Elitism in America

We, as the human race, have become distracted.  Heinous sex crimes that have proliferated among American celebrities have tainted heterosexuality.  Women have become so busy necessarily exposing and attempting to try and convict serial rapists, any time for healthy sexual interaction has been stymied.  Hollywood, once a stable fixture for the reinforcement of heterosexual romance, has wandered astray.  With the atrocities of Bill Cosby, Jeffry Epstein, and Harvey Weinstein, it would be difficult for most young aspiring actresses ever to trust men again.  These three men alone have demonized the male gender and whatever God-given, natural, sexual proclivities they may possess.  With wage inequality a fervent issue between the sexes, and the rise of LGBT rights (I don't even know what the extra letters stand for anymore), heterosexuality in modern America has become a thing of loathing.  "Kill the white man!"  "Kill the straight man!"  How do I find myself staunchly in this unfavorable category?  If anyone cared to look America all ready has had the sexual revolution, but it has shifted to the LGBT community.  All ready we have had the Feminist Movement, and its woman-centric doctrine.  All of it has happened before in previous American generations.  Where are we now?  The Civil War in the freeing of slaves, also diminished the natural blood line of America.  We don't talk in terms of genetics anymore.  We don't speak about bloodlines, families, and dynasties.  Only have we been programmed to accept everyone no matter how aberrant they may be.  This programming falls under the ruse of Christianity, but in reality it has planted disease in the human genome.  Many LGBT constituents are as lowly people as the rest of America.  Just because you declare yourself homosexual does not mean you have integrity.  The stark evidence of aberrant LGBT activity lies in the cruise industry.  Rest assured if you couldn't make it on land in America, you will try being on the open sea.  With over sixty nationalities represented and not much democracy, it is easy to fly under the radar with whatever conflicted plan of life you have.  What has happened in America is simple.  Our blood line has become infected.  Those in control have seen fit to diminish the quality of Americans through various avenues.  It has been ethnic cleansing not unlike what has happened in many other countries including Nazi Germany and Bosnia Herzegovina.  The elites or aristocrats don't like peasants, and see them as expendable.  Instead of helping Americans empower themselves and build a stronger America, we have been assaulted.  It began with the food source, it continued through lack of control of pollution in our environment, it denied us adequate education through public means, and now we are the victims of an overt attack on our health through a deadly pathogen.  It couldn't get much more difficult, seeing as this assault largely is unrecognized.  Americans can't stomach the idea that the last vestige of freedom in the world, America, now is a battleground rather than a refuge.  No longer are we taking applications.  With Trump came the closed borders of exclusivity.  The problem is, when you assault the entire American population, eventually it will flounder.  Any chance at becoming a strong, profitable, hard-working nation is moot.  The proof has become after two  years of Covid lock downs, America is finding it difficult to resurrect a viable work force.  Even if we did want to work and become profitable, all odds have risen against us.  America as a free nation has taken blows to the knees, and it has been purposeful.  Who is behind this attack?  Is it China?  Is it Iran?  Is it Saudi Arabia?  Is if Russia?  Many nations hate us, so take your pick.  The only way to save America, the real America, is to salvage humanity and what it needs to prosper.  There is no short cut.  There never has been.  People need clean air, clean water, nutritious food, proper sanitation, opportunity, and social mobility.  Once America afforded these things, when we embraced her population as a the home team.  Somehow the people of this America have become the opponent to the managerial elite.  They don't want to invest in us.  They don't like us, and they don't care.  That would be Mitch McConnell.  

DAK Closed in 2013 in Brunswick Country

I just can't get on with my day, until I write what I am feeling.  I don't have a Broadway musical as a voice, but I do have a prospectus for one.  Life in the trenches (I mean in a tin can). (I mean "at sea").  I really mean life in the close confines of a sailing ship (and the word "sailing" is figurative).  Life working for the cruise industry has its ups and downs.  For musicians mostly it is compromise.  There is little chamber music, although once Carnival did employ a classical trio.  There is not much jazz, because those who can play jazz more than not would not choose to work in the close confines of a metal cruise ship.  It doesn't represent the "jazz" lifestyle, which is an anachronism in America.  After watching two top shelf Hollywood-produced films yesterday, certainly "The Golden Age" of either film or television also is an anachronism.  It was almost unbearable the emotional and artistic content of these movies.  It is something we have lost as a culture, but these things do happen.  As someone who has lived six American decades, the loss seems unbearable.  There is nothing to replace it.  I only ask myself why would commercial flights be flying over the city of Fayetteville, instead of turning right and flying over a more rural geographic region east of the Cape Fear River?  What could be there that would have enough influence to lobby the FAA and have traditional flight paths changed after decades of usage?  There is only one conclusion.  It is not modest housing communities on Cedar Creek Road.  For a scant moment I thought it might be affluence in Eastover or at Cypress Golf Club.  Wealthy people live in these areas, and the more enlightened would have an opinion about low-flying aircraft.  With the convenient and indispensable aid of GOOGLE maps, the answer is clear.  It is a Mexican-owned PET plant now serviced by the Norfolk Southern Railroad.  Let me clarify.  It is DAK Americas, a manufacturer of thermoplastics.  DAK closed their Brunswick Country facility in 2013.  Ask why?  Ask why they are situated conveniently on the banks of the Cape Fear River.  Ask why the Fayetteville plant remains.  Ask why for some uncanny reason incoming and outgoing air traffic at Grannis Field now run LEFT and fly directly over downtown Fayetteville instead of turning right and sparing citizens a thermal blast of carbon monoxide and soot.  Is the eastern bank of the Cape Fear River so pristine so that it merits these kid gloves?  I'd say they are polluting like Chemours, and with no aerial observation they can get by with it.    

God Save This Planet, Please!

I have a lot about which to complain, and it is tiring.  I don't like to spend my time complaining, because it distracts you from progress.  My emotions are fairly accurate, so when I can't muster my own self-fulfilled happiness I have to figure out what is amiss.  Most often it is something happening around me.  I possess a keen instinct for truth, and without consciously hearing or seeing news often I can discern what is in the air.  That is why they say, "It is in the air."  In New Orleans the music is, "In the air."  You can feel it, because literally sound in its best sense is feeling.  Sounds waves travel in the air, air moves, and thus it moves the listeners senses.  Calling this extra sensory perception may be a misnomer.  Simply it means your instincts are working, and as human beings we have the ability to sense reality in different ways.  One thing I don't like is being surveilled.  No one would, but after 9/11 George W. Bush created his Department of Homeland Security.  A presidential declaration of war approved by Congress opens pandora's box for governmental overreach.  A president can pretty do much whatever he wants in the name of war.  The Patriot Act got passed, the NSA was expanded, and everyone in America became a suspect.  The government has been monitoring citizens ever since.  Today it is difficult to separate government, military, and corporate America.  In these here parts they are almost one entity.  Fully I understand Apache helicopters with Longbow targeting systems.  Fully I disagree with the widespread implementation of millimeter wave phased array radar and G5 wireless protocol.  Phased array radar is much more powerful and produces more heat than traditional radar.  It is many transmitters bundled as one antenna, and they are steerable by phase shifting their signals.  These devices are in the nose cones of military aircraft, they are in Elon Musk's Starlink satellites, and they were developed at the HAARP facility in Alaska mainly to transmit low frequency radio waves through the ionosphere.  If the world feels hotter to you, it probably is.  A feeling of being monitored or surveilled isn't a pleasant one.  How I know is when I do specific things such as talk out loud, play music, or otherwise be human, I feel something in the air respond to me stimulus.  There is a simple answer for this annoying nuisance.  It is the AN/TQP 53 built by Lockheed Martin.  Just about all military activity produces infrasonic refuse.  Helicopters and military transport planes are a fact of life, but I don't have to like them flying over our house.  Now that ISR, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance are such a huge trend in the defense industry with sensors galore, the air is filled with aberrant electricity of many frequencies accompanied by its complimentary magnetism.  Not all of it is electromagnetic, but much of it is.  I didn't put two and two together until I saw a short video cip of the AN/TQP 53 in operation.  It spins, so it is similar to Doppler radar.  I thought it was aimed directly at the enemy.  This would explain the modulation effect its produces on infrasound waves.  The Taos Hum was similar in that there was a slow modulation of its signal.  Maybe it would be flattering to think someone thought your activity interesting enough to monitor.  I'm sure John Lennon did not feel this way, and they killed him.  Richard Nixon hated John Lennon, because perhaps he had more influence on America than him, the President.  Now he's dead from some concocted theory.  American "intelligence" agencies are good at digging in the dirt and recruiting malcontents, degenerates, and otherwise unsavory would-be criminals.  I am positive the Nixon Administration had John Lennon killed, because he was a quintessential pain in their arse.  They blamed it on some poor schmuck, and the world lost a musical icon.  I don't like Big Brother commenting on my activity, because it breaches my right to privacy afforded in the United States Constitution.  Infrasound in general does the same thing.  It connects together otherwise unconnected things, such as people in homes.  I would rather not hear my neighbors voices in my own home, especially after we have spent thousands of dollars on insulating materials.  Unfortunately our neighbors have not done the same.  Many have the same antiquated single-pane glass windows, rock wool batting, and nothing else.  We on the other hand have modernized our sixty year old home.  The realization that pine pollen travels right through the walls as does infrasound is not pleasant.  The reality that our lives are made much worse by constant corporate and military pollution truly is an infringement of our civil rights.  We live in a war zone, and some activity is expected.  That CSX runs amuck, unregulated, and predatory belies explanation.  Tribal domination is barbaric behavior away from which humanity has grown, and yet still in third world counties with a lack of God's presence it festers.  Only the love found in Christianity can save this planet.  

The American Neo-Nazi Political Party

As a musician and keyboardist I have been through a handful of permutations of live-play rigs.  If and when you find yourself an employed working musician, the best way to ensure you stay that way is to have the best sound.  "The musician with the best sound wins, hands down."  In jazz music in particular sound, feeling, and interpretation become the holy trinity.  To play jazz you must swing.  To be listenable you must have a good sound.  To be artistic you must synthesize years of jazz history, personal perspective, and creative wisdom.  It is not called "America's True Art Form" for nothing, and it would be nice if the country began to recognize and understand that.  There is nothing to be afraid of from the "Jigs."  Black men and women, while susceptible to the same ills as everyone, don't carry the Voodoo curse.  What they do offer is the struggle of the African-American throughout our history.  Many would rather not listen to this story.  We can bury out head in the sand and ignore the extreme brutality of slavery and Jim Crow through the years.  It seems wise not to base our current reality solely on this scenario, but we should be cognizant of this history and more importantly understand what is possible in the human race.  Our tendencies can be extreme, violent, and antagonist when our souls are not nurtured.  Soul nurturing is something America has chosen to shift to another realm.  At America's inception you can believe we were engaged at a physical and environmental level.  "The Lost Colony" didn't survive.  Pure survival was paramount for early American, and it was enough.  As a nation we have become spoiled and complacent, and Covid 19 has spanked our ass.  Most of the useful and wise information garnered by previous generations has been shelved in a naive and narcissistic campaign of self worship.  This change in large has been promulgated by a small and evil faction actively who chose to exploit the youth of America.  Economic trends suggested teens had the most salient income in Capitalist America, so a conscious decision was made to exploit our children.  I would suggest Generation X and Z have been the most neglected generations in American history.  American society on purpose deprived them of the appropriate tools to survive ensuring a docile, naive, and spending future populace.  It is unconscionable.  When I see the confusion, ignorance, and hatred of America's youth, only can it be attributed to our own American society.  They are a product of what we have become.  In short the Republican siege, the communist attack on America is responsible.  Only during this extreme, violent, racist time has the nurturing of our youth been discarded.  In the last two decades I have watched notable figures in American culture die off with no one to replace them.  There is no one to fill these shoes, because the hard knocks school of success and Protestant work ethic have been abandoned for quick cheap fixes on iPhone apps.  Literally we have brainwashed our youth, but it is not too late.  If and when an individual decides not to be confused about their gender is when a transformation will take place.  We will realize currently solidarity isn't the answer, because we have few concepts over which to unite.  It is the new age of individualism, because we are on our own.  Certainly two years of extraneous, misleading, sometimes erroneous information about a life-threatening disease is enough to heighten our personal awareness.  We cannot reply upon Washington, the CDC, or Big Pharma, and without close scrutiny our state governments are nothing more than country clubs for the wealthy.  Not much has changed in America over the centuries, but Republicans would have you believe it.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  It was been a long time since pure lies as propaganda was commonplace.  The Nazi party may be disguised as Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Madison Cawthorn, but we are onto them.  

Our Modern Holocaust

I want to get this out of my system, because I don't like to complain.  I have been cast a complainer before, and you know what?  Twenty-five years ago in Cowtown it was for the exact same thing I have to complain about now.  First let me clarify my point of view.  I am a musician.  Musicians are different from everyone else, and America understood this once.  The main difference between a musician and an average person is, a musician is an artist.  What is an artist?  An artist is someone who chooses to study, reflect upon, and comment on the human condition.  They choose to express their own personal point-of-view through their chosen medium.  Most often this personal perspective also is an expression of emotion resultant from reaction to world stimulus.  Artists are compelled to express themselves with emotion through an aesthetic they have chosen.  Mine is music, and when and if I am lucky I get to purge my emotions through it.  Through the years I have developed my musical expression, and it encompasses different instruments and composition and arrangement.  I don't do much composing anymore, but I am compelled to keep playing.  I play our Hammond A-100 console organ in our den from time to time.  Organ has different aesthetics, and because my first love was jazz I play from that perspective.  I pay attention to black gospel organ, and whether it is jazz or church my organ playing happens at a deep cathartic level.  I am able to express my inner feelings on the Hammond organ.  I am a good improviser on trumpet, and I can play a funky groove on electric bass.  Jazz piano probably is my most accomplished field, but rarely do I have a chance to indulge in its mysteries.  Jazz is dead, and in the second most populated military city in America there are few venues for this mostly black music.  Music necessarily relies upon sound, and therefore audible sound is important to musicians.  Herein lies the first huge lie of Rock 'n' Roll.  "The check is in the mail."  Music while possible on an Sony Walkman, iPod, or in earbuds is most efficient, expressive, and successful at its mission when it is live.  That means live sound.  Live music.  That means instruments, amplifiers, and a P.A. system to broadcast sung vocals.  With the Covid lockdown many things changed.  Things all ready were changed in America's music industry.  The advent of the personal computer as a recording studio has had the most impact on the music industry.  Add Covid to the mix and musicians are recording in their closets and piping it to their band mates.  This is not the traditional path of music for most of the history of America.  In our history music was performed on street corners, on wharves, on sidewalks, in clubs, in churches, and eventually in theaters and stadiums.  The prevalence of live music in America has waned, and there are reasons.  There is an interesting dichotomy which exists that most people don't know about.  If told about it, most people choose not to listen.  When I was branded a complainer in Cowtown, people did not want to listen.  They did not understand the complexity of the issue I am about to describe.  America was built by the "Iron Horse," and the railroads were responsible for westward expansion across the Rocky Mountains eventually connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  It was an important accomplishment laying this rail, blasting tunnels, building trestles and creating infrastructure for America.  No one could or would discount the importance of the rail industry in America's vital history.  Consequently the sound of early steam locomotives shaped American history in many ways as did the sound of horses hooves.  The "chug-chug-chug" and "clop-clop-clop" created the rhythm upon which was based much early American popular music.  Both the tempo and kernel of rhythm were found in these defining ambient atmospheric sounds.  Without consciously thinking about it musicians began to emulate this feeling or aesthetic of newly emerging American life.  It helped create blues, ragtime, and jazz.  The steam train is ingrained in American consciousness as it should be.  For many decades the sentimentality of these trains remained.  Like all good things usually they come to an end.  The rail industry's transition to diesel was not so organic, but rest assured in musical circles this change was felt and mitigated.  This change from steam to diesel is a major marker in American history, and enough has not been said about it.  Imagine this long-standing, sentimental, and nostalgic backbone of America, then imagine its extinction and replacement with something much more volatile.  This transition all ready was represented by the compositional style of "Expressionism."  Composers needed a new way to express the changing life of the world, and so they chose the cacophonous sounds of modern cities.  They emulated these sounds in their newly developed compositional style.  The trouble is most people never have transitioned to such an abstract notion of music.  They prefer the familiar and melodious strains of popular tunes to the challenging polyrhythms and dissonance of modern American music.  For me it was a logical transition in my field of study.  American jazz music would have had a tough time competing with the sheer power of diesel.  Thus amplification came into vogue and Rock was born.  The sheer ability to amplify one's musical sounds above the noise of the city was indispensable.  Like the "chug-chug-chug" and "clop-clop-clop" that came before it, American found new patterns upon which to base its expression.  Music necessarily had to grow balls to have a chance of survival.  This gave rise to several decades of intense, prolific, rewarding popular music in America.  Music at this time truly was a reflection of society and its successes and failures.  The music industry became the moral conscience of America.  That no longer is the case, and we have lost this trusted companion.  We have lost this companion, because we no longer have this symbiotic relationship of sound.  We have lost track of sound, and we have been raped with sound.  America today conversely is is a sea of non discriminant noise with no viable or logical definition.  No wonder people are crazy and on drugs.  There is no sound in our environment that represents humanity or spirituality.  Instead we hear noise, and often we don't "hear" it at all.  Most often today in modern America, the biggest detriment we face is inaudible sound, infrasound created by huge, hulking, diesel prime movers.  This onslaught has occurred on the down low the same way the emergent, far-right, extremist Republican party has tried to introduce communism in America.  They are sneaky these Republicans, and so far we have not learned the lesson.   I began complaining about this radiation as soon as I realized its source.  It took a while to arrive at this conclusion, about the same amount of time it took to locate the source of the Taos Hum.  Interestingly they are the same thing.  The Taos Hum continues all over the world, although the moly mine eventually went bankrupt in New Mexico.  About what residents complained in Taos, New Mexico is what is plaguing the world today.  It is intense, never-ending, ruthless, mind-numbing radiation of the third kind.  If you only choose to remember Thomas the Train, that is understandable.  Most things the Republicans have implemented are so egregious and heinous, we would have a difficult time accepting, like the Holocaust.   

When Biden Says "Billions to Ukraine for Munitions," the Fayettenam Wheels Start Turning

Midterm elections in North Carolina are in May.  They have been delayed numerous times because of gerrymandered voting districts drawn by the Republican majority in the State House.  Democrats sued for these incursions, and the maps have been both overturned and resurrected.   It depends on who you get in court.  Is it a Trump-appointed judge?  "Let them stand giving a notable advantage to Republicans!"  The Supreme Court of the United States ultimately denied the Republican appeal, agreed with the Democrats, and decreed voting maps in North Carolina will be drawn by outside experts.  (It is possible the new maps will only apply for this particular election, so stay tuned)  Issues or the policies determining the quality of life of district constituents seem to be secondary.  In North Carolina it seems to be a popularity contest.  Who has enough money to join the country club?  Who won't rat on his friends?  Who will siphon the most money to the City Council?  Who will give his buddies the best municipal contracts?  I am thankful for a handful of things in Fayetteville which have come to fruition under Mayor Mitch Colvin.  They built a long-awaited skateboard park at the location I suggested.  (The land was owned by the city, so it meant more money for the park itself.)  The Rowan Street or Grove Street bridge was replaced as were the bridges over the Cape Fear River and Cross Creek.  (This was a major accomplishment)  Splash pads were built all around the city.  The Woodpecker's baseball stadium was completed.  The Prince Charles Hotel was renovated.  Finally Hay Street was smoothed and paved.  Aside from the Market House being inaccessible and barricaded by fencing, the visual aesthetic of Fayetteville has improved.  Under this facade of progress real issues fester.  Issues seem to be secondary in North Carolina elections, because they are difficult.  Especially they are difficult in Cumberland Country.  Four hundred million dollars extra won't solve these issues.  What is the best example of a deep-seated, difficult, seemingly-eternal problem in a country?  Chemours.  Chemours is a Chinese-owned spin off company of DuPont, who famously has been disrespecting Americans since the 1960's.  It is a sordid past.  DuPont's solution was to change the name of their toxic chemical and rebrand the subsidiary Chemours.  The questions is:  "How and why is it possible a notable manufacturing company believes they are not responsible for disposing of their own toxic waste?"  Make Teflon, but in the process of manufacturing this ground-breaking product toxic by products must be disposed of properly.  "Clean it up!"  Duke Energy feels the same way, and they think it is not their responsibility to dispose burned coal ash.  Although their spill into the Dan River wreaked havoc on the environment, they were sued and found liable, and Pat McCrory drastically reduced their financial penalty, still they charged consumers for the clean up.  Shitting on Americans is commonplace in United States corporate history.  Kinlaw Farms championed treating their fields with hog urine and feces to the surprise of those living nearby.  It takes lawsuits to grow them an environmental conscience, but the isolation of a penthouse suite, five star amenities, and a lack of God keeps CEO's and boards of directors in the dark.  The quintessential function of living and working in a country, the ideas of community responsibility and fellowship, and vocational mentorship are absent from the minds of these lofty  companies.   It is like there are no dues to be paid to exploit America.  It's free range capitalism.  When regulations are inhibiting profits deregulate.  This is what happens.  Chemours now purports to want to be our friends.  They have proposed a six story tall one mile long retaining wall to separate their plant from the Cape Fear river.  You're a day late and a dollar short.  Let's take into account how much disease they have caused with the releasing of PFAS into the air, nearby ground water, and the source of drinking water for the city of Wilmington.  This has been happening for decades, and now they want to be our friends.  They are not.  I complain about commercial and military aircraft flying above our neighborhood, and the military community thinks I am a malcontent.  Fully I understand deployment, maneuvers, and training.  Fully I don't understand Piedmont, Endeaver Air, PSA, and Mesa flying their outgoing direct-to-Charlotte flights directly over our house.  Somewhere in time some corporate entity thought it was okay to save fuel.  The airlines were in a pinch during the Covid lockdown, but this has been happening for a long time.  How and why could and would anyone say blowing carbon monoxide and black soot onto neighborhood homes and foliage was a good idea.  Ask our oak trees?  The lids of our garbage cans are covered in black mold like the marble dome of the Jefferson Memorial.  It is going to cost five million to clean up their mess, but I the consumer must do it myself.  Black soot and carbon monoxide from the sky.  "Oh joy!"  That is a wonderful thing to wake up to everyday at six a.m., the roar of a commercial jet flying flying over the top of our house.  Who makes these decisions, and who could be so callous and irresponsible?  They are not our friends.  The Aberdeen and Rockfish, while a profitable short line railroad, also is not our friend.  Do they think twice that their noise, heat, vibration, and electricity could be disturbing those living in Fayetteville?  If I were running for office in Cumberland Country, and I wanted to pinpoint issues that affect the quality of life of residents, what would I say?  First we must restore the police force.  Gina Dawkins has not been an effective Chief of Police.  Why?  If you fear for your life when you drive to the store, then there is an issue.  Three men were murdered in cold blood at the former Holiday Inn on Owen Drive this past weekend.  Violent crime is off the cuff.  Traffic laws are not enforced, people speed, and driving is like a NASCAR race.  We need police.  If Fayetteville is having trouble keeping sworn officers, then something should be done.  Raise their salaries, offer them benefits, and provide community support.  We are passed the lynchings of 2000, and order must be restored.  A community cannot survive without the police.  Homelessness is endemic.  There are few mental health facilities, shelters, or kitchens.  Vagrants are camping out in tents under the MLK.  Guess we are no different than San Francisco or LA.  The vestiges of puritan fire-and brimstone are so antiquated, we have no idea how to host healthy living.  Fayetteville was more well adjusted when Hay Street was a smut farm.  At least someone recognized the needs of the people. 

Russian Nepotism and God's Patience

 It was both surprising and rewarding to hear news anchor David Muir begin his ABC broadcast with the specific information that Russia was launching long range cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea.  The Black Sea has a strategic advantage for Vladimir Putin's egregious attack on Ukraine.  Obviously Comrade Putin was in staunch disagreement with the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. and has waited patiently to attempt to reverse the watershed Belovezha Accords forged by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.  Ukraine's geopolitical history as a bastard child ruled by other nations has made it a target for the Communist dictator.  While its 1993 constitution declares Russia a democratic, federative, law-based state with a republican form of government, the incestuous, nepotistic, Russian "good old boy" network placed a neurotic, sociopathic, autocratic, zealot, ex-KGB henchman in power.  Aside from his annexation of Crimea, President Putin largely quietly has sat.  While the United States sorely needed to end a meandering and deadly twenty year guerilla war with no clear enemy or victor, the absence of United States boots on the ground has oiled Putin's machine.  While Russia's former invasion of Afghanistan should have been foremost in American military minds (and perhaps it was), transparency for the American people was opaque.  "Why were we there?  To whom were we selling helicopters?  Who was the enemy?  What country was reaping the rewards of Afghanistan's poppy industry?"  The illicit drug trade was a stain on the the blue dress.  The profit and coincident influence of defense companies became weighted, and these war profiteering industries obliterated the peace and serenity of America's Eastern Seaboard.  What once were sandy beaches and ocean breezes rife for the leisure industry, largely have been invaded and conquered like Vladimir Putin's siege upon Ukraine.  While fishing, swimming, and boating we watch aerial military maneuvers and listen to munition trains rumble down to Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point.  The exploitation of the Atlantic's beachfront majestry is not dissimilar from the industrialization of the Mediterranean Sea in Europe.  We should learn vast waterways attract vermin.  Venice's surrounding industrial geography looks like a toilet.  The exploitation of expanses Earth for war and industry lacks an awareness of the pure fragility of human life.  If we do not become accountable for Mother Nature's Health, she will abandon.  Only the human species could muster such conceit to believe were are immortal.  One only has to look at history written in scholarly books to understand the probable and possible abominations of an angry God.  The Plague.  While the Bible assures us this is not possible, the sacrifice of good from within man's spirit for monetary gain makes it easier for Satan to manifest himself inside you.  Beelzebub is having a bacchanal, and his human minions appear like characters from the "Theater of the Absurd."  America will tire of extremism, and its adrenaline-laced cocaine-induced high and relax into a more reflective, sensual, spiritual form of human love and compassion which reflect God's mentoring.  Patiently he is waiting but America largely has shut the door.   Otherwise the world's end is near. 

Asking the Right Questions

I don't feel like writing, but I feel unrequited.  Therefore I must write.  About what to write?  As I watch Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine, it does not make sense.  There are so many questions to be answered, and the American media is doing a poor job of asking.  News reporting is an anachronism.  Like so many professions, vocations, occupations, and jobs, America was led astray by something as simple as an iPhone.  Social media "apps," little graphic anodynes that erode your thinking and your awareness.  They are addictive, and America is on the hook.  Sobriety is a bitch, and we must ditch the smart phones.  Make a choice.  As I shopped for groceries today, there were people who were aware, and there were those being controlled by their phones.  What is the analogy?  An invisible puppet master pulling your strings but from your own palm and seemingly at your discretion.  Like the Covid pandemic the affects of the iPhone are deep, far-reaching, and destructive.  There is a sinister quality to their power, and it is called addiction.  Covid has had us on the hook for two years.  We cancelled school.  We shuttered businesses.  We become more reliant upon Amazon and its convenience.  It is a coincidence a handful of people expanded their wealth during Covid, or is it?  Once upon a time in America there were all kinds of professions, vocations, occupations, and jobs.  Then we recognized the human equation in life and nurtured it.  Now we nurture the iPhone, and it has left humanity in the lurch.  North Carolina is a big fat whore, and we are all about the money.  Bill Bowman, the publisher of "Up and Coming" went to bat for state senator Kurt Deviere.  He is working "across the aisle" from our Governor.  They, through mostly Republican inroads, found and additional four hundred million dollars for Cumberland County in the budget.  It's all about the money, but money does not solve problems.  It creates them.  Human thinking solves problems, when America was able to recognize humanity is the core of our existence.  It is not money.  We have four hundred million dollars sprinkled on the cake, but the deep-seated problems of Cumberland Country remain.  Homelessness.  Pollution.  Political corruption.  Crime.  These are real issues, because they are human.  They are not an entertaining iPhone app.  They are not a computer game.  America has lost the ability to discern the difference between the two.  This was the mission statement of Japanese programmers.  Deep fakes.  The ability to mislead, misinform, and hijack American freedom.  Big Brother.  What are the questions that need to be asked about the War in Ukraine?  First and foremost, "What is Putin doing?"  Bombing a nation out of the blue?  "Whence are the attacks coming?  Are they air-fired missiles?  Are the coming from the ground?  Who is determining at what they are aimed?  Is there a pattern?"  At first I thought he was trying to overthrow the Ukrainian government.  He wanted to oust their own leadership and take control.  Then the attacks became haphazard.  "Who is he bombing?"  Civilians?  Hospitals?  Carnage.  Fascism.  Hitler.  The Nazis.  "Is he doing this for fun?"  Why would anyone, especially if they wanted control of nation, destroy their infrastructure?  He doesn't want Ukraine.  He does not care about Ukraine.  He despises Ukraine.  What Vladimir Putin wants is their spoils.  He wants the geographic region of Ukraine and what is produces.  He is a barbarian.  He wants their products, their natural resources, and their money.  He wants their money.  Putin wants and needs their money, and he will kill  to get it.  He is similar to Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani.  The Russian Mob has substantial influence on these men.  When someone threatens to cut off your fingers or worse, you will do amazing things.  "Who is behind it?  Who put the nerve agent in the Covid virus?  How and why were Russia-owned American aircraft granted the freedom by the FAA to fly wherever they please?"  We don't know who yet, but the media needs to begin asking the right questions.  

Best Male Actor in a Feature Film

"The Revenant" was not a particularly good film.  Leo bought his best actor award with this film of which he was a part of the production.  It was my first taste of director Alejandro Inarritu, of which comedically I searched for a nickname to lessen the severity of the movie's impact.  Chris Rock achieved this at the award's ceremony donning a bear outfit, making light of the carnage.  I didn't think the film deserved much of anything, because it was short of real drama.  It made use of digital effects to try to illicit the same response as real acting.  Maybe Mr. DiCaprio did act in the film, but the part fell short of a vehicle for Best Actor.  It was a shallow victory, but he wanted it sorely.  As the water passes, and "The Revenant" subsides, its place has been taken by much better, ground-breaking, Oscar-worthy performances placing Leonardo DiCaprio squarely at the top of the best living actor category.  This position is shared with others, but his lineage of leading actor roles in notable films has blossomed in the last decade.  While under the spell of Covid, many things have been neglected.  Realizing the blessing of an actor of such talent is something America should acknowledge and appreciate.  His performances sustain the test of time, and I have found myself influenced by his characters and monologues.  They are exemplary.  When dialogue contained in scenes of movies becomes second nature in your own life, you know a film has accomplished its goal.  It has not necessarily coerced you into submission.  It has not bludgeoned you to the point of surrender.  Simply it has integrated with life in a way to nurture humanity, and humanity has come into question.  Anything that elicits human nature, a soul, or spirituality that transcends racial hatred is welcome.  We could even go as far to say that human desire, jealousy, greed, sloth, happiness, and fervor are welcome as well.  These emotions which truly make a human being have been demeaned and packaged into an iPhone.  We have become androids using this iPhone as a core or battery.  Thinking and feeling for ourselves without the necessity of real time reinforcement has become a thing of the past.  The stream-of-consciousness once that was our own mind now has become social media.  Hence we no longer are driving.  We are riding the wave of pop tech culture, and it has led us astray.  Not only that it has attacked us at our most vulnerable.  America is a flock of abandoned kittens needing guidance and love, and it is nowhere to be found.  God sits abandoned.  Reinforcement by film is important, and always in America it has been.  Hollywood traditionally has been the social conscience of Washington, DC.  America's children through the decades have learned from Hollywood, and not always was television bad.  This is a recent digression, and too many channels created the problem.  By switching from Spectrum "Gold" to "Standard" we eliminated much of the noise that has become communist propaganda.  I was relieved and surprised not to be assaulted by television programming with much fewer choices.  The cable channels have become extreme like American politics, and we do not need this in our ears or on our eyeballs.  What we do need is more performances by Leonardo DiCaprio.  Whether it is in The Aviator, Shutter Island, Django Unchained, or any of the rest, this man has done the work to become one of the world's greatest actors.  It is important we recognize this achievement, and let this man grow into the icon he deserves to be.  Certainly he is a much better choice than Donald Trump.  

American Communist Oppresion

 Columbus, Ohio is considered the testing ground of American sensibilities, because it is landlocked.  There are no winding ski slopes, warm sandy beaches, or Southern hospitality created by temperate weather.  Instead Columbus is as real as you can get, and as such it is more relevant and visceral than most places.  It was lucrative study destination for this reason.  It allows you to dive in and focus upon what is important to you.  There is no military presence.  There are no chain guns rattling in the sky.  There are no howitzers.  Only is there Midwestern modesty and fervor.  If a product or sensibility has balls, it can make it in Columbus.  If your passion conversely is tepid, happenstance, or moderate it will not survive.  This breeds a high level of artistry especially in the jazz community.  Your life is what you make of it, and for jazzers it is their music.  Otherwise you wake daily to the chasm of the abyss.  Nothingness.  You better get up and get something done, preferably something about which you feel strongly and will grow an able crop.  You only reap what you sow.  Fayettenam on the other hand is a testing ground of its own, because it is dominated by the military.  It is the pinnacle of a military industrial complex, and the Pentagon pays the bills.  This extreme war-like existence challenges sensibilities in its own way.  If you are human, although subsidized by the military, you may seek enlightenment outside of the profits of war.  You may not.  At the moment there is scant representation of progressive ideas.  We have laudable musical theater and orchestral music, but we have no jazz.  Jazz is the soul of America of which the Communist regime, Trump, the Far Right want to deny.  It represents freedom, and freedom in America is what is under siege.  Freedom as represented and ensured by democracy is what is under attack.  Corporate America, who I write about often in an abstract way, tangibly has become this communist force.  It would be trite and short-sighted to call corporate America communist, but when examining the philosophy of recent American corporate behavior, Communist becomes their overt adjective.  A railroad who feels they can run trains 24/7 in the backyards of ordinary citizens with no recognition of zoning or emissions, or an airline who feels they are free to fly jets directly over your neighborhoods and homes is a clear and brutal projection of the communist philosophy.  Citizens are secondary to corporate and mostly elite affluent profits.  Ordinary people don't matter and are expendable.  How the FAA was infiltrated and replaced with corporate stooges in the Trumpian style should be a source of outrage.  How were commercial jets able to fly into the World Trade Centers in downtown Manhattan on 9/11?  Have we asked ourselves this question?  I will give credit where credit is due, and although W. opened Pandora's Box for deregulation, he has keep America safe thus far.  The "Pandemic" transpired during Donald Trump's presidency.  It lost him re-election, but how are we to know he wasn't a part of it?  We watched him spew conspiracy theories about rigged elections, when no one in the Democratic Party had thought about it.  He did this because he himself was thinking about it.  For Vladimir Putin to say there are American biological warfare installations in Ukraine means he has them.  This is pure "Trumpspeak."  It is an advancement to hear about unregulated, Russion-owned, American aircraft allowed by our Federal Aviation Administration, but but using the terms biological or chemical warfare in the midst of the Ukrainian war is short-sighted.  Why don't we connect the dots and suggests any installation of this nature produced Covid 19?  Every fact suggests this conclusion.  Oligarchs with luxury Airbus jets, yachts, and international travel privileges?  Putin's current demeanor and overall health suggest he merely is a puppet.  His neurotic rhetoric is reminiscent of Rudy Giuliani melting down with brown hair dye running down his cheek.  He is a pawn and is being told what to do.  There is a deeper presence to his declaration of war on Ukraine, and it involves the mob.  It involves the world outbreak of Covid 19.  It involves the esteemed Nazi doctor, who became the champion of gay men during the AIDS pandemic.  The self fulfilling prophecy, creating chaos and then creating its solution for martyrdom.  It is sickening.  Jazz represents freedom, and Communism discourages or outlaws such personal expression.  It sees it as the most vital and dangerous foe for economic oppression, control, and profit.  America once was the example of the economic bounty of freedom, and that all has been quelled by the Far Right assault.  We'll be living in bunkers eating rations before its all over. 

They Just Don't Get It

 Teetering on the edge of nerdism and cool is taxing.  Your nerdism is created by those who aren't capable of understanding.  What don't they understand?  "It don't mean a thing, if you ain't got that swing."  What?  "You either got it, or you don't."  If you don't got it, then you may see those who do as nerds.  I don't understand the "out" crowd.  Traditionally they like Garth Brooks.  That is a blow to Chris Gaines, because although Garth is a competent country artist, and he did break ground for "New Country" music, his alter ego of Chris Gaines did not grow wings and fly.  Once counter culture was cool.  Once defying "the man" was cool.  "Selling out" was admitting you forsook your inner conscience and compromised your ideals for money.  Those truly who are cool usually are those who flip off the man and march to the beat of their own drummer.  Miles Davis did this.  America greatly has changed, and the communist infusion has skewed any recognition of cool or nerd.  We don't know the difference, or what they are.  All we know is there is this bat shit, crazy, far right contingency masquerading as miniature Vladimir Putins.  All they really want is communist control of America.  All roads unequivocally point to this conclusion.  It is cloaked in lunacy, spin, and hyperbole, but underneath only is it a communist siege.  Take for example this scenario which presented itself today.  My mother went for her annual physical, and after spending over half a thousand dollars at the doctor was afforded prescriptions for her future well being.   Her doctor, after careful consideration and query, wrote her a prescription for pain medication which was questioned by her insurance company.  If your doctor is the recognized medical professional, who after years of intense schooling and practice is able to synthesize complex information and offer a solution, is second guessed or deemed wrong on his choice of medication by a bureaucratic entity formed to make money, it is called Communism.  Communism.  The "State" or the government have final say over your care.  What?  What is this?  This is communism, and HMO's were the beginning of this almost fascist hierarchy.  Let insurance companies determine what medication you need from tables of probability or statistics?  This is inhumane, and communism is inhumane.  It cares more for "The State" than it does for individual people, and yet that is what America allows.  Thank God SCOTUS ruled against the "Independent State Legislature Doctrine," which would compromise voting rights for all of America.  This fight is on, the Cold War is resurrected, and WWlll is at its inception.  How long until the rest of the civilized world decides to put boots on the ground? 

The Russian Connection

 If anyone cares to remember there was a tangible Trump via Giuliani Russian connection.  Former disgraced president Donald Trump's liaison with communist dictators was not subtle.  He feigned a love affair with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and gushed when shaking hands with Russia's now war criminal Vladimir Putin.  There is no mistaking the "Russian Connection."  Fast forward to Joe Biden's presidency and the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Trump had intentions of pulling U.S. troops from Afghanistan and ending America's longest war.  He hedged several times during his presidency at the insistence of military advisors.  It never clearly was stated that we were in Afghanistan to thwart Russian aggression.  Instead George W. Bush's "War on Terror" was the prospectus.  We were fighting ISIS, ISIL, the Taliban, and Hezzbolah, not the Russians.  Were the Russians propping up these groups?  It is a maze of confusion, and more likely Iran and the lower Saudi royals could be the culprits.  The Prince and Vladimir Putin brutally assassinated their nay-sayers with nerve agents and dismemberment.  This is of what they are capable.  Ironically with U.S. troops gone from Afghanistan their purpose there now is clear.  Putin has declared war on Ukraine, and his invasion is the non-celebrated beginning of World War lll.  There is no mistaking this.  Not in our lifetimes have we seen Communist terror unfold in murderous violence for the sake of things.  We have experienced repercussion for botched diplomacy, and consequently we have for the most part left the Middle East via Afghanistan.  Instead of quelling violence, violence from that region, without knowing we opened the back door for Putin's pipe dream of of a new USSR.  The news is not reporting anything about Ukraine and its politics, nor are we remembering Donald Trump via Rudy Giuliani's collaboration with these new mafia henchmen.  Which is worse for corruption, Ukraine or Russia?  If you were Putin you would feel threatened by this presence in Ukraine, and probably it inspired his invasion.  The riches of Ukraine cannot be discounted.  Only do we have to turn on the TV and hear the insipid fake prophesying of Joe Manchin and his empty compassion for the constituency in his state.  He feigns caring about the people of West Virginia, but his interests are his own.  "Sanction Russian energy!"  Without missing a step he is on the bandwagon for energy profits to revert to domestic source including coal-fired electricity.  This man is a hypocrite as is Senator Lindsey Graham.  The interests of one man's investment in a back woods, anachronistic, destined-to-fail energy sector do not represent the needs of the rest of America.  I would rather take up the hammer dulcimer and sell apples on the side of the road.  While Mr. Manchin has credible credentials, it would seem he is inflicted with the same dementia as the rest.  Hitler's neurosis was related to syphilis, and he treated it with methamphetamine.  What is Trump taking, horse steroids?  As a nation we must begin to recognize mental illness, as it casually was swept off the table from Geraldo's reporting.  Either you fix the problem by fixing the system, something nearly impossible today because we would rather play on our iPhones, or you sweep it under the rug allowing mental illness to run amuck in American society.  There are requirements for a free America.  There are prices to be paid for commercial economic freedom and its rewards.  You must pay twenty dollars for the room and two dollars for the condom to have your fun.  American billionaires and Slavic dictators want to pay nothing. 

I Should Have Been an Investigative Reporter: Russian-owned American Planes