Using the holidays to catch up and cram visiting time in, is a standard and accepted way to hang out. We are able to plan around and get time off together, which is then spent traveling all over the place. I want to have all of my relatives live within walking distance, so I don’t miss out on any more of their events. Would be nice to see the accomplishments and awards of the young ones as they continue to grow up too fast. There are tourist destinations out there we could go see together. Get a huge travel home and drive around the country with various groups of relatives.

I see pictures of the National Parks, but have been to only a few of them. Need to have plenty of time to do it right. Drive up to Yellowstone and spend at least a week checking it out. Stop by Zion and go hiking every day. Marvel at the ancient monster Sequoia trees in the mountain forest. Wander the old civil war battlefields trying to understand how it ever happens. Getting to see these moments in time and natural landscapes are worth a lot to our understanding of history and mental peace. Being away from the crowded cities and bustle of keeping up with the news is so calming. Do all the bad stories wait for us while we are on vacation, or are all the dire warnings of impending doom overstated from the media?

The world continues on without us, even though we want to know what is going on. The desire to explain all the problems and find an answer can be overwhelming. Wanting to make it a better and safer planet for our children is a universal hope. We pass on the gifts from the past of peace and prosperity, to the future generations that they may have happy lives also. To never be in a position where the whole world is ready to destroy and annihilate each other is a nice start. To find dictators early and put them out of commission, preferably with life time jail sentences is excellent for all of the innocents. Any power structure that uses it to take from others should be abolished immediately, so that the pursuit to happiness can exist. The accomplishment of happiness can be in the struggle to create, but the control over citizens choices for life is so stifling, people will vote in dictators and socialists, just because of false promises. We must always fight for freedom, because to not do it almost guarantees the evil ones will take over in some fashion. To be able to live in peace with our families and know your loved ones will have a chance in life is the greatest joy.

We all suspected it was half nonsense when this came about, but the one thing politicians do well is to create panic. You can get a lot of legislation accomplished under the veil of fear. Time and again we have had laws passed in the heat of the moment, which were regretted later and had to be abolished. Of course as laws go, some of them are still around messing up civilization. The panic of uncertainty and absolute terror of an enemy, is looked upon as a godsend from astute politicians. They will take any opportunity to pass legislation, which under any other circumstances would never make it out of committee.

Two big moments happened in the recent past, which fall under all of the parameters to be taken advantage of. The Patriot Act was passed because of our collective fear of attack and the elusive terrorists. Allowing the government to look into things unheard before. While it is supposed to be used only against foreigners, the groundwork is now there to spy on you as a citizen also. There are laws to protect you from abuse, but it always costs the innocent party lots of money and even their jobs to defend themselves in court. The other instance would be the recent Stimulus Bill, which is more about spreading the wealth than any economic recovery. We are being sold a bill of goods, which has back alley handshakes written all over it. We might not recognize this country after all of these programs go through. The administration is always thinking long term, while they are telling you about last weeks disaster.

There is nothing new about this type of control of power. Those are just the latest ones that happened to come to mind. Nations have gone to war on faulty information and misleading facts. They attacked our country, so we must destroy them completely. After the killing stops and the cities have been razed, you get to keep the new acquired land in the peace agreement, which turns out was the only real reason to attack in the first place. Not easy to get the populous all fired up and willing to volunteer in a war, just to expand the territories and water rights. Finding a cause for people to get behind though is very productive, as humans are gullible followers if nothing else. After the dust settles and the stories are written, there is usually very little to do in reversing history. It is often easier to pay off the surviving descendants than negotiate a trade deal. Once you have possession of the new territory, you can change the law of the land, in which the new residents are very appreciative.

So, when are we going to start expanding again? It’s about time to get some more states as dues paying members. You have the whole constitution and such, but we can work around that, at least if we have a major ‘crisis’. The Mexican states just across the southern border would make perfect additions to our bigger country. The transition stage would be minimal, as there is continual traffic there now. Lots of factories are within walking distance from one side to the other. We would get a major influx of good workers to help out with the social security debt. Not sure how far south the oil fields are, but that would be a good asset to acquire. We could put it up for a vote, as many states have been accepted in the past. Then you have to deal with Mexico and whether they would sell that area or not. Easiest way is to just send the army south and start moving the line. After a day or so of driving, they get out some flags and proclaim that this is the new southern border of America. A protest would be filed at the UN, but we pay the bill for the whole thing anyway. It might just be the shortest Empire advancement in history. Oh yeah, there would be the inevitable and necessary looming evil darkness on the horizon of our permanent demise to be sold to us first. They could make up any scenario they want, as long as the television reporters believe the story and tell us about it, then the whole country will believe it is the truth.

To find the perfect career would be something special I suspect. Let’s consider some of the ideas I have had over time, like outdoor photographer, race car driver, merchant marine, beach bum, actor, policeman, business owner, chemist, pilot, national park ranger, architect, nuclear scientist, teacher, investor, stock broker, singer, train engineer, mechanic, drag racer, interior designer, fireman, peace corp volunteer and so many other amazing life changing experieces. Well, I haven’t done too many of them yet. I have ended up with one job after another to make a living. I try to survive by getting a job I can handle, a job that someone actually hires me for, something that pays enough to justify my time, all the while ending up with some way do the least amount of effort and still get more than enough money to pay for the maintenance of life.

Do I still have time to back up and do it all again? Too bad we can’t turn back time or live long enough to do so, so many more things. There is just never enough time for all of my hopes to happen. You end up making choices that have extreme long term results. The choice isn’t bad, but it comes with so many other consequences. There is often a trade off and the costs of the losses can be dramatic. The act of choosing a job or moving leaves so many missed possibilities behind. Knowing your extended family continues to grow up, but you do not see them on a regular basis is one of the heartbreaks of distance and time. Having someone to share life with ends up meaning that the time with them was not spent with anyone else. While that is an emotional and important sence of well being and reason to be alive, you ended up making plenty of choices along the way so friends and family drifted away. There is just not enough time in your life to do all of the things we want, so we make decisions and live with the pros and cons of it. The clock on our lives is ticking down faster all of the time. We choose to take care of our families.

How would I spend the money if the lottery came my way? Would I become a firefighter just for the experience and the saving lives part, would I travel the world and see ancient cities, would I spend it all on some trophy wife, would I try to make a name for myself in history, would I go to school and learn how to learn, would I travel from one family member to another visiting, or would I just sit here on the couch watching television until I finally expired from monotony?

There are a few options I have heard of, such as getting a girlfriend from another country, or go on a long vacation to immerse yourself. That is the key right there, as this is the kind of thing you need to hear daily to really learn. Just like our jobs become second nature, because we do them every single day. Come back after a few weeks, and you need to reset your work mode thinking. Once you leave this job and into another field, so many details will just fade away. The nomenclature that seemed so important at one time is just gone. In many ways that is what is tough about learning from books, as we do not see it regularly so the brain does not remember it well. Finding a partner just to learn a language is disingenuous, but you get a lot more attention from the teacher when they are in your house. The last option is the best one, which is to go live in another country.

It is all about immersion, so after a year or so anyone can learn new words and get around. Still takes a lot of work on my part, but it is all around you all day long. Just pulling up stakes and going to Mexico seems a bit drastic, especially when most of those citizens are trying to leave the country already. Why isn’t Mexico a great place to live and visit? What specifically went wrong with it? As with so many places it is not the people, but the government, the laws and the corruption, with varying degrees of each depending on the administration. Most of us just want to survive the day and take care of our families. By luck of the draw and the parents you picked, you get to live within the confines of a society. The Mexican and American constitutions are similar in many ways, but over time it is two completely different cultures. We can go back to how they got started and the European influences, but that was hundreds of years ago and those people are gone. Everyone on this continent was born under the same freedoms and laws, depending which side of the border you started on. Give it a generation or two and we might be going south for jobs, if we become the socialist state we are striving for and keep printing money until it has literally no value left.

Humans have an uncanny ability to create new languages with every single group of people. Take half of the population of the valley, send them over the mountain and make sure there is no communication between them. It takes a surprisingly short amount of time before each community has its own dialect and given a generation or two they will create new ways of speaking. Before you know it, you will need an interpreter or the one former language will become two separate ones that can not communicate with each other. As travel becomes easier some languages disappear from history, which seems like a major loss all the way around. Then again language is a living thing itself that comes and goes as needed. Wonder how long it will be until only one language is spoken on the planet? Would we really be losing anything, because turns out most of what people say in any language is just filler. It creates an atmosphere of communication , but it is just another sound to ask things like ‘What is for dinner?’, ‘Where are you going?’ and ‘How was your day?’. Think I might just start holding hands with everyone and use a soothing mind meld instead.

I love electricity and can not imagine my life without it. All of us have had our entire lives affected by this one invention. Even on a rare day where I might go camping, it would be impossible to do without electricity. Every single item I take with me was designed and produced with the use of electricity. Remember the day you had a blackout and you had to find the candles? Look what happens when it lasts more than a couple of hours. The flashlight that you were digging around for only exists because of some invention also. We would go straight back to the stone age without access to this one dramatic moment in history. We used to kill whales for no other reason than to use the oil to light our lamps.

No question that we would survive, as people have prospered for millennia and many do so today, but it would be a completely different lifestyle. There has been so much change in the last century it is hard to fathom. You can talk to your grandparents about living in sod houses, canning food to survive, going to bed at sunset and actually putting in a hard day’s work. We romanticize the old west, but it was mostly just dirty. Going back and living in the valley with the quaintness and joy of ‘Little House on the Prairie’, might be a good idea in the long run for our mental well being. Every day was all about getting some food and water that might not kill you though. If you wanted anything, the only store in town was a bit limited. The other end of the spectrum would be ‘Star Trek’, which had evolved into the utopia of unlimited resources for all and money had ceased to be relevant. To work for the joy of being a good citizen is mind boggling. The technological middle ground of those two societal concepts is electricity.

We owe so much to those that came before us. Much of our ease of life has brought riches to some that are still alive. Where do you think this country or any capitalist government would be without power? Okay, there have been many conquering empires through history, but even those winners and leaders did not have the luxuries and conveniences you do today. All information is built on the help from before, as many of the greatest minds have stated. Having to redo centuries of inventions would slow all the geniuses down. That being said, it comes back to one guy that put in the hard work and innovation to create electricity. It always come down to just a few people that make the big changes in the direction of humanity.

Do you know how to make electricity, or even what it really is for that matter? I mean without looking on another website for the explanation and details. We can go find something out when it is needed, but what if that ease of finding is removed? Could you survive anywhere without electricity? The desert island scenario has been used before, so let’s consider wiping out the planet with its extras. We can go the nuclear option, where all of the nukes are sent off, completely obliterating all technology and electricity on the entire planet. They used specific ones that destroyed everything except the buildings, so its not a total nightmare, and there is no nuclear rain fall. All of the scientists died though in the first round, so the end result is that we have been thrown back a few centuries in technology.

Except for staying extremely busy going out hunting food, most of us would have no clue where to start rebuilding the infrastructure of a society. Our jobs would disappear because most of them use this lovely magic we call electric power. We could go to the library and start reading, but even then it would take a while to understand how to create an invention. Could you do it, or would we end up waiting for some smart person to show us the way again? Humans are followers in general, but we do have the ability to pass on information luckily. If left to our own intellectual devices, most of us would live in caves and never get much farther. There have been so many people on this planet it is hard to fathom, but most of them have done next to nothing to advance civilization. That does not make you a bad person, because that is more about helping others and taking care of your family. I am just saying that most of us are nowhere near brilliant enough to make a quantitative difference in the permanent existence of this species. There are so many things to be thankful for from those that have come before.

Maybe Dr. Seuss was right all along. It is only about the perspective of where you are at. I seem big enough for my surroundings. We are so small compared to the planet though, we are barely distinguishable from the grass. I hear the numbers that it is only so many million miles to the planets, but even that is hard to imagine. To get your head around the distance to another star is already too much. Every step of the way it gets more ridiculous to believe. It takes 4 light years to get to the closest star, which is just another random speck in the galaxy. Our galaxy is so large that, well I can’t even think of a good correlation. The reality that there are more galaxies is too much in an overloaded head already.

I watch the shows and read the books, but the numbers are almost as large as our national debt. We can not even use real numbers for distance, because it is all so so far away, we had to make up a new way to measure it. The standard has become a light year, which we can actually measure, or at least formulate a distance for light time. No living thing can see the movement of light, but we know it must be true, as we can see the results of it. The blue and red colors of the universe and space itself give us the understanding of an expanding universe. This planet is so small it might as well be a microbe. You are living on a one cell amoeba.

You are lucky to get 100 trips around the sun before you expire. Turtles live longer than we do. The whole of human history is only a few thousand years. The years just expand after that, as we try to explain the events that have happened on this planet. Life itself in any form is only a fraction of the time this ball has been around. Then we have to take into account the Sun, which seems like the largest object in the universe from our puny perspective. We go back in time and keep looking for answers. The idea that the universe is billions of years old and beyond is too big to really get into our frame of reference. Life is way to short any way you look at it.

We judge time from our revolutions, but does a time-line even make sense if you are floating through space with no attachment to a planet or star? Does the universe know how ancient it is? There could have been so many civilizations that have come and gone on so many planets throughout the galaxies, it is too many to count on anyone’s scale. There could be billions of sentient beings out there right now, but we could easily miss them by a few million years. The human species is probably on the downhill side of its existence already. All it would take is one small asteroid hitting us tomorrow and that’s all folks. Have there been other intelligent forms of life that have visited this planet? Who knows for sure, but there is no doubt that in time we will have visitors in the future. The planet will probably be devoid of homo sapiens by then though. Then again, this is such an insignificant planet, around an average star, out on the far edge of a standard galaxy, in the middle of the vastness of empty dark matter of nothingness, that seems to go on forever. Good thing we found it isn’t it? Wonder if the universe will continue expanding forever and if our species will find a way to get out there and be around to see it?

We use WWII as a baseline for atrocities, but there have been many other instances that have tried to be just as cruel. The intent to use power and evil is always just a short step away. We call ourselves civilized and enlightened, but it takes a surprisingly short step for people you know to pick up arms and follow orders. Most of us are just followers in life anyway. Trying to get through life within the system that happens to be around at the time. Sure, it would be nice to have civil rights for ‘those people’, but this probably isn’t the right time to do it. We had the great Indian wars that helped form this nation with westward expansion. The only thing great about it is that it happened in the past. Some other generation had to deal with that and so I get to watch movies about it. To understand fighting and killing people is something beyond my experience. I expect it is beyond almost everyone’s experience, which is a good thing as we are living in peace. Granted that was given to me by pure happenstance of getting lucky enough to be born at the right time, but that does not mean it will be calm forever.

I like to think that new laws make for better and more informed societies. Much of it comes down to reactions to other influences though. Politicians will over react to whatever is in the news. If Canada decides to attack us, then we will probably arrest every person with northern blood lines. It will all be done properly and with much fanfare, but it will mostly be done quickly and with the threat of imminent destruction of the country. Lots of legislation gets passed under the threat of fear and the fear of time. We elect someone because they will lower taxes or some other lie, but then they pass laws that can be against logic or human morality. Is there a right and wrong in any society, or is it just about not getting caught breaking the latest arbitrary law?

Some labels exist due to your ethnicity and your are born into a country by default. After that you choose to follow the religion of your family. Our jobs and hobbies define who we are and what we want to be, but it is those first three big items that can get you killed. The government you happen to be born into, or in some cases watch it transform over time, might be your worst nightmare. I sure want to think we are safe forever, but Zimbabwe used to be a nice place to live. Our money is being devalued daily since we wont stop over printing it. We have a balance of power built into the constitution, but what if we elect a crazy dictator like so many other countries have done by mistake? Will you be on the wrong side of history the next time a government passes a law against a group of people and labels them as dangerous?

This is a page of scary numbers. They are so large it is mostly incomprehensible. You owe this money, or more accurately your children owe it. There is absolutely no end in sight to this hole of perpetual debt. We are not even paying down the interest on our outstanding loans. Do we even own our country anymore?

We hear about how the deficit is going to be cut every election cycle. It is just a matter of who you pick, that will cut it more than the other. Turns out they are both playing with semantics and usually lying about the potential to ever cut anything. When a cut is proposed, they are usually talking about cutting the amount that it will be raised this year. To consider or create legislation to decrease funding is rarely done. To speak about stopping a program and eliminate its existence from the payroll of government subsidies, is tantamount to political suicide. Those are voters out there for every dollar that is theoretically cut from a program. All politically created programs must grow forever, or at least until the country is completely bankrupt and resold to another owner.

Our cities, states and federal levels of government are deep pits of waste. They do not have to show a profit or even competence. In any group of people there are numerous good employees. It is the organization itself that is designed to be abused. We have accepted that it is okay to have personal debt, so that we can enjoy the fruits of our future labor. By tacking on interest to every item in our house, are continually digging ourselves out of a hole. Our businesses exist on borrowed money, as a matter of course to keep it rolling over and staying one step ahead of the profit margin. We expect services, infrastructure, protection and freedom from our government. Our expectations often exceed our abilities. I want my stuff now, no matter what the cost later.

We hear about how we are a consumer nation. The benefits of our economy is that many items are within reach financially of most workers. We have lots of choices of cheap items, so why not buy something new instead of repair the worn out one? It would be foolish to not take advantage of services and supplies we have access to. The problem is that we are enjoying the benefits of previous generations. This will not last for much longer, if we are unable or unwilling to become a producing nation again. This continual balancing game of resources, imports, production and debt is a huge gamble. How many markers is the casino going to let us keep taking, until they no longer believe the country has the ability to pay it back?

Do not think this is about one political party or one administration. They fool us with the deficit numbers and GDP percentages, but this is a nation that has spent its entire existence is debt. Almost every single individual on Capital Hill is to blame for the overwhelming, crushing debt you now owe. It isn’t like the money disappeared, well at least some of it was used to create jobs at least. This is about redistribution of wealth, by jobs handed out to whichever politician put forth the best pork bill. Much of the rest is handed out in various forms to keep us all busy and happy. Whatever is left over disappears as a handling fee. That fee is probably in the billions. We can ignore that number though, since we are in debt up in the trillions. Much like the union fees or mob muscle, the money you send in taxes is completely out of your control. Do you realize we have been in debt for way over 100 years? Did you know that between China and Japan, they own over 40% of the foreign debt, which is over 25% now? Good thing we are not a company on the public market, or we would barely have controlling interest anymore.

One moment in time that changes how you see each other. No big revelation or hidden agendas, but enough difference in perspective to create a rift. Not even anything personal or about each other in any way, but the reactions after that moment make it bigger than it is. A simple discussion about a subject that both people understand and care about, which it turns out they are on completely opposite sides. Lots of people I know and care about have different opinions of life and subjects. That is not a bad thing at all, as it is just a difference of opinion. I do not love them any less, as that is part of who they are and where they are coming from. There is absolutely no reason to think you should agree with everyone on every thing. Lots of times it makes the discussions in life more interesting, because we do not all agree on the subjects that come up from time to time. I would gladly speak to them again on that or any other subject.

What is disturbing though is when a person is so amazed that the world does not agree with them, that they must resort to shutting people out. The specific subject matter is not important in this format, as you can import your own instances from your own personal experiences. Suffice it to say, in my case it wasn’t about who was right or wrong, but just a difference of opinion. What is relevant is how they reacted in that instance and when they got home. Instead of agreeing to disagree, they rushed home and deleted me from their facebook account. They now refuse to talk to me, even though I have never been anything but polite. Looks like I have learned a lot about them on a personal level, even though all we were doing is talking. Good thing it wasn’t about an important subject.

Life has a way of bringing new experiences and you never know when an opportunity is going to come back around. Could be in a few months this will be resolved and reset, but in general do not talk to your casual friends about anything or you risk finding out too much about them. This is how we end up with just a few people in life we can really trust and I guess it is good to learn about someone earlier than later.

The Florida court has sent the case back to Ohio. That way he has no responsibility for the outcome of this custody battle. This comes down to whether a kid is allowed to make their own decisions. She is a minor and the parents are still legally responsible for many things. She says her Dad will kill her because of the conversion from Islam to Christianity. Don’t want to get to much into the religious aspects, but it is part of the story. Is she telling the truth or is she just a rebellious teenager. It isn’t like there is no precedent for her fear. She didn’t say that martians will burn down the town, just that her Dad is willing to use the accepted practice of ‘honor killings’.

The judge sent it back to their home state, since there is no evidence that he would carry out the threat. This really isn’t a domestic dispute in the sense of drinking and hitting. This is about a person that might or might not believe in a God that sanctions infanticide. That would be following in the true steps of Abraham though. The girl in this story by the way is 17 years old. We are not talking about a little kid unable to make moral choices in life.

It wasn’t very long ago in this country, she would have been married off already. Plenty of places around the world she would already be pregnant and stuck in the house forever. Our sensibilities change quite quickly over a generation to two. Economics has some impact on that as most of us are not dirt poor anymore. That could very well change in the near future though. So much of this boom over the last generation has been built on the industrialization of labor unions and the explosion of electronic consumerism. The arch of union influence and growth has peaked, so now we have to pay for the down side of propping it up for so many years. As the unionized governments and factories continue to fall in on themselves, everyone else will pay for the idea to keep it floating along. Eventually, it will collapse the entire economy. At that point we can start back over with small town perspectives and local farming.

As things come and go we might then slip back into the notion of marrying off our daughters and the ripe old age of fifteen. Got to have lots and lots of kids, because religion is all about getting more recruits. Let the local scholar decide the legal rights of all, by using the time honored craft of The Bible and The Koran. Maybe we can start using the scarlet letter again with out new found reform. Honor Killings are the culmination of everything that is wrong with human religion. This is the blatant sinful breaking of the 3rd Commandment from God. To go out of your way to kill another person, just because they do not believe in the same God as yourself is insane. To kill a member of your own family, just because they have changed their personal religion is selfish and insane. It is almost impossible to have a court of law determine religious matters, since human religion is so often not bound by secular logic or morality.