We Will Sustain

 It was Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, with it's second movement "The Air on the G String," better known by its arrangement by August Wilhelmj, that prompted me to rise from rest and pen another blog entry.  I have not always liked Baroque music.  It is not until you hear an entire Baroque orchestra in its unique sonic splendor with continuo and period instruments, until you may appreciate this music.  This must be by an ensemble with the appropriate balance between harpsichord and strings.  There are a few of them which come to mind.  Roy Goodman and the Hanover Band.  Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra.  When you hear one of these ensembles understand the nuances of balance of sound, then the music takes on a whole new meaning.  That is the beauty of art.  There are multiple layers of goodness of which you can chip away.  It is a life long expedition, music.  The second movement of Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 reminded me of a chord progression upon which I have been playing for several years.  I guess it is time for me to write it down and pen a melody, in addition to this blog entry.  It has been a while since I have used a pencil to write any music.  This past year has demanded other things of me.  Music took a back seat, and that is okay.  If it's one thing I have learned as an adult caregiver, it is patience.  The adage is, "You do what you can when you can."  The rest will fall into place.  Never give up, and patience becomes a virtue.  My time scale has elongated to years instead of days.  Things show their need when appropriate.  Until then they rest quietly on the shelf.  My inner shelf is getting itchy.  One year gone, contributed to Donald Trump.  One entire year of my life has been lost because of this man.  Still, right now, to this day, this man has projected his ego into the lives of the entire world.  His influence will be epic and historic. Perhaps it will become the metaphor for the return of Satan to earth.  Once I thought that was George W. Bush.  Now I have changed my mind.  For several years I have been writing about an ensuing American tragedy.  The clues were too obvious to ignore.  Whether it would become civil war, a coup, or the destruction of democracy, my instincts told me that this generation, those who are living in 2020 will endure something brutal and trying.  It has happened to other generations, and luckily until now we have avoided such an occurrence.  I felt it was coming, America's domestic war.  Perhaps it began with terrorism on our native soil, which exposed itself as American's themselves.  School shootings.  Mass genocide.  These things were aided by the availability of the AR-15 assault rifle.  I believe in our Constitution's right for Americans to bear arms, because we, a well armed militias are the last defense against a tyrannical government.  Who knew that government would expose itself as the perpetrator, and that well armed militia erroneously would defend our enemy?  Shit.  That is ironic, and perhaps that could sum up the utter confusion of today.  America elected a cult leader, dictator, communist, and demagogue.  Let me reiterate that word.  Demagogue.  It's definition is:  a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument.  There you have it.  It is not unusual.  Most other countries in the world all ready have succumbed to militaristic, authoritarian, oligarchical tyranny.  America is the exception, so it was our time.  The attempt was clever, subversive, and tactful.  It not yet is over, until Donald Trump and his family are out of our White House.  The waiting is excruciating, and more disconcerting is we must witness the most significant fall from grace in our lifetimes.  It would seem most parties are content in the knowledge that there will be a peaceful transfer of power on January, except Bill Maher.  He is counting on something else, but also he needs viewers for his show and their accompanying ratings.  The rest of televised media also needs viewers and ratings, and now I am beginning to see the fine line between reporting the news and garnering ratings.  A Fox News tinge has emerged on MSNBC, and it is annoying.  I don't like it when a news media tries to elicit a visceral emotional response from me.  It is not their place, or is it to stand on a soap box and preach fire and brimstone?  One of my biggest pet peeves is having my emotions manipulated.  As an artist I am aware of my own emotions and their connection to my well being.  Having them used as a methodology of indoctrination annoys the hell out of me, because I know better.  Also your instincts necessarily rely upon your emotional responses.  When Satan gets involved they way he does pushing your buttons, the lines get blurred.  Joe Biden is the President elect, but never have I felt more vulnerable to a violent coup than now.  I do not believe the red wave is capable of such a task.  I also believe the United States military, which incidentally is flying by right at this very moment, the mysterious "Generals" charter jet, or Compass Call Command plane, now knows the difference.  It took a year for the military to come around, but they did.  General John. F. Kelly, Jim Mattis, and Michael Flynn all I feel see the inherent danger in Donald Trump.  It is not consoling with Mr. Trump officially still our Commander in Chief.  With his recent spate of desperate, maniacal, and blatant crimes trying to engineer his own re-election in spite of an obvious loss, this man should be removed from office.  He should have been removed upon his own impeachment, and yet Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr. allowed this war criminal to remain in power presiding over the entire nation.  This is what has created the unrest.  A known criminal was allowed to remain President, and this is what we have to show for it.  Let me shore this up.  In the eyes of millions of American citizens plagued with a fatal virus and consequently loss of income and support, the Trump campaign (and I reiterate "campaign"), not the office of the Presidency, wires three million dollars to the state of Wisconsin for a PARTIAL recount.  THREE MILLION DOLLARS!  Those are some desperate souls, but more alarmingly realize what could be done with that amount of money.  This is the fundamental problem with what has become Washington, DC.  Easily all of the problems of the entire world could be solved if it were so chosen.  Instead we, the American people and the rest of the world, have been forced to imbibe the most distasteful, humiliating, and deadly poison of our time.  It is not the Nazi genocide.  It is not the slaughter of Native Americans at Wounded Knee by the United States Army.  It is not the innocent loss of American lives in a flawed Boeing produced jetliner.  Instead right now the temperament, the feeling, the mood of America is what Donald Trump himself is feeling.  Where else could it come?  Americans will remain hopeful, because it is all we have.  A vaccine will be effective.  The economy will rebound under the guidance of President Joe Biden.  Democracy will be saved.  This man on the other hand, his failure is epic.  He has no place to go.  If the New York Times is accurate, the Trump family is four  hundred million dollars in debt.  Donald Trump has committed crimes which have not been indicted only because he is the sitting president.  These things, these ideas, have been instrumental in his platform.  Filing bankruptcy.  Avoiding prosecution.  Bribing officials.  Intimidating workers.  When Mr. Trump finally does step out of our White House, it is a bleak picture for him.  Completely it is at his own behest.  The irony is tangible, and you can see it on his face.  Rudy Giuliani's hair dye dripping down his cheek like a zombie.  Their fate is sealed.  If Donald Trump is the success always he has purported, then his near future will be his reckoning.  This temperament does not apply to the American people.  We have committed no crimes.  We believe in God.  We are honest.  We will sustain. 

Repairing My Organ

Not that long ago my station in life morphed from musician to technician.  I have been fortunate enough to be able to be involved in music all of my life both as a composer and performer.  There was only one scant incident when my music inclinations were questioned.  This controversy necessitated a change in my life station as well.  It meant that previous romance or inclination for marriage change.  It turns out somehow my being musical branded me as a failure.  Never have I heard such a thing.  If I think back a long way, there were jokes in existence about making a living in music.  Wannabe comes to mind again.  Where are those Spice Girls?  If I were remiss in my remembrance of my own musical life, perhaps I have been a failure, a loser with a large capital "L."  The things once I desired when pursuing a music career, a university level teaching position or something else where your intellect and creativity were valued and used, have not transpired.  (at least professionally)  Let me rephrase.  I did get to teach twice as a Graduated Teaching Associate.  When John Emche died of a brain tumor, I was asked to fill in for him until they could do a national search.  This was a great opportunity for me, and I took it.  The problem was is that I got the idea in my head that I might be in contention for the full time teaching position.  They told me I had made it into the top five, and that was encouraging.  I witnessed only one live interview with a candidate.  One.  Perhaps there were more.  Needless to say I didn't get the job, and he did.  It was a simple choice for them.  Credentials, clout, and contacts.  The three "C's."  (and I just made that up)  It is true, about college hiring that is.  Credentials, clout, and contacts.  Credentials get you respect, so every academic is focused on acquiring them.  There is a tangible and easily recognizable path to these credentials.  Read any job description or VITA file of an academic, and it is extremely clear.  I won't go into it, but you'll get the drift.  Performances with major orchestras globally.  Prizes.  Scholarships.  Publications.  Clout.  Then there is the other important factor.  Contacts.  If you have received any of these accolades, then you have been in the circles which dole them out.  You have become part of the "In Crowd," as Ramsey Lewis would say.  They believe your contacts will connect with your new position bringing notoriety to them.  It makes sense.  Academia is a word of mouth entity.  It is one guy saying something about the other guy.  There is no cold long shot.  Universities cannot risk hiring a dog.  One of your guys saying another guy is okay is how it works.  Oh, I'm in the "Good Old Boy" network.  Trust.  Screw impartiality, fairness, or diversity.  Why spend your valuable time considering a stranger?  This is the way it works.  Rest assured any position you see advertised in most cases all ready is filled.  They do the job search because they are required.  I would surmise they have a replacement in mind a few years in advance.  Can't have change.  It is is working don't fix it.  Upon reflection this seems like a very bad idea.  Conservation.  The American South is conservative.  They like to keep things the way they have been, and that means those who have the money keep it.  It also eliminates mobility, opportunity, and advancement.  It is almost autocratic.  You better had fit into the group, or out you go.  Enough of this boring rhetoric on staid anachronistic politics.  That is all we have seen for four years, and my soul is almost dead.  Beating a dead horse over money, power, and control.  It used to be artistry, professionalism, money, power, and celebrity.  Consequently we have no celebrities anymore.  How are they produced?  What is the protocol?  With Donald Trump as a model, you buy your way into it.  You buy your popularity.  Who cares if you are popular?  If what you worry about is people liking you, then you are off course.  It is about the art.  You have to do something other than make money.  Usually it involves talent.  Reality TV destroyed this sequence of events.  Completely it annihilated the hierarchy of American pop culture.  Greatly also it obscured the process of success in academia.  Now that we understand American academia is not a pinnacle of values, I will move on.  It took me a while to recover from this loss.  Dramatically it was laden with tumult.  I fell from grace in a major way, and it was hard.  Four years of clinical depression ensued.  I am talking about inexplicable, tormenting, physical and mental anguish.  Depression is a serious disease, and no one should be one bit of remorse about having it.  It is not your fault.  It is a physical disease, and your environment has much to do with it.  I would go as far as to say your environment is the major part of it.  To find relief from this illness, often you must move.  I stumbled upon the live stream of the OSU Jazz Lab Band on Youtube this evening.  OSU is where I worked on my doctorate in composition.  I spent almost ten years in Columbus, Ohio working on music.  When I saw the feed, it was Hughes Hall auditorium where I recorded many concerts via the audio recording position.  I developed a fundamental love and understanding of vocal art music from recording these concerts.  A college aged woman who could sing in Italian, French, and German?  Holy shite, Batman!  What a turn on.  A powerful, talented, intelligent woman.  Not a bimbo.  I teared up for a few seconds, when I remembered giving my own language proficiency recital in this auditorium.  What the hell is that?  Oh well.  It was an excuse to give a recital on your major instrument.  I chose a jazz trio, and I played acoustic piano.  We played mostly my compositions with a few jazz standards thrown in.  In the midst of the Covid 19 lockdown, I am beginning to miss my old musical life.  There is more to teaching that lecturing about information.  There is a cultural element to teaching, and you have to want to do it because you like relating to young people.  This particular attribute has worked well for Holden Thorp.  He is an earthy academic, and is not a mystery whence it came.  It is that part of the profession I am beginning to miss.  It was a long time ago for me teaching.  I do not think it could be said I was a failure or a loser.  If that criteria was monetary success or money, I may not qualify.  It never stopped me from pursuing music.  A majority of the time I never really thought about money.  It was ingrained in me to create the best music possible either with a pencil or with a performance recorded or live.  I found an appropriate outlet for my aesthetic working in the cruise industry.  Unlike America they offered music jobs which used my skills.  It is common knowledge that the cruise industry has been stymied by the pandemic.  All of those well paying music jobs are on hold.  I can't imagine what all of those performers are doing.  My original thought was I went from musician to technician, and partly that is true.  I have had success restoring Rhodes and Fender/Rhodes electric pianos.  I have been able to maintain most of my music studio including vintage synthesizers.  Everything I own works, except a few vintage things I acquired at the death of a friend.  What has been a real challenge is my Hammond A-100 console organ went on the fritz.  After I had it dialed in and sounding exemplary, suddenly there was distortion, inexplicable distortion.  Our local Hammond technician is ill.  There was a capable buy in Raleigh, NC, but although he posted authoritative repair videos on Youtube, he would admonish you for asking if he did commercial repairs.  He was a bit of an asshole.  Your resources are slim when it comes to Hammond repairmen.  I figured out from scratch the Leslie interface for my A-100, and it was complicated.  It meant I had to understand how it worked.  I installed it, and always it has played flawlessly until now.  When you do take the time to read up on the Hammond organ by its bevy of purveyors, they all say one thing.  "Oil!"  This must be interpreted with chaste.  Hammond organs often sit neglected for long periods of time in garages, in storage, or in barns.  When they sit like this, the metal parts will seize from oxidation.  Rust.  You must oil these particular instruments and wait for the penetrating oil to do its job.  For the rest of us, the rule is very different.  Once a year.  Fill the oil cup twice, and that is it.  No more.  If you do put more oil in what can happen is what happened to me.  It will leak out of the oil trough, to the bottom of the tone generator, through the wooden shelf and in my case into the 428 kit box.  This small metal box houses a transformer, a capacitor, and three resistors.  Oil found its way onto the electronic components, and the transformer began to fail producing intermittent and demonic sounding distortion.  Before I really isolated the problem to this interface for the Leslie speaker, I troubleshot the Leslie amp and had it rebuilt.  It would seem more than one issue occurred at the same time as does in life.  The same also is occurring now with Covid 19.  This often fatal virus is much more dangerous than most Americans know.  It causes a myriad of physiological failures of the human system.  In short Covid 19 causes "leaky vessels."  Gel builds up in your lungs, so a respirator isn't always the best idea.  Kidney failure among other things has been found widespread in Covid fatalities.  It makes your vessels leak, and they can leak in your brain, in your abdomen, or in your heart.  Shazam.  That is a nasty disease.  It targets those with other illnesses and exacerbates their consequences.  This is a man made disease, and to this second we do not know who manufactured it.  Trump's "Red Wave" is raging, and yet they don't seem to understand some unknown enemy of the people unleashed this disease on the entire world.  I am beginning to believe in addition to targeted attacks, the meandering nature of the pathogen is proliferating unabashedly.  It is an attack on the people!  We must go own.  My Hammond gets sick and fails to be my catharsis.  Instead I have spent months trying to diagnose its illness.  It stands to reason a musical instrument as old as me and our house would need some attention at the ripe old age of fifty-eight.  As the Leslie 142 sits rebuilt and worthy, it awaits the resurrection of the AO-28 preamp.  I believe its ailment was instigated by the failure of the 428 kit allowing voltages to go where no man has gone before.  You can't let your AC leak into your DC, that is the common rule of tube amplification.  I am having a bona fide professional address my problem, and with Covid 19 it has been difficult.  Like an illicit drug deal I have to take the goods to the "meet" and wait for the results.  I will be glad when it has been resolved, because every man knows it is not a good day when his organ doesn't work. 

No Dance for You

The news on the weekends always is negative.  (I don't feel like ranting, but....)  Writing also serves the purpose of catharsis, and today I need some.  I tried twice to purchase ground chuck today to no avail.  That is two strikes for a menial task.  Maybe it had more substance than I realized.  Covid 19 is rocking the world, and people are hungry.  Kinlaw's meat store was jam packed with patrons.  It felt like a carnival.  I only made it a few feet inside the store, before I realized I would have to stand in line for a long time.  I opted for the alternative plan, and that was another store.  Equally it was as daunting.  A combination of the distracting aggressive background music, many people traveling in different directions, and high tension forced me out of the store with no goods.  Strike two.  How difficult can it be to buy hamburger meat?  I didn't give up.  Carlie C's was my last hope, and they had ground chuck like I wanted, but it was four dollars a pound.  It looked fresh and good, but that was two dollars a burger.  I don't mind paying for good food, but usually ground beef is cheaper.  I just couldn't bring myself to buy it.  Too expensive.  I chose a bargain pack of shoulder steaks, and they were tough but tasty grilled on our natural gas unit.  This was a weekend in 'Nam.  The headlines on the weekends always are negative.  It is like the "A" team has a weekend, and headlines are phoned in.  The most concerning aspect of news is, I am not sure America ever will remember they way it was.  I have lived long enough to remember better times.  I lived through both the 70's and 80's.  Most people have a high holler about the excessive 80's, but I have no beef with this decade.  Film, television, and music were functioning at a very high level.  John Hughes created so many period piece films, they ended up defining the culture of the 1980's.  Again I don't feel like ranting, but I do.  I don't want to begin complaining.  Whining like a ninny.  Sometimes you must.  Our news and politics is a mockery of America.  There is a simple reason.  We have forgotten how honest capitalism must work.  You can't outsource manufacturing to third world countries, and we have.  You can't blame industry owners for wanting to pay a fraction of a living wage if they can get by with it.  The exchange rate inherent in Globalism is a huge boon to industry.  It also fucked America in a major way.  That is a great technical assessment, but it is true.  America's tycoons threw in the towel for the American worker and hence the middle class a long time ago.  That in itself was the end of America.  America cannot be a third world country and survive.  It belies our core principles and an ambulant middle class.  Without the possibility and prospect of improvement, growth, and success, capitalism fails.  It has.  Americans are working for slave wages as the cost of living has continued to rise making the tycoons richer.  It is a  broken record.  Now my ears are going to ring to excess.  As the low flying aircraft draw crisscrossing chemtrails across our once blue sky, life underneath is interrupted.  It is not normal for a city to exist in such a state especially on a Saturday.  The headlines are negative, the population is being strafed by aircraft, and people are manic about a sunny day.  It was crazy, and easily I was defeated.  My recourse was to cook a tasty meal in my own kitchen, despite the bullshit that surrounds me.  I did.  Steak on the grill.  Mixed stir fried veggies, and yams.  It didn't make me feel any better, because depression ensues when no solution is in sight.  I don't see on.  I see no reason to make music.  Napster murdered the commercial music industry and rendered music valueless.  Artists receive alms for the poor in percentages of pennies for royalties.  It is a disgrace, and consequently music has suffered.  Film has suffered.  Television has suffered the most, and what it has become is America as we now know it.  Tabloid America.  That is what Mr. Trump brought to the plate.  He operates at the level of a poor television show, and America can't remember the past.  We make a conscious decision to dumb down our youth by neglecting public education and then take advantage of them.  Burden them with debt.  Brainwash them into submission.  Don't teach them how to think, question, and fend for themselves.  That is because they don't know yet that is happening.  The entire red wave equally is as gullible.  They don't know what is happening to them.  It is frightening.  No one has my back.  When I was resting a few days ago listening to Lester Young and Sweets Edison, images began popping into my mind.  I fantasized about how I would like life to be, and it readily is not possible.  It didn't entail living in a gilded castle.  There was not a mansion or yacht or luxury car involved.  It involved jazz music, dancing, and romance.  At one point in American history these things were synthesized together.  This particular Lester Young recording, which was new to me, had an aura about it that I never had experienced before.  Fifty-eight years old and never experienced The Prez.  That is a good thing, but it made me want what I cannot have even more.  Swing or salsa dancing in a Cuban club with crack musicians and pleasant women.  Such a doldrum fantasy, and yet my life missed it completely.  There was no dance.  There was plenty of music and romance, but dancing.  I was in the wrong geographic region to expect that, the American South, a red state.  However I tried the women I dated could not dance, nor did they want to.  Such a simple thing, a partnered enjoyment of physical rhythm, but in public to music.  I didn't suffer, because sexual activity filled the void.  It replaced it.  Only now after I have studied music for many years to I realized the value and importance of dance.  It is courtship, but it is more than that.  It is politics.  It is opinion.  It is intelligence.  The life I live today is so far from what I want, I see no path of salvation.  Deal with that.  

Wannabe

 Unfortunately I am not privy to the facts of Ground Forces Command located at Fort Bragg, NC.  What I know is this.  There are flurries of activity which include a multi-million dollar charter jet often which flies into Grannis Field.  Often it flies directly over my house, and in the last week it had been watching me.  That sounds absurd and insane.  Delusional comes to mine.  Who could suggest such a thing, that they would be of interest enough to merit aerial surveillance by some group?  There are many aircraft, and as a high profile military base this is to be expected.  Before Base Realignment and Closure, BRAC for short, decided to close other bases and combine them here at Fort Bragg, the aerial activity seemed normal.  82nd Airborne drops, deployments of heavily loaded planes, and now the practicing of drone pilots.  One lives right next door to me.  A few years ago during the Obama era, drones came to the forefront.  They need to practice somewhere, so why not Fayettenam?  Now I am being surveyed and ostensibly intimidated.  I have written unkind words about the railroads before in many Letters to the Editor of the Fayetteville Observer.  I do not like the railroads one bit, and I am a model railroader.  More succinctly I am not a fan of AC traction of which no one knows a thing.  AC what?  A red wave almost re-elected Donald Trump the the presidency without understanding what he is about.  He is a skilled front man.  Fronting is what he does best.  He fronts the Trump Organization, and this bullshit is what has built his business.  Anyone who has taken the time to read, listen, and understand his tactics understands he is dishonest.  That may not bother the red wave.  Honestly in life in my mind is the most important thing for humanity.  It is the ultimate responsibility, one we are implored to adhere to each and every day.  I may sound delusional, but I am honest.  I tell the truth, because even in a pitted and painful way the truth ultimately will set you free.  It now seems like that may be in a different life, one after life on earth.  Damn.  I am not ready to throw in the towel, kick the bucket, or give up.  I have things still to do, mainly because I am not doing much of anything now.  That isn't true, but what I am doing is not in my chosen field of interest.  I would like to continue producing music like I have my entire life.  This past year I had to stop making music for a large portion of my life.  It was spent keeping tabs on the presidential election ensuring potty mouthed Donald Trump would not again be re-elected the leader of the free world.  My prayers were answered, and I do feel a bit of relief, but it is not over yet.  When Mr. Trump became President the quality of life of my town declined.  There was a direct relationship between the election of Donald Trump and the military industrial complex which exists in close proximity to my home.  Never did it seem an issue before.  We get rocked by the Marines when they bring their big guns.  We witness and feel every deployment, because the families of deploying soldiers surround us.  How can we now pay attention to the military?  We do, because like honestly it is a requirement to live here.  Often I wish it weren't required.  I myself did not chose to be a military man, although I have no bias or animosity against those who do.  My grandfather was a full bird Colonel in the United States Army and served in World War l.  (That was the first world war, on horseback)  My father also was a corporal in the army band in Germany.  What is going on at Fort Bragg to me is suspect, and certainly they have buttoned up their activity like a finely sewed gunnery jacket.  They have built a billion dollar access road and put railroad tracks underneath the soil.  They hauled so much dirt out of there, you could have built a mountain in the Sand Hills.  A look at any Google map will show you most of it, except for the underground mechanisms.  Who knows what goes on out there?  In the last week or so, the machine has been raging.  Even in the midst of a deadly pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, the trains have begun running again and the military industrial complex is hard at work doing something?  What would it be?  Whatever it is it is tangible enough to merit the firing of our Secretary of Defense and a quick rebuke from the Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley.  It was on the front page yesterday this covert operation involving the Pentagon and Department of Defense.  It has been reported in the news that Trump is selling arms to Saudi Arabia to the tune of three billion dollars.  This package includes drones, F-16 fighter jets, and other munitions.  The red wave ignorant of most things would never have payed attention enough to have learned that while Osama Bin Laden may have propagated the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers in lower Manhattan, it was the lower Saudi royals who were responsible.  This is the United Arab Emirates of which I am speaking, the same country to whom our president is selling arms.  This is transpiring in his last ten weeks of the presidency while his only public duty has been saluting a wreath in memory of fallen soldiers.  This gesture so highly is inappropriate, because Donald Trump never served in the United States military.  Instead he dodged the draft.  Saluting now, although inexplicably he has become the Commander on Chief, is not appropriate.  He does not deserve to salute anyone, and his gestures are a mockery of all Americans.  He is a child in front of the television set, and his complacence, narcissism, and irreverence to his presidential duties is an abomination.  Now he is trying to make a quick buck on his trip out the door.  Donald Trump should have been forcibly removed from office months ago, because he successfully was impeached by the United States Congress.   The seediest corrupt contingency in existence led by Mitch McConnell allowed him to stay, and the lives of Americans, their blood, is on their hands.  Period.  Let's watch Trump stick his hand in the cookie jar the same way Hank Paulson did through George W. Bush.  We could not be much more gullible lead by an ignorant red wave of maverick, cavalier, Trump wannabe's.  Where are the Spice Girls when you need them? 

It's Time to Go

I can't get anything done, but I have not had the wherewithal to compose my thoughts about the election.  It has been a potpourri of antagonistic, celebratory, and recalcitrant feeling.  For a brief fleeting moment I was ecstatic about the election of Joe Biden for President.  Still I am, but as everyone is witnessing the refusal of Donald Trump and the Republican Party to recognize and concede defeat is agonizing.  Colbert would say when you wrestle with a pig your clothes get dirty and the pig likes it.  This is exactly what is transpiring.  My elation was cut short immediately by the realization that I am living in a starkly red state.  In fact both of the Carolinas are red states, and Lindsey Graham, a bone fide lair and hypocrite, was re-elected.  Emotionally I am drained, and to understand that the fight will continue was too much.  I turned it off until now.  The American South continued to wage the Civil War decades after it was declared over by the Emancipation Proclamation.  Although Abraham Lincoln had freed the slaves, our American South, not the "New" South continued to lynch freed slaves until the middle of the twentieth century.  That is a bit of a misnomer.  Slavery was eradicated, and yet a rebellious and separatist American South belied the national mandate and continued to persecute African-Americans.  This aberrant and criminal behavior necessitated the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's.  While the persecution of any racial or ethnic group by another is unchristian and evil, perhaps its severity was mitigated by it resulting cultural expressions.  A strong, dominant, and long lasting movement resulted and created meaningful and influential artistic expression in American culture.  Both film and music were vehicles for this protest, and an important messages was broadcast to all of America.  The election of Joe Biden is the cusp of a new and similar expression, and it will require and demand the same amount of artistic passion mustered by its original purveyors.  Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the Black Panthers, not to mention Louis Farrakhan, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and others forged the foundations of race equality in a sharply divided United States of America.  Some of this division had been quashed, but the election of Donald Trump necessarily targeted this bigotry and used it to its favor.  The work still is to be done, but we are on the right path.  My elation with Joe's election was truncated, because the tangible sentiment in the air in America today is not joy.  It is trepidation at a still impending pandemic killer.  It is the loss of millions of jobs and income.  It is the postponement of American life as we have known it our entire lives.  For the first time in our generation Communism has reared its ugly head.  It was instigated by Donald Trump.  When I take the time to reflect on the joyous news that America rallied and defeated this harrowing bully, dictator, murderer, and thief, I can feel happiness.  It is a strange fruit complicated by the recurring image of a dead Negro hanging from a noose in a tree.  I am not quick to embrace this feeling, because 2020 has been a torment of mockery of American freedom and happiness.  Knowing that I am surrounded by a majority of Trump supporters is a cold slap in the face.  If they had their way, American democracy would have failed in the greatest upset of modern times.  The pinnacle of political and governmental success publicly would have burned to rubble.  Knowing that my back is not watched or had is not new.  I have known we are on our own for a long time.  What it is is infuriating that a red wave of ignorance, culpability, and irresponsibility threatened the free world.  I guess it was inevitable, because freedom, especially American freedom, the most cherished and envied freedom worldwide, always will be tested.  It is a small miracle it survived.  As for our current President's ill behavior, and his patronage by an equally as corrupt Attorney General, my feeling is this.  This grifter and his televangelical family has been sponging off of the American people for long enough.  They did it before Donald Trump was elected president, learning and taking advantage of the American tax code and its inherent weaknesses designed for such advantage.  Honesty and integrity no longer are prerequisites for success in capitalist America.  Instead with the purposeful eradication of God and Christianity as tenants of American life, evil has proliferated.  I am angry at Donald Trump, and it is time for him to get his family out of our White House.  They no longer are welcome, because their free ride is over.  America has chosen their new leader and first family.  Without expressing what I truly feel and at its true amplification, Trump should concede defeat.  It is time for the lowly band of drifters to move on.  

Three Blind Mice on SCOTUS

 What is in the news?  In 2017 Senate Majority Leader Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr. invoked the "Nuclear Option" confirming the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court with a simple majority vote.  Fifty-four total votes out of one hundred, fifty-one republicans and three democrats confirmed Mr. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.  Brett Kavanaugh squeaked through his confirmation with a vote of fifty to forty-eight.  Traditionally sixty votes were needed to confirm a Supreme Court Justice, and a majority vote along both party lines was desirable.  A majority vote in the United States Senate sends a message of confidence to the American people that the nominees properly were vetted.  For one hundred elected senators unanimously to confirm a candidate, easily it could be construed that a new Justice was qualified to rule on important litigation.  In an extremely rare occurrence in the state of Florida in the year 2000, the United States Supreme Court interjected and stopped the vote count in a contested Presidential election.  America never knew who received the most votes when Vice President Al Gore ran against George Walker Bush.  Instead SCOTUS stopped the vote count and Al Gore conceded defeat.  In actuality he may have won the election.  Current President Donald Trump narcissistically believes his re-election  should be decided in the same way, by the United States Supreme Court.  The contested election in Florida in 2000 was caused by "hanging chads" created by then Secretary of State Katherine Harris.  She designed the ballots which were double sided.  If a voter punched a chad on the back side of the ballot voting for their chosen candidate, it could appear that it was a vote for another candidate adjacent on the other side.  Whether this design was intentional or a mistake has yet to be determined.  It was this simple flaw which preempted the vote tally and delayed the election results.  What followed was a visceral, heated, and lively legal battle waged by the top legal minds in politics.  Ultimately they put George W. Bush in the White House.  Why has Mitch McConnell, with less than two weeks before the presidential election, pushed through the confirmation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's replacement?  The answer is simple.  With Mr. McConnell's previously instated "Nuclear Option," a simple majority is all that is needed to confirm a life long appointment for a new Supreme Court Justice.  The tally now is three justices for President Donald Trump, with the most recent being the most consequential for Americans.  Trump has been trying his entire first term to dismantled The Affordable Care Act enacted by Barack Obama.  Gravely and publicly he was humiliated when an ailing John McCain flew to Washington, DC to cast the deciding vote against the revocation of the legislation.  With a symbolic emperor's "thumbs down," Mr. McCain defeated President Trump's dire need to abolish Obamacare.  His disdain for McCain never will resolve even as he lays in the cold earth dead.  He has carried this contempt with him in his presidency.  Two weeks after the Presidential election on November the third, SCOTUS is slated to rule on the constitutionality of The Affordable Care Act.  Trump now has appointed three conservative Republican Supreme Court Justices.  With the health care of millions of Americans on the chopping block by this ruling, Trump also craves the same body of judges rule on his re-election against Joe Biden.  We wants to circumvent the American popular vote and the electoral vote and be appointed the leader of the free world by a panel of judges assembled with meticulous and manipulating politics driven by partisan sentiments.  This is for what Donald Trump longs, because in all probability it is the only way he will be re-elected.  Americans have flocked to the polls in early voting setting new records for American activism in a Presidential campaign.  While we do not know how Americans have voted, it does not make sense that republicans would be making such a statement.  In light of the constraints and consequences of a deadly pandemic mysteriously which appeared during an election year, it would suggest the democrats have a more stringent message.  Completely it is at odds with Donald Trump's declaration that he personally has mitigated the pandemic, a convenient platform for his re-election.  His super hero like recovery from Covid 19 suggests it was planned.  The pretense of the inhibiting of voting sews a large canvass of controversy upon which Trump has tried to capitalize.  Inexplicably he has declared voting by mail fraudulent.  The current director of the FBI has stated there is no evidence nor has there been any evidence of fraud voting by mail.  There is is no precedent for a contested vote, except that Trump witnessed it in 2000 with the election of George W. Bush.  Seeing the Supreme Court hand Bush the Presidency sewed the seeds of want in Trump's loins.  The Republican tide hastily and recklessly confirming another conservative justice two weeks before the election was a premeditated, savvy, but self-serving political maneuver.  Instead of impartially choosing, vetting, and confirming a non-partisan judge capable of upholding the United States Constitution with no party influence, Mitch McConnell has cemented into place another piece of foundation favoring conservatives.  Rather than concerning themselves with the health and well being of Americans flailing from a raging viral disease, our Republican Senate showed their true colors.  They fucked us again. 

"Big Brother"

 The news has been a conglomeration of confusion.  Significant occurrences have been a contagious President miraculously cured of Covid 19.  As the leader of the free world, although he does not act like this, Donald Trump is privy to the world's best health care.  Evidently they pooled their medical resources and uncovered a miracle cure.  A short helicopter ride away and a short hospital stay, a positive testing President of the United States belied normalcy and pronounced himself Covid free, non-contagious, and immune.  We know Trump is a pathological liar, so we readily cannot believe anything he says.  Unfortunately his supporters have not learned this yet.  Let them follow their ungracious leader into hell.  The point of contention is our President, in a close election with Joe Biden, continues to campaign staging rock concert styled rallies for which he himself or his campaign pays.  It is a formula not unlike a television production.  Rent several cranes and a P.A. system, hang some flags, play some popular music, and pay people to attend and wear MAGA hats and shirts.  (You get paid more if you wear the shirt)  A large number of attendees are being paid via ads in local Craigslist postings.  Most of these patrons shun mask wearing and any other social distancing.  Unsurprisingly out President has spread Covid 19 like the wild fires raging in California, a blue state not worthy of federal relief money.  In the midst of this raging pandemic, our President stated he would walk into the crowd and kiss his supporters on the lips.  This contemptuous statement is nothing more than normal Trump fodder.  He says outrageous, provocative, and inciting things on purpose, because they make him look knowledgeable.  Anyone that says such things could only have greater understanding than those in attendance.  This type of patronizing is what succors his supporters.  They think he must know more, and they are coerced into believing he has solutions for them on the horizon.  Anyone who pays attention and follows the news knows most of his promises are false and unrequited.  His promises remain empty, empty to the point that a raging pandemic is killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans.  His administration freely admitted they have no plans for Covid 19 mitigation.  In essence they are giving up saying, "What the fuck?"  If you can't beat them, join them.  Our president openly has abandoned a large part of his earned constituency.  I would guess he is down to about thirty-five percent.  If the rest of us die from Covid 19, it is our fault.  When faced with bankruptcy and ensuing debt, his supporters take a similar approach.  What do they have to lose except their lives.  The problem always has been, and it should be a well known and debated American principle, how do we handle such an event?  When a national health crisis infects America, how do we stay solvent?  My answer would be any of a number of important philosophical concepts that define American capitalism.  The nation, with the leadership of Washington, DC and our elected leaders, should have prepared in advance.  Instead our recent presidencies have put us more and more in debt.  Why is it the most powerful nation cannot operate in the black?  It is because we stopped trying.  Recent changes in leadership, instead of ensuring the security and well being of Americans, have instead taken advantage of us.  They have fleeced the American public out of their past prosperity.  Donald Trump is no different.  After emptying the economic world well of most of its available assets, he turned to the coffers of the American people.  I mean the money of American tax payers meant to provide security for us.  This money should now be available to us in a national health crisis.  Instead it is sitting overseas in foreign tax sheltered bank accounts. The reason why America is in crisis, is because no money is flowing through our economy.  Any shallow reflection of the American economy will show that a prosperous America is one in which money flows through the middle and lower classes.  It is not characterized by great fortunes won in the stock market by clever hedge fund operators.  It is money well earned by substantial, hard working, successful small businesses, something of which Donald Trump is unfamiliar.  It is about "all or nothing."  How America has succumbed to the "Get Rich Quick" scheme is a mystery, although it is not.  The same way our government has sold out the American people, so has capitalist America.  Always I have wondered why in American popular music there has to be a superstar.  Why cannot a music industry exist that is broad, diverse, and inclusive of many strata of monetary reward?  Not everyone desires palaces, golf clubs, and sky scrapers all over the world.  Some of us would be content living a normal middle class life growing soybeans and being able to trade them fairly around the world.  Instead Donald Trump must control everything choosing to pay off the small traders to be in control.  Isn't it more rewarding to be able to manufacture or grow a product of use and then sell it for a profit?  To all of those Republicans show shout "Socialist," they are in such denial that the socialists in the world are them.  Donald Trump is a socialist choosing to provide pay offs to the American people rather than allowing them to achieve economic independence by selling their own products.  Over sixty percent of the American population's wages are paid by our government including defense contractors, military members, and elected officials.  It is this faction sucking off the tit of Uncle Sam, and they are the first to shout "Socialism" in an attempt to disguise their take.  In fact these are communists, an ever growing group seeking their economic sustenance from our President.  In like fashion he continues to do all he knows how by paying them off.  This hypocrisy is at the root of the destruction of our democratic foundation.  Instead of seeking economic independence they would rather be part of a system the ensures the security of its members.  "Are you a party member?"  Simply the Cold War never ended, although Ronald Reagan broke down the Berlin Wall.  Vladimir Putin has other ideas, and they nothing to do with economic freedom.  They have to do with political oppression.  Try to remember the plight of communist citizens yearning for freedom.  This is where America is headed with Donald Trump as a Russian surrogate.  He admires Kim Jong-un, the dictator of North Korea.  He sports the hairstyle of such a Communist leader, and yet like his other incendiary propaganda, it is so blatant, obvious, and egregious his supporters do not understand it.  Socialism is not the enemy of America.  It only is a system of government in which the means of production is publicly owned.  Most nations which have tried have not been able to manage such a large responsibility.  Inevitably a small contingency of power-seeking movers and shakers seize control and implement authoritarian rule.  The general populace is so immersed in their menial everyday lives, they have no ability or propensity to do anything about it.  Only in America where our freedoms are documented in our Constitution are we able to vocally protest such an egregious hostile take over.  It has been under this duress that the "Black Lives Matter" movement was necessitated.  Criminal members of America's police forces have been murdering black men.  This is not new, and this aberrant policy can be traced back to the LAPD.  It began here in attempt to quell the African American voice.  Most things of importance to American society, culture, and governance, all ready have happened.  In Donald Trump's presidency many of them openly have been disguised or removed.  Truly it is George Orwell's prediction of "Big Brother," and not the television show. 

The Worst Game Show Host in America

 There are a few takeaways from last night's debate.  It is apparent that Trump supporters do not follow the news.  The few I have encountered merrily stand by their man like the cult leader he is.  He is no different than Jim Jones or Charles Manson.  "We are learning to 'live' with it."  Joe Biden candidly corrected our president and pointed out rather, "We are dying with it."  Trump has escalated into a war criminal.  He did not begin his presidency that way, but with his selfish refusal to be candid and honest with his American constituency about the fatality of Covid 19, now he has become a murderer, a proponent of genocide.  Candidly he did say last night America should not treat this disease, but let it spread naturally creating a natural immunity.  Those who choose to listen to Donald Trump's pathological lies will find themselves pushing up daisies.  I stopped listening to him over a year ago, because I realized my own life was at stake.  His plan is ethnic cleansing, and it is supported by his administration's politicization of the Coronovirus.  His son was exposed suggesting that federal aid for the pandemic be withheld from blue states, democrat states.  It is clear that Mr. Trump cares not for any of the high risk groups.  Instead these groups are liabilities for the federal government, entitlements better targeted for his affluent friends' pocketbooks.  They want ALL the money.  When asked about the health of those living close to polluting industries, including those which burn fossil fuels and manufacture dangerous chemicals, bluntly he said they are being paid well enough to remain silent.  The health of these communities was not of interest to him, because like the victims of Covid 19, blacks, Latinos, and women, they are worth sacrificing for the greater monetary reward.  All Donald Trump thinks about is money.  He has no moral conscience, and he has no ethical code.  He has no spirituality.  It is frightening a man who understands nothing more than earned and spent currency.  Joe Biden pointed out that Donald Trump's presidency to the American people has been a game show.  "Where are my taxes?  Hurry up and wait!  It's a great mystery, the suspense."  We have been waiting four years, and still they are undisclosed.  He shouts angrily, although he is the leader of the free world and the inhabitant of our White House.  He is the leader of America, and yet because it is so unfamiliar to him,  he behaves like a shady, seedy, disguised mob boss.  He knows nothing else.  It is too late to even begin trying to do the right thing, and he couldn't.  "What was in it for them?"  I cannot hear the words "no collusion" again.  He said it again on national television last night, when felony indictments and subsequent convictions have placed many of his staff in prison.  They have dropped like flies proven guilty of conspiring with Russian operatives, and still he says,"No collusion."  Joe did not mention these convictions rather choosing to allow our president to incriminate himself further.  Lies.  Blatant lies.  Donald Trump's essence, his sole purpose in life, is to harvest as much money as he can for himself at the expense of anyone else.  Because his supporters love and adore him so much, graciously they will sacrifice their own lives for him for some inkling of martyrdom.  His supporters are no different than the Islamic Extremists suicide bombing innocent victims thinking they will reap a great reward of multiple virgins in the afterlife.  Once America was a wise, savvy, and liberal sanctuary for the hip and in the know.  With the election of Donald Trump our nation has succumbed to the same low level as the enemies taunting us.  He has brought us down.  Will we ever recover, or will the lives of hard working, honest, God loving citizens remain a game show hosted by a corrupt Donald Trump? 

The American Disease of Communism and Her Socialist Vaccine

 Slowly over the last decade American culture has deteriorated.  I questioned this when MTV, VH-1, and BET sacrificed their musical content for Reality TV.  MTV was a revelation in popular culture.  It defined American pop values for years.  The way the American Popular Song defined our newly emerging nation differentiating it from Europe, MTV continued a synthesis of music and imagery.  It compressed and truncated the form into a palatable format suited for limited view time.  Like a symphony, ballet, opera, or oratorio demanded undivided attention in a cathedral or concert hall for several hours, MTV, with its use of the television idiom combined with popular music, forged a form of American expression unique to itself.  It was a potent, influential, and artistic force which America abandoned.  Most music television including "Soul Train," "American Bandstand," and "The Grind"  were pulled from the airwaves.  What the fuck!?  I questioned this disappearance, and associated it with emotional oppression.  Today there is a great void of American artistic expression.  Once it was radio.  Then it was television.  It has become the internet.  With the empowerment of the internet as a self-service and mostly free venue for entertainment, previous stanchions of American culture disappeared.  The void that exists is massive.  It is a huge, luring, and impressionable pool of darkness Donald Trump has exploited.  The only explanation for the extinction of this portal for American artistry is ensuing communism.  For the longest time other countries have been jealous of and made fun of America.  Chewing gum, Coca Cola, and Rock 'n' Roll were laughable, despite their far reaching influences.  While menial in content the symbolism inherent in these products is what is important.  It is what they represent for Western freedom.  It is not that watching movies, chewing bubble gum, or dancing at a sock hop are pinnacles of substance.  It is that they represent freedom for the human being.  Unlike communist sentiments human beings, especially in America, are guaranteed the right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness.  We are not imprisoned behind the walls of depraved, narcissistic, self-serving authoritarians intending to suppress creative thought and artistic expression.  These limitations define communism, and they have overtaken American culture.  If Donald Trump is re-elected president they will overtake American governance and eventually American life as we live it.  Our freedoms will be naught.  All ready they have been infringed upon, limited, and challenged.  We are in a shouting war with a demented, senile, demigod whose only intent is anarchy and chaos at the expense of free America.  The victor will be Donald Trump, and America will plunge further into the third world nation it has become. 

STEP BY STEP PERCUSSION TROUBLE SHOOTING BY TIM PADRICK:

The problem is most likely in the manual or in the percussion switch

assembly.

Test 1:

Power the organ. Depress the B preset key and turn percussion the

tablet to the OFF position. Using a VOM/DMM, measure between ground

and the preamp's K terminal (blue wire). You should have 30 Volts

(plus or minus a few).

Turn the percussion tablet to the ON position. There should be no

change in the voltage reading. If it drops substantially, there is

likely a dendrite problem.

Press any playing key on the upper manual. The voltage reading should

drop to 0 as the percussion sounds and decays (if the above was ok).

If not...

Test 2:

Turn the organ off.

Locate the terminal block on the back of the manuals that has white,

green, yellow, yellow, red, orange, red, and brown wires. Connect an

Ohm meter between ground and the terminal that has the white wire.

With the percussion in the OFF position, you should have about 0 Ohms.

With the B preset key depressed and the percussion tablet in the ON

position, you should have about 120k Ohms. If it is substantially

less, there is likely a dendrite problem.

There is a short procedure for "zapping" the dendrites with DC

voltage. It can repair the problem for a while, but dendrites will

continue to grow and the problem will eventually return. However, if

it clears the problem it is easier to do this a number of times than

remove the manuals to get at the buss bars.

This procedure requires a DC voltage source (9 volt battery may work).

Using alligator clips, attach the ground terminal to a chassis ground

point. Attach another clip to the positive terminal.

-----------

Locate the white wire that comes out of the back of the drawbar base behind the right end of the percussion switchbox and goes to the left tab of the terminal strip on the back of the upper manual (wires are white, green, yel, yel, red, or, red, brown - there's a resistor on there too) . Turn the percussion tablet to the ON position. Zap the wire. Turn the percussion tablet to the OFF position and repeat. If it does not work, try a higher zapping voltage.

------------

Check your meter (or just play the organ) to see if you have the

correct results. If not, try again, touching the lead to the terminal

for a bit longer than briefly. Recheck.

If this does not clear the problem you need more voltage. You can tap

off the Leslie kit (or one of the tube socket pins) and get about 290 Volts from it. Be "real careful" if you do this - don't short it to ground!

If this does not clear the problem, remove the wooden cover from the

drawbars, remove the fasteners for the drawbar & switch "chassis",

remove the percussion switch box, and remove it's bottom cover.

Remember that white wire? Trace it into the switch box and to the

percussion switch. Find the wire that this gets connected to when the

switch is in the on position - I think it is black. Turn the switch

off. Touch your DC voltage source to this terminal. This is what

finally cured the one I was working on.

 

God's Spine of America

 America used to be the land of dreams.  Perhaps for Donald Trump it was until now.  This is his last chapter.  Winning the presidency could be considered an American dream, the pinnacle of success for an American.  Perhaps it was and still is for two more weeks.  I do not feel confident Joe Biden can be the predicted winner, although his polls show it.  Starkly we all can remember election night, when Hillary Clinton was confident she would be the next American president.  We all gasped in disbelief as she lost the American presidency by winning over two million more votes from Americans.  How is this possible?  The answer to this question is the same as how Donald Trump built his empire.  He has something.  He has some methodology for success, if we believe what he says.  Portraying yourself as a success and actually being a success are two different things.  He and the Republican Party knew something that allowed them to "rig" the election.  It was almost unprecedented, superseded only by George W. Bush's win in Florida in 2000.  The point of contention was hanging chad.  Chad is the plural of chad.  Ballots were created in Florida which were double sided and confusing, thus allowing thousands of senior citizens mistakenly to vote for the wrong candidate in favor of George W. Bush.  After a lengthy legal dispute the case rose to the United States Supreme Court, and they stopped the vote count.  We never actually knew who won the election, but Al Gore diplomatically conceded defeat.  How did Trump win the electoral college losing the popular vote?  It is a nebulous affair.  Not long ago SCOTUS ruled that state governments can legislate electors take the popular vote.  They can create a law that requires electors to support the state's popular vote.  Have they?  How many states have responded with new laws that do this?  Information says 49 out of 50 states' electors take the popular vote, but it is not written down.  The process for choosing electors in each state is different.  This is how state governments have a say in who becomes president.  In North Carolina electors are chosen by the state legislature.  If it is controlled by Republicans one can assume that electors will have a right slant.  Really it is a popularity contest, the way Donald Trump has run his campaign and presidency.  Without a world wide pandemic of deadly disease, perhaps a popularity contest sufficed.  Without devastating climate change, national weather disasters, and escalating racial tension perhaps the quarterback of the football team could schmooze his way to the top.  For Trump he is there, but he has been running like a challenger.  He is the president, the incumbent, and yet it would seem the White House has little control over Washington and the nation.  This is the way he speaks, calling out his opponents for unfair treatment.  Donald Trump is the president, and yet he is not.  Never has he been, because he did not know how.  It was a crap shoot, and as he gambled the chips feel where they may.  One after another competent and honest appointees folded the game.  They gave up.  The situation was so befuddling, they had no answer for the problems Donald Trump created.  It was like the Twilight Zone.  There was no logic, no rationale, and no policy.  The little policy there was, was created by corporate lobbyists, who demanded Trump give results for money spent.  He had ideas, and perhaps they were legitimate, but his ideas seemed so radical because they did not reflect the needs of American people.  Being friends with Communist dictators?  Declaring a love affair with the autocratic leader of North Korea?  Donald Trump is the radical factor in the equation that is destroying American democracy.  There is no doubt.  We have seen radical Extremism.  It came from the Middle East.  To an extent it came from Mexican drug cartels.  Somehow Donald Trump used this idea to infiltrate Washington, DC and in full view of the American people radicalized a base that made him the American president.  Vladimir Putin and others sorely are waiting for American to devolve into civil war.  It would not be unusual. Most other countries all ready have succumbed.  It would validate communism, imperialism, and autocracy in the United States.  They want this, and they almost got it.  Still we are on the brink of collapse with only two weeks to go until possible salvation.  The American Dream formerly was a success story.  It set an example and provided a goal for millions of immigrants.  Now we have the greatest fall from grace in our known lifetimes.  We are seeing the American Dream raped and pillaged in the most vicious, violent, and depraved manner.  Our American Dream has been deflowered exactly the way Extremists wanted.  They won, and we are living it.  We, instead of seeing opportunity, support, security, and success in America, we are seeing the greatest failure in our known lifetimes.  A grifter in the White House selling snake oil for pennies.  It is time for America's lineage to be restored, and the American Dream to be resurrected in grand fashion.  Instead of oppression, loss, and despondency the American people deserve what they always have had.  A Leadership that reflects God.  Not a mock Christian view.  Not hypocritical, narcissistic, self indulgence.  The spiritual roots of America driven by reverence of God, heaven, and hell and the knowledge that  He sacrificed His only son for the sins of man.  This is the spine of humanity, of man, and of America.  It should be the spine of the American Presidency. 

Infecting North Carolina, Our President

 Time to write again.  It was not until I witnessed Superman on television amazingly recover from the Coronovirus, that I knew Donald Trump knew about Covid 19.  It was a calculated strategy to win the November election.  Unleash a deadly virus on the American people, contract the virus and miraculously recover, and then offer the healing vaccine to America people in return for their votes.  Everyone knew this was plausible, but we had to witness the events unfold in real time.  There can be no other explanation.  Perhaps Donald Trump had no underlying conditions such as diabetes, COPD, or obesity.  He does have an amazing amount of energy, but Adolph Hitler routinely was injected with methamphetamine.  We have no clue what Donald Trump's tools are.  As the President of the United States he is privy to the best medical care available.  It is difficult to stomach such a display flouting his immunity and lack of contagion.  North Carolina spiked a record number of Coronavirus cases today, the day he traveled to Greenville and held a rally despite the danger of infection.  Having recently been diagnosed as positive, our President is a carrier.  It makes no sense he would profess to walk out into the crowd and kiss his supporters on the mouth.  The Donald Trump debacle is Biblical in proportion.  It must be the predictions of 2012 have come true in 2020.  At one pole millions of Americans are losing jobs, income, and schooling, and in Donald Trump land, a land in which people have a secure bubble of financial security, all is well.  "Let them eat cake."  The solidification of America as a third world nations is transpiring.  It is right in front of us.  Raging wildfires in California, hurricanes on the Gulf, and a pandemic ravaging American life as we never have seen.  If one were to believe Donald Trump enough money buys one immunity from everything.  The political word is he has not expanded his base.  White non-college educated men are not enough to win him another term.  There are too many burned bridges to list.  Throwing parties for his supporters is not enough to be president.  Prom king, quarterback, or student body president is not enough to lead the free world.  Popularity is not enough.  One has to do the job.  Someone who lives like a king and then has the privilege of living like a king on the dime of the America populace.  One can see how it will be disappointing.   When you reach that ceiling there is not much else place to go but down, and that story is the American story.  Having to witness Donald Trump's fall from grace and suffer through his pain, dishonesty, and frustration is like purgatory.  It only was recently I first felt a pang of sympathy for him.  It was like I was watching a child who knows not what they do.  Hacking and coughing, but with the looming consequences of a lost election what choice does he have?  Russian oligarchs looming in the wings.  How will he recover?  Is there anyone who would trust him again?  Probable litigation.  Defeat.  Embarrassment.  If the Trump organization was so rich and successful, now would be the time to show it.  Please leave the American people in peace. 

Trump the Pawn, Rook to King 4

 How did we end up here?  Whence does the political vitriol come?  Without Roger Ayers America may have remained sane.  With the expiration of the Fairness Doctrine, news became potential entertainment.  This is when the lies began.  In light of a compromised media, which was predicted by George Orwell in his novel "1984," things were tooling along in the Trump administration.  Then Covid hit just in time for the November election.  Even with the onset of the pandemic, it is possible our presidential election could have been normal.  Two hundred thousand lost lives would affect the outcome.  A vacancy in the Supreme Court also would have an affect upon for whom you may vote.  These issues are normal.  What is not normal is the black hole into which the America people have been pulled.  Hard working, diligent, patriotic citizens deserve better.  We deserve better than vicariously living our president's fall from grace.  It's kind of like a bad marriage.  You know when it's over, because eventually the dirt has to be discarded for good to return.  The American slave knew when he had to migrate north up the Mississippi River.  To find opportunity one has to travel.  If one door closes one finds an open window.  America sorely needs an open window, and we are no better for having experienced the fall of an American president.  What we have gotten a taste of is ensuing communism, war, and dictatorial rule.  If there things aren't unpleasant enough we have had to witness the most prolific smear campaign in American history.  It has a simple formula.  Dispute the truth.  Whatever is right, say it is wrong.  Whoever is good, say they are bad.  Create the largest disparity between Americans possible, so that civil war will erupt destabilizing the country.  This is what Putin desires.  His pawn is Donald Trump. 

A Television Nation

 God seems to tell me when to write, even if I don't want to.  As I listen to the sounds of shelling at Fort Bragg, what comes to mind is I never want to see Donald Trump ever again.  It was so refreshing, inspiring, and cathartic to see Kamala Harris and Mike Pence debate.  I learned from this debate.  I don't know much about Mike Pence, and he doesn't interest me.  I was anxious to hear what he had to say, and he said it very well.  He is a silver-haired sly fox and the major reason why Trump is president.  Next to him Donald Trump is a bumbling, childish, recalcitrant disgrace.  I will give him leeway, but only because he is on powerful drugs that can alter your perception.  He was delusional before, but now on the drugs it is like watching a child with ADD play in a pen.  Only can I ask why the hell is this man saluting?  Donald Trump never served in the United States military.  Word is he dodged the draft.  We know the rest.  When I see him salute, something which he has no right to do, I know he is sick.  What is the correct word?  I feel sorry for him, because he knows not what he does.  It doesn't change what he is and how he has behaved.  It does not change his irreverence to the American people.  He has betrayed us, but he is sick.  Standing on a balcony saluting an empty lawn?  This is a child pretending to be what he admires, a communist dictator.  After watching two professional, well spoken, mature adults traverse a difficult situation, seeing Donald Trump has to be the biggest downer on the planet.  I never want to see him again.  He has had enough.  He has claimed the popularity contest, and now we are watching him fall from grace.  It is the American way.  It has become obvious that every word he utters pulls us into black hole.  That is how powerful his senile rhetoric is.  To not ever have to see him again and move on with our lives.  What glory.  Think about things again which are positive, sane, rational, and human.  Today I felt a wave of relief after watching the Vice Presidential debate.  Normalcy was restored if only until Mr. Trump has his way again spewing lies.  Mike Pence did an admirable job debating, and I learned about him.  I do not agree with most of his political perspective, but I understood it.  There were two things he said which I believe.  One is he believes the Corona virus came from China.  The Trump administration is passing the buck to China.  The "China Virus."  That is convenient for appealing to Donald Trump's base.  I do not think it is true.  I think it was, like Judy Mikovits said, sanctioned by the United States government.  It would not take much for a foreign infiltrator, most likely Russian, to commandeer this weapon and unleash it on America.  There is evidence to suggest such a thing.  The quote of Nikita Khrushchev saying we will take America without ever waging a war.  They have been successful, because extremism infiltrated America not in the form of terrorists but in the form of prominent business owners and elected officials.  Look at the Senate.  How else can we qualify their actions?  How can we qualify Donald Trump's actions?  It has become obvious over time that he and Mike Pence are a hoax.  He feigns Christianity.  "Our hearts go out to you..."  Underneath they just want power.  They use their approaches as a calculated tool to manipulate the American people.  Trump appeals to his base.  Pence appeals to his.  I believe  Mike Pence may be the more dangerous of the two, because he has it together.  No outbreaks from him.  Always smiling.  Composed.  Like a well-oiled animatronic robot in Disney's Hall of Presidents.  It worked, because they made it in in 2016.  The Trump administration has had four years to gain the trust of the American people.  If you look at what he promised and what happened, there is no reason they should be allowed another term.  The plants never opened.  Instead they closed.  Farmers lost their livelihoods in the "War on China," but he paid them off.  Everything he said or promised to the middle class in America was a lie.  Kamala was refreshing, because for the first time she brought things down a notch.  No more epic generalizations.  Taxes for those making less then four hundred thousand dollars a year will not go up, because the wealthy must chip in their part to live in America.  You can't squeeze alcohol out of a stone, and there is no more money to be had from the American middle class.  The money is distributed to the affluent, and it is they who must pay for America.  When Ronald Reagan came into office, the tax rate for the rich was seventy percent.  Seventy percent of their income went to taxes, so they were incline to find ways to defer that.  Try investing back in your company.  Try invigorating the middle and lower classes.  Get them spending money so capitalism can work.  Today all of the money sits in overseas banks sheltered from the needs of American governance and infrastructure.  Two trillion dollars in national debt and Trump cuts corporate taxes by twelve percent.  The largest companies in America pay NO taxes.  What Kamala Harris did was bring heart and soul to her platform.  There only is so far you can go with your antagonistic soap box shouting.  Donald Trump has crossed the line, and it has become a parody.  How could he be the leader of the free world?  It is because this is where America has been headed for a long time.  Question science.  Doubt academia.  Delegitimize the humanities.  Oppress the once beacon of light for the entire world.  Truly we have had a taste of war and communist rule.  The debate was a high point of the last four years.  It was not contentious, but it was polarized.  How can such disparity exist between people, between races, and between cultures?  We are not that different except that one group favors money, power, and popularity like television. 

The Iron Horse

 Time to assess again.  Disparity exists in the reporting on Covid 19.  When the top agency hedges on their responses, and like Lindsey Graham, completely reverses position over time, what are we to believe?  Most Americans have figured out we had better assess for ourselves.  We are own our on.  I have no reason to believe Judy Mikovits would lie.  Simply she said the Coronavirus was engineered from SARS in the labs at Fort Dietrich, North Carolina, and Wuhan.  This Wuhan lab was paid ten million dollars over time to collaborate, because the viruses readily were available in bats which lived in nearby caves.  These researchers disappeared.  We can assume they died of Covid 19.  I don't think any American would believe this virus just appeared.  It came from somewhere.  Why would we not believe Ms. Mikovits?  What we must ask ourselves is who and how?  Watching President Trump ignore given safety protocols sends mixed messages.  He does not believe, like many Americans, this pandemic is a real threat.  Healthy people don't die.  He is so desperate for re-election he will do anything.  The larger question still is who and how?  Fort Dietrich formally was called a center for biological warfare.  It was changed to biological defense.  We know the capabilities of the human race, and the holocaust only was eighty years ago.  Who unleashed this plague on America?  That is the question.  When a faction of America is so afraid of Latin immigrants, they want to spend billions of American tax dollars building a symbolic wall to keep them out?  There could be no more ludicrous endeavor knowing how successful drug smuggler have been over the years.  If our immigration protocol was more effective, it would not be a problem.  It like most government run programs is floundering.  When elected politicians focus on money rather than legislating, America suffers.  The most alarming realization is America's lack of support of public education has caught up with us.  We have become to stupid to recognize, understand, and solve our own problems.  The rich wanted this, but they will not live forever.  It is our responsibility to save ourselves and our planet.  It feels too late.  When you are tasked with educating the majority of Americans who know very little, the best way to reach them is?  How about a global pandemic which affects their income, their social lives, and about everything else for which a democracy stands.  A Covid 19 lock down is very similar to communism.  We have gotten a good taste of it.  Many Americans have decided their own happiness is more important than the health of the masses, hence they ignore the safety protocols.  Our freedoms as Americans affords us the right to do as we please, or does it?  While America is a free nation and an example for most of the world, the requirements of a functioning nations still exist.  We are not at liberty to do as we please.  All Americans have accountability to live.  We do not live as individuals.  We live in communities, and these communities have become more diluted and spread out.  The mainstream in America or "Main Street" as Obama called it no longer exists.  What holds us together as a nation?  Whether anyone would like to believe it or not, television has been a unifying force in America.  It through incredible artistry over the decades provided a hint of Main Street.  Many people believe great art merely reflects life, but art also can present examples of life.  This is when it is needed the most like now.  We are wallowing in the abyss surrounded by deceit and evil.  It is difficult to summon good and righteous intentions.  We are playing defense to a strong offense of attack.  Again the question is who and why?  Who unleashed this virus on America?  I am fairly certain that the method of dissemination is through the air.  That being the case for a virus to travel widely and inexplicably it would have to be spread through the air.  For the last two years aircraft have been flying over my home.  They are menacing.  I know for a fact that when one of these small aircraft is flying over my house, I feel pain.  There are a myriad of responses to this scenario.  One is I am crazy.  Another would be my words do not fall politely on deaf ears.  I write some inciting things, but everything I say I feel is the truth.  I am not stupid.  When FORSCOM or Ground Forces Command is less than ten miles from you house, it is probable your own personal civil rights no longer are a priority.  The military and war particularly demand their own importance.  If Congress makes a proclamation we are at war, the President has many more powers.  This has been used frequently in the last twenty years as a tactic.  The entire 9/11 attack could have been such a planned provocation allowing the Bush family to obliterate a complete nation not responsible for the attack.  It was proven over time.  Is Trump really sick?  Maybe Mitch decided he just needed to be quiet for a while before the election.  How are we to know what to believe? Only with honest and thorough news reporting do we have a chance of salvaging our democracy.  At first I joked this particular jet was dropping his feces and urine on my neighborhood.  Commercial airliners do this.  He would make a turn directly above our house and head for Grannis Field.  This began to happen more frequently until recently this jet began following me around town. Within minutes of exiting our house and going into the backyard, my friend this jet would appear.  I should feel flattered that such an insignificant person is of interest to the FBI.  Rather CSX or R3 or some other defense contractor does not like my words.  These defense contractors have sucked billions of dollars from the U.S. coffers, and still we have yet to use any of it.  When the time comes all radio communications will be lost, and we will determine a victor with hand to hand combat.  That is inevitable.  All of this game playing in the field with high level electronics is moot, and the people of Fayetteville and Cumberland Country suffer because of it.  We understand Airborne.  We understand deployment at the drop of a hat.  We we should not be subject to is random experimentation with dangerous electro-magnetic and acoustic technology.  Amanda Dolazinsky reported in the Fayetteville Observer that the new mobile radar they use in the field emits SOUND waves for the shells to bounce off of.  I suspect it is both ultra and infrasound.  Consequently when they are firing those howitzers there is yet another standing wave in close proximity to our house.  If radar is not enough, a standing electromagnetic wave.  The amount of electricity, static or other airborne energy, is prolific.  I have battled with this invisible nemesis for a while now.  I have installed power conditioners all over the house, and now my music systems are static free.  Batteries drain inexplicably at an accelerated rate.  Outlet arc.  Our wireless network snap, crackles, and pops.  It is a violation of our civil rights, but how can anyone suggest that?  An invisible menace that systematically has been ignored by the EPA, the FCC, and the rest.  They have been bought off like everyone else.  CSX is making excessive revenue at the expense of the health and well being of every American, because this network of trackage has been in place for a long time and is in our back yards.  We were not consulted when they began to implement Precision Railroading, non-stop freight and passenger service  with beefed up, steroid injected, AC traction heavy haul locomotives.  I have sympathy for any unwitting Jacksonville resident.  We as Americans had no say in this choice.  The iron horse built America as we slaughtered Native Americans.  Now it is doing the same to us. 

Saving Private America

Trump supporters seem willing to take their loyalty to the grave.  Because it has formed over time and during the first African-American Presidency, including Joe Biden as Veep, it would seem their staunch resistance to him is not related to his record of public office.  President Trump has sublimated his supporters' opinion of Joe Biden simply with public criticism.  I am bold enough to suggest no one is familiar with Mr. Biden's record of public governance.  We have not been privy to any expose of his achievements, because that is not that tactic chosen by the Trump team.  When this could and should have transpired in the first televised debate, Team Trump chose not to debate.  We learned very little about Biden, except Beau was a decorated veteran died from cancer.  There was scant information about anyone or anything relating to American governance.  It was a low brow slug fest, one that was intended to energize Trump's base.  The American public heard nothing of service, policy, or vision.  It was a disservice.  Never in my lifetime have I become so incensed to realize the debate table was skewed.  In a way this was refreshing, because it reminded me that when you cannot win you change the rules of the game or slant the playing field.  Mr. Biden he was bullied.  It was not appropriate the president's family attend, because their presence was a tactic to intimidate.  How else could it be construed, remembering the slanderous and patronizing words of the Trump clan about "Sleepy Joe?"  Our President's approach was so below the belt, I feel Mr. Biden was taken aback.  No amount of intellectual policy preparation could have prepared him for the blatant verbal onslaught by Donald Trump.  I understand this, because I have encountered it myself.  To win such a contest for the good of the nation, traditional, respected, and intellectual protocols using Robert's Rules of Order must be discarded.  We are in the trenches, but capable good men can wage and win such a battle.  In Christian ideology the lion must be slain for good.  What I hope is this disparity in presidential politics, against Mr. Trump's wishes, will not result in another American civil war.  In this direction all ready the nation is headed.  Joe Biden spent eight years in a moot position as the Vice President of the United States.  One only has to ask Al Gore his perception of the Vice Presidential experience.  There is not much to accomplish, and this is a disadvantage for Joe Biden.  The Republican campaign against him is not earnest, honest, or appropriate.  It is a premeditated, authoritarian, hostile attempt to overtake the United States government by Donald Trump.  A second civil war should not be an option.  Only unity and solidarity among the American people through Christianity can salvage our democracy and authenticate the freedoms afforded by the United States Constitution. 

Uncle Joe Needs Some Help

 I am not speechless like many.  I feel the same way I did after taking the Graduate Record Exams.  If I had studied I would have done well.  Joe wasn't prepared.  Considering the circumstances he weathered the storm.  For him to win the election he needs to do better.  How?  The thing that bothered me the most is he had no offense.  For Donald Trump that offense merely is a statement of relevant fact.  The relevant facts for the American people in the case of an incumbent president are simple.  What has President Trump done in three years and eleven months?  One has to use their memory.  The most important fact is the Republicans passed a new tax package.  I don't know the ins and outs of it like most people.  What you will remember is you paid more in federal income taxes after it was passed.  More.  What you should remember is the Republicans reduced the corporate tax rater from thirty-five percent to twenty-three percent.  Depending on your position, left or right, you will have an opinion about this.  My opinion after contemplating the escalated national debt is that Washington needs as much money as they can get adequately to run the country.  How many government shut downs have we had?  There was or will be one shortly.  America is broke.  We are three trillion dollars in debt.  That is debt that belongs to the American people.  Donald Trump hijacked twelve percent of national income from our tax money and handed it to corporations.  It was a gift.  The country is three trillion dollars in debt, and he handed his friends a sizeable monetary bonus at the expense of the American people.  Immediately this should show you his loyalty.  President Trump knew that the Coronavirus was transmitted through air and that the wearing of an appropriate mask markedly could stop transmission of the virus.  Instead of speaking candidly to the American people and telling us we should do such a thing, like a spoiled Greek god he lied and still is reveling in the murder and chaos he created.  He has proven himself a sadist.  According to the New York Times and their reporting on his newly disclosed tax returns, our president is four hundred million dollars in debt.  To whom he is in debt, our president, we do not know.  It should be clear to the American people where his priorities lie.  Does he administrate the country and the federal government in good faith, or does he spend his time trying to recoup lost revenue using the presidency to his advantage in his private business dealings?  My question is this, and it does not support Mr. Trumps assertion that our election process is flawed.  Is popularity good enough to choose the leader of the free world?  Is money good enough to decide?  Would not it be a better choice to choose a leader by their credentials?  Ask former presidents who their favorites presidents were?  Bill Clinton will tell you, because he was interested in government.  He had knowledge of governance.  While I do not agree with many things he did, in my opinion he was qualified to become the American President.  Barak Obama was qualified to become the American President.  They were familiar with the job and its requirements.  It has become apparent that other than appointing federal judges, watching TV, and playing golf, Donald Trump has no time for the real issues of America.  They are boring.  They are beneath him.  Try to formulate an appropriate Covid 19 response and save millions of lives?  Out president chose not to.  "They knew for what they were signing up."  Joe should have said these things.  He should have come to the corral loaded and ready to fire.  Instead he chose to parry Trump's insults.  It was not an effective formula.  Did Joe point out that many of the officials who have worked in the Trump administration have been convicted of felonies and have gone to prison?  He surrounded himself with dubious, dishonest, but loyal worker bees only to die when they left their queen.  The media has reported that Donald Trump has a portion of the Latino vote in spite of the inhumane separating of children from parents at our southern border.  Illegal immigrants still are being held in cages like animals.  These actions are in violation of the Geneva Convention.  Many things Donald Trump has done are illegal, treasonous, and evil.  This is why his followers like him.