Random Jottings

Healthy Lifestyles, Global Kerosene From Airplanes - Time For Cleaner Super Train! by Derek Dashwood

Healthy lifestyles would not recommend that you be downdraft or under a modern aircraft. They are fueled for more power with kerosine, that lamp that gave off smoke into the lungs of grandpa while he tried to read the paper. Mostly, we can now turn on the lights and not ignite a flammable substance into our lives.

Although modern industry, in it’s efficient way, can some times do this for us. Take, for example, that modern marvel, the jet engine. It is a much more high powered machine, loaded with needs much beyond grandpa’s old tin lizzy. We made the error back half a century ago of adding lead to gasoline for all the grandpa’s, and charge them extra. Then , decades later, when it was found that lead was killing us, much as the use of lead had killed Romans of high society who only eat fromm leaden bowls.

Good night Caesar. But now for us: science has really been quite quiet about this, as there are many expensive grants that apply to those who find high powered heavy machines off the ground most efficiently, and over the seas. Well, we have a proposal that is sure to create more immediate condemnation from some, such as the kerosine lobby. But what if we created, as was suggested in the economist, a world wide web of efficient high tech high speed trains that the French and Japanese have fully mastered, and network the globe with them.

Filthy air traffic over the bits hard to get the trains to. There are not many excuses for air flight, other than London to New York. Look at your map of the world, and you can see, how the southern route down through India, makes it easy from London to Istanbul, Delhi to Beijing, split in Siberia for those hops down those islands to include Tokyo. Otherwise the train has you working your computer and soon you are under the sea, like the Britain to France channel tunnel, but at the far eastern end of this most land mass, and you are into North America.

Your Amtrack or Bullet Train or trains around France, could be the world’s tramway and we could advance. Our skies will clear and we would inhale less spittles of kerosine. We can see that sweet dream, or is it just too obscene. To turn our backs on our habits, even to get clean.

It will not likely happen, but was there in several years ago as some plan reported in the Economist, as a thought on one way to get off the hell hook of air pollution, that may double in a decade, unless we wake up. But, you may ask, many do, who needs blue skies and clean water, and fresh air and all that. We are children of progress, and let it at that.

No, Chairman Now, and President March Hare, we have had it with your coal burning, air polluting progress, and want to get a cleaner route. Anyway hopeful, what is cleaner will make live more possibly serene. Which would be a fine change, from the hat and no cattle that we have all seen.

Derek Dashwood enjoys the combining of science into the humanities to measure politics and use and wise use of power at
Healthy Lifestyles That Could Take Us Around the World

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Should Obama Start Drama? by Todd A. Smith

Throughout the Democratic primaries, Senator Barack Obama has dedicated his entire campaign to change. Change from the usual divisive politics and mudslinging that have characterized many presidential elections by putting more emphasis on the issues that are important to voters such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the economy.

However, as Hillary Clinton continued to attack Obama’s elect-ability, the Obama camp began airing negative ads in Pennsylvania with hopes of halting some of her momentum in that crucial state.

“She’s got the kitchen sink flying, the china flying, the buffet is coming at me,” Obama said about Clinton.

In one Pennsylvania ad, Obama stated that another Clinton presidency would be better than the current Bush administration only because the bar had been set so low.

According to the Los Angeles Times, “Such comments probably led to exit poll numbers out of Pennsylvania showing about half of the voters thought he unfairly attacked Clinton. About 60 percent of the voters made their mind up in the campaigns final days.”

The Los Angeles Times also reported that more than two dozen superdelegates believed the bickering would continue for up to six weeks and ultimately strengthen the eventual nominee.

However, many believed that the negativity would weaken the nominee and the party as a whole, and virtually no one supported Clinton’s notion of fighting on to the convention in Denver.

“If the tone of the presidential campaign continues on this negative trajectory, it will create wounds that are hard to heal,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md). “And it would be a big mistake to have a divisive convention in the full glare of TV lights.”

According to the Associated Press, Obama now has 1,723.5 delegates and Clinton has 1,592.5. The Democratic nominee has to secure 2,024 delegates to win the nomination. Approximately 300 superdelegates out of 800 remain uncommitted.

Despite overcoming the adversity that comes with being a presidential candidate, not to mention the first serious African American candidate, Obama must always remember what made him the Democratic “golden boy.”

For years, Americans have watched as politicians conducted business as usual at the detriment of U.S. citizens.

Democrat and Republican voters have both watched as candidates dished dirt on their opponent, while seeming to ignore the problems facing average American citizens on a daily basis.

Families with insufficient financial resources to feed their families do not benefit from whether or not Obama wears an American flag on his lapel.

In addition, widows who lost their husbands in Iraq do not benefit from whether Clinton had to dodge sniper fire in Bosnia.

What all Americans benefit from is the unity that initially surrounded Obama’s campaign and the hope that this country could come together after eight polarizing years of the Bush administration.

The ability to bring all Americans together despite their differences and the ability to repair America’s reputation overseas is what Obama needs to rely on, not the same old Washington politics of the past, if he is truly dedicated to change.

“It’s easy to get caught up in the distractions and the silliness and the tit-for-tat that consumes our politics; the bickering that none of us are immune to, and that trivializes the profound issues—two wars, an economy in recession, a planet in peril,” Obama told a crowd in Evanston, Ind. “But that kind of politics is not why we’re here, it’s not why I’m here and it’s not why you’re here.”

It is important the Obama remember it is not how he got here as well.

Todd Smith is the web master for Regal Mag The preeminent Online Magazine for African American Men

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Barack Obamas Church: Climbing the Ladder by Ben Needles

I watch the television news and I am in awe at the shallow political reporting being done about Barack Obamas church membership. It brings up a fascinating set of questions. Did Obama only attend that church to use the anger of inner city Blacks as his footstool to high places? Does he subscribe to their anger? Did he attend as part of his role as community organizer and politician? Is the American public suffering shock and awe at the level of rage still alive in the Black community, especially in the face of the widespread readiness to accept a Black man in the ultimate US leadership position?

Wow thats a lot of questions for one little post isnt it? If I miss one here I will get to it later. I am white, that should be made clear in this discussion. I was raised in a white neighborhood in Southern, California. My family even moved to a rural northern county when I was a teenager where cowboy hats were worn to school, chew rings were fashionable in blue jean pockets and where old pickup trucks were the norm.

Needless to say, I wasnt raised with Black people and neither was Barack Obama from what Ive read. Years ago I was hired as a teacher in the inner city where I taught mostly Black children. I experienced serious culture shock there. For the first time, I was on the receiving end of Black anger toward white people. I am a witness to the rage. It is easier to discount this rage as unfair, misplaced or out of touch with the present than to understand its causes and try to help lead people out of it. But whether you want to acknowledge it or not its still there and pretending it isnt or isnt justified wont make it go away.

I suspect that Barack Obama being raised in a white culture and attending Harvard was similarly taken aback by the level of anger present in the inner city. The following passage is from Barack Obamas book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Crown, 2007. I was stunned when I read this passage because it hit such a chord of truth for me. I could tell that Barack had worked in the same kind of place I had and that he understands it well. Barack kept his eyes and his ears open during his work.

The stories that I had been hearing from the leadership, all the records of courage and sacrifice and overcoming great odds, hadnt simply arisen from struggles with pestilence or drought, or even mere poverty. They had arisen out of a very particular experience with hate. That hate hadnt gone away; it formed a counter narrative buried deep within each person and at the center of which stood white people; some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives. I had to ask myself whether the bonds of community could be restored without collectively exorcising that ghostly figure that haunted black dreams. Could Ruby love herself without hating blue eyes?

The three of them only reflected the attitudes of most of the people who worked in Altgeld [the name of a housing project [a Crankyblog note]: teachers, drug counselors, policemen. Some were only there for the paycheck; others sincerely wanted to help. But whatever their motives, they would all at some point confess a common weariness, a weariness that was bone-deep. They had lost whatever confidence they might have once had in their ability to reverse the deterioration they saw all around them. With that loss of confidence came a loss in the capacity for outrage. The idea of responsibility; their own, that of others; slowly eroded, replaced with gallows humor and low expectations.

You see Obama could not work with the people of the inner city and deny the reality of their rage. He could not work with them and deny that white people were at the center of their rage. I doubt he would say that a Black person today is destined to live in poverty, or that some ladders out of the pit have not been constructed. But it takes belief to climb the ladder, it takes courage. It takes the support of other people who believe. What I found to be true in the inner city was that the belief wasnt there, not in the parents and not in their children. People there didnt give support to others who were attempting to climb out. To even say that it was possible to climb the ladder out of the pit of poverty was seen as naiive. It was ghetto heresy; it was caving in to the white propaganda. There were no ladders, no way out in the minds of many; it was seen as a lie. As Obama says in his book, the low expectations and gallows humor were very evident in the schools where potential was often assigned by achievement of the parents. After years of struggling to teach, it often became easier to assign the responsibility for teaching to Jamals parents. Jamals parents didnt read well, didnt make him do homework, so why should Jamal be expected to achieve? The rage and the low expectations combined to leave the children another generation deep in the pit.

Obama joining that church makes sense to me. He worked with the people in their community. He could not do that and deny their rage. He could not work with them and not be in full understanding of their circumstances, their history and its legacy. It does not mean he shared all of it. But Barack had to understand it in order to help them see what they could not see. Barack has to understand that they could not see the rungs on the very ladders he was climbing. He knew they were not sharing the high expectations of his life. There was rage, no gentle understanding of peoples struggles. If anything, I applaud him for attending that church and I applaud him for working in the inner city.

So in answer to my own questions, I believe that Obama wants to be President because of what he experienced in Altgeld. I believe that he is better qualified to understand the needs of people in poverty than the other candidates because of the work he did there. He experienced the rage of the people because he didnt shy away from the ugly realities he witnessed. I do not think that most white people can understand why poverty is such a trap - I was similarly ignorant before I worked in the inner city. I think that the airing of angry rhetoric in Baracks church has placed the rage front and center in a way that is new and shocking to the general public. White people are learning there are still people who feel trapped in poverty and that they are angry.

I think it is a shame that the media has spun this church issue in such a bone-headed way. We are losing a great opportunity. There has been no reasoned attempt to understand the anger or why Barack would have attended there in the first place. I dont know Barack, but I feel like I know this much about him, he understands the people he went to church with whether he agreed with them or not. Perhaps he felt that the most significant thing he could do for them was to ascend as high as he could up the ladder so he could look back down into the pit of poverty and say, Look everyone, it can be done, follow me!

Id love to have a bottle of wine with Barack Obama and ask him, Will Ruby be able to love herself without hating my blue eyes if you become President? I hope it will be so.

About the Author (text)

A Sacramento curmudgeon who writes daily at http://crankyblog.com.

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The Amazing Power Of Print by Ben Needles

For centuries the printed word has been able to sway people one way or another in many cases all because of what they read. When there is a headline printed people pay attention. They usually automatically assume that if it makes the front page of the newspaper that it must be true. In the majority of cases it will be at least partially correct.

Newspaper print especially can create a stir by whatever is printed in it. Newspapers have brought the news of wars began and wars that have ended. Newspapers will detail the deaths of someone famous or important. Anything that is newsworthy will be printed.

Even with the invention of television and the computer which also relays news worthy information to us, there are still plenty of newspapers and magazines out there doing as big a business as ever. There is just something about reading that people can not resist. The power of the printed word has always been undeniable and probably always will be. When you have a format that predicts the next president or the next war, it is likely to be around for a long time to come.

Today there has been a very serious problem that has developed not only with the printed news, but television and computer news too. People have become obsessed with rooting out facts, whatever the subject they might be about, and spread it as fast as they can. Many times when there is money involved in a story, which is frequently, the truth may not always be what it seems. Some forms of media will twist a story around so much to sensationalize it as much as possible. The more outrageous the story, the better it will sell.

It would seem that the business of news, in whatever form it might take, has developed a tendency to sometimes go over an invisible line that probably should not be crossed. Newspapers years ago were all about reporting events that meant something, but now in a lot of instances it is only about spreading gossip or telling personal information about people or events. There truly are some things that could be left unsaid and that are really no business of anyone else.

Of course all the blame for spreading malicious rumors and gossip whether it is truth or fiction, can not be blamed entirely on the media. The public has to bear a certain amount of responsibility for buying everything they can find to read even if they are not sure of the actual truth of a matter. If we dislike the way that our world has become on so many levels, maybe we should take a good long look at the things that are making us the way we are such as a lack of respect for the privacy of others.

About the Author (text)

Rachel Yoshida is a writer in many fields.
http://www.seotrafficmonger.com
http://www.seotrafficmonger.com/oceancitycashadvance.html

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Our Matrix: Choose Your Pill Wisely by A.K. Kuykendall

Propaganda (noun): publicity intended to persuade or convince people.

It is imperative that you see in propaganda the probabilities and possibilities. I forewarn you, even if you do wake up – if you choose to heed my propaganda – the only thing you will gain is awareness. You will gain further knowledge of and for yourself. You will gain knowledge of the truths that have been hidden from you.

You will gain if you choose to consider this plethora of speculations and move on to the next level to answer the questions I will plant in your head. You will gain if you choose to research further for self-knowledge. You will gain knowledge the conspirators do not wish you to have or strive toward, for your knowledge diminishes their stronghold over you.

Choose your pill wisely: remain the pawns in a never-ending game, or see just how far the rabbit hole goes?

I speak of a society that questions propaganda, that questions mass speculation, that questions rhetoric. I speak of a society that questions the media’s motivation and agenda, that questions the political processes of a governing body from the top of the structural pyramid to the bottom, that questions and evaluates itself and its place in this complex world. I speak of a society unplugged from a forged world as intricate as the Matrix.

In a world managed by sentinels, which are the politicians? The agents are within the National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigations, Pentagon, Secret Service, Homeland Security, and the Special Cavalry Services. All of this is manned by the architect, the political official who claimed the seat in the White House: the President of the United States. That cloaked conspirator who hovers above us all is our Agent Smith, the viral element in our society and in our world. I am your self-proclaimed Neo in this soap opera.

We exist in a forged world for which the average man, woman, and child play a vital role: to continue the succession of this world, and to keep in power those who man it. The world in which we live needs us just as much as we need it. This world and its processes wouldn’t be if no one existed upon it to do the controlling. The average man needs this strategic structure. We crave this terrain, this oppression, this hovering dominance.

I cannot take you into pinpointed details, for I do not have pinpointed details. My source will not allow me to be privy to those facts. He, she, or it has informed me that there are plenty of other authors from whom you can choose, American and international, who have attempted to do so in their controversial publications. My words are simply speculation fueled by decades upon decades of ingenious corruption, of which I have taken note. My words are meant to cause you to question your strategically conditioned belief systems and to open your minds to the probabilities and possibilities of your world, of your country, and of the society in which you live.

The aforesaid authors attempt to pinpoint truths of corruption in their literature, but the fact of the matter is that they are no different from me. It is all still speculation. A conspiracy is somewhat like a corporation. It is a fortified union fueled by people. You see, the fundamental principles of a corporation in any society are based on the mass manipulation and hidden control it has over its consumers, whom these corporations supposedly serve. In actuality, this union controls the consumer, keeping itself above the consumer at all times. This is why corporations spare no expense in a marketing campaign.

The same can be said for political campaigns – the Presidential campaign, for example. Collective manipulation is not cheap. The price, if executed properly, will be paid by voters through campaign contributions. Money talks. With a conspiracy, mass manipulation and hidden control are fundamental. Conspirators control the media, Hollywood, literature, and more, focusing us on so many distractions that we miss the truths right in front of us. We can’t see through the propaganda.

The conspirator’s coup survives primarily by dumbing down the masses. Think about it. Our government, its political processes, and its political agenda continue to stay afloat because conspirators keep Americans in their pockets. Think about it. Lives that once required average America one job to support now demand two to three jobs. This triples the taxes forked over to our government. These taxes initially caused average America to seek extra work in the first place. Here is the primary means of controlling people, but it remains only a platform for mass manipulation and hidden control.

Think about it. When the average American is tired out financially, physically, and psychologically, what’s left is an American so absorbed in his or her own fundamental survival that little attention remains for anything else. Everyday survival is top priority, until we are slapped in the face with the reality that the people we blindly voted into office are pissing on the world in which we live.

Your decisions are not your own, my fellow Americans. Strategic unknown beings dictate what you will do, what you will say, and how you will live. Think about it. When a politician is plastered on television, going on and on about subjects that fit into our current hopes and dreams, this politician gets our attention.

With the time constraints placed on us by the forged society in which we live, we are prone to “believe the hype.” A politician speaks on fewer taxes, better jobs, increased pay, a secure economy, better health benefits, homeland security, recession prevention, government refunds. So we flock to this politician. We flock like a pack of seagulls bearing down on a fallen potato chip. We are lured to baited hook because we do not know a single truth about this politician. We know nothing but what we have been told, because we are too swamped with the full-time job of survival to think about researching. Politicians know exactly which of our buttons to push when competing to govern us. Conspirators strategically plot and project that the average American will be too exhausted to question anything.

Hey, America, I could go on and on about mass manipulation and hidden control, but I feel it superfluous, for it is never-ending. In addition, I am somewhat biased. I, too, am a victim of this control. We all are, as I hope you understand.

Pragmatic author A.K. Kuykendall has a passion for writing conspiracy, espionage, horror, and suspense literature that blends the concepts of fact and fiction. For more information on his projects, visit The Writer of Books or, to email the author directly for Q&A on this article, write to chooseyourpill@thewriterofbooks.com.

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