It's strange for an anonymous voice to keep saying oh, so-and-so loves autocrats, loves dictators.  No one in politics has a love relationshíp with other world leaders.  It's another example of a general dumbing down and it really annoys me.  Obviously world leaders have to discuss world issues.  Obviously we can't assume anything about each others' policy, there needs to be diplomacy.  If not, what we get is what's going on.  Rumors of Russia in military alliance with Iran.  Second-hand knowledge of China being involved with taking over bases the U.S. abandoned.  And terrorist groups telling the world what they are going to do--up to the moment--to nations.

! Aaaaaargh !

  What a disgrace and undesireable way of life we are getting into--today! More than ever, although the "axis of evil" has been working on their strategies and alliances for 20-40, 50 years!

Leave or starve

Leave or starve is what gets called rhetoric, it's not a policy.  It is similar in nature to someone who is not a dictator-in-place saying stuff like I'm gonna...

  I'm gonna make the cops beat you up!  And I'm gonna end all wars in a day!  And I'm gonna get the/a military to...

  My problem with rhetoric is that it is more fantastical than talk from a supposed leader should be.  It's also offensive because it dishonors the real people involved in a real world where law and policy must be carried out.  We don't live in a country under a dictator who orders violence at his whim!  But violence occurs because of peoples' power to use force.  January 6th got out of hand from peoples' power/right to assemble.  Most crime that occurs in our country is abuse of power/rights to.

  The rhetoric is really most like a generic mouth standing atop a fence and crying wolf plus I'm not just going to stand up here!

  I think that rhetoric in our culture has taken the place of intelligent conversation and strategy.  It certainly comes up for people before they actually have solution or have contributed to resolution.  It amounts to as useful as the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

  It indicates we got problems.

  In leave or starve we are actually hearing people put forth the notion that we can't live this way.  Americans felt the same way about the mafia.  The world proved it felt the same way about Hitler.  Neither goal of denying the mafia or letting Hitler compromise the principles of the West was achieved by rhetoric.  And this is why we see now the West's leaders strengthening position against its enemies.

  That Iran shot ballistic missiles, more than once, at Israel escalated the contentions to nation level.  On that level of offense and defense nobody can afford to play "whack-a-mole".  We have to have a unified response.  And we have to let the military strategists defend our country.

  It's not a rally to all-out chaos and violence.  Defense doesn't negate the belief that violence is not right.  Defense protects because to be killed/destroyed is not right either.

Part of the point

  Part of the point, the largest part, was not to be destroyed.  By the time our-agers were born it was already the age of terrorism.  A lot of the dark side of WWII and Vietnam and Korea wasn't staying neatly contained in some old memory box.

  It was character building not to crumble when they lashed out.  And becoming stoic as they clung to each other in a necessary toughness about a mysterious violence that wasn't hatred, at least not for you.

  While some people chose to go ahead and be hateful others didn't go that route but settled on bitterness.  A roomful of stiff, cross-armed, boulder men who'd rarely had a "day off" let alone caught the virus of free love and "alternative" only in a top secret way and a head nod as agreement admitted to having feelings.

  At school some kids couldn't really get free of the complicated.  It's in our DNA, some said when they found each other and found in each other a kind of ability to hack through any jungle.  Some had a tougher time with lazy assholes being "authority" and navigating growing up for them included some run ins where they awkwardly realized there was no army behind them in individual rebelliousness.  A few were always walking a chain link fence watching for opportunity to escape somehow.

  The somehow though, on escaping, an Americanism not separable from service, has always been elusive.  Most people in the Country have wrestled with duty and honor and service to nation even if not involved directly with the military.  Just as we've all wrestled with, for example, how much money should be spent on "social programs".  And, yes, there are feelings about feeding others at the expense of self not eating.  But especially when there's been dramatic imbalance in favor of one group or another kind of profession in America our Nation rallies to level playing ground through capitalism.  And that's been a saving grace.

The can't make butter with a toothpick phase

   Reorganizing my blog

  Was sorry to hear overworked but not making it youth on the radio the other day.  I've always had to work myself and while I love working it can seem futile economically.  I think our-agers have really been through hard times a lot.  And pandemic plus teetering on the brink of more socialism than we've ever had in our nation has sunk us again.  The amount of debt that the nation has plus it's socialistic commitments including foreign wars really cancels the possibility of gain.  I know we try and stay positive, be content with what we do have, and are grateful that, in theory, there's opportunity to make money as private citizens.  We also criticize management of nation regarding the money stuff.  But there are moments when no personal thinking can tackle the awfulness of feeling like prisoners to work, feeling bad about the costs of living never met by work earnings, feeling like it's unfair.  Everybody goes through that process with something...maybe not money, but something.  It's challenging.  And confronting and working through challenge takes a lot of a person.  But when we try (even if not successful) there is the glory that is in the American flag.  The Country too is challenged.  And we all have the chance to help it hold on.

That's not a scam

  While it can seem weird and scary that there are so many road closures between Tennessee and North Carolina, it's not fake.  I drove all over in the mountains and on the highways and byways--for about three days, over 900 miles.  Everything is as normal as it can be given the extent of the damages caused by Hurricane Helene.

  There are a ton of people working on America and it's not about politics.  North Care-o-lina has long been expert, or developing expertise, on functioning as a diversity of private and public, volunteer and dedicated, support and lead groups.  And each trouble spot has attending processes.

  Over the course of re-opening for business, for example, State and Federal and Insurance people have to eyeball and document everything.  Like restoring the grids, each clean up and repair is part of a puzzle.  Procedures are dictating because in SAFETY that forms the equivalent of chain of command.  And there aren't squirmishes between commanders of groups, "regional" work-throughs are worked through.

  There's pressure on all of us to hurry up but that creates more danger!  A lot of mountain roads, for instance, are both curvy and steep grade, and bucket trucks can only cone so far out from themselves so driving fast can cause serious accident.

  Passable roads does not indicate the "all clear".  And on many of the miles I traveled I was driving through tree trunks.  Up higher in a lot of spots is sliding down.  And at water level much has been swept away.  There really is debris everywhere.  But like preparing for wildfire, people in place have spent the past two weeks focused on clearing immediate areas.

Mountain shadows

  Said to be the sundial of savages, the shadows where one can read the absence of the thing represented.  Only during daylight of course.