From outside the box

I've been thinking about this economy thing and I'm having a bit of a problem seeing light at the end of the tunnel. The silly stimulus package isn't going to do a thing except set us a few billion deeper in debt. Oil isn't going to go down, not to any substantial degree anyway. I don't see America taking manufacturing jobs away from China or Mexico. I don't see our military spending going anywhere but up. I don't see any real campaign finance reform on the horizon. But here's what I do see....

I see a whole lot of baby boomers that are starting to retire and are expecting social security, health benefits, and retirement packages to be there for them. I see oil, health care, interest on the national debt, the cost of the war in Iraq, food prices, taxes, and inflation all going straight up and out of sight. I see less workers and producers taking care of more and more retirees. I see the value of the American dollar continuing to shrink. I see corporations that are all in competition for a bigger piece of the pie that is starting to dwindle to crumbs. I see more and more politicians saying all the right things and doing nothing. I see a catch 22 concerning our boarder with Mexico i.e. the more Mexican voters, the less any politician is willing to stick his neck out and do anything other than talk about the boarder problem, and the longer we go without dealing with the boarder problem the stronger the Mexican influence. I see the Patriot Act as being the beginning of the end of government staying out of the personal lives of it's citizens. And worst of all, I see a country of dumbed down ignorant followers who are on the verge of loosing everything because we bought into the lies and bullshit of an administration who has used every manipulative trick in the book to complete the transfer of wealth from the working class to the elite few.... the corporations, financial institutions, war profiteers, drug and oil companies, and every other multi million dollar industry that has the ability to buy and influence those few in power....the few that we entrusted with the wealth of this nation, the ones that we foolishly elected and trusted to protect us and keep us financially solvent.

So I wonder....what THING is going to happen to turn this all around. McCain isn't going to do it. Barak and Hillary might want to, but can they? Is it too late? Is this the end of the American dream? Maybe....and maybe it will also be the beginning of a new and better America. Maybe we will have to loose everything so that we can start all over. Maybe we are like the family who goes thru bankruptcy in order to learn financial responsibility. Maybe we are like the drug addict who has to do hard time or go thru detox in order to change his ways. Maybe we've had too much for too long and we have to learn what it feels like to be hungry again. Maybe we had to put too much trust into leaders who manipulated us thru fear and spin to learn that we should not give away so much of our power to so few and that we should not be so easily swayed by words and personalities. Maybe we have blown it and it will be our children who will shake their heads in disgust over what we managed to do with the greatest wealth on earth as they roll their sleeves up and begin the task of rebuilding. Maybe they will make it better than it is or ever was. Maybe they won't....maybe we will take them down with us. Maybe we deserve to loose it all.

Ok, there's the pessimistic outlook, now for a little but of optimism....I don't believe we have to loose it all. I do believe that we can climb out of this hole and be better than ever. Americans are not lazy people. We work hard. We stress a lot. We are good at keeping our noses to the grindstone and doing whatever we have to do to make our lives work. I think we need to start taking more personal responsibility. We need to make healthier choices for our bodies and not depend so much on doctors and drugs. Prevention is the best cure! We need to use our credit cards less. We need to remind our politicians that they are working for us by voting them out when they fail to produce. We need to quit reacting to fear. We need to establish an independent group of citizens in every state that makes decisions concerning politicians perks and raises and take that out of the hands of politicians. People in the military, civil service, police and fire, union workers, and employees at all levels of government need to work until their 65 or 70 like the rest of us that are in the private sector has to do. We can no longer afford retirement packages for 40 year olds. We need to start living within our means as a country and quit borrowing trillions from China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. We need to finance education at least as well as we do our military complex. Fathers need to take more responsibility for raising their kids and they need to raise them with love and respect and empower them to believe in themselves and that will put a big bite in crime and cut down on our prison populations as well as create a stronger moral fabric thru out our society. We need to prosecute white collar crime and hold politicians more accountable, not only via the vote, but by putting them in jail when they betray the national trust. Stealing billions should be at least as big a crime as stealing a car. We need to spend less on wars and more on infrastructure. We need to convince the rest of the world that we are worth investing in, believing in, and emulating. We've done most of these things in the past, why can't we do them again?

Posted by Joe Shaw at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Being a musician, a music lover, and a baby boomer, I have a special passion for 60's and 70's era rock music. I'm not talking about disco, bubble gum music, or bands put together by music producers for commercial purposes. I'm talking about bands that started in garages and basements, people who wrote and played their own brand of music, and people who quietly influenced and changed the course of commercial music. Many of these musicians are now in their sixties and still out there performing and writing new stuff all the time. Many have died, retired, burned out, flipped out, or still perform but probably shouldn't be.

I'm going to purposely skip over the Beatles because everybody knows about them and they are the number one all time best rock and roll band, hands down. That being said, lets get to the best of the rest....

One morning in 1967, when I was driving to work, I was listening to the radio and this song came on that I had never heard before. The song was so powerful, so beautiful, that I remember pulling over to the side of the road and turning the volume up so that I could really listen to it. The song was "Nights in White Satin" by the Moody Blues. I had never heard such a perfect blend of rock, ballad, and classic music. And that voice....I had never heard a voice so beautiful, so perfect. That was the voice of Justin Hayward, the lead singer, guitarist, and song writer for the Moodies.The Moody Blues would go on to be the greatest innovators of classic rock music. To this day they are and have always been my favorite band. I have seen them over 30 times live in the last 40 years. Back in 1990 I got a chance to talk to Justin for a while when I called into a radio station in New York that the band was being interviewed on. His voice has not changed to this day.

The next greatest rock band of all time was the Buffalo Springfield. The singing and song writing talents of Steven Stills, Neil Young, and Richie Furay made the Buffalo Springfield a super band. They only lasted for three albums, probably because of the super ego's. My favorite talent in that band was Richie Furay. He went on to start Poco, a band that blended country and rock, but not in a commercial way like the eagles or Alabama. I always loved Poco even though they never had much commercial success. Although Richie Furay left the band in the late seventies, Poco still carries on under the tutelage of Rusty Young. Rusty and Paul Cotton (singer and guitarist) are two of the most under rated talents in rock history. If you've never investigated Poco, you don't know what your missing!

Another favorite of mine in the seventies was Fleetwood Mac. Now the Fleetwood Mac I'm talking about is before the days of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Back then there were two guys fronting the band....Danny Kirwin and Bob Welsh. Their singing, song writing, and how they blended their guitars was just phenomenal! Fleetwood Mac never had much success with these two guys, although the music was much better than the commercial sound they created later on with Buckingham and Nicks, just not as successful.

Another favorite band of mine from the sixties was Quicksilver Messenger Service. These guys has a sound like no other band. John Cippolina played this shrill quivering lead guitar that blended perfect with the smooth and yet powerful voice of David Frieberg. David Frieberg, who most people never heard of even at the time, is one of the best rock and ballad vocalist in the history of rock. Although the guy is almost 70 years old, he is now fronting the Jefferson Starship band. He joined with them in the late seventies, after Marty Balin and before Mickey Thomas.

I could go on for pages and pages about this era of music and who my personal heroes were. My favorite bands seemed to be the guys who refused to sell out, and therefore never had much commercial success. Singers like Richie Furay, Justin Hayward, David Frieberg, and Paul Cotton may never be household names, but you talk to any older musicians from my era and they'll know who they are. Any favorites you'd like to share?

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Posted by Joe Shaw at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It takes all kinds to make the world go round. I respect that. I respect other people for believing different than myself. What I do not respect is hypocrisy. And these days, I see a lot of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is justified when you know that you are right and everybody who disagrees with you is wrong. Hypocrisy is a product of vanity which comes from self delusion. We allow ourselves to be deluded when we identify with the ego, or mind. Ego and mind are necessary for survival, however, they are not awareness but rather tools used by awareness. In awareness we see our connection to everything. In ego we see ourselves as separate from everything. It has been said that the mind makes a good slave but a terrible master....so true.

Once we see ourselves (or anything for that matter) as separate, we are automatically entered into a competition to be better and more knowledgeable than other things that are separate from us. This is the ego in full survival mode.The inner spirit, or the higher awareness in each individual knows this and is always waiting for us to change our identity mode from ego to awareness. There is no awareness in ego, only reactive thinking and self deluding unconsciousness. In awareness, we are awake. In ego we are asleep. Ego breeds pride and vanity. True awareness breeds wisdom and understanding.

So back to the hypocrisy thing. Hypocrisy is part of the human condition. We all go there, but some of us are permanently stuck there. That doesn't make it any easier to deal with. Those sleeping individuals who practice hypocrisy (individuals stuck in the ego mode) usually demand to be taken seriously. Often they are in positions of great authority and have much control over our personal lives. Sometimes they are just whiners who spend all of their time telling others how wrong they are which reinforces how right they (themselves) must be.

I have experienced my share of anger and frustration with hypocritical thinkers. Over the last several months that I have been blogging, I have tried to distinguish what I believe to be hypocritical thinkers, to expose their subtle manipulative ways of making a lie look like a truth. They seem to dominate politics, religion, and large industry. Actually, they are everywhere, these are just the areas where they have power and influence. As long as we are aware of their shenanigans, we do not have to be influenced by them, however, it is important that they get called on what they do, when they do it.

As for my own anger that I have dispalyed in many of my blogs over the last year, I too have been called on that. I know that my anger stems from my own inability to just accept others for who they are. And here lies my own hypocrisy. But that is part of the beauty of writing and expressing yourself. In the process of trying to expose others, you expose yourself! My ego latches onto my anger and justifies itself by making others look wrong. This is part of the subtleness of the ego trying to scream out for it's own existence. Well ego, you can snatch me now and then, but you cannot keep me! I wrote a while back that writing is great therapy. I'm just beginning to understand how true that statement is. That damn tricky ego....makes hypocrites out of us all.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The following is from an article in todays S.F. Chronicle. Bush is taking "spin" to a whole new level. This isn't even spin. I would call it "out of touch with reality."

03-28) 04:00 PDT Dayton, Ohio -- The images from Baghdad and Basra bristled with explosions, burning buildings, street protests, rocket smoke wafting from the Green Zone.

The words from Dayton were "remarkable" and "victory" and "rebirth."

"Normalcy," President Bush said, "is returning back to Iraq."

The juxtaposition of images and words crisply illustrated Bush's challenge in pleading for more patience from his own weary public for a war that has now surpassed five years and 4,000 American dead. Bush came to Dayton on Thursday to make the case that Iraq has made impressive progress in political reconciliation in recent months, even as his argument was overshadowed by the latest outbreak of violence.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 01:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The following is a cute little dissertation that has gone around the internet a few times (thank you Janice for sending this to me). It makes a great point and gives a little creedence to a blog I wrote several months ago called "Vote Em All Out!" I do not agree with everything that is written here, but like I said, it makes a good point.....Joe

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans
are against deficits, we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 300 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that
plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress.

In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority.
They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing.
I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes. Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to. It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted - by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist. If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists a disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jim, my blog neighbor from over at "Just A Guy", in response to my last blog titled "A Liberal Speaks Out Against Affirmative Action" says....

"Before I knew what a liberal or conservative was I had some one explain affirmative action to me. I was only about 11 or 12. After being told what it was I responded with "I thought we were created equal."

As a white male, I have felt somewhat persecuted as it seems that everything is my fault. My fault meaning everything is the white mans fault. There is a perception that no matter what I say or do it is automatically wrong because I am a white male.

Of course I realize that this was a limited view, but like I said it was my perception based on my experience. Perception thankfully can be changed and is not fact."

Joe's reply....I agree Jim, but in all fairness I think it should be recognized that the white American male has been responsible for more than a few shenanigans over the years. We enslaved the Africans, killed the Indians, held women back as long as we possibly could, created nuclear and biological weapons, started a few unnecessary wars, and I believe it was a white male who gave Cher her first recording contract (now that's just wrong I tell you, wrong!).

On the other hand the white male has learned from and amended many of his/our mistakes. We fought and died to end slavery, we have been responsible for thousands of great inventions that have benefited the whole world, we wrote the constitution, we (straight men at least) did not buy any Cher albums, and it was white males Trey Parker and Matt Stone who gave us "South Park", the greatest cartoon in the history of mankind!

All seriousness aside Jim, I do not personally buy into the "sins of our fathers" bull@#$%. The catholic church started that nonsense with their "born in original sin" idea and western man has felt guilty ever since for....well, for being born! I feel bad for others who have suffered over what my ancestors may have done, but I do not feel remorse, guilt, or any need to apologize or make amends. As an ex catholic and being a tall-caucasian-folically gifted-financially successful-well endowed-American male, I carry plenty of guilt. But if it's ok with the rest of the world, I'm going to go on living, keep learning from the mistakes that I have and surely will make, and hopefully leave the world a little better off because I was here....what more can a man do?

Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Is it OK to call yourself a liberal and be against affirmative action? Maybe I'm not a true liberal. I always liked the term "progressive" better anyway. I think that when it comes to affirmative action, it is high time we "progressed" beyond it. Yes, there was a time we needed affirmative action to level the playing field and I'm not sure the playing field is leveled now. However, affirmative action is not the way to continue. I believe it is high time that as a society, we start listening to minority groups and treat them how they are asking to be treated....like everybody else!

African Americans (or whatever the politically correct term is this year), Latino's, Asians, Native Americans, as well as women in general, gays folks, and physically handicapped people, have always sought to fit into the mainstream, to not be singled out or recognized as being of a minority status, or to even make recognition of their/our differences. However, many well meaning folks within these same groups have worked very hard for their cause by singling themselves out and making sure that we are all very aware of our differences. You can have it both ways, but only for so long.

I grew up on the west side of San Bernardino, the poor side of town. The west end was divided into three main cultural zones. The south end of the west side was the black neighborhoods, the east side of the west end was Mexican dominated, and the north side of the west end was the whites along with a smidgeon of everybody else. The elementary school I went to was 2/3 black (it bordered the black neighborhoods), the other third being a mixture of whites and Mexicans. Being that this was in the fifties, I was very aware of what the word "prejudice" meant. What I did not understand, was why did everybody say the whites were prejudice against the blacks? My childhood experience was the opposite.

It was always understood that if you were white, you stayed out of the black neighborhoods. You didn't ride your bike there, and your parents never drove there. Why? Because you could get killed! And yet, blacks were pretty much free to go anyplace in town they wanted. This was always confusing to my simple childlike way of looking at the world. Even at school, it was the blacks or the Mexicans that were always beating me up, never the white boys. It would be years later before I came to understand their anger which was tied to their history as well as their poverty. But mostly it just boiled down to the fact that bully's were boys who got abused at home and carried that anger with them to school. Still....nobody was talking about what it was like to be a tall skinny red headed freckle faced kid who was forced into a world of darker skinned kids and bare the brunt of their personal issues. As an adult, I learned to emphasize with the anger of minorities by understanding the source of my own anger.

The "average white male", whoever that is, has experienced his own share of prejudice. In the entertainment field, we have always been portrayed as the idiot who just doesn't get it. Ed Norton, Woody the bartender, Barney Fife, and in just about every TV show or movie ever made the "white male" is either the idiot, the hit man, the wife beater, or the southern white trash. Maybe we deserve that, but at least we can laugh about it. My point is, sooner or later in life we all need to get over our anger, work thru our issues of being "different", and get on with the business of accepting each other for who we all are....people trying to survive and find a little happiness along the way. Everybody is different. Everybody is unique. Everybody deserves equal opportunity.

I believe we are at a point in our societal evolution, that the next step to achieving equality of the masses is to just start being who we are, understand our differences and then let it go, start judging on merit (and not sexual orientation or appearances), and everybody give everybody else a chance....whatever that chance may be that is needed at the time. I'm talking about white girls dating black boys, white boys dating black girls, "exclusive clubs" become "inclusive", other races can be the idiot on sitcoms too, white folks can drive or walk thru black neighborhoods, all races are considered equally for any job opening, women can be president, Native Americans do not have exclusive rights to own casinos, no more gay pride parades, and get rid of the NAACP as well as the KKK or any other organization that seeks to separate their members from the norm of society. Are we ready to take such an enormous leap in our societal evolution? HELL NO! But we are ready to begin and a good way to start the journey is to abolish affirmative action. Hopefully someday, in the not too distant future, the term "minority race" (minority people) will become an oxymoron. Hopefully someday, in the not too distant future, we will all acquire the ability see the devine in each other, to know that we are all lit up by the same light. This is where true equality begins.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wouldn't it be nice if we could custom order, and only pay for, the channels that we want from ComCast? I pay for like 500 channels but I only watch about 30 of them. Applying the same logic, I wish I could create my own political party. I would custom make it from the best ideals of all political parties....with a few twists of my own. My political party would be called the "American" party.

The liberal side of me would incorporate.... women's rights, gay and minority right's, animal right's, legalized marijuana, socialized health care, better protection for the environment, euthanasia, more (but practical) regulation on industry, smaller military (because we would quit policing the world), legalized prostitution, less nukes, no chemical weapons EVER, better services for homeless and the mentally ill, more tax dollars for animal shelters, easy loans for college students, no death penalty, schools teach evolution and not creationism (wouldn't teaching creationism along with evolution be like teaching alchemy along with chemistry, astrology along with astronomy, and numerolgy along with math?), no tax dollars for private schools (because "private schools" really translate to "religious schools") get off of foreign oil by putting more money into alternative energies rather than drilling in Alaska and off the California coast, and a long list of other things I can't even think of right now.

The conservative side of me would incorporate into my dream party.... fiscal spending, smaller government (I know, except for the socialized health care thing), tighter boarder control, English as our national language, caps on law suits (as well as doing away with frivolous law suits), lower taxes (national sales tax), the right to bear arms (but not ouzies!), no more political correctness, public humiliation type punishments for thieves (I really have a problem with thieves), and the right to shoot to kill when somebody breaks into your home!

As you can see, my liberal list is a bit longer. I would bet that most of us would have two list's if we could custom design our own political party, one from the liberal side and one from the conservative side, with one side being a longer list than the other.

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Posted by Joe Shaw at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I come from a very large family. Back in the eighties, when my folks were still alive, family members would gather at their house for potlucks, poker games, morning coffee, fresh bread and bean soup on cold winter afternoons, or sometimes you dropped by just because you had twenty minutes to kill. The old house on Woodland Ave. seemed to have people coming and going all the time and that's just how my mother liked it. If an hour went by without anybody showing up, she would start calling around and asking where everybody was.

The fun part about all of this was that you were able to keep in touch with obscure relatives that you otherwise may never run into. The down side of all of this was that you kept in touch with obscure relatives that you otherwise may never run into. So it was no wonder that after mom passed away, back in 93, the family drifted. Those of us that had close bonds stayed in touch and those of us that had little in common just drifted apart.

The Chico relatives, we still run into each other around town. A few years back I was working out at the sports club when I locked eyes with a strange but familiar looking young guy. "Hi uncle Joe", he said as I searched my data bank of long lost nephews to remember who this guy was. "I'm sorry", I said half embarrassed but mostly just feeling like an idiot. "It's your nephew Ray" the young man said, surely thinking that I was suffering from early Alzheimer's. Well, what can I say, he was in his twenties and I had not seen him since he was a teenager. He changed! Actually, he was a grand nephew, my niece Diane's son. I've probably got 50 or more grand nephews and nieces. I'm sure I see them all the time and never know it!

Then there's the other half of the family who still live in Southern California. Some of them keep in touch with the Chico relatives, but most of them I haven't seen since the last family reunion, eight years ago. Many of us are baby boomers who grew up together in the fifties. Now we are all parents and grandparents. The family just keeps growing.

So, for some reason I can't quite figure out yet, it seems important to some family members to have another reunion. What's the purpose? So you can hook up with other middle aged relatives, both remark about how good you look while both are thinking how fat and old the other person has become, talk about things you'd just as soon forget, and in subtle yet very sarcastic ways, remind each other that you are still dealing with childhood issues you thought were way behind you but no way, your still as screwed up as you were back when you got wacked for something your little sister did and told Mom that you did it but really you didnt do anything, you didnt even know about it, and then when Dad got home that evening you got wacked again just because it made him feel better about his lousy day, so you go to school the next day all pissed off about how unfair the world is and after you beat this 12 year old six foot tall sixth grade black girl in tether ball she slaps your face and says, "You think your better than me white boy, cause I'll slap your red headed honky face until those freckles fall off!" and then she does and....well, what was I saying....oh yea....it will be great to see these relatives again.

Actually, it will be fun to see them all again, everybody in one place....wow!. The one thing I can say about my family, even the ones I don't see very often, is that they are all interesting people. I want to know who's retiring, who's divorced, who's getting married, who's gay, who's gotten rich, what kind of talents do they have, and who screwed up and became republican. I want to play guitars with Mark, drink some good cab with Dawn, Becky, Sis, and Dean, talk philosophy and politics with anybody who will engage me, maybe have a seance with Carole, catch up with my favorite nieces Cindy and Jennifer, hear about how Curt's business is doing and find out if his daughter is still playing the bass, hug my cousin Stacia, see Justin again, start a temporary alcohol induced barber shop quartet, ask Suzie about my old girl friend Kathy, hear my sisters laughing hard and loud as they recount some story from years ago, show Dennis a new Pinot Noir I found and bought two cases of, and smoke pipes and cigars with Danny and Scott. June 20th, Southern California...now I'm looking forward to it!

Posted by Joe Shaw at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I've been following the preliminaries from afar....taking notice and trying to keep detached. Last Tuesday when the three contenders all gave their aftermath speeches, I couldn't help but notice the striking difference between Clinton/Obama and the McCain speeches. Clinton and Obama both are a breath of fresh air from the same old rhetoric we've been hearing for 8 years. When McCain talked, my first thought was that he was medicated. All I could feel from his slurry lifeless speech was that this guy needed to go to bed. On the other hand, Obama and Clinton both had upbeat, positive, and energetic messages. They both made me feel like there really was hope for our country.

Side note....I like what Hillary said about using republicans for some key cabinet positions. This is what a true "uniter" would do. Quite a contrast to George Bush filling over 100 of the top department jobs with people who were lobbyist for the industries those same departments oversee. Can you believe it?

It is being said by some right wingers that the democrats and their "upbeatness" (to coin a word Bush might use) is all fluff, that the democrats have always been a party of fluff and personality with no real substance. Really? Are they talking about Al Gore? John Kerry? Dukakas? Mondale? These are four out of the last five democrats who ran for president and they all four had the personalities of a coma victim. You can argue their substance but you can hardly accuse any of these men of being all about personality, or even having one for that matter.

And since I voted for all of these past presidential hopefuls, I would not hold it against McCain that he has no personality. The only thing I hold against McCain is that he represents four more years of the same old same old. This country is desperate for a change. In California, it's now out of our hands, but whoever is left standing on the democratic ticket when the smoke clears is who we need to get behind. I am predicting a lop sided election to the degree of Ragan/Mondale or Clinton/Dole, barring any dirty Carl Rove type election tricks. We truly need somebody who can start undoing the damage caused by eight years of failed Bush policies. Either democrat will do.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I decided to take my dogs up to table top mountain this morning, and what a great decision that was! I was surprised at how few people were up there today, considering how beautiful the weather was. There were a few people flying kites near the entrance, but out on the open plateau, it was just me and the boys. The valley was crystal clear all the way from the Sutter Buttes in the south to the fringes of Los Molinos in the north and across the valley to the snow capped mountains that etched a perfect skyline in the west. Patches of early spring wild flowers as well as frisbee like cow patties dotted the land scape. I tried to avoid stepping on either of them. There was a nice breeze blowing from the north with just enough chill to keep me cool. It was a great time and place to wonder and ponder.

But here's what I really want to talk about....As I was driving out to table top, in the area of Butte College, I had a strange realization. As I drove by the beautiful Buttes I was thinking that this is the time of year when they look their best, covered in a green blanket of spring grasses. And then it dawned on me that I had never actually been on a Butte (except once in the seventies when we snuck onto private property and climbed one). I've lived here 36 years and never legally climbed a Butte. How many times have you driven to Butte College or out on Neil Road by the landfill and gazed at the beautiful rising Buttes with their rocky edges around the top and the gently sloping valleys in between and wished you could just....go there?

When I moved up here from Southern California in 1972, I had this illusion that Northern California was somewhat wild and open country. Compared to what you see from Palm Springs all the way to Santa Barbara, it pretty much is, but still, I was disappointed to find that all of the natural areas, the beautiful country sides were all fenced in private property. I remember talking to a fellow back then who had spent time in Mexico and telling him about how this no trespassing thing really bothered me. It's like we can go on sidewalks, parks, roads, and stores. The rest of the world is off limits. He mentioned that in Mexico, it's understood that fences were just to keep cattle in, not to keep people out. He said you could go anywhere you wanted to down there! And America is the land of the free? Certainly not in all respects.

It just seems wrong to me that we call this county Butte County, and yet, I don't know of one Butte that anybody can walk on unless you own the property! Can you imagine going to Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes and not having access to one lake? Why can't it be that people who just want to hike, why can't we the public have free access to our beautiful country sides that seem to be reserved only for cattle? I think the law should state that anybody who owns anything over 100 acres, has to let the public have access, for walking purposes only. The entrances would be gates that cattle cannot escape from, like the ones at table top mountain. There would be laws against littering or going within a certain distance of anybodies private residence. Also, we could not sue the property owners over anything that happened to us on their property (assuming it's an act of nature, not aggression by the property owner). Is this idea ridiculous? Maybe, but wouldn't it be a better world if we could actually enjoy the beautiful areas by walking on them and not just watching them breeze by from our car windows?

Posted by Joe Shaw at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Interesting column in the ER today by Reverend Greg Cootsona under the "religion" section. In his column the reverend is taking on the age old debate between Christians and atheists. The column itself is not really that interesting. What is interesting to me is the fact that both points of view on this age old perennial argument are missing and have always missed the point. They are both asking the wrong questions and therefore both giving the wrong answers. And yet, I believe both sides are right in the basic tenets of their argument. Atheists believe there is not "a" God, a supreme being, a singular personalized intelligence that rules over the universe. I think they are right about that. Christians believe there is intelligence and design underlying the creation of the universe. I think they are right too.

Like I said, neither side is asking the right questions. Asking impractical and ineffective questions leads to impractical and ineffective answers. I think we should begin by asking who we are. The most basic primal answer to that question is that we are consciousness. Next question....What is consciousness? I believe that this is where we start to understand our relationship to the rest of existence. As I have stated in a couple of earlier blogs about quantum physics, by delving into the world of quantum particles, the basic energies that make up all of creation, science is discovering a universal intelligence that seems to permeate everything everywhere. Now science is beginning to explore the next logical question....what is our relationship to that quantum fabric, how is our consciousness connected to universal intelligence, and how do we affect each other as well as the world around us?

This is an area that atheists and western religions have one thing in common....they both say....huh? However, this may also be the area that will eventually bring the two sides together. If science can prove the existence of universal intelligence, that may lead to the proof of the continuity of life. Maybe nothing dies, it just changes form. Maybe western religion is right in stating that there is intelligence and creative design behind the universe and that after the body dies, consciousness will survive. Maybe atheists are right in denouncing the idea of a supreme being that is separate from us, somewhere up in the sky, watching, judging, demanding worship, and dishing out punishment. Maybe science will be the unifier that will one day bring all sides together in a greater understanding of who we are and what God might really be.

It's too bad that western religion is not behind this exploration of consciousness. There are eastern philosophy's that have known for thousands of years what science is just now beginning to discover....that all things are connected and that consciousness is the common thread that connects all things. Religion and politics have always seen themselves as leaders, however, they are leaders only in power and control, not in paving the road to knowledge and higher awareness. In western culture, science and the arts have long been the leaders in opening up and expanding our understanding of....well, everything. Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, Shakespeare, Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Beethoven, Samuel Clemens, George Lucas, and the Beatles have done more towards the raising of mans consciousness than Richard Nixon, George Bush, Jimmy Swaggert, or any other politician or religious leader I can think of has done.

If we go on listening to false prophets and lost souls like the preachers, politicians, and atheists who pretend to have answers and are not yet evolved to the level of even asking the right questions, we are going to keep on this circle of ignorance, always spinning around the truth. We are on the verge of a great awakening. We are discovering that not only are we are not alone in the universe, we are indeed part of the creative force that molds the universe. We can finally begin to understand who we really are, maybe even our true purpose for being here. Maybe we are about to find that at the seat of our consciousness lies the answer to the mystery of God and creation. Maybe we will find that the God we have placed above and separate from ourselves, is closer than we thought.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)