both sides now

Sun 11.4.18

      As you can see there have been some changes made to the Journal page.  My site is a Squarespace product, which is in essence a grid.  Everything is packaged, and it looks, how shall I put it . . . correct.  In order to get some interesting lettering for the page title I found an image of an abstract painting, saved it as a jpeg, then opened it in the Preview app, and added a Luminari font.  I also got rid of the list of past entry titles on the right hand side of the journal and instead got an appropriate image and again using Preview added the title Journal Archives where you can find past entries.  Next to it, I reconfigured the Luhrenloup’s Cave image for podcasting, and this was very hard.  I wanted to remove the title and have it simply say Podcasts.  How to remove old lettering?  You can do this with Photoshop, but you have buy that app, and really they expect you to give them money every month.  Unh unh! 

      I instead used Lunapic, https://www167.lunapic.com/editor/, a great tool for manipulating images, which I like very much.  They didn’t have anything to remove lettering, but some device that eliminates small defects on a picture, like pimples on someone’s face.  It took a very long time clicking away and I was able to remove the lettering.  Don’t even ask about the process of getting 2 images side-by-side, but not touching. same size, with navigational buttons under each.  You can see the results below.

      I haven’t set up the podcasting page yet, so the button under the image leads nowhere, but I’m working on it.  Per Squarespace podcasts have to be on a “blog” page, which is ugly and cumbersome.  I’m saving that task for next week.

      The world will have revolved politically by then.  Here are some thoughts on the matter; I have no good news:

      Any system that is based on one winner and one loser produces only losers.  The problem is so serious now that there is no longer any way of fixing it. The US government is so far from responsibly governing the country it is as if its people were ruled by lunatics — in truth, US rulers are by and large sociopaths elected for their razzle dazzle, a few key words repeated ad nauseam, and the show goes on.

Winning at any price, which is America’s current mode, produces an unstoppable killing machine. Case in point: a caravan is approaching the country’s southern border. They are receiving funding from Democrats, aware the president is sending military troops to stop the caravan from entering the country. So possible slaughter and a win for the dems. Republicans counter this by labeling the caravan’s populace as dangerous thugs, rapists, criminals, no great loss if decimated. The ordinary US citizen, purposely mis-educated, whether Phd or high school dropout, views them as either a much pilloried people or a threat to their own economic well-being.

The newly appointed General Miller for US and NATO forces stated that the Taliban cannot be defeated. It matters to the general who is in a losing situation, but does it matter to the military-industrial apparatus, the killing machine?

I say bring on socialism. Better that people are housed and fed at least. This is not possible under the capitalist system. Has Trump stopped the war machine? Has he invested in the country’s much needed infrastructure? Would Hillary have done differently?

There are those who point to Venezuela and say — that’s socialism! No, that is a country destroyed by the US, which now uses it as an example of socialism’s failure. There are many successful socialist and socialist-lite countries in the world as example.

When an insurance company sees it as more profitable to pay flights to Mexico for their clients to purchase medicine there as it is much cheaper, when a state like California, supposedly the richest in the country has miles of people living in tents, defecating in the streets, I say that state is far from rich and the capitalist system has failed abominably.

What about “socialist” Bernie?  Trump called it right on him. The man couldn’t even hold on to his stage when the folks from BLM took over. He even backed away from the statement, All Lives Matter.
 Bernie got a royal screw-over from the dems and ends up supporting the very candidate responsible for it. Jill Stein offered him the top spot in the green party when he got booted. He had a sizeable following and two opponents who could have been defeated. He could have won. This guy is part of the DC machine and he’s more interested in keeping his spot in the club than implementing socialism. He’s a Democrat with high flung ideas that he has no intention of implementing.
Hillary was right, he didn’t even have a plan for how he was going to finance all those changes he was advocating for.

     Socialism, if it is to work, has to obey the universal laws of giving and receiving. One cannot give more than what one has, and one cannot receive what is not one’s due.
  Quite obviously, the military/industrial complex will have to be reduced if the people’s needs are to be addressed. I don’t know at this point if a candidate making that obvious assessment would live to carry it through.




My advice?  Focus on what contributes to your specific well-being, to making some good times.