This was back in Middle America in the Thirties.
Everybody got married then, whether it benefited them or not
Both of these countries have many military vehicles, including battle tanks.
They both get their oil, fully refined, by tanker trucks. that bring their fuel in from the gulf coast.
These Pipelines must be completely shut down
I had one of these yesterday, and it was not much fun.
I had to crawl around on the floor before I could get into bed.
J peeded in my pants. so people could smell me a long way off.
Strange things happen.
Time is necessary for things to happen. And when it doesn't exist, they cannot happen.
My brother, for example. believes in his church, but he cannot say which church.
The church for some of its history, cannot say if Joseph Smith was in jail in Missouri or in Kirtland, Ohio.
I saw this happening at a Walmart store the other day,
The woman standing in front of me in the checkout line offered a 100 dollar bill in payment for her groceries. The clerk called the store manager. He appeared, looked at the bill, and told the clerk to give her the change, and walked off with the bill.
What was going on here? Money laundering.
A nicely dressed man had shown up at the woman's house, and gave her the 100 dollar bill, and told her to buy groceries with it at a Walmart store. That she did and drove off with a lot of groceries. The nice man showed up again and asked her for the change.
What happened at Walmart? All the 100 dollar bills were sent to a special location, where they were mixed with all the other bills that came in every day.
Somehow, and I have no idea how, all that dirty money was replaced with clean money.
What happened next? A Bank examiner shows up and asks for the books. He looks at them, and sends a report "Walmart is doing some money laundering." and Walmart gets fined.
Walmart complains to its bank, who notifies its representative in Washington. There are many of these, and they are strictly legal. They give the government a list of the companies they represent. And what they want in return is fewer bank examiners.
This has been prophesied for some time, thousands of years. If time had a beginning, if must have an end, and we must know about it.
That's the logic, anyway. And I have gotten used to it. The end of the world is nigh, and it is poking us in the butt.
In one hundred years or so, we will be gone. And the time remaining will be eventful.
Everything, it looks like. First in Vietnam, then in Afghanistan
How on earth could we do eveything wrong twice?.
I am still reading the Kindle book about Brigham Young.
It is the best book I have read about Early Mormonism. About the Church before Joseph Smith was killed.
The American people (and the Mormons) at the time were immature, violent. and stupid.
This is something the American Military did not even try to do. And another war we have lost to a far weaker enemy.
What's going on here?
Maybe we should think about what we are trying to do when we get into these unequal conflicts.
The keyword here is unequal. When we get in a fight with a much weaker force (as we see it) - they win.
This problem is often referred to as Globalization.
And it is not working, especially with Global Warming. As our Scientists are warning us.
The usual response is "To Hell with Science!" Which is not much help.
And probably means the end of Human Civilization in 100 years, or so.
The book I am reading now, about Brigham Young, makes it clear that this was a common practice in the early Mormon church.
I witnessed one of the last practices of it during Reunion back in the Fifties, The speaker, standing in the back of the church, could not restrain himself, and was shaking all over. Everyone listened to him respectfully, but then the service continued as though nothing unusual had happened.
My personal understanding of the Big Picture is that there are two basic forces in the world: construction and destruction. And these apply to the situation in Afghanistan.
And the Big Picture and be assembled by combining all the Little Pictures.
Unfortunately, there are too many Small Pictures in Afghanistan. As you can see by reading the Google News.
As a result, the forces of destruction (the Taliban) are taking over.
I am reading the Kindle book Brigham Young and learning a lot about the early Mormon church. He joined the church in Western New York State when it was just getting started.
It was one of the many religious enthusiasms of the time. And it considered the Book of Mormon to be Divine Scripture
Americans have the most money in the world, and they think this makes them the best people in the world.
And they probably are, if best means having the most money.
But ethics is not so simple; it is one of the most complicated subjects in the world.
WWII made us the richest country in the world, and for thirty years, people from all over the world emigrated to share in this wealth.
But then it ended. And Americans have gone into shock and self-destruction, making a bad situation even worse.
I have been taken for a ride here, starting with a Fitbit, which goes in the trash today.
Now Samsung has jumped on this bandwagon (sammobile.com) with its watch-phone-OS combos, which want you to go Samsung all the way. Check out their prices.
We are a very social species. This is one of the secrets of our success. If one of our number is attacked, everyone is arracked.
Preditors know this and only attack individuals.
And he does take some getting used to.
I downloaded Leaves of Grass: The Original 1855 Edition.
I read the Introduction carefully, over and over, trying to get a feel for the man behind the words.
I failed.
In three places:
1. On your computer, when you first start writing it. This is quickly copied to location Two and lives in both places, simultaneously. This sounds dangerous, but your blogger software takes care of that for you easily. This is classified as a Draft entry.
2. Someplace only you can access. This location is determined by the company that made your blogger app.
3. Someplace anyone can access. Probably in a cloud somewhere, also determined by the company that made your blogger app. This is called Publishing your blog entry.
You didn't know I was wearing one. didn't you?
Bu now the cat is out of the bag. And one more dirty diaper goes into the diaper bag.
I am struggling with this now. Was john Neihardt a great poet?
Much against my will, I have to answer: he was not.
He was a good man,n that much everyone knew.
But when h died, everyone forgot about him.
This is very common, almost universal.
Why? Because of the present situation, whatever you want to call it.
This makes Life difficult - which is what it is supposed to do.
Making Life easy is forbidden.
Steve is my Brother, and Nicole is his Daughter.
She is an attractive woman, and her passion has been cheerleading.
This has made her attractive to some rich men, to whom was born an adorable little boy.
My brother was a lawyer. and should have used this talent to make her financially secure, in her own right.
But he did not.
I know I am not supposed to use such filthy language, but that is how I feel: filthy-mouthed.
First, I downloaded and installed the Fitbit app from the Google Play Store. This was easy.
Then I tried to join Fitbit. I got a list asking what I wanted to do: Sense, Versa3, Versa2. etc. No explanations of what these were. I had to ask Wikipedia what they were and got a long answer - indicating the different stages of Fitbit itself.
I tried to charge the battery. I tried 3 cables and none of them worked. The port provided for the is non-standard and cannot be used.
Lives in Another World, and has to be Another Person, to prevent everyone from taking Advantage of You - which they will, You can be Certain.
It's Human Nature to want to Push our Luck.
No child should have to do this, but John Niehardt did.
I am reading his book All is but a Beginning, which he wrote in his Nineties, about his unhappy childhood.
Yes, you can have both of these at the same time, on different parts of your old body.
The Ethereum London Hard Fork is in the Google News roday. And I am staring at it, trying to make some sense of it.
And I am reading Limits to Growth: the 30-year update.
Things don't look good.
This what I became, when I could no longer be an Electronic Engineer.
The Tech part came from my father, and the Writer part cam from my Mother.
People who have never heard of a Tech Writer before, can easily understand this description.
Not Being can be very handy. It can help us ignore things we do not want to see.
But too much of it, makes us stupid.
I recently discovered Lucy Smith Millikin, a Sister of Joseph Smith. The Wikipedia article I sent you contains her photograph, that shows her to be slightly wacky.
This is probably why no portraits of Smith exist. He did not want other people to see his face.
When Joseph Smith died at the hands of a mob in 1844, there were many people who took his place. The most successful was Brigham Young, but there was also the RLDS church in Northern Illinois.
They were rich farmers, who would gladly have given Emma and her sons a good home. She could of hired someone elae to represnt her interests in Nauvoo.
This was a huge mistake that made everything that followed much harder.
During WWII.
Dad's Photography Studio, which was nothing, became a gold mine. And so did every other business in town. There were plenty of jobs for everyone.
This booming economy continued for twenty years, while people spent the money they were forced to save during the war.
When that money was gone, in the Fifties, America stopped growing. And was forced to accept a steady-state economy, which was more difficult.
Anyone who wanted to survive left their hometown. and never came back.
Every Advanced Technology is a Miracle. And this is certainly one of those.
The person using it has to be something of a miracle himself - but we will overlook that.
It has many clever components to make you smarter. But you can take them apart, and put them back together.
And it makes coffee. Maybe not the best, but good enough!
This is where I was born and grew up, in Ft. Madison, Iowa. Right on the intersection of Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. As Midwestern as I could be.
Where half of the world's manufactured goods were once produced. And where nothing is now produced.
Trump was a success because he recognized this.
The Midwest was won in the 19th Century and lost in the 20th Century.
And hard to detect.
l lived through the destruction of America myself, and never thought to notice it.
It is so common now, it cannot be noticed.
We cannot even say "Life is difficult now" when it certainly is.
We have to say "Everything is fine!" when we know that is a lie.
I did the r.ight thing when I went to college: I became an engineer. I wasn't interested in engineering (most of us were not). But this made us valuable property.
For example, I was once stuck in Fairbanks, Alaska, with a lot of other college kids looking for a job. But when I mentioned I was an Engineering student, they said "Here is your sleeping bag, jump on the next plane to Nome (Alaska)."
I had a job in a gold-mining camp. I worked 8 hours a day, 7 days a week. But I took enough money back, I didn't have to work the next school year.
I got the latest Android laptop (they call it a Tablet PC) and it sucks!
To begin with, it has the smallest manual ever made. and there is no online manual.
It has a wireless mouse, but no way to plug it in.
It needs something to hold the display upright, but you have to pay extra for that.
This article, from the New Yorker, is the best I have seen.
This has been a struggle!
I wish I was rich and could hire someone else to do this for me, whenever I wanted it done. I wouldn't mind if the private parts of my body were exposed, diring this process.
These were common a few years ago, and they were adding American Dollars to the pockets of the Cuban people. But the American government shut this down, claiming some strange diseases were occurring that were never heard of before or since.
And claiming Cuba was a dangerous Cold War enemy. as shown by the Cuban Missle Crisis. And the Bay of Pigs event.
Cuba forgot that America helped it win its War of Independence from Spain and that America was its friend in its backyard.
I am thinking of Cuba. Lots of Americans want to help them - who doesn't? But How? When their own government cannot help them.
We should help Americans go to Cuba (as tourists) but not help Cubans become Americans.
A good start would be widespread Internet access, using fiber optic cable. Smartphones could be used for Internet access. This would move them into the Computer economy in a hurry! Maybe too much of a hurry. but they could always back off when they want to.
This is a watch./phone combo., using the Google Wear OS.
I will download the software to my Android Phone, and let it control the Watch.
I was born (in 1936) and raised in this town. It used to have many companies in it, that hired many people.
Not anymore, it is part of the Rust Belt, that Americans cannot understand, and resulted in the election of Trump, who promised to Make America Great Again. But made the situation worse than before.
I have a cousin, Betty Trip, who still lives there, but cannot understand, in the least, what is going on there, She only asks why her sons cannot get jobs.
Ray says I smell terrible, in my urine-soaked clothing, and he is going to buy adult diapers today and make me wear them.
I am incontinent, one of the effects of old age. but I cannot smell myself.
It took over 10 years for my doctors to understand this.
It started when I was running downhill in a wilderness area in 1999. All of a sudden, I had no legs, and I fell to the ground. Two men on their b\icycles saw me fall and rode off to notify the ranger.
I managed to get back on my feet again and staggered off towards the trailhead, where I met a fire engine (In California they are the first responders). They gave me some oxygen that made me feel much better. They called an ambulance, that took me to a hospital.
I am not sure what happened next, but soon I could not talk, only make strange noises. I passed out and woke up the next day, tied down to a hospital bed. This was frustrating!
But eventually, I could talk and demanded to be released, which they did. I went back to my usual life, which included working out at a fitness center. Where I passed out again.
They called an ambulance, that took me back to the same hospital. This time, the doctors were determined to find out what was wrong with me, and they did many tests on me. And told me "You have low blood sodium."
I kept falling down but could tell when this was about to happen, and just stopped and rested.
I moved to Costa Rica, where I kept falling down and going to the hospital in ambulances.
My doctor told me I was having a TIA (temporary ischemic disorder) and told me to rest. But could not tell me how this happened, or how to cure it.
This is caused by an insufficient blood supply to the brain. which has several parts. The effect is different depending on the part affected. It took a while for my doctors to understand this.
My last doctor was a neurologist, who could tell my problems were with my brainstem, and he prescribed some pills (Expansia) to control this.
Google should get this under control because now it is not.
I have a Google account with its own password, a huge thing that is tamper-resistant. I have copied it to several paper copies so it will not get lost. Any additional passwords I get should be of this quality: big things the computer makes for me but allows me to view them.
The way things are done bow is frustrating. I get a notice now if some passwords need to be changed. This is fine with me. Google should then change the passwords for me. Simple as that.
If an app asks for my Gmail password, as sometimes happens, it should be easy for me to do this.
Ray has gone to visit his mother in Kentucky. This was supposed to be a two-day visit but, as usual, it is taking longer.
Ray usually takes me shopping, in his car. But I decided to do it myself, using the bus. Bad decision!
The first stop was at a Walmart store, where I bought some coffee. Then to another store, where I bought a watch, The one I had worked fine, but the strap was broken. They had a cheap watch, without any instructions. I bought it and will let Ray figure out how to use it. The strap does look neat.
The next stop, Aeropost, flies my packages from Miami to Costa Rica - sometimes. Amazon sends all my packages to the Aeropost warehouse in Miami. that is supposed to fly them to Costa Rica. This time, as usual, things are all messed up. But I put what I have in a taxi. and head for my bus ride home.
It drops me off two blocks from home. But my legs are giving out, and some neighbors have to help me walk home.
Then they call an ambulance, which askes me all kinds of questions, in Spanish. Fortunately. Sandy shows up, who is bilingual. I tell them I have a Balance Disorder, but they don't understand what that is.
I will have to write a paper sometime, explaining it.
Games are clever, the cleverest thing on your computer. It knows you want to be entertained, and it is doing its best to entertain you - for free!
It knows if you see "It's free!" on your computer screen, you will probably click on it. Not always, but usually - and that is good enough. It has you hooked, and all it has to is real you in, very carefully.
How does it make you stupid? Very cleverly, by rewarding you very easily.
It is telling you "You don't have to be smart to win life's goodies!" All you have to do is click here.
With a Westward orientation.
This was John Neihart, who I was privileged to listen to at the University of Missouri, in 1960.
When I enrolled, I saw this tiny man, with a huge mane of white hair, and a smile on his face.
He was looking at his future students, who would listen to him recite his poetry, about the Winning of the West.
He called this Epic Poetry, which meant it was modeled on Ancient Greek poetry. He had read this in its original language, and he was entranced by it.
He never used a microphone, but he had no trouble being heard. He was like an Opera Singer who could easily overpower a symphony orchestra right in front of her.
He didn't do much singing, but his poetry had plenty of rhythms.
He went to Lamoni, Iowa to manage his church's historical property there. At least that was the plan.
But the Virus has shut everything down. What to do?
He took a closer look at this property, and was not impressed. How could he sell it?
It was used for a variety of purposes, over quite a long period. How could he simplify that?
Could he just fold his tent and go home?
This means it no longer exists, for most people, who depend on the News to tell them what is going on in the world.
Afghanistan (a big chunk of the world's surface) no longer exists?
Not in most people's minds.
"What is this?" I have been wondering. And here is the answer.
Amazon has her.
This gal knows how to write. She makes her misadventures (which are numerous) seem funny!
These are all Kindle books, which you can easily add to your Fire tablet.
I hesitate to write about this, but something is forcing me to do it.
It seems to me there are two forces in the world: good and evil. Forces that atre outside normal reality, and act on us.
This explains a lot: why vast areas of the world are good or evil, mostly evil. Why the Taliban are dominant in Afghanistan. Because evil has great appeal.
In the same way, American voters found Trump irresistible.
Which does not exist, and is unlikely to ever exist. You can put this another way, and speak of the need for a global civilization.
This is also unlikely to exist, and for the same reason: we developed as tribal people, of about 100 people for each tribe (each with its own language). That way, everyone in the tribe knew everyone else.
A tribe of millions of people is not possible.
This hit me in the middle of the night and gave me a bad scare. I can appreciate how severely it can affect those with mental difficulties. Where can they get help?
My wife Beth had severe mental problems and ended up in a psych ward. I got to visit her there and got to see how they treated her, which gave me a bad scare.
When she was admitted, they gave her a shot of a powerful drug that knocked her out for two days. When she recovered, she was a different person and told me our marriage was over. This was progress, I asked them? I got no answer.
What did I learn from this unfortunate episode? Mental illnesses are difficult to cure, in fact, many of them cannot be cured.
But there are plenty of therapists who will try. And a new kind of therapy is invented every week. I have tried many of them myself.
Silicon Valley, where I used to work, has about equal numbers of Mental developers and Computer developers.
And the situation is getting worse.
This becomes apparent as you read his Memoirs, a huge book where he talks about anything that comes to his mind.
I have previously referred to him as the Prophet who never grew up. He made the serious mistake of making his son his successor, instead choosing the best-qualified person, as the LDS do.
The Computer demands you understand it. If you don't, you do not exist - as it is concerned.
Now that we have the Virus (you know which one I mean) people are using their computers to meet for work. Or to meet for anything else.
www.cuba.com
This was a disappointment for me. Andi I have produced this posting to overcome its deficiencies.
This begins when Fidel Castro conquered the island and made it a communist country, the only one left in the world. with him as its dictator. The CIA tried to overthrow him but failed in the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
It was supported by the USSR, which led to the Cuban missile crisis. But Fidel eventually died.
What happened next, I am not sure. but a new government has come into power (which is not described on their Web site). It has two new currencies, one of which is pegged to the US dollar.
You cannot fly there directly from the US but will have to fly to another country first.
In Costa Rica, for example, women fly to Cuba to get their abortions.
This is a new term of mine, and it applies to the US, the UK, and the EU, which have all fallen apart.
You can use it, and I encourage you to do so.
Children are great learners. Their bodies ate telling them "Learn as fast as you can!" And if their parents do not interfere, they will do just that. They can learn a language without trying at all.
But when they can have sex, they concentrate on that instead. You lean, you reproduce, you die. And you become the dominant species everywhere.
But now, a few thousand years later, we are failing, and will not last much longer. And we are failing faster and faster.
And we are having sex at a desperate pace.
But Sex will not save us.
This is the online magazine Americas Quarterly, which is written in American English. I can now understand concepts such as mano dura, better than most Latinos.
This issue concentrates on Peru, someplace Ray has visited, as a tourist.], but he cannot understand the darker parts of its past, such as Shining Path.
He did not start out this way, but this was what his followers wanted. And once he became close to what they wanted, he had to finish the job, by making irrational claims, that they eagerly accepted.
Mormonism became the mass movement they were looking for.
His most important claim was that he had discovered golden plates, and had translated them into the Book of Mormon. A claim his followers (including his mother) accepted enthusiastically.
Bur for most people, they have to have it, and the crazier the better. This is built into their DNA.
Religion and Science do not mix, but this fact is not acceptable to most people.
This is my newest toy, and Ray is helping me to set it up.
My new number is 8963 7722 (in Costa Rica).
This is Microsoft's cloud and like all clouds, appears to be extensive, and honest. What more can I say?
I can say this is part of a very technical culture that provides amazing capabilities to people that cannot understand it in the least. This is a dangerous situation, and I must say more. Perhaps an example would help.
Ray owns the house I live in. He has been doing online sales, but Coviid 19 has made this difficult, and he needed another company to work for. This seemed to be Amazon, which has a training program that he could take. He worked hard at this training program, which took a month. At the end of which, they gave him a job. One day later he quit, saying he could not stand the place! He left immediately for a three-week visit to his mother, leaving me completely baffled.
What is my explanation for this? Ray could not work for Amazon, because it was too technical (too computerized) for him.
There is a big difference between using a Computer, and Programming a Computer. And this difference is driving the world nuts.
Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, was not completely candid about his use of a Seer Stone in his search for Buried Treasure.
This was an illegal profession, and he had to leave New York state and flee to Pennsylvania, just across the border.
He got married in Pennsylvania and moved back and forth across the border frequently.
Stress is tricky stuff, we have just discovered it. and we don't know how works. Old Age is nothing new, but we don't know much about it either. Put them together and you have a complete mess
Ir is a Certified Refurbished Fire HD 10 Tablet (10.1" 1080p full HD display, 32 GB) – Black
I will be using it mainly as a Kindle reader, but it has shown me its audio capabilities. I can ask it "How deep is the ocean?"
There has been plenty written about him, by all kinds of people.
His most important idea was discovering golden plates (that never existed) but many people have seen them.
My father had a tape recorder, that he used to record the testimony of an elderly couple in Ft. Madison, Iowa, in the Fifties.
Joseph Smith also had visions, of which movies have been made.
Does this make him Evil? Yes, because he encouraged many people to believe in things that never existed.
You may prefer to say he was crazy, like many other religious leaders. who accomplished much good.
I have been witnessing a shift in the Power Structure, from 2000 to 2020. From hundreds of Computer companies to five: Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.
Each controls Billions of dollars, and the Government has no idea how to regulate them.
Subnit your ideas as comments to this posting.
I am reading the Kindle vesion of this now, that I downloaded from Amazon, for little money.
I keep asking myself "Why have I never heard of this before?" The answer must be that it was an LDS book, not an RLDS book.
Get it and read it.
And our Marriage no Longer Exists.
This is what my wife told me when she was released from a Psych Ward.
We have Fathers also, but our Mothers may not know who they were, they were in their lives for such a short time.
We were in our Mother's for 9 months and were well-acquainted with her. She was Home.
This is not easy in today's world, that is not set up to benefit the people in it.
What is it set up for? Globalization.
You can easily look this up in Wikipedia, But will find yourself absorbed in the definition itself.
Try it, and see what I mean,
First, we had Language, that no other Species had.
Then we had Civilization, which included Writing and War
Then we had the Computer with its Internet and Phone that made Globalization possible
Globalization became Self-Destructive for many reasons, including Global Warming
Which most people cannot Comprehend.
This is not quite true, it has maps, but they have little relationship to the terrain they are supposed to represent.
Accurate maps are a new invention that have only existed for a few hundred years and do not exist for most of the world - including Afghanistan where we here have been a war for a very long time.
President Biden has proclaimed that we will leave Afghanistan soon. He doesn't know what he is talking about.
Some troops are leaving, but we don't know which troops, or where they are leaving from.
The Taliban are moving in as fast as we are moving out. And we have no way of stopping them, with our planes, without knowing where they are.
Ralph Nader, General Motors, and what we get wrong about regulation.
Photo of a man jumping into a swamp.
The Internet is swarming with new ideas, such as this one. All you have to do is pick the right ones.
I learned about her from reading Wikipedia every day and becoming a better-educated person.
My family was RLDS (as opposed to LDS) and did not have any members like her.
To learn about her, look her up on Wikipedia.
I tried to know about it but had to give up, it was just too much work.
Everyone else has come to this conclusion, but won't say so. This is really all you need to know about this terrible situation.
Was the name of our donkey, when I was married.
We called him Marshmellow because we both l.iked them. But the name did not fit his personality, which was as ornery as he could be, as all male donkeys are.
When we went by a farm that raised them, Beth had to have one, right then. When we got back to Santa Barbara, where we were living, she forgot all about him, and I had to take care of him, by keeping him in a horse ranch.
When our marriage ended, I had to sell him.
The Church is the RLDS church. the second-largest Mormon church. The largest being the LDS church.
He is retired now and was delighted when the church gave him something to do: manage one of its Historical properties in Lamoni. Iowa.
Bur when he took a look at these properties, he became less enthusiastic - they weren't much to look at, and he did nothing with them. The church was satisfied with this situation, but never said so, and its properties in Lamoni remain undeveloped.
Mreanwhile, the church itself is in trouble. I don't know the details, but it is now called the Community of Christ, and has a new president that is not decended from Joseoh Smith, in any way.
In many situations.
The trick is in identifying those situations. One of them, it seems to me, is modern Afghanistan.
I think this approach is more productive than assuming a compromise will work. This is exactly what the Bad Guys want, and they will quickly take advantage of this situation.
An additional thing needs to be acknowledged: being weak (or stupid) will help the Bad. And a lot of people like being stupid.
What happened to the RLDS church?
This has affected lots of people,- my entire family, in facr. But if I raise this question I get shut down in a hurry.
One thing typical of the church was the Prayer Meeting, every Wednesday night. Was this just typical of the Nauvoo branch?
Children were always expected to attend, and participate.
My father was part of this change in Nauvoo, but he wpild never talk about it.
Hormones are created by the brain,, but a part of the brain, that cannot be faked.
It can create hormones rapidly, but can only alter them slowly.
I remember a play I attended in England, a theater in the round production. After the audience was comfortably seated, the lights were dimmed. When they went up, two naked actors were seen, a man and a woman.
The play was on. And they were acting. But, as one critic observed, the Man's penis was flaccid, not erect.
Wrong.
If you are nothing you cannot do anything. Abd your Blog will show this.
This is what bothered me most about Americans. And what I noticed most when I last visited them
My cousin had moved from Ohio, where he was a failure and had become a success in Northern Virginia, where he learned a new profession. Naturally, he was proud of this.
But this pride went to his head, and he became conservative and identified with his job. I could spend lots of time describing this process, which has happened to most Americans.
There is nothing wrong with being 'proud of your job because you do good work. But identifying with it is going too far.
I was raised RLDS, halfway down the state of Illinois. close to the intersection of Iowa and Missouri. About as Midwestern as you could get, but not part of Chicago, which was another world entirely.
Chicago was the name of a poem by Carl Sandburg. which begins "Hog butcher for the world"
The RLDS church moved from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Plano, Illinois (close to Chicago). to Lamoni. Iowa. to Independence, Missouri
Most people in today's society have little of this and don't want more, because it would cost them money.
How is this? Because they live in a society where they make more than other people, and they want to keep it this way.
I was an Electronic Engineer. and made good money, which was fine with my wife, who helped me spend it. We didn't feel guilty because lived in NYC. and we were surrounded by people who made more.
This happy state of affairs did not last, because our marriage did not last.
Mry Mother was clear about this: you can have sex with any servant of God. And there were quie a few of those arpind, male and female.
For her, of course, the male variety applied, and she took abundant advantage of this exception.
And this does not bother them. Better thinking, they feel, is unnecessary and dangerous.
This is especially true when thinking of Science, which they do not do very often, because it is so dangerous.
I was watching a TED presentation, made in India. The speaker, a high-class woman, was speaking perfect American English, but wearing Indian clothing.
Most English, as it is spoken in India, cannot be understood in America.
When the camera moved to her back. I was shocked to see her lower back was fully exposed!
She did not realize that TED is viewed mainly in the US, where dress standards are different.
And more and more of us are getting that way. We are not useless, but getting that way.
I wish I could say we are getting wiser as we get older, but the world is moving too fast for that.
We want to say "Stop the world, we want to get off!"
Is there a solution? Yes, and they keep crowding into my inbox. Learn this software, or this, or this! Any one would bring you up to date.
But most people do not waanr to be brought up to date. They prefer staying where they are, or even where they were.
This is the issue for February 2021.
It has a long article (with many illustrations) about them. If you do not subscribe to his yourself, you can probably get it at a library.
Its subtitle is: They kill us by the millions, But without them, life is impossible.
I am stuck in the middle of this mess.
I have been using Chromebook laptops because they are cheaper. But am trying to add a Windows 10 laptop to the mix sitting on the computer desk in my bedroom.
But Microsoft's and Google's security solutions do not work together very well. They both use passwords, but they use them differently.
This is a problem we cannot fix, even if we wanted to. I am trying to do this right now, and I cannot do it.
I first started to write about Being a Prophet, because of my family's religion: Mormonism, which always has a Prophet or two around. But I decided to write about a more general subject: self-importance.
My father was a good example of this. And this was the reason for his success, religiously. And was the reason for the conflict with his wife, who was determined to be more important herself.
This was also a generational conflict, as women were getting more important all the time in the 20th Century.
Mother's family was more important than Dad's family, and this could never be overcome.
Dad made a strong move to Saltillo, Mexico, but Mom made sure this did not last, and he died just before he was 60.
This is a TED talk you can watch at ted.com/talks/majora_carter_3_stories_of_local_eco-entrepreeneurship.
The subtitle is: Solving big problems with local solutions.
I was born and raised in Ft. Madison, Iowa - which is now part of the Rust Belt. The people there need to know where they are.
Los Angeles is so important there should be a college course on the subject. And a course on how every country has its own version of one.
What can we say bout LA? Nearly everything, from good to bad and everything in between. It's hard to believe anything else can equal it.
But something is - Silicon Valley, which is setting new records for greed and growth. Ethics is a big word here. Everybody wants it, but nobody has it.
In today's technical world (the Modern world)
The Engineer of a Steam Locomotive needs to know nothing about what Is under the hood. Thre sane thing Is true for an automobile. Or even a Computer.
You don't need to know how it is made up.
They only want a better world for them.
This is the case for almost everyone, which makes their position seem impregnable. "Might makes Right" they are fond of feeling.
But underneath this lies the Truth: We are in this together, whether we like it or not.
To put this in practical terms: Afganistan is two countries, a poor one (most of the country) and a rich one (which we can defend easily).
By the rest of the world.
And if you are the product of a dysfunctional family (as most of us are) this is certainly true. Your family is against you, all the way.
If you are trying to do a good job (no matter what that is) you will find almost everybody is against you.
One of the big events of my life was when I tried to work at Adaptec. Which was a complete failure, because they wanted it that way.
They thought they were making something wonderful when they were not making anything at all.
TED has a service now that allows you to specify the kind of presentations you want to watch, and delivers them to your inbox.
The ones I selected are very upbeat and antidepressive. But evidently, this is what I wanted: cheerful food without limits.
Let me know how it works for you.
I can remember when I was in college, and very eager to become a success, what an impact the book The Organization Man had on me. This was the Gospel Truth, and I knew it was!
I was becoming an Electronic Engineer, but what I really wanted was to get a job. And when I graduated, I grabbed the first job that was offered to me, which kept me out of an office.
I went to work for the FAA. They gave me a car, and I drove to my first job in Sioux City, Iowa. This was at a remote location, that was patrolled by a skunk and her young.
In town, I spent much of my time at the Library, which was a disappointment to the young women there.
It wasn't long before I was working out of NYC, and I got married to a woman who helped me spend my money.
The Prophet I am referring to was Joseph Smith III, who I am learning about by reading his Memoirs, published by the Herald House.
This is not read very much, and I can see why. It tells us too much about him. It shows us how determined he was to follow in his Father's footsteps and move people from his father's church into his church.
If he was a normal boy, he would have asked his mother "Why is Daddy in jail?" But he was not normal, he was Religious, and seemed to think Being in Jail was a normal state of affairs.
There is a passage in the Memoirs that indicates a bribe was paid to get them out of jail. Why they were in Missouri in the first place is not explained.
Somehow, he ended up in Lamoni, Iowa, and stayed there quite a while, building up his RLDS church, before moving to Independence, Mo. He spent a lot of money there on building projects. Especially the Auditorium, a huge building, where General Conferences could be held.
I was standing in the Checkout lane in Walmart. When the woman ahead of paid her bill with a 100 dollar bill. The Checkout clerk called for the Store Manager, who looked at it, and told the clerk to give her the change for the bill, and walked off with the bill itself.
What happened here?
Drug salesmen come in two types: wholesale and retail. The wholesale type wants to make a quick buck and then disappear before they get arrested. Our jails are full of these types, mostly uneducated black people.
The woman with the 100 dollar bill will ger a shopping cart full of groceries, but nothing else. She will give the change to the person who gave her the bill, who will also disappear.
This operation has taken dirty money (from drugs) and turned it into clean money (in a bank account).
Americans love war, especially since WWII made them the most powerful country in the world.
When they lost that, especially after 9/11, they freaked out, and became obsessed with Terror.
And became terrorists themselves in the Vietnam War, which they lost.
Now, the most observant of them, ask "What's next?" Or they get involved in another endless war.
Object Oriented Programming
This was a popular programming strategy for a while but quickly lost out to Java. And most companies never noticed.
They ended up on the garbage heap of failed startups.
You start off by defining the objects. Then you define what they do (their algorithms).
But this is not enough, and Javs fill in the gaps
For me, this was Southern California in the Eighties. We were just getting used to the Computer. and didn't know how important it was yet, so we called it High Tech.
I worked my way down the coast, from Ventura County, LA County, Orange County, and then San Diego.
This new industry was unethical and consisted of hundreds of groups stealing were from each other. It took thirty years before there were only four companies left (Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft).
This was happening in Silicon Valley, in the Nineties.
To succeed in this latest industry, you had to contribute something important (that made lots of money).
For most people, looking on at all this craziness, it was too hard to understand, so they didn't try. Anything technical just became Tech, something they could safely ignore (they thought).
Making the move to this latest Industrial Revolution was too difficult for them, and they got left behind. Most people have been left behind, and this is the most serious situation that can be imagined.
I went to college and became an Engineer, which meant I could use the tools made available to me, mainly the vacuum tube. But Solid State made these obsolete.
A whole generation of people was also made obsolete. Something they could not understand in the least. So they elected Trump, who promised to make America Great Again.
When this did not happen, they elected Biden (the only choice they had), who is doing slightly better but understands little.
The Electorate is still baffled: What went Wrong?
This is brilliant writing, and the Kindle version is cheap.
It shows it can be hazardous to have a girl too.
It is an example of a poor Mother/Daughter relationship and a good Mother/Daughter relationship, with the same Mother and Daughter.
It has taken me a long time to realize this. His biggest mistake was marrying my Mother, instead of his Haitian girlfriend.
He is most often compared to Ed Mckiernan. They both grew up in Ft. Madison, Iowa. and Ed's son Larry married my sister Rogene.
His most important contribution to my life was when I moved to Costa Rica. I only had my Social Security income to live on. which is not enough for the States. But Dad had lived Overseas for a while and enjoyed it. Why couldn't I do that?
I wrote a search app, looking at every country, to see which was the best. The answer was Costa Rica, someplace I had never heard of before. To make a long story short, I am still here.
This is not the best solution for most Americans, however. Most of them go back after a few years.
When did it get Out-Of-Date?
Sometime in the Nineties, when the Computer took over. I was working as an Electronic Engineer, and that career was finished. The transition from Hardware to Software was messy and somewhere along the line, I dropped out.
Now I am trying to catch up with my 84-year-mind. But this is not easy.
Many places are more than willing to teach me the app Angular, and I am working on that.
I have found that Coffee and the Computer are compatible, and that is a help.
This was Joseph Smith's particular talent. and he used it a lot. But in the end, it killed him.
His son, Joseph Smith III, also had this talent. And my Grandmother (my mother's mother) and both her husbands, believed in him entirely.
He did not pass this on to his sons.
The 20th Century was full of those. Big shocks, ending with WWII.
When that was over, we organized the UN, so the 21st Century wouldn't be quite as exciting.
Little did we know that the next big shock would be a doozy. So much so that we turned ourselves off so we would not feel it.
When I turn on my Laptop in the moning, the first thing I see is Wikipediaa (so I can see what has happened while I was asleep). A lot has happened, and a lot of it is not very nice.
But smack dab in the middle of all this are Computer advetisements. You must learn this! And this! And this!
What happenes if you don't leran all this, is not specified, but it must be terrible.
I won't even finish this, because it is not too polite.
But it does put you in your place, which believe me is not too high.
That is why I moved to Costa Rica. The pwople down here are just rordinary people, but that is good enough.
Exactly when this happened I am not sure. But sometime in the middle of the night. I found myself sitting in a puddle of poop on the floor of my bathroom.
I did some hasty cleanup (using plenty of toilet paper), crawled back to my bed, and slowly got on top of it.
The next day, Ray cleaned all of it up, using a mop and a towel. This guy is an angel.
For Ray, any big tree is a problem, and he has to cut it down.
And this is extremely common.
You should bere interested in this because it is going to happen to you. And it is not going to make you any smarter.
And the smarter you are, the more you will notice the difference.
You can get smarter machines, that should make you smarter - but for some strange reason, this does not happen
This leads me to a similar topic "Smartness cannot be defined'"
This will be some help to you because people cannot be sure if you are dumb, or just acting dumb - except in extreme cases, of course.
First, a short history of the situation:
joseph Smith III was four when his father was murdered by a mob in 1844. This precipitated a Mormon War when everyone left town, including Emma and her four sons, children of Joseph the Prophet (JS II).
But she soon returned to take possession of her property (she owned most of the town). This was not smart, because she also acquired his debts which were numerous
Her sons acquired their father's religious mind, snd could make no money, but married anyway and had children. Her situation w.as going from bad to worse.
But another church had been formed in Northern Illinois that called itself the RLDS. Her sons joined this church. The details of the transaction remain vague to this day. Bur this severed any connection between Emma and her children
Emma stayed in Nauvoo and tried to operate the Nauvoo House as a combination family residence and hotel. But could not, died in poverty.
Meanwhile, JS III had formed his own church in Lamoni, Iowa, which was a modest success. He had money, but never spoke to his mother again.
If I had mentioned my feelings about this to my Grandmother, she would have said "He should have, but things were different back then."
These are sacred texts uncovered at various places in the Holy Land.
I downloaded the Kindle version for only $2.
It's good to be reminded that Christianity has been around for a long time, and is well-known to the young, as well as the old.
It seems painful to them.
For example, I am reading Making Globalization Work, which easy for me, but not for most people.
Jn fact, that one word "ecosystem" says it all and explains why most people have no idea what it is.
As soon as I turn my computer on, it starts telling me about all the latest things. And I have to chose which latest thing I want to know about.
We live in a rapidly changing world, which is leaving steam-age people behind.
In Afghanistan. a place nobody wants but everybody wants. get rid of it. As reported by Wikipedia,
This a Coursera course produced by the University of Toronto.
It starts off with long history of this subject in India, one of the most talkative people in this world.
I have been surprised by how easily this has improved my life. If you like being nice, warm, and comfy, it might be good for you too.
Amazon ships my packages to Aeropost in Miami. This international company then ships it. on an Airline of its choosing, to Costa Rica.
Usually. But like all companies, it sometimes gets things mixed up, and your precious package can end up anywhere. A blood pressure pill may come in handy.
In Afghanistan, we do not understand the enemy, or ourselves.
Understanding ourselves is most critical. Without that, we can do nothing.
We need to understand ourselves before we can do anything.
What are trying to do over there?
Why do this? I don't know, but is a common enough practice, and one we have to be on the alert for.
Detecting it may be difficult because sometimes we have to be dependent on others. This is what schools are for.
Let's begin by discussing some of the reasons for this, which are all mental.
You may feel inferior to others, and this may be an accurate assessment. Some people are very smart, and you will always be stupid compared to them. A baby is always less intelligent than an adult - but they learn fast!
You have to take into account other people's assessment of our intelligence. How do they feel about it? Is it ok with them?
I keep referring to the Religion of my Family: Mormonism, Which is loaded with examples of deviant behavior, Which always reflects the behavior of the people around them.
Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, has to be seen in the light of the people of his time and place. Especially the many people who followed him. They wanted to be deceived, by a person like him.
When he died, Brigham Young ( and a few others) took his place. And they are still active.
I got my shot yesterday, as I told you all. Overall, I was impressed with the whole process
Costa Rica's Public Health Service was up to the job.
I got my shot, then had to sit down for half an hour, just in case.
I did notice something strange going on in my body, but nothing I could put into words.
Today I am fine.
The more I get into this subject, the more this analysis makes sense. It is fairly new, but more and more useful all the time, as any psychotherapist knows.
Emma refers to Emma Smith, the wife of Joseph Smith, who certainly had her problems. It's no wonder they drove her nuts.
The Big Event in her life, as well as for thousands of others, was the death of her husband Joseph Smith. This, in turn, was caused by the many ervents causing the Civil War..
Abraham Lincoln was also active during this time, and in this same area. but the two avoided each other.
This universal unknown problem is common in dyfumctioal families.
This was when the book Memoirs of Joseph Smith III were published by the Herald House.
This is a huge book and has not been read very much. It can be seen as another step in a downward direction toward the Church's end.
This was me in Silicon Valley in the Nineties. I was a complete mess, and I was not the only one.
We were trying to switch from an Industrial Economy to a Computer one but had no idea what we were trying to do.
Looking at it this way makes me feel better about myself, but does not improve anything. Or fix the usual solution of being nothing. Which makes us completely helpless.
I am still reading The Memoirs of Joseph Smith III. And I finally hit paydirt beginning on page 5, when he recalls his life as a boy in Nauvoo when it was first being settled, and everyone was living in log cabins.
This is valuable historical material, and people should be reading it for that. But I am probably the only one to do so.
Ir is hard to get. You have to order it from Amazon.
This was one of our failures when moving to Nauvoo. Dad could not get the boat to work and he gave it up.
This fault was not his, it was the mud that was quickly filling the river, especially below our place, and which we had not planned on.
Our boat was a fine boat and had wheels that were used to move it from Ft. Madison. But the rubber part of the wheels was gone.
I made it my personal project to get the boat working again. The biggest part of this project was getting the boat out of the ravine it, and the boathouse was in. I don't remember how I did this, but it was done.
I could not buy new wheels, so I improvised by bolting rubber onto the wheels, which was good enough to get the buat to the beach. I then built a surfboard that other users could ride behind rhe boat
You could say many things about this guy, and perhaps this is the least of them, but this was bad enough.
Let's start with his first profession, a finder of buried treasure, using a seer stone. He would put this stone in a hat, then place the har over his eyes. He would then be able to see the buried treasure.
But this was illegal and he had to leave New York State to avoid arrest and trial.
The Computer, when used properly, can make us smart, very smart. Bur usually, this does not happen. We have gotten stupid instead. Why?
Because People do not understand Computers and do not want to understand them. Somehow, they feel not understanding them is the proper way to work with them.
There must be reasons for this, probably quite a few of them. But the proper way of dealing with this is to notice the problem first, then figure out the reason for it.,
For example, the religion of my family is Mormonism. which was founded by Joseph Smith, a strange person. Every member of this religion should be asking themselves "What was he like?"
But they will quickly find that this question cannot be easily answered, because he didn't want it answered. He wanted to remain a mystery, which would be answered as circumstances dictated.
For example, he wanted to get into Banking and founded the Kirtland Safety Society, (KSS) which quickly went broke.
Once upon a time, a man and his daughter wrote a book about how to Modernize Afghanization, and the man went to Afghanistan to implement his ideas, while his daughter stayed to teach a class at Georgetown University.
Georgetown was not important, but it was close to DC, was a favorite for Think Tanks. Tine went on, but the Peace Process (in Afghanistan) was not working.
She was sent back to Afghanistan to find, why not?
With the assistance of her father, she wrote a report on the situation and came back home. But this was not enough, they wanted her to fix it.
To her extreme reluctance, they sent her back again, where she found the situation she remembered, even worse.
Somehow, she managed to get back and found, to her amazement, that battle dress (for women) was popular. The boots and the underwear we free, but she had to buy the matching dress at Macy's.
She became fashionable and made lots of money.
And it hasn't gotten any easier. This is probably why the RLDS (using the Herald House) published the Memoirs of Joseph Smith III, in 1960.
I am reading this, and frankly, I am baffled by it. We should acknowledge the RLDS has ended, and there is not much left.
In fact, you are probably wondering what I am writing this. Why I am thinking about the Church at all. You have gradually left the Chuch and cannot see why I have not done the same. "Ler dead dogs lie, "you are probably thinking.
But I think a summary of how the Mormon churches have diverged, would be useful to everyone. My cousin Florence has already started this work, but we need more collaboration.
The book Saints Without Halos has a touching chapter on Lymon Wight, who died in Texas. Our relatives, the Fishers, joined his movement for a while.
Another cousin, Lynn Ourth, would probably be willing to help Florence.
It is also true that when the RLDS became the Community of Christ, it ceased competing with the other Mormon churchs, and gave that territory to the LDS.
Being there was a huge mistake, almost anywhere else would have been better. But their leader, Joseph Smith, did not know this. Missouri was eas trying to be a slave or a free state. And the people there were not so nice.
As a result, he ended up in prison, in Liberty Jail. And his followers had to leave the State, leaving their possessions behind them.
Eventually, much later, they returned, after things had settled down in Missouri, and a Civil War had been fought over the slavery issue.
I am still reading JS III Memoirs, and I noticed the same thing there. His family was the most unusual in the 19th Century, which was full of unusual people.
My family was also unusual, in a minor way.
This was common in Mormon families, and different people had to cope with it in different ways. If they couldn't, they had some serious mental problems. My ex-wife ended up killing herself.
This book was written by a Utah Mormon to benefit his fellow-Mormons. But every Mormon can benefit from its detailed record-keeping.
It's available in the Kindle Format.
In the middle of the night, I was awakened by a loud noise, and running footsteps. I got out of bed and hollered "Ray!|" in my Bathroom, but there was no response. I opened my door and continued hollering "Ray!" around the house, again there was no answer. I walked to the front of the house turning the automatic light there, still no response. I checked the time: it was 2:59, and I went back to sleep.
At 6:00 in the morning, I hear noises coming from Ray's part of the house, and I got up again. But Ray was awake and in bed with his dogs.
Something strange is going on.
I bought the book of his memoirs, hoping to understand something about bim. But eventually realized there was nothing about him to understand.
And there is nothing to understand about his followers either.
But how deep that approval may be varies considerably.
My mother and father did not love each other very much. and considered that normal. They went to church instead.
When I worked in Silicon Valley in the Nineties, the Computer employees were sexually active, extremely so. And considered this part of their approval of their profession, and were quite put out if you did not have sex with them.
It is well-known that Cleopatra had sex with Julius Ceaser and bore him several children. How these children of complicated parentage managed this is not known, but there were plenty of them.
These would not be hard to build, once we got a prototype working.
They would be like small battle tanks with treads instead of wheels and a rotating gun turret.
Once it meets something, it must ask these questions:
is it a person? Does it have human brain waves?
Is it a Taliban? Does it not have the code assigned to the non- Taliban? This could be encoded and changed frequently.
Shoot it!
Every second or so, the system could send the following message:
From XXXXXX to XXXXXX time
in area from XXXXXX to XXXXXXXThis many
XXXXXX killings
A demo could be parked on the White House lawn and would track people walking on the sidewalk outside the fence. This would show how smart it is.
Another way of doing this is with spacial-purpose aircraft, working with obsevers on the ground. Thry would decide what needed to be destroyed, and the plane would destroy it.
The Emma I am referring to, was Emma Smith the Wife of the Prophet. Her husband was killed by a mob in 1844, leaving her with three of his sons, all small boys.
Her first decision must have made sense to her: she stayed in Nauvoo, because she owned most of the place. She owned a ghost town that was quickly becoming less valuable. But she did not realize this.
Her oldest sub, Joseph Smith III, joined the RLDS church, and ended up in Lamoni, Iowa. But there is no record of her being part of this church.
She died in poverty, and all her buildings were sold at a Tax sale.
He had the amazing ability to make other people obey him. And there were plenty of people willing to obey him.
This is part of the leader/follower syndrome that is part of the human condition.
There is no reason to panic over this, it's just another one of life's common problems.
No, there are too many things against us.
I am not saying we should not try, but we should not expect too much.
A better question would be "What things can we do to make a better world?" Or maybe "What are the easiest things we can do to make a better world?"
We have to start by defining the Good Guys and the Bad Guys. Or the Guys that are trying to be good (but can't quite make the grade, liked me) and those who are trying to be bad.
This is probably a natural division of mankind in general, but is especially true of religion, where supreme leaders are common.
This morning I want to discuss how this applies to Mormonism, the religion of my family. This has gone thru a great deal of change over the years, especially the last 50 years, or so.
In America, great change was caused by the Second Great Awakening, that made Americans religious people. And caused Mormonism.
How Mormonism gut started, how Joseph Smith became a Prophet, Is not clear, but it did happen. And this was important to its many followers, who needed a leader to follow.
The Catholic church had its Pope, who was very unpopular with the Protestants, which led to the worst wars of all time.
At the present time, Evangelicalism is important in North, Central, and South America.
This is normal, but there comes a time in every child's life when he should ask questions. I use the word should here, because many children do not, and this has a big effect on their lives.
For example, Joseph Smith, JS III's father, spent quite a bit of time in Liberty jail, and most church members left the State. His son never asked "Why?". He knew he was not supposed to ask that question, so he didn't ask it. And most members of the Mormon churches do not ask it either.
Joseph Smith was such a complicated person, it is impossible to tell what was on his mind. But it seemed to be this: because he had a special relationship with God, he (and his followers) owned everything, and they could take whatever they wanted.
They opened a bank, the Kirtland Safety Society, that did not last long
The situation peaked out in Missouri, the worst possible place for them to be, where few records were kept.
He died in 1844.
It's enough to make you poop in your pants (ot panties).
When i looked at a the bottom of my coffee cup this morning, what did I see? A dead cockroach!
The latest news from Afghanistan, looks like it came from Vietnam - only worse!
You wanna know what's gonna happen next? Think of the worst possible thing, you can't go too far wrong.
I am reading The Memoirs of President Joseph Smith III (1832 - 1914), Published by the Herald House in 1960. This is a large book, consisting of copies from the Saints Herald, It starts on page 1413. When young Joseph is visiting Liberry Jail with his mother. Martha. I have copied what follows from page 1934.
I remember that later I visited that Jail at Liberty when my father and others whose names have passed into history were confined when which followed Doniphens refusal to "march the prisoners the puplic square and there shoot them to death." There were present in that prison Uncle Hyrum Smith, Caleb Baldwin, and a singer whom my memry seems to serve mtmus right was Erstmus Snow. He sang two ditties which made an empresion on me. One was called called "The Massacre at the River Raison," which referred to buthchuring of Americans in the war upon the nothwest borders...I was fond of music, and thus was allowed to spend the nigfht there with my father.
Why his father was confined in that jail is not mentioned by anyone, including his mother.
This was the rise of Christianity - with one elaboration: this god must be crucified, and rise from the dead.
His Memoirs are a strange concoction by a dying church.
He had a hard start, it was true, but he did a bad job of explaining that start.
Brigham Young did a better job of rescuing Joseph Smith's church.
His son did not really try.
I am still reading the Memoirs of Joseph Smith III, and it raises a number of questions. Mostly questions about him and his mother, Emma Smith.
When they were in Missouri, Joseph Smith was jailed, for quite some time. I could find no details for this. except he escaped and fled to Carthage, Illinois, where they were treated kindly. Emma never said why he was in jail, but it was probably because he tried to use Mormon military forces to combat Missouri military forces and was defeated.
Why didn't she say so? What else was going on?
America has no empire, Americans are proud to say. And to some extent this is true.
We took a good look at the British Empire, and said "No thanks". But our Computer companies (Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft) make Astronomical amounts of money. We also lead the world in Weaponry.
However, we have overextended ourselves in places like Afghanistan, where we look stupid.
The one today is especially good. Browse thru them and take your pick.
Tech, it keeps saying, is not always stupid, just mostly.
He (like his father) was comfortable with altering the facts to suit the circumstances.
This has to be taken into account when reading his Memoirs.
After the death of Joseph Smith the Prophet, the situation in Nauvoo was violent and chaotic. It was probably best reported by the book Kindom of Nauvoo, which relies on documents provided by the LDS church.
But there is another book, the Memoirs of Joseph Smith III, published by the RLDS church. Which gives the history from the RLDS perspective. The difference between the reporting on Emma Smith (Joseph Smith's wife) is striking.
She stayed in Nauvoo because, she owned most of it, and eventually died there, in poverty.
I just spent most of the day with Ray using my card our bank's ATM.
Our bank has a problem, that requires it to make a new card for me, that I will get on Friday.
The UN should issue a standard APP that all banks would have to use.
With the approach of the Susquicentenial tear (1980), it occurred to a number of General Officers and members of the Historical Commission Staff, that an appropriate item for widespread dissemination would be a reprint of the Memoirs of Joseph Smith III. In precisely the same format as that of the Saint's Herald of November 1934 and July 1937.
These have changed since the Computer came into power.
The amount of reporting, and its quality, have declined greatly.
It is impossible to tell what is going on now in Afghanistan.
I have the book The Wrong Enemy. that describes the situation in 1973, but that is no help now.
In fact, people are asking me "Why do you care?"
This is the conflict of today when it should be the advantage we have today.
The Computer has given us great advantages that we do not want.
We accept readily some of its advantages, the ones that can make money for us now. But are not interested in anything else.
We do not want to become better ourselves. Instead, we want to become worse.
One way we do this is by eating junk food. If it is bad for us, we love it.
We will confess to this weakness, but not a worse one: hating the Computer.
Why? Because it is making us better.
This is a Wikipedia article. It was important to me because it unlocked a lot of memories, mostly violent.
Even the Computer is violent, because it does violence to the simple use of words, and makes them do things they not designed to do.
I have met a few men and women who could do this.
But many more who could not.
Who was failing here?
And we need to recognize this.
"Not true" some people are saying. "I can be fixed and we are doing it right now!"
What do you think?
It hurts me to say this, and for most people, it is impossible to say.
Our fathers lived in difficult times it is true. but were they that difficult? What right do we have to criticize them?
Perhaps we can say: we can criticize them, right or wrong, just as our mothers did.
This shifts the blame to our mothers, where it probably belongs. But I am not entirely comfortable with this.
We can truthfully say we live in fast-changing times, too fast-changing times. And we can put the blame on them.
This shown in the first line of a program: Bunny = 1
The computer knows that Bunny is a number
Rabbit is something else it is not interested in.
The magic in computers is that is can switch back and forth easily, once it knows the context.
A Rabbit lives in a hole in the ground, a Bunny lives in a Computer, and you have to know the difference.
Nothing could be more obvious. But the implications of this need to be considered carefully.
I was in Silicon Valley in the Nineties, and I could see most people were not doing this and could see no reason to do it.
Perhaps this situation has improved some, by programmers paying more attention to the User Interface, but most people are still ignorant of what the Computer is and how it works. And seem determined to continue this ignorance.
Read that last sentence carefully. It says the human species is doomed.
This is a Rant, pure and simple. He is almost as crazy as the people he is writing about.
I got up last night, in the middle of the night, to take a pee, and ended up on the floor.
I have been there before, so I didn't panic. I just laid there on that cold floor and tried to figure out where I was.
After quite a while, I managed to get back in bed, and then after quite a while more, I navigated to the bathroom.
These fall-downs come at random intervals. I am carrying my phone with me now so i can call Ray when they happen.
I take this seriously, because if I get in a bad mood unnecessarily, I am wasting my time and mental resources. I don't have many of these resources, and I have to take care of them.
The first step, of course, is to pay attention to them. How am I feeling, right now? Most likely, not very good. OK, what to do about them?
Breath deeply, and you will feel better. Practice this breathing. And practice noticing your resistance to it. Part of you does want to feel better!
You have reached the breaking point. You will get better, or you will get worse. What should you do? Pay attention to what is going on, and learn from them.
And this is the first thing you have to get in touch with when you use it.
I remember my first computer and what I used it for.
This is the correct order: decide what you want to do first, then how to do it. Pick the thing with the best personality for the job.
This may or may not be a computer.
I really feel bad about this. We are suffering, and we need to know this.
I left the US because of this, but this problem has followed me down here, bigger than ever.
Software cannot cure suffering. And our favorite response (to not be) cannot cure it either.
My favorite example was my cousin Nita, in my hometown of Ft. Madison, Iowa. Nita was a dyke, and this lifestyle suited her perfectly. Her lesbian partner was her schoolteacher, who lived in the family garage, she had fixed up as an apartment.
This relationship worked until her partner died. Nita took this badly, and no one could help her.
She could have been helped, as I was helped when I lived in Silicon Valley.There was an organizarion there that helped me, for free.
This showed me we can help each other, if we want to. But first we have to acknowledge our suffering.
Yes, I did, and it didn't cost much.
When they tried to put the cake in my bag, I set them straight. "It goes to her," I said and pointed directly at her.
This is the National Health System of Costa Rica.
As a Resident of Costa Rica, I can buy my Health Insurance here, at greatly reduced prices (a maximum of $50 a month, often much less).
But I have to stand in line, and pay for it, in Colones, the first of every month at La Colonial, the local payments office.
It certainly was in my family. And anytime I inteact with them, I have to keep this carefully in mind.
This is made more difficult because the Church of my family, the RLDS church, has gone through changes and become the Community of Christ church.
A small church has became an even smaller church, with church members that are unaware of this.
A church that was not as crazy was the Unitarian church, whi I attended when I lived in the DC area. It hired a social worker to educate the Black women in the slums that surrounded the church in Bitth Control.
Amazon is Jeff Bezos. The company is built on his ideas and ideals, and its strategy reflects his numbers-obsessed brain. Bezos is the oracle behind a set of principles and mechanisms that govern his company.
I am one of Amazon's best customers, All my orders go to an address in Miami, and from there they are loaded on a plane, flown to Costa Rica, go through Customs, and end up at a retail address for areropost. in Cartago, with a long list of charges added to it.
This also has a link to Lincoln on the Verge
I downloaded the Kindle book and will read it on my Amazon Fire tablet.
We already did this, every Wednesday night at Prayer Meeting. But we did not get as rowdy in God's presence,
The US Military must have one of these, but they have kept it hidden. So I have proposed one of my own.
The first thing I would do is define where the enemy is. Make maps and map-viewing software, and make these public properties.
Next, using these maps, define which areas are friendly and which are hostile. Perhaps a series of maps would helpful, showing which organization controlled which area at which times. Access to these would have to be controlled.
Next, define which areas are to be conquered, one at a time. And define targets in these areas, This would require close cooperation with observers (spies) on the ground.
Next, attack each target, using the A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft, which are already being used. Each target, and its occupants, would not have to be completely destroyed, but mostly destroyed. The objective would be to make the enemy surrender before they are completely destroyed. Only the targets would be attracted. the rest would be left alone.
This was the Fifties, although it could apply to all of the 20th Century, especially to the Depression.
As survivors of that time, we should give ourselves credit for still being here, altho somewhat battered.
I can remember the Fifties when it was easy to go to college and easy to get a job. Big business was getting bigger, and this applied to all parts of the economy, including agriculture.
We were the richest country in the world, while the rest of the world was in ruins. All this went to our heads. And we had no idea it would not last.
Bur, we were living in a fast-moving time, and everything did change. We changed also, but not fast enough,
We were soon spending a lot of time watching Television, while it was watching us.
I could go on and on. I could write a book about this, and maybe I should. But I will stop here, and nurse my scar tisue.
This should not happen, Things should keep getting better instead.
But unfortunately, it is happening.
This has been recognized by Christianity. Which states it simply: How can a good God permit so much evil?
Some believe the Computer has solved this problem. Bur others (including some computer programmers) are not so sure. They speak of the problems of Globalization instead.
The Computer is trying to make us smarter, and this is one way it can do it.
(DARPA is Defense Advanced Research Projects).
This article has many links that can take you to associated articles.
You can see this every day (smart computers and stupid people) but somehow it doesn't seem right.
Why are they stupid? Think about this carefully. They are stupid compared to what?
The Computer, of course.
And this comparison does wonders for their self-esteem.
Lots of very talented people drink themselves to death.
Stop calling Everyone a Tech Bro
Read this to update your HiTech vocabulary of Nastys. They are all here.
For example: "Hope at least six girls sucked your dick last night."
This Church was my family's church: the RLDS.
It was the church of both my father and my mother, but I know so little about my father's family, I will not say much about them.
The RLDS church was formed after the death of the leader of the LDS church, Joseph Smith, was killed in 1844.
The period between the LDS and RLDS is complicated, and I will not go into that. But will begin when Joseph Smith III became the president of the RLDS, in Lamoni, Iowa. Record-keeping was poor before the Computer arrived, but under his leadership, the church grew. But not as much as the LDS under Brigham Young, which was always a much larger church.
My mother's father's family was in Nova Scotia, but one daughter of that family immigrated to Boston and married into a rich family there, the Fishers (who were RLDS). She sent for her brother to teach at the Fisher's Business College.
At the same time, another family (he Fairclouphs) immigrated from England and one daughter enrolled in the Fisher Business College. They were very RLDS. This daughter married her instructor at the college (Albert Sanford) who taught Shorthand.
They bought a new house in a suburb of Boston, Summerville, where my mother was born.
The RLDS church peaked out in the Fifties when I attended Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa.
I went on to the U of Illinois and became an Electronic Engineer. And dropped out of the church.
The rest of my family dropped out too, but gradually, and in a complicated way.
