Does it Track?

The government needs more power.

If the government had more power, then they would be able to work EVEN MORE magic than they already do. A smaller government would decrease their power to give us all this fabulousity.

Size is so important to Our Government as to be omnipotent. There is a war on. That means we need a military. We need to protect ourself against the enemy. The enemy is called ‘terrorism’. Since our enemy has neither a face nor a place, military spending must be unlimited. That is the only way to ever rid the world of all the evil that just might be coming out of your neighbor’s stereo system at this very moment.

Healthcare: Since everyone needs healthcare, the government simply needs to increase spending in order to regulate more insurance (thereby creating more pharmaceutical outlets) enabling everyone to be on drugs: If you are 5 and figity, you are ADD. Ritilin or some other wonderful drug for children will be put into the General Consensus Soup, spilling out onto our playgrounds and coursing through our public school systems. This will eventually create a need for psychiatrists at every school, justifying even still yet more money for bigger government.

The bigger, better – new and improved – larger government is welcomed as an increased benefit for taxpayers. The monstrous vats and coffers required to pool, skim, and subsidize our increased needs are demanded by the voters.

Here’s the sales pitch: Until the government gets close to 90% of all the wealth in this country, it will just not be able to operate properly. (And I have only begun to touch on some of the expensive stuff.)

Is it just us, or is this Government tailor-made for an ailing country?

People are as healthy as they are un-medicated. Whenever pharmaceuticals increase, populations become less healthy. The current healthcare system is to thank for our medication dependence and subsequent decrease in overall health.

Not to be outdone, our government wants a piece of the action.

Enter: Obamacare. Once this kicks in, more and more medicated people from all walks of life will be wandering aimlessly in hospital corridors waiting to be given their latest prescription, enabling the pharmaceutical company profits to skyrocket even further. The moment Obamacare reduces pharmaceutical use in the USA, I will bow, and insist everyone else does the same.

Any idea needs to follow a line of reasoning which makes sense throughout. Ideas need to ‘track’. For example: if you go to the doctor and you are healthy, you don’t come away with a prescription do you? Imagine your doctor saying: “Hey, everything is great. Just fantastic! I am going to put you on these meds… just to make sure that doesn’t change.”

Does it track: Does this seem to track with your experience? How many people do you know who are on one med, and one ONLY? The argument that ‘we are living longer’ is paid for by the system that administers these drugs. Yes we are living longer, but – – is that really because of all the 90-somethings scoffing down 17 prescriptions a day?

Increasing the time before life expires does not increase the life modern medicine has managed to sustain.

The internet is fabulous for those who use it properly. However, what is ‘proper’ is completely unregulated by government. Am I the only one who believes hard-core pornography shouldn’t be instantaneously accessible to anyone with internet access? The Government has done nothing to crack down on free internet pornography, but not to worry: they do keep tabs on all we do here.

While I can’t fathom the internet was invented to allow the government to keep tabs on all of us, what a spectacularly invasive Governmental Glom! Henry Ford never created the automobile with the idea of restricting our freedom, but that is what a ‘motor vehicle’ does. Unregistered ‘freedom’ likely results in large financial penalties, or even jail time. Any perceived freedom comes at a cost far greater than your registration, or the gas at the pump, or the plane ticket.

In the 21st century, your movement costs you your freedom.

Our government doesn’t need to design invasive entities. They need only to regulate the inventions. This allows their Orwellian Fingers to grope every skin-tag in our lives. You can’t buy your way out, either. The more money you have, the more invasive technology pervades your life. Poor people are just too damn hard to track. Why do you suppose that is?

ABORT THE MISSION: The abortion issue is easy if you don’t care about life. I think parents should have the right to abort their child when they are in Middle School: “Sorry, son. Your mother and I have been reevaluating. On second thought, forget your mother… I have been reevaluating.”

Look at the News: Fox News gets a bad rap. The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, The Chicago Tribune, and all the other forms of information gleaned from a source called ‘media’ are controlled by the same corporations. As a result, news programs are largely responsible for dumbing down America. Interestingly, the most reliable source of information is the internet – – which (overall) has a lower reliability than the media outlets. (It’s a quantity thing).

Behind the scenes, our Democratic President is mucking up our country.

‘Say one thing, do another,’ is the battlecry of politics. ‘The people will fight our battles for us. We can just sit here in Washington lapping up champange with the opposing party.’ True partisanship is in the college electorate. A candidates speech defines their beliefs as much as William Shatner’s world view is defined by the words he uttered on Star Trek.

Before you pull the levers, do some research. I am not talking about the issues themselves. The issues are just ‘talking points’ designed to make the pavlovian electorate drool with common conviction. Real research comes from finding the funding filling the campaign trail coffers. You can’t be The American Cancer Society and have a great deal of funding come from Philip Morris… can you?

I like Ron Paul, but this is his swan song. The enormous funding sources aren’t interested in someone they can’t control. He means what he says, and nobody is going to fund that disaster. Where does his campaign money come from? (Hint: it’s not Big Business.)

The words spoken by politicians don’t reflect who they are, and what they believe. Politicians on the campaign trail only utter what they believe will get the vote. Why else would every elected president be full of promises which pop like bubble wrap? A few years later they hold up their tattered bubble-wrapped promises, and point to the two (intact) bubbles – the promises kept – stating, “I keep my promises.” While farcical, it rings of truth, right at election time. (Ain’t that a coincidence?)

Ayn Rand. George Carlin. Frank Zappa. They were the last of the true free thinkers. I don’t know of anyone alive who gives me confidence in the future of our society. America has become a sloth of sedentary beings – operating on pre-packaged ideas – fueled, funneled and funded by the government.

Happy voting!

Bin Laden

THE Guru Of Evil. The good ol’ USA has hoisted him up to levels undeserving of such paucity. But don’t expect that sheer adulation to end anytime soon. This country is enamored, and our government wants us to stay that way.

Celebrating a death never defines the deceased, it defines the celebrant. We simply must get over ourselves.

It amazes me how badly the bulk of us miss the mark. There is great power in ignorance. That is the power of a 3 year old playing in the middle of a busy street. Ignorance is dwarfed, however, by the power of ignoring: This power presents itself in the form of the parents who allowed their child to be in this predicament. Then there is the power of goodness. This is exemplified by the person who stops their car, gets out, stops traffic, scoops up the kid and returns the child to their parents.

Unless you would drive around the kid – or run them over – you are one of the three.

We all fall prey to these variations, from time to time. There is no getting around it. We don’t always pay attention. We aren’t always at the top of our game. Our human frailty is not a weakness, it is our greatest strength.

Get over yourself.

After 9/11, I spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out how to keep ‘what happened’ from happening again. That was me, staring at my ceiling September 15th at 3:00 AM. I could also be found waking up September 20th at 4:00 AM thinking of how this event could be prevented in the future. Then again on the 22nd. Again on the 25th. I didn’t get much sleep at all that month.

I couldn’t get over myself.

As the Government rounded up the troops to bomb areas of Afghanistan, I was trying to figure out how to keep someone other than the pilot from flying a plane.

Obviously, I missed the boat.

The media sold the story of our victimization. Bin Laden had an agenda, and we were victims. We needed to gather some patriotism, pour in a generous dose of hatred, and begin the bombing. Then the media would keep the public’s attention on terrorists, and training camps, and information gleaned outside the scope of the terrorist networks.

Face it: if we had inside information, the problem wouldn’t exist.

Always looking outward for a solution is a blame game. That is what we have been caught up in ever since. While making it possible to completely ignore reality, blaming and victimization go hand in hand. Responsibility always acknowledges truth, and accepts the burden. You can look to others for inspiration, but you cannot lead except by example.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: hard to have any of it without responsibility.

Look at your own life. Tell me all the success stories you have had from blaming someone else. I’m not saying bad crap hasn’t happened, for surely it has. I just want to know how your fault-finding victimization created success in your own life. Can you give me an example? Even one?

As a schoolchild, perhaps you were blamed for something that another kid did. Perhaps you were able to shirk off the blame, and throw the responsibility on the kid who slung a rubber band at the back of Molly’s head. But this wasn’t success, you simply avoided blame. If the other kid fessed up, he came out looking better than you! He took responsibility. You shirked responsibility, while placing blame.

The whole thing is wildly unfair.

While Bin Laden’s arsenal was far more dangerous than an unguided rubber band in a classroom, shirking responsibility yields correspondingly similar results. The structure doesn’t change, only the stakes do.

Bin Laden’s capacity never scared me nearly as much as the free-range fly zone over our nation’s capitol nearly an hour after two major terrorist attacks. One of these is gone. The other can only be secured through responsibility.

Security has been tightened at airports. Now, despite millions of frequent flyer miles, you or I can be groped like a private lap dancer in front of disgruntled passengers. This wasn’t the ‘responsibility’ I was hoping for. Box cutters weren’t the reason for the terrorist attack.

I think Pilots should have seats which weigh them. When they get up, only their exact weight will be able to fly. In addition, there needs to be a code every time a pilot sits down. Without that code, the plane goes on autopilot. Needless to say, Pilots should have a monitor, with a camera looking into the cabin.

So we have been wrong for 10 years, but now we are all right.

As George Carlin said, “We like war! We’re a warlike country. We’re good at it!” But our vulnerabilities are as wide as the Grand Canyon. While my trust in our government wasn’t changed knowing we corralled Bin Laden in under a decade, implementing the ideas I mentioned would help me sleep. Once we are able to ignore Bin Laden – thus giving him the attention he truly deserves – I will celebrate heartily.

I like to think I can make a difference.

I need to get over myself.

Faith & Love

Let’s kill the mother f***er who has the gall to love us.

I was pushed into Catholicism – at 7:30 AM mind you – from a very early age. I was forced into St. Mary’s Catholic School on North Street in Greenwich, against my will. That lasted one semester. After a brief hiatus at GHS, I was in college and free from the confines of organized religion. I was not to return until age 37, when I met Father Gene, and subsequently got married in a Catholic Church. Father Gene re-established my faith, and even made me feel good about Catholicism. He retired a few months ago, and I am struggling with my religion, once again. The Catholic Church is so full of scandal that it is hard to feel any sort of loyalty to it.

But my loyalty is not to the Church. It is to the faith. I share my faith in Jesus with my wife, Taryn. I share my religion and faith with my daughter, (though my wife insists our beliefs are really Protestant.) Father Gene believes the semantics don’t matter.

Protecting priests who sodomize children has transcended the church: this is Catholic Legend. This is Sickness in Motion. This practice is so far removed from The Message, it reams the sphincter of Christian consciousness. The covert sexual conduct of Priests – and the Church protecting them – is not indicative of The Faith.

I have faith in Christ, and I attend Catholic service. My attendance does not make me a supporter of these actions. Paying taxes is not the manifestation of my support for the government’s actions, or their use of the funds garnished from my labor. There is a marked difference, though: Unless you regard jail time as a valid option, taxes are not optional. Church attendance is. So sue me.

A Jihad is not right, but neither is bombing those who are wrong. Warring factions are always – without exception – misinformed. The Jihadi might claim to be ‘warriors of God’, but misinterpretation of The Word can be found almost anywhere. The back of cereal boxes isn’t worthy of worship. Contributing to the demise of mankind isn’t what God had in mind.

“If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter if he was God or not?” -Kurt Vonnegut

‘Love your neighbor’, is hard to resist. But Jesus didn’t stop there. Jesus implores us to love our enemies. While we can’t expect such conduct to come easily to our mortal minds, this is what he asked of us.

Perhaps Jesus doesn’t understand the circumstances. Maybe it isn’t the right tact. We need to seek out, mutilate, and destroy our enemies! When the US levied missiles on hallowed ground, hatred fueled the fire.

Fighting love is a bit more daunting. The more you fight the more you lose. Eventually the walls of resistance always come down. It is just not possible to hate love forever. As my wife said: “The problem with hatred is that it ruins you.” Whenever we hate the haters we become our own worst enemy. It is like we have become suicide bombers of our own psyche.

At the root of any conflict is an internal struggle. Whenever you engage in conflict, you become conflicted. However, once grounded in your beliefs, the power of conflict evaporates like mist in the summer sun.

I recently watched a movie (available on Netflix) which was titled, ‘Lord save us from your followers’. I agree with the basic premise wholeheartedly. Followers mostly muddy up the message.

War is nothing less than a constant kindling of conflict. Peace is insupportable within these parameters. Supporting our troops became synonymous with supporting the war, early on. Oddly, there are many who want to defeat our ‘enemies’ so badly, they will pray for Jesus to give us the strength to drain them of their lifeblood.

Alas, Jesus never got the memo.

We are separated from our enemies through consciousness, and nothing more. Try as you might, you will never overcome that basic fact. When hatred reigns, you lose. That is why loving your enemies is the only possibility for resolution. Retribution never creates resolution. Even if you are victorious in battle, you have lost the best part of yourself.

Our political system is fatally flawed. It interferes with itself too much. Both parties try desperately to out duel the other. During a campaign run there is no scraping the bottom of the barrel. Political runs are good ol’ American Ugliness at it’s finest.

I have never been a believer in UFOs, at least insofar as spaceships from another planet are concerned. My reasoning is simple: Why are they only in the air? Why don’t they land? Still, if there is life on another planet – which creates ships able to cross galaxies – one thing is for certain: They are peaceful. They have managed to become an advanced civilization for one reason and one reason only. They did not destroy themselves. That could never happen on the little blue ball we inhabit unless we change our ideology.

We need to be warriors of peace, first and foremost. Perhaps Our Government needs to ask: What will bring us closer to peace? Only when peace is the goal do you ask the questions which resolve in peace. If peace is not the goal, we need to overhaul our government. We must insist on peace. It is the only resolution which will sustain our lives – not just for the moment – but for generations to come. The Mystery doesn’t lie in the White House.

Bruce Cockburn said: “You can’t be attached to the outcome of your efforts. Chances are you won’t live to see it, even if there is an outcome.”

Jesus died on the cross, saying “Forgive them Father, they know not what they’ve done.”

Love always wins, whether we are around to see it or not.

Part-is-sin Poly-tics

Politics. It’s hidden right in the word, isn’t it? Poly – meaning many – and tics: bloodsucking parasites. Politics means Many Bloodsucking Parasites. Obscured in plain sight from the masses forever, we have been duped into thinking that politics are something altogether different: something worthy of our attention, our love, our life savings.

Many Bloodsucking Parasites.

Our political system has been coursing through our veins for so long, we aren’t even aware of our Patriotic Lyme Disease. We think the Bloodsucking Parasites will fix everything for us: better education, better jobs, more freedom. But folks, how can the platitude of Bloodsucking Parasites accomplish this feat? Is progress possible in the current design?

Surely our government needs an overhaul, but as long as the parties remain intact – an essential element of the parasitic life – we will never achieve what Our Country deserves: Freedom and Responsibility.

Right now the Parasites are ensuring that our freedoms are not impinged upon. They feed us toxic rhetoric, and suck out the marrows of our backbone. We believe in the parasitic scam. It is unpatriotic to deny the value of that which gets it’s life from our blood.

Many people would die for this country. The sad thing is, Our Country is currently killing us with poly-tics. Our entire Poly-tic-(all) system is based on polarization. We are taught to pick sides, but only those who choose a side ever lose. The problem isn’t ‘part-is-sin’. We are told the ‘part’ just needs to be changed – like the alternator in our car – to correct the impropriety of the other ‘party’. There is a line out the door just to pay for all that bunting.

For a time, we feel the good about change. Then the love affair wears off. I firmly believe if you are still happy with any President 2 years after taking office, you simply aren’t paying attention. Besides, discourse is the addicting part of Patriotic Lyme disease. To keep things moving, alliances must be formed: If you show your leanings, you show your ignorance. If you change your leanings, you show your pliability. Either way, the system is going to take advantage of you. It doesn’t matter which side you choose, you are a cog in the ‘divide and conquer’ governmental spin.

There is no room for those who aren’t passion-ate about their Poly-tics. The dis-ease is in your blood the moment you choose a side. The Poly-tic-all System doesn’t allow for partial participants. It thrives on venom. Polarity grows out of venom like weeds. The weeds feed on the soil which formerly fertilized the food we used to eat.

If you are pissed off, you have every right to be. So go ahead: pick a side, then get involved.

Our involvement creates a vital instrument for the system. Our tennis-elbow voting arms are subsequently used to shame anyone who prefers ‘Lifetime’ to lever-pulling. The registration of our political leanings are used to create pride in being part of Our Great American Heritage: Divide and conquer. Ironically, the wheels of Our Government only turn when citizens remain polarized.

This is, after all, a noble cause. It is The American Way.

Food Pyramid

The American Diabetes Association had a life-threatening food pyramid on their website. This is no myth. There you could find your path to lofty glucose – in beautiful Carbohydrate-laden technicolor – right on their website:

http://tobyhowl.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/food-pyramid-for-diabetes-designed-by-american-diabetic-association-ada/

In August, I wrote to the American Diabetes Association, succinctly explaining my medical perspective:

From:  <me>
Sent:  8/1/2010 02:03:55 AM
To:  <AskADA@diabetes.org>
Subject:  food pyramid

You forgot to mention smoking illicit substances. This should be right
at the base of the food pyramid, as whoever put the listed foods as
the ‘foundation’ for a diabetic diet was surely imbibing.

It seems that not only don’t these items belong in the ‘foundation’
position, they should pretty much be eliminated altogether from a
diabetic diet. Diabetics who follow the food pyramid listed on the ADA
website are putting themselves at a tremendous health risk.

Who created the diabetic food pyramid, and why hasn’t the ADA changed
it?

Please get back to me on this, as the health of millions of people
worldwide is at stake.

Sincerely, Yours Truly

I got the following response back:

Date:     August 9, 2010 9:09:46 AM EDT

Dear Sir,

Thank you for contacting the American Diabetes Association. We have received your e-mail regarding the food pyramid.

We apologize for the delay in response to you e-mail. We’re in the process of getting rid of the pyramid. There were concerns about analytics etc.

Sincerely,
Jane Nyondo
Center for Information and Community Support
American Diabetes Association
1-800-342-2383

I like to think I can do some good in the world. Perhaps somewhere, someone has benefitted from my actions. Although their website is still laced with horrible food misinformation, today they have eliminated the food pyramid:

http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food/planning-meals/diabetes-food-pyramid.html

While I offer no proof, perhaps I have saved a life. The Health Care System, Insurance Agencies, Our Government… all needs a major overhaul. Our American system should seek things that are good, regardless of who profits. Oil exists only because their money funds campaigns. How do you change a system which is literally fueled (paid for) by the toxins living in the bloodstream of voters?

Sure, we can vote. But funding determines outcomes, not issues. If voters spent more time investigating the funding for the politicians, their perspective would change dramatically. Fortunately, there is funding in place to make sure voters are oriented towards the issues out of the mouths of politicians, rather than their diametrically opposed funding.

When Pepsi helps to sponsor the ‘run for Diabetes’, is the Diabetes Association going to give an honest evaluation of Pepsi in a Diabetic diet?

When Philip Morris sits on the board at the American Cancer Association…

When Big Oil funds Al Gore… (It wasn’t on purpose, it was Occidental).

People believe what they are fed, while ignoring the ingredients.

Is it truth or myth? Take a little myth, mix in a dose of personal experience and, voila! You become a myth-mongering man on a mission to dispel the mythtics, or you eschew knowledge of disinformation from a personal perspective.

The National Pharmaceutical Association makes money off prescriptions. Doctors make money off patients needing prescriptions.

Only experience can change a myth to a reality. Your health is – and has always been – in your hands.