Who is Teaching Morality?

 I have learned, settling back in America after traveling around the world playing piano on cruise ships, the Conditions of America have tumbled.  I was fortunate in my life to have caring, productive, honest, Christian parents.  It makes all the difference.  Your church-going experience is what develops your moral conscience.  Where else in America are they going to tell you what is right and wrong, and that empathy for your fellow man is important?  Schools are not tasked with that.  Parents are, but teachers can be a great positive influence in children's lives.  America has regressed to a state of utter desperation, and considering our current political climate, it is understandable.  When your government breaks up with you, it is difficult.  You are on your on.  That is the best way to think about it.  America is tough and has proven strong.  Perhaps our antagonists have underestimated the American people.  I have learned that life is war, and there is no free ride.  Even if you have paid a multitude of dues you're better to hit the ground running each and every day.  This is the ethos of the military, and I should know living in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  After watching the movie "The Great Santini" penned by novelist and South Carolinian Pat Conroy, it dawned on my that fighting men by profession need to fight.  That does not mean America has to create a war to satisfy those enlisted in the military.  When we do go to war it is not for those souls.  Those souls are the sacrificial lambs for the evil.  War is for the defense industry and politicians.  It is for those with and in power as a tool for manipulating the global economy.  They may enjoy fighting in an overly glamorized way.  Anything can be painted as patriotic, just, and noble.  The reality is the evil use these values to manipulate the good and profit from their sacrifice, often their lives.  It is sickening.  If you have no Christian ethic or spiritual conscience, and God is absent from our lives, there it little to propel us to do good.  We are surrounded by evil.  It is not the majority, but it has become the people in power and with control of our lives.  That would be the State Legislature and Congress.  I am a fair person, and I feel everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves.  I said this about Donald J. Trump, and I said it about Pete Hegseth.  The latter has a formidable resume and a plethora of active duty military experience.  He was an intelligent student and a mover and shaker.  To me these are positive attributes.  Should they not translate to a position of military leadership?  None of it means anything today, because the Republican Party has adopted a platform of deception and deceit for the sheer gaining of political power.  They lie, and there is nothing lower.  A democratic nation cannot sustain without honesty, empathy, and honor.  It is interesting a group decided that the premise, history, and implementation of an idea by our Founding Fathers which built America, was fodder for challenge.  They would just try to infiltrate through government by the people, which was becoming rule by the rich.  Subtly, without our knowledge, and with the reckless abandonment of federal regulatory laws, wealthy corporate practitioners lobbied and invaded Washington, DC.  Big money used its influence to buy America.  That begins with one person at a time.  It is no different than Communism, a party system simply that picks, pays, and rewards its constituents.  The Free Market is not a part of the picture.  It is an Oligarchy, and it has its minions.  There is a social hierarchy, and the lower and middle class are not important.  The problem is, as I have learned, having money does not equate to being intelligent or good.  This is the problem of America, and it will not be solved without the presence of God.  He is the only one strong enough to command the kind of obedience it will require to mend America.  Is it possible for the evil to recant?  The Bible says this is God's talent.  We need it now. 

The Sprouts Skimming Scandel

 I don't want to depress myself by writing about bad things.  I went to Sprouts today to buy goat's milk.  There was heavy calm traffic, and people were chill.  My eyes have been fuzzy all weekend, but that is normal.  Weekends in Fayettenam, the mood or tone of our weekends, largely is affected by one thing.  Mr. ES4400ACH.  People think I am crazy when I talk about the trains.  They also elected Donald Trump president a second time, and we are on the verge of a mutiny, or civil, or revolutionary war.  From now on when I talk about relevant issues, no longer do I consider anyone else's opinion.  You elected the dictator emeritus, the new King of America.  Your opinion no longer matters.  It is not valid.  You have proved your ignorance and naivete.  When I talk about AC traction, IGBT's,  thrysistors, prime movers, and distributed power, not to mention the plethora of electronic radiation coming off of a heavy haul AC traction freight locomotive, it is because it is dangerous and invasive to people.  I realize you need your jobs, so we ignore wrong doing and corporate corruption.  When I checked out at Sprouts I used cash.  Usually I use a debit card.  Still the cashier asked me to look at the card reader and punch a button.  What was I doing?  I didn't think about it.  Cash back, but I am paying with cash.  I looked down at the machine and there were two choices, red or green.  In my mind red would be "No."  Green would be "Yes."  I confess I did not read the words, because my eyes were fuzzy because of the weekend in Fayettenam.  I punched what I thought was the "No" Button.  As he rang me up, I calculated the change in my mind.  It was $9.18.  That is a lot for a quart of milk, but it is goat's milk from California.  I am not impressed with America's dairy, beef, poultry, or eggs.  The government has continued to buy the farmers out.  Why?  Why has the United States government done this, pay farmers NOT to produce fresh food?  "Soylent Green."  Washington has undermined America's food sources, like everything else.  It is a crisis, the availability of fresh nutritious food.  This local Sprouts is marginal in terms of their produce quality.  Often it is bad.  On a good day you can find some good things.  I calculated my change in my head.  I paid with a twenty, so he would have to make change for the leftover amount subtracted from a ten spot.  $.82.  I should get eighty-two cents plus a ten spot in change.  He handed me a single bill and the receipt.  Because I had calculated in my head the amount of coinage I was to receive, it was a shock when he nonchalantly didn't hand it to me.  I said, "You owe me $.82."  He said, "No I don't.  The machine asked you if you wanted to round up and you pressed 'Yes.'"  He also said he could not give me my money back if I had made a mistake.  I said I had made a mistake and didn't see the screen choices correctly.  Because I paid with cash, why was I required to use this machine anyway?  The answer is because it is manipulative.  If you the customer failed to see the prompt or misinterprets the query, they take advantage of you.  I admit to making the mistake, but it was honest.  I thought I had hit the "No" button, just like people in Palm Beach County, Florida thought they had voted for Al Gore for president in 2000.  Was the butterfly ballot intentional?  Scooping money off of the customers purchase with a machine and a smile is unethical.  After thinking about it I went back into the store and asked to see the manager.  A young bearded mountain man appeared.  I professed to have made a mistake and wanted my $.83 back.  He said it was not possible.  I said why?  He said it was a donation.  "To whom," I asked.  he said he didn't know.  95% of the donations to Wounded Warrior go to their organization, not the soldiers.  They take lavish trips, party into the night, and laugh.  It turns my stomach, the same way Sprouts skimming my money with a machine scheme does.  "We don't know what charity the "donation" goes to.  That is because it does not go to any charity.  They say it does, and like the entire Republican Party, they lie.  They lie straight to your face.  "I can't give you your money back, because it was a donation."  "I made a mistake, because your machine was misleading."  "Too bad.  We got you and your money."  Merry Christmas. 

Convoluted Media

How can we not be Dazed and Confused?  The origins of the convolution of media can be traced back to the mass conversion of television from analog to digital.  Parallel to this conversion of traditional over-the-air TV came increased internet speeds spawning streaming services and On Demand.  For a while we still adhered to cablevision with TIVO, the ability to record programs, and On Demand.  Spectrum was the most notable of these services, which originally was Time Warner Cable.  When they converted from an analog signal to digital, millions of customers had to buy new televisions.  Spectrum offered converters for older analog television, but they were not reliable and did not provide quality sound of picture.  I feel this change undermined Time Warner, hence they attempted to rebrand.  We tried the Spectrum package for a while bundled with Roadrunner broadband internet, and it became cost prohibitive.  Its programming and interface were not worth the price.  Like most services you had to customize your channel line up to get rid of the fluff.  Even with additional movie channels the programming lessened in quality like media as a whole.  When streaming services did come in it was a major blow to cable service.  Eventually the concept became, whether intentionally or not, a channel for each show.  Perhaps this is a good idea.  What we are left with is a confusing mishmash of available video all competing.  Trying to keep up with the appeal of streaming services, cable abandoned its original concept and convoluted its interface.  If anyone is old enough to remember they will conclude that the old school, even before cablevision, was sufficient.  Three major networks, PBS, and some indie channels.  This was when network television was effective, competitive, and positive.  This trinity, ABC, CBS, and NBC produced quality programming because of competition.  Few people in this generation can remember the richness of late night television when Conan O'Brien, Craig Ferguson, Craig Kilborn, and the heavies were in the same arena.  Nothing can fill the void created from the absence of David Letterman and Craig Kilborn who chose to leave at the same time.  A critique of late night is not my intention.  Instead having been subject to free over-the-air television with limited reception for a year, the foibles and weakness of over-the-air TV are apparent.  Its programming is subject to the same corruption as the rest of media.  When Congress decided to let legislation expire that required networks to report equally on both sides of an issue, Fox news was born.  It was not a good thing, and they qualified their programming entitled Fox News as entertainment.  This was the beginning of the end for honest and compassionate television.  Regulations always applied to the major networks, and they were tight.  Like much of America driven by Congresses' cavalier behavior, time has proven the private sector is not interesting in policing themselves.  Quickly and with abandon morality was tossed out the door and news was infiltrated with opinion and propaganda.  In retrospect it is clear that no one has been working for the American people.  Conversely it is apparent that some entity is trying to dismantle America from within by not supporting or attacking her people.  Over-the-air TV is a good example, because the adage emerges that whatever product is being advertised on television is terrible enough to merit its own aggressive marketing.  If it is misleading or purely fraudulent, then it is on TV.  The internet has suffered the same ills, and now AI is contributing to misinformation.  Videos are popping up with false and misleading information.  I get tired of hearing disgraced academics tell me oatmeal is bad for you.  Misinformation has tainted our entire food system, and much of what is on the shelves is fatty, addictive, sugary, heavily processed nothing.  The only way you can sort through it is to remember your roots from decades ago.  I look at photos from the 70's and 80's and kids were lean and muscular.  What were we eating then?  "The appearance of wrinkles?"  It has become much more difficult to shop effectively, because there are so many poor products on the shelves.  The most often cited food stuff that is bad for you is loaf bread.  How and why has the food industry regressed to such dire circumstances?  American meat, bread, and dairy cannot flourish, because we no longer support domestic farmers.  Like much of traditional America, they have been abandoned and deemed not important.  It's no wonder we have no economy, because average every day folk can't build spy satellites, send rockets into space, or equip the military with cutting edge weapons based upon wireless technology.  Once you could make a living from small businesses, because the cost of living was reasonable.  It is crystal clear someone is trying to take down America from within, without a bullet being fired. 

The Definition of the Word "Is"

Yesterday on the evening news was the first time everything that came out of Donald Trump's mouth was a lie.  There were several discreet video bytes, and in each one when questioned about a political issue, Trump lied.  It was obvious and telling.  In this minutia of time, less than thirty seconds of news footage, Trump's business acumen was transparent.  He lies.  He tells people what they want to hear to solicit their business.  It is of no consequence that he lies.  What he says often is not factual and erroneous.  It has become so transparent and obvious, media in real time is trying to figure out how tactfully to report on a lying President of the United States.  Donald Trump is a pathological liar.  Lie number one.  "I have nothing to do with the Trump family business."  It's your name and your family, and Trump is madly at work using his presidential powers and authority to gain fortune for the family business.  This is not uncommon.  Bush senior only cared about oil.  Feigning leadership and representation for and of the people is an afterthought.  It is a necessity.  It is not the priority.  Gaining power and wealth for his family is.  Lie number two.  "Mohammed bin Salman had nothing to do with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a reporter for the Washington Post."  You're own intelligence community proved this.  Lie number three.  "I had nothing to do with Jeffry Epstein."  How much public information must Trump see and hear to make him stop lying?  It was sickening, but the Presidency of the United States is at stake.  It all depends on the definition of the word "is."  

Killing Your Own People

When you find yourself back living in your childhood home, eventually you find out it is no different than before.  What do I mean by this?  The most operative realization is the community in which you live is no different than before.  For a military town this especially is true.  The common consensus about Da Ville is, people don't want change.  I hear this from workers trying to earn an honest living.  Housing costs are unreasonably high and wages are low.  Those in control don't want change and to keep wages low.  An image begins to develop explaining why Da Ville is Da Ville, why a military town is the way it is.  It is the opposite of progressive.  We could go so far to say it enjoys its stagnation.  Since my mother died a year ago this month, I have developed a newer understanding of Fayetteville.  I don't like being a complainer.  It depresses me to wallow in negativity, but you reach a certain point when things are awry.  They belie normalcy, or in our case American democracy, rule by and for the people.  I'm positive it has been this way for a long time, but today the rich make no attempt to cover up their corruption, immorality, and even fascism.  We, the people of the South and the confederacy, were the purveyors of lynching after losing the Civil War.  We continued to fight the Civil War after it had been won by the Union.  They kept ships in the harbors for several years to protect freed slaves and enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, but as soon as they sailed back north, segregation, Jim Crow, and pure fascism ensued.  It should be no surprise the state of the South today.  We have a great example in the White House, a convicted felon, and as the new Epstein E-Mails state, not a more morally repugnant person.  This is telling information, but it is helpful to hear an insider scoop.  I can recall nothing worse in my lifetime than waking up and reading about Donald Trump and scourge that is the modern republican party.  Their corruption is blatant, and they are proud of it.  This include Phil Berger, the leader of the state legislature, probably the most corrupt of all the fifty states.  It is a depressing state of affairs to live in such a place.  We could call it trickle down corruption.  Corruption in Washington, DC, corruption in Raleigh, and corruption in Da Ville where ignorant people keep electing Mitch Colvin mayor only because he is black.  I will not state the lawsuits that are active because of the irresponsibility of the City Council and County Commissioners.  Thirty million dollars was embezzled from Cumberland County, and they destroyed a perfectly functional parking lot in front of the court house and left a disaster area.  Myron Pitts calls it urban blight.  Everyone should go look at this mud hole that once was a useful parking lot for the court house.  It is like a bomb exploded, and now Russell Street looks like old Detroit.  The citizens of Fayetteville did not deserve this.  Now the same group of Fayetteville elites wants a hotel downtown on top of the parking garage for Segra Stadium.  Patrons of this hotel can watch CSX, Aberdeen and Rockfish, RJ Corman, and the army's military trains shunt cars from the Milan yard to Russell Street.  Downtown fundamentally is and always has been a rail yard.  There have been ebbs and flows of successes trying to disguise and repurpose downtown.  We are at an ebb, and the outbreak of Covid provided great cover for the undermining of American democracy and the building of an oligarchy.  Knowing that Dick Cheney and Anthony Fauci created Covid for and through the military with billions of dollars, we must understand we still have this product.  I say product loosely, but that is what it is.  It is a tool of murder, but sometimes people don't die.  It is a lethal weapon, and the military has it.  We also have the most trained and dangerous Special Operations soldiers trafficking narcotics through Fort Bragg.  Anyone want to wage war against this group?  The answer is no, and isn't that convenient?  That violent murderous cartel gang violence was taught by the American Special Ops.  They were supposed to work for us, but they went rogue.  It is in your best interest not to pay attention to it all, because it is horrific.  We must stay abreast of leadership, but I see no end to this corruption except for a civil war, a coup, or some type of violent repercussion to match the severity of the Trump administration.  It is a step forward that Republicans actually voted to release the Epstein information.  While other third world nations abuse, oppress, and exploit their citizenry, America largely has been free from this abuse, until now.  I don't like being a complainer or a soldier, but I am surrounded by people who enjoy and have trained to fight and kill.  I guess it is fitting to adopt this lifestyle, but we need to know who the enemy is.  Seeing as our Special Operations forces are profiting from drug running, we must conclude that the other higher ups, possibly including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are capable of this control and manipulation.  In the film "JFK," it is clear these officers wanted the war in Viet Nam and manipulated President Johnson.  Dwight Eisenhower staunchly warned against a war economy.  Now we are on the cusp of an invasion of Venezuela.  What!?  Does Congress not have to vote to declare war?  They are not capable of much of anything.  In the year I have lived alone in Da Ville, I have seen it change drastically.  Often I wonder if it is because the older generation has died out.  This generation of well educated, moral, caring people kept Fayetteville sane and normal.  Now we have spiraled into ghetto chaos, and Mitch was elected yet again.  I smell pot when I drive around the city and see homeless people everywhere.  Da Ville is a metaphor for moral turpitude.  I don't think the purveyors are bad people.  I think they have been forced into poverty and its accompanying behaviors.  How can we  be both the most depressed city in America and with the highest incidences of STD's?  If somethings will depress you, it is the reward of contracting HIV or Herpes for having recreational sex.  I have been fortunate to travel around the world working on cruise ships as a pianist, and in my eyes there has been no worse place than Fayetteville.  You can sentimentalize anything, but it is best not to.  Anytime I mention out loud the thought of selling the house and moving away, I get  lectures about how it is bad everywhere.  You can't buy a house for less than what you are selling for.  I don't believe this.  From experience the first place I moved to for graduate work was far more evolved than Da Ville.  It was night and day even with Fort Jackson.  The players at the table want Fayetteville like this, because they retain economic control.  They have the ability to embezzle thirty million dollars from the city, and leave a half built fire station, tennis complex, and other projects.  This cries out for change not to elect the same conductor.  Like the state legislature, the city council does its best to try to conceal its business.  With lack of leadership corporate America tries to harm us.  They keep us sick to make money treating us.  They push us out of our homes to profit from their resale.  They prop up useless businesses like insurance, so they can just take the taxpayers money.  There must be no leadership at Fort Bragg, or is it Fort Liberty?  A Department of War?  Pete Hegseth?  Donald Trump?  These are our current examples of American life?  It is the life of the Mafia.  Recently I heard a news commentator ask why Big Tech didn't stand up to Donald Trump?  The answer is he is the most powerful important man in the free world.  This poor example of a man somehow worked his way into this position, and that is why Big Tech and everyone else kisses his ass.  As was proven with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, it only takes a few bullets to effect change.  They chose Charlie Kirk.  He was murdered by his own people, and we need to realize it now.  It was the first visible politically motivated assassination of the Trump tenure.  

The Weaponization of Sound

 I need to water my Zygocactuses.  I moved them from the den to the dining room, and they are happy.  I even have a few blooms early.  Never have I seen footage like I saw tonight on the evening news.  Donald Trump may get his war.  Will it be the invasion of Venezuela or the second American civil war?  Judging from this footage it all ready has begun.  This is how it begins, small skirmishes of resistance.  I count my blessings, and I am safe, but my sensibilities and quality of life are war.  Why?  Fort Liberty, or is it Fort Bragg?  We now have a war department, so it is obvious Washington likes war.  Dwight Eisenhower warned us about a war economy, but it is inevitable.  I was naive and thought America was good and just.  Watch Oliver Stone's film "JFK."  You will learn otherwise.  Always there have been oligarchs and there are many in the military.  I am not happy that the headquarters of Special Operations was moved to Fort Bragg.  I used to drive across Fort Bragg before 9/11 to play piano in the Pinehurst Hotel dining room.  Sometimes I saw night jumps.  Often I was strafed by a low flying helicopter.  Seth Harp has a new book, "The Fort Bragg Cartel."  We should read it.  What is it like to have the most trained and covert force of the military close by?  Frightening, and we have the Robin Sage exercise four times a year.  Fayetteville and Fort Bragg were better before Ground Forces came in and became the dominant force.  Now it is Gitmo, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  Alas the torturer is dead.  It is crystal clear Washington has no interest in "We the people."  It has become an oligarchy, and it is disgusting and dysfunctional.  To allow one man to amass a trillion dollars is a disservice to the nation.  Washington has allowed this to happen eliminating the middle class and forcing the rest into abject poverty.  The Supreme Court is complicit, irrelevant, and useless.  Let's allow the President to stop giving food to the hungry.  What are they thinking?  My beef is with the continual surveillance.  Is the Patriot Act still active?  Let's manufacture a crisis so the President can have war powers.  Elon Musk's Star Link is only part of it.  It is useful to provide internet for some including the Ukrainian army, but the rest of the satellites are spy satellites for Washington.  Easily they can be fitted with weapons.  They all ready have one.  It creates the Havana Syndrome, and like the JFK assassination it is covered up.  Who covers it up?  The answer is the intelligence community.  I don't like being surveilled, and there are so many means to do it.  I don't care if they listen to my conversations, but their means are disruptive to human life.  What do I mean?  As a musician sound is important.  At the core of all music is audible sound.  It is our goal.  Music is to be heard.  When things impede sound, it is unconstitutional.  The Constitution does apply.  We have weaponized sound. 

Music as Learning, Life, and Love

Qualifying my life as a musician, there never was any question.  Choosing to attend UNC-Chapel Hill was one of the most heart wrenching decisions I made.  Your choice of higher education is important.  As a graduating senior having lived in my parent's house my entire life, being on one's own seems intimidating.  You are choosing the four most important years of your life, because your future sustenance is reliant upon your decision.  In retrospect that not always is true.  With the massive shift in the American economy to wireless technology, the jobs we trained for twenty years ago are nonexistent.   AI is threatening even more jobs.  We are in an age when people are forced to do whatever is necessary to put food on the table.  College freshman should not be self conscious about not knowing their future vocation.  It helps, because you can focus on that specific training.  For me there never was any question I would be a musician.  I did lament musician jobs are scant, and it can be difficult to make a living.  I did not trip on it.  Instead I got a music education degree.  Did it make it more difficult?  You focus on different things.  It lessened the burden of being expected to be an orchestral level trumpeter.  I never aspired to this, and my trumpet professor knew it.  I had not been exposed to or experienced orchestral or solo trumpet literature to peak my interest.  James Ketch was a genius and one of the most amazing musicians I ever have known.  He continues to perpetuate the art of jazz in retirement from UNC.  There is a flip side to my college schooling and the education I received from Mr. Ketch.  Ironically sometimes I believe I was a better trumpeter, before I entered UNC as a freshman.  This was because of Governor's School at St. Andrew's College in summer of 1980.  A high school student playing the most challenging wind ensemble literature for five hours a day develops your technique and stamina.  If you have musical talent, this experience is indispensable.  Twelve years of classical piano lessons ingrained complicated, modern, art music in my ear and under my fingers.  George Gershwin, Aram Khachaturian and others.  Khachaturian's "Toccata" was a lively Expressionist romp that required pianistic virtuosity, with which I never struggled.  My last piano teacher, Betty Mohn, with her training from Shenandoah Conservatory, made me learn and play all the major and minor scales four octaves and at speed.  When I took my piano proficiency exam at UNC as a senior, the committee was confounded.  "Where has this pianist been?"  I didn't want to spend hours practicing piano in a little room, so I didn't want to be a piano major.  Van Cliburn often said the competitive piano world was not fun.  Jazz, cocktails, and the smell of cigar smoke was.  This difference is important and remains today.  Classically trained musicians miss the necessary spirituality of jazz music.  Jazz also is related to sex.  To be blunt, broad, and discriminating jazz requires a more direct personal physical connection to the music.  This connection exists in the classical repertoire as well, but in a different realm.  You are actualizing the soul of other composers in a more formal setting.  Jazz requires you have an understanding of yourself.  You can make a statement using the voice of other jazz artists, and often this is where you begin.  The best jazz musicians develop their own voices.  You begin expressing what you feel and think.  There is the element of swing, which is misunderstood.  To be blunt, broad, and discriminating again, you must love the music.  Until you establish this commitment and connection, your music will be devoid of true spirit.  I didn't swing until my mid 30's.  I was sitting in the parlor of a shared rental house in Columbus, Ohio playing my own piano recently purchased at the OSU piano sale.  My friend and Navy trumpeter, Bill Dunn's daughter, still has this piano.  It took this long for the elements to come together, and I made a commitment to the music and being a jazz musician.  The jazz community in Columbus easily stoked this fire.  It was authentic, passionate, and relentless.  Unlike jazz in the South, jazz in the Midwest was all or nothing.  There was no sipping lemonade on the porch of the mansion.  Jazz was all there was.  When I listen to myself after this summer of Governor's School, I knew what I was doing.  It had been cultivated by members of the North Carolina Symphony in a grueling but effective summer program.  The heart of this team was Terry Mizesko, the bass trombonist with the symphony and now an accomplished composer.  When you begin college you start at the bottom.  There is psychological competition like everyday life.  It also proves a nurturing environment with the liberty to focus on your chosen aesthetic, can nurture artistry.  America now is the proper metaphor.  Once we were able to achieve a similar productive environment creating the Blockbuster movie in Hollywood, a myriad of interesting popular musics, and other scholastic academic achievements.  This era is over, and we are struggling for survival.  The sheer amount of environmental pollution fueling ADHD keeps us from that level of attainability.  We are moving too fast with the created need of immediate gratification.  There is little reflective study, and every component of American life has suffered.  It is war, the struggle to survive in the most primitive and aggressive way.  Intellectualism is dead, because it is difficult to find the solace to dig into that information.  Governor's School was seminal in my development as a musician and trumpeter.  Sadly I lost some of that while studying at UNC, because there was more information to absorb.  Many hours were required for academic work that took away from focus on the trumpet.  This was necessary, and the education at UNC is known for its richness in the Liberal Arts.  It requires a full two years of General College.  The other pitfall of UNC was we never discussed technique.  There are many approaches to playing the trumpet, but there is a core set of axioms that must be recognized, studied, and implemented.  I never learned these things, until I began working in the cruise ship industry.  The trumpet positions in the cruise ship orchestras was no joke, so I met better trained trumpeters than myself.  They were forthcoming in their knowledge about trumpet technique.  James Ketch was a well rounded artist, and the focus was on literature.  We did experiment a few times on trying to change my jaw position, but this did not bode well with me.  Anyone can play the trumpet, and there are many jaw angles.  Few are blessed without an over or under bite.  The important thing is that you have a hermetic seal with the mouthpiece.  How you achieve this airtight seal can vary.  You can squeeze, smile, or pivot, but control of the muscular aperture is key.  It is common sense.  I never knew throughout college I tongued between my teeth stopping the continual flow of air.  It is more beneficial to tongue at the base of the upper teeth.  You can tongue more quickly and the airflow is not interrupted.  These pedagogical premises apply today in the teaching of music.  I realized I was not capable of being the trumpet artist that was Jim Ketch, but that didn't mean I could not be a musician.  I was a pianist and had a desire to arrange and compose, which I did later in graduate school.  Trumpet remained a part of my musical psyche, and later at The Ohio State University I committed to becoming a jazz trumpeter.  With sheer will I taught myself to improvise by envisioning the keyboard in my head.  Every successful jazz trumpet artist will tell you you must have a working knowledge of the keyboard, and it provides the visual representation of the musical spectrum vertically from bottom to top.  Piano is important, but my teacher was intimidated by it.  The most significant snafu of my music education at UNC was, there was no music education program.  Shortly before I arrived as a freshman, the music department denied tenure to an important professor who directed the wind ensemble and spoke fluent German.  They hired his replacement.  He put on an impressive show guest directing this ensemble, but he also was tasked with teaching the music education courses.  These were "block" courses that were over two hours in length with a handful of students.  James Arrowood grossly was unprepared for this task.  He preferred drinking Jack Daniels and indulging in the wind band literature.  This education was nonexistent with the exception of a few classes in the education department of which I did well.  It only was a few years ago, when I found my father's graduate school grades from Appalachian State, that I realized I had been deprived of a teacher's education.  It explained my extreme self consciousness to teach school.  I have a deep understanding of music literature including composition and arranging, but teaching beginning woodwinds and brass, I never was taught this pedagogy.  It was UNC and their mistaken hiring of James Arrowood that contributed to this voidl.  (Every time the Cessna Grand Caravan flies over, the roof of my house creaks.)  It is not pleasant.  I was and still am a musician, and it has been my entire life.  Sadly the station at which I have arrived is not supportive of music, that being your home.  It is optimistic to believe your home could be used for music.  We would need to travel back in time one full century to find that dynamic, when hard working Americans had enough left over capital to buy an acoustic piano for their parlor.  With this acquisition came the sheet music industry, Tin Pan Alley, the Brill Building, and the emergence of the American popular song.  We do not have this today.  Our culture largely is devoid of traditional music, except for its tepid representation on the internet.  It is an anachronism, and our favorite bands from the 80's still are touring in their 80's.  Wynton Marsalis often when asked about the future of jazz said you should look back.  There is a hundred years of musical integrity there to absorb and appreciate.  My neighborhood enjoys stagnant, staid, and inactive quiet.  The little bit of music education I did receive in Sanford, NC while student teaching was from Camp Price.  He often reiterated that you needed to get excited about you interests.  "Rejoice in the the Lord with music and dance."  White, middle class, conservative neighborhoods don't ascribe to this notion.  I am doing my best to retool and live a life of music without actually playing, because my Hammond and Leslie overtax the sensibilities of my neighbors.  I believe it is black culture who appreciates this kind of music.  With my genetic musical talent, I also received a transfusion of African-American blood.  It may be Appalachia, but it is far different than the strict regimen of Militaria, which is common time (or 4/4) in this town.  "Hurry up and wait!"  Personal awareness and expressive emotions are not revered for followings orders.  It was Adolph Hitler who called American jazz devil music. 

2025, The New Era of White Collar Crime

 A convicted felon in the White House is setting the example for white collar crime.  What is so disconcerting is that it is happening right under our noses.  The Republicans make no bones about what they are doing.  North Carolina must be the pinnacle of corruption in government fleecing the people, because they are uneducated or sheltered.  They lie straight to your face.  I never have liked or respected the NC State Legislature.  That is the main reason I supported Roy Cooper.  I believe our current Governor, Josh Stein, is the right stuff.  I went to the courthouse today to pay my property taxes.  It took two trips, because there was a debit card processing fee.  Since my home was reassessed this year, and its value went up like most everyone, this fee was ridiculous.  I went home and made out a check and took this check back to the tax collector on the fifth floor of the Cumberland County Courthouse.  After two trips it dawned on me the parking lot where we usually park for free was gone.  It was a fenced in dirt lot.  Here is the hypocrisy.  The tax payers paid thirty million dollars to destroy their parking lot.  What kind of logic is this?  That is what it amounts to.  We had a nice paved functional parking lot serving the courthouse.  It was not a luxury.  People that need to conduct necessary business need and used this lot.  Our illustrious elected leaders opted to fleece the tax payers out of thirty million dollars, that is $30,000,000.  For that hefty price they destroyed our parking lot.   We paid them thirty million dollars to destroy city property.  This is an outrage.  It is no different than what our president is doing, destroying America from within.  Our elected leaders are not representing, serving, or helping Americans.  They are attempting to destroy us.  How else can you look at it.  I joked with one of many clerks in the tax collection division.  I asked her how she felt about paying $30,000,000.00 to have their parking lot destroyed.  The mood in the courthouse was depressed and solemn.  When you walk out the front doors, the scene is a dirt lot contained within an ugly chain link fence.   This is what courthouse workers see day in and day out, what amounts to white collar governmental corruption.  While I did support Kirk deViere's decision to nix the plans for a new event center, to the tune of one hundred and fifty million dollars which quickly would escalate to more, I disagreed with this plan.  Yes it would have been nice eye candy, but the Cape Fear Regional Theater is renovating their own theater at the top of Haymount Hill.  This new event center was not going to have a stage, lighting, or sound equipment.  It was going to be a steel shell with an impressive facade.  Fayetteville does have a handful of theaters appropriate for symphony concerts, musical plays, and possibly ballet.  They include the newly renovated Ralph Huff hall at Methodist University, Seabrook Auditorium, the original Crown Theater auditorium, and many historical churches.  Perhaps we didn't need another one, but for this price what purpose would this space serve?  The answer would be concerts for popular music.  The exception was a venue for military bands to perform including the Airmen of Note and the Commodores.  I can guess that acoustics would have been an afterthought.  It was eye candy for downtown and would have ended up the largest homeless shelter in the city.  Looking at the empty dirt lot, the manipulation is effective.  It makes you want an event center to fill that ugly void.  The fact is Fayetteville was okay with the parking lot that was there.  It served a purpose for the people.  The crooks came in, fleeced thirty million dollars, and took off leaving a half built fire station and tennis complex of which the public knew nothing.  There could be no worse city leadership, and this is why we need a new mayor.  Like Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris, the majority black votes of Fayetteville will not elect a white woman as their leader.  Mitch will be in again, and the poor leadership will continue.  Donald Trump is fleecing the American people on a grand scale filling his family's pockets, and Trickle Down Economics is robbing the American people in full view.  If there is anything America needs it is a coup d'etat to get rid of the new supreme authoritarian leader.  His crony Republicans are complicit in his crimes.  How hard must the economy hit to force people to vote the right way?  We are a third world banana republic, and they make no excuses for what they are doing.  It is ethnic cleansing, oppression, and control.  Never have I ever seen this in America.  I would hope abject poverty may convince people to vote the right way. 

The New American Cold War

The last full scale unilateral United States military action that affected me was Bush Senior's invasion of Panama.  It took me several decades to realize that the military's mobilization for war is vast and all encompassing.  When this was happening I was in the throes of clinical depression for several reasons.  It was no joke, and these reasons were tangible.  The core of depression is you seem to have no immediate solution for your situation.  It takes time and effort to regroup and plan your future.  How many times in life are we required to do this?  I am at such a juncture, but luckily I mostly am free from the depression.  I have some stability, which provides me a buffer from that stark and brutal mental and physical illness.  Unfortunately Covid has filled in those gaps, and fighting continued long Covid is equally as challenging considering America's current political climate.  We are on the cusp of losing democratic rule, rule by the people.  Probably all ready we have lost it, because politicians are completely ignoring the needs and desires of the populace.  The court system is the only thing stopping a complete authoritarian coup in the United States.  Seven million Americans did protest at the "No Kings" event, but with the military and National Guard engaged in our cities, rapidly a civil war seems to be encroaching.  Are we as Americans willing to pick up arms to defend our democracy.  On the PBS News Hour tonight it was said that the fervent philosophy of our military was anti authoritarian.  That means if our President as their Commander in Chief issues immoral unconstitutional orders, they are tasked with denying these orders.  Will they do that?  Many of the military are Trump supporters, and we cannot rely on that.  That is why the Constitution ensures the right to bear arms and establish a militia as the last line of defense against such a maneuver.  Trump has all ready crossed the line, and now he is plotting a similar invasion of Venezuela.  Most savvy pundits understand this move is against regime change in that nation, not drug trafficking.  It is disheartening to see this happening in real time, and the C-130's flying over my house are en route to the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.  Dwight Eisenhower spoke against a war time economy, but America, with her take over by Big Tech and Big Pharma, has no real economy.  We have become oligarchical and a handful of companies and people having most of the money need to circulate this money to make our economy work.  Not only are they  accumulating, they are paying little to no federal taxes.  Prices continue to rise in America and much of it is because of Trump's tariffs.  With a thirty trillion dollar debt our convicted felon President is creating a diversion to keep the Epstein affair sidelined.  Truly this is one thing he will not be able to escape.  Having sex with under aged girls is something Americans will not tolerate.  We are lax morally in many areas but draw the line at getting a blow job in the White House. When the list does come out the entire establishment will be exposed.  It will be crystal clear how Trump achieves his goals with the tool of blackmail.  I remember the Viet Nam war astutely and the darkness the enveloped the nation for ten long years.  Consequently, although I now understand the hypocrisy of Ronald Reagan and him being run by a few California elites who told him what to do, the decade of the 80's was a positive era for America.  I don't believe much in Trickle Down Economics, but I did see it first hand.  The money that the upper class made after Reagan changed the tax brackets favoring the rich, was invested back into the economy through commerce.  Brick and mortar stores were at the pinnacle of their existence, and the nation had solidarity as a result of these products unifying consumers through pop culture.  I watched the John Hughes film "Career Opportunities" last night, and this movie captures that decade perfectly.  That Target store was a Disneyland of commerce, with products that were well conceived and appealing to American life.  We have nothing like that today except sports betting and wireless communication.  Fashion and glamor are nonexistent.  We don't have interesting hair styles, appealing apparel, or quality music.  It is almost like we have exchanged places with the U.S.S.R.  We are living in bleak times, and with these tariffs making products less available and more expensive, America is no longer.  We are just trying to survive like everyday citizens of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.  It is chilling, depressing, and untimely.  Will America be strong enough to oust our current dictator to ensure the long lost America Dream?  I think not.