Do You Really Want to Run That Light?

The difference between the so-called first world and the third world is the pervasive belief in and adherence to the rule of law.  The so-called second world was those countries under communist rule where the law could not be ignored unless you were a high ranking party member or stoolie.  Even those exceptions had better watch their back in case their protector was disgraced or turned on them.  In our culture the rule of laws commands the culture, except, of course, where it doesn't, and that is where we all must be careful.
     The street is where I see both the best examples of the adherence to the Rule of Law and the erosion.  In a country of three hundred million, it can be going both ways at once.  When we drive in our cars, most of us adhere to the speed limit laws within ten miles per hour (always over).  We are all aware that the police will definitely enforce the speed limit laws, more in some localities than others, but for the most part, we self-police ourselves because of the Rule of Law.  Even more of us adhere to traffic signal laws, more out of necessity of safety.  Unfortunately, because the of the erosion of the rule of law, both of these examples of adherence to the rule of law are eroding.
     There are so many cars on the road, the police cannot possibly ticket all of the speeders.  Automotive technology is so advanced, it is not only reasonably safe to exceed the speed limit, you barely notice that you are breaking the limit.  Notice all of the portable radar devices that post the speed you are driving as you drive by.  Aren't you often surprised you are going so fast?
Intersections are quickly becoming more and more dangerous, not only for drivers, but for pedestrians as well.  How often do you approach a traffic signal whose green light cycle has ended and the light turns yellow and your reaction is to speed up instead of slow down.  Yellow used to mean "caution", a word that should mean "slow down and be careful."  Now it seems to shout, "Hurry up or you'll miss the light and be stuck at this intersection, needlessly."  But this is not as dangerous as the people that ignore that the yellow light has changed to red and charge through the intersection as if to say,"I am exceptional:  the light cycle allows for up to three cars to go through on red without any consequences."  The rule of law as well as reality do not allow for this.  When the light in the cross direction turns green, people go.  They do not wait for the "exceptional."
     The rule of law is also ignored by banks and corporations.  I'll give it to them that they pay lawyers outrageous fees to find ways for them to push the envelope of the law in their corporate actions.  The lawyers can find the arcane exceptions or interpretations of the laws that allow the banks and corporations to do what they want to do, despite the intent of the law.  Legislators and other leaders ignore or evade the rule of law as well.  See the reference to the "exceptional" above.  These erosions of the rule of law may well be more dangerous than running red lights at intersections.  When the People see that their Leaders do not respect the Rule of Law, it allows them not to take as seriously.  This is where the erosion begins and adherence to the Law is only done when it is convenient.
Do not go too far the other way.  A totalitarian or police state like Myanmar or North Korea uses excessive prohibitions and enforcement to attempt to control their populations.  Law enforcement in these societies has the power to over-interpret the laws to the detriment of the People.  My thrust is that a culture runs smoother, is more stable, and is much more productive if the general population buy in to the notion of the Rule of Law, whether they realize it or not.  Japan might be the best modern day example of a smoothly running society where, generally speaking, people  obey the rules and laws to the benefit of the the society.
How do we reverse the course of this trend.  The same way you get any society to improve in any way.  Education.  Education down to the youngest level and constantly, through the media, in the arts, and everywhere, all the time.  It must be the highest priority.

It is always time to write.

     There is always more to say.  It is not that I must say it, but much more needs to be said.  Ideas must be promoted.  They must be stated and flushed out.  Positive, creative ideas, necessary to further life, vital to making it tolerable, pleasurable.  Ideas about making food taste better are always welcome.  Story ideas must constantly be generated.  What about building ideas?  Political ideas, as contentious as they must necessarily be, must continue to come forth.  There may be room for bad or destructive ideas.
    Good can come from a crucial destruction.  But preservation ideas must be unfolded as well.  Old things and places must be preserved, if they offer the wholesome, positive, and possibly inspire.  Lessons can be learned from storied places where terrible things have happened.  Once again, story is all important.
    Art is very important.  Old art twisted into the new.  Completely new concepts always need trying in the light of day.  New mediums have to be invented.  The young are good about throwing off the old to present their new light.  They must be allowed, encouraged and funded, if necessary.
The wealthy are obliged to encourage with support.  Of course, they will fund what pleases them.  Even the wealthy must be pushed to look with different eyes.  Their purses must be teased open with the forbidden.  Their vaults unlocked for the shocking and awakening.  Some who embrace the boring must find the original, even in the familiar.
Nothing changes much. That is to say, there is nothing new under the sun.  But fresh new attempts must always be made.  Even new sunrise is an opportunity.  The annually different light ray angles bring us previously unseen colors and textures on a daily basis.  Winds coming from different directions bring us familiar sounds, slightly changed.  We must ask why and how.
Questions are key to unlocking our imaginations.  They must be encouraged.  If one is tempted to say, "That must not be questioned!", a why is obligatory.  The most sacred is also profane.  The laws of physics are only laws until it is conceived how they can be broken, hence quantum mechanics.
The brilliant must be funded.  The controllers must be restrained.  The stodgy shaken.  Structure is fine, but that which is unstable can be sustained for a little while, if only to make a point.  There is that which must remain serious, but always be ready to laugh.  Just to see the word "laugh" is to see a word whose spelling no longer makes sense, though correct.
Remember, there are seven billion of us.  Perhaps only one billion have the opportunity, the luxury to create.  Those of us who can, must.  The number of thinkers is much less, I think.  Maybe only one hundred million.  Still, that is many, many thinkers.  Don't think the rest won't get in the way.  They do every day, trying to  survive, trying to thrive.  The mundane must be allowed as well.  The farmers must be encouraged to be themselves, even if they don't want anything to change.
You gotta love those who "sticks in the mud."  They stubbornly cling to their habits and values.  Mistaken, they think their lives can remain the same, always, if they spend  their energy and imagination trying to keep anything the same, though everything changes, usually sooner than later.  Let the conservative believe that they can hold on to what they imagine will never leave them.  They too, think about how to hold on, accidentally coming up with the original and not recognizing it for what it is.
Writers must write.  Painters must paint.  Sculptors must sculpt.  But, just as importantly, painters must write, and sculptors must make music.  We must unbind ourselves.  The ropes of words must be cut, or untied and made into bows.  We must stope commuting and begin to travel.  Turn the televisions off and begin to act.
Someone once created a cinematic metaphor showing how lives are destroyed by the "Nothing", when people stop using their imaginations.  At the time I thought that was the most important thing I could teach my daughter as a child.  I was not so wrong.  Imagination is everything.  It allows us to hear the music, see the colors, and enact the drama.
Continue on with your lives, but write or draw or photograph.  Pull those ideas out of yourself.  They are not waste, but byproducts of love.  If not love, the eggs of what could be.  These are the reasons to continue.

     Who Are You Calling Redundant?!

     This past week, I accepted a job after being conventionally unemployed for six and a half months.  That is what the media and the government call "long term employment".  I did receive a severance payment, bi-weekly from my former employer, after signing a very intricate and Orwellian contract, the terms of which I am forbidden from revealing, per the terms of that contract.  My revealing that they paid me a severance may well have violated the terms of that contract, but hey, I'm living on the edge.  After working at the same place for thirty years and eight months, my reward was, as the company reported to the Ohio Employment Bureau, there was "no work", and my salary for six months for not coming to work.  Not bad for me, financially speaking, but spiritually and emotionally disturbing from my perspective.  In my own mind, I was being unproductive and a drain on the resources of the facility where many of my friends remain to this day.
     Inasmuch as I averaged about fifty hours per work, I'm not sure where the "no work" finding came from.  It may have been that the day the human resources director and the vice president I reported to, told me my job had been "eliminated" in the "management restructuring", the money used to pay me and the other twenty four managers, directors, and staff was re-directed to pay the new CEO.  My guess is that the combined earnings of those twenty four people would just about cover his salary.  Hmmm?
     Returning to the daily routine of work after a prolonged absence makes me feel like I was ill for six months, rather than diligently applying myself to the task of finding a new employer.  But, in fact, I physically feel better than I did when my "redundancy" was declared on March 31st.  Although my weight has increased a few pounds, my blood pressure has actually dropped by about twenty points systolic.  I would have felt much better about the whole thing if my former employer and myself had come to an agreement on my taking a "package" instead of them saying there was no more work for me, somebody else would do what I was doing, and I should just go away.  One cannot help but take it personally.

I Don't Feel Like Writing-Buster and Me

Is it possible to live your life today, without measuring time.  Can we get rid of calendars, watches and clocks?  Sure, this is possible.  Do we want to do this?  No.  How's that?
There are times when I should only write short passages.  Sometimes I should only write small paragraphs, especially on days like these when I have nothing to say and do not really do not want to write at all.

A dialogue:
Me:  I don't want to write 750 words today.  I have nothing to say.
Buster:  But you said you were going to take the challenge in July, and succeed.
Me:  I don't care what I said.  I am canceling my participation, today, --now.
Buster:  I reminded you like you asked.
Me:  No you didn't.  You wrote a program.  What we get is automated e-mails.  You're not fooling anyone.
Buster:  You said, "I really want to practice writing.  I have to write a novel, and get it published.  That is my goal."  Didn't you say that?
Me:  Yeah, well . . .I can do that later.  If I live to be 85 and it takes me five years of writing to get a novel published, I can start writing in a couple of years.   I've waited all this time.
Buster:  750words.com was created to help you with your writing.  If you don't write, it has no reason to exist.
Me:  Sorry for your luck.  You might want to create some more programs and websites.  Foreign languages are popular.  Why don't you create a 75 foreign words a day website.  Spanish is a favorite.
Buster:  Come on.  It's just 750 words.  Three pages. You've done 12 days in a row already, this month.  You could churn it out on those days.  What is special about today?
Me:  I'm the special thing about today.  I'm saying no.  No way.  Not doing it today.
Buster:  So many other people do it all the time.  Little old ladies, children, blind people, amputees, people who work two jobs, CEO's.  People write against all odds.  What are you, a wimp.  Are you wimping out?
Me:  Uh, I wouldn't call it that.  Free will.  I'm exercising my free will.
Buster:  Most philosophers, today, say there is no free will.  Everything is pre-determined by what we are made of and our individual situations.
Me:  Man, you make it hard.  What if I get somebody else to do it?
Buster:  You can do what you want.  The only person who really cares beside me is you.  You have staked your own integrity on doing this.  Writing every day and writing thirty one days in a row.  You told yourself you could do it.
Me:  Aw, now your playing dirty.  You're turning me in to my better self.  That's low down.
Buster:  I've worked people through this before.  You can do it.  Sometimes I have to get rough.
Me:  Whew!  I'm beat.  I think I'll turn in.
Buster:  No, no.  I'm not falling for that.  You still have to do the work.  You still have to write for today.  Then, tomorrow you'll have to do the same thing.
Me:  Damn you, Buster.  You catch me at every trick.
Buster:  You're not even close to being the best trickster.  I've had people threaten to turn me in to my wife, claiming I was having an affair with them.  Somebody else said they were going to turn me in to the U.N. claiming I was enslaving them.
Me:  Okay, I'm just about ready.  I'm starting to get the urge.  Tell me some more of people's tricks to get out of writing.
Buster:  A lot of people just type other people's words.  Some even copy and paste.  What is that doing for their writing ability.  I ask you.
Me:  Those people have a lot of nerve.  They're just cheating themselves.  Don't they understand?
Buster:  Exactly.  That's what I'm saying.  Who are we doing this for anyway.  It's not for me.
Me:  I'm getting some ideas.  My fingers are starting to twitch.
Buster:   There's really nothing to it.  You can write about anything you want.  Only you  are going to be able to read it.  Do you think I'm reading this drivel, this piffle.  I've got a life, thank you.
Me:  But, I thought, you might. . . you know . . . every once in a while . . . just to check to see how the website is working.
Buster:  Are you kidding?  That's what I have interns for.  Get writing.  It's after 9pm already, and you are one of the slowest writers, according to the statistics I'm keeping on you.
Me:  I know.  Hey, I've been meaning to talk to you about that.  Also, the quality of my writing.  Who are you to judge the quality of my writing, computer boy?
Buster:  It's my website.  I can do what I want.  I'm taking your picture with your webcam also.  You know you make funny faces when you write?  Sometimes you stick your tongue out.
Me:  Hey! You don't say anything about that on the website.

Not Enough Caring-I'm Speaking Out Nevertheless

Commentary tonight, concerning the state of marriage and college instructors.  How many marriages fail, between couples who married young.  Then the young husband teaches for 5, 10, 15 years and is attracted or captured by a young female undergrad or graduate student.  The first marriage ends and a new one ensues.  Often, children result from the second marriage.  There may be children from the first, but they usually go with the first wife.  Women find this phenomenon deplorable unless they are the younger second wife.  It looks like biology to me.   The younger women win out over the older women.  In middle eastern cultures, and older asian cultures, the older, first wife would hang in there and continue her position in the household, if at a secondary status.  I'm sure the intra-household politics was killer, sometimes literally.

Second commentary-At this writing, the final NASA space shuttle mission is underway.  There will be no more.  Thanks to a lack of interest, or the military industrial complex running this country, NASA's programs have been pushed to the back burner.  What has replaced pure science was the pure bullshit of W's administration, faux nation building, or what it used to be called, imperialism.  Where is the government's participation in pure science.  It is minuscule or non-existant. There is no prescription for how much the government should be sponsoring pure science, but it looks like the Apollo program did not hurt this country.  Greed and lust for power have won out again.

Third commentary-During the last forty years or so, the federal government has, through legislation, extended the country's debt limit sixty-three times.  It will need to be done, again, within the next three weeks.  Most people think it is a foregone conclusion, a fait accompli, but not me.  The Republican Congress vows to exact both tax cut continuations and government program cuts in exchange for increasing the debt limit.  The Obama administration believes they can get a deal to close tax loopholes for corporations and the ultra-rich to raise revenues without giving the Republicans anything in return.  They are wrong.  The Republicans will prevail or the deadline will pass, and there will be a default on the debt owed.  That has never happened, and nobody really knows what that will mean if it does, but it is my opinion that defaulted debt will trigger world wide economic collapse, the like of which has not been seen since the Great Depression, when the government also thought that what it legislated would make no difference.  Tune in August 3, 2011 for the results.  I will need to write the result for my own update.

Commentary 4-I am no scientist.  I am no ecologist.  Nevertheless, I feel comfortable predicting continuing global disasters in weather, environmental disaster like floods and earthquakes, and manmade ruin from manufacturing byproducts, and attempted oil, gas, and coal extraction.  This is no great observation on my part.  Any thinking person can observe and say the same thing.  The next coming disaster will be the lack of drinkable fresh water to serve the needs of 7 billion humans.  Already, water resources are being wrapped up like buyable commodities.  The majority of humans should not allow this.  The worlds fresh water belongs to everyone, and the animals and plants have a say in this as well, if they could say anything.  Their say will be in their deaths.  If they don't have enough water, they will die.  If plants and animals die, humans will follow.  Ignorant human beings will learn the definition of ecosystem, the hard way.

These are my views and do not represent the views of any organization or company, because none are paying me.  There actually may be organizations that hold the same views, but I am saying these things on my own, because they need to be said.  Newspapers cannot afford to say these things anymore.  Their owners won't allow it.  Big business has not figured out that they can only continue to make their obscene profits if people buy their products and services.  Unfortunately, dying and dead folks do not need to buy goods and services.  You cannot sell cattle and hogs that do not thrive.  You cannot sell corn and other produce that will not grow.

I would agree to publish these views if asked.  I will actually put them in my unread blog.  Nobody wants to hear these views.  The actions required to reverse or alleviate the situations take too much time, effort and money.  People are not impressed with the problems to work out the solutions.

Congratulations on 100 years, IBM

My first personal computer, albeit used, was a PS-1.  I bought it from the hospital I worked for at the time for a song, when they bought brand new ones.   I learned some Basic.  I downloaded some programs my friends had and new ones they wrote.  I really thought I was going somewhere in the computer industry.  Okay, that didn't happen, but I can work my way around one now, and I know own several computer devices, mostly Apple products, sorry IBM.  Still I thank you piquing my digital curiosity.  You helped to draw out my professional aspirations and provide me with the basis for my current use of computers, primarily the internet, ITunes, and movies, with a few spreadsheets and some Word docs thrown in.  Thank you.  Sorry about the whole Nazi thing during WWII.  I believe you when you say that evil wasn't what you had in mind.

Jim's Rules

Purpose:  Rules to aid in the pursuit of a sometimes happy and productive life:

I.  A golden rule type policy involved with treating people in the way that you would like to be treated.  Fairly deep, fairly important.

II.  Engage in violence only when there is an imminent threat to someone you should protect or yourself.

III.  Get plenty of exercise to prolong your life.

IV.  Keep your life organized, neat and efficient.

V.  (The rule to be listed last, if this list is ever completed.)  Be on the lookout for significant rules to accomplish the purpose.

VII.  Maintain a strong social network.

VIII.  Remain close to civilization. and be as civilized as you can be, according to your own standards.  (Note to self:  Create standards)

IX.  Keep writing to sweep away the cobwebs and to practice how to express what your mind is thinking.

X.  Do not take unnecessary risks.

XI.  Steal from the lists of other's rules as needed.  You can't have enough guidelines to be a success to yourself.

XII.  Speed up occasionally.  Slowing down is an inevitable process of aging.  Speed up to stay ahead of this process.

XIII.  Maintain capital in a nearby, safe location.

XIV.  Maintain the ability to earn more capital, if necessary.

XV.  Eat responsibly.  You know what that is.

XVI.  Be faithful to all of your commitments unless they expire or become invalid.

XVII.  Be impeccable with the Word, or word.

XVIII. Do not assume, or be aware when you are assuming.  No auto-assuming.

XIX.  Do not take things personally.  They are rarely meant that way.

XX.  Say please and thank you.  See Rule #VIII.

XXI.  Always do your best.  What are you saving it for, and if it's not worth giving your best, question why you are doing it at all.

Obligatory Observations

For those of us who observe and comment with any amount of education, experience of age, or simply, a small amount of artful articulation, there is an obligation to do so, responsibly, and with a certain amount of frequency.  I have a great deal of professional health-care experience.  There are topics in health-care I am obliged to comment upon them simply because I have that experience and expertise.  Specifically, I know about pharmaceutical supply and medical supply costs and how obscenely profitable these industries are in the U.S. thanks to the insurance industry and the medicare system.

Because of the way both of these institutions have operated in the last forty years, double digit inflation is the standard operating procedure.  Most American just accepted these outrageous increases until the banking crisis and resulting recession in the last three years.  Now we know these kind of cost rises cannot be sustained and should not even be proposed.  Both the medical insurance industry and Medicare/Medicaid will have to accept little or no increases in payments.

Since I know this and can make this observation, it is incumbent upon me to do so for my readers.  Fortunately, at the moment, I don't have any.