiential,
emotive, spiritual or contemplative considerations about the origin and
operation of conscience.
Common secular or scientific views regard the capacity for conscience as
probably genetically determined, with its subject probably learned or imprinted
as part of a culture.
In these times of bombardment of hate speak and fake lies and opinion
pieces from questionable sources, it would be easy to dig a hole in the ground
and hide from it all.
Tomorrow your voice will be heard, if you use it. It does take a little
effort but this land offers you the choice.
Tomorrow if you have an acceptable photo ID and have previously
registered, you will be handed a piece of paper with some names on it and some
check boxes.
In a private space you can mark your choice of a person you feel is the
best qualified to represent your ideas and wishes to create and pass laws you
would do if you were in the government.
After all the promises and mud slinging and glossy pictures and wasted
expenses, you and you alone can make your decision. Without the need to follow
a party line or a poll or any other biases, you make your choice in total
secrecy.
You get to walk out with a paper sticker that shows everyone you
participated in the accepted democratic procedure.
Now you feel accomplished for not being swayed by all the hype and
voting your conscience. Good for you.
To top off the feeling, go get some gift cards for your paper delivery
person, your grocery bagger, your waste disposal personnel and anyone else who
makes your life comfortable without knowing your name. Maybe choose one of
those NGOs and make a donation. Grab a cake at the grocery and deliver it to
your local firehouse. If you do all this now, before the season of giving, you
will be remembered.
Usually associated with a scheduled performance and the audience want
more. It either means the appreciation of the previous performance or they just
want the party to go on and on and on.
Applause is commonly associated with this request for an encore. I’ve
already discussed that we do not applaud as many outstanding performances by
our fellow workers or those who diligently work behind the scenes, but we
should.
If you are an actor or musician or some sort of performance artist, you
know the feeling of being exhausted and enthused by the request for an encore.
So when a doctor performs a successful operation, he gets another
patient. If a lawyer wins a case, the jury doesn’t stand up and applaud. The
accountant who finds that missing decimal point gets a pat on the back and
another stack of figures to figure out.
Sporting events cheer for their teams but rarely do they go into
overtime to have an encore.
Relationships are all about encores. Once that magical moment that draws
the two together, continues to encore. Some encores can last for years and
others realize the original performance just wasn’t that great.
You have those days from the moment you awake you know it will be an
unusual event. Today is one of those days.
The sky is blue. The sun is shining. There is a soft wind blowing. Then
I found out this was going to be a weird day.
As is my routine, I go into the next room, turn on the radio and the
computers to have my morning look at the world. I open my V-8 spicy then notice
the radio is not making a sound.
“Maybe it was the station?” you say. The radio next to my bed that plays
all night to the same NPR station is still playing.
I check the volume, then switch to the CD player and back again; still
no sound. I try to turn it off and it won’t turn off. This a bit freaky even
for this box, so I turn to the duty at hand and will return to it later.
I go back into the bedroom, as I often do, to listen to the next show.
When I get back up to make a cup of coffee and do my trolling, the radio is
playing.
Spooky? Halloween is over. It was suddenly working fine and even shut
down correctly.
It is going to be one of those days.
Transportation
I was thinking of all the things I could have done if I had a car. Not
that I want a car, but many travels I missed without one. I was a good driver
with a heavy foot, but made the decision years ago, with a bit of couching from
the law, to forgo the expensive metal mobile machine for exercise that will
carry me 5-miles and beyond. In childhood bands, I always had to pack my gear
in someone else’s car. Appointments and events required a bus or taxi or
walking. Over the years I understood my limitations and was resolved not to
fall for the quick and easy.
This morning the gate was open. It is a bit breezy but normally it
doesn’t just open. I went out to close it, and then saw the Amazon smile on my
porch.
What use to be a trip to the mall are now a few clicks on the computer
and they bring it to your doorstep.
Two wheels will get me to the Tummy Temple and back again if I have the
strength and grit to perform the action of transportation.
Apology
“Sorry I’m late.” How many times have you heard that? An apology is
trying to make amends for not fulfilling an agreed upon arrange. Everyday in
the news someone (other than the president) is apologizing for some wrong as if
it will make it right. Sorry.
Who Are You?
Halloween is a fun day. Everyone can disguise himself or herself.
At a witch’s eve party the other night, all the usual zombies and ghouls
were there, along with a few new creative characters that make the guess worth
the noise.
Under all the greasepaint and the ratty clothing, who are you?
Are you the one that tells the jokes or the wise one who has all the
answers or the obnoxious one who is only invited because your spouse is pretty?
Everyday we wear a different costume but our brands and style do not
make our personality. We create that.
Rent It
In our consumerist capitalism, we have been taught that each and
everyone of use must have clothing and vehicles and appliances to show our
worth and value. We all fall for the ploy.
Suddenly our lives are full of junk we seldom use that just clutters up
the drawers and closets, yet we continue the commands to buy the latest and
greatest and shiniest and newest and most popular.
At the library you borrow a book on your honor to bring it back and
after returning it, you can check out another one. Good idea.
How many hammers do you really need to own?
Attitude
As I weave through the increasing crunch of dying leaves my mind
organizes the thoughts of the day. The road is now bespeckled with twisting
shadows leftover from Halloween. Several couples walking with they’re dogs and
baby rollers trying out their puffy vest and sweaters. A reminder of my
elevated position as I pull in and tie you my pony. After waiting for the
parade of shoppers coming out (I’m old school and wait for the ladies) I notice
the Med-com (or whatever it is she is selling) lady is sitting in the middle of
the floor. Well, not on the floor but on her stool next to a folding table
covered in pamphlets, cards and an advertising tablecloth. I ask her if she was
kicked out from inside the store in her usual position at the end of the
checkout zone. She responded that the people at the store were very nice to let
her in here and I agreed that the attitude of the staff has escalated.
Note: I’ve seen and had talked to this woman before. She is trying to
talk the ole folks to join her plan for better coverage of medical something
and has to politely sit attentively as they tell her their horrid stories of
old age pain and suffering. I’ve appreciated her constant presentation in an
unrewarding effort.
We chit chat about the new technological gizmos going on inside but I
don’t want to get in the way of her sales pitch and move on.
As is the routine, I grab one of the electronic remote controls and ping-pong
around to the places I know.
First stop is at the breakfast aisle. I’ve found a package that makes
pancakes without the milk and eggs and stirring and such. Add water and it will
make two or three pancakes, more than enough for one person with no cleanup
except to rinse out the container and put it into recycling.
So I point the magic wand to the barcode and ‘nothing’. All the lights
have turned off. The remote was remote.
Understanding my dilemma and knowing my GPS, I quickly rolled to the
second display of the ‘Scan it yourself, pay then get the hell out of here’ but
it was empty. Back across the length of the store I went to grab another remote
and try again.
After my procurement I proceeded in an orderly fashion to an available
scanning station to pay my tithing. Keith, one of my ‘help is on the way’
people came up to tell the machine I was older than dirt. I normally try to
make quick conversation about the crowds or the sunshine, but today Keith was
unhappy. Seems he was having a tit-for-tat with one of his co-workers and
wanted to lay his grievances on me. He is a funny little flamer but today I
don’t need his problems. I roll back into the entrance room (where the carts
are stored, when they are brought back, ie. The grievance) and revisit the nice
lady at the table.
I tell her my mojo was broken after our discussion on the technology.
She must be an actor because her facial expressions are priceless. Did I also
tell you she is cute?
I left with a smile on my face (as she probably was saying to herself
what a crappy job this is and who was that old fart bothering me).
It is all about perceived attitudes.
The Do Over
I hear that time will stand still and accurately go backwards tonight.
Well technically tomorrow morning. Many of you will be snoring and drooling and
having sweet dreams when 2am will turn to 1am and then to 2am again. It is the
only time we get a Do Over. Will we make good use of this time out to make a
difference?
Back home and doing my proper chores of feeding the critters I can relax
for another day of anti-stressful enjoyment reflecting on the day’s adventures.
Still I must have some substance to continue to churn my innards and poop
in the morning, so I decided on fish and chips. Pulling out the frozen packages
to prepare my dinner feast I hear three beeps. I’m in the kitchen looking at
the stove, the Fios connection box, the microwave and my phone. Where the hell
did that come from? The refrigerator?
It is just one of those days were the unexplained is fine. I check the
directions on heating up these frozen coated slabs of something resembling
seafood and set the stove for 425. I walk in the other rooms looking for the
weird sounds as the oven heats up. I got 25 minutes to wait so I put in the
tray of orange fish sticks and look at the clock on the microwave. 4:25. Then I
look at the stove. 425.
It is just one of those days in Just Another Life. Wait until 2am.
Civility comes from the word ‘civilis’,
which in Latin means “citizen”.
Civility is caused by a person’s
emotions or lack thereof. If a person is emotionally affected by the negative
feedback that they get from other people in a psychologically normal manner
then they are defined as civil.
In early use, the term denoted
the state of being a citizen and hence good citizenship or orderly behavior.
The sense ‘politeness’ arose in the mid-16th century.
I was raised and taught civility
or etiquette. I was taught which utensil to use in a meal and what were the
proper colors to wear in season and how to have a polite conversation. It was
all proper behavior.
Civility is politeness and
courtesy in behavior or speech.
Civility was good manners, graciousness,
consideration and most important respect.
Differences in opinions could be
discussed without shouting or civil disobedience. Passions can hype up the
rhetoric until words have consequences.
Civility is having an open minded
conscious with an ability to listen to different opinions perhaps learning or
offering persuasions to another point of view.
Civility is willing to consider
new ideas; unprejudiced, unbiased, unprejudiced, nonpartisan, neutral,
nonjudgmental, nondiscriminatory;
Civility is Tolerant.
Civility is “open-minded attitudes”
receptive, open to suggestions, open to new ideas, amenable, flexible, willing
to change.
Incivility is to be prejudiced,
judgmental, and narrow-minded.
You make the choice of how you
want to interact with the ever changing culture that offers new visitors a
cage.
So I hear a bunch of folks from down South America way are walking up to
see us. They don’t seem to like where they are due to nasty things and figured
it was worth the trip to see the Statue of Liberty like all the other immigrants.
What? You forgot our forefathers and foremothers arrived at the east
coast and moved west over mountains and dirty trails moving aside anyone and
anything in our path to conquer a nation?
Still ships arrive at ports and foreigners are inspected and accepted to
become tourist or possible future citizens. All they have to do is take the
pledge.
Planes arrive from all corners of the globe dumping people who don’t
look like ‘us’ and laws are agreed to and organizations are formed to control
the influx of new neighbors.
As a political speaking point, our leaders are accusing these folks, who
are the same as our parents and grandparents, of being harmful to our national
security. Are they carrying guns like an army?
Here comes a flood of people trying to survive and our ‘leaders’ want to
stop them. There are all sorts of weird association to these folks that the
followers are chanting hate without even trying to understand the exodus.
So how can any rant create hated on these people walking up the road?
Why don’t they remember ‘killer bees’?
Back in the day, the word went out that Mexican bees entering the United
States were ‘killers’ and there was no way of stopping them. Panic ensured and
poisons were formulated to rid the pest from our land.
The weird accusations that these people are bringing drugs and gangs and
Middle Eastern terrorist in a invasion to our country with military troops
lining the borders and tent cities to accommodate the flow of humanity seems a
undeceive talking point.
There are plenty of biases to keep the ‘unwanted’ out of our
neighborhoods. Prices of homes, attitudes of neighbors, response to children
can make anyone uncomfortable enough to leave. Maybe that is why they are
walking here?
If the one’s who are making all this fuss would just consider the
‘killer bees’ this whole thing could be over.
Your health, which you cannot control but so much, is the most important
aspect to your life. Without health you have to take a pill or have someone
else wipe your ass to keep you alive for another day.
If the theory is true, this mass of people trying to find a way out, are
nothing more than zombies to the nations understanding.
A herd of strangers are suddenly described as ‘killer bees’ bringing in
some foreign disease like polio or worst into our neighborhoods, everyone would
scream for the troops to mow them down before they arrived.
Certainly don’t condone such actions as war or mass destruction, but if
anyone is paying attention, there is a trend.
I hate to say it but there seems to be a lot of hate around here.
HATE getting up this early? HATE my hair? HATE eggs? HATE traffic jams?
HATE my job? HATE my boss? HATE the…. Etc.
The list goes on and on and we have no restrictions to declare our hatred.
Hatred or hate is an emotion-based dislike, especially invoking feelings
of animosity, anger or resentment, which can be directed against individuals,
groups, entities, objects, behaviors, or ideas.
Hatred is often associated with feelings of anger, disgust and a
disposition towards hostility.
Hate is an emotion.
When you hit your toe into a piece of furniture, you hate the item
rather than your clumsy walking. When your football team loses, you hate the
other team as if you had been on the field and could have done better. When
your kid has a temper tantrum and screams, “I hate you!” do you listen?
Hate is an emotion.
There are lots of hate variations to loathe, detest, despise, dislike,
abhor, execrate; or to be repelled by, to be unable to bear/stand, to find
intolerable or to be an abomination.
Hate can start as teasing or taunting or bullying. In groups of like
believers, hate can flame the fire of irrational behavior. Hate can become
threatening or physical abusive or even deadly.
Hate is an emotion.
Hate has no time for cognition of facts or civil discussion of different
ideas. Hate raises the blood pressure, increases the heartbeat and other
physical anomalies that are not good for the body’s health. Hate can ruin a
dinner, destroy a marriage, permanently harm children and possibility loses
employment.
Hate is an emotion.
Today’s political discourse and social media responses fan the fires of
questionable conclusions presented by people who were elected to represent the
rest of us only to stand by and hear the vile and repulsive words in disbelief.
Constant streams of opinion pieces wring their hands to the applause of those
who also are bystanders. Repetition makes irrational thinking into fact.
Advertising 101.
Emotion is any conscious experience characterized by intense mental
activity and a certain degree of pleasure or displeasure. Emotion is often
intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation.
Those acting primarily on the emotions they are feeling may seem as if
they are not thinking, but mental processes are still essential, particularly
in the interpretation of events. Consciously experiencing an emotion is
exhibiting a mental representation of that emotion from a past or hypothetical
experience, which is linked back to a content state of pleasure or displeasure.
Dreams may just be the explanation of emotions?
At the other end of the emotional spectrum is LOVE.
Love encompasses a variety of strong and positive emotional and mental
states, ranging from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest
interpersonal affection and to the simplest pleasure. Most commonly, love
refers to a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment. Love can
also be a virtue representing human kindness, compassion, and affection, as “the
unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another”. It may also
describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards other humans; one’s
self or our animal companions.
Love is an emotion.
Love is handing another a flower. Love is looking to the sky, enjoying
the clouds and sunshine. Love is all the pictures of puppies and kittens and
children on the social media. No one has defined the words, “I Love You” but
there are plenty of balloons, cards and music. There is even a holiday for
Love.
Love is an emotion.
Love can be as strong a drug as any other emotion. Love can be broken.
Love can be accepted. Love can be shared. Love can be forgotten.
These emotions churn in our beings as we move along from one day to
another with disturbing news and little else to hold our attention. What we
hear and what we see (truth or fiction) forms our reactions and emotional
response.
