As planned, I ran my 3.5 mile hilly course this past Saturday morning.
It was "planned" because my preferred plan has seemingly become un-achievable.
Running six miles without stopping.
Never mind that the preferred six-mile course is one of the most challenging in the area.
After acknowledging my diminishing strength to complete the 6 mile course without stopping, I have dropped back to my next most challenging path.
Bankhead Parkway is a relatively steep road that gains about 200 feet in less than a mile.
I ran up the hill, bopped along the relatively flat Tollgate Road for a quarter mile then down the heart poundingly steep Mountainwood drive (walking).
Mountainwood drops (or gains, depending which way you are going) about 90 feet in about 1300 feet.
It is so steep that one can easily slip and fall if it is wet. (BTDT)
Anyway, did the whole circuit without a mishap.
The party was physically challenging and I can still feel a few pokes of pain around hips and hammys.
But the psychological sense that this is but a sad substitute for the distance my heart desires to run is buried somewhere near the surface of my conscious mind.
It is time to stop whining and suck up whatever endorphin-induced ego expansion I derived from going the longer distance.
Those days are over.
It is time to stop whimpering and learn to love what is left of life.
But the sad fact is, this is not the end of seeing physical and mental abilities diminish.
This is just another brick falling out of the wall of my life.
More are sure to come.
In fact, hardly a week goes by without some additional reminder injecting itself into my perception that I cannot do some small task as well/long as I used to.
I honestly get tired of seeing this.
From this, I can see why old people become depressed.
And it gives me a better insight into the value of visiting rest homes.
But I have never been good at relating to people.
Especially old people.
And increasingly, that is me.
.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
End of an Era
Sigh....
The Saturday morning plod along the Cotton Row course did not go very well.
Again.
My breathing was more-or-less okay (better than last go-round... but that is not saying much), and my strength was somewhat better.
But I had to stop and walk in both mile five and six.
Not good.
And not according to plan.
At least, not per Plan A.
As if to punctuate the situation, my left knee developed a nice jabbing pain in the ligament just below the kneecap early in mile five.
This was just after my second walk.
It was not the sharp ice pick kind of pain, it was more like someone whacking me with a tire iron just below the kneecap.
It got my attention.
And it forced Runner, Coach and Running Central to have a meeting to decide what to do and when.
The decision was quickly arrived at as left knee continued to squeak loudly – keep going and see if the problem fixes itself.
So I did.
And it did.
But it took a while.
I tried modifying my gait this way and that to take some of the pressure off the complaining ligament, but nothing seemed to help.
But as I kept going, I noticed that the pain seemed to diminish.
After a couple of minutes or three, the pain was down to a nuisance level and I knew I was going to be able to finish.
Or, at least, my left knee was not going to be the reason that I did not finish.
My overall strength was another matter, as I was forced to stop and walk again near Courthouse Square.
But I knew what this meant.
After my poor performance last week I made a promise to myself that if this session did not go well, I would stop running the six-mile distance.
“Well” means, run the whole distance without stopping.
As much as I love it, I have to face reality (I hate that....).
I cannot run this distance any more.
So, life is what it is.
Thus, next week I will return to my 3.5 mile course on the back side of the CR course.
Sigh.....
.
The Saturday morning plod along the Cotton Row course did not go very well.
Again.
My breathing was more-or-less okay (better than last go-round... but that is not saying much), and my strength was somewhat better.
But I had to stop and walk in both mile five and six.
Not good.
And not according to plan.
At least, not per Plan A.
As if to punctuate the situation, my left knee developed a nice jabbing pain in the ligament just below the kneecap early in mile five.
This was just after my second walk.
It was not the sharp ice pick kind of pain, it was more like someone whacking me with a tire iron just below the kneecap.
It got my attention.
And it forced Runner, Coach and Running Central to have a meeting to decide what to do and when.
The decision was quickly arrived at as left knee continued to squeak loudly – keep going and see if the problem fixes itself.
So I did.
And it did.
But it took a while.
I tried modifying my gait this way and that to take some of the pressure off the complaining ligament, but nothing seemed to help.
But as I kept going, I noticed that the pain seemed to diminish.
After a couple of minutes or three, the pain was down to a nuisance level and I knew I was going to be able to finish.
Or, at least, my left knee was not going to be the reason that I did not finish.
My overall strength was another matter, as I was forced to stop and walk again near Courthouse Square.
But I knew what this meant.
After my poor performance last week I made a promise to myself that if this session did not go well, I would stop running the six-mile distance.
“Well” means, run the whole distance without stopping.
As much as I love it, I have to face reality (I hate that....).
I cannot run this distance any more.
So, life is what it is.
Thus, next week I will return to my 3.5 mile course on the back side of the CR course.
Sigh.....
.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Economics 201
Lets get something straight – governments have no money.
I do not mean that they are broke – insolvent – I mean they have no internal means to finance themselves.
You and me, we can go to work for someone who is willing to pay us for our labors and we earn money, with which we buy food to feed ourselves and pay our bills, etc.
The government – be it on the local level, the county level, the state level, or the federal level – must take money from someone else in order to finance its operations.
The government is basically a service organization, invented to handle tasks that we as individuals cannot, or choose not, to do.
Services such as provide protection from criminals, or put out fires at our homes while we are away working, of control traffic on the roads so everything runs in a safe and orderly manner.
To do all these things for us, government collects money from the people it serves by collecting taxes.
Since some taxes are more burdensome on some people than other people, there are many different kinds of taxes.
All of these taxes are of two basic types – taxes on income received, or taxes on things purchased or owned.
The government is not us and they.
The government IS US.
WE ARE the government.
This is true even of totalitarian governments.
This may not seem true but think about this for a moment.
“Government” was the creation of people to supply a needed service – protection.
You may have heard the phrase “might makes right” and to some extent it is true.
It is often the case that the stronger of two people will prevail in a conflict.
It is also true that the stronger of two groups will prevail in a conflict.
Thus, if one group is threatened by another group, it will seek to become as strong as possible to defend itself against the group that is challenging it.
Think about the organization of a basic group of people.
Start with a primitive community – just three or four families living near each other.
Each family might be mostly self-sufficient and go days or weeks or months without contact with the other members of the community.
But at some point, for some tasks, someone will seek or need help from one or more of the other families.
It could be that the men decide to go hunting for a big animal for food, and one of them knows where some are or have been.
The others may not know this information.
So the others will follow his lead in the hunt.
Another man may be better at making arrowheads or stone knives than the others, so soon, the others either learn from him how to make better tools, or they just trade for new tools from him.
Over time, a single person or family will rise to become the “leader” of the group/clan/tribe.
Other members will look to the Leader to organize them in a way that will best protect them from outside threats - whether from wild animals or other groups of people.
They did not know it, but they just invented “government”.
As time passes, the leader would require some form of commitment from the subjects/followers to allow him/her to perform the leadership functions without having to spend as much of his/her time doing the everyday things that the other families do.
This may be a commitment of time for service – tending the leader's crops a few hours each week, for example, or each family bringing some of their crops/meat to the family of the leader to compensate for the fact that he/she does not have time to tend to such tasks – or both.
They did not know it, but they just invented taxes.
As the community grows protection of the group will become important.
Any community – even primitive ones – need real estate – territory – to hunt animals for food and/or grow crops.
Even in totalitarian governments, both elements need each other.
It may be that the common people are not treated fairly and suffer hardship under the policies of the government, but they need some of the services the government provides.
And the government needs the people.
It needs some of them to staff the army and police – the very organizations that may be mistreating the people.
It needs the food the people produce.
It needs the products the people build in the factories.
If the practices of the government become so harsh that the people begin to die or revolt, then the government will have to adjust its policies or be overthrown.
It has happened before, it will happen again.
It this point you may be asking, “what is the point of this?”.
Fair question.
The point is (ta da) government has no money of its own.
It must fund its operations from money it collects from the working people.
But consider this – there is only so much money in a country at any given time.
It ALL belongs to the people – not the government.
So the more money the government takes from the people, the less money there is left over for the people to spend on the things they want.
Yes, new wealth CAN be created, but it takes time.
So the total pie can and does get larger, but at any given moment, that pie is only so large.
Government does not create new wealth.
Government does not make the pie grow larger.
Only private companies make the pie grow larger.
The more money the government takes from that pie, the less there is left in that pie for everyone else to spend.
Government can only take money from one person and give it to someone else.
Government only moves money around in the current-sized pie, it does not and cannot make the pie larger.
Why?
Because government does not invest the money it takes into enterprises that will grow and create new jobs or new wealth.
Thus, any dollar that the government spends or gives to someone, came from someone else.
So the unemployment payment the government gave to John Jones this week, came from all of Mr. Jones' neighbors who are still earning a living by working.
The salary that the government pays to Suzi Smith who works in the unemployment office, which pays Mr. Jones his weekly check, came from Ms. Smith's neighbors who are still earning a living by working
Every dollar that the government takes from its working citizens is a dollar that those citizens cannot spend themselves.
Those dollars taken by the government are not as useful – or “valuable” - as dollars paid to people who earn them by working.
Why?
Because the persons who earn the dollars do not get to make the decisions on how or where (or whether) to spend their dollars.
Which is more useful to you, you spending your money on things you want/need, or your neighbor spend his money on things he wants/needs?
It is the same with the government.
The government MAY spend that dollar in a way that is acceptable and useful to the person that the tax dollar was taken from, or the government may spend that dollar on a study of the mating habits of fruit flies.
(by the way, someone ASKED the government to pay for that study of mating habits of fruit flies)
If we, as citizens, do not pay attention to what our elected representatives do with our money, and call them to task on spending that we disagree with, we will have out of control spending by our government.
Oh, wait.....
.
I do not mean that they are broke – insolvent – I mean they have no internal means to finance themselves.
You and me, we can go to work for someone who is willing to pay us for our labors and we earn money, with which we buy food to feed ourselves and pay our bills, etc.
The government – be it on the local level, the county level, the state level, or the federal level – must take money from someone else in order to finance its operations.
The government is basically a service organization, invented to handle tasks that we as individuals cannot, or choose not, to do.
Services such as provide protection from criminals, or put out fires at our homes while we are away working, of control traffic on the roads so everything runs in a safe and orderly manner.
To do all these things for us, government collects money from the people it serves by collecting taxes.
Since some taxes are more burdensome on some people than other people, there are many different kinds of taxes.
All of these taxes are of two basic types – taxes on income received, or taxes on things purchased or owned.
The government is not us and they.
The government IS US.
WE ARE the government.
This is true even of totalitarian governments.
This may not seem true but think about this for a moment.
“Government” was the creation of people to supply a needed service – protection.
You may have heard the phrase “might makes right” and to some extent it is true.
It is often the case that the stronger of two people will prevail in a conflict.
It is also true that the stronger of two groups will prevail in a conflict.
Thus, if one group is threatened by another group, it will seek to become as strong as possible to defend itself against the group that is challenging it.
Think about the organization of a basic group of people.
Start with a primitive community – just three or four families living near each other.
Each family might be mostly self-sufficient and go days or weeks or months without contact with the other members of the community.
But at some point, for some tasks, someone will seek or need help from one or more of the other families.
It could be that the men decide to go hunting for a big animal for food, and one of them knows where some are or have been.
The others may not know this information.
So the others will follow his lead in the hunt.
Another man may be better at making arrowheads or stone knives than the others, so soon, the others either learn from him how to make better tools, or they just trade for new tools from him.
Over time, a single person or family will rise to become the “leader” of the group/clan/tribe.
Other members will look to the Leader to organize them in a way that will best protect them from outside threats - whether from wild animals or other groups of people.
They did not know it, but they just invented “government”.
As time passes, the leader would require some form of commitment from the subjects/followers to allow him/her to perform the leadership functions without having to spend as much of his/her time doing the everyday things that the other families do.
This may be a commitment of time for service – tending the leader's crops a few hours each week, for example, or each family bringing some of their crops/meat to the family of the leader to compensate for the fact that he/she does not have time to tend to such tasks – or both.
They did not know it, but they just invented taxes.
As the community grows protection of the group will become important.
Any community – even primitive ones – need real estate – territory – to hunt animals for food and/or grow crops.
Even in totalitarian governments, both elements need each other.
It may be that the common people are not treated fairly and suffer hardship under the policies of the government, but they need some of the services the government provides.
And the government needs the people.
It needs some of them to staff the army and police – the very organizations that may be mistreating the people.
It needs the food the people produce.
It needs the products the people build in the factories.
If the practices of the government become so harsh that the people begin to die or revolt, then the government will have to adjust its policies or be overthrown.
It has happened before, it will happen again.
It this point you may be asking, “what is the point of this?”.
Fair question.
The point is (ta da) government has no money of its own.
It must fund its operations from money it collects from the working people.
But consider this – there is only so much money in a country at any given time.
It ALL belongs to the people – not the government.
So the more money the government takes from the people, the less money there is left over for the people to spend on the things they want.
Yes, new wealth CAN be created, but it takes time.
So the total pie can and does get larger, but at any given moment, that pie is only so large.
Government does not create new wealth.
Government does not make the pie grow larger.
Only private companies make the pie grow larger.
The more money the government takes from that pie, the less there is left in that pie for everyone else to spend.
Government can only take money from one person and give it to someone else.
Government only moves money around in the current-sized pie, it does not and cannot make the pie larger.
Why?
Because government does not invest the money it takes into enterprises that will grow and create new jobs or new wealth.
Thus, any dollar that the government spends or gives to someone, came from someone else.
So the unemployment payment the government gave to John Jones this week, came from all of Mr. Jones' neighbors who are still earning a living by working.
The salary that the government pays to Suzi Smith who works in the unemployment office, which pays Mr. Jones his weekly check, came from Ms. Smith's neighbors who are still earning a living by working
Every dollar that the government takes from its working citizens is a dollar that those citizens cannot spend themselves.
Those dollars taken by the government are not as useful – or “valuable” - as dollars paid to people who earn them by working.
Why?
Because the persons who earn the dollars do not get to make the decisions on how or where (or whether) to spend their dollars.
Which is more useful to you, you spending your money on things you want/need, or your neighbor spend his money on things he wants/needs?
It is the same with the government.
The government MAY spend that dollar in a way that is acceptable and useful to the person that the tax dollar was taken from, or the government may spend that dollar on a study of the mating habits of fruit flies.
(by the way, someone ASKED the government to pay for that study of mating habits of fruit flies)
If we, as citizens, do not pay attention to what our elected representatives do with our money, and call them to task on spending that we disagree with, we will have out of control spending by our government.
Oh, wait.....
.
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Confession Time
Okay, it's time to fess up.
My six-mile run this past Saturday was a disaster.
Well maybe not a disaster.
It just did not go as planned.
Given that I had such a good run the week before, I was expecting an equally good session this time, as well.
Not.
The goal is simple – to run the six mile course without stopping.
Never mind that my time to accomplish this task is longer than in my younger days.
I can live with that.
I just want to run the course without stopping and with nothing broken.
In that respect, this last session achieved half of my goal.
As I have said in past blogs, because of the hilly terrain of the first three miles of the course, I can tell in the first half mile how I am going to do in any particular attempt.
And it was so this past Saturday as well.
I did not feel “strong” early on.
I did not feel weak exactly, just not at my best.
So that set me to wondering if I would have to cut the session short or what.
In times past I have found myself with diminished breathing capacity that reduced my running ability, but that has not happened in several weeks – and may be fixed for good.
This past session, I just felt less strong, and to my surprise, my breathing was never a problem.
But by the time I got to the first serious little hill early in mile three, I knew I was in for a difficult journey.
I pondered whether to turn around and limit the party to four miles, but ego got the best of me.
I wanted to go the whole way, thinking that early in mile four the course is virtually all down hill.
So I kept going.
But I stopped and walked that first hill.
When things leveled out a bit, I started running again.
Then I walked The Hill at the end of mile three, as planned.
But I had to walk a few hundred feet in mile four, and another few hundred feet in mile five, and a hill in mile six, just over a half mile from the finish line.
I finished discouraged and perplexed (and running).
Why was I so “weak”?
I could think of no reason.
I had gotten a nominal amount of sleep the day/night before.
I had done a normal chest workout Friday morning with no signs of weakness.
I did not “feel” tired or sick.
So, why did I bomb so badly on my favorite course?
Surely, I am not too old to run this distance any more.
Or am I?
I am 66.
Is it time to face the reality of my age?
In the last six or eight weeks I have run this course only twice without stopping to walk at least once.
Some of the walking can be attributed to building up my running strength to handle the course distance from the three-and-a half mile distance I was running previously.
But which is the exception and which is the rule, running the six miles without stopping, or running the six miles with a walk or two mixed in?
Part of me does not want to know the answer.
We will try it again next week and see how we do.
I fear I may have to kiss my favorite running course goodbye.
I can remember my great grandmother, her long white hair pulled back in a neat bun, sitting in her old wooden rocking chair in her big, nearly empty living room, looking out the tall front windows of her old house (which was long ago demolished in downtown Sacramento).
Just sitting silently and looking out, watching the cars and occasional pedestrian go by.
It did not register at that time how lonely and empty her life must have been then.
I was just a kid about 8, maybe, self-centered and focused on playing with things, too shy to want to interact with people I did not know very well.
I remember us talking - she asking me questions, me answering, me asking questions, she answering.
I fear I was a bit terse in my comments.
But I did not know what to say to her.
I remember feeling very disconnected with my great-grandmother.
I did not know much about her, her childhood, where she was born, where she had lived, if she worked, where she had worked, etc.
And, frankly, I did not care then.
I was too young to appreciate the value of wisdom and perspective of older people then.
Some days I feel very close to that scene.
But the person in the rocking chair is me.
My six-mile run this past Saturday was a disaster.
Well maybe not a disaster.
It just did not go as planned.
Given that I had such a good run the week before, I was expecting an equally good session this time, as well.
Not.
The goal is simple – to run the six mile course without stopping.
Never mind that my time to accomplish this task is longer than in my younger days.
I can live with that.
I just want to run the course without stopping and with nothing broken.
In that respect, this last session achieved half of my goal.
As I have said in past blogs, because of the hilly terrain of the first three miles of the course, I can tell in the first half mile how I am going to do in any particular attempt.
And it was so this past Saturday as well.
I did not feel “strong” early on.
I did not feel weak exactly, just not at my best.
So that set me to wondering if I would have to cut the session short or what.
In times past I have found myself with diminished breathing capacity that reduced my running ability, but that has not happened in several weeks – and may be fixed for good.
This past session, I just felt less strong, and to my surprise, my breathing was never a problem.
But by the time I got to the first serious little hill early in mile three, I knew I was in for a difficult journey.
I pondered whether to turn around and limit the party to four miles, but ego got the best of me.
I wanted to go the whole way, thinking that early in mile four the course is virtually all down hill.
So I kept going.
But I stopped and walked that first hill.
When things leveled out a bit, I started running again.
Then I walked The Hill at the end of mile three, as planned.
But I had to walk a few hundred feet in mile four, and another few hundred feet in mile five, and a hill in mile six, just over a half mile from the finish line.
I finished discouraged and perplexed (and running).
Why was I so “weak”?
I could think of no reason.
I had gotten a nominal amount of sleep the day/night before.
I had done a normal chest workout Friday morning with no signs of weakness.
I did not “feel” tired or sick.
So, why did I bomb so badly on my favorite course?
Surely, I am not too old to run this distance any more.
Or am I?
I am 66.
Is it time to face the reality of my age?
In the last six or eight weeks I have run this course only twice without stopping to walk at least once.
Some of the walking can be attributed to building up my running strength to handle the course distance from the three-and-a half mile distance I was running previously.
But which is the exception and which is the rule, running the six miles without stopping, or running the six miles with a walk or two mixed in?
Part of me does not want to know the answer.
We will try it again next week and see how we do.
I fear I may have to kiss my favorite running course goodbye.
I can remember my great grandmother, her long white hair pulled back in a neat bun, sitting in her old wooden rocking chair in her big, nearly empty living room, looking out the tall front windows of her old house (which was long ago demolished in downtown Sacramento).
Just sitting silently and looking out, watching the cars and occasional pedestrian go by.
It did not register at that time how lonely and empty her life must have been then.
I was just a kid about 8, maybe, self-centered and focused on playing with things, too shy to want to interact with people I did not know very well.
I remember us talking - she asking me questions, me answering, me asking questions, she answering.
I fear I was a bit terse in my comments.
But I did not know what to say to her.
I remember feeling very disconnected with my great-grandmother.
I did not know much about her, her childhood, where she was born, where she had lived, if she worked, where she had worked, etc.
And, frankly, I did not care then.
I was too young to appreciate the value of wisdom and perspective of older people then.
Some days I feel very close to that scene.
But the person in the rocking chair is me.
Friday, June 03, 2011
Ticked Off By Judicial Stupidity - Again
Re the following tidbit....
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/02/prayer-prohibited-at-graduation-ceremony/?test=latestnews
To which I respond-
Welcome to Canada.
Or China.
Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery in Texas has ordered Medina Valley Independent School District to not do or say certain things during its graduation ceremony.
One of the things prohibited is prayer.
Imagine that.
Some of the words that are prohibited are, “in [diety]'s name”, “bow their heads”, “amen”, and “prayer”.
So much for free speech.
As you can guess, this suit was brought against the school district by a single atheist family, with the help of the ACLU.
So, just as in the Ten Commandments case in Alabama a few years ago, a single person or family can stand the entire nation or community on its head with the help of a sympathetic federal judge.
So, what would be some possible reactions to this judicial absurdity?
Here are a few:
1 Comply with the order.
Pretend God does not exist and that the entire community has no interest in acknowledging Him in any way in public/civic events.
2 Kill the judge.
This is the Taliban method of handling local civic disagreements. It works but there are some risks and consequences.
3 Kill the atheist family.
The Taliban method again. Since they are the cause of the problem; eliminate the problem and go back to praying at graduation ceremonies. Again, there are some risks and consequences to this response.
4 Hold prayer meetings in the street in front of the homes of the judge and/or the atheist family. Say the prohibited words just loud enough to be heard by the target individuals.
5 Have the Valedictorian READ the judges order at the graduation ceremony, thus, saying all the words the judge has prohibited to be said at the ceremony.
6 Pray, and/or say all the words the judge has prohibited.
Pretend this order was never made. Just do what you planned on doing. This response will likely result in jail time for those involved, including the school administrators. I say, tough noogees. Send them to jail. Send everybody to jail.
Let the judge and the judicial system deal with a massive civil disobedience movement.
7 Have the crowd chant the prohibited words during the graduation ceremony.
Of course this would just be a spontaneous gesture of protest/free expression, which is "protected" free speech.
8 Boycott the graduation ceremony.
Just don't go there. Find someone who has a large enough field or pasture and hold the graduation ceremony on private property. Charge a one penny admission as a token to make it a private event.
.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/02/prayer-prohibited-at-graduation-ceremony/?test=latestnews
To which I respond-
Welcome to Canada.
Or China.
Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery in Texas has ordered Medina Valley Independent School District to not do or say certain things during its graduation ceremony.
One of the things prohibited is prayer.
Imagine that.
Some of the words that are prohibited are, “in [diety]'s name”, “bow their heads”, “amen”, and “prayer”.
So much for free speech.
As you can guess, this suit was brought against the school district by a single atheist family, with the help of the ACLU.
So, just as in the Ten Commandments case in Alabama a few years ago, a single person or family can stand the entire nation or community on its head with the help of a sympathetic federal judge.
So, what would be some possible reactions to this judicial absurdity?
Here are a few:
1 Comply with the order.
Pretend God does not exist and that the entire community has no interest in acknowledging Him in any way in public/civic events.
2 Kill the judge.
This is the Taliban method of handling local civic disagreements. It works but there are some risks and consequences.
3 Kill the atheist family.
The Taliban method again. Since they are the cause of the problem; eliminate the problem and go back to praying at graduation ceremonies. Again, there are some risks and consequences to this response.
4 Hold prayer meetings in the street in front of the homes of the judge and/or the atheist family. Say the prohibited words just loud enough to be heard by the target individuals.
5 Have the Valedictorian READ the judges order at the graduation ceremony, thus, saying all the words the judge has prohibited to be said at the ceremony.
6 Pray, and/or say all the words the judge has prohibited.
Pretend this order was never made. Just do what you planned on doing. This response will likely result in jail time for those involved, including the school administrators. I say, tough noogees. Send them to jail. Send everybody to jail.
Let the judge and the judicial system deal with a massive civil disobedience movement.
7 Have the crowd chant the prohibited words during the graduation ceremony.
Of course this would just be a spontaneous gesture of protest/free expression, which is "protected" free speech.
8 Boycott the graduation ceremony.
Just don't go there. Find someone who has a large enough field or pasture and hold the graduation ceremony on private property. Charge a one penny admission as a token to make it a private event.
.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Good News - Bad News Run
Saturday morning was cool and wanting to rain.
I wore my rain cap for the first half mile of the six-mile ho-down but it proved to be too hot.
And it was not raining.
But the clouds looked like they wanted to. (in fact, it did rain in other parts of town)
Usually, by the first half mile I can tell how I am going to do on these longer runs, and it was true this day.
I did not feel as weak as I have in the past, but I did not feel "strong" (a very relative term for me).
So I prepared myself mentally to have to walk sometime in the last half of the party.
And it was so.
Early into mile six, I felt I needed to stop for a minute or two and walk.
There was not a lot of argument between Coach, Runner and Running Central.
Runner did not want to, but mostly for self-esteem reasons.
Coach knew how hard Runner was working.
Running Central was monitoring the situation silently.
This was a close call.
If this had been a race, I would not have stopped.
But it wasn't, so I did.
The walk worked as planned.
I finished the last mile or so with nothing out of the ordinary.
But I was glad to be finished with this one.
That is the bad news. (not so bad, really.)
There were a lot of runners out that morning.
I thought it might be because of some organized practice for the Cotton Row race coming in two weeks.
Not.
At least, not entirely.
It turns out there was a race that morning.
The I Love Music race, or some such.
That is a new one here.
And as I finished my six-mile jaunt, I saw a hundred runners passing one block away.
The good news?
Nothing broke.
Again.
No hip, knee, ankle joint issues.
No connective tissue issues - tendons, ligaments, muscles, etc.
There was some vague whinings around mile four from left knee and right hip support tissues about how hard life is, but these mumblings were drowned out by the chirping of the birds and my accelerated breathing.
Amazing.
Life is good.
Very good.
.
I wore my rain cap for the first half mile of the six-mile ho-down but it proved to be too hot.
And it was not raining.
But the clouds looked like they wanted to. (in fact, it did rain in other parts of town)
Usually, by the first half mile I can tell how I am going to do on these longer runs, and it was true this day.
I did not feel as weak as I have in the past, but I did not feel "strong" (a very relative term for me).
So I prepared myself mentally to have to walk sometime in the last half of the party.
And it was so.
Early into mile six, I felt I needed to stop for a minute or two and walk.
There was not a lot of argument between Coach, Runner and Running Central.
Runner did not want to, but mostly for self-esteem reasons.
Coach knew how hard Runner was working.
Running Central was monitoring the situation silently.
This was a close call.
If this had been a race, I would not have stopped.
But it wasn't, so I did.
The walk worked as planned.
I finished the last mile or so with nothing out of the ordinary.
But I was glad to be finished with this one.
That is the bad news. (not so bad, really.)
There were a lot of runners out that morning.
I thought it might be because of some organized practice for the Cotton Row race coming in two weeks.
Not.
At least, not entirely.
It turns out there was a race that morning.
The I Love Music race, or some such.
That is a new one here.
And as I finished my six-mile jaunt, I saw a hundred runners passing one block away.
The good news?
Nothing broke.
Again.
No hip, knee, ankle joint issues.
No connective tissue issues - tendons, ligaments, muscles, etc.
There was some vague whinings around mile four from left knee and right hip support tissues about how hard life is, but these mumblings were drowned out by the chirping of the birds and my accelerated breathing.
Amazing.
Life is good.
Very good.
.
Saturday, May 07, 2011
Another Nice Run
Ho hum.
Another Saturday - another nice six-mile run.
Not really.
Running six miles is a pretty big deal for me in my advancing age.
I am now 66 years old.
This is hard to believe sometimes.
If anyone had told me in high school that at age 66 I would be running 6 miles even once a week (as currently is the case), I would have told them that they were nuts.
But here I am, doing it.
I have retired from running about three times.
Each time thinking that I was too old to keep running.
And each time I have started a walking program, considered more "appropriate" for old geezers such as I by "health professionals", I have found that it feels like a waste of time.
I do not feel challenged physically, and I finish each session feeling like I could do more.
This latest resurrection of the activity began innocently enough, trying to find a more challenging walking course, soon progressed to running up the one mile hill, and finally, about a month ago, just getting crazy and going for the whole enchalada of the six-mile Cotton Row race course (which, for some reason, I dearly love).
(see the full story in my blog of May 8, 2010)
So, today, after an amazing session last week (six miles - no stops), I did not feel quite as strong as last week, so my breathing was more labored than I would have preferred.
But I did not have to stop to walk, even though Runner and Running Central were having a discussion in mile 5 about just a short walk to allow my breathing to settle down a bit.
But by then, I was almost finished (within 20 minutes or less), and it was mostly down-hill.
So no stops were sanctioned.
And .... no body parts broke.
No ankle attachments or connections were unhappy.
Same for knees.
My hips like to whine a bit beginning about mile three, but this is usually such low-level mumbling that I cannot even discern what exactly is the problem.
I am wonderfully blessed.
For all my ratty, less-than-ideal genetic construction (I plan to talk to God about this in heaven), I have managed to run virtually uninjured for the last six years.
The same cannot be said for many runners who are much stronger than I.
So, I am again happy and enjoying another endorphin high.
.
Another Saturday - another nice six-mile run.
Not really.
Running six miles is a pretty big deal for me in my advancing age.
I am now 66 years old.
This is hard to believe sometimes.
If anyone had told me in high school that at age 66 I would be running 6 miles even once a week (as currently is the case), I would have told them that they were nuts.
But here I am, doing it.
I have retired from running about three times.
Each time thinking that I was too old to keep running.
And each time I have started a walking program, considered more "appropriate" for old geezers such as I by "health professionals", I have found that it feels like a waste of time.
I do not feel challenged physically, and I finish each session feeling like I could do more.
This latest resurrection of the activity began innocently enough, trying to find a more challenging walking course, soon progressed to running up the one mile hill, and finally, about a month ago, just getting crazy and going for the whole enchalada of the six-mile Cotton Row race course (which, for some reason, I dearly love).
(see the full story in my blog of May 8, 2010)
So, today, after an amazing session last week (six miles - no stops), I did not feel quite as strong as last week, so my breathing was more labored than I would have preferred.
But I did not have to stop to walk, even though Runner and Running Central were having a discussion in mile 5 about just a short walk to allow my breathing to settle down a bit.
But by then, I was almost finished (within 20 minutes or less), and it was mostly down-hill.
So no stops were sanctioned.
And .... no body parts broke.
No ankle attachments or connections were unhappy.
Same for knees.
My hips like to whine a bit beginning about mile three, but this is usually such low-level mumbling that I cannot even discern what exactly is the problem.
I am wonderfully blessed.
For all my ratty, less-than-ideal genetic construction (I plan to talk to God about this in heaven), I have managed to run virtually uninjured for the last six years.
The same cannot be said for many runners who are much stronger than I.
So, I am again happy and enjoying another endorphin high.
.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
THE 2011 TORNADO DIARIES
DAY 1
Thursday April 28, 2011
7:12 PM
The power to Huntsville was taken down at about 4:30 PM yesterday afternoon as a giant (what we know now) F5 tornado ran north of town.
It missed my son's house by about a half mile.
It was a slab-scraper.
A state of emergency is boring.
Those of us who have been spared the tragedy that hit many others have little to do.
There are plus points as well as minus points to my plight.
Pluses
1 I am alive
2 all of my worldly goods are intact (if inoperable)
3 all of my family are alive and free of any damage
4 I have running water – hot and cold
5 I have gas to cook and to warm water
6 the weather after the storms is warm, so I am not cold.
7 I have food to last a week or so.
Minuses
1 I have no electricity – so no toys, music, etc
2 I am alone, lonely, bored.
Things could be worse – way worse.
So we/you learn to live like they did in the wild west - do what you can in the daylight, stay still and sleep when it is dark.
Seven days – that is how long “they” are saying it will be before we have electricity again.
If that is so-this year will end up with 51 weeks in it instead of 52.
There is not much to do without electricity.
I cannot work kuz I work on a computer.
No electricity – no computers
No computers – no work
No work – no business for me = boring
It could be worse – much worse – just sayin....
DAY 2
Friday April 29, 2011
12:43
Emptying out the refrigerator.
Throwing away food – this feels strange.
Drank the last of my milk.
I have about a quart more, but I do not trust its safety.
I started to read “History of the Christian Church”
8 volumes, first printed in 1858.
DAY 3
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Woo Hoo.
Today is running day.
Even though there are no stoplights and a dusk to dawn curfew – I ran.
6 miles.
No walking (except the lower half of Mountainwood Drive, as planned)
No signals.
No lights.
All the drivers were behaving themselves – stopping at every intersection with a dark stoplight , then proceeding.
I love it when we all play by the rools.
I cleaned my refrigerator today.
Cleaned all the little smudges and small accumulations of crumbs.
My refrigerator looks strange with its doors standing open, shelves empty.
Today would be food shopping day, but....
About half the food I would buy would go into my refrigerator – which is not working because we have no electricity – yet.
So, there is no point in going food shopping.
I still have some food to survive a few more days.
I ate my last two eggs this morning, so I will begin my new oatmeal and water diet for a few days.
“They” now estimate that the power will be back on Monday afternoon.
DAY 4
Sunday May 1, 2011
Breakfast = hot oatmeal + water + honey + cinnamon.
It was yummy.
It is cloudy today.
There is a chance of rain.
Driving to church today I saw many trees blown over (20+?)
Limited damage to buildings on the route that I took (I know it is MUCH worse in other areas just a mile or so from where I was)
I saw a few signs bent over, etc.
“Church” was strange today.
There was no preaching (there was no electricity at the church buildings), just testimonies.
Brother John read only one scripture – Ecclesiastes 3:1-9.
One family in the congregation lost their house in the storms.
They gave a good testimony.
After church, we had a “cook out” -type lunch (hamburgers, hot dogs, etc) for the community.
Two couples came (that I know of).
The rest of us ate well (as usual).
There was no evening service because of the county-wide dusk-to-dawn curfew.
At 11:08 PM the power came on at my house.
DAY 5
Monday, May 2, 2011
Osama Bin Laden is dead.
Good.
I am not comfortable feeling good that someone is dead, but I am very comfortable knowing that justice has been administered to someone with such evil intentions.
A half mile from my house, they still do not have power.
Some traffic signals work, some are still dark.
I went to a Walmart today which had power.
All of their refrigerated cases were empty (ALL + EMPTY).
ALL of the food had been sold or thrown away.
I bought milk (just being loaded into the bare refrigerated case as I arrived) and bread.
There were no eggs. :(
I am blessed.
Thursday April 28, 2011
7:12 PM
The power to Huntsville was taken down at about 4:30 PM yesterday afternoon as a giant (what we know now) F5 tornado ran north of town.
It missed my son's house by about a half mile.
It was a slab-scraper.
A state of emergency is boring.
Those of us who have been spared the tragedy that hit many others have little to do.
There are plus points as well as minus points to my plight.
Pluses
1 I am alive
2 all of my worldly goods are intact (if inoperable)
3 all of my family are alive and free of any damage
4 I have running water – hot and cold
5 I have gas to cook and to warm water
6 the weather after the storms is warm, so I am not cold.
7 I have food to last a week or so.
Minuses
1 I have no electricity – so no toys, music, etc
2 I am alone, lonely, bored.
Things could be worse – way worse.
So we/you learn to live like they did in the wild west - do what you can in the daylight, stay still and sleep when it is dark.
Seven days – that is how long “they” are saying it will be before we have electricity again.
If that is so-this year will end up with 51 weeks in it instead of 52.
There is not much to do without electricity.
I cannot work kuz I work on a computer.
No electricity – no computers
No computers – no work
No work – no business for me = boring
It could be worse – much worse – just sayin....
DAY 2
Friday April 29, 2011
12:43
Emptying out the refrigerator.
Throwing away food – this feels strange.
Drank the last of my milk.
I have about a quart more, but I do not trust its safety.
I started to read “History of the Christian Church”
8 volumes, first printed in 1858.
DAY 3
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Woo Hoo.
Today is running day.
Even though there are no stoplights and a dusk to dawn curfew – I ran.
6 miles.
No walking (except the lower half of Mountainwood Drive, as planned)
No signals.
No lights.
All the drivers were behaving themselves – stopping at every intersection with a dark stoplight , then proceeding.
I love it when we all play by the rools.
I cleaned my refrigerator today.
Cleaned all the little smudges and small accumulations of crumbs.
My refrigerator looks strange with its doors standing open, shelves empty.
Today would be food shopping day, but....
About half the food I would buy would go into my refrigerator – which is not working because we have no electricity – yet.
So, there is no point in going food shopping.
I still have some food to survive a few more days.
I ate my last two eggs this morning, so I will begin my new oatmeal and water diet for a few days.
“They” now estimate that the power will be back on Monday afternoon.
DAY 4
Sunday May 1, 2011
Breakfast = hot oatmeal + water + honey + cinnamon.
It was yummy.
It is cloudy today.
There is a chance of rain.
Driving to church today I saw many trees blown over (20+?)
Limited damage to buildings on the route that I took (I know it is MUCH worse in other areas just a mile or so from where I was)
I saw a few signs bent over, etc.
“Church” was strange today.
There was no preaching (there was no electricity at the church buildings), just testimonies.
Brother John read only one scripture – Ecclesiastes 3:1-9.
One family in the congregation lost their house in the storms.
They gave a good testimony.
After church, we had a “cook out” -type lunch (hamburgers, hot dogs, etc) for the community.
Two couples came (that I know of).
The rest of us ate well (as usual).
There was no evening service because of the county-wide dusk-to-dawn curfew.
At 11:08 PM the power came on at my house.
DAY 5
Monday, May 2, 2011
Osama Bin Laden is dead.
Good.
I am not comfortable feeling good that someone is dead, but I am very comfortable knowing that justice has been administered to someone with such evil intentions.
A half mile from my house, they still do not have power.
Some traffic signals work, some are still dark.
I went to a Walmart today which had power.
All of their refrigerated cases were empty (ALL + EMPTY).
ALL of the food had been sold or thrown away.
I bought milk (just being loaded into the bare refrigerated case as I arrived) and bread.
There were no eggs. :(
I am blessed.
Monday, April 25, 2011
The Ideal World Obama and his Friends want for you
While this view of our society has not been presented to the public in this detail, it has been presented in portions here and there by those who support Mr. Obama's socialist view. Some readers may object to some items in this list as undocumented, but rest assured, they have been published in proposed legislation or articles written by his supporters or current cabinet members.
In the society that Mr. Obama and his friends want you to live in, many choices you are free to exercise today, would not be available to you.
Easily half of your income would go to the federal, state, county, or city governments.
Taxes will be everywhere.
There will be a tax on your income,
a tax on your savings accounts,
a tax on things you buy,
a tax on things you sell,
a tax on every financial transaction you make,
a tax on things you own,
a tax on your electricity,
a tax on your house gas,
a tax on your internet,
a tax on your TV cable,
a tax on your phone line or cellphone,
a tax on your sewer line,
a tax on how much water your use,
a tax on the gasoline you use in your car,
a tax on the oil you use in your car,
a tax on the tires you buy for your car,
and tax on the size and kind of car you drive.
(You may notice that you already pay many of these taxes.)
In return, you would receive many requirements from various levels of government that would control many activities you participate in now.
You could receive medical care from government offices.
This medical care would be rationed by the government based on your age, the cost of the particular procedure requested, and limited facilities available to provide the requested procedure.
You might request a particular surgical operation but the government may only allow you to receive a drug to “control” the problem.
You would have no choice in how much you pay for you medical care – the cost would be controlled by a board of bureaucrats in washington DC.
You would not have a choice about whether to pay your medical care tax or not.
If you do not pay it, you will be fined.
For those who can afford it, dozens of free-enterprise-based medical communities will have developed along the southern border of the United States in Mexico.
This reactive free-enterprise zone will populated by thousands of American doctors and staff, who offer virtually any procedure or treatment needed by their mostly-American clientele.
This phenomenon will be matched by other similar medical communities in other nearby Latin-american and Caribbean countries for the same purpose.
You could build a new house, but where and how would be closely controlled.
Federal regulations would dictate the type of toilets, the size and placement of windows and doors, the type and size of heating and air conditioning equipment, the amount and type of insulation you could install, the type of materials and paint you could install.
Federal regulations may limit the colors you may choose to paint the outside of your house.
Most people will live in government-controlled apartments or houses.
Most landlords will be put out of business by government-mandated requirements for “fair housing” or “energy efficiency”.
Your utilities will be controlled by the government.
If your house, on a hot or cold day, uses more electricity than the government deems proper, it can turn off your electricity for whatever period of time it dictates.
If you use more water than the government has determined is appropriate for your size house or family, it can turn off your water for the rest of the day.
The government will tell you when you may operate your clothes dryer, washer and other appliances.
If you own an older house, the government will specify the type of windows, insulation, heating/AC, and appliances it must have before you will be allowed to sell it.
The owner will be required to bear the cost of these required improvements.
Wood-burning stoves would be illegal – even in mountain cabins in remote locations.
Most of your electricity will come from wind-driven power-generating machines or solar conversion farms.
On windless or cloudy days, electricity will be rationed.
The cost of this “green” electricity will be three to four times what it is today.
Coal-fired power plants will be shut down or used only as back-up when the “green” machines cannot meet power demand.
No new coal-fired power-generating plants will be built.
(But the United States will export coal to other nations of the world who seek it.)
No new nuclear-based power generating plants will be built in the United States.
(But Canada and Mexico will build both coal-fired and nuclear-based power-generating plants near our borders, and sell the power to the U.S.)
Domestic oil production will be reduced to a trickle because of restricted drilling license requirement.
Most gasoline will be imported from the middle east or other countries.
Gasoline will cost $10 to $20 a gallon.
Most people will not own cars or trucks.
Busses or trains will move most people in larger cities.
The number of car companies will be reduced by half as will the number of models each company markets.
Cars will be reduced in size and power to meet increasingly stringent fuel economy requirements.
Cross-country travel by personal vehicle will be reduced to half of what it is today or less.
Air travel will be limited to only the most wealthy.
Many airports will be shut down, or reduced to cargo-only terminals.
Because of the heavy tax burden, unemployment will be a massive 25-30 percent.
Because of the large proportion of people unemployed and living in government-controlled housing, crime will be rampant.
Drug distribution and ethnic gangs will control certain areas of cities and towns.
Since personal gun ownership will have been made illegal, only criminals will possess guns.
Jails and prisons will be overflowing with criminals.
Assaults, rapes and murders will be a daily occurrence in many cities and towns.
Gated communities with armed guards will be a common feature of many cities and towns.
Government schools will be reduced to unionized baby-sitting facilities.
Learning will be relegated to a second priority after safety for the few remaining students.
Drug use, sexual promiscuity, open homosexuality, gangs and bullying will overwhelm public school systems.
With little disposable income, most parents will have no choice but to subject their children to the diminished instructional value and personal insecurity of the public school systems.
Private schools will be taxed and required to teach government-mandated curriculum, devised by the teachers unions.
These same public teachers unions will have prevailed upon federal and state legislative bodies to outlaw home school organizations and/or require the inclusion of government-mandated curriculum, to include state-controlled testing to ensure that the state-mandated subject matter was presented.
But this scenario will not last for long.
The shear magnitude of the cost of the government-run programs and the ever-shrinking economy will combine to produce a massive collapse of the American economy by 2020.
.
In the society that Mr. Obama and his friends want you to live in, many choices you are free to exercise today, would not be available to you.
Easily half of your income would go to the federal, state, county, or city governments.
Taxes will be everywhere.
There will be a tax on your income,
a tax on your savings accounts,
a tax on things you buy,
a tax on things you sell,
a tax on every financial transaction you make,
a tax on things you own,
a tax on your electricity,
a tax on your house gas,
a tax on your internet,
a tax on your TV cable,
a tax on your phone line or cellphone,
a tax on your sewer line,
a tax on how much water your use,
a tax on the gasoline you use in your car,
a tax on the oil you use in your car,
a tax on the tires you buy for your car,
and tax on the size and kind of car you drive.
(You may notice that you already pay many of these taxes.)
In return, you would receive many requirements from various levels of government that would control many activities you participate in now.
You could receive medical care from government offices.
This medical care would be rationed by the government based on your age, the cost of the particular procedure requested, and limited facilities available to provide the requested procedure.
You might request a particular surgical operation but the government may only allow you to receive a drug to “control” the problem.
You would have no choice in how much you pay for you medical care – the cost would be controlled by a board of bureaucrats in washington DC.
You would not have a choice about whether to pay your medical care tax or not.
If you do not pay it, you will be fined.
For those who can afford it, dozens of free-enterprise-based medical communities will have developed along the southern border of the United States in Mexico.
This reactive free-enterprise zone will populated by thousands of American doctors and staff, who offer virtually any procedure or treatment needed by their mostly-American clientele.
This phenomenon will be matched by other similar medical communities in other nearby Latin-american and Caribbean countries for the same purpose.
You could build a new house, but where and how would be closely controlled.
Federal regulations would dictate the type of toilets, the size and placement of windows and doors, the type and size of heating and air conditioning equipment, the amount and type of insulation you could install, the type of materials and paint you could install.
Federal regulations may limit the colors you may choose to paint the outside of your house.
Most people will live in government-controlled apartments or houses.
Most landlords will be put out of business by government-mandated requirements for “fair housing” or “energy efficiency”.
Your utilities will be controlled by the government.
If your house, on a hot or cold day, uses more electricity than the government deems proper, it can turn off your electricity for whatever period of time it dictates.
If you use more water than the government has determined is appropriate for your size house or family, it can turn off your water for the rest of the day.
The government will tell you when you may operate your clothes dryer, washer and other appliances.
If you own an older house, the government will specify the type of windows, insulation, heating/AC, and appliances it must have before you will be allowed to sell it.
The owner will be required to bear the cost of these required improvements.
Wood-burning stoves would be illegal – even in mountain cabins in remote locations.
Most of your electricity will come from wind-driven power-generating machines or solar conversion farms.
On windless or cloudy days, electricity will be rationed.
The cost of this “green” electricity will be three to four times what it is today.
Coal-fired power plants will be shut down or used only as back-up when the “green” machines cannot meet power demand.
No new coal-fired power-generating plants will be built.
(But the United States will export coal to other nations of the world who seek it.)
No new nuclear-based power generating plants will be built in the United States.
(But Canada and Mexico will build both coal-fired and nuclear-based power-generating plants near our borders, and sell the power to the U.S.)
Domestic oil production will be reduced to a trickle because of restricted drilling license requirement.
Most gasoline will be imported from the middle east or other countries.
Gasoline will cost $10 to $20 a gallon.
Most people will not own cars or trucks.
Busses or trains will move most people in larger cities.
The number of car companies will be reduced by half as will the number of models each company markets.
Cars will be reduced in size and power to meet increasingly stringent fuel economy requirements.
Cross-country travel by personal vehicle will be reduced to half of what it is today or less.
Air travel will be limited to only the most wealthy.
Many airports will be shut down, or reduced to cargo-only terminals.
Because of the heavy tax burden, unemployment will be a massive 25-30 percent.
Because of the large proportion of people unemployed and living in government-controlled housing, crime will be rampant.
Drug distribution and ethnic gangs will control certain areas of cities and towns.
Since personal gun ownership will have been made illegal, only criminals will possess guns.
Jails and prisons will be overflowing with criminals.
Assaults, rapes and murders will be a daily occurrence in many cities and towns.
Gated communities with armed guards will be a common feature of many cities and towns.
Government schools will be reduced to unionized baby-sitting facilities.
Learning will be relegated to a second priority after safety for the few remaining students.
Drug use, sexual promiscuity, open homosexuality, gangs and bullying will overwhelm public school systems.
With little disposable income, most parents will have no choice but to subject their children to the diminished instructional value and personal insecurity of the public school systems.
Private schools will be taxed and required to teach government-mandated curriculum, devised by the teachers unions.
These same public teachers unions will have prevailed upon federal and state legislative bodies to outlaw home school organizations and/or require the inclusion of government-mandated curriculum, to include state-controlled testing to ensure that the state-mandated subject matter was presented.
But this scenario will not last for long.
The shear magnitude of the cost of the government-run programs and the ever-shrinking economy will combine to produce a massive collapse of the American economy by 2020.
.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
AN EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT
This phrase came to me soon after I heard the news that someone I was close to had died.
The news was a shock.
She was only 45 years old.
I am not sure how we came to meet her or know her situation.
It was 1984 or so.
She was 15 at the time and having family problems, personal problems, and, not surprisingly, spiritual problems.
There were problems with drugs and sex and alcohol – serious issues for a fifteen year old.
Things that I was not sure I knew how to help with.
I also was sure God could help her, but it would take her cooperation.
That was not a sure thing at the outset.
With the permission of her mother, and the girl's consent, we agreed to take her in.
I do not know how we came to this decision.
She lived with us for about two years.
Soon after she moved in she received salvation and began living the strict way we followed.
About the same time, God gave me a father's love for the girl.
This was misunderstood by nearly everyone around us – including my wife.
But it did not matter to me.
I knew what God had given me, and I knew how it shaped my relationship with the girl.
There was never anything inappropriate in me toward her.
Never.
I loved her as my daughter.
I did my best to build a relationship with her.
I wanted her to have a father that she could trust and respect.
We went through several emotional and spiritual episodes with her in those two years or so.
She ran away once.
Only to be found by that evening.
The question to her then was, “do you want to go home to live with your mother, or do you want to continue to stay with us?”
She elected to stay, even with the understanding that the relationship would now be different.
She stayed and blossomed again.
At one point we even considered adopting her.
This was discussed with her mother.
I do not remember why we did not follow through with the idea, but it was never pursued to completion.
Time passed.
Circumstances in her family changed and finally, the girl felt that she needed to return to her mother.
We understood.
It was hard to see her go.
It would be a spiritual challenge for her, as well.
Minutes after she had driven off with her mother, I remember sitting on her bed with my oldest son, who was about eight years old at the time, crying.
He wanted to know why she had to go.
I had no answer that could ease his tears or mine.
That was around 1985 or 1986.
It was not long before she stopped coming to church.
For part of the time she was with us I went through a clinical depression that lasted about two years, I gradually recovered.
To this day, I do not understand exactly why this happened to me.
It was one of the most bizarre times in my life.
About thirteen or fourteen years later, because of some (more) personal problems, she moved in with us for a couple of weeks.
She had a daughter then, who was about 12 or so.
This meeting was different for several reasons.
She was less pliable spiritually and less inclined to conform to the same strict standards we still followed.
She was an adult now.
She was not the confused, scared girl we had known before.
My wife and I, were having our own problems.
We were both interested in helping her, but the help we could provide would be different than our last encounter with her.
When she left us this time, it was the last time I would see her alive.
Then came the news this week – she was dead.
Suddenly.
Seemingly without a cause.
It had been years since I had seen her. (12?)
And I had gone months or years at a time without thinking of her.
But as soon as the sad news came to me, my mind flooded with memories of her and her time with our family.
I was surprised at the strength of my mental and emotional reaction to it.
That is when I realized the concept of Emotional Investment.
I had given her my heart – in a fatherly way, and she, in turn, had loved me and respected me as a father.
My wife had done the same, I am sure.
My wife and I had stood up to her when she had disobeyed, showing her the unconditional love she had failed to receive from her natural father.
She had submitted to the rules of the family.
Our children had loved and adopted her also.
The Emotional Investment was shared among us.
It had come from time spent with one another.
Sharing, opening up, giving, receiving, growing – individually and together.
And even though you separate and even forget about the person, you never really get away from the Emotional Investment you have made.
It is true of parents and children.
It is true of husbands and wives.
It is something that can sleep as if dormant, but just the mention of her name, and the depth and magnitude of the Emotional Investment comes alive again.
And you feel the love and commitment you gave and shared.
I felt it as I looked at the body of the woman in the casket today.
I never thought I would be in this situation.
But I was.
Looking at a woman that I had given my heart to as a father, so many years ago. (25)
Part of me did not want to look.
It was too painful.
I did not want to see her like this.
Another part of me wanted to see her again.
To rip the scab off my heart and feel the blood flowing and the pain again.
And tell her that her “other” daddy still loves her.
Her life did not turn out to be the one I had prayed for.
She never found happiness with a man, that I know of.
She continued to have problems with alcohol and drugs off and on, I heard.
And she never returned to the spiritual peace she once had, that I know of.
While some of this can be attributed to the traumatic events of her early teen years, much of it is the result of decisions she made.
She chose this life.
She chose a life that would end this way.
In spite of what the preacher said today, I do not believe she was saved.
I wish I could say otherwise.
And I hope I am wrong.
God knows for sure.
But just going on what I know about her life in recent years, I see an unhappy, unfulfilled life.
I wanted something better than this for her.
And that is part of what I did not want to see today.
An Emotional Investment is costly.
The news was a shock.
She was only 45 years old.
I am not sure how we came to meet her or know her situation.
It was 1984 or so.
She was 15 at the time and having family problems, personal problems, and, not surprisingly, spiritual problems.
There were problems with drugs and sex and alcohol – serious issues for a fifteen year old.
Things that I was not sure I knew how to help with.
I also was sure God could help her, but it would take her cooperation.
That was not a sure thing at the outset.
With the permission of her mother, and the girl's consent, we agreed to take her in.
I do not know how we came to this decision.
She lived with us for about two years.
Soon after she moved in she received salvation and began living the strict way we followed.
About the same time, God gave me a father's love for the girl.
This was misunderstood by nearly everyone around us – including my wife.
But it did not matter to me.
I knew what God had given me, and I knew how it shaped my relationship with the girl.
There was never anything inappropriate in me toward her.
Never.
I loved her as my daughter.
I did my best to build a relationship with her.
I wanted her to have a father that she could trust and respect.
We went through several emotional and spiritual episodes with her in those two years or so.
She ran away once.
Only to be found by that evening.
The question to her then was, “do you want to go home to live with your mother, or do you want to continue to stay with us?”
She elected to stay, even with the understanding that the relationship would now be different.
She stayed and blossomed again.
At one point we even considered adopting her.
This was discussed with her mother.
I do not remember why we did not follow through with the idea, but it was never pursued to completion.
Time passed.
Circumstances in her family changed and finally, the girl felt that she needed to return to her mother.
We understood.
It was hard to see her go.
It would be a spiritual challenge for her, as well.
Minutes after she had driven off with her mother, I remember sitting on her bed with my oldest son, who was about eight years old at the time, crying.
He wanted to know why she had to go.
I had no answer that could ease his tears or mine.
That was around 1985 or 1986.
It was not long before she stopped coming to church.
For part of the time she was with us I went through a clinical depression that lasted about two years, I gradually recovered.
To this day, I do not understand exactly why this happened to me.
It was one of the most bizarre times in my life.
About thirteen or fourteen years later, because of some (more) personal problems, she moved in with us for a couple of weeks.
She had a daughter then, who was about 12 or so.
This meeting was different for several reasons.
She was less pliable spiritually and less inclined to conform to the same strict standards we still followed.
She was an adult now.
She was not the confused, scared girl we had known before.
My wife and I, were having our own problems.
We were both interested in helping her, but the help we could provide would be different than our last encounter with her.
When she left us this time, it was the last time I would see her alive.
Then came the news this week – she was dead.
Suddenly.
Seemingly without a cause.
It had been years since I had seen her. (12?)
And I had gone months or years at a time without thinking of her.
But as soon as the sad news came to me, my mind flooded with memories of her and her time with our family.
I was surprised at the strength of my mental and emotional reaction to it.
That is when I realized the concept of Emotional Investment.
I had given her my heart – in a fatherly way, and she, in turn, had loved me and respected me as a father.
My wife had done the same, I am sure.
My wife and I had stood up to her when she had disobeyed, showing her the unconditional love she had failed to receive from her natural father.
She had submitted to the rules of the family.
Our children had loved and adopted her also.
The Emotional Investment was shared among us.
It had come from time spent with one another.
Sharing, opening up, giving, receiving, growing – individually and together.
And even though you separate and even forget about the person, you never really get away from the Emotional Investment you have made.
It is true of parents and children.
It is true of husbands and wives.
It is something that can sleep as if dormant, but just the mention of her name, and the depth and magnitude of the Emotional Investment comes alive again.
And you feel the love and commitment you gave and shared.
I felt it as I looked at the body of the woman in the casket today.
I never thought I would be in this situation.
But I was.
Looking at a woman that I had given my heart to as a father, so many years ago. (25)
Part of me did not want to look.
It was too painful.
I did not want to see her like this.
Another part of me wanted to see her again.
To rip the scab off my heart and feel the blood flowing and the pain again.
And tell her that her “other” daddy still loves her.
Her life did not turn out to be the one I had prayed for.
She never found happiness with a man, that I know of.
She continued to have problems with alcohol and drugs off and on, I heard.
And she never returned to the spiritual peace she once had, that I know of.
While some of this can be attributed to the traumatic events of her early teen years, much of it is the result of decisions she made.
She chose this life.
She chose a life that would end this way.
In spite of what the preacher said today, I do not believe she was saved.
I wish I could say otherwise.
And I hope I am wrong.
God knows for sure.
But just going on what I know about her life in recent years, I see an unhappy, unfulfilled life.
I wanted something better than this for her.
And that is part of what I did not want to see today.
An Emotional Investment is costly.
Friday, April 01, 2011
American Negrocentrism
Lately I was impressed with how many laws, social customs, legal and financial elements in contemporary American society have been affected by the minority Negro population here. To be more precise, many practices and processes of American society have been altered from a normal color-blind pattern of operation, based on the merits of each individual transaction, to an unbalanced distorted process imposed either by government or certain groups in society to avoid possible discrimination against those members of society with dark skin. This has caused an opposite effect where many operations and processes are openly tilted to favor the negro minority in this country.
Let me say up front that it is true that in times past, the negro population of this country has been treated poorly by some elements of the white population. Sadly, this was true even into the 1970's. Most of the black people who came to the United States in the first 100 years or so of our history did not come here by choice. Or at least, did not arrive here with the same freedom to choose their destiny that most of the caucasian population did.
Most of them were shipped here as slaves – as property – to be bought and sold by their owners, as they would a mule or shovel. Some slave owners were horribly cruel to their slaves, others were more kind, most were somewhere in between. There are plenty of stories of all types to document these statements.
But let's put some things in perspective. Slavery is not unique to the United States in the 1700 to mid-1800's. Slavery is nearly as old as mankind. It is a fact of history that the stronger of two families/clans/tribes/societies/nations will sometimes subjugate the weaker. It was happening before the United States came into existence. It is happening now around the world in various places. And Negros are not the only race being subjugated, then or now. In many cases, it has been African groups who enslaved other Africans.
Thus, the negro slavery experience in the United States was no better or worse than that of many other people in other places or times. This is not meant to diminish the inhumanity of it, but to provide some balance to a subject that has been distorted and perpetuated beyond its reality.
None of this is stated to diminish the repugnant circumstances that slavery entails. It is repulsive to me now and has been since I learned of it as a child. This was generally true in early America as well. Most Americans were not comfortable with the institution of slavery in their territory and many worked diligently to end it. Elections were won or lost because of the issue, laws were passed in new territories and states to prohibit its spread outside of the southern states. But it took a war to force an end to the social and economic system that had developed in the south. And in one sense, the social and economic wounds of the period of slavery in the United States have never healed. We are living with them to this day. Hence, this paper.
Basically, many customs of society and policies of governments in the United States revolve around the negro minority in this nation. The lingering white guilt over our past regional experiment with slavery has caused policies and customs of our entire nation to revolve around our relatively small negro population. In a real sense, this residual guilt and constant remembrance has stood American society on it head.
Consider this: when one buys a house, part of the transaction is a government-mandated certification by the lender that it did not discriminate in its selection process because the skin color of the applicant. This is done to force banks to provide loans to some people who cannot afford to pay them back or, if governed strictly by rules of prudent risk evaluation, would not be given a loan in the amount requested. But banks were forced to do this under threat that their charters would not be renewed by federal regulators if they did not engage in such risky transactions.
Companies must certify to the government under pain of large fines and/or lawsuits that they hire a certain percentage of black applicants. The code term was “affirmative action”. In reality it is simply compulsory hiring of unqualified people with dark skin. In a similar way, companies must go through rigorous and extensive steps to fire a black employee because of these same laws.
I personally know of one black-skinned person who was kept on the payroll of a large corporation for years because she threatened to sue the company for racial discrimination if they tried to dismiss her. She was incompetent, surly, uncooperative, and lazy. She did what she was asked if she felt like it and did nothing when that suited her. I personally saw her engaged in both types of activities at various times.
Colleges have developed reverse discrimination “affirmative action” programs to ensure that they have a certain percentage of black students attending their institution, even though many of these students are not academically qualified. They are there BECAUSE they have black skin, not because of their scholastic abilities. This is a monumental insult to negro students who DO have sufficient academic abilities to attend such institutions. The dropout rate of these AA trophy students is 85 percent. A testimony to the complete failure of these type of programs to produce anything other than theatrics for the media. These are the same people who have tried to stand the laws of economics and society on their head to enforce outcome-based programs in other areas.
Virtually all federal welfare programs are aimed at the poor portion of our negro minority. We have spent trillions of dollars funding housing, food, rental assistance, recreational facilities/programs, and job training programs for them. While it is true that some white families benefit from these programs, the majority of the recipients are black. Their proportion of participation in taxpayer-financed welfare programs is far out of proportion to their percentage of the overall population.
In addition to taxpayer-financed welfare programs, the negro population receives a large proportion of taxpayer-financed services in the criminal justice system. A greater percentage of black-skinned people are criminals than all other races in this country, as measured as a percentage of each racial group. Fully, twenty percent of all black men have a criminal record. This is double the average for other racial groups in the U.S.
Crime in many negro neighborhoods is rampant (and is spread outside them, as well). Some areas are so dangerous, that the police do not go in them during certain times. To this problem, billions of taxpayer dollars are spent on combating negro crime, out of proportion to that spent on crime by other individual racial groups.
There are special programs in government contracting to ensure that “minority-owned” companies are given PREFERENCE in the bidding for government contracts. Thus, a company that is not qualified to bid on a government contract because it does not have the capacity or expertise can be granted the contract simply because it is owned by a person with black skin. Again, “reverse discrimination” has stood normal economic processes on their head.
Fear of negro advocacy groups has abrogated some of our constitutional rights. For instance, when a local Housing Authority seeks to buy a property in a neighborhood (it is understood that the authority is going to place a negro family there because that is what they usually do), the citizens of that neighborhood cannot reverse the decision for fear that a lawsuit be filed by the federal Housing and Urban Development agency or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thus, the very fundamental operation of democracy is halted, for fear of Negro-centric legal action.
These social, economic and political distortions are primarily aimed at the American negro population. The Asian-american people do not need such social/economic crutches from the government to be successful in our society. Immigrants from India do not need such special hand-outs to be successful in our society. Most Latino immigrants to this nation, legal AND illegal, do not need any special social or economic provisions to become successful in American society. In fact, the fact that so many Latino immigrants choose to sneak into this country illegally is proof that American society is basically color/race-blind and will assimilate anyone willing to work to pay their own way. These non-black people settle into poor neighborhoods and begin work or school and gradually work their way up and out of the poorer areas and into middle class neighborhoods, with little or no government assistance.
The wording in many programs may say “racial” but most people see that its application is skewed toward “negro”. And, yes, other racial groups benefit from these programs to some degree, so the politicians and the networks can say, they were not just thinking of their most vocal and self-conscious minority constituency.
While I do not consider myself a “racist”, there are many people – both white and black – who will disagree. Most of these people are not objective on the matter. They have a vested interest in perpetuating a negro race-sensitive awareness in society. For it is with this negro hyper-sensitivity that they achieve and maintain power over both black and white portions of the American society. They are the new slave masters of America.
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and their white apologists need a perceived poor, suffering black population on which to stand to build their power. They need to constantly remind as much of the the black population as possible that they are still poor slaves because of the racist, rich white people who control the economy and seek to keep them poor. This is exactly what “reverend” Jeremiah Wright preaches. And these people need to constantly perpetuate the guilt of the white population by reminding them of the misdeeds of their ancestors. Through this dual deception, these leaders perpetuate the slave mentality in the black minority and the guilt-generated financing by the white population.
Any comments perceived as undermining their distortion of the racial situation in this nation is immediately, and loudly, labeled as “racist”. This epithet is enthusiastically disbursed by the news media because it will increase viewer interest for a day or two or three, and thus, prop up advertising rates. Thus, perpetuating the “racist” myth, is good for business. And no politician wants to receive such a label, no matter how absurdly applied. And it is almost universally applied to Republicans by the media and those whose power base is the downtrodden negro masses, who still believe it is their lot in life to be poor.
It is the reason that Rush Limbaugh was fired from an ESPN sports program because he stated that the reason player Donavan McNabb did not receive more criticism for his poor performance was because he was black. The statement, while just an opinion, was probably true, but virtually no one accepted the statement on its merits. All that could be seen or heard was the blind screeching of the New Slave Masters on the news networks of, “racist”.
It should be stated for further clarity and balance, that many Americans with black skin are not part of these distortions. This group could be as much as half the black population in the United States. Many have risen from poor beginnings to become productive members of our society. They do not see themselves as once-removed slaves and doomed to be wards of the state. Many grew up in middle class homes and have a value system dissimilar from those who live in the urban projects on the public dole. Children of these families are more focused on academics and career. And the young men know how to dress so that their pants stay above their buttocks.
Those in the previous paragraph notwithstanding, because of all of the above-mentioned distortions, it is sadly ironic that many Negros have become economic slaves to the white tax-paying population. The very outcome they have been (over)promised, and which then seek to avoid has been built around them by their leaders and “protectors”. A significant proportion of black Americans see themselves as unable - or are unwilling - to join with the productive majority of society, and are content to live off of the provisions given to them by guilt-responsive white politicians funded by the taxes paid by the majority of the white population.
So, in a sense, nothing has changed since 1860, except that negro slavery is no longer limited to 15 southern states.
Let me say up front that it is true that in times past, the negro population of this country has been treated poorly by some elements of the white population. Sadly, this was true even into the 1970's. Most of the black people who came to the United States in the first 100 years or so of our history did not come here by choice. Or at least, did not arrive here with the same freedom to choose their destiny that most of the caucasian population did.
Most of them were shipped here as slaves – as property – to be bought and sold by their owners, as they would a mule or shovel. Some slave owners were horribly cruel to their slaves, others were more kind, most were somewhere in between. There are plenty of stories of all types to document these statements.
But let's put some things in perspective. Slavery is not unique to the United States in the 1700 to mid-1800's. Slavery is nearly as old as mankind. It is a fact of history that the stronger of two families/clans/tribes/societies/nations will sometimes subjugate the weaker. It was happening before the United States came into existence. It is happening now around the world in various places. And Negros are not the only race being subjugated, then or now. In many cases, it has been African groups who enslaved other Africans.
Thus, the negro slavery experience in the United States was no better or worse than that of many other people in other places or times. This is not meant to diminish the inhumanity of it, but to provide some balance to a subject that has been distorted and perpetuated beyond its reality.
None of this is stated to diminish the repugnant circumstances that slavery entails. It is repulsive to me now and has been since I learned of it as a child. This was generally true in early America as well. Most Americans were not comfortable with the institution of slavery in their territory and many worked diligently to end it. Elections were won or lost because of the issue, laws were passed in new territories and states to prohibit its spread outside of the southern states. But it took a war to force an end to the social and economic system that had developed in the south. And in one sense, the social and economic wounds of the period of slavery in the United States have never healed. We are living with them to this day. Hence, this paper.
Basically, many customs of society and policies of governments in the United States revolve around the negro minority in this nation. The lingering white guilt over our past regional experiment with slavery has caused policies and customs of our entire nation to revolve around our relatively small negro population. In a real sense, this residual guilt and constant remembrance has stood American society on it head.
Consider this: when one buys a house, part of the transaction is a government-mandated certification by the lender that it did not discriminate in its selection process because the skin color of the applicant. This is done to force banks to provide loans to some people who cannot afford to pay them back or, if governed strictly by rules of prudent risk evaluation, would not be given a loan in the amount requested. But banks were forced to do this under threat that their charters would not be renewed by federal regulators if they did not engage in such risky transactions.
Companies must certify to the government under pain of large fines and/or lawsuits that they hire a certain percentage of black applicants. The code term was “affirmative action”. In reality it is simply compulsory hiring of unqualified people with dark skin. In a similar way, companies must go through rigorous and extensive steps to fire a black employee because of these same laws.
I personally know of one black-skinned person who was kept on the payroll of a large corporation for years because she threatened to sue the company for racial discrimination if they tried to dismiss her. She was incompetent, surly, uncooperative, and lazy. She did what she was asked if she felt like it and did nothing when that suited her. I personally saw her engaged in both types of activities at various times.
Colleges have developed reverse discrimination “affirmative action” programs to ensure that they have a certain percentage of black students attending their institution, even though many of these students are not academically qualified. They are there BECAUSE they have black skin, not because of their scholastic abilities. This is a monumental insult to negro students who DO have sufficient academic abilities to attend such institutions. The dropout rate of these AA trophy students is 85 percent. A testimony to the complete failure of these type of programs to produce anything other than theatrics for the media. These are the same people who have tried to stand the laws of economics and society on their head to enforce outcome-based programs in other areas.
Virtually all federal welfare programs are aimed at the poor portion of our negro minority. We have spent trillions of dollars funding housing, food, rental assistance, recreational facilities/programs, and job training programs for them. While it is true that some white families benefit from these programs, the majority of the recipients are black. Their proportion of participation in taxpayer-financed welfare programs is far out of proportion to their percentage of the overall population.
In addition to taxpayer-financed welfare programs, the negro population receives a large proportion of taxpayer-financed services in the criminal justice system. A greater percentage of black-skinned people are criminals than all other races in this country, as measured as a percentage of each racial group. Fully, twenty percent of all black men have a criminal record. This is double the average for other racial groups in the U.S.
Crime in many negro neighborhoods is rampant (and is spread outside them, as well). Some areas are so dangerous, that the police do not go in them during certain times. To this problem, billions of taxpayer dollars are spent on combating negro crime, out of proportion to that spent on crime by other individual racial groups.
There are special programs in government contracting to ensure that “minority-owned” companies are given PREFERENCE in the bidding for government contracts. Thus, a company that is not qualified to bid on a government contract because it does not have the capacity or expertise can be granted the contract simply because it is owned by a person with black skin. Again, “reverse discrimination” has stood normal economic processes on their head.
Fear of negro advocacy groups has abrogated some of our constitutional rights. For instance, when a local Housing Authority seeks to buy a property in a neighborhood (it is understood that the authority is going to place a negro family there because that is what they usually do), the citizens of that neighborhood cannot reverse the decision for fear that a lawsuit be filed by the federal Housing and Urban Development agency or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thus, the very fundamental operation of democracy is halted, for fear of Negro-centric legal action.
These social, economic and political distortions are primarily aimed at the American negro population. The Asian-american people do not need such social/economic crutches from the government to be successful in our society. Immigrants from India do not need such special hand-outs to be successful in our society. Most Latino immigrants to this nation, legal AND illegal, do not need any special social or economic provisions to become successful in American society. In fact, the fact that so many Latino immigrants choose to sneak into this country illegally is proof that American society is basically color/race-blind and will assimilate anyone willing to work to pay their own way. These non-black people settle into poor neighborhoods and begin work or school and gradually work their way up and out of the poorer areas and into middle class neighborhoods, with little or no government assistance.
The wording in many programs may say “racial” but most people see that its application is skewed toward “negro”. And, yes, other racial groups benefit from these programs to some degree, so the politicians and the networks can say, they were not just thinking of their most vocal and self-conscious minority constituency.
While I do not consider myself a “racist”, there are many people – both white and black – who will disagree. Most of these people are not objective on the matter. They have a vested interest in perpetuating a negro race-sensitive awareness in society. For it is with this negro hyper-sensitivity that they achieve and maintain power over both black and white portions of the American society. They are the new slave masters of America.
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and their white apologists need a perceived poor, suffering black population on which to stand to build their power. They need to constantly remind as much of the the black population as possible that they are still poor slaves because of the racist, rich white people who control the economy and seek to keep them poor. This is exactly what “reverend” Jeremiah Wright preaches. And these people need to constantly perpetuate the guilt of the white population by reminding them of the misdeeds of their ancestors. Through this dual deception, these leaders perpetuate the slave mentality in the black minority and the guilt-generated financing by the white population.
Any comments perceived as undermining their distortion of the racial situation in this nation is immediately, and loudly, labeled as “racist”. This epithet is enthusiastically disbursed by the news media because it will increase viewer interest for a day or two or three, and thus, prop up advertising rates. Thus, perpetuating the “racist” myth, is good for business. And no politician wants to receive such a label, no matter how absurdly applied. And it is almost universally applied to Republicans by the media and those whose power base is the downtrodden negro masses, who still believe it is their lot in life to be poor.
It is the reason that Rush Limbaugh was fired from an ESPN sports program because he stated that the reason player Donavan McNabb did not receive more criticism for his poor performance was because he was black. The statement, while just an opinion, was probably true, but virtually no one accepted the statement on its merits. All that could be seen or heard was the blind screeching of the New Slave Masters on the news networks of, “racist”.
It should be stated for further clarity and balance, that many Americans with black skin are not part of these distortions. This group could be as much as half the black population in the United States. Many have risen from poor beginnings to become productive members of our society. They do not see themselves as once-removed slaves and doomed to be wards of the state. Many grew up in middle class homes and have a value system dissimilar from those who live in the urban projects on the public dole. Children of these families are more focused on academics and career. And the young men know how to dress so that their pants stay above their buttocks.
Those in the previous paragraph notwithstanding, because of all of the above-mentioned distortions, it is sadly ironic that many Negros have become economic slaves to the white tax-paying population. The very outcome they have been (over)promised, and which then seek to avoid has been built around them by their leaders and “protectors”. A significant proportion of black Americans see themselves as unable - or are unwilling - to join with the productive majority of society, and are content to live off of the provisions given to them by guilt-responsive white politicians funded by the taxes paid by the majority of the white population.
So, in a sense, nothing has changed since 1860, except that negro slavery is no longer limited to 15 southern states.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)