Category Archives: Random Thoughts

The Collapse Of Civilization Is Upon Us

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This is not a post from a blogger trying to scare the world. This is a post about the collapse of our civilization, the signs of which are all around us … visibly … definitely .. yet the world tries to go on just as if everything was normal … and things are far from being normal!

Our political systems are in collapse, our social and economic systems are in collapse. There is no denying it. There is no escaping it!

Have you noticed, lately, all the shortages of consumer goods that are happening? We are the richest nation on the face of the earth and we cannot even supply enough baby formula for our children? We can’t get ships unloaded from our ports? There aren’t enough truck drivers to get stuff that finally is unloaded from ships to markets for distribution?

Inflation is rising at a maddening pace, the financial markets are in decline, nations are rising up against nations, wars and rumors of wars everywhere … We haven’t been out of Afghanistan (Our longest war to date) very long and now here we are, engaged in a proxy war in Ukraine where the experts cannot predict an end to hostilities?

People today are struggling harder than ever to make ends meet and are failing miserably at it ….inflation is soaring …people are getting poorer by the day … grown adult children are still living with their parents …and the politicians do not seem to care or else they are just plain totally unconcerned about it all.

People’s lives are falling apart. There are serious and prolonged conflicts among our ethnic races and our socio-economic strata … (The Poor vs The Rich) …and these social upheavals get worse with each passing day … and some of the evidence in my opinion is all the mass shootings that have been going on …. and it can only get worse because nobody with power seems willing to do anything to put a stop to all the unnecessary gun deaths …

There is a blogger over on “Medium” who has written an article that I believe covers our present state of collapse and I wish everyone would read it. Read More Here.

This collapse is slow … it is subtle … it creeps along almost unnoticed by all but the victims … the victims who vote yet who still have no voice because of political indifference in the highest places …The end is coming and it is coming with the stealth of the proverbial thief in the night and nobody who could do anything about it seems to give a damn.

What The U.S. Presidency Is Lacking

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Yes, since I have so few readers these days, I am going to make this post short and to the point so listen up, America because what I am about to say is important to your future.

There is little doubt in anybody’s mind that U.S. Politics have been on a downward spiral for a long time now with little, if any relief, seen in the foreseeable future.

A lot of it appears to hinge on who is or is not President of The United States.

I have the solution that could have a seriously positive effect on this sad state of affairs.

What is my solution?

“We need to elect a president who is a transgender black woman and who is also LGBTQ.

I believe that would solve a whole lot of agenda problems for the country.

Is anybody out there listening?

Under The Bridge

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https://pixabay.com/photos/under-a-bridge-river-saxophone-597094/

The guy in this picture is playing a saxophone underneath a bridge by a stream.

The bridge that I spent time under as a child looked much the same as the one in this picture– It has the high arch and the ledge on which to walk underneath the arch.

My bridge was located over a wide shallow creek just outside the limits of the town in which I lived at the time.

My dad used to take me down there to fish for catfish in the pool at the other side of the bridge.

I hated fishing because I detested the feel of worms and putting one on a hook was disgusting to me. Much to my dad’s dismay, I never became much of a cat fisherman.

There were other things in that creek too …. there were water moccasin vipers and giant snapping turtles the size of garbage can lids that could snap a finger off in an instant if one was not careful when handling them.

One of the good things about being under the bridge was that in the hottest weather, it was cool and nice under there. I loved to hear my voice echo when I would shout under that bridge. The echo was quite pronounced.

15/may/2022

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Pixabay LicenseFree for commercial use
No attribution required

I look at the statistics on my blog and I see that I am getting more visitors from China now than from anywhere else. Someone from there is watching but no one from there is leaving comments. I hope they are not looking for a way to hack me.

The United States, having slid a little too far to the extreme right in the last few years has now managed to get themselves a Supreme Court more or less packed with right wing extremists who are now showing their true colors and have started the process of reversing a lot of traditional citizens’ rights. I am sure this abortion thing is only the beginning of their efforts to dismantle democracy and replace it with some form of fascism.

Speaking of Fascism, there is now a big conversation going on as to whether or not former president Trump should be allowed back onto Twitter in the event that Elon Musk buys the platform. I, for one, do not care whether he is allowed back onto Twitter or not because neither Trump nor Twitter run my life. But here is one person’s opinions, a lot of which make sense to me. READ MORE HERE.

For those Americans who believe that the problems happening in America are particularly exclusive to The United States, let me inform you right now that they are not. Many of the same problems that face America today are also being faced, in one form or another or in one degree or another by many other countries, including The United Kingdom. READ MORE HERE.

Back to the Abortion debate going on in America right now — The whole mess seems to be based on some newfound morality among politicians who can not decide on what is most popular with their constituents. One one side of the debate there is a moral morality (to hear both sides claim as their own position) and there is an immoral morality as claimed by those who oppose the positions of one of the parties or the other. If that sounds like doublespeak, I am sure you can sort the whole thing out if you only take the time to READ MORE HERE.

Babies in American may be in critical trouble now that there is a massive shortage in something as simple as baby formula. The problems for the babies will come as a result of stores everywhere being out of the formula and predicting that they will be short on it for at least the rest of the year. I am sure other problems will arise as baby formula imported from foreign countries might, on occasion, be found to be substandard or even perhaps tainted in some cases.

I do hope sincerely that if America imports any baby formula from China, for example they might desire to recall something happened a few years ago. READ MORE HERE. and READ EVEN MORE HERE.

Now to the economy of The United States, an economy now in an upward inflationary death spiral! I am talking specifically about meat prices here even though everything is going to hell in a hand basket as far as prices are concerned right now … with millions of low income people being threatened with their very basic survival as the greed monster grows and depletes their meager resources. There are some very sound questions and answers to this horrible state of affairs. READ MORE HERE.

But take heart, dear friends, all is not lost … all is not doom and gloom .. there are some among us discovering some of life’s little pleasures for the very first time. READ MORE HERE.

Now you know.

13 May

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Today was Friday the 13th.

There is a lot of apprehension about Friday the 13th among superstitious people but I have always believed that where there is smoke there is fire so I do not discount some of the beliefs that other people have about this strange cultural abnormality.

I got out of bed early this morning because the weather was really nice and I got on my jogging outfit and climbed a rather steep hill that goes upward for at least the length of a city block. I think hill climbing is fully as good for exercise as stair climbing, and I feel good about being able to still do it without collapsing from lack of breath.

Sometime during the day, after all the exercise and very little breakfast, I happened to take a reading of my heart rate on an oximeter and discovered that my heart rate is slow … about 57 beats per minute when it is supposed to be 60 beats per minute or better.

In some more athletic people a low rate (also known as bradycardia) is normal but it is a little different from what I have been used to, so being a hypochondriac, I naturally spent most of the day worrying about it.

But this has happened before and I seem to have survived, so I guess I will not continue to fret about it or at least I will try to stop fretting about it because there is enough stress in the world as it is and I do not need to add any more stress to my burdens.

If those sound like brave words, then I admit, they are but I have to speak them because they give me a sense of assurance and, when it comes to myself and my health, I have always been a pussy of sorts … constantly worrying about things that I can never change on my own.

But I am getting a little dreary now so I will have to change course in the conversation and go on to bigger and better things … so I am shifting gears right now.

Breakfast today was nil … a quarter of a cup of Lima beans and one ounce of French bread with some hot coffee.

Lunch consisted of a hot dog sandwich, some baked beans and some coleslaw with a large glass of tea.

Dinner was at 6 O’clock in the evening and consisted of a ham and cheese sandwich on toasted French bread with tomato and onion and some salad dressing.

I have been working on changing my eating habits to tackle a personal weight problem and a good friend of mine from England was kind enough to share his meal regimen with me and I am sort of following it for awhile.

I have discovered lately — within the past decade — that there was a time in history when all a blogger had to do to get a lot of visits (Hits) was to have a decent story to tell and the courage to write it and there would come a swarm of people wanting to read it. Today I find that it is virtually impossible to get a lot of hits on a blog because there are so damned many of them to compete with. I believe that if an average blogger gets 10 hits in a day these days, then that blogger is blessed and should be very proud of what he or she is doing. That’s just how much things have changed as technology has run away with itself. I can only imagine what the future holds.

While I was at the hardware store the other day, looking for wild bird seed to feed our backyard birds, I purchased an enormous bar of men’s’ bath soap … a bar of soap three or more times larger than anything you are ever going to find in a super market or a drug store …a bar of soap designed exclusively for rugged manly men … a bar of soap that cost me more than Nine U.S. dollars but I have to tell you that after using it once or twice, I am so happy I found it! It has activated charcoal in it and it cleans amazingly … unlike anything I have ever used before.

The name of the soap I am talking about is “Duke Cannon” and I am obliged to tell you right now that I am not being compensated in any way for mentioning the brand name of the soap. I am not affiliated with the company that manufactures the soap. I just bought it, tried it and love it. Here is the link where you can see for yourself if you are interested …https://www.amazon.com/Duke-Cannon-Brick-Ounce-Victory/dp/B00NIA5I4M

I guess that is enough for this time around.

See you later, folks. Tell your friends about me, won’t you?

Thanks.

My First Beer In 64 Years

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Suddenly and without warning, this morning, I got an overwhelming urge to go out to a store and purchase a can of beer. I had not put beer to my lips since I was in the Army National Guard, way back in the year 1958.

In 1958, I was in military uniform for the first time in my life and I was young and filled with yearning for adventure and for all the pleasures that Life had to offer to me. Beer was one of those pleasures — at least in our minds.

So, every weekend, my buddies and I would go down to the “Service Club” on our military base and we would buy 3.2-percent beer because that was the highest alcohol content we are allowed to purchase by law because of our young age back then and we would talk mindlessly for hours while slowly getting drunk on the cheap swill.

It seemed to us to be the “Manly” thing to do.

Another mark of “Manhood” among us young soldier trainees was to try to outdo each other in being loud and mouthy and aggressive, and to speak more and worse profanity than anyone else. The more brazenly profane we could speak, the more approval and admiration we received from our comrades-in-arms.

So today, for some unexplained reason, after 64 years, I went out and got a beer in a can, brought it home, opened it, poured a small amount into a 4-ounce glass and sipped.

Surprisingly, I found this particular can of beer to be much more tasteful and refreshing that I had imagined it would be.

That was my signal to pour the rest of the can down the sink.

I definitely do not need to become habituated to something like that after all these years. And I know full well how what starts out to be an occasional indulgence can easily turn into a habit.