The Revenge of the Two Stokes

 The overt attitude of largely unregulated Corporate America is there is no such thing as Global Warming.  In the words of Donald Trump himself, "It is a hoax."  Anything that impedes the private sectors quest for profit isn't real.  Four years of this perspective has dealt an almost lethal blow to mainstream America.  There is a crisis of upper respiratory tract infection at Cape Fear Valley Hospital.  In one fell Christmastime swoop, positive test results for Covid, Influenza, and RSV are pouring in.  Mask again are required.  That families congregate for Christmas in light of the Covid debacle explains some of this.  There are larger, more dire, and tangible causes for these outbreaks of disease.  A lack of clean breathable air is the most logical explanation.  Barack Obama suggested a CO2 tax, a tax for emissions into the environment.  There is a better solution, and it is accountability for the burning of fossil fuels.  No ones seems to mention that before the industrial revolution, human beings and Mother Nature were the main consumers of oxygen.  Before the internal combustion engine, jet turbines, diesel prime movers, and millions of personal vehicles, there must have been more and cleaner air.  The quest for a transition away from fossil fuels is necessary.  If we had to mitigate the plague of air pollution in a nutshell, then the intake of needed oxygen in these vehicles should be calculated, monitored, and taxed.  Because technically man does not own oxygen created by the planet, it is viewed as gratuitous.  Herein lies the rub.  Aircraft, diesel trains, and vehicles all require planet-produced oxygen to operate.  Fossil fuels can't burn without oxygen.  Burning fossil fuels consumes massive amounts of oxygen needed for human and animal life.  It is difficult to look favorably on any industry that takes oxygen for free, mixes it with fossil fuels, burns it, and replaces it with noxious carbon exhaust.  These vehicles don't just create Greenhouse gases.  They also burn the clean oxygen we need to breathe to be healthy.  This problem has reached critical mass, and it is a large part of the equation of the spreading of airborne disease.  Without clean air, we are doomed.  The EPA has enacted Tier standards, and railroads have had to be compliant.  GE conceived their GEVO engines to mitigate this challenge.  They have been successful limiting their carbon emissions, but monitoring and regulation of the railroads is minimal.  The same is true for wireless communications.  During the four years of Donald Trump, helpful, healthy, necessary regulation of emissions has waned.  5G, of which Verizon is using millimeter waves for their top tiered product, is destructive to human cells.  Cell phones towers never have been more prevalent, and any adherence to regulatory policy has been scrape.  The American landscape is a hodgepodge of ugly transmitting towers many disguised as trees, sculptures, and flagpoles.  The effects of the EMF radiation is grievous and harmful, but the strong arm of the lobby keeps them facile.  America has become one big grift, and it was because President Grifter couldn't care less about American lives.  The damage he created for what once was an inspiring and exemplary nation is devastating.  The way to rule a nation is to destroy it.  Desperate people vote criminals.  A common economic ploy is to rebrand, repackage, and promote detritus.  DuPont sold their manufacturing of Teflon to the Chinese and changed its name to Chemours.  Presto chango and suddenly we are supposed to accept unwanted disease and even death caused by our own constituents.  I have written about the dangers of low frequency sound for twenty years.  If you burn breathable oxygen, replace it with toxins, and push it around the globe with infrasound waves the demise of the human race is near.  Fayetteville is a unique city, and most know why.  Nestled on the major north south route of the Eastern Seaboard, Interstate I-95, near the deep water port of Sunny Point Military Ocean Terminal, and a logistical meeting point for three railroads, and within five miles of the world's largest military base, residents of Fayetteville are an afterthought.  I make fun of Norfolk/Southern for driving to heavy haul mainline locomotives to their yard on Russell Street.  Often the fare is a few freight cars consisting of scrap metal, fertilizer, or propane.  Why do you need 8800 horse power to pull such a small train?  Part of this equation is the construction of I-295.  Fayetteville Concrete and Block threatens to consume neighborhoods in downtown Fayetteville.  What will come of it when that need for concrete ends?  Hauling limestone is a burdensome task, but now N/S wisely has stepped out of the loop.  They sold their trackage from Raleigh to Fayetteville through Fuquay Varina to the RJ Corman Railroad Group.  They created a brand new short line railroad with shiny locomotives, which in most likelihood are grandfathered into lower EPA Tier standards.  Even if they have lessened their emissions, their reliance on the SD-40-2 is disruptive to Fayetteville citizens.  Why?  The answer is while this locomotive may have been a workhorse for the rail industry, its prime mover uses a turbo-charged TWO stroke diesel engine.  America has had the prudence to limit dependence on two stroke engines, and most have been discontinued.  Motocross specifically had to retool to adapt to the now required four stroke.  It is called a CRF, a CR with a four stroke power plant.  Previous CR's were two strokes, and they spewed out a large percentage of their fuel/oil mixture as exhaust.  RJ Corman of itself has created the Revenge of the Two Stroke, and that teeth chattering, bone-shaking, grind of a 12 or 16 cylinder prime mover in Notch 8 is unmistakable.  It has returned to Fayetteville with a vengeance, and the holiday air is saturated with airborne black microdust.  This is a problem.  No one in Corporate America gives a rat's ass about Fayetteville citizens.  They strafe downtown with low-flying Embraer jets daily.  Like a Manhattan skyscraper, the cop on the beat doesn't matter, because the money is in the towers.  I question the adoption of the SD-40-2 as motive power.  It is a retro move, one that saves millions of dollars in new locomotive costs, but pulls the spaghetti bowl and rust belt back into antiquity.  High speed passenger rail?  Bah hum bug.  Evolution is just a word.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Lynching freed slaves never was a sin.  

Reconnecting With our Human Souls

If we tried to glean Christmas spirit from the city of Fayettnam, quickly you would discover an irreverent, unchristian, antagonistic, and aggressive campaign to thwart any recognition of the celebration of the birth of Christ.  Fayetteville has been moving this way for several decades.  While local bible enclaves, massive tax-exempt church/schools litter Fayetteville neighborhoods, the overt mood of Fayettenam is fear, desperation, and an active war on heterosexual interaction.  Militant lesbians populate local stores and angry poor people fail to assume any attitude of love, friendship, or gratitude.  Residents of Fayetteville celebrate their family Christmas festivities hunkered down inside their homes with the blinds shut and doors closed.  It is no mystery why single people become depressed during the holidays.  The holidays accentuate social segregation.  Having to resort to organized religion, bible compounds that attract thousands and provide fellowship, isn't fair.  Why must we seek a sense of warmth and security in the confines of our own purchased dwellings?  Why is the city environment so violent, unsupportive, and cold?  What creates the dynamic of a city?  What things dictate the mood of an environment?  The answer is the move away from religious roots.  More specifically a discarding of the religious calendar, an understanding and abidance to the events in the Christian calendar.  If one attends church then this year is evident.  Christmas and Easter are major events in this calendar, and the other weeks and months of the year are well defined with meaning and purpose.  America has whittled religious reverence down to going to church on Sunday, and the sanctity of the Sabbath no longer is recognizable.  As a community, a business community tasked with providing income for its residents, we have forsaken the Sabbath for economics.  Once stores were closed on Sundays.  Once we could not purchase alcohol on Sundays.  Sunday was understood to be a day of rest and spiritual reflection.  On Sundays in Fayettenam, we railroad.  This year our prelude to Christmas was filling the skies with lethal jet exhaust, coating the tops of neighborhoods with black soot mixed with fall allergens.  Merry Christmas.  It is so important that people get where they are going at the expense of their neighbors.  Fayetteville long has been a convenient whore for business, and those with money escape to their beach and mountain homes to escape the desperation and pollution.  It is a disservice to everyone.  On Christmas Eve at a mild 65 degrees certainly produced by man made emissions, I mulched, fertilized, and tilled my garden paving the way for Spring planting.  I cleaned our pond and filled it with fresh water for the birds, and pressure washed the bricks covered in unsightly green algae growing from global warming.  Fungal infections are more prevalent from unseasonal warm and moist air.  If there were a way to glorify the birth of Jesus, than a tended yard and prudent plan for the future is appropriate.  Meanwhile my eyes continue to burn from the black soot and allergens inside our house being blown through the walls with endless waves of infrasound.  The bombs burst in midair, the Army's radar tracks faux domestic terrorists inside their homes, and intimidation ensues.  It is a wonderful Christmas dynamic.  It we gave it a rest and took the time to nurture our spiritual beings (meaning the industrial activity stops for a bit), the rediscovering of our human souls would solve most of our societal problems. 

The Waning Integrity of SCOTUS

Shall we consult the pantheon of SCOTUS who reside at Mount St. Washington?  Zeus, god of sky and thunder, Hera, goddess of marriage, women, and family, Aphrodite, goddess of sexual love and beauty), Apollo, god of music, healing, light, prophecy and enlightenment, Ares, god of war and courage, Artemis, god of wild animals, the hunt, vegetation, chastity, and childbirth, Athena, goddess of  heroic endeaver, Demeter, god of harvest, Dionysus, goddess of orchards and fruit, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theater, Hephaestus, god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture, and volcanoes, Hermes, god of human heralds, and Poseidon, god the sea, storms, earthquakes, and horses.  Or really these American deities, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagen, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson who are the seeming current gods of the ensuing autocracy of America.  To whom do we defer when the free world is at stake?  I'm sure Donald Trump all ready considers himself a Greek god, but when did democracy become authoritarianism?  The word on the street (and of Washington Post associate editor Ruth Marcus) is the states should have no power.  Let's defer the future of the free world to this motley crew.  Quote:  "There is no world in which the justices are going to empower the states to throw Trump off the ballet," Ms. Marcus opines.  Further, Colorado Justice Carlos Samour Jr. wrote in his dissenting opinion, "More broadly I am disturbed about the potential chaos wrought by an imprudent, unconstitutional, and standardless system in which each state gets to adjudicate Section Three disqualifications cases on an ad hoc basis."  I invoke the wisdom of Hermes, god of heraldry, to remove the soap box beneath their feet.  Stop shouting.  An impassioned reaction to allow Trump to remain solvent and omnipotent despite his indictments simply chooses him over state governments.  Why do they exist?  They are there to protect against sovereign rule by an authoritarian, partisan, and biased council of Greek gods or Supreme Court Justices who all ready have forsaken the will of the people by revoking Roe versus Wade.  They are there to protect states rights from a potential and self-proclaimed autocrat who has himself infiltrated the federal government and planted his own evil seeds of dissent by appointing stooges instead of scholars, mobsters instead of diplomats, and cronies instead of questioning professionals.  "Viva la Trump!  Down with the states!  We can't trust these subordinate boobs to manage their own electoral colleges.  We must send antagonists (like ourselves) to declare, 'Trump must remain King!'"  It has not been one day, and SCOTUS again is at the forefront.  Three Justices were appointed my Trump, more than any president in history.  He demands loyalty.  The people all ready have made their decision, and it was to discard Donald Trump.  State governments are beginning to understand and they are choosing to discard Donald Trump.  No pantheon of gods or Justices can undermine the rights of state governments to administer their own elections.  If they think Trump should not be on the ballot, then it would be a disservice to the American people to have him shoved down our throats by a small group of partisan loyalists.  Let the system work.  SCOTUS is not all it used to be. 

The Plague of the iPhone

 Steve Jobs left this earth with a VITAE file littered with success and failure.  The concept of the Apple computer and its descendents, the Macintosh, the iMac, the iPod, and the ephemeral iPhone changed the world.  The verdict still is out on the latter, but most would agree the attributes of the Apple computer stimulated human creativity and and aided production.  To house a recording studio in a laptop computer was revolutionary.  To be able to burn and "rip" compact discs changed the music industry but not as much Napster's file sharing network.  The industry's push to digitize content partly was a response to these trends, but digitization has pitfalls.  Zeros and ones are rife for hacking, especially in film.  Digital content can be manipulated, and now we have A.I. about which to contend.  The loss of physically collecting and consuming music has undermined its enjoyment.  Digital music is convenient, but it does not offer the emotional, tactile, and spiritual rewards of soulful analog music.  The eager consumption of digital content has undermined human choice and thought, and its addictive nature has stunted and divided society.  It is a drug, and we are addicted.  A pattern is emerging that is coincident with history.  Men who achieve seminal accomplishments succumb to the ills of success and celebrity.  They become corrupt abandoning their own conscience and indulging in the spoils of power and manipulation.  That there is a higher power becomes obscured, and instead of catering to man for the reward, they exploit.  No one resists.  Traditionally in America government holds the position of oversight regulating capitalist industrialism.  The GOP's quest for smaller government has been a push to minimize corporate regulation leading to misuse and malfeasance of our economic system.  Recent history is littered with success and failure, and most failures are a direct result of lack of regulatory policy.  Washington has been in tow, and Big Tech and Wall Street have begun to regulate themselves into economic and cultural dominance.  Their drug has undermined human behavior.  We must question governance, policy, corporate habit, and autocratic tendencies leading to Fascism.  We are in a ditch slogging for low wages with little self-governance and struggling to survive.  This is not the American Way, and few would argue that Fascism is here.  The iPhone is a useful tool, but it is vulnerable.  Wireless technology has had its run, but excessive aberrant and unregulated electromagnetic energy is  killing human beings and the Earth.  It is too invisible, too abstract, and too unstudied to continue its unmitigated use.  The ill effects of EMF energy are well documented in academia.  Cancel Culture was a premeditated campaign to disguise knowledge and its sources.  This knowledge is stored in the annals of academia.  The internet began as a wired network of data bases utilized to develop America's nuclear program for defense purposes.  These data bases were at universities once lauded and respected in America.  The commercialization of the internet was inevitable, but its exploitation for the Trump insurrection was evil.  The iPhone is like crack or meth, and its resulting behavior is to spurn all else except your next hit.  Those reliant upon smart phones are drug addicts, but the substitution of human interaction for a drug high is challenging.   Our social behaviors abandoned for this quick fix must be reestablished and honed and ultimately will result in romance.  Human interaction is based upon biological attraction, homo or heterosexual.  To abandon the challenge and surprise of the prize of such efforts is a disservice to man.  The sense of calm and security created by sexual fulfillment is the enemy of the Fascist state. 

The Journey of My Musical Arsenal

My musical life is a meandering stream with an ultimate destination and no urgency.  I improvise.  It has a methodical and consistent framework, but my ability to actualize the agenda is limited.  I resort to installments.  Surprisingly to me ramifications of my work resurface, reconstitute, and reinforce themselves as the original concepts for which I have striven.  My musical gear moves around; some of it.  The vintage and tangible instruments have found permanent places, which they need.  The portable keyboard gear meanders in this stream coagulating at a bend, rendering a brief concert, then moving on.  The ultimate configuration of my keyboards had to be malleable, and its sheer size necessitated disassembly at different times.  Destiny deemed they would find their true ensemble positions, so their physical attraction to one another was inescapable.  The symphony orchestra evolved over centuries as new instruments emerged culminating in a sonic soundscape that could satisfy the human soul.  Electronic keyboards are no different, and if one pays attention their compatibility will reveal itself.  The decision to remain loyal to or move on from a concept can be difficult.  It results in trial and error.  You may try to maintain, but obstacles keep surfacing.  You can move on, but you may lose the essence of your goal.  Such is true with my best portable keyboard rig, which I designed and built in the late 1990's.  Playing Hip Hop and R&B, I discovered the piano was not efficient.  The Hammond B-3 organ has influenced many genres of music such as Gospel, Jazz, Rock, R&B, and Soul.  The crux of the Hammond organ is its sheer volume.  An electro-acoustic instrument  is the best of both worlds.  (like the Rhodes)  The sonic beauty of a vibrating or spinning mechanism, and its amplification from a wound coil feeding a preamplifier is enviable.  The Hammond is an instrument of genius, like the Rhodes.  Hauling and miking an acoustic piano is not for faint of heart.  Digital pianos make this easier, but the sound and feel is counterfeit.  I designed a Hammond organ replica console with two keyboards used as controllers.  They trigger external sound sources.  Organ is one sound, but strings, clavinet, and Moog round out the palette.  My solution was effective and lasted two decades.  The crucial component of this rig, the MIDI controlled patch bay, began to fail from aging electrolytic capacitors.  I replaced some of them.  In my meandering stream its performance ebbed and flowed wreaking havoc on my sanity.  I was able to purchase used replacements for these units, and because they are newer perhaps they will endure.  During this struggle I rebuilt the rack completely and improved it.  I added another tone module, AC power supply, and replaced the worn patch cables.  Now after twenty-six years I am able to use this rig again.  I move ahead with cautionary determination expecting probable failure.  If you have fixed it once, you can fix it again.  It takes time, the installment method.  The gift of this actualization is familiarity.  When I play it feels like an old baseball glove.  Like riding a bike, you never forget.  My fingers feel comfort and love as they connect with my temporarily lost sound.  I am reminded of why I created this system, and how well it serves. I have two additional keyboards I want to add, and it will come to me.  You have to be patient, and it will come to you.  Never lose faith, give up hope, or stop trying.  There are treacherous cliffs, ravines, and briar patches, but one has to get through it.  The last man standing wins. 

The Abusive Party

 Donald Trump and the GOP continue to contend that President Biden and the Democratic party have "weaponized" the government using its power politically to persecute its adversaries.  Therefore in their view all of the indictments against Trump are political fodder, not discovery and indictment of criminal activity.  It may be easy to believe that, if one does not read or pay attention to the news.  I am guessing the majority of the citizenry of America are too busy to read the news, thus our current political climate equates to a grudge match between professional wrestlers.  Not important are real world issues, the United States Constitution, and the law.  This bending or obscuring of the truth has been a consistent thread during the Trump Presidency.  On further examination "weaponizing" of the government is a metaphor for the current practices of corporate America.  A "stolen election" or "fake news" are terms invented by the Trump campaign and the GOP describing exactly what they have done in the past.  I'm not sure anyone would of thought of these terms except for Donald Trump.  They were so far in left field before he ran for office, and none of these conspiracy theories really existed.  America was tooling along normally, until Hillary Clinton lost the Presidency after winning two million more popular votes.  Today in the Washington Post the fake elector scheme is seeing the light of day.  Many of these electors are realizing they were coerced into criminal activity posing as real electors and swinging the vote of their state from Joe Biden to Donald Trump.  Biden all ready had been declared the winner, and yet these electors appeared out of nowhere and said otherwise.  The Electoral College in America is vulnerable to these types of manipulation, and my guess money was involved at some point.  They are called bribes.  Most of Washington, DC is being bribed by the corporate lobby, and they like their money.  Even SCOTUS has succumbed to this ill.  Campaign dark money via Super Political Action Committees now control politics.  It is who has the most money.  It is no different than the rest of America.  If you want your kid to be a pop star the price tag is six million.  Trump was effective rallying his goons, because promptly they showed up in Washington on January 6th to contest the election results.  At his behest, and because he was the standing President of the United States, these right wing zealots blindly did what he asked.  I can think of no better example of the dangers of a cult.  It is fortunate they did not drink the Cool Aid after their skirmish.  While the Clinton Organization humorously is attributed for untimely deaths, usually in prison, the GOP assault on America is a more subtle tactic.  Is Weaponization of a thing is in the Republican vocabulary, and if the government truly is not weaponized, than what or who is?  Easily it could be surmised that corporate America, those who support Trump and are members in good standing of the Republican National Party, are busy making life hell in one way or another for their enemies.  If the Democrats are the enemy, and they are those who do not live in ivory towers, luxury palaces, or gated suburbs, then they are the common people who live in mainstream America.  As we are finding out about North Carolina, General Assemblies no longer necessarily are concerned about their constituencies.  They forsake the common people years ago as did Congress.  Their goal is to make money, and with most of America poor, the common man no longer is of much interest to them.  In many cases we have become their enemy.  We are a hindrance objecting to their disassembly of democracy, freedom, and rule by the people.  The influx of Fascism during the Trump Presidency is stark and brutal.  These behaviors do not always emerge at a rally, protest, or political event.  It is best to reason that corporate emissions also are an abstract but tangible deterrent in the political arena.  Don't like your enemy?  Make them sick.  Harm their health.  Pollute their breathable air and drinkable water.  Make everyday life so abhorrent that we need drugs to survive.  Compromise our educational opportunities by no supporting public education.  Destroy economic opportunity with cumbersome red tape.  This is kind of what life feels like today.  The citizens are getting beat up regularly and denied a fair shake at life.  Is this reality, and is this the way it always has been in America?  As long as I can remember, I always have known you would not "make it" unless "they" said it was okay.  We live in a little black box, and your only way up and out is through their system.  After Covid and with the rise of America's new oligarchs, our opportunities are much less.  If the war in Ukraine is in need of financing, then Volodymyr Zelenskyy should be asking Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet for the money.  America doesn't have it.  It is ludicrous to think otherwise.  We can't pay our own bills much less fund a war against Russia for a surrogate nation.  Yes, we let Afghanistan suck on our teat for twenty years, and it got us nothing.  Democracy all ready has fallen in America, and it is obvious.  Everyday life is not picnic.  It is a war zone laden with drugs and violence.  We are not being stalked by the police, because in many cases they are being paid off.  I am just now realizing this.  It would be another covert GOP attack on their adversaries.  If we are fighting with each other, how can we pay attention to them? 

The Republican Charade

 Donald Trump's ultimate strategy in attempting to stop the peaceful transfer of power was his appointing of judges.  He knew that litigation would ensue, and he is counting on his appointed justices in the Supreme Court of the United States to let him off.  The pattern is:  Indictment.  Conviction.  Appeal.  Appeal.  The latest argument is the Presidency (which is over) shields him from prosecution.  The last few days of Trump news have been tooth and nail fighting for his survival.  It ebbs and flows.  Other than the zealot extremists who will not acknowledge factual discovery, the majority of law-abiding, middle class, family-rearing citizens do not want a repeat of the Trump debacle.  They want access to abortion.  Donald Trump may be leading in polls of Republicans, but if the outcome of recent elections are representative, Democrats are making great strides.  A second Trump presidency will seal the fate of America, and the electorate knows it.  The problem has become Republican shenanigans at the state level.  Because the Electoral College is unique to individual states, and not all of them accept the majority vote, these same Republicans are doing every despicable thing in their power to manipulate the 2024 vote.  They did it in 2016, but mostly because of Covid they were not successful in 2020.  Rest assured this is one thing crooked Republicans  know how to do, and it is right in front of us.  The peanut gallery of zany lawyers who have plead guilty in Georgia, and Trump's own people have copped plea bargains to shield themselves from jail time.  We need to be watching closely the voting systems in all fifty states.  There is not much that can be done except lawsuits to stop local state legislatures from these things.  Gerrymandered voting districts all ready have made it through the court system, and SCOTUS is proving their hard right bent.  I do not think Trump can win a second Presidency for various reasons.  One is he is not capable of doing the job.  He is too old.  He has proven that Maverick extremism cannot solve America's problems.  The inciteful rhetoric he has used to rally his base, zealot survivalists, no longer works.  Many of the participants of January 6 have been sentenced to prison.  Those old tricks have proven to be shallow and deceptive.  The adults in the country would like to proceed without another four years of adolescent indulgence.  There are too many real world problems to be solved to allow such an egotistical charade to continue. 

A Gloomy Sense of Forboding

 How is it possible the Commander-and-Insurrectionist can run for reelection?  They will have to find him guilty, and those trials have not yet started.  The Trump legal team will push to delay.  All ready they have tried to change venues.  We have not heard anything from New York.  They reinstated a gag order.  Legally it must be an impossibility for such a person to run for President.  It makes good news.  He said, she said.  Trump the dictator.  One man's politics.  What is evident is that Donald Trump still has influence over a fair amount of people.  We have a new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Tommy Tubberville still is holding up military promotions.  I would look long and hard at the military.  We don't know who the enemy is.  This leads me back to the city of Fayetteville in the state of North Carolina.  The reason why people are gloomy is because our choices for the future President are an eighty year old man, who probably isn't capable of holding another term, and the Commander-and-Insurrectionist.  Who couldn't be depressed at this prospect?  Trump should not be able to run, and if the Department of Justice solidified that, the gloom could wane.  It would take Lucifer out of the equation.  Liz Cheney says she me run, but op-eds say she shouldn't.  How could that help Trump if she did?  It is not a good idea, because Dick Cheney was and is as evil as Donald Trump.  Maybe some sordid sentimentality with the familiarity of his name would merit a few votes.  He and Donald Rumsfeld masterminded the debacle of "W."  Weapons of mass destruction and bombing a nation into oblivion who didn't deserve it.  Saddam Hussein was a debt for "W's" father.  It as the lower Saudi royals who took the twin towers.  It was Barrack Obama who got Osama Bin Laden.  We have him to thank for that.  That is notable.  No Cheney ever should be in the White House again.  Sorry Liz.  There has been a complete break down of government.  When you look at who is in charge of the nation or a state, it is frightening.  North Carolina's only prospectus is to keep the rich rich.  Roy Cooper has some good things in mind for the Democrats, but Tricia Cotham was enticed to change parties which gave the Republicans absolute power over the governor.  They gerrymandered the voting districts again.  The influx of illicit drugs has become the overt problem of America.  They are everywhere and readily available.  The Smoke and Vape shops are fronts for selling the illegal drugs.  Police are not enforcing the laws, which leads me to believe they are being paid off.  Gina Hawkins instructed her police officers not to give tickets.  Organized drug trafficking is taking over America. 

Transitioning to the Ghetto

If you were running for the office of mayor, the most effective agenda you could adopt would be the immediate needs of the community.  While I see my hometown regress into a ghetto, we have sprouted a skantly publicized, mostly incognito, professional tennis facility.  On the table also is a one hundred and fifty million dollar performing arts center.  The homeless populate our intersections, sidewalks, and bus stops and create a menacing dining and shopping experience.   When I do either, should I feel guilty for having what they do not?  That is the gist of it, and the overt "vibe" of Fayetteville is a cold, barren, hostile, urban parking lot.  Your community never will flourish, if this is the setting for their lives.  We are not new.  Fayetteville is not the first city to succumb to urban plight.  (I don't know the appropriate term)  I am witnessing a city deteriorating and potentially becoming a crime-laden ghetto infested with drugs and violence.  The availability of drugs is key, so without an able and active police force, your city is doomed.  There are many Hollywood films that depict this scenario.  The "South Side of Chicago."  Watts.  Tenements.  How to be begin?  The first thing is the homeless.  Two things come to mind.  One was the closing of America's mental health facilities.  Release all the crazies onto our streets.  Dorothy Dix now is a park instead of serving a relevant purpose housing the insane.  Geraldo did no good by exposing the dire circumstances in these facilities.  They were deplorable, unsanitary, and repugnant, but the crazy were not roaming the streets.  Now the crazy easily buy AR-15 assault rifles and murder our family members.  The gun lobby says it is not the fault of the Ar-15, but if they were not available a demented teenager could do the same harm with a machete or tomahawk.  Assault rifles makes it easier.  Assault weapons should be banned.  Selling them so manufacturers can profit now is immoral and unethical.  Capitalism is not the scripture here.  Secondly, many cities shuttered their soup kitchens.  Hungry, homeless, mentally unstable people are ripe candidates for drug use.  Fayetteville has built in a handful of public facilities including a day room facility on Eastern Boulevard.  We need to round up the indigent people and require they use this facility.  Panhandling should be a crime, and if it is it should be enforced by the police.  The reaction to Black Lives Matter, "Abolish the police," is anachronistic and inappropriate.  We need a viable and strong police presence, and their training should be deep and meaningful.  Trained seasoned policemen would be a good place to start to redistribute the unevenly divided wealth in America.  There was a time when jobs paid enough to take pride in your work.  You could own a home, rear a family, and not work your fingers to the bone.  Wages for these crucial jobs are important in the salvation of America.  Teachers are second, because demanding they do the policeman's job as well is absurd.  The value system of America is askew.  We no longer realize what is important and what deserves higher waves.  It is not the family and friends of the wealthy or elected.  "Vape" are problematic.  When your congressmen friends from other states come to Fayetteville and provide illegal drugs to anyone behind the facade of the sale of legal tobacco, it is a crime.  Vape shops should be closed.  The lottery is a ridiculous front for embezzling money.  The money does not go to public education.  If it did thirty-five percent of North Carolina teachers would not be quitting.  They too deserve higher wages.  Our General Assembly does not want to invest in public education, and they are complicit in a campaign against the people.  There are conspicuous private planes flying to Atlanta, Georgia from North Carolina to support Donald Trump.  They stink.  Anyone who continues to support this known criminal is a criminal.  Red North Carolina is rife with traitors.  Many exist within the General Assembly.  It would seem crime, known criminal while collar crime, is the only thing that dissuades these dough boys.  The wealth will be redistributed, and if you are rooting for the downfall of the free world, because you have enough money, the people will prevail.  There will be no second Civil War.  The rule of law will ouster these Jim Crow traitors and return North Carolina to civility.  Reasonable housing is a concern for Fayetteville.  The Covid bubble empowered hedge fund oligarchs to invest in real estate.  Hedge fund managers are buying up available real estate and raising prices.  Gentrification.  Our communities need medium and low level jobs, and we must provide housing for these social classes.  The conundrum is exposed.  If you eradicate low income or subsidized housing, because it is unseemly, then jobs for those people cannot survive.  Cashiers, laborers, waitresses, and others can't afford to live in close proximity to their work.  We must allocate a percentage of  real estate to these classes.  They will not be profitable, but like law enforcement, civilization takes precedence.  Gentrification is not effective, and the homeless have taken over our streets.  The trailer parks and seedy apartments served a purpose in housing these people.  Most people today can't afford monthly rent from their earned wages, so who is supposed to move in?  The chasm between the ultra rich and the poor has become America's plight, and the middle class must be invigorated.  If a professional tennis complex is being paid for by private money, okay.  Building a federal halfway house against the will of the people is an atrocity.  Allocating $150,000,000 to a trophy performing arts center is insanity in light of Fayetteville's other problems.  A baseball stadium did no better solving these problems.  We might as well market it as a hotel for the homeless and indigent.  Millions of dollars in infrastructure money are sitting in state budgets, and see how it is spent.  Will it be for the good of the community, or will it be bonuses for friends and family like TARP.  Watching my town regress into a ghetto is unnerving.  As soldiers deploy to Europe and the Middle East, the gaping hole of social equality is left.  I thought the "Good Old Boys" were dead, but not 'round these here parts.  It's no wonder that children never return to Fayetteville after college.  It is a ghost town and the tumbleweeds are people.  

America is Inside Out

We have become lazy.  Covid caused most of it sheltering at home with no school.  Working from home.  Remote learning.  The traditional regimen of American work was neutered.  Covid has all of the effects of a terrorist attack, but it was covert.  On the down low.  If someone wanted to bring America to her knees, then Covid did it.  It has effected politics and the population.  To me the sacrilege is forsaking the American Dream.  Once in America I believe it was possible to make your way.  The royal families who control the world were not so concerned with keeping us down.  If money is to be made, it has to flow.  Contrary to the trickle down theory, I am beginning to understand it is just the opposite.  Money flows upward.  If the lower and middle classes have jobs, are earning, and are spending, it energizes the entire economy.  It is not like today where a handful of oligarchs have all of the money, and this money sits molding away in banks in Switzerland and Grand Cayman.  The only way America is getting any money is through Joe Biden, and it is a mistake.  Thirty trillion in debt, and money is flowing into local governments for infrastructure.  Like everything else forty percent of it will be lost.  It will be embezzled, diverted, or spent.  Local politicians are not honest anymore, and they scoop right out of the pie.  For America to work again with our chosen economic system, the rich must be dethroned.  Trusts or banks cannot control America.  America has to be driven from and by the people.  Small business.  When did the landscape of America become, "Do or die?"  Why does a pop star have to make millions?  We could return to our small town roots, divide up the money, and reinvigorate local economies.  It means a change of priorities.  It means reevaluating the value of goods and services.  I won't pay $250.00 a month for cable TV.  It isn't worth it.  It is far from being worth that.  We are paying too much for everything, and no one seems to notice.  I tried to buy tickets for the Nutcracker ballet today, and you had to have a mobile device to display the ticket at the event.  There are no paper tickets.  No E-Mail.  No PDF to print at home.  I gave up.  I want a paper ticket, because I don't have a cell phone.  It is not a priority for me.  Our priorities were adjusted by Covid, and it was not for the better.  It was for the oligarchs.  Amazon.  Delivered food.  Uber.  We need to return to the roots.  In addition the basic issues government has to remember how to govern.  We have lost our system.  Truly they are lost.  The people don't elect officials.  They are put into place by Super PAC's.  (Political Action Committee)  Think Tanks.  Lobby Group.  All of these are paid for and sanctioned by corporate interests, and they feign worth and value in the political system.  They instead have corrupted Washington.  Campaign Finance Reform could stop dark money from running these campaigns.  Real candidates could run again for the right reasons.  It would not just take money to get elected.  It should take brains and charisma.  Immigration Reform.  All of this talk about building a wall which only is symbolic and will do absolutely no good.  They will tunnel under it.  Stop the flow of drugs, but they probably are funding most everything in America, since we no longer have many goods or services.  Globalization ruined America.  The people attacking America are outsiders.  They are taking us down from the inside out.