Official Website for Daniel Geery

Candidate for Utah Federal Senator

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7/9/12   Monday.  On this page, I intend to be putting various thoughts on random topics that I've had during the day. I'm not religious about keeping a journal, but I hope to keep something of a running log here. 

 

I admit to being a bit bent out of shape after reading an article by Paul Craig Roberts, which involved the liklihood of Obama using nuclear weapons. I was bent out of shape because this author is so insightful and does his homework so well. But then I remember the future is what we make it, and civilization is a reflection of our consciousness as a whole, and thus it does not have to be so. The late David Brower, Nobel Peace Prize Candidate, said the same thing when I interviewed him in the late seventies; and he was right. "If we don't change the course we are on, nuclear war will be inevitable. I believe we will change our course, however, because that fact will become so obvious to so many people that we will wake up at the last minute. But it is our habit of putting photo finishes on things that worries me." Or words very close to that. Our military industrial complex has become a cancer that is seriously eating us alive, with fifty-three cents on every tax dollar going into our war machine, and a corporate need to keep that machine going. Eisenhower warned of this long ago. We need new leadership to change this course immediately, and that thought keeps me moving forward on many days. 

 

A short while ago I was playing catch with our dog, Daphne, or rather she was trying to play catch with me. I was not in the mood after a long day, but fortunately, Christine, my wife, picked up the slack. Daphne is such a pure spirit, a truly divine being, as are most dogs, and we should learn from them. Christine quotes Mark Twain on her blog on Open Salon: "Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, your dog would go in and you would stay out." How true! But we can keep on trying to be better as individuals. So many thngs in our lives are divine and priceless, yet we take them for granted and worry about problems we have created for ourselves.

 

It hasn't been much of a winter this year, which is not good for a skier. Nor is it good for farmers or people in general. But I think people are waking up to the reality of global warming, another topic we had better start rapidly dealing with, instead of just talking about. The answers are all there technically--I read of them every day, at places like sciencedaily.com. Not that it matters if we don't have the political will to enact them.

 

In the shop today one of my partners turned out to be working on the same lines of thought as I, regarding a motor mount for our airships. I feel good about that not just because we are on the same page, but because this guy is like Thomas Edison resurrected. Seriously, but I will not use names here without permission. He claims he had to learn to be creative because he grew up dirt poor on a farm, and if he or his brother wanted something they had to make it from scratch. I believe him. But I truly wish more kids had chances to use their hands and minds in relation to the physical world, and adults with the time and interest to help them. 

 

 

7/10/12 Tuesday.  Everywhere we see it: jobs disappearing, houses foreclosing, despair in the air, nutcases making the headlines. It is as if we are living in an insane asylum with no way out. Not exactly what we one day called “the American Dream.”

 

The problems are deeply structural, in the nature of our economic system, the inability of leaders to think in terms of a larger picture, in terms of redoing the fundamentals. I come back again to the ideas expressed in the book Sacred Economics, by Charles Eisenstein. Namely, that the economic system sits on a pedestal, removed from reality. Money has become an entity unto itself, a divine object to be worshipped at all costs. It cannot rot, decay, wear out, break down, grow obsolete, or otherwise lose value, as real things do. Indeed, it can only grow, by virtue of interest. Interest which comes ultimately from where? Thin air. And then people hoard it, keeping it out of circulation where it does no good.

 

It is no longer even coins or paper bills, so much as pixels on a computer, electrons floating about, somehow mystriously tied to names—such as mine or your own. I have long been and am continually intrigued by how this all works, out of sight, behind closed doors, run by a handful of individuals we rarely if ever get to know. Magic in the air, if ever there was any; but unfortunately, it is black magic for the vast majority of us. Small wonder economics is called “the dismal science.” If we were to start thinking in terms of the ideas outlined in Sacred Economics, I do believe we would gradually not only turn the economic picture around, but also develop a different understanding of money, how it is made and used, and, ultimately, applied to the betterment of humankind. But enough on this topic today.

 

Missed rollerblading today, by virtue of not getting out the door before nine, after which it is usually too hot. Tell me again that global warming is not a problem. Have you been watching the weather, across the states and around the world? How much more time will Nature give us to get our act together? Not much, I fear.

 

Laminated some new fabrics in the shop today. A remarkable ultralight nylon from Connecticut, glued to a polyester sprayed with a helium barrier coating on two sides. Most anxious to see how these materials work in unison. Potentially ultra-light, strong, puncture and tear resistant, stretch resistant, and helium proof, assuming things go right. Hard properties to get in one material, hence laminations. The solitude of a workshop can be a wonderful and peaceful place, dealing with the laws of nature and physics. Yes, those laws can create many headaches, but they are always consistent and make sense when you come to understand them. At least in the universe we find ourselves in, at the level we live on, as opposed to the quantum world.

 

Plums in the front lawn are doing great, juicy and sweet. Except now I have to get a ladder and go to work picking them. I do so marvel at the pioneers and those who live off the land anywhere. It’s hard to believe they were or are not more intelligent and creative overall than we are today.

 

Got a call from a local newspaper today, while standing in line in a local convenience store. Did an interview then and there, finishing while sitting in the car. Assuming they actually run it, I trust it will make for interesting reading. At least for me… can’t actually remember what I said, but it sounded halfway intelligent at the time.

 

Got an email from Texas, from a lady doing the illustration for the cover of a novel I plugged away at, for what seems like the last hundred years or so. Waiting for an editor in Indiana to get through this beloved beast, hoping she’ll find little to fix. Then on to Create Space and Kindle. It appears to me that publishers are still actively putting themselves out of business, continuing to shaft “little authors,” as they have done for the past few decades. Who knows where things will go next? Are writing and reading really dead? I like to think not, having spent half my life trying to help little kids learn to read. Answers in education are all out there, we just need to stop asking politicians what they are and send the critics into their local school or schools for a week or two. It would be good to see the National Education Association actually do half the things it professes to believe in. They might win me over if they did.

 

 

7/11/12 Wednesday. The date reminds me of a picture as to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, back when we were allegedly looking for him: [osama7eleven.gif]

 

But enough on that. One of the things we do at dinnertime is ask what was the best part of each person’s day, or what were the three best parts of the day.

 

Here are mine for today, though there were many others: 1) When I took off the covers of our two bird cages this morning, Bonnie and Clyde, our canaries, immediately began singing to each other. Answers for the human race lie in Nature, and we should start paying much closer attention; 2) I opened the garage door, and there was a beautiful Alaskan Husky staring me in the face. After some chasing him around, I found his name tag and called the number on it. The owner was extremely grateful to get this gorgeous creature back, and for me, it was a favor played forward, from the time a lady found one of our dogs—in a church parking lot, where she had evidently gone “to get religion”!; 3) I got plane tickets today to see one of my oldest friends and then on to visit my Dad and new step-mom. As much as I hate energy intensive travel, I marvel at the fact that humans have never in history had travelling as easy as we have it today. We just need to replace airplanes with airships, as I am avidly working on.

 

Read many interesting articles today, as always. Need to check out some of these books, recommended by one of America’s best and most unsung heroes: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Ralph-Nader-Lists-11-Books-by-David-Swanson-120711-300.html

 

And one topic that we absolutely need to get focused on, asap, along with solving it: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/11-0

 

 

7/12/12 Thursday. From a Hallmark card, words I happen to like:

 

To those who see with loving eyes,

Life is beautiful;

To those who speak with tender voices,

Life is peaceful;

To those who help with gentle hands,

Life is full;

And to those who care with compassionate hearts,

Life is good beyond all measures.

 

Now to just remember and practice these words!

 

July 13, 2012.  People don't like Dennis Kucinich. I often wonder if they've actually ever listened to him: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Commencement-Speech-Ameri-by-Dennis-Kucinich-120511-714.html

 

July 14, 2012. First time in days it was cool enough to rollerblade. So essential for mental health. Daphne loved it too. The Jordan River Parkway is about the best thing that Salt Lake City has done, at least for me.

 

Many roses making a comeback... beautiful indeed.

 

Watched a storm rolling in last evening with Christine and Erin, clouds of all shapes moving in all directions, fresh air smelled great, trees and garden came even more alive than they are. White plastic shopping bag did a crazy dance for what seemed like five minutes, soley for our entertainment, then landed in Erin's lap! One of my favorite pastimes, watching clouds. 

 

Doing a toast for my friend who is turning 60 today in a short while; hopefully will return the favor for his speech at our wedding! He is officially a sexagenarian, which will certainly help. Still weird, toasting a 60 year old almost five years younger. Where did the time go? Where does the time go? I wonder if Judy Collins ever got an answer. 

 

I was worried about mentioning the Higgs boson yesterday, under links, thinking it was "too much" for someone who doesn't keep up on science. Then last evening, my oldest friend who I suffered 12 years of school with and hadn't seen for about 40 years, till last winter, sent me a few articles from the Wall Street Journal (not my favorite paper, but with interesting pieces nonetheless). One article was on that very topic, titled, "Discovery May Help Tell Universe's Secrets"--as if to confirm that posting my philosophical question was not a bad idea. 

 

July 15, 2012.  Got out many questionaires today: League of Women Voters, Utah and National Education Association, Project Vote Smart. Planned Parenthood sits on my desk for tomorrow. The questions are for the most reasonable, but the view through single lenses simply won't get us off the shoals of disaster. Still, it is most delightful to see so many dedicated folks working for causes they believe in, and which are designed to help or at least relieve the misery of others.

 

From page 440, Sacred Economics, by Charles Eisenstein: "A corollary to the nonhoarding of gifts and to the social nature of their giving is that wealth in gift cultures tends to be publicly transparent. Everyone knows who has given what to whom, who has how much, who is hoarding, and who is generous. Translated into modern money dynamics, this suggests that all monetary holdings and transactions should be publicly transparent. With the advent of money, a new secrecy came to infect wealth that had been impossible before. When wealth was lands, sheep, and catttle, there was no hiding one's wealth, and therfore no shirking othe social expectations incumbent upon it. But money can be hoarded in the basement, buried in the ground, stashed away in numbered bank accounts, kept secret, kept private. To undo the negative effects of money eventually this characteristic of money must pass."  Money must flow quite loosely and freely, and not be bottled up like water at a dam, or the whole idea of an economy becomes rapidly pointless.

 

It seems as if our government has things reversed in many ways: They can spy on us, know all about us, listen to our private phone calls, but we can't know what they're up to, even in general terms. Banking and spying are but two example. This situation needs prompt reversal, in both realms. The government also forgets, generally, that they--government employees, on up to the President--are supposed to work for us, not the other way around.

 

A fundamental question in politics, it seems to me, is who is going to behave like adults? Those folks appear all too far and few between, with everyone is out for themself. I do not oppose capitalism, but what I'd call laisse faire capitalism does not make much sense to me. I think it was summed up well in one single paragraph--page 208, Pleading Guilty, by Scott Turow (a great novel, btw):

 

"Rational self-interest is Carl's creed. He worships at the altar of the free market. The same way Freud thought everything was sex, Pagnucci believed all social interaction, no matter how complex, can be adjusted by finding a way to put a price on it. Urban housing. Education. We need competition and profit motive to make it all work. It is, I know, quite a theory. Let everybody struggle to get their bucket in the stream and then do what they like with the water they fish out. Some will make steam, some will take a drink, a few fellows or ladies will decide to take a bath. Entrepreneurship will flourish; people will be happy; we’ll get all this nifty indispensable stuff like balsamic vinegar and menthol cigarettes. But what kind of ethical social system takes as its fundamental precepts the words “I” “me” and “mine”? Our two-year olds start like that and we spend the next twenty years trying to teach them there’s more than that to life."

 

Trace back the evils of so much of what we see today, and the dots lead directly to the deregulation ushered in during the Reagan era. If there is a way around that concept, I certainly need help seeing it.

 

 

Friday, July 20, 2012. Yes, time does slip by with seemingly ever more velocity. Keeping up a journal, be it a daily or even an occasional one, is a serious discipline. A friend, slightly older, tells me this feeling about time is due to our expanding universe, but I’m not sure I agree with her there. I think I just need to get my act together, especially for a journal such as this.
 
Inventions are on my mind today, for several reasons. One I’ve been working avidly on the airship (Hyperblimp.com) and seeing yet again why the creative process has been called divine. The ideas come from outside and inside, while the creator, in writing, cooking, building, teaching, and just about anything, acts as the conduit for them, by virtue of focus and attention. 
 
For example: This is probably motor mount number 150 or higher since I began the process in the late nineties. Yet it is radically different, will involve two motors instead of one, be mounted to the airship envelope in a radically different manner, be stabilized with lightweight electronic gyros, and so on. The ideas always evolve over time, minor changes come as input from different people, and the more you think about and stay open to input, the more there is. Additionally, the subconscious does much of the work, once you have properly framed the question and actually “started moving,” not unlike riding a bike and making corrections as you go.
 
This particular design seems to be a quantum leap forward, and comes from having a demonstration ship battered furiously about in the up and down-drafts of Bogota, Colombia. That was a mind-blower of a trip, last January, and I was only glad I had two friends who are geniuses in their own right. The guy who did the flying has 40 years experience in remote control flight; the other owns his own quadracopter company and designs working models on a his 3D printer. The former taught battle damage repair in the armed forces for seven years, and, if I believed in reincarnation, would swear he was Thomas Edison. The latter is a self-trained engineer, psychologist by formal training, who designs state-of-the art software and flys his helis with goggles, that give, literally, a bird’s eye view, except the eye can travel large distances, while he sits in a lawn chair looking like a character from Men in Black. Some of his aerial scenes, which I was proud to assist with as an extra pair of hands and eyes, are contained in a professional video made of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, now a hundred years old, a truly astounding work of architecture and history.
 
So in the larger scheme I think it is in politics: You need the right people, combined with the right focus. The focus is where the politicians ought to come in, clearly holding a proper end view and recognizing the right people for the right jobs (and I would like very much for them one day before long be called “statesmen” or “stateswomen,” and behave accordingly); no more foxes guarding the henhouses. 
 
One of my favorite books is Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine: The Great Zeppelin and the Dawn of Air Travel.  Dr. Eckener was a journalist who became interested in early Zeppelins, after doing a report on Count von Zeppelin’s original work on Lake Constantine in Germany. He became a friend and protégé of Zeppelin, and also an airship pilot himself. He flew around the world with sixty people in one of those behemoths, stopping in many cities, while making a valiant effort to help bring the world together, prior to WW1. Others of my aviation heroes had similar thoughts, such as Charles Lindbergh and Albertos Santos DuMont, to mention two that come to mind. 
 
But Dr. Eckener had the fortune, or rather misfortune, to meet Hitler in person. According to the above book, it was a short visit, wherein Dr. Eckener, in kinder words, told Hitler to go to hell. It’s a crying shame, to put it mildly, that Dr. Eckener didn’t become the one to run that country. And it’s a crying shame that Albertos ended up committing suicide, when he saw how planes were being used as war machines in his home country of Brazil, at age 59.
 
But back to the Hyperblimp. In the last week, I was Skyping a fellow from Hungary, now living in Italy, who was inquiring about a fleet of large airships that could carry heavy payload in different conditions. The week before I was Skyping someone in Australia, interested in similar ideas. I did three presentations, two live, in Europe in the past five years; one was on the news on a public European tv station, when they were trying to show that UFO sightings in Belgium could have been from an airship. The show was in French, and not having paid enough attention in that department in either high school or college, it was difficult—no, impossible—to understand. But half-hour show looked good and upbeat music came on whenever they showed the Hyperblimp, several times flying at night, with lights in replica shape of the alleged UFO (the next segment was on crop circles, wherein they interviewed the folks who made them). 
 
About two years ago, a famous Swedish explorer came to us and wanted to be the first to fly around the world in a solar airship. The complications even on paper began mounting rapidly, but the largest single one appeared to be getting permission to fly over various countries, or to avoid them entirely. As if anyone can “own” the air! The other issue of course was the significant funding involved. Yet it would have been a small fraction of, say, the LEMV, or long endurance vehicle, that the Army or Air Force wants to park over Afghanistan. A company came to us about that contract, but interestingly, in the six weeks it took for them to get here in person, they learned through their political network that the contract, to the tune of close to half a billion dollars, was already sewn up by another military contractor (the company that came to us claimed to have everything needed but the shape, which we have the patent on, but they still wanted to visit and talk with us anyway).
 
Also, interestingly, in that conversation, we put another airship company on an open phone and spoke with someone who has been in the business for decades. He immediately looked up the winds over Afghanistan on his computer and went into a mini-tirade about how this whole concept was utterly ridiculous, given those winds, the payload and time aloft that the military was looking for, and what a waste of tax money this project was (I concur, based on making and observing over 500 working airship models, and having my best student ever happen to be from Afghanistan). This tirade, from a fellow who claimed, “I live in the upper atmosphere.” His company also does work for the military and NASA. 
 
Regarding the water toy, the Aquaglider, everyone hollers and screams that we don’t make things here any more. I feel the same. But the fact is, I spent three years trying to get this product made here, and no one could do it right (Nike might have, in Florida, but they wouldn’t talk to me for the budget I was working on). Keeping a long story short, an Australian company did a contract with me, and got their manufacturing genius to work with Chinese engineers, a regular practice for him, engineers who could not only understand and make the thing, but could also do it at a price that Americans would actually pay for. I made a lot of noise that I did not want these toys made in sweat shops, and they not only assured me that they wouldn’t be, and that the Chinese government has been cracking down on sweat shops for well over a decade, but they also invited me to go visit the factory (a trip I have yet to make). 
 
My larger point is that here is what the magic of technology makes possible today. Here I am, a former elementary teacher, reaching out to all corners of the world, in roughly a decade and a-half, in our truly global village, in ways unimaginable just ten years ago. We are indeed all tied together. Rest assured I am barely skimming the surface of the contacts and countries interested in what other humans happen to think are good ideas.
 
Another example, that further demonstrates the reality of our global village: After going to the New York City Toy Fair in 2006, where my oldest son and I carried the Aquaglider in a more primitive form than it is now, and displayed kids playing with it on a large flat screen tv in continuous loop, we had interested parties wanting to be dealers in Canada, Japan, the Philippines, Latin and South America, Asia, several countries in Europe, and other places I now forget. How amazing to me that one little idea—originally conceived in the 1850s (and written about by John McPhee in The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed) could come to fruition and further development by yours truly, this many years later. 
 
I look forward to the day, and I believe it’s coming, however slowly, that we all recognize that no idea stands alone, but is always in historical context. We who invent stand on the shoulders of giants before us, be it in music, writing, architecture, manufacturing, cooking, or cleaning the house. This will ultimately have repercussions throughout the world of patents and copyrights, and while it’s hard to imagine just how, we will recognize that ideas are gifts from the universe, quite literally, and, like the air and water, belong to us all. Our money system will change dramatically, again in ways difficult to see, but at least for now there are enough problems laying right on our doorstep, with outright theft at the highest levels and a defunct media, chattering mindlessly and creating bubble-gum minds, 24/7. 
 
Just to further show the interconnectedness of our global village today, I have been talking to a lady in Texas who is doing the illustration for a novel I spent years working on; a lady in Indiana is doing the final proof-reading; I made arrangements to see two parties in Massachusetts (next month when I land in Manchester to see my 90 year old Dad in Laconia), to discuss their further role in working on the airships. Both work with computers for a living and are remarkably creative. We’ll be talking about where we’re at in Utah with envelope materials (a helium barrier from Germany and a ripstop nylon from Connecticut), motor mounts, and future visions. One of these fellows flew out here two years ago to see if we could get his “fly by cell phone” system working on an airship, as he had done on an RC car in his large living room, with live video feedback.  He succeeded, at least in the shop, but in Grantsville the signal appeared to be switching towers, dropping out in that nanosecond transition and not recovering. My friend had a solution in mind before he flew home, but we haven’t had a chance to get back together since.
 
Before I get to Manchester, I’ll be laying over near Chicagoland, to see an old friend I know from lifeguarding days on Long Island. Rather amazing, all around. 
 
 
Same day, twelve hours later. "The Joker" dominates the news. Why did he do it? An othewise stable, incredibly intelligent young man goes ballistic, doing in public what we do with drones far away, every day. But this is the news, and the mainstream media in full bloom. 
 
People now hollering that those in the theatre should have had guns too, to "take him out."
 
Am I in a dream? Again I say, the NRA should have no voice, none whatever in the realm of politics. Those who want to carry and have others carry assault rifles should be banished to the farthest reaches of the planet, or better still locked up and studied. You NEED an assault rifle? For what? But I risk getting vulgar as I contemplate this idiotic thinking.
 
This horrific incident is yet another argument against capital punishment. The "alleged murderer," James Holmes, needs to be locked up for a very long time, likely life. But he should NOT be sentenced to death (for one, he hasn't had a trial). We need to see, to seriously understand, what made him tick, or perhaps fail to tick. We need to know his thoughts, his genetics, his outlook, his need for recognition, his influence from reading Batman comics, and absolutely, whatever drugs he was likely on. Everything. And we need to use that information to prevent such tragedies in the future. 
 
Is there some other realistic way for society to change? I think not. Time for major league gun control. I do not want to see another one of these "news" stories in my lifetime. Or for anyone I know to have to see it. Change is possible, but only if we pull our heads out of some deep dark place and start seriously thinking about what is going on around us. 
 
 
Thursday, July 26, 2012.  Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun
 

If you are looking down the barrel of a gun, you would need to have serious mental issues not to want to have your own gun, loaded and aimed back, ready to fire. And, of course, to fire it.

 

This reaction surely accounts for the rants I’ve read in numerous places, that we should, in general, be armed with guns, in accord with one absurdly loose interpretation of the Second Amendment of the Constitution--that document written before Gatling guns were even invented, at a time when the population of the U.S. was around four million, or close to 1/80th of what it is today.

 

Such a reaction is not unlike wanting to kill bare-handedly the assailant or rapist of your sister or your mother. I sure as hell am of this mindset myself.

 

More graphically, if attacked by a male mugger (it always seems to be a male, I note anecdotally), I would make a supreme effort to relocate his family jewels into his nostrils, or something at least equally unpleasant.

 

Which is precisely why society needs sensible rules. We can’t carry on anything called “civilization” without a set of guidelines to control our baser instincts.

 

I have been reasonably obsessed thinking about John Holmes, whose extraordinary, debased and deranged act shocked the country, and no doubt much of the world. More brilliant than most of us, coming from an “above normal” background, the man’s motive can only be speculated on, perhaps forever, given our government’s secrecy and routine deception of everyone on just about everything. While it would be wonderful for society to have more than speculation in developing an intelligent reaction, I would argue that even without hard facts on “the causation” of this event, certain “self-evident truths” come to any reasonable mind.

 

My earlier personal responses included: 1) Now is the time to buy stock in Netflix—no one will be going to the movies, with the idea ticking in the back of their head that some nutcase might waltz in and blow them away at any moment; 2) We have here a perfect argument for ending the death penalty, as we need to study this loonytune until we know every nook an cranny of his brain and genetics; 3) This may well have more effect on America than 9/11, because 9/11 was akin to another violent movie on tv; the Colorado shooting is something that could actually happen to anyone of us and is easy to visualize (as opposed to 9/11); 4) What kind of drugs was this guy on? 5) Was Holmes merely reflecting what he saw, in his relative intellectual brilliance, of all that is going on with America, in terms of how we treat people around the globe?

 

Of course I don’t know Holmes’ motive, assuming he actually had one, and I have serious doubts that any of us ever will.

 

But coming back to the view down the gun barrel: While this vantage point does grab one’s attention, a valid and warranted attention, it does not go nearly far enough. And without more, such a view can only be held in a narrow or closed mind, the deadliest mind of all.

 

Pulling back to a more removed and objective level, the kind we need for running society in a rational and civilized fashion, a thousand questions come to mind. I previously addressed the need to imprison and study this deranged individual. Understanding that, assuming we ever do, we can begin to think clearly about preventing such happenings in the future. By looking for those causes and taking preventive action—even if they call for an overhaul of society and evaluating our relation to ourselves and the rest of the world—we might have serious hope of changing the world we live in for the better.

 

Yet even without understanding Holmes in every gory detail, we should proceed objectively and without emotion to ask if more guns in a theatre  wouldn’t simply increase the number of nutcases “packing heat” around us.

 

We should be asking if guns are even needed in urban areas, and what would happen if they were made illegal, with steep penalties for having them? What if they were, say, ten times more difficult to get than walking into a local store and freely purchasing whatever happens to be your weapon of choice?

 

We should ponder seriously if our military escapades overseas aren’t the perfect example of violence against innocent people, setting the stage for further events like the Aurora shooting.

 

We can and will of course wonder what we would do in a similar situation as that unsuspecting audience was in. Would we have the brains, time, or ability to do anything but eat more popcorn?

 

Pondering these questions leads me to this: We have been sent a warning shot over the bow of the U.S.S. America, dramatically clarifying that we have utterly and completely lost our moral compass, and have no bearings whatever, beyond perhaps dollar signs.

 

It is as if we know we are going for a ride on the ill-fated Titanic, with societal permission to take all the guns and ammunition that we want. Gold too, should we care to haul it aboard.

 

Happily thinking of yesteryear, and not five minutes into next, we will most likely continue business as usual. Nothing will change while we describe this astounding event in paralyzed, childish terms, with no alteration in our course of behavior. I am reminded of Einstein’s words, after witnessing the first atomic bomb blast: “Everything has changed but the way people think.”

 

We struggle and manage to put the shooting into market terms (my own first response, I presume borne out of shock), and ignore the insanity and inhumanity of it all. We grab for mindless solutions, with complete disregard for the fate of the ship we are all on, the U.S.S. America, a ship that has never before been in more dangerous waters.   

 

August 8, 2012.  I have been remiss in maintaining my journal. As Mark Twain noted, "Work is something you have to do." And so it is, even with a journal. However, all is not lost in this vein. For example, here is a quote about economics, which I posted as a link to an article on Opednews.com, regarding economics: 

 

Thanks, Linh, for another excellent although

depressing analysis. It seems clearer and clearer that we need to nationalize banks and have the Federal Reserve run by highly competent individuals, with regular and tight government oversight (whilst cleaning up the the government itself and getting money out of politics). Note: I'm still sorting this one out. I believe in capitalism, but not the laizee faire brand. 

 

"I have come to view the economy as akin to our own circulatory system. When blood stops flowing, parts die off. When it accumulates in large pockets, dreadful problems occur--strokes, heart attacks, organ failures. All cells need nourishment from the blood for the organism and its various tissues to work properly. Money, like blood, should be serving useful ends, like helping humanity rather than wiping it out, along with the earth itself. 
 
 
I put this thought to print as a starter for anyone seriously looking at what the economy is, how money is created (bone marrow only makes so much blood, as needed, and blood does not "multiply" out of thin air, as does money, in the form of pixels in cyberspace and future debt that invariably moves money toward the existing large accumulations). 
 
 
Blood is also real in the sense that it is not speculative, but rather producing essential services, carrying oxygen and food to cells, for the end results of keeping our bodies alive and working well--just as the economy should for society.  
 
 
Like blood, money needs to create links and relations that work in unison, as opposed to opposite purposes. People must, and I believe will, if we last another decade, come to realize we will all be better off as a functioning unit, money flowing freely but properly adjusted, in a fair and properly distributed system. 
 
 
Yes, this is a broad stroke overview, but it is one that continues to grow on me and the details required for such an unifying effect appear to be filling in, from many diverse sources."
 
 
I add now to the above that when blood is tied up in dialysis--like money in off-shore holdings--it does the body no good. I believe this analogy will keep growing, and I think it is reasonably accurate, after reading vastly more than I ever cared to on "the economy." I actually read several books back in the eighties, when I was trying to understand my gut instinct, namely that the average person, such as myself, was getting screwed financially, but didn't know how. Then countles articles from different sources in more recent decades, and especially years.
 
 
Aside from the above, I would encourage interested readers to visit www.opednews.com, a site that I regularly post on, to see articles, comments, diaries, and quicklinks put there by yours truly. You'll quickly get where I'm coming from, my basic outlook, and specific ideas typical of things I think about regularly. (Once at the site, go to the search box, type in my name, "daniel geery" and search the site. Find the author's page for me, and you can find links to the above categories of writing--and you'll see the many things I'd like to post here but don't have time in the day for.)
 
 
I like this particular site, after searching many over the years, because of the feedback it lets the average person give, the exposure to topics that are important to me (and hopefully you), and while the editorship is relatively loose, the general commenting is intelligent, non-personal to the extent such can be done, and the background of so many of the folks who write there is stellar. 
 
 
Today, August 8, happens to be my 65th birthday, and I'm headed east to see an old friend in Chicago area, then my 90 year old Dad in New Hampshire, along with other family, including a step-mom whom I've never met. Should be interesting! Bringing with me a new G4 phone, which I've put off getting for a year or more, and now trying to figure how to use the dang thing. It is a miraculous piece of technology indeed, and one in a long list of things we are going to be seeing more of, across the board of science and technology. IMO, it is critical, absolutely critical, that we enhance education in the U.S. and get back to the head of the curve where we used to be in science and technology.  But of course we need wisdom, if it is all to mean a damn thing.
 
 
But all for now and probably for a while, unless someone explains this new phone phenomena to me in a very short time. No manual even comes with it! But, alas, I show my age here... fortunately, my younger friends keep me up to speed when things get urgent.

 

October 7, 2012. Time flies and my slender excuse for not continuing to post here is simply lack of time. However, I encourage interested readers who've gotten this far to check www.opednews.com, where I regularly post comments, links, and articles. Very similar to things on this site, but of a somewhat broader nature. At the top of Opednews you'll see a search bar, where you can plug in any topic, such as my name, and find a trove of further ramblngs and topics I have found to be of relevance and interest. .