L…Is Still for Mom!

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone. If you aren’t a mother than you most assuredly have one, so it is a day that we can and should all celebrate. I posted this a few years ago and as I read it over, I see that most if not all of what I had said then is still true today…so here it is… once again…

It has always struck me as odd, that most westerners of the modern age worship a god who is male when it is the female who gives life and who is most likely to care for and nurture the child…of course I suppose that this same fact could also support our belief in a male deity because we can always say…”where did he go? And why did he leave us alone like this?” too.

Sadly however, in our day and age, the single most important indicator in determining a woman’s likelihood to live out her days in poverty is…childbirth. If a woman in this world can call herself a mother, she is more likely than not… to be poor. That in my opinion is the saddest testament to the failures of the human race that I could ever imagine…And the saddest testament to the failures of men because we are supposed to be partners with women aren’t we? So how come so many women have to go it alone, whether they choose to or not.

The abject cruelty and disdain with how many men treat women, has always been puzzling to me because all men have mothers and most men have wives and many men have sisters and daughters too…and it is not uncommon for almost all men to become angry and outraged should anyone say anything bad about their mothers, daughters sisters or wives.

Yet many if not most of these same men never seem to equate other women as being someone else’s mother, daughter, sister or wife thereby causing them to treat those women with the same thoughtfulness, kindness, love and respect that all women, not just “theirs”, deserve.

Instead so many men behave so violently towards women that it is enough to boggle any god’s (male or female) mind. But that is the tragic flaw of men is it not? We see violence as a real solution to problems…and we really believe that it is…really…and this belief is rearing its ugly head again as this Corona-virus pandemic of 2020 worsens.

And so men keep putting each other in charge and we keep coming up with the same solution…to everything…even when we are fathers we still think that it is a good idea to send our sons…or other people’s sons off to war.

I know that women send there sons to war too, but I think only because men make them. I do believe that If moms were in charge wars and violence would be harder to come by…maybe…but I only say maybe because men would still be around to point out, and insist upon,  how we need to resort to violence to get the job done.

So here’s to moms everywhere. I wish you peace and happiness and the love and respect of grateful children everywhere. And I hope you someday get the chance to  take control of the planet and have the opportunity to show us if indeed, love is the answer…to war, hunger, poverty, religion and greed…because we men still have no freakin’ ideas.

And the Winner is…

 Check out President Trump’s budget proposal and this year’s winners and losers. Here’s to making America GREAT again… as a military war machine that is…but wait…aren’t we already the greatest military war machine in the world?

http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-TRUMP-BUDGET/0100405W0DC/

Oh well, you know what they say:

War is peace…. Freedom is slavery…. Ignorance is strength….

And then again, maybe the Republicans in Congress will challenge the President’s vision for our future and come up with something more… humanity friendly?

And maybe the First Lady will move into the Presidential bedroom…

Once again…we just have to wait and see what happens.

Hot Time in the Old town Tonight

It was 165 degrees in Iraq this week…well at least the heat index was…but that’s still pretty hot! But what can you expect when you live at the axis… of the Axis of Evil? I wonder if any of those uranium dipped bombs and ammunitions we’ve used on those devils over the last 12 years have contributed to the recent heat wave over Baghdad?

Funny how history works isn’t it? Once upon a time the Middle East was the site of the first human civilizations on the planet. The birthplace of the Bible! That was a pretty good thing wasn’t it? Then a few thousand years go by, cities and civilizations rise and fall. People migrate and move about. Sail across a great ocean and discover a new world!… Of course saying that a new world was discovered in the Americas is like taking a bunch of your friends on a vacation to France today and then saying you discovered France when you got there.

Then you go about killing millions of people to empty the place out, import millions more to build stuff for you, open the country up to mass immigrations from other-wheres, eventually declare yourself the greatest country ever, fly back to the original “Cradle of Civilization” declare that place evil and then bomb it into its own past because…

Anybody know why we did that? Was it religion? Oil? Business? Ridding the world of Evil doing?

Well, anyway, now, somehow, there are 55 million more evil people who live in the country next door, who also descend from those original, first civilizations and cities who need dealing with in today’s world. The President of our “new and better” civilization wants to make peace and sign a treaty but most good folks would rather do that which they feel needs doing…and that would be going to war with those 55 million “bad” people….(before they get bombs and use them…like we have or heaven forbid, dip their conventional weapons in the nasty stuff and use them then, like we do now).

But does anyone know why we need to go to war rather than attempt to make peace? Is it religion? Oil? Business? Ridding the world of Evil doing?… Attempting to make peace has an expiration date while war does not?

Who knows? But it sure is hot over there. Perhaps it’s just from the energy of having to live for 6,000 years or so in the same place and all the while having to do endless city building, begetting and civilizing?

In any event, I wonder how hot it’s going to be over here, in the new and improved world in say 6,000 years or so?…I do suppose we or someone else shall see…If we make it that far?

Funny how history works, isn’t it?

This Could Work…

I know how to bring about an end to violent protests and neighborhood rioting and the general unrest that exists between some police forces and many African Americans in our country.

Let’s pass a law in America… that makes it against the law… to kill people.

And then enforce it.

Good Will To All

I recently read an excellent interview of Chris Rock in New York Magazine, by Frank Rich, and in the interview Mr. Rock made a very interesting observation that I had not heard before nor considered. Here’s what he had to say: (and I condense his comments a little)

“Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense…To say that black people have made progress would be to say that they deserve what happened to them before. So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years…The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.”

And I agree…not to say that there have never been any nice white people. Of course there have. But it is safe to say that we white folks started it and we’re going to need to be a whole lot nicer if we want this country to end up with the “Good Christian” outcome that we think America and all Americans deserve…at least that’s the way I see it.

Merry Christmas! And on Earth, peace, good will to all!

Because what possible alternative could make any better sense than that?

Give Peace a Chance?

 

Here is a very alarming statistic!

There are over 200,000 inmates in America’s prisons who are veterans.

That’s 14% of the U.S. prison population!

Which means that 1 out of every 7 American citizens who is incarcerated today, once served our country by participating in its armed forces.

And when you consider that:

Nationwide, 900,000 veterans live in households that rely on SNAP to provide food for their families.

57,849 veterans are homeless on any given night, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

An investigation by the Department of Veteran Affairs concludes that Almost once an hour a military veteran commits suicide. That’s over 8,000 suicides every year.

And consider that government programs for food stamps, housing and mental health have all recently been cut.

Then…

When our nation’s young soldiers are recruited and advertised as heroic unselfish patriots fighting for national freedoms and yet later as veterans, treated as though they were worn out, discarded and forgotten appliances who can no longer be of any marketing value, then something is seriously wrong with what it is that we all think we, or rather our soldiers, are fighting for.

If the costs of waging war are so great that the costs of healing the wounded are considered too burdensome then it’s time to recognize the fact that war isn’t our most serious nor our most pressing problem.

Isn’t it?

We Come In Peace

A recent WIN (Worldwide International Network)/Gallop international, “End of Year”, survey of over 66,000 people asked the question, “Which country do you consider to be the greatest threat to peace?”

Pakistan with 8%, China with 6% and Afghanistan with 5% of the votes, came in at numbers 2,3 and 4 respectively… while 24% of those polled, or one out of every 4 people interviewed, chose the most dangerous country in the world to be…

US! As in us, the United States. Yes, we are #1!

Of course if you add up all of those percentages, the top four countries chosen received only 43% of the votes leaving over half of those polled choosing other countries as the most dangerous, so I’m assuming that those who were asked the question probably voted for the country most likely posing the most immediate threat to their own…but still just about 1/4 of those asked to contemplate which country is the most threatening to the world chose the U.S.

Which either means that the USA is busy threatening a lot of countries or as I’ve often maintained…

When you’re the guy in the neighborhood with lots of guns and ammunition it’s still awfully hard to convince people that you’ve come in peace…