HOLIDAY FUN, SLIGHTLY MUSED

Well the holidays are here in full force and every year it seems to arrive earlier then the year before. Coincidentally, it is also right around this time that my weight scale malfunctions and I can’t figure out why. I know, I know, but look; I try to watch what I eat and yet my eyes just aren’t quick enough. For some mysterious reason my better half starts bringing home foods that I should not be eating and I don’t think it’s accidental and she gets all upset when I tell her that I didn’t say my weight gain was her fault; I just said I was blaming her!

The holidays are a time for social events. Work parties and neighborhood gatherings bring co-workers and friends together to enjoy the art of conversation over cocktails and weenies. It is inevitable that some will over indulge in the spirits and reach the point where they loose the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, their powers of speech. You can always bet there will be some breathy, inebriated neighbor who will lean over too close and spit out some philosophical nonsense like, “did you know Newton stayed up all night puzzling the movement of the sun and then it dawned on him?” Hey good one….Drunks are a constant reminder to me that light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

The holidays also happen to be a staging time for those who are planning their personal improvement goals for the New Year. Some wish to become fit, others want to lose weight and still others dream of overcoming some long held fear. I hear friends say they want to try skydiving but don’t have a parachute. I inform them that they don’t need a parachute to skydive. They only need a parachute to skydive twice.

The holidays are really all about peace and love. I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they would never expect it. That’s mean I know, and not in keeping with the holiday theme for sure. Truth is I live in my own little world, they know me here. For the record, I do believe war is bad and I know that war doesn’t determine who is right only who is left.

We all try to forget the material things during the holidays and focus on our souls. We know money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with. We can also renew our souls during this season by going to church and celebrating the true meaning of Christmas. I went to church recently and thought about asking God for a bike, but I know he doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

The Holidays are time when we put aside our political differences and respect each others uniqueness. I have even gone so far as to tell my liberal friends that my days of not taking them seriously are coming to a middle. Seriously though…I let them know that I like them. They remind me of when I was young and stupid. I empathize with their condition and even though I don’t quite know what their problem is, I’ll bet it’s hard to pronounce.It is important however not to trivialize or diminish a persons beliefs, especially during the holiday season so when a liberal finishes telling me how they feel about any particular topic I confirm to them that their argument is sound, just sound, lots of sound. I let them know that I would like to agree with them, but then we would both be wrong.

The holidays can be a frantic time and it seems like there is just too much to do all of a sudden. Schedules are disrupted and getting enough rest can be a challenge. That is why I make sure to get at least eight hours of sleep a day. And at least ten at night.

Well folks I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it. Keep up the holiday spirit and remember to get out there and exercise. My grandmother walks five a day, she’s 97 now and we have no idea where she is! And let’s remember the holidays are a time for hospitality: making your guests feel like they’re at home, even if you wish they were! 

Someday we will all run out of holidays and our time will come when we leave our earthly form behind. For me personally, I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather, not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car!

I can’t quite figure the best way to end this blog. I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not sure.

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What you just read was purposefully filled with phrases called  "paraprosdokians". How many can you find? 

ON THIN ICE

Someone of great wisdom once told me that there was only a paper thin separation between human civility and outright anarchy. Most humans, as is there nature and in times of crisis, can be reduced in an instant to an ethical default state, when we take upon acting solely on our primal instincts as a survival tool and as a reaction to our powerlessness. It can happen at the hands of nature’s brutality, such as hurricane or earthquake, or as a result of man made terror, arising from human’s callous disregard for each other. The resulting conduct is similar regardless and it is during these episodes that we witness mankind in their exposed state of carnal frailty.

Examples of this phenomenon can be found on television nowadays as post apocalyptic survival show seems to be all the rage. “Revolution” and “The Walking Dead” are two popular dramas that both chronicle the lives and struggles of survivors following an epic world changing event. Characters in both shows behave in ways they would never have considered before disaster struck. It is easy to watch the episodes and empathize with the oft violent and vicious behaviors they exhibit because the viewer can see clearly that these people, in the position they are in, have priorities that directly affect their survival; weapons, food, water and shelter. Whoever has those has the power. When power becomes intoxicating, conflict and violence is usually not far behind.

Back here in the real world times are changing. Our country is cut in half ideologically and our leaders are now divisive and contemptuous rather then unifying and courageous. Secessionist movements are cropping up in several states as our recent election gave many the final indicator that our country is going down the drain at the hands of socialists. Disaster and doomsday preparation products and TV shows are increasing and gun sales have skyrocketed since the emperor assumed the throne. Shows demonstrating survival techniques in the wild have become commonplace. Our country is on the verge of a fiscal meltdown and Europe is an economic cesspool. Islamic fundamentalist are infiltrating cultures all over the world and have made strong inroads here and at the White House. Terrorist countries will have nuclear capabilities very soon and we are becoming less equipped to defend ourselves from those who wish to obliterate us. The picture is hard paint with a positive brush stoke.

There are those who evaluate these facts and events with concern and they look at the totality of the picture with a not so subtle alarm. It doesn’t take a great degree of insight to understand that trouble may be ahead. One only needs to watch the riots in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Libya and Spain; the military conflict between Israel and the Muslim world; Hurricane Katrina and Sandy, The Whittier Narrows, Northridge and San Francisco Earthquakes; The eruption of Mount St. Helens or the Texas fire inferno; the World Trade Center attack. Bankrupt cities have butchered their law enforcement agencies and crime is running amok. Look at the bizarre, unexplainably violent behavior that surfaced in the shopping malls on Black Friday and its hard to deny that there is a savage living under our skins.  

My friends we have entered into an age where half the citizens of this country expect government to do everything. When catastrophe strikes, they are invariably the ones who will clamor the most for help. They care not that the feds seem to do everything it should not and fails to do everything it should. Look at the last several natural disasters. Government help is always late and never adequate. Let the others rely on them for their survival. We must at least develop a modicum of self sufficiency should our time come and we should keep in mind the glib courtesies of our “civil society” today is but a veneer that barely covers a depravity entrenched deep inside us. Once the parchment thin wall paper of moral obligation is stripped away, self interest, fear and despair awaits the best of us. The Rodney King riots teach that lesson well.

We would all like to think that in a situation in which the stark horrors of survival were thrust upon us that we would act selflessly and rise above the masses. I have had the opportunity during the course of my career to witness a wide variety of human reactions to crisis, horror, chaos and violence, including my own. I have learned that people can be entirely unpredictable and the heroes are not always who you think they will be. Be prepared.

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

Over the course of the last few months I have come to the undeniable conclusion that I am becoming a relic; an old fart; an antique; an obelisk representing times gone by. I may actually only be in my early fifties speaking chronologically yet I represent an age that is quickly descending into a forgotten memory for many and a complete work of fiction for most others. I find myself on the opposite side of a great philosophical divide in which the warped and aberrant public opinions of today’s new cultural norms have created a chasm too wide for me to cross. In spite of the socialist catch phrase “forward” used throughout history by the worlds great tyrants and our current dingleberry, I find myself more often looking back and wondering how I got these tire tracks on my shirt.

Now please don’t confuse this as a rough draft for my headstone. I am not an antiquarian who poo poos cell phones and other high tech gadgets and I don’t churn my own butter. I’m all in on that front. What I’m referring to is the ideals and preferences that are the driving force behind what we have become as a culture. Pick any night of the week and flip through all the television channels. It’s difficult to find a program that does not immediately assault your sensibilities with a cornucopia of indigestible reality conflict-based shows designed to appeal to the lowest within us. The storylines, when there actually is one, usually does little more then proselytize a malleable tolerance for the perverse and the feeble of mind. This so called “entertainment” does nothing more then sandblast our culture free of any philosophical or moral diversity and eradicates any pre-existing code of conduct boundaries that tethered us to civility. Is it any wonder we see so many people today try to justify their decrepit behavior with a straight faced explanation of their right to act without judgment from others?

Our culture has morphed during the last forty years into a “cult of the self” mentality. There has always been some form of this in existence but it has become increasingly common and more than a little unsettling for me. I have always been a  proponent of a healthy body and mind lifestyle, but the fetish like attention some pay to their bodies cosmetically is no more then latent therapeutic narcissism designed to satisfy their terminal belief that a youthful appearance can be attained through technology and the attention of scalpel wielding doctors. Young woman today rate themselves by cup size and young men by the number of ridges on their washboard abs. For us older folk it’s worse. It’s nearly impossible anymore to walk into a popular restaurant or watering hole and not have your senses bombarded with the sight of “seasoned woman” injected with plastics, fitted with taught silicon bags and wearing clothing that should be worn by their daughters. They all share an unspoken realization that they are losing both battle and war, yet they all refuse to lose with grace and dignity. Aging men are no better. Our primal egocentric priority revolves around the illusion of virility no matter our age and the prescription drug market has eagerly stepped in to help us with our “rutting buck” fantasies.

I have a difficult time coming to grips with the continual erosion of the family unit. It has been deteriorating my entire adult life. The progressive movement, which now has an ally in the oval office, successfully opened Pandora ’s Box of human sexuality and our federal government threw fuel on that fire by creating giant waves of dependency and dysfunction to go along with their assault on the nuclear family. Our current administration has furthered the concept of “government as father figure” by excusing absent and defective fathering and rewarding families with no father in the home with additional entitlements. They have successfully regressed the ideal of the father figure into a vestigial appendage that can be easily replaced by the state or accommodated in other ways, such as government sanctioned same sex marriages. A study by The Journal of Homosexuality  concluded that the best possible arrangement for a two parent household are two lesbian woman! It must be my old age that prevents me from getting anywhere near understanding that degenerate piece of moral fecal matter.

When elephants get old and are no longer useful to the herd they take an instinctive social clue and wander off into the jungle to die. I look at some younger people today and sometimes get the feeling that they would like me to go find the nearest jungle and get out of their way. Unfortunately for them my instinctive social clue mechanism is in the shop for repair.

My journey to antiquity has taught me that my values and principles that I hold so dear are not out of date and ready for the landfill just yet. Many of my friends and colleagues that also cherish the “old ways” refuse to walk off into the jungle. There are even some young people out there who did not drink the Obama punch and have a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of economic principles, leadership and responsibility. They are the minority of their generation and I do not envy the challenges ahead for them.

My ways may be old but they still ring true. My body may be old but still has strength. My mind may be old but still knows right from wrong. I believe I will stick around for awhile and become a thorn in the side of this new culture until the day arrives when the jungle finds me. You never know, with a few million others just like me, we could become a national annoyance!

THOUGHTS BETWEEN SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS

Last weeks presidential election left an indelible and unsightly scar on the face of the nation formerly known to many of us as the United States of America and it put to route forever the notion that character, courage, integrity, leadership and achievement are vital for any person seeking to ascend to the office of the presidency. A new culture is upon us here in America and they have spoken.

Obama will be the emperor for another four years. Hard working and principled Americans and those who remain committed to the virtues that made America great live with sadness in their heart and shame in their conscience. Those of us who still live with conviction all share the same sense of responsibility for the collapse of our national identity and the growth of the demon seed of socialism and entitlement. We all watched helplessly as a dagger was placed into the heart of our heritage. As of last week we ceased being, maybe forever, the “United States of America”. Unity has been forever slaughtered by the emperor as he masterfully navigated the waters of deceit and division to foment a new marxist nation. Most of us saw it coming for some time and simply wished that at least we would not live long enough to see it happen. If Obama holds a contest to rename his conquered country, there is no shortage of ideas and several are already testing the waters. “New America” and the “Socialist States of America” (USSA) to name two.

For those of us who appreciate historical perspectives with regards to humankind, we know that great countries and empires eventually fall from within. It appears to be the Achilles heel of our species and maybe one of the reasons history may someday reflect as a primary element in our ultimate demise. We are no longer a collectively intelligent citizenry. Many have tasted the sweet taste of entitlement and government control and choose that over the stress of having to work hard or break a sweat. Many have no real passion for excellence for it has been demonized by the socialist virus turned loose in the educational system and by the increasingly left moving Democratic Party. A national altruism, like the one that brought us together during WWll is no longer possible. Our tribal separatism, our racial and cultural division and our decreasing connection to, or appreciation of, the founding principles by which this county was established will make it close to impossible.

During the next four years, the emperor will try very hard to finish off whatever cohesiveness or strength that he finds still in existence by his subjects. Most of Europe is in love with Obama because he may accomplish something not even the incompetent Jimmy Carter could do; he will bring the greatest country on earth down to the level of all others. He will ensure that this country no longer holds the preeminent position of leadership in the new world order. He will see to it that our nation stays sick with the fever of entitlement and dependency because now he knows it works well here. He will give speeches filled with non sense because he now owns the minds of so many feeble minded idiots.

Last week I felt the loss consistent with that which comes with the death of a loved one. I was raised to be honest and ethical, to work hard, to be just and to love my country. I always honored and worshipped those brave men and woman who sacrificed their own young lives oversees to preserve our freedoms here. There could be no greater act of love for home. For all those military veterans and all those families of military members who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country………..I’m sorry.

I’m sorry we allowed a person Like Barrack Hussein Obama to be president of the country you died for. There could be no greater insult to your legacy. We let all of you down and we are ashamed. I’m sorry we forfeited most of the freedoms and principles that meant so much to you as you lied scared and bleeding to death on the beaches of Normandy. I’m personally sorry because I was one who saw it coming and I did nothing. I don’t deserve to stand in front of your grave.

This Monday is Veteran’s Day…If you can muster up the nerve to look a veteran in the eye then share your gratitude with them………..then share an apology. Maybe we can be forgiven.

We owe them better…….