Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

I think…therefore I’m dangerous.

The Presidential Debates

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My take on this year’s debates and other semi-related matters.

I don’t want to get too political in these blogs. After all, I know that some people have very strong feelings for or against a specific candidate and I don’t want to completely alienate myself from these people.

I’ve been watching bits and pieces of the debates. I say bits and pieces because, frankly, I don’t like debates in general and these debates are among the worst I’ve ever seen.

Here’s the way I see it. A debate should consist of two people with different opinions and views logically presenting their views in a way to convince the audience that their views are right. It should not consist of two people pointing out the shortcomings of each other, offering false evidence as support of claims, or defending themselves against the other’s comments.

From the bits and pieces I’ve seen, both candidates are spending the majority of their time accusing their opponents of various bad decisions and bad results or defending themselves against these claims. George W Bush is, by far, the worst of the bunch in this respect. Last night’s debate — of which I heard 30 minutes from another room and watched 15 minutes on television — showed him in defensive mode almost the entire time. For example, when John Kerry tried hard to present his plan for balancing the budget. Rather than present his plan, Bush blasted Kerry, saying that he wouldn’t keep his word. I still don’t know what Bush plans to do about the budget and how his plan might differ from Kerry’s. Bush came across as a crybaby and, at one point, I actually felt sorry for him.

I watched a tiny bit of the Cheney vs. Edwards debate the other night. I don’t like Cheney. I think he’s evil. The kind of guy James Bond might go after. But I was extremely impressed at the way Edwards held up against him. In fact, Edwards looked pretty good. And Cheney did make a huge blunder when he referred people to FactCheck.com rather than FactCheck.org. The folks at FactCheck.com, which was bombarded with hits that overwhelmed their server, set up a refresh to GeorgeSoros.com. George Soros is about as anti-Bush/Cheney as they get. So Cheney indirectly referred people to a site that blasted him. And, to make matters worse, FactCheck.org, the correct site, wrote an article saying that their site did not say what Cheney claimed it did. It then presented an objective review of the debate that didn’t make Mr. Cheney look very good at all.

Personally, I wish the debates had more substance. I wish the candidates would stick to the topics and not waste so much time blasting each other or defending themselves. This has got to be the dirtiest campaign I’ve ever witnessed. So much mud-slinging about things that aren’t important.

One more thing, although it really doesn’t have to do with the debates. I heard a story on NPR yesterday about how the Bush campaign is using the Secret Service and local police (which are both paid for with our tax dollars) to keep possible Kerry supporters out of Bush presidential campaign rallies. This is to ensure that when Bush speaks, everyone laughs at his jokes or chants “flip-flop” at the appropriate time or boos the competition when prompted.

I think this is wrong on many levels. First of all, America is supposed to be a free country and our Constitution gives us the right to attend public gatherings, including public appearances of the president. Second, why is the president so afraid of a few possible Kerry supporters in the audience? It is because he can’t handle the possibility of a little heckling? If so, how is he able to handle more difficult matters, including the War he’s dragged us into (under what are not proven to be false pretenses), the huge deficit, the sagging economy, and the health care crisis we face? (My health insurance premiums just went up $200 per quarter!) Third, why should the security services taxpayers fund — the Secret Service and local police — be used to keep taxpayers out of a public gathering when they pose no security threat?

John Kerry doesn’t do anything to keep out Bush supporters. John Kerry can handle the heckling he gets at rallys. Who looks like the better man now?

Election Year Blues

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I am amazed by what some people are saying about the presidential candidates.

I don’t make a habit of using my Web site as a forum for voicing my political views — especially political views on the presidential level — especially during an election year.

But the other day I got a phone call from my sister-in-law, Missy. Missy had heard on the radio that the democratic candidate, John Kerry, was coming to the Grand Canyon on a campaign stop. (I really did have to wonder about that. The vast majority of people at the GC are not registered to vote in the U.S., probably because they don’t live in the U.S. I suspect he just wanted to see the GC and figured he’d make the trip a write-off by doing it on his campaign tour.) I’m not quite sure why Missy brought this to my attention. Perhaps she thought I was at the GC. (She did call me on my cell phone.) But it got us talking about the candidates.

My brother and his wife live in New Jersey. Like many people who live in New Jersey, they’re in tune with reality (as opposed to the current fairy tale about truth, justice, and the American way spun by the republican party and its chief talking head, George Jr.). Like me, they believe that the current president sold the country a bill of goods when he claimed a war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from wiping us out with his weapons of mass destruction (WMD). I’m not sure why he really started that war, but I do recall his repeated claims at a press conference that we were going to “change the world.” Perhaps he wanted to go down in history books as the president who changed the world? Or maybe his motives were more basic: a desire to help out his Texas buddies and their friends with lucrative contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq.

Anyway, Missy told me she was really caught up in the election stuff this year. I told her I was looking forward to the debates. I said that Kerry would wipe the floor with George Jr. Although I believe George is an excellent speaker and can read a speech so well that even I can start believing and (heaven help me) agreeing with him, I don’t think he’ll be able to answer the questions in a debate without resorting to pre-rehearsed speeches. I’m just curious to see how much he can memorize in advance, how well he can match those canned responses with live questions, and how much the panel of questioners let him get away with.

Missy also brought up something that I’d noticed and had me concerned. It was the fact that the pro-Bush people were extremely pro-Bush to the extent that they wouldn’t even discuss Bush’s shortcomings or Kerry’s strengths. It was like these people were brainwashed. Very scary. Needless to say, it’s keeping me pretty quiet where I know I’m around Bush supporters.

It reminds me of something that happened when I was a freshman in college. Mind you, I was 17 years old at the time and this has stuck with me since it happened. It was in economics class. The professor had a discussion going and a guy named Mike from Pennsylvania stated “America is the greatest country in the world.” That’s a fine statement, but when the professor asked him why, he couldn’t explain why. He just kept repeating his original statement, as if it were an explanation. Another guy in the class whose name was also Mike, was all over that. Soon a mini war had erupted with PA Mike repeating his statement over and over while the other Mike (let’s call him Commie Mike) kept giving all kinds of examples of why America might not be the greatest country in the world. Poor PA Mike was terribly upset — kind of like a staunch republican having to listen to evidence that Bush may have known all along that Iraq didn’t have WMD. And Commie Mike was getting frustrated, trying to debate an issue with a person who just couldn’t argue his side. The professor just sat back in his chair with a smile on his face. We were getting a lesson — at least I was — and he wasn’t doing a thing.

Anyway, I don’t think much of Bush. I don’t think much of Kerry, either, but he’s got to be better than another four years of Bush. I don’t think we should be in Iraq. I don’t think we should have alienated ourselves from the rest of the western world. I think the U.S. should be a team player; not the bully with the best toys who starts trouble with less fortunate kids. I also think we should work on freeing ourselves from dependence on foreign oil — or any oil. Heck, the world will run out sooner or later. And I think the government should be more concerned with U.S. jobs going overseas and affordable health care than whether Iraq has good roads and sewer systems.

But heck, that’s just me. What do I know?

The Declaration of Independence

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I listen to a reading of our country’s founding document and think about what brought about our independence from Great Britain 228 years ago.

When I’m at Howard Mesa, I listen to the radio every morning. I listen to NPR, National Public Radio. There are actually three NPR frequencies I can get here: on from Phoenix that is repeated by Prescott, one from Flagstaff, and another from somewhere else.

This morning, during Morning Edition, I heard some familiar words: “When in the course of human events…” I soon realized that the radio staff was reading the Declaration of Independence.

It was a moving reading — if such a reading could ever be considered moving. The radio staff took turns reading paragraphs from the document. They each put emotion into what they read, as if they were the people making these claims, the people injured. I’ve read the Declaration several times, but I believe this is the first time I really understood it.

Imagine the east coast of the United States as thirteen colonies under the power of a King far away. Communication between the colonies and the King took weeks (if not months) in those days. The people of the colonies feel that they are being mistreated by the King. They write a document that clearly argues their point, listing dozens of offenses committed by the King against them. That’s the Declaration of Independence.

I can only imagine how that document must have pissed off King George III when he finally read it.

Reading the Declaration gives you a unique view of life in the American Colonies in the early 1770s. It was a time when people truly cared about freedom — because their freedom was limited. It was a time when people considered taxation without representation — because it simply wasn’t fair. It was a time when people who cared about what was right and wrong actually stood up and did something about the injustices they saw.

A bit different from today, when people care more about what celebrities are wearing than what’s being voted on in Congress.

Anyway, this morning, when I spoke to Mike, I mentioned that I’d heard the Declaration on NPR. Do you know what he said? “I heard it, too. It was great, wasn’t it?”

Looks like I picked the right guy after all.

Time Flies When You’re Getting Old

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Why time seems to go by faster, the older you get.

This is the official explanation. Or at least the explanation I came up with. But if you think about it, you’ll realize it has some merits.

First, the question: Why does time seem to go by faster, the older you get?

The answer: time is relative. I think Einstein might have proved that, but I’d like to present it in a far less technical way, without equations.

Look at it this way: When you’re five years old, a year is a FIFTH of your life. That’s a huge amount of your known time. But when you’re fifty years old, that same year is a FIFTIETH of your life. That’s a much smaller chunk of your time on earth. So it seems to go by faster.

What do you think? I’m convinced that this is the answer.

The Truth about Me

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A report on the fallout from a previous journal entry.

A long time has gone by since I wrote the journal entry titled “Living on the Edge of Nowhere.” Much has happened in that time.

First of all, I have to say that I’m flattered. At least one person in Wickenburg, the tiny desert town I live in, finds my writing stimulating enough to read everything I’ve ever written on all of my Web sites. That’s the only explanation. How else could someone here find my Weblog, which is buried deep in the bowels of my Web work and not even hosted on my own server?

One of these people liked the”Life on the Edge of Nowhere” piece so much that he (or she) sent it around to other fans via e-mail. He (or she) also printed it, photocopied it, and shared it with a bunch of others. Obviously, this person is above copyright law because he (or she) flagrantly violated it by distributing my work without my permission. (My lawyer is working on the paperwork for that issue.)

The result of the widespread distribution of this one article is quite comical. A few people asked me about it. They weren’t happy, but when told about the context in which it appeared, they didn’t seem to mind. After all, it isn’t as if this piece were printed on the front page of the New York Times. (Although I’m sure a lot of New Yorkers would have enjoyed it very much.) Other people, who I know read it, never said a word to me about it. To them, it was business as usual. A few other people who read it stopped me to tell me how much they agreed with me and how I shouldn’t be so frustrated living in Wickenburg. (The piece was written in a moment of frustration — that should be clear to anyone who read it.) One person even stopped by with his copy to read his favorite parts aloud to me, laughing the whole time. And a few people who didn’t know much about me made a point of looking me up to talk about things. Two of them booked helicopter rides and enjoyed them immensely.

The people who distributed the piece did so for a reason. They want the townspeople to think that I’m a one-woman hit squad, out to get Wickenburg. This isn’t what THEY think — they know better. They’ve seen the work I’ve done in town, especially at the airport, where I’ve invested over $20,000 in furniture, building improvements, a courtesy car, and landscaping. They’ve seen me at fundraising events for the museum and the Rotary. They watched me land Santa Claus at the Community Center in my helicopter for Cops Who Care and have seen me marking numbers on horse butts as a volunteer for the Land of the Sun Endurance Ride. They’ve heard about my presentations to school kids in Congress and Salome, about how I landed my helicopter in the schoolyard, then spent several hours addressing each class of kids. And they’ve seen the dozens of pages I’ve written for wickenburg-az.com , a Web site I maintain at my own expense that provides a wealth of non-commercial information about the town without charging anyone a penny for advertising or access.

But it isn’t the positive things I’ve said on wickenburg-az.com that they spread around. It’s the work where I point out Wickenburg’s shortcomings. As a result, the people who read what they illegally distribute get a lopsided picture of me.

What the people who distributed the piece don’t realize (partially because they’re so close-minded and self-served that they can’t see reality) is that voicing opinions of Wickenburg — both positive and negative — brings to light the way people see the town. We all know what’s good about the town: the laid back atmosphere, the weather (at least 10 months out of the year), the widespread spaces between many of the homes, the relatively low (yes, I said low) cost of living, the ability to live without fear of crime. And frankly, we all know what’s not so good about Wickenburg, too. Why shouldn’t we voice our opinions about it?

Wickenburg isn’t perfect — we all know that. No place is perfect. If there were a perfect place to live, everyone would move there and it wouldn’t be perfect anymore. (I think that’s what happened to San Diego.)

By bringing Wickenburg’s shortcomings to light, we make people aware of them, people who can make a difference. For example, if I complain about the lack of good ethnic food here in Wickenburg it may become a topic of conversation. Someone who has been interested in starting a restaurant might realize that there’s a niche to fill. He might open up an Indian or Greek or Spanish or fill-in-the-blank restaurant in town. That’s adding to what the town offers residents and visitors. It adds tax revenues to the town’s coffers. It offers employment opportunities. It makes the town better.

This has worked in the past. For example, way back before Alco came to town, townspeople often complained that there were no basic clothing stores in town. Indeed, if you needed to buy underwear or socks, you had to go “down the hill” to Surprise, Glendale, etc. The folks at Double-D heard what was being said. They now sell these things. And Alco came along to add more variety to these offerings and more.

I could write all day about the good and not-so-good things in Wickenburg, but I won’t do it here. Why should I? This article won’t get the widespread attention that “Life on the Edge of Nowhere” got. Because it shows me the way I really am: someone who cares enough about the town to speak out.

And the folks who want to keep that picture of me slanted the other way just don’t want people to know the truth.