Events/ Family-Form Person


Events form our destiny they say, or is it Destiny the forms our life?  Could it be another thing, like we are the accumulation of the events and our base family‘s reaction to them? Many ideas come to subject on this point, but I have grown to believe, we are all, what we are taught to be, plus, what events  we live through you see. Each Generation is different because each has its own events they live through and we have the cultural, moral and ethical bringing up of the base family.

       Take a look back in time, for me i have only lived 56 years and I don’t know how long I have left. But I do not my parents didn’t hand us things on a platter, they didn’t give us cars, electronics, money or fancy clothes. We didn’t get our music through them or anything else, what we got pure and simple was discipline, work hard, go to school and stay the hell out of trouble or we will beat your ass. If you dropped out of school in my family’s world you went to work and paid for your rent and for food, you learned earlier than later, you had to earn your way.

        Each family, no matter how many children they have, has favorites, the ones who can’t do nothing wrong and everything goes right for. In our family we ran into that problem not once but twice. My elder brother was mom’s favorite, she would help him through everything and he  was attached hard and strong to her apron strings. He was Mr. Perfect. the one who could do it all right and play sports and be the hero.  As we grew older he disappeared into his sports and the family, ran as hard as he could, to find his freedom and escape the step-father we had. Violence was indeed a way our parents controlled him and none of the five of us were ever immune.

       Many have asked me what my first memory of life was, and how far back can I remember. Well Doctors, I go back to the year, 1961, I was five years old. It was the day after Labor Day, the first day of school for me, I was awaken and told to get up at 6 am, like my elder brother. I was washed and  cleaned by mom and then told to get dressed. I put on the clothes given to me like a good little man and then came the tie. The 1960’s school system had dress codes, the Elementary School code was ties that year. Mom pull ed me close and wrapped the tie around my collar and started to tie it. I was five years old I fidgeting and moved, that was it for her, the next thing I knew I was smacked across the face, crying and told hold still or I would get it again. Hows that for a first memory in one’s mind and head?

      Families have their black sheep and I was it for mine I think. My real father, had divorced my mother and moved back home, I would not meet him until I turned 18 years old and took a bus to another state on my own. As my mother would say, I looked like him and I talk like him, so I suffered for that all my young life living at home. Nothing I could say, do, or try to do, would ever make my mother and I get along well, till the day she died.

        The third child was one of my younger brothers. He was the first one mom had from our step-father.  I watched as he grew older and more anger came out of him year by year, from being beat upon by our father. The beatings were crazy and at night or anytime he decided we did something wrong. This kid got so angry as he grew older, he stole all of his father’s tools and belongings he could and sold them on the streets to make money. He wiped his own father out in that way and then they had the confrontation in the basement. By now my younger brother had grown to almost a full-sized man, he stood his ground against his father in that basement. As his father beat him he fought back finally, and took a pipe to dad’s head. As Dad stood there bleeding across his skull, he looked at his first full son and told him get out or I will kill you, leave. The kid packed up at 16 and left the home never to return, he died at age 32 in California, under an assumed name from Aids from drugs. Sad huh!

       The next was my baby sister, God Bless her for coming along when she did. She took some of the sting and violence out of her dad and mom. They loved having a little girl for a change. Dad would never hurt his little girl physically, but mom well she would and did, and beat her down mentally too. As our dad would say till the day he died, and he told her many times to her face, woman you have no motherly instinct at all. It was true and us kids knew it too, we really did all our lives.

       The final piece to the puzzle that was our family, is one last boy. A boy we all loved as he was small, smart and funny. He would laugh well the little guy back then and he  loved life. Before I left home I would babysit the two younger boys and my sister daily thru my high school years as our parents worked each day.  The third child would beat upon his younger sister and brother daily unless I stopped him. Anyway the youngest was given everything like my elder brother was as the eldest one, the baby of the family thing set in. But for him the  bad part was he also got the worst of his father’s habits and ways, he picked up over the years. I remember when he was small teaching him how to draw from the Sunday Paper Comic Strips. Today he has a talent for drawing that is immense and I hope he is using it somewhere.  But like I said he got things from his dad too, paranoia and at times anger issues hit this child on and off. He is suspicious of everything and anything around him, sadly for him. My understanding is early in his life after I left for military service he was hit by a car and it changed him. Sadly that is the family puzzle that was us, in our house.

       So like I say, events in history, family teachings and what we learned young became all of us and becomes all of us through out the World!.

Video Games-Destroying America?.


Video Game Wars seem to be taking over the entertainment of AMerican children and even many adults. Games like Zumba, and The WII games, and even Playstation all seem to be in every home you’re in. You can hear kids and adults talking about the great graphics, sounds and action these games provide, through a controller of one kind or another.

       Sports games, Action games. Shooter Games, Adventure games, even Exercise games. People drawn to monitors and Television screens of all sizes, staring at a game and how to beat it for fun. While it may be entertaining, and it may even be fun, is it really safe and what we want American children and adults doing so many hours they don’t do much else?.

       Back in the 1960’s the America I knew and loved and even yes into the 1970’s, children didn’t have video games and big screen televisions or computers. The parents told all of us go out and play, make friends and explore nature or sports or something for real. We ran, jumped, skipped rope, played ball and more. We learned many things in many different ways, but, we weren’t allowed to sit in front of a screen with a controller in our hands and do nothing else but stare!. Sadly, that is what is happening in America and many other countries around the world and it is killing the motivation, the minds, and the spirits of the children of the world. They have no objectives, or wants or needs other than a computer with great speed and graphics and games, in their minds. Like the game Zombies, our children are becoming zombies themselves.

       I will give you an example of what I mean and if you, anyone who reads this blog, thinks I am wrong, then you let me know, ok?

        I own my own home with my wife and we live in a rural area in Connecticut. As we are an older couple these days and we have a mortgage to pay and bills, we rent bedrooms out to people to make ends meet. We rented a room to a person ten years ago and he is still with us today in his mid forties. The man is 46 years old, weighs well over 300 lbs. and can’t work because of disabilities. 

        One day we invited him to have dinner with us, around 11 am was the invite. My wife gave him a list of things to pick up at the grocery store as follows, 1) ten lbs. of potatoes, 2) brocolli 3) squash 4) Some other veggie too.  We were in the kitchen cooking when he came back from the store and dropped the bags on the table will the bill.

         My wife said to him did you get all the vegetables, he looks back at her and said what vegetables you talking about I didn’t get any!.  My wife looked at him and said didn’t you buy what was on the list?. He said yes he did, so my wife says, so you got the vegetables, he says nope!. We looked at each other and went what? As we took the items out of the bags it was all there so we asked him if they were veggies, he said nope and started naming them by name!. Finally we looked at him and said these are all veggies!. Oh he says and shuffles off back to his video games and tv upstairs.

      Someone please tell me why a 46-year-old man has no idea, what vegetables are? He is so immersed in his video games and tv, daily you hear it running 24/7 unless he is sleeping. He hasn’t had a girl friend in ten years that we know of and he buys electronics like he is addicted to them. He sits in a lawn chair in his bedroom, an X-box controller in hand staring at Shooter Games on a big screen and nothing else. He buys frozen food to eat, so all he has to do is microwave it or put it in the oven and walk away. Is this what we want for our future children to be?

        I once had an idea that maybe just maybe, the Russians and Chinese and Japanese all got together and found a way to conquer us Americans by inventing video games to control our minds and soften our bodies.  Tetris was just out then and I could see Americans flocking to it left and right and sitting down playing it forever. What an attack huh, that would be, but I laughed it off but still I wonder.

        Is America getting weaker because our children don’t want to read, play sports or go outside and play anymore? They just want an electronic video game console and a controller and some stupid game to be immersed in, till they fall asleep staring at them. Sad isn’t it, what happened to the America of invention, innovation, exploration, and more. The healthy and strong people of a nation who wouldn’t ever give up? We lost it all to too much electronic niceties and too many gadgets, we are becoming lazy, fat, slow, dim-witted and worse. Wake up America, Wake up now, before you are too weak to defend yourself or anyone else!.

March Madness/ and Call Him President!


March Madness/ and Call Him President!.

March Madness/ and Call Him President!


      Every year March Madness comes for NCAA Basketball Teams, who will win what division, who will be the National Champion and the sounds of the roar of crowds and games goes on, till only one stands.

        This Year, a new March Madness is a foot so to say. It’s the Presidential Election Cycle which happens once every leap year.  This year four candidates are vying for one nomination and it is more like a circus or a Three Stooges show then an election. But American politics was set up this way from the days of our forefathers and it shall remain that way long after I die I am sure.

     As we go forward, and March one is upon us, I wonder when the Republicans will stop and think how much they are handing to their opposition, who is now an incumbant, to tear their candidates down with? Is there anyway in hell, the Republicans can wake up and look at the amount of missiles, hand grenades and bullets there are giving to the Democrats and President Obama to use against their cause and candidates. Sadly, when in the heat of battle for something, people get blinded by what they see as a fight and hurt themselves more than they should thus, leaving a wounded candidate to fight a healthy one.

        Mitt Romney has now taken his own home state by popular vote, Arizona, Wyoming, New Hampshire and more. Rick Santorum continues to attack Romney and in the end if he had a brain he would realize, he is hurting not only Romney but himself and the Republican Party. Your throwing bombs at your own people and your own party, stop being stupid and back off.

        Mr. Santorum has a problem, he thinks he can sneak in for the Nomination or get his social issues put on the Republican Platform for the fall election and maybe, just maybe a position in a Romney White House. I doubt that would happen, Rick  Santorum’s views on abortion and women’s health care and the church and how he flaunts it in the face of Americans, pulling statements of what women should do with their own bodies and the child they may bear, is going too far.

        Mr. Gingrich has no business staying in the race, except to get his voice heard at the Convention as to the issues most important to him. Like Mr. Santorum Mr. Gingrich does discuss the issues he believes are important to the country and himself, but in the end he must know by now, the Republican Party will not give him the nomination so why keep running. Like Mr. Santorum and Mr. Paul, they all want a say in the Republican Platform in the fall. Sadly it can not happen for all three, they are too far spread out on issues for that.

       So As the March Madness of the American Political World on a leap year hits and grows stronger each day,the real question is, when will the Republicans finally start to realize they must back one candidate to stand a chance in the fall election? Because if they don’t regroup and combine behind one candidate soon, any chance they have at the Presidency will be lost for sure.

       One more thing that irks me and irritates me daily as I watch the Election Process and the news across our land. I noticed from the day President Obama took office to now, newscasters, commentators and more refuse to call him President Obama, they continue to call him Mr. Obama, why is that? Is it because he is the first African-American President and you don’t consider him equal to the rest?  Is it some other reason? I don’t really know, but any man or woman for that matter, who steps up and leads the country and earned the position by-election, and is in the office of The American Presidency deserves and should demand to be called Mr. President or Mr.s President depending of sex and color, race, creed or nationality be damned. Anyone who takes on the office of the Presidency deserves full and unequal respect and honor and admiration for taking it on!.

        So if I were newscasters, commentators, and political pundits across America I would wake the hell up. Barrack Obama is indeed President of The United States and you should all address him as Mr. President not, Mr. Obama or Barrack when you want to. If you can sit there and refer to past Presidents who left office in disgrace as Mr. President or President so and so, then you should respect a President who leads and took office at the behest of the American people, and has earned it all too.

 

Please Vote Carefully!


      February 2012 is ending today and last night Michigan and Arizona spoke in the Republican Primary process and Mitt Romney won both states. As March comes in tomorrow, Republicans may have to begin thinking about regrouping behind their front-runner. If they don’t soon back Romney and push him over the top, any contest or chance he may have to beat President Obama will disappear for sure.

       First and foremost, two of these candidates for the Republican nomination should immediately step aside and allow the top two to go head to head. Newt Gingrich is not an idiot or stupid man and neither is Ron Paul, the answer men is in the numbers. All you have to do now is ask the front-runner if he will give you voice at the convention and a say in the platform!. It is after all, all you really want isn’t it Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Paul, you will get your say I am sure.

      In the end it is looking like Mitt Romney will get his wish to be the candidate for President for his party one way or the other. Ron Santorum needs to back up and regroup also, he needs to stop his social issues platform, and get back to the real issues of the economy, jobs and rebuilding. Sadly he wants to continue to issue warnings to women, about abortions, and contraceptives. Or he wants to rant and rave on who is right or wrong religious wise and what they believe in. Religion Mr. Santorum is freedom of choice item in the United States, and you can not and do not have the right to tell anyone what religion is right or wrong to practice. Nor do you have the right to tell American Women, whether or not they can abort the child of a rape or they should be happy to have one. Sadly your religious views and ideas come from the medieval days and we are in modern days.

       As the election cycle goes forth now, and choices must be made as to who shall face President Obama for the Office, stop and think of what you’re doing to your own candidates and what ammunition you are handing the opposite party. This Election is going to decide not only the presidential future and who will lead us, it will decide whether we turn the economy around or we don’t. Vote Carefully and listen to all folks and don’t vote because someone looks good with his wife and kids, or, because they started something and you want to give them a chance to end it, vote for who will really lead us out of the recession and away from depression and back into the black on the ledger. Wise up Folks, Vote Carefully, Intelligently, and Wisely!

 

Television and Game Consoles


The Television Stations across America have changed so much over my lifetime as to what is on their schedules it is silly and unfair to the viewer. As you flip through the channels with your clicker so to say, ninety percent of all programs are cop shows of one kind or another.  Why is that, I wonder?

      I grew up as a child in the 1960’s. and used to watch shows that were for pure entertainment of the children and parents.  We had shows that were funny, or serious, or about families and characters who were telling actual stories, not crimes. We had shows like Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom, Walt Disney’s Wonderful WOrld of Color, My Favorite Martin, McHale’s Navy, Car 54 Where are You?, and more. Red Skeleton, Jackie Gleason, Carol Burnett ruled the air waves and the all time classic I Love Lucy.  We had American Bandstand, Soul Train and more for music too. But what we had most of all, was variety beyond compare. Variety that would have you staying in front of your television and smiling, laughing or staring in wonder. Television in my parents house was for evenings after school work, or for Sunday Ball Games, or for Special Events, not a babysitter for kids to stare at. The Comedy Teams on television were great ones, The Three Stooges, for one would make everyone laugh. Why now is everything murder,police shows, shootings and violence?

        Some shows today have some entertainment value to them still, but very few. Sadly, American television is turning into newscasts filled not with serious news anymore, but with flub and fillers not worth airing. CNN even has trouble staying hard news twenty-four seven, it brings in silly stuff to fill the hours and minutes to keep going, soft news.

        The HoneyMooners, Jackie Gleason, I Love Lucy, Red Skeleton,Carol Burnett,McHale’s Navy, My Favorite Martin, Wonderful World of Disney, Car 54 Where Are You?. The Munsters, Star Trek, all used imagination to entertain and make people laugh. Children were affixed to watching clean cartoons with lessons, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, Captain Kangaroo, and more.  Nothing is clean wholesome entertainment anymore, it all has some form of nudity, or some form of vulgar language that is slipping through the sensors and getting on TV. I have heard language on Television channels like NBC, CBS and ABC the big three, that would have shocked my parents who were liberals and smart beyond compare. Are American ethics and morals slipping that badly that no one cares anymore?

       As we all know Cable Channels such as HBO, ShowTime, Cinemax, and more were invented to keep adult rated language and programs including nudity off public air waves. Why can’t you just keep it that way, and not spread it to the average channels people love?

       Television has grown now not just from a box that you can watch to have a few laughs or watch a movie on, to big screen eye catchers that people get sucked into watching, draining their attention from their normal jobs to do daily. People stare in awe at these big screens and refuse to shut them down in their homes, ignoring or putting off other things they should be doing. It is a sad, sad world when you walk into someone’s house to say hello and visit and they won’t shut a Television off to see you. Sad isn’t it folks?.

        Another pet peeve of mine lately is the video games industry and their grip on the American kids, and some very simple-minded adults even. Kids and Adults stuck in front of a Television screen staring at a game they are playing, hands locked on controllers. the biggest moving part of their body are their fingers and eyes!. No exercise, no physical exertion and no thinking anything through and doing it manually. Big bumps on couches, chairs and floors getting fatter and heavier day by day. Not caring either what goes on around them, just caring how far the can get in a  game, and if they can win.

       Parents need to wake up and realize having a Game Console like X-box, or Playstation, or WII babysit and entertain your children for days at end is not educating them, teaching them to read and write and do math or science, it is draining their energy and life away. Are we destined to have children who don’t know how to read, add and subtract, or what veggies are or anything else? Closed in children who have no world experience or life outside of the Television and Game Consoles they play and stare at?

       Ask yourselves this, when you look at your children today, are my children staring at a television or computer screen 24/7? Do they play outside, do they perform sports, do they run?. Are they reading a  classic book, or building a puzzle or planting plants or flowers, or helping you maintain your property or homes? Are you teaching them life skills that will make them better adults in society or are you making them, uneducated children who know nothing more than Television shows and video games?. A War can not be won by staring at a monitor or television, a new solution for a problem won’t come from a  game console, a Doctor will not make a medical miracle or help humanity if he doesn’t work, will he? Teach the children right you improve the world, teach them wrong and we get lazy, impolite, non-listening trouble makers in trouble with the law and more!. Think of the world one day, filled with electronic gadgets to make things quicker and easier, but, also with people who still know what it is like to work and save and make things right the old-fashioned way by labor and hands on work. It would be something wouldn’t it?.