John Wayne: Why I Forgave an American Icon’s Politics

Good Day World!

A blast from the past..

Vietnam 1970 - I had been in country one week when my squad leader said, “We don’t need any John Wayne’s in this squad.” Nearly everyone I met during my tour in Vietnam and Cambodia agreed with that sentiment.

At first, it was hard for me to understand why everyone seemed so down on the Duke. At nineteen I knew very little about politics.

After watching him use his iconic status to support conservative causes that kept the war going I found myself at odds with my boyhood hero. There was no getting around it; the Duke supported the Vietnam War by producing, co-directing, and starring in the critically panned movie The Green Berets in 1968.

That movie was propaganda, pure and simple. After awhile, I understood why his name come to represent the establishment, and the senseless war we were fighting. I discovered there were no hero’s like the ones in the movies.

Just survivors. Most of the Vietnamese I met wanted us to go home. We came to realize we were invaders, not saviors. Then it became a game to stay alive, at whatever cost.

I never saw anyone cry out, “For God and Country” and charge into an enemy bunker with an M-16 blazing away. That’s not the war I saw. I saw corruption on the South Vietnamese side and the American side. A thriving black market. Master sergeants in supply getting rich. And lots of Americans doing drugs.

How could my boyhood hero have supported such a massive mistake? Why did he agree with the government that put us there for no good reason?  What made Marion Mitchell Morrison side with the bad guys? His hat was green, but it might as well been black.

While he epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon, he was also known for his conservative political views and for being a hawk on the war. Looking back, I believe the Duke felt he was patriotic and doing the right thing at the time.

Time has been kind to his memory. A Harris Poll this year placed him 7th among America's favorite top 10 film stars. He was the only deceased star on the list, and the only one who appeared in the poll every year since it first began in 1994.

To millions, he symbolized and communicated American values and ideals. Nothing will ever change that. I’ll always consider him a great actor despite disagreeing with his politics during those turbulent years of our involvement in Vietnam.

His son, Ethan Wayne, sold some of his stuff a couple of years ago. Ethan had such a large collection of his father's movie memorabilia that he decided to open his archives for the auction which brought record-setting prices.

Among the items sold was his Golden Globe award for True Grit. In an article two years ago. Ethan Wayne said his dad still resonated with fans around the world, not only because of his movies, "…but because he was also liked personally. People knew he was the same kind of guy off screen as he was on screen. You could sense that about him. He never got bogged down with the darker side of his life."

Some hold Wayne in contempt for the paradox between his early actions - he never went into the military - and his rampant patriotism in later decades. His widow suggested he was that way because he felt guilty and not because he was a hypocrite.

You know what? I forgave him a long time ago. I’m beyond those bad old days when the Duke wore a Black hat instead of his customary White one. I have no problem watching a re-run of  him in Stage Coach, The Searchers, The High and Mighty, The Flying Tigers, or True Grit.

Wayne played the lead in 142 of his film appearances. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen every film he ever made.

It’s easier now for me to go back to my childhood days when the Duke ruled the cinema. I once worked as a security guard at a gated community where he and his wife Pilar lived in Newport Beach (1974). I saw him there regularly and he always took a moment to talk.

Those memories serve me well. He was easy to talk with. We had many interesting conversations, him in his non-descript Ford Station Wagon (white, and a horrible olive green), and me standing there in a rent-a-cop uniform at the main gate. He treated me with respect when he learned I was a Vietnam veteran.

One day, when I told him I was getting married, he gave me a cigar and wished me the best of luck.

Little did I know that his marriage was on the rocks at the time! I noticed that they never seemed to be in a vehicle together, but wrote that off as what rich folks did. Ride in separate cars.

I was only 23-years old, and had a lot to learn about relationships. I’m still learning after 40 years of marriage!

You know, I can’t help wondering what that cigar would have sold for at that big auction?

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Friday Fun: A Humorous Look at the History of Food

                                                         Good Day World!
Camera pans in; 338,000 years ago somewhere in Ethiopia two early humans are discussing the merits of meat:

Oog -  “I’m sick and tired of eating grubs and berries!”

Nug - “Me too. You know what we got to do?”

Oog -  “Yep. Risk our lives hunting down meat that is many times bigger than Nug and Oog. It’s dangerous business, but a good dinosaur steak is hard to beat when you want something good to eat.”

Nug - “Not according to Oop. He says he won’t eat anything with a face and is fine grubbing around for berries and insects.”

Oog - “That’s because Oop is too lazy to hunt down a meat meal. Besides, he’s never been right since getting smacked by that big lizard’s tail.”

Nug - “Okay then. I’ll go get my spear and tell the little lady we may be gone for a few days.”
Oog - “Sounds good. My mouth is watering just thinking about the feast we’re going to have!”
Two months later Nug’s wife and Oog’s girlfriend are now with new hunter-gathers that don’t like meat!

Fast forward to 306 BC Rome.
Three wealthy diners are gathered in the triclinium (special dining room) lying on specially design couches (Lectus triclinaris). Around the table, the mensa, the three diners recline on their lectus and casually eat exotic food brought to them by slaves.
Over a spoonful (cochlear-type spoon with a needle-thin grip, which is also used as a prong to eat snails and molluscs) one of the diners speaks between mouthfuls of lentils imported from Egypt:
Petronius: “Food this good should never be on a dirty peasant’s table. They wouldn’t appreciate the refined flavors.” 
Cassius: “Let them eat fava beans, chick peas, and lupins, I say!”
Marcellus: “Let them eat what we deposit in the vomitorium this very day!” 
A hearty round of laughter is followed by gulps of imported wine.
The following morning a city-wide slave revolt results in a round-up of wealthy Romans. It doesn’t take long before fava beans and chick peas become Petronius, Cassius, and Marcellus’ favorite (and only) food.

Fast Forward to the American Civil War - 1863:
When on campaign, soldiers were issued rations of hardtack crackers (generally 9 or 10 crackers) when bread was not available, which was most of the time. Some of the common problems with hardtack were being too hard, wet, moldy, or infested with maggots and weevils. If they boiled their hardtack in coffee they could scrape the weevils off the foam.
Grumbling about hardtack was common and there was a popular song called “Hard Times.” The chorus went:
“Tis the song and the sign of the hungry,
Hard crackers, hard crackers, come again no more!
Many days have lingered on our stomach sore,
Oh hard crackers come again no more!”
Soldiers through the ages have complained about rations, and the North and South armies were no different. They did however, exhibit a wonderful sense of humor when discussing their cuisine!

Fast forward to today.
Knock, knock who’s there? Lettuce…lettuce who? Lettuce in and we’ll tell you!”
We eat some pretty weird foods in the good old USA. Sometimes I don’t know if I should chuckle or upchuck. Here are a few examples:
Snake. No it doesn’t taste like chicken. Take it from me. I tried it. Try frog legs, alligator, or even quail, with a gamey seafood flavor. If you really want the whole experience you should catch your snake and cook him up yourself. Just remember to carry some anti-venom in case he’s quicker than you.
Brain sandwiches. Deep-fried calves’ brains can be found in restaurants all along the Ohio River Valley. I read that squirrel brains were a popular Appalachia food for thought. Unless, that is, you get the wrong squirrel carrying a variation of mad cow disease!
A popular Arizona restaurant serves Chapulines, aka grasshoppers. It’s a traditional food in Mexico and is said to taste like grass, hay, or shrimp. That’s quite a spread. Which is it? I’m not really tempted to find out.
“Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.” - Mark Twain
Time for me to walk on down the road…

Dave Stancliff

‘Have You Already Read This Crazy Essay?’

Good Day World!

Deja vu to you, and does this essay look familiar?

I hope not. I’ll explain why later, but right now let’s cut to the chase. Have you ever had the feeling you had experienced something in the past when the experience was actually a new one?

Kinda creepy huh? It has been for me numerous times. As far as I’ve been able to determine there are two schools of thought on that sense of Déjà vu. You have the scientific viewpoint, and you have the folks who believe those feelings of Déjà vu  come from psychic abilities possessed by some people.

So what is it? Disorders in the brain or memories of a past life? What is Déjà vu? Let’s start with those researchers who spend their lives trying to find the answer. The feeling has been attributed to schizophrenia, anxiety and a malfunction of the electrical system in the brain.

Certain medicines are believed to be factors responsible for Déjà vu. Medicinal drugs such as amantadine and phenylpropanolamine have been observed to cause it.

A popular theory says our brains tend to associate different situations. Even more interesting, the brain often tries to experimentally reproduce a situation it has never faced. The result? Your anticipation of a certain event might make you think you’ve encountered a similar experience before.

In my reading on the subject I found there are several types of Déjà vu. Fair warning; this gets a little tricky. Basically you have Deja Senti, Deja Vecu, and Deja Visite.

With Deja Senti the feeling you have refers to something “already felt.” According to researchers something felt in the past was very similar to that felt in the present. The similarity in the two experiences can make a person feel they’ve done it in the past.

When you visited a completely new place, have you had the funny idea you knew what was going to happen next? That’s called Deja Vecu, and those who experience it feel they have a portal to the future.

There’s a fine line between Deju Vecu, and the last form of Deju vu called Deja Visite.
As the name implies, Deja Visite is all about going to a place for the first time and claiming to know it despite never having been there in reality.

It’s funny, but most of my Deju vu experiences were like “Oh No! Caught again!” I knew a guy in the Army who always claimed to experience Déjà vu and after a while I wondered if he was a psychic or a wacko. Luckily, we were only stationed together for a few months and I never had to find out.

While trying to understand this mysterious Déjà vu stuff I came across one explanation that was an eye opener. Scientists say one of the human eyes perceives a certain thing before the other. One eye actually records the incident earlier, they claim.

Meanwhile the other eye, which records the same incident milliseconds later, gives the brain a feeling of recollection. Researchers suggest that one eye perceives something and the brain interprets it. The other eye lags in time by a few milliseconds, perceives the same thing and sends the image to the brain.

So what happens? The brain perceives the image milliseconds later and thinks you’ve seen it before. Sound good? Well…maybe not. People with only one eye experience Deju vu too, a fact that has left those researchers scratching their heads and bumping into walls.

I’m sure this will only be a temporary setback and they’ll have another explanation for Deju vu one of these days. I’ll try to stay tuned to any further theories about this fascinating subject that may be worth updating in a future column. I’ll just have to be careful to remember that I’ve already written about the subject so I don’t have a case of Deju vu when I do!

By the way, if you think I wrote this essay before, please squint one eye and blink the other a couple of times until the feeling goes away!

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Distracted Pedestrians Narrowing the Gene Pool: There goes another one!

               
                                             Good Day World!                                      
                                                     
 Nostalgia moment; remember the old phrase, “…so and so can’t walk and chew gum at the same time?” It’s time to update it, and bring it into the 21st Century.

Now we can say, “…so and so can’t walk and text, tweet, play video games, and talk on the phone at the same time.” And we have statistics to prove it. One more thing, it’s called “distracted walking,” but I think that’s too nice a way to put it.

Some readers may question why I’m bringing up this subject. It’s only been a year since I complained about a new texting and driving law in California. Some of you may wonder, “What’s the deal with Dave? What does he have against technology?”

The answer is, nothing. It’s the idiots who don’t use modern technology safely because of a lack of common sense who interest me. I’m not really worried about getting walked over by a “distracted walker” as I’m sure I’ll see him or her before they see me. I’ll get out of the way. It’s when they step out into traffic that I can’t help cringing.

“Distracted walking” is a greater problem than I realized. Data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that pedestrian fatalities rose by 4.2 percent from 2009 to 2010, and injuries increased by 19 percent during the same period.

You may remember I pointed out a report on traffic fatalities caused by “distracted driving.” The first three months of this year saw a 13.5 percent jump in drivers dying because of distracted driving. Sobering data to say the least.

I’ve gathered some information that indicates “distracted walking” is emerging as a public health concern. In 2011 alone, 1,152 people were treated for injuries caused by distracted walking, according to data collected by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

That number is likely a gross underestimate since doctors or nurses may not have asked whether the patient was using a mobile device at the time of the accident, according to a July 30, 2012, AP report.

"We are where we were with cell phone use in cars 10 years or so ago. We knew it was a problem, but we didn't have the data," Jonathan Atkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, said in the same report.

Here’s more revealing information: researchers at the University of Maryland identified 116 cases in which pedestrians were killed or seriously injured while wearing headphones. Two-thirds of those injuries involved men under the age of 30, and half of them involved trains.

If you go to YouTube there are endless videos of distracted people walking into things, or off them. Great for laughs. Funny stuff, right? Cathy Cruz Marrero, the woman who tumbled into a fountain while texting and walking in a mall in Pennsylvania, didn’t think it was too funny.

She’s a star on the internet now. She wasn't injured, but she told CBS News that she cried for days after footage of the accident landed on YouTube, where it was viewed more than 2 million times.

There’s another popular YouTube video starring distracted walker Bonnie Miller, a Michigan woman who recently fell off a pier while texting and walking. "I can't let pride get in my way of warning other people to not drive and text or walk and text. It's quite dangerous," Miller told ABC 57, a local television station in South Bend, Indiana.

There was nothing funny about her husband and a 19-year-old bystander jumping into the cold water to save her. She wasn’t laughing when Firefighters and the Coast Guard arrived and threw them floatation devices. Lucky for her it was just a humiliating experience and she’s alive to talk about it.

Another lucky distracted walker whose story has gone viral since it happened in 2009, is Alexa Longueira, of Staten Island, N.Y. This teenager fell into an open manhole while reading a text on her friend’s cell phone. According to a report by WABC, she fell 6 feet into four inches of raw sewage.

Unlike distracted driving, I don’t think there should be any laws against distracted walking; it’s probably an effective way to thin out the gene pool!

Time for me to walk on down the road…

44 Years Ago Today: Remembering The Cambodian Campaign

Good Day World!

 On this day in 1970, my squad was attached to the  1st Air Cav Division and we crossed the border into Cambodia.

With us was the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the 1st ARVN Armoured Cavalry Regiment, and the 3rd ARVN Airborne Brigade.

We entered the Kampong Cham Province of Cambodia. The operation was known as Task Force Shoemaker (after General Robert M. Shoemaker, the Assistant Division Commander of the 1st Cavalry Division).

Our force attacked the long-time communist stronghold with 10,000 U.S. and 5,000 South Vietnamese troops. Sporadic contact and ambushes happened nearly every day. We lost eight Americans killed and 32 wounded, which was low casualties for such a large operation that wound up by May 3rd.

Unlike in the picture above where I’m sitting on that bucket loader, I walked most of the time and was responsible for minesweeping the dirt roads which were loaded with landmines left by the retreating NVA force.

One of the many things I’ll never forget is the ambush that killed my partner, Rogers. It happened so fast it was a blur. I was lucky enough to be able to dive to the ground and crawl for cover without getting hit. He wasn’t.

I remember before we left for Cambodia we both sat down and wrote letters home. He showed me a picture of his wife who was 8 months pregnant. I wrote my sister Margie and told her what I knew about my new mission of going into Cambodia. It’s hard to believe that my letters weren’t censored by the military.

Both of us looked at the upcoming mission as somewhat of a lark. It was easily the biggest operation we’d been in yet. Talking with guys from other units helped keep me informed. Did I fear dying? Listen, I was 19 years-old and was too stupid to think I might die.

So, here I am today over 40 years later, still thinking about that tough time in my life. For some vets, like me with PTSD, there’s anniversary dates that remind us of those times. today is one of those dates.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

What Makes a Column, or Article Go Viral?

Good Day World!

What makes a column, or article, go viral?

I wrote a column for The Times-Standard newspaper on April 7, 2013, and it’s still going strong a year later!

At the time, my column Faster is not always better: THC ‘dabs’ can be dangerous was breaking news. I have to admit that I’m not sure why so many people are still reading it today. I just know that for the last year this column has been in the Top 10 Most-Popular reads among readers. 

Most-Popular among all readers – Sunday April, 27th, 2014

Of The Day: This list ranks the top 50 most-clicked articles so far today.

1.Flight of the condor; Yurok Tribe looks to return bird to the North Coast

2. Faster is not always better: THC 'dabs' can be dangerous

Of The Hour: The top 50 most-clicked articles of the previous hour.

1. Flight of the condor; Yurok Tribe looks to return bird to the North Coast
2. Faster is not always better: THC 'dabs' can be dangerous

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Racism in Sports: LA Clipper Owner Sterling Shows His Colors

                                         Good Day World!

Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m just naïve, or out-of-the-loop, when it comes to racism in sports today.

I thought everyone agreed Jackie Robinson was a great player (and man), but there’s people who still don’t like the fact that he broke down the race barrier in professional baseball.

I guess I need to read more on the subject because this article makes it clear that racism is still alive and well in professional sports. All of them.

Then I read about the LA Clippers’ owner, Donald Sterling. Wow! According to Time Online he’s had a long history of alleged racism — he paid the largest fine the U.S. government has ever handed out for housing discrimination, among other things.

Here we are in the middle of the Clippers’ playoff run and his mouth has once again spewed foul words about African-Americans.

TMZ has audio allegedly of Sterling arguing with his girlfriend because she put on her Instagram account a picture of her with Magic Johnson when she met him (she soon after took it down). The audio is hard to listen to it is so disgusting, but here are a few “highlights:

“It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people. Do you have to?”

“You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that … and not to bring them to my games.”

“I’m just saying, in your lousy f******* Instagrams, you don’t have to have yourself with, walking with black people.”

“…Don’t put him [Magic] on an Instagram for the world to have to see so they have to call me. And don’t bring him to my games.”

Time for me to walk on down the road..

Retired Supreme Court Justice Says Legalize Pot

Good Day World!

The days of the “Devil Weed” have passed, and it’s nice to see people in high places with the same assessment. 

The marijuana-legalization movement gained a new friend in a high place yesterday when retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said the federal government should allow American adults to possess pot.

Speaking to National Public Radio, Stevens said public opinion on legal weed has shifted noticeably in recent years toward favoring what would essentially be an end to federal marijuana prohibition.

“Recognize that the distinction between marijuana and alcoholic beverages is really not much of a distinction,” Stevens told NPR. (Read whole story here)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Cliven Bundy: Racist, Hypocrite & Liar Gets His 15 Minutes of Fame

 Good Day World!

 Today we’ll look at a real racist and hypocrite.

His name is Cliven Bundy. That’s him wearing a broad-brimmed white cowboy hat in the photo.

He’s seen here recounting the success of “we the people” - gesturing to his 50 supporters, some armed with handguns and rifles, standing in a semicircle before him - at chasing away Bureau of Land Management rangers who, acting on a court order, tried to confiscate 500 cattle owned by Mr. Bundy, who has been illegally grazing his herd on public land since 1993.

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

His cause has won support from Senator Rand Paul, the libertarian Republican from Kentucky who is likely to run for president. Senator Dean Heller, a Nevada Republican, referred to Mr. Bundy’s supporters as “patriots.”

Continue reading the main story

A day later, Tea Party favorite Rand Paul condemned Cliven Bundy’s for his remarks on Blacks. The potential 2016 presidential candidate, joined a line of Republican and Democratic leaders on Thursday in denouncing Cliven Bundy’s racist remarks.

But the damage was done. All those politicians who jumped on Bundy’s bandwagon had to back off because the guy is a wackaloon. He doesn’t “recognize” the United States of America, yet he flies an American flag. That’s a hypocrite. And a stupid one at that!

But he didn’t lose the little group of militiamen spoiling for a fight. Some had White Power insignias tattooed on their necks (photo above). They’re still hanging around hoping for a chance at open anarchy.

If Cliven Bundy has his way there will be another confrontation – maybe then he’ll get the shoot-out he wants.

Bundy Can’t Even Get His Family History Right or He’s Outright Lying

It has been widely reported that Cliven Bundy’s family claims to have ranched in the Bunkerville area since the 1870s even though a federal judge held a different view of Bundy’s history.

Contrast that with the 1998 opinion from U.S. District Judge Johnnie Rawlinson in a case where it was determined Bundy wouldn’t be allowed to use federal land for his cattle because of failure to pay grazing fees to the Bureau of Land Management. Rawlinson wrote that it wasn’t until roughly 1954 that “Bundy or his father or both have grazed livestock on public lands owned by the United States and administered by the BLM.”

Clark County Recorder documents show the 160-acre Bunkerville ranch Bundy calls home was purchased by his parents, David and Bodel Bundy, from Raoul and Ruth Leavitt on Jan. 5, 1948

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Three Lottery Wins In Three Weeks –Talk About Lucky!

 Good Day World!

Some people have all the luck!

Did you hear about that guy from Chicago, Christopher Kaelin? He won the Illinois lottery 3 weeks in a row for a total of $276,000!

Kaelin said his first win came during his lunch break when he bought a Crossword instant ticket at Gateway Newstand on Clark Street in Chicago and won $25,000.

“My fiancé and I were so thrilled that I won $25,000, we went out for dinner to celebrate,” he said.

After their celebratory dinner, the couple stopped at a gas station where Kaelin decided to buy another Crossword ticket and won $1,000.

The following week, he stopped at the same store where he purchased his $25,000 winning ticket and bought his third Crossword instant ticket. He said he was in his office when he used a key to scratch the ticket and realized he had won what he thought was $25,000.

“I was in the elevator when I took another look at my ticket and noticed I had the tenth word. The prize wasn’t $25,000 - it was $250,000,” he said. “I was shocked.” (News source)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

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. 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 39 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. To have truly lived, we must have love in our lives.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Hidden Agendas: The Rest of the Stories

Good Day World!

Did several Russian cosmonauts die in secret before their first success in space?

The Soviets hid most of the records involved, but not all of them. Governments have always hid things from the general population. Discover examples here.

Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know

This collection of stories is fascinating. Find out what the story is behind Chemtrails. Discover Project Bluebook, and a woman named Henrietta Lacks, whose contributions to science were hidden for decades.Lost cosmonauts, stories from the Depp Web and more.

10 Things The Government Doesn’t Want You to Know

Most of us think our government is hiding things from us. So what is government telling us? Probably more than we think. Here are a few things I’m sure our government didn’t want us to know.And get caught up with “Mermaids: The New Evidence” and “Time Travel.”

Things That Are Being Hidden From Us

It’s said that one of the biggest secrets NASA has ever kept is that there’s a type of life living in our upper atmosphere.

Hidden History: What Really Happened?

This article will provide you with one of the most comprehensive conspiracies on the internet.it’s updated daily with article suggesting the government goes out of its way to hide facts from the public.

Our History of Corporations in the United States

From the day we instituted a democracy there were concerns about who would really be influencing the government. Our country’s founding fathers had good reason to be concerned! Corporations have become the enemy of the people.

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

In the last 125 years, social engineers have sought to keep life under tight central control. It’s the work of the technocratic elite.

Time for me to walk on down the road…   

Meet ALEC: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Good Day World!

What is ALEC and why should you care?

If you’re uncomfortable with corporations writing our laws then you’ll be interested in ALEC American Legislative Exchange Council), a group that pairs legislators with corporate heads to pass laws favoring big business.

The Washington, D.C. - based group of conservative state legislators and corporate leaders drafts “model” legislation to be passed as state laws Recently, they’ve been accused of under-reporting their lobbying activities. They claim to be a non-profit, non-partisan organization, but their actions belie that description.

Common Cause, a non-profit government watchdog group, sent a letter to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on July 14th , 2011, alleging ALEC filed false tax returns and is engaged in lobbying despite its claims to the contrary. ALEC’s tax-exempt, charitable status was on the line. Nothing came of the lawsuit and ALEC is still wielding undue influence on all of our laws.

One obvious counter to their claim of being “non-partisan” is their membership: they have one Democrat and 103 Republican legislators currently in leadership positions.

So exactly what does ALEC do? Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators changes to the law that directly benefit their bottom line, according to the Center for Media and Democracy.

It isn’t just legislators who have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board. Yeah right. And Tea Party members believe in compromise.

This partisan stalking horse that calls itself ALEC introduces over 1,000 bills every year through its overwhelmingly conservative legislative members. Consider this; one in every five bills they present is enacted into law.

According to everything I’ve read about lobbying, handing bills to legislators so they can introduce them is the very definition. ALEC says "no lobbying is taking place." I’m of the opinion, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

ALEC operates under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, which limits  lobbying activity and allows corporate backers to deduct their contributions.

Fact; corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators take proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own ideas and important public policy innovations - without disclosing that corporations crafted and approved the bills.

According to the IRS, more than 98% of ALEC's revenues come from sources such as corporations, corporate trade groups, and corporate foundations. Getting the picture?

ALEC receives grants from some of the biggest foundations funded by corporate CEOs in the country, like the Charles G. Koch Foundation, the Koch-managed Claude R. Lambe Foundation, and the Castle Rock Foundation, to name a few.

The current chairman of ALEC’s corporate board is W. Preston Baldwin III, until recently a lobbyist and Vice President of State Government Affairs at UST Inc., a tobacco firm now owned by Altria/Phillip Morris USA.

Guess what? Altria is advancing a very short, specific bill to change the way moist tobacco products (such as fruit flavored “snus” by companies like Skoal) are taxed - to make them cheaper and more attractive to young tobacco users.

Fact; 20 of the 24 corporate representatives on ALEC’s “Private Enterprise Board” are lobbyists representing major firms such as Koch Industries, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, Wal-Mart and Johnson and Johnson.

ALEC is blatantly influencing state laws under the guise of a non-profit, charitable organization. Their claims at promoting “educational activities” would be laughable if they weren’t illegal. ALEC engages in outright power-brokering at the tax payer’s expense.

ALEC’s operating model raises many ethical and legal concerns. Each state has a different set of ethics laws or rules. The presence of lobbyists alone may cause ethics problems for some state legislators.

Some examples of ALEC’s alumni: Speaker of the House John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, Congressman Joe Wilson, Governor Scott Walker, and Governor Jan Brewer.

Seems to me, they’re part of the group of Congressional conservatives who refuse to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations. What a surprise!

They should at least be transparent about their past ALEC memberships. Little alumni badges would be nice, don’t you think? For complete and updated information on ALEX go to Alex Exposed

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Happy Birthday to My Sister & Happy 420 to Those Folks Who Take Tokes!

Good Day World!

Happy Birthday to my sister Linda Jane, who was born on this day.

Luv ya, Sis!

Happy 420 to all you folks who are taking tokes to celebrate cannabis today!

Here’s a link to 420 celebrations:

4/20 2014: Marijuana Rallies in Cities Around the World

Meanwhile, Denver’s first 420 Rally since Colorado’s legalization of marijuana is expected to be the largest yet — but don’t expect attendees to light up in a joint celebration.

As the Mile High City’s police step up security for the growing annual event, organizers say they’ll focus on protesting the state’s existing marijuana restrictions.

“It is time to make your voice heard in response to the proposed regulations that have been handed over to the Colorado General Assembly,” 420 Rally organizers said in a statement on the group's website.

Here’s your guide to party time should you be attending this massive gathering of weed-friendly people.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Well dang it…Justin Bieber Didn’t Get Kicked Out of the USA – Nice Try Though

 Good Day World!

 The White House chickened out!

Instead of responding to a petition from over a quarter million Americans, it chose to to whimp out on kicking that spoiled brat from Canada out of the USA.

The reason? To avoid the appearance of improper influence. Oh please! The White House has enough undue influence on everything in our society, why bother reforming now?

From NBC News:

“Sorry, 273,968 people who signed a petition to have pop star Justin Bieber sent back to his native Canada. The White House issued a response of sorts on Friday, but it's not the answer you waited three months to receive.

"Thanks for your petition and your participation in We the People," the letter on the site begins. "Sorry to disappoint, but we won’t be commenting on this one. The We the People terms of participation state that, “to avoid the appearance of improper influence, the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government in its response to a petition." (Story here)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Essay for the Day: Recognizing when not to ‘die’ over an issue

Good Day World!                                
                                                 
Have you ever heard the phrase, “It’s not worth dying for?”

Basically, it means there’s no use getting stressed out over things when the result is you’re the one who will suffer.

Not that politician who angered you. Not that jerk who cut you off on the freeway. Not that clown who claimed to be pious, but was actually a child molester. You’re the one who will suffer the consequences of increased blood pressure, or heart attack, when your anger gets the best of you.

Fred Phelps was often called "the most hated man in America," a label he seemed to relish. When he died in March it reminded me of something that happened March 10, 2006, when he and his hate-infused family picketed the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew A. Snyder in Westminister, Maryland.

I had to remind myself not to get too upset when I heard the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) to continue picketing Army funerals. Watching that hate group taunt the families of dead American servicemen on TV practically sent me through the roof!

For days, I fumed over the decision, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was the only decision the justices could make. Free Speech was challenged and had to be upheld, regardless of how hateful that speech was. It still hit me hard.

As a Vietnam veteran (1970 - Army) I looked at the decision with biased eyes. Gut reaction. Those fallen men and women were my brothers and sisters, and the WBC was allowed to mock their deaths. To disrupt a sacred ritual of comfort for the living over their loss. How wrong was that?

Matthew Snyder was killed in Iraq in 2006 and his funeral was picketed by Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church, Albert Snyder, Matthew’s father, told Katie Couric on CBS News.
He also said, “When the government won’t do anything about it, and the courts give us no remedy, then people are going to start taking matters into their own hands. And believe me someone is going to get hurt. And when the blood starts flowing, let it be on the Supreme Court Justices’ hands.”

I felt Albert Snyder’s pain. I didn’t lose a son, but I felt like the whole world was turned upside down, and wrong was right. The bad guys won. Chaos was creeping nearer. Then I heard Tom Brokaw say something that really struck a cord with me. He mentioned the veteran groups that were attending military funerals to shield the families from Phelps and his minions.

If anything, the WBC has caused attendance to increase at military funerals across the nation. The fallen are actually getting more recognition for their sacrifices than before the WBC started their vile campaign against them.

For years, I’ve read about low attendance at military funerals. They even had a hard time finding people to play “Taps” and used tape recordings instead. The services were generally confined to immediate family and friends, in spite of being open to the public.

Look at what’s happening now. Hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of strangers are going to military funerals to show their respect and solidarity against those who would profane such a sacred event. I wouldn’t be surprised to see even more dramatic increase in attendance after the WBC promised to “quadruple” their demonstrations after the court’s decision.

The mistake Albert Snyder made was he was prepared to “die over something” that’s not wrong according to our Constitution. As a father, I completely understand how emotions can run strong when it comes to our children.

The WBC is morally wrong without a doubt, but the court can’t use that as  factor in its decision for freedom of speech. Hopefully, Snyder was able to take some solace since his son’s funeral brought about an awareness of military deaths.

The public needs to be reminded that Americans are dying in our never-ending wars. Matthew Snyder’s legacy is he died fighting for his country and his funeral became a wake up call for America.

Violence at military funerals, as Snyder suggested may happen, is not the answer. Violence is never the answer. The Supreme Court’s decision was the right one. Threatening the WBC members will accomplish nothing and will only keep them in the spotlight they crave.

Putting things in perspective; a small cult/church is spewing hateful messages and will do or say anything to get attention. Most of the country disagrees with them, and the end result is an awareness of military deaths and a re-affirmation of free speech.

Few things in life are really worth “dying for” and the ability to recognize that means a longer and happier life.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Tourists from Hell: Chinese Assume ‘Ugly’ Mantle from Americans

   Good Day World!

 I remember back in the early 1960s reading the Ugly American – and seeing the 1963 movie about the novel, starring Marlon Brando.

It was a political novel and was written by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer.

The novel became a bestseller, was influential at the time, and is still in print. The book is a quasi-roman à clef; that is, it presents, in a fictionalized guise, the experience of Americans in Southeast Asia (Vietnam) and allegedly portrays several real people who are represented by pseudonyms.

The book describes the United States's losing struggle against Communism—what was later to be called the battle for hearts and minds in Southeast Asia—because of innate arrogance and the failure to understand the local culture.

The title is actually a double entendre, referring both to the physically unattractive hero, Homer Atkins, and to the ugly behavior of the American government employees.

Things have changed however in the 21st Century and now the mantle for ugly behavior has been passed onto the Chinese! Check out the following story from NBC News:

“Thousands have clambered aboard student buses at Chiang Mai University, made a mess in cafeterias and sneaked into classes to attend lectures. Someone even pitched a tent by a picturesque lake. The reason: "Lost in Thailand," a 2012 slapstick comedy partly shot on campus that is China's highest-grossing homegrown movie ever.

Now visitors are restricted to entering through a single gate manned by Mandarin-speaking volunteers who direct Chinese tourists to a line of vehicles for guided tours. Individual visitors are banned, and a sign in prominent Chinese characters requesting that passports be produced is posted by the gate.

With their economy surging, mainland Chinese have become the world's most common world traveler, with more than 100 million expected to go abroad this year. In 2012, they overtook the Americans and Germans as the top international spenders, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

But in Chiang Mai and elsewhere, Chinese tourists have acquired the same sort of reputation for loud, uncouth, culturally unaware behavior that inspired the term "Ugly Americans" decades ago. (read full story here)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Some Reflections on Collections

Good Day World!                             
                                       
Collecting things can be a long and winding road that never ends. The list of things deemed collectible is as colorful as a rainbow, and can stretch the limits of our imaginations.

How many stories have you heard about people who used their baseball cards as noise-makers for their bikes while growing up?

You might even have done that. I didn’t, but I cringe when I hear people tell me how they used Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Duke Snider, and Sandy Koufax cards so rudely. Those same people groan with regret when they learn how much those cards are worth these days.

There are always a few, like my high school buddy Larry, who saved everything he ever ran across. He started ridiculously young and actually saved his baseball cards neatly sorted in shoe boxes. He also amassed a collection of baseball hall of fame memorabilia second only to Cooperstown since then!

Visiting with Larry and his beautiful wife Nanci is like entering a baseball shrine. You get the urge to cry out, “Play ball!” He’s a Dodger fan and the majority of his collection reflects that. Someday, someone in the Dodger organization will find out about Larry and induct him into their fans hall of fame. If they don’t already have one, he can be the first entry.

I, and my buddy Tom (now my brother-in-law and still buddy) collected comic books for a brief time in high school. We were fans of Marvel Comics in particular. We read a lot of the D.C. titles like “Superman” and “Batman,” but it was Marvel characters like the “Fantastic Four” and the “Amazing Hulk” that got our greatest admiration.

Our favorite Marvel character was Spider Man. We snapped up each new issue and eagerly read it while relaxing in a park near the liquor store where we purchased our comics. From 1964 to 1966, we saved enough money each month to buy all the Marvel comics available that month (and a few selected DC titles) on the rack.

We’d take our stack of comics, a bottle of Coca Cola , a candy bar or two, and settle on the park benches for an afternoon read-a-thon. Those were heady times. Our conversations revolved around Peter Parker, aka Spider Man, and if he should reveal his identity to Mary Jane or his Aunt May.

World events seemed far away back then, and comic books were our escape from such horrible things as the drudgery of school, not being old enough to get a driver’s license, and having to walk everywhere we went.

You might wonder what happened to that collection of comics from the so-called Silver Age? Did Tom and I save them and divide them up when our paths diverged? The answer, sadly enough, is no. Neither of us has even one issue from those halcyon days.

The boxes containing the comics were stored in my parent’s garage while I was in the Army. When they moved from that house they didn’t have a lot of room in their trailer so they got rid of a lot of stuff. I was stationed at Ft. MacArthur in San Pedro, and didn’t have any extra storage room in my barracks.

At the time, I have to admit, I really didn’t care much about them. My friend Tom was also in the Army and stationed in Germany. A school teacher moved into my parent’s house and I gave her the comics.

Which brings us back to collectibles, people who save things, and those who don’t. I recently read that a copy of Spider Man’s first appearance in comics sold for a $1.1 million dollars! Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug 62) was sold in a private sale brokered by ComicConnect.com.

Our comics, if you recall, were from 1964-66. I bought a copy of Comic Buyer’s Guide (to torture myself) and looked up Marvel and DC Comics from that time.

One example: we paid 12 cents for Daredevil #7 (Apr 65) and now it’s selling for $650! After nearly suffering a seizure, I collected myself and realized my memories are worth more than those comics are now.

I started collecting Los Angeles Laker memorabilia as a hobby back in the early 90s, and have put together a nice collection with the help of my friends and family. I’ve been a fan since they moved to LA. No one has to ask what to get me for Christmas, Father’s Day, or my birthday. I hope my grandchildren enjoy it someday when I’m gone and it helps them remember their “Pa Pa.”

The best part of collecting is the memories that come with it.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

About a hater out of control: When hate turns murderous

Good Day World!

Hate is like cancer, it spreads and eventually consumes a person.

That appears to be the case for, Frazier Glenn Cross, the poster boy for hate in America.

He was arrested last Sunday,on the eve of Passover, after murdering a a 14-year-old Eagle Scout and his 69-year-old grandfather at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City campus in Overland Park.

Cross, a Vietnam veteran, has devoted his life to hate. He preaches white supremacy and has organized armed militias, stockpiled military weapons and plotted to kill the founder of the Southern Law Poverty Center, which sued him in 1984 for trying to intimidate blacks in North Carolina.

Cross was involved in extremist politics as a young man, but became active in the KKK after returning home from the Vietnam War, where he served in the Army's Special Forces.

When he lived in North Carolina, he became head of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He turned the chapter into a paramilitary group - with help from soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg -organized against minorities and their advocates.

His life has been devoted to hating non-white people, and he even makes an exception there including white Jews in his deranged attacks. So how does this poor excuse for a human end up? He’s going to be tried for murder.

But you want to know the real kicker? None of the three victims were Jewish!

A perfect example of all-consuming hate out of control. There’s only one thing to do with a crazy bastard like him; lock him up for life in solitary so he has time to think about the path he took.

Time for me to walk on down the road…