From outside the box

When George Bush took over the presidency in 2001, he inherited a large surplus of cash as well as a deficit that was lower than when his father had left office 8 years earlier. He rode into Washington on promises of downsizing government, keeping us fiscally healthy, and being a uniter to get things done. He failed miserably on all of his promises. And he failed with the help of a republican congress. For years the conservative voices of the news and entertainment media tried to defend his policies....until it became embarrassing to do so. Now only the staunches and most hard headed republicans would say that George Bush has been good for our country.

The reign of George Bush and the republican congress have shown what conservative policies lead to when left unchecked. Spending spirals out of control, government becomes bigger than ever imagined, uninstigated wars are started, and constitutional rights begin to erode. It has been a grand era for Haliburton, Exxon Mobile, and Bechtel.

The republican party is now doing a mea culpa song and dance as they loudly wail that this is not really who they are, it's all a big misunderstanding! In a desperate attempt to salvage their reputation of being the "responsible" party, they have invoked the name and legacy of Ronald Reagan. "We've got to get back to the Reagan era", has become their new battle cry in a desperate attempt to say they want to change who they have become. Ronald Reagan....talk about being desperate for a hero! He's about one step above Richard Nixon and in many ways he's worse. But I do have to say that Reagan is a perfect symbol of the new republican party. During his presidency, he tripled the national debt, expanded the federal government by 90%, families living in poverty increased by 1/3, over 138 administration officials were either indicted, convicted, or had been the subject of official investigations, he deregulated the savings and loan industry which cost half a trillion dollars to bail out, he said ketchup was a good way for poor people to get their vegetables, he started the ridiculous "just say no" campaign, and as governor of California, he created the largest tax increase in it's history, a tax that would be lowered by the next governor....Jerry Brown.

Is that really what our country needs right now, to get back to Ronald Reagan type politics? The republicans had their chance and they screwed things up badly. It's time to try a different road. After all of the irreparable damage George Bush has done to this country, to put another republican in the white house would be like trying to save a drowning child by putting more water in the swimming pool. Here's the irony of the whole situation. I believe in old fashioned republican ideas....like fiscal spending, smaller government, government staying out of peoples personal lives, and staying out of unnecessary wars, it's too bad that they don't....that's why I'm voting democrat.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last night I spent an hour or so on the phone with my nephew Mark. Mark and I are about the same age and have been close our whole life. He moved to Las Vegas several years ago with his family so we don't see much of each other anymore. Mark and I have always had a lot of things in common. As teenagers we learned to play the guitar together. We started out playing surf music and later progressed to The Beatles. Thru out the seventies we played on several bands together. Mark was always a better musician and song writer than I was, so I credit much of what I know about music from the years we played together.

I started a family and settled down much earlier in life than Mark did. During the seventies and eighties Mark was a bit of a lost soul, a wondering spirit. He moved all around California, up to Washington, back to California, out to Nashville, back to California, moved to Oregon, back to California, (lived in every part of California at one time or another) and eventually settled in Las Vegas where he is happily married and raising a family. Mark found himself when he found the Lord back in the early nineties.

Besides music, Mark and I have always shared a deep philosophical nature. We watched each other stumble and fall many times in our life long quests for love, knowledge, and trying to figure out where we belonged in the scheme of things. My best times with Mark was not the music but the humor. You never knew when he was going to turn into Walter Brennan and start whining about how tough life is for an old man (you older folks should know what I'm talking about here).

Since Mark became born again we have drifted apart somewhat. It probably has as much to do with family and other life choices as it does with philosophical differences about life. We still share a lot in common though. It's always kind of funny when we talk on the phone because sooner or later we end up getting into deep conversations about God and life and religion and all that stuff that few people agree on. We argue, we disagree, we listen to each other, we often find common ground, but most importantly, we respect each other.

I guess our biggest difference now is that Mark has found something that gives him peace and comfort while I still question and search for answers. I think that we both have and will continue to find wisdom on our chosen paths. We have more in common than we have differences. We both are committed to family, we both want to be successful in life, we both still love playing and writing music, and most importantly we share the same core values. We both want to leave the world a better place than we found it, we both lend a helping hand to others in need now and then, and we both a share a deep need to experience and understand the true meaning of why we are in this world. I think Mark found his meaning. The path I walk does not give one the luxury or the comfort of knowing that the lord is going to take care of everything. But I have peace and love in my life. I don't mind not knowing where I'm going or what I have to do to get there. To me it's all about the journey, the search for meaning, the spiritual rush I get when I uncover another small tidbit of truth. I tell you one thing though, life is so much better when you have friends like Mark to share it with.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Where is America going? What are we becoming? Are we headed in the right direction? Is our greatest danger from without or from within? Will we be done in by terrorist or will it be an interior collapse? Will we rise to the occasion and work our way thru all of our challenges and be stronger and more unified in the end? You can't help but wonder about these things because our American culture seems to be changing so quickly. We are going somewhere, but where? I can't blame traditionalist (usually conservatives) for being skeptical of a lot of these changes. I just take issue with them over which changes are bringing the country down.

Most of us baby boomers remember the fifties as a time of prosperity and predictability. We were grounded in good old fashioned family values. Things were more black and white, right and wrong, they were more clearly defined. Of course much of those memories are filtered thru the rose colored lenses of childhood. The fifties had all of the basic culture nightmares we have today, folks were just better at hiding them. But my point is, ever since the fifties our culture has been on a fast track to somewhere, we just don't know where yet.

Right wing conservatives see our culture problems as a morality issue. Since the black and white era of the fifties we have entered into many gray zones of questionable life choices. We now allow abortion, we can live together without being married, gays are practicing their life styles out in the open, sex and violence are too acceptable in movies and on TV, and many baby boomers have abandoned religion altogether not to mention their children that are growing up without it. And they would argue that these choices (among others) are at least in part to blame for our modern day problems of gang violence, drug and alcohol addiction, children growing up in single family homes, and too many families on welfare. And one would have to admit that some of these are real problems that are threatening to take America down.

You can't blame all of our problems on morality or the lack of. For one thing, we are out of touch with what true morality is. Allowing others the freedom of personal choice is only a moral problem if you think it is. I believe that our main problem is that we are not recognizing the real problems. We talk about health care but we don't address the real cause. We don't need more hospitals and better prescription plans. We need healthier life styles. Senior citizens are overly medicated. We medicate our children because they have too much energy. Maybe we just need to exercise more and eat less. We use our leisure time to focus on sports and movie stars when instead, we should be engaged in healthier lifestyle activities. All of the sex and violence in our entertainment culture is not a cause of problems, it is a result of our lack of consciousness and awareness. When we have a stronger sense of who we are in relation to each other and the rest of life around us, we will not be entertained by violence and sex in movies, music, and video games.

I do believe that America is at a cross roads. We may not destroy ourselves or loose our country, but we do have a real chance of morphing into a lower version of what we are and have been. Our leaders are drowning us in debt, just as we are with our own abuse of credit cards. Corporations are only concerned with the bottom line. We buy into the fear tactics used by our government to maintain and enhance power and control. We have an abusive relationship with our environment as well as with animals. We exploit them for food as well as entertainment (rodeos, circuses, zoos, and caged pets). We use God as an excuse to judge others for their personal life styles and religious choices while we justify our own lack of awareness and shortcomings simply because we cannot see beyond our own limited vision.

On the other hand, we can move forward from this cross road into greater prosperity and create a better world than we have ever known before. We can't do it by attacking life choices and clinging to antiquated backwater religious beliefs. We need to start cleaning up our environment. We need to demand true leadership of those in charge of running our country. Our leaders need to start bucking the powers that be and looking at long term solutions rather than short term gains. We need to expand our concept of God. We must quit limiting Him to being judgmental and vengeful and allow Him to be all loving and accepting. We need to develop a deeper understanding of our own relationship to God, to realize that we are connected and not separated from Him and then we will understand our own connection to each other as well as everything in existence. We need to dream more and fear less. We need to take personal responsibility for the state of our lives. We need to quit suing each other. We need to understand that we have the power to change whatever we want to change about ourselves and rely less on government and doctors and drugs and junk food and ministers and radio personalities and feel good cliche's. We need to explore our own artistic nature more. We need to be more tolerant of others on the highways. We need to recycle more and waste less. We need to be more open to ideas that challenge our traditions and set beliefs. We need to understand that true patriotism is in questioning the motives of our leaders, not blindly supporting them. We need to drink more wine. We need to physically touch each other more. We need to listen to more music with harmonies. We need to treat our dogs and cats better. Men need to watch more "chick flicks". Women need to quit trying to change men. We need to treat each other as equals. Men need to be gentler to women and children. Church leaders need to challenge their followers to find the truth within their own hearts rather than depending on what they (the leaders) interpret it to be. We need to mediate more and worry less. We need to teach safe sex in 3rd world countries instead of relying on "just say no" policies that are proven not to work. We need to quit killing creatures for sport. We need to get off of fossil fuels. We need to feed all of the hungry people in the world (this is where the UN could show some real leadership and make itself valuable). We need to pay teachers more money. We need to walk more. We need to kiss and hug our kids more as well as our dogs. We need to be there for our children 100% and NEVER abandon them no matter what! We need to quit starting wars. We need to quit arming small countries to keep certain regimes in power (that may not be good for the people of that country) so that we can exploit their resources. We need to understand the difference between religion and true spirituality. We need to practice the golden rule....always. We need real campaign finance reform. We need to drink more water and eat less meat. And mostly.... We need to say "I love you" more.

If we could do half of these things, I believe we will evolve and be greater than we have ever been, not only as a country, but as individuals as well. We would once again be a beacon of light for the world. If the world looked up to us, they would want to imitate us, not kill us. We are at a crossroads. But heres the thing....we are always and have always been at a crossroads. The crossroad we are at as a country is but a macrocosm for the crossroad we face everyday in our own personal lives. Who we are today is a product of the choices we made in the past.The choices we make today define who we will be tomorrow. Which way will we go?

Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

More than once I've heard Shaun Hannity mention the long gas lines we had under Jimmy Carter. I remember those gas lines happening in the winter of 73 and 74. I believe Gerald Ford was president at the time. Correct me if I'm wrong....

Posted by Joe Shaw at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Political sound bites....I hate them. They make me feel stupid. They make me feel the kind of stupid you feel after listening to country music or like you've just been lectured by John Kerry. I guess they are necessary because every candidate wants to be all things to all people and if you say anything that takes a real stand, that people can sink their teeth into, it gets harder to spin what you said later on. And if you dare to take a real stand on issues you will go the way of Dennis Kucinech or Ron Paul (Ron's already gone, he just doesn't know it yet).

Either elections are getting dumber or I'm getting smarter. Politicians used to sound deep to me, like they had a real grasp on the issues, like they knew more then I did, and they should. Now I hear them and they just keep recycling the same old sound bites and cliches. They have a set answer for every possible question, they just sort of change the words around each time they use it. It seems that the only time you get any specifics is when things get a little heated, like they have been between Obama and Hillary. I say let them take the gloves off, at least they are forced to say something (when under attack) that hasn't been rehearsed a thousand times.

I love seeing Bill Clinton get angry. I hope Hillary wins the primaries just so I get to see Bill in full attack mode against the republicans. I think maybe he's got a lot of pent up anger over how he was treated during his last term in office. Ken Star and 125 million bucks spent to investigate him and they come up with nothing? He lies about sex and faces impeachment? After all that Bush has gotten away with in the last 7 years, Bill Clinton should be angry. A lot of us are plenty angry and if Bill Clinton can express that anger for us, then great, unleash the man.

I hope that whoever the democrat is that wins the primaries, they take a lesson from Bill Clinton. Dukakas, Gore, and Kerry all got beat, in part, because they tried to walk the high road. They were slow to answer false allegations, if they answered them at all. Dukakas let George Bush senior call him unpatriotic in the debates and ignored it. Al Gore let George W. call him a habitual liar. When John Kerry came under attack he started yawning. I remember when Clinton was running in 92, James Carvel put an instant response policy into place that was very effective in answering all attacks within the hour. Personally, I would like to see the candidates stick more to issues and use less negative campaign strategies. But if your going to get attacked, and especially if it is an unfounded attack, you've got to fight back.

I'm also wondering what issue the republicans are going to get on the ballots this year to bring out the good old boys and the family values crowd. Gay marriage was very effective in the past. It will probably have something to do with guns, multiple wives, euthanasia, abortion, or sex with animals, I don't know. Wouldn't it be something if we had an election that was just about the issues, about the real problems this country is facing? And wouldn't it be something if politicians spoke in detail about what they would actually do to fix things and weren't afraid of alienating those who would disagree with them?

Posted by Joe Shaw at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So it's official that Bush lied us into war. Nothing new to those of us who have been trying to say this all along. Back when the lies started, we were called unpatriotic for bringing up the possibility that he might be lying! Could it be that the blind patriots, the majority who never questioned the motives of Bush and his regime, are the ones who are unpatriotic? Look where your blind patriotism has gotten us. Trillions of dollars deeper in debt, hundreds of dead civilians....oh never mind, I feel like I'm replaying a broken record.

So now we are falling into a recession and the republicans are still spouting that the Bush tax cuts were good for the economy. Allow me to be a broken record again....As I have said repeatedly....Because of those tax cuts we had to barrow trillions of dollars. Bush has almost tripled the national debt in 7 years. Last year 19% of every tax dollar collected went to pay on the interest alone of that debt. 30% of every tax dollar collected went to the military. What we need to do now to ward off this recession is to start spending big bucks on infrastructure, and we don't have big bucks. We will have to barrow the big bucks to do this. The more we barrow the more interest we will pay, the more interest we pay and the longer this 2 billion dollar a week war rages on, the more we will have to barrow and the more we barrow....well you see what I mean. Nasty cycle. A true leader should get us out of this kind of cycle, not make it worse. Bill Clinton lowered the national debt and left office with a surplus, something that no republican president of our era has accomplished.

George Bush should get credit for the great economy we've enjoyed since he has been president. But we must keep in mind that anybody can create a great economy by barrowing trillions of dollars. And just as he should get credit for the great economy we've had, he should also be blamed for whatever fallout comes down the road for almost tripling our national debt. Bush should also get credit for the fact that we have had no terrorist attacks on our soil since 9-11....just as he needs to take the blame for more Americans dying at the hands of terrorist overseas than died on 9-11.

The surge in Iraq has made things better. Democrats need to admit that. Here's why I think they don't. To say that the surge has helped sounds like your saying the war is justified. This mega mess in Iraq cannot be justified by a surge that helps the situation. The situation never should have existed in the first place! You can't take a bucket of crap and throw a rose on top of it and say it's something other than a bucket of crap. Bush wants us to hold our noses and focus on the rose. That's why I think the democrats are not saying much about the surge.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I mentioned the other day that I had invited several of my family members, one's I knew could write well, to be a guest blogger. This short story comes from my sister, Celeste. Celeste is retired and lives in Southern California.

Mother Teresa’s Appearance

I was sound asleep but awakened in the middle of the night. I turned to my left side and saw a vision at the foot of the bed, opposite my side. It was Mother Teresa of Calcutta surrounded by an oval of blue light. I was speechless. She said nothing and there was no expression on her face, except to look at me. It seemed she only wanted me to see her. It probably lasted for a minute, then she turned to her right (which was where the door opened to the hall). In doing so, I saw her profile, frail body, and slightly hunched back. She was wearing a cap that tied under her chin. It was a print with a small blue print on a white background. Her dress was the same material with a large round collar that was white and stiff. After she turned, the room went dark again.

Knowing I was wide awake, I told myself to get up, go to the bathroom, drink some water and think about this, so the next day I would remember it as real instead of a dream. I did that – walking right over the area of the floor where only a few minutes ago, she stood. I was not afraid; to the contrary, I felt a sense of peace and calm.

This happened in early August 2006, about two weeks after my husband died from a long illness. I had spent every day with him for nine months while he was in hospitals and a nursing home. During that time, I often helped or visited with other patients but after his death, I felt relieved that I wouldn’t have to return to the nursing home. I had no desire to deal with sick people.

Why did she appear to me? I don’t know – was it to prove to me there is a hereafter?

Does she want me to follow in her footsteps? Did my deceased husband persuade her to visit me (we often talked about his letting me know if there is a heaven). Whatever the reason, and I am still praying for guidance, but now I am certain there is a heaven.

The vision of Mother Teresa of Calcutta is still vivid in my mind. I haven’t told many others about this since the few I have told just stare at me, like: “ Is she finally losing it?”

Has anyone reading this experienced such a vision?

Celeste Van Anda

Posted by Joe Shaw at 07:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I keep hearing that Bill Clinton is a "train wreck" waiting to happen in the Hillary camp. For you republicans who tend to believe every sound bite that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh throws at you, I am going to let you in on a little secret....Bill Clinton is good for Hillary's campaign, the democrats still admire and respect the man, and he's in total control of what he's saying and doing.

Bill is part of a campaign strategy that has been called "Jekyll and Hyde" politics. This is simply when a politician maintains walking the high road while somebody else does the dirty work. I don't know if this is an emerging trend or if I'm just becoming aware of it. I first caught this 4 years ago when I started noticing how John Edwards did not rebut against negative attacks shot towards him but his wife Elizabeth did. The swift boat attacks were sort of used the same way. Nobody could link them in anyway to the Bush campaign, and they worked.

Be it right or wrong, I believe we are going to see this strategy utilized to the max in the coming year by all sides. Candidates will use staffers, wives, husbands, anybody other than themselves to say the mean spirited stuff, throw out half truths, make the nasty accusations, and the things put out there can never be personally linked back to the candidate. It's too bad that a candidate can't just speak his mind and defend for himself. We the voter are partly to blame for this because we demand this unreal sqeeky clean image of our candidates. Just one of many reasons why I would never make it in politics.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've mentioned before that I come from a very large family. And in this very large family there is a great blend of dysfunction, artistical talent, and "fearless-in-your-face-here's-what-I-think-about-that" kinds of folks. Ahh, the perfect recipe for being a blogger. So recently I put the word out to my family to see if anybody would like to be a guest blogger. Dawn Hershey is my first response. A little background on Dawn....Dawn is my thirty something year old niece who moved to Hollywood several years ago with ambitions of becoming an actress and ended up working for Nickelodeon as a casting director for the "Hey Arnold" cartoon series. She has since started her own voice casting agency called "Blind Light" and has been very successful. They mostly do voices for video games. Dawn works with a lot of movie stars and always has great stories when she comes to town. She likes to use the F word a lot (as we all would in a perfect world) and since this blog site is pretty much PG rated, I will have to do a little creative editing....Here's Dawns blog......

Title: I GOT A F...ING BLOG.

My f...ing cat pissed all over my $300 comforter last night in a defiant rage because I’m never home. In an insane rage of fury I grabbed 15 paper towels to soak up the lake he left on my lap, (yes he jumped up on my bed, squatted on my lap, gave me the “I’m so cute, wanna cuddle and watch Oprah look” and then pissed on me).

I sopped. and I cursed. and I blotted... then stood there in a daze not knowing what the hell to do with the 15 pieces of pissy paper towels, knowing every second that I stood holding the HUGE wad was a second longer the left-over piss had to soak into the duvet cover.

So in a rage, I ran to the toilet and flushed them all down at once.

It was 10:30 at night, and I had to quickly separate the down comforter from the duvet without touching the stinky pee, and figure out how I was going to get it to the locked laundry room in the basement of my apartment complex, in the dark. MY MAID USUALLY DOES THIS. Do I have quarters? Do I have a laundry key? Do I have soap? Can you put down comforters in the washing machine?! So I managed to get the key, find some quarters, get the detergent, and lug the 2 piss soaked blankets down to the basement in the dark, (where the Axe-murderer was probably hiding) and shove them into the machine without touching the wet part.

I took a breath, I got another blanket off the guest bed, where my evil a..hole cat was now peacefully sleeping. I wanted to kick him in the f...ing teeth. I hurled the blanket out from under him, cussed his fat ass out, like an angry white trash wife living in a white trash trailer and went to bed.

Woke up this morning, to his usual loud, droning, “wake up mom” cries, fed him, and took my morning pee.

AND LOW AND BEHOLD, MY TOILET WAS CLOGGED AND STARETED OVERFLOWING!

This cannot be happening to me today. I don’t have the resources to deal with this. My maid doesn’t come for 3 more days, my boyfriend is at his house, sick with a cold, I have no apartment manager, I have no one to turn to. I have no plunger, I have no draino, and I certainly don’t know how to find a roto-rooter thing, and even if I did, I would not know what the hell to do with it, (except stick it up my cats ass, and turn the crank really fast).

So now work is piling up, I have 3 videogame offer letters to get out to the has-been-B-List cast members of the Princess Bride Movie, 2 scripts to read, 100 auditions to listen to, a cast list to make, and my producer quit last week, so I need to get a solution in place, I’m PMSing, I’m hungry... The morning coffee I drank is kicking in... I have no toilet, and my uncle Joe sends an email asking people to take time out of their busy schedules to “Blog”... ARE YOU F...ING KIDDING ME!? I HAVE NO TIME FOR THIS.

And that’s it. Now I want to commit murder.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The following commentary is a response to my blog titled "On budget woes and get out of jail cards" from a few days ago. This comes from my sister, Celeste.....

Arnold is just trying to scare us. He knows he has to raise taxes and cut some of the spending, but he can't pretend he is for it, so he has to make us clamor for tax increases to save our pet programs and to avoid cutting others.

Note that Arnold only addressed programs for the poor, elderly, sick and jailed. Why not address what the wealthy can do; corporations, investments, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, owners of yachts, etc. They are not concerned, so they can sit and watch -- they know Arnold will not bite the hand that has been feeding his jet-setting life-style.

We made Reagan into and icon -- but Arnold will never fill his shoes and, God help us if he should ever become President -- he can't even pronounce California and doesn't understand the nuances of a lot of things he says and does. Just ask a nurse or a teacher what they think about his promises....

I wish all of the Kennedys and their spouses would go back to the East Coast. We have enough to deal with in placing movies stars and sports heroes on pedestals.

Just your Sister thinking out loud! Celeste

Joe's reply....Good points Celeste....hope you don't mind that I posted it as a blog.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 07:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have spent a lot of time pondering the mysteries of life. This very thing we call existence fascinates me to no end. I mean, think about it....what would there be if there was no such thing as existence? You can't begin to wrap your brain around that. Eternity is another concept we just don't have the capacity to fathom. So we tend to ask the questions that we might be able to understand. Who are we, why are we here, and where are we going? You know, the ones we've been asking since we were living in caves.

I'm not going to pretend that I have any answers to these questions, but to me, it's really about exploring these questions, not having them answered. You see, when you explore you are open to discovering new things. When you have answers, or think you have answers, your pretty much shut down. We tend to make decisions in our life based on what we think we know at the time. When you lock into a set belief about life, your decisions you must make about your own life, on a day to day basis, become set and predictable. This isn't necessarily bad, it's just that for people like myself who are constantly exploring and questioning....let's just say we like to leave our options open.

When I think about what my folks experienced in their lives, the depression and two world wars, it's really no wonder that they would have conservative values as well as a need for religion. Their lives, as well as the generations before them, were about struggle and survival. They needed a set code and a moral compass. They needed to know which was the right direction. Religion and conservative values gave that to them. The thing is, much of what they believed in was based on lies, but they had no way of knowing that. They did not live in an environment where there was anything to gain by questioning.

My generation was forced to deal with the lies and deceit that had been handed down for generations. We challenged the status quo. We wanted the truth. Was war always justified just because the government said it was? Would we go to hell for not practicing Christianity? We wanted to know so we (some of us)experimented. We smoked pot and didn't go crazy. We quit eating meat and didn't wither up and die. We grew our hair long and didn't become gay. So we had to ask ourselves what else have they been lying about? We knew from our childhood that Santa Claus was a lie (although a fun one), we knew you didn't get the cramps and drown if you went into the pool within 45 minutes after eating a candy bar, and you didn't go blind sitting too close to the TV. My point is, when the sixties came, we were poised to challenge, to question, and to experiment.

We made one big mistake though. We started assuming that everything was a lie, and it wasn't. Drugs really were bad, sometimes war was necessary, and loud music really can damage your hearing. So as we matured, we found our balance and we tried to put things into their proper perspective. That balance led many back to religion, back to family values, and back to being a productive member of society. We re-evaluated the status quo, re-wrote the rules, and went on to become the yuppies and over consumers of the eighties and nineties.

Then there were a few of us who never quit questioning, who still even after middle age, could look up into the night time sky and be awed by the enormity of the universe, who still feel a need to challenge authority and question the decisions of our leaders, who look for higher awareness on issues of health, religion, science, the arts, philosophy, war, and politics. We know that to survive as a society, we must constantly re-define and re-examine who we are in relation to the universe and the world around us. We must constantly challenge and re-evaluate our set values, adopted truths, and acquired knowledge.

Sometimes I get too caught up in politics, parenting, running a business, trying to survive, and arguing who's right or wrong about something. Sometimes I start thinking I've got things pretty well figured out. Sometimes I get caught up in the illusion of day to day existence and start thinking that everything going on around me is really important. Then I look up into that night time sky and I remember why I can never quit searching and asking and dreaming. As long as I am awed by that night time sky, I will keep pondering the meaning of existence and wondering what this life is all about. And the more I realize my connection to everything out there as well as everything in this world, the more I will see all answers as being nothing but stepping stones to greater awareness. I left the sixties behind, but a part of the sixties....the better part.... has never left me.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I see that Bush has made a deal with king Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to sell him 900 precision guided bomb kits (smart bombs). It is my understanding that women in Iran have more rights than women do in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia practices slavery. Women cannot drive, they cannot vote, they can't even go to a doctor without the permission of a male relative. In Saudi Arabia, women have about the same rights as animals. This same king Abdullah that Bush is selling smart bombs to, sponsors and supports terrorism. And wasn't it mostly Saudi Arabians who crashed airplanes into the twin towers? Will these bombs one day be killing our soldiers?

Posted by Joe Shaw at 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

There's a lot of talk in the news lately about recession. This is only feeding the cycle. The more you talk, the more people believe it and the more they believe it the better chance of it happening. We do not have an economy based on gold anymore, not sure if we really ever did. Our economy is largely based on psychological factors. It only works because we all agree that it works. Once we all start agreeing that it is not working, well....

Posted by Joe Shaw at 09:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

California is in trouble again. Woopdy effin do! I remember the last time we were in this same place, we kicked the governor out of office. Arnold came in on a white horse and saved us all from certain doom and gloom by doing what conservatives always do best....he barrowed our way out of the crisis. Grey Davis could have done that. So it was only a matter of time until we would be back at the same place, and the time has come. I don't really blame Arnold though, I think he has done the best he could, given all that he has to work with.

Personally, I think we need to do a little bit of everything to fix the problem....everything from raising taxes to budget trimming. But there would need to be a way to raise the taxes temporarily, until we get out of trouble, without them remaining permanent. I remember in 89, after the earth quake in the bay area, we raised sales taxes by .25% to pay for the damage and it was supposed to be a temporary tax. It's nineteen years later and we still got the .25% sales tax.

This is a great time, an excellent opportunity, for politicians to demonstrate some real leadership. I know that trimming their own perks will do little to fix the budget problem but it would be a great morale booster for the rest of the state. If we are going to be asked to sacrifice, the sacrifice needs to start at the top.

One of the governors proposals is to release thieves, scam artists, and non violent criminals out of prison early as well as to not send them to prison in the future. I'm having a problem with that idea. Most of us have been the victim of one kind of theft or another. Weather it was getting a purse or a bicycle stolen or getting scammed, there is something that really stings about getting ripped off. Now to me, and I don't think I'm alone on this, getting ripped off is just as bad as being a victim of violent crime, and in a way, worse. I know that you can recover from getting something stolen easier than you can from getting physically assaulted, but the anger is just as bad at the time it happens. Usually you want to kill them. I say that theft is worse than assault in the way that it is usually not a face to face crime. It is done behind your back and you may never know who did it. I would rather a guy try to hurt me face to face than steal something from me behind my back....but that's just me.

If we have to give thieves a get out of jail card then we should use this as an opportunity to explore other alternatives of punishment. I always believed that anybody who had 3 or more DUI's should have to stick something in the back window of any car they drive to let the public know who they are so that we can stay clear of them for our own safety or at least scrutinize their driving more so than we normally would with other drivers. Why can't we do that with thieves? If somebody is convicted of 3 or more crimes within say a five year period, they would have to wear a sign around their neck whenever they were out in public letting everybody else know what their crime was and how many times they have been convicted. If they get caught without their sign, they go straight to jail. If they go a certain period of time without being convicted of a crime, then they would no longer have to wear their sign. I know that public humiliation is nothing new nor is the idea of branding criminals. Maybe some of these concepts have worked in the past? Maybe they still could? Oh crap....never mind....can't do it. I forgot about the lawyers.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I don't usually listen to music on the radio anymore because I don't care for anything I hear these days. Another sign of getting old I guess. When my son Brady is in the car he likes to listen to the oldie stations. As much as I used to love a lot of that music, it can be difficult to listen to most of it now. I mean, how many times can you listen to "I get around" by the Beach Boys or "Your just too good to be true" by Frankie Valley. Sometimes, to my sons objections, I reach over and switch the station when a certain song comes on. "I'm sorry Brady, I've been listening to Dianna Ross for over 50 years and I just can't take her anymore!"

Actually there is a lot of the old stuff I could listen to for another 50 years. People and bands like The Beatles, Kenny Logins, Dan Folgelberg, The Eagles, Neil Young, Poco, The Guess Who, The Moody Blues, these guys never get old, they will always sound good. It's that damn "Bubble Gum" music of the sixties and seventies that drives me nuts. Hated it then and I hate it even worse now.

I guess it's a good thing that Brady likes a lot of the old music. It shows he has good taste. I've been to some great "has been" concerts in Oroville over the years that I would have loved to have taken him to but they don't allow kids into a lot of those shows. Brady would have loved to have seen Heart, Glenn Campbell, Toto, America, Boz Scaggs, just to mention a few of the greats I have seen recently. I have always been grateful that he never got into country music, rap, or heavy metal. I can take the bubble gum of the sixties, even a little Dianna Ross now and then easier than I could any of that stuff.

So this morning as I was driving him to school and we were listening to the oldies on the radio, I got to thinking....I don't know the name of one popular song that is out right now. What is current music like? I don't even know where to find it. I asked Brady and he said that he didn't know where to find it either. He listens to it on his computer but never on the radio. I think the last "hit" song I can remember was that titanic song by Celine Dion. My God, I am so out of it!

Speaking of Celine Dion, I still think of her as one of those "new" artist. It reminds me of one time back in the seventies when somebody mentioned Frank Sinatra and my Dad said, "Oh yea, he's that new kid." Bear in mind that this remark was coming from a guy who once saw Al Jolson in concert in Chicago in the twenties. Sinatra was probably in his fifties when my Dad made that remark but now I understand where he was coming from. I still think of Abba as that new band from Europe and truth is, I think their all dead now.

I suppose there's a lot of good music being made these days. I think I got discouraged in the late seventies when I thought pop music was going to progress and keep getting better. That's really what it had been doing since the early rock and roll of the fifties. But somewhere around this time it took a turn for the worse and we got disco, punk, and heavy metal. I even checked out country music for a while back then hoping that maybe there was some kind of sanity there. I wasn't ready to loose the ballads, love songs, and sweet harmonies that I grew up with. Oh they were alive and well in country music all right....along with the sparkling jump suits, cheesy cliche's, and beers and tears crap that made me feel like my IQ was dipping every time I listened to it.

So that was that. I lost touch with pop music. I lost it and I'll probably never get it back again. But that's OK, I've got a pile of old CD's to listen to when I feel nostalgic. I guess the good old days are gone forever. The days when music had soul, it had purpose, it was real stuff, right from the heart. We used music to express our desire for freedom and change as well as to speak out against wars and social injustices. Now days the biggest happenings in the music world is Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan driving their cars into Paparazzi. Oh yea, there's also American Idol. You get all of the contemporary sounds there as well as Simon making retarded kids cry and Paula Abdul slurring her way thru a show as she pisses all over herself. God I miss the good old days.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last Fridays storm was a real blast. And I can say that because I was one of the lucky few who's power never went out. I love storms, wind, rain, really anything where the air is moving, or something is happening. Sunshine and warm summer days are very over rated. In my perfect world, it would rain 5 days a week, all year long.

I gained five pounds over the holidays. I ate a lot of sweets....but I made up for it by not working out too.

Three things that irk me....seeing somebodies sprinklers running on a rainy day, packaged items that you cannot open with any known power in the universe, loosing a pick inside a guitar and not being able to shake it out.

I'm just starting to read a new book called "The Divine Matrix" by Gregg Braden. Some of the chapter titles are...."What's in the space between?", and "When here is there and then is now: jumping time and space in the matrix". Looks like it's going to be one of those books where you have to read a lot of the paragraphs 3 or 4 times.

My daughter Lisa who is 23 years old and is in the Navy Reserves was scheduled to go to Afghanistan this month for a year. She got out from going on a medical issue at the last minute. During her training they told her that there would be 100 military men to every woman where she was to be stationed and that her greatest threat over there would not be the Taliban but the American army men. They told her that the women soldiers over there have to do everything in groups to keep from getting raped by American soldiers. They said the danger was from the army guys (more low lifers? less educated?), not the marines, air force, or Navy. I wonder why we don't hear about that on Fox news?

I was glad to see John McCain take one last night in the New Hampshire primaries. If I had to choose a republican president from the lot that is running it would probably be McCain. I liked the way he spoke out against the swift boat adds in the last election. I've never paid much attention to him before so I was shocked to see that gorgeous blond lady with him, who I thought at first was his daughter, was really his wife! Wow, way to go John! And they say money can't buy happiness.

Does Citi Bank and Discover really think that if they keep sending me junk mail everyday, year in and year out, that sooner or later I will break down and apply for a credit card?

Last of all, I want to put in a word here for a good friend of mine, Chuck Epperson. Now Chuck is not the kind of guy to waste his time reading blogs, so I am pretty sure he will never read this, therefore I'm going to do a little product placement here. Chuck owns and operates Epperson Bros. Kenpo Karate. We are lucky to have in this community a true world class martial artist. Trust me, there is no other martial artist in this area that can hold a candle to his skills, as well as his teaching technique. If any of you locals have ever considered taking up the art or introducing your child into martial arts, at least go talk to Chuck before you make a final decision on an instructor. You'll be glad you did.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The primaries have begun. Now we get to look forward to 10 months of politics dominating every newscast, every minute, on every possible news outlet. Yippie! I already miss my Brittany Spears scandals. I'm sure it will get a lot worse in early February as the traveling primary show makes a quick stop in California. I can't wait for the commercials.

I watched the debates of both parties Sunday night. Everybody is saying wonderful things but nobody is giving any specifics. Indeed , the devil is in the details. I would love to hear these folks just get a little real. When the republicans say the democrats are going to raise taxes, they always leave out one little fact....the democrats have all said that the only taxes that will be raised are the ones on the rich and the corporations that George Bush lowered. But it's a great sound bite. And when the democrats talk about health care for everyone, I would like to hear how they are going to do this. I have said before and I honestly believe that we can never have national health care in America because we spend too much money on the military....30% of our budget! I'm not making a judgement about that, it's just a fact, and nobody, not even Michael Moore in his movie "Sicko", addresses that fact. Canada and Cuba can have health care for everybody because they do not spend that much on their military. It's all about priorities and we made ours a long time ago. And the democrats who are for having health care via insurance companies, paid for by employers, have never operated a small business. Non of these ideas are going to work. Keep it real.

Speaking of the tax cuts that were given to the rich and the corporations, why shouldn't they be rescinded? They were given at a time when the economy was working. Why did we need to mess with that? And they were given when we were going to go into war, which is unheard of in history. Now we are facing a possible recession. Are the tax cuts at least partially to blame? Did the tax cuts really work when we had to barrow trillions to cover our expenses over the last seven years? Keep it real.

The one thing I honestly hope that neither side does this election year is to swift boat anybody on any issue. That's when you just make something up and say it enough to at least create a little doubt, knowing that what you are saying is based on....nothing! Will Obama be made to appear that he may or may not be a Muslim? Will Hillary be made to look week because she got choked up and almost cried yesterday? Will Edwards be made to look greedy because he made millions by suing large companies? I hope not....just keep it real.

There is something else I've noticed that makes no sense. All of the candidates will talk about how smart the average American voter is. They will tell you that the people understand the issues, that they "get it". Then they turn around and use stupid negative campaign adds, adds that are riddled with personality attacks and spin because polls show that they work. If negative campaigning works, then the people are idiots. You can't have it both ways. Personally, I think a good portion of the people are idiots....keep it real.

All of the candidates are talking about change, like change is a new concept in elections. As far back as I can remember, change is what every election is about....always has been, always will be. If we didn't need change, we wouldn't be having elections. Now Hillary and Obama shouldn't even have to use the word "change". Their very existence is about change. What would be more changing than a black man or a woman as president? Personally, I like John Edwards. But I don't think he has a chance in hell. It just seems like the Obama machinery is in motion and it is going to roll over everything and everybody. My 14 year old son, who has a very dry sense of humor, maintains that somehow George Bush is going to win the election. I tell him that's impossible, but then I have to stop and think about it. Truth is, if Carl Rove was still around, somehow he probably would win!

Posted by Joe Shaw at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)