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How To Fix American Politics

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Enough, already. I’m tired of reading everyone else’s ideas. Here’s mine.

Term Limits? No. Just a Lifetime Limit of 20 years in national, political, elected office. For example, six years as a Representative, six as a Senator, four as a Vice President, and four as President. Then go home. Appointments and State careers do not count. As of 2026, over 95 members of Congress have served over 20 years with 35 over 30 years. And no, the 20 years do not have to be consecutive. It’s cumulative, over a lifetime. Joe Biden would not have been able to run with Obama in 2008, for example, and 2020 and 2024. For the sneaky, snarky, word-conscience and necessary lawyer: No running for office if serving the complete term of your election would take you over the 20 year limit.

Supreme Court Justices must be over the age of 60, have 20 years of judicial experience, and have at least 10 years of civil or criminal trial experience as a prosecutor or defender. Confirmation needs to be 70 votes, with all congressional and court work stopped until all justice are confirmed. Put forth candidates for the entire population not your own party, damn it. There are currently 3 justices under the age of 60. For those legal scholars who make a life in education, keep making your money as a consultant/advisor, but don’t advance to the court. I am okay with raising the age to 65, if everyone agrees. Might generate a lot of Age Discrimination lawsuits, too.

Any congressional politician who votes with their own party over 75 per cent of the time, cannot run for re-election. The 75 percent is for PASSED bills that become legislation. It may lead to a lot of “inconsequential activity” like Public Building Naming Bills but we can work that out later. It’s incomprehensible when an intelligent person gets elected with 51 percent of his constituents votes, then goes to Washington and votes 90 per cent of the time with a “Party Boss” from other states. Is that “representation” for even the 51 percent that voted for the intelligent person? BTW, I’m open to identifying and “outing” congresspeople who do nothing but get re-elected. Legislate congressional voting standards? Ideas?

All congressional votes are “Aye” or “Nay”. “Not Present” and any of the other voting gimmicks are abandoned. Congresspeople currently get plenty of time off so NO ABSENCES when congress is in session. One of the biggest issues we, the public face is getting anything done. Maybe we* pass a law that sets a limit for how much “meaningful” legislation is passed in a congressional term. Then mandate limits are met or ALL politicians involved need to be re-elected before they can return. Would that cause a chaos any worse than the dysfunction we already have? Modern congressional activity is setting records for least “activity”.  Google: “How many laws has congress passed in the last 20 years, by year?” And then try to weed out the “inconsequential activity” legislation.

It’s bad enough congress doesn’t do anything but then there is “Rescission”. Rescission is an act of ignoring or reversing properly legislated and approved funding. In plain English, one congress finally does something in 2024 and in 2025 the new congress (and administration) rescinds what the 2024 congress did. At least it’s activity, right? Imagine you telling your home remodeler you want your down-payment back the day after they start working on your house. How idiotic is rescission?

Register all citizens as voters when they turn 18. Default affiliation: Independent. Let them live and decide and maybe they’ll vote more, and with brains instead of feelings. Am I really suggesting young people might make a difference?

Enough self-flagellation. It is what it is. Que sera, sera. Water over the dam, under the bridge, spilt like milk. Let’s all just be happy we live in a true democracy where we all care about each other.

As Dr.** Steven Wright said: “A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.”

*Isn’t it cute, this “we” stuff? Like we can pass laws. We can make politicians accountable. We can change things.

**Honorary, from my  mythical university since no real university has awarded one, yet.

Three Sentences Revisited

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Ai employees are warning us of impending doom in the near future and politicians are calling for legislation to prevent it. So our Executive branch of government meets with a band of Ai executives and allows Ai companies to regulate themselves. Anyone know a good third sentence?

In our country’s news dissemination history, there were only a few news outlets so we all listened and talked about the same news, often with different opinions. Now, in the modern world, we can seek out a news source we like, leading to characters of all kinds pushing “news” they know we want to hear. Any wonder why we are such a fragmented society?

Are you afraid to fart in public? Yes? That makes you a private tutor.

Aging is all about loss, acceptance, and adapting. Middle of the night sleeplessness used to be about career, romance, cars, and sports. Now, wakefulness is prolonged by what is the next thing to be “gone” from life, lost. And will I be able to make myself see it as good thing to lose.

Teeth. With all the sophisticated engineering evidenced by structures like the eyeball, why do teeth rot? Why are they not titanium?

Television–or any image viewing—has gotten more complicated than a Rubik’s Cube, and more expensive. Who needs 150 channels? When someone comes up with an “a la Carte” way of selecting channels, they may make millions.*

Healthcare is beyond explanation, these days, and should be treated differently than television streaming selection. It falls under the Declaration of Independence stated right to pursue “happiness”, and you shouldn’t have to take a moment to select a health care provider as you suffer a stroke and are taken away to the hospital. Free Market be damned.

Relationships should be outlawed due to the potentially prodigious amounts of fraud and deception involved in courting, wooing, uniting, and breaking up. In 74 years (yes, I had a relationship as a baby) of personal experience and anecdotal collection, finding two people who are honest in every stage of a relationship is impossible. Most relationship fraud is by omission, not commission, and is often a result of changes brought on by natural life progressions (see paragraph 4) and “Tribe over Truth” dynamics.

Guns have reached the point where no one cares about trying to regulate them, anymore. Manufacturers flooded the world with guns in response to hysterical future and present gun owners’ worries their guns would be taken away. We should research and decide if it would prevent harm to innocent children and spectators if we returned to the Old West style of gunplay, with open, visible holsters and High Noon gunfights.**

To my limited knowledge, guns have never been legally taken away from an innocent citizen, though sometimes they should be. We err on the side of the rights of gun ownership not public safety when we debate guns. At least, make laws to severely punish “lazy” gun owners whose kids bring their weapons to school for “show and tell”.***

On a lighter note, Daily Savings Time is about to happen. It has very little effect on me but some people have strident opinions. Surprise, I don’t. (Please look up the definition of “strident.”)

Another stolen joke: I entered ten puns in a Worst Pun Contest. Did I win? No pun in ten did. If you don’t get it…

*Sling had inexpensive “by the day” passes that made TV life easier. It worked great. They stopped it recently, without warning.

**Imagine a UFC style of settling arguments. We could have national Gun Fight Tournaments by age group and caliber of weapon. Healthcare suppliers could build and name Gladiator-type arenas with sand floors to soak up the blood.

***Several cases recently in the news feeds, which can’t be trusted, anymore. Ai slop. But sometimes true.

Nuance? A Norwegian Tale

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Nuance was described in a past essay. The word comes from “nubes” the Latin word for cloud but then the French got involved and romanticized it into their own word for “shade” or “slight variation”, per Ai. My Ai goes on to add in the lovely English accent I selected: “Think of it as those little, delicate distinctions that can make a big difference.”

There is a beautiful illustration of nuance across the ocean in Norway. Norway has been ranked the happiest nation in the world for nine consecutive years, according to The World Happiness Report.* But happiness does not inoculate anyone from misunderstanding an idea because of a lack of knowledge about nuance. Norway recently raised their country’s Wealth Tax rate despite the argument that raising a tax on the wealthy would make the rich leave Norway for lower tax countries. After the new tax passed, many wealthy Norwegians left the country.

Showing true confirmation bias, many news outlets reported it as a “tax exodus” and determined The New Wealth Tax is too much of a burden for the rich. The new Wealth Tax is 1% to 1.1% depending on rich you are. Kind of high, right?

From: Money & Macro 28m 9-24-2026 Norway raised taxes on the wealthy and millionaires started leaving – the headlines missed the biggest part of the story “Norway’s decision to increase its wealth tax was followed by a noticeable wave of wealthy business owners moving abroad, (and) produced headlines that portrayed the policy as a failure. But the transcript argues that the amount of taxable wealth leaving was relatively small and that higher wealth-tax revenue more than offset the departures. Its analysis instead points toward Norway’s capital-gains exit-tax rules as a major reason entrepreneurs had an incentive to move when they did. The broader lesson presented is that modest wealth taxes and aggressive exit taxes can create very different economic incentives.”

For a good, sleepy read, look at “The High Cost of Wealth Taxes”, by Christine Enache for the Tax Foundation Europe, dated June 6, 2024. It makes the case that taxing rich people doesn’t generate any new revenue, is illegal, and only four countries in the world still use the tax. Norway and Switzerland are two of those countries and both are in the Top Ten of Happy Countries. Coincidence?

WTF. Taxing rich people is illegal?** Or is it taxing them more than once that is illegal? Why would it not generate revenue? Or does it just not generate enough?

The whole issue is one big, bag of nuance. But it appears a lot of that “nuance” is “chatter”, “fluff”, even misinformation meant to make sure governments know NOT to tax the rich any differently than other citizens.

If you are rich or hope to be you want low taxes or none at all. Why? There appears to be a rich mindset that says this: “just because I’ve figured out a way to make more money than you, don’t make me pay more for the privilege.” Nuance? Yes. The few rich people I know have a very nuanced view of the non-rich. It’s not just the poor. It is an ambivalent belief about how the rest of us are not smart enough and greedy enough to take what anyone will give us.

The actual impetus for Norway’s Tax Exodus wasn’t related to the new HIGHER 1% tax. It was related to a previous law that was about to take effect, about what wealth is and how it gets “counted.” Just like in America and other rich countries, the tax code used to tax us, the citizens, is riddled with holes where nuance used to be, or strangled by layers of nuance when a simple sentence may have been enough.*** Even better, all of this is understood by tax attorneys, and advisors whose sole purpose is to use nuance, create nuance, or eliminate nuance so their clients can make, keep, and do whatever they want with money.

Holy crap there isn’t enough space for this subject. Stop reading.

But remember nuance. The lack of seeing it, recognizing it, and understanding it is ruining our world’s discourse and civility. Nuance is the opposite of opinion and is always present. Think of it before you speak. To paraphrase Dr. Wright: “A conclusion (opinion) is the place where you got tired of thinking.”

*Google It.

**I have anew appreciation for Robin Hood.

***Damn lawyers. We’re almost to the point where “simple sentences” are extinct.

Why? Because.

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After writing the last essay, I overheard a RadioLab podcast about the world’s population.

That essay’s lamely supported assertion about not much changing in the world suddenly became a lame, unsupported truth: massive changes are already underway and will forever change the world.

Don’t puff your chest out and think you knew all along climate change would be the major problem because it’s not. At least not yet. The “other” problem is already changing things in parts of the world and soon, its full effect will be felt in America.

The real, immediate problem: Population Growth. Specifically, the lack of population growth. In the late 1900’s, population growth was exponential and hit 3.7 billion in 1970. Experts labeled the high level of growth a “Population Bomb”. It threatened to outpace societies, systems, and the earth’s ability to supply food. My own personal world views are often shaped by the concept of constant growth since more people means more financial expansion, more building, more manufacturing, and a large population needing a centralized government for health, safety, and happiness. I often called America a big, stable, seaworthy ship capable of floating and lasting for centuries.

There are many different data points that could be mashed-up in this essay. Some sites, for example, “estimate” population growth to continue and we are already over 8.3 billion. With immigration and emigration issues, the total population figures can confuse population comparisons, but simply comparing birth to deaths tells the story we’re discussing. Checking births versus deaths reveals America’s changing growth rates. In 1960 there were 4.2 million births and 2.43 million deaths. Do the math. In 2026 there were 3.60 million births and 3.10 million deaths. Births declined while the general population increased.* 2027 figures may show more deaths than births!

Notably, China and other Asian countries responded to the 1972 Population Bomb by severely restricting new births in their societies. All those countries have recently reversed those restrictions and put in place new programs to generate more births.

America is already seeing the results of a population that may be “downsizing”. When Social Security began paying Old Age benefits in 1940, the system used taxes from over 150 younger workers to support a payment to one, old retiree. Our current 2026 system is using three (3!) younger workers. Is the difference caused by inflation or population loss or something else?

 Another problem is the “Population Bomb” caused the building of new schools to handle the new students. Due to America’s fragmented public and private school systems, getting accurate data is a crap shoot, but there is a consensus among the experts that grades 9-12 have had steady enrollment for the last 20 years, but total pre-school, elementary, and middle school enrollments appear to be declining. There are 3 closed schools in my town, right now.

The South Korea Ministry of Education, for comparison, has closed “4,000 schools and 17 regional offices” as the country’s student population shrinks.”**

America’s consumer driven, capitalist economy depends on new workers who become new consumers and generate regular growth in economic activity. *** So do other counties, even Socialist and Communist based countries.

Looks like regular growth is over. What will happen?

Ha. What do I care? I’m outta here, and–for the sake of my grandchildren–I hope someone in power notices this essay.

But first: Economists have predicted 10 out of the last two recessions. Ba dum dum.****

*The website, “Worldometer.com” shows a consistent 1-3% growth in the world’s population since 1972. Since 2020, that growth rate has never been more than 0.88% and has been declining every one of those 7 recent years. And that is with high levels of immigration.

**The Korea Times, December 28, 2025.

***An important complication in our current immigration crisis. We need workers.

****Am I aging myself by continuing to use the old “rim shot” comedy signal?

The Internetmess

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Journalism training taught me to report the who, what, where, when, and how (herein referred to as FACTS) of a story.* Old time newspapers, with limited paper size, required FACTS to not only be in the story, but to be reported in a certain size to “fit” the story into the paper. Many a time an editor asked me to “cut” a story, to remove words, so the article would fit in the inches of space between the advertisements and other stories. Picture a tetris puzzle game**. The publication of a story—and its placement– was sometimes decided more by its size than its subject***. The need to fit into a certain space inspired reporters to write clearly and directly. Adverbs, adjectives, pronouns, articles were removed and deemed unnecessary, to make room for FACTS.

In our modern internetmess (sic) news supply, however, not only are FACTS hard to find, but they are often buried at the end of a large, cleverly disguised unrelated mashup of opinion full of adverbs, adjectives, heresay, rumors, and bullshite. And when reading the crappy story, finding FACTS is not only a chore, but also a waste of time since there might not be any. Internetmess headlines are often not about the story they are heading but a clever way of getting you to click on the story. Old style newspaper headlines were meant to grab attention, too, but there was a skill to writing a snappy, short headline that lured you into reading a longer story full of FACTS. Most legacy media sites still have dedicated headline “writers” whose job it is to get readers to actually read the FACT-based stories competing for time and space in old newspapers and new 30 minute news broadcasts.

But, alas, that is all in the past even with unlimited internetmess space probably a blessing. The internetmess has unlimited room for FACT-based stories and articles, with 24 hour publishing deadlines. Which means there are no deadlines. No more “Hold the presses!” shouts by editors as new stories suddenly “break” before a printing or televising deadline.

But is FACT-based journalism popular in the new unlimited time and space?

You might think “no”, but you’d be half-wrong. FACT-based journalism is still out there, but the supply of critical thinkers looking for it is dwindling fast, as immediate gratification from click bait and sensationalism suck away at readership. When I begin my morning news search, I am immediately bombarded with features about naked woman, ex-boyfriends murdering the ex-girlfriends, who-said-what-about-who rumor-reporting, look-what-stupid-shite-happened-in-sports, and any political story slanted to what the internetness thinks is my political persuasion. Some of these are even Ai generated, untouched by human hands or minds. My toast is gone by the time I’ve sorted through the mess and found a report or story worth reading. Breaking News: I get more toast!

Ah, but there is the problem, isn’t it. What is worth reading? What is worth?

The problem is not the internetmess. It is the people who live in it, and it looks like it will be a long time before old-style, FACT-driven journalism returns to popularity. Hope I live long enough to see it.

PS Has everyone noticed how broadcast journalism news is always “breaking”? And why do all the primetime announcers tell the stories before turning it over to the “field reporter” who says the exact same thing? Actually, I’d rather hear the same story twice than hear an advertisement. Bet broadcast news will soon be 5 minutes of news and 25 minutes of ads.

There must be a reason, too, why there are so many drug ads in network news shows. Any one know the reason?

*Except when writing an “essay”, or lengthy opinion blob.

**And those old “sliding tiles” puzzle games where you moved one tile at a time to complete the puzzle. You had to see many moves ahead to be successful.

***Unless it was a really, really important story. Remember: Hold the presses?

Tidbits Or Bits of Tid?

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What a wonderful thing Ai is. I asked Emma about the word “tid” and she gave me the rundown. First, it IS a real word, or it used to be. The Oxford English people list it as “Obsolete”, with its “last recorded use in the 1890s”. Must be because of tid’s close proximity to Id? There is an acronym “tid” commonly used by doctors. It is Latin for “ter in die” or “three times a day” as in medication, and it must save the docs lots of time.

Tid* originated in Olde Middle English and meant something “small and tender”. Nope, not a Valentine but a cut of meat or other small bit of food. Oops. Think we just found out where “tidbit” came from. All of us know what tidbits are so let’s get on with the essay, especially since the Modern English now use the word “titbits” which we will not look into, since we may “uncover” historical “titbits”.** Apologies.

It is still a mystery why they make “muscle cars” for societies with speed limits. If we all used small, four-cylinder engines, imagine…ha, why say it. Let’s build bigger and faster and more powerful cars so we can get to someplace sooner. Forget any other issue. It is funny, though, when gas prices rise dramatically.

Guns, too. How many guns does anyone need? On the farm we had two rifles, one for each boy. It was tough at first, to have one gun when the two of us went hunting. Yes, if one of us shot the other, the problem would be solved but neither of us thought about that? As an older, married, person a rifle didn’t seem like a good weapon for home protection, so we made sure we had a small but practical handgun in case the wife was home alone when unwanted visitors knock. Yes, even the next-door neighbors if we were in a bad mood. Gun proliferation is a result of great marketing and economies of scale that make manufacturing a weapon shooting 1million rounds a minute affordable for all.  And branding makes many people want more than one.

The United States of America is warped. Not sure when it started but I’ll blame Mitch McConnell. In 2010 he openly stated, in public, his “top priority” was to make sure Obama did not get re-elected. Not pass good laws or write great bills or represent his constituents. His job was strictly political obstruction. Obama did get re-elected but then so did Mitch. It is a concept as old as politics, so why is McConnell’s statement a problem? It was the first time a politician admitted it out loud, in public. From then on everyone could admit it. How do you feel as a voter when the person you elect is not going to do anything but obstruct the party who won? See, I’ll bet most of you are okay with that, aren’t you? In our warped society just beating the other guy is all we strive for. Feck all the world’s problems. And when is the last time an elected official represented all the constituents in his district/county/town or country? Is it even possible?

Related to the obstruction issue is the “hate” word and “fight” word. Republicans hated Obama. Democrats hated Bush. Many different groups hate Trump. And politicians want you to elect them so they can “fight” The Others. WTF!! Funny when I ask a hater if he/she/them has ever met the person he/she/them hate…

Maybe someday we can get back to constructive, productive debating and work together to solve the things killing us all. Yeah. Right. Or Left. Respect and cooperation? Who’s kidding*** who…

Note to anyone who wants to argue with me about politics: if you use either “hate” or “fight” in your argument it will cause a big…sigh. Think about that before you speak. You want that on your conscience?

*Grammar Police keep telling me tid is misspelled. I can stop that if I add it to the computer’s dictionary. Just another decision for an old man to make. Stay tuned.

**Hope you giggled like I did.

***I originally typed “kissing”. S and D are so close, only a titbit apart.

Stupid, Pointless Observations

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Some things will never change.

Modern politicians spend more time gaining and keeping power than legislating. Ask any of your elected representatives how much time–and money–they spend on redistricting, fund raising, campaigning, and then sitting on their hands in their elected offices. It is a bi-partisan effort but mostly fueled by people who do not believe a central, federal government is of any use to its citizens. Regulatory controls and safety limits are not needed. Let The Moguls be free to make unlimited profits in any way they can.

What better way to make that government useless than by getting elected to a majority and then doing nothing? At least those elected are getting some of their taxes back. Plus the bribes, pay-offs, and future employment from The Moguls.  Do a little research and thinking. This might be the “Five Dimension” chess all the Republicans are talking about.

Voting for a party instead of a person in all elections is the stupidest thing, ever, and the main reason we are in the mess we are in. It’s another bi-partisan effort that has been going on for years, and who started we will never know. But American voters are the problem for letting it happen. The public ends up with government by party leaders* instead of government by the people**. While the fault is with us all, own your vote and fix it next time.*** Vote for the best person to do the job.

You can’t run a civilization like a business. If we were a business, who would you lay off to help control out of control expenditures? And what would you do with them? Start a new, unfunded state for non-citizens? Do you let ailing citizens who can’t work and are near death just…die to save money? Could we hire citizens from another country? Transfer useless citizens to another country? Would we stop elections and hold “investor” meetings? It is really, really stupid to think of America as a business entity. Stupid and pointless. And cruel.

Have politicians and business leaders completely lost the meaning of money? Do all the new zeroes behind personal wealth mean those without the zeroes are doomed? How much a dozen of eggs costs means what to a billionaire? Even a millionaire? Even thousand-aire?

It’s hard to say exactly how many or in what percentage they exist, but there are a lot of people to whom the dozen of eggs means more than just the cost. People who can only afford a little of everything have to give up something when prices rise. Rich people might not know that, or care to know. Maybe a rich person who was poor once, might. Or maybe not.

But it is really stupid and pointless to not consider the plight of poor people. These days, just not being rich makes you poor. Watch advertisements and see how many businesses target poor people. Maybe the pharmaceutical companies…and beer…and unhealthy snacks and fast food…and cigarettes.

And where do the billions of dollars The Moguls have come from? Money trees? Cannibal Capitalism will not work. Google the French Revolution.

Final thought from Mark Twain in 1897: “There is no distinctly American criminal class except congress.” 129 years ago.

*Or in our current world: by the Leader, alone.

**Google party “whips” and see what that job does. Its name reveals all.

***This does NOT mean vote Democratic. But it does suggest voting independent. Note the small “i”.

***Mogul: “a very wealthy, powerful, and influential person.” Among other things. What a great diverse, word, right skiers?

Nuance Revisited

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I often write about things and try to add an anecdote to illustrate what is being written. Sadly, my aging memory is like the rest of us seniors: remembering anecdotes takes time, and their memory comes at odd times and places. They most often return to me in my car during the 15-minute drive to the Fitness Center at Turning Stone Resort and Casino, when “all hands are on deck” making sure there is no deer in the road and I stay between the lines. Yes, I could take the time to make audio notes, but how many of us–at any age–are so smart early in the morning?

Last Tuesday, a perfect case of “Nuance” was retrieved from The Deep Files*. It is also an example of other essays about critical thinking, as well as the admonition to “do your own research”.  Hopefully, you’ve read enough essays to be aware of all these issues.

The Case of the Absent Nuance is also a story about click-bait, silo information, and “new versus old journalism”, but for now let’s only ponder Nuance.

The breathless headlines stated variations of this theme: “Thousands of dead voters Found on Voter Registration Rolls.” Wow. Maybe Trump was right about election integrity? There really is Election Fraud? Several versions of the story did not get the facts wrong and did not seem to be biased, but there was an odd emptiness to the story crying out for more information. “Dead voters”?

North Carolina is the state where all this “seemingly” unreasonable electoral action “allowed” 34,000 dead voters to remain registered to vote. I lived in NC, a Republican controlled state, and know if there IS election fraud in NC it is by Republicans. (Google it, and enjoy, it’s old school and kind of cute, in a way.) But the actual cases of fraud in NC did not involve more than hundreds of votes. Was the fraud even deeper than reported?

By now you may have guessed the story of dead voters is an empty, inconsequential issue probably written about for its “click bait” power. Imagine both Dem and Repub readers wondering which party was “frauding”** now.  Imagine the clickers, commenters, and criticizers of all stripes.***

Here is the nuance: in any given year approximately 100, 000 North Carolinians die. A lot of them are registered voters. How do dead registered voter names get removed from current voter registration rolls? And does it happen in a timely fashion? Think of your own death: who notifies any election commission in any state of your death? Imagine if you lived half your voting life in NC and half in New York, for example. After googling how many died in NC, I googled how is the NC Election Commission notified of a now-dead, registered NC voter? You should google your own state and see if its procedures are any better than the Rube Goldberg****system in NC.

Is it a fact that 34,000 deceased voters are still registered to vote in NC? Yes, it is. But is it good journalism to call them “voters”? So far, no version of the story has articulated a very important “nuance”: did any of the 34,000 cast a vote? If so, how did they get to the polling place?

Kidding. Having dead voters on your voting rolls is a nonissue until we all get implanted microchips to send an immediate signal to the pertinent Election Commission not to expect us next voting cycle. The Chip could also tell our credit card companies to stop waiting for payment and our life insurance companies to send checks to beneficiaries seconds after we pass away.

There is an urge to ask this: Does a bear shite in the woods?

If it’s related to this essay, research it and figure it out.

Honor Nuance!

*The inner-sanctum memory area in some Latin-named part of another Latin-named part of the brain. Retrieving memories in old age is like being in a large warehouse where you know where everything is but someone has turned off all the lights. Advice: be patient.

**New word. Like it?

***Not lost on me is the irony of me being one of “them”.

****A lost Art. Ai or google, please.

Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah

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Is that enough blahs for you?

When there is some dead space in my overactive life*, I Watch television. Sorry. Hope this doesn’t affect your vision of me as a hand-on-the-chin Rodin thinker, but television/media is the Window to the World.

Sidebar: Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” was meant to be a clothed, self-portrait of the sculptor sitting atop the Gates of Hell, admiring the Circles of Hell and pondering Dante’s poem. Rodin, to his credit, noticed the figure had a more powerful message and purposely stripped it naked. It is thought to be the first artistic expression of an intellectual with muscles. It was publicly unveiled in 1904. Yet, to this day we still think of brainy people as nerds and weaklings. Since intellectuals are so smart, how did they let that image proliferate? Or…is it an image they prefer, so they get underestimated? We all know, now, we can’t trust those intellectual types and their woke ideas, but are they playing us, leading us around by the nose? Take your clothes off, sit on an uncomfortable granite slab, and give it some thought.

I left Upstate New York and traveled south by car a few weeks ago. The trip began with long pants, solid shoes for walking in the snow, two layers of clothes, and gloves. 24 hour later—after an overnight rest—I was in shorts and sandals and cranking up the AC. Durham, NC is going to set a record today of over 90 degrees. When I drive home in a few days the weather in NY will be snow, sleet, and freezing rain. The range of climate is not the impressive part. What is impressive as hell is how easily we can move between these varying climates. We take it for granted. If it was Gunsmoke days, it might take weeks, even months to find a different biome. It is a wonderful world.

But not for News, and Information is slowly rotting, as well. The first problem with our news and information disseminating systems, is Capitalism. The ever-present need for profit means, these days, commercial time in our media centers is paramount, content be damned. Forget the need for a commercial every three seconds and note the timing, when something neat is about to happen or be revealed, your media cuts to an advertisement. We see you, you capitalist shites. We know what you’re doing. But can we do anything about it? The Window to the World is covered over with bumper stickers.

But hold on, what about that damned “content”? It is apparent** there is a lot of money to be made by…talking. Blah blah blahing. Spitting words. Mangling sentences. Mouthing opinions either believed or tailored for certain information silo consumption. News is now 5 seconds of fact and 23 hours and 55 seconds of talking heads, each with his own ass-inine(sic) take on some ass-inine(sic) subject. News  head: “America dropped $10 million dollars worth of bombs on the Middle East, today. Here to discuss it is our Talking Head Panel (THP) of experts.” Of note, there is always at least one female with the flowing tresses of modern fashion, and at least one man with a beard hiding his wattle. (Don’t pretend you know what a wattle is. Look it up.)

With our information silos, you can find any THP discussing any subject you want and offering any opinion you agree with or would like to argue against from the safety of your living room, you troll. And how about CNN actually including on-line comments in their news reporting, now? Should anyone care about the opinion of one lazy, partially informed, but supercilious listener/watcher/critic/snark? (For full effect google “supercilious.)

Thank, God, this essay ran out of room before something stupid got printed.

I’m going to watch me some Gunsmoke on Grit*** and hope the world goes on without me.

            *”Dead” is probably not a good word for a senior to use, but you all know what I mean.

**”At this point in time going forward to the future.” Ha.

***Or Rich Steves travel show on PBS. A true Window to the World.

Is It Politics Or Something Else?

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I’ve written many times about how I don’t understand Donald Trump. He is a draft dodger, convicted felon, sexual assaulter, porn star user, serial marriager(sic), serial divorcer(sic), and so good at making deals he filed bankruptcy 6 times to get out from under those very good deals. So, is he the Second Coming of Something for certain people? Yes.

This is a case of that Duality of Life essayed(sic) about on February 19, 2026. The Hangers-On who profit from Trump’s presidency are easy to understand: they are making money off Trump, a true case of Trickle-Down(slightly) Economics.* The more Trump makes the more they make, so those people are Pragmatic Capitalists. But what about people who don’t make money off Trump? Little people like you and me? Why do they support Trump? A favorite economics phrase: “A rising tide lifts all boats.” But most of us can’t afford a boat.

I can’t remember directly “profiting” from any president. Ones who lowered taxes, of course, left me with a little extra, but we all learn early, the less you pay in one spot the more you pay in another. Research the fees, licensing costs, local taxes, registration costs, etc, in low- or no-income tax states. But in Trump’s case, with ballrooms, new jets, all the gold thingys, kickbacks; and payoffs going to rich people, what are poor people getting out of a Trump Presidency? Can’t they see what is happening? Trump historically says one thing and then does whatever makes him the most profit. Period. Are poor people living a separate, dual life through Trump?

A Texas professor, A. Michele Dickerson, explained the phenomenon on the Daily Show, Monday, February 23, 2026. She wrote the Book, “The Middle-Class New Deal”, but in her talk gave a clear answer about why Poor People are not revolting against Rich People, like the French Population did in 1789. No, I am not advocating for guillotines and head-lopping, but it is a wonder how anyone with less than two nickels to rub together would support the rise and enrichment of not one billionaire, but the entire billionaire caste.** The Professor’s answer, paraphrased: We have been taught to look sideways, inside our own castes, for the problems facing us. She calls it “Looking Horizontally”. We have been trained to look at people who are in our same lower- or middle-class situations as the very people causing the problems. Example: immigrants take all the jobs.

Meanwhile, the Upper Class, The Rich, gather up all the money and power with impunity. The solution? “Look Vertically” says the professor. Her point is a variation on Information Silos, Tribe over Truth, and the phenomenon of families splitting over adoration for one Rich Man or another. Why is this happening?

Because it works. In many essays through the years, I have stated if you blindly believe in ANY candidate from ANY party, at ANY time…you are being snookered. Had. Fleeced. Taken for a ride. Grifted. Conned.

Political passion has always been a part of every election, but the virulence of recent times is the result of Rich People controlling Mainstream, Off-Stream, Mid-Stream, and Legacy Media, with the occasional podcaster or loudmouth pilot-fishing*** a profit off the backs of the Rich Man’s Media Strategy. They have used their soapboxes to make us look the other way, the Horizontal Way.

Spread your news consumption around. Watch something new. Look for The Manipulation. Personally, I watch Fox News at least once a week to see if anything has changed because they are the best at supporting the “Horizontal Look” and ignoring the Vertical. But they are not the only ones. Do this: find a news place where you disagree with what you hear and never stay with media that tells you what you want to hear.

Last word? Think. Please.

*Ai: “David Stockton”.

**Yes, we have a Caste System in America. Ai it.

 ***Beautiful symbolism, if I say so myself. Look it up.