Sunday, September 28, 2008

A Short History Lesson

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.George Santayana, the Spanish born American Philosopher, Poet and Humanist who made important contributions to aesthetics, speculative philosophy and literary criticism.

History is a subject which does not seem to interest as many people as is should, especially young people. This concerns me because there is a lot that can be learned by looking back at past events and seeing what went right and what went wrong. To me, ignoring history is like ignoring experience. Perhaps you’ve heard the expression “experience is the best teacher.” With all this in mind, I'd like to take a look back in time:

In the 1970’s America was suffering through some tough economic times, jobs were being lost, President Nixon resigned, we had a gas crisis, inflation was rising, and we had the Iran hostage crisis (a short history of the 1970's). President Carter proposed some belt-tightening to America, and his suggestions might have worked. However, his opponent in 1980 was the very charismatic Ronald Reagan. America wanted good news, not bad. We didn’t want to take the hard road, we wanted everything nice and easy. So we elected President Reagan and got trickle-down economics – a great program for the rich, who got richer, but not so good for everyone else, who got poorer.

Here’s a political cartoon about our last four presidents:
So here we are in 2008 and we’ve got tough economic times, jobs are being lost, we've got a gas crisis, and prices for everything are rising. Wonder where that easy road is going to take us now?

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Spinning out of control

The Associated Press reported today that the Democratic and Republican candidates spent $94,000,000 dollars in August. That’s $94 MILLION dollars in one month. What did they spend over half of this money on? Advertising. Here’s a quote from that AP report:
Their campaign finance reports, filed before Saturday's midnight deadline, shows that more than half of their $3-million-a-day spending rate was devoted to advertising that became increasingly negative during the month.

Once again the American political process devolves to a mud-slinging process. The winner is the one with the best spin and the most convincing lies. I sometimes wonder how the rest of the world views us. I’d wager they are having a good laugh at us.


Considering the shape our economy is in I suppose that I should be glad that there is all this money flowing around. They are keeping advertising agencies, television stations, radio stations, and print media employees from loosing their jobs. They even have their own well-paid staffers. Obama has a monthly payroll of $2.8 million and McCain has a $1.2 million payroll. Glad to know that there are still some people with jobs. Maybe I should have gone to work for one of them.


What really worries me thought is that when it comes time to vote the average American won’t have a clue who they are really voting for. Instead they will vote for the one with the best advertising and the candidate with the best spin doctors that money can buy. This country is facing some very serious and potentially catastrophic problems. We should be asking the candidates hard questions about what they will do to fix these problems. Instead it’s all sound-bytes and spin.

For those who might be curious about the truth and lies in what our candidates are saying I recommend the following sites:
Beware though, many sites that profess to provide nothing but the facts are in truth just putting their own spin out on the Internet. Which is, unfortunately, why I am not able to recommend more sites.

Lastly, if you would like to try your own hand – and maybe land a good job with a political candidate – at spin, check out this how-to site at eHow.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

When the Storm God Rides

As I write this it is Saturday morning (I'll be driving all day Sunday) and Hurricane Ike is pounding Houston, Texas. My good hopes and best wishes go to those in the path of this storm. It has already wrought great damage to Cuba and Haiti on its way to the United States. Fay and Gustav had already brought considerable damage to those nations. Now Ike has left them in a desperate situation. What Galveston is going to look like remains to be seen.

Since I live in Florida I already know a fair amount about hurricanes. We were personally visited by three storms in 2004. I was not home when Charlie struck my house; however, I did get a unique look at the storm while flying at 30,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico. It was around 9:30 PM and the storm was in the process of demolishing both my home and the city I live in when the pilot of the plane I was in came on over the intercom and told the passengers to look out the left side of the plane. What we saw he called “the veil of the hurricane” -- it was like looking at a giant fog; I could see a massive cloud formation, but it was all soft and fuzzy looking, unlike what was being experienced on the ground.


So far this year there have been ten named storms. Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, and Ike have all impacted folks living in and around the Gulf of Mexico. If you would like information on the storms this year, check out this
hurricane information site. The National Hurricane Center has excellent satellite imagery and storm track information, but they don’t have any historical information for 2008 yet. If you live anywhere visited by hurricanes, you might want to add this site to your daily ‘to-do’ list.

About the title to this blog:

The title for this blog comes from a collection of Native American legends collected by Bessie M. Reid and published by Florence Stratton in 1936. Many of the stories in the book are from the Tejas, or Hasinai tribe as they called themselves, located in the area that would become Texas. Tejas in the Hasinai language means friend and it is from that word that we got the name Texas. The book may be read on-line here. If this year is anything to go by, I suspect that they had considerable experience with storm gods.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Memories – A Most Precious Possession

A friend of mine, and fellow blogger, asked me to contribute a favorite childhood story to her for use in a post she is working on. While I didn’t mind sharing a story, I had to stop and think for a bit because I realized that I hadn’t thought about my childhood much in quite a while.

All of that musing got me to thinking about how memory works and what a remarkable thing it is. My friend shared a story with me about catching fireflies, or lightening bugs, as some people call them (what they are called seems to depend on what part of the country you are from). Reading her story brought back memories from when I was young and chasing them around the yard. I found that I could feel the coolness of the grass, smell the scent of the pine trees, and see my parents sitting on the porch waiting for me to return with a captured lightening bug.


Memory can be a magical thing. We can see people long dead again, relive childhood events, re-experience that first kiss, and countless other things. Many things can trigger a memory: a sight, a sound, a smell. They can come on you unexpectedly. Unfortunately, we sometimes remember things we wish we could forget.


Our memories can store a remarkable collection of eclectic stuff. Have you ever heard music playing only to realize that the music was playing in your own mind? Sometimes a song can get stuck in your mind and just keeps playing over and over. Have you ever walked through a store and had a smell trigger a memory from your past?

If you haven’t looked back into your memories for a while, it might be good to dust off some of those memory bits and take a look around. Don’t dwell on hurtful things but look for those long forgotten gems and enjoy them again.