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2006 Archives
April 3, 2006:
Children:
Most people do not believe in children. I do not know one person
who believes in children. Everyone I know believes children have
to be forced, driven, and bullied into learning what we think
is good for them. I believe that is absolutely wrong. I believe
in children. I believe children, when invited, will exceed the
wildest expectations any dull minded conditioned adult could
possibly conceive. I think the reason adult do not believe in
children is they have been so conditioned themselves they do
not believe in themselves. With that handicap, how could they
believe in their kids or anyone else's kids? So, they will continue
to destroy children's minds and make our kids just like they
are. It is probably a case of protecting their own egos.
I find myself even more alone that I thought. It seems I am
the only person in the universe who believes in children. Not
even my wife believes I am right. Now I am sure I know exactly
how Nietzsche felt. He lived in a universe of completely blind
people. He was the only one who could see. It was almost as though
his contemporaries consciously refused to see. Perhaps he might
have wished to be blind himself. It would be less frustrating
and painful. Unfortunately, pretending to not see the obvious
is impossible for a thoughtful person regardless of the emotional
cost.
Schweitzer:
This guy is the governor of Montana. He toured Stephanopolous
around Glacier National Park in his official chopper. There is
no doubt the Glaciers are melting. The gov said there used to
be hundreds of them, now there are only a couple of dozen. The
rest have melted. This, we are told, is the effect of global
warming cause by the ongoing excessive use of fossil fuels. The
carbon dioxide is screwing up the atmosphere and causing a so-called
greenhouse effect.
What to do? The gov has a solution. He wants to convert Montana's
coal to liquid fuel. It burns cleaner, he says. The Michigan
farmers have a different solution. They want to convert corn
and soybeans to fuel and burn it. Mrs. Gaffer agrees with me
on this. If there was a God, these guys would go to hell for
burning food when people are starving all over the world. There
is another guy in Virginia or West Virginia who also want to
convert coal. Then there are the windmill nuts.
If it were not for harebrained solutions we would probably
not have any solutions. I will offer my own harebrained solution
to the mess. I still think we should be investing research dollars
into learning how to control nuclear fusion. Nuclear fission
is inherently dirty. We know that. Nuclear fusion is not. The
problem is, most of our funds are going to wealthy American oil
barons to find more oil to melt more glaciers and raise the water
level of the ocean. If we melt enough ice cover, we can forget
about New Orleans. We won't be able to build dykes high enough.
C Sections:
Doctors are now performing C Sections to deliver babies for no
particular reason. If a woman wants to have her kid born on a
particular day at a particular time, no problem. We'll just do
a C Section. Pardon me, but I think that's crazy. The women who
do it are crazy and the doctors who do it are unethical. Medicine
is supposed to be to save lives, not to risk lives for convenience.
What happened to the old ethic, "Above all, do no harm"?
Of course, the doctors gets more money for a C Section than they
do for a normal delivery.
Carroll:
She has been freed. The media showed her to us after her release
so we know it's true. She was dressed up like an Arab and she
was saying too many good things about the people who kidnaped
her and killed her translator. I don't like it at all. Those
people are butchers. If she is still talking that way when she
is safe at home, I will be very disappointed.
Delphi:
They have asked the bankruptcy judge to throw out their labor
contract. This is a contract they negotiated and agreed to when
times were good. They want the workers to work for $16.00 per
hour now. Figure it out, 16 X 2080. That's about 30 grand a year.
That's about 3 grand less than a Flint cop gets, but is it a
living wage? Depends on who you ask. The workers say no, but
the cops were glad to get a raise to 33 grand. A couple of weeks
ago they were getting by on 26 grand. That's for walking around
with a target on their chest. I wouldn't do it for twice what
they get.
It's all about perspective. These Delphi, ex GM, workers are
used to living real high on the hog and 30 grand is a very large
comedown. They would like to go back to the good old days of
no competition when GM could sell any old tin can with wheels.
Now they can't do that. They have to produce cars people want
and they have failed at that. Who's fault is that? I'd say it's
managements fault, but that's just my perspective. I'm sure,
if you asked the managers, they would tell you they are really
swell guys.
Prayer:
In the Delphi story they showed us some workers outside a Delphi
plant standing in a prayer ring. They were holding hands and
had their eyes closed. They said they were going to a higher
authority. Good luck! I think they might have better luck by
looking for work in another company, probably in another state.
Starting over is tough. I know. I have done it twice. However,
the alternative may be even tougher.
Meanwhile, a small filler piece on the ABC evening news was
about some so-called scientific tests to determine if prayer
works. The conclusion was, it does not work, but I am convinced
their test was flawed. They showed us gangs of people in churches
being lead in prayer by a pompous looking priest or some such.
Of course that didn't work. They were praying in the wrong way,
in the wrong place, and probably for the wrong things. Selfishness
does not work in prayer. However, I am convinced serious benevolent
prayer can be effective. I also think it is not because of some
God. It has to do with psychic energy. Read all about it in my
next book, "A Place to Stand."
Me Too:
It seems like everyone in American was pulling for the most notable
underdog in recent history. I speak of the basketball team of
George Mason University of Fairfax, Virginia. I would not take
anything away from those kids, but there are some other good
reasons to think well of this school. To begin with, it is named
for the great American Statesman George Mason. Of course, no
one ever heard of George Mason before this basketball triumph.
That is the unique problem of being a great person at a time
when there were dozens of great people. We should be so lucky
now. Mason lived at the time of George Washington, Alexander
Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, to name just a
few. Even so, he was a great statesman and George Mason is a
fine school. Here is your chance to blow the dust off of that
encyclopedia and learn something about George Mason University,
George Mason, education, and American history.
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2006 Archives
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