It was my fifty ninth birthday. We had a private room at a local restaurant. The chief was renowned, and specialty lobster rolls were on the menu. Drinks were flowing and my close friends and family were in attendance. The mood was festive and my fifty buck lobster roll was the best I had ever had.

My friends and family were liberal. I could have been considered a moderate conservative. I don’t talk politics, I will only express my opinion when asked. I know better.

I was surprised when politics came up and everyone agreed that Trump would be the next president. This was just a couple of months after he and Melania came down the escalator in Trump tower. I took mental note of the harmony and unity, and yes I was thrilled. So much energy is wasted on political conflict.

Hoping to capitalize, and ride on the coattails of political harmony, I created this blog. My original thought was this would be about golf. How wrong I was. An era of political harmony had not arrived. Yet, sadly, I learned a lot.

People are beholden to their personalities. Politicians capitalize this to persuade. It is easy to convince a racist that racism is prevalent. It is easy to convince a fascist that fascism is a current thing. Yes, these were my friends. However it is hard to convince a sceptic of such outrageous things, this is my family.

Donald Trump talks about jobs. The people that support him work.

The more people talk of such things, the more likely they are such things. So what does that make me? A machine, or a writer.

Happy Birthday

Several score ago socialist seeds were sown by the Soviets in our unions. Then after what has been an extraordinarily long gestation the resulting fruit is temptingly large luscious and yes, poisonous. The fruit is also extraordinarily rare.

Yet the power of the fruit breeds desire. European fascism from the east, Chinese communism from the west, have converged for the poisoned feast.

Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.

A basic tenet of liberalism and environmentalism is there are too many people on the planet. The earth cannot sustain us all. This is what they teach us. Society is unsustainable. This philosophical ideology has been around quite a while.

How do the leaders that accept this basic tenet, plan for a better world? They cannot make the world larger, for there are no new lands to be discovered. To act would be to make the population smaller. Smaller people would be nice. If we were so one fourth our size the world be the equivalent eight times larger. Nice thought, but we are not Alice in Wonderland. Leaders by their nature must act, so what did they do? A designer plague is suggested?

Think about it. There is good evidence that the virus called COVID 19 came from a lab. Apologies to my Chinese friends, but this is what we are told. They would like us to believe that it was just a random mistake, yet we were aware of its existence almost immediately. I can’t help but think it was a carefully crafted brew. The reasoning is simple. Old people cost society money. So why not just take them out and save medical costs and Social Security expenses. Someone could fill the prescription for the designer plague. The customer is always right, they say money talks. They have cold hearts.

As harsh as that sounds there is evidence. The mixing of COVID patients with nursing homes and veteran hospitals when there are other beds available. What are promising fires become illegal, even though they are cheap and effective, as demonstrated in third world countries. Then there is the timing, posed to effect an election? Something is adding up.

Of course the proliferation of rioting is not exactly a healthy lifestyle, could they also be a means to a shortened life? I think that is a bit of a stretch, yet the rioting persists.

The biggest fear. It could happen again. We now have a model plague. It could be tuned to do more, or less damage. The science of the plague is probably now big business.

When it comes to personal attacks, plagues are indiscriminate. How appropriate. When it comes to politics, personal attacks are just business as usual. Some are just more vicious than others. We already know they hate us.

Recently I had a conversation with my father. Actually it wasn’t really my father, he has been gone for quite a while. However the conversation would have been the same. Yes, it was about politics.

When it comes to politics I am analytical. Emotional logic does not work with me. I would urge my father to stick with provable facts, rather than emotional examples. I would ask him to look at trends rather than singular examples. Finally I could never get him to stay on topic. It was just the way he was. I never did convince him of my logic. He would just get angry.

I will give credit to my recent conversation, they did not get angry. They were exceptionally good at repeating recent liberal propaganda. I guess that is not much of a surprise giving the location. As with my father, I suggested listening to the actual words, rather than someone’s interpretation the next day. I also suggested that being a member of a union may shape political opinion.

I pretty much stopped talking politics with my father. He would get so mad. I would feel bad. Sometimes I would say something that would set him off. I wouldn’t mean too, it would be accidental. Sometimes saying the sky is blue is wrong.

I am not saying my recent conversation created anger, it however created anguish. So I felt bad, yet I also felt fear. For there can be political repercussions in this age. Yet I want to be honest, and not pander.

What is my view may not prevail, and if that is the case so be it. My time has passed. The future is for the young. I did not agree with my father, the youth of today have no obligation to agree with me.

Friday August 28 President Trump visited Manchester NH and gave a campaign speech. One hour and twenty minutes into the speech he said this “Have you ever heard of these words? Live free or die. Live free or die. Vote for those people. And you do, you have a great governor. Vote for your people, vote for your governor. You have a great governor. From Portsmouth to Dixville from Concord to Keene. I know a friend from Keene. Great guy. I had a friend from Keene a long time. Keene, New Hampshire”.

Whisky Tango Foxtrot. What did he mean by that? Sure, it is a campaign speech, get out and vote. But who is the unnamed person from Keene? I am in Keene almost every day. Who is the president talking about?

The president does not say things without a reason. Many folks will say he does, however if you read my past words you would see that I have deciphered a number of the presidents statements. Some his statements are truly profound.

Yes, the calm before the storm was one of them. Ask Google translate was the answer to another. My first thought was the president was mocking Joe Biden because Joe thought he was in Vermont when he was actually in Keene. But that is not it.

So I look around and wonder, who is the president’s old friend in Keene.

Edit: Been a few days now pondering this. Out in the countryside there are plenty of Trump signs, in Keene there are none. Yet Keene recently elected a Republican mayor. And I see signs for the Republican Senate primary. The thing about the primary signs, they do not say Republican. I imagine if they did they would be ripped up.

Also the president used the word “had” as well as “know” interesting. Anyway my thought is the president had his very first campaign rally in Keene. Back then there was no hate. I am sure Donald Trump remembers the love of the people that attended. Most likely it helped him convince himself that it really was something he wanted to do. That was before the hate. I put up campaign signs in Keene back then. I met other people putting up campaign signs for opposition candidates. We had friendly conversation. We wished each other success. That is the way it was.

The president had known a time before the hate. He still knows the love.

MAGA  KAG

For as long as I can remember the holy grail of presidential politics has been peace in the Middle East. While things may not be perfect, I think that President Trump is entitled to take a sip from that particular chalice. Maybe it might be because we do not use as much Middle East oil. Or it just might be good negotiating skill by our Commander in Chief. Many partisan folks will never admit that. However I noticed.

Good job Mr President!

I like to read the news. I think it is a more efficient way of learning what is going on in the world. I say this when I am a more visual person. I think visual information is more emotional, than informative. Visual can leave out what I call the back story.

So what is happening to the written word in news? Twitter rules. No I do not follow Twitter, but the news does. It is funny how often the news reports about what someone writes in Twitter. There is a bit of logic to that logic, There are so many people that post to Twitter that there is a good chance that there will be someone at the right place and right time and the right place. So instead of reading a stream of posts, it is easier when someone filters out what is important. The choice is then who does the filtering.

This becomes problematic when the system that delivers the news has an agenda. Who pays the newsman? CNN pays to put it’s news in airports around the world. Multinational corporations pay CNN in the form of advertising. Big big business owns the news. Is there room for the independent businessman? I do not see it being an easy thing to do. Of course CNN just reads the news. Nowadays newspapers are digital, so the ability to read the news is easily available. Yet the same problems are still persist. The Washington Post is easily available on the Kindle. Yet again the man that owns the Kindle factory, owns the Post. There may be a self serving indulgence going on.

I intended to write about the word, versus the image. This blog is very largely word driven, the few images that I use are used to illustrate the words I use. Words are a mental exercise, used to create images in the mind. It is how we communicate. Words make us human. That is why the first amendment is so important.

Where am I going with this? I have noticed that the we are losing control of the written word. Because it is a digital world I can read many things. Because it is a digital world many things I read can be suppressed. For example I read the digital edition of the Wall Street Journal. I enjoyed reading and commenting on the comment section of the different articles. Multiple points of view and interests were expressed. Political views were formed. Links to other places were shared. minds were opened. After a while this type of activity was noticed. Paid agitators interrupted and diverted conversations. In the beginning they bragged that they were getting paid. It became so bad that the “administrators” began moderating the comments. I then enjoyed the creative workarounds past the moderators as certain speech was banned. Yet it became boring. Sometimes when a point was trying to be made paid armies of trolls would interrupt the discourse.

Now we have many more sources of news in this digital age. For example Canada Free Press, Whatfinger, OAN, Newsmax and others. It is hard to censor it all. Yet in a digital age it still can be done. Full size ads cover digital content that is deemed offensive. Some things that were simple to read, have become nearly unreadable. Before I go much further I would like to say the much of what I read I do not believe, that is why I write! However I need to read before I decide to believe, or not.

My belief is the internet is crawling with digital censors. If you do not create digital content you might not believe. Words and phrases deemed bad are easily identified and dealt with. Which brings me back to Twitter. To make a point people use video. Why use words when a video makes a powerful image. Well it is hard to quickly scan a video. More likely than not I will not watch a video. It is not worth my time. The sad part is there may be something important in the video, something that I will miss.

Of course soon there will be the ability to censor video, speech recognition is very advanced, and processing power is increasing. It won’t be long. However despite cancel culture people will still talk whenever they get together. Sure some topics will be taboo, they will be skirted about. People will still want to hear the news, it is a natural curiosity to learn what is going on in the rest of the world. People will try and control the word, because that is power. Yet to learn, it is better to know the truth.

In a circular logic I will end. Truth is education.

According to social media and some news outlets, a money grubbing Trump appointee is stealing mailboxes so people can’t vote. In the last few days I have seen numerous photos of trucks with mailboxes in the back. It is said that there is conspiracy to prevent people from voting by President Trump.

I have never played post office, maybe I was trying to figure out basic math instead. Sooo.  Let’s try to figure this out together. The Democrats want 25 billion to help the Post Office handle mail in voting. That is not counting a bunch more billions in administration costs. Because sometimes I struggle with math I will keep the number at a simple twenty five billion. As an optimistic guess, and a nice round number, let’s say one hundred million people were to vote by mail. That is what I am seeing for numbers.

You’re welcome to check my math, but that’s about $250 per vote, or envelop. Plus, it is most likely local delivery! Drive envelopes across town for $250 a pop, plus it is a bit of a captive audience. No mail envelop no vote. it is looking like free money. Yikes, I want to play post office! That being said, it would be a lot cheaper to send the ballots by Fed-Ex. Save two hundred and twenty billion or so. Or maybe even UPS, they come to my home, and the drivers are very nice people. It would save me a trip to the next town, which a half hour trip.

You know who hasn’t walked out of the Democrat Party? Trial lawyers. They love each other. It is not about the mailboxes, it is about the lawsuits. You took my mailbox so I couldn’t vote. I will sue. Sure way to muck up an election, especially when you do not like the way the vote is going.

Just a final ironic note. My town is about ninety percent Republican. The Post Office took our entire post office building away. It is gone, no more post office in my town (actually the building is still there, but it is no longer a post office). As I noted earlier it is a half hour drive to actually go to the post office.

So what am I and my neighbors going to do? Sue? Nope, we are going to vote in person.

So I was wrong, it is not going to be President Rice. My apologies. It is going to be President Harris. Of course I may be wrong again.

Anyway I did watch the debut of President Kamala Harris and her running mate Joe Biden. I watched with open and clear mind. I believe that it is important to watch important events of you want to comment on the event. Otherwise your opinion will not be your own.

So these are my observations.

• I was very surprised that the event was held in a gymnasium. I had really thought such a momentous occasion would have been held on a grander stage. Made it seem like a high school event.
• Joe started off sounding like Donald Trump and talked about the economy and jobs.
• Kamala sat on the sideline looking oddly glum.
• Joe slowly switched to bashing Trump, then he upped the game by talking about Nazis and the KKK.
• The talk about Nazis and the KKK seemed to excite Kamala.
• Joe lasted about fifteen minutes.
• Kamala thanked Joe, Something I thought was very appropriate.
• Kamala then went on to talk about Beau Biden, Joes late son.
• It was beginning to sound like an eulogy to me. My thoughts then wandered to believing that Kamala was eulogising the Democrat Party.

I kind of lost it about there. Not in a bad way, I just stopped paying attention. I did try and refocus, and did hear Kamala encourage people to ” Continue Fighting”. Normally I would take this in a figurative sense, however with all the rioting across the nation I believe that she ment it in a literal sense. That is what I saw.

What I did not see, was a call for law and order. The people that will make the difference in this election are the people that are affected by law and order, or the lack of it. That is my belief.

I will agree that Kamala is sympatico with Joe. For that was a stated goal. Kamala went after Kavinagh with the same ferocity that Joe went after Clarence Thomas. When it comes to their politics, viciousness is an understatement. Yes, they are sympatico.

Facebook is such a waste of time. However it is quite convenient. So I dabble in it, ask me to be a friend, and if I know you I probably will accept. I might of asked once or twice to be friended. So far I have never blocked or unfriended anyone. That might change. Anyway I have gotten some interesting information off Facebook. Most importantly political information that I would have never seen in the news. They would be things that I would double check. Interestingly Facebook says that I never received that Russian disinformation that was disseminated a few years back. I didn’t try to game the system, I post my thoughts. Really, the only person I talk about Facebook is with my wife. It’s just there, when I am bored I play with it. It will let me know what others are thinking.

I used to post links to this blog, and people would comment. Now according to my dashboard nobody reads this blog except for the Chinese. I am pretty sure Facebook blocks this website. I really do not know how the algorithms work. Yet I am sure they do. My guess is I was blocked during the intervention period of the Hillary campaign. It was one of her campaign promises. Although I tried to be balanced, an algorithm may have flagged me. However I would not be surprised if one of my liberal friends outed me. It was when cancel culture was just beginning. At the moment, no hard feelings.

Recently I received a couple of friend requests from people I distantly knew. It was a bit out of the blue. Anyway I respected them, and they became my newest Facebook friends. I really don’t add friends that often. They were from unrelated parts of my life.

Of course I know gray haired liberal hippies. It is rather unavoidable. They love to bash Trump. Have you noticed that all those people with the “coexist” bumper sticker have anger management problems. Bashing Republicans is an acceptable outlet for anger for them. Yeah, pass the peace pipe and hate on someone. it was the stock in trade of my dad, a liberal’s liberal. Much to my detriment, I know them and love them.

So I was not really surprised when my new friends started bashing Trump. Actually they were quite good at it. I am still of the mind that everyone is entitled to their opinions. So be it. Then something extraordinary happened. They both started praising Joe Biden. Then I made the connection. They were both involved with firefighting.

Today was the local parade. the parade was quite downsized because of Covid. There were a few off road vehicles, old tractors and cars. Five of us walking in Civil War uniforms. It was a wretched parade. Oh yes, there were the fire trucks. Big shiny and exorbitant, I thought of Joe Biden. The smallest of fire trucks was probably worth more than the entire rest of the parade put together, by several times. For the first time I saw disparity.

My thoughts then went to the fires that I had seen on TV. They were not big fires, however they were symbolic. Police stations, churches, statues, court houses, small businesses. For whatever reason the Democrat administrations let them burn. there were no calls to put out the fires. Before Joe Biden was magically coronated as the party nominee it seemed like his only supporters was the fire fighters union. Seems like something is going on between Joe and the firefighters.

The firefighters are tight with Joe, and tight with the party. The firefighters have millions of dollars worth of equipment. Why don’t they put out the fires? Why?

Just a note to my Chinese friends that read this blog. Don’t invest in Joe. He is not worth your money. He can’t even put out a fire, even with the best equipment. Or is that what you want? Some say so.

Then again, why are there fires in the first place? Of course, it is liberal privilege.