A useful skill is more valuable than gold.

I have a friend that is sixty or seventy years younger than am I. He is trying to decide how to live his life and he thinks that I might have some useful suggestions. He does not understand that I am not smart enough to do that. I can only tell him war stories about my own life that was lived in a world entirely different from the one that we are in now. The effort is made even more difficult by the fact that I dislike much about today's world because my values were shaped by a different society than this one. I find it difficult enough to shepherd myself though the minefields that society has created for us. I am devoid of useful advice for anyone else. I can only say that, judged by yesterday's values, today's society is not acting intelligently. Were I a youngster in today's world I have no idea what I would do, because "things" are radically different than they were before a depression, a world war, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the invention of the internet, the rise of Radical Islam, etc, etc, etc...The best that I can do is to tell him to develop a useful skill that will prove valuable to others if and when society falls apart around him.

Immigration and Nuclear War

America presently faces an inadequate supply of housing and we insist on inviting more people to come live here.  Our urban centers are forced to try to deal with a rising flood of homeless people living on the street.  Our building code requires prohibitively expensive construction cost for new housing.  Our society is not absorbing newcomers into the mainstream as rapidly as used to be the case.  Low-level street crime is overwhelming police, courts and prisons.  Nobody is thinking about any of this except to address whatever aspect of it is in the headlines at the moment.  

Immigrants are not necessarily bad people, but a sudden introduction of too many immigrants, whether they are good or bad, is overwhelming the mechanics of our society.  If I wanted to destroy America, an excellent way to do it would be to do what we are doing, and not doing, right now.  My guess is that most of the political support for our open border policy is the result of good natured Americans wanting to help our less fortunate foreign neighbors, but it makes little difference.  They are as culpable as are those that would do us harm.  We are destroying the melting pot, weakening public unity, and destroying our social institutions.

All of this is bad enough, but the more immediate danger is that one or another of our foreign competitors will decide to challenge us militarily over one or another of the various international disagreements that are out there.  Most of the most probable candidates are nuclear powers.  A nuclear exchange is not in our best interests.  Continue the mindless squabbling that is going on right now in this country and you and I will see nuclear war.  Some of us will, unfortunately, for us, live through the explosions.

It does not need to happen, but apparently you and I are unable to engage in the civil discussion of real issues facing mankind that is the necessary precursor to viable solutions. 

Did Ukraine just invade Russia?

 The press talks about the conflict in Ukraine as being in its second year and tentatively reports that Ukraine ground forces appear to have attacked into Russian territory.  The reality is that the killing has been going on since well before 2014 when the Obama/Biden Administration acquiesced to the Russian takeover of Crimea.  I suggest that while we all bemoan the situation, none of us actually think about it and when we do discuss it, we color our discussion with a considerable amount of ignorant, wishful thinking.  I am not a student of things Ukrainian, but it is my understanding that there are a significant number of people living in the separatist region that consider themselves closer to Moscow than Kiev.

I argue that the political orientation of Donetsk does not significantly impact American interests except as it threatens peace in Europe and it was short-sighted to have made the argument between Kiev and Moscow into another iteration of the Cold War that we had pretty well ended decades ago, but were too ignorant to understand the follow-on need to bring Moscow into the family of nations.  Whatever the truth of all of that, it is unfortunately behind us and we are faced with the reality of an expanding hot war in Europe that is roiling the world economy and destroying far too much of Ukraine's economic infrastructure.  I suggest that we should think about this as we consider our own political future here in this country.  At the present time you and I are asking our politicians the wrong question.  We ask how they would support Kiev, when the question that we should ask is how they would end the fighting and how they would improve the relationship between Moscow and Washington without further weakening our leadership role in the Family of Nations.

PS:  Actual war in Europe, The Middle East, and potential war in the Far East contributes mightily to inflation here in this country and that should factor into our internal discussion to a much greater extent than it does now.

Dodo Birds.

 You and I are trying to make up our mind whether we are going to elect a bombastic megalomaniac or another pawn of a coalition of elderly, liberal politicians that compete vigorously for the most asinine policies imaginable.  We twist our "understanding" of every issue to fit our choice and, in the process, we ignore all inconvenient truths.  Meanwhile, out in the world, an expanding number of disagreements are morphing into conflicts and societal order is collapsing all over the globe at the same time that we are creating ever more sophisticated tools designed to kill larger and larger numbers of people.  This is not a good situation.  You and I tend to blame individual politicians for wrong-headed decisions and rigorously avoid seeing our own culpability.  That is human nature and it is going to adversely impact the longevity of our specie unless we somehow manage to get our act together as humans, rather than politicians and wannabe politicians.

I am back up on the moon looking down on earth.  I see too many people competing for too few resources and a climate that is going through another of its cycles of change, in part, due to what humans call economic progress.  I see absolutely no guarantee that humans have to continue to exist.  Other life forms have come and gone on our spinning rock for all kinds of reasons.  Why not a nuclear war, or a new disease, or climate change, or...  Whatever happens to humanity, I doubt very much that what you and I are talking about today will have very much impact on it, other than to facilitate it because the ignorance central to our "conversation" ensures that we fail to positively impact any of the real threats facing us.  We will decide the appropriate age that we can snuff the fetus, the proper use of pronouns, the fair price of gasoline, the proper role of the Supreme Court, and dramatically improve public sensitivity as regards our feelings, but we will not address any of the issues that are going to destroy us.

The part that still urinates me is that we could avoid all of this if we chatted with one another intelligently, politely, and realistically, instead of politically.

Were I asked, by some future life-form, to write history after this form of humanity passes, I would explain its' demise as being due to stupidity.

I have a zoom meeting that I have to prepare for.

 Communication is critical to society and changes in communication impact society in very fundamental ways that are difficult to understand except in hindsight.  In this regard, I note the demise of radio, newspapers and magazines, the rise of various forms of cyber-related communication, and the increasing reluctance to engage in face to face communication.  I credit these changes with making it increasingly possible for each of us to live in an alternative universe with intellectual rules of the road that are increasingly different than those of our next-door neighbor.  This encourages us to advocate major changes in the way in which we relate, one to another.  It also helps to explain the intransigence characteristic of all of the various divisions that currently roil our political scene.  "Advances" in technology strengthen these trends as illustrated by the growth of Social Media and Zoom.

We claim to live in a democracy where everybody has a voice, yet we rigorously restrict our ability to voice contentious thought - requiring that we express ourselves in carefully curated channels that eschew diversity of thought and self-regulate participation.  Society has "progressed" to the point that we rigorously self-censor our thinking and any of us that refuse to accept this situation are ostracized, shunned, and ignored.  Verbal interactions between our various political leaders are designed to feed the beast rather than deal with the issue.  Almost nowhere do we see honest, intelligent, polite discussion of contentious issues.  The more momentous the issue, the less thought and discussion.  In this way, our precious feelings are far, far more important than the threat of nuclear obliteration.

Instead of addressing the most important issues facing us, we search out those that we can get out inadequate minds around and insist that they be the issues that drive our non-existent national discussion.  This "discussion" will determine whether we elect "The Donald" or "The Brat."  It will go on to determine the way in which we deal with several millennia of killing in the Middle East and the argument among Chinese people as to where their capital should be and how they should organize their society.  We will go on ignoring all disagreements killing huge numbers of people all over the "undeveloped" world, because those societies are not really all that important and we definitely do not want to think about the various ways in which they are infiltrating our own society.  We get away with this idiocy because most of the impact is still being felt in those parts of the society that do not count.  Where necessary, we just move to a different neighborhood or state.

Sorry, that is all I can give you today, I have a zoom meeting that I have to prepare for.  We are discussing the need to provide abandoned pets better nutrition and more pleasant living conditions as they await adoption.

Physical men competing in sports events with physical women is ridiculous as well as wrong.

 I believe that every one of us are born with both male and female body parts and a range of sexual orientation and, that in most of us, our body parts and our dominant sexual orientation are aligned.  I also believe that there are exceptions that society treats stupidly.  I champion "gay rights," but I do not believe that a gay should be able to decide on their own how they will compete in sports.  I continue to believe that participation in sports should be determined by a person's body parts, not their sexual orientation.  Sports are, after all, principally a physical endeavor and a woman trapped in a male body that wants to compete should compete with other male bodies.  Not to do so is not only wrong, it is cheap opportunism and contributes to the stupidity of others that are looking for reasons to oppose "gay rights."  Those that permit physical men to compete in sports with physical women, whether they are in the process of real or imaginary sexual transition, are ignorant cowards that are contributing mightily to anti-gay phobia in the general population.

Nuclear Weapons are merely the tool-set that we will use.

"The Donald" continues to gratuitously help "The Brat" in her quest to become president of this country.  I contend that Trump's ridiculous performance at the recent conference of the National Association of Black Journalists reinforced opposition to him and weakened support among any undecided voters that may still be out there.  The part that bothers me most is that nowhere are either Trump or Harris adequately discussing their approach to the substantive issues facing America - black, white, brown, or anemic tan.  Focusing on "How Black we Are" is childish.  The exchange on "Black Jobs" is illustrative.  Trump claimed that Harris/Biden support of massive, illegal immigration endangers "Black Jobs."  When asked what a "Black Job" was he realized his error and accepted that "any job" was a "Black Job."  Neither side changed their mind about anything.  Political speechifying in today's America has little to nothing to do with issues, save to use them to stoke political fervor among supporters and detractors - none of whom intend to change their mind about anything important.

I am not here discussing the issue of race or unemployment.  I am pointing out that we are not discussing the substance of the subject.  Instead, we are delightedly goading each other on the issue.  We do precisely the same thing with every other issue currently in the news.  The irony involved in this particular exchange is that Trump has actually done more for the Black community than has any Democrat in recent history.  His economic policies are substantively better than traditional Democrat policies, but his mindless use of the English language destroys those same policies.  The average American voter views the exchange in the context of their preconceived opinions rather than the factual situation.  Supporters are reinforced.  Opponents are reinforced.  No one addresses the issue, but we all vote for "our" candidate.  The hell with the issue.  Our opinion of the individual candidate is far more important.

Domestically, all this does is destroy our social fabric, weaken our economic machine and disrupt personal relationships.  A more immediate danger looms just off stage and amazingly we are so involved with our internal squabbles we manage to completely ignore it.  Too much of the world is engaged in trying to kill each other and we are edging up to a nuclear exchange with one or another major nuclear power.  That event, when it happens, is going to literally change the way those humans that live through it are going to continue to exist.  My guess is that racial relations will rank somewhat lower than food sources and skin color will rank lower than health issues in absolutely all political polling.

I am continually criticized for calling us stupid, but nowhere has anyone proven me wrong.  Nobody even tries.  My critics merely announce that I am wrong and turn their attention to other "more important" subjects - like the definition of a "Black Job."  In my mind, that single thing is what is going to destroy humanity as we know it today.  The nuclear weapons are merely the tool-set that we will use.