Conservative Intelligence

A conservative(R) friend of mine sent me this piece of wisdom.  Following you will see my equally wise response. 

Curious Carl

 

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.  That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
 
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A...

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.  The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.  As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
 
The second test average was a D!  No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
 
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. 
 

 Could not be any simpler than that. 

 

   

  My Response: 

 

Bad analogy. 

Setting aside the fact that Obama is about as close to socialism as George Bush or Bill Clinton,  let's take the same class of students.  Let's say there are 40 in the class.  Five of them will have a basket full of A's already sitting by their desks. 

Five more will have a mixture of A's and B's.  Twenty will have none, but they do have good study skills.  The remaining ten have no idea how they got into the class in the first place.  Now the students with the A's and the students with the mix of A's and B's just coast along because they can draw on their reserve .  The twenty with no baskets study hard and earn A's and B's through their own efforts.  But the students with the baskets are allowed to take some of the A's away from them. 

Meanwhile the ten on the bottom decide to hold up the entire class and steal as many A's as they can get out of the room with. 

Now that, my friend is Capitalism.  

 

Curious  Carl

 

swinging wildly at straw men

Some days I feel as if I'm riding into the Valley of Death.  We are being attacked on all sides.  Our fearless leader, The Prince of Peace, is standing by while our entire public school system is being ripped apart and thrown to the Privateers. 

While we are sending our boys and girls off to "defend our freedom", congress and the Empire Builders are busy dismantling our schools, selling off our public buildings and even our highways.  Our children are easy prey for these greedy Vultures, too.  Today's college graduates can expect to be in debt before they clear the college campus.  Now we are busy privatizing our K through 12 education.  How long will it be until parents find that in order to see their children graduate they will have to go into debt to pay for that privilege?   

The upcoming elections will be a real eye opener.  We are about to find out what clever spin our Corporate First Class Citizens can put on issues in order to totally confuse and disarm us.  It's already begun.  And while we are swinging wildly at Straw men, the Empire Builders will be greedily grabbing off everything in sight. 

If Americans don't mount a strong resistance we will soon find ourselves back in 1890.

And that's the good news. 

 

Curious     Carl

 

 

right wing talk shows make me crazy

Yup.  NPR is proving to be my "moderately Right" news, while Democracy Now is my Left leaning information. 

I have tried once again to monitor a couple of right wing talk shows, but I just can't stand more than five minutes before hearing steam coming out of my ears.  They set up their straw men so carefully that you can't really argue with them.  Anyway, never try calling one of their shows.  They are masters at getting some blow hard like me and cutting us down with glee. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Fact Check: Let the Reader/Viewer beware

Fact Check.  Seems to me that this is something we're forgetting to do.  With the amazing tools at our disposal today we can say just about anything and back it up with pictures and quotes that have been carefully snipped and pasted together. 

Let the Viewer/Reader beware! 

But it has always been so.  We just got lazy during the reign of the giant newspaper chains.  We accepted their stories from their investigative reporters as absolutely true.  Now we have a new crop of "reporters" selling their wares.  My rule of thumb is to not believe anything until I think I know enough to believe something.  But never say, "I know it for a fact". 

Armed with this absolute rule, I muddy along. 

 

Curious Carl

 

 

 

like Lemmings marching to the sea

Someone should draw a political cartoon with the heading, "First-Class Corporate Citizen", 

Below that is a drawing of a huge upright vacuum cleaner busily sucking up all sorts of stuff, money, small business's, old people, children, schools, houses, forests, rivers, etc. 

 

Greed rules!  Social Security is just one more pot to raid and plunder.  These Super Citizens are gambling that they will continue grabbing everything in sight right up to the end of their lives.  But whether it happens to them or their children or even their grandchildren, history makes it absolutely clear that their Palaces will tumble under the anger of the masses.  But they just are unable to give an inch.  Like the fabled Lemmings, they march grimly toward their fate. 

I'd sure like to be around to help give them a push over the cliff's edge. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Slay the two-headed, one party dragon

The less I listen to the radio and TV political sound bites the clearer my brain becomes.  In fact, if everyone listened to commercial TV and radio as I do, there would only be PBS and NPR. 

Politicians have replaced addressing issues with little sound snippets of accusations and condemnation of their "Worthy" opponents.  All Worthy Opponents have horns and hate America, both Parties. 

And when they attempt to say something positive it is so global that it is meaningless. 

We need to stop this crazy spending spree by our First Class Corporate Citizens and force our Public Airwaves to open free channels for on-going public forums.  All people interested in discussing issues could apply for time.  All candidates would only be able to promote themselves on these channels.  We would have channels for local, state and national/international issues and candidates to expound. 

We would crack open this Un-American Two Headed-One Party system and allow all sides of issues to be examined. 

Americans who wanted to be participating members of our nation would afford themselves of these channels.  Those wanting to just take the free ride would be able to watch Wheel of Fortune every night without the annoyance of being interrupted by some politician flapping their face. 

It could work.  But the Empire Builders will never go for it unless we shove it down their *(^*%^$% mouths. 

 

Curious Carl

 

 

Where do the Obama's shop? Fw: Article,That Big Sucking Sound in the Economy Is the Threat of SeriousDeflation

Blah, blah, blah. 

Where do the Obama's shop?  In the Land of Oz?  The towns I visit are looking depressed.  Closed shops, folks holding up begging signs.  Huge crowds at the unemployment offices.  Long lines waiting to apply for crumby, minimum wage part time jobs.  Food banks out of food. 

Gee, what would a real Depression look like? 

I really hate to draw comparisons between Obama and Hoover, but trickle down is trickle down and "good times they are a coming", has a familiar ring. 

Can we say, "Obamaville?"  Of course we can. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Smart grid could turn appliances into spies,experts warn

Smart grid could turn appliances into spies,experts warn

One advantage of being off grid and on a stand alone system.  It can only talk to itself. 

Curious Carl

 

Fw: Are Ezikiel Prophecies on the Horizon

When some people spend more time reading the Bible trying to figure out when the next Epic War will take place, than they spend trying to figure out how to get along with one another, it should be no surprise why I am an Agnostic. 

 

Curious Carl

In the chapter on religion in his 2006 book on the rise of the Republican right, former President Nixon speechwriter Kevin Phillips notes that when it comes to war, religious clergy are usually the ones beating the drums loudest for it. The following editorial appears to justify Mr. Phillips' claim.


http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=902776
 
Are Ezekiel prophecies on the horizon?
Chad Groening - OneNewsNow - 2/19/2010 6:00:00 AM
The leader of a Messianic Jewish ministry believes a couple of biblical prophecies dealing with wars in the Middle East could come to fruition within the next five years.

 

As previously reported on OneNewsNow, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently proclaimed the fulfillment of the Ezekiel 37 prophecy of the dry bones coming to life, which alludes to the rebirth of the nation of Israel in 1948.
 
While many biblical scholars speculate about the next two chapters of Ezekiel, as well as the war of Gog and Magog, Jan Markell, founder and director of Olive Tree Ministries, believes some other prophecies are likely to precede that cataclysmic end-times event. 
 
"Frankly I believe 2010 is going to see some of the predicted wars that have not yet happened," she comments. "I do think that the Psalm 83 war could take place in 2010."
 
That passage references the destruction of Israel's enemies who desire to cut Israel off from being a nation, and a passage in Isaiah talks about the destruction of Damascus.
 
"Isaiah 17 says there is coming a time when Damascus will be leveled, and that probably could be sooner rather than later, in that Syria is stirring up so much trouble -- and we really think that 2010, certainly by 2011, there's going to be a major spark flying," Markell predicts.
 
The ministry founder notes that it is impossible to predict the exact dates for these events, but she believes the clock is ticking toward some volatile times in the Middle East.

 

 
 


 
 
  
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signs of an early spring

February 20, 2010

 

An amazing turn of events out here on the Great Olympic Peninsula.  The rains ceased.  Headed East and South, I think.  Mostly to California.  Our skies are blue and the temperature has soared as high as 60 degrees.  Two days ago Cathy said to me, "I still have not seen the first Robin, so it must still be winter".  The very next day as we rolled into our drive, six fat, cheery Robins bounced among the Alder trees ahead of our truck.  And last night as I stood on the deck, way off across the Beaver Pond a single lonely frog croaked his first greeting to the coming Spring.  Thankfully we've seen no Black Bear yawning and stretching from a brief slumber.  They can be rather cranky when they first lumber out into the sun, looking for breakfast.  Sort of like some people we know.  But I'm a morning person and can't understand why everyone doesn't spring from bed with a cheery, "HI HO" on their smiling lips. 

Guess that's life. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Blind People Make Good Parents, Too!

 

To all parents, former parents, wanna be parents and former children. 

 

It does take more time, planning and yes, even more worry for a blind parent to bring those little Urchins to the edge of the nest for their first solo flight.  But actually sighted people are too often lulled into complacency by their wonderful eyesight.  They rely on sight to replace hands-on raising.  Think of the mom, talking on her cell phone.  "Jimmy!" she shrieks, "Put that knife down and get away from your baby sister!"  She's counting on her quick vision to monitor the activities of her out of control little darling.  Whereas a blind mom would have put all knives away.  She might actually be playing with little Jimmy and baby sister instead of yakking on the phone.  The blind mom knows that she must stay involved with her children if she is to know what they are doing, and to guide their play and direct them safely through their day. 

The same is true for blind Dads.  From time to time a newly blind young father would attend our training center.  "I just can't be a dad to my son", they would tell me.  Funny that they never worried about being a dad to their daughters.  "Why can't you be a dad to your son," I would ask, playing the straight man in this comic routine. 

"Well, it's pretty obvious.  I can't toss the ball around or take him to the auto races or go camping and fishing".  "Well, first of all", I would tell them, "I'm a dad.  And I've been a single dad, raising three children.  And as a totally blind dad, I played all sorts of games with my children, two girls and one boy.  We do go camping.  We do play rough and tumble games.  Okay, so I don't toss the ball around, being opposed to getting socked in the noggin when it comes back, but we play all sorts of games.  Like we go swimming together, hike, camp, clean our rooms together, mow the lawn together, watch TV and discuss what we see together.  We are a family and I am the Leader of the Pack.  Why is tossing the ball around so darn important that you can't figure out what a dad really does?" 

Of course by this time they are so overwhelmed by my lengthy tirade that they have either fallen asleep and dropped to the floor or they are on their knees begging for me to just shoot them. 

 

Curious Carl

 

  

check out my blog
www.curiouscarlscorner.blogspot.com

Therapist or Teacher?Fw: [OandM] Unbelievable response that I've received regarding O&M Licensure

A recent letter from Deborah J. Glick, a New York State Assemblymember, refers to licensing  vision rehabilitation therapists and orientation and mobility specialists. 

The identification of Rehabilitation Teachers as Rehabilitation Therapists is a giant step in the wrong direction.  Years ago(1965) when I attended the Northwest Regional Training Center, now called the Orientation and Training Center, I was greeted by a group of Therapists.  There was a music therapist, a home management   therapist, an O&M therapist, an occupational therapist, a physical education therapist, an industrial arts therapist, and one Braille/Communications Teacher. 

Can you guess which one of these folks was the blind one? 

As near as I could tell, these people were all instructors.  But the star was Alice Olson.  She taught Braille, typing, hand writing, how to handle money, how to use the telephone, how to operate tape recorders, etc. 

Most of these folks held Master's degrees, except Alice.  Alice had a B.A. from the U. of W.  

Every morning we students were expected to arrive at 8:00 A.M., ready for class.  But the Therapists were always huddled in a staff meeting until 9:00 A.M.  Except Alice.  In those days we used last names, so she was Mrs. Olson. 

We would arrive a bit early and gather in the cafeteria for our morning coffee and doughnut fix.  At 8:00 A.M. sharp we could hear Mrs. Olson's heels clicking down the hall. 

"You're late for class", she would announce.  And we all jumped and scooted off to the Braille room.  Mrs. Olson was a task master and one Hell of a fine teacher.  Not that the therapists weren't, but I think that knowing that she was the only blind member of the staff, made Mrs. Olson more committed to her task.  She also knew how to build up a person's self confidence. 

Anyway, the use of the term therapist is just so much bureaucratic snobbery as far as I'm concerned. 

 

Curious Carl

 

coming soon, Obamaville

TV and radio networks are giggling with glee as the election season comes around.  Not since Christmas have they seen so much money pouring into their coffers. 

Each time I hear a propaganda piece by the "Non Human" First Class Citizens, I email the station and ask if they know that they are running ads funded by Terrorist organizations.  I'm sure they think I'm nuts, since none of them ever respond.  But I feel it's my Patriotic Duty to remind them that "We the People" are not corporations, and that we are under an all out attack on our Freedom.  Think of it, while our troops are out there fighting to keep us free, our economy and our rights are going down the toilet.  Won't our fighting boys and girls be surprised when they come marching home and find that everything they fought for has either been squashed or sent overseas?  Ah well, there are still a few street corners open for the taking, and I noticed several vacant benches in the park.  But choice living arrangements, like under the overpasses, have all been claimed.  It won't be long until our cities are ringed with Obamavilles, and we'll begin to look like all of the other Third World cities. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Once upon a time I was Super Blind!

Once upon a time I believed I was Superblind.  But I must now face the fact that my days of leaping tall fences in a single bound are behind me. 

After my hip replacement I thought that I would be able to do everything that I did twenty years ago.  Not so.  I am still unstable and lurch about like an old grandpa...which I am. 

But inside my head?  Ah what a different world exists there.  There are no limits to what I can do. 

Back in my golden years I had a fling as a single parent, did the shopping, cleaned the house, kept the yard, washed the clothes and figured out just where to place a bandage and hug a sobbing child. 

Still, it was with great joy that I resigned as Superblind when Cathy took on sharing Life and parenting. 

There's nothing sweeter than being Superloved. 

 

Curious Carl

Superblind

Soldier Admits to Waterboarding 4-Year-Old Daughter Because SheCouldNot Recite Alphabet

Subject: Re: Soldier Admits to Waterboarding 4-Year-Old Daughter Because SheCouldNot Recite Alphabet

As difficult as it is for me to see our young adults being sacrificed in a useless war, I am even more heart broken over the abuse suffered by many of our children.  How dare we go about telling the rest of the world how to behave when we can't even figure out how to protect our own children.  How dare we snicker and posture and declare War on Terror when our own children are being Terrorized and we do little to hold and protect them.  How dare some Americans march about telling women how to live their lives and shout that they are the "Right to Life" lovers of all unborn children when they turn their unfeeling backs on the suffering of all the unwanted children already living tormented lives. 

While we can agree that the soldier in this article is a mentally sick man, he is not alone.  And our constant promotion of force and violence makes it even harder to gather the little children around us and cover them with our collective love. 

 

Curious Carl

 

 

greed will consume all, including greed

 

The real cause of our troubles is that the Empire is Falling in. 

We run about, like silly geese trying to "fix" the problem by pointing to this trouble or that one.  "It's the internet", or"The corporate media", or, "too many lobbyists in congress".  The list goes on.  But why are all these problems coming at us like a herd of wild Dingbats?  Because the Greed of the Empire has finally consumed so much of our people and natural resources that it can no longer sustain itself.  Our infrastructure is crumbling, our government is immobilized, our jobs and factories are gone overseas along with our money, not to mention our young men and women sent out to defend this crumbling wasteland.  America is a mere shell of Her former self.  Remember the Land of the Free and the Brave?  We stood with hopeful, happy faces singing lustily as our great flag flew over fields of grain, and purple mountains majesty from sea to shining sea. 

But even so, the problem is not the barren mountains shorn of their glorious forests, or the dry cracked fields, or the polluted waters, or the hopelessness in the growing Ghettos surrounding our dying cities.  No!  It is the grasping, Greed of the dying Empire.  Still too powerful to stop, but steadily killing itself.  If we have any sense left in our heads, we need to put our energies on stopping this mad rush.  And the only way to stop it is to cut off their money.  And disarm their army.  How we do this should be the main topic of our discussions. 

 

Curious Carl

 

on human nature

 

Human Nature is alive and well and unchanged. 

Those in power continue to do all they can to hold onto it, including cheat, steal, lie and murder.  The ignorant continue to say, "What, me worry?" 

The uninvolved say, "Don't look at me, I'm just doing my job and keeping my nose clean". 

The poor tell us that they never were given a chance, and the few of them who get one become just like the other Power Players. 

And a small number of folks go about trying to make a better world for their children and themselves.  Some conditions have changed.  We've gone from an agricultural based society to a factory economy to an industrial might to...whatever we are today. 

We've gone from the farm to the cities, from an isolated nation to a world conqueror.  But our nature has not changed at all.  Just pick up the Bible and wander through its pages from murder to mayhem.  From raging wars to entire peoples enslaved.  From ruthlessness to total destruction of whole civilizations. 

Rather than a book of inspiration, to me the Bible, Old and New Testaments, record our shame and failure to learn simple lessons in human survival. 

I have often likened Earth to the Garden of Eden.  And we are the collective Adams and Eves, about to be cast from the Garden by our own greed and ignorance. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Glenn Beck and ACB

 

Just between the two of us, my nose hairs curl at the thought of our leadership rushing to try to recruit Glenn Beck.  It's the sort of grand standing that is more appropriately given over to the NFB.  The use of big names represents to me a sell out.  It says that we are going to impress people and they will flock to our organization because someone important just joined.  Maybe we would be better off putting our efforts into encouraging someone to join us by the way we help them.  

 

Curious Carl

 

Secret Military Files Reveal Shocking Details About Failed War inAfghanistan

Subject: Re: Secret Military Files Reveal Shocking Details About Failed War inAfghanistan

Shocking to some, perhaps.  To me it only affirms what I already know about war.  The object of war is to win.  And to win, one must kill off anyone who resists or anyone you think is resisting, or might possibly resist.  There are no nice guys at war.  We were sold a bill of goods during past wars, being told that others were ruthless killers but that our boys were all behaving like Troop 91 in the Boy Scouts of America.  That's not how we won.  We won because we were the more successful killers.  When we say war, we ought to say, "Kill" instead.  We went to Kill with Iraq, etc. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Happy 20th Anniversary, ADA

ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act Celebrates 20 Years

 

 

It does appear as though the two organizations, the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind, are working together on some major issues. 

But talk of a merger anywhere in the foreseeable future is out of the question.  One organization or the other would need to undergo a radical change in their organizational philosophy. 

The ACB continues to be a people's movement.  .  As an organization, we serve the people. 

The NFB is a very tightly organized national agency.  Their focus is on strengthening and expanding their National influence and control. 

 

As a Free Thinker, I want to belong to an organization that allows me the freedom to decide what works for me. 

 

Curious Carl

Who Cooked the Planet?

All sorts of temperature rises and dips can occur without meaning much of anything.  But when each summer ends and the ice caps are measurably smaller, and tropical critters and fish are sneaking into temperate areas, then that's where my money is. 

 

Curious Carl

Carl Jarvis

 

Can't never did anything

 

My mother used to say, "Can't never did anything".  And so it is for many blind people.  We have been so conditioned to believe that we can't, that we are immobilized by our own negative thinking. 

So, to suggest that with proper attitudes and training we *Can do the average job in the average place of business, we are coaxed into looking at our world from a different vantage point.  With a "Can Do" attitude we begin thinking in terms of how to do the job rather than to dismiss it out of hand. 

As I mentioned earlier, I am able to do my work as a rehab teacher.  But in order to do so, Cathy and I formed a team.  Since we cover four very large counties, it requires lots of driving.  But when this contract was offered to me 16 years ago I could have very easily said, "Cover four counties?  I can't do that!" 

Instead I sat down with Cathy and we decided that this was something we wanted to do together.  We lay out the job and decided who was going to do which parts of it.  Instead of just one of us tackling the contract, we took it on together.  Personally I believe the state of Washington has no better rehab team in the field. 

 

Curious Carl

Cheney Confesses to Serious Crimes -Torture Just the Beginning

 

Unless we are prepared to take on the entire Empire System we might as well go suck a pickle as to try to single out Dick Cheney.  Dick Cheney and George Bush are not just the former Vice President and President.  they are part of the Empire Builders.  They are not politicians being controlled.  They are First Class Corporate Citizens of the highest order.  While the Ruling Class would have thrown Clinton to the dogs and will do so to Obama if he fails to play their games, they will never allow Cheney or Bush to be touched.  It's sort of like having a sister who is a slut.  If anyone outside the family dares to call her a slut you'd knock the stuffing's out of them. 

Cheney and Bush.  Free to say whatever they choose to say and go wherever they wish to go.  Like giant slugs, spreading their poison slime wherever they travel. 

 

Curious Carl

nibbling at the edges

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that we try to solve major problems by picking around the edges. 

Bussing, which I embraced, is an excellent example.  The major issue was, and still is, Poverty.  But I, along with my Liberal pals, believed that if we educated the children in integrated schools the children would grow up to be integrated adults, working together and living together.  But our system would not allow this to happen.  Children returned to their homes and all of the same controls were still in place.  Run down neighborhoods overcrowded with unemployed, disenfranchised people, mostly people of color; slum lords controlling property and rents; educational opportunities beyond secondary school was almost non existent. 

How well I recall "Red Lining" in Seattle.  Whole sections of the city were off limits to Blacks and most other non Whites. 

How many of my neighbors in my all White neighborhood honestly feared that if you let one "of them" in the property value would drop and soon they could not sell their house.  And how many times did I hear a coworker say, "Once one of them get hired they bring in all of their kind and take our jobs away from us". 

But that's the world I grew up  in.  Once upon a time it was those Polish or Italians or Irish or Jews or...the list goes on and on.  Why do we allow this to continue?  It is because of poverty.  Do you think for a minute that if all Americans could find decent jobs and live in decent housing in decent neighborhoods that we would be so frightened of each new wave of disenfranchised people trying to muscle into the job market? 

But it is to the advantage of our Empire Builder Masters to keep a large supply of unemployed laborers.  It keeps the workers on their toes worrying about keeping their jobs.  They work harder for less.  They are distracted from taking on their Masters by being directed toward fear of the unemployed rabble.  We are turned against ourselves because it is good business.  We are allowing ourselves to be managed like so many cows, or sheep, or chickens. 

No, I no longer believe that nibbling at the edges will change the system.  It is the system that must be changed.  And because Greed never knows when to let up, one fine day we will make that change.  We should be talking about just what this new world should look like. 

 

Curious Carl

 

My Chirping NLS Digital Player

My Chirping NLS Digital Player

 

"What's that?" Cathy asked me as we were flying down highway 3 headed for home.  "What's what", I responded, dragging my attention away from the "Who Done It" we were listening to. 

"That chirping sound," Cathy said. 

I dutifully listened.  No sound other than the reader's voice.  Then, there it was, a metallic chirp.  "What is that?"  I repeated her question, picking up the digital player for a closer look.  "It's coming from either the player or the cartridge," she ventured. 

There it went again, very distinct. 

"It wasn't there last night when we were listening to this same book," I said. 

"Maybe it's a flaw in the cartridge," Cathy thought.  We have been down loading our books from the NLS web site. 

It chirped again.  And again. 

"What the Dickens!" I exclaimed.  "The darn thing is getting worse". 

From the truck I called the WTBBL and described what was happening.  "I just heard it, too", said the voice over the phone.  "I have no idea what that sound is, but you'd better box it up and send it back so we can mail you another." 

All the way home we listened to the chirp because no matter what we did it kept repeating.  Even when I pulled the cartridge out and even when I turned the player off.  I pushed every button and turned the darn thing on and off a dozen times with no change.  "Chirp" it would go. 

So we turned up the volume and listened to the book over it's chirping. 

Arriving home I hauled the player into the bed room planning to fish out the box and get it off in the morning mail.  Cathy took her belongings into the office.  "Listen!"  I heard her say from down the hall.  I came into the office doorway and waited.  "I still hear the chirp", she said.  "Close the door, I think it's in here". 

"But the player is in the bedroom," I said as I shut the door. 

"I've got it!" she exclaimed.  "It's my cell phone.  It's signaling that it needs charging". 

I sheepishly called the library and told them not to send me a replacement player. 

 

Curious Carl

 

I'm my own person...I think...

 

 

When I'm bothered by an itch I scratch it

But when I'm bothered by beliefs and actions of another organization I leave them alone.  Scratching the itch makes it go away...usually, but all my scratching around is never going to change how other people see their purpose in life. 

When I was a member of the NFB I thought it was the greatest organization in the world.  I credit the Federation with much of my beliefs about blindness and with helping me change my own life.  But even if I'd not been thrown out, I would have left at some point.  I left the Church for the same reason.  I believe that I am my own person.  I don't need some super leader, be it Jernigan or God, to tell me how to think or live my life.  I am accountable and responsible for myself.  If there is some sort of a Judgment Day, I want to stand erect before that Throne on what I did and why I did it. 

 

Curious Carl

 

The Master doesn't play fair

The government is taking care of its people.  Those crammed into the inner cities just don't happen to be among "their people".  The privileged are very well cared for by this government.  Until you have lived poor, with no hope of getting free, with no way to leave the decaying inner city, unless it is to go to another place just like it, you cannot understand what life is like for many Americans. 

And very honestly, most of us so called Middle Class folks are just one or two paychecks away from joining them.  Today we are watching the destruction of our wonderful Middle Class.  People who never believed it could happen to them are being turned out of their homes, fired from their jobs, hunted down by creditors.  Their lives are ruined.  And they thought that they were playing by the rules.  Now they have joined those very people that they used to look down their noses at.  They have learned, too late, that the Master does not play fair. 

 

Curious Carl

 

is God just the God of the rich?

The Department of Services for the Blind, Seattle Office, is located in the Southeast end of Seattle in beautiful Rainier Valley.  This is a section of Seattle that is fast becoming a war zone.  In my youth it had been dubbed "Garlic Gulch" because of the heavy Italian population.  Coal miners, truck farmers and small shop owners, mostly first generation.  It is now an international district made up mostly of very poor disenfranchised people.  Gangs roam at night.  Drugs are the main product sold in the alleys and street corners.  But scattered throughout this down-at-the-heels district are many elderly folks who have lived in their homes for most of their lives.  They paid for them but can't get enough money from their sale to move to a "safer" neighborhood.  Many of these folks keep neat, trim yards and clean, tidy homes.  They guard their meager income carefully and are pretty much debt free.  Of course they are one health disaster away from the poor house.  When I walked those streets during daylight hours these folks would come to their gates and chat with me.  At night they triple locked their doors and pulled heavy blinds over barred windows.  And the wild ones took charge of the streets. 

These citizens would like nothing better than to have all the crazies rounded up and sent to the Moon.  But the police protection is stretched thin at best.  Many of the homes around these long time residents are falling in on themselves.  They are owned by Slum Lords.  And the local grocery stores have raised their prices because they know most of their customers cannot travel easily to another store. 

There are some folks who have no idea of what happens to people trapped and cut off from all hope of ever bettering themselves.  These people honestly believe that all of us are free moral agents, capable of pulling ourselves up by our own boot straps.  They have been fed this pap their entire lives and really believe it.  For their sakes I hope they never feel the fear of living in a dirty one room hole in the wall, listening to the screams and howls of the night people and wondering if each time there is a bump, that someone is going to kick in their door and beat the living crap out of them in order to grab what little there is to take. 

Children lying on filthy bare mats on the floor wondering where their mothers have gone.  Feeling the hands of older siblings on their little butts and knowing it's going to be another Hellish Night. 

Young boys and girls working at the fast food joints, leaving the late shift with their meager pay, only to be grabbed and kicked to the ground and robbed by the very kids who just bought a burger from them. 

In all of this great land is there no one who can lead us to a better place?  The few who have tried have been shouted down or murdered for their efforts. 

Has God turned our planet over to Satan?  He certainly is not watching over those who need Him most. 

Perhaps He is just the God of the rich. 

 

Curious Carl

 

I wnat some police protection

You would think that the police would be focused on tracking known crooks rather than randomly stopping folks.  Yet the statistics show that the bigger the crook the less likely he is to have his limo, high end vehicle or private jet pulled over.  And it appears that murderers have a "get out of trouble free" card.  None of those responsible for the recent deaths of miners and platform workers have even been stopped, much less charged.  I want that kind of police protection. 

 

Curious Carl

 

can we still find Utopia?

When I was a boy and read my first Sci-Fi story, writers told stories about Utopia, the land of plenty where men were all brothers(women still played second fiddle, even in the future) and war was a thing of the past.  We went about the Galaxy doing good. 

Somewhere the picture changed.  Now a good story begins, "As he walked the rubble strewn streets, he realized that he was the last man alive(still no women). 

All we hear is what the world is like after the Holocaust, or invasions by weird monsters who really don't have enough brains to paddle a canoe.  And in Outer Space?  It looks like Iraq. 

What ever happened to our beautiful dreams?  Unless we begin reaching for that Utopia again we will assure that our children will wallow in despair. 

Curious Carl

 

is there such a thing as just a little Capitalism?

Seriously, as long as we must have profit in order to justify our getting out of bed and doing anything productive, we are going to continue paving that broad road with our good intentions.  Profit is the first dribbling of Greed.  Why do I have to have just a little bit more than you have in order to make my creative juices run? 

When I see a little 5 year old girl running bare foot down a rubble strewn slum street do I think, "How can I turn that little girls misfortune into a buck?"  The Capitalist would follow the girl home and try selling her mother a pair of cheap shoes(made in China),. 

What should we do to bring that little girl into a better world?  In today's world that little girl will grow up selling her body for a quick fix.  She may have a dozen babies, some of which will also grow up in despair.  If we turn our back and say, "It's her problem.  There's nothing I can do to help people who won't help themselves".  We are merely assisting that little girl to her doom. 

We have not only allowed the Empire Builders to have their way, but we have been playing their game, grabbing what crumbs fall from their plate, and justifying our own greed by saying, "What else can I do?  I can't change it so I might as well get what I can." 

No!  Any little bit of our Capitalist system still causing us to seek just a little profit from our labors will doom us to return into a Maelstrom of our own making. 

 

Curious Carl

 

babbling baboons and Crock Jocks

Here is the thing about Rush Limbaugh and all the other babbling baboons who make up America's Crock Jocks. 

They are entertainers.  I repeat, they are first and foremost entertainers.  Their livelihood does not depend upon their telling the truth, it depends upon their ability to create a large listening audience. 

I would never accuse most of these flapping faces of being stupid.  They are pros at their profession and are well paid for their talents. 

My question is why we would waste time listening to them twist facts and trample on the Truth?  We go away all worked up and they go off to their cushy homes and comfortable life.  They are the Lackeys of the Empire Builders and they are well cared for.  I have quit listening to them long ago.  I can get worked up enough over real problems and issues without listening to them trump up truck loads of crap. 

 

Curious Carl

 

a puzzled agnostic

since I'm a practicing Agnostic and we have   no book to mess with our minds, could someone help me out by answering my questions. 

If God is the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega, and if God is perfect and He cannot look upon imperfection, and He does know all that is and all that will be, because he is the beginning and the end, then how could He create Lucifer?  And as a part of that question, How could He look upon the imperfection that is Man? 

 

I am also sort of curious about how this Perfect Being could be sitting about making bets with Lucifer regarding the Faithfulness of Job? 

And what kind of a mess were we Humans in if Lot, his wife and two daughters were the only folks worthy of being saved? 

I do hope that no one really believes that Adam and Eve were real people, or that Noah actually put two of each species on his boat and they went off and repopulated the entire planet. 

In all honesty I much prefer reading Alice in Wonderland. 

 

 

Curious Carl

 

 

did you ever meet a phoney agnostic?

Just for something to think about, have you ever met an Agnostic who actually proved by their actions to not be and Agnostic?  I've met lots of phony Christians, but never a phony Agnostic. 

 

Curious Carl

Barney Google with those Goo goo googly eyes

When I was a child I wore thick bifocals and my classmates called me, "Goo-goo eyes", and, "Bug eyed monster". 

The Goo-goo eyes was in reference to the song about Barney Google with those Goo goo googly eyes. 

At night, in the quiet of my room I became Super Boy.  With my Super Boy super strength I saved the playfield from the feared Barnes Brothers, the neighborhood bullies.  I won the championship for our school baseball team with a mighty swat that sent the ball toward the Moon.  And as I began to notice that girls were different than boys, I was fawned over by Kay and Annette, the two most beautiful girls in all of John Hay Grade School. 

But in the grey light of morning, I entered the world of, "what is".  In this real world of what is I was still the odd kid, the shy boy, the last one to be picked for playground games and the one that the girls giggled at, not with. 

My world was an, "in between" world.  I saw well enough to "Pass" for a normally sighted kid, until it came down to stuff like seeing a flying baseball, reading lessons from the black board, and dropping things that were handed to me. 

My parents had no understanding about what I could or could not see.  Visually Impaired was not a term yet introduced into our language.  Either you could see and thus you were sighted, or you could not see and you were blind.  So I became known as the "clumsy stupid" kid. 

Would I, living in this never never land between blind and sighted, have used a white cane?  Not on your life.  No way.  Never.  Over my dead body. 

Never mind that the other children saw me as, "different".  And never mind that I knew how they felt and that I could seem to do nothing about it.  Even though the white travel cane was just becoming used by blind people, I knew that it meant that I was blind. 

And I was not.  Blind people begged on the street corners and looked like idiots.  I knew that.  I'd seen them.  So how did I deal with my world?  I became the class clown.  The buffoon.  And I got pretty good at it.  In fact I gathered a few other kids around me and we began writing and performing silly skits during assembly and after school in the lunch room. 

Like so many other kids living on the borderline, I found a way to survive.  But it is one reason that I stay active in the field of work with the blind.  No one should have to go it alone.  No one should have to cry nights because they are being rejected and don't have the tools to fight back. 

 

Curious Carl

the road of bad intentions?

If the road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions, where do Bad Intentions take us? 

 

Curious Carl