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Seeing people flee their countries in order to try and save themselves and their families is distressing to put it mildly. It is a human tragedy not witnessed in this generation. Many, many of them are dying. Men, women and babies drowning at sea. All taking that uncertain risk, in order to escape an almost certain death.

Most of them are Muslim, although many are Christian…seeing as how the Christian churches in this area of the world, which had been under the protection of the strong man dictatorships in Iraq and Egypt, are now totally unprotected.

I was reading through some comments on posts today where someone was expressing regret over the death of so many babies and children…no matter if they were Muslim. Another person commented in that same post with a reply which I knew well, and which I consider the most repugnant and vulgar line ever uttered by a human being. He said he didn’t care about the death of these babies and young children because: “nits make lice” That line makes my skin crawl with rage.

It was first uttered by an ex preacher turned militia leader named John Milton Chivington. He was the Colorado militia leader who said, concerning the Indians in that territory during 1864: “Damn any man who is a sympathizer with the Indians. I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right under God’s heaven to use any means to kill Indians. Kill and scalp all, big and little. Nits make lice.”

So at Sand Creek, in November of 1864, he and 700 men slaughtered, raped, mutilated and desecrated an estimated 200 or more Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, two thirds of whom were woman and children, who were there supposedly under “protection” of the government with Chief Black Kettle, a peace chief as their leader. Nothing was ever done to punish Chivington for his leadership and participation in this heinous act against people whose sole sin was ownership of land which other men coveted, and a difference in beliefs and customs. When I first read this account in Michener’s “Centennial” many years ago, I thought it was fiction. Research showed it was not.

I go back then to the current situation of these Syrian and Iraqis refugees whose homes have been destroyed, who are being herded into camps with little or nothing to eat, no hygienic facilities, no dignity and little hope for a good future. I see the clips of their women and children…the innocent children. They are being displaced mostly because of their beliefs and customs, and because someone else covets their property.

It infuriates me about the comparison to the 19th century Native Americans. Is a massacre of these current refugees imminent if something isn’t done? Are there more John Chivingtons out there, both overseas and here in America? Of course there are. The fact that someone would use Chivington’s words prove it.

I hope if I have any Facebook friends out there who feel like a John Chivington, they will just go ahead and unfriend me after they read this. I don’t need them.

The power of diathetical (irregular)warfare increases as the means of mass communication expand. It is not limited to countries fighting each other, or to enemies of one another using it against each other.

This type of warfare indeed lends itself easily to the theatre of politics. T.E.Lawrence was one of the first commanders to realize: that “[t]he printing press is the greatest weapon in the armoury of the modern commander.” This was in 1918. Lawrence of Arabia famously defeated the much stronger Turkish army by convincing them through non traditional means, that they HAD lost.

Lawrence realIzed that he really didn’t need to actually win the war, but instead: “He just needed to decide he had won and convince the world. The struggle was to change the definition of victory, to change the meaning of the events rather than the events themselves.”

Jump ahead almost 100 years to New York City in 2001. Another person…this time named Osama bin Laden used Diathetical warfare, when he attacked the World Trade Center. Using the vastly expanded technology of the internet, he staged an attack on the most powerful country in the world which resonated across the entire world, because of the media coverage of the event. He lost his men, eventually lost his organization and then his life. But he won the battle. The first battle of the technological era of communications warfare.

One person in New York City that day looked at the flames, at the coverage they got, at the fame gained by that event. He decide he could adopt the developing technology of the internet, and then had social media fall into his hands as one of the most powerful weapons ever invented. His name is Donald Trump, and he is a master of diathetical political warfare. He started a long time ago in terms of the life span of social media.

Don’t underestimate him. The Turks underestimated T.E. Lawrence and lost a war. America underestimated Osama bin Laden and lost 3000 lives. We cannot underestimate our current leader, because the freedom of our country hangs in the balance.

So 911 is almost over. The names of the dead have been read aloud again. The innocent people who died there that day.

I personally think they died in order to entangle our country in an endless war. Not a war against a country or a group of people, but a war against an idea. A war against a word. How do you win that kind of war? How do you know when you have won? We certainly haven’t been doing much winning since that day. It’ll take a miracle to put this country back to the way it was on September 10th 2001. I don’t know if it will ever happen.

Americans have lost much of their privacy and personal freedoms since that day. We all know about the Patriot act, but there were and are many, many other changes to our Civil liberties which have been promulgated since that day. Enough to fill a book, many books really. Our freedoms took an extreme hit that day those innocent people died.

Presidents gained the power to practically wage unlimited war, through the AUMF…the Authorization for the use of Military Force. Originally passed to use against Al Qaeda, the Bush administration used it, along with puffed up UN sanctions in order to go to war in Iraq. Millions died.

The Obama administration took it to a whole new level by using it as a basis to drone kill practically ever person they considered a “prominent ” member of any terror related group, including U.S. Citizens. Hundreds or thousands of innocent people have died as collateral damage. Thousands of lawyers are employed to insure the killings are legal under the AUMF.

I’d hate to be Bush or Obama if there is Universal justice for the deaths of innocents.

So in the ensuing fifteen years your life has changed drastically and probably forever, though many don’t realize it, because they don’t feel it….yet.

Look to those who have profited since the day those innocent people died. Follow the money, as one of my friends says, and you will draw closer to the purveyors and the people movers who may have actually wanted this eternal war to happen, or at the least, saw it as a way to line their pockets, and swell their bank accounts. I haven’t got time tonight to make a list of the dirty bastards. You can Google them if you are interested. It’s not hard to find.

Another 911 anniversary today. The fifteenth. I sincerely pray for the lives of those innocent people killed that day, and those who have died since then because of the effects of that day.

They didn’t know when they went to work that day, or got on a plane that morning, that they would end up being sacrifices on the altar of the need for eternal war, greed and the need for a reduction in freedom for America and the entire world in general.

Others look at what happened that day, and based on what they heard on the news media….or what they thought the news media was giving them, have drawn a totally different conclusion than what I have drawn. And that’s OK. It’s fine.

Everything is opinion, and perception is always going to be reality.

The Soviet Union has approximately 7500 nuclear weapons, all many times stronger than the ones used in Japan. China has 250, Pakistan 100+. Israel has 80 or so.

Other nations in the nuclear club with multiple nuclear weapons are India, France, Great Britain, North Korea, and of course the United States. Many other non Nuclear nations such as Belgium, Germany, Italy and Turkey have other people’s nuclear weapons staged there.

Many, many other nations have nuclear alliances with the above nations. 23 of them by my count, mostly U. S. and Russian allies…Australia, Canada, Albania, etc

Yes, you read that correctly. Israel has 80.

If a nuclear accident or war ever starts it will more than likely come from the above stated participants in the nuclear club. The entire world remains in terrible danger while there are ANY nuclear weapons in the world. All nations need to push for treaties and agreements which not only keep other nations out of this deadly club, but which start to reduce the numbers of these warheads to zero. I’m satisfied I will never see it in my lifetime, and it gives me great pause when people inside the United States say things such as “we should not make deals with terrorists, we should KILL terrorists!” (speaking of the potential treaty with Iran)

Does that sound like the kind of rhetoric which should be coming from a peaceful country??? Would you think other countries which hear this type of speech would think they could trust our country to keep OUR word in any type of peace agreement? Sadly, neither do I.

I dreamed last night of a post apocalyptic America, and it wasn’t a good dream. It was vivid, and it was grim. That’s all I want to say about that….

If I thought there was a chance to change America through what I write on Facebook, I would go all out with pen and pencil blazing to change what is, in my humble opinion, wrong in my beloved country. But there’s never been an instance of which I am aware where I have changed someone’s minds about their beliefs.

This is a reactive media. It’s an emotion driven ride where many people let others do their thinking and their writing for them. The media is inundated with “dueling memes” on all the hot button issues of the day. And in the end, hardly anyone’s Facebook persona is the same as their real personality. We all write from the perspective of our own positions, not from the perspective of how we would treat each other if we met in Wal-Mart, much less really get to know each other by becoming real life acquaintances. It’s a sad and futile way to try and deal with living in the real world.

We are taken advantage of by the demagogues and self serving political worms because they know all the right strings to pull. Up becomes down. The meekest and most polite people become right fighters for the wrong causes. It causes my heart to break, and my eyes to fill with tears at the injustices being heaped upon us from all sides, like hot coals on a pig in the ground. All we are lacking is the Apple in our mouth, and the oligarchic theocratic rulers will have us for dinner.

Longfellow wrote: “and in despair I bowed my head, there is no peace on Earth I said. For hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth good will to men”

Common decency is being replaced by the boorishness of the bullies who will say any vulgar thing. How do we as Americans honor this type of attitude as acceptable? Is this the new normal? Will we go back to dueling before long to settle our differences and protect our honor?

Do we let a vocal minority of lawbreakers dictate morality for all of us? They do not even represent the majority of their own group! Yet we would hold them sacred above the law.

I’m puzzled, I’m confused, but most of all I am disheartened and surprised.

As I look at my watch to see what time it is, and then at the calendar on the wall to see the date I realize that there is nothing, nothing whatsoever that I can do about the 67 years and 11 months that have already passed by on these two instruments of measurement.

All I can do is pray that the time that is ahead which I have left is

spent being more helpful to others, more loving than I have been, more

giving than I think I should be, and most of all more appreciative of

all that I have been given, right down to the tiniest tick of that watch

that I have on my wrist……

Fireworks- From 2015

All the hate and the negativity we see and hear are like the swamp mud we have to crawl through to get to the sugary white sand at the ocean’s edge.

I lay here and think of ordinary things, like our two block walk to the festival last night with Eli and Rue. They both had on their sandals, and it was slow going …but…it was wonder time. I learned more about living life during that walk than I have in many single YEARS of my working career. What did I ever, ever do which was more important than those twenty minutes? I would conjecture….nothing. That was time which was more precious than gold. I find I have a lot of that lately….but never too much! I find far too often I appreciate it’s significance later instead of in the moment, much to my consternation.

And then I see people who are my contemporaries in this world, with whom I have had some issues during my life. I now feel that those differences meant very little, if anything at all in the larger scheme of things. I can shake their hands, or hug them and in all human honesty wish them well. I wish them good health and happiness. I can’t hold on to the past. Can you?

I find that my circle of priorities in caring, is beginning to grow smaller in its revolution. Things which used to seem SO important, now fall outside of my journey. And I know the orbit will continue to grow smaller and smaller still, as I age. More and more things will wane and become tinier in view, until one day I will retreat inside of myself.

My hope is that it will not be soon, but for all of us it will be too soon, no matter the date and time.

I watched those fireworks go off last night and I feel our lives are a parallel to them. We come into this world and light up the darkness, and interact with each other simultaneously like so many different rockets. We are different sounds and different colors and different levels of fury. We affect each other on so many different planes. But our time is short and we are soon just smoke and ash. What other’s will remember about us will be how pretty we were at our best and brightest.

What other’s will remember about us is if we cared, if we respected, if we loved, if we gave, if we listened, if we played, if we danced, if we sang, if we forgave, and if we looked with open eyed wonder at the priceless gifts surrounding us and said “thank you for this”

Thank you God for this. Thank you our creator for this. Thank our lucky stars for this.

As Peter Falk’s character “the Grandfather” told his grandson after he finished his reading of “The Princess Bride”, when the little boy asked if he would read it again he said: “As you wish”

Thank you for this. May all things be as you wish.

To Err is Human

“To err is human, to forgive is divine” so says poet Alexander Pope. Now this line from was a great big old huge poetical work of his that was LONG! There was another good one from this work too: “Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread” One more: “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”

Those three sayings have got to be in the top 100 of things people have said since 1701 (which is when Pope wrote them) they’ve pretty much become standards.

I’ve always thought that a little learning is a dangerous thing. Nowadays if you get on Facebook very often, you will see what I mean. As Forrest Gump said: “That’s about all I’ve got to say about that”

I know that I have “erred” pretty often in my life, and I have been forgiven. So somewhere out there are a lot of divine people running around. I’ve probably done a lot less forgiving than I should have. I’m trying to catch up, so give me time.

Finally, in this group of somewhat disparate quotes (all of these came from one LONG poem remember) is the one about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread. I’m not sure about where exactly it is that an Angel would fear to tread. Angels have been described as being pretty courageous. Fools on the other hand are…well…foolish. Maybe it means that people should plan ahead and not take risks, lest they get themselves into a “pickle” Wait a minute…that’s another one. Dang.

My conclusion here is, that after reading only about one third of Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” for a college English lit class I once took, I am now glad that the internet age has ushered in the ability to Google the things I only once dreamed of being able to learn. I’ve learned a lot over the past 10 years or so. Actually probably a lot more than I learned in college. I read, and read, and read, and research…and sometimes I still cannot tell satire from reality. As a matter of fact, it is getting a hell of a lot harder to do so. I guess a little learning IS a dangerous thing after all.

A Philosophy to Live By…

You tell your children “I will always love you, there is nothing you could ever do that would make me stop loving you.” You tell them this before they know what you are saying, and you keep telling them this for as long as you can, so that no matter how old they get they cannot remember a time you have not told them.

If you do this the world will become a better place.

You then tell your family. “You are my family, and nothing you can ever do will keep me from loving you.” You tell them this because they are your family, and because it is true.

If you do this, the world will become a brighter place.

You tell your friends: “You are my friend and I love you, and nothing you could ever do will be so bad I cannot forgive it”

If you do this, the world will become more serene.

You tell your enemies that you care greatly for your children and your family. You tell them there is nothing you would not do to protect them,….nothing. You tell them that it is in their best interest to become friends.

If you do this the world is given a chance to draw breath and think.

I hope if we do this the world has a slim chance to heal wounds that have been open and bleeding for as long as there have been people.

I think, and I think…next month I will be 69. Seems young still, but unless I’m an exception to the rule…and my own genealogical roots, time is as they say, not quite on my side anymore.

Yet I believe I am a lucky human. I believe I was born and grew up in the greatest age ever in human history. I don’t have a bunch of statistics, or studies to back me up. Just a gut feeling, a bunch of wonderful memories and nagging nip of nostalgia that sometimes bites like a Bulldog. Certainly too, that nostalgia becomes more and more intense as the years go by.

The first scions of the electronic age, we baby boomers…the first TV generation. Say what you will…that one invention and its multiple non stop related spin offs have had more effect on us, and continue to do so, than anything imaginable when our parents undertook to win World War II.

The fundamental functions of the entire world have changed so dramatically in my short but long lifetime. I don’t know what lies ahead in the next 67 years. I see so many changes taking place in technology, in culture, and in the geology and climate of our world. I know things will be vastly different 67 years from now. I have some young grandchildren who I hope will still be walking this earth to see what is here, and I hope they are able to be agents for change for the better in this world.

I swear that I will hope and pray those years will bring more and better things to my children and their children.. I understand completely that every generation holds a certain fondness for their “time” I know though, even if I were offered with absolute certainty another 67 to go with what I already have, I would have to say no…just give me a few more…give me what I need to go along gently with the rest of the generation into which I was placed…that’ll be plenty for me, because I have dang sure enjoyed being a tiny cog in that juggernaut of change. I have relished this life and everything which goes with it, and I still do every single day, and I still will every single day that I draw a breath.

I love all of you people. Take care.