Oh My Gosh, Look at This

 Saturday April 5, 2025

 Isn't this incredible?

People are saying I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. Tariffs, turning our friends to the North, aka Canada, against us, making enemies in the world, saying our country will take theirs, renaming the Gulf of Mexico (its birth name, how can he do that?), shipping off Immigrants who haven't done anything wrong, bashing people who have been out of office for eight years, aka Obama, good heavens, give it up. The way to lead is to win over the people, not antagonize them.

The idea of saying that anyone who voted against the present administration is an enemy is beneath contempt.

I read a good comment in a novel the other day. The chief of a tribe in Africa commented—this was in the 60s when a supposed democratic government tried to be in place, that when you have a vote, he wondered, "How can it be fair?" You have the elders who have been around the block (through the jungle) a few times, and you have the young ones who quickly say, "Let's vote." The elders say we ought to have a discussion. The young ones get impatient, call for a vote, and you end up with a 48 to 52 win. The winner takes all. 

That way half of the country is angry.

On top of it, the leadership in the country was put into effect by outside forces, so it wasn't fair in the first place; chances are unscrupulous people had rigged the voting process, and then a divided country turned on itself, the government cut stipends to workers, people had no money, people were desperate to find food, were dying of starvation, and there was chaos in the land, while the one in power was spending millions building himself a castle.

The chief was trying to get virtually 100% in favor—although that's not possible, but a point to consider.

And so we at home in America have half the country mad at the dismantling that is happening, mad that prices, which they believed would go down, but find instead are going up, tariffs that are angering our shippers of foreign goods of which we need and want, and the increased foreign prices will go to us. Workers of essential jobs are being fired right and left, while the President is taking his entourage and playing golf, and using Air Force One, the plane of which the logistics of is costing taxpayers millions of dollars, and the people go home to have a mental breakdown.

Does that sound like leadership to you?

I'm not saying that some things don't need to change. I'm saying that letting business people run the country, people who are intimidating because of their position so people suck up to them, men who are used to having their way—bosses, you might say—who control their own companies, that negotiate when it means pleasing their suppliers, CEO's who can fire and hire at will, all to save their protect, their money, and to please their stockholders, are not the people to run the country.

 John F Kennedy said that the one who governs best is the best governor. (Open to debate of what "the best" is, , but poignant.) ( How in the world did Martin Luther King Jr. convince a horde of people that non-violent resistance was the way to go?) Oh, we will get healthier; supposedly, anti-vaccers will have their sway, childhood diseases will come back, and what about Diphtheria, Smallpox, and Polio, which were virtually eradicated from the earth?

Well, people, is that what you voted for? All because you didn't like black people or Hispanics, or Immigrants, or the previous administration (You know, throw the bums out principle.) You didn't like the way they were handling the wars overseas or that you thought vaccines were giving children autism. Pharmaceutical companies were overcharging you (they are), and while you are at it, let's discredit Scientists who are working their butts off trying to learn how it all works. And, forget the Forest Rangers trying to manage our wild spaces and the life forms that are precious to us.

This is craziness.

I know most of us felt overwrought and needed to do something, therefore a drastic change occurred. 

 So, you are angry and want to tear things down. Well, go to the dump and beat up an old refrigerator. (Except that will probably get you arrested.)

No, go into your backyard, dig up the soil, and plant some vegetables so you can get fresh, nutritious food that is not sprayed with chemicals. And buy some ladybugs to eat some predators who will love your veggies.  Or keep some bees that will help pollinate those fruit trees you will plant.

And then bring back common decency.

Man oh Man, Don’t let the Present Administration Take Everything Away from Us

 

Look at those magnificent Forest Service Mules.  Try walking over the ground they are walking over.

We fear for their future.  Close down the Forest Service and what happens to them?

Is there nothing the long arm of this present administration can't reach???

Why are we letting this happen?

I am so mad I don't have any saliva left.

 

There  has been a long-standing use of horses and mules in managing the forest, the Parks, and the wild lands.  (Mules can carry more weight than horses and are more sure-footed over treacherous terrains. Horses generally carry a rider.) Think of the Rocky Mountains of the United States.

The forest service is being attacked by the present Administration. 

 Don’t we care about the wilderness or Nature anymore? Are we so stuck up with our gold faucets and following men who can spend their billions on buying people and elections that we can’t see the forest for the trees?

Did we know what we were signing up for when some of us voted for a  President who doesn’t give a flying rat’s ass for the environment, the forest, the health of the planet, or human life—like sending innocents to a horrible jail—now he is going after the animals.

Oh, you didn’t like the previous administration? Well, change it, for crying out loud, but don’t ravish the earth and its people in the process. I thought we had a system for due process of law, but it seems that has changed, too. 

When a man convicted of 34 felonies can walk away, a free man and step right into into the presidency, the highest office in the land it is serious.

"The court was rigged," so said the felon.

Anything against him is rigged, so he says. 

Justice was blindfolded that day.

We didn’t spend 300,000 years evolving to become barbaric. Once, we believed in the advancement of our species. Now, all too many people are falling into lock-step behind the power structure.

What about the rest of us? Oh, we are enemies within. No, we love America. the land of the FREE.  

Remember who we are.  

We brought the Emancipation Proclamation into being. We marched for Peace. We marched for Civil Rights. We marched for votes for Women. We marched for a war we felt was unjust.

We followed a leader who preached Non-violent resistance. That leader patterned his philosophy after a man of color. We voted for Fair Housing, against Gerrymandering, against Segregation. We voted for due process of law. We voted for Women’s rights, for Pro-Choice, not because we believed in killing babies, but to give a woman her right as an individual to make her own choice. Force a man carry a child that he didn’t intend to have or was coerced or forced into conceiving. Force him into a lifetime of caring for that child while making a living and see what happens.

Gee, men, you learned that women were for more than cleaning your house and carrying your babies. A Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Caucasian woman could get a Medical Degree and save your sorry ass.

 In a court of law, women lawyers, red, yellow, black, or white, could get you acquitted.

We discovered that preserving wild spaces was essential to our health and sanity and connected us to something greater than ourselves. We found that as the animals go, so do we. We learned that as we lose touch with nature, we lose our hearts, our souls, our humanity, and our spirituality.

Once we believed in “Send us yours tired, your poor, your hungry masses to breathe free.” Once other countries respected us. Now Canada, our dear friends to the North don't want anything to do with us. Well thanks, but no thanks Mr. President.

Once we cared that our children were saved from the childhood diseases that plagued people my age when we were children. If you can prove that vaccinations are harmful, then fix them so they are good. We learned from the Milkmaids who got a little cow pox and it saved them from getting the full grown version.

(Actually, the principle that have a small doze of a virus can render a person immune to the disease began in 1768 when Dr. John Fewster’s observation of a farmer who did not respond to the vaccination told him that he had cow pox of a vicious degree years earlier. The beautiful skin of the milkmaids is a pretty story, and true, but not the first. It was only when pharmaceutical companies began adding mercury, aluminum or other preservatives to vaccinations that they became suspect. And the Covid 19 was not a true “vaccine”—meaning give a small dose of the virus to create immunity, but dealt with the RNA of the body.)

Most people with smallpox recovered, but about 3 out of every 10 people with the disease died. Many smallpox survivors have permanent scars over large areas of their body, especially their faces. Some are left blind.

 

Thanks to the success of vaccination, smallpox was eradicated, and no cases of naturally occurring smallpox have happened since 1977.

Once, we encouraged our children to go after the arts and the sciences. We believed in the American Dream, that people could accomplish what they set out to do. We believed in progress, and once upon a time, one person could support a household. We could have that again if we weren’t climbing on the backs of each other.

You can see I’m mad. I’ve been waiting for that man in the White House to fall on his face, and he's causing too much damage to wait any longer.

I believed that America was great without some slogan telling us we could be great again, insinuating that we were not.

People bought the lie.

When Donkeys Fly.

 

Some people thought that everything was rotten and that we ought to tear it all down and let Daddy build it back up.

When donkeys fly.

Let's take back our power by listening to that still small voice that says, "What!!!?" "What were you thinking?" 

Remember when we got excited when a President told us that we would send a man to the moon and bring him back safely before the end of the decade? We didn't know how in the world we were going to do that, but smartness rose to the occasion.

We had a vision.

We developed space travel when a leader told us we could. I remember when Sam Shepherd, the first man in space, did a quick up and down, only going into orbit. And I remember Shepherd while suited up and sitting in the space capsule regretted his morning coffee and needed to go to the bathroom. The crew discussed the problem and finally told him to wet his pants.

Remember when John F. Kennedy conceived the idea of the Peace Corps? 

Kennedy, arrived in Michigan at 2 am in the morning, not to speak, but to sleep. When he found himself surrounded by 10,000 students he spoke extemporaneously. Kennedy challenged American youth to devote a part of their lives to living and working in Asia, Africa, and Latin America as a way to foster goodwill and peace. 

Their response was immediate: within weeks students organized a petition drive and gathered 1,000 signatures in support of the idea. Several hundred others pledged to serve. Enthusiastic letters poured into Democratic headquarters. This response was crucial to Kennedy's decision to make the founding of a Peace Corps a priority.  He executed it by executive order, and three days later appointed R. Sargent Shriver as the Director?

Maybe you don't remember, for this was March 1, 1961.

Maybe you weren't born yet--that's the reason you need old codgers like me to tell you.

 

From the podium that  March 1, 1961 came these words from President Kennedy:

 

"How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world?"

 

"On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend on the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past."

 

By 2018, 141 countries had hosted more than 235,000 Peace Corp volunteers.

 I once witnessed the far-reaching arm of a Peace Corps volunteer:

I was part of a training session. One of the group, a Caucasian young man raised in Africa, was deep into his feelings of being alone. not wanted, grieving for what he had lost. He lamented that once in Africa, he knew friendship where boys would happily walk down the street with their arms around each other, and think nothing about it. He had no such friends in America.

 From the back of the room came a voice in Swahili.

 We didn't know what it said, but the boy did.

 Neither did we know we had a former Peace Corps volunteer in the group. The voice said, "Welcome, brother."

 The kid fell apart, and so did we as soon as we knew what had happened. We were leaping from our seats, hugging the kid and each other, crying and laughing all at the same time.

 

 

 

 

Once, Abraham Maslow a psychologist, said: "Stop studying the ills and look to the positive way things work."

 What a concept.

Spiritual life, as Maslow puts it, is an instinct. One hears it from the voices that arise from within. However, two forces are pulling at the individual. One pulls us toward health and self-actualization, the other towards weaknesses and sickness.

 

Geesch, big decision.

 

Self-actualization (Maslow's term) is not an endpoint or a destination.
 

It is an ongoing process in which people stretch themselves to achieve new heights of well-being, creativity, and fulfillment.

Maslow believed that self-actualizing people contained several characteristics—self-acceptance, spontaneity, independence, and the ability to have peak experiences.

Peak experiences are high points where the individual is in harmony with himself and his surroundings. Some would call that one's spirituality.

Peak experiences are moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, during which a person feels whole, alive, self-sufficient, and yet a part of the world. They are more aware of truth, justice, harmony, and goodness.

Religious or spiritual values are not the exclusive property of any religion or group. Self-actualizes are religious in character, attitudes, and behavior.

 "Spiritual disorders" tend toward anger or a loss of meaning. Sometimes, it is grief or despair regarding the future. There is often a belief that one's life has been a waste and that finding joy or love is impossible.

I'm attempting ever so carefully to pull myself out of media whitewashing of the Present President. although tears are appearing in the fabric of his mighty plan, and people are peering through its holes. It's like:

"Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me."

I'm sorry civilization creeps along slowly. We make giant strides ahead, only to lose some. It wobbles. We oscillate between elation and depression.

It's easy to have slogans like, "Make America Great Again." All you need is a good ad writer. 

What we need is people in the trenches, like my friend Bill Fisher, the former Peace Corp volunteer, who one day called out in class to a lost boy: "Welcome Brother."