Author: Peter

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The Government Working Against Employees


This is my true personal story which is over 30 years old now but it still needs to be told because it is my belief that such things are still happening today.

I entered the government in the form of the U.S. Army in 1968. I was required to have a moderate security clearance for where I worked, fixed station communications. All that means is that we stayed in one place as opposite to those in communications who were assigned to ground troops that moved around. I remember getting a phone call from my mother asking me why the F.B.I. had come around to ask her questions about me and I told her to not worry, that this was standard practice for getting a security clearance at any level.

That proved true for my first two assignments, Korean and Italy. But my next assignment was at Fort Ritchie Maryland, which, at the time, was the support base for “the mountain,” an extremely secure facility that was literally bored into a mountain to serve as an Alternate National Security Center. It took months to get a security clearance there because of the requirement to have the highest of clearances along with compartmental clearance, things like NATO, CENTO, and other organization of which I actually had not knowlege nor did I need such knowledge. But one place we worked directly for was the White House. And indirectly for Camp David which was not many miles away. Because of the seriousness of these clearances, a person was interview by a security specialist who went through every line of the security clearance application. The application itself is a standard for seen all over the government. But before we signed such a document, the security officer made sure that the application was as close to correct as humanly possible. I got the clearances. Enough said about that.

Years later I was a part of the U.S. Department of Transportation and had been approved for the grade of a GS-13, a fairly high grade which under the GS schedule, then and now, was only two below the maxium rating prior to becoming a part of the Senior Executive Service, a beast unto itself.

At some point in 1991 I was given a form for a security clearance to fill out. I did my best to fill it out but I knowingly sent it forward incomplete, knowing that I would be called in by the security officer for a review of the application. This was not only standard to all departments of the U.S. Governement, but was written into the Rules & Regulations of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Volpe Center, Cambridge Massachusetts. Months passed and I forgot about it until I got an interoffice mail with one page of the security for in there asking me to sign it. I did so, foolishly, having forgotten that it was incomplete. Now, that it came from the HR at Volpe, that was their second mistake. By that same Volpe Manual, it was not just the Security Officer who was supposed to review the application with me but also the Director of Human Resources. Neither of those things happened.

Months passed and one day a man, an “industrial investigator,” not a federal employee but a contractor of some sort comes to review the application with me. Upon looking at it, I immediately recognized that it was incomplete and told him as much. I said that I would work with him to complete it. In addition to that this man asked me a lot of strange questions, things that no logical person would believe to have anything to do with national security. To be clear, and to this day, I am right up there with everyone who is dedicated to our national security. It is extremely important.

The next thing I know, I got a letter denying me a clearance which was nothing more, actually, than a background check, something every school teaching in the U.S. must have. I was quickly deflated and confused. I actually became paniced quite quickly as this was an offense to my sense of pride in my country.

The next thing I know, my boss had launched an effort to have me reduced in grade from a GS-13 to a GS-11. This was actually against government regulation as by regulation you cannot be reduced to a point where your pay is lowered. Next there was an investigation conducted by none other than the person who had started this process. An obvious conflict of interest but quite possibly a standard of operation at the Volpe Center, I do not know this as a fact.

I was a member of the Government Employees Union and reached out to them for help. The local representative was dying from cancer and continuously forgot about me. I do not bear any ill-will towards this man considering his condition but rather to the local chapter. I made an appointment with the local chapter to speak with one of their lawyers. Well, I was assigned a newly minted lawyer. It turned out that I knew more about the applicable Federal Laws under CFR 12, if memory serves correctly, than he did but it is he who I was stuck with. I called him several times each week asking him where he stood. I did not see any progress but was still stuck.

Next was the “trial” itself. This was nothing more than an arbitration meeting with the entire U.S. Government in the form of the Office of Personnel Management against me, just me. It was done via phone. I was informed that I was being given limited protection of my rights. I had never heard of such a thing, save my being in the Army where they were understood according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which I had made myself very familiar. At one point during this hearing I tried to admit the Volpe book on its Rules and Regulations at the time of this “trial.” I was denied being told that it was not allowed but to which they had no response.

Let back up just a tiny bit, in this room where the conference call was made were two lawyers for Volpe, my lawyer and myself. During the entire proceeding I had tried to make contact with the eys of one lawyer in particular because I had gone to her to ask her what was happening and that I thought it was unjust. Without using words, I could easily see she agreed with me. But during this arbitration, she refused to make eye contact even though I tried many times.

Well, as you can probably guess, the government prevailed in spite of its lack of evidence that anything malicious on my part ever happened and that I had always fully cooperated with governement officials and their contractor. I was demoted to a GS-11 and within a few days I had a total mental breakdown which required two weeks of inpatient care. Before the years was out there were two more relapses each requiring two weeks of care.

It was obvious to anyone who cared to look at what had happened, the government wanted me to quit but I refused to do so. The next thing I knew I was thrown under two incompetent bosses. Fortunately, I had a good friend who worked on U.S. Air Force projects who did his best to keep me separated from these people. The second boss, to her credit, did get me back to a GS-12 rating but that is as high as I ever got even though I richly deserved a promotion back to GS-13. But that is another story for another time.

Sadly this is but one case of how our Federal Government can break its own rules, break the spirit of a person, and keep on moving forward in denial that it has acted improperly.

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Why Do Evangelical Christians Want Trump?


To those on the left, this would seem to be an anthema to the core beliefs on any Evangelical. But the answer to this seemingly atithetical question is not the easy. Let’s consider that you have grown up in Central Southern Ohio where rural farmlands abound as do Roman Catholic and Evangelical Churches. These people will tell you that their parents voted Republican, their grandparents voted Republican and everyone in the family has always voted Republican and it would go against their history to vote any other way. If, as in some states, their is a drawbar in the voting booths that allows a person to vote straight Republican or straight Democrat, they will always pull the straight Republican lever. And this is why it is difficult for those on the left to understand why people with staunch Christian values, or for that matter, Hasidic Jewish values, to vote for Trump.

Now you might ask, but what about all the outright lies Trump tells? As stated in the paragraph above, these people eat, sleep, and dream Republican. They also read and watch conservative radio and television. That simply means they are going to take all their news from Fox News, the 700 Club, and any other entity that serves the most basic beliefs politically. The will believe, for example, that the 2020 election was stolen not only because Fox News is still allowing people to say this on their platform, but because the U.S. Representative is also saying it. And so now things have been raised to a National level.

Let’s take one entire state that is almost entirely ruled by not just one party, but by one religion, Utah. You may have heard that just recently Senator Mitt Romney declaring he will not run for re-election this fall. Why is that significant. Senator Mitt Romney is a Mormon who lives in Utah. But at one time he was the governor of a decidedly blue state, Massachusetts. And he was a two term governor there as well. How did he do that and keep his faith? Quite simply, he used a very diplomatic route of being a middle of the road Republican. In truth, he was probably further to the right than he governed, but he did what was right for the people of his state and succeed. Now years later, he is in the state where his religion was formally founded, Utah. But he brought with him certain values he learned in the state of Massachusetts. That did not make him liberal in the least, but it an area that boasts the likes of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Brandeis University, and a host of other liberal bastions of thinking, he was forced into a position of having to listen to the liberal point of view and he learned how to succeed in”enemy” territory, as it is thoght of today. But Senator Romney, to his credit, and in my belief, saw a Republican Party that was abandoning its long held view in favor of a wannabe dictator. It is unlikely that people of the Mormon Religion will ever vote for a Democrat but for them and for Evangelicals and other, a non-vote for president, in this election, is like a vote for Biden. We will never know but I would guess that in November’s election, Romney will chose to not vote for either candidate, this saying that Trump survives the criminal court system.

To be sure, Romeny is far from the only Republican who will not vote for Trump; Mike Pence said as much on today’s (Sunday, March 17, 2024) CBS Face the Nation. And I doubt, given her part on the January 6 Committee, that Liz Cheney will vote for him either but again, she will not vote for President Biden either. Now, Liz Cheney is an excellent example for other very conservative Republicans because she is one herself. Liz Cheney’s religious beliefs are unknown although she was brought up in a Untied Methodist household.

Democrats can make inroads on the Evangelicals if President Biden will go into say rural Kentucky, Elizabethtown, near Fort Knox, would be a good place, tell the Evangelical Republicans there that he is a go to church on Sunday Catholic. That will put into the minds of these people he need only beg them to do “fact checking” on Donald Trump to get to the truth and remind them of the New Testament Scripture that says, “I am the truth and the salvation . . . ” to possibly move them away from Trump. And in finishing, he would say to them that he is not asking them to vote Democrat but to consider what the actual truth of Donald Trump is.

One of the tools at Biden’s command is to get Republicans not to vote Republican but just to not vote for either candidate this go around.

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President Biden, PLEASE Step Aside


I voted for Pres. Biden in the 20202 elections, although in the primaries he was not my choice. We needed relief from the Trump disasters and he delivered us from that.

Pres. Biden continually points to his infrastructure bill when asked what he has done for the American people. For the America voter that gone and forgotten for the most part. Most people look at a President and ask, “what have you done for me lately?” And it is here that Pres. Biden fails.

Since he got his infrastructure bill passed he has been in a reactive mode. Most recently he sided with Isreal in the war that they are waging. He should have gotten a clue very early on when Israel opted to use missles to attack Hammas when it was even then well-known that Hammas was hiden underground in bunkers impervious to what was happening above. Pres. Biden’s move was to send out Sec. of Defense to Israel to implore them to use a ground war rather than the air war. But he did not and now we have close to 30,000 Palestians dead as a result of Israel’s actions.

Pres. Biden has been slow over the years since Russia attacked Ukraine to provide them with more than adequet support but he did not. At the first instance, when an air war was felt in Ukraine, his move was to bring Ukrainian Pilots to America to train them on the F-16 even before the Congress approved giving F-16s to Ukraine. They still do not have them. They are running out of ammunition, and knowing they have the upper hand, house Republicans are stalling his late actions at getting additional funding.

Biden does not resonate with the young people of the United States who voted for him in 2020. This means he cannot count on their support this time. They might just put a simple X in the empty box below the candidates. What he needs to do is to ask Rep. Hakeem Jeffries to take the lead in this election cycle and support him as our next President.

Our generation, baby boomers, are done. We are getting too old for public office. We need to allow the generations that followed us to take the reins of power. It is their world from here on out and not ours! If you do not want former Pres. Trump to win, then do what is best for the country and turn over the reins!

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Give a Stranger $100 in the Spirit of Christmas


I have always believed in the spirit of Christmas from the time I came to understand it until today. For most of us, we will spend the day with family, opening presents and having a feast. But this is not true for all Americans and I am here to emplore all of you who read this to give $100 to a person in need.

But how will I do this, you ask. Actually, it is very simple, particularly in small town America, but city people can easily do it too. First, you must go to a grocery store that serves the poorer people of the community. Find one or two things that you need and put them in a basket. Then you must go around and wish everyone you come across and very merry Christmas. But you must add one more sentence. ”And I hope you have a very festive day.” Just by the expression on the person’s face, you should know if that is what is truly in store for them. Another way to do it is to hang around the cash registers with your basket and two items and watch as people check out. At some point you will see someone who will ask the clerk to restock an item. At that point you need only step in and offer to pay for their groceries and also give them the $100. And when they ask you name, do not reveal it. Simply tell them that you are a friend. Then either buy the two things your have or leave.

I seen during the year where a person has asked the clerk to restock something and have simply stepped and given them the money they actually need.

Once you have done this, you will have visited upon them “the miracle of Christmas.” Plus, you will have a really good feeling inside you.

You may not find such a person on your first foray, but do not stop trying. Unfortunately, there are far to many, particularly the elderly, who are in desperate need of any help they can get. Be that helping hand!

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Keeping Donald Trump Out of Office!


It is not too early for the Republicans to start making moves to insure that Trump is never in office again. It is unlikely that any rivals will overtake him but his ability to win the election can be negated by someone like Chris Christie splitting the ticket from running as either an Independent or party name of his choosing.

Trump said very vocally and without equivocation that he wants to be a dictator for a day. And he goes on to say what he would do in that one day. To anyone foolish enough to believe he would want such power for one day is unfamiliar with the history of dictators. They always come in as reformists but none has ever made any reform which was good for their country. And none has ever been dictator for just one day. 

Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to our Democracy and it is time for his followers to realize who he really is. For reasons that deny reality, they have chosen to look the other way when it comes to the federal criminal crimes he is faced with. We actually had this situation once before in our country in the form of Warren G. Harding, a Republican. Harding was facing federal racketeering charges when his death pre-empted any such procedings and was replaced by very honest Calvin Coolidge. Consider that Harding died in 1923, just 100 years ago. And here we are again.

Even though I voted for Joe Biden in 2020, I do not consider him a strong enough candidate to insure a Democrat victory over Trump. Biden is not listening to people of his party. They overwhelmingly do not want him to run in 2024. A better choice? Right now I would say that person is Gov. Gavin Newsom of California. Newsom is 25 years younger than Biden and would be much more amenable to the young people of today. Those young people are not likely to vote for Biden, Trump either, but just skip that part of the ballot! Biden does not seem to recognize his liabilities and thinks that simply stating he is fully up to the job is just not enough nor is he believed by the general electorate. And I am one of those. It is believed that Newsom is preparing for a 2028 bid for President but why not have him now? The DNC, which holds so many purse strings, can easily tell Pres. Biden that they will not support his candadicy and that should put an end to Biden.

Furthermore, working against Biden is his perception. He has not explained the workings of our economy to show that the President, regardless of who it is, has only limited power to affect our economy. Life is full of things that are beyond the control of people and the national economy is one of them. People do not realize that it is the decisions made in the board rooms of America that have the most to do with inflation or the pricing of products. About the only place where government makes a difference in America is with corn farmers and milk farmers who are each subsidized by the government, although the disposition of those products should be of concern.

There has never been in the history of our county a time quite like this one. Republicans tie Biden to every problem at our borders even though they know full well that the Biden administration has already beefed up border security and has not implemented any new policies that were not existant during the Trump administration. Biden, although, as failed to counter this perception with appropriate comments. He has very seldom used the “bully pulpit” to forward his policies and these are just some of his failures that could lead to his loss to Donald Trump next November. Do we really want that? Decisions, hard ones, must be made now.

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It Is Time to End the Ukraine War!


Twenty months ago, Ukraine was invaded by a power purportedly much stronger than it. But as time has gone by, Ukrainians have risen to the cause and for the most part, held the Russians at bay.

Right now, the United States is the big dog on the block where the free world is concerned. But the United States seems to have abdicated its responsibilities when Ukraine is concerned going back to 2014. At the time of the Obama Administration, the Russian invasion of Crimea was a clear and present danger to the free people of Ukraine and, even more, to the rest of the world. Obama chose to do nothing.

During the Trump Administration, President Trump cozied up to Pres. Putin of Russia and put Ukraine in harm’s way by his ridiculous accusations towards that country. He said nothing when he knew the Russian propaganda machine was spouting its lies of Ukraine being run by neo-Nazis. Of course, with a Jewish president of the country, it was obvious to any thinking person that such was not the case.

And now we have to overly cautious Pres. Biden doing well with sending aid to Ukraine but failing by not having taken NATO to task and said that a large-scale land war was needed to resolve the conflict in a quick manner.

If the United States is to be the guardian of the free world, then it must act accordingly. And right now, there is not peace for the free world country of Ukraine. The problem of sending effective weapons systems to Ukraine was that Ukraine relied largely on Soviet built systems, rifles, aircraft, etc. The U.S. sent system to Ukraine and then had to see that Ukrainian soldiers were trained on these systems. That takes month in almost every case. And now it wants to send F-16 aircraft there, but it will take a full year to train pilots and their support crews. That is a year Ukraine does not have, even if it will be very effective in its future.

Ukraine has proven Russia to be little more than a paper tiger which unfortunately has a large cache of nuclear weapons. Sabre rattle as much as Putin enjoys, he knows full well that he is still in a position of Mutually Assured Self Destruction (MADD) with the United States. And even if he gave the order for his generals to unleash some of his battlefield nukes, it is unlikely the order would be followed as all military people are extremely aware of the consequences of such actions.

Right now, the United States has an entire division, the 101st Airborne, headquartered in Romania. Why? This was simply a defensive action against the possible expansion of Putin’s war. But it is the first time since the end of WW2 that the United States has had an entire division stationed anywhere in Europe. This means our government is extremely aware of the threat that Russia maintains.

As someone who served many years in the U.S. Army, I can tell you war is never as good as peace. But there is a war, and it has implications which extend far beyond Ukraine. There is Belarus which is entirely aligned with Russia, and which has allowed the Russian military to use its territory for its war against Ukraine.

It is time for the U.S. to announce to NATO and the world that it will now actively support Ukraine with its great air power. It will also send its fleet into the Black Sea as Russia has blockaded commerce, which is also a threat to the world, especially Africa. This type of military action does not invite battlefield nukes, but it will show Russia, China and North Korea, that we as a country grow weary of the evil they try to spread.

Russia does not have a large navy and can ill afford to lose any of its ships of war. And in an air war, the United States is clearly superior, and any large air conflict could very significantly reduce Russia’s ability to wage war in that manner.

Lest anyone doubt it, our military already has solid plans for just that sort of conflict, but it can do nothing without the President’s stamp of approval. We cannot go back and be like we were in 1940, isolationist. That is how we are acting right now because the President knows the American people do not have the stomach for another ground war. But an air and sea war are a different animal and a way for the United States to expel all Russian forces from all of Ukraine to include Crimea and the black sea.

That done, Ukraine’s entrance into NATO would be very easy.

And so, when it comes to world peace, who is the enemy of peace? To quote a very old comic, “we have met the enemy, and it is us.”

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The Death of the Earth?


For a month now, I have seen on television the record high temperatures being realized in southwestern America and now it is moving towards the plain’s states. But this is not just an American phenomenon. Across the globe, countries are being ravaged by heat waves. The Saharah Desert is moving more southward. The polar ice of both poles is melting at an alarming rate. And today, I heard on NBC news that the water temperature in the Florida Keys is 101!

In the north polar regions, many animals rely upon a polar cap just to survive. The polar bear is the one being hurt the most buy our climate change. What happens in the north pole ice disappears completely? What happens in the Greenland glacier melts away? What happens in the ice shelves of the south pole disappear? What happens is there becomes an ecological disaster!

Since the dawn of industrialization in the 19th century, the world has been moving towards this moment in time. People seem to be either blissfully unaware or just refuse the looming disaster. Our planet survives because of a synergy between all the animals on earth, from the microscopic to the largest of whales. There are whales that eat only plankton. What happens to them when the plankton disappears? What happens when water temperatures rise to high for certain fish and mammals that cannot adjust? And what happens to people when their water supply and food supply dwindles?

People may not believe that survival of the human race as it is, is at stake. We must cut carbon emissions to zero and fast. A scientific project for the year 2030 was 7 years off! That project has been met this year.

Scientist has warned that a rise in the average temperature of the earth but just 2 degrees Fahrenheit will kill off many species of animal that are part of the food chain and thereby cause a food chain calamity. We are a part of that food chain and yet we do very little.

The United States, China, and India are among the biggest contributors to global warning. China is still building coal fired power plants. Coal is a huge polluter!

We need only look at the planet Venus to find out what happens when a planet’s upper atmosphere is so thick with gases that hold in the sun’s heat to see a possible future for our planet.

The answer is really simple. All the peoples of the earth must switch to a power grid of electricity powered by the sun and stop the usage of fossil fuels and nuclear fuels as well. Nuclear power plants are heat polluters because of the great amount of heat they give off. We have a number of carbon zero methods of electrical generation: the sun itself, wind, water of rivers and the water of the oceans. In some places the use of volcanic steam is possible.

Our technology is evolving but it can evolve faster if the demand for is grows faster. The wind farms of today will look nothing like those of the future. The use of solar panels should become a mainstream part of every country’s power grid.

We have two choice and only two choices. We can continue as we are and guarantee a future of desperation world-wide or we can use the technology that is at our hands to change the course of our human existence.

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Colombia: An American Friend


Why Colombia as a topic. I was researching who belonged to OPEC as a start, but it produced no countries that I did not expect. But there was Venezuela. I wondered how this could be the only country, besides the United States, in the Americas to produce oil. It turns out that it is not. Along with Venezuela there are Brazil, a true surprise to me, Mexico and Colombia. Colombia made the most sense to me as it shares a long border with Venezuela to its north and east.

I remember many years ago there were advertisements on television about coffee from Colombia. As it turns out Colombia is only second to Brazil in coffee production. Then I looked at who are Colombia’s main trading partners, and it turns out that the United States import more than double of another other country.

My thoughts turned to thinking that Colombians as a whole must be much like Americans in their earning power. But that is just not the case. First, we must look at the Colombian peso. Right now, the inflation rate in Colombia is 13.3%. It is most simply about the demand for products not produced in Colombia far outpaces its exports. The Colombian Peso is in constant fluctuation and of late, its value against America, its biggest trading partner, has fallen dramatically. That means that certain necessities are very expensive. The following table lists the top 8 imports Colombia gets from America.

  1. Machinery including computers (11.6% of total imports)
  2. Electrical machinery, equipment (11.1%)
  3. Vehicles (10.7%)
  4. Mineral fuels including oil (8.3%)
  5. Plastics, plastic articles (4.8%)
  6. Pharmaceuticals (4.4%)
  7. Organic chemicals (3.8%)
  8. Cereals (3.4%)

And so, a weak Peso vs the Dollar makes importing these things to Colombia very expensive to Colombians.

Rich people, regardless of where they live, seem to have a certain immunity to things like inflation. That is because buying an automobile, regardless of price, is not at issue to them. But when you consider the average Colombian, if they must have an automobile, it must be the least expensive available.

The median household income in Colombia is $15,812. That is below our poverty line but in Colombia, many goods and services are inexpensive relative to an individual’s income. In 1991 Colombia changed its constitution to include socialized medicine. But then I came across a figure which absolutely floored me. The rate of single mothers in Colombia is 84%! Of course, then I had to look at education levels. Well, that turns out to be 59% of Colombians have completed a secondary education or GED. Compare that to America which is 88%.

What do single mothers do for a living? An article written in Forbes magazine states, “Beyond the challenges the sheer volume of these numbers bring forth to already strained resources, the issue in Colombia is further compounded by the fact that a large majority of these single-parent families are headed by women, and that women represent a disproportionate percentage of the countries poor, a phenomenon commonly labeled as the “Feminization of Poverty”.  It is well-documented that lone-mother households are at the highest risk of poverty amongst women due to lack of income. This is further exacerbated by deprivation of capabilities and the gender biases present in both Colombian society and government. The culmination of all these factors in modern day Colombia has resulted in a vicious cycle of emotional, financial and social problems and other stressful life events for both the single mothers and their children.”

Another source took me to what jobs a single mother might take and among them is “sex worker.” I am not just talking about prostitution, the most obvious, but a much less obvious option they take which at the least keeps them off the street, “Cam Girl.” What is that? That is an online industry that has been around a very long time where, mostly men, go to find women, and sometimes men, who will perform various sex acts for them. I found such a site, I will not mention its name, where I was able to chat with a number of women. With one or two exceptions, each was a single mother where the father took no part in support of his child. They had taken the job out of desperation for some sort of an income. One woman in particular, who I will call Julie, recently had to be in the hospital. While she was in the hospital her income went to zero, which brought yet another hardship on she and her son. And as it turns out, such incidents are not uncommon at all. Even worse for them, when people find out what they do, they are ostracized by their community and God forbid their family should find out. They stand the stark possibility of being thrown out of the only housing they have.

American commerce is entwined with that of Colombia, but it seems to me that American investors would do well to invest in Colombia where labor is cheap and readily available. American venture capitalists would not only find it a good investment, but in turn, the people of Colombia would have a chance of lifting themselves out of poverty and those women working in the sex business would have other options.

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Regrets? Jealousy?


I have lived long enough to have a long list of regrets. A long time ago there was the regret that I did not get to know my father better before he died. There is a regret that a beautiful woman who I dated off and on, that I did not try to take it further. There are so many other regrets too. But why?

I think it is a normal human condition to begin with. But it is like trying to get more water from an empty bottle. It is not happening. This is where it is okay to remember the past and our regrets, but we must never stare at them because there is no good that will come of that.

Now I come to jealousy. I call this the worst feeling anyone could ever have. First of all, if you feel jealous, you must ask yourself the question, what inside you is so insecure that you allow this feeling to arise in you? Men are really bad with this one. A man is walking down a street with his girlfriend or wife who is a stunning beauty. He notices men are looking at her and he gets mad at her! Why? She has done nothing wrong. Or, worse case, he takes a swing at some stranger who had the audacity to look a little too long at his lady. It means he is insecure about his relationship with her. This applies to women as well. That a man wants to look at the lady you are with is a compliment. Even if they stare! Take solace in the fact that you have her/him and that person does not. The best thing to do with jealousy is to toss it out as a totally useless emotion.

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Why Don’t Americans Read?


I can answer that with a simple statement, “I don’t know.”

Something has happened within our culture which keeps American, without regard to education, from reading. The most obvious sign of this is how many newspapers have ceased publication in the past 25 years along with formerly daily newspapers which have become three day a week papers.

I am tactile person who likes nothing better than to read a daily newspaper in its newsprint form. Until my wife and I moved to Eastern North Carolina, on Sunday mornings, I went out and bought both the Boston Globe and the New York Times. We sat at our dining room table pouring over these publications with delight. Newspapers’ ability to sustain publication relies entirely on its circulation. As across the nation those numbers have decreased, the ability of the newspaper to get much needed advertising has also declined. Newspapers, even though they print news that you may have heard 12 hours earlier on the television, offer something that television news reports do not; their coverage of a story is far more complete. Additionally, television news cannot give the same amount of news as a newspaper does. But this is where the non-reading public comes into play. I suspect that a large portion of the American public will say that they do not have time to read a newspaper. But for most of them the real truth is that they just cannot be bothered to do so.

Fifty years ago, in any city of any size that you ventured to, had at least one bookstore, and, in most cases, there were multiple bookstores. In larger cities the used bookstores were easy to find. That is not true any longer. My wife and I are avid book readers. My wife reads them electronically and I buy the hardcover book. Either way, we read a lot of books. But independent bookstores are shuttering their operations more and more. There simply exists little call for what they sell. Where I now live, Barnes & Noble is my refuge.

I know from the experience of having worked for many years in public school systems, that reading is a major part of their curriculum. But for some reason, people who go through those systems may be looking at reading as something they did not like to do in primary and secondary schools and so why should they continue?

And then there are our public libraries. If such figures existed, I suspect the foot travel into these institutions has dramatically decreased. And those books are free which means that people on limited budgets cannot use the excuse of not having the funds to buy books.

I read a lot as a way to escape the realities of our world into the world of fiction. I also subscribed to the Boston Globe’s electronic version just to stay abreast of the news of a state I called home for most of my life but also because it is the only daily source of that type of news available to me here in Eastern North Carolina. We have two “daily” newspapers, as their masthead declares, that come out 3 days a week, have about 8 pages of mostly advertising, and are overpriced, $2.00 per copy.

It is my belief that Americans have lost sight of the value in reading the printed word. The last time to general public got into a reading frenzy was when the various Harry Potter books were published. Since then, everyone has reverted back. Are we heading to being a country of illiterates? To some degree, yes. Are we becoming a country which is ill-informed of the news of the nation and the world? Most definitely!

I have no idea how to get the general public back to reading except to write my blog about what I see as a problem. And of course, my blog, and others like it, appeal mostly to people who read.