Saturday, April 9, 2016

People Power Is More Than Just a Slogan Today

Good Day World!


For the first time in my 65 years of existense, the phrase "Power to the People" is more than just a slogan.
When I was a teenager in the Sixties, it seemed like every group was using it. The Black Panthers, hippies and radicals had that in common.
It's not like people didn't join them; it's just that most of the time the slogan was more of a siren call than anything really effecting change. 
The hippie's philosophy of free love and flowers floating in air faded away with too many LSD trips, quietly disappearing into the "Me" Seventies.
Radicals, like the "Weather Underground," called on anarchists and disenfranchised minorities to wage war in America's streets. Their version of people power was more like a scene from the apocalypse. In the end, the group perished in a fiery shootout with police.
Then there were the Black Panthers. Their message of "Power to the People" carried revolutionary tones and called for a new society where African Americans would be treated equally. Their mission was to help struggling black communities.
African Americans are still fighting a race war for equality today.
But a newfound confidence has sprung up worldwide, as citizens feel more empowered. A good example of how to tap into that power can be found at Change.org, a website with a platform dedicated to letting anyone start a petition.
For better or worse, people can organize almost instantly now and get their message across loud and clear. 
Standing on street corners and waving signs, hoping people will notice and perhaps honk their horns in support, doesn't cut it in this new age of technology.
The age of people power is here. You are part of a revolution that will forever change the way things are done by local and national governments.
As It Stands, it's exciting to see the ascension of the common man, but now the question is, where will it eventually lead us?
Time for me to walk on down the road...

Friday, April 8, 2016

Crazed killer escapes from mental hospital, a miracle diet, and Trump dumped in new poll

Good Day World!

It's one of those freaky Fridays...

An escapee from a Seattle, Washington, mental hospital was last seen buying a ticket to Spokane on a Greyhound bus. 
(This undated photo provided by the Lakewood Police Department shows Anthony Garver.Lakewood Police Department via AP)

Just how far south Anthony Garver has gone no one knows yet.

I live in Oregon, and hope he doesn't make it this far south. The police say he's 'Scary and dangerous,' and warned the public to call 911 if they see him.

With that unpleasent thought lingering like a snake in the grass, let's move on to more weighty matters...

It's hard for me to believe in a diet where you eat next to nothing one day and gorge the next...and actually lose weight! That's freaky.

Watch this video and see what you think.


There is Growing Evidence That Fasting Diets Really Work


Here's the freakiest story for the day...

How is it that Donald Trump is the GOP frontrunner when you see polls like this?

Seven in 10 people, including close to half of Republican voters, have an unfavorable view of Trump, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.

Go figure. Having a reality star run for president is about as freaky as it gets!

Time for me to walk on down the road...

Thursday, April 7, 2016

When love calls: a brief look at a four-letter word

Good Day World!
  
The Beatles had it right when they sang, “All you need is love.” 

  The most positive emotion in humans is love. It moves mountains.
(Photo-My wife Shirley, and I.) 

It saves lives. No amount of money will ever buy it. Your body and mind need it like oxygen.
  
   It has spawned poems since ancient times when rhymes were written for Kings and Queens.

  C.S. Elliot describes four kinds of love in his book “The Four Loves.”  They are based upon the Greek words for love;  Storge (affection), Phileo (friendship,) Eros (romance), and Agape (unconditional love). 

   Love is the best anti-depressant, but many of our ideas about it are wrong. Most of us get our ideas about love from the popular culture. We expect to be swept off our feet when in love. We tend to have unrealistic images that don’t fit with the real world.

   The myth in our culture is love just happens. It appears out of nowhere and suddenly you are intoxicated. It doesn’t work that way. You have to actively pursue love by learning a variety of skills. You can’t just sit down and wait for love to come to you. That’s a mistake a lot of us make.

   “Hate controls everything it touches, but love sets everything it touches free,” said Bryant McGill, in The Voice of Reason. It’s true. Love can give us a new lease on life. It has no boundaries, other than the ones we set upon it.

   An extremist when it came to love, Kurt Vonnegut also had a healthy irreverence about it. In The Sirens of Titan he said, “A purpose in human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”

  In The Brothers Karamazov Fydor Dostoyevsky forcefully describes love. “What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” 

   Paulo Coelho in Zahir: A Novel of Obsession, wrote, “Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.”

   Honore de Balzac, who knew a thing or two about all-consuming love, wrote Physiologie Du Marriage.  In it he states, “The more one judges, the less one loves.” The wisdom of this quote really resonates when you think about it. I think we’re all guilty, at one time or another, of harshly judging others.

   One of my favorite quotes about love comes from Agatha Christie who wrote in her biography: “It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize how much you love them.” 

   It was Albert Einstein who asked, “How are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?” When I try to describe my first love (who I married) the words seem sappy and silly. I found that love grew, and was not a static thing.

   The longer you love, the deeper it goes. I know this from experience. Poets and authors worldwide have talked about love since the days of yore, but the subject never seems to be exhausted. People have always written about it, big and small. Love is always a fresh subject.

   Love is hard to define. How do you avoid mistaking it for infatuation or lust? Not even an experienced person can give a definite answer to that question. Psychologists talk about “that initial glow” (for the first six months) when a couple fall in love. It’s almost a fairytale come true, but always ends in reality. If love survives the rigors of  the world, it’s true love.

   “Love is your mother watching basketball games with me, even though she doesn’t care about the game,” I explained to my sons early on. “Love is selfless. It bends under stress, but always rebounds when given a chance.”

   Contrary to what some people may think, love has no price, yet still has to be earned. A mother’s love for her child is the exception, because it has no bounds or requirements. I’ve seen love in my wife’s eyes for 41 years, despite all the dumb things I’ve done during that time.

   Yes, I believe in the power of love. During my hippie days in the late sixties, I eagerly embraced the message of “Peace and Love” even though I was a stranger to it. Love does make the world go around, of that I‘m sure.

    As It Stands, to have truly lived, we must have love in our lives.

Time for me to walk on down the road...

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

A word of wisdom: remember to be wise in your whining ways!

 Good Day World!           
                                                       
 I’m a whiner when it comes to pain these days.

 Seems like I get a new pain everyday when I wake up. I can strain a pinkie doing something stupid the day before, and the pain will greet me in the morning like an unwanted in-law seeking to move into my den.

 I try to take solace in the fact experts say my habit of cracking my knuckles when I was young didn’t cause the arthritis that I currently suffer. They say cracking my knuckles was simply forming - then popping - an air bubble in my synovial fluid. That’s the gooey stuff in the cavities of your joints.

 I have a lousy left knee. It crunches when I walk. When I had it examined and the word surgery came up, I decided it still had mileage left despite the near constant pain. So I wear a brace - sporadically - and whine for all to hear as I lumber along. 

 I just read an article about a sugar solution injected into the knee for pain relief. The technique - known as dextrose prolotherapy - has been around for 75 years but is still considered an "alternative" therapy. 

 If I used this method for pain relief I’d probably get sugar diabetes! Alternate pain solutions have produced problems for me in the past and I‘m gun shy of shooting myself in the foot again!

Seriously, I do look for ways to alleviate my pain without taking meds. I use relaxation techniques, smoke ganja, and watch my diet. 

 I’m careful not to twist my back when I bend over and pet my pug. Basic stuff. I use the cane when my right leg goes totally numb, as it will after I stand upright for long periods of time. Comes from nerve damage in my back. If I don’t resort to the cane after a certain point, I look like Big Bird on a binge! 

 I’ve discovered that whining can feel good. People pay attention and you might even get babied for your efforts! If you’re really lucky, they offer to get whatever you want, and are happy to run to the store for your favorite chocolate peanut butter ice cream!

 I just have to remember to be wise in my whining ways. Too much produces the opposite effect of what I want. Everyone disappears suddenly, and I’m left to lament in solitude. There is a fine line.

 I whine about bruises. The darn things pop up out of nowhere on parts of my body that barely got bumped the day before. If it’s a really dark bruise I display it as proof that I have a reason to whine. 

“Look at this dear,” I tell my wife, displaying a dark spot on my forearm. She patiently nods in sympathy.

 I don’t know what good it does to whine when I hurt. When I was younger it was the last thing I would let anyone know. Heavens no! I was way too tough to let on I was human. Especially in the Army.

 Age does something to a person however. As I settle into my sixties, all the abuse I subjected my body to is coming back to haunt me like old competitors on steroids! 

Decades of basketball are partially to blame for my pain, but excesses like jumping off roofs of houses when I was in elementary school, contributed to the overall breakdown of my body. 

 Pain comes home to roost in older birds like me who didn’t take good care of themselves. I lived hard, played hard, and still play hard even when it hurts! In that I don’t have any regrets. 

 I’m in my so-called Golden Years, I’m gimping around like Popeye on pot, but I’m lucky to have a wife who’s understanding and will listen to my whining without wanting to see me lose my voice!

 I was talking with another fellow my age the other day and we did a dueling banjos thing where I would whine…then he would…then I would whine even louder.. and he would.. Well, you get the idea.

 As It Stands, they say humor is the best medicine, so I try to remember to laugh after a good whining session! 
(This column first appeared in the Times-Standard in April of 2008)

Time for me to walk on down the road...

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

2 Nursery Rhymes For The Times

Good Day World!

Hello Boys and Girls!

I've got two Nursery Rhymes about Donald Trump for you today.

The one on the right comes to you via MAD, and the one below via MY twisted brain!

Today's nursery rhyme is about Drump De Dump who wants to be president of the USA.

Here we go;

One day, Trump de Dump sat on an imaginary wall.

But Trump de Dump had a great fall 
when the Mexican government refused to build his giant wall.

Despite being a grump, Trump de Dump still smiled at every rally,
as his followers beat up protesters and kept a weekly tally.

It was amazing what Trump de Dump could do,
if he didn't like you he'd find a reason to sue!

All of the GOP's women and men,
couldn't rein Trump de Dump in!

So, the country is watching Dump's campaign in disgust,
hoping - against all hope - his efforts will be a bust! 

Time for me to walk on down the road...

Monday, April 4, 2016

Sweet Mary Jane: Talking About Sex and Cannabis

Good Day World!

After smoking ganja for 50 years, and researching the many applications that it offers, I'm still always looking for more news about my favorite plant. 

One of the more interesting - and less talked about - uses for pot is to enhance sex. I'm talking about other ways than just sparking a bowl and feeling sexy.


As far back as the seventh century, practitioners of Tantra—the ancient Hindu meditation that aims to “channel the divine energy of the macrocosm or godhead into the human microcosm”—have used weed to, well, channel the energy of a different godhead, too.
According to the journal Psychedelic Drugs, which documented the extensive use of cannabis in Tantra: “The Kama Sutra and Ananga Ranga eloquently detail Hindu sexual techniques, and the Tantras transform such sexual practices into a means of meditational yoga.”
One of my favorite stories is the epic Arabian work 1,001 Nights which detailed the intoxicating and aphrodisiac properties of hashish: 
Art thou not ashamed, O Hashish-eater, to be sleeping stark naked with stiff standing tool?”

When people want to get down and funky in India they drink bhang (a kind of weed smoothie made of yogurt or milk, nuts, spices, and ground cannabis).

Folks in Morocco, Egypt, and Lebanon, consume kif, which refers to the cannabis itself, but is also the name of another kind of blended pot drink that reduces inhibitions and impotence, and increases “transcendental experiences.

More recently, I found out about marijuana lube for sex (I have a hunch this stuff has been around for a long time). It's called Foria. 
You spray it on your nether bits with the goal of having a localized, sensory-based high with no psychoactive effects.

Apparently it will also “bring to your fingertips the power of ancient plant medicine to inspire deep healing and unlock profound pleasures.” 
(Here’s a video if you want to see women talking about the “beautiful waves” of Foria-induced pleasure.)

Time for me to walk on down the road...

Sunday, April 3, 2016

The Banana Generation: Butt-Hurt Youths Struggling With Reality


                                   Good Day World!

Meet the Banana Generation (aka millennials).

Like bananas, their feelings are easily bruised. They think there should be laws for people that make them FEEL unsafe or speak rudely to them.

Our college's are cluttered with bananas who are ill-fitted to go out into the real world. Instead of studying, they're setting up "safe places" for minorities to gather.

One has to wonder what will happen to these fragile souls when they eventually leave campus life. 

According to a recent Pew Research Center report, the nation's 18-to-34-year-olds are less likely to be living on their own today than they were in the depths of the Great Recession despite an upswing in the economy.

The Pew study shows that while the population of millennials (Bananas) has grown by three million people over the last eight years, there are fewer that are heads of their own households.

I know there's good reasons why some young adults are coming back home again; student debt, etc., but I question their grip on the real world.

One of the reasons I say that is because of advances in computer/video technology. 

It's not unusual to see 33-year-olds living second lives online in video games that are becoming more realistic every day...further blurring the lines between make-believe and reality.

There's a broad suspicion, shared across the ideological spectrum-from right-wing watchdogs to high-minded progressives-that college students these days are absurdly thin-skinned, unduly obsessed with "safe spaces" and political correctness.

As an Independent, I have to agree with that assessment.

In the great fruitbowl of life, the Bananas are going to have to learn to morph into watermelons!

Time for me to walk on down the road...

It's Time to Pay Up Donnie!

It's looks like there will be some prime real estate going on the market soon in New York City. Convicted rapist and former president ...