I just haven't figured it out yet...

I mean what is the draw to finding out if President Clinton wears boxers or briefs, about the time of that question my son was wearing both so he could hang is pants real low and expose the boxers. I had gone to Vietnam and found not wearing underwear very chic. It was for the airing of the skin, jungle rot is not kind to people in hot humid, fungal swampy areas, parts of people start to turn green (really!) and one doesn't always have proper medicine to scrub infected infested areas with. Heavens, I was on a firebase with four large self-propeller artillery pieces, an engineer platoon for water, mine clearing and keeping road and berms and bunkers built. We wore shirts when the brass or the Miss America contestants dropped in for a far too few minutes - they were worth the dressing up (no, I didn't mean the brass, not that they visited that often either).

I have seen The Hunger Games, I am happy that I waited until I had read the first book, the two different versions of the same story work pretty well. President Snow is just so misunderstood, and I am not that sure that the movie/entertainment people could see themselves portrayed so closely aligned with EVIL. I am not sure what is going to happen if enough youth read the books and decide that President Snow has to go.... Do you think there is a reason there are thirteen districts feeding the Capital?

Taxation...

Tax Nation, tax sensation, tax information...

There is only one tax payer - and all those layers of government sucking his money and life away.

Do I have your attention yet?

Okay, LARGE OIL CORPORATION - let's make it STANDARD OIL - this is just for the discussion.

They find, refine and sell to a growing user base - a fuel that can be used for power.

Now, the government didn't find it, they didn't make it useful, they don't distribute it, but they do have a taxation POWER, which is not fueled by what STANDARD OIL produces but is fueled by the idea that their power would errode if STANDARD OIL's power from their successful product line weren't taxed MIGHTILY. So they, the government taxes the product, they tax the profit, they tax the workers, they tax management, they tax the consumers, they tax the exports, they tax the imports, they tax the reports.

Now, I know that someone in the government says we shouldn't support the industry by giving them tax breaks that they can use to make EVEN more money from their profits on their product. That it would be a subsidy.

I am just Earl, I filled my tank and it cost over sixty-five dollars, of which the government got a tax on each gallon sold. The government has already taxed my income from my job working for STANDARD OIL so I had less money to buy gasoline with, and since I own stock (that pays dividends from the profits of STANDARD OIL) I am taxed on that, too. I paid with a debit card, which makes the card company a profit from the fee for the transaction - which the government also taxed.

And the current, and past elected officials are sure that all those taxes aren't enough to make me the tax payer understand that I AM THEIR PROPERTY. I am, by law, not allowed to buy fuel that isn't taxed, I am not allowed to own shares in business that isn't taxed on its profit, that I am by law not allowed to use that fuel anyway I want...

So, in the end, I am sure it is not the evil LARGE OIL COMPANY that is the problem. It is the LARGER GOVERNMENT that thinks they own me and all my actions and all that I hold dear. You do understand that God doesn't ask for a tax on anything, just wants more love and my goodness. Which makes me happier? It isn't the LARGER GOVERNMENT.

Demons in the night...

I do have dreams about the military, mostly not nightmares just dreams. But when I started reading my Kindle edition of the Hunger Games Trilogy I could understand the bad dreams there. I felt real cool. I decided to read the books before wandering to the theater, and since the library has two hundred and some reserves on the first book, I would look into getting the Kindle version if not too expensive. When I am buying virtual books I only want to pay for the author's time not his/her agent's and lawyers. But then the seventy-five cent pulp I once feasted on when I made a dollar an hour, is now ten ninety-nine plus tax or better. So Amazon hooked me up, to download the set (always buy the entire series, otherwise the author may expire before finishing, doing a Robert Jordan). I didn't remember the WiFi password for my home system, so I went to Starbucks for a Mocha Grande, WiFi, and stuffed Leather-like seating. Before I was finished with the Latte I was in the story and hooked. I will confess, the reason I never picked the book up in the book stores was that it was written by a woman, and all my prejudices come right up immediately. Which is silly of me, I grew up on Andre Norton, and love the writings of several current fine authors - but in general I would rather have opened a book by an unknown male, writing from a man's point than a modern woman. Think Gone with the Wind, fine story in many ways - but I never re-read it, it wasn't about a male view of the war. I know why Rhett Butler wouldn't stay, she never did. It is for a young audience, but I can play in the Games and their time of troubles.

Writing of games, I have to confess to playing too many (3) of the Facebook type by Zygna. I started to support my sister's farm, became enchanted with the difference in each virtual farmer and how they would go in different directions and what they would cooperate and help each other out and they finally had a dog, although they never brought rifles to the farm, I built a rifle range anyway. My farm and I would make it like I wanted it. You do know they make those games to make a profit, will allow you to buy stuff with real money for your fantasies? Yeah, they hounded me off of FarmVille with commercials. They decided I wasn't warlike enough in Empires & Allies and so Nuked my Parliament, which caused a budget shortfall, I stopped going there, finally. I couldn't reach the real aggressors, the game designers, and take them out. Anyway, no matter what the designers had built for my mind to play in, they will always want my money to get new tattoos, and fast cars, and such. But if you look at my game I was just playing, building it like I did the ones I had in the dirt at the side of the house, forts, towers, castles and such. Nice, they are on the game servers and don't get in the way when I have other stuff to do.

Now I only play at CastleVille, and it is progressing in the same direction as the other two, I am trying to be a good sport, but Martha Stewart has come to help me enjoy the game more, better.

Sigh. Lady Gaga came to FarmVille and I got a sheep riding a chopper out of her time, now Martha is coming to CastleVille and Colored Egg parties. The game designers don't really appreciate religion or Holy days, but holidays and quaint customs like dying eggs, yeah, they can make some money on Spring picnics and bonnets and baskets with bunnies. She is there where I was playing in the Gloom and banishing little Gloom Rats, Wolves, Thieves, Goblins and Blue Yetis. I visited her Kingdom, there is not a shadow of Gloom, and even the wilds are tame and trimmed and allowing room for riding mowers to cut and clip the grass... ah, girls are supposed to play house and picnic over there - and let me dig in the muck, and build and blow up with my toy soldiers and such

.

My wife wonders why I got up so early today, well, Martha is on the East Coast and I have to stay ahead of her, she isn't helping a dairy herd on a farm - and I have to find out how the movie is going to play, President Snow can't win, can he? Turning pages on a Kindle, no I haven't the Kindle Fire, one thought on more speed and memory - 'They' fill the spaces and fun with ads for something to buy better faster and mind blowing.... I don't have that much time left.

As I have noted... I have things to say...

I wrote an opening on Facebook, and got upset that I was typing the wrong vowels into some words, but spell checker caught me quickly, and I was then shocked that the sentence structure and content, when re-read many minutes later, was so wrong. I do use creative spelling and grammar for making my point - but this was out to lunch and wasn't coming back.

On the news, information about the dangers of Whip It, and sniffing or whatever they do... makes me wonder what the draw is for befuddling one's mind. Remembering how young I once was - I couldn't tell you a good reason why I engaged in drinking to drunken blackouts. I do know that I stopped completely when I decided that proving I was a fool didn't need any assistance from alcohol. So as my mind continues to slip quietly, and in pieces lay, I can take comfort in the fact that I won't really know it. People around me will, and wish it weren't so but will accept it. I hope so, because I didn't want to bother anyone, ever.

Also, interesting to me, is the beauty contestant thrown aside because she wasn't started as a female (born) but became one. I am more amused that the culture is more critical of the wrong of the establishment having rules against that, than the culture is of the contestant's lies to get into the contest she should know she wasn't eligible for... slip sliding away, slip sliding away...

You get what you pay for...

So, I have been playing games on the internet, for free and the game designers make sure I have to be flashed advertising from their clients. I am sure they worked into the programming a way to count the number of times I have gone from full screen game to messaging (which is when the ads show up on right and above my game view. Sigh, all this computing power to tempt old men that know better into financial transactions they don't have job, money or time for. That is the reason the good looking blond is on the ad for mortgage refinancing, isn't it? I don't know, I really don't read or click on any of them. I stay focused. In every case of why something is happening, somewhere, you can follow the money.

That could be the reason that I don't watch a lot of television for entertainment, commercial interruptions - happier buying a used DVD and watching it without the excess. Then they saw that they could put previews and ads at the start of the DVD, the end of the DVD, and with the cooperation of the producer and director make sure that there were products displayed in the story from sponsors.

Makes me wonder why I bought the display, the cable service, the internet access, the better reading glasses. Hearing loss has dropped my demand for better audio, I can't hear parts of that production, but I am still in the hunt for input, to stir my mind, to satisfy and amuse me. And then complain about it.

Turn it off and go for a walk about, say hello, look close, smile more and remember that Mount Rainier hasn't got very large letters on it telling the world it is there.

Time to lighten up a bit...

I was young once, the blondest baby boy in the hospital when I was born, amazing in Minnesota considering the number of Vikings up there. This is a picture of me and the neighbor girl, my friend. She was a real blond, too. The curls I can't tell you about.

Cowboy hat, canted and pistol in my hand, I am sure I had holsters in the house, but pockets always worked well for light work.

When I was close to twelve my mother decide this was the time to go to South America to visit my grandparents, and uncle and aunt (her sister). There was Mom, me, Joycelyn, Wynn and baby Nanette. The last would tell you that she wasn't a baby, but close. The reason we had to go then was the children all were half price tickets. So, we flew from Pittsburgh to Miami, to countries along the Andes to Montevideo, Uruguay. That was where my grandfather and grandmother had the Friendship House. I got to see a lot of the places my mother grew up, try to eat a wax apple, had too much wine, go to a church camp in the eucalyptus trees (the smell was great) and there meet the first real crush of my life. Graciela, a brunette of almost fourteen years. I was too young and terribly smitten.

I bring it up, because Sunday in the gathering room while I had coffee and talked about stuff with the other men, I caught a good look at a beautiful teen with black hair and a smiling face. What I noticed is that I wish her a wonderful life, and I wasn't thinking that she and I should hook up. I am so old, but I still think that is the kind of girl/woman I have always been attracted to - I just no longer have the impatience of youth - and the true appreciation of a fool old man. Life is good, remembering it makes me happy and hopeful for the future generations.

The girl, Julie, in the picture was killed by a bear in Glacier National Park, where she was camping. My mother wrote me about it, I was just in the Army.

How to lose control of your government...

Or, How the Caucus Party Bosses wore me out! I have long held that people want government to replace God, probably because they think they can get around government. This is a long standing problem and I would send you to 1 Samuel 8. But since I live in an America that fancies itself like post-Solomon Biblical greatness and is getting ready to be ruined and looted by more proficient pretenders I will relate my day of trying to become part of a solution.

Woke early, dressed well and arrived to find parking and a long, getting longer line, of other representatives to the caucus at the Convention Center, that I have never seen utilized enough (I don't get out much). Fun stuff, talking and exchanging what we think we are going to return America to good stuff. The morning is cold but we are only waiting about thirty minutes for the people inside to get organized. They set up the reception, identification and credentials. The employees of the Convention Center are setting up the breakfast buffet and the sound systems and seating in the various rooms and checking systems. I talk to the sound board operator, he lived in Denver once. Because there are so many delegates to get certified the official meeting takes longer to get started, but I cruise the politician's tables for who is running where and labels and bumper stickers and buttons. I grab a cup of orange juice and a jellied roll, admiring the building positioning and outlook of Mount Rainier - if the weather only cooperated it would be stunning.

Finally about nine-thirty we were seated by precinct and the meeting began, with a long vigorous prayer of the Christians, the wonderful singing of the Star Spangled Banner, and the Pledge of Allegiance. Focus, folks, the officers are temporarily appointed, motions, seconded, and other parliamentary actions done. Procedures, punctuate periodically. County Chairman starts the conversations and lauds, I get uncomfortable when he wants the Active service and Veterans to stand up, applause, then the parents, family of a veteran, applause. I grew up in a culture that all the good men were veterans and all the young men expected to serve like their fathers had and it was just the way it should be, no applause necessary or needed. Followed by dynamic presentations of politicians for office at various and sundry levels. They know why we are here, they do know our concerns and they do make all the buttons get pushed and the crowd rises to their call. A few of them are running for the same office and point out their differences and strengths. The last speaker was a short Hispanic looking guy running for governor, but the Republican Party choice, tall older white man with polish, had long ago spoken well. That last speaker, was an emigre, naturalized citizen from Iranian foolishness that loved the idea and story of AMERICA, land of the Free! And he could speak, I think his business is motivational speaking and teaching it. Wow! Being, a Saved Christian, he was also pushing God's blessings on his life and passing it on. The standing ovation he got won't get him into the Governor's mansion, but all the politicians and their henchmen were paying attention.

Now all that had been great, a little slow on getting the next speaker up to present, but that worked for the speaker and the audience. Finally, the breakdown for lunch and breaking into the various districts for delegate voting. That was where the work was. I didn't get my ham and cheese box lunch, had to take turkey and ginger ale. But the Apple was crunchy and good, this is Washington, we do apples right.

Back to moving the mountain, more parliamentary procedures, jockeying for advantage the four candidate supporters trying to figure out how to get a majority of their kind to the State convention, sigh, they should have fought for it. No, we are civilized and fair, everyone would get a vote. The counting and reporting took way too much time - all volunteer hand counting, so ten fingers only go so fast. If everyone had an iPhone with the appropriate app, we could have sailed sweetly to the finish line. I stayed for three votes which took six hours to complete - and they say this is the modern era. I was dropped from consideration on the first vote, and until the third vote none of the parties was willing to share candidates and votes to get them advanced. Finally, the Santorum and Ron Paul supporters exchanged twelve names so enough people would vote to get those elected as delegates, if they did it that way for the remainder of the evening, it was already seven when I left, then they would get most of their candidates elected. Romney supporters were the greater number, but they were just going to try and wait it out until the voting changed to most votes instead of majority. I was on my way home.

I need to find Kirby Wilber's email for contact. This is in so many ways sad, in that it discourages participation. I am no longer supporting with money or time their political efforts - I have been used, and I am sure to be discarded as I am not that valuable. The winners? Not the people of Washington State, nor the Republican Party at all levels. Back to shooting straight, turning soil for my wife's garden, passing on the messages of the Lord and trying to be a better man. Be good out there, God loves you, even if your government doesn't really care. I am voting, seriously, we all must.