One thing in this world that has always irritated me to no end is fads and bandwagons.  So much so that me being irritated by all the latest sweeping fads really irritates my wife.  Even though I realize that fads, trends, and pop culture is what makes the world go around and move forward, grow economies etc,   I nevertheless believe that they dumb down society.  With the Internet and all, we live in the golden age of fads.  Nowadays they tend to be worldwide, come fast, hit very hard, and when the novelty wears off are very quickly replaced by newer fads.  Things like chat rooms, my space back in the day…texting… Facebook etc all start out to be seemingly fun and innocent but, before you know it, they become epidemics that sweep the world, causing social problems, making people crazy, causing car accidents, crashing marriages and lives, getting people fired, starting revolutions, etc.  Before you know it they're gone like a fart in the wind.  It really bothers me to see how crazy many of these fads makes society and how destructive they can be.  When I watch people jump on the latest fad I always get the impression that they don't believe that they are fads at all or that they will ever end. Why else would they do stupid things like litter their bodies with permanent tattoos or build impractical contemporary houses? When the fads fade the tattoos and contemporary houses don't; you just have a permanent reminder of how stupid and shortsighted you once were.

My parents were the absolute epitome of old school. They had black and white TV’s until they no longer made them and they had a rotary dial phone until they could no longer be used. As a result I grew up believing that only kids jumped on the latest sweeping fads and band wagons. Judging from my parents, relatives, parents friends I believed that grown up people were full of knowledge and wisdom and didn't buy into all the fads and gimmicks that society threw at them.  As it turned out I've never been as wrong about anything in my life.  Now that I'm older I've put age on the top my ‘over rated list’.  When it comes to jumping on the latest fads older people haven't got much more sense than kids.

I always say “with the right marketing, the right timing and a little luck you can sell people absolutely anything.” One of my favorite examples is the buying bottled water fad.  You think the ‘pet rock’ fad of the 1970’s was pathetic it’s got nothing on the bottled water fad.  I live in an area where the tap water is tested regularly and is rated the best in the state and one of the best in the nation and yeah you guessed it many people here go to Costco and buy big jugs and cases of overpriced bottled tap water.  Talk about “selling ice cubes to an Eskimo”.

As much as I hate fads and doing what everyone else is doing, there is one fad I do really like. That fad is the coffee drinking fad originally started by Starbucks. I hope this one never fades away.  These coffee places just seem to slow people down and make them happy.  They're nice enjoyable to go into and they don’t dumb society down, hurt people, destroy marriages & lives or make everyone crazy. The baristas are always friendly (except for the airports). It's one of the very few places where every social class and every age group sit next to each other and enjoy one of the finer things in life. 


When I traveled to Europe as a kid I really enjoyed the coffee culture there.  It’s one thing I really missed when I came home. I'm am grateful to Starbucks for starting the best fad ever.

Tenth Musing ... My Take on Wine Snobbery

I remember how exciting it was when I first got satellite TV back in the day. I went from rabbit ears TV with less than ten snowy double vision channels to over  200 perfectly clear ones. I remember asking the dish installer if he had any advice…..do’s and don’ts  on the system. He quickly replied with conviction “don't spend your life in front of the TV”….I thought that was good advice.


I remember being amazed by the sheer magnitude  of it all.  I'm interested in things so I was glued to all the 24 hr. news and  learning channels like History….Discover….Biography etc.  I use to enjoy watching the biography channel………. stories of many of celebrities…ex presidents famous people……rock stars…the making of famous movies TV shows of my childhood.  I would tell people “TV is better than ever.” That was then…..but little by little TV seriously started to go down hill. It seems like these channels start out with a certain theme and over time they lose that theme and get cheap and lazy and start turning out garbage.  There's no more history on the history channel Just these  sort of contrived Pawn Stars….or gator hunter hill billy swamp people type of shows.  In the last few years of the Biography channel, before it self destructed, they were mostly showing crap like ‘haunted history’ and ‘celebrity ghost stories’. ….thing of that nature. The Discover channel has also been taken over by cheap reality type of shows as well and many scientists have called “B.S.” some of their science documentaries.  There hasn't been any  music or music videos on MTV in years. Sometimes  I’m forced to watch TLC with my wife sometimes….and as far I'm concerned they should take the "L" out of TLC - there is no Learning going on. For that matter there is nothing on any of those brain dead women's channels that can benefit women in any way shape or form.  In fact the opposite…they are very damaging to women. I guess the reason why they are cranking out these shows is because they are real cheap and easy  to make and  there must be an audience .I don't believe the people that make these shows have much creativity or any passion for what they do.

I have gotten lazy nowadays with my TV watching.  I usually don't do anymore surfing and looking for something to watch. I get at least a few hundred channels but I usually watch less than ten of them and what little I watch is recorded on my DVR.  I'm usually  drawn to the old shows of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.  When I watch them  it surprises me the work…expense….and effort it took to make them….the writing….the casting…..location shooting etc. My wife hates them...she tells me that they're “corny”…that maybe true but they make me chuckle and they make me smile.

What you won't see on my webpage is swearing ……and or profanities. It's not that I'm a self righteous prude or anything…..but I hear swearing all day at work…..I hear it when I go to the movies….and I hear it when I watch cable TV….comedians etc etc.  People drop the “F bomb” so much it's lost it's meaning, if it ever had any meaning at all.  I don’t see sex and potty mouthing in the movies as being anything funny or creative…..it's all  just a cheap gimmick and an easy shallow way to make a wave or get a cheap easy laugh.  When I watch old movies or read old books and periodicals, I can really see how our language is devolving; and as far as I'm concerned, swearing does nothing but erode a language even further not to mention cheapen the people who use it.  If an actor, a comedian, or anyone for that matter has to swear to be funny or interesting.....they really aren’t very funny or very interesting.  It's all just a cheap gimmick. 
I slip and fall and swear sometimes when I'm angry……but I sure make a conscience effort not to.

Eleventh Musing ... My Take on Fads and Bandwagons

I enjoy watching movies like the next person, but there’s things about many of the movies nowadays that just get under my skin.  It seems to me that Hollywood has become very shallow, lazy, and repetitive when it comes to writing, casting and producing movies.  Here are some of my observations.


Romantic comedies:  I’ve heard that lately, for better or worse, romantic comedies (otherwise known as chick flicks) have gone out of style, but here’s my take on them anyway.  I am married to a hopeless romantic and naturally as a result I was forced to watch many chick flicks.   My wife now openly admits that she has lost interest in watching romantic comedies because being married to me has basically given her a romance reality check. (In other words, she has come to realize that the movie stuff just isn’t real.)
Romantic comedies always seem to be the same.  The characters are always living a yuppie artsy-fartsy professional, big city lifestyle.  The story always starts out with two completely different people hating each other, but you don’t have to be a psychic to know that is going to change. At some point they finally hook up, and get romantically involved, and then suddenly one of them commits an ultimate act of betrayal against the other and it starts going downhill from there.  It turns out that the act of betrayal was committed for a good reason or was a misunderstanding, and it all comes together in the end.


Action movies:   These high-powered Hollywood action movies that just keeps getting cranked out were amusing when I was a kid, but I’ve really grown to dislike them.  I’m referring to these ‘Die Hard’ jug head shallow infallible hero action movies that Hollywood just seems to keep making over and over.  They are usually full of endless clichés that movie makers just keep recycling over and over.  The hero and the bad guys always seem to be involved in high speed action filled car chases in the middle of busy crowded cities, and they never ever seem to hurt or kill a bystander or pedestrian.  At the end of the movie, there always seems to be a grand finale fight. The fearless infallible hero first systematically one after the other, fights and kills all the bad guys who are employed by the villain and finally the hero faces the villain and after many close calls, the hero finally and very dramatically slays the villain and saves the day.  I must admit that I will watch a chick flick over one of these shallow cheesy “shoot-em” up action movies any day. 
The worst action movies by far are the ones where beautiful women are the action heroes.    I’m talking about action packed movies where the very beautiful perfectly groomed, skinny 110-pound petite woman does amazing high-speed acrobatic fight scenes and literally beats the daylights out of big tough two and three hundred-pound men.  If I would have to pick the person to punch or kick me in the face I would pick one of these skinny petite hottie women.  I’ve heard that many feminist women have this misguided notion that these sort of ridiculous completely phony action movies empower women.
I can’t leave out the CGI (computer generated imagery) graphics action movies.  Some are decent, but for the most part I have trouble making it through most of them as they seem like high quality cartoons to me. This technology has unleashed the movie industry, as entire imaginary virtual worlds can now be easily created.  There are no longer any limits, and basically anything is now possible.   This technology has become so over used in movies that nothing is amazing anymore.   The technology has outrun the talent and creativity and watching one CGI special effect after the other gets awfully boring.   I believe that movie makers make these movies because they have gotten lazy. These movies are generally poorly written, have bad storylines, and require very little location shooting, effort or imagination to make.  My wife recently made me watch the newest ‘Avengers’ movie and I have to say that It was by far the worst super hero action movie that I have ever had the misfortune of watching.

Comedies:   I always say that comedy movies are by far the most difficult to make.  A comedy must encompass many things to work.   It must have a good storyline, good writing, the right director, very good delivery of the material, and most of all the perfect cast that has real chemistry with each other.  If you look closely at the most successful comedy movies and TV shows in the past, it is obvious that they probably would not have worked with a different cast.  Hollywood makes some decent comedies once in a great while, but most have no depth and are slapped together.In my opinion the best form of comedy by far is observational comedy: comedy that is based on the aspects of the world, and everyday life.  There is no better example than the ‘Seinfeld’ show.  Good comedy doesn’t have to be invented or made up......it’s all around us.  Life is a comedy.   
Good ideas in general are everywhere, you just need to know how to spot them and incorporate them into the screenplay.

In my opinion Hollywood needs a return to quality, basics and simplicity.  Good stories, writing, talent, and acting and not the clichés and cheap gimmicks that the industry has become notorious for is what will fix Hollywood.  The movie industry should make more quality movies like ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, ‘Walk the line’, ‘Jersey Boys’, ‘Dead Poets Society’, ‘Tropic Thunder’, and, most of all, ‘Star Wars’ (the movie that captured my imagination as a young boy,  and made it run wild).

I’m a hobby script writer.  My wife encouraged me to start writing scripts after growing tired of listening to me constantly complaining and critiquing the shallow movies that Hollywood keeps cranking out. I’m on my fifth script and have ideas for my sixth and seventh.  Apart from trout fishing with my wife, it’s the best hobby I’ve ever had.

First Musing ... my take on swearing 

Thirteenth Musing ... My Take on Gun Control

I've noticed throughout my life that people in general have it out for the big evil powerful oil companies.  For the last 70 years or so there's been conspiracies stories circulating about the oil companies suppressing gas saving tech. Many of these urban myths are passed down from generation to generation. In the eighties and nineties I use to hear variations of the same stories that my dad heard in the fifties.    You know which ones....the garage mechanic who invented a carburetor that could make a 1965 Cadillac boat get 60 mpg and the oil companies bought the invention from him so the technology wouldn't get out. There has been many urban myths like that and any modern automotive engineer would probably tell that even with today’s technology things like that are physically impossible.  Then there's another popular conspiracy theory that the government is working together with the oil companies to suppress gas saving technology because the government wants the tax dollars and the oil companies want to sell gas.  I think the car companies are in on it too....actually they have to be.
The ones who really hate the oil companies are the liberals....the greenies...the hippies ...people like that. They love to blame pollution...global warming....high gas prices so on and so forth on the oil companies. In my opinion these people are so caught up in their idealism that it makes them plain stupid.   For your information the oil companies didn't invent the combustion engine....they don't build the cars or the trucks, trains, planes. They just make the products that fuel them.  Many of these hypocritical greenies actually drive their cars to the refineries to protest the refining of oil....not to mention heating their homes with some kind of petroleum product...and using plastic products.
In general everyone blames the oil companies for high fuel prices. I think it's ignorant and naïve to believe that the oil and fuel prices will stay low and affordable. Sooner or later for whatever economic or political reason gas prices will cycle up and then down. People should think about that when they buy a vehicle. In my opinion high fuel prices is the bitter antidote to force us to usher in new technology and make us change our old wasteful ways.  A wise man once told me "some good things can come out of a crisis."

I'm not saying that oil companies are Lilly white, but the notion that they run the world suppress fuel saving technology causing all the pollution and control everything is just another load of bunk that just keeps getting recycled from generation to generation.The next time you drive to work....fly in a plane...pick up groceries...mow your lawn or drive to the hippie organic sustainable market, be sure to thank an oil company and/or your local oil refinery for making it possible.


Sixth Musing ... My take on Ethanol & Bio Fuel

Back in the day most Americans watched the same news on TV as well as more or less the same programs and shows.  TV back then was sort of designed for the whole family as well as every segment of society.  When cable came along things started changing.  TV became tailored for different age groups as well as different segments of society.  This is all fine and dandy and was bound to happen sooner or later. When things change sometimes we have to embrace it.  The thing about this change that I can't embrace is how polarized much of our cable news has become.  Both liberals and conservatives no longer watch the same news ... they watch the news that they believe in...the one that tells them what they want hear.  These liberal and conservative news network talking heads really do a good job of making it look like they are shining the true light on America, but what they are really doing is dividing America like  it has never been divided before.  I hear people in person or read their postings on Facebook from people who are politically charged up by the rhetoric that's being spoon  fed to them by these news networks. I'm amazed at how many of them just believe in their network whole-heartedly  as being the gospel truth and the other one as being a big pack of lies.

In conclusion, I believe that the American public is just as divided as the government that they are complaining about.  It is my belief that these news stations are, to a large degree, responsible.  They are  dividing the country and making it harder and harder for our leaders to govern it. I just wish people would wake up and smell the coffee.

One thing I find very funny is how everyone loves to hate ethanol.  It's very rare where most everyone including liberals and conservatives are somewhat in agreement on the same thing.
The thing is though is that these groups all hate it for different reasons.  The liberal greenies hate ethanol for two reasons. The first reason is because they are against just about any kind of industrial economic step forward or human progress in general and the second reason being is that they believe that the land should be used for growing food crops instead of fuel crops.
The conservative rednecks hate it they love their old fashioned pure gasoline and they look at ethanol as being a greenies hippie mandate that has been imposed on them.  They will come up with many so called facts and figures of how ethanol takes more energy, water and resources to make than it's worth. The small engine manufactures hate it because of all problems that it causes in the small engines and all the development that they have to do to fix the problems. I think the only ones who love ethanol are the makers of fuel stabilizer additives that people have to use to protect their small engines from its damaging effects. They're making money hand over fist on it.  Actually the problems that they are having with ethanol in engines is reminiscent of the problems they had with unleaded gasoline when it first came out in the 1970s.
I find it ironic that as long as I can remember and long before my generation the people have been talking against the government and the evil powerful oil companies suppressing all the gas saving technology...forcing us to use petroleum and so forth. These people have been saying something to the effect of: “we don't have to be pumping oil out of the ground....we can grow our fuel....the technology has been here for a long time. It's the government and oil companies are suppressing it."  I was watching a rerun of 'The Dukes of Hazard' from the 70's a while back and Uncle Jesse's made moon shine that cars could run off of and totally solve the 70's gas crisis.
But wouldn't you know it the oil companies were out to destroy Uncle Jesse's idea. The show’s writers basically incorporated the 70s oil crisis and an age old conspiracy theory into their show.

Actually running engines on bio fuel is nothing new. Henry Ford experimented with running his first cars on alcohol. Rudolf Diesel the inventor of the Diesel engine planned on using vegetable oil to run the his engines. Unfortunately his body was found floating in the North Sea.....he was believed to have been murdered. Many conspiracy theorists believe that he was murdered by the oil companies so that they could sell petroleum oil instead of bio fuel.  It's always those oil companies isn't it?  What I'm trying to say here is bio fuel or ethanol has been around since the beginning of the automotive and diesel industry and the concept of using it has been toyed around with for many years.  Boeing is one of the many companies today that has been experimenting with bio jet fuel but at the moment jet fuel made from petroleum is by far the easiest and cheapest to make.
Another alternative bio fuel is what is known as biomass...which is just a fancy name for fuel derived from living plants.  The first time I ever really heard the term 'biomass' is when my wife and I put in a wood pellet stove in our home. Any type of wood, or corn etc. burning stove is considered 'biomass stove. Although there are many there are many plants that can be grown and used for biomass fuel wood is still the most common. The biggest problem with using biomass heating fuel on a large scale is that it is it is twice as expensive as natural gas and is much harder to produce.  Another problem with biomass is like every other possible step forward and or solution to our problems the greenie tree hugger cranks are against it. In recent years it has come under big fire from Greenpeace because it would mean farming our forests or using land that could be used for food crops instead.
Finally I have come to the conclusion that the greenies are against just about everything in the way of solutions and human progress in general and at some point we have to move forward, just do things and let them live in the dark.

Bio fuel is most likely not going away.....in fact it might even be the next revolution.
We should just live with it and embrace it.

Fourth Musing ... My take on the Great Recession & Alan Greenspan 

my own thoughts, feelings and opinions

Eighth Musing ... My take on the Moon Landing Hoax Theory

My wife and I went through an old medieval church while traveling in Europe and I overheard a tour guide explaining to the tourists why the straw used in the church was still in such good condition after all this time.  She explained that the wheat at that time was still natural organic and in its purest form and that the straw from the modern hybrid wheat could not stand the test of time like the ancient
natural straw did.  She also went on to say that modern wheat doesn't have the nutritional value of old wheat.  That all sounded very convincing and compelling and I'm sure that everyone believed her but
what she didn't say was that in the medieval times when the whole world was organic crop failures and food shortages were common.  The natural organic medieval feudal farming methods barely produced enough food to feed the local populous never mind produce surpluses and export food.  The peasant farmers were always at the mercy of the weather....pests...and blights etc.  One of those factors could very easily cause a crop failure and cause food shortages. I'm sure people prayed a lot back then.  Back then food was all produced locally organically and naturally and If the local soil was deficient certain minerals the people's bodies were deficient as well.....and that goes on to my next point.  Another thing that the tour guide failed to mention is that in those natural feudal organic times people were very lucky if they reached 30 years of age.  That would suck for me because I would most likely be dead already.

In one Old Testament bible story most of the Middle East was plagued with seven years of famine and out of sheer need and desperation Jacob had to send his sons on a dangerous journey across the desert from Canaan to prosperous Egypt to buy food.  Crop failure due to pests, drought, etc. was common in ancient times.  If Jacob lived in a plagued area today in the modern world he would not had to have sent his sons on a dangerous journey to buy food.  He would only have had to have sent them to the local Costco where the food is conveniently transported in from other more plentiful regions or countries.   People today take the abundance of food and food transport for granted.....we have no idea how good we have it and we have no idea what it's like to go without food.  A few years ago much of the American Midwest farm belt was stricken with drought and wheat production was well below average.  Fortunately Canada was able to pick up the slack and wheat was shipped down to the states. No desperate father had to send his sons on a long dangerous journey to buy food.

I've been buying some locally grown food from time to time long before it became a big fad. Locally grown fruit and vegetables in most cases is fresher and better tasting and it's fun and entertaining to go to the farmers markets......not to mention that it's good for the local economy.  Make no mistake about though in this day and age we need large scale food transport to supply the massive cities and population with the food they need.  Prince Charles is jumping on the band wagon and has been leading a campaign to make the world organic. I have to say that his ignorance is only proceeded by his worthless existence. He should stick to dinner parties and luring tourists into England. Making a return to an organic world would be making a return to the dark ages of farming. Every idealistic organic person including prince Charles should study the potato famine in Ireland that starved more than a million people simply because the local and organic farming methods of that time.

Sometimes I'm on both sides of the fence.  When I read about the advances that are being made in agriculture nowadays....genetically engineering crops and animals it scares me just like it scares the
self righteous organic hippies. The rate of change in agriculture is so fast that it's hard to keep up with it.  Companies like Monsanto are playing God and changing the world real fast.  I find myself
wondering where it will all lead to.

Nevertheless, the population of the world is increasing at such a fast rate and the need for advances in agriculture and large scale farming is more important than ever.  This means large scale mechanized farming using fertilizers to increase yields and pesticides to kill blights and pests.....thus preventing massive crop failures and food shortages like in the organic ancient times. 

I have a small ’organic’ hobby orchard on my yard consisting of just a few fruit trees on my place. Some years I have more apples than I know what to do with and other years I have practically none at all.  I recently cut down both of my apricot trees because they became real sick and just would not recover.  I don't worry much about it because I have a grocery store just a few miles away....and I won't go hungry.  I talked to a local hazelnut farmer a few weeks ago and he told me that the hazelnut trees in the area have been hit real hard by a natural blight that has nearly wiped out his yields.  He also told me that the farmers are working together and with the pesticide companies to find a solution.  It's no big deal we can all live without hazelnuts and apples.....but my point is the same.   The farmers can’t make a living with these constant hit and miss years nor can they supply the huge population with the food they need.

I want to live in a world where there's an abundance of food available.

Fifth Musing ... My take on TV

Second Musing ... my take on movies  

Ninth Musing ... My Take on the Oil Companies

The fact that we put a man the moon still never ceases to amaze me after all this time.  I consider it to be one of the greatest human achievements of all time.   It amazes me that we went from the Wright brothers’ first powered flight to putting a man on the moon in only 60 years.  Just think about that.   I read once that when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first walked on the moon that the crime rate throughout the industrialized world nearly went down to zero.  (If that what keeps the crime rate down, then we should keep a guy up there - lol.)

Ever since the first moon landings there have been some people who believed it never happened. I understand that Cuba had been teaching in the schools that the moon landings were faked.  The whole moon hoax theory never got real popular until Fox TV network broadcasted the documentary show ‘Did we land on the moon?’ The show was based on the premise that the moon landings were faked to win the space race with the former Soviet Union.

I watched it with an open mind and I have to admit that some aspects of the hoax theory do seem to hold some water but never the less in my opinion it is more fantasy than anything else.

First I'd like to say that the moon landing achievement is like every other big thing in history for the simple reason that there are doubting Thomas people who believe it never happened.  For example there are people who believe that the holocaust never happened even though there is irrefutable evidence proving that it did. If you ever get to know a moon hoaxer you will find that they are most likely conspiracy minded people in general.  They may also believe things like that the World Trade Center destruction and the Oklahoma City bombing were inside jobs and will come up with so called evidence to support their theories. I'm not a psychologist or anything but it seems to me that it's sort of a mind block. Unfortunately there are TV documentaries and many internet sites that help feed these people.

Moon landing hoaxers believe that the U.S. Government hired Hollywood director Stanley Kubrick to film the fake moon landings.  I don't know much about filming a movie but one thing I do know is that it takes a lot of people to build the sets and make the whole movie process happen.   There’s a lot of people right there that have to somehow be silenced?  Furthermore when you look at space science fiction shows and movies made in the 1960s they look so ridiculously hokey that you just have to laugh at them.

Moon hoaxers believe that the astronauts were launched into earths orbit and that's where they stayed and while the soviets and scientists around the world were watching NASA miraculously faked the rest of it.  They also believe that the reflectors that the astronauts left up there were not put up there by the astronauts at all but were put afterwards by unmanned robotic spacecrafts.   The truth of the matter is putting anything in space whether it’s a simple satellite or a manned spacecraft takes an enormous amount of people, companies and resources not just a few people working at NASA.  Now that other countries have orbited the moon and taken pictures from the moons orbit of the moon landings artifacts left there the moon hoaxers are claiming that those photos are sketchy and faked as well.  That means other countries are going along with the hoax as well.  Some moon landing hoaxers are now claiming that NASA had plenty of time to put fake artifacts on the moon.  Like I said earlier putting anything in space takes a lot of resources so sending a spacecraft to the moon to put the reflectors or fake artifacts in place would take yet another massive coverup involving thousands of people.

It boggles my mind to think that these moon hoaxers believe that the U.S.  Government could orchestrate and keep a lid on a massive moon landing hoax.  It included six manned moon landing missions, an estimated 400,000 people, hundreds of companies, and worldwide exposure.  And they couldn't even keep a lid on a little top secret highly classified thing like water boarding.

Seventh Musing ... My take on Organic and Local

Third Musing ... My take on Modern News Media 


Twelfth Musing ... My Take on Partisanship

I remember it very clearly in the mid to late 1990's when the stock market was booming.  The guys at work were all talking about how much money their various retirement investments were making.  An investment broker came to our job and told us "don't be afraid of the stock market”. There was so much optimism in the air that the president was even talking about investing the money in the social security fund in the stock market.  At that time the news media served as cheerleaders for Wall Street fueling the hype. I was always skeptical of the boom back then.  I suspected that there was something artificial about the stock market.........I never believed it was real and I never believed that property prices could rise 15 to 20% a year and sustain that.  History, wisdom, and common sense will tell us that whenever there's a boom there's going to be a bust; especially when the boom isn't real in the first place.  When the walls came tumbling down in 2008 my wife accused me of being "smug" and "gloating" over it...sort of an 'I told you so" attitude.  There might have been some truth to that.


In that time I became fascinated with the Recession and started researching it. I came to the conclusion that the crash was caused by years of reckless deregulation. In a small nutshell the government basically let the banks and Wall Street run wild.  It's something like taking the referee out of the ball game. In the  booming late 90's the stock market was running almost completely without any kind of government oversight much like it was in the roaring 20's before the crash of 29.  In the 1990s depression era laws like the Glass Stiegel act that were originally put into place to prevent things like this from happening again were senselessly repealed.  In 1995 president Clinton loosened the housing rules putting pressure on the banks to loan money to people who had no business buying a houses or taking out credit (Community Reinvestment Act). This was a colossal mistake. Legalized lawlessness on Wall Street was rampant. Even the rating companies that rate the stocks & companies were working their magic manipulating figures artificially pumping them up.  The insurance companies  that insured the mighty banks were so mismanaged and heavily invested in the crashing markets that they didn't have anywhere near the assets to cover the banks staggering losses. (Where were the auditors?) As for our other leaders that were in office at the time most had no idea that the country and the world was sitting on top of a ticking time bomb. Most had never heard of derivatives ....or what credit default swaps were or that there was any big problem at all. They all believed that the messiah Allan Greenspan knew what he was doing and would take care of things.  After all what political leader in their right mind wants to put a damper on a robust economy? The economy and most of the financial sector was a giant house of cards and the sub prime real estate bubble was the card on the very bottom.

Greenspan's Orgy of Recklessness
There was a time when I thought Greenspan was alright. That changed one night while watching the news when I heard him say something to the effect that the U.S. had more of a "flexible economy” than most other countries and as a result was more recession proof and that he didn't think that the real estate was a bubble. What an arrogant thing to say.  Recession proof economy is like an unsinkable ship or an earthquake proof city.....there's no such thing....and as far as the real estate insanity was concerned there was no doubt in my mind that it would eventually fall on top of itself.
If you do any type of research on who is to blame for the Great Recession, Alan Greenspan will almost always be at the top of the list.  He was once nicknamed "The Maestro".....or "The Oracle" and we made the mistake of giving him a messiah like status.   In reality Greenspan was in there for way too long.....he had way too much power and the public and our leaders had way to much faith in him ........All those things in themselves  can be dangerous.  Greenspan came from the school and was a disciple of Ayn Rand and his Randian philosophies helped create a corrupted laissez faire climate on Wall Street that nearly crashed the world. He believed that corruption and greed in itself would check itself and would actually keep financial sector in check without any government oversight or involvement. He flooded the world with low interest money.....he kept the interest rates down for too long ...recklessly deregulated the financial sector ignored all the warning signs and as a result was very instrumental in causing the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression.


In 2008 President Bush under a lot of pressure signed the 'Emergency Stabilization Act of 2008' commonly referred to as "government bailout of the U.S. Financial system". Both liberals, conservatives, republicans and democrats were very much opposed to this. The angry question was "why should the tax payer have to pay for the banks mismanagement!!?"  Let the truth be known that the markets around the world were in a free fall and the American economy was on the brink of a complete meltdown. That translates into the banks not opening, credit stopping, A.T.M. machines being turned off....possibly soup lines and “Hoovervilles” all over again. There would have been real day of reckoning had the government not taken quick action. Most people have no idea how close we really came.

The part of the Great Recession that I have the hardest time wrapping my head around is the foolishness of it all.  When the banks failed and the stock market crashed in 1929.....the country slid into the Great Depression, America had an excuse.  Capitalism was fairly new and experimental and the leaders and lawmakers back then had no way of knowing its pitfalls.  This time around was inexcusable. It never ceases to amaze me our inability to learn from our own past mistakes. Like I said earlier whenever there's a boom there's going to be a bust or a downturn....and that is something that will never change.  In booming times people tend to turn a blind eye to corruption and crooked business in general.  Funny....when the good times are rolling how short sighted people can be.  

Two of my favorite quotes that sum up the Great Recession. 

Bill Clinton "Every American should own a house."
Alan Greenspan "Government regulation cannot substitute for individual integrity."


Final Thought - The invisible hand of the free market needs the visible hand of a strong central government to keep it in check or capitalism will destroy itself.
  

I just walked over to my gun safe to count how many guns I own, and I counted seven.  Even though I don't shoot them much anymore I take them out from time to time just to look at them. Most of them are from my childhood, and I get a little emotional when I handle them because they played a role in shaping me.
I've noticed that the gun culture in America has changed a lot since I was a kid.  Back then most of all the guns were traditional sporting rifles and pistols; whereas, nowadays, these rapid fire, military assault type of weapons make up a large percentage of the guns out there.  Back then most gun owners seldom mentioned the second amendment.......today it has become the biggest over used buzz term in America. Another big change I've noticed is this sort of cowboy Wild West, self-protection, concealed pistol carrying kick that many gun owners seem to be on. I don’t remember people carrying loaded concealed pistols to the malls or to McDonald's back then. I don't think people even thought about doing something like that. 

The gun control issue is a lot like the abortion issue...it is very politically charged and there doesn't seem to be a lot of middle ground.  Both sides are very passionate about what they believe.  On one side of the argument many people believe in background checks and waiting periods or that guns should at least be registered.   There are some liberals who believe that answer to gun violence is that guns should be taken away and outlawed to the public. On the other far right many gun owners believe that the problem is with the people and not the guns at all.  They believe that the gun laws should stay exactly the same as they were in the Wild West and that the answer to gun violence and keeping America safe is having everyone constantly armed with guns.    Both sides are always using a lot of so called facts, percentages and statistics to give their arguments validity.  Facts, percentages and statistics can be swayed in any direction to support any argument and that's why I never pay any attention to them.  
In recent years   the words "constitutional" and "unconstitutional" have become popular gun owner buzzwords and they just love to tout either one of those two words to support their case on guns or case on anything that they agree or disagree with.  

The truth of the matter is that the second amendment is usually the only thing that John Q redneck actually knows about the constitution.  (Really...Just try asking one).   There seems to be a lot of paranoia within the gun owners and the NRA. They tend think that any gun law that the government proposes is a direct violation of their second amendment right or is part of a sinister plot and the first step to eventually take away their guns.
Then there's the bedwetters.... the left.... the MSNBC watchers.   Many of them are trying to redefine the second amendment by saying that it has been misinterpreted and that 'the right to bear Arms' means something different.  I'm pretty sure that the definition of the second amendment is very straight forward and irrefutable.   Outlawing guns and taking them away would do nothing but create a prohibition style lawlessness and just make law abiding people outlaws. Most of all it would turn many people against the government and authority. It would be a disaster in America just like the prohibition was.

The laws have always been changing in America to adjust to changing times and address new problems.  For example, there was a time when anyone could buy dynamite explosives without any type of license. There was a time when anyone could drive without a driver’s license or insurance.  Not long ago drones were deemed to be harmless tech toys but in recent years they have become serious safety and security concerns, and now new laws are needed to monitor and regulate them.   I could go on and on.   Just think what a disaster it would be to go back to a time when just anybody off the street could buy dynamite. It amazes me that the gun owners and the NRA just think that the gun laws should stay the same as they were a hundred years ago.
I believe that the NRA should just accept the fact that the times are always changing and like everything else so will the gun laws.  The NRA and the gun lobby should start working with the government instead of constantly working against them. They should cooperate and work on passing gun laws that enables law abiding people to own guns.   If the NRA and the gun lobby continues to be so defiant, the government will someday take action on its own and the NRA and we as gun owners will all lose in the end.

My wife and I were traveling a few years ago and it seemed like everywhere we stayed people would give us the nastiest tasting red wine. We both hoped that at some point in time that we would get some pleasant tasting red wine but it just never happened. When we finally reached our thresh hold and had enough we simply threw the wine in the toilet. I'm not sure why the wine snobs like to drink wine that tastes like cough medicine....an acquired taste I guess.

Wine snobbery is one thing that I find funny and bugs me at the same time. Drinking wine seems to give snob appeal and a feeling of sophistication and culture to many people. I see this pretentiousness in people I know, and I see it on TV or at various wine tasting events.  I really get a kick out of out of watching these wine tasting shows on TV.....first opening the bottle and letting it breath.....then pouring a small amount in a glass...now make sure that it's the proper glass. Heaven forbid we would want to pour a Shiraz into a Pinot Noir glass.  Then comes the most pretentious part of all where they smell the wine by moving a glass in circular motion under their big noses....and then tell each other what a good wine it is.  It would actually make a good skit on Saturday night live.

That's another thing ....What is the definition of a good wine? I always ask.  We are all different and we all have different taste....we all prefer different wine. Try telling a wine snob about a sweet wine like Riesling, it's down there with coke and Mountain Dew.  Then there's the food and wine drinking protocol...what kind of wine to drink with a certain food. This is when it gets really gets stupid and confusing....you almost have to use google to figure this one out.
When my wife and I entertain we usually put two or three bottles of different kinds of wine on the table and we let our guests decide which one they want to drink.  I am certainly not going to punish all my guests with prestigious red wine that tastes like cold medicine.


The natural cork is another pretentious thing that wine snobs like to blow out of proportion.  They will tell you bunk like the natural cork enables the "wine to breath" so on and so forth. The wine industry has hated the natural cork for a long time because they're expensive, inconsistent and costs wineries a lot of money due to wine spoiling. 
Wine drinking is so tradition bound wine snobs insisted on the natural cork and as a result the wine makers were reluctant to use artificial corks.  When the dollar went down some time ago the imported corks became very expensive many of the wine makers finally made a break for it and started using the far superior artificial corks and since then they never looked back.


Another thing I've noticed about wine over the years is that there always seems to be a new popular wine region that all the wine snobs are drinking wine from.  Back in the 80's the California wines won a lot of awards and everyone was drinking California wines. At one point the Australian wines were the rage and then the wine made from high altitude Andean grapes from Chile was a big gimmick and or bandwagon that wine drinkers were jumping on. I wonder where the next gimmick wine region will be.


The thing that wine snobs will ignore is that time after time expensive prestigious wines almost never win any independent taste tests around the country and nobody can truly distinguish between wine made from high altitude grapes from Chile or from wine made from sea level grapes.  It's all just good marketing combined with lot of pretentious bunk.


At the end of the day, good wine is all about personal preference.

Back in the day, party lines meant sharing a phone line with some of your neighbors. Back then party lines meant you could eavesdrop on your neighbors and even get yourself in trouble.  Nowadays it has taken on a whole new meaning.  I've noticed that political party lines just seem to hypnotize people and put them under a certain spell.  Thus still getting people in trouble…so to speak.

Even though I have a republican lean, I consider myself a swing voter. I usually tell people that I “vote for the person and not the party.” I voted for a democratic governor twice in my state simply because I thought he was by far the best candidate. I have also voted for other democrats in the past but not very many as I tend to agree with republican philosophies more than democrats.  That being said, if a democrat does or says something that I agree with I’ll be the first one to step up and give him or her credit.  Just because I didn’t vote for or don't like a certain politician doesn't mean I can't agree with him on some things.  I dislike the current bed wetting governor in my state with absolutely every single fiber of my being. Nevertheless, I have to admit that from time to time when he opens his mouth I do agree with him.

One thing that really bugs me is people who only think, feel, and vote along party lines.  I see it everywhere and all the time.  These stubborn die-hard party people will demonize politicians from the opposing party and disagree with everything they say or do regardless if they agree with it or not.  If a politician from the opposing party happens to do or say something that they might otherwise agree with, they will accuse them of political grandstanding or having a hidden agenda. Sometimes I believe that many people are so die-hard that they would actually vote for a monkey if he belonged to their party.

The biggest problem when people only vote along their party lines is it can, in some cases, prevent the better candidate from getting into office. Furthermore, constantly having the same party in power can make a government lazy and stale. The liberal and conservative cable news networks aren't helping matters any as they're playing a big role in brainwashing voters against the opposing party and/or anything they propose (see my third musing). I've also noticed that many of these idealistic one track minded party people will take the traditional, conventional cultural views of their party without even attempting to look at the bigger picture.  For example I can't figure out for the life of me why republicans typically are against public transit systems being built in my area.  Even though our local bussing transit systems isn't a money maker, it gives many elderly and disabled people freedom to go about their business. Nevertheless republican people just seem to appose it. Try to talk to a republican about linking the cities with high speed trains. They seem to believe that we should just keep building more roads, bigger highways and just keep driving our cars.

In the same light global warming seems to be a very democrat thing. Nowadays democrats always seem to blame just about every single extreme weather event on global warming.

If the weather event involves heavy rain, twisters, hurricanes etc. democrats will call it ‘climate change’.  If the weather event involves drought, heat waves, warm winters they will call it ‘global warming’.  Last but not least if the extreme weather event involves cold, they will say nothing at all. If Mother Nature doesn't fully cooperate and give us what we need, when we need it, our democrat leaders will say this is “the new norm.”  These are just two of the many party line examples that are are pretty much straight across the board.

 Our country was founded and built on compromise; only nowadays our political leaders and voters just don't want to budge on their party idealism and issues that they believe in.  If we want to continue to move forward and elect people to move us forward, this has to change. This really has to change.