Why do humans keep loaning us money?

Us is the USA.

Obviously, to me, it is because they can make money, and have trust and faith in the US federal government to pay its bills,to include repaying borrowed principal and the interest on the borrowing.

This also assumes we citizens will work to pay our federal taxes, and agree to these payments authorized by our elected federal politicians, and their appointed minions. And we Americans seem to keep electing people that do this to us. Is this simple enough?

The catch is also obvious to me.

If we can't or won't pay our bills, which will affect our children, then others, not politicians, will be in charge. Maybe it will just be that the loaners can't make money on a loan?

In this is the dilemma about what to do.

Hopefully we can vote, otherwise things like revolt come up.

In the end, we the people are in charge, one way or the other.

Great change is underway

I always wondered what it was like to live and think during the time of the American Revolution. Now I think I get my chance, again, like during my lifetime which began in my birth year, 1948.

Now this time is different, like all times, since the people and circumstances are different today than in our past. But the similarity strikes me as normal, like humans and how they live and think in their times. It is the common humanity that crosses great divides of time and circumstances and history.

Great problems abound, like normal, I think. What is coincidental, is that many of these problems affect me as well as my descendents. Hence this post.

And much of the turmoil, fear, and worse casing of things, exceeds well beyond the new world USA, or so I believe. Said another way, great change is coming to the whole World, not just the new world USA.

But in the same vein, is the solution, all prompted by the new world migration that brings so many sharp people here. In this great change will come, or so I believe. There is something magical about the new world and hope for our descendents.

Let me be practical, like not just talk the talk, but walk the walk.

Totalitarianism will fail, in the end. Many humans will be attracted to this idea to solve their problems in the short term, but reject it in the long term. Along the way, many extra people will die, often in wars, both domestic and foreign.

The human birth rate will decline. Now women are in charge in this area, I believe.

The great practicality of humans will predominate over time. How people live in Mongolia will still be different from how people live in Nebraska (USA) for example.

The urban/rural divide will tilt towards the rural, like living on rural land has cultural and family advantages that will be reinforced. This idea sounds so typically human, though not popular in 2012.

We humans may evolve towards some kind of one world government, but that is probably 500 years away. Much personal and cultural migration and cross-breeding needs to go on first, and that is on autopilot, I believe.

On the nature of change

I think most Americans want change, mostly in those elected, vice a change in the system of government we use. This idea applies locally (like city, county, and school boards), state, and federally, I also think. And I think most want to use the vote to make this happen, vice a civil war, which even I detest, though it does happen in human history.

If you buy this line of thought, let me go forward. A lot of Americans voted for change in the federal elections of 2008, and they still want change.

Unfortunately, Obama at the federal level is not the one. We do have other choices.

Now a lot of people may disagree with me. So be it. And hopefully at my age going on 64, I don't even have to live with the consequences, assuming I die in my time. Others can live with their consequences.

But the nature of change continues, as always.

That we are still the new world USA really appeals to me.

She's a slut and he's a dumb ass

It has always bothered me that if a guy has an affair while he is married, then he is guilty of something. But in the same vein, the girl is never accused of the same standards...that is what bothers me.

Now we all know this kind of thing goes on, for a myriad of reasons.

But my question to myself is why do such people want to be President of the new world USA, and why should we vote for him, and her, I guess.

In this question is also the answer in our new world USA. Things are gonna change, probably beginning in the federal elections in 2014 and 2016.

Of course, others may take charge, in the meantime.

I'm just glad I live in rural America on the Cumberland Plateau in East Tennessee if my guesses are correct.

Have you ever been cold and hungry?

Well, I have.
Here's a post from a local newspaper a couple of months ago.

Op Walker Talks Oatmeal Medicine

By Dr. Opless Walker

Oats for breakfast…nothing at lunch…and oats for supper! Oats were cheap and they came with a dish inside the box.

For many families residing in Monterey in the 1940s, life was a day-to-day struggle. Being the youngest of twelve children reared in poverty, I remember days when the opening sentence above was a fact. Families ate what they could obtain and had very little money, if any, for the supplementation of their diets by purchasing from the grocery store. Many households had gardens supplying fresh vegetables in season, and preserving by canning was widely practiced.

Although I didn’t realize the advantages of being poor in my childhood, I have since learned that it was a blessing to have had little on which to dine. Thankfully, we couldn’t afford the processed foods available from the local grocery.
While viewed as ‘food,’ garden produce had hidden within “nature’s medicine” – powerful cures with little or no side effects!

Our understanding of the medicinal power of the vegetable garden began (scientifically speaking) in 1978 in Germany. Not until the year 1998 did the United States get serious about medicine from sources other than a chemistry laboratory. The first edition of the Physician Desk Reference for Herbal Medicine was published that year, and mainstream medicine could no longer ignore the value of nature’s cures.

Institutions highly respected, such as the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic and Harvard are publishing verifiable data on the value of the medicinal chemicals taken from the plant and herb kingdoms.

It is now possible to ascertain the advantages of growing up poor in Monterey in the 1940s:

Exercise: with no vehicle, we walked everywhere we went. With no television, we “played” outside all four seasons. Only lightning rain us indoors.

House with cracks and no insulation: with plenty of ventilation, indoor air pollution did not exists with the possible exception of the coal oil lamps, the coal stove in the “front’ room, and the woodstove in the kitchen. I have often said that the ‘only difference in the outside temperature and the indoor temperature was the wind chill factor.

Well water: water for drinking was safe with little or no ground pollution.

Garden Vegetables:

Cabbage: known as the poor man’s medicine, cabbage is one of the most powerful cancer fighters and preventatives known to man. Canned kraut was common in early Monterey, and is the most powerful anti-cancer form of cabbage. In addition, cabbage is beneficial for preventing and treating stomach ailments, rheumatism, arthritis, and cardiovascular disease.

Onions: Nature’s antibiotic. Controls asthma and blood sugar. Onions strengthen capillary walls, break up mucous in the lungs allowing for easier breathing. They are anti-cancer with yellow onions being the most medicinal of the common garden variety.

Cucumbers – Alkalizes the human body, thus preventing many diseases, especially diseases of the small and large colon. Excellent for healthy skin.

Tomatoes – Red tomatoes are the most medicinal. Lycopene is the ingredient that makes a tomato ‘red,’ and is the medicine component of the tomato. Lycopene prevents cancer, boosts the immune system, and helps maintain health hair and nails.

Remember the nuts gathered in the fall of the year and the cracking of the shells on an old iron shoe last? Walnuts are the healthiest of nuts, and provide high protein levels for muscle strength and endurance as well as providing for brain power and cardiovascular health.

And then there are the oats. Oats are known as a complete body overhaul, inside and out. They prevent and/or treat depression, provide for skin health, decrease wound healing time and establish a healthy gastrointestinal tract. Oats are anti-stress and low in calories.

The two major causes of disease and death are:

1) too many calories and

2) too much stress in one’s life

Now we have scientific proof that growing up poor was a blessing. What wonderful memories! We had our medicine with each meal, be it ever lacking in other ways.

PS Opless is a doctor of pharmacology at the local hospital. He is also an amateur historian, and the brother of the late Oscar Walker

Human foibles

For me, the subject means human flaws, like design defects in the way we are made.

The classic ways I was taught were things like: which came first, the chicken or the egg? The other was: which came first, the horse, or the cart?

Since I joined the Marines, I have also been taught that: taking casualties up front usually saves lives in the long run.

Now I do not offer to convince anyone of what I think. Rather I just note what I have been taught, not in school, by the way.

So now I even wonder about whether Marshall Tito in Yugoslavia was just a communist, or a national leader who knocked heads given his part of the world?

Last, even the Herbert Hoover book has come out after five decades about events in his time. My take is that at least he suggests there were other courses of action. And I don't apologize for using hindsight, since I do have that advantage to see how things have sorted out.

Short changing our children

To me it is a sacred responsibility to provide our kids an education that will give them every advantage in life. After that, they are on their own.

Having been a teacher, too, I recognize there are only so many hours in the day, and so many days in the year, that time exists to educate our kids while they are growing up. And I also recognize that some teachers will "get even", usually using grades, against some kids that do not agree with them.

As an opinion, I believe in public education, funded by citizens through taxes, and controlled by elected school boards. And as an opinion, I think many of these boards are doing a bang up job, like getting their kids educated to give them advantages in life. And as an opinion, I believe one size does not fit all, hence local control of our children's public education.

Now I recognize how important a school board member job can be. Where my recent kids attended public school in Gwinnett County, a suburb of Atlanta, last year's school board budget was $1.4 billion dollars. That's a lot of money, and influence.

But as an opinion, the basic mission remains the same, and it is a sacred mission, that is educating our children to provide them every advantage in life. Secondary are things like an adult jobs program, and other such considerations.

Two examples come to mind to me. One is of an elected representative in Michigan who did not know Texas shares a border with Mexico. The other is of a person at a McDonald's drive through outside of Atlanta that could not make change, even having a machine to help her. My opinion is that both these people have been set back in life by their poor educations.

Now, and last, right now it seems popular to try solve many of our culture's problems by indoctrinating our children at the expense of teaching them things like the 3R's, doing simple taxes, home economics (to include balancing a check book), or wood shop to help young people do simple plumbing or car maintenance later in life.

What ever we Americans do, at the school board level, I sure hope it enhances our kids first, and all other considerations come second. My vote will be so influenced, and I suspect many other voters will think this way, too.

On the nature of atrocities during war

Now we have another example, that to me, shows why war is so terrible, to include revolt, revolution, and civil war. I myself prefer the vote, and time, for the politicians to sort things out.

The recent example is US Marines peeing on dead enemy in Afghanistan.

That being said, atrocities happen, all the time, and throughout history.

And atrocities are often culture based, like cutting off a person's head with video is OK, but using the wrong hand in greeting is not (the left hand is "dirty"). Even in Japan I remember running without a shirt top was gross, but peeing in a ditch was OK (for a male).

And since so many Americans are fighting and deployed around the world, they are often exposed to these cultures that are just different from theirs, including atrocities.

Just one personal atrocity story from me. Iraqis during Desert Storm, on the way out of Kuwait City, killed some Kuwait women, gutted them, and hung them naked upside down from telephone poles with entrails hanging out. Now even that disgusted me, and many local Kuwait people I knew. I doubt that was reported in the USA...hence my thoughts about cultural differences.

So war and humans are tough against opponents. Native Americans were harsh against their captured tribal enemies, like burning sticks into their skin, and later against Europeans. Even during WWII I have stories of the Japanese cutting off male privates and stuffing them in the dead Marine's mouths. Hopefully, this was done to dead Marines, but I don't know. Even during the American Civil War, read about what went on at Andersonville, as an example.

Now we American soldiers and Marines do have a reason to keep captured people to exploit them for information that can be turned into intelligence. That's one reason "officers" were invented to make this happen.

But in the same vein, atrocities will occur in all cultures, at least historically speaking. Just how our culture handles it, is in the end, culturally dependent. I just hope my culture doesn't use a double standard against these fellow Americans.

The silliness of it all

It doesn't have to happen this way, but it is.

What do I mean by "silly"? To me it means where I live a lot of people are going to go cold and hungry, and probably worse, like die from malnourishment, disease, or crime from humans just trying to survive their criminal way. And we humans did it to ourselves, mostly by voting in people who are bringing our coming problems down around our and their heads, usually with the best intentions in their mind. Of course this is multiplied by the world financial problems, too, ultimately human caused, too (and in my opinion).

Now, in fairness, some places have elected some politicians (at many levels) that are trying to change things another way. Good on 'em.

Unfortunately, where I live, the time for arguing till I am blue in the face is over, and now the consequences are beginning to kick in already. I, myself, am in that planning mode now, as embarrassing and disappointing as it may be about accepting reality.

But life and society in the new world USA is not over...maybe being changed, resurrected, or whatever.

So wherever you live, consider what is valuable and important to you, and reinforce that by whatever means, including voting at all levels if one still can, or otherwise influencing your political leaders, who also will be cold and hungry, and have families, too.

Now change, to me, usually means changing our elected leaders, but it also means reinforcing those leaders we want to represent us. In this idea is the coming future, I think.

And hopefully, we begin to take the silliness out of the equation. I myself still think forced air heat and running water is privilege, not a "right". So good on all the people and their families who work so hard to make this happen! And let us elect people who will support them, and the benefits they provide to we common people.

None of this is automatic.

Descending into anarchy

The Occupy "movement" reminds me of this idea of the patients are in control of the asylum. I myself don't won't these people representing me. I can do better than those presently in the "movement". I suspect most people agree with this idea.

I still believe in the rule of law, vice something like the king's opinion, and his hired minions opinions. While I don't doubt their intentions, I do doubt their methods. So I still prefer the new world USA method of ruling and "electing" political leaders, as imperfect as it may be. I am now old enough to know the alternatives can be worse. And, yes, I still prefer to be a citizen than a serf. Said another way, I want an opportunity to influence my future through a vote.

So what happens if we, the new world USA, descend into anarchy. The quick answer is that I don't know.

The longer answer is that I am becoming some kind of survivalist if times get hard. I am even making my own electricity, and powering a security light so I can help defend myself, and my Family and friends. And I have many yard dogs to help defend. They make better biological alarms than most infrared stuff I can get these days. And I have plenty of clean water, and waste water treatment, all gravity powered. Now the "vegetable garden" idea sucks since the local soil is historically acidic and poor for growing things, though they do grow. I suspect it will all sort out, worse case.

All this suggests just how weird I may have become. But in my defense, I, like all of us, have to plan ahead. And all in all, being in a rural area with clean water and waste water stuff is not a bad place to be.

So why do I suspect we are descending into anarchy? The quick answer is that I listen to what is being said. The old time expression that "actions have consequences" seems to apply. Also I think we have a crummy set of elected political leaders that are changing things that will lead to anarchy. Hence let's change the leadership, or if they refuse to go, then revolt against them.

Now even I don't want to go through revolt. While it may be a fashionable term, the idea really sucks in its application. I prefer the vote, and the probable consequences, which I can live with. That course of action appeals to me.

So, to me, the time for change has come. You figure it out where you live.

The inevitability of it all

Even the basic tea leaf reader could see it coming.

When fellow humans quit loaning the new world USA money, and we have to live within our means, then great change will come. The two national federal parties over the last century have failed us, and another party of Americans will probably arise to help sort out this mess.

After all, nobody wants to be cold and hungry, and all want to help their Families as best they can. And the USA is a pretty nifty place.

As I read the tea leaves, this is already going on, though many may not know it. That many will probably die is inevitable, but the time for talk and last minute change ended a couple of years ago. Hopefully, out of all this, will come resurgence in our new world USA, like this is a good place to be in during hard times.

But along the way the best intentioned people will have to live the consequences of their beliefs. And some will die.

Now I am not sure if even we in the new world USA will descend into totalitarianism, or in the end reinforce the idea of our Constitution. I sure hope it is the latter. I, myself, prefer to be a citizen than a serf.

Just what we Americans do to preserve the status quo I hope is more long term thinking than short term thinking, but I can't predict that right now. Most people don't like change, so preserving the status quo is a big deal.

There is every good reason to promote the progressive agenda. There is also every good reason to pay for it. These ideas often take time, and conflict, too.

And given the time idea, let's take the time to get it right. Drawing down the well of our prosperity implies eventually the well might go dry. Hopefully we don't get to that state, but the tea leaves I read suggest it may happen, probably around 2020.

There are other courses of action that will keep "this well" providing sustenance for us all. Yet there is little discussion of it that I read.

So why is it inevitable that we humans have to suffer first? That is crazy, but seems to be what happens, historically speaking.

And we elected these present political leaders, federal, state, and local. Go figure.

The pace of change

Change is constant, which is normal.

Like our children will simply not think like we do, like it or not.

But in the same vein, we older people, like parents and other relatives, owe them our experience and wisdom, which is often rejected or ignored, which is also both normal, and frustrating to older people giving their free advice.

I've been a kid, too. And I remember the experience, too.

Now maybe even I am fateful, like will accept whatever happens, often because I can't change that much anyway. For example, I have had two dogs die over the holidays, and I can't change it, either way. Maybe that is just how I handle my grief.

So it seems to me that the pace of change is changing, like speeding up compared to like even twenty or thirty years ago.

Now that normally doesn't bother me.

But now I think elected lightweights and their appointed minions are in charge, and they are doing a crummy job.

So what to do. My suggestion is to vote to change change. If our vote is taken away, then I suggest revolt.

Revolt is objectionable to me, but I think sometimes that is what it may take. Hopefully, not.

So use your vote to change things, locally, state, and federally.