At what point do you realize that money means nothing and time means everything?

Like water on Arrakis, it doesn’t matter how much spice you have if you are dead from dehydration in the middle of a desert. Every hour of every day is all you have. If you are working at a job you hate, for a boss or company you don’t respect, and every day is causing you emotional pain and physical stress that is stifling you, sacrificing other projects (or worse yet harming your relationships), making you a different person (or harming your health), all for what? You are trading your most precious resource for money. You are trading time now for time later that you hope to have (but may not), which is understandable…but how do you measure that exchange? What amount is ‘worth it’?

Any job that is causing enough pain to impact your health long-term is probably not worth doing at any exchange rate. If you are offered $1M to jump off a cliff, that is obviously not a good deal. If you are offered $1M to do something illegal that could land you in jail for life, that is a risk that is probably not worth it (but would also depend on your other options). Is $100K to sit in an office all day for a year worth it?

If I am making enough in one day to have 5 days of freedom later, that is certainly worth it (at least for some amount of time). If I am only making enough for one day, then obviously that is not a good deal as my future day is not guaranteed (and the quality of life may be diminished).

What is the tipping point? The key is to get expenses as low as possible to maximize future value of each dollar earned. How much do you need?

Some kind of formula….current magnitude of pain/time vs future time/current dollars based on how much money one needs now and can save factoring future expenses. The older one gets, the more diminished and speculative the future time becomes, so there is a slope involved.

One of the more frustrating things I hear from casual observers of politics is the concept that the Democratic and Republican parties are “the same” and there is no real difference between the two (e.g., candidates both lie, both parties serve big money donor companies/individuals), etc…). While it is true that both parties are flawed and engage in similar behaviors (although with much different frequency and severity), there are some core fundamental differences between the two. While I do think our nation would be better served if we had many more political parties as voters are often forced to make a Sophie’s choice between bad and worse candidates or political positions. That being said, it is the choice we currently have…

NO REFEREE, NO RULES

It is true that both parties manipulate individual incidents/stories/”facts” in the media to garner support, especially emotional stories of loss. This is part of the game and if you do not play, you lose. In today’s digital age, news outlets spend more time on viewer/reader data than researching the actual story (motives, sources, context)…you know, actual journalism. The evolution of media has opened the floodgates on what I call the “Fox News” paradigm: how people react to a story (based on their own confirmation bias) is the actual story…”let us know what you think” has become a standard on CNN. A democracy, especially one the size of the US, can not function without a free press to not only provide a check on corruption but to act as an impartial judge/referee between our two powerful parties. The press has morphed from reporting data points (with occasional social commentary) into a dysfunctional megaphone of misinformation, to be used by political interests who provide “experts” to spin stories to fit a particular narrative.

It is from this background, where actual journalism has been replaced with the court of public opinion, that we get the idea that for every position there are two equal sides/arguments that must be given equal airtime/value…this is why we lump both parties into the same bucket. The fact-checkers have been marginalized to websites which (it seems) only one side cares about while the other invokes the blanket “media bias” defense that they successfully litigated years ago and continue to leverage to effectively game the would-be referees when journalists try to actually do their jobs…you know, ask real questions, follow-ups, call out factual inconsistencies and confirm/refute statements made by candidates. But no…”gotcha” journalism is an actual term used in a negative context. Huh? Shouldn’t all journalism be “gotcha” journalism if the subject is being dishonest or says something that is factually incorrect?

QUOTE: “It is a great time to be corrupt…the next few years” media expert testifying before congress on the weak state of journalism in the US.

EVERYBODY PLAY THE GAME: THE DONKEYS

With no way to win a case on the merits, we are left with a battle of style over substance. Whoever has the most convincing and media-friendly messenger wins. The democratic party is a coalition of many different interests (some fairly radical) and has had to live in the grey area between black and white in the past. The world’s problems are complex and require multi-faceted solutions that do not fit on a bumper sticker. But in today’s media environment nuance and complexity is the enemy, so party pundits have been forced to take positions that are vulnerable under scrutiny, sacrificing truthfulness and strength of details for brevity and message effectiveness.

The Democratic party believes that government can (and should) work for the people. Those that are able should pay taxes (with those most able contributing more) and we should all share in the benefits that come from government spending (with those most needy getting the larger share). The role of the federal government is to protect the rights of weaker minorities from the occasionally oppressive majority vote. It is also the role of the federal government to act as a check on free market capitalism, which history teaches us (over and over and over) that  left to it’s own devices will steam roll over workers and lay waste to the environment in the name of short-term profits. The federal government should have the noble mission of protector, which can be fairly expensive.

Critics of the democrats seem to focus on the “power” issue…that growing the government is akin to losing individual rights. I see it as more of a government vs private sector battle where one or the other is going to take advantage of the individual and given the choice, I am more comfortable with a larger government role where at least (if the press will do it’s job) the people have a voice/vote. Corporations are less transparent and although it is true one can “vote” with dollars, big business has only a profit motive where the government has budget considerations but also more altruistic, albeit bureaucratic, motivating factors.

If we take the time and effort to hold our public servants accountable, government can work for the people. Without a strong journalism class, without true investigative journalism, the democrats have been forced to adapt to the cult of personality method of getting elected and do the detailed work once they are in office. With the Citizens United ruling (considered the worst decision in US Supreme Court history by many) corruption is now officially legal in the US, even the most ethical democrats are forced to raise money in the same way the GOP has been doing for decades (Bernie being the exception)…and have thus lost the higher moral ground. The rift in the party is: do we want a revolution, the wake of which could lead to violence and damage to the weakest and most vulnerable? Or do we want  practical, incremental change by playing the game? The practical side of the party understands that you can not legislate equality. Laws should protect rights but social change will only come when the hearts and minds are won over by progressive pioneers in the arts (e.g., Hollywood can certainly take some credit for the overwhelming acceptance of gays in the past decades).

THE ELEPHANTS: FAUX LIBERTARIANS

The Republican party states it is the party of “small government” which does not work. Period. Taxes should always be cut (and never raised, no matter the fiscal situation) and spending should be cut as well…in theory. In practice, the spending part has been problematic as a bloated military has been left all but untouched, and prolonged military campaigns have racked up debt. Many spending cuts proposed by the GOP are of the “penny wise, pound foolish” variety where saving a few dollars now cost us in the long run (healthcare, education, infrastructure).

The party of “small government” who believes in deregulation of business (which of course is “killing” the economy…ignore how the US stock market is doing) reverses course when it comes to regulating non-gun owning individuals. The GOP, in order to maintain power, uses “hot button” social issues to propose regulation of women’s bodies (abortion rights and clinics), all of our bodies (drug laws, sex laws), what bathroom an individual can use, who can get married, who can vote (voter ID laws). The GOP has painted itself into a corner…they have tapped out the social conservatives (a group that is shrinking) and have bottomed out taxes/revenue to where the size of spending cuts required to balance the budget are irresponsible (and they know it). Trickle-down economics proved a disaster at both the federal level and more recently at the state level (e.g., Kansas). So they continue to preach their social and economic messages, knowing that social change is inevitable and that their economic plan is the path to ruin (at least the informed ones know this…the rank and file still thinks the target is real).

The “government doesn’t work” stance is the only one they have left and thanks to unprecedented obstructionism during the Obama administration, they have largely completed a circle of self-fulfilling prophecy. They have made sure that government does not work by refusing to compromise on even the most insignificant details and have reversed course on the most obvious bi-partisan issues, turning them into political opportunities (including the death of Americans abroad, which used to be “off limits” to politicization…can you imagine if Democrats called out W for 9/11?). The GOP has put party over country and abused the important role of the opposition party (9 committee hearings on Benghazi? dozens of votes to overturn HCA?), and to insert ridiculous bits of hyper-partisan legislation into what should be clean bills (e.g., fixing the VA, benefits for 9-11 first responders, raising the debt limit).

The biggest sin in my mind, and the one that puts the GOP into a different category of of evil, is the manipulation of election laws in a blatant attempt to suppress Democrat voters in several states. Although both sides engage in gerrymandering, the GOP have made it an Olympic sport. The recent slew of voter ID laws, in which GOP officials have publicly expressed joy that such laws will help them win in November, are thankfully being struck down as unconstitutional.

The final straw for the GOP has been the nomination of a completely unqualified (for any public office, let alone POTUS) narcissist who is playing his supporters like the snake oil salesman he is…the GOP is so far-gone and so corrupted by power that only a portion of Republicans have the courage to set aside party for country and denounce him. The rest, blinded by their own personal ambitions and desire to remain in power continue to provide tepid support to a man who daily provides dangerous quotes (and contradictions) in a spectacular meltdown that in any other election cycle would signal the end of a presidential campaign. His voice may also be the death knell of the GOP.

Thoughts after reading comments from Joe Walsh and Dan Patrick on the tragic death of five police officers in Dallas this week:

Seems to me the same people who feel that peaceful Black Lives Matter protests (a right granted in the US Constitution) are somehow indirectly responsible for the death of police officers (and not the acts of violence committed against black victims that spurred said protests)…are the same people who support open carry of firearms at tea party rallies where at least a significant percentage (if we judge based on poorly-worded placards) threaten violence against the government (including directly the POTUS). The same who people who spit out hate speech 24/7 on radio, TV and online about Muslims, gays, blacks, immigrants, and even liberals. The same people who say our current president is secretly a Muslim and somehow is supporting terrorists to attack US citizens. The same people who claim immigrants in our country (who commit less crime than the average citizen) are “criminals and rapists”.

The same NRA members who feel that their right to have deadly weapons is historically rooted in not just self-defense but as a check against tyrannical rule of government (i.e., that if our government is unjust they have the ability to take up arms against said government), have been suspiciously silent as officers of the government kill innocent civilians during routine traffic stops and misdemeanor arrests…but support armed standoffs/conflict with the federal government over land rights. In fact supporting criminals who “steal” federal land that belongs to all of us.

There is no consistent logic or ideology at work here…other than bigotry. There are a select few in the GOP (and many Libertarians) who do demonstrate consistent ideals and apply them equally, but they are too often either outnumbered or shouted down by the “base”. I frequent these types of thoughtful right-leaning sites (e.g., Redstate) and while I may not agree with the opinions, I am encouraged by those that are trying to fight the ignorance on both sides of the political spectrum. At the same time, I am depressed at how under-represented they are in the national media.

UPDATE: On multiple video-taped occasions at Trump rallies, one can hear things such as “lock her up!” and “kill her!” in reference to Hillary Clinton (a political opponent). Where are the voices on the right denouncing this disturbing and inflammatory language?

Social injustice, income inequality, systemic racism, war on drugs, a government ruled by money that refuses (at least on one side) to govern, a faux constitutional right to have guns (mostly brought about by money ruling government), 24/7 news which reports on the controversy instead of facts (fanning flames of fear and hatred)  and the militarization of our police force (and corresponding increase in violence against citizens)…is this what America is now? When people lose faith in the system of government, what is left? Have we created our own terrorists?

Gil Scott-Heron was wrong. The revolution will be televised, brother.

GOP? Meet me at camera three…

Hey…how’s it going?

Been a while since we talked. I think it was in the 80s when I was a kid and believed all the Reagan bullshit about being tough with the USSR and winning the “cold war” which you and I both know was really about spending money and keeping our main boosters (i.e., the military industrial complex) in power…wink, wink. Always “business-friendly” loose and free with regulations, cut taxes while also cutting spending…remember the good old days before the nut-jobs took over your party?

So, anyway, about this entire “Trump thing”. WTF? He has never served in public office…not even as a community organizer, believes whatever he reads on the internet and is an admitted snake oil salesman…but that’s your guy?!? You used to think it was funny when the nut-jobs like Trump would say crazy and completely made up shit about democrats (Obama was not born in the US?) and laughed it off, shrugged your shoulders and said “oh well” instead of condemning the behavior as unacceptable…and now it has become not only acceptable but seen as part of the job description. You have nominated Donald Trump for President of the United States…currently the most important elected office in the world. Let that sink in.

The last time the GOP made such a disastrous mistake (while pretending they did not) was…well it wasn’t that long ago actually: the occupation of Iraq “before they could attack us” with WOMD.

Remember that? The worst foreign policy decision in American history?  If we do a cost/benefit analysis looking at lives lost, money spent, credibility gone, etc…vs enemies gained, destabilization of the region, impact on surrounding countries (and now Europe) then wow. It is a testament to the strength of the US that we didn’t completely collapse. Oh, and as it turns out Saddam never had any nukes. Not one. And no evidence he was even close to getting one. Whew…that was a pretty awful move you have to admit. But to this day, about 90% of you GOP’ers insist “we did what we had to do and stopped a bad man” or whatever it is you tell yourself and your children. Read this, you will get a laugh out of it (seriously, I’ll wait) it’s like Skip Bayless predicting what Manziel would do in the NFL:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/rumsfeld-it-would-be-a-short-war/

Wow…how does it feel to be that wrong?

My point is that you, the GOP, have done quite a bit of damage to America in the past two decades. To be fair: have you done anything on the positive side to sort of even out the balance sheet? any accomplishments you can hang your hat on? I can’t think of anything…you did win the Citizen’s United case which has blown up the amount of rich donor/secret/dark money in politics…congrats! More money in politics won’t corrupt anyone, will it? You have consistently fought against social progress (anyone with dark skin, Muslims, gays and now transgenders) and have disenfranchised untold number of registered voters (reverting the voting rights act, voter ID laws). The Bush/GOP years were some of the most corrupt in recent history (Tom DeLay? Jack Abermoff?). Oh wait, you did have the big “temporary” tax cuts that overwhelmingly helped out the rich and contributed to our budget shortfall (along with that big expensive war). We have not been able to let those “temporary” rates return to normal…again thanks to the GOP…the rich get richer and it will help us all right? When, exactly?

Btw (and I hate to say this as it may be sort of unfair) but 9/11 happened under your watch and instead of taking advantage of world-wide empathy to unite the world as the leader of the free world you acted like a frightened paranoid bully (in the process blowing up our budget, reverting constitutional rights and officially advocating torture). In essence, you took OBL’s bait and acted just as the 9/11 perpetrators hoped you would and gave them exactly what they wanted: an invasion of a Muslim country by US troops that would become the center of recruiting for our enemies for the next decade or so (“told you so!”). If 9/11 is not completely your fault, then how come Benghazi is Obama’s (and now Hilliary’s) fault? Even if we give you a pass on the worst terrorist act on American soil, you do not get a pass on the complete incompetence that followed (and we have not even started on Katrina). You created even more ways to spend money: the department of homeland security, FEMA, etc…ironic how keeping the US safe and spending money were supposed to be “things the GOP does well”.

When Obama was elected and you guys refused to work with him (even on policies you previously endorsed) and disrespected him publicly (more than any other US president in history), well that was just icing on the cake. You flat-out refused to help clean up the mess (Iraq, economy) that you (for the most part) created because you didn’t want a democrat president getting any “credit”. But that’s “just politics” right? Party over country…

But all of that pales in comparison to this latest fiasco. Just by virtue of becoming the GOP nominee, the damage Trump will inflict on the US/World economy and in particular our reputation has already begun. Companies and countries are now in limbo as they have to account for the possibility that we elect an incompetent and completely unqualified individual and hand him the keys to largest military force on the planet…with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal…to a man that gets into twitter wars with celebs and apparently gets his world news from the National Enquirer. And we are worried about other leaders getting a nuke? Trump will have his finger on the button of more WOMD the world has ever seen…

GOP: You have done enough damage already…please, just stop. Help us defeat this bigoted, ignorant, unpredictable, hateful, self-serving misogynist before it all ends..in a mushroom cloud.

So let me get this straight (pun intended)…the same group that thinks we can not possibly ban assault weapons because “bad guys would still break the law and get them anyway” (ignoring the fact that by making such guns illegal police could both confiscate the vast majority of said weapons AND arrest more bad guys, reducing the number of both) is saying what now? We are going to police every public bathroom because why? Transgender people (0.03% of the population) are a threat to who again? Ignoring the fact that assaults by transgender persons is so low as to equal the number of people pretending to be someone else so they can vote? Oh, but that would open the door for men to go into bathrooms and assault whoever they please…

Because the only way to stop a man with a penis (or a man who has no penis) from entering a room where penises are not allowed is to have a man with a penis (and a gun) who, with his many years of diverse experience can quickly judge who is a man with a penis or a man with no penis pretending to have no penis.

“What sex are you?”

       “A man has no penis.”

[whacks her with a bamboo reed] “WHAT WERE YOU BORN?!?”

         “A man has no penis.”

[whacks her again] “WHAT IS IN YOUR PANTS?”

“A. Man. Has. No. Penis.”

END SCENE

Fear manifests as a survival instinct in the wild, and fear still has a role in modern living. One should always be aware of his or her immediate surroundings and pay attention to persons/things that might threaten personal safety. This is the productive role that fear plays in our lives.

Our intuitive ability to see and react to warning signs works well in the natural world, but humans were not designed to withstand the 24/7 broadcast of horrible images, death counts, predictions of doom, conflicts (both real and created by the media) and “warnings” that seem to be the staple of a 24-hour news for-profit news cycle.

Fear plants itself in our psyche, clouds our judgement, and prevents us from taking rational action. At it’s worst, fear causes us to take unethical and often immoral action in the form of self-preserving shortcuts. We are ruled by “what could happen” instead of what is statistically likely and end up with inefficient and often counter-productive solutions that do more harm than good.

Fighting a militant war on drugs by putting an entire generation of people in jail has created more criminals and failed to make a dent in either drug abuse (which is an under-funded health issue) or the profit motive (drug cartels are still large, powerful and destroying lives in multiple continents). Fighting a war on terror by terrorizing entire populations with war, prison and drone strikes often creates more terrorists than it destroys. Our enemies use our fear daily to manipulate us into holy wars that otherwise would not exist.

Setting up expensive agencies and new procedures to make us feel “safe” has proven to be both inefficient and ineffective…but hey, at least we are “doing something”. Build a wall, profile by race/religion, carry guns in public places, the list goes on…even climate change seems to have two camps: one which fears a loss of jobs/economy if we even talk about it and the other that fears we have to take immediate token actions (often at the expense of more efficient/effective long-term planning).

Fear is ultimately what causes racism and war. We have created an entire generation of children who are afraid to travel alone, afraid to take chances, afraid to make decisions without approval, afraid to even go outside. As fear escalates, the doomsday clock moves forward.

The solution? Stop being a slave to fear. Fear is a useful emotion to recognize potential danger but must be vetted by reality. If fear takes control of your rational mind the only thing left is irrational action which is more dangerous in the long run. Ask yourself: WWSD (“What would Spock do”)?

After mocking the “hope and change” campaign of Obama, the same crowd now believes a man who will build a $25B wall (and somehow make Mexico pay for it), expand torture and win so much that we “may get bored of winning”.

My new game is try and come up with the 3 craziest things that will be a part of this presidential election next and then watch while all 3 come true.

UPDATE: Trump’s latest interviews on foreign policy (incoherent ramblings and outright dangerous comments about replacing troops in Japan and South Korea with nukes) and abortion law (stating there should be some “punishment” to women that choose to have an abortion) both qualify…as does his refusal to even answer basic questions during interviews (instead choosing to get the names of everyone in the room) all qualify as things I could have guessed were coming. It is clear the man has not thought through what the job of POTUS entails  so he just “wings it” during interviews and then retracts half of his answers a day later after his PR team has a chance to scrub his answers.

It was not difficult to predict that someone would assault a reporter at a Trump speaking event. I did NOT expect it would be his campaign manager…you can’t make this stuff up for a sitcom.

So Donald Trump is for real…or is he?

Cruz is about 100 delegates behind Trump as of this post (334 to 233) and Rubio has 116 delegates. A total of 1,237 delegates is needed to win, so the race is far from over.

Something else that does not seem to make it to the headlines: Let’s say Rubio drops out and endorses Cruz. In theory those delegates would go to Cruz who would be ahead (349 to 334). Kasich has 25 pledged delegates , Carson 7 and Bush probably has a few who are free to choose whoever if/when their candidate drops out. This is a much different situation than on the Democrats side where Hilliary has a 1034 to 408 lead over Sanders with no other meaningful number from any other candidate (2,382 needed to win).

Looking at the total popular vote (just as an FYI) for the GOP, Trump has 3.3M votes but the other candidates total twice that (over 7M). So he would have to pull at least 2M of those voters (most of whom hate him) to “win” with GOP voters. For reference, Hillary has a 3.9M to 2.5M edge over Sanders.

Regardless of the eventual outcome, Trump has already “won” in that he is in the spotlight 24/7. His actual fortune is built on a real estate house of cards but as long as his “brand” is out there, he is worth some undefined amount of money. Trumps shameless and simplistic self-promotion has made a mockery of the US presidential election process which (while not such a herculean feat) has exposed how many truly ignorant, angry and bigoted citizens we have in this country. This verifies what we have suspected all along: that we have a long way to go in how we think about and treat our fellow Americans.

For that, we should probably thank him.

It’s official…the zombies that chase me in my dreams are of the “run fast” variety. #trumpvoters

I miss the good ole days of my childhood when zombies were slow and escape was simple…so long as one avoids dead-ends and can find a safe place to sleep. There are numerous articles that discuss how conservatives tend to be scared of vampires while liberals are most frightened by zombies (and the popularity of zombie/vampire moves rises when there is a republican/democrat president). Why?

If we are most frightened by what we do not understand, then this is not a surprise. What is fascinating to me is how the modern take has evolved with the polarization of American politics.

Zombies are a unified conformist mob, singular of purpose with the ability to spread like a virus. They are pure emotion, devoid of intelligence and act only on the desire to feed (usually on brains) like all good consumers. There is no reasoning or talking to zombies. A perfect metaphor for the anti-intellectual/anti-science/pro-business crowd that has taken over much of the political conversation in the US. In today’s age of irresponsible, conflict-oriented, social-media-fueled journalism, ideas (even bad ones, so long as they are controversial) spread like wildfire and are legitimized instantly by the media, forcing a false dichotomy of ideological black vs white. The zombies that once were slow to attack are now running at full speed. Modern movie/TV plots use zombies as a force of nature, with the only moral dilemma** coming from how humans treat each other in the wake of the zombie apocalypse.

**I still want use “dilemna”…dilemma just looks wrong!

Vampires in the post-Bram Stoker era are charming, intelligent, educated and originate from lost nations that most Americans can’t locate on a map. They are sexual in nature, threaten Christianity (e.g., abhor the cross) and prey on young women (lock up your daughters!). Dracula was a novel about xenophobia: the fear of the dark, mysterious “other” foreigner who invades England by charming the clothes off proper women. Turning otherwise upstanding moral citizens into a harem of sexualized demon “recruits” by sucking their blood (parasite?) and taking over their minds. Humans are seen as a bizarre mix of food and objects of desire…how very nuanced. Sounds like a checklist of GOP talking points on what is wrong with America today (i.e., immigrants, Muslims and those damn ivy league liberals taking over the minds of our youth with their socialist/communist rhetoric). The modern take has vampires has them continuing to live among us, even invading our high schools and mating with humans. Some have even become our thankless heroes, fighting in the shadows to save humanity, despite the “racism” that continues to haunt them. Sound familiar?

Something else that makes sense to me is the way one has to dispatch each type of creature. Survivors of the zombie apocalypse are typically those who have the greatest stockpile of weapons and a defensible position. If you have a lot of guns, you survive. Those who don’t are zombie food. This is a concept that many on the right of the political spectrum are comfortable with and are fully prepared to deal with. When the zombies strike, they are not only ready but looking forward for the chance to be the conquering hero…zombies are just not that scary when they are used for target practice.

Guns are ineffective against vampires (scary!) and the protagonist in vampire stories have to use a mix of science, religion and mysticism to battle vampires. The enemy is intelligent and not easy to find as they live among us. Further complicating the vampire hunter’s efforts is the hope to save those loved ones who are may have been converted without killing them (typically by locating and destroying the paternal vampire). All kinds of metaphors spinning out from all directions, but suffices to say that the “shoot em up” (carpet bomb?) approach will not work against vampires, which conflicts with the world view of those on the right. Those on the left are likely fascinated with the complexity of vampires, invoking fear but also admiration and empathy.

The most frightening thing about both creatures is the humanity. Both maintain some aspects of the person that has been changed by a bite that moves through the bloodstream both killing the victim and transforming that person from human to object (the “undead”). The evil is in the ideas that transform from the inside. The objectifying language used in political rhetoric make it easy to see humans on the “other side” as objects…which is without a doubt the scariest thing I can imagine.