We care about the planet and about landfills and the oceans. Actually, the planet is not at risk, it is a huge rock spinning in space. The problem is us life forms, we will be the ones suffering. I watch a lot of TV because I am old and retired and have a major back problem and so many commercials show products that we can, “just throw it away”. More and more we allowed ourselves to be a Throw Away society. We all have to accept responsibility for every product on the market. If we buy them, then we support it. Examples are all the “wipes” that we are aware of and Swifters different products , that are all throw aways. I watched a commercial that inspired me to write this. The product is a light that catches bugs and captures them on a small sticky pad. I saw that and the light bulb went off, because that is how my brain works. I watch and observe and think about it and allow the inspiration to happen. I bet, that within the past 20 years. that we have been offered 100 new throw away products. We used to use rags to clean with and rinse them and reuse them and later throw them in the clothes washer. Now we all use paper towels. It doesn’t matter if the towels are made from trees or recycled paper, they all wind up in the landfill. Of course the paper will break down quickly but those wipes are going to take a lot longer. When I was a kid in the 1950’s, we threw away our kitchen garbage in paper bags. We did not have paper towels and soft drink came in glass bottles that we recycled. Over time we all opted for the convenience of plastic. I have some plastic bags that are biodegradable. These bags are used to toss away kitchen garbage that is food waste. Our city is now adding that to our recycle items, but they have removed some plastics from the list. I know that there are problems in the recycle industry with recycling various plastics so these will fill the landfills very quickly. There used to be companies that set up drop off trailers that paid people for glass and aluminum. These all seemed to have vanished and I don’t know why. I probably could research it and find out. I think that all of this comes down to money. It always comes down to money.
MEDIA CONTROL
People are freaking out about Elon Musk owning Twitter but they forget that Mark Zuckerberg owns Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram so what’s the big deal ? This world is controlled by the people with the most money. Money is the means to power. The very rich have always controlled the world and we know it, but we just forget some times. No one has to be on social media, it’s totally a choice. We share information about our personal lives, pretending that we are linked into the social realm. We share all this information on a public forum that is shared all over the world and then complain that our information is no longer private. Look, folks, use your head and stop putting your information on social media if you want privacy. There are ways to keep your info more private. I only use social media to share my artwork. I never post personal pictures or my personal info. Humans are TRIBAL by nature and we need to feel connected to the “tribe”, as it where. We know that every “news” source has a political bias and we go to it for our news anyway. I am a staunch advocate of ending all political parties because they are designed to divide us into two camps. This system just causes problems and serves as a wall, that limits progress. I would like my blog to get more followers, so if you can share this and help me, I would love that.
Things That I Think Of When High
My Poetry Day
VITRIOL IN THE RANKS
This all started when Barak Obama was president. The GOP party all signed a statement that they would block any of Obama’s bills. It didn’t matter what the bill was, they were against it, just on principal. That negative attitude has persisted into the Biden administration. The GOP has proven itself to be the party of hatred and negativity. Trump took this attitude to an even more extreme place. Certain members of the GOP party were hell bent to destroy the Democratic Process. They didn’t care if the entire government was going to go down. The word “sore loser” keeps popping up. I do not know where this attitude is going to direct this country. There are plenty of things that America needs to be working on and the GOP is sitting on their hands. They are spoiled children that are willing to bring it all down if they cannot have their way. I do not know why anyone would vote for any Republican right now. They are following their alleged, elderly leader, who lies with every word. Facts do not seem to matter as long as they can sell their messages of hate and division. The Republican Party has said repeatedly, that they have no current agenda and they are running on being the “against” party. They will keep attacking Biden and the Democrats on every issue. This is NOT how our government is supposed to run. Issues can always be argued and have a centered compromised result. That is how intelligent mature people work. I certainly hope that our future improves but I really do not see it happening as long as Trump is dragging his party down.
A MATTER OF OPINION
Everyone has one. Opinions, that is. We all want to voice our viewpoints and we all want to be heard. Since the internet came along, everyone suddenly had a place to post their thoughts and try to find a place to post it. I use to love the old Chat Rooms. I spent way too much time on an Atheist chat room under the log in name of, Noah’s Cabin Boy. I had a lot of great friends there and we had a lot of fun bantering around our thoughts. We made up this little game called the Penis Game. This involved taking the name of a movie or song title and changing a word and inserting the word “penis”. An example of that was, Honey I Shrunk the Penis. I recall laughing out load at some of the things that people would come up with. I recall that when ever I logged in to that chat room I received a very warm welcome. I certainly do miss that place. Today we have Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, being the most popular, as far as I know. These places are not even close to the camaraderie that was shared on chat rooms. Chat rooms didn’t have advertising interruptions and someone just trying to make an impression by posting some weird meme that they copied from somewhere else. I am an artist and I have the advantage of creating my own memes whenever I like. I recently found a great free website that I use to make Gif files so that I can make my memes move. This isn’t one of those meme makers that people use to post 2 versions of a picture, so that it just flips back and forth. This website allows me to post as many versions of artwork as I want to. I can make 5-6 movements of a character and really have fun with it. But, enough of that, what I want to say is that todays social media seems to be filled with a lot of mean comments. There are a lot of pissed off people that are desperate to post their vitriol to the world. Sure, everyone has a “bone to pick” and we all want our voices heard, but most of the posts are only seen for a few minutes and then they are archived in the list. No one wants to go through a long list of back comments. Then there are groups and we can follow groups of commenters, and at least it puts us into places of similar ideas. Facebook was originally designed by some college boys to post their sophomoric ratings of their fellow college girls, by how hot they were. Who knew that one of those dudes would turn it into a multi- billion dollar empire. This just shows how anxious that people were to find a place to express their opinions. We use Facebook to share pictures and chat with our family members and that is great. Today, people seemed to have stopped calling each other and we text a message, instead. I don’t ever use my phone. I rarely communicate with my siblings and my parents are now dead. It seems that when the parents have died that the adult children reduce the amount of connections that they once shared. It is hard to guess where all of this technology will lead. What I do know is, do NOT accept what you read on the internet as some form of “truth” or fact. Do the research and check around and read all that you can on the matter. People love to criticize the major news media as “fake” news but then I ask, “what is real news” and how would you recognize it.
MY DREAM
I recently had an inspiration about us humans. I was thinking about how, we are observed by others and what do they see, compared to what we think that they see. On the whole, humans are very similar, on a broad sense. We have the same anatomical shape and facial constructs. There are obvious differences in our hair colors but everything else is similar. But, when we get very close to the observations of us humans and study the very, many physical and mental nuances, the differences are astounding. Our facial structures allow us to shape our expressions into endless twitches and creases. We can express an emotion with the slightest muscle movement. The many facial conditions that we study in our mirror from a man’s beard to a woman’s eye brows, offer so many different choices Most people with a full head of hair, spend hours and lots of money, on the design and color of their hair. Hair designs change over time. depending on someone’s age. Hair design can alter our perception, to what the world sees. Hair design can change our confidence and stability. How we dress is the most important choice that make each day. The choices for both men and women are endless and change as fads come and go. Some people follow the popular trends, very closely and then there are those that could care less, but ironically, that look of not caring, becomes it’s own look. There are many people that claim that they don’t care how they look or what people might think. These are people that happen to have a large mirror near their front door. People want to liked and observed and know that everyone will judge them by their appearance. Our speech is also an important part of our character. The sound of our voices and the pronunciations of the words are quickly noticed. Some accents come off as charming coming from certain people. So, to conclude my thoughts. we humans live in a society that constantly observes and forms opinions based on our physical appearance. We may go to great lengths to show the world our best self. The world may have a completely different judgement of our appearance and our personality, than what we have think.
LIVING IN A FANTASY
About 80% of the world’s population lives within the delusion of a fantasy God that can fix all of the problems. They believe in an afterlife, and that is the basis for religions. They think that after they die, their body will be transported as a spirit into some imagined place in the sky. They think that in their spirit form, that they will be united with everyone that died. There is no conclusive evidence to support any of this but that does not affect their thinking. Humans, as I have reported in the past, are Tribal by nature. People cling together with like minded others. They fear strangers, as they should, for their own safety. We people, join groups and organizations to feel connected. We spend hours on social media sharing parts of our lives to family members and “friends” that we found. Humans want to feel connected with the “tribe”. We have a religion, mainly because our parents indoctrinated us into their religion. We have the belief that there is some god figure that watches over us. There is no way to prove this but that does not weaken their faith. Once someone has been brain washed by a religion, they willingly support it with total loyalty. Our minds can easily be trained after our birth to believe anything. With the strength of a popular religion holding you under their spell, people can be manipulated easily. When a religion is overwhelmingly practiced by everyone that you know, and you live with the belief that the vast majority of the population around you shares with you, you never doubt any of it. It’s that Tribe connection that I mentioned. If, someone does have doubts and looks around for others that also have doubts, they feel more comfortable in their lives. Religions binds you so tightly that the members are not allowed to express any doubts or question the rules. I know all about this in my own life. I was a doubter in my early teens and I questioned in my own mind. I was able to break free but with lots of guilt. Every religion began with one man that, either thought that they had a vision, (so they said) or some other inspiration. With this delusion in their minds, they shared their vision with others and slowly their religion took root. Anyone can start a religion based on an invisible, inaudible fantasy deity and give it unlimited powers. This is how every religion begins. So now we have billions of people living within these fantasies all over the world. Some countries are ruled by a single religion and the people are treated like slaves to that belief. They talk about free will but then they never allow it. The Tribal connection becomes so strong at this point, that the people are like robots that willingly follow the leader.
My History
I thought that I would write a little about my history. I was raised in Winnetka, Illinois, for any Jazz enthusiasts, there is an old song called, Big Noise From Winnetka. Winnetka is a nice little suburb of Chicago, along Lake Michigan. When I was a kid it was a mix of blue collar and white collar families. Now, it is strictly white collar. When I got finished with my mandatory military service around 1963, I started a little head shop with a close friend. The name of this shop was Spectacle. We moved this shop to a better, more high traffic town called Evanston, where Northwestern University is located. We had literally started the shop with about $1000 bucks or maybe less. We sold the usual pipes and papers and black light posters and incense. It was a lot of fun but we did not make much money. About 2 years later, I had this dream about starting an Army surplus type store for younger people. Back in the hippy days, teens and college kids were wearing Army field jackets and Navy pea coats. It was a kind of reverse play on the protest against the Vietnam War. There was also a fad for American flag neckties and sew on flag patches and anything related. This was the very ominous beginning of the Youth Market and we were in the thick of it. We did open the clothing store in a recently available location, around the corner of our head shop. The space was previously a non-profit coffee shop and they had left a bunch of those old wooden cable spools that people made table out of. We used these to display clothing on. Our surplus shop was done with the minimal amount fixtures and expenses. I made the outside store sign out of some scrap wood that I found. This store was called Khaki Bros. This was a tongue in cheek reference to the old traditional army surplus stores that were always called something like, so-in-so brothers, etc. I went to art school for 2 years and everything that I did, reflected my creative nature. This store, unlike the head shop was making money. We found a man in Chicago that had a huge warehouse filled with old clothing. I always wondered how he accumulated this all. I thought that maybe he bought the overflows from stores that accepted donated clothing. He showed me this huge machine that he used to bail up old men’s wool suits, that he sold, by the pound, to India. There was this market out there that I never knew existed. He used to bring me army surplus clothing and he turned out to be a great source. His wholesale prices were very cheap. It was funny, because when he was working in this huge dim lit warehouse, he wore overalls, but when he dropped off clothing, in his Cadillac, we wore a nice suit. He lived in the nice suburbs and wanted to make a good impression, amongst his neighbors. I think that you get the picture. He would sometimes surprise with some odd foreign surplus that we just loved. There was this one group of white duck, canvas, 3/4 length army coats from Sweden, with natural sheep wool collars, from WW2, and some of them were still brand new. The most popular clothing was still the army field jackets and the ones we got were from WW2 and many still had the army patches on them. We had a great time with this shop. We were so cheap, that for price tags, we used the reverse side of some fliers that we found and cut them into little squares and stapled onto the garments and wrote the price with a black felt marker. Yes, we were recycling, before it was even popular.
There was a movement back then, among young people, to get out of the city, and live in more rural areas around the country. This was the time when folk music was taking hold and the idea of living on a farm or the like, was very popular. We were also very influenced by this idea and we decided to sell our 2 stores and move to Aspen Colorado. Aspen is only about 4-5 square blocks of it’s downtown region. We located a space there around 1969, and the plan was to continue the army surplus idea, but that was beginning to wane in popularity, so we merged into just good old casual clothing like blue jeans. Aspen had a local town look of faded jeans and flannel shirts and hiking boots. We grabbed onto that look and we had both men’s and women’s clothing. We found a great location and over a few years, it really took off and lasted for 25 years, when my partner and I, parted ways. He kept the store for a while and I moved to Carmel California, where my wife’s parents lived. Long story short, I had a few retail stores, some good, some not so good. I still live in this area and I am retired. I had a very good life, thus far and I still create art and do some writing.
PODCAST MAY BE MY FUTURE
I am trying to reach more people and spread REALITY among a world drowning in falsehoods. The lies being spread because of the many social media platforms is amazing. The word “truth” has lost it’s way. Facts are as rare as they can be. Everyone offers up their version of facts. Politicians just make shit up and try to pass it off as facts. Honor among thieves has disappeared. Sure, I can get out my words and some people will listen. People tend to believe what they want to. Facts are kind of like music. There are many versions out there and people pick what sounds good to them. We make up our own realities and then live within them. There are a lot of podcasts out there and each one is a little different. People choose whatever reality fits their vision. I think that I have a unique reality based on experience and an artistic vision. I hold a vision of a peaceful planet. I know that war can be stopped with the right mindset. People create wars and we follow the leaders that are greedy and corrupt. Power is the game. Power corrupts. Once a person attains the power to have people following their words, they own the power. Most dictators force loyalty by fear and they rule with an iron fist. Dictators ignore empathy and compassion and see them as a weakness. Treating people with kindness seems to weaken their hold on the power. I may or may not create a podcast.
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