JUST SOME POSTS

This one came to me as I was eating breakfast this morning. I put it together before I left for work.   (click on the photo to enlarge it) If you like this kind of thing, my new book: Curmudgeon Rhapsody is out now at Amazon and Kindle. It has more like this as well as original poems and songs. Also, royalties from sales of the book go towards research and patient support for Multiple System Atrophy (MSA). A fatal rare progressive neurological disease that took my wife's life. Please consider buying one (or more - give them as gifts!) to help.

My latest book is now available on Amazon and Kindle. It is called: " Curmudgeon Rhapsody ". It is a collection of poetry and other musings from the inner recesses of my mind. As with the first book, any royalties made will be donated to MSA research and support. Please consider purchasing a copy and giving it a review. You can buy it by clicking here . Pass this along if you would. I want to get some more money to help fight MSA. FYI, the first book: " Living With a Snow(wo)man " is still available for sale as well.

Anyone notice a similarity between those photos? As I am out and about these days I notice that more and more any interaction that people are having is with the device in their hand and not with the world (or people) around them. Now, I am guilty of this as well, but I do try to be mindful of not looking at my phone constantly. I especially try to keep my phone in my pocket when with other people in a social setting. Cellphones and tablets are interesting devices from a psychological perspective. There have been studies and articles written showing that the "reward" we get from a "like", a text, a tweet, et al, is comparable to a drug. The reward center in our brain becomes "addicted" to this influx of internal "drug". Have you noticed that a lot of people "can't" put their phone down? (can't is in quotes as obviously they CAN do it, but chose not to) Even when in front of someone they care a great deal about or an import...

Recently, I reposted on Facebook a synopsis of the votes in Congress relating to the government shutdown and funding. A co-worker/friend posted a response (which I have included below in its entirety to be fair and to make sure I addressed all points.   Here is what I posted: Here is his response in black: (I did omit a link he also posted to an article/story from CNBC going into the certainty of a government shutdown, otherwise this is all of it) My response is in RED following each of his comments.   First, Trump said, on national television, that he would own the shutdown.  Trump is owning the shutdown as much as he can. He has said what he wants in the budget and has professed to not accept or sign a budget without it. It is the Constitutional responsibility of Congress (specifically the House of Representatives, with oversite participation of the Senate and the Executive branch) to draw up and pass a spending bill. Then the President has the resp...

When this came to me, I was shopping for groceries. I remembered that I had done a Christmas poem last year; but I had forgotten it was also loosely based on "The Night Before Christmas". (if you care, it was last year just a bit later than this - here is a link: https://justsomeposts.blogspot.com/2017/12/a-christmas-poem.html ) And some say history does NOT repeat itself - ha! Here we go: SOME TIME BEFORE CHRISTMAS ‘Twas the weeks before Christmas and all through the land, People were whining of things they don’t understand. The politicians were posturing in front of cameras with care In hope that the news cycle would feature them there. The pundits and experts all smug because they knew, That few would even challenge the words they would spew. With the people recovering from elections just ended And hoping to relax while feelings were mended Out of the news mongers there arose such a clatter The people knew their weary bones just didn’t matter. T...

I am old enough now that I can wax historically without shame. I have decades of learning and knowledge to combine with experience to interpret and determine a response to an action or activity. The issue with the young is their lack of experience and knowledge to draw comparisons from. The young can only use what has been learned by and shown to them in whatever time they have been exposed to something. That brings up a point that I want to make that is a deviation from the main theme of this post - I feel strongly that one of the reasons that politics has degenerated into what it has and the candidates have become as bad (on both sides!) as they have, is that we feel it takes more maturity and wisdom to decide to buy an alcoholic beverage than it does to vote for our elected representatives - 21 vs 18 years of age; and to diverge more- with less proof of who is doing the activity! (ID for those slow on the uptake) But that is not the gist of this post, let me get to it. A lot of p...

I have been thinking about doing a somewhat (or overt) political ad for this election season. I had decided not to. This is not so much a political ad as it is an attempt at 'spainin' about the deficit and tax revenues in relation to the tax cuts that went into effect last year. First some numbers on what has happened to the economy due to the tax cuts and the reduction in regulations that the administration has put into place. Unemployment at record lows, employment participation growing for the first time in decades; more importantly, black and hispanic unemployment both at record lows. Consumer confidence is at an 18 year high which bodes well for the important Christmas shopping season and the economy in general. More importantly, tax revenues are UP! (if you car to follow up on that - I did a study on tax revenues following every major tax change over the past decades. I have facts and figures and even a spread sheet where I combined most of the numbers I crunched. Bott...