Greetings visitors to About.me. If you clicked on "Read My Blog" send me a short email to let me know. This is my first advertisement of any kind. I am testing About.me for its ability to promote. They send me emails, but I really can't tell if anyone sees the page. If only a couple of people send emails, I'll keep it. Most people will visit the page and not say anything. If a couple of people send email responses, then I'll know a dozen visited.
It is fairly evident that I have little confidence in my writing, and even less in my promotional pursuits. Blogging is self publishing. Blogging is often under-edited and unsolicited. Mine is the latter and somewhat edited. I edit as I write. There is one or two read throughs and then I hit the "Publish". There is no discussion. Maybe that is what I am lacking. If there was discussion or pre-publishing reading, then may I would have something. But I have found no one interested in what I have to say.
Today's post is a test and half hearted one at that. Send me an email, or a comment to the blog. I'll keep writing either way.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Monday, December 19, 2016
Donald Trump is President Elect
December 19, 2016
This is only the second post of "Wading Into the Stream" for 2016. The first was just a video filmed by my niece. It was a video review of my father's ninetieth birthday party in May. She did a great job and I am proud of her and my Dad.
Today I write about the Presidential election of 2016. To review, after a grueling Primary season, Hillary Clinton, Democrat, ran against Republican, Donald Trump. All of the pundits and experts were shocked and amused by Trump's outrageous campaign, but on Election Day, they predicted Clinton would be the victor. To more than half the voters amazement, Trump won the electoral vote. Clinton received well over two and a half million more popular votes than Trump did, but he became the President elect.
The College of Electors met and voted today, officially electing Trump. This man will be President of the United States. A great many extremely smart, accomplished, successful people are afraid of the various probable outcomes of his administration. They have spelled them out in endless articles, blogs, interviews, speeches, and by now, even books. The people Trump has nominated and has spoken of appointing to his administration represent many kinds of backward, destructive, divisive, earth-destroying, profit driven, bizzarely religious, and wantonly immoral ideas that American public figures have expressed in the last thirty years.
Several of these people have failed at the highest offices and jobs they achieved. A couple were fired. One or two were nearly prosecuted. And among these individuals, it is my opinion, based on what I have read, seen, or heard, most of which, I assume, is factual, Donald Trump is the most likely one to have committed serious felonies. I think it is only a matter of time before his crimes are exposed. Even with a Republican House and Senate, I think he has the best chance of being impeached and removed from office. That is, assuming those who supported and voted for him don't rise up in civil war, which is a remote and horrible possibility.
This is only the second post of "Wading Into the Stream" for 2016. The first was just a video filmed by my niece. It was a video review of my father's ninetieth birthday party in May. She did a great job and I am proud of her and my Dad.
Today I write about the Presidential election of 2016. To review, after a grueling Primary season, Hillary Clinton, Democrat, ran against Republican, Donald Trump. All of the pundits and experts were shocked and amused by Trump's outrageous campaign, but on Election Day, they predicted Clinton would be the victor. To more than half the voters amazement, Trump won the electoral vote. Clinton received well over two and a half million more popular votes than Trump did, but he became the President elect.
The College of Electors met and voted today, officially electing Trump. This man will be President of the United States. A great many extremely smart, accomplished, successful people are afraid of the various probable outcomes of his administration. They have spelled them out in endless articles, blogs, interviews, speeches, and by now, even books. The people Trump has nominated and has spoken of appointing to his administration represent many kinds of backward, destructive, divisive, earth-destroying, profit driven, bizzarely religious, and wantonly immoral ideas that American public figures have expressed in the last thirty years.
Several of these people have failed at the highest offices and jobs they achieved. A couple were fired. One or two were nearly prosecuted. And among these individuals, it is my opinion, based on what I have read, seen, or heard, most of which, I assume, is factual, Donald Trump is the most likely one to have committed serious felonies. I think it is only a matter of time before his crimes are exposed. Even with a Republican House and Senate, I think he has the best chance of being impeached and removed from office. That is, assuming those who supported and voted for him don't rise up in civil war, which is a remote and horrible possibility.
Friday, June 3, 2016
Sunday, December 28, 2014
No Dramatic Results, Please
Politics in the United States of America has slowed the legislative process to a near stop. I would speculate, without a poll, that most Americans would say, if asked, that there are laws that need fixing and social problems that could be solved only by legislation. American government needs to get to work to fix the things only government can fix, and right away.
Yet what is the problem? Better yet, what are the problems that prevent government from functioning? First of all, there is far too much money involved. Whatever is successfully legislated, creates or costs enormous amounts of money. Corporate America or worldwide corporations are far too large and far too powerful to allow any significant legislation to affect the bottom line.
The second problem is that significant legislation usually affects a large number of people. People are afraid to do this anymore. Even well paid members of Congress refuse to risk this.
Finally, backlash from significant legislation is so huge, mail volume, email volume, media hype and anti-hype, that no one wants to be responsible for it. Congress would much rather leave things as they are. If the government is minimally functional, that is good enough for them. As long as the rocket of government is inching along towards its gantry, it will be a long time before it takes off.
Yet what is the problem? Better yet, what are the problems that prevent government from functioning? First of all, there is far too much money involved. Whatever is successfully legislated, creates or costs enormous amounts of money. Corporate America or worldwide corporations are far too large and far too powerful to allow any significant legislation to affect the bottom line.
The second problem is that significant legislation usually affects a large number of people. People are afraid to do this anymore. Even well paid members of Congress refuse to risk this.
Finally, backlash from significant legislation is so huge, mail volume, email volume, media hype and anti-hype, that no one wants to be responsible for it. Congress would much rather leave things as they are. If the government is minimally functional, that is good enough for them. As long as the rocket of government is inching along towards its gantry, it will be a long time before it takes off.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
The Best People are the Best Americans
It is so easy to post a social or political opinion these days. So many people do it. I am doing it now. But many people exclude or demean groups or individuals they are against. Political foes, other races, and other religions are very common targets of hate, or just being labelled, "other". Is this necessary? If love and happiness are any part of reality, should we all not wish our fellow human beings these states of being, first and foremost? Yes.
If you are, in any way, intelligent, then pointing out the differences between yourself and those who differ from you is unnecessary. If you are smart, you will know that you will be more appealing if you are humble and let your actions speak for you.
If you are, in any way, intelligent, then pointing out the differences between yourself and those who differ from you is unnecessary. If you are smart, you will know that you will be more appealing if you are humble and let your actions speak for you.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
The Game of Online Genealogy
When I began to look at my family history in 2008 I was earnest about finding accurate records of my relatives as far back as I could. I had many family stories and hundreds of photos with which to begin. Then I found Geni.com. After entering my family's essential information, name, where and when they were born, date of death, and in some cases, a photo, I started to find relatives who I did not enter into the system. My family was growing.
The next six years found me entering an occasional distant relative I had neglected. But more often, I started collecting new relatives that other people had entered. I possess family records that go back six generations in three lines of my family. The other lines were not that extensive. Just for context, six generations got me back to the 17th century, in terms of time. What the millions of people participating on Geni.com did for me was to trace my family back to the 13th century or further.
I learned a few tricks for searching for relatives like Googling possible relatives, then plugging them into Geni. This way I found how I was related to Confucius and even Biblical figures. Let me stop, at this point, and say that not all of Geni's records are accurate. Surprise! Of course many are inaccurate. When I found the first King that was my 21st Great Grandfather, I knew there were inaccuracies. It didn't matter. Searching for interesting relatives like William the Conqueror and Charlemagne became the game and it did not matter how accurate the results were.
Geni made it easy to collect relatives. I stopped collecting 18th Great Grandparents when I had more than eighty. Then I started doing the math. Typically, people have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great grandparents, and on and on. At your tenth great-grandparents, you could potentially have 4096. At eighteenth, the number is 524288. That is, people could have as many as a half million or more eighteenth great grandparents. The real number is impossible to know because at a certain (unknown) point, the same person can be a great grandparent and great great grandparent at the same time from different relative perspectives. It can be extremely complicated. You'll have to trust me, or ask a real genealogist.
Pope Gregory X 1210-1276
The game continued when I found that you could pull up your family tree, horizontally, on Geni.com, and then follow one line as far as there were relatives. It didn't surprise me when I traced my line back to Ostrogotha "The Patient", King of the Goths. My family can be very uncivilized. But when I found I could directly trace myself back to Pope Gregory X, 1210-1274, my 23rd Great Grandfather, then I knew it was all silliness and I had to treat this as a game only. I hope all of the genealogists forgive me.
The next six years found me entering an occasional distant relative I had neglected. But more often, I started collecting new relatives that other people had entered. I possess family records that go back six generations in three lines of my family. The other lines were not that extensive. Just for context, six generations got me back to the 17th century, in terms of time. What the millions of people participating on Geni.com did for me was to trace my family back to the 13th century or further.
I learned a few tricks for searching for relatives like Googling possible relatives, then plugging them into Geni. This way I found how I was related to Confucius and even Biblical figures. Let me stop, at this point, and say that not all of Geni's records are accurate. Surprise! Of course many are inaccurate. When I found the first King that was my 21st Great Grandfather, I knew there were inaccuracies. It didn't matter. Searching for interesting relatives like William the Conqueror and Charlemagne became the game and it did not matter how accurate the results were.
Geni made it easy to collect relatives. I stopped collecting 18th Great Grandparents when I had more than eighty. Then I started doing the math. Typically, people have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great grandparents, and on and on. At your tenth great-grandparents, you could potentially have 4096. At eighteenth, the number is 524288. That is, people could have as many as a half million or more eighteenth great grandparents. The real number is impossible to know because at a certain (unknown) point, the same person can be a great grandparent and great great grandparent at the same time from different relative perspectives. It can be extremely complicated. You'll have to trust me, or ask a real genealogist.
The game continued when I found that you could pull up your family tree, horizontally, on Geni.com, and then follow one line as far as there were relatives. It didn't surprise me when I traced my line back to Ostrogotha "The Patient", King of the Goths. My family can be very uncivilized. But when I found I could directly trace myself back to Pope Gregory X, 1210-1274, my 23rd Great Grandfather, then I knew it was all silliness and I had to treat this as a game only. I hope all of the genealogists forgive me.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Opinion without Education
If you are not educated enough, you are not going to learn anything from me. I will write my opinions each month, but do not make the mistake of thinking that I will teach you anything. Teaching was never going to be one of my objectives. If you need more education and you know it, you are my kind of reader. One can never have enough education. Learning must continue ad infinitum. Unfortunately, this forum, "Wading Into the Stream", is not educational and will never seek to educate its readers. Those who came here for that will just have to try somewhere else. May I suggest Khan Academy.
My writing is expression of thoughts, opinions, ideas, and just-plain statements that occur to me, that I suppose you may have not verbalized for yourself. You may have come close to thinking the same thing yourself, but not quite. If you say to yourself, "I always thought that, but I've never seen it in print before," then I am on the right track. Many people have said I have a knack for stating the obvious. Wait a second. That is not a compliment, is it?
While studying English Literature at the University of Cincinnati, many years ago, I decided that pursuing teaching as a profession that English majors fell back upon when real jobs could not be found, was not a place I ever wanted to be. And I have not been able to land a full time job for seventeen months, now. Nevertheless, I'm sticking to my guns and will not pursue teaching unless faced with homelessness and starvation. Thanks for supporting me, Suzie. You are the real teacher.
_________________________________________________________________________________ March will bring my one thousandth blog view. Thank you to all of my readers. You guys are the best. But you didn't know you were exclusive. Most worthwhile bloggers celebrate their one millionth or ten millionth readers. Not me. Very few people have read this blog. I do not market this blog. I do not collect any revenue from it, at all. (And I have no income, at the moment.) Finally, I have only mentioned it to a few people. It is, more or less, a secret. No need to forward this to anyone. It is not funny, and definitely not educational.
So those of you who are reading this and those of you who have read more than one posting must really want to be here. I salute you!
My writing is expression of thoughts, opinions, ideas, and just-plain statements that occur to me, that I suppose you may have not verbalized for yourself. You may have come close to thinking the same thing yourself, but not quite. If you say to yourself, "I always thought that, but I've never seen it in print before," then I am on the right track. Many people have said I have a knack for stating the obvious. Wait a second. That is not a compliment, is it?
While studying English Literature at the University of Cincinnati, many years ago, I decided that pursuing teaching as a profession that English majors fell back upon when real jobs could not be found, was not a place I ever wanted to be. And I have not been able to land a full time job for seventeen months, now. Nevertheless, I'm sticking to my guns and will not pursue teaching unless faced with homelessness and starvation. Thanks for supporting me, Suzie. You are the real teacher.
_________________________________________________________________________________ March will bring my one thousandth blog view. Thank you to all of my readers. You guys are the best. But you didn't know you were exclusive. Most worthwhile bloggers celebrate their one millionth or ten millionth readers. Not me. Very few people have read this blog. I do not market this blog. I do not collect any revenue from it, at all. (And I have no income, at the moment.) Finally, I have only mentioned it to a few people. It is, more or less, a secret. No need to forward this to anyone. It is not funny, and definitely not educational.
So those of you who are reading this and those of you who have read more than one posting must really want to be here. I salute you!
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