It took me many years to ponder upon this idea that is continually dragged up and put up as some national trendy topic. Yes, how can we best change America?
Well....it's simple if you really think about it. You need to change people's opinions. So you do the logical thing....you excommunicate them from your mindset.
Yes, if they were friends and their beliefs just didn't go along with yours....you shun them. You reject them. You neglect them. You stand aloof of them. You have no part of them. You evade them.
You can do this at family Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners. You can get into some big conversation over a topic which will anger folks, and they will leave the table, and likely leave the house. You can drag out topics at the PTA meetings, and trigger their exodus. There are hundreds of ways that you can help to excommunicate them from your mindset, and just feel better....that you changed America.
Well.....actually all you did was create a fake environment around you where you only socialize with like-minded people. Oddly, then everything becomes political, and a vote matters. In the 2016 case, the vote shocked the excommunicate-crowd. In this rare situation....the excommunicate crowd....was excommunicated. Yep, that was a real shocker.
We've now gone to create new terms for people with this excommunicate-type of mentality....snowflakes. They were so busy in excommunicating people...that they lost the perspective of different opinions and varying ideas of culture and society. These are the people who can't handle reality anymore because they've excommunicated so many people.
Where did excommunication originally come from? This is one of those curious things. Back around 1,300 years ago....as the Catholic Church became the only accepted religion in Europe....they found that people were lacking in enthusiasm for the religion. People in fact....were challenging various ideas that the church pushed. So the Catholics invented this term....excommunicating. They basically said that society needed to neglect the other folks....stand apart from them....avoid them...etc.
Frederick II was actually excommunicated three times by the Catholic Church....with official paperwork done each time.
Where does this excommunication lead onto? Well....eventually, I think some folks are going to seek some type of mental help and get convinced that the bad folks....the excommunicated folks....are mentally unstable, and we will move onto a more serious problem. But for the time being, sit back and just be entertained by the fifth-grade mentality.
Friday, 2 March 2018
Tuesday, 27 February 2018
A Little History Story
My brother brought up part of this story, and I sat down to spend several hours last night looking over this curious piece of California history.
So, once upon a time.....there was this election for mayor coming up in San Francisco....4 November 1975.
Two individuals running. Democrat George Moscone (state senator and lawyer). Republican John Barbagelata (real estate guy and on the city council).
Most people in the summer of 1975...gave Barbagelata the edge.
For some odd reason, never to be explained in public....Moscone went and had some meeting with a guy by the name of Michael Prokes. He was in his late 20's.....a journalism student for the most part but hooked up to various social groups and in particularly with the People's Temple.
Yeah, that's the Jim Jones crowd....if you were curious.
No one can say for sure what came out of this Moscone and Prokes meeting, but after this....Prokes has a lot of hyped up enthusiasm to get his people....the People's Temple religious crowd....into the canvasing for Moscone.
What most suggest is that the People's Temple crowd did cover a couple of neighborhoods (certainly NOT all of the city), and they were picky about the choice of the neighborhoods. They just wanted a mass group of people to show up on 4 November from those selected neighborhoods.
What occurred on 4 November? Moscone won by 1-percent (4,400 votes roughly).
The end? No. Barbagelata felt that a fair number of votes were simply bused into the city and were not legit. Proof? None really. There is a strong suggestion which came out of a NY Times piece in 1978....that busloads of folks were carried from Redwood Valley. That's 123 miles outside of the city limits. But again, it's not substantial proof. The comment by a Jone's member that Jones directed them on how to vote? Maybe, but that's not illegal.
Could you have bussed in 4,400 folks to make the difference? Well....you figure sixty folks per bus, and the answer ought to be no. But then they did canvas the neighborhoods and got people to show up and vote. That might have made the difference.
What happened to Prokes (the guy to arrange this situation)? Well.....18 November 1978....three years later....he dies in Jonestown.
Moscone? Well, this is an interesting twist or two. He was way ahead on the gay trend business, and really hyped up on liberal agendas.
Well....eight days prior to the Jonestown business...this odd event occurred in San Francisco.
There was an odd group developing and one of the city council guys was Dan White (former US Army), and tied to a conservative part of town. Over the two years prior, White had gotten into frequent arguments with the developing left-base of the city council (in particular, with Harvey Milk, another city council guy....and gay).
On 10 November 1978, Dan White finally had enough....the trend of the city council was becoming more and more frustrating. So he resigned. Part of this issue revolved around the fact that he could not work for the city as a fire-fighter/cop....receiving a salary as such....while being a city council guy. No one states the pay-scale, but I'm guessing that city council duty paid half of what a cop or fire-fighter made.
Four days go by, and Dan now realizes....that was a big mistake to quit as city council member. He went back to Mayor Moscone and asked to be reappointed.
Well....Moscone says no.
On 27 November 1978....Dan goes into the city hall area and shoots the mayor, and Harvey Milk....dead.
Dan says in his defense....his mental conditions triggered this. Oddly, the judge says fine....giving him seven years in prison for killing the two guys. Yep....seven years for killing two guys. He's paroled in January of 1984....so he doesn't even get the full sentence. Roughly a year later, he commits suicide.
Looking back at Mayor Moscone? Within six to eight years....he would have gone onto running for the US senate, and been in DC. Somewhere by the late 1980s...he would have run for President, around age 60. The odds are....instead of Bill Clinton....you would have had President Moscone (my humble guess).
The Jonestown thing fitting into this? It's the odd piece and you have to wonder about how this all worked out, and this young guy....Micheal Prokes, if he hadn't died there in Jonestown.
So, once upon a time.....there was this election for mayor coming up in San Francisco....4 November 1975.
Two individuals running. Democrat George Moscone (state senator and lawyer). Republican John Barbagelata (real estate guy and on the city council).
Most people in the summer of 1975...gave Barbagelata the edge.
For some odd reason, never to be explained in public....Moscone went and had some meeting with a guy by the name of Michael Prokes. He was in his late 20's.....a journalism student for the most part but hooked up to various social groups and in particularly with the People's Temple.
Yeah, that's the Jim Jones crowd....if you were curious.
No one can say for sure what came out of this Moscone and Prokes meeting, but after this....Prokes has a lot of hyped up enthusiasm to get his people....the People's Temple religious crowd....into the canvasing for Moscone.
What most suggest is that the People's Temple crowd did cover a couple of neighborhoods (certainly NOT all of the city), and they were picky about the choice of the neighborhoods. They just wanted a mass group of people to show up on 4 November from those selected neighborhoods.
What occurred on 4 November? Moscone won by 1-percent (4,400 votes roughly).
The end? No. Barbagelata felt that a fair number of votes were simply bused into the city and were not legit. Proof? None really. There is a strong suggestion which came out of a NY Times piece in 1978....that busloads of folks were carried from Redwood Valley. That's 123 miles outside of the city limits. But again, it's not substantial proof. The comment by a Jone's member that Jones directed them on how to vote? Maybe, but that's not illegal.
Could you have bussed in 4,400 folks to make the difference? Well....you figure sixty folks per bus, and the answer ought to be no. But then they did canvas the neighborhoods and got people to show up and vote. That might have made the difference.
What happened to Prokes (the guy to arrange this situation)? Well.....18 November 1978....three years later....he dies in Jonestown.
Moscone? Well, this is an interesting twist or two. He was way ahead on the gay trend business, and really hyped up on liberal agendas.
Well....eight days prior to the Jonestown business...this odd event occurred in San Francisco.
There was an odd group developing and one of the city council guys was Dan White (former US Army), and tied to a conservative part of town. Over the two years prior, White had gotten into frequent arguments with the developing left-base of the city council (in particular, with Harvey Milk, another city council guy....and gay).
On 10 November 1978, Dan White finally had enough....the trend of the city council was becoming more and more frustrating. So he resigned. Part of this issue revolved around the fact that he could not work for the city as a fire-fighter/cop....receiving a salary as such....while being a city council guy. No one states the pay-scale, but I'm guessing that city council duty paid half of what a cop or fire-fighter made.
Four days go by, and Dan now realizes....that was a big mistake to quit as city council member. He went back to Mayor Moscone and asked to be reappointed.
Well....Moscone says no.
On 27 November 1978....Dan goes into the city hall area and shoots the mayor, and Harvey Milk....dead.
Dan says in his defense....his mental conditions triggered this. Oddly, the judge says fine....giving him seven years in prison for killing the two guys. Yep....seven years for killing two guys. He's paroled in January of 1984....so he doesn't even get the full sentence. Roughly a year later, he commits suicide.
Looking back at Mayor Moscone? Within six to eight years....he would have gone onto running for the US senate, and been in DC. Somewhere by the late 1980s...he would have run for President, around age 60. The odds are....instead of Bill Clinton....you would have had President Moscone (my humble guess).
The Jonestown thing fitting into this? It's the odd piece and you have to wonder about how this all worked out, and this young guy....Micheal Prokes, if he hadn't died there in Jonestown.
How Did Prohibition Fail?
If you went and looked, through most countries in the 1880s-1890s....there was an anti-alcohol movement in a busy state of activity.
In the US....this movement reached the stage where they decided that only by writing this into the Constitution.....making it the only text without freedom (yeah, an odd thing). In both 1913 and 1915, attempts were made in Congress to bring to a closure and pass the prohibition idea. So it came up in 1917, and it passed.
As January of 1920 rolled around, it was to occur. You could still drink alcohol after X-day, but only until your stock was extinguished. By spring of 1920....people were attempting to live without alcohol. And within weeks....various people were distilling their own whiskey, or bringing in booze via some neighboring country.
Capone and crime? Well....they found a lucrative market.
Bars couldn't be public places? Fine, they'd be quietly constructed and hidden.
Women? Well, in this new era....Honky-Tonks were social places and guys could bring their dates or girlfriends. Dancing and boozing became popular. Women accepted the idea of alcohol.
In roughly four years, the whole idea of prohibition had become a joke.
We were a nation of hypocrites....joking about it in public, and trying hard to admit that the law could be enforced....when it could not.
So come 5 December 1933....it was undone and written out of the Constitution.
The saloon-like atmosphere that had been popular before prohibition? For the most part.....it didn't come back. We had been introduced to cocktails in this 13-year period, and liked that more than beer. It was a fresh perspective that we'd gained.
Would any type of modification to the Constitution over guns come to the same fate? Yes. We would revert back to the nation of hypocrites, and likely not observe the law. And the nation would gain some fresh new perspective.
In the US....this movement reached the stage where they decided that only by writing this into the Constitution.....making it the only text without freedom (yeah, an odd thing). In both 1913 and 1915, attempts were made in Congress to bring to a closure and pass the prohibition idea. So it came up in 1917, and it passed.
As January of 1920 rolled around, it was to occur. You could still drink alcohol after X-day, but only until your stock was extinguished. By spring of 1920....people were attempting to live without alcohol. And within weeks....various people were distilling their own whiskey, or bringing in booze via some neighboring country.
Capone and crime? Well....they found a lucrative market.
Bars couldn't be public places? Fine, they'd be quietly constructed and hidden.
Women? Well, in this new era....Honky-Tonks were social places and guys could bring their dates or girlfriends. Dancing and boozing became popular. Women accepted the idea of alcohol.
In roughly four years, the whole idea of prohibition had become a joke.
We were a nation of hypocrites....joking about it in public, and trying hard to admit that the law could be enforced....when it could not.
So come 5 December 1933....it was undone and written out of the Constitution.
The saloon-like atmosphere that had been popular before prohibition? For the most part.....it didn't come back. We had been introduced to cocktails in this 13-year period, and liked that more than beer. It was a fresh perspective that we'd gained.
Would any type of modification to the Constitution over guns come to the same fate? Yes. We would revert back to the nation of hypocrites, and likely not observe the law. And the nation would gain some fresh new perspective.
Monday, 26 February 2018
This List of Changes?
There are probably twenty-odd problems with his concept for a solution.
1. The only guns to be home-owned...would be a pistol or shotgun. Rifles that fit into the category of hunting weapon, would be allowed to be home-owned, but only with certain weapon-sights.
Hunters would laugh over the weapon-sight rule.
2. What happens to all weapons already in the homes? Oddly, he skips that comment. You'd have to go and confiscate them, and that probably won't be something that cops favor.
3. The idea of illegal sights existing? You would see some kind of blackmarket start up and guys buying up dozens to sell later.
4. When going on a hunt, you would have to register with local authorities. Hunting on your own property? He managed to avoid discussing that topic. The fact that you could load the local gaming commission with non-hunter enthusiasts and squash all hunting in an entire region? Well....he didn't bring that up either. Various fees tied to each single request for hunting? Well, he didn't mention that either.
5. "Any other weapon that person wants to own that is currently legal, may still be owned but must be kept at a secure firing range." Well, there are thousands of regions throughout the US which have no secure firing range. Who would manage the firing range? Why are they special?
6. Firing would only be limited to the firing range. This works fine if you live in some urban area. If you live 300 miles west of Tucson...there will be no such range. Who would run these ranges? What federal and state rules would exist?
7. A limited number of bullets to be issued with the purchase of the gun, period. I sat and read over that piece, and kinda wondered how you were going to really enforce this. It sounds like you'd have to account for every single bullet and have some county agency monitoring your bullet inventory.
8. No private production of rounds. Right now, I'd take a guess that well over 10,000 individuals across the US are capable of producing their own rounds. They'd laugh at your non-production rule.
9. Gun owners would have to licensed. An interesting concept and some might go along with this. But then the suggestion accompanied the idea of insurance required. What company will handle that? What if they felt it was too risky? Would pistol owners be given a lesser amount of insurance?
10. No concealed carry....simply open-carry. That means you'd walk into your grocery store with this shotgun over your shoulder. I don't see people agreeing to this.
11. The problem of the Constitution....well, yeah. Right off the bat....virtually nothing from this group would easily slide through the Constitution. It was like you totally avoided that subject and pretended it didn't exist. A lot of people back in the 1890s to 1920 era....felt that prohibition would work easily, and they guessed wrong. Convincing folks to accept this type of change that he suggests? No, it just won't happen.
Sunday, 25 February 2018
The Neanderthal Story
This past week, a number of PhD folks in Europe decided to go ahead and agree that ancient cave paintings that were found in Spain a number of years ago with 'art'....were drawn by Neanderthal folks....approximately 64,000 or more years ago.
It's been a problem to admit this because they had this image of the Neanderthal folks as.....well....not quiet intellectual enough to draw fancy art like this, in this period 64,000 or more years ago.
The thing is....we aren't talking about vast numbers of paintings, which would lay out to 4,000 different Neanderthal folks over a period of time.
When you go and look at the different caves involved.....it's not that many. So you come to this moment of pondering. With a caveman group of forty-odd members, it's possible that you had only one single guy in some period of time, who seemed to be showing some flair for art. Maybe as he matured and got ready to pass on....some Neanderthal kid took up the art idea and continued on....drawing on another wall of the cave.
As time passed, maybe two less than accomplished guys.....Joe and Marty....talked at length one afternoon about the stout nature of some wild cattle in the region, and each felt the muscular dimensions were something worth admiring. Eventually, they retreated into the cave....took some fire along to light the way, and spent an hour drawing up their image. After that evening....each of the cave group would come by at various times and admire the art.....comparing Joe's rendition against Marty's rendition. Joe's art probably was criticized a bit, while Marty's art was viewed as 'modern' and looking more like the intended subject. This probably set off a feud between Joe and Marty.....with one knocking the front teeth out of the other guy.
The thing is.....I doubt if Joe, Marty, or the sixty-other odd artists ever thought much over future admiring of their art. The idea that 10,000 PhD guys now look daily over the art and render judgements would probably make Joe, Marty and rest a bit dazed of the admiration.
The other curious thing which you eventually start to think about.....this is simply the caves found so far. There could be another thousand caves existing....where Joe and Marty drew nude pieces with Wanda and DeeDee....rather than animal pictures.
It's been a problem to admit this because they had this image of the Neanderthal folks as.....well....not quiet intellectual enough to draw fancy art like this, in this period 64,000 or more years ago.
The thing is....we aren't talking about vast numbers of paintings, which would lay out to 4,000 different Neanderthal folks over a period of time.
When you go and look at the different caves involved.....it's not that many. So you come to this moment of pondering. With a caveman group of forty-odd members, it's possible that you had only one single guy in some period of time, who seemed to be showing some flair for art. Maybe as he matured and got ready to pass on....some Neanderthal kid took up the art idea and continued on....drawing on another wall of the cave.
As time passed, maybe two less than accomplished guys.....Joe and Marty....talked at length one afternoon about the stout nature of some wild cattle in the region, and each felt the muscular dimensions were something worth admiring. Eventually, they retreated into the cave....took some fire along to light the way, and spent an hour drawing up their image. After that evening....each of the cave group would come by at various times and admire the art.....comparing Joe's rendition against Marty's rendition. Joe's art probably was criticized a bit, while Marty's art was viewed as 'modern' and looking more like the intended subject. This probably set off a feud between Joe and Marty.....with one knocking the front teeth out of the other guy.
The thing is.....I doubt if Joe, Marty, or the sixty-other odd artists ever thought much over future admiring of their art. The idea that 10,000 PhD guys now look daily over the art and render judgements would probably make Joe, Marty and rest a bit dazed of the admiration.
The other curious thing which you eventually start to think about.....this is simply the caves found so far. There could be another thousand caves existing....where Joe and Marty drew nude pieces with Wanda and DeeDee....rather than animal pictures.
Talk over Guns and Stuff
Prior to 1965....for a five-year period....there were between 600 and 700 murders a year in California. In 1965...the numbers jumped 10-percent. By 1970, they were up to 1,376 murders per year. By 1980....3,411 murders per year. By 1990, there were just over 3,500 murders per year. In 1993, they finally peaked out just over 4,000 murders a year. In 2016, they finally slipped back down to around 1,930 murders per year.
Why? No one really discusses much on the trend line going up, or the trend line going down. There's a fifty-year trend at work.
Part of the 1965 story could be GI's returning from Vietnam with drug issues and simply more prevalent drug use in California.
Why did the 1993 number peak out and drop by half in a twenty-year period? Again, no one says much. My humble guess is that prison sentences went to the extent that you took a fair number of guys and removed them from the system. Yes, oddly....the three-strikes rule started in 1994. Journalists probably hate to admit that the law had that much affect but it does appear to represent part of the trend.
I came to this one odd topic in my reading today....a fair number of journalists want to use the term 'gun-death' when talking about individual states. They often want to put out low gun-death in states like California and New York....attributing their low numbers to strong gun laws.
But you sit there and start to ponder.....if you had five-hundred assault-minded or threat-mined criminals who approached some house....attempted to enter or threaten harm.....and the five-hundred were shot dead....they fall onto this gun-death routine. But obviously, they pretty much eliminated their desire to live by attempting a threat or harm to the innocent home-owner. Does the gun-death statistic take that into consideration? No. That's an odd feature of this statistic.
In the words of my brother on one moment of farm logic....some folks are just destined to die because of stupidity or bad behavior. I would offer to that logic....we ought not be collecting statistics over such folks because it really won't lead to anything.
Why? No one really discusses much on the trend line going up, or the trend line going down. There's a fifty-year trend at work.
Part of the 1965 story could be GI's returning from Vietnam with drug issues and simply more prevalent drug use in California.
Why did the 1993 number peak out and drop by half in a twenty-year period? Again, no one says much. My humble guess is that prison sentences went to the extent that you took a fair number of guys and removed them from the system. Yes, oddly....the three-strikes rule started in 1994. Journalists probably hate to admit that the law had that much affect but it does appear to represent part of the trend.
I came to this one odd topic in my reading today....a fair number of journalists want to use the term 'gun-death' when talking about individual states. They often want to put out low gun-death in states like California and New York....attributing their low numbers to strong gun laws.
But you sit there and start to ponder.....if you had five-hundred assault-minded or threat-mined criminals who approached some house....attempted to enter or threaten harm.....and the five-hundred were shot dead....they fall onto this gun-death routine. But obviously, they pretty much eliminated their desire to live by attempting a threat or harm to the innocent home-owner. Does the gun-death statistic take that into consideration? No. That's an odd feature of this statistic.
In the words of my brother on one moment of farm logic....some folks are just destined to die because of stupidity or bad behavior. I would offer to that logic....we ought not be collecting statistics over such folks because it really won't lead to anything.
Gone and Disappeared
It's a case which interests me.
Highly educated black guy....PhD in the medical field. Works for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention out of Atlanta. Promoted last year to 'commander'. Thirty-five years old.
He felt sick....apparently leaving in the middle of the day around 12 Feb. Then? He disappears.
It's been two weeks. Timothy J. Cunningham.
His parents flew down from the northeast to Atlanta. He did drive home after stating the sick excuse for leaving, and parked the car in front of the house. No evidence of a fight or such in the house. Dog is sitting there. Billfold is there. Smartphone is there. Keys here. Car is out front.
Other than that....nothing else.
No notes. No suggestion of leaving the house. Most dog owners would be dedicated to their pet and not leave the dog like this. Same with walking out of the house without your keys....it just doesn't happen to most guys.
Cops? They've put out pictures of the guy. That's about it. You would think phone calls would be checked and reviewed over the twenty-four hours before he disappeared.
My guess? I would suspect that some neighbor took him in when he had a serious bout with the flu, and has quietly been nursing the guy back to health. But you would be wondering about the dog, and the lack of keys. Several things about this story don't fit. It's like he stepped out the front door and just kept walking. One other odd part to the story? There are two windows in the open position as the family members arrived to check on his status. This being winter, that makes it awful suspicious.
Highly educated black guy....PhD in the medical field. Works for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention out of Atlanta. Promoted last year to 'commander'. Thirty-five years old.
He felt sick....apparently leaving in the middle of the day around 12 Feb. Then? He disappears.
It's been two weeks. Timothy J. Cunningham.
His parents flew down from the northeast to Atlanta. He did drive home after stating the sick excuse for leaving, and parked the car in front of the house. No evidence of a fight or such in the house. Dog is sitting there. Billfold is there. Smartphone is there. Keys here. Car is out front.
Other than that....nothing else.
No notes. No suggestion of leaving the house. Most dog owners would be dedicated to their pet and not leave the dog like this. Same with walking out of the house without your keys....it just doesn't happen to most guys.
Cops? They've put out pictures of the guy. That's about it. You would think phone calls would be checked and reviewed over the twenty-four hours before he disappeared.
My guess? I would suspect that some neighbor took him in when he had a serious bout with the flu, and has quietly been nursing the guy back to health. But you would be wondering about the dog, and the lack of keys. Several things about this story don't fit. It's like he stepped out the front door and just kept walking. One other odd part to the story? There are two windows in the open position as the family members arrived to check on his status. This being winter, that makes it awful suspicious.
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