1976 Swine Flu Propaganda

OMG! We are all going to die!

Swine Flu and Some Perspective

The Department of Homeland Security is now in the medical business?

Arlen Specter To Become Reborn As A Democrat

After more than 40 years as a Republican, Arlen Specter recently announced he will run as a Democrat in his 2010 re-election bid for the Pennsylvania Senate seat. Here again is proof that the difference between the two parties is so incredibly slight that a career politician has no problem switching sides.

In a statement, Senator Specter explained his change of heart was due to his support of the stimulus package.

“When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing.”

Seriously, who could be against putting our children and grand children into debt to pay for our debt-driven lifestyles? Who else can we turn to but government to keep our housing over-valued? Our houses have become our piggy banks, after all.

Interestingly, the CBS News is reporting that, according to a January poll, Specter “was trailing Republican Congressman Pat Toomey 41 percent to 27 percent among (Republican) primary voters in the state.” So has Specter had a change of heart? Or did Specter just be jump ship to save his political career?

How could I be so skeptical?

We lost something along the way

As I get older, I find my mood tends to swing more and more to the nostalgic. More "personal history" keeps popping up in my weekly newspaper column, I have gotten very involved with the Kittson County Historical Society and the museum, and I just tend to reminisce a lot more than I used to.

I am not sure if this is a good thing, or just another sign that I am sliding into the "Senior" generation. More likely the latter. The thoughts that occupy my mind today are directed at things like ending a career for more leisure, staying on top of social security (which is financed by Libertarians like Dane, of course), and managing my cash to make it all possible. I haven't got to the point of worrying about Depends yet, I think that comes much later in the process.

But in the course of all of this I tend to recall the days of my youth, growing up in Karlstad at a time where kids had more freedom to roam and get into minor trouble without their parents directing them to remain dirt and germ free.

Things have changed. Not that I would like to go back to those times, the present has a lot of positives, but there aspects that I do miss. Today, parents do have a lot more to worry about than did mine. However, at least some of their worry, I believe, is misdirected. For instance, my folks worried very little about the germs I came in contact with on a daily basis, they bathed us every Friday whether we needed it or not, and food labels did not even contain ingredients.

And somehow we not only survived, but remained fairly healthy as well.

We had the run of the town as kids, and roamed wherever the day took us. When I was five years old, I walked across town to the movie theater each night, then walked home in the dark once the movie was over. No one would dare allow a child to do that today. But it was a more innocent time, people were less mobile, and all the nuts lived in the big city, so it was okay.

We have, out of necessity, become more protective of our children, and even ourselves, and we have had to give up a lot. Although my children got a little taste of that freedom, my grandchildren will never know it at all.

I feel a sense of loss in all of this.

Food That May Kill You

The other day, while reading the ingredients to the lunch I was heating up, I began to ponder the wisdom of consuming it. I almost always feel better when I limit my eating to something containing only three or four all-natural ingredients. I try to stay away from packaged and canned foods. You never know exactly what you may be dumping into your body.

This lunch was a great example why. Here are the ingredients (with nothing added, edited, or left out):

enriched wheat flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), vegetable oil (contains one or more of the following: canola, cottonseed, palm) preserved by TBHG, salt, soy sauce (water, wheat, soybeans, salt) potassium carbonate, sodium (mono. hexameta, and/or tripoly) phosphate, sodium carbonate, turmeric...salt, monosodium glutamate, sugar, maltodextrin, hydrolyzed corn, wheat and soy protein, dehydrated vegetables (garlic, onion, chive), spices, natural flavor, turmeric, powdered cooked chicken, cabbage extract, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, lactose. Contains wheat, soy and milk ingredients. Manufactured in a facility that also processes shellfish and fish products.

Can anybody tell me what disodium guanylate is? Or even what these crazy ingredients are suppose to resemble when all mixed together and cooked up?

Anyway, after much self-deliberation, I was hungry, so I ate it. Honestly, I am not sure if my internal organs are rapidly dissolving or are now preserved to out-live the rest of my body for centuries to come.

Kind of Blue (In A Happy Way)

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the best selling jazz album of all time, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. 1959’s classic is a great starting point for someone getting to know Miles Davis for the first time. I, on the other hand, started with a bit more than I was ready to absorb.

My Miles Davis journey almost ended before it started. A couple of decades ago, I decided to “expand” my musical tastes by randomly picking up some old jazz albums. At the time, I was feeling my tastes were pretty limited--alternative, punk, college radio, an occasional classic rock album--typical middle-class, white college kid stuff. One of the first jazz albums I picked up was the Miles Davis Bitches Brew album. Hated it. Listened to it once, then exiled it to the bottom of my musical pile.

Ten years later, I ran into it again, dusted it off, and put it on. Over the preceding decade, I had forced myself to listen to more and more jazz, so I was ready for it this time. In fact, it was almost a religious experience. For some reason, I just got it. To this day, Bitches Brew is one of my all-time favorite albums.

Miles had a lengthy career and evolved through many styles, but the albums he put out starting in the late sixties have always been my favorites. 1969’s In A Silent Way, although more subtle than the albums to come, was his first full blown jazz fusion album. John McLaughlin, who may be my favorite guitar player of all time, met Miles the night before they went into the studio. Miles was so impressed he invited him to show up.

And if you think jazz is not for you, check out Right Off (listen to it here) off of 1970’s documentary soundtrack A Tribute to Jack Johnson. It opens with John McLaughlin improvising riffs on his guitar. Awesome stuff.

And finally, Miles released 1970’s Bitches Brew, which was greeted much like Bob Dylan’s foray into electric, with mixed enthusiasm, to say the least. But over time, it became one of his best selling albums and recognized as a turning point in modern jazz, influencing musicians of all genres for decades to come.

If you don’t know Miles, check him out. And if you are as slow as me, stick with him. You will understand him eventually. And Happy Anniversary Kind of Blue.

Life Is Not Fair

My family and I are in the process of selecting this year's recipients for The Dane and Jean Nordine Memorial Scholarship Fund. We are sorting through applications, reading essays about community service, and, ultimately, selecting two winners.

Going through this process every year, I can't help but remember some sage advice about some rules that kids won't learn in school. The list used to circulate on the internet about a decade or so ago and was often falsely attributed to a Bill Gates graduation speech. The actual author is Charles J. Sykes, who wrote the book Dumbing Down Our Kids.

It is still very acute advice, even if "a $40,000 salary", a "Gap label", and a "car phone" date it a bit...

Some Rules Kids Won't Learn in School
By Charles J. Sykes

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase, "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grand-parents had a different word of burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.

Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4)

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interesting in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now.

You're welcome.

Numbers

I know I may be boring people with all these unthinkable numbers, but I can't help shake my head every time I see something like this. I can only ask you this, when you have put too much debt on your credit cards, what do you do? Get more credit cards? Well, that is exactly what your government is doing. We have become a debt-based economy. What is government's answer to fix it. More debt.

The exact figures in this video can be challenged. But those details do not change the reality. The Republicans and Democrats have come together to financially ruin this country.

Dirty Socks and Unnecessary Harassment

Everyone needs to take heed of this video. Give up a little liberty here and there and the next thing you know, these are the kind of idiots that will be "guarding" our safety...

Many see the TSA as a bunch of bumbling idiots that make people remove their shoes in the name of security. That is how it starts, seemingly harmless and just an inconvenience. As time goes by, these idiots start to think they have more authority than they really do. They abuse people's liberties out of their own sense of importance and growing power.

The TSA needs to be eliminated before it evolves into an American version of the Nazi's Gestapo. They are an unnecessary and incompetent bureaucracy. The only thing they are successful at is getting people's socks dirty...

How I Feel Today

So, I really haven't contributed at all to the blog since late January. It has been a heck of a year so far, and there is more to come, both good and bad.

Anyway, this is how I feel today - summed up in some of my favorite little verses.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by.
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.

I would not sit in the scorner's seat,
or hurl the cynic's ban;
Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
And be a friend to man. -Foss

Try to be more sympathetic toward your fellow humans. Be less quick to anger or judgement. As very adeptly written in this blog, life for many has become more difficult. Sadly, it will likely get worse before it gets better. Look beyond yourself and see if anyone needs a hug, a meal, a buck or two, some kind words, or simply a smile. At times, throughout the various trials that are placed in front of us, a small act of kindness just might make the difference to someone. Remember that you might be the one chosen - you might be the catalyst. One can never be too busy to live unaware. I feel pretty calm and happy today. I hope that you do, too! Have a good day!

The Dangers of Fear and Apathy

I have always been fascinated by how people react politically in society. As the saying goes, people tend to vote with their wallets. In other words, they vote for whoever they think is going to make them "better off" financially. I am not saying this is a bad thing. After all, I believe in personal responsibility. I believe people need to do what is best for themselves. After all, you can not help others if you do not take care of yourself first. But short term financial gain should always be viewed with it's long term consequences.

The federal government is spending over a trillion dollars to artificially prop up housing prices (and silly me, I thought affordable housing was a good thing), so that Americans can continue their debt-driven consumerism. As I have stated often, debt is slavery. We are allowing our government to enslave our children and grand children so we can continue to live beyond our means today.

Our economy has collapsed because a housing-based debt bubble has burst. Rather than recognize the errors of our ways--namely, basing our economy on consumer debt rather than American worker productivity--our government is trying to re-inflate the bubble by keeping interest rates artificially low and dumping tons of tax-payer money into failed institutions and poorly run companies.

More importantly, by looking to the government to "save" us from bad economic times (and terrorists), we become blindly willing to hand over our liberty for some kind of ill-perceived "security".

I know this may be melodramatic, especially to those who know my almost paranoid distrust of the Bush/Obama big government mob-rule mentality, but I can't help but look back at history's lessons from pre-WWII Germany.

The German people did not allow Hitler to come to power because the general population was somehow "evil". Hitler came to power because people wanted a government solution to the economic devastation their country had endured for over a decade. Hitler seemed like just the charismatic leader the country "needed".

Martin Niemoller, a German pastor and ardent anti-communist, originally supported Hitler's rise to power, seeing him as being good for setting Germany's economy straight. Although Hitler was anti-communist, he was a nationalist, and soon consolidated all economic power under the government's control. (He even had the power to fire CEO's of private auto makers! Unthinkable, I know.)

When Hitler expanded the government's power beyond the economy, it was too late for Niemoller and his fellow clergymen to do anything about it. Hitler's power was irreversible by that point. Martin Niemoller was imprisoned and remained so until freed by allied forces in 1945.

Niemoller became a prolific speaker after the war and is credited with a poem that I remember seeing displayed at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC a few years ago:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

The lesson is simple. We need to stop seeing ourselves as special interest groups that can be politically divided and start seeing each other as individuals. It is not us (as groups) versus each other. It is us (as individuals) against them.

More government spending not only exasperates this current economic situation, it means more taxing, more debt creation, more slavery of the citizenry for generations to come, and ultimately, more power for the government. We can solve our economic crises, but more power to the government means less power to the individual. That is the wrong answer to our problems.

As Bush used the fear of terrorism to rescind our personal liberties, Obama now uses our fear of economic security to deplete our economic liberties.

Our country doesn't need a "leader" (German word is "fuhrer") to get us out of this economic mess. Our country needs a free market and a government that respects individual liberty above all else. We the People are the solution. The government needs to get out of the way.

Do not let the powers that be use fear and apathy against you. Freedom requires personal responsibility. Be wary of where you seek help, because the best answer is yourself.

The North Dakota Flood

If I am ever trapped in a natural disaster, FEMA can stay home, send me a few thousand North Dakotans...

I found these Boston Globe pictures on my friend Carolyn's FB page...

Levels should be cresting today.