I Could Be Wrong.

  Lying and Misinformation, that is what we have today in an over abundance. In the past we have had things like our “War on Poverty” and our “War on Drugs”. It seems like today that we are having a “War on the Truth”. What we should be having is a “War against Lying”. You know that old adage that if you tell a lie often enough that soon people will think that it is the truth. I think that today too many Politicians and Political groups are doing just that, trying to convince us that the lies are the truth. It is the lies and the misinformation that I truly think is going to be the death of our Republic as we know it. Sadly, I really do not believe that the average person benefits from most of the lies and most are meant to erode our faith in our electoral and judicial systems. Let’s look at some of the lies that people are convinced are the truth. The biggest lie of course is that the election was stolen. That is one whopper of a lie that over half of the Republican Party has be...

  Holidays. Thanksgiving week is the start of the Holiday Season. I love this time of year. I am starting to decorate the outside of the condo with the lights that will show our festive spirit from Thanksgiving through the New Year. We are one year removed from Hurricane Ian so we should see more of a festive atmosphere than we had last year. Southwest Florida has a long way to go in our recovery but we no longer have all the piles of debris all over the place and we no longer see those huge black trucks they used to pick up all of the debris. The huge mountains of debris at the collection areas are mostly gone which is a good thing but people do ask where does it all go? Sanibel will not be having their Luminary Festival again this year but maybe next year. I am pretty sure that Tween Waters up on Captiva will be all decorated so I will be taking a drive up there to see it. The Edison Center in Ft. Myers is always decorated really nice at this time of year and I am confident this ...

  Justice in America. I don’t understand justice in America and I don’t understand the two tier justice system that seems to be part of the justice system. What I see is a multi-tier justice system in this country. People with money seem to be able to delay justice and at times escape justice. They have the means to make the justice system work for them just like their money makes it so the government works for them.   A regular citizen does not have the means to appeal every decision that a judge makes but people with money do. I really think that our justice system is driven more by money than it is by the law. We have seen how money has bought the Supreme Court. From guns to women’s privacy the Supreme Court has, in my opinion, not just misinterpreted, the Constitution it has created new laws. The rulings by the Conservative court have done a great deal of damage to the Country and are responsible for a lot of the mess that we are in. Our streets have been made more dange...

  Back in August I wrote asking if there were concentration camps in the future. Now I see that Trump is stating that if he gets elected again he will sweep the nation and put all undocumented immigrants in detention centers. What is the difference between a detention center and a concentration camp? Not a whole hell of a lot. I don’t carry anything in my wallet that says I am a citizen of the United States. Will they have guys running around checking people to see if they are citizens? That is a program that headed for disaster. My driver license says where I am a resident of but it really doesn’t say that I am a citizen. Are we all going to be issued papers that say who we are and that we are a citizen and then have to present them on command? Are we going to have a force like a Gestapo that goes around inspecting our papers? Does that sound like freedom? Does that sound like the America that we all grew up in? Is that the vision of our forefathers? It sure isn’t the America that...

    We had another election. Everyone is saying that last Tuesday’s election was a victory for abortion rights. I think of it as something else. I think it was a victory for Liberty and Freedom. Women should have the Freedom to choose. The privacy between a Women and her Doctor is what I consider an essential Liberty that should never have been challenged in the first place. Everything about taking away a women’s right to choose was very anti-constitution in my opinion. I don’t want forced birth or forced abortion.   What I think is proper and truly American is that a Woman has a right to choose and the Freedom to exercise that right. Privacy is an essential liberty that our Fore Fathers fought for.   Privacy between a women and her doctor should be as sacred as that privacy between a lawyer and their client. The Republicans have come up a few excuses on why they lost. Some far right commentators are blaming Taylor Swift for last Tuesday’s outcome. Why because she ...

  Writing, I have had a hard time with that lately. One is because of some health problems but another is that I get tired of writing about the same thing over and over again. The older I get it seems the more chaotic it gets and I don’t understand. Every time I sit down to write the thing that is dominating the news is Trump and his multiple trials. When we should be moving forward trying to tackle things like childhood poverty or healthcare instead we are just trying to save our democracy. I was a teenager during the sixties and early seventies. I saw that hate and the racism that was plaguing the country on an everyday basis. What I didn’t see was the homeless and the poverty that we have today. Yes, there was poverty back then but there were also good paying factory jobs. We had welfare systems for the poor and food stamps but to be honest with you I didn’t see the poverty that I see now. Most people could earn a living because they were paid a reasonable wage, what today we wo...

  After three weeks of arguing we have a Speaker of the House. On the same day we have another mass shooting. This time in Maine and it is being reported that 18 people are dead but those numbers seem to change. It is almost like I don’t want to log into my computer to find out what is happening in America. Hate, Racism, Violence, those are the things that are dominating the news. In Florida, our Governor is banning all Palestinian organizations from our campuses. Free speech is not a thing in Florida. I guess neither is the right to assemble. Biden seems to be delivering the goods that are working but that is not what dominates that news. The Republican led House has been described as a clown show pretty much since they took control. To me that is an insult to clowns. I grew up watching Bozo’s Circus and our Congress is nothing like what I watched.   Bozo was entertaining and made us laugh. Believe it or not there was always an inspirational message that went along with the...

  I get confused. I grew up in a Conservative Republican household in the 50s and the 60s. My father was a staunch Goldwater supporter. I look back on those days and I don’t see where the Conservative and the Liberals were that much different. Because of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights it was a complicated time but not near as complicated as it is today. The War divided the nation not by political party but by those that opposed the war and those that wanted to stop the threat of Communism. Race also divided the nation. I have seen riots in the streets during every decade of my life. Back in the 60s most Republicans were not racist or segregationist. I won’t say that Republicans only led the fight against discrimination but they were willing to stand up and be counted when the time came. More Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than Democrats. One of the leading voices was a Conservative from Ohio, Republican Rep. William McCulloch. He really didn’t have much to gai...

  I am going to start this by saying, “Israeli lives matter”. I am then I am going to say, “Palestinian lives matter”. Why? Because I truly believe that. I also believe Black lives matter. I also believe that White lives matter. I have never thought when I said that Black lives matter that White lives didn’t matter. To say “all lives matter” is a given but it doesn’t address that problem of the killing of innocent Black people or any minority. It doesn’t address the problem of children being separated from their families. If you can’t say that Black Lives Matter than guess what? I don’t think Black lives do matter to you. If you can’t say that Palestinian Lives Matter than guess what? Palestinian’s lives don’t matter to you either. If you can’t say that Jewish Lives Matter than guess what? Jewish lives don’t matter to you. I can say all four and more. You see all life really does matter but the world is segregated by many things and we have to understand that segregation. I just ca...

  Bill Gate has made headlines again. Bill Gates, in my opinion, is one of voices on climate change. When he said that there is an overreaction to climate change the headlines made it sound like he has made an about face and has turned into a climate change denier. After reading the article he really was not saying the climate change was a hoax. The one statement he made was “the world was going to be ok”. I have said that many times myself. The world is going to be around until our sun destroys us. Nuclear War, Climate Change, another Ice Age, none of those things is going to stop the world from spinning on her axis or from circling the sun. Over the millions and millions of years of this planet’s existence it has change many times and the dominate species has also changed many times.   In the article Bill Gates does mention that it is our existence on this planet that is in jeopardy. I too have said the same thing. Whenever there is a crisis there is an opportunity to solv...