change

  Being an early riser the news hasn't officially declared the winner of the presidential election, although it is obvious that it will be Donald Trump. It's not surprising that the media is reluctant to admit to that as the bias has been quite obvious over the entire campaign. It remains to be seen how this result will be taken. Hopefully there are no incidents. I heard the National Guard had already been activated for security measures, a wise decision, one that should have been the last time around but was blocked by Pelosi. Whatever, the past is the past and behind us. 

  I'm just grateful that it is all over now as I have grown tired of all the talk. We will get a short period of rest from all of that. I'm sure much will be made of the fact that Trump has a felony conviction. It's true, he does, but it doesn't disqualify him from the presidency. It didn't even disqualify him from voting something the Democrats fully support, in fact, wishing to expand that to everyone in prison. Let's hope the Democrats can work in a bipartisan fashion. But I've heard that the Republicans have won the house and the senate, although I don't know that for certain. Time for a change!

  I didn't vote for a personality, I voted for common sense. The republican party is that party. As I have written many times you can't legislate on emotions. It is like raising your children, you sometimes have to say no, be mean, and hurt their feelings. You can't simply be their "friend" and allow them to go unchecked. Yes, they have to brush their teeth, go to bed and do their homework! If they don't behave in school it isn't the teachers fault, it is yours! We have to do what is best for America!

  Hate the man all you want, he is a businessman. The business of government requires someone willing to be unpopular, their ego needs to be that great. It's true, nice guys finish last. You can sit at home and talk about how good you feel about yourself, how moral and righteous you are, but in the end the nice guy finishes last. Fact is, only when you profit from that person will you consider him or her a nice guy. No one likes to admit that they are wrong. No one likes it when their ideas aren't adopted. No one likes to hear, no. As I wrote just yesterday, perception is everything. The electorate perceived it was time for a change. Only time will tell, buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride. 

                                                                            

                                                                             

    

the creation of perception

  Today being election day my thoughts are naturally turned to that. First thing this morning my cable television provider is having difficulties and I can't watch tv. You have to ask, is this election interference? That I say tongue in check but I'm certain there are those thinking just that. Here, in the election of 2024 the integrity of the election process is deeply in doubt. It certainly hinges a great deal on the internet. The internet as we know it today has only be around for about thirty years. My feeling is that for the public in general the time is actually a bit less. As a senior citizen I realize I came late to the party and haven't developed quite the dependence of the younger generations. And yes, all that "misinformation" on the web does influence others in a major way. 

  You have to understand what "misinformation " really is. It isn't necessarily an outright lie or fabrication, rather a distortion of the truth or the presenting of statistical data in a misleading fashion. Mark Twain is credited with having said, " there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. He spoke the truth in that regard and it is ever more so today. If one were to listen solely to the internet you would get the impression that the LGBTQ+ community predominates the world. The fact is less than 3% of the population identifies themselves in that way. A statistic versus a perception. And that is the danger in all this social media, the creation of perception. What the media now calls, influence. 

  There are more Latinos in America than there are blacks. We are back to identifying as black aren't we? That's a difficult one to keep up with and I certainly don't intend to offend anyone. Latinos are about 19%, Blacks about 13% and white about 75%. I know, that adds up to 107% but that's the statistics provided from the census bureau, go figure. There are many other lists breaking all that down even further into sub-categories. There is even a list of those "identifying" as "whatever" they choose regardless of biological facts. That is in the perception category in my opinion. And the perception certainly is that our election process isn't secure enough to ensure a fair result. 

  It is a perception created by the media. I know many will blame Donald Trump for all of that. Perhaps he is to blame for questioning the results. Regardless, the perception remains strong. A perception created seldom goes away completely. Will this lead to a major reform in the electoral process and/or methods? I highly doubt that it will. The push is on for ever more "remote" means of casting those ballots. Mail-in, absentee or whatever else you want to mention. It's my feeling the more remote it becomes the less secure it becomes as well. It's a concession to convenience. So many just don't want to make that effort to get to their polling places, citing a hundred different reasons they can't. Everyone should be the exception! 

  I also feel like the electronic tabulation of votes is open for abuse. Remember in the last national election when those "sd" cards were lost for a brief time? Just where were there and who had access to them? This time we are hearing about ballot boxes being set afire, what of those ballots? There are those telling you they would make no statistical difference. That's true. At least in the past it has always been a statistical fact that if all the mail-in and absentee ballots were discounted the results of the election would not change. A statistical fact no one wants to hear or acknowledge. Just seems awfully strange to me that your local bank will know instantly if you are overdrawn ten cents in your checking account, yet when tabulating ballots the results are questionable. It might take days! If not for the electoral college those results would still be questioned today. And that is my perception anyway. 

  Well whatever the reality is I will going to my polling place this afternoon. I will personally fill out my ballot and place it in that electronic ballot box. I would happily and eagerly show my identification to anyone that asked for it. I will vote in person on election day. It's my civic duty to do so and not an inconvenience. Losing your freedom, now that's inconvenient. Remember things aren't always what you see but sometimes just a perception. 

                                                                                 

 

                                                                         

a thing of value

  A member of my extended family, isn't that what you call in-laws, sent me a newspaper article he had stumbled upon. This article concerned his grandfather. It wasn't a very flattering article, in fact, quite the opposite. He had been incarcerated for lack of funds to pay a fine. The offense he had committed was domestic battery. He had been arguing with his wife after drinking a bit of alcohol. Well, as often happens irrational actions took place and he was subsequently arrested. They went to bed and according to his wife he used both of his feet to kick her out of bed! The police were called and he was taken into custody. The fine was fifty dollars. That was quite a sum in 1937. That is about 1100 dollars today, plus the cost of the court. It didn't say how long he was in for though. 

  I wrote back to this family member mentioning that it was a part of the secret lives of grandparents. We all have our secret lives, although I believe it is getting far more difficult to keep a secret these days. Transparency is the watchword today and people are continuously being called out on that. What was called mud slinging is now simply transparency. My grandmother would say it isn't nice to speak ill of the dead and if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all. Being known as a gossip wasn't a good thing either. It was the same as being an informant! You didn't want to be a rat. Today is it viewed as a personal right to know the business of everyone else. 

  I have done a lot of looking in old newspapers and such while working on the family tree. I have discovered a few secrets along the way. Some of them are not very flattering at all. In fact, the majority of what you find in the news for us common people is that way. The little people only make the news when it is something sensational. The news, and the reporting of it, hasn't changed all that much over the years. The real objective is to sell the paper, or in more modern times, watch that particular station. It's about revenue not information. I did smile as I read about some misadventures of my ancestors.

  Of course not all secrets are bad things, just the best things. It is one of those funny things. We like to hear about the bad because it somehow makes us feel better about ourselves. I didn't do that. I have read good stories, positive things concerning my ancestors. Stories about receiving an award, or accomplishing some feat, tales of bravery and courage.

  Being the common man though there are none I can hitch my wagon too. Having a famous ancestor can be a benefit. Today the objective appears to be to find an ancestor that was mistreated and seek compensation for that. But I'm just thinking about those everyday secrets we all tend to keep. Our parents had secrets, our grandparents had secrets and so forth. I have considered writing my book of secrets to be shared only after my passing. But then why taint a legacy? It would be like finding out there is no Santa Claus. A big disappointment. Secrets are meant to be kept, not shared. I'll be keeping mine, at least for now. But you never know when the sharing of a secret may provide you a benefit. That's when we share them. They are only of value until they are discovered. They are the only thing of value you can take with you. Once shared, they are not a secret anymore. 

                                                                        

the ticket

  In posting these narratives of mine a frequent comment I might receive concerns' whether the person reading it followed my train of thought. In order to do that you have to be on the same track as me. Well, the problem with that is I run an independent railroad. No corporate or consumers influences. As a result all the passengers aren't happy with the ride. To that I say, reality is a bumpy ride and not always the most pleasant of things. This isn't an amusement train in a theme park, buckle up and hold on. 

  I would agree that we each live in our own reality. The mind is the most powerful tool we have. It's a topic I have explored many times, the notion of reality and truth. Things are pretty much whatever you genuinely believe them to be. The things I write about are those things. I do not feel the necessity for any "paper" to influence others. Completing an educational course, passing the final exam, doesn't make you any smarter than anyone else. I have no doubt that I could take any course offered and complete the work necessary to "graduate" the course. I have no doubt you could do the same if you chose to do so.  

  We buy our own ticket. You can go first class or steerage, but the destination remains the same. That is the part a lot of people seem to forget. It really doesn't matter how you get there, it's what you do when you arrive that counts. Like the song says, we are living and dying with the choices we make. The ultra rich and famous drowned on the Titanic alongside the poorest passengers. My point there being, it wouldn't have made a bit of difference which ticket you could afford, the circumstances where the same. That's true in life as well. That is the beauty of the American dream, that is the essence of that. It doesn't make any difference. We will all go down together unless we right the ship. One reality is, the ship is  overloaded without enough life boats. Combine that with the mindset from the "leadership" that we are unsinkable and a disaster awaits. Time for a new Captain! Time to replace the governing board of directors as well. 

  Reality is indeed harsh at times. I have been accused of a lack of compassion. Well, perhaps that is true but I really don't want to have to say, I'm sorry. I've found that is the usual result for allowing things to go unchecked, out of compassion. Things go south and you wind up saying, I'm sorry. But by then it's too late, the damage has been done. Remember that movie, Love Story? The catch phrase from that being, love means never having to say you're sorry. What was that saying? It means when you love someone, are truly caring and compassionate, you won't don't anything that you wind up apologizing for. Doesn't make any difference if it is an individual or a nation. You do what is best for others, even when it means they get mad at you or it doesn't benefit you personally.

  Saying sorry after the fact doesn't help. It never helps. It is past and you can't change the past. Apologizing for the past does nothing for today or tomorrow. "It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them."  (P. G. Wodehouse) A lot of that going on in this country right now, the taking advantage part I mean. Acknowledging past mistakes isn't an apology. That is called learning and what the true purpose of history is. History doesn't stereotype, just exposes truth. You can't change history by justifying wrongdoing today. Paying for lifeboats today ain't helping those that drowned. History should serve as a warning, a caution because it does repeat itself. Democracies historically last about 200 years, followed by socialism. We are currently in our 248th year. My hope resides in that we are a constitutional republic. The first one in history. How long can we survive, stay afloat? 

  I know, I started out on a train and wound up on a ship. Turns out it doesn't make any difference what your mode of transportation is, the destination remains the same. It is all in what you do when you arrive. You have to buy a ticket though, so get out there and vote. That's the ticket. Consider carefully the realities and set aside emotional choices. As I have pointed out numerous times, emotions are great motivators but seldom good guides. Vote with your brain not with your heart. 

                                                                              

                                                                           

Words capture time

  The Kish tablet is regarded by experts as the oldest written words. It is a cuneiform tablet. From what little I read not much more than wedge shaped characters. It's amazing to me that anyone could decipher that. I had heard of the Rosetta stone and that made sense to me. You could compare a known language to the unknown. Of course you have to assume that all three inscriptions say the exact same thing. I'm not disputing the validity of the findings, just saying. We do, after all, only have a part of the whole as the other half of that stone is missing. But whatever the case is, I was thinking about the written word this morning. Well, to be more exact, how our words are recorded. 

   I thought about that after looking for something in my desk. I moved some stuff around and found a cache of cd's. You remember those marvels of engineering don't you? I could play them, I still have that tech but it would take some effort to do so. I remember being duped into buying into that craze. The music was so much better, easily searched and just like being in the studio. I admit, I was impressed after buying my first cd player. This was going to be the future for sure! I set those cassette tapes aside. Sure, I had eight track before that, lp's before them and 45's as a teenager but cd's would last forever. Well, until they weren't used anymore, replaced by sd cards and today things are simply streamed. All that is required is the technological device to decode that. And that is what writing is. Writing is code. Now we write code to record words. 

  I have wondered about this in the past. We hear today that some people can't read cursive writing, although I believe those are extreme cases. There are about four thousand written languages in the world today. I read where there are about 7000 languages. So that means there are lots of people talking that have no method of writing things down, must be tough going to the grocery store. I just wonder if in the future will people be able to decode our "writing" in use today. What I mean is, play an eight track, cassette, cd or sd card. I've heard a theory that we were once an advanced civilization, that's who built the pyramids and other marvels, but we somehow lost that technology. We tried writing it down with those "glphs" the ancient people used but we haven't actually deciphered them at all. The technology to decode them was lost. 

  The writing of words is quite the amazing thing really. A bunch of symbols that I can arrange to express thoughts. We only have 26 such characters. The human brain is an amazing computer. We can learn to recognize and arrange those symbols and convey just about any human condition you can imagine. In fact, we can even describe what we imagine. Just 26 letters. We did add in other symbols to let others know when to stop reading, when to pause, and when we really mean it! Heck we use certain words today to convey the strength of our convictions, the fouler the language , the stronger the conviction. But in a few centuries will that be understood by those reading our words. I have serious doubts about that. 

  Still the written word is a permanent thing. That's what I think anyway. You don't need any outside technology to decipher the code. You can carve it in stone and it will last thousands of years unchanged. All you need to know is the code. If you want to remember something what is the best advice? Write it down. There is something about writing things down that creates a permanence. Recording whatever it is doesn't have the same effect. Sure you can play it back and hear that message again, but what if you can't play it back, will you remember? I still write things down. "I will not talk in class" is something I wrote on a chalkboard one hundred times and I have never forgotten it. I got the message. I still talked in class though, go figure. 

  All these years and all these blogs I have written using 26 characters. I have inputted them into a computer. Now I have printed a number of them out, a hard copy they call that. I have done that deliberately thinking to retain a copy for future generations to read. If I had the funds to do so I would have each year printed and bound into a volume a year. There is nothing better than a book on a shelf to retain words. Just how many words have I written? I don't know but it isn't the words that are important, it is the thought. That is what I'm attempting to pass on to the next generation and beyond. Words capture time. My words capture my world and my time. The hope is to share that forever. My words will make me immortal! It's as close as I can get to that. All that is needed is for someone else to read them. That's not too much to ask, is it? 

                                                                              

Holiday memories

  First day of November. The year is flying by. I'm putting away my pumpkin coaster and out comes the turkey one. November is turkey month. Thanksgiving, a day for feasting and family gatherings. Many will travel over the river and through the woods to Grandmothers house. I know, that is supposed to be Christmas, but Thanksgiving comes in number two for holiday travel, so I'm counting that. My wedding anniversary is November  19th. That happened back in '84, seems like just a few years ago though, no way it could have been forty years ago. Well, you know what they say, time flies when you're having fun. We may just have to settle down and get serious about this marriage stuff. 

  I have enjoyed many a fine Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey and ham are the usual fare. I always want to have turnips. That is about the only time in the whole year that I will have turnips, a tradition I got from my mother. She loved turnips and I acquired that taste from her. I also insist on jellied cranberry sauce, no berries please. I've had more than one Thanksgiving dinner while onboard ship during my Navy career. No turnips or cranberry sauce! Still, all the other traditional fare was bountiful. Yes, legs were available for those wanting them. I have hosted Thanksgiving dinners and been to my sons' homes as well. I wasn't aware that Thanksgiving 1970 would be my last at home with my parents in attendance. Sadly I can't say for certain when I enjoyed a Thanksgiving at home with my entire family, had to be sometime in the late 1960's. I haven't decided on this year yet. 

  I do remember a year when my fathers' brother came with his family for Thanksgiving. That was a big deal as he came all the way from Chicago. I had heard talk of this man, Elwood was his name, and how successful he was. Well, that must be true if he could afford to travel all the way from Illinois with a wife and two kids. Mostly I remember when we went to sit at the table for dinner. Now all the chairs were brought out and the ones from the kitchen  had to be used. That set of chairs had two "captains" chairs. You know the style, the back wraps around with those stiles spaces evenly around. Now Uncle Elwood was a rather large man, broad in the beam, and when he sat in that chair it seemed like the arms just exploded off. I heard a large crack, the arms went sideways. Uncle Elwood stood up and the chair went with him. A memorable Thanksgiving moment was made. Some years later I visited him at his home in Chicago. He had lost a great deal of weight and was actually quite slim. I never mentioned that incident to him but wonder if that is what inspired his weight loss. 

  As a child I was always excited for Thanksgiving because that meant Christmas was next. My mom always had plenty of mixed nuts out for the holiday and she put out dates and figs too. I was never a fan of either of those. Fig newtons is as close I get. We always had a turkey with all the dressings. Most years we didn't have company it was just us and we ate about three o'clock. There was no big football games or anything like that, we only had two channels on tv anyway. The Macy day parade was the highlight. That was always on. My brothers and I might be outside playing, or a few times hunting for pheasant. I don't recall ever shooting anything though, just carrying that shotgun around feeling like John Wayne. The next day the thanksgiving decorations came down, there weren't many. I do remember some pilgrims made out of those melted plastic chips. But that was before we started apologizing for everything. Thanksgiving was a lot more fun back then. I miss those days. A time before history ruined everything!

  That's the thing about holidays though. We all remember the holidays from our youth. We remember how it was celebrated and the stories we were told about it. My parents would talk about having a goose for Thanksgiving because Turkey's were too expensive when they were kids. They never had a goose for Thanksgiving or Christmas and I asked them why. Neither of them particularity liked goose was the answer. For me Thanksgiving will always be pilgrims and pies. I'm not concerned with the actual history, the story and the sentiment I was told is enough for me. In 1621 about fifty or so pilgrims and 90 some Indians had a feast together. They were celebrating the harvest and their friendship. That's the story. 

  No turkeys were killed in the celebration. There are those that want to take the turkey out of thanksgiving. There are those insisting that the Pilgrims didn't invite those Indians to dinner at all. The pilgrims just used them to get land and food. Why the pilgrims simply exploited them! It's what I would consider survival. I would have exploited any and all resources myself. Well whatever happened I'm happy we get to celebrate the day. That way you get a chance to decide who gets a gift for Christmas and who doesn't. Pass the turnips and who are you voting for. Both actions determine that outcome.