I Prefer Wires, but Sometimes Wireless is Inescable

Readily I don't remember the last cell phone I had.  I got rid of that binding two year contract with Verizon and never looked back.  Before that it was a Nokia, and it worked better than the Samsung flip phone which did nothing.  I had to use an earpiece with the Nokia, and with that it was usable.  My mother got the first smart phone, an iPhone 7.  We needed to get it, because so many companies have gone to cell phone apps to run their products including Amazon Alexa.  It was a painstaking process transferring her contacts into that phone.  I did the same for her pictures off of her old Dell cube PC.  I was an Apple user, and eventually I converted her.  She didn't like it, only because she knew how to use the PC software programs.  Her first software was for her Kodak digital camera and of course mail.  When we ditched Roadrunner I had to set her up with web-based mail.  Progress is not always productive or fun, especially when it is for the next generation.  Still I am running Macintosh computers including a Mac Pro with outdated operating systems.  I keep getting notifications that my browser is out of date, but they want you to buy new stuff.  They give it a shelf life to force you to become obsolete.  My software runs fine on Mac Mavericks, and that includes MOTU's Digital Performer.  I am not going to buy a new computer to be able to buy products online or set up a security system.  The old stuff works fine and in some cases better.  We are used to it.  Today I watched Brightspeed install fiber optic internet in my home.  There are several takeaways. First they ran their line parallel to the old Spectrum coaxial cablevision cable.  They just wire tied to the old stuff.  Easy.  The obvious deduction was fiber optic cable is much thinner than traditional coaxial cable and there is no ground.  That necessary thick shielding to keep out unwanted RF interference is not necessary anymore.  Fiber optic cable is like half a piece of ribbon, and I assume it is a digital signal that is running through it.  Brightspeed was extremely efficient bringing three separate vans to the job.  The three technicians were communicating on 3 way calling on their cell phones.  Choosing the location of the modem was the biggest decision, but I had planned in advance.  It ended up in the kitchen on the counter, and that was best for everyone.  I was nervous about the exchange, because we have had the same land line since l978.  All of the phones in the house worked with the original copper wiring.  I knew I needed to upgrade, but if it works don't fix it.  When Brightspeed called and said they were offering for me to keep my original landline and add fiber internet for half the price, it was too good to turn down.  The difference between Metronet and Brightspeed is the modems.  I know, because I had to mail in the Eero to cancel the Metronet service.  It was a brick with a power cord, not like any modem I had ever seen.  No vent holes, no visible antennas, and a bit of a mystery.  I was relieved when the new modem was similar to the old Roadrunner unit, tall and with breathing holes.  Obviously there were different technology.  The proof is in the pudding, so you just try both and see how they behave.  It didn't take long to get both the wireless internet and voice phone working.  He handed me a little business card with the password, and it was complex.  The only drawback was I was loosing my upstairs phones, but that is okay.  I found some cordless DECT phones on ebay and ordered them last night.  Am I going backwards?  Surprisingly the land line via fiber optic cable is clear and loud.  No static.  I reckon there is a digital to analog converter in the router for the phone.  I had to move the answering machine.  I think that Eero brick probably pulls a lot of electricity, and the Metronet monthly rates increased each year.  Change can be good.  

Retrograde Motion

 My best story about royalties is from local auto mechanic and musician, Edmond Truman.  Always he was eager to tell me about music in Fayetteville in the 1970's.  Never was I a fan of Beach Music, but we had to learn to play it.  My sophomore year at UNC-Chapel Hill, Holden Thorp and I joined the Kyle Whitford band.  Kyle was a D.J. on local radio at a time when radio was still viable.  We had learned to play jazz standards by this time.  Holden had gone to the summer session at Berkley College of Music in Boston, and I grew up listening to my father play piano in his own combo.  When I showed interest in this music, he showed me how to read chord symbols.  While I had twelve years of classical piano lessons and gave a senior recital, I never had lessons in jazz piano.  I signed up for them at USC, where I was a Graduate Teaching Associate, but Dr. John Emche would just tell me to go home and learn tunes out of the real book.  We never once dealt with any of the plethora of things necessary to improvise in the jazz style.  I learned these on my own with academic study.  It is academic music theory.  George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization was a college thesis before it was published as a book.  It substitutes the lydian augmented scale for the major scale, and the altered scales needed to play jazz are the different modes of this particular scale.  There are other methods and theories as well.  Holden and I had a desire to be good jazz players for whatever reason, so we sufficed.  When we joined Kyle's band we were unprepared for the dance sets that came after cocktails and dinner.  We played these two hours adequately and quietly.  At the Country Club of North Carolina, drummer Jim Fine took us aside and asked us both if we could hear.  The trouble was we had never learned or practiced this repertoire necessary for dancing in the Carolinas.  It is Beach Music where they do the "shag."  As it turned out we ended up taking dictation from Kyle on the breaks to learn these simple tunes.  I wrote the chord changes down on little note cards and continued to use them for several years.  Eventually you learn the songs, and they become second nature.  Kyle was a vocalist and guitarist, and he had effective medleys of these indigenous Carolina songs.  Holden and I didn't know how to shag, because we were not married, weren't rich, and didn't live near O.D. or Ocean Drive.  That was the clientele.  Secretly we loathed this music, because you need a trophy wife, a cold beer, and the prospect of casual sex at the end of the night.  This is the paradox of the G.B. (general business) or society gig.  Back then in the 1980's during Reagan's tenure as supreme leader and purveyor of Trickle Down Economics, the wealthy got a tax break like no other in history.  Before he became President the tax rate on the rich was 70%.  He changed that and suddenly Yuppies including Donald Trump were born.  Young upwardly mobile people were the new rage, and Trump targeted them as his main focus.  So Ed's best story was about when the Carolina band, the Embers, allowed their song "I Love Beach Music" to be used in a Budweiser television commercial.  It became "I Love Budweiser."  The royalty checks started rolling in, thousands of dollars at a time, and like most royalties continued for a long time.  ASCAP and BMI were the associations that canvassed radio, television, and live venues making them pay royalties for playing recorded music.  I was a member of ASCAP then, and still am now.  Like the rest of Americas great businesses they are a shadow of their former selves.  When I received the ASCAP newsletter they would leave the zeros off of the statistics, because the amounts collected were so high.  This is how and why pop and rock stars become wealthy, and it includes Taylor Swift.  I am a writer/publisher member, so I have two differing accounts with ASCAP.  The writer gets 50% and the publisher gets 50% of any music that is played.  That entire system has been annihilated in lieu of a handful of streaming companies that pay fractions of pennies for songs streamed today via digital media.  If the money doesn't flow, Capitalism doesn't work.  People have to have money to spend it, and that means there must be jobs that pay a living wage.  The country used to be based on people and this system.  Today the people no longer matter, and America has turned into an Aristocracy.  While I respect Steve Jobs, because I always was an avid Apple and Macintosh user, the Apple Store alone does not merit his company reaping all of this revenue.  Who are these few that control the music?  We don't know, and they don't deserve it.  It is exploitation of the worst kind.  Popular music has been reduced to soft core pornography and eye candy.  There is no music left.  I did not live through America's Sexual Revolution, but I have studied Bob Fosse's choreography.  Sex does sell and it is a major component of human existence.  The world today has become so hypocritical, deceptive, and expoitative it is no wonder children have no bearings about their own sexuality.  The internet is the worst example with the most depraved and perverted videos imaginable freely available to anyone, including children.  This is no place to grow up.  It is difficult to stomach America has regressed to such a state.  As a musician and composer, I have a hefty catalog of copyrighted musical works.  I have continued to pursue music thinking that at some point America may return to her former self.  One could write a hit song and could make some money from it.  The reality is instead of helping Americans, government now oppresses the common people.  While some may not agree Covid was the worst example.  It was genocide so Big Pharma could rake in the cash.  It disabled the American work force was well as most functioning revenue earning businesses.  Is is hard not to suspect both Russia and China have this ambition, dismantling American from the inside out without a single bullet fired, except for deranged, psychotic, disgruntled shooters mass killing innocent citizens.  There could be no more deplorable Condition of America. 

Thin, Crooked, and To the Left

One regret I have was selling my Minimoog for $400.00 in the late 1980's.  It worked perfectly and its oscillators were temperature stabilized.  I had an Anvil Forge ll case made for it, which was another $200.00.  If you are a gigging musician, especially a keyboardist, your cases are as important as your keyboards.  The Anvil Forge ll was a light flight case made of ABS plastic with a metal frame, so it was not heavy.  The interior was lined with custom sized foam, so you open its latches and popped your keyboard in.  It took about 30 seconds to pack up your expensive, prized, gigging keyboard.  They never failed me, except twenty years down the pike, like Hammond organ "sticky foam," this foam would deteriorate into a gooey mess.  I ordered replacement foam from Cabbage Cases in Columbus, Ohio after meticulously measuring the dimensions of each individual piece.  I still have it, but I no longer "gig."  It is interesting that two decades ago, companies such as Anvil and Cabbage Cases were solvent.  They manufactured products that were needed and used.  There are other companies from our immediate American past that once also were solvent and lucrative.  Blockbuster Video is the biggest example.  If we ask ourselves why the American economy no longer works, then this look back is crucial.  Vividly I remember Cross Creek Mall in the 1980's, and at Christmas time it was like fantasy.  The Christmas season, while moderately driven by commerce, was a time of pure escapism.  It was escapism of the best kind, because the Christmas holidays were a celebration of Christ's birth.  We invented Santa Claus and the North Pole, metaphors, and we reveled in this altruistic goodness.  It was Walt Disney at his best, good, honest, wholesome American life.  It was encased and protected by the awareness of God and the birth of His Son, Jesus of Nazareth.  It was the most fulfilling dichotomy we have.  The Christmas season no longer is like that, because there is a stark absence of Godly spirituality.  I have been to church, since I can remember.  It was Synder Baptist Church first but quickly changed to St. John's Episcopal.  It was important for my father to be able to sing tenor in the church choir, which he did until he was no longer able.  They call Episcopal "high church" only because it follows the traditional prayer book.  After they revised this prayer book and attempted to modernize the language, they now print the entire service in the bulletin.  You don't need to use the prayer book.  It is not a mass in Catholic terms, but it is similar.  There are lessons, psalms, and a sermon.  We sing hymns and responses to the rector.  I will say Episcopal is very different from Baptist.  Comically some would describe some Protestant religions as "Jesus is your boyfriend," so the "high church" represents a more formal type of worship.  The diversity of religion is an interesting and wide field of study, and its absence parallels the downfall of America.  An original premise of the escape to the New World was freedom of religion.  The continued absence of God and accompanying spirituality has contributed to the rise of evil in America.  It is manifesting itself in and trying to destroy the core tenants of American life.  If one went to church the basics are not complex.  They are the Ten Commandment and the Golden Rule.  I failed the naturalization test recently published by the Washington Post.  I got 4 out of 10 possible answers correct.  I did not know what the Federalist Papers were.  I said John Adams wrote the Declaration of Independence.  Few days go by where I do not recall the Ten Commandments, because ironically they apply to homeowners.  Shall we reflect?

Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not covet they neighbor's wife.   

 Honor they father and mother. 

 I have learned that the latter still applies even after their deaths.  One continues to honor thy father and mother after they died.  This is a bit of a revelation to me, but it makes sense and it is comforting.  The values your parents instilled in you are fortified by your continued honoring of their achievements in life.  They are a part of your soul, but as family disappears and the world moves toward evil, it becomes more difficult to find goodness.  A godless nation will not last long.  The Christmas season is upon us, and like many single adults whose parents have left, I don't feel it.  That feeling and spirituality largely are absent in mainstream media's depiction of American life.  That is because media, like government and business has fallen prey to this lack of God.  There is no moral conscience or compass.  Money has become the graven image of God.  

I am the Lord thy God.  Thou shalt not have other gods before me.  

 If one is familiar with the teaching in the Bible, we know that Satan is alive and well and doing his business on earth.  That business is rebelling against God and trying his best to tempt humans to sin.  Christians often identify the serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan.  He has temporary power over the fallen world and a host of demons.  On earth this is manifested through man.  Lucifer can represent the lower nature of humans.  

I do not dislike past President Bill Clinton, but as the years pass and American continues to plunge into despair, it is impossible to ignore the seminal decisions he made while President.  The auctioning off of the previously deemed dangerous frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum was the beginning of the end.  I am sure he was lobbied full force to do so, and perhaps the revenue from these sales did balance the federal budget, but America's transition to wireless communication has become our downfall.  Electromagnetic waves can cause cancer, because a field of vibrating, magnetic, electrical energy, when applied to human cells causes them to become unstable and break down.  Often this become cancer.  This is a well known premise and has been proven, but the fallen American regime wants to disguise it.   Aside from being physiologically dangerous, the shift to wireless communication has decimated traditional businesses that once were the backbone of American culture.  The American Dream, if it did exist, was championed by smaller businesses with big ideas.  It was not a corporate skirmish organized in a board room and implemented with the drugs of Wall Street.  It was ideas born in neighborhoods of the middle and lower classes by intelligent, hard working, God fearing citizens.  In what was America's "Free Market" system, once it was possible to conceive a product or service, develop it, produce it, and sell it for a profit.  The main stipulation for this success was freedom from corporate tyranny.   It was necessary to police and regulate corporate America to locate and mitigate corporate oppression.  First we broke up the Bell telephone system and then Microsoft.  Antitrust activity is taking an extended vacation, and consequently Big Tech, with the help of Bill Clinton, has become the ruling oligarchs of America.  The idea that something as simple as wireless communication could completely dismantle traditional industries, products and services that were the roots of American soul, is unconscionable.   What do I mean?  In additional to Blockbuster Video, which was part of our culture to "go rent a movie," home stereo systems and car stereos were the only means available to play recorded music that was purchased in a record store.  The music industry as a whole, along with its content, influence, and spiritual awakening was disenfranchised.  The largest and most prosperous fields of American ingenuity, Hollywood and music, were castrated and replaced a thin stream of media controlled sound.  There is no comparison.  Print material on paper and recorded music on plastic film, vinyl or CD with accompanying "liner notes" were staple parts of American consciousness.  They were tangible, visible, and audible property that we paid for the opportunity to own.  They became our own and as such a part of our souls.  It is impossible to achieve that same result streaming from a corporately owned and controlled common source.  It is "Big Brother."  America "Ain't What She Used to Be," and the only things that needs to be gallantly streaming are our ramparts against the well accrued muscle and billions of now evil tech companies.  What good is all of that money if it is not allowed to flow through the economy?  It takes a village of all classes to make a nation.  If a three hundred million dollar ballroom is the pinnacle of American ingenuity, then try to remember the pet rock, the Veg-o-matic, the pocket fisherman, the blow dryer, the chia pet, and myriad of other lowbrow products that made millions when the market allowed it.  Oligarchs are not forged from virtue, honesty, or concern for their fellow man.  They exploit us.  

Global Warming is Good Business for Some

 For those with no moral conscience, finding lucrative solutions to  modern problems may seem prudent.  The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC developed a black biofilm on its marble.  It was noticed as far back as 2006, and in 2014 the National Parks Service began to study it and search for a solution.  What was the remedy?  The contract was a 14.5 million dollar laser treatment to remove the unattractive and unhealthy scrim.  That is a hefty price tag for a cleaning service.  It can suggest two things.  First the biofilm is more problematic than traditional menaces requiring high tech lasers to burn it off.  Secondly 14.5 million dollars was pork allocated in nepotistic fashion to friends or family of those in the federal government.  If the former is true, then what do average Americans do when this unseemly biofilm develops on our own homes?  I have never seen advertisements for a cleaning service that uses lasers.  Sounds like an inside job from the Pentagon.  In the midst of a government shut down in week three with people working for free, all ready having been fired, or vying for their jobs, our President chooses to build a 300 million dollar gilded ballroom.  His "Big Beautiful Bill" has cut Medicaid subsidies and will increase Obamacare premiums exponentially.  Inflation has not subsided, and grocery prices are reaching critical for many.  This is the perfect metaphor for Donald Trump.  He does not care about the American people or their needs, although he is an elected public servant.  His job is to serve the people.  Instead with little warning he razes the entire East Wing of the White House suggesting a ballroom with a capacity of 1000 will serve us better.  How will such an amenity serve the American populace?  It won't.  It is braggadocio at its best in the model of European aristocracy.  Perhaps we could send the plethora of homeless people recently rooted from their camps to this facility to dine and be entertained.  There could be no clearer disconnect in our lifetimes.  Recently Trump has commuted the sentences of two convicted felons, and they are walking free despite a verdict by a judge and jury.  This President is operating in complete denial of his appointed responsibilities.  This one action of tearing down a piece of American history with no regard for anyone but himself is proof that we have the wrong President.  He never should have been President at all, and the reason why he was elected a second time was because much of America could not stomach a black woman President.  They chose Whitey.  14.5 million dollars to clean the marble of the Jefferson Memorial.  300 million dollars of privately donated money is to finance this ballroom.  This of itself is a conflict of interest, because private donors should not be paying for something that should belong to the people.  Simply it is campaign dark money, money funneled in for specific personal or corporate gain.  Never will we find out whence this money comes, and I doubt Trump will contribute one cent.  To ask the justice department to reimburse him for legal fees while he was an ordinary citizen is ludicrous.  With the United States 30 trillion dollars in debt, what's a couple of billion?  Our Trane gas pack developed a similar biofilm on its blower assembly.  The white housing that contains the spinning squirrel cage was covered inside and out with a black coating through which all of your house's breathable air flows.  It is before the heat exchanger.  If our HVAC technician was able to clean it with a solution and a rag, why did it cost 14.5 million dollars to fix the Jefferson Memorial?  Should I have sought laser treament?  This biofilm in Washington, DC was said to be a combination of bacterial, fungi, and algae exacerbated by the black soot from Reagan International Airport.  Airplanes do expel black soot, no matter how harmless media paints white contrails.  These condensation trails may contain of moisture, but look at the footage of a C-17 evacuating flood victims in Alaska.  Clearly you can see the black trails of soot being expelled from its jet engines.  America is the victim of endless snow jobs.  We have been lied to over and over again, so we should be thankful that Mike Johnson's House and the North Carolina state legislature are screwing  us in full view.  If you are a Trane owner, then you should have this issue resolved with a professional cleaning of the blower assembly.  To think I have been breathing tainted air, and the contamination has been hidden within the gas pack itself, is representative of what has become America.  We are rotten to the core. 

Kiss the Godfather, Part ll

 I am a fan of Ashley Judd, but that is not why I watched "Kiss the Girls" on DVD.  I have a sizeable DVD collection, because these were a necessity when working on ships.  The crew office had at least four DVD players broadcasting movies 24/7 on crew  television.  Movies are quintessential escapism.  Sometimes they become art.  When thought of in conjunction with American television, movies and TV were a core part of American culture.  Television helped provide a main stream and unified the country.  That was when television was good and honest.  That no longer is the case.  Things have taken an ugly turn, and most of our virtuous, original, and prosperous inventions have been murdered and exploited.  It began with "Reality TV," which was not having to pay "talent."  This is when the scope of television was desiccated.  Rather than paying homage to minstrelsy, vaudeville, or Broadway, Reality TV was just cheap, easy, insipid entertainment.  Good programming did persevere for a while, but Covid hammered a few more nails in the coffin of television.  This film with Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman, "Kiss the Girls," is a good example of how technique can undermine art.  I also watched "The Godfather, Part ll" and was disappointed.  After watching Part I, which is a pinnacle film making, technique undermined what could have been art.  What is technique?  Technique is more than natural talent, which could be an actor who is believable and likeable but plays himself.  Technique is a disciplined study of the craft of what you are attempting to do.  Method acting is one example.  Preparation is necessary.  What technique was lacking in both of these Hollywood movies?  In "The Godfather, Part ll," the answer is sound.  Only after you hear a beautifully mixed film replete with an orchestral score, Foley sound effects, and savvy oration from its actors, will you notice this absence.  The sound of actors' voices is a major part of their appeal, and it is this oration America has forgotten.  Sound in general is forgotten, because we are accustomed to hearing sound bytes in ear buds from a smart phone.  Real sound, something America has forsaken, is what created the music industry.  You must understand what real sound is, and scant few will have this opportunity.  Our closest second is the local rock concert, which is a meager substitute.  The concert halls of Europe are sound's best example, and they value music and support their artists.  The settings filmed in a movie, locations chosen for specific reasons, are beneficial.  Quintessentially being in another place is escapism.  Seeing the Alps, Caribbean, or the beautiful historical architecture of Italy in a film could be enough.  In combination with other technique, such as costuming, lighting, sound, and acting film easily can become art.  It's a bit like opera on celluloid and on location.  Sound is more important than we think, because the dialogue needs to be heard, easily.  Quality sound recordists should have their roots in old time radio, which proves sound alone can tell a story.  It is sound that falls short in G.F. Part ll.  If you have Marlon Brando, who understands these things, most of your work all ready is done.  You just need to record it.  America has seen periods of productivity and artistry, when all is necessary is to point a camera and shoot.  Art mimics life?  Perhaps when the talent is the root of a production, things fall into place.  In other cases when the shoot doesn't flow, quality technique is required.  The sonorous mellifluosness of actors' voices is absent in "The Godfather, Part ll."  There is ambient sound (crowd noise) and talking in diverse locations, so establishing an aural concept was difficult.  Today sound is an afterthought.  To see a handheld digital camera pointed at a news commentator in a professional network studio is a disservice.  No wonder news today is a shadow of itself, because production is minimal.  It's like it doesn't matter, and we all know what is coming out of the mouths of our evening news anchors.  A little sugar would be nice.  I finally figured out why television commercials fall short.  It is because they are base and unimaginative.  Not only does the concept of talking over music trying to show you a product not work, neither the dialog or the product are noteworthy.  Last night for the first time I saw a common television commercial for a local law firm, but it wasn't the same.  It was the same dialogue, but there were fresh graphics and an attempt to be hip.  It dawned on me.  If the commercial is blase and ineffective, wouldn't the law firm be the same?  That is the example it sets.  If the commercial used novel, unusual, or provocative techniques, then the technique itself might reach the viewer.  Isn't this advertising?  There has to be something more than a message or talent.  It takes technique. 

AI Will Not Save the Planet and the Human Race

 The strains of Bing Crosby's voice are echoing through my living space.  Is this unusual?  Recently I purchased a box set of music sung by Bing.  In my study of American Roots music, the Blues, and Rock (since I grew up listening to and playing jazz), I missed Bing.  There is scant information about American Popular Music, because like America, the music industry was overtaken by a handful of corporate monopolies.  Once a diverse, prolific, and lucrative American industry, music was pigeon holed, castrated, and exploited.  The effects of Authoritarianism are specific, oppressive, and heinous.  They are anti Christian, Christian being followers of God and His son, Jesus, and their teachings.  These teachings embody empathy and respect for one's fellow man.  America no longer is Christian, and the exorcism of Christian doctrine began several decades ago.  With no oversight or regulation of moral or corporate activity, the propensity for corruption is great.  Americans, or what we think are Americans, have proven this.  The singular pursuit of wealth has brainwashed this faction of the human race.  Money may provide basic human comforts, but when the eye candy disappears what is left?  Not to sound sentimental, but love and community fill emotional and spiritual needs.  Millions of people voted a second time for Donald Trump, and they deserve an education.  As the soy bean farmers.  Trump doesn't care about you.  He used you.  It's like listening to Bing Crosby.  How is this sentimental, often romantic music relevant to extremism, violence, and ensuing war?  It's not.  The reasons why we are moving toward a war economy, is because those in power and not capable of anything else.  If we are not killing for our own gain, then what do we do?  The answer is engaging in emotional, spiritual, and creative activity.  This is called "The Arts."  It takes more to do this than raping and pillaging your neighbors.  Perhaps conquest is immediate satisfaction, but when you are by yourself waiting for the grim reaper you may ask yourself, "Where is the rest of it?"  The "rest of it" is what you gain from your own personal investment in others, other things, and other people.  The first time you gain happiness from helping someone else you will realize.  The human race as both an emotional and spiritual component, and while they will not provide shelter, food, or medicine they create security and serenity.  To know that you are not the only one suffering is important.  It's like listening to Bing.  You have to put your controller down or your iPhone, and trust that within the human race there are people that know you exist and care about you.  It's like Zen Buddhism.  If you sit for long enough in an empty cave with no stimulation, eventually your own soul will emerge and become active.  This is where America has missed the mark.  With ADHD we can't sit still long enough and in peace to allow this to happen.  We are overstimulated everyday by an unregulated corporate America.  It's no wonder that Hollywood film and television studios are a fraction of their former selves.  We are chasing the dragon.  If we drastically reduced this pollution and again concentrated on the human psyche, not AI, then it is possible we could rebuild America's greatness.  It will not come from artificial intelligence.  Eventually when the earth begins to fail and electricity is no longer available, the perspective will change.  Ask Native Americans.  They are a better model. 

Accolades Over Conscience

Isn't it convenient and timely that after months of vicious fighting by the Israelis, suddenly the prospect of peace is at hand?  Netanyahu out of the blue decides to stop his brutal attacks on Gaza, a complete reversal of his steadfast position in response to the brutal attack of Hamas.  Convenient, and this cease fire is being claimed by the American President, because he wants the Nobel Peace Prize.  Obama got it, the first black President.  You can understand why.  The problem is Trump has done nothing to merit such an honor.  He is not on the same page.  It is nothing short of delusional.  What the media has been reporting, the opinions of the top brass of the American military, seems true.  It is a disconnect from reality.  It is not dissimilar from how my father began to behave when he got dementia.  They tend to see what is left of the rest of their lives with rose colored glasses.  The problem is we need a President.  Trump needs eldercare. 

The Evil That Men Do Lives After Them

 Evil flourishes when good men do nothing, or democracy dies in darkness.  I blog.  Does it help?  Yes.  Sometimes my emotions demand that I blog, so there is a connection between cognitive thinking and emotional reactions.  We could say emotional energy is fuel for the fire.  When negative emotional energy blocks my chi, I turn it off.  I am efficient this way unencumbered by sentimentality.  As a musician and composer quickly your craft and art are rendered moot with no feeling.  The problem is when your emotions are blocked, and you don't know what they are.  It would be difficult for human emotion to exist in a vacuum, and it was not meant to function this way.  Human emotion is a type of communication which can augment or diminish your happiness.  We are not meant to be happy all the time and certainly not now.  That is the reality.  As Americans today we are surrounded by negativity, deceit, corruption, and pure evil.  It is incumbent for us to continue to seek the truth in spite of our obstacles.  These obstacles have grown since Donald Trump's second presidency.  To have a President who feels his station is to seek revenge on his political adversaries rather than lead a populace in solidarity is a disservice.  He is confused.  He was not prepared to be President, and his actions are an extension of his former position as a real estate tycoon and television producer.  These skills actualized in the private sector do not translate to the responsibilities of the American President.  The President operates under the auspices of the United States Constitution.  It is his bounden duty to lead with the Constitution as a guide.  There is no place for a treasonous President supported by a treasonous Congress.  If government were working appropriately, Trump would be impeached and removed from office.  He knows that J.D. Vance is more unpopular than he is.  To watch this soap opera play out in daily life like it is real is challenging.  Americans would rather focus on themselves and caring for their own families.  2025 is the lowest station of the totem pole for everyone.  What did we do to deserve this?