CHANGE you'd better think about

Another good friend of mine has relatives that work in factories in the Rust Belt.... that whole area of America that includes Ohio, Michigan, and other places where we used to make cars and steel and other manly things. The men are still there waiting for the factories to reopen and are still members of a Union that hates Japan, and Korea, and anywhere they make cars and the workers don't have a pay package of $75 per hour. Mired in the past with the expectation that everything will remain the same, these workers, and most of the rest of us most of the time, cling to our beliefs that even though the internet is moving at 186,000 miles per second, we can keep on keeping on in our daily lives assured that there will be lug wrenches or the equivalent business tools in the 22nd century.

We do everything the old way...and nowadays, the old way could mean "the way we did it last week." The rate of change not only changes the answers, it rewrites all the questions. Our children are being trained in school for careers that won't be in existence when they graduate. We are living under the assumption that Social Security and Medicare are going to be there for us forever and knowing one language and not all that well is not going to be enough to get you to the finish line. Our institutions have failed us one after the other. Company pensions are disappearing. The government health plan, better known as "The Insurance Company Relief Act of 2010" is not going to do anything they promised, except cost more. And our bright bulb administrators in the educational system tell you that if they just had more money for books, and computers and new buildings everything would be all right.

If you are not scared, you should be. Learn Chinese so at least you can get a factory job in a few years when they own us. By then it will be cheaper to export industry to America because everyone in China will have an engineering degree and will be designing new products for a new world. We will still have lug wrenches, and Detroit will still look like Dresden after the bombing (That's World War 2 for you recent high school graduates who learned nothing in school because you were too busy texting one another on your Chinese cell phones.)

LINK:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II

Things that do MORE HARM than GOOD

Among the many things that will mess you up in your journey through life is the opinions of others. Take them too seriously, and you are a guaranteed failure. Thomas Edison was considered "addled" by the headmaster of his school. His mother home-schooled him and the rest is history. Paul McCartney was not good enough to play or sing in his high school, according to his music teacher. No need to go further, the examples are TNTC (too numerous to count.)

Wayne Dyer, a smart guy, says "Your opinion of me is none of my business." Start with this premise and you are more likely to be a successful person, in the arts, or business, or just about anywhere in life. Accept the opinion of everyone and you can achieve mediocrity. We are the grandparents of two very active and brilliant 2 year old twin girls. On the spectrum of expressing their individuality and not being overly constrained to.... follow all the rules and get along through the cookie cutter process you will meet in school and society, I am glad to say that they are more creative and less programmed. It's not that they throw things in restaurants, it's just that they have minds of their own and do things to test cause and effect that would not pass muster in kindergarten, where going along is as Vince Lombardi said about winning.."it's not the most important thing, it's the ONLY thing."

Some of my favorite authors espouse "not going along." Thoreau wrote "On Civil Disobedience. " Don Miguel Ruiz wrote about "hooking the attention of the child" and enculturation into the Dream of the Planet. Again, the authors and philosophers are TNTC. And let's not forget that Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to pursue his dream and history indicates he made the right choice.

I am not advocating being a class-clown or a slacker who just wants to squander all educational opportunity. But be careful out there. The prime directive of most education is not to make you different or uniquely successful but rather to make you the same, and to "fit in" and not rock the boat of society. This is why we have public education, to control the masses, not produce excellence. You just have to look at the results to see that. And it is getting worse.

It's all about what they FEED you.

The HYDRANGEA could be a metaphor for life. These plants are all over Nantucket and are beautiful no matter what color they are. But like Republicans and Democrats, educated people and dumb-asses, it's what they are fed that determines which direction in life they will take.

If you want pink/red flowers then the plant should be put into alkaline soil. If it's blue you want then it's acid soil it requires. The Miracle Grow for acid loving plants will not affect the plants growth as long as you follow the directions on the packaging.

So in the age old argument about nature and nurture, at least in Hydrangeas, the way you present yourself to the world is a product of who has been tending the garden and the choices they made, or the soil you were planted in and whether it was acid or alkali. The flowers start out as a delicate light green tinted blank canvas of white. Nurture does the rest. I suspect, this is true of most everything in nature.

WATCH YOUR STEP

Because of my over six foot height and my size 12 feet, Nantucket can be a hazardous place. When I am outside, I mostly look at my feet because the brick sidewalks look like this and the main streets are paved with large round stones. I sprain my ankle on a daily basis. Inside, since so many of the buildings are from the 1800s, I watch my head because the door headers are often two inches shorter than I am. And yet, I have never seen a taxi with a picture of a personal injury attorney or a 1-800 suethebastards phone number. There are some on TV but they don't seem to be part of the island culture. I am reminded of a summer study-abroad program we took in Oxford, England, where I met a medical expert who often testified in civil litigation cases. He was an expert witness in one particular case in which a woman visiting Oxford, tripped and fell on uneven sidewalk and broke her wrist. Now, the sidewalks in Oxford are mostly huge slabs of granite laid end to end. The edges do not often line up at the same level. The successful defense in this case was, that yes there was significant unevenness BUT in the 1600s when the sidewalks were installed, they were perfectly flat and they had only become uneven due to the passage of time and the shifting and settling of the earth. Not our fault, next case.

The BREWSKIS are coming, The BREWSKIS are coming

This minor modification of that old warning of Paul Revere who was known to "do his thing" not far from here on the mainland of Massachusetts. It is the 4th of July on Nantucket, and there is a spring-break atmosphere on Main Street. People who had just turned 21 or had identification to "prove" their age waited outside Murray's Beverage Store for them to open at noon so they could buy ammunition in the fight against sobriety. Many wore the uniforms of the armies to whom they were conscripted. One wore a shirt that said "Minuteman," and I was tempted to ask his girlfriend if that was a good thing. Since they were obviously on the cusp of having a good time on the beach watching fireworks it seemed appropriate to reflect on our nation's fight for independence that took place almost 250 years ago and ask ourselves "What the Hell happened?"

We still have brave men and women in uniform fighting in the armed forces but I don't see anyone in politics that even vaguely reminds me of Thomas Jefferson or George Washington. The Jeffersons of "Movin' on Up" fame. sure, but not good old TJ the patriot. It would be interesting to get into a time-machine and travel back to the early days of our republic to see if our congress was populated by buffoons the way it is today. I kinda doubt it.

ARIZONA, protecting our country proudly, AGAIN

When Pearl Harbor was attached in 1941, the USS ARIZONA was sunk along with many valiant crew members. This regal battleship sits at the bottom and has been made into a national memorial to the ship and to the brave men and women who defend this country against all enemies foreign and domestic. Now our country is once again under attack and it is ARIZONA, the state, that is stepping up to the plate to defend our country. Once again, the cowards in Washington have made it easy for a foreign power to attack us in our own home...but this time, instead of Hawaii, it is our great south west. And what does our president do? He empowers his administration to fight ARIZONA's defense of our country. It would be as if president Roosevelt withdrew our troops from the Pacific so as to not offend the Emperor of JAPAN.

The president of Mexico, Juan Valdez, or whatever, came to OUR COUNTRY and criticized Arizona for passing a law that did what the federal government should have already been doing...finding out who really belongs here or who is a criminal that violated the sovereignty of our borders? Who now lives here working without paying taxes and sucking our cities and states dry of their fiscal resources? You have to show ID if you drive, cash a check, or take a plane flight yet these criminals don't want to be inconvenienced because it is "racial profiling" as if Sven the Swede is sneaking onto our country and dropping an anchor baby. Those a-holes in OUR CONGRESS gave a standing ovation to the Mexican President as he meddled in the affairs of the great state of ARIZONA.

Remember on election day, that if you want safe borders where terrorists can't blend in and cross with the illegals from Mexico, then VOTE EVERYONE OUT. DO NOT REELECT ANYONE. None of them has done anything to prevent this disaster, and half of them think it is a good idea and applauded the Leader of the country that sent us 12 million criminals. Try sneaking into Mexico as an American and see what kind of ID they ask you for as you get locked in a rat-infested border town JAIL until someone pays a huge bribe to get you out, Gringo.

Soon Come

Nantucket was a little hot today, but still ice-box cool compared to Florida. The crowds in downtown were spring-breakish in their number, but that is because of the July 4th weekend. Though I am a semi-local by now, I consulted the real locals who assured me that the throngs will be gone by mid week. The oracle looks forward to the arrival of this attractive couple who are presently celebrating our nation's birthday in Sarasota.