Winter is upon us again

Its December 7, 2016. 30 degrees outside and will get down to about 23 here again tonight. Some snow on the way. No wind, thank God. Its 4:45 and its already dark outside. Very depressing.

Dave started this blog when he was 57. Now he's 68 and feeling it. Spinal stenosis has caught up with him. Debilitating back pain for 14 months. Unable to do much at all. Now, due to diet modification, physical therapy, and healing time,  the day to day pain is nearly gone. Back with the living.

My advice to anyone: give your back consideration. Don't lift heavy stuff. Even if you are in your 20s and really strong, the years will catch up with you and you'll be really sorry. A herniated disk can cause excruciating pain for days, weeks, and months; and that's if your really lucky.

That brings me to my next rant. Health care. The new administration, selected by the minority through the electoral "college" (which is nothing like a "real college") , has promised to repeal the health care act, medicare, and social security. I sincerely hope anyone over 55 has a way to take care of themselves, because medicare will be gone, and so will social security, and who knows what health care will be like. This scares the hell out of me. Environmental protection will be abolished. Millions of people will be deported, and a massive wall will be built along the US / Mexico boarder. The clean water act will be repealed, as will the clean air act. Will this all happen? Maybe. If people only knew what those regulations have actually done to vastly improve our planet, there would be a nation-wide uproar. But there is nothing. Well, all I can say is, I'm 68; by the time the roll-back of regulations has turned this place into a pile of garbage, I'll be dead and gone. . .  but that makes me sick. What about our grand kids? Great grand kids? They will inherit a pile of garbage, if they even live that long. How can we do this to our God given paradise? I do not know. We were given this earth to take care of it, not to trash it. . . ... but; maybe; just maybe our new president will actually improve things here. He will protect national parks, keep clean water, keep clean air, encourage energy independence by subsidizing renewable energy instead of throwing billions of dollars a year at the petrol industry.  He will improve health care so we all can afford it, he will make a college education available to every one without burdening them with a lifetime of debt. He will create jobs for everyone. He will force the rich to pay their fair share of taxes. He will keep the church out of politics. He will prevent racism, sexism, and provide equal pay for equal work. Hmmmm. I'm not holding my breath on that scenario. We'll see what happens. Sadly, there are a lot of things that really do need to be changed, that did not get changed in the past 8 years.

If the deportation were really accurate, most of us should be deported. The first peoples, who were nearly wiped out by small pox, tuberculosis, influenza, and measles (brought by the European invasion)  are the people who really own this land. I am sure most will tell me I'm full of it for even saying that. It, however does seem reasonable to limit immigration. We can't pay for every one that wants to enter. That, said, we really need to be careful about where we send out bombs and troops, and how much collateral damage we create with our imperialist actions. We say we want to enable "democracy", when we really don't have a true "democracy" here in this country the electoral college proves that. It seems like we should clean up our act here first and set an example for the rest of the world. We are hypocrites. We live in a pseudo-democracy which is actually more of an oligarchy than any thing else.      

Mr. Trump, will you make America great again?

 It looks like the minority of the voting population has selected our new president, thanks to the electoral college and those who did not vote. Good job, people; you just delivered a smashing blow to anything resembling a democracy here in this country.

From:
http://www.statisticbrain.com/voting-statistics/

Out of 218,959,000 people of voting age, 146,311,000 are registered, and out of that 129,235,000 actually voted.  Clinton got 63,551,979  votes and trump got 61,898,584 votes. Trump got 306 electoral college votes, and Clinton got 232 electoral college votes. Trump was correct, the election was rigged, as are all presidential elections as long as the electoral college is used to determine the president.  Trump got less than 33 percent of the total possible popular vote, and got over 50 percent of the total possible electoral votes. These numbers are not my opinion, they are facts. If you have a difference with that, let me know and I'll change things here, cite your source.

For those of you who did not vote, or register, mr. trump probably thanks you.

Well, time for another post. Its now November 3, 2016. We have had record rainfall in the past 4  weeks; nearly 11 inches. This is a record amount. Leaves are still green on the trees around here. Most of the garden is still growing. Some wind, but nothing destructive . . .  yet. We had a scare last month, a very deep low pressure system, the remains of a typhoon, approached Washington / Oregon / B.C. / Northern California threatening to be worse than the Columbus Day storm. It missed us, just barely. Thank God.

This is election year. The campaign has been a circus. A mockery of Democracy. One candidate, in particular, is an absolute ass. He's a loose cannon and regardless of his past, he has shown, with his actions now,  to be completely devoid of any skill or wisdom in dealing with public affairs, world class diplomacy, or management of government operations. He is taking advantage of people's anger and fear with regard to our country's problems, which are real (most of which are caused by the uber-wealthy). And to compound the already horrific issue, the media is having fun with it all.

Change is needed NOW: Campaign finance reform (keep corporate money out of politics), education reform; make college free for all, forgive all college loans; our democracy will die unless we are educated, health care reform (make all pharma and health care non-profit), make our military defensive and not offensive, keep church out of politics, re-instate the Glass–Steagall act and enforce it, send corporate crooks to jail after making them pay all of their money back. Eliminate lawsuits unless criminal intent is first proven No more "civil suits". Limit lawyer's income to the national average. Double the salaries of police officers, fireman, and teachers. Make child care affordable. Stop the destruction of our environment caused by the use of petroleum products, and corporate greed. Eliminate the wealth inequality in the U.S. (its really really bad, just google it and don't believe faux news). Force the rich to pay for it all; its time for them to pay the piper. None of this will happen in my lifetime, for sure. If you're a 30 something reading this, probably won't happen in your lifetime either.  The way things are however, will not go on indefinitely. The longer it takes to fix this mess, the worse it will be. Sooooo much needs to be changed.

At 68 years old, the fragile nature of human life is becoming painfully obvious. This is what I want to say:

"My advice to anyone: if there is someone you love; TELL THEM before it is too late.  Look for the glass to be half-full. Look for the good. Look for the truth. 

Hatred, lies, anger, fear, uncertainty and doubt are conditions of the mind that will ruin your life and the lives of those around you; avoid those conditions like the plague."

However the blatantly obvious facts say this: "It is an unprecedented tragedy, that most of us alive now, will die leaving this earth to be trashed in the name of money (greed)." How the heck can people be so darned blind?  Is this really what we want to leave our grand children?