Compilation of my short MORNING THOUGHTS.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

Old or old school writers are good. I just write and write and write. Read me or you don't. I don't need to argue with people about whatever I wrote. Or be concerned that only a handful or 4 friends read me. I evolved as a writer/journalist at a time when we simply wrote and submitted the copy, done. We didn’t discuss a report or article with 55 people all at the same time, LOL! Arguments to defend stuff are for lawyers. They get paid for those. Writers get paid for writing, that’s all. 🗣👀✍️

Seldom do we hear songs with poetic depth anymore. I grew up enjoying rock/folk music as I intently listened to the words. Pored over the lyrics and learned life. Many songs by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Paul Simon were written even before they were 20. These days most lyrics are bankrupt of creativity. Google how many “F--- Y—” hit songs are sung by kids. There’s even a song about “f------ a dog.” And grownups with 12 year old brains think these songs are cool. 🎹🎸🎼

As we remember the sublime wisdom and endearing glory of the past, we also remember the wicked acts and visual horror. We smell the cadaver stench of memory; we hear the cries of pain in the dead of a quiet night. They persist. Yet we are still here, alive. Without thoughts of the ugliness of yesterday, hard to appreciate the beauty of today. So we cling to intermittent rays of hope and enjoy the little blessings as they come. Life is what it is. We live it. ☮️💝☯️

Reading through my Homepage, it continually annoys me that other peoples on earth beyond white, white west are viewed as illiterate, clueless, and dumb. Either you are automatically dismissed as “Shut up!” or told “…You don’t know anything about America” or unceremoniously ignored (sic) outright. Not referring to Left or Right, Liberal et al or Conservative. People per se. Don’t geniuses know that this is the 21st century? BTS isn't a Bacon Taco Sandwich. Google it! LOL! 😒🤨🤪

We are contradictions. All a matter of how the world out there responds to our “insanity.” Good or bad. Good, I hope. I love people but I don’t “like” people. I anchored my “rock journeys and sublime madnesses” with meeting diverse personages as a journalist, founded organizations, and organized events for communities. But I prefer to watch from backstage or be alone after the show. Very low tolerance when strangers poke at me. Leave me alone, okay? LOL! ?☮️👉

Business. Streaming TV? Amazon Freevee? The tech giant always got smart sales trickery. Hulu and AppleTV have theirs as well. Not so much on Netflix. Yet that is Business 101. Market economics per consumer demographic. Trade’s deduction is an exponential spike in profit. A company that doesn’t up the revenue scale is “losing.” Abortion tempest? News: “Abortion Pills Take the Spotlight as States Impose Abortion Bans.” Drug titans will never be left behind. Yup. 🗣👀✍️

As a boy, I was a huge fan of “Combat!” and cowboys and Indians movies. Yet I evolved as a virulent anti-war activist. I may discuss other issues with parallel intensity but when it comes to war, it is unconditional thumbs-down. Hence, leaderships that pull troops out of war and governments that nix NATO and don’t allot military budget over gut needs like health, housing, and food? My respect. I don’t care about cool or uncool Potuses. No war? You are awesome!☯️💝☮️

The current U.S. tempest? No opinion. I was born and evolved in a galaxy so far away at a time when the islands were hell to America’s heaven. Economic dump, countryside war, EJKs, killer typhoons. Yet we found moments of community coolness amidst gargantuan gloom. Still the same, I am. I savor the blessings of North Carolina. But my howls of dissent are loudest on gut issues such as end of wars, mass shootings, and 8.6 percent inflation. All the rest are just stuff.☯️💝☮️

Sad that major political issues, national or international, are discoursed as per partisanship fire or Left vs Right, Democrat vs Republican. Not as Issues per se. Yet the truth is party principles and ideological paradigms—and their propagators and politicians—change the playbook and alter the strategy all the time. They jump ship, jump out, jump wherever per power-base convenience. Yes, Abraham Lincoln was Republican; Andrew Jackson was Democrat. Etcetera. 

       Abe Lincoln ended slavery and created the possibility of civil and social freedom for African-Americans. But he was also criticized for his “…aggressive handling of the Civil War, his assaults on civil liberties and his aggrandizing of the federal government.” Democratic Party founder Andrew Jackson was the only Potus who led with no national debt and supported individual liberty. But he also instituted policies that resulted in the forced migration of Native Americans. 👈🗽👉

Religious extremism ignited wars. Yet armed hostilities subsided when compromises ensued for peaceful coexistence. King Cnut was King of the North Sea Empire (England, Denmark, Norway) from 1016 to his death in 1035. Till all 3 kingdoms evolved as individual nations. These days, extremism is mostly political. Partisans are now The Zealots. Fanatics. Yet both political extremes are ruled by 1 power. Left vs Right begets “Divide and Rule.” Profit gods win.☯️💝☮️

Compilation of my short MORNING THOUGHTS.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

The ability to listen is lost. Not gadget dependency. But due to a New Moralism that promotes self-righteousness. I was the quiet kid, listening. The reason why I evolved as a writer. I had to write what I heard. Journalists then asked and listened more than they talked and talked. I was barely in my 20s when I was part of a city mayor’s advising team; later with a think-tank for a presidential candidate back home. I learned a lot listening to older strategists. 

       Funny that when I was younger, during family/kinship gatherings, while everybody talked and talked and talked—I’d simply sat and listened. The following week, whatever they talked about would be in my week’s newspaper (or magazine) column. Of course, I never mentioned a name. That’d coaxed my family to read me each time a new issue of the paper came out. 🗣👂✍️

Old. Although I still read politics as ever, now it’s all leisure time thingy. I don't give so much damn anymore about benevolent assimilation, partisanship pedagogy (!) critical race theory, Objectivist Epistemology. I just want to end wars, feed the hungry, be with dogs and cats, watch sports TV or a good series with less spoonfed politics. Better be, my day’s struggles are now confined with wishing the backyard veggies grow faster. I beat inflation with good ole ramens.☯️💝☮️

When you present a certain insight that (usually) delves from the popular/partisan thinking, with historical backgrounders and cornucopia of data, more often than not—you’d be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist.” Because you read/reread stuff past and present, connect dots, figure some analysis out, then formulate your opinion out of those. You’d get this annoying emoji 😂 as response, mostly from people who “craft” their own smart takes of/from life via this source: 😂

Life is smothered by gargantuan contradictions. Such as this: The United States and Europe are so high and hot on climate change yet higher and hotter on wars. Frustrating. Wars: Tanks flatten vegetation, bombs scar landscapes, explosives ignite fires. Weapons spew toxic gases and particulates into the air and leak heavy metals into soil and water. In massive amounts. Billions of dollars blown away; lives wasted. Then we say: “Love the environment, love life!”☯️💝☮️

A popular meme: Blame oil titans for the cost of gasoline, not Joe. Here: ExxonMobil is a multinational corp. run by a CEO. The oil/gas giant 2021 revenue: $270+ billion. Corporate profit exponentially increases annually. If it fails, CEOs are fired. The government runs a country’s economy, not a corporation’s operations. Ergo: The U.S. economy is not run by Darren Woods. President Biden runs the world’s #1 economy, which is now sunk in a murk of 8.6 percent inflation.

       Maybe you are wondering. Venezuela’s inflation rate last year was 600+ percent. These days? 4.4 percent. The U.S. is #1 producer of oil. Venezuela was a top 10 oil producer but these days, coming from an economy that grossly tanked, it is only at #25, globally. Cost of gasoline per gallon in Venezuela? Less than a dollar. Same cost average in (also) oil-rich Middle East. ⛽️💰⛽️

We protest the (war) draft. Yet I notice that dogs sent to war aren't so big a deal. Then we worry about our dogs getting’ stressed' with fireworks or thunderstorms. Why don’t military tech R&D invent and develop gadgets that can do what dogs do in war? I am fine with dogs used in law enforcement. They can sniff 13 substances: Cocaine, bath salts, meth, opioids etcetera. Arrow can sniff-sniff 26 or more. But nope! I don’t want Arrow The Brat Doog to go to war. 🐕👃🐕

Freedom of Speech? I learned it first from my family. Dad, on the dinner table: “If you have nothing important to say, don’t. Eat!!” Mom: “If you have important things to say, say it—in complete sentences.” Speak your mind. But speaking/talking didn't include cussing and cursing. The time that we’d be hushed—no matter how important or urgent our message. I am still the same. Quiet. Yet when I talk/write, it’d be via complete sentences. Not with that silly emoji. 🗣👀✍️

Years ago, as a journalist back home, I covered the surrender of a top rebel leader. His mother was present along with the media. Mom’s first words to son: “Are you hungry?” Sublime Love of a Mother. I posted last night that Draymond Green had a better game because his mom hollered at him to lose the drama and play! I was raised by a mother who disciplined me when I misbehaved and didn’t do my house chore. When I did good, she rewarded me with a fine dinner! Mom. 👩‍🦳💓👵

New York Times: “Blowout losses by Democrats send signal to Biden.” And adds: “Biden has leaned left since becoming president. But big ideas pushed by party progressives are radically disconnected from everyday life, which spells political peril.” I was drawn to the Left most of my life due to its direct connection to/from everyday life. The people. The gut-level ideology is gone. The New Left promotes via media narrative a New Moralism that I couldn’t grasp. 👤🗣🫂