Category: Commentary

Looking back on my life

3-5-2025

I just noticed where this falls in the order of blog posts days after I posted one. It falls just before my last post a few years ago about learning to mourn your actions without blame or guilt. Ironic? Coincidence?

I don’t mean to complain, but I’m going to anyway. I’ve been treated really shitty by work supervisors. First, I was let go so someone else — let’s just say it IS who you know — could replace me at a rate of 30% more than I was making. And they weren’t even qualified to do as much as I was in that communications position. For instance, they didn’t even know how to cut and paste in a Word document.

Secondly, I was let go from one of the best jobs I ever had after only a month or two because my supervisor lied to the executive director that I had forgotten my business cards when going to a news conference, That was when, in fact, SHE had forgotten HAR cards and I SAVED HER ASS CUZ I HAD HERS (both of ours) IN MY CAR. Funny, she didn’t know how to cut and paste either.I never told that executive director, and I used to see her in church after that happened. Just real crappy.

Then, I had a part-time job where the supervisor had everyone sign in on a sheet that had been Xeroxed a million times. When I asked about my two months of pay, she showed me “time sheets” on which my name had been whited out before they were copied. She was probably collecting everyone’s pay. She probably didn’t know how to cut and paste either, except with scissors and glue.

When I think back on the last 15-20 years of my life and how far I have come or not come — mostly not come — I realize there have been some really mean people who have just treated me very badly. Boohoo right? Yeah, boohoo. I’m writing a song about ruminating, and I’m pretty experienced, if not downright skilled, at “moving forward,” so don’t worry about me.

I’m just complaining because my life has been a lesson that has taught me there have been many times I should have done things differently. Jobs. Volunteering. Speaking out for one cause or another. Relationships. Sometimes, life deals us a bad hand. I was dealt a few because I made some decisions that had poor results. To anyone I have mistreated along the way, I apologize. To those who have mistreated me, Fuck You.

Did I mention, I never really deserved to be treated like shit in the first place? I’ve only ever tried to do good and be a good person. And by the way, just so you know, the shit keeps coming.

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Do you let yourself be enslaved by tyrants?

“The fundamental political question is why do people obey a government. The answer is that they tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. Freedom from servitude comes not from violent action, but from the refusal to serve. Tyrants fall when the people withdraw their support.” ~ Étienne De La Boétie, The Politics Of Obedience

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The masks we wear, inside and out

I started writing something about the masks we wear and this quotation from James Baldwin popped up in my email today:

“Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” ~ James Baldwin

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Does Sonya Renee Taylor speak for all of us? I think she speaks for me.

“We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garmen. One that fits all of humanity and nature.” ~ Sonya Renee Taylor

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Is it all just a self-protective device?

It’s probably just, not merely, a dire measure taken by this blessed Earth and creation to protect what is hers, and shed some light on that which is ours, but that which is less than all the intelligence that has been in our hands to do with what we would, and did, from the dawn of creation. What, after all, looking back, would you have done? What did you do? And what were you capable of? Surely nothing as grandiose or magnificent as this. Surely nothing even close. ~ cjz

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15 Reasons to Avoid the News | Rolf Dobelli

15 reasons to avoid the consumption of news
  • The news lead us systematically to error. …
  • The news are irrelevant. …
  • The news limited understanding. …
  • The news are toxic to our body. …
  • The news may increase the risk of errors in cognitive. …
  • The news inhibits thinking. …
  • The news changed the structure of our brain. …
  • The news have a cost.

A review of a work called “The information Diet” proposed to reduce the consumption of information in order to alleviate the (according to him) harmful effects of consumption of the same.

Then, thanks to the excellent blog Lapidarium notes an article was uncovered written in 2010 by Swiss writer Rolf Dobelli called “Avoid news: towards a healthy news diet.” In it, Dobelli invites us to reduce our consumption of news to maintain a healthy diet of information.

According to Dobelli, the majority of us do not understand that the news is to the mind what sugar is to the body: an ingredient easy to digest, which never seem to be satisfied. The media provide us with small portions of matters which, in reality, are not of interest for our daily life and that do not require a thought developed. And it is for this reason that we do not experience saturation, unlike what happens when we read books or articles in depth.

But the consumption of news has harmful effects on our correct understanding of the world, and even to our health. And Dobelli shows us these effects way of 15 reasons why we should adopt a healthy diet of information.

Read more here: 15 reasons to avoid the consumption of news · mvorganizing.org

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My as-yet-unpublished letter to the NYTimes about their disgusting Calvin Klein advert

I’m disgusted at the Calvin Klein ad that seems to support the NYT app, in addition to my $8 a month subscription because it could be a picture of the very underage, skeletal, confused, oblivious-looking girl wearing only skimpy flannel undergarments that [Jeffrey] Epstein and his associates might have had sex with. (See below). Do you think those girls enjoyed what they were put through?

Do you think they volunteered for they went through? I wish the NYT, along with many others, would grow a pair of their own and forbid ads that border on depicting and promoting child sex abuse and, instead, stand up against it. For heaven’s sake, what the hell are we thinking?

I’d like you to publicize my concerns, anonymously if you must, and call yourselves on the carpet for whatever you want to call this practice that is just designed to promote immoral thoughts in nasty people, not sell underwear.

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I believe it’s only a matter of time before I get suckered into buying health insurance from a spammy phone call or medication from a spammy email, or conned into giving away my Google or PayPal password to someone telling me my account has been compromised. I guess that by the time I’m senile enough for that to happen, they will be doing much worse things with the data they’re mining.

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Foliage rainbows

Alongside a country road an early riser maple tree turns its autumnal red sooner than most. Among the red, yellow, orange and green, is a background of blue sky. The near rainbow complete yet incomplete makes the case that nature has put the other colors of the rainbow that the healthy human eye can see — ROYGBIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) — somewhere in the leaves
if we just look close enough
but only the luckiest do.

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A 12-year-old reflects on the state of the world

“When will the madness and killing and destruction stop? I hear about places like Syria, Russia, Israel, Iraq and Iran. The U.S. When will it stop? I believe that no one wants another mushroom cloud to poison the Earth. I believe no one wants the poison, worse than Fukushima’s, which, in itself, is probably too much for this whole race (which includes everyone, by the way, whether they’re black or white or whatever color they are, we’re all part of the same race, so stop thinking you’re better than someone else because you look different than they do or just because they look different than you) but Fukushima may be too much for everything that is trying to live on this planet, which is the only planet they have to live on. After that, then what? You see what I’m saying? We struggle to turn toward beauty, but, when we do, we are met with ugliness. We need to banish the ugliness and work toward giving the human race what it needs to co-exist with everything else on the planet, before we destroy it all. Why is there endless fear of anihilation? I hear it day in and day out. On the news. On the radio. Television. Who profits from this and how is it possible that they are allowed to do it and that they are not stopped and replaced with something more …….. sustainable and ……… profitable ……… to all?”

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Pres. Elect Donald Trump’s actions frighten Americans. We were once a country that felt safe

Today’s New York Times reports that after the Asian nation’s leader, Kim Jong-un, announced that preparations for testing an intercontinental ballistic missile were in their “final stage,” President-elect Donald J. Trump responded on Twitter, writing: “It won’t happen!”

What right does he have to say things that might provoke and enrage a world leader and incite that world leader with nuclear capabilities to use weapons of mass destruction? HE HAS NO RIGHT.

Aren’t his actions grounds for stifling him in any way we can? Grounds for taking away his presidential elect status?

Aren’t his bullying actions of a childish nature and not something of the nature we want in our White House?

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Can’t we compromise in 2017? It’s only been 140 years!

 

"Unto that Power he doth belong Which only doeth Right while ever willing Wrong."
A political cartoon by Joseph Keppler depicts Roscoe Conkling as a character Mephistopheles (the Devil) while Rutherford B. Hayes strolls off with the prize of the “Solid South” depicted as a woman. The caption quotes Goethe: “Unto that Power he doth belong Which only doeth Right while ever willing Wrong.”

“… The compromise involved Democrats who controlled the House of Representatives allowing the decision of the Electoral Commission to take effect. The outgoing president, Republican Ulysses S. Grant, removed the soldiers from Florida. As president, Hayes removed the remaining troops from South Carolina and Louisiana. As soon as the troops left, many white Republicans also left, and the “Redeemer” Democrats took control. They already dominated most other state governments in the South. What was exactly agreed is somewhat contested as the documentation is scanty.
“Black Republicans felt betrayed as they lost power and were subject to discrimination and harassment to suppress their voting. At the turn of the 20th century, most black people were effectively disenfranchised by state legislatures in every southern state, despite being a majority in some.”

From Clarence Darrow’s The Story of My Life:

“Neither government nor political economy is an exact science. They concern the arrangement of human units. If it were possible to demonstrate what sort of an arrangement would be best for the individuals of the state, it would be of no avail. Humans cannot be controlled like inanimate objects, or even like the lower animals. Each human unit is in some regard an independent entity with his own ideas, his hopes and fears, loves and hates. These attitudes are constantly changing from day to day, and year to year. They are played upon by shrewd men, by influential newspapers, by all sorts of schemes and devices which make human government only trial and success, and trial and failure. Human organizations are simply collections of individuals always in motion and always seeking for easier and more harmonious adjustment, and never static …

 

This is a changing world, and still it must maintain a certain amount of consistency and stability or the individual units would separate, and chaos would make any co-operation impossible. “

For more information, visit The Compromise of 1877, or the Tilden/Hayes Compromise

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NYTimes holding Trump accountable for things he said to get elected

Reality Check: So the New York Times, one of the oldest newspapers in the world, is telling its readers that “Mr. Trump promised to dismantle parts of the government and certain legislation if elected.” They’re creating a list of things Trump said during his campaign and feeding it to their readers to ponder. Seriously? Why? Do they not know that EVERYONE LIES TO GET ELECTED??? Why are they feeding us a list of lies to ponder? Why are they wasting their time and ours on this Bullsh#$%???? So we can hold him accountable? Please.

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Life purpose becomes more clear in words written to a stranger

Dave Carter
Dave Carter

I wrote a note in response to someone who emailed me after I made a small contribution to a GoFundMe campaign for his brother’s (Dave Carpenter) cancer treatment medical expenses.

Tim Murphy (sorry, not sure on the photo credit)
Tim Murphy (sorry, not sure on the photo credit)

I wrote to him about a friend of mine who I was lucky enough to play guitar with a couple of times. Tim Murphy is probably someone he knew, being involved with the music scene, as he and his brother are. But I thought it interesting how in this brief note to someone I’ve never met, I managed to spit out my life’s mission statement or elevator pitch in one shot in about 30 words. I hope you know your mission, or find it, or discover it, or bump into it one day and are able to work toward accomplishing it, some way, somehow, some day. For those who are interested, it went something like this …

… I forget where I met Tim Murphy, but you probably know who he is, or was. … He was a bass player who died of cancer. Didn’t have insurance I don’t think til maybe the end when I gathered someone gave him a mercy job with benefits. But I might have that wrong. I have benefits currently, but haven’t always. I’ve had my ups and down health-wise, but not yet cancer. I’m a former smoker for about 30 years and have been quit since 2009, so fingers crossed. But it’s epidemic and they keep spewing crap into the atmosphere and into our waters like they don’t breathe the same air or drink the same water. It’s the leaders I think who are really behind it and could stop it if they had the balls to, but there are so many deep pockets controlling them that they never, or rarely do. It’s my life’s mission to put an end to the corruption that is destroying this planet and the health of those trying to eke out a life on it while we have the opportunity. I made that donation and thought, Who do I think I am? I’m a penny philanthropist. But every little bit helps, and like I said, I do believe what goes around … If I see you at a music event and know it’s you I’ll say Hi. Best to you and yours and family always. peace, -c-

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A 94-year-old former Nazi guard stands accused of helping to murder 170,000 people — still hope that more war criminals will be brought to justice

ed:This shows there is still hope that many more war criminals, from Africa, Latin America, China, the U.S., will one day be brought to justice and, perhaps people in this world will change their ways and not order others to go out and kill people.

Trials of former Nazi concentration camp guards in Germany have become rare in recent decades: As more and more of the perpetrators have died, prosecutors find it increasingly hard to charge those responsible for the horrendous crimes.

The current trial of 94-year-old Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard at Auschwitz, may be one of the last of its kind. Hanning is accused of participating in mass shootings and selecting inmates for the executions. The trial started Thursday.

Source: A 94-year-old former Nazi guard stands accused of helping to murder 170,000 people – The Washington Post

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